Eniautos a course of sermons for all the Sundaies of the year : fitted to the great necessities, and for the supplying the wants of preaching in many parts of this nation : together with a discourse of the divine institution, necessity, sacredness and separation of the office ministeriall / by Jer. Taylor ...

Eniautos a course of sermons for all the Sundaies of the year : fitted to the great necessities, and for the supplying the wants of preaching in many parts of this nation : together with a discourse of the divine institution, necessity, sacredness and separation of the office ministeriall / by Jer. Taylor ...

Table of contents

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Title page

Title page

To the right Honourable and truely Noble, RICHARD Lord VAUHAN, Earle of Carbery, &c.

Sermon, I. ADVENT SUNDAY. DOOMS-DAY BOOK: OR, CHRIST'S Advent to Judgement.

SERMON, II. Part II.

SERMON, III. Part, III.

SERMON, IV. The Returne of PRAYERS. Or, The Conditions of a PREVAILING PRAYER.

SERMON, V. Part II.

SERMON, VI. Part, III.

Sermon, VII. Of godly Fear, &c. Part I.

SERMON, VIII. Part II.

SERMON, IX. Part III.

Sermon, X. The Flesh and the Spirit: Part I.

SERMON, XI. Part II.

Sermon, XII. Of Lukewarmnesse, and Zeal: OR SPIRITVALL TERROVR. Part I.

SERMON, XIII. Part II.

SERMON, XIV. Part III.

Sermon, XV. The House of Feasting: OR THE EPICVRES MEASVRES. Part I.

SERMON, XVI. Part II.

Sermon, XVII. THE MARRIAGE RING: OR THE Mysteriousnesse and Duties of Marriage. Part I.

SERMON, XVIII. Part II.

Sermon, XIX. APPLES of SODOM: OR The Fruits of Sinne. Part. I.

SERMON, XX. Part II.

SERMON, XXI. Part III.

Sermon, XXII. THE GOOD and EVILL TONGUE.

SERMON, XXIII. Part II.

SERMON, XXIV. Part III. Of Slander and Flattery.

SERMON, XXV. Part IV. The Duties of the Tongue.

ERRATA.

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Title page

To the right Honourable and truely Noble, RICHARD Lord VAVGHAN, Earl of Carbery, Baron of Emlin, and Molingar Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bath.

Sermon. I. VVHITSVNDAY OF THE SPIRIT OF GRACE.

Part II.

Sermon. III. THE DESCENDING AND ENTAILED CVRSE. Cut off.

The Intail of Curses cut off. Part II.

Sermon. V. THE Invalidity of a late, or death-bed Repentance.

The Invalidity of a death-bed Repentance. Part. II.

Sermon. VII. THE DECEITFVLNESSE Of the HEART.

The deceitfulnesse of the Heart. Part II.

Sermon. IX. THE FAITH and PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS: OR The righteous cause oppressed.

Sermon. X. The Faith and Patience of the SAINTS: OR The righteous cause oppressed. Part II.

Sermon. XI. The Faith and Patience of the SAINTS: OR The righteous cause oppressed. Part III.

Sermon. XII. THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE IVDGMENTS; OR Gods Method in curing Sinners.

Sermon. XIII. The mercies of the Divine Judgements. Part II.

Sermon. XIV. Of Growth in Grace.

Sermon. XV. Of Growth in Grace. Part II.

Sermon. XVI. Of Growth in Sinne, OR The severall states and degrees of Sinners, WITH The manner how they are to be treated.

Sermon. XVII. The severall states and degrees of Sinners, WITH The manner how they are to be treated. Part II.

Sermon. XVIII. THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE.

Sermon. XIX. The foolish exchange. Part II.

Sermon. XX. OF CHRISTIAN PRVDENCE.

Sermon. XXI. Of Christian Prudence. Part II.

Sermon. XXII. Of Christian Prudence. Part III.

Sermon. XXIII. OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY.

Sermon. XXIV. Of Christian Simplicity. Part II.

Sermon. XXV. THE MIRACLES OF THE DIVINE MERCY.

Sermon. XXVI. The Miracles of the Divine Mercy. Part II.

Sermon. XXVII. The Miracles of the Divine Mercy. Part III.

Sermon. XXVIII. A FVNERAL SERMON, Preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honorable and most vertuous Lady, The Lady FRANCES Countesse of CARBERY: Who deceased October the 9th. 1650. at her House Golden-Grove in CARMARTHEN-SHIRE.

To the right Honorable, and truly Noble, RICHARD Lord VAVGHAN, Earl of Carbery, Baron of Emlim and Molinger, Knight of the Honorable Order of the Bath.

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Title page

THE Divine institution and necessity OF THE OFFICE MINISTERIAL, &c.

SECT. I.

SECT. II.

SECT. III.

SECT. IV.

SECT. V.

SECT. VI.

SECT. VII.

SECT. VIII.

The Printer to the Reader.

A Table to both the Volumes of Sermons.

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

I.

K.

L.

M.

P.

R.

S.

T.

W.

V.

Z.

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ΕΝΙΑΥΤΟΣ

A COVRSE OF SERMONS FOR All the Sundaies Of the Year; Fitted to the great Necessities, and for the supplying the Wants of Preaching in many parts of this NATION.

Together with A Discourse of the Divine Institution, Necessity, Sacredness, and Separation of the Office Ministeriall.

By JER. TAYLOR D. D.

[...]

[...]

Pindar: [...].

—Commune periclum

Omnibus, Una salus.—

LONDON. Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-lane, 1653.

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XXV SERMONS PREACHED AT GOLDEN-GROVE: Being for the VVinter half-year, BEGINNING ON ADVENT-SUNDAY, UNTILL WHIT-SUNDAY.

By JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D.

Vae mihi si non Evangelizavero.

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LONDON, Printed by E. Cotes, for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-Lane. M. D C. LIII.

To the right Honourable and truely Noble, RICHARD Lord VAUHAN, Earle of Carbery, &c.

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MY LORD,

I Have now by the assistance of God, and the advantages of your many favours, finished a Year of Sermons; which if, like the first year of our Saviours preaching, it may be annus acceptabilis, an acceptable year to God, and his afflicted hand-maid the Church of England, a reliefe to some of her new necessities, and an institution or assistance to any soule; I shall esteem it among those honors and blessings, with which God uses to reward those good intentions which himselfe first puts into our hearts, and then recompenses upon our heads. My Lord, They were first presented to God in the ministeries of your family: For this is a blessing for which your Lordship is to blesse [Page] God, that your Family is like Gideons Fleece, irriguous with a dew from heaven, when much of the voicinage is dry; for we have cause to remember that Isaac complain'd of the Philistims, who fill'd up his wells with stones, and rubbish, and left no beauvrage for the Flocks; and therefore they could give no milke to them that waited upon the Flocks, and the flocks could not be gathered, nor fed, nor defended. It was a designe of ruine, and had in it the greatest hostility; and so it hath been lately;

—undi (que) totis

Vsque adeo turbatur agris. En! ipse capellas

Protenus aeger ago; hanc etiam vix Tityre (duco▪

But, My Lord, this is not all: I would faine also complaine that men feele not their greatest evill, and are not sensible of their danger, nor covetous of what they want, nor strive for that which is forbidden them; but that this complaint would suppose an unnaturall evill to rule in the hearts of men; For who would have in him so little of a Man, as not to be greedy of the Word of God, and of holy Ordinances, even therefore because they are so hard to have? and this evill, although it can have no excuse, yet it hath a great and a certain cause; [Page] for the Word of God still creates new appetites, as it satisfies the old; and enlarges the capacity, as it fils the first propensities of the Spirit. For all Spirituall blessings are seeds of Immortality, and of infinite felicities, they swell up to the comprehensions of Eternity; and the desires of the soule can never be wearied, but when they are decayed; as the stomach will be craving every day, unlesse it be sick and abused. But every mans experience tels him now, that because men have not Preaching, they lesse desire it; their long fasting makes them not to love their meat; and so wee have cause to feare, the people will fall to an Atrophy, then to a loathing of holy food, and then Gods anger will follow the method of our sinne, and send a famine of the Word and Sacraments. This we have the greatest reason to feare, and this feare can be relieved by nothing but by notices and experience of the greatnesse of the Divine mercies and goodnesse.

Against this danger in future, and evill in present, as you and all good men interpose their prayers, so have I added this little instance of my care and services; being willing to minister in all offices and varieties of imployment; that so I may by all meanes save some, and confirme others; or at least, that my selfe may be accepted of God in my desiring it. [Page] And I thinke I have some reasons to expect a speciall mercy in this, because I finde by the constitution of the Divine providence, and Ecclesiasticall affaires, that all the great necessities of the Church have been served by the zeale of preaching in publick, and other holy ministeries in publick or private, as they could be had. By this the Apostles planted the Church, and the primitive Bishops supported the faith of Martyrs, and the hardinesse of Confessors, and the austerity of the Retired. By this they confounded Hereticks, and evill livers, and taught them the wayes of the Spirit, and left them without pertinacy, or without excuse. It was Preaching that restored the splendour of the Church, when Barbarisme, and Warres, and Ignorance either sate in, or broke the Doctors Chaire in pieces: For then it was that divers Orders of religious, and especially of Preachers were erected; God inspiring into whole companies of men a zeal of Preaching: And by the same instrument God restored the beauty of the Church, when it was necessary shee should be reformed; it was the assiduous and learned preaching of those whom God chose for his Ministers in that work, that wrought the Advantages and persuaded those Truths, which are the enamel and beautie of our Churches. And because by the same meanes all things are preserved, by which they are produc'd, it cannot but be certaine, that the present [Page] state of the Church requires a greater care and prudence in this Ministerie then ever; especially since by Preaching some endevour to supplant Preaching, and by intercepting the fruits of the flocks to dishearten the Shepheards from their attendances.

My Lord, your great noblenesse and religious charitie hath taken from mee some portions of that glory which I designed to my selfe in imitation of St. Paul towards the Corinthian Church; who esteemed it his honour to preach to them without a revenue; and though also like him I have a trade, by which as I can be more usefull to others, and lesse burthensome to you, yet to you also under God, I owe the quiet and the opportunities and circumstances of that, as if God had so interweaved the support of my affaires with your charitie, that he would have no advantages passe upon mee, but by your interest; and that I should expect no reward of the issues of my Calling, unlesse your Lordship have a share in the blessing.

My Lord, I give God thanks that my lot is fallen so fairely, and that I can serve your Lordship in that ministerie, by which I am bound to serve God, and that my gratitude and my duty are bound up in the same bundle; but now, that which was yours by a right of propriety, I have made publick, that it may still be more yours, and you derive to your [Page] selfe a comfort, if you shall see the necessitie of others serv'd by that which you heard so diligently, and accepted with so much pietie, and I am persuaded have entertain'd with that religion and obedience, which is the dutie of all those who know, that Sermons are arguments against us, unlesse they make us better; and that no Sermon is received as it ought, unlesse it makes us quit a vice, or bee in love with vertue; unlesse we suffer it in some instance or degree to doe the work of God upon our soules.

My Lord, in these Sermons I have medled with no mans interest, that onely excepted, which is Eternall; but if any mans vice was to be reproved, I have done it with as much severitie as I ought; some cases of Conscience I have here determined; but the speciall designe of the whole, is to describe the greater lines of Dutie, by speciall arguments: and if any witty Censurer shall say, that I tell him nothing but what he knew before; I shall be contented with it, and rejoyce that he was so well instructed, and wish also that he needed not a Remembrancer: but if either in the first, or in the second; in the institution of some, or the reminding of others, I can doe God any service; no man ought to be offended, that Sermons are not like curious inquiries after New-nothings, but pursuances of Old truths. However, I have already [Page] many faire earnests that your Lordship will bee pleased with this tender of my service, and expression of my great and dearest obligations, which you daily renew or continue upon,

My noblest Lord,

Your Lordships most affectionate and most obliged Servant JEREMY TAYLOR.

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Titles of the Sermons, their Order, Number, and Texts.

SErmon 1. 2. 3. Dooms-day Book; or, Christs Advent to Judgement. Folio 1. 15. 30.

2 Cor. 5. 10.

For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Sermon 4. 5. 6. The Return of Prayers; or, The conditions of a Prevailing Prayer. fol. 44. 57. 69.

Joh. 9. 31.

Now we know that God heareth not sinners, but if any man be a worshipper of God and doth his will, him he heareth.

Sermon 7. 8. 9. Of Godly Fear, & c. fol. 83. 95. 114.

Heb. 12. part of the 28th. & 29th. vers.

Let us have grace whereby we may serve God with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming Fire.

Sermon 10. 11. The Flesh and the Spirit. fol. 125. 139.

Matt. 26. 41. latter part.

The Spirit indeed is willing, but the Flesh is weak.

Sermon 12. 13. 14. Of Lukewarmnesse and Zeal; or, Spiritual Terrour. fol. 152. 164. 179.

Jer. 48. 10. first part.

Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully.

Sermon 15. 16. The House of Feasting; or, The Epicures Measures. fol. 191. 204.

1 Cor. 15. 32. last part.

Let us eat and drink, for to morrow we die.

[Page] Sermon 17. 18. The Marriage Ring; or, The Mysteriousnesse and Duties of Marriage. fol. 219. 232.

Ephes. 5. 32, 33.

This is a great mysterie; But I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Neverthelesse, let every one of you in particular so love his Wife even as himselfe, and the Wife see that she reverence her Husband.

Sermon 19. 20. 21. Apples of Sodome; or, The Fruits of Sin. fol. 245. 260. 273.

Rom. 6. 21.

What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

Sermon 22. 23. 24. 25. The good and evill Tongue. Of Slander and Flattery. The Duties of the Tongue. fol. 286. 298. 311. 323.

Ephes. 4. 29.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

Sermon, I. ADVENT SUNDAY. DOOMS-DAY BOOK: OR, CHRIST'S Advent to Judgement.

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2 Cor. 5. 10.‘For we must all appear before the Judgment seat of CHRIST, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.’

A VErtue and Vice are so essentially distinguished, and the distinction is so necessary to be observed in order to the well being of men, in private, and in societies, that to divide them in themselves, and to separate them by sufficient notices, and to distinguish them by rewards, hath been designed by all Laws, by the sayings of wise men, by the order of things, by their proportions to good or evill; and the expectations of men have been fram'd accordingly; that Vertue may have a proper seat in the will and in the affections, and may become B amiable by its own excellency and its appendant blessing; and that Vice may be as naturall an enemy to a man as a Wolf to the Lamb, and as darknesse to light; destructive of its being, and a contradiction of its nature. But it is not enough that all the world hath armed it self against Vice, and by all that is wise and sober amongst men, hath taken the part of Vertue, adorning it [Page] with glorious appellatives, encouraging it by rewards, entertaining A it with sweetnesses, and commanding it by edicts, fortifying it with defensatives, and twining with it in all artificiall compliances; all this is short of mans necessity; for this will in all modest men secure their actions in Theatres, and High-wayes, in Markets, and Churches, before the eye of Judges, and in the society of Witnesses. But the actions of closets and chambers, the designs and thoughts of men, their discourses in dark places, and the actions of retirements and of the night, are left indifferent to Vertue or to Vice; and of these, as man can take no cognisance, so he can make no coercitive; and therefore above one half of B humane actions is by the Laws of man left unregarded, and unprovided for: and besides this, there are some men who are bigger then Lawes, and some are bigger then Judges, and some Judges have lessened themselves by fear and cowardize, by bribery and flattery, by iniquity and complyance; and where they have not, yet they have notices but of few causes; and there are some sins so popular and universall, that to punish them is either impossible or intolerable; and to question such, would betray the weaknesse of the publick rods and axes, and represent the sinner to be stronger then the power that is appointed to be his bridle; and after C all this, we finde sinners so prosperous, that they escape, so potent, that they fear not, and sin is made safe when it growes great,

—Facere omnia saevè

Non impunè licet, nisi dum facis—

and innocence is oppressed, and the poor cry, and he hath no helper; and he is oppressed, and he wants a Patron: and for these and many other concurrent causes, if you reckon all the causes that come before all the Judicatories of the world, though the D litigious are too many, and the matters of instance are intricate and numerous, yet the personall and criminall are so few, that of 20000 sins that cry aloud to God for vengeance, scarce two are noted by the publick eye and chastis'd by the hand of Justice; it must follow from hence, that it is but reasonable for the interest of vertue and the necessities of the world, that the private should be judg'd, and vertue should be tyed upon the spirit, and the poor should be relieved, and the oppressed should appeal, and the noise of Widows should be heard, and the Saints should stand upright, and the Cause that was ill judged should be judged over E again, and Tyrants should be call'd to account, and our thoughts should be examined, and our secret actions view'd on all sides, and the infinite number of sins which escape here should not escape finally; and therefore God hath so ordained it, that there shall be a day of doom wherein all that are let alone by men shall be [Page] A question'd by God, and every word and every action shall receive its just recompence of reward. For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. [...], so it is in the best copies, not [...], The things done in the body, so we commonly read it; the things proper or due to the body; so the expression is more apt and proper; for not only what is done [...] by the body, but even the acts of abstracted understanding and volition, the acts of reflexion and choice, acts of self-love and admiration, and what ever else B can be supposed the proper and peculiar act of the soul or of the spirit, is to be accounted for at the day of Judgement: and even these may be called [...], because these are the acts of the man in the state of conjunction with the body. The words have in them no other difficulty or variety, but contain a great truth of the biggest interest, and one of the most materiall constitutive Articles of the whole Religion, and the greatest endearment of our duty in the whole world. Things are so ordered by the great Lord of all the creatures, that whatsoever we do or suffer shall be call'd to account, and this account shall be exact, C and the sentence shall be just, and the reward shall be great; all the evils of the world shall be amended, and the injustices shall be repaid, and the divine Providence shall be vindicated, and Vertue and Vice shall for ever be remark'd by their separate dwellings and rewards.

This is that which the Apostle in the next verse cals the terror of the Lord; it is his terror, because himself shall appear in his dresse of Majesty and robes of Justice, and it is his terror, because it is of all the things in the World the most formidable in it self, and it is most fearfull to us: where shall be acted the interest and finall sentence of D eternity; and because it is so intended, I shall all the way represent it as the Lords terror, that we may be afraid of sin, for the destruction of which this terror is intended. 1. Therefore we will consider 1. the persons that are to be judged, with the circumstances of our advantages or our sorrowes: [We must all appear.] 2. The Judge 2. and his Judgement seat: [before the Judgment seat of Christ.] 3. The sentence that they are to receive; the things due to the body, good or bad; according as we now please, but then cannot alter. 3. Every one of these are dressed with circumstances of affliction and afrightment to those to whom such terrors shall appertain E as a portion of their inheritance.

1. The persons who are to be judged: even you, and I, and all the world: Kings and Priests, Nobles and Learned, the Crafty and the Easie, the Wise and the Foolish, the Rich and the Poor, the prevailing Tyrant and the oppressed Party shall all appear to receive ther Symbol; and this is so farre from abating any thing [Page] of its terror and our dear concernment, that it much increases it: A for although concerning Precepts and Discourses we are apt to neglect in particular what is recommended in generall, and in incidencies of Mortality and sad events the singularity of the chance heightens the apprehension of the evill; yet it is so by accident and only in regard of our imperfection; it being an effect of self-love or some little creeping envie which adheres too often to the infortunate and miserable; or else because the sorrow is apt to increase by being apprehended to be a rare case and a singular unworthinesse in him who is afflicted, otherwise then is common to the sons of men, companions of his sin, and brethren of B his nature, and partners of his usuall accidents; yet in finall and extreme events the multitude of sufferers does not lessen but increase the sufferings; and when the first day of Judgement happen'd, that (I mean) of the universall deluge of waters upon the old World, the calamity swell'd like the floud, and every man saw his friend perish, and the neighbours of his dwelling, and the relatives of his house, and the sharers of his joyes, and yesterdaies bride, and the new born heir, the Priest of the Family, and the honour of the Kindred, all dying or dead, drench'd in water and the divine vengeance; and then they had no place to flee unto, C no man cared for their souls; they had none to goe unto for counsell, no sanctuary high enough to keep them from the vengeance that rain'd down from heaven: and so it shall be at the day of Judgement, when that world and this and all that shall be born hereafter, shall passe through the same Red sea, and be all baptized with the same fire, and be involv'd in the same cloud, in which shall be thundrings and terrors infinite; every Mans fear shall be increased by his neighbours shriekes, and the amazement that all the world shall be in, shall unite as the sparks of a raging furnace into a globe of fire, and roul upon its own principle, and D increase by direct appearances, and intolerable reflexions. He that stands in a Church-yard in the time of a great plague, and hears the Passing-bell perpetually telling the sad stories of death, and sees crowds of infected bodies pressing to their Graves, and others sick and tremulous, and Death dress'd up in all the images of sorrow round about him, is not supported in his spirit by the variety of his sorrow: and at Dooms-day, when the terrors are universall, besides that it is in it self so much greater because it can affright the whole world, it is also made greater by communication and a sorrowfull influence; Grief being then strongly E infectious: when there is no variety of state but an intire Kingdome of fear; and amazement is the King of all our passions, and all the world its subjects: and that shricke must needs be terrible, when millions of Men and Women at the same instant shall fearfully cry out, and the noise shall mingle with the [Page] A Trumpet of the Archangell, with the thunders of the dying and groaning heavens, and the crack of the dissolving world, when the whole fabrick of nature shall shake into dissolution and eternall ashes. But this generall consideration may be hightned with four or five circumstances.

1. Consider what an infinite multitude of Angels and Men and Women shall then appear; it is a huge assembly when the Men of one Kingdome, the Men of one Age in a single Province are gathered togother into heaps and confusion of disorder; But then all Kingdomes of all ages, all the Armies that ever B mustered, all that World that Augustus Caesar taxed, all those hundreds of Millions that were slain in all the Roman Wars from Numa's time till Italy was broken into Principalities and small Exarchats, all these, and all that can come into numbers, and that did descend from the loins of Adam, shall at once be represented; to which account if we adde the Armies of Heaven, the nine orders of blessed Spirits, and the infinite numbers in every order, we may suppose the numbers fit to expresse the Majesty of that God, and the terror of that Judge, who is the Lord and Father of all that unimaginable multitude. Eritterror ingens tot simul Florus. C tantorúmque populorum.

2. In this great multitude we shall meet all those who by their example and their holy precepts have like tapers enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousnesse enlightned us, and taught us to walk in the paths of justice. There we shall see all those good men whom God sent to preach to us, and recall us from humane follies and inhumane practises: and when we espie the good man that chid us for our last drunkennesse or adulteries, it shall then also be remembred how we mocked at counsell, and were civilly modest at the reproof, but laugh'd when the man was gone, and D accepted it for a religious complement, and took our leaves and went and did the same again. But then things shall put on another face, and what we smil'd at here, and slighted fondly, shall then be the greatest terror in the world; Men shall feel that they once laugh'd at their own destruction, and rejected health when it was offered by a man of God upon no other condition, but that they would be wise, and not be in love with death. Then they shall perceive, that if they had obeyed an easie and a sober counsell, they had been partners of the same felicity which they see so illustrious upon the heads of those Preachers whose E work is with the Lord, and who by their life and Doctrine endeavoured to snatch the Soul of their friend or relatives from an intolerable misery. But he that sees a crown put upon their heads that give good counsell, and preach holy and severe Sermons with designs of charity and piety, will also then perceive that God did not send Preachers for nothing, on trifling errands and without [Page] regard: but that work which he crowns in them he purposed A should be effective to us, perswasive to the understanding, and active upon our consciences. Good Preachers by their Doctrine, and all good men by their lives are the accusers of the disobedient, and they shall rise up from their seats, and judge and condemn the follies of those who thought their piety to be want of courage, and their discourses pedanticall, and their reproofs the Priests trade, but of no signification, because they prefer'd moments before eternity.

3. There in that great assembly shall be seen all those Converts who upon easier terms, and fewer miracles, and a lesse experience, B and a younger grace, and a seldomer Preaching, and more unlikely circumstances have suffered the work of God to prosper upon their spirits, and have been obedient to the heavenly calling. There shall stand the men of Nineveh, and they shall stand upright in Judgement, for they at the preaching of one man in a lesse space then forty dayes returned unto the Lord their God; but we have heard him call all our lives, and like the deaf Adder stopt our ears against the voice of Gods servants, charme they never so wisely. There shall appear the men of Capernaum, and the Queen of the South, and the Men of Berea, and the first fruits C of the Christian Church, and the holy Martyrs, and shall proclaim to all the world that it was not impossible to do the work of Grace in the midst of all our weaknesses, and accidentall disadvantages: and that the obedience of Faith, and the labour of Love, and the contentions of chastity, and the severities of temperance and self-deniall, are not such insuperable mountains, but that an honest and a sober person may perform them in acceptable degrees, if he have but a ready ear, and a willing minde, and an honest heart: and this seen of honest persons shall make the Divine Judgement upon sinners more reasonable and apparently just, D in passing upon them the horrible sentence; for why cannot we as well serve God in peace as others served him in war? why cannot we love him as well when he treats us sweetly and gives us health and plenty, honours or fair fortunes, reputation or contentednesse, quietnesse and peace, as others did upon gibbets and under axes, in the hands of tormentors, and in hard wildernesses, in nakednesse and poverty, in the midst of all evill things and all sad discomforts? Concerning this no answer can be made.

4. But there is a worse sight then this yet, which in that great assembly shall distract our sight and amaze our spirits. There E men shall meet the partners of their sins, and them that drank the round when they crown'd their heads with folly and forgetfulnesse, and their cups with wine and noises. There shall ye see that poor perishing soul whom thou didst tempt to adultery and wantonnesse, to drunkennesse or perjury, to rebellion or an [Page] A evill interest, by power or craft, by witty discourses or deep dissembling, by scandall or a snare, by evill example or pernicious counsell, by malice or unwarinesse; and when all this is summ'd up, and from the variety of its particulars is drawn into an uneasie load and a formidable summe, possibly we may finde sights enough to scare all our confidences, and arguments enough to presse our evill souls into the sorrowes of a most intolerable death. For however we make now but light accounts and evill proportions concerning it, yet it will be a fearfull circumstance of appearing, to see one, or two, or ten, or twenty accursed souls B despairing, miserable, infinitely miserable, roaring and blaspheming, and fearfully cursing thee as the cause of its eternall sorrowes. Thy lust betray'd and rifled her weak unguarded innocence; thy example made thy servant confident to lye, or to be perjur'd; thy society brought a third into intemperance and the disguises of a beast; and when thou seest that soul with whom thou didst sin drag'd into hell, well maist thou fear to drink the dregs of thy intolerable potion; And most certainly it is the greatest of evils to destroy a soul for whom the Lord Jesus dyed, and to undoe that grace which our Lord purchased with so much sweat C and bloud, pains and a mighty charity. And because very many sins, are sins of society and confederation; such are fornication, drunkennesse, bribery, simony, rebellion, schisme, and many others; it is a hard and a weighty consideration what shall become of any one of us who have tempted our Brother or Sister to sin and death: for though God hath spar'd our life, and they are dead and their debt-books are sealed up till the day of account, yet the mischief of our sin is gone before us, and it is like a murther, but more execrable, the soul is dead in trespasses and sins, and sealed up to an eternall sorrow, and thou shalt see at Dooms-day D what damnable uncharitablenesse thou hast done. That soul that cryes to those rocks to cover her, if it had not been for thy perpetuall temptations, might have followed the Lamb in a white robe; and that poor man that is cloathed with shame and flames of fire, would have shin'd in glory, but that thou didst force him to be partner of thy basenesse. And who shall pay for this losse? a soul is lost by thy means; thou hast defeated the holy purposes of the Lord's bitter passion by thy impurities; and what shall happen to thee by whom thy Brother dies eternally? Of all the considerations that concern this part of the horrors of E Dooms-day nothing can be more formidable then this, to such whom it does concern: and truly it concerns so many, and amongst so many, perhaps some persons are so tender, that it might affright their hopes and discompose their industries and spritefull labours of repentance; but that our most mercifull Lord hath in the midst of all the fearfull circumstances of his second coming [Page] interwoven this one comfort relating to this, which to my A sense seems the most fearfull and killing circumstance: Two shall be grinding at one mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two shall be in a bed; the one shall be taken, and the other left; that is, those who are confederate in the same fortunes, and interests, and actions, may yet have a different sentence: for an early and an active repentance will wash off this account, and put it upon the tables of the Crosse; and though it ought to make us diligent and carefull, charitable and penitent, hugely penitent, even so long as we live, yet when we shall appear together, there is a mercy that shall there separate us, who sometimes had blended B each other in a common crime. Blessed be the mercies of of God, who hath so carefully provided a fruitfull shower of grace to refresh the miseries and dangers of the greatest part of mankind. Thomas Aquinas was used to beg of God that he might never be tempted from his low fortune to Prelacies and dignities Ecclesiasticall; and that his minde might never be discomposed or polluted with the love of any creature; and that he might by some instrument or other understand the state of his deceased Brother; and the story sayes, that he was heard in all: In him it was a great curiosity, or the passion and impertinencies of a C uselesse charity to search after him, unlesse he had some other personall concernment, then his relation of kindred. But truly, it would concern very many to be solicitous concerning the event of those souls with whom we have mingled death and sin; for many of those sentences which have passed and decreed concerning our departed relatives, will concern us dearly, and we are bound in the same bundles, and shall be thrown into the same fires, unlesse we repent for our own sins, and double our sorrows for their damnation.

5. We may consider that this infinite multitude of men and D women, Angels and Devils, is not ineffective as a number in Pythagoras Tables, but must needs have influence upon every spirit that shall there appear. For the transactions of that court are not like Orations spoken by a Grecian Orator in the circles of his people, heard by them that croud nearest him, or that sound limited by the circles of aire, or the inclosure of a wall; but every thing is represented to every person, and then let it be considered, when thy shame and secret turpitude, thy midnight revels and secret hypocrisies, thy lustfull thoughts, and treacherous designes, thy falshood to God and startings from thy holy E promises, thy follies and impieties shall be laid open before all the world, and that then shall be spoken by the trumpet of an Archangell upon the house top, the highest battlements of Heaven, all those filthy words and lewd circumstances which thou didst act secretly, thou wilt find that thou wilt have reason strangely to [Page] A be ashamed. All the wise men in the world shall know how vile thou hast been: and then consider; with what confusion of face wouldst thou stand in the presence of a good man and a severe, if peradventure he should suddenly draw thy curtain, and finde thee in the sins of shame and lust; it must be infinitely more, when God and all the Angels of heaven and earth, all his holy myriads, and all his redeemed Saints shall stare and wonder at thy impurities and follies. I have read a story that a young Gentleman being passionately by his mother disswaded from entring into the severe courses of a religious and single life, broke from B her importunity by saying, Volo servare animam meam, I am resolved by all means to save my soul. But when he had undertaken a rule with passion, he performed it carelesly and remifly, and was but lukewarm in his Religion, and quickly proceeded to a melancholy and wearied spirit, and from thence to a sicknesse and the neighbourhood of death; but falling into an agony and a phantastick vision, dream'd that he saw himself summon'd before Gods angry throne, and from thence hurryed into a place of torments, where espying his Mother, full of scorn she upbraided him with his former answer, and asked him, Why he C did not save his soul, by all means, according as he undertook. But when the sick man awaked and recovered, he made his words good indeed, and prayed frequently, and fasted severely, and laboured humbly, and conversed charitably, and mortified himself severely, and refused such secular solaces which other good men received to refresh and sustain their infirmities, and gave no other account to them that asked him but this: If I could not in my extasie or dream endure my Mothers upbraiding my follies and weak Religion, how shall I be able to suffer, that God should redargue me at Dooms-day, and the Angels reproach my lukewarmnesse, D and the Devils aggravate my sins, and all the Saints of God deride my follies and hypocrisies? The effect of that mans consideration may serve to actuate a meditation in every one of us: for we shall all be at that passe, that unlesse our shame and sorrowes be cleansed by a timely repentance, and cover'd by the Robe of Christ, we shall suffer the anger of God, the scorn of Saints and Angels, and our own shame in the generall assembly of all mankind. This argument is most considerable to them who are tender of their precious name and sensible of honour; if they rather would chuse death then a disgrace, poverty rather E then shame, let them remember that a sinfull life will bring them to an intolerable shame at that day, when all that is excellent in heaven and earth shall be summon'd as witnesses and parties in a fearfull scrutiny. The summe is this; All that are born of Adam shall appear before God and his Christ, and all the innumerable companies of Angels and Devils shall be there: [Page] and the wicked shall be afrighted with every thing they see; A and there they shall see those good men that taught them the waies of life, and all those evill persons whom themselves have tempted into the waies of death, and those who were converted upon easier termes, and some of these shall shame the wicked, and some shall curse them, and some shall upbraid them, and all shall amaze them, and yet this is but the [...], the beginning of those evils which shall never end till eternity hath a period; but concerning this they must first be judged; and that's the second generall consideration, We must appear before the Judgement seat of Christ, and that's a new state of terrors and B afrightments. Christ who is our Saviour, and is our Advocate, shall then be our Judge, and that will strangely change our confidences and all the face of things.

2. That's then the place and state of our appearance, Before the Judgement seat of Christ:] For Christ shall rise from the right hand of his Father, he shall descend towards us and ride upon a cloud, and shall make himself illustrious by a glorious Majesty, and an innumerable retinue and circumstances of terror and a mighty power: and this is that which Origen affirms C to be the sign of the Son of Man. Remalcus de Vaux in Harpocrate divino affirms that all the Greek and Latine Fathers consentientibus animis asseverant, hoc signo Crucem Christi significari, do unanimously affirm that the representment of the Crosse, is the sign of the Son of Man spoken of Mat. 24. 30. And indeed they affirm it very generally, but Origen after his manner is singular, hoc signum Crucis erit, cum Dominus ad judicandum venerit, so the Church used to sing, and so it is in the Sibyls verses;

O lignum felix in quo Deus ipse pependit,

Nec te terra capit, sed coeli tecta videbis D

Cum renovata Dei facies ignita micabit.

The sign of the Crosse is that sign of the Son of Man, when the Lord shall come to Judgement: and from those words of Scripture [They shall look on him whom they have pierced] it hath been freely entertain'd at the day of Judgement, Christ shall signifie his person by something that related to his passion, his crosse, or his wounds, or both. I list not to spin this curious cobweb; but Origen's opinion seems to me more reasonable; and it is more agreeable to the Majesty and Power of Christ to signifie himself E with proportions of his glory rather then of his humility, with effects of his being exalted into Heaven, rather then of his poverty and sorrowes upon Earth; and this is countenanced better by some Greek copies; [...], so it is commonly read, the sign of the Son of man in Heaven, [Page] A that is (say they) the signe of the Son of man imprinted upon a cloud; but it is in others [...], the signe of the Son of man who is in the heavens; not that the signe shall bee imprinted on a cloud, or in any part of the heavens, but that hee who is now in the heavens, shall when he comes down, have a signe and signification of his own, that is, proper to him, who is there glorified, and shall return in glory; and he disparages the beauty of the Sun, who inquires for a Rule to know when the Sun shines, or the light breaks forth from its chambers of the East; and the Son of man shall need no other signification, but his B infinite retinue, and all the Angels of God worshipping him, and sitting upon a cloud, and leading the heavenly Host, and bringing his Elect with him, and being clothed with the robes of Majesty, and trampling upon Devils, and confounding the wicked, and destroying Death: but all these great things shall be invested with such strange circumstances, and annexes of Mightynesse, and Divinity, that all the world shall confesse the glories of the Lord; and this is sufficiently signified by St. Paul, We shall all be Rom. 4. 10. set before the throne or place of Christ's judicature; For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue C shall confesse to God: that is, at the day of Judgment, when wee are placed ready to receive our Sentence, all knees shall bow to the holy Jesus, and confesse him to be God the Lord; meaning, that our Lords presence shall be such, as to force obeysance from Angels, and Men, and Devils; and his addresse to Judgement shall sufficiently declare his Person, and his Office, and his proper glories. This is the greatest Scene of Majesty that shall be in that day, till the Sentence bee pronounced; But there goes much before this which prepares all the world to the expectation and consequent reception of this mighty Judge of Men and D Angels.

The Majesty of the Judge, and the terrors of the Judgement shall bee spoken aloud by the immediate forerunning accidents, which shall bee so great violences to the old constitutions of Nature, that it shall break her very bones, and disorder her till shee be destroyed. St. Hierom relates out of the Jews books, that their Doctors use to account 15 days of prodigie immediately before Christ's coming, and to every day assigne a wonder, any one of which, if wee should chance to see in the days of our flesh, it would affright us into the like thoughts, which the old E world had when they saw the countreys round about them cover'd with water, and the Divine vengeance; or as those poor people neer Adria, and the Mediterranean sea, when their houses and Cities are entring into graves, and the bowells of the earth rent with convulsions and horrid tremblings. The sea (say they) shall rise 15 cubits above the highest Mountaines, and thence [Page] descend into hollownesse, and a prodigious drought, and when they A are reduc'd again to their usuall proportions, then all the beasts and creeping things, the monsters, and the usuall inhabitants of the sea shall be gathered together, and make fearfull noyses to distract Mankind: The birds shall mourne and change their song into threnes and sad accents, rivers of fire shall rise from East to West, and the stars shall be rent into threds of light, and scatter like the beards of comets; Then shall bee fearfull earthquakes, and the rocks shall rend in pieces, the trees shall distill bloud, and the mountains and fairest structures shall returne unto their primitive dust; the wild beasts shall leave their dens and come into B the companies of men, so that you shall hardly tell how to call them, herds of Men or congregations of Beasts; Then shall the Graves open, and give up their dead, and those which are alive in nature, and dead in fear, shall be forc'd from the rocks, whither they went to hide them, and from caverns of the earth, where they would fain have been concealed; because their retirements are dismantled, and their rocks are broken into wider ruptures, and admit a strange light into their secret bowels; and the men being forc'd abroad into the theatre of mighty horrors shall run up and downe distracted and at their wits end; and then some shall C die, and some shall bee changed, and by this time the Elect shall bee gathered together from the foure quarters of the world, and Christ shall come along with them to judgment.

These signes, although the Jewish Doctors reckon them by order and a method, concerning which they had no revelation (that appeares) nor sufficiently credible tradition, yet for the main parts of the things themselves, the holy Scripture records Christs own words, and concerning the most terrible of them; the summe of which, as Christ related them, and his Apostles recorded and explicated, is this: The earth shall tremble, and the D powers of the heavens shall bee shaken, the sun shall bee turned into darknesse, and the moon into bloud; that is, there shall bee strange eclipses of the Sun, and fearfull aspects in the Moon, who when she is troubled looks red like bloud; The rocks shall rend, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The heavens shall bee rolled up like a parchment, the earth shall bee burned with fire, the hils shall be like wax, for there shall goe a fire before him, and a mighty tempest shall be stirred round about him:

Dies irae, Dies illa

Solvet sêclum in favillâ, E

Teste David cum Sibyllâ.

The Trumpet of God shall sound, and the voice of the Archangell, that is, of him who is the Prince of all that great army [Page] A of Spirits, which shall then attend their Lord, and wait upon and illustrate his glory; and this also is part of that which is called the signe of the Son of Man; for the fulfilling of all these praedictions, and the preaching the Gospel to all Nations, and the Conversion of the Jews, and these prodigies, and the Addresse of Majesty make up that signe. The notice of which things some way or other came to the very Heathen themselves, who were alarum'd into caution and sobriety by these dreadfull remembrances:

B —Sic cum compage solutâ

Saecula tot mundt suprema coëgerit hora

Antiquum repetens, iterum chaos, omnia mistis

Sidera sideribus concurrent: ignea pontum

Astra petent, tellus extendere littora nolet,

Excutiet (que) fretum; fratri contraria Phoebe

Ibit—Tota (que) discors

Machina divulsi turbabit foedera Mundi.

Lucan. l. 1.

Which things when they are come to passe, it will be no wonder C if mens hearts shall faile them for feare, and their wits bee lost with guilt, and their fond hopes destroyed by prodigie and amazement; but it will bee an extreme wonder, if the consideration and certain expectation of these things shall not awake our sleeping spirits, and raise us from the death of Sin, and the basenesse of vice and dishonorable actions, to live soberly and temperately, chastly and justly, humbly and obediently, that is, like persons that believe all this, and such who are not mad men or fools, but will order their actions according to these notices. For if they D doe not believe these things, where is their Faith? If they doe believe them, and sin on, and doe as if there were no such thing to come to passe, where is their Prudence, and what is their hopes, and where their Charity? how doe they differ from beasts, save that they are more foolish? for beasts goe on and consider not, because they cannot; but we can consider, and will not; we know that strange terrors shall affright us all, and strange deaths and torments shall seise upon the wicked, and that we cannot escape, and the rocks themselves will not bee able to hide us from the fears of those prodigies which shall come before the day of Judgement; and that the mountains (though when they E are broken in pieces we call upon them to fall upon us) shall not be able to secure us one minute from the present vengeance; and yet we proceed with confidence or carelesnesse, and consider not that there is no greater folly in the world, then for a man to neglect his greatest interest, and to die for trifles and little regards, and to become miserable for such interests which are not [Page] excusable in a Childe. He that is youngest hath not long to A live: Hee that is thirty, forty, or fifty yeares old, hath spent most of his life, and his dream is almost done, and in a very few moneths hee must be cast into his eternall portion; that is, hee must be in an unalterable condition, his finall Sentence shall passe according as hee shall then bee found: and that will be an intolerable condition, when he shall have reason to cry out in the bitternesse of his soule, Eternall woe is to mee, who refus'd to consider when I might have been saved and secured from this intolerable calamity. But I must descend to consider the particulars and circumstances of the great consideration, B Christ shall be our Judge at Doomes-day.

SERMON, II. Part II.

[Page]

A

B 1. IF we consider the person of the Judge, we first perceive that he is interested in the injury of the crimes he is to sentence. Videbunt quem crucifixerunt, and they shal look on him whom they have pierced. It was for thy sins that the Judge did suffer such unspeakable pains as were enough to reconcile all the world to God: The summe and spirit of which pains could not be better understood then by the consequence of his own words, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? meaning, that he felt such horrible, C pure, unmingled sorrowes, that although his humane nature was personally united to the Godhead, yet at that instant he felt no comfortable emanations by sensible perception from the Divinity, but he was so drenched in sorrow, that the Godhead seemed to have forsaken him. Beyond this, nothing can be added: but then, that thou hast for thy own particular made all this in vain and ineffective, that Christ thy Lord and Judge should be tormented for nothing, that thou wouldst not accept felicity and pardon when he purchased them at so dear a price, must needs be an infinite condemnation to such persons. How shalt thou look D upon him that fainted and dyed for love of thee, and thou didst scorn his miraculous mercies? How shall we dare to behold that holy face that brought salvation to us, and we turned away and fell in love with death, and kissed deformity and sins? and yet in the beholding that face consists much of the glories of eternity. All the pains and passions, the sorrowes and the groans, the humility and poverty, the labours and the watchings, the Prayers and the Sermons, the miracles and the prophecies, the whip and the nails, the death and the buriall, the shame and the smart, the Crosse and the grave of Jesus shall be laid upon thy score, if thou hast E refused the mercies and design of all their holy ends and purposes. And if we remember what a calamity that was which broke the Jewish Nation in pieces, when Christ came to judge them for their murdering him who was their King and the Prince of life, and consider that this was but a dark image of the terrors of the day of Judgement, we may then apprehend that there is some [Page] strange unspeakable evill that attends them that are guilty of this A death, and of so much evill to their Lord. Now it is certain if thou wilt not be saved by his death, you are guilty of his death; if thou wilt not suffer him to save thee, thou art guilty of destroying him; and then let it be considered what is to be expected from that Judge before whom you stand as his murtherer and betrayer. * But this is but half of this consideration.

2. Christ may be crucified again, and upon a new account put to an open shame. For after that Christ had done all this by the direct actions of his Priestly Office, of sacrificing himself for us, he hath also done very many things for us which are also the fruits of his first love B and prosecutions of our redemption. I will not instance in the strange arts of mercy that our Lord uses to bring us to live holy lives; But I consider, that things are so ordered, and so great a value set upon our souls since they are the images of God, and redeemed by the Bloud of the holy Lamb, that the salvation of our souls is reckoned as a part of Christs reward, a part of the glorification of his humanity. Every sinner that repents causes joy to Christ, and the joy is so great that it runs over and wets the fair brows and beauteous locks of Cherubims and Seraphims, and all the Angels have a part of that banquet; Then it is that our blessed Lord feels the fruits of his C holy death, the acceptation of his holy sacrifice, the graciousnesse of his person, the return of his prayers. For all that Christ did or suffer'd, and all that he now does as a Priest in heaven, is to glorifie his Father by bringing souls to God: For this it was that he was born and dyed, that he descended from heaven to earth, from life to death, from the crosse to the grave; this was the purpose of his resurrection and ascension, of the end and design of all the miracles and graces of God manifested to all the world by him; and now what man is so vile, such a malicious fool, that will refuse to bring joy to his Lord by doing himself the greatest D good in the world? They who refuse to do this, are said to crucifie the Lord of life again, and put him to an open shame: that is, they, as much as in them lies, bring Christ from his glorious joyes to the labours of his life, and the shame of his death; they advance his enemies, and refuse to advance the Kingdome of their Lord; they put themselves in that state in which they were when Christ came to dye for them; and now that he is in a state that he may rejoyce over them, (for he hath done all his share towards it) every wicked man takes his head from the blessing, and rather chuses that the Devill should rejoyce in his destruction, then that E his Lord should triumph in his felicity. And now upon the supposition of these premises, we may imagine that it will be an infinite amazement to meet that Lord to be our Judge whose person we have murdered, whose honour we have disparaged, whose purposes we have destroyed, whose joyes we have lessened, whose [Page] A passion we have made ineffectuall, and whose love we have trampled under our profane and impious feet.

3. But there is yet a third part of this consideration. As it will be inquir'd at the day of Judgement concerning the dishonours to the person of Christ, so also concerning the profession and institution of Christ, and concerning his poor Members; for by these also we make sad reflexions upon our Lord. Every man that lives wickedly disgraces the religion and institution of Jesus, he discourages strangers from entring into it, he weakens the hands of them that are in already, and makes that the adversaries speak B reproachfully of the Name of Christ; but although it is certain our Lord and Judge will deeply resent all these things, yet there is one thing which he takes more tenderly, and that is, the uncharitablenesse of men towards his poor: It shall then be upbraided to them by the Judge, that himself was hungry and they refused to give meat to him that gave them his body and heart-bloud, to feed them and quench their thirst; that they denyed a robe to cover his nakednesse, and yet he would have cloathed their souls with the robe of his righteousnesse, lest their souls should be found naked in the day of the Lords visitation; and all this unkindnesse C is nothing but that evill men were uncharitable to their Brethren, they would not feed the hungry, nor give drink to the thirsty, nor cloath the naked, nor relieve their Brothers needs, nor forgive his follies, nor cover their shame, nor turn their eyes from delighting in their affronts and evill accidents; this is it which our Lord will take so tenderly, that his Brethren for whom he died, who suck'd the paps of his Mother, that fed on his Body and are nourished with his Bloud, whom he hath lodg'd in his heart and entertains in his bosome, the partners of his Spirit and co-heirs of his inheritance, that these should be deny'd relief and suffered to go away D ashamed, and unpitied; this our blessed Lord will take so ill, that all those who are guilty of this unkindnesse, have no reason to expect the favour of the Court.

4. To this if we adde the almightinesse of the Judge, his infinite wisdome and knowledge of all causes, and all persons, and all circumstances, that he is infinitely just, inflexibly angry, and impartiall in his sentence, there can be nothing added either to the greatness or the requisites of a terrible and an Almighty Judge. For who can resist him who is Almighty? Who can evade his scrutiny that knows all things? Who can hope for pity of him that is inflexible? Who can E think to be exempted when the Judge is righteous and impartial? But in all these annexes of the great Judge, that which I shal now remark, is that indeed which hath terror in it, and that is, the severity of our Lord. For then is the day of vengeance and recompenses, and no mercy at all shall be shewed, but to them that are the sons of mercy; for the other, their portion is such as can be expected from these premises.

[Page] 1. If we remember the instances of Gods severity in this life, A in the daies of mercy and repentance, in those dayes when Judgement waits upon Mercy, and receives lawes by the rules and measures of pardon, and that for all the rare streams of loving kindnesse issuing out of Paradise and refreshing all our fields with a moisture more fruitfull then the flouds of Nilus, still there are mingled some stormes and violences, some fearfull instances of the Divine Justice, we may more readily expect it will be worse, infinitely worse at that day, when Judgement shall ride in triumph, and Mercy shall be the accuser of the wicked. But so we read, and are commanded to remember, because they are written for our example, B that God destroyed at once five cities of the plain, and all the country, and Sodome and her sisters are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternall fire. Fearfull it was when God destroyed at once 23000 for fornication, and an exterminating Angell in one night killed 185000 of the Assyrians, and the first born of all the families of Egypt, and for the sin of David in numbring the people threescore and ten thousand of the people dyed, and God sent ten tribes into captivity and eternall oblivion and indistinction from a common people for their idolatry. Did not God strike Corah and his company with fire from Heaven? and C the earth open'd and swallowed up the congregation of Abiram? And is not evill come upon all the world for one sin of Adam? Did not the anger of God break the nation of the Jewes all in pieces with judgements so great, that no nation ever suffered the like, because none ever sin'd so? And at once it was done, that God in anger destroyed all the world, and eight persons only escaped the angry Baptisme of water, and yet this world is the time of mercy; God hath open'd here his Magazines, and sent his holy Son as the great channell and fountain of it too: here he delights in mercy, and in judgement loves to remember it, and it triumphs over all D his works, and God contrives instruments and accidents, chances and designs, occasions and opportunities for mercy: if therefore now the anger of God makes such terrible eruptions upon the wicked people that delight in sin, how great may we suppose that anger to be, how severe that Judgement, how terrible that vengeance, how intolerable those inflictions which God reserves for the full effusion of indignation on the great day of vengeance?

2. We may also guesse at it by this; if God upon all single instances, and in the midst of our sins, before they are come to the full, and sometimes in the beginning of an evill habit be so fierce in E his anger, what can we imagine it to be, in that day when the wicked are to drink the dregs of that horrid potion, and count over all the particulars of their whole treasure of wrath? This is the Rom. 2. 5. day of wrath, and God shall reveal, or, bring forth his righteous Judgements. The expression is taken from Deut. 32. 34. Is not this [Page] A laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? [...], I will restore it in the day of vengeance, for the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants. For so did the Lybian Lion that was brought up under discipline, and taught to endure blowes, and eat the meat of order and regular provision, and to suffer gentle usages, and the familiarities of societies; but once he brake out into his own wildnesse, Dedidicit pacem subitò feritate reversâ, and kil'd two Roman boyes; but those that forrage in the Lybian mountains tread down and devour all that they meet or master; and when they have fasted two dayes, lay up B an anger great as is their appetite, and bring certain death to all that can be overcome: God is pleased to compare himself to a Lion; and though in this life he hath confin'd himself with promises and gracious emanations of an infinite goodnesse, and limits himself by conditions and covenants, and suffers himself to be overcome by prayers, and himself hath invented wayes of atonement and expiation, yet when he is provoked by our unhandsome and unworthy actions, he makes sudden breaches, and tears some of us in pieces, and of others he breaks their bones or affrights their hopes and secular gayeties, and fils their house C with mourning and Cypresse, and groans and death: But when this Lion of the tribe of Judah shall appear upon his own mountain, the mountain of the Lord, in his naturall dresse of Majesty, and that Justice shall have her chain and golden fetters taken off, then Justice shall strike, and Mercy shall not hold her hands; she shall strike sore strokes, and pity shall not break the blow; and God shall account with us by minutes, and for words, and for thoughts, and then he shall be severe to mark what is done amisse; and that Justice may reign intirely, God shall open the wicked mans treasure, and tell the sums, and weigh grains and scruples: D [...], said Philo upon the place of Deuteronomy before quoted: As there are treasures of good things; and God hath Crowns and Scepters in store for his Saints and servants, and Coronets for Martyrs, and Rosaries for Virgins, and Phials full of Prayers, and bottles full of tears, and a register of sighs and penitentiall groans: so God hath a treasure of wrath and fury, of scourges and scorpions, and then shall be produced the shame of lust, and the malice of envie, and the groans of the oppressed, and the persecutions of the Saints, and the cares of covetousnesse, and E the troubles of ambition, and the insolencies of traitors, and the violences of rebels, and the rage of anger, and the uneasinesse of impatience, and the restlesnesse of unlawfull desires; and by this time the monsters and diseases will be numerous, and intolerable, when Gods heavie hand shall presse the sanies and the intolerablenesse, the obliquity and the unreasonablenesse, the amazement [Page] and the disorder, the smart and the sorrow, the guilt and the punishment A out from all our sins, and pour them into one chalice, and mingle them with an infinite wrath, and make the wicked drink off all the vengeance, and force it down their unwilling throats with the violence of Devils and accursed Spirits.

3. We may guesse at the severity of the Judge by the lesser strokes of that Judgement which he is pleased to send upon sinners in this world, to make them afraid of the horrible pains of Doomsday: I mean the torments of an unquiet conscience, the amazement and confusions of some sins and some persons. For I have sometimes seen persons surpriz'd in a base action, and taken in the B circumstances of crafty theft, and secret unjustices before their excuse was ready; They have changed their colour, their speech hath faltered, their tongue stammer'd, their eyes did wander and fix no where, till shame made them sink into their hollow eye-pits to retreat from the images and circumstances of discovery; their wits are lost, their reason uselesse, the whole order of their soul is discomposed, and they neither see, nor feel, nor think as they use to do, but they are broken into disorder by a stroke of damnation and a lesser stripe of hell; but then if you come to observe a guilty and a base murtherer, a condemned traytor, and see him C harrassed first by an evill conscience, and then pull'd in pieces by the hangmans hooks, or broken upon sorrows and the wheel, we may then guesse (as well as we can in this life) what the pains of that day shall be to accursed souls: But those we shall consider afterwards in their proper scene; now only we are to estimate the severity of our Judge by the intolerablenesse of an evill conscience; if guilt will make a man despair, and despair will make a man mad, confounded and dissolved in all the regions of his senses and more noble faculties, that he shall neither feel, nor hear, nor see any thing but spectres and illusions, devils and frightfull dreams, D and hear noises, and shriek fearfully, and look pale and distracted like a hopelesse man from the horrors and confusions of a lost battell upon which all his hopes did stand, then the wicked must at the day of Judgement expect strange things and fearfull, and such which now no language can expresse, and then no patience can endure. [...]. Then only it can truly be said that he is inflexible and inexorable. E No prayers then can move him, no groans can cause him to pity thee: therefore pity thy self in time, that when the Judge comes thou mayest be one of the sons of everlasting mercy, to whom pity belongs as part of thine inheritance; for all else shall without any remorse (except his own) be condemned by the horrible sentence.

[Page] A 4. That all may think themselves concerned in this consideration, let us remember that even the righteous and most innocent shall passe through a severe triall. Many of the Ancients explicated this severity by the fire of conflagration, which say they shall purifie those souls at the day of Judgement, which in this life have built upon the foundation hay and stubble, works of folly and false opinions, and states of imperfection. So S. Austins Doctrine was, Hoc aget caminus, alios in sinistrâ separabit, alios in In Psal. 103. dextrâ quodam modo eliquabit, The great fire at Dooms-day shall throw some into the portion of the left hand, and others shall be B purified and represented on the right: and the same is affirmed by Origen In Ierem. hom. 13. & in Luk. hom. 14. & Lactantius lib. 7. instit. c. 21. Hilarius in Psal. 118. octon. 3. & in Mat. can. 2. and Lactantius; and S. Hilary thus expostulates, Since we are to give account for every idle word, shall we long for the day of Judgement, in quo est nobis indefessus ille ignis obeundus in quo subeunda sunt gravia illa expiandae à peccatis animae supplicia, ‘Wherein we must every one of us passe that unwearied fire in which those grievous punishments for expiating the soul from sins must be endured; for to such as have been baptized with the Holy Ghost it remaineth that they be consummated with the fire of Judgement.’ And S. Ambrose addes, That if any be as Peter or as John, they are C baptiz'd with this fire, and he that it purged here had need to be purged there again: Illic quoque nos purificet quando dicat dominus, Intrate in requiem mean, Let him also purifie us, that every one of us being burned with that flaming sword, not burned up or consumed, we may enter into Paradise and give thanks unto the Lord In Psal. 118. serm. 3. who hath brought us into a place of refreshment. This opinion of theirs is, in the main of it, very uncertain, relying upon the sense of some obscure places of Scripture, is only apt to represent the great severity of the Judge at that day, and it hath in it this only certainty, that even the most innocent person hath great need of D mercy, and he that hath the greatest cause of confidence, although he runs to no rocks to hide him, yet he runs to the protection of the Crosse, and hides himself under the shadow of the Divine mercies: and he that shall receive the absolution of the blessed sentence, shall also suffer the terrors of the day, and the fearfull circumstances of Christs coming. The effect of this consideration is this: That if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the wicked and the sinner appear? Quid faciet virgula deserti, ubi concutretur cedrus Paradisi? Quid faciet agnus, cumtremit aries? Si coelum fugiat, ubi manebit terra? said S. Gregory. And if S. Paul E whose conscience accus'd him not, yet durst not be too confident, because he was not hereby justified, but might be found faulty by the severer Judgement of his Lord; how shall we appear with all our crimes and evill habits round about us? If there be need of much mercy to the servants and friends of the Judge, then his enemies shall not be able to stand up right in Judgement.

[Page] 5. But the matter is still of more concernment. The Pharisees A beleeved that they were innocent if they abstained from criminall actions, such as were punishable by the Judge; and many Christians think all is well with them, if they abstain from such sins as have a name in the Tables of their Lawes: But because some sins are secret and not discernible by man; others are publick, but not punished, because they are frequent and perpetuall, and without externall mischiefs in some instances, and only provocations against God; men think that in their concernments they have no place: and such are jeering and many instances of wantonnesse, and revelling, doing petty spites, and doggednesse, and churlishnesse, lying B and pride: and beyond this, some are very like vertues; as too much gentlenesse and slacknesse in government, or too great severity and rigor of animadversions, bitternesse in reproof of sinners, uncivill circumstances, imprudent handlings of some criminals, and zeal; Nay there are some vile things, which through the evill discoursings and worse manners of men are passed into an artificiall and false reputation, and men are accounted wits for talking Atheistically, and valiant for being murderers, and wise for deceiving and circumventing our Brothers; and many irregularities more, for all which we are safe enough here. But when the day C of Judgement comes, these shall be called to a severe account, for the Judge is omniscient and knows all things, and his tribunall takes cognisance of all causes, and hath a coërcitive for all, all things are naked and open to his eyes (saith S. Paul) therefore nothing shall Heb. 4. escape for being secret: [...] And all prejudices being laid aside it shall be considered concerning D our evill rules, and false principles; Cum cepero tempus, ego justitias Psal. 74. judicabo; when I shall receive the people, I shall judge according unto right: so we read; [When we shall receive time, I will judge justices and judgements] so the vulgar Latin reads it; that is, in the day of the Lord, when time is put into his hand and time shall be no more, he shall judge concerning those judgements when men here make of things below; and the fighting man shall perceive the noises of drunkards and fools that cryed him up for daring to kill his Brother, to have been evill principles; and then it will be declared by strange effects, that wealth is not the greatest fortune; E and ambition was not but an ill counsellor; and to lye for a good cause was no piety; and to do evill for the glory of God was but an ill worshipping him; and that good nature was not well imploy'd when it spent it self in vicious company, and evill compliances; and that piety was not softnesse and want of courage; and that poverty [Page] A ought not to have been contemptible; and that cause that is unsuccessefull, is not therefore evill; and what is folly here, shall be wisdome there; then shall men curse their evill guides and their accursed superinduced necessities, and the evill guises of the world; and then when silence shall be found innocence, and eloquence in many instances condemned as criminall; when the poor shall reign, and Generals and Tyrants shall lye low in horrible regions; when he that lost all shall finde a treasure, and he that spoil'd him shall be found naked and spoil'd by the destroyer, then we shall finde it true, that we ought here to have done what our Judge, our blessed B Lord shall do there, that is, take our measures of good and evill by the severities of the word of God, by the Sermons of Christ, and the four Gospels, and by the Epistles of S. Paul, by Justice and charity, by the Lawes of God and the lawes of wise Princes and Republicks, by the rules of Nature and the just proportions of Reason, by the examples of good men and the proverbs of wise men, by severity and the rules of Discipline: for then it shall be, that truth shall ride in triumph, and the holinesse of Christs Sermons shall be manifest to all the world; that the Word of God shall be advanced over all the discourses of men, and Wisdome shall C be justified by all her children. Then shall be heard those words of an evill and tardy repentance, and the just rewards of folly; [We fools thought their life madnesse; but behold they are justified before the throne of God, and we are miserable for ever.] Here men think it strange if others will not run into the same excesse of riot; but there they will wonder how themselves should be so mad and infinitely unsafe by being strangely and inexcusably unreasonable. The summe is this; The Judge shall appear cloathed with wisdome, and power, and justice, and knowledge, and an impartiall Spirit, making no separations by the proportions of this world, but by the D measures of God, not giving sentence by the principles of our folly and evill customes, but by the severity of his own Laws and measures of the Spirit. Non est judicium Dei sicut hominum, God does not judge as Man judges.

6. Now that the Judge is come thus arrayed, thus prepared, so instructed, let us next consider the circumstances of our appearing and his sentence; and first I consider that men at the day of Judgement that belong not to the portion of life, shall have three sorts of accusers, 1. Christ himself, who is their Judge. 2. Their own conscience, whom they have injured and blotted with characters E of death and foul dishonour. 3. The Devill, their enemy, whom they served.

1. Christ shall be their accuser, not only upon the stock of those direct injuries (which I before reckoned) of crucifying the Lord of life, once and again, &c. But upon the titles of contempt and unworthinesse, of unkindnesse and ingratitude; and the accusation [Page] will be nothing else but a plain representation of those artifices A and assistances, those bonds and invitations, those constrainings and importunities which our dear Lord used to us to make it almost impossible to lye in sin, and necessary to be sav'd. For it will, it must needs be a fearfull exprobration of our unworthinesse, when the Judge himself shall bear witnesse against us, that the wisdome of God himself was strangely imployed in bringing us safely to felicity. I shall draw a short Scheme, which although it must needs be infinitely short of what God hath done for us, yet it will be enough to shame us. *God did not only give his Son for an example, and 1. the Son gave himself for a price for us, but both gave the holy B Spirit to assist us in mighty graces, for the verifications of Faith, and the entertainments of Hope, and the increase and perseverance of Charity. *God gave to us a new nature, he put another principle 2. into us, a third part of a perfective constitution: we have the Spirit put into us, to be a part of us, as properly to produce actions of a holy life, as the soul of man in the body does produce the naturall. *God hath exalted humane nature, and made it in 3. the person of Jesus Christ, to sit above the highest seat of Angels, and the Angels are made ministring spirits, ever since their Lord became our Brother. *Christ hath by a miraculous Sacrament C 4. given us his body to eat, and his bloud to drink, he made waies that we may become all one with him. *He hath given us 5. an easie religion, and hath established our future felicity upon naturall and pleasant conditions, and we are to be happy hereafter if we suffer God to make us happy here; and things are so ordered, that a man must take more pains to perish, then to be happy. *God 6. hath found out rare wayes to make our prayers acceptable, our weak petitions, the desires of our imperfect souls to prevail mightily with God; and to lay a holy violence, and an undeniable necessity upon himself; and God will deny us nothing but when we D aske of him to do us ill offices, to give us poisons and dangers, and evill nourishment, and temptations; and he that hath given such mighty power to the prayers of his servants, yet will not be moved by those potent and mighty prayers to do any good man an evill turn, or to grant him one mischief; in that only God can deny us. *But in all things else God hath made all the excellent 7. things in heaven and earth to joyn towards holy and fortunate effects; for he hath appointed an Angell to present the prayers of Revel. 8. 3. Saints, and Christ makes intercession for us, and the holy Spirit makes intercession for us with groans unutterable; and all the holy E Rom. 8. 26. men in the world pray for all and for every one; and God hath instructed us with Scriptures, and precedents, and collaterall and direct assistances to pray; and he incouraged us with divers excellent promises, and parables, and examples, and teaches us what to pray and how, and gives one promise to publique prayer, and [Page] A another to private prayer, and to both the blessing of being heard.

* Adde to this account that God did heap blessings upon us 8. without order, infinitely, perpetually and in all instances, when we needed, and when we needed not. *He heard us when we pray'd, 9. giving us all and giving us more then we desired; *He desired 10. that we should aske, and yet he hath also prevented our desires; *He watch'd for us, and at his own charge sent a whole order of 11. men whose imployment is to minister to our souls: and if all this had not been enough, he had given us more also. *He promised B 12. heaven to our obedience, a Province for a dish of water, a Kingdome for a prayer, satisfaction for desiring it, grace for receiving, and more grace for accepting and using the first. *He 13. invited us with gracious words and perfect entertainments; *He 14. threatned horrible things to us if we would not be happy; *He 15. hath made strange necessities for us, making our very repentance to be a conjugation of holy actions, and holy times, and a long succession; *He hath taken away all excuses from us, he hath called 16. us off from temptation, he bears our charges, he is alwaies beforehand with us in every act of favour, and perpetually slow in striking, C and his arrowes are unfeathered, and he is so long, first in drawing his sword, and another long while in whetting it, and yet longer in lifting his hand to strike, that before the blow comes the man hath repented long, unlesse he be a fool and impudent; and then God is so glad of an excuse to lay his anger aside, that certainly if after all this we refuse life and glory, there is no more to be said; this plain story will condemn us: but the story is very much longer, and as our conscience will represent all our sins to us, so the Judge will represent all his Fathers kindnesses, as Nathan did to David, when he was to make the justice of the Divine D Sentence appear against him. *Then it shall be remembred 17. that the joyes of every daies piety would have been a greater pleasure every night, then the remembrance of every nights sin could have been in the morning; *That every night, the trouble and labour of the daies vertue would have been as much passed and turned 18. to as very a nothing, as the pleasure of that daies sin; but that they would be infinitely distinguished by the remanent effects. [...], So Musonius expressed the sense of this inducement; and that this argument would E have grown so great by that time we come to dye, that the certain pleasures, and rare confidences, and holy hopes of a death-bed would be a strange felicity to the man when he remembers he did obey, if they were compared to the fearfull expectations of a dying sinner, who feels by a formidable and afrighting remembrance that of all his sins nothing remains but the gains of a miserable [Page] eternity. *The offering our selves to God every morning, and the A thanksgiving to God every night, hope and fear, shame and desire, the honour of leaving a fair name behinde us, and the shame of dying like a fool, every thing indeed in the world is made to be an argument and an inducement to us to invite us to come to God and be sav'd; and therefore when this, and infinitely more shall by the Judge be exhibited in sad remembrances, there needs no other sentence, we shall condemn our selves with a hasty shame, and a fearfull confusion, to see how good God hath been to us, and how base we have been to our selves. Thus Moses is said to accuse the Jewes; and thus also he that does accuse, is said to condemn, B as Verres was by Cicero, and Claudia by Domitius her accuser, and the world of impenitent persons by the men of Nineveh, and all, by Christ their Judge. I represent the horror of this circumstance to consist in this, besides the reasonablenesse of the Judgement, and the certainty of the condemnation, it cannot but be an argument of an intolerable despair to perishing souls, when he that was our Advocate all our life, shall in the day of that appearing be our Accuser and our Judge, a party against us, an injur'd person in the day of his power, and of his wrath, doing execution upon all his own foolish and malicious enemies. * C

2. Our conscience shall be our accuser,] but this signifies but these two things; 1. that we shall be condemned for the evils that we have done, and shall then remember; God by his power wiping away the dust from the tables of our memory, and taking off the consideration and the voluntary neglect and rude shufflings of our cases of conscience. For then we shall see things as they are, the evill circumstances and the crooked intentions, the adherent unhandsomenesse and the direct crimes: for all things are laid up safely, and though we draw a curtain of cobweb over them, and few figleaves before our shame, yet God shall draw away the curtain, and forgetfulnesse D shall be no more, because with a taper in the hand of God all the corners of our nastinesse shall be discovered. And secondly it signifies this also, that not only the Justice of God shall be confessed by us in our own shame and condemnation, but the evill of the sentence shall be received into us, to melt our bowels and to break our heart in pieces within us, because we are the authors of our own death, and our own inhumane hands have torn our souls in pieces. Thus farre the horrors are great, and when evill men consider it, it is certain they must be afraid to dye. Even they that have liv'd well, have some sad considerations, and the E tremblings of humility, and suspicion of themselves. I remember S. Cyprian tels of a good man who in his agony of death saw a phantasme of a noble and angelicall shape, who frowning and angry said to him, Pati timetis, exire non vultis, Quid faciam vobis? Ye cannot endure sicknesse, ye are troubled at the evils of the [Page] A world, and yet you are loth to dye and to be quit of them, what shall I do to you? Although this is apt to represent every mans condition more or lesse, yet concerning persons of wicked lives, it hath in it too many sad degrees of truth; they are impatient of sorrow, and justly fearfull of death, because they know not how to comfort themselves in the evill accidents of their lives; and their conscience is too polluted to take death for sanctuary, and to hope to have amends made to their condition by the sentence of the day of Judgement. Evill and sad is their condition who cannot be contented here, nor blessed hereafter; whose life is their misery, B and their conscience is their enemy, whose grave is their prison, and death their undoing, and the sentence of Dooms-day, the beginning of an intolerable condition.

3. The third sort of accusers, are the Devils; and they will do it with malicious and evill purposes; The Prince of the Devils hath [...] for one of his chiefest appellatives: The accuser of the Brethren he is by his professed malice, and imployment; and therefore God who delights that his mercy should triumph, and his goodnesse prevail over all the malice of men and Devils, hath appointed one whose office is [...] to reprove the accuser, C and to resist the enemy, and to be a defender of their cause who belong to God. The holy Spirit is [...] a defender, the evill spirit is [...] the accuser, and they that in this life belong to one or the other, shall in the same proportion be treated at the day of Judgement. The Devill shall accuse the Brethren, that is, the Saints and servants of God, and shall tell concerning their follies and infirmities, the sins of their youth, and the weaknesse of their age, the imperfect grace, and the long schedule of omissions of duty, their scruples and their fears, their diffidences and pusillanimity, and all those things which themselves by strict D examination finde themselves guilty of, and have confessed, all their shame and the matter of their sorrowes, their evill intentions and their little plots, their carnall confidences, and too fond adherences to the things of this world, their indulgence and easinesse of government, their wilder joyes and freer meals, their losse of time and their too forward and apt compliances, their trifling arrests and little peevishnesses, the mixtures of the world with the things of the Spirit, and all the incidences of humanity he will bring forth and aggravate them by the circumstance of ingratitude, and the breach of promise, and the evacuating all their holy E purposes, and breaking their resolutions, and rifling their vowes; and all these things being drawn into an intire representment, and the bils clog'd by numbers, will make the best man in the world seem foul and unhandsome, and stained with the characters of death and evill dishonour. But for these there is appointed a defender; The holy Spirit that maketh intercession for us, shall then [Page] also interpose, and against all these things shall oppose the passion A of our blessed Lord, and upon all their defects shall cast the robe of his righteousnesse; and the sins of their youth shall not prevail so much as the repentance of their age; and their omissions be excused by probable intervening causes, and their little escapes shall appear single, and in disunion, because they were alwaies kept asunder by penitentiall prayers and sighings, and their seldome returns of sin by their daily watchfulnesse, and their often infirmities by the sincerity of their souls, and their scruples by their zeal, and their passions by their love, and all by the mercies of God and the sacrifice which their Judge offer'd, and the holy B Spirit made effective by daily graces and assistances. These therefore infallibly go to the portion of the right hand, because the Lord our God shall answer for them. But as for the wicked, it is not so with them; for although the plain story of their life be to them a sad condemnation, yet what will be answered when it shall be told concerning them, that they despised Gods mercies, and feared not his angry judgements; that they regarded not his word, and loved not his excellencies; that they were not perswaded by the promises, nor afrighted by his threatnings; that they neither would accept his government, nor his blessings; that all the C sad stories that ever hapned in both the worlds, (in all which himself did escape till the day of his death, and was not concerned in them save only that he was called upon by every one of them, which he ever heard or saw or was told of, to repentance, that all these) were sent to him in vain? But cannot the Accuser truly say to the Judge concerning such persons, They were thine by creation, but mine by their own choice: Thou didst redeem them indeed, but they sold themselves to me for a trifle, or for an unsatisfying interest: Thou diedst for them, but they obeyed my commandements: I gave them nothing, I promised them nothing but D the filthy pleasures of a night, or the joyes of madnesse, or the delights of a disease: I never hanged upon the Crosse three long hours for them, nor endured the labours of a poor life 33 years together for their interest; only when they were thine by the merit of thy death, they quickly became mine by the demerit of their ingratitude, and when thou hadst cloathed their soul with thy robe, and adorned them by thy graces, we strip'd them naked as their shame, and only put on a robe of darknesse, and they thought themselves secure and went dancing to their grave like a drunkard to a fight, or a flie unto a candle; and therefore they that did partake E with us in our faults, must divide with us in our portion and fearfull interest? This is a sad story because it ends in death, and there is nothing to abate or lessen the calamity. It concerns us therefore to consider in time, that he that tempts us will accuse us, and what he cals pleasant now he shall then say was nothing, and [Page] A all the gains that now invite earthly souls and mean persons to vanity, was nothing but the seeds of folly, and the harvest is pain and sorrow, and shame eternall. * But then since this horror proceeds upon the account of so many accusers, God hath put it into our power by a timely accusation of our selves in the tribunall of the court Christian to prevent all the arts of aggravation which at Dooms-day shall load foolish and undiscerning souls. He that accuses himself of his crimes here, means to forsake them, and looks upon them on all sides, and spies out his deformity, and is taught to hate them, he is instructed and prayed for, he prevents B the anger of God and defeats the Devils malice, and by making shame the instrument of repentance, he takes away the sting, and makes that to be his medicine which otherwise would be his death: and concerning this exercise, I shall only adde what the Patriarch of Alexandria told an old religious person in his hermitage; having asked him what he found in that desert; he was answered, only this, Indesinenter culpare & judicare meipsum; to judge and condemn my self perpetually, that is the imployment of my solitude. The Patriarch answered, Non est alia via, There is no other way. By accusing our selves we shall make the Devils malice uselesse, and C our own consciences dear, and be reconciled to the Judge by the severities of an early repentance, and then we need to fear no accusers.

SERMON, III. Part, III.

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3. IT remaines that we consider the Sentence it self, We must receive according to what we have done in the body, whether it be good or bad. Judicaturo Domino lugubre mundus immugiet, & tribus ad tribum pectora ferient. Potentissimi quondam reges nudo latere palpitabunt: so St. Hierom meditates concerning the terror of this consideration. ‘The whole world shall groan when the Judge comes to give his Sentence, tribe and tribe shall knock their sides together; and through the naked breasts of the most mighty Kings you shall see their hearts beat with C fearfull tremblings.’ Tunc Aristotelis argumenta parum proderunt, cum venerit filius pauperculae quaestuariae judicare orbem terra. Nothing shall then be worth owning, or the means of obtaining mercy, but a holy conscience; all the humane craft and trifling subtilties shall be uselesse, when the Son of a poor Maid shall sit Judge over all the world. When the Prophet Joel was describing the formidable accidents in the day of the Lords Judgement, and the fearfull Sentence of an angry Judge, he was not able to expresse it, but flammered like a Childe, or an amazed imperfect person, A. A. A. diei, quia propè est Dies Domini; it D Ioel 1. is not sense at first; he was so amazed, he knew not what to say, and the Spirit of God was pleased to let that signe remain like Agamemnon's sorrow for the death of Iphigenia, nothing could describe it but a vail; it must be hidden and supposed; and the stammering tongue that is full of fear, can best speak that terror which will make all the world to cry, and shriek, and speak fearfull accents, and significations of an infinite sorrow and amazement.

But so it is, there are two great days in which the fate of all the world is transacted. This life is mans day, in which E man does what he please, and God holds his peace. Man destroys his Brother, and destroyes himselfe, and confounds Governments, and raises Armies, and tempts to sin, and delights in it, and drinks drunk, and forgets his sorrow, and heaps up great estates, and raises a family and a name in the Annals, and makes others fear him, [Page] A and introduces new Religions, and confounds the old, and changeth Articles as his interest requires, and all this while God is silent, save that he is loud and clamorous with his holy precepts, and over-rules the event; but leaves the desires of men to their owne choice, and their course of life such as they generally choose. But then, God shall have his day too; the day of the Lord shall come, in which he shall speak, and no man shall answer, he shall speak in the voyce of thunder and fearfull noyses, and man shall doe no more as he please, but must suffer as he hath deserved. When Zedekiah reigned in Jerusalem, and B persecuted the Prophets, and destroyed the interests of Religion, and put Jeremy into the Dungeon, God held his peace; save onely that he warned him of the danger, and told him of the disorder; but it was Zedekiah's day, and he was permitted to his pleasure. But when he was led in chains to Babylon, and his eyes were put out with burning Basons and horrible circles of reflected fires, then was Gods day, and his voyce was the accent of a fearfull anger, that broke him all in pieces. It will be all our ca [...]es, unlesse we hear God speak now, and doe his work, and serve his interest, and bear our selves in our just proportions, C that is, as such, the very end of whose being, and all our faculties is to serve God, and doe justice, and charities to our Brother. For if we doe the work of God in our own day, wee shall receive an infinite mercy in the day of the Lord. But what that is, is now to be inquired.

What wee have done in the body] But certainly this is the greatest terror of all. The thunders and the fires, the earthquakes and the trumpets, the brightnesse of holy Angels, and the horror of accursed Spirits, the voyce of the Archangel (who is the Prince of the heavenly host) and the Majesty of the Judge, in whose D service all that Army stands girt with holinesse and obedience, all those strange circumstances which have been already reckoned, and all those others which wee cannot understand, are but little praeparatories and umbrages of this fearfull circumstance. All this amazing Majesty and formidable praeparatories are for the passing of an eternall Sentence upon us according to what we have done in the body. Woe and alas! and God help us all. All mankind is an enemy to God, his nature is accursed, and his manners are depraved. It is with the nature of man, and with all his manners, as Philemon said of the nature of foxes.

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[Page] Every fox is crafty and mischievous, and if you gather a whole A herd of them there is not a good natur'd beast amongst them all; so it is with man; by nature he is the child of wrath, and by his manners he is the child of the Devill; wee call Christian, and wee dishonour our Lord, and we are Brethren, but we oppresse and murther one another; it is a great degree of sanctity now a-days not to be so wicked as the worst of men; and wee live at the rate as if the best of men did design to themselves an easier condemnation; and as if the generality of men consider'd not concerning the degrees of death, but did beleeve that in hell no man shall perceive any ease or refreshment in being tormented B with a slower fire. For consider what we doe in the body; 12 or 14 years passe before we choose good or bad; and of that which remaines above halfe is spent in sleep and the needs of Nature; for the other halfe it is divided as the Stag was when the beasts went a hunting, the Lyon hath five parts of sixe: The businesse of the world takes so much of our remaining portion, that Religion and the service of God have not much time left that can be spar'd; and of that which can, if we consider how much is allowed to crafty arts of cousenage, to oppression and ambition, to greedy desires, and avaritious prosecutions, to the vanities of C our youth, and the proper sins of every age, to the meer idlenesse of man and doing nothing, to his fantastick imaginations of greatnesse, and pleasures, of great and little devices, of impertinent law-suites and uncharitable treatings of our Brother; it will be intolerable when we consider that we are to stand or fall eternally, according to what we have done in the body. Gather it all together, and set it before thy eyes; Almes and Prayers are the summe of all thy good. Were thy prayers made in feare and holinesse, with passion and desire? Were they not made unwillingly, weakly, and wandringly, and abated with sins in the D greatest part of thy life? Didst thou pray with the same affection and labour as thou didst purchase thy estate? Have thy alms been more then thy oppressions, and according to thy power? and by what means didst thou judge concerning it? How much of our time was spent in that? and how much of our estate was spent in this? But let us goe one step further: How many of us love our enemies? or pray for, and doc good to them that persecute and affront us? or overcome evill with good, or turn the face again to them that strike us, rather then be reveng'd? or suffer our selves to be spoil'd or robbed without contention and E uncharitable courses? or lose our interest rather then lose our charity? And yet by these precepts we shall be judged. I instance but once more. Our blessed Saviour spake a hard saying: Every Mat. 12 36. idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof at the day of Judgement. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and [Page] A by thy words thou shalt be condemned; and upon this account may every one weeping and trembling say with Job, Quid faciam cum Iob 31. 14. resurrexerit ad judicandum Deus? What shall I doe when the Lord shall come to judgement? Of every idle word] O blessed God! what shall become of them who love to prate continually, to tell tales, to detract, to slander, to back-bite, to praise themselves, to undervalue others, to compare, to raise divisions, to boast? [...]; Who shall be able to stand upright, not bowing the knee with the intolerable load of the sins of his tongue? If of every idle word we must B give account, what shall we doe for those malicious words that dishonor God, or doe despite to our Brother? Remember how often we have tempted our Brother, or a silly woman to sin and death? How often we have pleaded for unjust interests, or by our wit have cousened an easie, and a beleeving person, or given evill sentences, or disputed others into false perswasions? Did we never call good evill, or evill good? Did we never say to others, thy cause is right, when nothing made it right, but favour and money, a false advocate or a covetous Judge? [...], so said Christ, every idle word that is, [...], so St. Paul uses it, every false Eph. 5. 6. C word, every lie shall be called to judgement; or as some Copies read it, [...], every wicked word shall be called to judgment. For by [ [...]] idle words, are not meant words that are unprofitable or unwise, for fooles and silly persons speak most of those, and have the least accounts to make; but by vaine the Jewes usually understood false; and to give their mind to vanity, or to speak vanity, is all one as to mind or speak falshoods with malicious and evill purposes. But if every idle word, that is every vain and lying word shall be called to judgment, what shall become of men that blaspheme God, or their Rulers, or D Princes of the people, or their Parents? that dishonour the Religion, and disgrace the Ministers? that corrupt Justice and pervert Judgment? that preach evill doctrines, or declare perverse sentences? that take Gods holy Name in vain, or dishonour the Name of God by trifling and frequent swearings; that holy Name by which wee hope to bee saved, and which all the Angels of God fall down and worship? These things are to be considered, for by our own words we stand or fall, that is, as in humane Judgements the confession of the party, and the contradiction of himselfe, or the failing in the circumstances of his story, are the E confidences or presumptions of law, by which Judges give sentence; so shall our words be, not onely the means of declaring a secret sentence, but a certain instrument of being absolved or condemned. But upon these premises, we see what reason we have to fear the sentence of that day, who have sinned with our tongues so often, so continually, that if there were no other actions [Page] to be accounted for, we have enough in this account to make us A die, and yet have committed so many evill actions that if our words were wholly forgotten, wee have infinite reason to feare concerning the event of that horrible sentence. The effect of which consideration is this, that we set a guard before our lips, and watch over our actions with a care, equall to that fear which shall be at Doomes-day, when we are to passe our sad accounts. But I have some considerations to interpose.

1. But (that the sadnesse of this may a little be relieved, and our 1. endevours be encouraged to a timely care and repentance) consider, that this great sentence, although it shall passe concerning B little things, yet it shall not passe by little portions, but by generall measures; not by the little errors of one day, but by the great proportions of our life; for God takes not notice of the infirmities of honest persons that alwayes endevour to avoid every sin, but in little intervening instances are surprized; but he judges us by single actions, if they are great, and of evill effect; and by little small instances, if they be habituall. No man can take care concerning every minute; and therefore concerning it Christ will not passe sentence but by the discernible portions of our time, by humane actions, by things of choice and deliberation, and by C generall precepts of care and watchfulnesse, this sentence shall be exacted. 2ly. The sentence of that day shall be passed, not by 2. the proportions of an Angell, but by the measures of a Man; the first follies are not unpardonable, but may bee recovered; and the second are dangerous, and the third are more fatall; but nothing is unpardonable but perseverance in evill courses. 3ly. The last Judgement shall bee transacted by the same 3. Principles by which we are guided here: not by strange and secret propositions, or by the fancies of men, or by the subtilties of uselesse distinctions, or evill perswasions; not by the scruples of D the credulous, or the interest of sects, nor the proverbs of prejudice, nor the uncertain definitions of them that give laws to subjects by expounding the decrees of Princes; but by the plain rules of Justice, by the ten Commandements, by the first apprehensions of conscience, by the plain rules of Scripture, and the rules of an honest mind, and a certain Justice. So that by this restraint and limit of the finall sentence, we are secur'd we shall not fall by scruple or by ignorance, by interest or by faction, by false perswasions of others, or invincible prejudice of our own, but we shall stand or fall by plain and easie propositions, by chastity or E uncleannesse, by justice or unjustice, by robbery or restitution: and of this wee have a great testimony by our Judge and Lord himselfe; Whatsoever yee shall bind in earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever yee loose shall be loosed there; that is, you shall stand or fall according to the Sermons of the Gospel, as the [Page] A Ministers of the Word are commanded to preach, so yee must live here, and so yee must be judged hereafter; yee must not look for that sentence by secret decrees or obscure doctrines, but by plain precepts and certain rules. But there are yet some more degrees of mercy. 4. That sentence shall passe upon us not after the measures of Nature, and possibilities, and utmost extents, 4. but by the mercies of the Covenant; we shall be judged as Christians rather then as men, that is, as persons to whom much is pardoned, and much is pityed, and many things are (not accidentally, but consequently) indulged, and great helps are ministred, B and many remedies supplyed, and some mercies extraregularly conveyed, and their hopes enlarged upon the stock of an infinite mercy, that hath no bounds but our needs, our capacities, and our proportions to glory. 5. The sentence is to be given by him that once dyed for us, and does now pray for us, and perpetually 5. intercedes; and upon soules that he loves, and in the salvation of which himself hath a great interest, and increase of joy. And now upon these premises we may dare to consider what the sentence it self shall be, that shall never be reversed, but shall last for ever and ever.

C Whether it be good or bad.] I cannot discourse now the greatnesse of the good or bad, so farre (I mean) as is revealed to us; the considerations are too long to be crouded into the end of a Sermon; onely in generall: 1. If it be good, it is greater then all the good of this world, and every mans share then, in every 1. instant of his blessed eternity is greater then all the pleasures of Mankind in one heap.

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D man can never wish for any thing greater then this immortality, said Posidippus. 2. To which I adde this one consideration, 2. that the portion of the good at the day of sentence shall be so great, that after all the labours of our life, and suffering persecutions, and enduring affronts, and the labour of love, and the continuall feares and cares of the whole duration and abode, it rewards it all, and gives infinitely more; Non sunt condignae passiones hujus saeculi; all the torments and evills of this world are not to be estimated with the joyes of the Blessed: It is the gift E of God; a donative beyond the [...], the military stipend, it is beyond our work, and beyond our wages, and beyond the promise, and beyond our thoughts, and above our understandings, and above the highest heavens, it is a participation of the joyes of God, and of the inheritance of the Judge himselfe.

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It is a day of recompenses, in which all our sorrowes shall be turn'd into joyes, our persecutions into a crown, the Crosse into a Throne, poverty to the riches of God, losse, and affronts, and inconveniences, and death, into scepters, and hymnes, and rejoycings, and Hallellujahs, and such great things which are fit for us to hope, but too great for us to discourse of, while we see as in B a glasse darkly and imperfectly. And he that chooses to do an evill, rather then suffer one, shall finde it but an ill exchange, that he deferred his little to change for a great one. I remember that a servant in the old Comedy did chuse to venture the lash rather then to feel a present inconvenience, Quia illud aderat malum, istud aberat longiùs: illud erat praesens, huic erant dieculae: but this will be but an ill account, when the rods shall for the delay be turned into Scorpions, and from easie shall become intolerable. Better it is to suffer here, and to stay till the day of restitution for the good and the holy portion; for it will recompense both C for the suffering and the stay.

But how if the portion be bad? It shall be bad to the greatest part of mankinde; that's a fearfull consideration; the greatest part of men and women shall dwell in the portion of Devils to eternall ages. So that these portions are like the Prophets figs in the vision; the good are the best that ever were, and the worst are so bad that worse cannot be imagined. For though in hell the accursed souls shall have no worse then they have deserved, and there are not there overrunning measures as there are in heaven, and therefore that the joyes of heaven are infinitely greater D joyes then the pains of hell are great pains, yet even these are a full measure to a full iniquity, pain above patience, sorrowes without ease, amazement without consideration, despair without the intervals of a little hope, indignation without the possession of any good, there dwels envie and confusion, disorder and sad remembrances, perpetuall woes and continuall shriekings, uneasinesse and all the evils of the soul. But if we will represent it in some orderly circumstances, we may consider,

1. That here, all the troubles of our spirits are little participations 1. of a disorderly passion; A man desires earnestly, but he hath E 1. not, or he envies because another hath something besides him, and he is troubled at the want of one, when at the same time he hath a hundred good things; and yet ambition and envie, impatience and confusion, covetousnesse and lust are all of them very great torments; but there these shall be in essence and abstracted beings; [Page] A the spirit of envie, and the spirit of sorrow; Devils, that shall inflict all the whole nature of the evill and pour it into the minds of accursed men; where it shall sit without abatement: for he that envies there, envies not for the eminence of another that sits a little above him, and excels him in some one good; but he shall envie for all; because the Saints have all, and they have none; therefore all their passions are integral, abstracted, perfect passions; and all the sorrow in the world at this time, is but a portion of sorrow; every man hath his share, and yet besides that which all sad men have, there is a great deal of sorrow which they have not, and B all the Devils portion besides that; but in hell, they shall have the whole passion of sorrow in every one, just as the whole body of the Sun is seen by every one in the same Horizon; and he that is in darknesse enjoyes it not by parts, but the whole darknesse is the portion of one as well as of another. If this consideration be not too Metaphysicall, I am sure it is very sad, and it relies upon this; that as in heaven there are some holy Spirits whose crown is all love; and some in which the brightest jewell is understanding; some are purity, and some are holinesse to the Lord: so in the regions of sorrow, evill and sorrow have an essence and proper C being, and are set there to be suffer'd intirely by every undone man that dies there for ever.

2. The evils of this world are materiall and bodily; the pressing of a shoulder, or the straining of a joynt; the dislocation of a bone, or the extending of an artery; a bruise in the flesh, or the pinching of the skin; a hot liver, or a sickly stomach; and then the minde is troubled because its instrument is ill at ease; but all the proper troubles of this life are nothing but the effects of an uneasie body, or an abused fancy, and therefore can be no bigger then a blow or a cousenage, then a wound or a dream; only D the trouble increases as the soul works it; and if it makes reflex acts and begins the evill upon its own account, then it multiplies and doubles, because the proper scene of grief is open'd, and sorrow peeps through the corners of the soul. But in those regions and daies of sorrow when the soul shall be no more depending upon the body, but the perfect principle of all its actions, the actions are quick, and the perceptions brisk, the passions are extreme and the motions are spirituall; the pains are like the horrors of a Devill, and the groans of an evill spirit; not slow like the motions of a heavie foot, or a loaden arme, but quick as an E Angels wing, active as lightning; and a grief then, is nothing like a grief now, and the words of mans tongue which are fitted to the uses of this world, are as unfit to signifie the evils of the next, as person, and nature, and hand, and motion, and passion are to represent the effects of the Divine attributes, actions and subsistence.

[Page] 3. The evill portions of the next world is so great, that God A did not create or design it in the first intention of things, and production of essences; he made the Kingdome of Heaven, [...], from the foundation of the world; for so it is observable, that Christ shall say to the Sheep at his right hand, Mat. 25. 34. Receive the Kingdome prepared for you from the beginning of the world; but to the Goats and accursed spirits, he speaks of no such primitive and originall design; it was accidentall and a consequent to horrid crimes, that God was forced to invent and to after create that place of torments.

4. And when God did create and prepare that place, he did B not at all intend it for man, it was prepared for the Divill and his Angels, so saith the Judge himself, Go ye cursed into everlasting fire, 41. prepared for the Devill and his Angels, [...] which my Father prepared for the Devill, so some copies read it: God intended it not for man, but man would imitate the Devils pride, and listen to the whispers of an evill spirit, and follow his temptations, and rebell against his Maker; and then God also against his first design resolved to throw such persons into that place that was prepared for the Devill: for so great was the love of God to mankind, that he prepared joyes infinite and never C ceasing for man before he had created him; but he did not predetermine him to any evill; but when he was forced to it by mans malice, he doing what God forbad him, God cast him thither where he never intended him; but it was not mans portion: he designed it not at first, and at last also he invited him to repentance, and when nothing could do it, he threw man into anothers portion, because he would not accept of what was designed to be his own.

5. The evill portion shall be continuall without intermission of evill; no dayes of rest, no nights of sleep, no ease from labour, D no periods of the stroke, nor taking off the hand, no intervals between blow and blow; but a continued stroke, which neither shortens the life, nor introduces a brawny patience, or the toleration of an oxe, but it is the same in every instant, and great as the first stroke of lightning; the smart is great for ever as at the first change, from the rest of the grave to the flames of that horrible burning. The Church of Rome amongst some other strange opinions hath inserted this one into her publick Offices; that the perishing souls in hell may have sometimes remission and refreshment like the fits of an intermitting feaver: for so it is in the Roman Missal printed E at Paris, 1626. in the Masse for the dead; Ut quia de ejus vitae qualitate diffidimus, & si plenam veniam anima ipsius obtinere non potest, saltem vel inter ipsa tormenta quae forsan patitur, refrigerium de abundantia miserationum tuarum sentiat: and something like this is that of Prudentius, Sunt & spiritibus saepè nocentibus, Hymn. 5. lib. Cath [...]mer. [Page] A Poenarum celebres sub Styge feriae, &c. The evill spirits have ease of their pain, and he names their holiday, then when the Resurrection of our Lord from the grave is celebrated:

Marcent suppliciis Tartara mitibus,

Exultát (que) sui carceris otio

Umbrarum populus liber ab ignibus:

Nec fervent solito flumina sulphure.

They then thought that when the Paschall taper burn'd, the flames B of hell could not burn, till the holy wax was spent: but because this is a fancy without ground or revelation, and is against the Analogie of all those expressions of our Lord, Where the worm dyeth not, and the fire is never quenched, and divers others, it is sufficient to have noted it without further consideration; the pains of hell have no rest, no drop of water is allowed to cool the tongue, there is no advocate to plead for them, no mercy belongs to their portion, but fearfull wrath and continuall burnings.

6. And yet this is not the worst of it; for as it is continuall during its abode; so its abode is for ever, it is continuall and eternall. C Tertullian speaks something otherwise, Pro magnitudine cruciatus non diuturni, verùm sempiterni; not continuall, or the pains of every day, but such which shall last for ever. But Lactantius is more plain in this affair; The same divine fire by the same power and force shall burn the wicked, and shall repair instantly whatsoever of the body it does consume: Ac sibi ipsi aeternum [...]pabulum subministrabit, and shall make for it self an eternall fuell.

"Vermibus & flammis & discruciatibus aevum

"Immortale dedit, senio ne poena periret

D "Non pereunte animâ—

So Prudentius eternall wormes, and unextinguished flames, and immortall punishment is prepared for the ever-never dying souls of wicked men. Origen is charged by the ancient Churches for saying that after a long time the Devils and the accursed souls shall be restored to the Kingdome of God; and that after a long time again they shall be restored to their state; and so it was from their fall and shall be forever; and it may be that might be the meaning of Tertullians expression, of cruciatus non diuturni sed E sempiterni. Epiphanius charges not the opinion upon Origen, and yet he was free enough in his animadversion and reproof of him; but S. Austin did, and confuted the opinion in his books De civitate Dei. However, Origen was not the first that said the pains of the damned should cease; Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Tryphon expresses it thus. Neither do I say that all the souls do dye, [Page] for that indeed would be to the wicked a gain unlooked for: What A then? the souls of the godly in a better place, of the wicked in a worse, do tarry the time of Judgement; then they that are worthy shall never dye again; but those that are designed to punishment shall abide so long as God please to have them to live and to be punished: But I observe, that the primitive Doctors were very willing to believe that the mercy of God would finde out a period to the torment of accursed souls; but such a period, which should be nothing but eternall destruction, called by the Scripture the second death: only Origen (as I observed) is charg'd by S. Austin to have said they shall return into joyes; and back again to hell by B an eternall revolution. But concerning the death of wicked souls, and its being broke into pieces with fearfull torments and consumed with the wrath of God, they had entertain'd some different fancies very early in the Church, as their sentences are collected by S. Hierome at the end of his Commentaries upon Isay; and Ireneus disputes it largely, ‘that they that are unthankfull to God in this short life and obey him not, shall never have an Lib. 2. cap. 65. eternall duration of life in the ages to come, sed ipse se privat in saeculum saeculi perseverantiâ, he deprives his soul of living to eternall ages;’ for he supposes an immortall duration not to be naturall C to the soul, but a gift of God, which he can take away, and did take away from Adam, and restored it again in Christ to them that beleeve in him and obey him: for the other, they shall be raised again to suffer shame, and fearfull torments, and according to the degree of their sins, so shall be continued in their sorrowes, and some shall dye and some shall not dye; the Devill and the Beast, and and they that worshipped the Beast, and they that were marked with his Character, these S. John saith shall be tormented for ever and ever; he does not say so of all; but of some certain great criminals; [...], all, so long as God please, some D for ever and ever, and some not so severely; And whereas the generall sentence is given to all wicked persons, to all on the left hand, to go into everlasting fire: it is answered, that the fire indeed is everlasting, but not all that enters into it is everlasting; but only the Devils for whom it was prepared and others more mighty criminals (according as S. John intimates) though also everlasting signifies only to the end of its proper period.

Concerning this Doctrine of theirs so severe, and yet so moderated, there is lesse to be objected then against the supposed fancy of Origen: for it is a strange consideration to suppose an eternall E torment to those to whom it was never threatned; to those who never heard of Christ; to those that liv'd probably well, to heathens of good lives; to ignorants and untaught people; to people surprised in a single crime; to men that dye young in their naturall follies and foolish lusts; to them that fall in a sudden [Page] A gaiety and excessive joy; to all alike; to all infinite and eternall, even to unwarned people; and that this should be inflicted by God who infinitely loves his creature, who dyed for them, who pardons easily, and pities readily, and excuses much, and delights in our being saved, and would not have us dye, and takes little things in exchange for great: it is certain that Gods mercies are infinite, and it is also certain that the matter of eternall torments cannot truly be understood; and when the School-men go about to reconcile the Divine justice to that severity, and consider why God punishes eternally a temporall sin or a state of evill, they speak B variously, and uncertainly, and unsatisfyingly. But that in this question we may separate the certain from the uncertain;

1. It is certain that the torments of hell shall certainly last as long as 1. the soul lasts; for eternall and everlasting can signifie no lesse but to the end of that duration, to the perfect end of the period in which it signifies. So Sodom and Gomorrah, when God rained down hell from heaven upon the earth (as Salvian's expression is) they are said to suffer the vengeance of eternall fire: that is, of a fire that consumed them finally, and they never were restored: and so the accursed souls shall suffer torments till they be consumed; who because C they are immortall either naturally or by gift, shall be tormented for ever, or till God shall take from them the life that he restored to them on purpose to give them a capacity of being miserable; and the best that they can expect is to despair of all good, to suffer the wrath of God, never to come to any minute of felicity, or of a tolerable state, and to be held in pain till God be weary of striking. This is the gentlest sentence of some of the old Doctors.

But 2. the generality of Christians have been taught to beleeve 2. worse things yet concerning them; and the words of our blessed D Lord, are [...], eternall affliction or smiting;

Nec mortis poenas mors altera finiet hujus,

Hora (que); erit tantis ultima nulla malis.

And S. John, who well knew the minde of his Lord, saith; The Rev. 14. 11. smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night: that is, their torment is continuall, and it is eternall. Their second death shall be but a dying to all felicity, for so death is taken in Scripture; Adam dyed when he E eat the forbidden fruit; that is, he was lyable to sicknesse and sorrowes, and pain and dissolution of soul and body: and to be miserable, is the worse death of the two; they shall see the eternall felicity of the Saints, but they shall never taste of the holy Chalice. Those joyes shall indeed be for ever and ever; for immortality is part of their reward, and on them the second death [Page] shall have no power; but the wicked shall be tormented horridly A and insufferably till death and hell be thrown into the lake of fire, and shall be no more, which is the second death. But that they may not Rev. 20. 14. imagine that this second death shall be the end of their pains, S. Iohn speaks expresly what that is; Rev. 21. 8. The fearfull and unbeleeving, the abominable and the murderers, the whoremongers and sorcerers, the idolaters and all lyars shall have their part in the lake wich burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death; no dying there, but a being tormented, burning in a lake of fire, that is the second death. For if life be reckoned a blessing, then to be destitute of all blessing is to have no life, and therefore to be intolerably B miserable is this second death, that is, death eternall.

3. And yet if God should deal with man hereafter more mercifully and proportionably to his weak nature, then he does to Angels, and as he admits him to repentance here, so in hell also to a period of his smart, even when he keeps the Angels in pain for ever; yet he will never admit him to favour, he shall be tormented beyond all the measure of humane ages, and be destroyed for ever and ever.

It concerns us all who hear and beleeve these things, to do as our blessed Lord will do before the day of his coming; he will call C and convert the Jews and strangers: Conversion to God is the best preparatory to Dooms-day: and it concerns all them who are in the neighbourhood and fringes of the flames of hell, that is, in the state of sin, quickly to arise from the danger, and shake the burning coals off our flesh, lest it consume the marrow and the bones: Exuenda est velociter de incendio sarcina, priusquam flammis supervenientibus concremetur. Nemo diu tutus est periculo proximus, saith S. Cyprian, No man is safe long, that is so neer to danger; for suddenly the change will come, in which the Judge shall be called to Judgement, and no man to plead for him, unlesse a good conscience D be his Advocate; and the rich shall be naked as a condemned criminall to execution; and there shall be no regard of Princes or of Nobles, and the differences of mens account shall be forgotten, and no distinction remaining but of good or bad, sheep and goats, blessed and accursed souls. Among the wonders of the day of Judgement our blessed Saviour reckons it, that men shall be marrying and giving in marriage, [...] marrying and crosse marrying, that is, raising families and lasting greatnesse and huge estates; when the world is to end so quickly; and the gains of a rich purchase so very a trifle, but no trifling danger; a thing that E can give no security to our souls, but much hazards and a great charge. More reasonable it is, that we despise the world and lay up for heaven, that we heap up treasures by giving almes, and make friends of unrighteous Mammon; but at no hand to enter into a state of life, that is all the way a hazard to the main interest, [Page] A and at the best, an increase of the particular charge. Every degree of riches, every degree of greatnesse, every ambitious imployment, every great fortune, every eminency above our brother, is a charge to the accounts of the last day. He that lives temperately and charitably, whose imployment is religion, whose affections are fear and love, whose desires are after heaven and do not dwell below; that man can long and pray for the hastning of the coming of the day of the Lord. He that does not really desire and long for that day, either is in a very ill condition, or does not understand that he is in a good. * I will not be so severe in B this meditation as to forbid any man to laugh, that beleeves himself shall be called to so severe a Judgement; yet S. Hierom said it, Coram coelo & terrâ rationem reddemus totius nostrae vitae; & tu rides? Heaven and earth shall see all the follies and basenesse of thy life; and doest thou laugh? That we may, but we have not reason to laugh loudly and frequently, if we consider things wisely, and as we are concerned: but if we do, yet praesentis temporis ita est agenda laetitia, ut sequentis judicii amaritudo nunquam recedat à memoriâ: so laugh here that you may not forget your danger, lest you weep for ever. He that thinks most seriously and most C frequently of this fearfull appearance, will finde that it is better staying for his joyes till this sentence be past; for then he shall perceive whether he hath reason or no. In the mean time wonder not that God who loves mankinde so well, should punish him so severely: for therefore the evill fall into an accursed portion, because they despised that which God most loves, his Son and his mercies, his graces and his holy Spirit; and they that do all this, have cause to complain of nothing but their own follies; and they shall feel the accursed consequents then when they shall see the Judge sit above them angry and severe, inexorable and terrible; D under them an intolerable hell; within them, their consciences clamorous and diseased; without them, all the world on fire; on the right hand, those men glorified whom they persecuted or despised; on the left hand, the Devils accusing; for this is the day of the Lords terror, and who is able to abideat?

Seu vigilo intentus studiis, seu dormio, semper

Iudicis extremi nostras tuba personet aures.

SERMON, IV. The Returne of PRAYERS. Or, The Conditions of a PREVAILING PRAYER.

[Page]

John 9. 31.‘Now wee know that God heareth not sinners, but if any man be a worshippar of God and doth his will, him be heareth.’

IKnow not which is the greater wonder, C either that prayer, which is a duty so easie and facile, so ready and apted to the powers, and skill, and opportunities of every man, should have so great effects, and be productive of such mighty blessings; or that we should be so unwilling to use so easie an instrument of procuring so much good. The first declares Gods goodnesse, but this publishes mans folly and weaknesse, who finds in himself so much difficulty to perform a condition so easie and full of advantage. D But the order of this infelicity is knotted like the foldings of a Serpent, all those parts of easinesse which invite us to doe the duty, are become like the joynes of a bulrush, not bendings, but consolidations and stiffenings; the very facility becomes its objection, and in every of its stages, wee make or finde a huge uneasinesse. At first wee doe not know what we ask, and when we doe, then we finde difficulty to bring our wils to desire it; and when that is instructed and kept in awe, it mingles interest, and confounds the purposes; and when it is forc'd to ask honestly and severely, then it wills so coldly, that God hates the prayer; E and if it desires fervently, it sometimes turns that into passion, and that passion breaks into murmurs or unquietnesse; or if that be avoyded, the indifferency cooles into death, or the fire burns violently, and is quickly spent; our desires are dull as a rock, or fugitive as lightening; either wee aske ill things earnestly, or [Page] A good things remissely; we either court our owne danger, or are not zealous for our reall safety; or if we be right in our matter, or earnest in our affections, and lasting in our abode, yet we misse in the manner; and either we aske for evill ends, or without religion and awefull apprehensions; or we rest in the words and signification of the prayer; and never take care to passe on to action; or else we sacrifice in the company of Corah being partners of a schisme, or a rebellion in religion; or we bring unhallowed censers; our hearts send up to God an unholy smoak, a cloud from the fires of lust, and either the flames of lust or rage, B of wine or revenge kindle the beast that is laid upon the altar; or we bring swines flesh, or a dogs neck; whereas God never accepts, or delights in a prayer, unlesse it be for a holy thing, to a lawfull end, presented unto him upon the wings of Zeal and love, of religious sorrow or religious joy; by sanctified lips, and pure bands, and a sincere heart. It must be the prayer of a gracious man; and he is onely gracious before God, and acceptable, and effective in his prayer, whose life is holy, and whose prayer is holy; For both these are necessary ingredients to the constitution of a prevailing prayer; there is a holinesse peculiar to the man, and a C holinesse peculiar to the prayer, that must adorn the prayer before it can be united to the intercession of the Holy Jesus, in which union alone our prayers can be prevailing.

God heareth not sinners:] so the blind man in the text, and confidently [this we know:] he had reason indeed for his confidence; it was a proverbiall saying, and every where recorded in their Scriptures, which were read in the synagogues every Sabbath day. For what is the hope of the hypocrite? (saith Job) will God Job 27. 9. hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him? No, he will not. For if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear mee, said Ps. 6. 6. 18. D David; and so said the Spirit of the Lord by the Son of David. Prov. 1. 28. When distresse and anguish cometh upon you, Then shall they call upon mee, but I will not answer; they shall seek mee early, but they shall not find mee; and Isaiah, When you spread forth your Isa. 1. 15. hands I will hide mine eyes from you, yea when you make many prayers I will not hear; your hands are full of bloud: and again, Ier. 14. 12. When they fast I will not hear their cry, and when they will offer burnt offerings and oblations, I will not accept them. For they have 10. loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet, therefore the Lord will not accept them; hee will now remember their iniquity, E and visit their sins: Upon these and many other authorities it grew into a proverb; Deus non exaudit peccatores: it was a known Vide etiam Ps. 34. 6. Micah 3. 4. 1 Pet. 3. 12. case and an established rule in the religion; Wicked persons are neither fit to pray for themselves, nor for others.

Which proposition let us first consider in the sense of that purpose which the blind man spoke it in, and then in the utmost [Page] extent of it, as its analogie and equall reason goes forth upon us A and our necessities. The man was cured of his blindnesse, and being examined concerning him that did it, named and gloryed in his Physitian: but the spitefull Pharisees bid him give glory to God, and defie the Minister; for God indeed was good, but he wrought that cure by a wicked hand. No (says he) this is impossible. If this man were a sinner and a false Prophet (for in that instance the accusation was intended) God would not hear his prayers, and work miracles by him in verification of a lye. A false Prophet could not work true miracles; this hath received its diminution when the case was changed; for at that time when B Christ preached, Miracles was the onely, or the great verification of any new revelation; and therefore C it proceeding from an Almighty God, must needs be the testimony of a Divine truth; and if it could have been brought for a lye, there could not then have been sufficient instruction given to mankind, to prevent their beleef of false Prophets, and lying doctrines. But when Christ proved his doctrine by miracles, that no enemy of his did ever doe so great before or after him; then he also told, that after him his friends should doe greater; and his enemies should do some, (but they were fewer, and very inconsiderable) and therefore could have in them no unavoydable cause of deception; because they were discovered by a Prophesie; and caution was given against them by him that did greaten miracles; and yet ought to have been beleeved if he had done but one; because against him there had been no caution, but many prophesies creating such expectations concerning him, which he verified by his great works. So that in this sense of working miracles, though it was infinitely true that the blind man said, then when he said it, yet after that the case was alter'd: and Sinners, Magicians, Astrologers, Witches, Hereticks, Simoniacks and wicked persons of other instances, have D done miracles, and God hath heard sinners, and wrought his own works by their hands, or suffered the Devill to doe his works under their pretences; and many at the day of Judgment shall plead that they have done miracles in Christs name, and yet they shall be rejected; Christ knows them not, and their portion shall bee with dogs, and goats, and unbeleevers.

There is in this case onely this difference, that they who doe miracles in opposition to Christ, doe them by the power of the Devill, to whom it is permitted to doe such things which wee think miracles; and that is all one as though they were: but the E danger of them is none at all, but to them that will not beleeve him that did greater miracles, and prophesied of these lesse, and gave warning of their attending danger, and was confirmed to be a true teacher by voices from heaven, and by the resurrection of his body after a three days buriall: So that to these the proposition [Page] A still remains true, God hears not sinners, God does not work those miracles; but concerning sinning Christians, God in this sense and towards the purposes of miracles does hear them, and hath wrought miracles by them, for they doe them in the name of Christ, and therefore Christ said, cannot easily speak ill of him; and although they either prevaricate in their lives, or in superinduced doctrines, yet because the miracles are a verification of the Religion, not of the opinion, of the power or truth of Christ, not of the veracity of the man, God hath heard such persons many times whom men have long since, and to this day B call Hereticks, such were the Novatians and Arrians; For to the Heathens they could onely prove their Religion by which they stood distinguished from them; but we find not that they wrought miracles among the Christians, or to verifie their superstructures and private opinions. But besides this yet, we may also by such means arrest the forwardnesse of our judgments and condemnations of persons disagreeing in their opinions from us; for those persons whose faith God confirmed by miracles was an intire faith, and although they might have false opinions, or mistaken explications of true opinions, either inartificiall or misunderstood, yet we C have reason to beleeve their faith to be intire; for that which God would have the Heathen to beleeve, and to that purpose prov'd it by a miracle, himselfe intended to accept first to a holy life, and then to glory. The false opinion should burn, and themselves escape. One thing more is here very considerable, that in this very instance of working miracles, God was so very carefull not to hear sinners or permit sinners, till he had prevented all dangers to good and innocent persons, that the case of Christ and his Apostles working miracles was so clearly separated and remarked by the finger of God, and distinguished from the impostures and pretences D of all the many Antichrists that appeared in Palestine, Cyprus, Cr [...]te, Syria, and the voicinage, that there were but very few Christians that with hearty perswasions fell away from Christ, [...], said Galen, It is not easie to teach anew him that hath been taught by Christ: And St. Austin tels a story of an unbeleeving man, that being troubled that his wife was a Christian, went to the Oracle to aske by what means hee should alter her perswasion; but he was answered, it could never be done, he might as well imprint characters upon the face of a torrent or a rapid river, or himself fly in the air, as alter the perswasion E of a hearty and an honest Christian; I would to God it were so now in all instances, and that it were so hard to draw men from the severities of a holy life, as of old they could be cousened, disputed, or forced out of their faith. Some men are vexed with hypocrisie, and then their hypocrisie was punished with infidelity and a wretchlesse spirit. Demas, and Simon Magus, [Page] and Ecebolius, and the lapsed Confessors are instances of humane craft A or humane weaknesse; but they are scarce a number that are remarked in Ancient story to have fallen from Christianity by direct persuasions, or the efficacy of abusing arguments and discourses. The reason of it is the truth in the text; God did so avoyd hearing sinners in this affair, that he never permitted them to doe any miracles so as to doe any mischief to the souls of good men; and therefore it is said, the enemies of Christ came in the power of signes and wonders able to deceive (if it were possible) even the very elect; but that was not possible; without their faults it could not be; the elect were sufficiently strengthened, and the evidence of B Christs being heard of God, and that none of his enemies were heard of God to any dangerous effect, was so great, that if any Christian had apostatized or fallen away by direct perswasion, it was like the sin of a falling Angell, of so direct a malice that he never could repent, and God never would pardon him, as St. Paul twice remarks in his Epistle to the Hebrews. The result of this discourse is the first sense and explication of the words, God heareth not sinners, viz. in that in which they are sinners: a sinner in his manners may be heard in his prayer in order to the confirmation of his faith, but if he be a sinner in his faith God hears C him not at all in that wherein he sins; for God is truth and cannot confirm a lye, and when ever he permitted the Devill to doe it, he secur'd the interest of his Elect, that is, of all that beleeve in him and love him, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.

2. That which yet concerns us more neerly is, that God heareth not sinners, that is, if wee be not good men, our prayers will doe us no good: wee shall be in the condition of them that never pray at all. The prayers of a wicked man are like the breath of corrupted lungs, God turns away from such unwholsome breathings. D But that I may reduce this necessary doctrine to a method; I shall consider that there are some persons whose prayers are sins; and some others whose prayers are ineffectuall: some are such who doe not pray lawfully; they sin when they pray while they remain in that state and evill condition; others are such who doe not obtain what they pray for, and yet their prayer is not a direct sin: the prayer of the first is a direct abomination, the prayer of the second is hindred; the first is corrupted by a direct state of sin, the latter by some intervening imperfection and unhandsome circumstance of action; and in proportion to these, it is required, E 1. that he be in a state and possibility of acceptation; and 2. that the prayer it selfe be in a proper disposition. 1. Therefore wee shall consider what are those conditions which are required in every person that prays, the want of which makes the prayer to be a sin? 2ly. What are the conditions of a good mans prayer, the [Page] A absence of which makes that even his prayer returns empty? 3ly; What degrees and circumstances of piety are required to make a man fit to be an intercessor for others, both with holinesse in himself and effect to them he prays for? And 4ly. as an appendix to those considerations, I shall adde the proper indices and significations by which we may make a judgment whether God hath heard our prayers or no.

1. Whosoever prays to God while he is in a state, or in the affection to sin, his prayer is an abomination to God. This was a truth so beleeved by all Nations of the world, that in all Religions B they ever appointed baptismes and ceremoniall expiations to cleanse the persons before they presented themselves in their holy offices. Deorum Templa cum adire disponitis ab, omni vos labe puros, lautos, castissimósque praestatis, said Arnobius to the Gentiles: When you addresse your selves to the Temples of your Gods, you keep your selves chast, and clean, and spotlesse. They washed their hands, and wore white garments, they refused to touch a dead body, they avoyded a spot upon their clothes as they avoyded a wound upon their head, [...]. That was the religious ground they went upon; an impure thing ought not to C touch that which is holy, much lesse to approach the Prince of purities; and this was the sense of the old world in their lustrations, and of the Jews in their preparatory baptismes; they wash'd their hands to signifie that they should cleanse them from all iniquity, and keep them pure from bloud and rapine; they washed their garments, but that intended they should not be spotted with the flesh; and their follies consisted in this, that they did not looke to the bottome of their lavatories; they did not see through the vail of their ceremonies. Flagitiis omnibus inquinati D veniunt ad precandum, & se piè sacrificasse opinantur, si cutem laverint, tanquam libidines intra pectus inclusas ulla amnis abluat, aut ulla Maria purificent, said Lactantius; they come to their prayers dressed round about with wickednesse, ut quercus hederâ, and think God will accept their offering if their skin be wash'd; as if a river could purifie their lustfull souls, or a sea take off their guilt. But David reconciles the ceremony with the mysterie, I will wash my hands, I will wash them in innocency, and so will I goe to thine altar. Hae sunt verae munditiae (saies Tertullian) non quas plerique superstitione curant ad omnem orationem, etiam cum lavacro totius corporis aquam sumentes. ‘This is the true purification, E not that which most men doe, superstitiously cleansing their hands and washing when they go to prayers, but cleansing the soul from all impiety, and leaving every affection to sin; then they come pure to God:’ And this is it which the Apostle also signifies, having translated the Gentile and Jewish ceremony into the spirituality of the Gospell, I will therefore that men [Page] pray every where, levantes puras manus, lifting up cleane hands, A so it is in the Vulgar Latine, [...], so it is in the Greek, holy hands: That's the purity that God looks for upon them that lift up their hands to him in prayer: and this very thing is founded upon the Naturall constitution of things, and their essentiall proportion to each other.

1. It is an act of profanation for any unholy person to handle holy things, and holy offices. For if God was ever carefull to put all holy things into cancels, and immure them with acts and laws and cautions of separation; and the very sanctification of them was nothing else but the solemn separating them from common B usages, that himself might bee distinguished from men by actions of propriety; it is naturally certain, he that would be differenc'd from common things, would be infinitely divided from things that are wicked: If things that are lawfull may yet be unholy in this sense; much more are unlawfull things most unholy in all senses. If God will not admit of that which is beside Religion, he will lesse endure that which is against Religion. And therefore if a common man must not serve at the altar, how shall he abide a wicked man to stand there? No: he will not indure him, but he will cast him and his prayer into the separation of an C infinite and eternall distance. Sic profanatis sacris peritura Troja perdidit primùm Deos, So Troy entred into ruine when their prayers became unholy, and they profan'd the rites of their Religion.

2. A wicked person while he remains in that condition is not the naturall object of pity: [...], said Zeno; Mercy is a sorrow or a trouble at that misery which falls upon a person which deserv'd it not. And so Aristotle defines it, it is [...], When we see the person deserves a better fortune, or is dispos'd to a fairer intreaty, then D wee naturally pity him, and Sinon pleaded for pity to the Trojans, saying,

—Miserere animi non digna serentis.

For who pityeth the tears of a base man who hath treacherously murthered his friend? or who will lend a friendly sigh when he sees a traitor to his country passe forth through the execrable gates of cities? and when any circumstance of basenesse, that is, any thing that takes off the excuse of infirmity, does accompany a sin (such as are ingratitude, perjury, perseverance, delight, malice, E treachery) then every man scorns the criminall, and God delights and rejoyces in, and laughs at the calamity of such a person. When Vitellius with his hands bound behind him, his Imperiall robe rent, and with a dejected countenance and an ill name was led to execution, every man cursed him, but no man [Page] A wept. Deformitas exitus misericordiam abstulerat, saith Tacitus, The filthinesse of his life and death took away pity. So it is with us in our prayers; while we love our sin we must nurse all its children; and when we roare in our lustfull beds, and groane with the whips of an exterminating Angell, chastising those [...] (as Aretas calls them) the lusts of the lower belly, wantonnesse, and its mother intemperance, we feel the price of our sin, that which God foretold to be their issues, that which he threatned us withall, and that which is the naturall consequent, and its certaine expectation, that which we delighted in, and B chose, even then when we refused God, and threw away felicity, and hated vertue. For punishment is but the latter part of sin; it is not a new thing and distinct from it: or if we will kisse the Hyaena, or clip the Lamia about the neck, we have as certainly chosen the taile, and its venemous embraces, as the face and lip. Every man that sins against God, and loves it, or, which is all one, continues in it, for by interpretation that is love, hath all the circumstances of unworthinesse towards God; hee is unthankfull, and a breaker of his vowes, and a despiser of his mercies, and impudent against his judgments, he is false to his profession, C false to his faith, hee is an unfriendly person, and useth him barbarously who hath treated him with an affection not lesse then infinite; and if any man does half so much evill, and so unhandsomely to a man, we stone him with stones and curses, with reproach, and an unrelenting scorn. And how then shall such a person hope that God should pity him? for God better understands, and deeper resents, and more essentially hates, and more severely exacts the circumstances and degrees of basenesse then we can doe; and therefore proportionably scorns the person and derides the calamity. Is not unthankfulnesse to God a greater basenesse D and unworthinesse then unthanfulnesse to our Patron? And is not hee as sensible of it and more then wee? These things are more then words; and therefore if no man pities a base person, let us remember that no man is so base in any thing as in his unhandsome demeanour towards God. Doe wee not professe our selves his servants, and yet serve the Devill? Doe we not live upon Gods provision, and yet stand or work at the command of lust, or avarice, humane regards and little interests of the world? We call him Father when we desire our portion, and yet spend it in the society of all his enemies. In short: Let our actions to God E and their circumstances be supposed to be done towards men, and we should scorn our selves; and how then can we expect God should not scorne us, and reject our prayer when we have done all the dishonour to him, and with all the unhandsomnesse in the world? Take heed lest we fall into a condition of evill, in which it shall be said, You may thank your selves; and be infinitely afraid lest at [Page] the same time we be in a condition of person in which God will A upbraid our unworthinesse, and scorne our persons, and rejoyce in our calamity. The first is intolerable, the second is irremediadle; the first proclaims our folly, and the second declares Gods finall justice; in the first there is no comfort, in the latter there is no remedy; that therefore makes us miserable, and this renders us desperate.

3. This great truth is further manifested by the necessary and convenient appendages of prayer requir'd, or advis'd, or recommended in holy Scripture. For why is Fasting prescribed together with prayer? For neither B if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse; and God does not delight in that service, the first, second, and third part of which is nothing but pain and self-affliction. But therefore fasting is usefull with prayer, because it is a penall duty, and an action of repentance; for then onely God hears sinners, when they enter first into the gates of repentance, and proceed in all the regions of sorrow, and carefulnesse; and therefore we are commanded to fast, that we may pray with more spirituality, and with repentance, that is, without the loads of meat, and without the loads of sin. Of the same consideration it is that almes are prescribed, together with prayer, because C it is a part of that charity without which our soules are enemies to all that which ought to be equally valued with our owne lives. But besides this, we may easily observe what speciall undecencies there are, which besides the generall malignity and demerit, are speciall deleteries and hinderances to our prayers, by irreconciling the person of him that prays.

1. The first is unmercyfulnesse. [...], said one in Stobaeus, and they were well joyned together. He that takes Mercy from a Man is like him that takes an Altar from the Temple; the Temple is of no use without D an Altar, and the Man cannot pray without mercy; and there are infinite of prayers sent forth by men which God never attends to, but as to so many sins; because the men live in a course of rapine, or tyranny, or oppression, or uncharitablenesse, or something that is most contrary to God, because it is unmercifull. Remember, that God sometimes puts thee into some images of his own relation. We beg of God for mercy, and our Brother begs of us for pity: and therefore let us deal equally with God and all the world. I see my selfe fall by a too frequent infirmity, and still I beg for pardon, and hope for pity; thy brother that offends thee, E he hopes so too, and would fain have the same measure, and would be as glad thou wouldst pardon him, as thou wouldest rejoyce in thy own forgivenesse. I am troubled when God rejects my prayer, or in stead of hearing my petition, sends a judgement: Is not thy Tenant, or thy Servant, or thy Client so to thee? does [Page] A not he tremble at thy frown, and is of an uncertaine soule till thou speakest kindly unto him, and observes thy lookes as hee watches the colour of the bean coming from thy box of Sentence, life or death depending on it? when he begs of thee for mercy, his passion is greater, his necessities more pungent, his apprehension more brisk, and sensitive, his case dressed with the circumstances of pity, and thou thy selfe canst better feel his condition then thou doest usually perceive the earnestnesse of thy own prayers to God; and if thou regardest not thy brother whom thou seest, whose case thou feelest, whose circumstances can afflict thee, whose passion B is dressed to thy fancy, and proportioned to thy capacity, how shall God regard thy distant prayer, or be melted with thy cold desire, or softned with thy dry story, or moved by thy unrepenting soul? If I be sad, I seek for comfort, and goe to God and to the ministry of his creatures for it; and is it not just in God to stop his own fountaines, and seal the cisterns and little emanations of the creatures from thee, who shuttest thy hand, and shuttest thy eye, and twistest thy bowells against thy brother, who would as fain be comforted as thou? It is a strange Iliacall passion that so hardens a mans bowells, that nothing proceeds C from him but the name of his own disease, a Miserere mei Deus, a prayer to God for pity upon him that will not shew pity to others. We are troubled when God through severity breaks our bones, and hardens his face against us; but we think our poor brother is made of iron, and not of flesh and bloud, as we are. God hath bound mercy upon us by the iron bands of necessity, and though Gods mercy is the measure of his justice, yet justice is the measure of our mercy, and as we doe to others it shall be done to us, even in the matter of pardon and of bounty, of gentlenesse and remission, of bearing each others burdens, and faire D interpretation; Forgive us our trespasses as wee forgive them that trespasse against us, so we pray. The finall sentence in this affair is recorded by St. James, Hee that shews no mercy shall have Iam. 2. 13. justice with out mercy: as thy poor brother hath groan'd under thy cruelty and ungentle nature without remedy, so shalt thou before the throne of God; thou shalt pray, and plead, and call, and cry, and beg again, and in the midst of thy despairing noyses be carryed in the regions of sorrow, which never did, and never shall feel a mercy. God never can heare the prayers of an unmercifull man.

E 2. Lust and uncleannesse is a direct enemy to the Praying man, and an obstruction to his prayers; for this is not onely a prophanation, but a direct sacriledge; it defiles a Temple to the ground; it takes from a man all affection to spirituall things, and mingles his very soul with the things of the world; it makes his understanding low, and his reasonings cheap and foolish, and it destroys [Page] his confidence, and all his manly hopes; it makes his spirit light, A effeminate, and fantastick, and dissolves his attention, and makes his mind so to disaffect all the objects of his desires, that when he prays he is as uneasy as an impaled person, or a condemned criminall upon the hook or wheel; and it hath in it this evill quality, that a lustfull person cannot pray heartily against his sin; he cannot desire his cure, for his will is contradictory to his Collect, and he would not that God should hear the words of his prayer, which he poor man never intended. For no crime so seises upon the will as that; some sins steale an affection, or obey a temptation, or secure an interest, or work by the way of B understanding, but lust seises directly upon the will, for the Devil knows well that the lusts of the body are soon cured; the uneasynesse that dwels there is a disease very tolerable, and every degree of patience can passe under it. But therefore the Devill seises upon the will, and that's it that makes adulteries and all the species of uncleannesse; and lust growes so hard a cure, because the formality of it is, that it will not be cured; the will loves it, and so long as it does, God cannot love the Man; for God is the Prince of purities, and the Son of God is the King of Virgins, and the holy Spirit is all love, and that is all purity C and all spirituality: And therefore the prayer of an Adulterer, or an uncleane person, is like the sacrifices to Moloch, or the rites of Flora, ubi Cato spectator esse non potuit, a good man will not endure them, much lesse will God entertaine such reekings of the Dead sea and clouds of Sodome. For so an impure vapor begotten of the slime of the earth, by the feavers and adulterous heats of an intemperate Summer sun, striving by the ladder of a mountaine to climbe up to heaven, and rolling into various figures by an uneasy, unfixed revolution, and stop'd at the middle region of the aire, being thrown from his pride and attempt of D passing towards the seat of the stars, turnes into an unwholsome flame, and like the breath of hell is confin'd into a prison of darknesse, and a cloud, till it breaks into diseases, plagues and mildews, stink and blastings: so is the prayer of an unchast person, it strives to climbe the battlements of heaven, but because it is a flame of sulphur, salt and bitumen, and was kindled in the dishonorable regions below, deriv'd from hell, and contrary to God, it cannot passe forth to the element of love, but ends in barrennesse and murmur, fantastick expectations, and trifling imaginative confidences, and they at last end in sorrows and despaire. E * Every state of sin is against the possibility of a mans being accepted; but these have a proper venome against the graciousnesse of the person, and the power of the prayer. God can never accept an unholy prayer, and a wicked man can never send forth any other; the waters passe thorough impure aquaeducts [Page] A and channels of brimstone, and therefore may end in brimstone and fire, but never in forgivenesse, and the blessings of an eternall charity.

Henceforth therefore, never any more wonder that men pray so seldome; there are few that feel the relish, and are enticed with the deliciousnesse, and refreshed with the comforts, and instructed with the sanctity, and acquainted with the secrets of a holy prayer: But cease also to wonder, that of those few that say many prayers, so few find any return of any at all. To make up a good and a lawfull prayer there must be charity, with B all its daughters, almes, forgivenesse, not judging uncharitably; there must be purity of spirit, that is, purity of intention; and there must be purity of the body and soule, that is, the cleannesse of chastity; and there must be no vice remaining, no affection to sin: for he that brings his body to God, and hath left his will in the power of any sin, offers to God the calves of his lips, but not a whole burnt-offering; a lame oblation, but not a reasonable sacrifice; and therefore their portion shall be amongst them whose prayers were never recorded in the book of life, whose tears God never put into his bottle, whose C desires shall remaine ineffectuall to eternall ages. Take heed you doe not lose your prayers; for by them you hope to have eternall life; and let any of you whose conscience is most religious and tender, consider what condition that man is in, that hath not said his prayers in thirty or forty years together; and that is the true state of him who hath lived so long in the course of an unsanctified life; in all that while he never said one prayer that did him any good; but they ought to be reckoned to him upon the account of his sins. Hee that is in the affection, or in the habit, or in the state of any one sin whatsoever, is D at such distance from and contrariety to God, that he provokes God to anger in every prayer hee makes: And then adde but this consideration; that prayer is the great summe of our Religion, it is the effect, and the exercise, and the beginning, and the promoter of all graces, and the consummation and perfection of many; and all those persons who pretend towards heaven, and yet are not experienced in the secrets of Religion, they reckon their piety, and account their hopes, onely upon the stock of a few prayers; it may be they pray twice every day, it may be thrice, and blessed be God for it; so farre is very E well; but if it shall be remembred and considered, that this course of piety is so farre from warranting any one course of sin, that any one habituall and cherished sin destroyes the effect of all that piety, wee shall see there is reason to account this to be one of those great arguments with which God hath so bound the duty of holy living upon us, that without a holy [Page] life we cannot in any sense be happy, or have the effect of one A prayer. But if we be returning and repenting sinners, God delights to hear, because he delights to save us:

—Si precibus, dixerunt, numina justis

Victa remollescunt—

When a man is holy, then God is gracious, and a holy life is the best, and it is a continuall prayer; and repentance is the best argument to move God to mercy, because it is the instrument to unite our prayers to the intercession of the Holy B Jesus.

SERMON, V. Part II.

[Page]

B AFter these evidences of Scripture, and reason deriv'd from its analogy, there will be lesse necessity to take any particular notices of those little objections which are usually made from the experience of the successe and prosperities of evill persons. For true it is, there is in the world a generation of men that pray long and loud, and aske for vile things, such which they ought to fear, and pray against, and yet they are heard; The fat upon earth eat and worship: But if these men aske things hurtfull and Psal. 22. 29. B sinfull, it is certain God hears them not in mercy: They pray to God as despairing Saul did to his Armour-bearer, Sta super me & interfice me, stand upon me and kill me; and he that obey'd his voice did him dishonour and sinn'd against the head of his King, and his own life. And the vicious persons of old pray'd to Laverna,

—Pulchra Laverna,

Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctúm (que) videri,

Noctem peccatis & fraudibus objice nubem.

D Give me a prosperous robbery, a rich prey, and secret escape, let me become rich with theeving and still be accounted holy. For every sort of man hath some religion or other, by the measures of which they proportion their lives and their prayers; Now as the holy Spirit of God teaching us to pray, makes us like himself in order to a holy and an effective prayer; and no man prayes well, but he that prays by the Spirit of God, the Spirit of holinesse, and he that prayes with the Spirit must be made like to the Spirit, he is first sanctified and made holy, and then made fervent, and then his prayer ascends beyond the cloud; first he is renewed in the spirit of E his minde, and then he is inflamed with holy fires, and guided by a bright starre; first purified and then lightned, then burning and shining: so is every man in every of his prayers. He is alwayes like the spirit by which he prayes: If he be a lustfull person, he prayes with a lustfull spirit; if he does not pray for it, he cannot heartily pray against it. If he be a Tyrant or an usurper, a robber or a [Page] murtherer, he hath his Laverna too, by which all his desires are guided, A and his prayers directed, and his petitions furnished. He cannot pray against that spirit that possesses him, and hath seised upon his will and affections: If he be fill'd with a lying spirit, and be conformed to it in the image of his minde, he will be so also in the expressions of his prayer, and the sense of his soul. Since therefore no prayer can be good but that which is taught by the Spirit of grace, none holy but the man whom Gods Spirit hath sanctified, and therefore none heard to any purposes of blessing which the holy Ghost does not make for us (for he makes intercession for the Saints, the Spirit of Christ is the praecentor or the rector chori the B Master of the Quire) it followes that all other prayers being made with an evill Spirit must have an evill portion; and though the Devils by their Oracles have given some answers, and by their significations have foretold some future contingencies, and in their government and subordinate rule have assisted some armies, and discovered some treasures, and prevented some snares of chance, and accidents of men, yet no man that reckons by the measures of reason or religion, reckons witches and conjurors amongst blessed and prosperous persons: these and all other evill persons have an evill spirit, by the measures of which their desires begin and proceed on C to issue; but this successe of theirs neither comes from God, nor brings felicity: but if it comes from God, it is anger, if it descends upon good men, it is a curse, if upon evill men, it is a sin, and then it is a present curse, and leads on to an eternall infelicity. Plutarch reports that the Tyrians tyed their gods with chains, because certain persons did dream that Apollo said he would leave their City, and go to the party of Alexander, who then besieged the town: and Apollodorus tels of some that tied the image of Saturne with bands of wooll upon his feet. So are some Christians; they think God is tyed to their sect, and bound to be of their side and the interest D of their opinion; and they think he can never go to the enemies party so long as they charme him with certain formes of words or disguises of their own; and then all the successe they have, and all the evils that are prosperous, all the mischiefs they do, and all the ambitious designs that do succeed, they reckon upon the account of their prayers; and well they may; for their prayers are sins, and their desires are evill, they wish mischief, and they act iniquity, and they enjoy their sin: and if this be a blessing or a cursing, themselves shall then judge, and all the world shall perceive, when the accounts of all the world are truly stated; then when E prosperity shall be called to accounts, and adversity shall receive its comforts, when vertue shall have a crown, and the satisfaction of all sinfull desires shall be recompensed with an intolerable sorrow, and the despair of a perishing soul. Nero's Mother prayed passionately that her son might be Emperor; and many persons of [Page] A whom S. Iames speaks, pray to spend upon their lusts, and they are heard too: some were not; and very many are: and some that fight against a just possessor of a country pray that their wars may be prosperous, and sometimes they have been heard too: and Julian the Apostate prayed, and sacrificed, and inquired of Daemons, and burned mans flesh, and operated with secret rites, and all that he might craftily and powerfully oppose the religion of Christ, and he was heard too, and did mischief beyond the malice and effect of his predecessors, that did swim in Christian bloud: but when we sum up the accounts at the foot of their lives, or so soon as the thing B was understood, and finde that the effect of Agrippina's prayer was, that her son murdered her; and of those lustfull petitioners, in St. Iames, that they were given over to the tyranny and possession of their passions, and baser appetites; and the effect of Iulian the Apostate's prayer was, that he liv'd and died a professed enemy of Christ; and the effect of the prayers of usurpers is, that they do mischief, and reap curses, and undoe mankinde, and provoke God, and live hated, and die miserable, and shall possesse the fruit of their sin to eternall ages; these will be no objections to the truth of the former discourse, but greater instances, that if by hearing our C prayers we mean, or intend a blessing, we must also by making prayers mean, that the man first be holy and his desires just and charitable, before he can be admitted to the throne of grace, or converse with God by the entercourses of a prosperous prayer.

That's the first generall. 2. Many times good men pray, and their prayer is not a sin, but yet it returns empty; because although the man be, yet the prayer is not in proper disposition; and here I am to account to you concerning the collaterall and accidentall hinderances of the prayer of a good man.

The first thing that hinders the prayers of a good man from obtaining D its effect is a violent anger, a violent storm in the spirit of him that prayes. For anger sets the house on fire, and all the spirits are busie upon trouble, and intend propulsion, defence, displeasure or revenge; it is a short madnesse, and an eternall enemy to to discourse, and sober counsels, and fair conversation; it intends its own object with all the earnestnesse of perception, or activity of designe, and a quicker motion of a too warm and distempered bloud; it is a feaver in the heart, and a calenture in the head, and a fire in the face, and a sword in the hand, and a fury all over; and therefore can never suffer a man to be in a disposition to pray. For E prayer is an action and a state of entercourse, and desire, exactly contrary to this character of anger. Prayer is an action of likenesse to the holy Ghost, the Spirit of gentlenesse and dove-like simplicity; an imitation of the holy Jesus, whose Spirit is meek up to the greatnesse of the biggest example, and a conformity to God whose anger is alwaies just, and marches slowly, and is without transportation, [Page] and often hindred, and never hasty, and is full of mercy; prayer A is the peace of our spirit, the stilnesse of our thoughts, the evennesse of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares, and the calme of our tempest; prayer is the issue of a quiet minde, of untroubled thoughts, it is the daughter of charity, and the sister of meeknesse; and he that prayes to God with an angry, that is, with a troubled and discomposed spirit, is like him that retires into a battle to meditate, and sets up his closet in the out quarters of an army, and chooses a frontier garrison to be wise in. Anger is a perfect alienation of the minde from prayer, and therefore is contrary to that attention which presents our prayers in a B right line to God. For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grasse and soaring upwards singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and climbe above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern winde, and his motion made irregular and unconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, then it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings; till the little creature was forc'd to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over, and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing as if it had learned musick and motion from an Angell as he passed sometimes through C the aire about his ministeries here below: so is the prayers of a good man; when his affairs have required businesse, and his businesse was matter of discipline, and his discipline was to passe upon a sinning person, or had a design of charity, his duty met with the infirmities of a man, and anger was its instrument, and the instrument became stronger then the prime agent, and raised a tempest, and overrul'd the man; and then his prayer was broken, and his thoughts were troubled, and his words went up towards a cloud, and his thoughts pull'd them back again, and made them without intention; and the good man sighs for his infirmity, but must be D content to lose that prayer, and he must recover it when his anger is removed and his spirit is becalmed, made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the heart of God; and then it ascends to heaven upon the wings of the holy dove, and dwels with God till it returnes like the usefull Bee, loaden with a blessing and the dew of heaven.

But besides this; anger is a combination of many other things every one of which is an enemy to prayer; it is [...], and [...] and [...], and it is [...], and it is [...], and it is [...], and [...], so it is in the severall definitions of it, and in its naturall constitution. It hath E in it the trouble of sorrow, and the heats of lust, and the disease of revenge, and the boylings of a feaver, and the rashnesse of praecipitancy, and the disturbance of persecution; and therefore is a certain effective enemy against prayer which ought to be a spirituall joy, and an act of mortification; and to have in it no heats but of charity [Page] A and zeal; and they are to be guided by prudence and consideration, and allayed with the deliciousnesse of mercy, and the serenity of a meek and a quiet spirit; and therefore S. Paul gave caution, that the sun should not go down upon our anger, meaning, that it should not stay upon us till evening prayer; for it would hinder our evening sacrifice; but the stopping of the first egressions of anger, is a certain artifice of the Spirit of God to prevent unmercifulnesse, which turns not only our desires into vanity, but our prayers into sin; and remember that Elijah's anger, though it was also zeal, had so discomposed his spirit when the two Kings came to inquire of the Lord, that B though he was a good man and a Prophet, yet he could not pray, he could not inquire of the Lord, till by rest and musick he had gathered himself into the evennesse of a dispassionate and recollected minde; therefore let your prayers be without wrath. [...], for God by many significations hath taught us, that when men go to the altars to pray, or to give thanks, they must bring no sin, or violent passion along with them to the sacrifice, said Philo.

2. Indifferency and easinesse of desire is a great enemy to the successe C of a good mans prayer; When Plato gave Diogenes a great vessell of Wine who ask'd but a little, and a few Carrawaies, the Cynic thank'd him with his rude expression; Cum interrogaris quot sint duo & duo, respondes viginti; ita non secundum ea quae rogaris das, nec ad ea quae interrogaris respondes: ‘Thou neither answerest to the question thou art asked, nor givest according as thou art desired; but being inquired of, how many are two and two, thou answerest twenty.’ So it is with God and us in the intercourse of our prayers: we pray for health, and he gives it us, it may be, a sicknesse that carries us to eternall life; we pray for necessary D support for our persons and families, and he gives us more then we need; we beg for a removall of a present sadnesse, and he gives us that which makes us able to bear twenty sadnesses, a cheerfull spirit, a peacefull conscience, and a joy in God, as an antepast of eternall rejoycings in the Kingdome of God; But then although God doth very frequently give us beyond the matter of our desires, yet he does not so often give us great things beyond the spirit of our desires, beyond the quicknesse, vivacity, and fervor of our minds; for there is but one thing in the world that God hates besides sin, that is, indifferency and lukewarmnesse; which although it hath not in See 2. Sermon of lukewarmnesse and zeal. E it the direct nature of sin, yet it hath this testimony from God, that it is loathsome and abominable, and excepting this thing alone, God never said so of any thing in the New Testament, but what was a direct breach of a commandement. The reason of it is, because lukewarmnesse or an indifferent spirit is an undervaluing of God and of Religion, it is a separation of reason from affections, [Page] and a perfect conviction of the understanding to the goodnesse of A a duty, but a refusing to follow what we understand. For he that is lukewarm alwaies understands the better way, and seldome pursues it; he hath so much reason as is sufficient, but he will not obey it; his will does not follow the dictate of his understanding, and therefore it is unnaturall. It is like the phantastick fires of the night, where there is light and no heat, and therefore may passe on to the reall fires of hell, where there is heat and no light; and therefore although an act of lukewarmnesse is only an undecency, and no sin; yet a state of lukewarmnesse is criminall, and sinfull state of imperfection and undecency; an act of indifferency hinders a single prayer B from being accepted; but a state of it makes the person ungracious and despised in the Court of heaven: and therefore S. Iames in his accounts concerning an effective prayer, not only requires that he be a just man who prayes, but his prayer must be fervent; [...], an effectuall fervent prayer, so our English reads it; it must be an intent, zealous, busie, operative prayer; for consider what a huge undeceney it is, that a man should speak to God for a thing that he values not; or that he should not value a thing, without which he cannot be happy; or that he should spend his religion upon a trifle; and if it be not a trifle, that he should not spend C his affections upon it. If our prayers be for temporall things, I shall not need to stirre up your affections to be passionate for their purchase; we desire them greedily, we run after them intemperately, we are kept from them with huge impatience, we are delayed with infinite regret, we preferre them before our duty, we aske them unseasonably, we receive them with our own prejudice, and we care not, we choose them to our hurt and hinderance, and yet delightin the purchase; and when we do pray for them, we can hardly bring our selves to it, to submit to Gods will, but will have them (if we can) whether he be pleased or no; like the Parasite in the Comedy, Qui comedit D quod fuit & quod non fuit, he eat all and more then all, what was set before him, and what was kept from him. But then for spirituall things, for the interest of our souls, and the affairs of the Kingdome, we pray to God with just such a zeal as a man begs of the Chirurgeon to cut him of the stone; or a condemned man desires his executioner quickly to put him out of his pain, by taking away his life; when things are come to that passe, it must be done, but God knows with what little complacency and desire, the man makes his request: And yet the things of religion and the spirit, are the only things that ought to be desired vehemently, and pursued passionately, E because God hath set such a value upon them that they are the effects of his greatest loving kindnesse; they are the purchases of Christs bloud, and the effect of his continuall intercession, the fruits of his bloudy sacrifice, and the gifts of his healing and saving mercy, the graces of Gods Spirit, and the only instruments [Page] A of felicity; and if we can have fondnesses for things indifferent, or dangerous, our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg coldly and tamely for those things for which we ought to dye, which are more precious then the globes of Kings, and weightier then Imperiall Scepters, richer then the spoils of the Sea, or the treasures of the Indian hils.

He that is cold and tame in his prayers, hath not tasted of the deliciousnesse of Religion, and the goodnesse of God; he is a stranger to the secrets of the Kingdome, and therefore he does not know what it is either to have hunger or satiety; and therefore neither are B they hungry for God, nor satisfied with the world, but remain stupid and inapprehensive, without resolution and determination, never choosing clearly, nor pursuing earnestly; and therefore never enter into possession, but alwaies stand at the gate of wearinesse, unnecessary caution, and perpetuall irresolution. But so it is too often in our prayers; we come to God because it is civill so to do, and a generall custome, but neither drawn thither by love, nor pinch'd by spirituall necessities, and pungent apprehensions; we say so many prayers because we are resolved so to do, and we passe through them sometimes with a little attention, sometimes C with none at all, and can we think that the grace of Chastity can be obtain'd at such a purchase, that grace that hath cost more labours then all the persecutions of faith, and all the disputes of hope, and all the expence of charity besides, amounts to? Can we expect that our sinnes should be wa [...]hed by a lazie prayer? Can an indifferent prayer quench the flatnes of hell, or rescue us from an eternall sorrow? Is lust so soon overcome, that the very naming it can master it? Is the Devill so slight and easie an enemy, that he will fly away from us at the first word, spoken without power, and without vehemence? D Read and attend to the accents of the prayers of Saints. I cryed day and night before thee, O Lord; my soul refused comfort; my throat is dry with calling upon my God, my knees are weak through fasting; and, Let me alone, sayes God to Moses; and, I will not let thee go till thou hast blessed me, said Jacob to the Angell. And I shall tell you a short character of a fervent prayer out of the practise of S. Hierome, in his Epistle to Eustochium de custodiâ virginitatis. ‘Being destitute of all help I threw my self down at the feet of Jesus; I water'd his feet with tears, and wiped them with my hair, and mortified the lust of my flesh with the abstinence and E hungry diet of many weeks; I remember that in my crying to God, I did frequently joyn the night and the day, and never did intermit to call, nor cease from beating my brest, till the mercy of the Lord brought to me peace and freedome from temptation. After many tears, and my eyes fixed in heaven, I thought my self sometimes encircled with troops of Angels, and then at last I [Page] sang to God, We will run after thee into the smell and deliciousnesse A of thy precious ointments; such a prayer as this will never return without its errand.’ But though your person be as gracious as David or Job, and your desire as holy as the love of Angels, and your necessities great as a new penitent, yet it pie [...]ces not the clouds, unlesse it be also as loud as thunder, passionate as the cries of women, and clamorous as necessity. And we may guesse at the degrees of importunity by the insinuation of the Apostle: Let the marryed abstain for a time, ut vacent orationi & jejunio, that they may attend to Prayer; it is a great attendance, and a long diligence that is promoted by such a separation; and supposes a devotion that B spends more then many hours; for ordinary prayers, and many hours of every day might well enough consist with an ordinary cohabitation; but that which requires such a separation cals for a longer time and a greater attendance then we usually consider. For every prayer we make is considered by God, and recorded in heaven; but cold prayers are not put into the account in order to effect and acceptation; but are laid aside like the buds of roses which a cold wind hath nip'd into death, and the discoloured tawny face of an Indian slave: and when in order to your hopes of obtaining a great blessing, you reckon up your prayers with which you have solicited C your suit in the court of heaven, you must reckon, not by the number of the collects, but by your sighs and passions, by the vehemence of your desires, and the fervour of your spirit, the apprehension of your need, and the consequent prosecution of your supply. Christ pray'd [...] with loud cryings, and S. Paul made mention of his scholars in his prayers night and day. Fall upon your knees and grow there, and let not your desires cool, nor your zeal remit, but renew it again and again, and let not your offices and the custome of praying put thee in mind of thy D need, but let thy need draw thee to thy holy offices; and remember how great a God, how glorious a Majesty you speak to, therefore let not your devotions and addresses be little. Remember how great a need thou hast; let not your desires be lesse. Remember how great the thing is you pray for; do not undervalue it with thy indifferency. Remember that prayer is an act of Religion; let it therefore be made thy businesse: and lastly, Remember that God hates a cold prayer, and therefore will never blesse it, but it shall be alwaies ineffectuall.

3. Under this title of lukewarmnesse and tepidity may be comprised also these Cautions: that a good mans prayers are sometimes E hindred by inadvertency, sometimes by want of perseverance. For inadvertency or want of attendance to the sense and intention of our prayers, it is certainly an effect of lukewarmnesse, and a certain companion and appendage to humane infirmity; and is only so remedyed as our prayers are made zealous, and our infirmities [Page] A passe into the strengths of the Spirit. But if we were quick in our perceptions, either concerning our danger, or our need, or the excellency of the object, or the glories of God, or the niceties and perfections of Religion, we should not dare to throw away our prayers so like fools, or come to God and say a prayer with our minde standing at distance, trifling like untaught boyes at their books, with a truantly spirit. I shall say no more to this, but that in reason we can never hope that God in heaven will hear our prayers, which we our selves speak and yet hear not at the same time when we our selves speak them with instruments joyned B to our ears; even with those organs which are parts of our hearing faculties. If they be not worth our own attending to, they are not worth Gods hearing; If they are worth Gods attending to, we must make them so by our own zeal, and passion, and industry, and observation, and a present and a holy spirit.

But concerning perseverance, the consideration is something distinct. For when our prayer is for a great matter, and a great necessity, strictly attended to, yet we pursue it only by chance or humour, by the strengths of fancy, and naturall disposition; or else our choice is cool as soon as hot, like the emissions of lightning, C or like a sun-beam often interrupted with a cloud, or cool'd with intervening showers: and our prayer is without fruit because the desire lasts not, and the prayer lives like the repentance of Simon Magus, or the trembling of Felix, or the Jewes devotion for seven dayes of unleavened bread, during the Passeover or the feast of Tabernacles; but if we would secure the blessing of our prayers, and the effect of our prayers, we must never leave till we have obtain'd what we need.

There are many that pray against a temptation for a moneth together, and so long as the prayer is fervent, so long the man D hath a nolition, and a direct enmity against the lust; he consents not all that while; but when the moneth is gone, and the prayer is removed, or becomes lesse active, then the temptation returnes, and sorrages, and prevails, and seises upon all our unguarded strengths. There are some desires which have a period, and Gods visitations expire in mercy at the revolution of a certain number of dayes; and our prayer must dwell so long as Gods anger abides; and in all the storm we must out cry the noyse of the tempest, and the voices of that thunder. But if we become hardned, and by custome and cohabitation with the danger lose our fears, and E abate of our desires and devotions, many times we shall finde, that God by a sudden breach upon us will chastise us for letting our hands go down. Israel prevailed no longer then Moses held up his hands in prayer; and he was forced to continue his prayer, till the going down of the Sun; that is, till the danger was over, till the battell was done. But when our desires, and [Page] prayers are in the matter of spirituall danger, they must never be A remitted, because our danger continues for ever, and therefore so must our watchfulnesse, and our guards. Vult n. Deus rogari, vult cogi, vult quâdam importunitate vinci (sayes S. Gregory) God loves to be invited, intreated, importun'd with an unquiet, restlesse desire and a persevering prayer. [...], said Proclus. That's a holy and a religious prayer, that never gives over, but renewes the prayer, and dwels upon the desire; for this only is effectuall. [...], God hears the persevering man, and the unwearied prayer. For it is very considerable, that we be very curious to observe; that many times a lust is B sopita, non mortua, it is asleep; the enemy is at truce, and at quiet for a while, but not conquered, not dead; and if we put off our armour too soon, we lose all the benefit of our former war, and are surprised by indiligence and a carelesse guard. For God sometimes binds the Devill in a short chain, and gives his servants respite, that they may feel the short pleasures of a peace, and the rest of innocence, and perceive what are the eternall felicities of heaven, where it shall be so for ever; But then we must return to our warfare again; and every second affault is more troublesome, because it finds our spirits at ease, and without watchfulnesse, and delighted with a spirituall rest, and C keeping holiday. But let us take heed; for whatsoever temptation we can be troubled withall by our naturall temper, or by the condition of our life, or the evill circumstances of our condition, so long as we have capacity to feel it, so long we are in danger, and must watch thereunto with prayer and continuall diligence. And when your temptations let you alone, let not you God alone; but lay up prayers and the blessings of a constant devotion against the day of tryall. Well may your temptation sleep, but if your prayers do so, you may chance to be awakened with an affault that may ruine you. However, the D rule is easie: Whatsoever you need, aske it of God so long as you want it, even till you have it. For God therefore many times defers to grant, that thou mayst persevere to aske; and because every holy prayer is a glorification of God by the confessing many of his attributes, a lasting and a persevering prayer is a little image of the Allellujahs and services of eternity; it is a continuation to do that according to our measures which we shall be doing to eternall ages: therefore think not that five or six hearty prayers can secure to thee a great blessing, and a supply of a mighty necessity. He that prays so, and then leaves off, hath said some prayers, and done the ordinary offices of his Religion, but hath not secured the blessing, nor used E means reasonably proportionable to a mighty interest.

4. The prayers of a good man are oftentimes hindered, and destitute of their effect for want of praying in good company; for sometimes an evill or an obnoxious person hath so secured and ascertained a mischief to himself, that he that stayes in his company or his traffick [Page] A must also share in his punishment: and the Tyrian sailers with all their vows and prayers could not obtain a prosperous voyage so long as Jonas was within the Bark; for in this case the interest is divided, and the publick sin prevails above the private piety. When the Philosopher asked a penny of Antigonus, he told him it was too little for a King to give; when he asked a talent, he told him it was too much for a Philosopher to receive; for he did purpose to cousen his own charity, and clude the others necessity, upon pretence of a double inequality. So it is in the case of a good man mingled in evill company: if a curse be too severe for a good man, B a mercy is not to be expected by evill company; and his prayer, when it is made in common, must partake of that event of things which is appropriate to that society. The purpose of this caution is, that every good man be carefull that he do not mingle his devotion in the communions of hereticall persons, and in schismaticall conventicles; for although he be like them that follow Absalom in the simplicity of their heart, yet his intermediall fortune, and the event of his present affairs may be the same with Absaloms; and it is not a light thing, that we curiously choose the parties of our Communion. I do not say it is necessary to avoid all the society of evill C persons; for then we must go out of the world; and when we have thrown out a drunkard, possibly we have entertain'd an hypocrite; or when a swearer is gone, an oppressor may stay still; or if that be remedied, yet pride is soon discernible, but not easily judicable: but that which is of caution in this question is, that we never mingle with those, whose very combination is a sin; such as were Corah and his company that rebelled against Moses their Prince; and Dathan and Abiram that made a schisme in Religion against Aaron the Priest: for so said the Spirit of the Lord, Come out from the congregation of these men, lest ye perish in their company; and all D those that were abused in their communion, did perish in the gain-saying of Corah. It is a sad thing to see a good man cousened by fair pretences, and allured into an evill snare; for besides, that he dwels in danger, and cohabits with a dragon, and his vertue may change by evill perswasion, into an evill disposition, from sweetnesse to bitternesse, from thence to evill speaking, from thence to beleeve a lye, and from beleeving to practise it; besides this, it is a very great sadnesse, that such a man should lose all his prayers to very many purposes: God will not respect the offering of those men who assemble by a peevish spirit; and therefore although God in pity regards E the desires of a good man if innocently abused, yet as it unites in that assembly, God will not hear it to any purposes of blessing, and holinesse; unlesse we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, we cannot have the blessing of the Spirit in the returns of a holy prayer; and all those assemblies which meet together against God or Gods Ordinances, may pray and call, and cry loudly, and frequently, [Page] and still they provoke God to anger; and many times he A will not have so much mercy for them as to deny them; but lets them prosper in their sin, till it swels to intolerable and impardonable. * But when good men pray with one heart, and in a holy assembly, that is, holy in their desires, lawfull in their authority, though the persons be of different complexion, then the prayer flies up to God like the hymns of a Quire of Angels; for God that made body and soul to be one man, and God and man to be one Christ, and three persons are one God, and his praises are sung to him by Quires, and the persons are joyned in orders, and the orders into hierarchies, and all, that God may be served by unions and communities, loves B that his Church should imitate the Concords of heaven, and the unions of God, and that every good man should promote the interests of his prayers by joyning in the communion of Saints in the unions of obedience and charity, with the powers that God and the Lawes have ordained.

The sum is this, If the man that makes the prayer be an unholy person, his prayer is not the instrument of a blessing, but a curse; but when the sinner begins to repent truly, then his desires begin to be holy. But if they be holy, and just, and good, yet they are without profit and effect, if the prayer be made in schisme, or an C evill communion, or if it be made without attention, or if the man soon gives over, or if the prayer be not zealous, or if the man be angry. There are very many waies for a good man to become unblessed and unthriving in his prayers, and he cannot be secure unlesse he be in the state of grace, and his spirit be quiet, and his minde be attentive, and his society be lawfull, and his desires earnest, and passionate, and his devotions persevering, lasting till his needs be served, or exchanged for another blessing: so that, what Laelius (apud Cicer. de senectute) said concerning old age, neque in summâ inopiâ levis D esse senectus potest, ne sapienti quidem, nec insipienti etiam in summâ copiâ non gravis; that a wise man could not bear old age if it were extremely poor; and yet if it were very rich, it were intolerable to a fool; we may say concerning our prayers; they are sins and unholy, if a wicked man makes them, and yet if they be made by a good man they are ineffective, unlesse they be improved by their proper dispositions. A good man cannot prevail in his prayers, if his desires be cold, and his affections trifling, and his industry soon weary, and his society criminall; and if all these appendages of prayer be observed, yet they will do no good to an evill man, for his prayer that begins in sin, shall end in sorrow. E

SERMON, VI. Part, III.

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B 3. NExt I am to inquire and consider, what degrees and circumstances of piety are requir'd to make us fit to be intercessors for others, and to pray for them with probable effect? I say with probable effect; for when the event principally depends upon that which is not within our own election, such as are the lives and actions of others, all that we can consider in this affair is, whether wee be persons fit to pray in the behalf of others that hinder not, but are persons within the limit C and possibilities of the present mercy. When the Emperour Maximinus was smitten with the wrath of God, and a sore disease for his cruell persecuting the Christian cause, and putting so many thousand innocent and holy persons to death, and he understood the voice of God and the accents of thunder, and discerned that cruelty was the cause, he revoked their decrees made against the Christians, recall'd them from their caves and deserts, their sanctuaries, and retirements, and enjoyned them to pray for the life and health of their Prince. They did so, and they who could command mountaines to remove, and were obeyed, they who could D doe miracles, they who with the key of prayer could open Gods four closets, of the wombe and the grave, of providence and rain, could not obtain for their bloudy Emperour one drop of mercy, but he must die miserable for ever. God would not be intreated for him, and though he loved the prayer because he loved the Advocates, yet Maximinus was not worthy to receive the blessing. And it was threatned to the rebellious people of Israel, and by them to all people that should sin grievously against the Lord, God would break their staffe of bread, and even the righteous should not be prevailing intercessors; Though Noah, Job, or Daniel Ezek. 14. 14. E were there, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousnesse, saith the Lord God: and when Abraham prevailed very far with God in the behalf of Sodome, and the five Cities of the Plain; it had its period; If there had been ten righteous in Sodom it should have been spared for their sakes, but four onely were found, and they onely delivered their own souls too; but neither their [Page] righteousnesse, nor Abrahams prayer prevailed any further; and we A have this case also mentioned in the New Testament: If any man 1 Ioh. 5. 16. see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall aske and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. At his prayer the sinner shall receive pardon; God shall give him life for them, to him that prays in their behalf that sin; provided it be not a sin unto death. For there is a sin unto death, but I doe not say that he shall pray for it. There his Commission expires, and his power is confin'd. For there are some sins of that state and greatnesse that God will not pardon. S. Austin in his books de sermone Domini in monte affirms it, concerning some one single sin of a perfect malice. B It was also the opinion of Origen and Athanasius, and is followed by venerable Bede; and whether the Apostle means a peculiar state of sin, or some one single great crime which also supposes a precedent and a present state of criminall condition; it is such a thing as will hinder our prayers from prevailing in their behalf; we are therefore not encouraged to pray, because they cannot receive the benefit of Christs intercession, and therefore much lesse of our Advocation, which onely can prevail by vertue and participation of his mediation. For whomsoever Christ prays, for them wee pray, that is, for all them that are within the covenant of repentance, C for all whose actions have not destroyed the very being of Religion, who have not renounc'd their faith, nor voluntarily quit their hopes, nor openly opposed the Spirit of grace, nor grown by a long progresse to a resolute and finall impiety, nor done injustices greater then sorrow, or restitution, or recompense, or acknowledgment. However, though it may be uncertain and disputed concerning the number of sins unto death, and therefore to pray, or not to pray, is not matter of duty; yet it is all one, as to the effect, whether we know them or no; for though we intend charity when we pray for the worst of men, yet concerning the event God will take care, and will certainly D return thy prayer upon thy own head, though thou didst desire it should water and refresh thy neighbors drynesse; and St. John so expresses it as if he had left the matter of duty undetermin'd; because the instances are uncertain; yet the event is certainly none at all, therefore because we are not encouraged to pray, and because it is a sin unto death, that is, such a sin that hath no portion in the promises of life, and the state of repentance. But now, suppose the man for whom wee pray to be capable of mercy, within the covenant of repentance, and not farre from the Kingdome of heaven; yet, E

2ly. No prayers of others can further prevail then to remove this person to the next stage in order to felicity. When S. Monica prayed for her son, she did not pray to God to save him, but to cōvert him; and when God intended to reward the prayers and almes of Cornelius, he did not do it by giving him a Crown, but by sending an [Page] A Apostle to him to make him a Christian; the meaning of which observation is, that we may understand, that as in the person prayed for, there ought to be the great disposition of being in a saveable condition; so there ought also to be all the intermediall aptnesses: for just as he is disposed, so can we prevail, and the prayers of a good man first prevail in behalf of a sinner, that he shall be invited, that he shall be reproved, and then that he shall attend to it, then that he shall have his heart open'd, and then that he shall repent: And still a good mans prayers follow him thorough the severall stages of pardon, of sanctification, of restraining graces, of a B mighty providence, of great assistance, of perseverance, and a holy death. No prayers can prevaile upon an undisposed person. For the Sun himself cannot enlighten a blind eye, nor the soule move a body whose silver cord is loosed, and whose joints are untyed by the rudenesse and dissolutions of a pertinacious sicknesse. But then, suppose an eye quick, and healthfull, or apt to be refreshed with light and a friendly prospect, yet a glow-worm or a diamond, the shels of pearl, or a dead mans candle, are not enough to make him discern the beauties of the world, and to admire the glories of creation. Therefore,

C 2. As the persons must be capable for whom we pray, so they that pray for others must be persons extraordinary in something: 1. If persons be of an extraordinary piety, they are apt to be intercessors for others. This appeares in the case of Job: When the Chap. 42. 7, 8. wrath of God was kindled against Eliphaz, and his two friends, God commanded them to offer a sacrifice, but my servant Job shall prey for you, for him will I accept: and it was so in the case of the prevaricating Israelites; God was full of indignation against them, and smote them, Then stood up Phinehas and prayed, and the plague ceased. For this man was a good man, and the spirit of an extraordinary D zeal filled him, and he did glory to God in the execution upon Zimri and his fair Madianite. And it was a huge blessing that was intail'd upon the posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; because they had a great Religion, a great power with God, and their extraordinary did consist especially in the matter of prayers and devotion; for that was eminent in them besides their obedience: for so Maimonides tells concerning them, that Abraham first instituted Morning prayer. The affairs of Religion had not the same constitution then as now. They worshipped God never but at their Memorials, and in places, and seldome times of separation. The bowed E their head when they came to a hallowed stone, and upon the top of their staffe, and worshipped when they came to a consecrated pillar, but this was seldome; and they knew not the secrets and the priviledges of a frequent prayer, of intercourses with God by ejaculations, and the advantages of importunity: and the Doctors of the Jews that record the prayer of Noah, who in all reason knew [Page] the secret best, because he was to teach it to all the world, yet have A transmitted to us but a short prayer of some seaven lines long; and this he onely said within the Ark, in that great danger, once on a day, provoked by his fear, and stirred up by a Religion then made actuall, in those days of sorrow and penance. But in the descending ages, when God began to reckon a Church in Abraham's family, there began to be a new institution of offices, and Abraham appointed that God should be prayed to every morning. Isaac being taught by Abraham, made a law, or at least commended the practise, and adopted it into the Religion, that God should be worshipped by decimation or tithing of our goods; and he added B an order of prayer to be said in the afternoon; and Jacob to make up the office compleat added evening prayer; and God was their God, and they became fit persons to blesse, that is, of procuring blessings to their relatives; as appears in the instances of their own families; of the King of Egypt, and the Cities of the Plain. For a man of an ordinary piety is like Gideons fleece, wet in its own locks; but it could not water a poor mans Garden. But so does a thirsty land drink all the dew of heaven that wets its face, and a great shower makes no torrent, nor digs so much as a little furrow that the drils of the water might passe into rivers, or refresh their neighbours C wearinesse; but when the earth is full, and hath no strange consumptive needs, then at the next time when God blesses it with a gracious shower, it divides into portions, and sends it abroad in free and equall communications, that all that stand round about may feel the shower. So is a good mans prayer; his own cup is full, it is crowned with health, and overflowes with blessings, and all that drink of his cup, and eat at his table are refreshed with his joys, and divide with him in his holy portions. And indeed he hath need of a great stock of piety, who is first to provide for his own necessities, and then to give portions to a numerous D relation. It is a great matter that every man needs for himself; the daily expences of his own infirmities, the unthriving state of his omission of duties, and recessions from perfection, and sometimes the great losses and shipwracks, the plundrings and burning of his house by a fall into a deadly sin; and most good men are in this condition, that they have enough to doe to live, and keep themselves above water; but how few men are able to pay their own debts, and lend great portions to others? The number of those who can effectually intercede for others to great purposes of grace and pardon, are as soon told as the number E of wise men, as the gates of a City, or the entries of the river Nilus.

But then doe but consider what a great ingagement this is to a very strict and holy life. If we chance to live in times of an extraordinary trouble, or if our relatives can be capable of great [Page] A dangers, or great sorrows, or if we our selves would doe the noblest friendship in the world, and oblige others by acts of greatest benefit; if we would assist their souls, and work towards their salvation; if we would be publick ministers of the greatest usefulness to our countrey; if we would support Kings, and relieve the great necessities of Kingdoms; if we would be effective in the stopping of a plague, or in the successe of armies; a great and an exemplar piety, and a zealous and holy prayer can do all this. Semper tu hoc facito ut cogites, Id optimum esse, tute ut sis optimus; si id nequeas, saltem ut optimis sis proximus. He that is the best man towards God, is B certainely the best Minister to his Prince or Countrey, and therefore doe thou endevour to be so; and if thou canst not be so, be at least next to the best. For in that degree in which our Religion is great, and our piety exemplar, in the same we can contribute towards the fortune of a Kingdome: and when Elijah was taken into heaven, Elisha mourn'd for him because it was a losse to Israel: My Father, my father, the chariots of Israel and horsemen thereof: But consider how uselesse thou art, when thou canst not by thy prayers obtain so much mercy as to prevaile for the life of a single Trooper, or in a plague beg of God for the life of a poor Maidservant; C but the ordinary emanations of providence shall proceed to issue without any arrest, and the sword of the Angel shall not be turn'd aside in one single infliction. Remember, although he is a great and excellent person that can prevaile of God for the interest of others, yet thou that hast no stock of grace and favour, no interest in the Court of heaven, art but a mean person; extraordinary in nothing; thou art unregarded by God, cheap in the fight of Angels, uselesse to thy Prince or Countrey; thou maist hold thy peace in a time of publick danger. For, Kings never pardon Murtherers at the intercession of Theeves; and if a mean D Mechanick should beg a Reprieve for a condemned Traitor, he is ridiculous and impudent; so is a vicious Advocate or an ordinary person with God. It is well if God will hear him begging for his owne pardon; hee is not yet disposed to plead for others.

And yet every man that is in the state of grace, every man that can pray without a sinfull prayer, may also intercede for others; and it is a duty for all men to doe it; all men I say who can pray at all acceptably; I will therefore that prayers, and supplications, and intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men; and E this is a duty that is prescrib'd to all them that are concern'd in the duty and in the blessings of Prayer; but this is it which I say; if their piety be but ordinary, their prayer can be effectuall but in easy purposes, and to smaller degrees; but he that would work effectively towards a great deliverance, or in great degrees towards the benefit or ea [...]e of any of his relatives, can be confident of his successe but [Page] in the same degree in which his person is gracious. There are strange A things in heaven; judgments there are made of things and persons by the measures of Religion; and a plain promise produces effects of wonder and miracle; and the changes that are there made are not effected by passions, and interests, and corporall changes, and the love that is there is not the same thing that it is here, it is more beneficiall, more reasonable, more holy, of other designes, and strange productions; and upon that stock it is that a holy poor man that possesses no more (it may be) then an Ewe-lambe, that eats of his bread, and drinks of his cup, and is a daughter to him, and is all his temporall portion, this poor man is ministred to by B Angels, and attended to by God, and the Holy Spirit makes intercession for him, and Christ joyns the mans prayer to his own advocation, and the man by prayer shall save the City, and destroy the fortune of a Tyrant army, even then when God sees it good it should be so; for he will no longer deny him any thing, but when it is no blessing; and when it is otherwise, his prayer is most heard when it is most denyed.

2ly. That we should prevaile in intercessions for others, we are to regard and to take care, that as our piety, so also must our offices be extraordinary. He that prays to recover a family from C an hereditary curse, or to reverse a Sentence of God, to cancell a Decree of heaven gone out against his friend, hee that would heale the sick with his prayer, or with his devotion prevaile against an army, must not expect such great effects upon a Morning or Evening Collect, or an honest wish put into the recollections of a prayer, or a period put in on purpose. Mamercus Bishop of Vienna, seeing his City and all the Diocese in great danger of perishing by an earthquake, instituted great Letanies, and solemn supplications, besides the ordinary devotions of his usuall hours of prayer; and the Church from his example took up D the practise, and translated it into an anniversary solemnity, and upon St. Mark's day did solemnly intercede with God to divert or prevent his judgments falling upon the people, majoribus Litani is, so they are called; with the more solemn supplications they did pray unto God in behalf of their people. And this hath in it the same consideration that is in every great necessity; for it is a great thing for a man to be so gracious with God, as to be able to prevaile for himself and his friend, for himself and his relatives; and therefore in these cases, as in all great needs, it is the way of prudence and security, that we use all those greater E offices which God hath appointed as instruments of importunity, and arguments of hope, and acts of prevailing, and means of great effect and advocation: such as are, separating days for solemn prayer, all the degrees of violence, and earnest addresse, fasting and prayer, almes and prayer, acts of repentance and prayer, [Page] A praying together in publick with united hearts, and above all, praying in the susception and communication of the holy Sacrament; the effects and admirable issues of which we know not, and perceive not; we lo [...]e because we desire not, and choose to lose many great blessings rather then purchase them with the frequent commemoration of that sacrifice which was offered up for all the needs of Mankind, and for obtaining all favours and graces to the Catholick Church. [...], God never refuses to hear a holy prayer, and our prayers can never be so holy, as when they are offered up in the union of Christs sacrifice: For B Christ by that sacrifice reconcil'd God and the world. And because our needs continue, therefore we are commanded to continue the memory, and to represent to God that which was done to satisfie all our needs: Then we receive Christ; we are after a secret and mysterious, but most reall and admirable manner made all one with Christ; and if God giving us his Son could not but with him give us all things else, how shall he refuse our persons when we are united to his person, when our souls are joined to his soul, our body nourished by his body, and our souls sanctified by his bloud, and cloth'd with his robes, and marked with his character, C and sealed with his Spirit, and renewed with holy vows, and consign'd to all his glories, and adopted to his inheritance? when we represent his death, and pray in vertue of his passion, and imitate his intercession, and doe that which God commands, and offer him in our manner that which he essentially loves? can it be that either any thing should be more prevalent, or that God can possibly deny such addresses, and such importunities? Try it often, and let all things else be answerable, and you cannot have greater reason for your confidence. Doe not all the Christians in the world that understand Religion, desire to have the holy Sacrament D when they die; when they are to make their great appearance before God, and to receive their great consignation to their eternall sentence, good or bad? And if then be their greatest needs, that is their greatest advantage, and instrument of acceptation. Therefore if you have a great need to be serv'd, or a great charity to serve, and a great pity to minister, and a dear friend in a sorrow, take Christ along in thy prayers, in all thy ways thou canst take him; take him in affection, and take him in a solemnity, take him by obedience and receive him in the Sacrament; and if thou then offerest up thy prayers and makest thy needs known; if thou nor thy friend be not relieved, E if thy party be not prevalent, and the war be not appeased, or the plague be not cured, or the enemy taken off, there is something else in it; but thy prayer is good and pleasing to God, and dressed with circumstances of advantage, and thy person is apt to be an intercessor, and thou hast done all that thou canst; the event must be left to God; and the secret reasons of the deniall either thou shalt find [Page] in time, or thou maist trust with God, who certainly does it with A the greatest wisdome, and the greatest charity. I have in this thing onely one caution to insert, viz.

That in our importunity and extraordinary offices for others, we must not make our accounts by multitude of words, and long prayers, but by the measures of the Spirit, by the holynesse of the soul, and the justnesse of the desire, and the usefulnesse of the request, and its order to Gods glory, and its place in the order of providence, and the sincerity of our heart, and the charity of our wishes, and the perseverance of our advocation. There are some (as Tertullian observes) qui loquacitatem facundiam existimant, at B impudentiam constantiam deputant; They are praters, and they are impudent, and they call that constancy and importunity: concerning which the advice is easy: Many words or few are extrinsecall to the nature, and not at all considered in the effects of prayer; but much desire and much holinesse, are essentiall to its constitution; but we must be very curious that our importunity do not degenerate into impudence and a rude boldnesse. Capitolinus said of Antonius the Emperour and Philosopher, sanè quamvis esset constans, erat etiam verecundus; he was modest even when he was most pertinacious in his desires. So must wee; though wee must not be C ashamed to aske for whatsoever we need, Rebus semper pudor absit in arctis, and in this sense it is true that Stasimus in the Comedy said concerning Meat, Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet, Nam ibi de divinis & humanis cernitur: Men must not be bashfull so as to lose their meat; for that is a necessity that cannot bee dispensed withall: so it is in our prayers, whatsoever our necessity calls to us for, we must call to God for; and he is not pleased with that rusticity or fond modesty of being ashamed to ask of God any thing that is honest and necessary; yet our importunity hath also bounds of modesty, but such as are to be expressed with D other significations, and he is rightly modest towards God, who without confidence in himself, but not without confidence in Gods mercy, nor without great humility of person, and reverence of addresse, presents his prayers to God as earnestly as he can; Provided alwayes, that in the greatest of our desires, and holy violence, we submit to Gods will, and desire him to choose for us. Our modesty to God in prayers hath no other measures but these: 1. Distrust of our selves: 2. Confidence in God: 3. Humility of person: 4. Reverence of addresse: and 5. Submission to Gods will: These are all, unlesse also you will adde that of Solomon: E Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to Eccles. 5. 2. utter a thing before God, for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth, therefore let thy words be few. These things being observed, let your importunity be as great as it can, it is still the more likely to prevaile, by how much it is the more earnest [Page] A and signified and represented by the most offices extraordinary.

