Eighty Sermons
These two then our Savior found, as he walked by the Sea of Galilee. No solitude, no tempest, no bleaknesse, no inconvenience averts Christ, and his Spirit, from his sweet, and gracious, and comfortable visitations. But yet this that is called here, The Sea of Galilee, was not properly a Sea; but according to the phrase of the Hebrews, who call all great meetings of waters, by that one name, A Sea, this, which was indeed a lake of fresh water, is called a Sea. From the root of Mount Libanus, spring two Rivers, Jor, and Dan; and those two, meeting together, joining their waters, join their names too, and make that famous river Jordan; a name so composed, as perchance our River is, Thamesis, of Thame, and Isis. And this River Jordan falling into this flat, makes this Lake, of sixteen miles long, and some six in breadth. Which Lake being famous for fish, though of ordinary kinds, yet of an extraordinary taste and relish, and then of extraordinary kinds too, not found in other waters, and famous, because divers famous Cities did engirt it, and become as a garland to it, Capernaum, and Chorazim, and Bethsaida, and Tiberias, and Magdalo, (all celebrated in the Scriptures) was yet much more famous for the often recourse, which our Savior (who was of that Country) made to it; For this was the Sea, where he amazed Peter, with that great draught of fishes, that brought him to say, Exi à me Domine, Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man; This was the Sea, where himself walked upon the waters; And where he rebuked the tempest; And where he manifested his Almighty power many times. And by this Lake, this Sea, dwelt Andrew and Peter, and using the commodity of the place, lived upon fishing in this Lake; and in that act our Savior found them, and called them to his service. Why them? Why fishers?
First, Christ having a greater, a fairer Jerusalem to build then David's was, a greater Kingdom to establish then Judah's was, a greater Temple to build then Solomon's was, having a greater work to raise, yet he begun upon a less ground; He is come from his twelve Tribes, that afforded armies in swarms, to twelve persons, twelve Apostles; from his Judah and Levi, the foundations of State and Church, to an Andrew and a Peter fisher-men, sea-men; and these men accustomed to that various, and tempestuous Element, to the Sea, less capable of Offices of civility, and sociableness, then other men, yet must be employed in religious offices, to gather all Nations to one household of the faithful, and to constitute a Communion of Saints; They were Sea-men, fisher-men, unlearned, and indocil; Why did Christ take them? Not that thereby there was any scandal given, or just occasion of that calumny of Julian the Apostat, That Christ found it easy to seduce, and draw to his Sect, such poor ignorant men as they were; for Christ did receive persons eminent in learning, ( Saul was so) and of authority in the State, ( Nicodemus was so) and of wealth, and ability, ( Zacchaeus was so, and so was Joseph of Arimatliea) But first he chose such men, that when the world had considered their beginning, their insufficiency then, and how unproper they were for such an employment, and yet seen that great work so far, and so fast advanced, by so weak instruments, they might ascribe all power to him, and ever after, come to him cheerfully upon any invitation, how weak men soever he should send to them, because he had done so much by so weak instruments before: To make his work in all ages after prosper the better, he proceeded thus at first. And then, he chose such men for another reason too; To show that how insufficient soever he received them, yet he received them into such a School, such an University, as should deliver them back into his Church, made fit by him, for the service thereof. Christ needed not man's sufficiency, he took insufficient men; Christ excuses no man's insufficiency, he made them sufficient.
His purpose then was, that the work should be ascribed to the Workman, not to the Instrument; To himself, not to them; Nec quaesivit per Oratorem piscatorem, He sent not out Orators, Rhetoricians, strong or fair-spoken men to work upon these fisher-men, Sed de piscatore lucratus est Imperatorem, By these fisher-men, he hath reduced all those Kings, and Emperors, and States which have embraced the Christian Religion, these thousand and six hundred years. When Samuel was sent with that general Commission, to anoint a son of Jesse King, without anymore particular instructions, when he came, and Eliab was presented unto him, Surely, says Samuel, (noting the goodliness of his personage) this is the Lord's Anointed. But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, nor the height of his stature, for I have refused him; for, (as it followeth there, from God's mouth) God seeth not as man setth; Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord beholdeth the heart. And so David, in apparance, less likely was chosen. But, if the Lord's arm be not shortened, let no man impute weakness to the Instrument. For so, when David himself was appointed by God, to pursue the Amalekites, the Amalekites that had burnt Ziklag, and done such spoil upon God's people, as that the people began to speak of stoning David, from whom they looked for defense, when David had no kind of intelligence, no ground to settle a conjecture upon, which way he must pursue the Amalekites, and yet pursue them he must, in the way he finds a poor young fellow, a famished, sick young man, derelicted of his Master, and left for dead in the march, and by the means and conduct of this wretch, David recovers the enemy, recovers the spoil, recovers his honor, and the love of his people.
If the Lord's arm be not shortened, let no man impute weakness to his Instrument. But yet God will always have so much weakness appear in the Instrument, as that their strength shall not be thought to be their own. When Pete and John preached in the streets, The people marvelled, (says the Text) why? for they had understood that they were unlearned. But beholding also the man that was healed standing by, they had nothing to say, says that story. The insufficiency of the Instrument makes a man wonder naturally; but the accomplishing of some great work brings them to a necessary acknowledgement of a greater power, working in that weak Instrument. For, if those Apostles that preached, had been as learned men, as Simon Magus, as they did in him, ( This man is the great power of God, not that he had, but that he was the power of God) the people would have rested in the admiration of those persons, and proceeded no farther. It was their working of supernatural things, that convinced the world. For all Paul's learning, (though he were very learned) never brought any of the Conjurers to burn his books, or to renounce his Art; But when God wrought extraordinary works by him, That sicknesses were cured by his napkins, and his handkerchiefs, (in which cures, Paul's learning had no more concurrence, no more cooperaton, then the ignorance of any of the fisher-men Apostles) And when the world saw that those Exorcists, which went about to do Miracles in the Name of Jesus, because Paul did so, could not do it, because that Jesus had not promised to work in them, as in Paul, Then the Conjurers came, and burnt their books, in the sight of all the world, to the value of fifty thousand pieces of silver. It was not learning, (that may have been got, though they that hear them, know it not; and it were not hard to assign many examples of men that have stolen a great measure of learning, and yet lived open and conversable lives, and never been observed, (except by them, that knew their Lucubrations, and night-watchings) to have spent many hours in study) but it was the calling of the world to an apprehension of a greater power, by seeing great things done by weak Instruments, that reduced them, that convinced them. Peter and John's preaching did not half the good then, as the presenting of one man, which had been recovered by them, did. Twenty of our Sermons edify not so much, as if the Congregation might see one man converted by us. Any one of you might out-preach us. That one man that would leave his beloved sin, that one man that would restore ill-gotten goods, had made a better Sermon then ever I shall, and should gain more souls by his act, then all our words (as they are ours) can do.
Such men he took then, as might be no occasion to their hearers, to ascribe the work to their sufficiency; but yet such men too, as should be no examples to insufficient men to adventure upon that great service; but men, though ignorant before, yet docil, and glad to learn. In a rough stone, a cunning Lapidary will easily foresee, what his cutting, and his polishing, and his art will bring that stone too. A cunning Statuary discerns in a Marble-stone under his feet, where there will arise an Eye, and an Eare, and a Hand, & other lineaments to make it a perfect Statue. Much more did our Savior Christ, who was himself the Author of that disposition in them, (for no man hath any such disposion but from God) foresee in these fisher-men, an inclinablenesse to become useful in that great service of his Church. Therefore he took them from their own ship, but he sent them from his Cross; He took them weatherbeaten with North and South winds, and rough-cast with foam, and mud; but he sent them back soupled, and smoothed, and levigated, quickened, and inanimated with that Spirit, which he had breathed into them from his own bowels, his own eternal bowels, from which the Holy Ghost proceeded; He took fisher-men, and he sent fishers of men. He sent them not out to preach, as soon as he called them to him; He called them ad Discipulatum, before he called them ad Apostolatum; He taught them, before they taught others. As S. Paul says of himself, and the rest, God hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament; Idoneos, fit Ministers, that is, fit for that service. There is a fitness founded in Discretion; a Discretion to make our present service acceptable to our present Auditory; for if it be not acceptable, agreeable to them, it is never profitable.
As God gave his children such Manna as was agreeable to every man's taste, and tasted to every man like that, that that man like best: so are we to deliver the bread of life agreeable to every taste, to fit our Doctrine to the apprehension, and capacity, and digestion of the hearers. For as S. Augustine says, That no man profits by a Sermon that he hears with pain, if he do not stand easily; so if he do not understand easily, or if he do not assent easily to that that he hears, if he be put to study one sentence, till the Preacher have passed three or four more, or if the doctrine be new and doubtful, and suspicious to him, this fitness which is grounded in discretion is not shown. But the general fitness is grounded in learning, S. Paul hath joined them safely together, Rebuke and exhort with all long suffering, and learning. Shew thy discretion in seasonable Rebuking; show thy learning in Exhorting. Let the Congregation see that thou studiest the good of their souls, and they will digest any wholesome increpation, any medicinal reprehension at thy hands, Dilige & dic quod voles. We say so first to God, Lord let thy spirit bear witness with my spirit, that thou lovest me, and I can endure all thy Prophets, and all the vae's, and the woes that they thunder against me and my sin. So also the Congregation says to the Minister, Dilige & dic quod voles, show thy love to me, in studying my case, and applying thy knowledge to my conscience, speak so, as God and I may know thou meanest me, but not the Congregation, lest that bring me to a confusion of face, and that to a hardness of heart; deal thus with me, love me thus, and say what thou wilt; nothing shall offend me. And this is the Idoneity, the fitness which we consider in the Minister, fitness in learning, fitness in discretion, to use and apply that learning. So Christ fits his.
Such men then Christ takes for the service of his Church; such as bring no confidence in their own fitness, such as embrace the means to make them fit in his School, and learn before they teach. And to that purpose he took Andrew and Peter; and he took them, when he found them casting their net into the Sea. This was a Symbolical, a Prophetical action of their future life; This fishing was a type, a figure, a prophesy of their other fishing. But here (in this first part) we are bound to the consideration of their real and direct action, and exercise of their present calling; They cast their Net, for they were Fishers, says the Text. In which, for, (as we told you at first) there is a double reason involved.
First, in this For is intimated, how acceptable to God that labor is, that is taken in a calling. They did not forbear to cast their nets because it was a tempestuous Sea; we must make account to meet storms in our profession, yea and temptations too. A man must not leave his calling, because it is hard for him to be an honest man in that calling; but he must labor to overcome those difficulties, and as much as he can, vindicate and redeem that calling from those aspersions and calumnies, which ill men have cast upon a good calling. They did not forbear because it was a tempestuous Sea, nor because they had cast their nets often and caught nothing, nor because it was uncertain how the Market would go when they had catched. A man must not be an ill Prophet upon his own labors, nor bewitch them with a suspicion that they will not prosper. It is the slothful man that says, A Lion in the way, A Lion in the street. Cast thou thy net into the Sea, and God shall drive fish into thy net; undertake a lawful Calling, and clog not thy calling with murmuring, nor with an ill conscience, and God shall give thee increase, and worship in it, They cast their nets into the Sea, for they were fishers; it was their Calling, and they were bound to labor in that.
And then this For hath another aspect, looks another way too, and implies another Instruction, They cast their nets into the Sea, for they were fishers, that is, if they had not been fishers, they would not have done it; Intrusion into other men's callings is an unjust usurpation; and, if it take away their profit, it is a theft. If it be but a censuring of them in their calling, yet it is a calumny, because it is not in the right way, if it be extrajudiciall. To lay an aspersion upon any man (who is not under our charge) though that which we say of him be true, yet it is a calumny, and a degree of libelling, if it be not done judiciarily, and where it may receive redress and remedy. And yet how forward are men that are not fishers in that Sea, to censure State Councils, and Judiciary proceedings? Every man is an Absalom, to say to every man, Your cause is good, but the King hath appointed none to hear it; Money brings them in, favor brings them in, it is not the King; or, if it must be said to be the King, yet it is the affection of the King and not his judgment, the King misled, not rightly informed, say our seditious Absolom's, and, Oh that I were made Judge in the land, that every man might come unto me, and I would do him justice, is the charm that Absalom hath taught every man. They cast their nets into a deeper Sea then this, and where they are much less fishers, into the secret Councils of God. It is well provided by your Laws, that Divines and Ecclesiastical persons may not take farms, nor buy nor sell, for return, in Markets. I would it were as well provided, that buyers and sellers, and farmers might not be Divines, nor censure them. I speak not of censuring our lives; please yourselves with that, till God be pleased to mend us by that, (thought that way of whispering calumny be not the right way to that amendment) But I speak of censuring our Doctrines, and of appointing our doctrines; when men are weary of hearing any other thing, then Election and Reprobation, and whom, and when, and how, and why God hath chosen, or cast away. We have liberty enough by your Law, to hold enough for the maintenance of our bodies, and states; you have liberty enough by our Law, to know enough for the salvation of your souls; If you will search farther into God's eternal Decrees, and unrevealed Councils, you should not cast your nets into that Sea, for you are not fishers there. Andrew and Peter cast their nets, for they were fishers, (therefore they were bound to do it) And again, for they were fishers, (if they had not been so, they would not have done so.)
These persons then thus disposed, unfit of themselves, made fit by him, and found by him at their labor, labor in a lawful Calling, and in their own Calling, our Savior Christ calls to him; And he called them by couples, by pairs; two together. So he called his Creatures into the world at the first Creation, by pairs. So he called them into the Ark, for the reparation of the world, by pairs, two and two. God loves not singularity; The very name of Church implies company; It is Concio, Congregatio, Coetus; It is a Congregation, a Meeting, an assembly; It is not any one man; neither can the Church be preserved in one man. And therefore it hath been dangerously said, (though they confess it to have been said by many of their greatest Divines in the Roman Church) that during the time that our blessed Savior lay dead in the grave, there was no faith left upon the earth, but only in the Virgin Mary; for then there was no Church. God hath manifested his will in two Testaments; and though he have abridged and contracted the doctrine of both in a narrow room, yet he hath digested it into two Commandments, Love God, love thy neighbor. There is but one Church; that is true, but one; but that one Church cannot be in any one man; There is but one Baptism; that is also true, but one; But no man can Baptize himself; there must be Sacerdos & competens, (as our old Canons speak) a person to receive, and a Priest to give Baptism. There is but one faith in the remission of sins; that is true too, but one; But no man can absolve himself; There must be a Priest and a penitent. God calls no man so, but that he calls him to the knowledge, that he hath called more then him to that Church, or else it is an illusory, and imaginary calling, and a dream.
Take heed therefore of being seduced to that Church that is in one man; In scrinio pectoris, where all infallibility, and assured resolution is in the breast of one man; who (as their own Authors say) is not bound to ask the counsel of others before, nor to follow their counsel after. And since the Church cannot be in one, in an unity, take heed of bringing it too near that unity, to a paucity, to a few, to a separation, to a Conventicle. The Church loves the name of Catholic; and it is a glorious, and an harmonious name; Love thou those things wherein she is Catholic, and wherein she is harmonious, that is, Quod ubique, quod semper, Those universal, and fundamental doctrines, which in all Christian ages, and in all Christian Churches, have been agreed by all to be necessary to salvation; and then thou art a true Catholic. Otherwise, that is, without relation to this Catholic and universal doctrine, to call a particular Church Catholic, (that she should be Catholic, that is, universal in dominion, but not in doctrine) is such a solecism, as to speak of a white blackness, or a great littleness; A particular Church to be universal, implies such a contradiction.
Christ loves not singularity; he called not one alone; He loves not schism neither between them whom he calls; & therefore he calls persons likely to agree, two brethren, (He saw two brethren, Peter and Andrew, &c. So he began to build the Synagogues, to establish that first government, in Moses and Aaron, brethren; So he begins to build the Church, in Peter and Andrew, brethren. The principal fraternity and brotherhood that God respects, is spiritual; Brethren in the profession of the same true Religion. But Peter and Andrew whom he called here to the true Religion, and so gave them that second fraternity and brotherhood, which is spiritual, were natural brethren before; And that God loves; that a natural, a secular, a civil fraternity, and a spiritual fraternity should be joined together; when those that profess the same Religion, should desire to contract their alliances, in marrying their Children, and to have their other dealings in the world (as much as they can) with men that profess the same true Religion that they do. That so (not meddling nor disputing the proceedings of States, who, in some cases, go by other rules then private men do) we do not make it an equal, an indifferent thing, whether we marry ourselves, or our children, or make our bargains, or our conversation, with persons of a different Religion, when as our Adversaries amongst us will not go to a Lawyer, nor call a Physician, no, nor scarce a Taylor, or other Tradesman of another Religion then their own, if they can possibly avoid it. God saw a better likelihood of avoiding Schism and dissention, when those whom he called to a new spiritual brotherhood in one Religion, were natural brothers too, and tied in civil bands, as well as spiritual.
And as Christ began, so he proceeded; for the persons whom he called were Catechisticall, instructive persons; persons, from whose very persons we receive instruction. The next whom he called, (which is in the next verse) were two too; and brethren too; John and James; but yet his own kinsmen in the flesh. But, as he chose two together to avoid singularity, and two brethren to avoid Schism, so he preferred two strangers before his own kindred, to avoid partiality, and respect of persons. Certainly every man is bound to do good to those that are near him by nature; The obligation of doing good to others lies (for the most part) thus; Let us do good to all men, but especially unto them which are of the household of the faithful; (They of our own Religion are of the Quorum ) Now, when all are so, (of the household of the faithful, of our own Religion) the obligation looks home, and lie thus, He that provideth not for his own, denieth the faith, and is worse then an Infidel. Christ would therefore leave no example, nor justification of that perverse distemper, to leave his kindred out, nor of their disposition, who had rather buy new friends at any rate, then relieve or cherish the old. But yet when Christ knew how far his stock would reach, that no liberality, howsoever placed, could exhaust that, but that he was able to provide for all, he would leave no example nor justification of that perverse distemper, to heap up preferments upon our own kindred, without any consideration how God's glory might be more advanced by doing good to others too; But finding in these men a fit disposition to be good laborers in his harvest, and to agree in the service of the Church, as they did in the band of nature, he calls Peter and Andrew, otherwise strangers, before he called his Consins, James and John.
These Circumstances we proposed to be considered in these persons before, and at their being called. The first, after their calling, is their cheerful readiness in obeying, Continuo sequuti, They were bid follow, and forthwith they followed. Which present obedience of theirs is exalted in this, that this was freshly upon the imprisonment of John the Baptist, whose Disciple Andrew had been; And it might easily have deterred, and averted a man in his case, to consider, that it was well for him that he was got out of John Baptists school, and company, before that storm, the displeasure of the state fell upon him; and that it behooved him to be wary to apply himself to any such new Master, as might draw him into as much trouble; which Christ's service was very like to do. But the contemplation of future persecutions, that may fall, the example of persecutions past, that have fallen, the apprehension of imminent persecutions, that are now falling, the sense of present persecutions, that are now upon us, retard not those, upon whom the love of Christ Jesus works effectually; They followed for all that. And they followed, when there was no more persuasion used to them, no more words said to them, but Sequere me, Follow me.
And therefore how easy soever Julian the Apostate might make it, for Christ to work upon so weak men, as these were, yet to work upon any men by so weak means, only by one Sequere me, Follow me, and no more, cannot be thought easy. The way of Rhetoric in working upon weak men, is first to trouble the understanding, to displace, and discompose, and disorder the judgment, to smother and bury in it, or to empty it of former apprehensions and opinions, and to shake that belief, with which it had possessed itself before, and then when it is thus melted, to pour it into new molds, when it is thus mollified, to stamp and imprint new forms, new images, new opinions in it. But here in our case, there was none of this fire, none of this practice, none of this battery of eloquence, none of this verbal violence, only a bare Sequere me, Follow me, and they followed. No eloquence inclined them, no terrors declined them: No dangers withdrew them, no preferment drew them; they knew Christ, and his kindred, and his means; they loved him, himself, and not anything they expected from him. Minùs te amat, qui aliquid tuum amat, quod non propter te amat, That man loves thee but a little, that begins his love at that which thou hast, and not at thyself. It is a weak love that is divided between Christ and the world; especially, if God come after the world, as many times he does, even in them, who think they love him well; that first they love the riches of this world, and then they love God that gave them. But that is a false Method in this art of love; The true is, radically to love God for himself, and other things for his sake, so far, as he may receive glory in our having, and using them.
