Fifty Sermons, Sermons · Sermon 45
SERMON XLV.
Preached at Saint Dunstans Aprill 11. 1624. The first sermon in that Church, as Vicar thereof.
DEUT. 25. 5.
If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no Childe, the Wife of the dead shall not mary without, unto a stranger: her husbands brother shall goe in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and performe the duty of an husbands brother unto her.
FRom the beginning God intimated a detestation, a dislike of singularity; of beeing Alone. The first time that God himselfe is named in the Bible, in the first verse of Genesis, hee is named plurally, Creavit Dit, Gods, Gods in the plurall, Created Heaven and Earth. God, which is but one, would not appeare, nor bee presented so alone, but that hee would also manifest more persons. As the Creator was not Singular, so neither were the creatures; First, he created heaven and earth; both together; which were to be the generall parents, and out of which were to bee produced all other creatures; and then, he made all those other creatures plurally too; Male, and female created hee them; And when he came to make him, for whose sake (next to his own glory) he made the whole world, Adam, he left not Adam alone, but joyned an Eve to him; Now, when they were maried, we know, but wee know not when they were divorced; we heare when Eve was made, but not when shee dyed; The husbands death is recorded at last, the wives is not at all. So much detestation hath God himselfe, and so little memory would hee have kept of any singularity, of being alone. The union of Christ to the whole Church is not expressed by any metaphore, by any figure, so oft in the Scripture, as by this of Mariage… and there is in that union with Christ to the whole Church, neither husband, nor wife can ever die; Christ is immortall as hee is himselfe, and immortall, as hee is the head of the Church, the Husband of that wife: for that wife, the Church is immortall too; for as a Prince is the same Prince, when he fights a battaile, and when hee triumphs after the victory: so the militant, and the triumphant Church is the same Church. There can bee no widower, There can bee no Dowager, in that case; Hee cannot, shee cannot die. But then this Metaphore, this spirituall Mariage, holds not onelyonly betweene Christ and the whole Church, in which case thee can be no Widow, but in the union between Christs particular Ministers, and particular Churches; and there, in that case, the husband of that wife may die; The present Minister may die, and so that Church be a Widow; And in that case, and for provision of such Widows, wee consider the accommodation of this Law. If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no childe, the wife of the dead shall not mary without, unto a stranger, &c.
This law was but a permissive law; rather a dispensation, then a law: as the permitting of usury to bee taken of strangers, and the permitting of divorces in so many cases, were. At most it was but a Iudiciall law, and therefore layes no obligation, upon any other nation, then them, to whom it was given, the Iews. And therefore wee enquire not the reasons of that law, (the reasons were determined in that people) wee examine not the conveniences of the law; (the conveniences were determined in those times) wee lay hold onelyonly upon the Typique signification, and appliablenesse of the law, as that secular Mariage there spoken of, may be appliable to this spirituall Mariage, the Mariage of the Minister to the Church: If brethren dwell together, &c.
