Sermon XXXVIII

SERMON XXXVIII.

PREACHED UPON TRINITY SUNDAY.

1 Corinthians xvi. 22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema, Maranatha.

Christ is not defined, not designed by any name, by any word so often, as by that very word, the Word, sermo, speech. In man there are three kinds of speech; sermo innatus, that inward speech, which the thought of man reflecting upon itself, produces within, he thinks something; and then sermo Hlatus, a speech of inference, that speech which is occasioned in him by outward things, from which he draws conclusions, and determines; and lastly, sermo prolatus, that speech by which he manifests himself to other men. We consider also three kinds of speech in God ; and Christ is all three. There is sermo innatus, his eternal, his natural word, which God produced out of himself, which is the generation of the second Person in the Trinity; and then there is sermo Hlatus, his word occasioned by the fall of Adam, which is his decree of sending Christ, as a Redeemer; and there is also sermo prolatus, his speech of manifestation and application of Christ, which are his Scriptures. The first word is Christ, the second, the decree, is for Christ, the third, the Scripture, is of Christ. Let the word be Christ, so he is God; let the word be for Christ, for his coming hither, so he is man; let the word be of Christ, so the Scriptures make this God and man ours. Now if in all these, if any of these apprehensions, any man love not th« Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema, Maranatha.

By most of those, who, from the perverseness of heretics, hare taken occasion to prove the deity of Christ, this text hath been cited ; and therefore I take it now, when in my course proposed, I am to speak of the second Person in the Trinity; but, (as I said of the first Person in the Trinity, the Father) not as in the school hut in the church, not in a chair, but in a pulpit, not to a congregation that required proof, in a thing doubted, but edification, upon a foundation received; not as though any of us would dispute, whether Jesus Christ were the Lord, but that all of us would join in that excommunication, If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be, &c. Let this then be the frame that this exercise shall stand upon. We have three parts; the Person upon whom our religious worship is to be directed, the Lord Jesus Christ: and secondly, we have the expression and the limitation of that worship, as far as it is expressed here, Love the Lord Jesus Christ: and lastly, we have the imprecation upon them that do not, If any man do not, let him be anathema, maranatha. In the first we have verbum naturale, verbum innatum, as he is the essential word, the Lord, a name proper only to God; and then verbum conceptum, verbum illatum, God's decree upon consideration of man's misery, that Christ should be a Redeemer, for to that intent he is Christus, anointed to that purpose; and lastly, Verbum prolatum, verbum manifestatum, that this Christ becomes Jesus, that this decree is executed, that this Person thus anointed for this office, is become an actual Saviour; so the Lord is made Christ, and Christ is made Jesus. In the second part we shall find another argument for his Deity, for there is such a love required towards the Lord Jesus Christ, as appertains to God only; and lastly, we shall have the indeterminable and indispensable excommunication of them, who though they pretend to love the Lord, (God in an universal notion) yet do not love the Jesus Christ, God, in this apprehension of a Saviour; and, If any man love not, &c.

First then, in the first branch of the first part, in the name of our Saviour, the Lord, we apprehend the eternal Word of God, the Son of God, the second Person in the Trinity: for, he is Persona producta, begotten by another, and therefore cannot be the first; and he is Persona spirans, a Person out of whom, with the Father, another Person, that is, the Holy Ghost proceeds, and therefore cannot be the last Person, and there are but three, and so he necessarily the second. Shall we hope to comprehend this by reason ? Quid magni haberet Dei generatio, si angustiis intellectu s tui comprehenderetur¹? How small a thing were this mystery of heaven, if it could be shut in, in so narrow a piece of the earth, as thy heart ? Qui tuam ipsius generationem vel in totum neecis, vel dicere sit pudor*, Thou that knowest nothing of thine own begetting, or art ashamed to speak that little that thou dost know of it, wilt thou not be ashamed to offer to express the eternal generation of the Son of God ? It is true, de modo, how it was done, our reason cannot, but de facto, that it was done, our reason may be satisfied. Wo believe nothing with a moral faith, till something have wrought upon our reason, and vanquished that, and made it assent and subscribe. Our divine faith requires evidence too, and hath it abundantly; for the works of God are as not so good evidence to my reason, as the word of God is to my faith; the sun shining is not so good a proof that it is day, as the word of God, the Scripture is, that that which is commanded there, is a duty. The root of our belief that Christ is God, is in the Scriptures, but we consider it spread into three branches, 1, The evident word itself, that Christ is God; 2, The real declaration thereof in his manifold miracles; 3, The conclusions that arise to our understanding, thus illumined by the Scriptures, thus established by his miracles.

In every mouth, in every pen of the Scriptures, that delivers any truth, the Holy Ghost speaks, and therefore whatsoever is said by any there, is the testimony of the Holy Ghost, for the Deity of Christ. And from the Father we have this testimony, that he is his Son, This is my beloved Son^*, and this testimony that his Son is God, Unto his Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever *. The Holy Ghost testifies, and his Father,

¹ Nazianzen. * Nazianzen.

