THE
WORKS
VICAR OF WYMESWOLD, LEICESTERSHIRE, AND LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
IN SIX VOLUMES.
SERMON.
PAGE XLI. Matthew iii. 17 228 XLII. Revelations iv. 8 247
LII.
LIII.
LIV.
LVI.
LVII.
PAGE
SERMONS
SERMON XXX.
Also no man can say, that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
WE read1 that in the tribe of Benjamin, which is, by interpreta tion, Filius dextrce, The Son of the right hand, there were seven hundred left-handed men, that could sling stones at a hair's breadth, and not fail. St. Paul was of that tribe; and though he were from the beginning, in the purpose of God, Filius dextrce, A man ordained to be a dexterous instrument of his glory, yet he was for a time a left-handed man, and took sinister ways, and in those ways, a good markman, a laborious and exquisite persecutor of God's church; and therefore it is, that Tertullian says of him, Paulum mihi etiam Genesis olim repromisit, I had a promise of Paul in Moses; then, when Moses said, Jacob blessed Benjamin thus, Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf, in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil*, that is, at the begin ning Paul shall scatter the flock of Christ, but at last he shall gather, and re-unite the nations to his service; as he had breathed threatenings, and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord*, so he became Os orbi sufficiens*, A mouth loud enough for all the world to hear: and as he had drawn and sucked the blood of Christ's mystical body, the church, so, in that proportion that God enabled him to, he recompensed that damage, by effusion of
his own blood, He fulfilled the sufferings of Christ, in his flesh, as himself says, to the Colossians5 ; and then he bequeathed to all posterity these epistles, which are, as St. Augustine calls them, Ubera ecclesia?, The paps, the breasts, the udders of the church, and which are, as that cluster of grapes of the land of Canaan6, which was borne by two; for here, every couple, every pair, may have their load, Jew and Gentile, learned and ignorant, man and wife, master and servant, father and children, prince and people, counsel and client, how distinct soever they think their callings to be towards the world, yet here every pair must equally submit their necks to this sweet and easy yoke, of confessing Jesus to be the Lord, and acknowledging that confession to proceed from the working of the Holy Ghost, for No man can say, that Jesus is the Lord, 'without the Holy Ghost.
In which words, these shall be the three things, that we will consider now; first, the general impotency of man, in spiritual duties, nemo potest, no man can do this, no man can do anything; secondly, how, and what those spiritual duties are expressed to be; it is a profession of Jesus to be the Lord, to say it, to declare it; and thirdly, the means of repairing this natural impotency, and rectifying this natural obliquity in man, that man by the Holy Ghost may be enabled to do this spiritual duty, to profess sin cerely Jesus to be the Lord. In the first we shall see first, the universality of this flood, the generality of our loss in Adam, nemo, none, not one, hath any, any power; which notes their blasphemy, that exempt any person from the infection of sin: and secondly, we shall see the impotency, the infirmity, where it lies, it is in homine, no man; which notes their blasphemy, that say, man may be saved by his natural faculties, as he is.man: and thirdly, by just occasion of that word, potest, he can, he is able, we shall see also the laziness of man, which, though he can do nothing effectually and primarily, yet he does not so much as he might do; and in those three, we shall determine our first part. In the second, what this spiritual duty, wherein we are all so impotent, is, it is first, an outward act, a profession; not that an outward act is enough, but that the inward affection alone is not enough neither; to think it, to believe it, is not enough, but
we must say it, profess it: and what? why, first, that Jesus is; not only assent to the history, and matter-of-fact, that Jesus was, and did all that is reported, and recorded of him, but that he is still that which he pretended to be; Csesar is not Caesar still, nor Alexander, Alexander; but Jesus is Jesus still, and shall be for ever. This wTe must profess, that he is; and then, that he is the Lord; he was not sent hither as the greatest of the prophets, nor as the greatest of the priests; his work consists not only in having preached to us, and instructed us, nor in having sacrificed himself, thereby to be an example to us, to walk in those ways after him; but he is Lord, he purchased a dominion, he bought us with his blood, he is Lord; and lastly, he is the Lord, not only the Lord paramount, the highest Lord, but the Lord, the only Lord, no other hath a lordship in our souls, no other hath any part in the saving of them, but he: and so far we must neces sarily enlarge our second consideration. And in the third part, which is, that this cannot be done but by the Holy Ghost, we shall see, that in that but, is first implied an exclusion of all means but one; and therefore that one must necessarily be hard to be compassed, the knowledge and discerning of the Holy Ghost, is a difficult thing; and yet, as this but hath an exclusion of all means but one, so it hath an inclusion, an admission, an allowance of that one, it is a necessary duty; nothing can effect it, but the having of the Holy Ghost, and therefore the Holy Ghost may be had: and in those two points, the hardness of it, and the possibility of it, will our last consideration be employed. For the first branch of the first part, The generality, that reaches to us all, and to us all over; to all our persons, and to all our faculties; Perdidimus per peccatum, bonum possibilitatis, says St. Augustine, We have lost our possession, and our possi bility of recovering, by Adam's sin. Adam at his best had but a possibility of standing; we are fallen from that, and from all possibility of rising by any power derived from him: we have not only by this fall broke our arms, or our legs, but our necks; not ourselves, not any other man can raise us; everything hath in it, as physicians use to call it, Naturale balsamum, A natural balsamum, which, if any wound or hurt which that creature