From these words then, wee shall make our approaches, and application,Divisio. to the present occasion, by these steps; First, there is a mariage, in the case. The taking, and leaving of a Church, is not an indifferent, an arbitrary thing; It is a Mariage, and Mariage implies, Honour: It is an honourable estate, and that implies charge, it is a burdensome state; There is Honos, and Onus, Honour, and labour, in Mariage; You must bee content to afford the honour, wee must bee content to endure the labour. And so in that point, as our Incumbencie upon a Church, is our Mariage to that Church, wee shall as farre, as the occasion admits, see what mariage includes, and what it excludes; what it requires, what it forbids. It is a mariage, and a mariage after the death of another: If one dye, sayes the Text; Howsoever the Romane Church in the exercise of their Tyranny, have forbidden Church-men to mary, then when they have orders, and forbidden orders to bee given to any, who have formerly beene maried, if they maried Widowes, God is pleased here, to afford us, some intimation, some adumbration, a Typicall and exemplar knowledge of the lawfulnesse of such mariages, hee maries after the death of a former husband; and then farther, a brother maries the wife of his deceased brother; Now into the reasons of the law, literally given, and literally accepted, wee looke not; It is enough, that God hath a care of the preservation of names and families and inheritances in those distinctions, and in those Tribes; where hee layd them then; but for the accommodation of the law to our present application, it must bee a brother, a spirituall brother, a professor of the same faith, that succeeds in this mariage, in this possession, and this government of that widow Church. It must be a brother, and Frater c…habitans, says our Text, a brother that dwelt together, with the former husband; he must be of the same houshold of the faithfull, as well as professe the same faith; he must dwell in the house of God, not separate himselfe, or encourage others to doe so, for matter of Ceremonies, and discipline; Idolaters must not, Separaists must not be admitted to these mariages, to these widow churches. And then it is a surrendring to a brother dead without children: In this spirituall procreation of children, we all dye without children of our own; Though by our labours, when God blesses them, you become children, yet you are Gods children, not ours; we nurse you by his word, but his Spirit begets you by the same word; we must not challenge to us, that which God onelyonly can doe. And then being thus maried to this widow, taking the charge of this Church, he must, says our text, performe the duty of a husbands brother. He must, it is a personall service, not to be done always by Proxy, and Delegates; He must; and he must performe; not begin well, and not persist, commence and not consummate, but performe the worke, and performe the worke, as it is a duty; It is a meer mercy in God, to send us to you, but it is a duty in us, to doe that which we are sent for, by his Word, and his Sacraments, to establish you in his holy obedience, and his rich, and honourable service. And then our duty consists in both these, that we behave our selves, as your husband, which implies a power, an authority; but a power and authority rooted in love, and exercised with love; and then that we doe all as brothers to the former husband, that as one intentation of this law was, that inheritances, and temporall proprieties might be preserved, so our care might be through predecessor, and successor, and all, that all rights might be preserved to all men, that nothing not due, or due onelyonly in rigor, be extorted from the people, nothing that is in truth, or in equity due, be with-held from the Minister; but that the true right of people, and Pastor, and Patron be preserved, to the preservation of love, and peace, and good opinion of one another.
First then, that which we take upon us, is a Mariage. Matrimonium.Amongst the Iews, it was almost an ignominious, an infamous thing, to die unmaried, at least to die without children, being maried. Amongst the gentiles it was so too all well governed States ever enlarged themselves, in giving places of command and profit, to maried men. Indeed such men are most properly said to keep this world in reparations, that provide a succession of children; and for the next world, though all that are borne into this world, doe not enter into the number of Gods Saints, in heaven, yet the Saints of heaven can be made out of no other materialls, but men borne into this world. Every stone in the quarry is not sure to be imployed in the building of the church, but the Church must be built out of those stones; and therefore they keep this world, they keep heaven it selfe in reparation, that mary in the feare of God, and in the same feare bring up the children of such a mariage. But I presse not this too literally, nor over perswasively, that every man is bound to Mary; God is no accepter of persons, nor of conditions. But being to use these words in their figurative application, I say, every man is bound to marry himselfe to a profession, to a calling: God hath brought him from being nothing, by creating him, but he resolves himselfe into nothing againe, if he take no calling upon him. In our Baptisme we make our contract with God, that we will believe all those Articles there recited; there's our contract with hi…; and then, pursuing this contract, in the other Sacrament, when we take his body and his blood, we are maried to him. So at the same time, at our Baptisme, we make a contract in the presence of God, and his congregation with the world; that we wil forsake the covetous desires of the world, that is, the covetous proprieting of all things to our selves, the covetous living onelyonly for our selves, there's our contract with the world, that we will mutually assist, and serve our brethren in the world; and then, when we take particular callings, by which we are enabled to perform that former contract, then we are maried to the world; so every man is duly contracted to the world, in Baptisme, and lawfully maried to the world in accepting a profession. And so this service of ours to the Church is our mariage.
