Eighty Sermons

SERM. XLI. Preached upon Trinity-Sunday.

W Hether we shall call it a repeating again in us, of that which God had done before to Israel, or call it a performing of that in us, which God promised by way of Prophesy to Israel, that is certainly afforded to us by God, which is spoken by the Prophet of Israel, God doth draw us with the cords of a man, and with bands of love: with the cords of a man, the man Christ Jesus, the Son of God, and with the bands of love, the band and seal of love, a holy kiss, Kiss the Son, lest he be angry. No man comes to God, except the Father draw him; The Father draws no man, but by the Son; and the Son receives none, but by love, and this cement and glue, of a zealous and a reverential love, a holy kiss; Kiss the Son, &c.

The parts upon which, for the enlightening of your understandings, and assistance of your memories, we shall insist, are two: first our duty, then our danger; The first is an expression of love, Kiss the Son; the second is an impression of fear, lest he be angry. In the first we shall proceed thus: we shall consider first The object of this love, the Person, the second Person in the Trinity, The Son; The rather, because that consideration will clear the Translation; for, in no one place of Scripture, do Translations differ more, then in this Text; and the Roman Translation and ours differ so much, as that they have but Apprehendite disciplinam, Embrace knowledge, where we have, (as you heard) Kiss the Son. From the Person, The Son, we shall pass to the act, Osculamini, Kiss the Son; In which we shall see, That since this is an act, which licentious men have depraved, (carnal men do it, and treacherous men do it; Judas (and not only Judas ) have betrayed by a kiss ) and yet God commands this, and expresses love in this, Every thing that hath, or may be abused, must not therefore be abandoned; the turning of a thing out of the way, is not a taking of that thing away, but good things deflected to ill uses, by some, may be by others reduced to their first goodness. And then in a third branch of this first part, we shall consider, and magnify the goodness of God, that hath brought us into this distance, that we may Kiss the Son, that the expressing of this love lies in our hands, and that, whereas the love of the Church, in the Old Testament, even in the Canticle, went no farther but to the Osculetur me, O that he would kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! now, in the Christian Church, and in the visitation of a Christian soul, he hath invited us, enabled us to kiss him, for he is presentially amongst us: And this will lead us to conclude that first part, with an earnest persuasion, and exhortation to kiss the Son, with all those affections, which we shall there find to be expressed in the Scriptures, in that testimony of true love, a holy kiss. But then, lest that persuasion by love should not be effectual, and powerful enough to us, we shall descend from that duty, to the danger, from love, to fear, Lest he be angry; And therein see first, that God, who is love, can be angry; And then, that this God who is angry here, is the Son of God, He that hath done so much for us, and therefore in Justice may be angry; He that is our Judge, and therefore in reason, we are to fear his anger: And then, in a third branch, we shall see, how easily this anger departs, a kiss removes it, Do it, lest he be angry; And then lastly, we shall inquire, what does anger him; and there consider, That as we attribute power to the Father, and so, sins against power (the undervaluing of God's power in the Magistrate over us, or the abusing of God's power, in ourselves, over others) were sins against the Father; so wisdom being the attribute of the Son, ignorance, which is so far under wisdom, and curiosity, which carries us beyond wisdom, will be sins against the Son.

Our first branch in our first part, directs us upon him, who is first and last, and yesterday and today, and the same forever; The Son of God, Osculamini filium, Kiss the Son. Where the Translations differ as much, as in any one passage. The Chaldee paraphrase (which is, for the most part, good evidence) and the translation of the Septuagint, (which adds much weight) and the currant of the Fathers (which is of importance too) do all read this place, Apprehendite disciplinam, Embrace knowledge, and not Osculamini filium, Kiss the son. Of the later men in the Roman Church, divers read it as we do, Osculamini, and some farther, Amplectimini, Embrace the son. Amongst the Jews, Rab. Solomon reads it, Armanini disciplina, Arm yourselves with knowledge; And another moderne man, reads it, Osculamini pactum, Kiss the Covenant; And, Adorate frumentum, Adore the Corn, and thereby carries it from the pacification of Christ in heaven, to the adoration of the bread in the Sacrament. Clearly, and without exception, even from Bellarmine himself, according to the Original Hebrew, it ought to be read, as we read it, Kiss the Son. Now very many, very learned, and very zealous men of our times, have been very vehement against that Translation of the Roman Church, though it be strengthened, by the Chaldee, by the Septuagint, and by the Fathers, in this place. The reason of the vehemence in this place, is not because that sense, which that translation presents, may not be admitted; no, nor that it does not reach home, to that which is intended in ours, Kiss the Son: for, since the doctrine of the Son of God, had been established in the verses before, to say now, Apprehendite disciplinam, lay hold upon that Doctrine; That doctrine which was delivered before, is, in effect the same thing, as, Kiss the Son. So Luther, when he takes, and follows that translation of that Church, says, Nostra translatio, ad verbum, nihil est, ad sensum propriissima; That translation, if we consider the very words only, is far from the Original, but if we regard the sense, it is most proper. And so also Calvin admits; Take it which way you will, Idem manet sensus, the sense is all one. And therefore another Author in the Reformation says, In re dubia, malim vetustissimo interpreti crederc, since upon the whole matter it is doubtful, or indifferent, I would not depart, says he, from that Translation, which is most ancient.

The case then being thus, that that sense may be admitted, and admitted so as that it establish the same doctrine that ours does, why are our late men so very vehement against it? Truly, upon very just reason: for, when those former reverent men were so moderate as to admit that translation in this place; The Church of Rome, had not then put such a sanctity, such a reverence, such a singularity, and preeminence, and supremacy, such a Noli me tangere, upon that Translation; It had the estimation then of a very reverend Translation, and compared with any other Translations, then the best. But when in the Council of Trent they came to make it as Authentical, to prefer it before the Originals themselves, to decide all matters of Controversy by it alone, and to make the doing so, matter of faith, and heresy, in anything to depart from that Translation, then came these later men justly to charge it with those errors, wherein, by their own confessions, it hath departed from the Original; Not that these men meant to discredit that Translation so, as that it should not still retain the estimation of a good and useful Translation, but to avoid that danger, that it should be made matter of faith, to be bound to one Translation; or that any Translation should be preferred before the Original. And so truly it is, in many other things, besides the translation. They say S. Peter was at Rome; and all moderate men went along with them; S. Peter was at Rome. But when upon S. Peters personal being at Rome, they came to build their universal supremacy over all the Church, and so to erect matter of faith upon matter of fact, then later men came to deny, that it could be proved out of Scripture, that Peter was at Rome; So the Ancients spoke of many Sacraments, so they did of Purgatory, so they did of many things controverted now; when as they, then, never suspected that so impious a fence would have been put upon their words, nor those opinions and doctrines so mischievously advanced, as they have been since. If they would have let their translation have remained such a translation, we would not have declined it; since they will have all trials made by it, we rather accept the Original; and that is in this place, Osculamini filium, Kiss the Son.

The person then (which was our first Consideration) is the Son; The testimony of our love to this person, is this Kiss, Osculamini: where we see, that God calls upon us, and enjoins unto us, such an outward act, as hath been diversely depraved, and vitiated before amongst men. God gives no countenance to that distempered humor, to that distorted rule; It hath been ill used, and therefore it may not be used. Sacred and secular Stories abound with examples of the treacherous Kiss; Let the Scriptures be our limits. Joab's complement with Amasa; Art thou in health, my brother? ended in this; He took him with the right hand, as to kiss him, and killed him. Enlarge your thoughts a little upon Judas case; Judas was of those, who had tasted of the word of God, and the powers of the world to come; He had lived in the Conversation, in the Paedagogy, in the Discipline of Christ; yet he sold Christ; and sold him at a low price, as every man that is so unprovident, as to offer a thing to sale, shall do; and he stayed not till they came to him, with, What will you take for your Master? but he went to them, with, What will you give me for Christ? yet Christ admits him, admits him to supper, and after all this, calls him friend; for, after all this, Christ had done two, perchance three offices of a friend to Judas; He washed his feet; and, perchance, he gave him the Sacrament with the rest; and by assigning the sop for a particular mark, he let him see, that he knew he was a traitor, which might have been enough to have reclaimed him, It did not; but he proceeded in his treason, and in the most mischievous and treacherous performing of it, tobetray him with a kiss; He gave them a sign, whomsoever I shall kiss, the same is he: Dat signum osculi, cum veneno Diaboli, says Jerome, He kisses with a biting kiss, and conveys treason in a testimony of love. It is an Apophthegme of Luther's, Mali tyranni, haeretiei pejores, falsi fratres pessimi: A persecutor is ill; but he that persuades me to anything, which might submit me to the persecutors rage, is worse; but he that hath persuaded me, and then betrays me, is worst of all. When all that happens, when a man's enemies are the men of his own house, when amongst ourselves men arise, and draw away the Disciples, remember that Judas defamed this kiss before, he kissed his Master, and so betrayed him. Homo sum, & inter homines vivo, says S. Augustine, I am but a man myself, and I look but for men to live amongst; Nec mihi arrogare audeo, meliorem domum meam, quam Arca Noah, I cannot hope to have my house clearer than Noah's Ark, and there, in eight, there was one ill; nor then Jacob's house, and there the Son went up to the Fathers bed; nor then David's, and there the brother forced the sister; nor then Christ's, and there Judas betrayed his Master, and with a kiss: which alone does so aggravate the fact, as that for the atrocity and heinousness thereof, three of the Evangelists remember that circumstance, That he betrayed him with a kiss; and as though it might seem impossible, incredible to man, that it could be so, S. John pretermits that circumstance, That it was done with a kiss.

In Joab's treachery, in Judas treason, is the kiss defamed, and in the carnal and licentious abuse of it, it is every day depraved. They mistake the matter much, that think all adultery is below the girdle: A man darrs out an adultery with his eye, in a wanton look; and he wraps up adultery with his fingers, in a wanton letter; and he breaths in an adultery with his lips, in a wanton kiss. But though this act of love, be so defamed both ways, by treachery, by licentiousness, yet God chooses this Metaphor, he bids us kiss the Son. It is a true, and an useful Rule, That ill men have been Types of Christ, and ill actions figures of good: Much more, may things not ill in themselves, though deflected and detorted to ill, be restored to good again; and therefore doth God, in more then this one place, expect our love in a kiss; for, if we be truly in love with him, it will be a holy and an acceptable Metaphor unto us, else it will have a carnal and a fastidious taste. Frustra ad legendum amoris carmen, qui non amat, accedit: He that comes to read Solomon's Love song, and loves not him upon whom that Song is directed, will rather endanger, then profit himself by that reading: Non capit ignitum eloquium frigidum pectus: A heart frozen and congealed with the love of this world, is not capable, not sensible of the fires of the holy Ghost; Greece loquentes non intelligit, qui Greece non novit, & lingua amoris ei, qui non amat, barbara; As Greek it self is barbarous to him that understands not Greek, so is the language of love, and the kiss which the holy Ghost speaks of here, to him that always groveleth, and holds his face upon the earth.

Treachery often, but licentiousness more, hath depraved this seal of love; and yet, Vt nos ad amplexus sacri amoris accendat, usque ad turpis amoris nostri verba se inclinat; God stoops even to the words of our foul and unchaste love, that thereby he might raise us to the heavenly love of himself, and his Son. Cavendum, ne machina quae ponitur ut levet, ipsa aggrevet: Take thou heed, that that ladder, or that engine which God hath given to raise thee, do not load thee, oppress thee, cast thee down: Take heed lest those phrases of love and kisses which should raise thee to him, do not bury thee in the memory and contemplation of sinful love, and of licentious kisses. Palea tegit frumentum; palea jumentorum, frumentum hominum: There is corn under the chaff; and though the chaff and straw be for cattle, there is corn for men too: There is a heavenly love, under these ordinary phrases; the ordinary phrase belongs to ordinary men; the heavenly love and the spiritual kiss, to them who affect an union to God, and him whom he sent, his Son Christ Jesus. S. Paul abhors not good and appliable sentences, because some secular Poets had said them before; nor hath the Christian Church abhorred the Temples of the Gentiles, because they were profaned before with idolatrous sacrifices. I do not conceive how that Jesuit Serarius should conceive any such great joy, as he says he did, when he came to a Church-porch, and saw an old statue of Jupiter, and another of Hercules, holding two basins of holy water; when Jupiter and Hercules were made to do Christians such services, the Jesuit is over-joyed. His Jupiter and his Hercules might well enough have been spared in the Christian Church, but why some such things as have been abused in the Roman Church, may not be preserved in, or reduced to their right use here, I conceive not; as well as (in a proportion) this outward testimony of inward love, though defamed by treachery, though depraved by licentiousness, is exacted at our hands by God himself, towards his Son, Kiss the Son, lest he be angry.

For all Joab's and Judas treason, and carnal lovers licentiousness, kiss thou the Son, and be glad that the Son hath brought thee, in the Christian Church, within that distance, as that thou mayest kiss him. The nearest that the Synagogue, or that the Spouse of Christ not yet married came to, was, Osculetur me, Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. It was but a kissing of his hand, when he reached them out their spiritual food by others; It was a marriage, but a marriage by a proxie; The personal marriage, the consummation of the marriage was in the coming of Christ, in establishing a real presence of himself in the Church. Praecepta Dei oscula sunt, says Gregory; In everything that God says to us, he kisses us; Sed per Prophetas & Ministros, alieno ore nos osculatur, He kissed us by another man's mouth, when he spoke by the mouth of the Prophets; but now that he speaks by his own Son, it is by himself. Even his servant Moses himself was of uncircumcised lips, and with the uncircumcised there was no marriage. Even his servant Isaiah was of unclean lips, and with the unclean there was no marriage: Even his servant Jeremiah was oris infantilis, he was a child and could not speak, and with children, in infancy, there is no marriage: But in Christ, God hath abundantly performed that supply promised to Moses, there, Aaron thy brother shall be thy Prophet; Christ himself shall come and speak to thee, and return and speak for thee: In Christ, the Seraphim hath brought that live coal from the Altar, and touched Isaiah’s lips, and so spoken lively, and clearly to our souls; In Christ, God hath done that which he said to Jeremiah, Fear not, I am with thee; for in this Immanuel, God and man, Christ Jesus, God is with us.

In Eschines mouth, when he repeated them, they say, even Demosthenes Orations were flat, and tastlesse things; Compare the Prophets with the Son, and even the promises of God, in them, are faint and dilute things. Elisha's staff in the hand of Gehazi his servant, would not recover the Shunamites dead child; but when Elisha himself came, and put his mouth upon the child's mouth, that did: In the mouth of Christ's former servants there was a preparation, but effect, and consummation in his own mouth. In the Old Testament. at first, God kissed man, and so breathed the breath of life, and made him a man; In the New Testament Christ kissed man, he breathed the breath of everlasting life, the holy Ghost, into his Apostles, and so made the man a blessed man. Love is as strong as death; As in death there is a transmigration of the soul, so in this spiritual love, and this expressing of it, by this kiss, there is a transfusion of the soul too: And as we find in Gellius a Poëm of Plato's, where he says, he knew one so extremely passionate, Vt parùm affuit quin moreretur in osculo, much more is it true in this heavenly union, expressed in this kiss, as S. Ambrose delivers it, Per osculum adhaeret anima Deo, et transfunditur spiritus osculantis, In this kiss, where Righteousness and peace have kissed each other, In this person, where the Divine and the human nature have kissed each other, In this Christian Church, where Grace and Sacraments, visible and invisible means of salvation, have kissed each other, Love is as strong as death; my soul is united to my Savior, now in my life, as in death, and I am already made one spirit with him: and whatsoever death can do, this kiss, this union can do, that is, give me a present, an immediate possession of the kingdom of heaven: And as the most mountainous parts of this kingdom are as well within the kingdom as a garden, so in the midst of the calamities and incommodities of this life, I am still in the kingdom of heaven. In the Old Testament, it was but a contract, but per verba de futuro, Sponsabo, I will marry thee; but now that Christ is come, the Bride-groome is with us forever, and the children of the Bridechamber cannot mourn.

Now, by this, we are slid into our fourth and last branch of our first part, The persuasion to come to this holy kiss, though defamed by treachery, though depraved by licentiousness, since God invites us to it, by so many good uses thereof in his Word. It is an imputation laid upon Nero, That Neque adveniens, neqùe profisciscens, That whether coming or going he never kissed any: And Christ himself imputes it to Simon, as a neglect of him, That when he came into his house, he did not kiss him. This then was in use, first among kinsfolks; In illa simplicitate antiquorum, propinqui propinquos osculabantur: In those innocent and harmless times, persons near in blood did kiss one another: And in that right, and not only as a stranger, Jacob kissed Rachel, and told her how near of kin he was to her. There is no person so near of kin to thee, as Christ Jesus: Christ Jesus thy Father as he created thee, and thy brother as he took thy nature: Thy Father as he provided an inheritance for thee, and thy brother as he divided this inheritance with thee, and as he died to give thee possession of that inheritance: He that is Nutritius, thy Foster-father who hath nursed thee in his house, in the Christian Church, and thy Twin-brother, so like thee, as that his Father, and thine in him, shall not know you from one another, but mingle your conditions so, as that he shall find thy sins in him, and his righteousness in thee; Osculamini Filium, Kiss this Son as thy kinsman.

This kiss was also in use, as Symbolum subjectionis, A recognition of sovereignty or power; Pharaoh says to Joseph, Thou shalt be over my house, and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled; there the Original is, All my people shall kiss thy face. This is the Lord Paramount, the Sovereign Lord of all; The Lord Jesus; Jesus, at whose name every knee must bow, in heaven, in earth, and in hell; Jesus, into whose hands all power in heaven and in earth is given; Jesus, who hath opened a way to our Appeal; from all powers upon earth, Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; Jesus, who is the Lion and the Lamb too, powerful upon others, accessible unto thee; Osculamini Filium, Kiss this Son, as he is thy Sovereign.

It was in use likewise In discessu, friends parting kissed; Laban rose up early in the morning, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and departed: And at Paul's departing, they fell on his neck, and wept, and kissed him. When thou departest to thy worldly businesses, to thy six days labor, kiss him, take leave of him, and remember that all that while thou art gone upon his errand, and though thou work for thy family, and for thy posterity, yet thou workest in his vineyard, and dost his work.

They kissed too In reditu; Esau ran to meet his brother, and fell on his neck and kissed him. When thou returnest to his house, after thy six days labor, to celebrate his Sabbath, kiss him there, and be able to give him some good account, from Sabbath to Sabbath, from week to week, of thy stewardship, and thou wilt never be bankrupt.

They kissed in reconciliation; David kissed Absalom. If thou have not discharged thy stewardship well, Restore to man who is damnified therein, Confess to God who hath suffered in that sin, Reconcile thyself to him, and kiss him in the Sacrament, in the seal of Reconciliation.

They kissed in a religious reverence even of false gods; I have, says God, seven thousand knees that have not bowed unto Baal, and mouths that have not kissed him. Let every one of us kiss the true God, in keeping his knees from bowing to a false, his lips from assenting, his hands from subscribing to an Idolatrous worship. And, as they kissed In Symbolum concordiae, (which was another use thereof; Salute one another with a holy kiss ) upon which custom, Justin Martyr says, Osculum ante Eucharistiam, before the Communion, the Congregation kissed, to testify their unity in faith in him, to whom they were then Sacramentally to be united, as well as Spiritually, And Tertullian calls it Osculum signaculum Orationis, Because they ended their public Prayers with that seal of unity and concord, Let every Congregation kiss him so; at every meeting to seal to him a new band, a new vow that they will never break, in departing from any part of his true worship. And to that purpose kiss his feet, as Mary Magdalene did: Speciosi pedes Euangelizantium; Let his feet, his Ministers, in whom he comes, be acceptable unto you; and love that, upon which himself stands, The Ordinance which he hath established for your salvation.

