Three sermons preached upon severall publike occasions by John Gauden.

Three sermons preached upon severall publike occasions by John Gauden.

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Title page

TO THE Right Honourable ROBERT Earle of VVarwick, Baron of Lees, one of his Majesties most Honourable Privie Councell.

A SERMON preached before his MAIESTIE

2. And Holinesse.

A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE IVDGES AT CHELMSFORD.

2. The Magistrates duty in speciall; Execute the judgement of Truth and Peace, &c.

In your gates.

A SERMON PREACHED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, In S. Maries, July 11. 1641. Being Act-Sunday.

Second Part.

The third Part.

The Fourth Part.

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THREE SERMONS PREACHED UPON SEVERALL PUBLIKE OCCASIONS.

By JOHN GAUDEN, D.D.

LONDON, Printed by R. Bishop, for Andrew Crook, and are to be sold at his shop at the Signe of the Green Dragon in Pauls Church-yard. 1642.

TO THE Right Honourable ROBERT Earle of VVarwick, Baron of Lees, one of his Majesties most Honourable Privie Councell.

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My very honourable Lord,

THe many noble favours which I have received from your Lordship chiefly, and from others of your noble Family, compell mee (since these Sermons will needs be publike, beyond my intentions) to adde to them the honour of your Lordships name; and to set upon them this Seal of Gratitude, from a heart that unfainedly prayes for all those encreases to your Lordship and yours, which may make both your Lordship and them truly honourable in this, [Page] and ever happy in the other world: For so I must professe to all the world, your Noblenesse hath abundantly deserved of your Lordships most humble, and obliged Servant,

IOHN GAUDEN.

A SERMON preached before his MAIESTIE

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HEBR. 12.14.

Follow peace with all men, and holinesse, without which no man shall see the Lord.

THough there needs a large Preface and Apology for the Speaker (as Elihu used to Iob and his friends) being a stranger to this place, and no way proportionable to so great and sacred a presence; yet I am sure there needs no Apology for the Text I have read unto you. The weight of the matter being of greatest and highest concernment to every one of your soules may, by the favour of your patience, piety, and wisedome, much supply the want of gravity and sufficiency in the Speaker. The subject I have propounded being so necessary and indispensible, that without it none that heare me this day, from [Page] the least to the greatest, from the Cottage to the Palace, from the Mill to the Throne, neither hearer nor speaker, shall ever be happy to see the face of God.

And certainly in this brokennesse and distraction of minds and times, every one almost going a severall way, full of fractions and divisions, crossing and thwarting each other; if we could all be so happy as to learne this lesson, and conspire to follow these two, Peace and Holinesse, no doubt it would much abate and compose our distances, while like lines we all tend to one Centre, God; or run parallel to that straight rule of his will: and This is the will of God, 2▪ Thes. 4.3. even your sanctification.

I should be too happy, and aboundantly excusable for my boldnesse in speaking to you this day, if, through Gods assistance, and your patience, I might be able so to represent to you that smooth, safe, and beautifull way of Peace and Holinesse; that by the serious and consciencious following of them, all of us might orderly and cheerfully goe together, the Prince with the People; and the People with the Prince; the hearts of each drawing neerer to other, and all to God; to the sight and fruition of him in whose presence is fulnesse of joy, and life for evermore.

The Text is a sacred and solemn exhortation, by which the Spirit of God directs all men the next and onely way to attaine the most soveraign good, and desireable end, the happy sight of God.

In it we have, 1 The precept or direction, Follow[Page]peace with all men, and holinesse.

2 The motive or inducement, Without which no man shall see God: not promissory and affirmative, for in so doing you shall see God; but menacing and negative: such being indeed the temper of mens hearts, that they are more terrified with losse, than won and invited with the hopes of good; the misery of suffering prevailing more with our hardnesse, than the happinesse of enjoying. The horror of being ever separated from the sight of God, the chiefest good of the soule, which can import no lesse than hell and extreme misery, this happily may scare many one to follow Peace and Holinesse, whom neither the pleasantnesse of the way, nor the amplenesse of the reward, would induce to forsake their pleasing, but yet impure and dangerous courses.

In the Precept we have 1 the Object, which is double, Peace and Holinesse. 2 The Act, or Duty, but one, and serves to both; Follow them. We will consider the objects severally in their natures, and carry along the Act or Duty with them.

1 Of Peace: Follow peace with all men.

Now although the beauty, sweetnesse, and usefulnesse of this subject (which is so agreeable to my mind, and so necessary to our times, that I should be glad to meet it in every Sermon I make or heare, and in every man with whom I deale) though (I say) it might deserve and justifie a large and renewed discourse upon it; yet I may but sparingly now speak of it, and onely sprinkle you with a few drops of this pure and chrystall stream, [Page] which makes all to flow with milke and honey wheresoever it runs; in the Conscience, in the Church, or in the State, and Civill Societies; because I have, not long agoe, in a publick, though farre inferiour, Assembly, largely discoursed of it: And I would not seem to doe what I need not, that is, drive two Mills with one streame, since the plenty of the other Branch of Holinesse will afford matter sufficient, and worthy your attention, my speech, and all our practices.

Onely give me leave to point out briefly to you these three things: 1 What this Peace is. 2 How and by whom to be followed. 3 Why.

1 For this generall Peace, we can better tell what it is by the fruition, than any description of it.

What health is to the body, and calmnesse to the Sea, and serenity to the day, such is peace to the hearts and conversation of men: it is a kind of sweet, divine, and heavenly concent, harmony, and beauty of minds and manners, of affections and actions: it is one of the fairest and pleasantest fruits of that which among Christians wee call charity, by which each is endeared to other by a mutuall love, and study of one anothers good, welfare, and happinesse, as their own, both private and publick, temporall and eternall.

This must be followed to the latitude and extension of the subject, with all men, Rom. 12.18. As much as in you lies (if it bee possible) live peaceably with all men. As farre as the common bounds of our nature extend we are to follow [Page] peace with all men, so farre as men; Pax cum hominibus, bellum cum vitiis. The more thou art an enemy to their enemies, their sins and vices, the more faithfull friend thou art to them. Peccata interficio homines amplector is the Motto not onely of every good Magistrate, but of every good man; hate and slay their sinnes, but love and save their soules.

There is a double bond for it, 1 Commune vinculum naturae, the common tie of our nature, being all of one metall, binds us to peace, by making us sociable; God having sweetned our nature beyond the savagenesse and fiercenesse of other creatures, which are prone and armed to offend: God hath tempered our dust, and softned our clay with a spring of teares, a fountain of pity, humanity, and compassion above other creatures.

Principio indulsit communis conditor illis

Tantùm animam, nobis Animum quoque, mutuus ut nos

Affectus petere auxilium, & praestare juberet.

And again,

— Mollissima corda

Humano generi dare se natura fatetur,

Cum lachrymas dedit.

2 There is Commune vinculum Indigentiae: we are weake and wanting in many things, if alone and at distance, which society and communion [Page] strengthens and supplies us withall. So that nothing more agrees to the nature of man, nothing more suits to his necessities, than to follow peace together, both publick and private.

2 How must we all follow Peace? As of pride and envie comes strife and contention,Pro. so this universall peacefulnesse proceeds from humility, self-denying, low and moderate opinion of our selves, studying our own nothingnesse and unworthinesse, in honour preferring one another. This sweetens, plaines and polisheth the roughnesse and asperity of mens minds and manners, and fits them to follow peace, 1 by avoiding to give offence. 2 By loathnesse to take offence. 3 By a forwardnesse and easinesse to be reconciled, though unjustly offended. 4 By seeking for peace, and a faire understanding between our selves and others; though at present, through humane infirmities, things cannot be so well composed.

Thus all must follow Peace with all men, seriously, freely, cheerfully, heartily, constantly, not to be damped or discouraged; we must prosequi till we doe assequi, follow till we overtake and obtain it.

But who? 1 Princes, and soveraigne Magistrates, the great Arbitrators of warre and peace, they must follow Peace with all men, by equall and impartiall distributions of justice and righteousnesse, which makes Kingdomes to flourish with peace. He that will be Melchisalem, King of peace, must be Melchisedec, King of righteousnesse, as Christ was both.Heb.

[Page]Further, Peace deserves sometimes to be fomented by favourable moderation and indulgence in Princes; Clemency being [...] (as Synesius) the most Regall ornament, and in some sort a debt which is due to the weaknesse of humane nature: and sometimes the malignity of times, minds, and affaires, may be such, that peace is to be preserved rather by gracious remissions, than rigorous, though iust exactions. Wise Princes, that have the keyes of Ianus his Temple, will not easily open the gate to warre, when they may with safety and honour keep it shut to peace.

2 As Princes, so the People and Subjects must follow Peace with all men, but especially with their Prince, the great and publick Father of their Peace, and the numerous blessings that issue from it; who ought to bee in their esteeme as those loyall and valiant Hearts said of David, worth ten thousand of us. They must follow it. 1 By an orderly and willing obedience and submission to wholsome lawes, which are but the interpreters of the mind of a just Prince. 2 By faithfull and humble Councels of Peace. 3 By free, liberall, and seasonable Aides and Subsidies to maintaine Peace. 4 Those that contribute least to Peace, yet may follow the King, the Church, the Commonweale, and all men, with their daily and fervent prayers, that God who makes men to be of one mind in a house and kingdome, would give to all the blessing of Peace.

3 Why should we follow Peace with all men? 1 God hath commanded it, whose commands will [Page] return upon accounts, and he will exact of us how we have kept them: Certainly the conscience of obeying God, is the powerfullest motive, and the noblest reward of our obedience.

2 Christ hath deserved this of us, our great and ever-blessed Peace-maker, who followed our Peace so farre, that he seemed to have lost himselfe, and to have been forsaken of his Father. He followed us with thoughts, and offers, and promises of Peace, when we were at greater distance and defiance, than can be between us and any man never so much our enemy. He made his own soule an offering for Peace, Eph. 2.14. rather than faile to procure our Peace.

O shew wee follow Christ by following of Peace.

3 Follow it for thy brothers sake; 1 as a man, that name bespeakes thee much. 2 as a Christian, more. 3 Thy Countrey-man, and thy Neighbour too. When all these ties of nature, countrey, and vicinity; of Religion, of the same God and Saviour, of the same hopes, faith, and heaven; when (I say) all these do bind thy heart and hands from breaking the Peace, should they not prevaile more with thee to follow it, than any poore mistakes and injuries should doe to violate or fly from it? 3 Consider thy brothers good in it. Every man should study to be [...] as publick, diffusive, and preventive in his goodnesse as may be. Now distance, defiance, and dis-affections with men, doe extremely harden and shut up their hearts, that thou hast not those opportunities [Page] and advantages to doe them that good, which love, and sweetnesse, and peacefulnesse, doe put into thy hands by softning and melting them.

4 For thy owne sake follow peace with all men, 1 For thy owne safety, and sweetnesse of living: who but turbulent and inhumane dispositions, like Salamanders, would willingly live in the fire of strife and dissention? which as it cannot but be unpleasing, so it may be dangerous and unsafe: For no mans anger is to bee despised, much lesse the displeasure of many men, which may embroile the publick, and in that, thy private happinesse. Even the tallest Cedars, and mighty Oakes, which are as the Princes of the Forrest, have their share of safety and flourishing in Peace, as well as the lower shrubs and bushes: nay, the violent blasts of warre, like vehement winds, threaten them more, and make greater impressions on their heigth, than on inferiours, whose inferiority is a great point of their safety. Divide, & regnare desine. Peace and union are the mutuall preservation as well of head as members.

2 For thy own honour follow Peace, though it be through the bushes and asperities of some injuries and offences.Pro. 29.11. It is the glory of a man to passe by offences (saith the wisest of Kings) especially in the pursuit of Peace. The greater indeed the Person is, the greater the offence; but the greater the offence, the greater glory in passing by it, because it brings us nearest to the imitation of Gods infinite mercy, patience, and forgivenesse. One victory over a mans selfe is more glorious, than many[Page]over an enemy. The triumphs of reason, vertue, morality and grace, over our passions, are farre more honourable than those of the sword, and power of arms in the field, which are stained and deformed with the bloud of men. Pax una triumphis innumeris potior: One faire and spotlesse Lilly of preserved Peace is a greater ornament to a Princes Diadem, than to have it beset round with many Red Roses of bloudy triumphs.

May his memory be ever blest, and his pretious name had in honour, who first of Princes, next after Christ, gave that for his word, Beati Pacifici. And may they be blessed, who being heires to his Crowne, are also heires to his Princely vertues, and peacefull disposition. And have we not all causes to blesse God, who hath inclined their hearts; and to blesse them who have followed those inclinations, to re-establish our late dubious and endangered peace, and lengthen out our tranquility? May the great God of peace crowne their Persons, Posterity, and Kingdomes, with aboundance of mercy and peace, so long as the Sun and Moone endure.

3 Follow peace with all men, for thy own internall and eternall peace with God. God is surely an enemy to those that are enemies to peace; since they are contrary, 1 To his nature, which is happy in an unmoved and eternall tranquility. 2 To his word, which seeks, by the message of peace, to to bring us neerer, and make us liker to himselfe. 3 A peacelesse and unquiet disposition, like troubled waters, is lesse apt for the sweet and cleere [Page] reflections of Gods love to it, or the operations of his Spirit in it; which creates that internall and unexpressible peace, which no man knowes the price of, but he that hath it. 4 Lastly, they only shall rest with God in Peace, who have followed after Peace, and in so doing, after God. They shall dye in Peace, and lye in Peace, and rise in Peace, and reigne in Peace with God for ever. Iam. 3.18. The fruit of righteousnesse is sown in Peace of them that make Peace.

But I have done with the first Object, and the Duty, Follow Peace with all men: we come now to the second.

2. And Holinesse.

Peaceablenesse and Holinesse must goe together, and indeed it is pity they should bee separated; yet they are oftentimes: for many are of sweet, soft, and calm natures, not farre from the kingdome of heaven; yet they rise not to the heigth of holinesse, which must exceed and amend the best of natures. Vae optimae naturae, nisi superveniat gratia. Good natures, like small and shallow brooks, may empty themselves, and carry us to that narrow lake of humane love, honour, and approbation; but holinesse only is that great and noble streame which conveyes the soule to heaven, and looseth it in the Ocean of Gods infinite happinesse.

O let us not content our selves with the study of Peace, and neglect Holinesse. Peace will soon corrupt and sowre, to troubles inward and outward, [Page] which is not preserved and eterniz'd with Holinesse. Isa. 57, 19. There is no Peace to the wicked, saith God; no true, inward, and durable Peace: we must follow Peace as men, and Holinesse as Christians. What is it to have Peace with men, and warre with God? Let us therefore see,

1 What Holinesse is. 2 Who must follow it. 3 How we must follow it. 4 Wherefore.

1 What Holinesse is.

Holinesse is a word of various acceptation.

1 There is a Holinesse transcendent, essentiall, and absolute, which is in God, or rather which is God himselfe; who is the eternall, first, and onely rule to himselfe; by his immutable goodnesse, unerring wisedome, and irresistable power; who is [...], thrice holy, as the Seraphins cry, Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Hoasts, &c. Holy in his will, in his word, and in his works; in his justice, mercy, and power: and therefore [...], infinitely great and powerfull, because infinitely good and holy. The Father is holy, and the Son holy, and the Spirit holy; in their essence, in their relations, and in their operations. This Holinesse wee must follow. Mat. 5.48. Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. 1 Pet. 1.15. Be ye holy, as he that hath called you is holy. Here is the rule, patterne, Idea, and Prototype of Holinesse; the fountain, Sun, and Sea of Holinesse, from whence it derives it selfe in the second place to reasonable creatures, Angels and men, who onely are capable of Holinesse in a strict and proper sense.

2 All creatures have a goodnesse of nature and being [Page] by creation, onely the reasonable are vessels of Holinesse; which properly is, or at least ought to be in us, A full and exact conformity of the Soul in all its motions and operations to the will and mind of God. In the blessed Angels it is, and was in man at first a gift of creation, whereby they and wee were made in the Image of God, in righteousnesse and true Holinesse. Since our fall Holinesse is a gift of free grace, a supernaturall quality or habit infused into the Soule by the Holy Spirit, which by degrees reneweth us to a conformity (or an unfained study at least of conformity) to the will of God; doing all out of conscience to his command, regulating all by to his word, and directing all to his glory.

This Holinesse we must also follow, as the true and onely beauty, honour, riches, pleasure, and perfection of the soule. For, as much as men by reason exceed beasts, so much doe Christians by Holinesse exceed meere men, in their unholy and unregenerate state. By Holinesse wee recover our station and neerenesse to Angels, our claime to heaven, our kindred and relation to God, not only as his creatures, but as his Sons, regenerate by his holy Spirit.

3 There is yet a Holinesse in a low and inferiour sense, not of vertue or grace, but of use and relation; which is in Scripture and common speech applied to things unreasonable and inanimate too. This is a Holinesse of dedication, when things are devote and consecrated to the worship and service of the most holy God, set apart [Page] from common and civill uses to sacred.

This likewise we must follow, not as conceiving any inherent quality of Holinesse to be in those things, whereby they are able to work on thy Spirit, or recommend thee and thy service to a greater degree of acceptation, by conferring a greater degree of Holinesse (except in respect to Gods speciall appointment and promise, as of old) but only so farre we must follow this relative Holinesse, as to a decent use and reverentiall comportment; such as becomes the gravity, majesty, and solemnity of Christian Religion; and those outward services God requireth of us: Sancta sanctè, Holinesse becomes the house and worship of God for ever. Psal.

But take heed that thy superstitious mind doe not impute to, nor expect to find any active or virtuall Holinesse, in or from times, places, pictures, reliques, garments, or postures; when that must be, as it onely can be, in thy heart: There is that Sanctum Sanctorum, the immediate residence and operation of Gods holy Spirit. It is preposterous and vaine to imagine or seek it in other things: if thou hast it not there, thou maist profane them; they cannot sanctifie thee, nor thy services.

Yet here it is that superstition is prone to dote and flatter it selfe in its outward formalities of Holinesse (as Lewis the eleventh did in his leaden gods pardon, and the protection of an Hermite and his Reliques, with which he had fortified and barricadoed himselfe against the invasions of death, but all in vaine.)

[Page] Superstition, I say, which is the Ape and Mimick of Religion, having a Dream and fancy of external Holinesse, when indeed it is the moth and rust both of true Religion, and proper Holinesse; the paint and meretricious beauty of a Church or Person; the Ivy which by secret and unsensible steps creeps upon and overspreads its supporter, Religion; stealing away the sap of piety, which should be in the heart and inward man (in spirit and truth) to the pleasing of the senses and fancy onely, by nourishing them with externall and pompous formalities.

It is indeed a heavie Incubus, when once it hath seised upon a Church or conscience, oppressing it with needlesse scruples, and ceremonious burthens, which extremely abate, if not quite take away that beauty, vigour, and majesty of true Religion and Holinesse, which keeps the medium between superstition and profanenesse.

Yet must Holinesse have an universall influence upon the whole man, all faculties, motions, and actions, inward and outward; on the soule and body. In the Soule there must be a Holinesse of mind or understanding, by seeing and beleeving the saving truth of God; of the will, by applying, embracing, and subjecting to it; of the affections (feare, love, joy, anger, hope, sorrow, zeale, &c.) when they are by Gods Spirit carried to their right objects, and moderated in their measure to them; thus is truth, rectitude, and order, the Holinesse of the mind, will, and affections.

Further, Holinesse must have an influence on the [Page] externall expressions. Truth and purity are the Holinesse of speech; so chastity, temperance, meeknesse, humility, modesty, &c. are the Holinesse of our outward manners and comportments. As Morality improves the affections, and regulates the motions of the will to vertues, so Holinesse beautifies and raiseth those vertues to graces; and of the Philosophers Alchimy produceth the Christians pure gold: while it keeps all our actions, desires, and affections, within those bounds of honour and moderation, which Reason and Religion doe require.

Holinesse is the Soules fitting for God, its union and tie to God, its communion with him; in some sort deifying us, and making us partakers of the divine nature. 2 Pet. 40 What light is to the Sunne and day, what clearnesse to the fountain, what fruitfulnesse to the earth, what beauty and health are to the body; that indeed is Holinesse to the soule, to the whole man, and all our actions.

Holinesse is the supernaturall and universall beauty of the reasonable creature.

We are corruption, till Holinesse make us sound; ruined, till Holinesse repaire us; we are barrennesse, till that make us fruitfull; we are deformity, till that make us beautifull; we are darknesse, till Holinesse enlighten us; dead, till that enliven us; depraved, till that rectifie us; we are sin, till Holinesse make us gracious; wee are hell, till Holinesse make us heavenly; we are Devils, till Holinesse make us Saints; wee are damned wretches, till Holinesse sets us in a capacity of [Page] salvation, and seeing of God: whose enimies we are, till Holinesse have endeared us; from whom sin would seperate us forever, being filthy and abominable in his sight, till holinesse wash and clense us through faith in the blood of Christ.