hath received, be kept clean from extrinsic putrefaction, will heal of itself. We are so far from that natural balsamum, as that we have a natural poison in us, original sin: for that, original sin, (as it hath relation to God, as all sin is a violating of God) God being the God of mercy, and the God of life, because it deprives us of both those, of mercy, and of life, in opposition to mercy, it is called anger and wrath, ( We are all by nature the children of wrath'1) and in opposition to life, it is called death, Death enters by sin, and death is gone over all men* ; and as original sin hath relation to our souls, it is called that indelible foulness, and uncleanness which God discovers in us all, (Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord9) and which every man finds in himself, as Job did, If I wash myself in snow-water, and purge my hands never so clean, yet my own clothes shall make me filthy10. As it hath relation to our bodies, so it is not only called lex carnis, a law which the flesh cannot disobey, and lex in membris, a law written and imprinted naturally in our bodies, and insepa rably inherent there, but it is a law that hath got posse comitatus, all our strength, and munition into her own hands, all our powers, and faculties to execute her purposes against us, and (as the apostle expresses it fully) Hath force in our members, to bring forth fruits unto death11.
Consider our original weakness, as God looks upon it, so it is inexcusable sin; consider it, as our souls suffer by it, so it is an indelible foulness; consider it as our bodies contribute to it, and harbour it, and retain it, and so it is an unquenchable fire, and a brand of hell itself; it hath banished me out of myself, It is no more I that do anything, but sin that dwelleth in me: it doth not only dwell, but reign in these mortal bodies; not only reign, but tyrannise, and lead us captives under the law of sin, which is in our members12. So that we have utterly lost bonum possibilitatis, for as men, we are out of all possibility, not only of that victo rious, and triumphant gratulation and acclamation to ourselves, as for a delivery, / thank God through Jesus Christ13, but we
cannot come to that sense of our misery, as to cry out in the apostle's words, immediately preceding, 0 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Now as this death hath invaded every part and faculty of man, understanding, and will, and all, (for though original sin seem to be contracted without our will, yet Sicut omnium natura, ita omnium voluntates fuere oric/inaliter in Adam, says St. Augustine, As the whole nature of mankind, and so of every particular man, wras in Adam, so also were the faculties, and so the will of every particular man in him) so this death hath invaded every parti cular man; death went over all men, forasmuch as all men had sinned. And therefore they that do blasphemously exempt some persons from sin, they set them not above the law, but without the law: they outlaw them, in taking from them the benefit of the new law, the Gospel, and of the author of that law, Christ Jesus, who came a physician to the sick, and was sent only to save sinners; for them that are none, it is well that they need no Redeemer, for if they did, they could have no part in ours, for he carne only to redeem sinners, and they are none. God brought his Son out of Egypt, not out of Goshen in Egypt; not out of a privileged place in Egypt, but out of Egypt; God brought his Son Christ Jesus out of the Virgin Mary without sin, but he brought not her so, out of her mother. If they might be believed that the blessed Virgin, and John Baptist, and the prophet Jeremy were without all sin, they would go about at last to make us believe, that Ignatius were so too. For us, in the highest of our sanctification, still let us press with that, Dimitte nobis debita nostra, 0 Lord forgive us our trespasses, and confess that we needed forgiveness, even for the sins which we have not done; Dimissa fateor, et qua? mea sponte fed, et quw te duce, non fed, says St. Augustine, I confess I need thy mercy, both for the sins which I have done, and for those, which if thy grace had not restrained me, I should have done. And therefore if another think he hath escaped those sins that I have committed, non me derideat ab eo medico ajgrum sanari, a quo ei prcestitum ne wgrotaret; let him not despise me, who am recovered, since it is the same physician who hath wrought upon us both, though by a diverse method, for he hath preserved him, and he hath recovered
me: for, for himself, we say still with the same father, Perdiderat bonum possibilitatis, As well he as I, had lost all possibility of standing, or rising after our fall.