Kiss the Son, that is, embrace him, depend upon him all these ways; As thy kinsman, As thy Sovereign, At thy going, At thy coming; At thy Reconciliation, in the truth of religion in thyself, in a peaceable unity with the Church, in a reverent estimation of those men, and those means, whom he sends. Kiss him, and be not ashamed of kissing him; It is that, which the Spouse desired, I would kiss thee, & not be despised. If thou be despised for loving Christ in his Gospel, remember that when David was thought base, for dancing before the Ark, his way was to be more base. If thou be thought frivolous for thrusting in at Service, in the fore-noon, be more frivolous, and come again in the after-noon: Tanto major requies, quanto ab amore Jesus nulla requies: The more thou troublest thyself, or art troubled by others for Christ, the more peace thou hast in Christ.

We descend now to our second Part, from the duty to the danger, from the expressing of love to the impression of fear, Kiss the Son, lest he be angry: And first that anger and love, are not incompatible, that anger consists with love: God is immutable, and, God is love, and yet God can be angry. God stops a little upon scorn, in the fourth verse of this Psalm, When the Kings of the earth take counsel against his anointed, he laughs them to scorn, he hath them in dirision. But it ends not in a jest; He shall speak to them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure; And that is not all; He shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a Potters vessel.

Lactantius reprehends justly two errors, and proposes a godly middle way in the Doctrine of the anger of God. Some say, says he, that only favor, and gentleness can be attributed to God, Quia illaesibilis, He himself cannot be hurt, and then why should he be angry? And this is, says he, Favorabilis & popularis oratio, It is a popular and an acceptable proposition, God cannot be angry, do what you will, you cannot anger him, for he is all gentleness. Others, says Lactantius, take both anger, and gentleness from God, and say he is affected neither way: And this is, says he well, Constantior error, An error that will better hold together, better consist in it self, and be better stood to; for they are inseparable things; whosoever does love the good, does hate the bad: and therefore if there be no anger, there is no love in God; but that cannot be said. And therefore, says he, we must not argue thus, Because there is no anger in God, therefore there is no love; for that indeed would follow, if the first were true; But because there is love in God, therefore there is anger: And so he concludes thus, This is Cardo Religions, This is the hinge upon which all Religion, all the Worship of God turns and moves, Si nihil praestat colenti non debetur cultus, nec metus si non irascitur non cobenti; If God gave me nothing for my love, I should not love him, nor fear him if he were not angry at my displeasing him. It is argument enough against the Epicures, (against whom principally he argues) Si non curat, non habet potestatem: If God take no care of human actions, he hath no power; for it is impossible to think, that he hath power, and uses it not; An idle God is as impossible an imagination, as an impotent God, or an ignorant God. Anger, as it is a passion that troubles, and disorders, and discomposes a man, so it is not in God, but anger as it is a sensible discerning of foes from friends, and of things that conduce, or disconduce to his glory, so it is in God. In a word, Hilary hath expressed it well, Poena patientis, ir a decernentis, Mans suffering is God anger; when God inflicts such punishments, as a King justly incensed would do, then God is thus angry.

Now here, our case is heavier; It is not this Great, and Almighty, and Majesticall God, that may be angry; that is like enough; But even the Son, whom we must kiss, may be angry: It is not a person whom we consider merely as God, but as man; Nay, not as man neither, but a worm, and no man, and he may be angry, and angry to our ruin. But is it he? Is it the Son, that is intended here? Ask the Roman Translation, and it is not he: There it is, Ne irascatur Dominus, Lest the Lord be angry; But the Record, the Original will be against them: Though it were so, The Lord, it might be He, the Son, but it is not the Lord, but must necessarily be the Son; The Son may, the Son will be angry with us. If he could be angry, why did he not show it to the Devil that tempted him, to the Jews that crucified him? God bless us from such an anger, as works upon the Devil, in a desperate unsensiblenesse of any mercy, from any trade in that Sea, which environs the whole world, and makes all that, one Island, where only the Devil can be no Merchant, The bottomeless Sea of his blood; And God bless us from such an anger, as works upon the Jews, in an obduration, and the punishment of it, a dispersion: Are ye sure David was not angry with Shimei, because he reprieved him for a time? Are ye sure the Son is not angry now, because ye perish not yet? Do you not say, A fruit is perished, if it be bruised in one place? Is not your Religion perished, if Locusts and Eare-wigges have eaten into it, though they have not eaten it up? Is not your Religion perished, if irreligion and profaneness be entered into your manners, into your lives, though Religion have some motion in our ordinary meetings, and public exercises here?

The Son is Caput, and Corpus, as S. Augustine says often, Christ, and the Church of Christ, are Christ; And, Quis enumeret omnia, quibus corpus Christi irascitur? says the same Father; Who can reckon how many ways, this Christ, this body of Christ, the Church, is constrained to express anger? How many Excommunications, how many Censures, how many Suspensions, how many Irregularities, how many Penances, and Commutations of Penances, is the body of Christ, the Church, forced to inflict upon sinners? And how heavy would these be to us, if we did not weigh them with the weights of flesh in the Shambles, or of Iron in the Shop; if we did not consider them only in their temporal damage, how little an excommunication took from us of our goods, or worldly substance, and not how much it shut up the ordinary and outward means of our salvation. When the anger of the Body, the Church, is thus heavy, what is the anger of the Head, of Christ himself, who is Judge in his own cause? When an unjust judgment was executed upon him, how was the frame of nature shaked in Eclipses, in Earthquakes, in renting of the Temple, and cleaving the Monuments of the dead: When his pleasure is to execute a just judgment upon a Nation, upon a Church, upon a Man, in the infatuation of Princes, in the recidivation of the Clergy, in the consternation of particular consciences, Quis stabit? who shall be able to stand in that Judgment? Kiss the Son lest he be angry; But when he is angry, he will not kiss you, nor be kissed by you, but throw you into unquenchable fire, if you be cold, and if you be luke-warm, spit you out of his mouth, remove you from the benefit and comfort of his Word.

This is the anger of God, that reaches to all the world; and the anger of the Son, that comes home to us; and all this is removed with this holy and spiritual kiss: Osculamini Filium, Kiss the Son lest he be angry, implies this, If ye kiss him, he will not be angry. What this kiss is, we have seen all the way; It is to hang at his lips, for the Rule of our life, To depend upon his Word for our Religion, and to succor ourselves, by the promises of his Gospel, in all our calamities, and not to provoke him to farther judgments, by a perverse and froward use of those judgments which he hath laid upon us: As it is, in this point towards man, it is towards God too; Nihil mansuetudine violentius, There is not so violent a thing as gentleness, so forcible, so powerful upon man, or upon God. This is such a saying, as one would think he that said it, should be ready to retract, by the multiplicity of examples to the contrary every day. Such Rules as this, He that puts up one wrong invites and calls for another, will shake Chrysostom's Rule shrewdly, Nihil mansuetudine violentius, That no battery is so strong against an enemy, as gentleness. Say, if you will, Nihilmelius, There is no better thing then gentleness, and we can make up that with a Comment, that is, nothing better for some purposes; Say, if you will, Nihil frugalius, There is not a thriftier thing then gentleness, It saves charges, to suffer, It is a more expensive thing to revenge then to suffer, whether we consider expense of soul, or body, or fortune; And, (by the way) that, which we use to add in this account, opinion, reputation, that which we call Honor, is none of the Elements of which man is made; It may be the air, that the Bird flies in, It may be the water, that the Fish swims in, but it is none of the Elements that man is made of, for those are only soul, and body, and fortune. Say also, if you will, Nihil accommodatius, Nothing conforms us more to our great pattern Christ Jesus, then mildness, then gentleness, for that is our lesson from him, Discite à me, quiamitis, Learn of me, for I am meek.

All this Chrysostom might say; but will he say, Nihil violentius, There is not so violent, so forcible a thing as mildness? That there is no such Bullet, as a Pillow, no such Action, as Passion, no such revenge, as suffering an injury? Yet, even this is true; Nothing defeats an anger so much as patience; nothing reproaches a chiding so much as silence. Reprehendis iratum? accusas indignationem? says that Father: Art thou sorry to see a man angry? Cur magis irasci vis? Why dost thou add thy anger to his? Why dost thou fuel his anger with thine? Quodigni aqua, hoc irae mansuetudo, As water works upon fire, so would thy patience upon his anger. S. Ambrose hath expressed it well too, Haec sunt armajusti, ut cedendo vincat; This is the war of the righteous man, to conquer by yielding. It was Ezechiahs way; when Rabshakeh reviled, They held their peace, (where, the very phrase affords us this note, That silence is called holding of our peace, we continue our peace best by silence) They held their peace, says that text, and answered him not a word, for the King had commanded them not to answer. Why? S. Jerome tells us why; Ne ad majores blasphemias provocaret; Lest the multiplying of cholerique words amongst men, should have occasioned more blasphemies against God. And as it is thus with man, with God it is thus too; Nothing spends his judgments, and his corrections so soon, as our patience, nothing kindles them, exasperates them so much, as our frowardness, and murmuring. Kiss the Son, and he will not be angry; If he be, kiss the rod, and he will be angry no longer; love him lest he be, fear him when he is angry: The preservative is easy, and so is the restorative too: The Balsamum of this kiss is all; To suck spiritual milk out of the left breast, as well as out of the right, To find mercy in his judgments, reparation in his ruins, feasts in his Lents, joy in his anger. But yet we have reserved it for our last Consideration, what will make him angry: what sins are especially directed upon the second Person, the Son of God, and then we have done all.

Though those three Attributes of God, Power, and Wisdom, and Goodness, he all three in all the three Persons of the Trinity, (for they are all (as we say in the School) Coomnipotentes, they have all a joint-Almightiness, a joint-Wisdom, and a joint-Goodness) yet, because the Father is Principium, The root of all, Independent, not proceeding from any other, as both the other Persons do, and Power, and Sovereignty best resembles that Independency, therefore we attribute Power to the Father: And because the Son proceeds Per modum intellectus, (which is the phrase that passes through the Fathers, and the School) That as our understanding proceeds from our reasonable soul, so the second Person, the Son, proceeds from the Father, therefore we attribute Wisdom to the Son: And then, because the Holy Ghost is said to proceed Per modum voluntatis, That as our soul (as the root) and our understanding, proceeding from that soul, produce our will, and the object of our will, is evermore Bonum, that which is good in our apprehension, therefore we attribute to the Holy Ghost, Goodness. And therefore David forms his prayer, in that manner, plurally, Miserere mei Elohim, Be merciful unto me all, because in his sin upon Uriah, (which he laments in that Psalm) he had transgressed against all the three Persons, in all their Attributes, against the Power, and the Wisdom, and the Goodness of God.

That then which we consider principally in the Son, is Wisdom. And truly those very many things, which are spoken of Wisdom, in the Proverbs of Solomon, do, for the most part, hold in Christ: Christ is, for the most part, the Wisdom of that book. And for that book which is called altogether, The book of Wisdom, Isidore says, that a Rabbi of the Jews told him, That that book was heretofore in the Canonical Scripture, and so received by the Jews; till after Christ's Crucifying, when they observed, what evident testimonies there were in that book for Christ, they removed it from the Canon. This I know, is not true; but I remember it therefore, because all assists us, to consider Wisdom in Christ, as that does also, That the greatest Temple of the Christians in Constantinople, was dedicated in that name, Sophia, to Wisdom; by implication to Christ. And in some apparitions, where the Son of God is said to have appeared, he calls himself by that name, Sapientiam Dei. He is Wisdom, therefore, because he reveals the Will of the Father to us; and therefore is no man wise, but he that knows the Father in him. Isidore makes this difference Inter sapientem & prudentem, that the first, The wise man, attends the next world, the last, The prudent man, but this world: But wisdom, even heavenly wisdom, does not exclude that prudence, though the principal, or rather the ordinary object thereof, be this world. And therefore sins against the second Person, are sins against Wisdom, in either extreme, either in affected and gross ignorance, or in overrefined and sublimed curiosity.

As we place this Ignorance in Practical things of this world, so it is Stupidity; and as we place it in Doctrinal things, of the next world, so Ignorance is Implicite Beliefe: And Curiosity, as we place it upon Practical things, is Craft, and upon Doctrinal things, Subtilty; And this Stupidity and this Implicite faith, and then this Craft, and this Subtilty, are sins directed against the Son, who is true and only Wisdom.

First then, A stupid and negligent passage through this world, as though thou wert no part of it, without embarking thyself in any calling; To cross God's purpose so much, as that, whereas he produced everything out of nothing, to be something, thou wilt go so far back, towards nothing again, as to be good for nothing, that when as our Laws call a Calling, an Addition, thou wilt have no Addition, And when (as S. Augustine says) Musca Soli praeferenda, quia vivit, A Fly is a nobler Creature then the Sun, in this respect, because a Fly hath life in it self, and the Sun hath none, so any Artificer is a better part of a State, then any retired or contemplative man that embraces no Calling, These chippings of the world, these fragmentary and incoherent men, trespass against the Son, against the second Person, as he is Wisdom. And so do they in doctrinal things, that swallow any particular religion, upon an implicit faith. When Christ declared a very forward knowledge, in the Temple, at twelve years, with the Doctors, yet he was there, Audiens & interrogans, He heard what they would say, and he moved questions, to hear what they could say; for, Ejusdem scientiae est, scire quid interroges, quidve respondeas, It is a testimony of as much knowledge to ask a pertinent question, as to give a pertinent answer. But never to have been able to give answer, never to have asked question in matter of Religion, this is such an Implicitenesse, and indifferency, as transgresses against the Son of God, who is Wisdom.

It is so too, in the other extreme, Curiosity; And this in Practical things, is Craft, in Doctrinal, Subtilty. Craft, is properly and narrowly, To go towards good ends, by ill ways: And though this be not so ill, as when neither ends, nor ways be good, yet this is ill too. The Civilians use to say of the Canonists, and Casuists, That they consider nothing but Crassam aequitatem, fat Equity, down-right Truths, things obvious and apprehensible by every natural man: and to do but so, to be but honest men, and no more, they think a diminution. To stay within the limits of a profession, within the limits of precedents, within the limits of time, is to over-active men contemptible; nothing is wisdom, till it be exalted to Craft, and got above other men. And so it is, with some, with many, in Doctrinal things too. To rest in Positive Divinity, and Articles confessed by all Churches, To be content with Salvation at last, and raise no estimation, no emulation, no opinion of singularity by the way, only to edify an Auditory, and not to amaze them, only to bring them to an assent, and to a practice, and not to an admiration, This is but home-spun Divinity, but Country-learning, but Catechisticall doctrine. Let me know (say these high-flying men) what God meant to do with man, before ever God meant to make man: I care not for that Law that Moses hath written; That every man can read; That he might have received from God, in one day; Let me know the Cabal, that which passed between God and him, in all the rest of the forty days. I care not for God's revealed Will, his Acts of Parliament, his public Proclamations, Let me know his Cabinet Counsels, his bosom, his pocket dispatches. Is there not another kind of Predestination, then that which is revealed in Scriptures, which seems to be only of those that believe in Christ? May not a man be saved, though he do not, and may not a man be damned, though he do perform those Conditions, which seem to make sure his salvation in the Scriptures? Beloved, our Country man Holkot, upon the book of Wisdom, says well of this Wisdom, which we must seek in the Book of God: After he hath magnified it in his harmonious manner, (which was the style of that time) after he had said, Cujus author nihil sublimius, That the Author of the Scripture was the highest Author, for that was God, Cujus tenore nihil solidius, That the assurance of the Scripture was the safest foundation, for it was a Rock, Cujus valore nihil locupletius, That the riches of the Scripture was the best treasure, for it defrayed us in the next World, After he had pursued his way of Elegancy, and called it Munimentum Majestatis, That Majesty and Sovereignty it self was established by the Scriptures, and Fundamentum firmitatis, That all true constancy was built upon that, and Complementum potestatis, That the exercise of all power, was to be directed by that, he reserves the force of all to the last, and contracts all to that, Emolumentum proprietatis, The profit which I have, in appropriating the power and the wisdom of the Scriptures to myself: All wisdom is nothing to me, if it be not mine: and I have title to nothing, that is not conveyed to me, by God, in his Scriptures; and in the wisdom manifested to me there, I rest. I look upon God's Decrees, in the execution of those Decrees, and I try whether I be within that Decree of Election, or no, by examining myself, whether the marks of the Elect be upon me, or no, and so I appropriate the wisdom of the Scripture to myself. A stupid negligence in the practical things of this World, To do nothing; and an implicit credulity in doctrinal things, To believe all; and so also, a crafty preventing, and circumventing in the Practical part; and a subtle, and perplexing intricacy, in the Doctrinal part; The first on this side, The other beyond, do both transgress from that Wisdom of God, which is the Son, and, in such a respect, are sins, especially against the second Person in the Trinity.

SERM. XLII. Preached at Lincolns Inn upon Trinity-Sunday. 1620.

T Hese words are the entrance into that prayer and expostulation, which Abraham made to and with God, in the behalf of Sodom, and the other Cities. He that is, before Abraham was, Christ Jesus himself, in that prayer, which he hath proposed to us, hath laid such a foundation, as this is, such a religious insinuation into him, to whom we make that prayer; Before we ask anything, we say. Our Father, which art in heaven: If he be our Father, A Father when his son asks bread will not give him a stone; God hath a fatherly disposition towards us; And if he be our Father in Heaven, If evil fathers know how to give good things unto their children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Spirit to them that ask him? Shall your Father, which is in heaven, deny you any good thing? says Christ there; It is impossible: Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right? says Abraham here; It is as impossible.

The history which occasioned and induced these words, I know you know. The Holy Ghost by Moses hath expressed plainly, and your meditations have paraphrased to yourselves this history, That God appeared to Abraham, in the plain of Mamre, in the persons of three men; three men so glorious, as that Abraham gave them a great respect: That Abraham spoke to those three, as to one person: That he exhibited all offices of humanity and hospitality unto them: That after they had executed the first part of their Commission, which was to ratify, and to reduce to a more certainty of time, the promise of Isaac, and consequently of the Messias, though Abraham and Sara were past hope in one another; that they imparted to Abraham, upon their departure, the indignation that God had conceived against the sins of Sodom, and consequently the imminent destruction of that City; That this awakened Abraham's compassion, and put him into a zeal, and vehemence; for, all the while, he is said, to have been with him that spoke to him, and yet, now it is said, Abraham drew near, he came up close to God, and he says, Peradventure, (I am not sure of it) but peradventure, there may be some righteous in the City, and if there should be so, it should be absolutely unjust to destroy them; but, since it may be so, it is too soon to come to a present execution; Absit a te, says Abraham, Be that far from thee; And he repeats it twice; And upon the reason in our text, Shall not the judge of all the Earth do right?

First then, The person who is the Judge of all the Earth, submits us to a necessity of seeking, who it is that Abraham speaks to; and so, who they were that appeared to him: whether they were three men, or three Angels, or two Angels, and the third, to whom Abraham especially addressed himself, were Christ: Or whether in these three persons, whatsoever they were, there were any intimation, any insinuation given, or any apprehension taken by Abraham, of the three blessed Persons of the glorious Trinity. And then, in the second part, in the expostulation it self, we shall see, first, The descent, and easiness of God, that he vouchfafes to admit an expostulation, an admonition from his servant, He is content that Abraham remember him, of his office: And the Expostulation lies in this, That he is a Judge, And shall not a Judge do right? But more in this, That he is Judge of all the Earth, and, if he do wrong, there is no Appeal from him, And shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right? And from thence we shall fall upon this consideration, What was that Right, which Abraham presses upon God here: And we shall find it twofold: for, first, he thinks it unjust, that God should wrap up just and unjust, righteous and unrighteous, all in one condemnation, in one destruction, Absit, be this far from God: And then, he hath a farther aim then that, That God for the righteous sake, should spare the unrighteous, and so forbear the whole City. And though this Judge of the whole Earth, might have done right, though he had destroyed the most righteous persons amongst them, much more, though he had not spared the unrighteous, for the righteous sake, yet we shall see at last, the abundant measure of God's overflowing mercy to have declared it self so far, as if there had been any righteous, he had spared the whole City. Our parts then are but two: but two such, as are high parts, and yet growing rich, and yet emproving, so far, as that the first is above Man, and the extent of his Reason, The mystery of the Trinity; And the other is above God so, as that it is above all his works, The infiniteness of his Mercy.