⁰ Matt. lii. ult. ⁴ Heb. i. 8.

and himself; and his testimony is true, / am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, which wos, and which is to come, the Almighty*. He testifies with his Father; and then, their angels and his apostles testify with him, / Jesus have sent mine angels, to testify unto you these things in the church, That I am the root, and the offspring of David*, not the offspring only, but the root too, and therefore was before David. God and his angels in heaven testify it, and visible angels upon earth, his apostles, God hath purchased his church, with his own blood¹, says St. Paul; he who shed his blood for his church, was God ; and no false God, no mortal God, as the gods of the nations were, but, This is the true God, and eternal life*; and then, no small God, no particular God, as the gods of the nations were too, but, We look for the glorious appearing of our great God, our Saviour Christ Jesus*: God, that is, God in all the persons, angels, that is, angels in all their acceptations, angels of heaven, angels of the church, angels excommunicate from both, the fallen angels, devils themselves, testify his Godhead, Unclean spirits fell down before him, and cried, Thou art the Son of God".

This is the testimony of his word ; the testimony of his works, are his miracles. That his apostles did miracles in his name, was a testimony of his Deity. His name, through faith in his name, hath made this man strong^", says St. Peter, at the raising of the cripple. But that he did miracles in his own name, by his own power, is a nearer testimony ; Blessed be the Lord God of IsraelTM, says David, Qui facit mirabilia solus, which doth his miracles alone, without deriving any power from any other, or without using any other instrument for his power. For, Mutare naturam, nisi qui Dominus naturce est, non potest¹⁸: Whosoever is able to change the course of nature, is the Lord of nature; and he that is so, made it; and he that made it, that created it, is God. Nay, it is more to change the course of nature, than to make it; for, in the creation, there was no reluctation of the creature, for there was no creature, but to divert nature out of

her settled course, is a conquest upon a resisting adversary, and powerful in a prescription. The Recedat mare, Let the sea fjo back, and the Sistat sol, Let the sun stand still, met with some kind of opposition in nature, but in the Fiat mare, and fiat sol, Let there be a sea, and a sun, God met with no opposition, no nature, he met with nothing. And therefore, Interrogemus miracula, quid nobis de Christo loquantur", Let us ask his miracles, and they will make us understand Christ; Habent enim si intelligantur, linguam suam, If we understand them, that is, if we would understand them, they speak loud enough, and plain enough. In his miraculous birth of a virgin, in his miraculous disputation with doctors at twelve years of age, in his fasting, in his invisibility, in his walking upon the sea, in hifi re-assuming his body in the resurrection, Christ spoke, in himself, in the language of miracles. So also had they a loud and a plain voice in other men; in his miraculous curing the sick, raising the dead, dispossessing the devil, Christ spoke, in other men, in the language of miracles. And he did so also, as in himself, and in other men, so in other things; in the miraculous change of water into wine, in the drying up of the fig-tree, in feeding five thousand with five loaves, in shutting up the sun in darkness, and opening the graves of the dead to light, in bringing plenty of fish to the net, and in putting money into the mouth of a fish at the angle, Christ spoke in all these creatures, in the language of miracles. So the Scriptures testify of his Deity, and so do his miracles, and so do those conclusions which arise from thence, though we consider but that one, which is expressed in this part of the text, that he is the Lord, If any love not the Lord, &c.

We reason thus, God gives not his glory to others, and his glory is in his essential name, and in his attributes; and to whomsoever he gives them, because they cannot be given from God, he who hath them, is God. Of these, none is so peculiar to him, as the name of Jehovah ; the name, which for reverence, the Jews forbore to sound, and in the room thereof ever sounded, Adonai, and Adonai, is Domimts, the name of this text, The Lord; Christ by being the Lord thus, is Jehovah, and if Jehovah, God. It is Tertullian's observation, JSfc si Pater sit, etdicatur

¹⁴ Augustine.

Dominus, et Filius sit, et dicatur Deus, That though the Father be the Lord, and be called the Lord, and though the Son be God, and be called God, yet, says he, the manner of the Holy Ghost in the New Testament, is, to call the Father God, and the Son the Lord. He is Lord with the Father, as he was con-creator, his colleague in the creation; but for that dominion and lordship which he hath by his purchase, by his passion, Calcamt solns, He trod the wine-press alone, not only no man, but no Person of the Trinity, redeemed us, by suffering for us, but he. For the ordinary appellation of Lord in the New Testament, which is >ivpto<;, it is but a name of civility, not only no name implying Divine worship, but not implying any distinction of rank or degree amongst men. Mary Magdalen speaks of Christ, and speaks to the gardener, (as she thought) and both in one and the same word; it is Kvpto?, Dominus, Lord, to both : when she says, They have taken away my Lord", meaning Christ, and when she says to the gardener, Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, it is the same word too. But all that reaches not to the 'style of this text, The Lord, for here the Lord, is God; and no man can say, that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost". All that was written in the Scriptures, all that was established by miracles, all that is deduced by reason, conduces to this, determines in this, That every tongue should confess, that Jesus Christ is the Lord; in which essential name, the name of his nature, he is first proposed, as the object of our love.

Now this Lord, Lord for ever, is become that which he was not for ever, (otherwise than in a secondary consideration) that is, Christ, which implies a person prepared, and fitted, and anointed to a peculiar office in this world. And can the Lord, the ever-living Lord, the Son of God, the only Son of God, God himself have any preferment I Preferment by an office in this world ? Was it a preferment to Dionysius, who was before in that height over men, to become a schoolmaster over boys; Were it a preferment to the king's son, to be made governor over a bee-hive, or overseer over an ant-hill? And men, nay mankind is no more, not that, not a bee-hive, not an ant-hill, compared to this Person, who being the Lord* would become Christ. As he

¹³ John xx. 15. " 1 Cor. xii. 3.

was the Lord, we considered him as God, and that there is a God, natural reason can comprehend; as he is Christ, we consider him God and man, and such a Person, natural reason (not rooted in the Scriptures, not illustrated by the Scriptures) cannot comprehend ; man will much easilier believe the Lord, that is, God, than Christ, that is, God and man in one person.

