Eighty Sermons

SERM. LXXVI. Preached to the Earl of Carlisle, and his Company, at Zion.

T He first words that are recorded in the Scriptures, to have been spoken by our Savior, are those which he spoke to his father and mother, then when they had lost him at Jerusalem, How is it that you sought me? knew ye not that I must be about my Fathers business? And the last words, which are in this Evangelist recorded to have been spoken by him, to his Apostles, are then also, when they were to lose him in Jerusalem, when he was to depart out of their presence, and set himself in the heavenly Jerusalem, at the right hand of his Father: of which last words of his, this Text is a part. In his first words, those to his father and mother, he doth not rebuke their care in seeking him, nor their tenderness in seeking him, (as they told him they did) with heavy hearts: But he lets them know, that, if not the band of nature, nor the reverential respect due to parents, then no respect in the world should hold him from a diligent proceeding in that work which he came for, the advancing the kingdom of God in the salvation of mankind. In his last words to his Apostles, he doth not discomfort them by his absence, for he says, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world: But he encourageth them to a cheerful undertaking of their great work, the preaching of the Gospel to all Nations, by many arguments, many inducements, of which, one of the weightiest is, That their preaching of the Gospel was not like to be ineffectual, because he had given them the sharpest spur, and the strongest bridle upon mankind; Praemium & poenam, Authority to reward the obedient, and authority to punish the rebellious and refractary man; he put into their hands the double key of Heaven, and of Hell; power to convey to the believer Salvation, and upon him that believed not, to inflict eternal condemnation; He that believeth not, shall be damned.

That then which man was to believe upon pain of damnation, if he did not, being this Commission which Christ gave to his Apostles, we shall make it our first part of this Exercise, to consider the Commission it self, the subject of every man's necessary belief; And our second part shall be, The penalty, the inevitable, the irreparable, the intolerable, the inexpressible penalty, everlasting condemnation, He that believeth not, shall be damned. In the first of these parts, we shall first consider some circumstantial, and then the substantial parts of the Commission; (for though they be essential things, yet because they are not of the body of the Commission, we call them branches circumstantial) First, An sit, whether there be such a Commission or no; secondly, the Vbi, where this Commission is; and then the Vnde, from whence this Commission proceeds; And lastly the Quo, how far it extends, and reaches; And having passed thorough these, we must look back for the substance of the Commission; for in the Text, He that believeth not, is implied this particle, this, this word this, He that believeth not this, that is, that which Christ hath said to his Apostles immediately before the Text, which is indeed the substance of the Commission, consisting of three parts, Ite predicate, go and preach the Gospel, Ite Baptizate, go and baptize them, Itedocete, go and teach them to do, and to practice all that I have commanded; And after all these which do but make up the first part, we shall descend to the second, which is the penalty; and as far as the narrowness of the time, and the narrowness of your patience, and the narrowness of my comprehension can reach, we shall show you the horror, the terror of that fearful intermination, Damnabitur, He that believeth not, shall be damned.

First then, it is within this Credererit, that is, It is matter of faith to believe, that such a Commission there is, that God hath established means of salvation, and propagation of his Gospel here. If then this be matter of faith, where is the root of this faith? from whence springs it? Is there any such thing writ in the heart of man, that God hath proceeded so? Certainly as it is in Agendis, in those things which we are bound to do, which are all comprehended in the Decalogue, in the Ten Commandments, that there is nothing written there, in those stone Tables, which was not written before in the heart of man, (exemplify it in that Commandment which seems most removed from natural reason, which is the observing of the Sabbath, yet even for that, for a Sabbath, man naturally finds this holy impression, and religious instinct in his heart, That there must be an outward worship of that God, that hath made, and preserved him, and that is the substance, and moral part of that Commandment of the Sabbath) And it is in Agendis, that all things, that all men are bound to do, all men have means to know; And as it is in Sperandis, in Petendis, of those things which man may hope for at God's hand, or pray for, from him, there is a knowledge imprinted in man's heart too; (for the Lord's Prayer is an abridgement of all those, and exemplify also this in that Petition of the Lord's Prayer, which may seem most removed from natural reason, That we must forgive those who have trespassed against us, yet even in that, every natural man may see, That there is no reason for him, to look for forgiveness from God, who can, and may justly come to an immediate execution of us, as soon as we have offended him, if we will not forgive another man, whom we cannot execute ourselves, but must implore the Law, and the Magistrate to revenge our quarrel) As it is in Agendis, in all things which we are bound to do; As it is in Petendis, in all things which we may pray for, so it is in Credendis, all things that all men are bound to believe, all men have means to know.

This then, that God hath established means of salvation, being Inter credenda, one of those things which he is bound to believe, (for he that believeth not this, shall be damned ) Man hath thus much evidence of this in nature, that by natural reason we know, that that God which must be worshipped, hath surely declared how he will be worshipped, and so we are led to seek his revealed and manifested will, and that is nowhere to be found but in his Scriptures. So that when all is done, the Ten Commandments, which is the sum of all that we are to do; The Lord's Prayer, which is the sum of all that we are to ask; and the Apostles Creed, which is the sum of all that we are to believe, are but declaratory, not introductory things; The same things are first written in man's heart, though dimly and sub-obscurely, and then the same things are extended, shed in a brighter beam, in every leaf of the Scripture; And the same things are recollected again, into the Ten Commandments, into the Lord's Prayer, and into the Apostles Creed, that we might see them all together, and so take better view and hold of them. The knowledge which we have in nature, is the substance of all, as all matter, Heaven and earth were created at once, in the beginning; and then the further knowledge which we have in Scripture, is as that light which God created after; for as by that light, men distinguished particular creatures, so by this light of the Scripture, we discern our particular duties. And after this, as in the Creation, all the light was gathered into the body of the Sun, when that was made; so all that is written in our hearts radically, and diffused in the Scriptures more extensively, is reamassed, and reduced to the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and to the Creed.

The heart of man is hortus, it is a garden, a Paradise, where all that is wholesome, and all that is delightful grows, but it is hortus conclusus, a garden that we ourselves have walled in; It is fons, a fountain, where all knowledge springs, but fons signatus, a fountain that our corruption hath sealed up. The heart is a book, legible enough, and intelligible in it self; but we have so interlined that book with impertinent knowledge, and so clasped up that book, for fear of reading our own history, our own sins, as that we are the greatest strangers, and the least conversant with the examination of our own hearts. There is then Myrrh in this garden, but we cannot smell it; and therefore, All thy garments smell of Myrrh, saith David, that is, God's garments; those Scriptures in which God hath appareled, and exhibited his will, they breathe the Balm of the East, the savor of life, more discernably unto us. But after that too, there is fasciculus Myrrhae, a bundle of Myrrh together, fasciculus Agendorum, a whole bundle of those things which we are bound to do, in the Ten Commandments; fasciculus Petendorum, a whole bundle of those things, which we are bound to pray for, in the Lord's Prayer; and fasciculus Credendorum, a whole bundle of those things, which we are bound to believe, in the Apostles Creed; And in that last bundle of Myrrh, in that Creed, is this particular, Vt credamus hoc, That we believe this, this, that God hath established means of salvation here, and He that believeth not this, that such a Commission there is, shall be damned.

In that bundle of Myrrh then, where lies this that must necessarily be believed, This Commission? In that Article of that Creed, Credo Ecclesiam Catholicam, I believe the holy Catholic Church; For till I come to that grain of Myrrh, to believe the Catholic Church, I have not the savor of life; Let me take in the first grain of this bundle of Myrrh, the first Article, Credo in Deum Patrem, I believe in God the Father, by that I have a being, I am a creature, but so is a contemptible worm, and so is a venomous spider as well as I, so is a stinking weed, and so is a stinging nettle, as well as I; so is the earth it self, that we tread under our feet, and so is the ambitious spirit, which would have been as high as God, and is lower then the lowest, the devil himself is a creature as well as I; I am but that, by the first Artiele, but a creature; and I were better, if I were not that, if I were no creature, (considering how I have used my creation) if there were no more Myrrh in this bundle then that first grain, no more to be got by believing, but that I were a creature: But take a great deal of this Myrrh together, consider more Articles, That Christ is conceived, and borne, and crucified, and dead, and buried, and risen, and ascended, there is some savor in this; But yet, if when we shall come to Judgment, I must carry into his presence, a menstruous conscience, and an ugly face, in which his Image, by which he should know me, is utterly defaced, all this Myrrh of his Merits, and his Mercies, is but a savor of death unto death unto me, since I, that knew the horror of my own guiltiness, must know too, that whatsoever he be to others, he is a just Judge, and therefore a condemning Judge to me; If I get farther then this in the Creed, to the Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, I believe in the Holy Ghost, where shall I find the Holy Ghost? I lock my door to myself, and I throw myself down in the presence of my God, I devest myself of all worldly thoughts, and I bend all my powers, and faculties upon God, as I think, and suddenly I find myself scattered, melted, fallen into vain thoughts, into no thoughts; I am upon my knees, and I talk, and think nothing; I deprehend myself in it, and I go about to mend it, I gather new forces, new purposes to try again, and do better, and I do the same thing again. I believe in the Holy Ghost, but do not find him, if I seek him only in private prayer; But in Ecclesia, when I go to meet him in the Church, when I seek him where he hath promised to be found, when I seek him in the execution of that Commission, which is proposed to our faith in this Text, in his Ordinances, and means of salvation in his Church, instantly the savor of this Myrrh is exalted, and multiplied to me; not a dew, but a shower is poured out upon me, and presently follows Communio Sanctorum, The Communion of Saints, the assistance of Militant and Triumphant Church in my behalf; And presently follows Remissio peceatorum, The remission of sins, the purifying of my conscience, in that water, which is his blood, Baptism, and in that wine, which is his blood, the other Sacrament; and presently follows Carnis resurrectio, A resurrection of my body; My body becomes no burden to me; my body is better now, then my soul was before; and even here I have Goshen in my Egypt, incorruption in the midst of my dunghill, spirit in the midst of my flesh, heaven upon earth; and presently follows Vita aeterna, Life everlasting; this life of my body shall not last ever, nay the life of my soul in heaven is not such as it is at the first. For that soul there, even in heaven, shall receive an addition, and access of Joy, and Glory in the resurrection of our bodies in the consummation.

When a wind brings the River to any low part of the bank, instantly it overflows the whole Meadow; when that wind which blows where he will, The Holy Ghost, leads an humble soul to the Article of the Church, to lay hold upon God, as God hath exhibited himself in his Ordinances, instantly he is surrounded under the blood of Christ Jesus, and all the benefits thereof; The communion of Saints, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, are poured out upon him. And therefore of this great work, which God hath done for man, in applying himself to man, in the Ordinances of his Church, S. Augustine says, Obscuriùs dixerunt Prophetae de Christo, quàm de Ecclesia, The Prophets have not spoken so clearly of the person of Christ, as they have of the Church of Christ; for though S. Jerome interpret aright those words of Adam and Eve, Erunt duo in carnem unam, They two shall be one flesh, to be appliable to the union which is between Christ and his Church, (for so S. Paul himself applies them) that Christ and his Church are all one, as man and wife are all one, yet the wife is (or at least, it had wont to be so) easilier found at home, then the husband; we can come to Christ's Church, but we cannot come to him; The Church is a Hill, and that is conspicuous naturally; but the Church is such a Hill, as may be seen everywhere. S. Augustine asks his Auditory in one of his Sermons, do any of you know the Hill Olympus? and himself says in their behalf, none of you know it; no more says he, do those that dwell at Olympus know Giddabam vestram, some Hill which was about them; trouble not thyself to know the forms and fashions of foreign particular Churches; neither of a Church in the lake, nor a Church upon seven hills; but since God hath planted thee in a Church, where all things necessary for salvation are administered to thee, and where no erroneous doctrine (even in the confession of our Adversaries) is affirmed and held, that is the Hill, and that is the Catholic Church, and there is this Commission in this text, means of salvation sincerely executed; So then, such a Commission there is, and it is in the Article of the Creed, that is the ubi.

We are now come in our order, to the third circumstantial branch, the Vnde, from whence, and when this Commission issued, in which we consider, that since we receive a deep impression from the words, which our friends spake at the time of their death, much more would it work upon us, if they could come and speak to us after their death; You know what Dives said, Si quis ex mortuis, If one from the dead might go to my Brethren, he might bring them to anything. Now, Primitiae mortuorum, The Lord of life, and yet the first borne of the dead, Christ Jesus, returns again after his death, to establish this Commission upon his Apostles; It hath therefore all the formalities of a strong and valid Commission; Christ gives it, Ex mero motu, merely out of his own goodness; He foresaw no merit in us that moved him; neither was he moved by any man's solicitations; for could it ever have fallen into a man's heart, to have prayed to the Father, that his Son might take our Nature and die, and rise again, and settle a course upon earth, for our salvation, if this had not first risen in the purpose of God himself? Would any man ever have solicited or prayed him to proceed thus? It was Ex mero motu, out of his own goodness, and it was Ex certa scientia, He was not deceived in his grant, he knew what he did, he knew this Commission should be executed, in despite of all Heretics, and Tyrans that should oppose it; And as it was out of his own Will, and with his own knowledge, so it was Ex plenitudine potestatis, He exceeded not his Power; for Christ made this Commission then, when (as it is expressed in the other Evangelist) he produced that evidence, Data est mihi, All power is given to me in Heaven and in earth; where Christ speaks not of that Power, which he had by his eternal generation, (though even that power were given him, for he was Deus de Deo, God of God) nor he speaks not of that Power which was given him as Man, which was great, but all that, he had in the first minute of his conception, in the first union of the two Natures, Divine and Human together; but that Power, from which he derives this Commission, is that, which he had purchased by his blood, and came to by conquest; Ego vici mundum, says Christ, I have conquered the world, and coming in by conquest, I may establish what form of Government I will; and my will is, to govern my Kingdom by this Commission; and by these Commissioners, to the Worlds end; to establish these means upon earth, for the salvation of the world.

And as it hath all these formalities of a due Commission, made without suite, made without error, made without defect of power: so had it this also, that it was duly and authentically testified; for, though this Evangelist name but the eleven Apostles to have been present, and they in this case might be thought Testes domestici, Witnesses that witness to their own, or to their Masters advantage; Yet, the opinion which is most embraced is, That this appearing of Christ, which is intended here, is that appearing, which is spoken of by S. Paul, when he appeared to more then five hundred at once; Christ rests not in his Teste meipso, That himself was his witness, as Princes use to do, (and as he might have done best of any, because there were always two more that testified with him, the Father, and the Holy Ghost) he rests not in calling some of his Council, and principal Officers, to witness, as Princes have used too; but in a Parliament of all States, Upper and Common house, Spiritual and Temporal Apostles, Disciples and five hundred Brethren, he testifies this Commission.

Who then can measure the infinite mercy of Christ Jesus to us? which mercy became not when he began, by coming into this world; for we were elected in him before the foundations of the world; nor ended it when he ended, by going out of this world, for he returned to this world again, where he had suffered so much contempt and torment, that he might establish this object of our faith, this that we are therefore bound to believe, a Commission, a Church, an outward means of Salvation here; such a Commission there is, it is grounded in the Creed, and it was given after his Resurrection.

In which Commission (being now come to the last of the circumstantial Branches, the extent and reach of this Commission) we find, that it is Omni Creaturae, before the Text, Preach to every Creature, that is, Means of salvation offered to every Creature; and that is large enough, without that wild extent that their S. Francis gives it, in the Roman Church, whom they magnify so much for that religious simplicity, as they call it, who thought himself bound literally by this Commission, To preach to all Creatures, and so did, as we see in his brutish Homilies, Frater Asine, and Frater Bos, Brother Ox, and brother Ass, and the rest of his spiritual kindred; But in this Commission, Omnis Creatura, Every Creature, is every man; and to every man this Commission extends; Man is called Omnis Creatura, Every creature, as Eve is called Mater omnium viventium, though she were but the Mother of men, she is called the Mother of all living, and yet all other creatures live, as well as Man; Man is called Every creature, as it is said, Omnis caro, All flesh had corrupted his ways upon earth, though this corruption were but in man, and other creatures were flesh as well as man; Man is every creature, says Origen, because in him, Tanquam in officina, omnes Creaturae conflantur, Because all creatures were as it were melted in one forge, and poured into one mold, when man was made. For, these being all the distinctions which are in all creatures, first, a mere being which stones and other inanimate creatures have; and then life & growth, which trees and plants have; and after that, sense and feeling, which beasts have; and lastly, reason and understanding, which Angels have, Man hath them all; and so in that respect is every creature, says Origen: He is so too, says Gregory, Quia omnis creaturae differentia in homine, Because all the qualities and properties of all other creatures, how remote and distant, how contrary soever in themselves, yet they all meet in man; In man, if he be a flatterer, you shall find the groveling and crawling of a Snake; and in a man, if he be ambitious, you shall find the high flight and piercing of the Eagle; in a voluptous sensual man, you shall find earthliness of the Hog; and in a licentious man, the intemperance, and distemper of the Goat; ever lustful, and ever in a fever; ever in sicknesses contracted by that sin, and yet ever in a desire to proceed in that sin; and so man is every creature in that respect, says Gregory. But he is especially so, says S. Augustine, Quia omnis creatura propter hominem, All creatures were made for man, man is the end of all, and therefore man is all, says Augustine. So that the two Evangelists have expressed one another well; for those whom this Evangelist S. Mark calls all creatures, S. Matthew calls Omnes Gentes, All Nations; And so, that which is attributed to Christ by way of Prophecy, It is a small matter, that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribe of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel, I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth; That which is attributed to Christ there, is fulfilled in this Commission, given by Christ here; That he should be preached to all men; In which, we rather admire then go about to express his inexpressible mercy, who had that tenderness in his care, that he would provide man means of salvation in a Church, and then that largeness in his care, as that he would in his time impart it to all men; for else, how had it ever come to us? And so we pass from the Circumstances of the Commission, That it is, And where it is, And whence it comes, And whither it goes, to the Substance it self.

This is expressed in three actions; first, Ite predicate, Go and preach the Gospel; And then, Baptizate, Baptize in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; And Docete servare, Teach them to observe all those things which I have commanded you; for that Hoc, Qui non crediderit hos, He that believes not this, (which is implied in this Text) reaches to all that; as well, Qui non fecerit hoc, He that does not do all this, as Qui non crediderit hoc, He that believes not this, is within the penalty of this Text, Damnabitur: The first of these three, is the ordinance and institution of preaching the Gospel; The second is the administration of both Sacraments; (as we shall see anon) And the third is the provocation to a good life, which is in example as well as in preaching; first preach the Gospel, that is, plant the root, faith; then administer the Sacraments, that is, water it, cherish it, fasten and settle it with that seal; and then procure good works, that is, produce the blessed fruit of this faith, and these Sacraments: Qui non crediderit hoc, He that does not believe all this, shall be damned.

First then, Qui non crediderit, He that hath this Apostleship, this ministry of reconciliation, he that is a Commissioner for these new buildings, to erect the kingdom of God by the Gospel, and does not believe, and show by his practice that he does believe himself to be bound to preach, he is under the penalty of this Text. When therefore the Jesuit Maldonado pleases himself so well, that, as he says, he cannot choose but laugh, when the Calvinists satisfy themselves in doing that duty, that they do preach; for, says he, Docetis, sed nemo misit, You do preach, but you have no calling; if it were not too serious a thing to laugh at, would he not allow us to be as merry, and to say too, Missi estis, sed non docetis, Perchance you may have a calling, but I am sure you do not preach? for if we consider their practice, their secular Clergy, those which have the care of souls in Parishes, they do not preach; and if we consider their Laws, and Canons, their Regular Clergy, their Monks and Friars should not preach abroad, out of their own Cloisters. And preaching was so far out of use amongst them, as that in these later ages, under Innocentius the third, they instituted Ordinem praedicantium, An order of Preachers; as though there had been no order for preaching in the Church of God, till within these four hundred years. And we see by their Patent for preaching, what the cause of their institution was; It was because those who only preached then, that is, the Humiliati, (which was another Order) were unlearned, and therefore they thought it not amiss, to appoint some learned men to preach: The Bishops took this ill at that time, that any should have leave to preach within their Dioceses; and therefore they had new Patents, to exempt them from the Jurisdiction of the Bishops; and they had liberty to preach everywhere; Modo non vellicent Papam, As long as they said nothing against the Pope, they might preach. It is therefore but of late years, and indeed, especially since the Reformation began, that the example of others hath brought them in the Roman Church to a more ordinary preaching; whereas the penalty of this Text lies upon all them who have that calling, and do it not; and so it does upon them too, who do not believe, that they are bound to seek their salvation from preaching, from that ordinance and institution.