3ly. The last great advantage towards a prevailing intercession for others, is, that the person that prayes for his relatives, be a person of an extraordinary dignity, imployment or designation. For God hath appointed some persons and callings of men to pray for others, such are Fathers for their Children, Bishops for their Dioceses, Kings for their Subjects, and the whole Order Ecclesiast call for all the men and women in the Christian Church. And it is well it is so; for as things are now, and have been too long, how few are there that understand it to be their duty, or part of B their necessary imployment, that some of their time, and much of their prayers, and an equall portion of their desires be spent upon the necessities of others? All men doe not think it necessary, and fewer practise it frequently; and they but coldly, without interest, and deep resentment: it is like the compassion we have in other mens miseries, we are not concerned in it, and it is not our case, and our hearts ake not when another mans children are made fatherlesse, or his wife a sad widow: and just so are our prayers for their relief: If we thought their evils to be ours, if wee and they as members of the same body had sensible and reall communications C of good and evill; if we understood what is really meant by being members one of another, or if we did not think it a spirituall word of art, instrumentall onely to a science, but no part of duty, or reall relation, sure we should pray more earnestly one for another then we usually doe. How few of us are troubled when he sees his brother wicked, or dishonorably vicious? Who is sad and melancholy when his neighbour is almost in hell? when he sees him grow old in iniquity? How many days have we set apart for the publick relief and interests of the Kingdome? How earnestly have we fasted, if our Prince be sick or afflicted? D What almes have we given for our brothers conversion? or if this be great, how importunate and passionate have we been with God by prayer in his behalf, by prayer and secret petition? But however, though it were well, very well, that all of us would think of this duty a little more; because besides the excellency of the duty it self, it would have this blessed consequent, that for whose necessities we pray, if we doe desire earnestly they should be relieved, we would, when ever we can, and in all we can, set our hands to it; and if we pity the Orphan children, and pray for them heartily, we would also, when we could, relieve them E charitably: but though it were therefore very well that things were thus with all men, yet God who takes care for us all, makes provision for us in speciall manner; and the whole Order of the Clergy are appointed by God to pray for others, to be Ministers of Christs Priesthood, to be followers of his Advocation, to stand between God and the people, and present to God all their needs, [Page] and all their desires. That this God hath ordained and appointed, A and that this rather he will blesse and accept, appears by the testimony of God himself, for he onely can be witnesse in this particular; for it depends wholly upon his gracious favour and acceptation. It was the case of Abraham and Abimelech: Now therefore Gen. 20. 7. restore the man his wife, for he is a Prophet, and he will pray for thee, and thou shalt live; and this caused confidence in Micah: Now know I that the Lord will doe me good, seeing I have a Levite Iudg. 17. 13. to my Priest: meaning, that in his Ministery, in the Ministery of Priests, God hath established the alternate returns of blessing and prayers, the entercouses between God and his people; B And thorough the descending ages of the synagogue it came to be transmitted also to the Christian Church, that the Ministers of Religion are advocates for us under Christ, by the Ministery of Reconciliation, by their dispensing the holy Sacraments, by the Keyes of the Kingdome of heaven, by Baptisme, and the Lords Supper, by binding and loosing, by the Word of God and Prayer; and therefore saith St. James, If any man be sick among you, let Iames 5. 14. him send for the Elders of the Church, and let them pray over him: meaning that God hath appointed them especially, and will accept them in ordinary, and extraordinary; and this is that which is meant C by blessing. A Father blesses his childe, and Solomon blessed his people, and Melchisedec the Priest blessed Abraham, and Moses blessed the Sons of Israel, and God appointed the D Leviticall Priests to blesse the congregation; and this is more then can be done by the people; for though they can say the same prayer, and the People pray for their Kings, and Children for their Parents, and the Flock for the Pastor, yet they cannot blesse him as he blesses them; for the lesse is blessed of the greater, and not the greater of the lesse; and this is without all contradiction, said S. Paul: Heb. 7. 7. the meaning of the mysterie is this, That God hath appointed the Priest to pray for the People, and because he hath made it to be his ordinary office and imployment, he also intends to be seen in that way which he hath appointed, and chalked out for us; his prayer, if it be found in the way of righteousnesse, is the surer way to prevaile in his intercessions for the people.

But upon this stock comes in the greatest difficulty of the text: for if God heareth not sinners, there is an infinite necessity that the Ministers of Religion should be very holy: For all their ministeries consist in preaching and praying; to these two are reducible, all the ministeries Ecclesiasticall which are of divine institution: so the E Apostles summ'd up their imployment; But we will give our selves Act. 6. 4. continually to prayer, and to the ministery of the Word; to exhort, to reprove, to comfort, to cast down, to determine cases of conscience, and to rule in the Church by the word of their proper Ministery; and the very making lawes Ecclesiasticall, is the ministery [Page] A of the word; for so their dictates passe into lawes by being duties injoyn'd by God, or the acts, or exercises, or instruments of some injoyn'd graces. To prayer is reduced administration of the Sacraments: but binding and loosing, and visitation of the sick are mixt offices, partly relating to one, partly to the other. Now although the Word of God preached, will have a great effect, even though it be preached by an evill Minister, a vicious person, yet it is not so well there, as from a pious man; because by prayer also his preaching is made effectuall, and by his good example his Homilies and Sermons are made active; and therefore it is very necessary B in respect of this half of the Ministers office, [The preaching of Word] he be a good man; unlesse he be, much perishes to the people, most of the advantages are lost. But then for the other half; all those ministeries which are by way of prayer are rendred extremely invalid, and ineffectuall, if they be ministred by an evill person. For upon this very stock it was that St. Cyprian affirmed that none were to be chosen to the Ministery but immaculati & integri antistites, holy and upright men, who offering their sacrifices worthily to God, and holily, may be heard in their prayers which they make for the safety of the Lords people. But he presses Lib. 1. ep. 4. C this caution to a further issue: that it is not only necessary to choose holy persons to these holy Ministeries for fear of losing the advantages of a sanctified Ministery; but also that the people may not be guilty of an evill communion, and a criminall state of society. Nec enim sibi plebs blandiatur quasi immunis à contagione delicti esse possit cum sacerdote peccatore communicans, the people cannot be innocent if they communicate with a vitious priest: for so said the Lord by the Prophet Hosea, Sacrificia eorum panis luctus; their sacrifices are like bread of sorrow, whosoever eat thereof shall be defiled. The same also he sayes often and more vehemently, ibid. & lib. 4. D ep. 2. But there is yet a further degree of this evill. It is not only a losse, and also criminall to the people to communicate with a Minister of a notorious evill life and scandalous, but it is affirmed by the Doctors of the Church to be wholly without effect: their prayers are sins, their Sacraments are null and ineffective, their communions are without consecration, their hand is [...] a dead hand, the blessings vain, their sacrifices rejected, their ordinations imperfect, their order is vanished, their character is extinguished, and the holy Ghost will not descend upon the mysteries when he is invocated by unholy hands and unsanctified lips. This is a sad story, E but it is expresly affirmed by Dionysius, by St. Hierom upon the Ad Demo. 2. chapter of Zephaniah, affirming that they do wickedly who affirm eucharistiam imprecantis facere verba, non vitam, & necessariam esse tantum solennem orationem & non sacerdotum merita: that the Eucharist is consecrated by the Word and solemn prayer, and not by the life and holinesse of the Priest; and by St. Gelasius 1. q. 1. c. sacrosancta. by the [Page] Author of the imperfect work attributed to St. Chrysostome Homil. 53. who A quotes the 8th. book of the Apostolicall Constitutions for the same Doctrine; the words of which in the first chapter are so plain that Bovius In scholiis ad hunc locum. and Sixtus Senensis Lib. 6, A. D. 108. Biblioth. accuse both the Author of the Apostolicall Constitutions, and St. Hierom and the Author of these Homilies to be guilty of the Doctrine of Iohn Hus, who for the crude delivery of this truth was sentenced by the councell of Constance. To the same sense and signification of Doctrine is that which is generally agreed upon by almost all persons; that he that enters into his Ministery by Simony receives nothing but a curse, which is expresly affirmed by Petrus Damiani Ep. 16. Biblioth. pp. tom. 3. 11. 19. and Tarasius Decret. 1. q. 1. ad c. cos qui. the Patriarch B of Constantinople, by St. Gregory Lib. 6. regist. 5. in decretis & l. 7. c. 120., and St. Ambrose. De dignit. sacerd. c. 6..

For if the holy Ghost leaves polluted Temples and unchast bodies, if he takes away his grace from them that abuse it, if the holy Ghost would not have descended upon Simon Magus at the prayer of St. Peter, if St. Peter had taken money for him: it is but reasonable to beleeve the holy Ghost will not descend upon the simoniacall, unchast Concubinaries, Schismaticks and scandalous Priests, and excommunicate. And beside the reasonablenesse of the Doctrine, it is also further affirmed by the councell of Neocaesarea, by St. Can. 9. orat. 4. de sacerd. Chrysostome, 1. in ep. 20. hom. 1. part. 2. ep. 27. Innocentius, Ep. 9. tom. 3 ad Michael. imperator. d. in 4 dist. 13. Nicolaus the first, and by the Master C of the Sentences upon the saying of God by the Prophet Malachic. 1. Maledicam benedictionibus vestris, I will curse your blessings; upon the stock of these Scriptures, reasons, and authorities, we may see how we are to understand this advantage of intercession. The prayer and offices of holy Ministers are of great advantages for the interest of the people; but if they be ministred to by evill men, by vicious, and scandalous Ministers, this extraordinary advantage is lost, they are left to stand alone, or to fall by their own crimes; so much as is the action of God, and so much as is the piety of the man that attends and prayes in the holy place with the Priest, so D far he shall prevail, but no further; and therefore the Church hath taught her Ministers to pray thus in her preparatory prayer to consecration, Quoniam me peccatorem inter te & eundem populum Medium esse voluisti, licet in me boni operis testimonium non agnoscas, officium dispensationiis creditae non recuses, nec per me indignum famulum tuum eorum salutis pereat pretium, pro quibus victima factus salutaris, dignatus es fieri redemptio. For we must know that God hath not put the salvation of any man into the power of another. And although the Church of Rome by calling the Priests actuall intention simply necessary, and the Sacraments also indispensably E necessary, hath left it in the power of every Curate to damn very many of his Parish; yet it is otherwise with the accounts of truth, and the Divine mercy; and therefore he will never exact the Sacraments of us by the measures and proportions of an evill Priest, but by the piety of the communicant, by the prayers of Christ, [Page] A and the mercies of God. But although the greatest interest of salvation depends not upon this Ministery, yet as by this we receive many advantages, if the Minister be holy: so if he be vicious, we lose all that which could be conveyed to us by his part of the holy Ministration; every man and woman in the assembly prays and joynes in the effect, and for the obtaining the blessing; but the more vain persons are assembled, the lesse benefits are received even by good men there present: and therefore much is the losse, if a wicked Priest ministers, though the summe of affairs is not intirely turned upon his office or default; yet many advantages are. B For we must not think that the effect of the Sacraments is indivisibly done, at once, or by one ministery; but they operate by parts, and by morall operation, by the length of time, and a whole order of piety, and holy ministeries; every man is [...], a fellowworker with God in the work of his salvation; and as in our devotion, no one prayer of our own alone prevails upon God for grace and salvation, but all the devotions of our life are upon Gods account for them; so is the blessing of God brought upon the people by all the parts of their religion, and by all assistances of holy people, and by the ministeries not of one, but of all Gods C Ministers, and relies finally upon our own faith, and obedience, and the mercies of God in Jesus Christ; but yet for want of holy persons to minister, much diminution of blessing, and a losse of advantages is unavoidable; therefore if they have great necessities, they can best hope that God will be moved to mercy on their behalf, if their necessities be recommended to God by persons of a great piety, of a holy calling, and by the most solemn offices.

Lastly, I promised to consider concerning the signs of having our prayers heard; concerning which, there is not much of particular observation; but if our prayers be according to the warrant D of Gods Word, if we aske according to Gods will, things honest and profitable, we are to relye upon the promises, and we are sure that they are heard; and besides this, we can have no sign but the thing signified; when we feel the effect, then we are sure God hath heard us; but till then we are to leave it with God, and not to aske a sign of that, for which he hath made us a promise. And yet Cassian hath named one sign, which if you give me leave I will name unto you. It is a sign we shall prevail in our Collat. 9. cap. 32. prayers, when the Spirit of God moves us to pray, cum fiduciâ & quasi securitate impetrandi, with a confidence and a holy security of receiving E what we aske. But this is no otherwise a sign, but because it is a part of the duty; and trusting in God is an endearing him, and doubting is a dishonour to him; and he that doubts hath no faith; for all good prayers relye upon Gods Word; and we must judge of the effect by prudence: for he that askes what is not lawfull, hath made an unholy prayer; if it be lawfull and not profitable, [Page] we are then heard when God denies us; and if both these A be in the prayer, he that doubts is a sinner, and then God will not hear him; but beyond this I know no confidence is warrantable; and if this be a signe of prevailing, then all the prudent prayers of all holy men shall certainely be heard, and because that is certain, we need no further inquiry into signes.

I summe up all in the words of God by the Prophet: Run Ierem. 5. 1. to and fro thorow the streets of Jerusalem, and see, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can finde a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh truth, virum quaerentem fidem, a man that seeketh for faith, & propitius ero ei, B and I will pardon it. God would pardon all Jerusalem for one good mans sake; there are such dayes and opportunities of mercy when God at the prayer of one holy person will save a people; and Ruffinus spake a great thing, but it was hugely true: Quis dubitet mundum stare precibus sanctorum? the world it self is established and kept from dissolution by the prayers of Saints; and the prayers of Saints shall hasten the day of Judgement; and we cannot easily find two effects greater. But there are many other very great ones; for the prayers of holy men appease Gods wrath, drive away temptations, resist and overcome the Devill: Holy prayer procures the ministery and C service of Angels, it rescinds the Decrees of God, it cures sicknesses, and obtains pardon, it arrests the Sun in its course, and staies the wheels of the Charet of the Moon; it rules over all Gods creatures, and opens and shuts the storehouses of rain; it unlocks the cabinet of the womb, and quenches the violence of fire, it stops the mouthes of Lions, and reconciles our sufferance and weak faculties, with the violence of torment, and sharpnesse of persecution; it pleases God and supplies all our needs. But Prayer that can do thus much for us, can do nothing at all without holinesse; for God heareth not sinners, but if any man be a worshipper of D God and doth his will, him he heareth.

Sermon, VII. Of godly Fear, &c. Part I.

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Heb. 12. part of the 28th. and the 29th. verses.‘Let us have Grace whereby we may serve God with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.’

E [...], so our Testaments usually read it from the authority of Theophylact; Let us have grace: But some copies read it in the indicative mood [...], we have grace, by which we do serve; and it is something better consonant to the discourse of the Apostle. For having enumerated the great advantages which the Gospell D hath above those of the Law, he makes an argument à majori; and answers a tacite objection. The Law was delivered by Angels, but the Gospell by the Son of God: The Law was delivered from Mount Sinai, the Gospell from Mount Sion, from the heavenly Jerusalem: The Law was given with terrors and noises, with amazements of the standers by, and Moses himself the Minister did exceedingly quake and fear, and gave demonstration how infinitely dangerous it was by breaking that Law to provoke so mighty a God, who with his voice did shake the earth; but the Gospell was given by a meek Prince, a gentle Saviour, with a still voice, E scarce heard in the streets. But that this may be no objection, he proceeds and declares the terror of the Lord; Deceive not your selves, our Law-giver appeared so upon earth, and was so truly, but now he is ascended into heaven, and from thence he speaks to us. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh, for if they escaped not Vers. 25. who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape [Page] if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: for as God A once shaked the earth, and that was full of terror, so our Lawgiver shall do, and much more, and be farre more terrible, [...], said the Prophet Haggai, 2. 7. which the Apostle quotes here, he once shook the earth. But, once more I shake, [...], it is in the Prophesie; I will shake not the earth only, but also heaven with a greater terror then was upon Mount Sinai, with the voice of an Archangell, with the trump of God, with a concussion so great, that heaven and earth shall be shaken in pieces, and new ones come in their room. This is an unspeakable and an unimaginable terror: Mount Sinai was shaken, but it stands to this day, but B when that shaking shall be, the things that are shaken shall be no more; that those things that cannot be shaken may remain, that is, not only that the clestiall Jerusalem may remain for ever, but that you who do not turn away from the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus, you who cannot be shaken nor removed from your duty, you may remain for ever; that when the rocks rend, and the mountains flie in pieces like the drops of a broken cloud, and the heavens shall melt, and the Sun shall be a globe of consuming fire, and the Moon shall be dark like an extinguish'd candle, then you poor men who could be made to tremble with an ague, or shake by C the violence of a Northern winde, or be remov'd from your dwellings by the unjust decree of a persecutor, or be thrown from your estates by the violence of an unjust man, yet could not be removed from your duty, and though you went trembling, yet would go to death for the testimony of a holy cause, and you that would dye for your faith would also live according to it; you shall be established by the power of God, and supported by the arme of your Lord, and shall in all this great shaking be unmovable as the corner stone of the gates of the new Jerusalem, you shall remain and abide for ever. This is your case. And to summe up the D whole force of the argument, the Apostle addes the words of Moses: Deut. 4. 24. as it was then, so it is true now, Our God is a consuming fire: He was so to them that brake the Law, but he will be much more to them that disobey his Son, he made great changes then, but those which remain are farre greater, and his terrors are infinitely more intolerable; and therefore although he came not in the spirit of Elias, but with meeknesse and gentle insinuations, soft as the breath of heaven, not willing to disturb the softest stalk of a violet, yet his second coming shall be with terrors, such as shall amaze all the world, and dissolve it into ruine, and a Chaos. This truth is of so E great efficacy to make us do our duty, that now we are sufficiently enabled with this consideration. This is the grace which we have to enable us, this terror will produce fear, and fear will produce obedience, and we therefore have grace, that is, we have such a motive to make us reverence God and fear to offend him, that he [Page] A that dares continue in sin and refuses to hear him that speaks to us from heaven, and from thence shall come with terrors, this man despises the grace of God, he is a gracelesse, fearlesse, impudent man, and he shall finde that true in hypothesi, and in his own ruine, which the Apostle declares in thesi, and by way of caution, and provisior ary terror, Our God is a consuming fire; this is the sense and design of the text.

Reverence and godly fear, they are the effects of this consideration, they are the duties of every Christian, they are the grace of God. I shall not presse them only to purposes of awfulnesse and B modesty of opinion, and prayers against those strange doctrines which some have introduc'd into Religion, to the destruction of all manners and prudent apprehensions of the distances of God and man; such as are the Doctrine of necessity of familiarity with God, and a civill friendship, and a parity of estate, and an unevennesse of adoption; from whence proceed rudenesse in prayers, flat and undecent expressions, affected rudenesse, superstitious sitting at the holy Sacrament, making it to be a part of Religion to be without fear and reverence; the stating of the Question is a sufficient reproof of this folly; whatsoever actions are brought into Religion C without reverence and godly fear, are therefore to be avoided because they are condemned in this advice of the Apostle, and are destructive of those effects which are to be imprinted upon our spirits by the terrors of the day of Judgement. But this fear and reverence the Apostle intends should be a deletery to all sin whatsoever: [...], sayes the Etymologicum, whatsoever is terrible is destructive of that thing for which it is so; and if we fear the evill effects of sin, let us flie from it, we ought to fear its alluring face too; let us be so afraid, that we may not dare to refuse to hear him whose Throne is heaven, whose Voice D is thunder, whose Tribunall is clouds, whose Seat is the right hand of God, whose Word is with power, whose Law is given with mighty demonstration of the Spirit, who shall reward with heaven and joyes eternall, and who punishes his rebels that will not have him to reign over them, with brimstone and fire, with a worm that never dies, and a fire that never is quenched; let us fear him who is terrible in his Judgements, just in his his dispensation, secret in his providence, severe in his demands, gracious in his assistances, bountifull in his gifts, and is never wanting to us in what we need; and if all this be not argument strong enough to produce E fear, and that fear great enough to secure obedience, all arguments are uselesse, all discourses are vain, the grace of God is ineffective, and we are dull as the Dead sea, unactive as a rock, and we shall never dwell with God in any sense, but as he is a consuming fire, that is, dwell in the everlasting burnings.

[...], Reverence and caution, modesty and fear, [...] [Page] [...], so it is in some copies, with caution and fear; or if we render A [...] to be fear of punishment, as it is generally understood by interpreters of this place, and is in Hesychius [...], then the expression is the same in both words, and it is all one with the other places of Scripture, Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, degrees of the same duty, and they signifie all those actions and graces which are the proper effluxes of fear; such as are reverence, prudence, caution, and diligence, chastity and a sober spirit: [...], so also say the Grammarians; and it means plainly this; since our God will appear so terrible at his second comming, let us passe the time of our sojourning 1 Pet. 1. 17. B here in fear, that is, modestly without too great confidence of our selves; soberly without bold crimes, which when a man acts he must put on shamelesnesse; reverently towards God, as fearing to offend him; diligently observing his commandements, inquiring after his will, trembling at his voice, attending to his Word, revering his judgements, fearing to provoke him to anger, for it is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Thus far it is a duty.

Concerning which, that I may proceed orderly, I shall first consider how far fear is a duty of Christian Religion. 2. Who C and what states of men ought to fear, and upon what reasons. 3. What is the excesse of fear, or the obliquity and irregularity whereby it becomes dangerous, penall, and criminall, a state of evill and not a state of duty.

1. Fear is taken sometimes in holy Scripture for the whole duty of man, for his whole Religion towards God. And now Israel what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy Deut. 10. 12. God, &c. fear is obedience, and fear is love, and fear is humility, because it is the parent of all these, and is taken for the whole duty to which it is an introduction. The fear of the Lord is the beginning Psal. 111. 10. D of wisdome, a good understanding have all they that do thereafter, Eccles. 12. 13. the praise of it endureth for ever; and, Fear God and keep his 2 Cor. 7. 1. Commandements, for this is the whole duty of man: and thus it is also used in the New Testament: Let us cleanse our selves from all filthinesse of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holinesse in the fear of God. 2. Fear is sometimes taken for worship: for so our blessed Saviour expounds the words of Moses in Mat. 4. 10. taken from Deut. 10. 20. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, so Moses; Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve, said our blessed Saviour: and so it was used by the Prophet Jonah, I am an Hebrew, and I fear the Ionah 1. 9. E Lord the God of Heaven, that is, I worship him; he is the Deity that I adore, that is my worship and my Religion; and because the new Colony of Assyrians did not do so, at the beginning of 2 King. 17. 25. their dwelling there, they feared not the Lord, that is, they worshipped other Gods, and not the God of Israel, therefore God [Page] A sent Lions among them which slew many of them. Thus far fear is not a distinct duty, but a word signifying something besides it self; and therefore cannot come into the consideration of this text. Therefore 3. Fear as it is a religious passion is divided as the two Testaments are; and relates to the old and new Covenant, and accordingly hath its distinction. In the Law, God used his people like servants; in the Gospell, he hath made us to be sons. In the Law he enjoyn'd many things, hard, intricate, various, painfull, and expensive; in the Gospell he gave commandements, not hard, but full of pleasure, necessary and profitable to our life, and well being of single B persons and communities of men. In the Law, he hath exacted those many precepts by the covenant of exact measures, grains and scruples; in the Gospel, he makes abatement for humane infirmities, temptations, morall necessities, mistakes, errors, for every thing that is pitiable, for every thing that is not malicious, and voluntary. In the Law, there are many threatnings, and but few promises, the promise of temporal prosperities branch'd into single instances; in the Gospell, there are but few threatnings, and many promises: And when God by Moses gave the 10 Commandements, only one of them was sent out with a promise, the precept of obedience to all our parents and superiors; C but when Christ in his first Sermon recommended 8 duties, Christian duties to the College of Disciples, every one of them begins with a blessing and ends with a promise, and therefore grace is opposed to the Law. So that upon these differing interests, the world Mat. 5. ad v. 10. Ioh. 1. 17. Rom. 6. 14, 15. put on the affections of Servants, and Sons: They of old feared God as a severe Lord, much in his commands, abundant in threatnings, angry in his executions, terrible in his name, in his Majesty, and appearance, dreadfull unto death; and this the Apostle cals [...], The spirit of bondage, or of a servant. But we have not Rom. 6. 15. received that Spirit, [...], unto fear, not a servile fear, but the Spirit D of adoption and a filiall fear we must have; God treats us like sons, he keeps us under discipline, but designs us to the inheritance: and his government is paternall, his disciplines are mercifull, his conduct gentle, his Son is our Brother, and our Brother is our Lord, and our Judge is our Advocate, and our Priest hath felt our infirmities, and therefore knows to pity them, and he is our Lord, and therefore he can relieve them: and from hence we have affections of sons; so that a fear we must not have, and yet a fear we must have; and by these proportions we understand the difference. Malo vereri quàm timeri me à meis, said one in the Comedy, I had rather E be reverend then fear'd by my children. The English doth not well expresse the difference, but the Apostle doth it rarely well. For that which he cals [...] in Rom. 8. 15. he cals [...], 2 Tim. 1. 7. The spirit of bondage is the spirit rather of timorousnesse, of fearfulnesse rather then fear; when we are fearfull that God will use us harshly; or when we think of the accidents that [Page] happen, worse then the things are, when they are proportion'd by A measures of eternity: and from this opinion conceive forc'd resolutions and unwilling obedience. [...], said Aristotle, Good men are guided by reverence, not by fear, and they avoid not that which is afflictive, but that which is dishonest: they are not so good whose rule is otherwise. But that we may take more exact measures, I shall describe the proportions of Christian or godly fear by the following propositions.

1. Godly fear is ever without despair; because Christian fear is an instrument of duty, and that duty without hope can never go forward. B For what should that man do who like Nausiclides [...]; hath neither spring nor harvest, friends nor children, rewards nor hopes? A man will very hardly be brought to deny his own pleasing appetite, when for so doing he cannot hope to have a recompense; when the mind of a man is between hope and fear, it is intent upon its work; at post quam adempta spes est, lassus, curâ confectus stupet, if you take away the hope the minde is weary, spent with care, hindred by amazements; aut aliquem sumpserimus temerariâ in Deos desperatione, saith Arnobius; a despair of mercy makes men to despise God; and the damned in hell when they shall for C ever be without hope, are also without fear; their hope is turned into despair, and their fear into blasphemy, and they curse the fountain of blessing, and revile God to eternall ages. When Dionysius the Tyrant imposed intolerable tributes upon his Sicilian subjects, it amazed them, and they petitioned and cryed for help, and flatter'd him, and fear'd and obey'd him carefully, but he impos'd still new ones, and greater, and at last left them poor as the valleys of Vesuvius, or the top of Aetna; but then all being gone, the people grew idle, and carelesse, and walked in the markets, and publick places, cursing the Tyrant, and bitterly scoffing his person and vices; D which when Dionysius heard, he caused his Publicans and Committees to withdraw their impost; for now, sayes he, they are dangerous, because they are desperate, [...]. when men have nothing left they will despise their Rulers: and so it is in Religion; audaces cogimur essemetu. If our fears be unreasonable, our diligence is none at all, and from whom we hope for nothing, neither benefit nor indemnity, we despise his command and break his yoke, and trample it under our most miserable feet. And therefore Aeschylus cals these people [...], hot, mad, and furious, carelesse of what they do, and he opposes them to pious and holy E people. Let your confidence be allayed with fear, and your fear be sharpned with the intertextures of a holy hope, and the active powers of our souls are furnished with feet and wings, with eyes and hands, with consideration and diligence, with reason and incouragements. But despair is part of the punishment that is in hell, and [Page] A the Devils still do evill things because they never hope to receive a good, nor finde a pardon.

2. Godly fear must alwaies be with honourable opinion of God, without disparagements of his mercies, without quarrellings at the intrigues of his providence, or the rough wayes of his Justice, and therefore it must be ever relative to our selves and our own failings and imperfections. [...], God never walks perversely towards us, unlesse we walk crookedly towards him. And therefore persons that only consider the greatnesse and power of God, and dwell for ever in the meditations of those severe B executions which are transmitted to us by story, or we observe by accident, and conversation, are apt to be jealous concerning God, and fear him as an enemy, or as children fear fire, or women thunder, only because it can hurt them; Saepius illud cogitant quid possit is cujus in ditione sunt, quàm quid debeat facere (Cicero pro Quinctio) they remember oftner what God can do then what he will; being more afrighted at his Judgements, then delighted with his mercy. Such as were the Lacedaemonians, when ever they saw a man grow popu [...]ar, or wise, or beloved, and by consequence powerfull, they turned him out of the countrey: and because they were afraid of C the power of Ismenias, and knew that Pelopidas and Pherenicus and Androclydes could hurt them, if they listed, they banished them from Sparta, but they let Epaminondas alone, [...], as being studious and therefore unactive, and poor and therefore harmlesse; It is harder when men use God thus, and fear him as the great Justiciar of the world, who sits in heaven, and observes all we do, and cannot want excuse to punish all mankinde. But this caution I have now inserted for their sakes whose Schooles and Pulpits raise doctrinall fears concerning God, which if they were true, the greatest part of mankinde would be tempted D to think they have reason not to love God, and all the other part that have not apprehended a reason to hate him, would have very much reason to suspect his severitie, and their own condition. Such are they which say that God hath decreed the greatest part of mankinde to eternall damnation, and that only to declare his severity and to manifest his glory by a triumph in our torments, and rejoycings in the gnashing of our teeth. And they also fear God unreasonably, and speak no good things concerning his Name, who say that God commands us to observe Lawes which are impossible; that think he will condemn innocent persons for errors of Judgement E which they cannot avoid, that condemn whole Nations for different opinions, which they are pleased to call Heresie; that think God will exact the duties of a man by the measures of an Angell, or will not make abatement for all our pitiable infirmities. The precepts of this caution are, that we remember Gods mercy to be over all his works, that is, that he shewes mercy to all his creatures [Page] that need it; that God delights to have his mercy magnified in all A things, and by all persons, and at all times, and will not suffer his greatest honour to be most of all undervalued; and therefore as he that would accuse God of injustice were a blasphemer, so he that suspects his mercy, dishonours God as much, and produces in himself that fear which is the parent of trouble, but no instrument of duty.

3ly. Godly fear is operative, diligent, and instrumentall to caution and strict walking: for so fear is the mother of holy living; and the Apostle urges it by way of upbraiding: What! doe wee 1 Cor. 10. 22. provoke God to anger? are we stronger then he? meaning, that if B we be not strong enough to struggle with a feaver, if our voyces cannot out-roar thunder, if we cannot check the ebbing and flowing of the sea, if we cannot adde one cubit to our stature, how shall we escape the mighty hand of God? And here heighten your apprehensions of the Divine power, of his justice, and severity, of the fiercenesse of his anger, and the sharpnesse of his sword, the heavynesse of his hand, and the swiftnesse of his arrows, as much as ever you can; provided the effect passe on no further, but to make us reverent and obedient: but that fear is unreasonable, servile, and unchristian, that ends in bondage and servile affections, C scruple and trouble, vanity and incredulity, superstition and desperation: Its proper bounds are humble and devout prayers, and a strict and a holy piety, (according to his laws) and glorifications of God, or speaking good things of his holy Name; and then it cannot be amisse: wee must be full of confidence towards God, we must with cheerfulnesse relye upon Gods goodnesse for the issue of our souls, and our finall interest, but this expectation of the Divine mercy must be in the ways of piety. Commit your selves 1 Pet. 4. 19 to God in well-doing as unto a faithfull Creator. Alcibiades was too timorous, who being called from banishment refused to D return, and being asked if he durst not trust his country, answered, [...]: In every thing else, but in the question of his life he would not trust his Mother, lest ignorantly she should mistake the black bean for the white, and intending a favour should doe him a mischief. We must, we may most safely trust God with our souls; the stake is great, but the venture is none at all. For he is our Creator, and he is faithfull; he is our Redeemer, and he bought them at a dear rate; he is our Lord, and they are his own; he prays for them to his heavenly Father, E and therefore he is an interested person. So that he is a Party, and an Advocate, and a Judge too; and therefore there can be no greater security in the world on Gods part: and this is our hope, and our confidence: but because we are but earthen vessels, under a law, and assaulted by enemies, and endangered by temptations, therefore [Page] A it concerns us to fear, lest we make God our enemy, and a party against us: And this brings me to the next part of the consideration; Who and what states of men ought to feare, and for what reasons? for as the former cautions did limit, so this will encourage; those did direct, but this will exercise our godly Feare.

1. I shall not here insist upon the generall reasons of feare, which concern every man, though it be most certain, that every one hath cause to fear, even the most confident, and holy, because his way is dangerous and narrow, troublesome and uneven, full B of ambushes and pitfalls; and I remember what Polynices said in Apud Eurip. in Phoenissis. the Tragedy when he was unjustly throwne from his Fathers Kingdome, and refused to treat of peace but with a sword in his hand, [...] every step is a danger for a valiant man when he walkes in his enemies countrey; and so it is with us; we are espyed by God, and observed by Angels, we are betrayed within, and assaulted without, the Devill is our enemy, and we are fond of his mischiefs; he is crafty, and we love to be abused; hee is malicious, and wee are credulous; hee is powerfull, and wee are weak; hee is too C ready of himself, and yet wee desire to be tempted; the world is alluring, and wee consider not its vanity; sin puts on all pleasures, and yet wee take it though it puts us to pain: In short, wee are vain, and credulous, and sensuall, and trifling; wee are tempted, and tempt our selves, and we sin frequently, and contract evill habits, and they become second natures, and bring in a second death miserable and eternall: Every man hath need to feare, because every man hath weaknesses, and enemies, and temptations, and dangers, and causes of his own. But I shall onely instance in some peculiar sorts of men, who it may be, least think of it, and therefore have D most cause to fear.

1t. Are those of whom the Apostle speaks, Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. [...]) 1 Cor. 10. 12. said the Greek proverb; In ordinary fish we shall never meet with thornes, and spiny prickles: and in persons of an ordinary even course of life we finde it too often, that they have no checks of conscience, or sharp reflexions upon their conditions; they fall into no horrid crimes, and they think all is peace round about them: But you must know, that as Grace is the improvement and bettering of Nature, and Christian graces are the E perfections of Morall habits, and are but new circumstances, formalities, and degrees; so it grows in naturall measures by supernaturall aides, and it hath its degrees, its strengths and weaknesses, its promotions and arrests, its stations and declensions, its direct sicknesses and indispositions; and there is a state of grace that is next to sin; it inclines to evill and dwels with a temptation, its [Page] acts are imperfect, and the man is within the Kingdome, but he A lives in its borders, and is dubiae jurisdictionis. These men have cause to fear; These men seem to stand, but they reel indeed, and decline toward danger and death. Let these men (saith the Apostle) take heed lest they fall, for they shake already; such are persons whom the Scriptures call weak in faith. I doe not mean new beginners in Religion, but such who have dwelt long in its confines, and yet never enter into the heart of the countrey; such whose faith is tempted, whose piety does not grow, such who yeeld a little, people that doe all that they can lawfully doe, and study how much is lawfull, that they may lose nothing of a temporall B interest: people that will not be Martyrs in any degree, and yet have good affections, and love the cause of Religion, and yet will suffer nothing for it: these are such which the Apostle speaks, [...], They think they stand, and so they doe, upon one leg, that is, so long as they are untempted; but when the Tempter comes, then they fall and bemoan themselves, that by losing peace they lost their inheritance. There are a great many sorts of such persons: some when they are full, are content, and rejoyce in Gods providence, but murmur and are amazed when they fall into poverty. They are chaste so long as they are within the protection C of marriage, but when they return to liberty they fall into bondage, and complain they cannot help it; They are temperate and sober, if you let them alone at home, but call them abroad and they will lose their sober thoughts, as Dinah did her honour, by going into new company. These men in these estates think they stand, but God knows they are soon weary, and stand stiffe as a Cane, which the heat of the Sirian star or the flames of the Sun cannot bend; but one sigh of a Northern wind shakes them into the tremblings of a palsey: In this the best advice is, that such persons should watch their own infirmities, and see on which side they are most open, D and by what enemies they use to fall, and to fly from such parties as they would avoid death. But certainly they have great cause to fear, who are sure to be sick when the weather changes; or can no longer retain their possession but till an enemy please to take it away, or will preserve their honour but till some smiling temptation aske them to forgoe it.

2ly. They also have great reason to fear whose repentance is broken into fragments, and is never a whole or entire change of life: I mean those that resolve against a sin, and pray against it, and hate it in all the resolutions of their understanding, till that unlucky period comes E in which they use to act it, but then they sin as certainly as they will infallibly repent it, when they have done: these are a very great many Christians who are esteemed of the better sort of penitents, yet feel this feaverish repentance to be their best state of health; they fall certainly in the returns of the same circumstances, or at a certain distance [Page] A of time, but God knows they doe not get the victory over their sin, but are within its power. For this is certain, they who sin and repent, and sin again in the same or the like circumstances, are in some degree under the power and dominion of sin; when their actions can be reduc'd to an order or a method, to a rule or a certainty, that oftner hits then fails, that sin is habituall; though it be the least habit, yet a habit it is; every course, or order, or method of sin, every constant or periodicall return, every return that can be regularly observed, or which a man can foresee, or probably foretell, even then when he does not intend it, but prays against it, every such sin B is to be reckoned not for a single action, or upon the accounts of a pardonable infirmity, but it is a combination, an evill state, such a thing as the man ought to feare concerning himselfe, lest he be surpriz'd and call'd from this world before this evill state be altered: for if he be, his securities are but slender, and his hopes will deceive him. It was a severe doctrine that was maintain'd by some great Clerks and holy men in the Primitive Church, ‘That Repentance was to be but once after Baptism: One Faith, one Lord, one Baptisme; one Repentance;’ Heb. 6. 6. Heb. 10 26. 2 Pet. 2. 22. all these the Scripture saith; and it is true, if by repentance we mean the entire C change of our condition; for he that returns willingly to the state of an unbeleeving, or a heathen profane person, intirely, and choosingly, in defiance of, and apostasie from his Religion, cannot be renew'd againe (as the Apostle twice affirms in his Epistle to the Hebrews). But then, concerning this state of Apostasie, when it hapned in the case, not of Faith, but of Charity and obedience, there were many fears and jealousies: they were therefore very severe in their doctrines, lest men should fall into so evill a condition, they enlarged their fear that they might be stricter in their duty; and generally this they did beleeve, that every second repentance was D worse then the first, and the third worse then the second, and still as the sin returned, the Spirit of God did the lesse love to inhabit; and if he were provoked too often, would so withdraw his aides and comfortable cohabitation, that the Church had little comfort in such children; so said Clemens Alexandr. stromat. 2. [...], ‘Those frequent and alternate repentances, that is, repentances and sinnings interchangeably, differ not from the conditions of men that are not within the covenant of grace, from them that are not beleevers, [...], save onely (says E he) that these men perceive that they sin,’ they doe it more against their conscience then infidels and unbeleevers; and therefore they doe it with lesse honesty and excuse, [...], ‘I know not which is worse, either to sin knowingly or wilfully, or to repent of our sin, and sin it over again.’ And the same severe [Page] doctrine is delivered by Theodoret in his 12 book against the Greeks, A and is hugely agreeable to the discipline of the Primitive Church: And it is a truth of so great severity, that it ought to quicken the repentance and sowre the gayeties of easy people, and make them fear, whose repentance is therefore ineffectuall, because it is not integrall or united, but broken in pieces by the intervention of new crimes; so that the repentance is every time to begin anew; and then let it be considered what growth that repentance can make that is never above a week old, that is for ever in its infancy, that is still in its birth, that never gets the dominion over sin. These men, I say, ought to fear, lest God reject their persons, and deride the folly of B their new begun repentances, and at last be weary of giving them more opportunities, since they approve all, and make use of none, their understanding is right and their will a slave, their reason is for God and their affections for sin; these men (as the Apostles expression is) walk not as wise but as fools: for we deride the folly of those men that resolve upon the same thing a thousand times, and never keep one of those resolutions. These men are vaine and light, easy and effeminate, childish and abused; these are they of whom our blessed Saviour said those sad decretory words, Many shall strive to enter in, and shall not be able. C

SERMON, VIII. Part II.

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B 3. THey have great reason to feare, whose sins are not yet remitted; for they are within the dominion of sin, within the Kingdome of darknesse, and the regions of feare: Light makes us confident, and Sin checks the spirit of a man into the pusillanimity and cowardize of a girle or a conscious boy: and they doe their work in the days of peace and a wealthy fortune, and come to pay their symbole in a warre or in a plague; then they spend of their treasure of wrath, which they laid up in C their vessels of dishonour! And indeed, want of feare brought them to it; for if they had known how to have accounted concerning the changes of mortality, if they could have reckoned right concerning Gods judgements falling upon sinners, and remembred that themselves are no more to God then that Brother of theirs that died in a drunken surfeit, or was kill'd in a Rebell warre, or was before his grave corrupted by the shames of lust; if they could have told the minutes of their life, and passed on towards their grave at least in religious and sober thoughts, and consider'd that there must come a time for them to die, and after D death comes judgement, a fearfull and an intolerable judgement, it would not have come to this passe, in which their present condition of affairs doe amaze them, and their sin hath made them lyable unto death, and that death is the beginning of an eternall evill. In this case it is naturall to fear; and if men consider their condition, and know that all the felicity, and all the security they can have, depends upon Gods mercy pardoning their sins, they cannot choose but fear infinitely, if they have not reason to hope that their sins are pardoned. * Now concerning this, men indeed have generally taken a course to put this affair to a very speedy issue. E God is mercifull, and God forgive mee, and all is done: or it may be a few sighs, like the deep sobbings of a man that is almost dead with laughter, that is, a trifling sorrow returning upon a man after he is full of sin, and hath pleased himselfe with violence, and revolving onely by a naturall change from sin to sorrow, from laughter to a groan, from sunshine to a cloudy day; or it may [Page] be the good man hath left some one sin quite, or some degrees of A all sin, and then the conclusion is firm, he is rectus in Cur [...]â, his sins are pardoned, he was indeed in an evill condition, but now he is purged, he is sanctified and clean. These things are very bad, but it is much worse that men should continue in their sin, and grow old in it, and arrive at consirmation, and the strength of habituall wickednesse, and grow fond of it, and yet think if they die, their account stands as fair in the eyes of Gods mercy, as St. Peter's after his tears and sorrow. Our sins are not pardoned easily and quickly; and the longer and the greater hath been the iniquity, the harder and more difficult and uncertain is the pardon; it is a great B progresse to return from all the degrees of death to life, to motion, to quicknesse, to purity, to acceptation, to grace, to contention, and growth in grace, to perseverance, and so to pardon. For pardon stands no where but at the gates of heaven. It is a great mercy that signifies a finall and universall acquittance. God sends it out in little scroles, and excuses you from falling by the sword of the enemy, or the secret stroke of an Angell in the days of the plague; but these are but little entertainments and inticings of our hopes to work on towards the great pardon which is registred in the leaves of the Book of Life. And it is a mighty folly C to think, that every little line of mercy signifies glory and absolution from the eternall wrath of God; and therefore it is not to be wondred at, that wicked men are unwilling to dye; it is a greater wonder that many of them dye with so little resentment of their danger and their evill. There is reason for them to tremble when the Judge summons them to appear. When his messenger is clothed with horror, and speaks in thunder; when their conscience is their accuser, and their accusation is great, and their bills uncancell'd, and they have no title to the crosse of Christ, no advocate, no excuse; when God is their enemy, and Christ is the D injur'd person, and the Spirit is grieved, and sicknesse and death come to plead Gods cause against the man; then there is reason that the naturall fears of death should be high and pungent, and those naturall fears encreased by the reasonable and certain expectations of that anger which God hath laid up in heaven for ever, to consume and destroy his enemies.

And indeed if we consider upon how trifling and inconsiderable grounds most men hope for pardon (if at least that may be call'd hope, which is nothing but a carelesse boldnesse, and an unreasonable wilfull confidence) we shall see much cause to pity very E many who are going merrily to a sad and intolerable death. Pardon of sins is a mercy which Christ purchased with his dearest blood, which he ministers to us upon conditions of an infinite kindnesse, but yet of great holinesse and obedience, and an active living faith; it is a grace, that the most holy persons beg of God [Page] A with mighty passion, and labour for with a great diligence, and expect with trembling fears, and concerning it many times suffer sadnesses with uncertain soules, and receive it by degrees, and it enters upon them by little portions, and it is broken as their sighs and sleeps. But so have I seen the returning sea enter upon the strand, and the waters rolling towards the shore, throw up little portions of the tide, and retire as if nature meant to play, and not to change the abode of waters; but still the floud crept by little steppings, and invaded more by his progressions then he lost by his retreat, and having told the number of its B steps, it possesses its new portion till the Angell calls it back, that it may leave its unfaithfull dwelling of the sand: so is the pardon of our sins, it comes by slow motions, and first quits a present death, and turnes, it may be, into a sharp sicknesse; and if that sicknesse prove not health to the soul, it washes off, and it may be will dash against the rock again, and proceed to take off the severall instances of anger, and the periods of wrath; but all this while it is uncertain concerning our finall interest, whether it be ebbe or floud; and every hearty prayer, and every bountifull almes still enlarges the pardon, or addes a degree of probability C and hope; and then a drunken meeting, or a covetous desire, or an act of lust, or looser swearing, idle talk, or neglect of Religion, makes the pardon retire; and while it is disputed between Christ and Christs enemy who shall be Lord, the pardon fluctuates like the wave, striving to climbe the rock, and is wash'd off like its own retinue, and it gets possession by time and uncertainty, by difficulty, and the degrees of a hard progression. When David had sinned but in one instance, interrupting the course of a holy life by one sad calamity, it pleased God to pardon him; but see upon what hard terms: He prayed long, and violently, he wept D sorely, he was humbled in sackcloth and ashes, he eat the bread of affliction, and drank of his bottle of tears; he lost his Princely spirit, and had an amazing conscience; he suffer'd the wrath of God, and the sword never did depart from his house, his Son rebell'd, and his Kingdome revolted; he fled on foot, and maintained Spies against his childe, hee was forc'd to send an army against him that was dearer then his owne eyes, and to fight against him whom he would not hurt for all the riches of Syria and Egypt; his concubines were desir'd by an incestuous mixture, in the face of the sun before all Israel, and his childe that was E the fruit of his sin, after a 7 days feaver dyed, and left him nothing of his sin to show, but sorrow, and the scourges of the Divine vengeance; and after all this, God pardoned him finally, because he was for ever sorrowfull, and never did the sin againe. He that hath sinned a thousand times for David's once, is too confident, if he thinks that all his shall be pardoned at a lesse [Page] rate then was used to expiate that one mischief of the religious King: A The son of David died for his father David, as well as he did for us; he was the Lambe slain from the beginning of the world; and yet that death, and that relation, and all the heap of the Divine favours which crown'd David with a circle richer then the royall diadem, could not exempt him from the portion of sinners, when he descended into their pollutions. I pray God we may find the sure mercies of David, and may have our portion in the redemption wrought by the Son of David; but we are to expect it upon such terms as are revealed, such which include time, and labour, and uncertainty, and watchfulnesse, and fear, and holy living. But B it is a sad observation that the case of pardon of sins is so administred, that they that are most sure of it have the greatest fears concerning it, and they to whom it doth not belong at all are as confident as children and fooles, who believe every thing they have a mind to, not because they have reason so to doe, but because without it they are presently miserable. The godly and holy persons of the Church, work out their salvation with fear and trembling; and the wicked goe to destruction with gayety and confidence: these men think all is well, while they are in the gall of bitternesse, and good men are tossed in a tempest, crying and praying C for a safe conduct, and the sighs of their feares, and the wind of their prayers waft them safely to their port. Pardon of sins is not easily obtain'd; because they who onely certainly can receive it, find difficulty, and danger, and fears in the obtaining it; and therefore their case is pityable and deplorable, who when they have least reason to expect pardon, yet are most confident and carelesse.

But because there are sorrows on one side and dangers on the other, and temptations on both sides, it will concern all sorts of men to know when their sins are pardoned. For then when they D can perceive their signes certain and evident, they may rest in their expectations of the Divine mercies; when they cannot see the signes, they may leave their confidence, and change it into repentance, and watchfulnesse, and stricter observation; and in order to this, I shall tell you that which shall never faile you; a certaine signe that you may know whether or no, and when, and in what degree your persons are pardoned.

1. I shall not consider the evils of sin by any Metaphysicall and 1. abstracted effects, but by sensible, reall, and materiall. Hee that revenges himself of another, does something that will make his E enemy grieve, something that shall displease the offender as much as sin did the offended; and therefore all the evills of sin are such as relate to us, and are to bee estimated by our apprehensions. Sin makes God angry, and Gods anger if it be turned aside will make us miserable and accursed, and therefore in proportion to [Page] A this we are to reckon the proportions of Gods mercy in forgivenesse, or his anger in retaining.

2. Sin hath obliged us to suffer many evills, even whatsoever 2. the anger of God is pleased to inflict; sicknesse and dishonour, poverty and shame, a caytive spirit, and a guilty conscience, famine and war, plague and pestilence, sudden death and a short life, temporall death or death eternall, according as God in the severall covenants of the Law and Gospel hath expressed.

3. For in the law of Moses sin bound them to nothing but temporall evills, 3. but they were sore, and heavy, and many; but these only B there were threatned; in the Gospel Christ added the menaces of evills, spirituall and eternall.

4. The great evill of the Jews was their abscission and cutting off 4. from being Gods people, to which eternall damnation answers amongst us; and as sicknesse, and war, and other intermediall evills were lesser strokes in order to the finall anger of God against their Nation, so are these and spirituall evills intermediall, in order to the Eternall destruction of sinning and unrepenting Christians.

5. When God had visited any of the sinners of Israel with a grievous 5. C sicknesse, then they lay under the evill of their sin, and were not pardoned till God took away the sicknesse; but the taking the evill away, the evill of the punishment, was the pardon of the sin; to pardon the sin is to spare the sinner: and this appears; For when Christ had said to the man sick of the palsey, Son thy sins are forgiven Mat. 9. 2. thee, the Pharisees accused him of blasphemy, because none had power to forgive sins but God onely; Christ to vindicate himselfe gives them an ocular demonstration, and proves his words: that yee may know the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, he saith to the man sick of the palsey, Arise and walk; then D he pardoned the sin, when he took away the sicknesse, and proved the power by reducing it to act: for if pardon of sins be any thing else, it must be easier or harder: if it be easier, then sin hath not so much evill in it as a sicknesse, which no Religion as yet ever taught. If it be harder, then Christs power to doe that which was harder, could not be proved by doing that which was easier. It remaines therefore, that it is the same thing to take the punishment away, as to procure or give the pardon; because as the retaining the sin was an obligation to the evill of punishment, so the remitting the sin is the disobliging to its penalty. So farre then the case is E manifest.

6. The next step is this, that although in the Gospel God punishes sinners with temporall judgements, and sicknesses, and deaths, 6. with sad accidents, and evill Angels, and messengers of wrath; yet besides these lesser strokes, he hath scorpions to chastise, and loads of worse evils to oppresse the disobedient: he punishes one sin with [Page] another, vile acts with evill habits, these with a hard heart, and this A with obstinacy, and obstinacy with impenitence, and impenitence with damnation. Now because the worst of evills which are threatned to us are such which consign to hell by persevering in sin, as God takes off our love and our affections, our relations and bondage under sin, just in the same degree he pardons us; because the punishment of sin being taken off and pardoned, there can remaine no guilt. Guiltinesse is an unsignificant word, if there be no obligation to punishment. Since therefore spirituall evils, and progressions in sin, and the spirit of reprobation, and impenitence, and accursed habits, and perseverance in iniquity are the worst of evils, when these B are taken off, the sin hath lost its venome, and appendant curse; for sin passes on to eternall death onely by the line of impenitence, and it can never carry us to hell, if we repent timely and effectually; in the same degree therefore that any man leaves his sin, just in the same degree he is pardoned, and he is sure of it. For although curing the temporall evill was the pardon of sins among the Jews, yet wee must reckon our pardon by curing the spirituall. If I have sinned against God in the shamefull crime of Lust, then God hath pardoned my sins, when upon my repentance and prayers he hath given me the grace of Chastity. My Drunkennesse is forgiven, when I have C acquir'd the grace of Temperance, and a sober spirit. My Covetousnesse shall no more be a damning sin, when I have a loving and charitable spirit; loving to do good, and despising the world: for every further degree of sin being a neerer step to hell, and by consequence the worst punishment of sin, it follows inevitably, that according as we are put into a contrary state, so are our degrees of pardon, and the worst punishment is already taken off. And therefore we shall find that the great blessing, and pardon, and redemption which Christ wrought for us, is called sanctification, holinesse, and turning us away from our sins: So St. Peter, Yee know that you D were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from 1 Pet. 1. 18. your vain conversation; that's your redemption, that's your deliverance: you were taken from your sinfull state, that was the state of death, this of life and pardon; and therefore they are made Synonyma by the same Apostle, According as his divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godlinesse: to live and 2 Ep. 1. 3. to be godly, is all one; to remain in sin and abide in death, is all one; to redeem us from sin, is to snatch us from hell; he that gives us godlinesse, gives us life, and that supposes pardon, or the abolition of the rites of eternall death: and this was the conclusion of E St. Peter's Sermon, and the summe totall of our redemption and of Act. 3. 26. our pardon; God having raised up his Son, sent him to blesse us in turning away every one of you from your iniquity; this is the end of Christs passion and bitter death, the purpose of all his and all our preaching, the effect of baptisme, purging, washing, sanctifying; [Page] A the work of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper, the same body that was broken, and the same blood that was shed for our redemption, is to conform us into his image and likenesse of living and dying, of doing and suffering; The case is plain, just as we leave our sins, so Gods wrath shall be taken from us; as we get the graces contrary to our former vices, so infallibly we are consign'd to pardon. If therefore you are in contestation against sin; while you dwell in difficulty, and sometimes yeeld to sin, and sometimes overcome it, your pardon is uncertain, and is not discernible in its progresse; but when sin is mortified and your lusts are dead, and B under the power of grace, and you are led by the Spirit, all your fears concerning your state of pardon are causelesse, and afflictive without reason; but so long as you live at the old rate of lust or intemperance, of covetousnesse or vanity, of tyranny or oppression, of carelesnesse or irreligion, flatter not your selves, you have no more reason to hope for pardon then a begger for a Crown, or a condemned criminall to be made Heir apparent to that Prince whom he would traiterously have slain.

4. They have great reason to fear concerning their condition, who having been in the state of grace, who having begun to lead a good C life, and give their names to God by solemne deliberate acts of will and understanding, and made some progresse in the way of Godlinesse, if they shall retire to folly, and unravell all their holy vows, and commit those evils from which they formerly run as from a fire or inundation, their case hath in it so many evills that they have great reason to fear the anger of God, and concerning the finall issue of their souls. For return to folly hath in it many evils beyond the common state of sin and death; and such evils which are most contrary to the hopes of pardon. 1. He that falls back into those sins he hath repented of, does grieve the holy Spirit of God by which 1. D he was sealed to the day of redemption. For so the Antithesis is plain and obvious; If at the conversion of a sinner there is joy before the beatified Spirits, the Angels of God, and that is the consummation of our pardon and our consignation to felicity, then we may imagine how great an evill it is to grieve the Spirit of God, who is greater then the Angels. The Children of Israel were carefully warned that they should not offend the Angel: Behold, I send an Angel Exod. 23. 20. 21. before thee, beware of him, and obey his voyce, provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions, that is, he will not spare to punish you if you grieve him: Much greater is the evill E if we grieve him who sits upon the throne of God, who is the Prince of all the Spirits: and besides, grieving the Spirit of God is an affection that is as contrary to his felicity, as lust is to his holinesse; both which are essentiall to him. Tristitia enim omnium spirituum nequissima est, & pessima servis Dei, & omnium spiritus exterminat, & cruciat Spiritum sanctum, said Hennas: Sadnesse is the greatest [Page] enemy to Gods servants; if you grieve Gods Spirit, you cast A him out; for he cannot dwell with sorrow and grieving; unlesse it be such a sorrow which by the way of vertue passes on to joy and never ceasing felicity. Now by grieving the holy Spirit, is meant, those things which displease him, doing unkindnesse to him, and then the grief which cannot in proper sense seise upon him will in certain effects return upon us: Ita enim dica (said Seneca) sacer intra nos Spiritus sedet, bonorum, malorúmque nostrorum observator & custos, hic prout à nobis tractatus est, ita nos ipse tractat. There is a holy spirit dwels in every good man, who is the observer and guardian of all our actions, and as we treat him, so will he treat us. Now we B ought to treat him sweetly and tenderly, thankfully and with observation. Deus praecepit Spiritum sanctum, utpote pro naturae suae bono tenerum & delicatum, tranquillitate, & lenitate, & quiete, & pace tractare, said Tertullian de Spectaculis. The Spirit of God is a loving and a kind Spirit, gentle and easy, chast and pure, righteous and peaceable, and when he hath done so much for us as to wash us from our impurities, and to cleanse us from our stains, and streighten our obliquities, and to instruct our ignorances, and to snatch us from an intolerable death, and to consign us to the day of redemption, that is, to the resurrection of our bodies from death, corruption, C and the dishonors of the grave, and to appease all the storms and uneasynesse, and to make us free as the Sons of God, and furnished with the riches of the Kingdome, and all this with innumerable arts, with difficulty, and in despite of our lusts and reluctancies, with parts and interrupted steps, with waitings and expectations, with watchfulnesse and stratagems, with inspirations and collaterall assistances, after all this grace, and bounty, and diligence, that we should despite this grace, and trample upon the blessings, and scorn to receive life at so great an expence, and love of God, this is so great a basenesse and unworthynesse, that by troubling the tenderest D passions, it turns into the most bitter hostilities; by abusing Gods love it turns into jealousie, and rage, and indignation. Goe and sin no more, lest a worse thing happen to thee.

2. Falling away after we have begun to live well is a great cause of fear, because there is added to it the circumstance of inexcuseablenesse. The man hath been taught the secrets of the Kingdome, and therefore his understanding hath been instructed; he hath tasted the pleasures of the Kingdome, and therefore his will hath been sufficiently entertain'd. He was entred into the state of life, and renounced the ways of death, his sin began to be pardoned, and his lusts to be E crucified, he felt the pleasures of victory, and the blessings of peace, and therefore fell away, not onely against his reason, but also against his interest; and to such a person the Questions of his soul have been so perfectly stated, and his prejudices and inevitable abuses so cleerly taken off, and he was so made to view the paths of life and death, [Page] A that if he chooses the way of sin again, it must be, not by weaknesse or the infelicity of his breeding, or the weaknesse of his understanding, but a direct preference or prelation, a preferring sin before grace, the spirit of lust before the purities of the soul, the madnesse of drunkennesse before the fulnesse of the Spirit, money before our friend, and above our Religion, and Heaven, and God himself. This man is not to be pityed upon pretence, that he is betrayed, or to be relieved because he is oppressed with potent enemies, or to be pardoned because he could not help it, for he once did help it, he did overcome his temptation, and choose God, and delight in vertue, B and was an heir of heaven, and was a conqueror over sin and delivered from death; and he may do so still, and Gods grace is upon him more plentifully, and the lust does not tempt so strongly: and if it did, he hath more power to resist it; and therefore if this man fals, it is because he wilfully chooses death, it is the portion that he loves, and descends into with willing and unpityed steps. Quàm vilis facta es nimis iterans vias tuas! said God to Judah. Ier. 2. 36.

3. He that returns from vertue to his old vices, is forced to doe violence to his own reason, to make his conscience quiet: he does it so unreasonably, so against all his fair inducements, so against his reputation, C and the principles of his society, so against his honour, and his promises, and his former discourses and his doctrines, his censuring of men for the same crimes, and the bitter invectives and reproofs which in the dayes of his health and reason he used against his erring Brethren, that he is now constrained to answer his own arguments, he is intangled in his own discourses, he is shamed with his former conversation; and it will be remembred against him, how severely he reproved, and how reasonably he chastised the lust which now he runs to in despite of himself and all his friends. And because this is his condition, he hath no way left him, but either to D be impudent, which is hard for him at first; it being too big a naturall change to passe suddenly from grace to immodest circumstances and hardnesses of face and heart: or else, therefore he must entertain new principles and apply his minde to beleeve a lye; and then begins to argue, There is no necessity of being so severe in my life; greater sinners then I have been saved; Gods mercies are greater then all the sins of man; Christ dyed for us, and if I may not be allowed to sin this sin, what ease have I by his death? or, this sin is necessary, and I cannot avoid it; or, it is questionable, whether this sin is of so deep a die as is pretended; or, flesh and E bloud is alwaies with me, and I cannot shake it off; or, there are some Sects of Christians that do allow it, or if they do not, yet they declare it easily pardonable, upon no hard terms, and very reconcileable with the hopes of heaven; or, the Scriptures are not rightly understood in their pretended condemnations; or else, other men do as bad as this, and there is not one in ten thousand but hath [Page] his private retirements from vertue; or else, when I am old, this A sin will leave me, and God is very pityfull to mankinde. But while the man like an intangled bird flutters in the net, and wildly discomposes that which should support him, and that which holds him, the net and his own wings, that is, the Lawes of God and his own conscience and perswasion, he is resolved to do the thing, and seeks excuses afterwards; and when he hath found out a fig-leav'd apron that he could put on, or a cover for his eyes, that he may not see his own deformity, then he fortifies his error with irresolution and inconsideration; and he beleeves it, because he will; and he will, because it serves his turn: then he is entred upon his state of fear; B and if he does not fear concerning himself, yet his condition is fearfull, and the man haih [...], a reprobate minde, that is, a judgement corrupted by lust: vice hath abused his reasoning, and if God proceeds in the mans method, and lets him alone in his course, and gives him over to beleeve a lye, so that he shall call good evill, and evill good, and come to be heartily perswaded that his excuses are reasonable and his pretences fair, then the man is desperately undone through the ignorance that is in him, as St. Paul describes his condition; his heart is blinde, he is past feeling, Ephes. 4. 17, 18. his understanding is darkned, then he may walk in the vanity C of his minde, and give himself over to lasciviousnesse, and shall work all uncleannesse with greedinesse; then he needs no greater misery: this is the state of evill which his fear ought to have prevented, but now it is past fear, and is to be recovered with sorrow, or else to be run through till death and hell are become his portion; fiunt novissima illus pejora pejoribus, his latter end is worse then his begining. Mat. 12. 45. vide 2 Pet. 2. 20.

4. Besides all this it might easily be added, that he that fals from vertue to vice again, addes the circumstance of ingratitude to his load of sins; he sins against Gods mercy, and puts out his own D eyes; he strives to unlearn, what with labour he hath purchased, and despises the trabell of his holy daies, and throws away the reward of vertue for an interest which himself despised the first day in which he began to take sober counsels; he throws himself back in the accounts of eternity, and slides to the bottome of the hill, from whence with sweat and labour of his hands and knees he had long been creeping; he descends from the spirit to the flesh, from honour to dishonour, from wise principles to unthrifty practises, like one of the vainer fellowes, who grows a fool, and a prodigall, and a begger, because he delights in inconsideration, in the madnesse of E drunkennesse, and the quiet of a lazy and unprofitable life. So that this man hath great cause to fear, and if he does, his fear is as the fear of enemies and not sons; I do not say that it is a fear that is displeasing to God, but it is such a one as may arrive at goodnesse, and the fear of sons, if it be rightly manag'd.

[Page] A For we must know that no fear is displeasing to God; no fear of it self, whether it be fear of punishment, or fear to offend; the fear of servants, or the fear of sons: But the effects of fear doe distinguish the man, and are to be entertain'd or rejected accordingly. If a servile fear makes us to remove our sins, and so passes us towards our pardon and the receiving such graces which may endear our duty and oblige our affection; that fear is imperfect, but not criminall, it is the beginning of wisdome, and the first introduction to it; but if that fear sits still or rests in a servile minde, or a hatred of God, or speaking evill things concerning him, or unwillingnesse to B do our duty, that which at first was indifferent, or at the worst imperfect, proves miserable and malicious; so we do our duty, it is no matter upon what principles we do it; it is no matter where we begin, so from that beginning we passe on to duties and perfection. If we fear God as an enemy, an enemy of our sins and of our persons for their sakes, as yet this fear is but a servile fear, it cannot be a filiall fear since we our selves are not sons; but if this servile fear makes us to desire to be reconcil'd to God, that he may no longer stay at enmity with us, from this fear we shall soon passe to carefulnesse, from carefulnesse to love, from love to diligence, C from diligence to perfection; and the enemies shall become servants, and the servants shall become adopted sons, and passe into the society and the participation of the inheritance of Jesus: for this fear is also reverence, and then our God in stead of being a consuming fire, shall become to us the circle of a glorious crown, and a globe of an eternall light.

SERMON, IX. Part III.

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B I Am now to give account concerning the excesse of fear, not directly and abstractedly as it is a passion, but as it is subjected in Religion, and degenerates into superstition: For so among the Greeks, fear is the ingredient and half of the constitution of that folly; [...] said Hesychius, it is a fear of God, [...] that's more; it is a timorousnesse: the superstitious man is afraid of the gods (said the Etymologist) [...], fearing of God as if he were a tyrant, and an unreasonable exacter of duty upon unequall terms, and disproportionable, impossible degrees, C and unreasonable, and great and little instances.

1. But this fear some of the old Philosophers thought unreasonable in all cases, even towards God himself; and it was a branch of the Epicurean Doctrine, that God medled not any thing below, and was to be loved and admired, but not feared at all; and therefore they taught men neither to fear death, nor to fear punishment after death, nor any displeasure of God: His terroribus ab Epicuro soluti Lib. de nat. Dcorum. non metuimus Deos, said Cicero; and thence came this acceptation of the word, that superstition should signifie an unreasonable fear of God: It is true, he and all his scholars extended the case beyond D the measure, and made all fear unreasonable; but then, if we upon grounds of reason and divine revelation shall better discern the measure, of the fear of God; whatsoever fear we find to be unreasonable, we may by the same reason call it superstition, and reckon it criminall, as they did all fear; that it may be call'd superstition, their authority is sufficient warrant for the grammar of the appellative; and that it is criminall, we shall derive from better principles.

But besides this, there was another part of its definition, [...], the superstitious man is also an Idolater, E [...], one that is afraid of something besides God. The Latines according to their custome, imitating the Greeks in all their learned notices of things, had also the same conception of this, and by their word [Superstitio] understood the worship of Daemons or separate spirits; by which they meant, either their minores Deos, or [Page] A else their [...] their braver personages whose souls were supposed to live after death; the fault of this was the object of their Religion; they gave a worship or a fear to whom it was not due; for when ever they worship'd the great God of heaven and earth, they never cal'd that superstition in an evill sense, except the [...], they that beleeved there was no God at all. Hence came the etymology of superstition: it was a worshipping or fearing the spirits of their dead Heroes, quos superstites credebant, whom they thought to be alive after their [...] or Deification; or, quos superstantes credebant, standing in places and thrones above us; and it B alludes to that admirable description of old age which Solomon made beyond all the Rhetorick of the Greeks and Romans [Also they shall Eccles. 12. 5. be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way] intimating the weaknesse of old persons, who if ever they have been religious, are apt to be abused into superstition; They are afraid of that which is high, that is, of spirits and separate souls, of those excellent beings which dwell in the regions above; meaning, that then they are superstitious. However, fear is most commonly its principle, alwaies its ingredient. For if it enter first by credulity and a weak perswasion, yet it becomes incorporated into the spirit of the C man, and thought necessary, and the action it perswades to dares not be omitted, for fear of an evill themselves dream of: upon this account the sin is reducible to two heads: the 1. is, Superstition of an undue object. 2. Superstition of an undue expression to a right object.

1. Superstition of an undue object, is that which the Etymologist cals [...] the worshipping of idols; the Scripture addes [...] a sacrificing to Daemons 1 Cor. 10. 20. in St. Paul and in 4. 7. 2 Baruch; where although we usually read it sacrificing to Devils, yet it was but accidentall that they were such; for those indeed were evill spirits D who had seduced them, and tempted them to such ungodly rites; (and yet they who were of the Pythagorean sect, pretended a more holy worship, and did their devotion to Angels:) But whosoever shall worship Angels do the same thing; they worship them because they are good and powerfull, as the Gentiles did the Devils whom they thought so; and the error which the Apostle reproves, was not in matter of Judgement, in mistaking bad angels for good, but in matter of manners and choice; they mistook the creature for the Creator; and therefore it is more fully expressed by St. Paul in a Rom. 11. 25. generall signification, they worshipped the creature, [...] besides E the Creator, so it should be read; if we worship any creature besides God, worshipping so as the worship of him becomes a part of Religion, it is also a direct superstition; but concerning this part of superstition, I shall not trouble this discourse, because I know no Christians blamable in this particular but the Church of Rome, and they that communicate with her in the worshipping of Images, of Angels, [Page] A and Saints, burning lights and perfumes to them, making offerings, confidences, advocations and vowes to them, and direct and solemn divine worshipping the Symbols of bread and wine, when they are consecrated in the holy Sacrament. These are direct superstition, as the word is used by all Authors profane and sacred, and are of such evill report, that where ever the word Superstition does signifie any thing criminall, these instances must come under the definition of it. They are [...], a cultus superstitum, a cultus Daemonum, and therefore besides that they have [...], a proper reproof in Christian Religion, are condemned by all wise men, which call superstition criminall. B

But as it is superstition to worship any thing [...] besides the Creator, so it is superstition to worship God [...], otherwise then is decent, proportionable or described. Every inordination of Religion that is not in defect, is properly called superstition: [...], said Maximus Tyrius, The true worshipper is a lover of God, the superstitious man loves him not, but flatters: To which if we adde, that fear, unreasonable fear is also superstition, and an ingredient in its definition; we are taught by this word to signifie all irregularity and inordination in actions of Religion. The summe is this; the C Atheist cal'd all worship of God superstition; the Epicurean cal'd all fear of God superstition, but did not condemn his worship; the other part of wise men cal'd all unreasonable fear, and inordinate worship superstition, but did not condemn all fear: But the Christian, besides this, cals every error in worship in the manner, or excesse, by this name, and condemns it.

Now because the three great actions of Religion are, to worship God, to fear God, and to trust in him, by the inordination of these three actions, we may reckon three sorts of this crime; the excesse of fear, and the obliquity in trust, and the errors in worship, are the D three sorts of superstition: the first of which is only pertinent to our present consideration.

1. Fear is the duty we owe to God as being the God of power and Justice, the great Judge of heaven and earth, the avenger of the cause of Widows, the Patron of the poor, and the Advocate of the oppressed, a mighty God and terrible, and so essentiall an enemy to sin, that he spared not his own Son, but gave him over to death, and to become a sacrifice, when he took upon him our Nature, and became a person obliged for our guilt. Fear is the great bridle of intemperance, the modesty of the spirit, and the restraint of gaieties E and dissolutions; it is the girdle to the soul, and the handmaid to repentance, the arrest of sin, and the cure or antidote to the spirit of reprobation; it preserves our apprehensions of the divine Majesty, and hinders our single actions from combining to sinfull habits; it is the mother of consideration, and the nurse of sober counsels, and [Page] A it puts the soul to fermentation and activity, making A it to passe from trembling to caution, from caution to carefulnesse, from carefulnesse to watchfulnesse, from thence to prudence, and by the gates and progresses of repentance, it leads the soul on to love, and to felicity, and to joyes in God that shall never cease again. Fear is the guard of a man in the dayes of prosperity, and it stands upon the watch-towers and spies the approaching danger, and gives warning to them that laugh loud, and feast in the chambers of rejoycing, where a man cannot consider by reason of the noises of wine, and jest, and musick: and if prudence takes it by the hand, and leads B it on to duty, it is a state of grace, and an universall instrument to infant Religion, and the only security of the lesse perfect persons; and in all senses is that homage we owe to God who sends often to demand it, even then when he speaks in thunder, or smites by a plague, or awakens us by threatning, or discomposes our easinesse by sad thoughts, and tender eyes, and fearfull hearts, and trembling considerations.

But this so excellent grace is soon abused in the best and most tender spirits; in those who are softned by Nature and by Religion, by infelicities or cares, by sudden accidents or a sad soul; C and the Devill observing, that fear like spare diet starves the feavers of lust, and quenches the flames of hell, endevours to highten this abstinence so much as to starve the man, and break the spirit into timorousnesse and scruple, sadnesse and unreasonable tremblings, credulity and trifling observation, suspicion and false accusations of God; and then vice being turned out at the gate, returns in at the postern, and does the work of hell and death by running too inconsiderately in the paths which seem to lead to heaven. But so have I seen a harmlesse dove made dark with an artificiall night, and her eyes ceel'd and lock'd up with a little quill, soaring D upward and flying with amazement, fear and an undiscerning wing, she made toward heaven, but knew not that she was made a train and an instrument, to teach her enemy to prevail upon her and all her defencelesse kindred: so is a superstitious man, zealous and blinde, forward and mistaken, he runs towards heaven as he thinks, but he chooses foolish paths; and out of fear takes any thing that he is told or fancios; and guesses concerning God by measures taken from his own diseases and imperfections. But fear when it is inordinate, is never a good counsellor, nor makes a good friend; and he that fears God as his enemy is the most compleatly miserable E person in the world. For if he with reason beleeves God to be his enemy, then the man needs no other argument to prove that he is undone then this, that the fountain of blessing (in this state in which the man is) will never issue any thing upon him but cursings. But if he fears this without reason, he makes his fears true by the very suspicion of God, doing him dishonour, and then doing [Page] those fond and trifling acts of jealousie which will make God A to be what the man feared he already was; We do not know God, if we can think any hard thing concerning him. If God be mercifull, let us only fear to offend him; but then let us never be fearfull, that he will destroy us when we are carefull not to displease him. There are some persons so miserable and scrupulous, such perpetuall tormentors of themselves with unnecessary fears, that their meat and drink is a snare to their consciences; if they eat, they fear they are gluttons, if they fast, they fear they are hypocrites, and if they would watch, they complain of sleep as of a deadly sin; and every temptation though resisted, makes them cry for pardon; and B every return of such an accident, makes them think God is angry; and every anger of God will break them in pieces.

These persons do not beleeve noble things concerning God, they do not think that he is as ready to pardon them, as they are to pardon a sinning servant; they do not beleeve how much God delights in mercy, nor how wise he is to consider and to make abatement for our unavoidable infirmities; they make judgement of themselves by the measures of an Angell, and take the accounts of God by the proportions of a Tyrant. The best that can be said concerning such persons is, that they are hugely tempted, or hugely C ignorant. For although ignorance is by some persons named the mother of devotion; yet if it fals in a hard ground, it is the mother of Atheisme, if in a soft ground, it is the parent of superstition: but if it proceeds from evill or mean opinions of God, (as such scruples and unreasonable fears do many times) it is an evill of a great impiety, and in some sense, and if it were in equall degrees, is as bad as Atheisme; for he that sayes there was no such man as Julius Caesar, does him lesse displeasure, then he that sayes there was, but that he was a Tyrant, and a bloudy parricide. And the Cimmerians were not esteemed impious for saying that there was no sun in the D heavens; But Anaxagoras was esteemed irreligious for saying the sun was a very stone: And though to deny there is a God is a high impiety and intolerable, yet he sayes worse, who beleeving there is a God sayes, he delights in humane sacrifices, in miseries and death, in tormenting his servants, and punishing their very infelicities and unavoidable mischances. To be God, and to be essentially and infinitely good, is the same thing, and therefore to deny either is to be reckoned among the greatest crimes in the world.

Adde to this, that he that is afraid of God, cannot in that disposition love him at all; for what delight is there in that religion which E drawes me to the Altar as if I were going to be sacrificed, or to the Temples as to the Dens of Bears? Oderant quos metuunt, sea colunt tamen: whom men fear they hate certainly, and flatter readily, and worship timorously; and he that saw Hermolaus converse with Alexander; and Pausanias follow Philip the Macedonian; or Chaeteas [Page] A kissing the feet of Cajus Caligula would have observed how fordid men are made with fear, and how unhappy and how hated Tyrants are in the midst of those acclamations, which are loud, and forc'd, and unnaturall, and without love or fair opinion. And therefore although the Atheist sayes there is no God, the scrupulous, fearfull, and superstitious man does heartily with what the other does beleeve.

But that the evill may be proportionable to the folly, and the punishment to the crime, there is no man more miserable in the world, then the man who fears God as his enemy, and Religion as B a snare, and duty as intolerable, and the Commandements as impossible, and his Judge as implacable, and his anger as certain, unsufferable, and unavoidable: whither shall this man goe? where shall he lay his burden? where shall he take sanctuary? for he fears the Altars as the places where his soul bleeds and dies; and God who is his Saviour he looks upon as his enemy; and because he is Lord of all, the miserable man cannot change his service unlesse it be apparently for a worse. And therefore of all the evils of the minde, fear is certainly the worst and the most intolerable; levity and rashnesse have in it some spritefulnesse, and greatnesse of C action; anger is valiant; desire is busie and apt to hope; credulity is oftentimes entertain'd and pleased with images and appearances: But fear is dull, and sluggish, and treacherous, and flattering, and dissembling, and miserable, and foolish. Every false opinion concerning God is pernicious and dangerous; but if it be joyned with trouble of spirit, as fear, scruple or superstition are, it is like a wound with an inflamation, or a strain of a sinew with a contusion, or contrition of the part, painfull and unsafe; it puts on to actions when it self is driven; it urges reason, and circumscribes it, and makes it pityable, and ridiculous in its consequent follies; which if we D consider it, will sufficiently reprove the folly, and declare the danger.

Almost all ages of the world have observed many instances of fond perswasions and foolish practises proceeding from violent fears and scruples in matter of Religion. Diomedon and many other Captains were condemned to dye, because after a great Naval victory they pursued the flying enemies, and did not first bury their dead. But Chabrias in the same case first buryed the dead, and by that time the enemy rallyed, and returned and beat his Navy, and made his masters pay the price of their importune superstition; they fear'd E where they should not, and where they did not, they should. From hence proceeds observation of signs, and unlucky dayes; and the people did so when the Gregorian account began, continuing to call those unlucky dayes which were so signed in their tradition or Erra pater, although the day upon this account fell 10 dayes sooner; and men were transported with many other trifling contingencies [Page] and little accidents; which when they are one entertain'd A by weaknesse, prevail upon their own strength, and in sad natures and weak spirits have produced effects of great danger and sorrow. Aristodemas King of the Messenians in his warre against the Spartans, prevented the sword of the enemies by a violence done upon himself, only because his dogs howl'd like wolves, and the Soothsayers were afraid because the Briony grew up by the wals of his Fathers house: and Nicias Generall of the Athenian forces sate with his armes in his bosome, and suffered himself and 40000 men tamely to fall by the insolent enemy, only because he was afraid of the labouring and eclipsed Moon. When the Marble statues B in Rome did sweat (as naturally they did against all rainy weather) the Augures gave an alarum to the City; but if lightning struck the spire of the Capitoll, they thought the summe of affairs, and the Commonwealth it self was indanger'd. And this Heathen folly hath stuck so close to the Christian, that all the Sermons of the Church for 1600 years have not cured them all: But the practises of weaker people and the artifice of ruling Priests have superinduced many new ones. When Pope Eugenius sang Masse at Rhemes, and some few drops from the Chalice were spilt upon the pavement, it was thought to foretell mischief, warres, and bloud, to all C Christendome, though it was nothing but carelesnesse and mischance of the Priest: and because Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury sang the Masse of Requiem upon the day he was reconcil'd to his Prince, it was thought to foretell his own death by that religious office: and if men can listen to such whispers, and have not reason and observation enough to confute such trifles, they shall still be afrighted with the noise of birds, and every night-raven shall foretell evill as Micaiah to the King of Israel, and every old woman shall be a Prophetesse, and the events of humane affairs which should be managed by the conduct of counsell, of reason, D and religion, shall succeed by chance, by the flight of birds, and the meeting with an evill eye, by the falling of the salt, or the decay of reason, of wisdome, and the just religion of a man.

To this may be reduc'd the observation of dreams, and fears commenced from the fancies of the night. For the superstitious man does not rest, even when he sleeps, neither is he safe because dreams usually are false, but he is afflicted for fear they should tell true. Living and waking men have one world in common, they use the same air and fire, and discourse by the same principles of Logick and reason; but men that are asleep have every one a world E to himself, and strange perceptions; and the superstitious hath none at all; his reason sleeps, and his fears are waking, and all his rest, and his very securities to the fearfull man turn into afrights and insecure expectation of evils, that never shall happen; they make their rest uneasie and chargeable, and they still vex their weary [Page] A soul, not considering there is no other sleep, for sleep to rest in: and therefore if the sleep be troublesome, the mans cares be without remedy till they be quite destroyed. Dreams follow the temper of the body, and commonly proceed from trouble or disease, businesse or care, an active head and a restlesse minde, from fear or hope, from wine or passion, from fulnesse or emptinesse, from phantastick remembrances or from som Daemon good or bad: they are without rule and without reason, they are as contingent as if a man should study to make a Prophesie, and by saying 10000 things may hit upon one true, which was therefore not foreknown though it was B forespoken: and they have no certainty because they have no naturall causality nor proportion to those effects which many times they are said to foresignifie. The dream of the yolk of an egge importeth gold (saith Artemidorus) and they that use to remember such phantastick idols are afraid to lose a friend when they dream their teeth shake, when naturally it will rather signifie a scurvy; for a naturall indisposition and an imperfect sense of the beginning of a disease, may vex the fancy into a symbolicall representation; for so the man that dreamt he swam against a stream of bloud, had a Plurisie beginning in his side: and he that dreamt he dipt his C foot in water, and that it was turn'd to a Marble, was intic'd into the fancie by a beginning dropsie: and if the events do answer in one instance, we become credulous in twenty; for want of reason we discourse our selves into folly and weak observation, and give the Devill power over us in those circumstances in which we can least resist him. [...], A theef is confident in the twilight; Eurip. if you suffer impressions to be made upon you by dreams, the Devill hath the reins in his own hands, and can tempt you by that which will abuse you when you can make no resistance. Dominica the wife of Valens the Emperor dreamt that God threatned D to take away her only son for her despitefull usage of St. Basil: the fear proceeding from this instance was safe and fortunate; but if she had dreamt in the behalf of a Heretick, she might have been cousened into a false proposition upon a ground weaker then the discourse of a waking childe. Let the grounds of our actions be noble, beginning upon reason, proceeding with prudence, measured by the common lines of men, and confident upon the expectation of an usuall providence. Let us proceed from causes to effects, from naturall means to ordinary events, and believe felicity not to be a chance but a choice, and evill to be the daughter of sin and the Divine E anger, not of fortune and fancy; let us fear God when we have made him angry; and not be afraid of him when we heartily and laboriously do our duty; our fears are to be measured by open revelation and certain experience, by the threatnings of God and the sayings of wise men, and their limit is reverence, and godlinesse is their end; and then fear shall be a duty, and a rare instrument of [Page] many: in all other cases it is superstition or folly, it is sin or punishment, A the Ivy of Religion, and the misery of an honest and a weak heart, and is to be cured only by reason and good company, a wise guide and a plain rule, a cheerfull spirit and a contented minde, by joy in God according to the commandements, that is, a rejoycing evermore.

2. But besides this superstitious fear, there is another fear directly criminall, and it is cald, worldly fear, of which the Spirit of God hath said, But the fearfull and incredulous shall have their part Revel. 21. 8. in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death; that is, such fears which make men to fall in the time of B persecution, those that dare not own their faith in the face of a Tyrant, or in despite of an accursed Law. For though it be lawfull to be afraid in a storm, yet it is not lawfull to leap into the sea; though we may be more carefull for our fears, yet we must be faithfull too; and we may flie from the persecution till it overtakes us, but when it does, we must not change our Religion for our safety, or leave the robe of Baptisme in the hand of the tempter, and run away by all means. St. Athanasius for 46 years did run and fight, he disputed with the Arrians and fled from their Officers; and that flies, may be a man worth preserving, if he bears his C faith along with him, and leaves nothing of his duty behinde; but when duty and life cannot stand together, he that then flies a persecution by delivering up his soul, is one that hath no charity, no love to God, no trust in promises, no just estimation of the rewards of a noble contention, Perfect love casts out fear (faith the Apostle) that is, he that loves God will not fear to dye for him, or for his sake to be poor. In this sense no man can fear man and love God at the same time; and when St. Laurence triumph'd over Valerianus, St. Sebastian over Diocletian, St. Vincentius over Dacianus, and the armies of Martyrs over the Proconsuls, accusers, and D executioners, they shew'd their love to God by triumphing over fear, and leading captivity captive by the strength of their Captain, whose garments were red from Bozrah.

3. But this fear is also tremulous and criminall, if it be a trouble from the apprehension of the mountains and difficulties of duty, and is called pusillanimity. For some see themselves encompassed with temptations, they observe their frequent fals, their perpetuall returns from good purposes to weak performances, the daily mortifications that are necessary, the resisting naturall appetites, and the laying violent hands upon the desires of flesh and bloud, the uneasinesse E of their spirits, and their hard labours, and therefore this makes them afraid; and because they despair to run through the whole duty in all its parts and periods, they think as good not begin at all, as after labour and expence to lose the Jewell and the charges of their venture. St. Austin compares such men to children and phantastick [Page] A persons afrighted with phantasmes and specters; Terribiles visu formae, the sight seems full of horror, but touch them and they are very nothing, the meer daughters of a sick brain, and a weak heart, an infant experience and a trifling judgement: so are the illusions of a weak piety, or an unskilfull unconfident soul; they fancy to see mountains of difficulty, but touch them and they seem like clouds riding upon the wings of the winde, and put on shapes as we please to dream. He that denies to give almes for fear of being poor, or to entertain a Disciple for fear of being suspected of the party, or to own a duty for fear of being put to venture for a crown, B he that takes part of the intemperance because he dares not displease the company, or in any sense fears the fears of the world, and not the fear of God, this man enters into his portion of fear betimes, but it will not be finished to eternall ages. To fear the censures of men when God is your Judge, to fear their evill when God is your defence, to fear death when he is the entrance to life and felicity, is unreasonable and pernicious; but if you will turn your passion into duty, and joy, and security, fear to offend God, to enter voluntarily into temptation, fear the alluring face of lust, and the smooth entertainments of intemperance, fear the anger of God when you have C deserved it, and when you have recover'd from the snare, then infinitely fear to return into that condition, in which whosoever dwels is the heir of fear and eternall sorrow.

Thus farre I have discoursed concerning good fear and bad, that is, filiall and servile: they are both good, if by servile we intend initiall or the new beginning fear of penitents; a fear to offend God upon lesse perfect considerations: But servile fear is vitious when it still retains the affection of slaves, and when its effects are hatred, wearinesse, displeasure, and want of charity: and of the same cogrations are those fears which are superstitious, and worldly.

D But to the former sort of vertuous fear, some also adde another which they call Angelicall, that is, such a fear as the blessed Angels have, who before God hide their faces, and tremble at his presence, and fall down before his footstool, and are ministers of his anger and messengers of his mercy, and night and day worship him with the profoundest adoration. This is the same that is spoken of in the Text: Let us serve God with reverence and godly fear; all holy fear partakes of the nature of this which Divines call Angelicall, and it is expressed in acts of adoration, of vowes, and holy prayers, in hymnes, and psalmes, in the eucharist and reverentiall addresses; E and while it proceeds in the usuall measures of common duty, it is but humane; but as it arises to great degrees, and to perfection, it is Angelicall and Divine; and then it appertains to mystick Theologie, and therefore is to be considered in another place; but for the present, that which will regularly concern all our duty, is this, that when the fear of God is the instrument of our duty, [Page] or Gods worship, the greater it is, it is so much the better. It was an A old proverbiall saying among the Romans, Religentem esse oportet, religiosum, nefas; Every excesse in the actions of religion is criminall; they supposing that in the services of their gods, there might be too much. True it is, there may be too much of their undecent expressions, and in things indifferent, the very multitude is too much, and becomes an undecency: and if it be in its own nature undecent or disproportionable to the end, or the rules, or the analogy of the Religion, it will not stay for numbers to make it intolerable; but in the direct actions of glorifying God, in doing any thing of his Commandements, or any thing which he commands, B or counsels, or promises to reward, there can never be excesse or superfluity: and therefore in these cases, do as much as you can; take care that your expressions be prudent, and safe, consisting with thy other duties; and for the passions or vertues themselves, let them passe from beginning to great progresses, from man to Angel, from the imperfection of man to the perfections of the sons of God; and when ever we go beyond the bounds of Nature, and grow up with all the extention, and in the very commensuration of a full grace, we shall never go beyond the excellencies of God: For ornament may be too much, and turn to curiosity; cleanlinesse may be changed into C nicenesse; and civill compliance may become flattery; and mobility of tongue may rise into garrulity; and fame and honour may be great unto envie; and health it self, if it be athletick, may by its very excesse become dangerous: but wisdome, and duty, and comelinesse, and discipline, a good minde, and eloquence, and the fear of God, and doing honour to his holy Name, can never exceed: but if they swell to great proportions, they passe through the measures of grace, and are united to felicity in the comprehensions of God, in the joyes of an eternall glory.

Sermon, X. The Flesh and the Spirit: Part I.

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C Matt. 26. 41. latter part.‘The Spirit indeed is willing, but the Flesh is weake.’

FRom the beginning of days Man hath been so crosse to the Divine commandements, that in many cases there can be no reason given why a man should choose some ways, or doe some actions, but onely because they are forbidden; When God bade the Isaaelites rise and goe up D against the Canaanites, and possesse the Land, they would not stirre; the men were Anakims, and the Cities were impregnable, and there was a Lyon in the way; but presently after, when God forbad them to goe, they would and did goe, though they died for it. I shall not need to instance in particulars, when the whole life of man is a perpetuall contradiction; and the state of Disobedience is called the contradiction of Sinners; even the man in the Gospell that had two sons, they both crossed him, even he that obeyed him, and he that obeyed him not: for the one said, he would, and did not; the other said, he would not, and E did: and so doe we; we promise faire, and doe nothing; and they that doe best are such as come out of darknesse into light, such as said they would not, and at last have better bethought themselves; And who can guesse at any other reason why men should refuse to be temperate? for he that refuses the commandement, first does violence to the commandement, and puts on a praeternaturall appetite, [Page] he spoils his health, and he spoils his understanding; he brings to A himself a world of diseases, and a healthlesse constitution, smart and sickly nights, a loathing stomach, and a staring eye, a giddy brain, and a swell'd belly, gouts and dropsies, catarrhes and oppilations. If God should enjoyne man to suffer all this, heaven and earth should have heard our complaints against unjust laws, and impossible commandements: for we complain already, even when God commands us to drink so long as it is good for us; this is one of his impossible laws: it is impossible for us to know when we are dry, or when we need drink; for if we doe know, I am sure it is possible enough, not to lift up the wine to our heads. And when B our blessed Saviour hath commanded us to love our enemies, we think we have so much reason against it, that God will easily excuse our disobedience in this case, and yet there are some enemies whom God hath commanded us not to love, and those we dote on, we cherish and feast them, and as S. Paul in another case, upon our uncomely parts we bestow more abundant comelinesse. For whereas our body it self is a servant to our soule, we make it the heir of all things, and treat it here already, as if it were in Majority; and make that which at the best was but a weak friend, to become a strong enemy; and hence proceed the vices of the worst, and the follies and imperfections C of the best; the spirit is either in slavery, or in weaknesse, and when the flesh is not strong to mischief, it is weak to goodnesse; and even to the Apostles our blessed Lord said, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

The spirit] that is, [...], the inward man, or the reasonable part of man, especially as helped by the Spirit of Grace, that is willing: for it is the principle of all good actions, the [...], the power of working is from the spirit; but the flesh is but a dull instrument, and a broken arme, in which there is a principle of life, but it moves uneasily; and the flesh is so weak, that in Scripture to D be in the flesh signifies a state of weaknesse, and infirmity; so the humiliation of Christ is expressed by being in the flesh, [...], God manifested in the flesh; and what S. Peter calls [put to death in the flesh] St. Paul calls [crucified through weaknesse;] and, yee know that through the infirmity of the flesh I preached unto you, said S. Paul: but here, flesh is not opposed to the spirit as a direct enemy, but as a weak servant: for if the flesh be powerfull and opposite, the spirit stays not there:

—veniunt ad candida tecta columbae: E

The old man and the new cannot dwell together; and therefore here, where the spirit inclining to good, well disposed, and apt to holy counsels, does inhabit in society with the flesh, it means onely a weak and unapt nature, or a state of infant-grace, for in both these, and in these onely the text is verified.

[Page] A 1. Therefore we are to consider the infirmities of the flesh naturally. 2. Its weaknesse in the first beginnings of the state of grace, its daily pretensions and temptations, its excuses and lessenings of duty. 3. What remedies there are in the spirit to cure the evils of nature. 4. How far the weaknesses of the flesh can consist with the Spirit of grace in well grown Christians: This is the summe of what I intend upon these words.

1. Our nature is too weak in order to our duty and finall interest, that at first it cannot move one step towards God, unlesse God by his preventing grace puts into it a new possibility.

B [...]

[...].

There is nothing that creeps upon the earth, nothing that ever God made, weaker then Man; for God fitted Horses and Mules with strength, Bees and Pismires with sagacity, Harts and Hares with swiftnesse, Birds with feathers and a light a\l=e"\ry body; and they all know their times, and are fitted for their work, and regularly acquire the proper end of their creation; but man that was designed C to an immortall duration, and the fruition of God for ever, knows not how to obtain it; he is made upright to look up to heaven, but he knows no more how to purchase it then to climbe it. Once, man went to make an ambitious tower to outreach the clouds, or the praeternaturall risings of the water, but could not do it; he cannot promise himself the daily bread of his necessity upon the stock of his own wit or industry; and for going to heaven, he was so far from doing that naturally, that as soon as ever he was made he became the son of death, and he knew not how to get a pardon for eating of an apple against the Divine commandement: D [...], said the Apostle, By nature we were the sons Eph. 2. 3. of wrath, that is, we were born heirs of death, which death came upon us from Gods anger for the sin of our first Parents; or by nature, that is, [...], really, not by the help of fancy, and fiction of law, for so Oecumenius and Theophylact expound it; but because it does not relate to the sin of Adam in its first intention, but to the evill state of sin, in which the Ephesians walked before their conversion; it signifies that our nature of it self is a state of opposition to the spirit of grace; it is privatively opposed, that is, that there is nothing in it that can bring us to felicity; nothing but E an obedientiall capacity; our flesh can become sanctified, as the stones can become children unto Abraham, or as dead seed can become living corn; and so it is with us, that it is necessary God should make us a new creation, if he means to save us; he must take our hearts of stone away, and give us heart of flesh; he must purge the old leaven, and make us a new conspersion; he must destroy the flesh, and must [Page] breath into us Spiritum vita, the celestiall breath of life, without A which we can neither live, nor move, nor have our being. No man can come unto mee (said Christ) unlesse my Father draw him, [...]. The Divine love must come upon us and snatch us from our imperfection, enlighten our understanding, move and stirre our affections, open the gates of heaven, turn our nature into grace, entirely forgive our former prevarications; take us by the hand, and lead us all along, and we onely contribute our assent unto it; just as a childe when he is tempted to learne to goe, and called upon, and guided, and upheld, and constrain'd to put his B feet to the ground, lest he feel the danger by the smart of a fall; just so is our nature and our state of flesh. God teaches us, and invites us, he makes us willing and then makes us able, he lends us helps, and guides our hands, and feet; and all the way constrains us, but yet so as a reasonable creature can be constrained; that is, made willing with arguments, and new inducements, by a state of circumstances, and conditionall necessities: and as this is a great glorification of the free grace of God, and declares our manner of cooperation, so it represents our nature to be weak as a childe, ignorant as infancy, helplesse as an orphan, averse as an uninstructed C person, in so geat degrees that God is forced to bring us to a holy life by arts great and many as the power and principles of the Creation; with this onely difference, that the subject matter and object of this new creation is a free agent; in the first it was purely obedientiall and passive; and as the passion of the first was an effect of the same power that reduced it to act; so the freedome of the second is given us in our nature by him that onely can reduce it to act; for it is a freedome that cannot therefore choose, because it does not understand, nor taste, nor perceive the things of God; and therefore must by Gods grace be reduced to action, as at first the D whole matter of the world was by Gods Almightynesse; for so God worketh in us to will and to doe of his owne good pleasure.

2. But that I may instance in particulars, our naturall weaknesse appears best in two things, even in the two great instances of temptation, pleasure and pain; in both which the flesh is destroyed if it be not helped by a mighty grace, as certainly as the Canes doe bow their heads before the breath of a mighty wind. 1. In pleasure we see it by the publick miseries and follies of the world. An old Greek said well, E [...], There is amongst men nothing perfect, because men carry themselves as persons that are lesse then money, servants of gain and interest; we are like the foolish Poet that Horace tells of:

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A Gestit enim nummum in loculos dimittere, posthac

Securus, cadat, an recto stet fabula talo.

Let him but have money for rehearsing his Comedy, he cares not whether you like it or no; and if a temptation of money comes strong and violent, you may as well tye a wilde dog to quietnesse with the guts of a tender Kid, as suppose that most men can doe vertuously when they may sin at a great price. Men avoyd poverty, not onely because it hath some inconveniences; for they are B few and little; but because it is the nurse of vertue; they run from it as Children from strict Parents and Tutors, from those that would confine them to reason, and sober counsels, that would make them labour, that they may become pale and lean, that they may become wise: but because Riches is attended by pride and lust, tyranny and oppression, and hath in its hand all that it hath in its heart; and Sin waits upon Wealth ready dress'd and fit for action, therefore in some temptations they confesse how little their souls are, they cannot stand that assault; but because this passion is the daughter of Voluptuousnesse, and very often is C but a servant sin, ministring to sensuall pleasures, the great weaknesse of the flesh is more seen in the matter of carnall crimes, Lust and Drunkennesse. Nemo enim se adsuefacit ad vitandum & ex animo evellendum ea quae molesta ei non sunt. Men are so in Plutar. love with pleasure, that they cannot think of mortifying or crucifying their lust; we doe violence to what we hate, not to what we love. But the weaknesse of the flesh, and the empire of lust is visible in nothing so much, as in the captivity and folly of wise men. For you shall see some men fit to governe a Province, sober in their counsells, wise in the conduct of their affaires, men of discourse D and reason, fit to sit with Princes, or to treat concerning peace and warre, the fate of Empires, and the changes of the world, yet these men shall fall at the beauty of a woman as a man dies at the blow of an Angell, or gives up his breath at the sentence and decree of God. Was not Solomon glorious in all things but when he bowed to Pharaoh's daughter, and then to Devils? and is it not published by the sentence and observation of all the world, that the bravest men have been softned into effeminacy by the lisping charms, and childish noyses of Women and imperfect persons? A faire slave bowed the neck of stout Polydamas, E which was stiffe and inflexible to the contentions of an enemy: and suppose a man set like the brave boy of the King of Nicomedia in the midst of temptation by a witty beauty, tyed upon a bed with silk and pretty violences, courted with musick and perfumes, with promises and easie postures, invited by opportunity and importunity, by rewards and impunity, by privacy and a [Page] guard; what would his nature doe in this throng of evils and A vile circumstances? The grace of God secur'd the young Gentleman, and the Spirit rode in triumph; but what can flesh do in such a day of danger? Is it not necessary that we take in auxiliaries from Reason and Religion, from heaven and earth, from observation and experience, from hope and fear, and cease to be what we are, left we become what we ought not? It is certain that in the cases of temptations to voluptuousnesse, a man is naturally, as the Prophet said of Ephraim, like a Pigeon that hath no heart, no courage, no conduct, no resolution, no discourse, but falls as the water of Nilus when it comes to its cataracts, it falls infinitely and without B restraint; And if we consider how many drunken meetings the Sunne sees every day, how many Markets and Faires and Clubs, that is, so many solemnities of drunkennesse, are at this instant under the eye of heaven; that many Nations are marked for intemperance, and that it is lesse noted because it is so popular, and universall, and that even in the midst of the glories of Christianity there are so many persons drunk, or too full with meat, or greedy of lust, even now that the Spirit of God is given to us to make us sober, and temperate, and chaste, we may well imagine, since all men have flesh, and all men have nor the C spirit, the flesh is the parent of sin, and death, and it can be nothing else.

And it is no otherwise when we are tempted with pain. We are so impatient of pain, that nothing can reconcile us to it; not the laws of God, not the necessities of nature, not the society of all our kindred, and of all the world, not the interest of vertue, not the hopes of heaven; we will submit to pain upon no terms, but the basest and most dishonorable; for if sin bring us to pain, or affront, or sicknesse, we choose that, so it be in the retinue of a lust, and a base desire; but we accuse Nature, and blaspheme God, D we murmur and are impatient when pain is sent to us from him that ought to send it, and intends it as a mercy when it comes. But in the matter of afflictions and bodily sicknesse we are so weak and broken, so uneasie and unapt to sufferance, that this alone is beyond the cure of the old Philosophy. Many can endure poverty, and many can retire from shame and laugh at home, and very many can endure to be slaves; but when pain and sharpnesse are to be endured for the interests of vertue, we finde but few Martyrs; and they that are, suffer more within themselves by their fears and their temptations, by their uncertain purposes and E violences to Nature, then by the Hang-mans sword; the Martyrdome is within; and then he hath won his Crown, not when he hath suffered the blow, but when he hath overcome his fears, and made his spirit conqueror. It was a sad instance of our infirmity, when of the 40 Martyrs of Cappadocia set in a freezing lake, almost [Page] A consummate, and an Angell was reaching the Crowne, and placing it upon their brows, the flesh fail'd one of them, and drew the spirit after it; and the man was called off from his Scene of noble contention, and dyed in warm water:

—Odi artus, fragilémque hunc corporis usum

Desertorem animi—

We carry about us the body of death, and we bring evils upon our selves by our follies, and then know not how to bear them; B and the flesh forsakes the spirit. And indeed in sicknesse the infirmity is so very great, that God in a manner at that time hath reduced all Religion into one vertue, Patience with its appendages is the summe totall of almost all our duty that is proper to the days of sorrow: and we shall find it enough to entertain all our powers, and to imploy all our aids; the counsels of wise men, and the comforts of our friends, the advices of Scripture, and the results of experience, the graces of God, and the strength of our own resolutions are all then full of imployments, and find it work enough to secure that one grace. For then it is that a could is C wrapped about our heads, and our reason stoops under sorrow, the soul is sad, and its instrument is out of tune, the auxiliaries are disorder'd, and every thought sits heavily; then a comfort cannot make the body feel it, and the soule is not so abstracted to rejoyce much without its partner; so that the proper joyes of the soul, such as are hope, and wise discourses, and satisfactions of reason, and the offices of Religion, are felt, just as we now perceive the joyes of heaven, with so little relish, that it comes as news of a victory to a man upon the Rack, or the birth of an heir to one condemned to dye; he hears a story which was made to D delight him, but it came when he was dead to joy and all its capacities; and therefore sicknesse, though it be a good Monitor, yet it is an ill stage to act some vertues in; and a good man cannot then doe much, and therefore he that is in the state of flesh and blood, can doe nothing at all.

4. But in these considerations we find our nature in disadvantages; and a strong man may be overcome when a stronger comes to disarme him; and pleasure and pain are the violences of choice and chance; but it is no better in any thing else: for nature is weak in all its strengths, and in its fights, at home, and abroad, E in its actions and passions; we love some things violently, and hate others unreasonably; any thing can fright us when we should be confident, and nothing can scare us when we ought to feare; the breaking of a glasse puts us into a supreme anger, and we are dull and indifferent as a Stoick when we see God dishonour'd; we passionately desire our preservation, and yet we violently destroy [Page] our selves, and will not be hindred; we cannot deny a friend A when he tempts us to sin and death, and yet we daily deny God when he passionately invites us to life and health; we are greedy after money, and yet spend it vainly upon our lusts; we hate to see any man flatter'd but our selves; and we can endure folly if it be on our side, and a sin for our interest; we desire health, and yet we exchange it for wine and madnesse; we sink when a persecution comes, and yet cease not daily to persecute our selves, doing mischiefs worse then the sword of Tyrants, and great as the malice of a Devill.

5. But to summe up all the evills that can be spoken of the B infirmities of the flesh; the proper nature and habitudes of men are so foolish and impotent, so averse and peevish to all good, that a mans will is of it self onely free to choose evils. Neither is it a contradiction to say liberty, and yet suppose it determin'd to one object onely; because that one object is the thing we choose. For although God hath set life and death before us, fire and water, good and evill, and hath primarily put man into the hands of his owne counsell, that he might have chosen good as well as evill, yet because he did not, but fell into an evill condition and corrupted manners, and grew in love with it, and infected all his children C with vicious examples; and all nations of the world have contracted some universall stains, and the thoughts of mans hearts are onely evill, and that continually, and there is not one that doth good, no not one that sinneth not: since (I say) all the world have sinned, we cannot suppose a liberty of indifferency to good and bad; it is impossible in such a liberty that there should be no variety, that all should choose the same thing; but a liberty of complacency or delight we may suppose; that is so, that though naturally he might choose good, yet morally he is so determin'd with his love to evill, that good seldome comes into dispute; and a man D runs to evill as he runs to meat or sleep; for why else should it be, that every one can teach a childe to be proud, or to swear, to lie, or to doe little spites to his play-fellow, and can traine him up to infant follies? But the severity of Tutors and the care of Parents, discipline and watchfulnesse, arts and diligence, all is too little to make him love but to say his prayers, or to doe that which becomes persons design'd for honest purposes, and his malice shall out-run his years; he shall be a man in villany before he is by law capable of choice or inheritance; and this indisposition lasts upon us for ever, even as long as E we live, just in the same degrees as flesh and blood does rule us: [...], Art of Physicians can cure the evills of the body, but this strange propensity to evill nothing can cure but death; the grace of God eases the malignity here, but it cannot be cured but by glory: [Page] A that is, this freedome of delight or perfect unabated election of evill, which is consequent to the evill manners of the world, although it be lessened by the intermediall state of grace, yet it is not cured untill it be changed into its quite contrary; but as it is in heaven, all that is happy, and glorious, and free, yet can choose nothing but the love of God, and excellent things, because God fills all the capacities of Saints, and there is nothing without him that hath any degrees of amability: so in the state of nature, of flesh and blood, there is so much ignorance of spirituall excellencies, and so much proportion to sensuall objects, which in B most instances and in many degrees are prohibited, that as men naturally know no good, but to please a wilde, indetermin'd, infinite appetite; so they will nothing else but what is good in their limit and proportion; and it is with us as it was with the shee-goat that suckled the wolves whelp; he grew up by his nurses milke, and at last having forgot his foster mothers kindnesse, eat that udder which gave him drink and nourishment; Improbit as nullo flectitur obsequio; for no kindnesse will cure an ill nature and a base disposition: so are we in the first constitution of our nature; so perfectly given to naturall vices, that by degrees C we degenerate into unnaturall, and no education or power of art can make us choose wisely or honestly: [...], said Phalaris, There is no good nature but onely vertue; till we are new created, we are wolves and serpents, free and delighted in the choice of evill, but stones and iron to all excellent things and purposes.

2. Next I am to consider the weaknesse of the flesh, even when the state is changed, in the beginning of the state of grace: For many persons, as soon as the grace of God rises in their hearts, are all on fire, and inflamed; it is with them as Homer D said of the Syrian starre,

[...],

[...].

It shines finely, and brings feavers; splendor and Zeal are the effects of the first grace, and sometimes the first turnes into pride, and the second unto uncharitablenesse; and either by too dull and slow motions, or by too violent and unequall, the flesh will make pretences, and too often prevail upon the spirit, even after the E grace of God hath set up its banners in our hearts.

1. In some dispositions that are forward and apt, busie and unquiet, when the grace of God hath taken possessions, and begins to give laws, it seems so pleasant and gay to their undiscerning spirits, to be delivered from the sottishnesse of lust, and the follies of drunkennesse, that reflecting upon the change, they begin to love themselves too [Page] well, and take delight in the wisdome of the change, and the A reasonablenesse of the new life; and then they by hating their own follies, begin to despise them that dwell below; It was the tricke of the old Philosophers whom Aristophanes thus describes, [...]; pale, and barefoot, and proud; that is, persons singular in their habit, eminent in their institution, proud and pleased in their persons, and despisers of them that are lesse glorious in their vertue then themselves; and for this very thing our blessed Saviour remarks the Pharisees; they were severe and phantasticall advancers of themselves, and Judgers of their neighbors; and here, when they have mortified B corporall vices, such which are scandalous and punishable by men, they keep the spirituall, and those that are onely discernible by God: these men doe but change their sin from scandall to danger, and that they may sin more safely they sin more spiritually.

2. Sometimes the passions of the flesh spoyle the changes of the Spirit, by naturall excesses, and disproportion of degrees; it mingles violence with industry, and fury with zeale, and uncharitablenesse with reproofe, and censuring with discipline, and violence with desires, and immortifications in all the appetites and C prosecutions of the soule. Some think it is enough in all instances, if they pray hugely and fervently; and that it is religion, impatiently to desire a victory over our enemies, or the life of a childe, or an heir to be born; they call it holy, so they desire it in prayer; that if they reprove a vicious person, they may say what they list, and be as angry as they please; that when they demand but reason, they may enforce it by all means; that when they exact duty of their children, they may be imperious and without limit; that if they designe a good end, they may prosecute it by all instruments; that when they give God thanks for blessings, they may D value the thing as high as they list, though their persons come into a share of the honour; here the spirit is willing and holy, but the flesh creeps too busily, and insinuates into the substance of good actions, and spoyles them by unhandsome circumstances; and then the prayer is spoil'd for want of prudence or conformity to Gods will, and discipline and government is imbittered by an angry spirit; and the Fathers authority turns into an uneasie load, by being thrust like an unequall burden to one side, without allowing equall measures to the other: And if we consider it wisely, we shall find that in many good actions the flesh is the bigger ingredient, E and we betray our weak constitutions even when we do Justice or Charity; and many men pray in the flesh, when they pretend they pray by the spirit.

3. In the first changes and weak progresses of our spirituall life, we find a long weaknesse upon us, because we are long before we [Page] A begin, and the flesh was powerfull and its habits strong, and it will mingle indirect pretences with all the actions of the spirit; If we mean to pray, the flesh thrusts in thoughts of the world; and our tongue speaks one thing and our heart means another; and we are hardly brought to say our prayers, or to undertake a fasting day, or to celebrate a Communion: and if we remember that all these are holy actions, and that we have many opportunities of doing them all, and yet doe them very seldome, and then very coldly, it will be found at the foot of the account, that our flesh and our naturall weaknesse prevailes oftner then our spirituall strengths: B [...], they that are bound long in chains feel such a lamenesse in the first restitutions of their liberty, [...], by reason of the long accustomed chain and pressure, that they must stay till Nature hath set them free, and the disease be taken off as well as the chain; and when the soul is got free from her actuall pressure of sins, still the wound remaines, and a long habitude, and longing after it, a looking back, and upon the presenting the old object, the same company, or the remembrance of the delight, the fancy strikes, and the heart fails, and the temptations returne and C stand dressed in form and circumstances, and ten to one but the man dies again.

4. Some men are wise and know their weaknesses, and to prevent their startings back, will make fierce and strong resolutions, and bind up their gaps with thornes, and make a new hedge about their spirits; and what then? this shews indeed that the spirit is willing; but the storm arises, and windes blow, and rain descends, and presently the earth trembles, and the whole fabrick falls into ruine and disorder. A resolution (such as we usually make) is nothing but a little trench which every childe can step over; and D there is no civill man that commits a willing sin, but he does it against his resolution; and what Christian lives, that will not say, and think, that he hath repented in some degree; and yet still they commit sin, that is, they break all their holy purposes as readily as they lose a dream; and so great is our weaknesse, that to most men the strength of a resolution is just such a restraint as he suffers who is imprisoned in a curtain, and secured with dores and bars of the finest linnen: for though the spirit be strong to resolve, the flesh is weak to keep it.

5. But when they have felt their follies, and see the linnen vail E [...]ent, some that are desirous to please God, back their resolutions with vows, and then the spirit is fortified, and the flesh may tempt and call, but the soul cannot come forth, and therefore it triumphs and acts its interest easily and certainly; and then the flesh is mortified; It may be so. But doe not many of us inquire after a vow? And we consider it may be it was rash, or it was an impossible [Page] matter, or without just consideration, and weighing of A circumstances, or the case is alter'd, and there is a new emergent necessity, or a vow is no more then a resolution made in matter of duty; both are made for God, and in his eye and witnesse; or if nothing will doe it, men grow sad and weary, and despaire, and are impatient, and bite the knot in pieces, with their teeth, which they cannot by disputing, and the arts of the tongue. A vow will not secure our duty, because it is not stronger then our appetite; and the spirit of man is weaker then the habits and superinduced nature of the flesh; but by little and little it falls off, like the finest thread twisted upon the traces of a chariot; it cannot hold B long.

6. Beyond all this, some choose excellent guides, and stand within the restraints of modesty, and a severe Monitor; and the Spirit of God hath put a veile upon our spirits, and by modesty in women and young persons, by reputation in the more aged, and by honour in the more noble, and by conscience in all, have fortified the spirit of Man, that men dare not prevaricate their duty though they be tempted strongly, and invited perpetually; and this is a partition wall that separates the spirit from the flesh, and keeps it in its proper strengths and retirements. But here the spirit of C man, for all that it is assisted, strongly breaks from the inclosure, and runnes into societies of flesh, and sometimes despises reputation, and sometimes supplies it with little arts of flattery, and self-love, and is modest as long as it can be secret, and when it is discovered, it growes impudent; and a man shelters himselfe in crouds and heaps of sinners, and beleeves that it is no worse with him then with other mighty criminals, and publick persons, who bring sin into credit amongst fooles and vicious persons; or else men take false measures of fame or publick honesty, and the world being broken into so many parts of disunion, and agreeing in nothing but D in confederate vices, and grown so remisse in governments, and severe accounts, every thing is left so loose, that honour and publick fame, modesty, and shame, are now so slender guards to the spirit, that the flesh breaks in and makes most men more bold against God then against men, and against the laws of Religion, then of the Common-wealth.

7. When the spirit is made willing by the grace of God, the flesh interposes in deceptions and false principles. If you tempt some man to a notorious sin, as to rebellion, to deceive his trust, or to be drunk, he will answer, he had rather die then doe it: But put the E sin civilly to him, and let it be disguised with little excuses, such things which indeed are trifles, but yet they are colours fair enough to make a weak pretence, and the spirit yeelds instantly. Most men choose the sin, if it be once disputable whether it be a sin or no? If they can but make an excuse, or a colour, so that it shall not rudely [Page] A dash against the conscience with an open professed name of Sin, they suffer the temptation to doe its worst. If you tempt a man, you must tell him 'tis no sin, or it is excusable: this is not rebellion, but necessity, and selfe-defence; it is not against my allegiance, but is a performing of my trust; I doe it for my friend, not against my Superiour; I doe it for a good end, and for his advantage; this is not drunkennesse, but free mirth, and fair society; it is refreshment, and entertainment of some supernumerary hours; but it is not a throwing away my time, or neglecting a day of salvation; and if there be any thing more to say for it, though it be no more B then Adams fig-leaves, or the excuses of children and truants, it shall be enough to make the flesh prevail, and the spirit not to be troubled; for so great is our folly, that the flesh always carries the cause, if the spirit can be cousen'd.

8. The flesh is so mingled with the spirit, that we are forced to make distinctions in our appetite, to reconcile our affections to God and Religion, lest it be impossible to doe our duty; we weep for our sins, but we weep more for the death of our dearest friends, or other temporall sadnesses; we say we had rather die then lose our saith, and yet we doe not live according to it; we lose our estates C and are impatient, we lose our vertue and bear it well enough; and what vertue is so great, as more to be troubled for having sin'd, then for being asham'd, and begger'd, and condemn'd to die? Here we are forced to a distinction: there is a valuation of price, and a valuation of sense: or the spirit hath one rate of things, and the flesh hath another; and what we beleeve the greatest evill, does not alwayes cause to us the greatest trouble; which shews plainly, that we are imperfect carnall persons, and the flesh will in some measure prevaile over the spirit; because we will suffer it in too many instances, and cannot help it in all.

D 9. The spirit is abated and interrupted by the flesh, because the flesh pretends it is not able to doe those ministeries which are appointed in order to Religion; we are not able to fast, or if we watch, it breeds gouts and catarrhes; or charity is a grace too expensive, our necessities are too big to do it; or we cannot suffer pain; and sorrow breeds death, and therefore our repentances must be more gentle, and we must support our selves in all our calamities: for we cannot beare our crosses without a freer refreshment, and this freedome passes on to licence, and many melancholy persons drowne their sorrows in sin and forgetfulnesse, as if sin were more tolerable then sorrow, and E the anger of God an easier load then a temporall care: here the flesh betrayes its weaknesse and its follies: For the flesh complains too soon, and the spirit of some men like Adam being too fond of his Eve, attends to all its murmurs and temptations; and yet the flesh is able to bear farre more then is required of it in usuall duties. Custome of suffering will make us endure much, and feare will make [Page] us suffer more, and necessity makes us suffer any thing; and lust A and desire makes us to endure more then God is willing we should; and yet we are nice, and tender, and indulgent to our weaknesses, till our weaknesses grow too strong for us. And what shall we doe to secure our duty, and to be delivered of our selves, that the body of death which we bear about us may not destroy the life of the spirit?

I have all this while complain'd, and you see not without cause; I shall afterwards tell you the remedies for all this evill. In the mean time, let us have but mean opinions of our selves; let us watch every thing of our selves as of suspected persons, and magnifie the grace of God, and be humbled for our stock and spring of follies, and B let us look up to him who is the fountaine of grace and spirituall strengths.

[...],

[...].

And pray that God would give us what we ask, and what we ask not; for we want more helps then we understand, and we are neerer to evill then we perceive, and we bear sin and death about us, and are in love with it; and nothing comes from us but false principles, C and silly propositions, and weak discourses, and startings from our holy purposes, and care of our bodies, and of our palates, and the lust of the lower belly; these are the imployment of our lives; but if wee design to live happily and in a better place, it must be otherwise with us; we must become new creatures, and have another definition, and have new strengths, which we can onely derive from God, whose grace is sufficient for us, and strong enough to prevail over all our follies and infirmities.

SERMON, XI. Part II.

[Page]

B IF it be possible to cure an evill nature, we must inquire after remedies for all this mischief. In order to which I shall consider;

1. That since it is our flesh and bloud that is the principle of mischief, we must not think to have it cured by washings and light medicaments; the Physitian that went to cure the Hectick with quicksilver and fasting spittle, did his Patient no good, but himself became a proverb; and he that by easie prayers and a seldome fast, by the scattering of a little almes, and the issues of some more naturall C vertue thinks to cure his evill nature, does fortifie his indisposition, as a stick is hardened by a little fire, which by a great one is devoured. Quanto satius est mentem potius eluere quae malis cupiditatibus Lactantius. sordidatur, & uno virtutis ac fidei lavacro universa vitia depellere? Better it is by an intire body of vertue, by a living and active faith to cleanse the minde from every vice, and to take off all superinduced habits of sin; Quod qui fecerit, quamlibet inquinatum ac sordidum corpus gerat, satis purus est. If we take this course, although our body is foul, and our affections unquiet, and our rest discomposed, yet we shall be masters of our resolution, and clean D from habituall sins, and so cure our evill nature. For our nature was not made evill but by our selves; but yet we are naturally evill, that is, by a superinduced nature; just as drunkards and intemperate persons have made it necessary to drink extremely, and their nature requires it, and it is health to them; they dye without it, because they have made to themselves a new constitution, and another nature, but much worse then that which God made; their sin made this new nature; and this new nature makes sin necessary and unavoidable: so it is in all other instances; Our nature is evill, because we have spoil'd it; and therefore the removing the sin which E we have brought in, is the way to cure our nature: for this evill nature is not a thing which we cannot avoid; we made it, and therefore we must help it; but as in the superinducing this evill nature, we were thrust forward by the world and the Devill, by all objects from without, and weaknesse from within; so in the curing it we are to be helped by God and his most holy Spirit.

[Page]

A [...]

[...].

We must have a new nature put into us, which must be the principle of new counsels, and better purposes, of holy actions and great devotion; and this nature is deriv'd from God, and is a grace and a favour of heaven. The same Spirit that caused the holy Jesus to be born after a new and strange manner, must also descend upon us and cause us to be born again, and to begin a new life upon the B stock of a new nature. [...], said Origen, From him it first began that a divine and humane nature were weaved together, that the humane nature by communication with the celestiall may also become divine, [...], Not only in Jesus, but in all that first beleeve in him, and then obey him, living such a life as Jesus taught: and this is the summe totall of the whole design; As we have liv'd to the flesh, so we must hereafter live to the spirit: as our nature hath been flesh, not only in its originall, but in habits and affection; so our nature must be spirit in habit and choice, in design and effectuall C prosecutions; for nothing can cure our old death, but this new birth; and this is the recovery of our nature, and the restitution of our hopes, and therefore the greatest joy of mankinde.

— [...]

[...],

Euripides.

[...].

It is a fine thing to see the light of this sun, and it is pleasant to see the storm allayed and turned into a smooth sea and a fresh gale; D our eyes are pleased to see the earth begin to live, and to produce her little issues with particolour'd coats:

— [...]

[...]

[...].

Nothing is so beauteous as to see a new birth in a childlesse family; And it is excellent to hear a man discourse the hidden things of Nature, and unriddle the perplexities of humane notices and mistakes; E it is comely to see a wise man sit in the gates of the City, and give right judgement in difficult causes: But all this is nothing to the excellencies of a new birth; to see the old man carryed forth to funerall with the solemn tears of repentance, and buryed in the grave of Jesus, and in his place a new creation to arise, a new heart, [Page] A and a new understanding, and new affections, and excellent appetites: for nothing lesse then this can cure all the old distempers.

2. Our life, and all our discourses, and every observation, and a state of reason, and a union of sober counsels, are too little to cure a peevish spirit, and a weak reasoning, and silly principles, and accursed habits, and evill examples, and perverse affections, and a whole body of sin and death. It was well said in the Comedy.

Nunquam it a quisquam bene subductâ ratione ad vitam fuit,

Quin aetas, usus semper aliquid apportet novi,

Aliquid moneat; ut illa quae scire credas, nescias,

B Et quae tibi putas prima, in experiundo repudies.

Men at first think themselves wise, and are alwaies most confident when they have the least reason; and to morrow they begin to perceive yesterdayes folly, and yet they are not wise; But as the little Embryo in the naturall sheet and lap of its mother, first distinguishes into a little knot, and that in time will be the heart, and then into a bigger bundle, which after some dayes abode grows into two little spots, and they if cherished by nature will become eyes, and each part by order commences into weak principles, and is preserved C with natures greatest curiosity; that it may assist first to distinction, then to order, next to usefulnesse, and from thence to strength, till it arrive at beauty, and a perfect creature: so are the necessities, and so are the discourses of men; we first learn the principles of reason, which breaks obscurely through a clond, and brings a little light, and then we discern a folly, and by little and little leave it, till that enlightens the next corner of the soul; and then there is a new discovery; but the soul is still in infancy and childish follies; and every day does but the work of one day; but therefore art, and use, experience, and reason, although they do something, yet they cannot do enough; D there must be something else: But this is to be wrought by a new principle, that is, by the Spirit of grace: Nature and reason alone cannot do it, and therefore the proper cure is to be wrought by those generall means of inviting and cherishing, of getting and entertaining Gods Spirit, which when we have observed, we may account our selves sufficiently instructed toward the repair of our breaches, and the reformation of our evill nature.

1. The first great instrument of changing our whole nature into the state of grace, flesh into the spirit, is a firm belief, and a perfect assent to, and hearty entertainment of the promises of the Gospell; E for holy Scripture speaks great words concerning faith. It quenches the fiery darts of the Devill, saith St. Paul, it overcomes the world, Ephes. 4. 16. saith St. John, it is the fruit of the Spirit, and the parent of love, it 1 Ioh. 5. 4. is obedience, and it is humility, and it is a shield, and it is a brestplate, and a work, and a mysterie, it is a fight and it is a victory, it is a pleasing God, and it is that whereby the just do live; by faith we are [Page] purified, and by faith we are sanctified, and by faith we are justified, A and by faith we are saved: by this we have accesse to the throne of grace, and by it our prayers shall prevail for the sick, by it we stand, and by it we walk, and by this Christ dwels in our hearts, and by it all the miracles of the Church have been done; it gives great patience to suffer, and great confidence to hope, and great strength to do, and infallible certainty to enjoy the end of all our faith, and satisfaction of all our hopes, and the reward of all our labours, even the most mighty price of our high calling: and if faith be such a magazine of spirituall excellencies, of such universall efficacy, nothing can be a greater antidote against the venome of a corrupted B nature. But then this is not a grace seated finally in the understanding, but the principle that is designed to, and actually productive of a holy life; It is not only a beleeving the propositions of Scripture as we beleeve a proposition in the Metaphysicks, concerning which a man is never the honester whether it be true of false; but it is a beleef of things that concern us infinitely, things so great that if they be so true as great, no man that hath his reason and can discourse, that can think and choose, that can desire and work towards an end, can possibly neglect. The great object of our faith, to which all other articles do minister, is, resurrection of C our bodies and souls to eternall life, and glories infinite. Now is it possible that a man that beleeves this, and that he may obtain it for himself, and that it was prepared for him, and that God desires to give it him, that he can neglect and despise it, and not work for it, and perform such easie conditions upon which it may be obtained? Are not most men of the world made miserable at a lesse price then a thousand pound a year? Do not all the usurers and merchants, all tradesmen and labourers under the Sun toil and care, labour and contrive, venture and plot for a little money, and no man gets, and scarce any man desires so much of it as he can lay upon D three acres of ground; not so much of will fill a great house; and is this sum, that is such a trifle, such a poor limited heap of dirt, the reward of all the labour, and the end of all the care, and the design of all the malice, and the recomponce of all the wars of the world; and can it be imaginable, that life it self, and a long life, an eternall and a happy life, a kingdome, a perfect kingdome, and glorious, that shall never have ending, nor ever shall be abated with rebellion, or fears, or sorrow, or care, that such a kingdome should not be worth the praying for, and quitting of an idle company, and a foolish humour, or a little drink, or a vicious silly woman for it? E surely men beleeve no such thing. They do not relye upon those fine stories that are read in books, and published by Preachers, and allow'd by the lawes of all the world. If they did, why do they choose intemperance and a feaver, lust and shame, rebellion and danger, pride and a fall, sacriledge and a curse, gain and passion, before [Page] A humility and safety, religion and a constant joy, devotion and peace of conscience, justice and a quiet dwelling, charity and a blessing, and at the end of all this, a Kingdome more glorious then all the beauties the Sun did ever see. Fides est velut quoddam aeternitatis exemplar, praeterita simul & praesentia & futura sinu quodans vastissimo comprehendit, ut nihil ei praetereat, nil pereat, praeeat nihil; Now, Faith is a certain image of eternity, all things are present to it, things past and things to come, are all so before the eyes of faith, that he in whose eye that candle is enkindled, beholds heaven as present, and sees how blessed thing it is to dye in Gods B favour, and to be chim'd to our grave with the Musick of a good conscience. Faith converses with the Angels, and antedates the hymnes of glory; every man that hath this grace is as certain that there are glories for him, if he perseveres in duty, as if he had heard and sung the thanksgiving Song for the blessed sentence of Dooms-day. And therefore it is no matter if these things are separate and distant objects; none but children and fools are taken with the present trifle, and neglect a distant blessing, of which they have credible and beleeved notices. Did the merchant see the pearls and the wealth he designs to get in the trade of 20 years? C And is it possible that a childe should, when he learns the first rudiments of Grammar, know what excellent things there are in learning, whither he designs his labour, and his hopes? We labour for that which is uncertain, and distant, and beleeved, and hoped for with many allaies, and seen with diminution, and a troubled ray; and what excuse can there be that we do not labour for that which is told us by God, and preach'd by his holy Son, and confirmed by miracles, and which Christ himself dyed to purchase, and millions of Martyrs dyed to witnesse, and which we see good men, and wise beleeve with an assent stronger then their evidence, and D which they do beleeve because they do love, and love because they do beleeve? There is nothing to be said; but that faith which did enlighten the blind, and cleanse the Lepers, and wash'd the soul of the Aethiopian; that faith that cures the sick, and strengthens the Paralytick, and baptizes the Catechumens, and justifies the faithfull, and repairs the penitent, and confirms the just, and crowns the Martyrs; that faith if it be true and proper, Christian and alive, active and effective in us, is sufficient to appease the storm of our passions, and to instruct all our ignorances, and to make us wise unto salvation; it will, if we let it do its first intention, E chastise our errors, and discover our follies, it will make us ashamed of trifling interests, and violent prosecutions, of false principles, and the evill disguises of the world; and then our nature will return to the innocence and excellency in which God first estated it; that is, our flesh will be a servant of the soul, and the soul a servant to the spirit; and then, because faith makes heaven [Page] to be the end of our desires, and God the object of our love and A worshippings, and the Scripture the rule of our actions, and Christ our Lord and Master, and the holy Spirit our mighty assistance and our Counsellour, all the little uglinesses of the world, and the follies of the flesh will be uneasie, and unsavory, unreasonable, and a load; and then that grace, the grace of faith, that layes hold upon the holy Trinity, although it cannot understand it, and beholds heaven before it can possesse it, shall also correct our weaknesses, and master all our aversations; and though we cannot in this world be perfect masters, and triumphant persons, yet we be conquerors and more; that is, conquerors of the direct hostility, & sure of a crown to be revealed in its due time. B

2. The second great remedy of our evill Nature and of the loads of the flesh, is devotion, or a state of prayer, and entercourse with God. For the gift of the Spirit of God, which is the great antidote of our evill natures, is properly and expresly promised to prayer; If you who are evill give good things to your children that aske you, how much Luk. 11. 13. Mat. 7. 11. more shall your Father from heaven give his holy Spirit to them that aske it? That which in S. Luke is called [...], the holy Spirit, is called in St. Matthew, [...], good things; that is, the holy Spirit is all that good that we shall need towards our pardon, and our sanctification, and our glory, and this is promised to Prayer; C to this purpose Christ taught us the Lords Prayer, by which we are sufficiently instructed in obtaining this Magazine of holy and usefull things. But Prayer is but one part of devotion; and though of admirable efficacy towards the obtaining this excellent promise, yet it is to be assisted by the other parts of devotion, to make it a perfect remedy to our great evill. He that would secure his evill Nature, must be a devout person, and he that is devout, besides, that he prayes frequently, he delights in it as it is a conversation with God; he rejoyces in God, and esteems him the light of his eyes, and the support of his confidence, the object of his love, and the D desires of his heart; the man is uneasie but when he does God service; and his soul is at peace and rest when he does what may be accepted: and this is that which the Apostle counsels, and gives in precept; Rejoyce in the Lord alwaies, and again I say rejoyce; that Phil. 4. 4. is, as the Levites were appointed to rejoyce, because God was their portion in tithes and offerings, so now that in the spirituall sense God is our portion, we should rejoyce in him, and make him our inheritance, and his service our imployment, and the peace of conscience to be our rest, and then it is impossible we should be any longer slaves to sin, and afflicted by the baser imployments of the E flesh, or carry burdens for the Devill; and therefore the Scholiast upon Juvenal observed well, Nullum malum gaudium est, No true joy can be evill; and therefore it was improperly said of Virgil, Mala gaudia mentis, calling lust and wilde desires, the evill joyes of the minde; Gaudium enim nisi sapienti non contingere, said [Page] A Seneca, none but a wise and a good man can truly rejoyce; The evill laugh loud, and sigh deeply, they drink drunk, and forget their sorrowes, and all the joyes of an evill man is only arts of forgetfulnesse, devices to cover their sorrow, and make them not see their death, and its affrighting circumstances; but the heart never can rejoyce, and be secure, be pleased and be at rest, but when it dwels with holinesse: the joyes that come from thence are safe and great, unchangeable and unabated, healthfull and holy; and this is true joy: and this is that which can cure all the little images of pleasure, and temptation which debauch our nature, and make it dwell with B hospitals, in the region of diseases and evill sorrowes. ‘St. Gregory well observed the difference: saying, that Corporall pleasures when we have them not, inkindle a flame and a burning desire in the heart, and make a man very miserable, before he tasts them; the appetite to them is like thirst and the desires of a feaver, the pleasure of drinking will not pay for the pain of the desire; and when they are enjoyed, they instantly breed satiety and a loathing. But spirituall rejoycings, and delights are loathed by them that have them not, and despised by them that never felt them; but when they are once tasted they increase the appetite and swell it to C bigger capacities; and the more they are eaten, the more they are desired, and cannot become a wearinesse because they satisfie all the way, and only increase the desire, because themselves grow bigger and more amiable.’ And therefore when this new and stranger appetite, and consequent joy arises in the heart of man, it so fils all the faculties, that there is no gust, no desire left for toads and vipers, for hemlock and the deadly night-shade.

Sirenas, hilarem navigantium poenam,

Blandás (que) mortes, gaudiúm (que) crudele,

D Quas nemo quondam deserebat auditas,

Prudens Ulysses dicitur reliquisse.

Then a man can hear the musick of songs and dances, and think them to be heathenish noises; and if he be engaged in the society of a woman singer, he can be as unconcerned as a marble statue; he can be at a feast and not be defil'd, he can passe through theatres as through a street; then he can look on money as his servant, nec distant aera lupinis, he can use it as the Greeks did their sharp coins, to cast accounts withall, and not from thence take the accounts E of his wealth or his felicity. If you can once obtain but to delight in prayer, and to long for the day of a Communion, and to be pleased with holy meditation, and to desire Gods grace with great passion, and an appetite keen as a Wolf upon the cold plains of the North; If you can delight in Gods love, and consider concerning his providence, and busie your selves in the [Page] pursuit of the affairs of his Kingdome, then you have the grace A of devotion, and your evill nature shall be cured.

3. Because this great cure is to be wrought by the Spirit of God, which is a new nature in us, we must endevour to abstain from those things which by a speciall malignity are directly opposite to the spirit of reason, and the spirit of grace; and those are drunkennesse and lust. He that is full of wine cannot be full of the spirit of God; St. Paul noteth the hostility. Be not drunk with wine, Ephes. 5. 18. but be filled with the Spirit; a man that is a drunkard does perire cito, he perishes quickly, his temptations that come to him make but short work with him; a drunkard is [...]: our English well B expresses it, it is a sottishnesse, and the man is [...], an uselesse, senselesse person, [...]; of all the evils of the world nothing is worse to a mans self, nothing is more harmfull then this; [...], said Crobylus, it deprives a wise man of his counsell and his understanding: now, because it is the greatest good that nature hath, that which takes it away must needs be our greatest enemy. Nature is weak enough of it self, but drunkennesse takes from it all the little strengths that are left to it, and destroyes the spirit; and the man can neither C have the strengths of nature, nor the strengths of grace; and how then can the man do wisely or vertuously? Spiritus sanctus amat sicca corda, the Spirit of Godloves dry hearts, said the Christian Proverb; and Josephus said of Samson, [...], it appears he was a Prophet, or a man full of the Spirit, by the temperance of his diet; and now that all the people are holy unto the Lord, they must [...], as Plutarch said of their consecrated persons; they must have dry and sober purities: for by this means their reason is usefull, and their passions not violent, and their discourse united, and the precious things of their memory D at hand, and they can pray, and read, and they can meditate and practise, and then they can learn where their naturall weaknesses are most urgent, and how they can be tempted, and can secure their aides accordingly; but how is it possible that such a man should cure all the evils of his Nature, and repair the breaches of Adams sin, and stop all the effect which is upon him from all the evils of the world, if he delights in seas of drink, and is pleased with the follies of distemper'd persons, and laughs loud at the childish humours and weak discourses of the man that can do nothing but that for which Dionysius slew Antiphon, and Timagenes did fall E from Caesars friendship; that is, play the fool and abuse his friend; He cannot give good counsell or spend an hour in wise sayings; but half a day they can talk ut foret unde corona cachinnum tollere possit, to make the crowd laugh and consider not.

And the same is the case of lust; because it is exactly contrary [Page] A to Christ the King of Virgins, and his holy Spirit, who is the Prince of purities and holy thoughts; it is a captivity of the reason, and an inraging of the passions, it wakons every night, and rages every day, in desires passionately and prosecutes violently, it hinders businesse and distracts counsell, it brings jealousies and enkindles wars, it sins against the body, and weakens the foul, it defiles a Temple, and drives the holy Spirit forth, and it is so intire a prosecmion of the follies and weaknesses of nature, such a snare and a bait to weak and easie fools, that it prevails infinitely, and rages horribly, and rules tyrannically; it is a very B feaver in the reason, and a calenture in the passions; and therefore either it must be quenched, or it will be impossible to cure our evill natures: The curing of this is not the remedy of a single evill, but it is a doing violence to our whole nature; and therefore hath in it the greatest courage and an equall conduct, and supposes spirituall strengths great enough to contest against every enemy.

4. Hither is to be reduced, that we avoid all flatterers and evill company; for it was impossible that Alexander should be wise and cure his pride and his drunkennesse, so long as he entertain'd Agesius and Agnon, Bagoas and Demetrius, and slew Parmenio and C Philotas, and murder'd wise Calisthenes for he that loves to be flartered, loves not to change his pleasur [...]; but had rather to hear himself cal'd wise, then to be so. Flattery does bribe an evill nature, and corrupt a good one; and make it love to give wrong judgement, and evill sentences; he that loves to be flatter'd can never want some to abuse him, but he shall alwaies want one to counsell him, and then he can never be wise.

5. But I must put these advices into a heap; he therefore that will cure his evill nature, must for himself against his chiefest lust, which when he hath overcome, the lesser enemies will come in of D themselves. He must endevour to reduce his affections to an indifferency; for all violence is an enemy to reason and counsell, and is that state of disease for which he is to enquire remedies.

8. It is necessary that in all actions of choice he deliberate and consider, that he may never do that for which he must aske a pardon, and he must suffer shame and smart: and therefore Cato did well reprove Aulus Albinus for writing the Roman story in the Greek tongue, of which he had but imperfect knowledge; and himself was put to make his Apologie for so doing; Cato told him that he was mightily in love with a fault, that he had rather beg a pardon E then be innocent; Who forc'd him to need the pardon? And when beforehand we know we must change from what we are or do worse, it is a better compendium not to enter in from whence we must uneasily retire.

9. In all the contingencies of chance and variety of action, remember that thou art the maker of thy own fortune, and of thy [Page] own sin; charge not God with it either before or after; A The violence of thy own passion is no superinduced necessity from him, and the events of providence in all its strange variety can give no authority or patronage to a foul forbidden action, though the next chance of war or fortune be prosperous and rich. An Egyptian robber sleeping under a rotten wall was awaken'd by Serapis, and sent away from the ruine; but being quit from the danger, and seeing the wall to slide, thought that the Daemon lov'd his crime, because he had so strangely preserved him from a sudden and a violent death. But Serapis told him, [...], I saved you from the wall to reserve B you for the wheel; from a short and a private death, to a painfull and disgracefull; and so it is very frequently in the event of humane affairs: men are saved from one death, and reserved for another; or are preserved here to be destroyed hereafter; and they that would judge of actions by events, must stay till all events are passed; that is, till all their posterity be dead, and the sentence is given at Dooms-day; in the mean time, the evils of our nature are to be look'd upon without all accidentall appendages; as they are in themselves, as they have an irregularity and disorder, an unreasonablenesse and a sting; and be sure to relye upon C nothing, but the truth of lawes and promises; and take severe accounts by those lines which God gave us on purpose to reprove our evill habits and filthy inclinations. Men that are not willing to be cured are glad of any thing to cousen them; but the body of death cannot be taken off from us, unlesse we be honest in our purposes and severe in our counsels, and take just measures, and glorifie God, and set our selves against our selves, that we may be changed into the likenesse of the sons of God.

9. Avoid all delay in the counsels of Religion. Because the aversation and perversnesse of a childes nature may be corrected easily; D but every day of indulgence and excuse increases the evill, and makes it still more naturall, and still more necessary.

10. Learn to despise the world; or, which is a better compendium in the duty, learn but truly to understand it; for it is a cousenage all the way; the head of it is a rainbow, and the face of it is flattery; its words are charmes, and all its stories are false; its body is a shadow, and its hands do knit spiders webs; it is an image and a noise, with a Hyaena's lip and a Serpents tail; it was given to serve the needs of our nature, and in stead of doing it, it creates strange appetites, and nourishes thirsts and feavers; it brings care E and debauches our nature, and brings shame and death as the reward of all our cares. Our nature is a disease, and the world does nourish it; but if you leave to feed upon such unwholesome diet, your nature reverts to its first purities, and to the entertainments of the grace of God.

[Page] A 4. I am now to consider, how farre the infirmities of the flesh can be innocent, and consist with the spirit of grace. For all these counsels are to be entertain'd into a willing spirit, and not only so, but into an active: and so long as the spirit is only willing, the weaknesse of the flesh will in many instances become stronger then the strengths of the spirit. For he that hath a good will, and does not do good actions which are required of him, is hindred, but not by God that requires them, and therefore by himself, or his worst enemy. But the measures of this question are these.

1. If the flesh hinders us of our duty, it is our enemy; and then B our misery is not, that the flesh is weak, but that it is too strong; But 2. when it abates the degrees of duty and stops its growth, or its passing on to action and effect, then it is weak, but not directly, nor alwaies criminall. But to speak particularly.

If our flesh hinders us of any thing that is a direct duty, and prevails upon the spirit to make it do an evill action, or contract an evill habit, the man is in a state of bondage and sin: his flesh is the mother of corruption, and an enemy to God. It is not enough to say, I desire to serve God, and cannot as I would: I would fain love God above all the things in the world, but the flesh hath C appetites of its own that must be served: I pray to be forgiven as I forgive others; but flesh and bloud cannot put up such an injury: for know that no infirmity, no unavoidable accident, no necessity, no poverty, no businesse can hinder us from the love of God, or forgiving injuries, or being of a religious and a devout spirit; Poverty and the intrigues of the world are things that can no more hinder the spirit in these duties, then a strong enemy can hinder the sun to shine, or the clouds to drop rain. These things which God requires of us, and exacts from us with mighty penalties, these he hath made us able to perform; for he knows that D we have no strength but what he gives us; and therefore as he binds burdens upon our shoulders, so he gives us strength to bear them; and therefore he that sayes he cannot forgive, sayes only that his lust is stronger then his religion; his flesh prevails upon his spirit. For what necessity can a man have to curse him whom he cals enemy? or to sue him, or kill him, or do him any spite? A man may serve all his needs of nature, though he does nothing of all this; and if he be willing, what hinders him to love, to pardon to wish well, to desire? The willing is the doing in this case; and he that sayes he is willing to do his duty, but he cannot, does not understand E what he sayes. For all the duty of the inner man consists in the actions of the will, and there they are seated, and to it all the inferiour faculties obey in those things which are direct emanations, and effects of will. He that desires to love God, does love him; indeed men are often cousened with pretences, and in some good mood are warm'd with a holy passion, but it signifies nothing; [Page] because they will not quit the love of Gods enemies; and A therefore they do not desire, what they say they doe: but if the will and heart be right, and not false and dissembling, this duty is, or will be done infallibly.

2. If the spirit and the heart be willing, it will passe on to outward actions in all things where it ought, or can. He that hath a charitable soul will have a charitable hand; and will give his money to the poor, as he hath given his heart to God: For these things which are in our hand are under the power of our will, and therefore are to be commanded by it. He that sayes to the naked, be warm and cloathed, and gives him not the garment that lies by him, B or money to buy one, mocks God, and the poor, and himself. Nequam illud verbum est, bene vult, nisi qui bene facit, said the Comedy; It Trinummus. is an evill saying, he wishes well, unlesse he do well.

3. Those things which are not in our power, that is, such things in which the flesh is inculpably weak, or naturally, or politically disabled, the will does the work of the outward and of the inward man; we cannot cloath Christs body, he needs it not; and we cannot approach so sacred and separate a presence; but if we desire to do it, it is accounted as if we had. The ignorant man cannot discourse wisely and promote the interest of souls, but he can love C souls, and desire their felicity; though I cannot build Hospitals and Colledges, or pour great summes of money into the lap of the poor, yet if I incourage others and exhort them, if I commend and promote the work, I have done the work of a holy Religion. For in these and the like cases, the outward work is not alwaies set in our power; and therefore without our fault is omitted, and can be supplied by that which is in our power.

4. For that is the last caution, concerning this question. No man is to be esteemed of a willing spirit, but he that endevours to doe the outward work, or to make all the supplies that he can; not only D by the forwardnesse of his spirit, but by the compensation of some other charities, or devotion, or religion. Silver and gold have I none, and therefore I can give you none: But I wish you well; How will that appear? why thus, Such as I have I will give you: Rise up and walk. I cannot give you gold, but I can give you counsell; I cannot relieve your need, but I can relieve your sadnesse; I cannot cure you, but I can comfort you; I cannot take away your poverty, but I can ease your spirit; and God accepts us (saith the Apostle) according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not. Only as our desires are great, and our spirits are willing, E so we shall finde wayes to make supply of our want of ability and expressed liberality.

Et labor ingenium misero dedit, & sua quem (que)

Advigilare sibi jussit fortuna premendo.

[Page] A What the poor mans need will make him do, that also the good mans charity will; it will finde out wayes and artifices of relief, in kinde, or in value; in comfort, or in prayers; in doing it himself, or procuring others:

[...].

The necessity of our fortune, and the willingnesse of our spirits will do all this; all that it can, and something that it cannot; You have relieved the Saints (saith St. Paul) according to your power, yea and beyond your power; Only let us be carefull in all instances, that we B yeeld not to the weaknesse of the flesh, nor listen to its fair pretences; for the flesh can do more then it sayes, we can do more then we think we can; and if we doe some violence to the flesh, to our affairs, and to the circumstances of our fortune, for the interest of our spirit, we shall make our flesh usefull, and the spirit strong, the flesh and its weaknesse shall no more be an objection, but shall comply, and co-operate, and serve all the necessities of the spirit.

Sermon, XII. Of Lukewarmnesse, and Zeal: OR SPIRITVALL TERROVR. Part I.

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C Jer. 48. 10. vers. first part.‘Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully.’

CHrists Kingdome being in order to the Kingdome of his Father, which shall be manifest at the day of Judgement, must therefore be spirituall, because then it is, that all things must become spirituall, not only by way of eminency, but by intire constitution and perfect change of natures. D Men shall be like Angels, and Angels shall be comprehended in the lap of spirituall and eternall felicities; the soul shall not understand by materiall phantasmes, neither be served by the provisions of the body, but the body it self shall become spirituall, and the eye shall see intellectuall objects, and the mouth shall feed upon hymns and glorifications of God; the belly shall be then satisfied by the fulnesse of righteousnesse, and the tongue shall speak nothing but praises, and the propositions of a celestiall wisdome; the motion shall be the swiftnesse of an Angell; and it shall be cloathed with white as with a garment: Holinesse E is the Sun, and righteousnesse is the Moon in that region; our society shall be Quires of singers, and our conversation wonder; contemplation shall be our food, and love shall be the wine of elect souls; and as to every naturall appetite there is now proportion'd an object, crasse, materiall, unsatisfying, and allayed [Page] A with sorrow and uneasinesse: so there be new capacities and equall objects, the desires shall be fruition, and the appetite shall not suppose want, but a faculty of delight, and an unmeasureable complacency: the will and the understanding, love and wonder, joyes every day and the same forever; this shall be their state who shall be accounted worthy of the resurrection to this life; where the body shall be a partner, but no servant; where it shall have no work of its own, but it shall rejoyce with the soul; where the soul shall rule without resistance, or an enemy, and we shall be fitted to enjoy God who is the Lord and Father of spirits. In this world B we see it is quite contrary: we long for perishing meat, and fill our stomachs with corruption; we look after white and red, and the weaker beauties of the night; we are passionate after rings and seals, and inraged at the breaking of a Crystall; we delight in the society of fools and weak persons; we laugh at sin, and contrive mischiefs; and the body rebels against the soul, and carries the cause against all its just pretences; and our soul it self is above half of it earth, and stone in its affections, and distempers; our hearts are hard, and inflexible to the softer whispers of mercy and compassion, having no loves for any thing but strange flesh, C and heaps of money, and popular noises, for misery and folly; and therefore we are a huge way off from the Kingdome of God, whose excellencies, whose designs, whose ends, whose constitution is spirituall and holy, and separate, and sublime, and perfect. Now between these two states of naturall flesh, and heavenly spirit, that is, the powers of darknesse, and the regions of light, the miseries of man, and the perfections of God; the imperfection of nature where we stand by our creation, and supervening follies, and that state of felicities whither we are designed by the mercies of God, there is a middle state; the Kingdome of grace wrought for D us by our Mediator, the man Christ Jesus, who came to perfect the vertue of Religion, and the designs of God, and to reforme our Nature, and to make it possible for us to come to that spirituall state where all felicity does dwell. The Religion that Christ taught is a spirituall Religion, it designs (so far as this state can permit) to make us spirituall; that is; so as the spirit be the prevailing ingredient. God must now be worshipped in spirit, and not only so, but with a fervent spirit; and though God in all religions did seise upon the spirit, and even under Moses Law did by the shadow of the ceremony, require the substantiall worship, E by cutting off the flesh intended the circumcision of the heart; yet because they were to minde the outward action, it took off much from the intention, and activity of the spirit; Man could not doe both busily: And then they fail'd also in the other part of a spirituall Religion; for the nature of a spirituall Religion is, that in it we serve God with our hearts and affections; and because [Page] while the spirit prevails, we do not to evill purposes of abatement A converse with flesh and bloud, this service is also fervent, intense, active, wise, and busie, according to the nature of things spirituall. Now because God alwayes perfectly intended it, yet because he lesse perfectly required it in the Law of Moses, I say they fell short in both.

For, 1. They so rested in the outward action, that they thought themselves chast, if they were no adulterers, though their eyes were wanton as Kids, and their thoughts polluted as the springs of the wildernesse when a Panther and a Lionesse descend to drink and lust; and if they did not rob the Temple, they accounted B it no sin if they murmur'd at the riches of Religion; and Josephus reproves Polybius for saying that Antiochus was punished for having a design of sacriledge; and therefore Tertullian sayes of them, they were nec plenae, nec adeò timendae disciplinae ad innocentiae veritatem; this was their righteousnesse which Christ said unlesse we will exceed, we shall not enter into the Kingdome of heaven, where all spirituall perfections are in state and excellency.

2. The other part of a spirituall worship is a fervour and a holy Zeal of Gods glory, greatnesse of desire, and quicknesse of action; C of all this the Jewes were not carefull at all, excepting the zealots amongst them, and they were not only fervent but inflamed; and they had the earnestnesse of passion for the holy warmth of Religion; and in stead of an earnest charity they had a cruell discipline, and for fraternall correction they did destroy a sinning Israelite: and by both these evill states of Religion they did the work of the Lord deceitfully; they either gave him the action without the heart, or zeal without charity, or religion without zeal, or ceremony without religion, or indifferency without desires; and then God is served by the outward man D and not the inward; or by part of the inward and not all; by the understanding and not by the will; or by the will when the affections are cold and the body unapt, and the lower faculties in rebellion, and the superior in disorder, and the work of God is left imperfect, and our persons ungracious, and our ends unacquired, and the state of a spirituall kingdome not at all set forward towards any hope or possibility of being obtained. All this Christ came to mend, and by his Lawes did make provision that God should be served intirely, according as God alwaies designed, and accordingly required by his Prophets, and particularly in my Text, that his E work be done sincerely, and our duty with great affection; and by these two provisions, both the intension and the extension are secured; our duty shall be intire, and it shall be perfect, we shall be neither lame nor cold, without a limb, nor without naturall heat, and then the work of the Lord will prosper in our hands: but if we [Page] A fail in either, we do the Lords work deceitfully, and then we are accursed. For so saith the Spirit of God; Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully.

1. Here then is the duty of us all: 1. God requires of us to serve him with an integrall, intire, or a whole worship and religion. 2. God requires of us to serve him with earnest and intense affections; The intire purpose of both which, I shall represent in its severall parts by so many propositions. 3. I shall consider concerning the measures of zeal, and its inordinations.

1. He that serves God with the body without the soul, serves God B deceitfully. My son give me thy heart; and though I cannot think that Nature was so sacramentall, as to point out the holy and mysterious Trinity by the triangle of the heart, yet it is certain that the heart of man is Gods speciall portion, and every angle ought to point out towards him directly; that is, the soul of man ought to be presented to God, and given to him as an oblation to the interest of his service.

1. For, to worship God with our souls consesses one of his glorious ateributes; it declares him to be the searcher of hearts, and that he reads the secret purposes, and beholds the smallest arrests C of fancy, and bends in all the flexures and intriques of crafty people, and searches out every plot and trifling conspiracy against him, and against our selves, and against our brethren.

2. It advances the powers and concernments of his providence, and confesses all the affairs of men, all their cabinets and their nightly counsels, their snares and two-edged mischiefs to be over-rul'd by him; for what he sees he judges, and what he judges he rules, and what he rules must turn to his glory; and of this glory he reflects rayes and influences upon his servants, and it shall also turn to their good.

3. This service distinguishes our duty towards God from all our D conversation with man, and separates the divine commandements from the imperfect decrees of Princes and Republiques; for these are satisfied by the outward work, and cannot take any other cognisance of the heart, and the will of man, but as himself is pleased to signifie. He that wishes the fiscus empty, and that all the revenues of the Crown were in his counting-house, cannot be punished by the Lawes, unlesse himself become his own traytor and accuser; and therefore what man cannot discern, he must not judge, and must not require? but God sees it and judges it, and requires it, and therefore reserves this as his own portion and the chiefest E feudall right of his Crown.

4. He that secures the heart, secures all the rest; because this is the principle of all the moral actions of the whole man, & the hand obeys this, and the feet walk by its prescriptions; we eat and drink by measures wch the soul desires and limits; and though the naturall actions of man are not subject to choice & rule, yet the animal actions are under [Page] discipline; and although it cannot be helped but we shall desire, A yet our desires can receive measures, and the lawes of circumstances, and be reduced to order, and nature be changed into grace, and the actions animall (such as are, eating, drinking, laughing, weeping, &c.) shall become actions of Religion; and those that are simply naturall (such as, being hungry and thirsty) shall be adopted into the retinue of religion, and become religious by being order'd, or chastis'd, or suffered, or directed; and therefore God requires the heart, because he requires all; and all cannot be secured without the principle be inclosed. But he that seals up a fountain, may drink up all the waters alone, and may B best appoint the channels where it shall run, and what grounds it shall refresh.

5. That I may summe up many reasons in one; God by requiring the heart secures the perpetuity and perseverance of our duty, and its sincerity, and its integrity, and its perfection: for so also God takes account of little things; it being all one in the heart of man, whether maliciously it omits a duty in a small instance or in a great; for although the expression hath variety and degrees in it in relation to those purposes of usefulnesse and charity whither God designs it, yet the obedience and disobedience is all one, and shall be equally C accounted for; and therefore the Jew Tryphon disputed against Justin, that the precepts of the Gospell were impossible to be kept, because it also requiring the heart of man did stop every egression of disorders: for making the root holy and healthfull, as the Balsame of Judaea, or the drops of Manna in the evening of the sabbath; it also causes that nothing spring thence but gummes sit for incense, and oblations for the Altar of proposition, and a cloud of perfume fit to make atonement for our sins, and being united to the great sacrifice of the world to reconcile God and man together. Upon these reasons you see it is highly fit that God should require D it, and that we should pay the sacrifice of our hearts; and not at all think that God is satisfied with the work of the hands, when the affections of the heart are absent. He that prayes because he would be quiet, and would fain be quit of it, and communicates for fear of the lawes, and comes to Church to avoid shame, and gives almes to be eased of an importunate begger, or relieves his old parents because they will not dye in their time, and provides for his children lest he be compeld by Lawes and shame, but yet complains of the charge of Gods blessings, this man is a servant of the eyes of men, and offers parchment or a white skin in sacrifice, but E the flesh and the inwards he leaves to be consumed by a stranger fire. And therefore this is a deceit that robs God of the best, and leaves that for religion which men pare off: It is sacriledge, and brings a double curse.

2. He that serves God with the soule without the body, when both [Page] A can be conjoyned, doth the work of the Lord deceitfully. Paphnutius, whose knees were cut for the testimony of Jesus, was not obliged to worship with the humble flexures of the bending penitents: and blinde Bartimeus could not read the holy lines of the Law, and therefore that part of the work was not his duty; and God shall not call Lazarus to account for not giving almes, nor St. Peter and St. John for not giving silver and gold to the lame man, nor Epaphroditus for not keeping his fasting dayes when he had his sicknesse. But when God hath made the body an apt minister to the soul, and hath given money for almes, and power to protect the oppressed, B and knees to serve in prayer and hands to serve our needs, then the soul alone is not to work; but as Rachel gave her maid to Jacob and she bore children to her Lord upon her Mistresse knees, and the children were reckoned to them both, because the one had fruitfull desires and the other a fruitfull wombe: so must the body serve the needs of the spirit; that what the one desires the other may effect, and the conceptions of the soul may be the productions of the body; and the body must bow when the soul worships, and the hand must help when the soul pities, and both together do the work of a holy Religion; the body alone can never serve God C without the conjunction and preceding act of the soul; and sometimes the soul without the body is imperfect and vain; for in some actions there is a body and a spirit, a materiall and a spirituall part: and when the action hath the same constitution that a man hath, without the act of both it is as imperfect as a dead man; the soul cannot produce the body of some actions any more then the body can put life into it; and therefore an ineffective pity and a lazie counsell, an empty blessing, and gay words, are but deceitfull charity.

D Quod peto, da, Caï, non peto consiliam.

He that gave his friend counsell to study the Law, when he desired to borrow 20 l. was not so friendly in his counsell as he was uselesse in his charity; spirituall acts can cure a spirituall malady, but if my body needs relief, because you cannot feed me with Diagrams, or cloath me with Euclids elements, you must minister a reall supply by a corporall charity to my corporall necessity. This proposition is not only usefull in the doctrine of charity, and the vertue of religion, but in the professions of faith, and requires that it be publick, open, and ingenuous. In matters of necessary duty it is not sufficient to E have it to our selves, but we must also have it to God, and all the world; and as in the heart we beleeve, so by the mouth we confesse unto salvation: he is an ill man that is only a Christian in his heart, and is not so in his professions and publications; and as your heart must not be wanting in any good profession and pretences, so neither must publick profession be wanting in every good and necessary [Page] perswasion. The faith and the cause of God must be owned A publiquely; for if it be the cause of God, it will never bring us to shame. I do not say, what ever we think, we must tell it to all the world, much lesse at all times, and in all circumstances; but we must never deny that which we beleeve to be the cause of God in such circumstances in which we can and ought to glorifie him. But this extends also to other instances. He that swears a false oath with his lips, and unswears it with his heart, hath deceived one more then he thinks for; himself is the most abused person: and when my action is contrary to men they will reprove me, but when it is against my own perswasion, I cannot but reprove my self; and B am witnesse, and accuser, and party, and guilty, and then God is the Judge, and his anger will be a fierce executioner, because we do the Lords work deceitfully.

3. They are deceitfull in the Lords work that reserve one faculty for sin, or one sin for themselves, or one action to please their appetite, and many for Religion. Rabbt Kimchi taught his Scholars, Cogitationem pravam Deus non habet vice facti, nisi concepta fuerit in Dei sidem & Religionem; that God is never angry with an evill thought, unlesse it be a thought of Apostasie from the Jewes religion; and therefore, provided that men be severe and close in C their sect and party, they might roll in lustfull thoughts; and the torches they light up in the Temple might smoke with anger at one end, and lust at the other, so they did not flame out in egressions of violence and injustice, in adulteries and fouler complications: nay they would give leave to some degrees of evill actions; for R. Moses and Selomoh taught, that if the most part of a mans actions were holy and just, though in one he sinned often, yet the greater ingredient should prevail, and the number of good works should outweigh the lesser account of evill things; and this Pharisaicall righteousnesse is too frequent even amongst Christians. For who almost D is there that does not count fairly concerning himself, if he reckons many vertues upon the stock of his Religion, and but one vice upon the stock of his infirmity; half a dozen to God, and one for his company, or his friend; his education, or his appetite? and if he hath parted from his folly, yet he will remember the fleshpots, and please himself with a phantastick sin, and call it home through the gates of his memory, and place it at the door of fancy, that there he may behold it and consider concerning what he hath parted withall, out of the fears and terrors of religion, and a necessary unavoidable conscience. Do not many men go from sin to sin E even in their repentance? they go backward from sin to sin, and change their crime as a man changes his uneasie load, and shakes it off from one shoulder to support it with the other. How many severe persons, virgins and widows are so pleased with their chastity, and their abstinence even from lawfull mixtures, that by [Page] A this means they fall into a worse pride? insomuch that I remember St. Austin said, Audco dicere superbis continentibus expedit cadere, they that are chaste and proud, it is sometimes a remedy for them to fall into sin, and by the shame of lust to cure the devill of pride, and by the sin of the body to cure the worser evils of the spirit; and therefore he addes, that he did beleeve, God in a severe mercy did permit the barbarous nations, breaking in upon the Roman Empire, to violate many virgins professed in Cloisters and religious Families to be as a mortification of their pride, lest the accidentall advantages of a continent life should bring them into the certain B miseries of a spirituall death, by taking away their humility, which was more necessary then their virgin state; It is not a cure that men may use, but God permits it sometimes with greater safety through his wise conduct and over-ruling providence; St. Peter was safer by his fall (as it fell out in the event of things) then by his former confidence. Man must never cure a sin by a sin; but he that brings good out of our evill, he can when he please. But I speak it, to represent how deceitfully many times we do the work of the Lord. We reprove a sinning Brother, but do it with a pompous spirit; we separate from scandall, and do it with glory, and a C gaudy heart; we are charitable to the poor, but will not forgive our unkinde enemies; or we powre relief into their bags, but we please our selves and drink drunk, and hope to commute with God, giving the fruit of our labours or effluxes of money for the sin of our souls: And upon this account it is that two of the noblest graces of a Christian are to very many persons made a savour of death, though they were intended for the beginning and the promotion of an eternal life; and those are faith and charity; some men think if they have faith, it is enough to answer all the accusations of sin which our consciences or the Devils make against D us: If I be a wanton person, yet my faith shall hide it, and faith shall cover the follies of drunkennesse, and I may all my life relye upon faith, at last to quit my scores. For he that is most carefull is not innocent, but must be saved by faith, and he that is least carefull may have faith, and that will save him. But because these men mistake concerning faith, and consider not that charity or a good life is a part of that faith that saves us, they hope to be saved by the Word, they fill their bellies with the story of Frimalcions banquet, and drink drunk with the newes of wine, they eat shadows, and when they are drowning, catch at the image of the E trees which hang over the water, and are reflected from the bottome.

But thus many men do with charity, [Give almes and all things shall be clean unto you, said our Blessed Saviour:] and therefore, many keep a sin alive, and make account to pay for it, and God shall be put to relieve his own poor at the price of the sin of another of [Page] his servants; charity shall take lust or intemperance into protection, A and men will not be kinde to their brethren, unlesse they will be also at the same time unkinde to God. I have understood concerning divers vicious persons, that none have been so free in their donatives and offerings to Religion and the Priest as they: and the Hospitals that have been built, and the High-wayes mended at the price of souls, are too many for Christendome to boast of in behalf of charity. But as others mistake concerning faith, so these do concerning its twin sister. The first had faith without charity, and these have charity without hope; for every one that hath this hope, that is, the hope of receiving the glorious things of God B promised in the Gospell, purifies himself even as God is pure; faith and charity too, must both suppose repentance; and repentance is the abolition of the whole body of sin, the purification of the whole man. But the summe of the Doctrine and case of conscience in this particular is this.

1. Charity is a certain cure of sins that are past, not that are present. He that repents and leaves his sin, and then relieves the poor and payes for his folly by a diminution of his own estate, and the supplies of the poor, and his ministring to Christs poor members, turns all his former crimes into holinesse; he purges C the stains and makes amends for his folly, and commutes for the baser pleasure with a more noble usage: so said Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar [Break off thy sins by righteousnesse, and thine iniquities Den. 4. 27. by shewing mercy to the poor:] first be just, and then be charitable; for it is pity almes, which is one of the noblest services of God, and the greatest mercy to thy Brother, should be spent upon sin, and thrown away upon folly.

2. Faith is the remedy of all our evils, but then it is never of force, but when we either have endevoured or undertaken to do all good; this in baptisme, that after: faith and repentance at first; D and faith and charity at last; and because we fail often by infirmity, and sometimes by inadvertency, sometimes by a surprize, and often by omission; and all this even in the midst of a sincere endevour to live justly, and perfectly; therefore the passion of our Lord payes for this, and faith layes hold upon that. But without a hearty and sincere intent, and vigorous prosecution of all the parts of our duty, faith is but a word, not so much as a cover to a naked bosome, nor a pretence big enough to deceive persons that are not willing to be cousened.

3. The bigger ingredient of vertue and evill actions will prevail, E but it is only when vertue is habituall, and sins are single, interrupted, casuall and seldome, without choice and without affection; that is, when our repentance is so timely that it can work for God, more then we served under the tyranny of sin; so that if you will account the whole life of man, the rule is good, and the greater ingredient [Page] A shal prevail, and he shall certainly be pardoned and accepted whose life is so reformed, whose repentance is so active, whose return is so early, that he hath given bigger portions to God then to Gods enemy. But if we account so, as to divide the measures in present possession, the bigge [...] part cannot prevail; a small or a seldome sin spoils not the sea of piety; but when the affection is divided, a little ill destroyes the whole body of good; the cup in a mans right hand must be [...], it must be pure although it be mingled; that is, the whole affection must be for God, that must be pure and unmingled; if sin mingles in seldome and unapproved instances, the drops of water are B swallowed up with a whole vintage of piety, and the bigger ingredient is the prevailing; in all other cases it is not so: for one sin that we choose and love and delight in, will not be excused by 20 vertues: and as one broken link dissolves the union of the whole chain, and one jarring and untuned string spoils the whole musick; so is every sin that seises upon a portion of our affections; if we love one, that one destroyes the acceptation of all the rest; And as it is in faith, so it is in charity. He that is a Heretick in one article, hath no saving faith in the whole; and so does every vicious habit, or unreformed sin destroy the excellency of the grace of charity; a C wilfull error in one article is Heresie, and every vice in one instance is Malice, and they are perfectly contrary, and a direct darknesse to the two eyes of the soul, faith and charity.

4. There is one deceit more yet, in the matter of the extension of our duty, destroying the integrity of its constitution: for they do the work of God deceitfully, who think God sufficiently served with abstinence from evill, and converse not in the acquisition and pursuit of holy charity and religion. This Clemens Alexandrinus affirmes of the Pharisees, they were [...], they hoped to be justified by abstinence from things forbidden; but if we D will be [...] sons of the kingdome, we must [...], Besides this, and supposing a proportionable perfection in such an innocence, we must love our brother and do good to him, and glorifie God by a holy Religion, in the communion of Saints, in faith and Sacraments, in almes and counsell, in forgivenesses and assistances. Flee from evill, and do the thing that is good, and dwell for evermore, said the Spirit of God in the Psalmes: and St. Peter [Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, give all diligence to adde to your faith vertue, to vertue patience, to patience godlinesse, and brotherly kindnesse E and charity. Many persons think themselves fairly assoiled, because they are no adulterers, no rebels, no drunkards, not of scandalous lives; In the mean time like the Laodiceans, they are naked and poor; they have no catalogue of good things registred in heaven, no treasures in the repositories of the poor, neither have the poor often prayed concerning them, Lord remember thy servants for this [Page] thing at the day of Judgement. A negative Religion is in many A things the effects of lawes and the appendage of sexes, the product of education, the issues of company and of the publick, or the daughter of fear and naturall modesty, or their temper and constitution, and civill relations, common fame, or necessary interest. Few women swear and do the debaucheries of drunkards; and they are guarded from adulterous complications by spies and shame, by fear and jealousie, by the concernment of families, and the reputation of their kindred, and therefore they are to account with God beyond this civill and necessary innocence, for humility and patience, for religious fancies and tender consciences, for tending B the sick and dressing the poor, for governing their house and nursing their children; and so it is in every state of life. When a Prince or a Prelate, a noble and a rich person hath reckon'd all his immunities and degrees of innocence from those evils that are incident to inferiour persons, or the worser sort of their own order, they do the work of the Lord, and their own too, very deceitfully, unlesse they account correspondencies of piety to all their powers and possibilities: they are to reckon and consider concerning what oppressions they have relieved, what causes and what fatherlesse they have defended, how the work of God and of Religion, of justice C and charity hath thriv'd in their hands. If they have made peace, and encouraged Religion by their example and by their lawes, by rewards and collaterall incouragements, if they have been zealous for God and for Religion, if they have imployed ten talents to the improvement of Gods bank, then they have done Gods work faithfully; if they account otherwise, and account only by ciphers, and negatives, they can expect only the rewards of innocent slaves; they shall escape the furca and the wheel, the torments of lustfull persons, and the crown of flames, that is reserved for the ambitious; or they shall not be gnawn with the vipers of the envious, D or the shame of the ingratefull; but they can never upon this account hope for the crowns of Martyrs, or the honorary rewards of Saints, the Coronets of virgins, and Chaplets of Doctors and Confessors: And though murderers and lustfull persons, the proud and the covetous, the Heretick and Schismatick are to expect flames and scorpions, pains and smart, (poenam sensus, the Schooles call it) yet the lazie and the imperfect, the harmlesse sleeper and the idle worker shall have poenam damni, the losse of all his hopes, and the dishonours of the losse; and in the summe of affairs it will be no great difference whether we have losse or pain, because there can E be no greater pain imaginable then to lose the sight of God to eternall ages.

5. Hither are to be reduced as deceitfull workers, those that promise to God, but mean not to pay what they once intended; * people that are confident in the day of case, and fail in the danger; [Page] A * they that pray passionately for a grace, and if it be not obtained at that price go no further, and never contend in action for what they seem to contend in prayer; * such as delight in forms and outsides, and regard not the substance and design of every institution; * that think it a great sin to tast bread before the receiving the holy Sacrament, and yet come to communicate with an ambitious and revengefull soul; * that make a conscience of eating flesh, but not of drunkennesse; * that keep old customes and old sins together; * that pretend one duty to excuse another; religion against charity, or piety to parents against duty to God, private promises B against publick duty, the keeping of an oath against breaking of a Commandement, honour against modesty, reputation against piety, the love of the world in civill instances to countenance enmity against God; these are the deceitfull workers of Gods work, they make a schisme in the duties of Religion, and a warre in heaven worse then that between Michael and the Dragon; for they divide the Spirit of God, and distinguish his commandements into parties and factions; by seeking an excuse, sometimes they destroy the integrity and perfect constitution of duty, or they do something whereby the effect and usefulnesse of the duty is hindred: concerning C all which this only can be said, they who serve God with a lame sacrifice and an imperfect duty, a duty defective in its constituent parts, can never enjoy God; because he can never be divided: and though it be better to enter into heaven with one foot, and one eye, then that both should be cast into hell, because heaven can make recompence for this losse; yet nothing can repair his losse who for being lame in his duty shall enter into hell, where nothing is perfect, but the measures and duration of torment, and they both are next to infinite.

SERMON, XIII. Part II.

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B 2. THe next enquiry, is into the intention of our duty: and here it will not be amisse to change the word fraudulentèr, or dolosè, into that which some of the Latin Copies doe use, Maledictus qui facit opus Dei [negligentèr,] Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently, or remissely: and it implyes, that as our duty must be whole, so it must be fervent; for a languishing body may have all its parts, and yet be uselesse to many purposes of nature: and you may reckon all the joynts of a dead man, but the heart is cold, and the joynts are stiffe and fit for nothing but for the C little people that creep in graves: and so are very many men; if you summe up the accounts of their religion, they can reckon dayes and months of Religion, various offices, charity and prayers, reading and meditation, faith and knowledge, catechisme and sacraments, duty to God and duty to Princes, paying debts and provision for children, confessions and tears, discipline in families, and love of good people; and it may be, you shall not reprove their numbers, or find any lines unfill'd in their tables of accounts; but when you have handled all this and consider'd, you will find at last you have taken a dead man by the hand, there is not a finger wanting, but D they are stiffe as Isicles, and without flexure as the legs of Elephants; ‘such are they whom S. Bernard describes, whose spirituall joy is allayed with tediousnesse, whose compunction for sins is short and seldome, whose thoughts are animall, and their designes secular, whose Religion is lukewarm; their obedience is without devotion, their discourse without profit, their prayer without intention of heart, their reading without instruction, their meditation is without spirituall advantages, and is not the commencement and strengthning of holy purposes;’ and they are such whom modesty will not restrain, nor reason bridle, nor discipline correct, E nor the fear of death and hell can keep from yeelding to the imperiousnesse of a foolish lust that dishonors a mans understanding, and makes his reason, in which he most glories, to be weaker then the discourse of a girle, and the dreams of the night. In every action of Religion God expects such a warmth, and a holy fire to goe [Page] A along, that it may be able to enkindle the wood upon the altar, and consume the sacrifice; but God hates an indifferent spirit. Earnestnesse and vivacity, quicknesse and delight, perfect choyce of the service, and a delight in the prosecution, is all that the spirit of a man can yeeld towards his Religion: the outward work is the effect of the body; but if a man does it heartily and with all his mind, then religion hath wings and moves upon wheels of fire; and therefore when our blessed Saviour made those capitulars and canons of Religion, to love God, and to love our neighbors; besides, that the materiall part of the duty [love] is founded in the spirit, as its naturall seat, he also B gives three words to involve the spirit in the action, and but one for the body: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soule, and with all thy mind; and lastly, with all thy strength; this brings in the body too; because it hath some strengths, and some significations of its own; but heart and soule and mind mean all the same thing in a stronger and more earnest expression; that is, that we doe it hugely, as much as we can, with a cleer choice, with a resolute understanding, with strong affections, with great diligence: Enerves animos odisse virtus solet, Vertue hates weak and ineffective minds, and tame easie prosecutions; C Loripedes, people whose arme is all flesh, whose foot is all leather, and an unsupporting skin; they creep like snakes, and pursue the noblest mysteries of Religion, as Naaman did the mysteries of Rimmon, onely in a complement, or for secular regards; but without the mind, and therefore without Zeal; I would thou wert either hot or cold, said the Spirit of God to the Angell or Bishop of Laodicea. In feasts or sacrifices the Ancients did use apponere frigidam or calidam; sometimes they drank hot drink, sometimes they poured cold upon their graves, or in their wines, but no services of Tables or Altars were ever with lukewarm. God hates it worse D then stark cold; which expression is the more considerable, because in naturall and superinduc'd progressions, from extreme to extreme, we must necessarily passe through the midst; and therefore it is certain, a lukewarm Religion is better then none at all, as being the doing some parts of the work designed, and neerer to perfection then the utmost distance could be; and yet that God hates it more, must mean that there is some appendant evill in this state which is not in the other, and that accidentally it is much worse: and so it is, if we rightly understand it; that is, if we consider it, not as a being in, or passing through the middle way, but as a state and a E period of Religion. If it be in motion, a lukewarm Religion is pleasing to God; for God hates it not for its imperfection, and its naturall measures of proceeding; but if it stands still and rests there, it is a state against the designes, and against the perfection of God, and it hath in it these evills.