Christ then is the style, the title of his office; Non nomen, sed appellatio11, Christ is not his name, but his addition. Unctus significatur, says he et unctus non magis nomen, quam vestitus, calceatus; Christ signifies but anointed, and anointed is no more a name, than apparelled, or shod, is a name: so, as he was apparelled in our flesh, and his apparel dyed red in his own blood, so as he was shod to tread the wine-press for us, so he was Christ. That it is Nomen sacramenti, as St. Augustine calls it, A mystery, is easily agreed to: for all the mysteries of all the religions in the world, are but milk in respect of this bone, but catechisms in respect of this school point, but alphabets in respect of this hard style, God and man in one Person. That it is Nomen sacramenti, as Augustine says, is easy; but that it is Nuncupatio potestatis, as Lactantius calls it, is somewhat strange, that it is an office of power, a title of honour: for the Creator to become a creature, and the Lord of life the object of death, nay the seat of death, in whom death did sojourn three days, can Lactantius call this a declaration of power ? Is this nuncupatio potestatis, a title of honour 1 Beloved, he does, and he may; for it was so : for, it was an anointing; Christus is unctus; and unction was the consecration of priests, Thou shalt take the anointing oil, and pour it upon his headTM. The mitre (as you may see there) was upon his head then ; but then there was a crown upon the mitre ; there is a power above the priest, the regal power; not above the function of the priest, but above the person of the priest; but unction was the consecration of kings too; Samuel saluted Saul with a kiss, and all the people shouted, and said, God save the kingTM; but, Is it not, says Samuel, because the Lord hath anointed thee, to be captain over his inheritance ? Kings were above priests; and in extraordinary cases, God raised prophets above kings; for there is

» Tertullian. " Exod. xxix. 7- " 1 Sam. x. 1 and 24.

no ordinary power above them : but unction was the consecration of these prophets too; Elisha was anointed to be prophet in Elias' room ; and such a prophet as should have use of the sword : Him that scapes the mcord of Hazael, (Hazael was king of Syria) shall the sword of Jehu slay, and him that scapes the sieord of Jehu (Jehu was king of Israel) shall the sword of Elisha slayTM. In all these, in priests who were above the people, in kings, who (in matter of government) were above the priests, in prophets, who (in those limited cases expressed by God, and for that time, wherein God gave them that extraordinary employment) were above kings, the unction imprinted their consecration, they were all Christs, and in them all, thereby, was that nuncupatio potestatis, which Lactantius mentions; unction, anointing was an addition and title of honour: much more in our Christ, who alone was all three ; A priest after the order of Melchizedek"; a king set upon the holy hill of Siou**; and a prophet, The Lord thy God will raise up a prophet, unto him shall ye hearken*^*: and besides all this threefold unction, Humanitas uncta divinitate; he had all the unctions that all the other had, and this, which none other had; in him the humanity was consecrated, anointed with the divinity itself.

So then, Unio unctio**, the hypostatical union of the Godhead to the human nature, in his conception, made him Christ: for, Oleo lcetiticeperfusus in unioneTM, Then, in that union of the two natures, did God anoint him with the oil of gladness above his fellows". There was an addition, something gained, something to be glad of; and, to him, as he was God, the Lord, so nothing could be added; if he were glad above his fellows, it was in that respect wherein he had fellows, and as God, as the Lord, he had none; Bo that still, as he was made man, he became this Christ. In which his being made man, if we should not consider the last and principal purpose, which was to redeem man, if we leave out his part, yet it were object enough for our wonder, and subject enough for our praise and thanksgiving, to consider the dignity, that the nature of man received in that union, wherein this Lord was thus made this Christ, for, the Godhead did not swallow up the manhood ; but man, that nature remained still; the greater kingdom did not swallow the less, but the less had that great addition, which it had not before, and retained the dignities and privileges which it had before too. Christus est nomen personce, non nature^*1, The name of Christ denotes one person, but not one nature : neither is Christ so composed of those two natures, as a man is composed of elements; for man is thereby made a third thing, and is not now any of those elements; you cannot call man's body fire or air, or earth or water, though all four be in his composition : but Christ is so made of God and man, as that he is man still, for all the glory of the Deity, and God still, for all the infirmity of the manhood: Divinum miraculis lucet, humanum contumeliis ajficiturTM: In this one Christ, both appear; the Godhead bursts out, as the sun out of a cloud, and shines forth gloriously in miracles, even the raising of the dead, and the human nature is submitted to contempt and to torment, even to the admitting of death in his own bosom ; sed tamen ipsius sunt tum miracula, tum supplicia, but still, both he that raises the dead, and he that dies himself, is one Christ, his is the glory of the miracles, and the contempt and torment is his too. This is that mysterious Person, who is singularis, and yet not individuus; singularis, there never was, never shall be any such, but we cannot call him individual, as every other particular man is, because Christitatis non est genus, there is no genus nor species of Christs; it is not a name, which, so (as the name belongs to our Christ, that is, by being anointed with the Divine nature) can be communicated to any other, as the name of man, may to every individual man. Christ is not that spectrum, that Damascene speaks of, nor that electrum that Tertullian speaks of: not spectrum, so as that the two natures should but imaginarily be united, and only to amaze and astonish us, that we could not tell what to call it, what to make of it, a spectre, an apparition, a phantasma, for he was a real person. Neither was he Tertullian's electrum, & third metal made of two other metals, but a Person so made of God and man, as that, in that Person, God and man, are in their natures still distinguished. He is Germen DavidisTM, in one pro

^*' > Kings xix. 16, 17. " Psal. ex. 4. ^*1 Psal. ii. G.