This Peter and Andrew declared abundantly; they did as much as they were bid; they were bid follow, and they followed; but it seems they did more, they were not bid leave their nets, and yet they left their nets, and followed him: But, for this, they did not; no man can do more in the service of God, then is enjoined him, commanded him. There is no supererogation, no making of God beholden to us, no bringing of God into our debt. Every man is commanded to love God with all his heart, and all his power, and a heart above a whole heart, and a power above a whole power, is a strange extension. That therefore which was declared explicitly, plainly, directly by Christ, to the young man in the Gospel, Vade, & vende, & sequere, Go and sell all, and follow me, was implicitly implied to these men in our text, Leave your nets, and follow me. And, though to do so, (to leave all) be not always a precept, a commandment to all men, yet it was a precept, a commandment to both these, at that time; to the young man in the Gospel, (for he was as expressly bid to sell away all, as he was to follow Christ) and to these men in the text, because they could not perform that that was directly commanded, except they performed that which was implied too; except they left their nets, they could not follow Christ. When God commands us to follow him, he gives us light, how, and in which way he will be followed; And then when we understand which is his way, that way is as much a commandment, as the very end it self, and not to follow him that way, is as much a transgression, as not to follow him at all. If that young man in the Gospel, who was bid sell all, and give to the poor, and then follow, had followed, but kept his interest in his land; If he had devested himself of the land, but let it fall, or conveyed it to the next heir, or other kinsmen; If he had employed it to pious uses, but not so, as Christ commanded, to the poor, still he had been in a transgression: The way when it is declared, is as much a command, as the end.
But then, in this command, which was implicitly, and by necessary consequence laid upon Peter and Andrew, to leave their nets, (because without doing so, they could not forthwith follow Christ) there is no example of forsaking a calling, upon pretence of following Christ; no example here, of devesting ones self of all means of defending us from those manifold necessities, which this life lays upon us, upon pretence of following Christ; It is not an absolute leaving of all worldly cares, but a leaving them out of the first consideration; Primùm quaerite regnum Dei, so, as our first business be to seek the kingdom of God. For, after this leaving of his nets, for this time, Peter continued owner of his house, and Christ came to that house of his, and found his mother in law sick in that house, and recovered her there. Upon a like commandment, upon such a Sequere, Follow me, Matthew followed Christ too; but after that following, Christ went with Matthew to his house, and sat at meat with him at home. And for this very exercise of fishing, though at that time when Christ said, Follow me, they left their nets, yet they returned to that trade, sometimes, upon occasions, in all likelihood, in Christ's life; and after Christ's death, clearly they did return to it; for Christ, after his Resurrection, found them fishing.
They did not therefore abandon and leave all care, and all government of their own estate, and dispose themselves to live after upon the sweat of others; but transported with a holy alacrity, in this present and cheerful following of Christ, in respect of that then, they neglected their nets, and all things else. Perfecta obedientia est sua imperfocta relinquere, Not to be too diligent towards the world, is the diligence that God requires. S. Augustine does not say, sua relinquere, but sua imperfecta relinquere, That God requires we should leave the world, but that we should leave it to second considerations; That thou do not forbear, nor defer thy conversion to God, and thy restitution to man, till thou have purchased such a state, bought such an office, married, and provided such and such children, but imperfecta relinquere, to leave these worldly things unperfected, till thy repentance have restored thee to God, and established thy reconciliation in him, and then the world lies open to thy honest endeavors. Others take up all with their net, and they sacrifice to their nets, because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous. They are confident in their own learning, their own wisdom, their own practice, and (which is a strange Idolatry) they sacrifice to themselves, they attribute all to their own industry. These men in our text were far from that; they left their nets.
But still consider, that they did but leave their nets, they did not burn them. And consider too, that they left but nets; those things, which might entangle them, and retard them in their following of Christ. And such nets, (some such things as might hinder them in the service of God) even these men, so well disposed to follow Christ, had about them. And therefore let no man say, Imitari vellem, sed quod relinquam, non habeo, I would gladly do as the Apostles did, leave all to follow Christ, but I have nothing to leave; alas, all things have left me, and I have nothing to leave. Even that murmuring at poverty is a net; leave that. Leave thy superfluous desire of having the riches of this world; though thou mayest flatter thyself, that thou desirest to have only that thou mightest leave it, that thou mightest employ it charitably, yet it might prove a net, and stick too close about thee to part with it. Multa relinquitis, si desideriis renunciatis, You leave your nets, if you leave your over-earnest greediness of catching; for, when you do so, you do not only fish with a net, (that is, lay hold upon all you can compass) but, (which is strange) you fish for a net, even that which you get proves a net to you, and hinders you in the following of Christ, and you are less disposed to follow him, when you have got your ends, then before. He that hath least, hath enough to weigh him down from heaven, by an inordinate love of that little which he hath, or in an inordinate and murmuring desire of more. And he that hath most, hath not too much to give for heaven; Tantum valet regnum Dei, quantum tu vales, Heaven is always so much worth, as thou art worth. A poor man may have heaven for a penny, that hath no greater store; and, God looks, that he to whom he hath given thousands, should lay out thousands upon the purchase of heaven. The market changes, as the plenty of money changes; Heaven costs a rich man more then a poor, because he hath more to give. But in this, rich and poor are both equal, that both must leave themselves without nets, that is, without those things, which, in their own Consciences they know, retard the following of Christ. Whatsoever hinders my present following, that I cannot follow today, whatsoever may hinder my constant following, that I cannot follow tomorrow, and all my life, is a net, and I am bound to leave that.
And these are the pieces that constitute our first part, the circumstances that invest these persons, Peter, and Andrew, in their former condition, before, and when Christ called them.
SERM. LXXII.
MAT. 4.18, 19, 20.
And Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the Sea, (for they were fishers.) And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men; And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
W E are now in our Order proposed at first, come to our second part, from the consideration of these persons, Peter and Andrew, in their former state and condition, before, and at their calling, to their future estate in promise, but an infallible promise, Christ's promise, if they followed him, (Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.) In which part we shall best come to our end, (which is your edification) by these steps. First, that there is an Humility enjoined them, in the Sequere, follow, come after. That though they be brought to a high Calling, that do not make them proud, nor tyrannous over men's consciences; And then, even this Humility is limited, Sequere me, follow me; for there may be a pride even in Humility, and a man may follow a dangerous guide; Our guide here is Christ, Sequere me, follow me. And then we shall see the promise it self, the employment, the function, the preferment; In which there is no new state promised them, no Innovation, (They were fishers, and they shall be fishers still) but there is an emprovement, a bettering, a reformation, (They were fisher-men before, and now they shall be fishers of men; ) To which purpose, we shall find the world to be the Sea, and the Gospel their Net. And lastly, all this is presented to them, not as it was expressed in the former part, with a For, (it is not, Follow me, for I will prefer you) he will not have that the reason of their following; But yet it is, Follow me, and I will prefer you; It is a subsequent addition of his own goodness, but so infallible a one, as we may rely upon; Whosoever doth follow Christ, speeds well. And into these considerations will fall all that belongs to this last part, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
First then, here is an impression of Humility, in following, in coming after, Sequere, follow, press not to come before; And it had need be first, if we consider how early, how primary a sin Pride is, and how soon it possesses us. Scarce any man, but if he look back seriously into himself, and into his former life, and revolve his own history, but that the first act which he can remember in himself, or can be remembered of by others, will be some act of Pride. Before Ambition, or Covetousness, or Licentiousness is awake in us, Pride is working; Though but a childish pride, yet pride; and this Parents rejoice at in their children, and call it spirit, and so it is, but not the best. We enlarge not therefore the consideration of this word sequere, follow, come after, so far, as to put our meditation upon the whole body, and the several members of this sin of pride; Nor upon the extent and diffusivenesse of this sin, as it spreads it self over every other sin; (for every sin is complicated with pride, so as every sin is a rebellious opposing of the law and will of God) Nor to consider the weighty heinousness of pride, how it aggravates every other sin, how it makes a musket a Canon bullet, and a peble a Milstone; but after we have stopped a little upon that useful consideration, That there is not so direct, and Diametrall a contrariety between the nature of any sin and God, as between him and pride, we shall pass to that which is our principal observation in this branch, How early and primary a sin pride is, occasioned by this, that the commandment of Humility is first given, first enjoined in our first word, Sequere, follow.
But first, we exalt that consideration, That nothing is so contrary to God, as Pride, with this observation, That God in the Scriptures is often by the Holy Ghost invested, and represented in the qualities and affections of man; and to constitute a commerce and familiarity between God and man, God is not only said to have bodily lineaments, eyes and ears, and hands, and feet, and to have some of the natural affections of man, as Joy, in particular, (The Lord will rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy Fathers) And so, pity too, (The Lord was with Joseph, and extended kindness unto him) But some of those inordinate and irregular passions and perturbations, excesses and defects of man, are imputed to God, by the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures. For so, laziness, drowsiness is imputed to God; (Awake Lord, why sleepest thou?) So corruptiblenesse, and deterioration, and growing worse by ill company, is imputed to God; ( Cum perverso perverteris, God is said to grow froward with the froward, and that he learns to go crookedly with them that go crookedly) And prodigality and wastfulnesse is imputed to God; (Thou sellest thy people for naught, and doest not increase thy wealth by their price) So sudden and hasty choler; (Kiss the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish Inira brevi, though his wrath be kindled but a little) And then, illimited and boundless anger, a vindicative irreconciliablenesse is imputed to God; (I was but a little displeased, (but it is otherwise now) I am very sore displeased) So there is Ira devorans; (Wrath that consumes like stubble) So there is Ira multiplicata, (Plagues renewed, and indignation increased) So God himself expresses it, (I will fight against you in anger and in fury) And so for his inexorableness, his irreconciliablenesse, (O Lord God of Hosts, Quousque, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?) God's own people, God's own people praying to their own God, and yet their God irreconciliable to them. Scorn and contempt is imputed to God; which is one of the most enormious, and disproportioned weaknesses in man; that a worm that crawles in the dust, that a grain of dust, that is hurried with every blast of wind, should find anything so much inferior to it self as to scorn it, to deride it, to contemn it; yet scorn, and derision, and contempt is imputed to God, (He that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision) and again, (I will laugh at your calamity, I will mock you when your fear cometh.) Nay beloved, even inebriation, excess in that kind, Drunkenness, is a Metaphor which the Holy Ghost hath mingled in the expressing of God's proceedings with man; for God does not only threaten to make his enemies drunk, (and to make others drunk is a circumstance of drunkenness)(so Jerusalem being in his displeasure complains, Inebriavit absynthio, (He hath made me drunk with wormwood) and again, (They shall be drunk with their own blood, as with new Wine) Nor only to express his plentiful mercies to his friends and servants, does God take that Metaphor, (Inebriabo animam Sacerdotis, I will make the soul of the Priest drunk; fill it, satiate it) and again, (I will make the weary soul, and the sorrowful soul drunk) But not only all this, (though in all this God have a hand) not only towards others, but God in his own behalf complains of the scant and penurious Sacrificer, Non inebriasti me, Thou hast not made me drunk with thy Sacrifices. And yet, though for the better applying of God to the understanding of man, the Holy Ghost impute to God these excesses, and defects of man (laziness and drowsiness, deterioration, corruptiblenesse by ill conversation, prodigality and wastfulnesse, sudden choler, long irreconciablenesse, scorn, inebriation, and many others) in the Scriptures, yet in no place of the Scripture is God, for any respect said to be proud; God in the Scriptures is never made so like man, as to be made capable of Pride; for this had not been to have God like man, but like the devil.
God is said in the Scriptures to apparel himself gloriously; (God covers him with light as with a garment) And so of his Spouse the Church it is said, (Her clothing is of wrought gold, and her raiment of needle work) and, as though nothing in this world were good enough for her wearing, she is said to be clothed with the Sun. But glorious apparel is not pride in them, whose conditions require it, and whose revenues will bear it. God is said in the Scriptures to appear with greatness and majesty, (A stream of fire came forth before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.) And so Christ shall come at Judgment, with his Hosts of Angels, in majesty, and in glory. But these outward appearances and acts of greatness are not pride in those persons, to whom there is a reverence due, which reverence is preserved by this outward splendor, and not otherwise. God is said in the Scriptures to triumph over his enemies, and to be jealous of his glory; (The Lord, whose name is Iealous, is a jealous God) But, for Princes to be jealous of their glory, studious of their honor, for any private man to be jealous of his good name, careful to preserve an honest reputation, is not pride. For, Pride is Appetitus celsitudinis perversus, It is an inordinate desire of being better then we are.
Now there is a lawful, nay a necessary desire of being better and better; And that, not only in spiritual things, (for so every man is bound to be better and better, better today then yesterday, and tomorrow then today, and he that grows not in Religion, withers, There is no standing at a stay, He that goes not forward in godliness, goes backward, and he that is not better, is worse) but even in temporal things too there is a liberty given us, nay there is a law, an obligation laid upon us, to endeavor by industry in a lawful calling, to mend and improve, to enlarge ourselves, and spread, even in worldly things. The first Commandment that God gave man, was not prohibitive; God, in that, forbad man nothing, but enlarged him with that Crescite, & multiplicamini, Increase and multiply, which is not only in the multiplication of children; but in the enlargement of possessions too; for so it follows in the same place, not only Replete, but Dominamini, not only replenish the world, but subdue it, and take dominion over it, that is, make it your own. For, Terram dedit filiis hominum, As God hath given sons to men, so God gives the possession of this world to the sons of men. For so when God delivers that commandment, the second time, to Noah, for the reparation of the world, Crescite & multiplicamini, Increase and multiply, he accompanies it with that reason, The fear of you, and the dread of you shall be upon all, and all are delivered into your hands; which reason can have no relation to the multiplying of Children, but to the enlarging of possessions. God planted trees in Paradise in a good state at first; at first with ripe fruits upon them; but God's purpose was, that even those trees, though well then, should grow greater. God gives many men good estates from their parents at first; yet God's purpose is that they should increase those estates. He that leaves no more, then his father left him, (if the fault be in himself) shall hardly make a good account of his stewardship to God; for, he hath but kept his talent in a handkercheif. And the slothful man is even brother to the waster. The holy Ghost in Solomon, scarce prefers him that does not get more, before him that wastes all. He makes them brethren; almost all one. Cursed be he that does the work of God negligently; that does any Commandment of God by halves; And this negligent and lazy man, this in-industrious and illaborious man that takes no pains, he does one part of God's Commandment, He does multiply, but he does not the other, he does not increase; He leaves Children enow, but he leaves them nothing; not in possessions and maintenance, nor in vocation and calling.
And truly, howsoever the love of money be the root of all evil, (He cannot mistake that told us so) Howsoever they that will be rich (that resolve to be rich by any means) shall fall into many temptations, Howsoever a hasty desire of being suddenly and prematurely rich, be a dangerous and an obnoxious thing, a pestilent and contagious disease, (for what a perverse and inordinate anticipation and prevention of God and nature is it, to look for our harvest in May, or to look for all grainst at once? and such a perverseness is the hasty desire of being suddenly and prematurely rich, yet, to go on industriously in an honest calling, and giving God his leisure, and giving God his portion all the way, in Tithes, and in Alms, and then, still to lay up something for posterity, is that, which God does not only permit and accept from us, but command to us, and reward in us. And certainly, that man shall not stand so right in God's eye at the last day, that leaves his Children to the Parish, as he that leaves the Parish to his Children, if he have made his purchases out of honest gain, in a lawful Calling, and not out of oppression.
In all which, I would be rightly understood; that is, that I speak of such poverty as is contracted by our own laziness, or wastfulnesse. For otherwise, poverty that comes from the hand of God, is as rich a blessing as comes from his hand. He that is poor with a good conscience, that hath labored and yet not prospered, knows to whom to go, and what to say, Lord, thou hast put gladness into my heart, more then in the time when corn and wine increased; (more now, then when I had more) I will lay me down and sleep, for thou Lord only makest me to dwell in safety. Does every rich man dwell in safety? Can every rich man lie down in peace and sleep? no, nor every poor man neither; but he that is poor with a good conscience, can. And, though he that is rich with a good conscience may, in a good measure, do so too, (sleep in peace) yet not so out of the sphere and latitude of envy, and free from the machinations, and supplantations, and underminings of malicious men, that feed upon the confiscations, and build upon the ruins of others, as the poor man is.
Though then S. Chrysostom call riches Absurditatis parents, the parents of absurdities, That they make us do, not only ungodly, but inhumane things, not only irreligious, but unreasonable things, uncomely and absurd things, things which we ourselves did not suspect that we could be drawn to, yet there is a growing rich, which is not covetousness, and there is a desire of honor and preferment, which is not Pride. For, Pride is, (as we said before) Appetitus perversus, A perverse and inordinate desire, but there is a desire of honor and preferment, regulated by rectified Reason; and rectified Reason is Religion. And therefore, (as we said) how ever other affections of man, may, and are, by the Holy Ghost, in Scriptures, in some respects ascribed to God, yet never Pride. Nay, the Holy Ghost himself seems to be straitened, and in a difficulty, when he comes to express God's proceedings with a proud man, and his detestation of him, and aversion from him. There is a considerable, a remarkable, indeed a singular manner of expressing it, (perchance you find not the like in all the Bible) where God says, Hini that hath a high look, and a proud heart, I will not, (in our last) I cannot, (in our former translation) Not what? Not as it is in those translations, I cannot suffer him, I will not suffer him; for that word of Suffering, is but a voluntary word, supplied by the Translators; In the Original, it is as it were an abrupt breaking off on God's part, from the proud man, and, (if we may so speak) a kind of froward departing from him. God does not say of the proud man, I cannot work upon him, I cannot mend him, I cannot pardon him, I cannot suffer him, I cannot stay with him, but merely I cannot, and no more, I cannot tell what to say of him, what to do for him; (Him that hath a proud heart, I cannot) Pride is so contrary to God, as that the proud man, and he can meet in nothing. And this consideration hath kept us thus long, from that which we made our first and principal collection, That this commandment of Humility, was imprinted in our very first word, Sequere, follow, be content to come after, to denote how early and primary a sin Pride is, and how soon it entered into the world, and how soon into us; and that consideration we shall pursue now.
We know that light is God's eldest child, his first borne of all Creatures; and it is ordinarily received, that the Angels are twins with the light, made then when light was made. And then the first act, that these Angels that fell, did, was an act of Pride. They not thank nor praise God; for their Creation; (which should have been their first act) They did not solicit, nor pray to God for their Sustentation, their Melioration, their Confirmation; (so they should have proceed) But the first act that those first Creatures did, was an act of pride, a proud reflecting upon themselves, a proud overvaluing of their own condition, and an acquiescence in that, in an imaginary possibility of standing by themselves, without any farther relation, or beholdingness to God. So early, so primary a sin is Pride, as that it was the first act of the first of Creatures.
So early, so primary a sin, as that whereas all Pride now is but a comparative pride, this first pride in the Angels was a positive, a radical pride. The Pharisee is but proud, that he is not as other men are; that is but a comparative pride. No King thinks himself great enough, yet he is proud that he is independent, sovereign, subject to none. No subject thinks himself rich enough, yet he is proud that he is able to oppress others that are poorer, Et gloriatur in malo, quia potens est, He boasteth himself in mischief, because he is a mighty man. But all these are but comparative prides; and there must be some subjects to compare with, before a King can be proud, and some inferiors, before the Magistrate, and some poor, before the rich man can be proud. But this pride in those Angels in heaven, was a positive pride; There were no other Creatures yet made, with whom these Angels could compare themselves, and before whom these Angels could prefer themselves, and yet before there was any other creature but themselves, any other creature, to undervalue, or insult over, these Angels were proud of themselves. So early, so primary a sin is Pride.
So early, so primary, as that in that ground, which was for goodness next to heaven, that is, Paradise, Pride grew very early too. Adams first act was not an act of Pride, but an act of lawful power and jurisdiction, in naming the Creatures; Adam was above them all, and he might have called them what he would; There had lain no action, no appeal, if Adam had called a Lyon a Dog, or an Eagle an Owl. And yet we dispute with God, why he should not make all us vessels of honor, and we complain of God, that he hath not given us all, all the abundances of this world. Comparatively Adam was better then all the world beside, and yet we find no act of pride in Adam, when he was alone. Solitude is not the scene of Pride; The danger of pride is in company, when we meet to look upon another. But in Adams wife, Eve, her first act (that is noted) was an act of Pride, a hearkening to that voice of the Serpent, Ye shall be as God's. As soon as there were two, there was pride. How many may we have known, (if we have had any conversation in the world) that have been content all the week, at home alone, with their worky day faces, as well as with their worky day clothes, and yet on Sundays, when they come to Church, and appear in company, will mend both, their faces as well as their clothes. Not solitude, but company is the scene of pride; And therefore I know not what to call that practice of the Nuns in Spain, who though they never see man, yet will paint. So early, so primary a sin is Pride, as that it grew instantly from her, whom God intended for a Helper, because he saw that it was not good for man to be alone. God sees that it is not good for man to be without health, without wealth, without power, and jurisdiction, and magistracy, and we grow proud of our helpers, proud of our health and strength, proud of our wealth and riches, proud of our office and authority over others.
So early, so primary a sin is pride, as that, out of every mercy, and blessing, which God affords us, (and, His mercies are new every morning ) we gather Pride; we are not the more thankful for them, and yet we are the prouder of them. Nay, we gather Pride, not only out of those things, which mend and improve us, (God's blessings and mercies) but out of those actions of our own, that destroy and ruin us, we gather pride; sins overthrow us, demolish us, destroy and ruin us, and yet we are proud of our sins. How many men have we heard boast of their sins; and, (as S. Augustine confesses of himself) belie themselves, and boast of more sins then ever they committed? Out of everything, out of nothing sin grows. Therefore was this commandment in our text, Sequere, Follow, come after, well placed first, for we are come to see even children strive for place and precedency, and mothers are ready to go to the Heralds to know how Cradles shall be ranked, which Cradle shall have the highest place; Nay, even in the womb, there was contention for precedency; Jacob took hold of his brother Esau's heel, and would have been borne before him.