[Page] 1. It is a state of the greatest imprudence in the world; for it A makes a man to spend his labour for that which profits not, and to deny his appetite for an unsatisfying interest; he puts his moneys in a napkin; and he that does so, puts them into a broken bag; he loses the principall for not encreasing the interest. He that dwells in a state of life that is unacceptable, loses the money of his almes, and the rewards of his charity, his hours of prayer, and his parts of justice; he confesses his sins and is not pardoned, he is patient, but hath no hope, and he that is gone so far towards his countrey, and stands in the middle way, hath gone so far out of his way; he had better have stay'd under a dry roof, in the house of banishment, B then to have left his Gyarus, the Island of his sorrow, and to dwell upon the Adriatick: So is he that begins a state of Religion, and does not finish it; he abides in the high-way, and though he be neerer the place, yet is as far from the rest of his countrey as ever; and therefore all that beginning of labour was in the prejudice of his rest, but nothing to the advantages of his hopes. He that hath never begun, hath lost no labour; Jactura praeteritorum, the losse of all that he hath done, is the first evill of the negligent and lukewarm Christian; according to the saying of Solomon: He that is remisse or idle in his labour, is the brother of him that scattereth C Prov. 18. 9. his goods.

2. The second appendant evill is, that lukewarmnesse is the occasion of greater evill; because the remisse easie Christian shuts the gate against the heavenly breathings of Gods holy Spirit; he thinks every breath that is fan'd by the wings of the holy Dove, is not intended to encourage his fires, which burn, and smoke, and peep through the cloud already; it tempts him to security; and if an evill life be a certain inlet to a second death, despaire on one side, and security on the other are the bars and locks to that dore, he can never passe forth again while that state remains; who ever D slips in his spirituall walking does not presently fall; but if that slip does not awaken his diligence, and his caution, then his ruine begins, vel pravae institutionis deceptus exordio, aut per longam mentis incuriam, & virtute animi decidente, as St. Austin observes; either upon the pursuit of his first error, or by a carelesse spirit, or a decaying slackned resolution; all which are the direct effects of lukewarmnesse. But so have I seen a fair structure begun with art and care, and raised to halfe its stature, and then it stood still by the misfortune or negligence of the owner, and the rain descended, and dwelt in its joynts, and supplanted the contexture of E its pillars, and having stood a while like the antiquated Temple of a deceased Oracle, it fell into a hasty age, and sunk upon its owne knees, and so descended into ruine: So is the imperfect, unfinished spirit of a man; it layes the foundation of a holy resolution, and strengthens it with vows and arts of prosecution, it raises up the [Page] A Sacraments, and Prayers, Reading, and holy Ordinances; and holy actions begin with a slow motion, and the building stays, and the spirit is weary, and the soul is naked, and exposed to temptation, and in the days of storm take in every thing that can doe it mischief; and it is faint and sick, listlesse and tired, and it stands till its owne weight wearies the foundation, and then declines to death and sad disorder, being so much the worse, because it hath not onely returned to its first follies, but hath superadded unthankfulnesse and carelesnesse, a positive neglect, and a despite of holy things, a setting a low price to the things of God, lazinesse and wretchlesnesse; B all which are evills superadded to the first state of coldnesse, whither he is with all these loads and circumstances of death easily revolv'd.

3. A state of lukewarmnesse is more incorrigible then a state of coldnesse; while men flatter themselves that their state is good, that they are rich and need nothing, that their lamps are dressed, and full of ornament. There are many that think they are in their countrey as soon as ever they are weary, and measure not the end of their hopes by the possession of them, but by their precedent labour, which they overvalue, because they have easie and effeminate C souls. S. Bernard complains of some that say, Sufficit nobis, nolumus esse meliores quàm Patres nostri: It is enough for us to be as our forefathers, who were honest and usefull in their generations, but be not over-righteous: These men are such as think they have knowledge enough to need no teacher, devotion enough to need no new fires, perfection enough to need no new progresse, justice enough to need no repentance; and then because the spirit of a man and all the things of this world are in perpetuall variety and change, these men decline when they have gone their period; they stand still, and then revert; like a stone returning from the bosome of a D cloud, where it rested as long as the thought of a childe, and fell to its naturall bed of earth, and dwelt below for ever. He that says he will take care he be no worse, and that he desires to be no better, stops his journey into heaven, but cannot be secure against his descending into hell: and Cassian spake a hard saying, Frequentèr vidimus de frigidis & carnalibus ad spiritualem venisse fervorem, de tepidis & animalibus omninò non vidimus: Many persons from vic [...]us, and dead, and cold, have passed into life and an excellent grace, and a spirituall warmth, and holy fires; but from lukewarm and indifferent never any body came to an excellent condition, and E state of holynesse: rarissimè S. Bernard sayes, very extremely seldome; and our blessed Saviour said something of this, The Publicans and the Harlots goe before you into the Kingdome of heaven; they are moved by shame, and punished by disgrace, and remarked by punishments, and frighted by the circumstances and notices of all the world, and separated from sober persons by laws and an [Page] intolerable character; and the sense of honour, and the care of their A persons, and their love of civill societie, and every thing in the world can invite them towards vertues. But the man that is accounted honest, and does justice, and some things of Religion, unlesse he finds himselfe but upon his way, and feels his wants, and groans under the sense of his infirmities, and sighs under his imperfections, and accounts himself not to have comprehended, but still presses towards the mark of his calling, unlesse (I say) he still increases in his appetites of Religion as he does in his progression, he will think he needs no counsellor, and the spirit of God whispers to an ear that is already fill'd with noyses, and cannot attend to the B heavenly calling. The stomach that is already full, is next to loathing, and that's the prologue to sicknesse, and a rejecting the first wholesome nutriment which was entertained to relieve the first naturall necessities: Qui non proficit vult deficere, said S. Bernard: He that goes not forward in the love of God, and of Religion, does not stand still, but goes for all that, but whither such a motion will lead him, himself without a timely care shall feel by an intolerable experiment.

In this sense and for these reasons it is that although a lukewarm Christian hath gone forward some steps towards a state of holynesse, C and is advanced beyond him that is cold, and dead, and unconcerned, and therefore speaking absolutely and naturally, is neerer the Kingdome of God then he, that is not yet set out; yet accidentally, and by reason of these ill appendages, he is worse, in greater danger, in a state equally unacceptable, and therefore must either goe forward, and still doe the work of God carefully, and diligently, with a Fervent spirit, and an Active hand, with a willing heart, and a chearefull eye, or it had been better he had never begun.

2. It concerns us next to enquire concerning the duty in its proper D instances, that we may perceive to what parts and degrees of duty it amounts; we shall find it especially in the duties of faith, of prayer, and of charity.

1. Our faith must be strong, vigorous, active, confident, and patient, reasonable, and unalterable, without doubting, and feare, and partiality. For the faith of very many men, seems a duty so weak and indifferent, is so often untwisted by violence, or ravel'd and intangled in weak discourses, or so false and fallacious by its mixture of interest, that though men usually put most confidences in the pretences of faith, yet no pretences are more unreasonable. E

1. Our faith and perswasions in Religion is most commonly imprinted in us by our country, and we are Christians at the same rate as we are English or Spaniards, or of such a family; our reason is first stained and spotted with the dye of our kindred, and country, and our education puts it in grain, and whatsoever is against this we are taught to call a [Page] A temptaiton: in the mean time we call these accidentall and artificiall perswasions by the name of faith, which is onely the aire of the countrey, or an heireloome of the family, or the daughter of a present interest. Whatever it was that brought us in, we are to take care that when we are in, our faith be noble, and stand upon its most proper and most reasonable foundation; it concerns us better to understand that Religion which we call Faith, and that faith whereby we hope to be saved.

2. The faith and the whole Religion of many men is the production of fear. Men are threatned into their perswasions, and the B iron rod of a Tyrant converts whole nations to his principles, when the wise discourses of the Religion seems dull as sleep, and unprevailing as the talk of childhood. That's but a deceitfull faith which our timorousnesse begot, and our weaknesse nurses, and brings up. The Religion of a Christian is immortall, and certaine, and perswasive, and infallible, and unalterable, and therefore needs not be received by humane and weake convoyes, like worldly and mortall Religions: that faith is lukewarm, and easie, and trifling, which is onely a beleef of that which a man wants courage to disbeleeve.

C 3. The faith of many men is such, that they dare not trust it: they will talk of it, and serve vanity, or their lust, or their company, or their interest by it, but when the matter comes to a pinch, they dare not trust it. When Antisthenes was initiated into the mysteries of Orpheus, the Priest told him, that all that were of that Religion, His qui sacris visis abeunt ad inferos Homines beati sunt, solis quia vivere Contingit illic istis, turba caetera Omnium malorum generi incidit. immediately after death should be perfectly happy; the Philosopher asked him, why he did not dye if he beleeved what he said? such a faith as that, was fine to talk of at table, or eating the sacrifices of the Religion, when the mystick man was [...] full of wine and flesh, of confidence and religion; but to dye, is a more material D consideration, and to be chosen upon no grounds, but such a faith which really comes from God, and can secure our reason, and our choyce, and perfect our interest and designes. And it hath been long observed concerning those bold people that use their reason against God that gave it, they have one perswasion in their health, and another in their sicknesse, and fears; when they are well, they blaspheme, when they die, they are superstitious; It was Bias his case when he was poyson'd by the Atheismes of Theodorus, no man died more like a coward and a fool; as if the gods were to come and goe as Bias pleased to think and talk: so one said of his folly. If E God be to be feared when we die, he is also to be feared in all our life, for he can for ever make us die; he that will doe it once, and that when he please, can alwayes. And therefore all those perswasions against God, and against Religion, are onely the production of vicious passions, of drink or fancy, of confidence and ignorance, of boldnesse or vile appetites, of vanity or fiercenesse, of [Page] pride or flatteries; and Atheisine is a proportion so unnaturall and A monstrous, that it can never dwell in a mans heart as faith does, in health and sicknesse, in peace and warre, in company and alone, at the beginning and at the end of a designe; but comes from weake principles, and leaves shallow and superficiall impressions; but when men endevour to strengthen and confirme it, they onely strive to make themselves worse then they can. Naturally a man cannot be an Atheist: for he that is so, must have something within him that is worse either then man or devill.

4. Some measure their faith by shews and apparencies, by ceremonies and names, by professions and little institutions. Diogenes B was angry at the silly Priest that thought he should be immortall because he was a Priest, and would not promise so concerning Agesilaus, and Epaminondas, two noble Greeks that had preserved their country, and lived vertuously. The faith of a Christian hath no signification at all but obedience and charity; if men be just, and charitable, and good, and live according to their faith, then onely they are Christians; whatsoever else is pretended is but a shadow and the image of a grace; for since in all the sects and institutions of the world, the professors did in some reasonable sort conform to the rules of the profession (as appears in all the Schooles of Philosophers, and Religions C of the world, and the practises of the Jews, and the usages and the countrey customes of the Turks) it is a strange dishonour to Christianity, that in it alone men should pretend to the faith of it, and doe nothing of what it perswades, and commands upon the account of those promises, which it makes us to beleeve. * He that means to please God by his faith, must have his faith begotten in him by the Spirit of God, and proper arguments of Religion; he must professe it without feare, he must dare to die for it, and resolve to live according to its institution; he must grow more confident, and more holy, have fewer doubtings and more vertues, he D must be resolute and constant, far from indifferency, and above secular regards; he must by it regulate his life, and value it above his life; he must contend earnestly for the faith, by the most prevailing arguments, by the arguments of holy living, and ready dying, by zeale and patience, by conformity and humility, by reducing words to actions, fair discourses to perfect perswasions, by loving the article, and encreasing in the knowledge and love of God and his Son Jesus Christ; and then his faith is not negligent, deceitfull, artificiall and improper, but true, and holy, and reasonable, and usefull, zealous and sufficient, and therefore can never be reproved. E

2. Our prayers and devotions must be fervent and zealous, not See Sermons of the Return of Prayer, Part 2 cold, patient, easie, and soon rejected; but supported by a patient spirit, set forwards by importunity, continued by perseverance, waited on by attention, and a present mind, carryed along with holy [Page] A but strong desires, and ballasted with resignation, and conformity to the divine will; and then it is, as God likes it, and does the work to Gods glory and our interest effectively. He that asks with a doubting mind, and a lazy desire, begs for nothing but to be denyed; we must in our prayers be earnest, and fervent, or else we shall have but a cold answer; for God gives his grace according as we can receive it; and whatsoever evill returnes we meet in our prayers, when we ask for good things, is wholly by reason of our wandring spirits, and cold desires; we have reason to complain that our minds wander in our prayers, and our diversions are more prevailing B then all our arts of application, and detention; and we wander sometimes even when we pray against wandring: and it is in some degrees naturall, and unevitable: but although the evill is not wholly to be cured, yet the symptomes are to be eased; and if our desires were strong, and fervent, our minds would in the same proportion be present; we see it by a certain and regular experience; what we love passionately, we perpetually think on, and it returnes upon us whether we will or no; and in a great fear the apprehension cannot be shaken off; and therefore if our desires of holy things were strong and earnest, we should most certainly attend C our prayers: it is a more violent affection to other things that carries us off from this; and therefore if we lov'd passionately what we aske for daily, we should aske with hearty desires, and an earnest appetite, and a present spirit; and however it be very easie to have our thoughts wander, yet it is our indifferency and luke warmnesse that makes it so naturall: and you may observe it, that so long as the light shines bright, and the fires of devotion, and desires flame out, so long the mind of a man stands close to the altar, and waits upon the sacrifice; but as the fires die and desires decay, so the mind steals away and walks abroad to see the little images of beauty D and pleasure, which it beholds in the falling stars and little glowwormes of the world. The river that runs slow and creeps by the banks, and begs leave of every turfe to let it passe, is drawn into little hollownesses, and spends it selfe in smaller portions, and dies with diversion; but when it runs with vigorousnesse and a ful stream, and breaks down every obstacle, making it even as its own brow, it stays not to be tempted by little avocations, and to creep into holes, but runs into the sea through full and usefull channels: So is a mans prayer, if it moves upon the feet of an abated appetite, it wanders into the society of every trifling accident, and stays at the E corners of the fancy, and talks with every object it meets, and cannot arrive at heaven; but when it is carryed upon the wings of passion and strong desires, a swift motion and a hungry appetite, it passes on through all the intermediall regions of clouds, and stays not till it dwells at the foot of the Throne, where mercy sits, and thence sends holy showers of refreshment. I deny not but some [Page] little drops will turn aside, and fall from the full channell by the A weaknesse of the banks, and hollownesse of the passage; but the main course is still continued: and although the most earnest and devout persons feel and complain of some loosenesse of spirit, and unfixed attentions, yet their love and their desire secure the maine portions, and make the prayer to be strong, fervent, and effectuall. Any thing can be done by him that earnestly desires what he ought; secure but your affections and passions, and then no temptation will be too strong; A wise man, and a full resolution, and an earnest spirit can doe any thing of duty; but every temptation prevailes when we are willing to die; and we usually lend nothing to B devotion but the offices that flatter our passions; we can desire and pray for any thing that may serve our lust, or promote those ends which we covet, but ought to fear and fly from: but the same earnestnesse, if it were transplanted into Religion and our prayers, would serve all the needs of the spirit, but for want of it we do the Lords work deceitfully.

3. Our Charity also must be fervent: Malus est miles qui ducem suum gemens sequitur, He that follows his Generall with a heavy march and a heavy heart is but an ill souldier; but our duty to God should be hugely pleasing, and we should rejoyce in it: it must passe C on to action, and doe the action vigorously; it is called in Scripture [...], the labour and travail of love; A friend at a sneese and an almes-basket full of prayers, a love that is lazy, and a service that is uselesse, and a pity without support, are the images and colours of that grace, whose very constitution and designe is, beneficence and well-doing. He that loves passionately will not onely doe all that his friend needs, but all that himself can; for although the law of charity is fulfilled by acts of profit, and bounty, and obedience, and labour; yet it hath no other measures but the proportions and abundance of a good mind; and according to this God requires D that we be [...], abounding, and that alwayes, in the work of the Lord; if we love passionately, we shall doe all this, for love endures labour, and calls it pleasure, it spends all and counts it a gain, it suffers inconveniencies, and is quickly reconciled to them; if dishonours and affronts be to be endured, love smiles and calls them favours, and wears them willingly.

—alii jacuere ligati

Turpitèr, atque aliquis de Diis non tristibus optat

Sic fieri turpis,— E

It is the Lord, said David, and I will be yet more vile, and it shall be honour unto me; thus did the Disciples of our Lord goe from tribunals rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer stripes for that beloved name; and we are commanded to rejoyce in [Page] A persecutions, to resist unto bloud, to strive to enter in at the strait gate, not to be weary of well doing; doe it hugely, and doe it alwayes. Non enim votis neque suppliciis muliebribus auxilia Deorum parantur; sed vigilando, agendo, benè consulendo omnia prosperè cedunt. No man can obtain the favour of God by words and imperfect resolutions, by lazie actions, and a remisse piety, but by severe counsells, and sober actions, by watchfulnesse and prudence, by doing excellent things with holy intentions, and vigorous prosecutions. Ubi socordiae & ignaviae te tradideris nequidquam Deos implorabis: If your vertues be lazy, your vices will be bold and B active: and therefore Democritus said well, that the painfull and the soft-handed people in Religion differ just as good men and bad; nimirùm spe bonâ, the labouring charity hath a good hope, but a coole Religion hath none at all, and the distinction will have a sad effect to eternall ages.

These are the great Scenes of duty in which we are to be fervent and zealous; but because earnestnesse and zeal are circumstances of a great latitude; and the zeale of the present age is starke cold, if compar'd to the fervors of the Apostles, and other holy primitives; and in every age a good mans care may turne C into scruple, if he sees that he is not the best man, because he may reckon his owne estate to stand in the confines of darknesse, because his spark is not so great as his neighbors fires, therefore it is sit that we consider concerning the degrees of the intention and forward heats; for when we have found out the lowest degrees of zeale, and a holy fervour, we know that duty dwels there, and whatsoever is above it is a degree of excellence; but all that is lesse then it, is lukewarmnesse, and the state of an ungracious and an unaccepted person.

1. No man is fervent and zealous as he ought, but he that D preferres Religion before businesse, charity before his own ease, the reliefe of his brother before money, heaven before secular regards, and God before his friend or interest. Which rule is not to be understood absolutely, and in particular instances, but alwayes generally; and when it descends to particulars, it must be in proportion to circumstances, and by their proper measures: for,

1. In the whole course of life it is necessary that we prefer Religion before any state that is either contrary to it, or a lessening of ats duties. He that hath a state of life in which he cannot at all in fair proportions tend to Religion, must quit great proportions of that, E that he may enjoy more of this, this is that which our blessed Saviour calls pulling out the right eye if it offend thee.

2. In particular actions, when the necessity is equall, he that does not preferre Religion is not at all Zealous; for although all naturall necessities are to be served before the circumstances and order of Religion, yet our belly and our back, our liberty and [Page] our life, our health, and a friend are to be neglected rather A then a Duty when it stands in its proper place, and is requir'd.

3. Although the things of God are by a necessary Zeale to be preferred before the things of the world; yet we must take heed that we doe not reckon Religion, and orders of worshipping, onely to be the things of God, and all other duties to be the things of the world; for it was a Pharisaicall device to cry Corban, and to refuse to relieve their aged Parents; it is good to give to a Church, but it is better to give to the Poor; and though they must be both provided for, yet in cases of dispute Mercy carries B the cause against Religion and the Temple. And although Mary was commended for choosing the better part, yet Mary had done worse if she had been at the foot of her Master when she should have relieved a perishing brother. Martha was troubled with much serving; that was more then need, and therefore she was to blame; and sometimes hearing in some circumstances may be more then needs; and some women are troubled with over-much hearing, and then they had better have been serving the necessities of their house.

4. This rule is not to be extended to the relatives of Religion; C for although the things of the Spirit are better then the things of the World, yet a spirituall man is not in humane regards to be preferred before Princes and noble personages. Because a man is called spirituall in severall regards, and for various measures and manners of partaking of the Spirit of grace, or co-operating toward the works of the Spirit. * A King and a Bishop both, have callings in order to godlinesse, and honesty, and spirituall effects, towards the advancement of Christs Kingdome, whose representatives severally they are. * But whether of these two works more immediately, or more effectively, cannot at all times be known; D and therefore from hence no argument can be drawn concerning doing them civill regards; * and possibly, the partaking the Spirit is a neerer relation to him, then doing his ministeries, and serving his ends upon others; * and if relations to God and Gods Spirit could bring an obligation of giving proportionable civill honour, every holy man might put in some pretence for dignities above some Kings and some Bishops. * But as the things of the Spirit are in order to the affairs of another world, so they naturally can inferre onely such a relative dignity, as can be expressed in spirituall manners. But because such relations are subjected in men of E this life, and we now converse especially in materiall and secular significations, therefore we are to expresse our regards to men of such relations by proportionable expressions: but because civill excellencies are the proper ground of receiving and exacting civill honors, and spirituall excellencies doe onely claim them accidentally, [Page] A and indirectly, therefore in titles of honour and humane regards the civill praeeminence is the appendix of the greatest civill power and imployment, and is to descend in proper measures; and for a spirituall relation to challenge a temporall dignity, is as if the best Musick should challenge the best cloathes, or a Lutestring should contend with a Rose for the honour of the greatest sweetnesse. * Adde to this, that although temporall things are in order to spirituall, and therefore are lesse perfect, yet this is not so naturally; for temporall things are properly in order to the felicity of man in his proper and present constitution; and it is B by a supernaturall grace that now they are thrust forward to a higher end of grace and glory; and therefore temporall things, and persons, and callings have properly the chiefest temporall regard; and Christ took nothing of this away from them, but put them higher, by sanctifying and ennobling them. * But then the higher calling can no more suppose the higher man, then the richest trade can suppose the richest man. From callings to men, the argument is fallacious; and a Smith is a more usefull man then he that teaches Logick; but not always to be more esteemed, and called to stand at the chairs of Princes and Nobles. C * Holy persons and holy things and all great relations are to be valued by generall proportions to their correlatives, but if wee descend to make minute and exact proportions, and proportion an inch of temporall to a minute of spirituall, we must needs be hugely deceived, unlesse we could measure the motion of an Angell by a string, or the progressions of the Spirit by weight and measure of the staple. * And yet if these measures were taken, it would be unreasonable that the lower of the higher kind should be preferr'd before the most perfect and excellent in a lower order of things. A man generally is to be esteemed above a woman, D but not the meanest of her subjects before the most excellent Queen; not alwayes this man before this woman. Now Kings and Princes are the best in all temporall dignities, and therefore if they had in them no spirituall relations and consequent excellencies (as they have very many) yet are not to be undervalu'd to spirituall relations, which in this world are very imperfect, weak, partiall; and must stay till the next world before they are in a state of excellency, propriety and perfection; and then also all shall have them, according to the worth of their persons, not of their calling.

E * But lastly, what men may not challenge is not their just and proper due; but spirituall persons and the neerest relatives to God stand by him but so long at they dwell low and safe in humility, and rise high in nothing but in labours, and zeal of soules, and devotion. * In proportion to this rule, a Church may be pull'd down to save a Town, and the Vessels of the Church may be [Page] sold to redeem Captives when there is a great calamity imminent, A and prepared for reliefe and no other way to succour it.

But in the whole, the duty of zeale requires that we neglect an ordinary visit rather then an ordinary prayer, and a great profit rather then omit a required duty. No excuse can legitimate a sin; and he that goes about to distinguish between his duty and his profit, and if he cannot reconcile them, will yet tie them together like a Hyaena and a Dog, this man pretends to Religion, but secures the world, and is indifferent and lukewarme towards that, so he may be warme and safe in the possession of this. B

2. To that fervour and zeal that is necessary and a duty, it is required that we be constant and persevering. Esto fidelis ad mortem, said the Spirit of God to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna, Be faithfull unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life: For he that is warm to day, and cold to morrow, zealous in his resolution and weary in his practises, fierce in the beginning, and slack and easie in his progresse, hath not yet well chosen what side he will be of; he sees not reason enough for Religion, and he hath not confidence enough for its contrary; and therefore he is duplicis animi, as St. James calls him, of a doubtfull mind. For Religion is C worth as much to day as it was yesterday, and that cannot change though we doe; and if we doe, we have left God, and whither he can goe that goes from God, his owne sorrowes will soon enough instruct him. This fire must never goe out, but it must be like the fire of heaven, it must shine like the starres, though sometimes cover'd with a cloud, or obscur'd by a greater light; yet they dwell for ever in their orbs, and walk in their circles, and observe their circumstances, but goe not out by day nor night, and set not when Kings die, nor are extinguish'd when Nations change their Government: So must the zeal of a D Christian be, a constant incentive of his duty, and though sometimes his hand is drawne back by violence or need, and his prayers shortned by the importunity of businesse, and some parts omitted by necessities, and just complyances, yet still the fire is kept alive, it burns within when the light breaks not forth, and is eternall as the orb of fire, or the embers of the Altar of Incense.

3. No man is zealous as he ought, but he that delights in the service of God: without this no man can persevere, but must faint under the continuall pressure of an uneasie load. If a man goes E to his prayers as children goe to schoole, or give alms as those that pay contribution, and meditate with the same willingnesse with which young men die, this man does personam sustinere, he acts a part which he cannot long personate, but will find so many excuses and silly devices to omit his duty, such tricks to run [Page] A from that which will make him happy, he will so watch the eyes of men, and be so sure to doe nothing in private; he will so often distinguish and mince the duty into minutes and little particles, he will so tie himself to the letter of the Law, and be so carelesse of the intention and spirituall designe, he will be punctuall in the ceremony, and trifling in the secret, and he will be so well pleased when he is hindred by an accident not of his own procuring, and will have so many devices to defeat his duty, and to cosuen himselfe, that he will certainly manifest that he is afraid of Religion, and secretly hates it; he counts it a burthen, B and an objection, and then the man is sure to leave it, when his circumstances are so fitted. But if we delight in it, we enter into a portion of the reward as soon as we begin the worke, and the very grace shall be stronger then the temptation in its very pretence of pleasure; and therefore it must needs be pleasing to God, because it confesses God to be the best Master, Religion the best work, and it serves God with choice, and will, and reconciles our nature to it, and entertaines our appetite, and then there is no ansa or handle left whereby we can easily be drawne from duty, when all parties are pleased with the imployment. C But this delight is not to be understood as if it were alwayes required that we should feele an actuall cheerfulnesse, and sensible joy; such as was that of Jonathan when he had newly tasted honey, and the light came into his eyes, and he was refreshed and pleasant. This happens sometimes when God please to intice, or reward a mans spirit, with little Antepasts of heaven; but such a delight onely is necessary, and a duty, that we alwayes choose our duty regularly, and undervalue the pleasures of temptation, and proceed in the work of grace with a firme choice and unabated election; our joy must D be a joy of hope, a joy at least of confident sufferers, the joys of faith and expectation; rejoycing in hope, so the Apostle calls it; that is, a going forward upon such a perswasion as sees the joyes of God laid up for the Children of men: and so the sun may shine under a cloud; and a man may rejoyce in persecution, and delight in losses; that is, though his outward man groanes, and faints, and dies, yet his spirit, [...], the inner man is confident and industrious, and hath a hope by which it lives and works unto the end: It was the case of our blessed Saviour in his agony; his soule was exceeding sorrowfull E unto death, and the load of his Fathers anger crushed his shoulder, and bowed his knees to the ground; and yet he chose it, and still went forward, and resolved to die, and did so; and what wee choose wee delight in; and wee thinke it to be eligible, and therefore amiable, and fit by its proper excellencies and appendages to be delighted in; it is not pleasant to the flesh [Page] at all times, for its dignity is spirituall and heavenly; but therefore A it is proportioned to the spirit, which is as heavenly as the reward, and therefore can feel the joys of it, when the body hangs the head, and is uneasie and troubled.

These are the necessary parts of zeale; of which if any man failes, he is in a state of lukewarmnesse, and that is a spirituall death. As a banished man or a condemned person is dead civilly; he is diminutus capite, he is not reckoned in the census, nor partakes of the priviledges, nor goes for a person, but is reckoned among things in the possession of others: so is a lukewarm person; he is corde diminutus, he is spiritually dead, his heart is estranged B from God, his affections are lessened, his hope diminished, and his title cancell'd, and he remains so, unlesse, 1. he prefers Religion before the world, and 2. spiritually rejoyces in doing his duty, and 3. doe it constantly, and with perseverance. These are the heats and warmth of life; whatsoever is lesse then this, is a disease, and leads to the coldnesse and dishonors of the grave.

SERMON, XIV. Part III.

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B 3. SO long as our zeal and forwardnesse in Religion hath only these constituent parts, it hath no more then can keep the duty alive: but beyond this, there are many degrees of earnestnesse and vehemence which are progressions towards the state of perfection, which every man ought to design and desire to be added to his portion: of this sort I reckon frequency in prayer, and almes above our estate. Concerning which two instances I have these two cautions to insert. 1. Concerning frequency in prayer, it C is an act of zeal so ready and prepared for the spirit of a man, so easie and usefull, so without objection, and so fitted for every mans affairs, his necessities and possibilities, that he that prayes but seldome, cannot in any sense pretend to be a religious person. For in Scripture there is no other rule for the frequency of prayer given us, but by such words which signifie we should do it alwaies, Pray continually: and, Men ought alwayes to pray and not to faint. And then, men have so many necessities, that if we should esteem our needs to be the circumstances and positive determination of our times of prayer, we should be very far from admitting limitation D of the former words, but they must mean that we ought to pray frequently every day. For in danger and trouble, naturall Religion teaches us to pray: In a festivall fortune our prudence, and our needs inforce us equally. For though we feel not a present smart, yet we are certain then is our biggest danger: and if we observe how the world treats her darlings, men of riches and honour, of prosperity and great successe, we cannot but confesse them to be the most miserable of all men, as being in the greatest danger of losing their biggest interest. For they are bigger then the iron hand of Law, and they cannot be restrain'd with fear: the hand E grasps a power of doing all that which their evill heart can desire, and they cannot be restrained with disability to sin; they are flatter'd by all mean, and base, and indiligent persons, which are the greatest part of mankinde; but few men dare reprove a potent sinner; he shall every day be flattered and seldome counselled: and his great reflexions and opinions of his condition makes him impatient [Page] of reproof, and so he cannot be restrain'd with modesty: and therefore A as the needs of the poor man, his rent day, and the cryes of his children, and the oppression he groans under, and his [...], his uneasie, ill sleeping care will make him run to his prayers, that in heaven a new decree may be passed every day for the provisions of his daily bread: so the greater needs of the rich, their temptations, and their dangers, the flattery and the vanity, the power and the pride, their businesse and evill estate of the whole world upon them, cals upon them to be zealous in this instance that they pray often, that they pray without ceasing; For there is great reason they should do so, and great security and advantage, if they do; B For, he that prayes well and prayes often, must needs be a good and a blessed man; and truly he that does not, deserves no pity for his misery. For when all the troubles and dangers of his condition may turn into his good, if he will but desire they should; when upon such easie terms he may be happy, for there is no more trouble in it then this, Aske and ye shall receive; that's all that is required; no more turnings and variety in their road; when (I say) at so cheap a rate, a poor man may be provided for, and a rich man may escape damnation, they that refuse to apply themselves to this remedy, quickly, earnestly, zealously, and constantly, deserves the smart C of his poverty and the care of it, and the scorne if he be poor, and if he be rich it is fit he should (because he desires it) dye by the evils of his proper danger. * It was observed by Cassian; orationibus maximè infidiantur Daemones, the Devill is more busie to disturb our prayers, then to hinder any thing else. For else it cannot be imagined why we should be brought to pray so seldome, and to be so listlesse to them, and so trifling to them. No, The Devill knowes upon what hard terms he stands with the praying man; he also knows that it is a mighty cmanation of Gods infinite goodnesse and a strange desire of saving mankinde, that he hath to so easie a duty D promised such mighty blessings. For God knowing that upon hard terms we would not accept of heaven it self, and yet hell was so intolerable a state, that God who loved us would affixe heaven to a state of prayer and devotion; this, because the Devill knowes to be one of the greatest arts of the Divine mercy, he labours infinitely to supplant; and if he can but make men unwilling to pray, or to pray coldly, or to pray seldome, he secures his interest, and destroys the mans; and it is infinitely strange, that he can and doth prevail so much in this so unreasonable temptation. Opposuisti nubem ne transirot oratio, the mourning Prophet complained there E Lam. 3. 44. was a cloud passed between heaven and the prayer of Judah; a little thing God knowes; it was a wall which might have been blown down with a few hearty sighs, and a few penitentiall tears; or if the prayers had ascended in a full and numerous body, themselves would have broken through that little partition; but so the Devill [Page] A prevails often; opponit nubem: he claps a cloud between; some little objection; a stranger is come; or my head akes; or the Church is too cold; or I have letters to write; or I am not disposed; or it is not yet time, or the time is past: these, and such as these are the clouds, the Devill claps between heaven and us; but these are such impotent objections, that they were as soon confuted as pretended, by all men that are not fools, or professed enemies of Religion, but that they are clouds: which sometimes look like Lions and Bears, Castles, and wals of fire, armies and horses; and indeed are any thing that a man will fancy; and the smallest article of objection B managed and conducted by the Devils arts, and meeting with a wretchlesse, carelesse, indevout spirit, is a Lion in the way, and a deep river; it is impassable, and it is impregnable. [...]; Aristo. [...]. as the Sophister said in the Greek Comedy, Clouds become any thing as they are represented; Wolves to Simon, Harts to Cleonymus; For the Devill fits us with clouds according as we can be abused; and if we love affairs of the world, he can contrive its circumstances so, that they shall crosse our prayers; and so it is in every instance: and the best way to cure this evill is prayer; pray often, and pray zealously, and C the sun of righteousnesse will scatter these clouds, and warm our hearts with his holy fires: But it is in this, as in all acquired habits; the habit makes the actions easie and pleasant; but this habit cannot be gotten without frequent actions: habits are the daughters of action, but then they nurse their mother, and produce daughters after her image, but far more beautifull and prosperous. For in frequent prayer there is so much rest and pleasure, that as soon as ever it is perceived, the contrary temptation appears unreasonable; none are so unwilling to pray as they that pray seldome; for they that do pray often, and with zeal, and passion and desire, feel D no trouble so great as when they are forced to omit their holy offices and hours of prayer. It concerns the Devils interest to keep us from all the experience of the rewards of a frequent and holy prayer; and so long as you will not try and taste how good and gracious the Lord is to the praying man, so long you cannot see the evill of your coldnesse and lukewarm state; but if you would but try, though it be but for curiosity sake, and informe your selves in the vanity of things, and the truth of pretences, and the certainty of Theologicall propositions, you should finde your selves taken in a golden snare, which will tye you to nothing but felicity, E and safety, and holinesse, and pleasures. But then the caution which I intended to insert is this; that frequency in prayers, and that part of zeal which relates to it, is to be upon no account but of an holy spirit, a wise heart, and reasonable perswasion; for if it begins upon passion or fear, in imitation of others, or desires of reputation, honour or phantastick principles, it will be unblessed and weary, [Page] unprosperous and without return or satisfaction: therefore if it A happen to begin upon a weak principle, be very curious to change the motive, and with all speed let it be turned into religion and the love of holy things, then let it be as frequent as it can prudently, it cannot be amisse.

2. When you are entred into a state of zealous prayer, and a regular devotion, what ever interruption you can meet with, observe their causes and be sure to make them irregular, seldome, and contingent, that your omissions may be seldome and casuall, as a bare accident; for which no provisions can be made; for if ever it come, that you take any thing habitually and constantly from your B prayers, or that you distract from them very frequently, it cannot be but you will become troublesome to your self; your prayers will be uneasie, they will seem hinderances to your more necessary affairs of passion and interest, and the things of the world: and it will not stand still, till it comes to Apostasie, and a direct despite and contempt of holy things. For it was an old rule, and of a sad experience, Tepiditas si callum obduxerit fiet apostasia, if your lukewarmnesse be habituall and a state of life, if it once be hardned by the usages of many daies, it changes the whole state of the man, it makes him an apostate to devotion. Therefore be infinitely C carefull in this particular; alwayes remembring the saying of St. Chrysostome, Docendi, praedicandi officia & alia cessant suo tempore, precandi autem nunquam; there are seasons for teaching, and preaching, and other outward offices; but prayer is the duty of all times, and of all persons, and in all contingences: From other things in many cases we can be excused, but from prayer never. In this therefore [...], it is good to be zealous.

2. Concerning the second instance I named, viz. To give almes above our estate, it is an excellent act of zeal, and needs no other caution to make it secure from illusion and danger, but that our D egressions of charity do not prejudice justice. See that your almes do not other men wrong, and let them do what they can to thy self, they will never prejudice thee by their abundance; but then be also carefull that the pretences of justice do not cousen thy self of thy charity, and the poor of thine almes, and thy soul of the reward. He that is in debt is not excused from giving almes till his debts are paid; but only from giving away such portions which should and would pay them, and such which he intended should do it: There are lacernae divitiarum, and crums from the table, and the gleanings of the harvest, and the scatterings of the vintage, which E in all estates are the portions of the poor, which being collected by the hand of providence, and united wisely may become considerable to the poor, and are the necessary duties of charity; but beyond this also, every considerable relief to the poor is not a considerable diminution to the estate, and yet if it be, it is not alwaies [Page] A considerable in the accounts of Justice; for nothing ought to be pretended against the zeal of almes, but the certain omissions or the very probable retarding the doing that, to which we are otherwise obliged. He that is going to pay a debt and in the way meets an indigent person that needs it all, may not give it to him unlesse he knowes by other means to pay the debt; but if he can do both, he hath his liberty to lay out his money for a Crown. But then in the case of provision for children our restraint is not so easie, or discernible; 1. Because we are not bound to provide for them in a certain portion, but may do it by the analogies and measures B of prudence, in which there is a great latitude. 2. Because our zeal of charity is a good portion for them, and layes up a blessing for inheritance. 3. Because the fairest portions of charity are usually short of such sums which can be considerable in the duty of provision for our children. 4. If we for them could be content to take any measure lesse then all, any thing under every thing that we can, we should finde the portions of the poor made ready to our hands sufficiently to minister to zeal, and yet not to intrench upon this case of conscience; But the truth is; we are so carelesse, so unskil'd, so unstudied in religion, that we are only glad to make an C an excuse, and to defeat our souls of the reward of the noblest grace: we are contented if we can but make a pretence; for we are highly pleased if our conscience be quiet, and care not so much that our duty be performed; much lesse that our eternall interest be advanced in bigger portions. We care not, we strive not, we think not of getting the greater rewards of Heaven; and he whose desires are so indifferent for the greater, will not take pains to secure the smallest portion; and it is observable, that [...], the least in the Kingdome of heaven, is as much as [...], as good as none; if a man will be content with his hopes Mat. 5. 16. D of the lowest place there, and will not labour for something beyond it, he does not value it at all, and it is ten to one, but will lose that for which he takes so little pains, and is content with so easie a security. He that does his almes, and resolves that in no case he will suffer inconvenience for his brother whose case it may be is into erable, should do well to remember that God in some cases requires a greater charity; and it may be we shall be called to dye for the good of our brother: and that although it alwaies supposes a zeal, and a holy fervour, yet sometimes it is also a duty, and we lose our lives if we go to save them; and so we do with our estates; E when we are such good husbands in our Religion, that we will serve all our own conveniences before the great needs of a hungry and afflicted brother, God oftentimes takes from us that which with so much curiosity we would preserve, and then we lose our money, and our reward too.

3. Hither is to be reduced *the accepting and choosing the [Page] counsels Evangelicall: *the virgin or widow estate in order to Religion: A *selling all and giving it to the poor: *making our selves Eunuchs for the Kingdome of Heaven: *offering our selves to death voluntary, in exchange or redemption of the life of a most usefull person, as Aquila and Priscilla, who ventur'd their lives for St. Paul: *the zeal of souls: *St. Paul's preaching to the Corinthian Church without wages: remitting of rights and forgiving of debts, when the obliged person could pay, but not without much trouble: *protection of calamitous persons with hazard of our own interest and a certain trouble; concerning which and all other acts of zeal, we are to observe the following measures, by which B our zeal will become safe and holy, and by them also we shall perceive the excesses of Zeal, and its inordinations, which is the next thing I am to consider.

1. The first measure, by which our zeal may comply with our 3. duty, and its actions become laudable, is charity to our neighbour. For since God receives all that glorification of himself whereby we can serve and minister to his glory, reflected upon the foundation of his own goodnesse, and bounty, and mercy, and all the Allellujahs that are or ever shall be sung in heaven are praises and thank givings, and that God himself does not receive glory from the acts of his C Justice, but then when his creatures will not rejoyce in his goodnesse and mercy, it followes that we imitate this originall excellency and pursue Gods own method, that is, glorifie him in via misericordiae, in the way of mercy, and bounty, charity, and forgivenesse, love, and fair compliances; There is no greater charity in the world then to save a soul, nothing that pleases God better, nothing that can be in our hands greater or more noble, nothing that can be a more lasting and delightfull honour, then that a perishing soul, snatched from the flames of an intolerable Hell, and born to Heaven upon the wings of piety and mercy, by the Ministery of Angels, D and the graces of the holy Spirit, shall to eternall ages blesse God and blesse thee, Him, for the Author and finisher of salvation, and thee for the Minister and charitable instrument; that bright starre must needs look pleasantly upon thy face for ever, which was by thy hand plac'd there, and had it not been by thy Ministery might have been a [...]ooty coal, in the regions of sorrow, Now in order to this, God hath given us all some powers, and ministeries, by which we may by our charity promote this Religion, and the great interest of souls: Counsels, and prayers, preaching, and writing, passionate desires, and fair examples, going before others, in E the way of godlinesse, and bearing the torch before them that they may see the way and walk in it. This is a charity that is prepared more or lesse for every one; and by the way we should do well to consider what we have done towards it. For as it will be a strange arrest at the day of Judgement to Dives, that he fed high [Page] A and sufferred Lazarus to starve, and every garment that lies by thee and perishes while thy naked brother does so too for want of it, shall be a bill of Inditement against thy unmercifull soul; so it will be in every instance: in what thou couldst profit thy brother and didst not, thou art accountable; and then tell over the times, in which thou hast prayed for the conversion of thy sinning brother; and compare the times together, and observe whether thou hast not tempted him or betrayed him to a sin, or encourag'd him in it, or didst not hinder him when thou mightest, more frequently then thou hast humbly, and passionately, and charitably, and zealously B bowed thy head, and thy heart, and knees to God to redeem that poor soul from hell whither thou seest him descending with as much indifferency as a stone into the bottome of a well. In this thing [...], it is a good thing to be zealous, and put forth all your strength, for you can never go too far. But then be carefull that this zeal of thy neighbours amendment be only expressed in waies of charity, not of cruelty or importune justice. He that strikes the Prince for justice, as Solomons expression is, is a companion of murderers; and he that out of zeal of Religion shall go to convert Nations to his opinion by destroying Christians whose faith is intire C and summ'd up by the Apostles; this man breaks the ground, with a sword, and sowes tares, and waters the ground with bloud, and ministers to envie and cruelty, to errors and mistake, and there comes up nothing but poppies to please the eye and fancy, disputes and hypocrisie, new summaries of Religion estimated by measures of anger, and accursed principles; and so much of the religion as is necessary to salvation is laid aside, and that brought forth that serves an interest, not holinesse; that fils the Schooles of a proud man, but not that which will fill Heaven. Any zeal is proper for Religion, but the zeal of the sword, and the zeal of anger; D this is [...], the bitternesse of zeal; and it is a certain temptation Iam. 3. 14. to every man against his duty; for if the sword turns preacher and dictates propositions by empire in stead of arguments, and ingraves them in mens hearts with a ponyard, that it shall be death to beleeve what I innocently and ignorantly am perswaded of, it must needs be unsafe to try the spirits, to try all things, to make inquiry; and yet without this liberty, no man can justifie himself before God or man, nor confidently say, that his Religion is best; since he cannot without a finall danger make himself able to give a right sentence, and to follow that which he findes E to be the best; this may ruine souls by making Hypocrites, or carelesse and complyant against conscience or without it; but it does not save souls, though peradventure it should force them to a good opinion: This is inordination of zeal; for Christ by reproving St. Peter drawing his sword, even in the cause of Christ, for his sacred and yet injured person, [...], [Page] (saith Theophylact) teaches us not to use the sword though in the A cause of God, or for God himself; because he will secure his own interest, only let him be served as himself is pleased to command: and it is like Moses passion, it throwes the tables of the Law out of our hands, and breaks them in pieces out of indignation to see them broken. This is the zeal that is now in fashion, and hath almost spoyl'd Religion; men like the Zelots of the Jewes cry up their Sect and in it their interest, [...]; they affect Disciples and fight against the opponents; and we shall finde in Scripture, that when the Apostles began to preach the meeknesse of the Christian institution, salvations, and promises, B charity and humility, there was a zeal set up against them; the Apostles were zealous for the Gospell, the Jewes were zealous for the Law: and see what different effects these two zeals did produce; the zeal of the Law came to this, [...]; they stirred up the City, they made tumults, they persecuted this way unto the death, they got letters from the high Priest, they kept Damascus with a Garrison, they sent parties of souldiers to silence and to imprison the Preachers, and thought they did God service, when they put the Apostles to death, and they swore neither to eat nor to drink till they had killed C Paul. It was an old trick of the Jewish zeal,

Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti,

Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos.

They would not shew the way to a Samaritan, nor give a cup of cold water but to a circumcised brother. That was their Zeal; But the zeal of the Apostles was this; they preached publickly and privately, they prayed for all men, they wept to God for the hardnesse of mens hearts, they became all things to all men that D they might gain some, they travel'd through deeps and deserts, they indured the heat of the Syrian Starre, and the violence of Euroclydon, winds and tempests, seas and prisons, mockings and scourgings, fastings and poverty, labour and watching, they endured every man and wronged no man, they would do any good thing and suffer any evill if they had but hopes to prevail upon a soul; they perswaded men meekly, they intreated them humbly, they convinced them powerfully, the watched for their good but medled not with their interest, and this is the Christian Zeal, the Zeal of E meeknesse, the Zeal of charity, the Zeal of patience, [...], in these it is good to be zealous, for you can never goe farre enough.

2. The next measure of zeal is prudence. For, as charity is the matter of Zeal, so is discretion the manner. It must alwaies be for good to our neighbour, and there needs no rules for the conducting [Page] A of that, provided the end be consonant to the design, that is, that charity be intended, and charity done. But there is a Zeal also of Religion or worshipping, and this hath more need of measures and proper cautions. For Religion can turn into a snare, it may be abused into superstition, it may become wearinesse in the spirit, and tempt to tediousnesse, to hatred, and despair: and many persons through their indiscreet conduct and furious marches, and great loads taken upon tender shoulders and unexperienced, have come to be perfect haters of their joy, and despisers of all their hopes, being like dark Lanthorns, in which a candle burnes bright, but B the body is incompassed with a crust and a dark cloud of iron; and these men keep the fires and light of holy propositions within them, but the darknesse of hell, the hardnesse of a vexed he art hath shaded all the light, and makes it neither apt to warm nor to enlighten others, but it turnes to fire within, a feaver and a distemper dwels there, and Religion is become their torment.

1. Therefore our Zeal must never carry us beyond that which is profitable. There are many institutions, customes, and usages introduced into Religion upon very fair motives, and apted to great necessities; but to imitate those things when they are disrobed of C their proper ends is an importune zeal, and signifies nothing but a forward minde, and an easie heart, and an imprudent head; unlesse these actions can be invested with other ends and usefull purposes. The primitive Church were strangely inspired with a zeal of virginity, in order to the necessities of preaching and travelling, and easing the troubles and temptations of persecution; but when the necessity went on, and drove the holy men into deserts, that made Colleges of Religious, and their manner of life was such, so united, so poor, so dressed, that they must live more non saculari, after the manner of men divorc'd from the usuall entercourses of the world, D still their desire of single life increased; because the old necessity lasted, and a new one did supervene. Afterwards the case was altered, and then the single life was not to be chosen for it self, nor yet in imitation of the first precedents; for it could not be taken out from their circumstances and be used alone. He therefore that thinks he is a more holy person for being a virgin or a widower, or that he is bound to be so because they were so, or that he cannot be a religious person because he is not so, hath zeal indeed, but not according to knowledge. But now if the single state can be taken out and put to new appendages, and fitted to the end of another E grace or essentiall duty of Religion, it will well become a Christian zeal to choose it so long as it can serve the end with advantage and security. Thus also a zealous person is to chuse his fastings; while they are necessary to him, and are acts of proper mortification, while he is tempted, or while he is under discipline, while he repents, or while he obeys; but some persons fast in zeal, but for [Page] nothing else; fast when they have no need, when there is need they A should not; but call it religion to be miserable or sick; here their zeal is folly, for it is neither an act of Religion nor of prudence, to fast when fasting probably serves no end of the spirit; and therefore in the fasting dayes of the Church, although it is warrant enough to us to fast if we had no end to serve in it but the meer obedience, yet it is necessary that the superiors should not think the Law obeyed, unlesse the end of the first institution be observed; a fasting day is a day of humiliation, and prayer; and fasting being nothing it self, but wholly the handmaid of a further grace, ought not to be devested of its holinesse and sanctification, and left like the B wals of a ruinous Church, where there is no duty performed to God, but there remains something of that which us'd to minister to Religion. The want of this consideration hath caus'd so much scandall and dispute, so many snares and schismes concerning Ecclesiasticall fasts. For when it was undressed and stripp'd of all the ornaments and usefull appendages, when from a solemn day it grew to be common; from thence to be lesse devout by being lesse seldome and lesse usefull; and then it passed from a day of Religion to be a day of order, and from fasting till night, to fasting till evening-song, and evening-song to be sung about twelve a clock; C and from fasting it was changed to a choice of food, from eating nothing to eating fish, and that the letter began to be stood upon, and no usefulnesse remain'd but what every of his own piety should put into it, but nothing was enjoyn'd by the Law, nothing of that exacted by the superiours, then the Law fell into disgrace, and the design became suspected, and men were first insnared, and then scandalized, and then began to complain without remedy, and at last took remedy themselves without authority; the whole affair fell into a disorder and a mischief; and zeal was busie on both sides, and on both sides was mistaken, because they fell not upon the D proper remedy, which was to reduce the Law to the usefulnesse and advantages of its first intention. But this I intended not to have spoken.

2. Our Zeal must never carry us beyond that which is safe. Some there are who in their first attempts and entries upon Religion while the passion that brought them in remains, undertake things as great as their highest thoughts; no repentance is sharp enough, no charities expensive enough, no fastings afflictive enough, then totis Quinquatribus orant; and finding some deliciousnesse at the first contest, and in that activity of their passion, they make vowes to E binde themselves for ever to this state of delicacies. The onset is fair: but the event is this. The age of a passion, is not long, and the flatulent spirit being breathed out, the man begins to abate of his first heats, and is ashamed: but then he considers that all that was not necessary, and therefore he will abate something more and from [Page] A something to something, at last it will come to just nothing, and the proper effect of this is, indignation and hatred of holy things, an impudent spirit, carelessenesse or despair. Zeal sometimes carries a man into temptation: and he that never thinks he loves God dutifully or acceptably, because he is not imprison'd for him, or undone, or design'd to Martyrdome, may desire a triall that will undoe him. It is like fighting of a Duell to shew our valour. Stay till the King commands you to fight and die, and then let zeal do its noblest offices. This irregularity and mistake was too frequent in the primitive Church, when men and women would strive for death, and B be ambitious to feel the hangmans sword; some miscarryed in the attempt, and became sad examples of the unequall yoking a frail spirit with a zealous driver.

3. Let Zeal never transport us to attempt anything but what is possible. M. Teresa made a vow that she would do alwaies that which was absolutely the best. But neither could her understanding alwaies tell her which was so, nor her will alwayes have the same fervours: and it must often breed scruples, and sometimes tediousnesse, and wishes that the vow were unmade. He that vowes never to have an ill thought, never to commit an error, hath taken a course C that his little infirmities shall become crimes, and certainly be imputed by changing his unavoidable infirmity into vow-breach. Zeal is a violence to a mans spirit, and unlesse the spirit be secur'd by the proper nature of the duty, and the circumstances of the action, and the possibilities of the man; it is like a great fortune in the meanest person, it bears him beyond his limit, and breaks him into dangers and passions, transportations and all the furies of disorder that can happen to an abused person.

4. Zeal is not safe unlesse it be in re probabili too, it must be in a likely matter. For we that finde so many excuses to untie all our D just obligations, and distinguish our duty into so much finenesse, that it becomes like leaf-gold apt to be gone at every breath; it can not be prudent that we zealously undertake what is not probable to be effected. If we do, the event can be nothing but portions of the former evill, scruple and snares, shamefull retreats and new fantastick principles; In all our undertakings we must consider what is our state of life, what our naturall inclinations, what is our society, and what are our dependencies; by what necessities we are born down, by what hopes we are biassed; and by these let us measure our heats and their proper businesse. A zealous man runs up a sandy hill; the violence of E motion is his greatest hinderance, and a passion in Religion destroys as much of our evennesse of spirit, as it sets forward any outward work: and therefore although it be a good circumstance and degree of a spirituall duty, so long as it is within, and relative to God and our selves; so long it is a holy flame; but if it be in an outward duty, or relative to our neighbours, or in an instance not necessary, [Page] it sometimes spoils the action, and alwaies endangers it. But I must A remember we live in an age in which men have more need of new fires to be kindled within them and round about them, then of any thing to allay their forwardnesse: there is little or no zeal now but the zeal of envie, and killing as many as they can, and damning more then they can; [...], smoke and lurking fires do corrode and secretly consume: therefore this discourse is lesse necessary. A Physitian would have but small imployment near the Riph [...]an Mountains, if he could cure nothing but Calentures; Catarrhes, and dead palsies, Colds and Consumptions are their evils, and so is lukewarmnesse and deadnesse of spirit, the proper maladies of our age: for B though some are hot when they are mistaken, yet men are cold in a righteous cause; and the nature of this evill is to be insensible, and the men are farther from a cure because they neither feel their evill, nor perceive their danger. But of this I have already given account: and to it, I shall only adde what an old spirituall person told a novice in religion, asking him the cause why he so frequently suffered tediousnesse in his religious offices; Nondum vidisti requiem quam speramus, nec tormenta quae timemus; young man, thou hast not seen the glories which are laid up for the zealous and devout, nor yet beheld the flames which are prepared for the lukewarm, and the haters of strict devotion. C But the Jewes tell that Adam having seen the beauties, and tasted the delicacies of Paradise, repented and mourned upon the Indian Mountains for three hundred years together: and we who have a great share in the cause of his sorrowes, can by nothing be invited to a persevering, a great, a passionate religion, more then by remembring what he lost, and what is laid up for them whose hearts are burning lamps, and are all on fire with Divine love, whose flames are fann'd with the wings of the holy Dove, and whose spirits shine and burn with that fire which the holy Jesus came to enkindle upon the earth.

Sermon, XV. The House of Feasting: OR THE EPICVRES MEASVRES. Part I.

[Page]

C 1 Cor. 15. 32. last part.‘Let us eat and drink, for to morrow we dye.’

THis is the Epicures Proverb, begun upon a weak mistake; started by chance, from the discourses of drink, and thought witty by the undiscerning company, and prevail'd infinitely, because it struck their fancy luckily, and maintained D the merry meeting; but as it happens commonly to such discourses, so this also, when it comes to be examined by the consultations of the morning, and the sober hours of the day, it seems the most witlesse, and the most unreasonable in the world. When Seneca describes the spare diet of Epicurus and Metrodorus, he uses this expression; Liberaliora sunt alimenta carceris: sepositos ad capitale supplicium, non tam angustè, qui occisurus est, pascit. The prison keeps a better table, and he that is to kill the criminall to morrow morning, gives him a better supper over night. By this he intended E to represent his meal to be very short: for as dying persons have but little stomach to feast high; so they that mean to cut the throat will think it a vain expence to please it with delicacies, which after the first alteration must be poured upon the ground, and looked upon as the worst part of the accursed thing. And there is also the same proportion of unreasonablenesse, that because men shall die [Page] to morrow, and by the sentence and unalterable decree of God, they A are now descending to their graves, that therefore they should first destroy their reason, and then force dull time to run faster, that they may dye sottish as beasts, and speedily as a slie: But they thought there was no life after this; or if there were, it was without pleasure, and every soul thrust into a hole, and a dorter of a spans length allowed for his rest, and for his walk; and in the shades below no numbring of healths by the numerall letters of Philenium's name, no fat Mullets, no Oysters of Luerinus, no Lesbian or Chian Wines, [...], Therefore now enjoy the delicacies of Nature, and feel the descending wines distilled B through the limbecks of thy tongue, and larynx, and suck the delicious juice of fishes, the marrow of the laborious Oxe, and the tender lard of Apulian Swine, and the condited bellies of the scarus; but lose no time; for the Sun drives hard, and the shadow is long, and the dayes of mourning are at hand, but the number of the dayes of darknesse and the grave cannot be told.

Thus they thought they discoursed wisely, and their wisdome was turned into folly; for all their arts of providence, and witty securities of pleasure were nothing but unmanly prologues to death, C fear and folly, sensuality and beastly pleasures. But they are to be excused rather then we. They placed themselves in the order of beasts and birds, and esteemed their bodies nothing but receptacles of flesh and wine, larders and pantries; and their soul the fine instrument of pleasure and brisk perception, of relishes and gusts, reflexions and duplications of delight; and therefore they trea ed themselves accordingly. But then why we should do the same things, who are led by other principles, and a more severe institution, and better notices of immortality, who understand what shall happen to a soul hereafter, and know that this time is but a passage D to eternity, this body but a servant to the soul, this soul a minister to the Spirit, and the whole man in order to God and to felicity; this I say is more unreasonable, then to eat aconite to preserve our health, and to enter into the floud that we may die a dry death; this is a perfect contradiction to the state of good things, whither we are designed, and to all the principles of a wise Philophy, whereby we are instructed that we may become wise unto salvation. That I may therefore do some assistances towards the curing the miseries of mankinde, and reprove the follies and improper motions towards felicity, I shall endevour to represent to E you,

1. That plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instruments of felicity.

2. That intemperance is a certain enemy to it; making life unpleasant, and death troublesome and intolerable.

[Page] A 3. I shall adde the rules and measures of temperance in eating and drinking, that nature and grace may joyne to the constitution of mans felicity.

1. Plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instrument of felicity. It is necessary that a man have some violence done to himself before he can receive them: for natures bounds are, non esurire, non sitire, non algere, to be quit from hunger, and thirst, and cold, that is, to have nothing upon us that puts us to pain; against which she hath made provisions by the fleece of the sheep, and the skins of beasts, by the waters of the fountain, and B the hearbs of the field, and of these no good man is destitute, for that share that he can need to fill those appetites and necessities he cannot otherwise avoid: [...]. For it is unimaginable that Nature should be a mother naturall and indulgent to the beasts of the forrest, and the spawn of fishes, to every plant and fungus, to cats and owles, to moles and bats, making her storehouses alwaies to stand open to them, and that for the Lord of all these, even to the noblest of her productions she should have made no provisions, and only produc'd in us appetites sharp as the stomach of Wolves, troublesome as the Tigres hunger, and then run C away, leaving art and chance, violence and study, to feed us and to cloath us. This is so far from truth, that we are certainly more provided for by nature then all the world besides; for every thing can minister to us; and we can passe into none of Natures cabinets, but we can finde our table spread: so that what David said to God, Whither shall I go from thy presence? If I go to heaven, thou art there, if I descend to the deep, thou art there also; if I take the wings of the morning and flie into the uttermost parts of the wildernesse, even there thou wilt finde me out, and thy right band shall uphold me: we may say it concerning our table, and our wardrobe; D If we go into the fields, we finde them till'd by the mercies of heaven, and water'd with showers from God to feed us and to cloath us; if we go down into the deep, there God hath multiplyed our stores, and fill'd a magazine which no hunger can exhaust; the aire drops down delicacies, and the wildernesse can sustain us, and all that is in nature, that which feeds Lions, and that which the Oxe eats, that which the fishes live upon, and that which is the provision for the birds, all that can keep us alive; and if we consider, that of the beasts and birds for whom nature hath provided but one dish, it may be flesh or fish, or herbes or flies, and these E also we secure with guards from them, and drive away birds and beasts from that provision which Nature made for them, yet seldome can we finde that any of these perish with hunger: much rather shall we finde that we are secured by the securities proper for the more noble creatures, by that providence that disposes all things, by that mercy that gives us all things, which to other creatures [Page] are ministred singly; by that labour that can procure what we need, A by that wisdome that can consider concerning future necessities, by that power that can force it from inferiour creatures, and by that temperance which can fit our meat to our necessities. For if we go beyond what is needfull, as we finde sometimes more then was promised, and very often more then we need, so we disorder the certainty of our felicity, by putting that to a hazard which nature hath secur'd. For it is not B certain that if we desire to have the wealth of Susa, or garments stain'd with the bloud of the Tyrian fish, that if we desire to feed like Philoxenus, or to have tables loaden like the boards of Vitellius, that we shall never want. It is not Nature that desires these things, but lust and violence; and by a disease we enter'd into the passion and the necessity, and in that state of trouble it is likely we may dwell for ever, unlesse we reduce our appetites to natures measure.

Si ventri benè, si lateri est, pedibūs (que) tuis, nil

Horace.

Divitiae poterunt Regales addere majus.

And therefore it is that plenty and pleasures are not the proper instruments of felicity. Because felicity is not a jewell that can be C lock'd in one mans cabinet. God intended that all men should be made happy, and he that gave to all men the same naturall desires, and to all men provision of satisfactions by the same mears and drinks, intended that it should not go beyond that measure of good things which corresponds to those desires which all men naturally have.

He that cannot be satisfied with common provisions, hath a bigger need then he that can; it is harder, and more contingent, and more difficult, and more troublesome, for him to be satisfied; D [...], said Epicurus, I feed sweetly upon bread and water, those sweet and easie provisions of the body, and I defie the pleasures of costly provisions; And the man was so confident that he had the advantage over wealthy tables, that he thought himself happy as the immortall Gods, [...]: For these provisions are easie, they are to be gotten without amazing cares; no man needs to flatter, if he can live as Nature did intend: Magna pars libertatis est benè moratus venter: Sence. he need not swell his accounts, and intricate his spirit with arts of subtlety and contrivance, he can be free from fears; and the E chances of the world cannot concern him. And this is true, not only in those severe and Anachoreticall and Philosophicall persons, who lived meanly as a sheep, and without variety as the Baptist, but in the same proportion it is also true in every man that can be contented with that which is honestly sufficient. Maximus Tyrius considers [Page] A concerning the felicity of Diogenes, a poor Synopean, having not so much nobility as to be born in the better parts of Greece; but he saw that he was compel'd by no Tyrant to speak or do ignobly; he had no fields to till, and therefore took no care to buy cattell, and to hire servants; he was not distracted when a rent-day came, and fear'd not when the wise Greeks play'd the fool and fought who should be Lord of that field that lay between Thebes and Athens; he laugh'd to see men scramble for dirty silver, and spend 10000. Attick talents for the getting the revenues of 200 Philippios; he went with his staffe and bag into the camp of B the Phoconses, and the souldiers reverene'd his person and despised his poverty, and it was truce with him whosoever had wars; and the Diadem of Kings, and the Purple of the Emperors, the Mitre of high Priests, and the divining staffe of Soothsayers were things of envie and ambition, the purchase of danger, and the rewards of a mighty passion: and men enter'd into them by trouble and extreme difficulty, and dwelt under them as a man under a falling roof, or as Damocles under the Tyrants sword,

Nunc lateri incumbens—mox deinde supinus,

C Nunc cubat in faciem, nunc recta pectore surgens,

Sleeping like a condemned man; and let there be what pleasure men can dream of in such broken slumbers, yet the fear of waking from this illusion and parting from this phantastick pleasure, is a pain and torment which the imaginary felicity cannot pay for. Cui cum paupertate benè convenit, di [...]es est; non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est. All our trouble is from within us; and if a dish of lettice and a clear fountain can cool all my heats, so that I shall have neither thirst nor pride, lust nor revenge, D envie nor ambition, I am lodg'd in the bosome of felicity; and indeed no men sleep so soundly, as they that lay their head upon Natures lap. For a single dish and clean chalice lifted from the springs, can cure my hunger and thirst: but the meat of Ahasuerus feast cannot satisfie my ambition and my pride. Nullâ re egere, Dei proprium; quàm paucissimis autem, Deo proximum, said Socrates. He therefore that hath the fewest desires and the most quiet passions, whose wants are soon provided for, and whose possessions cannot be disturbed with violent fears, he that dwels next door to satisfaction, and can carry his needs and lay them down where he E please, this man is the happy man, and this is not to be done in great designs, and swelling fortunes. Dives jam factus desiit gaudere lentè, Cariùs edit & bibit, & laetatur dives, quàm pauper, qui in quolibet, in parato, in inempto gaudet, & facilè epulari potest, dives nunquam. For as it is in plants which nature thrusts forth from her navell, she makes regular provisions, and dresses them [Page] with strength and ornament, with easinesse and a full stature, but A if you thrust a Jessamine there where she would have had a Daisie grow, or bring the tall firre from dwelling in his own countrey, and transport the orange or the almond-tree neer the fringes of the North starre, Nature is displeased, and becomes unnaturall, and starves her sucklings, and renders you a return lesse then your charge and expectation: so it is in all our appetites; when they are naturall and proper, nature feeds them and makes them healthfull and lusty, as the course issue of the Scythian clown; she feeds them and makes them easie without cares and costly passion; but if you thrust and appetite into her which she intended not, she gives B you sickly and uneasie banquets, you must struggle with her for every drop of milk she gives beyond her own needs; you may get gold from her entrails, and at a great charge provide ornamants for your Queens and Princely women: but our lives are spent in the purchase; and when you have got them, you must have more; for these cannot content you, nor nourish the spirit. Ad supervacua sudatur. A man must labour infinitely to get more then he needs; but to drive away thirst and hunger, a man needs not sit in the fields of the oppressed poor, nor lead armies, nor break his sleep, & contumeliosam humanitatem pati, and to suffer shame and danger, C and envie and affront, and all the retinue of infelicity.

—Quis non Epicurum

Suspicit, exigui laetum plantaribus horti?

If men did but know what felicity dwels in the cottage of a vertuous poor man, how sound his sleeps, how quiet his breast, how composed his minde, how free from care, how easie his provision, how healthfull his morning, how sober his night, how moist his mouth, how joyfull his heart, they would never admire the noises D and the diseases, the throng of passions, and the violence of unnaturall appetites, that fill the houses of the luxurious, and the heart of the ambitious:

Nam neque divitibus contingunt gaudia solis.

These which you call pleasures are but the imagery and phantastick appearances, and such appearances even poor men may have. It is like felicity that the King of Persia should come to Babylon in the winter, and to Susa in the summer; and be attended with all the servants E of 127 Provinces, and with all the Princes of Asia. It is like this, that Diogenes went to Corinth in the time of vintage, and to Athens when winter came, and in stead of Courts visited the Temples and the Schooles, and was pleased in the society of Scholars and learned men, and conversed with the Students of all Asia and [Page] A Europe. If a man loves privacy, the poor fortune can have that when Princes cannot; if he loves noises, he can go to Markets and to Courts, and may glut himself with strange faces, and strange voices, and stranger manners, and the wilde designs of all the world: and when that day comes in which we shall dye, nothing of the eating and drinking remains, nothing of the pomp and luxury, but the sorrow to part with it, and shame to have dwelt there where wisdome and vertue seldome comes, unlesse it be to call men to sober counsels, to a plain and a severe and more naturall way of living; and when Lucian derides the B dead Princes and Generals, and sayes that in hell they go up and down selling salt meats and crying Mussels, or begging; and he brings in Philip of Macedon, [...], mending of shooes in a little stall; he intended to represent, that in the shades below and in the state of the grave, the Princes and voluptuous have a being different from their present plenty, but that their condition is made contemptible and miserable by its disproportion to their lost and perishing voluptuousnesse. The result is this, that Tiresias told the Ghost of Menippus enquiring what state of life was nearest to felicity, [...], The C private life, that which is freest from tumult and vanity, noise and luxury, businesse and ambition, nearest to nature and a just entertainment to our necessities; that life is nearest to felicity. [...], Therefore despise the swellings and the diseases of a disordered life, and a proud vanity; be troubled for no outward thing beyond its merit; enjoy the present temperately, and you cannot choose but be pleased to see that you have so little share in the follies and miscries of the intemperate world.

D 2. Intemperance in eating and drinking is the most contrary course to the Epicures design in the world; and the voluptuous man hath the least of pleasure; and upon this proposition, the consideration is more materiall and more immediately reducible to practise, because in eating and drinking men please themselves so much, and have the necessities of Nature to usher in the inordination of gluttony and drunkennesse, and our need leads in vice by the hand, that we know not how to distinguish our friend from our enemy; and St. Austin is sad upon this point; Thou O Lord hast taught me that I should take my meat as I take my Physick, but while I passe from E the trouble of hunger to the quietnesse of satisfaction, in the very passage I am insnared by the cords of my own concupiscence; Necessity bids me passe, but I have no way to passe from hunger to fulnesse, but over the bridge of pleasure; and although health and life be the cause of eating and drinking, yet pleasure, a dangerous pleasure thrusts her self into attendance, and sometimes endeavours to [Page] be the principall, and I do that for pleasures sake which I would only do A for health; and yet they have distinct measures whereby they can be separated, and that which is enough for health is too little for delight, and that which is for my delight destroyes my health, and still it is uncertain for what end I doe indeed desire; and the worst of the evill is this, that the soul is glad because it is uncertain, and that an excuse is ready, that under the pretence of health, Obumbret negotium voluptatis, the design of pleasure may be advanced and protected. How farre the ends of naturall pleasure may lawfully be enjoyed, I shall afterwards consider; In the mean time, if we remember that the Epicures design is pleasure principally, we may B the better reprove his folly by considering that intemperance is a a plain destruction to all that which can give reall and true pleasure.

1. It is an enemy to health, without which it is impossible to feel anything of corporall pleasure. 2. A constant full table hath in it lesse pleasure then the temperate provisions of the Hermite, or the Labourer, or the Philosophicall table of Scholars, and the just pleasures of the vertuous. 3. Intemperance is an impure fountain of vice, and a direct nurse of uncleannesse. 4. It is a destruction of wisdome. 5. It is a dishonour and disreputation to the person and C the nature of the man.

It is an enemy to health: which is as one cals it, ansa voluptatum 1. & condimentum vitae; it is that handle by which we can apprehend, and perceive pleasures, and that sauce that only makes life delicate; for what content can a full table administer to a man in a feaver? and he that hath a sickly stomach admires at his happinesse that can feast with cheese and garlick, unctious breuuages and the low tasted spinage: Health is the opportunity of wisdome, the fairest scene of Religion, the advantages of the glorifications of God, the charitable ministeries to men; it is a state of joy and thanksgiving, and D in every of its period feels a pleasure from the blessed emanations of a mercifull providence. The world does not minister, does not feel a greater pleasure, then to be newly delivered from the racks or the gratings of the stone, and the torments and convulsions of a sharp colick: and no Organs, no Harp, no Lute can sound out the praises of the Almighty Father so spritefully, as the man that rises from his bed of sorrowes, and considers what an excellent difference he feels from the groans and intolerable accents of yesterday. Health carries us to Church and makes us rejoyce in the communion of Saints, and an intemperate table makes us to lose all this. For this is E one of those sins which S. Paul affirms to be [...], manifest, leading before unto judgement. It bears part of its punishment in this life, and hath this appendage like the sin against the holy Ghost, that it is not remitted in this world, nor in the world to come; that is, if it be not repented of, it is punished here and [Page] A hereafter, which the Scripture does not affirm concerning all sins, and all cases.

But in this the sinner gives sentence with his mouth and brings it to execution with his own hands;

Paena tamen praesens, cum tu deponis amictum

Turgidus, et crudum pavonem in balneaportas.

The old gluttons among the Romans, Heliogabalus, Tigellius, Crispus, Montanus, notae (que) per oppida buccae, famous Epicures, mingled B their meats with vomitings; so did Vitellius, and enter'd into their baths to digest their Phesants, that they might speedily return to the Mullet and the Eeles of Syene, and then they went home and drew their breath short till the morning, and it may be not at all before night,

Hinc subitae mortes, at (que) intestata senectus.

Their age is surprised at a feast, and gives them not time to make their will, but either they are choked with a large morsell, and there is no room for the breath of the lungs, and the motions of C the heart; or a feaver burns their eyes out, or a quinzie punishes that intemperate throat that had no religion, but the eating of the fat sacrifices, the portions of the poor and of the Priest; or else they are condemned to a Lethargie if their constitutions be dull, and if active, it may be they are wilde with watching.

Plurimus hinc aeger moritur vigilando: sed illum

Languorem peperit cibus imperfectus, & haerens

D Ardenti stomacho—

So that the Epicures geniall proverb may be a little alter'd, and say, Let us eat and drink, for by this means to morrow we shall die; but that's not all, for these men live a healthlesse life, that is, are long, are every day dying, and at last dye with torment. Menander was too soft in his expression, [...]; that it is indeed a death, but gluttony is a pleasant death,

[...]

E [...],

[...].

For this is the gluttons pleasure, to breath short and difficultly, scarce to be able to speak, and when he does, he cries out, I dye and not with pleasure. But the folly is as much to be derided as the men to be pityed, that we daily see men afraid of death with a most [Page] intolerable apprehension, and yet increase the evill of it, the pain, and A the trouble, and the suddennesse of its coming, and the appendage of an unsufferable eternity.

Rem struere exoptant caeso bove, Mercuriúmq (que)

Arcessunt fibrâ—

They pray for herds of cattell, and spend the breeders upon feasts and sacrifices. For why do men go to Temples and Churches, and make vowes to God and daily prayers, that God would give them a healthfull body, and take away their gout and their palfies, their B feavers and apoplexies, the pains of the head and the gripings of the belly, and arise from their prayers and powre in loads of flesh and seas of wine, lest there should not be matter enough for a lusty disease?

Poscis opem'nervis, corpúsq (que) fidele senectae.

Esto age, sed grandes patinae tucetáq (que) crassa

Ver. sat. 2.

Annuere his superos vetuere, Jov émq (que) morantur.

But it is enough that the rich glutton shall have his dead body condited and embalmed; he may be allowed to stink and suffer C corruption while he is alive; These men are for the present living sinners and walking rottennesse, and hereafter will be dying penitents and perfumed carcasses, and their whole felicity is lost in the confusions of their unnaturall disorder. When Cyrus had espyed Astyages and his fellowes coming drunk from a banquet loaden with variety of follies and filthinesse, their legs failing them, their eyes red and staring, cousened, with a moist cloud, and abused by a doubled object, their tongues full as spunges, and their heads no wiser, he thought they were poysoned, and he had reason; for what malignant quality can be more venomous and hurtfull to a man then the effect D of an intemperate goblet, and a full stomach? it poysons both the soul and body. All poysons do not kill presently, and this will in processe of time, and hath formidable effects at present.

But therefore me thinks the temptations which men meet withall from without, are in themselves most unreasonable and soonest confuted by us. He that tempts me to drink beyond my measure, civilly invites me to a feaver; and to lay aside my reason, as the Persian women did their garments and their modesty at the end of feasts: and all the question then will be, which is the worse evill, to resuse your uncivill kindnesse, or to suffer a E violent headach, or to lay up heaps big enough for an English Surfeit. Creon in the Tragedy said well,

[...],

[...],

[Page] A grieve thee O stranger, or to he affronted by thee, then to be tormented by thy kindnesse the next day and the morrow after; and the freed man of Domitius the Father of Nero suffered himself to be kild by his Lord; and the sonne of Praxaspes by Cambyses, rather then they would exceed their own measures up to a full intemperance, and a certain sicknesse, and dishonour. For, (as Plutarch said well) to avoid the opinion of an uncivill man, or being clownish, to run into a pain of thy sides or belly, into madnesse or a head-ach, is the part of a fool and a coward, and of one that knowes not how to converse with men citra pocula & B nidorem, in any thing but in the famelick smels of meat and vertiginous drinkings:

Ebrius & petulans, qui nullum forte cecîdit,

Dat poenas, noctem patitur lugentis amicum

Pelidae—

A drunkard and a glutton feels the torments of a restlesse night, although he hath not kil'd a man; that is, just like murtherers and persons of an afrighting conscience; so wake the glutton, so C broken and sick, and disorderly are the slumbers of the drunkard. Now let the Epicure boast his pleasures, and tell how he hath swallowed the price of Provinces, and gobbets of delicious flesh purchased with the rewards of souls; let him brag furorem illum conviviorum & foedissimum patrimoniorum exitium culinam, of the madnesse of delicious feasts, and that his kitchin hath destroyed his Patrimony; let him tell that he takes in every day,

—Quantum Lauseia bibebat,

D As much wine as would refresh the sorrowes of 40 languishing prisoners; or let him set up his vain-glorious triumph,

Ut quod multi Damalis meri

Bassum Threiciâ vicit amystide,

That he hath knock'd down Damalis with the 25th. bottle, and hath outfeasted Anthony or Cleopatra's luxury; it is a goodly pleasure and himself shall bear the honour.

E —Rarum & memorabile magni

Gutturis exemplum, conducendúsq (que) magister.

But for the honour of his banquet he hath some ministers attending that he did not dream of, and in the midst of his loud laughter, the gripes of the belly and the feavers of the brain, Pallor & [Page] genae pendulae, oculorum ulcera, tremulae manus, furiales somm, inquies A nocturna, as Pliny reckons them, palenesse and hanging cheeks, ulcers of the eyes and trembling hands, dead or distracted sleeps, these speak aloud, that to day you eat and drink, that to morrow you may dye, and dye for ever.

It is reported concerning Socrates, that when Athens was destroyed by the plague, he in the midst of all the danger escaped untouched by sicknesse, because by a spare and severe diet, he had within him no tumult of disorderly humours, no factions in his bloud, no loads of moisture prepared for charnell houses, or the sickly hospitals; but a vigorous heat, and a well proportioned B radicall moysture; he had enough for health and study, Philosophy and Religion, for the temples and the Academy, but no superfluities to be spent in groans and sickly nights: And all the world of gluttons is hugely convinced of the excellency of temperance in order to our temporall felicity and health, because when themselves have left vertue, and sober dyet, and counsels, and first lost their temperance, and then lost their health, they were forc'd to run to temperance and abstinence for their cure, Vilis enim tenuis (que) mensa (ut loquuntur pueri) sanitatis S. Chrysost. mater est, Then, a thin diet and a humbled body, fasting and emptinesse, and arts of scattering their sin and sicknesse, is in season; C but by the same means they might preserve their health, by which they do restore it; but when they are well, if they return to their full tables and oppressing meals, their sicknesse was but like Vitellius vomiting, that they might eat again; but so they may entail a fit of sicknesse upon every full moon, till both their virtue and themselves decrease into the corruptions and rottennesse of the grave. But if they delight in sharp feavers and horrid potions, in sowre palats and heaps of that which must be carryed forth, they may reckon their wealthy pleasures to be very great and many, if they will but tell them one by one with their sicknesses and D the multitude of those evils they shall certainly feel before they have thrown their sorrowes forth. These men (as St. Paul's expression is) heap up wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the day of Gods most righteous judgements. Strange therefore it is that for the stomach which is scarce a span long, there should be provided so many furnaces and ovens, huge fires and an army of cooks, cellars swimming with wine, and granaries sweating with corn; and that into one belly should enter the vintage of many Nations, the spoils of distant Provinces, and the shell-fishes of severall seas. When the Heathens feasted their Gods, they gave E nothing but a fat oxe, a ram, or a kid, they powred a little wine upon the Altar, and burned a handfull of gum; but when they feasted themselves, they had many vessels fill'd with Campanian wine, turtles of Liguria, Sicilian beeves, and wheat from Egypt, wilde boars from Illyrium, and Grecian sheep, variety, and load, [Page] A and cost, and curiosity: and so do we. It is so little we spend in Religion, and so very much upon our selves, so little to the poor, and so without measure to make our selves sick, that we seem to be in love with our own mischief, and so passionate for necessity and want, that we strive all the wayes we can to make our selves need more then nature intended. I end this consideration with the saying of the Cynic; It is to be wondred at, that men eat so much for pleasures sake; and yet for the same pleasure should not give over eating, and betake themselves to the delights of temperance, since to be healthfull and holy is so great a pleasure. However, certain B it is that no man ever repented that he arose from the table sober, healthfull, and with his wits about him; but very many have repented that they sate so long, till their bellies swelled, and their health, and their vertue, and their God is departed from them.

SERMON, XVI. Part II.

[Page]

A 2. A Constant full Table is lesse pleasant then the temperate provisions of the vertuous, or the naturall banquets of the poore. [...], said Epicurus, Thanks be to the God of Nature, that he hath made that which is necessary to be ready at hand, and easie to be had, and that which cannot easily be obtained, is not necessary it should be at all; which in effect is to say, it cannot be constantly pleasant; for necessity and want makes the appetite, and the appetite makes the pleasure; and men are infinitely mistaken C when they despise the poor mans Table, and wonder how he can endure that life that is maintain'd without the excise of pleasure, and that he can suffer his days labour, and recompense it with unsavory herbs, and potent garleek, with water-cresses, and bread colour'd like the ashes that gave it hardnesse; he hath a hunger that gives it deliciousnesse; and we may as well wonder that a Lyon eats raw flesh, or that a Wolfe feeds upon the turfe, they have an appetite proportionable to this meat, and their necessity, and their hunger, and their use, and their nature are the Cooks▪ that dresse their provisions, and make them delicate: And yet if water and pulse, D naturall provisions, and the simple diet were not pleasant, as indeed they are not to them who have been nursed up and accustomed to the more delicious, [...], yet it is a very great pleasure to reduce our appetites to Nature, and to make our reason rule our stomach, and our desires comply with our fortunes, and our fortunes be proportionable to our persons. Non est voluptas aqua & polenta, (said a Philosopher) sed summa voluptas est [...]posse ex his capere voluptatem, It is an excellent pleasure to be able to take pleasure in worts and water, in bread and onions; for then a man can never want pleasure when it is so E ready for him, that nature hath spread it over all its provisions. Fortune and Art gives delicacies; Nature gives meat and drink; and what nature gives, fortune cannot take away, but every change can take away what onely is given by the bounty of a full fortune; and if in satisfaction and freedome from care, and security [Page] A and proportions to our own naturall appetite, there can be pleasure, then we may know to value the sober and naturall Tables of the vertuous and wise, before that state of feastings which a War can lessen, and a Tyrant can take away, or the Pirates may intercept, or a Blast may spoyle, and is alwayes contingent, and is so far from satisfying, that either it destroys the appetite, and capacity of pleasure, or increases it beyond all the measures of good things.

He that feasts every day, feasts no day, [...] and however you treat your selves, sometimes you will need to be B refreshed beyond it; but what will you have for a Festivall, if you wear crowns every day? even a perpetuall fulnesse will make you glad to beg pleasure from emptynesse, and variety from poverty or a humble Table.

Plerumque gratae principibus vices,

Mundaeque parvo sub lare pauperum

Coenae sine aulaeis, & ostro,

Sollicitam explicuere frontem.

C But however, of all the things in the world a man may best and most easily want pleasure, which if you have enjoyed, it passes away at the present, and leaves nothing at all behinde it, but sorrow and sowre remembrances. No man felt a greater pleasure in a goblet of wine, then Lysimachus when he fought against the Getae; and himselfe and his whole Army were compell'd by thirst to yeeld themselves to bondage; but when the wine was sunk as farre as his navel, the pleasure was gone, and so was his Kingdome and his liberty; for though the sorrow dwells with a man pertinaciously, yet the pleasure is swift as lightning, and more pernicious; but D the pleasures of a sober and a temperate Table are pleasures till the next day, [...], as Timotheus said of Plato's Scholars, they converse sweetly, and are of perfect temper and delicacy of spirit even the next morning; whereas the intemperate man is forced to lye long in bed, and forget that there is a Sun in the skie; he must not be call'd till he hath concocted, and slept his surfeit into a trace and a quiet respite; but whatsoever this man hath suffer'd, certain it is that the poore mans head did not ake, neither did he need the juice of poppies, or costly cordials, Physitians or Nurses, to bring him to his right shape again; like Apuleius's E Asse with eating roses: and let him turne his hour-glasse, he will finde his head akes longer then his throat was pleased; and which is worst, his glasse runs out with joggings and violence, and every such concussion with a surfeit makes his life look neerer its end, and ten to one but it will before its naturall period be broken in pieces. If these be the pleasures of an Epicures Table, I shall [Page] pray that my friends may never feele them; but he that sinneth A against his Maker shall fall into the calamities of intemperance.

3. Intemperance is the Nurse of vice; [...], Venus milk so Aristophanes calls wine, [...], the Mother of all grievous things: so Pontianus. For by the experience of all the world, it is the baud to lust: and no man must ever dare to pray to God for a pure soul in a chaste body, if himself does not live temperately, if himselfe make provisions for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts of it; for in this case he shall find that which enters into him shall defile him more then he can be cleansed by those vain B prayers that come from his tongue, and not from his heart. Intemperance makes rage and choler, pride and fantastick principles; it makes the body a sea of humours, and those humours the seat of violence: by faring deliciously every day men become senselesse of the evills of mankind, inapprehensive of the troubles of their Brethren, unconcerned in the changes of the world, and the cryes of the poor, the hunger of the fatherlesse, and the thirst of widows: [...], said Diogenes, Tyrants never come from the cottages of them that eat pulse and course fare, but from the delicious beds and banquets C of the effeminate and rich feeders. For to maintain plenty and luxury sometimes wars are necessary, and oppressions and violence: but no Land-lord did ever grinde the face of his Tenants, no Prince ever suck'd bloud from his subjects for the maintenance of a sober and a moderate proportion of good things. And this was intimated by S. James, Doe not rich men oppresse you, and draw you Iam. 2. 6. before the Judgment seat? For all men are passionate to live according to that state in which they were born, or to which they are devolved, or which they have framed to themselves; Those therefore that love to live high and deliciously, D

Et quibus in solo vivendi causa palato,

who live not to God, but to their belly, not to sober counsels, but to an intemperate table, have framed to themselves a manner of living which oftentimes cannot be maintain'd, but by injustice and violence, which coming from a man whose passions are made big with sensuality and an habituall folly, by pride and forgetfulnesse of the condition and miseries of mankind, are alwayes unreasonable, and sometimes intolerable. E

—regustatum digito terebrare salinum

Contentus perages, si vivere cum Jove tendis.

Formidable is the state of an intemperate man, whose sin begins with [Page] A sensuality, and grows up in folly and weak discourses, and is fed by violence and applauded by fooles and parasites, full bellies, and empty heads, servants and flatterers, whose hands are full of flesh and blood, and their hearts empty of pity and naturall compassion; where religion cannot inhabit, and the love of God must needs be a stranger; whose talk is loud, and trifling, injurious and impertinent; and whose imployment is the same with the work of the sheep or the calfe, alwayes to eat; their loves are the lusts of the lower belly, and their portion is in the lower regions to eternall ages, where their thirst, and their hunger, and their torment shall be infinite.

B 4. Intemperance is a perfect destruction of Wisdome. [...], a full gorg'd belly never produc'd a sprightly mind: and therefore these kind of men are called [...], slow bellies, so S. Paul concerning the intemperate Cretans out of their owne Poet: they are like the Tigres of Brasil, which when they are empty are bold, and swift, and full of sagacity, but being full, sneak away from the barking of a village dog. So are these men, wise in the morning, quick and fit for businesse; but when the sun gives the signe to spread the tables, and intemperance brings in the messes, and drunkennesse fills the bouls, then the man fals away, and leaves C a beast in his room; nay worse, [...], they are dead all but their throat and belly, so Aristophanes hath fitted them with a character, carkasses above halfe way; Plotinus descends one step lower yet; affirming such persons, [...], they are made trees, whose whole imployment and life is nothing but to feed and suck juices from the bowels of their Nurse and Mother; and indeed commonly they talke as trees in a wind and tempest, the noise is great and querulous, but it signifies nothing but trouble and disturbance. A full meal is like Sisera's banquet; at the end of which there is a nail struck into a mans head: D [...], so Porphyrie; it knocks a man down, and nayls his soul to the sensuall mixtures of the body. For what wisdome can be expected from them, whose soul dwels in clouds of meat, and floats up and down in wine, like the spilled cups which fell from their hands, when they could lift them to their heads no longer? [...]: It is a perfect shipwrack of a Man, the Pilot is drunk and the helm dash'd in pieces, and the ship first reels, and by swallowing too much is it self swallowed up at last. And therefore the Navis Agrigentina, the madnesse of the young fellows of Agrigentum, who being drunk, fancyed themselves E in a storm, and the house the ship; was more then the wilde fancy of their cups, it was really so, they were all cast away, they were broken in pieces by the foul disorder of the storm.

Hinc vini atque somni degener discordia,

Prudent. hym. de jejun.

Libido sordens, inverecundus lepos,

[Page] Variaeque pestes languidorum sensuum. A

Hinc frequenti marcida oblectamine

Scintilla mentis intorpescit nobilis,

Animúsque pigris stertit in praecordiis.

The senses languish, the spark of Divinity that dwels within is quenched, and the mind snorts, dead with sleep and fulnesse in the fouler regions of the belly.

So have I seen the eye of the world looking upon a fenny bottome, and drinking up too free draughts of moysture gather'd them into a cloud, and that cloud crept about his face, and made him first look B red, and then cover'd him with darknesse and an artificiall night: so is our reason at a feast.

Putrem resudans crapulam

Obstrangulatae mentis ingenium premit.

The clouds gather about the head, and according to the method and period of the children, and productions of darkness, it first grows red, and that rednesse turns into an obscurity, and a thick mist, and reason is lost to all use and profitablenesse of wise and sober discourses; C [...], a cloud of folly and distraction Clem. Alexandr. darkens the soul, and makes it crasse and materiall, polluted and heavy, clogg'd and loaden like the body: [...], And there cannot be any thing said worse, reason turnes into folly, wine and flesh into a knot of clouds, the soul it self into a body, and the spirit into corrupted meat; there is nothing left but the rewards and portions of a fool to be reaped and enjoyed there, where flesh and corruption shall dwell to eternall ages; and therefore in Scripture such men are called [...]. Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravant: D Their heads are grosse, their soules are immerged in matter, and drowned in the moystures of an unwholsome cloud; they are dull of hearing, slow in apprehension, and to action they are as unable as the hands of a childe, who too hastily hath broken the inclosures of his first dwelling.

But temperance is reasons girdle, and passions bridle, [...], so Homer in Stobaeus, that's [...], prudence is safe, while the man is temperate, and therefore [...] is opposed [...], a temperate man is no fool, for temperance is the [...], such as Plato appointed to night-walkers, a prison to restraine their inordinations; E it is [...], as Pythagoras calls it; [...], so Socrates; [...], so Plato; [...], so Iämblicus, It is the strength of the soule, the foundation of vertue, the ornament of all good things, and the corroborative of all excellent habits.

[Page] A 5. After all this, I shall the lesse need to add, that intemperance is a dishonor and disreputation to the nature, and the person, and the manners of a Man. But naturally men are ashamed of it, and the needs of nature shal be the vail for their gluttony, and the night shall cover their drunkennesse. [...], which the Apostle Alcaeus. rightly renders, They that are drunk are drunk in the night; but the Priests of Heliopolis never did sacrifice to the Sun with wine; meaning, that this is so great a dishonor, that the Sun ought not to see it; and they that think there is no other eye but the Sun that sees them, may cover their shame by choosing their time; just as B children doe their danger by winking hard, and not looking on. [...], To drink sweet drinks and hot, to quaffe great draughts, and to eat greedily; Theophrastus makes them characters of a Clown.

And now that I have told you the foulnesse of the Epicures feasts 3. and principles, it will be fit that I describe the measures of our eating and drinking, that the needs of nature may neither become the cover to an intemperate dish, nor the freer refreshment of our persons be changed into scruples, that neither our vertue nor our conscience fall into an evill snare.

C 1. The first measure of our eating and drinking is our natural needs, [...]; these are the measures of nature, that the body be free from pain, and the soul from violence. Hunger, and thirst, and cold are the naturall diseases of the body; and food, and rayment, are their remedies, and therefore are the measures.

In quantum sitis atque fames, & frigora poscunt,

Quantum Epicure tibi parvis suffecit in hortis.

D But in this there are two cautions. 1. Hunger and thirst are onely to be extinguished while they are violent and troublesome, and are not to be provided for to the utmost extent and possibilities of nature; a man is not hungry so long, till he can eat no more, but till its sharpnesse and trouble is over, and he that does not leave some reserves for temperance, gives all that he can to nature, and nothing at all to grace; For God hath given a latitude in desires and degrees of appetite; and when he hath done, he laid restraint upon it in some whole instances, and of some parts in every instance; that man might have something to serve God of his own, and something to E distinguish him from a beast in the use of their common faculties. Beasts cannot refrain but fill all the capacity, when they can; and if a man does so, he does what becomes a beast, and not a man. And therefore there are some little symptomes of this inordination, by which a man may perceive himself to have transgressed his measures; Ructation, uneasie loads, singing, looser pratings, importune drowsinesse, [Page] provocation of others to equall and full chalices; and though A in every accident of this signification, it is hard for another to pronounce that the man hath sinned, yet by these he may suspect himself, and learn the next time to hold the bridle harder.

2. This hunger must be naturall, not artificiall and provoked: For many men make necessities to themselves, and then think they are bound to provide for them. It is necessary to some men to have garments made of the Calabrian fleece stain'd with the blood of the murex, and to get money to buy pearls round and orient; scelerata hoc fecit pulpa; but it is the mans luxury that made it so; and by the same principle it is, that in-meats, what is abundant to nature is B defective and beggerly to art; and when nature willingly rises from Table, when the first course of flesh, plain and naturall, is done, then art, and sophistry, and adulterate dishes invite him to taste and die, [...]; well may a sober man Chrysost. wonder that men should be so much in love with earth and corruption, the parent of rottennesse, and a disease, that even then when by all laws witches and inchanters, murderers and manstealers are chastised and restrain'd with the iron hands of death, yet that men should at great charges give pensions to an order of men, whose trade it is to rob them of their temperance, and wittily to destroy their health; C [...], the Greek Fathers call such persons;

—curvae in terris animae & coelestium inanes,

people bowed downe to the earth; lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God: Viz. ab Areto, unde sicut ex ali [...] Etruriae figulinis testacea vasa Romam des [...]rebant. Aretinas mentes, so Antidamus calls them, men framed in the furnaces of Etruria, Aretine spirits, beginning and ending in flesh and filthynesse; dirt and clay all over. But goe to the Crib thou glutton, and there it will be found that when the charger D is clean, yet natures rules were not prevaricated; the beast eats up all his provisions because they are naturall and simple; or if he leaves any, it is because he desires no more then till his needs be served; and neither can a man (unlesse he be diseased in body or in spirit, in affection or in habit) eat more of naturall and simple food then to the satisfactions of his naturall necessities. He that drinks a draught or two of water, and cooles his thirst, drinks no more till his thirst returnes; but he that drinks wine, drinks it again, longer then it is needfull, even so long as it is pleasant. Nature best provides for her self when she spreads her own Table; but when men have gotten superinduced E habits, and new necessities, art that brought them in must maintain them, but wantonnesse and folly wait at the table, and sickness and death take away.

2. Reason is the second measure; or rather the rule whereby we judge of intemperance; For whatsoever loads of meat or drink make [Page] A the reason uselesse, or troubled, are effects of this deformity; not that reason is the adequate measure, for a man may be intemperate upon other causes, though he doe not force his understanding, and trouble his head. Some are strong to drink, and can eat like a wolfe, and love to doe so, as fire to destroy the stubble; such were those Harlots in the Comedy, Quae cum amatore suo cum coenant liguriunt: These persons are to take their accounts from the measures of Religion, and the Spirit; though they can talk still or transact the affaires of the world, yet if they be not fitted for the things of the Spirit, they are too full of flesh or wine, and cannot or care not to B attend to the things of God. But reason is the limit beyond which temperance never wanders; and in every degree in which our discourse is troubled, and our soul is lifted from its wheels, in the same degree the sin prevails. Dum sumus in quâdam delinquendi libidine, nebulis quibusdam insipientiae mens obducitur, saith St. Ambrose, when the flesh-pots reek, and the uncovered dishes send forth a nidor and hungry smels, that cloud hides the face, and puts out the eye of reason, and then tell them mors in ollâ, that death is in the pot, and folly in the chalice, that those smels are fumes of brimstone, and vapours of Egypt; that they will make their heart easie, and their head C sottish, and their colour pale, and their hands trembling, and their feet tormented:

(Mullorum leporúm (que) & suminis exitus hic est,

Sulphureús (que) color carnificésque pedes.

For that is the end of delicacies, [...], as Dio Chrysostom. palenesse and effeminacy, and lazinesse, and folly:) yet under the dominion of the pleasures of sensuality, men are so stript of the use of reason, that they are not onely D uselesse in wise counsels and assistances, but they have not reason enough to avoid the evils of their own throat and belly: when once their reason fails, we must know, that their temperance and their religion went before.

3. Though reason be so strictly to be preserved at our tables as well as at our prayers, and we can never have leave to doe any violence to it; yet the measures of Nature may be enlarged beyond the bounds of prime and common necessity. For besides hunger and thirst, there are some labours of the body, and others of the mind, and there are sorrows and loads upon the spirit by its communications E with the indispositions of the body; and as the labouring man may be supplyed with bigger quantities, so the student and contemplative man with more delicious and spritefull nutriment: for as the tender and more delicate easily-digested meats will not help to carry burthers upon the neck, and hold the plough in society and yokes of the laborious oxen; so neither will the pulse and the leeks, Lavinian [Page] sausages, and the Cisalpine tucets or gobbets of condited buls [...]esh A minister such delicate spirits to the thinking man; but his notion will be flat as the noyse of the Arcadian porter, and thick as the first juice of his countrey lard, unlesse he makes his body a fit servant to the soul, and both fitted for the imployment.

But in these cases necessity, and prndence, and experience are to make the measures and the rule; and so long as the just end is fairly designed, and aptly ministred to, there ought to be no scruple concerning the quantity or quality of the provision: and he that would stint a Swain by the commons of a Student, and give Philot as the Candian, the leavings of Pluto, does but ill serve the ends of temperance, B but worse of prudence and necessity.

4. Sorrow and a wounded spirit may as well be provided for in the quantity and quality of meat and drink, as any other disease; and this disease by this remedy as well as by any other. For great sorrow and importune melancholy may be as great a sin as a great anger; and if it be a sin in its nature, it is more malignant and dangerous in its quality; as naturally tending to murmur and despair, wear inesse of Religion, and hatred of God, timorousnesse and jealousies, fantastick images of things and superstition; and therefore as it is necessary to restrain the feavers of anger, so also to warm the freezings C and dulnesse of melancholy by prudent and temperate, but proper and apportion'd diets; and if some meats and drinks make men lustfull, or sleepy, or dull, or lazy, or spritely, or merry, so far as meats and drinks can minister to the passion, and the passion minister to vertue, so far by this means they may be provided for. Give Prov. 31. 6. strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy hearts, let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more, said King Lemuel's Mother. But this is not intended to be an habituall cure, but single and occasionall; for he that hath a pertinacious sorrow is beyond the cure of meat D and drink, and if this become every days physick, it will quickly become every days sin. 2. It must alwayes keep within the bounds of reason, and never seise upon any portions of affection: The Germans use to mingle musick with their bowls, and drink by the measures of the six Notes of Musick:

Ut relevet miserum fatum, solitósque labores:

but they sing so long that they forget not their sorrow onely, but their vertue also, and their Religion; and there are some men that fall E into drunkennesse because they would forget a lighter calamity, running into the fire to cure a calenture, and beating their brains out to be quit of the aking of their heads. A mans heavynesse is refreshed long before he comes to drunkennesse; for when he arrives thither, he hath but chang'd his heavynesse, and taken a crime to boot.

[Page] A 5. Even when a man hath no necessity upon him, no pungent sorrow, or naturall or artificiall necessity, it is lawfull in some cases of eating and drinking to receive pleasure and intend it. For whatsoever is naturall and necessary, is therefore not criminall, because it is of Gods procuring; and since we eate for need, and the satisfaction of our need is a removing of a pain, and that in nature is the greatest pleasure, it is impossible that in its own nature it should be a sin. But in this case of Conscience, these cautions are to be observed: 1. So long as nature ministers the pleasure and not art, it is materially innocent. Si tuo veniat jure, luxuria est: But it is safe while Seneca. B it enters upon natures stock; for it is impossible that the proper effect of health, and temperance, and prudent abstinence should be vicious; and yet these are the parents of the greatest pleasure, in eating and drinking. Malum panem expecta, bonus siet; etiam illum tenerum tibi & siligineum fames reddet: If you abstaine and be hungry, you shall turne the meanest provision into delicate, and desireable.

2. Let all the pleasure of meat and drink be such as can minister to health, and be within the former bounds. For since pleasure in eating and drinking is its naturall appendage, and like a shadow C follows the substance, as the meat is to be accounted, so is the pleasure: and if these be observed, there is no difference whether nature or art be the Cook. For some constitutions, and some mens customes, and some mens educations, and necessities, and weaknesses are such, that their appetite is to be invited, and their digestion helped, but all this while we are within the bounds of nature and need.

3. It is lawfull when a man needs meat to choose the pleasanter, even meerly for their pleasures; that is, because they are pleasant, besides that they are usefull; this is as lawfull as to D smell of a rose, or to lye in feathers, or change the posture of our body in bed for ease, or to hear musick, or to walk in gardens rather then the high-wayes; and God hath given us leave to be delighted in those things which he made to that purpose, that we may also be delighted in him that gives them. For so as the more pleasant may better serve for health, and directly to refreshment, so collaterally to Religion: Alwayes provided, that it be in its degree moderate, and we temperate in our desires, without transportation and violence, without unhandsome usages of our selves, or taking from God and from Religion any minutes and portions of our affections. E When Eicadastes the Epicure saw a goodly dish of hot meat serv'd up, he sung the verse of Homer,

[...],

and swallowed some of it greedily, till by its hands of fire it curled [Page] his stomach, like parchment in the flame, and he was carryed from A his banquet to his grave.

Non poterat letho nobiliore mori:

It was fit he should dye such a death; but that death bids us beware of that folly.

4. Let the pleasure as it came with the meat, so also passe away with it. Philoxenus was a beast, [...], he wisht his throat as long as a Cranes, that he might be long in swallowing his pleasant morsels: Moeret quòd magna pars felicitat B is exclusa esset corporis angustiis; he mourned because the pleasure of eating was not spread over all his body, that he might have been an Epicure in his hands: and indeed, if we consider it rightly, great eating and drinking is not the greatest pleasure of the taste, but of the touch; and Philoxenus might feel the unctious juyce slide softly down his throat, but he could not taste it in the middle of the long neck; and we see that they who mean to feast exactly, or delight the palate, do libare or pitissare, take up little proportions and spread them upon the tongue or palate; but full morsells and great draughts are easie and soft to the touch; but so is the feeling of silke, or C handling of a melon, or a moles skin, and as delicious too as eating when it goes beyond the appetites of nature, and the proper pleasures of taste, which cannot be perceived but by a temperate man. And therefore let not the pleasure be intended beyond the taste; that is, beyond those little naturall measures in which God intended that pleasure should accompany your tables. Doe not run to it beforehand, nor chew the chud when the meal is done; delight not in the fancies, and expectations, and remembrances of a pleasant meal; but let it descend in latrinam, together with the meals whose attendant pleasure is. D

5. Let pleasure be the lesse principall, and used as a servant; it may be modest and prudent to strew the dish with Sugar, or to dip thy bread in vinegar, but to make thy meal of sauces, and to make the accessory become the principall, and pleasure to rule the table, and all the regions of thy soule, is to make a man lesse and lower then an Oglio, of a cheaper value then a Turbat; a servant and a worshipper of sauces, and cookes, and pleasure, and folly.

6. Let pleasure as it is used in the regions and limits of nature and prudence, so also be changed into religion and thankfulnesse. E Turtures cum bibunt non resupinant colla, say Naturalists, Turtles when they drink lift not up their bills; and if we swallow our pleasures without returning the honour and the acknowledegment to God that gave them, we may largè bibere jumentorum modo, drink draughts as large as an Oxe, but we shall die like an Oxe, [Page] A and change our meats and drinks into eternall rottennesse. In all Religions it hath been permitted to enlarge our Tables in the days of sacrifices and religious festivity.

Qui Veientarum festis potare diebus,

Campanâ solitus trullâ, vappámque profestis.

For then the body may rejoyce in fellowship with the soule, and then a pleasant meal is religious, if it be not inordinate. But if our festivall dayes like the Gentile sacrifices end in drunkennesse B [ [...]] and our joyes in Religion passe into sensuality and beastly crimes, we change the Holy-day into a day of Death, and our selves become a Sacrifice as in the day of Slaughter.

To summe up this particular, there are, as you perceive, many cautions to make our pleasure safe, but any thing can make it inordinate, and then scarce any thing can keep it from becoming dangerous.

Habet omnis hoc voluptas,

Boetius l. 3. Metr. 7.

C Stimulis agit furentes,

Apiúmque par volantum,

Ubi grata mella fudit,

Fugit & nimis tenaci

Ferit icta corda mersu.

And the pleasure of the honey will not pay for the smart of the sting. Amores enim & delicia' maturè & celeritèr destorescunt, & in omnibus rebus voluptatibus maximis fastidium finitimum est. Nothing is so soon ripe and rotten as pleasure, and upon all possessions D and states of things, loathing looks, as being not far off; but it sits upon the skirts of pleasure. [...]. He that greedily puts his hand to a delicious table, shall weep bitterly when he suffers the convulsions and violence by the divided interests of such contrary juices: [...]. For this is the law of our nature and fatall necessity; life is alwayes poured forth from two goblets.

And now after all this, I pray consider, what a strange madness and prodigious folly possesses many men, that they love to swallow E death, and diseases, and dishonor, with an appetite which no reason can restrain. We expect our servants should not dare to touch what we have forbidden to them; we are watchfull that our children should not swallow poysons, and filthinesse, and unwholesome nourishment; we take care that they should be well manner'd and civil and of fair demeanour; and we our selves desire to be, or [Page] at least to be accounted wise; and would infinitely scorne to be A call'd fooles; and we are so great lovers of health, that we will buy it at any rate of money or observance; and then for honour, it is that which the children of men pursue with passion, it is one of the noblest rewards of vertue, and the proper ornament of the wise and valiant, and yet all these things are not valued or considered, when a merry meeting, or a looser feast calls upon the man to act a scene of folly and madnesse, and healthlesnesse and dishonour. We doe to God what we severely punish in our servants; we correct our children for their medling with dangers, which themselves preferre before immortality; and though no B man think himselfe fit to be despised, yet he is willing to make himselfe a beast, a sot, and a ridiculous monkey, with the follies and vapors of wine; and when he is high in drinke or fancy, proud as a Grecian Orator in the midst of his popular noyses, at the same time he shall talk such dirty language, such mean low things, as may well become a changeling and a foole, for whom the stocks are prepared by the laws, and the just scorne of men. Every drunkard clothes his head with a mighty scorne, and makes himselfe lower at that time then the meanest of his servants; the boyes can laugh at him when he is led like a cripple, directed C like a blinde man, and speakes like an infant, imperfect noyses, lisping with a full and spungy tongue, and an empty head, and a vaine and foolish heart: so cheaply does he part with his honour for drink or loads of meat; for which honour he is ready to die, rather then hear it to be disparaged by another; when himselfe destroyes it, as bubbles perish with the breath of children. Doe not the laws of all wise Nations marke the drunkard for a foole, with the meanest and most scornfull punishment? and is there any thing in the world so foolish as a man that is drunk? But good God! what an intolerable sorrow D hath seifed upon great portions of Mankind, that this folly and madnesse should possesse the greatest spirits, and the wittyest men, the best company, the most sensible of the word honour, and the most jealous of loosing the shadow, and the most carelesse of the thing? Is it not a horrid thing, that a wise, or a crafty, a learned, or a noble person should dishonour himselfe as a foole, destroy his body as a murtherer, lessen his estate as a prodigall, disgrace every good cause that he can pretend to by his relation, and become an appellative of scorne, a scene of laughter or derision, and all, for the reward of forgetfulnesse and madnesse? E for there are in immoderate drinking no other pleasures.

Why doe valiant men and brave personages fight and die rather then break the laws of men, or start from their duty to their Prince, and will suffer themselves to be cut in pieces rather [Page] A then deserve the name of a Traitor or perjur'd? and yet these very men to avoyd the hated name of Glutton or Drunkard, and to preserve their Temperance, shall not deny themselves one luscious morsell, or poure a cup of wine on the ground, when they are invited to drink by the laws of the circle or wilder company.

Me thinks it were but reason, that if to give life to uphold a cause be not too much, they should not think too much to be hungry and suffer thirst for the reputation of that cause; and therefore much rather that they would thinke it but duty to be B temperate for its honour, and eat and drink in civill and faire measures, that themselves might not lose the reward of so much suffering, and of so good a relation, nor that which they value most be destroyed by drink.

There are in the world a generation of men that are ingag'd in a cause, which they glory in, and pride themselves in its relation and appellative: but yet for that cause they will doe nothing but talk and drink; they are valiant in wine, and witty in healths, and full of stratagem to promote debauchery; but such persons are not considerable in wise accounts; that which C I deplore is, that some men preferre a cause before their life, and yet preferre wine before that cause, and by one drunken meeting set it more backward in its hopes and blessings, then it can be set forward by the counsels and armes of a whole yeer. God hath ways enough to reward a truth without crowning it with successe in the hands of such men. In the mean time they dishonour Religion, and make truth be evill spoken of, and innocent persons to suffer by their very relation, and the cause of God to be reproached in the sentences of erring and abused people; and themselves lose their health and their reason, D their honour and their peace, the rewards of sober counsels, and the wholesome effects of wisdome.

Arcanum ne (que) tu scrutaber is ullius unquam,

Commissúmque teges, & vino tortus & irâ.

Wine discovers more then the rack, and he that will be drunk is not a person fit to be trusted: and though it cannot be expected men should be kinder to their friend, or their Prince, or their honour, then to God, and to their own souls, and to their own E bodies; yet when men are not moved by what is sensible and materiall, by that which smarts and shames presently, they are beyond the cure of Religion, and the hopes of Reason; and therefore they must lie in hell like sheep, death gnawing upon them, and the righteous shall have domination over them in the morning of the resurrection.

[Page]

Seras tutior ibis ad lucernas, A

Haec hora non est tua, cam furit Lyaeus

Cùm regnant rosae, cùm madent capilli.

Much safer it is to go to the severities of a watchfull and a sober life; for all that time of life is lost, when wine, and rage, and pleasure, and folly steale away the heart of a man, and make him goe singing to his grave.

I end with the saying of a wise man; He is fit to sit at the table of the Lord, and to feast with Saints, who moderately uses B the creatures which God hath given him: But he that despises even lawfull pleasures, [...], shall not onely sit and feast with God, but reign together with him, and partake of his glorious Kingdome.

Sermon, XVII. THE MARRIAGE RING: OR THE Mysteriousnesse and Duties of Marriage. Part I.

[Page]

Ephes. 5. 32, 33.‘This is a great mysterie, But I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Neverthelesse let every one of you in particular so love his Wife even as himself, and the Wife see that shee reverence her Husband.’

D THe first blessing God gave to man was society, and that society was a Marriage, and that Marriage was confederate by God himself, and hallowed by a blessing: and at the same time, and for very many descending ages, not only by the instinct of Nature, but by a superadded forwardnesse (God himself inspiring the desire) Quemlibet hominem cui non est uxor, minimè esse hominem, cum etiam in Scriptura dicatur, Masculum & foeminam creavit eos & vocavit no men corum Adam seu hominem. R. Eliezer dixit in Gem. Bab. Quicun (que) ncgligit praeceptum de multiplicatione humani generis habendum esse veluti homicidam. the world was most desirous of children, impatient of barrennesse, accounting single life a curse, and a childlesse person hated by God. The world was rich and empty, and E able to provide for a more numerous posterity then it it had.

[...]

[...].

You that are rich Numenius, you may multiply your family, poor [Page] men are not so fond of children; but when a family could drive A their heards, and set their children upon camels, and lead them till they saw a fat soil watered with rivers, and there sit down without paying rent, they thought of nothing but to have great families, that their own relations might swell up to a Patriarchat, and their children be enough to possesse all the regions that they saw, and their grand-children become Princes, and themselves build cities and call them by the name of a childe, and become the fountain of a Nation. This was the consequent of the first blessing, Increase and multiply. The next blessing was the promise of the Messias, and that also increased in men and women a wonderfull B desire of marriage: for as soon as God had chosen the family of Abraham to be the blessed line, from whence the worlds Redeemer should descend according to the flesh, every of his daughters hoped to have the honour to be his Mother, or his Grand-mother or something of his kindred: and to be childelesse Christiani & apud Athenas, [...] refert Julius Pollux l. 3. [...]. Idem etiam Laccdaemone & Romae. vide Festum verb. uxorium, at (que) ibi Joseph. Scal. in Israel was a sorrow to the Hebrew women great as the slavery of Egypt, or their dishonours in the land of their captivity.

But when the Messias was come, and his doctrine was published, and his Ministers but few, and the Disciples were to suffer C persecution, and to be of an unsetled dwelling, and the Nation of the Jews, in the bosome and society of which the Church especially did dwell, were to be scattered and broken all in pieces with fierce calamities, and the world was apt to calumniate and to suspect and dishonour Christians upon pretences, and unreasonable jealousies, and that to all these purposes the state of marriage brought many inconveniences; it pleased God in this new creation to inspire into the hearts of his servants a disposition and strong desires to live a single life, left the state of marriage should in that conjunction of things become an accidentall impediment D to the dissemination of the Gospell, which cal'd men from a confinement in their domestick charges to travell, and flight, and poverty, and difficulty, and Martyrdome: upon this necessity the Apostles and Apostolicall men published Doctrines, declaring the advantages of single life, not by any commandement of the Lord, but by the spirit of prudence, [...], for the present and then incumbent necessities, and in order to the advantages which did accrew to the publick Etiam Judaei qui praeceptum esse viris [...] aiunt uno ore conc [...] dunt tamen dispensatum esse cum iis qui assiduo legis studio vacare volunt, aliàs etiam immunibus ab acriori carnis stimulo. Maimon. cap. 15. Halach. Ishoth. ministeries and private piety. There are some (said our blessed Lord) who make themselves Eunuchs E for the Kingdome of Heaven, that is, for the advantages and the ministery of the Gospell, non ad vitae bonae meritum (as St. Austin in the like case) not that it is a better service of God in it self, but that it is usefull to the first circumstances of the Gospell [Page] A and the infancy of the Kingdome, because the unmarryed person does [...], is [...], &c. Epist. ad Philadelph. apt to spirituall and Ecclesiasticall imployments: first [...] and then [...], holy in his own person, and then sanctified to publick ministeries; and it was also of ease to the Christians themselves, because as then it was, when they were to flie, and to flie for ought they knew, in winter, and they were persecuted to the four winds of heaven; and the nurses and the women with childe were to suffer a heavier load of B sorrow because of the imminent persecutions; and above all, because of the great fatality of ruine upon the whole nation of the Jewes, well it might be said by St. Paul [...], Such shall have trouble in the flesh, that is, they that are marryed shall, and so at that time they had: and therefore it was an act of charity to the Christians to give that counsell, [...] I do this to spare you, and [...]: for when the case was alter'd and that storm was over, and the first necessities of the Gospel served, and the sound was gone out into all nations; in very many persons it was wholly changed, and not the marryed but the unmarryed had C [...] trouble in the flesh; and the state of marriage returned to its first blessing, & non non erat bonum homini esse solitarium, and it was not good for man to be alone.

But in this first intervall, the publick necessity and the private zeal mingling together did sometimes over-act their love of single life, even to the disparagement of marriage, and to the scandall of Religion; which was increased by the occasion of some pious persons renouncing their contract of marriage, not consummate, with unbeleevers. For when Flavia Domitilla being converted by Nereus and Achilleus the Eunuchs, refused to marry Aurelianus D to whom she was contracted; if there were not some little envie and too sharp hostility in the Eunuchs, to a marryed state, yet Aurelianus thought himself an injur'd person, and caus'd St. Clemens who vail'd her, and his spouse both, to dye in the quarrell. St. Thecla being converted by St. Paul grew so in love with virginity, that she leap'd back from the marriage of Tamyris where she was lately ingaged. St. Iphigenia denyed to marry King Hirtacus, and it is said to be done by the advice of St. Matthew. And Susanna the Niece of Diocletian refus'd the love of Maximianus the Emperour; and these all had been betrothed; and so did St. Agnes and E St. Felicula, and divers others then and afterwards; insomuch, that it was reported among the Gentiles, that the Christians did not only hate all that were not of their perswasion, but were enemies of the chast lawes of marriage; And indeed some that were called Christians were so; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats. Upon this occasion it grew necessary for the Apostle [Page] to state the question right, and to do honour to the holy rite A of marriage, and to snatch the mystery from the hands of zeal and folly, and to place it in Christs right hand, that all its beauties might appear, and a present convenience might not bring in a false Doctrine, and a perpetuall sin, and an intolerable mischief. The Apostle therefore who himself [...]. Ignatius epistel. ad Philadelph. Et Clomens idem ait apud Eusebium hist. Eccles. lib. 3. sed tamen eam non circumduxit sicut Petrus: probat autem ex Philip. 4. had been a marryed man, but was now a widower, does explicate the mysteriousnesse of it, and describes it's honours, and adornes it with rules and provisions of Religion, that as it begins with honour, so it may proceed with piety, and end with glory.

For although single life hath in it privacy and simplicity of affaires, B such solitarinesse and sorrow, such leasure and unactive circumstances of living, that there are more spaces for religion if men would use them to these purposes; and because it may have in it much religion and prayers, and must have in it a perfect mortification of our strongest appetites, is therefore a state of great excellency; yet concerning the state of marriage we are taught from Scripture and the sayings of wise men, great things and honourable. Marriage is honourable in all men, so is not single life; for in some it is a snare and a [...], a trouble in the flesh, a prison of unruly desires which is attempted daily to be broken. Celibate or single life is C never commanded; but in some cases marriage is; and he that burns, sins often if he marries not, he that cannot contain must marry, and he that can contain is not tyed to a single life, but may marry and not sin. Marriage was ordained by God, instituted in Paradise, was the relief of a naturall necessity, and the first blessing from the Lord; he gave to Man not a friend, but a wife, that is, a friend and a wife too: (for a good woman is in her soul the same that a man is, and she is a woman only in her body; that she may have the excellency of the one, and the usefulnesse of the other, and become amiable in both:) it is the seminary of the Church, and daily brings D forth sons and daughters unto God; it was ministred to by Angels, and Raphael waited upon a young man that he might have a blessed marriage, and that that marriage might repair two fad families, and blesse all their relatives. Our blessed Lord, though he was born of a maiden, yet she was vail'd under the cover of marriage, and she was marryed to a widower; for Joseph the supposed Father of our Lord had children by a former wife. The first Miracle that ever Jesus did, was to doe honour to a wedding; marriage was in the world before sin, and is in all ages of the world the greatest and most effective antidote against sin, in which all the world E had perished if God had not made a remedy; and although sin hath sour'd marriage, and stuck the mans head with cares, and the womans bed with sorrowes in the production of children, yet these are but throws of life and glory; and she shall be saved in childbearing, if she be found in faith and righteousnesse. Marriage is a [Page] A Schoole and exercise of vertue; and though Marriage hath cares, yet the single life hath desires which are more troublesome and more dangerous, and often end in sin, while the cares are but instances of duty and exercises of piety; and therefore if single life hath more privacy of devotion, yet marriage hath more necessities and more variety of it, and is an exercise of more graces. In two vertues celibate or single life may have the advantage of degrees ordinarily and commonly, that is, in chastity and devotion: but as in some persons this may fail, and it does in very many, and a marryed man may spend as much time in devotion as any virgins or widowes do, yet B as in marriage even those vertues of chastity and devotion are exercised: so in other instances, this state hath proper [...]. Plato. exercises and trials for those graces, for which single life can never be crown'd; Here is the proper scene of piety and patience, of the duty of Parents and the charity of relatives; here kindnesse is

Adde quòd Eunuchus nulla pietate movetur,

Nec generi natis [...]e cavet: clementia cunctis

In similes, animós (que) ligant consortia damni. Claudian.

spread abroad, and love is united and made firm as a centre. Marriage is the nursery of heaven; the virgin sends prayers to God, but she carries but one soul to him; but the state of marriage fils up the C numbers of the elect, and hath in it the labour of love, and the delicacies of friendship, the blessing of society, and the union of hands and hearts; it hath in it lesse of beauty, but more of safety then the single life; it hath more care, but lesse danger; it is more merry, and [...]. more sad; is fuller of sorrowes, and fuller of joyes; it lies under more burdens, but it is supported by all the strengths of love and charity, and those burdens are delightfull. Marriage is the mother of the world, and preserves Kingdomes, and fils Cities, and Churches, and Heaven it self: Celibate, like the flie in the heart of an apple, dwels in a perpetuall sweetnesse, but sits alone, and is confin'd and dies in singularity; D but marriage, like the usefull Bee, builds a house and gathers sweetnesse from every flower, and labours and unites into societies and republicks, and sends out colonies, and feeds the world with delicacies, and obeys their king, and keeps order, and exercises many Siquis patriam majorem parentem extinguit, in eo culpa est, quod facit pro sua parte qui se exnuchat aut aliquâ liberos producit, i. e. differt eorum procreationem. Varro in lege Maenia. vertues, and promotes the interest of mankinde, and is that state of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world.

[...]

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E Single life makes men in one instance to be like Angels, but marriage in very many things makes the chast pair to be like to Christ. This is a great mystery, but it is the symbolicall and sacramentall representment of the greatest mysteries of our Religion. Christ descended from his Fathers bosome, and contracted his divinity with [Page] flesh and bloud, and marryed our Nature, and we became a Church, A the spouse of the bridegroom, which he cleansed with his bloud, and gave her his holy Spirit for a dowry, and heaven for a joynture; begetting children unto God by the Gospel; this spouse he hath joyn'd to himself by an excellent charity, he feeds her at his own table, and lodges her nigh his own heart, provides for all her necessities, relieves her sorrowes, determines her doubts, guides her wandrings, he is become her head, and she as a signet upon his right hand; he first indeed was betrothed to the Synagogue and had many children by her, but she forsook his love, and then he marryed the Church of the Gentiles, and by her as by a second venter had a more numerous B issue, at (que) una domus est omnium filiorum ejus, all the children dwell in the same house, and are heirs of the same promises, intituled to the same inheritance. Here is the eternall conjunction, the indissoluble knot, the exceeding love of Christ, the obedience of the Spouse, the communicating of goods, the uniting of interests, the fruit of marriage, a celestiall generation, a new creature; Sacramentum hoc magnum est; this is the sacramentall mystery represented by the holy rite of marriage; so that marriage is divine in its institution, sacred in its union, holy in the mystery, sacramentall in its signification, honourable in its appellative, religious C in its imployments: It is advantage to the societies of men, and it is holinesse to the Lord. Di [...]o autem in Christo & Ecclesiâ,] It must be in Christ and the Church.

If this be not observed, marriage loses its mysteriousnesse: but because it is to effect much of that which it signifies, it concerns all that enter into those golden fetters to see that Christ and his Church be in at every of its periods, and that it be intirely conducted and over-rul'd by Religion; for so the Apostle passes from the sacramentall rite to the reall duty; Neverthelesse, that is, although the former discourse were wholly to explicate the conjunction of Christ D and his Church by this similitude, yet it hath in it this reall duty, that the man love his wife, and the wife reverence her husband; and this is the use we shall now make of it, the particulars of which precept I shall thus dispose.

1. I shall propound the duty as it generally relates to Man and Wife in conjunction. 2. The duty and power of the Man. 3. The rights and priviledges and the duty of the Wife.

1. In Christo & Ecclesia] that begins all, and there is great need it should be so, for they that enter into the state of marriage cast a dye of the greatest contingency, and yet of the greatest E interest in the world, next to the last throw for eternity.

[...],

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[Page] A life or death, felicity or a lasting sorrow are in the power of marriage. A woman indeed ventures most, for she hath no sanctuary to retire to, from an evill husband; she must dwell upon her sorrow, and hatch the egges which her own folly or infelicity hath produced; and she is more under it, because her tormentor hath a warrant of prerogative, and the woman may complain to God as subjects do of tyrant Princes, but otherwise she hath no appeal in the causes of unkindenesse. And though the man can run from many hours of his sadnesse, yet he must return to it again, and when he sits among his neighbours he remembers the objection B that lies in his bosome, and he sighes deeply.

Ah tum te miserum, mali (que) fati

Quem attract is pedibus patente portâ

Percurrent mugilés (que) raphani (que)

The boyes, and the pedlers, and the fruiterers shall tell of this man, when he is carryed to his grave, that he lived and dyed a poor wretched person. The Stags in the Greek Epigram, whose knees were clog'd with frozen snow upon the mountains, came down C to the brooks of the vallies, [...], hoping to thaw their joynts with the waters of the stream; but there the frost overtook them, and bound them fast in ice, till the young heardsmen took them in their stranger snare. It is the unhappy chance of many men, finding many inconveniences upon the mountains of single life, they descend into the vallies of [...], &c. marriage to refresh their troubles, and there they enter into fetters, and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a mans or womans peevishnesse: and the worst of the evill is, they are to thank their own follies; for they fell into the snare by entring an improper way: Christ and the Church were D no ingredients in their choice: but as the Indian women, enter into folly for the price of an Elephant, and think their crime warrantable; so do men and women change their liberty for a rich fortune (like Eriphyle the Argive, [...], she prefer'd gold before a good man) and shew themselves to be lesse then money by overvaluing that to all the content and wise felicity of their lives: and when they have counted the money and their sorrowes together, how willingly would they Non ego illam mihi dotem duco esse quae dos dicitur, Sed pudicitiam & pudorem, & sedatum cupidinem, Deûm metum, parentum amorem, & cognatûm concordiam. Plaut. in Amphit. buy with the losse of all that money, modesty, or sweet nature to their relative! the odde thousand pound would gladly be allowed in good nature and fair E manners. As very a fool is he that chooses for Facies, non uxor amatur. beauty principally; cui sum eruditi oculi & stulta mens (as one said) whose eyes are witty, and their soul sensuall; It is an ill band of affections to tye two hearts together by a little thread of red and white.

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A [...]

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And they can love no longer but untill the next ague comes, and Tres rugae subeant, & se cutis arida laxet, Fiant obscuri dentes, oculi (que) minores, Collige sarcinutas dicet libertus, & exi. Juven. Sat. 6. they are fond of each other but at the chance of fancy, or the small pox, or childebearing, or care, or time, or any thing that can destroy a pretty flower. But it is the basest of all when lust is the Paranymph and solicits the suit, and makes the contract, and joyn'd the hands; for this is commonly the effect of the former, according to the Greek proverb, B

[...],

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At first for his fair cheeks and comely beard, the beast is taken for a Lion, but at last he is turn'd to a Dragon or a Leopard, or a Swine. That which is at first beauty on the face may prove lust in the manners.

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[...], C

So Eubulus wittily reprehended such impure contracts; they offer in their maritall sacrifices nothing but the thigh and that which the Priests cut from the goats when they were laid to bleed upon the Altars. [...], said St. Clement. ‘He or she that looks too curiously upon the beauty of the body, looks too low, and hath flesh and corruption in his heart, and is judg'd sensuall and earthly in his affections D and desires.’ Begin therefore with God, Christ is the president of marriage and the holy Ghost is the fountain of purities and chast loves, and he joynes the hearts; and therefore let our first suit be in the court of heaven, and with designs of piety, or safety, or charity; let no impure spirit defile the virgin purities and castifications of the soul, (as St. Peters phrase is) let all such contracts begin with religious affections.

Conjugium petimus, partúm (que) uxoris, at illi

Notum qui pueri, qualisve futura sit uxor. E

We sometimes beg of God for a wife or a childe, and he alone knows what the wife shall prove, and by what dispositions and manners and into what fortune that childe shall enter: but we shall not need to fear concerning the event of it, if religion, and fair intentions, and [Page] A prudence manage, and conduct it all the way. The preservation of a family, the production of children, the avoiding fornication, the refreshment of our sorrowes by the comforts of society, all these are fair ends of marriage and hallow the entrance; but in these there is a speciall order; society was the first designed, It is not good for man to be alone; Children was the next, Increase and multiply; but the avoiding fornication came in by the superfetation of the evill accidents of the world. The first makes marriage delectable, the second necessary to the publick, the third necessary to the particular; This is for safety, for life and B heaven it self;

Nam simulac venas inflavit dira cupido,

Huc juvenes aequum est descendere;—

The other have in them joy and a portion of immortality: the first makes the mans heart glad, the second is the friend of Kingdomes, and cities, and families, and the third is the enemy to hell, and an antidote of the chiefest inlet to damnation: but of all these the noblest end is the multiplying children, Mundus cum patet, Deorum C tristium at (que) inferûm quasi patet janua; propterea uxorem liberorum quaerendorum causâ ducere religiosum est, said Varro, It is religion Macrobius ex Varrone. to marry for children; and Quintilian puts it into the definition of a wife, est enim uxor quam jungit, quam diducit utilitas; cujus haec reverentia est, quòd videtur inventa in causa liberorum, and therefore St. Ignatius when he had spoken of Elias, and Titus, and Clement, Epist. ad Philadelph. with an honourable mention of their virgin state, lest he might seem to have lessened the marryed Apostles, at whose feet in Christs Kingdome he thought himself unworthy to sit, he gives this testimony, D they were [...], that they might not be disparaged in their great names of holinesse and severity, they were secured by not marrying to satisfie their lower appetites, but out of desire of children. Other considerations, if they be incident and by way of appendage, are also considerable in the accounts of prudence; but when they become principles, they defile the mystery and make the blessing doubtfull: Amabit sapiens, cupient caeteri, said Afranius, love is a fair inducement, but d [...]sire and appetite are rude, and the characterismes of a sensuall person: Amare justi & boni est, cupere impotemis; to love, belongs to a just and a good man; but to lust, E or furiously and passionately to desire, is the sign of impotency and an unruly minde.

2. Man and wife are equally concerned to avoid all offences of each other in the beginning of their conversation: every little thing can blast an infant blossome; and the breath of the south can shake the little rings of the Vine, when first they begin to curle like the [Page] locks of a new weaned boy; but when by age and consolidation A they stiffen into the hardnesse of a stem, and have by the warm embraces of the sun and the kisses of heaven brought forth their clusters, they can endure the storms of the North, and the loud noises of a tempest, and yet never be broken: so are the early unions of an unfixed marriage; watchfull and observant, jealous and busie, inquisitive and carefull, and apt to take alarum at every unkind word. For infirmities do not manifest themselves in the first scenes, but in the succession of a long society; and it is not chance or weaknesse when it appears at first, but it is want of love or prudence, or it will be so expounded; and that which appears ill at first usually affrights the unexperienced B man or woman, who makes unequall conjectures, and fancies mighty sorrowes by the proportions of the new and early unkindnesse. It is a very great passion, or a huge folly, or a certain want of love, that cannot preserve the colours and beauties of kindnesse, so long as publick honesty requires man to wear their sorrows for the death of a friend. Plutarch compares a new marriage to a vessell before the hoops are on, [...], every thing dissolves their tender compaginations, but [...], when the joynts are stiffned and are tyed by a firm compliance and proportion'd C bending, scarcely can it be dissolved without fire or the violence of iron. After the hearts of the man and the wife are endeared and hardned by a mutuall confidence, and an experience longer then an artifice and pretence can last, there are a great many remembrances and some things present that dash all little unkindnesses in pieces. The little boy in the Greek Epigram, that was creeping down a precipice was invited to his safety by the sight of his mothers pap, when [...]. nothing else could entice him to return: and the band of common children, and the sight of her that nurses what is most dear to him, and the endearments of each other in the course of a long society, D and the same relation is an excellent security to redintegrate and to call that love back which folly and trifling accidents would disturb.

—Tormentum ingens nubentibus haeret

Quae nequeunt parere, & partu retinere maritos.

When it is come thus farre, it is hard untwisting the knot; but be carefull in its first coalition, that there be no rudenesse done; for if there be, it will for ever after be apt to start and to be diseased. E

3. Let man and wife be carefull to stifle little Quaedam parva quidem, s [...]d non toleranda maritis. things, that as fast as they spring, they be cut down and trod upon; for if they be suffered to grow by numbers, they make the spirit peevish, and the society troublesome, and the affections loose and easie by an habituall aversation. Some men are more vexed with a flie then with a wound; [Page] A and when the gnats disturbe our sleep, and the reason is disquieted but not perfectly awakened; it is often seen that he is fuller of trouble then if in the day light of his reason he were to contest with a potent enemy. In the frequent little accidents of a family, a mans reason cannot alwaies be awake; and when his discourses are imperfect, and a trifling trouble makes him yet more restlesse, he is soon betrayed to the violence of passion. It is certain that the man or woman are in a state of weaknesse and folly then, when they can be troubled with a trifling accident; and therefore it is not good to tempt their affections when they are in that state of danger. In this B case the caution is, to subtract fuell from the sudden flame; for stubble though it be quickly kindled, yet it is as soon extinguished, if it be not blown by a pertinacious breath, or fed with new materials; adde no new provocations to the accident, and do not inflame this, and peace will soon return, and the discontent will passe away soon, as the sparks from the collision of a flint: ever remembring that discontents proceeding from daily little things, do breed a secret undiscernible disease, which is more dangerous then a feaver proceeding from a discerned notorious surfeit.

4. Let them be sure to abstain from all those things which by C experience and observation they finde to be contrary to each other. They that govern Elephants never appear before them in white, and the masters of buls keep from them all garments of bloud and scarlet, as knowing that they will be impatient of civill usages and discipline when their natures are provoked by their proper antipathies. The ancients in their maritall Hieroglyphicks us'd to depict Mercury str [...]ding by Venus, to signifie, that by fair language and sweet intreaties, the mindes of each other should be united; and hard by them Suadam & Gratias descripserunt, they would have all deliciousnesse —Hujus n [...]rari summi (que) voluptas Nulla boni, quoties animocorrupta superbo Plus aloes quam mellis habet—Juven. Sat. 6. of manners, compliance and mutuall observance to D abide.

5. Let the husband and wife infinitely avoid a curious distinction of mine and thine; for this hath caused all the lawes, and all the suits, and all the wars in the world; let them who have but one person, have also but one interest. The husband and wife are heirs to each other (as Dionysius Halicarnasseus relates from Romulus) if they dye without children, but if there be children, the wife is [...], a partner in the inheritance; But during their life the use and imployment is common to both their necessities, and in this there is no other difference of right, but that the man hath the dispensation E of all, and may keep it from his wife just as the governour of a Town may keep it from the right owner; he hath the power, but no right to do so. And when either of them begins to impropriate, it is like a tumor in the flesh, it drawes more then its share, but what it feeds on turns to a bile: and therefore the Romans forbad any donations to be made between man and wife, because neither [Page] of them could transfer a new right of those things which already they A had in common; but this is to be understood only concerning the uses of necessity and personall conveniences; for so all may be the womans, and all may be the mans in severall regards. Corvinus dwels in a farm and receives all its profits, and reaps and sowes as he please, and eats of the corn and drinks of the wine, it is his own: but all that also is his Lords, and for it, Corvinus payes acknowledgement; and his patron hath such powers and uses of it as are proper to the Lords; and yet for all this, it may be the Kings too, to all the purposes that he can need, and is all to be accounted in the census and for certain services, and times of danger: So are che riches of a family, B they are a womans as well as a mans; they are hers for need, and hers for ornament, and hers for modest delight, and for the uses of Religion and prudent charity; but the disposing them into portions of inheritance, the assignation of charges and governments, stipends and rewards, annulties and greater donatives are the reserves of the superior right, and not to be invaded by the under-possessors. But in those things where they ought to be common, if the spleen or the belly swels and drawes into its capacity much of that which should be spent upon those parts which have an equall right to be maintain'd, it is a dropsie or a consumption of the whole, something C that is evill because it is unnaturall and monstrous. Macarius in is 32 Homily speaks fully in this particular, a woman betrothed to a man bears all her portion, and with a mighty love pours it into the hands of her husband, and sayes, [...], I have nothing of my own, my goods, my portion, my body and my minde is yours. [...], [...]. all that a woman hath is reckoned to the right of her husband; not her wealth and her person only, but her reputation and her praise; So Lucian. But as the earth, the mother of all creatures here below, sends up all its vapours and proper emissions D at the command of the Sun, and yet requires them again to refresh her own needs, and they are deposited between them both in the bosome of a cloud as a common receptacle, that they may cool his flames, and yet descend to make her fruitfull: so are the proprieties of a wife to be dispos'd of by her Lord; and yet all are for her provisions, it being a part of his need to refresh and supply hers, and it serves the interest of both while it serves the necessities of either.

These are the duties of them both, which have common regards and equall necessities, and obligations; and indeed there is E scarce any matter of duty, but it concerns them both alike, and is only distinguished by names, and hath its variety by circumstances and little accidents: and what in one is call'd love, in the other is called reverence; and what in the wife is obedience, the same in the man is duty. He provides, and she dispenses; he gives [Page] A commandements, and she rules by them; he rules her by authority, and she rules him by love; she ought by all means to please him, and he must by no means displease her. For as the heart is set in the midst of the body, and though it strikes to one side by the prerogative of Nature, yet those throbs and constant motions are felt on the other side also, and the influence is equall to both: so it is in conjugall duties; some motions are to the one side more then to the other, but the interest is on both, and the duty is equall in the severall instances. If it be otherwise, the man injoyes a wife as Periander did his dead Melissa, by an unnaturall B union, neither pleasing, nor holy, uselesse to all the purposes of society, and dead to content.

SERMON, XVIII. Part II.

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B THe next inquiry is more particular, and considers the power and duty of the man; Let every one of you so love his wife even as himself; she is as himself, the man hath power over her as over himself, and must love her equally. A husbands power over his wife is paternall and friendly, not magisteriall and despotick. The wife is in perpetuâ tutelâ, under conduct and counsell; for the power a man hath is founded in the understanding, not in the will or force; it is not a power of coercion, but a power of advice, and that government that wise men have over those who C are fit to be conducted by them: Et vos in manu & in tutelâ non in servitio debetis habere eas, & malle patres vos, & viros, quàm dominos dici, said Valerius in Livie; Husbands should rather be Fathers then Lords. Homer addes more soft appellatives to the character of a husbands duty, [...], Thou art to be a father and a mother to her, and a brother: and great reason, unlesse the state of marriage should be no better then the condition of an Orphan. For she that is bound to leave father and mother, and brother for thee, either is miserable like a poor fatherlesse childe, or else ought to finde all these and more in D thee. Medea in Euripides had cause to complain when she found it otherwise.

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[...],

[...]

[...].

Which St. Ambrose well translates: It is sad] when virgins are with their own money sold to slavery; and that services are in better E Exhort. ad virg. state then marriages; for they receive wages, but these buy their setters and pay dear for their losse of liberty: and therefore the Romans expressed the mans power over his wife but by a gentle word, Nec verò mulieribus praefectus reponatur, qui apud Graecos creari solet, sed sit censor qui viros doceat moderari uxoribus; said [Page] A Cicero, let there be no governour of the women appointed but a censor of manners, one to teach the men to moderate their wives, that is, fairly to induce them to the measures of their own proportions. It was rarely observed of Philo, [...] when Adam made that fond excuse for his folly in eating the forbidden fruit, he said [The woman thou gavest to be with me she gave me] He saies not [the woman which thou gavest to me] no such thing; she is none of his goods, none of his possessions, not to be reckoned among his servants; God did not give her to him so; but B [the woman thou gavest to be with me] that is, to be my partner, the companion of my joyes and sorrowes, thou gavest her for use, not for dominion. The dominion of a man over his wife is no other then as the soul rules the body; for which it takes a mighty care, and uses it with a delicate tendernesse, and cares for it in all contingencies, and watches to keep it from all evils, and studies to make for it fair provisions, and very often is led by its inclinations and desires, and does never contradict its appetites, but when they are evill, and then also not without some trouble and sorrow; and its government comes only to this, it furnishes the body with C light and understanding, and the body furnishes the soul with hands and feet; the soul governs, because the body cannot else be happy, but the government is no other then provision; as a nurse governs a childe when she causes him to eat and to be warm, and dry and quiet; and yet even the very government it self is divided; for man and wife in the family are as the Sun and Moon in the sirmament of heaven; He rules by day, and she by night, that is, in the lesser and more proper circles of her affairs; in the conduct of domestick provisions and necessary offices, and shines only by his light and rules by his authority: and as the Moon in D opposition to the Sun shines brightest, that is, then, when she is in her own circles and separate regions; so is the authority of the wife then most conspicuous when she is separate and in her proper sphere, in Gynaeceo in the nursery and offices of domestick employment; but when she is in conjunction with the Sun her Brother, that is, in that place and employment in which his care and proper offices are imployed, her light is not seen, her authority hath no proper businesse; but else there is no difference: for they were barbarous people, among whom wives were in stead of servants, said Spartianus in Caracalla; and it is a sign of impotency and weaknesse to force E the camels to kneel for their load, beccuse thou hast not spirit and strength enough to climbe: to make the affections and evennesse of a wife bend by the flexures of a servant, is a sign the man is not wise enough to govern, when another stands by. So many differences as can be in the appellatives of Dominus and Domina, Governour and Governesse, Lord and Lady, Master and Mistresse, [Page] the same difference there is in the authority of man and woman, and A no more; Si tu Caius ego Caia, was publickly proclaimed upon the threshold of the young mans house, when the bride enter'd into his hands and power; and the title of Domina in the sense of the civill Law was among the Romans given to wives.

Hi Dominam Ditis thalamo diducere adorti,

Aeneid. 6.

said Virgil: where though Servius saies it was spoken after the manner of the Greeks who call'd the wife [...] Lady or Mistresse, yet it was so amongst both the Nations, Ac domûs Dominam voca, B saies Catullus; Haerebit Dominae vir comes ipse suae, so Martial; and Epithal. Juliae. therefore although there is a just measure of subjection and obedience due from the wise to the husband (as I shall after explain) yet nothing of this is expressed in the mans character, or in his duty; he is not commanded to rule, nor instructed how, nor bidden to exact obedience, or to defend his priviledge; all his duty is signified by love, by nourishing and cherishing, by being joyned to her Eph. 5. 25. in all the unions of charity, by not being bitter to her, by dwelling Col. 3. 19. with her according to knowledge, giving honour to her: so that it seems 1 Pet. 3. 7. to be with husbands, as it is with Bishops and Priests, to whom much C honour is due, but yet so that if they stand upon it, and challenge it, they become lesse honourable; and as amongst men and women humility is the way to be prefer'd; so it is in husbands, they shall prevail by cession, by sweetnesse and counsell, and charity and compliance. So that we cannot discourse of the mans right, without describing the measures of his duty; that therefore followes next.

Let him love his wife even as himself:] that's his duty, and the measure of it too; which is so plain, that if he understands how he treats himself, there needs nothing be added concerning his demeanour D towards her, save only that we adde the particulars, in which holy Scripture instances this generall commandement.

[...]. That's the first. Be not bitter against her; and this is the least Index and signification of love; a civill man is never bitter against a friend or a stranger, much lesse to him that enters under his roof, and is secured by the lawes of hospitality. But a wife does all that, and more; she quits all her interest for his love, she gives him all that she can give, she is as much the same person as another can be the same, who is conjoyned by love, and mystery, and religion, and all that is sacred and profane. E

Non equidem hoc dubites amborum foedere certo

Consentire dies, & ab uno sidere duci;

They have the same fortune, the same family, the same children, the [Page] A same religion, the same interest, the same flesh [erunt duo in carnem unam] and therefore this the Apostle urges for his [...], no man hateth his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it; and he certainly is strangely sacrilegious and a violator of the rights of hospitality and sanctuary, who uses her rudely, who is fled for protection, not only to his house, but also to his heart, and bosome. A wise man will not wrangle with any one, much lesse with his dearest relative; and if it be accounted undecent to embrace in publick, it is extremely shamefull to brawle in publick, for the other is in it self lawfull, but this never, though it were assisted with the best circumstances B of which it is capable. Marcus Aurelius said, that a wise man ought often to admonish his wife, to reprove her seldome, but never to lay his hands Ah lapis est, ferrum (que), suam quicun (que) puellam Verberat, è coelo diripit ille Deos. Sit satis è membris tenuem praescindere vestem, Sit satis ornatas dissoluisse comas, Sit lachrymas movisse satis quater ille beatus, Quo tenerairato flere puella potest. Sed manibus qui saevus erit, scutúm (que) sudém (que) Is gerat, & miti sit procul à Venere. Tibull. upon her: ne (que) verberibus ne (que) maledictis exasperandam uxorem, said the Doctors of the Jewes; and Homer brings in Jupiter sometimes speaking sharply to Juno (according to the Greek liberty and Empire) but made a pause at striking her,

C [...]

Iliad. O.

[...].

And the Ancients use to sacrifice to Juno [...] or the president of Marriage without gall, and St. Basil observes and urges it, by way of upbraiding quarrelling husbands; etiam vipera virus ob nuptiarum venerationem evomit, the Viper casts all his poison when he marries his female, Tu duritiam animi, tu feritatem, tu crudelitatem Homil. 7. Hexaem. ob unionis reverentiam non deponis? He is worse then a viper who for the reverence of this sacred union will not abstain from D such a poisonous bitternesse; and how shall he embrace that person whom he hath smitten reproachfully? for those kindnesses are undecent which the fighting man payes unto his wife. St. Chrysostome preaching earnestly against this barbarous inhumanity of striking the wife, or reviling her with evill language, saies it is as if a King should beat his Viceroy and use him like a dog; from whom most of that reverence and majesty must needs depart which he first put upon him, and the subjects shall pay him lesse duty, by how much his Prince hath treated him with lesse civility; but the losse redounds to himself; and the government of the whole family E shall be disordered, if blowes be laid upon that shoulder which together with the other ought to bear nothing but the cares and the issues of a prudent government. And it is observable that no man ever did this rudenesse for a vertuous end; it is an incompetent instrument, and may proceed from wrath and folly, but can never end in vertue and the unions of a prudent and fair society. [Page] Quòd si verberaveris exasperabis morbum, (saith St. Chrysostome) asperitas A enim mansuetudine non aliâ asperitate dissolvitur; if you strike you exasperate the wound, and (like Cato at Utica in his despair) tear the wounds in pieces; and yet he that did so ill to himself whom he lov'd well, he lov'd not women tenderly, and yet would never strike; And if the man cannot endure her talking, how can she endure his striking? But this caution contains a duty in it which none prevaricates but the meanest of the people, fools and bedlams, whose kindnesse is a curse, whose government is by chance and violence, and their families are herds of talking cattell.

Sic alternos reficit cursus B

Alternus amor, sic astrigeris

Bellum discors exulat or is.

Haec concordia temperat aquis

Elementa modis, ut pugnantia

Vicibus cedant humida siccis,

Jungánt (que) fidem frigora flammis.

The maritall love is infinitely removed from all possibility of such rudenesses: it is a thing pure as light, sacred as a Temple, lasting C as the world; Aamicitia quae desinere potuit nunquam vera fuit, said one; that love that can cease was never true: it is [...], so Moses call'd it; it is [...], so St. Paul; it is [...], so Homer; it is [...], so Plutarch; that is, it contains in it all sweetnesse, and all society, and all felicity, and all prudence, and all wisdome. For there is nothing can please a man without love, and if a man be weary of the wise discourses of the Apostles, and of the innocency of an even and a private fortune, or hates peace or a fruitfull year, he hath reaped thorns and thistles from the choicest flowers of Paradise; For nothing can sweeten felicity it self, but love; but when a man D dwels in love, then the brests of his wife are pleasant as the droppings upon the hill of Hermon, her eyes are fair as the light of heaven, she is a fountain sealed, and he can quench his thirst, and ease his cares, and lay his sorrowes down upon her lap, and can retire home as to his sanctuary and refectory, and his gardens of sweetnesse and chast refreshments. Felicet ter & amplius Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec malis Divulsus querimonus Suprema citius solvet amor die. Horat. No man can tell but he that loves his children, how many delicious accents make a mans heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges; their childishnesse, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities are so many little emanations of joy E and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society; but he that loves not his wife and children, feeds a Lionesse at home, and broods a nest of sorrowes; and blessing it self cannot make him happy; so that all the commandements of God injoyning a man to love his wife, are nothing but so many necessities and capacities [Page] A of joy. She that is lov'd is safe, and he that loves is joyfull. Love is a union of all things excellent; it contains in it proportion and satisfaction, and rest, and confidence; and I wish that this were so much proceeded in, that the Heathens themselves could not go beyond us in this vertue, and its proper, and its appendant happinesse. Tiberius Gracchus chose to die for the safety of his wife; and yet me thinks to a Christian to do so, should be no hard thing; for many servants will dye for their masters, and many Gentlemen will die for their friend; but the examples are not so many of those that are ready to do it for their dearest relatives, and yet some B there have been. Baptista Fregosa tels of Neapolitan that gave himself a slave to the Moores, that he might follow his wife; and Dominicus Catalusius the Prince of Lesbos kept company with his Lady when she was a Leper; and these are greater things then to die.

But the cases in which this can be required are so rare and contingent, that holy Scripture instances not the duty in this particular; but it contains in it that the husband should nourish and cherish her, that he should refresh her sorrowes and intice her fears into confidence and pretty arts of rest; for even the fig-trees that grew C in Paradise had sharp pointed leaves, and harshnesses fit to mortifie the too forward lusting after the sweetnesse of the fruit. But it will concern the prudence of the husbands love to make the cares and evils as simple and easie as he can, by doubling the joyes and acts of a carefull friendship, by tolerating her infirmities, (because by so doing, he either cures her, or makes himself better) Uxoris vitium tollas opus est, aut feras: Qui tollit vitium, uxorem commodiusculam Sibi praestat; qui fert, sese meliorem facit. Varro. Eurip. by fairly expounding all the little traverses of society and communication, by taking every thing by the right handle, (as Plutarchs expression is) for there is nothing but may be misinterpreted, and yet if it be capable of a fair construction, it is the office of D love to make it.

[...]

[...].

[...]

[...].

Love will account that to be well said, which it may be was not so intended; and then it may cause it to be so another time.

3. Hither also is to be referred that he secure the interest of her E vertue and felicity by a fair example; for a wife to a husband, is like a line or superficies, it hath dimensions of its own, but no motion or proper affections; but commonly put on such images of vertues or vices as are presented to them by their husbands Idea: and if thou beest vicious, complain not that she is infected that lies in the bosome; the interest of whose love ties her to transcribe thy [Page] copy and write after the characters of thy manners. Paris was a A man of pleasure, and Helena was an adulteresse, and she added covetousnesse upon her own account. But Ulysses was a prudent man, and a wary counsellor, sober and severe, and he efformed his wife into such imagery as he desir'd, and she was chast as the snows upon the mountains, diligent as the fatall sisters, alwaies busie, and alwaies faithfull: [...], she had a lazie tongue and a busie hand.

4. Above all the instances of love, let him preserve towards [...]. her an inviolable faith, and an unspotted chastity, for this is the marriage Ring, it tyes two hearts by an eternall band; it is like B the Cherubims flaming sword set for the guard of Paradise; he that passes into that garden, now that is immur'd by Christ and the Church, enters into the shades of death. No man must touch the forbidden Tree, that in the midst of the garden, which is the tree of knowledge and life. Chastity is the security of love, and preserves all the mysteriousnesse like the secrets of a Temple. Under this lock is deposited security of families, the union of affections, the repairer of accidentall breaches.

[...]

[...]. C

This is a grace that is shut up and secur'd by all arts of heaven, and the defence of lawes, the locks and bars of modesty, by honour and reputation, by fear and shame, by interest and high regards; and that contract that is intended to be for ever, is yet dissolv'd and broken by the violation of this; nothing but death can do so much evill to the holy ties of marriage, as unchastity and breach of faith can. The shepherd Cratis falling in love with a she goat, had his brains beaten out with a buck as he lay asleep; D and by the lawes of the Romans, a man might kill his daughter or his wife if he surprised her in the breach of her holy vowes, which are as sacred as the threads of life, secret as the privacies of the sanctuary, and holy as the society of Angels. Nullae sunt inimicitiae nisi amoris acerbae, and God that commanded us to forgive our enemies left it in our choice, and hath not commanded us to forgive an adulterous husband or a wife; but the offended parties displeasure may passe into an eternall separation of society and friendship. Now in this grace it is fit that the wisdome and severity of the man should hold forth a pure taper, that his wife E may by seeing the beauties and transparency of that Crystall dresse her minde and her body by the light of so pure reflexions; It is certain he will expect it from the modesty and retirement, from the passive nature and colder temper, from the humility and fear, from the honour and love of his wife, that she be pure as the eye [Page] A of heaven: and therefore it is but reason that the wisdome and noblenesse, the love and confidence, the strength and severity of the man should be as holy and certain in this grace, as he is a severe exactor of it at her hands, who can more easily be tempted by another, and lesse by her self.

These are the little lines of a mans duty, which like threds of light from the body of the Sun do clearly describe all the regions of his proper obligations. Now concerning the womans duty, although it consists in doing whatsoever her husband commands, and so receives measures from the rules of his government, yet there are B also some lines of life depicted upon her hands, by which she may read and know how to proportion out her duty to her husband.

1. The first is obedience; which because it is no where enjoyned that the man should exact of her, but often commanded to her to pay, gives demonstration that it is a voluntary cession that is required, such a cession as must be without coercion and violence on his part, but upon fair inducements, and reasonablenesse in the thing, and out of love, and honour on her part. When God commands us to love him, he means we should obey him; This is love that ye keep C my Commandements, and, if ye love me (said our Lord) keep my Commandements: Now as Christ is to the Church, so is man to the wife: and therefore obedience is the best instance of her love; for it proclaims her submission, her humility, her opinion of his wisdome, his preeminence in the family, the right of his priviledge, and the injunction imposed by God upon her sexe, that although in sorrow she brings forth children, yet with love and choice she should obey. The mans authority is love, and the womans love is obedience; and it was not rightly observed of him that said, when woman fell God made her timorous that she might be rul'd, D apt and easie to obey, for this obedience is no way founded in fear, but in love and reverence. Receptae reverentiae est si mulier viro C. alia D. solut. Matrim. subsit, said the Law; unlesse also that we will adde, that it is an effect of that modesty which like rubies adorn the necks and cheeks of women. Pudicitia est, pater, eos magnificare qui nos socias sumpserunt Pluatus in Sticho. sibi; said the maiden in the comedy: It is modesty to advance and highly to honour them who have honoured us by making us to be the companions of their dearest excellencies; for the woman that went before the man in the way of death, is commanded to follow him in the way of love: and that makes the society E to be perfect, and the union profitable, and the harmony compleat.

Inferior Matrona suo sit, Sexte, marito;

Non aliter fiunt foemina vir (que) pares.

[Page] For then the soul and body make a perfect man when the soul A commands wisely, or rules lovingly, and cares profitably, and provides plentifully, and conducts charitably, that body which is its partner and yet the inferiour. But if the body shall give lawes, and by the violence of the appetite, first abuse the understanding, and then possesse the superior portion of the will and choice, the body and the soul are not apt company, and the man is a fool and miserable. If the soul rules not, it cannot be a companion; either it must govern, or be a slave; Never was King deposed and suffered to live in the state of peerage and equall honour, but made a prisoner, or put to death; and those women that had rather B lead the blinde then follow prudent guides, rule fools and easie men, then obey the powerfull and the wise, never made a good society in a house; a wife never can become equall but by obeying; but so her power while it is in minority, makes up the authority of the man integrall, and becomes one government, as themselves are one man. Male and Female created he them, and called their Gen. 5. 2. name Adam, saith the holy Scripture; they are but one: and therefore the severall parts of this one man must stand in the place where God appointed, that the lower parts may do their offices in their own station, and promote the common interest of the C whole. A ruling woman is intolerable,

—Faciunt graviora coacta

Imperio sexus— D

Juvenal.

But that's not all; for she is miserable too: for,

[...]

[...].

It is a sad calamity for a woman to be joyned to a fool or a weak person; it is like a guard of geese to keep the Capitoll, or as if a flock of sheep should read grave lectures to their shepherd, and give him orders where he shall conduct them to pasture. O verè Phyrgiae, ne (que) enim Phryges, It is a curse that God threatned sinning persons, Devoratum est robur eorum, facti sunt quasi mulieres. Esai. 3. 4. Effeminati dominabuntur eis. To be ruled by weaker people, [...]. to have a fool to ones master is the fate of miserable and unblessed people: and the wife can be no waies happy, unlesse she be governed by a prudent Lord, whose E commands are sober counsels, whose authority is paternall, whose orders are provisions, and whose sentences are charity.

But now concerning the measures and limits of this obedience, we can best take accounts from Scripture: [...], saith the Apostle, in all things; ut Domino, as unto the Lord; and that's large enough; Ephes. 5. 24. [Page] A as unto a Lord ut Ancilla Domino, so St. Hierom understand it, who neither was a friend to the sexe nor to marriage; But his mistake is soon confuted by the text; It is not ut Dominis, be subject to your husbands as unto Lords, but [...], that is, in all religion, in reverence and in love, in duty and zeal, in faith and knowledge; or else [...] may signifie, wives be so subject to your husbands, but yet so, that at the same time ye be subject to the Lord. For that's the measure of [...] in all things; and it is more plain in the parallell place, [...] as it is fit in the Lord: Religion Col. 3. 18. must be the measure of your obedience and subjection: intra B limites disciplinae, so Tertullian expresses it. [...], Stromat. 7. so Clemens Alex. In all things let the wise be subject to the husband, so as to do nothing against his will, those only things excepted in which he is impious or refractary in things pertaining to wisdome and piety.

But in this also there is some peculiar caution. For although in those things which are of the necessary parts of faith and holy life, the woman is only subject to Christ, who only is and can be Lord of consciences, and commands alone where the conscience is instructed C and convinced; yet as it is part of the mans office to be a teacher, and a prophet, and a guide, and a Master; so also it will relate very much to the demonstration of their affections to obey his counsels, to imitate his vertues, to be directed by his wisdome, to have her perswasion measured by the lines of his excellent religion [...], It were hugely decent (saith Plutarch) that the wife should acknowledge her husband for her teacher and her guide; for then when she is what he please to efform her, he hath no cause to complain if she be no better: D [...], his precepts and wise counsels can draw her off from vanities; and as he said of Geometry, that if she be skill'd in that, she will not easily be a gamester or a dancer, may perfectly be said of Religion. If she suffers her self to be guided by his counsell, and efformed by his religion; either he is an ill master in his religion, or he may secure in her and for his advantage an excellent vertue. And although in matters of religion the husband hath no empire and command, yet if there be a place lest to perswade, and intreat, and induce by arguments; there is not in a family a greater endearment of affections then the unity E of religion: and anciently it was not permitted to a woman to have a religion by her self. Eosdem quos maritus nosse Deos & colere solos uxor debet (said Plutarch.) And the rites which a woman performes severally from her husband are not pleasing to God; and therefore Pomponia Graecina because she entertain'd a stranger religion was permitted to the judgement of her husband Plantius. And [Page] this whole affair is no stranger to Christianity. For the Christian A woman was not suffered to marry an unbelieving man; and although this is not to be extended to different opinions within the limits of the common faith, yet thus much advantage is won or lost by it; that the complyance of the wife, and submission of her understanding to the better rule of her husband in matters of Religion, will help very much to warrant her, though she should be misperswaded in a matter lesse necessary; yet nothing can warrant her in her separate rites and manners of worshippings, but an invincible necessity of conscience, and a curious infallible truth; and if she be deceived alone, she hath no excuse; if with him, B she hath much pity, and some degrees of warranty under the protection of humility, and duty, and dear affections; and she will finde that it is part of her priviledge and right to partake of the mysteries and blessings of her husbands religion. [...], said Romulus. A woman by the holy Lawes hath right to partake of her husbands goods, and her husbands sacrifices, and holy things. Where there is a schisme in one bed, there is a nursery of temptations, and —Quis deditus autem Us (que) adeò est, ut non illam quam laudibus effert, Horreat, in (que) diem septenis oderit hor [...]? Juven. Sat. 6. love is persecuted and in perpetuall danger C to be destroyed; there dwell jealousies, and divided interests, and differing opinions, and continuall disputes, and we cannot love them so well whom we beleeve to be lesse beloved of God, and it is ill uniting with a person concerning whom my perswasion tels me that he is like to live in hell to eternall ages.

2. The next line of the womans duty is compliance, which S. Peter cals, the hidden man of the heart, the ornament of a meek and 1 Pot. 3. 4. a quiet spirit, and to it he opposes the outward and pompous ornament of the body; concerning which as there can be no particular D measure set down to all persons, but the propositions are to be measured by the customes of wise people, the quality of the woman, and the desires of the man; yet it is to be limited by Christian modesty, and the usages of the more excellent and severe matrons. Menander in the Comedy brings in a man turning his wife from his house because she stain'd her hair yellow, which was then the beauty,

[...]

[...]. E

A wise woman should not paint. A studious gallantry in cloathes cannot make a wise man love his wife the better. [...], said the Comedy, such gayeties are fit for tragedies, but not for the uses of life: decor occultus, & recta venustas, [Page] A that's the Christian womans finenesse, the hidden man of the heart, sweetnesse of manners, humble comportment, fair interpretation of all addresses, ready Malo Venusinam quàm te Cornelia mater Gracchorum, si cum magnis virtutibus offers Grande supercilium, & numer as in dote triumphos. Juven Sat. 6. compliances, high opinion of him, and mean of her self.

[...], To partake Quid juvat ornato procedere vitta capillo, Te (que) peregrmis vendere muneribus, Naturae (que) decus mercato perdere cultu, Nec sinere in propriis membra nitere bonis? Propert. l. 1. el. x. secretly, and in her heart of all his joyes and sorrowes, to beleeve him comly and fair, though the Sun hath drawn a cypresse over him, (for as marriages are not B to be contracted by the hands and eye, but [...]. with reason and the hearts: so are these judgements to be made by the minde, not by the sight:) and Diamonds cannot make the woman vertuous, nor him to value her who sees her put them off then, when charity and modesty are her brghtest ornaments.

[...]

[...], &c.

C And indeed those husbands that are pleased with undecent gayeties of their wives, are like fishes taken with ointments and intoxicating baits, apt and easie for sport and mockery, but uselesse for food: and when Circe had turned Ulysses companions into hogs and monkies, by pleasures and the inchantments of her bravery and luxury, they were no longer usefull to her, she knew not what to do with them; but on wise Ulysses she was continually enamour'd. Indeed the outward ornament is fit to take fools, but they are not worth the taking; But she that hath a wise husband, must intice him to an eternall dearnesse by the vail of modesty, and the grave robes of chastity, D the ornament of meeknesse, and the jewels of faith and charity; she must have no fucus but blushings, her brightnesse must be purity, and she must shine round about with sweetnesses and friendship, and she shall be pleasant while she lives, and desired when she dies. If not,

— [...],

[...],

[...].

E Her grave shall be full of rottennesse and dishonour, and her memory shall be worse after she is dead: after she is dead: For that will be the end of all merry meetings; and I choose this to be the last advice to both.

3. Remember the dayes of darknesse, for they are many; The joyes of the bridal chambers are quickly past, and the remaining portion [Page] of the state is a dull progresse without variety of joyes, but not A without the change of sorrowes; but that portion that shall enter into the grave must be eternall. It is fit that I should infuse a bunch of myrrhe into the festivall goblet, and after the Egyptian manner serve up a dead mans bones at a feast; I will only shew it and take it away again; it will make the wine bitter, but wholesome; But those marryed pairs that live, as remembring that they must part again, and give an account how they treat themselves and each other, shall at the day of their death be admitted to glorious espousals, and when they shall live again, be marryed to their Lord, and partake of his glories, with Abraham and Joseph, S Peter and St. Paul, B and all the marryed Saints.

[...]

[...].

All those things that now please us shall passe from us, or we from them, but those things that concern the other life are permanent as the numbers of eternity: and although at the resurrection there shall be no relation of husband and wife, and no marriage shall be celebrated, but the marriage of the Lambe, yet then shall be remembred C how men and women pass'd through this state which is a type of that, and from this sacramentall union all holy pairs shall passe to the spirituall and eternall, where love shall be their portion, and joyes shall crown their heads, and they shall lye in the bosome of Jesus, and in the heart of God to eternall ages.

Amen.

Sermon, XIX. APPLES of SODOM: OR The Fruits of Sinne. Part. I.

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Romans 6. 21.‘What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.’

THe son of Sirach did prudently advise concerning making judgements of the felicity or infelicity Eccles. 11. 28. of men: Judge none blessed before his death, D for a man shall be known in his children. Some men raise their fortunes from a cottage to the chaires of Princes, from a sheep-coat to a throne, and dwell in the circles of the Sun, and in the lap of prosperity; their wishes and successe dwell under the same roof, and providence brings all events into their design, and ties both ends together with prosperous successes; and even the little conspersions and intertextures of evill accidents in their lives are but like a faing'd note in musick, by an artificiall discord making the ear covetous, and then pleased with the harmony E into which the appetite was inticed by passion, and a pretty restraint; and variety does but adorn prosperity, and make it of a sweeter relish, and of more advantages; and some of these men descend into their graves without a change of fortune,

Eripitur persona, manet res.

[Page] Indeed they cannot longer dwell upon the estate, but that remains A unrifled, and descends upon the heir, and all is well till the next generation: but if the evill of his death, and the change of his present prosperity for an intolerable danger of an uncertain eternity, does not sowre his full chalice; yet if his children prove vicious, or degenerous, cursed, or unprosperous, we account the man miserable, and his grave to be strewed with sorrowes and dishonours. The wise and valiant Chabrias grew miserable by the folly of his son Ctesippus; and the reputation of brave Germanicus began to be ashamed, when the base Caligula entred upon his scene of dishonourable crimes. Commodus the wanton and feminine son of wise Antoninus B gave a check to the great name of his Father; and when the son of Hortensius Corbius was prostitute, and the heir of Q. Fabius Maximus was disinherited by the sentence of the city Praetor, as being unworthy to enter into the fields of his glorious Father, and young Scipio the son of Africanus was a fool and a prodigall; posterity did weep afresh over the monuments of their brave progenitors, and found that infelicity can pursue a man, and overtake him in his grave.

This is a great calamity when it fals upon innocent persons: and that Moses died upon Mount Nebo in the sight of Canaan, was not so C great an evill, as that his sons Eliezer and Gersom were unworthy to succeed him; but that Priesthood was devolv'd to his Brother, and the Principality to his servant: And to Samuel, that his sons prov'd corrupt, and were exauthorated for their unworthinesse, was an allay to his honour and his joyes, and such as proclaims to all the world, that the measures of our felicity are not to be taken by the lines of our own person, but of our relations too; and he that is cursed in his children, cannot be reckoned among the fortunate.

This which I have discoursed concerning families in generall, is D most remarkable in the retinue and family of sin; for it keeps a good house, and is full of company and servants, it is served by the possessions of the world, it is courted by the unhappy, flatter'd by fools, taken into the bosome by the effeminate, made the end of humane designs, and feasted all the way of its progresse; wars are made for its interest, and men give or venture their lives that their sin may be prosperous; all the outward senses are its handmaids, and the inward senses are of its privie chamber; the understanding is its counsellour, the will its friend, riches are its ministers, nature holds up its train, and art is its emissary to promote its interest and E affairs abroad: and upon this account, all the world is inrolled in its taxing tables, and are subjects or friends of its kingdome, or are so kinde to it as to make too often visits, and to lodge in its borders; because all men stare upon its pleasures, and are intic'd to tast of its wanton delicacies. But then if we look what are the children [Page] A of this splendid family, and see what issue sinne produces, [...], it may help to unite the charme. Sin and concupiscence marry together, and riot and feast it high, but their fruits, the children and production of their filthy union, are ugly and deform'd, foolish and ill natur'd; and the Apostles cals them by their names, shame and death. These are the fruits of Sin, the apples of Sodom, fair outsides, but if you touch them, they turn to ashes and a stink; and if you will nurse these children, and give them whatsoever is dear to you, then you may be admitted into the house of feasting, and chambers of riot where sin dwels; but if B you will have the mother, you must have the daughters; the tree and the fruits go together; and there is none of you all that ever enter'd into this house of pleasure, but he left the skirts of his garment in the hands of shame, and had his name roll'd in the chambers of death. What fruit had ye then? That's the Question.

In answer to which question we are to consider, 1. What is the summe totall of the pleasure of sin? 2. What fruits and relishes it leaves behinde by its naturall efficiency? 3. What are its consequents by its demerit, and the infliction of the superadded wrath of God, which it hath deserved? Of the first St. Paul gives no account, C but by way of upbraiding asks, what they had? that is, nothing that they dare own, nothing that remains: and where is it? shew it; what's become of it? Of the second he gives the summe totall; all its naturall effects are shame and its appendages. The third, or the superinduc'd evils by the just wrath of God, he cals death, the worst name in it self, and the greatest of evils that can happen.

1. Let us consider what pleasures there are in sin; most of them are very punishments. I will not reckon nor consider concerning envie, which one in Stobaeus cals [...], the basest spirit D and yet very just, because it punishes the delinquent in the very act of sin, doing as Aelian saies of the Polypus, [...], when he wants his prey, he devours his own armes; and the leannesse, and the secret pangs, and the perpetuall restlesnesse of an envious man feed upon his own heart, and drink down his spirits, unlesse he can ruine or observe the fall of the fairest fortunes of his neighbour. The fruit of this tree are mingled and sowre, and not to be indured in the very eating. Neither will I reck on the horrid afrightments and amazements of murder, nor the uneasinesse of impatience, which doubles every evill that it feels, E and makes it a sin, and makes it intolerable; nor the secret grievings, and continuall troubles of peevishnesse, which makes a man uncapable of receiving good, or delighting in beauties and fair intreaties, in the mercies of God and charities of men.

It were easie to make a catalogue of sins, every one of which is a disease, a trouble in it's very constitution and its nature: such [Page] are loathing of spirituall things, bitternesse of spirit, rage, A greedinesse, confusion of minde, and irresolution, cruelty and despite, slothfulnesse and distrust, unquietnesse and anger, effeminacy and nicenesse, prating and sloth, ignorance and inconstancy, incogitancy and cursing, malignity and fear, forgetfulnesse and rashnesse, pusillanimity and despair, rancour and superstition: if a man were to curse his enemy, he could not wish him a greater evill then these; and yet these are severall kinds of sin which men choose, and give all their hopes of heaven in exchange for one of these diseases. Is it not a fearfull consideration that a man should rather choose eternally to perish, then to say his prayers heartily, and affectionately? But so B it is with very many men; they are driven to their devotions by custome, and shame, and reputation, and civill compliances; they sigh and look sowre when they are called to it, and abide there as a man under the Chirurgeons hands, smarting and fretting all the while; or else he passes the time with incogitancy, and hates the imployment, and suffers the torments of prayers which he loves not; and all this, although for so doing it is certain he may perish: what fruit, what deliciousnesse can he fancy in being weary of his prayers? There is no pretence or colour for these things. Can any man imagine a greater evill to the body and soul of a man, then C madnesse, and furious eyes, and a distracted look, palenesse with passion, and trembling hands and knees, and furiousnesse, and folly in the heart and head? and yet this is the pleasure of anger, and for this pleasure men choose damnation. But it is a great truth, that there are but very few sins that pretend to pleasure: although a man be weak and soon deceived, and the Devill is crafty, and sin is false and impudent, and pretences are too many, yet most kinds of sins are reall and prime troubles to the very body, without all manner of deliciousnesse, even to the sensuall, naturall, and carnall part; and a man must put on something of a Devill before he can choose D such sins, and he must love mischief because it is a sin; for in most instances there is no other reason in the world. Nothing pretends to pleasure but the lusts of the lower belly, ambition, and revenge; and although the catalogue of sins is numerous as the production of fishes, yet these three only can be apt to cousen us with a fair outside; and yet upon the survey of what fruits they bring, and what taste they have, in the manducation, besides the filthy relish they leave behind, we shall see how miserably they are abused and fool'd, that expend any thing upon such purchases.

2. For a man cannot take pleasure in lusts of the flesh, in gluttony, E or drunkennesse, unlesse he be helped forward with inconsideration and folly. For we see it evidently that grave and wise persons, men of experience and consideration are extremely lesse affected with lust and loves; the hare-brain'd boy, the young gentleman that thinks nothing in the world greater then to be free from [Page] A a Tutor, he indeed courts his folly and enters into the possession of lust without abatement; consideration dwels not there; but when a sober man meets with a temptation, and is helped by his naturall temper, or invited by his course of life; if he can consider, he hath so many objections and fears, so many difficulties and impediments, such sharp reasonings and sharper jealousies concerning its event, that if he does at all enter into folly, it pleases him so little, that he is forced to do it in despite of himself; and the pleasure is so allayed, that he knowes not whether it be wine or vinegar; his very apprehension and instruments of relish are fill'd with fear and B contradicting principles, and the deliciousnesse does but affricare cutem, it went but to the skin; but the allay went further; it kept a guard within, and suffered the pleasure to passe no further. A man must resolve to be a fool, a rash, inconsiderate person, or he will feel but little satisfaction in the enjoyment of his sin: indeed he that stops his nose, may drink down such corrupted waters, and he understood it well who chose rather to be a fool,

Dum mala delectent mea me, vel deni (que) fallant,

Quàm sapere & ringi—

C so that his sins might delight him, or deceive him, then to be wise and without pleasure in the enjoyment. So that in effect, a man must lose his discerning faculties, before he discerns the little phantastick joyes of his concupiscence; which demonstrates how vain, how empty of pleasure that is, that is beholding to folly and illusion, to a jugling and a plain cousenage, before it can be fancyed to be pleasant. For it is a strange beauty that he that hath the best eyes cannot perceive, and none but the blinde or blear-ey'd people can see; and such is the pleasure of lust, which by every degree of wisdome D that a man hath is lessened and undervalued.

3. For the pleasures of intemperance, they are nothing but the reliques and images of pleasure, after that nature hath been feasted; For so long as she needs, that is, so long as temperance waits, so long pleasure also stands there. But as temperance begins to go away, having done the ministeries of Nature, every morsell, and every new goblet is still lesse delicious, and cannot be endured but as men force nature by violence to stay longer then she would: How have some men rejoyced when they have escaped a cup! and when they cannot escape, they pour it in, and receive it with as much pleasure E as the old women have in the Lapland dances; they dance the round, but there is a horror and a harshnesse in the Musick; and they call it pleasure, because men bid them do so: but there is a Devill in the company, and such as is his pleasure, such is theirs: he rejoyces in he thriving sin, and the swelling fortune of his darling drunkennesse, but his joyes are the joyes of him that knowes and [Page] alwayes remembers that he shall infallibly have the biggest damnation; A and then let it be considered how forc'd a joy that is, that is at the end of an intemperate feast.

Non benè mendaci risus componitur ore,

Nec benè sollicitis ebria verba sonant.

Certain it is, intemperance takes but natures leavings; when the belly is full and nature cals to take away, the pleasure that comes in afterwards is next to loathing: it is like the relish and taste of meats at the end of the third course, or the sweetnesse of honey to B him that hath eaten til he can endure to take no more; and in this, there is no other difference of these men from them that die upon another cause, then was observed among the Phalangia of old, [...], some of these serpents make men die laughing, and some to die weeping: so does the intemperate, and so does his brother that languishes of a consumption; this man dies weeping, and the other dies laughing: but they both die infallibly, and all his pleasure is nothing but the sting of a serpent, immixte liventia mella veneno, it wounds the heart, and he dies with a Tarantula dancing and singing till he bowes his neck, C and kisses his bosome with the fatall noddings and declensions of death.