I cannot remember that in any History, for matter of fact, nor in the framing or institution of any State, for matter of Law, there hath ever been such a Law, or such a practice, as that of Preaching. Every where amongst the Gentiles, (particularly amongst the Romans, where there was a public Office, to be Conditor Precum, according to emergent occasions, to make Collects and Prayers for the public use) we find some resemblance, some representation of our common Prayer, our Liturgy; and in their ablutions, and expiations, we find some resemblance of our Sacraments; but nowhere any resemblance of our Preaching. Certain anniversary Panegyriques they had in Rome, which were Coronation Sermons, or Adoption Sermons, or Triumph Sermons, but all those, upon the matter, were but civil Commemorations. But this Institution, of keeping the people in a continual knowledge of their religious duty, by continual preaching, was only an ordinance of God himself, for God's own people; For, after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, It pleased God (says the Apostle) by the foolishness of Preaching to save them that believe.

What was this former wisdom of God, that that could not save man? it was twofold; First, God in his wisdom manifests a way to man, to know the Creator by the creature, That the invisible things of him might be seen by the visible. And this gracious and wise purpose of God took not effect, because man being brought to the contemplation of the creature, rested and dwelt upon the beauty and dignity of that, and did not pass by the creature to the Creator; and then, God's wisdom was farther expressed, in a second way, when God manifested himself to man by his Word, in the Law, and in the Prophets; and then, man resting in the letter of the Law, and going no farther, and resting in the outside of the Prophets, and going no farther, not discerning the Sacrifices of the Law to be Types of the death of Christ Jesus, nor the purpose of the Prophets to be, to direct us upon that Messias, that Redeemer, Ipsa, quae per Prophetas locuta est, sapientia, says Clement, the wisdom of God, in the mouth of the Prophets, could not save man; and then, when the wisdom of Nature, and the wisdom of the Law, the wisdom of the Philosophers, and the wisdom of the Scribes, became defective and insufficient, by man's perverseness, God repaired, and supplied it by a new way, but a strange way, by the foolishness of preaching; for it is not only to the subject, to the matter, to the doctrine, which they were to preach, that this foolishness is referred. To preach glory, by adhering to an inglorious person, lately executed for sedition and blasphemy; to preach salvation from a person, whom they saw unable to save himself from the Gallows; to preach joy from a person whose soul was heavy unto death, this was Scandalum Iudaeis, says the Apostle, even to the Jews, who were formerly acquainted by their Prophets, that some such things as these should befall their Messias, yet for all this preparation, it was Scandalum, the Jews themselves were scandalized at it; it was a stumbling block to the Jews; but Graecis stultitia, says the Apostle there, the Gentiles thought this doctrine mere foolishness. But not only the matter, but the manner, not only the Gospel, but even preaching was a foolishness in the eyes of man; For if such persons as the Apostles were, heirs to no reputation in the State, by being derived from great families, bred in no Universities, nor sought to for learning, persons not of the civilest education, Sea-men, Fishermen, not of the honestest professions, ( Matthew but a Publican) if such persons should come into our streets, and porches, and preach, (I do not say, such doctrine as theirs seemed then) but if they should preach at all, should not we think this a mere foolishness; did they not mock the Apostles, and say they were drunk, as early as it was in the morning? Did not those two sects of Philosophers, who were as far distant in opinions, as any two could be, the Stoiques, and the Epicureans, concur in defaming S. Paul for preaching, when they called him Seminiverbium, a babbling and prating fellow? But the foolishness of God is wiser then men, said that Apostle; and out of that wisdom, God hath shut us all, under the penalty of this Text, If we that are peachers, and you that are hearers, do not believe, that this preaching is the ordinance of God, for the salvation of souls.

This then is matter of faith, That preaching is the way, and this is matter of faith too, that that which is preached, must be matter of faith; for the Commission is, Praedicate Euangelium, Preach, but preach the Gospel; And that is, first, Euangelium solum, Preach the Gospel only, add nothing to the Gospel, and then Euangelium totum, Preach the Gospel entirely, defalke nothing, forbear nothing of that; First then, we are to preach, you are to hear nothing but the Gospel; And we may neither postdate our Commission, nor interline it; nothing is Gospel now, which was not Gospel then, when Christ gave his Apostles their Commission; And no man can serve God and Mammon; no man can preach those things, which belong to the filling of Angels rooms in heaven, and those things which belong to the filling of the Popes Coffers at Rome, with Angels upon earth: For that was not Gospel, when Christ gave this commission. And did Christ create his Apostles, as the Bishop of Rome creates his Cardinals, Cum clausura oris? He makes them Cardinals, and shuts their mouths; they have mouths, but no tongues; tongues, but no voice; they are Judges, but must give no Judgment; Cardinals, but have no interest in the passages of businesses, till by a new favor he open their mouths again: Did Christ make his Apostles his Ambassadors, and promise to send their instructions after them? Did he give them a Commission, and presently a Supersedeas upon it, that they should not execute it? Did he make a Testament, a will, and refer all to future Schedules and Codicills? Did he send them to preach the Gospel, and tell them, You shall know the Gospel in the Epistles of the Popes and their Decretals hereafter? You shall know the Gospel of deposing Princes, in the Council of Lateran hereafter; and the Gospel in deluding Heretics, by safe conducts, in the Gospel of Constance hereafter; and the Gospel of creating new Articles of the Creed, in the Council of Trent hereafter? If so, then was some reason for Christ's Disciples to think, when Christ said, Verily, I say unto you, there are some here, who shall not taste death, till they see the Son of man come in glory; that he spake and meant to be understood literally, that neither John nor the rest of the Apostles should ever die, if they must live to preach the Gospel, and the Gospel could not be known by them, till the end of the world: And therefore it was wisely done in the Roman Church, to give over preaching, since the preaching of the Gospel, that is, nothing but the Gospel, would have done them no good to their ends: When all their preaching was come to be nothing, but declamations of the virtue of such an Indulgence, and then a better Indulgence then that, tomorrow, and every day a new market of fuller Indulgences, when all was but an extolling of the tenderness, and the bowels of compassion in that mother Church, who was content to set a price, and a small price upon every sin; So that if David were upon the earth again, and then when the persecuting Angel had drawn his sword, would but send an appeal to Rome, at that price, he might have an inhibition against that Angel, and have leave to number his people, let God take it as he list; Nay, if Sodom were upon the earth again, and the Angel ready to set fire to that Town, if they could send to Rome, they might purchase a Charter even for that sin (though perchance they would be loath to let that sin pass over their hills:) But not to speak anything, which may savor of jest, or levity, in so serious a matter, and so deplorable a state, as their preaching was come to, with humble thanks to God that we are delivered from it, and humble prayers to God, that we never return to it, nor towards it, let us cheerfully and constantly continue this duty of preaching and hearing the Gospel; that is, first the Gospel only, and not Traditions of men; And the next is, of all the Gospel, nothing but it, and yet all it, add nothing, defalke nothing; for as the Law is, so the Gospel is, Res integra, a whole piece; and as S. James says of the integrity of the Law, Whosoever keeps the whole Law, and offends in one point, he is guilty of all; So he that is afraid to preach all, and he that is loath to hear all the Gospel, he preaches none, he hears none. And therefore, if that imputation, which the Roman Church lays upon us, were true, That we preach no falsehood, but do not teach all the truth, we did lack one of the true marks of the true Church, that is, the preaching of the Gospel; for it is not that, if it be not all that; take therefore the Gospel, as we take it from the School, that it is historia, and usus, (the Gospel is the history of the Gospel, the proposing to your understanding all that Christ did, and it is the appropriation of the Gospel, the proposing to your faith, that all that he did he did for you) and then, if you hearken to them who will tell you, that Christ did that which he never did (that he came in, when the doors were shut, so that his body passed thorough the very body of the Tymber, thereby to advance their doctrine of Transubstantiation) or that Christ did that which he did, to another end then he did it, (that when he whipt the buyers and sellers out of the Temple, he exercised a secular power and sovereignty over the world, and thereby established a sovereignty over Princes, in his Vicar the Pope) These men do not preach the Gospel, because the Gospel is Historia & usus, The truth of the History, and of the application; and this is not the truth of the History; So also if you hearken to them, who tell you, that though the blood of Christ be sufficient in value for you, and for all, yet you have no means to be sure, that he meant his blood to you, but you must pass in this world, and pass out of this world in doubt, and that it is well if you come to Purgatory, and be sure there of getting to heaven at last; these men preach not the Gospel, because the Gospel is the history, and the use; and this is not the true use.

And thus it is, if we take the Gospel from the School; but if we take it from the School master, from Christ himself, the Gospel is repentance, and remission of sins; For he came, That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his Name; If then they will tell you, that you need no such repentance for a sin, as amounts to a contrition, to a sorrow for having offended God, to a detestation of the sin, to a resolution to commit it no more, but that it is enough to have an attrition, (as they will needs call it) a servill fear, and sorrow, that you have incurred the torments of hell; or if they will tell you, that when you have had this attrition, that the clouds of sadness, and of dejection of spirit have met, and beat in your conscience, and that the allision of those clouds have brought forth a thunder, a fearful apprehension of God's Judgments upon you; And when you have had your contrition too, that you have purged your soul in an humble confession, and have let your soul blood with a true and sharp remorse, and compunction, for all sins past, and put that bleeding soul into a bath of repentant tears, and into a bath of blood, the blood of Christ Jesus in the Sacrament, and feel it faint and languish there, and receive no assurance of remission of sins, so as that it can levy no fine that can conclude God, but still are afraid that God will still incumber you with yesterdayes sins again tomorrow; If this be their way, they do not preach the Gospel, because they do not preach all the Gospel; for the Gospel is repentance and remission of sins; that is, the necessity of repentance, and then the assurednesse of remission, go together.

Thus far then the Crediderit is carried, we must believe that there is a way upon earth to salvation, and that Preaching is that way, that is, the manner, and the matter is the Gospel, only the Gospel, and all the Gospel, and then the seal is the administration of the Sacraments, as we said at first, of both Sacraments; of the Sacrament of Baptism there can be no question, for that is literally and directly within the Commission, Go and Baptize, and then Qui non crediderit, He that believes not, not only he that believes not, when it is done, but he that believes not that this ought to be done, shall be damned; we do not join Baptism to faith, tanquam dimidiam solatii causam, as though Baptism were equal to faith, in the matter of salvation, for salvation may be had in divers cases by faith without Baptism, but in no case by Baptism without faith; neither do we say, that in this Commission to the Apostles, the administration of Baptism is of equal obligation upon the Minister as preaching, that he may be as well excusable if he never preach, as if he never Baptize; We know S. Peter commanded Cornelius and his family to be Baptized, we do not know if he Baptized any of them with his own hand; So S. Paul says of himself, that Baptizing was not his principal function; Christ sent not me to Baptize, but to preach the Gospel, saith he; In such a sense as God said by Jeremiah, I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them concerning burnt offerings, but I said, obey my voice, so S. Paul saith, he was not sent to Baptize; God commanded our fathers obedience rather then sacrifice, but yet sacrifice too; and he commands us preaching rather then Baptizing, but yet Baptizing too; For as that is true, In adultis, in persons which are come to years of discretion, which S. Jerome says, Fieri non potest, It is impossible to receive the Sacrament of Baptism, except the soul have received Sacramentum fidei, the Sacrament of faith, that is the Word preached, except he have been instructed and chatechized before, so there is a necessity of Baptism after, for any other ordinary means of salvation, that God hath manifested to his Church; and therefore Quos Deus conjunxit, those things which God hath joined in this Commission, let no man separate; Except a man be borne again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven; Let no man read that place disjunctively, Of Water or the Spirit, for there must be both; S. Peter himself knew not how to separate them, Repent and be baptized everyone of you, saith he; for, for any one that might have been, and was not Baptized, S. Peter had not that seal to plead for his salvation.

The Sacrament of Baptism then, is within this Crediderit, it must necessarily be believed to be necessary for salvation: But is the other Sacrament of the Lord's Supper so too? Is that within this Commission? Certainly it is, or at least within the equity, if not within the letter, pregnantly implied, if not literally expressed: For thus it stands, they are commanded, To teach all things that Christ had commanded them; And then S. Paul says, I have received of the Lord, that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus took bread, &c. (and so he proceeds with the Institution of the Sacrament) and then he adds, that Christ said, Do this in remembrance of me; which is, not only remember me when you do it, but do it that you may remember me; As well the receiving of the Sacrament, as the worthy receiving of it, is upon commandment.

In the Primitive Church, there was an erroneous opinion of such an absolute necessity in taking this Sacrament, as that they gave it to persons when they were dead; a custom which was grown so common, as that it needed a Canon of a Council, to restrain it. But the giving of this Sacrament to children newly baptized was so general, even in pure times, as that we see so great men as Cyprian and Augustine, scarce less then vehement for the use of it; and some learned men in the Reformed Church have not so far declined it, but that they call it, Catholicam consuetudinem, a Catholic, an universal custom of the Church. But there is a far greater strength both of natural and spiritual faculties required for the receiving of this Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, then the other of Baptism. But for those who have those faculties, that they are now, or now should be able, to discern the Lord's body, and their own souls, besides that inestimable and inexpressible comfort, which a worthy receiver receives, as often as he receives that seal of his reconciliation to God, since as Baptism is Tessera Christianorum, (I know a Christian from a Turk by that Sacrament) so this Sacrament is Tessera orthodoxorū ) I know a Protestant from a Papist by this Sacrament) it is a service to God, and to his Church to come frequently to this Communion; for truly (not to shake or afright any tender conscience) I scarce see, how any man can satisfy himself, that he hath said the Lord's Prayer with a good conscience, if at the same time he were not in such a disposition as that he might have received the Sacrament too; for, if he be in charity, he might receive, and if he be not, he mocked Almighty God, and deluded the Congregation, in saying the Lord's Prayer.

There remains one branch of that part, Docete servare, Preach the Gospel, administer the Sacraments, and teach them to practice and do all this: how comes matter of fact to be matter of faith? Thus; Qui non crediderit, he that does not believe, that he is bound to live aright, is within the penalty of this text. It is so with us, and it is so with you too; Amongst us, he that says well, presents a good text, but he that lives well, presents a good Comment upon that text. As the best texts that we can take, to make Sermons upon, are as this text is, some of the words of Christ's own Sermons: so the best arguments we can prove our Sermons by, is our own life. The whole weeks conversation, is a good paraphrase upon the Sundays Sermon; It is too soon to ask when the clock stroke eleven, Is it a good Preacher? for I have but half his Sermon then, his own life is the other half; and it is time enough to ask the Saturday after, whether the Sundays Preacher preach well or no; for he preaches poorly that makes an end of his Sermon upon Sunday; He preaches on all the week, if he live well, to the edifying of others; If we say well, and do ill, we are so far from the example of God's children, which built with one hand, and fought with the other, as that, if we do build with one hand, in our preaching, we pull down with the other in our example, and not only our own, but other men's buildings too; for the ill life of particular men reflects upon the function and ministry in general.

And as it is with us, if we divorce our words and our works, so it is with you, if you do divorce your faith and your works. God hath given his Commission under seal, Preach and Baptize; God looks for a return of this Commission, under seal too; Believe, and bring forth fruits worthy of belief. The way that Jacob saw to Heaven, was a ladder; It was not a fair and an easy stair case, that a man might walk up without any holding. But manibus innitendum, says S. Augustine, in the way to salvation there is use of hands, of actions, of good works, of a holy life; Servate omnia, do then all that is commanded, all that is within the Commission: If that seem impossible, do what you can, and you have done all; for then is all this done, Cum quod non fit ignoscitur, When God forgives that which is left undone; But God forgives none of that which is left undone, out of a willful and vincible ignorance. And therefore search thy conscience, and then Christ's commandment enters, Scrutamini Scripturas, then search the Scriptures; for till then, as long as thy conscience is foul, it is but an illusion to apprehend any peace, or any comfort in any sentence of the Scripture, in any promise of the Gospel: search thy conscience, empty that, and then search the Scriptures, and thou shalt find abundantly enough to fill it with peace and consolation; for this is the sum of all the Scriptures, Qui non crediderit hoc, He that believes not this, that he must be saved by hearing the word preached, by receiving the Sacraments, and by working according to both, is within the penalty of this text, Damnabitur, He shall be damned.

How know we that? many persons have power to condemn, which have not power to pardon; but God's word is evidence enough for our pardon and absolution, whensoever we repent we are pardoned, much more then for our condemnation; & here we have God's word for that; if that were not enough we have his oath; for it is in another place, God hath sworn, that there are some, which shall not enter into his rest, and to whom did he swear that, says S. Paul, but to them that believed not? God cannot lie, much less be forsworn, and God hath said and sworn, Damnabitur, he that believeth not, shall be damned. He shall be; but when? does any man make hast? though that be enough that S. Chrysostom says, It is all one, when that begins, which shall never end, yet the tense is easily changed in this case, from damnabitur to damnatur; for he that believeth not, is condemned already. But why should he be so? condemned for a negative? for a privative? here is no opposition, no affirming the contrary, no seducing or dissuading other men that have a mind to believe, that is not enough; for, He that believeth not God, hath made God a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. Here is the condemnation we speak of, as S. John says, Light was presented, and they loved darkness; so that howsoever God proceed in his unsearchable judgments with the Heathen, to whom the light and name of Christ Jesus was never presented, certainly we, to whom the Gospel hath been so freely, and so fully preached, fall under the penalty of this text, if we believe not, for we have made God a liar in not believing the record he gives of his Son.

That then there is damnation, and why it is, and when it is, is clear enough; but what this damnation is, neither the tongue of good Angels that know damnation by the contrary, by fruition of salvation, nor the tongue of bad Angels who know damnation by a lamentable experience, is able to express it; A man may sails so at sea, as that he shall have laid the North Pole flat, that shall be fallen out of sight, and yet he shall not have raised the South Pole, he shall not see that; So there are things, in which a man may go beyond his reason, and yet not meet with faith neither: of such a kind are those things which concern the locality of hell, and the materiality of the torments thereof; for that hell is a certain and limited place, beginning here and ending there, and extending no farther, or that the torments of hell be material, or elementary torments, which in natural consideration can have no proportion, no affection, nor appliablenesse to the tormenting of a spirit, these things neither settle my reason, nor bind my faith; neither opinion, that it is, or is not so, doth command our reason so, but that probable reasons may be brought on the other side; neither opinion doth so command our faith; but that a man may be saved, though he think the contrary; for in such points, it is always lawful to think so, as we find does most advance and exalt our own devotion, and God's glory in our estimation; but when we shall have given to those words, by which hell is expressed in the Scriptures, the heaviest significations, that either the nature of those words can admit, or as they are types and representations of hell, as fire, and brimstone, & weeping, and gnashing, and darkness, and the worm, and as they are laid together in the Prophet, Tophet, (that is, hell) is deep and large, (there is the capacity & content, room enough) It is a pile of fire and much wood, (there is the durableness of it) and the breath of the Lord to kindle it, like a stream of Brimstone, (there is the vehemence of it:) when all is done, the hell of hells, the torment of torments is the everlasting absence of God, and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presen •• ; Horrendum est, says the Apostle, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Yet there was a case, in which David found an ease, to fall into the hands of God, to scape the hands of men: Horrendum est, when God's hand is bent to strike, it is a fearful thing, to fall into the hands of the living God; but to fall out of the hands of the living God, is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination.