Now in a Matrioniall state,Onus. there is onus and Honos, a burden to be born, an Honour to be received. The burden of the sinnes of the whole world, was a burden onelyonly for Christs shoulders; but the sinnes of this Parish, willly upon my shoulders, if I be silent, or if I be indulgent, and denounce not Gods Judgement upon those sinnes. It will be a burden to us, if we doe not, and God knowes it is a burden to us, when be do denounce those Judgements. Esay felt, and groned under this burden, when he cried Onus Babylonis Onus Moab, and Onus Damasci, O the burden of Babylon, and the burden of Damscus, and so the other Prophets grone often under this burden, in contemplation of other places: It burdened, it troubled, it grieved the holy Prophets of God, that they must denounce Gods judgements, though upon Gods enemies. We reade of a compassionate Generall, that looking upon his great Army, from a hill, fell into a bitter weeping, upon this consideration, that in fiftie or sixtie years hence, there will not be a man of these that fight now, alive upon the earth. What Sea could furnish mine eyes with teares enough, to poure out, if I should think, that of all this Congregation, which lookes me in the face now, I should not meet one, at the Resurrection, at the right hand of God! And for so much as concerns me, it is all one, if none of you be saved, as if none of you be saved by my help, my means, my assistance, my preaching. If I put you upon miraculous wayes, to be saved without hearing, or upon extraordinary wayes to be saved by hearing others, this shall aggravate my condemnation, though you be saved: How much more heavy must my burden be, if by my negligence both I and you perish too? So then this calling, this marriage, is a burden every way. When at any midnight I heare a bell toll from this steeple, must not I say to my selfe, what have I done at any time for the instructing or rectifying of that mans Conscience, who lieth there now ready to deliver up his own account, and my account to Almighty God? If he be not able to make a good account, he and I are in danger, because I have not enabled him; and though he be for himself able, that delivers not me, if I have been no instrument for the doing of it. Many, many burdens lie upon this calling, upon this marriage; but our recompense is, that marriage is as well an honourable as a painefull calling.
If be a Father, where is mine Honour, Honos. Malac. 1. 6.faith God: If you can answer God, why, you have it in your Prophets, They have it, that satisfieth him, that dischargeth you. For, he that receiveth them, receiveth him: But if Christ, who repeats that complaint, in every one of us, That a Prophet hath no honour in his own Countrie, that a Pastor is least respected of his own stock, you have not your Quctus est, for the honour due to God; God never discharges the honour due to him, if it be not paid into their hands, whom he sendeth for it, to them upon whom he hath directed it. Would the King believe that man, to honour him, that violateth his Image, or that calumniateth his Ambassadour? Every man is the Image of God; every Creature is the Ambassadour of God; The Heavens, (and as well as the Heavens, the Earth) declare the glory of God; but the Civill Magistrate, and the Spirituall Paster, who have married the two Daughters of God, The state and the Church, are the Images and Ambassadours of God, in a higher and more peculiar sense, and for that marriage are to be honoured. And then Honour implieth that, by which Honour subsisteth, maintenance; and they which withdraw that injuriously, or with-hold that contentiously, dishonour God, in the dishonour of his servants, and so make this marriage, this calling onelyonly burdensome and not honourable.
So then the interest of your particular Minister, and the particular Church, being such as between Man and Wife, a marriage, we consider the uses of marriage in Gods first intention, and apply them to this marriage. Gods first intentions in marriage were two. In adjutorium, for mutuall helpers, and in prolem, for procreation, and education of Children. For both these are we made Husbands of Churches; in prolem, to assist in the regeneration of Children, for the inheritance of Heaven; and in adjutorium, to be helpers to one another. And therefore if the husband, the Pastor, put the wife, his flock in a circumcision, to pare themselves to the quick, to take from their necessary means to sustain their families, to satisfie him; the wife will say as Zipporah said to Moses, spon… sus sanguinum, a bloudy husband art thou, that exactest and extortest more then is due, In that case the Husband is no helper. But if we be alwayes ready to help your children over the threshold, (as Saint Augustine calls Baptisme, Limen Ecclesiae) alwayes ready to Baptize the Children; if we be alwayes ready to help you in all your spirituall diseases, to that Cordiall, that Balsamum, the body and bloud of Christ Iesus; If we be alwayes ready to help you in all your bodily distresses, ready even at your last gasp to open your eyes then, when your best friends are ready to close them; ready to deliver your souls into the hands of God, when all the rest about you are ready to receive into their hands, that which you leave behinde you, and then ready to lay up the garments of your soules, your bodies, in the wardrobe the grave, till you call for them, and put them on again, in the resurrection, then are we truely helpers, true husbands; and then if the Wife will say, as Iobs wife to the husband, Curse God and die, be sorry, that thou hast taken this Profession upon thee, and live in penury, and die in povertie. In a word, if he presse too much, if she withdraw too much, this frustrates Gods purpose in making that a marriage; they are not mutuall helpers to one another. These were Gods two principall intentions in marriage, in adjutorium, in prolem. But then mans fall induced a third, in remedium, That for a remedy against burning, and to avoid fornication, every man should have his own wife, every woman her own husband. And so in remedium, for a remedy against spirituall fornication, of running after other men in other places, out of disaffection to their own Pastor, or over affecting another, God hath given every wife, her own husband, Every Church her own Pastor. And to all these purposes, our function is a marriage.