This was our first branch, The universal impotency; and our second is, That this is in homine, in man, no man (as man) can make this profession, That Jesus is the Lord: and therefore we consider first, wherein, and how far man is disabled. In every age, some men have attributed to the power of nature, more than a natural man can do, and yet no man doth so much as a natural man might do. For the over-valuing of nature, and her power, there are impressions in the fathers themselves, which (whether misunderstood by the readers, or by the authors) have led and prevailed much. When Justin Martyr says, Ratio pro fide Greeds et barbaris, That rectified reason did the same office in the Gentiles, as faith did in the Christians; when Clement says, Philosophia per sese justificavit Grcecos, That the Gentiles to whom the law and the Gospel was not communicated, were justified by their philosophy; when Chrysostom says, Satis fuit Gentibus abstinuisse ab idololatria, It was sufficient for the Gentiles, if they did not worship false gods, though they under stood not the true; when St. Augustine says, Eecte fads, nihil quwrere amplius, quam quod docet ratio, He doth well that seeks no farther, than his reason leads them, these impressions in the fathers have transported later men farther; so far, as that Andradius in the Roman church, saves all honest philosophers, that lived morally well without Christ: and Tostatus takes all impe diments out of their way, that original sin is absolutely remitted to them, Inprima bona operatione incharitate, In their first good moral work that they do. So that they are in an easier way than we, who are but Christians; for in the opinion of Tostatus himself, and that whole church, we cannot be delivered from original sin, but by baptism; nothing less than a sacrament would deliver us from original sin, and any good work shall deliver any of the Gentiles so disposed.
In all ages, in all churches, there have been men, who have been ingrati gratice, as St. Augustine calls them, that have been unthankful to the grace of God, and attributed that to nature, which belonged to grace. But we have an universal conclusion]
God hath made of one blood all mankind14, and no man can adopt himself into the family of God; man is excluded, and all power in man, and all assistance from man; neither your own reason, nor the reason of your masters, whom you rely upon, can raise you to this knowledge: for, jEgyptus homo, non deus, The Egyp tians are men, and not gods, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit; and ivhen the Lord shall stretch out his hand, the helper shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall, and they shall fall together1*. The atheist and all his philosophy, helper and he that is holpen, horse and man, nature and art, reason mounted and advanced upon learning, shall never be able to leap over, or break through this wall, no man, no natural man can do anything towards a supernatural work.
This was our second branch, That too much is ordinarily attri buted by man to man, and our third is, That too little is done by any man, and that is worse than the other. When Nebuchad nezzar had made his image of gold of sixty cubits, it had been a madness in him, not to have celebrated the dedication thereof, with all the pomp, and solemnity that he did: to have gone so far, and not to have made it serve his farther uses, had been a strange impertinence. So is it a strange contemplation, to see a man set up a golden image, to attribute even a divinity to our nature, and to imagine it to be able to do, whatsoever the grace of God can do, and yet with this angelical nature, with this celestial soul, to contribute less to the glory of God, than an ant, or a plant, or a stone. As the counsel of the philosopher Epictetus directs thee, if thou take any new action in hand, consider what Socrates would do in that case; that is, dispose thyself therein, according to the example, and precedent of some wise man: so if thou wilt take this new action in hand, (that which is new, but should be ordinary unto thee) if thou wilt take a view of thy sins that are past, do but consider, if ever thou didst any sin, which Socrates, or Seneca would not have forborne. And what soever thou seest another can do, by the power of that reason, and that persuasion which thou art able to minister, who are not able to infuse faith, nor inspire grace into him, but must work by thy reason, and upon his reason, why shouldest thou not be as powerful upon thyself, and as strong in thine own behalf, and obey that counsel from thyself, which thou thinkest another man mad, if he do not obey, when thou givest it? Why shouldest thou pretend reason, why another should forbear any particular sin, and not present that reason to thyself, or not obey it? To love the Scrip tures of God better than any other book; to love the house of God better than any other court; to love the communion of saints better than any other conversation; to study to know the revealed will of God, rather than the secrets of any princes; to consider the direct purposes of God against his enemies, rather than the sinister supplantations of pretenders to places in court; briefly, to read, to hear, to believe the Bible, is a work within the ability of nature, within the power of a moral man.
