Fifty Sermons, Sermons · Sermon 26
SERMON XXVI.
Preached to the King, at White-Hall, the first Sunday in Lent.
ESAI. 65. 20.
For the child shall die a hundred years old; But the sinner, being a hundred years old, shall be accursed.
PEace is in Sion; Gods whole Quire is in tune; Nay, here is the musick of the Sphears; all the Sphears (all Churches) all the Stars in those Sphears (all Expositours in all Churches) agree in the sense of these words; and agree the words to be a Prophesie, of the Distillation, nay Inundation, of the largenesse, nay the infinitenesse of the blessings, and benefits of Almighty God, prepared and meditated before, and presented, and accomplisht now in the Christian Church. The Sun was up betimes, in the light of nature, but then the Sun moved but in the winter Tropick, short and cold, dark and cloudy dayes; A Diluculum and a Crepusculum, a Dawning and a Twilight, a little Traditionall knowledge for the past, and a little Conjecturall knowledge for the future, made up their day. The Sunne was advanced higher to the Iewes in the Law; But then the Sunne was but in Libra; as much day as night: There was as much Baptisme, as Circumcision in that Sacrament; and as much Lamb as Christ, in that Sacrifice; The Law was their Equinoctiall, in which, they might see both the Type, and that which was figured in the Type: But in the Christian Church the Sun is in a perpetuall Summer Solstice; which are high degrees, and yet there is a higher, the Sun is in a perpetuall Meridian and Noon, in that Summer solstice. There is not onelyonly a Surge Sol, but a Siste Sol: God hath brought the Sunne to the height, and …ixt the Sun in that height in the Christian Church… where he in his own Sonne by his Spirit hath promised to dwell, usque ad consummationem, till the end of the world. Here is Manna; and not in Gomers, but in Barns; and Quails; and not in Heaps, but in Hills; the waters above the Firmament, and not in drops of Dew, but in showers of former and latter Rain; and the Land of Canaan; not in Promise onelyonly, nor onelyonly in performance, and Possession, but in Extention, and Dilatation. The Graces, and blessings of God, that is, means of salvation, are so aboundantly poured upon the Christian Church, as that the triumphant Church if they needed means, might fear they should want them. And of these means and blessings, long life, as it is a Modell and abridgement of Eternity, and a help to Eternitie, is one… and one in this Text, The Childe shall die 100.Io… 2. 10. yeares old. But shall we receive good from God, and not receive evill too? shall I shed upon you Lumen visionis, the light of that vision, which God hath afforded me in this Prophecie, the light of his countenance, and his gracious blessings upon you, and not lay upon you Onus visionis, as the Prophetts speak often, The burthen of that vision which I have seen in this Text too? It was a scorn to David, that his servants were half cloath'd; The Samaritane woman beleeved, that if she might see Christ,Ioh. 4. 25. he would tell her all things: Christ promises of the Holy Ghost, that he should lead them into all Truth: 16. 3. 2 Cor. 7… 14.And the Apostles discharge in his office was, that he had spoken to them all Truth: And therefore lest I should be defective in that integritie, I say with Saint Augustine, Non vos fallo, non praesumo, non vos fallo; I will not be so bold with you as flatter you, I will not presume so much upon your weaknesse, as to go about to deceive you, as though there were nothing but blessing in God, but shew you the Commination, and judgement of this Text too, that though the childe should die a hundred years old, yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed. If God had not lengthened his childes life, extended my dayes, but taken me in the sinnes of my youth, where had I been, may every soul here say? And where would you be too; if no man should tell you, that though The childe should die a hundred years old, yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed? What can be certain in this world, if even the mercy of God admit a variation? what can be endlesse here, if even the mercy of God receive a determination? and sin doth vary the nature, sin doth determine even the infinitenesse of the mercy of God himself, for though The childe shall die a hundred yeares old, yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed. Disconsolate soul, dejected spirit, bruised and broken, ground and trodden, attenuated, evaporated, annihilated heart come back; heare thy reprieve, and sue for thy pardon; God will not take thee away in thy sins, thou shalt have time to repent, The childe shall die a hundred years old. But then lame and decrepit soul, gray and inveterate sinner, behold the full ears of corn blasted with a mildew, behold this long day shutting up in such a night, as shall never see light more, the night of death; in which, the deadliest pang of thy Death will be thine Immortality: In this especially shalt thou die, that thou canst not die, when thou art dead; but must live dead for ever: for The sinner being a hundred yeers old, shall be accursed, he shall be so for ever.