And as our pride begins in our Cradle, it continues in our graves and Monuments. It was a good while in the primitive Church, before any were buried in the Church; The best contented themselves with the Churchyards. After, a holy ambition, (may we call it so) a holy Pride brought them ad Limina, to the Church-threshold, to the Church-door, because some great Martyrs were buried in the Porches, and devout men desired to lie near them, as one Prophet did to lie near another, (Lay my bones besides his bones.) But now, persons whom the Devil kept from Church all their lives, Separatists, Libertines, that never came to any Church, And persons, whom the Devil brought to Church all their lives, (for, such as come merely out of the obligation of the Law, and to redeem that vexation, or out of custom, or company, or curiosity, or a perverse and sinister affection to the particular Preacher, though they come to God's house, come upon the Devils invitation) Such as one Devil, that is, worldly respect, brought to Church in their lives, another Devil, that is, Pride and vain-glory, brings to Church after their deaths, in an affectation of high places, and sumptuous Monuments in the Church. And such as have given nothing at all to any pious uses, or have determined their alms and their dole which they have given, in that one day of their funeral, and no farther, have given large annuities, perpetuities, for new painting their tombs, and for new flags, and scutcheons, every certain number of years.
O the earlinesse! O the latenesse! how early a Spring, and no Autumn! how fast a growth, and no declination, of this branch of this sin Pride, against which, this first word of ours, Sequere, Follow, come after, is opposed! this love of place, and precedency, it rocks us in our Cradles, it lies down with us in our graves. There are diseases proper to certain things, Rots to sheep, Murrain to cattle. There are diseases proper to certain places, as the Sweat was to us. There are diseases proper to certain times, as the plague is in divers parts of the Eastern Countries, where they know assuredly, when it will begin and end. But for this infectious disease of precedency, and love of place, it is run over all places, as well Cloisters as Courts, And over all men, as well spiritual as temporal, And over all times, as well the Apostles as ours. The Apostles disputed often, who should be greatest, and it was not enough to them, that Christ assured them, that they should sit upon the twelve thrones, and judge the twelve Tribes; it was not enough for the sons of Zebedee, to be put into that Commission, but their friends must solicit the office, to place them high in that Commission; their Mother must move, that one may sit at Christ's right hand, and the other at his left, in the execution of that Commission. Because this sin of pride is so early and primary a sin, is this Commandment of Humility first enjoined, and because this sin appears most generally in this love of place, and precedency, the Commandment is expressed in that word, Sequere, Follow, Come after. But then, even this Humility is limited, for it is Sequere me, follow me, which was proposed for our second Consideration, Sequere me.
There may be a pride in Humility, and an over-weaning of ourselves, in attributing too much to our own judgment, in following some leaders; for so, we may be so humble as to go after some man, and yet so proud, as to go before the Church, because that man may be a Schismatike. Therefore Christ proposes a safe guide, himself, Sequere me, follow me. It is a dangerous thing, when Christ says, Vade post me, Get thee behind me; for that is accompanied with a shrewd name of increpation, Satan, Get thee behind me Satan; Christ speaks it but twice in the Gospel; once to Peter, who because he then did the part of an Adversary, Christ calls Satan, and once to Satan himself, because he pursued his temptations upon him; for there is a going behind Christ, which is a casting out of his presence, without any future following, and that is a fearful station, a fearful retrogradation; But when Christ's says, not Vade retro, Get thee behind me, see my face no more, but Sequere me, follow me, he means to look back upon us; so the Lord turned and looked upon Peter, and Peter wept bitterly, and all was well; when he bids us follow him, he directs us in a good way, and by a good guide.
The Carthusian Friers thought they descended into as low pastures as they could go, when they renounced all flesh, and bound themselves to feed on fish only; and yet another Order follows them in their superstitious singularity, and goes beyond them, Foliantes, the Fueillans, they eat neither flesh, nor fish, nothing but leafes, and roots; and as the Carthusians in a proud humility, despise all other Orders that eat flesh, so do the Fueillans the Carthusians that eat fish. There is a pride in such humility. That Order of Friers that called themselves Ignorantes, Ignorant men, that pretended to know nothing, sunk as low as they thought it possible, into an humble name and appellation; And yet the Minorits, (Minorits that are less then any) think they are gone lower, and then the Minimes, (Minimes that are less then all) lower then they. And when one would have thought, that there had not been a lower step then that, another Sect went beyond all, beyond the Ignorants, and the Minorits, and the Minimes, and all, and called themselves, Nullanos, Nothings. But yet, even these Diminutives, the Minorits, and Minimes, and Nullans, as little, as less, as least, as very nothing as they profess themselves, lie under this disease, which is opposed in the Sequere me, follow, come after, in our Text; For no sort nor condition of men in the world are more contentious, more quarrelsome, more vehement for place, and precedency, then these Orders of Friers are, there, where it may appear, that is, in their public Processions, as we find by those often troubles, which the Superiors of the several Orders, and Bishops in their several Dioces, and some of those Councils, which they call General, have been put to, for the ranking, and marshalling of these contentious, and wrangling men. Which makes me remember the words, in which the eighteenth of Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions is conceived, That to take away fond Curtesie, (that is, needless Complement) and to take away challenging of places, (which it seems were frequent and troublesome then) To take away fond courtesy, and challenging of places, Processions themselves were taken away, because in those Processions, these Orders of Friers, that pretended to follow, and come after all the world, did thus passionately, and with so much scandalous animosity pursue the love of place, and precedency. Therefore is our humility here limited, Sequere me, follow me, follow Christ. How is that done?
Consider it in Doctrinal things first, and then in Moral; First how we are to follow Christ in believing, and then how in doing, in practicing. First in Doctrinal things, There must have gone somebody before, else it is no following; Take heed therefore of going on with thine own inventions, thine own imaginations, for this is no following; Take heed of accompanying the beginners of Heresies and Schisms; for these are no followings where none have gone before: Nay, there have not gone enow before, to make it a path to follow in, except it have had a long continuance, and been much trodden in. And therefore to follow Christ doctrinally, is to embrace those Doctrines, in which his Church hath walked from the beginning, and not to vex thyself with new points, not necessary to salvation. That is the right way, and then thou art well entered; but that is not all; thou must walk in the right way to the end, that is, to the end of thy life. So that to profess the whole Gospel, and nothing but Gospel for Gospel, and profess this to thy death, for no respect, no dependence upon any great person, to slacken in any fundamental point of thy Religion, nor to be shaken with hopes or fears in thine age, when thou wouldst fain live at ease, and therefore thinkest it necessary to do, as thy supporters do; To persevere to the end in the whole Gospel, this is to follow Christ in Doctrinal things.
In practical things, things that belong to action, we must also follow Christ, in the right way, and to the end. They are both (way and end) laid together, Sufferentiam Job audiistis, & finem Domini vidistis; You have heard of the patience of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord; and you must go Job's way to Christ's end. Job hath beaten a path for us, to show us all the way; A path that affliction walked in, and seemed to delight in it, in bringing the Sabaean upon his Oxen, the Chaldean upon his Camels, the fire upon his Sheep, destruction upon his Servants, and at last, ruin upon his Children. One affliction makes not a path; iterated, continued calamities do; and such a path Job hath shown us, not only patience, but cheerfulness; more, thankfulness for our afflictions, because they were multiplied. And then, we must set before our eyes, as the way of Job, so the end of the Lord; Now the end of the Lord was the cross: So that to follow him to the end, is not only to bear afflictions, though to death, but it is to bring our crosses to the Cross of Christ. How is that progress made? (for it is a royal progress, not a pilgrimage to follow Christ to his Cross) Our Savior saith, He that will follow me, let him take up his cross, and follow me. You see four stages, four resting, baiting places in this progress. It must be a cross, And it must be my cross, And then it must be taken up by me, And with this cross of mine, thus taken up by me, I must follow Christ, that is, carry my cross to his.
First it must be a Cross, Tollat crucem; for every man hath afflictions, but every man hath not cross. Only those afflictions are crosses, whereby the world is crucified to us, and we to the world. The afflictions of the wicked exasperate them, enrage them, stone and pave them, obdurate and petrifie them, but they do not crucify them. The afflictions of the godly crucify them. And when I am come to that conformity with my Savior, as to fulfill his sufferings in my flesh, (as I am, when I glorify him in a Christian constancy and cheerfulness in my afflictions) then I am crucified with him, carried up to his Cross: And as Elisha in raising the Shunamits dead child, put his mouth upon the child's mouth, his eyes, and his hands, upon the hands, and eyes of the child; so when my crosses have carried me up to my Savior's Cross, I put my hands into his hands, and hang upon his nails, I put mine eyes upon his, and wash off all my former unchaste looks, and receive a sovereign tincture, and a lively verdure, and a new life into my dead tears, from his tears. I put my mouth upon his mouth, and it is I that say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? and it is I that recover again, and say, Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. Thus my afflictions are truly a cross, when those afflictions do truly crucify me, and souple me, and mellow me, and knead me, and roll me out, to a conformity with Christ. It must be this Cross, and then it must be my cross that I must take up, Tollat suam.
Other men's crosses are not my crosses; no man hath suffered more then himself needed. That is a poor treasure which they boast of in the Roman Church, that they have in their Exchequer, all the works of supererogation, of the Martyrs in the Primitive Church, that suffered so much more then was necessary for their own salvation, and those superabundant crosses and merits they can apply to me. If the treasure of the blood of Christ Jesus be not sufficient, Lord what addition can I find, to match them, to piece out them! And if it be sufficient of it self, what addition need I seek? Other men's crosses are not mine, other men's merits cannot save me. Nor is any cross mine own, which is not mine by a good title; If I be not Possessor bonae fidei, If I came not well by that cross. And Quid habeo quod non accepi? is a question that reaches even to my crosses; what have I that I have not received? not a cross; And from whose hands can I receive any good thing, but from the hands of God? So that that only is my cross, which the hand of God hath laid upon me. Alas, that cross of present bodily weakness, which the former wantonnesses of my youth have brought upon me, is not my cross; That cross of poverty which the wastfulnesse of youth hath brought upon me, is not my cross; for these, weakness upon wantonness, want upon wastfulnesse, are Natures crosses, not God's, and they would fall naturally, though there were (which is an impossible supposition) no God. Except God therefore take these crosses in the way, as they fall into his hands, and sanctify them so, and then lay them upon me, they are not my crosses; but if God do this, they are. And then this cross thus prepared, I must take up; Tollat.
Forraine crosses, other men's merits are not mine; spontaneous and voluntary crosses, contracted by mine own sins, are not mine; neither are devious, and remote, and unnecessary crosses, my crosses. Since I am bound to take up my cross, there must be a cross that is mine to take up; that is, a cross prepared for me by God, and laid in my way, which is temptations or tribulations in my calling; and I must not go out of my way to seek a cross; for, so it is not mine, nor laid for my taking up. I am not bound to hunt after a persecution, nor to stand it, and not fly, nor to affront a plague, and not remove, nor to open myself to an injury, and not defend. I am not bound to starve myself by inordinate fasting, nor to tear my flesh by inhumane whippings, and flagellations. I am bound to take up my Cross; and that is only mine which the hand of God hath laid for me, that is, in the way of my Calling, temptations and tribulations incident to that.
If it be mine, that is, laid for me by the hand of God, and taken up by me, that is, voluntarily embraced, then Sequatur, says Christ, I am bound to follow him, with that cross, that is, to carry my cross to his cross. And if at any time I faint under this cross in the way, let this comfort me, that even Christ himself was eased by Simon of Cyrene, in the carrying of his Cross; and in all such cases, I must fly to the assistance of the prayers of the Church, and of good men, that God, since it is his burden, will make it lighter, since it is his yoke, easier, and since it is his Cross, more supportable, and give me the issue with the temptation. When all is done, with this cross thus laid for me, and taken up by me, I must follow Christ; Christ to his end; his end is his Cross; that is, I must bring my cross to his; lay down my cross at the foot of his; Confess that there is no dignity, no merit in mine, but as it receives an impression, a sanctification from his. For, if I could die a thousand times for Christ, this were nothing, if Christ had not died for me before. And this is truly to follow Christ, both in the way, and to the end, as well in doctrinal things as in practical. And this is all that lay upon these two, Peter and Andrew, Follow me. Remains yet to be considered, what they shall get by this; which is our last Consideration.
They shall be fishers; and what shall they catch? men. They shall be fishers of men. And then, for that the world must be their Sea, and their net must be the Gospel. And here in so vast a sea, and with so small a net, there was no great appearance of much gain. And in this function, whatsoever they should catch, they should catch little for themselves. The Apostleship, as it was the fruitfullest, so it was the barrennest vocation; They were to catch all the world; there is their fecundity; but the Apostles were to have no Successors, as Apostles; there is their barrenness. The Apostleship was not intended for a function to raise houses and families; The function ended in their persons; after the first, there were no more Apostles.
And therefore it is an usurpation, an imposture, an illusion, it is a forgery, when the Bishop of Rome will proceed by Apostolical authority, and with Apostolical dignity, and Apostolical jurisdiction; If he be S. Peters Successor in the Bishopric of Rome, he may proceed with Episcopal authority in his Dioces. If he be; for, though we do not deny that S. Peter was at Rome, and Bishop of Rome; though we receive it with an historical faith, induced by the consent of Ancient writers, yet when they will constitute matter of faith out of matter of fact, and, because S. Peter was (de facto) Bishop of Rome, therefore we must believe, as an Article of faith, such an infallibility in that Church, as that no Successor of S. Peters can ever err, when they stretch it to matter of faith, then for matter of faith, we require Scriptures; and then we are confident, and justly confident, that though historically we do believe it, yet out of Scriptures (which is a necessary proof in Articles of faith) they can never prove that S. Peter was Bishop of Rome, or ever at Rome. So then, if the present Bishop of Rome be S. Peters Successor, as Bishop of Rome, he hath Episcopal jurisdiction there; but he is not S. Peters Successor in his Apostleship; and only that Apostleship was a jurisdiction over all the world. But the Apostleship was an extraordinary office instituted by Christ, for a certain time, and to certain purposes, and not to continue in ordinary use. As also the office of the Prophet was in the Old Testament an extraordinary Office, and was not transferred then, nor does not remain now in the ordinary office of the Minister.
And therefore they argue impertinently, and collect and infer sometimes seditiously that say, The Prophet proceeded thus and thus, therefore the Minister may and must proceed so too; The Prophets would chide the Kings openly, and threaten the Kings publicly, and proclaim the fault of the Kings in the ears of the people confidently, authoritatively, therefore the Minister may and must do so. God sent that particular Prophet Jeremiah with that extraordinary Commission, Behold I have this day set thee over the Nations, and over the Kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, to destroy and throw down, and then to build, and to plant again; But God hath given none of us his Ministers, in our ordinary function, any such Commission over Nations, and over Kingdoms. Even in Jeremiah's Commission there seems to be a limitation of time; Behold this day I have set thee over them, where that addition (this day) is not only the date of the Commission, that it passed God's hand that day, but (this day) is the term, the duration of the Commission, that it was to last but that day, that is, (as the phrase of that language is) that time for which it was limited. And therefore, as they argue perversely, frowardly, dangerously that say, The Minister does not his duty that speaks not as boldly, and as publicly too, and of Kings, and great persons, as the Prophets did, because theirs was an Extraordinary, ours an Ordinary office, (and no man will think that the Justices in their Sessions, or the Judges in their Circuits may proceed to executions, without due trial by a course of Law, because Marshals, in time of rebellion and other necessities, may do so, because the one hath but an ordinary, the other an extraordinary Commission) So do they deceive themselves and others, that pretend in the Bishop of Rome an Apostolical jurisdiction, a jurisdiction over all the world, whereas howsoever he may be S. Peters Successor, as Bishop of Rome, yet he is no Successor to S. Peter as an Apostle; upon which only the universal power can be grounded, and without which that universal power falls to the ground: The Apostolical faith remains spread over all the world, but Apostolical jurisdiction is expired with their persons.
These twelve Christ calls Fishers; why fishers? because it is a name of labor, of service, and of humiliation; and names that taste of humiliation, and labor, and service, are most properly ours; (fishers we may be) names of dignity, and authority, and command are not so properly ours, (Apostles we are not in any such sense as they were) Nothing inflames, nor swells, nor puffs us up, more then that leaven of the soul, that empty, aery, frothy love of Names and Titles. We have known men part with ancient lands for new Titles, and with old Manors for new Honors; and as a man that should bestow all his money upon a fair purse, and then have nothing to put into it; so whole Estates have melted away for Titles and Honors, and nothing left to support them. And how long last they? How many winds blast them? That name of God, in which, Moses was sent to Pharaoh, is by our Translators and Expositors ordinarily said to be I Am that I Am, (Go and say, I Am hath sent me, says God there) But in truth, in the Original, the name is conceived in the future, it is, I shall be. Every man is that he is; but only God is sure that he shall be so still. Therefore Christ calls them by a name of labor and humiliation. But why by that name of labor and humiliation, Fishers?
Because it was Nomen primitivum, their own, their former name. The Holy Ghost pursues his own way, and does here in Christ, as he does often in other places, he speaks in such forms, and such phrases, as may most work upon them to whom he speaks. Of David, that was a shepherd before, God says, he took him to feed his people. To those Magi of the East, who were given to the study of the Stars, God gave a Star to be their guide to Christ at Bethlehem. To those which followed him to Capernaum for meat, Christ took occasion by that, to preach to them of the spiritual food of their souls. To the Samaritan woman, whom he found at the Well, he preached of the water of Life. To these men in our Text accustomed to a joy and gladness, when they took great, or great store of fish, he presents his comforts agreeably to their taste, They should be fishers still. Beloved, Christ puts no man out of his way, (for sinful courses are no ways, but continual deviations) to go to heaven. Christ makes heaven all things to all men, that he might gain all: To the mirthfull man he presents heaven, as all joy, and to the ambitious man, as all glory; To the Merchant it is a Pearl, and to the husbandman it is a rich field. Christ hath made heaven all things to all men, that he might gain all, and he puts no man out of his way to come thither. These men he calls Fishers.
He does not call them from their calling, but he mends them in it. It is not an Innovation; God loves not innovations; Old doctrines, old disciplines, old words and forms of speech in his service, God loves best. But it is a Renovation, though not an Innovation, and Renovations are always acceptable to God; that is, the renewing of a man's self, in a consideration of his first estate, what he was made for, and wherein he might be most serviceable to God. Such a renewing it is, as could not be done without God; no man can renew himself, regenerate himself; no man can prepare that work, no man can begin it, no man can proceed in it of himself. The desire and the actual beginning is from the preventing grace of God, and the constant proceeding is from the concomitant, and subsequent, and continual succeeding grace of God; for there is no conclusive, no consummative grace in this life; no such measure of grace given to any man, as that that man needs no more, or can lose or frustrate none of that. The renwing of these men in our text, Christ takes to himself; Faciam vos, I will make ye fishers of men; no worldly respects must make us such fishers; it must be a calling from God; And yet, (as the other Evangelist in the same history expresses it) it is Faciam fieri vos, I will cause ye to be made fishers of men, that is, I will provide an outward calling for you too. Our calling to this Man-fishing is not good, Nisi Dominus faciat, & fieri faciat, except God make us fishers by an internal, and make his Church to make us so too, by an external calling. Then we are fishers of men, and then we are successors to the Apostles, though not in their Apostleship, yet in this fishing. And then, for this fishing, the world is the Sea, and our net is the Gospel.
The world is a Sea in many respects and assimilations. It is a Sea, as it is subject to storms, and tempests; Every man (and every man is a world) feels that. And then, it is never the shallower for the calmness, The Sea is as deep, there is as much water in the Sea, in a calm, as in a storm; we may be drowned in a calm and flattering fortune, in prosperity, as irrecoverably, as in a wrought Sea, in adversity; So the world is a Sea. It is a Sea, as it is bottomless to any line, which we can sound it with, and endless to any discovery that we can make of it. The purposes of the world, the ways of the world, exceed our consideration; But yet we are sure the Sea hath a bottom, and sure that it hath limits, that it cannot overpasse; The power of the greatest in the world, the life of the happiest in the world, cannot exceed those bounds, which God hath placed for them; So the world is a Sea. It is a Sea, as it hath ebbs and floods, and no man knows the true reason of those floods and those ebbs. All men have changes and vicissitudes in their bodies, (they fall sick) And in their estates, (they grow poor) And in their minds, (they become sad) at which changes, (sickness, poverty, sadness) themselves wonder, and the cause is wrapped up in the purpose and judgment of God only, and hid even from them that have them; and so the world is a Sea. It is a Sea, as the Sea affords water enough for all the world to drink, but such water as will not quench the thirst. The world affords conveniences enow to satisfy Nature, but these increase our thirst with drinking, and our desire grows and enlarges it self with our abundance, and though we sail in a full Sea, yet we lack water; So the world is a Sea. It is a Sea, if we consider the Inhabitants. In the Sea, the greater fish devour the less; and so do the men of this world too. And as fish, when they mud themselves, have no hands to make themselves clean, but the current of the waters must work that; So have the men of this world no means to cleanse themselves from those sins which they have contracted in the world, of themselves, till a new flood, waters of repentance, drawn up, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, work that blessed effect in them.