In the sight of the most holy God, all beauty is deformity, all wisedom folly, all honour basenesse, all plenty poverty, all liberty bondage, all happinesse misery, all life but a death, all our splendid works but dead and damnable, without holinesse.

All words and humane notions are too grosse to set forth to you this spirituall beauty of holinesse, like dead colours to paint the light and heat of the Sun: one beame discovers it better than all the shadowes of words or Pencils could doe; so the best knowledge of holinesse is experimentall in the soule and conscience.

For it is not only in words, in notion, fancy, or speculation, or outward shewes, but in reality of effects; serious and solid without vanity or ostentation, or affectation, setled upon indisputable principles, and unmovable grounds, the revealed will of God: who since he is the author of our being, nothing is more gratefully just, than that his will should prescribe a rule to our actions: to which the more we study to apply and conforme our selves in all our actions, the more we follow holinesse.

This, this is that frame and temper of our soules and lives, which God our Father, and Christ our Saviour, and the holy Spirit our Sanctifier, the Word our Instructer, the Sacraments our confirmers, the [Page] Saints our forerunners, the Angels our protectors: all with one voice recommend to us Follow holinesse, O ye sonnes of men, without which yet shall never see the face of God.

Our most holy faith and profession; the precepts, promises, and hopes revealed; all our duties of preaching, hearing, reading, meditating, praying, receiving, fasting, almsgiving, &c. all are to advance this quality of holinesse in us.

This is one great intent of Christs comming, his living with us, and dying for us, that hee might sanctifie, as well as justifie us; save us from the power as well as the punishment of sinne; that he might give us a most perfect and excellent example, and purchase to himselfe a holy people, Luke 1.74. That we being delivered from our enemies, might serve him without feare, in righteousnesse and holinesse all the dayes of our life, So Titus 2.11. The grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared, teaching us that denying, &c. 1 Cor. 1.30. Christ is made to us wisedome, righteousnesse, sanctification, and redemption.

This is the fire that inflames, and the incense that perfumes all our duties, sacrifices, and services to God, so as to make them accepted through Christ.

This sets a value on two mites, and a cup of cold water, and a handfull of meale, without which all externall pompe and cost of services, is not only not pleasing, but fulsome, nauseous, and abominable to God, Esay 1.12 Offer no more vaine oblations; who hath required these things at your [Page]hands? yet the Law did, but not in such a manner, with unwashed hands, and unholy hearts, Prov. 21.27. Even the prayers and sacrifices of the wicked are abomination to God.

The Heathen saw this well, and hath admirably expressed it,

— Quin demus superis —

Compositum jus, fasque animi, sanctosque recessus

Mentis, & incoctum generoso pectus honesto,

Haec cedò, ut admoveam templis & farre litabo.

Holinesse is the Ladder of heaven, whose lowest step is humility, and the highest love, and devotion; by which the soule descends to men in charity, and ascends to God in piety.

This is that which prepares and disposeth the soule for Heaven; without which Heaven it selfe would be no Heaven, or not pleasing to us: Better be holy in hell, if possible than unholy in Heaven; though these two are unseparable, Holinesse and Happinesse; differing only in degree, not in kinde. For Holinesse is the sparke of Happinesse, and happinesse the flame of holinesse.

Holinesse is the infancy of happinesse, and happinesse the compleat stature of holinesse.

Holinesse is the morning of happinesse, and happinesse the meridian or noone-tide of holinesse. Holinesse is the seed-time, and happinesse the full harvest: For Heaven is not, as grosser mindes imagine, onely an impunity, or freedome from punishment, and fruition of pleasures, &c. but [Page] rather it consists in an immunity from sin, and a perfection of holinesse.

This is that one thing necessary, and required of the Sons of men, as the condition of seeing God; tis not without Riches no man shall see God; or without Beauty, honour, strength, learning, wit, &c. No, but without holinesse: all other additaments thou maist dispense with, and yet be happy; but Holinesse is indispensible.

By the paths of holinesse onely our wearied and wandring Soules may returne to paradise, that happy state and station, whence we fell, and were driven out: all other waies are severely kept against us, by the flaming sword of Gods irreconciliable anger and hatred against sinne: No unholy thing shall enter (much lesse remaine) in the holy City; all such shall be cast out, Rev. 21.27. Psal. 5.4. Thou art the God that hast no pleasure in wickednesse, nor shall any evill dwell with thee. God is of so pure eyes that he cannot behold iniquity, no more than the Sun can behold darknesse; for its appearing turnes all darknesse into light; much lesse can darknesse looke upon light, or sinners on God; this is hell neither to see, nor to be seen of God; whose favourable presence is the life, his absence the death of the soule forever.

But I have done with the first particular, what holinesse is.

The second thing is, who must follow it?

Every one that hath a soule to save, or a minde to see God. The exclusion is peremptory and universall; Without holinesse no man shall see God: [Page] with this no man need despaire, though never so defective for other things; without this no man may presume, God is no Accepter of persons. Not the rich, nor great, nor noble, nor valiant, nor beautifull; not the morally civill, not the witty and learned Scholars, not the deepe States-men, and darke Polititians, not the potent Princes and mighty Monarchs of the world; none of them may flatter themselves to reach Heaven without holinesse: God will cast deformity on all your so much flattered and selfe-admiring beauty, which is deceitfull to the owner, and dangerous to others; unlesse the beauty of holinesse be added to thee, like Apples of Gold in pictures of silver, which makes thee lovely not only to good minds on earth, but also to the Angels, and God himselfe in Heaven.

God will infatuate all your fallacious wisedome and selfe-destroying wit: he will discover the shallownesse of all your imaginary depths and counsels. He will one day appeare the only true wise man, who is wise for his soule to God and to Eternity, which is none but the holy man.

God will make to vanish all the dreames and shadowes of your imaginary greatnesse, and flat the swelling sailes of your titles of honour, fild only with popular breath and opinion of men, your selves and others: He will be then truely and only honourable who hath sought Gods honour, more than his owne, whom God will admit to his sacred presence and favour: this is none but the holy man.

Nay God will cast contempt upon Princes, as [Page] the Psalmist speakes, and in stead of Robes of Majesty, they shall be covered with their owne confusion as with a cloake, unlesse they be sacred in heart as wel as in title; consecrated to God as wel as exalted above men; except there be the inward annointing of Gods holy Spirit, as wel as the outward of the Prelate. As they are neere to God in greatnesse and place, so they must be in grace and holinesse, if ever they hope to attaine to glory and happinesse. Even in Princes God tels Samuel, 1 Sam. 16 He lookes not at the outward appearance, but at the heart.

That, that indeed is truely Sacred Majesty in Princes, when being Gods Vicegerents on earth, they doe that which they are perswaded in their conscience God himselfe or Christ would doe, if they reigned visibly as King on earth: when being Vmbratiles Dij, the back parts and shadowes of God, they most fully represent in a humane model, the divine perfections.

Certainely nothing sets forth Princes to a more divine honour, love and veneration, than their exemplary vertues and holinesse.

Hic animus, atque hae sunt generosi Principis artes. This even they, the greatest of men, must follow, since they are but Mortales Dij, and must die like men; unlesse they meane to come infinitely below the meanest of their good Subjects in the other world, whom in this they so much exceed.

Indeed all of us, both great and small must follow holinesse, since all have relation to so holy a [Page] Creator, to so holy a Redeemer, and to so holy a Comforter, being Subjects to the King of Saints.

Yea, we are, or should be the habitation and Temple wherein God will delight to dwell, 1 Cor. 3.17. If any man defile the Temple of God, him will God destroy.

Nay we are the Heaven where God resides: every Saint (saith Saint Bernard) is Gods Sanctuary, and every holy heart a Heaven; therefore that is called the Heaven of Heavens where the Saints are; in every of whom God dwels more gloriously than in any materiall Heaven.

In all callings and states of life holinesse is necessary; every action should be a step to arrive neerer to God: Holinesse is the poore mans riches, the meane mans honour, the weak mans strength, the banisheds home, the prisoners freedome, the young mans glory, the old mans crowne, the sick mans health, the dying mans hope and life: In a word it is all in all to all men dying and living. The weight of this text lies upon All, to move them to follow holinesse, and those especially who have most impediments and diversions, yet their actions are most exemplary, whether they be good or bad.

O when power and piety, greatnesse and goodnesse, heigth and holinesse meet together, and make up one Magistrate, one Minister, one King, how divine, how glorious, how attractive, and commanding all hearts to a love or feare, are their lives and actions! Like a noble constellation which consists of many stars, no lesse benigne and [Page] propitious for their influence, than eminent and conspicuous for their light.

And if I were to speake to men of my owne calling, superiors or equalls (as I see I am likely to doe to some) I should with all humble and respective earnestnesse recommend Holinesse to their hearts, thoughts, words, lives, gestures, lookes, and conversations. Etiam vultu laeditur sanctitas: Haughty and supercilious lookes, and insolent comportment, much more such speech and actions mis-become the holinesse and humility of our profession.

There are holy orders, and holy duties, to which we are admitted; and there is a speciall ceremony of consecration used for Bishops. O let us make good the holinesse of our titles and function, by the hloinesse of our conversation.

Let not the world reproach us, as some doe the vanity and arrogancy of the Popes, who challenge to themselves the title of his Holinesse; by way of eminency (or emphasis) when indeed it is (say they) by Antiphrasis, or contrariety, being for the most part solecismes and contradictions to their names, as he said of Probus, vir minimè probus.

O let us never vainely imagine, that there is a neerer way to the Clergies honour, than by the Clergies Holinesse. Though Holinesse even despised as a Jewell under foot, hath its true and internall honour and value still.

But O let not our preaching, our writing, our living any way decry, damp, and discountenance [Page] Holinesse, which is Gods honour, and the Churches honour, and must be our both honour and happinesse.

O let us not vainely contend for an imputed and relative Holinesse in Churches, and tables, and vestures, and gestures, and neglect it in our hearts and lives. Our word must be that of Saint Paul, Phil. 3.17. Be ye followers of me as I am of Christ, that is, of Holinesse, which was Christs way.

This, not onely the better world, which are extreamely ashamed and grieved for the contrary, but even the worser, dissolute, and debauched sort of people exact of us, whom we harden extreamly against our doctrines by our contrary manners; and who are glad by the faults and scandalls of Ministers (holy men as they should be) to justifie or excuse their owne vitious and unholy lives.

The higher our calling raiseth us, the neerer should it bring us to God, and the more should the face of our lives like Moses his, shine with the beames of holinesse while we daily converse with God.

Nothing more justifies, and assures the truth of our faith and doctrine, than the sutable holinesse of our lives. (let not that be verified of us, which Ieremy complained of in his time,Ier. 23.15. From the Prophets is prophanenesse gone into all the Land. But rather let us take Saint Pauls good advice to Timothy, Thou O man of God flie these things, 1 Tim. 6.11. and follow after righteousnesse, godlinesse, faith, love, patience, meeknesse, &c.

[Page]3 We come now to the third particular, how we must follow Holinesse.

1 For the measure how farre, to the heigth, aime at perfection; anticipate thy Heaven as much as may be here on earth; emulate and strive to equall thy patterne for parts, though not for degrees; Be ye holy as your heavenly Father is holy: he hath nothing of true holinesse, who thinkes he hath enough, or may have too much. Nimietates & excessus affectuum Deo debentur: All the excesse of our vehement and unsatisfied desires should run this way after God and Holinesse.

2 For the manner how: I answer, 1 Follow it universally in all points; the same tie lies upon thee in any one action which doth in all: Holinesse is the salt which must season all, so farre as humane infirmity can attaine. Thou wouldst not have some sparkes of Hell mixt with thy joyes of Heaven: O strive that no sin (if possible) may allay thy Holinesse and integrity, Be ye holy in all manner of conversation, and perfecting holinesse in the feare of the Lord. 1 Pet. 1.15. 2 Cor. 7.1.

2 Follow it earnestly, with vehement affections, not cold, languishing, lukewarme and indifferent; content not thy selfe with a few posting and perfunctory prayers; easie and lazy formalities of duties, obesae animae, like fat and pursie soules that cannot follow either fast, or farre: But rise to that intensivenesse in following Holinesse, with which the Covetous man followes his gain, the Ambitious his honour, the Voluptuous his pleasure; follow it with the same eagernesse, wherewith thou [Page] hast formerly followed sin, the world, and the Devill; Follow Holinesse with the same flagrancy and contention, as wicked men doe persecute and oppose it. They have their [...], so must thou, but sancta & pia persecutio, a sacred and commendable prosecution.

3 Follow it cheerfully, not in a tedious drooping and dejected manner which brings an ill report on Gods wayes; no man hath more right to moderate mirth (which is the only true) than he which is in the way of Holinesse, and indeed of happinesse. O let not that be a burthen to our Spirits here, which must be the joy and crowne and constant disposition of our soules in heaven.

The deadnesse and indispositions from within, which we are Subject unto, are not to be imputed to the wayes of holinesse, but to the weaknesse of our natures; as the lothnesse to use exercise proceedeth from the ill humors, which oppresse the Spirits in a diseased body, and not from the inconvenience of exercise, which is the way to dispel those ill humours, and to recover health and agility. For the difficulties and discouragements from without, they are not much to be considered by any, but those that know not what is the worth of a Soule, the weight of Eternity, the comfort of a good conscience, and of the hopes of Heaven, in the sight and fruition of God.

4 Follow it exactly & closely, not at large and at distances a far off, as the Disciples followed Christ to be crucified, Ephes. 5.15. walke ( [...]) strictly [Page] and precisely in a sound and Apostolicall sense. There will be rimulae, leakes and flanes of infirmities, and daily incursions in all our lives; but let there not be (hiatus) wide breaches and gapings of presumption: keep not willingly any distance or dissimilitude from Christ, be not ashamed or discountenanced to come neere to him and to be like to him in all points.

Follow holinesse, not timidè & pudibundè; it is pudendus pudor, a shame infinitely to be ashamed of, that any Chistian should be ashamed to be, or to be thought too holy; but that he must now and then dare to sweare, and ly, and talke obscenely & prophanely, or live riotously, that he may not seeme too precise. Canst thou be too fit for heaven, or too far from sin and hell?

5 Follow Holinesse speedily, begin betimes: all life is lost that is not spent in a holy course of living; it is a dead life, nay a damning life without amendment. All our life is too little to live well; the Sun cannot rise too early, except to a sluggard; nor can holinesse be too soone begun in thy heart, except thou love to sleepe in thy sin: It were happy if with Ieremy and Iohn Baptist we were sanctified from the Wombe and Font, from the dawning and morning of our lives, but,

O jam clarum mane fenestras intrat.

Rom. 13.12. It is high time to rise from sin and follow Holinesse, the day of our short life is farre spent in following vanity and things that cannot profit: the night of death is at hand, ô make haste to live, and to live holily, that thou [Page] mayst not come short of dying happily.

Breve sit quod turpiter audes.

How many hast thou knowne cut off in their youth and strength, and confidence of living, and it may be in their purposes and essayes of amendng.

Many of us have one foot in the grave, through the course of age, and infirmities that attend it; nay, even of the strongest of us; we may say as David said to Ionathan, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soule liveth, there is but a step betweene thee and death, yea, and hell too; and yet many of us not yet gone one step of serious resolutions, to follow Holinesse, and forsake our old sins.

O dally not with thy life, with thy soule, with hell, and eternall death: delaies are extreame dangerous where the opportunity is short, and the omission is irreparable: Remember on this moment depends eternity. Death followes us, and sin followes us, and our owne evill consciences, and hell, and the Devill too will follow and overtake us, if we flie not from them by following Christ where ever he goes in the waies of Holinesse. O learne of David, Psalme 119.60 I made haste and prolonged not the time to turne my feete into thy wayes.

6 Follow it sincerely, Simulata Sanctitas▪ duplex iniquitas. Hypocrisie is a double and twisted impiety. Its not only a not serving God, but a mocking of him, and it shall have a double condemnation for the want of holinesse which should be, and for the ly and pretension of what was not; [Page] nothing is more contrary to the simplicity of Gods Nature, and the truth and integrity of his Word and intentions to men, than simulation and hypocrisie. Nothing hath more clouded, ecclipsed and deformed the beauty of holinesse, than the impudent pretentions of some to it; who like Apes and Monkies are the more deformed and ridiculous, because in some things they resemble the shape, and imitate the actions of men, but want their reason, Galat. 6.7. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, what a man sowes that he shall reape: He that sowes only shadowes, and shewes, and formalities of holinesse, shall reape only shadowes and shewes and dreames of peace, comfort, and happinesse. The deceiver will at last be most deceived. O be good in good earnest, or not at all; Lose not so much time and paines to act a part of holinesse, which will but improve thy misery: what is it to be applauded of men, and abhorred of God? What is the hope of the hypocrite (saith he in Iob) when God shall take away his soule?

7 And lastly, follow holinesse constantly, not desultoriè, lamely, brokenly, and abruptly, by fits only; but with a steddy and resolute course, as the Sun moves, neither going backe, nor standing still. Perseverance is the crowne of graces, and gets the crowne of Glory: thou expectest God should make thee incessantly happy in his Eternity; O be thou holy (in tua aeternitate as Saint Bernard) in thy limited and short eternity.

Consider how noble a patterne thou hast in [Page] Christ thy Saviour, who deferred his owne glory, till he had finished thy salvation. Consider how great encouragements thou hast, how sweet comforts for the present, how ample reward and expectation for the future.

O let no difficulties take thee off, nor errors divert thee, let them rather whet and exasperate thy resolutions and endeavours; let no superstition deceive thee, nor persecution deterre thee; having begunne in the spirit, doe not end in the flesh.

Remember thou hast alwaies a viaticum, means of refreshing neere thee; The holy word and promises, and Sacraments to relieve thee; the holy Spirit to assist thee, and helpe thy infirmities.

Thou hast Gods holy day wherein to be specially vacant to holy duties, and the soules improvement; by the carefull sanctifying whereof, there is no doubt, but the pious soule is better enabled to see God here, in his Word and workes, and hereafter in his glory and presence: we have also praeclara exempla, of holy men and women, Saints in all ages, which have gone before us in the waies of holinesse to that state of happinesse, through all the oppositions of men and devills.

Heroick and invincible followers of holinesse, now glorious and immortall possessors of happinesse. Praeclara spectantibus mediocria praestare pudori esse debet: having so noble and inviting examples set before us, it is a shame for us either to follow them not at all, or with weake and slender imitations.

[Page]4 Wherefore must we thus follow Holinesse? This brings me to the last point, the second generall, the motive or inducement, without which no man shall see God. Holinesse is that alone which makes us capable of the beatifick vision.

But this is a point of so high speculation, of so serious consideration for the obtaining or loosing of it, of so infinite comfort is the vision and fruition of God; of so infinite honour, the separation from him, that it would farre exceed the time, and my speech, to set it forth to you as it deserves.

Onely this short glimpse we may take of it, That there are many intervenient fruits of holinesse worth our ambition here, by which we see God, though dimly, & at distance in his Word and promises, in his Sacraments, in his Son our Saviour, in his workes, in his servants, in the motions of his Spirit, in the wayes of his providence, mercies and judgements. To all which Holinesse only cleares and enlightens and enables the soule so as to see God, to enjoy and admire him. This makes oculatam animam, an eyed and seeing minde, which otherwaies is blinde and dead, Mat. 5. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they and they onely do and shall see God. But O when we come to see not his footsteps, or back parts, or shadow, or hands, but his face, by an immediate intuition of his Majesty, how shall we be filled with glory and happinesse?

O praeclarum & invidendum spectaculum!

In this life indeed (as God told Moses) no man can see his face and live; Scrutator Majestatis [Page]opprimetur à gloriâ. But in heaven, we shall live by the sight and light of God. Sectator sanctitatis perficietur à gloriâ. If then it be any comfort to see the light of the Sun, the beauty of Heaven and earth, or the face of an indulgent Father, an excellent friend, or a gracious Prince, who is as an Angell of God, what is it to see God himselfe?

O What a Sea and inundation of unspeakeable joy and happinesse must flow in upon the soule, to behold the brightnesse of Gods presence, the glory of his Majesty, the beauty of his goodnesse, the treasures of his wisedome, the immensity of his power, the amplitude of his mercy, the perfection of his holinesse and infinite happinesse! And last of all, the eternall wonder of his free and unchangeable love to us, so much below him, so as nothing in comparison of him!

In thy light (saith the Psalmist) wee shall see light; the way is by the light of grace, to come to the light of glory; by the beauty of holinesse to come to the perfection of happinesse, which is the sight of God: which what it is we shall best tell when we come to it. I must now leave it to the worke of Gods Spirit in your devouter hearts, to consider more largely and sublimely of this point.