*' Deut. xviii. " Nazianzeu. ,'-i Cyrill. - " Psal. xov. 7.

*⁷ Damascene. ^te Damascene, ** Jer. xxiii. 5.

phet, the branch, the offspring of David; and he is Germen Jehovce*⁰, the branch, the offspring of God, of the Lord, in another: when this Germen Da-vidis, the Son of man would do miracles, then he was Germen Jehovce, he reflected to that stock into which the humanity was engrafted, to his Godhead; and when this Germen Jehovce, the Son of God, would endure human miseries, he reflected to that stock, to that humanity, in which he had invested, and incorporated himself. This Person, this Christ died for our sins, says St. Paul"; but says he, he died according to the Scriptures; non sine onere pronunciat Christum mortuum '",- the apostle thought it a hard, a heavy, an incredible thing to say that this Person, this Christ, this man and God, was dead, and therefore, Ut dvritiam molliret, et scandalum auditoris everteret, That he might mollify the hardness of that saying, and defend the hearer from being scandalized with that saying, adjecit, secundum Scripturas, he adds this, Christ is dead, according to the Scriptures: if the Scriptures had not told us that Christ should die, and told us again, that Christ did die, it were hard to conceive, how this Person, in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily, should be submitted to death. But therein principally is he Christus, as he was capable of dying. As he was Verbum naturale, and innatum, The natural and essential word of God, he hath his first name in the text, he is the Lord: as he isverbum illatum, and conceptum, a Person upon whom there is a decree and a commission, that he shall be a Person capable to redeem man by death, he hath this second name in the text, he is Christ; as he is the Lord, he cannot die; as he is Christ (under the decree) he cannot choose but die; but as he is Jesus, he is dead already, and that is his other, his third, his last name in this text, If any man love not, &c.

We have inverted a little, the order of these names, or titles in the text; because the name of Christ, is in the order of nature, before the name of Jesus, as the commission is before the execution of the commission. And, in other places of Scripture, to let us see, how both the capacity of doing it, and the actual doing of it, belongs only to this Person, the Holy Ghost seems to con

'* Isaiah iv. 2. " 1 Cor. xv. 3. ^M Tertullian.

vcy a spiritual delight to us, in turning and transposing the names every way; sometimes Jesus alone, and Christ alone, sometimes. Jesus Christ, and sometimes Christ Jesus, that every way we might be sure of him. Now we consider him, as Jesus, a real, an actual Saviour. And this was his name; the angel said to his mother, Thou shalt call hia name Jesus, for he shall save his people; and we say to you, Call upon this name Jesus, for he hath saved his people; for, Now there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus^": as he was verbum conceptum, and illatum, The word which the Trinity uttered amongst themselves, so he was decreed to come in that place, The Lord of the vAneyard (that is, Almighty God, seeing the misery of man to be otherwise irremediable) The Lord of the vineyard said, what shall I do? I will send my beloved Son ; it may be, they rcill reverence him when they see him^**. But did they reverence him, when they saw him ? This sending made him Christ, a Person, whom, though the Son of God, they might see: they did see him; but then, says that Gospel, they drew him out and killed him. And this he knew before he came, and yet came, and herein was Jesus, a real, an actual, a zealous Saviour, even of them that slew him : and in this (with piety and reverence) we may be bold to say, that even the Son of God, was Filius prodigus, that poured out his blood even for his enemies; but rather in that acclamation of the prodigal child's father, This my son was dead, and is alive again, he was lost, and is found. For, but for this desire of our salvation, why should he who was the Lord, be ambitious of that name, the name of Jesus, which was not tam expectabile apud Judceos nomenTM, no such name as was in any especial estimation amongst the Jews: for, we see in Josephus, divers men of that name, of no great honour, of no good conversation. But because the name implies salvation, Joshua, who had another name before, Cum in hujus sacramenti imagine parabatur^**, when he was prepared as a type of this Jesus, to be a Saviour, a deliverer of the people, Etiam nominis Dominici inauguratu s estfgura, et Jesus cogno-minatus, then he was canonized with that name of salvation, and called Joshua, which is Jesus.

^0* Rom. viii. 1. ^*4 Luke xx. 13. " Tertullian.

^a8 Tertullian.