That God should let my soul fall out of his hand, into a bottomless pit, and roll an unremovable stone upon it, and leave it to that which it finds there, (and it shall find that there, which it never imagined, till it came thither) and never think more of that soul, never have more to do with it. That of that providence of God, that studies the life of every weed, and worm, and ant, and spider, and toad, and viper, there should never, never any beam flow out upon me; that that God, who looked upon me, when I was nothing, and called me when I was not, as though I had been, out of the womb and depth of darkness, will not look upon me now, when, though a miserable, and a banished, and a damned creature, yet I am his creature still, and contribute something to his glory, even in my damnation; that that God, who hath often looked upon me in my foulest uncleanness, and when I had shut out the eye of the day, the Sun, and the eye of the night, the Taper, and the eyes of all the world, with curtains and windows and doors, did yet see me, and see me in mercy, by making me see that he saw me, and sometimes brought me to a present remorse, and (for that time) to a forbearing of that sin, should so turn himself from me, to his glorious Saints and Angels, as that no Saint nor Angel, nor Christ Jesus himself, should ever pray him to look towards me, never remember him, that such a soul there is; that that God, who hath so often said to my soul, Quare morier is? Why wilt thou die? and so often sworn to my soul, Vivit Dominus, As the Lord liveth, I would not have thee die, but live, will nether let me die, nor let me live, but die an everlasting life, and live an everlasting death; that that God, who, when he could not get into me, by standing, and knocking, by his ordinary means of entering, by his Word, his mercies, hath applied his judgments, and hath shaked the house, this body, with agues and palsies, and set this house on fire, with fevers and calentures, and frighted the Master of the house, my soul, with horrors, and heavy apprehensions, and so made an entrance into me; That that God should frustrate all his own purposes and practices upon me, and leave me, and cast me away, as though I had cost him nothing, that this God at last, should let this soul go away, as a smoke, as a vapor, as a bubble, and that then this soul cannot be a smoke, a vapor, nor a bubble, but must lie in darkness, as long as the Lord of light is light it self, and never spark of that light reach to my soul; What Tophet is not Paradise, what Brimstone is not Amber, what gnashing is not a comfort, what gnawing of the worm is not a tickling, what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation, to be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight of God? Especially to us, for as the perpetual loss of that is most heavy, with which we have been best acquainted, and to which we have been most accustomed; so shall this damnation, which consists in the loss of the sight and presence of God, be heavier to us then others, because God hath so graciously, and so evidently, and so diversely appeared to us, in his pillar of fire, in the light of prosperity, and in the pillar of the Cloud, in hiding himself for a while from us; we that have seen him in all the parts of this Commission, in his Word, in his Sacraments, and in good example, and not believed, shall be further removed from his sight, in the next world, then they to whom he never appeared in this. But Vincenti & credenti, to him that believes aright, and overcomes all temptations to a wrong belief, God shall give the accomplishment of fullness, and fullness of joy, and joy rooted in glory, and glory established in eternity, and this eternity is God; To him that believes and overcomes, God shall give himself in an everlasting presence and fruition, Amen.

SERM. LXXVII. Preached at S. PAULS, May 21. 1626.

I Entred into the handling of these words, upon Easter day; for, though the words have received divers Expositions, good and pervers, yet all agreed, that the words were an argument for the Resurrection, and that invited me to apply them to that Day. At that Day I entered into them, with Origen's protestation, Odit Dominus, qui festum ejus unum putat diem, God hates that man, that thinks any holy-day of his lasts but one day, that never thinks of the Resurrection, but upon Easter day: And therefore I engaged myself willingly, according to the invitation, and almost the necessity of the words, which could not conveniently, (scarce possibly) be determined in one day, to return again and again to the handling thereof. For, they are words of a great extent, a great compass: The whole Circle of a Christian is designed and accomplished in them; for, here is first the first point in that Circle, our Birth, our spiritual birth, that is, Baptism, Why are these men thus baptized? says the Text; And then here is the point, directly and diametrally opposed to that first point, our Birth, that is, Death, Why are these men thus baptized for the dead? says the Text; And then the Circle is carried up to the first point again, to our Birth, in another Birth, in the Resurrection, Why are these men thus baptized for the dead, if there be no Resurrection? So that if we consider the Militant and the Triumphant Church, to be (as they are) all one House, and under one roof, here is first Limen Ecclesiae, (as S. Augustine calls Baptism) The Threshold of the Church, we are put over the Threshold, into the Body of the Church, by Baptism, and here we are remembered of Baptism, Why are these men thus baptized? And then here is Chorus Ecclesiae, The Choir, the Chancel of the Church, in which all the service of God is officiated and executed; for we are made not only hearers, and spectators, but actors in the service of God, when we come to bear a part in the Hymns and Anthems of the Saints, by our Death, and here we are remembered of Death, Why are these men thus baptized for the Dead? And then, here is Sanctum Sanctorum, The innermost part of the Church, The Holy of Holyes, that is, the manifestation of all the mysterious salvation, belonging to soul and body, in the Resurrection, Why are these men thus baptized for the dead, if there be no Resurrection?

Our first days work in handling these words, was to accept, and then to apply that, in which all agreed, that these words were an argument for the Resurrection; And we did both those offices; we did accept it, and so show you, how the assurance of the Resurrection accrues to us, and what is the office of Reason, and what is the office of Faith, in that affayre; And then we did apply it, and so show you divers resemblances, and conformities between natural Death, and spiritual Death, and between the Resurrection of the body to glory at last, and the Resurrection of the soul by grace, in the way; and wherein they induced, and assisted, and illustrated one another; And those two miles made up that Sabbath days journey. When we shall return to the handling of them, the next day, (which will be the last) we shall consider how these words have been misapplied by our Adversaries of the Roman Church, and then the several Expositions which they have received from sound and Orthodoxall men, that thence we may draw a conclusion, and determination for ourselves; And in those two miles, we shall also make up that Sabbath Days journey, when God shall be pleased to bring us to it. This days Exercise shall be, to consider that very point, for the establishment whereof, they have so detorted, and mis-applied these words, which is their Purgatory, That this Baptism for the Dead must necessarily prove Purgatory, and their Purgatory.

So then this Days Exercise will be merely Polemicall, the handling of a Controversy; which though it be not always pertinent, yet neither is it always unseasonable. There was a time but lately, when he who was in his desire and intension, the Peace-maker of all the Christian world, as he had a desire to have slumbered all Field-drums, so had he also to have slumbered all Pulpit-drums, so far, as to pass over all impertinent handling of Controversies, merely and professedly as Controversies, though never by way of positive maintenance of Orthodoxall and fundamental Truths; That so there might be no slackening in the defense of the truth of our Religion, and yet there might be a discreet and temperate forbearing of personal, and especially of National exasperations. And as this way had piety, and peace in the work it self, so was it then occasionally exalted, by a great necessity; He, who was then our hope, and is now the breath of our nostrils, and the Anointed of the Lord, being then taken in their pits, and, in that great respect, such exasperations the fitter to be forborne, especially since that course might well be held, without any prevarication, or cooling the zeal of the positive maintenance of the religion of our Church. But things standing now in another state, and all peace, both Ecclesiastical and Civil, with these men, being by themselves removed, and taken away, and he whom we feared, returned in all kind of safety, safe in body, and safe in soul too, whom though their Church could not, their Court hath chatechised in their religion, that is, brought him to a clear understanding of their Ambition, (for Ambition is their Religion, and S. Peters Ship must sails in their Fleets, and with their winds, or it must sink, and the Catholic and Militant Church must march in their Armies, though those Armies march against Rome it self, as heretofore they have done, to the sacking of that Town, to the holding of the Pope himself in so sordid a prison, for six months, as that some of his nearest servants about him died of the plague, to the treading underfoot Priests, and Bishops, and Cardinals, to the dishonoring of Matrons, and the ravishing of professed Virgins, and committing such insolencies, Catholics upon Catholics, as they would call us Heretics for believing them, but that they are their own Catholic Authors that have written them) Things being now, I say, in this state, with these men, since we hear that Drums beat in every field abroad, it becomes us also to return to the brasing and beating of our Drums in the Pulpit too, that so, as Adam did not only dress Paradise, but keep Paradise; and as the children of God, did not only build, but build with one hand, and fight with another; so we also may employ some of our Meditations upon supplanting, and subverting of error, as well as upon the planting, and watering of the Truth. To which purpose I shall prepare this day, for the vindicating and redeeming of these words from the Adversary, (which will be the work of the next day) by handling today that point, for which they have misapplied them, which is Purgatory, and the mother, and the offspring of that; for what can that generation of vipers suck from this Text, which is not, If there be no such Purgatory, but, If there be no such Resurrection, why then are these men baptized for the dead? Heaven and earth shall pass away, saith Christ, but my word shall not pass away. But rather then Purgatory shall pass away, his word must admit such an Interpretation, as shall pass away, and evacuate the intention and purpose of the Holy Ghost therein. How much of the earth is passed away from them, we know, who acknowledge the mercy, and might, and miracle of God's working, in withdrawing so many Kingdoms, so many Nations of the earth, in so short time, from the obedience, and superstition of Rome, as that if Controversies had been to have been tried by number, they would have found as many against them, as with them; so much of the earth is passed from them. How much of heaven is passed from them, that is, how much less interest and claim to heaven they can have now, when God hath afforded them so much light, and they have resisted it, then when they were in so great a part, under invincible ignorance, God only, who is the only Judge in such causes, knows; and he, of his goodness, enlarge their title to that place, by their conversion towards it. But how much soever of earth or heaven pass away, they will not lose an acre, an inch of Purgatory; For, as men are most delighted with things of their own making, their own planting, their own purchasing, their own building, so are these men therefore enamored of Purgatory: Men that can make Articles of faith of their own Traditions, (And as men to elude the law against new Buildings, first build sheds, or stables, and after erect houses there, as upon old foundations, so these men first put forth Traditions of their own, and then erect those Traditions into Articles of faith, as ancient foundations of Religion) Men that make God himself of a piece of bread, may easily make Purgatory of a Dream, and of Apparitions, and imaginary visions of sick or melancholic men.

It may then be of use to insist upon the survey of this building of theirs, in these three considerations. First, to look upon the foundation, upon what they raise it, and that is Prayer for the Dead, and that is the Grand-mother Error; And then upon the Building it self, Purgatory it self, and that is the Mother; And lastly upon the out-houses, or the furniture of this Building, and that is Indulgences, which are the children, the issue of this mother, and not such children as draw their parents dry, but support and maintain their parents; for, but for these Indulgences, their prayer for the Dead, and their Purgatory would starve; And starve they must all, if they can draw their maintenance from no other place but this, Why are these men baptized for the dead?

First then for the first of these three parts, The foundation, the Grand-mother, Prayer for the Dead; The most tender Mother, the most officious Nurse, cannot have a more particular care, how a new-borne child shall be washed, or swathed, or fed, when they consider every drop of water, every clout, every pin that belongs to it, then God had of his Infant Church, when he delivered it over to her foster-fathers, her nursing-fathers, her god-fathers, Moses and Aaron, and bound them by his instructions, in every particular, as he prescribed them. How many directions he gave, what they should eat, what they should wear, how often they should wash, what they should do, in every religious, in every civil action, and yet never, never any mention, any intimation, never any approach, any inclination, never any light, no nor any shadow, never any color, any colourablenesse of any command of prayer for the Dead. In all the Law, no precept for it; And this might imply a weakness in God's government, in so particular a law no precept of so important a duty: In all the History no example; And this might imply ill luck at least, in so large a story no Precedent of an Office so necessary: In all the Gospel no promise annexed to it; And this doth not imply, but manifest a conclusion against it, an exclusion of it. There being then no precept, no precedent, no promise for it, how came it into use and practice amongst the Jews?

After the Jews had been a long time conversant amongst the Gentiles, and that as fresh water approaching the Sea, contracts a saltish, a brackish taste, so the Jews received impressions of the customs of the Gentiles, who were ever naturally inclined to this mis-devotion, and left-handed piety, of praying for the Dead, In the faintness, and languishing of their Religion, when they were much declined from the exact observation thereof, then, in the time of the Maccabees entered that one example, which hath raised such a dust, and blinded so many eyes. We have mention of many funerals before that, and after that of many too, even in the time when Christ was upon the earth, and yet never mention of prayer for the dead, but in this one place of this book; I do not say, in this one story, (for in this story reported by Josephus, there is no mention of it) but in this one book. That is true that I have read, that after Christ's time, the Rabbins laid hold upon it, and brought it into custom; And that is true which I have seen, that the Jews at this day continue it in practice; For when one dies, for some certain time after, appointed by them, his son or some other near in blood or alliance, comes to the Altar, and there saith and doth something in the behalf of his dead father, or grandfather respectively. But all this they have drawn into practice, from this one place, from this book, from which book the same Rabbins draw a justification of a man's killing himself, because in this book they find an example of that in Razis: The Rabbins took no better a ground for their prayer for the dead, then for self-homicide, only matter of fact, out of a Historical book, which themselves did not believe to be Canonical. But how took this hold of Christians?

That which wrought upon the Jews, prevailed upon the new Christians too; for the greatest part of them, by much, being Gentiles, (for few amongst the Jews, in comparison, were converted to the Christian religion) they which came from Gentilism, retained still many impressions of such things as they had been formerly accustomed unto. And as the Fathers of the Church then, out of an indulgence to these new Convertits, did suffer and tolerate the practice of many things, which these Gentiles brought with them; (as indeed a great part of the ceremonies of the Christian Church are of that nature, and of such an admission, Things, which rather then avert their new Convertits from coming to them, by an utter abolishing of all parts of their former religion, and worship of their gods, those blessed Fathers thought fitter to retain, and turn to some good use, then altogether to take them away) As in other things, so also in this prayer for the dead, to which they, as Gentiles, had been formerly accustomed, the Fathers did not oppose it with any peremptory earnestness, with any vehement diligence, partly because the thing it self argued and testified a good, and tender, and pious affection; (and though God do not ground his Decrees upon any disposition in man's nature, yet in the execution of his Decrees, God as he works in his Church, loves to work upon a good natured man) and partly also, because this practice, being but a practice only, and no Dogmatical constitution, might be (as it was in the first practice thereof) without shaking any foundation, or wounding any Article of the Christian Religion; And lastly, (that we may speak truth, with that holy boldness which belongs to the truth) because it was a long time before the Fathers came to a clear understanding of the state of the soul, departed out of this life: for though they never doubted of the certain performance of God's promises, That all that die in him, do rest in him, yet where, and how this rest was communicated to them, admitted more clouds then they could at all times dispel and scatter, some arising from Philosophers, some from Heretics, some from ignorance, some from heat of Disputation.

So then, at first it was a weed that grew wild in the open field, amongst the Gentiles; Then because it bore a pretty flower, the testimony of a good nature, it was transplanted into some Gardens, and so became a private opinion, or at least a practice amongst some Christians; And then it spread it self so far, as that Tertullian, and he first of any takes knowledge of it, as of a custom of the Church; And truly this of Tertullian is very early, within little more then two hundred years after Christ. But as Tertullian shows us an early birth of it, so he tells us enough, to show us, that it should not have been long lived, when he acknowledges that it had no ground in Scripture, but was only a custom popularly, and vulgarly taken up. But Tertullian speaks of more then Prayer; he speaks of oblations and sacrifices for the dead; It is true, he does so; but it is of oblations and sacrifices far from the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass, for Tertullian makes a woman the Priest in his sacrifice: Offert uxor, says he, annuis diebus dormitionis mariti, The wife offers every year upon the day of her husbands death; that is, every year upon that day, she gives a dole and alms to the poor, as the custom was to do in memory of dead friends.

This being then but such a custom, and but so induced, why did none oppose it? Why it was not sufficiently opposed, I have intimated some reasons before: The affection of those that did it, who were (though mistaken in the way) piously affected in the action, And then the harmlessness in the thing itself at first, And then partly a loathsomeness in the Fathers to deter the Gentiles from becoming Christians, And partly a cloud and darkness of the state of the soul after death. Yet some did oppose it; But some not early enough, and some not earnestly enough; And some not with much success, because they were not otherwise Integrae famae, They were not thought sound in all things, and therefore they were believed in nothing; which was Arius his case, who did oppose it; but because Arius did not come home to all truths, he was not hearkened unto, in opposing any error. Otherwise at that time, Epiphanius had a fair occasion offered, to have opposed this growing custom, and to have rectified the Church in a good measure therein, about an hundred years after Tertullian: For then Arius opposed it directly; but because he proceeded upon false grounds, That since it was come to that, That the most vicious man, the most enormous sinner, might be saved after his death, by the prayers and devotions of another man, there remained no more for a Christian to do, but to provide such men in his life, to do those offices for him after his death, and so he might deliver himself from all the disciplines, and mortifications, and from the anguishes, and remorses, and vexations of conscience which the Christian Religion induces and requires, Epiphanius discerning the advantage that Arius had given, by imputing things not thoroughly true, he places his glory, and his triumph, only in overthrowing Arius his ill grounded arguments, and takes the question it self, and the danger of the Church, no farther to heart then so. And therefore when Arius asks, Can prayers for the dead be of any use? Epiphanius says, Yes, they may be of use, to awaken and exercise the piety and charity of the living; and never speaks to that which was principally intended, whether they could be of any use to the dead. So when Arius asks, Is it not absurd to say, That all sins may be remitted after death? Epiphanius says, No man in the Church ever said, That all sins may be remitted after death, and never clears the main, whether any sin might. And yet with all advantages, and modifications, Epiphanius lodges it at last, but upon custom, Nec enim praeceptum Patris, sed institutum matris habemus, says he, For this which we do, we have no commandment from God our Father, but only an Institution, implied in this Custom, from the Church our Mother.

But then it grew to a farther height; from a wild flower in the field, and a garden flower in private grounds, to be more generally planted, and to be not only suffered by many Fathers, but cherished and watered by some, and not above forty years after Epiphanius, to be so far advanced by S. Chrysostom, as that he assigns, though no Scripture for it, yet that which is nearest to Scripture, That it was an Apostolical Constitution. And truly, if it did clearly appear to have been so, A thing practiced, and prescribed to the Church, by the Apostles, the holy Ghost were as well to be believed in the Apostles mouths, as in their pens; An Apostolical Tradition, that is truly so, is good evidence. But because those things do hardly lie in proof, (for that which hath been given for a good Rule of Apostolical Traditions, is very defective, that is, That whatsoever hath been generally in use in the Church, of which no Author is known, is to be accepted for an Apostolical Tradition, for so that Ablutio pedum, The washing of one another's feet after Christ's example, was in so general use, that it had almost gained the dignity of being a Sacrament; And so was also the giving of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood to children newly baptized, and yet these, though in so general use, and without any certain Author, are not Apostolical Traditions) Therefore we must apply S. Augustine's words to S. Chrysostom, Lege ex Lege, ex Prophetis, ex Psalms, ex Euangelio, ex Apostolicis literis, & credemus, Read us anything out of the Law, or Prophets, or Psalms, or Gospel, or Epistles, and we will believe it. And we must have leave to return S. Augustine's words upon S. Augustine himself, who hath much assisted this custom of praying for the dead, Lege ex Lege, &c. Read it out of the Scriptures, and we will believe it; for S. Augustine does not pretend any other place of Scripture, then this of the Maccabees, and (not disputing now what credit that Book had with S. Augustine ) certainly it fell not within this enumeration of his, The Maccabees are neither Law, nor Prophets, nor Psalms, nor Gospel, nor Epistle.

Beloved, it is a wanton thing for any Church, in spiritual matters, to play with small errors; to tolerate, or wink at small abuses, as though it should be always in her power to extinguish them when she would. It is Christ's counsel to his Spouse, that is, the Church, Capite vulpes parvulas, Take us the little foxes, for they destroy the Vine; though they seem but little, and able to do little harm, yet they grow bigger and bigger every day; and therefore stop errors before they become heresies, and erroneous men before they become formal heretics. Capite, says Christ, Take them, suffer them not to go on; but then, it is Capite nobis, Take us those foxes, Take them for us, The bargain is between Christ and his Church. For it is not Capite vobis, Take them to yourselves, and make yourselves Judges of such doctrinal matters, as appertain not to your cognizance; Nor it is not Cape tibi, Take him to thyself, spy out a Recusant, or a man otherwise not conformable, and take him for thy labor, beg him, and spoil him, and, for his Religion, leave him as you found him; Neither is it Cape sibi, Take him for his ease, that is, compound with him easily, and continue him in his estate and errors, but Cape nobis, Take him for us, so detect him, as he may thereby be reduced to Christ and his Church.

