Fifty Sermons, Sermons · Sermon 20
SERMON XX.
Preached at Lincolns Inne.
PSAL. 38. 3.
There is no soundnesse in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sinne.
IN that which is often reported to you, out of Saint Hierome, Titulus clavis, that the title of the Psalme, is the key of the Psalm, there is this good use, That the book of Psalms is a mysterious book; and, if we had not a lock, every man would thrust in, and if we had not a key, we could not get in our selves. Our lock is the analogy of the Christian faith; That wee admit no other sense, of any place in any Psalm, then may consist with the articles of the Christian faith; for so, no Heretique, no Schismatique, shall get in by any countenance of any place in the Psalms; and then our key is, that intimation which we receive in the title of the Psalm, what duty that Psalm is principally directed upon; and so we get into the understanding of the Psalm, and profiting by the Psalm. Our key in this Psalm, given us in the title thereof, is, that it is Psalmus ad Recordationem, a Psalm of Remembrance; The faculty that is awakened here, is our Memory. That plurall word nos, which was used by God, in the making of Man, when God said Faciamus, Let us, us make man, according to our image, as it intimates a plurality, a concurrence of all the Trinity in our making, so doth it also a plurality in that image of God, which was then imprinted in us; As God, one God created us, so wee have a soul, one soul, that represents, and is some image of that one God; As the three Persons of the Trinity created us, so we have, in our one soul, a threefold impression of that image, and, as Saint Bernard calls it, A trinity from the Trinity, in those three faculties of the soul, the Vnderstanding, the Will, and the Memory. God calls often upon the first faculty, O that this people would but understand; But understand? Inscrutabili… judicia tua; Thy judgements are unsearchable, and thy ways past finding out; And, oh that this people would not goe about to understand those unreve…led decrees, and secrets of God. God calls often upon the other faculty, the Will too, and complaines of the stiffe perversnesse, and opposition of that. Through all the Prophets runs that charge, Noluerunt, and Noluerunt, they would not, they refused me, Noluerun… audire, says God in Esay; They are rebellious children, that will not hear. Domus Israel noluit, says God to Ezekiel, The house of Israel will not hear thee; not Thee, 30. 9. 3. 7.not the minister; That's no marvail; it is added by God there, Noluit me, they will not hear me. Noluerunt erubescere, says God to Ieremy, They will not be ashamed of their former ways, And therefore Noluerunt reverti, They will not return to better ways: 3. 3. 5. 3.Hee that is past shame of sin, is past recovery from sin. So Christ continues that practise, and that complaint in the Gospel too; He sends forth his servants, (us) to call them,Mat. 22. 3. that were bidden, Et noluerunt venire, and they would not come upon their call; Hee comes himself, and would gather them, as hen her chickens, and they would not; 23. 37.Their fault is not laid in this, that they had no such faculty, as a will, (for then their not coming were not their fault) but that they perverted that will. Of our perversenesse in both faculties, understanding, and will, God may complain, but as much of our memory; for, for the rectifying of the will, the understanding must be rectified; and that implies great difficulty: But the memory is so familiar, and so present, and so ready a faculty, as will always answer, if we will but speak to it, and aske it, what God hath done for us, or for others. The art of salvation, is but the art of memory. When God gave his people the Law, he proposes nothing to them, but by that way, to their memory; I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt; Exod 20.Remember but that. And when we expresse Gods mercy to us, we attribute but that faculty to God, that he remembers us; Lord, what is man, that thou art mindfull of him? Ps. 8. 6.And when God works so upon us, as that He makes his wonderfull works to be had in remembrance, 111. 4.it is as great a mercy, as the very doing of those wonderfull works was before. It was a seal upon a seal, a seal of confirmation, it was a sacrament upon a sacrament, when in instituting the sacrament of his body and his bloud, Christ presented it so,Luc 22. 19. Doe this in remembrance of me. Memorare novissima, remember the last things, and fear will keep thee from sinning; Memorare praeterita, remember the first things, what God hath done for thee, and love, (love, which, mis-placed, hath transported thee upon many sins) love will keep thee from sinning. Plato plac'd all learning in the memory; wee may place all Religion in the memory too: All knowledge, that seems new to day, sayes Plato, is but a remembring of that, which your soul knew before. All instruction, which we can give you to day, is but the remembring you of the mercies of God, which have been new every morning. Nay, he that hears no Sermons, he that reads no Scriptures, hath the Bible without book; He hath a Genesis in his memory; he cannot forget his Creation; he hath an Exodus in his memory; he cannot forget that God hath delivered him, from some kind of Egypt, from some oppression; He hath a Leviticus in his memory; hee cannot forget, that God hath proposed to him some Law, some rules to be observed. He hath all in his memory, even to the Revelation; God hath revealed to him, even at midnight alone, what shall be his portion, in the next world; And if he dare but remember that nights communication between God and him, he is well-near learned enough. There may be enough in remembring our selves; but sometimes, that's the hardest of all; many times we are farthest off from our selves; most forgetfull of our selves. It was a narrow enlargement, it was an addition that diminish'd the sense, when our former Translators added that word, themselves;Ps. 22. 27. All the world shall remember themselves; there is no such particularity, as themselves, in that text; But it is onelyonly, as our later Translators have left it, All the world shall remember, and no more; Let them remember what they will, what they can, let them but remember thoroughly, and then as it follows there, They shall turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the Nations shall worship him. Therefore David makes that the key into this Psalme; Psalmus ad Recordationem, A Psalm for Remembrance. Being lock'd up in a close prison, of multiplied calamities, this turns the key, this opens the door, this restores him to liberty, if he can remember. Non est sanitas, there is no soundnesse, no health in my flesh; Doest thou wondet at that? Remember thy selfe, and thou wilt see, that thy case is worse then so; That there is no rest in thy bones. That's true too; But doest thou wonder at that? Remember thy self, and thou wilt see the cause of all that, The Lord is angry with thee; Find'st thou that true, and wondrest why the Lord should be angry with thee? Remember thy self well, and thou wilt see, it is because of thy sins, There is no soundnesse in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sinne. So have I let you in, into the whole Psalm, by this key, by awaking your memory, that it is a Psalm for Remembrance: And that that you are to remember, is, that all calamities, that fall upon you, fall not from the malice or power of man, but from the anger of God; And then, that Gods anger fals not upon you, from his Hate, or his Decree, but from your sins, There is no soundnesse in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sinne.