4. In these pretenders to pleasure which you see are but few, and they not very prosperous in their pretences, there is mingled so much trouble to bring them to act and injoyment, that the appetite is above half tired before it comes; It is necessary a man should be hugely patient that is ambitious, Ambulare per Britannos, Scythicas pati pruinas: no man buy's death and damnation at so dear a rate, as he that fights for it, and endures cold and hunger,

—Patiens liminis at (que) solis, D

The heat of the sun, and the cold of the threshold; the dangers of war, and the snares of a crafty enemy; he lies upon the ground with a severity greater then the penances of a Hermit, and fasts beyond the austerity of a rare penitent; with this only difference, that the one does it for heaven, the other for an uncertain honour, and an eternity of flames. But however, by this time that he hath won something, he hath spent some years, and he hath not much time left him to rest in his new purchase, and he hath worn E out his body, and lessen'd his capacity of feeling it; and although it is ten to one he cannot escape all the dangers he must venture at, that he may come near his trifle, yet when he is arrived thither, he can never long enjoy, nor well perceive or taste it; and therefore there are more sorrowes at the gate, then there can dwell comforts [Page] A in all the rooms of the houses of pride and great designs. And thus it is in revenge, which is pleasant only to a devill, or a man of the same cursed temper. He does a thing which ought to trouble him, and will move him to pity what his own vile hands have acted; but if he does not pity, that is, be troubled with himself and wish the things undone, he hath those affections by which the Devill doth rejoyce in destroying souls; which affections a man cannot have, unlesse he be perfectly miserable, by being contrary to God, to mercy, and to felicity; and after all, the pleasure is false, phantastick, and violent; it can do him no good, it can do him hurt: 'tis ods B but it will; and on him that takes revenge, revenge shall be taken; and by a reall evill he shall dearly pay for the goods that are but airy and phantasticall; It is like a rolling stone, which when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion. The pleasure of revenge is like the pleasure of eating chalk and coals; a foolish disease made the appetite, and it is entertain'd with an evill reward; it is like the feeding of a Cancer or a Wolfe, the man is restlesse till it be done, and when it is, every man sees how infinitely he is removed from satisfaction or felicity.

C 5. These sins when they are entertain'd with the greatest fondnesse from without, it must have but extreme little pleasure, because there is a strong faction, and the better party against them: something that is within contests against the entertainment, and they sit uneasily upon the spirit when the man is vexed, that they are not lawfull. The Persian King gave Themistocles a goodly pension, assigning Magnesia with the revenue of 50 talents for his bread, Lampsacum for his wine, and Myos for his meat; but all the while he sed high and drunk deep, he was infinitely afflicted that every thing went crosse to his undertaking, and he could not bring his D ends about to betray his country; and at last he mingled poison with his wine, and drank it off, having first intreated his friends to steal for him a private grave in his own countrey. Such are the pleasures of the most pompous and flattering sins: their meat and drink are good and pleasant at first, and it is plenteous and criminall; but its imployment is base, and it is so against a mans interest, and against what is and ought to be dearest to him, that he cannot perswade his better parts to consent, but must fight against them and all their arguments. These things are against a mans conscience, that is, against his reason and his rest; and something within makes E his pleasure sit uneasily. But so do violent perfumes make the head ache, and therefore wise persons reject them; and the eye refuses to stare upon the beauties of the Sun, because it makes it weep it self blinde; and if a luscious dish please my palat, and turns to loathing in the stomach, I will lay aside that evill, and consider the danger and the bigger pain, not that little pleasure. So it is in sin, [Page] it pleases the senses, but diseases the spirit, and wounds that: and A that it is as apt to smart as the skin, and is as considerable in the provisions of pleasure and pain respectively: and the pleasures of sin to a contradicting reason, are like the joyes of wine to a condemned man,

—Difficile est imitari gaudia falsa,

Difficile est tristi fingere mente jocum.

It will be very hard to delight freely in that which so vexes the more tender and most sensible part; so that, what Pliny said of B the Poppies growing in the river Caïcus, [...], it brings a stone in stead of a flower of fruit; so are the pleasures of these pretending sins; the flower at the best is stinking but there is a stone in the bottome, it is gravell in the teeth, and a man must drink the bloud of his own gums when he manducates such unwholesome, such unpleasant fruit.

—Vitiorum gaudia vulnus habent.

They make a wound, and therefore are not very pleasant. C [...], It is a great labour, and travail to live a vicious life.

6. The pleasure in the acts of these few sins that do pretend to it, is a little limited nothing, confin'd to a single faculty, to one sense, having nothing but the skin for its organ, or instrument, an artery, or something not more considerable then a Lute-string; and at the best it is but the satisfaction of an apperite which reason can cure, which time can appease, which every diversion can take off; such as is not perfective of his nature, nor of advantage to his person; it is a desire to no purpose, and as it comes with no just cause, so D can be satisfied with no just measures; it is satisfied before it comes to a vice, and when it is come thither, all the world cannot satisfie it: a little thing will weary it, but nothing can content it. For all these sensuall desires are nothing but an impatience of being well and wise, of being in health, and being in our wits; which two things if a man could endure (and it is but reasonable, a man would think, that we should) he would never lust to drown his heart in seas of wine, or oppresse his belly with loads of undigested meat, or make himself base as the mixtures of a harlot, by breaking the sweetest limits, and holy festivities of marriage. Malum impatientia E est boni, said Tertullian, it is nothing else; to please the sense, is but to do a mans self mischief; and all those lusts tend to some direct dissolution of a mans health, or his felicity, his reason, or his religion; it is an enemy that a man carries about him, and as the spirit of God said concerning Babylon, Quantum in deliciis [Page] A fuit, tantum dat illi tormentum & luctum, Let her have torment and sorrow according to the measure of her delights; is most eminently true in the pleasing of our senses; the lust and desire is a torment; the remembrance and the obsence is a torment, and the enjoyment does not satisfie, but disables the instrument, and tires the faculty; and when a man hath but a little of what his sense covets, he is not contented, but impatient for more; and when he hath loads of it, he does not feel it; for he that swallowes a full goblet does not taste his wine: and this is the pleasure of the sense; nothing contents it but that which he cannot perceive: and it is B alwaies restlesse, till he be weary; and all the way unpleased, till it can feel no pleasure; and that which is the instrument of sense is the means of its torment; by the faculty by which it tasts, by the same it is afflicted; for so long as it can taste, it is tormented with desire, and when it can desire no longer, it cannot feel pleasure.

7. Sin hath little or no pleasure in its very injoyment; because its very manner of entry and production is by a curse and a contradiction; it comes into the world like a viper through the sides of its mother by means unnaturall, violent, and monstrous. Men C love sin only because it is forbidden; Sin took occasion by the Law, saith St. Paul, it could not come in upon its own pretences, but men rather suspect a secret pleasure in it because there are guards kept upon it;

Sed quia caecus inest vitiis amor, omne futurum

Despicitur, suadént (que) brevem praesentia fructum,

Et ruit in vetitum damni secura libido.

Men run into sin with blinde affections, and against all reason despise D the future, hoping for some little pleasure for the present; and all this is only because they are forbidden: Do not many men sin out of spight? some out of the spirit of disobedience, some by wildenesse, and indetermination, some by impudence, and because they are taken in a fault,

—Frontém (que) à crimine sumunt,

Some because they are reproved, many by custome, others by importunity:

E Ordo fuit crevisse malis—

It grows upon crab-stocks, and the lust it self is sowre and unwholesome; and since it is evident, that very many sins come in wholly upon these accounts, such persons and such sins cannot pretend [Page] pleasure; but as Naturalists say of pulse, cum maledictis & probris A serendum praecipiunt, ut laetiùs porvemat; the countrey people were used to curse it and rail upon it all the while that it was sowing that it might thrive the better; tis true with sins, they grow up with curses, with spite and contradiction, peevishnesse and indignation, pride and cursed principles; and therefore pleasure ought not to be the inscription of the box; for that's the least part of its ingredient and constitution.

8. The pleasures in the very enjoying of sin are infinitely trifling and inconsiderable, because they passe away so quickly; if they be in themselves little, they are made lesse by their volatile and fugitive B nature. But if they were great, then their being so transient does not only lessen the delight, but changes it into a torment, and loads the spirit of the sinner with impatience and indignation. Is it not a high upbraiding to the watchfull adulterer, that after he hath contriv'd the stages of his sin, and tyed many circumstances together with arts and labour, and these joyn and stand knit and solid only by contingency, and are very often born away with the impetuous torrent of an inevitable accident, like Xerxes bridge over the Hellespont, and then he is to begin again, and sets new wheels a going; and by the arts, and the labour, and the watchings, and C the importunity, and the violence, and the unwearied study, and indefatigable diligence of many moneths he enters upon possession, and finds them not of so long abode as one of his cares, which in so vast numbers made so great a portion of his life afflicted? [...], The enjoying of sin for a season, St. Paul Heb. 11. 25. cals it; he names no pleasures; our English translation uses the word of enjoying pleasures; but if there were any, they were but for that season, that instant, that very transition of the act, which dies in its very birth, and of which we can only say as the minstrell sung of Pacuvius when he was carryed dead from his supper to his bed, D [...], A man can scarce have time enough to say it is alive, but that it was: nullo non se die extulit, it died every day, it lived never unto life, but lived and dyed unto death, being its mother, and its daughter: The man dyed before the sin did live, and when it had lived, it consign'd him to dye eternally.

Adde to this, that it so passes away, that nothing at all remains behind it, that is pleasant: it is like the path of an arrow in the air; the next morning no man can tell what is become of the pleasures of the last nights sin: they are no where but in Gods books, deposited in the conscience, and sealed up against the day of dreadfull E accounts; but as to the man they are as if they never had been; and then let it be considered, what a horrible aggravation it will be to the miseries of damnation, that a man shall for ever perish for that, which if he looks round about he cannot see, nor tell where it is. He that dies, dies for that which is not; and in the very little [Page] A present be findes it an unrewarding interest, to walk seven dayes together over sharp stones only to see a place from whence he must come back in an hour. If it goes off presently, it is not worth the labour; ifit stayes long, it growes tedious: so that it cannot be pleasant, if it stayes; and if it does stay, it is not to be valued: Haec mala mentis gaudia. It abides too little a while to be felt, or called pleasure; and ifit should abide longer, it would be troublesome as pain, and loath'd like the tedious speech of an Orator pleading against the life of the innocent.

9. Sin hath in its best advantages but a trifling inconsiderable B pleasure: because not only God and reason, conscience and honour, interest and lawes, do sowre it in the sense and gust of pleasure, but even the devill himself either being over-ruled by God, or by a strange unsignificant malice makes it troublesome and intricate, intangled and involv'd; and one sin contradicts another, and vexes the man with so great variety of evils, that if in the course of Gods service he should meet with half the difficulty, he would certainly give over the whole imployment. Those that St. James speaks of who prayed that they might spend it upon their lusts, were covetous and prodigall, and therefore must endure the torments of one to have the C pleasure of another; and which is greater, the pleasure of spending, or the displeasure that it is spent, and does not still remain after its consumption, is easie to tell: certain it is, that this lasts much longer. Does not the Devill often tempt men to despair, and by that torment put bars and locks upon them, that they may never return to God? Which what else is it but a plain indication that it is intended, the man should feel the images and dreams of pleasure, no longer but till he be without remedy? Pleasure is but like centries or woodden frames, set under arches, till they be strong by their own weight and consolidation to D stand alone; and when by any means the Devill hath a man sure, he takes no longer care to cousen you with pleasures, but is pleased that men should begin an early hell, and be tormented before the time. Does not envie punish or destroy flattery; and self-love sometimes torment the drunkard; and intemperance abate the powers of lust, and make the man impotent; and lazinesse become a hinderance to ambition; and the desires of man wax impatient upon contradicting interests, and by crossing each others design on all hands lessen the pleasure, and leave the man tormented?

E 10. Sinne is of so little relish and gust, so trifling a pleasure, that it is alwayes greater in expectation then it is in the possession. But if men did beforehand see, what the utmost is, which sinne ministers to please the beastly part of man, it were impossible it should be pursued with so much earnestnesse and disadvantages. It is necessary it should promise more then it [Page] can give; Men could not otherwise be cousened. And if it be A inquired, why men should sin again, after they had experience of the little and great deception? It is to be confessed, it is a wonder they should; but then we may remember that men sinne again, though their sinne did afflict them; they will be drunk again, though they were sick; they will again commit folly, though they be surprised in their shame, though they have needed an hospitall; and therefore there is something else that moves them, and not the pleasure; for they doe it without and against its interest; but either they still proceed, hoping to supply by numbers what they finde not in proper measures; or God permits B them to proceed as an instrument of punishment; or their understandings and reasonings grow cheaper; or they grow in love with it, and take it upon any terms; or contract new appetites, and are pleased with the baser and the lower reward of sinne: but whatsoever can be the cause of it, it is certain, by the experience of all the world, that the fancy is higher, the desires more sharp, and the reflexion more brisk, at the door and entrance of the entertainment, then in all the little and shorter periods of its possession: for then it is but limited by the naturall measures, and abated by distemper, and loathed by enjoying, C and disturbed by partners, and dishonoured by shame and evill accidents; so that as men coming to the river Lucius, [...], and seeing waters pure as the tears of the spring, or the pearls of the morning, expects that in such a fair promising bosome, the inmates should be fair and pleasant, [...], but findes the fishes black, filthy, and unwholesome; so it is in sinne, its face is fair and beauteous,

[...], D

[...].

Softer then sleep, or the dreams of wine, tenderer then the curds of milk, & Euganeâ quantumvis mollior agnâ; but when you come to handle it, it is filthy, rough as the Porcupine, black as the shadowes of the night, and having promised a fish it gives a scorpion, and a stone in stead of bread.

11. The fruits of its present possession, the pleasures of its taste are lesse pleasant, because no sober person, no man that can discourse does like it long, E

—Breve sit quod turpiter audes.

Juven.

But he approves it in the height of passion, and in the disguises of a temptation; but at all other times he findes it ugly and unreasonable; [Page] A and the very remembrances must at all times abate its pleasures, and sowre its delicacies. In the most parts of a mans life he wonders at his own folly, and prodigious madnesse, that it should be ever possible for him to be deluded by such trifles; and he sighes next morning, and knowes it over night; and is it not therefore certain that he leans upon a thorne, which he knowes will smart, and he dreads the event of to morrow? But so have I known a bold trooper fight in the confusion of a battell, and being warm with heat and rage received from the swords of his enemy, wounds open like a grave; but he felt them not, and when B by the streams of bloud he found himself mark'd for pain, he refused to consider then, what he was to feel to morrow: but when his rage had cool'd into the temper of a man, and a clammy moisture had checked the fiery emission of spirits, he wonders at his own boldnesse, and blames his fate, and needs a mighty patience to bear his great calamity. So is the bold and merry sinner, when he is warm with wine and lust, wounded and bleeding with the strokes of hell, he twists with the fatall arm that strikes him, and cares not; but yet it must abate his gayety, because he remembers that when his wounds are cold and considered, he must roar or C perish, repent or do worse; that is, be miserable or undone. The Greeks call this [...], the felicity of condemned slaves feasted high in sport. Dion Prusaeus reports that when the Persians had got the victory, they would pick out the noblest slave, [...]. They make him a King for three dayes, and cloath him with royall robes, and minister to him all the pleasures he can choose, and all the while he knowes he is to dye a sacrifice to mirth and folly. But then let it be remembred what checks and allayes of mirth the poor man starts at, when he remembers D the axe and the altar where he must shortly bleed; and by this we may understand what that pleasure is, in the midst of which the man sighs deeply, when he considers what opinion he had of this sin in the dayes of counsell and sober thoughts, and what reason against it, he shall feel to morrow when he must weep or die. Thus it happens to sinners according to the saying of the Prophet, Qui sacrificant bominem osculabuntur Vitulum, He that Hos. 13. 2, gives a man in sacrifice shall kisse the calf, that is, shall be admitted to the seventh chappell of Moloch to kisse the Idoll: a goodly reward for so great a price, for so great an iniquity.

E After all this I doe not doubt but these considerations will meet with some persons that think them to be protestatio contra factum, and fine pretences against all experience; and that for all these severe sayings, sin is still so pleasant as to tempt the wisest resolution. Such men are in a very evill condition: and in their case only I come to understand the meaning of those words [Page] of Seneca; Malorum ultimum est mala sua amare, ubi turpia non A solùm delectant, sed etiam placent. It is the worst of evils when men are so in love with sin that they are not only delighted with them but pleased also; not only feel the relish with too quick a sense, but also feel none of the objections, nothing of the pungency, the sting, or the lessening circumstances. However, to these men I say this only, that if by experience they feel sin pleasant, it is as certain also by experience, that most sins are in their own nature sharpnesses and diseases; *and that very few do pretend to pleasure: *That a man cannot feel any deliciousnesse in them, but when he is helped by folly and inconsideration; B that is, a wise man cannot, though a boy or a fool can be pleased with them: *That they are but reliques and images of pleasure left upon Natures stock, and therefore much lesse then the pleasures of naturall vertues: *That a man must run through much trouble before he brings them to act and enjoyment: *That he must take them in despite of himself, against reason and his conscience, the tenderest parts of man and the most sensible of affliction: *They are at the best so little, that they are limited as one sense, not spread upon all the faculties like the pleasures of vertue, which make the bones fat by an intellectuall C rectitude, and the eyes spritely by a wise proposition, and pain it self to become easie by hope and a present rest within: *It is certain (I say) by a great experience, that the pleasures of sin enter by cursings and a contradictory interest, and become pleasant not by their own relish, but by the viciousnesse of the palat, by spite and peevishnesse, by being forbidden and unlawfull; *And that which is its sting is at some times the cause of all its sweetnesse it can have; *They are gone sooner then a dream; *They are crossed by one another, and their Parent is their Tormentor, *and when sinnes are tyed D in a chain, with that chain they dash one anothers brains out, or make their lodging restlesse. *It is never lik'd long; *and promises much and performes little; *it is great at distance, and little at hand, against the nature of all substantiall things; *And after all this, how little pleasure is left, themselves have reason with scorn and indignation to resent. So that if experience can be pretended against experience, there is nothing to be said to it but the words which Phryne desired to be writ on the gates of Thebes, [...], Phryne the harlot built it up, but Alexander digg'd it down; the pleasure E is supported by little things, by the experience of fools and them that observed nothing, and the relishes tasted by artificiall appetites, by art and cost, by violence and preternaturall desires, by the advantage of deception and evill habits, by expectation and delayes, by dreams and inconsiderations, [Page] A these are the harlots hands that build the fairy eastle, but the hands of reason and religion, sober counsels and the voice of God, experience of wise men, and the sighings and intolerable accents of perishing or returning sinners dig it down, and sow salt in the foundations, that they may never spring up in the accounts of men that delight not in the portion of fools and forgetfulnesse. Neque enim Deus ita viventibus quicquam promisit boni, neque ipsa per se mens humana talium sibi conscia Plat. de Rep. quicquam boni sperare audet. To men that live in sinne God hath promised no good, and the conscience it self dares not expect it.

SERMON, XX. Part II.

[Page]

B WE have already opened this dunghill cover'd with snow, which was indeed on the outside white as the spots of leprosie, but it was no better; and if the very colours and instruments of deception, if the fucus and ceruse be so spotted and sullyed, what can we suppose to be under the wrinkled skin, what in the corrupted liver, and in the sinks of the body of sin? That we are next to consider: But if we open the body, and see what a confusion of all its parts, what a rebellion and tumult of the humors, what a disorder of the members, what a monstrosity or deformity is C all over, we shall be infinitely convinced, that no man can choose a sin, but upon the same ground on which he may choose a feaver, or long for madnesse or the gout. Sin in its naturall efficiency hath in it so many evils, as must needs afright a man, and scare the confidence of every one that can consider.

* When our blessed Saviour shall conduct his Church to the mountains of glory, he shall present it to God without spot or wrinkle, Ephes. 5. that is, pure and vigorous, intirely freed from the power, and the infection of sin. Upon occasion of which expression it hath been spoken, that sin leaves in the soul a stain or spot, permanent upon the spirit, D discomposing the order of its beauty, and making it appear to God in sordibus in such filthinesse, that he who is of pure eyes cannot behold. But roncerning the nature or proper effects of this spot or stain, they have not been agreed. Some call it an obligation or a guilt of punishment; so Scotus. Some fancy it to be an elongation from God, by a dissimilitude of conditions; so Peter Lombard. Alexander of Ales sayes it is a privation of the proper beauty and splendor of the soul, with which God adorn'd it in the creation and superaddition of grace; and upon this expression they most agree, but seem not to understand what they mean by it; and it signifies no more, but as you describing E sicknesse, call it a want of health, and folly a want of wisdome; which is indeed to say what a thing is not, but not to tell what it is: But that I may not be hindred by this consideration, we may observe that the spots and stains of sin are metaphoricall significations of the disorder and evill consequents of sin; which it leaves partly upon the [Page] A soul, partly upon the state and condition of a man; as meeknesse is called an ornament, and faith a shield, and salvation a helmet, and sin it self a wrinkle, corruption, rottennesse, a burden, a wound, death, filthinesse Psa. 38. 4. & 65. 2 Tim. 3. 6.: so it is a [...] defiling of a man, that is, as the body contracts nastinesse and dishonour by impure contacts, and adherencies, so does the soul receive such a change as must be taken away before it can enter in to the eternall regions, and house of purity. But it is not a distinct [...], &c. thing, not an inherent quality, which can be separated from other evill effects of sin, which I shall now reckon by their more proper names; and St. Paul comprises under the scornfull appellative of B shame.

1. The first naturall fruit of sin is ignorance. Man was first tempted by the promise of knowledge; he fell into darknesse by beleeving the Devill holding forth to him a new light. It was not likely good should come of so foul a beginning; that the woman should beleeve the Devill putting on no brighter shape then a snakes skin, she neither being afraid of sin nor afrighted to hear a beast speak, and he pretending so weakly in the temptation, that he promised only that they should know evill; for they knew good before; and all that was offered to them was the experience of evill: and it was no wonder C that the Devill promised no more; for sin never could perform any thing but an experience of evill, no other knowledge can come upon that account; but the wonder was, why the woman should sin for no other reward, but for that which she ought to have fear'd infinitely; for nothing could have continued her happinesse, but not to have known evill. Now this knowledge was the introduction of ignorance. For when the understanding suffered it self to be so baffled as to study evill, the will was as foolish to fall in love with it, and they conspir'd to undoe each other. For when the will began to love it, then the understanding was set on work to commend, to advance, to D conduct and to approve, to beleeve it, and to be factious in behalf of the new purchase. I do not beleeve the understanding part of man received any naturall decrement or diminution. For if to the Devils their naturals remain intire, it is not likely that the lesser sin of man should suffer a more violent and effective mischief. Neither can it be understood how the reasonable soul being immortall both in it self and its essentiall faculties, can lose or be lessened in them, any more then it can die. But it received impediment, by new propositions: It lost and willingly forgot what God had taught, and went away from the fountain of truth, and gave trust to the father of lies, E and it must without remedy grow foolish; and so a man came to know evill, just as a man is said to taste of death: for in proper speaking, as death is not to be felt, because it takes away all sense; so nether can evill be known, because whatsoever is truly cognoscible, is good and true; and therefore all the knowledge a man gets by sin is to feel evill: he knowes it not by discourse, but by sense; not by [Page] proposition, but by smart; The Devill doing to man as Esculapius A did to Neoclides, [...], he gave him a formidable collyrium to torment him more: the effect of which was, [...]: the Devill himself grew more quicksighted to abuse us, but we became more blinde by that opening of our eyes. I shall not need to discourse of the Philosophy of this mischief, and by the connexion of what causes ignorance doth follow sin: but it is certain, whether a man would fam be pleased with sin, or be quiet, or fearlesse when he hath sinned, or continue in it, or perswade others to it, he must do it by false propositions, by lyings B and such weak discourses as none can beleeve but such as are born fools, or such as have made themselves so, or are made so by others. Who in the world is a verier fool, a more ignorant wretched person then he that is an Atheist? A man may better beleeve there is no such man as himself, and that he is not in being, then that there is no God: for himself can cease to be, and once was not, and shall be changed from what he is, and in very many periods of his life knowes not that he is; and so it is every night with him when he sleeps: but none of these can happen to God; and if he knowes it not, he is a fool. Can any thing in this world be more C foolish then to think that all this rare fabrick of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an Oyster? To see rare effects and no cause; an excellent government and no Prince; a motion without an immovable; a circle without a centre; a time without eternity; a second without a first; a thing that begins not from it self, and therefore not to perceive there is something from whence it does begin, which must be without beginning; these things are so against Philosophy, and naturall reason, that he must needs be a beast in his understanding that does not assent to them. This is the Atheist: the fool hath said in his heart, there D is no God. That's his character: the thing framed saies that nothing framed it; the tongue never made it self to speak, and yet talks against him that did; saying, that which is made, is, and that which made it, is not. But this folly is as infinite as hell, as much without light or bound, as the Chaos or the primitive nothing. But in this, the Devill never prevailed very farre; his Schooles were alwaies thin at these Lectures: some few people have been witty against God, that taught them to speak before they knew to spell a syllable; but either they are monsters in their manners, or mad in their understandings, or ever finde themselves confuted by a thunder or a E plague, by danger or death.

But the Devill hath infinitely prevail'd in a thing that is almost as senselesse and ignorant as Atheisme, and that is idolatry; not only making God after mans image, but in the likenesse of a calf, of a cat, of a serpent; making men such fools as to worship a quartan ague, [Page] A fire and water, onions and sheep. This is the skill man learned, and the Philosophy that he is taught by beleeving the Devill. * What wisedome can there be in any man, that cals good evill, and evill good; to say fire is cold, and the Sun black, that fornication can make a man happy, or drunkennesse can make him wise? And this is the state of a sinner, of every one that delights in iniquity; he cannot be pleased with it if he thinks it evill; he cannot endure it, without beleeving this proposition, that there is in drunkennesse, or lust, pleasure enough, good enough to make him amends for the intolerable pains of damnation. But then if we consider upon what B nonsense principles the state of an evill life relies, we must in reason be in patient, and with scorn and indignation drive away the fool; such as are: sense is to be preferred before reason, interest before religion, a lust before heaven, moments before eternity, money above God himself; that, a mans felicity consists in that which a beast enjoyes; that, a little in present uncertain, fallible possession, is better then the certain state of infinite glories hereafter; what childe, what fool can think things more weak, and more unreasonable? And yet if men do not go upon these grounds, upon what account do they sin? sin hath no wiser reasons for it self then these: [...], C the same argument that a flye hath to enter into a candle, the same argument a fool hath, that enters into sin; it looks prettily, but rewards the eye, as burning basons do, with intolerable circles of reflected fire. Such are the principles of a sinners Philosophy. And no wiser are his hopes; all his hopes that he hath is, that he shall have time to repent of that which he chooses greedily; that he whom he every day provokes will save him, whether he will or no; that he can in an instant, or in a day make amends for all the evils of 40 years; or else that he shall be saved whether he does or no; that heaven is to be had for a sigh, or a short prayer, and yet D hell shall not be consequent to the affections, and labours, and hellish services of a whole life; he goes on and cares not, he hopes without a promise, and refuses to beleeve all the threatnings of God; but beleeves he shall have a mercy for which he never had a revelation. If this be knowledge or wisdome, then there is no such thing as folly, no such disease as madnesse.

But then consider, that there are some sins whose very formality is a lye. Superstition could not be in the world, if men did beleeve God to be good and wise, free and mercifull, not a tyrant, not an unreasonable exactor: no man would dare do in private, what he E fears to do in publick, if he did know that God sees him there, and will bring that work of darknesse into light. But he is so foolish as to think, that if he sees nothing, nothing sees him; for if men did perceive God to be present, and yet do wickedly, it is worse with them then I have yet spoke of; and they beleeve another lie; that to be seen by man will bring more shame, then to be discerned [Page] by God; or that the shame of a few mens talk is more intolerable A then to be confounded before Christ, and his army of Angels, and Saints, and all the world. * He that excuses a fault by telling a lie, beleeves it better to be guilty of two faults, then to be thought guilty of one; and every hypocrite thinks it not good to be holy, but to be accounted so, is a fine thing; that is, that opinion is better then reality, and that there is in vertue nothing good, but the fame of it. * And the man that takes revenge, relies upon this foolish proposition; that his evill that he hath already suffer'd growes lesse if another suffers the like; that his wound cannot smart, if by my hand he dies that gave it. [...], the sad B accents and dolefull tunes are increased by the number of mourners, but the sorrow is not at all lessened.

I shall not need to thrust into this account the other evils of mankinde that are the events of ignorance, but introduc'd by sin; such as are our being moved by what we see strongly, and weakly by what we understand; that men are moved rather by a fable then by a syllogisme, by parables then by demonstrations, by examples then by precepts, by seeming things then by reall, by shadowes then by substances; that men judge of things by their first events, and measure the events by their own short lives, or shorter observations; C that they are credulous to beleeve what they wish, and incredulous of what makes against them, measuring truth or falshood by measures that cannot fit them, as foolishly as if they should judge of a colour by the dimensions of a body, or feel musick with the hand; they make generall conclusions from particular instances, and take account of Gods actions by the measures of a man. Men call that justice that is on their side, and all their own causes are right, and they are so alwayes; they are so when they affirm them in their youth, and they are so when they deny them in their old age; and they are confident in all their changes; and their first D error which they now see, does not make them modest in the proposition which they now maintain; for they do not understand that what was, may be so again: So foolish and ignorant was I (said David) and as it were a beast before thee. Ambition is folly, and temerity is ignorance, and confidence never goes without it, and impudence is worse, and zeal or contention is madnesse, and prating is want of wisdome, and lust destroyes it, and makes a man of a weak spirit, and a cheap reasoning; and there are in the Catalogue of of sins very many, which are directly, kinds and parts, and appendages of ignorance; such as are blindnesse of minde, affected ignorance, and E wilfull; neglect of hearing the word of God, resolved incredulity, forgetfulnesse of holy things, lying and beleeving a lye; this is the fruit of sin, this is the knowledge that the Devill promised to our first parents as the rewards of disobedience; and although they sinn'd as weakly and fondly, [...], upon as slight grounds [Page] A and trifling a temptation and as easie a deception as many of us since, yet the causes of our ignorance are increased by the multiplication of our sins; and if it was so bad in the green tree, it is much worse in the dry; and no man is so very a fool as the sinner, and none are wise but the servants of God, [...]. The wise Chaldees and the wiser Hebrewes which worship God chastly and purely, they only have a right to be called wise; all that do not so are fools and ignorants, neither knowing what it is to be happy, nor how to purchase it; ignorant of the noblest end, and of the competent means towards B it: they neither know God nor themselves, and no ignorance is greater then this or more pernicious. What man is there in the world that thinks himself covetous or proud? and yet millions are, who like Harpaste think that the house is dark, but not themselves. Vertue makes our desires temperate and regular, it observes our actions, condemns our faults, mortifies our lusts, watches all our dangers and temptations: but sin makes our desires infinite, and we would have we cannot tell what; we strive that we may forget our faults; we labour that we may neither remember nor consider; we justifie our errors, and call them innocent, and that which is our shame C we miscall honour; and our whole life hath in it so many weak discourses and trifling propositions, that the whole world of sinners is like the Hospitall of the insensati, madnesse and folly possesses the greater part of mankinde. What greater madnesse is there then to spend the price of a whole farm in contention for three sheaves of corn? and yet tantum pectora caecae noctis habent, this is the wisdome of such as are contentious, and love their own will more then their happinesse, their humour more then their peace.

D —Furor est post omnia perdere naulum.

Men lose their reason, and their religion, and themselves at last for want of understanding; and all the wit and discourses by which sin creeps in, are but [...], frauds of the tongue, and consultations of care: but in the whole circle of sins there is not one wise proposition, by which a man may conduct his affairs, or himself become instructed to felicity. This is the first naturall fruit of sin: It makes a man a fool, and this hurt sin does to the understanding, and this is shame enough to that in which men are most apt to glory.

E Sin naturally makes a man weak; that is, unapt to do noble things: by which I do not understand a naturall disability: for it is equally ready for a man to will good as evill, and as much in the power of his hands to be lifted up in prayer to God as against his Brother in a quarrell; and between a vertuous object and his faculties there is a more apt proportion, then between his spirit and a vice; and [Page] every act of grace does more please the minde, then an act of sin A does delight the sense; and every crime does greater violence to the better part of man, then mortification does to the lower; and often times a duty consists in a negative, as not to be drunk, not to swear, and it is not to be understood that a man hath naturally no power not to do; if there be a naturall disability, it is to action, not to rest or ceasing; and therefore in this case, we cannot reasonably nor justly accuse our Nature, but we have reason to blame our manners which have introduced upon us a morall disability; that is, not that the faculty is impotent and disabled, but that the whole man is; for the will in many cases desires to do good, and the understanding is B convinced and consents, and the hand can obey, and the passions can be directed, and be instrumentall to Gods service: but because they are not used to it, the will finds a difficulty to do them so much violence, and the understanding consents to their lower reasonings, and the desires of the lower man do will stronger; and then the whole man cannot do the duty that is expected. There is a law in the members, and he that gave that law is a tyrant, and the subjects of that law are slaves, and oftentimes their ear is bored, and they love their fetters and desire to continue that bondage for ever; The law is the law of sin, the Devill is the tyrant, custome C is the sanction or the firmament of the law; and every vicious man is a slave, and chooses the vilest master, and the basest of services, and the most contemptible rewards. Lex enim peccati est violentia consuetudinis, quâ trahitur & tenetur animus etiam invitus, eo merito quo in eam volens illabitur, said St. Austin; The law of sin is the violence of custome, which keep a mans minde against his minde, because he entred willingly, and gave up his own interest, which he ought to have secur'd for his own felicity, and for his service who gave for it an invaluable price: And indeed in questions of vertue and vice there is no such thing as Nature; or it is so inconsiderable, D that it hath in it nothing beyond an inclination which may be reverted; and very often not so much; nothing but a perfect indifferency, we may if we will, or we may choose; but custome brings in a new nature, and makes a Biass in every faculty. To a vicious man some sins become necessary; Temperance makes him sick; severity is death to him; it destroys his chearfulnesse and activity; it is as his nature, and the desire dwels for ever with him, and his reasonings are framed for it and his fancy, and in all he is helped by example, by company, by folly, and inconsideration; and all these are a faction and a confederacy against the honour and E service of God. And in this, Philosophy is at a stand, nothing can give an account of it but experience, and sorrowfull instances; for it is infinitely unreasonable, that when you have discoursed wisely against unchastity, and told, that we are separated from it by a circumvallation of Lawes of God and man, that it dishonours the [Page] A body, and makes the spirit caitive, that it is fought against by arguments sent from all the corners of reason and religion, and the man knows all this, and beleeves it, and prayes against his sin, and hates himself for it, and curses the actions of it; yet oppose against all this but a fable or a merry story, a proverb or a silly saying, the sight of his mistresse, or any thing but to lessen any one of the arguments brought against it, and that man shall as certainly and clearly be determined to that sin, as if he had on his side all the reason of the world. [...], Plutarch. Custome does as much as Nature can B doe; it does sometimes more, and superinduces a disposition contrary to our naturall temper. Eudemus had so used his stomach to so unnaturall drinks, that, as himself tels the story, he took in one day two and twenty potions in which Hellebore was infused, and rose at noon, and supp'd at night, and felt no change. So are those that are corrupted with evill customes, nothing will purge them; if you discourse wittily, they hear you not; or if they do, they have twenty wayes to answer, and twice twenty to neglect it: if you perswade them to promise to leave their sin, they do but shew their folly at the next temptation, and tell that they did C not mean it: and if you take them at an advantage when their hearts are softned with a judgement or a fear, with a shame or an indignation, and then put the bars and locks of vowes upon them, it is all one; one vow shall hinder but one action, and the appetite shall be doubled by the restraint, and the next opportunity shall make an amends for the first omission: or else the sin shall enter by parts; the vow shall only put the understanding to make a distinction, or to change the circumstance, and under that colour the crime shall be admitted, because the man is resolved to suppose the matter so dressed was not vowed against. But then when that D is done, the understanding shall open that eye that did but wink before, and see that it was the same thing, and secretly rejoyce that it was so cousened: for now the lock is open'd, and the vow was broken against his will, and the man is at liberty again, because he did the thing at unawares, [...], still he is willing to beleeve the sin was not formall vow-breach, but now he sees he broke it materially, and because the band is broken, the yoke is in pieces, therefore the next action shall go on upon the same stock of a single in quity without being afrighted in his conscience at the noise of perjury. I wish we were all so innocent as not to understand E the discourse; but it uses to be otherwise.

Nam si discedas, laqueo tenet ambitiost

Consuetudo mali:—& in agro corde senescit.

Custome hath waxen old in his deceived heart, and made snares [Page] for him that he cannot disintangle himself; so true is that saying A of God by the Prophet, Can an Aethiop change his skin? then may ye learn to do well when ye are accustomed to do evill. But I instance in two things which to my sense seem great aggravations of the slavery and weaknesse of a customary sinner.

The first is, that men sin against their interest. They know they shall be ruin'd by it; it will undoe their estates, lose their friends, ruine their fortunes, destroy their body, impoverish the spirit, load the conscience, discompose his rest, confound his reason, amaze him in all his faculties, destroy his hopes, and mischief enough besides; and when he considers this, he declares against it; but, Cum bona B verba erumpant, affectus tamen ad consuetudinem relabuntur, the man gives good words, but the evill custome prevails; and it happens as in the case of the Tyrinthians, who to free their nation from a great plague, were bidden only to abstain from laughter, while they offered their sacrifice: but they had been so us'd to a ridiculous effeminacy, and vain course of conversation, that they could not, though the honour and splendor of the Nation did depend upon it. God of his mercy keep all Christian people from a custome in sinning; for if they be once fallen thither, nothing can recover them but a miraculous grace. C

2. The second aggravation of it is, that custome prevails against experience. Though the man hath already smarted, though he hath been disgraced, and undone, though he lost his relation and his friends, he is turn'd out of service, and disimployed, he begs with a load of his old sins upon his shoulders, yet this will not cure an evill custome: Do not we daily see how miserable some men make themselves with drunkennesse, and folly? Have not we seen them that have been sick with intemperance, deadly sick, enduring for one drunken meeting, more pain then are in all the fasting dayes of the whole year? and yet do they not the very next day go to D it again? Indeed some few are smitten into the beginning of repentance, and they stay a fortnight, or a moneth, and it may be resist two or three invitations; but yet the custome is not gone,

Nec tu cum obstiteris semel, instanti (que) negaris

Parêre imperio, Rupi jam vincula, dicas.

Think not the chain is off when thou hast once or twice resisted; or if the chain be broke, part remains on thee, like a cord upon a dogs neck, E

Nam & luctata canis nodum arripit; attamen illi

Cum fugit, à collo trahitur pars magna catenae.

He is not free that drawes his chain after him; and he that breaks [Page] A off from his sins with greatest passion, stands in need of prosperous circumstances, and a strange freedome from temptation, and accidentall hardnesse, and superinduced confidence, and a preternaturall severity; Opus est aliquâ fortunae indulgentiâ adhuc inter humana luctanti, dum nodum illum exolvit & omne vinculum mortale, Seneca de vitâ beatâ. for the knot can hardly be untied which a course of evill manners hath bound upon the soul; and every contingency in the world can intangle him that wears upon his neck the links of a broken chain. Nam qui ab eo quod amat, Quàm extemplò suaviis sagittatis percussus est, illico res foras labitur, liquitur; if he sees his B temptation again he is [...], his kindnesse to it, and conversation with his lust undoes him, and breaks his purposes, and then he dies again, or fals upon that stone that with so much pains he removed a little out of his way; and he would lose the spent wealth, or the health and the reputation over again, if it were in his power. Philomusus was a wilde young fellow in Domitian's time, and he was hard put to it to make a large pension to maintain his lust and luxury, and he was every moneth put to beggerly arts to feed his crime. But when his father died and left him all, he disinherited himself; he spent it all though he knew he C was to suffer that trouble alwayes, which vexed his lustfull soul in the frequent periods of his violent want.

Now this is such a state of slavery, that persons that are sensible ought to complain, [...], that they serve worse lords then Egyptian task-masters, there is a lord within that rules and rages, Intus & in jecore aegro pascuntur domini; sin dwels there, and makes a man a miserable servant: and this is not only a Metaphoricall expression, under which some spirituall and metaphysicall truth is represented, but it is a physicall, materiall truth, and a man endures hardship, he cannot move but at this D command, and not his outward actions only, but his will and his understanding too are kept in fetters and foolish bondage: [...], said Marcus Antoninus; The two parts of a man are rent in sunder, and that that prevails is the life, it is the man, it is the eloquence perswading every thing to its own interest. * And now consider what is the effect of this evill. A man by sin is made a slave, he loses that liberty that is dearer to him then life it self; and like the dog in the fable, we suffer chains and ropes only for a piece of bread; when the Lion thought liberty a sufficient reward and price E for hunger, and all the hardnesses of the wildernesse. Do not all the world sight for liberty, and at no terms will lay down armes till at least they be cousened with the image and colour of it? [...]; and yet for the pleasure of a few minutes we give our selves into bondage; and all the world does it, more or lesse.

[Page]

[...], A

[...],

[...]

[...].

Euripid.

Either men are slaves to fortune, or to lust; to covetousnesse, or tyranny; something or other compels him to usages against his will and reason; and when the lawes cannot rule him, money can; divitia enim apud sapientem virum in servitute sunt, apud stultum in imperio; for money is the wise mans servant, and the fools Master: B but the bondage of a vicious person, is such a bondage as the childe hath in the wombe, or rather as a sick man in his bed; we are bound fast by our disease, and a consequent weaknesse, we cannot go forth though the doors be open, and the fetters knockt off, and vertue and reason like St. Peters Angel call us and b [...]at us upon the sides, and offer to go before us, yet we cannot come forth from prison; for we have by our evill customes given hostages to the Devill, never to stirre from the enemies quarter; and this is the greatest bondage that is imaginable, the bondage of conquered, wounded, unresisting people: [...], Vertue only is the C truest liberty: And if the Son of God make us free, then are we free indeed.

3. Sin does naturally introduce a great basenesse upon the spirit, expressed in Scripture in some cases by the Devils entring into a man, as it was in the case of Judas, after he had taken the sop, Ioh. 13. 27. Satan entred into him; and St. Cyprian speaking of them that after Baptisme lapsed into foul crimes, he affirms that spiritu immundo Cypr. Ep. 76. quasi redeunte quatiuntur, ut manifestum sit Diabolum in baptismo fide credentis excludi, si fides postmodum defecerit regredi; Faith, and the grace of Baptisme turns the Devill out of possession: D but when faith fails, and we loose the bands of Religion, then the Devill returns; that is, the man is devolved into such sins of which there can be no reason given, which no excuse can lessen, which are set off with no pleasure, advanced by no temptations, which deceive by no allurements and flattering pretences: such things which have a proper and direct contrariety to the good Spirit, and such as are not restrained by humane laws; because they are states of evill rather then evill actions, principles of mischief rather then direct emanations; such as are, unthankfulnesse, impiety, giving a secret blow, fawning hypocrisie, detraction, impudence, forgetfulnesse E of the dead, and forgetting to do that in their absence which we promised to them in presence, [...]; Concerning which sorts of unworthinesse Eurip. it is certain they argue a most degenerous spirit, and they are the effect, the naturall effect of malice and despair, an unwholesome [Page] A ill natur'd soul, a soul corrupted in its whole constitution. I remember that in the Apologues of Phaedrus, it is told concerning an ill natured fellow, that he refused to pay his Symbol, which himself and all the company had agreed should be given for every disease, that each man had; he denying his itch to be a disease; but the company taking off the refusers hat for a pledge, found that he had a scal'd head, and so demanded the money double; which he pertinaciously resisting, they threw him down, and then discovered he was broken bellied, and justly condemned him to pay three Philippicles:

B —Quae fuerat fabula, poena fuit.

One disease discovers it self by the hiding of another, and that being open'd discovers a third; He that is almost taken in a fault, tels a lye to escape; and to protect that lye, he forswears himself; and that he may not be suspected of perjury, he growes impudent; and that sin may not shame him, he will glory in it, like the slave in the Comedy, who being torn with whips, grinn'd, and forc'd an ugly smile that it might not seem to smart. * There are some C sins which a man that is newly fallen, cannot entertain. There is no crime made ready for a young sinner, but that which nature prompts him to. Naturall inclination is the first tempter, then compliance, then custome, but this being helped by a consequent folly, dismantles the soul, making it to hate God, to despise Religion, to laugh at severity, to deride sober counsels, to flie from repentance, to resolve against it, to delight in sin without abatement of spirit or purposes: For it is an intolerable thing for a man to be tormented in his conscience for every sin he acts; that must not be; he must have his sin and his peace too, or else he can have neither D long: and because true peace cannot come, [for there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked] therefore they must make a phantastick peace by a studied cousening of themselves, by false propositions, by carelesnesse, by stupidity, by impudence, by sufferance, and habit; by conversation, and daily acquaintances; by doing some things as Absalom did when he lay with his fathers concubines, to make it impossible for him to repent, or to be forgiven, something to secure him in the possession of hell; Tute hoc intristi quod tibi exedendum est, the man must thorough it now; and this is it that makes men fall into all basenesse of spirituall sins, [ [...], E when a man is come to the bottome of his wickednsse, he despises all] such as malice and despite, rancor and impudence, malicious studied ignorance, voluntary contempt of all Religion, hating of good men and good counsels, and taking every wise man and wise action to be his enemy; [...]. And this is that basenesse of sin which Plato so much detested, that he [Page] said he should blush to be guilty of, though he knew God would A pardon him, and that men should never know it, propter solam peccati turpitudinem, for the very basenesse that is in it. A man that is false to God, will also, if an evill temptation overtakes him, betray his friend; and it is notorious in the covetous and ambitious,

[...]

[...]

[...],

[...]

[...] B

They are an unthankfull generation, and to please the people, or to serve their interest will hurt their friends. That man hath so lost himself to all sweetnesse and excellency of spirit, that is gone thus farre in sin, that he looks like a condemned man, or is like the accursed spirits preserved in chains of darknesse and impieties unto the Judgement of the great Day, [...], this man can be nothing but evill; for these inclinations and evill forwardnesses, this dyscrasie and gangren'd disposition does alwaies suppose a long or a base sin for their parent; and the product of C these is a wretchlesse spirit; that is, an aptnesse to any unworthinesse, and an unwillingnesse to resist any temptation; a perseverance in basenesse, and a consignation to all damnation, [...], If men do evill things, evill things shall be their reward. If they obey the evill spirit, an evill spirit shall be their portion; and the Devill shall enter into them as he entred into Judas, and fill them full of iniquity.

A SERMON, XXI. Part III.

[Page]

B 4. ALthough these are shamefull effects of sin, and a man need no greater dishonour then to be a fool and a slave, and a base person, all which sin infallibly makes him; yet there are some sins which are directly shamefull in their nature, and proper disreputation, and a very great many sins are the worst and basest in severall respects; that is, every of them hath a venomous quality of its own, whereby it is marked and appropriated to a peculiar evill spirit. The Devils sin was the worst, C because it came from the greatest malice: Adams was the worst, because it was of most universall efficacy and dissemination: Judas sin the worst of men, because against the most excellent person; and the relapses of the godly are the worst, by reason they were the most obliged persons. But the ignorance of the Law is the greatest of evils, if we consider its danger, but covetousnesse is worse then it, if we regard its incurable and growing nature: luxury is most alien from spirituall things, and is the worst of all in its temptation and our pronenesse; but pride growes most venomous by its unreasonablenesse and importunity, arising even from the good D things a man hath; even from graces, and endearments, and from being more in debt to God. Sins of malice and against the Holy Ghost oppu [...]n the greatest grace with the greatest spite; but Idolatry is perfectly hated by God by a direct enmity. Some sins are therefore most hainous, because to resist them is most easie, and to act them there is the least temptation: such as are severally, lying, and swearing. There is a strange poison in the nature of sins, that of so many sorts, every one of them should be the worst. Every sin hath an evill spirit, a Devill of its own to manage, to conduct, and to imbitter it: and although all these are Gods enemies, E and have an appendant shame in their retinue, yet to some sins shame is more appropriate, and a proper ingredient in their constitutions: such as are lying, and lust, and vow-breach, and inconstancy. God sometimes cures the pride of a mans spirit by suffering his evill manners, and filthy inclination to be determin'd upon lust; lust makes a man afraid of publick eyes, and common [Page] voices; it is (as all sins else are, but this especially) a work of darknesse, A it does debauch the spirit, and make it to decay and fall off from courage and resolution, constancy and severity, the spirit of government and a noble freedome; and those punishments which the nations of the world have inflicted upon it, are not smart so much as shame: Lustfull souls are cheap and easie, trifling and despised in all wise accounts; they are so farre from being fit to sit with Princes, that they dare not chastise a sinning servant that is private to their secret follies; It is strange to consider what laborious arts of concealment, what excuses and lessenings, what pretences and fig-leaves men will put before their nakednesse and B crimes; shame was the first thing that entred upon the sin of Adam, and when the second world began, there was a strange scene of shame acted by Noah and his sons, and it ended in slavery and basenesse to all descending generations.

We see the event of this by too sad an experience. What arguments, what hardnesse, what preaching, what necessity can perswade men to confesse their sins? they are so ashamed of them, that to be conceal'd they preferre before their remedy; and yet in penitentiall confession the shame is going off, it is like Cato's coming out of the Theatre, or the Philosopher from the Taverne; C it might have been shame to have entred, but glory to have departed for ever; and yet ever to have relation to sin is so shamefull a thing, that a mans spirit is amazed, and his face is confounded when he is dressed of so shamefull a disease. And there are but few men that will endure it, but rather choose to involve it in excuses and deniall, in the clouds of lying, and the white linnen of hypocrisie: and yet when they make a vail for their shame, such is the fate of sin, the shame growes the bigger and the thicker; we lye to men, and we excuse it to God; either some parts of lying, or many parts of impudence, darknesse, or forgetfulnesse, running D away, or running further in, these are the covers of our shame, like menstruous rags upon a skin of leprosie: But so sometimes we see a decayed beauty besmear'd with a lying fucus, and the chinks fill'd with ceruse; besides that it makes no reall beauty, it spoils the face, and betrayes evill manners; it does not hide old age, or the change of years, but it discovers pride or lust; it was not shame to be old, or wearied and worn out with age, but it is a shame to dissemble nature by a wanton vizor. So sin retires from blushing into shame; if it be discover'd, it is not to be endured, and if we go to hide it, we make it worse. But then if we remember E how ambitious we are for fame and reputation, for honour and a fair opinion, for a good name all our dayes, and when our dayes are done, and that no ingenuous man can enjoy any thing he hath, if he lives in disgrace, and that nothing so breaks a mans spirit as dishonour, and the meanest person alive does not think himself fit [Page] A to be despised; we are to consider into what an evill condition sin puts us, for which we are not only disgraced and disparaged here, marked with disgracefull punishments, despised by good men, our follies derided, our company avoided, and hooted at by boyes, talk'd of in fairs and markets, pointed at, and described by appellatives of scorn, and everybody can chide us, and we dye unpitied, and lye in our graves eaten up by wormes, and a foul dishonour; but after all this, at the day of Judgement we shall be called from our charnell houses, where our disgrace could not sleep, and shall in the face of God, in the presence of Angels and Devils, before B all good men and all the evill, see, and feel the shame of all our sins written upon our foreheads: Here in this state of misery and folly we make nothing of it; and though we dread to be discovered to men, yet to God we confesse our sins without a trouble or a blush; but tell an even story, because we finde some formes of confession prescrib'd in our prayer books; and that it may appear how indifferent and unconcerned we seem to be, we read and say all, and confesse the sins we never did, with as much sorrow and regret as those that we have acted a thousand times. But in that strange day of recompences, we shall finde the Devill C to upbraid the criminall, Christ to disown them, the Angels to drive them from the seat of mercy, and shame to be their smart, the consigning them to damnation; they shall then finde, that they cannot dwell where vertue is rewarded, and where honour and glory hath a throne; there is no vail but what is rent, no excuse to any but to them, that are declared as innocent; no circumstances concerning the wicked to be considered, but them that aggravate; then the disgrace is not confin'd to the talk of a village, or a province, but is scattered to all the world, not only in one age shall the shame abide, but the men of all generations shall see, D and wonder at the vastnesse of that evill that is spread upon the souls of sinners for ever and ever; [...]. No night shall then hide it, for in those regions of darknesse where the dishonoured man shall dwell for ever, there is nothing visible but the shame; there is light enough for that, but darknesse for all things else: and then he shall reap the full harvest of his shame; all that for which wise men scorned him, and all that for which God hated him; all that in which he was a fool, and all that in which he was malicious; that which was publick, and that which was private; that which fools applauded, and that which himself E durst not own; the secrets of his lust, and the criminall contrivances of his thoughts; the base and odious circumstances, and the frequency of the action, and the partner of his sin; all that which troubles his conscience, and all that he willingly forgets, shall be proclaim'd by the trumpet of God, by the voice of an Archangell in the great congregation of spirits and just men.

[Page] There is one great circumstance more of the shame of sin, which A extremely enlarges the evill of a sinfull state, but that is not consequent to sin by a naturall emanation, but is superinduc'd by the just wrath of God: and therefore is to be consider'd in the third part, which is next to be handled.

3. When the Boeotians asked the Oracle, by what they should become happy? the answer was made, [...], wicked and irreligious persons are prosperous: and they taking the Devill at his word, threw the inspired Pythian, the ministring witch, into the sea, hoping so to become mighty in peace and warre. The effect of which was this, The Devill was found a lyar, and they B fools at first, and at last felt the reward of irreligion. For there are to some crimes such events, which are not to be expected from the connexion of naturall causes, but from secret influences and undiscernible conveyances; *that a man should be made sick for receiving the holy Sacrament unworthily, and blinde for resisting the words of an Apostle, a preacher of the Lawes of Jesus, and dye suddenly for breaking of his vow, and committing sacriledge, and be under the power and scourge of an exterminating Angell for climbing his Fathers bed, these are things beyond the worlds Philosophy. But as in Nature, so in Divinity too there are Sympathies C and Antipathies, effects which we feel by experience, and are forewarned of by revelation, which no naturall reason can judge, nor any providence can prevent but by living innocently, and complying with the Commandements of God. The rod of God, which cometh not into the lot of the righteous, strikes the sinning man with sore strokes of veng eance.

1. The first that I shall note is that which I called the aggravation of the shame of sin; and that is, an impossibility of being concealed in most cases of heinous crimes; [...], let no man suppose that he shall for ever hide his sin: D a single action may be conveyed away under the covert of an excuse or a privacy, escaping as Ulysses did the search of Polyphemus, and it shall in time be known that it did escape, and shall be discover'd that it was private; that is, that it is so no longer. But no wicked man that dwelt and delighted in sin, did ever go off from his scene of unworthinesse without a filthy character; The black veile is thrown over him before his death, and by some contingency or other he enters into his cloud, because few sins determine finally in the thoughts; but if they dwell there, they will also enter into action, and then the thing discovers it self; or else the E injured person will proclaim it, or the jealous man will talk of it before it's done, or curious people will inquire and discover, or the spirit of detraction shall be let loose upon him, and in spite shall declare more then he knowes, not more then is true, The Ancients, especially the Scholars of Epicurus, beleev'd that no man could [Page] A be secured or quiet in his spirit from being discovered. Scelus aliqua tutum, nulla securum tulit; They are not secure even when they are safe; but are afflicted with perpetuall jealousies; and every whisper is concerning them, and all new noises, are arrests to their spirits; and the day is too light, and the night is too horrid, and both are the most opportune for their discovery; and besides the undiscernible connexion of the contingencies of providence, many secret crimes have been published by dreams, and talkings in their sleep. It is the observation of Lucretius,

B Multi de magnis per somnum rebus loquuntur,

Indició (que) sui facti persape fuêre.

And what their understanding kept a guard upon, their fancy let loose; fear was the bars and locks, but sleep became the key to open, even then when all the senses were shut, and God rul'd alone without the choice and discourse of man. And though no man regards the wilder talkings of a distracted man, yet it hath sometimes hapned that a delirium and a feaver, fear of death, and the intolerable apprehensions of damnation have open'd the cabinet C of sin, and brought to light all that was acted in the curtains of night,

Quippe ubi se multis per somnia saepe loquentes,

Aut morbo delirantes protrâxe feruntur,

Et celata diu in medium peccata dedisse.

But there are so many wayes of discovery, and amongst so many, some one does so certainly happen that they are well summ'd up by Sophocles, by saying, that time hears all and tels all,

D [...]

[...].

A cloud may be its roof and cover till it passes over, but when it is driven by a fierce winde, or runs fondly after the Sun, it layes open a deformity, which like an ulcer had a skin over it, and a pain within, and drew to it a heap of sorrowes big enough to run over all its inclosures. Many persons have betrayed themselves by their own fears, and knowing themselves never to be E secure enough, have gone to purge themselves of what no body suspected them; offer'd an Apology, when they had no accuser but one within; which like a thorn in the flesh, or like a word in a fools heart, was uneasie till it came out; Non amo se nimium purgitantes, when men are over-busie in justifying themselves, it is a sign themselves think they need it. Plutarch tels of a young gentleman [Page] that destroyed a swallow's nest, pretending to them that repreved A him for doing the thing, which in their superstition the Creeks esteemed so ominous, that the little bird accused him for killing his Father. And to this purpose it was that Solomon gave counsell: Eccles. 10. 20. Curse not the King, no not in thy thought, nor the rich in thy bedchamber, for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that that hath wings shall tell the matter; Murder and treason have by such strange wayes been revealed, as if God had appointed an Angell president of the revelation, and had kept this in secret and sure ministry to be as an argument to destroy Atheisme from the face of the earth, by opening the secrets of men with this key B of providence. Intercepting of letters, mistaking names, false inscriptions, errors of messengers, faction of the parties, fear in the actors, horror in the action, the majesly of the person, the restlesnesse of the minde, distracted looks, wearinesse of the spirit, and all under the conduct of the Divine wisdome, and the Divine vengeance, make the covers of the most secret sin transparent as a net, and visible as the Chian wines in the purest Crystall.

For besides that God takes care of Kings and of the lives of men,

[...] C

Homer.

[...],

driving away evill from their persons, and watching as a Mother to keep gnats and flies from her dear boy sleeping in the cradle, there are in the machinations of a mighty mischief, so many motions to be concentred, so many wheels to move regularly, and the hand that turns them does so tremble, and there is so universall a confusion in the conduct, that unlesse it passes suddenly into act, it will be prevented by discovery, and if it be acted it D enters into such a mighty horror, that the face of a man will tell what his heart did think, and his hands have done. And after all, it was seen and observed by him that stood behinde the cloud, who shall also bring every work of darknesse into light in the day of strange discoveries and fearfull recompences: and in the mean time certain it is, that no man can long put on a person and act a part, but his evill manners will peep through the corners of the white robe, and God will bring an hypocrite to shame even in the eyes of men.

2. A second superinduced consequent of sin brought upon it E by the wrath of God, is sin; when God punishes sin with sin he is extreamly angry; for then the punishment is not medicinal, but finall and exterminating; God in that case takes no care concerning him, though he dies and dies eternally. I do not here speak of those sins which are naturally consequent to each other, [Page] A as evill words to evill thoughts, evill actions to evill words, rage to drunkennesse, lust to gluttony, pride to ambition; but such which God suffers the mans evill nature to be tempted to by evill opportunities: [...], This is the wrath of God, and the man is without remedy. It was a sad calamity, when God punished Davids adultery by permitting him to fall to murder, and Solomons wanton and inordinate love, with the crime of idolatry, and Ananias his sacriledge with lying against the holy Ghost, and Judas his covetousnesse with betraying his Lord, and that betraying with despair, and that despair with self-murder.

B [...]

[...],

One evill invites another, and when God is angry and withdrawes his grace, and the holy Spirit is grieved and departs from his dwelling, the man is left at the mercy of the mercilesse enemy, and he shall receive him only with variety of mischiefs; like Hercules when he had broken the horn of Achelous, he was almost drown'd with the floud that sprung from it; and the evill C man when he hath pass'd the first scene of his sorrowes, shall be intic'd or left to fall into another. For it is a certain truth, that he who resists, or that neglects to use Gods grace, shall fall into that evill condition, that when he wants it most, he shall have least. It is so with every man; he that hath the greatest want of the grace of God shall want it more; if this great want proceeded once from his own sin. Habenti dabitur, said our blessed Lord, to him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly; from him that hath not shall be taken, even that which he hath. It is a remarkable saying of David; I have thought upon thy name O Lord Ps. 119. 55, 56. D in the night season, and have kept thy Law; this I had because I kept thy Commandements: keeping Gods Commandements, was rewarded with keeping Gods Commandements; And in this world God hath not a greater reward to give; for so the soul is nourished unto life, so it growes up with the increase of God, so it passes onto a perfect man in Christ, so it is consigned for heaven, and so it enters into glory; for glory is the perfection of grace, and when our love to God is come to its state and perfection, then we are within the circles of a Diadem, and then we are within the regions of felicity. And there is the same reason in the contrary E instance.

The wicked person fals into sin, and this he had because he sinn'd against his maker. Tradidit Deus eos in desideria cordis eorum: and it concerns all to observe it; and if ever we finde that a sin succeeds a sin in the same instance, it is because we refuse to repent; but if a sin succeeds a sin in another instance, as if lust followes [Page] pride, or murder drunkennesse; it is a sign that God will not give A us the grace of repentance: he is angry at us with a destructive fury, he hath dipt his arrowes in the venome of the serpent, and whets his-sword in the forges of hell; then it is time that a man withdraw his foot, and that he start back from the preparations of an intolerable ruine: For though men in this case grow insensible, and that's part of the disease, [...], saith Chrysostome, it is the biggest part of the evill that the man feels it not, yet the very antiperistasis or the contrariety, the very horror and bignesse of the danger may possibly make a man to contend to leap out of the fire; and sometimes God works a miracle, B and besides his own rule delights to reform a dissolute person, to force a man from the grave, to draw him against the bent of his evill habits; yet it is so seldome that we are left to consider, that such persons are in a desperate condition, who cannot be saved unlesse God is pleased to work a miracle.

3. Sinne brings in its retinue, fearfull plagues and evill angels, messengers of the displeasure of God, concerning which, [...], there are enough of dead; I mean the experience is so great, and the notion so common, and the examples so frequent, and the instances so sad, that there is scarce any thing new in C this particular to be noted; but something is remarkable, and that is this, that God even when he forgives the sin, does reserve such [...], such remains of punishment, and those not only to the lesse perfect, but to the best persons, that it makes demonstration, that every sinner is in a worse condition then he dreams of. For consider; can it be imagined that any one of us should escape better then David did? we have reason to tremble when we remember what he suffered, even when God had seal'd his pardon. Did not God punish Zedekiah with suffering his eyes to be put out in the house of bondage? was not God so angry with Valentinian, D that he gave him into his enemies hand to be flay'd alive? Have not many persons been struck suddenly in the very act of sin, and some been seised upon by the Devill and carryed away alive? These are fearfull contingencies: but God hath been more angry yet; rebellion was punished in Corah and his company, by the gaping of the earth, and the men were buryed alive; and Dathan and Abiram were consumed with fire for usurping the Priests office: But God hath struck severely since that time; and for the prostitution of a Lady by the Spanish King, the Moors were brought in upon his Kingdome, and rul'd there for 700. years. And have none of us known E an excellent and good man to have descended, or rather to have been thrust into a sin, for which he hath repented, which he hath confessed, which he hath rescinded, and which he hath made amends for as he could, and yet God was so severely angry that this man was suffered to fall in so big a calamity, that [Page] A he dyed by the hands of violence, in a manner so seemingly impossible to his condition, that it looked like the biggest sorrow that hath happened to the sons of men? But then let us consider how many and how great crimes we have done; and tremble to think that God hath exacted so fearfull pains, and mighty punishments for one such sin which we, it may be, have committed frequently. Our sin deserves as bad as theirs; and God is impartial, and we have no priviledge, no promise of exemption, no reason to hope it; what then do we think shall become of this affair? where must we suffer this vengeance? For that it is B due, that it is just we suffer it, these sad examples are a perfect demonstration. We have done that for which God thought flaying alive not to be too big a punishment: that for which God hath smitten Kings with formidable plagues; that for which governments have been changed, and nations enslaved, and Churches destroyed, and the Candlestick removed, and famines and pestilences have been sent upon a whole Kingdome; and what shall become of us? why do we vainly hope it shall not be so with us? If it was just for these men to suffer what they did, then we are at least to expect so much; and then let us consider into what C a fearfull condition sin hath put us, upon whom a sentence is read, that we shall be plagued like Zedekiah, or Corah, or Dathan, or the King of Spain, or any other King who, were, for ought we know, infinitely more innocent and more excellent persons then any of us. What will become of us? For God is as just to us as to them: and Christ dyed for them as well as for us; and they have repented more then we have done; and what mercy can we expect that they might not hope for, upon at least as good ground as we? Gods wayes are secret, and his mercies and justice dwell in a great abysse; but we are to measure our expectations D by revelation and experience. But then what would become of us, if God should be as angry at our sin as at Zedekiahs, or King Davids? where have we in our body room enough for so many stripes, as our sin ought justly to be punished withall? or what security or probability have we that he will not so punish us?

For I did not represent this sad story, as a matter of possibility only, that we may fear such fearfull strokes as we see God lay upon sinners; but we ought to look upon it as a thing that will come some way or other, and for ought we know we cannot E escape it. So much, and more is due for the sin, and though Christ hath redeemed our souls, and if we repent we shall not die eternally, yet he hath no where promised we shall not be smitten. It was an odde saying of the Devill to a sinner whom he would fain have had to despair; Me è Coelo ad Barathrum demisit peccatum, & vos ullum in terra locum tutum existimabitis? Sin [Page] thrust me from heaven to hell, and do you think on earth to have A security? Men use to presume that they shall go unpunished; but we see what little reason we have so to flatter and undoe our selves, [...], He that hath sinn'd must look for a Judgement, and how great that is, we are to take our measures by those sad instances of vengeance by which God hath chastised the best of men, when they have committed but a single sin; [...], sin is damnable and destructive: and therefore as the asse refused the barley which the fatted swine left, perceiving by it he was fatted for the slaughter;

Tuum libenter prorsus appeterem cibum, B

Phaedrus.

Nisi qui nutritus illo est, jugulatus foret;

we may learn to avoid these vain pleasures which cut the throat after they are swallowed, and leave us in that condition that we may every day fear, lest that evill happen unto us, which we see fall upon the great examples of Gods anger; and our fears cannot, ought not at all to be taken off, but by an effective, busie, pungent, hasty, and a permanent repentance; and then also but in some proportions, for we cannot be secured from temporall C plagues, if we have sinn'd; no repentance can secure us from all that; nay Gods pardon, or remitting his finall anger, and forgiving the pains of hell, does not secure us here: [...]; but sin lies at the door ready to enter in, and rifle all our fortunes.

1. But this hath two appendages which are very considerable; and the first is, that there are some mischiefs which are the proper and appointed scourges of certain sins, and a man need not aske; Cujus vulturïs hoc erit cadaver? what vultur, what death, what affliction shall destroy this sinner? The sin hath a punishment D of its own which usually attends it, as giddinesse does a drunkard. He that commits sacriledge, is marked for a vertiginousnesse and changeable fortune; Make them, O my God, like unto Psal. 83. a wheel, of an unconstant state: and we and our fathers have seen it, in the change of so many families, which have been undone by being made rich: they took the lands from the Church, and the curse went along with it, and the misery and the affliction lasted longer then the sin. Telling lies frequently hath for its punishment to be given over to believe a lye, and at last, that no body shall beleeve it but himself; and then the mischief is full, he E becomes a dishonoured and a baffled person. The consequent of lust is properly shame; and witchcraft is still punished with basenesse, and beggery; and oppression of widowes hath a sting, for the tears of the oppressed are to the oppressour, like the waters of jealousie, making the belly to swell, and the thigh to rot; the oppressor seldome [Page] A dies in a tolerable condition: but is remark'd towards his end with some horrible affliction. The sting of oppression is darted as a man goes to his grave. In these and the like, God keeps a rule of striking, In quo quis peccat, in eo punitur. The Divine Judgement did point at the sin, lest that be concealed by excuses, and protected by affection, and increased by passion, and destroy the man by its abode. For some sins are so agreeable to the spirit of a fool and an abused person, because he hath fram'd his affections to them, and they comply with his unworthy interest, that when God out of an angry kindnesse, smites the man, and punishes B the sin, the man does fearfully defend his beloved sin, as the serpent does his head which he would most tenderly preserve. But therefore God that knowes all our tricks and devices, our stratagems to be undone, hath therefore apportioned out his punishments, by analogies, by proportions, and entaile: so that when every sin enters into its proper portion, we may discern why God is angry, and labour to appease him speedily.

2. The second appendage to this consideration is this, that there are some states of sin which expose a man to all mischief, as it can happen by taking off from him all his guards, and defences; by C driving the good Spirit from him, by stripping him of the guards of Angels. But this is the effect of an habituall sin, a course of an evill life, and it is called in Scripture, a grieving the good Spirit of God. But the guard of Angels is in Scripture only promised to them that live godly; The Angels of the Lord pitch their Psal. 33. tents round about them that fear him, and delivereth them, said David.

[...]

[...].

D And the Hellenists use to call the Angels [...] watchmen; which custody is at first designed and appointed for all, when by baptisme they give up their names to Christ, and enter into the covenant of Religion. And of this the Heathen have been taught something by conversation with the Hebrewes and Christians; unicui (que) nostrum dare paedagogum Deum, said Seneca to Lucilius, non primarium, sed ex eorum numero, quos Ovidius vocat ex plebe deos. There is a guardian God assigned to every one of us, of the number of those which are of the second order; such are those of whom E David speaks, before the Gods will I sing praise unto thee; and it was the doctrine of the Stoicks, that to every one there was assigned a Genius and a Juno: Quamobrem major coelitum populus etiam quam hominum intelligi potest, quum singuli ex semetipsis totidem Deos faciant, Junones genios (que) adoptando sibi, said Pliny. Every one does adopt Gods into his family and get a Gunius and a Juno of [Page] their own, Junonem meam iratam habeam; it was the oath of Quartilla A in Petronius; and Socrates in Plato is said to swear by his Juno; though afterwards among the Romans it became the womans oath, and a note of effeminacy; But the thing they aim'd at was this, that God took a care of us below, and sent a ministring spirit for our defence; but that this is only upon the accounts of piety, they know not. But we are taught it by the Spirit of God in Scripture. For, the Angels are ministring spirits, sent forth to minister to the good of them who shal be heirs of salvation; and concerning St. Peter, the faithfull had an opinion, that it might be his Angell; agreeing to the Doctrine of our blessed Lord, who spake of Angels appropriate B to his little ones, to infants, to those that belong to him. Now what God said to the sons of Israel is also true to us Christians; Behold I send an Angell before thee, beware of him and obey his Exod. 23. 20. voice, provoke him not, for he will not pardon your trangressions. So that if we provoke the Spirit of the Lord to anger by a course of evill living, either the Angell will depart from us, or if he staies, he will strike us. The best of these is bad enough, and he is highly miserable,

—Qui non sit tanto hoc custode securus,

C whom an Angell cannot defend from mischief, nor any thing secure him from the wrath of God. It was the description and character which the Erythrean Sibyl gave of God,

[...],

[...],

[...].

It is Gods appellative to be a giver of excellent rewards to just and innocent persons: but to assign to evill men fury, wrath, and D sorrow for their portion. If I should lanch further into this Dead sea, I should finde nothing but horrid shriekings, and the skuls of dead men utterly undone. Fearfull it is to consider, that sin does not only drive us into calamity, but it makes us also impatient, and imbitters our spirit in the sufferance: * It cryes loud for vengeance, and so torments men before the time, even with such fearfull outcries, and horrid alarms, that their hell begins before the fire is kindled. * It hinders our prayers, and consequently makes us hopelesse and helplesse. * It perpetually affrights the conscience, unlesse by its frequent stripes it brings a callousnesse and an insensible damnation E upon it. * It makes us to lose all that which Christ purchased for us, all the blessings of his providence, the comforts of his spirit, the aids of his grace, the light of his countenance, the hopes of his glory; it makes us enemies to God, and to be hated by him more then he hates a dog; and with a dog shall be his portion [Page] A to eternall ages; with this only difference, that they shall both be equally excluded from heaven; but the dog shall not, and the sinner shall descend into hell; and which is the confirmation of all evill; for a transient sin God shall inflict an eternall Death. Well might it be said in the words of God by the Prophet, ponam Babylonem in possessionem Erinacei, Babylon shall be the possession of an Hedgehog: that's a sinners dwelling; incompassed round with thornes and sharp prickles, afflictions and uneasinesse all over. So that he that wishes his sin big and prosperous, wishes his Bee as big as a Bull, and his Hedgehog like an Elephant; the pleasure B of the honey would not cure the mighty sting; and nothing make recompense, or be a good, equall to the evill of an eternall ruine. But of this there is no end. I summe up all with the saying of Publius Mimus, Tolerabilior est qui mori jubet quàm qui malè vivere, He is more to be endured that puts a man to death, then he that betrayes him into sin. For the end of this is death eternall.

Sermon, XXII. THE GOOD and EVILL TONGUE.

[Page]

C Ephes. 4. 29.‘Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.’

HE that had an ill memory did wisely comfort himselfe by reckoning the advantages he had by his forgetfulnesse. For by this means he was hugely secured against malice, and ambition; for D his anger went off with the short notice and observation of the injury; and he saw himself unfit for the businesses of other men, or to make records in his head, & undertake to conduct the intrigues of affairs of a multitude, who was apt to forget the little accounts of his own seldom reading. He also remembred this, that his pleasures in reading books were more frequent, while he remembred but little of yesterdays study, and to morrow the book is newes, and with its novelties gives him fresh entertainment, while the retaining brain layes the book aside, and is full already. Every book is new to E an ill memory, and one long book is a Library, and its parts return fresh as the morning, which becomes a new day, though by the revolution of the same sun. Besides these, it brought him to tell truth for fear of shame, and in meer necessity made his speech little and his discourses short; because the web drawn from his brain was [Page] A soon spun out, and his fountain grew quickly dry, and left running throug [...] forgetfulnesse. * He that is not eloquent and faire spoken, hath some of these comforts to plead in excuse of his ill fortune, or defective nature. For if he can but hold his peace, he shall be sure not to be troublesome to his company, not mark'd for lying, or become tedious with multiplicity of idle talk. He shall be presumed wise, and oftentimes is so; he shall not feel the wounds of contention, nor be put to excuse an ill taken saying, nor sigh for the folly of an irrecoverable word; If his fault be that he hath not spoken, that can at any time be mended, but if he sinn'd in speaking, it cannot be unspoken B again. Thus he escapes the dishonor of not being believed, and the trouble of being suspected; he shall never fear the Sentence of Judges, nor the Decrees of Courts, high reproaches, or the angry words of the proud, the contradiction of the disputing man, or the thirst of talkers. By these and many other advantages, he that holds his peace, and he that cannot speak, may please themselves; and he may at least have the rewards and effects of solitarinesse, if he misses some of the pleasures of society. But by the use of the tongue, God hath distinguished us from beasts, and by the well or ill using it we are distinguished from one another; and therefore though silence C be innocent as death, harmlesse as a roses breath to a distant passenger, yet it is rather the state of death then life; and therefore when the Egyptians sacrificed to Harpocrates their god of Silence, in the midst of their rites they cryed out [...], The Tongue is an Angel, good or bad, that's as it happens; Silence was to them a god, but the Tongue is greater; it is the band of humane entercourse, and makes men apt to unite in Societies and Republicks; and I remember what one of the Ancients said, that we are better in the company of a known dog, then of a man whose speech is not known, ut externus alieno non sit hominis vice; a stranger to a stranger in his language, D is not as a man to a man; for by voices and homilies, by questions and answers, by narratives and invectives, by counsell and reproofe, by praises and hymnes, by prayers and glorifications, we serve Gods glory, and the necessities of men; and by the tongue our Tables are made to differ from Mangers, our Cities from Deserts, our Churches from Herds of beasts and flocks of sheep. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, spoken by the tongues of men and Angels; and the blessed Spirits in heaven cease not from saying night and day their [...], their song of glory to him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lambe for ever and ever; and then E our imployment shall be glorious as our state, when our tongues shal to eternall ages sing Allelujahs to their Maker and Redeemer; and therefore since Nature hath taught us to speak, and God requires it, and our thankfulnesse obliges us, and our necessities engage us, and charity sometimes calls for it, and innocence is to be defended, and we are to speak in the cause of the oppressed, and open our mouths in [Page] the cause of God: and it is alwayes a seasonable prayer, that God A would open our lips, that our mouth may doe the work of heaven, and declare his praises, and shew forth his glory; it concerns us to take care that nature be changed into grace, necessity into choice, that while we speak the greatnesse of God, and minister to the needs of our neighbor, and doe the works of life and religion, of society and prudence, we may be fitted to bear a part in the songs of Angels, when they shall rejoyce at the feast of the marriage supper of the Lambe. But the tongue is a fountain both of bitter waters and of pleasant; it sends forth blessing, and cursing; it praises God, and railes at men; it is sometimes set on fire, and then it puts whole Cities B in combustion; it is unruly, and no more to be restrained then the breath of a tempest; it is volatile and fugitive: reason should go before it, and when it does not, repentance comes after; it was intended for an organ of the divine praises, but the Devill often playes upon it, and then it sounds like the Scriech-owle, or the groans of death; sorrow and shame, folly and repentance are the notes, and formidable accents of that discord. We are all naturally [...], lovers of speech, more or lesse; and God reproves it not, provided that we be also [...], wise and materiall, usefull and prudent in our discourses. For since speech is for conversation, let it C be also charitable and profitable; let it be without sin, but not without profit and grace to the hearers, and then it is as God would have it; and this is the precept of the text, first telling us what we should avoyd, and then telling us what we should pursue; what our discourse ought not to be, and 2ly. what it ought to be; there being no more variety in the structure of the words, I shall 1. discourse of the vices of the tongue; 2. of its duty and proper employment.

1. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth; [...], corrupt or filthy communication; so we read it; and it seems properly to note such communication as ministers to D wantonnesse; such as are the Fescennines of Ausonius, the excrement and spume of Martial's verse, and the Ephesiaca of Xenophon; indeed this is such a rudenesse as is not to be admitted into civill conversation; and is wittily noted by the Apostle, charging that fornication should not be once named among them as becometh Saints; not meaning that the vice should not have its name and filthy character, but that nothing of it be named, in which it can be tempting or offensive; nothing tending to it, or teaching of it, should be named: we must not have [...], fornication in our talk; that's such a basenesse, that it not onely grieves the Divine Spirit, but E dishonors all its channels and conveyances: the proper language of the sin is not fit to be used so much as in reproofe; and therefore I have sometimes wondred how it came to passe, that some of the Ancients, men wise and modest, chaste and of sober spirits, have faln into a fond liberty of declamation against uncleannesse, using such [Page] A words which bring that sin upon the stage of fancy, and offend auriculas non calentes, sober and chaste eares. For who can without blushing read Seneca describing the Looking glasse of Hostius, or the severe but looser words of Persius, or the reproofes of St. Hierom himselfe, that great Patron of virginity, and exacter of chastity? yet more then once he reproves filthy things with unhandsome language: St. Chrysostome makes an Apology for them that doe so; [...], Homil. 4. in ep. Rom. you cannot profit the hearers unlesse you discover the filthinesse, for the withdrawing B the curtain is shame and confutation enough for so great a basenesse; and Chirurgeons care not how they defile their hands, so they may doe profit to the patient. And indeed there is a materiall difference in the designe of him that speaks; if he speaks [...], according to his secret affection and private folly, it is certainly intolerable; but yet if he speaks [...], out of a desire to profit the hearer, and cure the criminall, though it be in the whole kinde of it honest and well meant; yet that it is imprudent,

Irritamentum Veneris languentis & acris

C Divitis urticae—

and not wholly to be excused by the faire meaning, will soon be granted by all who know what danger and infection it leaves upon the fancy, even by those words by which the spirit is instructed. Ab hâc scabie tenemus ungues, it is not good to come near the leprosie, though to cleanse the Lepers skin.

But the word which the Apostle uses [ [...]] means more then this. [...], said Eupolis, and so it signifies musty, rotten, and outworn with age; [...], D rusty peace, so Aristephanes: and according to this acception of the word, we are forbidden to use all language that is in any sense corrupted, unreasonable, or uselesse; language proceeding from our old iniquity, evill habits, or unworthy customes, called in the style of Scripture the remains of the old man, and by the Grecks, doting or talking fondly; [...]; the boy talkes like an old dotard. 2. [...] signifies wicked, filthy, or reproachfull, [...], any thing that is in its own nature criminall and disgracefull, any language that ministers to mischief. But it is worse then all this: [...], it is a deletery, an extinction E of all good, for [...], it is a destruction, an intire corruption of all Morality; and to this sense is that of Menander quoted by St. Paul, [...], Evill words corrupt good manners. And therefore under this word is comprised all the evill of the tongue, that wicked instrument of the unclean Spirit, in the capacity of all the appellatives. 1. Here [Page] is forbidden the uselesse, vain, and trifling conversation, the [...], A the god of Flies, so is the Devils name, he rules by these little things, by trifles and vanity, by idle and uselesse words, by the entercourses of a vain conversation. 2. The Devill is [...], an Accuser of the Brethren, and the calumniating, slandering, undervaluing, detracting tongue does his work, that's [...], the second that I named, for [...] is [...], so Hesychius; it is slander, hatred, and calumny. 3. But the third is [...], the Devils worst appellative, the Destroyer, the dissolute, wanton, tempting, destroying conversation; and its worst instance of all is flattery, that malicious cousening devill, that strengthens our friend in sin, and ruines him from whom B we have received, and from whom we expect good. Of these in order, and first of the trifling, vain, uselesse, and impertinent conversation, [...], let no vain communication proceed out of your mouth.

1. The first part of this inordination is multiloquium, talking too much: concerning which, because there is no rule or just measure for the quantity, and it is as lawfull, and sometimes as prudent to tell a long story as a short, and two as well as one, and sometimes ten as well as two; all such discourses are to take their estimate by the matter, and the end, and can onely be altered by their circumstances C and appendages. Much speaking is sometimes necessary, sometimes usefull, sometimes pleasant; and when it is none of all this, though it be tedious and imprudent, yet it is not alwayes criminall. Such was the humour of the Gentleman Martial speaks of, he was a good man, and full of sweetnesse and justice and noblenesse, but he would read his nonsense verses to all companies at the publick games and in private feasts, in the baths, and on the beds, in publick and in private, to sleeping and waking people.

Vis quantum mali facias videre? D

Lib. 3. ep. 44

Vir justus, probus, innocens timeris.

Every one was afraid of him, and though he was good, yet he was not to be endured: The evill of this is very considerable in the accounts of prudence, and the effects and plaisance of conversation: and the Ancients described its evill well by a proverbiall expression; for when a sudden silence arose, they said that Mercury was entred, meaning, that he being their loquax numen, their prating god, yet that quitted him not, but all men stood upon their guard, and called for aid and rescue, when they were seised upon so tedious an impertinence. E And indeed there are some persons so full of nothings, that like the strait sea of Pontus they perpetually empty themselves by their mouth, making every company or single person they fasten on, to be their Propontis; such a one as was Anaximenes, [...], He was an Ocean of words, but a drop of understanding. [Page] A And if there were no more in this then the matter of prudence, and the proper measures of civill conversation, it would yet highly concern old men, and young men and women to separate from their persons the reproach of their sex and age, that modesty of speech be the Supellex ejus [...]. Comoed. Mul [...]bre ingen [...]um p [...]cluvium. Acci [...]s in Androme. à. Sola laboranti potuit [...] Lunae. ornament of the youthfull, and a reserved discourse be the testimony of the old mans prudence. Adolescens from [...], said one: a young man is a talker for want of wit, and an old man for want of memory; for while he remembers the things of his youth, and not how often he hath told them in his old age, he grows in love with the trifles of his youthfull dayes, and thinks the company must doe so too; B but he canonizes his folly, and by striving to bring reputation to his first dayes, he loses the honor of his last. But this thing is considerable to further issues; for though no man can say, that much speaking is a sin, yet the Scripture sayes, In multiloquio peccatum non deerit, Sin goes along with it, and is an ingredient in the whole composition. For it is impossible but a long and frequent discourse must be served with many passions, and they are not alwayes innocent; for he that loves to talke much, must rem corradere, scrape materials together to furnish out the scenes and long orations; and some talke themselves into anger, and some furnish out their C dialogues with the lives of others; either they detract, or censure; or they flatter themselves, and tell their owne stories with friendly circumstances, and pride creeps up the sides of the discourse; and the man entertains his friend with his owne Panegyrick; or the discourse lookes one way and rowes another, and more mindes the designe then its own truth; and most commonly will be so ordered that it shall please the company, (and that, truth or honest plainnesse seldome does) or there is a byasse in it, which the more of weight and transportation it hath, the lesse it hath of ingenuity. Non credo Auguribus qui aureis rebus divinant, like Sooth-sayers, men speak D fine words to serve ends, and then they are not beleeved, or at last are found lyars, and such discourses are built up to serve the ministeries or pleasures of the company, but nothing else. Pride and flattery, malice and spite, self-love and vanity, these usually wait upon much speaking; and the reward of it is, that the persons grow contemptible and troublesome, they engage in quarrels, and are troubled to answer exceptions, some will mistake them, and some will not beleeve them, and it will be impossible that the minde should be perpetually present to a perpetuall talker, but they will forget truth and themselves, and their own relations. And upon this account it is, that the Doctors of E the Primitive Church doe literally expound those minatory words of our blessed Saviour; Verily I say unto you, of every idle word that Matt. 12. 36. men shall speak, they shall give account at the day of Judgement. And by idle words, they understand, such as are not usefull to edification and instruction. So St. Basil, So great is the danger of an idle In Reg. brevior. word, that though a word be in its owne kinde good, yet unlesse it be [Page] directed to the edification of faith, he is not free from danger that A speaks it: To this purpose are the words of St. Gregory; while Lib. 7. Moral. the tongue is not restrained from idle words, ad temeritatem stultae increpationis efferatur, it is made wilde, or may be brought forth to rashnesse and folly: And therein lies the secret of the reproofe: A periculo liber non est, & ad temeritatem efferatur, the man is not free from danger, and he may grow rash, and foolish, and run into crimes, whilest he gives his Tongue the reins, and lets it wander, and so it may be fit to be reproved, though in its nature it were innocent. I deny not but sometimes they are more severe. St. Gregory calls every c. 17. ubi sup. word vain or idle, quod aut ratione justae necessitatis, aut intentione B piae utilitatis caret: and St. Hierom calls it vain, quod sine utilitatis in cap. 12 Matt. & loquentis dicitur & audientis, which profits neither the speaker nor the hearer. The same is affirmed by St. Chrysostom in Ps. 118., and Gregory Nyssen cap. 1. upon Ecclesiastes, and the same seems intimated in the word [...] or [...], as it is in some copies, every word that is idle or empty of businesse. But for the stating the case of Conscience, I have these things to say.

1. That the words of our blessed Saviour being spoken to the Jews, were so certainly intended as they best and most commonly understood, and by [vain] they understood false or lying, not uselesse C or imprudent; and yet so though our blessed Saviour hath not so severely forbidden every empty, unsignificant discourse, yet he hath forbidden every lie, though it be in genere bonorum, as St. Basil's expression is; that is, though it be in the intention charitable, or in the matter innocent.

2. Of every idle word we shal give account, but yet so, that sometimes the [...], the judgment shall fall upon the words, not upon the persons; they be hay and stubble, uselesse and impertinent, light and easie, the fire shall consume them, and himselfe shall escape with that losse; he shall then have no honor, no fair return for such discourses, D but they shall with losse and prejudice be rejected and cast away.

3. If all unprofitable discourses be reckoned for idle words and put upon the account, yet even the capacities of profit are so large and numerous, that no man hath cause to complain that his tongue is too much restrained by this severity. For in all the wayes in which he can doe himselfe good, or his neighbour, he hath his liberty; he is onely to secure the words from being directly criminal, and himselfe from being arrested with a passion, and then he may reckon it lawfull even upon the severest account to discourse freely, while he can instruct, or while he can please his neighbour; E

Aut prodesse solent, aut delectare—

while himselfe gets a fair opinion and a good name, apt to serve honest and fair purposes; he may discourse himselfe into a friendship, [Page] A or help to preserve it; he may serve the works of art or nature, of businesse publick or private, the needs of his house, or the uses of mankinde, he may increase learning, or confirm his notices, cast in his symbol of experience and observation, till the particulars may become a proverbiall sentence and a rule; he may serve the ends of civility and popular addresses, or may instruct his brother or himselfe, by something which at that time shall not be reduc'd to a precept by way of meditation, but is of it selfe apt at another time to doe it; he may speak the praises of the Lord by discoursing of any of the works of creation, and himselfe or his brother B may afterwards remember it to that purpose; he may counsell or teach, reprove or admonish, call to minde a precept, or disgrace a vice, reprove it by a parable or a story, by way of Idea or witty representment; and he that can finde talke beyond all this, discourse that cannot become usefull in any one of these purposes, may well be called a prating man, and expect to give account of his folly in the dayes of recompense.

4. Although in this latitude a mans discourses may be free and safe from judgement, yet the man is not, unlesse himself designe it to good and wise purposes, not alwayes actually, but by an habituall C and generall purpose. Concerning which he may by these measures best take his accounts.

1. That he be sure to speak nothing that may minister to a vice, willingly and by observation.

2. If any thing be of a suspicious and dubious nature, that he decline to publish it.

3. That by a prudent morall care he watch over his words, that he doe none of this injury and unworthinesse.

4. That he offer up to God in his prayers all his words, and then look to it, that he speak nothing unworthy to be offered.

D 5. That he often interweave discourses of Religion, and glorifications of God, instructions to his brother, and ejaculations of his owne, something or other not onely to sanctifie the order of his discourses, but to call him back into retirement and sober thoughts, lest he wander and be carried off too far into the wilde regions of impertinence; and this Zeno calls [...], to dip our tongues in understanding. In all other cases the rule is good, [...], either keep silence, or speak Eurip. something that is better then it; [...], so Isocrates constantly enough to this Evangelicall precept; a seasonable E silence, or a profitable discourse, choose you whether; for whatsoever cometh of more is sin, or else is folly at hand, and will be sin at distance. Lastly,

5. This account is not to be taken by little traverses and intercourses of speech, but by greater measures, and more discernible portions, such as are commensurate to valuable portions of [Page] time; for however we are pleased to throw away our time, and A are weary of many parts of it, yet are impatiently troubled when all is gone, yet we are as sure to account for every considerable portion of our time, as for every summe of money we receive; and in this it was, that St. Bernard gave caution, Nemo parvi aestimet tempus quod in verbis consumitur otiosis, Let no man think Serm. de triplici custodiâ. it a light matter that he spend his pretious time in idle words; let no man be so weary of what flies away too fast, and cannot be recalled, as to use arts and devices to passe the time away in vanity, which might be rarely spent in the interests of eternity. Time is given us to repent in, to appease the divine anger, to prepare B for and hasten to the society of Angels, to stir up our slackned wills, and enkindle our cold devotions, to weep for our daily iniquities, and to sigh after, and work for the restitution of our lost inheritance; and the reward is very inconsiderable that exchanges all this for the pleasure of a voluble tongue: and indeed this is an evill that cannot be avoyded by any excuse that can be made for words that are in any sense idle, though in all senses of their owne nature and proper relations they be innocent. They are a throwing away something of that which is to be expended for eternity, and put on degrees of folly, according as they are tedious C and expensive of time to no good purposes. *I shall not after all this need to reckon more of the evill consequent to the vain and great talker; but if these already reckoned were not a heap big enough, I could easily adde this great evill; that the talking man makes himselfe artificially deafe, being like a man in the steeple when the bells ring, you talke to a deafe man, though you speake wisely;

[...]

[...]. D

Eurip.

Good counsell is lost upon him, and he hath serv'd all his ends when he pours out whatsoever he took in; for he therefore loaded his vessell that he might pour it forth into the sea.

These and many more evils, and the perpetuall unavoydable necessity of sinning by much talking, hath given great advantages to silence, and made it to be esteemed an act of Discipline and great Religion. St. Romualdus upon the Syrian mountaine severely kept a seaven years silence: and Thomas Cantipratensis tels of a religious person in a Monastery in Brabant, that spake E not one word in 16 years. But they are greater examples which Palladius tels of, Ammona who liv'd with 3000 Brethren in so great silence, as if he were an Anachoret; but Theona was silent for 30 years together, and Johannes surnamed Silentiarius was silent for 47 years. But this morosity and sullennesse is so far [Page] A from being imitable and laudable, that if there were no direct prevarication of any commands expressed or intimated in Scripture, yet it must certainly either draw with it, or be it self an infinite omission of duty, especially in the externall glorifications of God, in the institution or advantages of others, in thanksgiving and publick offices, and in all the effects and emanations of spirituall mercy. This was to make amends for committing many sins by omitting many duties, and in stead of digging out the offending eye, to pluck out both, that they might neither see the scandall nor the duty; for fear of seeing what they should not, to shut their B eyes against all light. It was more prudent which was reported of St. Gregory Nazianzen, who made Silence an act of Discipline, and kept it a whole Lent in his religious retirements, cujus facti mei si causam quaeris (said he in his account he gives of it) idcircò à sermone prorsus abstinui, ut sermonibus meis moderari discam; I then abstained wholly, that all the yeer after I might be more temperate in my talke. This was in him an act of caution, but how apt it was to minister to his purpose of a moderated speech for the future, is not certaine; nor the philosophy of it, and naturall efficacy easie to be apprehended. It was also practised by C way of penance, with indignation against the follies of the Tongue, and the itch of prating, so to chastise that petulant member, as if there were a great pleasure in prating, which when it grew inordinate, it was to be restrained and punished like other lusts. I remember it was reported of St. Paul the Hermit, Scholar of St. Anthony, that having once asked whether Christ or the old Prophets were first, he grew so ashamed of his foolish Question, that he spake not a word for 3 years following: And Sulpitius, as St. Hierom reports of him, being deceived by the Pelagians, spoke some fond things, and repenting of it, held his tongue till his dying D day, ut peccatum quod loquendo contraxerat tacendo penitùs emendaret. Though the pious minde is in such actions highly to be regarded, yet I am no way perswaded of the prudence of such a deadnesse and Libitinarian Religion;

Murmuracum secum & rabiosa silentia rodunt,

so such importune silence was called, and understood to be a degree of stupidity and madnesse; for so Physicians among the signes of that disease in dogs, place their not barking; and yet, although E the excesse and unreasonablenesse of this may be well chastised by such a severe reproofe, yet it is certaine, in silence there is wisdome, and there may be deep religion. So Aretaeus describing the life of a studious man, among others, he inserts this, they are [...], without colour, pale and wise, when they are young, and by reason of their [Page] knowledge, silent as Mutes, and dumb as the Seriphian frogs. A And indeed it is certaine, great knowledge, if it be without vanity, is the most severe bridle of the Tongue. For so have I heard that all the noyses and prating of the poole, the croaking of frogs and toads is hushed and appeased upon the instant of bringing upon them the light of a candle or torch. Every beam of reason and ray of knowledge checks the dissolutions of the Tongue. But, ut quis (que) contemptissimus & maximè ludibrio est, it a solutissimae linguae est, said Seneca, Every man as he is a fool and contemptible, so his tongue is hanged loose, being like a bell, in which there is nothing but tongue and noise. B

Silence therefore is the cover of folly, or the effect of wisdome; but it is also religious, and the greatest mystick rites of any institution are ever the most solemn and the most silent; the words in use are almost made Synonymous; There was silence made in heaven for a while, said St. John, who noted it upon occasion of a great solemnity, and mysterious worshippings or revelations to be made there. [...], one of the gods is within, said Telemachus, upon occasion of which his Father reproved his talking.

[...]

[...]. C

Be thou also silent and say little, let thy soule be in thy hand, and under command, for this is the rite of the gods above. And I remember that when Aristophanes describes the Religion in the Temple of Esculapius, [...], The Plu [...]us. Priest commanded great silence when the mysteriousnesse was nigh; and so among the Romanes,

Ite igitur pueri, linguis animis (que) faventes,

Sertaque delubris & farra imponite cultris. D

But now although silence is become religious, and is wise and reverend, and severe, and safe, and quiet, [...], as Hippocrates affirms of it, without thirst, and trouble, and anguish; yet it must be [...], it must be seasonable, and just, not commenced upon chance or humour, not sullen and ill-natur'd, not proud and full of fancy, not pertinacious and dead, not mad and uncharitable, nam sic etiam tacuisse nocet. He that is silent in a publick joy hath no portion in the festivity, or no thankfulnesse E to him that gave the cause of it. And though of all things in the world, a prating Religion, and much talke in holy things does most profane the mysteriousnesse of it, and dismantles its regards, and makes cheap its reverence, and takes off fear and awfulnesse, and makes it loose and garish like the laughters of [Page] A drunkennesse, yet even in Religion there are seasons to speak; and it was sometimes pain and grief to David to be silent; But yet, although tedious and dead silence hath not a just measure of praise and wisdome; yet the worst silence of a religious person is more tolerable and innocent, then the usuall pratings of the looser and foolish men. Pone Domine custodiam ori meo & ostium circumstantiae lab [...]is meis, said David, Put a guard O Lord unto my mouth, and a dore unto my lips; upon which St. Gregory said well, Non parietem, sed ostium petit, quod viz. aperitur & clauditur; he did not ask for a wall, but for a dore; a dore that might open B and shut: and it were well it were so indeed. Labia tua sicut vitta coccinea, so Christ commends his Spouse in the Canticles; Thy lips are like a scarlet hair-lace, that is tyed up with modesty from folly and dissolution. For however that few people offend in silence and keeping the dore shut too much, yet in opening it too hastily, and speaking too much and too foolishly, no man is without a load of guiltynesse, and some mouths like the gates of death

Noctes atque dies patent—

C are open night and day, and he who is so cannot be innocent: It is said of Cicero, he never spake a word which himself would fain have recalled, he spake nothing that repented him. St. Austin in his 7. Ep. to Marcellinus sayes, it was the saying of a fool and a sot, not of a wise man, and yet I have read the same thing to have been spoken by the famous Abbat Pambo in the Primitive Church; and if it could be well said of this man who was sparing and severe in talke, it is certain it could not be said of the other, who D was a talking bragging person.

A SERMON, XXIII. Part II.

[Page]

B THe consideration hitherto hath been of the immoderation and generall excesse in speaking without descending to particular cases: but because it is a principle and parent of much evill, it is with great caution to be cured, and the evill consequents will quickly disband. But when we draw neer to give counsell, we shall finde that upon a talking person scarce any medicine will stick.

1. Plutarch advises that such men should give themselves to writing, that making an issue in the arme, it should drain the flouds C of the head; supposing that if the humour were any way vented, the tongue might be brought to reason. But the experience of the world hath confuted this; and when Ligurinus had writ a Poem, he talked of it to all companies he came in; But however, it can be no hurt to try, for some have been cured of bleeding at the nose, by opening a vein in the arm.

2. Some advise, that such persons should keep company with their betters, with grave, and wise, and great persons, before whom men doe not usually bring forth all, but the better parts of their discourse, and this is apt to give assistance by the help of D modesty; and might doe well if men were not apt to learn to talk more in the society of the aged, and out of a desire to seem wise and knowing, be apt to speak before their opportunity.

3. Consideration of the dangers and consequent evills hath some efficacy in nature to restrain our looser talkings, by the help of fear and prudent apprehensions. Aelian tels of the geese flying over the mountain Taurus, [...], that for fear of Eagles nature hath taught them to carry stones in their mouths, till they be past their danger; care of our selves, desire of reputation, appetites of being believed, love of societies E and faire complyances, fear of quarrels and misinterpretation, of lawsuits and affronts, of scorne and contempt, of infinite sins, and consequently the intolerable wrath of God, these are the great endearments of prudent and temperate speech.

4. Some advise that such persons should change their speech [Page] A into businesse and action: and it were well if they chang'd it into any good thing, for then the evill were cured; but action and businesse is not the cure alone, unlesse we adde solitarinesse; for the experience of this last age hath made us to feel, that companies of working people have nurs'd up a strange Religion; the first, second, and third part of which is talking and folly, save onely that mischief, and pride, and fighting came in the retinue. But he that works and works alone, he hath imployment, and no opportunity. But this is but a cure of the symptome and temporary effect; but the disease may remain yet. Therefore,

B 5. Some advise that the businesse and imployment of the Tongue be changed into Religion, and if there be a pruritus or itch of talking, let it be in matters of Religion, in prayers and pious discourses, in glorifications of God, and the wise sayings of Scripture and Holy men; this indeed will secure the material part, and make that the discourses in their nature shall be innocent. But I fear this cure will either be improper, or unsufficient. For in prayers, multitude of words is sometime foolish, very often dangerous, and of all things in the world we must be carefull we bring not to God the sacrifice of fooles; and the talking C much of the things of Scripture hath ministred often to vanity, and divisions. But therefore whoever will use this remedy must never dwell long upon any one instance, but by variety of holy duties entertaine himselfe; for he may easily exceed his rule in any thing, but in speaking honorably of God, and in that let him enlarge himselfe as he can; he shall never come to equall, much lesse to exceed that which is infinite.

6. But some men will never be cured without a Canker or a Squinsie; and such persons are taught by all men what to doe, for if they would avoyd all company, as willingly as company D avoyds them, they might quickly have a silence great as midnight, and prudent as the Spartan brevity. But Gods grace is sufficient to all that will make use of it; and there is no way for the cure of this evill, but the direct obeying of a counsel, and submitting to the precept, and fearing the divine threatning; alwayes remembring, that of every word a man speaks, he shall give account at the day of Judgement: I pray God shew us all a mercy in that day, and forgive us the sins of the Tongue. Amen.

Citò lutum colligit amnis exundans, said St. Ambrose, Let your language be restrained within its proper channels and measures, E for if the river swels over the banks, it leaves nothing but dirt and filthinesse behinde; and besides the great evills and mischiefs of a wicked tongue, the vain tongue, and the trifling conversation hath some proper evils; 1. Stultiloquium, or speaking like a fool: 2. Scurrilitas, or immoderate and absurd jesting: 3. And revealing secrets.

[Page] 1. Concerning Stultiloquy, it is to be observed that the Masters A of spirituall life meane not, the talke and uselesse babble of weak and ignorant persons; because in their proportion they may serve their little mistaken ends of civility and humanity, as seemingly to them, as the strictest and most observed words of the wiser; if it be their best, their folly may be pityed, but not reproved, and to them there is no caution to be added, but that it were well if they would put the bridle into the hands of another, who may give them check when themselves cannot; and no wisdome can be required or usefull to them, but to suspect themselves and choose to be conducted by another. For so the little birds and B laborious bees, who having no art and power of contrivance, no distinction of time, or foresight of new necessities, yet being guided by the hand, and counsel'd by the wisdome of the supreme power, their Lord, and ours, doe things with greater nicenesse and exactnesse of art, and regularity of time, and certainty of effect, then the wise Counsellour, who standing at the back of the Princes chaire, guesses imperfectly, and counsels timorously, and thinks by interest, and determines extrinsecall events by inward and unconcerning principles; because these have understanding, but it is lesse then the infinity of accidents and contingences C without; but the other having none, are wholly guided by him that knows and determines all things: So it is in the imperfect designes and actions and discourses of weaker people; if they can be rul'd by an understanding without, when they have none within, they shall receive this advantage, that their owne passions shall not transport their mindes, and the divisions and weaknesse of their owne sense and notices shall not make them uncertaine, and indeterminate; and the measures they shall walke by, shall be disinterest and even, and dispassionate, and full of observation. D

But that which is here meant by Stultiloquy, or foolish speaking, is the Lubricum verbi, as St. Ambrose calls it, the slipping with the tongue, which prating people often suffer, whose discourses betray the vanity of their spirit, and discover the hidden man of the heart. For no prudence is a sufficient guard, or can alwayes stand in excubiis still watching, when a man is in perpetuall flouds of talke; for prudence attends after the manner of an Angels ministery; it is dispatched on messages from God, and drives away enemies, and places guards, and calls upon the man to awake, and bids him send out spies and observers, and E then goes about his own ministeries above: but an Angell does not sit by a man, as a nurse by the babies cradle, watching every motion and the lighting of a flie upon the childes lip: and so is prudence; it gives us rules and proportions cut our measures, and prescribes us cautions, and by generall influences orders our [Page] A particulars; but hee that is given to talke cannot be secured by all this; the emissions of his tongue are beyond the generall figures and lines of rule; and he can no more be wise in every period of a long and running talke, then a Lutenist can deliberate and make every motion of his hand by the division of his notes, to be chosen and distinctly voluntary. And hence it comes that at every corner of the mouth a folly peeps out, or a mischiefe creeps in. A little pride and a great deale of vanity will soon escape, while the man mindes the sequel of his talke, and not that uglinesse of humour which the severe man that stood by, did B observe, and was ashamed of. Doe not many men talke themselves into anger, skrewing up themselves with dialogues and fancy, till they forget the company and themselves? and some men hate to be contradicted, or interrupted, or to be discovered in their folly; and some men being a little conscious, and not striving to amend it by silence, they make it worse by discourse; a long story of themselves, a tedious praise of another collaterally to do themselves advantage, a declamation against a sin to undoe the person, or oppresse the reputation of their neighbour, unseasonable repetition of that which neither profits nor delights, trifling C contentions about a goats beard, or the blood of an oyster, anger and animosity, spite and rage, scorn and reproach begun upon Questions, which concern neither of the litigants, fierce disputations, strivings for what is past, and for what shall never be, these are the events of the loose and unwary tongue; which are like flies and gnats upon the margent of a poole, they doe not sting like an Aspic, or bite deep as a Bear, yet they can vex a man into a feaver and impatience, and make him uncapable of rest and counsel.

2. The second is Scurrility, or foolish jesting. This the Apostle D so joyns with the former [...], [foolish speaking and jestings Ephes. 1. 4, 5. which are not convenient] that some think this to be explicative of the other, and that St. Paul using the word [...] (which all men before his time used in a good sense) meanes not that which indeed is witty and innocent, pleasant and apt for institution, but that which fooles and Parasites call [...], but indeed is [...], what they called facetiousnesse and pleasant wit, is indeed to all wise persons a meer Stultiloquy, or talking like a foole; and that kinde of jesting is forbidden. And indeed I am induc'd fully to this understanding of St. Pauls words by the conjunctive E particle [ [...]] which he uses, [...], and filthinesse, and [foolish talking, or jesting] just as in the succeeding verse he joynes [...], uncleannesse (so we read it) or covetousnesse; one explicates the other, for by covetousnesse is meant any defraudation; [...], fraudator, so St. Cyprian renders it: and [...] St. Hierom derives from [...], [Page] to take more then a man should; and therefore when St. Paul A said, Let no man circumvent his brother in any matter, he expounds it of adultery; and in this very place he renders [...], stuprum, lust; and indeed it is usuall in Scripture, that Covetousnesse being so universall, so originall a crime, such a prolisick sin, be called by all the names of those sins by which it is either punished, or to which it tempts, or whereby it is nourished; and as here it is called uncleannesse or corruption; so in another place it is called idolatry. But to returne; This jesting which St. Paul reproves, is a direct [...], or the jesting of Mimics and Players, that of the foole in the play, which in those times, and long B before, and long after, were of that licentiousnesse that they would abuse Socrates or Aristides: and because the rabble were the laughers, they knew how to make them roare aloud with a slovenly and wanton word, when they understood not the salt and ingenuity of a witty and usefull answer, or reply; as is to be seen in the intertextures of Aristophanes Comedies. But in pursuance of this of St. Paul, the Fathers of the Church have been very severe in their censures of this liberty. St. Ambrose forbids all. Non solùm Lil. de Offic. profusos, sed etiam omnes jocos declinandos arbitror; Not onely the looser jestings, but even all are to be avoyded: Nay, licèt C interdum joca honesta & suavia sint, tamen ab Ecclesiâ horrent regulâ, the Church allowes them not, though they be otherwise honest and pleasant; for how can we use those things we finde not in holy Scriptures? St. Basil gives reason for this severity; jocus facit animam remissam & erga pracepta Dei negligentem; and indeed that cannot be denyed; those persons whose soules are dispersed and ungathered by reason of a wanton humour of intemperate jesting, are apt to be trifling in their Religion. St. Hierom is of the same opinion, and adds a commandement of a full In ep. ad Ephes. authority, if at least the record was right; for he quotes a saying D of our blessed Saviour out of the Gospel of the Nazarens, Nunquam laett sitis nisi cum fratrem vestrum in charitate videritis, Never be merry but when you see your brother in charity: and when you are merry, St. James hath appointed a proper expression of it; and a fair entertainment to the passion; If any man be merry, let him sing Psalmes. But St. Bernard who is also strict in this particular, yet he addes the temper. Though jesting be not fit for a Christian, interdum tamen si incidant, ferendae fortassis, referendae nunquam: magis interveniendum cautè & prudentèr nugacitati: If they seldome happen, they are to be borne, but never E to be returned and made a businesse of; but we must rather interpose warily and prudently to hinder the growth and progresse of the trifle. But concerning this case of conscience, we are to remember, these holy persons found jesting to be a trade; such were the Vide St. Chrysostom. homil. 6. in Matth. ridicularii among the Romanes, and the [...] among the Greeks; [Page] A and this trade besides its own unworthinesse, was mingled with infinite impieties; and in the institution, and in all the circumstances of its practise, was not onely against all prudent severity, but against modesty and chastity, and was a licence in disparagement of vertue; and the most excellent things and persons were by it undervalued; that in this throng of evill circumstances finding a humour placed, which without infinite warinesse could never pretend to innocence, it is no wonder they forbad all; and so also did St. Paul upon the same account. And in the same state of reproofe to this day, are all that doe as they did: such B as are professed jesters, people that play the foole for money, whose employment and study is to unclothe themselves of the covers of reason, or modesty, that they may be laugh'd at. And let it be considered, how miserable every sinner is, if he does not deeply and truely repent; and when the man is wet with teares and covered with sorrow, crying out mightily against his sins, how ugly will it look when this is remembred the next day that he playes the foole, and raises his laughter louder then his prayers and yesterdayes groans, for no interest but that he may eat? A Penitent and a Jester is like a Grecian piece of money, on C which were stamped a Helena on one side and a Hecuba on the other, a Rose and a deadly Aconite, a Paris and an Aesop, nothing was more contrary; and upon this account this folly was reproved by St. Hierom, Verum & haec à sanctis viris penitùs vbi supra. propellenda, quibus magis convenit flere atque lugere; Weeping and penitentiall sorrow, and the sweet troubles of pity and compassion become a holy person, much better then a scurrilous tongue. But the whole state of this Question is briefly this.

1. If j [...]sting be unseasonable, it is also intolerable; [...].

D 2. If it be immoderate it is criminall, and a little thing here makes the excesse; it is so in the confines of folly, that as soon as it is out of dores it is in the regions of sin.

3. If it be in an ordinary person, it is dangerous; but if in an eminent, a consecrated, a wise, and extraordinary person, it is scandalous. Inter saeculares nugae sunt, in ore Sacerdotis blasphemiae; so St. Bernard.

4. If the matter be not of an indifferent nature, it becomes sinfull by giving countenance to a vice, or making vertue to become ridiculous.

E 5. If it be not watcht that it complies with all that heare, it becomes offensive and injurious.

6. If it be not intended to fair and lawfull purposes, it is sowre in the using.

7. If it be frequent, it combines and clusters into a formall sinne.

[Page] 8. If it mingles with any sin, it puts on the nature of that A new unworthinesse, beside the proper uglynesse of the thing it selfe; and after all these, when can it be lawfull or apt for Christian entertainment?

The Ecclesiasticall History reports that many jests passed between St. Anthony the Father of the Hermits, and his Scholar St. Paul; and St. Hilarion is reported to have been very pleasant, and of a facete, sweet, and more lively conversation; and indeed plaisance, and joy, and a lively spirit, and a pleasant conversation, and the innocent caresses of a charitable humanity, is not forbidden; plenum tamen suavitatis & gratiae sermonem non esse B indecorum, St. Ambrose affirmed; and here in my text our conversation is commanded to be such, [...], that it may minister grace, that is, favour, complacence, cheerfulnesse; and be acceptable and pleasant to the hearer: and so must be our conversation; it must be as far from sullennesse, as it ought to be from lightnesse; and a cheerfull spirit is the best convoy for Religion; and though sadnesse does in some cases become a Christian, as being an Index of a pious minde, of compassion, and a wise proper resentment of things, yet it serves but one end, being useful in the onely instance of repentance; and hath done its greatest C works, not when it weeps and sighs, but when it hates and grows carefull against sin. But cheerfulnesse and a festivall spirit fills the soule full of harmony, it composes musick for Churches and hearts, it makes and publishes glorifications of God, it produces thankfulnesse and serves the ends of charity, and when the oyle of gladnesse runs over, it makes bright and tall emissions of light and holy fires, reaching up to a cloud, and making joy round about: And therefore since it is so innocent, and may be so pious and full of holy advantage, whatsoever can innocently minister to this holy joy does set forward the work of Religion and Charity. D And indeed charity it selfe, which is the verticall top of all Religion, is nothing else but an union of joyes, concentred in the heart, and reflected from all the angles of our life and entercourse. It is a rejoycing in God, a gladnesse in our neighbors good, a pleasure in doing good, a rejoycing with him; and without love we cannot have any joy at all. It is this that makes children to be a pleasure, and friendship to be so noble and divine a thing; and upon this account it is certaine that all that which can innocently make a man cheerfull, does also make him charitable; for grief, and age, and sicknesse, and wearinesse, these are peevish and E troublesome; but mirth and cheerfulnesse is content, and civil, and compliant, and communicative, and loves to doe good, and swels up to felicity onely upon the wings of charity. In this account here is pleasure enough for a Christian in present, and if a facete discourse and an amicable friendly mirth can refresh the spirit, and [Page] A take it off from the vile temptations of peevish, despairing, uncomp [...]ying melancholy, it must needs be innocent and commendable. And we may as well be refreshed by a clean and a brisk discourse, as by the aire of Campanian wines; and our faces and our heads may as well be anointed and look pleasant with wit and friendy entercourse, as with the fat of the Balsam tree; and such a conversation no wise man ever did, or ought to reprove. But when the jest hath teeth and nails, biting or scratching our Brother*, when it is loose and wanton*, when it is unseasonable*, and much, or many*, when it serves ill purposes*, or B spends better time*, then it is the drunkennesse of the soul, and makes the spirit fly away, seeking for a Temple where the mirth and the musick is solemne and religious.

But above all the abuses which ever dishonoured the tongues of men, nothing more deserves the whip of an exterminating Angel, or the stings of scorpions, then profane jesting: which is a bringing of the Spirit of God to partake of the follies of a man; as if it were not enough for a man to be a foole, but the wisdome of God must be brought into those horrible scenes: He that makes a jest of the words of Scripture, or of holy things, C playes with thunder, and kisses the mouth of a Canon, just as it belches fire and death; he stakes heaven at spurnpoint, and trips crosse and pile whether ever he shall see the face of God or no; he laughs at damnation, while he had rather lose God then lose his jest; may (which is the horror of all) he makes a jest of God himselfe, and the Spirit of the Father and the Son to become ridiculous. Some men use to read Scripture on their knees, and many with their heads uncovered, and all good men with fear and trembling, with reverence and grave attention. Search the Scriptures, for therein you hope to have life eternall; and, All D Scripture is written by inspiration of God, and is fit for instruction, for reproofe, for exhortation, for doctrine, not for jesting; but he that makes that use of it, had better part with his eyes in jest, and give his heart to make a tennisball; and that I may speak the worst thing in the world of it, it is as like the materiall part of the sin against the holy Ghost, as jeering of a man is to abusing him; and no man can use it but he that wants wit and manners as well as he wants Religion.

3. The third instance of the vain trifling conversation, and immoderate talking is, revealing secrets; which is a dismantling and E renting off the robe from the privacies of humane entercourse; and it is worse then denying to restore that which was intrusted to our charge; for this not onely injures his neighbors right, but throws it away, and exposes it to his enemy; it is a denying to give a man his own arms, and delivering them to another, by whom he shall suffer mischief. He that intrusts a secret to his friend, [Page] goes thither as to sanctuary, and to violate the rites of that is sacriledge, A and profanation of friendship, which is the sister of Religion, and the mother of secular blessing; a thing so sacred, that it changes a Kingdome into a Church, and makes Interest to be Piety, and Justice to become Religion. But this mischief growes according to the subject matter and its effect; and the tongue of a babbler may crush a mans bones, or break his fortune upon her owne wheel; and whatever the effect be, yet of it self it is the betraying of a trust, and by reproach, oftentimes passes on to intolerable calamities, like a criminal to his scaffold through the execrable gates of Cities; And though it is infinitely worse when the secret is laid open out of spite or treachery, yet it is more foolish when it is discovered for no other end but to serve the itch of talking, or to seem to know, or to be accounted worthy of a trust; for so some men open their cabinets to shew onely that a treasure is laid up, and that themselves were valued by their friend, when they were thought capable of a secret; but they shall be so no more; for he that by that means goes in pursuit of reputation, loses the substance by snatching at the shadow, and by desiring to be thought worthy of a secret, proves himselfe unworthy of friendship or society. D' Avila tels of a French Marquesse, young and fond, to whom C the Duke of Guise had conveyed notice of the intended massacre, which when he had whispered into the Kings ear, where there was no danger of publication, but onely would seem a person worthy of such a trust, he was instantly murder'd, lest a vanity like that might unlock so horrid a mysterie.

I have nothing more to adde concerning this, but that if this vanity happens in the matters of Religion, it puts on some new circumstances of deformity: And if he that ministers to the souls of men, and is appointed to restore him that is overtaken in a fault, shall publish the secrets of a conscience, he prevaricates the bands of Nature D and Religion, in stead of a Father he turns an Accuser, a [...], he weakens the hearts of the penitent, and drives the repenting man from his remedy by making it to be intolerable; and so Religion becomes a scandall, and his duty is made his disgrace, and Christs yoke does bow his head unto the ground, and the secrets of the Spirit passe into the shames of the world, and all the sweetnesses by which the severity of the duty are alleviated and made easie, are imbittered and become venemous by the tongue of a talking fool. Valerius Soranus was put to death by the old and braver Romanes, ob meritum profanae vocis, quòd contra interdictum Romae nomen eloqui fuit E ausus; because by prating he profan'd the secret of their Religion, and told abroad that name of the City which the Tusean rites had commanded to be concealed, lest the enemies of the people should call from them their tutelar gods, which they could not doe but by telling the proper relation. And in Christianity all Nations [Page] A have consented to disgrace that Priest, who loves the pleasure of a fools tongue before the charity of souls, and the arts of the Spirit, and the noblenesse of the Religion; and they have inflicted upon him all the censures of the Church, which in the capacity of an Ecclesiasticall person he can suffer.

These I reckon as the proper evils of the vain and trifling tongue; for though the effect passes into further mischief, yet the originall is weaknesse and folly, and all that unworthynesse which is not yet arrived at malice. But hither also upon the same account some other irregularities of speech are reducible, which although they are of a B mixt nature, yet are properly acted by a vain and a loose tongue; and therefore here may be considered not improperly.

1. The first is common Swearing, against which St. Chrysostome spends twenty homilies: and by the number and weight of arguments hath left this testimony, that it is a foolish vice, but hard to be cured; infinitely unreasonable, but strangely prevailing; almost as much without remedy as it is without pleasure; for it enters first by folly, and grows by custome, and dwels with carelesnesse, and is nurs'd by irreligion, and want of the fear of God; it profanes the most holy things, and mingles dirt with the beames of the Sun, C follies and trifling talke interweav'd and knit together with the sacred name of God; it placeth the most excellent of things in the meanest and basest circumstances, it brings the secrets of heaven into the streets, dead mens bones into a Temple; Nothing is a greater sacriledge then to prostitute the great name of God to the petulancy of an idle tongue, and blend it as an expletive to fill up the emptinesse of a weak discourse. The name of God is so sacred, so mighty, that it rends mountains, it opens the bowels of the deepest rocks, it casts out Devils and makes Hell to tremble, and fills all the regions of Heaven with joy; the name of God is our D strength and confidence, the object of our worshippings, and the security of all our hopes; and when God had given himselfe a Name, and immur'd it with dread and reverence, like the garden of Eden with the swords of Cherubims, and none durst speak it but he whose lips were hallowed, and that at holy and solemn times, in a most holy and solemne place; I mean the High Priest of the Jews at the solemnities when he entred into the sanctuary, then he taught all the world the majesty and veneration of his Name; and therefore it was, that God made restraints upon our conceptions and expressions of him: and as he was infinitely curious, E that from all the appearances he made to them, they should not depict or ingrave an image of him; so he tooke care that even the tongue should be restrained, and not be too free in forming images and representments of his Name; and therefore as God drew their eyes from vanity, by putting his name amongst them, and representing no shape; so even when he had put his name amongst [Page] them, he took it off from the tongue and placed it before the A eye; for Jehovah was so written on the Priests Mitre, that all might see and read, but none speak it but the Priest. But besides all this, there is one great thing concerning the Name of God, beyond all that can be spoken or imagined else; and that is, that when God the Father was pleased to pour forth all his glories, and imprint them upon his holy Son in his exaltation, it was by giving him his holy Name, the Tetragrammaton or Jehovah made articulate; to signifie God manifested in the flesh; and so he wore the character of God, and became the bright image of his person. B

Now all these great things concerning the Name of God are infinite reproofes of common and vain swearing by it, Gods name is left us here to pray by, to hope in, to be the instrument and conveyance of our worshippings, to be the witnesse of truth and the Judge of secrets, the end of strife and the avenger of perjury, the discerner of right and the severe exacter of all wrongs; and shall all this be unhallowed by impudent talking of God without sense, or feare, or notices, or reverence, or observation?

One thing more I have to adde against this vice of a foolish C tongue, and that is, that as much prating fils the discourse with lying, so this trifling swearing changes every trifling lye into a horrid perjury; and this was noted by St. James, But above all things swear not at all, [...], that ye may not fall Chap. 5. v. 12. into condemnation; so we read it, following the Arabian, Syrian, and Latin books, and some Greek Copies; and it signifies, that all such swearing and putting fierce appendages to every word, like great iron bars to a straw basket, or the curtains of a tent, is a direct condemnation of our selves: For while we by much talking regard truth too little, and yet bind up our trifles with D so severe a band, we are condemned by our owne words; for men are made to expect what you bound upon them by an oath, and account your trifle to be serious; of which when you faile, you have given sentence against your selfe: And this is agreeable to those words of our blessed Saviour, Of every idle word Matth. 12. you shall give account; for by thy words thou shalt be condemned, and by thy words thou shalt be justified. But there is another reading of these words, which hath great emphasis and power, in this article, Swear not at all, [...], that you may not fall into hypocrisie, that is, into the disreputation of a lying, deceiving, E cousening person; for he that will put his oath to every common word, makes no great matter of an oath; for in swearing commonly, he must needs sometimes swear without consideration, and therefore without truth; and he that does so in any company, tels the world he makes no great matter of being perjured.

[Page] A All these things put together may take off our wonder at St. James expression, of [...], above all things sweare not,] it is a thing so highly to be regarded, and yet is so little considered, that it is hard to say, whether there be in the world any instance in which men are so carelesse of their danger and damnation, as in this.

The next appendage of vain and trifling speech is contention, wrangling and perpetuall talke proceeding from the spirit of contradiction: Profert enim mores plerumque oratio, & animi secreta detegit: Nec sine causâ Graeci prodiderunt, ut vivat quemque B etiam dicere, said Quintilian: For the most part, a mans words betray his manners, and unlocks the secrets of the mind: And it was not without cause that the Greeks said, As a man lives so he speaks; for so indeed Menander, [...], and Aristides, [...]: So that it is a signe of a peevish, an angry and quarrelling disposition, to be disputative and busic in Questions, and impertinent oppositions.

You shall meet with some men (such were the Sceptics, and such were the Academics of old) who will not endure any man shall be of their opinion, and will not suffer men to speak truth, C or to consent to their own propositions, but will put every man to fight for his owne possessions, disturbing the rest of truth, and all the dwellings of unity and consent; clamosum altercatorem, Quintilian calls such a one. This is [...], an overflowing of the heart and of the gall; and it makes men troublesome, and intricates all wise discourses, and throws a cloud upon the face of truth, and while men contend for truth, error drest in the same habit slips into her chaire, and all the litigants court her for the divine sister of wisdome. Nimirùm altercando veritas amittitur: There is noyse but no harmony, fighting but no victory, talking but no learning, D all are teachers and all are wilfull, every man is angry, and without reason and without charity.

[...],

Their mouth is a spear, their language is a two-edged sword, their throat is a shield, (as Nonnus his expression is) and the clamors and noyses of this folly is that which St. Paul reproves in this chapt. Let all bitternesse and clamor be put away. People that contend earnestly, talke loud; Clamor equus est irae, cum prostraveris equitem dejeceris, saith St. Chrysostom, Anger rides upon noyse as upon a E horse, still the noyse and the rider is in the dirt; and indeed so to doe is an act of fine strength, and the cleanest spirituall force that can be exercised in this instance; and though it be hard in the midst of a violent motion instantly to stop, yet by strength and good conduct it may be done. But he whose tongue rides upon passion, and is spur'd by violence and contention, is like a horse or mule without a bridle, [Page] and without understanding, [...], No person A that is clamorous can be wise.

These are the vanities and evill fruits of the easie talker; the instances of a trifling impertinent conversation; and yet it is observable, that although the instances in the beginning be onely vain, yet in the issue and effects they are troublesome and full of mischief: and that we may perceive, that even all effusion and multitude of language and vainer talke cannot be innocent, we may observe that there are many good things which are wholly spoyl'd if they doe but touch the tongue; they are spoyl'd with speaking: such as is the sweetest of all Christian graces, humility, and the noblest actions B of humanity, the doing favors and acts of kindnesse. If you speak of them, you pay your selfe, and lose your kindnesse; humility is by talking changed into pride and hypocrisie, and patience passes into peevishnesse, and secret trust into perfidiousnesse, and modesty into dissolution, and judgement into censure; but by silence and a restrained tongue all the first mischiefs are avoyded, and all these graces preserved.

SERMON, XXIV. Part III. Of Slander and Flattery.

[Page]

C HE that is twice asked a Question, and then answers, is to be excused if he answers weakly. But he that speaks before he be asked, had need take care he speak wisely; for if he does not, he hath no excuse; and if he does, yet it loses halfe its beauty; and therefore the old man gave good counsell in the Comedie to the Boy, [...]. The profits of a restrained modest tongue cannot easily be numbred any more D then the evills of an unbridled and dissolute. But they were but infant mischiefs, which for the most part we have already observed as the issues of vain and idle talking; but there are two spirits worse then these: 1. The spirit of detraction; and 2. The spirit of flattery. The first is [...], from whence the Devill hath his name, He is an Accuser of the brethren. But the second is worse; it is [...] or [...], damnable and deadly; it is the nurse of vice, and the poyson of the soule. These are [...], sowre and filthy communication; the first is rude, but the latter is most mischievous, and both of them to be avoyded like death, or the E despairing murmurs of the damned.

1. Let no calumny, no slandering, detracting communication proceed out of your mouth; the first sort of this is that which the Apostle calls whispering, which signifies to abuse our neighbor secretly, by telling a private story of him.

[Page]

A —linguáque refert audita susurro,

for here the man playes a sure game as he supposes, a mischiefe without a witnesse,

[...],

as Anacreon calls them; the light, swift arrows of a calumniating tongue; they pierce into the heart and bowels of the man speedily. These are those which the holy Scripture notes by the disgracefull B name of Talebearers: Thou shalt not goe up and down as Levit. 19. 6. a Talebearer among the people; for there are six things which God hates, (saith Solomon) yea the seventh is an abomination unto him, it is [...], as bad and as much hated by God as an idol, and that is, a whisperer or tale-bearer that soweth contention amongst brethren. Prov. 6. 17. & 26. 20. This kinde of communication was called [...] among the Greeks, and was as much hated as the Publicans among the Jewes, [...], It is a vile thing, O ye Athenians, it is a vile thing for a man to be a Sycophant, or a Tale-bearer, and the dearest friendships in the world cannot C be secure where such whisperers are attended to.

Te fingente nefas Pyladen odisset Orestes,

Thesea Pirithoi destituisset amor:

Tu Siculos fratres, & majus nomen Atridas,

Et Ledae poteras dissociare genus.

But this crime is a conjugation of evils, and is productive of infinite mischiefs; it undermines peace, and saps the foundation of friendship; it destroyes families, and rends in pieces the very heart D and vitall parts of charity; it makes an evill man, party, and witnesse, and judge, and executioner of the Innocent, who is hurt though he deserv'd it not;

Et si non aliquà nocuisses, mortuus esses,

and no mans interest nor reputation, no mans peace or safety can abide, where this nurse of jealousie, and parent of contention like the earwig creeps in at the car, and makes a diseased noyse, and scandalous murmur. E

2. But such tongues as these, where they dare, and where they can safely, love to speak louder, and then it is detraction; when men under the colour of friendship will certainly wound the reputation of a man, while by speaking some things of him fairly, he shall without suspicion be beleeved when he speaks evill of him; [Page] A such was he that Horace speaks of, Me Capitolinus convictore usus amicó (que) &c. Capitolinus is my friend, and we have long liv'd together, and obliged each other by mutuall endearments, and I am glad he is acquitted by the criminall Judges,

Sed tamen admiror, quo pacto judicium illud

Fugerit—

yet I confesse I wonder how he should escape; but I'le say no more, because he is my friend. B [...], sayes Polybius; This is a new way of accusation to destroy a man by praises. These men strike obliquely like a wilde swine, or the [...], or like buls in a yoke, they have horns upon their necks, and doe you a mischief when they plough your ground; and as Joab slew Abner, he took him by the beard and kissed him, and smote him under the fift rib that he died; so doth the detracting tongue, like the smooth tongued lightning, it will break your bones when it kisses the flesh; so Syphax did secretly wound Massinissa, and made Scipio watchfull and implacable against Sophonisba, C onely by commending her beauty and her wit, her constancy and unalterable love to her country, and by telling how much himselfe was forc'd to break his faith by the tyranny of her prevailing charmes. This is that which the Apostle calls [...], a crafty and deceitfull way of hurting, and renders a mans tongue venemous as the tongue of a serpent, that bites even though he be charm'd.

3. But the next is more violent, and that is railing or reviling, which Aristotle in his Rhetoricks says is very often the vice of boys and of rich men, who out of folly or pride, want of manners, D or want of the measures of a man, wisdome and the just proportions of his brethren, doe use those that erre before them most scornfully and unworthily; and Tacitus noted it of the Claudian family in Rome, an old and inbied pride and scornfulnesse made them apt to abuse all that fell under their power and displeasure; quorum superbiam frustrà per obsequium & modestiam effugeres; No observance, no prudence, no modesty can escape the reproaches of such insolent and high talkers. A. Gellius tels of a boy that would give every one that he met a box on the ear; and some men will give foul words, having a tongue rough as E a Cat, and biting like an Adder, and all their reproofes are direct scoldings, their common entercourse is open contumely. There have been in these last ages examples of Judges who would reproach the condemned and miserable criminall, deriding his calamity, and reviling his person. Nero did so to Thraseas, and the old Heathens to the primitive Martyrs, pereuntibus addita ludibria, [Page] said Tacitus of them, they crucified them again by putting A them to suffer the shame of their fouler language, they rail'd at them when they bowed their heads upon the crosse, and groan'd forth the saddest accents of approaching death. This is that evill that possessed those of whom the Psalmist speaks. Our tongues are our owne, we are they that ought to speak, who is Lord over us? that is, our tongues cannot be restrained; and St. James said James 3. something of this, The tongue is an unruly member which no man can tame; that is, no private person, but a publick may; for he that can rule the tongue, is fit also to govern the whole body, that is, the Church or Congregation; Magistrates and the Governours B of souls, they are by severity to restraine this inordination, which indeed is a foul one;

[...]

[...],

no evill is worse or of more open violence to the rest and reputation of men, then a reproachfull tongue. And it were well if we considered this evill, to avoyd it in those instances, by which our conversation is daily stain'd. Are we not often too imperious against our C servants? Do we not entertain and seed our own anger with vile and basest language? Doe not we chastise a servants folly or mistake, his error or his chance, with language fit to be used by none but vile persons, and towards none but dogs? Our blessed Saviour restraining the hostility and murther of the tongue, threatens hell fire to them that call their brother foole; meaning, that all language which does really and by intention disgrace him in the greater instances, is as directly against the charity of the Gospel, as killing a man was against the severity and justice of the law. And although the word it self may be us'd to reprove the indiscretions, and carelesse D follies of an idle person, yet it must be used onely in order to his amendment, *by an authorized person, * in the limits of a just reproofe, * upon just occasion, * and so as may not doe him mischief in the event of things. For so we finde that our blessed Saviour cal'd his Disciples, [...], foolish; and S. James used [...], Matt. 23. 17, 19. Luk. 24. 25. vain man, signifying the same with the forbidden raca, [...], vain, uselesse, or empty; and St. Paul calls the Galatians, mad, and foolish, and bewitched; and Christ called Herod, Fox; and St. John called the Pharisees, the generation of vipers; and all this matter is wholly determined by the manner, and with what minde it is done: If it be E for correction and reproofe towards persons that deserve it, and by persons whose authority can warrant a just and severe reproofe, and this also be done prudently, safely, and usefully, it is not contumely; But when men upon all occasions revile an offending person, lessening his value, sowring his spirit, and his life, despising his infirmities, [Page] A tragically expressing his lightest misdemeanour, [...], being tyrannically declamatory, and intolerably angry for a trifle, these are such, who, as Apollonius the Philosopher said, will not suffer the offending person to know when his fault is great, and when 'tis little. For they who alwayes put on a supreme anger, or expresse the lesse anger with the highest reproaches, can doe no more to him that steals, then to him that breaks a Crystall: Non plus aequo, non diutiùs aequo, was a good rule for reprehension of offending servants; But no more anger, no more severe language then the thing deserves; if you B chide too long, your reproofe is changed into reproach; if too bitterly, it becomes railing; if too loud, it is immodest; if too publick, it is like a dog.

[...]

[...],

so the man told his wife in the Greek Comedy; to follow me in the streets with thy clamorous tongue is to doe as dogs doe, not as persons civill or religious.

C 4. The fourth instance of the calumniating filthy communication, is that which we properly call slander, or the inventing evill things, falsely imputing crimes to our neighbor: Falsum crimen quasi venenatum telum, (said Cicero) A false tongue or a foul lye against a mans reputation, is like a poysoned arrow, it makes the wound deadly, and every scratch to be incurable. Promptissima vindicta contumelia, said one, To reproach and rail is a revenge that every girl can take. But falsely to accuse is spiteful as Hel, and deadly as the blood of Dragons.

D Stoicus occidit Baream, delator amicum.

This is the direct murther of the Tongue, for life and death are in the hand of the tongue, said the Hebrew proverbe, and it was esteemed so vile a thing, that when Jesabel commanded the Elders of Israel to suborn false witnesses against Naboth, she gave them instructions to take two men, the sons of Belial; none else were fit for the imployment.

Quid non audebis perfida lingua loqui?

E This was it that broke Ephraim in judgement, and executed the fierce anger of the Lord upon him; God gave him over to be oppressed by a false witnesse, quoniam coepit abire post sordes, therefore he suffered calumny, and was overthrown in judgement. This was it that humbled Joseph in fetters, and the iron entred into his soule, [Page] but it crushed him not so much as the false tongue of his revengefull A Mistresse, untill his cause was known, and the Word of the Lord tryed him. This was it that flew Abimelech, and endanger'd David; it was a sword in manu linguae Doeg, in the hand of Doegs tongue. By this Siba cut off the legs of Mephibosheth, and made his reputation lame forever; it thrust Jeremy into the dungeon, and carryed Susanna to her stake, and our Lord to his Crosse; and therefore against the dangers of a slandering tongue, all laws have so cautelously arm'd themselves, that besides the severest prohibitions of God often Levit. 6. recorded in both Testaments, God hath chosen it to be one of his appellatives Zech. 7. to be the Defender of them, a party for those, whose innocency B Luk. 3. and defencelesse state makes them most apt to be undone by this evill spirit; I mean pupils, and widows, the poore, and the oppressed. And in pursuance of this charity the Imperiall laws have invented a juramentum de calumniâ on oath to be exhibited to the Actor or Plaintiff, that he beleevs himself to have a just cause, and that he does not implead his adversary calumniandi animo, with false instances, and indefencible allegations; and the Defendant is to swear that he thinks himselfe to use onely just defences, and perfect instances of resisting; and both of them obliged themselves, that they would exact no proofe but what was necessary to the truth of C the Cause. And all this defence was nothing but necessary guards. For, a spear, and a sword, and an arrow is a man that speaketh false witnesse against his neighbour. And therefore the laws of God added yet another bar against this evill, and the false Accuser was to suffer the punishment of the objected crime: and as if this were not sufficient, God hath in severall ages wrought miracles, and raised the dead to life, that by such strange appearances they might relieve the oppressed Innocent, and load the false accusing Tongue with shame and horrible confusion. So it happen'd in the case of Susanna, the spirit of a man was put into the heart of a childe to acquit the vertuous D woman; and so it was in the case of Gregory Bishop of Agrigentum, falsely accused by Sabinus and Crescentius; Gods power cast the Devill out of Eudocia, the Devill or spirit of Slander, and compelled her to speak the truth. St. Austin in his book De curâ promortuis, c. 11. tels of a dead Father that appeared to his oppressed Son, and in a great matter of Law delivered him from the teeth of false accusation. So was the Church of Monts rescued by the appearance of Aia the deceased wife of Hidulphus their Earle, as appears in the Hanovian story; and the Polonian Chronicles tell the like of Stanislaus Bishop of Cracovia, almost oppressed by the anger and calumny of E Boleslaus their King; God relieved him by the testimony of St. Peter their Bishop, or a Phantasme like him. But whether these records may be credited or no, I contend not; yet it is very materiall which Eusebius relates of the three false witnesses accusing Narcissus Bishop of Jerusalem, of an infamous crime, which they did, affirming it l. 6. c. 7. [Page] A under severall curses: the first wishing that if he said false, God would destroy him with fire; the second, that he might die of the Kings evil; the third, that he might be blind: and so it came to passe; the first being surprised with fire in his owne roofe, amaz'd and intricated, confounded and despairing, paid the price of his slander with the pains of most fearfull flames: and the second perished by pieces, and Chirurgeons, and torment: which when the third saw, he repented of his fault, cryed mightily for pardon, but wept so bitterly, and found at the same time the reward of his calumny, and the acceptation of his repentance: [...], said B Cleanthes, nothing is more operative of spitefull and malicious purposes, then the calumniating Tongue. In the Temple at Smyrna there were Looking-glasses which represented the best face as crooked, ugly, and deformed; the Greeks call these [...]: and so is every false tongue; it lies in the face of heaven, and abuses the ears of justice, it oppresses the Innocent, and is secretly revenged of vertue, it defeats all the charity of laws, and arms the supreme power, and makes it strike the Innocent; it makes frequent appeals to be made to heaven, and causes an oath, in stead of being the end of strife, to be the beginning of mischief; it calls C the name and testimony of God to seale an injury; it feeds and nourishes cruell anger, but mocks justice, and makes mercy weep her selfe into pity, and mourne because she cannot help the Innocent.

5. The last instance of this evill I shall now represent is Cursing; concerning which I have this onely to say; that although the causelesse curse shall return upon the tongue that spake it, yet because very often there is a fault on both sides, when there is reviling or cursing on either, the danger of a cursing tongue is highly to be declined, as the biting of a mad dog, or the tongue of a smitten serpent. For as D envy is in the evill eye, so is cursing in the reproachfull tongue; it is a kinde of venome and witchcraft, an instrument by which God oftentimes punishes anger and uncharitablenesse; and by which the Devill gets power over the bodies and interests of men: For he that works by Thessalie ceremonies, by charmes, and non sense words, by figures and insignificant characterismes, by images and by rags, by circles and imperfect noyses, hath more advantage and reall title to the opportunities of mischief, by the cursing tongue; and though God is infinitely more ready to doe acts of kindnesse then of punishment, yet God is not so carelesse a regarder of the E violent and passionate wishes of men, but he gives some over to punishment, and chastises the follies of rage, and the madnesse of the tongue by suffering it to passe into a further mischief then the harsh sound and horrible accents of the evill language. By the tongue we blesse God and curse men (saith St. James) [...], reproaching is cursing; and both of them opposed to [...], to blessing; [Page] and there are many times and seasons in which both of A them passe into reall effect. These are the particulars of the second.

3. I am now to instance in the third sort of silthy communication, that in which the Devill does the most mischief, by which he undoes souls; by which he is worse then [...], an Accuser: For though he accuses maliciously, and instances spitefully, and heaps objections diligently, and aggravates bitterly, and with all his powers endeavors to represent the separate souls to God as polluted and unfit to come into his presence, yet this malice is ineffective, because the scenes are acted before the wise Judge of Men and Angels, B who cannot be abused; before our Father and our Lord, who knows whereof we be made, and remembreth that we are but dust; before our Saviour and our elder Brother, who hath felt our infirmities, and knows kow to pity, to excuse, and to answer for us: But though this accusation of us cannot hurt them who will not hurt themselves, yet this malice is prevailing when the spirit of flattery is let forth upon us. This is the [...], the Destroyer, and is the most contrary thing to charity in the whole world: and St. Paul noted it in his character of Charity, [...], Charity vaunteth not 1 Cor. 13. 5. it selfe, so we translate it, but certainly not exactly, for it signifieth C easinesse, complying foolishly, and flattering, Charity flattereth not, [...], saith Suidas out of St. Basil, it signifies any thing that serves rather for ornament then for use, for pleasure then for profit.

Et eo plectuntur poetae quàm suo vitio saepiùs,

Ductabilitate nimiâ vestrâ aut perperitudine,

saith the Comedy; the Poets suffer more by your easinesse and flattery, then by their owne fault. And this is it which St. Paul sayes is D against charity. For if to call a man foole and vitious, be so high an injury, we may thence esteem what a great calamity it is to be so; and therefore he that makes him so, or takes a course he shall not become other, is the vilest enemy to his person, and his felicity; and this is the mischief that is done by flattery; it is a designe against the wisdome, against the repentance, against the growth and promotion of a mans soul. He that persuades an ugly, deformed man, that he is handsome, a short man that he is tall, a bald man that he hath a good head of hair, makes him to become ridiculous and a foole, but does no other mischief. But he that persuades his E friend that is a goat in his manners, that he is a holy and a chaste person, or that his loosenesse is a signe of a quick spirit, or that it is not dangerous but easily pardonable, a trick of youth, a habit that old age will lay aside as a man pares his nailes, this man hath given great advantage to his friends mischief; he hath made it grow [Page] A in all the dimensions of the sin, till it grows intolerable, and perhaps unpardonable. And let it be considered, what a fearfull destruction and contradiction of friendship or service it is, so to love my self and my little interest, as to preferre it before the soul of him whom I ought to love. By my flattery I lay a snare to get 20 l. and rather then lose this contemptible sum of money, I will throw him that shall give it me (as far as I can) into hell, there to roar beyond all the measures of time or patience. Can any hatred be more, or love be lesse, can any expression of spite be greater, then that it be said, you will not part with 20 l. to save your Friends, or your Patrons, or B your Brothers soul? and so it is with him that invites him to, or confirms him in his folly, in hopes of getting something from him, he will see him die, and die eternally, and help forward that damnation, so he may get that little by it. Every state is set in the midst of danger, as all trees are set in the wind, but the tallest endure the greatest violence of tempest: No man flatters a begger, if he does a slovenly and rude crime it is entertained with ruder language, and the mean man may possibly be affrighted from his fault, while it is made so uneasie to him by the scorn and harsh reproaches of the mighty. But Princes and Nobles often die with this disease: And C when the Courtiers of Alexander counterfeited his wry neck, and the Servants of the Sicilian Tyrant pretended themselves dim sighted, and on purpose rushed one against another, and overthrew the meat as it was served to his table, onely because the Prince was shortsighted, they gave them sufficient instances in what state of affaires they stood with them that waited; it was certain they would commend every foolish answer, and pretend subtilty in every absurd question, and make a petition that their base actions might passe into a law, and be made to be the honor and sanctity of all the people: and what proportions or wayes can such great personages have towards D felicity, when their vice shall be allowed and praised, every action that is but tolerable shall be accounted heroicall, and if it be intolerable among the wise, it shall be called vertuous among the flatterers? Carneades said bitterly, but it had in it too many degrees of truth; that Princes and great personages never learn to doe any thing perfectly well, but to ride the great horse, quia scil. ferociens bestia adulari non didicit, because the proud beast knows not how to flatter, but will as soon throw him off from his back as he will shake off the son of a Potter. But a Flatterer is like a neighing Horse, that neigheth under every rider, and is pleased with every thing, and commends E all that he sees, and tempts to mischief, and cares not, so his friend may but perish pleasantly. And indeed that is a calamity that undoes many a soul; we so love our peace, and sit so easily upon our own good opinions, and are so apt to flatter our selves, and leane upon our own false supports, that we cannot endure to be disturb'd or awakened from our pleasing lethargy. For we care not to be [Page] safe, but to be secure, not to escape hell, but to live pleasantly; we A are not solicitous of the event, but of the way thither, and it is sufficient, if we be perswaded all his well; in the mean time we are carelesse whether indeed it be so or no, and therefore we give pensions to fools and vile persons to abuse us, and cousen us of felicity. But this evill puts on severall shapes, which we must discover, that they may not cousen us without our observation. For all men are not capable of an open flattery. And therefore some will dresse their hypocrisie and illusion so, that you may feel the pleasure, and but secretly perceive the complyance and tendernesse to serve the ends of your folly? perit procari, si latet, said Plancus, If you be not B perceived, you lose your reward; if you be too open, you lose it worse.

1. Some flatter by giving great names, and propounding great examples; and thus the Aegyptian villains hung a Tumblers rope upon their Prince, and a Pipers whistle; because they called their Ptolemy by the name of Apollo their God of Musick. This put buskins upon Nero, and made him fidle in all the great Towns of Greece. When their Lords were Drunkards, they called them Bacchus; when they were Wrestlers, they saluted them by the name of Hercules; and some were so vain as to think themselves commended, C when their Flatterers told aloud, that they had drunk more then Alexander the Conquerour. And indeed nothing more abuses easie fooles that onely seek for an excuse for their wickednesse, a Patron for their vice, a warrant for their sleepy peace, then to tell stories of great examples remarked for the instances of their temptation. When old Cato commended meretricious mixtures, and to prevent adulteries permitted fornication, the youth of the succeeding ages had warrant enough to goe ad olentes fornices, into their chambers of filthy pleasure;

Quidam notus homo cum exiret fornice; macte D

Virtute esto (inquit) sententia dia Catonis:

And it would passe the goblets in a freer circle, if a flattering man shall but say, Narratur & prisci Catonis saepè mero caluisse virtus, that old Cato would drink hard at sun-set. When Varro had noted, that wise and severe Salust, who by excellent sententious words had reproved the follies of lust, was himselfe taken in adultery, The Romane youth did hug their vice, and thought it grew upon their nature like a mans beard, and that the wisest men would lay their E heads upon that threshold; and Seneca tels that the women of that age despised the adultery of one man onely; and hated it like marriage, and despis'd that as want of breeding, and grandeur of spirit, because the braver Spartans did use to breed their children promiscuously, as the Heards-men doe cattle from the fairest Buls. And [Page] A Arrianus tels that the women would defend their basenesse by the doctrine of Plato, who maintain'd the community of women. This sort of flattery is therefore more dangerous, because it makes the temptation ready for mischief, apted and dressed with proper, materiall, and imitable circumstances. The way of discourse is far about, but evill examples kill quickly.

2. Others flatter by imitation: for when a crime is rare and insolent, singular and out of fashion, it must be a great strength of malice and impudence that must entertain it; but the flattering man doing the vice of his Lord takes off the wonder, and the fear of being B stared at; and so incourages it by making it popular and common. Plutarch tels of one that divorced himself from his wife because his friend did so; that the other might be hardened in the mischief; and when Plato saw his scholars stoop in the shoulders, and Aristotle observed his to stammer, they began to be lesse troubled with those imperfections which they thought common to themselves and others.

3. Some pretend a rusticity and downright plainnesse, and upon the confidence of that humour their friends vice, and flatter his ruine. Seneca observed it of some of his time; alius quidam adulatione clam utebatur parcè, alius ex aperto palm, rusticitate simulatâ, quasi simplicitas C illa ars non sit. They pretend they love not to dissemble, and therefore they cannot hide their thoughts; let their friend take it how he will, they must commend that which is commendable; and so man that is willing to dye quietly, is content with the honest heartynesse and downright simplicity of him that with an artificial rudenesse dress'd the flattery.

4. Some will dispraise themselves that their friend may think better of himselfe, or lesse severely of his fault.

5. Others will reprove their friend for a trifle, but with a purpose to let him understand, that this is all; for the honest man would D have told his friend if it had been worse.

6. Some will laugh and make a sport of a vice, and can hear their friend tell the cursed narrative of his adultery, of his drunkennesse, of his craft and unjust purchases; and all this shall prove but a merry scene; as if damnation were a thing to be laughed at, and the everlasting ruine of his friend were a very good jest. But thus the poor sinner shall not be affrighted from his danger, nor chastised by severe language, but the villain that eats his meat shall take him by the hand, and dance about the pit till he fals in, and dies with shame and folly. Thus the evill Spirit puts on shapes enough; none to affright the E man, but all to destroy him; and yet it is filthy enough when it is invested with its own character:

[...]

[...].

[Page] The Parasite or Flatterer is a beast that is all belly, looking round A with his eye, watchfull, ugly, and deceitfull, and creeping on his teeth; they feed him, and kill them that reach him bread: for that's the nature of all vipers.

I have this one thing onely to insert, and then the caution will be sufficient, viz. that we doe not think all praise given to our friend to be flattery, though it be in his presence. For sometimes praise is the best conveyance for a precept, and it may nourish up an infant vertue, and make it grow up towards perfection, and its proper measures and rewards. Friendship does better please our friend then flattery, and though it was made also for vertue, yet it mingles pleasures B in the chalice, [...], it is delicious to behold the face of a friendly and a sweet person; and it is not the office of a friend alwayes to be sowre, or at any time morose; but free, open, and ingenuous, candid and humane, not denying to please, but ever refusing to abuse or corrupt. For as adulterine metals retain the lustre and colour of gold, but not the value; so flattery in imitation of friendship takes the face and outside of it, the delicious part; but the flatterer uses it to the interests of vice, and a friend by it serves vertue; and therefore Plutarch well compared friendship to medicinall oyntments, which however delicious they be, yet they are also C usefull, and minister to healing. But flattery is sweet and adulterate, pleasant but without health. He therefore that justly commends his friend to promote and incourage his vertue, reconciles vertue with his friends affection, and makes it pleasant to be good; and he that does so, shall also better be suffered when he reproves, because the needing person shall finde that then is the opportunity and season of it, since he denyed not to please so long as he could also profit. I onely adde this advice, that since selfe-love is the serpents milk that feeds this viper flattery, we should doe well to choke it with its mothers milk; I mean, learn to love our selves more, for then we should D never endure to be flattered. For he that because he loves himselfe, loves to be flattered, does, because he loves himself, love to entertain a man to abuse him, to mock him, and to destroy him finally. But he that loves himselfe truly, will suffer fire, will endure to be burnt, so he may be purified; put to pain, so he may be restored to health; for of all sauces (said Euenus) sharpnesse, severity, and fire is the best. E

SERMON, XXV. Part IV. The Duties of the Tongue.

[Page]

Ephes. 4. latter part of the 29 verse.‘—But that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.’

LOquendi ministros habemus homines, tacendi Deos, said one; Men teach us to speak, and God teaches us to hold our tongue. The first we are taught by the lectures of our Schools; the D latter, by the mysteries of the Temple. But now in the new institution, we have also a great Master of speaking; and though silence is one of the great paths of Innocence, yet Holy speaking is the instrument of Spirituall Charity, and is a glorification of God: and therefore this kinde of speaking is a degree of perfection beyond the wisdome and severity of silence. For although garrulity and foolish inordinate talking is a conjunction of folly and sin, and the prating man while he desires to get the love of them he converses with, incurres their hatred; while he would be admir'd, is E laughed at; he spends much and gets nothing, he wrongs his friends and makes sport to his enemies, and injures himselfe; he is derided when he tels what others know, he is indanger'd if he tels a secret and what they know not; he is not beleeved when he tels good news, and when he tels ill news he is odious: and therefore that silence which is a cure of all this evill is an excellent portion of safety [Page] and Religion; yet it is with holy speaking and innocent silence as A it is with a Hermit and a Bishop; the first goes to a good school, but the second is proceeded towards greater perfection; and therefore the practicall life of Ecclesiasticall Governors being found in the way of holinesse and zeale, is called status perfectionis, a more excellent and perfect condition of life, and farre beyond the retirements and inoffensive life of those innocent persons which doe so much lesse of profit, by how much charity is better then meditation, and going to heaven by religion and charity, by serving God and converting soules, is better then going to heaven by prayers and secret thoughts: So it is with silence, and religious B communication. That does not offend God; this glorifies him: That prevents Sin; this sets forward the interests of Religion. And therefore Plutarch said well, Qui generosè & regio more instituuntur, primum tacere, deinde loqui discunt. To be taught first to be silent, then to speak well and handsomely, is education fit for a Prince; and that is St. Paul's method here: first we were taught how to restraine our tongues in the foregoing instances, and now we are called to imploy them in Religion.

1. We must speak that which is good] [...], any thing that may serve the ends of our God and of our Neighbour, C in the measures of Religion and usefulnesse. But it is here as in all other propositions of Religion. God to us, who are in the body, and conducted by materiall phantasmes, and understanding nothing but what we feel, or is conveyed to us by the proportions of what we doe or have, hath given us a Religion that is fitted to our condition and constitution. And therefore when we are commanded to love God, by this love Christ understands obedience; when we are commanded to honour God, it is by singing and reciting his praises, and doing things which cause reputation and honour: and even here when we are commanded to speak that which D is good, it is instanced in such good things which are really profitable, practically usefull; and here the measures of God are especially by the proportions of our neighbour. And therefore, though speaking honorable things of God be an imployment that does honour to our tongues and voices, yet we must tune and compose even these notes so, as may best profit our neighbour; for so it must be [...], good speech, such as is [...], for the edification of necessity: the phrase is an Hebraisme, where the genitive case of a substantive is put for the adjective; and meanes, that our speech be apted to necessary edification, or such edification E as is needfull to every mans particular case; that is, that we so order our communication, that it be apt to instruct the ignorant, to strengthen the weak, to recall the wanderer, to restraine the vicious, to comfort the disconsolate, to speak a word in season to every mans necessity, [...], that it may minister grace, [Page] A something that may please and profit them, according as they shall need; all which I shall reduce to these three heads:

1. To Instruct. 2. To Comfort. 3. To Reprove.

1. Our conversation must be [...], apt to teach. For since all our hopes on our part depend upon our obedience to God, and conformity to our Lord Jesus, by whom our endevours are sanctified and accepted, and our weaknesses are pardoned, and all our obedience relies upon, and is incouraged and grounded in faith, and faith is founded naturally and primarily in the understanding, we may observe that it is not onely reasonably to be B expected, but experimentally felt, that in weak and and ignorant understandings there are no sufficient supports for the vigorousnesse of a holy life; there being nothing, or not enough to warrant and strengthen great resolutions, to reconcile our affections to difficulties, to make us patient of affronts, to receive deeper mortifications, and ruder usages, unlesse where an extraordinary grace supplies the want of ordinary notices, as the Apostles were enabled to their preachings: But he therefore that carries and imports into the understanding of his Brother, notices of faith, and incomes of spirituall propositions, and arguments of C the Spirit, enables his brother towards the work and practises of a holy life: and though every argument which the Spirit of God hath made and recorded in holy Scripture, is of it selfe inducement great enough to endear obedience; yet it is not so in the event of things to every mans infirmity, and need; but in the treasures of the Spirit, in the heaps and variety of institution, and wise discourses, there will not onely be enough to make a man without excuse, but sufficient to doe his work and to cure his evill, and to fortifie his weaker parts, and to comply with his necessities; for although Gods sufficient grace is present to D all that can use it, yet if there be no more then that, it is a sad consideration to remember, that there are but few that will be saved, if they be helped but with just so much as can possibly doe the work: and this we may well be assured of, if we consider that God is never wanting to any man in what is simply necessary; but then if we adde this also, that of the vast numbers of men who might possibly be saved, so few really are so, we shall perceive that that grace which onely is sufficient, is not sufficient; sufficient to the thing, is not sufficient for the person; and therefore that God does usually give us more, and we need more yet; E and unlesse God works in us to will and to doe, we shall neither will nor doe; though to will be in the power of our hand, yet we will not will; it follows from hence that all they who will comply with Gods method of graciousnesse, and the necessities of their Brethren, must endevour by all meanes, and in all their owne measures, and capacities to lay up treasures of notices and instructions [Page] in their brothers soul, that by some argument or other A they may be met withall and taken in every corner of their conversation. Adde to this, that the duty of a man hath great variety, and the souls of men are infinitely abused, and the persuasions of men are strangely divided, and the interests of men are a violent and preternaturall declination from the strictnesses of vertue, and the resolutions of men are quickly altered, and very hardly to be secured, and the cases of conscience are numerous and intricate, and every state of life that hath its proper prejudice, and our notices are abused by our affections, and we shall perceive that men generally need knowledge enough to over-power B all their passions, to root out their vitious inclinations, to master their prejudice, to answer objections, to resist temptations, to refresh their wearynesse, to fixe their resolutions, and to determine their doubts; and therefore to see your brother in a state of ignorance, is to see him unfurnished and unprepared to all good works, a person safe no longer then till a temptation comes, and one that cannot be saved but by an absolute unlimited predestination, a favour of which he hath no promise, no security, no revelation; and although to doe this God, hath appointed a speciall Order of men, the whole Ecclesiasticall Order, whom he feeds C at his owne charges, and whom men rob at their owne perill, yet this doth not disoblige others: for every Master of a family is to instruct, or cause his family to be instructed, and catechised; every Governour is to instruct his charge, every Man his Brother, not alwayes in person, but ever by all possible and just provisions. For if the people dye for want of knowledge, they who are set over them shall also die for want of charity. Here therefore we must remember, that it is the duty of us all, in our severall measures and proportions, to instruct those that need it, and whose necessity is made ready for our ministration; and let D us tremble to think what will be the sad account which we shall make when even our families are not taught in the fundamentals of Religion; for how can it be possible for those who could not account concerning the stories of Christs life and death, the ministeries of their redemption, the foundation of all their hopes, the great argument of all their obediences; how can it be expected that they should ride in triumph over all the evills which the Devill, and the World, and their owne follies daily present to them in the course of every dayes conversation? And it will be an ill return to say, that God will require no more of them E then he hath given them; for suppose that be true in your own sense, yet he will require it of thee, because thou gavest them no more; and however, it is a formidable danger, and a trifling hope for any man to put all the hopes of his being saved upon the onely stock of ignorance; for if his ignorance should never be [Page] A accounted for, yet it may leave him in that state in which his evills shall grow great, and his sins may be irremediable.

2. Our Conversation must be [...], apt to comfort the disconsolate; and then this, men in present can feel no greater charity. For since halfe the duty of a Christian in this life consists in the exercise of passive graces, and the infinite variety of providence, and the perpetuall adversity of chances, and the dissatisfaction and emptynesse that is in things themselves, and the wearynesse and anguish of our spirit does call us to the trial and exercise of patience even in the dayes of sunshine, and much B more in the violent storms that shake our dwellings, and make our hearts tremble; God hath sent some Angels into the world, whose office it is to refresh the sorrowes of the poore, and to lighten the eyes of the disconsolate; he hath made some creatures whose powers are chiefly ordain'd to comfort; wine, and oyle, and society, cordials and variety; and time it selfe is checker'd with black and white; stay but till to morrow, and your present sorrow will be weary, and will lie downe to rest. But this is not all. The third person of the holy Trinity is known to us by the name and dignity of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, C and God glories in the appellative, that he is the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, and therefore to minister in the office is to become like God, and to imitate the charities of heaven; and God hath fitted mankinde for it; he most needs it, and he feels his brothers wants by his owne experience, and God hath given us speech, and the endearments of society, and pleasantness of conversation, and powers of seasonable discourse, arguments to allay the sorrow, by abating our apprehensions and taking out the sting, or telling the periods of comfort, or exciting hope, or urging a precept, and reconciling our affections, and reciting D promises, or telling stories of the Divine mercy, or changing it into duty, or making the burden lesse by comparing it with greater, or by proving it to be lesse then we deserve, and that it is so intended, and may become the instrument of vertue. And certain it is, that as nothing can better doe it, so there is nothing greater, for which God made our tongues, next to reciting his prayses, then to minister comfort to a weary soul. And what greater measure can we have, then that we should bring joy to our brother, who with his dreary eyes looks to heaven and round about, and cannot finde so much rest as to lay his eye-lids close E together, then that thy tongue should be tun'd with heavenly accents, and make the weary soul to listen for light and ease, and when he perceives that there is such a thing in the world, and in the order of things, as comfort and joy, to begin to break out from the prison of his sorrows at the dore of sighs and tears, and by little and little melt into showres and refreshment? This is glory [Page] to thy voyce, and imployment fit for the brightest Angel. But so A have I seen the sun kisse the frozen earth which was bound up with the images of death, and the colder breath of the North, and then the waters break from their inclosures, and melt with joy, and run in usefull channels, and the flies doe rise againe from their little graves in walls, and dance a while in the aire, to tell that there is joy within, and that the great mother of creatures will open the stock of her new refreshment, become usefull to mankinde, and sing prayses to her Redeemer: So is the heart of a sorrowfull man under the discourses of a wise Comforter, he breaks from the despairs of the grave, and the fetters and B chains of sorrow, he blesses God, and he blesses thee, and he feels his life returning; for to be miserable is death, but nothing is life but to be comforted; and God is pleased with no musick from below so much as in the thanksgiving songs of relieved Widows, of supported Orphans, of rejoycing, and comforted, and thankfull persons. This part of communication does the work of God and of our Neighbors, and bears us to heaven in streams of joy made by the overflowings of our brothers comfort. It is a fearfull thing to see a man despairing. None knows the sorrow and the intolerable anguish but themselves, and they that are C damned; and so are all the loads of a wounded spirit, when the st [...]ffe of a mans broken fortune bowes its head to the ground, and sinks like an Osier under the violence of a mighty tempest. But therefore in proportion to this I may tell the excellency of the imployment, and the duty of that charity which bears the dying and languishing soul from the fringes of hell to the seat of the brightest stars, where Gods face shines and reflects comforts for ever and ever. And though God hath for this especially intrusted his Ministers and Servants of the Church, and hath put into their hearts and notices great magazines of promises, and arguments D of hope and arts of the Spirit, yet God does not alwayes send Angels on these embassies, but sends a man ut sit homo homini Deus, that every good man in his season may be to his brother in the place of God, to comfort and restore him; and that it may appear how much it is the duty of us all to minister comfort to our brother, we may remember that the same words and the same arguments doe oftentimes more prevaile upon our spirits when they are applyed by the hand of another, then when they dwell in us, and come from our owne discoursings. This is indeed [...], it is [...], to the edification E of our needs, and the greatest and most holy charity.

3. Our communication must in its just season be [...], we must reprove our sinning brother; for the wounds of a friend are better then the kisses of an enemy (saith Solomon:) we imitate the office of the great Shepheard and Bishop of souls, if we goe to Prov. 27. 6. [Page] A seek and save that which was lost; and it is a fearfull thing to see a friend goe to hell undisturbed, when the arresting him in his horrid progresse may possibly make him to return; this is a course that will change our vile itch of judging and censuring others into an act of charity; it will alter slander into piety, detraction into counsell, revenge into friendly and most usefull offices, that the Vipers flesh may become Mithridate, and the Devill be defeated in his malicious imployment of our language. He is a miserable man whom none dares tell of his faults so plainly, that he may understand his danger; and he that is uncapable and B impatient of reproof, can never become a good friend to any man. For besides that himself would never admonish his friend when he sins, (and if he would, why should not himself be glad of the same charity?) he is also proud, and Scorner is his name; he thinks himself exempt from the condition and failings of men, or if he does not, he had rather goe to hell then be call'd to his way by an angry Sermon, or driven back by the sword of an Angell, or endure one blushing, for all his hopes and interests of heaven. It is no shame to be reproved, but to deserve it; but he that deserves it, and will doe so still, shall increase his C shame into confusion, and bring upon himselfe a sorrow bigger then the calamities of war, and plagues, and hospitals, and poverty. He onely is truely wise, and will be certainly happy, that so understands himself and hates his sin, that he will not nurse it, but get to himselfe a Reprover on purpose, whose warrant shall be liberty, whose thanks shall be amendment, whose entertainment shall be obedience; for a flattering word is like a bright sun-shine to a sore Eye, it increases the trouble, and lessens the sight;

D Haec demum sapiet dictio quae feriet;

The severe word of the reproving man is wise and healthfull: But because all times and all circumstances, and all persons are not fit for this imployment:

—et plurima sunt quae

Non audent homines pertusâ dicere laenâ;

Some will not endure that a pore man, or an obliged person should E reprove them, and themselves are often so unprofitable servants that they will rather venture their friends damnation then hazard their owne interest, therefore in the performance of this duty of the usefull communication, the following measures are fit to be observed.

[Page] 1. Let not your reproofe be publick and personall: if it be publick, A it must be in generall; if it be personall, it must be in private; and this is expressely commanded by our blessed Saviour: If thy Brother offends, tell it him between him and thee; for when it comes afterwards in case of contumacy to be declared in publick, it passes from fraternall correption to Ecclesiasticall discipline. When Socrates reproved Plato at a feast, Plato told him, it had been better he had told him his fault in private; for to speak it publickly is indecency: Socrates replyed; and so it is for you publickly to condemne that indecency. For it is the nature of man to be spitefull when he is shamed, and to esteem that the worst of B evils, and therefore to take impudence and perseverance for its cover, when his shame is naked: And for this indiscretion Aristomenes the Tutor of Ptolemy, who before the Corinthian Embassadors reproved the King for sleeping at the solemne audience, profited nothing, but enraged the Prince, and was himself forc'd to drink poyson. But this warinesse is not alwayes necessary. For 1. a publick and an authoriz'd person, may doe it publickly, and may name the person as himself shall judge expedient.

—secuit Lucilius urbem: C

Te Lupe, te Muti; & genuinum fregit in illis:

Omne vafer vitium—

Lucilius was a censor of manners, and by his office he had warrant and authority. 2. There are also some cases in which a publick reproofe is prudent, and that is when the crime is great, but not understood to be any at all; for then it is Instruction and Catechism, and layes aside the affront and trouble of reproofe. Thus Ignatius the Martyr did reprove Trajan sacrificing at the Altar in the sight of all the Officers of the Army; and the Iews were commanded D Jer. 10. 11. to reprove the Babylonians for Idolatry in the land of their Captivity: and if we see a Prince in the confidence of his pride, and carelesnesse of spirit, and heat of war spoyle a Church or rob God, it is then fit to tell him the danger of Sacriledge, if otherwise he cannot well be taught his danger, and his duty. 3. There are some circumstances of person in which by interpretation, duty or custome a leave is indulged or presum'd, that liberty may be prudently used, publickly to reprove the publick vices: so it was in the old days of the Romans; vice had then so little footing and authority, so few friends and advocates, that the Prophets and Poets used a bolder liberty to disgrace E whatsoever was amisse;

—unde illa priorum

Scribendi quodcun (que) animo flagrante liberet

Simplicitas—

[Page] A and much of the same liberty is still reserved to Pulpits, and to the Bishops office, save onely, that although they may reprove publickly, yet they may not often doe it personally.

2. Use not to reprove thy brother for every thing, but for great things onely: for this is the office of a Tutor, not of a Friend; and few men will suffer themselves to abide alwayes under Pupillage. When the friend of Philotimus the Physician came to him to be cured of a sore finger, he told him, Heus tu, non tibi cum reduvia est nego [...]ium, he let his finger alone, and told him that his liver was impostumate: and he that tells his friend that his countenance B is not grave enough in the Church, when it may be the man is an Atheist, offers him a cure that will doe him no good, and to chastise a trifle is not a worthy price of that noblest liberty and ingenuity which becomes him that is to heale his brothers soule. But when a vice stains his soule, when he is a foole in his manners, when he is proud, and impatient of contradiction, when he disgraces himselfe by talking weakly, and yet beleeves himselfe wise, and above the confidence of a sober person, then it concerns a friend to rescue him from folly. So Solon reproved Croesus, and Socrates Alcibiades, and Cyrus chid Cyaxares, and Plato told C to Dion that of all things in the world he should beware of that folly, by which men please themselves, and despise a better judgement: quia ei vitio adsidet solitudo, Because that folly hath in it singularity, and is directly contrary to all capacities of a friendship, or the entertainments of necessary reproofe.

3. Vse not liberty of reproofe in the dayes of sorrow and affliction; for the calamity it self is enough to chastise the gayeties of sinning persons, and to bring him to repentance; it may be sometimes fit to insinuate the mention of the cause of that sorrow, in order to repentance, and a cure: But severe and biting D language is then out of season, and it is like putting vineger to an enflamed and smarting eye, it increases the anguish, and tempts unto impatience. In the accidents of a sad person, we must doe as nurses to their falling children, snatch them up and still their cryings, and entertain their passion with some delightfull avocation; but chide not then when the sorrowfull man needs to be refreshed. When Crater the Cynic met Demetrius Phalereus in his banishment and trouble, he went to him and spoke to him friendly, and used his Philosophy in the ministeries of comfort, and taught him to bear his trouble nobly, and so wrought upon the criminal, and E wilde Demetrius; and he moved him to repentance, who if he had been chidden (as he expected) would have scorn'd the manners of the Cynic, and hated his presence and institution; and Perseus kil'd Euchus and Eulaeus, for reproving his rashnesse, when he was newly defeated by the Romanes.

[Page] 4. Avoid all the evill appendages of this liberty: for since to A reprove a sinning brother is at the best but an unwelcome and invidious employment, though it may also be understood to be full of charity; yet therefore we must not make it to be hatefull by adding reproach, scorn, violent expressions, scurrility, derision, or bitter invectives. Hieron invited Epicharmus to supper, and he knowing that Hieron had unfortunately kil'd his friend, replyed to his invitation, At (que) nuper cum amicos immolares non vorasti, I think I may come, for when thou didst sacrifice thy friends thou didst not devour them. This was a bitter sarcasme, and might with more prudence and charity have been avoyded. They B that intend charitably and conduct wisely, take occasions and proper seasons of reproof, they doe it by way of question and similitude, by narrative and apologues, by commending something in him that is good, and discommending the same fault in other persons by way that may disgrace that vice, and preserve the reputation of the man. Ammonius observing that his Scholars were nice and curious in their diet, and too effeminate for a Philosophicall life, caused his freed man to chastise his boy for not dining without vinegar, and all the while look'd upon the young Gentlemen, and read to them a lecture of Severity. Thus our dearest Lord reproved St. Peter, he look'd C upon him when the signe was given with the crowing of the Cock, and so chid him into a showre of penitentiall tears. Some use to mingle prayses with their reprehensions, and to invite their friends patience to endure remedy, by ministring some pleasure with their medicine; for as no wise man can well indure to be praised by him that knows not how to disprayse, and to reprove; so neither will they endure to be reproved by him that knows not how to praise; for reproof from such a man betrayes too great a love of himselfe, and an illiberall spirit: He that will reprove wisely, must efform himselfe into all images of things which innocently and wisely he D can put on; not by changing his manners, his principles, and the consequences of his discourse, (as Alcibiades was supposed to doe) for it is best to keep the severity of our owne principles, and the manner of our owne living: for so Plato lived at Syracuse, just as he lived in the Academy; he was the same to Dionysius that he was to Dion: But this I mean, that he who meanes to win soules, and prevail to his brothers institution, must as St. Paul did, effigiate and conform himself to those circumstances of living, and discourse, by which he may prevaile upon the persuasions, by complying with the affections and usages of men. E

These are the measures by which we are to communicate our counsels and advices to our erring Brethren: to which I adde this last advice, That no man should at that time in which he is reproved give counsell and reproofe to his Reprover, for that betrayes an angry spirit, and makes discord out of piety, and changes charity into [Page] A wrangling, and it looking like a revenge, makes it appear that himself took the first reproofe for an injury.

That which remaines now is, that I persuade men to doe it, and that I persuade men to suffer it; 'tis sometimes hard to doe it, but the cause is onely, because it is hard to bear it; for if men were but apprehensive of their danger, and were not desirous to die, there were no more to be said in this affair; they would be as glad to entertain a severe Reprover as a carefull Physitian; of whom because most men are so willing to make use, so thankfull B for their care, so great valuers of their skill, such lovers of their persons; no man is put to it to persuade men to be Physitians, because there is no need to persuade men to live, or to be in health: if therefore men would as willingly be vertuous as be healthfull, as willingly doe no evill as suffer none, be as desirous of heaven as of a long life on earth, all the difficulties and temptations against this duty of reproving our sinning brother would soon be conceal'd; but let it be as it will, we must doe it in duty and piety to him that needs, and if he be impatient of it, he needs it more: Et per bujusmodi offensas emetiendum est confragosum hoc iter: it C is a troublesome imployment, but it is duty and charity; and therefore when it can with hope of successe, with prudence and piety be done, no other consideration ought to interpose. And for the other part, those I mean who ought to be reproved, they are to remember, that themselves give pensions to the Preacher on purpose to be reproved if they shall need it*, that God hath instituted a holy Order of men to that very purpose*, that they should be severally told of all that is amisse*, that themselves chide their children and their servants for their good, and that they may amend*, and that they endure thirst to cure their D dropsies*, that they suffer burnings to prevent the gangrenes*, and endure the cutting off a limbe to preserve their lives*, and therefore that it is a strange witchcraft and a prodigious folly, that at so easie a mortification as the suffering of a plain friendly reproofe, they will not set forward their interest of heaven, and suffer themselves to be set forward in their hopes of heaven:

—dura fatemur

Esse, sed ut valeas multa dolenda feras.

E And when all remember that flattery and importune silence suffer the mighty to perish like fooles and inconsiderate persons, it ought to awake our spirits, and make us to attend to the admonitions of a friend, with a silence great as midnight, and watchfull as a widows eyes. It was a strange thing that Valentinian should in the midst of so many Christian Prelates make a law to [Page] establish Polygamy, and that no Bishop should dare to reprehend A him. The effect of it was this, that he had a son by a second wife, the first being alive and not divorc'd, and he left him heir of a great part of the Empire; and what the effect of that was to this soul, God who is his Judge best knows.

If now at last it be inquir'd whether every man is bound to reprove every man, if he sins, and if he converse with him? I answer, that if it should be so, it were to no purpose, and therefore for it there is no commandement; every man that can may instruct him that wants it; but every man may not reprove him that is already instructed; that is an act of charity, for which B there are no measures, but the others necessity, and his own opportunity; but this is also an act of discipline, and must in many cases suppose an authority; and in all cases such a liberty as is not fit to be permitted to mean, and ignorant, and inferiour persons; I end this with the saying of a wise person, advising to every one concerning the use of the tongue, aut lucrentur vitam loquendo, aut tacendo abscondant scientiam; if they speak, let them minister to the good of souls; if they speak not, let them minister to sobriety; in the first they serve the end of charity, in the other of humility.