He that attributes more to nature, he that allows her any abi lity of disposing herself beforehand, without prevention of grace, or concurrence and co-operation after, without continual assist ance of particular graces, he sets up an idol, and magnifies nature beyond that which appertains unto her. But he that goes not so far as this, that the reason of man, and his natural faculties, are the instruments and organs that God works in by his grace, howsoever he may in discourse and in argument exalt nature, howsoever he may so give too much to her, yet he does not so much with her, as he might do: he hath made her a giant, and then, as though he were afraid of her, he runs away from her: he will not do that which is in his power, and yet he thinks it is in his power to repent when he lists, and when he lists to apply the merits of Christ to himself, and to do all those duties which are implied in our next part, To say that Jesus is the Lord.
In this, our first duty is an outward act, dicer ~e, to profess Christ Jesus. Non erubesco, says St. Paul, / am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, for it is the power of God unto salva tion10: and Qui erubuerit, says Christ, Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my word, of kirn shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in glory ^ . This is a necessary duty, but is it the duty of this place? for here it is not non vult, but non potest: not that he is loath to profess Jesus, but that he is not able to do it. We see that some could say that, and say it aloud,
preach it, and yet without the Holy Ghost; Some (says the apostle) preach Christ through envy and strife, supposing to add more afflictions unto my bands™. Which may well he, that some Jews and Gentiles, to exasperate the state against Paul, fained themselves also to be converted to his religion, because when they had made him odious by drawing off others, they who pretended to have been drawn by him, could always save themselves with recanting, and renouncing their new profession: so they could say That Jesus was the Lord, and never mean it. And of those twelve whom Christ chose to preach, Judas was one, of whom Christ says, Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil1*? So that this devil Judas, and that devil that made him a devil, the devil himself, could say as much as this, Jesus I know, and Paul I know™ ; they said it, they cried it, Thou art the Christ, the Son of God*\ and that incessantly, Till Jesus rebuked them, and suffered them not to say, That they knew him to be the Christ.
But besides that, even this confessing of Christ, is not sine omni impulsu Spiritus Sancti, altogether without any motion of the Holy Ghost, (for the Holy Ghost, even in these cases, had a purpose to draw testimonies for Christ, out of the mouths of his adversaries) this is not the professing required here; when Tiberius had a purpose to canonize Christ Jesus, and to admit him into the number of the Roman gods, and to make him beholden to him for that honour, he therefore proposed it to the senate, that so that honour, which Jesus should have, might be derived from him, and when the senate had an inclination of themselves to have done Christ that honour, but yet forbore it, because the intimation came not from themselves, but from the emperor, who still wrought and gained upon their privileges, neither of these, though they meant collaterally and obliquely to do Christ an honour, neither of them did say Jesum dominum, that is, profess Jesus, so as is intended here, for they had their own ends, and their own honours principally in contemplation.
There is at first an open profession of the tongue required; and therefore the Holy Ghost descended in fiery tongues, Et lingua propria Spiritui Sancto, says St. Gregory, The tongue is the
fittest instrument for the Holy Ghost to work upon, and to work by, Qui magnam habet cognationem cum Verbo, says he, The Son of God is the Word, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from him, and because that faith that unites us to God, is expressed in the tongue, howsoever the heart be the centre in which the Holy Ghost rests, the tongue is the sphere, in which he moves; and therefore, says St. Cyril, As God set the cherubim with a fiery sword, to keep us out of Paradise, so he hath set the Holy Ghost in fiery tongues to let us in again. As long as John Baptist was unborn, Zachary was dumb; when he was born, Zachary spoke; Christ is not born in us, we are not regenerate in him, if we delight not to speak of his wondrous mercies, and infinite good ness to the sons of men; as soon as he is bom in us, his Spirit speaks in us, and by us; in which, our first profession is Jesum esse, that Jesus is, that there is a Jesus.