In this discovery from this Red Sea, Divisio.to this dead Sea; from the mercy of God, in the blood of his Son, to the malediction of God, in the blood of the sinner, be pleased to make these the points of your Compasse, and your Land-marks by the way, in those, the two parts of this exercise. First, in the first, consider the precedencie, and primogeniture of Mercy; God begins at Mercy, and not at Iudgement: God's method here, is not, The sinner shall be accursed, but The childe shall have long life: but first, the blessing, and then the malediction. And then secondly, we shall see, in what form the particular blessing is given here; In long life; The childe shall die a hundred years old. And then also, because we find it in the company of Mercies, in the region of Mercies, in this first part of the Text, which is the Sphear of Mercy; we shall look also how this very dying is a Mercy too: The mercy is especially plac'd in the long life: The childe shall live a hundred yeares; but the Holy Ghost would not leave out that, that he should die; The childe shall die a hundred yeares old. And in these three, first the precedencie, and primogeniture of God's mercy, and then the specification of that mercy in long life, and lastly, the association of mercy, that death as well as life is a blessing to the Righteous; we shall determine that first part. And in the second, But the sinner being a hundred years old, shall be accursed, we shall see first, that the malediction of God hath no object but a sinner: God antidates no malediction: Till there be a sinner, there is no malediction; nay not till there be an inveterate sinner; A sinner of a hundred yeares, at least, such a sinner, as would be so, if God would spare him a hundred yeares here. And upon such a sinner, God thunders out this Prosternation, this Consternation, in this one word of our Text, which involves and inwraps all kinds of miseries, feeblenesse in body, infatuation in mind, evacuation of power, dishonour in …ame, eclipses in favour, ruine in fortune, dejection in spirit, He shall be accursed. Where, because in this second part we are in the Region and Sphear of maledictions, we cannot consider this future, He shall be, as a future of favour, a prorogation, a deferring of the malediction: He shall be, is not, he shall be hereafter, but not yet: but it is a future of continuation; He shall be accursed, that is, he shall be so for ever. And so have you the frame, and partitions of this B…thel, this House of God in which he dwells, which is both Iosuah's Beth-hagla, the house of Joy, and Iohn's Bethania, his house of affliction too; and we passe now to the furnishing of these roomes, with such stuff as I can have laid together.
First,Part. 1. in our first part, we consider the precedency, and primogeniture of Mercy. It duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page is a good thing to be descended of the eldest Brother; To descend from God, to depend upon God, by his eldest Son, the Son of his love, the Sonne of his right hand, Mercy, and not to put God to his second way, his sinister way, his way of judgement. David prophesies of God's exaltation of Solomon so,Psal. 89. 27. Ponam in Primogenitum, I will make him my first-born: Though Solomon were not so, God would make him so. And in that Title,Ecclus. 36. 12. the Wiseman makes his prayer for Israel; Quem coaequasti Primogegenito, whom thou hast nam'd thy first-born; for so God had in Exod. Israel is my Sonne,4. 22. even my first-born: and in Iob, the fiercest terrour of death is exprest so, Primogenitus mortis, 18. 13.the first-born of Death shall devour his strength: Still the exaltation, the Superlative is called so; The first-born. And in such a sense; if we could think of more degrees of goodnesse in God, of an exaltation of God himself in God, of more God in God, of a Superlative in God, we must necessarily turn upon his mercy, for that MercieMercy must be the Superlative: So is it too, if we consider Gods first action, or God's first thought towards Man; Mercy was the first-born by every Mother; by that Understanding, by that Will, by that Power, which we conceive in God; Mercy was the first-born, and first-mover in all. We consider a preventing Grace in God; and that preventing Grace is before all; for that prevents us so, as to Visite us when we sit in darknesse. And we consider an Antecedent-Will in God, and that Antecedent Will is before all; for by that Will, God would have all men saved. And when we call Gods Grace by other names then Preventing, whether Assisting Grace, that it stand by us and sustain us, or Concomitant Grace, that it work with us, and inanimate our action, when it is doing, or his Subsequent Grace, that rectifies or corrects an action, when it is done; when all is done, still it is the Preventing Power, and quality of that Grace, that did all that in me: If I stand by his Assisting Grace, if I work with his Concomitant Grace, if I rectifie my errour by his Subsequent Grace, that that moves upon me in all these, is still the preventing power of that Grace. For as all my Naturall actions of life are done by the power of that Soul, which was in me before, so all the Supernaturall actions of that Soul, are done by that power of that Grace, that prevents and preinanimates that action; and all my co-operation is but a post-operation, a working by the Power of that All-preventing Grace. I moved not at first by the Tide, by the strength of naturall faculties, nor do I move after by that wind… which had formerly fill'd my sails: I proceed not now by the strength of that Grace which God gave me heretofore. But as God infuseth a Soul into every man, and that Soul elicites a new Act in it self, before that man produce any action; so God infuses a particular Grace into every good work of mine, and so prevents me, before I co-operate with him. For as Nature in her highest exaltation, in the best Morall man that is, cannot flow into Grace, Nature cannot become Grace; so neither doth former Grace flow into future Grace, but I need a distinct influence of God, a particular Grace, for every good work I do, for every good word I speak, for every good thought I conceive.
When God gives me accesse into his Library, Liber vitae.leave to consider his proceedings with man, I find the first book of Gods making to be the Book of Life. The Book where all their names are written that are elect to Glory. But I find no such Book of Death: All that are not written in the Book of Life, are certainly the sonnes of Death: To be pretermitted there, there to be left out, wraps them up, at least leaves them wrapt up, in death. But God hath not wrought so positively, nor in so primary a consideration in a book of Death, as in the Book of Life. As the aftertimes made a Book of Wisdome out of the Proverbs, of Salomon, and out of his Ecclesiastes; but yet it is not the same Book, nor of the same certainty: so there is a Book of Life …ere, but that is not the same book that is in Heaven, nor of the same certainty: For in this Book of Life, which is the Declaration and Testimony which the Church gives of our Election, by those marks of the Elect, which she seeth in the Scriptures, and believeth that she seeth in us,Psal. …9. …8. a man may be Blotted out of the Book of the living, as David speaketh; and as it is added there, Not written with the Righteous: Intimating that in some cases, and in some Book of Life, a man may have been written in, and blotted out, and written in again. The Book of Life in the Church, The Testimony of our Election here, admits such expunctions, and such redintegrations: but Gods first Book, his Book of Mercy; (for this Book in the Church, is but his Book of Evidence) is inviolable in it self, and all the names of that Book indelible.
