may not, for some good use that there is of them, be taken away) though it be not non erit, there shall be none, yet it is at least by way of good counsel to thee, non eris, thou shalt not be the man, thou shalt not be the informer, and for resisting those that are, we are bound, not only not to harm our neighbour's house, but to help him, if casually his house fall on fire, we are bound where we have authority to stop the mouths of other calumniators where we have no authority, yet since as the north wind driveth away rain, an angry countenance driveth away a backbiting tongue, at least deal so with a libeller, with a calumniator, for he that looks pleasantly, and hearkens willingly to one libel, makes another, occasions a second; always remember David's case, when he thought that he had been giving judgment against another he was more severe, more heavy, than the law admitted; the law was, that he that had stolen the sheep should return fourfold, and David's anger was kindled says the text, and he said, and he swore, As the Lord liveth, that man shall restore fourfold, filius mortis, and he shall surely die": O judicis superfluentem et justitiam, O superabundant and overflowing justice, when we judge another in passion; but this is judicium secundum carnem, according to which Christ judges no man, for Christ is love, and that non cogitat malum 13, love thinks no evil any way; the charitable man neither meditates evil against another, nor believes not easily any evil to be in another, though it be told him.

Lastly, Christ judges no man ad internecionem, he judges no man so in this world, as to give a final condemnation upon him here; there is no error in any of his judgments, but there is an appeal from all his judgments in this world; there is a verdict against every man, every man may find his case recorded, and his sin condemned in the law, and in the prophets, there is a verdict, but before judgment, God would have every man saved by his book, by the apprehension, and application of the gracious promises of the Gospel, to his case, and his conscience, Christ judges no man so, as that he should see no remedy, but to curse God, and die, not so, as that he should say, his sin is greater than God could forgive, for God sent not his Son into the world

10 Prov. xxv. 23.

12 Chrysostom.

11 2 Sam. xii. 5.

13 1 Cor. xiii. 5.

to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved".

Do not thou then give malicious evidence against thyself, do not weaken the merit, nor lessen the value of the blood of thy Saviour, as though thy sin were greater than it: doth God desire thy blood now, when he hath abundantly satisfied his justice with the blood of his Son for thee? what hast thou done? hast thou come hypocritically to this place upon collateral reasons, and not upon the direct service of God? not for love of information, of reformation of thyself? If that be thy case, yet if a man hear my words, says Christ, and believe not, I judge him not, he hath one that judgeth him, says Christ "5, and who is that? The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him; it shall, but when? It shall judge him, says Christ, at the last day, for till the last day, the day of his death, no man is past recovery, no man's salvation is impossible: Hast thou gone farther than this? Hast thou admitted scruples of diffidence, and distrust in God's mercy, and so tasted of the lees of desperation? It is true, perpetrare flagitium est mors animæ, sed desperare est descensus ad inferos, In every sin the soul dies, but in desperation it descends into hell 1; but yet Porta inferi non prævalebunt, Even the gates of this hell shall not prevail against thee; assist thyself, argue thine own case, desperation itself may be without infidelity; desperation as well as hope is rooted in the desire of happiness; desperation proceeds out of a fear and a horror of sin, desperation may consist with faith thus far, that a man may have a true, and faithful opinion in the general, that there is a remission of sin, to be had in the church, and yet have a corrupt imagination in the particular, that to him in this sinful state that he is in, this remission of sins shall not be applied, so that the resolution of the school is good, Desperatio potest esse ex solo excessu boni"; desperation may proceed from an excess of that which is good in itself, from an excessive over-fearing of God's justice, from an excessive over-hating thine own sins, Et virtute quis male utitur? Can any man make so ill use of so great virtues, as the fear of God and the hate of sin? Yes they may, so froward a weed is sin, as that