Onely give me leave by way of conclusion to appeale to your piety, wisedome, and experience, Whether the waies of holinesse be not worth the following, which end in such happinesse, as is beyond expressing: Whether it be not a vanity, [Page] folly, and extreame madnesse for men and women, that are built for eternity, and capable of the highest good, so much to neglect their soules, their God, and their happinesse by following their sins, the worldly pleasures, profits, and honours, with the neglect of holinesse? The Devill, the evill world, and a mans owne corrupt heart, will allow him to bee any thing, so he be not holy: let him bee rich, and faire, and strong, and great, and honourable, and witty, and eloquent, and civill, and politicke, and knowing even in divine mysteries, any thing, so as hee bee not holy. All these things (as the Devill said to Christ) will I give thee, if thou wilt be unholy still, and like my selfe: Holinesse is that alone the Devill wants, and despaires of himselfe, and that he most envies us the sons of men; because hee knowes it sets us in a way of happinesse so infinitely above him.

But what our Saviour said, Matth. 8.22. to the young man that desired respite to bury his dead Father, Let the dead bury the dead, but follow thou me. This give me leave to say to all you that heare me this day; let dead hearts bury themselves in dead comforts, dead honours, dead pleasures, dead hopes, &c. but follow thou Christ, follow Holinesse.

I further appeale to the justice of your piety, and goodnesse, Whether the waies of holinesse, and the followers of them deserve to be derided, despised, discountenanced, & discouraged so much as they are by the proud, prophane, sensuall, and [Page] superstitious mindes of the world? whether they which despise holinesse doe not withall despise their owne soules, their God and Saviour? whether they forsake not their owne mercies, who follow lying vanities? whether this be not to glory in our shame, to be ashamed of that which is the glory of God, and the reasonable creature?

Lastly, I appeale to your royall wisedome, and the rest of your Noble and Christian Prudence & Piety, Whether those that follow peace and Holinesse, and are fitted to a capacity of seeing the great God and King of Heaven in his Glory, be not also the worthiest and fittest to see the face and enjoy the favours of Christian Kings on earth?

These, these are they that best know the duty, honour, and fidelity, they owe to Majesty; and make a conscience to pay it, because it is a point of Holinesse so to doe. These are the propugnacula & munimenta regni & Ecclesiae, as was said of Saint Ambrose, the strength, honour, and security of the Church and State, under God and his Majesties care and pious providence. These are in some sort, the (tutelares Genii) protectors of his Majesties person, health, life, Crowne, Queene, and posterity; while they daily lift up pure hands and holy hearts to the God of Heaven, for his Majesties safety, honour, and happinesse.

These are like Moses and Elias, the Horsemen and Chariots of Israel; these have power with God by their prayers, counsells, and good examples; they stand in the gap, and hinder the inundation [Page] of sin and judgements. To these we owe under God the enjoyment of our peace, plenty, safety, and Religion, and of the blessing of blessings temporall, a pious and gratious Prince.

O then let not Holinesse (I beseech you) bee banished, as I beleeve it is not, from your hearts, your words, your houses, your lives, from your favour and good opinion, from your service; nor from your Court: Let there not be wanting in this place Iosephs, and Mordecays, and Nehemiahs, and Daniels, men in whom is the Spirit of the holy God, as that Heathen Prince said of Daniel.

There is a Booke called The holy Court, which might be usefull to Courtiers, if it were not unsafe, being larded with many false and frivolous opinions, and superstitious practises: It will bee your honour and happinesse to act what he sought to write.

O follow not sinne and vanity, or strife and contention, or lubricity and impurity, or vaine-glory, &c. these will cast you out from the presence of God, and betray you to utter darknesse: And what considerate minde can with patience thinke of being ever separated from the fountaine of its being, life and happinesse? O what infinite darknesse, necessity, and horror must for ever oppresse that soule! Holinesse only is that divine magnetick power, which drawes the soule to God, and God to the soule, never quiet till it be united to the fountaine, its vertue.

I know your piety cannot but consider oft and seriously, That the greatest of you will be one [Page] day like Sampson (when his fatall haire was cut) weak, and impotent and like other men; your eyes blinded, your great strength departed, the chaines of darknesse will involve you, the wormes will be your fetters, and the grave your prison.

O while you live follow holinesse, that when you die (as Sampson did) you may quite destroy those enimies, which living you could not; that death may be an end of your sinne and mortality, but the beginning and consummation of your endlesse happinesse in the sight of God.

That when the eyes of your bodies shall be shut to this world, and all things desirable here; the eye of your soule (that rationall and eternall eye) may be opened to see and enjoy God, and reigne with Christ for ever.

That you and we though in different degrees, may then receive that Crowne of immortall glory, which is free from cares and crosses, from feares and jealousies, from sleep, and soule-breaking distractions, but full of a divine and constant glory, serenity, joy, and eternall security. Amen.

A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE IVDGES AT CHELMSFORD.

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ZECH. 8.16.

These are the things yee shall doe; speake yee every man the truth to his Neighbour: execute the judgement of truth and peace in your Gates.

THE Customary solemnity of publike Assise, and administration of Justice, hath not more of state and policy, than of safety and piety, in this; That not only the gentry and commons, but your wisedome and gravity (Right Honourable and Reverend) disdaine not to receive advice from the Pulpit, before you goe to the Bench; and hear Gods charge to you, before you [Page] give your charge to others: Hereby not so much to conciliate a greater reverence and authority to to your persons and proceedings, by amusing the minds of the populacy, and awing their consciences, with the pompe and formality of religion (as those Heathen Law-givers (Solon, Lycurgus, Numa, and others) are said to have done) but seriously and in the feare of God to ascend with Moses first to the Mount, and talke with God, before you judge and teach the people.

Esay 5.20. To the Law and to the Testimony; these will informe you the will of God, which is the highest law and perfectest rule to examine truth, to measure justice, and to maintaine peace; which though they flow from that pure and eternall fountaine of essentiall truth, justice, and peace, most clearly and plentifully in the conduit of his Word; yet are ready to contract much soil and dregs in the vessels of mens hearts, and course of humane actions; so that the best have need often to refine and renew their minds, by a fresh information of their judgements, concerning the will of God, and resolution of their wills to doe it.

His Word, no doubt, teacheth the best politicks; his precept and example shew the happiest platforme of government, whose almighty power is so tempered with wisedome and goodnesse, That as he made at first the state and frame of all things full of beauty, order, and harmony, by number, weight, and measure; so he still preserves and governes the great Common-wealth of all creatures in heaven and earth, with that just proportion of [Page] power and goodnesse, as keeps the generall peace of things; and keepes off that confusion to which the variety and contrariety of particular natures seeme to tend. So that who so will judge and governe aright, shall not need to use those Machiavellian engines, lying, fraud, simulation and injustice; mysteries indeed not of true policy, but of iniquity, unreasonable reasons of state, which the impotency and folly of wicked men pretend as necessary; when indeed [...]ey tend not to the establishing but undermining of States, and ruine both of governours and governed.

We need goe no further than this Text, to see what God requires and teacheth us as best, and necessary for the well ordering of humane societies; both for private and publi, ke or judiciary proceedings.

1 In private, that every one speake the truth to his neighbour; this would stop many injuries and complaints with which the publike courts are pestred.

2 In publike and judiciary proceedings; every one promote the execution of truth and peace in the gates.

1 The people and governed. By their presence, obedience, assistance, by their testimony and evidence of word and oath for the search and finding out of truth. By their hands and power for the maintaining of peace both in the safety of the person of the Magistrate, and execution of that [...]ust sentence which they give.

2 The Magistrate and persons governing, 1 by [...] [Page] [...] [Page] [Page] their knowledge of what is judgement and justice. 2. By their authority and power, to execute what they know is just. 3. By their integrity in the execution, according to truth and peace.

For these three things are (you know) necessary in Magistrates, and those minores Dii, inferiour mortall gods:

1. Skill to governe power. 2. Power to arme their skill. 3. Will [...] actuate both uprightly: That neither ignorance breed error, and so injustice: nor weaknesse, contempt and opposition: nor corruptnesse, injury and oppression.

What is knowledge of truth and equity, if there be not courage and conscience to speak it?

What is skill, courage, and conscience, if destitute of power, to execute what they know, and decree?

Fundamentum pacis veritas, stabilimentum utriusque potestas; Truth is the foundation of peace, and power the support of both truth, and peace, which without authority grow feeble, and despised: as authority not grounded upon equity, and guided by truth, proves violence, tyranny, and oppression; and becommeth not a file, sive, and schreene to separate the rust from the metall, the bran from the flowre, the chaffe from the graine, the vile and refuse from the choice and precious; but mola, & malleus plebis, the maul and mill, that violently and promiscuously grindes and beats to peices all that comes under its rigour, and weight.

[Page]Your Honours and wisedomes I presume are provided with all three.

Power and authority, I am sure, you have the highest and amplest from the King of Heaven, by the mediate appointment of our gracious King on earth.

Skill, and knowledge you have through Gods blessing by the study and experience in the lawes.

Vprightnesse and integrity, we charitably pray, and hope you have from the grace of God, and the tendernesse of your owne consciences.

Indeed you have all from God; whose word hath ordained your power, and regulated this by just law, and exacts a conscience in executing these lawes.

So that by attending to Gods word you may confirme your authority, encrease your knowledge, and incite your consciences.

The judgement in all points is the Lords: as power, justice▪ and truth in your judgements flow from him; so will they, as rivers, returne back to him in your reckonings and accounts.

Happy is it when every one of these, as so many rivulets, contribute their strength to the publick current of justice; that so judgement may runne downe, as a noble and mighty streame, and know no stop or resistance.

That every one being a lover of truth and peace, the first and severest censurer and judge of himselfe, and his owne actions; you may with the more patience and cheerfulnesse attend to what I shall out of Gods word with all modesty and due [Page]observance, but yet truth and faithfulnesse endeavour by the discharge of my owne conscience, to informe some, to reforme others, and at least to confirme yours, by stirring up your prudent mindes by way of remembrance of what is just and true, and tends to your owne and others peace.

Which since you know, and have authority to doe, happy are you if you doe them.

These are the things you shall doe, &c.

Two things are considerable in the words.

1. The forme of the charge or command, These are the things yee shall doe.

2. The duty or matter.

1. Private, personall, and universall to all men, speak every man the truth to his neighbour.

2. Publick, politicall, and speciall to Magistrates; Execute the judgement of truth and peace in your gates.

We will begin with the duties themselves, and reserve the forme of the command to the last place, when wee shall apply the duties to every one as they concerne them.

1. The first branch of the duty and command is private, personall, and universall to all men,

Veriloquentia.] Speak yee the truth every man to his neighbour.

1. What we must doe, speak the truth.

2. Who, every man.

3. To whom, to his neighbour.

1. Speak the truth:

Man is, [...], a sociable creature.

[Page] Speech is the meanes of society and commerce. The common change and coyne. The mine of truth is Gods, the mint and coynage of it. Speech must have his Image and superscription, the stamp and impression of truth. It is capitall offence of the highest Majesty to counterfeit or falsifie this by a lie.

By Reason we come neere the Angels; by reason and speech both wee exceed the beasts; by truth speaking we come neerest to God, and get farthest from the Devill, the father of lies.

Speech is the peculiar glory of men; and veracity of good men, and Christians: It is the glory of God that his word is truth, agreeing with his eternall minde and intention. The glory of man is to come neerest God.

Speech is the glasse and reflection of our soules: words are the characters, Ambassadors, and Interpreters of our mindes, which must give by a true reflection, a true information of our meaning to others.

The soule of words is truth, separated from that they are [...] cadaverosa verba, rotten, corrupt, and unsavory words.

To commend Truth in knowing or speaking, is to commend the Sun; Sol est lux mundi, veritas mentis.

As the Sun seated in the heaven, from thence derives his beames to all things: so truth is placed in the heaven of man, the understanding, from thence it must shine forth into our words. As light is to our eyes, for guiding our steps; so is [Page]truth to our tongues, for ordering our speech. Solem e mundo tollunt, qui veritatem e verbis.

Lactant. Veritas caeleste mentis pabulum; Truth is that pure, heavenly, and immortall food of the reasonable soule. A Liar feeds on the dust, as the Serpents curse, nay on the ashes of hell.

He that is in an error, is in an ecclipse or mist, through the common imbecillity of humane understanding: but he that is in a way of lying, is in a night of utter darknesse, in the chaines of everlasting darknesse, with the Devill and his Angels. He carries his Devill and lying spirit about him, as Ahabs false Prophets, and his Hell within him in his conscience.

Giving the lie is, in point of honour, an offense of the highest nature to ingenuous mindes; because it reproacheth a man either of Athiesme, or extreme basenesse and cowardize; that either he ownes no God, or which is worse, feares more to offend man than God, not daring to speak the truth.

Synesius de Regno most elegantly, [...], Truth is the honour and noblenesse of words, and it argues a generous minde to speak it: though alone, yet truth, as the Sun is faire; though displeasing (& odium parit) though dangerous, & grande praesagium mali (as Lactant.) though desperate, vitamque impendere vero; Nec propter vitam vivendi perdere causam: It is folly to preferre life before the end of life, which is the knowing, love, and manifesting of truth.

Speak it therefore, and feare not. Veritas nihil [Page]erubescit, nisi solum abscondi: Truth is ashamed of nothing but to be hidden.

But let it be Verum, not verisimile, not probabile, but certum & compertum, [...], a cleere pregnant and well assured truth; not what is taken upon flying rumors, suspitions, or envious disaffections. For to affirme as certaine, what is dubious, and only probable, is out of doubt a lie.

Wee must not, like Balaams Asse, speak what wee understand not, nor affirme what wee know not.

Therefore our speech must not be rash, precipitant, tumultuary, and passionate; but calme, and deliberate, issuing from a heart without prejudice, partiality, or injust interests; as silver streames from a chrystall fountaine, flowing without any mud or tincture of malice, or oblique and sinister designes.

Our mindes also must be prudent, steddy, and reserved, not [...], credulous, like soft wax taking easily any impressions. That of Epicharmus is safe, [...]. Keep alwayes the reines and curb of diffidence and sobriety in thy minde and tongue.

[...],Basil. the way to truth hath many turnings, and needs a capacious minde to finde out the right. Speak not what the shew and superficies, or skin presents; but what the inside, substance, and marrow of things discover to our judgements.

There is veritas entis, quae est mentis quae videtur. The first we must alwayes seek to attaine. [Page] The second we must not faile to affirme: else it is a lie,Inst. lib. 6 which Lactant. defines, mendacium est cum linguae animi interpres a sensu & cogitatione discordat. When the tongue agrees not with the thoughts.

Ep 95.S. Austin tels us: & non vera fideliter, & vera infideliter dici possunt. A man may speak what is truth, yet falsly; and what is false, yet truly: such a one is not mendax, but temerarius; nec tam fallit quam fallitur: hee is not a lyar, but a rash speaker.

August.The rule is, Cum cogitare secundùm veritatem semper non possumus, at loquamur secundùm cogitata: Our first happinesse and care is to conforme our thoughts to the truth of things; our second, to conforme our words to the truth of our thoughts.

Octa. Multi taedio investigandae veritatis ad proximos divertunt errores; Many out of a lazy, or credulous disposition, think it tedious to search out the way of truth, and so turne to the next and easiest path of error and probabilities: [...], as Thucidides speaks; What wee know uncertainly, speak not as certaine: what wee know assuredly, speak not as dubious, and with suspence, and by halfes.

For, as wee must speak truth only; so the whole truth, when expected and required.

Quantum supprimitur quaesitae veritatis, supplet mendacium; As much as wee defalk, or smother, of an inquired Truth, which wee pretend fully to discover, wee make up by a tacit Lye; Which is [Page] an interpretative denyall of Truth.

When thou knowest and believest a truth, in 3 ordinary converse, it is enough to speak it; no more is required of thee. Therefore not sweare the truth. Truth hath native strength sufficient, and needs not the volleys or barricadoes of oaths and imprecations.

Swearing is more than God requires, or truth needs, or ingenuous mindes will exact; or will consist with thy peace and a good conscience.

Let your yea, be yea, and your nay, nay; Mat. 5.3 [...]. what is more than these is sinne: That is the simplicity and plainnesse of our Saviours prescripts, and bounds of speaking, even Truth it selfe.

Sweare not at all; no not to the truth, in ordinary and familiar converse, except in weighty matters of great concernment in private, or in publike and judiciary attestations, when called to it.August. ep. 224. Ne jurandi facilitate in perjurium prolabamur, praeceptum est, ne juremus omnino; Hee is in the confines and next step to false-swearing, and perjury, who accustomes himselfe to sweare, though truly, in triviall matters.

Bono viro constans vita loco juramenti est; The credit and faithfulnesse of an honest man, hath the force of an oath.

Lyars only neede to sweare, and for the most part doe; whose vanity or falsity hath bred them this just unhappinesse, that when they speak the truth, they think they shall not be believed, unlesse they sweare it: Though hee that deserves to bee disbelieved in his truth speaking, merits [Page] not beliefe, though he sweare; For, if hee feare nor a lye, hee will not an oath.

This customary swearing is not more vaine and needlesse, than a spreading and epidemicall evill, such as the Land mournes under; being growne to that which Salvian complaines of, in his time; Non criminis, sed sermonis genus per Deum, per Christum jurare, consuetudine jurandi videtur: Swearing seemes to most, not a hainous and weighty sin, but a formality and complement of speech, through the custome and commonnesse of swearing.Cl. Alex. [...]; Truth is of it selfe cleere enough, and needs not the vehemence and asseveration of an oath: Which renders it more suspected, and the hearer more diffident, when he sees one fears not an oath, nor makes conscience of vaine swearing, which is a sin as well as lying.

As wee need but speak it, so speak it plainly and cleerly. Truth, like the Sun, joyes most in it selfe; its owne opennesse, simplicity and cleerenesse: as wee ought not to sweare it, so wee must not with multitude of words clog and cumber it; studying rather to cloud and involve it, than to cleere and explaine it, which is the end of speech. The contrary is but the cunning and artifice of many, who, though they dare not ( [...]) flatly, and with open forehead fight against Truth, yet with their ( [...], as Socrates speaks) fetches, dresses, ambages, circles, labarynths, perplexed and purposely intricate termes and discourses, they [Page] obliquely fight against the Truth with its owne armes, Eloquence: studying to confound and lose the capacities of simpler minds, by using a sea of words to a drop of truth.

Such tongues and men, like Ignes fatui, intend not to give light to a matter, but only to amuse and lead out of the right way, ignorant and well meaning minds: Which is indeed but a more subtill, fine, and sophisticall way of lying: An injury of justice and truth with applause and ostentation; which they hope to steale away, in that mist and obscurity of words, which by their voluble and jugling tongues they cast upon them.

The practice and fault not so much of private men, as of those Tertullusses, many publike Orators; whose profession cals them to the barre, and pleas, to be Vindices veritatis, Advocates of truth and justice; whose unhappy tongues, and pernicious eloquence, oft times so darken and entangle truth and a just cause, which they know to be such, that they gaine it with as much injustice as eloquence; whose mercenary and venall soules and tongues, count their greatest fee and reward to come from the purses of their clyents, not from the conscience of asserting a truth, and vindicating a just cause.

Certainly, it had been a blessing to these men, to have been dumbe; better not speak at all, than not the truth; or with applause and vaine glory, to speak nothing but specious and plausible lies. These are not Pleaders, but Seducers; as Bernard,[Page]Bonorum ingeniorum insignis est indoles in verbis verum amare, August. non verba: It argues a minde not lesse ingenuous than pious, to make words subservient to truth; not to subdue and captivate truth to words: To count the clearing and prevailing of truth the noblest reward of speaking, not to make truth the booty and prey of speech. Veritas saepe offuscatur eloquentia:Tertul. That power and prevalency of speaking that some men have, should be as bellowes▪ [...], to blow up, and resuscitate to a flame and splendor, the sparks of an obscured truth; not to damp and oppresse them, by casting the ashes and soot of dry and empty words upon them.

This then is our common duty, to speak the truth; a knowne, at least a beleeved truth, freely and sully, without feare or partiality: Simply and nakedly, without swearing and imprecations: Candidly and ingenuously without artifice or studied obscurity.

2 Who? Every man: No man hath a Patent or priviledge to lie; or a dispensation for truth speaking in any cause whatsoever.

Not for himselfe or any advantage may accrew to him: Mendacium semper inutile, A lyar is alwayes a loser; for he sels the truth and his soule into the bargaine, when the whole world cannot countervaile either of them.

August.Not for his friend, which is as his owne soule: Nemo potest esse veraciter amicus hominis, nisi qui fuerit primitus veritatis: Hee will easily prove a false friend, that will falsifie the truth for his [Page] friend. Magis amica veritas, must bee a good mans Maxime: Hee that is false to God, cannot bee firme to mee; as Constantine the Great said. That friend that will bee lost by truth speaking, or not lying, is not worth the keeping. Hee values his friendship far too deare, that will have mee purchase it with the waste of my conscience, and hazard of the love of God and losse of my soule.