In Gods first Book,Liber Scripturae the Book of Life, Mercy hath so much a precedency, and primogeniture, as that there is nothing in it, but Mercy. In Gods other Book, his Book of Scripture, in which he is put often to denounce judgements, as well as to exhibite mercies, still the Tide sets that way, still the Biass leads on that hand, still his method directs us ad Primogenitum, to his first-born, to his Mercy. So he began in that Book: He made man to his Image, Gen. 1. 26.and then he blest him. Here is no malediction, no intermination mingled in Gods first Act, in Gods first purpose upon man: In Paradise there is, That if he eat the forbidden fruit,Gen. 2. 17. if he will not forbear that, that one Tree, He shall die. But God begins not there: before that, he had said, of every tree in the Garden thou maist freely eat; neither is there more vehemency in the punishment, then in the libertie. For as in the punishment there is an ingemination, Morte morieris, Dying thou shalt die; that is, thou shalt surely die; so in the liberty, there was an ingemination too, Comedendo comedes, Deut. 27.Eating thou shalt eat; that is, thou maist freely eat. In Deut. we have a fearfull Chapter of Maledictions; but all the former parts of that Chapter, are blessings in the same kind: And he that reads that Chapter, will beginne at the beginning, and meet Gods first-born, his Mercy first. And in those very many places of that Book where God divides the condition, If you obey you shall live, if you rebell you shall die, still the better Act, and the better condition, and the better reward, is placed in the first place, that God might give us possession, In jure Primogeniti, in the right of his first-born, his mercy. And where God pursues the same method, and first dilates himself,Psalm. 89. 23. and expatiates in the way of mercy, I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague them that hate him; when after that he is brought to say, If his children forsake my Law, I will visit their transgression with the rod; where first he puts it off for one Generation from himself,verse 30. to his Children, which was one Mercy: And then he puts it upon a forsaking, an Apostasie, and not upon every sinne of infirmity, which was another Mercy; when it comes to a correction, it is but a milde correction, with the r…d: And in that, he promises to visite them; to manifest himself, and his purpose to them in the correction; all which are higher and higher degrees of Mercy: yet because there is a spark of anger, a tincture of judgement mingled in it, God remembers his first-born,verse 33. his Mercy, and returns where he begun: Neverthelesse my Covenant will I not break, nor alter the things that is gone out of my lips; once have I sworn by my Holinesse, that I will not lie unto David. There are elder pictures in the world of Water, then there are any of oyl; but those of oyl have got above them, and shall outlive them. Water is a frequent embleme of Affliction, in the Scriptures; and so is oyl of Mercy; If at any time in any place of Scripture, God seemed to begin with water, with a judgement, yet the oyl will get to the top: in that very judgement, you may see that God had first a mercifull purpose in inflicting that medicinall judgement; for his mercy is his first-born. His Mercy is new every morning, saith the Prophet; not onelyonly every day, but as soon as it is day.
Trace God in thy self, and thou shalt find it so. If thou beest drowzie now, and unattentive, curious or contentious, or quarrelsome now, now God leaves thee in that indisposition, and that is a judgement: But it was his Mercy that brought thee hither before. In every sinne thou hast some remorse, some reluctation, before thou do that sinne; and that pre-reluctation, and pre-remorse was Mercy. If thou hadst no such remorse in thy last sinne, before the sinne, and hast it now, this is the effect of Gods former mercy, and former good purpose upon thee, to let thee see that thou needest the assistance of his Minister, and of his Ordinance, to enable thee to lay hold on Mercy when it is offered thee. Can any calamity fall upon thee, in which thou shalt not be bound to say, I have had blessings in a greater measure then this? If thou have had losses, yet thou hast more, out of which God took that. If all be lost, perchance thou art but where thou begunst at first, at nothing. If thou begunst upon a good heighth, and beest fallen from that, and fallen low, yet as God prepared a Whale to transport Ionas, before Ionas was cast into the Sea, God prepared thee a holy Patience, before he reduced thee to the exercise of that Patience. If thou couldest apprehend nothing done for thy self, yet all the mercies that God hath exhibited to others, are former mercies to thee, in the Pattern, and in the Seal, and in the Argument thereof: They have had them, therefore thou shalt. All Gods Prophecies, are thy Histories: whatsoever he hath promised others, he hath done in his purpose for thee: And all Gods Histories are thy Prophesies; all that he hath done for others, he owes thee. Hast thou a hardnesse of heart? knowest thou not that Christ hath wept before to entender that hardnesse? hast thou a palenesse of soul, in the apparition of God in fire, and in judgement? knowest thou not, that Christ hath bled before, to give a vigour, and a vegetation, and a verdure to that palenesse? is thy sinne Actuall sinne? knowest thou not, that there is a Lamb bleeding before upon the Altar, to expiate that? Is thy terrour from thy inherence, and encombrance of Originall sinne? knowest thou not, that the effect of Baptism hath blunted the sting of that sinne before? art thou full of sores, putrid and ulcerous sores? full of wounds, through and through piercing wounds? full of diseases, namelesse and complicate diseases? knowest thou not that there is a holy Charm, a blessed Incantation, by which thou art, though not invulnerable, yet invulnerable unto death, wrapt up in the eternall Decree of thine Election? that's thy pillar, the assurance of thine Election: If thou shake that, if thou cast down that Pillar, if thou distrust thine Election, with Samson, who pulled down pillars in his blindnesse, in thy blindnesse thou destroyest thy self. Begin where thou wilt at any Act in thy self, at any act in God, yet there was mercy before that, for his mercy is eternall, eternall even towards thee. I could easily think that that, that past between God and Moses in their long conversation; that that, that past between Christ and Moses in his trans-figuration; that that, that past between Saint Paul and the Court of Heaven in his extasie was instruction and manifestation on one part, and admiration and application on the other part of the mercy of God. Earth cannot receive, Heaven cannot give such another universall soul to all: all persons, all actions, as Mercy. And were I the childe of this Text, that were to live a hundred years, I would ask no other marrow to my bones, no other wine to my heart, no other light to mine eyes, no other art to my understanding, no other eloquence to my tongue, then the power of apprehending for my self, and the power of deriving and conveying upon others by my Ministery, the Mercy, the early Mercy, the everlasting Mercy of yours, and my God. But we must passe to the consideration of this immense Light, in that one Beam, wherein it is exhibited here, that is, long life: The childe shall die a hundred years old.