To come to the several branches of these two main parts, first, in the first, we ask, An viri, whether these three that appeared to Abraham, were men or no. Now, between Abraham's apprehension, who saw this done, and ours, who know it was done, because we read it here in Moses relation, there is a great difference. Moses who informs us now, what was done then, says expressly, Apparuit Dominus, The Lord appeared, and therefore we know they were more then ordinary men; But when Moses tells us how Abraham apprehended it, Ecce tres viri, He lift up his eyes, and he saw three men, he took them to be but men, and therefore exhibited to them all offices of humanity and courtesy: Where we note also, that even by the Saints of God, civil behavior, and fair language is conveniently exercised: A man does not therefore mean ill, because he speaks well: A man must not therefore be suspected to perform nothing, because he promises much: Such phrases of humility, and diminution, and undervaluing of himself, as David utters to Saul; such phrases of magnifying, and glorifying the Prince, as Daniel uses to the King, perchance no secular story, perchance no moderne Court will afford; Neither shall you find in those places, more of that which we call Complement, then in Abigail's access to David, in the behalf of her foolish husband, when she comes to intercede for him, and to deprecate his fault. Harshnesse, and morosity in behavior, rusticity, and coorsenesse of language, are no arguments in themselves, of a plain, and a direct meaning, and of a simple heart. Abraham was an hundred years old, and that might, in the general, indispose him; And it was soon after his Circumcision, which also might be a particular disabling; He was sitting still, and so not only enjoying his bodily ease, but his Meditation, (for his eyes were cast down) But as soon as he lift up his eyes; and had occasion presented him to do a courtesy, for all his age, and infirmity, and possession of rest, he runs to them, and he bows himself to them, and salutes them, with words not only of courtesy, but of reverence: Explorat itinera, says S. Ambrose, he searches and inquires into their journey, that he might direct them, or accompany, or accommodate them; A dest non quaerentibus, He prevents them, and offers before they ask; Rapit praetergressuros, when they pretended to go farther, he forced them, by the irresistible violence of courtesy, to stay with him, and he calls them, (or one amongst them) Dominum, Lord, and professes himself their servant. But Abraham did not determine his courtesy in words, and no more: We must not think, that because only man of all creatures can speak, that therefore the only duty of man is to speak; fair Apparel makes some show in a wardrobe, but not half so good as when it is upon a body: fair language does ever well, but never so well as when it apparels a real courtesy: Abraham entreated them fair, and entertained them well: he spoke kindly, and kindly performed all offices of ease, and refocillation to these way-faring strangers.

Now here is our copy, but who writes after this copy? Abraham is pater multitudinis, A father of large posterity, but he is dead without issue, or his race is failed; for, who hath this hospital care of relieving distressed persons now? Thou seest a needy person, and thou turnest away thine eye; but it is the Prince of Darkness that casts this mist upon thee; Thou stoppest thy nose at his sores, but they are thine own incompassionate bowels that stink within thee; Thou tellest him, he troubles thee, and thinkest thou hast chidden him into a silence; but he whispers still to God, and he shall trouble thee worse at last, when he shall tell thee, in the mouth of Christ Jesus, I was hungry and ye fed me not: Still thou sayest to the poor, I have not for you, when God knows, a great part of that which thou hast, thou hast for them, if thou wouldst execute God's commission, and dispense it accordingly, as God hath made thee his steward for the poor. Give really, and give gently; Do kindly, and speak kindly too, for that is Bread, and Honey.

Abraham then took these for men, and offered curtesies proper for men: for though he called him, to whom he spoke, Dominum, Lord, yet it is not that name of the Lord, which implies his Divinity, it is not Jehovah, but Adonai; it is the same name, and the same word, which his wife Sara, after, gives him. And Mary Magdalene when she was at Christ's Sepulcher, speaks of Christ, and speaks to the Gardener (as she thought) in one and the same word: Tulerunt Dominum, she says of Christ, They have taken away my Lord, And to the Gardener she says, Domine, si sustulisti: for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which is the word in both places, was but a name of civil courtesy, and is well enough translated by our men, in that later place, Sir, Sir if you have taken him away, &c. Abraham then, at their first appearing, had no evidence that they were other then men; but we have; for that place of the Apostle, Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained Angels unawares, hath evermore, by all Expositors, had reference to this action of Abraham's; which proves both these first branches, That he knew it not, and That they were Angels. The Apostles principal purpose there is, to recommend to us Hospitality, but limited to such hospitality as might in likelihood, or in possibility, be an occasion of entertaining Angels, that is, of Angelical men, good and holy men. Hospitality is a virtue, more recommended by the Writers in the Primitive Church, then any other virtue: but upon this reason, That the poor flock of Christ Jesus, being by persecution then scattered upon the face of the earth, men were necessarily to be excited, with much vehemence, to succor and relieve them, and to receive them into their houses, as they travailed.

Tertullian says well, That the whole Church of God is one household: He says, every particular Church is Ecclesia Apostolica, quia soboles Apostolicarum, An Apostolical Church, if it be an offspring of the Apostolical Churches: He does not say, quia soboles Apostolicae, because that Church is the offspring of the Apostolical Church, as though there were but one such, which must be the mother of all: for, says he, Omnes primae, & omnes Apostolicae, Every Church is a supreme Church, and every Church is an Apostolical Church, dum omnes unam probant unitatem, as long as they agree in the unity of that doctrine which the Apostles taught, and adhere to the supreme head of the whole Church, Christ Jesus. Which S. Cyprian expresses more clearly, Episcopatus unus est, The whole Church is but one Bishopric, Cujus, à singulis, in solidum pars tenetur, Every Bishop is Bishop of the whole Church, and no one more then another. The Church then was, and should be, as one household; And in this household, says Tertullian there, there was first Communicatio pacis, a peaceable disposition, a charitable interpretation of one another's actions: And then there was Appellatio fraternitatis, says he; That if they did differ in some things, yet they esteemed themselves sons of one Father, of God, and by one Mother, the Catholic Church, and did not break the band of Brotherhood, nor separate from one another for every difference in opinion; And lastly, says he, There was Contesseratio Hospitalitatis, A warrant for their reception and entertainment in one another's houses, wheresoever they travailed. Now, because for the benefit and advantage of this ease, and accommodation in travailing, men conterfeited themselves to be Christians that were not, the Council of Nice made such provision as was possible; (though that also were deluded after) which was, That there should be literae formatae, (as they called them) certain testimonial letters, subscribed with four characters, denoting Father, Son, and holy Ghost; and those letters should be contesseratio hospitalitatis, a warrant for their entertainment wheresoever they came. Still there was a care of hospitality, but such, as Angels, that is, Angelical, good and religious men, and truly Christians, might be received.

Beloved, Baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and holy Ghost, is this Contesseration; all that are truly baptized are of this household, and should be relieved and received: But certainly, there is a race that have not this Contesseration, not these testimonial letters, not this outward Baptism: Amongst those herds of vagabonds, and incorrigible rogues, that fill porches, and barns in the Country, a very great part of them was never baptized: people of a promiscuous generation, and of a mischievous education; ill brought into the world, and never brought into the Church. No man receives an Angel unawares, for receiving or harbouring any of these; neither have these any interest in the household of God, for they have not their first Contesseration: And as there are sins which we are not bid to pray for, so there are beggars which we are not bid to give to. God appeared by Angels in the Old Testament, and he appears by Angels in the New, in his Messengers, in his Ministers, in his Servants: And that Hospitality, and those feasts which cannot receive such Angels, those Ministers and Messengers of God, where by reason of excess and drunkenness, by reason of scurril and licentious discourse, by reason of wanton and unchaste provocations, by reason of execrable and blasphemous oaths these Angels of God cannot be present, but they must either offend the company by reprehension, or prevaricate and betray the cause of God by their silence, this is not Abraham's hospitality, whose commendation was, that he received Angels.

Those Angels came, and stood before Abraham, but till he lift up his eyes, and ran forth to them, they came not to him: The Angels of the Gospel come within their distance, but if you will not receive them, they can break open no doors, nor save you against your will: The Angel does, as he that sends him, Stand at the door, and knock, if the door be opened, he comes in, and sups with him; What gets he by that? This; He sups with me too, says Christ there; He brings his dish with him; he feeds his Host, more then his Host him. This is true Hospitality, and entertainment of Angels, both when thou feedest Christ, in his poor members abroad, or when thou feedest thine own soul at home, with the company and conversation of true and religious Christians at thy table, for these are Angels.

Abraham then, took these three for men, and no more, when as they were Angels: But were they all Angels, and no more? was not that one, to whom more particularly Abraham addressed himself, and called him Lord, The Son of God, Christ Jesus? This very many, very learned amongst the Ancients, did not only ask by way of Problem, and disputation, but affirm Doctrinally, by way of resolution. Irenaeus thought it, and expressed it so elegantly, as it is almost pity, if it be not true; Inseminatus est ubique in Scripture is, Filius Dei, says he: The Son of God is sowed in every furrow, in every place of the Scripture, you may see him grow up; and he gives an example out of this place, Cum Abraham loquens, cum Abraham comesurus, Christ talked with Abraham, and he dined with him. And they will say, that whereas it is said in that place to the Hebrews, That Abraham received Angels, the word Angel must not be too precisely taken: For sometimes, Angel in the Scriptures, signifies less then Angel, (as John, and Malachi are called Angels ) and sometimes Angel signifies more then Angel, as Christ himself is called The Angel of the great Council, according to the Septuagint: So therefore, they will say, That though Christ were there, Christ himself might be called so, An Angel; Or it may be justly said by S. Paul, That Abraham did receive Angels, because there were two, that were, without question, Angels. This led Hilary to a direct, and a present resolution, that Abraham saw Christ, and to exclaim gratulatorily in his behalf, Quanta fidei vis, ut in indiscreta assistentium specie, Christum internosceret! What a perspicacy had Abraham's faith, who, where they were all alike, could discern one to be above them all!

Make this then the question, whether Christ ever appeared to men upon earth, before his Incarnation; and the Scriptures not determining this question at all, if the Fathers shall be called to judge it, it will still be a perplexed case, for they will be equal in number, and in weight. S. Augustine (who is one of them that deny it) says first, for the general, the greatest work of all, the promulgation of the Law, was done by Angels alone, without concurrence of the Son; and for this particular, says he, concerning Abraham, they who think that Christ appeared to Abraham, ground themselves but upon this reason, That Abraham speaks to all, in the singular number, as to one person; And then, says that Father, they may also observe, that when this one Person, whom they conclude to be Christ, was departed from the other two, and that the other two went up to Sodom, there Lot speaks to those two, in the singular number, as to one person, as Abraham did before. From this argumentation of S. Augustine's, this may well be raised, That when the Scriptures may be interpreted, and God's actions well understood, by an ordinary way, it is never necessary, seldom safe to induce an extraordinary. It was then an ordinary, and familiar way for God, to proceed with those his servants by Angels; but by his Son, so extraordinary, as that it is not clear, that ever it was done; and therefore it needs not be said, nor admitted in this place.

In this place, this falls properly to be noted, that even in these three glorious Angels of God, there was an eminent difference; One of them seemed to Abraham, to be the principal man in the Commission, and to that one, he addressed himself. Amongst the other Angels, which are the Ministers in God's Church, one may have better abilities, better faculties then another, and it is no error, no weakness in a man to desire to confer with one rather then with another, or to hear one rather then another. But Abraham did not so apply himself to one of the three, that he neglected the other two: No man must be so cherished, so followed, as that any other be thereby either defrauded of their due maintenance, or dis-heartened for want of due encouragement. We have not the greatest use of the greatest Stars; but we have more benefit of the Moon, which is less then they, because she is nearer to us. It is not the depth, nor the wit, nor the eloquence of the Preacher that pierces us, but his nearness; that he speaks to my conscience, as though he had been behind the hangings when I sinned, and as though he had read the book of the day of Judgment already. Something Abraham saw in this Angels above the rest, which drew him, which Moses does not express; Something a man finds in one Preacher above another, which he cannot express, and he may very lawfully make his spiritual benefit of that, so that that be no occasion of neglecting due respects to others.

This being then thus fixed, that Abraham received them as men, that they were in truth no other then Angels, there remains, for the shutting up of this Part, this Consideration, whether after Abraham came to the knowledge that they were Angels, he apprehended not an intimation of the three Persons of the Trinity, by these three Angels. Whether God's appearing to Abraham (which Moses speaks of in the first verse) were manifested to him, when Sarah laughed in her self, and yet they knew that she laughed; Or whether it were manifested, when they imparted their purpose, concerning Sodom; (for, in both these places, they are called neither men nor Angels, but by that name, The Lord, and that Lord which is Jehovah) whether, I say, when Abraham discerned them to be such Angels, as God appeared in them, and spoke and wrought by them, whether then, as he discerned the Divinity, he discerned the Trinity in them too, is the question. I know the explicit Doctrine of the Trinity was not easy to be apprehended then; as it is not easy to be expressed now. It is a bold thing in servants, to inquire curiously into their Masters Pedigree, whether he be well descended, or well allied: It is a bold thing too, to inquire too curiously into the eternal generation of Christ Jesus, or the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost. When Gregory Nazianzen was pressed by one, to assign a difference between those words, Begotten, and Proceeding, Dic tu mihi, says he, quid sit Generatie, & ego dicam tibi, quid sit Processio, ut ambo insaniamus: Do thou tell me, what this Begetting is, and then I will tell thee, what this Proceeding is; and all the world will find us both mad, for going about to express inexpressible things.

And as every manner of phrase in expressing, or every comparison, does not manifest the Trinity; so every place of Scripture, which the Fathers, and later men have applied to that purpose, does not prove the Trinity. And therefore, those men in the Church, who have cried down that way of proceeding, to go about to prove the Trinty, out of the first words of Genesis, Creavit Dii, That because God in the plural is there joined to a Verb in the singular, therefore there is a Trinity in Unity; or to prove the Trinity out of this place, that because God, who is but one, appeared to Abraham in three Persons, therefore there are three Persons in the God-head; those men, I say, who have cried down such manner of arguments, have reason on their side, when these arguments are employed against the Jews, for, for the most part, the Jews have pertinent, and sufficient answers to those arguments. But yet, between them, who make this place, a distinct, and a literal, and a concluding argument, to prove the Trinity, and them who cry out against it, that it hath no relation to the Trinity, our Church hath gone a middle, and a moderate way, when by appointing this Scripture for this day, when we celebrate the Trinity, it declares that to us, who have been baptized, and catechised in the name and faith of the Trinity, it is a refreshing, it is a cherishing, it is an awakening of that former knowledge which we had of the Trinity, to hear that our only God thus manifested himself to Abraham in three Persons.

Luther says well upon this text, If there were no other proof of the Trinity but this, I should not believe the Trinity; but yet says he, This is Singulare testimonium de articule Trinitatis, Though it be not a concluding argument, yet it is a great testimony of the Trinity. Fateor, says he, historico sensu nihil concludi praeter hospitalitatem, I confess, in the literal sense, there is nothing but a recommendation of hospitality, and therefore, to the Jews, I would urge no more out of this place: Sed non sic agendum cum auditoribus, ac cum adversariis, We must not proceed alike with friends and with enemies. There are places of Scriptures for direct proofs, and there are places to exercise our meditation, and devotion in things, for which we need not, nor ask not any new proof. And for exercise, says Luther, Rudi ligne ad formam gladii utimur, We content ourselves with a foil, or with a stick, and we require not a sharp sword. To cut off the enemies of the Trinity, we have two-edged swords, that is, undeniable arguments: but to exercise our own devotions, we are content with similitudinary, and comparative reasons. He pursues it farther, to good use: The story doth not teach us, That Sarah is the Christian Church, and Hagar the Synagogue; But S. Paul proves that, from that story; he proves it from thence, though he call it but an Allegory. It is true that S. Augustine says, Figuranihil probat, A figure, an Allegory proves nothing; yet, says he, addit lucem, & ornat, It makes that which is true in it self, more evident and more acceptable.

And therefore it is a lovely and a religious thing, to find out Vestigia Trinitatis, Impressions of the Trinity, in as many things as we can; and it is a reverent obedience to embrace the wisdom of our Church, in renewing the Trinity to our Contemplation, by the reading of this Scripture, this day, for, even out of this Scripture, Philo Judaeus, (although he knew not the true Trinity aright) found a threefold manifestation of God to man, in this appearing of God to Abraham: for, as he is called in this Story, Jehovah, he considers him, Fontem Essentiae, To be the fountain of all Being; As he is called Deus, God, he considers him, in the administration of his Creatures, in his providence; As he is called Dominus, Lord, and King, he considers him in the judgment, glorifying, and rejecting according to their merits: So, though he found not a Trinity of Persons, he found a Trinity of Actions in the Text, Creation, Providence, and Judgment. If he, who knew no Trinity, could find one, shall not we, who know the true one, meditate the more effectually upon that, by occasion of this story? Let us therefore, with S. Bernard, consider Trinitatem Creatricem, and Trinitatem Creatam, A Creating, and a Created Trinity; A Trinity, which the Trinity in Heaven, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, hath created in our souls, Reason, Memory, and Will; and that we have super-created, added another Trinity, Suggestion, and Consent, and Delight in sin; And that God, after all this infuses another Trinity, Faith, Hope, and Charity, by which we return to our first; for so far, that Father of Meditation, S. Bernard, carries this consideration of the Trinity. Since therefore the confession of a Trinity is that which distinguishes us from Jews, and Turks, and all other professions, let us discern that beam of the Trinity, which the Church hath shown us, in this text, and with the words of the Church, conclude this part, O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three Persons, and one God, have mercy upon us miserable sinners.

We are descended now to our second part, what past between God and Abraham, after he had thus manifested himself unto him; Where we noted first, That God admits, even expostulation, from his servants; almost rebukes and chidings from his servants. We need not wonder at Job's humility, that he did not despise his man, nor his maid, when they contended with him, for God does not despise that in us. God would have gone from Jacob when he wrestled, and Jacob would not let him go, and that prevailed with God. If we have an apprehension when we begin to pray, that God doth not hear us, not regard us, God is content that in the fervor of that prayer, we say with David, Evigila Domine, and Surge Domine, Awake O Lord, and Arise O Lord; God is content to be told, that he was in bed, and asleep, when he should hear us. If we have not a present deliverance from our enemies, God is content that we proceed with David, Eripe manum de sinu, Pluck out thy hand out of thy bosom; God is content to be told, that he is slack and dilatory when he should deliver us. If we have not the same estimation in the world, that the children of this world have, God is content that we say with Amos, Pauperem pro calceamentis, that we are sold for a pair of shoes; And with S. Paul, that we are the off-scouring of the world: God is content to be told, that he is unthrifty, and prodigal of his servants lives, and honors, and fortunes. Now, Offer this to one of your Princes, says the Prophet, and see whether he will take it. Bring a petition to any earthly Prince, and say to him, Evigila, and Surge, would your Majesty would awake, and read this petition, and so insimulate him of a former drowsiness in his government; say unto him, Eripe manum, pull thy hand out of thy bosom, and execute Justice, and so insimulate him of a former manacling and slumbering of the Laws; say unto him, we are become as old shoes, and as off-scourings, and so insimulate him of a diminution, and dis-estimation fallen upon the Nation by him, what Prince would not (and justly) conceive an indignation against such a petitioner? which of us that heard him, would not pronounce him to be mad, to ease him of a heavier imputation? And yet our longsuffering, and our patient God, (must we say, our humble and obedient God?) endures all this: He endures more; for, when Abraham came to this expostulation, Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? God had said never a word, of any purpose to destroy Sodom, but he said only, He would go see, whether they had done altogether, according to that cry, which was come up against them; and Abraham comes presently to this vehemency: And might not the Supreme Ordinary, God himself, go this visitation? might not the supreme Judge, God himself, go this Circuit? But as long as Abraham kept himself upon this foundation, It is impossible, that the Judge of all the earth should not do right, God mis-interpreted nothing at Abraham's hand, but received even his Expostulations, & heard him out, to the sixth petition.