All these ways the world is a Sea, but especially it is a Sea in this respect, that the Sea is no place of habitation, but a passage to our habitations. So the Apostle expresses the world, Here we have no continuing City, but we seek one to come; we seek it not here, but we seek it whilst we are here, else we shall never find it. Those are the two great works which we are to do in this world; first to know, that this world is not our home, and then to provide us another home, whilst we are in this world. Therefore the Prophet says, Arise, and depart, for this is not your rest. Worldly men, that have no farther prospect, promise themselves some rest in this world, ( Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry, says the rich man) but this is not your rest; indeed no rest; at least not yours. You must depart, depart by death, before ye come to that rest; but then you must arise, before you depart; for except ye have a resurrection to grace here, before you depart, you shall have no resurrection to glory in the life to come, when you are departed.
Now, in this Sea, every ship that sails must necessarily have some part of the ship under water; Every man that lives in this world, must necessarily have some of his life, some of his thoughts, some of his labors spent upon this world; but that part of the ship, by which he sails, is above water; Those meditations, and those endeavors which must bring us to heaven, are removed from this world, and fixed entirely upon God. And in this Sea, are we made fishers of men; Of men in general; not of rich men, to profit by them, nor of poor men, to pierce them the more sharply, because affliction hath opened a way into them; Not of learned men, to be over-glad of their approbation of our labors, Nor of ignorant men, to affect them with an astonishment, or admiration of our gifts: But we are fishers of men, of all men, of that which makes them men, their souls. And for this fishing in this Sea, this Gospel is our net.
Eloquence is not our net; Traditions of men are not our nets; only the Gospel is. The Devil angles with hooks and baits; he deceives, and he wounds in the catching; for every sin hath his sting. The Gospel of Christ Jesus is a net; It hath leads and corks; It hath leads, that is, the denouncing of God's judgments, and a power to sink down, and lay flat any stubborn and rebellious heart, And it hath corks, that is, the power of absolution, and application of the mercies of God, that swim above all his works, means to erect an humble and contrite spirit, above all the waters of tribulation, and affliction. A net is Res nodosa, a knotty thing; and so is the Scripture, full of knots, of scruple, and perplexity, and anxiety, and vexation, if thou wilt go about to entangle thyself in those things, which appertain not to thy salvation; but knots of a fast union, and inseparable alliance of thy soul to God, and to the fellowship of his Saints, if thou take the Scriptures, as they were intended for thee, that is, if thou beest content to rest in those places, which are clear, and evident in things necessary. A net is a large thing, past thy fadoming, if thou cast it from thee, but if thou draw it to thee, it will lie upon thine arm. The Scriptures will be out of thy reach, and out of thy use, if thou cast and scatter them upon Reason, upon Philosophy, upon Morality, to try how the Scriptures will fit all them, and believe them but so far as they agree with thy reason; But draw the Scripture to thine own heart, and to thine own actions, and thou shalt find it made for that; all the promises of the Old Testament made, and all accomplished in the New Testament, for the salvation of thy soul hereafter, and for thy consolation in the present application of them.
Now this that Christ promises here, is not here promised in the nature of wages due to our labor, and our fishing. There is no merit in all that we can do. The wages of sin is Death; Death is due to sin, the proper reward of sin; but the Apostle does not say there, That eternal life is the wages of any good work of ours. (The wages of sin is death, but eternal life is the gift of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord) Through Jesus Christ, that is, as we are considered in him; and in him, who is a Savior, a Redeemer, we are not considered but as sinners. So that God's purpose works no otherwise upon us, but as we are sinners; neither did God mean ill to any man, till that man was, in his sight, a sinner. God shuts no man out of heaven, by a lock on the inside, except that man have clapped the door after him, and never knocked to have it opened again, that is, except he have sinned, and never repented. Christ does not say in our text, Follow me, for I will prefer you; he will not have that the reason, the cause. If I would not serve God, except I might be saved for serving him, I shall not be saved though I serve him; My first end in serving God, must not be myself, but he and his glory. It is but an addition from his own goodness, Et faciam, Follow me, and I will do this; but yet it is as certain, and infallible as a debt, or as an effect upon a natural cause; Those propositions in nature are not so certain; The Earth is at such a time just between the Sun, and the Moon, therefore the Moon must be Eclipsed, The Moon is at such time just between the Earth and the Sun, therefore the Sun must be Eclipsed; for upon the Sun, and those other bodies, God can, and hath sometimes wrought miraculously, and changed the natural courses of them; (The Sun stood still in Joshua, And there was an unnatural Eclipse at the death of Christ) But God cannot by any Miracle so work upon himself, as to make himself not himself, unmerciful, or unjust; And out of his mercy he makes this promise, (Do this, and thus it shall be with you) and then, of his justice he performs that promise, which was made merely, and only out of mercy, If we do it, (though not because we do it) we shall have eternal life.
Therefore did Andrew, and Peter faithfully believe, such a net should be put into their hands. Christ had vouchsafed to fish for them, and caught them with that net, and they believed that he that made them fishers of men, would also enable them to catch others with that net. And that is truly the comfort that refreshes us in all our Lucubrations, and night-studies, through the course of our lives, that that God that sets us to Sea, will prosper our voyage, that whether he six us upon our own, or send us to other Congregations, he will open the hearts of those Congregations to us, and bless our labors to them. For as S. Paul's Vaesi non, lies upon us wheresoever we are, (Woe be unto us if we do not preach) so, (as S. Paul says to) we were of all men the most miserable, if we preached without hope of doing good. With this net S. Peter caught three thousand souls in one day, at one Sermon, and five thousand in another. With this net S. Paul fished all the Mediterranean Sea, and caused the Gospel of Christ Jesus to abound from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum. This is the net, with which if ye be willing to be caught, that is, to lay down all your hopes and affiances in the gracious promises of his Gospel, then you are fishes reserved for that great Marriage-feast, which is the Kingdom of heaven; where, whosoever is a dish, is a ghost too; whosoever is served in at the table, sits at the table; whosoever is caught by this net, is called to this feast; and there your souls shall be satisfied as with marrow, and with fatness, in an infallible assurance, of an everlasting and undeterminable term, in inexpressible joy and glory. Amen.
SERM. LXXIII. Preached to the King in my Ordinary waiting at White-hall, 18. April 1626.
JOH. 14.2.
In my Fathers House are many Mansions; If it were not so, I would have told you.
T Here are occasions of Controversies of all kinds in this one Verse; And one is, whether this be one Verse or no; For as there are Doctrinal Controversies, out of the sense and interpretation of the words, so are there Grammatticall differences about the Distinction, and Interpunction of them: Some Translations differing therein from the Original, (as the Original Copies are distinguished, and interpuncted now) and some differing from one another. The first Translation that was, that into Syriaque, as it is expressed by Tremellius, renders these words absolutely, precisely, as our two Translations do; And, as our two Translations do, applies the second clause and proposition, Si quo minus, If it were not so, I would have told you, as in affirmation, and confirmation of the former, In domo Patris, In my Fathers house there are many Mansions, For, If it were not so I would have told you. But then, as both our Translations do, the Syriaque also admits into this Verse a third clause and proposition, Vado parare, I go to prepare you a place. Now Beza doth not so; Piscator doth not so; They determine this Verse in those two propositions which constitute our Text, In my Fathers house, &c. and then they let fall the third proposition, as an inducement, and inchoation of the next Verse, I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I will come again. Divers others do otherwise, and diversely; For some do assume (as we, and the Syriaque do) all three propositions into the Verse, but then they do not (as we, and the Syriaque do) make the second a proof of the first, In my Fathers house are many Mansions, For, If it were not so, I would have told you, But they refer the second to the third proposition, If it were not so, I would have told you, For, I go to prepare you a place, and being to go from you, would leave you ignorant of nothing. But we find no reason to depart from that Distinction and Interpunction of these words, which our own Church exhibits to us, and therefore we shall pursue them so; and so determine, though not the Verse, (for into the Verse, we admit all three propositions) yet the whole purpose and intention of our Savior, in those two propositions, which accomplish our Text, In my Fathers house, &c.
This Interpunction then offers and constitutes our two parts. First, A particular Doctrine, which Christ infuses into his Disciples, In domo Patris, In my Fathers house are many Mansions; And then a general Rule and Scale, by which we are to measure, and weigh all Doctrines, Si quo minus, If it were not so, I would have told you. In the order of nature, the later part falls first into consideration, The rule of all Doctrines; which in this place is, The word of God in the mouth of Christ, digested into the Scriptures; In which, we shall have just, more then just, necessary occasion to note both their distempers, both theirs, that think, That there are other things to be believed, then are in the Scriptures, and theirs that think, That there are some things in the Scriptures, which are not to be believed: For when our Savior says, Si quo minus, If it were not so, I would have told you, he intends both this proposition, I have told you all that is necessary to be believed; and this also, All that I have told you, is necessary to be believed, so as I have told it you. So that this excludes both that imaginary insufficiency of the Scriptures, which some have ventured to aver, (for God shall never call Christian to account for anything not notified in the Scriptures) And it excludes also those imaginary Dolos bonos, and frauds pias, which some have adventured to aver too, That God should use holy Illusions, holy deceits, holy frauds, and circumventions in his Scriptures, and not intend in them, that which he pretends by them; This is his Rule, Si quo minus, If it were not so, I would have told you, If I have not told you so, it is not so, and if I have, it is so as I have told you: And in these two branches we shall determine the first part, The Rule of Doctrines, the Scripture.
The second part, which is the particular Doctrine which Christ administers to his Disciples here, will also derive and cleave it self into two branches; For first we shall inquire, whether this proposition in our Text, In my Fathers house are many Mansions, give any ground, or assistance, or countenance to that pious opinion, of a disparity, and difference of degrees of Glory in the Saints in heaven; And then, if we find the words of this Text to conduce nothing to that Doctrine, we shall consider the right use of the true, and natural, the native and genuine, the direct, and literal, and uncontrovertible sense of the words; because in them, Christ doth not say, that in his Fathers house there are Divers Mansions, divers for seat, or lights, or fashion, or furniture, but only that there are Many, and in that notion, the Plurality, the Multipliciry, lies the Consolation.
First then, for the first branch of our first part, The general Rule of Doctrines, our Savior Christ in these words involves an argument, That he hath told them all that was necessary; He hath, because the Scripture hath, for all the Scriptures which were written before Christ, and after Christ, were written by one and the same Spirit, his Spirit. It might then make a good Problem, why they of the Roman Church, not affording to the Scriptures that dignity which belongs to them, are yet so vehement, and make so hard shift, to bring the books of other Authors into the rank, and nature, and dignity of being Scriptures: What matter is it, whether their Maccabees, or their Tobies be Scripture or no? what get their Maccabees, or their Tobies by being Scripture, if the Scripture be not full enough, or not plain enough, to bring me to salvation? But since their intention and purpose, their aim, and their end is, to under-value the Scriptures, that thereby they may over-value their own Traditions, their way to that end may be to put the name of Scriptures upon books of a lower value, that so the unworthiness of those additional books, may cast a diminution upon the Canonical books themselves, when they are made all one: as in some foreign States we have seen, that when the Prince had a purpose to erect some new Order of Honor, he would disgrace the old Orders, by conferring and bestowing them upon unworthy and incapable persons.
But why do we charge the Roman Church with this undervaluing of the Scriptures, when as they pretend, (and that cannot well be denied them) That they ascribe to all the books of Scripture this dignity, That all that is in them is true. It is true; they do so; But this may be true of other Authors also, and yet those Authors remain profane and secular Authors. All may be true that Livy says, and all that our Chronicles say, may be true; and yet our Chronicles, nor Livy become Gospel: for so much they themselves will confess and acknowledge, that all that our Church says is true, that our Church affirms no error; and yet our Church must be a heretical Church, if any Church at all, for all that. Indeed it is but a faint, but an illusory evidence or witness, that pretends to clear a point, if, though it speak nothing but truth, yet it does not speak all the truth. The Scriptures are our evidence for life or death; Search the Scriptures, says Christ, for in them ye think ye have eternal life. Where, ye think so, is not, ye think so, but mistake the matter, but ye think so, is ye think so upon a well-grounded and rectified faith and assurance. Now if this evidence, the Scripture, shall acquit me in one Article, in my belief in God, (for I do find in the Scripture, as much as they require of me to believe, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) And then this evidence, the Scripture, shall condemn me in another Article, The Catholic Church, (for I do not find so much in the Scripture, as they require me to believe of their Catholic Church) If the Scripture be sufficient to save me in one, and not in the rest, this is not only a defective, but an illusory evidence, which though it speak truth, yet does not speak all the truth.
Fratres sumus, quare litigamus? says S. Augustine, We are all Brethren, by one Father, one Almighty God, and one Mother, one Catholic Church, and then why do we go to Law together? At least, why do we not bring our Suits to an end? Non intestatus mortuus est Pater, says he, Our Father is dead; for, Is not he your Father that bought you? is Moses question; he that bought us with himself, his blood, his life, is not dead intestate, but hath left his Will and Testament, and why should not that Testament decide the cause? Silent Advocati, Suspensus est populus, Legant verba testamenti: This that Father notes, to be the end in other causes, why not in this? That the Counsel give over pleading, That the people give over murmuring, That the Judge calls for the words of the Will, & by that governs, and according to that establishes his Judgment. I would at last contentious men would leave wrangling, and people to whom those things belonged not, leave blowing of coals, and that the words of the Will might try the cause, since he that made the Will, hath made it thus clear, Si quo minus, If it were not thus, I would have told you, If there were more to be added then this, or more clearness to be added to this, I would have told you.
In the fifth of Matthew, Christ puts a great many cases, what others had told them, but he tells them, that is not their Rule. Audivistis, & ab antiquis, says he, you have heard, & heard by them of old, but now I tell you otherwise. So Audivimus, & ab antiquis, we have heard, and heard by them of old, That the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ is so absolutely necessary, as that Children were bound to receive it, presently after Baptism, and that no man could be saved without it, more then without Baptism: This we have heard, and heard by them of old; for we have heard S. Augustine to have said so, and the practice of the Church for some hundreds of years to have said so. So Audivimus, & ab antiquis, We have heard, and heard by them of old, That the Saints of God departed out of this life, after their resurrection, and before their ascension into heaven, shall enjoy all worldly prosperity and happiness upon the earth, for a thousand years: This we have heard, and heard by them of old, for we have heard Tertullian say so, and Irenaeus, and Lactantius, and so many more as would make the balance more then even. So also Audivimus, & ab antiquis, We have heard, and heard by them of old, That in how good state soever they die, yet the souls of the departed do not see the face of God, nor enjoy his presence, till the day of Judgment, This we have heard, and from so many of them of old, as that the voice of that part is louder, then of the other. And amongst those reverend and blessed Fathers, which straied into these errors, some were hearers and Disciples of the Apostles themselves, as Papias was a Disciple of S. John, and yet Papias was a Millenarian, and expected his thousand years prosperity upon the earth after the Resurrection: some of them were Disciples of the Apostles, and some of them were better men then the Apostles, for they were Bishops of Rome; Clement was so; and yet Clement was one of them, who denied the fruition of the sight of God, by the Saints, till the Judgment.
And yet our Adversaries will enjoy their liberty to depart from all this which they have heard, and heard from them of old, in the mouths of these Fathers. And where the Fathers are divided in two streams, where all the Fathers, few, scarce any excepted, till S. Augustine, placed the cause of our Election in God's foresight, and fore-knowledge of our faith and obedience, and, as generally after S. Augustine, they placed it in the right Center, that is, only in the free goodness and pleasure of God in Christ, half the Roman Church goes one way, and half the other; (for we may be bold to call the Jesuits half that Church) And in that point the Jesuits depart from that which they had heard, and heard of old, from the Primitive Fathers, and adhere to the later; And their very heavy, and very bitter adversaries, the Dominicans, apply themselves to that which they have heard of old, to the first opinion. In that point in the Roman Church they have Fathers on both sides; but, in a point, where they have no Father, where all the Fathers are unanimely and diametrally against them, in the point of the Conception of the most blessed Virgin, Etsi omnes Sancti uno ore asseverent, says a wise Author of theirs, Though all the Ancient Fathers with one entire consent affirm that she was conceived in Original sin, Etsi nullus Author contravenerit, says he, Though no one ancient Author ever denied it, yet says he, Infirmum est ex omnium patrum consensu argumentum, Though our opinion have no ground in Scriptures (that, says he, I confess) Though it be no Apostolical Tradition, (that, says he, I confess) yet it is but a weak argument, says he, that is concluded out of all the Fathers against it, because, It was a doctrine manifested to the Church but about five hundred years since, and now for two hundred years hath been well followed and embraced: As the Jesuit Maldonado says in such another case, whatsoever the ancient Fathers have thought, or taught, or said, or writ, that the marriage of Priests after Orders taken, and chastity professed, was a good marriage, Contrarium nunc verum est, whatsoever was true then, the contrary is true now.
If then these men who take to themselves this liberty, will yet say to me, in some other points, Si quo minus, Surely if you were in the right, some of the ancient Fathers would have told you so; And then, if I assist myself by the Fathers, they will say, Si quo minus, If it were not otherwise, some general Council would have told you so; And again, if I support myself by a Council, Si quo minus, if that Council were to be followed, some Pope would have confirmed that Council, And if I show that to have been done, yet they will say, that that Confirmation reaches not to that Session of the Council, or not to that Canon of that Session, or not to that period in that Canon, or not to that word in that period; And then, of every Father, and Council, and Session, and Canon, and period, and word, Ejus interpretatio est sensus Spiritus Sancti, His sense and interpretation must be esteemed the Interpretation, and the Sense of the Holy Ghost, as Bellarmine hath concluded us, why will they not allow me a juster liberty, then that which they take? That when they stop my prayers in their way to God, and bid me turn upon Saints, when they stop my faith in the way to Christ, and bid me turn upon mine own, or others merits, when they stop my hopes of Heaven upon my death-bed, and bid me turn upon Purgatory, That when, as yet it is in debatement and disputation, whether man can perform the Law of God or no, they will multiply their Laws, above the proportion of Moses Tables, And when we have Primogenitum Ecclesiae, The eldest son by the Primitive Church, The Creed of the Apostles, they will super-induce another son, by another venter, by a step-mother, by their sick and crazy Church, and (as the way of step-mothers is) will then make the portion of the later, larger then the elders, make their Trent-Creed larger then the Apostles, That in such a case, they will not allow me, neither in my studies in the way, nor upon my death-bed at mine end, to hearken unto this voice of my Savior, Si quo minus, If it were not so, I would have told you, this is not only to preclude the liberty, but to exclude the duty of a Christian.
But the mystery of their Iniquity is easily revealed, their Arcana Imperii, the secrets of their State easily discovered. All this is not because they absolutely oppose the Scriptures, or stiffly deny them to be the most certain and constant rule that can be presented, (for whatsoever they pretend for their own Church, or for the Super-sovereign in that Church, their transcendent and hyperbolical supreme Head, they will pretend to deduce out of the Scriptures) But because the Scriptures are constant, and limited, and determined, there can be no more Scriptures, And they should be shrewdly prejudiced, and shrewdly disadvantaged, if all emergent cases arising in the Christian world, must be judged by a Law, which others may know beforehand, as well as they; Therefore being wise in their own generation, they choose rather to lay up their Rule in a Cupboard, then upon a Shelfe, rather in Scrinio pectoris, in the breast and bosom of one man, then upon every deske in a study, where every man may lay, or whence every man may take a Bible. Therefore have so many sad and sober men amongst them, repented, that in the Council of Trent, they came to a final resolution in so many particulars; because how incommodious soever some of those particulars may prove to them, yet they are bound to some necessity of a defense, or to some aspersion if they forsake such things as have been solemnly resolved in that manner.