THE END.

ERRATA.

[Page]

PAg. 10. l. 35. r. entertained that at. p. 6. l. 30. scen r. scene. 29. 21. dear r. clear. 152. 4. terrour r. fervour. 71. 40. the bowed r. they bowed. 87. 41. reverend r reverene'd. 112. 27. r. illius pejo a prioribus. 100. 1. one r. once. 102. 21. that flies r. he that flies. 142. 16. r. true or false. 98. 45. if it be turned r. if it be not turned. 283. ult. r. get a Genius. 309. 40. still r. till. 334. 5. r. his soul.

33. 8. [...] lege (forsan) [...]. 52. 29. lege [...]. 140. 9. lege [...]. 200. ult. lege [...]. In margin. p. 225. 5. lege [...].

§

§

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XXVIII SERMONS PREACHED AT GOLDEN GROVE; Being for the Summer half-year, BEGINNING ON WHIT-SUNDAY, And ending on the xxv. Sunday after TRINITY.

TOGETHER WITH A Discourse of the Divine Institution, Necessity, Sacredness, and Separation of the Office Ministeriall.

BY JER. TAYLOR, D. D.

QVI SEQVITUR ME NON AMBULAT IN TENEBRIS.

LONDON, Printed by R. N. for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-Lane. 1651.

To the right Honourable and truely Noble, RICHARD Lord VAVGHAN, Earl of Carbery, Baron of Emlin, and Molingar Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bath.

[Page]

[Page]

My Lord,

I Now present to your Lordship a Copy of those Sermons the publication of which was first designed by the appetites of that hunger and thirst of righteousnesse, which made your Dear Lady (that rare soul) so dear to God, that he was pleased speedily to satisfie her, by carrying her from our shallow and impure cisterns to drink out of the fountains of our Saviour. My Lord, I shall but prick your tender eye, if I shall remind your Lordship, how diligent a hearer, how carefull [Page] a recorder, how prudent an observer, how sedulous a practiser of holy discourses she was, and that therefore it was, that what did slide thorow her ear, she was desirous to place before her eye, that by those windows they might enter in and dwell in her heart: But because by this truth I shall do advantage to the following discourses, give me leave (my Lord) to fancy, that this Book is derived upon your Lordship almost in the nature of a legacy from her, whose every thing was dearer to your Lordship, then your own eyes, and that what she was pleased to beleeve apt to minister to her devotions, and the religions of her pious and discerning soul, may also be allowed a place in your closet, and a portion of your retirement, and a lodging in your thoughts, that they may incourage and instruct your practise and promote that interest, which is and ought to be dearer to you then all those blessings and separations with which God hath remarked your family and person.

My Lord, I confesse the publication of these Sermons can so little serve the ends of my reputation, that I am therefore pleased the rather to do it, because I cannot at all be tempted, in so doing, to minister to any thing of vanity. Sermons may please when they first strike the ear, and yet appear flat and ignorant when they are offered to the eye, and to an understanding that can consider at leisure. I remember that a young Gentleman of Athens being to answer for his life, hired an Orator to make his defence, and it pleased him well, at his first reading; [Page] but when the young man by often reading it that he might recite it publikely by heart, began to grow weary and dspleased with it, the Orator bade him consider that the Judges and the people were to hear it but once, and then it was likely, they at that first instant might be as well pleased as he. This hath often represented to my mind the condition and fortune of Sermons, and that I now part with the advantage they bad in their delivery, but I have sufficiently answered my self in that, and am at rest perfectly in my thoughts as to that particular, if I can in any degree serve the interest of souls, and (which is next to that) obey the piety, and record the memory of that dear Saint, whose name and whose soul is blessed: for in both these ministeries, I doubt not but your Lordship will be pleased, and account as if I had done also some service to your self: your religion makes me sure of the first, and your piety puts the latter past my fears. However, I suppose in the whole account of this affair, this publication may be esteemed but like preaching to a numerous Auditory, which if I had done, it would have been called either duty, or charity, and therefore will not now so readily be censured for vanity, if I make use of all the wayes I can to minister to the good of souls: But because my intentions are fair in themselves, and I hope are acceptable to God, and will be fairly expounded by your Lordship, (whom for so great reason I so much value) I shall not trouble you or the world with an Apologie for this so free publishing my weaknesses; I can better secure my reputation [Page] by telling men how they ought to entertain Sermons, for if they that read or hear, do their duty aright, the Preacher shall soon be secured of his fame, and untouched by censure.

1. For it were well, if men would not inquire after the learning of the sermon, or its deliciousnesse to the ear or fancy, but observe its usefulnesse, not what concerns the preacher, but what concerns themselves, not what may make a vain reflexion upon him, but what may substantially serve their own needs, that the attending to his discourses may not be spent in vain talk concerning him, or his disparagements but may be used as a duty and a part of religion, to minister to edification and instruction. When S. John reckoned the principles of evil actions, he told but of three, The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. But there was then also in the world (and now it is grown into age, and strength, and faction) another lust, the lust of the ear, and a fift also, the lust of the tongue. Some people have an insatiable appetite in hearing, and hear onely that they may hear, and talk and make a party: They enter into their neighbours house to kindle their candle, and espying there, a glaring fire, sit down upon the hearth and warm themselves all day, and forget their errand, and in the mean time, their own fires are not lighted, nor their families instructed, or provided for, nor any need served, but a lazie pleasure, which is uselesse and imprudent. Hearing or reading sermons is, or ought to be in order [Page] to practise, for so God intended it, that faith should come by hearing, and that charity should come by faith, and by both together we may be saved. For a mans ears (as Plutarch cals them) are virtutum ansae, by them we are to hold and apprehend vertue, and unlesse we use them as men do vessels of dishonour, filling them with things fit to be thrown away, with any thing that is not necessary, we are by them more neerly brought to God, then by all the senses beside. For although things placed before the eye affect the minde more readily then the things we usually hear, yet the reason of that is, because we hear carelesly, and we hear variety; the same species dwels upon the eye, and represents the same object in union and single representment, but the objects of the ear are broken into fragments of periods, and words, and syllables, and must be attended with a carefull understanding; and because every thing diverts the sound, and every thing cals off the understanding, and the spirit of a man is truantly, and trifling; therefore it is that what men hear, does so little affect them, and so weakly work toward the purposes of vertue, & yet nothing does so affect the minde of man as those voices to which we cannot chuse but attend, and thunder and all loud voices from Heaven rend the most ston [...] heart, and makes the most obstinate pay to God the homage of trembling, and fear, and the still voice of God usually takes the tribute of love, and choice, and obedience. Now since hearing is so effective an instrument of conveying impresses and images [Page] of things, and exciting purposes, and fixing resolutions, (unlesse we hear weakly and imperfectly) it will be of the greater concernment that we be curious to hear in order to such purposes, which are perfective of the soul, and of the spirit, and not to dwell in fancy and speculation, in pleasures and trifling arrests, which continue the soul in its infancy and childhood, never letting it go forth into the wisdom and vertues of a man. I have read concerning Dionysius of Sicily, that being delighted extremely with a Minstrel that sung well, and struck his Harp dexterously, he promised to give him a great reward, and that raised the fancy of the Man, and made him play better. But when the musick was done and the man waited for his great hope, the King dismissed him empty, telling him, that he should carry away as much of the promised reward, as himself did of the Musick, and that he had payed him sufficiently with the pleasure of the promise for the pleasure of his song: both their ears had been equally delighted and the profit just none at all: So it is in many mens hearing Sermons, they admire the Preacher, and he pleases their ears, and neither of them both bear along with them any good, and the hearer hath as little good by the sermon, as the Preacher by the ayr of the peoples breath, when they make a noise, and admire, and understand not. And that also is a second caution I desire all men would take.

2. That they may never trouble the affairs of preaching and hearing respectively, with admiring the [Page] person of any man. To admire a preacher is such a reward of his pains or worth, as if you should crown a Conqueror with a garland of roses, or a Bride with Laurell; it is an undecency, it is no part of the reward which could be intended for him. For though it be a good natur'd solly, yet it hath in it much danger, for by that means, the Preacher may lead his hearers captive, and make them servants of a faction, or of a lust; it makes them so much the lesse to be servants of Christ, by how much they call any man Master upon earth; it weakens the heart and hands of others, it places themselves in a rank much below their proper station, changing from hearing the word of God, to admiration of the person and faces of men, and it being a fault that falls upon the more easie natures and softer understandings, does more easily abuse a man; and though such a person may have the good fortune to admire a good man and a wise, yet it is an ill disposition, and makes him liable to every mans abuse: Stupidum hominem quâvis oratione percelli, said Heraclitus. An undiscerning person is apt to be cozened by every oration: And besides this, That Preacher whom some do admire, others will most certainly envy, and that also is to be provided against with diligence, and you must not admire too forwardly, for your own sake, lest you fall into the hands of a worse preacher, and for his sake, whom when you admire you also love, for others will be apt to envy him.

3. But that must by all men be avoided; for envy [Page] is the worst counsellour in the world, and the worst hearer of a wise discourse. I pity those men who live upon flattery and wonder, and while they sit at the foot of the Doctors chair, stare in his face, and cry [...], rarely spoken, admirably done, they are like callow and unfeathered birds, gaping perpetually to be fed from anothers mouth, and they never come to the knowledge of the truth, such a knowledge as is effective, and expressed in a prudent and holy life. But those men that envy the preacher; besides that they are great enemies of the Holy Ghost, and are spitefully evil because God is good to him, they are also enemies to themselves. He that envies the honours, or the riches of another, envies for his own sake, and he would fain be rich with that wealth which sweats in his neighbours coffers, but he that envies him that makes good sermons, envies himself, and is angry because himself may receive the benefit, and be improved, or delighted or instructed by another. He that is apt fondly to admire any mans person must cure himself by considering, that the Preacher is Gods minister and servant, that he speaks Gods word and does it by the Divine assistance, that he hath nothing of his own but sin and imperfection, that he does but his duty and that also hardly enough, that he is highly answerable for his talent, and stands deeply charged with the cure of souls, and therefore that he is to be highly esteemed for the work sake, not for the person; his industry and his charity is to be beloved, his ability is to be accounted [Page] upon another stock, and for it, the preacher and the hearer are both to give God thanks, but nothing is due to the man for that, save onely, that it is the rather to be imployed, because by it we may better be instructed, but if any other reflexion be made upon his person, it is next to the sin and danger of Herod and the people, when the fine Oration was made [...], with huge fancy the people were pleased, and Herod was admired, and God was angry, and an Angel was sent to strike him with death and with dishonour. But the envy against a preacher is to be cured by a contrary discourse, and we must remember that he is in the place of God, and hath received the gift of God, and the aids of the holy Ghost, that by his abilities God is glorified, and we are instructed, and the interests of vertue, and holy religion are promoted, that by this means God who deserves that all souls should serve him for ever, is likely to have a fairer harvest of glory and service, and therefore that envie is against him: that if we envie because we are not the instrument of this good to others, we must consider that we desire the praise to our selves not to God. Admiration of a man supposes him to be inferiour to the person so admired, but then he is pleased so to be, but envie supposes him as low, and he is displeased at it, and the envious man is not onely lesse then the other mans vertue, but also contrary: the former is a vanity, but this is a vice, that wants wisdom, but this wants wisdom and charity too, that supposes an absence of some good, [Page] but this is a direct affliction and calamity.

4. And after all this, if the preacher be not despised, he may proceed cheerfully in doing his duty, and the hearer may have some advantages by every Sermon. I remember that Homer sayes the woers of Penelope laught at Ulisses, because at his return be called for a loaf, and did not, to shew his gallantry, call for swords and spears; Vlysses was so wise as to call for that he needed, and had it, and it did him more good then a whole armory would in his case: so is the plainest part of an easie, and honest sermon, it is the sincere milk of the word, and nourishes a mans soul, though represented in its own naturall simplicity, and there is hardly any Orator, but you may finde occasion to praise something of him. When Plato misliked the order and disposition of the Oration of Lysias, yet he praised the good words, and the elocution of the man. Euripides was commended for his fulness, Parmenides for his composition. Phocilides for his easinesse, Archilochus for his argument, Sophocles for the unequalnesse of his stile: So may men praise their Preacher, he speaks pertinently, or he contrives wittily, or he speaks comely, or the man is pious, or charitable, or he hath a good text, or he speaks plainly, or he is not tedious or if he be he is at least industrious, or he is the messenger of God and that will not fail us, and let us love him for that; and we know those that love can easily commend any thing, because they like every thing: and they say, fair men are like angels, and the black are manly, and the pale look like honey and the [Page] stars, and the crook-nosed are like the sons of Kings, and if they be flat they are gentle and easie, and if they be deformed they are humble, and not to be despised because they have upon them the impresses of divinity, and they are the sons of God. He that despises his Preacher, is a hearer of arts and learning, not of the word of God, and though when the word of God is set off with advantages and entertainments of the better faculties of our humanity, it is more usefull and of more effect, yet when the word of God is spoken truly, though but read in plain language, it will become the disciple of Jesus to love that man whom God sends, and the publik order, and the laws have imployed, rather then to despise the weaknesse of him who delivers a mighty word.

Thus it is fit that men should be affected and imployed when they hear and read sermons, comming hither not as into a theatre, where men observe the gestures and noises of the people, the brow and eyes of the most busie censurers, and make parties, and go aside with them that dislike every thing, or else admire not the things, but the persons: But as to a sacrifice, and as unto a school, where vertue is taught and exercised, and none come but such as put themselves under discipline, and intend to grow wiser, and more vertuous, to appease their passion, from violent to become smooth and even, to have their faith established, and their hope confirmed, & their charity enlarged. They that are otherwise affected do not do their duty, but if they be so minded as they ought, I and all men of my [Page] imployment shall be secured against the tongues and faces of men who are ingeniosi in alieno libro, wittie to abuse and undervalue another mans book: And yet besides these spirituall arts already reckoned, I have one security more, for (unlesse I deceive my self) I intend the glory of God sincerely, and the service of Jesus in this publication, and therefore being I do not seek my self, or my own reputation, I shall not be troubled if they be lost in the voyces of busie people, so that I be accepted of God, and found of him in the day of the Lords visitation.

My Lord, It was your charity and noblenesse that gave me opportunity to do this service (little or great) unto religion, and whoever shall find any advantage to their soul, by reading the following discourse, if they know how to blesse God, and to blesse all them that are Gods instruments in doing them benefit, will (I hope) help to procure blessings to your Person and Family, and say a holy prayer, and name your Lordship in their Letanies, and remember, that at your own charges you have digged a well, and placed cisterns in the high wayes, that they may drink and be refreshed, and their souls may blesse you. My Lord, I hope this, even because I very much desire it, and because you exceedingly deserve it, and above all, because God is good and gracious, and loves to reward such a charity, and such a religion as is yours, by which you have imployed me in the service of God, and in ministeries to your Family. My Lord, I am most heartily, and for very many Dear obligations

Your Lordships most obliged, most humble, and most affectionate servant TAYLOR.

§

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Titles of the Sermons, their Order, Number, and Texts.

SErmon 1. 2. Of the Spirit of Grace. Folio 1. 12.

Rom. 8. ver. 9, 10.

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. *And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life, because of righteousnesse.

Sermon 3. 4. The descending and entailed curse cut off. fol. 27. 40.

Exodus 20. part of the 5. verse.

I the Lord tby God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me:

6. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandements.

Sermon 5. 6. The invalidity of a late, or death-bed repentance. fol 52, 66.

Jerem. 13. 16.

Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darknesse, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains: and while ye look for light, or, (lest while ye look for light) he shall turn it into the shadow of death, and make it grosse darknesse.

Sermon 7. 8. The deceitfulnesse of the heart. fol. 80. 92.

Jerem. 17. 9.

The heart is deceitfull above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?

Sermon 9. 10. 11. The faith and patience of the Saints: Or the righteous cause oppressed. fol. 104. 119. 133.

1 Pet. 4. 17.

For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God?

18. And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

Sermon 12. 13. The mercy of the Divine judgements; or Gods method in curing sinners. fol. 146. 159.

Romans 2. 4.

Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance?

[Page] Sermon 14. 15. Of groweth in grace, with its proper instruments and signes. fol. 172. 183.

2 Pet. 3. 18.

But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Sermon 16. 17. Of groweth in sin, or the severall states and degrees of sinners, with the manner how they are to be treated. fol. 197. 210.

Jude Epist ver. 22, 23.

And of some have compassion, making a difference: * And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.

Sermon 18. 19. The foolish exchange. sol. 224. 237.

Matth. 16. ver. 26.

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Sermon 20 21. 22. The Serpent and the Dove, or a discourse of Christian Prudence. fol. 251. 263. 274.

Matth. 10. latter part of ver. 16.

Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmlesse as doves.

Sermon 23. 24. Of Christian simplicity. 289. 301.

Matth. 10. latter part of ver. 16.

And harmlesse as doves.

Sermon 25. 26. 27. The miracles of the Divine Mercy. fol. 313. 327. 340.

Psal. 86. 5.

For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee.

A Funerall Sermon, preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honourable the Countesse of Carbery. fol. 357.

2 Sam. 14. 14.

For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again: neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him.

A Discourse of the Divine Institution, necessity, sacrednesse, and separation of the Office Ministeriall.

B Sermon. I. VVHITSVNDAY OF THE SPIRIT OF GRACE.

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A

C 8. Romans. v. 9. 10.

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God, dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Rom. 8. 2. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life, because of righteousnesse.

D THe day in which the Church commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles was the first beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This was the first day that the Religion was professed: now the Apostles first open'd their commission, and read it to all the people. [The Lord gave his Spirit] or [the Lord gave his word] and great was the company of the Preachers. For so I make bold to render that prophesie of David. Christ was the word of God, verbum E aeternum but the Spirit was the word of God, verbum Patefactum: Christ was the word manifested in the flesh; the Spirit was the word manifested to flesh, and set in dominion over, and in hostility against the flesh. The Gospel and the Spirit are the same thing; not in substance; but the manifestation of the Spirit is the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and because he was this day manifested, the Gospel was this day first preached, and it became a law to us, called Rom. 8. 2. the [Page] law of the Spirit of life, that is, a law taught us by the Spirit, leading A us to life eternal. But the Gospel is called the Spirit, 1. Because it contains in it such glorious mysteries which were revealed by the immediate inspirations of the Spirit, not onely in the matter it self, but also in the manner and powers to apprehend them. For what power of humane understanding could have found out, the incarnation of a God; that two natures [a finite, and an infinite] could have been concentred into one hypostasis (or person): that a virgin should be a Mother, that dead men should live again, that the [...], the ashes of dissolved bones should become bright as the Sun, blessed as Angels, swift in motion as thought, B clear as the purest Noone: that God should so love us, as to be willing to be reconcil'd to us, and yet that himself must dye that he might pardon us: that Gods most Holy Son should give us his body to eat, and his bloud to crown our chalices, and his Spirit to sanctifie our souls, to turn our bodies into temperance, our souls into mindes, our mindes into Spirit, our Spirit into glory: that he who can give us all things, who is Lord of Men and Angels, and King of all the Creatures should pray to God for us without intermission: that he who reigns over all the world, should at the day of judgement give up the Kingdom to God the Father, C and yet after this resignation, himself and we with him, should for ever reign the more gloriously: that we should be justified by Faith in Christ; and that charity should be a part of faith; and that both should work as acts of duty, and as acts of relation: that God should Crown the imperfect endeavours of his Saints with glory, and that a humane act should be rewarded with an eternal inheritance: that the wicked for the transient pleasure of a few minutes should be tormented with an absolute eternity of pains: that the waters of baptisme when they are hallowed by the Spirit shall purge the soul from sin: and that the Spirit of a man shall be nourished D with the consecrated and mysterious elements: and that any such nourishment should bring a man up to heaven: and after all this, that all Christian People, all that will be saved must be partakers of the Divine nature; of the Nature, the infinite nature of God, and, must dwell in Christ, and Christ must dwell in them, and they must be in the Spirit, and the Spirit must be for ever in them; these are articles of so mysterious a Philosophy, that we could have inferred them from no premises, discours'd them upon the stock of no naturall, or scientificall principles; nothing but God, and Gods spirit could have taught them to us: and therefore the Gospel is E Spiritus patefactus, the manifestation of the Spirit ad aedificationem (as the Apostle calls it) for edification and building us up to be 1 Cor. 12. 7. a Holy Temple to the Lord.

2. But when we had been taught all these mysterious articles, we could not by any humane power have understood them, [Page] A unlesse the Spirit of God had given us a new light, and created in us a new capacity, and made us to be a new creature, of another definition. Animalis homo, [...], that is, as S. Jude expounds the word [...], the animal, or the naturall man, the man that hath not the Spirit cannot discern the things of God, for they 1 Cor. 2. 14. are spiritually discerned, that is, not to be understood but by the light proceeding from the Sun of righteousnesse, and by that eye whose bird is the Holy Dove, whose Candle is the Gospel;

Scio incapacem te sacramenti, Impie

B Non posse coecis mentibus mysterium

Prudent.

Haurire nostrum: nil diurnum nox capit.

He that shall discourse Euclids elements to a swine, or preach (as Venerable Bede's story reports of him) to a rock, or talk Metaphysicks to a Bore, will as much prevail upon his assembly as S. Peter, and S. Paul could do upon uncircumcised hearts and ears, upon the indisposed Greeks, and prejudicate Iews. An Ox will relish the tender flesh of Kids with as much gust and C appetite, as an unspirituall, and unsanctified man, will do the discourses of Angels, or of an Apostle, if he should come to preach the secrets of the Gospel. And we finde it true by a sad experience. How many times doth God speak to us by his servants the Prophets, by his Son, by his Apostles, by sermons by spirituall books, by thousands of homilies, and arts of counsell and insinuation; and we sit as unconcerned as the pillars of a Church, and hear the sermons as the Athenians did a story, or as we read a gazet: and if ever it come to passe that we tremble as Felix did, when we hear a sad story of death, of righteousnesse, D and judgement to come, then we put it off to another time, or we forget it, and think we had nothing to do but to give the good man a hearing, and (as Anacharsis said of the Greeks, they used money for nothing but to cast account withall; so) our hearers make use of sermons and discourses Evangelical, but to fill up void spaces of our time; to help to tell an hour with, or without tediousnesse: The reason of this is a sad condemnation to such persons; they have not yet entertained the Spirit of God, they are in darknesse: they were washed in water, but never baptized with the Spirit; for these things are spiritually discerned. E They would think the Preacher rude, if he should say they are not Christians, they are not within the Covenant of the Gospel: but it is certain that the spirit of Manifestation is not yet upon them; and that is the first effect of the Spirit, whereby we can be called sons of God, or relatives of Christ. If we do not apprehend, and greedily suck in the precepts of this holy Discipline as aptly [Page] as Merchants do discourse of gain, or Farmers of fair harvests, A we have nothing but the Name of Christians; but we are no more such really, then Mandrakes are men, or spunges are living creatures.

3. The Gospel is called Spirit, because it consists of Spiritual Promises, and Spiritual precepts, and makes all men that embrace it, truly to be Spiritual men: and therefore S. Paul addes an Epithete beyond this, calling it a quiohening Spirit that is, it puts 2 Cor. 3. 6. life into our Spirits, which the law could not. The law bound us to punishment, but did not help us to obedience, because it gave not the promise of Eternal life to its Disciples. The Spirit, that is, the B Gospel onely does this: and this alone is it which comforts afflicted mindes, which puts activenesse into wearyed Spirits, which inflames our cold desires, and does [...] blows up sparks into live coles, and coles up to flames, and flames to perpetual burnings: and it is impossible that any man who believes, and considers the great, the infinite, the unspeakable, the unimaginable, the never ceasing joyes, that are prepared for all the sons and daughters of the Gospel should not desire them; and unlesse he be a fool, he cannot but use means to obtain them, effective, hearty pursuances. For it is not directly in the nature C of a man to neglect so great a good; there must be something in his manners, some obliquity in his will, or madnesse in his intellectuals, or incapacity in his naturals that must make him sleep such a reward away, or change it for the pleasure of a drunken feaver, or the vanity of a Mistresse, or the rage of a passion, or the unreasonablenesse of any sin. However; this promise is the life of all our actions, and the Spirit that first taught it is the life of our soules.

4. But beyond this, is the reason which is the consummation of all the faithful. The Gospel is called the Spirit, because by, D and in the Gospel, God hath given to us not onely the Spirit of manifestation, that is, of instruction and of Catechisme, of faith and confident assent; but the Spirit of Confirmation or obsignation to all them that believe and obey the Gospel of Christ; that is, the power of God is come upon our hearts, by which in an admirable manner we are made sure of a glorious inheritance; made sure (I say) in the nature of the thing; and our own persuasions also are confirmed with an excellent, a comfortable, a discerning and a reasonable hope: in the strength of which, and by whose ayde, as we do not doubt of the performance of the promise: so we vigorously pursue E all the parts of the condition, and are mabled to work all the work of God, so as not to be affrighted with fear, or seduced by vanity, or oppressed by lust, or drawn off by evil example, or abused by riches, or imprison'd by ambition and secular designes: This the Spirit of God does work in all his Servants; and is called [Page] A the spirit of obsignation, or the confirming spirit, because it confirms our hope, and assures our title to life eternall; and by means of it, and other it's collateral assistances, it also confirms us in our duty, that we may not onely professe in word, but live lives according to the Gospel. And this is the sense of [the Spirit] mentiond in the Text: ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you: That is, if ye be made partakers of the Gospel, or of the spirit of manifestation, if ye be truly intitled to God, and have received the promise of the Father, then are ye not carnall men; ye are spirituall, ye are in the Spirit: if ye have B the Spirit in one sense to any purpose, ye have it also in another: if the Spirit be in you, you are in it: if it hath given you hope, it hath also inabled and ascertain'd your duty. For the Spirit of manifestation will but upbraid you in the shame and horrours of a sad eternity, if you have not the Spirit of obsignation: if the Holy Ghost be not come upon you to great purposes of holinesse, all other pretences are vain, ye are still in the flesh, which shall never inherit the kingdom of God.

In the Spirit] that is, in the power of the spirit; so the Greeks C call him [...] who is possessed by a spirit, whom God hath filled with a coelestial immission; he is said to be in God, when God is in him: and it is a similitude taken from persons encompassed with guards; they are in custodiâ, that is, in their power, under their command, moved at their dispose, they rest in their time, and receive laws from their authority, and admit visiters whom they appoint, and mus [...] be employed as they shall suffer; so are men who are in the Spirit, that is, they beleeve as he teaches, they work as he inables, they choose what he calls good, they are friends of his friends, and they hate with his hatred; with this onely difference, D that persons in custody, are forced to do what their keepers please, and nothing is free but their wils; but they that are under the command of the Spirit, do all things which the Spirit commands, but they do them cheerfully; and their will is now the prisoner, but it is in liber â custodiâ, the will is where it ought to be, and where it desires to be, and it cannot easily choose any thing else, because it is extreamly in love with this: as the Saints and Angels in their state of Beatific vision, cannot choose but love God; and yet the liberty of their choice is not lessen'd, because the object fils all the capacities of the will, and the understanding. Indifferency to an object is E the lowest degree of liberty, and supposes unworthinesse, or defect in the object, or the apprehension; but the will is then the freest and most perfect in its operation, when it intirely pursues a good with so certain determination, and clear election, that the contrary evil cannot come into dispute or pretence: Such in our proportions is the liberty of the sons of God; it is an holy and amiable captivity to the Spirit; the will of man is in love with those chains, [Page] which draws to God, and loves the fetters that confine us to the A pleasures and religion of the kingdom. And as no man will complain that his temples are restrain'd, and his head is prisoner when it is encircled with a crown: So when the Son of God had made us free, and hath onely subjected us to the service and dominion of the Spirit, we are free as Princes within the circles of their Diadem, and our chains are bracelets, and the law is a law of liberty, and his service is perfect freedom; and the more we are subjects, the more we shall reign as Kings; and the faster we run, the easier is our burden, and Christs yoke is like feathers to a bird, not loads, but helps to motion, without them the body fals: and we do not pity B birds when in summer we wish them unfeathered and callow, or bald as egges, that they might be cooler and lighter: such is the load and captivity of the soul when we do the work of God and are his servants, and under the Government of the spirit: They that strive to be quit of this subjection, love the liberty of out-laws, and the licentiousness of anarchy, and the freedom of sad widows and distressed Orphans: For so Rebels and fools and children long to be rid of their Princes, and their Guardians, and their Tutors, that they may be accursed without law, and be undone without control, and be ignorant and miserable without a teacher and C without discipline. He that is in the Spirit is under Tutours and Governours. untill the time appointed of the Father, just as all great Heirs are; onely, the first seizure the Spirit makes, is upon the will. He that loves the yoke of Christ, and the discipline of the Gospel, he is in the Spirit, that is, in the spirits power.

Upon this foundation, the Apostle hath built these two propositions. 1. Whosoever hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his, he does not belong to Christ at all: he is not partaker of his D Spirit, and therefore shall never be partaker of his glory.

2. Whosoever is in Christ, is dead to sin, and lives to the Spirit of Christ, that is, lives a Spirituall, a holy and a sanctifyed life. These are to be considered distinctly.

1. All that belong to Christ have the Spirit of Christ. Immediately before the ascension, our blessed Saviour bid his Disciples tarry in Jerusalem till they should receive the promise of the Father. Whosoever stay at Jerusalem, and are in the actuall Communion of the Church of God shall certainly receive this promise. For it is made to you and to your children (saith S. Peter) and to as many E as the Lord our God shall call. All shall receive the Spirit of Christ, the promise of the Father, because this was the great instrument of distinction between the Law and the Gospel. In the Law God gave his Spirit, 1. to some; to them 2. extraregularly, 3. without solennity, 4. in small proportions, like the dew upon Gideons [Page] A fleece; a little portion was wet sometime with the dew of heaven, when all the earth besides was dry: And the Jewes calld it filiam vocis, the daughter of a voice, still, and small, and seldom, and that by secret whispers, and sometimes inarticulate by way of enthusiasme, rather then of instruction, and God spake by the Prophets transmitting the sound, as thorough an Organ pipe, things which themselves oftentimes understood not. But in the Gospel, the spirit is given without measure; first powred forth upon our head Christ Jesus; then descending upon the beard of Aaron, the Fathers of the Church, and thence falling like the tears of the B balsam of Judea upon the foot of the plant, upon the lowest of the people. And this is given regularly to all that ask it, to all that can receive it, and by a solemn ceremony, and conveyed by a Sacrament: and is now, not the Daughter of a voice, but the Mother of many voices, of divided tongues, and united hearts, of the tongues of Prophets, and the duty of Saints, of the Sermons of Apostles, and the wisdom of Governours; It is the Parent of boldness, and fortitude to Martyrs, the fountain of learning to Doctors, an Ocean of all things excellent to all who are within the ship, and bounds of the Catholike Church: so that Old men and young C men, maidens and boyes, the scribe and the unlearned, the Judge and the Advocate, the Priest and the people are full of the Spirit, if they belong to God; Moses's wish is fulfilled, and all the Lords people are Prophets in some sense or other.

In the wisdom of the Ancient it was observed, that there are four great cords which tye the heart of Man to inconvenience and a prison making it a servant of vanity, and an heir of corruption 1. Pleasure and 2. Pain. 3. Fear, and 4. Desire.

[...]

D [...]

[...].

These are they that exercise all the wisdom and resolutions of man, and all the powers that God hath given him.

[...]

[...].

said Agathon.

These are those evil Spirits that possess the heart of man & mingle E with al his actions; so that either men are tempted to 1. lust by pleasure, or 2. to baser arts by covetousness, or 3. to impatience by sorrow, or 4. to dishonourable actions by fear: and this is the state of man by nature; and under the law; and for ever till the Spirit of God came, and by four special operations cur'd these four inconveniences and restrained, or sweetned these unwholesome waters.

[Page] 1. God gave us his Spirit that we might be insensible of worldly A pleasures, having our souls wholly fil [...]d with spiritual and heavenly relishes. For when Gods Spirit hath entred into us and possessed us as his Temple, or as his dwelling, instantly we begin to taste Manna, and to loath the diet of Egypt; we begin to consider concerning heaven, and to prefer eternity before moments, and to love the pleasures of the soul, above the sottish and beastly pleasures of the body. Then we can consider that the pleasures of a drunken meeting cannot make recompence for the pains of a surfet, and that nights intemperance; much lesse for the torments of eternity: Then we are quick to discern that the itch and scab of lustful appetites is B not worth the charges of a Surgeon, much lesse can it pay for the disgrace, the danger, the sicknesse, the death, and the hell of lustfull persons; Then we wonder that any man should venture his head to get a crown unjustly; or that for the hazard of a victory, he should throw away all his hopes of heaven certainly.

A man that hath tasted of Gods Spirit can instantly discern the madnesse that is in rage, the folly and the disease that is in envy, the anguish and tediousnesse that is in lust, the dishonor that is in breaking our faith, and telling a lie; and understands things truly as they are; that is, that charity is the greatest noblenesse in the world; C that religion hath in it the greatest pleasures; that temperance is the best security of health; that humility is the surest way to honour; and all these relishes are nothing but antepasts of heaven, where the quintessence of all these pleasures shall be swallowed for ever; where the chast shall follow the Lamb, and the virgins sing there where the Mother of God shall reign; and the zealous converters of souls, and labourers in Gods vineyard shall worship eternally where S. Peter and S. Paul do wear their crown of righteousnesse; and the patient persons shall be rewarded with Job, and the meek persons with Christ and Moses, and all with God; the very expectation D of which proceeding from a hope begotten in us by the spirit of manifestation, and bred up and strengthened by the spirit of obsignation is so delicious an entertainment of all our reasonable appetites, that a spirituall man can no more be removed, or intic d from the love of God, and of religion, then the Moon from her Orb, or a Mother from loving the son of her joyes, and of her sorrows.

This was observed by S. Peter, [As new born babes desire the sincere 1 Ep. 2. chap. ver. 5. milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby; if so be that ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious] When once we have tasted the grace of God, the sweetnesses of his Spirit; then, no food but the food E of Angels, no cup but the cup of Salvation, the Divining cup, in which we drink Salvation to our God, and call upon the Name of the Lord with ravishment and thanksgiving; and there is no greater externall testimony that we are in the spirit, and that the spirit dwels in us, then if we finde joy and delight, and spirituall pleasures in the greatest [Page] A mysteries of our religion; if we communicate often, and that with appetite and a forward choice, and an unwearied devotion, and a heart truly fixed upon God, and upon the offices of a holy worship. He that loaths good meat is sick at heart, or neer it; and he that despises, or hath not a holy appetite to the food of Angels, the wine of elect souls, is fit to succeed the Prodigal at his banquet of sinne and husks, and to be partaker of the table of Devils; but all they who have Gods Spirit, love to feast at the supper of the Lamb, and have no appetites but what are of the spirit, or servants to the spirit. I have read of a spiritual person who saw heaven but in a dream, B but such as made great impression upon him, and was represented with vigorous and pertinacious phantasines, not easily disbanding, and when he awaked he knew not his cell, he remembred not him that slept in the same dorter, nor could tell how night and day were distinguished, nor could discern oyl from wine, but cal d out for his vision again, Redde mihi campos meos floridos, columnam auream, comitem Hieronymum, assistentes Angelos; Give me my fields again, my most delicious fields, my pillar of a glorious light, my companion S. Jereme, my assistant Angels; and this lasted till he was told of his duty, and matter of obedience, and the fear of a sin had disincharmed C him, and caused him to take care lest he lose the substance, out of greedinesse to possesse the shadow.

And if it were given to any of us to see Paradise, or the third heaven (as it was to S. Paul) could it be that ever we should love any thing but Christ, or follow any Guide but the Spirit, or desire any thing but Heaven, or understand any thing to be pleasant but what shall lead thither? Now what a vision can do, that the Spirit doth certainly to them that entertain him. They that have him really and not in pretence onely, are certainly great despisers of the things of the world. The Spirit doth not create, or enlarge our appetites D of things below: Spirituall men are not design [...]d to reign upon earth, but to reign over their lusts and sottish appetites. The Spirit doth not enflame our thirst of wealth, but extinguishes it, and makes us to esteem all things as lesse, and as dung so that we may gain Christ; No gain then is pleasant but godlinesse, no ambition but longings after heaven, no revenge but against our selves for sinning; nothing but God and Christ; Deus meus & omnia; and date nobis animas, catera vobis tollite (as the king of Sodom said to Abraham) Secure but the souls to us, and take our goods. Indeed this is a E good signe that we have the Spirit.

S. John spake a hard saying, but by the spirit of manifestation we are also taught to understand it. ‘Whosoever is born of God doth not 1 Ep. 3. 9. commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.’ The seed of God] is the spirit which hath a plastic power to efform us in similitudinem filiorum Dei, into the image of the sons of God; and as long as this remains in us, while the Spirit [Page] dwels in us We cannot sin; that is, it is against our natures, our reformed A natures to sin: And as we say, we cannot endure such a potion, we cannot suffer such a pain; that is, we cannot without great trouble, we cannot without doing violence to our nature: so all spirituall men, all that are born of God, and the seed of God remains in them, they cannot sin; cannot without trouble, and doing against our natures, and their most passionate inclinations. A man, if you speak naturally, can masticate gums, and he can break his own legs, and he can sip up by little draughts, mixtures of Aloes and Rhubarb, of Henbane, or the deadly Nightshade; but he cannot do this naturally, or willingly, cheerfully or with delight. Every sin is against a B good mans nature he is ill at case when he hath missed his usual prayers; he is amaz [...]d if he have fallen into an errour; he is infinitely ashamed of his imprudence; he remembers a sin, as he thinks of an enemy, or the horrors of a midnight apparition: for all his capacities, his understanding, and his choosing faculties are filled up with the opinion and perswasions, with the love, and with the desires of God: and this I say, is the Great benefit of the Spirit, which God hath given to us as an antidote against worldly pleasures: And therefore S. Paul joynes them as consequent to each other [For it Hebr. 6. 4. is impossible for those who were once enlightned, and have tasted of the C heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, &c.] First we are enlightned in Baptisme, and by the Spirit of manifestation, the revelations of the Gospel: then we relish and taste interiour excellencies, and we receive the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of confirmation, and he gives us a taste of the powers of the world to come; that is, of the great efficacy that is in the Article of eternall life to perswade us to religion and holy living: then we feel that as the belief of that Article dwels upon our understanding, and is incorporated into our wils and choice, so we grow powerfull to resist sin by D the strengths of the Spirit, to defie all carnall pleasure, and to suppresse and mortifie it by the powers of this Article: [those are the powers of the world to come.

2. The Spirit of God is given to all who truly belong to Christ as an anidote against sorrows, against impatience, against the evil accidents of the world, and against the oppression and sinking of our spirits under the crosse. There are in Scripture noted two births besides the naturall; to which also by analogy we may adde a third. The first is to be born of water and the Spirit. It is [...] one thing signified by a divided appellative, by two substantives, E [water and the Spirit] that is, Spiritus aqueus, the Spirit moving upon the waters of Baptisme. The second is to be born of Spirit and fire, for so Christ was promised to baptize us with the Holy Ghost and with fire; that is, cum spiritu igneo, with a fiery spirit, the Spirit as it descended in Pentecost in the shape of fiery tongues. And as [Page] A the watry spirit washed away the sins of the Church, so the spirit of fire enkindles charity and the love of God. [...] (sayes Plutarch) the Spirit is the same under both the titles, and it enables the Church with gifts and graces: And from these 3. there is another operation of the new birth, but the same Spirit, the spirit of rejoycing, or spiritus exultans, spiritus laetitiae. Now Rom. 15. 13. the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in beleeving, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. There is a certain joy and spirituall rejoycing, that accompanies them in whom the Holy Ghost doth dwell; a joy in the midst of sorrow; a joy B given to allay the sorrows of saecular troubles, and to alleviate the burden of persecution. This S. Paul notes to this purpose. [And ye 1 Thess. 1. 6. became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost.] Worldly afflictions and spirituall joyes, may very well dwell together; and if God did not supply us out of his storehouses, the sorrows of this world would be mere and unmixt, and the troubles of persecution would be too great for naturall confidences. For who shall make him recompence that lost his life in a Duel, fought about a draught of wine, or a cheaper woman? What arguments shall invite a man C to suffer torments, in testimony of a proposition of naturall Philosophy? And by what instruments shall we comfort a man who is sick, and poor, and disgrac'd and vitious, and lies cursing, and despairs of any thing hereafter? That mans condition proclaims what it is to want the Spirit of God, the Spirit of comfort. Now this Spirit of comfort is the hope and confidence, the certain expectation of partaking in the inheritance of Jesus. This is the faith and patience of the Saints, this is the refreshment of all wearied travellers, the cordiall of all languishing sinners, the support of the scrupulous, the guide of the doubtfull, the anchor of timorous D and fluctuating souls, the confidence and the staff of the penitent. He that is deprived of his whole estate for a good conscience, by the Spirit he meets this comfort, that he shall finde it again with advantage in the day of restitution: and this comfort was so manifest in the first dayes of Christianity, that it was no infrequent thing to see holy persons court a Martyrdom with a fondnesse as great as is our impatience, and timorousnesse in every persecution. Till the Spirit of God comes upon us we are [...] inopis nos, atque pusilli finxerunt animi; we have little souls, little faith, and as little E patience, we fall at every stumbling block, and sink under every temptation; and our hearts fail us, and we die for fear of death, and lose our souls to preserve our estates, or our persons till the Spirit of God fills us with joy in beleeving: and a man that is in a great joy cares not for any trouble that is lesse then his joy; and God hath taken so great care to secure this to us, that he hath turn'd it into a precept. Rejoyce evermore; and Rejoyce in the Lord always, and 1 Thess. 5. 16. [Page] again, I say rejoyce. But this rejoycing must be onely in the hope A that is laid up for us, [...]; so the Apostle. Rejoycing in Rom. 12. 12. hope. For although God sometimes maks a cup of sensible comfort to overflow the spirit of a man, and thereby loves to refresh his sorrows; yet that is from a secret principle, not regularly given not to be waitd for, not to be prayed for, and it may fail us if we think upon it: but the hope of life eternall can never fail us, and the joy of that is great enough to make us suffer any thing, or to do any thing

—ibimus, ibimus

utcunque praecedes, supremum B

Carpere iter comites parati

To death, to bands, to poverty, to banishment, to tribunals, any whither in hope of life eternall: as long as this anchor holds, we may suffer a storm, but cannot suffer shipwrack: And I desire you by the way to observe, how good a God we serve, and how excellent a Religion Christ taught, when one of his great precepts is, that we should rejoyce and be exceeding glad? and God hath given us the spirit of rejoycing, not a sullen, melancholy spirit, not the spirit of bondage or of a slave, but the Spirit of his Son, consigning us by a holy conscience to joyes unspeakable and full of C glory: And from hence you may also infer, that those who sink under a persecution, or are impatient in a sad accident they put out their own fires, which the Spirit of the Lord hath kindled, and lose those glories which stand behinde the cloud.

Part II.

3. THe Spirit of God is given us, as an antidote against evil D concupiscences, and sinfull desires, and is then called the spirit of prayer and supplication. For ever since the affections of the outward man prevaild upon the ruins of the soul, all our desires were sensuall, and therefore hurtfull: for ever after, our body grew to be our enemy. In the loosnesses of nature, and amongst the ignorance, or imperfection of Gentile Philosophy, men used to pray with their hands full of rapine, and their mouths of blood, and their hearts of malice; and they prayed accordingly, for an opportunity to steal, for a fair body, for a prosperous E revenge, for a prevailing malice, for the satisfaction of whatsoever they could be tempted to by any object, by any lust, by any Devil whatsoever.

The Jews were better taught for God was their teacher, and he gave the spirit to them in single rayes. But as the spirit of obsignation [Page] A was given to them under a seal, and within a veile; so the spirit of Manifestation or patefaction was like the gem of a vine, or the bud of a rose, plain indices and significations of life, and principles of juice and sweetnesse: but yet scarce out of the doors of their causes; they had the infancy of knowledge; and revelations to them were given as Catechisme is taught to our children; which they read with the eye of a bird, and speak with the tongue of a bee, and understand with the heart of a childe, that is, weakly and imperfectly: and they understood so little; that 1. They B thought God heard them not unlesse they spake their prayers, at least efforming their words within their lips: and 2. Their forms of prayer were so few and seldome, that to teach a forme of prayer, or to compose a collect was thought a worke fit for a Prophet, or the founder of an institution. 3. Adde to this that as their promises were temporal, so were their hopes: as were their hopes so were their desires; and according to their desires so were their prayers. And although the Psalms of David was their Creat office, and the C treasury of devotion to their Nation (and very worthily) yet it was full of wishes for temporals, invocations of GOD the Avenger, on GOD the Lord of Hosts, on God the Enemy of their Enemies; and they desired their Nation to be prospered, and themselves blessed, and distinguished from all the world, by the effects of such desires. This was the state of prayer in their Synagogue; save onely that it had also this allay. 4. That their addresses to GOD were crasse, material, typical and full of shadows, and imagery, paterns of things to come, and so in D its very being and constitution was relative and imperfect. But that we may see how great things the Lord hath done for us, God hath powred his spirit into our hearts, the spirit of prayer and supplication, and now. 1. Christians pray in their spirit, with sighs and groans, and know that GOD who dwells within them, can as clearly distinguish those secret accents, and read their meaning in the Spirit as plainly as he knows the voice of his own thunder, or could discern the letter of the law written in the tables of stone by the finger of God. 2. likewise the spirit helpeth our infirmities, E for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. That is, when God sends an affliction or persecution upon us, we are indeed extreme apt to lay our hand upon the wound and never take it off but when we lift it up in prayer to be delivered from that sadnesse; and then we pray fervently to be cured of a sicknesse, to be delivered from a Tyrant, to be snatched from the grave, not to perish in the danger. But the [Page] spirit of God hath from all sad accidents drawn the veil of errour A and the cloud of intolerablenesse, and hath taught us that our happinesse cannot consist in freedom, or deliverances from persecutions, but in patience, resignation, and noble sufferance; and that we are not then so blessed when God hath turn'd our scourges into ease and delicacy, as when we convert our very scorpions into the exercise of vertues: so that now the spirit having helped our infirmities, that is, comforted our weaknesses and afflictions, our sorrows and impatience by this proposition, that [All things work together for the good of them that fear God] he hath taught us to pray for grace, for patience under B the crosse, for Charity to our persecutors, for rejoycing in tribulations, for perseverance and boldnesse in the faith; and for whatsoever will bring us safely to Heaven.

3. Whereas onely a Moses, or a Samuel, a David, or a Daniel, a John the Baptist, or the Messias himself could describe and indite formes of prayer and thanksgiving to the time and accent of Heaven, now every wise and good Man is instructed perfectly in the Scriptures (which are the writings of the spirit) what things he C may, and what things he must ask for.

4. The Spirit of God hath made our services to be spiritual, intellectual, holy, and effects of choice and religion, the consequents of a spiritual sacrifice, and of a holy union with God: The prayer of a Christian is with the effects of the spirit of Sanctification; and then we pray with the Spirit when we pray with Holinesse, which is the great fruit, the principal gift of the spirit, And this is by Saint James called [the prayer of faith] and is said to be certain that it shall prevail. Such a praying with the spirit, when our prayers are D the voices of our spirits, and our spirits are first taught, then sanctified by Gods spirit, shall never fail of its effect; because then it is, that the spirit himself maketh intercession for us: that is, hath enabled us to do it upon his strengths, we speak his sense, we live his life, we breath his accents, we desire in order to his purposes, and our persons are Gracious by his Holinesse, and are accepted by his interpellation and intercession in the act and offices of Christ. This is praying with the spirit. To which by way of explication I adde these two annexes of holy prayer, in respect of which also, every good man prayes with E the spirit.

5. The spirit gives us great relish and appetite to our prayers, and this Saint Paul calls [serving of God in his spirit [...] that is, with a willing minde; not as Jonas did Rom. 1. 9. his errand, but as Christ did die for us, he was straimed till [Page] A he had accomplished it. And they that say their prayers out of custome onely, or to comply with external circumstances, or collateral advantages, or pray with trouble and unwillingnesse, give a very great testimony that they have not the spirit of Christ within them, that spirit which maketh intercession for the Saints: but he that delighteth in his prayers, not by a sensible or phantastic pleasure, but whose choice dwells in his prayers, and whose conversation is with God in holy living, and praying accordingly, that man hath the spirit of Christ, and therfore belongs to Christ; for by this spirit it is that Christ prayes in Heaven B for us: and if we do not pray on earth in the same manner according to our measures; we had as good hold our peace, our prayers are an abominable sacrifice, and send up to God no better a perfume, then if wee burned assa faetida, or the raw flesh of a murdered man upon the altar of incense.

6. The spirit of Christ and of prayer helps our infirmities, by giving us confidence and importunity. I put them together. For as our faith is, and our trust in God, so is our hope, and so is our prayer, weary or lasting, long or short, not in C words, but in works, and in desires For the words of prayer are no part of the spirit of prayer: words may be the body of it, but the spirit of prayer alwayes consists in holinesse, that is in holy desires, and holy actions: words are not properly capable of being holy; all words are in themselves servants of things, and the holinesse of a prayer is not at all concerned in the manner of its expression, but in the spirit of it, that is, in the violence of its desires, and the innocence of its ends, and the continuence of its imployment: this is the verification of that great Prophecie which Christ made; that [in all the world the true D worshippers should worship in spirit and in truth] that is, with a pure minde, with holy desires, for spiritual things, according to the minde of the spirit in imitation of Christs intercession, with perseverance, with charity, or love. That is the spirit of God, and these are the spiritualities of the Gospel, and the formalities of prayer as they are Christian and Evangelicall.

7. Some men have thought of a seventh way, and explicate our praying in the spirit, by a mere volubilty of language: which indeed is a direct undervaluing the spirit of God and E of Christ, the spirit of manifestation and intercession; it is to return to the materiality and imperfection of the law, it is to worship God in outward forms, and to think that Gods service consists in shels and rinds, in lips and voices, in shadows and images of things: it is to retire from Christ to Moses, and at the best, it is a going from real graces to imaginary gifts: and [Page] when praying with the spirit hath in it so many excellencies, and A consists of so many parts of holinesse, and sanctification, and is an act of the inner man, we shall be infinitely mistaken, if we let go this substance, and catch at a shadow, and sit down and rest in the imagination of an improbable, unnecessary, uselesse gift of speaking to which the nature of many men, and the art of all learned men, and the very use and confidence of ignorant men is too abundantly sufficient. Let us not so despise the spirit of Christ as to make it no other then the breath of our lungs. * For though it might be possible that at the first, and when formes of prayer were few and seldome, the spirit of God B might dictatethe very words to the Apostles, and first Christians; yet it follows not that therfore he does so still to all that pretend praying with the spirit. For if he did not then, at the first, dictate words (as we know not whether he did or no) why shall he be suppos'd to do so now? If he did then; it follows that he does not now,; because his doing it then, was sufficient for all men since: for so the formes taught by the spirit were paternes for others to imitate in all the deseending ages of the Church. There was once an occasion so great that the spirit of God did think it a work fit for him to teach a C man to weave silke, or embroider gold, or woke in brasse, (as it happened to Besaleel and Aholiab:) But then every weaver or worker in brasse may by the same reason pretend that he works by the spirit, as that he prayes by the spirit, if by prayer he means forming the words. For although in the case of working it was certain that the spirit did teach: in the case of inditing or forming the words it is not certain whether he did or no; yet because in both it was extraordinary (if it was at all) and ever since, in both it is infinitely needlesse; to pretend the Spirit in forms of every mans making (even though they be of D contrary religions, and pray one against the other) it may serve an end of a phantastic and hypochondriacal religion, or a secret ambition, but not the ends of God, or the honour of the Spirit.

The Jews in their declensions to folly and idolatry did worship the stone of imagination, that is, certain smooth images in which by art magic pictures and little faces were represented, declaring hidden things and stoln goods; and God Levit. 26. 1. severely forbad this basenesse: but we also have taken up this folly, and worship the stone of imagination: we beget imperfect E phantasmes and speculative images in our phansy, and we fall down and worship them; never considering that the spirit of God never appears through such spectres. Prayer is one of the noblest exercises of Christian religion; or rather is it that duty in which all graces are concentred. Prayer is [Page] A charity, it is faith, it is a conformity to Gods will, a desiring according to the desires of Heaven, an imitation of Christs intercession; and prayer must suppose all holinesse, or else it is nothing: and therefore all that in which men need Gods Spirit, all that is in order to prayer. Baptisme is but a prayer, and the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supperl is but a prayer; a prayer of sacrifice representative, and a prayer of oblation, and a prayer of intercession, and a prayer of thanksgiving: and obedience is a prayer, and begs and procures blessings: and if the Holy Ghost hath sanctified the whole man, then he hath sanctified the prayer of the B man, and not till then; and if ever there was, or could be any other praying with the spirit, it was such a one as a wicked man might have, and therefore it cannot be a note of distinction between the good and bad, between the saints and men of the world. But this onely (which I have described from the fountains of Scripture) is that which a good man can have, and therefore this is it in which we ought to rejoyce; that he that glories, may glory in the Lord.

Thus I have (as I could) described the effluxes of the Holy Spirit upon us in his great chanels. But the great effect of them is C this; That as by the arts of the spirits of darknesse, and our own malice our souls are turned into flesh, (not in the naturall sense, but in the morall, and Theologicall) and animalis homo is the same with carnalis, that is, his soul is a servant of the passions and desires of the flesh, and is flesh in it s operations and ends, in it s principles and actions: So on the other side, by the Grace of God, and the promise of the Father, and the influences of the Holy Ghost, our souls are not onely recovered from the state of flesh, and reduced back to the intirenesse of animall operations, but they are heightned into spirit, and transform d into a new nature: And D this is a new Article, and now to be considered.

S. Hierom tels of the Custome of the Empire; When a Tyrant was overcome, they us d to break the head of his Statues, and upon the same Trunk, to set the head of the Conquerour, and so it passed wholly for the new Prince: So it is in the kingdom of Grace: As soon as the Tyrant sin is overcome, and a new heart is put into us, or that we serve under a new head, instantly we have a new Name given us, and we are esteemed a new Creation; and not onely changed in manners, but we have a new nature within E us, even a third part of an essentiall constitution. This may seem strange; and indeed it is so: and it is one of the great mysteriousnesses of the Gospel. Every man naturally consists of soul and body: but every Christian man that belongs to Christ, hath more. For he hath body, and soul, and spirit. My Text is plain for it. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his: and by [Spirit] is not meant onely the graces of God, and his gifts enabling [Page] us to do holy things: there is more belongs to a good man B then so. But as when God made man, he made him after his own image, and breath'd into him the spirit of life, and he was made in animam viventem, into a living soul; then he was made a man: So in the new creation, Christ by whom God made both the worlds, intends to conform us to his image, and he hath given us the spirit of adoption, by which we are made sons of God; and by the spirit of a new life we are made new creatures, capable of a new state, intitled to another manner of duration, enabled to do new and greater actions in order to higher ends; we have new affections, new understandings, new wils: Veter a transierunt, & ecce omnia B nova facta sunt; All things are become new: And this is called the seed of God when it relates to the principle and cause of this production: but the thing that is produced is a spirit, and that is as much in nature beyond a soul, as a soul is beyond a body. This great Mystery I should not utter but upon the greatest authority in the world, and from an infallible Doctor, I mean S. Paul, who from Christ taught the Church more secrets, then all the whole Colledge besides: [And the very God of peace sanctifie you wholly, 1 Thess. 5. 23. and I pray God that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blamelesse unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.] We are C not sanctified wholly, nor preserved in safety, unlesse besides our souls and bodies, our spirit also be kept blamelesse. This distinction is nice, and infinitely above humane reason: but the word of Hebr. 4. 12. God (saith the same Apostle) is sharper then a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder the soul and the spirit: and that hath taught us to distinguish the principle of a new life, from the principle of the old, the celestiall from the naturall; and thus it is.

The spirit (as I now discourse of it) is a principle infused into us by God, when we become his children, whereby we live the D life of Grace, and understand the secrets of the Kingdom, and have passions and desires of things beyond, and contrary to our naturall appetites, enabling us not onely to sobriety (which is the duty of the body) not onely to justice, which is the rectitude of the soul; but to such a sanctity as makes us like to God. * For so saith the Spirit of God; Be ye holy as I am; be pure, be perfect, as your heavenly Father is pure, as he is perfect: which because it cannot be a perfection of degrees, it must be in similitudine naturae, in the likenesse of that nature which God hath given us in the new birth, that by it, we might resemble his excellency, and E holinesse. And this I conceive to be the meaning of S. Peter [According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain 2 Epist. 1. 4. to life and godlinesse, (that is, to this new life of godlinesse) through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and vertue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, [Page] A that by these you might be partakers of the Divine nature (so we read it) But it is something mistaken; it is not [...], [The Divine nature] for Gods nature is indivisible, and incommunicable; but it is spoken participative, or per analogiam, [partakers of a Divine nature] that is, of this new and God-like nature, given to every person that serves God, whereby he is sanctified and made the childe of God, and framed into the likenesse of Christ. The Greeks generally call this [...], a gracious gift, an extraordinary super addition to nature, not a single gift in order to single purposes; but an universall principle, and it remains upon all good B men during their lives, and after their death; and is that white stone spoken of in the Revelation; and in it a new name written, Apoc. 2. 17. which no man knoweth but he that hath it: And by this, Godssheep at the day of judgement shall be discerned from goats: If their spirits be presented to God pure and unblameable, this great [...], this talent which God hath given to, all Christians to improve, in the banks of grace and of Religion, if they bring this to God increased and grown up to the fulnesse of the measure of Christ (for it is Christs Spirit, and as it is in us, it is called, the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ) then we shall be acknowledged for sons, Philip. 1. 19. C and our adoption shall passe into an eternall inheritance in the portion of our elder Brother.

I need not to apply this Discourse: The very mystery it self is in the whole world the greatest engagement of our duty that is imaginable, by the way of instrument, and by the way of thankfulnesse.

Quisquis magna dedit voluit sibi magna rependi; He that gives great things to us, ought to have great acknowledgements; and Seneca said concerning wise men; That he that doth benefit to others, hides those benefits as a man layes up great treasures D in the earth, which he must never see with his eyes, unlesse a great occasion forces him to dig the graves, and produce that which he buried; but all the while, the man was hugely rich, and he had the wealth of a great relation: so it is with God and us: For this huge benefit of the Spirit, which God gives us, is for our good, deposited in our souls, not made for forms and ostentation, not to be looked upon, or serve little ends, but growing in the secret of our souls, and swelling up to a treasure, making us in this world rich by title and relation, but it shall be produced in the great necessities of doomesday. In the mean time, if the fire be quenched, the E fire of Gods Spirit, God will kindle another in his anger, that shall never be quenched: but if we entertain Gods Spirit with our own purities, and imploy it diligently, and serve it willingly, (for Gods Spirit is a loving Spirit) then we shall really be turned into spirits. Irenaeus had a proverbiall saying, Perfecti sunt qui tria sine querelâ Deo exhibent; They that present three things right to God, [Page] they are perfect; that is, a chast body, a righteous soul, and a holy A spirit; and the event shall be this, which Maimonides expressed not amisse, (though he did not at all understand the secret of this mystery:) The soul of a man in this life, is in potentiâ ad esse spiritum, it is designed to be a spirit, but in the world to come, it shall be actually as very a spirit as an Angel is: and this state is expressed by the Apostle, calling it, [the earnest of the spirit] that is, here it is begun, and given us as an antepast of glory, and a principle of Grace; but then we shall have it in plenitudine

—regit idem spiritus artus

Orbe alio— B

Here, and there, it is the same; but here we have the earnest, there the riches and the inheritance.

But then, if this be a new principle, and be given us in order to the actions of a holy life, we must take care that we receive not the Spirit of God in vain, but remember it is a new life; and as no man can pretend, that a person is alive that doth not alwayes do the works of life; so it is certain, no man hath the Spirit of God, but he that lives the life of grace, and doth the works of the Spirit, that is, in all holinesse, and justice, and sobriety.

Spiritus qui accedit animo, vel Dei est, vel Daemonis (said Tertullian.) C Every man hath within him the Spirit of God, or the spirit of the devil. The spirit of fornication is an unclean devil, and extremely contrary to the Spirit of God; and so is the spirit of malice or uncharitablenesse; for the Spirit of God is the Spirit of love: for as by purities Gods Spirit sanctifies the body, so by love he purifies the soul, and makes the soul grow into a spirit, into a Divine nature. But God knows, that even in Christian societies, we see the devils walk up and down every day, and every hour; the devil of uncleannesse, and the devil of drunkennesse, the devil of malice, and the devil of rage, the spirit of filthy speaking, and D the spirit of detraction, a proud spirit, and the spirit of rebellion; and yet all call [Christian. It is generally supposed, that unclean spirits walk in the night; and so it used to be; for they that are drunk, are drunk in the night, said the Apostle: but Suidas tels of certain Empusae, that used to appear at Noon, at such time as the Greeks did celebrate the Funerals of the Dead; and at this day some of the Russians fear the Noon-day Devil, which appeareth like a mourning widow to reapers of hay and corn, and uses to break their arms and legs, unlesse they worship her. The Prophet David speaketh of both kindes. Thou shalt not be afraid for Psal. 91. E the terrour by night, and a ruinâ & daemonio meridiano, from the Devil at noon thou shalt be free. It were happy if we were so; but besides the solemn followers of the works of darknesse, in the times and proper seasons of darknesse, there are very many who act their Scenes of darknesse in the face of the Sun, in open defiance [Page] A of God, and all lawes, and all modesty. There is in such men the spirit of impudence, as well as of impiety. And yet I might have expressed it higher; for every habituall sin doth not onely put us into the power of the devil, but turns us into his very nature: just as the Holy Ghost transforms us into the image of God.

Here therefore I have a greater Argument to perswade you to holy living, then Moses had to the sons of Israel. Behold, I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: so said Moses; but I adde, that I have upon the stock of this Scripture, set before B you, the good Spirit and the bad, God, and the devil: choose unto whose nature you will be likened, and into whose inheritance you will be adopted, and into whose possession you will enter. If you commit sin, ye are of your father the Devil, ye are begot of his principles, and follow his pattern, and shall passe into his portion, when ye are led captive by him at his will; and remember what a sad thing it is to go into the portion of evil and accursed spirits, the sad and eternall portion of Devils. But he that hath the Spirit of God, doth acknowledge God for his Father, C and his Lord, he despises the world, and hath no violent appetites for secular pleasures, and is dead to the desires of this life, and his hopes are spirituall, and God is his joy, and Christ is his pattern and his support, and Religion is his imployment, and godlinesse is his gain, and this man understands the things of God, and is ready to die for Christ, and fears nothing but to sin against God, and his will is filled with love, and it springs out in obedience to God, and in charity to his brother: and of such a man we cannot make judgement by his fortune, or by his acquaintance, by his circumstances, or by his adherencies, for they are the appendages D of a naturall man: but the spirituall is judged of no man: that is, the rare excellencies that make him happy, do not yet make him illustrious, unlesse we will reckon Vertue to be a great fortune, and holinesse to be great Wisedom, and God to be the best Friend, and Christ the best Relative, and the Spirit the hugest advantage, and Heaven the greatest Reward. He that knows how to value these things, may sit down and reckon the felicities of him that hath the Spirit of God.

The purpose of this Discourse is this; That since the Spirit of God is a new nature, and a new life put into us, we are thereby E taught, and enabled to serve God by a constant course of holy living, without the frequent returns and intervening of such actions, which men are pleased to call sins of infirmity. Whosoever hath the Spirit of God, lives the life of grace; The Spirit of God rules in him, and is strong according to its age and abode, and allows not of those often sins which we think unavoidable, because we call them, naturall infirmities.

[Page] [But if Christ he in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the A spirit is life because of righteousnesse.] The state of sin is a state of death; the state of a man under the law, was a state of bondage, and infirmity, (as S. Paul largely describes him in the seventh Chapter to the Romanes) but he that hath the Spirit is made alive, and free, and strong, and a conquerour over all the powers, and violencies of sin; such a man resists temptations, falls not under the assault of sin, returns not to the sin which he last repented of, acts no more that errour which brought him to shame and sorrow: but he that falls under a crime, to which he still hath a strong, and vigorous inclination, he that acts his sin, and then curses it, and then B is tempted, and then sins again, and then weeps again, and calls himself miserable, but still the inchantment hath confined him to that circle, this man hath not the Spirit; for where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty, there is no such bondage and a returning folly to the commands of sin. But because men deceive themselves with calling this bondage, a pitiable and excusable infirmity, it will not be uselesse to consider the state of this question more particularly, lest men from the state of a pretended infirmity, fall into a reall death.

1. No great sin is a sin of infirmity, or excusable upon that C stock. But that I may be understood, we must know that every sin is in some sense or other, a sin of infirmity. When a man is in the state of spirituall sicknesse or death, he is in a state of infirmity, for he is a wounded man, a prisoner, a slave, a sick man, weak in his judgement, and weak in his reasoning, impotent in his passions, of childish resolutions, great inconstancy, and his purposes untwist, as easily as the rude conjuncture of uncombining cables, in the violence of a Northern tempest: and he that is thus in infirmity, cannot be excused; for it is the aggravation of the state of his sin; he is so infirm that he is in a state unable to do D his duty. Such a man is a servant of sin, a slave of the Devil, an heir of corruption, absolutely under command; and every man is so, who resolves for ever to avoid such a sin, and yet for ever falls under it: for what can he be but a servant of sin, who fain would avoid it but cannot; that is, he hath not the Spirit of God within him; Christ dwels not in his soul, for where the Son is, there is liberty: and all that are in the Spirit are sons of God, and servants of righteousnesse, and therefore freed from sin. But then there are also sins of infirmity, which are single actions, intervening seldom, in litle instances, unavoidable, or through a faultlesse ignorance. E Such as these are alwayes the allays of the life of the best men; and for these Christ hath payd, and they are never to be accounted to good men, save onely to make them more wary, and more humble. Now concerning these, it is, that I say; No great sin is a sin of excusable, or unavoidable infirmity. Because whosoever [Page] A hath received the Spirit of God, hath sufficient knowledge of his duty, and sufficient strengths of grace, and sufficient advertency of minde, to avoid such things as do great and apparent violence to piety, and religion. No man can justly say, that it is a sin of infirmity that he was drunk; For there are but three causes of every sin (a fourth is not imaginable.) 1. If ignorance cause it, 1. the sin is as full of excuse, as the ignorance was innocent. But no Christian can pretend this to drunkennesse, to murder, to rebellion, to uncleannesse. For what Christian is so uninstructed but that he knows Adultery is a sin? 2. Want of observation, is the 2. B cause of many indiscreet and foolish actions. Now at this gap many irregularities do enter and escape, because in the whole, it is impossible for a man to be of so present a spirit, as to consider, and reflect upon every word, and every thought: but it is in this case in Gods laws otherwise then in mans: the great flies cannot passe thorow without observation, little ones do; and a man cannot be drunk, and never take notice of it; or tempt his neighbours wife before he be aware; therefore the lesse the instance be, the more likely it is to be a sin of infirmity: and yet if it be never so little, if it be observed, then it ceases to be a sin of infirmity. C 3. But because great crimes cannot pretend to passe undiscernably, 3. it follows that they must come in at the door of malice, that is, of want of Grace, in the absence of the Spirit; they destroy where ever they come, and the man dies if they passe upon him.

It is true, there is flesh and blood in every regenerate man, but they do not both rule: the flesh is left to tempt, but not to prevail. And it were a strange condition, if both the godly and the ungodly were captives to sin, and infallibly should fall into temptation, and death, without all difference, saue onely; that the D godly sins unwillingly, and the ungodly sins willingly. But if the same things be done by both, and God in both be dishonoured, and their duty prevaricated, the pretended unwillingnesse is the signe of a greater, and a baser slavery, and of a condition lesse to be endured. For the servitude which is against me is intollerable, but if I choose the state of a servant, I am free in my minde,

—Libertatis servaveris umbrant

Si quicquid jubeare velis—

E certain it is, that such a person who fain would, but cannot choose but commit adultery, or drunkennesse, is the veriest slave to sin that can be imagined, and not at all freed by the Spirit, and by the liberty of the sons of God; —Tot rebus iniquis Parüimus victi: veniaest haec sola pudoris, Degenerisque metus, nil jam potuisse negari. Lucan. and there is no other difference, but that the mistaken good man feels his slavery, and sees his chains, and his fetters; but therefore it is certain that he is, because he sees himself to be a slave. No man can be a servant of [Page] sin, and a servant of righteousnesse at the same time, but every A man that hath the Spirit of God, is a servant of righteousnesse; and therefore whosoever finde great sins to be unavoidable, are in a state of death and reprobation, (as to the present) because they willingly, or unwillingly (it matters not much, whether of the two) are servants of sin.

2. Sins of infirmity as they are small in their instance, so 2. they put on their degree of excusablenesse, onely according to the weaknesse, or infirmity of a mans understanding: So far as men (without their own fault) understand not their duty, or are possessed with weaknesse of principles, or are destitute and void of B discourse, or discerning powers, and acts, so far if a sin creeps upon them, it is as naturall, and as free from a law, as is the action of a childe; But if any thing else be mingled with it, if it proceed from any other principle, it is criminall and not excused by our infirmity; because it is chosen: and a mans will hath no infirmity, but when it wants the grace of God, or is mastered with passions, and sinfull appetites: and that infirmity is the state of unregeneration.

3. The violence or strength of a temptation is not sufficient to 3. excuse an action, or to make it accountable upon the stock of a pitiable and innocent infirmity; if it leaves the understanding still C able to judge; because a temptation cannot have any proper strengths but from our selves, and because we have in us a principle of basenesse which this temptation meets, and onely perswades me to act, because I love it. Joseph met with a temptation as violent and as strong as any man: and it is certain there are not many Christians but would fall under it, and call it, a sin of infirmity, since they have been taught so to abuse themselves, by sowing fig-leaves before their nakednesse: but because Joseph had a strength of God within him, the strength of chastity, therefore it D could not at all prevail upon him. Some men cannot by any art of hell be tempted to be drunk; others can no more resist an invitation to such a meeting, then they can refuse to die if a dagger were drunk with their heart blood; because their evil habits made them weak on that part: And some man that is fortified against revenge, it may be will certainly fall under a temptation to uncleannesse: for every temptation is great or small, according as the man is; and a good word will certainly lead some men to an action of folly, while another will not think ten thousand pound a considerable argument to make him tell one single lie, against his E duty, or his conscience.

4. No habituall sin, (that is) no sin that returns constantly, 4. or frequently, that is repented of, and committed again, and still repented of, and then again committed, no such sin is excusable with a pretence of infirmity: Because that sin is certainly noted, [Page] A and certainly condemned, and therefore returns, not because of the weaknesse of nature, but the weaknesse of grace: the principle of this, is an evil spirit, an habituall aversation from God, a dominion and empire of sin: and as no man for his inclination, and aptnesse to the sins of the flesh, is to be called carnall, if he corrects his inclinations, and turns them into vertues: so no man can be called spirituall for his good wishes, and apt inclinations to goodnesse, if these inclinations passe not into acts, and these acts into habits, and holy customs, and walkings, and conversation with God. But as natural concupiscence corrected becomes the matter B of vertue: so these good inclinations, and condemnings of our sin, if they be ineffective and end in sinfull actions, are the perfect signes of a reprobate, and unregenerate estate.

The sum is this. An animal man, a man under the law, a carnall man (for as to this, they are all one) is sold under sin, he is a servant of corruption, he falls frequently into the same sin to which he is tempted, he commends the Law, he consents to it that it is good, he does not commend sin, he does some little things against it, but they are weak and imperfect, his lust is C stronger, his passions violent, and unmortified, his habits vitious, his customs sinfull, and he lives in the regions of sin, and dies and enters into its portion; But a spirituall man, a man that is in the state of grace, who is born anew of the Spirit, that is regenerate by the Spirit of Christ, he is led by the Spirit, he lives in the Spirit, he does the works of God cheerfully, habitually, vigorously: and although he sometimes slips, yet it is but seldom, it is in small instances: his life is such as he cannot pretend to be justified by works, and merit, but by mercy, and the faith of Jesus Christ; yet he never sins great sins: If he does, he is for that present D falne from Gods favour; and though possibly he may recover, (and the smaller, or seldomer the sin is, the sooner may be his restitution) yet for the present (I say) he is out of Gods favour. But he that remains in the grace of God, sins not by any deliberate, consultive, knowing act; he is incident to such a surprize as may consist with the weaknesse, and judgement of a good man: but whatsoever is, or must be considered, if it cannot passe without consideration, it cannot passe without sin; and therefore cannot enter upon him, while he remains in that state. For he that is in Christ, in him the body is dead by reason of sin; and the E Gospel did not differ from the Law, but that the Gospel gives grace and strength to do whatsoever it commands, which the Law did not; and the greatnesse of the promise of eternall life is such an argument to them that consider it, that it must needs be of force sufficient, to perswade a man to use all his faculties, and all his strength, that he may obtain it: God exacted all upon this stock; God knew this could do every thing: Nihil non in hoc praesumpsit [Page] Deus (said one.) This will make a satyr chast, and A Silenus to be sober, and Dives to be charitable, and Simon Magus himself to despise reputation, and Saul to turn from a Persecutor to an Apostle. For since God hath given us reason to choose, and a promise to exchange, for our temperance, and faith, and charity, and justice, for these (I say) happinesse, exceeding great happinesse; that we shall be Kings, that we shall reigne with God, with Christ, with all the holy Angels for ever, in felicities so great, that we have not now capacities to understand it, our heart is not big enough to think it; there cannot in the world be a greater inducement to engage us, a greater argument B to oblige us to do our duty. God hath not in heaven a bigger argument; it is not possible any thing in the world should be bigger: which because the Spirit of God hath revealed to us, if by this strength of his we walk in his wayes, and be ingrafted into his stock, and bring forth his fruits, the fruits of the Spirit, then we are in Christ, and Christ in us, then we walk in the spirit, and the Spirit dwels in us, and our portion shall be there, where Christ by the Spirit maketh intercession for us, that is, at the right hand of his Father for ever, and ever.

Amen.

B Sermon. III. THE DESCENDING AND ENTAILED CVRSE. C Cut off.

[Page]

A

Exodus 20. part of the 5. verse.

I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me:

D 6. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my Commandements.

IT is not necessary that a Common-wealth should give pensions to Oratours, to disswade men from running into houses infected with the plague, or to intreat them to be out of love with violent torments, or to create in men evil opinions concerning famine, or painfull deaths: Every man E hath a sufficient stock of self love, upon the strength of which he hath entertained principles strong enough to secure himself against voluntary mischiefs, and from running into states of death and violence. A man would think that this I have now said, were in all cases certainly true; and I would to God it were. For that which is the greatest evil, that which makes all [Page] evils, that which turns good into evil, and every naturall evil into A a greater sorrow, and makes that sorrow lasting and perpetual; that which sharpens the edge of swords, and makes agues to be fever, and [...] to turn into plagues; that which puts stings into every fly, and uneasinesse to every trifling accident, and strings every wh [...] with scorpions, (you know I must needs mean sin) that evil, men suffer patiently, and choose willingly, and run after it greedily, and will not suffer themselves to be divorced from it: and therefore God hath hired servants to fight aagainst this evil; he hath set Angels with fiery swords to drive us from it, he hath imployed Advocates to plead against it, he hath B made Laws and Decrees against it, he hath dispatched Prophets to warn us of it, and hath established an Order of men, men of his own family, and who are fed at his own charges, (I mean the whole Order of the Clergy) whose office is like watchmen to give an alarum at every approach of sin, with as much affrightment as if an enemy were neer, or the sea broke in upon the flat Countrey; and all this, onely to perswade men not to be extremely miserable, for nothing, for vanity, for a trouble, for a disease: for some sins naturally are diseases, and all others are naturall nothings, meer privations, or imperfections, contrary to C goodnesse, to felicity, to God himself: And yet God hath hedged sin round about with thorns, and sin of it self too, brings thorns: and it abuses a man in all his capacities, and it places poison in all those seats and receptions where he could possibly entertain happinesse. For if sin pretend to please the sense, it doth first abuse it shamefully, and then humours it: it can onely feed an impostume; no naturall, reasonable, and perfective appetite: and besides its own essentiall appendages, and proprieties; things are so ordered that a fire is kindled round about us; and every thing within us, above, below us, and on every side of us, is an argument D against, and an enemy to sin; and for its single pretence, that it comes to please one of the senses, one of those faculties which are in us the same they are in a Cow, it hath an evil so communicative, that it doth not onely work like poison, to the dislolution of soul and body; but it is a sicknesse like the plague, it infects all our houses, and corrupts the air, and the very breath of heaven: for it moves God first to jealousie, (and that takes off his friendship and kindnesse towards us) and then to anger; and that makes him a resolved enemy; and it brings evil, not onely upon our selves, but upon all our relatives; upon our selves, and our E children, even the children of our Nephews, Ad natos natorum, & qui nascentur ab illis, to the third and fourth generation: and therefore if a man should despise the eye, or sword of man, if he sins he is to contest with the jealousie of a provoked God: If he doth not regard himself, let him pity his pretty children: If he [Page] A be angry and hates all that he sees, and is not solioitous for his children, yet let him pitty the generations which are yet unborn; let him not bring a curse upon his whole family, and suffer his name to rot in curses and dishonours; let not his memory remain polluted with an eternal stain: if all this will not deter a man from sin, there is no instrument left for thats mans vertue, no hopes of his felicity, no recovery of his sorrows and sicknesses; but he must sink under the stroaks of a jealous God into the dishonour of eternal ages, and the groanings of a never ceasing sorrow.

B God is a jealous God] that is the first great stroke, he strikes against sin, he speakes after the manner of men, and in so speaking we know, he that is jealous is suspicious, he is inquisitive, he is implacable. 1. God is pleased to represent himself a person very suspioious, both in respect of persons and things. For our persons we give him cause enough: for we are sinners from our Mothers wo [...]b; we make solemn vows and break them instantly; we cry for pardon and still renew the sin; we desire God to try us once more, and we provoke him ten times further: we use the means of grace to cure us, and we turn them into vices and opportunites C of sin; we curse our sins and yet long for them extremely; we renounce them publickly, and yet send for them in private and shew them kindnesse: we leave little offiences, but our faith and our charity is not strong enough to Master great ones; and sometimes we are sham'd out of great ones, but yet entertain little ones; or if we disdain both, yet we love to remember them, and delight in their past actions, and bring them home to us, at least by fiction of imagination; and we love to be betrayed into them; we would fain have things so ordered by chance or power that it may seem necessary to sin, or that it may become excusable, D and dressed fitly for our own circumstances; and for ever we long after the flesh pots of Egypt the garlick and the Onions; and we so little do esteeme Manna, the food of Angels, we so loath the bread of Heaven, that any temptation will make us return to our fetters and our bondage; and if we do not tempt our selves, yet we do not resist a temptation, or if we pray against it, we desire not to be heard; and if we be assisted, yet we will not work together with those assistances; so that unlesse we be forced, nothing will be done; we are so willing to perish, and so unwilling to be saved, that we minister to God reason enough to E suspect us; and therefore it is no wonder that God is jealous of us: We keep company with Harlots and polluted persons; we are kind to all Gods Enemies, and love that which he hates; how can it be otherwise but that we should be suspected? Let us make our best of it, and see if we can recover the good opinion of God; for as ye: we are but suspected persons. 2. And therefore God is [Page] inquisitive; he looks for that which he fain would never finde; A God sets spies upon us; he looks upon us himself through the Curtains of a cloud; and he sends Angels to espie us in all our wayes, and permits the Devil to winnow us and to accuse us, and erects a Tribunal and witnesses in our own consciences, and he cannot want information concerning our smalest irregularities. Sometimes the Devil accuses, but he also sometimes accuses us falsly, either malio [...] ously, or ignorantly, and we stand upright in that particular by innocence; and sometimes by penitence, and all this while our Conscinence is our friend: Sometimes our conscience does accuse us unto God; and then we stand convict by our own judgement. B Sometimes, if our conscience acquit us, yet we are not thereby justified: For, as Moses accused the Jews; so do Christ and his Apostles accuse us, not in their personss, but by their works, and by their words, by the thing it self, by confronting the laws of Christ, and our practises. Sometimes the Angels who are the observers of all our works carry up sad tidings to the Court of Heaven against us. Thus, two Angels were the informers against Sodom; but yet these were the last; for before that time the cry of their iniquity had sounded loud and sadly in Heaven; and all this is the direct and proper effect of his jealousie; C which sets spies upon all the actions, and watches the circumstances, and tells the steps, and attends the businesses, the recreations, the publications, and retirements of every man, and will not suffer a thought to wander but he uses means to correct it's errour, and to reduce it to himself. For he that created us and daily feeds us, he that intreats us to be happy, with an opportunity so passionate as if (not we, but) himself were to receive the favour; he that would part with his onely Son from his bosome, and the embraces of eternity, and give him over to a shameful and cursed death for us, cannot but be supposed to love us with D a great love, and to own us with an intire title, and therefore that he would fain secure us to himself with an undivided possession: and it cannot but be infinitely reasonable: for to whom else should any of us belong, but to God? Did the world create us? Or did lust ever do us any good: Did Sathan ever suffer one stripe for our advantage? Does not he study all the wayes to ruine us? Doe the Sun or the stars preserve us alive? Or do we get understanding from the Angels? Did ever any joynt of our body knit, or our heart ever keep one true minute of a pulse without God? Had not we been either E nothing, or worse, that is, infinitely eternally miserable, but that God made us capable, and then pursued us with arts and devices of great mercy to force us to be happy? Great reason therefore there is, that God should be jealous, lest we take any of our duty from him, who hath so strangely deserved it [Page] A all, and give it to a creature, or to our enemy, who cannot be capable of any. But however it will concern us with much caution to observe our own wayes, since we are made aspectacle to God, to Angels, and to Men: God hath set so many spies upon us, the blessed Angels and the accursed Devils, good men and bad men, the eye of Heaven, and eye of that eye, God himself, all watching lest we rob God of his Honour, and our selves of our hopes; For by his prime intention he hath chosen so to get his own glory, as may best consist with our felicity: His great designe is to be glorified in our being saved. 3. Gods jealousie hath a sadder effect then all this. B For all this is for mercy; but if we provoke this jealousie if he findes us in our spiritual whoredoms, he is implacable, that is, he is angry with us to eternity unlesse we returne in time: and if we do it may be he will not be appeased in all instances: and when he forgives us he will make some reserves of his wrath; he will punish our persons, or our estate; he will chastise us at home, or abroad in our bodies, or in our children; for he will visit our sins upon our children from generation to generation: and if they be made miserable for our sins, they are unhappy in such parents; but we bear the curse and the anger of God, even while they bear his rod: God visits the C sins of the Fathers upon the children] That's the second Great stroke he strikes against sin, and is now to be considered.

That God doth so is certain; because he saith he doth; and that this is just in him so to do, is also as certain therefore because 2. he doth it. For as his lawes are our measures, so his actions, and his own will are his own measures. He that hath right over all things, and all persons, cannot do wrong to any thing. He that is essentially just, (and there could be no such thing as justice, or justice it self could not be good, if it did not derive from him) it is impossible for him to be unjust. But since God is pleased to D speak after the manner of men, it may well consist with our duty to enquire into those manners of consideration, whereby we may understand the equity of God in this proceeding, and to be instructed also in our own danger, if we persevere in sin.

1. No man is made a sinner by the fault of another man without his own consent. For to every one God gives his choice, and sets life and death before every of the sons of Adam: and therefore this death is not a consequent to any sin, but our own. In this sense it is true, that if the fathers eat sowre grapes, the childrens E teeth shall not be set on edge: and therefore the sin of Adam which was derived to all the world; did not bring the world to any other death but temporall, by the intermediall stages of sickness, and temporal infelicities: And it is not said that sin passed upon all men, but death, & that also no otherwise but [...], in as much as al men have sinned; as they have followed the steps of their father, so they are partakers of this death. And therefore it is very [Page] remarkable; that death brought in by sin, was nothing superinduced A to man; man onely was reduced to his own naturall condition, from which before Adams fall he stood exempted by supernaturall favour; and therefore although the taking away that extraordinary grace, or priviledge was a punishment; yet the suffering the naturall death, was directly none; but a condition of his creation, naturall, and therefore not primarily evil; but if not good, yet at least indifferent. And the truth and purpose of this observation will extend it self, if we observe that before any man died, Christ was promised, by whom death was to lose its sting, by whom death did cease to be an evil, and was, or might B be, if we do belong to Christ, a state of advantage. So that we by occasion of Adams sin, being returned to our naturall certainty of dying, do still even in this very particular stand between the blessing and the cursing. If we follow Christ, death is our friend; If we imitate the praevarication of Adam, then death becomes an evil; the condition of our nature, becomes the punishment of our own sin; not of Adams: for although his sin brought death in, yet it is onely our sin that makes death to be evil: And I desire this to be observed, because it is of great use in vindicating the Divine justice in the matter of this question. The materiall part C of the evil came from our father upon us, but the formality of it, the sting and the curse is onely by our selves.

2. For the fault of others many may become miserable, even all or any of those, whose relation is such to the sinner, that he in any sense may by such inflictions be punished, execrable, or oppressed. Indeed it were strange, if when a plague were in Ethiopia, the Athenians should be infected: or if the house of Pericles were visited, and Thucydides should die for it. For although there are some evils which (as Plutarch saith) are ansis & propagationibus praedita incredibili celeritate in longinquum penetrantia, D such which can dart evil influences, as Porcupines do their quils; yet as at so great distances the knowledge of any confederate events must needs be uncertain: so it is also uselesse, because we neither can joyne their causes, nor their circumstances, nor their accidents into any neighbourhood of conjunction: Relations are seldome noted at such distances; and if they were, it is certain, so many accidents will intervene, that will out-weigh the efficacy of such relations; that by any so far distant events, we cannot be instructed in any duty, nor understand our selves reproved for any fault. But when the relation is neerer, and is joyned under such a E head, and common cause, that the influence is perceived, and the parts of it do usually communicate in benefit, notices, or infelicity (especially if they relate to each other, as superiour and inferiour) then it is certain, the sin is infectious (I mean) not onely in example, but also in punishment.

[Page] A And of this I shall shew. 1. In what instances usually it is so. 2. For what reasons it is so, and justly so. 3. In what degree, and in what cases it is so. 4. What remedies there are for this evil.

1. It is so in kingdoms, in Churches, in families, in politicall, artificiall, and even in accidentall societies.

When David numbred the people, God was angry with him; but he punished the people for the crime; seventy thousand men died of the plague: and when God gave to David the choice of three plagues, he chose that of the pestilence, in which the meanest B of the people and such which have the least society with the acts and crimes of Kings are most commonly devoured, whilest the powerfull and sinning persons by arts of physick, and flight, by provisions of nature, and accidents are more commonly secured. *But the story of the Kings of Israel hath furnished us with an example sitted with all the stranger circumstances in this question. Joshuah had sworn to the Gibeonites (who had craftily secured their lives, by exchanging it for their liberties:) Almost 500. yeers after, Saul in zeal to the men of Israel and Judah slew many C of them. After this Saul dies, and no question was made of it. But in the dayes of David there was a famine in the land three yeers together; and God being inquired of, said it was because of 2 Sam. 21. 14. Saul his killing the Gibeonites. What had the people to do with their Kings fault? or at least, the people of David with the fault of Saul? That we shall see anon: But see the way that was appointed to expiate the crime, and the calamity. David took seven of Sauls sons and hanged them up against the Sun, and after that God was intreated for the land. The story observes one circumstance more: that for the kindnesse of Jonathan, David spared Mephibosheth. D Now this story doth not onely instance in Kingdoms, but in families too. The fathers fault is punished upon the sons of the family; and the Kings fault upon the people of his land, even after the death of the King, after the death of the father. Thus God visited the sin of Ahab, partly upon himself, partly upon his sons. I will not bring the evil in his dayes, but in his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house. Thus did God slay the childe 1 King. 21. 29. of Bathsheba for the sin of his father David: and the whole family of E [...]i▪ all his kinred of the neerer lines were thrust from the priesthood, and a curse made to descend upon his children E for many ages, that all the males should die young, and in the flower of their youth. The boldnesse and impiety of Cham made his posterity to be accursed, and brought slavery into the world. Because Ataalek fought with the sons of Israel at Rephidim God took up a quarrell against the nation for ever. And above all examples is that of the Jews, who put to death the Lord of life, and made their nation to be an anathema for ever, untill the day [Page] of restitution. His blood be upon us, and upon our children. If we shed A innocent blood, If we provoke God to wrath, If we oppresse the poor, If we crucifie the Lord of life again and put him to an open shame, the wrath of God will be upon us and upon our children, to make us a cursed family, and who are the sinners, to be the stock and original of the curse; the pedigree of the misery shall derive from us.

This last instance went further then the other of families and kingdoms. For not onely the single families of the Jews were made miserable for their Fathers murdering the Lord of life, nor also was the Nation extinguished alone for the sins of their Rulers, but B the religion was removed; it ceased to be God peoples; the synagogue was rejected, and her vail rent, and her privacies dismantled, and the Gentiles were made to be Gods people, when the Jews inclosure was disparkd. I need not further to instance this proposition in the case of National Churches, though it is a sad calamity that is fallen upon the al seven Churches of Asia (to whom the spirit of God wrote seven Epistles by Saint John) and almost all the Churches of Africa, where Christ was worshipped, and now Mahomet is thrust in substitution, and the people are servants, and the religion is extinguished, or where it remains, it shines like the Moon C in an Eclipse, or like the least spark of the pleiades, seen but seldom, And that rather shining like a gloworm, then a taper enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousnesse I shall adde no more instances to verifie the truth of this, save onely I shall observe to you, that even there is danger in being in evil company, in suspected places, in the civil societies and fellowships of wicked men.

—Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum

vnlgarit arcanae, sub ijsdem

sit trabibus, fragilem (que) mecum D

solvat phaselum, saepe Diespiter

Hor. l. 3. od. 2.

Neglectus, in cesto addidit in tegrum

And it hapned to the Mariners who carried Jonah, to be in danger with a horrid storme, because Jonah was there who had sinned against the Lord. Many times the sin of one man is punished by the falling of a house or a wall upon him, and then al the family are like to be crushed with the same ruine; so dangerous, so pestilential, so infectious a thing is sin, that it scatters the poison of its breath to all the neighbourhood, and makes that the man ought to be avoided E like a person infected with the plague.

Next I am to consider why this is so, and why it is justly so? To this I answer. 1. Between Kings and their people, Parents and their 2. children there is so great a necessitude, propriety and entercourse of nature, dominion, right and possession, that they are by God [Page] A and the laws of Nations reckoned as their Goods, and their blessings. The honour of a King is in the multitude of his people; and children are a gift that cometh of the Lord; and happy is that man that hath his quiver full of them: and Lo thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord; his wife shall be like the fruitful vine by the wals of his house, his children like olive branches round about his Table. Now if children be a blessing, then to take them away in anger is a curse: and if the losse of flocks and herds, the burning of houses, the blasting of fields be a curse; how much greater is it to lose our children, and to see God slay them before our eyes, in hatred to our persons, and B detestation and loathing of our basenesse. When Jobs Messengers told him the sad stories of fire from Heaven, the burning his sheep, and that the Sabeans had driven his Oxen away, and the Chaldeans had stolne his Camels; these were sad arrests to his troubled spirit: but it was reserved as the last blow of that sad execution that the ruines of a house had crush'd his Sons and Daughters to their graves. Sons & daughters are greater blessings then sheep & Oxen: they are not servants of profit as sheep are, but they secure greater ends of blesssing; they preserve your Names; they are so many titles of provision & providence; every new childe is a new title to Gods care of that C family: They serve the ends of honour, of commonwealths, and Kingdoms; they are images of our souls, and images of God, and therefore are great blessings; and by consequence, they are great riches, though they are not to be sold for mony: and surely he that hath a cabinet of invaluable jewels will think himself rich though he never sells them, Does [...] take care for Oxen? (said our blessed Saviour) much more for you: yea all and every one of your children are of more value then many Oxen: when therefore God for your sin strikes them with crookednesse, with deformity, with foolishnesse, with impertinent and caytive spirits, with hasty or sudden D deaths, it is a greater curse to us, then to lose whole herds of cattel, of which (it is certain) most men would be very sensible They are our goods; they are our blessings from God; therefore we are striken, when for our sakes they dye: Therefore we may properly be punished by evils happening to our Relatives.

2. But as this is a punishment to us, so it is not unjust as to them, though they be innocent. For all the calamities of this life are incident to the most Godly persons of the world; and since the King of E Heaven and earth was made a man of sorrows, it cannot be called unjust or intolerable that innocent persons should be pressed with temporal infelicities: onely in such cases we must distinguish the misery from the punishment; for that all the world dyes is a punishment of Adams sin: but it is no evil to those single persons that die in the Lord; for they are blessed in their death. Jonathan was killed the same day with his Father the King; and this was a punishment [Page] to Saul indeed; but to Jonathan it was a blessing: for since A God had appointed the kingdom to his neighbour, it was more honourable for him to die fighting the Lords battel, then to live and see himself the lasting testimony of Gods curse upon his Father; who lost the Kingdom from his family by his disobedience. That death is a blessing which ends an Honorable, and prevents an inglorious life. And our children (it may be) shall be sanctified by a sorrow, and purified by the fire of affliction, and they shall receive the blessing of it; but it is to their Fathers a curse, who shall wound their own hearts with sorrow, and cover their heads with a robe of shame, for bringing so great evil upon their house. B

3. God hath many ends of providence to serve in this dispensation of his judgements. *1. He expresses the highest indignation against sin; and makes his examples lasting, communicative, and of great effect; it is a little image of hell and we shall the lesse wonder that God with the pains of eternity punishes the sins of time, when with our eyes we see him punish a transient action with a lasting judgement. *2. It arrests the spirits of men, and surprises their loosenesses, and restrains their gaiety, when we observe that the judgements of God finde us out in all relations, and turns our comforts into sadnesse, and makes our families the scene of sorrows, C and we can escape him no where; and by sin are made obnoxious not alone to personall judgements; but that we are made like the fountains of the dead sea, springs of the lake of Sodom; in stead of refreshing our families with blessings, we leave them brimstone and drought, and poison, and an evil [...], and the wrath of God, and a treasure of wrath; and their Fathers sins for their portion and inheritance. *Naturalists say that when the leading goats in the Greek Islands have taken an Eryngus or sea holly into their mouths, all the herd will stand still, till the herds man comes and forces it out, as apprehending the evil that will come to them all, if any of them especially their Principals, tast an unwholesome plant: D and indeed it is of a General concernment, that the Master of a family, or the Prince of a people, from whom as from a fountain many issues do derive upon their Relatives, should be springs of health and sanctity and blessing. It is a great right and propriety that a King hath in his people, or a Father in his children that even their sins can do these a mischiefe, not onely by a direct violence, but by the execution of Gods wrath: God hath made strange bands and vessels, or chanels of communication between them, when even the anger of God shal be conveied E by the conduits of such relations. That would be considered. It binds them neerer then our new doctrine will endure: but it also binds us to pray for them and for their Holinesse, and good Government, as earnestly as we would be delivered from death, or sicknesse, or poverty, or war, or the wrath of God in any instance.

[Page] A 3. This also will satisfie the fearfulnesse of such persons who think the evil prosperous, and call the proud happy. No man can be called happy till he be dead; nor then neither, if he lived vitiously: Look how God handles him in his children, in his family, in his grand-children; and as it tells that generation which sees the judgement, that God was all the while angry with him; so it supports the spirits of men in the intervall, and entertains them with the expectation of a certain hope; for if I do not live to see his sin punished, yet his posterity may finde themselves accursed, and feel their fathers sins in their own calamity; and the expectation, B or belief of that, may relieve my oppression, and ease my sorrows, while I know that God will bear my injury in a lasting record, and when I have forgot it, will bring it forth to judgement. The Athenians were highly pleased when they saw honours done to the posterity of Cimon [a good man, and a rare citizen, but murdered for being wise and vertuous] and when at the same time they saw a decree of banishment passe against the children of Lacharis, and Aristo, they laid their hands upon their mouthes, and with silence did admire the justice of the Power above.

C The sum of this is; That in sending evils upon the posterity of evil men, God serves many ends of providence, some of wisedome, some of mercy, some of justice, and contradicts none: For the evil of the innocent son is the fathers punishment upon the stock of his sin, and his relation; but the sad accident happens to the son upon the score of nature, and many ends of providence, and mercy. To which I adde, that if any, even the greatest temporall evil may fall upon a man [as blindnesse did upon the blinde man in the Gospel] when neither he nor his parents have sinned; much more may it do so, when his parents have, though he have not. For D there is a neerer, or more visible commensuration of justice, between the parents sin, and the sons sicknesse, then between the evil of the son, and the innocence of father and son together. The dispensation therefore is righteous and severe.

3. I am now to consider in what degree, and in what cases, this is usuall, or to be expected. It is in the Text instanced in the matter of worshipping images. God is so jealous of his honour, that he will not suffer an image of himself to be made, lest the image dishonour the substance; nor any image of a creature to be worshipped, though with a lesse honour, lest that lesse swell up into E a greater: and he that is thus jealous of his honour, and therefore so instances it, is also very curious of it in all other particulars; and though to punish the sins of fathers upon the children, be more solemnly threatned in this sin onely, yet we finde it inflicted indifferently in any other great sin, as appears in the former precedents.

This one thing I desire to be strictly observed: That it is with [Page] much errour, and great indiligence usually taught in this question, A that the wrath of God descends from fathers to children onely in case the children imitate, and write after their fathers copy; supposing these words [in them that hate me] to relate to the children. But this is expressely against the words of the Text, and the examples of the thing: God afflicts good children of evil parents, for their fathers sins; and the words are plain and determinate: God visits the sins of the fathers in tertiam & quartam generationem eorum qui oderunt me; to the third generation of them, of those fathers that hate me: that is, upon the great-grand-children of such parents. So that if the great-grandfathers be haters of God, and B lovers of iniquity, it may intail a curse upon so many generations, though the children be haters of their fathers hatred, and lovers of God. *And this hath been observed even by wise men among the Heathens, whose stories tell, that Antigonus was punished for the tyranny of his father Demetrius; Phyleus for his father Auge [...]; pious and wise Nestor for his father Neleus: And it was so in the case of Jonathan, who lost the Kingdom and his life upon the stock of his fathers sins; and the innocent childe of David was slain by the anger of God, not against the childe, who never had deserved it, but the fathers adultery. I need not here repeat what C I said in vindication of the Divine justice; but I observed this, to represent the danger of a sinning father, or mother, when it shall so infect the family with curses; that it shall ruine a wise and an innocent son; and that vertue and innocence which shall by God be accepted as sufficient through the Divine mercy to bring the son to Heaven, yet it may be shall not be accepted to quit him from feeling the curse of his fathers crime, in a load of temporall infelicities: And who but a villain would ruine and undo a wise, a vertuous, and his own son? But so it is in all the world, A traytor is condemned to suffer death himself, and his posterity D are made beggers, and dishonourable, his Escutcheon is reversed, his arms of honour are extinguished, the noblesse of his Ancestours is forgotten, but his own sin is not, while men by the characters of infamy are taught to call that family accursed which had so base a father. Tiresias was esteemed unfortunate because he could not see his friends and children: the poor man was blinde with age: But Athamas and Agave were more miserable, who did see their children, but took them for Lions, and Stags; The parents were miserably frantick; But of all, they deplored the misery of Hercules; who when he saw his children, took them for E enemies, and endeavoured to destroy them. And this is the case of all vitious parents. That a mans enemies were they of his own house, was accounted a great calamity: but it is worse, when we love them tenderly, and fondly, and yet do them all the despite we wish to enemies; But so it is, that in many cases we do more mischief [Page] A to our children, then if we should strangle them when they are newly taken from their mothers knees, on tear them in pieces as Media did her brother Absyrtus; For to leave them to inherit a curse, to leave them an intaild calamity, a misery, a disease, the wrath of God for an inheritance, that it may descend upon them, and remark the family like their coat of arms, is to be the parent of evil; the ruine of our family, the causes of mischief to them, who ought to be dearer to us then our own eyes. And let us remember this, when we are tempted to provoke the jealous God: let us consider that his anger hath a progeny, and a descending B line, and it may break out in the dayes of our Nephews. A Greek woman was accused of adultery, because she brought forth a Blackmoor; and could not acquit her self till she had proved that she had descended in the fourth degree from an Ethiopian: Her great Grand-father was a Moor. And if Naturalists say true, that Nephews are very often liker to their Grandfathers then to their Fathers; we see that the semblance of our souls, and the character of the person, is conveyed by secret and undiscernable conveyances. Naturall production conveyes originall sin; and therefore, by the chanels of the body, it is not strange that men convey an hereditary C sin: And lustfull sons are usually born to Satyrs; and monsters of intemperance to the drunkards; and there are also hereditary diseases: which if in the fathers they were effects of their sin, as it is in many cases, it is notorious that the fathers sin is punished, and the punishment conveyed by naturall instruments: so that it cannot be a wonder, but it ought to be a huge affrightment from a state of sin; If a man can be capable of so much charity, as to love himself in his own person, or in the images of his nature, and heirs of his fortunes, and the supports of his family, in the children that God hath given him. Consider therefore that D you do not onely act your own tragedies when you sin, but you represent and effect the fortune of your children; you slay them with your own barbarous and inhumane hands. Onely be pleased to compare the variety of estates; of your own and your children. If they on earth be miserable many times for their fathers sins, how great a state of misery is that in hell which they suffer for their own? And how vile a person is that father, or mother, who for a little money, or to please a lust, will be a parricide, and imbrue his hands in the blood of his own children? E

The Intail of Curses cut off. Part II. B

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4. IAm to consider what remedies there are for sons to cut off this intall of curses; and whether, and by what means it is possible for sons to prevent the being punished for their fathers sins? And since this thing is so perplext and intricate, hath so easie an objection, and so hard an answer, looks so like a cruelty, and so unlike a justice, (though it be infinitely just, and very severe, and a huge enemy to sin) it cannot be thought but that there are not onely wayes left to reconcile Gods proceeding to the strict rules of justice, but also the condition of man to C the possibilities of Gods usuall mercies. One said of old, Ex tarditate si Dij soutes praetereant, & insontes plectant, justitiam suam non sic rectè resarciunt. If God be so slow to punish the guilty, that the punishment be deferred till the death of the guilty person; and that God shall be forced to punish the innocent, or to let the sin quite escape unpunished, it will be something hard to joyn that justice with mercy, or to joyn that action with justice. Indeed it will seem strange, but the reason of its justice, I have already discoursed: If now we can finde how to reconcile this to Gods mercy too, or can learn how it may be turned into a mercy, D we need to take no other care, but that for our own particular we take heed we never tempt Gods anger upon our families, and that by competent and apt instruments, we indeavour to cancell the decree, if it be gone out against our families; for then we make use of that severity which God intended; and our selves shall be refreshed in the shades, and by the cooling brooks of the Divine mercy; even then when we see the wrath of God breaking out upon the families round about us.

1. The first means to cut off the intail of wrath and cursings from a family, is for the sons to disavow those signall actions of E impiety, in which their fathers were deeply guilty, and by which they stained great parts of their life, or have done something of very great unworthinesse and disreputation. Si quis paterni vitij nascitur haeres, nascitur & poenae? The heir of his fathers wickednesse, is the heir of his fathers curse; and a son comes to inherite a [Page] A wickednesse from his father three wayes. 1. By approving, or any wayes consenting to his fathers sin: As by speaking of it without regret, or shame; by pleasing himself in the story; or by having an evil minde, apt to counsell or do the like, if the same circumstances should occur. For a son may contract a sin, not onely by derivation, and the contagion of example, but by approbation; not onely by a corporall, but by a virtuall contact; not onely by transcribing an evil copy, but by commending it: and a man may have animum leprosum in cute mundâ, a leprous and a polluted minde even for nothing, even for an empty and ineffective lust. An evil minde may contract the curse of an evil action; B and though the son of a covetous father prove a prodigall, yet if he loves his fathers vice for ministring to his vanity, he is disposed not onely to a judgement for his own prodigality, but also to the curse of his fathers avarice.

2. The son may inherit his fathers wickednesse by imitation and direct practise, and then the curse is like to come to purpose; a curse by accumulation, a treasure of wrath: and then the children as they arrive to the height of wickednesse by a speedy passage, as being thrust forward by an active example, by countenance, C by education, by a seldom restraint, by a remisse discipline; so they ascertain a curse to the family, by being a perverse generation, a family set up in opposition against God, by continuing and increasing the provocation.

3. Sons inherit their fathers crimes, by receiving, and enjoying the purchases of their rapine, injustice, and oppression, by rising upon the ruine of their fathers souls, by sitting warme in the furres which their father stole, and walking in the grounds which are water'd with the tears of oppressed orphanes, and widows. Now in all these cases the rule holds. If the son inherits D the sin, he cannot call it unjust, if he inherits also his fathers punishment But to rescind the fatall chain and break in sunder the line of Gods anger, a son is tied in all these cases to disavow his fathers crime But because the cases are severall, he must also in severall manners do it.

1. Every man is bound not to glory in, or speak honour of the powerfull and unjust actions of his Ancestors: But as all the sons of Adam are bound to be ashamed of that originall stain which they derive from the loins of their abused Father, they must be humbled in it, they must deplore it as an evil Mother, E and a troublesome daughter: so must children account it amongst the crosses of their family, and the stains of their honour, that they passed thorow [...] impure chanels, that in the sense of morality as well as nature, they can say to corruption, thou art my father, and to rottennesse, thou art my mother. I do not say that sons are bound to publish, or declaim against their father crimes, and [Page] to speak of their shame in Piazza's and before Tribunals; that indeed A were a sure way to bring their fathers sins upon their own heads, by their own faults. No: Like Sem, and Japhet they must go backward, and cast a vail upon their nakednesse and shame, lest they bring the curse of their fathers angry dishonour upon their own impious and unrelenting heads. Noahs drunkennesse fell upon Chams head, because he did not hide the opennesse of his fathers follies: he made his father ridiculous; but did not endeavour either to amend the sin, or to wrap the dishonour in a pious covering. He that goes to disavow his fathers sin by publishing his shame, hides an ill face with a more ugly vizor and endeavours B by torches [...]d phantastick lights, to quench the burning of that house which his father set on fire: These fires are to be smothered and so extinguished. I deny not but it may become the piety of a childe to tell a sad story, to mourn, and represent a reall grief for so great a misery, as is a wicked father or mother; but this is to be done with a tendernesse, as nice as we would dresse an eye withall; it must be onely with designes of charity, of counsell, of ease, and with much prudence, and a sad spirit: These things being secured, that which in this case remains is, that with all entercourses between God and our selves, we disavow C the crime.

Children are bound to pray to God, to sanctifie, to cure, to forgive their parents: and even concerning the sins of our forefathers, the Church hath taught us in her Letanies, to pray that God would be pleased to forgive them, so that neither we, nor they may sink under the wrath of God for them. [Remember not Lord our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers, neither take thou vengeance of our sins: Ours] in common and conjunction: And David confessed to God, and humbled himself for the sins of his Ancestors D and Decessors: Our fathers have done amisse, and dealt wickedly, neither kept they thy great goodnesse in remembrance, but were disobedient at the sea, even at the red sea. So did good King Josiah, Great is the wrath of the Lord which is kindled against us, 2 King 32. 13. because our fathers have not hearkned unto the words of this book. But this is to be done between God and our selves: or if in publike, then to be done by generall accusation; that God onely may read our particular sorrows in the single shame of our families registred in our hearts, and represented to him with humiliation, shame, and a hearty prayer.

2. Those curses which descend from the Fathers to the children E by imitation of the crimes of their progenitors, are to be cut off by special and personal repentance, and prayer, as being a state directly opposite to that which procured the curse: And if the sons be pious, or return to an early and a severe course of Holy living, they are to be remedied as other innocent and pious persons are, who [Page] A are sufferers under the burdens of their Relatives, whom I shall consider by and by Onely observe this; that no publick or imaginative disavowings no ceremonial and pompous rescission of our Fathers crimes can be sufficient to interrupt the succession of the curse, if the children do secretly practise or approve what they in pretence or ceremony disavow and this is clearly proved (and it will help to explicate that difficult saying of our B. Saviour,) Wo unto you for ye build the sepulchre of the Prophets and your Fathers killed them: truely ye beare witnesse that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they killed Luke. 11. 47. them and ye build their sepulchres: that is, the Pharisees were B huge hypocrites, and adorned the monuments of the Martyr Prophets, and in words disclaim'd their Fathers sin, but in deeds and designe they approved it. 1. Because they secretly wish'd all such persons dead; colebant mortuos quos nollent Superstites: In charity to themselves some men wish their enemies in Heaven, and would be at charges for a monument for them, that their malice and their power and their bones might rest in the same grave: and yet that wish, and that expence is no testimony of their Charity but of their anger. 2. These men were willing that the monuments of those Piophets should remain and be a visible affrightment to all such bold C persons and severe reprehenders as they were; and therefore they builded their Sepulchres to be as beacons, and publications of danger to al Honest Preachers. And this was the account Saint Chrysostome gave of the place. 3. To which also the circumstances of the place concur. For they onely said, if they had lived in their Fathers dayes they would not have done as they did; but it is certain they approved it, because they pursued the same courses: and therefore our blessed Saviour calls them [...], Not onely the children of them that did kill the Prophets, but a Killing generation; Mat. 23. 31. the sin also descends upon you, for ye have the same killing minde, D and although you honour them that are dead, and cannot shame you; yet you designe the same usages against them that are alive even against the Lord of the Prophets, against Christ himself, whom ye will kil: and as Dion said of Caracalla [...] The man was troublesome to all good men when they were alive, but did them honour when they were dead: And when Herod had killed Aristobulus, yet he made him a most magnificent funeral; & because the Pharisees were of the same humor, therefore our blessed Saviour bids them to filup the measure of their Fathers iniquity; for they still continued the malice, onely E they painted it over with a pretence of piety, and of disavowing their Fathers sin; which if they had done really, they being children of persecutors, and much lesse could the adorning of the Prophets sepulchres have been just cause of a wo from christ; this being an act of piety, and the other of nature, inevitable, and not chosen by them; and therefore not chargable upon them. He therefore that [Page] will to reall purposes disavow his Fathers crimes; must do it heartily A and humbly, and charitably, and throw off all affections to the like actions. For he that findes fault with his Father for killing Isaiah, or Jeremy, and himself shall kill Aristohulus and John the Baptist; he that is angry because the old Prophets were murdered, and shall imprison, and begger and destroy the new ones; He that disavows the persecution in the primitive times, and honours the memory of the dead Martyrs, and yet every day makes new ones; He that blames the oppression of the Country by any of his predecessors, and yet shall continue to oppresse his Tenants, and all that are within his gripe, that man cannot hope to be eased from the curse B of his Fathers sins: He goes on to imitate them, and therefore to fill up their measure, and to reap a full treasure of wrath.

3. But concerning the third; there is yet more difficulty. Those sons that inherit their Fathers sins by possessing the price of their Fathers souls, that is, by enjoying the goods gotten by their Fathers rapine, may certainly quit the inheritance of the curse, if they quit the purchase of the sin, that is, if they pay their Fathers debts; his debts of contract, and his debts of justice; his debts of entercourse, and his debts of oppression. I do not say that every man is bound to restore all the land which his Ancestors have unjustly snatched: C for when by law the possession is established, though the Grandfather entred like a thief, yet the Grand-child is bonae fidei possessor, and may enjoy it justly: and the reasons of this are great, and necessary; for the avoiding eternal suites, and perpetual diseases of rest and conscience: because there is no estate in the world that could be enjoyed by any man honestly, if posterity were bound to make restitution of all the wrongs done by their progenitors. But although the children of the far removed lines, are not obliged to restitution, yet others are; and some for the same, some for other reasons. D

1. Sons are tied to restore what their Fathers did usurpe, or to make agreement, and an acceptable recompence for it, if the case be visible, evident and notorious, and the oppressed party demands it; because in this case the law hath not setled the possession in the new tenant: or if a judge hath, it is by injury; and there is yet no collateral accidental title transferred by long possession, as it is in other cases: and therefore if the son continues to oppresse the same person, whom his Father first injured, he may well expect to be the heire of his Fathers curse, as well as of his cursed purchase. E

2. Whether by law and justice, or not, the person be obliged, nay although by all the solemnities of law the unjust purchase be established, and that in conscience the Grand-children be not obliged to restitution in their own particulars, but may continue to enjoy it without a new sin; yet if we see a curse descending upon the family [Page] A for the old oppression done in the dayes of our Grandfathers; or if we probpably suspect that to be the cause; then if we make restitution we also most certainly remove the curse: because we take away the matter upon which the curse is grounded: I do not say, we sin, if we do not restore: but that, if we do not, we may still be punished; The reason of this is clear and visible: For as without our faults, in many cases we may enjoy those lands which our forefathers got unjustly: so without our faults we may be punished for them. For as they have transmitted the benefit to us, it is but reasonable we should suffer the appendant calamity. If we receive B good, we must also venture the evil that comes along withit: res transit cum suo onere. All lands and possessions passe with their proper burdens. And if any of my Ancestors was a Tenant, and a servant, and held his lands as a Villane to his Lord, his posterity also must do so, though accidentally they become noble. The case is the same If my Ancestors entred unjustly, there is a curse and a plague that is due to that oppression and injustice; and that is the burden of the land, and it descends all along with it: And although I by the consent of laws am a just possessor, yet I am obliged C to the burden that comes with the land: I am indeed anotherkinde of person then my Grand-father; he was an usurper, but I am a just possessor; but because in respect of the land this was but an accidentall change, therefore I still am liable to the burden, and the curse that descends with it but the way to take off the curse is to quit the title; and yet a man may choose. It may be to loose the land would be the bigger curses but if it be not, the way is certain how you may be rid of it. * There was a custome among the Greeks that the children of them that dyed of consumptions or dropsies, all the while their Fathers bodies D were burning in their funeral piles did sit with their feet in cold water, hoping that such a lustration, and ceremony would take off the lineal and descending contagion from the children: I know not what cure they found by their superstition; but we may be sure, that if we wash (not our feet, but) our hands of all the unjust purchases which our Fathers have transmitted to us, their hydropick thirst of wealth shall not transmit to us a consumption of estate, or any other curse. But this remedy is onely in the matter of injury, or oppression, not in the case of other sins: because other sins were transient; and as the guilt did not passe upon the children, so E neither did the exteriour and permanent effect: and therefore in other sins (in case they do derive a curse) it cannot be removed, as in the matter of unjust possession, it may be; whose effect (we may so order it) shall no more stick to us then the guilt of our fathers personal actions.

The summe is this. As Kingdoms use to expiate the faults of others by acts of justice: and as Churches use to remove the accursed thing from sticking to the communities of the faithful, and the [Page] sins of Christians from being required of the whole Congregation, A by excommunicating and censuring the delinquent persons: so the Heires and sons of families, are to [...] from their house the curse descending from their Fathers [...] by 1. Acts of disavowing the sins of their Ancestors, 2. By praying for pardon, 3. by being humbled for them, 4. By renouncing the example and, 5. Quitting the affection to the crimes, 6. By not imitaing the actions in Kinde, or in semblance and similitude; and lastly, 7. By refusing to rejoyce in the ungodly purchases in which their Fathers did amisse and dealt wickedly.

Secondly, But after all this, many cases do occur, in which we B finde that innocent sons are p [...]istied. The remedies I have already discoursed of, are for such children who have in some manner or other contracted and derived the sin upon themselves. But if we inquire, how those sons who have no [...], or affinity with their fathers sins; or whose fathers sins were so transient, that no benefit or effect did passe upon their posterity, how they may prevent, or take off the curse that lyes upon the family, for their Fathers faults; this will have some distinct considerations.

1. The pious children of evil Parents are to stand firme upon the confidence of the Divine grace and mercy; and upon that persuasion C to begin to work upon a new stock. For it is as certain that he may derive a blessing upon his Posterity, as that this Parents could transmit a curse: and if any man by piety shall procure Gods favour to his Relatives and children, it is certain that he hath done more, then to escape the punishment of his Fathers follies. If sin doth abound, and evils by sin are derived from his Parents, much more shall grace super abound, and mercy by grace. If he was in danger from the crimes of others, much rather shall he be secured by his own piety. For if God punishes the sins of the fathers to four D generations, yet he rewards the piety of fathers to ten, to hundreds, and to thousands. Many of the Ancestors of Abraham were persons not noted for religion; but suffered in the publike impiety, and almost universal idolatry of their ages; and yet all the evils that could thence descend upon the family, were wiped off; and God began to reckon with Abraham upon a new stock of blessings and piety; and he was under God, the Original of so great a blessing, that his family for 1500. years together had from him a title to many favours; and what ever evils did chance to them in the descending ages, were but single evils, in respect of that treasure of E mercies which the fathers piety had obtained to the whole nation. And it is remarkable to observe; how blessings did stick to them for their fathers sakes, even whether they would or no. For first, his Grand-childe Esau proved a naughty man, and he lost the great blessing which was in tailed upon the family; but he got, not a curse, but a lesse blessing: and yet because he lost the greater blessing, God excluded him from being reckoned in the elder time; [Page] A for God foreseeing the event, so ordered it that he should first lose his birth-right, and then lose the blessing; for it was to be certain, the family must be reckoned for prosperous in the proper line; and yet God blessed Esau into a great Nation, and made him the Father of many Princes. Now the line of blessing being reckoned in Jacob, God blessed his family strangely, and by miracle, for almost five generations; he brought them from Egypt by mighty signes and wonders; and when for sin they all died in their way to Canaan, two onely excepted, God so ordered it, that they were all reckoned as single deaths, the Nation still descending B like a river whose waters were drunk up for the beauvrage of an army, but still it keeps its name and current, and the waters are supplied by showers, and springs, and providence. After this, iniquity still increased, and then God struck deeper, and spread curses upon whole families: he translated the Priesthood from line to line, he removed the Kingome from one family to another; and still they sinned worse; and then we read that God smote almost a whole tribe; the tribe of Benjmin was almost extinguished about the matter of the Levites Concubine: but still God remembred his promise which he made with their forefathers, and that breach was made up. After C this we finde a greater rupture made; and ten tribes fell into idolatry, and ten tribes were carried captives into Assyria and never came again: But still God remembred his covenant with Abraham, and left two Tribes; but they were restlesse in their provocation of the God of Abraham; and they also were carried captive: But still God was the God of their fathers and brought them back, and placed them safe, and they grew again into a Kingdom and should have remained for ever but that they killed one that was greater then Abraham, even the Messias; and then they were rooted out, and the old covenant cast off, and God delighted no more to D be called the God of Abraham; but the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. As long as God kept that relation, so long for the fathers sakes they had a title and an inheritance to a blessing: for so saith Saint Paul. [As touching the election they are beloved for the Fathers Rom. 11. 28. sakes.]

I did insist the longer upon this instance that I might remonstrate how great and how sure, and how persevering mercies, a pious Father of a family may derive upon his succeeding generations: And if we do but tread in the footsteps of our Father Abraham, we E shall inherit as certain blessings. But then I pray, adde these considerations.

1. If a great impiety, and a clamorous wickednesse hath stained the honour of a family, and discomposed its title to the Divine mercies and protection, it is not an ordinary piety that can restore this family. An ordinary, even course of life, full of sweetnesse, and innocency will secure every single person in his own eternal [Page] interest: but that piety which must be a spring of blessings, and A communicative to others, that must plead against the sins of their Ancestors, and begin a new bank of mercies for the Relatives; that, must be a great, and excellent, a very religious state of life. A smal pension will maintain a single person: but he that hath a numerous family, and many to provide for, needs a greater providence of God, and a bigger provision for their maintenance: and a small revenue will not keep up the dignity of a great house; especially, if it be charged with a great debt: And this is the very state of the present question. That piety that must be instrumental to take off the curse imminent upon a family; to blesse a numerous posterity, B to secure a fair condition to many ages, and to pay the debts of their Fathers sins, must be so large as that all necessary expences, and dutyes for his own soul being first discharged, it may be remarkeable in great expressions, it may be exemplar to all the family, it may be of universal efficacie, large in the extension of parts, deep in the intension of degrees: and then, as the root of a tree receives nourishment, not onely sufficient to preserve its own life, but to transmit a plastick juice to the trunk of the tree, and from thence to the utmost branch and smallest gem that knots in the most distant part: So shall the great and exemplar piety C of the father of a family, not onely preserve to the interest of his own soul the life of grace, and hopes of glory, but shall be a quickning spirit, active and communicative of ablessing, not onely to the trunk of the tree, to the body and rightly descending line, but even to the collateral branches, to the most distant relatives, and all that shall claim a kinred, shall have a title to a blessing. And this was the way that was prescribed to the family of Eli, upon whom a sad curse was intailed that there should not be an old man of the family for ever, and that they should be beggers, and lose the office of Priesthood: by the counsel of R. Johanan the son D of Zacheus all the family betook themselves to a great, a strict and a severe religion; and God was intreated to revoke his decree, to be reconciled to the family, to restore them to the common condition of men, from whence they stood separate by the displeasure of God against the crime of Eli, and his Sons Hophni and Phinehas. This course is sure either to take off the judgement, or to change it into a blessing; to take a way the rod, or the smart and evil of it; to convert the punishment into a meer naturall, or humane chance, and that chance to the opportunity of a vertue, and that vertue to the occasion of a crown. E

2. It is of great use for the securing of families, that every Master of a family order his life so that his piety and vertue be as communicative as is posible; that is, that he secure the religion of his whole family, by a severe supravision and animadversion, and by cutting off all those unprofitable and hurtful branches [Page] A which load the tree and hinder the growth, and stock & disimprove the fruit, & revert evil juice to the very root it self. Calvisius Sabinus laid out vast sums of mony upon his servants, to stock his house with learned men; and bought one that could recite all Homer by heart; a second that was ready at Hesiod; a third at Pindar; and for every of the Lyricks one: having this fancy that all that learning was his own, & whatsoever his servants knew, made him so much the more skilful. It was noted in the man for a rich and a prodigal folly: but if he had chang'd his instance, & bought none but vertuous servants into his house, he might better have reckoned his wealth upon their B stock, & the piety of his family might have helped to blesse him, and to have increased the treasure of the Masters vertue. Every man that would either cut off the title of an old curse, or secure a blessing upon a new stock, must make vertue as large in the fountain as he can that it may the sooner water all his Relatives with fruitfulnesse and blessings. And this was one of the things that God noted in Abraham, and blessed his family for it, and his posterity. I know that Abraham will teach his sons to fear me. When a man teaches his family to know and fear God, then he scatters a blessing round about his habitation. And this helps to illustrate the reason of the thing as well as to prove C its certainty. We hear it spoken in our books of Religion, that the faith of the parents is imputed to their children to good purposes, & that a good husband sanctifies an ill wife, & a beleeving wife, an unbeleeving husband; and either of them makes the children to be sanctified, else they were unclean, and unholy; that is, the very designing children to the service of God is a sanctification of them; and therefore S. Hierom cals Christian children Candidatos fidei Christianae: and if this very designation of them makes them holy; that is, acceptable to God, intitled to the promises, partakers of the Covenant, within the condition of sons; much more shall it be effectual to greater blessings D when the Parents take care that the children shall be actually pious, full of sobriety, full of religion, then it becomes a holy house, a chosen generation, an elect family; and then there can no evil happen to them, but such which will bring them neerer to God; that is, no crosse, but the crosse of Christ; no misfortune, but that which shall lead them to felicity: and if any semblance of a curse happens in the generations, it is but like the anathema of a sacrifice; not an accursed, but a devoted thing: for so the sacrifice upon whose neck the Priests knife doth fall, is so far from being accursed, that it helps to get a blessing to all that joyn in the oblation: so every misfortune that shal E discompose the ease of a pious and religious family shall but make them fit to be presented unto God; and the rod of God shall be like the branches of fig-trees, bitter and sharp in themselves, but productive of most delicious fruit: no evil can curse the family whose stock is pious, and whose branches are Holinesse unto the Lord. If any leaf, or any boughs shall fall untimely, God shall gather it up, and [Page] place it in his Temple, or at the foot of his throne; and that family A must needs be blessed, whom infelicity it self cannot make accursed.

3. If a curse be feared to descend upon a family for the fault of their Ancestors; pious sons have yet another way to fecure themselves, & to withdraw the curse from the family, or themselves from the curse; and that is, by doing some very great & illustrious act of piety, an action in gradu heroico (as Aristotle cals it) an heroicall action. If there should happen to be one Martyr in a family, it would reconcile the whole kinred to God, & make him who is more inclined to mercy then to severity, rather to be pleased with the Relatives of the Martyr, then continue to be angry with the Nephews of a deceased B sinner. I cannot insist long upon this: But you may see it proved by one great instance in the case of Phinehas, who killed an unclean Prince, & turned the wrath of God from his people: he was zealous for God and for his countreymen, & did an heroicall action of zeal: Wherefore (saith God) Behold I give unto him my covenant of peace, Numb. 25. 12. and he shall have it, & his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, & made an atonement for the children of Israel. Thus the sons of Rechab obtain d the blessing of an enduring and blessed family, because they were most strict & religious observers of their fathers precept, and kept it after C his death, & abstained from wine for ever; and no temptation could invite them to taste it; for they had as great reverence to their fathers ashes, as being children they had to his rod, & to his eyes. Thus a man may turn the wrath of God from his family, & secure a blessing for posterity, by doing some great noble acts of charity, or a remarkable chastity, like that of Joseph; or an expensive, an effectionate religion and love to Christ and his servants (as Mary Magdalene did). Such things as these which are extraordinary egressions and transvolations beyond the ordinary course of an even piety, God loves to reward with an extraordinary favour; and gives it testimony D by an extraregular blessing.

One thing more I have to adde by way of advice; and that is, that all parents and fathers of families, from whose loyns a blessing or a curse usually does descend, be very carefull, not onely generally in all the actions of their lives (for that I have already pressed) but, particularly in the matter of repentance; that they be curious that they finish it, & do it thorowly: for there are certain [...], leavings of repentance, which makes that Gods anger is taken from us so imperfectly: and although God for his sake who died for us, will pardon a returning sinner, & bring him to heaven through tribulation E & a fiery triall; yet when a man is weary of his sorrow, & his fastings are a load to him, & his sins are not so perfectly renounced, or hated as they ought, the parts of repentance which are left unfinished do sometimes fall upon the heads, or upon the fortunes of the children, I do not say, this is regular and certain, but sometimes [Page] A God deals thus. For this thing hath been so, and therefore it may be so again: we see it was done in the case of Ahab; he humbled himself and went softly, and lay in sackcloth, and called for pardon and God took from him a judgement which was falling heavily upon him: but we all know his repentance was imperfect and lame: The same evil fell upon his sons; for so said God; I will bring the evil upon his house in his sons dayes. Leave no arreares for thy posterity to pay; but repent with an integral, a holy and excellent repentance, that God being reconciled to thee thoroughly, for thy sake also he may blesse thy seed after thee.

B And after all this, adde a continual, a fervent, a hearty, a never ceasing prayer for thy children, ever remembring when they beg a blessing, that God hath put much of their fortune into your hands; and a transient formal [God blesse thee] will not out-weigh the load of a great vice; and the curse that scatters from thee by virtual contact, and by the chanels of relation, if thou beest a vicious person: Nothing can issue from thy fountain but bitter waters, And as it were a great impudence for a condemned Traitor to beg of his injured Prince a province for his son, for his sake: so it is an ineffective blessing C we give our children, when we beg for them, what we have no title to for our selves, Nay, when we can convey to them nothing but a curse. The praier of a sinner, the unhallowed wish of a vitious Parent is but a poor donative to give to a childe who suck'd poison from his nurse, and derives cursing from his Parents. They are punished with a double torture in the shame and paines of the damned, who dying Enemies to God have left an inventary of sins and wrath to be divided amongst their children. But they that can truely give a blessing to their children, are such as live a blessed life, and pray holy prayers, and perform an integral repentance, and do separate from D the sins of their Progenitors, and do illustrious actions, and begin the blessing of their family upon a new stock; for as from the eyes of some persons, there shoots forth a visible influence; and some have an evileye, and are infectious; some look healthfully as a friendly planet, and innocent as flowers: and as some fancies convey private effects to confederate and allayed bodyes; and between the very vital spirits of friends and Relatives there is a cognation, and they refresh each other like social plants, and a good man is a *friend to every Good man; and (they say) that an usurer knows an usurer and one rich man another, there being by the very manners E [...]. Aristot. of men contracted a similitude of nature, and a communication of effects: so in parents and their children there is so great a society of nature and of manners, of blessing and of cursing, that an evil parent cannot perish in a single death and holy parents never eat their meal of blessing alone; but they make the roome shine like the fire of a holy sacrifice: and a Fathers or a Mothers piety makes all the house festivall, and full of joy from generation to generation. Amen.

Sermon. V. B THE Invalidity of a late, or death-bed Repentance. C

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13. Jeremy 16.‘Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darknesse, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains: and while ye look for light, or, (left while ye look for light) he shall turn it into the shadow of death, and make it grosse darknesse.’

GOd is the eternall fountain of honour, and the D spring of glory; in him it dwells essentially, from him it derives originally; and when an action is glorious, or a man is honourable, it is because the action is pleasing to God, in the relation of obedience or imitation, and because the man is honoured by God, or by Gods Vicegerent; and therefore God cannot be dishonoured, because all honour comes from himself; he cannot but be glorified, because to be himself is to be infinitely glorious. And yet he is pleased to say, that our sins dishonour him, and our obedience does glorifie him. But as the Sun, E the great eye of the world, prying into the recesses of rocks, and the hollownesse of valleys, receives species, or visible forms from these objects, but he beholds them onely by that light which proceeds from himself: So does God who is the light of that eye; he receives reflexes and returns from us, and these he calls glorifications [Page] A of himself, but they are such which are made so by his own gracious acceptation. For God cannot be glorified by any thing but by himself, and by his own instruments, which he makes as mirrours to reflect his own excellency, that by seeing the glory of such emanations; he may rejoyce in his own works, because they are images of his infinity. Thus when he made the beauteous frame of heaven and earth, he rejoyced in it, and glorified himself, because it was the glasse in which he beheld his wisedom, and Almighty power: And when God destroyed the old world, in that also he glorified himself; for in those waters he saw the image of B his justice; they were the looking glasse for that Attribute; and God is said to laugh at, and rejoyce in the destruction of a sinner, because he is pleased with the Oeconomy of his own lawes, and the excellent proportions he hath made of his judgements, consequent to our sins. But above all, God rejoyced in his Holy Son, for he was the image of the Divinity, the character and expresse image of his person, in him he beheld his own Essence, his wisedom, his power, his justice, and his person, and he was that excellent instrument, designed from eternall ages to represent as in a double mirrour, not onely the glories of God to himself, but also C to all the world; and he glorified God by the instrument of obedience, in which God beheld his own dominion, and the sanctity of his lawes clearly represented; and he saw his justice glorified, when it was fully satisfied by the passion of his Son; and so he hath transmitted to us a great manner of the Divine glorification, being become to us the Authour, and the Example of giving glory to God after the manner of men, that is, by well-doing, and patient suffering, by obeying his lawes, and submitting to his power, by imitating his holinesse, and confessing his goodnesse, by remaining innocent, or becoming penitent; for this also is called in the Text D [GIVING GLORY TO THE LORD OUR GOD.]

For he that hath dishonoured God by sins, that is, hath denied, by a morall instrument of duty, and subordination, to confesse the glories of his power, and the goodnesse of his lawes, and hath dishonoured, and despised his mercy, which God intended as an instrument of our piety, hath no better way to glorifie God, then by returning to his duty, to advance the honour of the Divine Attributes in which he is pleased to communicate himself, and to have entercourse with man. He that repents, confesses his own errour, E and the righteousnesse of Gods lawes, and by judging himself confesses that he deserves punishment, and therefore that God is righteous if he punishes him: and by returning, confesses God to be the fountain of felicity, and the foundation of true, solid, and permanent joyes, saying in the sense and passion of the Disciples, Whither shall we go? for thou hast the words of eternall life: and by humbling himself, exalts God by making the proportions [Page] of distance more immense, and vast: and as repentance does A contain in it all the parts of holy life which can be performed by a returning sinner (all the acts, and habits of vertue, being but parts, or instances, or effects of repentance): so all the actions of a holy life do constitute the masse and body of all those instruments whereby God is pleased to glorifie himself. *For if God is glorified in the Sunne and Moon, in the rare fabrick of the honeycombs, in the discipline of Bees, in the oeconomy of Pismires, in the little houses of birds, in the curiosity of an eye, God being pleased to delight in those little images and reflexes of himself from those pretty mirrours, which like a crevice in a wall thorow B a narrow perspective transmit the species of a vast excellency: much rather shall God be pleased to behold himself in the glasses of our obedience, in the emissions of our will and understanding; these being rationall and apt instruments to expresse him, farre better then the naturall, as being neerer communications of himself.

But I shall no longer discourse of the Philosophy of this expression; certain it is, that in the stile of Scripture, repentance is the great glorification of God; and the Prophet, by calling the people to give God glory, calls upon them to repent; and so expresses C both the duty and the event of it; the event being [Glory to God on high, and peace on earth, and good will towards men] by the sole instrument of repentance. And this was it which Joshuah said to Achan, [Give I pray thee glory to the Lord God of Israel, Joshuah 7. 19. and make confession unto him: that one act of repentance is one act of glorifying God: and this, David acknowledged, Against Psal. 51. 4. thee onely have I sinned, ut tu justificeris, that thou mightest be justified, or cleared, that is, that God may have the honour of being righteous, and we, the shame of receding from so excellent a perfection: or as S. Paul quotes and explicates the place. Let God Rom. 3. 4. be true, and every man a liar, as it is written, that thou mightest be D justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. But to clear the sense of this expression of the Prophet, observe the words of S. John: and men were scorched with great heat, and Revel. 16. 9. blasphemed the name of God who hath power over those plagues, and they repented not to give him glory.

So that having strength and reason from these so many authorities, I may be free to read the words of my Text thus, [Repent of all your sins before God cause darknesse, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains] and then we have here the duty of repentance, E and the time of its performance; it must be [...] a seasonable and timely repentance, a repentance which must begin before our darknesse begin, a repentance in the day time, ut dum dies est operemini, that ye may work while it is to day, lest if we stumble upon the dark mountains, that is, fall into the ruines of [Page] A old age, which makes a broad way narrow, and a plain way to be a craggy mountain; or if we stumble and fall into our last sicknesse, instead of health God send us to our grave, and instead of light and salvation which we then confidently look for, he make our state to be outer darknesse, that is, misery irremediable, misery eternall.

This exhortation of the Prophet was alwayes full of caution and prudence, but now it is highly necessary; since men who are so clamorously called to repentance that they cannot avoid the necessity of it, yet that they may reconcile an evil life with the hopes of heaven, B have crowded this duty into so little room, that it is almost strangled and extinct; and they have lopped off so many members, that they have reduced the whole body of it to the dimensions of a little finger, sacrificing their childhood to vanity, their youth to lust, and to intemperance, their manhood to ambition and rage, pride and revenge, secular desires, and unholy actions; and yet still further, giving their old age to covetousnesse and oppression, to the world, and to the Devil; and after all this what remains for God and for Religion? Oh, for that, they wll C do well enough; upon their death-bed they will think a few godly thoughts, they will send for a Priest to minister comfort to them; they will pray and ask God forgivenesse, and receive the holy Sacrament, and leave their goods behinde them, disposing them to their friends and relatives, and some Dole, and issues of the almes-basket to the poor; and if after all this they die quietly, and like a lambe, and be canoniz'd by a brib'd flatterer in a funerall sermon, they make no doubt but they are children of the kingdom, and perceive not their folly, till without hope of remedy they roar in their expectations of a certain, but a horrid eternity D of pains. * Certainly nothing hath made more ample harvests for the Devil, then the deferring of repentance upon vain confidences, and lessening it in the extension of parts, as well as intension of degrees, while we imagine that a few tears, and scatterings of devotion are enough to expiate the basenesse of a fifty or threescore yeers impiety. This I shall endeavour to cure, by shewing what it is to repent, and that repentance implies in it the duty of a life, or of many and great, of long and lasting parts of it; and then by direct arguments, shewing that repentance put off to our death-bed is invalid and ineffectuall, sick, languid, and impotent, E like our dying bodies and disabled faculties.

1. First therefore, Repentance implies a deep sorrow, as the beginning and introduction of this duty; not a superficiall sigh, or tear, not a calling our selves sinners, and miserable persons; this is far from that godly sorrow that worketh repentance; and yet I wish there were none in the world, or none amongst us, who cannot remember that ever they have done this little towards the [Page] abolition of their multitudes of sins; but yet if it were not A a hearty, pungent sorrow, a sorrow that shall break the heart in pieces; a sorrow that shall so irreconcile us to sin, as to make us rather choose to die then to sin, it is not so much as the beginning of repentance. But in Holy Scripture, when the people are called to repentance, and sorrow (which is ever the prologue to it) marches sadly, and first opens the scene, it is ever expressed to be great, clamorous and sad: it is called [a weeping sorely] in the verse Ezek. 27. 31. Joel: 2. 13. next after my text, [a weeping with the bitternesse of heart; a turning to the Lord with weeping, fasting, and mourning; a weeping day and night; the sorrow of heart; the breaking of the spirit; B the mourning like a dove, and chattering like a swallow;] and if we observe the threnes and sad accents of the Prophet Jeremy when he wept for the sins of his Nation, the heart-breakings of David when he mourned for his adultery and murder, and the bitter tears of Saint Peter when he washed off the guilt and basenesse of his fall, and the denying his Master; we shall be sufficiently instructed in this praeludium or introduction to repentance; and that it is not every breath of a sigh, or moisture of a tender eye, not every crying [Lord have mercy upon me] that is such a sorrow as begins our restitution to the state of grace and C Divine favour: but such a sorrow that really condemnes our selves, and by an active, effectual sentence declares us worthy of stripes and death, of sorrow and eternall paines, and willingly endures the first to prevent the second; and weeps and mourns, and fasts to obtain of God but to admit us to a possibility of restitution: and although all sorrow for sins hath not the same expression, nor the same degree of pungency and sensitive trouble (which differs according to the temper of the body, custome, the sexe, and accidental tendernesse) yet it is not a Godly sorrow see Rule of H. [...]iving. D. of repentance. p. 33 [...]. unlesse it really produce these effects; that is, 1. That it makes us D really to hate, & 2. actually to decline sin, and 3. produce in us a fear fo Gods anger, a sense of the guilt of his displeasure; and 4. Then, such consequent trouble as can consist with such apprehension of the Divine displeasure: which if it expresse not in tears and hearty complaints, must be expressed in watchings and strivings against sin, in confessing the goodnesse and justice of God threatning or punishing us, in patiently bearing the rod of God, in confession of our sins, in accusation of our selves, in perpetual begging of pardon, and mean and base opinions of our selves, and in al the natural productions from these; according to our temper and constitution; it E must be a sorrow of the reasonable faculty, the greatest in its kinde; and if it be lesse in kinde; or not productive of these effects, it is not a godly sorrow, not the exordium of repentance.

But I desire that it be observed, that sorrow for sins, is not Repentance; [Page] A not that duty which gives glory to God, so as to obtain of him that he will glorifie us. Repentance is a great volume of duty; and Godly sorrow is but the frontispiece or title page: it is the harbinger or first introduction to it; or if you will consider it in the words of Saint Paul: [Godly sorrow worketh repentance] 2 Cor 7. sorrow is the Parent, and repentance is the product; and therefore it is a high piece of ignorance to suppose that, a crying out and roaring for our sins upon our deathbed can reconcile us to God; our crying to God must be so early, and so lasting, as to be able to teeme, and produce such a daughter, which must live long, B and grow from an Embryo to an infant, from infancy to childhood, from thence to the fulnesse of the stature of Christ, and then it is a holy and a happy sorrow: but if it be a sorrow onely of a death-bed, it is a fruitlesse shower, or like the rain of Sodom not the beginning of repentance, but the kindling of a flame, the comencement of an eternal sorrow. For Ahab had a great sorrow but it wrought nothing upon his spirit, it did not reconcile his affections to his duty, and his duty to God. Judas had so great a sorrow for betraying the innocent blood of his Lord, that it was intolerable to his Spirit, and he burst in the middle: and if meer sorrow be repentance, then C hell is full of penitents, for [there is weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth for evermore.

Let us therefore beg of God (as Calebs daughter did of her Father) dedisti mihi terram aridam, da etiam & irriguam, thou hast given me a dry land, give me also a land of waters, a dwelling place in tears, rivers of tears, ut quoniam non sumus digni oculos orando ad coelum levare, at simus digni oculos plorando caecare, as Saint Austins expression is, that because we are not worthy to lift up our eyes to heaven in prayer, yet we may be worthy to weep our selves blinde for sin, the meaning is, that we beg sorrow of D God, such a sorrow as may be sufficient to quench the flames of lust, and surmount the hills of our pride, and may extinguish our thirst of covetousnesse; that is, a sorrow that shall be an effective principle of arming all our faculties against sin, and heartily setting upon the work of grace, and the persevering labours of a holy life. *I shall onely adde one word to this: That our sorrow for sin is not to be estimated by our tears, and our sensible expressions, but by our active hatred, and dereliction of sin: and is many times unperceived in outward demonstration. It is reported of the Mother of Peter Lombard, Gratian, and Comestor, that she having E had three sons begotten in unhallowed embraces, upon her death-bed did omit the recitation of those crimes to her confessour; adding this for Apology, that her three sons proved persons so eminent in the Church that their excellency was abundant recompence for her demerit: and therefore she could not grieve, because God had glorified himself so much by three instruments so [Page] excellent; and that although her sin had abounded; yet Gods grace A did superabound. Her Confessor replied, at dole Saltent quod dolere non possis, grieve that thou canst not grieve: and so must we; alwayes fear that our trouble for sin is nor great enough, that our sorrow is too remisse, that our affections are indifferent; but we can onely be sure that our sorrow is a godly sorrow, when it worketh repentance; that is, when it makes us hate and leave all our sin, and take up the crosse of patience or penance: that is, confesse our sin, accuse our selves, condemn the action by hearty sentence; and then, if it hath no other emanation but fasting and prayer for its pardon, and hearty industry towards its abolition, our sorrow is B not reproveable.

For, sorrow alone will not do it, there must follow a total dereliction of our sin; and this is the first part of repentance. Concerning which, I consider, that it is a sad mistake amongst many that do some things towards repentance, that they mistake the first addresses, and instruments of this part of repentance for the whole duty it self. Confession of sins is in order to the dereliction of them; but then confession must not be like the unlading of a ship to take in new stowage; or the vomits of intemperance, which ease the stomack that they may continue the merry meeting: but such a confession C is too frequent, in which men either comply with custome or seek to ease a present load, or gripe of conscience, or are willing to dresse up their souls against afestiyal, or hope for pardon upon so easie terms: these are but retirings baok to leap the further into mischief; or but approaches to God with the lips; no confession can be of any use, but as it is an instrument of shame to the person, of humiliation of the man, and dereliction of the sin, and receives its recompence but as it ads to these purposes: all other, is like the bleating of the calves, and the lowing of the Oxen which Saul reserved after the spoil of Agag: they proclaim the sin, but do nothing towards its cure; they serve Gods end to make us justly D to be condemned out of our own mouthes, but nothing at all towards our absolution. * Nay, if we proceed further, to the greatest expressions of humiliation, (parts of which I reckon, fasting, praying for pardon, judging and condemning of our selves by instances of a present indignation, against a crime) yet unlesse this proceed so far as to a total deletion of the sin, to the extirpation of every vitious habit, God is not glorified by our repentance, nor we secured in our eternal interest. Our sin must be brought to judgement, and like Antinous in Homer, layed in the mids as the E sacrifice and the cause of all the mischief.

[...]

This is the murderer, this is the Achan, this is he that troubles Israel; [Page] A let the sin be confessed and carried with the pomps and solennities of sorrow to its funeral, and so let the murderer be slain: But if after all the forms of confession and sorrow, fasting, and humiliation, and pretence of doing the will of God, we spare Agag and the fattest of the cattel, our delicious sins, and still leave an unlawful King, and a tyrant sin to reigne in our mortal bodies, we may pretend what we will towards repentance, but we are no better penitents then Ahab, no neerer to the obtaining of our hopes then Esau was to his birthright, for whose repentance there was no place left though he sought it carefully with tears.

B Well? let us suppose our penitent advanced thus far, as that he decrees against all sin, and in his hearty purposes resolves to decline it, as in a severe sentence he hath condemned it as his betrayer and his murderer; yet we must be curious (for now onely the repentance properly begins) that it be not onely like the springings of the thorny of the high way ground, soon up and soon down: For some men when a sadnesse or an unhandsome accident surprizes them, then they resolve against their sin, but like the goats in Aristotle they give their milk no longer then they are C stung: as soon as the thorns are removed, these men return to their first hardnesse, and resolve then to act their first temptation. Others there are who never resolve against a sin, but either when they have no temptation to it, or when their appetites are newly satisfied with it, like those who immediately after a full dinner resolve to fast at supper, and they keep it till their appetite returnes, and then their resolution unties like the cords of vanity or the gossamere against the violence of the Northen winde. Thus a lustfull person fills all the capacity of his lust, and when he is wearied, and the sin goes off D with unquietnesse and regret, and the appetite falls down like a horseleech when it is ready to burst with putrifaction and an unwholsome plethory; then he resolves to be a good man and could almost vow to be a Hermit, and hates his lust, as Amnon hated his sister Thamar, just when he had newly acted his unworthy rape; but the next spring tide that comes, every wave of the temptation, makes an inrode upon the resolution and gets ground, and prevailes against it more then his resolution prevailed against his sin: How many drunken persons, how many E Swearers resolve daily and hourely against their sin, and yet act them not once the lesse for all their infinite heape of shamefully ret eating purposes * That resolution that begins upon just grounds of sorrow and severe judgement, upon fear and love, that is made in the midst of a temptation, that is inquisitive into all the means and instruments of the cure, that prayes perpetually against a sin; that watches continually against a [Page] surprize, and never sinks into it by deliberation; that fights A earnestly and carries on the war prudently and prevailes by a never ceasing diligence against the temptation; that onely is a pious and well begun repentance. They that have their fits of a quartan, well and ill for ever, and think themselves in perfect health, when the ague is retired till its period returnes, are dangerously mistaken. Those intervals of imperfect and fallacious resolution, are nothing but states of death: and if a man should depart this world in one of those godly fits (as he thinks them) he is no neerer to obtain his blessed hope, then a man in the stone collick is to health when his pain is eased for the present, B his disease still remaining, and threatning an unwelcome return. That resolution onely is the beginning of a holy repentance which goes forth into act, and whose acts enlarge into habits, and whose habits are productive of the fruits of a holy life.

From hence we are to take our estimate, whence our resolutions of piety must commence. He that resolves not to live well till the time comes that he must die, is ridiculous in his great designe, as he is impertinent in his intermedial purposes, and vain in his hope. Can a dying man to any real effect resolve C to be chast? (for vertue must be an act of election, and chastity is the contesting against a proud and an imperious lust, active flesh, and insinuating temptation) And what doth he resolve against who can no more be tempted to the sin of unchastity then he can returne back again to his youth and vigour. And it is considerable, that since all the purposes of a holy life which a dying man can make, cannot be reduced to act, by what law, or reason, or covenant, or revelation are we taught to distinguish the resolution of a dying man from the purposes of a living and vigorous person? Suppose a man in his youth and health mooved D by consideration of the irregularity and deformity, of sin, the danger of its productions, the wrath and displeasure of Almightie God, should resolve to leave the puddles of impurity, and walk in the paths of righteousnesse; can this resolution alone put him into the state of grace; is he admitted to pardon and the favour of God before he hath in some measure performed actually what he so reasonably hath resolved? By no means. For, [resolution and purpose] is in its own nature and constitution an imperfect act, and therefore can signifie nothing without its performance and consummation. It is as a faculty is to the act, as spring is to the E harvest, as seed time is to the Autumne, as Egges are to birds, or as a relative to its correspondent; nothing without it. And can it be imagined that a resolution in our health and life shall be ineffectual without performance and shall a resolution barely such, do any Good upon our deathbed? Can such [Page] A purposes prevail against a long impiety rather then against a young and a newly begun state of sin? Will God at an easier rate pardon the sins of fifty or sixty yeers, then the sins of our youth onely, or the iniquity of five yeers, or ten? If a holy life be not necessary to be liv'd, why shall it be necessary to resolve to live it? But if a holy life be necessary, then it cannot be sufficient meerly to resolve it, unlesse this resolution go forth in an actuall and reall service. Vain therefore is the hope of those persons who either go on in their sins; before their last sicknesse, never thinking to return into the wayes of God, from whence they have wandred all their life, B never renewing their resolutions and vows of holy living; or if they have, yet their purposes are for ever blasted with the next violent temptation. More prudent was the prayer of David, [Oh spare me a little, that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen:] And something like it was the saying of the Emperour Charles the fifth, Inter vitae negotia & mortis diem oportet spacium intercedere: When ever our holy purposes are renewed, unlesse God gives us time to act them, to mortifie and subdue our lusts, to conquer and subdue the whole kingdom of sin, to rise from our grave and be clothed with nerves and flesh and a new skin, C to overcome our deadly sicknesses, and by little and little to return to health and strength; unlesse we have grace and time to do all this, our sins will lie down with us in our graves. *For when a man hath contracted a long habit of sin, and it hath been growing upon him ten or twenty, fourty or fifty yeers, whose acts he hath daily or hourly repeated, and they are grown to a second nature to aim, and have so prevailed upon the ruines of his spirit, that the man is taken captive by the Devil at his will, he is fast bound as a slave tugging at the oar, that he is grown in love with his fetters, and longs to be doing the work of sin, is it likely that D all this progresse and groweth in sin (in the wayes of which he runs fast without any impediment) is it (I say) likely, that a few dayes or weeks of sicknesse can recover him? [the especiall hindrances of that state I shall afterwards consider] but, Can a man be supposed so prompt to piety and holy living, a man (I mean) that hath lived wickedly a long time together, can he be of so ready and active a vertue upon the sudden, as to recover in a moneth, or a week what he hath been undoing in 20, or 30 yeers? Is it so easie to build, that a weak and infirm person, bound hand and E foot shall be able to build more in three dayes, then was a building above fourty yeers? Christ did it in a figurative sence; but in this, it is not in the power of any man so suddenly to be recovered from so long a sicknesse. Necessary therefore it is, that all these instruments of our conversion, [Confession of sins, praying for their pardon, and resolutions to lead a new life] should begin, [before our feet slum le upon the dark mountains,] lest we leave the work onely [Page] resolved upon to be begun, which, it is necessary we should in A many degrees finish if ever we mean to escape the eternall darknesse: ‘For that we should actually abolish the whole body of sin and death, that we should crucifie the old man with his lusts, that we should lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, that we should cast away the works of darknesse, that we should awake from sleep, and arise from death, that we should redeem the time, that we should cleanse our hands and purifie our hearts, that we should have escaped the corruption, (all the corruption) that is in the whole world through lust, that nothing of the old leaven should remain in us, but that we be wholly a new B lump, throughly transformed and changed in the image of our minde:’ these are the perpetuall precepts of the Spirit, and the certain duty of man; and that, to have all these in purpose onely, is meerly to no purpose, without the actuall eradication of every vitious habit, and the certain abolition of every criminall adherence, is clearly and dogmatically decreed every where in the Scripture; For (they are the words of Saint Paul) they that are Christs have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts: the Gal. 5. 24. work is actually done, and sin is dead, or wounded mortally, before they can in any sence belong to Christ, to be a portion of his C inheritance: And He that is in Christ is a new creature. For in Christ Gal. 6. 15. Gal. 6. [...]. 1 Cor. 7. 9. Jesus nothing can avail but a new creature: nothing but a Keeping the Commandements of God: Not all our tears, though we should weep like David and his men at Ziklag, till they could weep no more, or the women of Ramah, or like the weeping in the valley of Hinnom, could suffice, if we retain the affection to any one sin, or have any unrepented of, or unmortified. It is true that a contrite and broken heart, God will not despise. No, he will not. For if it be a hearty and permanent sorrow, it is an excellent beginning of repentance; and God will to a timely sorrow D give the grace of repentance: He will not give pardon to sorrow alone; but that which ought to be the proper effect of sorrow, that God shall give. He shall then open the gates of mercy, and admit you to a possibility of restitution; so, that you may be within the covenant of repentance, which if you actually perform, you may expect Gods promise. And in this sense Confession will obtain our pardon; and humiliation will be accepted; and our holy purposes, and pious resolutions shall be accounted for; that is, these being the first steps and addresses to that part of repentance, which consists in the abolition of sins, shall be accepted so far, E as to procure so much of the pardon, to do so much of the work of restitution, that God will admit the returning man to a further degree of emendation, to a neerer possibility of working out his salvation: but then if this sorrow, and confession, and strong purposes begin then when our life is declined towards the West, [Page] A and is now ready to set in darknesse and a dismall night; because of themselves they could but procure an admission to repentance, not at all to pardon, and plenary absolution; by shewing that on our death-bed these are too late and ineffectuall, they call upon us to begin betimes, when these imperfect acts may be consummate, and perfected in the actuall performing those parts of holy life, to which they were ordained, in the nature of the thing, and the purposes of God.

Lastly, suppose all this be done, and that by a long course of strictnesse and severity, mortification and circumspection we have B overcome all our vitious and baser habits contracted and grown upon us, like the ulcers and evils of a long surfet, and that we are clean and swept; Suppose that he hath wept and fasted, prayed and vowed to excellent purposes; yet all this is but the one half of repentance; (so infinitely mistaken is the world, to think any thing to be enough to make up repentance;) but to renew us, and restore us to the favour of God, there is required far more then what hath been yet accounted for. See it in the second of S. Peter, 1 Chap. 4, 5. vers. Having escaped the corruption that is in the world thorough lust: C And besides this, giving all diligence, adde to your faith vertue, to vertue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, and so on, to godlinesse, to brotherly kindnesse, and to charity: These things must be in you and abound: This is the summe totall of repentance; We must not onely have overcome sin, but we must after great diligence have acquired the habits of all those Christian graces which are necessary in the transaction of our affairs, in all relations to God, and our neighbour, and our own person. It is not enough to say, Lord, I thank thee I am no extortioner, no adulrerer, not as this Publican; all the reward of such a poenitent D is, that when he hath escaped the corruption of the world, he hath also escaped those heavy judgements which threatned his ruine.

Nec furtum feci, nec fugi, si mihi dicat

Servus; habes precium; loris non ureris, aio.

Non hominem occidi; non pasces in cruce corvos.

If a servant have not rob'd his Master, nor offered to fly from his bondage, he shall scape the Furca, his flesh shall not be exposed E to birds or fishes; but this is but the reward of innocent slaves; it may be we have escaped the rod of the exterminating Angel, when our sins are crucifyed; but we shall never enter into the joy of our Lord, unlesse after we have put off the old man with his affections and lusts, we also put on the new man in righteousnesse and holinesse of life. And this we are taught in most plain doctrine by S. Paul [Let us lay aside the weight [Page] that doth so easily beset us;] that is the one half; and [then A it follows] Let us run with patience the race that is set before us. These are the fruits meet for repentance, spoken of by S. John Heb. 12. 1. Baptist; that is, when we renew our first undertaking in baptisme, and return to our courses of innocence.

Parcus Deorum cultor, & infrequens,

Insanientis dum sapientiae consultus erro

Nunc retrorsum vela dare, atque iterare cursus

Cogor relictos B

‘The sense of which words is well given us by S. John; Remember Revel. 2. whence thou art fallen, repent; and do thy first works.’ ‘For all our hopes of heaven rely upon that Covenant which God made with us in Baptisme; which is, That being redeemed from our vain conversation, we should serve him in holinesse and righteousnesse all our dayes.’ Now when any of us hath prevaricated our part of the Covenant, we must return to that state, and redeem the intermedial time spent in sin by our doubled industry in the wayes of grace: we must be reduced to our first estate, and make C some proportionable returns of duty, for our sad omissions, and great violations of our Baptismal vow. For God having made no covenant with us, but that which is consigned in Baptisme; in the same proportion in which we retain, or return to that, in the same we are to expect the pardon of our sins, and all the other promises Evangelicall; but no otherwise; unlesse we can shew a new Gospel, or be baptized again by Gods appointment. He therefore that by a long habit, by a state and continued course of sin, hath gone so far from his baptismal purity, as that he hath nothing of the Christian left upon him but his name; that man hath much D to do to make his garments clean, to purifie his soul, to take off all the stains of sin, that his spirit may be presented pure to the eyes of God who beholds no impurity. It is not an easie thing to cure a long contracted habit of sin: Let any intemperate person but try in his own instance of drunkennesse; or the swearer in the sweetning his unwholesome language: but then so to command his tongue that he never swear, but that his speech be prudent, pious and apt to edific the hearer, or in some sense to glorifie God; or to become temperate, to have got a habit of sobriety, or chastity, or humility, is the work of a life: And if we do but consider E that he that lives well from his younger yeers, or takes up at the end of his youthfull heats, and enters into the courses of a sober life early, diligently, and vigorously, shall finde himself after the studies and labours of 20. or 30. yeers, piety, but a very imperfect person: many degrees of pride left unrooted up, [Page] A many inroads of intemperance, or beginnings of excesse, much indevotion and backwardnesse in religion, many temptations to contest against, and some infirmities which he shall never say he hath master'd; we shall finde the work of a holy life is not to be deferred till our dayes are almost done, till our strengths are decayed, our spirits are weak, and our lust strong, our habits confirmed, and our longings after sin many and impotent: for what is very hard to be done, and is alwayes done imperfectly when there is length of time, and a lesse work to do, and more abilities to do it withall: when the time is short, and almost expired, and B the work made difficult and vast, and the strengths weaker, and the faculties are disabled, will seem little lesse then absolutely impossible. * I shall end this generall consideration with the question of the Apostle. If the righteous scarcely be saved, (if it be so difficult to overcome our sins, and obtain vertuous habits; difficult (I say) to a righteous, a sober, and well living person) where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? What shall become of him who by his evil life hath not onely removed himself from the affections, but even from the possibilities of vertue? He that hath lived in sin will die in sorrow. C D E

The Invalidity of a death-bed Repentance. Part. II. B

[Page]

A

BUt I shall pursue this, great and necessary truth, first; by shewing what parts and ingredients of repentance are assigned, when it is described in holy Scripture. Secondly, by shewing the necessities, the absolute necessities of a holy life, and what it means in Scripture to [live holily]. Thirdly, by considering what directions or intimations we have concerning the last time of beginning to repent; and what is the longest period that any man may venture with safety: And in the prosecution of C these particulars, we shall remove the objections; those aprons of fig-leaves which men use for their shelter to palliate their sin, and to hide themselves, from that, from which no rocks or mountains shall protect them, though they fall upon them; that is, the wrath of God.

First, That repentance is not onely an abolition, and extinction of the body of sin, a bringing it to the altar, and slaying it before God and all the people; but that we must also [...] mingle gold and rich presents, the oblation of good works, and holy habits with the sacrifice, I have already proved: but D now if we will see repentance in its stature and integrity of constitution described, we shall finde it to be the one half of all that which God requires of Christians. Faith and Repentance are the whole duty of a Christian. Faith is a sacrifice of the understanding to God: Repentance sacrifices the whole will: That, gives the knowing; this, gives up all the desiring faculties: That makes us Disciples; this, makes us servants of the Holy Jesus. Nothing else was preached by the Apostles, nothing was enjoyned as the duty of man, nothing else did build up the body of Christian religion. E So that, as faith contains all that knowledge which is necessary to salvation: So repentance comprehends in it, all the whole practise and working duty of a returning Christian: And this was the sum totall of all that Saint Paul preached to the Gentiles, when in his farewell Sermon to the Bishops and Priests of [Page] A Ephesus, he professed that he kept back nothing that was profitable to them; and yet it was all nothing but this; [Repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ] so that whosoever believes Acts. 20. 21. in Jesus Christ, and repents towards God must make his accounts according to this standard, that is, to believe all that Christ taught him; and to do all that Christ commanded: and this is remarked in Saint Pauls Hebr. 6. 1 Catechisme where he gives a more particular Catalogue of fundamentals: he reckons nothing but Sacraments and faith of which he enumerates two principal articles [resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgement] whatsoever is practical, B all the whole duty of man, the practice of all obedience is called [repentance from dead works] which, if we observe the singularity of the phrase, does not mean [sorrow] For sorrow from dead works, is not sense; but it must mean mutationem status, a conversion from dead works, which (as in all motions) supposes two terms; from dead works, to living works, from the death of sin to the life of righteousnesse.

I will adde but two places more, out of each Testament one; in which I suppose you may see every lineament of this great duty C described, that you may no longer mistake a grashopper for an Eagle, Sorrow and holy purposes, for the intire duty of repentance. In the 18. of Ezek. 21. you shall finde it thus described. ‘[But if the wicked will turne from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live,’ he shall D not die.] or as it is more fully described in Ezek. 33. 14. [When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; If ‘he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed; walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live, he shall not die.]’ Here onely is the condition of pardon; to leave all your sins, to keep all Gods statutes, to walk in them, to abide, to proceed, and make progresse in them; and this, without the interruption by a deadly sin, [without committing iniquity] to make restitution of all the wrongs he hath done, all the unjust money he hath taken, all the oppressions he hath committed, all that must be satisfied for, and repayed according to our ability: we must make satisfaction for all injury to our Neighbours fame, all wrongs done to his soul; he must be restored to that condition of good things thou didst in any sense remove him from: when this E is done according to thy utmost power, then thou hast repented truely, then thou hast a title to the promise; thou shalt surely live, thou shalt not die for thy old sins thou hast formerly committed. Hebr. 6. 1 Onely be pleased to observe this one thing; that this place of Ezekiel is it which is so often mistaken for that common saying, At what time soever a sinner repents him of his sins from the bottom of his heart I will put all his wickednesse out of my remembrance, saith [Page] the Lord] For although at what time soever a sinner does repent (as repentance A is now explained) God will forgive him, and that, repentance as it is now stated cannot be done [At what time soever] not upon a mans deathbed; yet there are no such words in the whole Bible, nor any neerer to the sense of them then the words I have now read to you, out of the Prophet Ezekiel. Let that therefore no more deceive you, or be made a colour to countenance a persevering sinner, or a deathbed penitent.

Neither is the duty of Repentance to be bought at an easier rate in the New Testament. You may see it described in the 2 Cor. 7. 11. Godly sorrow worketh repentance. Well? but what is that B repentance which is so wrought? This it is. ‘Behold the self same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulnesse it wrought in you, yea what clearing of your selves, yea what indignation, yea what fear, ye what vehement desire, yea what zeal, yea what revenge.’ These are the fruits of that sorrow that is effectual: these are the parts of repentance; clearing our selves of all that is past, and great carefulnesse for the future, anger at our selves for our old sins, and fear lest we commit the like again, vehement desires of pleasing God, and zeal of holy actions, and a revenge upon our selves for our sins, called by Saint Paul in another C place, a judging our selves lest we be judged of the Lord. And 1 Cor. 11. 31. in pursuance of this truth, the primitive Church did not admit a sinning person to the publike communions with the faithfull, till besides their sorrow they had spent some years in an [...] in doing good works and holy living; and especially in such actions which did contradict that wicked inclination which led them into those sins whereof they were now admitted to repent. And therefore we find that they stood in the station of penitents seven years, 13 years, and somtimes till their death, before they could be reconciled to the peace of God, and his D Holy Church.

Scelerum si bene poenitet

eradenda cupidinis pravi sunt elementa

& tenerae nimis mentes asperioribus

Formandae studijs—Horat.

Hierocles. [...]. See life of H. Jesus part. 2. disc. of Repentance.

Repentance is the institution of a philosophical and severe life, an utter extirpation of all unreasonablenesse and impiety, and an addresse to, and a finall passing through all the parts of holy living.

Now Consider whether this be imaginable or possible to be E done upon our deathbed, when a man is frighted into an involuntary, a sudden and unchosen piety; [...], saith Hierocles. He that never repents till a violent fear be upon him, till he apprehend himself to be in the jawes of death, ready to give up his unready and unprepared [Page] A accounts, till he sees the Judge sitting in all the addresses of dreadfulnesse and Majesty, just now (as he beleeves) ready to pronounce that fearfull and intolerable sentence of [Go ye cursed into everlasting fire] this man does nothing for the love of God, nothing for the love of vertue; It is just as a condemned man repents that he was a Traytor, but repented not till he was arrested, and sure to die. Such a repentance as this may still consist with as great an affection to sin as ever he had; and it is no thanks to him, if when the knife is at his throat, then he gives good words and flatters. But suppose this man in his health, and the middest of all B his lust, it is evident that there are some circumstances of action in which the man would have refused to commit his most pleasing sin. Would not the son of Tarquin have refused to ravish Lucrece if Junius Brutus had been by him? Would the impurest person in the world act his lust in the market place? or drink off an intemperate goblet if a dagger were placed at his throat? In these circumstances, their fear would make them declare against the present acting their impurities. But does this cure the intemperance of their affections? Let the impure person retire to his closet, and Junius Brutus be ingaged in a far distant war, and the dagger C be taken from the drunkards throat, and the fear of shame, or death, or judgement be taken from them all, and they shall no more resist their temptation, then they could before remove their fear; and you may as well judge the other persons holy, and haters of their sin, as the man upon his death-bed to be penitent; and rather they then he, by how much this mans fear, the fear of death, and of the infinite pains of hell, the fear of a provoked God, and an angry eternall Judge, are far greater then the apprehensions of publike shame, or an abused husband, or the poniard of an angry person. Cogimur à suetis animum suspendere rebus Atque ut vivamus, vivere desinimus. Cornel. Gal. These men then sin not because they dare not, D they are frighted from the act, but not from the affection, which is not to be cured but by discourse, and reasonable acts, and humane considerations; of which that man is not naturally capable who is possessed with the greatest fear, the fear of death and damnation. If there had been time to cure his sin, and to live the life of grace, I deny not but God might have begun his conversion with so great a fear, that he should never have wiped off its impression; Nec ad rem pertinet ubi inciperet, quod placuerat ut fieret. but if the man dies then, dies when he onely declaims against and curses his sin, as being the authour of his present fear, and apprehended calamity; It is very far from reconciling him to E God, or hopes of pardon, because it proceeds from a violent, unnaturall, and intolerable cause, no act of choice, or vertue, but of sorrow, a deserved sorrow, and a miserable, unchosen, unavoidable fear,

—moriensque recepit

Quas nollet victurus aquas—

[Page] He curses sin upon his deathbed and makes a Panegyrick of vertue A which in his life time he accounted folly, and trouble, and a needlesse vexation.

Quae mens est hodie, cur eadem non puero fuit?

Hor. l. 4. od. 10.

vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genae?

I shall end this first Consideration, with a plain exhortation; that since repentance is a duty of so great and giant-like bulk; let no man croud it up into so narrow room, as that it be strangled in its birth for want of time and aire to breath in. Let B it not be put off to that time when a man hath scarce time enough to reckon all those particular duties which make up the integrity of its constitution. Will any man hunt the wild boare in his garden, or bait a bull in his closet, will a woman wrap her childe in her handkerchiefe, or a Father send his son to school when he is 50 yeers old? These are undecencies of providence, and the instrument contradicts the end; And this is our case. There is no roome for the repentance, no time to act all its essentiall parts; and a childe who hath a great way to go before he be wise, may defer his studies, and hope to become very learned in his old age, and upon his deathbed, as well as a vitious person, may C think to recover from all his ignorances and prejudicate opinions, from all his false principles and evil customs, from his wicked inclinations and ungodly habits, from his fondnesses of vice, and detestations of vertue, from his promptnesse to sin, and unwillingnesse to grace, from his spiritual deadnesse and strong sensuality; upon his deathbed (I say) when he hath no naturall strength, and as little spirituall, when he is criminal and impotent, hardned in his vice, and soft in his fears, full of passion, and empty of wisdom, when he is sick and amazed, and timorous and confounded, and impatient, and extremely miserable. D

And now when any of you is tempted to commit a sin, remember, that sin will ruine you unlesse you repent of it. * But this (you say) is no news, and so far from affrighting you from sin, that (God knows) it makes men sin the rather. For therefore they venture to act the present temptation, because they know, if they repent, God will forgive them; and therefore they resolve upon both, to sin now, and to repent hereafter.

Against this folly I shall not oppose the consideration of their danger, and that they neither know how long they shall live, nor E whether they shall die or no in this very act of sinne; though this consideration is very materiall, and if they should die in it, or before it is washed off, they perish; But I consider these things. 1 That he that resolves to sin upon a resolution to repent, by every act of sin, makes himself more uncapable of repenting, by growing more in [Page] A love with sin, by remembring its pleasures, by serving it once more, and losing one degree more of the liberty of our spirit: and if you resolve to sin now, because it is pleasant, how do ye know that your appetite will alter? will it not appear pleasant to you next week, and the next week after that, and so for ever? And still you sin, and still you will repent; that is, you will repent when the sin can please you no longer. For so long as it can please you, so long you are tempted not to repent, as well as now to act the sin. And the longer you lie in it, the more you will love it. So that it is in effect to say; I love my sin now, but I will hereafter hate it; onely B I will act it a while longer, and grow more in love with it, and then I will repent, that is, then I will be sure to hate it, when I shal most love it. 2. To repent signifies to be sorrowful, to be ashamed, and to wish it had never been done. And then see the folly of this temptation. I would not sin, but that I hope to repent of it, that is, I would not do this thing but that I hope to be sorrowful for doing it, and I hope to come to shame for it, heartily to be ashamed of my doings, and I hope to be in that condition, that I would give all the world I had never done it; that is, I hope to feel and apprehend an evil infinitely greater then the pleasures of my sin; & are these arguments C fit to move a man to sin? what can affright a man from it, if these invite him to it? it is asifa man should invite one to be a partner of his treason by telling him, if you will joyn with me, you shal have all these effects by it; you shall be hang'd, drawn and quarter'd, and your blood shall be corrupted, and your estate forfeited, and you shall have many other reasons to wish you had never done it: He that should use this Rhetorick in earnest, might well be accounted a mad man: This is to scare a man, not to allure him, and so is the other when we understand it truely. 3. For I consider, He that repents, wishes he had never done that sin. Now I ask, does he D wish so upon reason, or without reason? Surely, if he may when he hath satisfied his lust, ask God pardon, and be admitted upon as easie termes for the time to come as if he had not done the sin, he hath no reason to be sorrowful, or wish he had not done it. For though he hath done it, and pleased himself by enjoying the pleasure of sin for that season, yet all is well again; and let him onely be carefull now, and there is no hurt done, his pardon is certain. How can any man that understands the reason of his actions and passions wish, that he had never done that sin in which then he had pleasure, and now he feels no worse inconvenience. But he that truely repents, E wishes, and would give all the world he had never done it. Surely then his present condition in respect of his past sin hath some very great evil in it, why else should he be so much troubled? True, and this it is. He that hath committed sins after baptisme, is fallen out of the favour of God, is tied to hard duty for the time to come, to ory vehemently unto God, to call night and day for pardon, to be in [Page] great fear and tremblings of heart, lest God should never forgive A him, lest God will never take off his sentence of eternal paines, and in this fear and in some degrees of it he will remain all the dayes of his life, and if he hopes to be quit of that, yet he knowes not how many degrees of Gods anger still hang over his head; how many sad miseries shall afflict, and burne, and purifie him in this world with a sharpnesse so poinant as to divide the marrow from the bones; and for these reasons, a considering man that knows what it is to repent, wishes with his soul, he had never sinned; and therefore grieves in proportion to his former crimes, and present misery and future danger. B

And now, suppose that you can repent when you will, that is, that you can grieve when you will, (though no man can do it, no man can grieve when he please) though he could shed tears when he list, he cannot grieve without a real, or an apprehended infelicity, but, suppose it, and that he can fear when he please, and that he can love when he please, or what he please; that is, suppose a man to be able to say to his palate, though I love sweet meats, yet to morrow I will hate and loath them and believe them bitter and distastful things; suppose (I say) all these impssibilties, yet since, repentance does suppose a man to be in a state of such real misery C that he hath reason to curse the day in which he sinned, is this a fit argument to invite a man, that is in his wits, to sin? to sin in hope of repentance? as if dangers of falling into hell, and fear of the Divine anger, and many degrees of the Divine judgements, and a lasting sorrow, and a perpetual labour, and a never ceasing trembling, and a troubled conscience and a sorrowful spirit were fit things to be desired or hoped for.

The sum is this. He that commits sins shall perish eternally if he never does repent. And if he does repent and yet untimely, he is not the better; and if he does not repent with an intire, a perfect D and complete repentance, he is not the better: But if he does, yet repentance is a duty full of fears and sorrow, and labour; a vexation to the spirit an asslictive, paenal, or punitive duty, a duty which suffers for sin, and labours for grace, which abides and suffers little images of hell in the way to heaven; and though it be the onely way to felicity, yet it is beset with thorns and daggers of sufferance, and with rocks and mountains of duty. Let no man therefore dare to sin upon hopes of repentance: for he is a foole and a hypocrite, that now chooses and approves, what he knows hereafter he must condemn. E

2. The second generall consideration is. The necessity, the absolute necessity of holy living. ‘God hath made a Covenant with us, that we must give up our selves, bodies and souls, not a Rom. 12. 1. dying, but aliving, and healthfull sacrifice.’ He hath forgiven all our old sins, and we have bargained to quit them, from the time [Page] A that we first come to Christ, and give our names to him; and to keep all his Cominandements. We have taken the Sacramentall oath, like that of the old Romane Militia, [...], we must beleeve, and obey, and do all that is commanded us, and keep our station, and fight against the flesh, the world, and the devil, not to throw away our military girdle, and we are to do what is bidden us, or to die for it, even all that is bidden us, according to our power. For, pretend nor, that Gods Commandements are impossible. It is dishonourable to think God enjoyns us to do more then he enables us to B do; and it is a contradiction to say, we cannot do all that we can; and [through Christ which strengthens me, I can do all things, saith S. Paul,] however, we can do to the utmost of our strength, and beyond that we cannot take thought; impossibilities enter not into deliberation, but according to our abilities, and naturall powers, assisted by Gods grace, so God hath covenanted with us to live a holy life. [For in Christ Jesus nothing avayleth but a new creature, nothing but faith working by charity, nothing but keeping the Commandements of God.] They are all the words of S. Paul before quoted; to which he addes, [and as many as walk according to this C rule, peace be on them and mercy.] This is the Covenant, [they are the Israel of God] upon those peace and mercy shall abide; if they become a new creature, wholly transformed in the image of their minde; if they have faith, and this faith be an operative working faith, a faith that produces a holy life, a faith that works by charity; if they keep the Commandements of God, then they are within the Covenant of mercy, but not else; for, in Christ Jesus nothing else avayleth. * To the same purpose are those words Hebr. 12. 14. Follow peace with all men, and holinesse, D without which no man shall see the Lord.] Peace with all men] implies both justice and charity, without which it is impossible to preserve peace: Holinesse] implies all our duty towards God, universall diligence; and this must be followed, that is, pursued with diligence, in a lasting course of life and exercise, and without this, we shall never see the face of God. I need urge no more authorities to this purpose; these two are as certain and convincing as two thousand, and since thus much is actually required and is the condition of the Covenant; it is certain that sorrow for not having done what is commanded to be done; and a purpose to do what is necessary to be actually performed, will not acquit us before the righteous judgement of God. E ‘* [For the grace of God hath appeared to all men, teaching us that Tit. 2. 12. denying ungodlinesse and worldly lusts, we should live godly, justly, and soberly in this present world.] for upon these termes alone we must [look for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ].’ * I shall no longer insist upon this particular, but onely propound it to your consideration, [Page] To what purpose are all those Commandements in Scripture, of A every page almost in it, [of living holily, and according to the Commandements of God, of adorning the Gospel of God, of walking as in the day, of walking in light, of pure and undefiled religion, of being holy as God is holy, of being humble and meek, as Christ is humble, of putting on the Lord Jesus, of living a spirituall life,] but that it is the purpose of God, and the intention and designe of Christ dying for us, and the Covenant made with man, that we should expect heaven upon no other termes in the world, but of a holy life, in the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus.