Neither only this counsel of Christ to his Church, but that commandment of God in Levite. is also appliable to this, Non misereber is pauperis in judicio, Thou shalt not countenance a poor man in his cause, Thou shalt not pity a poor man in judgment. Though a new opinion may seem a poor opinion, able to do little harm, though it may seem a pious and profitable opinion, and of good use, yet in judicio, if it stand in judgment, and pretend to be an article of faith, and of that holy obligation, matter necessary to salvation, Non misereberis, Thou shalt not spare, thou shalt not countenance this opinion upon any collateral respect, but bring it to the only trial of Doctrines, the Scriptures. In the beginning of the Reformation in Germany, there arose a sect, whom they called Intermists, and Adiaphorists, who, upon a good pretence, were like to have done a great deal of mischief: They said, Since all the hope of a Reformation that we can promise ourselves, must come from a general Council, and of such a Council we can have no hope but by the Pope, it were impertinent, and dis-conducing to our own ends, to vex or exasperate the Pope, in this Interim, till the Council be settled, and so the Reformation put into a way; and in the Interim, for this short time till the Council, these Adiaphora, the indifferent things, (in which mild word they involved all the abuses, and all the grievances that were complained of) may be well enough continued. But if they had continued so long, they had continued yet; If they had spared their little foxes then, they had destroyed their vines; If they had pitied the poor in judgment, the cause had been judged against them; If they had reprieved those abuses for a time, they had got a pardon forever: And therefore blessed were they in taking those children, and dashing them against the stones, In taking those new-born opinions, and bringing them to the true touch-stone of all Doctrines, An ab initio, whether they had been from the beginning, or could consist with the Scriptures.

Neither doth this counsel of Christ's, Take us these little foxes, nor this commandment of God, Thou shalt not pity the poor in judgment, determine itself in the Church, or in the public only, but extends itself (rather contracts itself) to every particular soul and conscience. Capite vulpeculas, Take your little foxes, watch your first inclinatiōs to sins, for if you give them suck at first, if you feed them with the milk and honey of the mercy of God, it shall not be in your power to wean them when you would, but they will draw you from one to another extreme, from a former presumption to a future desperation in God's mercy. So also Non misereberis; Thou shalt not pity the poor in judgment; now that thou callest thyself to judgment, and thy conscience to an examination, thou shalt not pity any sin, because it pretends to be a poor sin, either poor so, that it cannot much endanger thee, not much encumber thee, or poor so, as that it threatens thee with poverty, with penury, with disability to support thy state, or maintain thy family, if thou entertain it not. Many times I have seen a suitor that comes in forma pauperis, more trouble a Court, and more importune a Judge, then greater causes, or greater persons: And so may such sins as come in forma pauperis, either way, That they plead poverty, That they can do little harm, or threaten poverty if they be not entertained. Those sins are the most dangerous sins, which pretend reason why they should be entertained: for sins which are done merely out of infirmity, or out of the surprisal of a temptation, are (in comparison of others) done as sins in our sleep; but in sins upon deliberation, upon counsel, upon pretence of reason, we do see the wisdom of God, but we set our wisdom above his, we do see the law of God, but we insert and interline non obstantes of our own, into God's Law.

If therefore thou wilt corruptly and viciously, and sinfully love another, out of pity, because they love thee so; If thou wilt assist a poor man in a cause, out of pretence of pity, with thy countenance and the power of thy place, that that poor man may have something, and thou the rest that is recovered in his right; If thou wilt embrace any particular sin out of pity, lest thy Wife and Children should be left unprovided; If thou have not taken these little foxes, that is, resisted these temptations at the beginning, yet Nunc in judicio, now that they appear in judgment, in examination of thy conscience, Non misereberis, Thou shalt not pity them, but (as Moses speaks of false Prophets, and by a fair accommodation of all bewitching sins, with pleasure or profit) If a Dreamer of Dreams have given thee a sign, and that sign be come to pass; If a sin have told thee, it would make thee rich, and it have made thee rich; yet if this Dreamer draw thee to another God, If this profit draw thee to an Idolatrous, that is, to an habitual love of that sin, (for Tot habemus recentes Deos, quot vitiae, says S. Jerome, Every man hath so many Idols in him, as he hath habitual sins) yet, Though this dreamer (as God proceeds there) be thy brother, or thy son, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, How near, how dear, how necessary soever this sin be unto thee, Non misereberis, says Moses, Thine eye shall not pity that Dreamer, thou shalt not keep him secret, but thine own hand shall be upon him to kill him; And so of this pleasurable, or profitable sin, Non misereberis, Thou shalt not hide it, but pour it out in Confession; Non misereberis, Thou shalt not pardon it, no nor reprieve it, but destroy it, for the practice presently; Non misereberis, Thou shalt not turn out the Mother, and retain the Daughter, not leave the sin, and retain that which was sinfully got, but devest all, root, and body, and fruits, by confession to God, by contrition in thyself, by restitution to men damnified; Elfe, that will fall upon thee and thy soul, which fell upon the Church, That because they did not take their little foxes, they endangered the whole vine; Because they did pity the poor in judgment, that is, (as S. Augustine says) they were loath to wrestle with the people, or force them from dangerous customs, they came from that supine negligence, in tolerating prayer for the Dead, to establish a doctrinal point of Purgatory; and for both, prayer for the Dead, and Purgatory, they detort this text, Else, that is, if no Purgatory, why then are these men baptized for the Dead?

As in the Old Testament there is no precept, no precedent, no promise for prayer for the Dead, So in the Old Testament they confess, there was no Purgatory; no such place, as could purify a soul to that cleanness, as to deliver it up to Heaven; For thither, to Heaven, no soul, say they, had access, till after Christ's ascension. But as the first mention of prayer for the dead was in time of the Maccabees, so much about the same time was the first stone of Purgatory laid; and laid by the hands of Plato. For, Hareticorum Patriarchy, Philosophi, says Tertullian, The Philosophers were the Patriarchs of Heretics, evermore they had recourse to them. And then, Plato being the Author of Purgatory, we cannot deny, but that the Greek Church did acknowledge Purgatory, that is, that Greek Church, of which Plato is a Patriarch; for, for the Christian Greek Church, that never acknowledged Purgatory, so as the Roman, that is, A place of torment, from which our prayers here, might deliver souls there. But yet Plato's invention, or his manner of expressing it, took such root and such hold, as that Eusebius, when he comes to speak of Purgatory, delivers it in the very words of Plato, and makes Plato's words his words, and Plato his Patriarch, for the Greek Church. The Latin Church had Patriarchs too for this Doctrine; though not Philosophers, yet Poets; for of that which Virgil says of Purgatory, Lactantius says, propemodum vera, Virgil was very near the truth, Virgil was almost a Catholic, but then later men say, Haec prorsus vera, This is absolutely true that Virgil says, and Virgil is a perfect, a down-right Catholic; for an upright Catholic, in the point of Purgatory, were hard to find.

These then are the first Patriarchs of the Greek and Latin Church, Philosophers, and Poets; And when it came farther, to Christians, it gained not much at first; for the first mention of Purgatory amongst Christians hath this double ill luck, that first it is in a Book which no side believes, the Book called Pastor, whose Author is said to be Hermes, and he fancied to be S. Paul's Disciple; And then that which is said of Purgatory in that Book, is put into an old woman's mouth, and so made an old wives tale; she tells that she had a vision, of stones fallen from a tower, and then mended after they were fallen, and laid in the building again: And this Tower must be the Church, and these fallen stones must be souls in Purgatory, and then they must be made fit to be placed in the uppermost part of the building, in the Triumphant Church.

But to consider this plant in better grounds, then Philosophers, or Poets, or old wives tales, or supposititious books, amongst men of more weight and gravity; Clement of Alexandria, within little more then two hundred years after Christ, spake doubtfully, uncertainly, suspiciously, disputably of Purgatory; And within twenty years after him, Origen, who was evermore transported beyond the letter, upon mysteries, somewhat directly. But yet when all is done, Origen's Purgatory is a purgatory, that would do them no good; for it would bring them in no money; and they could be as well content that there were none, as that it were nothing worth; except they may have the letting and setting of Purgatory at their price, they care not though it were pulled down. And Origen's Purgatory is such a purgatory as the best men must come into it, even Martyrs themselves, that are re-baptized in their own blood, (and will this purgatory serve their turns?) And it is such a purgatory, as the worst of all, even the Devil himself may, and shall get out of it; And will this purgatory serve their turns? Neither is this an error peculiar to Origen, That all souls must pass through Purgatory, but common with others of the Fathers too; Sive Paulus, sive Petrus, says Origen, whether it be S. Paul, or S. Peter, thither he must come, And sive Petrus, sive Johannes, says S. Ambrose, whether it be the Disciple that loved Christ, S. Peter, or the Disciple whom Christ loved, S. John, thither he must come; And S. Hilary extends it farther, he draws in the blessed Virgin Mary her self into purgatory. And that we may see clearly, that that Purgatory which the Fathers intended, is not the Purgatory now erected in the Roman Church, S. Ambrose consigns to his Purgatory, even the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Testaments; Igne filii Levi, igne Ezekiel, igne Daniel, The holiest generation, the Sons of Levi, and the greatest of the Prophets must pass through this fire: And will such a purgatory serve their turns, as was kindled in the Old Testament?

Well; They are very loath to be put to their special plea, very loath to answer, what Purgatory of the Fathers they will stand to; They would not be put to answer; They choose rather to interrogate us; and they ask us, Since the Fathers are so pregnant, so frequent in the name of Purgatory, one Purgatory or other, will you believe none? None, upon the strength of that argument, that the Fathers mention Purgatory, except they will assign us a Purgatory, in which those Fathers agree, and agree it to be matter of faith, to believe it; for from how many things, which pass through the Fathers, by way of opinion, and of discourse, are they in the Roman Church departed, only upon that, That the Fathers said it, but said it not Dogmatically, but by way of discourse, or opinion. But then they ask us again, Since it is clear that they did use prayer for the dead, what could they mean by those prayers, but a Purgatory, a place of torment, where those souls needed help, and from whence those prayers might help them? What could they mean else? Certainly, we cannot tell them, what they meant; If they should ask them, who made those prayers, they could hardly tell them. If a man should have surprised S. Ambrose at his prayers, and stood behind him, and heard him say, Non dubitamus, etiam Angelorum testimoniis credimus, Lord, I cannot doubt it, for thou by thine Angels hast revealed it unto me, Fide ablutum, aeterna voluptate perfrui, That my dead Master the Emperor, was baptized in his faith, and is now in possession of all the joys of heaven, and yet have heard S. Ambrose say, sometimes to God, sometimes to his dead Master, Si quid preces, if my prayers may prevail with thee O God, and then, Oblationibus vos frequentabo, I will wait upon you daily with my Oblations, I will accompany you daily with my Sacrifices; And for what? Vt des, Domine, requiem, That thou, O Lord, wouldest afford rest, and peace, and salvation to that soul, And if this man after all this, should have asked S. Ambrose, What he meant to pray for him, of whose present being in heaven he was already assured? surely S. Ambrose could have given no such answer, as would have implied a confession, or an argument for Purgatory; But S. Ambrose is likely to have said to him, as he does say there, Est in piis affectibus quaedam stendi voluptas, In tender hearts, and in good natures, there is a kind of satisfaction, and more then that, a holy voluptuousness in weeping, in lamenting, in deploring the loss of a friend; In commemoratione amissi acquiescimus, Let me alone, give me leave to think of my lost Master some way, by speaking with him, by speaking of him, by speaking for him, any way, I find some ease, some satisfaction in commemorating and celebrating of him; But all this would not have amounted to an argument for Purgatory. So also if a man should have found S. Augustine in his Meditations after his Mothers death, and heard him say, Pro peccatis Matris meae deprecor te, Lord, I am a suitor now for my Mothers sins; Exaudi Domine, propter medicinam vulnerum tuorum, Hear me, O Lord, who acknowledge no other Balsamum, then that which drops out of thy wounds, Dimitte Domine, Domine obsecro, Pardon her, O Lord, O Lord pardon her all her sins; And then should have heard S. Augustine, with the same breath, and the same sigh, say, Credo quod jam feceris, quae rogo, Lord, I am faithfully assured, that all this is already done, which I pray for; and then should have asked S. Augustine, What he meant to pray for that which was already done? S. Augustine could but have said to him, as he does to God there, Voluntaria oris mei accipe Domine, Accept O Lord, this voluntary, though not necessary Devotion. But if a man would have pressed either of them for a full reason of those prayers, it would have been hard for him to have received it. They prayed for the Dead, and they meant no ill, in doing so; but what particular good they meant, they could hardly give any farther account, but that it was, if not an inordinate, yet an inconsiderate piety, and a Devotion, that did rather transport them, then direct them.

These then prayed for the dead, and yet confessed those whom they prayed for, to be then in heaven; S. Chrysostom prays for others, and yet believes them to be in Hell; Potest infidels de Gehenna dimittere, says he, sed forte non faciet, God can deliver an unbelieving soul out of hell, perchance he will not, says he, but I cannot tell, and therefore I will try. And yet S. Gregory absolutely forbids all prayer for the dead, where they died in notorious sin; As generally their whole School doth at this day, either for such sinners, as dying in impenitency, are presumed to be already in Hell, or such as died so well, that they are already presumed to be in possession of as much as can be asked in their behalf.

If then they will still press and pursue us with that question, What could those Fathers mean by their prayer for the Dead, but Purgatory? We must send them to those Fathers, (and I pray God they may get to them) to ask what they meant. So much as any of those Fathers have told us, we can tell them; and amongst those Fathers, S. Dionyse the Areopagite hath told us most; He hath told us the manner, and the Ceremonies used at the funerals of Christians; and amongst them the offices, and liturgies, and services said and read at such funerals; and expressed them so, as that we may easily see, That first the Congregation made a declaration of their religious and faithful assurance, that they that die in the Lord, rest in him; And then a protestation in the behalf of that dead brother, that he did die in that faith, and that expectation, and therefore was then in possession of that rest, which was promised to them who died so. And this testimony for themselves in general, and this application thereof to that dead man, says he, the Church then expressed in the form of prayer, and so seemed to ask and beg at God's hands, that which indeed they did but acknowledge to have received before; they gave that the form of a prayer, as of a future thing, which was indeed but a recognition of that which was present, and past, That they did then, and that that dead brother had before embraced that belief.

This answer to their question, (What could they mean but Purgatory, by those prayers?) they may have from those of those ancient times; And thus much more from daily practice, That every man who prostrates himself in his chamber, and pours out his soul in prayer to God; though he have said, O Lord, enter not into judgment with thy servant; forgive me the sins of my youth, O Lord; O Lord blot out all mine iniquities out of thy remembrance, though his faith assure him, that God hath granted all that he asked upon the first petition of his prayer, yea before he made it, (for God put that petition into his heart and mouth, and moved him to ask it, that thereby he might be moved to grant it) yet as long as the Spirit enables him, he continues his prayer, and he solicits, and he importunes God for that which his conscience assures him, God hath already granted: He hath it, and yet he asks it; and that second asking it implies and amounts but to a thanksgiving for that mercy, in which he hath granted it. So those Fathers prayed for that which they assured themselves was done before, and therefore, though it had the form of a prayer, it might be a commemoration of God's former benefits; it might be a protestation of their present faith, or an attestation in the behalf of their dead friend, whose first obsequies, or yearly anniversary they did then celebrate.

Add to this the general disposition in the nature of every man, to wish well to the dead, And the darkness in which men were then, in what kind of state the dead were, and we shall the less wonder, that they declined to this custom in those times, especially if we consider, that even in the Reformation of Religion, in these clearer times, Luther himself, and after him, (if perchance Luther may be thought not to have been enough fined and drawn from his lees) The Apology for the Confession of Auspourg, which was written after all things were sufficiently debated, and had siftings, and cribrations, and alterations enow, allows of such a form of prayer for the dead, as that of the primitive Fathers may justly seem to have been. All ends in this, that neither those prayers of those Fathers, nor these of these Lutherans, (though neither be in themselves to be justified) did necessarily imply, or presuppose any such Purgatory, as the Roman Church hath gone about to evict or conclude out of them; Men might pray for the dead as those Fathers did, and as the Lutherans do, safely enough without assisting the doctrine of Purgatory, if that were all that were to be said against such prayers.

Be then that thus settled, The Fathers did not intend any such building upon that foundation, not a Purgatory, which should be a place of torment, upon those prayers for the dead; but then, what did they mean by that Purgatory, and that fire, which is so frequent amongst them? In the confession of our Adversaries, the greatest part of the Fathers that mention a Purgatory fire, intend it of the general fire of conflagration at the last day: They thought the souls of the Dead to have been kept in Abditis, and in Receptaculis till the day of Judgment, and that then that fire which was to take hold of all creatures to the purifying of them, should also take hold of all souls, and burn out all that might be unacceptable to God in those souls, and that this was their Purgatory. Others of the Fathers have called that severe judgment, and examination which every soul is to pass under, from the hand of God at that time, (because it hath much of the nature of fire, and many of the properties and qualities of fire in it) a fire, a purging fire, and made that their Purgatory. If others of the Fathers have spoken of a purging fire after this life, so as it will not fall within these two acceptations, of the fire of conflagration, or of the fire of examination, we must say in their behalf, as Sextus Senensis does, That they are not the less holy, nor the less reverend, for having straied into some of these mistakings, because it is a fire without light.

In those sub-obscure times, S. Augustine might be excusable, though he proceeded doubtfully and said, Non incredibile, It is not incredible that some such thing there may be, and Quaeri potest, It is not amiss to inquire, (where such things are to be inquired after, that is, in the Scriptures) whether any such thing be or no, and Vtrum latere, an inveniri, whether any such thing will be found there, or no, I cannot tell: he may be excusable in his proceeding farther in his doubt, Sive ibi tantum, whether all our Purgatory be reserved for the next world, Sive hic & ibi, or whether God divide our Purgatory, some here, and some there, Sive hic ut non ibi, or whether God exalt and multiply our Purgatory here, that we may have none hereafter. Of these things, I say, howsoever S. Augustine might be excusable for doubting in those dark times, we should be inexcusable, if we should not deny them in these times, in which God hath afforded us so much light and clearness; And rest in that acknowledgement, that we have in this life Purgationem, & purgatorium, A purging, and a Purgatory; A purging in this, That Christ Jesus, Whom God hath made the heir of all things, by whom also he made the world, who was the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person; That he, by himself hath purged our sins: There is our purging; But then, because after this general purging, which is wrapped up in the general nature, as Christ died for mankind, for all men, and after that nearer application thereof, as it is wrapped up in the Covenant, as he died more effectually for all Christians, still our own clothes defile us, our own evil habits, our own flesh pollutes us, therefore God sends us a Purgatory too in this life, Crosses, Afflictions, and Tribulations, and to burn out these infectious stains and impressions in our flesh, Ipse sedet tanquam ignis conflans, God sits as a fire, and with fullers soape, to wash us, and to burn us clean with afflictions from his own hand.

Let no man think himself sufficiently purified, that hath not passed this Purgatory; Irascaris mihi Domine, saith S. Bernard, Lord let me see that thou art angry with me; I know I have given thee just cause of anger; and if thou smother that anger, and declare it not by corrections here, thou reservest thine anger to undeterminable times, and to unsupportable proportions. Propitius fuisti, says David, Thou wast a merciful God to thy people; for, saith he, Thou didst punish all their Inventions; In this consisted his mercy, that he did punish; for if he had been more merciful, he had been unmerciful; If he had begun with no Judgments, they had ended in Judgments without end; Affliction is a Christians daily bread, and therefore in that petition, Da nobis hodie, Give us this day our daily bread, not only patience in affliction, but affliction it self, so far as it conduces to our mortification is asked at God's hand. It is an over-presumptuous confidence, for which they glorify one in the Roman Church, that he was put often to his Decede à me, Domine, O Lord, withdraw thyself, and thy grace farther from me, for by mine own sanctity, or diligence, I am able to wrestle with, and to overcome all the temptations, and tribulations of this life, Decede à me, withdraw thyself, and thy grace, and put not thyself to this trouble, nor this cost with me, but leave me to myself: This was too much confidence; but that was more, which we find in another, That he begged of God, by prayer, that he might be possessed with the Devil for some months, because all the temptations of the flesh, and all the crosses of the world, were not enough for his victory, and his triumph. But it is an humble and a requisite prayer, to ask such a measure of affliction, as may ballast us, and carry us steadily, through all the storms, and tempests of this life. As he that hath had no rub in his fortune, in his temporal state, is in most danger to fall, (to fall into murmuring) at the first stumble he makes, As he that hath had no sickness till his age, hardly recovers then; So he that hath not borne his yoke in his youth, that hath not been accustomed to crosses and afflictions, hath a wanton soul all the way, and a froward and impatient soul towards the end.