Not for Parents or kindred: Our neerest alliance and cognation is to God; [...], whose essence and will is Truth; His off-spring wee are; we must not break our respects to Him, to pleasure any relations, which are infinitely below Him.

Not for the Magistrate, or his Prince: A good Prince will not require it; an evill doth not deserve that a man should so far injure his soule, by rebelling against the most High, whose Kingdome is over all, even Kings themselves.

Not for his Countrey: By lying to banish a mans selfe from heaven, which is a Christian soules true, dearest, and eternall Countrey.

Not for his Religion: A lye cannot advance true religion, no more than water enflame fire, or darknesse illustrate light, or hell promote heaven. It is a lame religion, or a halting heart at least, which professeth it so, as to stand in need of the crutches of lying and equivocation.

Not for God himselfe, and his glory; Whereof hee is so vigilant and powerfull a maintainer; [Page] that hee needs not the Devils ayde. Will yee accept the person of the Almighty, Iob 13.9. or lye for him? Doe you think to serve him by sinning against him, or please him by offering an abomination? This is as if one would pretend to secure a Prince by treason; or defend him by striking at him: For every lyar doth strike at the face of God, which is, Truth; by which hee appeares to us, and is seene by us.

Nay not for Truth it selfe; which cannot be strengthened, but enfeebled and hindered by the addition of a lye: as a strong and sound arme or leg, by needlesse splinters and bands: or wholesome meat, by mixture and infusion of poyson. Mendaciorum natura est, Lact. ut cohaerere non possunt; Lies cannot easily bee so glued or sodered together, but their flawes and gapings will bee detected: much lesse Truth and Lies; which are more heterogeneall, than iron and clay: old bottles and new wine: a new piece and an old garment. What agreement hath light and darknesse, God and Beliall? 2 Cor. 6.15.

So that it is every mans duty, in all the course and turnings of life, to steere his speech by the Compasse of Truth; which by a heavenly sympathy, tends it selfe, and must alwayes carry us to that Cynosure, the first and immoveable Pole of Truth, which is in God.

Lying and falsity is the rich and Noble mans shame and dishonour: Truth and veracity is the meanest mans riches and glory. The greatnesse of the one will not beare him out in lying; [Page] nor the necessity of the other excuse him.

Veritas animae sponsa: Every reasonable creature should bee affianced and wedded to truth, by so firme and indissoluble a band, as will suffer no estrangement, much lesse divorce. It is the adultery of the soule to embrace an error; and of the lips to speak a lie.

Every man must speak truth: So much as wee lie, wee are not men, that is, the sons of God and Truth; but devils, the children of him, who is the father of lies and liars.

3 To whom? To his Neighbour. But who is my Neighbour? Whomsoever the affaires of life, and civill conversation doe joyne us unto. Indeed wee are all, Proximi naturâ, neere Neighbours by the proximity of common nature, of the same stock and extraction. More neerly wee are Neighbours, by the consent and fruition of the same Lawes, Countrey, Government, Commonwealth and publike good. Many are neighbours by a vicinity of place and cohabitation: many by community of businesse and employment. As wee are Christians, wee are all Proximi Religione, Fide, Numine, Redemptore; and should bee affectu & charitate, wee have a neerenesse, nay samenesse of Religion, God, Saviour, Faith, Hope, And affection one to another.

These are obligations enough of neernesse and vicinity to tye us each to other, under the relation of Neighbours; when the least of them may not bee violated with a lie, without a great sin and unworthinesse. Wee may not lie to a [Page] stranger, an enimy, a heathen, a Turk, an Infidel, a Lyar, nor to the Devill himselfe; wee may not pay him in his owne coyne, no more than the Archangel Michael durst give him railing accusation;Iu [...]e v. 9. though hee bee [...], a rayler, and false accuser.

Certainly, nothing is lesse neighbourly than lying: for what trust, affiance or security, can one have in another, if one cannot believe what another promises, affirmes, or denyes.

Commune vinculum indigentia; The common tye of society is the mutuall want of each other; and, The common enterchange of good offices is in the way of truth-speaking. Else every neighbour is Insidiator & hostis, an enimy; and the more dangerous; because neere and treacherous. Better dwell in a Wildernesse than such a vicinity.

The knot and summe, that folds up all the second Table, is this, To love thy neighbour as thy selfe: Now,Aug. Ench. ad Lau. nemo libenter dicipitur. Falli nolunt qui fallere amant; adeo rationalis natura errorem refugit: Every man hates a lye in another, so much as he loves himselfe. No man loves you should lye to him, though himselfe lies never so frequently; no more than a thiefe will like you should steale from himselfe.

Doe then as wee would bee done to; that is, well and justly: And, speak as you would bee spoken to; that is, Every man the truth to his neighbour. [...]; [...]s. Pel. l. 1. ep. 9. The Standard of equity and vertue God hath [Page] set in every mans owne reason and conscience to measure by it to others, so as hee would they should mete to him. If but this one branch of it, (in truth speaking) were conscientiously observed, wee should not have so many contentions, which call for publike examination and execution of truth; for lying breeds injuries. Hee that feares not to offend God by lying, will not feare to offend man by defrauding: whence spring so many suits and quarrels. Every man, though hee cannot judge what is aequum, just, in mine, and thine; yet hee may, of what is verum, in regard of his owne thoughts; which needs no other Court, Witnesse or Judge, than his owne conscience, for the speaking of it.

Neither private nor publike good can flourish, if this commerce of Truth-speaking to our neighbour faile and decay. Which if in daily and domestick converse it must bee maintained; how much more in publike attestations, when by word or oath, wee are called forth as Witnesses or Iurors to speak the truth, not only to our neighbour, but to the face of our Countrey; to our Prince; to the law; to justice it selfe; and in a high degree to the glory of God? as Ioshua perswades Achan to give glory to God, by telling the truth: by which the execution of the judgement of Truth and Peace may be promoted; and the common good advanced by a just punishment of the wicked, and absolving of the innocent.

Publike lies are impudent and enormous lies: [Page] when death and life, Pro. 18.21. justice and injustice are in the power of the tongue: But a lie upon oath, is beyond expression abominable to God and man.Pro. 22.22. In this if in any sin men exceed the devils; whom wee read of, notorious for lying, but not for perjury; as never having the honour to bee called to witnesse a truth, with the invocation of the Name and Majesty of God.

Perjurium est mendacium sacrilegum; That's the definition of perjury; it is a sacrilegious lie: Which besides the falsity, seeks to rob his neighbour of his right and innocency; the law and justice of a due debt of punishment, which every malefactor owes: robs the King, Countrey, and Common-weale of safety, and God of his glory; who is justified in his providence, when sin is detected, condemned and punished.

A sin out of measure sinfull: while a man, openly, deliberately, solemnely, upon the word of God, pretends to call God to witnesse of his truth speaking, when hee meanes nothing lesse. St. Augustine tels us, It is a lesse sin to sweare by a false God,Ep c. 34. truly; than by the true God, falsly: Hee is neerer piety, who ownes and feares a false God; than hee that denyes the only true, and so all Gods: yet hee that denyes the true God, is lesse wicked than hee that despiseth and blasphemeth him; as a perjured person doth, while hee endeavours so much as lies in him, to make the true God, his omniscience and power, an abettor and maintainer of his lye and falsity. Quantò magis sanctum est per quod juratur, August. tantò [Page]magis poenale perjurium. So that, as Truth speaking is required of every man to his neighbour in private; so much more in publike speaking; and most of all in solemne and publike swearing before the Magistrate: Where one false witnesse and false swearer may so plunder a truth, and snarle a cause, that it will bee hard for the Judge to finde the true method to unwinde it.

The truth and religion of an Oath is then fulfilled, when he that is lawfully called to sweare, doth so swear, as is not only agreeable to his owne knowledge, without equivocation or reservation, and to the forme of words in which the Oath is administred; but also to the meaning and purpose of the Magistrate that requires him to sweare, so farre as hee doth conceive it. Which is S. Augustines determination, in his Epist. 224.

But I may not insist on this theame, of Swearing. I have done with the first part of the duty, Veracity; so farre as concernes all men in a private, or publike way, so as may further the execution of truth and peace in the gates; to which wee are in a good forwardnesse, if the first be learned and practised.

2. The Magistrates duty in speciall; Execute the judgement of Truth and Peace, &c.

THis, although it bee for every mans good, yet is not every mans worke; but chosen men, appointed by lawfull authority, as Moses at first did.

[Page]No man may arrogate this vice-gerency of God, except hee bee called by God immediately, or his vice-gerent Power on earth. That was Lucifer's pride, forwardnesse and fall, that hee would bee similis Altissimo, exalt himselfe. Christ refuseth this employment, because hee had no Commission from humane power: Who made me a Iudge? Luk. 12.14 Absalom's ambition was not growne so violent, and past all bounds of modesty and respect to his Parent, Prince and Countrey, as to assume this Office to himselfe; but wisheth, O that I were made a Iudge!2. Sam. 15.4▪ In places of Ecclesiasticall and Civill judicature, the forwardest are seldome the fittest. Wise, grave, and conscientious men, who best understand the weight and charge of publike execution of Justice, are willing enough to wave it, as seeing no lesse burden than honour in it. But Those that are called, must not bee wanting to God, the King, their Countrey, their owne Consciences; but must execute, &c.

1 It must be Iudgement. Not what their owne or others passion, will, power, or pleasure suggests; but what Reason sees secundûm normam legis, agreeable to the rule of the Law: which is the common vote, and consent of men to Reason.

Iudex non jus dat, sed docet; Iudges doe not give Lawes, but teach, declare, and execute them. Plato saith, That State will flourish, where Magistrates serve the Lawes, not Lawes the turne of the Magisrate; who may not change licet into libet. The Magistrate is but [...],Cl. Alex. as hee sayes [Page] of Moses, the mouth by which the Law doth breath.

Iudicium à judicando: Iudgement must proceed from a serious and deliberate examining of matters, secundùm allegata & probata: It is but the product, or just account which ariseth from the witnesse of persons, presumption of circumstances, and evidence of things, which must bee weighed in the ballance of Iustice: In the one scale whereof, is laid the weight of the Law (pondus legis;) in the other (pondus causae) the merit of the case, fact, or person.

Though Justice must bee coeca in exequendo, impartially blinde in executing; yet it must bee oculata in dijudicando, most eagle-ey'd, and acute-sighted in searching out a matter.

The matter I knew not, I searched out. Iob 29.16.

As I heare I judge; and my judgement is just. Ioh. 5.30.

Descendam ut videam; God himselfe,Gen. 18.21 who is omniscient, and [...], teacheth us by his flownesse, not to proceed to execution till wee have a manifest cognoisance of things, by a faire, free, and calme hearing of matters on both sides: else (you know) Though a Iudge may in his sentence hit on the right, yet hee merits the brand of an unrighteous Judge: Though the decision be just, yet the Decider is not; Doth our law condemne any man before it heare him? Iob. 7.51. There must bee [...] before [...]; and [...] before [...]: A hearing with patience and judgement, before the executing of judgement.

Judges must bee scrutatores, indagatores, viri [Page]decretorii, men of piercing, judicious, and discerning spirits; for, Veritas in profundo, dicti, facti, cordis: Truth doth seldome swim and float in the surface; but is hidden and sunke in the bottome of the words, actions, and hearts of men: They had need to bee urinatores, men of profound and diving mindes, that get this Pearle. Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgement. Ioh. 7.24.

Truth indeed, as God, is but One; yet falsities and pretentions (like Penelopes sutors) are many, and shape themselves into diverse formes and semblances of Truth. As, Omne malum fundatur in aliquo bono, so all falsity and injustice pretends a shew of truth, and pleads for the protection of justice; and may easily impose upon a carelesse, drowsie, and oscitant Judge, that hath not his understanding and conscience vigilant and intentive.

Epist. 7 5.A Judge (saith Basil) must have [...] [...]: needs bee a Critick, of sharp and exact understanding, to discerne betweene man and man, cause and cause, just and unjust, true and veresimilous, false and specious, betweene the confidence of accusing or denying, and the truth or falsity of the accusation; betweene the modesty or rudenesse of the defendant, and the innocency of his cause; betweene the weight of the complaint, and the malice or envie of the plaintiffe: For if it suffice to accuse boldly, who shall be innocent? If to deny roundly, who shall be guilty?

[Page]

—Aspice quantâ

Iuven.

Voce negat, quanta est ficti constantia vultus.

Oft times the false confidence of the worser part, and that, (prostitutae vocis venalis audacia, as Cyprian,) hired impudence of voluble tongues, which are (Lenones injustitiae) the Bauds and Pandars to injustice, are ready to carry it with a brasen forehead, and Stentorian voyce.

On the other side, Right and Innocence is ready to betray it selfe, through a rudenesse, simplicity and diffidence of minde, carriage and expression. Quibus honestior conscientia, iis plerumque frons imbecillior: Innocence is often timorous,Ierome. uneloquent, unexpert in termes and formalities to explaine it selfe, when Dishonesty, like Tamar, is oft vailed with a mask of faire words; and a smooth tongue gilds over a rotten cause.

A Judge, here, must bee eyes to the blinde, Iob 29.15. and shew himselfe judicious, to have studied men as well as bookes; and like Solomon, by his wisedome, represse the impudent guiltinesse of the one part, and relieve the diffident innocence of the other. Hee must not bee ( [...]) carried away with a streame of words; or like Pigmalion preferre an adorned statue, before a naked, yet true and living man. A Judge must be, as Christ, with his fan in his hand, throughly to purge his floor;Mat. 3. where chaffe and wheat, injury and innocence, justice and injustice, truth and falsity, promiscuously lye before him: His just clemency must [Page] gather the wheat to a safety; his just severity must scatter and consume the chaffe, with condigne punishment.

Iudgement thus carried, will have the Two qualities in the Text; of Truth and Peace.

1 Of Truth: that is, a True and just Judgement; For Truth and Justice are equivalent, and inseparably twisted together, in foro, in Courts and decisions of right. What is false must needs bee unjust; what is just must bee true. Truth is the foundation of Equity.

Truth in Iudgement, is, The conformity or agreement of the sentence and decision with the minde of the Law, understood by the Iudge: [...]. The intent of the Law is, Suum cuique tribuere; a Iudge must faithfully assigne to every one that portion which the Law doth give them, in the true and literall sense and meaning of it, without warping or straining the words by witty conceits, and curiosity of interpretation, beyond the intent of the Law, or analogy of Justice, which is, Reason: neither girding too strait by rigour, nor slackning too loosly by indulgence, the words, which are but (vestitus legis) the clothing of the Law.

Pessima tyrannis lex in equuleo: Lawes by the tyranny of wit, may be so rack'd and tortured, to such forced constructions, that they may seeme to speak that which they never intended. Obscure and ambiguous Lawes are the snares of a people; and the dens or refuge of tyranny; like Ancipites gladii, two-edged swords, that cut on [Page] both sides; having no back whereon Innocence may safely rely. Therefore Enacters of Lawes have endeavoured in plaine and perspicuous words, to set downe their meaning; according to which, Iudgement must be executed, if it be true Judgement.

The highest honour and most soveraigne employment, and neerest to the supreame glory and majesty of God (the great King and universall Iudge of the world) is this, to give true Iudgement; to search, finde, declare, vindicate Truth; though darkned, oppressed, prejudiced with injuries and calumnies: though prescribed, and proscribed by power, will, time and custome.Tertul. Nullum tempus satis longum est, quod possit aut debeat errori patrocinari, & injustitiae; No might, should bee, and no time or usage is sufficient to patronize falsity and injustice against Truth and equity; which out of doubt are most ancient, and should bee most prevalent: for falsity and injury presuppose them first, and are but the superstructure, a kinde of mosse and accrescency to them. For this end (saith our blessed Saviour) was I born;Ioh. 18.3 [...]. to this end came I into the world, that I should beare witnesse of the Truth. I can doe nothing against the Truth. To this end, Judges have reason, learning, experience, conscience, publike authority and trust from the King and Countrey, that their judgement may bee true and just; not false and unjust; condemning the righteous, or absolving the wicked; both which are an abomination to God.

[Page]It is the prerogative of divine and omnipotent mercy, to justifie an unrighteous person; yet still with the safety of truth, and integrity of justice: for hee doth it not sine interventu mortis & meriti Christi. God so loved mercy, that hee would magnifie it in justifying and saving of sinners; yet so loves truth and justice, that hee would not doe it without the death of his Son, that just One, to satisfie his justice: That so hee might with infinite Mercy and Justice apply his righteousnesse, to justifie the unrighteous.

By this meanes, Righteousnesse and Peace kisse each other: Your Judgement will bee not only just and true; but a Iudgement of Peace, the second quality required in the Text.

Cl. Alex. Strom. 4. [...]; Peace is the daughter of true Judgement: Truth and justice the mother and nurse of Peace. The God of truth and justice is the Father of order and peace; The Devill and father of lies is the autor and fautor of disorder and confusion. It was not the true mother that required the division of the childe; nor is it true and upright judgement that dissolveth peace.

1 It must be judgement of Private Peace, betweene a man and his neighbour; which can never be maintained, except each party by the light of the Law, cleerely sees the truth of the judgement, for, or against them. Endlesse and interminate suits and dissentions (like Hydra's heads) must needs grow up, where the seeds of falsity and injustice are sowne in Judgement.

[Page]Of this, great care must bee had, that, though men lose their Cause, yet they may not lose their Peace and charity. A man makes an ill bargaine, that gaines his Processe, and loseth the love and good-wil of his neighbour; which is the greatest Dammages. Proximorum odia sunt acerbissima. Wine makes the sowrest vinegar: The quarrels of neighbours and brethren, set their hearts at the greatest distance and defiance.

2 Where the coales of private dissentions are scattered in every corner, the whole house will soone bee on fire; and Publike Peace cannot long continue: For where there are great divisions of hearts, and Private grievances arise like swellings, and distemper of parts, to affect the whole body with the feaver of discontent, what can be expected but Publike mutinies and combustions?

Lex est corporis politici nervus: The great bodies of States must needs bee paralitick, and vehemently shaken, if not dissolved, when the sinewes of justice faile.

An unjust Judge, like a Comet, portends warres and commotions; and scatters so malignant an influence to mens mindes, that they had rather venture the injustice of warre, than suffer the injustice of peace.

This Principle is in most mens mindes, Pax est omni bello tristior, quae justitiae & veritatis ruinâ constat; That peace is more deplorable than warre it selfe, which only maintaines power to waste and oppresse innocence and truth.

[Page] Isidore Pelusiot tels us truly; [...]; It is but the name and shadow of a false and lying peace, where is not true justice.

Iustitiae debetur, quod homo homini non sit lupus. It is true judgement only that can secure peace, and hinder men from degenerating to wolves and tygers; which they doe, when by injustice some are exasperated, others are animated to sin and injurious insolencies. One untrue and unjust judgement, like the winde, scatters and sheds the seeds of ill weeds and manners, about the whole field; which should, by truth and justice, have beene cut up by the roote; and its contagious spreading hindred.

Besides, nothing more slackens the reins of government, and the stability of peace, which is upheld by the reverent awe and respect which the people and subjects give to the Magistrate, than when by injustice and unworthinesse, they bring their persons and authority under contempt and dislike; that they seeme to them not as Gods but Idols, which have eares but heare not, eyes but see not, mouths but speak not true judgement. Against such Magistrates, people are prone to think it, not only just, but meritorious to rebell.

Psal 99.4. The Kings strength, or throne loveth judgement, and by righteousnesse it shall bee eshablished with abundance of peace. Psal. 72. David, in his prayer and blessing to his son King Solomon, joynes these two; Give the King thy judgements, O Lord, and thy [Page]righteousnesse to the Kings Son; and that, Hee shall rule the people with equity, and the poore with judgement. Then the Mountaines (subordinate Magistrates and Judges,) and the little Hils (inferiour Officers,) shall bring peace to the people, by righteousnesse. Hee must bee Melchisedec, King of righteousnesse, that will bee Melchisalem, King of peace.

3 There is a third Peace, that results from the judgement of Truth, as the crowne and greatest reward of the Iudge; That is, the inward peace and serenity of his owne conscience, witnessing to him, that, as hee is in the stead of God, so hee judgeth as God would judge; according to his will and law, which is the rule of Truth and Justice, and the way of peace and happinesse.

This Peace is so pretious to a good man, that hee will choose to lose all rather than this, which is the soules immediate, and inward enjoyment of it selfe and God.

The fruition of which, as it passeth all understanding; so the losse of it passeth all the skill and favour of the world to repaire or recompence it.

An Vnjust Iudge cannot but condemne himselfe.