This is to profess with Esay22, That he is Germen Jekovce, the Bud of the Lord, the blossom of God himself; for this profession is a two-edged sword; for it wounds the Arians on one side, that Jesus is Jehovah, (because that is the name that signifies the very essence of God) and then it wounds the Jews on the other side, because if Jesus be germen Jehovce, the bud, the blossom, the offspring of God, then there is a plurality of Persons, Father and Son in the Godhead. So that it is a compendiary and sum mary abridgement, and catechism of all our religion, to profess that Jesus is, for that is a profession of his everlasting essence, that is, his Godhead. It hath been denied that he was such as he was pretended to be, that is, born of a Virgin; for the first heretics of all, Cerinthus, and Ebion, who occasioned St. John's Gospel, affirmed him to be a mere man, made by ordinary generation, between Joseph and Mary. It hath been denied, that he was such a man, as those heretics allowed him. to be, for Apelles his heresy' was, that he made himself a body out of the elements, as he came down from heaven, through them. It hath been denied that he had any body at all; Cerdon and Marcion, said, That he lived and died but in phantatmate, in appearance, and only in a form and shape of a body assumed; but, in truth, no body, that did live or die, but did only appear, and vanish. It hath been
denied that that body which he had, though a true and a natural body, did suffer, for Basilides said, That when he was led to execution, and that on the way, the cross was laid upon Simon of Gyrene, Christ cast a mist before their eyes, by which they took Simon for him, and crucified Simon, Christ having withdrawn himself invisibly from them, as at other times he had done. It hath been denied, (though he had a true body, and suffered truly therein) that he hath any body now in heaven, or shall return with any, for he that said he made his body of the elements as he came down from heaven, says also that he resolved that body into those elements again, at his return. It hath been denied, that he was, that he is, that he shall be; but this profession, that Jesus is, includes all, for, he of whom that is always true, est, he is, he is eternal, and he that is eternal, is God: this is therefore a profession of the godhead of Christ Jesus.
Now, in the next, as we profess him to be Dominus, a Lord, we profess him to be God and man, we behold him as he is a mixed person, and so made fit to be the Messiah, the anointed High Priest, King of that church, which he hath purchased with his blood, and the anointed king of that kingdom which he hath conquered with his cross. As he is germen Jehovce, the offspring of Jehovah, so he must necessarily be Jehovah; and that is the name, which is evermore translated, The Lord; so also as he is Jehovah, which is the fountain of all essence and of all being, so he is Lord, by his interest, and his concurrence, in our creation; it is a devout exercise of the soul, to consider how absolute a Lord he is, by this title of creation; if the king give a man a creation by a new title, the king before in that man, some vir tuous and fit disposition, some preparation, some object, some subject of his favour. The king gives creations to men, whom the universities, or other societies had prepared; they created persons whom other lower schools had prepared; at lowest, he that deals upon him first, finds a man, begotten and prepared by parents, upon whom he may work. But remember thy Creator that called thee, when thou wast not, as though thou hadst been, and brought thee out of nothing; which is a condition (if we may call it a condition, to be nothing, not to be) farther removed from heaven, than hell itself: who is the Lord of life, and
breathed this life into thee, and swears by that eternal life, which he is, that he would have this life of thine immortal, As I live, saith the Lord, I would not the death of a sinner.
This contemplation of Jesus, as a Lord, by creating us, is a devout, and an humble contemplation; but to contemplate him as Lord by redeeming us, and breeding us in a church, where that redemption is applied to us, this is a devout, and a glorious contemplation. As he is Lord over that which his Father gave him, (his Father gave him all power in heaven and in earth, and omne judicium, his Father put all judgment into his hands, all judiciary and all military power was his; he was Lord Judge, and Lord of Hosts) as he is Lord over his own purchase, Quod acquisixit sanguine, That church which he purchased with his own blood™ : so he is more than the heretics of our time have made him, that he was but sent as a principal prophet to explain the law, and make that clear to us in a Gospel; or as a priest, to sacrifice himself, but not for a ransom, not for a satisfaction, but only for a lively example, thereby to incline us to suffer for God's glory, and for the edification of one another. If we call him Dominum, a Lord, we call him Messiam, Unctum, Regem, anointed with the oil of gladness by the Holy Ghost, to be a cheerful conqueror of the world, and the grave, and sin, and hell, and anointed in his own blood, to be a Lord in the administration of that church, which he hath so purchased. This is to say that Jesus is a Lord; to profess that he is a person so qualified, in his being composed of God and man, that he was able to give suffi cient for the whole world, and did give it, and so is Lord of it.
When we say Jesus est, That Jesus is, there we confess his eternity, and therein, his Godhead: when we say Jesus Dominus, That he is a Lord, therein we confess a dominion which he hath purchased; and when we say Jesum Dominum, so, as that we pro fess him to be the Lord, then we confess a vigilancy, a superintendency, a residence, and a permanency of Christ, in his domi nion, in his church, to the world's end. If he be the Lord, in his church, there is no other that rules with him, there is no other that rules for him. The temporal magistrate is not so lord, as that Christ and he are colleagues, or fellow-consuls, that