This is our true Purgatory; And in this Purgatory, we do need the prayers of others; and upon this Purgatory, we may build Indulgences, which are those testimonies of the remission of sins, which God hath enabled his Church to imprint and confer upon us, in the absolution thereof; which are nothing of kin to those Indulgences of the Roman Church, which are the children of this mother of Purgatory, and to the maintenance of which, they have also detorted our Text, Else, If there be no such Indulgences, If the works of Supererogation done by other men, may not be applied to the souls that are in Purgatory, If there be no such use of Indulgences, why are then these men baptized for the dead?

Against the popular opinion of the Sphere, or Element of Fire, some new Philosophers have made this an argument, that it is improbable, and impertinent, to admit an Element that produceth no Creatures; A matter more subtle then all the rest, and yet work upon nothing in it; A region more spacious then all the rest, and yet have nothing in it, to work upon. All the other three Elements, Earth, and Water, and Air abound with inhabitants proper to each of them, only the Fire produces nothing. Here is a fire that recompenses that defect; The fire of the Roman Purgatory hath produced Indulgences, and Indulgences are multiplied to such a number, as that no herds of Cattle upon earth can equal them, when they meet by millions at a Jubile, no shoales, no spawn of fish at Sea, can equal them, when they are transported in whole Tuns to the West Indies, where of late years their best Market hath been; No flocks, no flights of birds in the Air can equal them, when as they say of S. Francis, at every prayer that he made, a man might have seen the Air as full of souls flying out of Purgatory, as sparkles from a Smiths Anvill, beating a hot Iron. The Apostle complains of them, that made Mercaturam animarum, Merchandise of men's souls; but these men make Ludibrium animarum, a Jest of men's souls: For, if that sad and serious consideration, that this doctrine concerns that part of man, which nothing but the incorruptible blood of the Son of God could redeem, the soul, did not cast a devout and a religious bridle upon it, it were impossible to speak of these Indulgences, otherwise then merrily: They do make merchandise of souls, and yet they make a jest of them too.

These then, these Indulgences, are the children, the generation of that Viper, the Salamanders of that fire, Purgatory; And then, Inter omnia venenata, says Pliny, Of all the venomous creatures in the world, the Salamander is Maximi sceleris, the most mischievous; for whereas others, singulos feriunt, (as the same Author says) they sting but one at once, the Salamander destroys whole families, whole Cities together, for all that eat the fruit of any tree, that he hath touched, perish. We need not apply this; Our fathers did, and our neighbors do feel the manifold mischiefs that these mercenary Indulgences work in the world, and to what desperate and bloody actions men are induced, and animated by them; what knives these Indulgences have whet in Courts, and what Armies they have paid in the open field; A cheap discharge, and easy Subsidy; we have seen Copper coined, and we have read of leather coined, but here they coin paper, and in an Indulgence, which require but as much paper as a Ballad, they send a man more salvation, then the whole Bible can give them. Men that will not see light, or not watch by the light, will not see this; Men that delight to wallow still in the mire, can digest this; Etiam Salamandra à suibus manditur, says Pliny, As venomous as a Salamander is, a Sow will eat a Salamander; As the citizens of the lowest fire, of hell it self, entered into the heard of swine, so these children of this other fire, of Purgatory, these Indulgences, enter into swinish men, that consider not their own foulness, but think themselves clean when they have eaten a Salamander, that is, bought an Indulgence. But though they have had a spurious generation, and yet have lasted longer then spurious generations use to do, (for they have spread into three generations, Prayer for the dead begot Purgatory, and Purgatory Indulgences) yet they have had a viperous generation too, for they have eaten out the womb of their own Mother, and these Salamanders, these Indulgences retain still the nature of Pliny's Salamanders, Non gignunt, They beget no more, they proceed no farther; For in this enormous excess of Indulgences, the Roman Church took her deaths wound; from this extreme abuse of Indulgences, arose the occasion of the Reformation, which God advanced and prospered so miraculously in the hands of Luther, upon the indignation that the world took upon these Indulgences.

How they rose, how they grew, how they fell, is a historical knowledge, and not much necessary to be insisted upon here though indeed our danger be greater from these Indulgences, then either from prayer for the Dead, or from Purgatory; though all three be equally erroneous in matter of doctrine, yet for matter of fact, and danger, Indulgences are the most pernicious, because that opinion of an immediate passing to Heaven thereupon, animates men to any undertakings. But as the Christians in abolishing the Idolatry of the Gentiles, in some places, sometimes, left some of their Idols standing, lest the Gentiles should come to deny, that ever they had worshipped such monsters: So it hath pleased the Holy Ghost to hover over the Authors and Writers in the Roman Church, so as that they have left some impressions of the iniquity of these Indulgences in their books. From them we are able to declare, That Indulgencies in the Primitive Church were nothing but relaxations, moderations of those severe penances, which the Canons, called Penitentiall, inflicted upon particular sins, which Canons were for the most part the Rule of the whole Church, and which penances, enjoined by those Canons, every Bishop in his own Dioces, might according to his holy discretion moderate, according to the bodily infirmity, or the spiritual amendment of the penitent sinner; That in time, the Bishops of Rome drew into their hands all this power of remitting penances, reserving to themselves, and shedding upon other Bishops, as much, and as little as they were pleased; That after they had extended this overflowing power over this world, they enlarged it farther to the next world too, to Purgatory. And this, not long since, Postquam aliquandiu ad Purgatorium trepidatum est, coepere indulgentiae, says a good Author of theirs, of our Nation, that Bishop of Rochester, whose service they recompensed with a Cardinals Hat, (but somewhat late, for his head was off before his hat came) After the vapors of Purgatory had blinded men's eyes, after men had been made afraid of those fires, for a good while, says that Bishop, then they began to set on foot their Indulgencies; This beginning was not above three hundred years since, and within one hundred they came to that height, that though in their Schools they make the pains of Purgatory to be so violent, that they say no soul is likely to remain there above ten years, yet they give Indulgencies for infinite thousands of years; They give one day Plenam, and the next pleniorem, and after plenissimam, They forgive all today, and tomorrow the rest, and then they find something beyond that, which was beyond all: So that as Seneca says, of the excess in Libraries in his time, That they had Bibliothecas pro Supellectile, No man thought his house well furnished, if he had not a Library, though he understood never an Author, So no man thought his house well furnished, if he had not Indulgencies for every season, if he bought not all that came to market, if he had not Indulgence upon Indulgencies, present and successive Indulgences, possessory and reversionary Indulgences, total and supernumerary, current and concurrent Indulgences, to delude the justice of God withal.

Well; to our true Purgatory which we spake of before, Those crosses which God is pleased to lay upon us, belong true Indulgencies, The constant promises of our faithful God, that he will give us the issue with the temptation, and that as the Apostle says, No temptation shall befall us, Si non humana, but that which appertains to man: Now for this Humana tentatio, temptation or affliction that appertains to man, it is not only affliction that appertains to man so, as that other men do inflict it, when wicked men revile and calumniate and oppress the godly; it is not only that, though so S. Chrysostom interprets it; Nor is this affliction appertaining to man, because man himself inflicts it upon himself, our own inherent corruption being become Spontaneus Daemon, a Devil in our own bosom; it is not only that, though so S. Jerome interpret it; nor is this affliction appertaining to man, so called Humana, as humanum is opposed Daemoniaco, That all torments falling upon the Devil, work in him more and more obduration, but the corrections inflicted by God upon man, work a reconciliation; it is not only this, though so S. Gregory interpret it; But this affliction appertains so to a Christian man, as the soul it self, and as reason appertains to a natural man: He is not a man, that is without a reasonable soul, he is not a Christian that is without correction; It appertains unto man so, as that it is convenient, more, that it is expedient, more then that, that it is necessary, and more then all that, that it is essential to a Christian: As when the spirit returns to him that gave it, there is a dissolution of the man, So when God withdraws his visitation, there is a dissolution of a Christian; for so God expresses the spiritual Death, and the height of his anger, in the Prophet, I will make my wrath towards thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee; That is, I will look no more after thee, I will study thy recovery and thine amendment no farther.

Have ye forgot the Consolation? says the Apostle; what is that Consolation? Is it that you shall have no affliction? No; This is the Consolation, That whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. It is general to all sons, for, If ye be without correction, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons; And then, to show us how this Purgatory and these Indulgencies accompany on another, how God's crosses, and his deliverances do ever concur together, we see the Holy Ghost hath so ordered and disposed these two, Mercy and Correction, in this one verse, as that we cannot say which is first, the Correction or the Mercy, the Purgatory or the Indulgence: For first the Indulgence is before the Purgatory, The Mercy before the Correction, in one place, Whom he loveth, he chasteneth, first God loves, and then he chasteneth; and then after, The Purgatory is before the Indulgence, the Correction is before Mercy, He scourgeth every son whom he receiveth; first he scourges him, and then he receives him; They are so disposed, as that both are made first, and both last, we cannot tell whether precede, or succeed, they are always both together, they are always all one; As long as his love lasts, he corrects us, and as long as he corrects us, he loves us.

And so we have a justifiable prayer for the Dead, that is, for our souls, dead in their sins, Cor novum, O Lord create a new heart in me; And we have a justifiable Purgatory, Purgabit aream, If we be God's floor, he hath his fan in his hand, and he will make us clean; And we have justifiable Indulgences, Indulsisti genti Domine, indulsisti genti, Thou hast been indulgent to thy people, O Lord, thou hast been indulgent to us; We cannot complain, as they begin, rather to murmur, then to complain, Ah Lord God, surely thou hast deceived thy people, saying, you shall have peace, and the sword pierceth to the heart; For when this sword of God's corrections shall pierce to the heart, that very sword shall be but as a Probe to search the wound, nay that very wound shall be but as an issue to draine, and preserve the whole body in health; for his mercies are so above all his works, as that the very works of his Justice are mercy.

And so, not the Prayer for the Dead, not the Purgatory, not the Indulgences of the Roman Church, but we, who have them truly, do truly receive a benefit from this Text, which Text is a proof of the Resurrection. Because we feel a Resurrection by grace now, because we believe a Resurrection to glory hereafter, therefore we can give an account of this Baptism for the dead in our Text: The particular sense of which words, will be the Exercise of another day. This day we end, both with our humble thanks, for all Indulgences which God hath given us in our Purgatories, for former deliverances in former crosses, and with humble prayer also, that he ever afford us such a proportion of his medicinal corrections, as may ever testify his presence and providence upon us in the way, and bring us in the end, to the Kingdom of his Son Christ Jesus. Amen.

SERM. LXXVIII. Preached at S. PAULS, June 21. 1626.

W EE are now come at last, to that which was first in our intention, How these words have been detorted, and misapplied by our Adversaries of the Roman Church, for the establishing of those heresies, which we have formerly opposed, And then, the divers ways, which sounder and more Orthodoxall Divines have held in the Exposition thereof; that so from the first Part, we may learn what to avoid and shun, and from the second, what to embrace and follow.

Of all the places of Scripture which Bellarmine brings for the maintenance of Purgatory (excepting only that one place of the Maccabees) (And of that place we must say, as it was said of that jealous husband, which set a watch and spy upon his Wife, Quis custodit custodes? Who shall watch them that watch her? So when they prove matters of faith out of the Maccabees, we say Quis probat probantem, who shall prove that book to be Scripture, by which they prove that doctrine to be true?) But of all other places, there is scarce one, to which Bellarmine himself doth not, by way of objection against himself, give some better sense and interpretation then that, which himself sticks to; and such a sense, as when the matter of Purgatory is not in question, his fellows often times in their writings, and himself sometimes in his writings doth accept, and adhere to.

I offer it for a note of good use, and in the observing whereof, I have used a constant diligence in reading the Roman Writers, That those Writers which write by way of Exposition, and Commentaries upon the Scriptures, and are not engaged in the professed handling of Controversies, do very often content themselves with the true sense of those places which they handle, and hunt after no curious, nor forced, nor foreign, nor unnatural senses: But if the same Authors come to handle Controversies, they depart from that singleness of heart, and that holy ingenuity, and stray aside, or soar up into other senses of the same places. I look no farther for a reason of this, then this, That almost all the Controversies, between Rome, and the rest of the Christian world, are matters of profit to them, and raise money, and advance their Revenue: So that, as they are but Expositors, they may have leave to be good Divines, and then, and in that capacity, they may give the true sense of that Scripture; But as they are Controverters, they must be good Subjects, good Statesmen, good Exchequer men, and then, and in that capacity, they must give such senses as may establish and advance their profit: As an Expositor, he may interpret this place of the Resurrection, as it should be; but as a Controverter, he must interpret it of Purgatory, for so it must be, when profit is their end: And as our Alchemists can find their whole art and work of Alchymy, not only in Virgil and Ovid, but in Moses and Solomon; so these men can find such a transmutation into gold, such a foundation of profit, in extorting a sense for Purgatory, or other profitable Doctrines, out of any Scripture.

So Bellarmine does upon this place, and upon this place principally he relies, in this he triumphs, when he says, Hic locus aperte convinced quod volumus, Here needs no wresting, no disguising, here Purgatory is clearly and manifestly discovered. Now certainly, if we take the words as they are, and as the Holy Ghost hath left them to us, we find no such manifestation of this Doctrine, no such clear light, no such bonfire, no such beacon, no beam at all, no spark of any such fire of Purgatory: That because S. Paul says, That no man would be baptized Pro mortuis, for Dead, or, for the Dead, except he did assure himself of a Resurrection, that this should be Aperta convictio, an evident Conviction of Purgatory, is, if it be not a new Divinity, certainly a new Logic.

But it is not the word, but the sense that they ground their assurance upon. Now, the sense which should ground an assurance in Doctrinal things, should be the literal sense: And yet here, in so important a matter of faith as Purgatory, it must not be a literal, a proper, a natural and genuine sense, but figurative, and metaphorical; for, in this place, Baptism must not signify literally the Sacrament of Baptism, but it must signify, in a figurative sense, a Baptism of tears. And then that figure must be a pregnant figure, a figure with child of another figure, for as this Baptism must signify tears, so these tears must signify all that they use to express by the name of Penance, and discipline, and mortification; Weeping, and fasting, and alms, and whipping, all must be comprehended in these tears; And then, as there was a mother figure, and a daughter figure, so there is a grand-child too; for here is a Prosopopoeia, an imagining, a raising up of a person that is not; That all this must be done by some man alive, with relation, and in the behalf of a dead person, that these afflictions which he takes upon himself in this world, may accrue, in the benefit thereof, to a man in another world. Now if any of this Evidence be defective, if it be not evident, that this is a figurative speech, but that the literal sense is very proper to the place, if it be not evident, that this figure of Baptism is meant for tears, and other penances; If it be not evident, that this penance is more then that man needed to have undergone for his own salvation, but that God became indebted to him for that penance so sustained, and if it be not evident, that this penance and supererogation may be applied and communicated to a dead man, it is a little too forwardly, and too courageously pronounced, Hic locus aperte convinced quod volu mus, We desire no more then this place, for the proof of Purgatory.

Yet he pursues his triumph, Vera & genuina interpretatio, says he; As though he might waive the benefit, of making it a figurative sense, and have his ends, by maintaining it to be the literal sense; This is, says he, the true and natural sense of the place. But it will be hard for him, to persuade us, either that this is the literal sense of the place, or that this place needs any other, then a literal sense. Since he will not allow us a figurative sense, in that great mystery, in the Sacrament, in the Hoc est Corpus meum, but bind us punctually in the letter, without any figure, not only in the thing, (for in the thing, in the matter, we require no figure, we believe the body of Christ to be in the Sacrament as literally, as really as they do) but even in the words, and phrase of speech, He should not look that we should allow him a figurative sense in that place, which must be Apertissimus locus, his most evident place for the proof of so great an article of faith, as Purgatory is with them. We have a Rule, by which that sense will be suspicious to us, which is, Not to admit figurative senses in interpretation of Scriptures, where the literal sense may well stand; And he himself hath a Rule, (if he remember the Council of Trent) by which that sense cannot be admitted by himself, which is, That they must interpret Scriptures according to the unanime consent of the Fathers; and he knows in his conscience, that he hath not done so, as we shall remember him anon.

Not to founder by standing long in this puddle, he makes no other argument, that Baptism must here be understood of afflictions voluntarily sustained, but that that word Baptism is twice used, and accepted so in the Scriptures by Christ himself; It is taken so there, therefore it must be taken so here. But not to speak at all, of the weakness of that Consequence, (the word hath been taken figuratively, therefore it must never return to a literal sense) which will hold as well, that because Christ is called Porta, A Gate, therefore when Samson is said to have carried a Gate, Samson must be a Christopher, and carry Christ; And because Christ is a vine, and a way, and water, and bread, wheresoever any of these words are, they must be intended of Christ; not to stand upon the argument and inconsequence, I say, this word Baptism, hath not that signification, which he would have it have here, in any of those other places of Scripture, which he cites to this purpose.

They are but two, and may quickly be considered; The first is, when Christ asks the ambitious Apostles, Are ye able to drink of the Cup, that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism, that I shall be baptized with? The second is in S. Luke, I must be baptized with a Baptism, and how am I grieved, till it be ended? In both which places, Christ doth understand by this word Baptism, his Passion; That is true: And so ordinarily in the Christian Church, as the days of the death of the Martyrs were called Natalitia Martyrum, The Birth-days of the Martyrs; so Martyrdom it self, was called a Baptism, Baptisma sanguinis, The Baptism of Blood; That is also true; but what then? was the Passion of Christ himself, such an affliction, as Bellarmine speaks of here, and argues from in this place, that is, an affliction so inflicted upon himself, and undertaken by himself, as that then when he did bear it, he might have forborne it, and refused to bear it? Though nothing were more voluntary then Christ's submitting himself to that Decree of dying for man, yet when that Decree was passed, to which he had a privity, nothing was more necessary, nor unavoidable to any man, then the Death of the Cross was to Christ, neither could he not only not have saved us, but not have been exalted in his human nature himself, if he had not died that death; for all that was wrapped up in the Decree, and from that grew out, the propterea exaltatus, and the oportuit pati, That all those things Christ ought to suffer, And therefore, therefore because he did suffer all that, he was exalted. And will Bellarmine say, that the Martyrdom of the Martyrs in the primitive Church was so voluntarily sustained, as that they might have forsaken the cause of Christ, and refused Martyrdom, and yet have been saved, and satisfied the purpose, or the commandment of God upon them?

If from us Bellarmine will not hear it, let him hear a man of his own profession; not only of his own Religion, but so narrowly of his own profession, as to have been a public Reader of Divinity in a great University as well as he; And he says, Sunt aliqui recentiores, qui baptizari interpretantur affligi; There are some, says he, not all, nor the most, and therefore it is not so manifest a place; Sunt aliqui recentiores, There are some of the later men, says he, not of the Fathers, or Expositors in the primitive Church, and therefore it is not so reverend, and uncontrollable an opinion; But only some few later men there are, says he, that think that Baptism in this place is to be understood of Affliction. But, says the same Doctor, It is an Interpretation valde figurata, & rara, wholly relying upon a figure, and a figure very rarely used; so rarely, says he, Vt non ab alio, quam à Christo usurpetur, That never any but Christ, in the Scriptures, called Affliction, Baptism.

So that it lacks thus much of being a manifest proof for Purgatory, as Bellarmine pretends, That it is neither the common sense, but of a few; nor the ancient sense, but of a few later men; nor a sense obvious, and ordinary, and literal, but figurative, and that figure not communicated to others, but only applied by Christ, and appropriated to his Passion, which was not a passion so undergone, as that then when he suffered it, he might have refused it, which is necessary for that Doctrine, which Bellarmine would evict from it.