Which words we shall first consider, as they are our present object,Divisio. as they are historically, and literally to be understood of David; And secondly, in their retrospect, as they look back upon the first Adam, and so concern Mankind collectively, and so you, and I, and all have our portion in these calamities; And thirdly, we shall consider them in their prospect, in their future relation to the second Adam, in Christ Iesus, in whom also all mankinde was collected, and the calamities of all men had their Ocean and their confluence, and the cause of them, the anger of God was more declared, and the cause of that anger, that is sin, did more abound; for the sins of all the world were his, by imputation, for this Psalm, some of our Expositors take to be a historicall, and personall Psalm, determin'd in David; some, a Catholique, and universall Psalm, extended to the whole condition of man, and some a Propheticall, and Evangelicall Psalm, directed upon Christ. None of them inconveniently; for we receive help and health, from every one of these acceptations; first, Adam was the Patient, and so, his promise, the promise that he received of a Messiah, is our physick; And then David was the Patient, and there, his Example is our physick; And lastly, Christ Iesus was the Patient, and so, his blood is our physick. In Adam we shall finde the Scriptum est, the medicine is in our books, an assurance of a Messiah there is; In David we shall find the Probatum est, that this medicine wrought upon David; and in Christ we finde the deceit it self; Thus you may take this physick, thus you may apply it to your selves. In every acceptation, as we consider it in David, in our selves, in Christ, we shall consider first, That specification of humane misery and calamity, expressed here, sicknesse, and an universall sicknesse; No soundnesse in the flesh: And more then that, trouble, and an universall trouble; No peace, no rest, not in the bones. And then in a second branch, we shall see, that those calamities proceed from the anger of God; we cannot discharge them, upon Nature, or Fortune, or Power, or Malice of Men or Times; They are from the anger of God, and they are, as the Originall Text hath it, à facie irae Dei, from the face of the anger of God, from that anger of God that hath a face, that looks upon something in us, and growes not out of a hate in God, or decree of God against us. And then lastly, this that Gods anger lookes upon is sin; God is not angry till he see sin; nor with me, till it come to be my sinne; and though Originall sinne be my sinne, and sicknesse, and death would follow, though there were no more but Originall sinne, yet God comes not to this, Non sanitas, N… soundnesse in my flesh, nor to this, N…n pax, No rest in my bones, till I have made sinne, my sinne, by act, and habit too, by doing it, and using to doe it. But then, though it bee but Peccatum in the singular, (so the Text hath it) One sinne, yet for that one beloved sinne, especially when that my sinne comes to have a face, (for so, the Originall phrase is in this place too, à facie peccati, from the face of my sinne) when my sin looks bigge, and justifies it self, then come these calamities, No soundnesse in the flesh, …o rest in the bones, to their heighth, because the anger of God which exals them, is in the exaltation: There is no soundnesse in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither any rest in my bones, because of my sin.
All these particulars will best arise to us in our second consideration,1. Part. when wee consider, Hamanitatem, not Hominem, our humane condition, as we are all kneaded up in Adam, and not this one person David. But because we are in the consideration of health, and consequently of physick, (for the true and proper use of physick, is to preserve health, and, but by accident to restore it) we embra…e that Rule,Paracels. Medio…rum theoria experientia est, Practise is a Physicians study; and he concludes out of events: for, says he, He that professes himself a Physician, without experience, Chronica de future scribit, He undertakes to write a Chronicle of things before they are done, which is an irregular, and a perverse way. Therefore, in this spirituall physick of the soul, we will deal upon Experience too, and see first, how this wrought upon this particular person, upon David.
David durst not presume, that God could not, or would not bee angry. Anger is not always a Defect, nor an inordinatenesse in man; Be angry, and sin not: Ephes. 4. 26.anger is not utterly to be rooted out of our ground, and cast away, but transplanted; A Gardiner does wel to grub up thornes in his garden; there they would hinder good herbes from growing; but he does well to plant those thorns in his hedges, there they keep bad neighbours from entring. In many cases, where there is no anger, there is not much zeal. David himself came to a high exaltation in this passion of anger. He was ordinarily so meek, as that that which we translate afflictions, the Vulgat Edition translates mecknesse, and patience in his afflictions. Remember David and all his afflictions, Psal. 132. 1.says our translation; and Memento David & omnis mansuetudinis ejus, say they, Remember David, and all his mildness. How mildly he endured Ioabs insultation; Thou lovest, says Ioab, thine enemies, and thou hatest thy friends. Bitterly spoken; Come out, 2 Sam. 19. 6.and speak comfortably, says Ioab, or, I swear by the Lord, there will not tarry a man with thee this night; Seditiously spoken; And David obeyed him. How mildly he endured Shimei's cursing?2 Sam. 16. 5. He cast stones at him and at all his servants; He charges him with murder; and, that which is heaviest of all, he cals Absolons rebellion, a judgement of God; and David accepts it so, and says, The Lord hath bidden him to curse David. And yet this exemplar mild man, David himself, upon a scorn offered to him by Hanun in the abuse of his Ambassadours, goes himself in person, into a dangerous war, against the Ammonites, assisted with 32000 chariots of their neighbours the Aramites,2 Sam. 10. and there he destroys those great numbers, which are mentioned in that story: and after this defeat,1 Chron. 19. in cold blood, he goes out against them, that had assisted them; He takes the City Rabbah, and the people he cuts with Saws, and with Harrows of iron, and with Axes; David saw that a mild man can grow angry, and that a fire that is long kindling, burns most vehemently. That which is an Adage, and Proverb now, was ever true in substance, Ab inimico flegmatico libera me Domine; from him that is long before hee be angry, for he is long before hee be reconciled again. Gods goodnesse hath that disposition, to bee long suffering; mans ilnesse and abuse of that, is able to inflame God. So Davids sin had inflamed him; and the fire of Gods anger produced the calamities of this text upon him: which our Expositors ordinarily take to have been historically this, that when David had provoked God, with that sinfull confidence in numbring his people, 2 Sam. 24. 17.when Gods anger was executed in that devouring plague, and David saw the persecuting Angel, then à facie irae Domini, from that face, that manifestation of Gods anger, he fell into that dampe, and dead cold, that howsoever they covered him,1 Reg. …. they could never get heat in him: And this was the sin, say our Expositors, and this was the anger, and this was the manifestation, and this was the disease that David complains of here. And be this enough of the personall acceptation of these words; There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there rest in my bones, because of my sinne; for in their second acceptation as they are referred to the miserable condition of all mankinde by sinne, the particulars which we laid down before, will fall into more particular consideration.