The Lord then, the Son of God, had a sitio, a thirsting, in heaven, as well as upon the cross; he thirsted our salvation there; and in the midst of the fellowship of the Father from whom he came, and of the Holy Ghost, who came from him and the Father, and all the angels, who came (by a lower way) from them all, he desired the conversation of man, for man's sake ; he that was God the Lord, became Christ, a man, and he that was Christ, became Jesus, no man, a dead man, to save man : to save man, all ways, in all his parts, and to save all men, in all parts of the world : to save his soul from hell, where we should have felt pains, and yet been dead, then when we felt them; and seen horrid spectacles, and yet been in darkness and blindness, then when we saw them ; and suffered insufferable torments, and yet have told over innumerable ages in suffering them: to save this soul from that hell, and to fill that capacity which it hath, and give it a capacity which it hath not, to comprehend the joys and glory of heaven, this Christ became Jesus. To save this body from the condemnation of everlasting corruption, where the worms that we breed are our betters, because they have a life, where the dust of dead kings is blown into the street, and the dust of the street blown into the river, and the muddy river tumbled into the sea, and the sea remanded into all the veins and channels of the earth; to save this body from everlasting dissolution, dispersion, dissipation, and to make it in a glorious resurrection, not only a temple of the Holy Ghost, but a companion of the Holy Ghost in the kingdom of heaven, this Christ became this Jesus. To save this man, body and soul together, from the punishments due to his former sins, and to save him from falling into future sins by the assistance of his word preached, and his sacraments administered in the church, which he purchased by his blood, is this Person, the Lord, the Christ, become this Jesus, this Saviour. To save so, all ways, in soul, in body, in both ; and also to save all men. For, to exclude others from that kingdom, is a tyranny, an usurpation; and to exclude thyself, is a sinful, and a rebellious melancholy. But as melancholy in the body is the hardest humour to be purged, so is the melancholy in the soul, the distrust of thy salvation too. Flashes of presumption a calamity will quench, but clouds of desperation calamities thicken upon us; but even in this inordmate dejection thou exaltest thyself above God, and makest thy worst better than his best, thy sins larger than his mercy. Christ hath a Greek name, and an Hebrew name; Christ is Greek, Jesus is Hebrew; he had commission to save all nations, and he hath saved all; thou givest him another Hebrew name, and another Greek, when thou makest his name Abaddon, and Apollyon*\ a destroyer; when thou wilt not apprehend him as a Saviour, and love him so; which is our second part, in our order proposed at first, If any man love not, &c.

In the former part, we found it to be one argument for the Deity of Christ, that he was Jehovah, The Lord; we have another here, that this great branch, nay this very root of all Divine worship due to God, is required to be exhibited to this Person, that is, Love, If any man love not, &c. If any man could see virtue with his eye, he would be in love with her: Christ Jesus hath been seen so : Quod vidimus, says the apostle, That which we have seen with our eyes, we preach to you, and therefore If any man love not, &c. If he love him not with that love which implies a confession, that the Lord Jesus is God, that is, if he love him not with all his heart, and all his power: What doth the Lord thy God require of thee? To love him with all thy heart, and all thy soul". God forbids us not a love of the creature, proportionable to the good that that creature can do us: to love fire as it warms me, and meat as it feeds me, and a wife as she helps me; but because God does all this, in all these several instruments, God alone is centrically, radically, directly to be loved, and the creature with a love reflected, and derived from him; and Christ to be loved with the love due to God himself: He that loveth father or mother, son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me", says Christ himself. If then we love him so, as we love God, entirely, vve confess him to be the Lord; and if we love him so, as he hath loved us, we confess him to be Christ Jesus: and we consider his love to us (for the present) in these two demonstrations of it, first Dilexit in fin-em, as he loved, so he loved to the end y and then Posuit animam, Greater love there is not, than to die for one, and he did that.

" Rev. ix.ll. » Levit. x. 12. " Matt. x. 37.

Our Saviour Christ forsook not Peter, when Peter forsook him: because he loved him, he loved him to the end. Love thou Christ to the end; to his end, and to thy end. Finem Domini vidistis, says St. James, You have seen the end of the Lord**; that is, says Augustine, to what end the Lord came; his way was contempt and misery, and his end was shame and death: love him there. Thy love is not required only in the hosannas of Christ, when Christ is magnified, and his Gospel advanced, and men preferred for loving it: no, nor only in the transfiguration of Christ, when Christ appears to thee in some particular beams, and manifestation of his glory; but love him in his crucifigatur, than when it is a scornful thing to love him, and love him in the nunquid et tu ? when thou must pass that examination, Wert not thou one of them"? And in the nonne ego te vidi? if witnesses come in against thee for the love of Christ, love him when it is a suspicious thing, a dangerous thing to love him; and love him not only in spiritual transfigurations, when he visits thy soul with glorious consolations, but even in his inward eclipses, when he withholds his comforts, and withdraws his cheerfulness, even when he makes as though he loved not thee, love him. Love him, all the way, to his end, and to thy end too, to the laying down of thy life for him.

Love him then in the laying down of the pleasures of this life for him, and love him in the laying down of the life itself, if his love need that testimony. Of the first case, of crucifying himself to the world, St. Augustine had occasion⁴' to say much to a young gentleman, young, and noble, and rich, and (which is not, in such persons, an ordinary tentatiou, but where it is, it is a shrewd one) as he was young, and noble, and rich, so he was learned in other learnings, and upon that strength withdrew, and kept off from Christ. It was Liceutius, to whom St. Augustine writes his thirty-ninth epistle. He had sent to St. Augustine a handsome elegy of his making, in which poem he had said as much of the vanity and deceivableness of this world, as St. Augustine could have looked for, or, perchance, have said in a homily; and he ends his elegy thus, Hoc opus, utjubeas, All this

*0 James v. II. ⁴¹ John xviii. 28, 26. " Epist. xxxix.