Long life is a blessing,Vita longa. as it is an image of eternity: as Kings are blessings, because they are Images of God. And as to speak properly, a King that possest the whole earth, hath no proportion at all to God, (he is not a dramme, not a grain, not an atome to God) so neither if a thousand Methusalems were put in one life, had that long life any proportion to eternity; for Finite and Infinite have no proportion to one another. But yet when we say so, That the King is nothing to God, we speak then between God and the King; and we say that; onelyonly to assist the Kings Religious humiliation of himself in the presence of God. But when we speak between the King and our selves his Subjects, there we raise our selves to a just reverence of him, by taking knowledge that he is the Image of God to us. So though long life be nothing to eternity, yet because we need such Glasses and such Images, as God shews us himself in the King, so he shewes us his eternitie in a long life. In this, that the Patriarchs complain every where of the shortnesse of life,Gen. 4. 9. and neernesse of death; (Iacob at a hundred and thirtie yeares tells Pharaoh, that his dayes were few,) In this, that God threatens the shortnesse of life for a punishment to Eli, 1 Sam. 2. 32.God saies, There shall not be an old man in thy house for ever: In this, that God brings it into Promise, and enters it, as into his Audite, and his revenue, (With long life will I satisfie him, Psal. 91. 16.and shew him my salvation,) That God would give him long life, and make that long life a Type of Eternity; In this, that God continues that promise into performance, and brings it to execution, in some of his chosen servants; at a hundred and twenty Moses his eyes were not dim, Deut. 24. 7.nor his naturall force abated; and Caleb saith of himself, Ios. 14. 10.I am this day 85. yeares old, and as my strength was at first, for warre, so is my strength now; In all these and many others, we receive so many testimonies that God brings long life out of his Treasurie, as an immediate blessing of his. And therefore, as such his blessing, let us pray for it, where it is not come yet, in that apprecation and acclamation of the antient generall Councells, Multos annos Caesari, Aetern…s annos Caesari, Long life to our Cesar in this world, everlasting life to our Cesar in the world to come: and then let us reverence this blessing of long life, where it is come, in honouring those Ancient heads, by whose name, God hath been pleased to call himself, Antiquu… dierum, the ancient of dayes: and let us not make this blessing of long life, impossible to our selves, by disappointing Gods purpose of long life upon us, by our surfets, our wantonnesse, our quarrels, which are all Goths, and Vandals, and Giants, called in by our selves to fight with God against us. But yet, so receive we long life, as a blessing, as that we may also find a blessing in departing from this life: For so manifold, and so multiforn are his blessings, as even death it self hath a place in this Sphear of blessings, The childe shall live a hundred yeares, but yet The childe shall die.
When Paradise should have extended,Morietur. as man should have multiplied, and every holy family, every religious Colony have constituted a new Paradise, that as it was said of Egypt, when it abounded with Hermitages in the Primitive persecutions, That Egypt was a continuall City of Hermitages; so all the world should have been a continuall Garden of Paradises, when all affections should have been subjects, and all creatures servants, and all wives helpers, then life was a sincere blessing. But, but a mixt blessing now, when all these are so much vitiated; onelyonly a possible blessing; a disputable, a conditionable, a circumstantiall blessing now. If there were any other way to be saved and to get to Heaven, then by being born into this life, I would not wish to have come into this world. And now that God hath made this life a Bridge to Heaven; it is but a giddy, and a vertiginous thing, to stand long gazing upon so narrow a bridge, and over so deep and roaring waters, and desperate whirlpools, as this world abounds with:Psal. 90. 12. So teach us to number our dayes, saith David, that we may apply our hearts unto wisedome: Not to number them so, as that we place our happinesse, in the increase of their number.Psal. 21. 14. What is this wisedome? he tells us there; He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him: But was that this life? It was Length of dayes for ever and ever, the dayes of Heaven.