In this second part, first we contemplate man, as the Receptacle,2. Part. Miseria. the Ocean of all misery. Fire and Aire, Water and Earth, are not the Elements of man; Inward decay, and outward violence, bodily pain, and sorrow of heart may be rather styled his Elements; And though he be destroyed by these, yet he consists of nothing but these. As the good qualities of all creatures are not for their own use, (for the Sun sees not his own glory, nor the Rose smells not her own breath: but all their good is for man) so the ill conditions of the creature, are not directed upon themselves, (the Toad poisons not it selfe, nor does the Viper bite it self) but all their ill powrs down upon man. As though man could be a Microcosm, a world in himself, no other way, except all the misery of the world fell upon him. Adam was able to decypher the nature of every Creature in the name thereof, and the Holy Ghost hath decyphered his in his name too; In all those names that the Holy Ghost hath given man, he hath declared him miserable, for, Adam, (by which name God calls him,Gem. 5. 2. and Eve too) signifies but Redness, but a Blushing: and whether we consider their low materials, as it was but earth, or the redness of that earth, as they stained it with their own blood, and the blood of all their posterity, and as they drew another more precious blood, the blood of the Messias upon it, every way both may be Adam, both may blush. So God called that pair, our first Parents, man in that root, Adam: But the first name, by which God called man in generall, mankinde, is Ish, Therefore shall a man leave his Father, &c. And Ish, Gen. 2. 24.is but à sonitu, à rugitu: Man hath his name from crying, and the occasion of crying, misery, testified in his entrance into the world, for he is born crying; and our very Laws presume, that if he be alive, he will cry, and if he be not heard cry, conclude him to be born dead. And where man is called Gheber, (as he is often) which is derived from Greatness, man is but great so, as that word signifies; It signifies a Giant, an oppressour, Great in power, and in a delight to doe great mischiefs upon others, or Great, as he is a Great mark, and easily hit by others. But man hath a fourth name too in Scripture, Enosh, and that signifies nothing but misery. When David says, Put them in fear O Lord, that the Nations may know they are but men; there's that name Enosh, Psal. 9. 20.that they are but miserable things. Adam is Blushing, Ish is lamenting, Geber is oppressing, Enosh is all that; but especially that… which is especially notified for the misery in our Text, Enosh is Homo aeger, a man miserable, in particular, by the misery of sicknesse, which is our next step, Non sanitas, There is no soundnesse, no health in me.
God created man in health, but health continued but a few hours, Morbus.and sicknesse hath had the Dominion 6000 years. But was man impassible before the fall? Had there been no sicknesse, if there had been no sinne? Secundum passiones perfectivas, Aquin.we acknowledge in the School, man was passible before: Every alteration is in a degree a passion, a suffering; and so, in those things which conduced to his well-being, eating, and sleeping, and other such, man was passible: that is, subject to alteration, But, Secundum passiones destructiv…, to such sufferings, as might frustrate the end for which he was made, which was Immortality, he was not subject, and so, not to sicknesse. Now he is; and put all the miseries, that man is subject to, together, sicknesse is more then all. It is the immediate sword of God. Phalaris could invent a Bull, and others have invented Wheels and Racks; but no persecutor could ever invent a sicknesse or a way to inflict a sicknesse upon a condemned man: To a galley he can send him, and to the gallows, and command execution that hour; but to a quartane fever, or to a g…ut, hee cannot condemn him. In poverty I lack but other things; In banishment I lack but other men; But in sicknesse, I lack my self. And, as the greatest misery of war, is, when our own Country is made the seat of the war; so is it of affliction, when mine own Body is made the subject thereof. How shall I put a just value upon Gods great blessings of Wine, and Oyle, and Milke, and Honey, when my cast is gone, or of Liberty, when the gout fetters my feet? The King may release me, and say, Let him goe whither he will, but God says, He shall not goe till I will. God hath wrapped up all misery, in that condemnation, Morte morietur, That the sinner shall die twice: But if the second death did not follow, the first death were an ease, and a blessing in many sicknesses. And no sicknesse can be worse, then that which is intended here, for it is all over, Non sanitas, no soundnesse, no health in any part.