Almost such an Expostulation as this, Moses uses towards God; He asks God a reason of his anger, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people? He tells him a reason, why he should not do so, For thou hast brought them forth with a great power, and with a mighty hand: And he tells him the inconveniences that might follow, The Egyptians will say, He brought them out for mischief, to slay them in the mountain: He imputes even perjury to God himself, and breach of Covenant, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which were Feffees in trust, between God and his people, and he says, Thou sware'st to them, by thine own self, that thou wouldst not deal thus with them; And therefore he concludes all with that vehemence, Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent this evil purpose against them. But we find a prayer, or expostulation, of much more exorbitant vehemence, in the stories of the Roman Church, towards the blessed Virgin, (towards whom, they use to be more mannerly and respective then towards her Son, or his Father) when at a siege of Constantinople, they came to her statue, with this protestation, Look you to the drowning of our Enemies ships, or we will drown you: Si vis ut imaginem tuam non mergamus in mari, merge illos. The farthest that Abraham goes in this place, is, That God is a Judge, and therefore must do right: for, Far be wickedness from God, and iniquity from the Almighty; surely God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment. An Usurer, an Extortioner, an Oppressor, a Libeller, a Thief, and Adulterer, yea a Traitor, makes shift to find some excuse, some flattery to his Conscience; they say to themselves; the Law is open, and if any be grieved, they may take their remedy, and I must endure it, and there is an end. But, since nothing holds of this oppressor, and manifold malefactor, but the sentence of the Judge, shall not the Judge do right? how must this necessarily shake the frame of all? An Arbitrator or a Chancellor, that judges by submission of parties, or according to the Dictates of his own understanding, may have some excuse, He did as his Conscience led him: But shall not a Judge, that hath a certain Law to judge by, do right? Especially if he be such a Judge, as is Judge of the whole earth? which is the next step in Abraham's expostulation.

Now, as long as there lies a Certiorari from a higher Court, or an Appeale to a higher Court, the case is not so desperate, if the Judge do not right, for there is a future remedy to be hoped: If the whole State be incensed against me, yet I can find an escape to another Country; If all the World persecute me, yet, if I be an honest man, I have a supreme Court in myself, and I am at peace, in being acquitted in mine own Conscience. But God is the Judge of all the earth; of this which I tread, and this earth which I carry about me; and when he judges me, my Conscience turns on his side, and confesses his judgment to be right. And therefore S. Paul's argument, seconds, and ratifies Abraham's expostulation; Is God unrighteous? God forbid; for then, says the Apostle, how shall God judge the World? The Pope may err, but then a Council may rectify him: The King may err; but then, God, in whose hands the Kings heart is, can rectify him. But if God, that judges all the earth, judge thee, there is no error to be assigned in his judgment, no appeal from God not thoroughly informed, to God better informed, for he always knows all evidence, before it be given. And therefore the larger the jurisdiction, and the higher the Court is, the more careful ought the Judge to be of wrong judgment; for Abraham's expostulation reaches in a measure to them, Shall not the Judge of all (or of a great part of the earth) do right?

Now what is the wrong, which Abraham dissuaded, and deprecated here? first, Ne justi cum impiis, That God would not destroy the Just with the unjust, not make both their cases alike. This is an injustice, which never any bloody men upon earth, but those, who exceeded all, in their infamous purposes, the Authors, and Actors in the Powder treason, did ever deliberately and advisedly, upon debate whether it should be so, or no, resolve, that all of both Religions should perish promiscuously in the blowing up of that house. Here the Devil would be God's Ape; and as God had presented to S. Peter, a sheet of all sorts of Creatures, clean and unclean, and bad him take his choice, kill and eat; So the Devil would make S. Peter, in his imaginary Successor, or his instruments, present God a sacrifice of clean and unclean, Catholics and Heretics, (in their denomination) and bid him take his choice: which action, whosoever forgets so, as that he forgets what was intended in it, forgets his Religion, and whosoever forgets it so, as that he forgets what they would do again, if they had power, forgets his reason. But this is not the way of God's justice; God is a God of harmony, and consent, and in a musical instrument, if some strings be out of tune, we do not presently break all the strings, but reduce and tune those, which are out of tune.

As gold whilst it is in the mine, in the bowels of the earth, is good for nothing, and when it is out, and beaten to the thinness of leaf-gold, it is wasted, and blown away, and quickly comes to nothing; But when it is tempered with such allay, as it may receive a stamp and impression, then it is currant and useful: So whilst God's Justice lies in the bowels of his own decree and purpose, and is not executed at all, we take no knowledge that there is any such thing; And when God's Justice is dilated to such an expansion, as it overflows all alike, whole Armies with the sword, whole Cities with the plague, whole Countries with famine, oftentimes we lose the consideration of God's Justice, and fall upon some natural causes, because the calamity is fallen so indifferently upon just and unjust, as that, we think, it could not be the act of God: but when God's Justice is so allayed with his wisdom, as that we see he keeps a Goshen in Egypt, and saves his servants in the destruction of his enemies, then we come to a rich and profitable use of his Justice. And therefore Abraham presses this, with that vehement word, Chalilah, Absit: Abraham serves a Prohibition upon God, as S. Peter would have done upon Christ, when he was going up to Jerusalem to suffer, Absit, says he, Thou shalt not do this. But the word signifies more properly prophanationem, pollutionem: Abraham intends, that God should know, that it would be a profaning of his holy honor, and an occasion of having his Name blasphemed amongst the Nations, if God should proceed so, as to wrap up just and unjust, righteous and unrighteous, all in one condemnation, and one execution; Absit, Be this far from thee.

But Abraham's zeal extended farther then this; his desire and his hope was, That for the righteous sake, the unrighteous might be spared, and reserved to a time of repentance. This therefore ministers a provocation to every man, to be as good as he can, not only for his own sake, but for others too. This made S. Ambrose say, Quantus murus patriae, vir bonus? An honest and religious man, is a wall to a whole City, a sea to a whole Island. When our Savior Christ observed, that they would press him with that Proverb, Medice, cura teipsum, Physician, heal thyself, we see there, that himself was not his person, but his Country was himself; for that is it that they intend by that Proverb, Heal thyself, take care of them that are near thee, do that which thou doest here in Capernaum, at home; Preach these Sermons there; do these miracles there: cure thy Country, and that is curing thyself. Live so, that thy example may be a precedent to others; live so, that for thy sake, God may spare others; and then, and not till then, thou hast done thy duty. God spares sometimes, ob commixtionem sanguinis, for kindreds sake, and for alliance; and therefore it behooves us to take care of our allyances, and planting our children in religious families. How many judgments do we escape, because we are of the seed of Abraham, and made partakers of the Covenant, which the Gentiles, who are not so, are overwhelmed under? God spares sometimes, Ob cohabitationem, for good neighbourhood; he will not bring the fire near a good man's house: As here, in our Text, he would have done in Sodom, and as he did save many, only because they were in the same Ship with S. Paul. And therefore, as in the other Religion, the Jews have streets of their own, and the Stews have streets of their own; so let us choose to make our dwellings, and our conversation of our own, and not affect the neighbourhood, nor the commerce of them who are of evil communication. Be good then, that thou mayest communicate thy goodness to others; and consort with the good, that thou mayest participate of their goodness. Omnis sapiens stulti est redemptio, is excellently said by Philo, A wise mad is the savior and redeemer of a fool: And, (as the same man says) though a Physician when he is called, discern that the patient cannot be recovered, yet he will prescribe something, Ne ob ejus negligentiam periisse videatur, lest the world should think he died by his negligence; How incurable, how incorrigible soever the world be, be thou a religious honest man, lest some child in thy house, or some servant of thine be damned, which might have been saved, if thou hadst given good example. God's ordinary way is to save man by man; and Abraham thought it not out of God's way, to save man for man, to save the unjust for the just, the unrighteous for the righteous sake.

But if God do not take this way, if he do wrap up the just and the unjust in the same Judgment, is God therefore unjust? God forbid. All things come alike to all, says Solomon; One event to the righteous, and to the wicked, to the clean, and to the unclean, to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner, and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an Oath. There is one event of all, says he; but, says he, This is an evil, that it is so: But what kind of evil? An evil of vexation; because the weak are sometimes scandalized that it is so, and the glory of God seems for a time to be obscured, when it is so, because the good are not discerned from the evil. But yet God, who knows best how to repair his own honor, suffers it, nay appoints it to be so, that just and unjust are wrapped up in the same Judgment. The Corn is as much beaten in the threshing, as the straw is; The just are as much punished here as the unjust. Because God of his infinite goodness, hath elected me from the beginning, therefore must he provide that I have another manner of birth, or another manner of death, then the Reprobate have? Must he provide, that I be borne into the world, without original sin, of a Virgin, as his Son was, or that I go out of the world, by being taken away, as Enoch was, or as Elias? And though we have that one example of such a coming into the world, and a few examples of such a going out of the world, yet we have no example (not in the Son of God himself) of passing through this world, without taking part of the miseries and calamities of the world, common to just and unjust, to the righteous and unrighteous. If Abraham therefore should have intended only temporal destruction, his argument might have been defective: for Ezekiel, and Daniel, and other just men, were carried into Captivity, as well as the unjust, and yet God not unrighteous: God does it, and avows it, and professes that he will do it, and do it justly; Occidam in te justum & injustum, I will cut off the righteous and unrighteous together. There is no man so righteous, upon whom God might not justly inflict as heavy judgments, in this world, as upon the most unrighteous; Though he have wrapped him up in the righteousness of Christ Jesus himself, for the next world, yet he may justly wrap him up in any common calamity falling upon the unrighteous here. But the difference is only in spiritual destruction. Abraham might justly apprehend a fear, that a sudden and unprepared death might endanger them for their future state; And therefore he does not pray, that they might be severed from that judgment, because, if they died with the unrighteous, they died as the unrighteous, if they passed the same way as they, out of this world, they therefore passed into the same state as they, in the next world, Abraham could not conclude so, but because the best men do always need all means of making them better, Abraham prays, that God would not cut them off, by a sudden destruction, from a considering, and contemplating the ways of his proceeding, and so a preparing themselves to a willing and to a thankful embracing of any way, which they should so discern to be his way. The wicked are suddenly destroyed; and do not see what hand is upon them, till that hand bury them in hell; The godly may die as suddenly, but yet he sees and knows it to be the hand of God, and takes hold of that hand, and by it is carried up to heaven.

Now, if God be still just, though he punish the just with the unjust, in this life, much more may he be so, though he do not spare the unjust for the righteous sake, which is the principal drift of Abraham's expostulation, or deprecation. God can preserve still, so as he did in Egypt. God hath the same Receipts, and the same Antidotes which he had, to repel the flames of burning furnaces, to bind or stupefy the jaws of hungry Lions, to blunt the edge of Swords, and overflowing. Armies, as he had heretofore. Christ was invisible to his enemies, when he would scape away; And he was impregnable to his enemies, when in his manifestation of himself, (I am he) they fell down before him; And he was invulnerable, and immortal to his enemies, as long as he would be so, for if he had not opened himself to their violence, no man could have taken away his soul; And where God sees such deliverances conduce more to his honor then our suffering does, he will deliver us so in the times of persecution. So that God hath another way, and he had another answer for Abraham's petition; he might have said, There is no ill construction, no hard conclusion to be made, if I should take away the just with the unjust, neither is there any necessity, that I should spare the wicked for the righteous: I can destroy Sodom, and yet save the righteous; I can destroy the righteous, and yet make death an advantage to them; which way soever I take, I can do nothing unjustly.

But yet, though God do not bind himself to spare the wicked for the righteons yet he descends to do so at Abraham's request. The jaw-bone of an Ass, in the hand of Samson, was a devouring sword. The words of man, in the mouth of a faithful man, of Abraham, are a Canon against God himself, and batter down all his severe and heavy purposes for Judgments. Yet, this comes not, God knows, out of the weight or force of our words, but out of the easiness of God. God puts himself into the way of a shot, he meets a weak prayer, and is graciously pleased to be wounded by that: God sets up a light, that we direct the shot upon him, he enlightens us with a knowledge, how, and when, and what to pray for; yea, God charges, and discharges the Canon himself upon himself; He fills us with good and religious thoughts, and appoints and leaves the Holy Ghost, to discharge them upon him, in prayer, for it is the Holy Ghost himself that prays in us. Mauz zim, which is, The God of forces, is not the name of our God, but of an Idol; Our God is the God of peace, and of sweetness; spiritual peace, spiritual honey to our souls; His name is Deus optimus maximus; He is both; He is All Greatness, but he is All Goodness first: He comes to show his Greatness at last, but yet his Goodness begins his Name, and can never be worn out in his Nature. He made the whole world in six days, but he was seven in destroying one City, Jericho. God threatens Adam, If thou eat that fruit, in that day, Morte morieris, Thou shalt die the death; Here is a double Death interminated in one Day: Now, one of these Deaths is spiritual Death, and Adam never died that Death; And for the other Death, the bodily Death, which might have been executed that day, Adam was reprieved above nine hundred years. To lead all to our present purpose, God's descending to Abraham's petition, to spare the wicked for a few just, is first and principally to advance his mercy, That sometimes in abundant mercy, he does so; but it is also to declare, that there is none just and righteous. Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, (says God in the Prophet) and seek in the broad places, If ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth Judgment, that seeketh Truth, and I will pardon it. Where God does not intimate, that he were unjust, if he did not spare those that were unjust, but he declares the general flood and inundation of unrighteousness upon Earth, That upon Earth there is not a righteous man to be found. If God had gone no farther in his promise to man, then that, if there were one righteous man, he would save all, this, in effect, had been nothing, for there was never any man righteous, in that sense and acceptation; He promised and sent one who was absolutely righteous, and for his sake hath saved us.

To collect all, and bind up all in one bundle, and bring it home to your own bosoms, remember, That though he appeared in men, it was God that appeared to Abraham; Though men preach, though men remit sins, though men absolve, God himself speaks, and God works, and God seals in those men. Remember that nothing appeared to Abraham's apprehension but men, yet Angels were in his presence; Though we bind you not to a necessity of believing that every man hath a particular Angel to assist him, (enjoy your Christian liberty in that, and think in that point so as you shall find your devotion most exalted, by thinking that it is, or is not so) yet know, that you do all that you do, in the presence of God's Angels; And though it be in it self, and should be so to us, a stronger bridle, to consider that we do all in the presence of God; (who sees clearer then they, for he sees secret thoughts, and can strike immediately, which they cannot do, without commission from him) yet since the presence of a Magistrate, or a Preacher, or a father, or a husband, keeps men often from ill actions, let this prevail something with thee, to that purpose, That the Angels of God are always present, though thou discern them not. Remember, that though Christ himself were not amongst the three Angels, yet Abraham apprehended a greater dignity, and gave a greater respect to one then to the rest; but yet without neglecting the rest too: Apply thyself to such Ministers of God, and such Physicians of thy soul, as thine own conscience tells thee do most good upon thee; but yet let no particular affection to one, defraud another in his duties, nor impair another in his estimation. And remember too, That though God's appearing thus in three persons, be no irrefragable argument to prove the Trinity against the Jews, yet it is a convenient illustration of the Trinity to thee that art a Christian: And therefore be not too curious in searching reasons, and demonstrations of the Trinity, but yet accustom thyself to meditations upon the Trinity, in all occasions, and find impressions of the Trinity, in the three faculties of thine own soul, Thy Reason, thy Will, and thy Memory; and seek a reparation of that thy Trinity, by a new Trinity, by faith in Christ Jesus, by hope of him, and by a charitable delivering him to others, in a holy and exemplar life.

Descend thou into thyself, as Abraham ascended to God, and admit thine own expostulations, as God did his. Let thine own conscience tell thee not only thy open and evident rebellions against God, but even the immoralities, and incivilities that thou dost towards men, in scandalizing them, by thy sins; And the absurdities that thou committest against thyself, in sinning against thine own reason; And the uncleannesses, and consequently the treachery that thou committest against thine own body; and thou shalt see, that thou hadst been not only in better peace, but in better state, and better health, and in better reputation, a better friend, and better company, if thou hadst finned less; because some of thy sins have been such as have violated the band of friendship; and some such as have made thy company and conversation dangerous, either for temptation, or at least for defamation. Tell thyself that thou art the Judge, as Abraham told God that he was, and that if thou wilt judge thyself, thou shalt scape a severer judgment. He told God that he was Judge of all the earth; Judge all that earth that thou art, Judge both thy kingdoms, thy soul and thy body; Judge all the Provinces of both kingdoms, all the senses of thy body, and all the faculties of thy soul, and thou shalt leave nothing for the last Judgment. Mingle not the just and the unjust together; God did not so; Do not think good and bad all one; Do not think alike of thy sins, and of thy good deeds, as though when God's grace had quickened them, still thy good works were nothing, thy prayers nothing, thine alms nothing in the sight and acceptation of God: But yet spare not the wicked for the just, continue not in thy beloved sin, because thou makest God amends some other way. And when all is done, as in God towards Abraham, his mercy was above all, so after all, Miserere animae tuae, Be inercifull to thine own soul; And when the effectual Spirit of God hath spoken peace and comfort, and sealed a reconciliation to God, to thy soul, rest in that blessed peace, and enter into no such new judgment with thyself again, as should overcome thine own Mercy, with new distractions, or new suspicions that thy Repentance was not accepted, or God not fully reconciled unto thee. God, because he judges all the earth, cannot do wrong; If thou judge thy earth and earthly affections so, as that thou examine clearly, and judge truly, thou dost not do right, if thou extend not Mercy to thyself, if thou receive not, and apply not cheerfully and confidently to thy soul, that pardon and remission of all thy sins, which the holy Ghost, in that blessed state, hath given thee commission to pronounce to thine own soul, and to seal with his seal.

SERM. XLIII. Preached at S. Dunstans upon Trinity-Sunday. 1624.

I T hath been the custom of the Christian Church to appropriate certain Scriptures to certain Days, for the celebrating of certain Mysteries of God, or the commemorating of certain benefits from God: They who consider the age of the Christian Church, too high or too low, too soon or too late, either in the cradle, as it is exhibited in the Acts of the Apostles, or bed-rid in the corruptions of Rome, either before it was come to any growth, when Persecutions nipped it, or when it was so over-grown, as that prosperity and outward splendor swelled it, They that consider the Church so, will never find a good measure to direct our religious worship of God by, for the outward Liturgies, and Ceremonies of the Church. But as soon as the Christian Church had a constant establishment under Christian Emperors, and before the Church had her tympany of worldly prosperity under usurping Bishops, in this outward service of God, there were particular Scriptures appropriated to particular days. Particular men have not liked this that it should be so: And yet that Church which they use to take for their pattern, (I mean Geneva) as soon as it came to have any convenient establishment by the labors of that Reverend man, who did so much in the rectifying thereof, admitted this custom of celebrating certain times, by the reading of certain Scriptures. So that in the pure times of the Church, without any question, and in the corrupter times of the Church, without any infection, and in the Reformed times of the Church, without any suspicion of backsliding, this custom hath been retained, which our Church hath retained; and according to which custom, these words have been appropriated to this day, for the celebrating thereof, And lo, A voice came, &c.