As houses that stand in two Shires, trouble the execution of Justice, the house of death that stands in two worlds, may trouble a good mans resolution. As death is a sordid Postern, by which I must be thrown out of this world, I would decline it: But as death is the gate, by which I must enter into Heaven, would I never come to it? certainly now, now that Sinne hath made life so miserable, if God should deny us death, he multiplied our misery. We are in this Text, upon blessings appropriated to the Christian Church, and so to these times. And in theseTimes, we have not so long life, as the Patriarchs had before. They were to multiply children for replenishing the world, and to that purpose had long life. We multiply sinnes, and the children and off-spring of sinnes, miseries, and therefore may be glad to get from this generation of Vipers. God gave his Children Manna and Quails, in the Wildernesse, where nothing else was to be had; but when they came to the Land of Promise, that Provision ceas'd: God gave them long life in the times of Nature, and long, (though shorter then before) in the times of the Law; because in nature especially, but in the Law also, it was hard to discern, hard to attain the wayes to Heaven. But the wayes to Heaven are made so manifest to us in the Gospel, as that for that use, we need not long life; and that is all the use of our life here. He that is ready for Heaven, hath lived to a blessed age; and to such an intendment, a childe newly baptized may be elder then his Grandfather. Therefore we receive long life for a blessing, when God is pleased to give it; though Christ entered it into no Petition of his Prayer, that God would give it: and so though we enter it into no Petition, nor Prayer, we receive it as a blessing too, when God will afford us a deliverance, a manumission, an emancipation from the miseries of this life. Truely I would not change that joy and consolation, which I proposed to my hopes, upon my Death-bed, at my passage out of this world, for all the joy that I have had in this world over again. And so very a part of the Joy of Heaven is a joyfull transmigration from hence, as that if there were no more reward, no more recompence, but that I would put my self to all that belongs to the duty of an honest Christian in the world, onelyonly for a joyfull, a cheerfull passage out of it. And farther we shall not exercise your patience, or your devotion, upon these three pieces which constitute our first part: The Primogeniture of Gods Mercy, which is first in all; The specification of Gods Mercy, long Life, as it is a figure of, and a way to eternity; and then the association of Gods Mercy; that Death, as well as Life, is a blessing to the Righteous.
So then we have brought our Sunne to his Meridianall height, Part. 2.to a full Noon, in which all shadows are removed: for even the shadow of death, death it self is a blessing, and in the number of his Mercies. But the Afternoon shadows break out upon us, in our second part of the Text. And as afternoon shadowes do, these in our Text do also; they grow greater and greater upon us, till they end in night, in everlasting night, The sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed. Now of shadowes it is appliably said, Vmbrae non sunt tenebrae sed densior lux, shadowes are not utter darknesse, but a thicker light; shadowes are thus much nearer to the nature of light then darknesse is, that shadowes presume light, which darknesse doth not; shadowes could not be, except there were light. The first shadowes in this dark part of our Text, have thus much light in them, that it is but the sinner, onelyonly the sinner that is accursed. The Object of Gods malediction, is not man, but sinfull man. If God make a man sinne, God curses the man;August. but if sinne make God curse, God curses but the sinne. Non talem Deum tuum putes, qualis nec tu debes esse, Never propose to thy self such a God, as thou wert not bound to imitate: Thou mistakest God, if thou make him to be any such thing, or make him to do any such thing, as thou in thy proportion shouldst not be, or shouldst not do. And shouldst thou curse any man that had never offended, never transgrest, never trespast thee? Can God have done so? Imagine God, as the Poet saith, Ludere in humanis, to play but a game at Chesse with this world; to sport himself with making little things great, and great things nothing: Imagine God to be but at play with us, but a gamester, yet will a gamester curse, before he be in danger of losing any thing?Deut. 27. 13. Will God curse man, before man have sinned? In the Law there are denuntiations of curses enjoyned and multiplied: There is maledictus upon maledictus; but it is maledictus homo, cursed be the man; He was not curst by God, before he was a man; nor curst by God, because he was a man; but if that man commit Idolatry, Adultery, Incest, Beastiality, Bribery, Calumny, (as the sinnes are reckoned there) there he meets a particular curse, upon his particular sinne. The book of Life is but names written in Heaven; all the Book of Death, that is, is but that in the Prophet, when names are written in the Earth. Ier. 17. 13.But whose names are written in the Earth there? They that depart from thee, shall be written in the Earth: They shall be, when they depart from thee. For saith he, They have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of Living water; They did not that, because their names were written in the Earth, but they were written there, because they did that. Our Saviour Christ came hither to do all his Fathers will; and he returned cheerfully to his Father again, as though he had done all, when he had taken away the sinnes of the world by dying for all sinnes, and all sinners. But if there were an Hospitall of miserable men, that lay under the reprobation and malediction of Gods decree, and not for sinne; the blood of that Lamb is not sprinkled upon the Postills of that doore. Forgive me O Lord, O Lord forgive me my sinnes, the sinnes of my youth, and my present sinnes, the sinne that my Parents cast upon me, Originall sinne, and the sinnes that I cast upon my children, in an ill example; Actuall sinnes, sinnes which are manifest to all the world, and sinnes which I have so laboured to hide from the world, as that now they are hid from mine own conscience, and mine own memory; Forgive me my crying sins, and my whispering sins, sins of uncharitable hate, and sinnes of unchaste love, sinnes against Thee and Thee, against thy Power O Almighty Father, against thy Wisedome, O glorious Sonne, against thy Goodnesse, O blessed Spirit of God; and sinnes against Him and Him, against Superiours and Equals, and Inferiours; and sinnes against Me and Me, against mine own soul, and against my body, which I have loved better then my soul; Forgive me O Lord, O Lord in the merits of thy Christ and my Iesus, thine Anointed, and my Saviour; Forgive me my sinnes, all my sinnes, and I will put Christ to no more cost, nor thee to more trouble, for any reprobation or malediction that lay upon me, otherwise then as a sinner. I ask but an application, not an extention of that Benediction, Blessed are they whose sinnes are forgiven; Let me be but so blessed, and I shall envy no mans Blessednesse: say thou to my sad soul, Sonne be of good comfort, thy sinnes are forgiven thee, and I shall never trouble thee with Petitions, to take any other Bill off of the fyle, or to reverse any other Decree, by which I should be accurst, before I was created, or condemned by thee, before thou saw'st me as a sinner; For the object of malediction is but a sinner, (which was our first) and an Inveterate sinner, A sinner of a hundred yeares, which is our next consideration.