This consideration arises not onelyonly from the Physicians Rule,Non sanitas. that the best state of Mans body is but a Neutrality, neither well nor ill, but Nulla sanitas, a state of true and exquisit health, say they, no man hath. But not onelyonly out of this strictnesse of Art, but out of an acknowledgment of Nature, we must say, sanitas hujus vitae, b…ne intelligentibus, sanitas non est; It is but our mistaking, when we call any thing Health. Augustin.But why so? fames naturalis morbus est; Hunger is a sicknesse; And that's naturally in us all. Medicamentum famis cibus, & potus sitis, & fatigationis somnus; when I eate, I doe but take Physique for Hunger, and for thirst, when I drink, and so is sleep my physique for wearinesse. Detrahe medicamentum, & interficient; for beare but these Physiques, and these diseases, Hunger, and thirst, and wearinesse, will kill thee. And as this sickness is upon us all, and so non sanitas, there is no Health, in none of us, so it is upon us all, at all times, and so Non sanitas, there is never any soundness in us: for,Augustin. saemper deficimus; we are Borne in a Consumption, and as little as we are then, we grow less from that time. Vita cursus ad mortem, Before we can craule, we runne to meet death; & urgemur ownes pari passu: Though some are cast forward to death, by the use, which others have of their ruine, and so throw them, through Discontents, into desperate enterprises, and some are drawn forward to death, by false Markes, which they have set up to their own Ambitions, and some are spurred forward to death, by sharp Diseases contracted by their own intemperance and licentiousness; and some are whip'd forward to death, by the Miseries, and pen…ries of this life, take away all these accidentall furtherances to death, this drawing, and driving, and spurring, and whipping, pari paessu urgemur omnes, we bring all with us into the world, that which carries us out of the world, a naturall, unnaturall consuming of that radicall vertue, which sustaines our life. Non sanitas, there is no health in any, so universall is sickness, nor at any time in any, so universall; and so universall too, as that not in any part of any man, at any time. As the King was but sick in his feet, and yet it killed him: It was but in his fact, 2. Chron. 16. 12.yet it flew up into his head, it affected his head; as our former translation observed it in their margin; that the disease did not onelyonly grow to a great height in the disease, but to the highest parts of the body: It was at first but in the feet, but it was presently all over. Iosiah the King was shot with an arrow at the battail of Megiddo; One book that reports the story says he was carried out of the field alive & dyed at Ierusalem and another,2 Chron. 35. 24. that he was carried out of the field dead. Deadly wounds & deadly sicknesses spread themselvs all over,2 Reg. 23. 30. so fast, as that the holy Ghost, in relating it, makes it all one, to tell the beginning, and the end thereof. If a man doe but prick a finger, and binde it above that part, so that the Spirits, or that which they call the Balsamum of the body, cannot descend, by reason of that ligature, to that part, it will ga…grene; And, (which is an argument, and an evidence, that mischiefes are more operative, more insinuating, more penetrative, more diligent, then Remedies against misch…efes are) when the Spirits, and Balsamum of the body cannot passe by that ligature to that wound, yet the Gangrene will passe from that wound, by that ligature, to the body, to the Heart, and destroy. In every part of the body death can finde a door, or make a breach; Mortall diseases breed in every part. But when every part at once is diseased, death does not bsie ge him, but inhabit him. In the day, when the keepers of the house shall tremble, Ec…l…s. 12. 3.and the strong men shall how themselves, and the grinders cease, because they are few, and those that look out at the windows, he darkned, when age of Gods making, age grown by many years, or age of the Devills making, age grown by many sinnes, hath spred an universall debility upon me, that all sicknesses are in me, & have all lost their names, as all simples have in Triacle, I am sick of sicknesse, and not of a Fever, or any particular distemper, then is the misery of this Text fallen upon me, Non sanitas, no health, none at any time, none in any part, non in Carne, not in my flesh, not in my whole substance, which is also another circumstance of exaltation in humane misery.
Take flesh in the largest extent and signification, that may be, as Moses calls God,Non in carne. The God of the spirits of all flesh, that is, of the Beeing of all Creatures,Numb. 27. 16. and take all these Creatures to be ours in that Donation, Subjicite & dominamini, subdue, and rule all Creatures, yet there is no soundnesse in our flesh, for, all these Creatures are corrupted, and become worse then they were, (to us) by the sinne of Adam. Bring flesh to a nearer signification, to our own, there was Caro juxta naturam, and there is Caro juxta culpam. That flesh which was naturall, to man,Gregor. that which God gave man at first, that had health and soundnesse in it; but yet not such a degree of soundnesse, as that it needed no more, then it then had. That had been naturally enough, (if that had been preserved to carry that flesh it selfe to heaven, but even that flesh if it had not sinned, though it had an Immortality in it self, yet must have received a glorification in heaven; as well, (though in another measure) as those bodies, which shall be alive at the last day, and shall be but changed, and not dissolved in the dust, must receive a glorification there, besides that preservation from dissolution. Now this Caro juxta culpam, sinfull flesh, is farther from that Glorification; Our naturall flesh, when it was at best, had some thing to put on; but our sinfull flesh hath also something to put off, before it can receive glory. So then, for flesh in generall, the body of Creatures, though that flesh be our flesh, because all Creatures are ours, in that flesh there is no soundnesse, because they are become worse; for that flesh, which we call naturall Adams first flesh, besides that it was never capable of glory in it selfe, but must have received that, by receiving the light of Gods presence, there is none of that flesh remaining now; now universa caro, all flesh is corrupted; and that curse is gone upon it, The glory of Iacob shall be empoverished, and the fatnesse of his flesh shall be made leane. Esay 4. 17.Quia elatum sumpsimus spiritum, because we have raised our spirits in pride,Gregory. higher then God would, Ecce defluens quotidie portamus lutum, Behold God hath walled us with mud walls, and wet mud walls, that waste away faster, then God meant at first, they should. And by sinnes, this flesh, that is but the loame and plaster of thy Tabernacle, thy body, that, all, that, that in the intire substance is corrupted. Those Gummes, and spices, which should embalme thy flesh, when thou art dead, are spent upon that diseased body whilest thou art alive: Thou seemest, in the eye of the world, to walk in silks, and thou doest but walke in searcloth; Thou hast a desire to please some eyes, when thou hast much to doe, not to displease every Nose; and thou wilt solicite an adulterous entrance into their beds, who, if they should but see thee goe into thine own bed, would need no other mortification, nor answer to thy solicitation. Thou pursuest the works of the flesh, and hast none, for thy flesh is but dust held together by plaisters; Dissolution and putrefaction is gone over thee alive; Thou hast over liv'd thine own death, and art become thine own ghost, and thine own hell; No soundnesse in all thy flesh; and yet beyond all these, beyond the generall miserable condition of man, and the highest of humane miseries, sicknesse, and sicknesse over all the parts, and so over them all, as that it hath putrefied them all, there is another degree, which followes in our Text, and David calls Trouble, There is no soundnesse in my flesh, nor rest in my bones.