It is a marriage,Defuncti. it deserves the honour, it undertakes the burden of that state; and then it is a marriage of a widow, Levit. 21. 13.of a Church left in widow-hood by the death of her former husband. In the Law literally God forbad the High Priest to marry a widdow. The Romane Church continues that literally, and more; they extend it; that which was in figure, enjoined to the High Priest onelyonly, they in fact extend to all Priests; no man that ever married a widow, may be a priest, though she be dead, when he desires orders. There is no question but there is a more exemplary sanctity required in the Priest, then in other persons, and more in those, who are in high places in the Church, then in those of inferiour Jurisdictions, and the name and title of Virginity, hath ever been exhibited as an Embleme, as a Type of especiall Sanctity. And as such the Apostle uses it when he saith,2 Cor. 11. 2. That he would present the Church of Corinth, as a chaste Virgine to Christ; That is, as chaste as a Virgin, though married, for so he saith in the words immediately before, That he had espoused them to a husband: As marriage is an honourable state, though in poverty, so is the bed undefiled with strange lust, a chaste bed even in marriage. And in the accommodation of the Figure to the present occasion, our marriage to severall Churches, If we might marry no widowes, (no Churches, which had been wives to former husbands) we should finde few Virgins, that is, Churches newly erected for us. But when the wife of a former husband is left a widow, Nubat in Domino, saith the Apostle,1 Cor. 7. ult. In Gods name let her marry.
But the former husband must be dead: The husbands absence makes not the wife a widow; nor doth the necessary, and lawfull absence of the Pastor, make the Church vacant. The sicknesse of the husband makes not a widow; The bodily weaknesse nay the spirituall weaknes of the Pastor in case that his parts and abilities, and faculties, be grown but weak, do not make his Church vacant. If the Pastor be suspended, or otherwise censured, this is but as a separation, or as a divorce; and as the wife is not a widow, upon a divorce, so neither is the Church vacant, upon such censures. And therefore for them that take advantages upon the weaknesses, or upon the disgrace, or upon the povertie of any such incumbent, and so insinuate themselves into his Church, this is intrusion, this is spirituall adultery, for the husband is not dead, though he be sick. Nay if they would remove him by way of preferment, Gen. 25. 26.yet that is a supplantation; when Iacob had Esau by the heel, whether he kept him in, till he might be strong enough to goe out before him, or whether he pushed him out, before he would have gone, Iacob was a supplanter. Some few cases are put when a wife becomes as a widow, her husband living; but regularly it is by death. In some few cases, Churches may otherwise be vacant, but regularly it is by death. And then Esto vidua in Dom… Patris, saith Iudah to Thamar, Remain a widow at thy fathers house: Then the Church remaineth in the house,Gen. 38. 11. in the hands of her Father, the Bishop of that Di…ces, till a new husband be lawfully tendred unto her: And till that time, as our Saviour Christ recommended his most blessed Mother, to Saint Iohn, but not as a wife, so that Bishop delivers that Church, to the care and administration of some other during her widowhood, till by due course she become the wife of another.