Therefore it was a prudent, and discreet abstinence in them, to forbear the determination of some things, which have then, and since, fallen into agitation amongst them. Be pleased to take one in the Council, and one after for all. Long time it had, and then it did, and still it doth, perplex the Consciences of penitents that come to Confession, and the understandings of Confessors, who are to give Absolution, how far the secular Laws of temporal Princes bind the Conscience of the Subject, and when, and in what cases, he is bound to confess it as a sin, who hath violated and transgressed any of those Laws; And herein, says an Author of theirs, who hath written learnedly De legibus, of the hand and obligation of Laws, The Pope was solicited and supplicated from the Council, in which it was debated, that he would be pleased to come to a Determination; but because he saw it was more advantage to him, to hold it undetermined, that so he might serve others turns, and his own especially, it remains undetermined, and no Confessor is able to un-entangle the Conscience of his penitent yet. So also in another point, of as great consequence, (at least for the peace of the Church, if not for the profit) which is, those differences, which have arisen between the Jesuits and the Dominicans, about the concurrence of the Grace of God, and the free will of man, Though both sides have come to that vehemence, that violence, that virulency, as to call one another's opinion heretical, (which is a word that cuts deep, and should not be passionately used) yet he will not be brought to a decision, to a determination in the point, but only forbids both sides to write at all in that point; and in that inhibition of his, we see how he suffers himself to be deluded, for still they write with protestation, that they write not to advance either opinion, but only to prepare the way against such time, as the Pope shall be pleased to take off that inhibition, and restore them to their liberty of writing; for this way hath one of their last Authors, Arriba, taken to vent himself. In a word, if they should submit themselves to try all points and cases of Conscience by Scripture, that were to govern by a known, and constant Law; but as they have imagined a Monarchy in their Church, so have they a prerogative in their Monarchy, a secret judgment in one breast, however, he who gives them all their power, make this protestation, Si quo minus, If it were not thus, and thus, I would have told you so.
So then this proposition in our Text falls first upon them, who do not believe All things to be contained in the Scriptures; And it falls also upon them, who do not believe All persons to be intended in the Scriptures, who seem to be concerned therein. The first sort dishonor God in his Scriptures, in that kind, That there is not enough in the Scriptures for any man's salvation; And the other in this kind, That that that is, is not intended, as it is pretended, not in that largeness and generality, as it is proposed, but that God hath set a little Diamond in a great deal of gold, a narrow purpose in large promises; and thereupon they impute to God (in their manner of expressing themselves) Dolos bonos, and Frauds pias, holy deceits, holy falsehoods, holy illusions, and circumventions, and over-good husbands of God's large and bountiful Grace, contract his general promises. I dispute not, but I am glad to hear the Apostle say, That as all were dead, so one died for all; and to put the force of his argument there, in that, That except we can say, That one died for all, we cannot say, that all were dead. I argue not, but I am glad to hear another Apostle say, That Christ is the propitiation for the sins of all the world; for if any man had been left out, how should I have come in?
I am not exercised, nor would I exercise these Auditories with curiosities, but I hear the Apostle say, Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died; And I hear him say, Through thy knowledge may thy weak brother perish, for whom Christ died: and, me thinks, he means, That though they might be destroyed, though they might perish, yet Christ died for them. Only to deliver God from all aspersions, and to defend particular Consciences from being scandalized with dangerous phrases, and in a pious detestation of those impious Doli, and Frauds, holy deceits, holy falsehoods, I only say, God forbid, that when our Savior Christ called the Pharisee hypocrite, that Pharisee should have been able to recriminate that upon Christ, and to have said, So are you, for you pretend to offer salvation where you mean it not: God forbid, that when Christ had made that the mark of a true Israelite in the person of Nathaniel, In quo non est dolus, In whom there is no deceit, any man should have been able to have said to Christ, Then Nathaniel is a better Israelite then you, for you pretend to offer salvation, where you mean it not. David hath joined those two words together, The words of their mouth, are Iniquity and Deceit; If there be Deceit, there is Iniquity too. Our Savior hath joined all these together, Adulteries, Murders, Blasphemies, and Deceit; where there is Deceit, all mischief is justly presumed. The Apostle S. Paul discharges himself of nothing with more earnestness then that, Have I deceived you? have I circumvented you with fraud? Neither doth he charge him, whom he calls, The child of the Devil, Elymas the sorcerer, farther then so, O plene omni dolo, That he was full of all Deceit. And therefore they that think to gild and enamell deceit, and falsehood, with the additions of good deceit, good falsehood, before they will make deceit good, will make God bad: For, even in the Law, an action De Dolo, will not lie against a Father, nor against a Master, and shall we emplead God De Dolo?
In the last foreign Synod, which our Divines assisted, with what a blessed sobriety, they delivered their sentence, That all men are truly, and in earnest called to eternal life, by God's Minister; And that whatsoever is promised or offered out of the Gospel by the Minister, is to the same men, and in the same manner promised and offered by the Author of the Gospel, by God himself. They knew whose breasts they had sucked; and that that Church, our Church had declared, That we must receive God's promises so, as they be generally set forth to us in the Scriptures; And that for our actions and manners, for our life and conversation, we follow that will of God, which is expressly declared to us in his Word: And that is, That conditional salvation is so far offered to every man, as that no man may preclude himself from a possibility of such a performance of those Conditions which God requires at his hands, as God will accept at his hands, if either he do sincerely endeavor the performing, or sincerely repent the not performing of them. For all this is fayrly implied in this proposition, Si quo minus, If it were not so, I would have told you; That all that is necessary to salvation, is comprehended in the Scriptures, which was our first branch; And then, That all that is in the Scriptures, is intended so as it is proposed, which was our second; And these two constitute our first part, The general Rule of Doctrines, and farther we enlarge not that part, but descend to the other, The particular Doctrine, which Christ gives to his Disciples, in the other Proposition, In domo patris, In my Fathers house there are many Mansions.
This second part, you may also be pleased to remember, derives it self into two branches; first to inquire, whether this proposition assist that Doctrine of Disparity and Degrees of Glory in the Saints in heaven; And then the right use which is to be made of the right sense of these words, In domo patris, In my Fathers house there are many Mansions. The occasion of the words will be the foundation of all; Our Savior Christ had said to his Disciples in the Chapter before, That he was to stay with them but a little while; That when he was gone, they should seek him, and not find him; And that whither he went, they could not follow: And when, upon that, Peter, who was always forwardest, and soonest scandalized, had pressed him with that question, Lord, whither goest thou? and received that answer, whither I go, thou canst not follow me now, but hereafter thou shalt follow me, lest the rest of the Disciples, who were troubled with that which was formerly said, should be more affected with this, to hear that Peter should come, whither none of them might, to establish them all, as well as Peter, he says to them all, in the first verse of this Chapter, Let not your hearts be troubled, for, (And here enters this proposition of our Text, for their general establishment) In my Fathers house are many Mansions. So that, that these are words of Consolation is certain, but whether the consolation be placed in the disparity, and difference of degrees of Glory in Heaven, or no, is not so certain.
That there are degrees of Glory in the Saints in heaven, scarce any ever denied. Heaven is a Kingdom, and Christ a King, and a popular parity agrees not with that State, with a Monarchy. Heaven is a Church, and Christ a High Priest, and such a parity agrees as ill with the Triumphant, as with the Militant Church. In the Primitive Church Iovinian denied this difference, and degrees of glory; and S. Jerome was so incensed, so inflamed for this, as if foundations had been shaken, and the common cause endangered. Indeed it was thus far the common cause, that all the Fathers followed this chase, (if we may use that Metaphor) and were never at a default: No one of the Fathers, whom I have observed to touch upon this point, did ever deny this difference of degrees of Glory. And therefore, as in the Primitive Church, when that one man Iovinian, came to deny it, S. Jerome was vehement upon him, so when in the Reformation, one man (for I never found more then that one, one Schoufeldius ) denies it too, I wonder the less, that another (of the Reformation also) grows somewhat sharp towards him.
We deny not then this difference of degrees of glory in Heaven; But that frame, and that scale of these degrees, which they have set up in the Roman Church, we do deny. We must continue, and return often to that complaint against them, That they shake and endanger things near foundations, by their enormous super-edifications, by their incommodious upper-buildings: That many things, which might be well enough accepted, and would be agreed by all, become justly suspicious, and really dangerous to the Church, by their manifold consequences which they super-induce upon them: That many things, which in the sincerity of their beginning, and institution, were pious, and conduced to the exaltation of Devotion, by their additions are become impious, and destroy Devotion so far, as to divert it upon a wrong object. In this point which we have in hand, it is so; In these degrees of glory in Heaven, That Church, which treads all sovereign Crowns in this world, under her feet, pretends to impart, and distribute Crowns in Heaven also of her own making: We find Coronam auream, a Crown of gold upon the head of that Son of Man, who is also the Son of God, Christ Jesus, in the Revelation. And we find Coronas aureas, particular Crowns of gold, upon the heads of all the Saints that stand about the Throne, in the same Book. And these Crowns upon the Saints are the emanations, and effluences of that Crown which is upon Christ; The glory of the Saints is the communication of his glory. But then, because in their Translation, in the vulgat Edition of the Roman Church, they find in Exodus that word Aureolam, Facies Coronam aureolam, Thou shalt make a lesser Crown of gold; out of this diminutive, and mistaken word, they have established a Doctrine, that besides those Coronae aureae, Those Crowns of gold, which are communicated to all the Saints from the Crown of Christ, some Saints have made to themselves, and produced out of their own extraordinary merits certain Aureolas, certain lesser Crowns of their own, whereas indeed the word in the Original in that place of Exodus is Zer zehab, which is a Crown of gold, without any intimation of any such lesser crowns growing out of themselves. This then is their new Alchymy; that whereas old Alchemists pretend to make gold of courser Metals, these will make it of Nothing; Out of a supposititious word, which is not in the Text, they have hammered and beat out these Aureolas, these lesser crowns. And these Aureolaes they ascribe only to three sorts of persons, to Virgins, to Martyrs, to Doctors.
Are then all the other Saints without Crowns? They must make shift with that beam which they have from the Crown of Christ; for, for these additional crowns proceeding from themselves, they have none. And yet, say they, there are Saints which have some additions growing out of themselves, though not Aureolas, little crowns, and those they call Fructus, peculiar fruits growing out of themselves; And for these fruits they distrain upon that place of Matthew, where Christ saith, That some brought forth fruit a hundred fold, some sixty, and some thirty; And the greater measure they ascribe to Virgins, the sixty to Widows, and the thirty to Maried persons, but only such married persons, as have lived continently in marriage. So then, to make this Riddle of theirs as plain as the matter will admit, They place salvation it self, Blessedness it self, (if a man will be content with that.) in that union with God, which is common to all the Saints: But then they conceive certain Dotes, as they call them, certain dispositions in this life, by which some have made themselves fitter to be united to God, in a nearer distance then an ordinary Saint; And these Dotes, these endowments, and dispositions here, produce those Aureolas, and those Fructus, those lesser crowns, and those measures of fruits, which are a particular Joy, not that they are united to God, (for so every Saint is) but that they had those Dotes, those dispositions to take that particular way of being united to God, The way of Virginity, the way of Martydome, and the way of Preaching; for by this, they become Sancti Majores, as they call them, Saints in favor, Saints in office, and fitter to receive our petitions, and mediate between God and us, then those whom they call Mediocres, and Inferiores, Saints of a middle form, or of an inferior rank. Yet these are so far provided for, by them too, that we must pray also to these Inferior Saints, either because I may have had a more particular interest in this life in that Saint, then in a greater, and so the readiness, and the assiduity of that Saint may recompense his want of power, Or else, Ad tollendum fastidium, lest a great Saint should grow weary of me, if I trouble him every day, and for every trifle in heaven; And some other such reasons, it pleases them to assign, why though some Saints have more power with God then others, yet we are bound to pray to all.
And thus they play with Divinity, as though after they had troubled all States with political Divinity, with their Bulls, and Breves of Rebus sic stantibus, That as long as things stood thus, this should be Catholic Doctrine, and otherwise, when otherwise, And in this political Divinity, Machiavel is their Pope; And after they had perplexed understandings with Philosophical Divinity in the School, and in that Divinity, Aristotle is their Pope; They thought themselves in courtesy, or conscience bound, to recreate the world with Poetical Divinity, with such a Heaven, and such a Hell as would stand in their Verses, and in this Divinity, Virgil is their Pope. And so, as Melancthon said, when he furthered the Edition of the Alcoran, that he would have it printed, Vt videamus quale poema sit, That the world might see what a piece of Poetry the Alcoran was; So I have stopped upon this point, that you might see what a piece of Poetry they have made of this Problematicall point of Divinity, The disparity, and degrees of Glory in the Saints in Heaven.
Be this then thus settled; In the matter, The difference of degrees of Glory, we will not differ; In the manner, we would not differ so, as to induce a Schism, if they would handle such points Problematically, and no farther. But when upon matter of fact they will induce matter of faith, when they will extend Problematicall Divinity to Dogmatical, when they will argue and conclude thus, It may be thus, therefore it must be thus, A man may be saved, though he believe this, therefore he cannot be saved except he believe this, when (in this point in hand) out of our acknowledgement of these degrees of Glory in the Saints they will establish the Doctrine of Merits, and of Invocation of Saints, then we must necessarily call them to the Rule of all Doctrines, the Scriptures. When they tell us Historically, and upon a Historical Obligation, and for a Historical certitude, that Peter was at Rome, and that he was Bishop of Rome, we are not so froward as to deny them that: But when upon his Historical and personal being at Rome, they will build that mother Article, of an universal Supremacy over all the Church, then we must necessarily call them to the Rule, to the Scriptures, and to require them to prove both his being there, and his being Bishop there, by the Scriptures, and either of these would trouble them; As it would trouble them, in our present case, to assign evident places of Scripture, for these degrees of Glory in the Saints of Heaven. For though we be far from denying the Consentaneum est, That it is reasonable it should be, and likely it is so, and far from denying the Pie creditor, That it may advance Devotion, and exalt Industry to believe that it is so, Though we acknowledge a possibility, a probability, a very similitude, a very truth, and thus far a necessary truth, that our endeavors may flag and slacken, except we do embrace that help, that there are degrees of Glory in Heaven, yet if we shall press for places of Scriptures, so evident, as must constitute an Article of faith, there are perchance none to be found, to which very learned, and very reverend Expositors have not given convenient Interpretations, without inducing any such necessity.
At least, however other places of Scripture may seem to contribute more, this proposition of our text, In my Fathers house are many mansions (though it have been applied to the proof of that) hath no inclination, no inclinablenesse that way. For in this text, our Savior applies himself to his Disciples, in that wherein they needed comfort, That Christ would go away, That they might not go too, That Peter had got a Non-obstante, He might, and they might not, and Christ gives them that comfort, that all might, In my Fathers house are many mansions. When the Apostle presents a great part of our Christian Religion together, so as that he calls it a Mystery, and a great mystery, yet he calls it a mystery without controversy; Without controversy great is the mystery of God manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, preached to the Gentiles, believed in the world, received into glory. When he presents matter of consolation, he would have it without controversy; To establish a disconsolate soul, there is always Divinity enough, that was never drawn into Controversy. I would pray? I find the Spirit of God to dispose my heart, and my tongue, and mine eyes, and hands, and knees to pray; Do I doubt to whom I should pray? To God, or to the Saints? That prayer to God alone was sufficient, was never drawn into controversy. I would have something to rely and settle and establish my assurance upon; Do I doubt whether upon Christ, or mine own, or others merits? That to rely upon Christ alone was sufficient, was never drawn into Controversy. At this time, Christ disposed himself to comfort his Disciples in that wherein they needed comfort; now their discomfort, and their fear lay not in this, whether there were different degrees of glory in Heaven, but their fear was, that Christ being gone, and having taken Peter, and none but him, there should be no room for them, and thereupon Christ says, Let not that trouble you, for, In my Fathers house are many mansions. And so we have done with the former branch of this last part, That it is piously done to believe these degrees of glory in Heaven; That they have inconsiderately extended this problem in the Roman Church, That no Scriptures are so evident as to induce a necessity in it, That this Scripture conduces not at all to it; and therefore we pass to our last Consideration, The right use of the right sense of these words.
First then, Christ proposes in these words Consolation; A work, then which none is more divine, nor more proper to God, nor to those instruments, whom he sends to work upon the souls and consciences of others. Who but myself can conceive the sweetness of that salutation, when the Spirit of God says to me in a morning, Go forth today and preach, and preach consolation, preach peace, preach mercy, And spare my people, spare that people whom I have redeemed with my precious Blood, and be not angry with them forever; Do not wound them, do not grind them, do not astonish them with the bitterness, with the heaviness, with the sharpness, with the consternation of my judgments. David proposes to himself, that he would Sing of mercy, and of judgment; but it is of mercy first; and not of judgment at all, otherwise then it will come into a song, as joy and consolation is compatible with it. It hath fallen into disputation, and admitted argument, whether ever God inflicted punishments by his good Angels; But that the good Angels, the ministerial Angels of the Church, are properly his instruments, for conveying mercy, peace, consolation, never fell into question, never admitted opposition.
How heartily God seems to utter, and how delightfully to insist upon that, which he says in Isaiah, Consolamini, consolamini populum meum, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, And Loquimini ad cor, Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and tell her, Thine iniquities are pardoned? How glad Christ seems that he had it for him, when he gives the sick man that comfort, Fili confide, My son be of good comfort, thy sins are forgiven thee? What a Coronation is our taking of Orders, by which God makes us a Royal Priesthood? And what an inthronization is the coming up into a Pulpit, where God invests his servants with his Ordinance, as with a Cloud, and then presses that Cloud with a Vaesi non, woe be unto thee, if thou do not preach, and then enables him to preach peace, mercy, consolation, to the whole Congregation. That God should appear in a Cloud, upon the Mercy Seat, as he promises Moses he will do, That from so poor a man as stands here, wrapped up in clouds of infirmity, and in clouds of iniquity, God should drop, rain, pour down his dew, and sweeten that dew with his honey, and crust that honeyed dew into Manna, and multiply that Manna into Gomers, and fill those Gomers every day, and give every particular man his Gomer, give every soul in the Congregation, consolation by me; That when I call to God for grace here, God should give me grace for grace, Grace in a power to derive grace upon others, and that this Oil, this Balsamum should flow to the hem of the garment, even upon them that stand under me; That when mine eyes look up to Heaven, the eyes of all should look up upon me, and God should open my mouth, to give them meat in due season; That I should not only be able to say, as Christ said to that poor soul, Confide fili, My son be of good comfort, but Fratres & Patres mei, My Brethren, and my Fathers, nay Domini mei, and Rex meus, My Lord's, and my King be of good comfort, your sins are forgiven you; That God should seal to me that Patent, Ite predicate omni Creaturae, Go and preach the Gospel to every Creature, be that creature what he will, That if God lead me into a Congregation, as into his Ark, where there are but eight souls, but a few disposed to a sense of his mercies, and all the rest (as in the Ark) ignobler creatures, and of brutall natures and affections, That if I find a licentious Goat, a supplanting Fox, an usurious Wolf, an ambitious Lion, yet to that creature, to every creature I should preach the Gospel of peace and consolation, and offer these creatures a Metamorphosis, a transformation, a new Creation in Christ Jesus, and thereby make my Goat, and my Fox, and my Wolf, and my Lion, to become Semen Dei, The seed of God, and Filium Dei, The child of God, and Participem Divinae Naturae, Partaker of the Divine Nature it self; This is that which Christ is essentially in himself, This is that which ministerially and instrumentally he hath committed to me, to shed his consolation upon you, upon you all; Not as his Almoner to drop his consolation upon one soul, nor as his Treasurer to issue his consolation to a whole Congregation, but as his Ophir, as his Indies, to derive his gold, his precious consolation upon the King himself.
What would a good Judge, a good natured Judge give in his Circuit, what would you, in whose breasts the Judgments of the Star-chamber, or other criminal Courts are, give, that you had a warrant from the King, to change the sentence of blood into a pardon, where you found a Delinquent penitent? How rufully do we hear the Prophets groan under that Onus visions, which they repeat so often, O the burden of my vision upon Judah, or upon Moab, or Damascus, or Babylon, or any place? Which is not only that that judgment would be a heavy burden upon that place, but that it was a heavy burden to them to denounce that judgment, even upon God's enemies. Our errand, our joy, our Crown is Consolation: for, if we consider the three Persons of the holy, blessed and glorious Trinity, and their working upon us, a third part of their work (if we may so speak) is consolation; the Father is Power, the Son Wisdom, and the Holy Ghost Consolation: for the Holy Ghost is not in a Vulture, that hovers over Armies, and infected Cities, and feeds upon carcasses, But the Holy Ghost is in a Dove, that would not make a Congregation a slaughter-house, but feeds upon corn, corn that hath in nature a disposition to a reviviscence, and a repullulation, and would imprint in you all, the consolation and sense of a possibility of returning to a new, and a better life. God found me nothing, and of that nothing made me; Adam left me worse then God found me, worse then nothing, the child of wrath, corrupted with the leaven of Original sin; Christ Jesus found me worse then Adam left me, not only soured with Original, but spotted, and gangrened, and dead, and buried, and putrefied in actual and habitual sins, and yet in that state redeemed me; And I make myself worse then Christ found me, and in an inordinate dejection of spirit, conceive a jealousy and suspicion, that his merit concerns not me, that his blood extends not to my sin; And in this last and worst state, the Holy Ghost finds me, the Spirit of Consolation, And he sends a Barnabas, a son of Consolation unto me, A Barnabas to my sick bed side, A Physician that comforts with hopes, and means of health, A Barnabas to my broken fortune, A potent and a loving friend, that assists the reparation, and the establishing of my state, A Barnabas into the Pulpit, that restores and rectifies my conscience, and scatters, and dispels all those clouds that invested it, and infested it before. That un-imaginable work of the Creation were not ready for a Sabbath, though I be a Creature, and a man, I could have no Sabbath, no rest, no peace of conscience; That un-expressible work of the Redemption were not ready for that Seal, which our Savior set to it upon the Cross, in the Consummatum est; All were not finished that concerned me, if the Holy Ghost were not ready to deliver that which Christ sealed, and to witness that which were so delivered, that that Spirit might ever testify to my spirit, That all that Christ Jesus said, and did, and suffered, was said, and done, and suffered for my soul. Consolation is not all, if we consider God, but if I consider myself, and my state, Consolation is all.