That which such a sicke man most needs, this sick soule shall not have, Rest. Non Pax.The Physician goes out, and says, hee hath left him to Rest, but hee hath left no Rest to him. The anguish of the disease, nay, the officiousnesse of visitors, will not let him rest. Such send to see him as would faine heare hee were dead, and such weep about his sick-bed, as would not weep at his grave.Psal. 41. 5. Mine enemies speake evill of mee, (says David) and say, When shall hee die, and his name perish? And yet these evill-speaking enemies come there to see him. They say,ver. 6. an evill disease cleaveth fast unto him; and that they say is true, but they say it not out of compassion, for they adde, And now that hee lyeth, let him rise no more. Hee shall not get to that good trouble, to that holy disquiet of a conscientious consideration, how his state was got; and, it shall bee a greater trouble then hee can overcome, how to dispose it: He shall not onelyonly not make a religious restitution, but he shall not make a discreet Will. He shall suspect his wifes fidelity, and his childrens frugality, and clogge them with Executors, and them with Over-seers, and be, or be afraid hee shall bee over-seen in all. And yet a farther trouble then all this, is intended in the other word, which is the last and highest of these vexations, Non in ossibus, no rest in my bones.
Saint Basil will needs hav… us leave the obvious,In ossibus. and the naturall signification of this, Bones; for, Habet & anima ossa sua, says he, The soule hath Bones, as well as the body, and there shall be no Rest in those Bones. Such a signification is applyable to the Flesh, as well as the Bones; The flesh may signifie the lower faculties of the soule, or the weaker works of the higher faculties thereof; There may bee a Carnality in the understanding; a concupiscence of disputation, and controversie in unnecessary points. Requirit quod sibi respondere nequit, Grego.The mind of a curious man delights to examine it selfe upon Interrogatories, which, upon the Racke, it cannot answer, and to vexe it selfe with such doubts as it cannot resolve. Sub eo ignara deficit, quod prudenter requirit; Wee will needs shew wit in moving subtile questions, and the more ignorance, in not being able to give our selves satisfaction. But not onelyonly seditions, and contentions, but Heresies too,Gal. 5. 20. are called workes of the flesh; howsoever men thinke themselves wittie, and subtile, and spirituall in these wranglings, yet they have carnall respects, they are of the flesh, and there is no soundnes in them. But beyond this carnality in matters of Opinions, in points of a higher nature, this diseased man in our Text, comes to trouble in his Bones, S. Basils spirituall bones: Hee shall suspect his Religion, suspect his Repentance, suspect the Comforts of the Minister, suspect the efficacy of the Sacrament, suspect the mercy of God himselfe. Every fit of an Ague is an Earth-quake that swallows him, every fainting of the knee, is a step to Hell; every lying down at night is a funerall; & every quaking is a rising to judgment; every bell that distinguishes times, is a passing-bell, and every passing-bell, his own; every singing in the ear, is an Angels Trumpet; at every dimnesse of the candle, he heares that voice, Fool, this night they will fetch away thy soul; and in every judgement denounced against sin, he hears an lto maledicte upon himselfe, Goe thou accursed into hell fire. And whereas such meditations as these, might sustaine a rectified soule, as Bones in this sinner, despaire shall have suck'd out all the marrow of these Bones, and so there shall bee no soundnesse in his flesh, no rest in his bones. And so have you this sicke sinner dissected and anatomized; Hee hath not onelyonly his portion in misery that lies upon all mankinde, which was our first branch, but in the heavyest of all, sicknesse, which was a second, and then a third sicknesse spread over all, no soundnesse, nor rest in that sicknesse, which was a fourth consideration, No soundnesse in his flesh, in his weaker faculties and operations, No rest in his bones, no acquiescence in his best actions, with which we end this first part. In which, wee consider sinfull man, in himself, and so all is desperate; But in the second, where we find him upon the consideration of the cause of all these distresses, That it is from the Contemplation of the anger of God, There is no soundnesse in my flesh, because of thine Anger, there wee shall finde a way offered to him, that may, if hee pursue it aright, bring him to a Reparation, to a Redintegration; for, if hee look upon the Anger of God in a right line, it will shew him, that as that Anger is the cause of his Calamities, so his sinnes are the cause of that Anger.
May wee not piously apply that Proverbiall speech, Corruptio optimi pessima, (that when good things take in another nature then their own,Ira Dei. they take it in the highest exaltation) thus, that when God, who is all mercy, growes angry, he becomes all anger? The Holy Ghost himselfe seemes to have given us leave to make that application, when expressing God in the height of his anger, hee calls God then, in that anger, a Dove; wee read it the fiercenesse of an oppressour, but Saint Hierome reads it, The anger of a Dove. And truly there is no other word then that,Ier. 25. ult. in that tongue, (the word is Ionah,) that signifies a Dove, and that word does signifie a Dove, in many other places of Scripture; And that Prophet which made his flight from God, when hee sent him to Nineveh, is called by that name, Ionah, a Dove; And the Fathers of the Latine Church, have read, and interpreted it so, of a Dove. Some of them take Nebuchadnezzar to be this angry Dove, because hee left his owne Dove-coat to feed abroad, to prey upon them; and some, because the Dove was the Armes and Ensigne of the Assyrians from the time of Semiramis; But the rest take this Dove to bee God himselfe, and that the sinnes of men had put a Gall into a Dove, Anger into God. And then, to what height that anger growes, is expressed in the Prophet Hosea; I will meet them, says God, (when hee is pleased, he says, hee will wait for them) as a Bear, 13. 8.(no longer a Dove) as a Bear robbed of her whelpes, (sensible of his injuries) and I will rent the caule of their hearts, (shiver them in peeces with a dispersion, with a discerption) And I will devour them as with a Lyon, (nothing shall re-unite them again But I will break them as a Potters vessell, that cannot be made whole again.) Ier. 19. 11.Honour not the malice of thine enemy so much, as to say, thy misery comes from him: Dishonour not the complexion of the times so much, as to say, thy misery comes from them; justifie not the Deity of Fortune so much, as to say, thy misery comes from her; Finde God pleased with thee, and thou hast a hook in the nostrils of every Leviathan, power cannot shake thee, Thou hast a wood to cast into the waters of Marah, Ioh 40. 19.the bitternesse of the times cannot hurt thee, thou hast a Rock to dwell upon, and the dream of a Fortunes wheel, Excd. 15. 23.can not overturn thee. But if the Lord be angry, he needs no Trumpets to call in Armies, if he doe but sibilare muscam, hisse and whisper for the flye, and the Bee, there is nothing so little in his hand, as cannot discomfort thee, discomfit thee, dissolve and powrout, attenuate and annihilate the very marrow of thy soul. Every thing is His, and therefore every thing is Hee; thy sicknesse is his sword, and therefore it is Hee that strikes thee with it, still turne upon that consideration, the Lord is angry; But then look that anger in the …face, take it in the right …line, as the Originall phrase in this text directs, à facieirae Dei, There is no soundnesse in my flesh, from the face of thine anger.