But because Bellarmine, in whom, perchance, the Spirit of a Cardinal hath not overcome the Spirit of a Jesuit, will admit no competition, nor diversity of opinion, except it be from one of his own Order, we have Justinian, a man refined in that Order, a Jesuit as well as he, an Italian, and so hath his natural and national refining as well as he, and one, whose books are dedicated to the Pope as well as his, and so hath had an Oraculous refining, by an allowance Oraculo vivae vocis, by the breath of life, the Oracle of truth, the Popes approbation, as well as he, and thus much better, That Iustinians never were, but Bellarmine's books have been threatened by the Inquisition, And Justinian never was, but Bellarmine hath been put to his Retractations; And he says only this of this place, Aliqui referunt ad corporis vexationes, pro Mortuis, Some men refer these words to bodily afflictions, sustained by men alive, for the Dead; Et haec sententia multis vehementer probatur, says he, This interpretation hath much delighted, and satisfied many men: Sed potest dici, says he, By their leaves, this may be said, If S. Paul ask, Why do men afflict themselves, in the behalf of them that are dead? it may be answered, says he, That if they do so, they are fools in doing so. S. Paul intends certainly, to prove the Resurrection by these words; neither, says he, could the Resurrection of the body be proved by all S. Paul's argument, if that were admitted to be the right sense of the place; for what were all this to the Resurrection of the body, which is S. Paul's scope, and purpose in the place, If men were baptized, that is, (as Bellarmine would have it) if they did suffer voluntarily, and unnecessarily affliction for the Dead, that is, to deliver their souls out of Purgatory; what would all this conduce to the proof of the Resurrection of the body?

But that we may have a witness against him, in all his capacities, as we have produced one, as he is a Jesuit, and another equal to him, as he was public Professor, so to consider him as a Cardinal, (for, as a Cardinal, Bellarmine hath changed his opinion in some things that he held, before he was hood-winked with his Hat) to consider him therefore so, we have a witness against him, in the Consistory, Cardinal Cajetan, who finds no baptism of tears, nor penance in these words, no application of any affliction sustained voluntarily by the living, in the behalf and contemplation of the dead, but adhering to that, which is truly the purpose of the Apostle, to prove the resurrection of the body, he says, In hoc quod merguntur sub aqua, mortuos gerunt, When in Baptism, they are, as it were, buried under the water, (as the form of Baptizing was then by Immersion of the whole body, and not only by Aspersion upon the face) they are, says he, buried for dead, presented by the Church, as dead in Christ; Et in hoc, quod ad hoc merguntur, ut emergant, agunt mortuorum resurrectionem; In this, that they are therefore buried under water, because they may be raised above water again, in this they represent the resurrection of the dead. So in the act of Baptism literally, and Sacramentally taken, that Cardinal hath found an evident argument, and proof of the Resurrection. And then, in the next words, he hath found, that that which is done in this action, is done for him, that doth it, and not with relation to any other; In hoc quod se profitentur mortuos mundo, agunt mortuos, In this, that in the act of Baptism, they profess themselves to be dead to the world, they are baptized for dead, And in this, says he, that they profess themselves to be dead to the world in Baptism, therefore that by that Baptism they may rise to a newness of life, Profitentur resurrectionem mortuorum, They profess the Resurrection of the dead: And this destroys utterly the purpose of Bellarmine in these words, because the Baptism spoken of here, be it a Sacramental Baptism literally, or a Disciplinary Baptism, metaphysically, yet is a Baptism determined, for the benefit thereof, upon him that is baptized, and not extended to the dead in Purgatory.

Since then it is the Exposition of a few only, Alii dicunt, Aliqui dicunt, Others have said so, Some few have said so, and those few are late men, new men, and of those new men, Jesuits, and Readers, and Cardinals have differed from that opinion, this Jesuit, and Reader, and Cardinal Bellarmine needed not to have made that victorious acclamation, Hic locus, we desire no more then this place, for the evident proof of Purgatory. Much less did it become that lesser man, that Minorite Frier, Feuardentius, who for names sake, (it seems, for his name is Burning fire ) is so over-vehement for this place, in defense of Purgatory, to pronounce so peremptorily, for this interpretation of this Text, Qui huic sententiae concordat, Catholicus, qui discordat, Haereticus est; He that interprets these words thus, is a Catholic, and he is an Heretike that interprets them otherwise. For thus, he leaves out the Fathers themselves out of the Ark, and makes them Heretics; And howsoever they pretend peace amongst themselves, he proclaims, at least discovers a war amongst themselves, for they are of themselves, whom he calls Heretics. Indeed, Quis restitit Domino, & pacem habuit? whoever resisted the truth of God's word, and brought in Expositions to serve turns, and had peace amongst themselves? When they went about this building of Purgatory, they thought not of that counsel, When you build, sit down before, and count the cost, lest men mock you; They never considered how they were provided of Materialls, what they had from the Prophets, what from the Evangelists, what from the Apostles, for the building of this Purgatory: They had the disease of our times; If they might build, they thought it a profitable course; If they could raise a Purgatory, they were sure they should gain by it; but neither had they leave to build, that is, to erect new Articles of faith, neither had they wherewithal; And therefore being destitute of the foundation of all, the Scriptures of God, and having raked together some staws, and sticks, ends of Poetry, and Philosophy, and some rubbish of the Manichees, they have made such a work under ground, as their Predecessors made above ground, in the Tower of Babel, in which they understand not one another, but are in a confusion amongst themselves, Quia restiterunt Domino, And whoever resisted the Lord, and had peace?

Thus far we have proceeded in rescuing these words, from their captivity, from the enemy, that enforced them to testify for Purgatory. And, according to my understanding of S. Jerome's rule, who says, That in interpreting of Scriptures, he ever proposed to himself Necessitatem, & perspicuitatem, The necessity being (as I take it) the redeeming of the words from the ill interpretation of Heretics, which we have now done; For the perspicuity, and clearness, you shall see first, how the Ancients, before they suspected any ill use of them for Purgatory, received them, and then how the later men, after they had been mis-applied for Purgatory, interpret them: All which I shall propose with as much clearness as I can, as taking myself bound thereunto, by that other rule of the same Father, Qui per me intellecturus est Apostolum, nolo ut ad Interpretem cognoscendum, alium quaerat Interpretem, I would not have them, who come hither to understand the Apostle from me, be put to seek help from others, to understand me; when I must tell them what S. Paul meant, I would not have them put to ask what I meant; and therefore as far as the matter will bear it, I would speak plainly to every capacity.

First then, for Tertullian, he seems to understand this Baptism for the dead, De vicario baptismate, of Baptism by an Attorney, by a Proxy, which should not be such a God-father, as should be a witness or surety for me, when I am baptized alive, but such a God-father, as should be baptized for me when I am dead. For, that perverse and heretical custom was then come into practice, that out of a false opinion, (though grounded, or coloured with a zeal of reverence to the Sacrament) that Baptism was so absolutely necessary, as that none could possibly be saved, that were not actually baptized; When any man died without Baptism, his friends used to baptize another in his name; The dead body was laid under the bed, and another man that was laid in the bed, to represent him, answered to all those questions which the Priest should ask, concerning Baptism, in the behalf of him that lay under the bed, (as the Sureties do now in the Church for a child, that perchance understands no more then that dead man did) and then that person in the bed, was baptized for him who lay under the bed. Now Tertullian thinks, that the Apostle argues out of that custom, and disputes thus, If there were no Resurrection, why do you thus provide for them that are dead, by baptizing others for them? To what purpose do ye this, if they for whom you do it have no Resurrection? But, besides that it is not much probable, that S. Paul would take an Heretical action, and practice, for the ground of his Argument, to prove so great a mystery of our faith, as the Resurrection is, and besides that, it doth not appear that this Heretical practice (which is attributed to the Marcionits) was entered into the Church in S. Paul's time, and therefore he could not take knowledge of it; Besides all this, all this, if it were granted, did nothing at all conduce to S. Paul's ends, who had undertaken the proof of the Resurrection of the body, and the answer was easy, and obvious, We do not baptize living men in the name, and in the behalf of the dead, for any other respect, then for the salvation of their souls, and what is that to the resurrection of the body? So that this sense of Tertullian's, of Baptism by a Proxy, by an Attorney, seems not to be the sense of this place; and yet because it savors of charity to the dead, though it were an heretical custom, Bellarmine prefers this interpretation of Tertullian, before any other but his own, which we handled before.

Theodoret interprets this Baptism for the dead to be a baptism of Representation; That in baptism, by being put under the water, and raised up again, we represent the death and resurrection of Christ; for the dead, is for Christ, for the testimony of Christ: And therefore that baptizing by immersion, by covering the party with water, was so exactly observed in those times, as it came to be thought, that no man was well baptized, except he had received it so, by Immersion, as by many Treatises, and many Consultations amongst the Fathers, by way of Letters, and the Acts of some Councils, we perceive. And of this representation of the death of Christ, in our Baptism, administered in that manner, by Immersion, S. Paul is thought by some to have spoken, when he says, Know ye not that all we that have been baptized into Jesus Christ, have been baptized into his death? That is, say they, by that representation of his death, in Immersion. Neither is anything more evident, then that Theodoret was so far in the right, that our baptism (and the rather in that form of Immersion) is a representation of the death, and burial, and resurrection of Christ; but yet to call this Baptism therefore, because it was a representation of Christ, who was dead, a Baptism for the dead, is a phrase somewhat more hard and unusual, then may be easily admitted, in such a matter of faith as this is. And besides, that Baptism, which is this Representation, is a Baptism common to all; all that are baptized, are baptized so; But the Apostle in this place makes his argument from a particular kind of Baptism, which some did, and some did not use, Quid de illis, says he, what shall become of them? and Quid illi, what do they mean that are baptized in this peculiar manner? So that, as not Tertullian's baptism by an Attorney, so neither Theodorets baptism by Representation, seems to be the sense of this place.

S. Chrysostom, much about the same time with Theodoret, and long after them both, (at least six hundred years) Theophylact, meet in a third sense; That because at the taking of Baptism, they did usually rehearse the Creed, which Creed concluded with those articles, The resurrection of the body, and life everlasting, therefore this baptism for the dead should only signify a baptism for the hope of the Resurrection. But since they rehearsed all the articles of the Christian belief, as well as that, at Baptism, it might as properly be said, that they were baptized for Christ; baptized for the holy Ghost, baptized for the descent into hell, as for the dead: And besides that, this was also a baptism common to all, all rehearsed the Articles of the Creed; it was not such a peculiar baptism, as the Apostle hath respect to here, in his Quid de illis, and Quid illi, what shall become of them, and what do they mean by this their Baptism? And therefore this seems not to be the sense. That this Baptism for the dead should only be a profession of that article of the Resurrection of the dead, though S. Chrysostom, and Theophylact concur in, or derive from, or upon one other that interpretation.

To come lower, and to a lower rank of witnesses, from the Fathers to the School, Aquinas hath another sense; and certainly an useful, a devout, and an appliable interpretation; which is, That Mortui here are peccata, Those that are called Dead here, are Dead works, sins, and so to be baptized for the dead, is to be baptized for our sins, for the washing away our sins, in an acknowledgement, That although we did contract a leprous sin, even in our conception, That we were subject to the wrath and indignation of God, before we were able to conceive that there was a God, That before our bones were hardened, the canker and rust of Adams sin was in our bones, That before we were a minute old, we have a sin in us that is six thousand years old, That though we be as blind after we come out of our mothers bellies, as we were there, Though we pass over our time, without ever asking our own consciences, why we were sent hither, Though our sins have hardened us against God, and done a harder work then that, in hardening God against us, yet though we have turned God into a Rock, there is water in that rock, if we strike it, if we solicit it, affect it with our repentance. As in the stone font in the Church, there is water of Baptism, so in the Corner stone of the Church, Christ Jesus, whom we have hardened against us, there is a tenderness, there is a Well of water springing up into everlasting life. As we have changed this water into stone, petrified God's tenderness towards us, so convertit petram in stagna aquarum, says David, He hath turned that rock into a standing water, (water, and water that stays with us, in his Church) and the flint into a fountain of waters; that is, says S. Augustine, seipsum, & suam quandam duritiam liquefecit, ad irrigandos fideles, At the beams of his own mercy, God hath thawed that ice, and dissolved that stone, into which we had hardened him, and he hath let in a River of Jordan into his Church, the Sacrament of Baptism, in the present act, and subsequent efficacy whereof, we are washed from original, and from actual sins. All these sins are the fruits of death, as they are opposed against the Lord of life, and pro hisce mortuis baptizamur, says Aquinas; for the dead, that is, for these dead works, we are baptized.

And certainly, for a second sense, to exalt our devotion by, I should prefer this before any other; But the principal and literal sense of this place, this cannot be, because it is a figurative sense; and though the figure be not in the word Baptism, where Bellarmine places it, (for Aquinas speaks literally of a Sacramental Baptism) yet it is in the other word In mortuis, ( Aquinas doth not speak literally, but metaphorically of the Dead ) and that may as ill be admitted, in a matter of faith, of so great importance, as the other. And besides, this seems to conclude nothing necessarily for the resurrection of the body, that we are washed from our sins; And lastly, this is still a Baptism common to all, all that are baptized, are baptized from their sins; And therefore this of Aquinas, not reaching to S. Paul's Quid de illis, and Quid illi, to these men thus baptized, is not that sense neither, which we seek.

But the time will not permit us to pursue the several interpretations of those, whom directly, or comparatively we call Ancients; Neither truly, though there be many other Interpreters then we have named, are there many other interpretations then we have touched upon, or then may be reduced to them. And therefore to end here this consideration of the Fathers, and those whom they esteem Pillars of their Church, we are thus much at our liberty for all them, That first there is no unanime consent in the interpretation of this place, and that which they bind themselves to follow, is the unanime consent of the Fathers; And then though the Fathers had unanimely consented in one, and that one had been the exposition which Bellarmine pursues, yet we might, by their example, have departed from it; for in the Roman Church, Fathers, and Fathers Fathers, Popes themselves, (And howsoever the Fathers may be Fathers, in respect of us, yet in respect of the Pope, who is S. Peter himself, and always sits in his person, the Fathers are but children, says Bellarmine ) were of opinion, That the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was absolutely necessary for children, to their salvation, and this opinion lasted in force and in use for divers hundreds of years, neither was it ever repressed by Authority, till the other day, in the Council of Trent, but wore out of it self long before, because it had no foundation; So the opinion of the Millenarians, That Christ with his Saints should have a thousand years of a temporal reign here upon earth, after his second coming, had possessed the Fathers, in a very great party. The Fathers, in a great party denied, that the souls of good men departed were to enjoy the sight of God, till the Resurrection. And the Fathers affirmed, That the cause of God's election was the foresight of the faith and obedience of the Elect. These errors are so noted, even by the Authors of the Roman Church, (for I depart not herein from their own words, and observations) as that they still present them so, Omnes, plurimi, All the Fathers, Most of the Fathers, were of this and this opinion; And yet for all these Fathers, no man in the Roman Church is so childish now, as to give his child that Sacrament, or to accompany those Fathers in those other mistakings.

This hath been done in fact, they have departed from the Fathers; And then for a Rule, Cardinal Cajetan tells us, That if a new sense of any place of Scripture, agreeable to other places, and to the analogy of faith, arise to us, it is not to be refused, Quia torrens patrum, because the stream of the Fathers is against it. For they themselves have told us, why we may suspect the Fathers, and by what means the Fathers have fallen into many mis-interpretations. First they say, Quia glaciem sciderunt, because the Fathers broke the Ice, and undertook the interpretation of many places, in which they had no light, no assistance from others, and so might easily turn into a sinister way: And then Rhetoricati sunt, say they, The Fathers often applied themselves in figurative, and Hyberbolicall speeches, to exalt the devotions, and stir up the affections of their auditory, and therefore must not be called to too severe, and literal an account, for all that they uttered in that manner: And again, Plebi indulserunt, as S. Augustine says of himself, sometimes out of a loathsomeness to offend the ignorant, and sometimes the holy and devout, and that he might hold his auditory together, and avert none from coming to him, he was unwilling to come to such an exact truth, in the explication and application of some places, as that for the sharpness and bitterness thereof, weaker stomachs might forbear. So also, they confess too, that ex vehementia declinarunt, In heat of disputation, and argument, and to make things straight, they bent them too much on the other hand, and to oppose one Heresy, they endangered the inducing of another, as in S. Augustine's disputations against the Pelagians, who over-advanced the free will of man, and the Manicheans, who by admitting Duo principia, two Caufes, an extrinsique cause of our evil actions, as well as of our good, annihilated the free will of man, we shall find sometimes occasions to doubt whether S. Augustine were constant in his own opinion, and not transported sometimes with vehemency against his present adversary, whether Pelagian, or Manichean.

Which is a disease that even some great Councils in the Church, and Church-affairs have felt, that for collateral and occasional, and personal respects, which were risen after they were met, the main doctrinal points, and such as have principally concerned the glory of God, and the salvation of souls, and were indeed the principal and only. cause of their then meeting there, have been neglected. Men that came thither with a fervent zeal to the glory of God, have taken in a new fire of displeasure against particular Heretics, or Schismatics, and discontinued their holy zeal towards God, till their occasional displeasure towards those persons might be satisfied, and so those Heresies, and Heretics against whom they met, have got advantage by that passion, which hath overtaken and overswayed them, after they were met. And whatsoever hath fallen into Councils of that kind, Ecclesiastical Councils, may possibly be imagined, or justly be feared, or at least, without offense be pre-dissuaded, and deprecated, in all Civil Consultations, and Councils of State, That Occasionall things may not divert the Principal: for as in the Natural body, the spleen may suffocate the heart, and yet the spleen is but the sewar of the body, and the heart is the strength and the Palais thereof; so in politique bodies, and Councils of State, an immature and indigested, an intempestive and unseasonable pressing of present remedies against all inconveniencies, may suffocate the heart of the business, and frustrate and evacuate the blessed and glorious purpose of the whole Council. The Basilisk is very sharp-sighted, but he sees therefore, and to that end, that he may kill: So is, so does passion. Who would wish to be sharper sighted then the Eagle? And his strength of sight is in this, that he looks to the Sun; To look to things that are evident, The evident danger of the State and the Church, The evident malice and power of the enemy, The evident storm upon our peace and Religion, To look that God be not tempted by us, nor his Lieutenant and Vicegerent wearied, and hardened towards us, This is the object of the Eagles eye, and this is wisdom high enough. Where men see a great foundation laid, they will think, that all that is not only to raise a Spittle to cure, or a Church-yard to bury a few diseased persons. Great Councils are great foundations; and the super-edifications fit for them, are the safety of the State, and the good of the Church: And, as in coming to such Councils, every man puts off his own person, and leaves himself at home, so neither when he is there, should he so seek out, or hunt after any particular person, as that that should retard public business. God forbid that my praying that things may not be so, should be interpreted for a suspicion in me, that things are so; God forbid, that invocation upon God, should imply a crimination upon men; The Spirit of God, in sense of whom, and in whose presence I speak, knows that my prayer is but a prayer, and not an Increpation, not an Insimulation; And therefore may God be pleased to hear, and good men be pleased to join in this prayer, That God will so be satisfied, with having laid his own hand upon us, in the late pestilence, as neither to make any foreign hand, nor one another's hand, his instrument to destroy, or farther to punish us. And so, having been invited by this Consideration, that Fathers and Councils have deflected into error, to say so much of Civil Councils too, we depart from this Point thus, that though the Fathers had consented in Bellarmine's Exposition, that had laid no obligation upon us; how much less, when we find scarce any of them to agree with one another, nor any one of them to agree with him; and therefore we pass to the Consideration of the later men.

And amongst the later men, we will give the first place to a Jesuit, because they love Primos accubitus, as our Savior says of the Pharisees, To be placed highest, and they love to be called, if not Rabbi, Master, yet Abba, Father; (for that is a name which the youngest Jesuit will challenge to himsellfe, to be called Father; and amongst us, I am afraid, they come to that name, the name of Father, a little too literally, they are fathers indeed, where they should not be so) Next to the true Fathers, we place then a imaginary Father, the Jesuit Maldonado, who interprets this place thus, That to be baptized for the dead, when the Apostle spake, was to suffer Martyrdom, or affliction for the testimony of the resurrection of the Dead: for we see, that the doctrine of the Resurrection especially was inquired upon, and given in charge, and made criminal and odious, by that which the Apostle says in the Acts, Of the hope, and resurrection of the dead, I am called in question. Now, I will not say of Maldonado, as Maldonado does of us, who, when sometimes he cites the interpretation of our Authors, will say, This is the likeliest and the probablest sense, and I should believe it to be the true sense, but that an Heretic said it; I will not say, I would admit Maldonats sense, but that a Jesuit says it; for, for all that, I would receive it, so far as it may stand, but yet not for the primary and principal sense; for so, we cannot receive it, because it is grounded upon a figure, for he takes not Baptism, for the Sacrament of Baptism, but for the Metaphoricall Baptism, the Baptism of blood. And then Bellarmine will not accept his sense, because though they agree in the figure, that Baptism signifies affliction, yet they differ in these two important points, That first Bellarmine takes it for affliction voluntarily sustained, (for that only constitutes Supererogation, which is necessary to Bellarmine's sense) and Maldonado takes it for affliction inflicted by a Persecutor, for a testimony of his faith, in which case to decline the penalty, were to deny the faith, and therefore is no more then, being so called by God, he is bound to suffer: And then Bellarmine takes it for affliction sustained in the behalf, and for the benefit of another dead friend, and Maldonado determines it in him that does it, for an outward testimony of his constancy in the faith of the Resurrection. So that this Jesuit hath brought no stone to Bellarmine's building from this place, he works not in his harvest, he conduces not to his end, he goes not his way.