In which words we have pregnant and just occasion to consider, first, the necessity of the Doctrine of the Trinity; Secondly, the way and means by which we are to receive our knowledge and understannding of this mystery; And thirdly, the measure of this knowledge, How much we are to know, or to inquire, in that unsearchable mystery: The Quid, what it is; the Quomodo, How we are to learn it; and the Quantum, How far we are to search into it, will be our three Parts. We consider the first of these, the necessity of that knowledge to a Christian, by occasion of the first Particle, in the Text, And; A Particle of Connection, and Dependance; and we see by this Connection, and Dependance, that this revealing, this manifestation of the Trinity, in the text, was made presently after the Baptism of Christ; and that intimates, and infers, That the first, and principal duty of him, who hath engrafted himself into the body of the Christian Church, by Baptism, is to inform himself of the Trinity, in whose name he is Baptized. Secondly, in the means, by which this knowledge of the Trinity is to be derived to us, in those words, (Lo, a voice came from heaven, saying) we note the first word, to be a word of Correction, and of Direction; Ecce, Behold, leave your blindness, look up, shake off your stupidity, look one way or other; A Christian must not go on implicitly, inconsiderately, indifferently, he must look up, he must intend a calling: And then, Ecce again, Behold, that is, Behold the true way; A Christian must not think he hath done enough, if he have been studious, and diligent in finding the mysteries of Religion, if he have not sought them the right way: First, there is an Ecce corrigentis, we are chidden, if we be lazy; And then, there is an Ecce dirigentis, we are guided if we be doubtful. And from this, we fall into the way it self; which is, first, A voice, There must be something heard; for, take the largest Sphere, and compass of all other kinds of proofs, for the mysteries of Religion, which can be proposed, Take it first, at the first, and weakest kind of proof, at the book of creatures, (which is but a faint knowledge of God, in respect of that knowledge, with which we must know him) And then, continue this first way of knowledge, to the last, and powerfullest proof of all, which is the power of miracles, not this weak beginning, not this powerful end, not this Alpha of Creatures, not this Omega of miracles, can imprint in us that knowledge, which is our saving knowledge, nor any other means then a voice; for this knowing is believing, And, how should they believe, except they hear? says the Apostle. It must be Vox, A voice, And Vox de coelis, A voice from heaven: For, we have have had voces de terra, voices of men, who have indeed but diminished the dignity of the Doctrine of the Trinity, by going about to prove it by human reason, or to illustrate it by weak and low comparisons; And we have had voces de Inferis, voices from the Devil himself, in the mouths of many Heretics, blasphemously impugning this Doctrine; We have had voces de profundis, voices fetched from the depth of the malice of the Devil, Heretics; And voces de medio, voices taken from the ordinary strength of Moral men, Philosophers; But this is vox de Excelsis, only that voice that comes from Heaven, belongs to us in this mystery: And then lastly, it is vox dicens, a voice saying, speaking, which is proper to man, for nothing speaks but man; It is God's voice, but presented to us in the ministry of man; And this is our way; To behold, that is, to depart from our own blindness, and to behold a way, that is shown us; but shown us in the word, and in the word of God, and in that word of God, preached by man. And after all this, we shall consider the measure of this knowledge, in those last words, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; For, in that word, Meus, My, there is the Person of the Father; In the Filius, there is the Person of the Son; and in the Hic est, This is, there is the Person of the Holy Ghost, for that is the action of the Holy Ghost, in that word, He is pointed at, who was newly baptized, and upon whom the Holy Ghost, in the Dove, was descended, and had tarried. But we shall take those words in their order, when we come to them.

First then, we noted the necessity of knowing the Trinity, to be pregnantly intimated in the first word, Et, And: This connects it to the former part of the history, which is Christ's Baptism, and presently upon that Baptism, this manifestation of the holy Trinity. Consider a man, as a Christian, his first Element is Baptism, and his next is Catechism; and in his Catechism, the first is, to believe a Father, Son, and holy Ghost. There are in this man, this Christian, Tres nativitates, says S. Gregory, three births; one, Per generationem, so we are borne of our natural mother; one Per regenerationem, so we are borne of our spiritual Mother, the Church, by Baptism; and a third, Per Resurrectionem, and so we are borne of the general Mother of us all, when the earth shall be delivered, not of twins, but of millions, when she shall empty her self of all her children, in the Resurrection. And these three Nativities our Savior Christ Jesus had; Of which three, Hodie alter salvator is natalis, says S. Augustine, This day is the day of Christ's second birth, that is, of his Baptism. Not that Christ needed any Regeneration; but that it was his abundant goodness, to sanctify in his person, and in his exemplar action, that Element, which should be an instrument of our Regeneration in Baptism, the water, forever. Even in Christ himself, Honoratior secunda, says that Father, The second birth, which he had at his Baptism, was the more honorable birth; for, Ab illa se, Pater qui putabatur, Joseph excusat, At his first birth, Joseph, his reputed Father, did not avow him for his Son; In hac se, Pater qui non putabatur, insinuate, At this his second birth, God, who was not known to be his Father before, declares that now: Ibi labor at suspicionibus Mater, quia professioni deerat Pater, There the Mothers honor was in question, because Joseph could not profess himself the Father of the child; Hic honoratur genetrix, quia filium Divinitas protestatur, Here her honor is repaired, and magnified, because the God-head it self, proclaims it self to be the Father.

If then, Christ himself chose to admit an addition of dignity at his Baptism, who had an eternal generation in heaven, and an innocent conception without sin, upon earth, let not us undervalue that dignity, which is afforded us by Baptism, though our children be borne within the Covenant, by being borne of Christian Parents; for the Covenant gives them Ius ad rem, a right to Baptism; children of Christian Parents may claim Baptism, which aliens to Christ cannot do; but yet they may not leave out Baptism: A man may be within a general pardon, and yet have no benefit by it, if he sue it not out, if he plead it not; a child may have right to Baptism, and yet be without the benefit of it, if it be neglected.

Christ began at Baptism; Natural things he did before; He fled into Egypt, to preserve his life from Herod's Persecution, before: And a miraculous thing he did before; He overcame in disputation, the Doctors in the Temple, at twelve years old; but yet, neither of these neither, before his Circumcision, which was equivalent to Baptism, to this purpose; but before he accepted, or instituted Baptism, he did some natural, and some miraculous things. But his ordinary work which he came for, his preaching the Gospel, and thereby raising the frame for our salvation, in his Church, he began not, but after his Baptism: And then, after that, it is expressly and immediately recorded, That when he came out of the waters, he prayed; and then, the next thing in the history is, that he fasted, and upon that, his temptation in the wilderness. I mean no more in this, but this, That no man hath any interest in God, to direct a prayer unto him, how devoutly soever, no man hath any assurance of any effect of his endeavors in a good life, how morally holy soever, but in relation to his Baptism, in that seal of the Covenant, by which he is a Christian: Christ took this Sacrament, his Baptism, before he did any other thing; and he took this, three years before the institution of the other Sacrament of his body and blood: So that the Anabaptists obtrude a false necessity upon us, that we may not take the first Sacrament, Baptism, till we be capable of the other Sacrament too; for, first in nature, Priùs nascimur, quàm pascimur, we are borne before we are fed; and so, in Religion, we are first borne into the Church, (which is done by Baptism) before we are ready for that other food, which is not indeed milk for babes, but solid meat for stronger digestions.

They that have told us, that the Baptism, that Christ took of John, was not the same Baptism, which we Christians take in the Church, speak impertinently; for John was sent by God to baptize; and there is but one Baptism in him. It is true, that S. Augustine calls John's Baptism, Praecursorium ministerium, as he was a fore-runner of Christ, his Baptism was a fore-running Baptism; It is true, that Justin Martyr calls John's Baptism, Euangelicae gratiae praeludium, A Prologue to the grace of the Gospel; It is true, that more of the Fathers have more phrases of expressing a difference between the Baptism of John, and the Baptism of Christ: But all this is not De essentia, but De modo, Not of the substance of the Sacrament, which is the washing of our souls in the blood of Christ, but the difference was in the relation; John baptized In Christum morituturum, Into Christ, who was to die, and we are baptized In Christum mortuum, Into Christ who is already dead for us. Damascene expresses it fully, Christus baptizatur suo Baptismo: Christ was baptized with his own Baptism; It was John's Baptism, and yet it was Christ's too. And so we are baptized with his Baptism, and there neither is, nor was any other; And that Baptism is to us, Ianua Ecclesiae, as S. Augustine calls it, The Door of the Church, at that we enter, And Investitura Christianismi, The investing of Christianity, as S. Bernard calls it, There we put on Christ Jesus; And, (as he, whom we may be bold to match with these two floods of spiritual eloquence, for his Eloquence, that is Luther expresses it) Puerpera regni Coelorum, The Church in Baptism, is as a Woman delivered of child, and her child is the Kingdom of Heaven, and that kingdom she delivers into his arms who is truly Baptized. This Sacrament makes us Christians; this denominates us, both Civilly, and Spiritually; there we receive our particular names, which distinguish us from one another, and there we receive that name, which shall distinguish us from the Nations, in the next World; at Baptism we receive the name of Christians, and there we receive our Christian names.

When the Disciples of Christ, in general, came to be called Christians, we find. It was a name given upon great deliberation, Barnabas had Preached there; who was a good Man, and full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith, himself. But he went to fetch Paul too, a Man of great gifts, and power in Preaching; and both they continued a year Preaching in Antioch, and there, first of all, the Disciples were called Christians: Before they were called Fideles, and Fratres, and Discipuli; The Faithful, and the Brethren, and the Disciples, and (as S. Chrysostom says) De via, Men that were in the way; for, all the World besides, were beside him, who was The Way, the Truth, and the Life. But, (by the way) we may wonder, what gave S. Chrysostom occasion of that opinion or that conjecture, since in the Ecclesiastic Story (I think) there is no mention of that name, attributed to the Christians: And in the Acts of the Apostles, it is named but once; when Saul desired Letters to Damascus, to punish them, whom he found to be of That way. Where we may note also, the zeal of S. Paul, (though then, in a wrong cause) against them, who were of That way, that is, That way inclined; And our stupidity, who startle not at those men, who are not only inclined another way, a cross way, but labor pestilently to incline others, and hope confidently to see all incline that way again. Here then at Antioch, they began to be called Christians; not only out of Custom, but, as it may seem, out of decree. For, if there belong any credit to that Council, which the Apostles are said to have held at Antioch, (of which Council there was a Copy, whether true or false, in Origen's Library, within two hundred years after Christ) one Canon in that Council is, Vt credentes in Iesum, quos tunc vocabant Galilaeos, vocarentur Christiani, That the followers of Christ, who, till then, were called Galileans, should then be called Christians. There, in general, we were all called Christians; but, in particular, I am called a Christian, because I have put on Christ, in Baptism.

Now, in considering the infinite treasure which we receive in Baptism, insinuated before the text, That the Heavens opened, that is, The mysteries of Religion are made accessible to us, we may attain to them; And then, The Holy Ghost descends, (And he is a Comforter, whilst we are in Ignorance, and he is a Schoolmaster to teach us all truths) And he comes as a Dove, that is, Brings peace of conscience with him, and he rests upon us as a Dove, that is, Requires simplicity, and an humble disposition in us, That not only as Elias opened and shut Heaven, Vt pluviam aut emitteret, aut teneret, That he might pour out or withhold the rain; but (as that Father, S. Chrysostom pursues it) Ita apertum, ut ipse conscendas, & alios, si velles, tecum levares, Heaven is so opened to us in baptism, as that we ourselves may enter into it, and by our good life, lead others into it too; As we consider, I say, what we have received in Baptism, so, if we be not only Dealbati Christiani, (as S. Augustine speaks) White-lim'd Christians, Christians on the outside, we must consider what we are to do upon all this. We are baptized, In plena & adulta Trinitate, says S. Cyprian, not in a Father without a Son, nor in either, or both, without a Holy Ghost, but in the fullness of the Trinity: And this mystery of the Trinity, is Regula fidei, says S. Jerome, It is the Rule of our faith, this only regulates our faith, That we believe aright of the Trinity; It is Dogma nostrae Religions, says S. Basil, As though there were but this one Article; It is, says he, the foundation, the sum, it is all the Christian Religion, to believe aright of the Trinity. By this we are distinguished from the Jews, who accept no plurality of Persons; And by this we are distinguished from the Gentiles, who make as many several persons, as there are several powers, and attributes belonging to God. Our Religion, our holy Philosophy, our learning, as it is rooted in Christ, so it is not limited, not determined in Christ alone; we are not baptized in his name alone, but our study must be the whole Trinity; for, he that believes not in the Holy Ghost, as well as in Christ, is no Christian: And, as that is true which S. Augustine says, Nec laboriosius aliquid quaeritur, nec periculosius alicubi erratur, As there is not so steepy a place to clamber up, nor so slippery a place to fall upon, as the doctrine of the Trinity; so is that also true which he adds, Nec fructuosius invenitur, There is not so fulfilling, so accomplishing, so abundant an Article as that of the Trinity, for it is all Christianity. And therefore let us keep ourselves to that way, of the manifestation of the Trinity, which is revealed in this text; and that way is our second part.

We must necessarily pass faster through the branches of this part, then the Dignity of the subject, or the fecundity of the words will well admit; but the clearness of the order must recompense the speed and dispatch. First then, in this way here is an Ecce, An awaking, an Alarum, a calling us up, Ecce, Behold. First, an Ecce correctionis, A voice of chiding, of rebuking. If thou lie still in thy first bed, as thou art merely a Creature, and thinkest with thyself, that since the Lily labors not, nor spins, and yet is gloriously clothed, since the Fowls of the Heavens sow not, nor reap, and yet are plentifully fed, thou mayest do so, and thou shalt be so; Ecce animam, Behold thou hast an immortal soul, which must have spiritual food, the Bread of life, and a more durable garment, the garment of righteousness, and cannot be emprisoned and captivated to the comparison of a Lily that spins not, or of a Bird that sows not. If thou think thy soul sufficiently fed, and sufficiently clothed at first, in thy baptism, That that Manna, and those clothes shall last thee all thy pilgrimage, all thy life, That since thou art once Baptized, thou art well enough, Ecce fermentum, take heed of that leaven of the Pharisees, Take heed of them that put their confidence in the very act and character of the Sacrament, and trust to that: for there is a Confirmation belongs to every man's Baptism; not any such Confirmation as should intimate an impotency, or insufficiency in the Sacrament, but out of an obligation, that that Sacrament lays upon thee, That thou art bound to live according to that stipulation and contract, made in thy behalf, at thy receiving of that Sacrament, there belongs a Confirmation to that Sacrament, a holy life, to make sure that salvation, sealed to thee at first. So also, if thou think thyself safe, because thou hast left that leaven, that is, Traditions of men, and livest in a Reformed, and Orthodox Church, yet, Ecce Paradisum, Behold Paradise it self, even in Paradise, the bed of all ease, yet there was labor required; so is there required diligence, and a laborious holiness, in the right Church, and in the true Religion. If thou think thou knowest all, because thou understandest all the Articles of faith already, and all the duties of a Christian life already, yet Ecce scalam, Behold the life of a Christian is a Jacob's Ladder, and till we come up to God, still there are more steps to be made, more way to be gone. Briefly, to the most learned, to him that knows most, To the most sanctified, to him that lives best, here is an Ecce correctionis, there is a farther degree of knowledge, a farther degree of goodness, proposed to him, then he is yet attained unto.

So it is an Ecce correctionis, an Ecce instar stimuli, God by calling us up to Behold, rebukes us because we did not so, and provokes us to do so now: It is also an Ecce directionis, an Ecce instar lucernae, God by calling us up to Behold, gives us a light whereby we may do so, and may discern our way: whomsoever God calls, to him he affords so much light, as that, if he proceed not by that light, he himself hath winked at that light, or blow out that light, or suffered that light to wast, and go out, by his long negligence. God does not call man with an Ecce, To behold him, and then hide himself from him; he does not bid him look, and then strike him blind. We are all borne blind at first; In Baptism God gives us that Collyrium, that eye-salve, by which we may see, and actually by the power of that medicine, we do all see, more then the Gentiles do. But yet, Ecce trabs in oculis, says Christ; Behold there is a beam in our eye, that is, Natural infirmities. But for all this beam, when Christ bids us behold, we are able to see, by Christ's light, our own imperfections; though we have that beam, yet we are able to see that we have it. And when this light which Christ gives us, (which is his first grace) brings us to that, then Christ proceeds so that which follows there, Projice trabem, Cast out the beam that is in thine eye, and so we become able by that succeeding grace, to overcome our former impediments: If Christ bid us behold, he gives us light; if he bid us cast out the beam, he gives us strength. There is an Ecce neutus, cast upon Zacharias, Behold thou shalt be dumb, God punished Zacharias' incredulity with dumbness; But there is never an Ecce caecus, Behold thou shalt be blind, That God should call man to see, and then blow out the candle, or not show him a candle, if he were in utter darkness; for this is an Ecce directionis, an Ecce lucernae, God calls, and he directs, and lightens our paths; never reproach God so impiously as to suspect, that when he calls, he does not mean that we should come.

Well then, with what doth he enlighten thee? Why, Ecce vox, Behold a voice, saying. Now, for this voice in the Text, by whom it was heard, as also by whom the Dove that descended was seen, is sometimes disputed, and with some perplexity amongst the Fathers. Some think it was to Christ alone, because two of the Evangelists, Mark and Luke, record the words in that phrase, Tu es filius, not as we read it in our Text, This is, but, Thou art my beloved Son: But so, there had been no use, neither of the Dove, nor of the voice; for Christ himself lacked no testimony, that he was that Son. Some think it was to Christ, and John the Baptist, and not to the company; Because, say they, The mystery of the Trinity was not to be presented to them, till a farther and maturer preparation; And therefore they observe, that the next manifestation of Christ, and so of the Trinity, by a like voice, was almost three years after this, in his Transfiguration, after he had manifested this doctrine by a long preaching amongst them; And yet, even then, it was but to his Apostles, and but to a few of them neither, and those few forbidden to publish too; and how long? Till his resurrection; when by that resurrection he had confirmed them, then it was time to acquaint them with the Doctrine of the Trinity. But for the Doctrine of the Trinity, as mysterious as it is, it is insinuated and conveyed unto us, even in the first verse of the Bible, in that extraordinary phrase, Creavit Dii, God's, God's in the plural, created heaven and earth; There is an unity in the action, it is but Creavit, in the singular, and yet there is a plurality in the persons, it is not Deus, God, but Dij, God's: The Doctrine of the Trinity, is the first foundation of our Religion, and no time is too early for our faith, The simplest may believe it; and all time is too early for our reason, The wisest cannot understand it. And therefore, as Chrysostom is well followed in his opinion, so he is well worthy to be followed, That both the Dove was seen, and the voice was heard by all the company: for, neither was necessary to Christ himself; And the voice was not necessary to John the Baptist, because the sign which was to govern him, was the Dove; He that sent me, said, upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit come down, and tarry still, it is he that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. But to the company, both voice and Dove were necessary: for, if the voice had come alone, they might have thought, that that testimony had been given of John, of whom they had, as yet, a far more reverend opinion, then of Christ; And therefore, God first points out the person, and by the Dove declares him to all, which was He, and then, by that voice declares farther to them all, what He was. This benefit they had by being in that company, they saw, and they heard things conducing to their salvation; for, though God work more effectually upon those particular persons in the Congregation, who, by a good use of his former graces, are better disposed then others, yet to the most graceless man that is, if he be in the Congregation, God vouchsafes to speak, and would be heard.