— Prima est haec ultio, quod se

Iudice nemo nocens absolvitur;—

Hee becomes his owne Accuser, Witnesse, Judge, and Executioner. For, where Astraea (Justice) dwels not in the conscience, Nemesis (Revenge) will. Occultum quatiente animo tortore[Page]flagellum: His soule must needs be filled with a fearfull expectation of vengeance and the judgement to come.

3 Execute it, when you have judiciously considered what is Truth, and tending to Peace.

Declare it, pronounce it publikely. Magistratus est lex loquens. Judges are ora & linguae publicae, Plebis, Regis, Legis, Dei; the publike Oracles to declare the will of the State, the Law, the King, and God.

To what purpose is finding out of true judgement, if you doe not, dare not speake out? or, speak otherwise than you judge in your selves? Procaciùs peccant, qui maturiùs & quasi ex consilio: Knowing, and not declaring and doing justice, is the aggravation of injustice.

It is a calamitous time, as Hezekiah said, When children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring them forth. There must not bee only a Conception of what is true and just, and then ( [...]) an abortive judgement, smothered and stifled in the breast of the Judge, by silencing or suspending the sentence; nor yet must it bee strangled and oppressed unnaturally, (as the Egyptian Tyrant did the Israelites infants) after it is pronounced, by diverting or perverting the sentence; but there must bee an execution of it: which is the soule and life of Justice, and gives a quickening and animation to the Lawes.

Law (as our learned Hooker tels us,) is a directive rule to the goodnesse of operation; both [Page] in nature, polity, and religion. What are Lawes in your books or brests, if not put in execution?

The not executing the penalty of the Lawes upon offenders, is the execution of the Lawes themselves; and renders them cadaverosae Leges, dead and breathlesse carcases. It is the breath of the Iudge, in a right and powerfull sentence, which must blast the wicked and unjust; and revive and renew the face and force of the Lawes, of Justice, and of good men.

Potentia est legis asylum, Law and Justice hath its last recourse to Power for the executing. Forcibly, as Ioh and David, Iob 29.17. pulling the prey out of the teeth of the lyon, and breaking the jawes of the oppressor: Restoring the oppressed and molested to his liberty, right, and quiet: Commanding and inflicting condigne punishment on the purse or person of offenders.

If need bee, and the publike good require it, not only pruning and lopping off the branches and armes of luxuriant and spreading wickednesse, by restraining the liberty, by withdrawing the sap and nutriment of estate and meanes; but cutting off those noxious weeds and thornes from the land of the living; and utter extirpation of those that are Telluris inutile pondus: Why cumber they the ground? And this, (ne pars sincera trabatur) not with more justice than mercy and gentlenesse; lest connivence, remissenesse, and impunity spread the contagion to parts, as yet found and untainted. Quid enim tam iniquum, quàm ut desertori [Page]boni bene sit? August. What is more unjust than that it should bee well with him, who hath left off to doe well? What more just than that evill of suffering should light on evill doers?

But how must it bee executed?

1 Couragiously and resolutely: Iethro, in the character of a Judge, requires this in the first place,Exod. 18. That hee bee a man of Truth and Courage; That feares God and none besides: Not the face of man, whose breath is in his nostrils. The feare of man is a snare. Pro. 29.25.

Qui fortis non est facilè ad injustè faciendum vincitur; qui justus non est facilè ad imbecillitatem cogitur: Iustice and fortitude as Twins grow together. A weak and timorous man will easily bee unjust; and like a Kite scared from the prey which the law hath justly seised on. A just & generous minded Judge, will no more remit his judgement, and the execution of it, where the Law hath laid hold on a malefactor, than the Lyon which the Prophet speaks of,Isai. 30. will quit his prey, or abase himselfe for the multitude of shepherds gathered against him. For this would bee as fatall to him, as Ahabs letting Benhadad goe in peace: or the Prophet not smiting, when hee was commanded by the word of the Lord. The blow and judgement, as well as the crime and offense, will light on himselfe; for hee becomes guilty of what hee leaves unpunished. The malefactor escapes, lives, continues to sin, at the charge and hazard of the Judges soule.

2 Freely: For love of justice, truth, God, and [Page] the publike good.Bern. ad Eng. Parum est justitiam facere nisi & diligas. The motions of Justice must bee like the Heavens, [...], by inward principles; not like mils and mechanick Engines, that stir not, but by force of winds, waters, and weight, and hands; by hopes, promises, or gifts.

In execution of justice, it must not bee as in scenes of masques and pageants, where things seeme of themselves gently to slide from heaven, when indeed there are secret devices and inventions of Art, that violently, though cunningly, move them. The light of the Sun, the liberty of heaven, the day and ayre should not bee more cheap and free than justice. Though an Advocate may sell his pleading,August. and a Counsellor his counsell; yet a Judge may not the execution of Iudgement. Justice is a debt they owe to men; Hee cannot bee just that must bee hired to pay his debts. A purchased sentence, though just, is unjustly sold.

Gifts doe blinde the eyes of the wise. Exod. 23.8. Hee that accustomes himselfe to gratuities for a just sentence, will soone grow so dim-sighted, as to receive bribes in an unjust cause.

These must be kept off by all wayes; directly, indirectly; nec per se, nec per alium. It will not serve the turne, nor satisfie either God or the integrity of a mans owne conscience, to say, as Adam, The woman thou gavest mee; or the son, or servant, Hee, or Shee received it; gave it mee, and so I took it. Nor to say as the Woman, I saw the offer was faire to the eye; a present to bee [Page] desired to make one rich, (I am sure not wise) and so I took it: No, that cursed Serpent of Covetousnesse in thy owne brest, beguiles thee: The devill tempts thee with All these I will give thee, if thou wilt fall from thy integrity in judgement; which God requires bee neither corrupted by indulgence and favour, as Davids to Absolom; nor prejudice, as Davids to Mephibosheth; nor hatred, as the Jewes against Christ; nor feare, as in Pilate; nor covetousnesse and popularity, as in Felix, who failing of his money, yet to doe the Iewes a pleasure, left Paul bound.

Nay▪ an upright Judge may not feoffe that as a favour, which is indeed but justice and a duty: nor challenge and owne the thanks for a happy issue, which indeed belongs to the law and equity of the cause.

Hee doth not know the price and value of a good conscience, who seeks for a reward beyond that of doing vertuously.

3 Impartially: Naz. [...]. As the beauty and influence of Heaven, and light of the Sun equally and indifferently fals on the poore and rich, the palace and cottage, the great and meane, the learned and ideots; without preferring one, or disdaining the other; so should the execution of true Iudgement.

Iudges are married to the Law, to Justice, and to the Common-weale; and must forsake father, mother, friends, and all relations, and adhere to Justice: as Levi in the execution of justice, is [Page] commended, that hee knew not father, or brethren, Deut. 33.9. or kindred.

The Magistrate must bee as an upright bowl, that hath no byas; as a true dy, falling square, what hand soever casts it. Not warping or propending any way; but as a straight rule, or plumbline, indifferently shewing the rectitude or obliquity of what body soever it is applyed to.

To have respect of persons is not good: (i. e. Pro. 28.21.) it is very bad, and sordid beyond expression; so much debasing the soule, that for a morsell of bread such a man will transgresse.

With God is no respect of persons: 2 Sam. 14.14. nor should bee with those umbratiles dii, shadowes and back-parts of God: who in Judicature should forget they are men, and remember they are in the place of God.

As favour must not, so nor personall offense may weigh in the ballance of executing true judgement. No particular distaste, or desire of revenge, may soure and sharpen the execution or sentence: Hee that gladly sacrificeth a malefactor to his particular revenge and hatred, under or with the name of publike justice, may bee a murtherer while hee is a just Iudge; while hee satisfies his own revengefull mind together with the Law: This destroyes the sinner, but he the man and his neighbour.

4 Speedily: Qui tardè vult, non vult ut debeat velle. Judgement must be executed in benigniore parte, in the way of adjudication and restoring to right, of compensation of wrongs, and of remuneration [Page] of merit. Demurs and procrastination, beyond what is necessary, is so far an injustice, as it is a hinderance; and so great, that often-times the Delay countervailes, if not exceeds the benefit of the judgement.

St. Bernards counsell to Eugenius is good, and would bee a great ease to subjects, Frustratorias & vexatorias praecide dilationes, To circumcise the superfluities of suits and pleas, and cut off all those tedious and expensefull attendances of persons, adjournments of causes, when they are ripe for judgement and execution.

Which unnecessary detentions are for the most part, but the stratagems and windings of under-Officers; who, like dishonest Surgeons, will not cure their Patients, till they have cured their Purses; though with the others molestation and torment, no lesse than charge and expenses.

Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris hirudo,

You may know the Leeches are full, when they let goe their hold.

But a noble and just Iudge, that loves justice for it selfe, and tenders the good and quiet of his poore countreym-en, will make a short work of it, and hasten judgement, that hee may add charity to equity: That it may appeare not evicta, but lata sententia; a Judgement, as true and just; so not extorted by importunity, but easily obtained by the merit of the cause.

5 Yet leasurely, and full of caution should the execution of Judgement bee, if punitive; especially capitall; Vltimo supplicio.

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Nulla unquam de morte hominis cunctatio longa est.

Iuven.

Man is [...], a creature of greater value than to bee rashly and precipitantly cast away.

And tenderly too: There must be all the grains of allowance, of time, mercy, and clemency, that justice and law will permit. Imple Christiane Iudex pii patris officium; sic succense iniquitati, August. ut humanitati consulere memineris: Rigour of Iustice is unjust, where mitigation may bee shewed. Clemency is a debt Magistrates owe to our nature, and the common infirmities of mankind.

6 Lastly, compassionately. Execute judgement, though severe, and such as cannot justly or safely admit any further delay or remission, by reason of the hainousnesse and atrocity of the fact; yet doe it (as St. Basil speaks) [...], with all meeknesse, and demonstration of pitty, and sense of humanity. Not with insolence and elation, [...]; Nothing is lesse humane, and more barbarous, and truculent, than for any man, much more the gravity of a Judge, to jest upon, and make himselfe merry with poore mens misery, of the same mold and mettall with himselfe; or to triumph in their calamity and sufferings, by scornfull and contumelious language: Far from that of Ioshua to Achan, My son give glory to God, &c.

A noble and ingenuous heart, dolet quoties cogitur esse ferox, will discover, that what hee doth severely, it is of necessity, not propensity; magis officii compulsus necessitate, quàm judicandi libidine; as St. Bernard adviseth the Earle of Theobald. Per. ep. 37·

[Page]It is all the solace left to cast and condemned creatures, to see, their sin hath not yet deprived them of the pitty and prayers of the Judge and Court, though it hath of their liberty or life. Peccata interficio, homines amplector, Is the Magistrates Motto: A friend to men, an enimy to their sins.

In your gates.

WEe have seene the manner of the Execution; but where must this be done? In your gates: That is, Those places that are appointed for publike execution of justice and judgement; which were anciently the Gates of Cities and Townes.

1 For the ease and convenience of the people; who might follow their actions and suits, without going farre out of the way of their other affaires.

2 To shew the equality and indifferency of justice, from which none was excluded, Tros Tyriusve fuat; but as the Gates of Cities are open and free to all to goe in and out, so was the course of Judgement.

3 To intimate, that the chiefest strength of Cities, and safety of States, doth consist in the due execution of the judgement of truth and peace; which is as the gates and barrs: the strongest batteries against sin and wickednesse; the firmest defense for virtue and peace.

Take away the free execution of Justice, and not gates of brasse, nor barrs of iron will hold out [Page] either the dissolution of manners by vitiousnesse, or of the Common-wealth by dissentions.

I have done with the substance and matter of the Charge.

I need no further weight to Christian minds, for the applying of what concernes you joyntly or severally, than the authority in the Text, which enjoynes these duties Dominante stylo, in a soveraign and commanding style; These things yee shall doe.

It is the will and word of God.

Where the word of a King is, there is power; But this is the King of Kings. Higher than the highest. Omne sub regno graviore regnum est. Whose Majesty is above all to be adored, whose Law and will to be observed and done.

1 Because most wise and good; commanding nothing but what tends to his owne glory and our happinesse.

2 Most precisely and immutably just, and not to bee changed or swerved in his will.

3 Most irresistibly and unavoydably powerfull, in executing vengeance on them that obey not his will and lawes.

4 Hee is most graciously bountifull, in rewarding those that take heed to doe them. It is their life, peace and happinesse, both here and hereafter.

On the otherside, The not doing them is a mans undoing. There is no dispensing with the duties, [Page] or no avoyding of the punishment.

These things yee must doe; cheerfully, resolutely, zealously, constantly, necessarily: Nihil magis justum, gratum, necessarium.

The omission of them will bee unexcusable to you, since the Law and Charge is so plaine, so short, so just and reasonable; no man can plead ignorance, mistake, forgetfulnesse, or rigour and hardnesse, since every mans reason dictates it to him; every mans heart desires it in his owne particular cause and interest; and every mans conscience will condemne him, if hee doe them not to others in his degree and calling.

1 Speak every man the truth to his neighbour, in private converse; In publike, witnessing, swearing and pleading, so farre as you are called to it.

It is indiscretion and folly to let all truth thou knowest flow from thy tongue, when it is not expected or required. But where it is so, and thou pretendest to reveale the truth, it is damnable not to doe it, and to lie against the truth. Lyars are put among the damned crew. Rev. 22.15. By thy words thou shalt be justified or condemned. Account must be given for idle words;Mat. 12.36 how much more for impious, lying and pernicious?

Let then thy speech bee, neither rash and unadvised, nor profuse and overflowing: from inconsiderate speaking wee come to much, from much to vaine, from vaine to false, from false-speaking to false-swearing; Exundans amnis facilè lutum contrahit, Ambr. The streame that keeps not its banks, contracts soyle and trash.

[Page] Lingua modicum membrum, ingens malum, in udo & lubrico posita, majori cautelâ servanda; The tongue hath a naturall lubricity, and is set in a moist and slippery place, and needs the greater staydnesse of minde, and strictnesse of conscience, to direct and keep it in the wayes of Truth and Peace.

2 For You (Honourable and Reverend) whom God and the King command to execute the Judgement of Truth and Peace, I perswade my selfe, your piety and conscience answers with the Psalmist, It is required of us to doe thy will O God: wee are content to doe it.

Else what need all this state, solemnity, expense and trouble? like Iezebels fast, to doe injustice? to decree unrighteous decrees? to pervert judgement, and turne away the cause and right of the poore and innocent?

I know your wisedomes and piety consider, and need not to bee reminded, That it is a double and crying injustice which is committed under the sacred name and protection of justice. Vbi inter ipsas leges delinquitur, & inter jura peccatur, nec illic reservatur innocentia ubi defenditur.

Injustice in a Judge is like a pestilent feaver, which seises the vitals and spirits, and is deadly to the Common-weale.

A lye in judgement, is a loud lye; hath a report that cals to heaven for vengeance. Besides that, it is publicum perjurii exemplum, contrary to the oath of integrity which is taken by Judges, when called to publike judicature.

[Page]A Judge is, and should bee the publike Physitian, to cure the distempers of others. Iustitia imperii sanitas aequissimo libramine tuenda, Peace and tranquility, which is the health of the body politick, must bee preserved by an equall temper and proportion of justice. Salus populi suprema lex, is the great and renowned Theoreme of just and good Magistrates.

A Judge, as every Magistrate, must bee [...]. A lover of God, his King, his Countrey, of Truth, of Justice, Industrious, and Humane, a Candid and good man; that is, a publike and diffusive blessing, or universall good. Not [...], Not a lover of himselfe, of his ease, of his honour, of filthy lucre. Farre bee it from you and us, That the Judges circuiting should bee like Satans round, who goes about seeking what and whom hee may devoure; but like Samuels course, or the Suns constancy, which goes from one end of the heaven to the other, and nothing is hid from the benigne light, heat and influence of it: Looking upon earthly and many sordid things, but contracting nothing of their natures and qualities.

Is. P [...]l. [...], A Judge and Magistrate must bee higher in his minde and vertues, than his place and office; above all feare, love, hatred, flattery, passion, gain, preferment: One that esteemes his owne conscience, and Gods spirit there witnessing his integrity, [Page] the only reward worthy the discharge of so great and honourable a trust and employment.

Remember I beseech you, as I know you doe, how farre Peace depends on your integrity.

1 The private peace betweene neighbours, one of the greatest sweetners of this present life.

2 The publike peace, wherein you are highly concerned; which is greatly shaken for our sins, and needs pious, prudent, and faithfull minds, as well as valiant hands to re-establish it.

3 The inward peace of your owne consciences with God: One unjust act at an Assizes or Circuit, or in your life, will torment more than all the profit or honour can content you; and like an unwholesome and undigested morsell, will corrupt and taint all the comfort of your other good parts and deeds.

O let not that prove true by your meanes, that hee complaines of, [...],Is. Pel. The name, and thought, and desire of peace is every-where, the endeavour for it nowhere. Blessed are the peace-makers: Mat. 5. O rob not your selves and us of so great and pretious a blessing.

Last of all, [...],Basil. Remember that exact, and unavoydable, and unappealeable Tribunall of the just Judge of the whole world; For Hee commeth, Psal. 96.13. for hee commeth to judge the earth righteously, and the nations with his truth. Hee will try all things (as the Refiner) by fire: Which will discover and make legible that [...], the blinde and subtill characters [Page] of mens thoughts and actions, which before could not bee read or perceived.

A good and wise Judge will not (sciens volens) wittingly give any sentence that shall then bee reversed, or judge any judgement that need to bee rejudged; much lesse, deserve to bee condemned with him at that day.

Chrysost. Iudicandum se diffidit, qui injustè judicat, Hee believes not hee shall bee judged, who executes unrighteous judgement: yet his very injustice is a strong and sure argument, against him, of an after Iudgement, which shall, which must repeale his injurious sentence, and punish his impious practices; for the goodnesse and justice of God and his providence doe require this.

Bern. Veniet, veniet dies qui malè judicata rejudicabit: The day is comming, when not astuta verba but pura corda, not plena marsupia but conscientiae probae valebunt, as St. Bernard, not faire words but honest hearts; not full purses, but upright consciences shall prevaile; which day shall rejudge all you have judged, and judge both you and mee and us all, and all wee have done or said. For wee must every man give account of himselfe at the judgement seat of God. Rom. 14.12

For which Accounts, fit and prepare us O Lord by thy infinite mercy, as thou wilt raise us by thy infinite power; that we may appear not in our own unrighteousnes, which we abhor, but cloathed and accepted in the righteousnes of Jesus Christ, in whom wee believe; who is our Saviour, and shall bee our Judge. To whom, &c.

A SERMON PREACHED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, In S. Maries, July 11. 1641. Being Act-Sunday.

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EPHES. 4.23.

And bee renewed in the spirit of your mind.

THere is in our nature, [...]. I know not what [...], an importunate desire after, and delight in what-ever is presented to us under the Notion of New. Whether it bee out of the restlesnesse of our minds, and their infinite capacity; or out of the emptinesse [Page] and insufficiency of all things under the Sun, which rather satiate than satisfie: which keeps our soules in a continuall appetite and longing, still expecting to finde that content in what is New and unexperienced, which they have hitherto failed of.

Thus daily deceiving the tediousnesse of our life, (which for the main is but the Crambe, and repetition of yesterday) by the sweetnesse of variety, and a taste of novelty, which are the sauce and seasoning of all things wee enjoy.—New fashions, New cloaths, New houses, New Doctrines, New opinions, New Countrey, New Teachers: Any thing New; though, as our Saviour said of the Wines, The elder bee the better; Omne enim antiquius & verius & melius. In manners and Doctrines, for the most part, it holds, The elder is the better and truer.

Yea so studious are wee of Newnesse, that our whole life is but a repairing and continuall renewing of what through age and infirmity is daily decaying in us; seeking in vaine to blot out the footsteps of old age, and with weak endeavours to row against the streame of Time, which silently and insensibly carries us, and all things, downward to the Gulph of death and destruction: which as it hath involved all, the most renowned men, Cities, States, and Monuments, (ut & ipsae periere ruinae) that the very ruines are now ruined; so will it shortly swallow up us, and all that wee magnifie and esteeme as ours.

[Page]Yet there is one thing in us, whose ruines, though they oppresse us, they grieve us not; and though they make us miserable they offend not; These are the Impairings and Decayes of our best and Divinest part, our spirits and mindes. These, wee are patient, as wee grow elder, they should grow worser; and though they are pieces built for eternity, yet wee suffer them, as much as in us lyes, to lapse and fall to eternall ruines; not only of their happinesse, but of their very Being: In quantum enim mali sumus, in tantum minus sumus, The more wee have of sin,Aquin. the lesse wee have of wel-Being, and deserve to have of simple Being; because wee frustrate that end, for which the wise and best Maker gave us our Being: And by sin wee goe farther from the Fountaine of our Being, and our Happinesse, his will; which is the rule of Goodnesse: And happinesse is nothing else but a perfection of Goodnesse.