As there is a Manifestation of Gods anger in this phrase, The face of Gods anger, so there is a Multiplication, a plurality too, for it is indeed, Mippenei à faciebus, A facie irae.the faces, the divers manifestations of Gods anger; for, the face of God, (and so of every thing proceeding from God) is that, by which God,Aug. or that work of God is manifested to us. And therefore since God manifests his anger so many usefull, and medicinall ways unto thee, take heed of looking upon his anger, where his anger hath no face, no manifestation; take heed of imagining an anger in God, amounting to thy Damnation, in any such Decree, as that God should be angry with thee in that height, without looking upon thy sinnes, or without any declaration why hee is angry. Hee opens his face to thee in his Law, he manifests himself to thee in the Conditions, by which he hath made thy salvation possible, and till he see thee, in the transgression of them, he is not angry. And when he is angry so, be glad he shews it in his face, in his outward declarations; that fire smothered, would consume all Gods anger reserved till the last day, will last as long as that day, as that undeterminable day, for ever. When should we goe about to quench that fire, that never bursts out, or to seek reconciliation, before a hostility be declared? Therefore Saint Bernard begs this anger at Gods hands, Irascaris mihi Domine, O Lord, be angry with me; And therefore David thanks God, in the behalf of that people, for his anger,Psalm 99. 8. Thou forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions. The fires of hell, in their place, in hell, have no light; But any degrees of the fires of Hell, that can break out in this life, have, in Gods own purpose, so much light, as that through the darkest smother of obduration; or desperation, God would have us see him. Therefore Saint Hierome makes this milder use of this phrase, that God shewes faciem irae, but non iram, that his face of anger is rather a telling us, that hee will bee angry, then that hee is angry yet; the corrections that God inflicts to reduce us, if wee profit not by them, were anger Ab initio, wee shall suffer for the sinnes, from which those corrections should have reduced us, and for that particular sinne, of not being reduced by them; but if they have their effect, there was not a drop of gall, there was not a dramme of anger in the anger. Now that that God intends in them is, that as wee apprehend our calamities to proceed from Gods anger, and to discharge Destiny, and Fortune, so wee apprehend that anger to proceed from our own sinnes, and so discharge God himselfe; There is no rest in my bones because of my sin.
As we are the sons of Dust, (worse, the sonnes of Death) we must say to Corruption, 3. Part. Peccatum. Iob 17. 14.Thou art my Father, and to the worm, Thou art my Mother, so we may say to the anger of God, it is our grandfather, that begot these miseries, but wee must say too, to our sinne, Thou art my great-grandfather, that begot Gods anger upon us: and here is our wofull pedegree, howsoever wee be otherwise descended. 'Tis true, there is no soundnesse, there is misery enough upon thee; and true, that God is angry,Gregor. vehemently angry; But, Expone juststiam irae Dei, deal clearly with the world, and clear God, and confesse it is because of thy sinne. When Cain says, My sin is greater then can be forgiven, Gen. 4.that word Gnavon is ambiguous, it may bee sinne, it may bee punishment, and wee know not whether his impatience grew out of the horrour of his sinne, or the weight of his punishment. But here wee are directed by a word that hath no ambiguity; Kata signifies sin, and nothing but sinne; Here the holy Ghost hath fixed thee upon a word, that will not suffer thee to consider the punishment, nor the cause of the punishment, the anger, but the cause of that anger, and all, the sin. Wee see that the bodily sicknesse, and the death of many is attributed to one kind of sinne, to the negligent receiving of the Sacrament,1 Cor. 11. 30. For this cause many are weak and sick amongst you, and many sleep. Imaginem judicii ostenderat, Ambrose.God had given a representation of the day of Judgement in that proceeding of his, for then we shall see many men condemned for sinnes, for which we never suspected them: so wee thinke men dye of Fevers, whom we met lately at the Sacrament, and God hath cut them off perhaps for that sin of their unworthy receiving the Sacrament. My miseries are the fruits of this Tree; Gods anger is the arms that spreads it; but the root is sin. My sin, which is another consideration.
We say of a Possession, Transit cum onere, It passes to me,Meum. with the burthen that my Father laid upon it; his debt is my debt: so does it, with the sin too; his sin, by which he got that possession, is my sin, if I know it: and, perchance, the punishment mine, though I know not the sin. Adams sin, 6000 years agoe, is my sin; and their sin, that shall sinne by occasion of any wanton writings of mine, will be my sin, though they come after. Wofull riddle; sin is but a privation, and yet there is not such another positive possession: sin is nothing, and yet there is nothing else; I sinned in the first man that ever was; and, but for the mercy of God, in something that I have said or done, might sin, that is, occasion sin, in the last man that ever shall be. But that sin that is called my sinne in this text, is that that is become mine by an habituall practise, or mine by a wilfull relapse into it. And so my sin may kindle the anger of God, though it bee but a single sinne, One sinne, as it is delivered here in the singular, and no farther, Because of my sinne.