14 John iii. 17.
17 Matt. xvi. 18.

16 Isidore.

15 John xii. 47, 48.

18 Thom. i. 2nd. ix. 40. or. 4.

it can spring out of any root, and therefore if it have done so in thee, and thou thereby have made thy case the harder, yet know still, that Objectum spei est arduum, et possibile, The true object of hope is hard to come by, but yet possible to come by, and therefore as David said, By my God have I leaped over a wall", so by thy God mayest thou break through a wall, through this wall of obduration, which thou thyself hast begun to build about thyself. Feather thy wings again, which even the flames of hell have touched in these beginnings of desperation, feather them again with this text Neminem judicat, Christ judges no man, so as a desperate man judges himself, do not make thyself believe, that thou hast sinned against the Holy Ghost; for this is the nearest step thou hast made to it, to think that thou hast done it; walk in that large field of the Scriptures of God, and from the first flower at thy entrance, the flower of Paradise, semen mulieris, the general promise of the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, to the last word of that Messias upon the cross, consummatum est, that all that was promised for us is now performed, and from the first to the last thou shalt find the savour of life unto life in all those flowers; walk over the same alley again, and consider the first man Adam in the beginning who involved thee in original sin; and the thief upon the cross who had continued in actual sins all his life, and sealed all with the sin of reviling Christ himself a little before his expiration, and yet he recovered Paradise, and Paradise that day, and see if thou canst make any shift to exclude thyself; receive the fragrancy of all these cordials, vivit Dominus, as the Lord liveth I would not the death of a sinner, quandocunque, at what time soever a sinner repenteth, and of this text Neminem judicat, Christ judgeth no man to destruction here, and if thou find after all these antidotes a suspicious air, a suspicious working in that impossibile est, that it is impossible for them, who were once enlightened if they fall away, to renew them again by repentance, sprinkle upon that worm-wood of impossibile est, that manna of Quorum remiseritis, Whose sins ye remit, are remitted, and then it will have another taste to thee, and thou wilt see that that impossibility lies upon them only, who are utterly fallen away

19 2 Sam. xxii. 30.

into an absolute apostacy, and infidelity, that make a mock of Christ, and crucify him again, as it is expressed there, who under value, and despise the church of God, and those means which Christ Jesus hath instituted in his church for renewing such as are fallen. To such it is impossible, because there are no other ordinary means possible, but that is not thy case, thy case is only a doubt, that those means that are shall not be applied to thee, and even that is a slippery state to doubt of the mercy of God to thee in particular, this goes so near making thy sin greater than God's mercy, as that it makes thy sin greater than daily adulteries, daily murders, daily blasphemies, daily prophanings of the Sabbath could have done, and though thou canst never make that true in this life, that thy sins are greater than God can forgive, yet this is a way to make them greater than God will forgive.

Now to collect both our exercises, and to connex both texts, Christ judgeth all men and Christ judgeth no man, he claims all judgment, and he disavows all judgment, and they consist well together; he was at our creation, but that was not his first sense; the Arians who say, Erat quando non erat, There was a time when Christ was not, intimating that he had a beginning, and therefore was a creature, yet they will allow that he was created before the general creation, and so assisted at ours, but he was infinite generations before that, in the bosom of his Father, at our election, and there in him was executed the first judgment of separating those who were his, the elect from the reprobate, and then he knows who are his by that first judgment and so comes to his second judgment, to seal all those in the visible church with the outward mark of his baptism, and the inward mark of his Spirit, and those whom he calls so, he justifies, and sanctifies, and brings them to his third judgment, to an established and perpetual glory. And so all judgment is his. But then to judge out of human affections, and passions, by detraction, and calumny, as they did to whom he spoke at this time, so he judges no man, so he denies judgment: to usurp upon the jurisdiction of others, or to exercise any other judgment, than was his commission, as his pretended vicar doth so, he judges no man, so he disavows all judgment: to judge so as that our condemnation

should be irremediable in this life, so he judges no man, so he forswears all judgment, As I live, saith the Lord of Hosts, and as I have died, saith the Lord Jesus, so I judge none. Acknowledge his first judgment, thy election in him, Christ his second judgment, thy justification by him, breathe and pant after his third judgment, thy crown of glory for him; intrude not upon the right of other men, which is the first, defame not, calumniate not other men, which is the second, lay not the name of reprobate in this life upon any man, which is the third judgment, that Christ disavows here, and then thou shalt have well understood, and well practised both these texts, The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son, and yet the Son judges no man.

SERMON XCV.

PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN.

JOB XIX. 26.

And though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I

see God.

AMONGST those articles, in which our church hath explained, and declared her faith, this is the eighth article, that the three creeds, (that of the Council of Nice, that of Athanasius, and that which is commonly known by the name of the Apostles' Creed) ought thoroughly to be received, and embraced. The meaning of the church is not, that only that should be believed in which those three creeds agree; (for the Nicene Creed mentions no article after that of the Holy Ghost, not the Catholic church, not the communion of saints, not the resurrection of the flesh; Athanasius' Creed does mention the resurrection, but not the Catholic church, nor the communion of saints,) but that all should be believed, which is in any of them, all which is summed up in the Apostles' Creed. Now, the reason expressed in that article