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concerning this world I know already, do you but tell me, do you command me, what I shall do. Jubebit Augustinu s consemosuo? says that sensible and blessed father: Shall I, shall Augustine command his fellow-servant? Et non plangat potiils frustra jubere Dominum ? Must not Augustine rather lament that the Lord hath commanded thee, and is not obeyed ? Wouldst thou hear me ? Canst thou pretend that ? Exaudi teipsum, durissime, immanissime, surdissime; Thou that art inexorable against the persuasions of thine own soul, hard against the tenderness of thine own heart, deaf against the charms of thine own verses, canst thou pretend a willingness to be led by me 1 Quam animam, quod ingenium non licet immolare Deo nostro ? How well disposed a soul, how high pitched a wit is taken out of my hands, that I may not sacrifice that soul, that I may not direct that wit upon our God, because, with all these good parts, thou turnest upon the pleasures of this world ? Mentiuntur, moriuntur, in mortem trahunt: Do not speak out of wit, nor out of a love to elegant expressions, nor do not speak in jest of the dangerous vanities of this world; mentiuntur, they are false, they perform not their promises; moriuntur, they are transitory, they stay not with thee; and in mortem trahunt, they die, and they die of the infection, and they transfuse the venom into thee, and thou diest with them: Non dicit verum, nisi veritas, et Christus veritas, Nothing will deal truly with thee but the truth itself, and only Christ Jesus is this truth. He follows it thus much farther, Si calicem aureum invenisses in terra, If thou fotmdest a chalice of gold in the earth, so good a heart as thine would say, Surely this belongs to the church, and surely thou wouldst give it to the church: Accepisti a Deo ingenium spiritualiter aureum, God hath given thee a wit, an understanding, not of the gold of Ophir, but of the gold of the heavenly Jerusalem, Et in illo, Satancepropinas teipsum ? In that chalice once consecrated to God, wilt thou drink a health to the devil, and drink a health to him in thine own blood, in making thy wit, thy learning, thy good parts advance his kingdom ? He ends all thus, Miserearis jam mei, si tibi viluisti, If thou undervalue thyself, if thou think not thyself worth hearing, if thou follow not thine own counsels, yet miserearis mei, have mercy upon me, me, whose charge it is to bring others to heaven, me, who shall not be received there, if I bring nobody with me; be content to go with me, that way, which by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost I do show, and that way, which by the conduct of the Holy Ghost I would fain go. All bends to this, first, love Christ so far as to lay down the pleasures of this life for him, and so far, as to lay down the life itself for him.

Christ did so for thee : and his blessed servants the martyrs, in the primitive church, did so for him, and thee; for his glory, for thy example. Can there be any ill, any loss, in giving thy life for him ? Is it not a part of the reward itself, the honour to suffer for him? When Christ says", Whosoever loses anything for my sate, and the Gospels, he shall have a hundredfold in houses, and lands, with persecutions, we need not limit that clause of the promise, (with persecutions) to be, that in the midst of persecutions, God will give us temporal blessings, but that in the midst of temporal blessings, God will give us persecutions; that it shall be a part of his mercy, to be delivered from the danger of being puffed up by those temporal abundances, by having a mixture of adversity and persecutions: and then, what ill, what loss, is there in laying down this life for him ? Quid hoc malt est, quod martyrialis mali, non habet timorem, pudorem, tergiversationem, pcenitentiam, deplorationem"? What kind of evil is this, which when it came to the highest, ad malum martyriale, to martyrdom, to death, did neither imprint in our holy predecessors in the primitive church, timorem, any fear that it would come; nor tergiversationem, any recanting lest it should come; nor pudorem, any shame when it was come; nor pcenitentiam, any repentance that they would suffer it to come; nor deplorationem, any lamentation by their heirs, and executors, because they lost all, when it was come ? Quid mali ? What kind of evil can I call this, in laying down my life, for this Lord of life, cujus reus gaudet**, when those martyrs called that guiltiness a joy, cujus accusatio votum, and the accusation a satisfaction, cujus pama fcelicitas, and the suffering perfect happiness? Love thy neighbour as thyself, is the farthest of that commandment; but love God above thy

^4* Mark x. 30. " Tertullian. *⁵ Tertullian.

self; for, indeed, in doing so thou dost but love thyself still: remember that thy soul is thyself; and as, if that be lost, nothing is gained, so if that be gained, nothing is lost, whatsoever become of this life.

Love him then, as he is presented to thee here; love the Lord, love Chriat, love Jesus. If when thou lookest upon him as the Lord, thou findest frowns and wrinkles in his face, apprehensions of him, as of a judge, and occasions of fear, do not run away from him, in that apprehension; look upon him in that angle, in that line awhile, and that fear shall bring thee to love; and as he is Lord, thou shalt see him in the beauty and loveliness of his creatures, in the order and succession of causes, and effects, and in that harmony and music of the peace between him, and thy soul; as he is the Lord, thou wilt fear him, but no man fears God truly, but that that fear ends in love.