Every man may find in himself, Peccatum complicatum, sinne wrapped up in sinne,Singulare. a body of sin. We bring Elements of our own; earth of Covetousnesse, water of unsteadfastnesse, ayre of putrefaction, and fire of licentiousnesse; and of these elements we make a body of sinne; as the Apostle says of the Naturall body,1 Cor. 12. 20. There are many members, but one body, so we may say of our sin, it hath a wanton eye, a griping hand, an itching ear, an insatiable heart, and feet swift to shed blood, and yet it is but one body of sin; It is all, …and yet it is but One. But let it be simply, and singularly but One, (which is a miracle in sin, truly I think an impossibility in sin, to be single, to be but One) (for that unclean Spirit, which possessed the man that dwelt amongst the tombs,Mar. 5. carryed it at first, as though he had been a single Devill, and he alone in that man, I, I adjure thee, says he to Christ, and torment not me, not me, so far in the singular, but when Christ puts him to it, he confesses, we are many, and my name is legion: So though thy sinne, slightly examined, may seem but One, yet if thou dare presse it, it will confesse a plurality, a legion) if it be but One, yet if that One be made thine, by an habituall love to it, as the plague needs not the help of a Consumption to kill thee, so neither does Adultery need the help of Murder to damn thee. For this making of any One sin, thine, thine, by an habituall love thereof, will grow up to the last and heaviest waight, intimated in that phrase, which is also in this clause of the Text, In facie paccati; that this sin will have a face, that is, a confidence, and a devesting of all … or disguises.
There cannot bee a heavier punishment laid upon any sinne,Facies peccati. Luke 17. 2. then Christ lays upon scandall: It were better for him a mil-stone were hanged about his neck, and hee drowned in the Sea. If something worse, then such a death, belong to him, surely it is eternall Death. And this, this eternall death, is interminated by Christ, in cases, where there is not always sinne, in the action which wee doe, but if we doe any action, so, as that it may scandalize another, or occasion sin in him, we are bound to study, and favour the weaknesse of other men, and not to doe such things, as they may think sins. We must prevent the mis-interpretation, yea the malice of other men; for though the fire be theirs, the fewell, or at least, the …ellows, is ours; The uncharitablenesse, the malice is in them, but the awaking, and the stirring thereof, is in our carelesnesse, who were not watchfull upon our actions. But when an action comes to be sin indeed, and not onelyonly occasionally sin, because it scandalizes another, but really sin in it selfe, then even the Poet tels you, Maxima debetur pueris reverentia, si quid T…rpe paras, Take heed of doing any sinne, in the sight of thy Child: for, if we break through that wall, we shall come quickly to that faci…m Sacerdotis non erubuerunt, they will not be afraid, nor ashamed in the presence of the Priest, they will look him in the face,Lam. 4. 16. nay receive at his hands, and yet sin their sinne, that minute, in their hearts; and to that also, faciem seniorum non erubuerunt, they will not be afraid, nor ashamed of the Office of the Magistrate; but sin for nothing, or sin at a price, bear out, or buy out all their sins. They sin as Sodom, and bide it not, is the highest charge that the Holy Ghost could lay upon the sinner. When they come to say, Our lips are ours, who is Lord ever us? Psal. 12. … 4.They will say so of their hands, and of all their bodies, They are ours, who shall forbid us, to doe what wee will with them? And what lack these open sinners of the last judgement, and the condemnation therof? That judgement is, that men shall stand naked in the sight of one another, and all their sinnes shall be made manifest to all, and this open sinner, does so, and chuses to doe so, even in this world. When David prays so devoutly,Psal. 19. 12. 2 Cor. 4. …. to be cleansed from his secret sins; and Saint Paul glories so devoutly, in having renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, how great a burthen is there, in these open and avowed sins; sins that have put on so brasen a face, as to out-face the Minister, and out-face the Magistrate, and call the very Power, and Justice of God in question, whether he do hate or can punish a sinne? for, they doe what they can to remove that opinion out of mens hearts. Truly, as an Hypocrite at Church, may doe more good, then a devout man in his Chamber at home, be cause the Hypocrites outward piety, though counterfeit, imprints a good example upon them, who doe not know it to bee counterfeit, and wee cannot know, that he that is absent from Church now, is now at his prayers in his Chamber: so a lesser sinne done with an open avowment, and confidence, may more prejudice the Kingdome of God, then greater in secret. And this is that which may be principally intended, or, atleast, usefully raised our of this phrase of the Holy Ghost in David, A facie peccati, that the habituall sinner comes to sin, not onelyonly with a negligence, who know it, but with a glorious desire, that all the world might know it; and with a shame, that any such Iudge as feared not God nor regarded man, should be more feareless of God, or regardless of man,Luke 18. 2. then he.
But now, beloved, when we have laid man thus low, Miserable, because Man, and then Diseased, and that all over, without any soundnesse, even in his whole substance, in his flesh, and in the height of this disease, Restlesse too, and Restlesse even in his bones, diffident in his strongest assurances; And when we have laid him lower then that, made him see the Cause of all this misery to be the Anger of God, the inevitable anger of an incensed God, and such an anger of God as hath a face, a manifestation, a reality, and not that God was angry with him in a Decree, before he shewed man his face in the Law, and saw Mans face in the transgression of the law; And laid him lower then that too, made him see the cause of this anger, as it is sinne, so to be his sinne, sinne made his by an habituall love thereof, which, though it may be but one, yet is become an out-facing sinne, a sinne in Contempt and confidence, when we have laid Man, laid you, thus low, in your own eyes, we returne to the Canon and rule of that Physician whom they call Evangelist a… medicinae, the Evangelist of Physique,Mesues. Sit intentio prima in omni medicina comf…rtare, whether the physician purge, or lance, or sear, his principall care, and his end, is to comfort and strengthen: so though we have insisted upon Humane misery, and the cause of that, the anger of God, and the cause of that anger, sinne in that excesse, yet we shall dismisse you with that Consolation, which was first in our intention, and shall be our conclusion, that as this Text hath a personall aspect upon David alone, and therefore we gave you hit case, and then a generall retrospect upon Adam, and all in him, and therefore we gave you your own case, so it hath also an Evangelicall prospect upon Christ, and therefore, for your comfort, and as a bundle of Myrrhe in your bosomes, we shall give you his case too, to whom these words belong, as well as to Adam, or David, or you; There is no soundnesse in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sinne.