Now if a vitious person, when he comes to the latter end of his B dayes, one that hath lived a wicked, ungodly life, can for any thing he can do upon his death-bed, be said to live a holy life; then his hopes are not desperate; but he that hopes upon this onely, for which God hath made him no promise, I must say of him as Galen said of consumptive persons, [...], the more they hope, the worse they are; and the relying upon such hopes is an approach to the grave, and a sad eternity.

Peleos & Priami transit, vel Nestoris aetas

& fuerat serum jant tibi desinere. C

Eja age, rumpe moras, quo te spectabimus usque

Dum quid sis dubitas, jam potes esse nihil.

Mart. l. 2. ep. 64.

And now it will be a vain question to ask, whether or no God cannot save a dying man that repents after a vitious life? For it is true, God can do it if he please; and he can raise children to Abraham out of the stones, and he can make ten thousand worlds if he sees good, and he can do what he list, and he can save an ill living man though he never repent at all, so much as upon his death-bed. All this he can do; but Gods power is no ingredient into this question: D we are never the better that God can do it, unlesse he also will; and whether he will, or no, we are to learn from himself, and what he hath declared to be his will in holy Scripture. Nay since God hath said, that without actuall holinesse no man shall see God, God by his own will hath restrained his power, and though absolutely he can do all things, yet he cannot do against his own word. *And indeed the rewards of heaven are so great and glorious, and Christs burden is so light, his yoke is so easie, that it is a shamelesse impudence to expect so great glories at a lesse rate then so little a service, at a lower rate then a holy life. It cost the Eternall Son E of God his life blood to obtain heaven for us upon that condition, and who then shall die again for us, to get heaven for us upon easier conditions. What would you do if God should command you to kill your eldest son? or to work in the mines for a thousand yeers together? or to fast all thy life time with bread and water? were [Page] A not heaven a great bargain even after all this? and when God requires nothing of us but to live soberly, justly, and godly, (which very things of themselves, to man are a very great felicity, and necessary to his present well-being) shall we think this to be a load, and an unsufferable burden? and that heaven is so little a purchase at that price, that God in meer justice will take a death-bed sigh or groan, and a few unprofitable tears and promises in exchange for all our duty? Strange it should be so: but stranger that any man should rely upon such a vanity, when from Gods word he hath nothing to warrant such a confidence. But these men do like the Tyrant B Dionysius, who stole from Apollo his golden cloak, and gave him a cloak of Arcadian home-spun, saying that this was lighter in summer, and warmer in winter. These men sacrilegiously rob God of the service of all their golden dayes, and serve him in their hoary head, in their furs and grave clothes; and pretend that this late service is more agreeable to the Divine mercy on one side, and humane infirmity on the other, and so dispute themselves into an irrecoverable condition, having no other ground to rely upon a death-bed, or late-begun-repentance, but because they resolve to C enjoy the pleasures of sin, and for heaven, they will put that to the venture of an after-game. These men sow in the flesh, and would reap in the spirit, live to the Devil, and die to God, and therefore it is but just in God that their hopes should be desperate, and their craft be folly, and their condition be, the unexpected, unfeared inheritance of an eternall sorrow.

Lastly. Our last inquiry is into the time, the last or latest time of beginning our repentance. Must a man repent a yeer, or two, 3. or seven yeers, or ten, or twenty before his death? or what is the last period after which all repentance will be untimely and ineffectuall? D To this captious question I have many things to oppose. 1. We have entred into covenant with God, to serve him from the day of our Baptisme to the day of our death. ‘He hath [sworn Luke 1. 74. this oath to us, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered from fear of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holinesse and righteousnesse before him [all the dayes of our life].’ Now although God will not [...], forget our infirmities, but passe by the weaknesses of an honest, a watchfull, & industrious person; yet the Covenant he makes with us is from the day of our first voluntary profession, to our grave: and according as we E by sins retire from our first undertaking; so our condition is insecure: there is no other Covenant made with us, no new beginnings of another period; but if we be returned, and sin be cancelled, and grace be actually obtained; then we are in the first condition of pardon; but because it is uncertain when a man can have masterd his vices, and obtain'd the graces, therefore no man can tell any set time when he must begin.

[Page] 2. Scripture describing the duty of repenting sinners, names no A other time but [to day. To day if ye will hear his voyce harden not your hearts. 3. The duty of a Christian is described in Scripture, to be such as requires length of time, and a continued industry. [Let us run with patience the [...]ace, that is set before us.] and [Consider Hebr. 12. 1. Ver. 3. him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied, and faint in your mindes.] So great a preparation is not for the agony and contention of an hour, or a day, or a week, but for the whole life of a Christian, or for great parts of its abode. 4. There is a certain period and time set for our repentance, and beyond that all our industry is ineffectuall. There is a B day of visitation, our own day, and there is a day of visitation, that is Gods day. This appeared in the case of Jerusalem. [O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if thou hadst known the time of thy visitation, at least in this thy day.] Well! they neglected it, and then there was a time of Gods visitation which was his day; called in Scripture, [the day of the Lord] and because they had neglected their own day, they fell into inevitable ruine: No repentance could have prevented their finall ruine. And this which was true in a Nation, is also clearly affirmed true in the case of single persons. ‘[Look diligently lest any fail of the grace of God, lest there be any person among you as Esau, C Heb. 12. 15. who sold his birth-right, and afterwards when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for his repentance though he sought it carefully with tears.]’ Esau had time enough to repent his bargain as long as he lived; he wept sorely for his folly, and carefulnesse sate heavy upon his soul, and yet he was not heard, nor his repentance accepted; for the time was past: And [take heed] saith the Apostle, lest it come to passe to any of you to be in the same case. Now if ever there be a time in which repentance is too late, it must be the time of our deathbed, and the last time of our life: And after a man is fallen into D the displeasure of Almighty God, the longer he lies in his sin without repentance and emendation, the greater is his danger, and the more of his allowed time is spent, and no man can antecedently, or before-hand, be sure that the time of his repentance is not past; and those who neglect the call of God, and refuse to hear him call in the day of grace, God will laugh at them when their calamity comes: they shall call, and the Lord shall not hear them. * And this was the case of the five foolish virgins when the arrest of death surprized them: they discovered their want of oil, they were troubled at it, they beg'd oil, they were refused, they did E something towards the proouring of the oil of grace, (for they went out to buy oil) and after all this stir the bridegroom came before they had finished their journey, and they were shut out from the communion of the bridegrooms joyes.

Therefore concerning the time of beginning to repent, no man [Page] A is certain but he that hath done his work. Mortem venientem nemo hilaris excipit nisi qui se ad eam diù composuerat, said Seneca. He onely dies cheerfully who stood waiting for death in a ready dresse Epist. 30. of a long preceding preparation. He that repents to day, repents late enough that he did not begin yesterday: But he that puts it off till to morrow is vain and miserable.

—hodiè tam posthume vivere serum est

Ille sapit quisquis posthume vixit heri.

Martial. l. 2. ep 90.

B Well! but what will you have a man do that hath lived wickedly, and is now cast upon his death-bed? shall this man despair, and neglect all the actions of piety, and the instruments of restitution in his sicknesse? No. God forbid. Let him do what he can then; It is certain it will be little enough: for all those short gleames of piety, and flashes of lightning will help towards the alleviating some degrees of misery; and if the man recovers, they are good beginnings of a renewed piety: and Ahabs tears and humiliation, though it went no further, had a proportion of a reward, C though nothing to the portions of eternity. So that he that sayes, it is every day necessary to repent, cannot be supposed to discourage the piety of any day: a death-bed piety, when things are come to that sad condition may have many good purposes: therefore even then neglect nothing that can be done. Well! But shall such persons despair of salvation? To them I shall onely return this. That they are to consider the conditions which on one side God requires of us, and on the other side, whether they have done accordingly? Let them consider upon what termes God hath promised salvation, and whether they have made themselves capable D by performing their part of the obligation. If they have not, I must tell them, that, not to hope where God hath made no promise, is not the sin of despair, but the misery of despair. A man hath no ground to hope that ever he shall be made an Angel, and yet, that not hoping, is not to be called, despair: and no man can hope for heaven without repentance; And for such a man to despair, is not the sin, but the misery. If such persons have a promise of heaven, let them shew it, and hope it, and enjoy it; if they have no promise, they must thank themselves, for bringing themselves into a condition without the Covenant, without a promise, hopelesse E and miserable.

But will not trusting in the merits of Jesus Christ save such a man? For that we must be tried by the word of God: In which there is no contract at all made with a dying person that hath lived in Name a Christian, in practise a Heathen: and we shall dishonour the sufferings and redemption of our blessed Saviour, if we make them to be a Umbrello to shelter our impious and ungodly living.

[Page] But that no such person may after a wicked life repose himself in his deathbed upon Christs merits, observe but these two places of A scripture [Our Saviour [...]esus Christ who gave himself for us] what Titus. 2. 14. to do? that we might live as we list? ‘and hope to be saved by his merits? No But [that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.’ These things speak and exhort,] saith Saint Paul. But more plainly yet, in S. Peter [Christ bare our sins in his own body on the tree.] To what 1 Pet. 2 24. end? [that we being dead unto sin should live unto righteousnesse.] since therefore our living a holy life is the end of Christs dying that sad and holy death for us, he that trusts on it to evil purposes, B and to excuse his vicious life, does (as much as lies in him) make void the very purpose and designe of Christs passion, and dishonours the blood of the everlasting covenant: which covenant was confirmed by the blood of Christ: but as it brought peace from God, so it requires a holy life from us.

But why may not we be saved as well as the thief upon the crosse? even because our case is nothing alike. When Christ dies See! se of Jesus Disc. of Repentance. part 2. once more for us, we may look for such another instance; not till then. But this thiefe did but then come to Christ; he knew him not before; and his case was as if a Turk or heathen should be converted C to Christianity, and be baptized, and enter newly into the Covenant upon his deathbed. Then God pardons all his sins; and so God does to Christians when they are baptized, or first give up their names to Christ by a voluntarie confirmation of their baptismal vow: but when they have once entred into the Covenant, they must performe what they promise, and to what they are obliged. The thief had made no contract with God in Jesus Christ, and therefore failed of none; onely the defaillances of the state of ignorance Christ paid for at the thiefes admission. But we that have made a covenant with God in baptisme, and failed of it all our D dayes, and then returne at night, when we cannot work; have nothing to plead for our selves, because we have made all that to be uselesse to us which God with so much mercy and miraculous wisdom, gave us to secure our interest, and hopes of heaven.

And therefore let no Christian man who hath covenanted with God to give him the service of his life, think that God will be answered with the sighs and prayers of a dying man; for all that great obligation which lies upon us cannot be transacted in an instant, when we have loaded our souls with sin, and made them empty of vertue; we cannot so soon grow up to a perfect man in Christ E Jesus. [...] you cannot have an apple, or a cherry, but you must stay its proper periods, and let it blossom and knot, Arrian. Epictet l. 1. c. 15. and grow and ripen, [and in due season we shall reap if we faint not] (saith the Apostle) far much lesse may we expect that the fruits of repentance, and the issues and degrees of holinesse shall [Page] A be gathered in a few dayes or houres. [...]; you must not expect such fruits in a little time, nor with little labour.

Suffer therefore not your selves to be deceived by false principles, and vain confidences; for no man can in a moment root out the long contracted habits of vice, nor upon his deathbed make use of all that variety of preventing, accompanying and persevering grace, which God gave to man in mercy; because man would need it all, because without it he could not be saved; nor upon his deathbed can he exercise the duty of mortification; nor cure his drunkennesse B then, nor his lust, by any act of Christian discipline; nor run with patience; nor resist unto blood; nor endure with long sufferance; but he can pray, and groan, and call to God, and resolve to live well when he is dying; but this is but just as the Nobles of Xerxes, when in a storm they were to lighten the ship to preserve their Kings life, they did [...] they did their obeysance, and leaped into the sea: so (I fear) doe these men, pray and mourn, and worship and so leap overboard into an ocean of eternal and into lerable calamity. From which God deliver us, and all faithful people. C

Hunc volo laudari qui sine morte potest.

Mart. ep. l. 1.

Vivere quod propero pauper, nec inutilis annis

Da veniam, proper at vivere nemo satis.

Differat hoc, patrios optat qui vincere census

Atria (que)immodicis arctat imaginibus.

Mart. l. 2. ep. 90. D E

Sermon. VII. B THE DECEITFVLNESSE Of the HEART. C

[Page]

A

17. Jeremy 9.‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperatly wicked; D who can know it?’

FOlly and subtiltie divide the greatest part of mankinde, and there is no other difference but this, that some are crafty enough to deceive; Others foolish enough to be cozened and abused: And yet the scales also turn, for they that are the most craftie to cozen others, are the veriest Fools and most of all abused themselves. They rob their neighbour of his mony, and loose their own innocency; they disturb his rest, and vex their E own Conscience; they throw him into prison, and themselves into Hell; they make poverty to be their brothers portion, and damnation to be their own. Man entred into the world first alone; but as soon as he met with one companion, he met with three to cozen him; The Serpent, and Eve, and himself, all joyned; first to make him a foole, and to deceive him, and then to make him miserable. [Page] A But he first cozened himself, giving himself up to believe a lie, and being desirous to listen to the whispers of a tempting spirit, he sinned, before he fell, that is, he had within him a false understanding and a depraved will, and these were the Parents of his disobedience, and this was the parent of his infelicity, and a great occasion of ours. And then it was that he entred for himself and his posterity into the condition of an ignorant, credulous, easie, wilful, passionate, and impotent person; apt to be abused, and so loving to have it so, that if no body else will abuse him, he will be sure to abuse himself, by ignorance and evil principles, being open to an enemy, and by wilfulnesse and Sensuality, doing to himself the most unpardonable B injuries in the whole world. So that the condition of Man, in the rudenesses and first lines of its visage, seemes very miserable, deformed, and accursed.

For a man is helplesse and vain; of a condition so exposed to calamity, that a raisin is able to kill him; any trooper out of the Egyptian army, a flie can do it, when it goes on Gods errand; the most contemptible accident can destroy him, the smallest chance affright him, every future contingency, when but considered as possible, can amaze him; and he is incompass'd with potent and malicious enemies, subtle and implacable: what shall this poor helplesse C thing do? trust in God? Him he hath offended, and he fears him as an enemy; and God knows, if we look onely on our selves, and our own demerits, we have to much reason so to doe. Shall he rely upon Princes? God help poor Kings: they rely upon their Subjects, they fight with their swords, levy forces with their money, consult with their Counsels, hear with their ears, and are strong onely in their union, and many times they use all these things against them; but however, they can do nothing without them while they live and yet if ever they can die, they are not to be trusted to. Now Kings and Princes die so sadly and not criously; that it D was used for a proverbe in holy scripture, ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the Princes. Who then shall we trust in? in our Friend? Poorman! he may help thee in one thing, and need thee in ten; he may pull thee out of the ditch, and his foot may slip and fal into it himself; he gives thee counsel to choose a wife, and himself is to seek how prudently to choose his religion; he counsels thee to abstain from a duel, and yet slayes his own soul with drinking, like a person void of all understanding he is willing enough to preserve thy interest, and is very carelesse of his own: for he does highly E despise to betray or to be false to thee, and in the mean time is not his own friend, and is false to God, and then his friendship may be useful to thee in some circumstances of fortune; but no security to thy condition. But what then? shall we relie upon our patron, like the Roman Clients, who waited hourly upon their persons, and daily upon their baskets, and nightly upon their lusts, and married [Page] their friendships, and contracted also their hatred and quarrels; A This is a confidence will deceive us. For they may lay us by, justly or unjustly, they may grow weary of doing benefits, or their fortunes may change or they may be charitable in their gifts and burthensom in their offices; able to feed you, but unable to counsel you; or your need may be longer then their kindnesses, or such in which they can give you no assistance; and indeed generally it is so in all the instances of men: we have a friend that is wise; but I need not his counsel, but his meat; or my patron is bountiful in his largesses, but I am troubled with a sad spirit; and money and presents do me no more ease, then perfumes do to a broken arme: we seek life of a Physician that dies, and go to him for health, B who cannot cure his own breath, or gowt; and so become vain in our imaginations, abused in our hopes, restlesse in our passions, impatient in our calamity, unsupported in our need, exposed to enemies, wandring and wilde, without counsel and without remedy. At last after the infatuating and deceiving all our confidences without, we have nothing left us, but to return home, and dwell within our selves: for we have a sufficient stock of self-love, that we may be confident of our own affections, we may trust our selves surely; for what we want in skill, we shall make up in diligence, C and our industry shall supply the want of other circumstances: and no man vnderstands my own case so well as I do my self, and no man will judge so faithfully as I shall do for my self; for I am most concern'd not to abuse my self; and if I do, I shall be the loser, and therefore may best rely upon my self Alas! and God help us! we shall finde it to be no such matter: For we neither love our selves well, nor understand our own case, we are partial in our own questions, deceived in our sentences, carelesse of our interests, and the most false, perfidious creatures to our selves in the whole D world: even the Heart of a man a mans own heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? And who can choose but know it?

And there is no greater argument of the deceitfulnesse of our Hearts, then this, that no man can know it all; it cosens us in the very number of its cosenage: But yet we can reduce it all to two heads. We say concerning a false man, trust him not for he will deceive you, and we say concerning a weak and broken staffe, lean not upon it, for that will also deceive you. The man deceives because he is false, and the staffe because it is weak, and the heart E because it is both. So that it is deceitful above all things, that is, failing and disabled to support us in many things; but in other things where it can, it is false and desperately wicked. The first sort of deceitfulnesse is its calamitie, and the second is its iniquity, and that is the worst Calamitie of the two.

1. The heart is deceitfull in its strength; and when we have the [Page] A groweth of a Man, we have the weaknesses of a childe: nay more yet, and it is a sad consideration, the more we are in age, the weaker in our courage. It appears in the heats and forwardnesses of new converts, which are like to the great emissions of Lightning, or like huge fires, which flame and burn without measure, even all that they can; till from flames they descend to still fires, from thence to smoak, from smoak to embers, from thence to ashes; cold and pale, like ghosts, or the phantastick images of Death. And the primitive Church were zealous in their Religion up to the degree of Cherubins, and would run as greedily to the sword of the hangman, to die for the cause of God, as we do now to the greatest B joy and entertainment of a Christian spirit, even to the receiving of the holy Sacrament. A man would think it reasonable that the first infancy of Christianity should, according to the nature of first beginnings, have been remisse, gentle, and unactive, and that according us the object or evidence of faith grew, which in every Age hath a great degree of Argument superadded to its confirmation; so should the habit also and the grace, the longer it lasts & the more obiections it runs through, it still should shew a brighter and more certain light to discover the divinity of its principle; and that after the more examples, and new accidents and strangenesses of providence, C and daily experience, and the multitude of miracles, still the Christian should grow more certain in his faith, more refreshed in his hope, and warm in his charity; the very nature of these graces increasing and swelling upon the very nourishment of experience, and the multiplication of their own acts. And yet because the heart of man is false, it suffers the fires of the Altar to go out, and the flames lessen by the multitude of fuel. But indeed it is because we put on strange fire, & put out the fire upon our hearths by letting in a glaring Sun beam, the fire of lust; or the heates of an angry spirit, to quench the fires of God, and suppresse the sweet cloud of incense. D The heart of man hath not strength enough to think one good thought of itself, it cannot command its own attention to a prayer of ten lines long; but before its end it shall wander after some thing that is to no purpose: and no wonder then that it grows weary of a holy religion, which consists of so many parts as make the businesse of a whole life. And there is no greater argument in the world of our spiritual weaknesse and falsnesse of our hearts in the matters of religion, then the backwardnesse which most men have alwayes, and all men have somtimes to say their prayers: so weary E of their length, so glad when they are done, so wittie to excuse and frustrate an opportunity; and yet there is no manner of trouble in the duty, no wearinesse of bones, no violent labours; nothing but begging a blessing, and receiving it; nothing but doing our selves the greatest honour of speaking to the greatest person, and greatest king of the world; and that we should be unwilling to do this, so [Page] unable to continue in it, so backward to return to it; so without A gust and relish in the doing it, can have no visible reason in the nature of the thing, but something within us, a strange sicknesse in the heart, a spiritual nauseating or loathing of Manna, something that hath no name, but we are sure it comes from a weake, a faint, and false heart.

And yet this weak heart is strong in passions, violent in desires, unresistable in its appetites, impatient in its lust, furious in anger; here are strengths enough, one would think: But so have I seen a man in a feaver, sick and distempered, unable to walk, lesse able to speak sence, or to do an act of counsel; and yet when his feaver B hath boild up to a delirium, he was strong enough to beat his nurse keeper and his doctor too; and to resist the loving violence of all his friends, who would faine binde him down to reason and his bed: And yet we still say he is weak and sick to death. [...] for these strengths of madnesse are not health, but furiousnesse and disease; [...], Arriart. It is weaknesse another way; And so are the strengths of a mans heart; they are fetters and manacles; strong, but they are the cordage of imprisonment, so strong, that the heart C is not able to stir. And yet it cannot but be a huge sadnesse, that the heart shall pursue a temporal interest with wit and diligence, and an unwearied industry, and shall not have strength enough in a matter that concerns its Eternal interest to answer one obiection, to resist one assault, to defeate one art of the divel; but shall certainly and infallibly fall when ever it is tempted to a pleasure.

This, if it be examined, will prove to be a deceit indeed, a pretence, rather then true upon a just cause, that is, it is not a natural, but a moral & a vicious weaknesse; and we may try it in one or two familiar instances. One of the great strengths, shall I call it? or weaknesses of the heart is, that it is strong, violent and passionate in D its lusts, and weak and deceitful to resist any. Tell the tempted person, that if he act his lust, he dishonours his body, makes himself a servant to follie, and one flesh with a harlot, he defiles the Temple of God, and him that defiles a Temple will God destroy: Tell him that the Angels who love to be present in the nastinesse and filth of prisons, that they may comfort and assist chast souls, and holy persons there abiding yet they are impatient to behold or come neer the filthynesse of a lustful person: Tell him, that this sin is so ugly, that the divels, who are spirits, yet they delight to counterfeit the acting of this crime, and descend unto the daughters E or sons of men, that they may rather lose their natures, then not help to set a lust forward: Tell them these and ten thousand things more; you move them no more, then if you should read one of Tullies orations to a mule; for the truth is, they have no power to resist it, much lesse to master it, their heart fails them [Page] A when they meet their Mistresse; and they are driven like a fool to the stocks, or a Bull to the slaughter-house: And yet their heart deceives them; not because it cannot resist the temptation, but because it will not go about it: For it is certain, the heart can, if it list: For let a Boy enter into your chamber of pleasure, and discover your folly, either your lust disbands, or your shame hides it; you will not, you care not do it before a stranger Boy; and yet that you dare do it before the eyes of the All-seeing God, is impudence and folly, and a great conviction of the vanity of your pretence, and the falsenesse of your heart. If B thou beest a man given to thy appetite, and thou lovest a pleasant morsell as thy life, do not declame against the precepts of Temperance, as impossible: Try this once; abstain from that draught, or that dish. I cannot. No? Give this man a great blow on the face, or tempt him with twenty pound, and he shall fast from morning till night, and then feast himself with your money, and plain wholesome meat. And if Chastity and Temperance be so easie, that a man may be brought to either of them with so ready and easie instruments; Let us not suffer our hearts to deceive us by the weaknesse of its pretences, and the strength of its C desires: For we do more for a Boy, then for God; and for 20. pound, then Heaven it self.

But thus it is in every thing else; take an Hereticke, a Rebel, a person that hath an ill cause to mannage; what he wants in the strength of his reason, he shall make it up with diligence; and a person that hath Right on his side is cold, indiligent, lazie, and unactive, trusting that the goodnesse of his Cause will do it alone; But so, wrong prevails, while evil persons are zealous in a Bad matter, and others are remisse in a Good; And the same person shall be very industrious alwayes when he hath least reason so to D be. Thats the first particular. The heart is deceitfull in the mannaging of its naturall strengths; it is Naturally and Physically strong, but Morally weak, and impotent.

2. The Heart of man is deceitfull in making judgement concerning its own Acts. It does not know when it is pleased, or displeased, it is peevish and trifling, it would and it would not, and it is in many Cases impossible to know whether a mans heart desires such a thing or not. Saint Ambrose hath an odde saying, Facilius inveneris innocentem, quam qui poenitentiani digne egerit, It is easier to finde a man that hath lived innocently, then one that E hath truly repented him, with a grief and care great according to the merit of his sins. Now suppose a man that hath spent his younger yeers in vanity and folly, and is by the grace of God apprehensive of it, and thinks of returning to sober counsels, this man will finde his heart so false, so subtil and fugitive, so secret and undiscernable, that it will be very hard to discerne, whether he repents, or no. For if he considers that he hates sin, and therefore [Page] repents; Alas! he so hates it, that he dares not, if he be wise, A tempt himself with an opportunity to act it: for in the midst of that which he calls hatred, he hath so much love left for it, that if the sin comes again and speaks him fair, he is lost again, he kisses the fire, and dies in its embraces. And why else should it be necessary for us to pray, that we be not lead into temptation? but because we hate the sin, and yet love it too well; we curse it, and yet follow it; we are angry at our selves, and yet cannot be without it; we know it undoes us, but we think it pleasant; And when we are to execute the fierce anger of the Lord upon our sins, yet we are kinde-hearted, and spare the Agag, the reigning sin, the B splendid temptation, we have some kindnesses left towards it.

These are but ill signes. How then shall I know by some infallible token, that I am a true Penitent? What and if I weep for my sins? will you not then give me leave to conclude my heart right with God, and at enmity with sin? It may be so. But there are some friends that weep at parting; and is not thy weeping a forrow of affection? It is a sad thing to part with our long companion. Or it may be thou weepest, because thou wouldest have a signe to cozen thy self withall; for some men are more desirous to have a signe, then the thing signified; they would do something to shew C their Repentance, that themselves may beleeve themselves to be Penitents, having no reason from within to beleeve so. And I have seen some persons weep heartily for the losse of six pence, or for the breaking of a glasse, or at some trifling accident; and they that do so cannot pretend to have their tears valued at a bigger rate then they will confesse their passion to be when they weep, and are vexed for the durting of their linnen, or some such trifle, for which the least passion is too big an expence. So that a man cannot tell his own heart by his tears, or the truth of his repentance by those short gusts of sorrow. How then? Shall we suppose a D man to pray against his sin? So did Saint Austin, when in his youth he was tempted to lust and uncleannesse, he prayed against it, and secretly desired that God would not hear him: for here the heart is cunning to deceive it self. For no man did ever heartily pray against his sin in the midst of a temptation to it, if he did in any sence or degree listen to the temptation: For to pray against a sin, is to have desires contrary to it, and that cannot consist with any love, or any kindnesse to it. We pray against it, and yet do it, and then pray again, and do it again; and we desire it, and yet pray against the desires, and thats almost a contradiction: Now because E no man can be supposed to will against his own will, or choose against his own desires; it is plain that we cannot know whether we mean what we say, when we pray against sin, but by the event; If we never act it, never entertain it, alwayes resist it, ever fight against it; and finally do prevail; then at length we may judge our [Page] A own heart to have meant honestly in that one particular.

Nay our heart is so deceitfull in this matter of Repentance, that the Masters of spirituall life are fain to invent suppletory Arts and stratagems to secure the duty. And we are advised to mourn, because we do not mourn, to be sorrowfull because we are not sorrowfull. Now if we be sorrowfull in the first stage, how happens it that we know it not? Is our heart so secret to our selves? But if we be not sorrowfull in the first period, how shall we be so, or know it in the second period? For we may as well doubt concerning the sincerity of the second or reflex act of sorrow, as of the first and direct action. And therefore we may B also as well be sorrowfull the third time, for want of the just measure, or hearty meaning of the second sorrow, as be sorrowfull the second time for want of true sorrow at the first; and so on to infinite. And we shall never be secure in this Artifice, if we be not certain of our naturall and hearty passion in our direct and first apprehensions.

Thus many persons think themselves in a good estate, and make no question of their salvation, being confident onely because they are confident; and they are so, because they are bidden to be so; and yet they are not confident at all, but extreamly timerous and C fearfull. How many persons are there in the world, that say they are sure of their salvation, and yet they dare not die? And if any man pretends, that he is now sure he shall be saved, and that he cannot fall away from grace; there is no better way to confute him, then by advising him to send for the Surgeon, and bleed to death. For what should hinder him? not the sin: for it cannot take him from Gods favour: not the change of his condition: for he sayes he is sure to go to a Better: why does he not then say [...], like the Romane gallants when they decreed to die. The reason is plainly this. They say they are confident, and yet are extreamly D timerous; they professe to beleeve that Doctrine, and yet dare not trust it: nay they think they beleeve, but they do not; so false is a mans heart; so deceived in its own Acts, so great a stranger to its own sentence and opinions.

3. The heart is deceitfull in its own resolutions and purposes: for many times men make their resolutions onely in their understanding, not in their wills; they resolve it sitting to be done, not decree that they will do it; And instead of beginning to be reconciled to God, by the renewed and hearty purposes of holy E living, they are advanced so far onely, as to be convinced, and apt to be condemned by their own sentence.

But suppose our resolutions advanced further, and that our Will and Choices also are determined; see how our hearts deceive us. 1. We resolve against those sins that please us not, or where temptation is not present, and think by an over-acted zeal against [Page] some sins to get an indulgence for some others. There are some A persons who will be Drunk; The Company, or the discourse, or the pleasure of madnesse, or an easie nature, and a thirsty soul; something is amisse, that cannot be helped; But they will make amends, and the next day pray twice as much. Or it may be they must satisfie a beastly lust; but they will not be drunk for all the world; and hope by their Temperance to Commute for their want of Chastity: But they attend not the eraft of their secret enemy, their Heart: for it is not love of the vertue; if it were, they would love Vertue in all its Instances; for Chastity is as much a vertue as Temperance, and God hates Lust as much as he hates B Drunkennesse. Virtutem unam si vniseris etsi amiui non potest virtus, sed si unam confessus sueris te non habere, nullam te esse habiturum] an nescis? Cicer. But this sin is against my health, or it may be it is against my lust, it makes me impotent, and yet impatient, full of desire, and empty of strength. Or else I do an act of Prayer, lest my conscience become unquiet, while it is not satisfied or cozened with some intervals of Religion: I shall think my self a damned wretch, if I do nothing for my soul; but if I do, I shall call the one sin that remains nothing but my Infirmity; and therefore it is my excuse; and my Prayer is not my Religion, but my Peace, and my Pretence, and my Fallacy. C

2. We resolve against our sin, that is, we will not act it in those circumstances as formerly; I will not be drunk in the streets; but I may sleep till I be recovered, and then come forth sober; or if I be overtaken, it shall be in Civill and Gentile company; Or it may be not so much; I will leave my intemperance and my Lust too, but I will remember it with pleasure, I will revolve the past action in my minde, and entertain my fancy with a moros delectation in it, and by a fiction of imagination will represent it present, and so be satisfied with a little effeminacy, or phantastick pleasure. Beloved, suffer not your hearts so to cozen you, as if any man can be faithfull in much, that is faithlesse in a little. He certainly is very much in love with sin, and parts with it very unwillingly, that keeps its Picture, and wears its Favour, and delights in the fancy of it, even with the same desire, as a most passionate widow parts with her dearest husband, even when she can no longer enjoy him: But certainly her staring all day upon his picture, and weeping over his Robe, and wringing her hands over his children, are no great signes that she hated him: And just so do most men hate, and accordingly part with their sins.

3. We resolve against it when the opportunity is slipped, and E lay it aside as long as the temptation please, even till it come again, and no longer. How many men are there in the world, that against every Communion renew their vowes of holy living? Men, that for twenty, for thirty yeers together, have been perpetually resolving against what they daily Act; and sure enough they did beleeve themselves: And yet if a man had daily promised us a curtesie, [Page] A and failed us but ten times, when it was in his power to have done it, we should think, we had reason never to beleeve him more: And can we then reasonably beleeve the resolutions of our hearts, which they have falsified so many hundred times? We resolve against a religious Time, because then it is the Custome of men, and the Guise of the Religion; Or we resolve when we are in a great danger, and then we promise any thing, possible or impossible, likely or unlikely, all is one to us, we onely care to remove the present pressure, and when that is over, and our fear is gone, and no love remaining, our condition being returned to our first B securities, our resolutions also revert to their first indifferencies: Or else we cannot look a temptation in the face, and we resolve against it, hoping never to be troubled with its arguments and importunity. Epictetus tells us of a Gentleman returning from banishment, in his journey towards home called at his house, told a sad story of an Imprudent life, the greatest part of which being now spent, he was resolved for the future to live Philosophically, and entertain no businesse, to be candidate for no employment, not to go to the Court, not to salute Caesar with ambitious attendancies, but to study, and worship the gods, and die C willingly, when nature, or necessity called him. It may be this man beleeved himself, but Epictetus did not. And he had reason. For [...]. Letters from Caesar met him at the doors, and invited him to Court, and he forgot all his promises, which were warm upon his lips, and grew pompous, secular, and ambitious, and gave the gods thanks for his preferment. Thus many men leave the world, when their fortune hath left them, and they are severe and philosophicall, and retired for ever, if for ever it be impossible to return: But let a prosperous Sunshine warm and refresh their sadnesses, and make it but possible to break D their purposes, and there needs no more temptation; Their own false heart is enough; they are like Ephraim in the day of Battell, starting a side like a broken Bow.

4. The heart is false, deceiving and deceived in its intensions and designes. A man hears the precepts of God injoyning us to give Alms of all we possesse; he readily obeys with much cheerfulnesse and alacrity; And his charity, like a fair spreading tree, looks beauteously: But there is a Canker at the heart; The man blowes a Trumpet to call the poor together, and hopes the neighbourhood will take notice of his Bounty. Nay he gives Alms privately, E and charges no man to speak of it, and yet hopes by some Accident or other to be praised both for his Charity and Humility. And if by chance, the Fame of his Alms comes abroad, it is but his duty to let his light so shine before men, that God may bè glorified, and some of our neighbours be relieved, and others edified. But then to distinguish the intention of our heart in this [Page] Instance, and to seek Gods glory in a particular, which will also A conduce much to our reputation, and to have no filthy adherence to stick to the heart, no reflexion upon our selves, or no complacency and delight in popular noyses, is the nicity of abstraction, and requires an Angel to do it. Some then are so kind-hearted, so true to their friend, that they will watch his very dying groans, and receive his last breath, and close his eyes; And if this be done with honest intention, it is well: But there are some that do so; and yet are vultures and harpyes, they watch for the Carcasse, and prey upon a Legacy. A man with a true story may be malicious to his enemy, and by doing himself right, may also do him B wrong: And so false is the heart of man, so clancular and contradictory are its Actions and Intentions, that some men pursue vertue with great earnestnesse, and yet cannot with patience look upon it in another: It is Beauty in Themselves, and Deformity in the Other. Is it not plain, that not the Vertue, but its Reputation is the thing that is pursued? And yet if you tell the man so, he thinks he hath reason to complain of your malice or detraction. Who is able to distinguish his fear of God from fear of punishment? when from fear of punishment we are brought to fear God: And yet the difference must be distinguishable in new Converts & old Disciples; C And our fear of punishment must so often change its Circumstances, that it must be at last a fear to offend out of pure Love, and must have no formality left to distinguish it from Charity: It is easie to distinguish these things in Precepts, and to make the separation in the Schooles: The Head can do it easily, and the Tongue can do it: But when the Heart comes to separate Alms from Charity, Gods glory from Humane praise, fear from fear, and sincerity from Hypocrisie; it does so intricate the questions and confound the ends, and blend and entangle circumstances, that a man hath reason to doubt, that his very best Actions are sullied with some unhandsom D excrescencie something to mak them very often to be criminal, but alwayes to be imperfect.

Here a man would think were enough to abate our confidence and the spirit of pride, and to make a man eternally to stand upon his guard, and to keep as strict watch upon his own heart, as upon his greatest enemy from without. Custodi, libera we de meipso, Deus. It was S. Augustines prayer, Lord keep me, Lord deliver me from my self. If God will keep a man, that he be not Felo de se, that he lay no violent hands upon himself, it is certain nothing else can do him mischief, [...], as Agamemnon said, Neither E Jupiter, nor Destinies, nor the Furies, but it is a mans self that does him the mischief. The Devil can but Tempt, and offer a dagger at the heart; unlesse our hands thrust it home, the Devil can do nothing, but what may turne to our advantage. And in this sence we are to understand the two seeming Contradictories in [Page] A Scripture, Pray that ye enter not into Temptation, said our Blessed Saviour, and count it all joy when you enter into divers Temptations, said one of Christs Disciples: The case is easie. When God suffers us to be [...] he means it but as a trial of our faith, as the exercise of our vertues, as the opportunity of reward, and in such cases we have reason to count it all joy; since the Trial of our faith worketh Patience and Patience experience, and experience causeth hope, and hope maketh not ashamed: But yet for all this, pray against temptations: for when we get them into our hands, we use them as blind men do their clubs, neither distinguish person nor part; as soone they strike the face of their friends as the back of the Enemie; our hearts betray us B to the enemie, we fall in love with our mischief, we contrive how to let the lust in, and leave a port open on purpose, and use arts to forget our duty, and to give advantages to the Divel. He, that uses a temptation thus, hath reason to pray against it; and yet our hearts does all this and a thousand times more: so that we may ingrave upon our hearts the epitaph which was digged into Thiestes gravestone.

No lite, inquit, hospites adire ad me, ilico istic;

No contagio mea umbrave obsit,

C Tinta vis sceleris in corpore haeret.

There is so much falsenesse and iniquity in mans heart, that it defiles all the members; it makes the eyes lustful, and the tongue slanderous; it fills the head with mischief, and the feet with blood, and the hands with injury, and the present condition of man with folly, and makes his future state apt to inherit eternal miserie. But this is but the beginning of those throws, & damnable impieties, which proceed out of the heart of man and defile the whole constitution. I have yet told but the weaknesses of the heart; I shall the D next time tel you the iniquities, those inherent Divels which pollute and defile it to the ground, and make it desperately, wicked, that is, wicked beyond all expression. E

The deceitfulnesse of the Heart. Part II. B

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2 [...]: It is the beginning of wisdom to know a mans own weaknesses, and failings in things of greatest necessitie; Epict. Arrian. and we have here so many objects to furnish out this knowledge, that we finde it with the longest and latest before it be obtained. A man does not begin to know him self till he be old, and then he is well stricken in death: A mans heart at first being like a plain table, unspotted indeed, but then there is nothing legible in it. As soon as ever we ripen towards the imperfect uses of our reason, we write upon this table such crooked characters, such imperfect C configurations, so many fooleries; and stain it with so many blots, and vitious inspersions, that there is nothing worth the reading in our hearts for a great while; and when education and ripenesse, reason and experience, Christian philosophy and the grace of God hath made fair impressions and written the law in our hearts with the finger of Gods holy spirit, we blot out this handwriting of Gods ordinances, or mingle it with false principles, and interlinings of our our own; we disorder the method of God, or deface the truth of God; either we make the rule uneven we bribe or abuse our guide, that we may wonder with an excuse. Or if nothing else will do it D we turn head and professe to go against the laws of God. Our Hearts are blinde; or our hearts are hardned: for these are two great arguments of the wickednesse of our hearts: they do not see, or they will not see the wayes of God; or if they do, they make use of their seeing, that they may avoid them.

1. Our hearts are blinde, wilfully blind. I need not instance in 1. the ignorance and involuntary nescience of men, though if we speak of the necessary parts of religion, no man is ignorant of them without his own fault: such ignorance is alwayes a direct sin, or the direct punishment of a sin. A sin is either in its bosom, or in its retinue: But E the ignorance, that I now intend, is a voluntary, chosen, delightful ignorance taken in upon designe; even for no other end, but that we may perish quietly and infallibly. God hath opened all the windows of Heaven, and sent the Sun of Righteousnesse with glorious apparition, and hath discoverd [Page] A the abysses of his own wisdom, made the second person in the Trinity, to be the doctor and preacher of his sentences and secrets, and the third person to be his Amanuensis or scribe, and our hearts to be the Book, in which the doctrine is written and miracles and prophecies to be its arguments, and all the world to be the verification of it: and those leaves contain within their folds all that excellent morality, which right reason pickt up after the shipwrack of nature; and all those wise sayings, which singly made so many men famous for preaching some one of them; all them Christ gathered and added some more out of the immediate book of Revelation: B So that now the wisdom of God hath made every mans heart to be the true Veronica, in which he hath imprinted his own lineaments so perfectly, that we may dresse our selves like God, and have the aire and features of Christ our Elder-Brother; that we may be pure as God is, perfect as our Father, meek and humble as the Son, and may have the holy Ghost within us, in gifts and Graces, in wisdom and holinesse. This hath God done for us; and see what we do for Him. We stand in our own light, and quench Gods: we love darknesse more then light, and entertain our selves C accordingly. For how many of us are there, that understand nothing of the wayes of God; that know no more of the laws of Jesus Christ, then is remaining upon them since they learned the childrens Catechisme? But amongst a thousand how many can explicate and unfold for his own practise the ten Commandments; And how many sorts of sins are there forbidden? which therefore passe into action and never passe under the scrutinies of repentance; because they know not that they are sinnes? Are there not very many, who know not the particular duties of meeknesse, and never consider concerning Longsuffering? and if you talk to them of growth in D Grace, or the spirit of obsignation, or the melancholy lectures of the Crosse and imitation of, and conformitie to Christs sufferings; or adherences to God, or rejoycing in him, or not quenching the spirit; you are too deep learned for them. And yet these are duties set down plainly for our practise, necessary to be acted in order to our Salvation. We brag of light, and reformation, and fulnesse of the spirit: in the mean time we understand not many parts of our dutie. We enquire into something that may make us talk, or be talked of, or that we may trouble a Church, or disturb the peace of mindes; but in things that concern Holy living and that wisdom E of God, whereby we are wise unto Salvation; never was any age of Christendom more ignorant then we. For, if we did not wink hard we must needs see, that obedience to supreme Powers, Denying of our selves, Humility, Peacefulnesse and Charity, are written in such Capital text letters, that it is impossible to be ignorant of them. And if the heart of man had not rare arts to abuse the understanding, it were not to be imagined that any man should [Page] bring the 13. Chapter to the Romans to prove the lawfulnesse of A taking up Armes against our rulers: but so we may abuse our selves at noon and go to bed, if we please to call it midnight. And there have been a sort of wittie men that maintained that snow was hot: I wonder not at the probleme; but that a man should beleeve his paradox, and should let eternity go away with the fallacie, and rather lose heaven then leave his foolish argument, is a signe that wilfulnesse and the deceiving heart is the Sophister, and the great ingredient into our Deception.

But that I may be more particular; the heart of man uses devices that it may be ignorant. B

1. We are impatient of honest and severe reproofe; and order the circumstances of our persons and addresses that we shall never come to the true knowledge of our condition. Who will endure to heare his curate tell him, that he is Covetous, or that he is proud? [...]. It is Calumny and Reviling if he speak it to his head, and relates to his person: and yet if he speak onely in general, every man neglects what is not recommended to his particular. But yet if our Physitian tell us you look well, Sir; but a Feaver lurks in your spirits, [...] drink Julips and abstain from flesh; no man thinks it shame or calumny to be told so: but when we C are told that our liver is inflamed with lust or anger; that our heart is vexed with envie; that our eyes rowl with wantonnesse; And though we think all is well, yet we are sick, sick unto death, & neer to a sad and fatal sentence we shall think that man that tells us so is impudent, or uncharitable; and yet he hath done him no more injury, then a deformed man receives daily from his lookingglasse; which if he shall dash against the wall, because it showes him his face just as it is; his face is not so ugly as his manners. And yet our heart is so impatient of seeing its own staines, that like the Elephant, it tramples in the pure streames, and first troubles them, D then stoops and drinks, when he can least see his huge deformitie.

2. In order to this, we heap up teachers of our own, and they guide us, not whither, but which way they please: for we are curious to go our own way, and carelesse of our Hospitall or Inne at night. A faire way, and a merry company, and a pleasant easie guide will entice us into the Enemies quarters; and such guides we cannot want. Improbitati occasio nunquam defuit. If we have a minde to be wicked, we shall want no prompters; and false teachers at first creeping in unawares have now so filled the pavement of E the Church, that you can scarce set your foot on the ground, but you tread upon a snake. Cicero l. 7. ad Atticum, undertakes to bargain with them that kept the Sybils books, that for a sum of money they shall expound to him what he please; and to be sure, ut quidvis potius, quam Regem proferrent. They shall declare against the government [Page] A of kings, & say, that the Gods will endure any thing rather then Monarchy in their beloved republick. And the same mischief God complains of to be among the Jews; the Prophets prophecie lies and my people love to have it so; and what will the end of these things be? even the same that Cicero complain'd of, Ad opinionem imperitorum fictas esse Religiones. Men shall have what Religion De Divinat. l. 2 they please, and God shall be intitled to all the quarrels of covetous and Ambitious persons, [...], as Demosthenes wittily complained of the Oracle, An answer shall be drawn out of Scripture to countenance the designe, & God made to Rebel against B his own Ordinances. And then we are zealous for the Lord God of Hosts, and will live and die in that quarrel. But is it not a strange cozenage, that our hearts shall be the main wheel in the engine, and shall set all the rest on working? The heart shall first put his own candle out, then put out the eye of reason; then remove the Landmark, and dig down the causeywayes, and then either hire a blinde guide, or make him so; and all these Arts to get ignorance, that they may secure impiety. At first, man lost his innocence onely in hope to get a little knowledge; and ever since then lest knowledge should discover his errour, and make him returne to innocence, we C are content to part with that now, and to kow nothing that may discover or discountenance our sins, or discompose our secular designe. And as God made great revelations and furnished out a wise Religion, and sent his spirit to give the gift of Faith to his Church, that upon the foundation of Faith he might build a holy life; now our hearts love to retire into Blindnesse, & sneak under the covert of False principles, and run to a cheape religion, and an unactive discipline, and make a faith of our own, that we may build upon it ease and ambition and a tall fortune, and the pleasures of revenge, and do what we have a minde to; scarce once in seven years denying a D strong and an unruly appetite upon the interest of a just conscience and holy religion. This is such a desperate method of impiety; so certain arts and apt instruments for the Divel, that it does his work intirley, and produces an infallible damnation.

3. But the heart of man hath yet another stratagem to secure its iniquity by the means of ignorance; and that is, Incogitancy or Inconsideration. For there is wrought upon the spirits of many men great impression by education, by a modest and temperate nature, by humane Laws, and the customes & severities of sober persons, and the fears of religion, and the awfulnesse of a reverend man, E and the several arguments and endearments of vertue: And it is not in the nature of some men to do an act in despite of reason, and Religion, and arguments, and Reverence, and modesty, and fear; But men are forced from their sin by the violence of the grace of God, when they heare it speak. But so a Roman Gentleman kept off a whole band of souldiers, who were sent to murther him; and [Page] his eloquence was stronger then their anger and designe: But suddenly A a rude trooper rushed upon him, who neither had, nor would heare him speak; and he thrust his spear into that throat, whose musick had charmed all his fellows into peace and gentlenesse. So do we. The Grace of God is Armour and defence enough against the most violent incursion of the spirits, and the works of darknesse, but then we must hear its excellent charms, and consider its reasons, and remember its precepts, and dwell with its discourses. But this the heart of man loves not. If I be tempted to uncleannesse, or to an act of oppression, instantly the grace of God represents to me, that the pleasure of the sin is transient, and vain, unsatisfying and B empty; That I shall die, and then I shall wish too late, that I had never done it. It tells me that I displease God who made me, who feeds me, who blesses me, who fain would save me. It represents to me all the joyes of Heaven, and the horrours and amazements of a sad eternity And if I will stay and heare them, ten thousand excellent things besides, fit to be twisted about my understanding for ever. But here the heart of man shuffles all these discourses into disorder; and will not be put to the trouble of answering the objections; but by a meer wildenesse of purpose and rudnesse of resolution ventures super totam materiam, at all, and does the thing, C not because it thinks it fit to do so, but because it will not consider whether it be or no: it is enough that it pleases a present appetite, and if such incogitancy comes to be habitual, as it is in very many men; (first by resisting the motions of the holy spirit, then by quenching him,) we shall find the consequents to be, first an Indifferencie, then a dulnesse, then a Lethargie, then a direct Hating the wayes of God; and it commonly ends in a wretchlessenesse of spirit to be manifested on our death-bed; when the man shall passe hence not like the shadow, but like the dog, that departeth, without D sence or interest, or apprehension, or real concernment in the considerations of eternity: and tis but just, when we will not heare our king speak and plead, not to save himself, but us, to speak for our peace, and innocency and Salvation, to prevent our ruine, and our intolerable calamity: certainly we are much in love with the wages of death, when we cannot endure to heare God cal us back; and stop our ears against the voice of the charmer, charme he never so wisely.

Nay further yet; we suffer the Arguments of Religion to have so little impression upon our spirits, that they operate but like E the discourses of childhood, or the Problems of uncertain Philosophy: A man talks of Religion but as of a dream, and from thence he awakens into the Businesses of the world, and acts them deliberately, with perfect Action and full Resolution, and contrives, and considers, and lives in them: But when he falls asleep again, or is taken from the Scene of his own employment and choice; [Page] A then he dreams again, and Religion makes such Impressions as is the conversation of a Dreamer, and he acts accordingly. Theocritus tells of a Fisherman that dreamed he had taken [...], a Fish of gold, upon which being over-joyed he made a vow, that he would never fish more: But when he waked, he soon declared his vow to be null, because he found his golden Fish was scaped away through the holes of his eyes, when he first opened them. Just so we do in the purposes of Religion; sometimes in a good mood we seem to see Heaven opened, and all the streets of Heavenly Jerusalem paved with gold and precious stones, B and we are ravished with spirituall apprehensions, and resolve never to return to the low affections of the world, and the impure adherencies of sin, but when this flash of lightning is gone, and we converse again with the Inclinations, and habituall desires of our false hearts, those other desires and fine considerations disband, and the Resolutions taken in that pious fit melt into Indifferency, and old Customes. He was prettily and fantastically troubled, who having used to put his trust in Dreams, one night dreamed, that all dreams were vain; For he considered, If so, then This was vain, and then C dreams might be true for all this: But if they might be true, then this dream might be so upon equall reason; And then dreams were vain, because This dream, which told him so, was true, and so round again. In the same Circle runs the Heart of man; All his cogitations are vain, and yet he makes especiall use of this, that, that Thought which thinks so, That is vain; and if That be vain, then his other Thoughts, which are vainly declared so, may be Reall, and Relied upon; And so we do. Those religious thoughts, which are sent into us, to condemne and disrepute the thoughts of sin and vanity, are esteemed the onely dreams; And so all those D Instruments, which the grace of God hath invented for the destruction of Impiety, are rendred ineffectuall, either by our direct opposing them, or (which happens most commonly) by our want of considering them.

The effect of all is this, That we are ignorant of the things of God; we make Religion to be the work of a few hours in the whole yeer; we are without fancy or affection to the severities of holy Living; we reduce Religion to the Beleeving of a few Articles, and doing nothing that is considerable; we Pray seldome, and then but very coldly and indifferently; we Communicate E not so often as the Sun salutes both the Tropicks; we professe Christ, but dare not die for him; we are factious for a Religion, and will not live according to its precepts; we call our selves Christians, and love to be ignorant of many of the Lawes of Christ: lest our knowledge should force us into shame, or into the troubles of a holy Life. All the mischiefs that you can suppose to happen to a furious inconsiderate person, running after the wilde-fires of [Page] the night, over Rivers and Rocks, and Precipices without Sun or A starre, or Angel or Man to guide him: All that, and ten thousand times worse may you suppose to be the certain Lot of him, who gives himself up to the conduct of a passionate blinde Heart, whom no fire can warm, and no Sun enlighten; who hates light and loves to dwell in the Regions of darknesse. Thats the first generall mischief of the Heart; It is possessed with Blindnesse, wilfull and voluntary.

2. But the Heart is Hard too. Not onely Folly, but Mischief 2. also is bound up in the Heart of man. If God strives to soften it with sorrow and sad Accidents, it is like an Ox, it grows callow, B and hard. Such a heart was Pharaohs. When God makes the clouds to gather round about us, we wrap our heads in the clouds, and like the male-contents in Galba's time, Tristitiam simulamus Contumaciae propiores. We seem sad and troubled, but it is doggednesse and murmur. Or else if our fears be pregnant, and the heart yeelding, it sinks low into pusillanimity and superstition; and our hearts are so childish, so timerous, or so impatient in a sadnesse, that God is weary of making us, and we are glad of it. And yet when the Sun shines upon us, our hearts are hardned with that too, and God [...] to be at a losse, as if he knew not C what to do to us. Warre undoes us and makes us violent: Peace undoes us and makes us wanton. Prosperity makes us Proud, Adversity renders us Impatient; Plenty dissolves us and makes us Tyrants, Want makes us greedy, liars, and rapacious.

[...]

Aristoph: [...]: Act. 5. Scen. 4.

[...];

No fortune can save that City to whom neither Peace nor Warre can do advantage. And what is there left for God to mollifie our D hearts, whose temper is like both to wax and durt; whom fire hardens, and cold hardens; and contradictory Accidents produce no change, save that the heart growes worse and more obdurate for every change of Providence? But here also I must descend to particulars.

1. The Heart of man is strangely Proud; If men commend us we think we have reason to distinguish our selves from others, since the voice of discerning men hath already made the separation. If men do not commend us, we think they are stupid, and understand us not, or envious and hold their tongues in spite. If we E are praised by many, then Vox populi, vox Dei. Fame is the voice of God. If we be praised but by few, then Satis unus, satis nullus. We cry, these are wise, and one wise man is worth a whole herd of the People. But if we be praised by none at all, we resolve to be even with all the world, and speak well of no body, and think [Page] A well onely of our selves: And then we have such beggerly Arts, such tricks to cheat for praise; we inquire after our faults and failings onely to be told we have none, but did excellently, and then we are pleased; we rail upon our actions onely to be chidden for so doing; and then he is our friend who chides us into a good opinion of our selves; which however all the world cannot make us part with. Nay, Humility it self makes us proud; so false, so base is the the Heart of man. For Humility is so noble a vertue, that even Pride it self puts on its upper Garment; And we do like those, who cannot endure to look upon an ugly or a deformed person, and yet will give a great price for a picture extreamly B like him. Humility is despised in substance, but courted and admired in effigie. And Aesops picture was sold two talents, when himself was made a slave at the price of two Philippicks. And because Humility makes a man to be honoured; Therefore we imitate all its garbs and postures, its civilities and silence, its modesties and condescensions. And to prove that we are extreamly proud in the midst of all this pagentry, we should be extreamly angry at any man, that should say, we are proud; And that's a sure signe we are so. And in the middest of all our Arts to seem Humble, we use devices to bring our selves into talk; we thrust our C selves into company; we listen at doors; and like the great Beards in Rome, that pretended Philosophy and strict life, [...], We walk by the Obelisk, and meditate in Piazza's, that they that meet us may talk of us, and they that follow may cry out, [...]; Behold! there goes an excellent man! He is very prudent, or very learned, or a charitable person, or a good housekeeper, or at least very Humble.

The Heart of man is deeply in love with wickednesse, and with nothing else: Against, not onely the Lawes of God, but against his own Reason, its own Interest, and its own Securities. D For is it imaginable, that a man who knows the Lawes of God, the rewards of Vertue, the cursed and horrid effects of sin; that knows and considers, and deeply sighes at the thought of the intolerable pains of Hell; that knowes the joyes of Heaven to be unspeakable, and that concerning them there is no temptation, but that they are too big for man to hope for; And yet he certainly beleeves, that a holy life shall infallibly attain thither; Is it I say imaginable, that this man should for a transient Action forfeit all this Hope, and certainly and knowing incur all that calamity? Yea, E but the sin is pleasant, and the man is clothed with flesh and blood, and their appetites are materiall, and importunate, and present; And the discourses of Religion are concerning things spirituall, separate and apt for spirits, Angels and souls departed. To take off this also; We will suppose the man to consider, and really to beleeve that the pleasure of the sin, is sudden, vain, empty and [Page] transient; that it leaves bitternesse upon the tongue, before it is A descended into the bowels: that there it is poison, and makes the Belly to swell, and the Thigh to rot; That he remembers and actually considers, that as soon as the moment of sin is past, he shall have an intolerable Conscience; and does at the instant compare moments with Eternity, and with horrour remembers that the very next minute he is as miserable a man as is in the world; Yet that this man should sin? Nay, suppose the sin to have no pleasure at all; such as is the sin of swearing; Nay, suppose it really to have pain in it: such as is the sin of Envy, which never can have pleasure in its actions, but much torment and consumption of the B very heart; What should make this man sin so for nothing, so against himself, so against all Reason and Religion and Interest, without pleasure for no reward? Here the heart betrayes it self to be desperately wioked. What man can give a reasonable account of such a man, who to prosecute his revenge will do himself an injury that he may do a lesse to him that troubles him. Such a man hath given me ill language; [...]; My head akes not for his language, nor hath he broken my thigh nor carried away my land. But yet this man must be requited. Well, suppose that. But then let it be proportionable; C you are not undone, let not him be so. Oh yes; for else my revenge triumphs not. Well, if you do, yet remember he will defend himself, or the Law will right him; at least do not do wrong to your self by doing him wrong. This were but Prudence, and self-Interest. And yet we see, that the heart of some men hath betrayed them to such furiousnesse of Appetite, as to make them willing to die, that their enemie may be buried in the same Ruines. Jovius Pontanus tells of an Italian slave (I think) who being enraged against his Lord, watched his absence from home, and the D employment and inadvertency of his fellow-servants: he locked the doors, and secured himself for a while, and Ravished his Lady; then took her three sons up to the battlements of the house, and at the return of his Lord, threw one down to him upon the pavement, and then a second to rend the heart of their sad Father, seeing them weltring in their blood and brains. The Lord begd for his third, and now his onely Son, promising pardon and libertie, if he would spare his life. The slave seemed to bend a little, and on condition his Lord would cut off his own Nose, he would spare his Son. The sad Father did so, being willing to suffer any E thing, rather then the losse of that Childe; But as soon as he saw his Lord all bloody with his wound, he threw the third Son, and himself down together upon the Pavement. The story is sad enough, and needs no lustre and advantages of sorrow to represent it: But if a man sets himself down, and considers sadly, he cannot easily tell upon what sufficient inducement, or what principle the [Page] A slave should so certainly, so horridly, so presently, and then so eternally ruine himself. What could he propound to himself as a recompence to his own so immediate Tragedy? There is not in the pleasure of the revenge, nor in the nature of the thing, any thing to tempt him; we must confesse our ignorance, and say, that The Fleart of man is desperately wicked; and that is the truth in generall, but we cannot fathom it by particular comprehension.

For when the heart of man is bound up by the grace of God, and tied in golden bands, and watched by Angels, tended by those Nurse-keepers of the soul; it is not easie for a man to wander; B And the evil of his heart is but like the ferity and wildnesse of Lyons-whelps: But when once we have broken the hedge, and got into the strengths of youth, and the licenciousnesse of an ungoverned age, it is wonderfull to observe, what a great inundation of mischief in a very short time will overflow all the banks of Reason and Religion. Vice first is pleasing, then it grows easie, then delightfull, then frequent, then habituall, then confirmed, then the man is impenitent, then he is obstinate, then he resolves never to Repent, and then he is Damned. And by that time he is come half way in this progresse, he confutes the Philosophy of the old Moralists; C For they, not knowing the vilenesse of mans Heart, not considering its desperate amazing Impiety, knew no other degree of wickednesse but This, That men preferred Sense before Reason, and their understandings were abused in the choice of a temporall before an intellectuall and eternall good: But they alwayes concluded that the Will of man must of necessity follow the last dictate of the understanding, declaring an object to be good in one sence or other. Happy men they were, that were so Innocent; that knew no pure and perfect malice, and lived in an Age, in which it was not easie to confute them. But besides that, now the D wells of a deeper iniquity are discovered, we see by too sad experience, that there are some sins proceeding from the heart of man, which have nothing but simple, and unmingled malice; Actions of meer spite; doing evil, because it is evil; sinning without sensuall pleasures; sinning with sensuall pain, with hazard of our lives; with actuall torment, and sudden deaths, and certain and present damnation; sins against the Holy Ghost; open hostilities, and professed enmities against God and all vertue. I can go no further; because there is not in the world, or in the nature of things, a E greater Evil. And that is the Nature and Folly of the Devil; he tempts men to ruine, and hates God, and onely hurts himself, and those he tempts; and does himself no pleasure, and some say, he increases his own accidentall torment.

Although I can say nothing greater; yet I had many more things to say, if the time would have permitted me to represent the [Page] Falsenesse and Basenesse of the Heart. 1. We are false our selves, A and dare not trust God. 2. We love to be deceived, and are angry, if we be told so. 3. We love to seem vertuous, and yet hate to be so. 4. We are melancholy and impatient, and we know not why. 5. We are troubled at little things, and are carelesse of greater. 6. We are overjoyed at a petty accident, and despise great and eternall pleasures. 7. We beleeve things, not for their Reasons and proper Arguments; but as they serve our turns, be they true or false. 8. We long extreamly for things that are forbidden us; And what we despise, when it is permitted us, we snatch at greedily, when it is taken from us. 9. We love our selves B more then we love God; and yet we eat poysons daily, and feed upon Toads and Vipers, and nourish our deadly enemies in our bosome, and will not be brought to quit them; but brag of our shame, and are ashamed of nothing, but Vertue, which is most honourable. 10. We fear to die, and yet use all means we can to make Death terrible and dangerous. 11. We are busie in the faults of others, and negligent of our own. 12. We live the life of spies, striving to know others, and to be unknown our selves. 13. We worship and flatter some men, and some things, because we fear them, not because we love them. 14. We are ambitious of C Greatnesse, and covetous of wealth, and all that we get by it, is, that we are more beautifully tempted; and a troop of Clients run to us, as to a Pool, whom first they trouble, and then draw dry. 15. We make our selves unsafe by committing wickednesse, and then we adde more wickednesse to make us safe, and beyond punishment. 16. We are more servile for one curtesie, that we hope for, then for twenty that we have received. 17. We entertain slanderers, and without choice spread their calumnies; and we hugg flatterers, and know they abuse us: And if I should gather the abuses, and impieties, and deceptions of the Heart, as D Chrysippus did the oracular Lies of Apollo into a Table; I fear they would seem Remedilesse, and beyond the cure of watchfulnesse and Religion. Indeed they are Great and Many: But the Grace of God is Greater; and if Iniquity abounds, then doth Grace superabound, and thats our Comfort and our Medicine, which we must thus use.

1. Let us watch our hearts at every turn.

2. Deny it all its Desires, that do not directly or by consequence end in godlinesse: At no hand be indulgent to its fondnesses, and peevish appetites. E

3. Let us suspect it as an Enemy.

4. Trust not to it in any thing.

5. But beg the grace of God with perpetuall and importunate prayer, that he would be pleased to bring good out of these evils, and that he would throw the salutary wood of the Crosse, the merits [Page] A of Christs death and passion, into these salt waters, and make them healthful and pleasant.

And in order to the mannaging these advises, and acting the purposes of this prayer; let us strictly follow a rule; and choose a Prudent and faithful guide, who may attend our motions, and watch our counsels, and direct our steps, and prepare the way of the Lord, and make his paths streight, apt and imitable. For without great watchfulnesse, and earnest devotion, and a prudent Guide, we shall finde that true in a spiritual sense, which Plutarch affirmed of a mans body in the natural; that of dead Buls arise Bees; from B the carcases of horses, hornets are produced; But the body of man brings forth serpents. Our hearts wallowing in their own natural and acquired corruptions, will produce nothing but issues of Hell, and images of the old serpent the divel, for whom is provided the everlasting burning. C D E

Sermon. IX. A B THE FAITH and PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS: OR The righteous cause oppressed. C

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1 Peter. 4. 17.

For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us what shall the end be of D them that obey not the Gospel of God?

18. And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shal the ungodly and the sinner appear?

SO long as the world lived by sense, and discourses of natural reason, as they were abated with humane infirmities, and not at all heightned by the spirit & divine revelations, So long men took their accounts of good and bad by their being prosperous E or unfortunate: and amongst the basest and most ignorant of men, that onely was accounted honest which was profitable: and he onely wise that was rich; and that man beloved of God, who received from him all that might satisfie their lust, their ambition, or their revenge:

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—Fatis accede deisque

& col [...] felices, miseros fuge sidera terra

ut distant & flamma maeri, sic utile recto.

But because God sent wise men into the world and they were treated rudely by the world, and exercised with evil accidents, and this seemed so great a discouragement to vertue, that even these wise men were more troubled to reconcile vertue, and misery, then to reconcile their affections to the suffering; God was pleased to enlighten their reason with a little beame of faith, or else heightned B their reason by wiser principles then those of vulgar understandings; and taught them in the clear glasse of faith, or the dim perspective of Philosophy, to look beyond the cloud, and there to spie that there stood glories behinde their curtain, to which they could not come but by passing through the cloud, and being wet with the dew of heaven and the waters of affliction. And accordding as the world grew more enlightned by faith so it grew more dark with mourning & sorrowes: God sometimes sent a light of fire and pillar of a cloud and the brightnesse of an angel and the lustre of C a star, and the sacrament of a rainbowe to guide his people thorough their portion of sorrows, and to lead them through troubles to rest: But as the Sun of righteousnesse approached towards the chambers of the East, and sent the harbingers of light peeping through the curtains of the night, and leading on the day of faith and brightest revelation; so God sent degrees of trouble upon wise and good men, that now in the same degree in the which the world lives by faith and not by sense, in the same degree they might be able to live in vertue even while she lived in trouble, and not reject so great a beauty because she goes in mourning, and hath a black cloud of cypresse D drawn before her face: literally thus; God first entertained their services, and allured and prompted on the infirmities of the infant world by temporal prosperity; but by degrees changed his method; and as men grew stronger in the knowledge of God and the expectations of heaven, so they grew weaker in their fortunes, more afflicted in their bodies, more abated in their expectations, more subject to their enemies, and were to endure the contradiction of sinners and the immission of the sharpnesses of providence and divine Oeconomy.

First Adam was placed in a Garden of health and pleasure, from E which when he fell, he was onely tied to enter into the covenant of natural sorrows which he and all his posteritie till the flood run through: but in all that period they had the whole wealth of the earth before them, they need not fight for empires or places for their cattle to grase in; they lived long and felt no want, no slavery, no tyrannie, no war: and the evils that happened were single, personal, and natural, and no violences were then done, but they [Page] were like those things which the law calls rare contingencies; for A which as the law can now take no care, and make no provisions, so then there was no law; but men lived free and rich and long, and they exercised no vertues but natural, and knew no felicity but natural: and so long their prosperity was, just as was their vertue, because it was a natural instrument towards all that which they knew of happinesse. *But this publick easinesse and quiet, the world turned into sin; and unlesse God did compel men to do themselves good they would undoe themselves: and then God broke in upon them with a flood and destroyed that generation, that he might begin the government of the world upon a new stock, and binde B vertue upon mens spirits by new bands, endeared to them by new hopes and fears.

Then God made new laws and gave to Princes the power of the sword, and men might be punshed to death in certain cases, and mans life was shortened, and slavery was brought into the world and the state of servants; and then war began, and evils multiplied upon the face of the earth; in which it is naturally certain, that they that are most violent and injurious prevailed upon the weaker and more innocent; and every tyranny that began from Nimrod to this day, and every usurper was a peculiar argument to shew that God began C to teach the world, vertue by suffering; and that therefore he suffered Tyrannies and usurpations, to be in the world, and to be prosperous, and the rights of men to be snatched away from the owners, that the world might be established in potent and setled governments and the sufferers be taught al the passive vertues of the soul. For so God brings good out of evil, turning Tyranny into the benefits of Government, and violence into vertue, and sufferings into rewards: and this was the second change of the world: personal miseries were brought in upon Adam and his posterity, as a punishment of sin in the first period: and in the second, publick evils were D brought in by tyrants and usurpers, and God suffered them as the first elements of vertue, men being just newly put to schoole to infant sufferings. But all this was not much.

Christs line was not yet drawn forth: it began not to appear in what family the King of sufferings should descend till Abrahams time, and therefore till then there were no greater sufferings then what I have now reckoned. But when Abrahams family was chosen from among the many nations, and began to belong to God, by a special right, and he was designed to be the Father of the Messias, then God found out a new way to trie him, even with a sound affliction, E commanding him to offer his beloved Isaac; but this was accepted and being intended by Abraham was not intended by God: for this was a type of Christ, and therefore was also but a type of sufferings, excepting the sufferings of the old periods and the sufferings of nature and accident, we see no change made, for a long while [Page] A after, but God having established a law in Abrahams family did build it upon promises, of health, and peace, and victory, and plenty, and riches: and so long as they did not prevaricate the law of their God, so long they were prosperous: but God kept a remnant of Cananites in the land like a rod held over them to vex or to chastise them into obedience, in which while they persevered, nothing could hurt them; and that saying of David needs no other sence, but the letter of its own expression, I have been young and now am old, and yet saw I never the righteous for saken nor his seed begging their bread: The godly generally were prosperous, and a good cause seldome B had an ill end, and a good man never died an ill death, till the law had spent a great part of its time, and it descended towards its declension and period; But that the great prince of sufferings might not appear upon his stage of tragedies without some forerunners of sorrow, God was pleased to choose out some good men, and honour them, by making them to become little images of suffering: I saiah, Jeremy, and Zachary were martyrs of the law; but these were single deaths; Shadrac, Meshec, and Abednego were thrown into a burning furnace, and Daniel into a den of lions, and Susanna was accused for adultery; but these were but little arrests C of the prosperity of the Godly: as the time drew neerer that Christ should be manifest, so the sufferings grew bigger and more numerous: and Antiochus raised up a sharp persecution in the time of the Maccabees, in which many passed through the red sea of blood into the bosome of Abraham; & then Christ came: and that was the third period in which the changed method of Gods providence was perfected: for Christ was to do his great work by sufferings, & by sufferings was to enter into blessednesse; & by his passion he was made prince of the Catholickchurch, and as our Head was, so must the members be: God made the same covenant with us, that he did with his most holy D Son; & Christ obtaind no better conditions for us, then for himself; that was not to be looked for; the servant must not be above his master, it is well if he be as his Master: if the world persecuted him, they will also persecute us; and from the dayes of John the Baptist, the kingdome of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force: not the violent doers, but the sufferers of violence for though the old law was established in the promises of temporal prosperity, yet the gospel is founded in temporal adversity. It is directly a covenant of sufferings and sorrows; for now the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: thats the sence and designe of the text; and I intend E it as a direct antinomy to the common perswasions of tyrannous, carnal, and vicious men, who reckon nothing good, but what is prosperous: for though that proposition had many degrees of truth in the beginning of the law, yet the case is now altered; God hath established its contradictory: and now every good man must look for persecution, and every good cause must expect to thrive by [Page] the sufferings and patience of holy persons; and as men do well, and A suffer evil, so they are dear to God: and whom he loves most, he afflicts most, and does this with a designe of the greatest mercy in the world.

1. Then the state of the Gospel is a state of sufferings, not of temporal prosperities, this was foretold by the prophets; a fountain shall go out of the house of the Lord, & irrigabit torrentem spinarum; Joel. 3. (so it is in the vulgar latin) and it shall water the torrent of thorns; that is, the state or time of the gospel. which like a torrent shall cary all the world before it, and like a torrent shall be fullest in ill weather; and by its banks shall grow nothing but thorns B and briers, sharp afflictions, temporal infelicities and persecution. This sense of the words is more fully explained in the book of the prophet Isa. upon the ground of my people shall thorns and briers Isaiah. 23. 3. come up, how much more in all the houses of the city of rejoycing; which prophecy is the same in the stile of the prophets, that my text is in the stile of the Apostles: the house of God shall be watered with the dew of heaven, and there shall spring up briers in it: judgement must begin there: but how much more in the houses of the city of rejoycing how much more among them that are at ease in Sion; that serve C their desires, that satisfie their appetites, that are given over to their own hearts lust, that so serves themselves, that they never serve God, that dwell in the city of rejoycing; they are like Dives whose portion was in this life, who went in fine linnen and fared deliciously every day; they indeed trample upon their briers and thorns and suffer them not to grow in their houses; but the roots are in the ground, and they are reserved for fuel of wrath in the day of everlasting burning. Thus you see it was prophesied, now see how it was performed: Christ was the captain of our sufferings and he began. D

He entred into the world with all the circumstances of poverty; he had a star to illustrate his birth but a stable for his bed chamber, and a manger for his cradle: the angels sang hymnes when he was born, but he was cold and cried, uneasy and unprovided; he lived long in the trade of a carpenter, he by whom God made the world had in his first years the businesse of a mean and an ignoble trade; he did good where ever he went, and almost where ever he went was abused; he deserved heaven for his obedience, but found a crosse in his way thither; and if ever any man had reason to expect fair usages from God, and to be dandled in lap of ease, softnes E and a prosperous fortune, he it was onely that could deserve that, or any thing that can be good. But after he had chosen to live a life of vertue, of poverty, and labour, he entred into a state of death; whose shame and trouble was great enough to pay for the sins of the whole world: And I shall choose to expresse this mystery in the vvords of scripture; he died not by a single, or a sudden death [Page] A but he was the Lambe slain from the beginning of the world: For he was massacred in Abel, (saith Saint Paulinus) he was tossed upon the waves of the Sea, in the person of Noah; It was he that went out of his Countrey, when Abraham was called from Charran, and wandred from his native soil: He was offered up in Isaac, persecuted in Jacob, betrayed in Joseph, blinded in Sampson, affronted in Moses, sawed in Esay, cast into the dungeon with Jeremy. For all these were types of Christ suffering; and then his passion continued even after his resurrection; for it is he that suffers in all his members; it is he that endures the contradiction of B all sinners; it is he that is the Lord of life, and is crucified again, and put to open shame in all the sufferings of his servants, and sins of rebels, and defiances of Apostates, and renegados, and violence of Tyrants, and injustice of usurpers, and the persecutions of his Church. It is he that is stoned in Saint Stephen, flayed in the person of Saint Bartholomew, he was rosted upon Saint Laurence his Gridiron, exposed to lyons in Saint Ignatius, burned in Saint Polycarpe, frozen in the lake where stood fourty Martyrs of Cappadocia; Unigenitus enim Dei ad peragendum mortis suae sacramentum C consummavit omne genus humanarum passionum said Saint Hilary. The Sacrament of Christs death is not to be accomplished, but by suffering all the sorrows of humanity.

All that Christ came for, was, or was mingled with sufferings: For all those little joyes which God sent, either to recreate his person, or to illustrate his office, were abated, or attended with afflictions; God being more carefull to establish in him the Covenant of sufferings, then to refresh his sorrows: Presently after the Angels had finished their Halleluiahs, he was forced to fly to save his life; and the air became full of shrikes of the desolate D mothers of Bethlehem for their dying Babes. God had no sooner made him illustrious with a voyce from heaven, and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him in the waters of Baptisme, But he was delivered over to be tempted and assaulted by the Devil in the wildernesse: His transfiguration was a bright ray of glory, but then also he entred into a cloud, and was told a sad story what he was to suffer at Jerusalem: And upon Palme-Sunday, when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, and was adorned with the acclamations of a King, and a God, he wet the Palmes with his tears, sweeter then the drops of Mannah, or the little pearls of E heaven, that descended upon mount Hermon, weeping in the midst of this triumph over obstinate, perishing, and maliciour Jerusalem. For this Jesus was like the rain-bowe which God set in the clouds as a sacrament to confirm a promise, and establish a grace, he was half made of the glories of the light, and half of the moisture of a cloud; in his best dayes he was but half triumph, and half sorrow; he was sent to tell of his Fathers mercies, [Page] and that God intended to spare us; but appeared not but in the A company, or in the retinue of a shower, and of foul weather: But I need not tell that Jesus, beloved of God, was a suffering person: that which concerns this question most, is that he made for us a covenant of sufferings: His Doctrines were such as expressely and by consequent enjoyne and suppose sufferings, and a state of affliction; His very promises were sufferings, his beatitudes were sufferings, his rewards, and his arguments to invite men to follow him, were onely taken from sufferings in this life, and the reward of sufferings hereafter.

For if we summon up the Commandements of Christ, we shall B finde humility, mortification, self-deniall, repentance, renouncing the world, mourning, taking up the crosse, dying for him, patience and poverty, to stand in the chiefest rank of Christian precepts, and in the direct order to heaven: He that will be my Disciple must deny himself, and take up his crosse and follow me. We must follow him that was crowned with thorns and sorrows, him that was drenchd in Cedron, nailed upon the Crosse, that deserved all good, and suffered all evil: That is the summe of Christian Religion, as it distinguishes from all the Religions of the world. To which we may adde the expresse Precept recorded by Saint James, [Be afflicted C and mourn, and weep, let your laughter be turned into mourning, James 4. 10. and your joy into weeping.] You see the Commandements: Will you also see the Promises? These they are. In the world yee shall have tribulation; in me ye shall have peace: and through many tribulations, ye shall enter into heaven: and he that loseth father and mother, wives, and children, houses, and lands for my Names sake and the Gospel, shall receive a hundred fold in this life, with persecution: thats part of his reward. [And he chastiseth every son that he receiveth; and if you be exempt from sufferings, ye are bastards and not sons: These are some of Christs promises: will D you see some of Christs blessings, that he gives his Church: Blessed are the poor: Blessed are the hungry and thirsty. Blessed are they that Matth. 5. mourn. Blessed are the humble. Blessed are the persecuted: Of the eight Beatitudes, five of them have temporall misery and meannesse, or an afflicted condition for their subject. Will you at last see some of the reward, which Christ hath propounded to his servants, to invite them to follow him. When I am lifted up, I will draw all men after me: when Christ is lifted up, as Moses lift up the serpent in the wildernesse, that is lifted upon the Crosse, then he will draw us after him. To you it is given for Christ (saith Saint E Phil. 1. 28. Paul) when he went to sweeten and to flatter the Philippians. Well, what is given to them? Some great favours surely, true. It is not onely given that you beleeve in Christ, (though that be a great matter) but also that you suffer for him, thats the highest of your honour. And therefore saith Saint James, My brethren, count it all James 5. 10. [Page] A joy when ye enter into divers temptations. And Saint Peter, Communicating with the sufferings of Christ rejoyce: And Saint James again, We count them blessed that have suffered: And Saint Paul when 1 Pet. 4. 13. he gives his blessing to the Thessalonians, he uses this form of prayer: Our Lord direct our hearts in the charity of God, and in the patience 2 Thess. 1. and sufferings of Christ. So that if wee will serve the King of sufferings, whose crown was of thorns, whose seepter was a reed of scorne, whose imperiall robe was a scarlet of mockery, whose throne was the Crosse; We must serve him in sufferings, in poverty of spirit, in humility, and mortification, and for our reward we Heb. 2. 10. B shall have persecution, and all its blessed consequents: Atque hoc est esse Christianum.

Since this was done in the green-tree, what might we expect should be done in the dry: Let us in the next place consider how God hath treated his Saints and servants, and the descending ages of the Gospel; That if the best of Gods servants were followers of Jesus in this covenant of sufferings, we may not think it strange 1 Pet. 4. 12. concerning the fiery tryall, as if some new thing had happened to us. For as the Gospel was founded in sufferings, we shall also see it grow in persecutions: and as Christs blood did cement the corner C stones, and the first foundations; So the blood and sweat, the groans and sighings, the afflictions and mortifications of saints, and martyrs did make the super structures, and must at last finish the building.

If I begin with the Apostles, who were to perswade the world to become Christian, and to use proper Arguments of invitation, we shall sinde that they never offered an Argument of temporall prosperity: they never promised Empires and thrones on earth, nor riches, nor temporall power, and it would have been soon confuted, if they who were whipt and imprisoned, banished and D scattered, persecuted and tormented, should have promised Sunshine dayes to others, which they could not to themselves: Of all the Apostles there was not one that died a naturall death but onely Saint John; and did he escape? Yes: But he was put into a Cauldron of scalding lead and oyl, before the Port Latin in Rome, Tertul. S. Hieron. and scaped death by miracle, though no miracle was wrought to make him scape the torture: And besides this, he lived long in banishment, and that was worse then Saint Peters chains: Sanctus Petrus in vinculis, & Johannes ante portam latinam, were both dayes of Martyrdom and Church Festivals: and after a long and E laborious life, and the affliction of being detained from his crown, and his sorrows for the death of his fellow-disciples, he dyed full of dayes and sufferings: And when Saint Paul was taken into the Apostolate, his Commissions were signed in these words; I will shew unto him how great things he must suffer for my Name: and his whole life was a continuall suffering: Quotidiè morior was Acts 9. 15. [Page] his Motto, I die daily; and his lesson that he daily learned was to A know Christ Jesus and him crucified; and all his joy was to rejoyce in the Crosse of Christ; and the changes of his life were nothing but the changes, of his sufferings, and the variety of his labours. For though Christ hath finished his own sufferings for expiation of the world, yet there are [...], portions that are behinde of the sufferings of Christ which must be filled up by his body the Church; and happy are they that put in the greatest symbol: for in the same measure you are partakers of the sufferings of Christ, in the same shall ye be also of the consolation. And therefore concerning S. Paul, as it was also concerning Christ, there is nothing or but very little in B Scripture, relating to his person and chances of his private life, but his labours and persecutions, as if the holy Ghost did think nothing fit to stand upon record for Christ, but sufferings.

And now began to work the greatest glory of the divine Providence: here was the case of Christianity at stake. The world was rich and prosperous, learned and full of wise men, the Gospel was preached with poverty and persecution, in simplicity of discourse, and in demonstration of the Spirit: God was on one side, and the Devil on the other; they each of them dressed up their city; Babylon upon Earth, Jerusalem from above; the Devils city C was full of pleasure, triumphs, victories and cruelty; good news and great wealth, conquest over Kings, and making nations tributary; They bound Kings in chains, and the Nobles with links of iron, and the inheritance of the Earth was theirs: the Romans were Lords over the greatest parts of the world; and God permitted to the Devil the Firmament and increase, the wars and the successe of that people, giving to him an intire power of disposing the great changes of the world, so as might best increase their greatnesse and power: and he therefore did it, because all the power of the Romane greatnesse was a professed enemy to Christianity: and on the D other side God was to build up Jerusalem, and the kingdom of the Gospel: and he chose to build it of hewen stone, cut and broken: the Apostles he chose for Preachers, and they had no learning; women and mean people were the first Disciples, and they had no power: the Devil was to lose his kingdom, and he wanted no malice: and therefore he stirred up, and as well as he could, he made active all the power of Rome, and all the learning of the Greeks, and all the malice of Barbarous people, and all the prejudice and the obstinacy of the Jews, against this doctrine and institution; which preached and promised, and brought persecution along with E it. On the one side there was scandalum crucis, on the other patientia sanctorum, and what was the event? They that had overcome the world, could not strangle Christianity. But so have I seen the Sun with a little ray of distant light challenge all the power of darknesse, and without violence and noise climbing up the hill, hath [Page] A made night so to retire, that its memory was lost in the joyes and spritefulnesse of the morning; and Christianity without violence or armies, without resistance and self-preservation, without strength or humane eloquence, without challenging of priviledges, or fighting against Tyranny, without alteration of government, and scandall of Princes, with its humility and meeknesse, with tolerations and patience, with obedience and charity, with praying, and dying, did insensibly turn the world into Christian, and persecution into victory.

For Christ who began, and lived and died in sorrows, perceived his own sufferings to succeed so well, and that for suffering B death, he was crowned with immortality, resolved to take all his Disciples and servants to the fellowship of the same suffering, that they might have a participation of his glory; knowing, God had opened no gate of heaven but the narrow gate, to which the Crosse was the key: and since Christ now being our High Priest in heaven, intercedes for us by representing his passion, and the dolours of the Crosse, that even in glory he might still preserve the mercies of his past sufferings, for which the Father did so delight in him: he also designes to present us to God, dressed in the same robe, and treated in the same manner, and honoured with the C marks of the Lord Jesus: He hath predestinated us to be conformable to the image of his Son: And if under a head crowned with thorns, we bring to God members circled with roses, and softnesse, and delicacy, triumphant members in the militant Church, God will reject us; he will not know us who are so unlike our elder brother: For we are members of the Lamb, not of the Lion, and of Christs suffering part, not of the triumphant part: and for three hundred yeers together, the Church lived upon blood, and was nourished with blood; the blood of her own children: Thirty three D Bishops of Rome in immediate succession, were put to violent and unnaturall deaths: and so were all the Churches of the East and West built; the cause of Christ and of Religion was advanced by the sword, but it was the sword of the persecutours, not of resisters, or warriours: They were all baptized into the death of Christ, their very profession and institution is to live like him; and when he requires it, to die for him; that is the very formality, the life and essence of Christianity. This I say lasted for three hundred yeers, that the prayers and the backs, and the necks of Christians fought against the rods and axes of the persecutours, and prevailed E till the Countrey, and the Cities, and the Court it self was filled with Christians: And by this time, the army of Martyrs was vast and numerous, and the number of sufferers blunted the hangmans sword: For Christ first triumphed over the princes and powers of the world, before he would admit them to serve him; he first felt their malice before he would make use of their defence, [Page] to shew that it was not his necessity that required it, but his grace A that admitted Kings and Queens to be nurses of the Church.

And now the Church was at ease, and she that sucked the blood of the Martyrs so long, began now to suck the milk of Queens: Indeed it was a great mercy in appearance and was so intended, but it proved not so. But then the Holy Ghost in pursuance of the designe of Christ, who meant by sufferings to perfect his Church, as himself was by the same instrument, was pleased now that persecution did cease, to inspire the Church with the spirit of mortification and austerity; and then they made Colleges of sufferers, persons who to secure their inheritance in the world B to come, did cut off all their portion in this, excepting so much of it as was necessary to their present being; and by instruments of humility, by patience under, and a voluntary undertaking of the Crosse, the burden of the Lord, by self deniall, by fastings and sackcloth, and pernoctations in prayer, they chose then to exercise the active part of the religion, mingling it as much as they could with the suffering.

And indeed it is so glorious a thing to be like Christ; to be dressed like the prince of the Catholick church, who was so a man of sufferings, C and to whom a prosperous and unafflicted person is very unlike, that in all ages the servants of God have put on the armour of righteousnesse, on the right hand, and on the left, that is, in the sufferings of persecution, or the labours of mortification, in patience under the rod of God, or by election of our own; by toleration, or self denial, by actual martyrdom, or by aptnesse or disposition towards it, by dying for Christ or suffering for him; by being willing to part with all when he calls for it, and by parting with what we can, for the relief of his poor members. For know this, there is no state in the Church, so serene, no days so prosperous, D in which God does not give to his servants, the powers and opportunities of suffering for him, not onely they that die for Christ, but they that live according to his laws, shall finde some lives to part with, and many wayes to suffer for Christ. To kill and crucifie the old man, and all his lusts, to mortifie a beloved sin, to fight against temptations, to do violence to our bodies, to live chastly, to suffer affronts patiently, to forgive injuries and debts, to renounce all prejudice and interest in religion, and to choose our side for truthes sake (not because it is prosperous, but because it pleases God) to be charitable beyond our power, to reprove our E betters with modesty and opennesse, to displease men rather then God, to be at enmity with the world, that you may preserve friendship with God, to denie the importunity and troublesome kindnesse of a drinking friend, to own truth in despite of danger or scorn, to despise shame; to refuse worldly pleasure when they tempt your soul, beyond duty or safety; to take pains in the cause of religion, [Page] A the labour of love and the crossing of your anger, peevishnesse and morosity; these are the daily sufferings of a Christian; and if we performe them well, wil have the same reward and an equal smart and greater labour then the plain suffering the hangmans sword. This I have discoursed, to represent unto you, that you cannot be exempted from the similitude of Christs sufferings; that God will shut no age nor no man from his portion of the crosse; that we cannot fail of the result of this predestination, nor without our own fault be excluded from the covenant of sufferings: judgement must begin at Gods house, and enters first upon the sons and heirs of the kingdom; B and if it be not by the direct persecution of Tyrants, it will be by the persecution of the devil, or infirmities of our own flesh: But because this was but the secondary meaning of the text, I return to make use of all the former discourse.

1. Let no Christian man make any judgement concerning his condition, or his cause by the external event of things: for although in the law of Moses, God made with his people a covenant of temporal prosperity, and his Saints did binde the kings of the Amorites, and the Philistines in chains, and their nobles with links of iron, C and then, that was the honour which all his Saints had; yet in Christ Jesus he made a covenant of sufferings: most of the graces of Christianity are suffering graces, and God hath predestinated us to sufferings: and we are baptised into suffering, and our very communions are symbols of our duty, by being the sacrament of Christs death and passion; and Christ foretold to us tribulation, and promised onely that he would be with us in tribulation, that he would give us his spirit to assist us at tribunals, and his grace to despise the world, and to contemn riches, and boldnesse to confesse every article of the Christian faith, in the face of armies and armed tyrants; D and he also promised that all things should work together for the best to his servants, that is, he would out of the eater bring meat, and out of the strong issue sweetnesse, and crowns and scepters should spring from crosses, and that the crosse it self should stand upon the globes and scepters of Princes; but he never promised to his servants, that they should pursue Kings and destroy armies, that they should reign over the nations, and promote the cause of Jesus Christ by breaking his commandments: The shield of faith and the sword of the spirit, the armour of righteousnesse, and the weapons of spiritual warfare, these are they by which christianity swelled from a E small company, and a lesse reputation, to possesse the chaires of Doctors, and the thrones of princes, and the hearts of all men. But men in all ages will be tampering with shadows and toyes. The Apostles at no hand could endure to hear that Christs kingdom was not of this world, and that their Master should die a sad and shameful death; though that way he was to receive his crown, and enter into glory: and after Christs time, when his Disciples had taken [Page] up the crosse and were marching the Kings high way of sorrows, A there were a very great many, even the generality of Christians, for two or three ages together, who fell on dreaming that Christ should come and reign upon earth again, for a thousand years, and then the Saints should reigne in all abundance of temporal power and fortunes: but these men were content to stay for it, till after the resurrection; in the mean time took up their crosse and followed after their Lord, the King of sufferings: But now adayes we finde a generation of men, who have changed the covenant of sufferings into victories, and triumphs, riches and prosperous chances, and reckon their Christianity by their good fortunes, B as if Christ had promised to his servants no heaven hereafter, no spirit in the mean time to refresh their sorrows; as if he had enjoyned them no passive graces; but as if to be a Christian and to be a Turk were the same thing. Mahomet entered and possessed by the sword: Christ came by the crosse, entered by humility, and his saints possesse their souls by patience.

God was fain to multiply miracles to make Christ capable of being a man of sorrows; and shall we think he will work miracles to make us delicate? He promised us a glorious portion hereafter, to which if all the sufferings of the world were put together, they C are not worthy to be compared, and shall we with Dives choose our portion of good things in this life? If Christ suffered so many things onely that he might give us glory, shall it be strange that we shall suffer who are to receive this glory? It is in vain to think we shall obtain glories at an easier rate, then to drink of the brook in the way in which Christ was drenched. When the Devil appeared to Saint Martin in a bright splendid shape and said he was Christ, he answered, Christus non nisi in cruce apparet suis in hac vita. And when Saint Ignatius was newly tied in a chain to be led to his martyrdom, he cryed out, nunc incipio esse Christianus: And it was observed D by Minutius Felix, and was indeed a great and excellent truth, omnes viri fortes quos Gentiles praedicabant, in exemplum, aerumnis suis inclytifloruerunt. The Gentiles in their whole religion never propounded any man imitable, unlesse the man were poor or persecuted: Brutus stood for his countries liberty, but lost his army and his life; Socrates was put to death for speaking a religious truth: Cato chose to be on the right side, but happened to fall upon the oppressed and the injured; he died together with his party.

Victrix causa Deis placuit sed vict a Catoni; And if God thus dealt with the best of Heathens to whom he had made no cleare revelation E of immortal recompences, how little is the faith and how much lesse is the patience of Christians if they shall think much to suffer sorrows since they so clearly see with the eye of faith the great things which are laid up for them that are faithful unto the death. Faith is uselesse, if now in the midst of so great pretended lights we [Page] A shall not dare to trust God unlesse we have all in hand that we desire; and suffer nothing, for all we can hope for. They that live by sense have no use of faith, yet our Lord Jesus concerning whose passions, the gospel speaks much, but little of his glorifications, whose shame was publick, whose pains were notorious, but his joyes and transfigurations were secret and kept private, he who would not suffer his holy mother, whom in great degrees he exempted from sin, to be exempted from many and great sorrows, certainly intends to admit none to his resurrection, but by the doors of his grave, none to glory but by the way of the crosse. If we be planted into the likenesse of his death, we shall be also of his resurrection, B else on no termes; Christ took away sin from us, but he left us our share of sufferings; and the crosse which was first printed upon us in the waters of baptisme, must for ever be born by us in penance, in mortification, in self-denial and in martyrdom, and toleration according as God shall require of us by the changes of the world, and the condition of the Church.

For Christ considers nothing, but souls, he values not their estate or bodies, supplying our want by his providence, and being secured that our bodies may be killed, but cannot perish so long as we preserve our duty and our consciences. C Christ our Captain hangs naked upon the crosse, our fellow souldiers are cast into prison; torne with Lions, rent in sunder with trees returning from their violent bendings, broken upon wheels, rosted upon gridirons, and have had the honour not onely to have a good cause, but also to suffer for it, and by faith not by armies, by patience not by fighting, have overcome the world; & sit anima mea cum Christianis, I pray God my soul may be among the Christians; and yet the Turks have prevailed upon a great part of the Christian world, and have made them slaves, D and tributaries, and do them all spite, and are hugely prosperous; but when Christians are so, then they are tempted and put in danger, and never have their duty and their interest so well secured, as when they lose all for Christ and are adorned with wounds, or poverty, change or scorn, affronts or revilings which are the obelisks and triumphs of a holy cause. Evil men and evil causes had need have good fortune and great successe to support their persons and their pretences; for nothing but innocence and Christianity can flourish E in a persecution. I summe up this first discourse in a word: in all the Scripture, and in all the Authentick stories of the Church we finde it often, that the Devil appeared in the shape of an Angell of light, but was never suffered so much as to conterfeit a persecuted sufferer; say no more therefore as the murmuring Israelites said; If the LORD be with us why [Page] have these evils apprehended us? for if to be afflicted be a signe A that God hath forsaken a man, and refuses to own his religion, or his question, then he that oppresses the widow, and murders the innocent, and puts the fatherlesse to death, and follows providence by doing all the evils that he can, that is, all that God suffers him, he I say is the onely Saint and servant of God: and upon the same ground the wolf and the fox may boast when they scatter and devour a flock of lambs and harmlesse sheep. B C D E

Sermon. X. B The Faith and Patience of the SAINTS: OR The righteous cause oppressed. Part II.

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A

C IT follows now that we inquire concerning the reasons of the Divine Providence, in this administration of affairs, so far as he hath been pleased to draw aside the curtain, and to unfold the leaves of his counsels and predestination: and for such an inquiry we have the precedent of the Prophet Jeremy: Righteous art thou O Lord, when I plead with thee, yet let us talk to thee of thy Jerem. 12. 1, 2. judgements: wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? Thou hast planted them, yea they have taken root: they grow, yea they bring forth fruit Concerning which, in generall the Prophet Malachy gives this account D after the same complaint made. And now we call the proud Mala 3. 14. happy, and they that work wickednesse are set up, yea they that tempt God are even delivered. They that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before time for them that feared the Lord, and thought upon his Name, and they shall be mine (saith the Lord of Hosts) in that day when I binde up my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him: Then shall ye return and discern betwen the righteous, and the wicked, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not. In this interval which is E a valley of tears, it is no wonder if they rejoyce, who shall weep for ever; and they that sow in tears shall have no cause to complain, when God gathers all the mourners into his kingdom, they shall reape with joy.

For innocence and joy were appointed to dwel together for ever. And joy went not first but when innocence went away, sorrow and [Page] sicknesse dispossessed joy of its habitation; and now this world A must be alwayes a scene of sorrows, and no joy can grow here but that which is imaginary and phantastick: there is no worldly joy, no joy proper for this world, but that which wicked persons fancy to themselves, in the hopes and designes of iniquity: He that covets his neighbours wife or land, dreams of fine things, and thinks it a fair condition to be rich and cursed, to be a beast and die, or to lie wallowing in his filthinesse: but those holy souls who are not in love with the leprosie & the Itch for the pleasure of scratching, they know no pleasure can grow from the thorns which Adam planted in the hedges of Paradise; and that sorrow which was brought in by sin, B must not go away till it hath returned us into the first condition of innocence: the same instant that quits us from sin, and the failings of mortality, the same instant wipes all tears from our eyes; but that is not in this world; In the mean time.

God afflicts the godly that he might manifest many of his attributes, and his servants exercise many of their vertues.

Nec fortuna probat causas sequitur (que) merentes,

sed vaga percunctos nullo discrimine fertur: C

scilicet est aliud quod nos cogat (que) rogat (que)

Majus, & in proprias ducat mortalia leges.

For, without sufferings of Saints God should lose the glories of 1. Bringing good out of evil: 2. Of being with us in tribulation, 3. Of sustaining our infirmities, 4. Of triumphing over the malice of his enemies: 5. Without the suffering of Saints, where were the D exaltation of the crosse, the conformity of the members to Christ their Head, the coronets of Martyrs? 6. Where were the trial of our faith? 7. Or the exercise of long suffering? 8. Where were the opportunities, to give God the greatest love? which cannot be but by dying and suffering for him? 9. How should that which the world calls folly prove the greatest wisdom: 10. and God be glorified by events contrary to the probability and expectation of their causes: By the suffering of Saints, Christian religion is proved to be most excellent whilst the iniquity and cruelty of the adversaries proves the illecebra sectae as Tertullians phrase is, it invites men to consider the secret excellencies of that religion, for which and in which men are so willing to die: for that religion E must needs be worth looking into, which so many wise and excellent men do so much value above their lives and fortunes; 12. That a mans nature is passible, is its best advantage: for by it we are all redeemed: by the passivenesse and sufferings of our Lord and brother we were all rescued from the portion of Devils; and by our suffering we have a capacity of serving God beyond that [Page] A of Angels: who indeed can sing Gods praise with a sweeter note, and obey him with a more unabated will, and execute his commands with a swifter wing, and a greater power; but they cannot die for God; they can lose no lands for him; and he that did so for all us, and commanded us to do so for him, is ascended farre above all Angels, and is Heir of a greater glory. 13. Do this, and live, was the covenant of the Law; but in the Gospel it is, suffer this, and live: He that forsaketh house and land, friends and life, for my sake is my disciple. 14. By the sufferings of Saints God chastises their follies and levities, and suffers not their errours to climbe up into heresies, nor their infirmities into crimes.

B — [...].

Alterat on makes a fool leave his folly. If David numbers the people of Judea, God punishes him sharply and loudly: But if Augustus Caesar numbers all the world he is let alone and prospers.

Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit, hic diadema.

And it giving physick we alwayes call that just, and fitting that is usefull and profitable: no man complains of his Physitians Iniquity, C if he burns one part to cure all the body, if the belly be punished to chastise the floods of humour, and the evils of a surfet: Punishments can no other way turn into a mercy, but when they are designed for medicine; and God is then very carefull of thy soul, when he will suppresse every of its evils, when it first discomposes the order of things, and spirits. And what hurt is it to thee if a persecution draws thee from the vanities of a former prosperity, and forces thee into the sobrieties of a holy life? What losse is it, what misery? Is not the least sin a greater evil then the greatest of sufferings? God smites some at the beginning of their sin: D Others not till a long while after it is done. The first cannot say, that God is slack in punishing; and have no need to complain that the wicked are prosperous; for they finde that God is apt enough to strike; and therefore that he strikes them, and strikes not the other, is not defect of justice, but because there is not mercy in store, for them that sin and suffer not: 15. For if God strikes the godly that they may repent, it is no wonder that God is so good to his servants; but then we must not call that a misery, which God intends to make an instrument of saving them. And if God forbears E to strike the wicked out of anger, and because he hath decreed death and hell against them, we have no reason to envy that they ride in a gilded chariot to the gallows: But if God forbears the wicked, that by his long sufferance they may be invited to repentance, then we may cease to wonder at the dispensation, and argue comforts to the afflicted Saints, thus; 1. For if God be so gracious [Page] to the wicked; how much more is he to the godly? And if sparing A the wicked be a mercy, then smiting the godly being the expression of his greater kindnesse; affliction is of it self the more eligible condition. If God hath some degrees of kindnesse for the persecutor, so much as to invite them by kindnesse, how much greater is his love to them that are persecuted? and therefore his entercourse with them is also a greater favour: and indeed it is the surer way of securing the duty; fair means may do it, but severity will fix and secure it: fair means are more apt to be abused then harsh physick; that may be turned into wantonnesse, but [...] but the impudent and grown sinners, despise all Gods judgements; B and therefore God chooses this way to deal with his erring servants, that they may obtain an infallible and a great salvation: and yet if God spares not his children, how much lesse the reprobates? and therefore as the sparing the latter, commonly is a sad curse, so the smiting the former is a very great mercy. 16 For by this Oeconomy God gives us a great argument to prove the resurrection, since to his saints and servants he assignes sorrow for their present portion. Sorrow cannot be the reward of vertue, it may be its instrument, and hand-maid, but not its reward; and therefore it may be intermedial to some great purposes, but they C must look for their portion in the other life: For if in this life onely we had hope, then we were of all men the most miserable. It is Sain Pauls argument to prove a beatificall resurrection: And we therefore may learn to estimate, the state of the afflicted godly to be a mercy great, in proportion to the greatnesse of that reward, which these afflictions come to secure and to prove.

Nunc & damna juvant, sunt ipsa pericula tanti, Stantia non poterant tecta probare Deos.

It is a great matter, an infinite blessing to escape the pains of hell; D and therefore that condition is also very blessed which God sends us to create and to confirm our hopes of that excellent mercy. 17. The sufferings of the saints are the sum of Christian Philosophy; they are sent to wean us from the vanities and affections of this world, and to create in us strong desires of heaven, whiles God causes us to be here treated rudely, that we may long to be in our Countrey, where God shall be our portion, and Angels our companions, and Christ our perpetuall feast, and a never ceasing joy shall be our condition and entertainment. O death, how bitter E Ecclus. 40. 1. art thou to a man that is at ease and rest in his possessions: but he that is uneasie in his body, and unquiet in his possessions, vexed in his person, discomposed in his designes, who findes no pleasure, no rest here, will be glad to fix his heart, where onely he shall have what he can desire, and what can make him happy. As long [Page] A as the waters of persecutions are upon the earth, so long we dwell in the Ark; but where the land is dry, the Dove it self will be tempted to a wandring course of life, and never to return to the house of her safety. What shall 1 say more? 18 Christ nourisheth his Church by sufferings. 19 He hath given a single blessing to all other graces, but to them that are persecuted, he hath promised a double one. It being a double favour, first to be innocent Matth. 5. 12, &c. like Christ, and then to be afflicted like him. 20. Without this, the miracles of patience, which God hath given to fortifie the spirits of the saints would signifie nothing. Nemo enim tolerare tanta B velit sine causâ, nec potuit sine Deo, as no man would bear evils without a cause, so no man could bear so much without the supporting hand of God; and we need not the Holy Ghost to so great purposes, if our lot were not sorrow and persecution; and therefore without this condition of suffering, the Spirit of God should lose that glorious attribute of The Holy Ghost the Comforter. 21. Is there any thing more yet? Yes They that have suffered or forsaken any lands for Christ, shall sit upon thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel, so said Christ to his Disciples. Nay the saints shall C judge Angels, (saith saint Paul) well therefore might Saint Paul say, I rejoyce exceedingly in tribulation. It must be some great thing that must make an afflicted man to rejoyce exceedingly; and so it was. For since patience is necessary that we receive the promise, and tribulation does work this: For a short time it worketh the consummation of our hope, even an exceeding weight of glory. We have no reason to think it strange concerning the fiery triall, as if it were a strange thing. It can be no hurt; the Church is like Moses bush, when it is all on fire, it is not at all consumed, but made full of miracle, full of splendour, full of God: and unlesse we can finde D something that God cannot turn into joy, we have reason not onely to be patient, but rejoyce, when we are persecuted in a righteous cause: For love is the soul of Christianity, and suffering is the soul of love. To be innocent, and to be persecuted, are the body and soul of Christianity. I John your brother, and partaker of tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus, said Saint John: those were the titles and ornaments of his profession; that is, I John your fellow Christian; thats the plain song of the former descant. He therefore that is troubled, when he is afflicted in his outward man, that his inward man may grow strong, like the birds E upon the ruines of the shell, and wonders that a good man should be a begger, and a sinner be rich with oppression, that Lazarus should die at the gate of Dives, hungry and sick, unpitied, and unrelieved, may as well wonder, that carrion crowes should feed themselves fat upon a fair horse, farre better then himself; or that his own excellent body should be devoured by wormes, and the most contemptible creatures, though it lies there to be converted [Page] into glory; That man knows nothing of nature, or providence, A or Christianity, or the rewards of vertue, or the nature of its constitution, or the infirmities of man, or the mercies of God, or the arts and prudence of his loving kindnesse, or the rewards of heaven, or the glorifications of Christs exalted humanity, or the precepts of the Gospel, who is offended at the sufferings of Gods deerest servants, or declines the honour and the mercy of sufferings in the cause of righteousnesse; For the securing of a vertue, for the imitation of Christ, and for the love of God, or the glories of immortality. It cannot, it ought not, it never will be otherwise, the world may as well cease to be measured by time, as good men to suffer affliction. B I end this point with the words of Saint Paul, Let as many as are perfect, be thus minded, and if any man be otherwise minded, God also Phil. 3. 15. will reveal this unto you, this, of the covenant of sufferings, concerning which the old Prophets, and holy men of the Temple had many thoughts of heart; but in the full sufferings of the Gospel, there hath been a full revelation of the excellency of the sufferings. I have now given you an account of some of those reasons, why God hath so disposed it, that at this time, that is, under the period of the Gospel, judgement must begin at the house of God, and they are either, [...], or imitation of Christs C [...], chastisements, or trials, martyrdom, or a conformity to the sufferings of the Holy Jesus.

But now besides all the premises, we have another account to make concerning the prosperity of the wicked: For if judgment first begin at us? what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? that is the question of the Apostle, and is the great instrument of comfort to persons ill treated in the actions of the world. The first ages of the Church lived upon promises, and prophecies; and because some of them are already fulfilled for ever, and the others are of a continuall and a successive nature, and are D verified by the actions of every day: Therefore we and all the following Ages live upon promises and experience: and although the servants of God have suffered many calamities, from the tyranny and prevalency of evil men their enemies, yet still it is preserved as one of the fundamentall truths of Christianity; That all the fair fortunes of the wicked are not enough to make them happy, nor the persecutions of the godly, able to make a good man miserable; nor yet their sadnesses arguments of Gods displeasure against them. For when a godly man is afflicted and dies, it is his work and his businesse; and if the wicked prevail, that is, E if they persecute the godly, it is but that which was to be expected from them: For who are fit to be hangmen, and executioners of publike wrath but evil and ungodly persons? And can it be a wonder that they whose cause wants reason, should betake themselves to the sword? that what he cannot perswade he may [Page] A wrest? onely we must not judge of the things of God by the measures of men, [...], the things of men have this world for their stage, and their reward, but the things of God relate to the world to come: and for our own particulars we are to be guided by rule, and by the end of all, not by events intermedial, which are varied by a thousand irregular causes. For if all the evil men in the world were unprosperous (as most certainly they are) and if all good persons were temporally blessed (as most certainly they are not) yet this would not move us to become vertuous: If an angel should come from heaven, or one arise from the dead and preach repentance, B or justice, and temperance, all this would be ineffectuall to those to whom the plain doctrines of God, delivered in the Law and the Prophets will not suffice.

For why should God work a signe to make us to beleeve that we ought to do justice; if we already beleeve, he hath commanded it, no man can need a miracle for the confirmation of that which he already beleeves to be the command of God: And when God hath expressely bidden us to obey every ordinance of man for the Lords sake, the King as supreme, and his deputies as sent by him: It is a strange infidelity to think, that a rebellion against the ordinance of C God, can be sanctified by successe and prevalency, of them that destroy the authority, and the person, and the law, and the religion: The sin cannot grow to its height if it be crushed at the beginning; unlesse it prosper in its progresse, a man cannot easily fill up the measure of his iniquity: but then that the sin swels to its fulnesse by prosperity, and grows too big to be suppressed without a miracle, it is so far from excusing, or lessening the sin, that nothing doth so nurse the sin as it: It is not vertue, because it is prosperous, but if it had not been prosperous, the sin could never be so great.

D —Facere omnia saevè

Non impunè licet, nisi dum facis.

A little crime is sure to smart, but when the sinner is grown rich, and prosperous, and powerfull, he gets impunity.

Jusque datum sceleri—

But thats not innocence, and if prosperity were the voice of God to approve an action, then no man were vitious, but he that is punished, and nothing were rebellion, but that which cannot be E easily suppressed, and no man were a Pirate but he that robs with a little vessell, and no man could be a Tyrant but he that is no prince, and no man an unjust invader of his neighbours rights, but he that is beaten and overthrown. Then the crime grows big and loud, then it calls to Heaven for vengeance, when it hath been long a growing, when it hath thrived under the Devils managing; when [Page] God hath long suffered it, and with patience in vain expecting the A repentance of a sinner: he that treasures up wrath against the day of wrath, that man hath been a prosperous, that is an unpunished and a thriving sinner: but then it is the sin that thrives not the man: and that is the mistake upon this whole question: for the sin cannot thrive, unlesse the man goes on without apparent punishment, and restraint. And all that the man gets by it is, that by a continual course of sin, he is prepared for an intollerable ruine. The Spirit of God bids us look upon the end of these men; not the way they walk or the instrument of that pompous death. When Epaminondas was asked, which of the three was happiest, himself, Chalrias, B or Iphicrates, bid the man stay till they were all dead; for till then that question could not be answered. He that had seen the Vandals besiege the city of Hippo, and have known the barbarousnesse of that unchristned people, and had observed that S. Augustine withall his prayers and vows could not obtain peace in his own dayes, not so much as a reprieve for the persecution, and then had observed S. Augustine die with grief that very night, would have perceived his calamity more visible then the reward of his piety and holy religion. When Lewis sirnamed Pius went his voyage to C Palestine upon a holy end, and for the glory of God to fight against the Saracens and Turks, and Mamalukes, the world did promise to themselves that a good cause should thrive in the hands of so holy a man: but the event was far otherwise; his brother Robert was killed, and his army destroyed, and himself taken prisoner, and the money which by his Mother was sent for his redemption was cast away in a storm, and he was exchanged for the last town the Christians had in Egypt, and brought home the crosse of Christ upon his shoulder in a real pressure and participation of his Masters sufferings. When Charles the fifth went to Algier to suppresse D pirates and unchristned villains, the cause was more confident then the event was prosperous: and when he was almost ruined in a prodigious storme, he told the minutes of the clock, expecting that at midnight, when religious persons rose to Mattins, he should be eased by the benefit of their prayers: but the providence of God trod upon those waters, and left no footstoops for discovery: his navie was beat in pieces, and his designe ended in dishonour, and his life almost lost by the bargain. Was ever cause more baffled then the Christian cause by the Turks, in all Asia and Africa, and some parts of Europe, if to be persecuted and afflicted be reckoned a calamity? E What prince was ever more unfortunate then Henry the sixt of England, and yet that age saw none more pious and devout, and the title of the house of Lancaster was advanced against the right of York, for three descents; but then what was the end of these things? the persecuted men were made Saints, and their memories are preserved in honour, and their souls shall reigne for ever; [Page] A and some good men were ingaged in a wrong cause, and the good cause was sometimes managed by evil men, till that the suppressed cause was lifted up by God in the hands of a young and prosperous prince, and at last, both interests were satisfied in the conjunction of two roses, which was brought to issue by a wonderful chain of causes managed by the divine providence: and there is no age, no history, no state, no great change in the world, but hath ministred an example of an afflicted truth, and a prevailing sin: For I will never more call that sinner prosperous, who after he hath been permitted to finish his businesse, shall die, and perish miserably: B for at the same rate, we may envie the happinesse of a poor fisherman, who while his nets were drying, slept upon the rock and dreamt that he was made a King; on a sudden starts up, and leaping for joy, fals down from the rock, and in the place of his imaginary felicities, loses his little portion of pleasure, and innocent folaces, he had from the sound sleep and little cares of his humble cottage.

And what is the prosperity of the wicked? to dwel in fine houses, or to command armies, or to be able to oppresse their brethren, C or to have much wealth to look on, or many servants to feed, or much businesse to dispatch, and great cares to master; these things are of themselves neither good nor bad; but consider: would any man amongst us, looking and considering before hand, kill his lawful King to be heire of all that which I have named? would any of you choose, to have God angry with you upon these terms? would any of you be a perjured man for it all? A wise man or a good, would not choose it: would any of you die an Atheist that you might live in plenty and power? I believe you tremble to think of it. It cannot therefore be a happinesse to thrive, upon D the stock of a great sin: for if any man should contract with an impure spirit, to give his soul up at a certain day, it may be 20. years hence, upon the condition he might for 20. years have his vain desires, should we not think that person infinitely miserable; every prosperous thriving sinner is in the same condition; within these twenty years, he shall be thrown into the portion of Devils, but shall never come out thence in twenty millions of years. His wealth must needs sit uneasie upon him, that remembers that within a short space he shall be extreamely miserable; and if he does not remember it, he does but secure it the more. And that God defers E the punishment, and suffers evil men to thrive in the opportunities of their sin, it may and does serve many ends of providence, and mercy, but serves no end that any evil men can reasonably wish or propound to themselves eligible.

Bias said well to a vitious person, Non metuo ne non sis daturus paenas, sed metuo ne id non sim visurus, He was sure the man should be punished, he was not sure he should live to see it: and though [Page] the messenians that were betrayed and slain by Aristocrates in the A battle of Cyprus, were not made alive again, yet the justice of God was admired, and treason infinitly disgraced, when twenty years after, the treason was discovered, and the the traitor punished, with a horrid death. Lyciscus gave up the Orchomenians to their enemies, having first wished his feet, which he then dipt in water, might rot off, if he were not true to them; and yet his feet did not rot till those men were destroyed, and of a long time after; and yet at last they did; slay them not O Lord lest my people forget it (saith David) if punishment were instantly and totally inflicted, it would be but a sudden and single document: but a slow B and lingring judgement, and, a wrath breaking out in the next age, is like an universal proposion, teaching our posterity, that God was angry all the while, that he had a long indignation in his brest, that he would not forget to take veangeance: and it is a demonstration, that even the prosperous sins of the present age, will finde the same period in the Divine revenge when men see a judgement upon the Nephevvs for the sins of their Grand-fathers, though in other instances, and for sinnes acted in the dayes of their Ancestors.

We knovv that vvhen in Henry the eighth, or Edvvard the sixth C dayes, some great men pulled dovvn Churches and built palaces, and robd religion of its just incouragements, and advantages; the men that did it were sacrilegious; and we finde also that God hath been punishing that great sin, ever since; and hath displaied to so many generations of men, to three or four descents of children, that those men could not be esteemed happy in their great fortunes, against whom God was so angry, that he would show his displeasure for a hundred years together. When Herod had killed the babes of Bethlehem, it was seven years before God called him to an account. But he that looks upon the end of that man, would D rather choose the fat of the oppressed babes, then of the prevailing and triumphing Tyrant: It was fourty years before God punished the Jews, for the execrable murder committed upon the person of their King, the holy Jesus; and it was so long, that when it did happen, many men attributed it to their killing S. James their Bishop and seemed to forget the greater crime, but non eventu rerum sed fide verborum stamus: we are to stand to the truth of Gods word not to the event of things. Because God hath given us a rule but hath left the judgement to himself; and we die so quickly, (and God measures althings by his standard of eternity, and 1000 years E to God is but as one day) that we are not competent persons to measure the times of Gods account, and the returnes of judgement. We are dead before the arrow comes, but the man scapes not, unlesse his soul can die, or that God cannot punish him. Ducunt Job. 21. in bonis dies suos & in momento descendunt ad infernum, thats [Page] A their fate, they spend their dayes in plenty, and in a moment descend into hell: in the meane time they drink and forget their sorrow; but they are condemned they have drunk their hemlock, but the poison does not work yet: the bait is in their mouths, and they are sportive; but the hook hath strook their nostrils, and they shall never escape the ruine; And let no man call the man fortunate, because his execution is deferd for a few dayes, when the very deferring shall increase, and ascertain the condemnation.

But if we should look under the skirt of the prosperous and prevailing Tyrant, we should finde even in the dayes of his joyes, such allayes and abatements of his pleasure, as may serve to represent B him presently miserable, besides his final infelicities. For I have seen a young and healthful person warm and ruddy under a poor and a thin garment, when at the same time, an old rich person hath been cold, and paralytick, under a load of sables and the skins of foxes; it is the body that makes the clothes warm, not the clothes the body: and the spirit of a man makes felicity and content, not any spoils of a rich fortune wrapt about a sickly and an uneasie soul. Apollodorus was a Traitor, and a Tyrant, and the world wondered to see a bad man have so good a fortune; But knew not that he nourished Scorpions in his brest, and that his liver and his heart C were eaten up with Spectres and images of death; his thoughts were full of interruptions, his dreams of illusions, his fancie was abused with real troubles, and phantastick images, imagining that he saw the Scythians flaying him alive, his daughters like pillars of fire dancing round about a cauldron in which himself was boyling, and that his heart accused it self to be the cause of all these evils: And although all tyrants have not imaginative and phantastick consciences, yet all tyrants shall die and come to judgement; and such a man is not to be feared, nor at all to be envied: and in the D mean time can he be said to escape, who hath an unquiet conscience, who is already designed for hell, he whom God hates and the people curse, and who hath an evil name, and against whom all good men pray, and many desire to fight, and all wish him destroyed, and some contrive to do it? is this man a blessed man? Is that man prosperous who hath stolen a rich robe, & is in fear to have his throat cut for it, and is fain to defend it with the greatest difficulty and the greatest danger? Does not he drink more sweetly, that takes his beaverage in an earthen vessel, then he that looks and searches E into his golden chalices for fear of poison, and looks pale, at every sudden noise, and sleeps in armour, and trusts no body and does not trust God for his safety, but does greater wickednesse onely to escape a while un punished for his former crimes? Aurobibitur venenum, No man goes about to poison a poor mans pitcher, nor layes plots to forrage his little garden made for the hospital of two bee hives, and the feasting of a few Pythagorean herbe eaters.

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They that admire the happinesse of a prosperous, prevailing Tyrant, A know not the felicities, that dwell in innocent hearts, and poor cottages and small fortunes.

A Christian so long as he preserves his integrity to God and to religion is bold in all accidents, he dares die, and he dares be poor; but if the persecutor dies, he is undone. Riches are beholding to our fancies for their value; and yet the more we value the riches, the lesse good they are, and by an overvaluing affection, they become B our danger and our sin: But on the other side, death and persecution loose all the ill, that they can have, if we do not set an edge upon them by our fears and by our vices. From our selves riches take their wealth, and death sharpens his arrows at our forges and we may set their prices as we please; and if we judge by the spirit of God, we must account them happy that suffer; And therefore that the prevailing oppressor, Tyrant, or persecutor is infinitly miserable, onely let God choose by what instruments he will govern the world, by what instances himself would be served, C by what waies he will chastise the failings and exercise the duties, and reward the vertues of his servants. God sometimes punishes one sinne with another, pride with adultery, drunkennesse with murder, carelesnesse with irreligion, idlenesse with vanity, penury with oppression, irreligion with blasphemy, and that with Atheisme, and therefore it is no wonder if he punishes a sinner by a sinner And if David made use of villains and profligate persons to frame an armie; and Timoleon destroy'd the Carthaginians by the help of souldiers, who themselves were sacrilegious; and Physitians use the poison to expel poisons; and all common-wealths D take the basest of men to be their instruments of justice and executions; we shall have no further cause to wonder, if God raises up the Assyrians to punish the Israelites, and the Egyptians to destroy the Assyrians, and the Ethiopians to scourge the Egyptians, and at last his own hand shall separate the good from the bad in the day of separation, in the day when he makes up his Iewels.

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God hath many ends of providence to serue by the hands of violent and vitious men, by them he not onely checks the beginning errours, and approaching sins of his predestinate, but by them he changes governments and alters kingdoms, and is terrible among the [Page] A sons of men: for since it is one of his glories, to convert evil into good, and that good into his own glory, and by little and little to open and to turn the leaves and various folds of providence; it becomes us onely to dwell in duty, and to be silent in our thoughts, and wary in our discourses of God; and let him choose the time when he will prune his vine, and when he will burn his thorns: how long he will smite his servants, and when he will destroy his enemies. In the dayes of the primitive persecutions, what prayers, how many sighings, how deep groanes, how many bottles of tears did God gather into his repository, all praying for ease and deliverances, B for Halcyon dayes and fine sunshine, for nursing fathers and nursing mothers, for publick assemblies, and open and solemn sacraments: And it was 3 hundred years before God would hear their prayers: and all that while the persecuted people were in a cloud, but they were safe and knew it not: and God kept for them the best wine untill the last; they ventured for a crown and fought valiantly, they were faithful to the death, and they received a crown of life, and they are honored by God, by angels, and by men; whereas in all the prosperous ages of the Church, we hear no stories of such multitudes of Saints no record of them, no honour to their memorial, no accident C extraordinary; scarce any made illustrious with a miracle, which in the dayes of suffering were frequent and popular. And after all our fears of sequestration and poverty, of death or banishment, our prayers against the persecution, and troubles under it, we may please to remember that twenty years hence (it may be sooner, it wil not be much longer) all our cares and our troubles shall be dead, and then it shall be enquired how we did bear our sorrows, and who inflicted them, and in what cause, and then he shall be happy that keeps company with the persecuted, and the persecutors shall be shut out amongst dogs and unbelievers.

D He that shrinks from the yoke of Christ, from the burden of the Lord, upon his death-bed will have cause to remember, that by that time all his persecutions would have been past, and that then there would remain nothing for him, but rest and crowns and scepters. When Lysimachus, impatient and overcome with thirst gave up his kingdom to the Getae, and being a captive and having drank a lusty draught of wine, and his thirst was now gone, he fetched a deep sigh and said, Miserable man that I am, who for so little pleasure, the pleasure of one draught lost so great a Kingdom such will be their case, who being impatient of suffering, E change their persecution into wealth, and an easie fortune they shall finde themselves miserable, in the separations of eternity losing the glories of heaven for so little a pleasure, illiberalis & ingratae voluptatis causa as Plutarch calls it, for illiberal and ungratefull pleasure, in which when a man hath entred, he loses the rights and priviledges and honours of a good man, and gets nothing [Page] that is profitable and useful to holy purposes, or necessary A to any; but is already in a state so hateful and miserable, that he needs neither God nor man to be a revenger, having already under his splendid robe, miseries enough to punish and betray this hypocrisy of his condition: being troubled with the memory of what is past, distrustful of the present, suspicious of the future, vitious in their lives, and full of pageantry and out-sides, but in their death miserable with calamities, real, eternal and insupportable; and if it could be other wise, vertue it self would be reproached with the calamity.

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I end with the advice of Saint Paul, In nothing be terrified of your adversaries, which to them is an evident token of perdition, but to you Phil. 1. 28. of salvation and that of God. C D E

Sermon. XI. B The Faith and Patience of the SAINTS: OR The righteous cause oppressed. Part III.

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C BUt now that the persecuted may at least be pitied, and assisted in that of which they are capable, I shall propound some rules by which they may learn to gather grapes from their thorns, and figs from their thistles, crowns from the crosse, glory from dishonour. As long as they belong to God, it is necessary that they suffer persecution, or sorrow, no rules can teach them to avoid that; but the evil of the suffering, and the danger, must be declined, and we must use such spirituall arts as are apt to turn them into health and medicine: For it were a hard thing, first to be scourged, and then to be crucified; to suffer here, and to perish D hereafter; through the fiery triall, and purging fire of afflictions, to passe into hell: that, is intollerable; and to be prevented with the following cautions, least a man suffers like a fool, and a malefactour, or inherits damnation for the reward of his imprudent suffering.

1. They that suffer any thing for Christ, and are ready to die for him, let them do nothing against him. For certainly they think too highly of martyrdom, who beleeve it able to excuse all the evils of a wicked life. A man may give his body to be burned, E and yet have no charity; and he that dies without charity, dies without God, for God is love: And when those who fought in the dayes of the Maccabees, for the defence of true Religion, and were killed in those holy warres, yet being dead, were found having about their necks, [...], or pendants, consecrated to idols of the Jamnenses, it much allayed the hope, which by their dying in so good a cause was entertained concerning their beatificall [Page] resurrection. He that overcomes his fear of death does well; A but if he hath not also overcome his lust, or his anger, his baptisme of blood will not wash him clean. Many things may make a man willing to die in a good cause: Publike reputation, hope of reward, gallantry of spirit, a confident resolution, and a masculine courage; or a man may be vexed into a stubborn and unrelenting suffering: But nothing can make a man live well, but the grace and the love of God. But those persons are infinitely condemned by their last act, who professe their religion to be worth dying for, and yet are so unworthy, as not to live according to its institution. It were a rare felicity, if every good cause could be B mannaged by good men onely; but we have found that evil men have spoiled a good cause, but never that a good cause made those evil men good and holy. If the Governour of Samaria had crucified Simon Magus for receiving Christian Baptisme, he had no more died a martyr, then he lived a saint. For dying is not enough, and dying in a good cause is not enough, but then onely we receive the crown of martyrdom, when our death is the seal of our life, and our life is a continuall testimony of our duty, and both give testimony to the excellencies of the religion, and glorifie the grace of God. If a man be gold, the fire purges him, but it burns C him if he be like stubble, cheap, light, and uselesse: For martyrdom is the consummation of love: But then it must be supposed, that this grace must have had its beginning, and its severall stages, and periods, and must have passed thorow labour to zeal, thorow all the regions of duty, to the perfections of sufferings; and therefore it is a sad thing to observe, how some empty souls will please themselves with being of such a religion, or such a cause, and though they dishonour their religion, or weigh down the cause with the prejudice of sin, beleeve all is swallowed up by one honourable name, or the appellative of one vertue: If God had forbid D nothing but heresie and treason, then to have been a loyall man, or of a good beleef, had been enough; but he that forbad rebellion, forbids also swearing, and covetousnesse, rapine, and oppression, lying, and cruelty: And it is a sad thing to see a man not onely to spend his time, and his wealth and his money, and his friends upon his lust, but to spend his sufferings too, to let the canker-worm of a deadly sin, devour his Martyrdom: He therefore that suffers in a good cause, let him be sure to walk worthy of that honour▪ to which God hath called him; Let him first deny his sins, and then deny himself, and then he may take up his crosse and follow Christ; E ever remembring that no man pleases God in his death, who hath walked perversely in his life.

2. He that suffers in a cause of God, must be indifferent what the instance be, so that he may serve God. I say, he must be indifferent in the cause, so it be a cause of God, and indifferent in the [Page] A suffering, so it be of Gods appointment. For some men have a naturall aversation to some vices, or vertues, and a naturall affection to others. One man will die for his friend, and another will die for his money: Some men hate to be a rebell and will die for their Prince; but tempt them to suffer for the cause of the Church, in which they were baptized, and in whose communion they look for heaven, and then they are tempted, and fall away. Or if God hath chosen the cause for them, and they have accepted it, yet themselves will choose the suffering. Right or wrong, some men will not endure a prison; and some that can, yet choose the heaviest B part of the burden, the pollution and stain of a sin, rather then lose their money; and some had rather die twice then lose their estates once. In this our rule is easie. Let us choose God, and let God choose all the rest for us, it being indifferent to us, whether by poverty or shame, by lingring or a sudden death, by the hands of a Tyrant Prince, or the despised hands of a base usurper, or a rebell, we receive the crown, and do honour to God and to Religion.

3. Whoever suffer in a cause of God, from the hands of cruell C and unreasonable men, let them not be too forward to prognosticate evil and death to their enemies; but let them solace themselves in the assurance of the divine justice, by generall consideration, and in particular, pray for them that are our persecutours. Nebuchadnezzar was the rod in the hand of God against the Tyrians, and because he destroyed that city, God rewarded him with the spoil of Egypt; and it is not alwayes certain, that God will be angry with every man, by whose hand affliction comes upon us. And sometimes two armies have met and fought, and the wisest man amongst them could not say, that either of the Princes D had prevaricated either the lawes of God, or of Nations, and yet it may be some superstitious, easie, and half witted people of either side, wonder that their enemies live so long! And there are very many cases of warre concerning which God hath declared nothing: and although in such cases, he that yeelds and quits his title rather then his charity, and the care of so many lives, is the wisest and the best man: yet if neither of them will do so, let us not decree judgements from heaven, in cases where we have no word from heaven, and thunder from our Tribunals, where no voice of God hath declared the sentence. But in such cases where E there is an evident tyranny or injustice, let us do like the good Samaritan, who dressed the wounded man, but never pursued the thief; let us do charity to the afflicted, and bear the crosse with noblenesse, and look up to Jesus, who endured the crosse, and despised the shame; but let us not take upon us the office of God, who will judge the Nations righteously, and when he hath delivered up our bodies will rescue our souls from the hands of unrighteous judges. [Page] I remember in the story that Plutarch tels concerning the soul of A Thespesius, that it met with a Prophetick Genius, who told him many things that should happen afterwards in the world, and the strangest of all was this, That there should be a King, Qui bonus cum sit, tyrannide vitam finiet: An excellent Prince, and a good man should be put to death by a rebell and usurping power; and yet that Prophetick soul could not tell that those rebels should within three yeers die miserable and accursed deaths; and in that great prophecy recorded by Saint Paul, That in the last dayes perillous 2 Tim. 3. 1. times should come, and men should be traitours, and selvish, having forms of godlinesse, and creeping into houses,] yet could B not tell us when those men should come to finall shame and ruine; onely by a generall signification he gave this signe of comfort to Gods persecuted servants, But they shall proceed no further, for their 2 Tim. 3. 9. folly shall be manifest to all men: that is, at long running they shall shame themselves, and for the elects sake those dayes of evil shall be shortned. But you and I may be dead first: And therefore onely remember, that they that with a credulous heart, and a loose tongue are too decretory, and enunciative of speedy judgements to their enemies, turn their religion into revenge, and therefore do beleeve it will be so, because they vehemently desire it C should be so, which all wise and good men ought to suspect, as lesse agreeing with that charity which overcomes all the sins, and all the evils of the world, and sits down and rests in glory.

4. Do not trouble your self by thinking how much you are afflicted, but consider how much you make of it: For reflex acts upon the suffering it self, can lead to nothing but to pride, or to impatience to temptation, or a postacy. He that measures the grains and scruples of his persecution, will soon sit down and call for ease, or for a reward; will think the time long, or his burden great; will be apt to complain of his condition, or set a greater D value upon his person. Look not back upon him that strikes thee, but upward to God that supports thee, and forward to the crown that is set before thee; and then consider, if the losse of thy estate hath taught thee to despise the world? whether thy poor fortune hath made thee poor in spirit? and if thy uneasie prison sets thy soul at liberty, and knocks off the fetters of a worse captivity. For then the rod of suffering turns into crowns and scepters, when every suffering is a precept, and every change of condition produces a holy resolution, and the state of sorrows makes the resolution actuall, and habituall, permanent, and persevering. For as the E silk-worm eateth it self out of a seed to become a little worm, and there feeding on the leaves of mulberies, it grows till its coat be off, and then works it self into a house of silk, then casting its pearly seeds for the young to breed, it leaveth its silk for man, and dieth all white and winged in the shape of a flying creature: So it [Page] A the progresse of souls: when they are regenerate by Baptisme, and have cast off their first stains and the skin of world [...], by feeding on the leaves of Scriptures, and the fruits of [...], and the joyes of the Sacrament, they incircle themselves in the rich garments of holy and vertuous habits; then by leaving their blood, which is the Churches seed, to raise up a new generation to God, they leave a blessed memory, and fair example, and are themselves turned into Angels, whose felicity is to do the will of God, as their imployments was in this world to suffer it; fiat voluntas tua is our daily prayer, and that is of a passive signification; thy will be done B upon us: and if from thence also we translate it into an active sence; and by suffering evils increase in our aptnesses to do well, we have done the work of Christians, and shall receive the reward of Martyrs.

5. Let our suffering be entertained by a direct election, not by collateral ayds and phantastick assistances. It is a good refreshment to a weak spirit to suffer in good company: and so Phocion encouraged a timerous Greek condemned to die; and he bid him be confident because that he was to die with Phocion; and when 40 Martyrs C in Cappadocia suffered, and that a souldier standing by came and supplyed the place of the one Apostate, who fell from his crown, being overcome with pain, it added warmth to the frozen confessors, and turnd them into consummate Martyrs. But if martyrdom were but a phantastick thing, or relyed upon vain accidents and irregular chances, it were then very necessary to be assisted by images of things, and any thing, lesse then the proper instruments of religion: But since it is the greatest action of the religion, and relies upon the most excellent promises, and its formality is to be an action of love, and nothing is more firmely chosen, (by an after election D (at least) then) an act of love; to support Martyrdom, or the duty of sufferings, by false arches and exteriour circumstances, is to build a tower upon the beams of the Sun, or to set up a woodden ladder to climbe up to Heaven; the soul cannot attain so huge and unimaginable felicities by chance and instruments of fancy: and let no man hope to glorifie God and go to Heaven by a life of sufferings, unlesse he first begin in the love of God, and from thence derive his choice, his patience, and confidence in the causes of vertue and religion, like beams, and warmth, and influence, from the body of the Sun. Some there are that fall under the burden, when they E are pressed hard, because they use not the proper instruments in fortifying the will in patience and resignation, but endeavour to lighten the burden in imagination; and when these temporary supporters fail, the building that relies upon them, rushes into coldnesse, recidivation, and luke warmnesse: and among all instances, that of the main question of the Text is of greatest power to abuse imprudent and lesse severe persons.

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Nullos esse Deos, inane coelum A

Affirmat Selius, probatque

Quod se videt dum negat haec beatum.

When men choose a good cause, upon confidence that an ill one cannot thrive, that is not for the love of vertue, or duty to God, but for profit and secular interests, they are easily lost when they see the wickednesse of the enemy to swell up by impunity and successe to a great evil: for they have not learned to distinguish a great growing sin, from a thriving and prosperous fortune. B

Ulla si juris tibi pejerati

Poena Barine nocuisset unquant:

Dente si nigro fieret vel unto turpior ungui Crederem.

They that beleeve and choose because of idle fears, and unreasonable fancies, or by mistaking the accounts of a man for the measures of God, or dare not commit treason, for fear of being blasted, may come to be tempted when they see a sinner thrive, and are scandalized all the way, if they C die before him; or they may come to receive some accidentall hardnesses, and every thing in the world may spoil such persons, and blast their resolutions. Take in all the aids you can, and if the fancy of the standers by or the hearing a cock crow, can adde any collaterall aids to thy weaknesse, refuse it not; But let thy state of sufferings begin with choice, and be confirmed with knowledge, and rely upon love, and the aids of God, and the expectations of heaven, and the present sense of duty, and then the action will be as glorious in the event, as it is prudent in the enterprise, and religious in the prosecution. D

6. Lastly, when God hath brought thee into Christs school, and entered thee into a state of sufferings, remember the advantages of that state: consider how unsavoury the things of the world appear to thee, when thou are under the arrest of death; remember with what comforts the Spirit of God assists thy spirit; set down in thy heart all those entercourses, which happen between God and thy own soul; the sweetnesses of religion, the vanity of sins appearances, thy newly entertained resolutions, thy longings after heaven, and all the things of God, and if God finishes thy persecution with death proceed in them; if he restores thee to the light E of the world, and a temporall refreshment, change but the scene of sufferings into an active life, and converse with God upon the same principles on which in thy state of sufferings thou dost build all the parts of duty. If God restores thee to thy estate, be not lesse in love with heaven, nor more in love with the world; let [Page] A thy spirit be now as humble as before it was broken, and to what soever degree of sobriety or austerity, thy suffering condition did enforce thee, if it may be turned into vertue, when God restores thee (because then it was necessary thou shouldest entertain it by an after choice) do now also by a prae election: that thou mayest say with David, It is good for me that I have been afflicted, for thereby I have learned thy commandments: and Paphnutius did not do his soul more advantage when he lost his right eye, and suffered his left knee to be cut for Christianity, and the cause of God, then that in the dayes of Constantine and the Churches peace, he lived, (not in B the toleration, but) in the active piety of a Martyrs condition; not now a confessor of the faith onely, but of the charity of a Christian: we may every one live to have need of these rules; and I do not at all think it safe to pray against it, but to be armed for it: and to whatsoever degree of sufferings God shal call us, we see what advantages God intends for us, and what advantages we our selves may make of it. I now proceed to make use of all the former discourse, by removing it a little further even into its utmost spiritual sense; which the Apostle does in the last words of the text [If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the wicked and the sinner appear.] C

These words are taken out of the proverbs 11. chap. 31 according to the translation of the 70. If the righteous scarcely is safe: where the word [...] implyes that he is safe; but by intermedial difficulties: and [...]] he is safe in the midst of his persecutions they may disturb his rest, and discompose his fancy, but they are like the firy charriot to Elias; he is encircled with fire and rare circumstances, and strange usages, but is carried up to Heaven in a robe of flames: and so was Noah safe when the flood came; and was the great type and instance too of the verification of this proposition, he was D [...], he was put into a strange condition, perpetually wandring, shut up in a prison of wood, living upon faith, having never had the experience of being safe in flouds. And so have I often seen young and unskilful persons sitting in a little boat, when every little wave sporting about the sides of the vessel, and every motion and dancing of the barge seemed a danger, and made them cling fast upon their fellows, and yet all the while they were as safe as if they sat under a tree, while a gentle winde shaked the leaves into a refreshment, and a cooling shade: And the unskiful unexperienced Christian shrikes out when ever his vessel shakes, thinking E it alwayes a danger, that the watry pavement is not stable and resident like a rock; and yet all his danger is in himself, none at all from without: for he is indeed moving upon the waters, but fastned to an [...]; faith is his foundation, and hope is his anchor and deathis his harbour, and Christ is his pilot, and heaven is his countrey, and all the evils of poverty, or affronts of tribunals: and evil [Page] judges, of sears and sadder apprehensions are but like the loud A wind blowing from the right point, they make a noise and drive faster to the harbour: and if we do not leave the ship and leap into the sea, quit the interests of religion and run to the securities of the world, cut our cables, and dissolve our hopes, grow impatient and hug a wave and die in its embraces, we are as safe at sea, safer in the storm which God sends us, then in a calm, when we are be friended with the world.

2. But [...] may also signifie raro: If the righteous is seldom safe; which implyes that sometimes he is, even in a temporal sense: God sometimes sends Halcy on dayes to his Church, and when he promised B Kings and Queens to be their nurses, he intended it for a blessing; and yet this blessing does of tenimes so ill succeed, that it is the greater blessing of the two, not to give us that blessing too freely: but [...] this is scarcly done, and yet sometimes it is, and God sometimes refreshes languishing piety with such arguments, as comply with our infirmities, and though it be a shame to us to need such allectives and infant gauds, such which the heathen world and the first rudiments of the Israelites did need, God who pitties us and will be wanting in nothing to us, as he corroborates our willing C spirits, with proper entertainments, so also he supports our weak flesh, and not onely cheers an afflicted soul with beams of light, and antepasts and earnests of glory, but is kinde also to our man of flesh, and weaknesse; and to this purpose he sends thunder-bolts from heaven upon evil men, dividing their tongues, infatuating their counsels, cursing their posterity, and ruining their families.

[...]

[...] D

[...].

Sometimes God destroyes their armies, or their strong holds, Sometimes breakes their ships, but this happens either for the weaknesse of some of his servants, and their too great aptnesse to be offended at a prosperous iniquity, or when he will not suffer the evil to grow too great, or for some end of his providence; and yet if this should be very often, or last long, God knows the danger, and vve should feel the inconvenience. Of all the types of Christ onely Joshuah and Solomon vvere noted to be generally prosperous, E and yet the fortune of the first was to be in perpetual vvar and danger, but the other vvas as himself could vvish it, rich and peaceful, and powerful, and healthful, and learned, and beloved, and strong and amoróus, and voluptuous, and so he fell, and though his fall was, yet his recovery vvas not upon record.

And yet the vvorst of evils that happen to the godly is better, [Page] A temporally better, then the greatest eternal felicity of the wicked: that in all senses the question may be considerable and argumentative; If the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly appear? if it be hard with good men, with the evil it shall be far worse. But see the difference. The godly man is timorous and yet safe, tossed by the seas, and yet safe at anchor, impaired by evil accidents and righted by divine comforts: made sad with a black cloud, and refreshed with a more gentle influence, abused by the world, and yet an heir of heaven, hated by men, and beloved by God, loses one house and gets an hundred, he quits a convenient lodging room and purchases a glorious countrey, is forsaken by his friends, but B never by a good conscience, he fares hardly and sleeps sweetly, he flies from his enemies, but hath no distracting fears, he is full of thought, but of no amazement; It is his businesse to be troubled, and his portion to be comforted, he hath nothing to afflict him, but the losse of that which might be his danger, but can never be his good, and in the recompence of this, he hath God for his father, Christ for his captain, the holy Ghost for his supporter so that he shall, have all the good which God can give him, and of all that good he hath the holy Trinity for an earnest and a gage, for his maintenance at the present, and his portion to all eternity. But though Paul C and Silas sing psalms in prison and under the hang-mans whips and in an earth-quake, yet neither the Jaylor nor the persecuting Magistrates could do so: For the prosperitie of the wicked is like a winters sun, or the joy of a condemned drunkard, it is a forgetfulnesse of his present danger, and his future sorrows, nothing but imginary arts of inadvertency: he sits in the gates of the city and judges others, and is condemned himself; he is honoured by the passers by, and is thought happy, but he sighs deeply; he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them; he commands an army and is him self a slave to his passions; he sleeps because he needs it, D and starts from his uneasie pillows which his thoughtful head hath discomposed; when he is waking he dreames of greatnesse, when he sleeps he dreams of spectars and illusions, he spoils a poor man of his lamb, and himself of his innocence and peace, and in every unjust purchase himself is the greatest loser.

[...]

[...].

Hesiod

E For just upon his oppression or injustice, he is turned a Devil, and Gods enemy, a wolf to his brother a greedy admirer of the ba [...]s of fishes, and the bread of dogs, he is unsafe by reason of his sin: for he hath against him the displeasure of God, the justice of the laws, the shame of the sin, the revenge of the injured person; and God and men, the laws of nations and private societies, stand upon [Page] their defence against this man; he is unsafe in his rest, amazed in A his danger, troubled in his labours, weary in his change, esteemed a base man, disgraced and scorned, feared and hated, flattered and derided, watched, and suspected, and it may be, dies in the middle of his purchase, and at the end is a fool and leaves a curse to his posterity.

[...].

Hefiod.

He leaves a generation of blacker children behinde him; so the Poet describes the cursednesse of their posterity, and their memory B sits down to eternal ages in dishonour, and by this time let them cast up their accounts, and see, if of all their violent purchases they carry any thing with them to the grave but sin, and a guilty conscience and a polluted soul, the anger of God and the shame of men; and what help shall all those persons give to thee in thy flames who divide and scatter that estate, for which thou diedst for ever.

Andire est operae pretium procedere recte C

Qui maechis non vultis, ut omni parte laborent:

vt que illis multo corrupta dolore voluptas

Atque haec rara cadat dura inter saepe pericla.

And let but a sober answer tel me if any thing in the world be more distant either from goodnesse or happinesse, then to scatter the plague of an accursed soul, as upon our dearest children; to make an universal curse; to be the fountain of a mischief, to be such a person, whom our children and nephews shall hate, and despise and D curse, when they groan under the burden of that plague, which their fathers sins brought upon the familie. If there were no other account to be given, it were highly enough to verifie the intent of my text; If the righteous scarcely be saved, or escape Gods angry stroke, the wicked must needs be infinitely more miserable;

[...]

[...]

[...] E

Neither I, nor my son (said the oldest of the Greek poets) would be vertuous, if to be a just person were all one as to be miserable. No, not onely in the end of affaires, and at sun set, but all the day long the Godly man is happy, and the ungodly and the sinner is very miserable.

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A Pellitur a populo victus Cato, tristior ille est,

Qui vicit, facesque pudet rapuisse Catoni

Nimque hoc dedecus est populi, morumque ruina

Non homo pulsus erat: sed in uno victa potestas

R [...]manumque decus.

And there needs no other argument to be added, but this one great testimony; that though the Godly are afflicted, and persecuted, yet even they are blessed and the persecutors are the most unsafe. They are essentially happy whom affliction cannot B make miserable.

Quis cur am neget esse te Deorunt

propter quem fuit innocens ruina?

But turns into their advantages, and thats the state of the Godly: and they are most intolerably accursed, who have no portions in the blessings of eternity, and yet cannot have comfort in the present purchases of their sin, to whom even their sunshine brings a drought, and their fairest is their foulest weather; and thats the portion of C the sinner and the ungodly. The godly are not made unhappy by their sorrows: and the wicked are such whom prosperity it self cannot make fortunate.

4 And yet after al this it is but [...] not [...] he scapes but hardly here: it will be well enough with him hereafter Isaac digged three wells: the first was called contention; for he drank the waters of strife and digged the well with his sword: the second well was not altogether so hard a purchase, he got it with some trouble, but that being over, he had some room and his fortune swelled, and he called his well [enlargement] but his third he called [abundance] D and then he dipt his foot in oyl and drank freely as out of a river; every good man first sowes in tears, he first drinks of the bottle of his own tears, sorrow and trouble, labour and disquiet, strivings and temptations: But if they passe through a torrent, and that vertue becomes easie and habitual, they finde their hearts enlarged and made spritely by the visitations of God and refreshment of his spirit; and then their hearts are enlarged, they know how to gather the down and softnesses from the sharpest thistles.

[...],

E [...]

[...].

At first we cannot serve God, but by passions and doing violence to all our wilder inclinations, and suffering the violence of tyrants and unjust persons.

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— [...] A

[...],

The second dayes of vertue are pleasant and easie in the midst of all the appendant labours; but when the Christians last pit is diged; when he is descended to his grave, and finished his state of sorrowes and suffering, then God opens the river of abundance, the rivers of life and never ceasing felicities. And this is that which God promised to his people. I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with Esay. 54. 8. everlasting kindnesse will I have mercy on thee saith the Lord thy redeemer; so much as moments are exceeded by eternity and the sighing B of a man by the joyes of an angel, and a salutary frown by the light of Gods countenance, a few groans by the infinite and eternal Halalujahs; so much are the sorrows of the godly to be undervalued, in respect of what is deposited for them in the treasures of eternity. Their sorrows can die but so cannot their joyes: and if the blessed Martyrs and confessors were asked concerning their past sufferings, & their present rest, and the joyes of their certain expectation you should hear them glory in nothing, but in the mercies of God and in the crosse of the Lord Jesus. Every chaine is a raie of light, and every prison is a palace, and every losse is the purchase of a kingdom, C and every affront in the cause of God is an eternal honour, and every day of sorrow is a thousand years of comfort, multiplied with a never ceasing numeration; dayes without night, joyes without sorrow, sanctity without sin, charity without stain, possession without fear, society without envying, communication of joyes without lessening, and they shall dwell in a blessed countrey, where an enemy never entred, and from whence a friend never went away. Well might David say, sunes ceciderunt mihi in praeclaris, the cords of my tent, [my ropes and the sorrow of my pilgrimage] fell to me in a good ground, and I have a goodly heritage; and when persecution D hewes a man down from a high fortune, to an even one, or from thence to the face of the earth, or from thence to the grave, a good man is but preparing for a crown, and the Tyrant does but first knock off the fetters of the soul, the manacles of passion and desire, sensual loves and lower appetites: and if God suffers him to finish the persecution, then he can but dismantle the souls prison, and let the soul forth to flie to the mountains of rest: and all the intermedial evils are but like the Persian punishments; the executioner tore off their haires and rent their silken mantles and discomposed their curious dressings, and lightly touched the skin, yet E the offender cried out with most bitter exclamations, while his fault was expiated with a ceremony and without blood: so does God to his servants; he rends their upper garments, and strips them of their unnecessary wealth, and tyes them to Physick, and salutary dicipline, and they cry out under usages which have nothing, [Page] A but the outward sense, and opinion of evil, not the reall substance: But if we would take the measures of images, we must not take the height of the base, but the proportion of the members, nor yet measure the estates of men by their big looking supporter, or the circumstance of an exteriour advantage, but by its proper commensuration in its self, as it stands in its order to eternity: And then the godly man that suffers sorrow and persecution ought to be relieved by us, but needs not be pitied in the summe of affairs. But since the two estates of the world are measured by time, and by eternity, and divided by joy and sorrow, and no man shall have B his portions of joyes in both the durations; the state of those men is insupportably miserable, who are fatted for slaughter, and are crowned like beasts for sacrifice; who are feared and fear, who cannot enjoy their purchases but by communications with others, and themselves have the least share, but themselves are alone in the misery, and the saddest dangers, and they possesse the whole portions of sorrows: to whom their prosperity gives but occasions to evil counsels, and strength to do mischief, or to nourish a serpent, or oppresse a neighbour, or to nurse a lust, to increase folly, and treasure up calamity: And did ever any man see, or story tell, that any tyrant C Prince kissed his rods, and axes, his sword of justice, and his Imperiall ensignes of power? They shine like a taper to all things but it self, but we read of many Martyrs who kissed their chains, and hugged their stakes, and saluted their hangman with great endearments, and yet abating the incursions of their seldom sins, these are their greatest evils; and such they are, with which a wise and a good man may be in love: And till the sinners and ungodly men can be so with their deep groans, and broken sleeps, with the wrath of God, and their portions of eternity; till they can rejoyce in death, and long for a resurrection, and with delight and a greedy hope can D think of the day of judgement, we must conclude that their glasse gems, and finest pageantry, their splendid outsides, and great powers of evil, cannot make amends for that estate of misery which is their portion, with a certainty as great as is the truth of God, and all the Articles of the Christian Creed. Miserable men are they who cannot be blessed, unlesse there be no day of judgement; who must perish unlesse the word of God should fail; If that be all their hopes, then we may with a sad spirit and a soul of pity inquire into the Question of the Text, Where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? Even there where Gods face shall never shine, where there shall be E fire and no light, where there shall be no Angels, but what are many thousands yeers ago turned into Devils, where no good man shall ever dwell, and from whence the evil and the accursed shall never be dismissed. O my God let my soul never come into their counsels, nor lie down in their sorrows.

Sermon. XII. B THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE IVDGMENTS; C OR Gods Method in curing Sinners.

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A

2. Romanes. 4. D

Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance?

FRom the beginning of Time till now, all effluxes which have come from God, have been nothing but emanations of his goodnesse, clothed in variety of circumstances. He made man E with no other designe, then that man should be happy, and by receiving derivations from his fountain of mercy, might reflect glory to him. And therefore God making man for his own glory, made also a paradise for mans use, and did him good to invite him to do himself a greater; for God gave forth demonstrations [Page] A of his power by instances of mercy: and he who might have made ten thousand worlds, of wonder and prodigy, and created man with faculties able onely to stare upon, and admire those miracles of mightinesse, did choose to instance his power in the effusions of mercy, that at the same instant he might represent himself desireable and adorable, in all the capacities of amability; that is, as excellent in himself, and profitable to us. For as the Sun sends forth a benigne and gentle influence on the seed of Plants, that it may invite forth the active and plastick power from its recesse and secresie, that by rising into the tallnesse and dimensions of a tree, it may still receive a greater and more refreshing influence from B its foster-father, the prince of all the bodies of light; and in all these emanations, the Sun its self receives no advantage, but the honour of doing benefits; so doth the Almighty Father of all the creatures: He at first sends forth his blessings upon us, that we by using them aright, should make our selves capable of greater; while the giving glory to God, and doing homage to him are nothing for his advantage, but onely for ours: our duties towards him being like vapours ascending from the earth, not at all to refresh the region of the clouds, but to return back in a fruitfull and refreshing shower: And God created us, not that we can increase C his felicity, but that he might have a subject receptive of felicity from him: thus he causes us to be born, that we may be capable of his blessings; he causes us to be baptized, that we may have a title to the glorious promises Evangelicall; he gives us his Son, that we may be rescued from hell: and when we constraine him to use harsh courses towards us, it is also in mercy: he smites us to cure a disease, he sends us sicknesse to procure our health; and as if God were all mercy, he his mercifull in his first designe, in all his instruments, in the way, and in the end of the journey, and does not onely shew the riches of his goodnesse to them that do D well, but to all men that they may do well: he is good to make us good; he does us benefits to make us happy: and if we by despising such gracious rayes of light and heat, stop their progresse and interrupt their designe, the losse is not Gods but ours; we shall be the miserable and accursed people: This is the sense and paraphrase of my Text. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse, &c. Thou dost not know, that is, thou considerest not that it is for further benefit that God does thee this; the goodnesse of God is not a designe to serve his own ends upon thee, but thine upon him: E The goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance.

Here then is Gods method of curing man-kind, [...]. First goodnesse, or inviting us to him by sugred words, by the placid arguments of temporall favour, and the propositions of excellent promises. Secondly [...] at the same time, although God is provoked every day, yet he does [...], he tolerates [Page] our stubbornnesse, he forbears to punish, and when he does begin A to strike, takes his hand off, and gives us truce and respite. For so [...] signifies laxamentum, and inducias too. Thirdly [...]] still, a long putting off, and deferring his finall destroying anger▪ by using all meanes to force us to repentance; and this especially, by the way of judgements; these being the last reserves of the Divine mercy, and how ever we esteem it, is the greatest instance of the divine long sufferance that is in the world. After these instruments, we may consider the end, the strand upon which these land us, the purpose of this variety, of these laborious and admirable arts, with which God so studies and contrives the happinesse and B salvation of man; it is onely that man may be brought by these meanes unto repentance, and by repentance may be brought to eternall life: This is the treasure of the Divine goodnesse, the great and admirable efflux of the eternal beneficence; the [...], the riches of his goodnesse, which whosoever despises, despises himself and the great interest of his own felicity; he shall die in his impenitence, and perish in his folly.

1. The first great instrument, that God chooses to bring us to him is [...], profit, or benefit, and this must needs be first, for those instruments whereby we have a being are so great mercies▪ C that besides that they are such which give us the capacities of all other mercies, they are the advances of us in the greatest instances of promotion in the world: For from nothing to something is an infinite space, and a man must have a measure of infinite passed upon him, Before he can perceive himself to be either happy or miserable: he is not able to give God thanks for one blessing, untill he hath received many. But then God intends we should enter upon his service at the beginning of our dayes, because even then he is before-hand with us, and hath already given us great instances of his goodnesse: What a prodigy of favour is it to us, that D he hath passed by, so many formes of his creatures, and hath not set us down in the rank of any of them, till we came to be paul [...] minores angelis, a little lower then the angels: and yet from the meanest of them God can perfect his own praise; The deeps and the snows, the hail and the rain, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea, they can and do glorifie God, and give him praise in their capacity; and yet he gave them no speech, no reason, no immortall spirit, or capacity of eternall blessednesse; but he hath distinguished us from them by the absolute issues of his predestination, and hath given us a lasting and eternall spirit, excellent organs E of perception, and wonderfull instruments of expression, that we may joyn in consort with the morning star, and bear a part in the Chorus with the Angels of light, to sing Alleluiah to the great Father of men and Angels.

But was it not a huge chain of mercies that we were not strangled [Page] A in the regions of our own naturall impurities, but were sustained by the breath of God, from perishing in the womb, where God formed us in secreto terrae, told our bones, and kept the order of nature, and the miracles of creation; and we lived upon that which in the next minute after we were born would strangle us if it were not removed: but then God took care of us, and his hands of providence clothed us and fed us. But why do I reckon the mercies of production which in every minute of our being are alike and continued, and are miracles in all senses but that they are common and usuall? I onely desire you to remember, that God made all the works of his hands to serve him; and indeed this mercy of B creating us such as we are, was not to lead us to repentance, but was a designe of innocence: he intended we should serve him as the Sun and the Moon do; as fire and water do: never to prevaricate the laws he fixed to us, that we might have needed no repentance. But since we did degenerate, and being by God made better and more noble creatures then all the inhabitants of the air, the water and the earth besides, we made our selves baser and more ignoble then any: For no dog, crocodile, or swine was ever Gods enemy, as we made our selves: yet then from thence forward, God began his work of leading us to repentance, by the riches of his goodnesse. C He causeth us to be born of Christian parents, under whom we were taught the mysteriousnesse of its goodnesse and designes, for the redemption of man: And by the designe of which religion repentance was taught to mankind, and an excellent law given for distinction of good and evil; and this is a blessing which though possibly we do not often put into our eucharisticall Letanies to give God thanks for, yet if we sadly consider, what had become of us, if we had been born under the dominion of a Turkish Lord, or in America where no Christians do inhabite, where they worship the Devil, where witches are their priests, their prophets, their phisitians, D and their Oracles, can we choose but apprehend a visible notorious necessity of perishing in those sins which we then should not have understood by the glasse of a divine law, to have declined, nor by a revelation have been taught to repent of? But since the best of men does in the midst of all the great advantages of lawes, and examples, and promises, and threatnings do many things he ought to be ashamed of, and needs to repent of, we can understand the riches of the Divine goodnesse best, by considering that E the very designe of our birth and education in the Christian religion is, that we may recover of, and cure our follies by the antidote of repentance, which is preached to us as a doctrine, and propounded as a favour, which was put into a law and purchased for us by a great expence, which God does not more command to us as a duty, then he gives us a blessing; For now that we shall not perish for our first follies, but be admitted to new conditions, to be repaired [Page] by second thoughts to have our infirmities excused, and our A sins forgiven, our habits lessened, and our malice cured after we were wounded, and sick, and dead, and buried, and in the possession of the Devil; this was such a blessing, so great riches of the Divine goodnesse, that as it was taught to no religion but the Christian, revealed by no law-giver but Christ, so it was a favour greater then ever God gave to the Angels and Devils: for although God was rich in the effusion of his goodnesse towards them, yet they were not admitted to the condition of second thoughts; Christ never shed one drop of blood for them, his goodnesse did not lead them to repentance: but to us it was that he made this largesse of his B goodnesse; to us, to whom he made himself a brother, and sucked the paps of our mother; he paid the scores of our sin, and shame, and death, onely that we might be admitted to repent and that this repentance might be effectuall to the great purposes of felicity and salvation: And if we would consider this sadly, it might make us better to understand our madnesse and folly in refusing to repent; That is, to be sorrowfull, and to leave all our sins, and to make amends by a holy life. For that we might be admitted and suffered to do so, God was fain to pour forth all the riches of C his goodnesse: It cost our deerest Lord the price of his deerest blood, many a thousand groans, millions of prayers and sighes, and at this instant, he is praying for our repentance: nay he hath prayed for our repentance these 1600. yeers incessantly, night and day, and shall do so till doomes day, [He sits at the right hand of God making intercession for us.] And that we may know what he prayes for, he hath sent us Embassadours to declare the purpose of all his designe, for Saint Paul saith, [We are Embassadours for Christ, as though he did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God.] The purpose of our Embassy and D Ministery, is a prosecution of the mercies of God, and the work of Redemption, and the intercession and mediation of Christ: It is the work of atonement and reconciliation that God designed, and Christ died for, and still prayes for, and we preach for, and you all must labour for.

And therefore here consider, if it be not infinite impiety to despise the riches of such a goodnesse, which at so great a charge, with such infinite labour, and deep mysterious arts, invites us to repentance; that is, to such a thing which could not be granted to us unlesse Christ should die to purchase it; such a glorious favour, that is E the issue of Christs prayers in heaven, and of all his labours, his sorrows, and his sufferings on earth: if we refuse to repent now, we do not so much refuse to do our own duty as to accept of a reward; it is the greatest and the dearest blessing that ever God gave to Men, that they may repent, and therefore to deny it, or to delay it, is to refuse health, brought us by the skill and industry of [Page] A the Physitian; it is to refuse liberty indulged to us by our gracious Lord; and certainly we had reason to take it very ill if at a great expence we should purchase a pardon for a servant and he out of a peevish pride or negligence shall refuse it; the scorne payes it self, the folly is its own scourge and sets down in an inglorious ruine.

After the enumeration of these glories, these prodigies of mercies & loving kindnesses, of Christs dying for us, and interceding for us and merely that we may repent, and be saved; I shall lesse need to instance those other particularities wherby God continues, as by B so many arguments of kindnesse to sweeten our natures and make them malleable to the precepts of love and obedience, the twinne daughters of holy repentance; but the poorest person amongst us, besides the blessing and graces already reckoned hath enough about him, and the accidents of every day to shame him into repentance. Does not God send his angels to keep thee in all thy wayes? are not they ministring spirits sent forth to wait upon thee as thy guard? art not thou kept from drowning, from fracture of bones, from madnesse, from deformities, by the riches of the divine C goodnesse? Tell the joynts of thy body, dost thou want a finger? and if thou doest not understand how great a blessing that is, do but remember how ill thou canst spare the use of it when thou hast but a thorn in it? The very privative blessings, the blessings of immunity, safeguard, and integrity, which we all enjoy deserve a thanks giving of a whole life. If God should send a cancer upon thy face or a wolf into thy brest, if he should spread a crust of leprosie upon thy skin, what wouldest thou give to be but as now thou art it wouldest thou not repent of thy sins upon that condition? which is the greater blessing to be kept from them, or to be D cured of them? and why therfore shall not this greater blessing lead thee to repentance? why do we not so aptly promise repentance when we are sick upon the condition to be made well, and yet perpetually forget it when we are well? as if health never were a blessing, but when we have it not; rather I fear the reason, is when we are sick we promised to repent, because then we cannot sin the sins of our former life; but in health our appetites return to their capacity and in all the way we despise the riches of the divine goodnesse which preserves us from such evils which would be full of horror and amazement if they should happen to us.

E Hath God made any of you all chapfallen? are you affrighted with spectars and illusions of the spirits of darknesse? how many earthquakes have you been in? how many dayes have any of you wanted [...] read? how many nights have you been without sleep? [...] any of you distracted of your senses? and if God gives you meat and drink, health and sleep, proper seasons of the year, in the senses and an useful understanding, what a great unworthynesse it is to be [Page] unthankful to so good a God so benigne a Father, so gracious A a Lord? All the evils and basenesse of the world can shew nothing baser and more unworthy then ingratitude: and therefore it was not unreasonably said of Aristottle, [...] prosperity makes a man love God, supposing men to have so much humanity left in them, as to love him from whom they have received so many favours. And Hippocrates said, that although poor men use to murmur against God, yet rich men will be offering sacrifice to their Diety whose beneficiaries they are. Now since the riches of the divine goodnesse are so poured out upon the meanest of us all, if we shal refuse to repent, which is a condition so reasonable, that God requiers B it onely for our sake and that it may end in our felicity, we do our selves despite to be unthankful to God; that is, we become miserable by making our selves basely criminal. And if any man with whom God hath used no other method but of his sweetnesse and the effusion of mercies, brings no other fruits but the apples of Sodom in return for all his culture and labours; God wil cut off that unprofitable branch that with Sodom it may suffer the flames of everlasting burning.

[...] C

[...]

[...];

If here we have good things and a continual shower of blessings to soften our stony hearts, and we shall remain obdurat against those sermons of mercy which God makes us every day, there will come a time when this shall be upbraided to us that we had not [...] a thankful minde, but made God to sowe his seed upon the sand or upon the stones, without increase or restitution. It was a sad alarum which God sent to David by Nathan to upbraid D his ingratitude. I anointed thee king over Israel, I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul, I gave thee thy masters house and wives into thy bosom, and the house of Israel and Judah, and if this had been too little, I would have given thee such and such things, wherefore hast thou despised the name of the Lord? but how infinitely more can God say to all of us then all this came to? he hath anointed us kings and priests in the royal pristhood of Christianity; he hath given us his holy spirit to be our guide, his angels to be our protectors, his creatures for our food and raiment; he hath delivered us from the hands of Sathan, hath conquered death for us, hath taken E the sting out and made it harmlesse and medicinal, and proclaimed us heires of heaven, coheires with the eternal Jesus, and if after all this, we despise the commandment of the Lord, and defer and neglect our repentance, what shame is great enough, what miseries are sharp enough, what hell painful enough for such horrid [Page] A ingratitude? Saint Lewis the King having sent Ivo Bishop of Chartres, on an embassy, the Bishop met a woman on the way, grave, sad, Phantastick & malancholy, with fire in one hand and water in the other, he asked what those symbols ment, she answered my purpose is with fire to burn Paradise, and with my water to quench the flames of hell, that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear, & purely for the love of God. But this woman began at the wrong end: the love of God is not produced in us after we have contracted evil habits, til God with his fan in his hand hath throughly purged the floore, till he hath cast out all the devils and swept B the house with the instrument of hope and fear and with the atchieuments and efficacy of mercies and judgements. But then since God may truely say to us, as of old to his rebellious people. Am I a dry tree to the house of Israel? that is, do I bring them no fruit, do they serve me for nought, and he expects not our duty till first we feel his go odnesse, we are now infinitely inexcusable to throw away so great riches, to despise such a goodnesse.

However that we may see the greatnesse of this treasure, of goodnesse God seldom leaves us thus: for he sees [be it spoken to the shame of our natures, and the dishonour of our manners] he C sees that his mercies do not allure us, do not make us thankful; but (as the Roman said), felicitate corrumpimur, we become worse for Gods mercy: and think it will be alwayes holiday, and are like the Christal of Arabia hardned notby cold, but made crusty and stubborn by the warmth of the divine fire, by its refreshments and mercies; therfore to demonstrate that God is good indeed, he con tinues his mercise still to us; but in another instance: he is merciful to us in punishing us, that by such instruments we may be led to repentance which will scare us from sin; he delivers us up to the paedagogy of the divine judgements, and there begins the second D part of Gods method intimated in the word [...] or forbearance. God begins his cure by causticks, by incisions and instruments of vexation, to try if the disease that will not yeild to the allectives of cordials and perfumes, friction and baths, may be forced out by deleteries, soarifications, and more salutary but least pleasing Physicke.

2. [...] for bearance, it is called in the text, which signifies laxamentum or inducias, that is, when the decrees of the divine judgements temporal are gone out, either wholly to suspend the execution of them, which is induciae, or a reprieve; or else when God hath E struck once or twice, he takes on his hand, that is laxamentum, an ease of remission of his judgment, in both these, although in judgement God remembers mercy, yet we are under discipline, we are brought into the penitential chamber, at least we are shewed the rod of God: and if like Moses rod it turnes us into serpents, and that we repent not but grow more Devils, yet, then it turnes into a rod again and [Page] finishes up the smiting or the first designed affliction. A

But I consider it first in general, the riches of the divine goodnesse is manifest in beginning this new method of curing us, by severity and by a rod. And that you may not wonder that I expound this forbearance to be an act of mercy punishing, I observe that besides that the word supposes the method changed, and it is a mercy about judgements, and their manner of execution; it is also in the nature of the thing, in the conjunction of circumstances and the designes of God, a mercy when he threatens us or strike us into repentance.

We think that the way of blessings and prosperous accidents is B the finer way of securing our duty, and that when our heads are anointed, our cups crowned, and our tables full, the very caresses of our spirits will best of all dance before the Ark, and sing perpetual Anthemes to the honour of our Benefactor and Patron God; and we are apt to dream that God will make his Saints raigne here as kings in a millenary kingdom, and give them the riches and fortunes of this world, that they may rule over men and sing psalms to God for ever. But I remember what Xenophanes saies of God.

[...]. C

God is like to men neither in shape nor in counsel, he knowes that his mercies confirm some, and encourage, more but they convert but few; alone they lead men to dissolution of manners and forgetfulnesse of God, rather then repentance: not but that mercies are competent and apt instruments of grace, if we would; but because we are more dispersed in our spirits and by a prosperous accident are melted into joy and garishnesse, and drawn off from the sobriety of recollection. Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. Many D are not able to suffer and endure prosperity; it is like the light of the sun to a weak eye, glorious indeed in it self, but not proportioned to such an instrument. Adam himself (as the Rabbins say) did not dwell one night in Paradise, but was poisoned with prosperity, with the beauty of his fair wife, and a beauteous tree: and Noah and Lot were both righteous and examplary, the one to Sodom the other to the old world, so long as they lived in a place in which they were obnoxious to the common suffering: but as soon as the one of them had scaped from drowning, and the other from burning and were put into security, they fell into crimes which have dishonoured E their memories for above thirty generations together, the crimes of drunkennesse and incest, wealth and a full fortune make men licenciously vitious, tempting a man with power to act all that he can desire or designe vitiously;

[Page]

A Indeirae faciles—

Nam (que) ut opes nimias mundo fortuna subacto

Intulit, et rebus mores cessere secundis

—Cultus gest are decoros

vix nuribus rapuere mares: toto (que) accersitur orbe

Quo gens quae (que) perit.

Lucan.

And let me observe to you that though there are in the new B Testament many promises and provisions made for the poor in that very capacity, they haveing a title, to some certain circumstances and additionals of grace and blessing, yet to rich men our blessed Saviour was pleased to make none at all, but to leave them involved in general comprehensions and to have a title to the special promises, onely by becomming poor in spirit, and in preparation of minde, though not in fortune and possession. How ever; it is hard for God to perswade us to this, till we are taught it by a sad experience, that those prosperities which we think will make us serve God C cheerfully, make us to serve the world and secular ends diligently and God not at all.

Repentance is a duty that best complies with affliction, it is a symbolical estate, of the same complexion and constitution; half the work of repentance is done by a sad accident, our spirits are made sad, our gayeties mortified, our wildnesse corrected, the water springs are ready to run over: but if God should grant our desires, and give to most men prosperity, with a designe to lead them to repentance, all his pompe and all his employment, and all his affections and passions, and all his circumstances are so many degrees of distance D from the conditions and natures of repentance. It was reported by Dio concerning Neros mother, that she often wished that her Son might be Emperour, and wished it with so great passion that upon that condition she cared not though her Son might kill her; Her first wish and her second fear were both granted; but when she began to fear that her Son did really disigne to murder her, she used all the art and instruments of diversion that a witty and a powerfull a timerous person, and a woman could invent or apply. Just so it is with us, so we might have our wishes of prosperity we promise to undergo all the severities of repentance; but when we are landed upon E our desire, then every degree of satisfaction of those sensualities is a temptation against repentance: for a man must have his affections weaned from those possessions, before he can be reconciled to the possibilities of repentance.

And because God knowes this well and loves us better then we do our selves, therefore he sends upon us the 1. scrolls of vengeance, the hand writing upon the wall to denounce judgement against us: for [Page] God is so highly resolved to bring us to repentance some way or other, A that if by his goodnesse he cannot shame us into it, he will try if by his judgements he can scare us into it; not that he strikes alwayes as soon as he hath sent his warrants out, [...] said Philo. Thus God sent Jonas and denounced judgements against Niniveh; but with the [...], with the forbearance of forty dayes for the time of their escape if they would repent. When Noah the great preacher of righteousnesse, denounced the flood to all the world, it was with the [...] with the forbearance of 120. years, and when the great extermination of the Jewish nation, and their total B deletion from being Gods people, was foretold by Christ, and decreed by God, yet they had the [...] of forty years, in which they were perpetually called to repentance. These were reprieves and deferrings of the stroke. But sometimes God strikes once and then forbeares, and such are all those sadnesses which are lesse then death; every sicknesse, every losse, every disgrace, the death of friends and neerest relatives, sudden discontents; these are all of them the lowder calls of God to repentance; but still, instances of forbearance.

Indeed many times this forbearance makes men impudent, it was C so in the case of Pharaoh when God smote him, and then forbore; Pharaohs heart grew callous and insensible till God struck again; and this was the meaning of these words of God, I will harden the heart of pharaoh, that is, I wil forbear him, smite him, and then take the blow off, Sic enim Deus induravit Pharaonis cor, said Saint Basil. For as water taken off from fire will sooner congeale and become icy, then if it had not been attenuated by the heate: so is the heart of some men, when smitten by God, it seemes soft and plyable, but taken off from the fire of affliction, it presently becomes horrid, then stiff and then hard as a rock of Adamant, or as the gates D of death and hell. But this is besides the purpose and intention of the Divine mercy; this is an [...], a plain contradiction to the riches of Gods goodnesse; this is to be evill because God is good; to burn with flames, because we are coold with water; this is to put out the lamps of heaven, or (if we cannot do it) to put our own eyes out, least we should behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and be enamoured of his goodnesse, and repent and live. O take heed of despising this goodnesse; for this is one of Gods latest arts to save us; he hath no way left beyond this, but to punish us with a lasting judgement and a poinant affliction. In the tomb of Terentia E certain lamps burned under ground many ages together, but as soon as ever they were brought into the aire and saw a bigger light, they went out, never to be reenkindled: so long as we are in the retirements of sorrow, of want, of fear, of sicknesse or of any sad accident we are burning and shining lamps, but when God [Page] A comes with his [...], with his forbearance and lifts us up from the gates of death and carries us abroad into the open aire., that we converse with prosperity and temptation, we go out in darknesse: and we cannot be preserved in heat and light but by still dwelling in the regions of sorrow: And if such be our weaknesses, or our folly, it concerns us to pray against such deliverances, to be afraid of health, to beg of God to continue a persecution, and not to deny us the mercy of an affliction.

And do not we finde all this to be a great truth in our selves? B are we so great strangers to our own weaknesses and unworthinesse as not to remember when God scared us with judgements in the neighbourhood, whence we lived in a great plague, or if were ever in a storm, or God had sent a sicknesse upon us; then we may please to remember that repentance was our businesse, that we designed mountains of piety, renewed our holy purposes, made vows and solemn sacraments to God to become penitent, and obedient persons; and we may also remember without much considering, that assoon as God began to forbear C us, we would no longer forbear to sin, but adde flame to flame, a heap of sins to a treasure of wrath, already too big; being like Pharaoh or Herod, or like the oxe and mule, more hardy and callous for our stripes; and melted in the fire, and frozen harder in the cold, worse for all our afflictions, and the worse for all Gods judgements; not bettered by his goodnesse, nor mollified by his threatnings: and what is there more left for God to do unto us? He that is not won by the sence of Gods mercy, can never finde any thing in God that shall convert him; and he whom fear and sense of pain cannot mend, can never finde any D argument from himself that shall make him wise; This is sad, that nothing from without, and nothing from within shall move us; nothing in Heaven and nothing in Hell, neither love nor fear, gratitude to God, nor preservation of our selves shall make us to repent, [...], that shall be his final sentence: He shall never escape that ruine from which the greatest art of God could nor entice, nor his terrour scare him: he loved cursing therefore shall it happen to him, he loved not blessing, therefore shall it be far from him.