Love him as he is the Lord, that would have nothing perish, that he hath made; and love him as he is Christ, that hath made himself man too, that thou mightest not perish : love him as the Lord that could show mercy; and love him as Christ, who is that way of mercy, which the Lord hath chosen. Return again, and again to that mysterious person, Christ; and let me tell you, that though the fathers never forbore to call the blessed Virgin Mary, Deiparam, the Mother of God, yet in Damascene's time, they would not admit that name, Christiparam, that she was the Mother of Christ: not that there is any reason to deny her that name now; but because then, that great heretic, Nestorius, to avoid that name, in which the rest agreed, Deiparam, (for he thought not Christ to be God) invented a new name, Christiparam : though it be true in itself, that that blessed Virgin is Christipara, yet because it was the invention of an heretic, and a fundamental heretic, who though he thought Christ to be anointed by the Holy Ghost above his fellows, yet did not believe him to be God, Damascene, and his age, refused that addition to the blessed Virgin; so reverently were they affected, so jealously were they enamoured of that name, Christ, the name which implied his unction, his commission, the decree, by which he was made a person, able to redeem thy soul: and in that contemplation, say with Andrew, to his brother Peter, Invenimus Messiam; I have found the Messiah; I could find no means of salvation in myself, nay, no such means to direct God upon, by my prayer, or by a wish, as he hath taken; but God himself hath found a way, a Messiah ; his Son shall be made man ; and invent Messiam, I have found him, and found, that he, who by his incarnation, was made able to save me, (so he was Christ) by his actual passion, hath saved me, and so I love him as Jesus.

Christ loved Stephen all the way, for all the way Stephen was disposed to Christ's glory, but in the agony of death (death suffered for him) Christ expressed his love most, in opening the windows, the curtains of heaven itself, to see Stephen die, and to show himself to Stephen". I love my Saviour as he is the Lord, he that studies my salvation; and as Christ, made a person able to work my salvation; but when I see him in the third notion, Jesus, accomplishing my salvation, by an actual death, I see those hands stretched out, that stretched out the heavens, and those feet racked, to which they that racked them are footstools; I hear him, from whom his nearest friends fled, pray for his enemies, and him, whom his Father forsook, not forsake his brethren ; I see him that clothes this body with his creatures, or else it would wither, and clothes this soul with his righteousness, or else it would perish, hang naked upon the cross; and him that hath, him that is, The Fountain of the water of life, cry out, He thirsts, when that voice overtakes me, in my cross ways in the world, Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by ? Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow, like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me, in the day of his fierce anger*¹; when I conceit, when I contemplate my Saviour thus, I love the Lord, and there is a reverent adoration in that love, I love Christ, and there is a mysterious admiration in that love, but I love Jems, and there is a tender compassion in that love, and I am content to suffer with him, and to suffer for him, rather than see any diminution of his glory, by my prevarication. And he that loves not thus, that loves not the Lord God, and God manifested in Christ, anathema, maranatha, which is our next, and our last part.

Whether this anathema be denounced by the apostle, by way

⁴⁸ Acts viL 56'. " Lament. L 12,

of imprecation, that he wished it so, or pronounced by way of excommunication, that others should esteem them so, and avoid them, as such persons, is sometimes debated amongst us in our books. If the apostle say it by way of imprecation, if it sound so, you are to remember first, that many things are spoken by the prophets in the Scriptures, which sound as imprecations, as execrations, which are indeed but prophecies; they seem to be spoken in the spirit of anger, when they are in truth, but in the spirit of prophecy. So, in very many places of the Psalms, David seems to wish heavy calamities upon his and God's enemies, when it is but a declaration of those judgments of God, which ho prophetically foresees to be imminent upon them: they seem imprecations, and are but prophecies; and such, we, who have not this spirit of prophecy, nor foresight of God's ways, may not venture upon. If they be truly imprecations, you are to remember also, that the prophets and apostles had in them a power extraordinary, and in execution of that power, might do that, which every private man may not do: so the prophets rebuked, so they punished kings. So "Elizeus called in the bears to devour the boys ; and so ^b Elias called down fire to devour the captains; so St. Peter killed "Ananias, and Sapphira with his word; and ^dso St. Paul struck Elymas the sorcerer with blindness. But upon imprecations of this kind, we as private men, or as public persons, but limited by our commission, may not adventure neither. But take the prophets or the apostles in their highest authority, yet in an over-vehement zeal, they may have done some things sometimes not warrantable in themselves, many times many things, not to be imitated by us. In Moses's passionate vehemency, Dele me, If thou wilt not forgive them, blot me out of thy book**, and in the apostle's inconsiderate zeal to his brethren, Optabam anathema esse, I could with that myself were accursed from Christ"; in James's and John's impatience of their Master's being neglected by the Samaritans, when they drew from Christ that rebuke, You know not of what spirit you areTM; in these, and such as these, there may be something, wherein

* 2 Kings ii. 24. ^b 2 Kings i- ' Acts v.

^d Acts xiii. 8.

^w Exod. xxxii. 32. « Bom. ix. 3. *1 Luke ix. 55.

even these men cannot be excused, but very much wherein wo may not follow them, nor do as they did, nor say as they said. Since there is a possibility, a facility, a proclivity of erring herein, and so many conditions and circumstances required, to make an imprecation just and lawful, the best way is to forbear them, or to be very sparing in them.