But to contract ourselves in this last Part, we find amongst our own men (Expositors since the Reformation) two senses of these words, of which either may be taken, for both come home to the purpose and intention of the Apostle, which is, to prove the Resurrection, and to all the other circumstances, in which we have observed the other Interpretations to be deficient. The first is, that this was a Baptism of those men, Qui ad testandam certissiman spem de Resurrectione, which for a more especial testimony of their faith in the Resurrection, did (according to the use of many, in those first times) administer, or receive Baptism, upon the tombs and graves of other Christians, formerly departed this life, and thereby declared both their charitable opinion, that those who were there buried, should receive a resurrection, And that themselves were baptized into the same faith, and so made up the Communion of Saints. And in this sense is the Original best preserved, which seems not to be so properly translated, Pro mortuis, as Super mortuos, not for the Dead, but upon the Dead, upon the graves of the Dead: If there be no resurrection of the Dead, why do some of you choose to be baptized upon the Dead, upon the graves of the Dead, rather then in other places?

And this is the Exposition of him, who is evermore powerful in the Exposition of those Scriptures which he undertakes, Luther. And Melanchthon, a man of more learning and temperance then perchance have met in any one, in our perverse and froward times, follows the same Interpretation, and adds, That he that was to be Baptized, was brought to the bones of them that were buried there, and that there he was asked, whether he did believe that that body which lay so scattered there, should be restored again, and made capable of a glorious Resurrection, and upon confession of that faith he received his Baptism: And this, says Melanchthon (a man freest of any from contention) is Interpretatio simplex, nativa, & vera, The plain, the natural, and the true signification of the place. Neither is this Interpretation subject to that calumny, which our Adversaries use to object, that in any Interpretation of Luther's, or Melanctons, the rest who profess them their Disciples, follow as Sheep, but others, though of the Reformation too, do not so: for we have another, esteemed in his Division, a learned and narrow searcher into the literal sense of Scripture, who though he be very far from communion (in opinion) with them, whom, for distinction, the world calls Lutherans, though he be none of those sheep, which run after Luther, yet out of a holy ingenuity, and inclination to truth, he professes this interpretation of the place, to be Omnium simplicissimam, the most sincere and natural interpretation, and that it doth not wound, nor violate the purpose and intention of the Apostle, as, says he, all the other interpretations, which Beza produces, do. And yet Beza himself, as well as Piscator, in their translatitions, retain the Super, which is in Luther, and make it so, a baptism upon the dead, and not for the dead.

To be baptized then for the dead, or upon the dead, is, in their understanding, an expectation of a Resurrection for themselves, together with them, in sight of whose dead bodies they were baptized. Here is no figurative speech, but the words taken in their proper, and present, and first signification. And this is not of a general baptism, common to all, but of a custom taken up by some in the Church of Corinth, out of special devotion, and testification of the Resurrection. And lastly, this had reference, not only to the immortality of the soul, but to the resurrection of the body also, which was then in their contemplation, in which Circumstance, most of the former interpretations of the Ancients were defective, for still it might have been answered to S. Paul's question, Quid illi, Quid de illis? What mean they, and what becomes of them? We do all this for the salvation of souls, though we do not bind ourselves to believe a resurrection of bodies; So that all the particulars that S. Paul proposed to himself, meet fully, and strongly, in this interpretation. Nothing can be opposed against it, if the history be true; if the matter of fact be clear and evident, if it appear fully, that this was a custom in the Apostles time, that those Christians did use to receive baptism upon the graves of the dead. I doubt not but Luther had ground for it; I doubt not but Melanchthon had Authors; for he says, Aliqui scribunt, some have written it. They may have seen Authors, whom I have not; for my part, I confess, I never found this Custom in the Ecclesiastic Story, to my remembrance. And when the Centuriators, who gathered the Story of the Church, with some diligence, and who were of the persuasion whom the world calls Lutherans, when they say, Constat, It is manifest, that in the Church of Corinth, they did baptize in that manner, upon the graves of the dead, they never cite any testimony of History for their Constat, nor for their evidence of this matter of fact, but only this very place of Scripture, this text; and the directer and the fuller way had been, to have proved the text from the story, then the story from the text. The Exposition is very fair, and very likely, if the matter of fact be proved; and the fact may be proved by some, whom those reverend persons have read, and I have not.

There is one Interpretation more, which is open to no imputation, spotted with no aspersion, subject to no objection, and therefore fittest to be embraced, which is also grounded upon a Custom, which came very early into the Church of God, (so early as that we can assign no beginning) and of which Custom for the matter of fact, we are sure it was in practice: which was, that upon an opinion, that at the time of Baptism, there was an absolute washing away, and a deliverance from all sins, men did ordinarily, or very often, defer their baptism till their death-bed, that so they might have their transmigration, and passage out of this world, in that purity, that baptism restored them to, without contracting anymore sins after baptism. This we are too sure was in use; for we see the Ecclesiastical Story full of Examples of it, in great persons; great in power and authority, for Constantine the Emperor deferred his baptism, long after his resolution to be a Christian; And great in estimation, and merit, and knowledge; for S. Augustine remembers it with much compunction, That in an extreme sickness, Flagitavi baptismum à Matre, he begged at his Mothers hands, that he might be baptized, and obtained it not, because he was a person, (in her observation) like enough to fall into more sins, after he had been delivered of those by baptism. He notes the general disposition of his time, Sonat undique, It is every man's voice, every man's saying, Sine eum, faciat quid vult, nondum baptizatus est, Let him alone yet, let him do what he will yet, for yet he is not baptized: But, says that blessed Father there, would they say to a man that lay wounded and weltering in his blood, Sine eum, vulneretur ampliùs, nondum enim sanatus est, Let him lie, or give him two or three wounds more, for the Surgeon is not come yet to cure him? And yet, says he, his and my case is all one.

Before his time, which was after four hundred years, we may see, that this custom of late baptizing, was not only tolerated, but advised and counseled in the Church, when Tertullian, two hundred years before S. Augustine, chides away young children, from coming to Baptism, so soon, before, says he, they need it; Quid festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem peccatorum? Why are they brought to the washing away of sins, which as yet have committed no sin? And he makes Baptism so occasional a thing, and subject to so many Circumstances, that very many other occasions might put off Baptism. Innuptis procrastinandus baptismus, says Tertullian, quia eis praeparata tentatio; He would not have them baptized, that meant to marry soon after, because they were to wrestle with a great temptation, as long as their fancy and imagination was full of their future marriage. So soon, and so deeply was this opinion rooted, (that it was to little purpose to baptize till towards our death) that S. Basil was fain to oppose it expressly in the Eastern Church, And both the Gregory's, Nazianzen and Nyssen, and then S. Ambrose, and others, in the Western, all arguing against it, as a custom long before in use, and none assigning any beginning of it.

Upon this custom then S. Paul argues; If men upon their death-bed, when they are esteemed pro Mortuis, as good as dead, no better then dead, (for so the phrase is ordinarily used, pro derelicto, pro perdito, when we esteem a man forsaken, or a thing lost) If men desire baptism, when they are held pro mortuis, no other then dead, given over for dead, and are to have no fellowship with themilitant Church here in this life, do they not in this care of this act to be done upon their bodies, imply a confession of the Resurrection? These were they, whom those times called Clinicos, Bed-baptists, Bed-Christians, which either deferred their baptism, upon the reasons mentioned before, that they might be sure to have a pure transmigration, presently after Baptism; Or else they were Catechumen, such Convertits to the Christian faith, as the Church had undertaken to instruct and catechize, but did not baptize till a certain time, (Easter, and Whitsontyde) except they were surprised with sudden sickness, and then they were baptized in their death-bed: And both ways the sense stands well, That they were baptized pro Mortuis, that is, pro Derelictis, where they were given over for dead, when there was no hope of life, Or else pro Mortuis, that is, pro statu Mortuorum, only with respect to their state after this life, because they were going to the dead. And these be Divina Compendia, as S. Cyprian calls them, God's Abridgements, who can give his grace in a minute; for, as he says in the end of that Epistle, Clinici, an peripatetici, whether they be walking, or bed-rid Christians, Sacramenti majestas & sanctitas non derogetur, The Sacrament hath the same power, whether they be baptized for the living, or for the dead, that is, to remain with us in this world, or to depart to them of the next.

And this Exposition is not so much the Exposition of later men, as that it is destitute of the honor of Antiquity; for Epiphanius, the eldest whom we have named yet, but Tertullian, opposes this sense and interpretation of these words, to that sense which Tertullian laid hold of, De baptismate vicario, of his Baptism, by Proxy, and Attorney. It is so reasonable, that we need no better approbation of it, but that, (though it be especially pursued by Calvin ) that great professor, and reader in Divinity, whom we spake of before, hath given of it, that it is Sensus apertus, & simplicissimus, omnibus aliis anteponendus, & ad probandum id quod Apostolus instituit aptissimus, It is the directest sense, and the plainest, a sense to be preferred before all the rest, as being fittest to establish all that the Apostle proposed in this place; To be baptized, says he, jamjam moriturus, when he is ready to die, is to be baptized pro mortuis, for the dead, with respect only to the state of the dead; and therefore in this interpretation which even the adversary hath approved, and justified for us, we may safely rest ourselves, and the rather, because our translations have relation to this sense, either as it is in our first Edition, pro Mortuis, for Dead, that is, as good as dead, or as it is in the second, pro Mortuis, for the Dead, for the state of the dead, and the hope of the resurrection.

Thus, beloved, S. Paul hath made an argument here, to prove the Resurrection of the body; One of the hardest bones in the body, one of the darkest corners in the mysteries of our Religion, and yet all the Religions of the Heathens had ever some impressions of it: Seculum, resurrectionem mortuorum, nec cum errat, ignorat, says Tertullian, The world knew that there was some resurrection, though they were not come to know, what it was; For he remembers, that at their funerals, they prepared great feasts upon the graves of the dead, and cried out to them, Resurgite, comedite, bibite, Arise, and come to us, and eat and drink with us, They imagined some bodily being, and some possibility of conversation with the living, in the Dead. You have understood S. Paul's Argument, and yet perchance, you have not understood S. Paul. Quocumque respexer is fulmina sunt, says, S. Chrysostom. All S. Paul's words work as lightning, Et capit omne quod tetigerit, It affects, and it leaves some mark upon everything that it touches; And if he have touched thee now, his effect is not only to make thee believe a future resurrection of thy body, but to feel a present resurrection in thy soul, and to make me believe that thou feelest it, by expressing it in thy life and conversation: Ad intelligendum Paulum vita pura opus est; To understand S. Paul, a man must be an honest man; he must mend his life, that will be believed to have comprehended S. Paul; For if he be only the wiser, and the learneder, and not the better, and the honester, he hath but half understood S. Paul. S. Paul condemns Hymenaeus, and Philetus for saying The Resurrection was past already; That is, as S. Augustine interprets it, that all the Resurrection which we are to have, is nothing but a resurrection from sin.

If S. Paul say so bitterly, that this doctrine doth fret as a canker, because it is not enough, what will he say, if thou beest not come so far, as to a Resurrection from sin? We fall away into manifold, and miserable dejections, but Qui cadit, non resurget? Shall we fall, and not arise? shall we turn away, and not turn again? Shall not God be able to multiply our resurrections as well as the Devil our falls from God? We are dejected when we see the wicked prosper; when God seems to behave himself, as a Prince that were not well settled in his government, and durst not offend nor displease any party, nor take knowledge of their insolent and rebellious proceedings. When men that tempt God, and never pray for anything before hand, nor thank him for it, when they have it, and yet sweat in their abundances, when the children of God starve for their crumbs, we are dejected. But David found a resurrection in this cafe, and a strange one, which was, that he could by down and steep in peace; his resurrection was, Dedisti laetitiam in cord, Thou hast put gladness into my heart, more then in the time that their corn, and their wine increased. If all God's promifes be not presently performed unto us, temporal supplies in all temporal wants, spiritual supplies in all spiritual distresses presently administered, we are dejected. But Abraham had a resurrection in this case; when God had said to him, In Isaac vocabitur semen tuum, In Isaac shall all Nations be blessed, and then had commanded him to stop up that fountain, to dig up that foundation, to pull up that root of all this universal blessing, to sacrifice that very Isaac, yet Abraham erected himself, only with considering, That God was able to raise Isaac from the dead. He left God to his own will when he would do it, it was resurrection enough to him, to establish himself in the assurance that God could do it.

If thou be dejected and depressed with the weight of thy sins, if the malediction, and curses, and denunciations of God's judgments against sinners lie heavy upon thee, make hast to thy resurrection, raise thyself from it as fast as thou canst, for it is a grave that putrifies, and corrupts, and molders away a soul apace. Laetetur cor quaerentium Dominum, says David; Thou art not in the right way of finding the Lord, if thou do not find a joy in the seeking of him; Though thou canst not settle thyself in a sense that thou hast found him, yet thou hast, if thou canst find a holy melting, and joy in thy seeking of him. If the Angels be come down to destroy Sodom, If Jonah be come to proclaim destruction to Nineveh, wilt thou make thyself believe that thou art a Citizen of Sodom, an inhabitant of Nineveh, and must necessarily be wrapped up in that destruction? If David say, Non sic impii, non sic, The wicked shall not stand in judgment, wilt thou needs be one of them? As a wise, and a discreet man will never believe that he that writes a Satyr, means him, though he touch upon his vices, so whatsoever the Prophets say, of an aversion, and obduration in God, against sinners, yet they mean not thee, nor do thou assume it, in an inevitablenesse upon thyself. The Angel of God, the Spirit of God shall deal with thee, as he did with Lot in Sodom; He told Lot overnight, that he would burn the City, and bad him prepare; God shall give thee some grudgings, before he exalt thy fever, and warn thee to consider thy state, and consult with thy spiritual Physician; The Angel called him up in the morning, and then hastened him, and when he prolonged, says the Text, The Angel caught him, and carried him forth, and set him without the City. Because, though there was no cooperation in Lot, yet there was no resisting neither, God was pleased to do all; So in this death of diffidence, and sense of God's fearful judgments, God opens thy grave now, and now he calls to thee, Lazare veni for as, Come forth Lazarus, and he offers his hand to pull thee out now, Only Comfortare & esto robustus, as God said to Joshua, Be strong and have a good courage, and as God adds there, Comfortare & esto robustus valde, Multiply thy courage, and God shall multiply thy strength, in all dejections have a cheerful apprehension of thy resurrection, and thou shalt have it, nay thou hast it.

But this death of desperation, or diffidence in God's mercy, by God's mercy hath swallowed none of us, but the death of sin hath swallowed us all, and for our own customary sins we all need a resurrection: And what is that? Resurrectio à peccato, & cessatio à peccato, non est idem; Every cessation from sin, is not a resurrection from sin. A man may discontinue a sin, intermit the practice of a sin, by infirmity of the body, or by satiety in the sin, or by the absence of that person, with whom he hath used to communicate in that sin. But Resurrectio, est secunda ejus, quod interiit, statio. A Resurrection is such an abstinence from the practice of the sin, as is grounded upon a repentance, and a detestation of the sin, and then it is a settling, and an establishing of the soul in that state, and disposition: It is not a sudden and transitory remorse, nor only a reparation of that which was ruined, and demolished, but it is a building up of habits contrary to former habits, and customs, in actions contrary to that sin, that we have been accustomed to. Else it is but an Intermission, not a Resurrection; but a starting, not a waking; but an apparition, not a living body; but a cessation, not a peace of conscience.

Now this Resurrection is begun, and well advanced in Baptismate lachrymarum, In the baptism of true and repentant tears. But, Beloved, as S. Paul in this place, hath a relation Ad baptismum clinicorum, to death-bed-baptists, death-bed-Christians, to them that defer their Baptism to their death, but he gives no allowance of it; So this Baptisma clinicorum, this repentance upon the death-bed, is a dangerous delay. Even of them, I will say with S. Paul here, If there were no Resurrection, no need to rise from sin by repentance, why are they then thus baptized, pro mortuis? why do they repent, when they are as good as dead, and have no more to suffer in this world? But if there be such a resurrection, a necessity of such a Baptism by repentance, why come they no sooner to it? For is any man sure to have it, or sure to have a desire to it then? It is never impertinent to repeat S. Augustine's words in this case, Etiam hac animadversione percutitur peccator, ut moriens obliviscatur sui, qui dum viveret, oblitus est Dei; God begins a dying man's condemnation at this, That as he forgot God in his life, so he shall forget himself at his death. Compare thy temporal, and thy spiritual state together, and consider how they may both stand well at that day. If thou have set thy state in order, and made a Will before, and have nothing to do at last, but to add a Codicil, this is soon dispatched at last; But if thou leave all till then, it may prove a heavy business. So if thou have repented before, and settled thyself in a religious course before, and have nothing to do then, but to wrestle with the power of the disease, and the agonies of death, God shall fight for thee in that weak estate; God shall imprint in thee a Cupio dissolvi, S. Paul's, not only contentedness, but desire to be dissolved; And God shall give thee a glorious Resurrection, yea an Ascension into Heaven before thy death, and thou shalt see thyself in possession of his eternal Kingdom, before thy bodily eyes be shut. Be therefore S. Cyprians Peripatetique, and not his Clinique Christian; A walking, and not a bed-rid Christian; That when thou hast walked with God, as Enoch did, thou mayest be taken with God, as Enoch was, and so walk with the Lamb, as the Saints do in Jerusalem, and follow him whithersoever he goes; That even thy death-bed may be as Elias Chariot, to carry thee to heaven; And as the bed of the Spouse in the Canticles, which was Lectus floridus, a green and flourishing bed, where thou mayest find by a faithful apprehension, that thy sickness hath crowned thee with a crown of thorns, by participation of the sufferings of thy Savior, and that thy patience hath crowned thee with that crown of glory, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall impart to thee that day.

SERM. LXXIX. Preached at S. PAULS.

T Hey have made a Rule in the Council of Trent, that no Scripture shall be expounded, but according to the unanime consent of the Fathers: But in this Book of the Psalms, it would trouble them to give many examples of that Rule, that is, of an unanime consent of the Fathers, in the interpretation thereof. In this Psalm, Bellarmine in his Exposition of the Psalms, finds himself perplexed; He says (and says truly) Hieronymus constanter affirmat, Augustinus constanter negat, S. Jerome doth confidently and constantly affirm, and S. Augustine with as much confidence, and constancy deny, that this Psalm, and all that follow to the hundredth Psalm, are Moses Psalms, and written by him. And this diverse constancy in these two Fathers, S. Jerome and S. Augustine, shake the constancy of that Canon, which binds to a following of an unanime consent, for that cannot be found. Bellarmine expedites himself herein, that way, which is indeed their most ordinary way amongst their Expositors, which is, where the Fathers differ, to adhere to S. Augustine. So he doth in this point; though most of the Ancients of the Christian Church, most of the Rabbins of the Jews, most of the Writers in the Reformation, take it to be Moses Psalm, and that way runs the greatest stream, and nearest to a concurrence. And thus far I have stopped upon this consideration, Whether this be Moses Psalm or no, That when it appears to be his Psalm, and that we see, that in the tenth verse of this Psalm, man's life is limited to seventy years, or at most to eighty, and then remember, that Moses himself, then when he said so, was above eighty, and in a good habitude long after that, we might hereby take occasion to consider, that God does not so limit, and measure himself in his blessings to his servants, but that for their good and his glory he enlarges those measures. God hath determined a day, from Sun to Sun, yet when God hath use of a longer day, for his glory, he commands the Sun to stand still, till Joshua have pursued his victory. So God hath given the life of man, into the hand of sickness; and yet for all that deadly sickness, God enlarges Hezekiah's years: Moses was more then fourscore, when he told us, that our longest term was fourscore.