First,100. Annorum. Quia centum annorum, because he is so old; so old in sinne, He shall be accur sed. And then, Quamvis centum annorum, though he be so old, though God have spared him so long,Ecclus. 4. 30. he shall be accursed. God is not a Lion in his house, nor frantick amongst his servants, saith the Wiseman; God doth not rore, nor tear in pieces for every thing that displeaseth him.Amos 1. 3. But when God is prest under us, as a cart is prest that is full of sheaves; the Lord will grone under that burthen a while, but he will cast it off at last. That which is said by David, Psal. 18. 26.is, if it be well observed, spoken of God himself, Cum perverso pervertêris; from our frowardnesse God will learn to be froward: But he is not so,Levit. 26. 21. of his own nature. If you walk contrary unto me, I will walk contrary unto you, saith God. But this is not said of one, first, wry step; but it is a walking, which implies a long, and a considerate continuance. And if man come to sinne so, and will not walk with God, God will walk with that man in his own pace, and overthrow him in his own wayes. Nay, it is not onelyonly in that place, If you walk contrary to me, In occursu, as Calvin hath it, ex adverso, as the vulgate hath it, which implies an Actuall Opposition against the wayes of God: but the word is but Chevi, and Chevi is but In accidente, in contingente; if you walk negligently, inconsiderately; if you leave out God, pretermit, and slight God; if you come to call Gods Providence Fortune, to call Gods Judgements Accidents, or to call the Mercies of a God, favours of great Persons, if you walk in this neglect of God, God shall proceed to a neglect of you; and then though God be never the worse for your leaving him out, (for if it were in your power to annihilate this whole world, God were no worse, then before there was a World) yet if God neglect you, forget, pretermit you, it is a miserable annihilation, a fearfull malediction. But God begins not before sinne, nor at the first sinne. God did not curse Adam and Eve for their sinne; it was there first, and God foresaw they would not be sinners of a hundred yeares. But him that was in the Serpent, that inveterate sinner, him, who had sinned in Gods Court, in Heaven, before, and being banished from thence, fell into this transmarine treason, in another land, to seduce Gods other Subjects there, him God accurs'd. Who amongst us can say, that he had a Fever upon his first excesse, or a Consumption upon his first wantonnesse, or a Commission put upon him for his first Briberie? Till he be a sinner of a hundred yeares, till he have brought age upon himself, by his sinne, before the time, and thereby be a hundred yeares old at fourtie, and so a sinner of a hundred yeares, till he have a desire that he might, and a hope that he shall be able to sinne to a hundred yeares; and so be a sinner of a hundred yeares; Till he sinne hungerly and thirstily, and ambitiously, and swiftly, and commit the sinnes of a hundred yeares in ten, and so be a sinner of a hundred yeares; till he infect and poyson that age, and spoile that time that he lives in by his exemplary sinnes, till he be Pestis secularis, the plague of that age, peccator secularis, the proverbiall sinner of that age, and so be a sinner of a hundred yeares, till in his actions he have been, or in his desires be, or in the fore-knowledge of God would be a sinner of a hundred yeares, an inveterate, an incorrigible, an everlasting sinner, God comes not to curse him.
But then Quamvis centum annorum, though he have lived a hundred yeares, though God have multiplied upon him Evidences, and Seals, and Witnesses, and Possessions, and Continuances, and prescriptions of his favour, all this hath not so riveted God to that man, as that God must not depart from him. God was crucified for him, but will not be crucified to him; still to hang upon this Crosse, this perversnesse of this habituall sinner, and never save himself and come down, never deliver his own Honour, by delivering that sinner to malediction. It is true, that we can have no better Title to Gods future Blessings, then his Blessings formerly exhibited to us; God former blessings are but his marks set up there, that he may know that place, and that man the better against another time, when he shall be pleased to come thither again with a supply of more Blessings: God gives not Blessings as payments, but as obligations; and becomes a debtor by giving. If I can produce that, Remember thy mercies of old, I need ask no new; for even that is a Specialty by which God hath bound himself to me for more. But yet not so, if I abuse his former Blessings, and make them occasions of sinne. How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens, saith Christ, I know not how often; surely very often; for many hundreds of yeares: But yet, how often soever, God left them open to the Eagle, the Romane Eagle at last. God gives thee a recovery from sicknesse, that doth not make thee Immortall. God gives thee a good interpretation of thine actions from a gracious Prince, this doth not make thee impeccable in thy self. God gives thee titles of Honour upon thy self, this doth not alwayes give thee honour,Psalm. 113. 7. and respect from others. For as it is God that Raiseth up the poore out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill, that he may set him with Princes; Psal. 86. 12.so it is God that Cuts off the spirit of Princes, and is terrible to the Kings of the Earth. Psalm. 33. 10.It is God that maketh the devices of the People of none effect, and it is God that destroyes the Counsels of Egypt. Esay 19. 3.It is God that maketh their Nobles like Oreb, and like Zeb, and like them that perisht at Endor, and became as dung for the Earth; that is, profitable onelyonly in their ruine, and conculcation. And so with the same unwillingnesse, that God comes to the execution, we come to the denunciation of this malediction. They, They, these inveterate, incorrigible sinners, Quamvis centum annorum, though God have spared them so long, yet Quia centum annorum, because they have imployed all that time in sinne, They shall be accursed.