Let therefore every one of us take the account of our lives E and read over the sermons that God hath made us; besides that sweet language of his mercy, and his still voice from Heaven consider what voices of thunder you have heard, and presently that noise ceased and God was heard in the still voice again; What dangers have any of you escaped, were you ever assaulted by the rudenesse of an ill natur'd man? have you never had a dangerous fall, and escaped it? did none of you ever scape [Page] drowning, and in a great danger saw the forbearance of God? A have you never been sick (as your feared) unto death? or suppose none of these things hath happened, hath not God threatned you all, and forborne to smite you? or smitten you, and forborne to kill you? that is evident. But if you had been a Privado, and of the Cabinet councel with your Angel Guardian, that from him you might have known how many dangers you have escaped, how often you have been neer a ruine, so neer, that if you had seen your danger with a sober spirit, the fear of it would have half killed you; If he had but told you how often God had sent out his Warrants to the exterminating B Angel, and our Blessed Saviour by his intercession hath obtained a reprieve, that he might have the content of rejoycing at thy conversion and repentance; If you had known from him the secrets of that providence which governs us in secret, and how many thousand times the Devil would have done thee hurt, and how often himself as a ministring spirit of Gods goodnesse and forbearance, did interpose and abate, or divert a mischief, which was falling on thy head, it must needs cover thy head with a cloud of shame and blushing at that ingratitude, and that folly, that neither will give God thanks, nor secure thy own well C being.

Hadst thou never any dangerous fall in thy intemperance? then God shewed thee thy danger, and that he was angry at thy sin, but yet did so pity thy person, that he would forbear thee a little longer, else that fall had been into thy grave.

When thy gluttony gave thee a surfet, and God gave thee a remedy, his meaning then was, that thy gluttony rather should be cured then thy surfet; that repentance should have been thy remedy, and abstinence and fasting should be thy cure: Did ever thy proud or revengefull spirit engage thee upon a Duell, or a vexatious D Law-suit, and God brought thee off with life or peace? his purpose then was, that his mercy should teach thee charity: and he that cannot read the purposes of God written with the finger of judgement (for as yet his whole hand is not laid on) either is consigned to eternall ruine, because God will no more endeavour his cure, or if his mercy still continues and goes on in long-suffering, it shall be by such vexatious instruments, such causticks, and corrosives, such tormenting and desperate medicaments, such which in the very cure will soundly punish thy folly and ingratitude. For deceive not your selves, Gods mercy cannot be made E a patron for any mans impiety: the purpose of it is to bring us to repentance, and God will do it by the mercies of his mercies, or by the mercies of his judgements: he will either break our hearts into a thousand fragments of contrition, or break our bones in the ruines of the grave and hell: And since God rejoyce in his mercy [Page] A above all his works, he will be most impatient that we shall despise that, in which he most delights, and in which we have the greatest reason to delight, the riches of that goodnesse which is essentiall, and part of his glory, and is communicated to us, to bring us to repentance, that we may partake of that goodnesse, and behold that glory.

B Sermon. XIII. The mercies of the Divine Judgements. C Part II.

[...]] long-suffering; in this one word are contained all the treasures of the Divine goodnesse: here is the length and extension of his mercy, pertrahit spiritum super nos Dominus, so the Syrian Interpreter reads, Luk 18. 7. God holds his breath: He retains his anger within him, lest it should come forth and blast us: and here is also much of the Divine justice: For although God suffers long yet he does not let us alone: he forbears to destroy us, but not to punish us; and in both, he by many accidents D gives probation of his power; according to the prayer of the Wise man, [...]; Thou art mercifull towards us all because thou canst do all Wisd. 11. 24. things, and thou passedst by the sins of men that they may repent. And that, God shall support our spirit, and preserve our patience, and nourish our hope, and correct our stubbornnesse, and mortifie our pride and bring us to him whether we will or no, by such gracious violences, and mercifull judgements which he uses towards us as his last remedies, is not onely the demonstration of a E mighty mercy, but of an almighty power: So hard a thing it is to make us leave our follies and become wise, that were not the mercies of God an effective pity, and clothed in all the way of its progresse with mightinesse and power, every sinner should perish irrevocably. But this is the fiery triall, the last purgatory fire, which God uses to burn the thistles, and purifie the drosse: When the [Page] gentle influence of a Sun-beam will not wither them, nor the weeding A hook of a short affliction cut them out; then God comes with site to burn us: with the ax laid to the root of the tree: but then observe, that when we are under this state of cure, we are so neer destruction that the same instrument that God uses for remedy to us, is also prepared to destroy us; the fire is as apt to burn us to ashes, as to cleansing, when we are so overgrown; and the ax as instrumentall to cut us down for fewell, as to square us for building in Gods temple: and therefore when it comes that sat, it will be hard discerning what the purpose of the ax is; and whether the fire means to burn we shall [...] it by the change wrought upon B our selves. For what Plato said concerning his dream of Purgatory is true here: Quicunque non purgatus migrat ad inferos, jacebit in luto: quicunque verò mitratus illuc accesserit, habitabit cum Deis: He that dies in his impurities shall lie in it for ever, but he that descends to his grave purged and mitred, that is, having quitted his vices, & superinduens justitiam, being clothed with righteousnesse, shall dwell in light and immortality. It is sad that we put God to such extremities, and as it happens in long diseases, those which Physitians use for the last remedies seldom prevail; and when consumptive persons come to have their heads shaven, they do not often C escape: So it is when we put God to his last remedies; God indeed hath the glory of his patience, and his long-suffering, but we seldom have the benefit and the use of it. For if when our sin was young, and our strength more active, and our habits lesse, and vertue not so much a stranger to us, we suffered sin to prevail upon us, to grow stronger then the ruins of our spirit, and to lesson us into the state of sicknesse and disability, in the midst of all those remedies which God used to our beginning diseases: much more desperate is our recovery, when our disease is stronger and our faculties weaker, when our sins raigne in us, and our thoughts of D vertue are not alive.

How ever, although I say this, and it is highly considerable, to the purpose that we never suffered things to come to this extremity, yet if it be upon us, we must do as well as we can: But then we are to look upon it as a designe of Gods last mercy, beyond which if we protract our repentance, our condition is desperately miserable. The whole state of which mercy we understand by the parable of the King reckoning with his servants that were in arrears to him: One was brought to him, which owed him ten thousand talents: but for as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him E to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made: The man you see was under the arrest; the sentence was passed upon him, he was a condemned man; but before the execution of it, he fell down and worshipped and said, [...], Lord suffer me longer a while; have patience with me and I will [Page] A pay thee all. This tells its meaning: this is a long-sufferance, by being a forbearance onely of execution of the last sentence; a putting off damnation upon a longer triall of our emendation; but in the mean time it implies no other ease, but that together with his long-sufferance God may use all other severities and scourges to break our untamed spirits, and to soften them with hammers; f [...] death be put off, no matter else what hardship and loads of suff [...]ce we have. Hic ure, hic seca, ut in aeternum parcas, so Saint Austin prayed, Here O Lord cut me, here burn me, spare me not now, that thou mayest spare me for ever: And it is just like the mercy used to a mad man, B when he is kept in a dark room and tamed with whips, it is a cruel mercy, but such as his condition requires, he can receive no other mercy, all things else were cruelly unmercifull.

I remember what Bion observed wittily of the punishment inflicted upon the daughters of Danaeus, whom the old Poets fained to be condemned in hell to fill a bottomlesse tub with water, and to increase the pain (as they fancied) this water they were to carry in sieves, and never to leave work till the tub were full; It is well (sayes he) since their labour must be eternall, that it is so C gentle, for it were more pains to carry their water in whole vessels, and a sad burden to go loaden to a leaking tub with unfruitfull labours: Just so is the condition of these persons upon whom a wrath is gone out; it is a sad sentence, but acted with a gentle instrument; and since they are condemned to pay the scores of their sins with the sufferance of a load of judgements, it is well they are such as will run quite thorough them, and not stick upon them to eternity. Omnes enim poenae non exterminantes sunt medicinales: All punishments whatsoever which do not destroy us, are intended to save us; they are lancets which make a wound but to let forth D the venome of our ulcers; when God slue twenty three thousand of the Assyrians for their fornication that was a finall justice upon their persons, and consigned them to a sad eternity: for beyond such an infliction there was no remedy. But when God sent lions to the Assyrian inhabitants of Samaria, and the judgements drave them to inquire after the manner of the God of the land, and they sent for Priests from Jerusalem to teach them how to worship the God of Israel, that was a mercy and a judgement too: the long forbearance of God who destroyed not at all the inhabitants, lead the rest into repentance.

E 1. And I must make this observation to you; That when things come to this passe that God is forced to the last remedies of judgements, this long-sufferance will little or nothing concern particular persons, but nations and communities of men: for those who are smitten with judgement if God takes his hands off again and so opens a way for their repentance by prolonging their time; that comes under the second part of Gods method, the [...], or [Page] forbearance; but if he smites single persons with a finall judgement, A that is, a long-suffering not of him, but towards others: and God hath destroyed my neighbour to make me repent, my neighbours time being expired and the date of his possibility determined. For a mans death-bed is but an ill station for a penitent, and a [...] judgement is no good monitor to him, to whom it is a s [...]ere executioner. They that perished in the gain-saying of Corah were out of the conditions of repentance; but the people that were affrighted with the neighbourhood of the judgement and the expresses of Gods anger manifested in such visible remonstrances, they were the men called unto repentance. But concerning B whole nations, or communities of men this long-sufferance is a Sermon of repentance; loud, clamorous, and highly argumentative. When God suffered the mutinies, the affronts, the base: nesse, and ingratitude, the follies, and relapses of the children of Israel, who murmured against God ten times in the wildernesse, God sent evil angels among them, and fiery serpents, and pestilence, and fire from heaven, and prodigies from the earth, and a prevailing sword of the enemies, and in all these accidents, although some innocent persons felt the contingencies and variety of mortality, yet those wicked persons who fell by the designe of C Gods anger, were made examples unto others and instances of Gods forbearance to the Nation: and yet this forbearance was such that although God preserved the Nation in being and in title to the first promises, yet all the particular persons that came from Egypt died in the wildernesse, two onely excepted.

2. And I desire you to observe this, that you may truly estimate the arts of the Divine justice and mercy: For all the world being one continuall and intire argument of the Divine mercy, we are apt to abuse that mercy to vain confidences and presumption; First, mistaking the end, as if Gods mercy would be D indulgent to our sin, to which it is the greatest enemy in the world, for it is a certain truth that the mercy of God is as great an enemy to sin as his justice is, and as Gods justice is made the hand-maid of his mercy to cure sin, so it is the servant also and the instrument to avenge our despight and contempt of mercy; and in all the way where a difference can be there, justice is the lesse principall. And it were a great signe of folly and a huge mistake to think our Lord and friends do us offices of kindnesse, to make themselves more capable of affronts; and that our fathers care over us, and provisions for us can tempt us to disobey them: The very purpose of all E those emanations is, that their love may return in duty, and their providence be the parent of our prudence, and their care be crowned with our piety, and then we shall all be crowned, and shall return like the yeer, the ends into its own circle; and the fathers and the children, the benefactours and the beneficiary shall knit [Page] A the wreath and binde each other in the eternall inclosures and circlings of immortality, * but besides the men who presume to sin because of Gods mercy, do mistake the very end and designe of Gods mercy, they also mistake the Oeconomy of it, and the manner of its ministration.

3 For if God suffers men to go on in sins and punishes them not, it is not a mercy, it is not a forbearance; it is a hardning them, a consigning them to ruine, and reprobation; and themselves give the best argument to prove it; for they continue in their sin, they multiply their iniquity, and every day grow more enemy to God, and that is no mercy that increases their hostility and enmity B with God. A prosperous iniquity, is the most unprosperous condition in the whole world; when he slew them, that sought him, and turned them early and enquired after God: but as long as they prevailed upon their enemies then they forgat that God was their strength and the high God was their redeemer. It was well observed by the Persian Embassadour of old, when he was telling the King a sad story of the overthrow of all his army by the Athenians; he addes this of his own; that the day before the fight, the young Persian gallants being confident they should destroy their enemies, were drinking drunk, and railing at the timerousnesse and fears of religion, C and against all their Gods, saying, there were no such things, and that all things came by chance, & industry, nothing by the providence of the supreme power. But the next day when they had fought unprosperously and flying from their enemies, who were eager in their pursuit, they came to the river strymon, which was so frozen, that their boats could not lanch, and yet it began to thaw, so that they feared the ice would not bear them. Then you should see the bold gallants that the day before said there was no God, most timorously and superstitiously fall upon their faces and begged of God that the river strymon might bear them over from D their enemies. What wisdom and Philosophy and perpetual experience, and revelation and promises and blessings cannot do, a mighty fear can; it can allay the confidences of a bold lust, and an imperious sin, and soften our spirit into the lownesse of a Childe, our revenge into the charity of prayers, our impudence into the blushings of a chidden girle; and therefore God hath taken a course proportionable: for he is not so unmercifully merciful, as to give milk to an infirm lust, and hatch the egge to the bignesse of a cocatrice: and therefore observe how it is, that Gods mercy prevailes E over all his works; it is even then when nothing can be discerned, but his judgements. For as when a famin had been in Israel in the dayes of Ahab for three years and a half, when the angry prophet Elijah met the King and presently a great winde arose, and the dust blew into the eyes of them that walked abroad, and the face of the heavens was black and all tempest, yet then the [Page] prophet was the most gentle, and God began to forgive, and the A heavens were more beautiful, then when the Sun puts on the brightest ornaments of a bridegrome going from his chambers of the east: so it is in the Oeconomy of the divine mercy; when God makes our faces black and the windes blow so loud till the cordage cracks, and our gay fortunes split, and our houses are dressed with Cypresse and yew, and the mourners go about the streets, this is nothing but the pompa misericordiae, this is the funeral of our sins, dressed indeed with emblems of mourning, and proclaimed with sad accents of death, but the sight is refreshing, as the beauties of the field, which God hath blessed, and the founds are healthful B as the noise of a physitian.

This is that riddle spoken of in the psalme, Calix in manu Psal. 94. 9. Dom. vini meri plenus misto; the pure impure, the mingled unmingled cup; for it is a cup in which God hath poured much of his severity and anger, and yet it is pure and unmingled; for it is all mercy: and so the riddle is resolved, and our cup is full and made more wholsome lymphatum crescit, dulcescit, laedere nescit, it is some justice and yet it is all mercy; the very justice of God being an act of mercy, a forbearance of the man, or the nation, and the punishing the sin. C Thus it was in the case of the children of Israel, when they ran after the bleating of the idolatrous calves, Moses prayed passionately and God heard his prayer, and forgave their sin upon them. And this was Davids observation of the manner of Gods mercy to them; Psal. 98. 8. Thou wast a God and forgavest them, though thou tookest veangeance of their inventions: for Gods mercy is given to us by parts; and to certain purposes; sometimes God onely so forgives us, that he does not cut us off in the sin, but yet layes on a heavy load of judgements: so he did to his people, when he sent them to schoole under the discipline of 70 years captivity; somtimes he makes a D judgement lesse and forgives in respect of the degree of the infliction; he strikes more gently; and whereas God had designed it may be the death of thy self or thy neerest relative he is content to take the life of a childe, and so he did to David when he forbore him. the Lord hath taken away thy sin, thou shalt not die, neverthelesse the childe that is born unto thee that shall die: sometimes he puts the evil off to a further day, as he did in the case of Ahab, and Hezekiah: to the first he brought the evil upon his house, and to the second he brought the evil upon his kingdom, in his sons dayes; God forgiving onely so as to respite the evil, that they should have E peace in their own dayes. And thus when we have committed a sin, against God, which hath highly provoked him to anger, even upon our repentance we are not sure to be forgiven, so as we understand forgivenes; that is, to hear no more of it, never to be called to an account; but we are happy, if God so forgives us, as not to throw us into the insufferable flames of hell, though he smite us [Page] A still we groan for our misery till we chatter like a swallow (as Davide expression is) and though David was an excellent penitent, yet after he had lost the childe begotten of Bathsheba, and God had told him he had forgiven him, yet he raised up his darling son against him, and forced him to an inglorious flight, and his son lay with his Fathers concubins in the face of all Israel: so that when we are forgiven, yet it is ten to one, but GOD will make us to smart and roar for our sinnes, for the very disquietnesse of our souls.

For if we sin and ask God forgivenesse and then are quiet, we B feele so little inconvenience in the trade that we may more easily be tempted to make a trade of it indeed. I wish to God that for every sin we have committed, we should heartily cry God mercy and leave it, and judge our selves for it to prevent Gods anger, but when we have done all that we commonly call repentance, and when possibly God hath forgiven us to some purposes, yet it may be he punishes our sin when we least think of it; that sin which we have long since forgotten. It may be for the lust of thy youth thou had a healthlesse old age; an old religious person long agoe complained, it was his case.

C Quos nimis effraenes habui, nunc vapulo renes:

Sic luitur juvellis culpa dolore senis.

It may be thy sore eyes are the punishment of thy intemperance seven years ago, or God cuts thy dayes shorter and thou shalt die in a florid age, or he raises up afflictions to thee in thine own house, in thine own bowels, or hath sent a gangren into thy estate, or with any arrow out of his quiver he can wound thee, and the D arrow shall stick fast in thy flesh, although God hath forgiven thy sin to many purposes. Our blessed Saviour was heard in all that he prayed for (said the Apostle) and he prayed for the Jews, that crucified him: Father forgive them for they know not what they do, and God did forgive that great sin, but how far? whereas it was just in God to deprive them of all possibility of receiving benefit from the death of Christ, yet God admitted them to it, he gave them time and possibilities, and helps, and great advantages to bring them to repentance; he did not presently shut them up, in his final and eternal anger: and yet he had finally resolved to E destroy their city and nation and did so, but forbore them forty years, & gave them al the helps of miracles and sermons apostolical to shame them, and force them into sorrow for their fault. And before any man can repent God hath forgiven the man in one degree of forgivenesse; for he hath given him grace of repentance and taken from him that final anger of the spirit of reprobation; and [Page] when a man hath repented, no man can say that God hath forgiven A him to all purposes, but he hath reserves of anger to punish the sin, to make the man affraid to sin any more, and to represent that when any man hath sinned what ever he does afterwards he shall be miserable as long as he lives, vexed with its adherencies and its neighbour-hood, and evil consequence. For as no man that hath sinned, can during his life ever returne to an integral and perfect innocence: so neither shall he be restored to a perfect peace, but must alwayes watch and strive against his sinne, and alwayes mourn and pray for its pardon, and alwayes finde cause to hate it by knowing himself to be for ever in danger of enduring B some grievous calamity, even for those sinnes for which he hath truely repented him, for which God hath in many gracious degrees passed his pardon; this is the manner of the dispensation of the divine mercy in respect of particular persons, and nations too.

But sometimes we finde a severer judgement happening upon a people, and yet in that sad story, Gods mercy sings the triumph which although it be much to Gods glory, yet it is a sad story to sinning people. 600000. fighting men besides women and children, and decrepit persons, came out of Egypt and God destroyed them C all in the wildernesse except Caleb and Joshuah, and there it was that Gods mercy prevailed over his justice, that he did not destroy the nation; but still preserved a succession to Jacob, to possesse the promise. God drowned all the world except eight persons his mercy there also prevailed over his justice, that he preserved a remnant to mankinde; his justice devoured all the world, and his mercy which preserved but eight, had the honour of the prevailing attribute. God destroyed Sodom, and the five cities of the plain, and rescued but four from the flames of that sad burning, and of the four lost one in the flight and yet his mercy prevailed over D his justice, because he did not destroy all.

And in these senses we are to understand the excellency of the divine mercy even when he smites, when he rebukes us for sin, when he makes our beauty to fail and our flesh to consume away like a moth fretting a garment, yet then his mercy is the prevailing ingredient. If his judgements be but fines set upon our heads accordto the mercy of our old lawes, Salvo contenemento, so as to preserve our estates, to continue our hopes and possibilities of heaven; and all the other judgements can be nothing but mercies, excellent instruments of grace arts to make us sober and wise, to E take off from our vanity to restrain our wildnesses, which if they were left unbridled would set all the world on fire, Gods judgements ars like the censures of the Church in which a sinner is delivered over to Satan to be buffetted that the spirit may be saved; the result of all this, is, that Gods mercies are not, ought not, cannot [Page] A be, instruments of confidence to sin, because the very purpose of his mercy is to the contrary, and the very manner of his Oeconomy and dispensation is such that Gods mercy goes along in complection and conjunction with his judgements; the riches of his forbearance is this, that he forbears to throw us into hell, and sends the mercies of his rod to chide us unto repentance, and the mercies of his rod to punish us for having sinned, and that when we have sinned we may never think our selves secured, nor ever be reconciled to such dangers and deadly poisons. This, this is the manner of the divine mercy. Go now fond man, and because God is merciful B presume to sin, as heaving grounds to hope that thou mayest sin and be safe all the way. If this hope (shall I call it) or sordid flattery could be reasonable, then the mercies of God would not leade us to repentance; so unworthy are we in the sense and largenesse of a wide fortune and pleasant accident. For impunity was never a good argument to make men to obey laws, quotusquis (que) reperitur qui impunitate proposita abstinere possit injurijs? Impunitas est maxima peccandi illecebra said Cicero, and therefore the wisdom of God hath so ordered the actions of the world that the most Offic. 3, fruitful showres shall be wrapped up in a cover of black clouds, C that health shall be conveyed by bitter and ill tasted drugs, that the temples of our bodies shall be purged by whips, and that the cords of the whip shall be the cords of love to draw us from the intanglings of vanity and folly. This is the long suffering of God, the last remedy to our diseased souls, and [...], said Phalaris, unlesse we be senselesse we shall be brought to sober courses, by all those sad accidents and wholsome, but ill tasting mercies, which we feele in all the course and the succession of the divine long sufferance.

The use of all the premises is, that which Saint Paul expresses in the text, that we do not despise all this: and he onely despises D not, who serves the ends of God in all these designes of mercy, that is, he that repents him of his sins. But there are a great many despisers all they that live in their sins, they that have more blessings then they can reckon houres in their lives, that are courted by the divine favour and woed to salvation, as if mankinde were to give, not to receive so great a blessing, all they that answer not to so friendly summons, they are despisers of Gods mercies: and although God overflows with mercies and does not often leave us to the onely hopes of being cured by unctions and gentle cataplasmes, but proceeds further and gives us stibium or prepared E steele, sharp arrows of his anger, and the sword, and the hand of sicknesse, yet we are not sure of so much favour as to be entertained longer in Gods hospital, but may be thrust forth among the incurabili. Plutarch reports concerning swine that then optick nervs are so disposed to turne their eyes downwards [Page] that they cannot look upwards nor behold the face of heaven A unlesse they be thrown upon their backs such Swine are we, we seldom can look up to heaven til God by his judgements throws us upon our backs; till he humbles us & softens us with showers of our own blood, and tears of sorrow: and yet God hath not promised that he will do so much for us; but for ought we know as soon as ever the devil enters into our swinish and brutish hearts we shall run down the hill and perish in the floods and seas of intolerable miserie; And therefore besides that it is a huge folly in us that we wil not be cured with pleasant medicines, but must be longing for colliquintida and for vomits, for knives and poniards instead of the B gentle shoures of the divine refreshments, besides that this is an imprudence and sottishnesse, we do infinitely put it to the venture whether we shall be in a saveable condition or no, after the rejection of the first state of mercies. But however, then begins the first step of the judgement, and pungent misery, we are perishing people, or if not, yet at the last, not to be cured without the abscision of a member, without the cutting of a hand or leg; or the putting out of an eye: we must be cut to take the stone out of our hearts, and that is a state of a very great infelicity: and C if we scape the stone, we cannot escape the surgeons knife; if we scape death, yet we have a sicknesse; and though that be a great mercy in respect of death, yet it is as great a misery in respect of health: and that is the first punishment for the despite done to the first, and most sensible mercies: we are fallen into a sicknesse, that cannot be cured but by disease and hardship.

But if this despite runs further, and when the mercies look on us with an angry countenance, and that God gives us onely the mercy of a punishment, if we despise this too, we increase D but our misery as we increase our sin: the summe of which is this, that if Pharaoh will not be cured by one plague, he shall have ten, and if ten will not do it, the great and tenth wave, which is far bigger then all the rest, the severest and the last arrow of the quiver, then we shall perish in the red sea, the sea of flames and blood, in which the ungodly shall roule eternally.

But some of these despisers are such as are unmooved when God smites others; like Gallio when the Jews took Softhenes and beat him in the pleading place, he cared for none of these E things; he was not concerned in that interest; and many Gallio's there are amongst us, that understand it not to be a part of the divine method, of Gods longsufferance to strike others to make us afraid. But however, we sleep in the midst of such alarums, yet know, that there is not one death in all the neighbour-hood, but is intended to thee; every crowing of the cock is to awake thee [Page] A to repentance: and if thou sleepest still, the next turn may be thine; God will send his Angel as he did to Peter and smite thee on thy side, and wake thee from thy dead sleep of sin and sottishnesse. But beyond this, some are despisers still, and hope to drown the noises of mount Sinai, the sound of Canons, of thunders, and lightnings, with a counternoise of revelling and clamorous roarings, with merry meetings; like the sacrifices to Moloch, they sound drums and trumpets, that they might not hear the sad shrikings of their children as they were dying in the cavety of the brazen idoll, and when their conscience shrikes out or murmurs B in a sad melancholy; or something that is dear to them is smitten, they attempt to drown it in a sea of drink, in the heathenish noises of idle and drunken company; and that which God sends to lead them to repentance, leads them to a taverne not to refresh their needs of nature, or for ends of a tolerable civility, or innocent purposes, but like the condemned persons among the Levantines, they tasted wine freely that they might die and be insensible. I could easily reprove such persons with an old Greek proverb mentioned by Plutarch, [...]. You shall ill be cured of the knotted Gout, if you have nothing else C but a wide shoe: But this reproof is too gentle for so great a madnesse: it is not onely an incompetent cure, to apply the plaister of a sin or vanity to cure the smart of a divine judgement, but it is a great increaser of the misery, by swelling the cause to bigger, and monstrous proportions. It is just as if an impatient fool, feeling the smart of his medicine, shall tear his wounds open and throw away the instruments of his cure, because they bring him health at the charge of a little pain, [...]. He that is full of stripes and troubles, and decked round about with thorns, he is neer to God; But he, that because he sits uneasily when he D sits neer the King that was crowned with thorns, shall remove thence, or strew flowers, roses, and Jessamine, the downe of thistles, and the softest Gossamere, that he may die without pain, die quietly and like a lamb, sink to the bottom of hell without noise, this man is a fool, because he accepts death, if it arrest him in civil language, is content to die by the sentence of an eloquent Judge, and prefers a quiet passage to hell, before going to heaven in a storm.

That Italian Gentleman was certainly a great lover of his sleep, who was angry with the lizard that wak't him, when a E viper was creeping into his mouth: when the Devil is entring into us to poison our spirits, and steal our souls away while we are sleeping in the lethargy of sin, God sends his sharp messages to awaken us, and we call that the enemy, and use arts to cure the remedy: not to cure the disease. There are some persons that will never be cured, not because the sicknesse is incurable, but [Page] because they have ill stomacks and cannot keep the medicine: A Iust so is his case that so despises Gods method of curing him, by these instances of long-sufferance, that he uses all the arts he can to be quit of his Physitian, and to spill his physick, and to take cordials as soon as his vomit begins to work. There is no more to be said in this affair, but to read the poor wretches sentence, and to declare his condition. As at first, when he despised the first great mercies, God sent him sharpnesses and sad accidents to ensober his spirits: So now that he despises this mercy also, the mercy of the rod, God will take it away from him, and then I hope all is well! Miserable man that thou art! B this is thy undoing; if God ceases to strike thee because thou wilt not mend, thou art sealed up to ruine, and reprobation for ever: The Physitian hath giv [...] thee over, he hath no kindnesse for thee. This was the desperate estate of Judah. Ah sinfull nation, Isai. 1. 4, 5. a people laden with iniquity, they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel; why should ye be stricken any more? This is the [...], the most bitter curse, the greatest excommunication, when the delinquent is become a heathen and a publicane, without the covenant, out of the pale of the Church; C the Church hath nothing to do with them: for what have I to do with them that are without? said Saint Paul: It was not lawfull for the Church any more to punish them; and this court Christian is an imitation and paralell of the justice of the court of heaven: When a sinner is not mended by judgements at long running, God cuts him off from his inheritance and the lot of sons, he will chastise him no more, but let him take his course and spend his portion of prosperity, such as shall be allowed him in the great Oeconomy of the world. Thus God did to his Vineyard which he took such pains to fence, to plant, to manure, to dig, to cut, D and to prune: and when after all, it brought forth wilde grapes, the last and worst of Gods anger was this, Auferam sepem ejus, Isai. 5. 5. God had fenced it with a hedge of thorns, and God would take away all that hedge, he would not leave a thorn standing, not one judgement to reprove or admonish them, but all the wilde beasts, and wilder and more beastly lusts, may come and devour it, and trample it down in scorn.

And now what shall I say, but those words quoted by Saint Peter in his Sermon: Behold ye despisers, and wonder, and perish; Acts 13. 14. perish in your own folly by stubbornesse and ingratitude. For it E is a huge contradiction to the nature and designes of God; God calls us, we refuse to hear; he invites us with fair promises, we hear and consider not; he gives us blessings, we take them and understand not his meaning: we take out the token, but read not the letter: then he threatens us, and we regard not; he strikes our neighbours, and we are not concerned; then he strikes us gently, [Page] A but we feel it not; then he does like the Physitian in the Greek Epigram, who being to cure a man of a Lethargy, locked him into the same room with a mad-man, that he by dry beating him, might make him at least sensible of blows; but this makes us instead of running to God, to trust in unskilfull Physitians, or like Saul to run to a Pythonisse, we run for cure to a crime, we take sanctuary in a pleasant sin; just as if a man to cure his melancholy should desire to be stung with a Tarantula, that at least he may die merily; what is there more to be done that God hath not yet done? he is forced at last to break off with a Curavimus Babylonem & non est sanata, we dressed and tended Babylon, but B she was incurable; there is no help but such persons must die in their sins, and lie down in eternall sorrow. C D E

Sermon. XIV. B Of Growth in Grace.

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A

2 Pet. 3. 18. C‘But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory both now and for ever. Amen.’

WHen Christianity like the day spring from the East, with a new light did not onely inlighten the world, but amazed the mindes of men, D and entertained their curiosities, and seized upon their warmer and more pregnant affections, it was no wonder that whole Nations were converted at a Sermon, and multitudes were instantly professed, and their understandings followed their affections, and their wills followed their understandings, and they were convinced by miracle, and overcome by grace, and passionate with zeal, and wisely governed by their Guides, and ravished with the sanctity of the Doctrine, and the holinesse of their examples: And E this was not onely their duty, but a great instance of providence, that by the great religion and piety of the first Professors, Christianity might be firmly planted, and unshaken by scandall, and hardened by persecution; and that these first lights might be actuall Precedents for ever, and Copies for us to transcribe in all descending ages of Christianity, that thither we might run to fetch [Page] A oil, to enkindle our extinguished lamps. But then piety was so universall, that it might well be enjoyned by Saint Paul, that if a brother walked disorderly, the Christians should avoid his company: He forbad them not, to accompany with the Heathens that walked disorderly; for then a man must have gone out of the world. But they were not to endure so much as to eat with, or to salute a disorderly brother, an ill living Christian: But now if we should observe this canon of Saint Paul, and refuse to eat, or to converse with a fornicatour, or a drunkard, or a perjured person, or covetous, we must also go out of the world; for a pious or a holy person B is now as rare, as a disorderly Christian was at first: and as Christianity is multiplied every where in name and title, so it is destroyed in life, essence, and proper operation; and we have very great reason to fear, that Christs name will serve us to no end but to upbraid our basenesse; and his person onely to be our Judge, and his lawer as so many bills of accusation, and his graces and helps offered us, but as aggravations of our unworthinesse; and our baptisme, but an occasion of vow-breach; and the holy Communion, but an act of hypocrisie, formality, or sacrilege; and all the promises of the Gospel but as pleasant dreams; and the threatnings C but as arts of affrightment; for Christianity lasted pure and zealous, it kept its rules, and observed its own lawes for three hundred yeers, or thereabouts; so long the Church remained a Virgin: For so long they were warmed with their first fires, and kept under discipline by the rod of persecution; but it hath declined almost fourteen hundred yeers together; prosperity and pride, wantonnesse and great fortunes, ambition and interest, false doctrine upon mistake, and upon designe, the malice of the Devil, and the arts of all his instruments, the want of zeal, and a wearinesse of spirit, filthy examples, and a disreputation of piety and a D strict life; seldome precedents, and infinite discouragements have caused so infinite a declension of piety and holy living, that what Papirius Massonius one of their own, said of the Popes of Rome; In pontificibus nemo hodrè sanctitatem requirit, optimi putantur si vel leviter mali sint, vel minus boni quam caeteri mortales esse solent, No man looks for holines in the Bishops of Rome; those are the best Popes who are not extremly wicked: the same is too true of the greatest part of Christians: Men are excellent persons if they be not traytors, or adulterous, oppressors, or injurious, drunkards, or scandalous, if they be not as this publican, as the vilest person with whom they converse: E

Nunc si depositum non inficiatur amicus

Si reddat veterem cum totâ aerugine fllem

Prodigiosa fides & Thuscis digna libellis

Quaeque coronatâ lustrari debeat agnâ.

Juven. Sat. 13.

[Page] He that is better then the dregs of his own age, whose religion is A something above prophanesse, and whose sobriety is a step or two from down right intemperance, whose discourse is not swearing, nor yet apt to edifie, whose charity is set out in pity, and a gentle yerning and saying, [God help] whose alms are contemptible, and his devotion infrequent, yet as things are now, he is unus è mitibus, one of a thousand, and he stands eminent and conspicuous in the valleys and lower grounds of the present piety; for a bank is a mountain upon a levell: but what is rare and eminent in the manners of men this day would have been scandalous, and have deserved the rod of an Apostle, if it had been confronted with the fervours and B rare devotion and religion of our fathers in the Gospel.

Men of old looked upon themselves as they stood by the examples and precedents of Martyrs, and compared their piety to the life of Saint Paul, and estimated their zeal by the flames of the Boanerges, Saint James and his brother: and the Bishops were thought reproveable as they fell short of the ordinary government of Saint Peter, and Saint John; and the assemblies of Christians were so holy, that every meeting had religion enough to hallow a house and convert it to a Church; and every day of feasting was a Communion, and every fasting day was a day of repentance and C alms; and every day of thanksgiving was a day of joy, and alms: and religion begun all their actions, and prayer consecrated them, and they ended in charity, and were not polluted with designe: they despised the world heartily, and pursued after heaven greedily; they knew no ends but to serve God, and to be saved; and had no designes upon their neighbours, but to lead them to God, and to felicity; till Satan full of envy to see such excellent dayes, mingled covetousnesse, and ambition within the throngs and conventions of the Church, and a vice crept into an office, and then the mutuall confidence grew lesse, and so charity was lessened; D and heresies crept in, and then faith began to be sullied, and pride crept in; and then men snatched at offices, not for the work, but for the dignity; and then they served themselves more then God and the Church; till at last it came to the passe where now it is, that the Clergy live lives no better then the Laity, and the Laity are stooped to imitate the evil customes of strangers and enemies of Christianity; so that we should think Religion in a good condition, so that men did offer up to God but the actions of an ordinary, even, and just life, without the scandall and allayes of a great impiety: But because such is the nature of things, that either E they grow towards perfection, or decline towards dissolution; There is no proper way to secure it but by setting its growth forward: for religion hath no station, or naturall periods; if it does not grow better, it grows much worse, not that it alwayes returns the man into scandalous sins, but that it establishes and fixes him [Page] A in a state of indifferency and lukewarmnesse: and he is more averse to a state of improvement, and dies in an incurious, ignorant and unrelenting condition.

But grow in grace] Thats the remedy, and that would make us all wise and happy, blessed in this world, and sure of heaven: Concerning which, we are to consider first; what the estate of grace is, into which every one of us must be entred, that we may grow in it; secondly the proper parts, acts and offices of growing in grace, 3. The signes, consequences, and proper significations, by which if we cannot perceive the growing, yet afterwards we may perceive that we are grown, and so judge of the state of our duty, and concerning our B finall condition of being saved.

1. Concerning the state of grace, I consider that no man can be said to be in the state of grace, who retaines an affection to any one sin. The state of pardon and the divine favour, begins at the first instance of anger against our crimes, when we leave our fondnesses and kinde opinions, when we excuse them not, and will not endure their shame; when we feele the smarts of any of their evil consequents; for he that is a perfect lover of sin, and is sealed up to a reprobate sense, endures all that sin brings along with it, and is reconciled to all its mischiefes, can suffer the sicknesse C of his own drunkennesse, and yet call it pleasure, he can wait like a slave to serve his lust, and yet count it no disparagement; he can suffer the dishonour of being accounted a base and dishonest person, and yet look confidently, and think himself no worse. But when the grace of God begins to work upon a mans spirit, it makes the conscience nice and tender and although the sin as yet does not displease the man, but he can endure the flattering and alluring part, yet he will not endure to be used so ill by his sin; he will not be abused and dishonoured by it; But because God hath so allayed the pleasures of his sin, that he that drinks D the sweet should also strain the dregs through his throat, by degrees Gods grace doth irreconcile the convert, and discovers, first its base attendance, then its worse consequents, then the displeasure of God, that here commences the first resolutions of leaving the sin, and trying if in the service of God, his spirit and the whole appetite of man may be better entertained. He that is thus far entred shall quickly perceive the difference, and meet arguments enough to invite him further; For then God treats the man as he treated the spies, that went to discover the land of promise; E he ordered the year in plenty and directed them to a pleasant and a fruitful place, and prepared bunches of grapes of a miraculous and prodigious greatnesse that they might report good things of Canaan, and invite the whole nation to attempt its conquest: so Gods grace represents to the new converts and the weak ones in faith the pleasures and first deliciousnesses of religion: and when [Page] they come to spie the good things of that way that leads to heaven, A they presently perceive themselves cased of the load of an evil conscience, of their fears of death, of the confusion of their shame, and Gods spirit gives them a cup of sensible comfort, and makes them to rejoyce in their prayers, and weep with pleasures mingled with innocent passions, and religious changes; and although God does not deal with all men in the same method, or in manners that can regularly be described, and all men do not feele, or do not observe, or cannot for want of skill discern such accidental sweetnesses, and pleasant grapes at his first entrance into religion: yet God to every man does minister excellent arguments of invitation, B and such that if a man will attend to them they will certainly move either his affections or his will, his fancy or his reason, and most commonly both: But while the spirit of God is doing this work of man, man must also be [...] fellow worker with God, he must entertain the spirit, attend his inspirations, receive his whispers, obey all his motions, invite him further, and utterly renounce all confederacy with his enemy, sin; at no hand suffering any root of bitternesse to spring up, not allowing to himself any reserve of carnal pleasure, no clancular lust, no private oppressions, no secret covetousnesse, no love to this C world that may discompose his duty; for if a man prayes all day and at night is intemperate if he spends his time in reading, and his recreation be sinful; if he studies religion, and practises self interest; if he leaves his swearing and yet retaines his pride; if he becomes chast and yet remains peevish and imperious; this man is not changed from the state of sin, into the first stage of the state of grace: he does at no hand belong to God, he hath suffered himself to be scared from one sin, and tempted from another by interest, and hath left a third, by reason of his inclination, and a fourth for shame, or want of opportunity: But the spirit of God hath not D yet planted one perfect plant there; God may make use of the accidentally prepared advantages. But as yet the spirit of God hath not begun the proper and direct work of grace in his heart, But when we leave every sin, when we resolve never to return to the chaines, when we have no love for the world, but such as may be a servant of God; then I account that we are entred into a state of grace, from whence I am now to begin to reckon the commencement of this precept, grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2. And now the first part of this duty is to make religion to be E the businesse of our lives; for this is the great instrument, which will naturally produce our growth in grace, and the perfection of a Christian. For a man cannot after a state of sin be instantly a Saint: the work of heaven is not done by a flash of lightning, or a dash of affectionate raine, or a few tears of a relenting pity; God [Page] A and his Church have appointed holy intervals, and have taken portions of our time for religion, that we may be called off from the world, and remember the end of our creation, and do honour to God, and think of heaven with hearty purposes and peremptory designes to get thither. But as we must not neglect those times which God hath reserved for his service, or the Church hath prudently decreed, nor yet act religion upon such dayes with forms and outsides, or to comply with customs; or to seem religious; so we must take care that all the other portions of our time be hallowed with little retirements of all thoughts, and short conversations B with God; and all along be guided with a holy intention, that even our works of nature may passe into the relations of grace, and the actions of our calling may help towards the obtaining the price of our high calling; while our eatings are actions of temperance, our labours are profitable our humiliations are acts of obedience, and our almes are charity: our marriages are chast, and whether we eat or drink, sleep or wake we may do all to the glory of God, by a direct intuition or by a reflex act, by designe or by supplement, by fore sight or by an after election: and to this purpose C we must not look upon religion as our trouble, and our hinderance; nor think almes chargeable or expensive; nor our fastings vexatious and burdensom; nor our prayers a wearinesse of spirit; But we must make these and all other the dutis of religion, our imployments, our care the work and end for which we came into the world; and remember that we never do the work of men, nor serve the ends of God, nor are in the proper imployment and businesse of our life, but when we worship God or live like wise or sober persons, or do benefit to our brother.

I will not turne this discourse into a reproofe, but leave it represented D as a duty: Remember that God sent you into the world for religion; we are but to passe through our pleasant fields, or our hard labours; but to lodge a little while in our faire palaces or our meaner cottages; but to bait in the way at our full tables or with our spare diet; but then onely, man does his proper imployment, when he prayes and does charity, and mortifies his unruly appetites, and restrains his violent passions, and becomes like to God, and imitates his holy Son, and writes after the coppies of Apostles, and Saints. Then he is dressing himself for eternity, where he must dwell or abide, either in an excellent beatifical E country, or in a prison of amazment and eternal horrour: And after all this, you may if you please call to minde, how much time you allovv to God and to your souls every day, or every moneth, or in a year if you please; for I fear the account of the time is soon made; but the account for the neglect, vvill be harder. And it vvill not easily be ansvvered, that all our dayes and years are little enough to attend perishing things, and to be svvallowed [Page] up in avaritious and vain attendances, and we shall not attend A to religion with a zeal so great as is our revenge, or as is the hunger of one meale. Without much time, and a wary life, and a diligent circumspection, we cannot mortify our sins, or do the first works of grace. I pray God we be not found to have grown like the sinnews of old age, from strength to remisnesse, from thence to dissolution, and infirmity and death; Menedemus was wont to say that the young boyes that went to Athens the first year were wise men, the second year, Philosophers, the third, Orators, and the fourth were but Plebeians and understood nothing but their own ignorance. B

And just so it happens to some in the progresses of religion: at first they are violent and active; and then they satiate all the appetites of religion; and that which is left, is, that they were soon weary, and sat down in displeasure, and return to the world and dwell in the businesse of pride, or mony; and by this time they understand that their religion is declined, and passed from the heats and follies of youth, to the coldnesse and infirmities of old age; The remedies of which is onely a diligent spirit and a busie religion a great industry & a full portion of time in holy offices; that as the Oracle said to the Cirrheans, noctes diesque belligerandum, C they could not be happy unlesse they waged war night and day: that is, unlesse we perpetually fight against our own vices; and repell our Ghostly enemies, and stand upon our guard, we must stand for ever in the state of babes, in Christ, or else return to the first imperfections of an unchristened soul, and an unsanctified spirit. Thats the first particular.

2. The second step of our growth in grace is, when vertues grow habitual, apt and easie in our manners, and dispositions. For although many new converts have a great zeal, and a busie spirit, apt enough as they think to contest against all the difficulties of a D spiritual life, yet they meet with such powerful oppositions from without, and a false heart within, that their first heats are soon broken, and either they are for ever discouraged, or are forced to march more slowly and proceed more temperately for ever after.

[...]

[...].

It is an easie thing to commit a wickednesse, for temptation and infirmity are alwayes too neer us: But God hath made care and sweat, prudence and diligence, experience and watchfulnesse, wisdom E and labour at home, and good guides abroad to be instruments and means to purchase vertue.

The way is long and difficult at first; but in the progresse and pursuit we finde all the knots made plain, and the rough wayes made smooth.

[Page] A —jam monte potitus Ridet;—

Now, the spirit of grace is like a new soul within him, and he hath new appetites and new pleasures, when the things of the world grow unsavory and the things of religion are delicious; when his temptations to his old crimes return but seldom, and they prevail not at all, or in very inconsiderable instances, and stay not at all, but are reproached with a penitentiall sorrow, and speedy amendment; when we do actions of vertue quickly, frequently, B and with delight: then we have grown in grace in the same degree in which they can perceive these excellent dispositions. Some persons there are who dare not sin: they dare not omit their hours of prayer; and they are restlesse in their spirits till they have done; but they go to it as to execution; they stay from it as long as they can, and they drive like Pharoahs charets with the wheels off, sadly and heavily: and besides that such persons have reserved to themselves, the best part of their sacrifice, and do not give their will to God, they do not love him with all their heart; they are C also soonest tempted to retire and fall off. Sextius Romanus resigned the honours and offices of the city, and betook himself to the severity of a Philosophical life. But when his unusual diet and hard labour began to pinch his flesh, and he felt his propositions smart, and that which was fine in discourse at a Symposiack, or an Academical dinner, began to sit uneasily upon him in the practise; he so despaired that he had like to have cast himself into the sea, to appease the labours of his religion; Because he never had gone further then to think it a fine thing to be a wise man: he would commend it, but he was loth to pay for it at the price that God and D the Philosopher sot upon it. But he that is grown in grace and hath made religion habitual to his spirit, is not at ease but when he is doing the works of the new man, he rests in religion and comforts his sorrows with thinking of his prayers, and in all crosses of the world he is patient, because his joy is at hand to refresh him when he list, for he cares not so he may serve God: and if you make him poor here, he is rich there, and he counts that to be his proper service, his worke, his recreation, and reward.

3. But because in the course of holy living, although the duty E be regular and constant, yet the sensible relishes and the flowrings of affections, the zeal and the visible expressions do not alwayes make the same emission; but sometimes by designe, and sometimes by order, sometimes by affection we are more busie; more intire, and more intent upon the actions of religion; in such cases we are to judge of our growth in grace, if after every interval of exraordinary piety, the next return be more devout and more [Page] affectionate, the labour be more cheerfull and more active; and if A religion returnes oftner and stayes longer in the same expressions, and leaves more satisfaction upon the spirit. Are your communions more frequent? and when they are, do ye approach neerer to God? have you made firmer resolutions and entertained more hearty purposes of amendment? Do you love God more dutifully and your neighbour with a greater charity? do you not so easily return to the world as formerly? are not you glad when the thing is done? do you go to your secular accounts with a more weaned affection then before? if you communicate well, B it is certain, that you will still do it better: if you do not communicate well, every opportunity of doing it is but a new trouble, easily excused, readily omitted, done because it is necessary, but not because we love it: and we shall finde that such persons in their old age do it worst of all; And it was observed by a Spanish Confessor, who was also a famous preacher, that in persons not very religious, the confessions which they made upon their deathbed were the coldest, the most imperfect, and with lesse contrition then all that he had observed them to make in many years before. For so the Canes of Egypt when they newly arise from their bed of mud and slime of Nilus, start up into an equal and continual length, and are interrupted C but with few knots, and are strong and beauteous with great distances, and intervals: but when they are grown to their full length they lessen into the point of a pyramis, and multiply their knots and joynts, interrupting the finenesse and smoothnesse of its body: so are the steps & declensions of him that does not grow in grace: at first when he springs up from his impurity, by the waters of baptisme and repentance, he grows straight and strong, and suffers but few interruptions of piety, and his constant courses of religion are but rarely intermitted; till they ascend up to a full age or towards the ends of their life, then they are weak and D their devotions often intermitted, and their breaches are frequent, and they seek excuses, and labour for dispensations, and love God and religion lesse and lesse, till their old age instead of a crown of their vertue and perseverance ends in levity and unprofitable courses; light and uselesse as the tufted feathers upon the cane, every winde can play with it and abuse it, but no man can make it useful. When therefore our piety interrupts its greater and more solemn expressions, and upon the return of the greater offices, and bigger solemnities we finde them to come upon our spirits like the wave of a tide, which retired onely because it was natural so E to do and yet came further upon the strand at the next rolling; When every new confession, every succeeding communion, every time of separation for more solemn and intense prayer is better spent and more affectionate, leaving a greater relish upon the spirit, and possessing greater portions of our affections, our reason, [Page] A and our choice, then we may give God thanks, who hath given us more grace to use that grace, and a blessing to endeavour our duty, and a blessing upon our endeavour.

4. To discern our growth in grace, we must inquire concerning our passions, whether they be mortified and quiet, complying with our ends of vertue and under command. For since the passions are the matter of vertue and vice respectively, he that hath brought into his power all the strengths of the enemy, and the forts from whence he did infest him, he onely hath secured his holy walking with God. But because this thing is never perfectly B done, and yet must alwayes be doing, grace grows according as we have finished our portions of this work. And in this we must not onely inquire concerning our passions, whether they be sinfull and habitually prevalent; for if they be, we are not in the state of grace; But whether they return upon us in violences and undecencies, in transportation and unreasonable, and imprudent expressions; for although a good man may be incident to a violent passion, and that without sin, yet a perfect man is not; a wellgrown Christian hath seldom such sufferings; to suffer such things sometimes may stand with the being of vertue, but not with its C security: For if passions range up and down and transport us frequently and violently, we may keep in our forts, and in our dwellings, but our enemy is master of the field, and our vertues are restrained, and apt to be starved, and will not hold out long; a good man may be spotted with a violence, but a wise man will not: and he that does not adde wisedom to his vertue, the knowledge of Jesus Christ to his vertuous habits, will be a good man but till a storm comes. But beyond this, inquire after the state of your passions, in actions of religion: Some men fast to mortifie their lust, and their fasting makes them peevish: some reprove a vice D but they do it with much inpatience; some charitably give excellent counsell, but they do that also with a pompous and proud spirit; and passion being driven from open hostilities, is forced to march along in the retinue and troops of vertue: And although this be rather a deception and a cosenage then an imperfection; and supposes a state of sin rather then an imperfect grace; yet because it tacitly and secretly creeps along among the circumstances of pious actions, as it spoils a vertue in some, so it lessens it in others, and therefore is considerable also in this question.

And although no man must take accounts of his being in, or E out of the state of grace, by his being dispassionate, and free from all the assaults of passion, yet as to the securing his being in the state of grace, he must provide that he be not a slave of passion, so to declare his growth in grace, he must be sure to take the measures of his affections, and see that they be lessened; more apt to be suppressed; not breaking out to inconvenience and imprudencies, [Page] not rifling our spirit and drawing us from our usuall and more A sober tempers. Try therefore if your fear be turned into caution, your lust into chast friendships, your imperious spirit into prudent government, your revenge into justice, your anger into charity, and your peevishnesse and rage, into silence and suppression of language. Is our ambition changed into vertuous and noble thoughts? can we emulate without envy? is our covetousnesse lessen'd into good husbandry, and mingled with alms, that we may certainly discern the love of money to be gone? do we leave to despise our inferiours, and can we willingly endure to admit him that excels us in any gift or grace whatsoever, and to commend B it without abatement, and mingling allayes with the commendation, and disparagements to the man? If we be arrived but thus farre, it is well, and we must go further. But we use to think that all disaffections of the body are removed, if they be changed into the more tolerable, although we have not an athletick health, or the strength of porters or wrastlers: For although it be felicity to be quit of all passion, that may be sinfull or violent; and part of the happinesse of heaven shall consist in that freedom; yet our growth in grace consists in the remission and lessening of our passions: onely he that is incontinent in his C lust, or in his anger, in his desires of money, or of honour, in his revenge, or in his fear, in his joyes, or in his sorrows, that man is not grown at all in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ: This onely; in the scruting and consequent judgement concerning our passions, it will concern the curiosity of our care, to watch against passions in the reflex act; against pride, or lust, complacency, and peevishnesse attending upon vertue. For he was noted for a vain person, who being overjoyed for the cure of his pride (as he thought) cried out to his wife, Cerne Dionysia deposui fastum, behold I have laid aside all my pride: and of that very dream the silly man thought he had reason to boast; D but considered not that it was an act of pride, and levity besides. If thou hast given a noble present to thy friend, if thou hast rejected the unjust desire of thy Prince; if thou hast endured thirst and hunger for religion or continence; if thou hast refused an offer like that which was made to Joseph, sit down and rest in thy good conscience, and do not please thy self in opinions, and phantastick noises abroad, and do not despise him that did not do so as thou hast done; and reprove no man with an upbraiding circumstance: for it will give thee but an ill return, and a contemptible reward, if thou shalt over-lay thy infant-vertue, or drown it with a flood of E breast-milk.

Sermon. XV. B Of Growth in Grace. Part II.

[Page]

A

5. HE is well grown in, or towards the state of grace, C who is more patient of a sharp reproof, then of a secret flattery. For a reprehension contains so much mortification to the pride and complacencies of a man; is so great an affront to an easie and undisturbed person, is so empty of pleasure, and so full of profit, that he must needs love vertue in a great degree, who can take in that which onely serves her end, and is displeasant to himself, and all his gayeties. A severe reprehendor of anothers vice, comes dressed like Iacob when he went to cozen his brother of the blessing: his outside is rough and hairy, but the voice is Jacobs voice; rough hands, and a healthfull language D get the blessing, even against the will of him that shall feel it; but he that is patient, and even, not apt to excuse his fault, that is lesse apt to anger, or to scorn him that snatches him rudely from the flames of hell, he is vertues Confessor, and suffers these lesser stripes for that interest which will end in spirituall and eternall benedictions.

They who are furious against their monitors are incorrigible: but it is one degree of meeknesse to suffer discipline: and a meek man cannot easily be an ill man, especially in the present instance: he appears, at least, to have a healthfull constitution; he hath E good flesh to heal; his spirit is capable of medicine, and that man can never be despaired of, who hath a disposition so neer his health as to improve all physick, and whose nature is relieved by every good accident from without. But that which I observe is, That this is not onely a good disposition towards repentance, and restitution, but is a signe of growth in grace, according as it becomes naturall, easie, and habituall. Some men chide themselves for all their [Page] misdemeanours, because they would be represented to the censures A and opinions of other men, with a fair Character, and such as need not to be reproved: others out of inconsideration sleep in their own dark rooms, and untill the charity of a Guide, or of a friend draws the curtain and lets in a beam of light, dream on untill the graves open, and hell devours them; But if they be called upon by the grace of God, let down with a sheet of counsels and friendly precepts, they are presently inclined to be obedient to the heavenly monitions, but unlesse they be dressed with circumstances of honour and civility, with arts of entertainment, and insinuation they are rejected utterly, or received unwillingly: B Therefore although upon any termes, to endure a sharp reproof be a good signe of amendment; yet the growth of grace is not properly signified by every such sufferance: For when this disposition begins▪ amendment also begins, and goes on in proportion to the increment of this. To endure a reproof without adding a new sin is the first step to amendments, that is, to endure it without scorn, or hatred, or indignation. 2. The next is to suffer reproof without excusing our selves: For he that is apt to excuse himself is onely desirous in a civill manner to set the reproof aside, and to represent the charitable monitour to be too hasty in C his judgement, and deceived in his information; and the fault to dwell there, not with himself. 3. Then he that proceeds in this instance admits the reprovers sermon, or discourse, without a private regret: he hath no secret murmurs. or unwillingnesses to the humiliation, but is onely ashamed that he should deserve it: but for the reprehension it self, that troubles him not; but he looks on it as his own medicine, and the others charity. 4. But if to this he addes, that he voluntary confesses his own fault, and of his own accord vomits out the loads of his own intemperance, and eases his spirit of the infection, then it is certain he is not onely D a professed and hearty enemy against sin, but a zealous, and a prudent, and an active person against all its interest; and never counts himself at ease but while he rests upon the banks of Sion, or at the gates of the temple; never pleased but in vertue and religion: Then he knows the state of his soul, and the state of his danger, he reckons it no objection to be abased in the face of man, so he may be gracious in the eyes of God: And that's a signe of a good grace, and a holy wisdom; That man is grown in the grace of God, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Justus in principio sermonis est accusator sui, said the Wise man, The righteous E accuseth himself in the beginning: that is, quickly, lest he be prevented: And certain it is, he cannot be either wise or good that had rather have a reall sin within him, then that a good man should beleeve him to be a repenting sinner; that had rather keep his crime, then lose his reputation; that is, rather to be so, then to [Page] A be thought so, rather be without the favour of God, then of his neighbour. Diogenes once spied a young man coming out of a Tavern, or place of entertainment; who perceiving himself observed by the Philosopher, with some confusion stepped back again, that he might (if possible) preserve his fame with that severe person. But Diogenes told him, Quanto magis intraveris tanto magis eris in cauponâ: The more you go back, the longer you are in the place where you are ashamed to be seen; and he that conceals his sin, still retains that which he counts his shame, and his burden. Hippocrates was noted for an ingenious person, that B he published and confessed his errour concerning the futures of the head: and all ages since Saint Austin have called him pious, for writing his book of retractations, in which he published his former ignorances and mistakes, and so set his shame off to the world, invested with a garment of modesty, and above half changed before they were seen. I did the rather insist upon this particular, because it is a consideration of huge concernment, and yet much neglected in all its instances and degrees. We neither confesse our shame, nor endure it; we are privately troubled, and C publikely excuse it; we turn charity into bitternesse, and our reproof into contumacy and scrone; and who is there amongst us that can endure a personall charge? or is not to be taught his personall duty, by generall discoursings, by parable and apologue, by acts of in sinuation and wary distances? but by this state of persons we know the estate of our own spirits.

When God sent his Prophets to the people, and they stoned them with stones, and sawed them asunder, and cast them into dungeons, and made them beggers, the people fell into the condition of Babylon, Quam curavimus & non est sanata; We healed her (said D the Prophets) But she would not be cured: Derelinquamus eam, that's her doom; let her enjoy her sins and all the fruits of sin laid up in treasures of wrath against the day of vengeance and retribution.

6. He that is grown in grace, and the knowledge of Christ esteems no sin to be little or contemptible; none fit to be cherished or indulged to. For it is not onely inconsistent with the love of God, to entertain any undecency or beginning of a crime, any thing that displeases him, but he alwayes remembers how much it cost him to arrive at the state of good things, whether the grace E of God hath already brought him: He thinks of the prayers and tears, his restlesse nights, and his daily fears, his late escape, and his present danger, the ruines of his former state, and the difficult and imperfect reparations of this new; his proclivity and aptnesse to, vice, and naturall aversnesse and uneasie inclinations to the strictnesse of holy living; and when these are considered truly, they naturally make a man unwilling to entertaine any beginnings [Page] of a state of life contrary to that which with so much danger A and difficulty, through so many objections and enemies he hath attained. And the truth is, when a man hath escaped the dangers of his first state of sin, he cannot but be extreamly unwilling to return again thither, in which he can never hope for heaven: (and so it must be) for a man must not flatter himself in a small crime, and say as Lot did when he begged a reprieve for Zoar, Alas Lord, is it not a little one and my soul shall live? And it is not therefore to be entertained because it is little; for it is the more without excuse, if it be little; the temptations to it are not great; the allurements not mighty; the promises not insnaring, the resistance easie; B and a wise man considers, it is a greater danger to be overcome by a little sin, then by a great one; a greater danger (I say) not directly, but accidentally; not in respect of the crime, but in relation to the person: for he that cannot overcome a small crime, is in the state of infirmity, so great, that he perishes infallibly, when he is arrested by the sins of a stronger temptation: But he that easily can, and yet will not; he is in love with sin, and courts his danger, that he may at least kisse the apples of Paradise, or feast himself with the parings: since he is by some displeasing instrument affrighted from glutting himself with the forbidden fruit, C in ruder and bigger instances: But the well-grown Christian is curious of his newly trimmed soul, and like a nice person with clean clothes, is carefull that no spot or stain sully the virgin whitenesse of his robe: whereas another whose albes of baptisme are sullied in many places with the smoak and filth of Sodom and uncleannesse, cares not in what paths he treads, and a shower of dirt changes not his state, who already lies wallowing in the puddles of impurity; It makes men negligent and easie, when they have an opinion or certain knowledge that they are persons extraordinary in nothing; that a little care will not mend them; that another D sin cannot make them much worse: But it is as a signe of a tender conscience, and a reformed spirit, when it is sensible of every alteration, when an idle word is troublesom, when a wandering thought puts the whole spirit upon its guard; when too free a merriment is wiped off with a sigh and a sad thought, and a severe recollection, and a holy prayer: Polycletus was wont to say, That they had work enough to do, who were to make a curuious picture of clay and dirt, when they were to take accounts for the handling of mud and morter: A mans spirit is naturally carelesse of baser and uncostly materials; but if a man be to work E in gold, then he will save the filings, and his dust, and suffer not a grain to perish: And when a man hath laid his foundations in precious stones, he will not build vile matter, stubble and dirt upon it: So it is in the spirit of a man; If he have built upon the rock Christ Jesus, and is grown up to a good stature in Christ, he will [Page] A not easily dishonour his building nor lose his labours, by an incurious entertainment of vanities and little instances of sin; which as they can never satisfie any lust or appetite to sin; so they are like a flie in a box of ointment or like little follies to a wise man, they are extreamly full of dishonour and disparagement, they disarray a mans soul of his vertue, and dishonour him for cockle-shels and baubles, and tempt to a greater folly: which every man, who is grown in the knowledge of Christ, therefore carefully avoids, because he fears a relapse, with a fear as great as his hopes of heaven are, and knowes that the entertainment of small sins do but entice B a mans resolutions to disband, they unravel and untwist his holy purposes, and begin in infirmities and proceed in folly, and end in death.

7. He that is grown in grace pursues vertue for its own interest, purely and simply without the mixture and allay of collateral designes, and equally inclining purposes; God in the beginning of our returns to him entertains us with promises and threatnings, the apprehensions of temporal advantages, with fear and shame, and with reverence of friends and secular respects, with reputation and coercion of humane laws and at first men snatch at the lesser and lower ends of vertue and such rewards are visible, and which God C sometimes gives in hand to entertain our weak, and imperfect desires: The young Philosophers were very forward to get the precepts of their sect, and the rules of severity, that they might discourse with Kings, not that they might reform their own manners; and some men study to get the ears and tongues of the people, rather then to gain their souls to God; and they obey good laws, for fear of punishment, or to preserve their own peace; and some are worse they do good deeds out of spite, and preach Christ out of envy, or to lessen the authority and fame of others: some of these lessen the excellency of the act, others spoil it quite: it is D in some, imperfect, in others, criminal; in some it is consistent with a beginning infant-grace, in others it is an argument of the state of sin and death: but in all cases, the well grown Christian, he that improoves or goes forward in his way to heaven, brings vertue forth, not into discourses and panegyrickes, but into his life and manners; his vertue although it serves many good ends accidentally; yet by his intention it onely suppresses his inordinate passions, makes him temperate and chast, casts out his devils of drunkennesse and lust, pride and rage, malice and revenge: it E makes him useful to his brother and a servant of God; and although these flowers cannot choose but please his eye, and delight his smell, yet he chooses to gather honey, and licks up the dew of heaven and feasts his spirit upon the Manna, and dwells not in the collateral usages and accidental sweetnesses which dwell at the gates of the other senses, but like a Bee loads his thighs with [Page] wax and his bag with honey; that is, with the useful parts of vertue A in order to holinesse and felicity. Of which the best signes and notices we can take will be if we as earnestly pursue vertues which are acted in private, as those whose scene lies in publick, If we pray in private, under the onely eye of God and his ministring angels as in Churches; if we give our almes in secret rather then in publick; if we take more pleasure in the just satisfaction of our consciences, and securing our reputation; if we rather pursue innocence then seek an excuse; if we desire to please God, though we lose our fame with men; if we be just to the poorest servant as to the greatest prince, if we choose to be among the jewels of B God though we be the [...] the off-scouring of the world; if when we are secure from witnesses and accusers and not obnoxious to the notices of the law, we think our selves obliged by conscience, and practise, and live accordingly; then our services and intentions in vertue are right, then we are past the twilights of conversion, and the umbrages of the world, and walk in the light of God, of his word, and of his spirit, of grace and reason, as becometh not babes, but men in christ Jesus. In this progresse of grace I have not yet expressed, that perfect persons should serve God C out of mere love of God and the divine excellencies, without the considerations of either heaven or hell; such a thing as that is talked of in mystical Theology. And I doubt not but many good persons come to that growth of Charity that the goodnesse and excellency of God are more incumbent and actually pressing upon their spirit then any considerations of reward: But then I shall adde this; that when persons come to that hight of grace (or contemplation rather) and they love God for himself and do their duties in order to the fruition of him and his pleasure; all that, is but heaven in another sense, and under another name; just as the mystical Theologie D is the highest duty and the choicest parts of obedience under a new method: but in order to the present, that which I call a signification of our growth in grace, is a pursuance of vertue upon such reasons as are propounded to us, as motives in Christianity (such as are to glorifie God, and to enjoy his promises in the way, and in our country, to avoid the displeasure of God, and to be united to his glories) and then to exercise vertue in such parts and to such purposes as are useful to good life, and profitable to our neighbours; not to such onely where they serve reputation, or secular ends. For though the great Physitian of our souls hath E mingled profits and pleasures with vertue to make its chalice sweet and apt to be drank off, yet he that takes out the sweet ingredient and feasts his palate with the lesse wholsome part, because it is delicious, serves a low end of sense or interest, but serves not God at all; and as little does benefit to the soul: such a person is like Homers bird, deplumes himselfe to feather all the naked callows [Page] A that he sees, and holds a taper that may light others to heaven, while he burns his own fingers: but a well grown person, out of habit and choice out of love of vertue and just intention goes on his journey in straight wayes to heaven, even when the bridle and coercion of laws or the spurs of interest or reputation are laid aside and desires witnesses of his actions, not that he may advance his fame, but for reverence and fear, and to make it still more necessary to do holy things.

8. Some men there are in the beginning of their holy walking with God, and while they are babes in Christ, who are presently busied in delights of prayers, and rejoyce in publick communion, B and count all solemn assemblies, festival; but as they are pleased with them, so they can easily be without them; It is a signe of a common and vulgar love onely to be pleased with the company of a friend, and to be as well with out him, amoris at morsum qui verè senserit, he that ha's felt the stings of a sharp and very dear affection is impatient in the absence of his beloved object, the soul that is sick and swallowed up with holy fire loves nothing else; all pleasures else seem unsavory, company is troublesome, visitors are tedious, homilies of comfort are flat and uselesse. The pleasures of vertue to a good and perfect man are not like the perfumes C of Nard Pistick, which is very delightful when the box is newly broken, but the want of it is no trouble; we are well enough without it; but vertue is like hunger and thirst it must be satisfied or we die; and when we feel great longings after religion and faintings for want of holy nutriment, when a famine of the word and sacraments is more intolerable; and we think our selves really most miserable, when the Church doors are shut against us, or like the Christians in the persecution of the Vandals, who thought it worse then death, that there Bishops were taken from them; If we understand excommunication, or Church D censures (abating the disreputation and secular appendages) in the sense of the spirit to be a misery next to hell it self, then we have made a good progresse in the Charity and grace of God; till then we are but pretenders, or infants, or imperfect, in the same degree in which our affections are cold, and our desires remisse; For a constant and prudent zeal is the best testimony of our masculine and vigorous heats, and an houre of fervour is more pleasing to God then a moneth of luke-warmnesse, and indifferency.

E 9 But as some are active onely in the presence of a good object, but remisse and carelesse for the want of it, so on the other side an infant grace is safe in the absence of a temptation, but falls easily, when it is in presence: He therefore that would understand if he be grown in grace, may consider if his safety consists onely in peace, or in the strength of the spirit. It is good that we will not seek out [Page] opportunities to sin; but are not we too apprehensive of it, when A it is presented? or do we not sink under when it presses us? can we hold our tapers neer the flames and not suck it in greedily like Naphtha or prepared Nitre? or can we like the children of the captivity walk in the midst of flames and not be scorched or consumed,? Many men will (not like Judah) go into high wayes and untie the girdles of harlots; But can you reject the importunity of a beautious and an imperious Lady, as Joseph did we had need pray that we be not led into temptation; that is, not onely into the possession, but not into the allurements and neighbour-hood of it, least by little and little our strongest resolutions be untwist, and crack B in sunder like an easie cord severed into single threds: but if we by the necessity of our lives, and manner of living▪ dwell where a temptation will assault us, then to resist, is the signe of a great grace; but such a signe, that without it, the grace turns into wantonnesse, and the man into a beast, and an angel into a Devil. R. Moses will not allow a man to be a true penitent untill he hath left all his sin, and in all the like circumstances refuses those temptations under which formerly he sinned and died: and indeed it may happen that such a trial onely can secure our judgement concerning C our selves: and although to be tried in all the same accidents be not safe, nor alwayes contingent, and in such cases it is sufficient to resist all the temptations we have, and avoid the rest and decree against all, yet if it please God we are tempted, as David was by his eyes, or the Martyrs by tortures, or Joseph by his wanton Mistris, then to stand sure and to ride upon the temptation like a ship upon a wave, or to stand like a rock in an impetuous storm, thats the signe of a great grace and of a well-grown Christian.

10. No man is grown in grace but he that is ready for every D work, that chooses not his employment, that refuses no imposition from God or his superiour; a ready hand, an obedient heart, and a willing cheerful soul in all the work of God and in every office of religion is a great index of a good proficient in the wayes of Godlinesse. The heart of a man is like a wounded hand or arme, which if it be so cured that it can onely move one way and cannot turn to all postures and natural uses it is but imperfect, and still half in health, and half wounded: so is our spirit; if it be apt for prayer and close sifted in almes, if it be sound in faith and dead in charity, if it be religious to God and unjust to our neighbour, E there wants some integral part, or there is a lamenesse; and the deficiency in any one duty implyes the guilt of all (said Saint James) and bonum exintegrâ causâ malum exquâlibet particulari, every fault spoils a grace. But one grace alone cannot make a good man. But as to be universal in our obedience is necessary to the being in the state of grace: so readily to change imployment from [Page] A the better to the worse, from the honorable to the poor, from usefull to seemingly unprofitable, is a good Character of a well grown Christian, if he takes the worst part with indifferency and a spirit equally choosing all the events of the divine providence. Can you be content to descend from ruling of a province to the keeping of a herd: from the work of an Apostle to be confined into a prison, from disputing before Princes to a conversation with Shepherds? can you be willing to all that God is willing, and suffer all that he chooses as willingly as if you had chosen your own fortune? In the same degree, in which you can conform to God, in the same you have approached towards that perfection whether B we must by degrees arrive in our journey towards heaven.

This is not to be expected of beginners; for they must be enticed with apt imployments; and it may be, their office and work so fits their spirits, that it makes them first in love with it, and then with God for giving it; and many a man goes to heaven in the dayes of peace, whose faith, and hopes, and patience would have been dashed in pieces, if he had fallen into a storm or persecution. Oppression will make a wise man mad (saith Solomon): there are some usages that will put a sober person out of all patience, such C which are besides the customes of this life, and contrary to all his hopes, and unworthy of a person of his quality: and when Nero durst not die, yet when his servants told him that the Senators had condemned him to be put to death more Majorum, that is, by scourging like a slave, he was forced into a preternatural confidence, and fel upon his own sword; but when God so changes thy estate that thou art fallen into accidents to which thou art no otherwise disposed, but by grace and a holy spirit, and yet thou canst passe through them with quietnesse, and do the work of suffering as well D as the works of a prosperous imployment; this is an argument of a great grace and an extraordinary spirit. For many persons in a change of fortune perish, who if they had still been prosperous had gone to heaven; being tempted in a persecution to perjuries and Apostacy and unhandsome compliances, and hypocricy, and irreligion: and many men are brought to vertue, and to God, and to felicity by being persecuted and made unprosperous: and these are effects of a more absolute and irrespective predestination; but when the grace of God is great and prudent, and masculine, and well grown, it is unalter'd in all changes, save onely that E every accident that is new and violent brings him neerer to God, and makes him with greater caution and severity to dwell in vertue.

11. Lastly, some there are who are firme in all great and foresoen changes and have laid up in the store-houses of the spirit (reason and religion) arguments and discourses enough to defend [Page] them against all violencies and stand at watch so much, that A they are safe where they can consider, and deliberate; but there may be something wanting yet; and in the direct line, in the strait progresse to heaven, I call that an infallible signe of a great grace, and indeed the greatest degree of a great grace, when a man is prepared against sudden invasions of the spirit, surreptions and extemporary assaults: Many a valiant person dares sight a battle who yet will be timorous and surprised in a mid-night alarme; or if he falls into a river; And how many discreet persons are there, who, if you offer them a sin, and give them time to consider, and tell them of it before hand, will rather die then be perjured, or tell B a deliberate lie, or break a promise; who (it may be) tell many sudden lies, and excuse themselves, and break their promises, and yet think themselves safe enough; and sleep without either affrightments, or any apprehension of dishonour done to their persons or their religion. Every man is not armed for all sudden arrests of passions: few men have cast such fetters upon their lusts and have their passions in so strict confinement, that they may not be over run with a midnight flood or an unlooked for inundation; He that does not start when he is smitten suddenly, is a constant person: and that is it which I intend in this instance; that he is C a perfect man and well grown in grace, who hath so habitual a resolution and so unhasty and wary a spirit, as that he decrees upon no act before he hath considered maturely, and changed the sudden occasion into a sober counsel. David by chance spied Bathsheba washing her self, and being surprised, gave his heart away before he could consider, and when it was once gone, it was hard to recover it; and sometimes a man is betrayed by a sudden opportunity and all things fitted for his sin ready at the door; the act stands in all its dresse, and will not stay for an answear; and incosideration is the defence and guard of the sin, D and makes that his conscience can the more easily swallow it what shall the man do then? unlesse he be strong by his old strengths, by a great grace, by an habitual vertue, and a sober unmoved spirit, he falls and dies in the death and hath no new strengths; but such as are to be imployed for his recovery; none for his present guard; unlesse upon the old stock, and if he be a well grown Christian.

These are the parts, acts, and offices of our growing in grace, and yet I have sometimes called them signes; but they are signes, as eating and drinking are signes of life, they are signes so as also E they are parts of life; and these are parts of our growth in grace, so that a man can grow in grace to no other purpose but to these or the like improvements.

Concerning which I have a caution or two to interpose. 1. The growth of grace is to be estimated as other morall things are, not [Page] A according to the growth of things naturall: Grace does not grow by observation, and a continuall efflux, and a constant proportion; and a man cannot call himself to the account for the growth of every day, or week, or moneth; but in the greater portions of our life in which we have had many occasions and instances to exercise and improve our vertues, we may call our selves to account; but it is a snare to our consciences to be examined in the growth of grace in every short resolution of solemn duty, as against every Communion, or great Festivall. 2. Growth in grace is not alwayes to be discerned either in single instances, or in single graces. B Not in single instances; for every time we are to exercise a vertue, we are not in the same naturall dispositions, nor do we meet with the same circumstances, and it is not alwayes necessary that the next act should be more earnest and intence then the former; all single acts are to be done after the manner of men, and therefore are not alwayes capable of increasing; and they have their termes beyond which easily they cannot swell: and therefore if it be a good act and zealous, it may proceed from a well grown grace, and yet a younger and weaker person may do some acts as great and as religious as it; But neither do single graces alwayes C affoord a regular and certain judgement in this affair; for some persons at the first, had rather die then be unchast, or perjured: and greater love then this no man hath, that he lay down his life for God: he cannot easily grow in the substance of that act; and if other persons, or himself, in processe of time do it more cheerfully, or with fewer fears, it is not alwayes a signe of a greater grace, but some times of greater collaterall assistances, or a better habit of body, or more fortunate circumstances: for he that goes to the block tremblingly for Christ, and yet endures his death certainly, and endures his trembling too, and runs through all his infirmities D and the bigger temptations; looks not so well many times in the eyes of men, but suffers more for God, then those confident Martyrs that courted death in the primitive Church; and therefore may be much dearer in the eyes of God: But that which I say in this particular, is that a smallnesse in one, is not an argument of the imperfection of the whole estate: Because God does not alwayes give to every man occasions to exercise, and therefore not to improve every grace; and the passive vertues of a Christian are not to be expected to grow so fast in prosperous, as in suffering Christians: but in this case we are to take accounts of our selves by E the improvement of those graces which God makes to happen often in our lives; such as are charity and temperance in young men, liberality and religion in aged persons, ingenuity and humility in schollers, justice in merchants and artificers, forgivenesse of injuries in great men, and persons tempted by law-suits; for since vertues grow like other morall habits, by use; diligence, and assiduity, [Page] there where God hath appointed our work and in our instances, A there we must consider concerning our growth in grace, in other things we are but beginners: But it is not likely that God will trie us concerning degrees hereafter, in such things of which in this world he was sparing to give us opportunities.

3. Be carefull to observe that these rules are not all to be understood negatively, but positively, and affirmatively, that is, that a man may conclude that he is grown in grace if he observes these characters in himself, which I have here discoursed of; but he must not conclude negatively, that he is not grown in grace, if he cannot observe such signall testimonies: for sometimes God covers the B graces of his servants, and hides the beauty of his tabernacle with goats hair, and the skins of beasts, that he may rather suffer them to want present comfort, then the grace of humility; for it is not necessary to preserve the gayeties and their spirituall pleasures; but if their humility fails, (which may easily do under the sunshine of conspicuous and illustrious graces) their vertues and themselves perish in a sad declension. But sometimes men have not skill to make a judgement; and all this discourse seems too artificiall to be tried by in the hearty purposes of religion. Sometimes they let passe much of their life, even of their better dayes, without observance C of particulars; sometimes their cases of conscience are intricate, or allayed with unavoydable infirmities; sometimes they are so uninstructed in the more secret parts of religion, and there are so many illusions and accidentall miseariages, that if we shall conclude negatively in the present Question, we may produce scruples infinite, but understand nothing more of our estate, and do much lesse of our duty.

4. In considering concerning our growth in grace, let us take more care to consider matters that concern justice, and charity, then that concern the vertue of religion: because in this there may D be much, in the other there cannot easily be any illusion, and cosenage. That is a good religion that beleeves, and trusts, and hopes in God through Jesus Christ, and for his sake does all justice, and all charity, that he can; and our Blessed Lord gives no other deseription of love to God, but obedience and keeping his commandements: Justice and charity are like the matter, religion is the form of Christianity; but although the form be more noble and the principle of life, yet it is lesse discernable, lesse materiall, and lesse sensible; and we judge concerning the form by the matter, and by materiall accidents, and by actions: and so we must of our religion, E that is of our love to God, and of the efficacy of our prayers, and the usefulnesse of our fastings; we must make our judgements by the more materiall parts of our duty, that is, by sobriety, and by justice, and by charity.

I am much prevented in my intention for the perfecting of [Page] A this so very materiall consideration: I shall therefore onely tell you, that to these parts and actions of good life, or of our growth in grace, some have added some accidentall considerations, which are rather signes then parts of it: Such are. 1. To praise all good things, and to study to imitate what we praise. 2. To be impatient that any man should excell us; not out of envy to the person, but of noble emulation to the excellency; For so Themistocles could not sleep after the great victory at Marathon purchased by Miltiades; till he had made himself illustrious by equall services to his countrey. 3. The bearing of sicknesse patiently, and ever with improvement, and the addition B of some excellent principle, and the firm pursuing it. 4. Great devotion, and much delight in our prayers. 5. Frequent inspirations, and often whispers of the Spirit of God prompting us to devotion, and obedience, especially if we adde to this, a constant and ready obedience to all those holy invitations. 6. Offering peace to them that have injured me, and the abating of the circumstances of honour, or of right, when either justice, or charity, is concerned in it. 7. Love to the brethren. C 8. To behold our companions, or our inferiours full of honour and fortune; and if we sit still at home and murmur not, or if we can rejoyce both in their honour, and our own quiet, that's a fair work of a good man; And now 9. After all this, I will not trouble you with reckoning a freedom from being tempted, not onely from being overcome, but from being tried: for though that be a rare felicity, and hath in it much safety, yet it hath lesse honour and fewer instances of vertue, unlesse it proceed from a confirmed and heroicall grace; which is indeed a little image of heaven, and of a celestiall charity; and never happens signally D to any, but to old and very eminent persons. 10. But some also adde an excellent habit of body and materiall passions, such as are chast and vertuous dreams, and suppose that as a disease abuses the fancy, and a vice does prejudice it; so may an excellent vertue of the soul smooth and Calcine the body, and make it serve perfectly, and without rebellious indispositions. 11. Others are in love with Mary Magdalens tears, and fancy the hard knees of Saint James, and the sore eyes of Saint Peter, and the very recreations of Saint John. Proh! quam virtute praeditos omnia decent! thinking all things becomes a good man; even his gestures E and little incuriosities: And though this may proceed from a great love of vertue, yet because some men do thus much and no more, and this is to be attributed to the lustre of vertue, which shines a little thorow a mans eye-lids, though he perversely winks against the light; yet as the former of these two is too Metaphysicall; so as the later too Phantasticall: he that by the fore-going materiall parts and proper significations of a growing grace does [Page] not understand his own condition, must be content to work on A still super totam materiam, without considerations of Particulars; he must pray earnestly, and watch diligently, and consult with prudent Guides, and ask of God great measures of his Spirit, and hunger and thirst after righteousnesse: for he that does so, shall certainly be satisfied: and if he understands not his present good condition, yet if he be not wanting in the down right endeavours of piety, and in hearty purposes, he shall then finde that he is grown in grace when he springs up in the resurrection of the just, and shall be ingrafted upon a tree of Paradise, which beareth fruit for ever, Glory to God, rejoycing to Saints and Angels, and eternall B felicity to his own pious, though undiscerning soul.

Prima sequentem, honestum est in secundis aut tertijs consistere.

Cicero. C D E

B Sermon. XVI. Of Growth in Sinne, OR C The severall states and degrees of Sinners, WITH The manner how they are to be treated.

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A

D Jude Epist. Ver. 22, 23.‘And of some have compassion, making a difference: * And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.’

MAn hath but one entrance into the world, but a thousand wayes to passe from thence; and as it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual; nothing but the union of faith and obedience E can secure our regeneration, and our new birth, and can bring us to see the light of heaven: but there are a thousand passages of turning into darknesse; and it is not enough that our bodies are exposed to so many sad infirmities and dishonourable imperfections, unlesse our soul also be a subject capable of so many diseases, follies, irregular passions, false principles, accursed [Page] habits and degrees of perversnesse, that the very kindes of them A are reducible to a method, and make up the part of a science: There are variety of stages and descents to death; as there are diversity of torments, and of sad regions of misery in hell, which is the centre and kingdom of sorrows. But that we may a little refresh the sadnesses of this consideration; for every one of these stages of sin, God hath measured out a proportion of mercy; for if sin abounds, grace shall much more abound, and God hath concluded all under sin, not with purposes to destroy us, but, Ut omnium misereatur, that he might have mercy upon all; that light may break forth from the deepest inclosures of darknesse, and B mercy may rejoyce upon the recessions of justice, and grace may triumph upon the ruins of sin, and God may be glorified in the miracles of our conversion, and the wonders of our preservation, and glories of our being saved. There is no state of sin, but if we be persons capable (according to Gods method of healing) of receiving antidotes, we shall finde a sheet of mercy spread over our wounds and nakednesse. If our diseases be small, almost necessary, scarce avoidable, then God does, and so we are commanded to cure them, and cover them with a vail of pity, compassion, and gentle remedies: If our evils be violent, inveterate, gangrened C and incorporated into our nature by evil customes, they must be pulled from the flames of hell with censures, and cauteries, and punishments, and sharp remedies, quickly and rudely; their danger is present and sudden, its effect is quick and intolerable, and there is no soft counsels then to be entertained; they are already in the fire; but they may be saved for all that; so great, so infinite, so miraculous is Gods mercy, that he will not give a sinner over, though the hairs of his head be singed with the flames of hell; Gods desires of having us to be saved continue, even when we begin to be damned; even till we will not be saved, and are gone beyond D Gods method, and all the revelations of his kindnesse. And certainly that is a bold and a mighty sinner whose iniquity is sweld beyond all the bulk and heap of Gods revealed loving kindnesse: If sin hath sweld beyond grace, and superabounds over it, that sin is gone beyond the measures of a man; such a person is removed beyond all the malice of humane nature, into the evil and spite of Devils, and accursed spirits; there is no greater sadnesse in the world then this. God hath not appointed a remedy in the vast treasures of grace for some men, and some sins; they have sinned like the falling Angels; and having over run the ordinary evil E inclinations of their nature, they are without the protection of the divine mercy; and the conditions of that grace which was designed to save all the world, was sufficient to have saved twenty. This is a condition to be avoyded with the care of God and his Angels, and all the whole industry of man. In order to [Page] A which end my purpose now is to remonstrate to you the several states of sin, and death, together with those remedies which God had proportioned out to them, that we may observe the evils of the least, and so avoid the intolerable mischiefs of the greater, even of those sins which still are within the power and possibilities of recovery, lest insensibly we fall into those sins and into those circumstances of person for which Christ never died, which the Holy Ghost never means to cure, and which the eternal God never will pardon; for there are of this kinde more then commonly men imagine, whilest they amuse their spirits with gaietyes and false principles, till they have run into horrible impieties, from B whence they are not willing to withdraw their foot, and God is resolved never to snatch and force them thence.

I [of some have compassion] and these I shall reduce to four heads or orders of men and actions; all which have their proper cure pro portionable to their proper state, gentle remedies to the lesser irregularities of the soul. The first are those that sin without observation of their particular state; either because they are uninstructed in the special cases of conscience, or because they do an evil against which there is no expresse commandment. It is a sad calamity that there are so many milions of men and women that C are entred into a state of sicknesse and danger, and yet are made to believe they are in perfect health; and they do actions concerning which they never made a question whether they were just or no; nor were ever taught by what names to call them. For while they observe that modesty is sometimes abused by a false name and called clownishnesse, & want of breeding; and contentednesse and temperate living is suppressed to be want of courage and noble thoughts; and severity of life is called imprudent and unsociable; and simplicity and hearty honesty is counted foolish and unpolitick, they are easily tempted to honour prodigality and foolish dissolution of their D estates with the title of liberal and noble usages, timorousnesse is called caution, rashnesse is called quicknesse of spirit, covetousnesse, is frugality, amorousnesse is society, and gentile; peevishnesse and anger is courage, flattery is humane, and courteous; and under these false vails vertue sli [...]s away (like truth from under the hand of them that fight for her) and leave vices dressed up with the same imagery, and the fraud not discovered, till the day of recompences, when men are distingushed by their rewards. But so men think they sleep freely when their spirits are loaden with a Lethargy and they call E a hestick-feaver the vigour of a natural heat, tell nature changes those lesse discerned states into the notorious images of death. Very many men never consider whether they sin or no in 10000. of their actions, every one of which is very disputable; and do not think they are bound to consider: these men are to be pitied and instructed, they are to be called upon to use religion like a daily [Page] diet; their consciences must be made tender and their Catechisme A enlarged; teach them, and make them sensible and they are cured.

But the other in this place are more considerable; Men sin without observation because their actions have no restraint of an expresse Commandment, no letter of the law to condemn them by an expresse sentence. And this happens, when the crime is comprehended under a general notion without the instancing of particulars; for if you search over all the Scripture you shall never finde incest named and marked with the black character of death; and there are diveres sorts of uncleannesse, to which Scripture therefore gives B no name, because she would have them have no being; And it had been necessary that God should have described all particulars and all kindes, if he had not given reason to man. For so it is fit that a guide should point out every turning, if he be to teach a childe or a fool to return under his fathers roof: But he that bids us avoid intemperance for fear of a feaver, supposes you to be sufficiently instructed that you may avoid the plague; and when to look upon a woman with lust is condemned, it will not be necessary to adde, you must not do more, when even the least is forbidden; C and when to uncover the nakednesse of Noah brought an universal plague upon the posterity of Cham, it was not necessary that the law-giver should say you must not ascend to your fathers bed, or draw the curtains from your sisters retirements. When the Athenians forbad to transport figs from Athens, there was no need to name the gardens of Alcibiades, much lesse was it necessary to adde that Chabrias should send no plants to Sparta. What so ever is comprised under the general notion, and partakes of the common nature and the same iniquity needs no special prohibition, unlesse we think we can mock God and elude his holy precepts with an D absurd trick of mistaken Logick. I am sure that will not save us harmlesse from a thunderbolt.

2. Men sin without an expresse prohibition when they commit a thing that is like a forbidden evil. And when Saint Paul had reckoned many works of the flesh he addes [and such like] all that have the same unreasonablenesse & carnallity. For thus, poligamy is unlawful; for if it be not lawful for a Christian to put away his wife and marry another (unlesse for adultery) much lesse may he keep a first and take a second, when the first is not put away; If a Christian may not be drunk with E wine, neither may he be drunk with passion; if he may not kill his neighbour, neither then must he tempt him to sin; for that destroyes him more: if he may not wound him, then he may not perswade him to intemperance, and a drunken feaver; if it be not lawful to cozen a man, much lesse is it permitted that he make a man a fool, and a beast, and exposed to every mans abuse and to all ready evils. And yet men are [Page] A taught to start at the one half of these, and make no conscience of the other half; whereof some have a greater basenesse then the other that are named, and all have the same unreasonablenesse.

3. A man is guilty, even when no law names his action, if he does any thing that is a cause or an effect, a part or unhandsome adjunct of a forbidden instance; he that forbad all intemperance, is as much displeased with the infinite of foolish talk that happens at such meetings, as he is at the spoiling of the drink and the destroying the health. If God cannot endure wantonnesse, how can he B suffer lascivious dressings, tempting circumstances, wanton eyes, high diet if idlenesse be a sin, then al immoderate mispending of our time, all long and tedious games, all absurd contrivances how to throw away a precious hour and a day of salvation also, are against God and against religion. He that is commanded to be charitable it is also intended he should not spend his money vainely, but be a good husband and provident that he may be able to give to the poor, as he would be to purchase a Lordship, or pay his daughters portion: and upon this stock it is that Christian religion forbids jeering, and immoderate laughter and reckon jestings amongst the C things that are unseemly. This also would be considered.

4. Besides the expresse laws of our religion, there is an universal line and limit to our passions and designes, which is called the anology of Christianity; that is, the proportion of its sanctity and strictnesse of [...] holy precepts. This is not forbidden, but does this become you? Is it decent to see a Christian live in plenty and ease and heap up mony and never to partake of Christs passions, there is no law against a Judge, his being a dresser of gardens or a gatherer of Sycamore fruits, but it becomes him not, and deserves a reproof. If I do exact justice to my neighbour and cause him to D be punished legally for all the evils he makes me suffer, I have not broken a fragment from the stony tables of the law: but this is against the analogy of our religion; It does not become a Disciple of so gentle a master to take all advantages that he can. Christ, that quitted all the glories that were essential to him, and that grew up in his nature when he lodged in his Fathers bosom, Christ that suffered all the evils due for the sins of mankinde, himself remaining most innocent, Christ, that promised persecution, injuries and affronts as part of our present portion, and gave them to his Disciples as a legacy, and gave us his spirit to enable us to suffer injuries; E and made that the parts of suffering evils should be the matter of three or four Christian graces, of patience of fortitude of long animity and perseverance; he that of eight beatitudes made that five of them should be instanced in the matter of humiliation and suffering temporal inconvenience, that blessed Master was certainly desirous that his Disciples should take their crowns from the crosse, [Page] not from the evennesse and felicities of the world; He intended A we should give something, and suffer more things, and forgive all things, all injuries whatsoever; and though together with this may consist our securing a just interest; yet in very many circumstances we shall be put to consider how far it becomes us, to quit something of that, to pursue peace; and when we have secured the letter of the law, that we also look to its analogy; when we do what we are strictly bound to, then also we must consider what becomes us, who are disciples of such a Master, who are instructed with such principles, charmed with so severe precepts and invited with the certainty of infinite rewards. Now although this B discourse may seem new and strange, and very severe, yet it is infinitely reasonable, because Christianity is a law of love, and voluntary services; it can in no sense be confined with laws and strict measures; well may the Ocean receive its limits, and the whole capacity of fire be glutted, and the grave have his belly so full, that it shal cast up al its bowels and disgorge the continual meal of so many thousand years; but love can never have a limit; and it is indeed to be swallowed up but nothing can fill it but God, who hath no bound. Christianity is a law for sons, not for servants; and God that gives C his grace without measure, and rewards without end, and acts of favour beyond our askings, and provides for us beyond our needs, and gives us counsels beyond commandments, intends not to be limited out by the just evennesses and stricken measures of the words of a commandment. Give to God full measure, [...] together, pressed down, heaped up, and running over; for God does so to us; and when we have done so to him, we are infinitely short of the least measure of what God does for us; we are still unprofitable servants. And therefore as the breaking any of the laws of Christianity provoks God to anger, so the prevaricating in the D analogy of Christianity stirres him up to jealousie: He hath reason to suspect our hearts are not right with him, when we are so reserved in the matter and measures of our services: and if we will give God but just what he calls for by expresse mandate, it is just in him to require all of that at our hands without any abatement & then we are sure to miscarry. And let us remember that when God said he was a jealous God he expressed the meaning of it to be, he did punish to the third and fourth genoration. Jelousie is like the rage of a man: but if it be also like the anger of God, it is insupportable and will crush us into the ruines of our E grave.

But because these things are not frequently considered, there are very many sins committed against religion, which because the commandment hath not marked men, refuse to mark, and think God requires no more. I am entred into a sea of matter, which I must not now prosecute; but I shall onely note this to you that it is [Page] A but reasonable, we should take accounts of our lives, by the proportions as well as by the expresse rules, of our religion; because in humane and civil actions all the nations of the world use so to call their subjects to account. For that which in the accounts of men is called reputation and publick honesty, is the same which in religion we call analogy and proportion; in both cases there being some things, which are besides the notices of laws, and yet are the most certain consignations of an excellent vertue. He is a base person that does any thing against publick honesty and yet no man can be punished if he marries a wife the next day after his first wives funeral: and so he that prevaricates the proportions and excellent reasons of Christianity, B is a person without zeal, and without love: and unlesse care be taken of him he will quickly be without religion. But yet these I say are a sort of persons which are to be used with gentlenesse, and treated with compassion; for no man must be handled roughly to force him to do a kindnesse: and coercion of laws and severity of Judges, serjeants and executioners are against offenders of commandments; But the way to cure such persons is the easiest and genteliest remedy of all others. They are to be instructed in all the parts of duty, and invited forward by the consideration of the great rewards which are laid up for all the sons of God, C who serve him without constraint, without measures and allaves, even as fire burns, and as the roses grow, even as much as they can, and to all the extent of their natural and artificial capacities For it is a thing fit for our compassion, to see men fettered in the iron bands of laws and yet to break the golden chains of love but all those instruments which are proper to enkindle the love of God and to turn fear into charity are the proper instances of that compassion which is to be used towards these men.

2. The next sort of those who are in the state of sin, and yet to be handled gently and with compassion are those who entertain D themselves with the beginnings and little entrances of sin, which as they are to be more pitied because they often come by reason of inadvertancy, and an unavoidable weaknesse in many degrees, so they are more to be taken care of, because they are undervallued & undiscernably run into incovenience; when we see a childe strike a servant rudely, or jeere a silly person, or wittily cheat his play-fellow, or talk words light as the skirt of a summer garment, we laugh and are delighted with the wit and confidence of the boy; and incourage such hopeful beginnings; and in the mean time E we consider not that from these beginnings he shall grow up till he become a Tyrant, an oppressor, a Goat and a Traytor. Nemo simul malus fit & malus esse cernitur; sicut nec scorpijs tum innas [...]untur stimuli cum pungunt No man is discerned to be vitious so soon as he is so, and vices have their infancy and their childe-hood and it cannot be expected that in a childs age should be the vice [Page] of a man; that were monstrous as if he wore a beard in his cradle; A and we do not believe that a serpents sting does just then grow when he stricks us in a vital part: The venome and the little spear was there, when it first began to creep from his little shell: And little boldnesses and looser words and wranglings for nuts, and lying for trifles, are of the same proportion to the malice of a childe, as impudence and duels and injurious law-suits, and false witnesse in judgement & perjuries are in men. And the case is the same when men enter upon a new stock of any sin; the vice is at first apt to be put out of countenance and a little thing discourages it; and it amuses the spirit with words, and phantastick images, and cheape B instances of sin; and men think themselves safe because they are as yet safe from laws, and the sin does not as yet out cry the healthful noise of Christs loud cryings and intercession with his Father, nor call for thunder or an amazing judgement; but according to the old saying the thornes of Dauphine will never fetch blood if they do not scratch the first day: & we shal finde that the little undecencies and riflings of our souls, the first openings and disparkings of our vertue differ onely from the state of perdition, as infancy does from old age, as sicknesse from death; It is the entrance into those regions whether whosoever passes finally, shall lie down and groan with C an eternal sorrow. Now in this case it may happen that a compassion may ruine a man, if it be the pity of an indiscreet mother, and nurse the sin from its weaknesse to the strength of habit and impudence; The compassion that is to be used to such persons is the compassion of a Phisitian or a severe Tutor; chastise thy infantsinne by discipline, and acts of vertue; and never begin that way from whence you must return with some trouble, and much shame, or else if you proceed, you finish your eternal ruine.

He that means to be temperate and avoid the crime and dishonour D of being a drunkard must not love to partake of the songs or to bear a part in the foolish scenes of laughter which destract wisdome and fright her from the company; And Lavina that was chaster then the elder Sabines, and severer then her Philosophical guardian, was wel instructed in the great lines of honour and cold justice to her husband; but when she gave way to the wanton ointments & looser circumstances of the Baie and bathed often in Avernus, and from thence hurried to the companies and dressings of Lucrinus, she quenched her honour, and gave her vertue and her body as a spoil to the follies and intemperance of a young gentle-man. For E so have I seen the little purles of a spring sweat thorow the bottom of a bank and intenerate the stubborn pavement till it hath made it fit for the impression of a childes foot, and it was despised like the descending pearls of a misty morning, till it had opened its way, and made a stream large enough to carry away the ruines of [Page] A the undermined strand, and to invade the neighbouring gardens: but then the despised drops were grown into an artificial river and an intolerable mischief: so are the first entrances of sin, stop'd with the antidotes of a hearty prayer, and checked into sobriety, by the eye of a Reverend man, or the counsells of a single sermon: But when such beginnings are neglected and our religion hath not in it so much Philosophy as to think any thing evil as long as we can endure it, they grow up to ulcers and pestilential evils; they destroy the soul by their aboad, who at their first entry might have been killed with the pressure of a little finger.

B [...].

Those men are in a condition in which they may if they please pity themselves; keep their green wounds from festering and uncleanlinesse and it will heal alone, non procul absunt, they are not far from the kingdom of Heaven, but they are not within its portion; and let me say this, that although little sins have not yet made our condition desperate but left it easily recoverable, yet it is a condition that is quite out of Gods favour: although they are not far advanced in their progresse to ruine, yet they are not at all in the state C of grace, and therefore though they are to be pitied and relieved accordingly, yet that supposes the incumbency of a present misery.

3. There are some very much to be pitied and assisted because they are going to hell and (as matters stand with them) they cannot, or they think they cannot avoid it. Quidam ad alienum dormiunt Seneca. somnum ad alienum edunt appetitum: amare & odisse (res omnium maximè liberas) jubentur. There are some persons whose life is so wholly in dependance from others, that they sleep when others please; they eat and drink according to their Masters appetite, or intemperance: they are commanded to love or hate, and are not D left free in the very Charter and priviledges of nature: Miserum est servire sub Dominis parùm felicibus, for suppose the Prince or the Patron be vitious, suppose he calls his servants to bathe their souls in the goblets of intemperance: if he be also imperious (for such persons love not to be contradicted in their vices) it is the losse of that mans fortune, not to lose his soul: and it is the servants excuse and he esteems it also his glory, that he can tell a merry tale, how his Master and himself did swim in drink, till they both talked like fools, and then did lie down like beasts

E —Facinus quos inquinat aequat.

There is then no difference, but that the one is the fairest bull and the master of the heard. And how many Tenents and Relatives are known to have a servile conscience and to know no affirmation or negation but such as shall serve their Land-lords interest? Alas the poor men live by it, and they must beg their bread if ever they turn recreant, or shall offer to be honest. There are some trades whose very foundations [Page] is laid in the vice of others; and in many others if a threed of deceit A do not quite run thorow all their negotiations, they decay into the sorrows of beggery; and therefore they will support their neighbours vice, that he may support their trade: And what would you advise those men to do, to whom a false oath is offered to their lips, and a dagger at their heart: their reason is surprized, and their choice is seized upon, and all their consultation is arrested; and if they did not prepare before hand, and stand armed with religion, and perfect resolutions, would not any man fall, and think that every good man will say his case is pitiable. Although no temptation is bigger then the grace of God, yet many temptations are B greater then our strengths, and we do not live at the rate of a mighty and a victorious grace.

Those persons which cause these vitious necessities upon their brethren will lie low in hell; but the others will have but small comfort in feeling a lesser damnation.

Of the same consideration it is, when ignorant people are Catechized into false doctrine, and know nothing but such principles which weaken the nerves, and enfeeble the joynts of holy living; they never heard of any other; those that follow great and evil C examples; the people that are ingaged in the publike sins of a kingdom wihch they understand not, and either must venture to be undone upon the strength of their own little reasonings, and weak discoursings, or else must go quâ itur, non quâ enndum est, there where the popular misery hath made the way plain before their eyes, though it be uneven and dangerous to their consciences. In these cases I am forced to reckon a Catalogue of mischiefs; but it will be hard to cure any of them. Aristippus in his discourses was a great flatterer of Dionysius of Sicily, and did own doctrines which might give an easinesse to some vices, and knew D not how to contradict the pleasures of his Prince; but seemed like a person disposed to partake of them, that the example of a Philosopher, and the practise of a King might do countenance to a shamefull life. But when Dionysius sent him two women, slaves, fair, and young, he sent them back and shamed the easinesse of his doctrine by the severity of his manners, he daring to be vertuous when he was alone, though in the presence of him, whom he thought it necessary to flatter, he had no boldnesse to own the vertue: So it is with too many; if they be left alone, and that they stand unshaken with the eye of their tempter, or the authority E of their Lord, they go whither their education or their custome carries them: but it is not in some natures to deny the face of a man, and the boldnesse of a sinner; and which is yet worse, it is not in most mens interest to do it; these men are in a pitiable condition, and are to be helped by the following rules.

1. Let every man consider that he hath two relations to serve, [Page] A and he stands between God and his Master, or his neerest relative: and in such cases it comes to be disputed whether interest be preferred; which of the persons is to be displeased, God or my Master, God or my Prince, God or my Friend? If we be servants of the man; remember also that I am a servant of God; adde to this, that if my present service to the man be a slavery in me, and a tyranny in him, yet Gods service is a noble freedom: And Apollonius said well. It was for slaves to lie, and for free men to speak the truth. If you be freed by the blood of the Son of God, then you are free indeed: and then consider how dishonourable it is to lie, B to the displeasure of God, and onely to please your fellow-servant. The difference here is so great, that it might be sufficient onely to consider the antithesis. Did the man make you what you are? Did he pay his blood for you, to save you from death? Does he keep you from sicknesse? True. You eat at his table; but they are of Gods provisions that he and you feed of. Can your master free you from a fever, when you have drunk your self into it? and restore your innocence when you have forsworn your self for his interest? Is the change reasonable? He gives you meat and drink for which you do him service. But is not he a Tyrant, and an usurper, C an oppressor, and an extortioner, if he will force thee to give thy soul for him? to sell thy soul for old-shoes, and broken bread? But when thou art to make thy accounts of eternity, will it be taken for an answer, My Patron, or my Governour, my Prince, or my Master, forced me to it? or if it will not. Will he undertake a portion of thy flames? or if that may not be, will it be in the midst of all thy torments, any ease to thy sorrows to remember all the rewards and clothes, all the money, and civilities, all the cheerfull looks, and familiarity, and fellowship of vices which in your life time made your spirit so gay and easie? It will in the eternall D loads of sorrow, adde a duplicate of groans and indignation, when it shall be remembred for how base and trifling interest, and upon what weak principles we fell sick and died eternally.

2. The next advise to persons thus tempted is, that they would learn to separate duty from mistaken interest; and let them be both served in their just proportions, when we have learned to make a difference. A wife is bound to her husband in all his just designes, and in all noble usages and Christian comportments: But a wife is no more bound to pursue her husbands vitious hatreds, then to serve and promote his unlawfull and wandring loves: E It is not alwayes a part of duty to think the same propositions, or to curse the same persons, or to wish him successe in unjust designes: And yet the sadnesse of it is, that a good woman is easily tempted to beleeve the cause to be just, and when her affection hath forced her judgement, her judgement for ever after shall carry the affection to all its erring and abused determinations. A [Page] friend is turned a flatterer if he does not know, that the limits of A friendship extend no further then the pale and inclosures of reason and religion. No Master puts it into his covenant that his servant shall be drunk with him, or give in evidence in his Masters cause, according to his Masters scrolls: and therefore it is besides and against the duty of a servant to sin by that authority; it is as if he should set Mules to keep his sheep, or make his Dogs to carry burdens: it is besides their nature and designe; and if any person falls under so tyrannicall relation, let him consider how hard a Master he serves; where the Devil gives the imployment, and shame is his entertainment, and sin is his work, and hell is his wages. Take B therefore the counsel of the son of Syrac. Accept no person against Ecclus. 4. 22. thy soul, and let not the reverence of any man cause thee to fall.

3. When passion mingles with duty, and is a necessary instrument of serving God, let not that passion run its own course and passe on to liberty, and thence to licence and dissolution: but let no more of it be entertained, then will just do the work. For no zeal of duty will warrant a violent passion to prevaricate a duty. I have seen some officers of Warre in passion and zeal of their duty have made no scruple to command a souldier with the dialect C of cursing and accents of swearing, and pretended they could not else speak words effective enough, and of sufficient authority; and a man may easily be overtaken in the issues of his government; while his authority serves it still with passion, if he be not curious in his measures, his passion will also serve it self upon the authority and over rule the Ruler.

4. Let every such tempted person remember, that all evil comes from our selves, and not from others; and therefore all pretences and prejudices, all commands and temptations, all opinions and necessities, are but instances of our weaknesse, and arguments of our D folly: For unlesse we listed, no man can make us drink beyond our measures: And if I tell a lie for my Masters or my friends advantage, it is because I prefer a little end of money, or flattery before my honour and my innocence. They are huge follies which go up and down in the mouthes and heads of men, [He that knows not how to dissemble, knows not how to reigne. [He that will not do as his company does, must go out of the world, and quit all society of men: We create necessities of our own, and then think we have reason to serve their importunity. Non ego sum ambitiosus, sed nemo aliter Romae potest vivere, non ego sumptuosus, sed urbs E ipsa magnas impensas exigit. Non est meum vitium quod iracundus sum, quod nondum constitui certum vitae genus adolescentia haec facit. The place we live in makes us expensive, the state of life I have chosen renders me ambitious, my age makes me angry or lustfull, proud or peevish. These are nothing else but resolutions never to mend as long as we can have excuse for our follies, and untill we [Page] A can cozen our selves no more. There is no such thing as a necessity for a Prince to dissemble, or for a servant to lie, or for a friend to flatter, for a civil person and a sociable, to be drunk: we cozen our selves with thinking the fault is so much derivative from others, till the smart and the shame falls upon our selves, and covers our heads with sorrow. And unlesse this gap be stopped, and that we build our duty upon our own bottoms, as supported with the grace of God, there is no vice but may finde a Patron; and no age or relation, or state of life, but will be an engagement to sin: And we shall think it necessary to be lustfull in our youth, and revengefull in our man hood, and covetous in our old age: and we shall perceive B that every state of men, and every trade and profession, lives upon the vices of others, or upon their miseries; and therefore they will think it necessary to promote, or to wish it. If men were temperate, Physitians would be poor: and unlesse some Princes were ambitious, or others injurious, there would be no imployment for souldiers. The Vintners retail supports the Merchants trade, and it is a vice that supports the Vintners retail; and if all men were wise and sober persons, we should have fewer beggers, and fewer rich; and if our Law-givers should imitate Demades of Athens, who condemned a man that lived by selling things belonging to funeralls, C as supposing he could not choose but wish the death of men, by whose dying he got his living, we should finde most men accounted criminalls, because vice is so involved in the affairs of the world, that it is made the support of many trades and the businesse of great multitudes of men: Certainly from hence it is that iniquity does so much abound; and unlesse we state our questions right, and perceive the evil to be designed onely from our selves, and that no such pretence shall keep off the punishment, or the shame from our selves we shall fall into a state which is onely capable of compassion because it is irrecoverable: and then we shall be infinitely D miserable, when we can onely receive an uselesse and ineffective pity. Whatsoever is necessary cannot be avoided: He therefore that shall say, he cannot avoid his sin, is out of the mercies of this Text: they who are appointed Guides, & Physitians of souls cannot to any purpose do their offices of pity. It is necessary that we serve God, and do our duty, and secure the interest of our souls, and be as carefull to preserve our relations to God, as to our friend, or Prince. But, if it can be necessary for any man, in any condition to sin, it is also necessary for that man to perish. E

Sermon. XVII. B The severall states and degrees of Sinners, WITH The manner how they are to be treated. Part II. C

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A

4. THe last sort of them that sin, and yet are to be treated with compassion, is of them that interrupt the course of an honest life with single acts of sin, stepping aside and starting like a broken bowe; whose resolution stands fair, and their hearts are towards God, and they sojourn in religion, or rather, dwell there; but that like evil husbands they go abroad, and enter into places of dishonour and unthriftinesse. Such as these, all stories remember with a sad character; and every narrative D concerning David which would end in honour and fair report, is sullied with the remembrances of Bathsheba: and the Holy Ghost hath called him a man after Gods own heart, save in the matter of Uriah; there indeed he was a man after his own heart; even then when his reason was stolne from him by passion, and his religion was sullied by the beauties of a fair woman. I wish we lived in an age in which the people were to be treated with, concerning renouncing the single actions of sin, and the seldome interruptions of piety: Men are taught to say, that every man sins in every action he does; and this is one of the doctrines, for the beleeving of E which he shall be accounted a good man; and upon this ground it is easie for men to allow themselves some sins, when in all cases, and in every action it is unavoidable. I shall say nothing of the Question, save that the Scripture reckons otherwise, *and in the 1. accounts of Davids life reckon but one great sin, *and in Zachary 2. and Elizabeth gave a testimony of an unblameable conversation; [Page] A *and Hezekiah did not make his confession when he prayed to God in his sicknesse and said he had walked uprightly before God,* and 3. therefore Saint Paul after his conversion designed and laboured hard, & therefore certainly with hopes to accomplish it, that he might 4. keep his conscience void of offence both towards God and towards man,* and one of Christs great purposes is to present his whole 5. Church pure and spotlesse to the throne of grace, and* Saint John the 6. Baptist offended none but Herod, *and no pious Christian brought a bill of accusation against the holy Virgin Mother; *certain it is, 7. that God hath given us precepts of such a holinesse and such a 8. B purity, such a meeknesse and such humility as hath no pattern but Christ, no precedent but the purities of God: and therefore it is intended we should live with a life whose actions are not checker'd with white and black, half sin and half vertue: Gods sheep are not like Jacobs flock streaked and spotted: it is an intire holinesse that God requires, and will not endure to have a holy course interrupted by the dishonour of a base and ignoble action. I do not mean that a mans life can be as pure as the Sun or the rayes of celestial Jerusalem; but like the Moon in which there are spots; C but they are no deformity; a lessening onely and an abatement of light, no cloud to hinder and draw a vail before its face; but sometimes it is not so serene and bright as at other times. Every man hath his indiscretions and infirmities, his arrests and sudden incursions, his neighbourhoods and semblances of sin, his little vidences to reason and peevish melancholy, and humorous Phantastick discourses; unaptnesses to a devout prayer, his fondnesses to judge favourably in his own cases, little deceptions, and voluntary and involuntary cousenages, ignorances and inadvertencies, carelesse hours, and unwatchful seasons, but no good man ever D commits one act of adultery; no godly man wil at any time be drunk or if he be, he ceases to be a godly man, and is run into the confines of death, and is sick at heart, and may die of the sicknesse, die eternally. This happens more frequently in persons of an infant piety, when the vertue is not corroborated by a long abode and a confirmed resolution, and an usual victory and a triumphant grace, and the longer we are accustomed to piety the more imfrequent will be the little breaches of folly, and a returning sin. But as the needle of a compasse, when it is directed to its beloved star, at the first addresses waves on either side, and seems E indifferent in his courtship of the rising or declining sun, and when it seems first determined to the North, stands a while trembling, as if it suffered inconvenience in the first fruition of its desires and stands not still in a full enjoyment till after, first, a great variety of motion, and then an undisturbed posture: so is the piety, and so is the conversion of a man; wrought by degrees and several steps of imperfection; and at first our choices are wavering convinced [Page] by the grace of God and yet not perswaded, and then perswaded A but not resolved, and then resolved but deferring to begin, and then beginning, but (as all beginnings are) in weaknesse and uncertainty, and we flie out often into huge indiscretions and look back to Sodom and long to return to Egypt; and when the storm is quite over we finde little bublings and unevennesses upon the face of the waters, we often weaken our own purposes by the returns of sin, and we do not call our selves conquerours till by the long possession of vertues it is a strange and unusual, and therefore an uneasy and unpleasant thing to act a crime. When Polemon of Athens by chance coming into the schools of Xenocrates B was reformed upon the hearing of that one lecture, some wise men gave this censure of him; peregninatus est hujus animus in nequitiâ, non habitavit, his minde wandred in wickednesse and travelled in it, but never dwelt there; the same is the case of some men; they make inroads into the enemies countrey, not like enemies to spoil, but like Dinah to be satisfied with the stranger beauties of the land, till their vertues are defloured and they enter into tragedies, and are possessed by death, and intolerable sorrows; but because this is like the fate of Jacobs daughter and happens not by designe, but folly, not by malice, but surprise, not by the C strength of will, but by the weaknesse of grace, and yet carries a man to the same place whether a great vice usually does, it is hugely pitiable, and the persons are to be treated with compassion and to be assisted by the following considerations and exercises.

First let us consider, that for a good man to be overtaken in a single crime is the greatest dishonour and unthriftinesse in the whole world. As a fly in a box of ointment, so is a little folly to him who is accounted wise, said the Son of Sirach: No man chides a fool for his weaknesses, or scorns a childe for playing with flies and preferring D the present appetite, before all the possibilities of to morrows event: But men wondered when they saw Socrates ride upon a cane; and when Solomon laid his wisdom at the foot of Pharaohs daughter, and changed his glory for the interest of wanton sleep, he became the discourse of heaven and earth: and men think themselves abused, and their expectation cousened when they see a wise man do the actions of a fool, and a good man seized upon by the dishonours of a crime. But the losse of his reputation is the least of his evil. It is the greatest improvidence in the world to let a healthful constitution be destroyed in the surfet of one night. E For although, when a man by the grace of God and a long endeavour hath obtained the habit of Christian graces, every single sin does not spoil the habit of vertue, because that cannot be lost but as it was gotten, that is, by parts, and succession, yet every crime interrupts the acceptation of the grace, and makes the man [Page] A to enter into the state of enmity, and displeasure with God. The habit is onely lessened naturally, but the value of it is wholly taken away: and in this sence is that of Josephus [...] which Saint James well renders. He that 2 Chap. 11. keeps the whole law and offends in one point is guilty of all; that is, if he prevaricates in any commandment, the transgression of which by the law was capital, shall as certainly die as if he broke the whole law; and the same is the case of those single actions which the school calls deadly sins, that is, actions of choice in any sin that hath a name, and makes a Kinde & hath a distinct matter. And sins B once pardoned return again to al the purposes of mischief. If we by a new sin forfeit Gods former loving kindnesse. When the righteous man turneth from his righteousnesse and commiteth iniquity, all his righteousnesse that he hath done shall not be remembred, in the trespasse Ezek. 18. 24. that he hath trespassed, and in the sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die. Now then consider how great a fool he is who when he hath with much labour & by suffering violence contradicted his first desires; when his spirit hath been in agony and care, and with much uneasinesse hath denied to please the lower man, C when with many prayers and groans and innumerable sighs and strong cryings to God with sharp sufferances and a long severity, he hath obtained of God to begin his pardon and restitution, and that he is in some hopes to return to Gods favour, and that he shall become an heire of heaven: when some of his amazing fears and distracting cares begin to be taken off, when he begins to think, that now it is not certain he shall perish in a sad eternity, but he hopes to be saved and he considers how excellent a condition that is, he hopes when he dies to go to God, and that he shall never enter into the possession of Devils; and this state, which D is but the twilight of a glorious felicity, he hath obtained with great labour and much care, and infinite danger; that this man should throw all this structure down, and then when he is ready to reap the fruits of his labours, by one indiscreet action, to set fire upon his corn fields, and destroy all his dearly earned hopes, for the madnesse and loose wandrings of an hour; This man is an indiscreet gamester; who doubles his stake as he thrives, and at one throw is dispossessed of all the prosperities of a luckie hand.

They that are poor (as Plutarch observes) are carelesse of little E things, because by saving them, they think no great moments can accrue to their estates, and they despairing to be rich, think such frugality impertinent: But they that feele their banks swell, and are within the possibilities of wealth, think it useful if they reserve the smaller minuts of expence, knowing that every thing will adde to their heap; but then after long sparing, in one night to throw away the wealth of a long purchase, is an imprudence [Page] becoming none but such persons who are to be kept under Tutors A and Guardians, and such as are to be chastised by their servants, and to be punished by them whom they clothe and feed.

[...]

[...].

Hom. I li. [...]

These men sowe much, and gather little, stay long and return empty, and after a long voyage they are dashed in pieces when their vessels are laden with the spoils of provinces. Every B deadly sin destroyes the rewards of a seven years piety; I adde to this, that God is more impatient at a sin committed by his servants then at many by persons that are his enemies; and an uncivil answer from a son to a Father, from an obliged person to a benefactor is a greater undecency, then if an enemy should storm his house or revile him to his head. Augustus Caesar taxed all the world and God took no publick notices of it; but when David taxed and numbered a petty province it was not to be expiated without a plague; because such persons, besides the direct sin, adde the circumstance of ingratitude to God, who hath redeemed C them from their vain conversation and from death, and from hell, and consigned them to the inheritance of sons and given them his grace and his spirit, and many periods of comfort, and a certain hope and visible earnests of immortality; nothing is baser then that such a person against his reason, against his interest, against his God, against so many obligations, against his custome, against his very habits and acquired inclinations should do an action.

Quam nisi Seductis nequeas committere Divis D

Which a man must for ever be ashamed of, and like Adam must run from God himself to do it, and depart from the state in which he had placed all his hopes, and to which he had designed all his labours. The consideration is effective enough, if we sum up the particulars; for he that hath lived well and then falls into a deliberate sin, is infinitely dishonoured, is most imprudent, most unsafe, and most unthankful.

2. Let persons tempted to the single instances of sin in the midst E of a laudable life, be very careful that they suffer not themselves to be drawn aside by the eminency of great examples. For some think drunkennesse hath a little honesty derived unto it by the examples of Noah, and Adultery is not so scandalous and intolerably dishonorable, since Bathsheba bathed, and David was defiled and [Page] A men think a flight is no cowardise, if a General turns his head and runs.

Pompeio fugiente timent

Well might all the gowned Romans fear when Pompey fled, and who is there that can hope to be more righteous then David, or stronger then Samson, or have lesse hypocrisy then Saint Peter, or be more temperate then Noah? These great examples bear men of weak discourses and weaker resolutions from the severity B of vertues. But as Diagoras to them that shewed to him the votive garments of those that had escaped shipwrack upon their prayers and vows to Neptune answered, that they kept no account of those that prayed and vowed, and yet were drowned: So do these men keep catalogues of those few persons who broke the thrid of a fair life in sunder with the violence of a great crime, and by the grace of God recovered and repented and lived; But they consider not concerning those infinite numbers of men, who died in their first fit of sicknesse, who after a fair voyage have thrown themselves over C boord, and perished in a sudden wildnesse, One said well, Si quid Socrates, aut Aristippus contra morem et consuetudinem fecerunt, idem sibi ne arbitretur licere. Magnis enim illi & divinis bonis hanc licentiam assequebantur. If Socrates did any unusual thing, it is not for thee who art of an ordinary vertue to assume the same licence; For he by a divine and excellent life hath obtained leave or pardon respectively, for what thou must never hope for, till thou hast arrived to the same glories. First be as devout as David, as good a Christian as Saint Peter, and then thou wilt not dare with designe to act that, which they fell into by surprize; and if thou doest fall as D they did, by that time thou hast also repented like them, it may be said concerning thee, that thou dist fall and break thy bones, but God did heal thee and pardon thee. Remember that all the damned soules shall bear an eternity of torments for the pleasures of a short sinfulnesse; but for a single transient action, to die forever, is an intolerable exchange and the effect of so great a folly, that whosoever falls into and then considers it, it will make him mad and distracted for ever.

3. Remember, that since no man can please God or be partakers of any promises, or reap the reward of any actions in the E returnes of eternity, unlesse he performs to God an intire duty, according to the capacities of a man so taught, and so tempted, and so assisted, such a person must be curious that he be not cozened with the duties and performances of any one relation, 1. Some there are that think all our religion consists in prayers and publick or private offices of devotion, and not in moral actions or entercourses of justice and temperance, of kindnesse and friendships [Page] of sincerity and liberality, of chastity and humility, of repentance A and obedience: indeed no humour is so easie to be counterfeited as devotion, and yet no hypocrisy is more common among men, nor any so uselesse as to God; for it being an addresse to him alone who knows the heart and all the secret purposes, it can do no service in order to heaven, so long as it is without the power of Godlinesse, and the energy and vivacity of a holy life. God will not suffer us to commute a duty, because all is his due; and religion shall not pay for the want of temperance: if the devoutest Hermit be proud, or he that fasts thrice in the week be uncharitable once; or he that gives much to the poor, gives also too B much liberty to himself, he hath planted a fair garden, and invited a wilde boar to refresh himself under the shade of the fruit trees, and his guest being something rude hath disordered his paradise, and made it become a wildernesse, 2. Others there are that judge themselves by the censures that Kings and Princes give concerning them, or as they are spoken of by their betters, and so make false judgements concerning their condition. For our betters to whom we show our best parts, to whom we speak with caution and consider what we represent, they see our arts and our dressings, but nothing of our nature and deformities; Trust not C their censures concerning thee, but to thy own opinion of thy self, whom thou knowest in thy retirements and natural peevishnesse and unhandsome inclinations, and secret basenesse, 3. Some men have been admired abroad, in whom the wife and the servant never saw any thing excellent: a rare judge and a good common-wealths man in the streets, and publick meetings, and a just man to his neighbour, and charitable to the poor; for in all these places the man is observed and kept in awe by the Sun, by light and by voices; But this man is a Tyrant at home, an unkinde husband & ill Father, an imperious Master, and such men are like prophets in their own countreys, D

Hic ubi dissuetae sylvis in carcere clausae

Mansuevere ferae, & [...]ultus posuêre minaces

Atque hominem didicere pati si torrida parvu [...]

Venit in ora cruor, redeunt rabies (que), furor (que).

not honoured at home and can never be honoured by God, who will not endure that many vertues should excuse a few vices, Or that any of his servants shall take pensions of the Devil, and in the profession of his service do his enemy single advantages.

4. He that hath past many stages of a good life to prevent his being tempted to a single sin must be very careful that he never entertain his spirit with the remembrances of his past sin, nor amuse it with the phantastick apprehensions of the present. When the Israelites fancied the sapidnesse and relish of the flesh pots they longed to E tast and to return.

So when a Libian Tiger drawn from his wilder forragings is shut up and taught to eat civil meat and suffer the authority of a man, he sits down tamely in his prison and payes to his keeper fear and reverence for his meat: But if he chance to come again [Page] A and taste a draught of warm blood, he presently leaps into his naturall cruelty.

Admonitae tument gustato sanguine fauces,

Feruet & à trepido vix abstinet ira Magistro.

He scarce abstains from eating those hands that brought him discipline and food: so is the nature of a man made tame and gentle by the grace of God, and reduced to reason, and kept in awe by religion and lawes and by an awfull vertue is taught to forget those alluring and sottish relishes of sin: but if he diverts from his path, and snatches handfuls from the wanton vineyards, and remembers the lasciviousnesse of his unwholesome food that pleased his childish B palate, then he grows sick again, and hungry after unwholesome diet, and longs for the apples of Sodom. A man must walk thorow the world without eyes, or ears, fancy, or appetite, but such as are created and sanctified by the grace of God; and being once made a new man, he must serve all the needs of nature by the appetite; and faculties of grace: nature must be wholly a servant, and we must so look towards the deliciousnesse of our religion, and the ravishments of heaven, that our memory must be for ever uselesse to the affairs and perceptions of sin: we cannot stand, wee C cannot live, unlesse we be curious and watchfull in this particular.

By these and all other arts of the Spirit, if we stand upon our guard, never indulging to our selves one sin, because it is but one; as knowing that one sin brought in death upon all the world, and one sin brought slavery upon the posterity of Cham: and alwayes fearing lest death surprize us in that one sin; we shall by the grace of God, either not need, or else easily perceive the effects and blessings of that compassion which God reserves in the secrets of his mercy, for such persons whom his grace hath ordained and disposed with excellent dispositions unto life eternall.

D These are the sorts of men which are to be used with compassion; concerning whom we are to make a difference, making a difference] so sayes the Text, and it is of high concernment that we should do so, that we may relieve the infirmities of the men, and relieve their sicknesses, and transcribe the copy of the Divine mercy, who loves not to quench the smoaking flax, nor break the bruised reed. For although all sins are against Gods Commandements, directly, or by certain consequents, by line, or by analogy, yet they are not all of the same tincture and mortality.

E Nec vincit ratio tantundem ut peccet idemque,

Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti

Ut qui nocturnus Diuûm sacra legerit.

He that robs a garden of Coleworts, and carries away an armfull of Spinage, does not deserve hell as he that steals the Chalice from the Church, or betrayes a Prince; and therefore men are distinguished accordingly:

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Est inter Tanaim quiddam socerunique Viselli. A

The Poet that Sejanus condemned for dishonouring the memory of Agamemnon, was not an equall criminall with Cataline, or Graechus: and Simon Magus and the Nicolaitans committed crimes which God hated, more then the complying of S. Barnabas, or the dissimulation of S. Peter; and therefore God does treat these persons severally: Some of these are restrained with a fit of sicknesse, some with a great losse; and in these there are degrees, and some arrive at death. And in this manner God scourged the Corinthians for their irreverent and disorderly receiving the Holy Sacrament. B For although even the least of the sins that I have discoursed of, will lead to death eternall, if their course be not interrupted, and the disorder chastised, yet because we do not stop their progresse instantly, God many times does, and visits us with proportionable judgements, and so not onely checks the rivulet from swelling into rivers and a vastnesse, but plainly tells us, that although smaller crimes shall not be punished with equall severity as the greatest, yet even in hell there are eternal rods as well as eternal scorpions; and the smallest crime that we act with an infant-malice, and manly C deliberation, shall be revenged with the lesser stroaks of wrath; but yet with the infliction of a sad eternity. But then that we also should make a difference, is a precept concerning Church discipline, and therefore not here proper to be considered, but onely as it may concern our own particulars in the actions of repentance; and our brethren in internal correction:

—assit

Regula quae poenas peccatis irroget aequas,

Nec seuticâ dignum horribili sectere flagello.

Let us be sure that we neglect no sin, but repent for every one, D and judge our selves for every one, according to the proportion of the malice, or the scandall, or the danger. And although in this there is no fear that we would be excessive; yet when we are to reprove a brother we are sharp enough, and either by pride, or by animosity, by the itch of government, or the indignation of an angry minde, we run beyond the gentlenesse of a Christian Monitor; we must remember that by Christs law some are to be admonished privately, some to be shamed and corrected publikely, and beyond these, there is an abscission, or a cutting off from the communion E of faithfull people, A delivering over to Sathan. And to this purpose is that old reading of the words of my Text, which is still in some Copies, [...]; Reprove them sharply, when they are convinced, or separate by sentence. But because this also is a designe of mercy, acted with an instance of discipline, it is a punishment of the flesh, that the soul may be saved [Page] A in the day of the Lord, it means the same with the usuall reading, and with the last words of the Text, and teaches us our usage towards the worst of recoverable sinners.

Others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.] Some sins there are, which in their own nature are damnable, and some are such as will certainly bring a man to damnation; the first are curable, but with much danger; the second are desperate and irrecoverable; when a man is violently tempted, and allured with an object that is proportionable and pleasant to his vigorous appetite, and his unabated, unmortified nature, this man falls into death, B but yet we pity him as we pity a thief that robs for his necessity: this man did not tempt himself, but his spirit suffers violence, and his reason is invaded, and his infirmities are mighty, and his aids not yet prevailing: But when this single temptation hath prevailed for a single instance, and leaves a relish upon the palate, and this produces another, and that also is fruitfull and swels into a family and kinred of sin, that is, it grows first into approbation, then to a clear assent, and an untroubled conscience, thence into frequency, from thence unto a custome, and easinesse, and a habit, this man is fallen into the fire. There are also some single C acts of so great a malice that they must suppose a man habitually sinfull before he could arrive at that height of wickednesse. No man begins his sinfull course with killing of his Father or his Prince; and Simon Magus had preambulatory impieties; he was covetous and ambitious, long before he offered to buy the Holy Ghost.

Nemo repente fuit turpissimus—

and although such actions may have in them the malice and the mischief, the disorder and the wrong, the principle and the permanent effect, of a habit and a long course of sin, yet because they never or D very seldom go alone, but after the praedisposition of other huishering crimes, we shall not amisse comprise them under the name of habituall sins. For such they are, either formally or equivalently: and if any man hath fallen into a sinfull habit, into a course and order of sinning, his case is little lesser then desperate; but that little hope that is remanent hath its degree according to the infancy or the growth of the habit. 1. For all sins lesse then habitual, it is certain, a pardon is ready to penitent persons: that is, to all that sin in ignorance, or in infirmity, by surprize, or inadvertency, in smaller instances, or infrequent returns, with involuntary actions, E or imperfect resolutions, [...], said Clemens in his Epistles: Lift up your hands to Almighty God, and pray him to be mercifull to you in all things when you sin unwillingly; that is, in which you sin with an imperfect choice: for no man sins against his will directly, but when his understanding is abused by an inevitable, [Page] or an intolerable weaknesse, our wills follow their blind A guide, and are not the perfect mistresses of their own actions, and therefore leave a way and easinesse to repent, and be ashamed of it▪ and therefore a possibility and readinesse for pardon. And these are the sins that we are taught to pray to God that he would pardon, as he gives us our bread, that is, every day. For in many things we offend all, said Saint James, that is, in many smaller matters, in matters of surprize, or inevitable infirmity: And therefore Posidices said, that Saint Austin was used to say, That he would not have even good and holy Priests go from this world without the susception of equall and worthy penances: and the most innocent life B in our account is not a competent instrument of a peremptory confidence, and of justifying our selves: I am guilty of nothing, (said Saint Paul) that is, of no ill intent, or negligence in preaching the Gospel, yet I am not hereby justified, for God it may bee knows many little irregularities, and insinuations of sin: In this case we are to make a difference; but humility, and prayer, and watchfulnesse, are the direct instruments of the expiation of such sinnes.

But then secondly, whosoever sins without these abating circumstances, C that is, in great instances, in which a mans understanding cannot be cozened; as in drunkennesse, murder, adultery, and in the frequent repetitions of any sort of sin whatsoever, in which a mans choice cannot be surprized, and in which it is certain there is a love of the sin, and a delight in it, and a power over a mans resolutions; in these cases it is a miraculous grace, and an extraordinary change, that must turn the current and the stream of the iniquity: and when it is begun, the pardon is more uncertain, and the repentance more difficult, and the effect much abated, and the man must be made miserable that he may be accursed for ever. D

1. I say his pardon is uncertain, because there are some sins which are unpardonable, (as I shall shew) and they are not all named in particular, and the degrees of malice being uncertain, the salvation of that man is to be wrought with infinite fear and trembling. It was the case of Simon Magus, Repent and ask pardon Acts 7. 22. for thy sin, if peradventure the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee. If peradventure;] it was a new crime, and concerning its possibility of pardon no revelation had been made, and by analogy to other crimes it was very like an unpardonable sin; for it was a thinking a thought against the Holy Ghost, and that was next E to speaking a word against him. Cains sin was of the same nature; It is greater then it can be forgiven, his passion and his fear was too severe and decretory: it was pardonable, but truly we never finde that God did pardon it.

2. But besides this, it is uncertain in the pardon, because it 2. may be the time of pardon is passed, and though God hath pardoned [Page] A to other people the same sins, and to thee too some times before, yet it may be he will not now: he hath not promised pardon so often as we sin, and in all the returns of impudence, apostacy, and it gratitude; and it may be thy day is past, as was Jerusalems in the day that they crucified the Saviour of the world.

3. Pardon of such habitual sins is uncertain, because life is uncertain; 3. and such sins require much time for their abolition and expiation. And therefore although these sins are not necessariò mortifera, that is, unpardonable, yet by consequence they become deadly, because our life may be cut off before we have finished or performed those necessary parts of repentance, which are the severe B and yet the onely condition of getting pardon. So that you may perceive, that not onely every great single crime, but the habit of any sin is dangerous; and therefore these persons are to be snatched from the fire, if you mean to rescue them, [...], if you stay a day, it may be you stay too long.

4. To which I adde this fourth consideration, that every delay 4. of return is in the case of habitual sins an approach to desperation, because the nature of habits is like that of Crocodiles they grow as long as they live; and if they come to obstinacy, or confirmation, they are in hell already, and can never return back. For so the Pannonian C Bears, when they have clasped a dart in the region of their Liver, wheel themselves upon the wound and with anger and malicious revenge strike the deadly barbe deeper, and cannot be quit from that fatal steel, but in flying bear along that which themselves make the instrument of a more hasty death: So is every vitious person struck with a deadly wound, and his own hands forced it into the entertainments of his heart. And because it is painfull to draw it forth by a sharp and salutary repentance he still rouls and turns upon his wound, and carries his death in his bowels, where it first entered by choice, and then dwelt by love, and at last shall finish the tragedy by divine judgements, and an unalterable decree.

But as the pardon of these sins is uncertain, so the conditions of restitution are hard, even to them who shall be pardoned: their pardon and themselves too, must be fetched from the fire; water will not do it, tears and ineffective sorrow cannot take off a habit, or a great crime.

O nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina cadis,

Tolli flumineâ posse putatis aquâ.

E Bion seeing a Prince weep and tearing his hair for sorrow, asked if baldnesse would cure his grief? such pompous sorrows may bee good indices, but no perfect instruments of restitution. Saint James plainly declares the possibilities of pardon to great sins, in the cases Chap. 4. 1, 3. of contention, adultery, lust, and envy, which are the four great indecencies that are most contrary to Christianity; and in the 5. Chap. [Page] he implies also a possibility of pardon to an habitual sinner, whom A he calls, [...], one that erres from the truth, that is, from the life of a Christian, the life of the Spirit of truth and he addes, that such a person may be reduced and so be pardoned, though he have sinned long; he that converts such a one, shall Cha. 4. ver. ult. hide a multitude of sins: But then the way that he appoints for the restitution of such persons is humilty, and humiliation, penanoes. and sharp penitentiall sorrows, and afflictions, resisting the Devil, returning to God, weeping and mourning, confessions and prayers, as you may read at large in the 4. and 5. Chapters; and there it is, that you shall finde it a duty, that such persons should be afflicted, and B should confesse to their brethren; and these are harder conditions then God requires in the formet cases; these are a kinde of fiery tryall.

I have now done with my Text, and should adde no more but that the nature of these sins is such that they may increase in their weight, and duration, and malice, and then they increase in mischief, and fatality, and so go beyond the Text. Cicero said well, Ipsa consuetudo assentiendi periculosa esse videtur & lubrica. l. 4. Acad. Qu. The very custome of consenting in the matters of civility is dangerous and slippery, and will quickly ingage us in errour, and then we think we are bound to defend them, or else we C are made flatterers by it, and so become vitious; and we love our own vices that we are used to, and keep them till they are incurable, that is, till we will never repent of them; and some men resolve never to repent, that is, they resolve they will not be saved, they tread under foot the blood of the everlasting covenant; those persons are in the fire too, but they will not be pulled out: concerning whom Gods Prophets must say as once concerning Babylon, Curavimus & non est sanata, derelinquamus eam, We would have healed them, but they would not be healed, let us leave them in their sins, and they shall have enough of it; Onely this, those that put themselves D out of the condition of mercy are not to be endured in Christian societies; they deserve it not, and it is not safe that they should be suffered.

But besides all this, I shall name one thing more unto you; for

—nunquam adeò foedis adeoquè pudendis,

Utimur exemplis, ut non pejora supersint.

There are some single actions of sin of so great a malice, that in their own nature they are beyond the limit of Gospel pardon: they are not such things for the pardon of which God entered into covenant; because they are such sins which put a man into perfect indispotisions, E and incapacities of entring into, or being in the covenant. In the first ages of the world, Atheisme was of that nature; it was against their whole religion; and the sin is worse now, against the whole religion still, and against a brighter light. In the ages after the flood idolatry was also just such another: for as God was known first onely [Page] A as the creator, then he began to manifest himself in special contracts with men, and he quickly was declared the God of Israel and idolatry perfectly destroyed all that religion, and therefore was never pardoned intirely; but God did visit it upon them that sinned; and when he pardoned it in some degrees yet he also punished it in so me; and yet rebellion against the supreme power of Moses and [...] was worse; for that also is a perfect destruction of the whole religion, because it refused to submit to those hands upon which God had placed all the religion, and all the government. And now if we would know in the Gospel what answers these precedent sins? I answer, first the same sins acted by a resolute hand and heart B are worse now then ever they were: and a third or fourth is also to be added; and that is Apostacy or or a voluntary malicious renouncing the faith: The Church hath often declared that sin to be unpardonable: witchcraft or final impenitence, and obstinacy in any sin are infallibly desperate: and in general, and by a certain parity of reason, whatsoever does destroy charity or the good life of a Christian with the same general venom and deletery as Apostacy destroyes faith; and he that is a Renegado from charity, is as unpardonable as he that returns to solemn Atheisme or infidelity: for all that, is directly the sin against the holy Ghost, that is a throwing that C away wherby onely we can be Christians, wherby onely we can hope to be saved; to speak a word against the holy Ghost in the Pharisees, was declared unpardonable, because it was such a word which if it had been true, or believed, would have destroyed the whole religion; for they said that Christ wrought by Beelzebub, and by consequence did not come from God: He that destroyes al the whole order of Priesthood, destroyes one of the greatest parts of the religion, & one of the greatest effects of the holy Ghost: He that destroyes government destroyes another part; but that we may come neerer to our selves; to quench the spirit of God is worse then to speak some D words against him; to grieve the spirit of God is a part of the same impiety, to resist the holy Ghost is another part; and if we consider, that every great sin does this in its proportion, it would concern us to be careful, lest we fal into presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over us; out of this that I have spoken you may easily gather what sort of men those are, who cannot be snatched from the fire; for whom as S. John saies, we are not to pray, and how neer men come to it that continue in any known sin; if I should descend to particulars, I might lay a snare to scrupulous and nice consciences. This onely every confirmed E habitual sinner does manifest the divine justice in punishing the sins of a short life with a never dying worm, and a never quenched flame, because we have an affection to sin that no time will diminish, but such as would increase to eternal ages; and accordingly as any man hath a degree of love, so he hath lodged in his soul a spark which unless it be speedily & effectively quenched will break forth into unquenchable fire.

Sermon. XVIII. B THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE. C

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A

Matthew 16. Ver. 26.‘For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’

WHen the eternal mercy of God had decreed to rescue D mankinde from misery and infelicity, and so triumphed over his own justice, the excellent wisdom of God resolved to do it in wayes contradictory to the appetites and designes of man, that it also might triumph over our weaknesses and imperfect conceptions. So God decreeing to glorifie his mercy by curing our sins, and to exalt his wisdome by the reproof of our ignorance, and the representing upon what weak and false principals, we had built our hopes and expectations E of felicity: Pleasure and profit, victory over our enemies, riches and pompous honours, power and revenge, desires according to sensual appetites, and prosecutions violent and passionate of those appetites, health and long life, free from trouble, without poverty or persecution.

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A Hac sunt jucundissime Martialis

vitam quae faciunt beatiorem.

These are the measures of good and evil, the object of our hopes and fears, the securing our content and the portion of this world; and for the other, let it be as it may. But the Blessed Jesus having made revelations of an immortal duration, of another world; and of a strange restitution to it, even by the resurrection of the body, and a new investiture of the soul, with the same upper garment, clarified, and made pure so as no Fuller on earth can whiten it; B hath also preached a new Philosophy, hath cancelled all the old principles, reduced the appetites of sence to the discourses of reason and heightned reason to the sublimities of the spirit, teaching us abstractions, and immaterial conceptions, giving us new eyes, and new objects, and new proportions; For now, sensual pleasures are not delightful, riches are drosse, honours are nothing but the appendages of vertue, and in relation to it are to receive their account; but now if you would enjoy life you must die, if you would be at ease, you must take up Christs crosse, and conform C to his sufferings if you would save your life, you must lose it, and if you would be rich you must abound in good works, you must be poor in spirit and despise the world, and be rich unto God; for whatsoever is contrary to the purchases and affections of this world is an endearment of our hopes in the world to come; and therefore he having stated the question so, that either we must quit this world or the other, our affections I mean, and adherencies to this, or our interest and hopes of the other; the choice is rendered very easie by the words of my text, because the distance is not lesse then infinite, and the comparison D hath terms of a vast difference, heaven and hell, eternity and a moment, vanity and real felicity, life and death eternal, all that can be hoped for, and all that can be feared; these are the terms of our choice; and if a man have his wits about him and be not drunk with sensuality, and senslessenesse, he need not much to dispute before he passe the sentence. For nothing can be given to us to recompence the losse of heaven, and if our souls be lost, there is nothing remaining to us whereby we can be happy.

What shall it profit a man? or what shall a man give? is there any E exchange for a mans soul? the question is [...] of the negative. Nothing can be given for an [...] or a price to satisfie for its losse.

The blood of the son of God was given to recover it or as an [...] to God; and when our souls were forfeit to him, nothing lesse then the life and passion of God and man could pay the price (Isay) to God, who yet was not concerned in the losse [Page] save onely that such was his goodnesse, that it pitied him to see his A creature lost. But to us what shall be the [...]? what can make us recompence when we have lost our own souls, and are lost in a miserable eternity? what can then recompence us? not all the world, not ten thousand worlds, and of this that miserable man, whose soul is lost is the best judge; For the qustion is [...] and hath a potential signification, and means [...] that is suppose a man ready to die condemned to the sentence of a horrid death, heightned with all the circumstances of trembling and amazement, what would he give to save his life? eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and all that a man hath will he give for his life: and this B turned to a proverb among the Jews; for so the last words of the text are, [...]; which proverb being usually meant concerning a temporal death, and was intended, to represent, the sadnesses of a condemned person, our blessed Saviour fits to his own purpose, and translates to the signification of death eternal, which he first revealed clearly to the world and because no interest of the world can make a man recompence for his life, because to lose that, makes him incapable of enjoying the exchange (and he were a strange fool who having no designe upon immortality or vertue, should be willing to be hanged for a C thousand pound per annum) this argument increases infinitely in the purpose of our Blessed Saviour; and to gain the world, and to lose our souls in the Christian sence is infinitely more madnesse and a worse exchange then when our souls, signifie nothing but a temporal life; and because possibly the indefinite hopes of Elysium or an honorable name, might tempt some hardy persons to leave this world hoping for a better condition even among the heathens; yet no excuse will acquit a Christian from madnesse, If for the purchase of this world he lose his eternitie. D

Here then first we will consider the propositions of the exchange the world and a mans soul, by way of supposition, supposing all that is propounded were obtained; the whole world. Secondly we will consider what is likely to be obtained really, and indeed of the world, and what are really the miseries of a lost soul? For it is propounded in the text by way of supposition: If a man should gain the world which no man ever did, nor ever can; and he that gets most, gets too little to be exchanged for a temporal life. And thirdly I shall apply it to your practise and make material considerations. E

1. First, then suppose a man gets all the world, what is it that he gets? It is a bubble, and a Phantasme, and hath no reality beyond a present transient use; a thing that is impossible to be enjoyed, because its fruits and usages are transmitted to us, by parts and by succession; (He that hath all the world, (if we can suppose [Page] A such a man) cannot have a dish of fresh summer fruits in the midst of winter, not so much as a green fig: and very much of its possessions is so hid, so fugacious and of so uncertain purchase, that it is like the riches of the sea to the Lord of the shore, all the fish and wealth within all its hollownesses are his, but he is never the better, for what he cannot get. All the shell fishes that produce pearl, produce them not for him; and the bowels of the earth shall hide her treasures in undiscovered retirements; so that it will signifie as much to this great purchaser, to be intitled to an inheritance in the upper region of the aire; he is so far from possessing all its riches, that he B does not so much as know of them, nor understand the Philosophy of her minerals.

2. I consider that he that is the greatest possessor in the world enjoyes its best and most noble parts and those which are of most excellent perfection but in common with the inferiour persons, and the most despicable of his kingdom. Can the greatest Prince inclose the Sun, and set one little star in his cabinet for his own use? or secure to himself the gentle and benigne influence of any one constellation? Are not his subjects fields bedewed with the same C showers that water his gardens of pleasure?

Nay those things which he esteems his ornament and his singularity of his possessions, are they not of more use to others then to himself. For suppose his garments splendid and shining like the robe of a cherub or the clothing of the fields, all that he that wears them enjoyes, is that they keep him warm, and clean and modest; and all this is done by clean and lesse pompous vestments; & the beauty of them which distinguishes him from others, is made to please the eyes of the beholders; and he is like a fair bird, or the meretricious painting of a wanton woman made wholly to be D looked on, that is to be enjoyed by every one but himself; and the fairest face and the sparkling eye cannot perceive or enjoy their own beauties but by reflection. It is I that am pleased with beholding his gayety, and the gay man in his greatest bravery is onely pleased because I am pleased with the sight: so borrowing his little and imaginary complacency, from the delight that I have, not from any inherency of his own possession.

The poorest Artizan of Rome walking in Caesars gardens, had the same pleasures which they ministred to their Lord: and although E it may be he was put to gather fruits to eat, from another place, yet his other senses were delighted equally with Caesars: the birds made him as good musick, the flowers gave him as sweet smells, he there sucked as good aire, and delighted in the beauty and order of the place, for the same reason and upon the same perception, as the prince himselfe: save onely that Caesar paid for all that pleasure vast summes of money, the blood and treasure of a [Page] province, which the poor man had for nothing. A

3. Suppose a man Lord of all the world, (for still we are but in supposition) yet since every thing is received, not according to its own greatnesse and worth, but according to the capacity of the receiver, it signifies very little as to our content; or to the riches of our possession. If any man should give to a Lion a fair meadow full of hay, or a thousand quince trees, or should give to the goodly Bull, the master and the fairest of the whole heard, a thousand fair Stags; If a man should present to a childe a ship laden with Persian carpets, and the ingredients of the rich scarlet, all these being either disproportionate to the appetite or to the understanding, B could adde nothing of content and might declare the freenesse of the presenter, but they upbraid the incapacity of the receiver: and so it does if God should give the whole world to any man; He knows not what to do with it; he can use no more but according to the capacities of a man. He can use nothing but meat and drink and cloths; and infinite riches that can give him changes of raiment every day, and a full table, do but give him a clean trencher every bit he eats, it signifies no more but wantonnesse, and variety to the same, not to any new purposes; He to whom the world can be given to any purpose greater then a private estate can minister, C must have new capacities created in him; He needs the understanding of an Angel to take the accounts of his estate; He had need have a stomach like fire or the grave: for else he can eat no more then one of his healthful subjects, and unlesse he hath an eye like the Sun, and a motion like that of a thought, and a bulk as big as one of the orbs of heaven; the pleasures of his eye can be no greater then to behold the beauty of a little prospect from a hill, or to look upon the heap of gold packt up in a little room or to dote upon a cabinet of Jewels better then which there is no man that sees at all but sees every day; For not to name the beauties and D sparkling diamonds of heaven, a mans or a womans or a haukes eye is more beauteous and excellent, then al the Jewels of his crown. And when we remember, that a beast who hath quicker senses then a man, yet hath not so great delight in the fruition of any object, because he wants understanding and the power to make reflex acts upon his perception, it will follow, that understanding and knowledge is the greatest instrument of pleasure, and he that is most knowing hath a capacity to become happy, which a lesse knowing prince or a rich person hath not: and in this onely a mans capacity is capable of enlargement: but then although E they onely have power to relish any pleasure rightly, who rightly understand the nature and degrees and essences, and ends of things, yet they that do so, understand also the vanity and the unsatisfyingnesse of the things of this world so that the relish which could not be great, but in a great understanding appears contemptible, [Page] A because its vanity appears at the same time; the understanding sees all, and sees thorow it.

4. The greatest vanity of this world is remarkable in this, that all its joyes summed up together are not big enough to counterpoise the evil of one sharp disease, or to allay a sorrow. For imagine a man great in his dominion as Cyrus, rich as Solomon, victorious as David, beloved like Titus, learned as Trismegist, powerful as all the Roman greatnesse, all this, and the results of all this, give him no more pleasure in the midst of a feaver, or the tortures of the stone, then if he were only lord of a little dish, and a dishfull of fountain water. Indeed the excellency of a holy conscience is a comfort B and a magazine of joy, so great, that it sweetens the most bitter potion of the world, and makes tortures and death not only tolerable, but amiable; and therefore to part with this whose excellency is so great, for the world that is of so inconsiderable a worth as not to have in it recompence enough, for the sorrows of a sharp disease, is a bargain fit to be made by none but fools and mad men. Antiochus, Epiphanes & Herod the great & his grand child Agrippa, were sad instances of this great truth; to every of which it happened that the grandeur of their fortune, the greatnesse of their possessions, and the encrease of their estate disappeared, and expired C like Camphire at their arrest, by those several sharp diseases, which covered their head with Cypresse and hid their crowns in an inglorious grave.

For what can all the world minister to a sick person? If it represents all the spoils of nature and the choicest delicacies of land and sea. Alas his appetite is lost, and to see a pibble stone is more pleasing to him: For he can look upon that without loathing, but not so upon the most delicious fare that ever made famous the Roman luxury. Perfumes make his head ake; if you load him with jewels, you presse him with a burden as troublesome as his gravestone: D and what pleasure is in all those possessions, that cannot make his pillow easie, nor tame the rebellion of a tumultuous humour, not restore the use of a withered hand, or straighten a crooked finger: vain is the hope of that man whose soul rests upon vanity, and such unprofitable possessions.

5. Suppose a man lord of all this world, an universal Monarch, as some princes have lately designed, all that cannot minister content to him; not that content which a poor contemplative man by the strength of Christian Philosophy, and the support of a very small E fortune daily does enjoy. All his power and greatnesse cannot command the sea to overflow his shores or to stay from the retiring to the opposit strand. It cannot make his children dutiful or wise & though the world admired at the greatness of Philip the second's fortune in the accession of Portugal and the East Indies to his principalities, yet this could not allay the infelicitie of his family, and the unhandsomenesse [Page] of his condition in having a proud and indiscreet and a vitious A young prince likely to inherit all his greatnesse. And if nothing appears in the face of such a fortune, to tell all the world that it is spotted and imperfect; yet there is in all conditions of the world, such wearinesse and tediousnesse of the spirits, that a man is evermore pleased with hopes of going off for the present, then in dwelling upon that condition which it may be others admire, and think beauteous, but none knoweth the smart of it, but he that drank off the little pleasure, and felt the ill relish of the appendage. How many Kings have groaned under the burden of their crowns, and have sunk down and died? How many have quitted B their pompous cares, and retired into private lives, there to enjoy the pleasures of Philosophy and religion, which their thrones denied?

And if we consider the supposition of the Text, the thing will demonstrate it self. For he who can be supposed the owner and purchaser of the whole world, must either be a King or a private person. A private person can hardly be supposed to be the man. For if he be subject to another, how can he be Lord of the whole world? But if he be a King, it is certain, that his cares are greater C then any mans, his fears are bigger, his evils mountainous, the accidents that discompose him are more frequent, and sometimes intolerable: and of all his great possessions he hath not the greatest use and benefit. But they are like a great harvest which more labourers must bring in and more must eat of; onely he is the centre of all the cares, and they fix upon him; but the profits run out to all the lines of the circle: to all that are about him; whose good is therefore greater then the good of the Prince: Because what they enjoy is the purchase of the Princes care; and so they feed upon his cost. D

Privatusque magis vivam to Rege beatus.

Hor. l 1. [...]at. 3.

Servants live the best lives; for their care is single, onely how to please their Lord; but all the burden of a troublesome providence, and ministration, makes the outside pompous and more full of ceremony; but they intricate the condition and disturb the quiet of the great possessor.

And imagine a person as blest as can be supposed upon the stock of worldly interest; when all his accounts are cast up, he E differs nothing from his subjects, or his servants, but in meer circumstance, nothing of reality or substance. He hath more to wait at his Table, or persons of higher rank to do the meanest offices; more ceremonies of addresse, a fairer Escutcheon, louder titles; But can his multitude of dishes make him have a good stomack, or does not satiety cloy it: when his high diet is such, that he is not [Page] A capable of being feasted, and knows not the frequent delights, and oftener possibilities, a poor man hath of being refreshed, while not onely his labour makes hunger, and so makes his meat delicate; (and then it cannot be ill fare, let it be what it will) but also his provision is such, that every little addition is a direct feast to him, while the great owner of the world giving to himself the utmost of his desires, hath nothing left beyond his ordinary, to become the entertainment of his festival dayes, but more loads of the same meat. And then let him consider how much of felicity can this Rare volte hà fame chjsta sempre à tavola condition contribute to him. In which he is not further gone beyond B a person of a little fortune, in the greatnesse of his possession, then he is fallen short in the pleasures and possibility of their enjoyment.

And that is a sad condition when like Midas all that the man touches shall turn to gold: and his is no better to whom a perpetual full table not recreated with fasting, not made pleasant with intervening scarcity ministers no more good then a heap of gold does, that is, he hath no benefit of it, save the beholding of it with his eyes. Cannot a man quench his thirst as well out of an Urn or Chalice, as out of a whole River? It is an ambitious thirst, C and a pride of draught that had rather lay his mouth to Euphrates then to a petty goblet; but if he had rather, it addes not so much to his content, as to his danger, and his vanity.

—eo sit

Plenior ut si quos delectet copia justo,

Cum ripâ simul vulsos ferat Aufidus acer.

For so I have heard of persons whom the river hath swept away, together with the Turf they pressed when they stooped to drown D their pride rather then their thirst.

6. But this supposition hath a lessening tearm. If a man could be born heir of all the world, it were something: But no man ever was so; except him onely who enjoyed the least of it, the Son of man, that had not where to lay his head: but in the supposition it is; [If a man could [gain] the whole world,] which supposes labour and sorrow, trouble and expence, venture and hazard, and so much time expired in its acquist and purchase, that besides the possession is not secured to us for tearm of life, yet our lives are almost expired, before we become estated in our purchases. And indeed E it is a sad thing to see an ambitious, or a covetous person, make his life unpleasant, troublesome, and vexatious, to grasp a power bigger then himself; To fight for it with infinite hazards of his life, so that it is a thousand to one but he perishes in the attempt, and gets nothing at all, but an untimely grave, a reproachfull memory, and an early damnation. But suppose he gets a victory, and [Page] that the unhappy party is but to begin a new game, then to see A the fears, the watchfulnesse, the diligence, the laborious arts to secure a possession, lest the desperate party should recover a desperate game: And suppose this with a new stock of labours, danger and expence, be seconded by a new successe; then to look upon the new emergencies, and troubles, and discontents among his friends, about parting the spoil, the envies, the jealousies, the slanders, the underminings, and the perpetuall inscourity of his condition; all this I say, is to see a man take infinite pains to make himself miserable; but if he will be so unlearned, as to call this gallantry, or a splendid fortune, yet by this time when he remembers, he hath B certainly spent much of his time in trouble; and how long he shall enjoy this he is still uncertain; he is not certain of a moneth, and suppose it be seven yeers, yet when he comes to die, and cast up his accounts, and shall finde nothing remaining, but a sad remembrance of evils, and troubles past, and expectations of worse, infinitely worse he must acknowledge himself convinced, that to gain all this world is a fortune not worth the labour and the dangers, the fears, and transportations of passions, though the souls losse be not considered in the bargain.

But I told you all this while, that this is but a supposition C still, the putting of a case, or like a fiction of love, nothing reall: for if we consider in the second place, how much every man is likely to get really, and how much it is possible for any man to get, we shall finde the account far shorter yet, and the purchase most trifling and inconsiderable. For 1. the world is at the same time enjoyed by all its inhabitants, and the same portion of it by severall persons in their several capacities. A Prince enjoyes his whole kingdom, not as all his people enjoyes it, but in the manner of a Prince; the subjects in the manner of subjects. The Prince hath certain Regalia beyond the rest; But the feudall right of subjects does D them more emolument, and the Regalia does the Prince more honour; and these that hold the fees in subordinate right, transmit it also to their Tenants, and beneficiaries, and dependants to publike uses, to charity, and hospitality; all which is a lessening of the lords possessions and a cutting his river into little streams, not that himself alone, but that all his relatives may drink and be refreshed. Thus the Well where the woman of Samaria sate was Jacobs Well, and he drank of it, but so did his wives, and his children, and his cattel; so that what we call ours, is really ours, but for our portion of expence and use; we have so little of it, that our E servants have far more, and that which is ours is nothing but the title, and the care, and the trouble of securing and dispensing; save onely that God whose stewards we all are, will call such owners (as they are pleased to call themselves) to strict accounts for their disbursments. And by this account the possession or dominion [Page] A is but a word, and serves a fancy or a passion, or a vice, but no reall end of nature; it is the use and spending it that makes a man, to all reall purposes of nature to be the owner of it, and in this the lord and master have but a share.

But secondly, consider how far short of the whole world the greatest Prince that ever reigned did come. Alexander that wept because he had no more worlds to conquer, was in his knowledge deceived, and bruitish, as in his passion; he over-run much of Asia, but he could never passe the Ganges, and never thrust his sword in the bowels of Europe, and knew nothing of America. And the B [...], or the whole world began to have an appropriate sence, and was rather put to the Romane Greatnesse as an honourable Appellative then did signifie that they were lords of the world, who never went beyond Persia, Egypt, nor Britain.

But why do I talk of great things in this Question of the exchange of the soul for the world? Because it is a reall bargain, which many men (too many God knows) do make, we must consider it as applicable to practice. Every man that loses his soul for the purchase of the world, must not looke to have the portion C of a King. How few men are Princes, and of those that are not born so, how seldom instances are found in story, of persons that by their industry became so? But we must come far lower yet. Thousands there are that damne themselves, and yet their purchase at long-running, and after a base and weary life spent, is but five hundred pounds a yeer; nay it may be they onely cozen an easie person out of a good estate, and pay for it at an easie rate, which they obtain by lying, by drinking, by flattery, by force; and the gain is nothing but a thousand pound in the whole, or it may bee nothing but a convenience. Nay how many men hazard their salvation D for an acre of ground, for twenty pound, to please a master, to get a smile and a kinde usage from a Superiour? These men get but little, though they did not give so much for it. So little, that Epictetus thought the purchase deer enough, though you paid nothing for it but flattery, and observance, [...] Observance was the price of his meal, and he paid too dear for one that gave his birth-right for it: but he that exchanges his soul for it, knowes not the vanity of his purchase, nor the value of his losse. He that gains the purchase and spoil of a kingdom hath got E that which to all that are placed in heaven or to a man, that were seated in the paths of the Sun seem but like a spot in an eye, or a Mathematical point, so without vastnesse that it seems to be without dimensions. But he whose purchase is but his neighbours field, or a few unjust acres, hath got that which is inconsiderable, below the notice and description of the Map; for by such Hieroglyphicall representments, Socrates chid the vanity of a proud Athenian.

[Page] 3. Although these premises may suffice to shew that the supposed A purchase is but vain, and that all which men use really to obtain, is lesse then trifles, yet even the possession of it whatsoever it be is not meer and unmixt, but allaid with sorrow and uneasinesse: the gain hath but enlarged our appetite, and like a draught to an hydropick person, hath enraged his thirst; and still that which he hath not is infinitely bigger then what he hath, since the first enlargement of his purchase was not to satisfie necessity, but his passion, his lust or his avarice, his pride or his revenge, these things cease not by their fewell but their flames grow bigger, and the capacities are stretched, and they want more then they B did at first. For who wants most, he that wants five pound, or he that wants five thousand: And supposing a man naturally supported, and provided for in the dispensations of nature there is no difference, but that the poor hath enough to fill his belly, and the rich man can never have enough to fill his eye. The poor mans wants are no greater then what may be supplied by charity; and the rich mans wants are so big, that none but Princes can relieve them, and they are left to all the temptations of great vices, and huge cares to make their reparations.

Dives eget gemmis, Cereali munere pauper, C

Sed cum egeant ambo pauper egens minus est.

If the greatnesse of the worlds possessions produce such fruits, vexation, and care, and want, the ambitious requiring of great estates, is but like the selling of a fountain, to buy a fever, a parting with content, to buy necessity, and the purchase of an unhandsome condition, at the price of infelicity.

4. He that enjoyes a great portion of this world hath most commonly the allay of some great crosse, which although sometimes E God designes in mercy, to wean his affections from the world, and for the abstracting them from sordid adherencies and cohabitation, to make his eyes like stars, to fix them in the orbs of heaven, and the regions of felicity, yet they were an inseparable appendant and condition of humanity. Solomon observed the vanity of some persons, that heaped up great riches for their heits, and yet knew not whether a wise man or a fool should possesse them, this is a great evil under the Sun. And if we observe the great crosses many times God permits in great families, as discontent in marriages, artificiall or naturall bastardies, a society of man and wife like the conjunction of two politicks, full of state, and ceremony, and designe, but empty of those sweet caresses, and naturall hearty complications, and endearments, usuall in meaner and innocent persons, the perpetuall sicknesse, fulnesse of diet, fear of dying, the abuse of flatterers, the trouble and noise of company; the tedious [Page] A officiousnesse, of impertinent and ceremonious visits, the declension of estate, the sadnesse of spirit, the notoriousnesse of those dishonours which the meannesse of lower persons conceals, but their eminency makes us visible, as the spots in the moons face, we shall finde him to be most happy, that hath most of wisdom, and least of the world, because he onely hath the least danger, and the most security.

5. And lastly, his soul so gets nothing that wins all this world, if he loses his soul, that it is ten to one but he that gets the one, therefore shall lose the other; For to a great and opulent fortune B sin is so adherent and insinuating, that it comes to him in the nature of civility; It is a sad sight to see a great personage undertake an action passionately and upon great interest; and let him manage it as indiscreetly, let the whole designe be unjust, let it be acted with all the malice and impotency in the world, he shall have enough to tell him that he proceeds wisely enough, to be servants of his interest, and promoters of his sin, instruments of his malice and actors of revenge. But which of all his relatives shall dare to tell him C of his indiscretion, of his rage and of his folly? he had need be a bold man and a severe person, that shall tell him of his danger; and that he is in a direct progresse towards hell; and indeed such personages have been so long nourished up in softnes flattery and effeminancy, that too often themselves are impatient of a monitor, and think the charity and duty of a modest reprehension to be a rudenesse and incivility that Prince is a wise man that loves to have it otherwise; and certainly it is a strange civility and dutifulnesse in friends and relatives, to suffer him to go to hell uncontrolled; rather then to seem unmannerly towards a great sinner. But certainly this is none of the least infelicities of them who are Lords of the world and masters of great D possessions.

I omit to speak of the habitual intemperance, which is too commonly annexed to Festival and delicious tables, where there is no other measure or restraint upon the appetite, but its fulnesse and satiety, and when it cannot or dare not eat more. Oftentimes it happens, that the intemperance of a poor table is more temperate and hath lesse of luxury in it, then the temperance of a rich. To this are consequent all the evil accidents and effects of fulnesse; pride, lust, wantonnesse, softnesses of disposition and dissolution of manners, huge talking, imperiousnesse, despite and contempt of poor E persons, and at the best it is a great temptation for a man to have in his power, whatsoever he can have in his sensual desires: who then shall check his voracity or calm his revenge or allay his pride or mortify his lust or humble his spirit? it is like as when a lustful young and tempted person lives perpetually with his amorous and delicious mistris, if he scapes burning, that is inflamed [Page] from within and set on fire from without it is a greater miracle A then the escaping from the flames of the furnace, by the three children of the captivity. And just such a thing is the possession of the world, it furnishes us with abilities to sin and opportunities of ruine, and it makes us to dwell with poisons and dangers, and enemies.

And although the grace of God is sufficient to great personages, and masters of the world, and that it is possible for a young man to be tyed upon a bed of flowers and fastned by the arms and band of a curtesan and tempted wantonly and yet to escape the danger and the crime, and to triumph gloriously: (for so Saint Hierome B reports of a son of the king of Nicomedia) and riches and a free fortune are designed by God to be a mercy and an opportunity of doing noble things, and excellent charity, and exact justice, and to protect innocence, and to defend oppressed people; yet it is a mercy mixt with much danger; yet it is like the present of a whole vintage to a man in a hectick feaver, he will be shrewdly tempted to drink of it, and if he does, he is inflamed and may chance to die with the kindnesse. Happy are those persons who use the world and abuse it not, who possesse a part of it and love it for no C other ends, but for necessities of nature, and conveniencies of person and discharge of all their duty and the offices of religion, and in charity to Christ and all Christs members; but since he that hath all the world cannot command nature to do him one office extraordinary, and enjoyes the best parts but in common with the poorest man in the world, D and can use no more of it but according to a limited and a very narrow capacity, and whatsoever he can use or possesse cannot out-weigh the present pressure of a sharp disease, nor can it at all give him content without which there can be nothing of felicity; since a prince in the matter of using the world, differs nothing from his subjects, but in mere accedents and circumstances, and yet these very many trifling differences are not to be obtained but by so much labour and care, so great expence of time and trouble, that the possession will not pay thus much of the price, and after all this, the man may die two hours after he hath made his troublesome and expensive purchase and is certain not to enjoy it long.

Adde to this last, that most men get so little of the world that it is all together of a trifling and inconsiderable interest, that they who have the most of this world, have the most of that but in E title and in supreme rights, and reserved priviledges, the real use descending upon others to more substantial purposes; that the possession of this trifle is mixt with sorrow upon other accidents, and is allayed with fear, and that the greatnesse of mens possessions increase their thirst, and enlarge their wants, by swelling their capacitie, and above all, is of so great danger to a mans vertue [Page] A that a great fortune and a very great vertue are not alwayes observed to grow together; He that observes all this, and much more he may observe, will see that he that gains the whole world hath made no such great bargain of it although he had it for nothing, but the necessary unavoidable troubles in getting it; but how great a folly is it to buy so great a trouble, so great a vanity, with the losse of our pretious soules remains to be considered in the folowing parts of the text.

B Sermon. XIX. C The foolish exchange. Part II.

ANd lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul] And now the question is finally stated, and the dispute is concerning the sum of affaires.

D De morte hominis nulla est cunctatio longa.

And therefore when the soul is at stake, not for its temporal, but for its eternal interest, it is not good to be hasty in determining, without taking just measures of the exchange. Solomon had the good things of the world actually in possession, and he tried the touch-stone of prudence and natural value and found them allayed with vanitie and imperfection, and wee that see E them wayed in the ballance of the sanctuary, and tryed by the touch-stone of the spirit, finde them not onely light and unprofitable but pungent and dolorous, but now we are to consider what it is that men part with, and lose when with passion and impotency they get the world and that will present the bargain to be a huge infelicity. And this I observe to be intimated in the word, [Page] [lose] for he gives gold for cloth or pretious stones for bread A serves his needs of nature, and loses nothing by it, and the merchant that found a pearle of great price, and sold al that he had to make the purchase of it made a good venture he was no loser, but here the case is otherwise, when a man gains the whole world, and his soul goes in the exchange, he hath not done like a merchant, but like a childe, or a prodigal, he hath given himself away, he hath lost all that can distinguish him from a slave, or a miserable preson, he loses his soul in the exchange, for the soul of a man, all the world cannot be a just price, a man may lose it or throw it away, but he can never make good exchange, when he parts with this B Jewel, and therefore our blessed Saviour rarely well expresses it by [...] which is fully opposed to [...] gain, it is such an ill market a man makes as if he should proclaim his riches, goods, vendible for a garland of thistles decked and trimmed up with the stinking poppy.

But we shall better understand the nature of this bargain if we consider the soul that is exchanged, what it is in it self in order not of nature but to felicity and the capacities of joy, secondly what price the Son of God payed for it, and thirdly what it is to lose it, that is, what miseries and tortures are signified by losing C a mans soul.

First if we consider what the soul is in its own capacity to happinesse, we shall finde it to be an excellency greater then the sun; of an angelicall substance, sister to a cherubin, an image of the divinity, and the great argument of that mercy, whereby God did distinguish us from the lower form of beasts and trees and minerals.

For so it was the scripture affirmes, that God made man after his own image, that is, secundum illam imaginem & ideam quam concepitipse, not according to the likenesse of any of those creatures D which were prexistent to mans production; not according to any of those images or ideas whereby God created the heavens, and the earth; but by a new form; to distinguish him, from all other substances; he made him by a new idea of his own, by an uncreated exemplar; and besides that this was a donation of intelligent faculties, such as we understand to be perfect, and essential, or rather the essence of God, it was also a designation of him to a glorious immortality and a communication of the rayes and reflections of his own essential felicities.

But the soul is al that whereby we may be, and without which we E cannot be happy. It is not the eye that sees the beauties of the heaven, nor the ear that hears the sweetnesses of musick, or the gladtidings of a prosperous accident, but the soul that perceives all the relishes of sensual and intellectual perfections and the more noble and excellent the soul is the greater and more savory are its perceptions; [Page] A and if a childe beholds the rich Ermine, or the Diamonds of a starry night, or the order of the world, or hears the discourses of an Apostle, because he makes no reflex acts upon himself, and sees not that he sees; he can have but the pleasure of a fool or the deliciousnesse of a mule. But although the reflection of its own acts be a rare instrument of pleasure or pain respectively, yet the souls excellency is upon the same reason not perceived by us, by which the sapidnesse of pleasant things of nature, are not understood by a childe; even because the soul cannot reflect far enough. For as the Sun which is the fountain of light and B heat, makes violent and direct emission of his rayes from himself but reflects them no further then to the bottom of a cloud, or the lowest imaginary circle of the middle region, and therefore receives a duplicate of his own heat; so is the soul of man, it reflects upon its own inferiour actions of particular sense or general understanding; but because it knows little of its own nature, the manners of volition the immediate instruments of understanding, the way how it comes to meditate, and cannot discern how a sudden thought arrives, or the solution of a doubt, not depending upon preceding premises, C therefore above halfe its pleasures are abated, and its own worth lesse understood; and possibly it is the better, it is so. If the Elephant knew his strength, or the horse the vigorousnesse of his own spirit, they would be as rebellious against their rulers, as unreasonable men against government: nay the Angels themselves, because their light reflected home to their orbs, and they understood all the secrets of their own perfection, they grew vertiginous and fell from the battlements of heaven. But the excellency of a humane soul shall then be truly understood, when the reflection will make no distraction of our faculties, nor enkindle any irregular D fires; when we may understand our selves without danger.

In the mean this consideration is gone high enough when we understand the soul of a man to be so excellently perfect, that we cannot understand how excellently perfect it is: that being the best way of expressing our conceptions of God himself; and therefore I shall not need by distinct discourses to represent that the will of man is the last resort and sanctuary of true pleasure, which in its formality can be nothing else but a conformity of possession or of being to the will; that the understanding being the chanel and E conveyance of the noblest perceptions feeds upon pleasures in all its proportionate acts, and unlesse it be disturbed by intervening sins and remembrances, derived hence, keeps a perpetual festival; that the passions are every of them fitted with an object, in which they rest as in their centre; that they have such delight in these their proper objects, that too often they venture a damnation, rather then quit their interest and possession; but yet from these considerations [Page] it would follow that to lose a soul, which is designed A to be an immense sea of pleasures, even in its natural capacities is to lose all that whereby a man can possibly be, or be supposed happy; and so much the rather is this understood to be an insupportable calamity, because losing a soul in this sense, is not a meer privation of those felicities of which a soul is naturally designed to be a partaker, but it is an investing it with contrary objects, and crosse effects, and dolorous perceptions: For the will if it misses its desires, is afflicted, and the understanding when it ceases to be ennobled with excellent things is made ignorant as a swine, dull as the foot of a rock, and the afflictions are in the destitution of B their perfective actions, made tumultuous, vexed and discomposed, to the height of rage and violence. But this is but the [...] the beginning of those throes which end not but in eternal infelicity.

Secondly if we consider the price that the Son of God payed for the redemption of a soul, we shall better estimate of it, then from the weak discourses of our imperfect and unlearned Philosophy: not the spoil of rich provinces, not the aestimate of kingdoms, not the price of Cleopatra's draught, not any thing that was corruptible or perishing; for that, which could not one minute retard C the tearm of its own natural dissolution, could not be a price for the redemption of one perishing soul. And if we list but to remember and then consider that a miserable, lost, and accursed soul does so infinitely undervalue, and disrelish all the goods and riches that this world dotes on; that he hath no more gust in them, or pleasure, then the fox hath in eating a turfe: that if he could be imagined to be the Lord of ten thousand worlds, he would give them all for any shaddow of a hope of a possibility of returning to life again; that Dives in hell would have willingly gone on embassy to his fathers house that he might have been quit a little from D his flames, and on that condition would have given Lazarus the fee-simple of all his temporal possessions, though he had once denied to relieve him with the superfluities of his table, will soon confesse that a moment of time is no good exchange for an eternity of duration; and a light unprofitable possession is not to be put in the ballance against a soul, which is the glory of the creation; a soul, with whom God had made a contract, and contracted excellent relations, it being one of Gods appellatives, that he is [the lover of souls.]

When God made a soul, it was onely, faciamus hominem ad E imaginem nostram; He spake the word and it was done; but when man had lost this soul which the spirit of God breathed in him, it was not so soon recovered. It is like the resurrection which hath troubled the faith of many who are more apt to believe, that God made a man from nothing, then that he can return a man from dust & [Page] A corruption; but for this resurrection of the soul, for the reimplacing the divine image, for the rescuing it from the devils power, for the reintitling it to the kingdoms of grace and glory, God did a work greater then the creation; He was fain to contract Divinity, to a span, to send a person to die for us who of himself could not die, and was constrained to use rare and mysterious arts, to make him capable of dying, he prepared a person instrumental to his purpose, by sending his Son from his own bosom, a person both God and man, an aenigma to all nations, and to all sciences; one that ruled over all the Angels, that walked upon the B pavements of heaven, whose feet were clothed with stars, whose eyes were brighter then the Sun, whose voice is louder then thunder, whose understanding is larger then that infinite space which we imagine in the uncircumscribed distance, beyond the first orbe of heaven, a person to whom felicity was as essential as life to God, this was the onely person that was designed in the eternal decrees of the divine predestination to pay the price of a soul, to ransom us from death; lesse then this person could not do it; for although a soul in its essence is finite, yet there were many infinites which C were incident and annexed to the condition of lost souls; For all which because provision was to be made, nothing lesse then an infinite excellence could satisfie for a soul who was lost to infinite and eternal ages, who was to be afflicted with insupportable and indetermined that is next to infinite paines, who was to bear the load of an infinite anger from the provocation of an eternal God: and yet if it be possible that infinite can receive degrees, this is but one half of the abysse, and I think the lesser: for that this person who was God eternal, should be lessened in all his appearances, to a span, to the little dimensions of a man, and that he should really become D very contemptibly little, although at the same time he was infinitely and unalterably great, that is essential, natural and necessary felicity should turn into an intolerable, violent and immense calamity to his person, that this great God should not be admitted to pay the price of our redemption unlesse he would suffer that horrid misery, which that lost soul should suffer, as it represents the glories of his goodnesse, who used such rare and admirable instruments in actuating the designes of his mercy: so it shewes our condition to have been very desperate, and our losse invaluable.