If we require exactly an unanime consent, that all agree in the Author of this Psalm, we can get no farther, then that the holy Ghost is the Author. All agree the words to be Canonical Scripture, and so from the holy Ghost; and we seek no farther. The words are his, and they offer us these considerations; First, That the whole Psalm being in the Title thereof called a Prayer, A Prayer of Moses the man of God, it puts us justly, and pertinently upon the consideration of the many dignities and prerogatives of that part of our worship of God, Prayer; for there we shall see, That though the whole Psal me be not a Prayer, yet because there is a Prayer in the Psalm, that denominates the whole Psalm, the whole Psalm is a Prayer. When the Psalm grows formally to be a Prayer, our Text enters, O satisfy us early with thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days: And in that there will be two Parts more, The Prayer it self, O satisfy us early with thy mercy, And the effect thereof, That we may rejoice and be glad all our days. So that our Parts are three; First Prayer, Then this Prayer, And lastly the benefit of all Prayer.

For the first, which is Prayer in general, I will thrust no farther then the Text leads me in, that is, That Prayer is so essential a part of God's worship, as that all is called Prayer. S. Jerome upon this Psalm says, Difficillimum Psalmum aggredior, I undertake the exposition of a very hard Psalm, and yet, says he, I would proceed so in the exposition thereof, ut interpretatio nostra aliena non egeat interpretation, That there should not need another Comment upon my Comment, that when I pretend to interpret the Psalm, they that hear me, should not need another to interpret me: which is a frequent infirmity amongst Expositors of Scriptures, by writing, or preaching, either when men will raise doubts in places of Scripture, which are plain enough in themselves, (for this creates a jealousy, that if the Scriptures be everywhere so difficult, they cannot be our evidences, and guides to salvation) Or when men will insist too vehemently, and curiously, and tediously in proving of such things as no man denies; for this also induces a suspicion, that that is not so absolutely, so undeniably true, that needs so much art, and curiosity, and vehemence to prove it. I shall therefore avoid these errors; and because I presume you are full of an acknowledgment of the duties, and dignities of Prayer, only remember you of thus much of the method, or elements of Prayer, That whereas the whole Book of Psalms is called Sepher Tehillim, that is, Liber Laudationum, The Book of Praise, yet this Psalm, and all that follow to the hundredth Psalm, and divers others besides these, (which make up a fair limb of this body, and a considerable part of the Book) are called Prayers; The Book is Praise, the parts are Prayer. The name changes not the nature; Prayer and Praise is the same thing: The name scarce changes the name; Prayer and Praise is almost the same word; As the duties agree in the heart and mouth of a man, so the names agree in our ears; and not only in the language of our Translation, but in the language of the holy Ghost himself, for that which with us differs but so, Prayer, and Praise, in the Original differs no more then so, Tehillim, and Tephilloth.

And this concurrence of these two parts of our devotion, Prayer and Praise, that they accompany one another, nay this co-incidence, that they meet like two waters, and make the stream of devotion the fuller; nay more then that, this identity, that they do not only consist together, but constitute one another, is happily expressed in this part of the Prayer, which is our Text; for that which in the Original language is expressed in the voice of Prayer, O satisfy us, &c. in the first Translation, that of the Septuagint, is expressed in the voice of praise, Saturasti, Thou hast satisfied us; The Original makes it a Prayer, the Translation a Praise. And not to compare Original with Translation, but Translation with Translation, and both from one man, we have in S. Jerome's works two Translations of the Psalms; one, in which he gives us the Psalms alone; another, in which he gives them illustrated with his notes and Commentaries. And in one of these Translations he reads this as a Prayer, Reple nos, O fill us early with thy mercy, and in the other he reads it as a Praise, Repleti sumus, Thou hast filled us, &c. Nay, not to compare Original with Translation, nor Translation with Translation, but Original with Original, the holy Ghost with himself, In the Title of this Psalm, (and the Titles of the Psalms are Canonical Scripture) the holy Ghost calls this Psalm a Prayer, and yet enters the Psalm, in the very first verse thereof, with praise and thanksgiving, Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. And such is the constitution and frame of that Prayer of Prayers, That which is the extraction of all prayers, and draws into a sum all that is in all others, That which is the infusion into all others, sheds and showers whatsoever is acceptable to God, in any other prayer, That Prayer which our Savior gave us, (for as he meant to give us all for asking, so he meant to give us the words by which we should ask) As that Prayer consists of seven petitions, and seven is infinite, so by being at first begun with glory and acknowledgement of his reigning in heaven, and then shut up in the same manner, with acclamations of power and glory, it is made a circle of praise, and a circle is infinite too, The Prayer, and the Praise is equally infinite. Infinitely poor and needy man, that ever needest infinite things to pray for; Infinitely rich and abundant man, that ever hast infinite blessings to praise God for.

God's house in this world is called the house of Prayer; but in heaven it is the house of Praise: No surprisal with any new necessities there, but one even, incessant, and everlasting tenor of thanksgiving; And it is a blessed inchoation of that state here, here to be continually exercised in the commemoration of God's former goodness towards us. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord, says David. What voice? the voice of his prayer; it is true; In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, says David there. And not only then, but at noon and at night he vows that Sacrifice; Evening and morning, and at noon will I pray, and cry unto thee. But David's devotion began not, when his prayers began; one part of his devotion was before morning; At midnight will I rise, to give thanks unto thee O Lord, says he. Doubtless when he lay down and closed his eyes, he had made up his account with God, and had received his Quietus est then: And then the first thing that he does when he wakes again, is not to importune God for more, but to bless God for his former blessings. And as this part of his devotion, Praise, began all, so it passes through all, I will bless the Lord at all times, and his praise shall be continually in my mouth. He extends it through all times, and all places, and would fain do so through all persons too, as we see by that adprecation which is so frequent with him, O that men would therefore praise the Lord, and declare the wondrous works that he doth for the children of men!

If we compare these two incomparable duties, Prayer, and Praise, it will stand thus, Our Prayers besiege God, (as Tertullian speaks, especially of public Prayer in the Congregation, Agmine facto obsidemus Deum ) but our praises prescribe in God, we urge him, and press him with his ancient mercies, his mercies of old: By Prayer we incline him, we bend him, but by Praise we bind him; our thanks for former benefits, is a producing of a specialty, by which he hath contracted with us for more. In Prayer we sue to him, but in our Praise we sue him himself; Prayer is as our petition, but Praise is as our Evidence; In that we beg, in this we plead. God hath no law upon himself, but yet God himself proceeds by precedent: And whensoever we present to him with thanksgiving, what he hath done, he does the same, and more again. Neither certainly can the Church institute any prayers, more effectual for the preservation of Religion, or of the State, then the Collects for our deliverances, in the like cases before: And when he hears them, though they have the nature of Praise only, yet he translates them into Prayers, and when we ourselves know not, how much we stand in need of new deliverances, he delivers us from dangers which we never suspected, from Armies and Navies which we never knew were prepared, and from plots and machinations which we never knew were brought into Consultation, and diverts their forces, and dissipates their counsels with an untimely abortion. And farther I extend not this first part of Prayer in general, in which, to that which you may have heard often, and usefully of the duty and dignity of Prayer, I have only added this, of the method and elements thereof, that prayer consists as much of praise for the past, as of supplication for the future.

We pass now to our second Part, To this particular Prayer, and those limbs that make up this body, those pieces that constitute this Part. They are many; as many as words in it: Satisfie, and satisfy Vs, and do that early, and do that with that which is thine, and let that be mercy. So that first it is a prayer for fullness and satisfaction, Satura, satisfy; And then it is a prayer not only of appropriation to ourselves, Satisfie me, But of a charitable dilatation and extension to others, Satisfie us, all us, all thy servants, all thy Church; And then thirdly, it is a prayer of dispatch and expedition, Satura nos mane, Satisfie us early; and after that, it is a prayer of evidence and manifestation, Satisfie us with that which is, and which we may discern to be thine; And then lastly, it is a prayer of limitation even upon God himself, that God will take no other way herein, but the way of mercy, Satisfie us early with thy mercy.

And because these are the land-marks that must guide you in this voyage, and the places to which you must resort to assist your memory, be pleased to take another survey and impression of them. I may have an apprehension of a conditional promise of God, and I may have some fair credulity and testimony of conscience, of an endeavor to perform those conditions, and so some inchoations of thoses promises, but yet this is not a fullness, a satisfaction, and this is a prayer for that, Satura, satisfy: I may have a full measure in myself, find no want of temporal conveniencies, or spiritual consolation even in inconveniencies, and so hold up a holy alacrity and cheerfulness for all concerning myself, and yet see God abandon greater persons, and desert some whole Churches, and States, upon whom his glory and Gospel depends much more then upon me, but this is a prayer of charitable extension, Satura nos, not me, but us, all us that profess thee aright: This also I may be sure that God will do at last, he will rescue his own honor in rescuing or establishing his Servants, he will bring Israel out of Egypt, and out of Babylon, but yet his Israel may lie long under the scourge and scorn of his and their enemies, 300. years before they get out of Egypt, seventy years before they get out of Babylon, and so fall into temptations of conceiving a jealousy, and suspicion of God's good purpose towards them, and this is a Prayer of Dispatch and Expedition, Satura nos mane, Satisfie us early, O God make speed to save us, O Lord make hast to help us: But he may derive help upon us, by means that are not his, not avowed by him, He may quicken our Counsels by bringing in an Ahithophel, he may strengthen our Armies by calling in the Turk, he may establish our peace and friendships, by remitting or departing with some parts of our Religion; at such a dear price we may be helped, but these are not his helps, and this is a prayer of manifestation, that all the way to our end he will be pleased to let us see, that the means are from him, Satura nos tua, Satisfie us with that, which is thine, and comes from thee, and so directs us to thee: All this may be done too, and yet not that done which we pray for here; God may send that which is his, and yet without present comfort therein; God may multiply corrections, and judgments, and tribulations upon us, and intend to help us that way, by whipping and beating us into the way, and this is his way; but this is a Prayer of limitation even upon God himself, That our way may be his, and that his way may be the way of mercy, Satisfie us early with thy mercy.

First then, the first word Satura, implies a fullness, and it implies a satisfaction, A quietness, a contentedness, an acquiescence in that fullness; Satisfie is, let us be full, and let us feel it, and rest in that fullness. These two make up all Heaven, all the joy, and all the glory of Heaven, fullness and satisfaction in it. And therefore S. Jerome refers this Prayer of our Text, to the Resurrection, and to that fullness, and that satisfaction which we shall have then, and not till then. For though we shall have a fullness in Heaven, as soon as we come thither, yet that is not fully a satisfaction, because we shall desire, and expect a fuller satisfaction in the reunion of body and soul. And when Heaven it self cannot give us this full satisfaction till then, in what can we look for it in this world, where there is no true fullness, nor any satisfaction, in that kind of fullness which we seem to have? Pleasure and sensuality, and the giving to ourselves all that we desire, cannot give this; you hear God reproaches Israel so, You have multiplied your fornications, & yet are not satisfied. Labor for profit, or for preferment, cannot do it; you see God reproaches Israel for that too, Ye have sown much, and bring in little, ye eat, but have not enough, ye drink, but are not filled, ye clothe you, but are not warm, and he that earneth wages, putteth it into a broken bag; that is, it runs out as fast as it comes in, he finds nothing at the years end, his Midsommer will scarce fetch up Michaelmas, and if he have brought about his year, and made up his Circle, yet he hath raised up nothing, nothing appears in his circle. If these things could fill us, yet they could not satisfy us, because they cannot stay with us, or not we with them: He hath devoured substance, and he shall vomit it. He devoured it by bribery, and he shall vomit it by a fine; He devoured it by extortion, and he shall vomit it by confiscation; He devoured it in other Courts, and shall vomit it in a Star-chamber. If it stay some time, it shall be with an anguish and vexation; When he shall be filled with abundance, it shall be a pain to him, as it is in the same place. Still his riches shall have the nature of a vomit, hard to get down, and hard to keep in the stomach when it is there; hardly got, hardly kept when they are got. If all these could be overcome, yet it is clogged with a heavy curse, Woe be unto you that are full, for ye shall be hungry: Where, if the curse were only from them, who are poor by their own sloth, or wastfulnesse, who for the most part delight to curse and malign the rich, the curse might be contemned by us, and would be thrown back by God into their own bosoms; but Os Domini locutum, The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, Christ himself hath denounced this curse upon worldly men, That they shall be hungry, not only suffer impairement and diminution, but be reduced to hunger.

There is a spiritual fullness in this life, of which S. Jerome speaks, Ebrietas foelix, satietas salutaris, A happy excess, and a wholesome surfeit; quae quanto copiosiùs sumitur, majorem donat sobrietatem, In which the more we eat, the more temperate we are, and the more we drink, the more sober. In which, (as S. Bernard also expresses it, in his mellifluence) Mutuâ, interminabili, inexplicabili generatione, By a mutual and reciprocal, by an undeterminable and inexpressible generation of one another, Desiderium generat satietatem, & satietas parit desiderium, The desire of spiritual graces begets a satiety, if I would be, I am full of them, And then this satiety begets a farther desire, still we have a new appetite to those spiritual graces: This is a holy ambition, a sacred covetousness, and a wholesome Dropsy. Napthalies blessing, O Naphtali satisfied with favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord; S. Stephens blessing, Full of faith and of the Holy Ghost; The blessed Virgins blessing, Full of Grace; Dorcas blessing, Full of good works, and of Alms-deeds; The blessing of him, who is blessed above all, and who blesseth all, Christ Jesus, Full of wisdom, Full of the Holy Ghost, Full of grace and truth. But so far are all temporal things from giving this fullness or satisfaction, as that even in spiritual things, there may be, there is often an error, or mistaking.

Even in spiritual things, there may be a fullness, and no satisfaction, And there may be a satisfaction, and no fullness; I may have as much knowledge, as is presently necessary for my salvation, and yet have a restless and unsatisfied desire, to search into unprofitable curiosities, unrevealed mysteries, and inextricable perplexities: And, on the other side, a man may be satisfied, and think he knows all, when, God knows, he knows nothing at all; for, I know nothing, if I know not Christ crucified, And I know not that, if I know not how to apply him to myself, Nor do I know that, if I embrace him not in those means, which he hath afforded me in his Church, in his Word, and Sacraments; If I neglect this means, this place, these exercises, howsoever I may satisfy myself, with an over-valuing mine own knowledge at home, I am so far from fullness, as that vanity it self is not more empty. In the Wilderness, every man had one and the same measure of Manna; The same Gomer went through all; for Manna was a Meat, that would melt in their mouths, and of easy digestion. But then for their Quails, birds of a higher flight, meat of a stronger digestion, it is not said, that every man had an equal number: some might have more, some less, and yet all their fullness. Catechisticall divinity, and instructions in fundamental things, is our Manna; Every man is bound to take in his Gomer, his explicit knowledge of Articles absolutely necessary to salvation; The simplest man, as well as the greatest Doctor, is bound to know, that there is one God in three persons, That the second of those, the Son of God, took our nature, and died for mankind; And that there is a Holy Ghost, which in the Communion of Saints, the Church established by Christ, applies to every particular soul the benefit of Christ's universal redemption. But then for our Quails, birds of higher pitch, meat of a stronger digestion, which is the knowledge how to rectify every straying conscience, how to extricate every entangled, and scrupulous, and perplexed soul, in all emergent doubts, how to defend our Church, and our Religion, from all the mines, and all the batteries of our Adversaries, and to deliver her from all imputations of Heresy, and Schism, which they impute to us, this knowledge is not equally necessary in all; In many cases a Master of servants, and a Father of children is bound to know more, then those children and servants, and the Pastor of the parish more then parishioners: They may have their fullness, though he have more, but he hath not his, except he be able to give them satisfaction.

This fullness then is not an equality in the measure; our fullness in heaven shall not be so; Abraham died, says the text, Plenus dierum, full of years; It is not said so in the text of Methuselah, that he died full of years, and yet he had another manner of Gomer, another measure of life then Abraham, for he lived almost eight hundred years more then he; But he that is best disposed to die, is fullest of years; One man may be fuller at twenty, then another at seventy. David lived not the tithe of Methusalems years, not ten to his hundred, he lived less then Abraham, and yet David is said to have died Plenus dierum, full of years; he had made himself agreeable to God, and so was ripe for him. So David is said there to have died full of honor; God knows David had cast shroud aspersions upon his own, and others honor; but, as God says of Israel, Because I loved thee, thou wast honorable in my sight; so because God loved David, and he persevered in that love to the end, he died full of honor. So also it is said of David, that he died full of Riches; for, though they were very great additions, which Solomon made, yet because David intended that which he left, for God's service, and for pious uses, he died full of Riches; fullness of riches is in the good purpose, and the good employment, not in the possession. In a word, the fullness that is inquired after, and required by this prayer, carry it upon temporal, carry it upon spiritual things, is such a proportion of either, as is fit for that calling, in which God hath put us; And then, the satisfaction in this fullness is not to hunt and pant after more worldly possessions, by undue means, or by macerating labor, as though we could not be good, or could do no good in the world, except all the goods of the world passed our hands, nor to hunt and pant after the knowledge of such things, as God by his Scriptures hath not revealed to his Church, nor to wrangle contentiously and uncharitably about such points, as do rather shake others consciences, then establish our own, as though we could not possibly come to heaven, except we knew what God meant to do with us, before he meant to make us. S. Paul expresses fully what this fullness is, and satisfies us in this satisfaction, Vt sitis pleni in omni voluntate Dei, That ye may be filled according to the will of God: What is the will of God? How shall I know the will of God upon me? God hath manifested his will in my Calling; and a proportion, competent to this Calling, is my fullness, and should be my satisfaction, that so God may have Odorem quietis, (as it is said in Noah's sacrifice, after he came out of the Ark, that God smelt a savor of rest ) a sacrifice, in which he might rest himself; for God hath a Sabbath in the Sabbaths of his servants, a fullness in their fullness, a satisfaction when they are satisfied, and is well pleased when they are so.

So then this Prayer is for fullness, and fullness is a competency in our calling, And a prayer for satisfaction, and satisfaction is a contentment in that competency; And then this prayer is not only a prayer of appropriation to ourselves, but of a charitable extension to others too, Satura nos, Satisfie us, All us, all thy Church. Charity begins in ourselves, but it does not end there, but dilates it self to others; The Saints in heaven are full, as full as they can hold, and yet they pray; Though they want nothing, they pray that God would pour down upon us graces necessary for our peregrination here, as he hath done upon them, in their station there. We are full; full of the Gospel; present peace and plenty in the preaching thereof, and fair appearances of a perpetual succession; we are full, and yet we pray; we pray that God would continue the Gospel where it is, restore the Gospel where it was, and transfer the Gospel where it hath not yet been preached. Charity desires not her own, says the Apostle; but much less doth charity desire no more then her own, so as not to desire the good of others too. True love and charity is to do the most that we can, all that we can for the good of others; So God himself proceeds, when he says, What could I do, that I have not done? And so he seems to have begun at first; when God bestowed upon man, his first and greatest benefit, his making, it is expressed so, Faciamus hominem, Let us, All us, make man; God seems to summon himself, to assemble himself, to muster himself, all himself, all the persons of the Trinity, to do what he could in the favor of man. So also when he is drawn to a necessity of executing judgment, and for his own honor, and consolidation of his servants, puts himself upon a revenge, he proceeds so too; when man had rebelled, and began to fortify in Babel, then God says, Venite, Let us, All us come together, And Descendamus, & confundamus, Let us, all us, go down, and confound their language, and their machinations, and fortifications. God does not give patterns, God does not accept from us acts of half-devotion, and half-charities; God does all that he can for us; And therefore when we see others in distress, whether national, or personal calamities, whether Princes be dispossessed of their natural patrimony, and inheritance, or private persons afflicted with sickness, or penury, or banishment, let us go God's way, all the way; First, Faciamus hominem ad imaginem nostram, Let us make that Man according unto our image, let us consider ourselves in him, and make our case his, and remember how lately he was as well as we, and how soon we may be as ill as he, and then Descendamus & confundamus, Let us, us, with all the power we have, remove or slacken those calamities that lie upon them.