Accursing is malediction, Maledictus.malediction is literally but maledicence; and that is but evill speaking. Now all kinds of evill speaking do not inwrap a man within the curse of this Text; For, though it be a shrewd degree of this curse of God, to be generally ill spoken of by sad, sober, and discreet, and dis-passioned, and dis-interessed Men, yet we are fallen into times, when men will speak ill of men, in things which they do not know, nor should not know, and out of credulity and easie beleeving of men, whom they should not beleeve; men distempered and transported with passion: So men speak evill out of passion, and out of compassion; out of humour, and out of rumour. But malediction in our Text, is an Imprecation of evil, by such men as would justly inflict it if they could, and because they cannot, they pray to God that he would, and he doth: When God seconds the Imprecations of good men, that is this curse. The Person that is curst here is Peccator centum annorum; an habituall, an incorrigible sinner. If you put me to assigne, in what rank of men, Magistrates or Subjects, rich or poore, Judges or prisoners, All. If you put me to assigne, for what sinnes, sins of complexion and constitution, sinnes of societie and conversation, sinnes of our profession, and calling, sinnes of the particular place, or of the whole times, that we live in, sins of profit, or sins of pleasure, or sins of glory; (for we all do some sins which are sins merely of glory; sins that we make no profit by, nor take much pleasure in, but do them onelyonly out of a mis-imagined necessity, left we should go too much lesse, and sink in the estimation of the World, if we did them not;) if I must say which of these sinnes put us under this curse, All; If he be centum annorum, Inveterate, Incorrigible, He is accursed. But then who curses him? God put an extraordinary spirit, and produc'd extraordinary effects from curses, in the mouths of his Prophets which have been since the World began.2 Reg. 2. So Elizeus curses, and two Bears destroy fourty two persons. These curses are deposited by God, in the Scriptures, and then inflicted by the Church, in her ordinary jurisdiction, by excommunications, and other censures. But this may be but matter of form in the Church, or matter of indignation in the Prophet. Not so, but as God saith,Esay. That the rod in Ashurs hand is his rod, and the sword in Babylons hand his sword, so the curse deposited in the Scripture, and denounced by the Church, is his curse. Amos.For as the Prophet saith, Non est malum, all the evill (that is, all the penall ill, all plagues, all warre, all famine,) that is done in the World, God doth; so all the evill that is spoken, all the curses deposited in the Scriptures, and denounced by the Church, God speaks. But be all this so; there is a curse deposited, denounced, seconded by God; yet, all this is but malediction, but a speaking, here is no execution spoken of: yes, there is, for as the sight of God is Heaven, and to be banisht from the sight of God, is Hell in the World to come, so the blessing of God, is Heaven, and the curse of God is Hell and damnation, even in this Life. The Hieroglyphique of silence, is the hand upon the mouth; If the hand of God be gone from the mouth, it is gone to strike.Esay. If it be come to an Os Domini locutum, that the mouth of the Lord have spoken it, it will come presently to an Immittam manum, That God will lay his hand upon us, in which one Phrase,Exod. 7. 4. all the plagues of Egypt are denounced. Solomon puts both hand and tongue together;Prov. 18. 21. In manibus linguae, saith he, Death and Life are in the hand of the tongue: Gods Tongue hath a hand; where his Sentence goeth before, the execution followeth. Nay, in the execution of the last sentence, we shall feel the Hand, before we heare the Tongue, the execution is before the sentence; It is, Ite maledicti, go ye accursed: First, you must Go, go out of the presence of God; and by that being gone, you shall know, that you are accursed; Whereas in other proceedings, the sentence denounces nounces the execution, here the execution denounces the sentence. But be all this allowed to be thus; There is a malediction deposited in the Scriptures, denounced by the Church, ratified by God, brought into execution, yet it may be born, men doe bear it. How men do bear it, we know not; what passes between God and those men, upon whom the curse of God lieth, in their dark horrours at midnight, they would not have us know, because it is part of their curse, to envy God that glory. But we may consider in some part the insupportablenesse of that weight, if we proceed but so farre, as to accommodate to God, that which is ordinarily said of naturall things. Corruptio optimi pessima; when the best things change their nature, they become worst. When God, who is all sweetnesse, shall have learned frowardnesse from us, as David speaks; and being all rectitude, shall have learned perversenesse and crookednesse from us, as Moses speaks; and being all providence, shall have learned negligence from us: when God who is all Blessing, hath learned to curse of us, and being of himself spread as an universall Hony-combe over All, takes in an impression, a tincture, an infusion of gall from us, what extraction of Wormwood can be so bitter, what exaltation of fire can be so raging, what multiplying of talents can be so heavy, what stifnesse of destiny can be so inevitable, what confection of gnawing worms, of gnashing teeth, of howling cries, of scalding brimstone, of palpable darknesse, can be so, so insupportable, so inexpressible, so in-imaginable, as the curse and malediction of God? And therefore let not us by our works provoke,Iam. 3. 9. nor by our words teach God to curse. Lest if with the same tongue that we blesse God, we curse Men; that is, seem to be in Charity in our Prayers here, and carry a ranckerous heart, and venemous tongue home with us God come to say,Psal. 10…. 7. (and Gods saying is doing) As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him; as he clothed himself with cursing, as with a garment, so let it be as a girdle, wherewith he is girded continually: When a man curses out of Levity, and makes a loose habit of that sinne, God shall so gird it to him, as he shall never devest it. The Devils grammar is Applicare Activa Passivis, to apply Actives to Passives; where he sees an inclination, to subminister a temptation; where he seeth a froward choler, to blow in a curse. And Gods grammar is to change Actives into Passives: where a man delights in cursing, to make that man accursed. And if God do this to them who do but curse men, will he do lesse to them, who blaspheme himself? where man wears out Aeternum suum, (as Saint Gregory speaketh) his own eternity, his own hundred yeares; that is, his whole life, in cursing and blaspheming, God shall also extend his curse, In aeterno suo, in his eternity, that is, for ever. Which is that, that falls to the bottome, as the heaviest of all, and is our last consideration; that all the rest, that there is a curse deposited in the Scriptures, denounced by the Church, avowed by God, reduced to execution, and that insupportable in this life, is infinitely aggravated by this, that he shall be accursed for ever.