But we rather take this in the text, to be an excommunication denounced by the apostle, than an imprecation : so Christ himself, If he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as a heathen, or a publican"; that is, have no conversation with him. So says the apostle, speaking of an angel, Anathema, If any man, if we ourselves, if an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel, let him be accursed". Now the excommunication is in the anathema, and the aggravating thereof in the other words, maranatha. The word anathema had two significations; they are expressed thus, Quod Deo dicatum, quod a Deo per vitium alienatum"; That which for some excellency in it, was separated from the use of man, to the service of God, or that which for some great fault in it, was separated from God and man too. Ab illo abstinebant tanquam Deo dicatum, ab hoc recedebant, tanquam a Deo abalienatum**: From the first kind, men abstained, because they were consecrated to God, and from the other, because they were alienated from God; and in that last sense, irreligious men, such as love not the Lord Jesus Christ, are anathema, alienated from God. Amongst the Druids, with the heathen, they excommunicated malefactors, and no man might relieve him in any necessity, no man might answer him in any action: and so amongst the Jews, the Esseni, who were in special estimation for sanctity, excommunicated irreligious persons, and the persons so excommunicated starved in the streets and fields. By the light of nature, by the light of grace, we should separate ourselves from irreligious, and from idolatrous persons; and that with that earnestness, which the apostle expresses in the last words, maranatha.

In the practice of the primitive church, by those canons, which

⁵¹ Matt, xviii. 17. ^sa Gal. i. 9. ^M Just. Mart.

** Chrysostom.

we call the apostles' canons, and those which we call the penitential canons, we see there were different penances inflicted upon different parts, and there were, very early, relaxations of penances, indulgences; and there were reservations of cases; in some any priest, in some a bishop only might dispense. It is so in our church still; impugners of the supremacy are excommunicated, and not restored but by the archbishop; impugners of the Common Prayer Book excommunicated too, but may be restored by the bishop of the place : impugners of our religion declared in the articles, reserved to the archbishop : impugners of ceremonies restored when they repent, and no bishop named: authors of schism reserved to the archbishop; maintainers of schismatics, referred but to repentance; and so maintainers of conventicles, to the archbishop ; maintainers of constitutions made in conventicles, to their repentance. There was ever, there is yet a reserving of certain cases, and a relaxation or aggravating of ecclesiastical censures, for their weight, and for their time: and, because not to love the Lord Jems Christ was the greatest, the apostle inflicts this heaviest excommunication, maranatha.

The word seems to be a proverbial word amongst the Jews after their return, and vulgarly spoken by them, and so the apostle takes it, out of common use of speech : maran, is Dominus, the Lord, and athan is venit, he comes: not so truly, in the very exactness of Hebrew rules, and terminations, but so amongst them then, when their language was much depraved: but, in ancienter times, we have the word mar a for Dominus", and the word atha for venit"; and so anathema, maranatha will be, Let him that loveth not the -Lord Jesus Christ, be as an accursed person to you, even till the Lord come. St. Hierome seems to understand this, Dominus venit, That the Lord is come; come already, come in the flesh; Superfluum, says he, edits pertinacibus contendere adeersus eum, qui jam venit; It is superabundant perverseness, to resist Christ now; now that he hath appeared already, and established to himself a kingdom in this world. And so St. Chrysostom seems to take it too; Christ is come already, says he, Et jam nulla potest esse excusatio non diligen

" Dan. iv. 16. ^M Deut. xxsiii. 2.

tibus eum; If any excuse could be pretended before, yet since Christ is come, none can be : Si opertum, says the apostle, If our Gospel be hid now, it is hid from them who are lost; that is, they are lost from whom it is hid. But that is not all, that is intended by the apostle, in this place. It is not only a censorious speech, it is a shame for them, and an inexcusable thing in them, if they do not love the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is a judiciary speech, thus much more, since they do not love the Lord, the Lord judge them when he comes; I, says the apostle, take away none of his mercy, when he comes, but I will have nothing to do with them, till he comes; to me, he shall be anathema, maranatha, separated from me, till then; then the Lord who shows mercy in minutes, do his will upon him. Our former translation had it thus, Let him be had in execration, and excommunicated till death; in death, Lord have mercy upon him; till death, I will not live with him.

To end all, if a man love not the Lord, if ho love not God, which is, which was, and which is to come, what will please him ? whom will he love ? If he love the Lord, and love not Christ, and so love a god in general, but lay no hold upon a particular way of his salvation, Sine Christo, sine Deo, says the apostle* to the Ephesians, when ye were without Christ, ye were without God"; a non-Christian, is an atheist in that sense of the apostle. If any man find a Christ, a Saviour of the world, but find not a Jesus, an actual Saviour, that this Jesus hath saved him, Who is a liar, says another apostle, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ"? And (as he says after) Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born 'of God". From the presumptuous atheist, that believes no God, from the reserved atheist, that believes no God manifested in Christ, from the melancholic atheist that believes no Jesus applied to him, from him of no religion, from him of no Christian religion, from him that errs fundamentally in the Christian religion, the apostle enjoins a separation, not till clouds of persecution come, and then join, not till beams of preferment come, and then join, not till laws may have been slumbered some years, and then join, not till the parties

⁸⁷ Eph. ii. 12. » 1 John ii. 22. ** 1 John v. 1.

grow somewhat near an equality, and then join, but maranatha, donee Dominui venit, till the Lord come to his declaration in judgment, If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. Amen.