They that differ in the persons, who heard it, agree in the Reason; All they heard it, in all their opinions, to whom it was necessary to hear it; And it is necessary to all us, to have this means of understanding and believing, to hear. Therefore God gives to all that shall be saved, vocem, his voice. We consider two other ways of imprinting the knowledge of God in man; first in a dark and weak way, the way of Nature, and the book of Creatures; and secondly, in that powerful way, the way of Miracles. But these, and all between these, are ineffectual without the Word. When David says of the Creatures, There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard, (the voice of the Creature is heard over all) S. Paul commenting upon those words, says, They have heard, All the world hath heard; but what? The voice of the Creature; now that is true, so much all the world had heard then, and does hear still: But the hearing that S. Paul intends there, is such a hearing as begets faith, and that the voice of Creature reaches not to. The voice of the Creature alone, is but a faint voice, a low voice; nor any voice, till the voice of the Word inanimate it; for then when the Word of God hath taught us any mystery of our Religion, then the book of Creatures illustrates, and establishes, and cherishes that which we have received by faith, in hearing the Word: As a stick bears up, and succors a vine, or any plant, more precious then it self, but yet gave it not life at first, nor gives any nourishment to the root now: so the assistance of reason, and the voice of the Creature, in the preaching of Nature, works upon our faith, but the root, and the life is in the faith it self; The light of nature gives a glimmering before, and it gives a reflection after faith, but the meridianall noon is in faith.

Now, if we consider the other way, the way of power, Miracles, no man may ground his belief upon that, which seems a Miracle to him. Moses wrought Miracles, and Pharaohs instruments wrought the like: we know, theirs were no true Miracles, and we know Moses were; but how do we know this? By another voice, by the Word of God, who cannot lie: for, for those upon whom those Miracles were to work on both sides, Moses, and they too, seemed to the beholders, diversely disposed to do Miracles. One Rule in discerning, and judging a Miracle, is, to consider whether it be done in confirmation of a necessary Truth: otherwise it is rather to be suspected for an Illusion, then accepted for a Miracle. The Rule is intimated in Deuteronomy, where, though a Prophets prophecy do come to pass, yet, if his end be, to draw to other gods, he must be slain. What Miracles soever are pretended, in confirmation of the inventions of Men, are to be neglected. God hath not carried us so low for our knowledge, as to Creatures, to Nature, nor so high, as to Miracles, but by a middle way, By a voice.

But it is Vox de Coelis, A voice from heaven. S. Basil applying (indeed with some wresting and derorting) those words in the 29 Psalm, verse. 3. (The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the God of glory maketh it to thunder) to this Baptism of Christ, he says, Vox super aquas Johannes, The words of John at Christ's Baptism, were this voice that David intends; And then that manifestation which God gave of the Trinity, (whatsoever it were) altogether, that was the Thunder of his Majesty: so this Thunder then, was vox de Coelis, A voice from heaven; And in this voice the person of the Father was manifested, as he was in the same voice at his Transfiguration. Since this voice then is from Heaven, and is the Fathers voice, we must look for all our knowledge of the Trinity from thence. For, (to speak of one of those persons, of Christ) no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; Who then, but he, can make us know him? If any knew it, yet it is an inexpressible mystery, no man could reveal it; Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven; If any could reveal it to us, yet none could draw us to believe it; No man can come to me, except the Father draw him: So that all our voice of Direction must be from thence, De Coelis, from Heaven.

We have had Voces de Inferis, voices from Hell, in the blasphemies of Heretics; That the Trinity was but Cera extensa, but as a Rolle of Wax spread, or a Dough Cake rolled out, and so divided unto persons: That the Trinity was but a nest of Boxes, a lesser in a greater, and not equal to one another; And then, that the Trinity was not only three persons, but three God's too; So far from the truth, and so far from one another have Heretics gone, in the matter of the Trinity; and Cerinthus so far, in that one person, in Christ, as to say, That Jesus, and Christ, were two distinct persons; and that into Jesus, who, says he, was the son of Joseph, Christ, who was the Spirit of God, descended here at his Baptism, and was not in him before, and withdrew himself from him again, at the time of his Passion, and was not in him then; so that he was not borne Christ, nor suffered not being Christ; but was only Christ in his preaching, and in his Miracles; and in all the rest, he was but Jesus, says Cerinthus.

We have had Voces de Inferis, de profundis, from the depth of hell, in the malice of Heretics, And we have had Voces de medio, voices from amongst us, Inventions of men, to express, and to make us understand the Trinity, in pictures, and in Comparisons: All which (to contract this point) are apt to fall into that abuse, which we will only note in one; At first, they used ordinarily to express the Trinity in four letters, which had no ill purpose in it at first, but was a religious ease for their memories, in Catechisms: The letters were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; The 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and the two last belonged to the last person, for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and so there was Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as if we should express it in F, and S, and H, and G. But this came quickly thus far into abuse, as that they thought, there could belong but three letters, in that picture, to the three persons; and therefore allowing so many to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, they took the last letter P, for Petrus, and so made Peter head of the Church, and equal to the Trinity. So that for our knowledge, in this mysterious doctrine of the Trinity, let us evermore rest, in voice de coelis, in that voice which came from heaven.

But yet it is Vox dicens, A voice saying, speaking, A voice that man is capable of, and may be benefited by. It is not such a voice as that was, (which came from heaven too) when Christ prayed to God to glorify his name, That the people should say, some, that it was a Thunder, some that it was an Angel that spake. They are the sons of Thunder, and they are the Ministerial Angels of the Church, from whom we must hear this voice of heaven: Nothing can speak, but man: No voice is understood by man, but the voice of man; It is not Vox dicens, That voice says nothing to me, that speaks not; And therefore howsoever the voice in the Text were miraculously formed by God, to give this glory, and dignity to this first manifestation of the Trinity in the person of Christ, yet because he hath left it for a permanent Doctrine necessary to Salvation, he hath left ordinary means for the conveying of it; that is, The same voice from heaven, the same word of God, but speaking in the ministry of man. And therefore for our measure of this knowledge, (which is our third and last Part) we are to see, how Christian men, whose office it hath been to interpret Scriptures, that is, how the Catholic Church hath understood these words, Hic est Filius, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

How we are to receive the knowledge of the Trinity, Athanasius hath expressed as far as we can go; Whosoever will be saved, he must believe it; but the manner of it is not exposed so far as to his belief. That question of the Prophet, Quis enarrabit? who shall declare this? carries the answer with it, Nemo enarrabit, No man shall declare it. But a manifestation of the Being of the Trinity, they have always apprehended in these words, Hic est Filius, This is my beloved Son. To that purpose therefore, we take, first, the words to be expressed by this Evangelist S. Matthew, as the voice delivered them, rather then as they are expressed by S. Mark, and S. Luke; both which have it thus, Tu es, Thou art my beloved Son, and not Hic est, This is; They two being only careful of the sense, and not of the words, as it falls out often amongst the Evangelists, who differ oftentimes in recording the words of Christ, and of other persons. But where the same voice spake the same words again, in the Transfiguration, there all the Evangelists express it so, Hic est, This is, and not Tu es, Thou art my beloved Son; And so it is, where S. Peter makes use by application of that history, it is Hic est, and not Tu es. So that this Hic est, This man, designs him who hath that mark upon him, that the holy Ghost was descended upon him, and tarried upon him; for so far went the sign of distinction given to John, The holy Ghost was to descend and tarry: Manet, says S. Jerome, The holy Ghost tarryes upon him, because he never departs from him, sed operatur quando Christus vult, & quomodo vult, The holy Ghost works in Christ, when Christ will, and as Christ will; and so the holy Ghost tarried not upon any of the Prophets; They spoke what he would, but he wrought not when they would. S. Gregory objects to himself, that there was a perpetual residence of the holy Ghost upon the faithful, out of those words of Christ, The Comforter shall abide with you forever; But as S. Gregory answers himself, This is not a plenary abiding, and secundùm omnia dona, in a full operation, according to all his gifts, as he tarried upon Christ: Neither indeed is that promise of Christ's to particular persons, but to the whole body of the Church.

Now this residence of the holy Ghost upon Christ, was his unction; properly it was that, by which he was the Messias, That he was anointed above his fellows; And therefore S. Jerome makes account, that Christ received his unction, and so his office of Messias, at this his Baptism, and this descending of the holy Ghost upon him: And he thinks it therefore, because presently after Baptism, he went to preach in the Synagogue, and he took for his Text those words of the Prophet Isaiah, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me, that I should preach the Gospel to the poor. And when he had read the Text, he began his Sermon thus, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears. But we may be bold to say, that this is mistaken by S. Jerome; for the unction of Christ by the holy Ghost, by which he was anointed, and sealed into the office of Messias, was in the over-shadowing of the holy Ghost in his conception, in his assuming our nature: This Descending now at his baptism, and this Residence, were only to declare, That there was a holy Ghost, and that holy Ghost dwelt upon this person.

It is Hic, This person; And it is Hic est, This is my Son; It is not only Fuit, He was my Son, when he was in my bosom, Nor only Erit, He shall be so, when he shall return to my right hand again; God does not only take knowledge of him in Glory; But Est, He is so now; now in the exinanition of his person, now in the evacuation of his Glory, now that he is preparing himself to suffer scorn, and scourges, and thorns, and nails, in the ignominious death of the Cross, now he is the Son of the glorious God; Christ is not the less the Son of God for this eclipse.

Hic est, This is he, who for all this lowness is still as high as ever he was, and that height is, Est Filius, He is the Son. He is not Servus, The Servant of God; or not that only, for he is that also. Behold my servant, (says God of him, in the Prophet) I will stay upon him, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my Spirit upon him, and he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. But Christ is this Servant, and a Son too: And not a Son only; for so we observe divers filiations in the School; Filiationem vestigii, That by which all creatures, even in their very being, are the sons of God, as Job calls God Pluviae patrem, The father of the rain; And so there are other filiations, other ways of being the sons of God. But Hic est, This person is, as the force of the Article expresses it, and presses it, Ille Filius, The Son, That Son, which no son else is, neither can any else declare how he is that which he is.

This person then is still The Son, And Meus Filius, says God, My Son. He is the son of Abraham, and so within the Covenant; as well provided by that inheritance, as the son of man can be naturally. He is the Son of a Virgin, conceived without generation, and therefore ordained for some great use. He is the son of David, and therefore royally descended; But his dignity is in the Filius meus, that God avows him to be his Son; for, Unto which of the Angels said he at any time, Thou art my son? But to Christ he says in the Prophet, I have called thee by thy name: And what is his name? Meus es tu, Thou art mine. Quem à me non separate Deitas, says Leo, non dividit potestas, non discernit aeternitas: Mine so, as that mine infiniteness gives me no room nor space beyond him, he reaches as far as I, though I be infinite; My Almightiness gives me no power above him, he hath as much power as I, though I have all; My eternity gives me no being before him, though I were before all: In mine Omnipotence, in mine Omnipresence, in mine Omniessence, he is equal partner with me, and hath all that is mine, or that is myself, and so he is mine.

My Son, And My beloved Son; but so we are all, who are his sons, Deliciae ejus, says Solomon, His delight, and his contentment is to be with the sons of men. But here the Article is extraordinarily repeated again, Ille dilectus, That beloved Son, by whom, those, who were neither beloved, nor Sons, became the beloved Sons of God; For, there is so much more added, in the last phrase, In quo complacui, In whom I am well pleased.

Now, these words are diversely read. S. Augustine says, some Copies that he had seen, read them thus, Ego hodie genui te, This is my beloved Son, this day have I begotten him: And with such Copies, it seems, both Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus met, for they read these words so, and interpret them accordingly: But these words are misplaced, and mis-transferred out of the second Psalm, where they are. And as they change the words, and instead of In quo complacui, In whom I am well pleased, read, This day have I begotten thee; S. Cyprian adds other words, to the end of these, which are, Hunc audit, Hear him: Which words, when these words were repeated at the Transfiguration, were spoken, but here, at the Baptism, they were not, what Copy soever misled S. Cyprian, or whether it were the failing of his own memory. But S. Chrysostom gives an express reason, why those words were spoken at the Transfiguration, and not here: Because, says he, Here was only a purpose of a Manifestation of the Trinity, so far, as to declare their persons, who they were, and no more: At the Trans-figuration, where Moses and Elias appeared with Christ, there God had a purpose to prefer the Gospel above the Law, and the Prophets, and therefore in that place he adds that, Hunc audit, Hear him, who first fulfills all the Law, and the Prophets, and then preaches the Gospel. He was so well pleased in him, as that he was content to give all them, that received him, power to become the Sons of God, too; as the Apostle says, By his grace, he hath made us accepted in his beloved.

Beloved, That you may be so, Come up from your Baptism, as it is said that Christ did; Rise, and ascend to that growth, which your Baptism prepared you to: And the heavens shall open, as then, even Cataractae coeli, All the windows of heaven shall open, and rain down blessings of all kinds, in abundance; And the Holy Ghost shall descend upon you, as a Dove, in his peaceful coming, in your simple, and sincere receiving him; And he shall rest upon you, to effect and accomplish his purposes in you. If he rebuke you, (as Christ, when he promises the Holy Ghost, though he call him a Comforter, says, That he shall rebuke the world of divers things) yet he shall dwell upon you as a Dove, Quae si mordet, osculando mordet, says S. Augustine: If the Dove bite, it bites with kissing, if the Holy Ghost rebuke, he rebukes with comforting. And so baptized, and so pursuing the contract of your Baptism, and so crowned with the residence of his blessed Spirit, in your holy conversation, he shall breathe a soul into your soul, by that voice of eternal life, You are my beloved Sons, in whom I am well pleased.

SERM. XLIV. Preached at S. Dunstanes upon Trinity-Sunday. 1627.

T Hese words are part of that Scripture, which our Church hath appointed to be read for the Epistle of this day. This day, which besides that it is the Lord's day, the Sabbath day, is also especially consecrated to the memory, and honor of the whole Trinity. The Feast of the Nativity of Christ, Christmas day, which S. Chrysostom calls Metropolin omnium festorum, The Metropolitan festival of the Church, is intended principally to the honor of the Father, who was glorified in that humiliation of that Son, that day, because in that, was laid the foundation, and first stone of that house and Kingdom, in which God intended to glorify himself in this world, that is, the Christian Church. The Feast of Easter is intended principally to the honor of the Son himself, who upon that day, began to lift up his head above all those waters which had surrounded him, and to shake off the chains of death, and the grave, and hell, in a glorious Reserrection. And then, the Feast of Pentecost was appropriated to the honor of the Holy Ghost, who by a personal falling upon the Apostles, that day, enabled them to propagate this Glory of the Father, and this death, and Resurrection of the Son, to the ends of the world, to the ends in Extention, to all places, to the ends in Duration, to all times.

Now, as S. Augustine says, Nullus eorum extra quemlibet eorum est, Every Person of the Trinity is so in every other person, as that you cannot think of a Father, (as a Father) but that there falls a Son into the same thought, nor think of a person that proceeds from others, but that they, from whom he, whom ye think of, proceeds, falls into the same thought, as every person is in every person; And as these three persons are contracted in their essence into one God-head, so the Church hath also contracted the honor belonging to them, in this kind of Worship, to one day, in which, the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, as they are severally, in those three several days, might be celebrated jointly, and altogether. It was long before the Church did institute a particular Festival, to this purpose. For, before, they made account, that that verse, which was upon so many occasions repeated in the Liturgy, and Church Service, (Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost) had a convenient sufficiency in it, to keep men in a continual remembrance of the Trinity. But when by that extreme inundation, and increase of Arians, these notions of distinct Persons in the Trinity, came to be obliterated, and discontinued, the Church began to refresh her self, in admitting into to the forms of Common Prayer, some more particular notifications, and remembrances of the Trnity; And at last, (though it were very long first, for this Festival of this Trinity-Sunday, was not instituted above four hundred years since) they came to ordain this day. Which day, our Church, according to that peaceful wisdom, wherewithal the God of Peace, of Unity, and Concord, had inspired her, did, in the Reformation, retain, and continue, out of her general religious tenderness, and holy loathsomeness, to innovate anything in those matters which might be safely, and without superstition continued and entertained. For our Church, in the Reformation, proposed not that for her end, how she might go from Rome, but how she might come to the Truth; nor to cast away all such things as Rome had depraved, but to purge away those depravations, and conserve the things themselves, so restored to their first good use.

For this day then, were these words appointed by our Church; And therefore we are sure, that in the notion, and apprehension, and construction of our Church, these words appertain to the Trinity. In them therefore we shall consider, first what, these four creatures were, which are notified, and designed to us, in the names, and figures of four Beasts; And then, what these four creatures did; Their Persons, and their Action will be our two Parts of this Text. In each of which we shall have three Branches; In the first these, first, simply who they were; And then, their qualification as they are furnished with wings, Each of them had six wings; And then lastly, in that first Part, what is intended in their eyes, for, They were full of eyes within; And in these three, we shall determine that first Part, The Persons. And then in the second, our first Branch will be, Their Alacrity, their ingenuity, their free and open profession of their zeal to God's Service; They did it, says the Text, Dicentes, Saying, Publishing, Declaring; without disguises or modifications. And our second Branch, Their Assiduity, That which they did, they did incessantly, They ceased not day nor night, says our Text; No occasional emergencies, no loss, no trouble interrupted their zeal to God's service. And then the last is, that that which they did, first with so much ingenuity, and then with so much assiduity, first so openly, and then so constantly, was the celebration of the Trinity, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come; Which is the entire body of the Christian Religion? That they professed openly, and constantly, all the parts of their Religion, are also the three Branches, in which we shall determine our second Part, Their Action.

First then, for our first Branch, in our first Part, the Persons intended in these four creatures, the Apostle says, Whatsoever things are written afore time, are written for our learning; But yet, not so for our learning, as that we should think always to learn, or always to have a clear understanding of all that is written; for it is added there, That we, through patience, and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope; Which may well admit this Exposition, that those things which we understand not yet, we may hope that we shall, and we must have patience till we do. For there may be many places in Scripture, (especially in Prophetical Scripture) which, perchance, the Church of God her self, shall not understand, till those Prophesies be fulfilled, and accomplished. In the understanding of this place, what, or who these four creatures are, there is so much difficulty, so much perplexity, as that amongst the interpretations of very Learned, and very Reverend, and very pertinent Expositors, it is easy to collect thirty several opinions, thirty several significations of these four creatures.

The multiplicity of these Interpretations intimates thus much, that that man that believes the Trinity, can scarce turn upon anything, but it assists, and advances, and illustrates that belief; As diverse from one another as their thirty Expositions are, they all agree, that be our four creatures what they will, that which they do, is to celebrate the Trinity; He that seeks proof for every mystery of Religion, shall meet with much darkness; but he that believes first, shall find everything to illustrate his faith. And then, this multiplicity of Interpretations intimates thus much more, That since we cannot give Sonsum adaequatum, Any such Interpretation of these four creatures, but that another, as probable as it, may be given, it may be sufficient, and it is best, (as in all cases of like intricacy) to choose such a sense, as may most advance the general purpose, and intention of the place; which is, in this place, The celebration of the Trinity.

So therefore we shall do. And considering that amongst these manifold Expositors, some bind themselves exactly, rigidly, superciliously, yea superstitiously to the number of four, and that therefore these four Creatures must necessarily signify something, that is limited in the number of four, no more, no less, (either the four Monarchies, or the four Patriarchs, or the four Doctors of the Church, or the four Cardinal Virtues, or the four Elements, or the four Quarters of the World, into all which, and many more such, rather Allusions, then Interpretations, these various Expositors have scattered themselves) And then considering also that divers others of these Expositors out of a just observation, That nothing is more ordinary in this Book of the Revelation, then by a certain and finite number, to design and signify an uncertain and infinite, (for, otherwise when we are told, that there were twelve thousand sealed of every Tribe, we should know the certain number of all the Jews that were saved, which certainly is not S. John's purpose in that place; but in the greatness of that number, to declare the largeness of God's goodness to that people) considering I say, that divers of these Expositors, have extended their interpretation beyond the number of four, we make accompt that we do best, if we do both; if we stop upon the number of four, and yet pass on to a greater number too. And so we shall well do, if we interpret these four Creatures, to be first and principally the four Evangelists, (and that is the most common Interpretation of the Ancients) and then enlarge it to all the Ministers of the Gospel, which is (for the most part) the Interpretation of the Later men. So then, the action being an open and a continual profession of the whole Christian Religion, in the celebration of the Trinity, which is the distinctive Character of a Christian, the persons that do this, are all they that constitute the Hierarchy, and order of the Church; All they that execute the Ministry, and dispensation of the Gospel; which Gospel is laid down, and settled and established radically in the four Evangelists; All they are these four Creatures. And farther we need not carry this first branch, which is the Notification of these persons; for, their Qualification is the larger consideration.