Christ's meaning then in this place, was to establish in his Disciples this Consolation; but thus, Si quo minus, If it were not thus, I would tell you; If this were not true consolation, I would not delude you, I would not entertain you with false: for he is Deus omnium miserationum, The God of all mercies, and yet he will not show mercy to them, who sin upon presumption; So he is Deus omnium Consolationum, The God of all Comforts, and yet will not comfort them, who rely upon the false, and miserable comforts of this world. How many, how very many of us do otherwise? Otherwise to others, otherwise to our own Consciences? Delude all with false Comforts? They would not suffer Christ himself to sleep upon a pillow in a storm, but they waked him with that, Master, carest not thou, though we perish? When will we wake any Master, any upon whom we depend, and say, Master, carest not thou, though thou perish? We suffer others, whom we should instruct, and we suffer ourselves to pass on to the last gasp, and we never rebuke our Consciences, till our Consciences rebuke us at last, Alas, it is otherwise, and you never told us.
Christ comforts then, he disputes not, that is not his way; He ministers true comfort, he flatters not, that is not his way; And in this true comfort, the first beam is, That that state which he promises them is a House, In my Fathers House, &c. God hath a progress house, a removing house here upon earth, His house of prayer; At this hour, God enters into as many of these houses, as are opened for his service at this hour: But his standing house, his house of glory, is that in Heaven, and that he promises them. God himself dwelt in Tents in this world, and he gives them a House in Heaven. A House, in the design and survey whereof, the Holy Ghost himself is figurative, the Fathers wanton, and the School-men wild. The Holy Ghost, in describing this House, fills our contemplation with foundations, and walls, and gates, of gold, of precious stones, and all materials, that we can call precious. The Holy Ghost is figurative; And the Fathers are wanton in their spiritual elegancies, such as that of S. Augustine's, (if that book be his) Hiems horrens, Aestas torrens, And, Virent prata, vernant sata, and such other harmonious, and melodious, and mellifluous cadences of these waters of life. But the School-men are wild; for as one Author, who is afraid of admitting too great a hollowness in the Earth, lest then the Earth might not be said to be solid, pronounces that Hell cannot possibly be above three thousand miles in compass, (and then one of the torments of Hell will be the throng, for their bodies must be there, in their dimensions, as well as their souls) so when the School-men come to measure this house in heaven, (as they will measure it, and the Master, God, and all his Attributes, and tell us how Almighty, and how Infinite he is) they pronounce, that every soul in that house shall have more room to it self, then all this world is. We know not that; nor see we that the consolation lies in that; we rest in this, that it is a House, It hath a foundation, no Earth-quake shall shake it, It hath walls, no Artillery shall batter it, It hath a roof, no tempest shall pierce it. It is a house that affords security, and that is one beam; And it is Domus patris, His Fathers house, a house in which he hath interest, and that is another beam of his Consolation.
It was his Fathers, and so his; And his, and so ours; for we are not joint purchasers of Heaven with the Saints, but we are co-heirs with Christ Jesus. We have not a place there, because they have done more then enough for themselves, but because he hath done enough for them and us too. By death we are gathered to our Fathers in nature; and by death, through his mercy, gathered to his Father also. Where we shall have a full satisfaction, in that wherein S. Philip placed all satisfaction, Ostende nobis patrem, Lord, show us thy Father, and it is enough. We shall see his Father, and see him made ours in him.
And then a third beam of this Consolation is, That in this house of his Fathers, thus by him made ours, there are Mansions; In which word, the Consolation is not placed, (I do not say, that there is not truth in it) but the Consolation is not placed in this, That some of these Mansions are below, some above stairs, some better seated, better lighted, better vaulted, better fretted, better furnished then others; but only in this, That they are Mansions; which word, in the Original, and Latin, and our Language, signifies a Remaining, and denotes the perpetuity, the everlastingness of that state. A state but of one Day, because no Night shall over-take, or determine it, but such a Day, as is not of a thousand years, which is the longest measure in the Scriptures, but of a thousand millions of millions of generations: Qui nec praeceditur hesterno, nec excluditur crastino, A day that hath no pridie, nor postridie, yesterday doth not usher it in, nor tomorrow shall not drive it out. Methuselah, with all his hundreds of years, was but a Mushrome of a nights growth, to this day, And all the four Monarchies, with all their thousands of years, And all the powerful Kings, and all the beautiful Queens of this world, were but as a bed of flowers, some gathered at six, some at seven, some at eight, All in one Morning, in respect of this Day. In all the two thousand years of Nature, before the Law given by Moses, And the two thousand years of Law, before the Gospel given by Christ, And the two thousand of Grace, which are running now, (of which last hour we have heard three quarters strike, more then fifteen hundred of this last two thousand spent) In all this six thousand, and in all those, which God may be pleased to add, In domo patris, In this House of his Fathers, there was never heard quarter clock to strike, never seen minute glass to turn. No time less then it self would serve to express this time, which is intended in this word Mansions; which is also exalted with another beam, that they are Multa, In my Fathers House there are many Mansions.
In this Circumstance, an Essentiall, a Substantial Circumstance, we would consider the joy of our society, and conversation in heaven, since society and conversation is one great element and ingredient into the joy, which we have in this world. We shall have an association with Christ himself; for where he is, it is his promise, that we also shall be. We shall have an association with the Angels, and such a one, as we shall be such as they. We shall have an association with the Saints, and not only so, to be such as they, but to be they: And with all who come from the East, and from the West, and from the North, and from the South, and sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Where we shall be so far from being enemies to one another, as that we shall not be strangers to one another: And so far from envying one another, as that all that everyone hath, shall be every others possession: where all souls shall be so entirely knit together, as if all were but one soul, and God so entirely knit to every soul, as if there were as many God's as souls.
Be comforted then, says Christ to them, for This, which is a House, and not a Ship, not subject to storms by the way, nor wrecks in the end, My Fathers House, not a strangers, in whom I had no interest, A House of Mansions, a dwelling, not a sojourning, And of many Mansions not an Abridgement, a Model of a House, not a Monastery of many Cells, but an extension of many Houses, into the City of the living God, This house shall be yours, though I depart from you. Christ is nearer us, when we behold him with the eyes of faith in Heaven, then when we seek him in a piece of bread, or in a sacramental box here. Drive him not away from thee, by wrangling and disputing how he is present with thee; unnecessary doubts of his presence may induce fearful assurances of his absence: The best determination of the Real presence is to be sure, that thou be really present with him, by an ascending faith: Make sure thine own Real presence, and doubt not of his: Thou art not the farther from him, by his being gone thither before thee.
No, nor though Peter be gone thither before thee neither, which was the other point, in which the Apostles needed consolation; They were troubled that Christ would go, and none of them, and troubled that Peter might go, and none but he. What men soever God take into heaven before thee, though thy Father that should give thee thy education, though thy Pastor that should give thee thy instruction, though these men may be such in the state, and such in the Church, as thou mayest think the Church and state cannot subsist without them, Discourage not thyself, neither admit a jealousy or suspicion of the providence and good purpose of God; for, as God hath his panier full of Manna, and of Quails, and can pour out tomorrow, though he have poured them out plentifully upon his friends before; so God hath his Quiver full of arrows, and can shoot as powerfully, as heretofore, upon his Enemies. I forbid thee not S. Paul's wish, Cupio dissolvi, To desire to be dissolved, therefore, that thou mayest be with Christ; I forbid thee not David's sigh, Hei mihi, Woe is me that I must dwell so long with them that love not peace! I only enjoin thee thy Savior's Veruntamen, Yet not mine, but thy will, O Father, be done; That all thy wishes may have relation to his purposes, and all thy prayers may be inanimated with that, Lord manifest thy will unto me, and conform my will unto thine. So shalt thou not be affrighted, as though God aimed at thee, when he shoots about the mark, and thou seest a thousand fall at thy right hand, and ten thousand at thy left; Nor discouraged as though God had left out thee, when thou seest him take others into garrison, and leave thee in the field, assume others to Triumph, and leave thee in the Battle still. For as Christ Jesus would have come down from heaven, to have died for thee, though there had been no soul to have been saved but thine; So is he gone up to heaven, to prepare a place for thee, though all the souls in this world were to be saved as well as thine. Trouble not thyself with dignity, and priority, and precedency in Heaven, for Consolation and Devotion consist not in that, and thou wilt be the less troubled with dignity, and priority, and precedency in this world, for Rest and Quietnesse consist not in that.
SERM. LXXIV. Preached at White-hall, the 30. April 1620
PSAL. 144.15.
Being the first Psalm for the day.
Blessed are the People that be so; Yea blessed are the People, whose God is the Lord.
T He first part of this Text hath relation to temporal blessings, Blessed is the people that be so: The second part to spiritual, Yea blessed is the people, whose God is the Lord. His left hand is under my head, saith the Spouse; That sustains me from falling into murmuring, or diffidence of his Providence, because out of his left hand he hath given me a competency of his temporal blessings; But his right hand doth embrace me, saith the Spouse there; His spiritual blessings fill me, possess me, so that no rebellious fire breaks out within me, no outward temptation breaks in upon me. So also says Solomon again, In her left hand is riches and glory, (temporal blessings) and in her right hand length of days, all that accomplishes and fulfils the eternal joys of the Saints of heaven. The person to whom Solomon attributes this right and left hand is Wisdom; And a wise man may reach out his right and left hand, to receive the blessings of both sorts. And the person whom Solomon represents by Wisdom there, is Christ himself. So that not only a worldly wiseman, but a Christian wiseman may reach out both hands, to both kinds of blessings, right and left, spiritual and temporal. And therefore, Interrogo vos, filios regni coelorum, saith S. Augustine, Let me ask you, who are sons and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven, Progeniem Resurrectionis in aeternum, You that are the offspring of the Resurrection of Christ Jesus, and have your resurrection in his, Membra Christi, Templa Spiritus Sancti, You that are the very body of Christ, you that are the very temples of the Holy Ghost, Interrogo vos, Let me ask you, for all your great reversion hereafter, for all that present possession which you have of it, in an apprehensive faith, and in a holy conversation in this life, for all that blessedness, Non est isba saelicitas? Is there not a blessedness in enjoying God's temporal blessings here too? Sit licet, sed sinistra, saith that Father; It is certainly a blessedness, but a left handed blessedness, a weaker, a more imperfect blessedness, then spiritual blessings are.
As then there is dextra, and sinistrabeatitudo, a right handed, and a left handed blessedness in the Text: so there is dextra and sinistra Interpretatio, a right and a left Exposition of the Text. And as both these blessednesses, temporal and spiritual, are seals and testimonies of God's love, though not both of equal strength, and equal evidence; so both the Interpretations of these words are useful for our edification, though they be not both of equal authority. That which we call Sinistram Interpreiationem, is that sense of these words, which arises from the first Translators of the Bible, the Septuagint, and those Fathers which followed them; which, though it be not an ill way, is not the best, because it is not according to the letter; and then, that which we call Dextram Interpretationem, is that sense which arises pregnantly, and evidently, liquidly, and manifestly out of the Original Text it self.
The Authors and followers of the first sense read not these words as we do, Beatus populus, That people is blessed, but Beatum dixerunt populum, That people was esteemed blessed; and so they refer this and all the temporal blessings mentioned in the three former Verses to a popular error, to a general mistaking, to the opinions, and words of wicked and worldly men, that only they desire these temporal things, only they taste a sweetness, and apprehend a blessedness in them; whereas they who have truly their conversation in heaven, are swallowed up with the contemplation of that blessedness, without any reflection upon earth or earthly things. But the Author of the second sense, which is God himself, and his direct word, presents it thus, Beatus populus, That people is truly blessed, there is a true blessedness in temporal things; but yet, this is but sinistra beatitudo, a less perfect blessedness; For the followers of both Interpretations, and all Translators, and all Expositors meet in this, That the perfect, the accomplishing, the consummatory blessedness is only in this, That our God be the Lord.
First then, to make our best use of the first sense, That temporal things conduce not at all to blessedness, S. Cyprians wonder is just, Deum nobis solis contentum esse, nobis non sufficere Deum; That God should think man enough for him, and man should not be satisfied with God; That God should be content with Fili da mihi cor, My son give me thy heart, and man should not be content with Pater da mihi Spiritum, My God, my Father, grant me thy Spirit, but must have temporal additions too. Non est castum cor, saith S. Augustine, si Deum ad mercedem colit; as he saith in another place, Non est castauxor, quae amat quia dives, She is never the honester woman, nor the lovinger wife, that loves her husband in contemplation of her future jointure, or in fruition of her present abundancies; so he says here, Nonest castum cor, That man hath not a chaste, a sincere heart towards God, that loves him by the measure end proportion of his temporal blessings. The Devil had so much color for that argument, that in prosperity there can be no trial, whether a man love God or no, as that he presses it even to God himself, in Job's case: Doth Job serve God for naught? hast not thou hedged him in, and blessed the works of his hands, and increased his substance? How canst thou tell whether he will love thee, or fear thee, if thou shouldst take away all this from him? thou hast had no trial yet. And this argument descended from that father to his children, from the Devil there, to those followers of his whom the Prophet Malachi reprehends for saying, It is in vain to serve God, for what profit is it, that we have kept his commandments? When men are willing to prefer their friends, we hear them often give these testimonies of a man; He hath good parts, and you need not be ashamed to speak for him; he hath money in his purse, and you need not be sorry to speak for him; he understands the world, he knows how things pass, and he hath a discreet, a supple, and an appliable disposition, and he may make a fit instrument for all your purposes, and you need not be afraid to speak for him. But whoever casts into this scale and valuation of a man, that weight, that he hath a religious heart, that he fears God? what profit is there in that, if we consider this world only?
But what profits it a man, if he get all the world, and lose his own soul? And therefore that opinion, That there was no profit at all, no degree towards blessedness in those temporal things, prevailed so far, as that it is easy to observe in their Expositions upon the Lord's Prayer, that the greatest part of the Fathers do ever interpret that Petition, Da nobis hodie, Give us this day our daily bread, to be intended only of spiritual blessings, and not of temporal; So S. Jerome saith, when we ask that bread, Illum petimus, qui panis vivus est, & descendit de coelo; we make our petition for him, who is the bread of life, and descended from the bosom of the Father; and so he refers it to Christ, and in him, to the whole mystery of our Redemption. And Athanasius and S. Augustine too (and not they two alone) refer it to the Sacramental bread; That in that Petition, we desire such an application of the bread of life, as we have in the participation of the body and blood of Christ Jesus in that Communion. S. Cyprian insists upon the word Nostrum, Our bread; For, saith he, temporal blessings cannot properly be called Ours, because they are common to the Saints, and to the reprobates; but in a prayer ordained by Christ for the faithful, the petition is for such things as are proper, and peculiar to the faithful, and that is for spiritual blessings only. If any man shall say, Ideo quaerenda, quia necessaria, We must pray, and we must labor for temporal things, because they are necessary for us, we cannot be without them, Ideo non quaerenda quia necessaria, says S. Chrysostom, so much of them, as is necessary for our best state, God will give us, without this laborious anxiety, and without eating the bread of sorrow in this life, Non speran dum de superfluis, non desperandum de necessariis, says the same Father; It is a suspicious thing to doubt or distrust God in necessary things, and it is an unmannerly thing to press him in superfluous things. They are not necessary before, and they are not ours after: for those things only are ours, which nobody can take from us: and for temporal thing, Auferre potest inimicus homo, invito: Let the inimicus homo be the devil, and remember Job's case, Let the inimicus homo be any envious and powerful man, who hath a mind to that that thou hast, and remember Naboth's case, and this envious man can take any temporal thing from thee against thy will. But spiritual blessings cannot be taken so, Fidem nemo perdidit, nisi qui spreverit, says S. Augustine, No man ever lost his faith, but he that thought it not worth the keeping.
But for Job's temporal estate says S. Augustine, all was lost. And lest any man should say, Vxor relicta erat, Job had not lost all, because his Wife was left, Misericordem putatis diabolum, says that Father, qui ei reliquit Vxorem? do you think that Job lighted upon a merciful and good natured devil, that the devil did this out of pity and compassion to Job, or that Job was beholding to the devil for this, that he left him his Wife? Noverat per quam deceperat Adam, says he, The devil knew by what instrument he had deceived the first man, and by the same instrument he practices upon Job; Suam reliquit adjutricem, non mariti consolatricem, He left Job a helper, but a helper for his own ends, but for her Husband a miserable comforter. Caro conjux, says the same Father in another place, This flesh, this sensual part of ours, is our wife: and when these temporal things by any occasion are taken from us, that wife, that flesh, that sensuality is left to murmur and repine at God's corrections, and that is all the benefit we have by that wife, and all the portion we have with that wife.
Though therefore S. Jerome, who understood the Original Language, the best of his time, in his Translation of the Psalms, do give the true, the right sense of this place, yet in his own Commentaries upon the Psalms, he takes this first sense, and beats upon that doctrine, that it is but a popular error, a general mistaking, to make worldly blessings any degree of happiness: he saw so good use of that doctrine, as that he would not see the right interpretation of the words: he saw well enough, that according to the letter of the text, temporal things were blessings, yet because they were but left-handed blessings, remembering the story in the book of Judges, of 700. left-handed Benjamites, that would sling stones at a hairs breadth, and were better mark-men then the right-handed, and considering the left-handed men of this world, those who pursue temporal blessings only, went with most earnestness, and best success to their works, to correct that general distemper, that general vehemence upon temporal things, S. Jerome, and so many of the Fathers as accompany him in that interpretation, were content to embrace that sense, which is not truly the literal sense of this place, that it should be only Beatum dixerint, and not Beatus populus, a popular error, and not a truth, that any man, for any people, were blessed in temporal things; and so we have done with the first sense of these words, and the reason why so many follow it.
We are come now to the second Interpretation: where there is not Beatitudo falsa and vera, for both are true, but there is dextra and sinistra, a right-handed and left-handed blessedness; there is Inchoativa and perfectiva, there is an introductory, and a consummatory blessedness: and in the first of these, in the left-handed, in the less perfect blessedness, we must consider three things. First, Beatitudinem ipsam, That there is a blessedness proposed: and secondly, In quibus, in what that blessedness is placed in this text, Quibus sic, blessed are they that are so, that is, so, as is mentioned in the three former verses: and thirdly, another In quibus, not in what things, but in what persons this first blessedness is placed, Beatus populus, It is when all the people, the whole body, and not some ranks of men, nor some particular men in those ranks, but when all the people participate of these blessings.
Now first, for this first blessedness, As no Philosophers could ever tell us amongst the Gentiles, what true blessedness was, so no Grammarian amongst the Jews, amongst the Hebrews, could ever tell us, what the right signification of this word is, in which David expresses blessedness here; whether Asherei, which is the word, be a plural Noun, and signify Beatitudines, Blessednesses in the plural, and intimate thus much, that blessedness consists not in any one thing, but in a harmony and consent of many; or whether this Asherei be an Adverb, and signify beat, and so be an acclamation, O how happily, how blessedly are such men provided for that are so; they cannot tell. Whatsoever it be, it is the very first word, with which David begins his book of Psalms; Beatus vir: as the last word of that book is, Laudate Dominum; to show, that all that passes between God and man, from first to last, is blessings from God to man, and praises from man to God; and that the first degree of blessedness is, to find the print of the hand of God, even in his temporal blessedness, and to praise and glorify him for them, in the right use of them.
A man that hath no land to hold by it, nor title to recover by it, is never the better, for finding, or buying, or having a fair piece of evidence, a fair instrument, fairly written, duly sealed, authentically testified; A man that hath not the grace of God, and spiritual blessings too, is never the nearer happiness, for all his abundances of temporal blessedness. Evidences are evidences to them who have title. Temporal blessings are evidences to them, who have a testimony of God's spiritual blessings in the temporal. Otherwise as in his hands, who hath no Title, it is a suspicious thing to find evidences, and he will be thought to have embeazeled and purloined them, he will be thought to have forged and counterfaited them, and he will be called to an account for them, how he came to them, and what he meant to do with them: so to them, who have temporal blessings without spiritual, they are but useless blessings, they are but counterfeit blessings, they shall not purchase a minutes peace of conscience here, nor a minutes refreshing to the soul hereafter; and there must be a heavy account made for them, both how they were got, and how they were employed.