If you will see the miseries of Man, in their exaltation, and in their accumulation too,Christus. in their weight, and in their number, take them in the Ecce home, when Christ was presented from Pilate, scourged and scorned, Ecce home, behold man, in that man, in the Prophets; They have reproched the feetsteps of thine Anointed, says David, Psal. 89. 51.slandred his actions, and conversation; He hath no form, nor comlinesse, nor beauty, that we should desire to see him, says Esay; Despised, rejected of men; A man of sorrows,53. 2. and acquainted with griefes. And Ecce homo, behold man, in that man, in the whole history of the Gospell. That which is said of us, of sinfull men, is true in him, the salvation of men, from the sole of the foot, even unto the Head, there is no soundnesse, Esay 1. 6.but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores. That question will never receive answer, which Christ askes, Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow? Never was, Lam. 1. 12.never will there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow, because there can never be such a person, to suffer sorrow. Affliction was upon him, and upon all him; for, His soule was heavy unto death; Even upon his Bones; fire was sent into his bones, and it prevailed against him. ver. 13.And the highest cause of this affliction was upon him, the anger of God; The Lord had afflicted him, ver. 12.in the day of his fierce anger. The height of Gods anger, is Dereliction; and he was brought to his Vt quid dereliquisti, My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? We did esteem him striken of the Lord, says Esay; And we were not deceived in it;53. 4. Mat. 26. 31. Zech. 13. 7. Percutiam pastorem, says Christ himselfe of himselfe, out of the Prophet, I will smite the shepheard, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered; And then, the cause of this anger, sinne, was so upon him, as that, though in one consideration, the raine was upon all the world, and onelyonly this fleece of Gedeon dry, all the world surrounded with sinne, and onelyonly He innocent, yet in another line we finde all the world dry, and onelyonly Gedeons fleece wet,Iud. 6. all the world innoce…, and onelyonly Christ guilty. But, as there is a Verè tulit, and a Verè portavit, Esay 5. 3.surely he bore those griefes, and surely he carried those sorrows, so they were Verè nostri, surely he hath borne our griefes, and carried our sorrows, he was wounded for our transgressio… and bruised for our iniquitles; The Chastisement of our peace was upon him; … …efore it must necessarily follow, (as it does follow there) with his stripes wee …; for, God will not exact a debt twice; of Christ for me, and of me too. … therefore, Quare moriemini Domus Israel? since I have made ye of the houshold … of Israel, why will ye die? since ye are recovered of your former sicknesses,Ez…k. 18. why will die of a new disease, of a suspicion, or jealousie, that this recovery, this redemption in Christ Iesus belongs not to you? Will ye say, It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands, Heb. 10.Dei viventis, of the living God? 'Tis so; a fearfull thing; But if De…s mortuus, the God of life bee but dead for mee, be fallen into my hands, applied to mee, made mine, it is no fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God.Hippocrates. Non sat is est medicum fecisse suum officium, nisi agrotus, & adstantes sua; It is not enough for Christ Jesus to have prepared you the balm of his bloud, not enough for us, to minister it to you, except every one of you help himself, in a faithfull application, and help one another, in a holy and exemplar conversation. Quàm exactè, Chrysost.& accuratè usus dictionibus? How exact and curious was the holy Ghost, in David, in choice of words? he does not say, Non sanitas mihi, sed non in car ne; not that there is no health for me, but none in me; non in carne mea, not in my flesh, but in carne ejus, in the flesh and bloud of my Saviour, there is health, and salvation. In ossibus ejus, in his bones, in the strength of his merits, there is rest, and peace, à facie peccati, what face soever my sin have had, in my former presumptions, or what face soever they put on now, in my declination to desperation. The Lord wait…th that he may have mercy upon you; Esa. 30. 18.He stays your leisure; and therefore will he be exalted, (says that Prophet there) that hee may have mercy upon you; He hath chosen that for his way of honour, of exaltation, that he may have mercy upon you. And then, Quare moriemini? If God bee so respective towards you, as to wait for you, if God be so a…bitions of you, as to affect a kingdome in you, why will ye die? since he will not let ye die of Covetousnesse, of adultery, of ambition, of prophanenesse in your selves, why will yee die of jealousie, of suspition in him? It was a mercifull voice of David;2 Sam. 9. 1. Is there yet any man left of the house of Saul, that I may shew mercy for Jonathans sake? It is the voice of God to you all, Is there yet any man of the house of Adam, that I may shew mercy for Christ Iesus sake? that takes Christ Jesus in his arms, and interposes him, between his sins, and mine indignation, and non morietur, that man shall not die. We have done;Paracels. Est ars …anandorum morborum medicina, non rhetorica; Our physick is not eloquence, not directed upon your affections, but upon your conscien…os; To thus wee present this for physick, The whole need not a Physician, but the sick doe. If you mistake your selves to be well, or think you have physick enough at home, knowledge enough, divinity enough, to save you without us, you need no Physician; that is, a Physician can doe you no good; but then is this Gods physick, and Gods Physician welcome unto you, if you be come to a remorsefull sense, and to an humble, and penitent acknowledgement, that you are sick, and that there is no so…ndnesse in your flesh, because of his anger, nor any rest in your bones, because of your sins, till you turn upon him, in whom this anger is appeas'd, and in whom these sins are forgiven, the Son of his love, the Son of his right hand, at his right hand Christ Jesus. And to this glorious Sonne of God, &c.