Thus our calling is a mariage; It should have honour; It must have labour; and it is a lawfull mariage upon a just and equitable vacancy of the place,Fratris. without any supplantation; upon death; And then it is upon death of a brother, If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no childe, the wife, &c. Aswell Saint Gregory, Gregor.as Saint Augustine before, interpret this of our elder, our eldest brother Christ Iesus. Aug.That hee being dead, we mary his wife, the Church, and become husbands to her. But Christ, in that capacity, as he is head of the Church, cannot die. That to which, the application of this law, leads us, is, That predecessor, and successor, bee brethren of the same faith, and the same profession of faith. The Sadduces put a case to Christ of a woman maried successively to seven men; let seven signifie infinite; still those seven were brethren. How often soever any wife change her husband, any Church, her Pastor, God sends us still a succession of brethren, sincere, and unfeigned Preachers of the same truth, sonnes of the same father; Who is that father? God is our Father;Mal. 2. 10. Have we not all one Father, Iob 38. 28.says the Prophet? Yes, we have, and so a worme, and we, are brethren, by the same father, and mother, the same God, the same Earth. Hath not the raine a father? The raine hath; and the same that wee have. More narrowly, and yet very largely, Christ is our father; One of his names is, The everlasting Father; Esa. 9. 6.And then after these, after God, after Christ, the King is our father;1 Sam. 24. 11. See, my father, the skirt of thy robe, in my hand, says David to his King Saul; Now if any husband should be offered to any widow, any Pastor to any vacant Church, who were not our brother by all these fathers, in a right beliefe in God, the Father of all men, in a right profession of Christ Iesus, the Father of all Christians, in a right affection, and allegiance to the King, the Father of all Subjects, Bellarmin.Any that should incline to a forain father, an imaginary universall father, he of whom his Vice-fathers, his Junior fathers, the Iesuites (for all the Jesuits are Fathers) says, That the Fathers of the Church are but sons, and not fathers, to him; They that say to a stock, to the Image of the beast) Thou art my father, who, (not in a sense of humiliation, as Iob speaks the words) but of pride, say to corruption, Thou art my father, Ier. 2. 27.that is, that prostrate themselves to all the corruptions of a prostitute Church:Iob 17. 14. If any so inclined of himself, or so inclinable if occasion should invite him, or rather tempt him, be offered for husband to any widow, for a Pastor to any vacant Church, he is not within the accommodation of this law, hee is not our brother, by the whole bloud, who hath not a brotherhood rooted in the same religion, and in the allegiance to the same Soveraign.
He must be a brother,Cohabitans. and Frater Cohabitans, a brother dwelling with the former brother. As he is a brother, we consider the unity of faith: As he dwels in the same house, we consider the unity of discipline; That as he beleeves, and professes the same articles of faith, so by his own obedience, and by his instructing of others, hee establish the same government; A Schismatique is no more a brother to this purpose, then an Heretique. If we look well, we shall see, that Christ provided better for his garments, then for his flesh; he suffered his flesh to be torn, but not his seamlesse garment. There may bee, in many cases, more mischief, in disobeying the uniformity of the discipline of the Church then in mistaking in opinion, some doctrine of the Church. Wee see in Gods institution of his first Church, whom he called brethren: 1 Chron. 5. 27.Those who were instructed, and cunning in the songs of the Church, they are called brethren; To oppose the orders of the Church solemnly ordained, or customarily admitted, for the advancement of Gods glory, and the devotion of the Congregation, forfeits this brotherhood, or at least discontinues the purpose and use of it; for, howsoever they may bee in a kinde, brothers, if they succeed in the profession of the same faith, yet wee see where the blessednesse is settled, Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; And we see,Psal. 84. … 133. 1. where the goodnesse, and the pleasantnesse is settled, Behold, how good, and how pleasant a thing it is, for brethren to dwell together in unity: So that, if they be not brothers in the same faith, and brothers in the same houshold of the faithfull, and brothers in the same allegiance, If they advance not the truth of the Church, and the peace of the Church, and the head of the Church, fomentors of Error, and of Schisme, and Sedition, are not husbands for these widows, Pastors for these Churches.