This is the Anathema Maran-atha, Aeternum.accursed till the Lord come; and when the Lord cometh, he cometh not to reverse, nor to alleviate, but to ratifie and aggravate that curse. As soon as Christ curst the fig-tree, it withered, and it never recovered: for saith that Gospell,Matth. 2…. …9. he curst it Inaeternum, for ever. In the course of our sinne, the Holy Ghost hath put here a number of yeares, a hundred yeares: We sinne long, as long as we can, but yet sinne hath an end. But in this curse of God in the Text, there is no number; it is an indefinite future; He shall be accursed: A mile of cyphers or figures, added to the former hundred, would not make up a minute of this eternity. Men have calculated how many particular graines of sand, would fill up all the vast space butween the Earth and the Firmament: and we find, that a few lines of cyphers will designe and expresse that number. But if every grain of sand were that number, and multiplied again by that number, yet all that, all that inexpressible, inconsiderable number, made not up one minute of this eternity; neither would this curse, be a minute the shorter for having been indured so many Generations, as there were grains of sand in that number. Our Esse, our Being, is from Gods saying, Dixit & facti, God spoke, and we were made: our Bene esse, our well-being, is from Gods saying too; Bene-dicit God blesses us, in speaking gratiously to us. Even our ill-being, our condemnation is from Gods saying also: for Malediction is Damnation. So far God hath gone with us that way, as that our Being, our well-being, our ill-being is from his saying: But God shall never come to a Non esse, God shall never say to us, Be nothing, God shall never succour us with an annihilation, nor give us the ease of resolving into nothing, for this curse flowes on into an everlasting future, He shall be accurst, he shall be so for ever. In a true sense we may say, that Gods fore-knowledge growes lesse and lesse every day; for his fore-knowledge is of future things, and many things which were future heretofore are past, or present now; and therefore cannot fall under his fore-knowledge: His fore-knowledge in that sense, growes lesse, and decaieth. But his eternity decayeth in no sense; and as long as his eternity lasts, as long as God is God, God shall never see that soul, whom he hath accurst, delivered from that curse, or eased in it.
But we are now in the work of an houre, and no more. If there be a minute of sand left, (There is not) If there be a minute of patience left, heare me say, This minute that is left, is that eternitie which we speake of; upon this minute dependeth that eternity: And this minute, God is in this Congregation, and puts his eare to every one of your hearts, and hearkens what you will bid him say to your selves: whether he shall blesse you for your acceptation, or curse you for your refusall of him this minute: for this minute makes up your Century, your hundred yeares, your eternity, because it may be your last minute. We need not call that a Fable, but a Parable, where we heare, That a Mother to still her froward childe told him, she would cast him to the Wolf, the Wolf should have him; and the Wolf which was at the doore, and within hearing, waited, and hoped he should have the childe indeed: but the childe being still'd, and the Mother pleased, then she saith, so shall we kill the Wolf, the Wolf shall have none of my childe, and then the Wolf stole away. No metaphor, no comparison is too high, none too low, too triviall, to imprint in you a sense of Gods everlasting goodnesse towards you. God bids your Mother the Church, and us her Servants for your Souls, to denounce his judgements upon your sinnes, and we do it; and the executioner Satan, beleeves us, before you beleeve us, and is ready on his part. Be you also ready on your part, to lay hold upon those conditions, which are annext to all Gods maledictions, Repentance of former, preclusion against future sinnes, and we shall be alwayes ready, on our part to assist you with the Power of our Intercession, to deliver you with the Keies of our Absolution, and to establish you with the seales of Reconciliation, and so disappoint that Wolf, that roaring Lion, that seeks whom he may devour: Go in Peace, and be this your Peace, to know this, Maledictus qui pendet in Cruce, God hath laid the whole curse belonging to us upon him, that hangs upon the Crosse; But Benedictus qui pendet in pendentem; To all them that hang upon him, that hangeth there, God offereth now, all those blessings, which he that hangeth there hath purchased with the inestimable price of his Incorruptible blood; And to this glorious Sonne of God, who hath suffered all this, and to the most Almighty Father, who hath done all this, and to the blessed Spirit of God, who offereth now to apply all this, be ascribed by us, and by the whole Church, All power, praise, might, majesty, glory, and dominion, now and for evermore Amen.