Yet the power of God will perpetuate wicked men, by a necessity of being, to all eternity, That since they would not bee the Objects of his renewing Mercies to happinesse, They should be the Subjects of his revenging Justice to everlasting miseries.

These ruines and decayes then, which of all are most considerable, because most dangerous, well merit our survey and care; especially if wee seriously weigh, how vast the decayes are, how short the time is allotted for this work, being magnae mentis & molis opus, a great designe indeed; and [Page] which falls not under the compasse of low, narrow, and smaller spirits; but requires a raised, enlarged, and ennobled minde, to begin, to persevere, and to perfect it.

Which that wee may doe with the more happy successe, Let us look to this Modell of the blessed Apostle; who having in the 21. and 22. verses cast away all that trash, and rubbish of the old man, which is not so much ruined, as Ruine it selfe; In this verse layes the Foundation of this stately structure, whose heigth must reach to Heaven, and whose paterne is the Beauty and Image of that first, perfect, and divinest mind, which wee call God.

Bee renewed in the spirit of your mind.

In the words are two main things. 1. The Subject of our worke: The spirit of our mind. 2. The Nature of the work: Renewing. Wee will seek to comprehend them both under these foure Heads of Discourse.

1 What is this Spirit of our mind, and how worthy Renewing.

2 Wherein it is Impaired, and needs Renewing.

3 How, and by what meanes it is to bee renewed.

4 The Idea, or Character of a renewed Mind.

Lastly, Wee will conclude so, as by Gods Grace may make the deepest Impressions on your minds; and at once incite and enable you to so serious, so sacred, so Christian, so divine, so necessary a work.

[Page]The first thing that requires your Attention is the Subject, The Spirit of your mind. What it is.

Some Interpreters understand, that holy Spirit which is in the mind: Thus Oecumenius, Gorran, A Lapide, and others: as if it were, Be renewed by that Spirit of God which dwels and walks in your minds. But this seemes to force the words.

Therefore S. Augustine and others more pertinently thus. Though the words be two, yet the Subject is but one; non duas res intelligi voluit, quasi aliud sit mens, aliud Spiritus mentis; sed quia omnis mens Spiritus est, non autem omnis Spiritus mens est, ideo dicere voluit, Spiritu mentis, i. e. in Spiritu qui mens vocatur. It is no more, but be renewed in that Spirit which is your Mind.

This sense agrees with that parallell place: Be yee transformed by the renewing of your minds. Rom. 12.2. Where the word is but one, the meaning the same.

The Acutenesse of some put this difference; Mens est Spiritus remissus, Spiritus est mens intensa, The Spirit is the Mind moved, the Mind is the Spirit composed. Spiritus est mentis impetus, That the Spirit is the vigour, livelinesse and activity of the Mind; by which it is stirred up, applyed to, and exercised about its Object. That the substance of the Soule is as the Sun, the Mind as the Light, The Spirit as the Heat.

But these may seeme niceties, beyond the Apostolicall intent, which by the most and best is conceived to aime at that Princeps Animae facultas, [Page] The highest, most excellent and divinest faculty of the humane Soule; which Plato calls [...], The Flower of the Soule. S. Augustine, Vis Animae suprema, extendens se ad Dei contemplationem, S. August. honesta à turpibus decernens. Which wee call mens, the Mind à metiendo; because it weighs and measures all things. Hyspulensis, quasi eminens, because it is the most eminent faculty in man, by which wee reach the most excellent objects, and excell all other creatures. As the Satyrist comparing beasts with men,

Principio indulsit communis Conditor illis

Tantùm Animam, nobis Animum quo (que) —

And Ovid. ‘Sanctius his animal mentis (que) capacius altae.’

There is indeed a difference betweene Anima and Mens, the Soule and the Mind. Anima est vitae, Mens consilii fons, The Soule is the Principle of life, the Mind of reason and wisedome.

Beasts have Soules, men only Minds. The Mind improves by age and experience, the Soul not. Soules are in all men and at all times equall, the Minds most different.

Philosophers thought they could never sufficiently magnifie the excellency of this faculty in man. Mente nihil homini praestantius dedit Deus, Tully. They styled it partem Animae nobilissimam; [...], The noblest part, the Queene and Soveraigne in the Soule, which is to rule all the inferiour faculties. That Ignea vis. That Divinae particula Aurae, which the Poets expressed [Page] under that fiction of fire, which Prometheus stole from Heaven, and framed man withall.

Mens est Coelum hominis: Coelum. The Mind is as the Heaven and Firmament seated above all. Nay it is Sol in Coelo, as the Sun,Sol. the most glorious and usefull part of the Soule.Deus. Nay it is Deus in nobis. As God is the Mind of the greater world; so the Mind is as the God of the lesser world.

Plato in Timaeo affirmes the Mind and rationall excellency in man, to bee immediatly derived from that divine Mind, which is God. By this chiefly it is that wee are [...] (as S.Act. 17.29. Paul canonizeth that Hemistick of Aratus) neere a kind to God, and allied to the blessed Angels; which have neither Bodies nor Soules; but are pure Minds, Spirits and Intelligences. In this was the Image of God first chiefly imprinted; and there are the best lineaments, which remaine since our decay and fall, incorporeall, invisible, eternall in some sort, and infinit, as God; wise, intelligent, provident and free, as God. By this God hath fitted us to have communion with himselfe; and commerce with his holy Spirit: by its union to, and conformity with which, it may further partake of the divine nature, perfection, and happinesse.

This faculty then, which the wisest Philosophers of old esteemed [...], pure, uncorrupt, and unblemish'd, which above all things they prized, admired, and sought to improve and advance, by abstracting it à sensuum contagione, [Page] from things sensuall and corruptible, retyring it to the study of its selfe, and its Authour, God; which retyring Plato in Phaedo calls [...], a wise mans first death: defining his Philosophy [...], the divorcing of the Soule from the body, so farre as the necessities of life will permit.

This, by which they measured the true dignity of a man; [...], (Socrates) Such a man is to be valued, as his Mind is: by which they said truly that wise men exceeded fooles, and good men wicked, as much as heaven doth earth, or light darknesse, or the herd and common rout of men the beasts.

Yet in this faculty it is, that the blessed Apostle vilifies and depreciates man; pulling downe the high Imaginations of those [...], pretenders to wisedome; of whom he affirmes, [...], They became darkned and blinded in their understanding, vaine and foolish in their Imaginations; [...], Men of perverse and depraved Minds. Such as are the best and the ablest men in the state of nature, so as to stand in need of renewing by Grace.

In this the blessed Apostle begins the work of repairing; The mind being that prime-motor, the maine spring, the root and fountaine of all our actions. As the eye to the body, so is the Mind to the man; if it bee darkned, how great is that darknesse? how confused, disorderly and dangerous must our motions be?

As that extravagancy and folly which appears [Page] in the actions of fooles and mad men, proceeding from a flaw and defect in the braine, and the indisposition of those organs, which the soule useth for the exercise of its rationall faculties, is not to bee mended by all the teaching, advice and example you can use, till you cure the distemper of the braine: so all that wee can teach men of Graces and virtues, of God and his perfections, of Christ his mercy, love and sufferings; of their soules, heaven, hell, eternity, &c. all the most weighty and serious matters, will not change the folly, vanity, disorder and wickednesse of mens words, actions and converse, untill the minde bee first renewed, and in some degree restored to its primitive state and integrity.Mat. 9.17. Till then all wee preach or learne is as new wine put into old bottels, whose strength their weaknesse cannot containe: or as a new piece into an old garment, it may helpe a little to patch up our lives and actions; but at length it aggravates our sins, and makes the ruptures of our consciences the more desperate and wide, by the encrease of our knowledge.

Second Part.

So necessary is it in the second place, that wee take a serious survey of the decayes, and see wherein they stand in need of renewing: which is the first step to it. Hee is well onward his work of repairing, who hath fully discovered his defects.

[Page]Wee are here in no sort to imagine, that our soules, i. e. That invisible, immortall, and spirituall Being, in its substance or essence is any whit corrupted or impaired; which is made incorruptible. Nor are wee to dreame of a grosse and physicall renewing; but in regard of those divine endowments, and excellent abilities, with which the soule of man was at first chiefly furnished, in its highest faculty, the Mind.

As the life of the body consists in its union with the soule; and its health in that [ [...]] fit temper and proportion of humours, whereby every part is disposed to discharge the commands of the soule, which by excesse or defect becomes disabled, diseased, and indisposed: So the life, health, beauty, and integrity of the Mind or Spirit consists in that union, harmony, and exact correspondency to the divine Mind, and holy Spirit of God. And contra, its decayes, diseases, deformities and corruptions are from that dissonancy, and estranging from the mind of God, that crossenesse and opposition against his will, which hath prescribed to us the rule of nature, reason, and of Religion, his holy word and Gospel; from which the Mind swerves either by excesse or defect; applying it selfe too much to the creature, or too little to the Creator.

As the defects and darknesse of the Moone arise from its want of the Suns light, through the earths interposing: So the Minds defects are from the intervening of grosse, worldly, and sensuall objects, which hinder its aspect of God, and intercept [Page] the light both of Reason and Grace: so that what before was pure, holy, and lightsome, because still looking at God, as its only perfective Object; summum verum, bonum & jucundum: Truth to the understanding, Good to the will, and Pleasure to the affections; to the whole man unum optimum maximum, that One thing necessary; the Summe and Center of all desires, and delights; is now become dark, impure, disordered, diverted to other objects, most unbeseeming its owne originall excellency, and that relation it hath to its Maker.

These decayes of the mind of man I will not aggravate, (as I justly might) by shewing you the Ignorance, Error, Superstition, and unreasonablenesse of the minds of Heathens and Infidels, in former, or these ages: Either in their religion and esteeme of God; or their manners and converse with men.

And these not only in the dregs of men, but even those who were counted the Aquilae naturae, the Eagles of nature, both Greeks and Romans; whose minds were much improved above the refuse of men, by philosophy and morall discourses: Who notwithstanding the glorious works of the creatures, their vastnesse, multitude, order, beauty, use and constancy; which are as loud, daily, and visible Heralds to proclaime to man the invisible Power, Wisedome, and perfection of their Maker, which must needs bee but one, and the best. Yet as the Apostle saith, [...], they grew vaine in their Imaginations, and their [Page] foolish minds were darkned. They cared not to know God, so farre as they might, nor to honour him so farre as they knew.

How many Gods did they invent? Ludibria Numinis, & hominis opprobria, the scorne of the divine, and the shame of humane nature; at the best, but making God like themselves, nay much below themselves, both for nature and manners. Adeo ut facinora in homine plectuntur quae in Deo adorantur: as S. Augustine, Lactantius, and others have convinced.

And as in the Nature of God, so in his Worship they discovered minds so blinde, sensuall and devilish, ut non tam sacra, quam sacrilegia, their services and sacrifices were not only not divine, but many of them most inhumane. How many things ridiculous, and to be laughed at? how many impious, and to be pitied? Nihil deo dignum; multa homine indigna: most of them below the dignity of the humane nature; none of them beseeming the Majesty and excellence of that first, best, and infinite Being, which wee call God.

But these I may not insist upon.

The Subject to which I must confine my selfe, with the Apostle, is, your minds, Christians; such as professe true Religion, which is [...], the raising and improving of the Minde. The ruines and blemishes of these wee are to discover.

Now although wee cannot see the minds of men, by an immediate Intuition; yet as the light [Page] through the lanterne, so our minds appeare through our manners. As Hee measured the Pyramids, by their shadowes, so may we, minds: [...], our words are the shadowes of our actions, and actions, of our minds.

For our minde is as the womb of all our actions, which conceives, formes, and brings them forth, as its incarnate brood. That as wee guesse at the Parent, by the lines of the issue; and judge of the inward motion of the wheeles, by the hand or Index; or of the heigth of the Sun, by the light or shadow it makes on inferiour Bodies; so may we likewise of minds.

The minde of man, as it is of heavenly extraction, so it is of a restlesse nature, and in perpetuall motion, especially being out of its sphere, and native place; this inferiour world; as that culinary fire here below it requires some fewell to fasten and feed upon.

And although, Veritas mentis pabulum, the proper sustenance of the mind be truth; both in the streames of the creatures, and especially in that Fountaine of eternall Truth, God and his Will: yet missing of this, it snatcheth at any thing; and for want of care, or ability to apply to better matter, like Jet it drawes to it selfe trash, stubble, straw, leaves, i. e. things of the vilest and most unproportionable Natures. And as an ill stomack, at once it pleaseth and corrupteth it selfe; till by sanctified Reason and Religion it bee set on higher and better Objects, [Page] and become more choice and delicate.

Mens est omnia, The minde is all things: as a raw piece of cloath, capable of any die or tincture; or as a glasse, of any Image and reflection: According as it minds any Object is applyed to it, and delighteth in it, it takes its quality and denomination from it. For the filth and contagion of sin, and sinfull Objects, doth taint and infect the minde it selfe: and whilest it doth not, by reason and grace, command the inferiour and sensuall appetites, it serves them, and by vitious customes is enslaved and conformed to them.

1 Thus wee justly esteeme and terme those minds [...], grosse, groveling, dejected, worldly and earthly; who so minde earthly things, as if they were [...], only made of earth, [...], mixed with blood; and had no spark of heaven in them: Men whose minds are never nearer heaven, than their feet lift their heads: Who are so intent on the things of this world, ut divinae particulam aurae humi detrudunt: their soules cleave to the dust; they rake up that heavenly spark of the minde in ashes; loading themselves with thick clay, Hab. 2.6. never considering their soules originall, end, capacity, necessity, nor that viaticum aeternitatis, the provision to be made for it unto eternity.

2 In like manner wee judge brutish, excessive and intemperate minds to bee in those men, who are carried with the same Spirit, as the Gadarens cattell were; whose minds are choaked and [Page] drowned by luxurious eating and drinking: who live tanquam poeniteret non pecudes natos, as repining they were not made beasts; whose Reason is their burthen, and the light of minde their offense, by its secret checks and damps, taking off from that full pleasure, they seek to enjoy in their riot and excesse. Men of such minds, doe they not deserve the fate of that proud King,Dan 5.25. to have the hearts of beasts given them, and to be driven from the society of all civill men and Christians?

3 Thus likewise wee account sensuall and carnall minds, uncleane spirits to possesse those, whose soules are [...], as a Jewell in a dunghill, who live [...],Basil. to the shame and reproch of the humane nature; so wholly given up to their lusts and sensuall desires, as if they were all flesh, and had no diviner part, whose Reason should set bounds of honour and moderation to inferiour desires.

Veneranda est non erubescenda natura;Tert. Wee ought not to shame and dishonour our natures, by abusing those Inclinations to unlawfull pleasures, which are planted in us to a noble, good, and excellent end; i. e. Ne desi [...]t d [...]is [...]u [...]tores. the preservation of our nature and kinde. Nihil aequè deprimit mentem ac libido (Aquin.) Nothing doth more debase and brutise the spirit, and cast the minde from its station and dignity, than those sordid and sensuall pleasures. Octavius thus vindicates the honour of Christian minds: libidinem aut nullam, aut unicam generandi agnoscimus, either wee doe [Page] wholly deny all lusts and fleshly desires, or wee keep them from excesse and inordination, by prescribing those bounds and ends, for which Nature, and the God of Nature hath intended them.

I might be infinite by the symptomes of mens lives, and the pulse of their actions, to discover the disorder, distempers and diseases of their minds. If men had fenestrata pectora, a window to see into their soules, should wee not discover in many either stramineas mentes, minds full of vanity, levity and inconstancy; or elatas, full of Ignorance and its daughters, Pride and Ambition; or pusillas & angustas, weak, small, narrow and impotent minds, neither fitted to doe nor suffer like a Christian? Full of discontent, impatience, unquietude; of rashnesse, confusion and destraction; in a continuall hurry and selfe-vexation, through the tumult and disorder of passions and affections.

Minds for the most part filled with small, vile, and perishing Objects, even when they most please themselves and are applauded by others. Spirits let out to the creature beyond all reason, equity, need, or use. Which measure the goodnesse of things by the pleasure they take in them, and not take pleasure by the goodnesse that is in things.Naz. [...], Minds enslaved to things present, and led only by sense and imagination; which extremely bribe and corrupt our Judgements. Saint Paul tels us of men [...],1 Tim. 6.5. of corrupt minds: Corruptio est [Page]vilioris naturae mixtura (S. Tho.) then a thing is corrupted, when it admits a baser nature to it.Corruptio. As Gold with Copper, Silver with Tin, is allay'd, and looseth of its purity, worth and use; So our minds which are of an higher nature than any thing under the Sun, when they are joyned to these things of base and inferiour kinde, are infinitely diminished and debased by them.

There can bee no match so unproportionable as this, for the mind of man to be enamoured of, and wedded to the creature; If wee did but well know its native beauty, vigour, and excellency; its noble extraction, descent, and capacity. Vastum & infinitum aliquid humanus spirat animus, sayes Tully, The mind of man aspires after an immense and eternall Good; nor can it bee satisfied or happy with any thing lesse.

On the other side compare the emptinesse, vanity, deformity, corruption, uncertainty, and nothingnesse of all things under the Sun;Col. 2.22. which perish in the very use of them; of which a man can have no more certainty, than if hee should take a map of this dayes clouds, and compare them with to morrow. [...]. More heterogeneall and undecent is this match of the Mind with the Creature, than if the rose and flower, of youth and beauty, should bee buryed with the ashes and wrinkles of old age.

By this it comes to passe, that the minds of men, by a spirituall adultery, are divorced from that Object which is best, in it selfe and to us, [Page] which above all wee should seek to enjoy. They become [...], Lovers of pleasures,2 Tim. 3.4. or the the world, or themselves, more than of God.

At length the coldnesse of affection growes such, and the distance of mens minds from God so great, the intercourse by meditation and prayer so seldome, that in stead of contemplation of him, and delighting in him, as the only adaequate Object of the mind, it begins above all things to bee estranged from him, and to live, [...], without God in the world.Ephes. 2.12. Willingly shutting its eye that it may not see him; and so farre as light doth break in, and convince of a God, it only, as flashes of lightning, breeds feare in a vile and servile sort; looking at God, only as a Being, armed with irresistible power to hurt and punish.

Et quem timet odit: It becomes [...]. What it thus feares it growes to hate, and seeks to oppose; and in the most high and desperate Atheisme, non tam credit quam cupit non esse Deum, not so much believes there is not, as secretly wisheth there were no God, to take notice of, and revenge its disorders and wickednesse.

And what the mind earnestly desires, and oft seeks to perswade it selfe is not, it begins at length to think it not indeed; and by an affectated and resolved Atheisme, willingly neglects to know, to feare, to love, to serve, to enjoy him, whom to know is life eternall, to feare is security, to love is the divinest comfort, to serve is the [Page] truest liberty, to enjoy is the only happinesse and content of the mind.

At last they grow devilish and reprobate minds, such as sin with greedinesse, mock God,Rom. 1.28. and contemne what ever is sacred;Iob. 3.19. loving darknesse more than light;Heb. 10.29. despising the blood of the Covenant; and wilfully forsaking their own mercies and happinesse.

Thus you see how the Mind of man becomes degraded from the highest pitch and object God; and miserably decayed, in respect of its noblest capacity and operations; That as a weak braine it cannot now look to so great an heighth; as a bleare eye, is offended with so glorious a Light: either Atheising, (i. e.) hath not, or desires no God at all: or Idolizing, and erects false gods: or its luxuriancy and wantonnesse runs out to superstitious and vaine worshipping of the true God: hardly containing it selfe in those bounds, which right reason, the word of God, the majesty, purity, and sobriety of true Religion doth permit or prescribe.

And not thus only are our minds decayed in their chiefest excellency, and immediate respects to God, which wee call Religion; But farther, in the whole tenour of mens lives and actions, you may discover minds full of basenesse, disorder and unreasonablenesse. [...], sayes Chrysost. 2 Thes 3.2. Wicked men are unreasonable men. Psal. 14.14. Are they not without understanding that work wickednesse? Adeo omnis inordinatus animus sibi poena, In this is every inordinate mind its owne [Page] first and severest punisher; lessening and loosing that honour of right reason, whereby we are men and excell the beasts.

Doe but trace mens actions, and in them you shall see the print and Idea of their minds.

Insani esse animi non sanus juret Orestes,

No man so mad, but will protest they are the effects of unreasonable minds.

1 Is any thing more unreasonable than so farre to feare the face of man, and to bee awed by his sight, as not to doe any thing shamefull and undecent before him; (except there be attrita frons, brazen or no fore-heads?) and yet neither to reverence our selves, and the witnesse of our owne consciences, nor the presence and all-seeing eye of God; who, wee think, sees not our secret and shamefull actions; and so upon the point we deny him to bee God, because not omniscient; or if wee doe, then adde wee to our sin a most notorious impudence.