And before we come to their Qualification, in the text, first, as they are said to have six wings, and then as they are said to be full of eyes, we look upon them, as they are formed, and designed to us, in the verse immediately before the text; where, the first of these four Creatures hath the face of a Lion, the second of a Calf, or an Ox, the third of a Man, and the fourth of an Eagle. Now, Quatuor animalia sunt Ecclesiae Doctors, says S. Ambrose; These four Creatures are the Preachers of the Gospel; that we had established afore; But then, we add with S. Ambrose, Eandem significationem habet primum animal, quod secundum, quod tertium, quod quartum; All these four Creatures make up but one Creature; all their qualities concur to the Qualification of a Minister; every Minister of God is to have all, that all four had; the courage of a Lion, the laboriousnesse of an Ox, the perspicuity and clear sight of the Eagle, and the humanity, the discourse, the reason, the affability, the appliablenesse of a Man. S. Dionys the Areopagite had the same consideration as S. Ambrose had, before him. He imprints it, he expresses it, and extends it thus; In Leone vis indomabilis; In every Minister, I look for such an invincible courage, as should be of proof, against Persecution, (which is a great) and against Preferment, which is a greater temptation; that neither Feares, nor Hopes shake his constancy; neither his Christian constancy, to stagger him, nor his Ministerial constancy, to silence him; For this is Vis indomabilis, the courage required in the Minister as he is a Lion. And then says that Father; In Bove vis salutaris, In every Minister, as he is said to be an Ox, I look for labor; that he be not so over-grown, nor stall-fed, that he be thereby lazy; He must labor; And then, as the labor of the Ox is, his labor must be employed upon useful and profitable things, things that conduce to the clearing, not the perplexing of the understanding; and to the collecting, the uniting, the fixing, and not the scattering, the dissolving, the pouring out of a fluid, an unstable, an irresolved conscience; things of edification, not speculation; For this is that Vis salutaris, which we require in every Minister; that he labor at the Plough, and plough the right ground; that he Preach for the saving of souls, and not for the sharpening of wits. And then again, In Aquila vis speculatrix; As the Minister is presented in the notion and quality of an Eagle, we require both an Open eye, and a Piercing eye; First, that he date look upon other men's sins, and be not fain to wink at their faults, because he is guilty of the same himself, and so, for fear of a recrimination, incur a prevarication; And then, that he be not so dim-sighted, that he must be fain to see all through other men's spectacles, and so preach the purposes of great men, in a factious popularity, or the fancies of new men, in a Schismaticall singularity; but, with the Eagle, be able to look to the Sun; to look upon the constant truth of God in his Scriptures, through his Church; For this is Vis speculatrix, the open and the piercing eye of the Eagle. And then lastly, In homine vis ratiocinatrix; As the Minister is represented in the notion and quality of a Man, we require a gentle, a supple, an appliable disposition, a reasoning, a persuasive disposition; That he do not always, press all things with Authority, with Censures, with Excommunications; That he put not all points of Religion, always upon that one issue, Quicunque vult salvus esse, If you will be saved, you must believe this, all this, & Qui non credider it, damnabitur, If you doubt of this, any of this, you are infallibly, necessarily damned; But, that he be also content to descend to men's reason, and to work upon their understanding, and their natural faculties, as well as their faith, and to give them satisfaction, and reason (as far as it may be had) in that which they are to believe; that so as the Apostle, though he had authority to command, yet did Pray them in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God, So the Minister of God, though (as he is bound to do) he do tell them what they are bound to believe, yet he also tells them, why they are to believe it; for this is Vis ratiocinatrix, The holy gentleness and appliablenesse, implied in that form of a Man.

And so you have this Man composed of his four Elements; this Creature made of these four Creatures; this Minister made of a Lion, an Ox, an Eagle, and a Man; For, no one of these, nor all these, but one, will serve; the Lion alone, without the Eagle, is not enough; it is not enough to have courage and zeal, without clear sight and knowledge; Nor enough to labor, except we apply ourselves to the capacity of the hearer; All must have all, or else all is disordered; Zeal, Labor, Knowledge, Gentlenesse.

Now besides these general qualifications, laid down as the foundation of the text, in the verse before it, in the text it self these four Creatures, being first the four Evangelists, and consequently, or by a just and fair accommodation, all the Preachers of the Gospel, which limit themselves in the doctrine laid down in the four Evangelists, have also wings added unto them; Wings, first for their own behoove and benefit, and then, wings for the benefit and behoove of others. They have wings to raise themselves from the earth; that they do not entangle themselves in the businesses of this World; but still to keep themselves upon the wing, in a Heavenly conversation, ever remembering that they have another Element, then Sea or Land, as men whom Christ Jesus hath set apart, and in some measure made mediators between him, and other men, as his instruments of their salvation. And then as for themselves, so have they wings for others too, that they may be always ready to succor all, in all their spiritual necessities. For as those words are well understood by many of the Ancients, To the Woman were given two wings of an Eagle, that is, to the Church were given able and sufficient Ministers, to carry and convey her over the Nations: So are those words which are spoken of God himself, appliable to his Ministers, that first, The Eagle stirreth up her nest, The Preacher stirs and moves, and agitates the holy affections of the Congregation, that they slumber not in a senselessness of that which is said, The Eagle stirreth up her nest, and then as it is added there, She fluttereth over her young; The Preacher makes a holy noise in the conscience of the Congregation, and when he hath awakened them, by stirring the nest, he casts some claps of thunder, some intimidations, in denouncing the judgments of God, and he flings open the gates of Heaven, that they may hear, and look up, and see a man sent by God, with power to infuse his fear upon them; So she fluttereth over her young; but then, as it follows there, She spreadeth abroad her wings; she over-shadows them, she enwraps them, she arms them with her wings, so as that no other terror, no other fluttering but that which comes from her, can come upon them; The Preacher doth so infuse the fear of God into his Auditory, that first, they shall fear nothing but God, and then they shall fear God, but so, as he is God; And God is Mercy; God is Love; and his Minister shall so spread his wings over his people, as to defend them from all inordinate fear, from all suspicion and jealousy, from all diffidence and distrust in the mercy of God; which is farther expressed in that clause, which follows in the same place, She taketh them and beareth them upon her wings; when the Minister hath awakened his flock by the stirring of the nest, and put them in this holy fear, by this which the Holy Ghost calls a Fluttering; and then provided, by spreading his wings, that upon this fear there follow not a desperation; then he sets them upon the top of his best wings, and shows them the best treasure that is committed to his Stewardship, he shows them Heaven, and God in Heaven, sanctifying all their crosses in this World, inanimating all their worldly blessings, raining down his blood into their emptiness, and his balm into their wounds, making their bed in all their sickness, and preparing their seat, where he stands soliciting their cause, at the right hand of his Father. And so the Minister hath the wings of an Eagle, that every soul in the Congregation may see as much as he sees, that is, a particular interest in all the mercies of God, and the merits of Christ.

So then, these Ministers of God have that double use of their Eagles wings; first, Vt volent ad escam, (as it is in Job ) that they may fly up to receive their own food, their instructions at the mouth and word of God; And then, Vt ubi cadaver sit, ibi statim adsit, (as it is in Job also) where the dead are, they also may be; That where any lie, Pro mortuis, (as S. Paul speaks) for dead, as good as dead, ready to die, upon their death-bed, they may be ready to assist them, and to minister spiritual Physic, opportunely, seasonably, proportionably to their spiritual necessities; That they may pour out upon such sick souls, that name of Jesus, which is Oleum effusum, An oil, and a balm, always pouring, and always spreading it self upon all green wounds, and upon all old sores; That they may minister to one in his hot and pestilent presumptions, an Opiat, of Christ's Tristis anima, A remembrance, that even Christ himself had a sad soul towards his death, and a Quare dereliquisti, some apprehension, that God, though his God, had forsaken him. And that therefore, no man, how righteous soever, may presume, or pass away without fear and trembling; And then, to minister to another, in his Lethargies, and Apoplexies, and damps, and inordinate dejections of spirit, Christ's cordials, and restoratives, in his Clarifica me Pater, In an assurance, that his Father, though he have laid him down here, whether in an inglorious fortune, or in a disconsolate bed of sickness, will raise him, in his time, to everlasting glory. So these Eagles are to have wings, to fly Ad cadaver, to the dead, to those that are so dying a bodily death, and also, where any lie dead in the practice and custom of sin, to be industrious and earnest in calling them to life again, so as Christ did Lazarus, by calling aloud; Not aloud in the ears of other men, so to expose a sinner to shame, and confusion of face, but aloud in his own ears, to put home the judgments of God, thereby to plough and harrow that stubborn heart, which will not be kneaded, nor otherwise reduced to an uprightness. For these uses, to raise themselves to heavenly contemplations, and to make haste to them that need their assistance, the Ministers of God have wings; wings of great use; especially now, when there is Coluber in via, A snake in every path, a Seducer in every house; When as the Devil is busy, because he knows his time is short, so his instruments are busy, because they think their time is beginning again; therefore the Minister of God hath wings.

And then, their wings are numbered in our Text; They have six wings. For by the consent of most Expositors, those whom S. John presents in the figure of these four Creatures here, and those whom the Prophet Isaiah calls Seraphim, are the same persons; The same Office, and the same Voice is attributed unto those Seraphim there, as unto these four Creatures here; Those as well as these, spend their time in celebrating the Trinity, an in crying Holy, Holy, Holy. The Holy Ghost sometimes presents the Ministers of the Gospel, as Seraphim in glory, that they might be known to be the Ministers and dispensers of the mysteries and secrets of God, and to come A latere, From his Council, his Cabinet, his Bosom. And then on the other side, that you might know, that the dispensation of these mysteries of your salvation, is by the hand and means of men, taken from amongst yourselves, and that therefore you are not to look for Revelations, nor Extasies, nor Visions, nor Transportations, but to rest in God's ordinary means, he brings those persons down again from that glorious representation, as the Seraphim, to creatures of an inferior, of an earthly nature. For, though it be by the sight, and in the quality and capacity of those glorious Seraphim, that the Minister of God receives his commission, and instructions, his orders, and his faculties, yet the execution of his commission, and the pursuing of his instructions towards you, and in your behalf, is in that nature, and in that capacity, as they have the courage of the Lyon, the laboriousnesse of the Ox, the perspicuity of the Eagle, and the affability of Man.

These winged persons then, (winged for their own sakes, and winged for yours) these Ministers of God, (thus designed by Isaiah, as heavenly Seraphim, to procure them reverence from you, and by S. John, as earthly Creatures, to teach you, how near to yourselves, God hath brought the means of your Salvation, in his visible, and sensible, in his appliable, and apprehensible Ordinances) are, in both places, (that of Isaiah, and this in our Text) said to have six wings; And six, to this use, in Isaiah, with two they cover their face, with two their feet, and with two they fly. They cover their face; Not all over; for then, neither the Prophet there, nor the Evangelist here, could have known them to have had these likenesses, and these proportions. The Ministers of God are not so covered, so removed from us, as that we have not means to know them. We know them by their face; that is, by that declaration which the Church hath given of them to us, in giving them their orders, and their power over us; and we know them by their voice; that is, by their preaching of such doctrine, as is agreeable to those Articles which we have sucked in from our infancy. The Ministers face is not so covered with these wings, as that the people have no means to know him; For his calling is manifest, and his doctrine is open to proof and trial: But they are said to cover their face, because they dare not look confidently, they cannot look fully upon the majesty of the mysteries of God. The Evangelists themselves, and they that ground their doctrine upon them, (all which together, as we have often said, make up these four persons, whom Isaiah calls Seraphim, and S. John inferior Creatures) have not seen all that belongs to the nature and essence of God, not all in the attributes and properties of God, not all in the decrees and purposes of God, no, not all in the execution of those purposes and decrees; we do not know all that God intends to do; we do not know all that God intends in that which he hath done. Our faces are covered from having seen the manner of the eternal generation of the Son, or of the eternal proceeding of the Holy Ghost, or the manner of the presence of Christ in the Sacrament. The Ministers of God are so far open-faced towards you, as that you may know them, and try them by due means to be such; and so far open-faced towards God, as that they have seen in him and received from him, all things necessary for the salvation of your souls; But yet, their faces are covered too; some things concerning God, they have not seen themselves, nor should go about to reveal, or teach to you.

And it is not only their faces that are covered, but their feet too. Their covered faces are especially directed to God; denoting their modesty in forbearing unrevealed mysteries: Their covered feet are especially directed to you; They should not be curious in searching into all God's actions, nor you in searching into all theirs; Their ways, their actions, their lives, their conversations should not be too curiously searched, too narrowly pryed into, too severely interpreted by private men, as they are but such, because, in so doing, the danger and the detriment is thus far likely to fall upon yourselves, that when the infirmities of the Minister, and your infirmities, that is, their faults, and your uncharitable censures of their faults, meet together, that may produce this ill effect, that personal matters may be cast upon the ministerial function, and so the faults of a Minister be imputed to the Ministry; and by such a prejudice, and conceit of one man's ill life, you may lose the taste and comfort of his, and perchance of others good Doctrine too. All that is covered shall be made manifest, says Christ; You shall know all their faults, and you shall know them then, when it shall most confound them, and least endanger you, when it shall aggravate their torment, and do you no harm; that is, at the day of Judgment. In the mean time, because it might hurt you to know their faults, God hath covered their feet so far, as that he would not have your looking upon their feet, divert you from depending upon their mouths, as long as by his permission they sit in Moses chair, and execute God's Commission. If they employ their middle wings, which were ordained for them to fly withal, if they do their duties in breaking the bread of life, and dispensing the Word and Sacraments, and assisting the sick in body, and sick in soul, though God have, in part, covered their faces, that is, not imparted to them such gifts, or such an open sight into deep points, as perchance you desire, yet he hath covered their feet too; he hath for your sakes removed their faults from your survey, as you are but private men. Take the benefit of their two middle wings, their willingness to assist you with their labors, and in their other four wings, be not too curious, too censorious, too severe, either their face-wings, that is, the depth of their learning, or their feet-wings, that is, the holiness of their lives.

They have six wings to these several purposes; and singuli senas, says our Text, everyone of them hath six wings. For, for the first couple, the face-wings, howsoever some of the Ministers of God have gifts above their fellows, howsoever they have gained the names of Doctors Seraphici, and Doctors illuminati, (with which titles they abound in the Roman Church) yet their faces are in part covered, they must not think they see all, understand all; The learnedst of all hath defects, even in matter of learning. And for the second couple, the feet-wings, howsoever some may make shift for the reputation of being more pure, more sanctified then their fellows, yet the best of them all need a covering for their feet too; All their steps, all their actions will not endure examination. But for the last couple, however there may be some intimation given of a great degree of perfection in matter of knowledge, and in matter of manners, (for in those creatures which are mentioned in the first of Ezek. (which also signify the Ministers of God) there are but four wings spoken of, so that there are no face-wings, they have an abundant measure of learning and knowledge, And the Cherubim (which may also signify the same persons) have but two wings, no covering upon face or feet; to denote, that some may be without any remarkable exception in their doctrine, and in their manners too) yet for the last couple, the two middle wings, by which they fly, and address themselves to every particular soul that needs their spiritual assistance, the Ministers of God are never in any figure but represented. Better they wanted face-wings, and feet-wings, (discretion to cover either their insufficiency in knowledge, or their infirmity in manners) then that they should want their middle-wings, that is, a disposition to apply themselves to their flock, and to be always ready to distribute the promises of God, and the seals of his promises, the Word and Sacraments, amongst them. And this may be conveniently intended in their wings.

Now as they were Alati, they were Oculati in our Text; They have eyes as well as wings; They fly, but they know whither they fly. In the doctrine of Implicite Obedience in the Roman Church, To believe as the Church believes, or as that Confessor which understands not what the Church believes, makes you believe the Church believes, In their doctrine of that which they call Blind Obedience, that is, to pursue and execute any commandment of any superior, without any consideration; In both these there are wings enow, but there are no eyes: They fly from hence to Rome, and Roman Jurisdictions, and they fly over hither again, after Statutes, after Proclamations, after Banishments iterated upon them; So that here are wings enow, but they lack those eyes by which they should discern between Religion and Rebellion, between a Traitor and a Martyr. And to take our consideration from them, and reflect upon ourselves, They that fly high at matter of mystery, and leave out matter of edification, They that fly over Sea for plat-forms of discipline, and leave out that Church that bred them, They that fly close to the service of great men's affections and purposes, and do the work of God coldly, and faintly, They may be Alati, but they are not Oculati, They may fly high, and fly fast, and fly far, and fly close in the ways of preferment, but they see not their end; Not only not the end that they shall come to, but not the end that they are put upon; not only not their own ends, but not their ends whose instruments they are. Those birds whose eyes are cieled, and sowed up, fly highest; but they are made a prey: God exposes not his servants to such dangers; He gives them wings, that is, means to do their office; but eyes too, that is, discretion and religious wisdom how to do it.

And this is that which they seem to need most, for their wings are limited, but their eyes are not; Six wings, but full of eyes, says our Text. They must have eyes in their tongues; They must see, that they apply not blindly and inconsiderately God's gracious promises to the presumptuous, nor his heavy judgments to the broken hearted. They must have eyes in their ears; They must see that they hearken neither to a superstitious sense from Rome, nor to a seditious sense of Scriptures from the Separation. They must have eyes in their hands; They must see that they touch not upon any such benefits or rewards, as might bind them to any other master then to God himself. They must have eyes in their eyes; spiritual eyes in their bodily eyes; They must see that they make a charitable construction of such things as they see other men do, and this is that fullness of eyes which our Text speaks of.

But then especially, says our Text, They were full of eyes Within: The fullness, the abundance of eyes, that is, of providence and discretion in the Ministers of God, was intimated before: In the 6. verse it was said, That they were full of eyes before and behind: that is, circumspect and provident for all that were about them, and committed to them. But all is determined and summed up in this, that They were full of eyes within. For as there is no profit at all (none to me, none to God) if I get all the world and lose mine own soul, so there is no profit to me, if I win other men's souls to God, and lose mine own. All my wings shall do me no good, all mine eyes before and behind shall do me no good, if I have no prospect inward, no eyes within, no care of my particular and personal safety.

And so we have done with our first general part, the Persons denoted in these four creatures, and the duties of their ministry; in which we have therefore insisted thus long, that having so declared and notified to you our duties, you also might be the more willing to hear of your own duties, as well as ours, and to join with us in this Open, and Incessant, and Total profession of your Religion, which is the celebration of the Trinity in this acclamation, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which is, which was, and which is to come.

To come therefore now to the second Part, and taking the four Evangelists to be principally intended here, but secondarily the Preachers of the Gospel too, and not only they, but in a fair extension and accommodation the whole Church of God, first we noted their Ingenuitie and opennesse in the profession of their Religion, they did it Dicentes, Saying, declaring, publishing, manifesting their devotion, without any disguise, any modification.