But when a man hath a good title to Heaven, then these are good evidences: for, Godliness hath a promise of the life to come, and of the life that now is; and if we spend anything in maintenance of that title, give, or lose anything for his glory and making sure this salvation, We shall inherit everlasting life, says the best surety in the world; but we shall not stay so long for our bill of charge, we shall have A hundred fold in this life. S. Augustine seems loath to take Christ at that large word, he seems to think it too great usury, to take a hundred fold for that which we have laid out for Christ: And therefore he reads that place, Accipiet septies tantum, He shall receive seven times as much, in this life. But in both the Evangelists, Matthew and Mark, the overflowing bounty and retribution of God is so expressed, Centuplum accipiet. God repaired Job so, as he had been impaired; God recompensed him in specie, in the same kind as he had been damnified. And Christ testifies of himself, that his coming to us is not only, Vt vitam habeatis, sed habeatis abundantiùs; More abundantly; that is, as diverse of the Fathers interpret it, that you might have eternal life sealed to you, in the prosperity and abundancies of this life. I am the door, says Christ, in the same Chapter: we must not think to fly over walls, by sudden and undeserved preferments, nor to sap and undermine, and supplant others; we must enter at that door, by fair and Christian means: And then, By me if any man enter, says Christ there, he shall be saved; there is a rich and blessed inheritance; but before he come to that salvation, He shall go in and out, and find pasture, says that text. Now, in Heaven there is no going in and out; but in his way to Heaven, in this life, he shall find his interest in the next, conveyed and sealed to him in temporal blessings here.
If Plato found and acknowledged a happiness in that, Quod natus homo, that he was borne a man, and not a beast, ( Lactantius adds in Plato's behalf, when he cites that place out of him, Quod natus vir, that he was borne a man and not a woman) if he found a farther happiness, Quod Graecus, that he was borne a Grecian, and not a Barbarian; quod Atheniensis, that he was borne in the Town which was the receptacle, and dwelling of all wisdom; and quod tempore Socratis, and that he was borne in Socrates his time, that so he might have a good example, as well as a good rule for his life: As all we owe to God an acknowledgement of blessedness, that we are borne in a Christian Church, in a Reformed Church, in a Monarchy, in a Monarchy composed of Monarchies, and in the time of such a Monarch, as is a Peace-maker, and a peace-preserver both at home and abroad; so let all them who are borne of Nobility, or borne up to Nobility upon the two fair wings of merit and of favor, all that are borne to riches, and born up and born out by their riches, all whom their industry, and wisdom, and usefulness to the State, hath or may any way prefer, take heed of separating the Author and the means; of separating God and the King, in the ways of favor; of separating God and their riches, in the ways of purchase; of separating God and their wisdom, in the ways of preferment; but let them always discern, and always acknowledge, the hand of God, the Author, in directing and prospering the hand of his instrument in all these temporal things, and then, these temporal things are truly blessings unto them, and they are truly blessed in them.
This was our first Consideration, our first branch in this part, that temporal things were seals and testimonies of blessedness; The second is, to what particular evidence this seals is annexed in this text, upon what things this blessedness is placed here; which are all involved in this one little particle, this monasyllable So, Blessed are they that are so; that is, so, as a prayer is made in the three former verses, that they might be. Now as the maledictions which were threatened to David, were presented to him by the Prophet in three forms, of war, of famine, of pestilence; so these blessings which are comprised in those three verses, may well be reduced to three things contrary to those three maledictions; To the blessing of peace, contrary to David's war, That there may be no invasion; To the blessing of plenty, contrary to David's famine, That our barns may abound with all sorts of Corn; To the blessing of health, contrary to David's destroying sickness, That our sons may grow up as plants in their youth.
For the first temporal blessing of peace, we may consider the loveliness, the amiableness of that, if we look upon the horror and gastlinesse of war: either in Effigie, in that picture of war, which is drawn in every leaf of our own Chronicles, in the blood of so many Princes, and noble families, or if we look upon war it self, at that distance where it cannot hurt us, as God had formerly kindled it amongst our neighbors, and as he hath transferred it now to remoter Nations, whilst we enjoy yet a Goshen in the midst of all those Egypt's. In all Cities, disorderly and facinorous men, covet to draw themselves into the skirts and suburbs of those Cities, that so they may be the nearer the spoil, which they make upon passengers. In all Kingdoms that border upon other Kingdoms, and in Islands which have no other border but the Sea, particular men, who by dwelling in those skirts and borders, may make their profit of spoil, delight in hostility, and have an adversenesse and detestation of peace: but it is not so within: they who till the earth, and breed up cattle, and employ their industry upon God's creatures, according to God's ordinance, feel the benefit and apprehend the sweetness, and pray for the continuance of peace.
This is the blessing, in which God so very very often expresses his gracious purpose upon his people, that he would give them peace; and peace with plenty; O that my people had hearkened unto me! says God, I would soon have humbled their enemies, (there is their peace) And I would have fed them with the fat of wheat, and with the honey out of the Rock, and there is their plenty. Persons who are preferred for service in the war, prove often suspicious to the Prince. Joab's confidence in his own merit and service, made him insolent towards the King, and the King jealous of him. But no man was more suddenly nor more safely preferred then Joseph, for his counsel to resist penury, and to preserve plenty and abundance within the Land. See Basil in an Homily which he made in a time of dearth and drought, in which he expresses himself with as much elegancy, as anywhere, (and everywhere I think with as much as any man) where he says, there was in the sky, Tristis severitas & ipsa puritate molesta, That the air was the worse for being so good, and the fouler for being so fair; and where he inverts the words of our Savior, Messis magna, operarii pauci, says Christ, Here is a great harvest, but few workmen; but Operarii multi, messis parva, says Basil, Here are workmen enow, but no harvest to gather, in that Homily; He notes a barrenness in that which used to be fruitful, and a fruitfulness in that which used to be barren; Terra sterilis & aurum foecundum, He prophesied of our times; when not only so many families have left the Country for the City, in their persons, but have brought their lands into the City, they have brought all their Evidences into Scriveners shops, and changed all their renewing of leases every seven years, into renewing of bonds every six months: They have taken a way to inflict a barrenness upon land, and to extort a fruitfulness from gold by usury. Monsters may be got by unnatural mixtures, but there is no race, no propagation of monsters: money may be raised by this kind of use; but, Non haerebit, It is the sweat of other men, and it will not stick to thine heir. Nay, commonly it brings not that outward blessing of plenty with it; for, for the most part, we see no men live more penuriously, more sordidly, then these men do.
The third of these temporal blessings is health, without which both the other are no more to any man, then the Rainbow was to him who was ready to drown; Quid mihi, si peream ego? says he, what am I the better, that God hath past his word, and set to his seal in the heavens, that he will drown the world no more, if I be drowned myself? What is all the peace of the world to me, if I have the rebellions and earth-quakes of shaking and burning Fevers in my body? What is all the plenty of the world to me, if I have a languishing consumption in my blood, and in my marrow? The Heathens had a goddess, to whom they attributed the care of the body, deam Carnam: And we that are Christians, acknowledge, that God's first care of man, was his body, he made that first; and his last care is reserved for the body too, at the Resurrection, which is principally for the benefit of the body. There is a care belongs to the health, and comeliness of the body. When the Romans canonized Pallorem and Febrim, Palenesse and Fevers, and made them gods, they would as fain have made them Devils, if they durst; they worshipped them only, because they stood in fear of them. Sickness is a sword of God's, and health is his blessing. For when Hezekiah had assurance enough, that he should recover and live, yet he had still a sense of misery, in that he should not have a perfect state of health. What shall I say, says he, I shall walk weakly all my years, in the bitterness of my soul. All temporal blessings are insipid and tastlesse, without health.
Now the third branch of this part, is the other In quibus, not the things, but the persons, in whom these three blessings are here placed: And it is Beatus populus, when this blessedness reaches to all, dilates it self over all. When David places blessedness in one particular man, as he does in the beginning of the first Psalm, Beatus vir, Blessed is that man, there he pronounces that man blessed, If he neither walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. If he do not all, walk, and stand, and sit in the presence and fear of God, he is not blessed. So, if these temporal blessings fall not upon all, in their proportions, the people is not blessed. The City may be blessed in the increase of access; And the Lawyer may be blessed in the increase of suits; and the Merchant may be blessed in the increase of means of getting, if he be come to get as well by taking, as by trading; but if all be not blessed, the people is not blessed: yea, if these temporal blessings reach not to the Prince himself, the people is not blessed. For in favorabilibus Princeps e populo, is a good rule in the Law; in things beneficial, the King is one of the people. When God says by David, Let all the people bless the Lord, God does not exempt Kings from that duty; and when God says by him too, God shall bless all the people, God does not exempt, not exclude Kings from that benefit; And therefore where such things as conduce to the being, and the well-being, to the substance and state, to the ceremony and majesty of the Prince, be not cheerfully supplied, and seasonably administered, there that blessing is not fully fallen upon them, Blessed is that people that are so; for the people are not so, if the Prince be not so.
Nay, the people are not blessed, if these blessings be not permanent; for, it is not only they that are alive now, that are the people; but the people is the succession. If we could imagine a blessing of health without permanency, we might call an intermitting ague, a good day in a fever, health. If we could imagine a blessing of plenty without permanency, we might call a full stomach, and a surfeit, though in a time of dearth, plenty. If we could imagine a blessing of peace without permanency, we might call a nights sleep, though in the midst of an Army, peace; but it is only provision for the permanency and continuance, that makes these blessings blessings. To think of, to provide against famine, and sickness, and war, that is the blessing of plenty, and health, and peace. One of Christ's principal titles was, that he was Princeps pacis, and yet this Prince of peace says, Non veni mittere pacem, I came not to bring you peace, not such a peace as should bring them security against all war. If a Ship take fire, though in the midst of the Sea, it consumes sooner, and more irrecoverably, then a thatched house upon Land: If God cast a fire-brand of war, upon a State accustomed to peace, it burns the more desperately, by their former security.
But here in our Text we have a religious King, David, that first prays for these blessings, (for the three former Verses are a prayer) and then praises God in the acknowledgement of them; for this Text is an acclamatory, a gratulatory glorifying of God for them. And when these two meet in the consideration of temporal blessings, a religious care for them, a religious confessing of them, prayer to God for the getting, praise to God for the having, Blessed is that people, that is, Head and members, Prince and subjects, present and future people, that are so; So blessed, so thankful for their blessings.
We come now, Ad dextram dextrae, to the right blessedness, in the right sense and interpretation of these words, to spiritual blessedness, to the blessedness of the soul. Estne Deo cura de bobus? is the Apostles question, and his answer is pregnantly implied, God hath care of beasts: But yet God cared more for one soul then for those two thousand hogs which he suffered to perish in the Sea, when that man was dispossessed. A dram of spiritual is worth infinite talents of temporal. Here then in this spiritual blessedness (as we did in the former) we shall look first, Quid beatitudo, what it is; and then, In quibus, in what it is placed here, Vt Deus eorum sit Dominus, That their God be the Lord; And lastly, the extent of it, That all the people be made partakers of this spiritual blessedness.
This blessedness then, you see is placed last in the Text; not that it cannot be had till our end, till the next life; In this case, the Nemo ante obitum fails, for it is in this life, that we must find our God to be the Lord, or else, if we know not that here, we shall meet his Nescio vos, he will not know us; But it is placed last, because it is the weightiest, and the uttermost degree of blessendness, which can be had, To have the Lord for our God. Consider the making up of a natural man, and you shall see that he is a convenient Type of a spiritual man too.
First, in a natural man we conceive there is a soul of vegetation and of growth; and secondly, a soul of motion and of sense; and then thirdly, a soul of reason and understanding, an immortal soul. And the two first souls of vegetation, and of sense, we conceive to arise out of the temperament, and good disposition of the substance of which that man is made, they arise out of man himself; But the last soul, the perfect and immortal soul, that is immediately infused by God. Consider the blessedness of this Text, in such degrees, in such proportions. First, God blesses a man with riches, there is his soul of vegetation and growth, by that he grows in estimation, and in one kind of true ability to produce good fruits, for he hath wherewithal. And then, God gives this rich man the blessing of understanding, his riches, how to employ them according to those moral and civil duties, which appertain unto him, and there is his soul of sense; for many rich men have not this sense, many rich men understand their own riches no more then the Oaks of the Forest do their own Akorns. But last of all, God gives him the blessing of discerning the mercy, and the purpose of God in giving him these temporal blessings, and there is his immortal soul. Now for the riches themselves, (which is his first soul) he may have them ex traduce, by devolution from his parents; and the civil wisdom, how to govern his riches, where to purchase, where to sell, where to give, where to take, (which is his second soul) this he may have by his own acquisition, and experience, and conversation; But the immortal soul, that is, the discerning of God's image in every piece, and of the seal of God's love in every temporal blessing, this is infused from God alone, and arises neither from Parents, nor the wisdom of this world, how worldly wise so ever we be in the governing of our estate.
And this the Prophet may very well seem to have intimated, when he saith, The generation of the righteous shall be blessed; Here is a permanent blessedness, to the generation. Wherein is it expressed? thus; Riches and treasure shall be in his house, and his righteousness endureth forever. He doth not say, that Simony, or Usury, or Extortion shall be in his house; for riches got so are not treasure; Nor he doth not say, that Riches well got, and which are truly a blessing, shall endure forever, but his righteousness shall endure forever. The last soul, the immortal soul endures forever. The blessedness of having studied, and learnt, and practiced the knowledge of God's purpose in temporal blessings, this blessedness shall endure forever; When thou shalt turn from the left to the right side, upon thy death bed, from all the honors, and riches of this world, to breathe thy soul into his hands that gave it, this righteousness, this good conscience shall endure then, and then accompany thee: And when thine eyes are closed, and in the twinkling of his eye that closed thine, thy soul shall be gone an infinite way from this honor, and these riches, this righteousness, this good conscience shall endure then, and meet thee in the gates of heaven. And this is so much of that righteousness, as is expressed in this Text, (because this is the root of all) That our God be the Lord.
In which, first we must propose a God, that there is one, and then appropriate this God to ourselves, that he be our God, and lastly, be sure that we have the right God, that our God be the Lord. For, for the first, he that enterprises anything, seeks anything, possesses anything without recourse to God, without acknowledging God in that action, he is, for that particular, an Atheist, he is without God in that; and if he do so in most of his actions, he is for the most part an Atheist. If he be an Atheist everywhere, but in his Catechism, if only then he confess a God when he is asked, Doest thou believe that there is a God, and never confess him, never consider him in his actions, it shall do him no good, to say at the last day, that he was no speculative Atheist, he never thought in his heart, that there was no God, if he lived a practique Atherst, proceeded in all his actions without any consideration of him. But accustom thyself to find the presence of God in all thy gettings, in all thy preferments, in all thy studies, and he will be abundantly sufficient to thee for all. Quantumlibet sis avarus, saith S. Augustine, sufficit tibi Deus, Be as covetous as thou wilt, be as ambitious as thou canst, the more the better; God is treasure, God is honor enough for thee. Avaritia terram quaerit, saith the same Father, add & Coelum; wouldst thou have all this world? wouldst thou have all the next world too? Plus est, qui fecit coelum & terram, He that made heaven and earth is more then all that, and thou mayest have all him.
And this appropriates him so near to us, as that he is thereby Deus noster. For, it is not enough to find Deum, a God; a great and incomprehensible power, that sits in luce, in light, but in luce inaccessibili, in light that we cannot comprehend. A God that enjoys his own eternity, his own peace, his own blessedness, but respects not us, reflects not upon us, communicates nothing to us. But it is a God, that is Deus noster; Ours, as we are his creatures; ours, as we are like him, made to his image; ours, as he is like us, in assuming our nature; ours, as he hath descended to us in his Incarnation; and ours, as we are ascended with him in his glorification: So that we do not consider God, as our God, except we come to the consideration of God in Christ, God and man. It is not enough to find Deum, a God in general, nor to find Deum meum, a God so particularly my God, as that he is a God of my making: That I should seek God by any other motions, or know God by any other notions, or worship God in any other fashions, then the true Church of God doth, for there he is Deus noster, as he is received in the unanime consent of the Catholic Church. Sects are not bodies, they are but rotten boughs, gangrened limbs, fragmentary chips, blown off by their own spirit of turbulency, fallen off by the weight of their own pride, or hewn off by the Excommunications and censures of the Church. Sects are no bodies, for there is Nihil nostrum, nothing in common amongst them, nothing that goes through them all; all is singular, all is meum and tuum, my spirit and thy spirit, my opinion and thy opinion, my God and thy God; no such apprehension, no such worship of God, as the whole Church hath evermore been acquainted withal, and contented with.
It is true, that every man must appropriate God so narrowly, as to find him to be Deum suum, his God; that all the promises of the Prophets, and all the performances of the Gospel, all that Christ Jesus said, and did, and suffered, belongs to him and his soul; but yet God is Deus meus, as he is Deus noster, my God, as he is our God, as I am a part of that Church, with which he hath promised to be till the end of the world, and as I am an obedient son of that Mother, who is the Spouse of Christ Jesus: For as S. Augustine saith of that Petition, Give us this day our daily bread, Vnde dicimus Da nostrum? How come we to ask that which is ours, Quomodo nostrum, quomodo da? if we be put to ask it, why do we call it ours? and then answers himself, Tuum confitendo, non eris ingratus, It is a thankful part to confess that thou hast some, that thou hast received some blessings; and then, Ab illo petendo, non eris vacuus, It is a wise and a provident part, to ask more of him, whose store is inexhaustible; So if I feel God, as he is Deus meus, as his Spirit works in me, and thankfully acknowledge that, Non sum ingratus; But if I derive this Pipe from the Cistern, this Deus meus, from Deus noster, my knowledge and sense of God, from that knowledge which is communicated by his Church, in the preaching of his Word, in the administration of his Sacraments, in those other means which he hath instituted in his Church, for the assistance and reparation of my soul that way, Non er o vacuus, I shall have a fuller satisfaction, a more abundant refection then if I rely upon my private inspirations: for there he is Deus noster.
Now, as we are thus to acknowledge a God, and thus to appropriate that God; so we must be sure to confer this honor upon the right God, upon him who is the Lord. Now this name of God, which is translated the Lord here, is not the name of God, which presents him with relation to his Creatures: for so it is a problematicall, a disputable thing, Whether God could be called the Lord, before there were any Creatures. Tertullian denies absolutely that he could be called Lord till then; S. Augustine is more modest, he says, Non audeo dicere, I dare not say that he was not; but he does not affirm that he was; Howsoever the name here, is not the name of Relation, but it is the name of his Essence, of his Eternity, that name, which of late hath been ordinarily called Iebovah. So that we are not to trust in those Lord's, Whose breath is in their nostrils, as the Prophet says, For, wherein are they to be esteemed? says he; we are less to trust in them, whose breath was never in their nostrils, such imaginary Saints, as are so far from hearing us in Heaven, as that they are not there: and so far from being there, as that they were never here: so far from being Saints, as that they were never men, but are either fabulous illusions, or at least, but symbolical and allegorical allusions. Our Lord is the Lord of life and being, who gave us not only a well-being in this life, (for that, other Lord's can pretend to do, and do indeed, by preferments here) nor a beginning of a temporary being in this life, (for that our Parents pretend, and pretend truly to have done) nor only an enlarging of our being in this life, (for that the King can do by a Pardon, and the Physicians by a Cordial) but he hath given us an immortal being, which neither our Parents began in us, nor great persons can advance for us, nor any Prince can take from us. This is the Lord in this place, this is Jehovah, and Germen Iehovae, The Lord, and the offspring of the Lord; and none is the offspring of God, but God, that is, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So that this perfect blessedness consists in this, the true knowledge and worship of the Trinity.
And this blessing, that is, the true Religion and profession of Christ Jesus, is to be upon all the people; which is our last Confideration. Blessed is the Nation, whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his Inheritance. And here again (as in the former Consideration of temporal blessedness) The people includes both Prince and people; and then, the blessing consists in this, that both Prince and people be sincerely affected to the true Religion; And then, the people includes all the people; and so, the blessing consists in this, that there be an unanimitie, a consent in all, in matter of Religion; And lastly, the people includes the future people; and there, the blessing consists in this, that our posterity may enjoy the same purity of Religion that we do. The first temptation that fell amongst the Apostles carried away one of them: Judas was transported with the temptation of money; and how much? For thirty pieces, and in all likelihood he might have made more profit then that, out of the privy purse; The first temptation carried one, but the first persecution carried away nine, when Christ was apprehended, none was left but two, and of one of those two, S. Jerome says, Vtinàm fugisset & non negasset Christum, I would Peter had fled too, and not scandalized the cause more by his stay, in denying his Master: for, a man may stay in the outward profession of the true Religion, with such purposes, and to such ends, as he may thereby damnify the cause more, and damnify his own soul more, then if he went away to that Religion, to which his conscience (though ill rectified) directs him. Now, though when such temptations, and such persecutions do come, the words of our Savior Christ will always be true, Fear not little flock, for it is God's pleasure to give you the Kingdom, though God can lay up his seedcorne in any little corner, yet the blessing intended here, is not in that little seed-corn, nor in the corner, but in the plenty, when all the people are blessed, and the blessed Spirit blows where he will, and no door nor window is shut against him.