2 Is any thing more unreasonable, than of a short, pretious, and uncertaine life, to expend the prime and morne of our time, the flower of our wit and strength, to serve sin and the Devill? reserving only the dregs and bran of our age, for repentance and devotion; whereas indeed nothing should bee done with more vigour and vivacity, than virtuous and pious actions: Besides all this, we run a desperate hazard of our soules, and their eternall salvation; venturing so great a treasure in so fraile a bark; whereas indeed as David said to Ionathan, As the Lord lives, and as thy soule lives, [Page] even the strongest, youngest, and most confident of us all, there is but a step betweene us and death.

3 Is any thing more unreasonable than in old age, when our Sun is almost set, when wee have little time to live, and need least, yet then to minde and covet the world most; so much studying the body, as to neglect the soules provision; to value a moment, and slight eternity?

4 Is any thing more unreasonable, than to receive many, great, and daily blessings from the almost prodigall hand of God; and yet to be so farre from being thankfull for them, that wee are more offensive to the Giver by them? dishonouring him by his very blessings of peace, health, plenty, beauty, strength, parts, wit, and learning, &c. abusing all to pride, vanity, excesse, &c. Because God is constantly Good, wee are confidently evill.

5 Is any thing more unreasonable, than for a man to sweare gratis? i. e. tempted neither by profit nor pleasure; and either out of a proud affectation of Gallantry, or out of passion against anothers folly, to blaspheme the name of that God and Saviour, by which man pretends to hope for salvation. If there bee a God above us, how can they bee guiltlesse that take his name in vaine; making that cheap and prophanely obvious, which all wise and good men have esteemeed and used, as most sacred and reverend? If there bee no God, how vaine then are their violent [Page] expressions, their frequent and passionate swearings?

6 Is any thing more unreasonable, than to disobey his commands, who needs not our Service,Ierom. but we need his commands; who therefore honours us with his commands, ut habeat causas remunerandi, that hee may have occasion to reward our obedience; by violating whose precepts and lawes, wee at once, in effect, deny all his Attributes, As if hee were neither wise nor good, in enacting such lawes; nor powerfull nor just in vindicating them.

7 Wee cannot endure a man that hath a heart and a heart, that is, none at all; whose mind and expressions are alwayes two, and at variance. Wee rather entertaine such with jealousie and suspition, than confidence and affection; because wee know all is but outside, a shew, and simulation only for their owne ends: And is not that Hypocrisie of those S. Iames calls [...], double-minded men, most impudent and unreasonable; which they feare not to offer to God? while they desire only ( [...]) to appeare, not to bee seriously and solidly religious; whose Affections are but Affectations; whose profession branches beyond the root of their knowledge; whose religion is but the part they act to please some spectators; the paint of their actions, and the cloak they assume, to palliate and compasse their poore and small designes of favour, or profit, &c. Forgetting that nothing becomes the simplicity of Gods being, and his serious [Page] intentions of good to man, more than that [...], sincerity and soundnesse of minde to Him and his service.2 Tim. 1.7. Nor is a man ever more unfaithfull to his owne soule, than when hee doubles and falsifies with God:Iob 27.8. What is the hope of the Hypocrite, when God shall take away his soule? Nothing leaves a man more hardned and desperate than Hypocrisie.

8 We are impatient that our words and promises should be disbeleeved, and returned upon us with the reproach of a lie: And is it not most unreasonable, that wee should doubt, or not beleeve at all, or utterly deny the word, the Gospel, the promises and truth of God;1 Ioh. 5.16. making him a lyar who is the first, most necessary and eternall truth, who never did, and its impossible hee should, either erre or deceive?

9 Wee think it just that whoso offends our meannesse, and expects to reingratiate himselfe to our favour, should at least ingenuously acknowledge his fault, and promise amends, upon suit of our pardon: And is it not most unreasonable that when our consciences tell us, wee have often and highly offended the God of heaven, yet never to bee touched with remorse and sorrow for our sins, but persist with dry eyes to adde sin unto sin: Abusing that long-suffering of God, which should lead us to repentance: hardning our hearts by what should melt them,Rom. [...].40 the patience and longanimity of God; which is so great and excessive, being provoked every day, That if wee had no other Argument to convince [Page] there is a God immensly good, this were enough; for no finite patience could forbeare so long.

Wee daily pray for, and expect forgivenesse from the Majesty of God, for our numberlesse and hainous offenses, which if wee obtaine not, it had beene good for us that wee had never been borne. And is it not most unreasonable, that wee should be so sensible of the least injury offered to our vilenesse; so short spirited, that like powder wee kindle upon the least sparke of offense, and instantly flame to revenge. That like Esau, or that evill servant in the Gospel, Mat. 18.28. Wee feed our minds with such black and desperate thoughts, as to count nothing sufficient to redeeme our honours, or repaire our wrongs, but the very blood and life of our brother. That being mortall, wee should meditate such immortall displeasure; and to expiate in point of honour some small neglect or affront (which a great and noble minde would passe over, quippe minuti semper & exigui est animi minimique voluptas, ultio; and a Christian minde for Christs sake would forgive:) so as to adventure at once the sacrificing two soules to the Devill and eternall death: So that what event soever a Duell hath, wee doe our soules a greater injury, than is in any mans power to doe us. If God had beene thus speedy and implacable to thee, thou hadst not lived to have stood so much upon thy termes, to set a higher value on that Idoll, thy Reputation, than upon thy God, thy Saviour, thy brothers [Page] and thine owne soules salvation.

Hic animus atque hae sunt generosi Principis Artes? Are these the expressions of reasonable minds? of generous and great spirits? As Lactantius said of Iupiter, whom they stiled Opt. Max. Maximus sit, certè Optimus non est; so may I say of these, How great minds they are I know not, but I am sure they are not very good; having little of reason or religion, which are the only raisers and enlargers of the mind.

Thus true it is, That ( [...]) All wickednesse is for want of wisedome; all sin the defect and sign of an unreasonable Mind: And though it be set off with never so many shewes of wit, and countenanced by greatness; yet it drawes deep of folly and extreme sottishnesse; such as a Christian mind should count most unworthy of it selfe, and its Authour, God; since it blemisheth its chiefest ornament, Reason; and the beauty of reason, which is Religion.

Thus wee may see, and seeing I cannot but stand a while and deplore the miserable ruines and decayes of this excellent creature, man, and his excellency, the mind: which the hand of the best and wisest Maker, had at first framed to so goodly a frame and beauty, that it seemed a fit Type and Modell to represent its Makers skill and perfections.

Naturae imperio gemimus, wee are naturally prone to grieve, and pitty to see the ruines of a stately building, whose heighth might have shook hands with heaven; or to see an elegant [Page] piece or statue, where in the Art and curiosity of the Workman had contended with Nature and the life it selfe, now every-where flawed and deformed: only such lineaments left as serve to shew, how well it deserves our pitty, and if it were possible, our Repair.

How much more worthy of our serious consideration and sorrow, are the Decayes and Dilapidations of these goodly structures, our selves? not only the base-Court, and out-walls of our bodies, nor that inward of our sensitive appetite and phantasies; but that Sacrarium, that Holy of Holies, our Spirits and Minds; spoyled of all those rich divine Ornaments they were once adorned withall. And this not by the Injury of Time, but our owne voluntary sin; and which is most deplorable, of our selves wee daily sink and moulder to an utter vastation and eternall ruine. For though wee had power to impaire and waste our selves, yet have wee neither skill nor will of our selves to renew and repaire; till that [...], the first, wise, and powerfull Builder enable us with power from above, to renew that by his grace and Spirit, which wee have wasted by our owne sin and folly.

Nor did that [...], the great worker, God, shew more power, wisedome, and goodnesse in our first framing, than hee doth Grace, Mercy, and pitty in our reforming. While wee (alas) please our selves in our rubbish, and dance in our ashes and ruines, our sins and follies, His truth discovers our decayes and danger; his Spirit [Page] stirres us up to consider them, to grieve for them, to be ashamed of them; and enables us to set to the work of renewing: having set before us a paterne, the expresse Image of himselfe in our nature, His Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, to whose beauty and perfections a Christian minde ought daily to aspire; who as hee requires this work of us, so hee enables us to it; and that hee may the more encourage us, he doth in some sort count it ours, and will reward us for it, by crowning his graces in us.

The third Part.

Thus having seene (Reverend, Honourable, and beloved) the many great and universall ruines, and decayes of our minds, both in reason and Religion, and so how great need wee have of renewing, It is now time wee look to the third particular, The manner of the Work, as it is here recommended to us by the Spirit of God. Be renewed, &c.

This wee will consider in two things answerable to the Decayes.

1 In point of Reason, which is the naturall excellency of the mind, so farre as it looks to this present life.

2 In point of Religion and Grace, which is the supernaturall excellency, as it looks to the life to come.

1 Reason is the Manifestation of the divine will in the creature. It is as a right line or thred of [Page] wisedome which runs through all things, by which every thing is fitted and tyed together, by a suitablenesse and proportion of their formes and ends; and all of them as lines in a Circle, diverse in their circumference, but meeting in one Center, the glory of God their Maker.

God hath endewed the soule of man with an ability which wee call the mind or rationall faculty, to find out this rule and law both in himselfe and all creatures by discourse: and having found it, his conscience tyes him to follow and observe it, both towards himselfe and all things without him.

This tye and relation of reason is most constant and unchangeable in all things which work and are moved by instinct and necessity ad unum; only the reasonable creatures which have [...], a free-will and liberty of working, doe often swerve from this rule of Reason; which whoso most observes, we count a wise and prudent man; whoso by sensuality and passion violates, we count him [...], foolish, disorderly, and unreasonable.

God is the most rationall Agent, doing all to a right end, and by fitting meanes; having wisedome to dispose, and power to effect beyond all possibility of power, or resistance.

Mans best improvement of reason is, to find out and propound to himselfe the right end, which is Gods, and must bee good; and to use fitting meanes, which must be honest, in all his Actions to himselfe and others.

[Page] [...], (Arist.) Reason still enformes us best. This Rule, Iuxta rationem vivere, to live by Reason, Philosophers and wise men of the world thought the highest, best, and sufficient Rule to live by, which would bring a man to the best end, in the fruition of which consisted Happinesse, or that Summum bonum.

By this Rule [Reason] they did and said many things very noble, and commendable, wel-becomming the dignity of the mind of man; at least for the materiality of their actions, civill and morall: as the enacting of just and wholesome lawes, the constituting of formes of Government, and well-ordering of Common-weales, for administration of Justice in both kinds, for moderating the sensuall Appetites, for composing the passions, &c.

Though they seeme to have failed in the main end, which chiefly formes and qualifies both Actions and Agents, to wit, the glory of the great Creator; while they did things not out of Conscience, and obedience to his will, but out of respect and love they had to their Countrey or themselves, out of an insatiable desire of Glory and immortality of Fame. Hence their minds grew vaine and proud, which blemished both themselves, and the most specious of their doings or sufferings. For although these men went farre in renewing their minds by the light of Reason, to a restrained and civilized temper, above the most of men; yet they came farre short of that highest and divinest pitch of Renovation, which is in respect of true piety and Religion, which is The [Page]minds conformity to the will of God, for what concernes a better and eternall life; which is the speciall effect of Christian faith; and this is the Grace of God.

In respect of this last and great end, the Glory of God in the saving of our soules, I need not tell you, how blinde Reason is and ever was, in the wisest of naturall men. You know how confused and uncertaine all was that they guessed or discoursed of the Soules immortality and after-happinesse, which so farre as they did expect, it was only grounded on a mans owne Righteousnesse, and good works, not upon anothers, applied by Faith, which is only the Christians light.

For bare Reason will never suffice to find out its owne defects, the nature of sin, and misery by it, nor the fall of man, which no Philosophers dreamed of; Much lesse of the way of repairing by the free love and mercy of God through Jesus Christ our great Redeemer. For this, the mind needs a supernaturall light of the word of God and his Spirit: Which only can raise the soule to see its owne misery, and accept of Gods mercy.

So that what the mind is not able, in this great mystery of our salvation, by Reason to invent or comprehend, for the uniting of two at so infinite distance, as a most holy and just God and a sinfull man; Its narrownesse and incapacity is supplied by the Grace of faith; trusting in, adhaering to, and relying upon the truth,Act. [...].11. mercy, and power of the Promiser and Revealer of these [...], great things of God; as also for the effecting of them.

[Page]2 So that Christian faith is the greatest improving and raising of the mind, bringing the soule back to that first and best object, God; from whom by sin it was alienated and diverted to the creature. And the nearer the mind approaches by faith to God, the more it partakes of his light and grace; the more is the divine Image renewed in the mind and whole man, which wee call Holinesse; which is a study of conformity to the will of God, arising from the apprehension and beliefe of his goodnesse in himselfe, and his love to us in Christ.

For untill a man believes this truth of God in the Gospel, and sees those better things offered to him in Christ, hee cannot mind the things of God, with any delight or comfort; as being either incredible, or impertinent and unprofitable unto him; The mysteries of God being, as that of regeneration to Nicodemus, Ioh. 3. hidden and strange Paradoxes, rather than saving truths and gracious promises.

And certainly, till wee believe that God hath loved us freely in Christ, our minds cannot bee carried with that filiall love to him as a Father. Tantum amamus quantum credimus, As farre as wee believe we love, as we love we live.

Till we believe God will save us, as he hath promised, upon our turning from sin to Christ, wee cannot serve him with that free and faithfull service, as hee requires.

Till wee believe in some measure, that God hath chosen us in Christ to bee his for ever, wee [Page] cannot quit our minds of other things, and choose him for our highest good and only happinesse. Therefore wee see the low and narrow minds of men out of Christ, seek only to supply their wants and please themselves with these small, temporary, and appearing good things which this life affords. Their desires and feares, their shadowes of content, their dreames of honour, of happinesse how meane and poore! how false and deluding! how much to be pittied! having nothing in their ayme, which is worthy the minds dignity, or answerable to the soules infinite capacity and duration.

Only true Christians, that is, Beleevers, above all sects and professions, have given great proofe of the true magnanimity of their noble and generous minds, both in doing and suffering; having minds by faith renewed, and so raised, that they were able to despise all that the world esteemed, to contemne all they threatned or inflicted, to deny themselves unto death; their minds being fixed on that life, treasure, and happinesse, which God hath offered to mankind in Jesus Christ.

So then, Iesus Christ, wee see, is that first, great, and soveraigne object, whom whilst our minds by faith look upon, they are renewed, raised, beautified, ennobled, and transformed: the mind of Christ being that excellent paterne and type by which ours must be renewed,Rom. 12.2. as the Apostle prescribes.Phil. 2.5. Let the same mind be in you, which was also in Jesus Christ; so holy, so pure, so heavenly, so composed: whose spirit in and with your [Page] spirits effects this great and happy worke of renewing. For Christ is not, as other paternes, dead and unactive, but operative, and assimilating those to himselfe,Col. 3.10. who strive to imitate his vertues and perfections. Therefore the Apostle Paul, a learned and judicious man, determined to know nothing (as his maine) but Iesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Cor. 2.2.

Other learning and Philosophy may free us from barbarisme in manners, and ignorance of the creatures; but faith in Christ crucified only is able to redeeme us from our vaine conversation,1 Pet. 1.18. to mortifie our sins, to raise up our soules to consider themselves, their great and last end, and highest eternall good, which is God, considered in the face of Jesus Christ.

That Rapsody of humane knowledge, 1 Tim. 6.20 or rather opinion (indeed but [...]) with which men so stuffe and cramb their minds, of things that need not be knowne, or ought not, or cannot fully be knowne, (whose ignorance were safe and commendable) what doth it but (as the Apostle tels us) puffe up?1 Cor. 8.7. as a false conception breeds only ( [...]) a swelling and abortion of pride, and selfe-conceit; but brings forth nothing of those ( [...]) noble and generous effects in their lives, which become the divine nature of the soule.

Certainly, though a man had devoured all the learning of Philosophers, Historians, Poets, Divines, and Humanists, yet (as Pharaohs lean Kine) the mind would be never the fatter or fairer; but [Page] still empty and unsatisfied in it selfe, and ill-favoured in the sight of God: as that poore man that dreamed hee eat and drank and was filled,Isai. 29.8. but when the soule awakes, in that morning of eternity (death or the resurrection) it will find all without the knowledge of Christ to be but vanity of mind, and vexation of spirit.

In all other learning, the mind doth but pick up a few strawes, leaves and feathers, the notions and scatterings of a dark, confused, and defective knowledge, to make it selfe a small nest of temporary content; which will be soon cast downe, when death, as a whirle-wind, overtakes us; the mind will be left dubious, wandring, and distracted, not having been truly wise to get by faith a sure mansion for it selfe in that Rock Christ Jesus.

Now this renewing of the mind, is not a work of wit and parts, but of grace and devotion; It is not strength of reason, nor depth of judgement, nor acutenesse of invention, nor faithfulnesse of memory, nor vastnesse of reading, nor subtilty of dispute, nor heighth of speculation, that renewes the carnall and naturall mind: all these abilities doe often want most renewing, to take off that pride and vanity of mind, which commonly attends them; to purge out that leaven, which puffes them up to vain-glory and selfe-seeking; to bring them, as the Wise men of the East, in all humility and devotion to seek Christ, and offer up those treasures of wit and learning, to the Honour of God, the Giver.

[Page]Beleeve it, Small and moderate minds for wit, capacity, and secular learning, yet if sanctified by faith, are often raised to more eminent expressions of love, joy, zeale, patience, constancy, and all good affections; for though they cannot formally dispute, yet they can suffer, dye for Christ; and though they bee not learned in humane Arts and Sciences, yet they have learn'd the first and hardest lesson in Christianity, which is, to deny themselves in point of pleasures, profits, honours, and outward contents, more than many of the wise and learned; whose learning, while they nourish proud, sensuall, and Atheisticall minds, is but their crime and burthen; serving only to die their sins to a deeper tincture of folly; and is as a milstone about their necks, that sinks their soules to a farther degree of condemnation.

And doe wee not often see, men of great wits and noble endowments for nature and industry, who have no cause to disbeleeve the word of God, since hee never yet failed of his promise; and hath confirmed the truth of the Gospel, by so many infallible witnesses, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, by Miracles, by Sacraments, and what ever might induce men (morally) to accept of his mercy in Christ, and live accordingly. Yet these men, not having minds renewed by faith, count all but, as the Athenians,Act. 17.13. babling and foolishnesse of preaching; continuing to please themselves with momentary and perishing Objects; meane time, with extreme sin and folly (which will bee their misery at last) they [Page] neglect that great salvation, which God hath offered to mankind in Jesus Christ; greater than which neither the soule can desire, nor God can give, since the Author, Meanes, and End is God himselfe.

We see in the Gospel, till the Prodigall came to himselfe (peregrinatur enim omnis inordinatus animus, Chrysol. for wicked and inordinate minds are alwayes from home, busied about all but themselves;) till hee returned ad saniorem mentem, to consider seriously the necessitous way into which hee was falne, and wherein hee maintained himselfe, only so farre as to bee sensible of his sordid misery; and till hee thought of the plenty both of his fathers affection and provision, hee was not resolved to quit his husks and brutish company.

Sen. Primum est compositae mentis argumentum secum consistere, it is the first step or signe of a renewed mind, to be composed, to tarry at home, to bee with and reflect on it selfe: which faith alone makes it to doe, bringing the mind back from the former vanity and extravagancy, and making it seriously retire to it selfe and its Author, God, its Saviour, Christ, what hee is, and what hee hath done for us, revealed to us, and requireth of us; All which the mind by faith considering of, assenting to, and relying, upon, is in some degree renewed daily, to its primitive beauty and integrity; new light in the understanding; new objects to the will; new motions to the affections; new actions in our conversation, which are all but [Page] earnest and pledges of that fulnesse and perfection, which the soule shall at last receive in the vision and fruition of God and Christ in the life to come, when both soule and body shall bee renewed to an undecayable perfection.

The Fourth Part.

Thus have wee seene the nature, the ruines, and way of renewing the mind. Give mee leave now in the fourth place, to present to you the Idea or Character of a renewed mind; which (as hee said of virtue) if wee could discerne with our bodily eyes, it would strangely win upon and ravish our affections.

There are three Regions of minds, as of ayre of heavens.

1 The first is of low, earthly, and debased to senses and the things of this world, which covet much more, and yet nothing more, than this life and the body needs.

2 The second is a higher and middle Region of minds; which are raised above the vulgar, in desire of knowledge, honour and renowne; [...]. These are [...], rather high-minded than heavenly; [...], as Comets raised up and more lightsome than others, but still of grosse and earthly qualities, and will soone vanish.