In that song of the three Children in the Fornace, O all ye works of the Lord, &c. there is nothing presented speechless: To everything that is there, there is given a tongue; Not only all those creatures which have all a Being, but even Privations, Privations that have no Being, that are nothing in themselves, (as the Night, and Darkness ) are there called upon to bless the Lord, to praise him, and magnify him forever. But towards the end of that song, you may see that service drawn into a narrower compass; You may see to whom this speech, and declaration doth principally appertain; For after he had called upon Sun, and Moon, and Earth, and Sea, and Fowls, and Fishes, and Plants, and Night, and Darkness, to praise the Lord, to bless him, and magnify him forever, Then he comes to O ye children of men, Primogeniti Dei, God's beloved creatures, his eldest sons, and first-borne, in his intention; And then, Domus Israel, O ye house of Israel, you whom God hath not only made men, but Christian men, not only planted in the World, but in the Church, not only endued with Reason, but inspired with Religion: And then again, O ye Priests of the Lord, O ye Servants of the Lord, those of God's portion, not only in the Church, but of the Church, and appointed by him to deal between him and other men: And then also, O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, those whom those instruments of God had powerfully and effectually wrought upon, upon those especially, those men, those Christian men, those Priests, those sanctified men, upon those he calls to bless the Lord, to praise him, and magnify him forever. This obligation the holy Ghost lays upon us all, that the more God does for us, the more we should declare it to other men; God would have us tell him our sins; God would have us tell other men his mercies; It was no excuse for Moses that he was of uncircumcised lips; No excuse for Jeremiah, to say, O Lord God, behold I cannot speak, for I am a child. Credidi, propterea locutus sum, is David's form of argument, I believed, and therefore I spake. If thou dost not love to speak of God, and of his benefits, thou dost not believe in God, nor that those benefits came from him.

Remember that when thou wast a child, and presented to God in Baptism, God gave thee a tongue in other men's mouths, and enabled thee, by them, to establish a covenant, a contract between thy soul, and him then. And therefore since God spake to thee, when thou couldst not hear him, in the faith of the Church; since God heard thee when thou couldst not speak to him, in the mouth of thy sureties; Since that God that created thee was Verbum, The Word, (for, Dixit, & facta sunt, God spake, and all things were made) Since that God that redeemed thee was Verbum, The Word, (for The Word was made flesh ) Since that God that sanctified thee is Verbum, The Word, (for therefore S. Basil calls the holy Ghost Verbum Dei, quia interpres Filii, He calls the holy Ghost the Word of God, because as the Son is the Word, because he manifests the Father unto us, so the holy Ghost is the Word, because he manifests the Son unto us, and enables us to apprehend, and apply to ourselves, the promises of God in him) since God, in all the three Persons, is Verbum, The Word to thee, all of them working upon thee, by speaking to thee, Be thou Verbum too, A Word, as God was; A Speaking, and a Doing Word, to his glory, and the edification of others. If the Lord open thy lips, (and except the Lord open them, it were better they were luted with the clay of the grave) let it be to show forth his praise, and not in blasphemous, not in scurrile, not in profane language. If the Lord open thy hand, (and if the Lord open it not, better it were manacled with thy winding sheet) let it be, as well to distribute his blessings, as to receive them. Let thy mouth, let thy hand, let all the Organs of thy body, all the faculties of thy soul, concur in the performance of this duty, intimated here, and required of all God's Saints, Vt dicant, That they speak, utter, declare, publish the glory of God. For this is that Ingenuity, that Alacrity, which constitutes our first Branch. And then the second is the Assiduity, the constancy, the incessantnesse, They rest not day nor night.

But have the Saints of God no Vacation? do they never cease? nay, as the word imports, Requiem non habent, They have no Rest. Beloved, God himself rested not, till the seventh day; be thou content to stay for thy Sabbath, till thou mayest have an eternal one. If we understand this, of rest merely, of bodily rest, the Saints of God are least likely to have it, in this life; For, this life, is (to them especially, above others) a business, and a perplexed business, a warfare, and a bloody warfare, a voyage, and a tempestuous voyage. If we understand this rest to be Cessation, Intermission, the Saints in heaven have none of that, in this service. It is a labor that never wearies, to serve God there. As the Sun is no wearier now, then when he first set out, six thousand years since; As that Angel, which God hath given to protect thee, is not weary of his office, for all thy perversenesses, so, howsoever God deal with thee, be not thou weary of bearing thy part, in his Choir here in the Militant Church. God will have low voices, as well as high; God will be glorified De profundis, as well as In excelsis; God will have his tribute of praise, out of our adversity, as well as out of our prosperity. And that is it which is intimated, and especially intended in the phrase which follows, Day and night. For, it is not only that those Saints of God who have their Heaven upon earth, do praise him in the night; according to that of S. Jerome, Sanctis ipse somnus, oratio; and that of S. Basil, Etiam somnia Sanctorum preces sunt; That holy men do praise God, and pray to God in their sleep, and in their dreams; nor only that which David speaks of, of rising in the night, and fixing stationary hours for prayer; But even in the depth of any spiritual night, in the shadow of death, in the midnight of afflictions and tribulations, God brings light out of darkness, and gives his Saints occasion of glorifying him, not only in the dark, (though it be dark) but from the dark, (because it is dark.) This is a way inconceivable by any, inexpressible to any, but those that have felt that manner of God's proceeding in themselves, That be the night what night it will, be the oppression of what Extention, or of what Duration it can, all this retards not their zeal to God's service; Nay, they see God better in the dark, then they did in the light; Their tribulation hath brought them to a nearer distance to God, and God to a clearer manifestation to them. And so, to their Ingenuity, that they profess God, and their Religion openly, is added an Assiduity, that they do it incessantly; And then also, an Integrity, a Totality, that they do not depart with, nor modifie in any Article of their Religion; which is entirely, and totally enwrapt in this acclamation of the Trinity, (which is our third, and last Branch in this last Part) Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.

For the Trinity itself, it is Lux, but Lux inaccessibilis; It is light, for a child at Baptism professes to see it; but then, it is so inaccessible a light, as that if we will make natural reason our Medium, to discern it by, it will fall within that of David, Posuit tenebras latibulum suum, God hath made darkness his secret places; God, as God, will be seen in the creature; There, in the creature he is light; light accessible to our reason; but God, in the Trinity, is open to no other light, then the light of faith. To make representations of men, or of other creatures, we find two ways; Statuaries have one way, and Painters have another: Statuaries do it by Substraction; They take away, they pare off some parts of that stone, or that timber, which they work upon, and then that which they leave, becomes like that man, whom they would represent: Painters do it by Addition; Whereas the cloth, or table presented nothing before, they add colors, and lights, and shadows, and so there arises a representation. Sometimes we represent God by Substraction, by Negation, by saying, God is that, which is not mortal, not passable, not moveable: Sometimes we present him by Addition; by adding our bodily lineaments to him, and saying, that God hath hands, and feet, and ears, and eyes; and adding our affections, and passions to him, and saying, that God is glad, or sorry, angry, or reconciled, as we are. Some such things may be done towards the representing of God, as God; But towards the expressing of the distinction of the Persons in the Trinity, nothing.

Then when Abraham went up to the great sacrifice of his son, he left his servants, and his Ass below: Though our natural reason, and human Arts, serve to carry us to the hill, to the entrance of the mysteries of Religion, yet to possess us of the hill it self, and to come to such a knowledge of the mysteries of Religion, as must save us, we must leave our natural reason, and human Arts at the bottom of the hill, and climb up only by the light, and strength of faith. Dimitte me quia lucescit, says that Angel that wrestled with Jacob; Let me go, for it grows light. If thou think to see me by day-light, says that Angel, thou wilt be deceived; If we think to see this mystery of the Trinity, by the light of reason, Dimittemus, we shall lose that hold which we had before, our natural faculties, our reason will be perplexed, and enfeebled, and our supernatural, our faith not strengthened that way.

Those testimonies, and proofs of the Trinity, which are in the Old Testament, are many, and powerful in their direct line; But they are truly, for the most part, of that nature, as that they are rather Illustrations, and Confirmations to him that believed the Trinity before, then Arguments of themselves, able to convince him that hath no such Preconception. We that have been catechized, and brought up in the knowledge of the Trinity, find much strength, and much comfort, in that we find, in the first line of the Bible, that Bara Elohim, Creavit Dii, God's created heaven and earth; In this, that there is the name of God in the plural, joined to a Verb of the singular number, we apprehend an intimation of divers persons in one God; We that believe the Trinity before, find this, in that phrase, and form of speech; The Jews, which believe not the Trinity, find no such thing. So when we find that plural phrase, Faciamus hominem, That God says, Let us, us in the plural, make man, we are glad to find such a plural manner of expressing God, by the Holy Ghost, as may concur with that, which we believed before; that is, divers persons in one God. To the same purpose also is that of the Prophet Isaiah, where God says, Whom shall I send, or who shall go for us? There we discern a singularity, one God, (Whom shall I send?) and a plurality of persons too, (Who shall go for us?) But what man, that had not been catachized in that Doctrine before, would have conceived an opinion, or established a faith in the Trinity, upon those phrases in Moses, or in Isaiah, without other evidence? Certainly, it was the Divine purpose of God, to reserve and keep this mystery of the Trinity, unrevealed for a long time, even from those, who were, generally, to have their light, and instruction from his word; They had the Law, and the Prophets, and yet they had no very clear notions of the Trinity. For, this is evident, that in Trismegistus, and in Zoroaster, and in Plato, and some other Authors of that Air, there seem to be clearer, and more literal expressings of the Trinity, then are in all the Prophets of the Old Testament. We take the reason to be, that God reserved the full Manifestation of this mystery, for the dignifying, and glorifying of his Gospel. And therefore it is enough that we know, that they of the Old Testament, were saved by the same faith in the Trinity, that we are; How God wrought that faith in them, amongst whom he had established no outward means for the imprinting of such a faith, let us not too curiously inquire. Let us be content, to receive our light there, where God hath been pleased to give it; that is, in those places of the New Testament, which admit no contradiction, nor disputation. As where Christ says, Go, and teach all Nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. And where it is said, There are three that bear witness in heaven; The Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. There are Obumbrations of the Trinity, in Nature, and Illustrations of the Trinity, in the Old Testament; but the Declaration, the Manifestation thereof, was reserved for the Gospel.

Now, this place, this Text, is in both, It is in the old, and it is in the New Testament; here, and in Isaiah; And in both places, agreed by all Expositors, to be a confession of the Trinity, in that three-fold repetition, Holy, holy, holy. Where (by the way) you may have use of this note; that in the first place, (in the Prophet Isaiah ) we have a fair intimation, that that use of Subalternation in the service of God, of that, which we have called Antiphones, and Responsaries in the Church of God, (when in that service, some things are said or sung by one side of the Congregation, and then answered by the other, or said by one man, and then answered by the whole Congregation) that this manner of serving God, hath a pattern from the practice of the Triumphant Church. For there, the Seraphim cried to one another, or (as it is in the Original) this Seraphim to this, Holy, Holy, Holy; so that there was a voice given, and an answer made, and a reply returned in this service of God. And as the pattern is in the Triumphant Church for this holy manner of praising God, so in the practice thereof, the Militant prescribes; for it hath been always in use. And therefore, that religious vehemence of Damascene, (speaking of this kind of service in the Church in his time) may be allowed us, Hymnum dicemus, etsi Daemones disrumpantur; How much soever it anger the devil, or his devilish instruments of schism and sedition, we will serve God in this manner, with holy cheerefulness, with music, with Antiphones, with Responsaries, of which we have the pattern from the Triumphant, and the practice from the Primitive Church.

Now as this Totality, and Integrity of their Religion which they profess, first, with an Ingenuity (openly) & then, with an Assiduity, (incessantly) hath (as it were) this dilatation, this extension of God into three Persons, (which is the character and specification of the Christian Religion; for no Religion, but the Christian, ever inclined to a plurality of Persons in one God) so hath it also such a contracting of this infinite Power into that one God, as could not agree with any other Religion then the Christian, in either of those two essential circumstances; first, that that God should be Omnipotent, and then, that he should be Eternal; The Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.

All the Heathen gods were ever subordinate to one another; That which one god could not, or would not do, another would, and could; And this oftentimes, rather to anger another god, then to please the party. And then there was a Surveyor, a Controller over them all, which none of them could resist, nor entreat, which was their Fatum, their Destiny. And so, in these subsidiary gods, these occasional gods, there could be no Omnipotence, no Almightiness. Our God is so Omnipotent, Almighty so, as that his Power hath no limitation but his own Will. Nihil impossible nisi quod non vult, He can do whatsoever he will do; And he can do more then that; For he could have raised sons to Abraham, out of stones in the street.

And as their gods were not Omnipotent, so neither were they Eternal. They knew the history, the generation, the pedigree of all their gods; They knew where they were born, and where they went to school, (as Justin Martyr says, that Esculapius, and Apollo their gods of Physic, learnt their Physic of Chiron; so that the Scholars were gods, and their Masters none) and they knew where their gods were buried; They knew their Parents, and their Uncles, their Wives and their Children, yea their Bastards, and their Concubines; so far were they from being eternal gods; But if we remit and slacken this consideration of Eternity (which is never to have had beginning) & consider only Perpetuity (which is never to have end) these gods were not capable of a perpetual Honor, an Honor that should never end. For, we see that of those three hundred several Jupiter's, which were worshiped in the World, before Christ came, though the World abound at this day with Idolatry, yet there is not one of those Idols, not one of those three hundred Jupiter's celebrated with any solemnity, no, not known in any obscure corner of the World. They were mortal before they were God's; They are dead in their Persons: and they were mortal when they were God's; They are dead in their Worship. In respect of Eternity (which is necessary in a God) Perpetuity is but Mobilis Imago (as Plato calls it) a faint and transitory shadow of Eternity; and Pindarus makes it less; Idolum Aeternitatis; Perpetuity is but an Idol compared to eternity; And, an Idol is nothing, says the Apostle. Our souls have a blessed perpetuity, our souls shall no more see an end, then God, that hath no Beginning; and yet our souls are very far from being eternal. But those gods are so far from being eternal, as that, considered as God's (that is, celebrated with Divine worship) they are not perpetual. But God is our God forever and ever; ever, without beginning; and ever, without end. My days are like a shadow that fadeth, and I am withered like grass; but thou O Lord dost remain forever, and thy remembrance from generation to generation; It is a remaining, and it is a remembrance; which words denote a former being. So that God, our God, and only he, is eternal.

To conclude all, with that which must be the conclusion of all at last, this Eternity of our God is expressed here in a phrase which designs and presents the last Judgment, that is, which was, and is, and is to come. For, though it be Qui fuit, Which was, and Qui est, Which is, yet it is not Qui futurus, Which is to be; but Qui venturus, Which is to come; that is, to come to Judgment; as it is in divers other places of this Book, Qui venturus, Which is to come. For, though the last judiciary Power, the final Judgment of the World, be to be executed by Christ, as he is the Son of Man, visibly, apparently in that nature, yet Christ is therein as a Delegate of the Trinity; It is in the virtue and power of that Commission, Data est mihi omnis potestas; He hath all Power, but that Power that he hath as the Son of man, is given him. For, as the Creation of the World was, so the Judgment of the World shall be the Act of the whole Trinity. For if we consider the second Person in the Trinity, in both his Natures, as he redeemed us, God and Man, so it cannot be said of him, that He was; that is, that he was eternally; for there was a time, when that God, was not that man; when that Person, Christ, was not constituted. And therefore this word, in our Text, which was, (which is also true of the rest) is not appropriated to Christ, but intended of the whole Trinity. So that it is the whole Trinity that is to come, To come to Judgment.

And therefore, let us reverently embrace such provisions, and such assistances as the Church of God hath ordained, for retaining and celebrating the Trinity, in this particular contemplation, as they are to come to Judgment. And let us at least provide so far, to stand upright in that Judgment, as not to deny, nor to dispute the Power, or the Persons of those Judges. A man may make a petty larceny high treason so; If being called in question for that lesser offense, he will deny that there is any such Power, any such Sovereign, any such King, as can call him in question for it, he may turn his whipping into a quartering. At that last Judgment, we shall be arraigned for not clothing, not visiting, not harbouring the poor; For, our not giving is a taking away; our withholding, is a withdrawing; our keeping to ourselves, is a stealing from them. But yet, all this is but a petty larceny, in respect of that high treason, of infidelity, of denying or doubting of the distinct Persons of the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity. To believe in God, one great, one universal, one infinite power, does but distinguish us from beasts; For there are no men that do not acknowledge such a Power, or that do not believe in it, if they acknowledge it; Even they that acknowledge the devil to be God, believe in the devil. But that which distinguishes man from man, that which only makes his Immortality a blessing, (for, even Immortality is part of their damnation that are damned, because it were an ease, it were a kind of pardon to them to be mortal, to be capable of death, though after millions of generations) is, to conceive aright of the Power of the Father, of the Wisdom of the Son, of the Goodness of the Holy Ghost; Of the Mercy of the Father, of the Merits of the Son, of the Application of the Holy Ghost; Of the Creation of the Father, of the Redemption of the Son, of the Sanctification of the Holy Ghost. Without this, all notions of God are but confused, all worship of God is but Idolatry, all confession of God is but Atheism; For so the Apostle argues, When you were without Christ, you were without God. Without this, all moral virtues are but diseases; Liberality is but a popular bait, and not a benefit, not an alms; Chastity is but a castration, and an impotency, not a temperance, not mortification; Active valor is but a fury, whatsoever we do, and passive valor is but a stupidity, whatsoever we suffer. Natural apprehensions of God, though those natural apprehensions may have much subtlety, Voluntary elections of a Religion, though those voluntary elections may have much singularity, Moral directions for life, though those moral directions may have much severity, are all frivolous and lost, if all determine not in Christianity, in the Notion of God, so as God hath manifested and conveyed himself to us; in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, whom this day we celebrate, in the Ingenuity, and in the Assiduity, and in the Totality, recommended in this text, and in this acclamation of the text, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.

SERM. XLV. PREACHED UPON ALL-SAINTS DAY.

T He solemnity and festival with which the sons of the Catholic Church of God celebrate this day, is much mistaken, even by them who think themselves the only Catholics, and celebrate this day, with a devotion, at least near to superstition in the Church of Rome. For, they take it (for the most part) to be a festival instituted by the Church, in contemplation of the Saints in heaven only; and so carry and employ all their devotions this day, upon consideration of those Saints, and invocation of them only. But the institution of this day, had this occasion. The heathen Romans, who could not possibly house all their gods in several Temples, they were so over-many, according to their Law, Deos frugi colunto, to serve God as cheap as they could, made one Temple for them all, which they called Pantheon, To all the God's. This Temple Boniface the Pope begged of the Emperor Phocas; (And yet, (by the way) this was some hundreds of years after the Donation of the Emperor Constantine, by which the Bishops of Rome pretend all that to be theirs; surely they could not find this Patent, this Record, this Donation of Constantine, then when Boniface begged this Temple in Rome, this Pantheon of the Emperor) And this Temple, formerly the Temple of all their gods, that Bishop consecrated to the honor of all the Martyrs, of all the Saints of that kind. But after him, another Bishop of the same sea, enlarged the consecration, and accompanied it with this festival, which we celebrate today, in honor of the Trinity, and Angels, and Apostles, and Martyrs, and Confessors, and Saints, and all the elect children of God. So that it is truly a festival, grounded upon that Article of the Creed, The Communion of Saints, and unites in our devout contemplation, The Head of the Church, God himself, and those two noble constitutive parts thereof, The Triumphant, and the Militant. And, accordingly, hath the Church applied this part of Scripture, to be read for the Epistle of this day, to show, that All-Saints day hath relation to all Saints, both living and dead; for those servants of God, which are here in this text, sealed in their foreheads, are such (without all question) as receive that Seal here, here in the militant Church. And therefore, as these words, so this festival, in their intendiment, that applied these words to this festival, is also of Saints upon Earth.

This day being then the day of the Communion of Saints, and this Scripture being received for the Epistle of this universal day, that exposition will best befit it, which makes it most universal. And therefore, with very good authority, such as the expositions of this book of the