Hee must bee a brother;Sine liberis. A brother dwelling in the same house of Christ, and then brother to one dead without children, as Tertullian expresses it in his particular elegancy Illiberis; that is, content to be his brother, in that sense, in that capacity, to claime no children, no spirituall children of his own begetting; not to attribute to himself that holy generation of the Saints of God, as though his learning, or his wit, or his labour, had saved them; but to content himselfe to have been the foster father, and to have nursed those children,Ier. 1. 18. whom the Spirit of God, by over-shadowing the Church, hath begot upon her, for, though it be with the word of truth, in our preaching, yet of his own will begot he us, though by the word, says the Apostle. Saint Paul might say to the Corinthians, 1. 4. 15.Though you have tenne thousand instructors in Christ, yet have yee not many fathers, for in Christ Iesus I have begotten you through the Gospel; And hee might say of his spirituall sonne Onesimus, Phil. 10.That he begot him in his bonds; Those, to whom he first of any presented the Gospel, That had not heard of a Christ, nor a holy Ghost, before, They, into whom, he infused a new religion, new to them, might well enough bee called his children, and hee their father; But we have no new doctrine to present, no new opinion to infuse, or miracles to amaze, as in the Romane Church, they are full of all these:1 Cor. 1. 13. 3. 6. wee have no children to beget of our own: Paul was not crucified for you, nor were you baptized in the name of Paul, sayes Paul himself; as he sayes again, who is Paul? but a Minister by whom ye beleeved, and that also not by him, but as the Lord gave to every man; Not as Paul preached to every man, for he preached alike to every man; but as the Lord gave to every man; I have planted, says he, it is true, but he that planteth is nothing, says he also; Only they that proceed, as they proceed in the Romane Church Ex opere operato, to tye the grace of God, to the action of the man, will venter to call Gods children, their children in that sense. My prayer shal be against that commination, That God will not give us a miscarrying womb, nor dry breasts; Hose. 9. 14.that you may always suck pure milk from us, and then not cast it up, but digest it, to your spirituall growth; And I shall call upon God with a holy passion,Gen. 30. 1. as vehement as Rachels to Iacob, Da mihi liberos, give me children, or I die: That God would give me children, but his children; that he by his Spirit, may give you an inward regeneration, as I, by his ordinance shall present to you, the outward means, that so being begot by himselfe, the father of life, and of light, you may be nursed, and brought up, in his service by me. That so, not attributing the work to any man, but to Gods Ordinances, you doe not tye the power of God, nor the breath of life, to any one mans lips, as though there were no regeneration, no begetting, but by him; but acknowledging the other to be but an instrument, and the weakest to be that, you may remember also, That though a man can cut deeper with an Axe, then with a knife, with a heavy, then with a lighter instrument; yet God can pierce as far into a conscience, by a plain, as by an exquisite speaker.
Now this widow being thus maried, This Church thus undertaken, He must perform the duty of a husbands brother: Ille.First, it is a personall office, he must doe it himself. When Christ shall say, at the Judgement, I was naked, and ye cloathed me not, sick, and ye visited me not, Mat. 25. 43.it shall be no excuse to say, When saw we thee naked, when saw we thee sick? for wee might have seen it, wee should have seen it. When we shall come to our accompt, and see them, whose salvation was committed to us, perish, because they were uninstructed, and ignorant, dare we say then, we never saw them, show their ignorance, wee never heard of it? That is the greatest part of our fault, the heaviest weight upon our condemnation, that we saw so little, heard so little, conversed so little amongst them, because we were made watchmen, and bound to see, and bound to hear, and bound to be heard; not by others, but by our selves; My sheep may be saved by others; but I save them not, that are save so, nor shall I my self be saved by their labour, where mine was necessarily required.