3 The third and highest Region is of minds, that are as the Starres in the Firmament; pure, holy, heavenly; as heaven full of light, beauty, order, [Page] tranquillity, and constancy of motion; [...], out of the reach of inferiour things; not subject to mutation or corruption; of a sweet and happy influence to all inferiour faculties, which are as the earth, or lower world of the man. It is mens vicina Deo; as the highest heaven, so the renewed mind is neere to God himselfe; above all things looking to him, filled with him; adores, admires, delights, converseth with God. Good thoughts as good Angels, descending in all humble acknowledgement of its owne distance and unworthinesse; yet ascending by faith to the contemplation of the infinite perfections of God himselfe, and his mercifull communicating of himselfe to us through Jesus Christ.

This makes a renewed mind never alone; a good mans solitude more to bee envied than all the company in the world: For as God hath made us bodies fit to converse with things corporall; so minds and spirits for a mentall and spirituall communion with himselfe, by meditation and prayer, which are the fruits of faith.

The renewed mind alone sees God upon earth, and discernes his wayes, which are hidden from the eyes of the world. In Warres and tumults, it looks upon the anger of Princes, the injuries of men and their rebellious spirits; and considers the just judgement of God upon sinfull men, corrupted with long peace, whose spirits are stir'd up to punish each other: And through all times and mutations of humane affaires, it still marks and expects Gods care and faithfulnesse, [Page] for the preservation of the Ark his Church, amidst the inundation of warre and barbarisme; The Church being Gods great designe in this world, to which all States, Monarchs, Princes, the great men, and great things of this world are subservient.

Next to God, a renewed mind reflects upon, and reverenceth it selfe; studies books, men, creatures, all things, but chiefly it selfe; counts it selfe as the Iewell of the man, precious and portable; all things without as the lumber, which may be lost, and must be left. It turnes the current of affections another way, and improves them by grace, to better objects; love, joy, desire, delight to God and Christ, and the doing of good; fear, hatred, griefe, anger, &c. against sin, and the doing of evill. It considers sin as the greatest deformity and evill that can befall, and which only can hurt the soule. It had rather have Gods grace, than his temporall gifts: It esteemes heaven not so much for the impunity as the immunity from sin: The happinesse it desires is a perfection of Holinesse; and its glory a fulnesse of Grace.

In it selfe it is mens tranquilla, full of composednesse, tranquillity, and sweet harmony; which it counts so divine a happinesse, as no occurrence in the world is worthy to disorder it. It keeps a symmetry of actions, and uniformity of life; making passions and affections subject to reason, reason to faith, and faith to the truth and will of God revealed.

[Page]In respect of men, the renewed mind studies to be [...], as publike, diffusive and universall a good as may be; not [...], pragmatick and censorious, out of a pharisaicall vanity; but in a serious, solid and primitive way of piety, discreetly reserved, yet ingenuously communicative; counting it a halfe and defective happinesse to save it selfe only; [...].

Is. Pel.For all other things in the world, it is mens sapiens, i. e. cui res sapiunt ut sunt; The renewed mind relisheth and judgeth aright of things, and accordingly lets out its affections unto them; [...], it loves earthly things, as things of a brittle temper, and when they are broke it is not much troubled.

It is mens quadrata, square and fitted for all the casts of that the world calls fortune, this counts Providence: ready to entertaine any occurrence of life, as becomes one whom God loves; no condition befalls in which it finds not occasion to improve some grace or virtue by exercising of it.

It is mens immota; as a Rock so is the renewed mind▪ in the stormes and inquietudes of the sea of this world; wherein others are tossed and overwhelmed, its firmnesse and constancy the more appeares: Ponderibus librata suis: so balanced and setled upon its weighty and serious intentions, and hopes for eternity, ut si fractus illabatur orbis impavidum ferient ruinae.

It expects the greatest troubles and comforts from within; for all without the renewed mind, as [Page] Noahs Ark, when the old world, men of old, grosse, and earthly minds sink to despaire, and are drowned in a deluge of their owne feares, This is then raised higher, and by faith and prayer makes neerer approaches unto heaven. The pulls and stresses of worldly calamities doe but fasten the anchor of its hope, that it gets the better hold; for the worse things it finds in this life, the more confidently it expects better in the life to come.

It is mens defaecata; shake and stirre it never so much, yet as a cleere and living spring it soone recovers its setled purity, and discovers nothing faeculent or unsavory. Angry, but not sowred to malice; cheerfull, but not vaine; provident, but not distrusting; industrious, but not covetous, liberall, but not profuse; abounding, but not proud; advanced, but not insolent; learned, but yet humble; poore, but yet content, & rerum Dominus nil cupiendo; supplyes its wants from it selfe, but cutting off its desires.

Its joyes and comforts are not that ( [...]) superfluity and torrent of sensuall and worldly joyes, which as a winter-streame soone abate, spending themselves apace, and besides leaves a squallor, and filth after them upon the conscience: But as a modest spring, its joyes rise and run in a secret, cleere, and silent streame; but yet fidelibus aquis, constant and perennant, such as the greatest drought of affliction cannot overcome.

In a word, the renewed mind as a noble streame passeth cleere by all those pleasant things which [Page] worldly minds admire, and are detained with in the circular eddy of their owne fancies: This keeps its desires within the banks of moderation and content; being impatient of resistance still hastens its course towards its great Sire, the Ocean.August. Irrequieta est anima nostra, donec ad te redeat, Domine; never quiet till it hath attained to God, the first and great Mind: There it diffuseth and looseth it selfe in the vision and contemplation of his immensity and perfection; where being united, it enjoyes God, Christ, and it selfe in an eternall fulnesse and novelty.

It is now time that wee looke toward a Conclusion. Although the weight and beauty of this Subject be such, as might well save me the labour of stirring up your affections; presuming that I speak to an Audience, for the most part, piously learned, and judiciously devout: Who, I hope, heare your selves rather commended, for what you have already begun to doe, than either taught what to doe, or taxed for being wanting in a businesse so well-worthy your selves, and your best endeavours; as this is, the Renewing of your minds.

And indeed I think my selfe happy, (Reverend and the rest learned Auditors) that, by your favour, I have this opportunity offered me (which my owne weaknesse might not have aspired unto) that is, To recommend so serious, sublime, and necessary an Argument, as this of the Renewing our minds, to so noble, so learned, so choice, [Page] and considerable an Assembly, consisting of Minds and Spirits more elevated, enlarged and ennobled than ordinary.

And certainly, this duty of renewing our minds, as it concernes all men, so it challengeth the practice of it, from none more than from you: To whom it will bee an extreme shame to bee exceeded by others in piety and holinesse, as much as you exceed them in learning and knowledge.

O Let not that of S. Augustine bee verefied of us: Indocti rapiunt coelum, nos cum doctrinis nostris perimus. Poore and simple minded men crowd into heaven, and wee with all our learning coldly and scarcely creep thitherward.

It will bee little comfort at last to dye with those words, Quantus Artifex pereo? The fall of Angels, you know, was the most desperate and irreparable: the cleerer the light, against which wee sin, the straiter and heavier will the chaines of everlasting darknessely upon us.

It is not learning, but renewed, that is, sanctified learning that will comfort us, that will save us, that will secure us, while wee preach to others the way of life, our selves shall not be cast-awayes. The new-fangled and phantastick mind indeed despiseth learning,; but the renewed mind prizeth it, seeks it, and useth it aright, with humility, with modesty, with industry, with the love of truth, with obedience to it, with a care and tendernesse to the soules of poore people, with conscience to dispense its talents to the glory [Page] of God, and good of mankinde.

Never did any times (indeed) require and exact more of learned men and Scholars, than these now doe, in point of renewing our minds, our lives, our manners, to the paterne in the Mount, the example of Christ and his holy Apostles. The faults you see of some, are made the reproaches of all, by the rash, unjust, and ignorant censures of many, who offended with some drone or waspe will bee revenged by overthrowing the whole Hive of Bees. O let us confute their errors, represse their insolencies, disarme their malice, and if it be possible occasion their envy, rather than their contumelious pitty, by a serious, speedy, and conscientious following this precept, and the example too; which is most noble and imitable in this great Apostle S. Paul; whose renewed mind had learned in all estates to bee content, to count Godlinesse great gaine, to determine to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified, to glory in the crosse of Christ, to esteeme all worldly wisedome vaine, and foolishnesse, without the knowledge of God in Christ, to live with all good conscience before God and men.

This, this method of renewing our minds and lives to piety, holinesse, humility and contentednesse, will undoubtedly renew upon us, the love and favour, the honour and integrity of learning.

It is certaine the world cannot want us, except they will be wanting to themselves, in the most [Page] sordid, supine and brutish negligence that can be. It defends upon us what opinion and esteeme men shall have of us.

Wee shall easily overcome all the difficulties and indignities of these times, if wee can but overcome our hearts to this sacred renovation, which will render us accepted and honoured both of God, and of all wise, learned and good men; whose wisedome and justice, no doubt, will as they ought discerne betweene the just punishment of some, and the noble encouragement of others; nor suffer the displeasure against some mens abuse of things to swallow up the lawfull, just, and commendable use of them.

For the ignorant, brutish and impertinent clamours of others, your only way is to let them weary themselves, with their owne oblatrations; while you, as the cleere moone in a spheare above them, neither alter the constancy of your course in learned studies, nor abate ought of the splendor of your manners, in a renewed, that is, a sanctified life and conversation.

You know [...], the mind is the man of the man; how much more of a Christian, who should farre exceed all other men, having relation to a Saviour, that is God as well as man?

By our bodies wee live beasts, by our minds men, by renewed minds Christians, by perfected minds Saints. The minds improvement is the maine, which God, Christ, and Religion intend in us; and shall wee bee incurious? ut animam serves nonne expergisceris?

[Page]All other things in the world, God so little considers, that hee will one day destroy them, but hee will make up his Jewels. There is nothing God esteemes but man, nor in man but the minde, nor the minde till renewed to holinesse.

Ps. 147 10.The Lord delights not in any mans legs, no nor in any mans strength, beauty, haire or outside, which are the leaven which puffes up vaine and small minds; no, nor in thy wit, learning, acutenesse, eloquence, &c. but hee looks at the ornaments of a renewed, a holy and humble minde; this hee requires as a gift worthy of his prizing and acceptance. S. Ambrose adviseth, quod habes pretiosissimum, mentem Deo deputes. The Satyrist divinely, Demus superis jus fasque animi sanctosque recessus

Mentis, & incoctum generoso pectus honesto.

Hac cedo, &c.

It matters not how meane thy drop or mite bee which thou offerest to God, provided thou present it with an honest, upright and generous mind, whose most secret and retyred motions are allwayes digested to so holy and just a temper, as becomes God the Receiver.

The renewed mind is no other but Bethel, the house and temple wherein God will dwell, even the high and holy One that inhabits eternity.Isai. 57.15. S. Chrysostome hence inferres, [...], what wee doe to our decayed houses, doe wee to our minds: Vestium & domorum sordes erubescimus, & animorum patiemur? Our minds must bee [Page] fitted to entertaine Christ and his holy Spirit; which pure Dove will not dwell with sordid, deformed, and unrenewed minds. [...], sayes Plato. And S. Paul, 2 Cor. 6.14. What fellowship hath light with darknesse? Consider, the maine comfort of a Christians life is the commerce with pure Minds, Spirits, and Intelligences, as God, the Angels, and Saints.

And not only have wee to doe with good spirits, but also with evill, which wee call devills; which are impure and discontented minds, whose endeavour is to continue our minds and spirits perverse, blind, and depraved: It being their envy, that mankind, which is of an inferiour make to them, should have meanes of renewing, which are denyed them.

As God and Christs Kingdome is chiefly that in the spirits and minds of men, which hee secretly, but most sweetly and effectually, governes in those that are his; so the Devills chiefe usurpation and tyranny is there; secret and unseene, but most violently ruling in the minds of the children of disobedience, Ephes. 2.2. seeking by infinite stratagems and methods to corrupt the best and ablest minds to the same desperate state, to which hee is irrecoverably falne. Therefore wee pray that Gods Spirit would be with our spirits; for there is no such judgement and misery, as to bee left to a mans owne minde, to bee led by his owne spirit, which will certainly mis-lead him.

Men commonly pretend to magnanimity, to [Page] generous minds and great spirits. O consider it is not a great spirit, in the worlds sense, but a good one God esteemes. The meek, lowly, and quiet spirit is greatest in Gods account, and next to his advancing. That mind is truly great, which is more impatient of a sin in it selfe, than of an injury from another; and takes the severest revenge of it selfe.

There is a greatnesse the world applauds, which infinitely lessens a Christian mind: Dum magnitudinem animi peccandi licentia metiuntur, while men measure the greatnesse of their minds, by their boldnesse and daring to sin. Such minds, as Comets (which are portenta irae Dei) the higher and greater they are, the more malignant influence they diffuse on the inferiour world, by the contagion of their example.

Wee esteeme breeding, learning, and civility, whereby the naturall rudenesse of a mans mind and manners is pared off, and hee becomes tild and polished for the best society: Certainly those are the best bred and most adorned minds, who know to pay due respects, not to men so much as, to their owne soules, and above all to God, to whom wee owe the greatest obligations; wherein to be wanting is extreme rudenesse, and not so much incivility, as brutishnesse; for nothing is more humane than piety.

S [...]n. Incipiat ergo tandem aliqua tui dignatio esse apud te: mentem suspice: O begin at length to reverence thy sefe, to respect thy mind above all things under heaven.

[Page]Wee are prone to admire stately buildings, elegant pictures, elaborate pieces of art and humane invention; In these wee magnifie the skill and ingenuity of the worker; and here our low and narrow thoughts are stopt and bounded. O rise higher; goe beyond all these, to the Maker of these makers, that [...], God. Consider those unparallel'd pieces of heaven, of earth, of the sea, the Sun, &c. above all, thy selfe; in thee, thy soule; in thy soule thy mind; which is [...]; caput operis; Gods Master-piece; in respect of which all creatures are inconsiderable to God and the renewed mind.

In other things wee seek to content our senses and appetites, with the best objects they are capable of: curious pictures for the eye; ravishing musick for the eare; exquisite tasts for the palate; fragrant sents for the smell. And shall our minds only bee found to fasten upon small, vile, and inferiour objects, below their originall and capacity, which our very outward forme and stature pointeth unto? ad majora nati, immo renati.

Animus excellens omnia tanquam minora transit, Sen. diis cognatus, omni mundo & aevo par, ipse sacer & divinus: The most if not all things in this world are impertinent to the mind, and farre inferiour to it; and one day, as He brings in Pompey's soule (ridetque sui ludibria trunci,) wee shall wonder with disdaine to thinke how much our minds stooped to our bodies, and undervalued themselves.

[Page]Not but that a renewed mind may consider of all things below it, as well as the divine mind did when hee first made them, and still preserves them; but yet at a distance and in subordination; let none be in chiefe, or Rivall to God and thy Saviour, or thy soule. The more the mind truly knowes these sublunary things, the lesse it will seek or prize them.

Sen. Magnus animus, ut solis radii terram contingunt, at interim non amittunt, nec sordes contrahunt: The Renewed mind, as the Sun, may look at all things below, but not to be affected much with them, lesse infected by them: As Solomon did, whose wisedome remained with him, sublimitatem suam servans, still keeping its distance, from them; thinking none adaequate or fit company for it selfe, but God, good Angells, and good men, who are or have minds eternall as it selfe.

Sacer & nobilis animus, naturae suae memor, nihil seipso minus amare potest: a renewed, i. e. a holy, and truly ennobled mind should much forget it selfe, if it should love any thing that is lesse than it selfe.

O! It were wisedome to begin this work of renewing betimes. They live longest and best whose minds are renewed soonest. Vitae perit quantum peccatis vivimus, so much life is lost as is spent before, because it is mis-spent: while the mind neither knowes nor enjoyes its selfe, nor its Creator, nor its end and happinesse, but lives in a dubious, vaine, unquiet, disorderly way.

It is miserable to think how much of our short [Page] and precious time is raveled out in the vanity of our minds, about things that will not profit us in the end, before wee consider to what end God hath sent us into this world; before wee resolve to breake off our sins by repentance, which is [...], the change and renewing of the minde.Hos. 7 9. O brepit non intellecta senectus: gray haires are here and there and wee consider it not.

S. Chrysostomes advice is good: [...]: hast thou sinned? thou hast wasted and impaired thy soule: O make speed with teares and repentance to renew it: As David prayes, Psal. 51. Create, O Lord, a new heart, and renew a right spirit within mee.

Delayes are dangerous, where the opportunity is short, and the omission irreparable. How many young men are cut off in their proffers and essayes to amend their minds and manners? How many renewed yeares, and dayes, and mercies shall upbraid our unrenewed hearts, and minds, and lives?

The want of this makes the thoughts of old age and death full of bitternesse and terrour; while men are conscious to such minds still in them, as are in no sort fitted for the society of pure spirits, Saints and Angels, much lesse for the presence of God and Christ in heaven.

Wee should doe well to consider, that the sins of our bodies and senses, such as are lust, voluptuousnesse, intemperance, sensuality, &c. will wither with time, and decay in us of themselves, when [Page] the dayes come in which wee shall have no pleasure. But those sinfull habits, that spirituall wickednesse which vitiates and corrupts the mind, except by grace they bee put off in this life, will continue to infect and oppresse our soules to eternity: Such as are pride and unbeliefe, prophanesse, impenitency, hardnesse, want of love and feare of God, delight in sin, despising of goodnesse, and the like; these follow and encrease upon the soule, to age, to death, and after death to hell, where is no possibility of renewing.

This Vestis animae (as Tertullian calls it,) our body, the clothing of our soules, is daily veterascent and mouldring away; notwithstanding all the art wee use to patch up our obsolete faces and withered carkasses. O let our minds, that inward man, as the Eagle, be renewed daily: Nothing will more disarme death, and wel-come old age, than when the mind is such, that the lesse pleasure the senses have, the more it doth vacare sibi & Deo, enjoy God and it selfe. The more infirme the body, the more lively the mind growes, as looking at its liberty and enlargement, which now approacheth: when it shall be quit of these [...], chaines of mortall and sinfull flesh, which have a long time detained and depressed it, below its sphere; and as a mighty Eagle got out of its cage or coop, it shall instantly surpasse the clouds, soare up to heaven, and make its nest in the Sun of Righteousnesse.

I will adde no more to perswade you to this duty, but what the Apostle in his patheticall preface [Page] to this doth: I beseech you, Brethren, by the mercies of God, Rom. 12. [...] that you bee not conformed to this World, but bee yee transformed by the renewing of your minds.

Salus ipsa supplicat ut salvi esse velimus: Salvation and our Saviour entreat us to be saved by being renewed. Quanta pietas, quae quod potuit imperare exorare mallet! how great condiscending is it for the Spirit of God to entreat that which he might command!

Generosi animi faciliùs ducuntur quàm trahuntur; Let us give testimony of ennobled and generous minds, that are easier melted by entreaties, than urged by commands.

It must needs condemne us of obstinate spirits, of base, ungratefull minds, if wee refuse, when conjured by those many rich, free, full, preventing and eternall mercies of God. They that refuse to heare and obey when mercy charmes and entreats, what voyce can they expect, but that of Justice, threatning and revenging?

But O thou first, great, and eternall Mind, the Father of our spirits and soules, enable us to doe what thou requirest of us; Thou that best seest our decayes renew right spirits in us; and by thy word and Spirit work our minds to a conformity with thy most holy, pure, and perfect Mind. Raise up these divine and immortall soules, which thou hast made capable of thy selfe, above the vanity and emptinesse of the things of this world, and settle them on thy selfe, and[Page]those great things which thou hast offered us in Iesus Christ.

As our bodies daily decay, so let our minds bee renewed daily; that instead of darkned, proud, vaine, worldly, carnall, depraved and corrupted minds, wee may have enlightened, humble, serious, heavenly pure, holy and sound minds; That may know thee, and love thee, and delight in thee, and bee united unto thee by faith here, and filled with thee by fruition hereafter, of thine owne immensity and perfection, in that happy vision of Eternity.

Amen.

FINIS.

§

§

The errors of the Presse, in words or points, (as some no doubt there are) I must leave uncorrected, to try the candor and discretlon of the Reader.

Information about this book

Title statement

Three sermons preached upon severall publike occasions by John Gauden.

Gauden, John, 1605-1662.

Edition statement

1642

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) :

Date

2006-06 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A42498

ID [STC]

Wing G373

ID [STC]

ESTC R8318

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

11805254

ID [OCLC]

ocm 11805254

ID [VID]

49417

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Early English books online.

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(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A42498)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 49417)

Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 494:3)

Source

— Three sermons preached upon severall publike occasions by John Gauden., Gauden, John, 1605-1662..

Extent

[4], 138 p.

Printed by R. Bishop for Andrew Crook,. London :: 1642.. (Reproduction of original in Huntington Library.)

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