And therefore let all us bless God, for that great blessing to us, in giving us such Princes, as make it their care, Nebona caducasint, ne mala recidiva, That that blessedness which we enjoy by them, may never depart from us, that those miseries which we felt before them, may never return to us. Almighty God make always to us all, Prince and people, these temporal blessings which we enjoy now, Peace, and Plenty, and Health, seals of his spiritual blessings, and that spiritual blessedness which we enjoy now, the profession of the only true Religion, a seal of it self, and a seal of those eternal blessings, which the Lord the righteous Judge hath laid up for his, in that Kingdom which his Son, our Savior hath purchased for us, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. In which glorious Son of God, &c.
SERM. LXXV. Preached to the King at White-hall, April 15. 1628.
ESAY 32.8.
But the liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things he shall stand.
B Y two ways especially hath the Gospel been propagated by men of letters, by Epistles, and by Sermons. The Apostles pursued both ways; frequent in Epistles, assiduous in Sermons. And, as they had the name of Apostles, from Letters, from Epistles, from Missives, (for, the Certificates, and Testimonials, and safe-conducts, and letters of Credit, which issued from Princes Courts, or from Courts that held other Jurisdiction, were in the formularies and terms of Law called Apostles, before Christ's Apostles were called Apostles) so they executed the office of their Apostleship so too, by Writing, & by Preaching. This succession in the Ministry of the Gospel did so too. Therefore it is said of S. Chrysostom, Vbi{que} praedicavit, quia ubique lectus, He preached everywhere, because he was read everywhere. And, he that is said to have been S. Chrysostom's disciple, Isidore, is said to have written ten thousand Epistles, and in them to have delivered a just, and full Commentary upon all the Scriptures. In the first age of all, they scarce went any other way, (for writing) but this, by Epistles. Of Clement, of Ignatius, of Polycarpus, of Martial, there is not much offered us, with any probability, but in the name of Epistles.
When Christians gathered themselves with more freedom, and Churches were established with more liberty, Preaching prevailed; And there is no exercise, that is denoted by so many names, as Preaching. Origen began; for, (I think) we have no Sermons, till Origen's. And though he began early, (early, if we consider the age of the Church, (a thousand four hundred years since) and early, if we consider his own age, for, Origen's. preached by the commandment, and in the presence of Bishops, before he was a Churchman) yet he suffered no Sermons of his to be copied, till he was sixty years old. Now, Origen called his Homilies; And the first Gregory, of the same time with Origen, that was Bishop of Neocesaria, hath his called Sermons. And so names multiplied; Homilies, Sermons, Conciones, Lectures, S. Augustine's Enarrations, Dictiones, that is, Speeches, Damascens and Cyrils Orations (nay, one excercise of Caesareus, conveyed in the form of a Dialogue) were all Sermons. Add to these Church-exercises, (Homilies, Sermons, Lectures, Orations, Speeches, and the rest) the Declamations of Civil men in Courts of Justice, the Tractates of Moral men written in their Studies, nay go back to your our own times, when you went to School, or to the University; and remember but your own, or your fellows Themes, or Problemes, or Commonplaces, and in all these you may see evidence of that, to which the Holy Ghost himself hath set a Seal in this text, that is, the recommendation of Bounty, of Munificence, of Liberalitie, The Liberall deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things he shall stand.
That which makes me draw into consideration, the recommendation of this virtue, in civil Authors, and exercises, as well as in Ecclesiastical, is this, That our Expositors, of all the three ranks, and Classes (The Fathers and Ancients, The later men in the Roman Church, and ours of the Reformation) are very near equally divided, in every of these three ranks; whether this Text be intended of a moral and a civil, or of a spiritual and Ecclesiastical liberality; whether this prophecy of Isaiah, in this Chapter, beginning thus, (Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness, and Princes shall rule in judgment) be to be understood of an Hezekiah, or a Josiah, or any other good King, which was to succeed, and to induce virtuous times in the temporal State, and government, Or whether this were a prophecy of Christ's time, and of the exaltation of all virtues in the Christian Religion, hath divided our Expositors in all those three Classes. In all three, (though in all three some particular men are peremptory and vehement upon someone side, absolutely excluding the other exposition, as, amongst our Authors in the Reformation, one says, Dubium non est, It can admit no doubt, but that this is to be understood of Hezekiah, and his reign, And yet another of the same side, says too, Qui Rabbinos secuti, They that adhere too much to the Jewish Rabbins, and will needs interpret this prophecy of a temporal King, obscure the purpose of the Holy Ghost, and accommodate many things to a secular Prince, which can hold in none, but Christ himself) yet, I say, though there be some peremptory, there are in all the three Classes, Ancients, Romans, Reformed, moderate men, that apply the prophecy both ways, and find that it may very well subsist so, That in a fair proportion, all these blessings shall be in the reigns of those Hezekiasses, and those Iosiasses, those good Kings which God affords to his people; But the multiplication, the exaltation of all these blessings, and virtues, is with relation to the coming of Christ, and the establishing of his Kingdom: And this puts us, if not to a necessity, yet with conveniency, to consider these words both ways; What this civil liberality is, that is here made a blessing of a good Kings reign; And what this spiritual liberality is, that is here made a testimony of Christ's reign, and of his Gospel. And therefore, since we must pass twice thorough these words, it is time to begin; The liberal man deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things he shall stand.
From these two arms of this tree, that is, from the civil, and from the spiritual accommodation of these words, be pleased to gather, and lay up these particular fruits. In each of these, you shall taste first, what this Liberality thus recommended is; And secondly, what this devising, and studying of liberal things is; And again, how this man is said to stand by liberal things; The liberal man deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things he shall stand. And because in the course of this Prophecy, in this Chapter, we have the King named, and then his Princes, and after, persons of lower quality and condition, we shall consider these particulars; This Liberality, this Devising, this Standing; First, in the first accommodation of the words, In the King, in his Princes, or great persons, the Magistrate, and lastly, in his people. And in the second accommodation, the spiritual sense, we shall consider these three terms, (Liberality, Devising, Standing) First, in the King of Kings, Christ Jesus, And then, in his Officers, the Ministers of his Gospel, And lastly, in his people gathered by this Gospel; In all which persons, in both sorts, Civil and Spiritual, we shall see how the liberal man deviseth liberal things, and how by liberal things he stands.
First then, in our first part, In the civil consideration of this virtue, Liberality, It is a communication of that which we have to other men; and it is the best character of the best things, that they are communicable, diffusive. Light was God's first child; Light opened the womb of the Chaos; borne heir to the world, and so does possess the world; and there is not so diffusive a thing, nothing so communicative, and self-giving as light is. And then, Gold is not only valued above all things, but is it self the value of all things; The value of everything is, Thus much gold it is worth; And no metal is so extensive as gold; no metal enlarges it self to such an expansion, such an attenuation as gold does, nor spreads so much, with so little substance. Sight is the noblest, and the powerfullest of our Senses; All the rest, (Hearing only excepted) are determined in a very narrow distance; And for Hearing, Thunder is the farthest thing that we can hear, and Thunder is but in the air; but we see the host of Heaven, the stars in the firmament. All the good things that we can consider, Light, Sight, Gold, all are accompanied with a liberality of themselves, and are so far good, as they are dispensed and communicated to others; for their goodness is in their use. It is Virtus prolifica, a generative, a productive virtue, a virtue that begets another virtue; another virtue upon another man; Thy liberality begets my gratitude; and if there be an unthankful barrenness in me, that thou have no children by me, no thankfulness from me, God shall raise thee the more children for my barrenness, Thy liberality shall be the more celebrated by all the world, because I am unthankful. God hath given me a being, and my liberal Benefactor hath given me such a better being, as that, without that, even my first being had been but a pain, and a burden unto me. He that leaves treasure at his death, left it in his life; Then, when he locked it up, and forbad himself the use of it, be left it. He that locks up, may be a good Jailor; but he that gives out, is his Steward: The saver may be God's chest; The giver is God's right hand. But the matter of our Liberality (what we give) is but the body of this virtue. The soul of this Liberality, that that inanimates it, is the manner, intended more in the next word, He deviseth, He studieth, The liberal deviseth liberal things.
Here the Holy Ghosts word is Iagnatz, and Iagnatz carries evermore with it a denotation of Counsel, and Deliberation, and Conclusions upon premisses. He Devises, that is, Considers what liberality is, discourses with himself, what liberal things are to be done, And then, upon this, determines, concludes, that he will do it, and really, actually does it. Therefore, in our first Translation, (the first since the Reformation) we read this Text thus, The liberal man imagineth honest things; Though the Translator have varied the word, ( Liberall and Honest ) the Original hath not. It is the same word in both places; Liberall man, Liberall things; but the Translator was pleased to let us see, that if it be truly a liberal, it is an honest action. Therefore the liberal man must give that which is his own; for else, the receiver is but a receiver of stolen goods; And the Curse of the oppressed may follow the gift, not only in his hands, through which it passed, but into his hands, where it remains. We have a convenient Emblem of Liberality in a Torch, that wastes it self to enlighten others; But for a Torch to set another man's house on fire, to enlighten me, were no good Emblem of Liberality. But Liberality being made up of the true body, and true soul, true matter, and true form, that is, just possession for having, and sober discretion for giving, then enters the word of our Text, literally, The liberal man deviseth liberal things; He devises, studies, meditates, casts about, where he may do a noble action, where he may place a benefit; He seeks the man with as much earnestness, as another man seeks the money; And as God comes with an earnestness (as though he thought it nothing, to have wrought all the week) to his Faciamus hominem, Now let us make man; So comes the liberal man to make a man, and to redeem him out of necessity and contempt; (the upper and lower Milstone of poverty) And to return to our former representations of Liberality, Light, and Sight; As light comes thorough the glass, but we know not how, and our sight apprehends remote objects, but we know not how; so the liberal man looks into dark corners, even upon such as are loath to be looked upon, loath to have their wants come into knowledge, and visits them by his liberality, when sometimes they know not from whence that shower of refreshing comes, no more then we know, how light comes thorough the glass, or how our sight apprehends remote objects. So the liberal man deviseth liberal things; And then, (which is our third term, and consideration in this civil and moral acceptation of the words) By liberal things he shall stand.
Some of our later Expositors admit this phrase, (The liberal man shall stand) to reach no further, nor to signify no more, but that The liberal man shall stand, that is, will stand, will continue his course, and proceed in liberal ways. And this is truly a good sense; for many times men do some small actions, that have some show and taste of some virtue, for collateral respects, and not out of a direct and true virtuous habit. But these Expositors (with whose narrowness our former Translators complied) will not let the Holy Ghost be as liberal as he would be. His liberality here is, That the liberal man shall stand, that is, Prosper and Multiply, and be the better established for his liberality; He shall sow silver, and reap gold; he shall sow gold, and reap Diamonds; sow benefits, and reap honor; not honor rooted in the opinion of men only, but in the testimony of a cheerful conscience, that pours out Acclamations by thousands; And that is a blessed and a loyal popularity, when I have a people in mine own bosom, a thousand voices in mine own conscience, that justify and applaud a good action. Therefore that Translation which we mentioned before, reads this clause thus, The liberal man imagineth honest things, and cometh up by honesty; still that which he calls Honesty, is in the Original Liberality, and he comes up, he prospers, and thrives in the world, by those noble, and virtuous actions. It is easy for a man of any largeness in conversation, or in reading, to assign examples of men, that have therefore lost all, because they were loath to part with anything. When Nazianzen says, That man cannot be so like God in anything, as in giving, he means that he shall be like him in this too, that he shall not be the poorer for giving. But keeping the body, and soul of liberality, Giving his own, and giving worthily, in soul and body too, (that is, in conscience and fortune both) By liberal things he shall stand, that is, prosper.
Now these three terms, ( Liberality, the virtue it self, the studying of Liberality, this devising; and the advantage of this Liberality, this standing ) (being yet in this first part, still upon the consideration of civil, and moral Liberality) we are to consider, (according to their Exposition, that bind this Prophecy to an Hezckias, or a Josiah, in which Prophecy we find mention of all those persons) we are, I say, to consider them, in the King, in his Officers, the Magistrate, and in his Subjects. For the King first, this virtue of our Text, is so radical, so elementary, so essential to the King, as that the vulgat Edition in the Roman Church reads this very Text thus, Princeps vero ea quae principe digna sunt, cogitabit, The King shall exercise himself in royal Meditations, and Actions; Him, whom we call a Liberall man, they call a King, and those actions that we call Liberall, they call Royal. A Translation herein excusable enough; for the very Original word, which we translate, Liberall, is a Royal word, Nadib, and very often in the Scriptures hath so high, a Royal signification. The very word is in that place, where David prays to God, to renew him spiritu Principali; And this, (spiritus Principalis) as many Translators call a Principal, a Princely, a Royal spirit, as a liberal, a free, a bountiful spirit; If it be Liberall, it is Royal. For, when David would have bought a threshingfloore, to erect an Altar upon, of Araunah, and Araunah offered so freely place, and sacrifice, and instruments, and all, the Holy Ghost expresses it so, All these things did Araunah, as a King, offer to the King; There was but this difference between the Liberall man, and David, A King, and The King. Higher then a King, for an example and comparison of Liberality, on this side of God, he could not go. The very form of the Office of a King, is Liberality, that is Providence, and Protection, and Possession, and Peace, and Justice shed upon all.
And then, this Prophecy (considered still the first way, morally, civilly) carries this virtue, not only upon the King, but upon the Princes too, upon those persons that are great, great in blood, great in power, great in place, and office, They must be liberal of that, which is deposited in them. The Sun does not enlighten the Stars of the Firmament, merely for an Omament to the Firmament, (though even the glory, which God receives from that Ornament, be one reason thereof) but that by the reflection of those Stars his beams might be cast into some places, to which, by a direct Emanation from himself, those beams would not have come. So do Kings transmit some beams of power into their Officers, not only to dignify and illustrate a Court, (though that also be one just reason thereof, for outward dignity and splendor must be preserved) but that by those subordinate Instruments, the royal Liberality of the King, that is, Protection, and Justice might be transferred upon all. And therefore, S. Jerome speaking of Nebridius, who was so gracious with the Emperor, that he denied him nothing, assigns that for the reason of his largeness towards him, Quod sciebat, non uni, sed pluribus indulgeri, Because he knew, that in giving him, he gave to the Public; He employed that which he received, for the Public.
And lastly, our Prophecy places this Liberality upon the people. Now, still this Liberality is, that it be diffusive, that the object of our affections be the Public. To depart with nothing which we call our own, Nothing in our goods, nothing in our opinions, nothing in the present exercise of our liberty, is not to be liberal. To press too far the advancing of one part, to the depressing of another, (especially where that other is the Head) is not liberal dealing. Therefore said Christ to James, and John, Non est meum dare vobis, It is not mine to give, to set you on my right, and on my left hand; Non vobis, quia singuli separatim ab aliis rogatis, not to you, because you consider but yourselves, and petition for yourselves, to the prejudice, and exclusion of others. Therefore Christ bad the Samaritan woman call her husband too, when she desired the water of life, Ne sola gratiam acciperet, saith S. Chrysostom, That he might so do good to her, as that others might have good by it too. For, Adpatriam quâitur? Which way think you to go home, to the heavenly Jerusalem? Per ipsum mare, sed in ligno, You must pass thorough Seas of difficulties, and therefore by ship; and in a ship, you are not safe, except other passengers in the same ship be safe too. The Spouse saith, Trahe me post te, Draw me after thee. When it is but a Me, in the singular, but one part considered, there is a violence, a difficulty, a drawing; But presently after, when there is an uniting in a plural, there is an alacrity, a concurrence, a willingness; Curremus post te, We, We will run after thee; If we would join in public considerations, we should run together. This is true Liberality in God's people, to depart with some things of their own, though in goods, though in opinions, though in present use of liberty, for the public safety. These Liberall things, these Liberall men, (King, Magistrate, and People) shall devise, and by Liberall things they shall stand.
The King shall devise Liberall things, that is, study, and propose Directions, and commit the execution thereof to persons studious of the glory of God, and the public good; And that is his Devising of Liberall things. The Princes, Magistrates, Officers, shall study to execute aright those gracious Directions received from their royal Master, and not retard his holy alacrity in the ways of Justice, by any slackness of theirs, nor by casting a damp, or blasting a good man, or a good cause, in the eyes, or ears of the King; And that is their Devising of Liberall things. The people shall devest all personal respects, and ill affections towards other men, and all private respects of their own, and spend all their faculties of mind, of body, of fortune, upon the Public; And that is their Devising of Liberall things.
And by these Liberall things, these Liberall men shall stand. The King shall stand; stand in safety at home, and stand in triumph abroad. The Magistrate shall stand; stand in a due reverence of his place from below, and in safe possession of his place from above; neither be contemned by his Inferiors, nor suspiciously, and guiltily inquired into by his Superiors; neither fear petitions against him, nor commissions upon him. And the People shall stand; stand upon their right Basis, that is, an inward feeling, and an outward declaration, that they are safe only in the Public safety. And they shall all stand in the Sunshine, and serenity of a clear conscience, which serenity of conscience is one fair beam, even of the glory of God, and of the joy of heaven, upon that soul that enjoys it.
This is Esays Prophecy of the times of an Hezekiah, of a Josiah, the blessing of this civil and moral Liberality, in all these persons. And it is time to pass to our other general part, from the civil, to the spiritual, and from applying these words, to the good times of a good King, to that, (which is evidently the principal purpose of the Holy Ghost) That in the time of Christ Jesus, and the reign of his Gospel, this, and all other virtues, should be in a higher exaltation, then any civil, or moral respect can carry them to.
As an Hezekiah, a Josiah is a Type of Christ, but yet but a Type of Christ; so this civil Liberality, which we have hitherto spoken of, is a Type, but yet but a Type of our spiritual Liberality. For, here we do not only change terms, the temporal, to spiritual, and to call that, which we called Liberality in the former part, Charity in this part; nor do we only make the difference in the proportion & measure, that that which was a Benefit in the other part, should be an Alms in this. But we invest the whole consideration in a mere spiritual nature; and so that Liberality, which was, in the former acceptation, but a relieving, but a refreshing, but a repairing of defects, and dilapidations in the body or fortune, is now, in this second part, in this spiritual acceptation, the raising of a dejected spirit, the redintegration of a broken heart, the resuscitation of a buried soul, the re-consolidation of a scattered conscience, not with the glues, and cements of this world, mirth, and inusique, and comedies, and conversation, and wine, and women, (miserable comforters are they all) nor with that Meteor, that hangs between two worlds, that is, Philosophy, and moral constancy, (which is somewhat above the carnal man, but yet far below the man truly Christian and religious) But this is the Liberality, of which the Holy Ghost himself is content to be the Steward, of the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, and to be notified, and qualified by that distinctive notion, and specification, The Comforter.
To find a languishing wretch in a sordid corner, not only in a penurious fortune, but in an oppressed conscience, His eyes under a diverse suffocation, sinothered with smoke, and smothered with tears, His ears estranged from all salutations, and visits, and all sounds, but his own sighs, and the storms and thunders and earthquakes of his own despair, To enable this man to open his eyes, and see that Christ Jesus stands before him, and says, Behold and see, if ever there were any sorrow, like my sorrow, and my sorrow is overcome, why is not thine? To open this man's ears, and make him hear that voice that says, I was dead, and am alive, and behold, I live for evermore, Amen; and so mayest thou; To bow down those Heavens, and bring them into his sad Chamber, To set Christ Jesus before him, to out-sigh him, out-weep him, out-bleed him, out-die him, To transfer all the fasts, all the scorns, all the scourges, all the nails, all the spears of Christ Jesus upon him, and so, making him the Crucified man in the sight of the Father, because all the actions, and passions of the Son, are appropriated to him, and made his so entirely, as if there were never a soul created but his, To enrich this poor soul, to comfort this sad soul so, as that he shall believe, and by believing find all Christ to be his, this is that Liberality which we speak of now, in dispensing whereof, The liberal man deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall stand.
Now you may be pleased to remember, that when we considered this word, in our former part, (he shall Devise) we found this Devising Originally to signify a studying, a deliberation, a concluding upon premisses; upon which, we inferred pregnantly and justly, that as to support a man's expense, he must Vivere de proprio, Live upon his own; so to relieve others, he must Dare de suo, Be liberal of that which is his. Now, what is ours? Ours, that are Ministers of the Gospel? As we are Christ's, so Christ is ours. Puer datus nobis, filius natus nobis, There is a Child given unto us, a Son borne unto us; Even in that sense, Christ is given to us, that we might give him to others. So that in this kind of spiritual liberality, we can be liberal of no more but our own; we can give nothing but Christ; we can minister comfort to none, farther then he is capable, and willing to receive and embrace Christ Jesus.
When therefore some of the Fathers have said, Ratio pro fide Graecis & Barbaris, Rectified reason was accepted at the hands of the Gentiles, as faith is of the Christians; Philosophia per se justificavit Graecos, Philosophy alone (without faith) justified the Grecians; Satis fuit Gentibus abstinuisse ab Idololatria, It was enough for the Gentiles, if they did not worship false God's, though they knew not the true truly;