The office is personall, I must doe it, and it is perpetuall, Perpetuall.I must perform it, sayes the text, goe through with it. Lots wife looked backe, and God never gave her leave to look forward again.Luke 9. 62. 3. 3. That man who hath put his hand to the plow, and looks back, Christ disables him for the kingdome of God. The Galatians who had begun in the spirit, and then relapsed, before whose eyes Christ Iesus had been evidently set forth, as the Apostle speaks, fall under that reproach of the Apostle, to bee called, and called againe, fooles, and men bewitched. If I beginne to preach, amongst you, and proceed not, I shall fall under that heavy increpation from my God, you beganne, that you might for your owne glory, shew that you were in some measure, able to serve the Church, and when you had done enough for your own glory, you gave over my glory, and the salvation of their souls, to whom I sent you. God hath set our eyes in our foreheads, to look forward, not backward, not to be proud of that which we have done, but diligent in that which we are to doe. In the Creation, if God had given over his worke, the third, or fift day, where had man been? If I give over my prayers, due to the Church of God, as long as God enables me to doe it service, I lose my thanks, nay, I lose the testimony of mine own conscience for all. My office is personall, and it is perpetuall, and then it is a duty.Duty. He must perform the duty of a husbands brother unto her.
It is not of curtesie, that we preach, but it is a duty, it is not a bounty given, but it is a debt paid: for, though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for a necessity is laid upon me, sayes Saint Paul himself. It is true,1 Cor. 9. 16. that as there is Vae si non, Wo be unto mee, if I doe not preach the Gospel, Mat. 25. 21.so there is an Euge bone serve, Well done, good and faithfull servant, to them that doe. But the Vae, is of Iustice, the Euge is of Mercy; If doe it not, I deserve condemnation from God; but if, I doe it, I deserve not thanks from him. Nay, it is a debt, not onelyonly to God, but to Gods people, to you: and indeed there is more due to you, then you can claime, or can take knowledge of. For the people can claime but according to the laws of that State, and the Canons of that Church, in which God hath placed them; such preaching, as those Laws, and those Canons enjoyn, is a debt which they can call for: but the Pastor himself hath another Court, another Barre in himselfe, by which hee tries himselfe, and must condemne himselfe, if hee pay not this debt, performe not this duty, as often, as himself, knowes himselfe, to bee fit, and able to doe it.
It is a duty, and it is the duty of an husbands brother. Now the husband hath power, Mariti.and authority over the wife.1 Cor. 11. 3. The head of the woman is the Man; and when the office of this spirituall husband is particularly expressed,2 Tim. 4. 3. thus, Reprove, Rebuke, Exhort, you see, for one word of familiarity, that is, Exhort, there are two of authority, Reprove, and Rebuke. But yet, all the authority of the husband, secular, or ecclesiasticall, temporall, or spirituall husband, is grounded, rooted in love: for, the Apostle seemes to delight himself, in the repeating of that Commandement, to the Ephesians, and to the Colossians, Husbands love your wives. Moses extends himselfe no farther, in expressing all the happinesses, that Isaak and Rebecca enjoyed in one another, but this, shee become his wife, and he loved her. If shee had not beene his wife, Moses would never have proposed that love for an example; for so it is also betweene Elkanah, and his wife Hannah. 1 Sam. 1. 5.1 Sam. 1. 5. VntoUnto Hannah he gave a double portion, for (sayes the Text) hee loved Hannah. If the Pastor love, there will bee a double labour; if the People love, there will bee double respect. But being so, hee thought hee said all, when he said they loved one another; For where the Congregation loves the Pastor, hee will forbeare bitter reproofes, and wounding increpations, and where the Pastor loves his Congregation, his Rebukes, because they proceed our of love, will bee acceptable, and well interpreted by them.
It is a duty, Fratrisand personall, and perpetuall; a duty, of a husband, and lastly, of a husband that is brother to the former husband; In which last circumstance, we have time to mark but this one note, that the reason of that law, which drew the brother to this mariage, was the preservation of the temporall inheritance, in that family. Even in our spirituall mariages to widow Churches, we must have a care to preserve the temporall rights of all persons; That the Parish be not oppressed with heavy extortions, nor the Pastor defrauded with unjust substraction, nor the Patron damnified by usurpations, nor the Ordinary neglected by disobediences; but that people, and Pastor, and Patron, and Ordinary, continuing in possession of their severall rights, love being the root of all, the fruit of all may be peace, love being the soul of all, the body of all may be unity; which the Lord of unity, and concord, grant to us all, for his Sonne Christ Jesus sake, Amen.