A soul in Gods account is valued at the price of the blood, and E shame, and tortures, of the Son of God, and yet we throw it a way for the exchange of sins, that a man naturally is ashamed to own; we lose it for the pleasure, the sottish beastly pleasure of a night: I need not say, we lose our soul to save our lives; for though that was our blessed Saviours instance of the great unreasonablenesse of men, who by saving their lives lose them, that is, in the great account of Dooms-day, though this (I say) be extreamly unreasonable, [Page] yet there is something to be pretended in the bargain, A nothing to excuse him with God, but something in the accounts of timerous men; but to lose our souls with swearing, that unprofitable, dishonourable, and unpleasant vice, to lose our souls with disobedience, or rebellion, a vice that brings a curse, and danger all the way in this life: To lose our souls with drunkennesse, a vice which is painfull, and sickly in the very acting it, which hastens our damnation, by shortning our lives; are instances fit to be put in the stories of fools and mad-men; and all vice is a degree of the same unreasonablenesse, the most splendid temptation, being nothing but a prety well weaved fallacy, a meer trick, a sophisme, B and a cheating, and abusing the understanding; but that which I consider here is, that it is an affront and contradiction to the wisdom of God, that we should so slight and undervalue a soul, in which our interest is so concerned; a soul which he who made it, and who delighted not to see it lost, did account a fit purchase to be made, by the exchange of his Son, the eternal Son of God. To which also I adde this additionall account, that a soul is so greatly valued by God, that we are not to venture the losse of it, to save all the world For therefore whosoever should commit a sin to save kingdoms from perishing, or if the case could be put C that all the good men, and good causes, and good things in this world, were to be destroyed by Tyranny, and it were in our power by perjury to save all these, that doing this sin would be so farre from hallowing the crime, that it were to offer to God a sacrifice of what he most hates, and to serve him with swines blood: and the rescuing all these from a Tyrant, or a hangman, could not be pleasing to God upon those termes, because a soul is lost by it, which is in it self a greater losse and misery, then all the evils in the world put together can out-ballance; and a losse of that thing for which Christ gave his blood a price: Persecutions and temporal D death in holy men and in a just cause, are but seeming evils, and therefore not to be bought off with the losse of a soul, which is a real but an intolerable calamity: And if God for his own sake would not have all the world saved by sin, that is by the hazarding of a soul, we should do well for our own sakes not to lose a soul E for trifles, for things that make us here to be miserable, and even here also to be ashamed.

3. But it may be some natures, or some understandings care not for all this, therefore I proceed to the third and most material consideration, as to us; and I consider what it is to lose a soul? which Hierocles thus explicates, [...]. An immortall substance can die, not by ceasing to be, but by losing all being well, by becomming miserable. And it is remarkable, when our blessed Saviour gave us caution, that we should not fear them that can kill the [Page] A body onely, but fear him (he sayes not that can kill the soul) But [...], him that is able to destroy the body, and soul in hell; which word signifieth not death but tortures. Matth. 10. 27. For some have chosen death for sanctuary, and fled to it to avoid intolerable shame, to give a period to the sence of a sharp grief, or to cure the earthquakes of fear; and the damned perishing souls shall wish for death, with a desire impatient as their calamity; But this shall be denied them, because death were a deliverance, a mercy, and a pleasure, of which these miserable persons must despair of for ever.

I shall not need to represent to your considerations those expressions B of Scripture, which the Holy Ghost hath set down to represent to our capacities the greatnesse of this perishing; choosing such circumstances of character as were then usuall in the world, and which are dreadful to our understanding as any thing: Hell fire] is the common expression; for the Eastern nations accounted burnings the greatest of their miserable punishments: and burning malefactours was frequent, [brimstone and fire] to Saint John Revel. 14. 10. calls the state of punishment, prepared for the Devil and all his servants, he adding the circumstance of brimstone, for by this time the Devil had taught the world more ingenious pains, C and himself was new escaped out of boiling oil and brimstone, and such bituminous matter; and the Spirit of God knew right well the worst expression was not bad enough, [...], so our blessed Saviour calls it, the outer darknesse, that is, not onely an abjection from the beatifick regions, where God, and his Angels, and his Saints dwell for ever, but then there is a positive state of misery expressed by darknesses, [...], as two Apostles, Saint Peter and Saint Jude call it, The blacknesse of darknesse for ever. In which although it is certain, that God whose Justice there rules, will inflict but just so much as our sins deserve, and not superadde D degrees of undeserved misery, as he does to the Saints of glory (for God gives to blessed souls in heaven more, infinitely more then all their good works could possibly deserve, and therefore their glory is infinitely bigger glory then the pains of hell are great pains) yet because Gods Justice in hell rules alone, without the allayes and sweeter abatements of mercy, they shall have pure and unmingled misery; no pleasant thought to refresh their wearinesse, no comfort in an other accident to alleviate their pressures, no waters to cool their flames; but because when there is a great calamity E upon a man, every such man thinks himself the most miserable; and though there are great degrees of pain in hell, yet there are none perceived by him that thinks he suffers the greatest; It follows that every man that loses his soul in this darknesse is miserable beyond all those expressions which the tortures of this world could furnish to the Writers of holy Scripture.

[Page] But I shall choose to represent this consideration in that expression A of our blessed Saviour, Mark the 9. the 44. verse; which himself took out of the Prophet Esay, the 66. verse the 24. Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched; this is the [...], spoken of by Daniel the Prophet; for although this expression was a prediction of that horrid calamity and abscision of the Jewish Nation, when God poured out a full vial of his wrath upon the crucifiers of his Son, and that this which was the greatest calamity which ever did or ever shall happen to a Nation, Christ with great reason took to describe the calamity of accursed souls, as being the greatest instance to signifie the greatest torment: yet we must observe B that the difference of each state makes the same words in the several cases to be of infinite distinction: The worm stuck close to the Jewish Nation, and the fire of Gods wrath flamed out till they were consumed with a great and unheard of destruction; till many millions did die accursedly, and the small remnant became vagabonds, and were reserved, like broken pieces, after a storm, to shew the greatnesse of the storm, and misery of the shipwrack; but then this being translated to signifie the state of accursed souls, whose dying is a continual perishing, who cannot cease to be, it must mean an eternity of duration, in proper and naturall significations. C

And that we may understand it fully, observe the places. In the 34. Esa. 8. The Prophet prophecies of the great destruction of Jerusalem for all her great iniquities. It is the day of the Lords vengeance, and the yeer of recompences, for the controversie of Sion, and the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day, the smoak thereof shall go up for ever, from generation to generation. It shall lie wast, none shall passe thorow it for ever and ever. This is the final destruction of the Nation; but this destruction shall D have an end, because the Nation shall end, and the anger also shall end in its own period, even then when God shall call the Jews into the common inheritance with the Gentiles, and all the sons of God. And this also was the period of their worme, as it is of their fire, The fire of the Divine vengeance upon the Nation; which was not to be extinguished till they were destroyed, as we see it come to passe. And thus also in Saint Jude, the Angels who kept not their first state, are said to be reserved by God in everlasting chains under darknesse: which word [everlasting] signifies not absolutely to eternity, but to the utmost end of that period, for so it follows E [unto the judgement of the great day] that [everlasting] lasts no longer; and in verse the seventh, the word [eternal] is just so used: The men of Sodom and Gomorrha are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of [eternal fire,] that is, of a fire, which burned till they were quite destroyed, and the cities and the countrey [Page] A with an irreparable ruine never to be rebuilt, and reinhabited as long as this world continues. The effect of which observations is this;

That these words [for ever, everlasting, eternal, the never-dying worme, the fire unquenchable,] being words borrowed by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles from the stile of the old Testament, must have a signification just proportionable to the state in which they signifie; so that as this worme when it signifies a temporal infliction meanes a worme that never ceases, giving torment, till the body is consumed: So when it is translated to an immortall B state, it must signifie as much in that proportion: that [eternal,] that everlasting, hath no end at all: because the soul cannot be killed in the natural sense, but is made miserable and perishing for ever; that is, the worme shall not die so long as the soul shall be unconsumed: the fire shall not be quenched, till the period of an immortall nature comes, and that this shall be absolutely for ever without any restriction, appears unanswerably in this, because the same (for ever) that is, for the blessed souls, the same for ever, is for the accursed souls; but the blessed souls that die in the Lord, henceforth C shall die no more; death hath no power over them; for death is destroyed, it is swallowed up in victory (saith Saint Paul) and there shall be no more death, saith Saint John, Revel. 21. 4. So that because for ever hath no end, till the thing or the duration it self have end, in the same sense in which the Saints and Angels give glory to God for ever, in the same sense the lost souls shall suffer the evils of their sad inheritance; and since after this death of nature, which is a separation of soul and body, there remains no more death, but this second death, this eternal perishing of miserable accursed souls, whose duration must be eternall; It follows that the worm of conscience, D and the unquenchable fire of hell have no period at all; but shall last as long as God lasts, or the measures of a proper eternity; that they who provoke God to wrath, by their base, unreasonable, and sottish practises, may know what their portion shall be in the everlasting habitations: and yet suppose that Origens opinion had been true; and that accursed souls should have ease and a period to their tortures after a thousand years; I pray let it be considered, whether it be not a great madnesse to choose the pleasures, or the wealth of a few years here, with trouble, with danger, with uncertainty, with labour, with intervalls E of sicknesse, and for this to endure the flames of hell for a thousand yeers together? The pleasures of the world no man can have for a hundred yeers, and no man hath pleasure a hundred dayes together, but he hath some trouble intervening: or at least a wearinesse and a loathing of the pleasure; and therefore to endure insufferable calamities (suppose it be) for a hundred yeers, without any interruption, without so much comfort as the light [Page] of a small candle, or a drop of water amounts to in a fever, is a A bargain to be made by no man that loves himself, or is not in love with infinite affliction.

If a man were condemned but to lie still, or to lie a bed in one posture without turning, for seven yeers together, would he not buy it off with the losse of all his estate? If a man were to be put upon the rack, for every day, three moneths together, (suppose him able to live so long) what would he do to be quit of his torture? Wouldany man curse the King to his face, if he were sure to have both his hands burnt off, and to be tormented with torments three yeers together? Would any man in his wits accept of B a hundred pound a yeer for fourty yeers, if he were sure to be tormented in the fire for the next hundred yeers together without intermission? Think then what a thousand yeers signifie: Ten ages, the age of two Empires; but this account I must tell you is infinitely short, though I thus discourse to you, how great fools wicked men are, though this opinion should be true: A goodly comfort surely! that for two or three yeers sottish pleasure, a man shall be infinitely tormented but for a thousand yeers. But then when we cast up the minutes, and yeers, and ages of eternity, the consideration it self is a great hell to those persons who by their evil lives C are consigned to such sad and miserable portions.

A thousand yeers is a long while to be in torment; we finde a fever of 21. dayes to be like an age in length: but when the duration of an intolerable misery is for ever in the height, and for ever beginning, and ten thousand yeers hath spent no part of its terme, but it makes a perpetual efflux, and is like the centre of a circle, which ever transmits lines to the circumference; this is a consideration so sad that the horrour of it and the reflexion upon its abode and duration, make a great part of the hell; for hell could not be hell without the despair of accursed souls; for any hope were a refreshment, D and a drop of water, which would help to allay those flames, which as they burn intolerably, so they must burn for ever.

And I desire you to consider that although the Scripture uses the word [fire] to expresse the torments of accursed souls, yet fire can no more equal the pangs of hell then it can torment a material substance; the pains of perishing souls being as much more afflictive then the smart of fire, as the smart of fire is troublesome beyond the softnesse of Persian carpets, or the sensuality of the Asian Luxury: for the pains of hell; and the perishing or losing of the E soul is to suffer the wrath of God, [...], our God is a consuming fire: that is the fire of hell, when God takes away all comfort from us, nothing to support our spirit is left us, when sorrow is our food and tears our drink; when it is eternal night without Sun or star, or lamp, or sleep; when we burn [Page] A with fire without light that is, are loaden with sadnesse, without remedy or hope or ease, and that this wrath is to be expressed, and to fall upon us, in spiritual, immateriall, but most accursed, most pungent and dolorous emanations, then we feel what it is to lose a soul.

We may guesse at it by the terrours of a guilty conscience, those verbera & laeniatus, those secret lashings and whips of the exterminating Angel, those thorns in the soul, when a man is haunted by an evil spirit; those butcheries which the soul of a Tyrant, or a violent, or a vitious person, when he falls in to fear or any calamity does feel, are the infinite arguments, that Hell which B is the consummation of the torment of conscience, just as man-hood is the consummation of infancy or as glory is the perfection of grace, is an affliction greater then the bulk of heaven and earth; for there it is that God powrs out the treasures of his wrath and empties the whole magazin of thunder bolts, and all the armory of God is imployed not in the chastising, but in the tormenting of a perishing soul. Lucian brings in Radamanthus telling the poor wandring souls upon the banks of Elysium, [...], for every wickednesse that any man commits in his life when he comes C to hell he hath stamped upon his soul an invisible brand and mark of torment; and this begins here, and is not cancelled by death but there is enlarged by the greatnesse of infinite and the aboads of eternity. How great these tormens of conscience are here, let any man imagine that can but understand what despair means; despair upon just reason: let it be what it will, no misery can be greater then despaire: and because I hope none here have felt those horrors of an evil conscience, which are consignations to eternity, you may please to learn it by your own reason, or els by the sad instances of story. It is reported of Petrus Ilosuanus, A Polonian D School-master that having read some ill managed discourses of absolute decrees and divine reprobation, began to be Phantastick and melancholy and apprehensive that he might be one of those many whom God had decreed for hell from all eternity; from possible to probable, from probable, to certain, the temptation soon carried him, and when he once began to believe himself to be a person inevitably perishing, it is not possible to understand perfectly, what infinite fears, and agonies and despairs, what tremblings, what horrors, what confusion and amazement the poor man E felt within him, to consider that he was to be tormented extremely without remedy even to eternal ages; This in a short continuance grew insufferable, and prevailed upon him so far that he hanged himself, and left this account of it or to this purpose in writing in his study; I am gone from hence to the flames of hell, & have forced my way thither being impatient to try what those great torments [Page] are which here I have heard with an insupportable amazement: this A instance may suffice to show what it is to lose a soul. But I will take off from this sad discourse; onely I shall crave your attention, to a word of exhortation.

That you take care, lest for the purchase of a little, trifling, inconsiderable portion of the world you come into this place and state of torment. Although Homer was pleased to complement the beauty of Helena to such a height as to say it was a sufficient price for all the evils which the Greeks and Trojans suffered in ten years.

[...]. B Yet it was a more reasonable conjecture of Herodotus, that during the ten years siege of Troy Helena for whom the Greeks fought was in Egypt, not in the city, because it was unimaginable but that the Trojans would have thrown her over the walls rather then for the sake of such a trifle, have endured so great calamities, we are more sottish then the Trojans, if we retain our Helena, any one beloved lust, any painted Devil, any sugar'd temptation with, (not the hazard but) the certainty of having such horrid miseries, such in valuable C losses. And certainly its a strange stupidity of spirit that can sleep in the midst of such thunder, when God speaks from heaven with his lowdest voice, and draws aside his curtain, and shows his arsenal and his armory, full of arrows steeled with wrath, headed and pointed, and hardned with vengeance, still to snatch at those arrows, if they came but in the retinue of a rich fortune or a vain Mistris, if they wait but upon pleasure or profit or in the reare of an ambitious designe.

But let not us have such a hardinesse against the threats and representments of the divine vengeance as to take the little imposts D and revenues of the world, and stand in defiance against God and the fears of hell unlesse we have a charm that we can be [...] invisible to the judge of heaven and earth and are impregnable against, or are sure we shall be insensible of the miseries of a perishing soul.

There is a sort of men who because they will be vitious and Atheistical in their lives, have no way to go on with any plaisance and without huge disturbances, but by being also Atheistical in their opinions and to believe that the story of hell is but a bug-bear to affright children and fools, easy believing people to make them E soft and apt for government and designes of princes; and this is an opinion that befriends none but impure and vicious persons; others there are that believe God to be all mercy, that he forgets his justice, believing that none shall perish with so sad a ruine, if they do but at their death-bed ask God forgivenesse and say they are sorry; but yet continue their impiety till their house be ready [Page] A to fall; being like the Circassians whose Gentlemen enter not into the Church till they be threescore years old, that is, in effect till by their age they cannot any longer use rapine: till then they hear service at their windows: dividing unequally their life between sin and devotition, dedicateing their youth to robbery, and their old age to a repentance without restitution.

Our youth, and our man-hood and old age are all of them due to God, and justice and mercy are to him equally essential, and as this life is a time of the possibilities of mercy so to them that neglect it, the next world shall be a state of pure and unmingled justice.

B Remember the fatal and decretory sentence which God hath passed upon all man-kinde [it is appointed to all men once to die and after death comes judgement] and if any of us were certain to die next morning, with what earnestnesse should we pray, with what hatred should we remember our sins, with what scorn should we look upon the licentious pleasures of the world then nothing could be welcome unto us but a prayer book, no company but a Comforter and a Guide of souls, no imployment but repentance, no passions but in order to religion, no kindnesse for a lust that hath undone us; and if any of you have been arrested with alarmes of C death, or been in hearty fear of its approach, remember what thoughts and designes then possessed you, how precious a soul was then in your account and what then you would give that you had despised the world, and done your duty to God and man, and lived a holy life. It will come to that again and we shall be in that condition in which we shall perfectly understand, that all the things and pleasures of the world are vain and unprofitable, and irkesome, and that he onely is a wise man who secures the interest of his soul though it be with the losse of all this world and his own life into the bargain. When we are to depart this life to go to strange company D and stranger places, and to an unknown condition, then a holy conscience will be the best security the best possession; it wil be a horror that every friend we meet shall with triumph upbraid to us the sottishnesse of our folly. Lo this is the goodly change you have made, you had your good things in your life time, and how like you the portion that is reserved to you for ever? The old Rabbins those Poets of religion report of Moses that when the courtiers of Pharaoh were sporting with the childe Moses in the chamber of Pharaohs daughter, they presented to his choice an ingot of gold in one hand, and a cole of fire in the other; and that the childe snatched at the coal, thrust it E into his mouth, and so singed and parched his tongue, that he stammered ever after: and certainly it is infinitely more childish in us for the glittering of the small gloworms and the charcoal of worldly possessions, to swallow the flames of hell greedily, in our choice: such a bit will produce a worse stammering then Moses had: for so the aeccursed and lost souls have their ugly and horrid dialect, they [Page] roare and blaspheme, blaspheme and roare for ever. And suppose God A should now at this instant send the great Archangel with his trumpet to summon all the world to judgement, would not all this seem a notorious visible truth, a truth, which you will then wonder that every man did not lay to his heart and preserve therein actual, pious and effective consideration? let the trumpet of God perpetually sound in your ears, surgite mortui, & venite ad judicium, place your selves by meditation every day upon your death-bed, and remember what thoughts shall then possesse you; and let such thoughts dwell in your understanding for ever, and be the parent of all your resolutions and actions. The Doctors of the Jews B report, that when Absalom hanged among the oakes, by the haire of the head, he seemed to see under him hell gaping wide, ready to receive him, and he durst not cut off the hair that intangled him, for fear he should fall into the horrid lake whose portion is flames and torment; but chose to protract his miserable life a few minuts in that pain of posture, and to abide the stroke of his pursuing enemies: His condition was sad when his arts of remedy were so vain. [...] Soph. A condemned man hath but small comfort to stay the singing of a long psalm, it is the case of every vitious person. C

Hell is wide open to every impenitent persevering sinner, to every unpurged person.

Noctes atque dies patet atri Janua Ditis.

And although God hath lighted his candle and the lantern of his word and clearest revelations is held out to us, that we can see hell in its worst colours, and most horrid representments yet we run greedily after bables into that praecipice which swallows up the greatest part of man kinde; and then onely we begin to consider, when all consideration is fruitlesse.

He therefore is a huge fool that heaps up riches, that greedily D pursues the world, and at the same time, (for so it must be heaps of wrath to himself against the day of wrath; when sicknesse & death arrests him, then they appear unprofitable & himself extreamly miserable: & if you would know how great that misery is you may take account of it by those fearful words and killing Rhetorick of Scripture, It is a fearful things to fall into the hands of the living God and who can dwell with the everlasting burning? That is, No patience can abide there one houre where they must dwell for ever. E

B Sermon. XX. OF CHRISTIAN C PRVDENCE.

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A

Matthew 10. latter part of Ver. 16.‘Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmlesse as doves.’

D WHen our B. Saviour entailed a law & a condition of sufferings, & promised a state of persecution to his servants, and withall had charmed them with the bands & unactive chains of so many passive graces, that they should not be able to stir against the violence of Tyrants, or abate the edge of axes, by any instrument, but their own blood; being sent forth as sheep among wolves, innocent and silent, harmlesse, and defencelesse, certainly exposed to sorrow, and uncertainly guarded in their persons; their condition seemed nothing else, but a designation E to slaughter: and when they were drawn into the folds of the church, they were betrayed into the hands of evil men, infinitely and unavoidably; and when an Apostle invited a proselyte to come to Christ, it was in effect a snare laid for his life, and he could neither conceal his religion, nor hide his person, nor avoid a captious question, nor deny his accusation, nor elude the bloody [Page] arts of Orators and informers, nor break prisons, nor any thing but A die. If the case stood just thus, it was well eternity stood at the outer doors of our life, ready to receive such harmlesse people; but surely there could be no art in the designe, no pitying of humane weaknesses, no complying with the condition of man, no allowances made for customs and prejudices of the world, no inviting men by the things of men, no turning nature into religion; but it was all the way a direct violence, and an open prostitution of our lives; and a throwing away our fortune into a sea of rashnesse and credulity. But therefore God ordered the affaires and necessities of religion in other wayes and to other purposes. Although God B bound our hands behinde us, yet he did not tie our understandings up: although we might not use our swords, yet we might use our reason: we were not suffered to be violent, but we might avoid violence by all the arts of prudence and innocence; if we did take heed of sin, we might also take heed of men: & because in al contentions between wit and violence, prudence & rudenesse, learning and the sword, the strong hand took it first, and the strong head possessed it last: the strong man first governed, and the witty man succeeded him, and lasted longer; it came to passe that the wisdom of the Father hath so ordered it, that all his Disciples should overcome C the power of the Roman legions by a wise religion; and prudence and innocence should become the mightiest guards; and the Christian although exposed to persecution, yet is so secured that he shall never need to die But when the circumstances are so ordered that his reason is convinced that then it is fit he should; fit (I say) in order to Gods purposes and his own.

For he that is innocent is safe against all the rods and the axes of all the Consuls of the world, if they rule by justice; and he that is prudent will also escape from many rudenesses and irregular violences, D that can come by injustice: and no wit of man, no government, no armies can do more; for Caesar perished in the midst of all his legions and all his honours, and against chance and irregularities there is no provision lesse then infinite, that can give security; and although prudence alone cannot do this; yet innocence gives the greatest title to that providence which onely can if he pleases, and will if it be fitting. Here then are the two armes defensive of a Christian: Prudence against the evils of men, Innocence against the evils of Devils and all that relates to his kingdom.

Prudence fences against persecution, and the evil snares, against E the opportunities and occasions of sin, it prevents surprizes, it fortifies all its proper weaknesses, it improves our talents, it does advantage to the kingdom of Christ and the interests of the Gospel, it secures our condition, and instructs our choice in all the wayes and just passages to felicity, it makes us to live profitably, and die wisely; and without it, simplicity would turn to sillinesse, zeal [Page] A into passion, passion into fury, religion into scandal, conversation into a snare, civilities into temptation, curtesies into danger, and an imprudent person falls into a condition of harmelesse, rich and unwary fools, or rather of birds, sheep, and bevers, who are hunted and persecuted for the spoils of their Fleece, or their flesh, their skins, or their entrails, and have not the foresight to avoid a snare, but by their fear and undefending follies are driven thither where they die infallibly. [...]. Every good man is incircled with many enemies, and dangers: and his vertue shall be rifled, and the decency of his soul and spirit shall be discomposed and turned into a heap of inarticulate and disorderly B fancies, unlesse by the methods and guards of prudence it be mannaged and secured.

But in order to the following discourse and its method, we are first to consider whether this be, or indeed can be a commandement, or what is it? For can all men that give up their names in baptisme, be enjoyned to be wise and prudent? It is as if God would command us to be eloquent, or witty men, fine speakers, or strait bodied, or excellent schollers, or rich men: If he please to make us so, we are so; and prudence is a gift of God, a blessing of an excellent nature, and of great leisure, and a wise opportunity, C and a severe education, and a great experience, and a strict observation, and good company; all which being either wholly, or in part out of our power, may be expected as free gifts, but cannot be imposed as commandments.

To this I answer, That Christian prudence is in very many instances a direct duty; in some an instance and advice, in order to degrees and advantages: where it is a duty, it is put into every mans power; where it is an advice it is onely expected according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not: and even here, although the events of prudence are out of our power, yet D the endeavours and the observation, the diligence and caution, the moral part of it, and the plain conduct of our necessary duty (which are portions of this grace) are such things which God will demand in proportion to the talent which he hath intrusted into our Banks. There are in indeed some Christians very unwary and unwise in the conduct of their religion, and they cannot all help it, at least not in all degrees; but yet they may be taught to do prudent things, though not to be prudent persons; if they have not the prudence of advice, and conduct, yet they may have the prudence of E obedience, and of disciples: and the event is this; without prudence their vertue is unsafe, and their persons defenselesse, and their interest is unguarded; for prudence is a hand-maid waiting at the production and birth of vertue: It is a nurse to it in its infancy, its patron an assaults, its guide in temptations, its security in all portions of chance and contingency: And he that is imprudent, if he [Page] have many accidents and varieties, is in great danger of being none A at all, or if he be, at the best he is but a weak and an unprofitable servant, uselesse to his neighbour, vain in himself, and as to God, the least in the kingdom: his vertue is contingent, and by chance, not proportioned to the reward of wisdom, and the election of a wise religion.

[...]

[...].

No purchase, no wealth, no advantage is great enough to be B compared to a wise soul, and a prudent spirit; and he that wants it hath a lesse vertue, and a defenselesse minde, and will suffer a mighty hazard in the interest of eternity. Its parts and proper acts consist in the following particulars.

1. It is the duty of Christian prudence to choose the end of a Christian, that which is perfective of a man, satisfactory to reason, the rest of a Christian, and the beatification of his spirit; and that is, to choose and desire, and propound to himself heaven, and the fruition of God, as the end of all his acts and arts, his designes and purposes. For in the nature of things that is most eligible, and C most to be pursued, which is most perfective of our nature, and is the acquiescence, the satisfaction, and proper rest of our most reasonable appetites. Now the things of this world are difficult and uneasie, full of thornes, and empty of pleasures, they fill a diseased faculty, or an abused sense, but are an infinite dissatisfaction to reason, and the appetites of the soul: they are short, and transient, and they never abide, unlesse sorrow like a chain be bound about their leg, and then they never stir, till the grace of God and religion breaks it, or else that the rust of time eats the chain in pieces: they are dangerous and doubtfull, few and difficult, sordid and D particular, not onely not communicable to a multitude, but not diffusive upon the whole man; there being no one pleasure or object in this world, that delights all the parts of man: and after all this, they are originally from earth, and from the creatures, onely that they oftentimes contract alliances with hell and the grave, with shame and sorrow; and all these put together make no great amability, or proportion to a wise mans choice: But on the other side, the things of God are the noblest satisfactions to those desires, which ought to be cherished and swelled up to infinite; their deliciousnesse is vast and full of relish, and their very appendant thorns E are to be chosen, for they are gilded, they are safe and medicinall, they heal the wound they make, and bring forth fruit of a blessed and a holy life: The things of God and of religion are easie and sweet, they bear entertainments in their hand, and reward at their back, their good is certain and perpetual, and they make us cheerfull [Page] A to day, and pleasant to morrow; and spiritual songs end not in a sigh and a groan; neither like unwholesome physick do they let loose a present humour, and introduce an habitual indisposition: But they bring us to the felicity of God, the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever; they do not give a private and particular delight, but their benefit is publike, like the incense of the altar, it sends up a sweet smell to heaven, and makes atonement for the religious man that kindled it, and delights all the standers by, and makes the very air wholesome; there is no blessed soul goes to heaven, but he makes a generall joy in all the mansions where B the Saints do dwell, and in all the chappels where the Angels sing: and the joyes of religion are not univocal, but productive of rare and accidental, and praeternatural pleasures; for the musick of holy hymnes delights the ear, and refreshes the spirit, and makes the very bones of the Saint to rejoyce: and charity, or the giving alms to the poor, does not onely ease the poverty of the receiver, but makes the giver rich, and heals his sicknesse, and delivers from death; and temperance though it be in the matter of meat, and drink, and pleasures, yet hath an effect upon the understanding C and makes the reason sober, and his will orderly, and his affections regular, and does things beside, and beyond their natural and proper efficacy; for all the parts of our duty are watered with the showers of blessing, and bring forth fruit according to the influence of heaven, and beyond the capacities of nature.

And now let the voluptuous person go and try whether putting his wanton hand to the bosome of his Mistris will get half such honour as Scaevola put upon his head, when he put his hand into the fire. Let him see whether a drunken meeting will cure a fever, or make him wise? A hearty and a persevering prayer will. D Let him tell me, if spending great summes of money upon his lusts will make him sleep soundly, or be rich? Charity will; Alms will increase his fortune, and a good conscience shall charme all his cares and sorrows into a most delicious slumber; well may a full goblet wet the drunkards tongue, and then the heat rising from the stomack will dry the spunge, and heat it into the scorchings and little images of hell: and the follies of a wanton bed will turn the itch into a smart, and empty the reins of all their lustfull powers; but can they do honour, or satisfaction in any thing that must last, and that ought to be provided for? No: All the things of E this world are little, and trifling, and limited, and particular, and sometimes necessary because we are miserable, wanting and imperfect, but they never do any thing toward perfection, but their pleasure dies like the time in which it danced a while, and when the minute is gone, so is the pleasure too, and leaves no footstep but the impression of a sigh, and dwells no where, but in the same house where you shall finde yesterday, that is in forgetfulnesse, and [Page] annihilation, unlesse its onely childe, sorrow, shall marry, and breed A more of its kinde, and so continue its memory and name to eternall ages. It is therefore the most necessary part of prudence to choose well in the main stake; and the dispute is not much; for if eternall things be better then temporall, the soul more noble then the body, vertue more honourable then the basest vices, a lasting joy to be chosen before an eternall sorrow, much to be preferred before little, certainty before danger, publike good things, before private evils, eternity before moments, then let us set down in religion, and make heaven to be our end, God to be our Father, Christ our elder Brother, the Holy Ghost the earnest of our inheritance, B vertue to be our imployment, and then we shall never enter into the portion of fools and accursed ill-choosing spirits. Nazianzen said well, Malim prudentiae guttam quàm foecundioris fortunae pelagus: One drop of prudence is more usefull, then an ocean of a smooth fortune; for prudence is a rare instrument towards heaven; and a great fortune is made oftentimes the high-way to hell and destruction. However, thus farre, prudence is our duty; every man can be so wise, and is bound to it, to choose heaven and a cohabitation with God, before the possessions and transient vanities of the world. C

2. It is a duty of Christian prudence to pursue this great end, with apt means and instruments in proportion to that end. No wise man will sail to Ormus in a cock-boat, or use a childe for his interpreter; and that Generall is a Cyclops without an eye, who chooses the sickest men to man his Towns, and the weakest to fight his battels. It cannot be a vigorous prosecution unlesse the means have an efficacy or worth commensurate to all the difficulty, and something of the excellency of that end which is designed. And indeed men use not to be so weak in acquiring the possessions of their temporals; But in matters of religion they think D any thing effective enough to secure the greatest interest; as if all the fields of heaven, and the regions of the Kingdom were waste ground, and wanted a Colony of planters; and that God invited men to heaven upon any terms, that he might rejoyce in the multitude of subjects. For certain it is, men do more to get a little money, then for all the glories of heaven: Men rise up early, and sit up late, and eat the bread of carefulnesse, to become richer then their neighbours; and are amazed at every losse, and impatient of an evil accident, and feel a direct storm of passion, if they suffer in their interest: But in order to heaven they are cold in their religion, E indevour in their prayers, incurious in their walking, unwatchfull in their circumstances, indifferent in the use of their opportunities, infrequent in their discoursings of it, not inquisitive of the way, and yet think they shall surely go to heaven: But a prudent man knows that by the greatnesse of the purchase, he is to [Page] A make an estimate of the value and the price: When we ask of God any great thing; As wisdom, delivery from sicknesse, his holy Spirit, the forgivenesse of sins, the grace of chastity, restitution to his favour, or the like, do we hope to obtain them without a high opinion of the things we ask? and if we value them highly, must we not desire them earnestly? and if we desire them earnestly, must we not pray for them fervently? and whatsoever we ask for fervently, must not we beg for frequently? and then because prayer is but one hand toward the reaching a blessing, and God requires our cooperation and endeavour; and we must work with both B hands: are we not convinced that our prayers are either faint, or a designe of lazinesse, when we either ask coldly, or else pray loudly, hoping to receive the graces we need without labour? A prudent person that knows to value the best object of his desires, will also know that he must observe the degrees of labour, according to the excellency of the reward: Prayer must be effectuall, servent, frequent, continuall, holy, passionate, that must get a grace, or secure a blessing: The love that we must have to God must be such as to keep his commandements, and to make us willing to part with all our estate, and all our honour, and our life for the testimony C of a holy conscience. Our charity to our neighbours must be expressive in a language of a reall friendship, aptnesse to forgive, readinesse to forbear, in pitying infirmities, in relieving necessities, in giving our goods and our lives, and quitting our privileges to save his soul, to secure and support his vertue. Our repentance must be full of sorrows and care, of diligence and hatred against sin, it must drive out all, and leave no affections towards it; it must be constant and persevering, fearfull of relapse, and watch-full of all accidents: Our temperance must sometimes turn into abstinence, and most commonly be severe, and ever without reproof: D He that striveth for masteries is temperate (saith Saint Paul) in all things; he that does all this, may with some pretence and reason say, he intends to go to heaven: But they that will not deny a lust, nor refrain an appetite, they that will be drunk when their friends do merrily constrain them, or love a cheap religion and a gentle and lame prayer, short and soft, quickly said, and soon passed over, seldome returning, and but little observed, How is it possible that they should think themselves persons disposed to receive such glorious crowns and scepters, such excellent conditions, which they have not faith enough to believe, nor attention E enough to consider, and no man can have wit enough to understand. But so might an Arcadian shepherd look from the rocks, or thorow the clefts of the valley where his sheep graze, and wonder that the messenger stayes so long from comming to him to be crowned King of all the Greek Ilands, or to be adopted heir to the Macedonian Monarchy. It is an infinite love of God, that we have [Page] heaven upon conditions, which we can perform with greatest diligence; A But truely the lives of men are generally such, that they do things in order to heaven, things (I say) so few, so trifling, so unworthy, that they are not proportionable to the reward of a crown of oak, or a yellow riband, the slender reward with which the Romans payed their souldiers for their extraordinary valour. True it is, that heaven is not in a just sense of a commutation, a reward, but a gift, and an infinite favour: but yet it is not reached forth but to persons disposed by the conditions of God; which conditions when we pursue in kinde, let us be very carefull we do not fail of the mighty price of our high calling, for want of B degrees, and just measures, the measures of zeal and a mighty love.

3. It is an office of prudence so to serve God that we may at the same time preserve our lives and our estates, our interest and reputation for our selves, and our relatives, so farre as they can consist together. Saint Paul in the beginning of Christianity was careful to instruct the forwardnesse and zeal of the new Christians into good husbandry, and to catechize the men into good trades, and the women into useful imployments, that they might C not be unprofitable. For Christian religion carrying us to heaven, does it by the way of a man, and by the body it serves the soul, as by the soul it serves God; and therefore it endeavours to secure the body and its interest, that it may continue the opportunities of a crown, and prolong the stage in which we are to run for the mighty price of our salvation: and this is that part of prudence, which is the defensative and guards of a Christian in the time of persecution; and it hath in it much of duty. He that through an indiscreet zeal casts himself into a needlesse danger, hath betrayed his life to tyranny and tempts the sin of an enemy, D he loses to God the service of many yeers, and cuts off himself from a fair opportunity of working his salvation (in the main parts of which we shall finde a long life, and very many yeers of reason to be little enough) he betrayes the interest of his relatives, (which he is bound to preserve) he disables himself of making provision for them of his own house, and he that fails in this duty by his own fault, is worse then an infidel, and denies the faith, by such unseasonably dying, or being undone, which by that testimony he did intend gloriously to confesse; he serves the end of ambition and popular services, but not the sober ends of religion, he E discourages the weak, and weakens the hands of the strong, and by upbraiding their warinesse, tempts them to turn it into rashnesse or despair; he affrights strangers from entring into religion, while by such imprudence, he shall represent it to be impossible at the same time to be wise and to be religious; it turns all the whole religion into a forwardnesse of dying or beggery, leaving [Page] A no space for the parts and offices of a holy life▪ which in times of persecution are infinitely necessary, for the advantages of the institution. But God hath provided better things for his servants: Quem fata cogunt, ille cum veniâ est miser, He whom God by an inevitable necessity calls to sufferance, he hath leave to be undone, and that ruine of his estate or losse of his life shall secure first a providence, then a crown.

At si quis ultro se malis offert volens.

seque ipse torquet, perdere est dignus bona

B Queis nescit uti.

But he that invites the cruelty of a Tyrant by his own follyes or the indiscretions of an unsignificant and impertinent zeal, suffers as a wilful person, and enters into the portion and reward of fools. And this is the precept of our Blessed Saviour, next after my text: Beware of men: use your prudence to the purposes of avoiding their snare, [...] Man is the most harmful of all the wilde beasts: ye are sent as sheep among wolves, be therefore C wise as serpents; when you can avoid it suffer not men to ride over your heads, or trample you under foot; thats the wisdom of Serpents; and so must we; that is by all just complyances, and toleration of all indifferent changes in which a duty is not destroyed and in which we were not active, so to preserve our selves that we might be permitted to live, and serve God, and to do advantages to religion; so purchasing time to do good in, by bending in all those flexures of fortune, and condition, which we cannot help, and which we do not set forward, and which we never did procure; and this is the direct meaning of Saint Paul; see then that ye walk Eph. 5. 16. D circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, Redeeming the time because the dayes are evil; that is, we are fallen into times that are troublesome, dangerous, persecuting and afflictive, purchase as much respite as you can: Buy or redeem the time by all honest arts, by humility, by fair carriage and sweetnesses of society, by civility, and a peaceful conversation, by good words, and all honest offices, by praying for your persecutors, by patient sufferance of what is unavoidable: And when the Tyrant draws you forth from all these guards and retirements, and offers violence to your duty or tempts you to do a dishonest act, or to omit an act of obligation, then come forth into E the Theater and lay your necks down to the hangmans axe, and fear not to die the most shamful death of the crosse or the gallows; for so have I known angels ascending and descending upon those ladders; and the Lord of glory suffered shame and purchased honour upon the crosse. Thus we are to walk in wisdom towards them that Col. 4. 5. are without redeeming the time: for so Saint Paul renewes that permission, or commandment: Give them no just cause of offence; [Page] with all humility and as occasion is offered represent their duty, A and invite them sweetly to felicities and vertue, but do not in ruder language upbraid and reproach their basenesse: and when they are in corrigible, let them alone, lest like cats they run mad with the smell of delicious ointments; And therefore Pothinus Bishop of Lyons being asked by the unbaptized President, who was the God of the Christians? answered [...]; If you be disposed with real and hearty desires of learning, what you ask you shall quickly know; But if your purposes be in direct, I shall not preach to you, to my hurt and your no advantage. Thus the wisdom of the primitive Christians was careful not to prophane B the temples of the heathen, not to revile their false Gods, and when they were in duty to represent the follies of their religion they chose to do it, from their own writings and as relators of their own records they fled from the fury of a persecution, they hid themselves in caves, and wandred about in disguises, and preached in private, and celebrated their synaxes, and communions in grots and retirements, and made it appear to all the world, they were peaceable, and obedient, charitable, and patient, and at this price bought their time.

[...] C

[...]

As knowing that even in this sense, time was very pretious and the opportunitie of giving glory to God by the offices of an excellent religion, was not too deare a purchase at that rate. But then when the wolves had entred into the folds and seized upon a lamb the rest fled, and used all the innocent arts of concealment. Saint Athanasius being overtaken by his persecutors, but not known, and asked whether he saw Athanasius passing that D way; pointed out forward with his finger, non longè abest Athanasius; the man is not far off; a swift foot-man will easily overtake him. And Saint Paul divided the councell of his Judges, and made the Pharisees his parties by a witty insinuation of his own belief of the resurrection, which was not the main question, but an incident to the matter of his accusation. And when Plinius secundus in the face of a Tyrant court was pressed so invidiously to give his opinion concerning a good man in banishment and under the disadvantage of an unjust sentence he diverted the snare of Marcus Regulus by referring his answer to a competent judicatory E according to the laws; being pressed again, by offering a direct answer upon a just condition, which he knew, they would not accept; and the third time, by turning the envy upon the impertinent and malicious Orator, that he won great honour, the honour of a severe honesty, and a witty man, and a prudent [Page] A person. The thing I have noted, because it is a good pattern to represent the arts of honest evasion, and religious, prudent honesty: which any good man may transcribe and turn into his own instances if an equal case should occur.

For in this case the rule is easy; If we are commanded to be wise and redeeme our time, that we serve God and religion, we must not use unlawful arts which set us back in the accounts of our time, no lying Subterfuges, no betraying of a truth, no treachery to a good man, no insnaring of a brother, no secret renouncing of any part or proposition of our religion, no denying B to confesse the article when we are called to it. For when the primitive Christians had got a trick to give money for certificates, that they had sacrificed to idols, though indeed they did not do it, but had corrupted the officers and ministers of state, they dishonoured their religion and were marked with the appellative of libellatici, Libellers; and were excommunicate and cast off from the society of Christians and the hopes of Heaven, till they had returned to God by a severe repentance; optanduum est ut quod libenter facis din facere possis. It is good to have time long to doe that which wee C ought to doe; but to pretend that, which we dare not doe, and to say we have, when we have not, if we know we ought not, is to dishonour the cause and the person too; it is expressly against confession of Christ, of which Saint Paul saith, by the mouth confession is made unto salvation And our Blessed Saviour, he that confesseth me before men. I will confesse him before my Heavenly Father; and if here he refuseth to own me, I will not own him hereafter: it is also expressly against Christian fortitude and noblenesse; and against the simplicity and sincerity of our religion, and it turnes prudence into craft, D and brings the Devil to wait in the temple, and to minister to God; and it is a lesser Kinde of apostacy: and it is well that the man is tempted no further; for if the persecutors could not be corrupted with money, it is ods but the complying man would, and though he would with the money hide his shame, yet he will not with the losse of all his estate redeeme his religion [...]: some men will lose their lives rather then a faire estate: and doe not almost all the armies of the world (I mean) those that fight in the justest causes, pretend to fight and die for their lands E and liberties: and there are too many also that will die twice rather then be beggers once: although we all know that the second death is intolerable. Christian prudence forbids us to provoke a danger; and they were fond persons that run to persecution, and when the Proconsul sate on the life and death, and made strict inquisition after Christians, went and offered themselves [Page] to die; and he was a fool that being in Portugal run to A the Priest as he elevated the host; and overthrew the mysteries and openly defied the rites of that religion: God when he sends a persecution will pick out such persons whom he will have to die, and whom he will consigne to banishment, and whom to poverty: In the mean time let us do our duty when we can, and as long as we can, and with as much strictnesse as we can; walking [...] (as the Apostles Phrase is) not prevaricating in the least tittle; and then if we can be safe with the arts of civil, innocent, inoffensive, compliance, let us blesse God for his permissions made to us, and his assistances in the using them. But if either we turne B our zeal into the ambition of death, and the follies of an unnecessary beggery; or on the other side turn our prudence into craft and covetousnesse; to the first, (I say) that God hath no pleasure in fooles, to the latter, If you gain the whole world and lose your own soul: your losse is infinite and intolerable. C D E

Sermon. XXI. B Of Christian Prudence. Part II.

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A

C 4. IT is the office of Christian prudence so to order the affaires of our life as that in all the offices of our souls and conversation, we do honour and reputation, to the religion we professe. For the follies and vices of the Professors give great advantages to the adversary to speak reproachfully, and does aliene the hearts and hinder the complyance of those undetermined persons, who are apt to be perswaded, if their understandings be not prejudiced.

But as our necessary duty is bound upon us by one ligament more D in order to the honour of the cause of God: so it particularly bindes us to many circumstances adjuncts and parts of duty which have no other commandment, but the law of prudence. There are some sects of Christians which have some one constant indisposition, which as a character divides them from all others, and makes them reproved on all hands: some are so suspitious and ill natured, that if a person of a facile nature and gentle disposition fall into their hands he is presently sowred and made morose, unpleasant, and uneasy in his conversation: Others there are that do things so like to what themselves condemn that they are forced to take sanctuary E and labour in the mine of unsignificant distinctions, to make themselves believe they are innocent: and in the mean time they offend all men else, and open the mouths of their adversaries to speak reproachful things; true, or false; (as it happens) And it requires a great wit to understand all the distinctions and devices thought of, for legitimating the worshipping of images: And those [Page] people that are liberal in their excommunications make men think A they have reason to say their Judges are proud, or self willed, or covetous, or ill natured people. These that are the faults of Governours, and continued, are quickly derived upon the sect and cause a disreputation to the whole society and institution. And who can think that congregation to be a true branch of the Christian, who makes it their profession to kill men to save their souls against their will, and against their understanding? who calling themselves disciples of so meek a Master, do live like bears upon prey, and spoil and blood? It is a huge dishonour to the sincerity of a mans purposes to be too busie in fingring money in the matters of religion: and B they that are zealous for their rights and tame in their devotion, furious against sacrilege, and a companion of drunkards; implacable against breakers of a Canon, and carelesse and patient enough with them that break the fifth or sixth Commandments of the Decalogue, tell all the world their private sense is to preserve their own interest with scruple and curiosity, and leave God to take care for his.

Thus Christ reproved the Pharisees, for straining at a gnat and swallowing a Camel; the very representation of the manner and matter of fact discovers the vice by reproving the folly of it. They C that are factious to get a rich proselyte and think the poor not worth saving dishonour their zeal and teach men to call it covetousnesse, and though there may be a reason of prudence to desire one more then the other, because of a bigger efficacy, the example of the one may have more then the other; yet it will quickly be discovered if it be done by secular designe: and the Scripture that did not allow the preferring of a gay man before a poor Saint in the matter of place, will not be pleased that in the matter of souls, which are all equal, there should be a faction and designe, and an acceptation of persons. Never let us pollute our religion D with arts of the world, nor offer to support the arke with unhallowed hands; nor mingle false propositions with true, nor make religion a pretence to profit or preferment, nor do things which are like a vice; neither ever speak things dishonorable of God, nor abuse thy brother for Gods sake, nor be solicitous and over busie to recover thy own little things neither alwayes think it fit to lose thy charity by forcing thy brother to do justice; and all those things which are the outsides and faces, the garments and most discerned parts of religion, be sure that they be dressed according to all the circumstances of men and by all the rules of common honesty, E and publick reputation. Is it not a sad thing that the Jew should say, the Christians worship images? or that it should become a proverb, that the Jew spends all in his passeover, the Moore in his marriage, and the Christian in his law suits? that, what the first sacrifice to religion, and the second to publick joy, we should spend [Page] A in malice, covetousnesse, and revenge? Pudet haec opprobria nobis & dici potuisse, & non potuisse refelli. But among our selves also, we serve the Devils ends, and minister to an eternal dis-union, by saying and doing things which look unhandsomely. One sort of men is superstitious, phantastical, greedy of honour, and tenacious of propositions to fill the purse, and his religion is thought nothing but policy, and opinion. Another sayes he hath a good religion, but he is the most indifferent and cold person in the world, either to maintain it, or to live according to it; the one dresses the images of Saints with fine clothes, the other lets the poor go B naked, and disrobes the priests that minister in the religion. A third uses God worse then all this, and sayes of him such things that are scandalous even to an honest man, and such which would undo a good mans reputation: And a fourth yet endures no governour but himself, and pretends to set up Christ and make himself his lieutenant. And a fifth hates all government, and from all this it comes to passe that it is hard for a man to choose his side, and he that chooses wisest takes that, which hath in it least hurt; but some he must endure, or live without communion: and every Church of one denomination is, or hath been too incurious of preventing infamy C or disreputation to their confessions.

One thing I desire should be observed, that here the Question being concerning prudence, and the matter of doing reputation to our religion, it is not enough to say, we can with learning justifie all that we do, and make all whole with 3. or 4. distinctions; for possibly the man that went to visit the Corinthian Lais, if he had been asked why he dishonoured himself with so unhandsome an entrance, might finde an excuse to legitimate his act, or at least to make himself beleeve well of his own person; but he that intends to do himself honour, must take care that he be not suspected, D that he give no ocasion of reproachful language; for fame and honour is a nice thing, tender as a womans chastity, or like the face of the purest mirrour, which a foul breath, or an unwholesome air, or a watry eye can fully, and the beauty is lost although it be not dashed in pieces. When a man or a sect is put to answer for themselves in the matter of reputation, they with their distinctions wipe the glasse, and at last can do nothing but make it appear it was not broken; but their very abstersion and laborious excuses confesse it was foul and faulty: We must know that all sorts of men, and all sects of Christians, have not onely the mistakes E of men and their prejudices to contest withall, but the calumnies and aggravation of Devils: and therefore it will much ease our accounts of dooms-day, if we are now so prudent that men will not be offended here, nor the Devils furnished with a libell in the day of our great account.

To this rule appertains that we be curious in observing the [Page] circumstances of men, and satisfie all their reasonable expectations, A and do things at that rate of charity and religion which they are taught to be prescribed in the institution. There are some things which are undecencies rather then sins, such which may become a just Heathen, but not a holy Christian; a man of the world, but not a man professing godlinesse. Because when the greatnesse of the man, or the excellency of the Law, engage us upon great severity, or an exemplar vertue, whatsoever is lesse then it renders the man unworthy of the religion, or the religion unworthy of its fame: Men think themselves abused, and therefore return shame for payment. We never read of an Apostle that went to law; and it is B but reasonable to expect that of all men in the world Christians should not be such fighting people, and Clergy men should not command Armies, and Kings should not be drunk, and subjects should not strike Princes for justice, and an old man should not be youthfull in talk, or in his habit; and women should not swear, and great men should not lie, and a poor man should not oppresse; for besides the sin of some of them, there is an undecency in all of them; and by being contrary to the end of an office, or the reputation of a state, or the sobrieties of a graver or sublimed C person, they asperse the religion as insufficient to keepe the persons within the bounds of fame and common reputation.

But above all things those sects of Christians whose professed doctrine brings destruction and diminution to government, give the most intolerable scandal, and dishonour to the institution; and it had been impossible that Christianity should have prevailed over the wisdom and power of the Greeks and Romans, if it had not been humble to superiours, patient of injuries, charitable to the needy, a great exactour of obedience to Kings, even to heathens, that they D might be won, and convinced; and to persecutours that they might be sweetned in their anger, or upbraided for their cruel injustice: for so doth the humble vine creep at the foot of an oak, and leans upon its lowest base, and begs shade and protection, and leave to grow under its branches, and to give and take mutuall refreshment, and pay a friendly influence for a mighty patronage, and they grow and dwell together, and are the most remarkable of friends and married pairs of all the leavie nation. Religion of it self is soft, easie and defenselesse, and God hath made it grow up with empire, and to leane upon the arms of Kings, and it cannot well grow alone; and if it shall like the Ivy suck E the heart of the oak upon whose body it grew and was supported, it will be pulled down from its usurped eminency, and fire and shame shall be its portion. We cannot complain if Princes arm against those Christians, who if they are suffered to preach will disarm the Princes; and it will be hard to perswade that Kings are bound to protect and nourish those that will prove ministers [Page] A of their own exauctoration: And no Prince can have justci reason to forbid, nor any man have greater reason to deny communion to a family, then if they go about to destroy the power of the one, or corrupt the duty of the other. The particulars of this rule are very many; I shall onely instance in one more, because it is of great concernment to the publike interest of Christendome.

There are some persons whose religion is hugely disgraced, because they change their propositions according as their temporall necessities or advantages do return. They that in their weaknesse and beginning cry out against all violence as against persecution: B and from being suffered, swell up till they be prosperous, and from thence to power, and at last to Tyranny; and then suffer none but themselves, and trip up those feet, which they humbly kissed, that themselves should not be trampled upon; these men tell all the world that at first they were pusillanimous, or at last outragious; that their doctrine at first served their fear, and at last served their rage, and that they did not at all intend to serve God: and then who shall believe them in any thing else? Thus some men declaim against the faults of Governours, that themselves may governe; and when the power was in their hands, what was C a fault in others, is in them necessity; as if a sin could be hallowed for comming into their hands. Some Greeks at Florence subscribed the Article of Purgatory, and condemned it in their own Diocesses: And the Kings supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical, was earnestly defended against the pretences of the Bishop of Rome, and yet when he was thrust out, some men were, and are violent to submit the King to their Consistories, as if he were Supreme in defiance of the Pope, and yet not Supreme over his own Clergy. These Articles are mannaged too suspitiously.

D Omnia si perdas famam servare memento.

You lose all the advantages to your cause, if you lose your reputation.

5 It is a duty also of Christian prudence that the teachers of others by authority, or reprovers of their vices by charity, should also make their persons apt to do it without objection.

Lori pedem rectus derideat, Aethiopemalbus.

E No man can endure the Gracchi preaching against sedition, nor Uerres prating against theevery, or Milo against homicide: and if Herod had made an oration of humility, or Antiochus of mercy, men would have thought, it had been a designe to evil purposes. He that means to gain a soul, must not make his Sermon an ostentation of his Eloquence, but the law of his own life. If a Gramarian [Page] should speak solaecismes, or a Musician sing like a bittern, he A becomes ridiculous for offending in the faculty he professes: So it is in them who minister to the conversion of souls: If they fail in their own life, when they professe to instruct another, they are defective in their proper part, and are unskilfull to all their purposes; and the Cardinal of Crema did with ill successe tempt the English priests to quit their chaste marriages, when himself was deprehended in unchaste embraces. For good counsel seems to be unhallowed, when it is reached forth by an impure hand, and he can ill be beleeved by another, whose life so confutes his rules, that it is plain he does not beleeve himself. Those Churches B that are zealous for souls, must send into their ministeries men so innocent, that evil persons may have no excuse to be any longer vitious. When Gorgias went about to perswade the Greeks to be at peace, he had eloquence enough to do advantage to his cause, and reason enough to presse it: But Melanthius was glad to put him off, by telling him that he was not fit to perswade peace, who could not agree at home with his wife, nor make his wife agree with her maid; and he that could not make peace between three single persons, was unapt to prevail for the reuniting fourteen or fifteen Common-wealths: And this thing Saint Paul remarks by C enjoyning that a Bishop should be chosen such a one as knew well to rule his own house, or else he is not fit to rule the Church of God. And when thou perswadest thy brother to be chaste, let not him deride thee for thy intemperance; and it will ill become thee to be severe against an idle servant, if thou thy self beest uselesse to the publike; and every notorious vice is infinitely against the spirit of government, and depresses the man to an evennesse with common persons, ‘—Facinus quos inquinat, aequat,’ to reprove, belongs to a Superiour; and as innocence gives a man D advantage over his brother, giving him an artificiall and adventitious authority; so the follies and scandals of a publike and Governing man destroyes the efficacy of that authority that is just and naturall. Now this is directly an office of Christian prudence, that good offices and great authority, become not ineffective by ill conduct.

Hither also it appertains that in publike or private reproofs, we observe circumstances of time, of place, of person, of disposition. The vices of a King are not to be opened publikely; and Princes must not be reprehended as a man reproves his servant; but E by Categoricall propositions, by abstracted declamations, by reprehensions of a crime in its single nature, in private, with humility, and arts of insinuation: And it is against Christian prudence not onely to use a Prince or great Personage with common language, but it is as great an imprudence to pretend for such a rudenesse, the [Page] A examples of the Prophets in the old Testament. For their case was extraordinary, their calling peculiar, their commission special, their spirit miraculous, their authority great, as to that single mission, they were like thunder or the trump of God, sent to do that office plainly, for the doing of which in that manner, God had given no commission to any ordinary minister: And therefore we never finde that the Priests did use that freedom, which the Prophets were commanded to use, whose very words being put into their mouthes, it was not to be esteemed an humane act, or a lawfull manner of doing an ordinary office; neither could it become a precedent to them whose authority is precarious and without B coërcion whose spirit is allayed with Christian graces and duties of humility, whose words are not prescribed, but left to the conduct of prudence, as it is to be advised by publike necessities, and private circumstances, in ages where all things are so ordered, that what was fit and pious amongst the old Jews, would be incivil and intolerable to the latter Christians. He also that reproves a vice should also treat the persons with honour, and civilities, and by fair opinions, and sweet addresses place the man in the regions of modesty, and the confines of grace, and the fringes of repentance. For some men are more restrained by an imperfect, feared shame, C so long as they think there is a reserve of reputation which they may secure, then they can be with all the furious declamations of the world, when themselves are represented ugly and odious, full of shame, and actually punished with the worst of temporal evils, beyond which he fears not here to suffer, and from whence because he knows it will be hard for him to be redeemed by an after-game of reputation, it makes him desperate and incorrigible by fraternall correption.

A zealous man hath not done his duty, when he calls his brother drunkard and beast, and he may better do it, by telling him D he is a man, and sealed with Gods Spirit, and honoured with the title of a Christian, and is, or ought to be reputed as a discreet person by his friends; and a governour of a family, or a guide in his countrey, or an example to many, and that it is huge pity so many excellent things should be sullied, and allayed with what is so much below all this: Then a reprover does his duty, when he is severe against the vice, and charitable to the man, and carefull of his reputation, and sorry for his reall dishonour, and observant of his circumstances, and watchfull to surprize his affections E and resolutions, there where they are most tender, and most tenable; and men will not be in love with vertue whither they are forced with rudenesse and incivilities; but they love to dwell there whither they are invited friendly, and where they are treated civilly, and feasted liberally, and lead by the hand and the eye to honour and felicity.

[Page] 6. It is a duty of Christian prudence not to suffer our souls to A walk alone, unguarded, unguided, and more single then in other actions and interests of our lives, which are of lesse concernment. Uae soli & singulari, said the Wise man, Wo to him that is alone: and if we consider how much God hath done to secure our souls, and after all that, how many wayes there are for a mans soul to miscarry, we should think it very necessary to call to a spirituall man to take us by the hand, to walk in the wayes of God, and to lead us in all the regions of duty, and thorow the labyrinths of danger. For God who best loves, and best knows how to value our souls, set a price no lesse upon it then the life-blood of his B Holy Son; he hath treated it with variety of usages according as the world had new guises, and new necessities; he abates it with punishment to make us avoid greater; he shortned our life that we might live for ever; he turns sicknesse into vertue; he brings good out of evil; he turns enmities to advantages, our very sins into repentances, and stricter walking; he defeats all the follies of men, and all the arts of the Devil and layes snares, and uses violence to secure our obedience, he sends Prophets and Priests to invite us, and to threaten us to felicities; he restrains us with lawes, and he C bridles us with honour and shame, reputation, and society, friends, and foes; he layes hold on us by the instruments of all the passions; he is enough to fill our love, he satisfies our hope, he affrights us with fear, he gives us part of our reward in hand, and entertains all our faculties with the promises of an infinite and glorious portion; he curbs our affections; he directs our wills, he instructs our understandings with Scriptures, with perpetuall Sermons, with good books, with frequent discourses, with particular observations, and great experience, with accidents and judgements, with rare events of providence, and miracles; he sends his D Angels to be our guard, and to place us in opportunities of vertue, and to take us off from ill company and places of danger, to set us neer to good example; he gives us his holy Spirit, and he becomes to us a principle of a mighty grace, descending upon us in great variety, and undiscerned events, besides all those parts of it which men have reduced to a method and an art; and after all this he forgives us infinite irregularities, and spares us every day, and still expects, and passes by, and waits all our dayes, still watching to do us good, and to save that soul which he knowes is so precious, one of the chiefest of the works of God, and an image of divinity, E Now from all these arts and mercies of God, besides that we have infinite reason to adore his goodnesse, we have also a demonstration, that we ought to do all that possibly we can, and extend all our faculties, and watch all our opportunities, and take in all assistances to secure the interest of our soul, for which God is pleased to take such care, and use so many arts for its security. If [Page] A it were not highly worth it, God would not do it. If it were not all of it necessary, God would not do it. But if it be worth it, and all of it be necessary, why should we not labour in order to this great end? If it be worth so much to God it is so much more to us: for if we perish, his felicity is undisturbed, but we are undone, infinitely undone. It is therefore worth taking in a spirituall guide, so far we are gone.

But because we are in the question of prudence, we must consider whether it be necessary to do so: For every man thinks himself wise enough as to the conduct of his soul, and managing of his eternal interest; and divinity is every mans trade, and the B Scriptures speak our own language, and the commandments are few and plain, and the laws are the measure of justice, and if I say my prayers, and pay my debts, my duty is soon summed up, and thus we usually make our accounts for eternity, and at this rate onely take care for heaven; but let a man be questioned for a portion of his estate or have his life shaken with diseases, then it will not be enough to employ one agent, or to send for a good woman to minister a potion of the juices of her country garden, but the C ablest Lawyers and the skilfullest Physitians & the advice of friends and huge caution, and diligent attendances and a curious watching concerning all the accidents and little passages of our disease, and truly a mans life, and health is worth all that, and much more, and in many cases it needs it all.

But then is the soul the onely safe and the onely trifling thing about us? Are not there a thousand dangers, and ten thousand difficulties, and innumerable possibilities of a misadventure? Are not all the congregations in the world divided in their doctrines, and all of them call their own way necessary and most of them call all the D rest damnable? we had need of a wise instructor and a prudent choice at our first entrance, and election of our side: and when we are well in the matter of Faith for its object, and jnstitution; all the evils of my self and all the evils of the Church and all the good that happens to evil men, every day of danger, the periods of sicknesse and the day of death are dayes of tempest and storm, and our faith wil suffer shipwrack unlesse it be strong and supported and directed. But who shall guide the vessel when a stormy passion or a violent imagination transports the man? who shall awaken his reason and charm his passion into slumber & instruction? How shal a man make E his fears confident, and allay his confidence with fear, and make the allay with just proportions, and steere evenly, between the extremes, or call upon his sleeping purposes or actuate his choices, or binde him to reason in all the wandrings and ignorances, in his passion and mistakes? For suppose the man of great skil and great learning in the wayes of religion, yet if he be abused by accident, or by his own will, who shall then judge his cases of conscience, and awaken [Page] his duty and renew his holy principle, and actuate his spiritual A powers? For Physitians that prescribe to others, do not minister to themselves in cases of danger, and violent sicknesses; and in matter of distemperature we shall not finde that books alone will do all the work of a spiritual Physitian more then of a natural, I will not go about to increase the dangers and difficulties of the soul, to represent the assistance of a spiritual man to be necessary. But of this I am sure; our not understanding, and our not considering our soul make us first to neglect, and then many times to lose it. But is not every man an unequal judge in his own case? and therefore the wisdom of God and the laws hath appointed tribunals and B Judges and arbitrators and that men are partial in the matter of souls, it is infinitely certain, because amongst those milions of souls that perish, not one in ten thousand but believes himself in a good condition; and all sects of Christians think they are in the right, and few are patient to enquire whether they be or no: then adde to this, that the Questions of souls, being clothed with circumstances of matter and particular contingency, are or may be infinite, and most men are so infortunate, that they have so intangled their cases of conscience, that there where they have done something good, it may be, they have mingled half a dozen evils; and when interests C are confounded and governments altered, and power strives with right, and insensibly passes into right, and duty to God would fain be reconciled with duty to our relatives, will it not be more then necessary that we should have some one that we may enquire of after the way to heaven, which is now made intricate by our follies and inevitable accidents? But by what instrument shall men alone and in their own cases be able to discern the spirit of truth from the spirit of illusion, just confidence from presumption, fear from pusillanimity; are not all the things and assistances in the world little enough to defend us against pleasure and pain, the two great fountains D of temptation? is it not harder to cure a lust then to cure a feaver? and are not the deceptions and follies of men, and the arts of the Devil and inticements of the world & the deceptions of a mans own heart, and the evils of sin more evil and more numerous then the sicknesses and diseases of any one man? and if a man perishes in his soul, is it not infinitely more sad then if he could rise from his grave and die a thousand deaths over? Thus we are advanced a second step in this prudential motive; God used many arts to secure our souls interest; and there is infinite dangers, and infinite wayes of miscarriage in the souls interest; and therefore there is great necessity E God should do all those mercies of security, and that we should do all the under-ministeries we can in this great work.

But what advantage shall we receive by a spiritual Guide? much every way. For this is the way that God hath appointed who in every age hath sent a succession of spiritual persons, whose office is [Page] A to minister in holy things, and to be stewards of Gods houshold, shepherds of the stock, dispensers of the mysteries, under mediators, and ministers of prayer, preachers of the law, expounders of questions, monitors of duty, conveiances of blessings, and that which is a good discourse in the mouth of another man is from them an ordinance of God; and besides its natural efficacy and perswasion, it prevails by the way of blessing, by the reverence of his person, by divine institution, by the excellency of order, by the advantages of opinion and assistances of reputation, by the influence of the spirit who is the president of such ministeries, and who is appointed B to all Christians according to the despensation] that is appointed to them; to the people in their obedience, and frequenting of the ordinance, to the Priest in his ministery and publick and privat offices; To which also I adde this consideration, that as the Holy Sacraments are hugely effective to spiritual purposes, not onely because they convey a blessing to the worthy suscipients, but because men cannot be worthy suscipients unlesse they do many excellent acts of vertue in order to a previous disposition: so that in the whole conjunction, and transaction of affaires there is good done by way of proper efficacy and divine blessing; so it is in following C the conduct of a spiritual man, and consulting with him in the matter of our souls; we cannot do it unless we consider our souls and make religion our businesse and examine our present state, and consider concerning our danger, and watch and designe for our advantages, which things of themselves wil set a man much forwarder in the way of Godlinesse; besides thath naturally every man will lesse dare to act a sin for which he knows he shall feel a present shame in his discoveries made to the spiritual Guide, the man that is made the witnesse of his conversation. [...]. Sophocl. Holy men ought to know all things from God, and that relate to D God, in order to the conduct of souls: and there is nothing to be said against this, if we do not suffer the devil in this affaire to abuse us, as he does many people in their opinions, teaching men to suspect there is a designe and a snake under the plantain? But so may they suspect Kings when they command obedience, or the Levites when they read the law of tithes, or Parents when they teach their children temperance, or Tutors when they watch their charge. However, it is better to venture the worst of the designe, then to lose the best of the assistance; and he that guides himself hath much work, and much danger; but he that is under the conduct of another, his work is E easy, little and secure; it is nothing but diligence and obedience, and though it be a hard thing to rule well, yet nothing is easier then to follow and to be obedient.

Sermon. XXII. B Of Christian Prudence. Part III.

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A

7. AS it is a part of Christian prudence to take into the conduct C of our soules a spiritual man for a guide, so it is also of great concernment that we be prudent in the choice of him whom we are to trust in so great an interest.

Concerning which it will be impossible to give characters and significations particular enough to enable a choice without the interval assistances of prayer, experience and the Grace of God; He that describes a man can tell you the colour of his hair, his stature and proportions, and describe some general lines, enough to distingush him from a Cyclops or a Saracen, but when you chance D to see the man you will discover figures or little features of which the description had produced in you no Phantasme, or expectation. And in the exteriour significations of a sect there are more semblances then in mens faces and greater uncertainty in the signes: & what is faulty strives so craftily to act the true and proper images of things, and the more they are defective in circumstances, the more curious they are in forms; and they also use such arts of gaining Proselytes which are of most advantage towards an effect, and therefore such which the true Christian ought to pursue, and the Apostles actually did, and they strive to follow their patterns in arts of E perswasion, not onely because they would seem like them, but because they can have none so good, so effective to their purposes; that it follows that it is not more a duty to take care, that we be not corrupted with false teachers, then that we be not abused with false signes; for we as well finde a good man teaching a false proposition, [Page] A as a good cause managed by ill men, and a holy cause is not alwayes dressed with healthful symptomes; nor is there a crosse alwayes set upon the doores of those congregations, who are infected with the plague of heresy.

When Saint John was to separate false teachers from true, he took no other course but to remark the doctrine which was of God, and that should be the mark of cognisance to distinguish right shepheards from robbers and invaders: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: He that denieth it is not of God. By this he bids his schollers to avoid the present sects of Ebion, B Cerinthus, Simon Magus and such other persons that denied that Christ was at all before he came, or that he came really in the flesh and a proper humanity. This is a clear note and they that conversed with Saint John or believed his doctrine were sufficiently instructed in the present Questions. But this note will signify nothing to us; for all sects of Christians confesse Jesus Christ come in the flesh, and the following sects did avoid that rock over which a great Apostle had hung out so plain a lantern.

In the following ages of the Church men have been so curious to C signifie misbelievers, that they have invented and observed some signes, which indeed in some cases were true, real appendages of false believers; but yet such which were also, or might be common to them with good men, and members of the Catholick Church; some few I shall remark and give a short account of them that by removing the uncertain, we may fix our inquiries and direct them by certain significations; lest this art of prudence turn into folly and faction, errour and secular designe.

1. Some men distinguish errour from truth by calling their adversaries doctrine, new, and of yesterday; and certainly this is a good D signe if it be rightly applyed; for since all Christian doctrine is that which Christ taught his Church, and the spirit enlarged, or expounded, and the Apostles delivered, we are to begin the Christian aera for our faith and parts of religion by the period of their preaching: our account begins then, and whatsoever is contrary to what they taught is new and false, and whatsoever is besides, what they taught, is no part of our religion (and then no man can be prejudiced for believing it or not) and if it be adopted into the confessions of the Church, the proposition is alwayes so uncertain, that its not to be admitted into the faith; and therefore if it be old in E respect of our dayes, it is not therefore necessary to be believed: if it be new it may be received into opinion according to its probabilitie, and no sects or interest are to be divided upon such accounts. This onely I desire to be observed, that when a truth returns from banishment by a postliminium, if it was from the first, though the Holy fire hath been buried, or the river ran under ground, yet that we do not call that new; since newnesse is not to be accounted [Page] of by a proportion to our short lived memories, or to the A broken records and fragments of story lest after the inundation of barbarisme and war, and change of Kingdoms and corruption of Authors; but by its relation to the fountain of our truths and the birth of our religion under our Fathers in Christ, the holy Apostles, and Disciples: a Camel was a new thing to them that saw it in the fable; But yet it was created as soon as a cow or the domestick creatures, and some people are apt to call every thing new, which they never heard of before, as if all religion were to be measured by the standards of their observation, or country customs. Whatsoever was not taught by Christ, or his Apostles though it came B in by Papias, or Dionysius, by Arius or Liberius, is certainly new as to our account; and whatsoever is taught to us by the Doctors of the present age if it can shew its test from the beginning of our period for revelaltion, is not to be called new though it be pressed with a new zeal and discoursed of by unheard of arguments; that is though men be ignorant and need to learn it, yet it is not therefore new or unnecessary.

2. Some would have false teachers sufficiently signified by a name or the owning of a private Appellative as of Papist, Lutheran, Calvenists Zuinglian, Socinian; & think it is enough to denominat them C not, of Christ if they are called by the name of a man. And indeed the thing is in it self ill: but then if by this mark we shall esteem false teachers sufficiently signified we must follow no man, no Church, nor no communion: for all are by their adversaries marked with an appellative of separation and singularity, and yet themselves are tenacious of a good name, such as they choose or such as is permitted to them by fame, and the people, and a natural necessity of making a distinction. Thus the Donatist called themselves the flock of God, and the Novatians called the Catholicks traditors, and the Eustathians called themselves Catholikes and the worshippers D of images made Iconoclast to be a name of scorn, and men made names as they listed, or as the fate of the market went. And if a Doctor preaches a doctrine which another man likes not, but preaches the contradictory, he that consents and he that refuses have each of them a teacher by whose name, if they please to wrangle, they may be signified. It was so in the Corinthian Church with this onely difference that they divided themselves by names which signified the same religion. I am of Paul, and I of Apollo and I am of Peter, and I of Christ; these Apostles were ministers of Christ; and so does every teacher new or old among the Christians pretend himself to E be; Let that therefore be examined; if he ministers to the truth of Christ and the religion of his master, let him be entertained as a servant of his Lord; but if an appellative be taken from his name, there is a faction commenced in it; and there is a fault in the men if there be none in the doctrine; but that the doctrine be true or [Page] A false, to be received, or to be rejected because of the name is accidental and extrinsecall; and therefore not to be determined by this signe.

3. Amongst some men a sect is sufficiently thought to be reproved, if it subdivides and breaks into little fractions, or changes its own opinions: indeed if it declines its own doctrine, no man hath reason to beleeve them upon their word, or to take them upon the stock of reputation, which (themselves being judges) they have forfeited and renounced in the changing that which at first they obtruded passionately. And therefore in this case there B is nothing to be done, but to beleeve the men so farre as they have reason to beleeve themselves: that is, to consider when they prove what they say: and they that are able to do so, are not persons in danger to be seduced by a bare authority, unlesse they list themselves; for others that sink under an unavoidable prejudice, God will take care for them if they be good people; and their case shall be considered by and by. But for the other part of the signe; when men fall out among themselves for other interests or opinions, it is no argument, that they are in an errour concerning that doctrine, which they all unitedly teach or condemn respectively; C but it hath in it some probability that their union is a testimony of truth, as certainly as that their fractions are a testimony of their zeal, or honesty, or weaknesse (as it happens): and if we Christians be too decretory in this instance, it will be hard for any of us to keep a Jew from making use of it against the whole religion which from the dayes of the Apostles hath been rent into innumerable sects, and under-sects, springing from mistake or interest, from the arts of the Devil, or the weaknesse of man. But from hence we may make an advantage in the way of prudence and become sure that all that doctrine is certainly true, in which the generality D of Christians (who are divided in many things, yet) do constantly agree: and that that doctrine is also sufficient since it is certain that because in all Communions and Churches there are some very good men, that do all their duty to the getting of truth, God will not fail in any thing that is necessary to them that honestly and heartily desire to obtain it: and therefore if they rest in the heartinesse of that, and live accordingly, and superinduce nothing to the destruction of that, they have nothing to do but to rely upon Gods goodnesse: and if they perish, it is certain they cannot help it, and that is demonstration enough that they cannot perish, E considering the justice and goodnesse of our Lord and Judge.

4. Whoever break the bands of a Society, or Communion, and go out from that Congregation in whose Confession they are baptized, do an intolerable scandal to their doctrine and persons, and give suspicious men reason to decline their Assemblies, and not to choose them at all for any thing of their authority, or outward [Page] circumstances: and Saint Paul bids the Romans to mark A them that cause divisions and offences. But the following words make their caution prudent and practicable, [contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them] they that recede from the doctrine which they have learned, they cause the offence, and if they also obtrude this upon their congregations, they also make the division. For it is certain, if we receive any doctrine contrary to what Christ gave, and the Apostles taught, for the authority of any man, then we call men Masters, and leave our Master which is in heaven; and in that case we must separate from the Congregation and adhere to Christ; but this is not to be done, unlesse B the case be evident and notorious. But as it is hard, that the publike doctrine of a Church should be rifled, and misunderstood, and reproved, and rejected, by any of her wilful or ignorant sons and daughters: so it is also as hard that they should be bound, not to see when the case is plain and evident. There may be mischiefs on both sides; but the former sort of evils men may avoid if they will; for they may be humble and modest, and entertain better opinions of their Superiours then of themselves, and in doubtful things give them the honour of a just opinion: and if they do not do so, that evil will be their own private: for that it become not publike, C the King and the Bishop are to take care: but for the latter sort of evil it will certainly become universal; If (I say) an authoritative false doctrine be imposed, and is to be accepted accordingly; for then all men shall be bound to professe against their conscience, that is, with their mouthes not to confesse unto salvation, what with their hearts they believe unto righteousnesse. The best way of remedying both the evils is, that Governours lay no burden of doctrines or lawes but what are necessary, or very profitable: and that Inferiours do not contend for things unnecessary, nor call any thing necessary that is not: till then there will be evils on both sides; and D although the Governours are to carry the Question in the point of law, reputation, and publike government, yet as to Gods Judicature they will bear the bigger load, who in his right do him an injury, and by the impresses of his authority destroy his truth. But in this case also, although separating be a suspicious thing and intolerable, unlesse it be when a sin is imposed, yet to separate is also accidentall to truth: for some men separate with reason, some men against reason; therefore here all the certainty that is in the thing, is when the truth is secured, and all the security to the men will be in the humility of their persons, and the heartinesse and simplicity E of their intention, and diligence of inquiry. The Church of England had reason to separate from the Confession and practises of Rome in many particulars, and yet if her children separate from her they may be unreasonable and impious.

5. The wayes of direction which we have from holy Scripture [Page] A to distinguish false Apostles from true, are taken from their doctrine or their lives. That of the doctrine is the most sure way if we can hit upon it; but that also is the thing signified, and needs to have other signes. Saint John and Saint Paul took this way, for they were able to do it infallibly. All that confesse Jesus incarnate are of God said Saint John; those men that deny it are hereticks; avoid them: and Saint Paul bids to observe them that cause divisions and offences against the doctrine delivered. Them also avoid, that do so. And we might do so as easily as they, if the world would onely take their depositum, that doctrine which they delivered to all B men, that is, the Creed, and superinduce nothing else, but suffer Christian faith to rest in its own perfect simplicity, unmingled with arts, and opinions, and interests. This course is plain and easie, and I will not intricate it with more words, but leave it directly in its own truth and certainty, with this onely direction. That when we are to choose our doctrine, or our side, we take that which is in the plain unexpounded words of Scripture; for in that onely our religion can consist. Secondly choose that which is most advantageous to a holy life, to the proper graces of a Christian, to humility, to charity, to forgivenesse and alms, to obedience, and C complying with governments, to the honour of God and the exaltation of his attributes, and to the conservation and advantages of the publike societies of men; and this last, Saint Paul directs, Let ours be carefull to maintain goodworks for necessary uses, for he that heartily pursues these proportions cannot be an ill man, though he were accidentally and in the particular applications deceived.

6. But because this is an act of wisdom, rather then prudence, and supposes science or knowledge rather then experience, therefore it concerns the prudence of a Christian to observe the practise, D and the rules of practise, their lives, and pretences, the designes, and colours, the arts of conduct, and gaining proselytes, which their Doctors and Catechists do use in order to their purposes, and in their ministery about souls. For although many signes are uncertain, yet some are infallible and some are highly probable.

7. Therefore those teachers that pretend to be guided by a private spirit are certainly false Doctors. I remember what Simmias in Plutarch tels concerning Socrates, that if he heard any man say he saw a divine vision, he presently esteemed him vain and proud; but if he pretended onely to have heard a voice or the word of E God, he listened to that religiously, and would enquire of him with curiosity. There was some reason in his fancy; for God does not communicate himself by the eye to men but by the ear: ye saw no figure, but ye heard a voice, said Moses to the people concerning God: and therefore if any man pretends to speak the word of God, we will enquire concerning it; the man may the better [Page] be heard, because he may be certainly reproved if he speaks amisse: A but if he pretends to visions and revelations, to a private spirit and a mission extraordinary, the man is proud and unlearned, vicious and impudent. No Scripture is of private interpretation (saith S. Peter) that is, of private emission or declaration. Gods words were delivered indeed by single men, but such as were publikely designed Prophets, remarked with a known character, approved of by the high Priest, and Sanhedrim, indued with a publike spirit, and his doctrines were alwayes agreeable to the other Scriptures. But if any man pretends now to the spirit, either it must be a private or publike; if it be private, it can but be usefull to himself B alone, and it may cozen him too, if it be not assisted by the spirit of a publike man. But if it be a publike spirit, it must enter in at the publike door of ministeries, and divine ordinances, of Gods grace, and mans endeavour, it must be subject to the Prophets, it is discernable and judicable by them, and therefore may be rejected, and then it must pretend no longer. For he that will pretend to an extraordinary spirit, and refuses to be tried by the ordinary wayes, must either prophecy, or work miracles, or must have a voice from heaven to give him testimony. The Prophets in the old Testament, and the Apostles in the New, and Christ between C both had no other way of extraordinary probation: and they that pretend to any thing extraordinary, cannot, ought not to be beleeved, unlesse they have something more then their own word. If I bear witnesse of my self, my witnesse is not true, said Truth it self, our Blessed Lord. But secondly, they that intend to teach by an extraordinary spirit, if they pretend to teach according to Scripture must be examined by the measures of Scripture, and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit, and stands or falls by the rules of every good mans religion, and publike government; and then we are well enough. But if they D speak any thing against Scripture it is the spirit of Antichrist, and the spirit of the Devil; For if an Angel from heaven (he certainly is a spirit) preach any other doctrine, let him be accursed.

But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride, errour, and delusion, a snare to catch easie and credulous souls, which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face; it is the parent of folly, and giddy doctrine, impossible to be proved, and therefore uselesse to all purposes of religion, reason, or sober counsels; it is like an invisible colour, or musick without a sound, it is, and indeed is so intended to be, a E direct overthrow of order, and government, and publike ministeries; It is bold to say any thing, and resolved to prove nothing; it imposes upon willing people after the same manner that Oracles and the lying Daemons did of old time, abusing men not by proper efficacy of its own, but because the men love to be abused; [Page] A it is a great disparagement to the sufficiency of Scripture, and asperses the Divine providence for giving to so many ages of the Church an imperfect religion, expressely against the truth of their words who said, they had declared the whole truth of God, and told all the will of God: and it is an affront to the Spirit of God, the Spirit of wisdom, and knowledge, of order and publike ministeries. But the will furnishes out malice, and the understanding sends out levity, and they marry, and produce a phantastick dream, and the daughter sucking winde instead of the milk of the word, growes up to madnesse and the spirit of reprobation. Besides all this, an extraordinary B spirit is extremely unnecessary, and God does not give immissions and miracles from heaven to no purpose, and to no necessities of his Church; for the supplying of which he hath given Apostles and Evangelists, Prophets and Pastors, Bishops and Priests, the spirit of Ordination, and the spirit of instruction, Catechists, and Teachers, Arts and Sciences, Scriptures and a constant succession of Expositors, the testimony of Churches, and a constant line of tradition, or delivery of Apostolical Doctrine in all things necessary to salvation. And after all this, to have a fungus arise from the belly of mud and darknesse, and nourish a gloworm, that shall C challenge to out-shine the lantern of Gods word, and all the candles which God set upon a hill, and all that the Spirit hath set upon the candlesticks; and all the starres in Christs right hand, is to annull all the excellent, established, orderly, and certain effects of the Spirit of God, and to worship the false fires of the night. He therefore that will follow a Guide that leads him by an extraordinary spirit, shall go an extraordinary way, and have a strange fortune, and a singular religion, and a portion by himself, a great way off from the common inheritance of the Saints, who are all led by the Spirit of God, and have one heart, and one minde, one faith, D and one hope, the same baptisme, and the helps of the Ministery, leading them to the common countrey, which is the portion of all that are the sons of adoption, consigned by the Spirit of God, the earnest of their inheritance.

Concerning the pretence of a private spirit, for interpretation of the confessed doctrine of God (the holy Scriptures) it will not so easily come into this Question of choosing our spirituall Guides; Because every person that can be Candidate in this office, that can be chosen to guide others, must be a publike man, that is, of a holy calling, sanctified or separate publikely to the office; and E then to interpret is part of his calling, and imployment, and to do so is the work of a publike spirit; he is ordained and designed, he is commanded and inabled to do it: and in this there is no other caution to be interposed, but that the more publike the man is, of the more authority his interpretation is; and he comes neerest to a law of order, and in the matter of government is to be observed: [Page] but the more holy and the more learnd the man is, his interpretation A in matter of Question is more likely to be true: and though lesse to be pressed as to the publick confession yet it may be more effective to a private perswasion, provided it be done without scandal, or lessening the authority, or disparagement to the more publick person.

8. Those are to be suspected for evil guides, who to get authority among the people pretend a great zeal, and use a bold liberty in reproving Princes and Governours, nobility and Prelates; for such homilies cannot be the effects of a holy religion, which lay a snare for authority, and undermine power, and discontent the people B and make them bold against Kings, and immodest in their own stations, and trouble the government. Such men may speak a truth or teach a true doctrine; for every such designe does not unhallow the truth of God; but they take some truthes and force them to minister to an evil end; but therefore, mingle not in the communities of such men, for they will make it a part of your religion to prosecute that end openly which they by arts of the Tempter have insinuated privately.

But if ever you enter into the seats of those Doctors that speak reproachfully of their Superiours, or detract from government, C or love to curse the King in their heart, or slander him with their mouths, or disgrace their persons, blesse your self and retire quickly; for there dwells the plague, but the spirit of God is not president of the assembly; and therefore you shall observe in all the characters which the B. Apostles of our Lord made for describing 2 Tim. 3. 4. 5. and avoiding societies of hereticks, false guides and bringers in of strange doctrines, still they reckon treason and rebellion; so S. Paul, In the last dayes perillous times shall come, the men shall have the form of Godlinesse, and denie the power of it; they shall be Traitors, heady, high minded: thats their characteristic note. So Saint Peter the Lord D knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of temptations and to reserve the 2 Pet. 2. 10. unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished. But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse and despise government; presumptuous are they, self willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. The same also is recorded and observed by Saint Jude, vers. 8. ep. Jude. likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion and speak evil of dignities. These three testimonies are but the declaration of one great contingency; they are the same prophesy declared by three Apostolical men, that had the gift of prophecy: and by this character the Holy Ghost in all ages hath given us caution E to avoid such assemblies, where the speaking and ruling man shall be the canker of government, and a preacher of sedition, who shall either ungirt the Princes sword, or unloose the button of their mantle.

9. But the Apostles in all these prophecies have remarked lust to [Page] A be the inseparable companion of these rebel prophets: they are filthy dreamers, they defile the flesh; so Saint Jude: they walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse, so Saint Peter they are lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God, incontinent and sensual. So Saint Paul and by this part of the character, as the Apostles remarked the Nicolatians, and Gnosticks, the Carpocratians and all their impure branches which began in their dayes and multiplied after their deaths, so they prophetically did foresignifie al such sects to be avoided who to catch silly women laden with sins preach doctrines of ease and licenciounesse, apt to countenance and encourage vile B things, and not apt to restrain a passion, or mortifie a sin. Such as those; that [God sees no sin in his children: that no sin will take us from Gods favour; that all of such a party are elect people: that God requires of us nothing but faith: and that faith which justifies is nothing but a meere believing, that we are Gods chosen: that we are not tied to the law of commandments: that the law of grace is a law of liberty: and that liberty is to do what we list; that divorces are to be granted upon many and slight causes: that simple fornication is no sin: these are such doctrines, that upon the belief of them men may doe any thing, and will do that which shall satisfie C their own desires and promote their interests and seduce their shee disciples: and indeed it was not without great reason that these three Apostles joyned lust and treason together; because the former is so shameful a crime and renders a mans spirit naturally averse to government that if it falls upon the person of a Ruler, it takes from him the spirit of government, and renders him diffident, pusillanimous, private, and ashamed; if it happen in the person of a subject, it makes him hate the man that shall shame him and punish him: it hates the light and the Sun, because that opens him, and therefore is much more against government because that D publishes and punishes too. One thing I desire to be observed, that though the primitive heresies now named and all those others their successors practised and taught horrid impurities, yet they did not invade government at all, and therefore those sects that these Apostles did signifie by prophecy, and in whom both these are concentred, were to appear in some latter times; and the dayes of the prophecy were not then to be fulfill'd; what they are since, every age must judge, by its own experience, & for its own interest. But Christian religion is so pure and holy that chastity is sometimes used for the Eloquia Domini casta eloquia whole religion, and to do an action chastly signifies purity of intention, E abstraction from the world and separation from low and secular ends, the virginity of the soul, and its union with God; and all deviations and estrangements from God and adhesion to forbidden objects is called fornication and adultery. Those sects therefore that teach, incourage, or practise impious or unhallowed mixtures and shameful lusts are issues of the impure spirit and most contrary to [Page] God who can behold no unclean thing.

10. Those prophets and Pastors that pretend severity and live A loosely, or are severe in small things and give liberty in greater, or forbid some sins with extreme rigour, and yet practise or teach those that serve their interest or constitute their sect, are to be suspected and avoided accordingly. Nihil est hominum ineptâ persuasione falsius, nec fictâ severitate ineptius. All ages of the Church were extremely curious to observe when any new teachers did arise, what kinde of lives they lived: and if they pretended severely and to a strict life, then they knew their danger doubled: for it is certain all that teach doctrines contrary to the established religion, delivered by B the Apostles, all they are evil men. God will not suffer a good man to be seduced damnably, much lesse can he be a seducer of others: and therefore you shall still observe the false Apostles to be furious and vehement in their reproofs and severe in their animadversions of others; but then if you watch their private, or stay till their numbers are full, or observe their spiritual habits, you shall finde them indulgent to themselves, or to return from their disguises, or so spiritually wicked, that their pride, or their revenge, their envie or their detraction, their scorn or their complacency in themselves, their desire of preheminence and their impatience of arrival, shall place C them far enough in distance from a poor carnal sinner, whom they shall load with censures and an upbraiding scorn; but themselves are like Devils, the spirits of darknesse the spiritual wickednesses in high places. Some sects of men are very angry against servants for recreating and easing their labours with a lesse prudent and an unsevere refreshment; but the patron of their sect shall oppresse a wicked man and an unbelieving person; they shall chastise a drunkard and entertain murmurrers; they shall not abide an oath and yet shal force men to break three or four. This sect is to be avoided, because although it is good to be severe against carnal or bodily sins, yet D it is not good to mingle with them who chastise a bodily sin to make way for a spiritual, or reprove a servant, that his Lord may sin alone, or punish a stranger and a begger that will not approve their sins, but will have sins of his own. Concering such persons Saint Paul hath told us that they shall not proeecd far, but their folly shall bemanifest. [...] said Lysias. Cito ad naturam sicta reciderunt sua. They that dissemble their sin and their manners, or make severity to serve loosnesse, and an imaginary vertue to minister to a real vice; they that abhor Idols and would commit sacrilege: chastise a drunkard and promote sedition, E declaime against the vanity of great persons, and then spoil them of their goods, reform manners and engrosse estates, talk godly and do impiously, these are teachers, which the Holy spirit of God hath by three Apostles bid us to beware of and decline as we would run from the hollownesse of a grave or the despaires and [Page] A sorrows of the damned.

11. The substance of al is this, that we must not chose our doctrine by our guide; but our guide by the doctrine, & if we doubt concerning the doctrine we may judge of that by the lives and designes of the Teachers: By their fruits you shall know them, and by the plain words of the scripture, by the Apostles Creed, and by the commandments, and by the certain known and established forms of government; These are the great indices, and so plain, apt and easy; that he that is deceived is so because he will be so; he is betrayed into it by his own lust and a voluntary chosen folly.

B 12 Besides these premises there are other little candles, that can help to make the judgement clearer but they are such as do not signifie alone, but in conjunction with some of the precedent characters which are drawn by the great lines of scripture. Such as are 1. when the teachers of sects stir up unprofitable and uselesse 1. Questions, 2. when they causelesly retire from the universal customs 2. of Christendom, 3. And cancel all the memorials of the greatest 3. mysteries of our redemption, 4. When their confessions and Catechismes 4. and their whole religion consist [...] in speculations and C ineffective notions, in discourses of Angels D and spirits, in abstractions and raptures, in things they understand not and of which they have no revelation 5. Or else if their religion spends it self in ceremonies, 5. outward guises and material solemnities and imperfect formes drawing the heart of the vine forth into leaves and irregular fruitless suckers, turning the substance into circumstances, and the love of God into gestures, and the effect of the spirit into the impertinent offices of a burdensom ceremonial: For by these two particulars the Apostles reproved the Jews and the Gnostics, or those that from the school of Pythagoras pretended conversation with Angels and great knowledge of the secrets of the spirits; chosing tutelar Angels and assigning them offices and charges, as in the Church of Colos. 2 Rome to this day they do to Saints: to these adde, 6. that we observe whether the guides of souls avoid to suffer for their religion, 6. for then the matter is foul, or the man not fit to lead, that dares not die in cold blood for his religion: will the man lay his life and his soul upon the proposition? If so, then you may consider him upon his proper grounds, but if he refuses that, refuse his conduct sure enough, 7. You may also watch whether they do not chose 7. their proselyts amongst the rich and vitious; that they may serve E themselves upon his wealth, and their disciple upon his vice, 8. If 8. their doctrines evidently and greatly serve the interest of wealth or honour, and are ineffective to piety, 9. If they strive to gain 9. any one to their confession, and are negligent to gain them to good life, 10. If by pretences they lessen the severity of Christs precepts, 10. and are easy in dispensations and licencious glosses: 11. If they invent 11. suppletories to excuse an evil man and yet to reconcile his [Page] bad life with the hopes of heaven, you have reason to suspect the A whole and to reject these parts of errour and designe which in themselves are so unhandsom alwayes, and somtimes criminal. He that shal observe the Church of Rome so implacably fierce for purgatory and the Popes supremacy, from clerical immunities, and the Superiority of the Ecclesiastical persons to secular, for indulgencies and precious and costly pardons, and then so full of devises to reconcile an evil life with heaven, requiring onely contrition, even at the last for the abolition of eternal guilt and having a thousand wayes to commute and take off the temporal; will see he hath reason to be jealous that interest is in these bigger then the religion, and yet B that the danger of the soul is greater then that interest; and therefore the man is to do accordingly.

Here indeed is the great necessity that we should have the prudence and discretion, the [...] of serpents,

—ut cernamus acutum

Quam aut aquila aut serpens Epidaurius.

For so serpents as they are curious to preserve their heads from contrition or a bruise, so also to safeguard themselves that they be not charmed with sweet and enticing words of false prophets; who charm not wisely, but cunningly, leading aside unstable souls; against C these we must stop our ears or lend our attention according to the foregoing measures and significations; but here also I am to insert two or three cautions.

1. We cannot expect that by these or any other signes we shall be inabled to discover concerning all men whether they teach an errour or no. Neither can a man by these reprove a Lutheran, or a Zuinglian, a Dominican or a Franciscan, a Russian or a Greek, a Muscovite or a Georgian, because those which are certain signes of false teachers, do signifie such men, who destroy an article of faith or a commandment; God was careful to secure us from D death by removing the Lepers from the camp, and giving certain notices of distinction, and putting a term between the living and the dead: but he was not pleased to secure every man from innocent and harmlesse errors, from the mistakes of men, and the failings of mortality. The signes which can distinguish a living man from a dead, will not also distinguish a black man from a brown, or a pale from a white: It is enough that we decline those guides that lead us to hell, but not to think that we are inticed to death by the weaknesses of every disagreeing brother.

2. In all discerning of sects, we must be careful to distinguish the E faults of men from the evils of their doctrine; for some there are that say very well, and do very ill, [...].

Multos Thyrsigeros, paucos est cernere Bacchos: Many men of holy calling and holy religion that are of unholy lives; homines ignavâ oper â [Page] A Philosophâ sententiâ: But these must be separated from the institution: and the evil of the men is onely to be noted, as that such persons be not taken to our single conduct, and personal ministery; I will be of the mans religion if it be good, though he be not; but I will not make him my confessor [...]. If he be not wise for himself, I will not sit down at his feet lest we mingle filthinesse instead of being cleansed and instructed.

3. Let us make one separation more & then we may consider and act according to the premises: If we espie a designe or an evil mark upon one doctrine let us divide it from the other that are not so spotted, B for indeed the publick communions of men are at this day so ordered, that they are as fond of their errours as of their truthes, and somtimes moct zealous for what they have least reason to be so: and if we can by any arts of prudence separate from an evil proposition and communicate in all the good, then we may love colleges of religious persons, though we do not worship images, and we may obey our Prelates, though we do no injury to princes, and we may be zealous against a crime, though we be not imperious over mens persons, and we may be diligent in the conduct of souls though we be not rapacious of estates, and we may be moderate C exactors of Obedience to human laws though we do not dispense with the breach of the divine; and the Clergy may represent their calling necessary though their persons be full of modesty and humility, and we may preserve our rights and not lose our charity. For this is the meaning of the Apostle, Try all things and retain that which is good: from every sect and communitie of Christians take any thing that is good, that advances holy religion, and the Divine honour; For one hath a better government, a second a better confession, a third hath excellent spiritual arts for the conduct of souls, a fourth hath fewer errours, and by what instrument soever a holy D life is advantaged use that though thou grindest thy spears and arrows at the forges of the Philistines; knowing thou hast no Master but Christ, no religion but the Christian, no rule but the Scriptures, and the laws and right reason, other things that are helps, are to be used accordingly.

These are the general rules of Christian prudence which I have chosen to insist upon; there are many others more particular indeed, but yet worth not onely the enumerating, but observing also, and that they be reduced to practise. For the prudence of a Christian does oblige and direct respectively all the children of the institution; E *that we be careful to decline a danger, *watchful against a temptation, *alwayes choosing that that is safe, and fitted to all circumstances, *that we be wise in choosing our company *reserved and wary in our friendships, *and communicative in our charity, *that we be silent and retentive of what we hear and what we think, * not credulous, *not unconstant, *that we be deliberate in our election [Page] * and vigorous in our prosecutions, * that we suffer not good nature to A discompose our duty but that we separate images from substances, and the pleasing of a present company from our religion to God, and our eternal interest: for sometimes that which is counselled to us by Christian prudence is accounted folly by humane prudence, and so it is ever accounted when our duty leads us into a persecution. * Hither also appertain; that we never do a thing that we know we must repent of, * that we do not admire too many things, nor any thing too much, * that we be even in prosperity * and patient in adversity; but transported with neither into the regions of despair or levity, pusillanimity or Tyranny, dejection or Garishnesse, * alwayes B to look upon the sear we have impressed upon our flesh, and no more to handle dangers and knives, * to abstain from ambitious and vexatious suits, * not to contend with a mighty man, * ever to listen to him (who according to the proverb) hath four ears, Reason Religion, wisdom and experience, * rather to lose a benefit then to suffer a detriment and an evil, * to stop the beginnings of evil, * to pardon and not to observe all the faults of friends or enemies; * of evils to choose the least, * and of goods to choose the greatest, if it be also safest; * not to be insolent in successe, but to proceed according to the probability of humane causes and contingencies, * ever to be thankful for benefits, * and profitable C to others and useful in all that we can, * to watch the seasons and circumstances of actions, * to do that willingly which cannot be avoided, lest the necessity serve anothers appetite, and it be lost to all our purposes, Insignis enim est prudentiae, ut quod non facere non possis, id facere ut libenter fecisse videaris, * not to pursue difficult uncertain and obscure things with violence and passion. These if we observe we shall do advantage to our selves and to the religion, and avoid those evils which fools and unwary people suffer for nothing, dying or bleeding without cause and without pity. I end D this with the saying of Socrates. [...] ‘Vertue is but a shadow and a servile imployment unlesse Plut. Phaedon it be adorned and instructed with prudence which gives motion and conduct, spirits and vigourousnesse to religion, making it not onely humane and reasonable but Divine and caelestial.’ E

B Sermon. XXIII. OF CHRISTIAN C SIMPLICITY.

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Matthew 10. latter part of Ver. 16.‘And harmlesse as doves.]’

OUR Blessed Saviour having prefac'd concerning D Prudence, addes to the integrity of the precept, and for the conduct of our religion, that we be simple as well as prudent, innocent as well as wary: harmlesse and safe together do well; for without this blessed union, prudence turns into craft, and simplicity degenerates into folly. Prudens simplicitas, is Martial's character of a good man: a wary and cautious innocence, a harmlesse providence, and provision: Verâ simplicitate bonus, a true simplicity, is that which leaves to a man arms defensive; E his castles and strong forts, but takes away his swords, and spears, or else his anger and his malice, his peevishnesse and spite. But such is the misery, and such is the iniquity of mankinde, that craft hath invaded all the contracts and entercourses of men, and made simplicity so weak a thing, that it is grown into contempt, sometimes with, and sometimes without reason; Et homines [Page] simplices, minimè malos, the Romans called parum cautos, saepè A stolidos, unwary fools, and defenselesse people were called simple: and when the innocency of the old simple Romans in Junius Brutus time, in Fabritius, and Camillus began to degenerate, and to need the Aquilian law to force men to deal honestly, quickly the mischief increased, till the Aquilian law grew as much out of power, as honesty was out of countenance. And there, and every where else men thought they got a purchase, when they met with an honest man, and [...] Aristotle calls [...], and [...]. A fool is a profitable person, and he that is simple is little better then mad: And so it is, when simplicity wants prudence. A He that because he means honestly himself, thinks every man else does so, and therefore is unwary in all, or any of his entercourses, is a simple man in an evil sence, and therefore Saint Gregory Nazianzen remarks Constantius with a note of folly, for suffering his easie nature to be abused by Georgius, [...]. The Princes Orat. 21. simplicity, so he calls it for reverence, but indeed it was folly, for it was zeal without knowledge: But it was a better temper, which he observed in his own father, [...], such a simplicity which onely wanted craft, or deceit, but wanted no prudence or caution, and that is truly Christian simplicity, or the C sincerity of an honest, and ingenious, and a fearlesse person; and it is a rare band, not onely of societies, and contracts, but also of friendships, and advantages of mankinde.

We do not live in an age in which there is so much need to bid men be wary, as to take care that they be innocent: Indeed in religion we are usually too loose, and ungirt, exposing our selves to temptation, and others to offence, and our name to dishonour, and the cause it self to reproach, and we are open and ready to every evil but persecution: from that we are close enough, and that D alone we call prudence; but in the matter of interest we are wary as serpents, subtil as foxes, vigilant as the birds of the night, rapacious as Kites, tenacious as grapling hooks and the weightiest anchors, and above all, false and hypocritical as a thin crust of ice, spread upon the face of a deep, smooth, and dissembling pit; if you set your foot, your foot slips, or the ice breaks, and you sink into death, and are wound in a sheet of water, descending into mischief or your grave; suffering a great fall, or a sudden death by your confidence and unsuspecting foot. There is an universal crust of hypocrisie, that covers the face of the greatest part E of mankinde. Their religion consists in forms and outsides, and serves reputation or a designe, but does not serve God: Their promises are but fair language, and the civilities of the Piazzas or Exchanges, and disband and unty like the air that beat upon their teeth, when they spake the delicious and hopefull words. Their [Page] A oaths are snares to catch men, and make them confident: Their contracts are arts and stratagems to deceive, measured by profit and possibility; and every thing is lawfull that is gainfull; and their friendships are trades of getting; and their kindnesse of watching a dying friend, is but the office of a vulture, the gaping for a legacy, the spoil of the carcasse; and their sicknesses are many times policies of state, sometimes a designe to shew the riches of our bed-chamber; and their funeral tears are but the paranymphs and pious solicitors of a second Bride; and every thing that is ugly must be hid, and every thing that is handsome must be seen, and that will make a fair cover for a huge deformity; and therefore B it is (as they think) necessary that men should alwayes have some pretences and forms, some faces of religion, or sweetnesse of language, confident affirmatives, or bold oaths, protracted treaties, or multitude of words, affected silence, or grave deportment, a good name, or a good cause, a fair relation, or a worthy calling, great power, or a pleasant wit; any thing that can be fair, or that can be usefull, any thing that can do good, or be thought good, we use it to abuse our brother, or promote our interests. Leporina resolved to die, being troubled for her husbands danger, and he C resolved to die with her that had so great a kindnesse for him as not to out-live the best of her husbands fortune. It was agreed and she temperd the poyson, and drank the face of the unwholesome goblet, but the weighty poyson sunke to the bottome, and the easie man drank it all off, and died, and the woman carried him forth to funeral, and after a little illnesse which she soon recovered, she enterd upon the inheritance and a second marriage.

Tuta frequensque via est—

This is an usual and a safe way to cozen, upon colour of friendship D or religion, but that is hugely criminal; to tell a lie to abuse a mans belief, and by it to enter upon any thing of his possession or his injury is a perfect destruction of all humane society, the most ignoble of all humane follies, perfectly contrary to God, who is Truth it self, the greatest argument of a timorous and a base, a cowardly and a private minde, not at all honest, or confident to see the Sun, a vice fit for slaves; [...], as Dio Chrysostomus calls it; [...]; Dissert. 1. de regno. for the most timorous and the basest of beasts E use craft, and lie in wait, and take their prey, and save their lives by deceit, and it is the greatest injury to the abused person in the world; for besides that it abuses his interest, it also makes him for ever insecure, and uneasie in his confidence, which is the period of cares, the rest of a mans spirit; it makes it necessary for a man to be jealous and suspicious, that is, to be troublesome to himself [Page] and every man else; and above all, lying, or craftinesse, and unfaithful A usages, robs a man of the honour of his soul, making his understanding uselesse and in the condition of a fool; spoiled, and dishonoured, and despised: [...]: Said Plato, Every soul loses truth very unwillingly: Every man is so great a lover of truth, that if he hath it not he loves to beleeve he hath, and would fain have all the world to beleeve as he does; either presuming that he hath truth, or else hating to be deceived, or to be esteemed a cheated and an abused person. Non licet suffurari mentem hominis etiam Samaritani, said R. Moses, sed veritatem Can. Eth. loquere atque age ingenuè, If a man be a Samaritan, that is, B a hated person, a person from whom you differ in matter of religion, yet steal not his minde away, but speak truth to him honestly and ingenuously. A mans soul loves to dwell in truth, it is his resting place; and if you take him from thence, you take him into strange regions, a place of banishment and dishonour. Qui ignotos loedit, latro appellatur, qui amicos, paulò minus quam parricida. He that hurts strangers is a thief, but he that hurts his friends is little better then a parricide: That's the brand and stigma of hypocrisie and lying: it hurts our friends, mendacium in damnum potens, and makes the man that owns it guilty of a crime, that is, C to be punished by the sorrows usually suffered in the most execrable places of the cities; But I must reduce the duty to particulars, and discover the contrary vice, by the several parts of its proportion.

1. The first office of Christian simplicity consists in our religion and manners: that they he open and honest, publike and justifiable, the same at home and abroad; for besides the ingenuity and honesty of this, there is an indispensable, and infinite necessity it should be so, because whoever is a hypocrite in his religion, mocks God, presenting to him the outside, and reserving D the inward for his enemy: which is either a denying God to be the searcher of our hearts, or else an open defiance of his omniscience, and of his justice: To provoke God that we may deceive men, to defie his Almightinesse, that we may abuse our brother, is to destroy all that is Sacred, all that is prudent, it is an open hostility to all things humane and divine, a breaking from all the bands of all relations, and uses God so cheaply as if he were to be treated, or could be cozened like a weak man, and an undiscerning and easie merchant: But so is the life of many men:

Vita fallax, abditos sensus gerens, E

Nimisque pulchram turpibus faciem induens.

It is a crafty life that men live, carrying designes, and living upon secret purposes; Pudor impudentem celat, audacem quies, piet as [Page] A nefandum, vera fallaces probant; simulantque molles dura. Men pretend modesty, and under that red vail are bold against Superiours, saucy to their betters upon pretences of religion, invaders of others rights by false propositions in Theology, pretending humility they challenge superiority above all orders of men, and for being thought more holy, think that they have title to govern the world; they bear upon their face great religion, and are impious in their relations, false to their trust, unfaithful to their friend, unkinde to their dependants; [...], turning up the white of their eye, and seeking for B reputation in the streets; so did some of the old hypocrites, the Gentile Pharisees, Asperum cultum, & intonsum caput & negligentiorem barbam & nitidum argento odium, & cubile humi positum & quicquid aliud ambitionem viâ perversâ sequitur: being the softest persons under an austere habit, the loosest livers under a contracted brow; under a pale face, having the reddest and most spritely livers; these kinde of men have abused all ages of the world, and all religions, it being so easie in nature, so prepared and ready for mischiefs, that men should creep into opportunities of devouring the flock upon pretence of defending them, and to raise C their estates upon colour of saving their souls.

Introrsum turpes speciosi pelle decorâ.

Men that are like painted sepulchres, entertainment for the eye, but images of death, chambers of rottennesse, and repositories of dead mens bones. It may sometimes concern a man to seem religious; Gods glory may be shewed by fair appearances, or the edification of our brother, or the reputation of a cause; but this is but sometimes; but it alwayes concerns us that we be religious, and we may reasonably think, that if the colours of religion so well do advantage to us, the substance and reality would do it much D more. For no man can have a good by seeming religious, and another by not being so; the power of godlinesse never destroys any well built fabrick that was raised upon the reputation of religion, and its pretences: Nunquam est peccare utile quia semper est turpe, said Cicero. It is never profitable to sin because it is always base and dishonest: and if the face of religion could do a good turn, which the heart and substance does destroy, then religion it self were the greatest hypocrite in the world, and promises a blessing which it never can perform, but must be beholding to its enemy to verifie its promises. No. We shall be sure to feel the blessings E of both the worlds if we serve in the offices of religion devoutly and charitably, before men and before God: if we ask of God things honest in the sight of men, [...] (as Pythagoras gave in precept) praying to God with a free heart and a publike prayer, and doing before men things that are truly pleasing to God, turning our heart outward and our face inwards, that [Page] is, conversing with men as in the presence of God, and in our private A towards God, being as holy and devout, as if we prayed in publike, and in the corners of the streets. Pliny praising of Ariston, gave him the title of an honest and hearty religion. Ornat hunc maguitudo animi quae nihil ad ostentationem, omnia ad conscientiam refert: rectèque facti, non ex populi sermone mercedem, sed ex facto petit. And this does well state the question of a sincere religion, and an ingenuous goodnesse; It requires that we do nothing for ostentation, but every thing for conscience; and we may be obliged in conscience to publish our manner of lives, but then it must be, not that we may have a popular noise for a reward, but that God may B be glorified by our publike worshippings, and others edified by our good examples.

Neither doth the sincerity of our religion require that we should not conceal our sins, for he that sins and dares to own them publikely may become impudent: and so long as in modesty we desire our shame should be hid, and men to think better of us then we deserve, I say for no other reason, but either because we would not derive the ill examples to others, or the shame to our selves, we are within the protection of one of vertues sisters, and we are not far from the gates of the kingdom of heaven; easie and apt to be invited in, and not very unworthy to enter. C

But if any other principle draws the vail, if we conceal our vices because we would be honoured for sanctity, or because we would not be hindered in our designes, we serve the interest of pride and ambition, covetousnesse, or vanity; if an innocent purpose hides the ulcer, it does half heal it; but if it retires into the secrecy of sin and darknesse, it turns into a plague, and infects the heart, and it dies infallibly of a double exulceration. The Macedonian boy that kept the coal in his flesh, and would not shake his arm, lest he should disturbe the sacrifice, or discompose the ministery before D Alexander the Great, concealed his pain to the honour of patience and religion. But the Spartan boy who suffered the little fox to eat his bowels rather then confesse his theft when he was in danger of discovery, payed the price of a bold hypocrisie; that is, the dissimulation reproveable in matter of manners, which conceals one sin to make way for another; [...]; Lucian notes it of his Philosophical hypocrites, dissemblers in matter of deportment and religion, they seem severe abroad, but they enter into the vaults of harlots, and are not ashamed to see a naked E sin in the midst of its uglinesse, and undressed circumstances. A mighty wrastler, that had won a crown at Olympus, for contending prosperously, was observed to turn his head and go forward, with his face upon his shoulder, to behold a fair woman that was present; and he lost the glory of his strength, when he [Page] A became so weak, that a woman could turn his head about, which his adversary could not. These are the follies and weaknesses of man and dishonours to religion, when a man shall contend nobly and do handsomly and then be taken in a base or a dishonorable action; and mingle venome with his delicious ointment.

Quid quod olet gravius mistum dia pasmate virus.

At (que) duplex animae longius exit odor.

When Fescenia perfumed her breath that she might not smell of wine, she condemned the crime of drunkennesse: but grew ridiculous when the wine broke thorow the cloud of a tender perfume B and the breath of a Lozenge; and that indeed is the reward of an hypocrite; his laborious arts of concealment furnish all the world with declamation and severity against the crime which himself condemnes with his caution: But when his own sentence too is prepared against the day of his discovery.

Notas ergo nimis fraudes, deprensa (que) furta

Jam tollas, & sis ebria simpliciter.

A simple drunkard hath but one fault, But they that avoid discovery, that they may drink on without shame or restraint adde C hypocrisy to their vitious fulnesse: and for all the amazements of their consequent discovery have no other recompence, but that they pleased themselves in the security of their crime, and their undeserved reputation: Sic quae nigrior est cadente moro; Cerussata sibi placet Lycoris: for so the most easy and deformed woman, whose girdle no foolish young man will unloose, because shee is blacker then the falling mulbery; may please her self under a skin of Cerusse, and call her self fairer then Pharaohs daughter, or the hinds living upon the snowy mountaines.

One thing more there is to be added as an instance to the simplicity D of religion, and that is that we never deny our religion, or lie concerning our faith, nor tell our propositions, and articles deceitfully, nor instruct Novices or catechumens with fraud, but that when we teach them, we do it honestly, justly, and severely, not alwayes to speak all, but never to speak otherwise then it is, nor to hide a truth from them, whose soules are concerned in it, that it be known, nequè enim id est celare cum quid reticias, sed cum quod tuscias, id ignorare emolumenti tui causâ velis eos, quorum inter est id scire: So Cicero So Cicero. lib. 3. offic. determins the case of prudence and simplicity. The discovery of pious frauds, and the disclaiming of false but profitable and rich propositions; E the quitting honours, fraudulently gotten, and unjustly detained; the reducing every man to the perfect understanding of his own religion so far as can concern his duty, the disallowing false miracles, legends and fabulous stories, of cosening the people into awfulnesse, fear and superstition, these are parts of Christian simplicity which do integrate this duty: for religion hath strengths enough of its own to support it self; it needs not a devil for its advocate; [Page] it is the breath of God, and as it is purer then the beams of the A morning, so it is stronger then a tempest, or the combination of all the windes though united by the prince that ruleth in the aire: And we finde that the Nicene faith prevailed upon all the world though some Arian Bishops went from Ariminum to Nice, and there decreed their own articles, and called it, the faith read at Nice, and used all arts and all violence, and all lying, and all diligence to discountenance it, yet it could not be, it was the truth of God and therefore it was stronger then all the gates of hell, then all the powers of darknesse: and he that tells a lie for his religion or goes about by fraud and imposture to gain proselytes, either dares not B trust his cause or dare not trust God. True religion is open in its articles, honest in its prosecutions, just in its conduct, innocent when it is accused, ignorant of falsehood, sure in its truth, simple in its sayings: and (as Julius Capitolinus said of the Emperour Verus) it is morum simplicium & quae adumbrare nihil possit: it covers indeed a multitude of sins by curing them, and obtaining pardon for them, but it can dissemble nothing of it self, it cannot tell or do a lie: but it can become a sacrifice; a good man can quit his life but never his integrity. Thats the first duty; the sum of which is that which Aquilius said concerning fraud and craft, bona sides C the honesty of a mans faith and religion is destroyed cum aliud simulatum aliud actum sit, when either we conceale what we ought to publish, or do not act what we pretend.

2. Christian simplicity or the innocence of prudence relates to laws both in their sanction and execution; that they be decreed with equity and proportioned to the capacity and profit of the subjects and that they be applied to practise with remissions and reasonable interpretations agreeable to the sence of the words and the minde of the lawgiver; but laws are not to be cosened and abused by contradictory glosses, and phantastick elusions as knowing that D if the majesty and sacrednesse of them be once abused and subjected to contempt and unreasonable and easy resolutions, their girdle is unloosed and they suffer the shame of prostitution and contempt When Saul made a law, that he that eat before night should die, the people perswaded him directly to rescind it, in the case of Jonathan, because it was unequal and unjust that he who had wrought their deliverance, and in that working it, was absent from the promulgation of the law should suffer for breaking it, in a case of violent necessity and of which he heard nothing upon so faire and probable a cause: and it had been well that the Persian had been so E rescued who against the laws of his country killed a Lion to save the life of his Prince; in such cases it is fit the law be rescinded and dispensed with all, as to certain particulars, so it be done ingenuously with competent authority, in great necessity, and without partiality: But that which I intend here is, that in the rescission or [Page] A dispensation of the law the processe be open and free, and such as shall preserve the law and its sacrednesse as well as the person and his interest. The laws of Sparta forbad any man to be twice Admiral, but when their affaires required it, they made Araeus titular and Lysander supravisor of him, and Admiral to all real and effective purposes; this wanted ingenuity and laid a way open for them to despise the law which was made patient of such a weak evasion; The Lacedemonian Embassador perswaded Pericles to turn the tables of the law, which were forbidden to be removed, and an other ordained in a certain case that the laws should sleep B 24. hours; A third decreed that June should be called May, because the time of an election appointed by the law was elapsed; these arts are against the ingenuity and simplicitie of laws, and lawgivers; and teach the people to cheat in their obedience, when their Judges are so fraudulent in the administration of their laws. Every law should be made plain, open, honest, & significant, and he that makes a decree and intricates it on purpose, or by inconsideration, layes a snare or leaves one there, and is either an imprudent person, and therefore unfit to govern, or else he is a Tyrant and a vultur. It is too much that a man can make a law by an arbitrary power. But C when he shall also leave the law so that every of the ministers of Justice and the Judges shall have power to rule by a loose, by an arbitrary▪ by a contradictory interpretation, it is intolerable. They that rule by prudence, should above all things see that the patrons and Advocates of innocence should be harmlesse and without an evil sting.

3. Christian simplicity relates to promises and acts of grace and favour; and its caution is, that all promises be simple, ingenuous, agreeable to the intention of the promiser, truly and effectually expressed and never going lesse in the performance, then in the promise, D and words of the expression: concerning which the cases are several. 1. First all promises in which a third or a second person hath no interest, that is the promises of kindnesse and civilities, are tied to passe into performance, secundum aequum & bonum: and though they may oblige to some small inconvenience, yet never to a great one: and I will visit you to morrow morning, because I promised you, and therefore. I will come etiamsi non concoxero, although I have not slept my full sleep, but Si febricitavero if I be in a feaver or have reason to fear one, I am disobliged. For the nature of such promises bears upon them no bigger burthen, then can be expounded E by reasonable civilities and the common expectation of kinde, and the ordinary performances of just men, who do excuse and are excused respectively, by all rules of reason proportionably to such small entercourses: and therefore although such conditions be not expressed in making promises, yet to perform or rescind them by such laws is not against Christian simplicity. 2. Promises [Page] in matters of justice or in matters of grace as from a superiour to A an inferiour must be so singly and ingenuously expressed, intended and performed accordingly, that no condition is to be reserved or supposed in them to warrant their non-performance, but impossibility, or that which is next to it, an intolerable inconvenience; in which cases we have a natural liberty to commute our promises, but so that we pay to the interested person a good, at least equal to that which we first promised. And to this purpose it may be added that it is not against Christian simplicity to expresse our promises in such words which we know the interested man will understand to other purposes then I intend so it be not lesse that I mean, then that he B hopes for. When our Blessed Saviour told his disciples, that they should sit upon twelve thrones, they presently thought they had his bond for a kingdom, and dreamt of wealth, and honour, power and a splendid court; and Christ knew they did, but did not disintangle his promise from the enfolded and intricate sence of which his words were naturally capable; but he performed his promise, to better purposes, then they hoped for; they were presidents in the conduct of souls, Princes of Gods people, the chief in sufferings stood neerest to the crosse, had an elder brothers portion in the Kingdom of grace, were the founders of Churches, and dispensers C of the mysteries of the kingdom and ministers of the spirit of God and chanels of mighty blessings, under mediators in the Priesthood of their Lord and their names were written in heaven; and this was infinitely better, then to groan and wake under a head pressed with a golden crown and pungent cares, and to eat alone, and to walk in a croud and to be vexed with all the publick and many of the private evils of the people, which is the sum Total of an earthly Kingdom.

When God promised to the obedient that they should live long in the land, which he would give them, he meant it of the land of D Canaan, but yet reserved to himself the liberty of taking them quickly from that land and carrying them to a better. He that promises to lend me a staffe to walk withal, and instead of that gives me a horse to carry me, hath not broken his promise, nor dealt deceitfully. And this is Gods dealing with mankinde; he promises more then we could hope for; and when he hath done that, he gives us more then he hath promised. God hath promised to give to them that fear him all that they need, food and raiment; but he addes out of the treasures of his mercy; variety of food and changes of raiment; some to get strength and some to refresh, something for them E that are in health and some for the sick. And though that skins of buls and stagges and foxes and bears could have drawn a vail thick enough to hide the apertures of sin and natural shame and to defend us from heat and cold, yet when he addeth the fleeces of sheep and beavers, and the spoiles of silk worms, he hath proclaimed [Page] A that although his promises are the bounds of our certain expectation, yet they are not the limits of his loving kindnesse; and if he does more then he hath promised, no man can complain that he did otherwise, and did greater things then he said: thus God does, but therefore so also must we; imitating that example, and transcribing that copy of divine truth, alwayes remembring that his promises are yea and Amen And although God often goes more, yet he never goes lesse; and therefore we must never go from our promises, unlesse we be thrust from thence by disability, or let go by leave, or called up higher by a greater intendment B and increase of kindnesse: And therefore when Solyman had sworn to Ibrahim-Bassa that he would never kill him so long as he were alive, he quitted himself but ill, when he sent an Eunuch to cut his throat when he slept, because the Priest told him that sleep was death. His act was false and deceitful as his great prophet.

But in this part of simplicity we Christians have a most especiall obligation, for our religion being ennobled by the most and the greatest promises, and our faith made confident by the veracity C of our Lord, and his word made certain by miracles and prophecies, and voices from heaven, and all the testimony of God himself, and that truth it self is bound upon us by the efficacy of great endearments and so many precepts; if we shall suffer the faith of a Christian to be an instrument to deceive our brother, and that he must either be incredulous or deceived, uncharitable or deluded like a fool, we dishonour the sacrednesse of the institution and become strangers to the spirit of truth, and to the eternall word of God. Our Blessed Lord would not have his disciples to swear at all (no not in publick Judicature) D if the necessities of the world would permit him to be obeyed: If Christians will live according to the religion, the word of a Christian were sufficient instrument to give testimony and to make promises, to secure a faith, and upon that supposition oathes were uselesse, and therefore forbidden, because there could be no necessity to invoke Gods name in promises or affirmations if men were indeed Christians: and therefore in that case would be a taking it in vain; but because many are not and they that are in name oftentimes are so in nothing else, it became necessary that man should swear E in judgment and in publick courts; but consider who it was that invented and made the necessitie of oaths, of bonds, of securities, of statutes, extents, judgements and all the artifices of humane diffidence and dishonesty; These things were indeed found out by men; but the necessity of these was from him that is the father of lies, from him that hath made many faire promises but never kept any. or if he did, it was to do a [Page] bigger mischief, to cozen the more: for so does the Devil: He A promises rich harvests and blasts the corn in the spring, he tells his servants they shall be rich, and fills them with beggerly qualities, makes them base and indigent, greedy and penurious, and they that serve him intirely, as witches and such miserable persons never can be rich: if he promises health, then men grow confident and intemperate and do such things whereby they shall die the sooner, and die longer they shall die eternally. He deceives men in their trust, and frustrates their hopes, and eludes their expectations; and his promises have a period set, beyond which they cannot be true; For wicked men shall enjoy a faire fortune but B till their appointed time, and then it ends imperfect and most accomplished misery: and therefore even in this performance he deceives them most of all, promising and performing coloured stones, and glasse-gems that he may cozen them of their glorious inheritance. All fraudulent breakers of promises dresse themselves by his glasse whose best imagery, is deformity and lies. C D E

Sermon. XXIV. B Of Christian Simplicity. Part II.

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C 4. CHristian simplicity teaches opennesse, and ingenuity in Contracts, and matters of buying and selling, covenants, associations, and all such entercourses, which suppose an equality of persons as to the matter of right and justice in the stipulation, [...] was the old Attick law: and nothing is more contrary to Christian religion, then that the entercourses of justice be direct snares, and that we should deal with men, as men deal with foxes, and wolves, and vermin; do all violence, and when that cannot be, use all craft and every thing whereby they can be made miserable. D

[...].

There are men in the world who love to smile, but that smile is more dangerous then the furrows of a contracted brow, or a storm in Adria; for their purpose is onely to deceive; they easily speak what they never mean, they heap up many arguments to perswade that to others, which themselves beleeve not; they praise that vehemently which they deride in their hearts, they declaim against a thing which themselves covet, they beg passionately for E that which they value not, and run from an object which they would fain have to follow and overtake them, they excuse a person dexterously, where the man is beloved, and watch to surprize him where he is unguarded; they praise that they may sell, and disgrace that they may keep. And these hypocrisies are so interwoven and imbroidered with their whole designe; that some nations refuse to contract till their arts are taken off by the society of [Page] banquets, and the good natured kidnesses of festivall chalices, for A so Tacitus observes concerning the old Germans, [De asciscendis principibus de pace & bello in conviviis consultant, tanquam nullo magis tempore ad simplices cogitationes pateat animus, aut ad magnas incalescat: as if then they were more simple when they were most valiant, and were least deceitfull, when they were least themselves.

But it is an evil condition that a mans honesty shall be owing to his wine, and vertue must live at the charge and will of a vice. The proper band of societies and contracts is, justice and necessities, religion and the laws; the measures of it are equitie and our selves and our own B desires in the dayes of our need, natural or forced; But the instruments of the exchange and conveyance of the whole entercourse is, words and actions, as they are expounded by custome, consent, or the understanding of the interested person; in which if simplicitie be not severely preserved, it is impossible that humane society can subsist, but men shall be forced to snatch at what they have bought, and take securities that men swear truly, and exact an oath, that such is the meaning of the word, and no man shall think himself secure, but shall fear he is robbed if he has not possession first; and it shall be disputed who shall trust the other, and neither of them shall C have cause to be confident upon bands or oaths, or witnesses, or promises, or all the honour of men, or all the ingagements of religion, [...], said Cyrus in Xenophon, A man though he Lib. 8. in [...]it. desires it, yet cannot be confident of the man that pretends truth yet tells a lye and is deprehended to have made use of the sacred name of friendship or religion, honesty or reputation to deceive his brother.

But because a man may be deceived by deeds and open actions as well as words; therefore it concerns their duty, that no man by an D action on purpose done to make his brother believe a lie abuse his persuasion and his interest, When Pythius the Sicilian had a minde to sell his garden to Cannius he invited him thither, and caused fishermen (as if by custom) to fish in the chanell by which the gardens stood, and they threw a great store of fish into their arbours, and made Cannius believe it was so every day, and the man grew greedy of that place of pleasure, and gave Pythius a double price, and the next day perceived himself abused. Actions of pretence and simulation are like snares laid, into which the beasts fall though you pursue them not, but walk in the inquiry for their necessary E provisions; and if a man fall into a snare that you have laid, it is no excuse to say you did not tempt him thither: to lay a snare is against the ingenuity of a good man and a Christian, and from thence he ought to be drawn, and therefore it is not fit we should place a danger which our selves are therefore bound to hinder, because [Page] A from thence we are obliged to rescue him. Vir bonus est, qui prodest quibus potest, nocet nemini, when we do all the good we can, and do an evil to no man, then onely we are accounted good men. But this pretence of an action signifying otherwise then it looks for, is onely forbidden in matter of contract, and the material interest of a second person. But when actions are of a double signification, or when a man is not abused or defeated of his right by an uncertain signe, it is lawfull to do a thing to other purposes then is commonly understood. Flight is a signe of fear; but it is lawfull to fly when a man fears not. Circumoision was the seal of the Jewish religion, B and yet Saint Paul circumcised Timothy though he intended he should live like the Centile Christians, and not as do the Jews. Put because that rite did signifie more things beside that one, he onely did it to represent that he was no enemy of Moses law, but would use it when there was just reason, which was one part of the things which the using of circumcision could signifie: So our blessed Saviour pretended that he would passe forth beyond Emaus, out if he intended not to do it, yet he did no injury to the two disciples, for whose good it was that he intended to make this offer: and neither did he prevaricate the strictnesse of simplicity C and sincerity, because they were persons with whom he had made no contracts, to whom he had passed no obligation, and in the nature of the thing it is proper and natural, by an offer to give an occasion to another to do a good action; and in case it succeeds not, then to do what we intended not, and so the offer was conditional. But in all cases of bargaining, although the actions of themselves may receive naturally another sense, yet I am bound to follow that signification which may not abuse my brother, or pollute my own honesty, or snatch, or rifle his interest: Because it can be no ingredient into the commutation, if I exchange a thing D which he understands not, and is by errour lead into this mistake, and I hold forth the fire, and delude him, and amuse his eye: for by me he is made worse.

But secondly, as our actions must be of a sincere and determinate signification in contracts, so must our words: in which the rule of the old Roman honesty was this: Uter (que) si ad eloquendum venerit non plus quam semel eloquetur; Every one that speaks is to speak but once; that is, but one thing; because commonly that is truth; truth being but one; but errour and falsehood infinitely various and changeable; and we shall seldom see a man so stiffned E with impiety, as to speak little and seldome, and pertinaciously adhere to a single sense, and yet that at first, and all the way after shall be a lie. Men use to go about, when they tell a lie, and devise circumstances, and stand off at distance, and cast a cloud of words, and intricate the whole affair, and cozen themselves first, and then cozen their brother, while they have minced the case of conscience [Page] into little particles, and swallowed the lie by crumbs, so that no A one passage of it should rush against the conscience, nor do hurt, until it is all got into the belly, and unites in the effect; for by that time, two men are abused, the Merchant in his soul, and the Contractor in his interest; and this is the certain effect of much talking and little honesty: but he that means honestly, must speak but once, that is, one truth, and hath leave to vary within the degrees of just prices, and fair conditions, which because they have a latitude may be enlarged, or restrained according as the Merchant please, save onely he must never prevaricate the measures of equity, and the proportions of reputation, and the publike. But in all B the parts of this traffick let our words be the significations of our thoughts, and our thoughts designe nothing, but the advantages of a permitted exchange. In this case, the severity is so great, so exact, and so without variety of case, that it is not lawfull for a man to tell a truth, with a collateral designe to cozen and abuse; and therefore at no hand can it be permitted to lie or equivocate, to speak craftily, or to deceive by smoothnesse, or intricacy, or long discourses.

But this precept of simplicity in matter of contract hath one step of severity beyond this: In matter of contract it is not lawfull C so much as to conceal the secret and undiscernable faults of the merchandize; but we must acknowledge them, or else affix prices made diminute and lessened to such proportions and abatements as that fault should make. Caveat emptor is a good caution for him that buyes, and it secures the seller in publike Judicature, but not in court of conscience; and the old lawes of the Romans were as nice in this affair, as the conscience of a Christian. Titus Claudius Centimalus was commanded by the Augures to pull down his house in the Coelian mountain, because it hindred their observation of the flight of birds; he exposes his house to sale, Publius D Calpurnius buyes it, and is forced to pluck it down; But complaining to the Judges had remedy, because Claudius did not tell him the true state of the inconvenience. He that sels a house infected with the plague, or haunted with evil spirits, sels that which is not worth such a price which it might be put to if it were in health and peace: and therefore cannot demand it but openly and upon publication of the evil. To which also this is to be added, that in some great faults and such as have danger, (as in the cases now specified) no diminution of the price is sufficient to make the Merchant just and sincere, unlesse he tels the appendant mischief; E because to some persons in many cases, and to all persons in some cases, it is not at all valuable, and they would not possesse it if they might for nothing. Marcus Gratidianus bought a house of Sergius Orata, which himself had sold before; But because Sergius did not declare the appendant vassalage and service, he was recompenced [Page] A by the Judges; for although it was certain that Gratidianus knew it, because it had been his own, yet Oportuit ex bonâ fide denunciari said the law; it concerned the ingenuity of a good man to have spoken it openly. In all cases it must be confessed in the price, or in the words; But when the evil may be personal, and more then matter of interest and money, it ought to be confessed, and then the goods prescribed, lest by my act I do my neighbour injury, and I receive profit by his dammage. Certain it is, that ingenuity is the sweetest and easiest way, there is no difficulty or cases of conscience in that, and it can have no objection in it but that B possibly sometimes we lose a little advantage, which it may be we may lawfully acquire, but still we secure a quiet conscience: and if the merchandise be not worth so much to me, then neither is it to him; if it be to him, it is also to me; and therefore I have no losse, no hurt to keep it if it be refused: but he that secures his own profit, and regards not the interest of another, is more greedy of a full purse then of a holy conscience, and prefers gain before justice, and the wealth of his private, before the necessity of publike society and commerce, being a son of earth whose centre is it C self, without relation to heaven that moves upon anothers point, and produces flowers, for others, and sends influence upon all the world, and receives nothing in return, but a cloud of perfume, or the smell of a fat sacrifice.

God sent justice into the world, that all conditions in their several proportions should be equall; and he that receives a good, should pay one, and he whom I serve is obliged to feed and to defend me in the same proportions as I serve; and justice is a relative terme, and supposes two persons obliged, and though fortunes are unequal, and estates are in majority and subordination, and men D are wise or foolish, honoured or despised; yet in the entercourses of justice God hath made that there is no difference, and therefore it was esteemed ignoble to dismisse a servant when corn was dear, in dangers of shipwrack to throw out an unprofitable boy and keep a fair horse; or for a wise man to snatch a plank from a drowning fool, or if the Master of the ship should challenge the board upon which his passenger swims for his life, or to obtrude false moneys upon others, which we first took for true, but at last discovered to be false; or not to discover the gold which the merchant sold for alchimy: The reason of all these is, because the collateral E advantages are not at all to be considered in matter of rights; and though I am dearest to my self, as my neighbour is to himself, yet it is necessary that I permit him to his own advantages, as I desire to be permitted to mine. Now therefore simplicity and ingenuity in all contracts is perfectly and exactly necessary, because its contrary destroys that equality which justice hath placed in the affaires of men, and makes all things private, and makes a man [Page] dearer to himself, and to be preferred before Kings, and republicks, A and Churches; it destroyes society, and it makes multitudes of men to be but like heards of beasts, without proper instruments of exchange, and securities of possession, without faith and without propriety concerning all which there is no other account to be given, but that the rewards of craft are but a little money and a great deal of dishonour and much suspicion: and proportionable scorn; watches and guards, spies and jealousies are his portion; But the crown of justice is a fair life and a clear reputation, & an inheritance there where justice dwells since she left the earth, even in the kingdome of the just, who shall call us to judgement for every word, and B render to every man according to his works: and what is the hope of the hypocrite though he hath gained when the Lord taketh away his soul, Tollendum esse ex rebus contrahendis omne mendacium. That's the sum of this rule: no falshod or deceit is to be endured in any Cicero. contract.

5. Christian simplicity hath also its necessity and passes obligation upon us towards enemies in questions of law or war. Plutarch commends Lysander and Philopaemen for their craft and subtilty in war, but commends it not as an ornament to their manners, but that which had influence into prosperous events; just as Ammianus C affirms, nullo discrimine virtutis ac doli prosperos omnes laudari debere bellorum eventus: whatsoever in war is prosperous, men use to commend: But he that is a good souldier is not alwayes a good man. Callicratidas was a good man and followed the old way of downright hostility, [...]: But Lysander was [...], [...], a crafty man, full of plots but not noble in the conduct of his armes. I remember Euripides brings in Achilles commending the ingenuity of his breeding and the simplicity and noblenesse of his own heart [...]. The good old man D Chiron was my Tutor, and he taught me to use simplicity and honesty in all my manners. It was well and noble; But yet some wise men do not condemn all souldiers that use to get victories by deceit: Saint Austin allows it to be lawful; and Saint Chrysostome Quae. 10. super Joshuam lib. 1. de sacerdotio. commends it. These Good men supposed that a crafty victory was better then a bloody war; and certainly so it is, if the power gotten by craft be not exercised in blood: But this businesse (as to the case of conscience) will quickly be determined. Enemies are no persons bound by contract and society, and therefore are not obliged to open hostilities and ingenuous prosecutions of the war; E and if it be lawful to take by violence, it is not unjust to take the same thing by craft. But this is so to be understood, that where there is an obligation either by the law of nations or by special contracts, No man dare to violate his faith or honour, but in these things deal with an ingenuity equal to the truth of peacefull [Page] A promises, and acts of favour and endearment to our relatives. Josephus tells of the sons of Herod, that in their enmities with their Vncle Pherora and Salome they had disagreeing manners of prosecution, as they had disagreeing hearts; some railed openly, and thought their enmity the more honest, because it was not concealed, but by their ignorance and rude, untutor'd malice lay open to the close designes of the elder brood of foxes. In this because it Hist l. 16. cap. 6 was a particular and private quarrel, there is no rule of conscience but that it be wholly laid aside, and appeased with charity; for the opennesse of the quarrel was but the rage and indiscretion of the B malice: and the close designe was but the craft and advantage of the malice: But in just wars on that side where a competent authority and a just cause warrants the arms and turns the active opposition into the excuse and licence of defence, there is no restraint upon the actions and words of men in the matter of sincerity, but that the laws of nations be strictly pursued and all parties; promises, and contracts observed religiously & by the proportion of a private & Christian ingenuity. We finde it by wise and good men mentioned with honour, that the Romans threw bread from the besieged Capitol into the stations of the Gauls, that they might think them full of C corn: and that Agesilaus discouraged the enemies by causing his own men to wear crowns in token of a Navall victory gotten by Pisander who yet was at that time destroyed by Conon, and that Flaccus said the city was taken by Emilius, or that Joshua dissembled a flight at Ai, and the Consul Quinctius told aloud that the left wing of the enemies was fled, and that made the right wing fly; or that Valerius Levinus bragged prudently that he had killed Pyrrhus, and that others use the ensigns of enemies colours and garments, concerning which sort of actions and words Agesilaus, in Plutarch said [...]. D It is just and pleasant, profitable and glorious, but to call a parley and fall in upon the men that treat; to swear a peace and watch advantage; to entertain Heralds and then to torment them, to get from them notices of their party; these are such which are dishonorable and unjust, condemned by the laws of nations and essential justice, & by all the world and the Hungarian army was destroyed by a divine judgement at the prayer & appeal of the Mahumetan enemy, for their violating their faith and honour and prophaning the name of Christ by using it in a solemn oath to deceive their enemies, [...]: that is to dispise E God when men first sware by him, and then violate their oathes or leagues, their treaties or promises. In other cases liberty hath been taken by all men and it is reproved by no man, since the first simplicity of fighting & down right blows did cease by the better instructed people of the world: which was as is usually computed, about the end of the second Carthaginian war; since that time, [Page] some few persons have been found so noble as to scorn to steal a A victory, but had rather have the glory of a sharp sword, then of a sharp wit; But their fighting gallantry is extrinsecal to the Question of lawful or unlawful

6. Thus we see how far the laws of ingenuity and Christian simplicity have put fetters upon our words and actions and directed them in the paths of truth and noblenesse, and the first degrees of permission of simulation is in the arts of war, and the cases of just hostility. But here it is usually inquired whether it be lawful to tell a lie, or dissemble to save a good mans life, or to do him a great benefit? a Question which Saint Austine was much troubled withal affirming it to be of the greatest difficulty: for he saw generally B all the Doctors before his time allowed it; and of all the fathers no man is noted to have reproved it but Saint Austin alone, and he also (as his manner is) with some variety: those which followed him are to be accounted upon his score: and it relies upon such precedents which are not lightly to be disallowed; for so Abraham and Isaac told a lie in the case of their own danger to Abimelech; so did the Israelitish midwives to Pharaoh and Rachab concering the spies, and David to the King of Gath, and the prophet that anointed Saul, and Elisha to Hazael, and Solomon in the sentence of the stolen childe; concerning which Irenaeus hath given us a C rule that those whose actions the Scripture hath remarked, & yet not chastised or censured, we are not without great reason and certain rule to condemn: but whether his rule can extend to this case is now to be enquired.

1. It is certain that children may be cozned into goodnesse, and sick men to health, and passengers in a storm into fafety; and the reason of these is, because not onely the end is fair and charitable and just, but the means are such which do no injury to the persons which are to receive benefit: Because these are persons who D are either naturally or accidentally ignorant and incompetent judges of affaires: and if they be also wilful as such persons most commonly are, there is in art and nature left no wayes to deal with them but with innocent, charitable, and artificial deceptions; they are not capable of reason and solid discourses, and therefore either must be exposed to all harms like Lions whelps when their nurse and sire are taken in a toile, or else be provided for in wages proportionable to their capacitie.

2. Sinners may not be treated with the liberty we take to children and sick persons, because they must serve God with choice E and election; and therefore although a sick man may be cozened into his health, yet a man must not be cozened into his duty, which is no duty at all or pleasing to God, unlesse it be voluntary and chosen: and therefore they are to be treated with arguments proper to move their wills by the instrument of understanding specially, [Page] A being persons of perfect faculties and apt to be moved by the wayes of health and of a man. It is an argument of infirmity that in some cases it is necessary to make pretences; but those pretences are not made legitimate, unlesse it be the infirmity of the interested man with whom we do comply. My infirmity can not make it lawful to make colours and images of things: But the infirmity of him with whom I deal, may be such, that he can be defended or instructed no other way: But sinners that offend God by choice must have their choice corrected, and their understandings instructed or else their evill is not cured nor their state amended.

B 2. For it is here very observable, that in entercourses of this nature we are to regard a double duty; the matter of justice, and the rights of charity: that is, that good be done by lawful instruments; for it is certain it is not lawful to abuse a mans understanding, with a purpose to gain him 6. d. it is not fit to do evil for a good end, or to abuse one man to preserve or do advantage to another: and therefore it is not sufficient that I intend to do good to my neighbour; for I may not therefore tell a lie and abuse his credulity; because his understanding hath a right as certain as his will hath, or as C his money; and his right to truth is no more to be cozened and defrauded, then his right unto his money; and therefore such artificial entercourses are no wayes to be permitted, but to such persons over whose understandings we have power and authority. Plato said it was lawful for Kings and Governours to dissemble, because there is great necessity for them so to do: but it was but crudely said, so nakedly to deliver the doctrine for in such things which the people cannot understand and yet ought to obey, there is a liberty to use them as we use children, who are of no other condition or capacities then children; but in all things where they can and ought D to choose, because their understanding is onely a servant to God, no man hath power to abuse their credulity and reason, to preserve their estates, and peace. But because Children and mad people and diseased, are such whose underdandings are in minority and under Tuition, they are to be governed by their proper instruments and proportions; [...] said Proclus, a good turn is to be preferred before a true saying, it is onely true to such persons who cannot value truth, and prefer an intellectual before a material interest. It is better for children to have warm clothes then a true proposition, and therefore in all senses they and E their like may be so treated: But other persons who have distinct capacities have an injury done them by being abused into advantages; and although those advantages make them recompence, yet he that is tied to make a man recompence, hath done him injury and committed a sin, by which he was obliged to restitution; & therefore the man ought not to be cozened for his own good

[Page] 4. And now upon the grounds of this discourse, we may more A easily determine concerning saving the life of a man by telling a lie in judgement [...] said Pericles of Athens when his friend desired him to swear on his side; I will assist my friend so far as I may not dishonour God, and to lie in judgment is directly against the being of government, the honour of Tribunals and the commandement of God, and therefore by no accident can be hallowed; it is [...] as Aristotle said of a lie, it is a thing evil in it self, that is, it is evil in the whole kinde, ever since it came to be forbidden by God: and therefore all those instances of crafty and delusive answers which are recorded in scripture B were extrajudicial and had not this load upon them to be a deceiving of authority in those things where they had right to command or inquire, & either were before or besides the commandment, not at all against it: and since the law of Moses forbad lying in judgement onely, by that law we are to judge of those actions in the old testament which were committed after its publication: and because in the sermons of the prophets and especially in the new testament Christ hath superadded or enlarged the law of ingenuity & hearty simplicity, we are to leave the old scripture precedents upon the ground of their own permissions, and finish our duty by the rules of our religion: C which hath so restrained our words, that they must alwayes be just and alwayes charitable, and there is no leave given to prevaricate but to such persons where there can be no obligation, persons that have no right, such with whom no contract can be made; such as children and fools and infirm persons, whose faculties are hindred or depraved. I remember that Secundus extremely commends Arria for deluding her husbands fears concerning the death of his beloved boy, and wiped her eyes and came in confidently and sate by her husbands bed-side, and when she could no longer forbear to weep, her husbands sicknesse was excuse enough to legitimate D that sorrow, or else she could retire; but so long she forbore to confess the boy's death til Caecinna Paetus had so far recovered that he could go forth to see the boy and need not fear with sorrow to returne to his disease. It was indeed a great kindnesse and a rare prudence as their affaires and laws were ordered; but we have better means to cure our sick; our religion can charme the passion and enable the spirit to entertain and master a sorrow; and when we have such rare supplies out of the store-houses of reason and religion we have lesse reason to use these arts and little deviees, which are arguments of an infirmity as great as is the charity: and therefore we are E to keep our selves strictly to the foregoing measures; Let every man speak the truth to his neighbour, putting away lying, for we are members one of another: and be as harmlesse as doves saith our blessed Saviour Ephes. 4. 25. in my text: which contain the whole duty concerning the matter of truth and sincerity; in both which places truth and simplicity [Page] A are founded upon justice and charity: and therefore wherever a lie is in any sense against justice, and wrongs any thing of a man, his judgement and his reason, his right or his liberty, it is expresly forbidden in the Christian religion: what cases we can truly suppose to be besides these, the law forbids not and therefore it is lawful to say that to my self which I believe not, for what innocent purpose I please and to all those over whose understanding I have or ought to have right.

These cases are intricate enough, and therefore I shall return plainly to presse the doctrine of simplicity which ought to be so sacred B that a man ought to do nothing indirectly which it is not lawful to own; to receive no advantage by the sin of another, which I should account dishonest if the action were my own; for whatsoever disputes may be concerning the lawfulnesse of pretending craftily in some rare and contingent cases, yet it is on all hands condemned that my craft should do injury to my brother. I remember that when some greedy and indigent people forged a will of Lucius Minutius Basilius and joyned M. Crassus, and Q. Hortensius in the inheritance that their power for their own interest might secure the others share, they suspecting the thing to be a forgery, yet being C not principals and actors in the contrivance alieni facinoris munus culum non repudiaverunt, refused not to receive a present made them by anothers crime; but so they entred upon a moiety of the estate and the biggest share of the dishonour: we must not be crafty to anothers injury so much as by giving countenance to the wrong; for Tortoises and the Estrich hatch their egges with their looks onely; and some have designes which a dissembling face or an acted gesture can produce; but as a man may commit adultery with his eye so with his eye also he may tell a lie, and steal with one finger and do injury collaterally and yet designe it with a direct intuition upon D which he looks with his face over his shoulder: and by whatsoever instrument my neighbour may be abused, by the same instrument I sin if I do designe it antecedently, or fal upon it together with something else, or rejoyce in it when it is done.

7. One thing more I am to adde, that it is not lawful to tell a lie in jest. It was a vertue noted in Aristides and Epaminondes that they would not lie [...] not in sport: and as Christian simplicity forbids all lying in matter of interest and serious rights: so there is an appendix to this precept forbidding to lie in mirth; for of every idle word a man shall speak he shall give account in the day of E judgment: and such are the jestings which S. Paul reckons amongst things uncomly; But amongst these; fables, apologues, parables or figures of Rhetorick, and any artificial instrument of instruction, or innocent pleasure are not to be reckoned; But he that without any end of charity or institution shal tell lies onely to become ridiculous in himself or mock another, hath set some thing upon his doomsday [Page] book which must be taken off, by water or by fire, that is, by repentance A or a judgement.

Nothing is easier then simplicity and ingenuity, it is open and ready without trouble and artificial cares, fit for communities and the proper vertue of men, the necessary appendage of useful speech, without which language were given to men as nails and teeth to Lions, for nothing but to do mischief; it is a rare instrument of institution, and a certain token of courage, the companion of goodnesse and a noble minde, the preserver of friendship, the band of society, B the security of merchants, and the blessing of trade; it prevents infinite of quarrels and appeals to Judges, and suffers none of the evils of Jealousie: men by simplicity converse as do the Angels, they do their own work and secure their proper interest, and serve the publick and do glory to God: But hypocrites and liars and dissemblers spread darknesse over the face of affaires and make men like the blinde to walk softly and timorously: and crafty men like the close aire such that which is open, and devour its portion and destroy its liberty; and it is the guise of devils, and the dishonour of the soul, and the canker of society, and the enemy of justice, and truth and peace of wealth and honour, of courage and merchandise, He is a good man with whom a blind man may safely converse dignus quicum in tenebris mices to whom in respect of his fair treatings, C the darknesse and light are both alike: But he that bears light upon the face and a dark heart, is like him that transforms himself into an Angel of light, when he means to do most mischief. Remember this onely; that false colours laid upon the face besmear the skin and durty it, but they neither make a beauty nor mend it.

Apocal: 22. 15.

For without shall be dogs and sorcerers, and whoremongers and D Murderers and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. E

B Sermon. XXV. THE MIRACLES C OF THE DIVINE MERCY.

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Psalm. 86. 5.‘For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee. D’

MAN having destroyed that which God delighted in, that is, the beauty of his soul, fell into an evil portion, and being seized upon by the divine justice, grew miserable, and condemned to an incurable sorrow. Poor Adam being banished and undone, went and lived a sad life in the mountains of India, and turned his face and his prayers towards E Paradise; thither he sent his sighes, to that place he directed his devotions; there was his heart now, and his felicity sometimes had been; but he knew not how to return thither, for God was his enemy, and by many of his attributes opposed himself against him. Gods power was armed against him; and poor man, whom a fly, or a fish could kill, was assaulted and [Page] beaten with a sword of fire in the hand of a Cherubim. Gods eye A watched him, his omniscience was mans accuser, his severity was the Judge, his justice the executioner. It was a mighty calamity that man was to undergo, when he that made him, armed himself against his creature, which would have died or turned to nothing, if he had but withdrawn the miracles and the Almightinesse of his power. If God had taken his arm from under him, man had perished; but it was therefore a greater evil when God laid his arm upon him and against him, and seemed to support him that he might be longer killing him. In the midst of these sadnesses God remembered his own creature, and pitied it, and by his mercy rescued B him from the hand of his power, and the sword of his justice, and the guilt of his punishment, and the disorder of his sin, and placed him in that order of good things where he ought to have stood: It was mercy that preserved the noblest of Gods creatures here below; he who stood condemned and undone under all the other attributes of God, was onely saved and rescued by his mercy: that it may be evident that Gods mercy is above all his works, and above all ours, greater then the creation, and greater then our sins; as is his Majesty, so is his mercy, that is, without measures, and without rules, sitting in heaven and filling all the world, calling C for a duty that he may give a blessing, making man that he may save him, punishing him that he may preserve him: and Gods justice bowed down to his mercy, and all his power passed into mercy, and his omniscience converted into care and watchfulnesse, into providence, and observation for mans avail, and Heaven gave its influence for man, and rained showers for our food and drink, and the Attributes and Acts of God sat at the foot of mercy, and all that mercy descended upon the head of man: For so the light of the world in the morning of the creation was spread abroad like a curtain, and dwelt no where, but filled the expansum with a dissemination D great as the unfoldings of the airs looser garment, or the wilder fringes of the fire, without knots, or order or combination; but God gathered the beams in his hand, and united them into a globe of fire, and all the light of the world became the body of the Sun, and he lent some to his weaker sister that walks in the night, and guides a traveller and teaches him to distinguish a house from a river, or a rock from a plain field; so is the mercy of God; a vast expansum and a huge Ocean, from eternall ages it dwelt round about the throne of God, and it filled all that infinite distance and space, that hath no measures but the will of God; untill E God desiring to communicate that excellency and make it relative, created Angels, that he might have persons capable of huge gifts, and man, who he knew would need forgivenesse; for so the Angels our elder Brothers dwelt for ever in the house of their Father, and never brake his commandements; but we the younger [Page] A like prodigals, forsook our fathers house, and went into a strange countrey, and followed stranger courses, and spent the portion of our nature, and forfeited all our title to the family, and came to need another portion: for ever since the fall of Adam, who like an unfortunate man spent all that a wretched man could need, or a happy man could have, our life is repentance, and forgivenesse is all our portion: and though Angels were objects of Gods bounty, yet man onely is (in proper speaking) the object of his mercy. And the mercy which dwelt in an infinite circle, became confin'd to a little ring, and dwelt here below, and here shall dwell below, B till it hath carried all Gods portion up to heaven, where it shall reigne and glory upon our crowned heads for ever and ever.

But for him that considers Gods mercies, and dwels a while in that depth, it is hard not to talk wildly and without art, and order of discoursings: Saint Peter talked he knew not what, when he entered into a cloud with Jesus upon mount Tabor, though it passed over him like the little curtains that ride upon the Northwinde, and passe between the Sun and us: And when we converse with a light greater then the Sun, and tast a sweetnesse more delicious C then the dew of heaven, and in our thoughts entertain the ravishments and harmony of that atonement which reconciles God to man, and man to felicity, it will be more easily pardoned, if we should be like persons that admire much, and say but little: and indeed we can best confesse the glories of the Lord by dazeled eyes and a stammering tongue, and a heart overcharged with the miracles of this infinity; For so those little drops that run over, though they be not much in themselves, yet they tell that the vessell was full, and could expresse the greatnesse of the shower no otherwise, but by spilling, and inartificiall expressions and runnings D over. But because I have undertaken to tell the drops of the Ocean, and to span the measures of eternity, I must do it by the great lines of revelation, and experience, and tell concerning Gods mercy as we do concerning God himself, that he is that great fountain of which we all drink, and the great rock of which we all eat, and on which we all dwell, and under whose shadow we all are refreshed. Gods mercy is all this, and we can onely draw great lines of it, and reckon the constellations of our hemisphere instead of telling the number of the stars: we onely can reckon what we feel, and what we live by; And though there be in every one of E these lines of life enough to ingage us for ever to do God service, and to give him praises, yet it is certain there are very many mercies of God upon us, and toward us, and concerning us, which we neither feel, nor see, nor understand as yet; but yet we are blessed by them, and are preserved and secured; and we shall then know them, when we come to give God thanks in the festivities [Page] of an eternall sabbath. But that I may confine my discourse into A order, since the subject of it cannot, I consider;

1. That mercy being an emanation of the Divine goodnesse upon us, and supposes us, and found us miserable; In this account concerning the mercies of God, I must not reckon the miracles and graces of the creation, or any thing of the nature of man; nor tell how great an endearment God passed upon us that he made us men, capable of felicity, apted with rare instruments of discourse, and reason, passions, and desires, notices of sense, and reflections B upon that sense, that we have not the deformity of a Crocodile, nor the motion of a Worm, nor the hunger of a Wolf, nor the wildenesse of a Tigre, nor the birth of Vipers, nor the life of flies, nor the death of serpents.

Our excellent bodies, and usefull faculties, the upright motion, and the tenacious hand, the fair appetites, and proportioned satisfactions, our speech and our perceptions, our acts of life, the rare invention of letters, and the use of writing, and speaking at distance, the intervals of rest and labour, (either of which if they were perpetual would be intolerable) the needs of nature, and the provisions of providence, sleep, and businesse, refreshments of the body, and entertainment of the soul; these are to be reckoned as acts of bounty rather then mercy; God gave us these when he C made us, and before we needed mercy; these were portions of our nature, or provided to supply our consequent necessities; but when we forfeited all Gods favour by our sins, then that they were continued, or restored to us, became a mercy, and therefore ought to be reckoned upon this new account; for it was a rare mercy that we were suffered to live at all, or that the Anger of God did permit to us one blessing; that he did punish us so gently: But when the rack is changed into an ax, and the ax into an imprisonment, and the imprisonment changed into an enlargement, and the D enlargement into an entertainment in the family, and this entertainment passes on to an adoption, these are steps of a mighty favour, and perfect redemption from our sin: and the returning back our own goods is a gift, and a perfect donative, sweetned by the apprehensions of the calamity, from whence every lesser punishment began to free us; and thus it was, that God punished us and visited the sin of Adam upon his posterity. He threatned we should die, and so we did, but not so as we deserved; we waited for death and stood sentenced, and are daily summoned by sicknesses and uneasinesse; and every day is a new reprieve, and brings a new E favour, certain as the revolution of the Sun upon that day, and at last when we must die by the irreversible decree, that death, is changed into a sleep, and that sleep is in the bosom of Christ, and there dwels all peace and security, and it shall passe forth into glories and felicities. We looked for a Judge, and behold a Saviour; we [Page] A feared an accuser, and behold an Advocate; we sate down in sorrow, and rise in joy; we leaned upon Rhubarb and Aloes, and our aprons were made of the sharp leaves of Indian fig-trees, and so we fed, and so were clothed: But the Rhubarb proved medicinal, and the rough leaf of the tree brought its fruit wrapped up in its foldings; and round about our dwellings was planted a hedge of thornes, and bundles of thistles, the Aconite, and the Briony, the Night-shade, and the Poppy, and at the root of these grew the healing Plantain, which rising up into a talnesse, by the friendly invitation of a heavenly influence, turn'd about the tree of the B crosse, and cured the wounds of the thorns, and the curse of the thistles, and the malediction of man, and the wrath of God. Si sic irascitur, quomodo convivatur? If God be thus kinde when he is Angry, what is he when he feasts us with caresses of his more tender Kindnesse? All that God restored to us after the fo [...]feiture of Adam grew to be a double Kindnesse; for it became the expression of a bounty which knew not how to repent, a graciousnesse that was not to be altered, though we were, and that was it which we needed. That's the first generall: all the bounties of the creation became mercies to us, when God continued them to us C and restored them after they were forfeit.

2. But as a circle begins every where, and ends no where, so do the mercies of God: after all this huge progresse, now it began anew: God is good and gracious, and God is ready to forgive. Now that he had once more made us capable of mercies God had what he desired, and what he could rejoyce in, something upon which he might pour forth his mercies; and by the way, this I shall observe, (for I cannot but speak without art, when I speak of that which hath no measure) God made us capable of one sort of his mercies, and we made our selves capable of another: D God is good and gracious, that is, desirous to give great gifts; and of this, God made us receptive, first by giving us naturall possibilities, that is, by giving those gifts he made us capable of more; and next, by restoring us to his favour, that he might not by our provocations be hindered from raining down his mercies. But God is also ready to forgive] and of this kinde of mercy we made our selves capable, even by not deserving it; Our sin made way for his grace, and our infirmities called upon his pity; and because we sinned, we became miserable, and because we were miserable, we became pitiable, and this opened the other treasure E of his mercy; that because our sin abounds, his grace may superabound. In this method we must confine our thoughts;

1. Giving, Thou Lord art good▪ and ready to forgive, plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee.

2. Forgiving, Thou Lord art good▪ and ready to forgive, plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee.

3. Gods mercies, or the mercies of his giving, came first upon [Page] us by mending of our nature: For the ignorance we fell into is A instructed and better learned in spirituall notices then Adams morning knowledge in Paradise, our appetites are made subordinate to the spirit, and the liberty of our wills is improved, having the liberty of the sons of God, and Christ hath done us more grace and advantage then we lost in Adam; and as man lost Paradise and got Heaven, so he lost the integrity of the first, and got the perfection of the second Adam: his living soul is changed into a quickning spirit, our discerning faculties are filled with the spirit of faith, and our passions and desires are entertained with hope, and our election is sanctified with charity; and his first life of a B temporall possession is passed into a better, a life of spirituall expectations; and though our first parent was forbidden it, yet we live of the fruits of the tree of life. But I instance in two great things in which humane nature is greatly advanced, and passed on to greater perfections; The first is, that besides body and soul, which was the summe totall of Adams constitution. God hath superadded to us a third principle, the beginner of a better life; I mean, the Spirit: so that now, man hath a spiritual and celestial Vide Serm. II. nature breathed into him, and the old man, that is, the old constitution is the least part and in its proper operations is dead, or dying, C but the new man is that which gives denomination, life, motion, and proper actions to a Christian, and that is renewed in us day by day. But secondly, Humane nature is so highly exalted, and mended by that mercy which God sent immediately upon the fall of Adam, the promise of Christ, that when he did come, and actuate the purposes of this mission, and ascended up into heaven, he carried humane nature above the seats of Angels; to the place whither Lucifer the son of the morning aspird to ascend, but in his attempt fell into hell. For (so said the Prophet) the son of the morning said, I will ascend into heaven, and sit in the sodes of the North, D that is, the throne of Jesus seated in the East, called the sides, or obliquity of the North: and as the seating of his humane nature in that glorious seat brought to him all adoration, and the Majesty of God, and the greatest of his exaltation: So it was so great an advancement to us, that all the Angels of heaven take notice of it, and feel a change in the appendage of their condition: not that they are lessened, but that we, who in nature are lesse then Angels, have a relative dignity greater, and an equall honour of being fellow-servants. This mystery is plain in Scripture, and the reall effect of it we read in both the Testaments. When Manoah the E Judges 13. father of Sampson saw an Angel, he worshipped him; and in the old Testament it was esteemed lawfull; for they were the lieutenants of God, sent with the impresses of his Majesty, and took in his Name the homage from us, who then were so much their inferiours. But when the man Christ Jesus was exalted, and made the [Page] A Lord of all the Angels, then they became our fellow servants, and might not receive worship from any of the servants of Jesus, especially from Prophets and Martyrs and those that are ministers of the testimony of Jesus. And therefore when an Angel appeared to Saint John, and he according to the Custom of the Jews fell down and worshipped him, as not yet knowing or not considering any thing to the contrary, the Angell reproved him, saying, see thou do it not, I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren the prophets and of them John Revel. 22. 9. de bono patientiae which keep the sayings of this book: worship God; or as Saint Cyprian reads it, worship Jesus. God and man are now onely capable of worship: B but no Angel; God essentially; Man in the person of Christ and in the exaltation of our great Redeemer; but Angels not so high, and therefore not capable of any religious worship: and this dignity of man Saint Gregory explicates fully. Quid est quod ante Redemptoris adventum adorantur ab hominibus [Angeli] & tacent, Homil. 8. in Evange. postmodum vero adorarirefugiunt: why did the Angels of old receive worshippings and were silent, but in the new testament decline it and fear to accept it? Nisi quod naturam nostram quam prius despexerant, postquam hanc super se assumptam aspiciunt prostratam sibi videre pertimescunt, nec jam sub se velut insirmam contemnere ausi C sunt, quam super se viz. in caeli Rege venerantur: the reason is, because they seeing our nature which they did so lightly value raised up above them they fear to see humbled under them, neither do they any more despise the weaknesse which themselves worship in the King of heaven. The same also is the sense of the Glosse, of Saint Ambrose, Ansbertus, Haymo, Rupertus and others of old; and Ribera, Salmeron, and Lewis of Granada of late; which being so plainly consonant to the words of the Angel and consigned by the testimony of such men, I the rather note, that those who worship Angels and make religious addresses to them, may see what priviledge themselves lose and how they part with the honour D of Christ who in his nature relative to us, is exalted far above all thrones and principalities and dominions. I need not adde lustre to this; It is like the Sun the biggest body of light and nothing can describe it so well as its own beams: and there is not in nature or the advantages of honour any thing greater then that we have the issues of that mercy which makes us fellow servants with Angels, too much honoured to pay them a religious worship, whose Lord is a man, and he that is their King is our Brother.

4. To this for the likenesse of the matter I adde, that the divine E mercy hath so prosecuted us with the enlargement of his favours, that we are not onely fellow ministers and servants with the Angels and in our nature in the person of Christ exalted above them, but we also shall be their Judges; and if this be not an honour above that of Joseph or Mordecai, an honour beyond all the measures of a man, then there is in honour no degrees no priority or [Page] distances, or characters of fame and noblenesse. Christ is the great A Judge of all the world, his humane nature shall then triumph over evil men and evil spirits, then shall the Devils, those Angels that fel from their first originals be brought in their chains from their dark prisons and once be allowed to see the light, that light that shall confound them; while all that follow the lamb, and that are accounted worthy of that resurrection shall be assessors in the judgment. Know ye not, (saith, S. Paul) that ye shall judge Angels? And Tertullian 1 Cor. 6. 3. speaking concerning Devils and accursed spirits [de cultu foeminarum] saith, Hi sunt Angeli quos judicaturi sumus, Hi sunt Angeli quibus in lavacro renunciavimus. Those Angels which we renounced B in baptisme those we shall judge in the day of the Lords Glory, in the great day of recompences: And that the honour may be yet greater the same day of sentence that condemns the evil Angels shal also reward the good, and increase their glory: which because they derive from their Lord and ours, from their King and our elder Brother, the King of glories, whose glorious hands shall put the crown upon all our heads, we who shall be servants of that judgement and some way or other assist in it, have a part of that honour, to be judges of all Angels, and of all the world. The effect of these things ought to be this, that we do not by base actions dishonour C that nature that sits upon the throne of God, that reigns over Angels, that shall sit in judgement upon all the world. It is a great undecency that the son of a King should bear water upon his head, and dresse vineyards among the slaves; or to see a wise man and the guide of his country drink-drunk among the meanest of his servants; but when members of Christ shall be made members of an harlot, and that which rides above a rain-bow stoopes to an imperious whorish woman, when the soul that is sister to the Lord of Angels, shall degenerate into the foolishnesse or rage of a beast, being drowned with the blood of the grape, or made mad with D passion, or ridiculous with weaker follies, we shall but strip our selves of that robe of honour with which Christ hath invested, and adorned our nature, and carry that portion of humanity which is our own, and which God had honoured in some capacities above Angels, into a portion of an eternal shame, and became lesse in all senses, and equally disgraced with Devils. The shame and sting of this change shall be, that we turned the glories of the Divine mercy into the basenesse of ingratitude and the amazement of suffering the Divine vengeance. But I passe on. E

5. The next order of Divine mercies that I shall remark is also an improvement of our nature or an appendage to it: for whereas our constitution is weak, our souls apt to diminution and impedite faculties, our bodies to mutilation and imperfection, to blindnesse and crookednesse, to stammering and sorrows, to baldnesse [Page] A and deformity to evil conditions and accidents of body, and to passions and sadnesse of spirit, God hath in his infinite mercy provided for every condition rare suppletories of comfort and usefulnesse to make recompence and sometimes with an overrunning proportion for those natural defects which were apt to make our persons otherwise contemptible and our conditions intolerable; God gives to blinde men better memories. For upon this account it is, that Rufinus makes mention of Didymus of Alexandria, who being blinde, was blessed with a rare attention and singular memory, and by prayer, and hearing, and meditating, and B discoursing, came to be one of the most excellent Divines of that whole age. And it was more remarkable in Nicasius Machliniensis, who being blockish at his book in his first childhood fell into accidental blindnesse, and from thence continually grew to so quick an appretension and so tenacious a memory, that he became the wonder of his contemporaries, and was chosen Rector of the College at Mechlin, and was made licentiate of Theology at Lovaine, and Doctor of both the laws, at Colein, living and dying in great reputation for his rare parts and excellent learning. At the C same rate also God deals with men in other instances; want of children he recompences with freedom from care, and whatsoever evil happens to the body is therefore most commonly single and unaccompanied, because God accepts that evil as the punishment of the sin of the man, or the instrument of his vertue, or his security, and is reckoned as a sufficient cure, or a sufficient Antidote. God hath laid laid a severe law upon all women that in sorrow they shall bring forth children, yet God hath so attempered that sorrow, that they think themselves more accursed if they want that sorrow, and they have reason to rejoyce in that state, the trouble of whic is alleviared by a promise, that they shall be saved in bearing children. He that wants one eye hath the force and vigorousnesse of both united in that which is left him; and when ever any man is afflicted with sorrow his reason and his religion, himself and all his friends, persons that are civil, and persons that are obliged, run in to comfort him, and he may, if he will observe wisely, finde so many circumstances of ease and remission, so many designes of providence and studied favours, such contrivances of collateral advantage and certain reserves of substantial and proper comfort, that in the whole sum of affaires, it often happens that a single crosse is a double blessing, E & that even in a temporal sense it is better to go to the house of mourning, then of joyes and festival egressions. Is not the affliction of poverty better then the prosperity of a great and tempting fortune? does not wisdom dwell in a mean estate and a low spirit retired thoughts and under a sad roof? and is it not generally true that sicknesse it self is appayed with religion and holy thoughts with pious resolutions and penitential prayers, with returns to God and [Page] to sober councels? and if this be true, that God sends sorrow to A cure sin, and affliction be the hand-maid to grace, it is also certain that every sad contingency in nature is doubly recompenced with the advantages of religion, besides those intervening refreshments which support the spirit, and refresh its instruments. I shall need to instance but once more in this particular.

God hath sent no greater evil into the world, then that in the sweat of our brows we shall eat our bread, and in the difficulty and agony, in the sorrows and contention of our souls we shall work out our salvation. But see how in the first of these God hath out done his own anger and defeated the purposes of his wrath by B the inundation of his mercy; for this labour and sweat of our brows is so far from being a curse that without it our very bread would not be so great a blessing. It is not labour that makes the Garlick and the pulse, the Sycamore and the Cresses, the cheese of the Goats and the butter of the sheep to be savoury and pleasant, as the flesh of the Roe-buek or the milk of the Kine, the marrow of Oxen or the thighs of birds? If it were not for labour, men neither could eat so much, nor relish so pleasantly, nor sleep so soundly nor be so healthful, nor so useful, so strong nor so patient, so noble, or so untempted, and as God hath made us beholding to labour for C the purchase of many good things, so the thing it self ows to labour, many degrees of its worth and value: and therefore I need not reckon that besides these advantages, the mercies of God have found out proper and natural remedies for labour; Nights to cure the sweat of the day, sleep to ease our watchfulnesse, rest to alleviate our burdens, and dayes of religion to procure our rest: and things are so ordered that labour is become a duty, and an act of many vertues, and is not so apt to turne into a sin as is its contrary, and is therefore necessary, not onely because we need it, for making provisions of our life, but even to ease the labour of our rest; there D being no greater tediousnesse of spirit in the world then want of imployment, and an unactive life: and the lasie man is not onely unprofitable, but also accursed, and he groans under the load of his time, which yet passes over the active man light, as a dreame or the feathers of a bird, while the disimployed, is a desease, and like a long sleeplesse night to himself, and a load unto his country: And therefore although in this particular God hath been so merciful in this infliction that from the sharpnesse of the curse a very great part of mankinde are freed, and there are myriads of people, good and bad, who do not eat their bread in the sweat of their E brows, yet this is but an overrunning and an excesse of the divine mercy; God did more for us then we did absolutely need; for he hath disposed of the circumstances of this curse, that mans affections are so reconciled to it, that they desire it, and are delighted in it; and so the Anger of God is ended in loving Kindnesse, and [Page] A the drop of water is lost in the full chalice of the wine, and the curse is gone out into a multiplied blessing.

But then for the other part of the severe law and laborious imposition, that we must work out our spiritual interest with the labours of our spirit, seems to most men to be so intolerable, that rather then passe under it they quit their hopes of heaven, and passe into the portion of Devils; and what can there be to alleviate this sorrow, that a man shall be perpetually sollicited with an impure tempter, and shall carry a flame within him, and all the world is on fire round about him, and every thing brings fuel to the flame, and full tables are a snare, and empty tables are collateral servants to a B lust, and help to blow the fire and kindle the heap of prepared temptations, and yet a man must not at all tast of the forbidden fruit, and he must not desire what he cannot choose but desire, and he must not enjoy whatsoever he does violently covet, and must never satisfy his appetite in the most violent importunities, but must therefore deny himself, because to do so is extremely troublesome; this seems to be an art of torture and a devise to punish man with the spirit of agony, and a restlesse vexation. But this also hath in it a great ingredient of mercy, or rather is nothing else but a C heap of mercy in its intire constitution: For if it were not for this we had nothing of our own to present to God, nothing proportionable to the great rewards of heaven, but either all men or no man must go thither; for nothing can distinguish man from man in order to beatitude but choice and election, and nothing can enoble the choice but love, and nothing can exercise love but difficulty, and nothing can make that difficulty but the contradiction of our appetite and the crossing of our natural affections; and therefore when ever any of you is tempted violently or grow weary in your spirits with resisting the petulancy of temptation, you may be cured if you D will please but to remember and rejoyce, that now you have something of your own to give to God; something that he will be pleased to accept, something that he hath given thee that thou mayest give it him: for our mony and our time, our dayes of feasting and our dayes of sorrow, our discourse and our acts of praise, our prayers and our songs, our vows and our offerings, our worshippings and prostrations, and whatsoever else can be accounted in the sum of our religion, are onely accepted according as they bear along with them portions of our wil and choice of love and appendant difficulty.

E Laetius est quoties magno tibi constat honestum.

So that whoever can complain that he serves God with pains and mortifications, he is troubled because there is a distinction of things such as we call vertue and vice, reward and punishment, [Page] and if he will not suffer God to distinguish the first he will certainly A confound the latter; and his portion shall be blacknesse without variety and punishment shall be his reward.

6. As an appendage to this instance of divine mercy, we are to account that not onely in nature; but in contingency and emergent events of providence, God makes compensation to us, for all the evils of chance, and hostilities of accident▪ & brings good out of evil, which is that solemn triumph which mercy makes over justice, when it rides upon a cloud and crowns its darknesse with a robe of glorious light. God indeed suffered Joseph to be sold a bondslave into Egypt, but then it was that God intended to crown and reward B his chastity; for by that means he brought him to a fair condition of dwelling and there gave him a noble trial; he had a brave contention and he was a conqueror: Then God sent him to prison, but still that was mercy, it was to make way to bring him to Pharaohs court; and God brought famine upon Canaan, and troubled all the souls of Jacobs family, and there was a plot laid for another mercy; this was to bring them to see and partake of Josephs glory: and then God brought a great evil upon their posterity and they groaned under task-masters, but this God changed into the miracles of his mercy, and suffered them to be afflicted that he C might do ten miracles for their sakes, and proclaim to all the world how dear they were to God. And was not the greatest good to mankinde brought forth from the greatest treason that ever was committed; the redemption of the world from the fact of Judas, God loving to defeat the malice of man and the arts of the Devil by rare emergencies and stratagems of mercy? It is a sad calamity to see a kingdom spoiled, and a church afflicted, the Priests slain with the sword, and the blood of Nobles mingled with cheaper sand, religion made a cause of trouble, and the best men most cruelly persecuted, Government confounded, and laws ashamed, Judges decreeing D causes in fear and covetousnesse, and the ministers of holy things setting themselves against all that is sacred, and setting fire upon the fields, and turning in little foxes on purpose to destroy the vineyards; and what shall make recompence for this heap of sorrows, when ever God shall send such swords of fire? even the mercies of God which then will be made publick, when we shall hear such afflicted people sing Inconvertendo captivitatem Sion with the voice of joy and festival eucharist, among such as keep holy day; and when peace shall become sweeter and dwell the longer; and in the mean time it serves religion, and the affliction shall try the children E of God, and God shall crown them, and men shall grow wiser, and more holy, and leave their petty interstes, and take sanctuary in holy living and be taught temperance by their want, and patience by their suffering, and charity by their persecution, and shall better understand the duty of their relations, and at last [Page] A the secret worm that lay at the root of the plant, shall be drawn forth and quite extinguished. For so have I known a luxuriant Vine swell into irregular twigs, and bold excrescencies, and spend it self in leaves and little rings, and affoord but trifling clusters to the wine-presse, and a faint return to his heart which longed to be refreshed with a full vintage: But when the Lord of the vine had caused the dressers to cut the wilder plant and made it bleed, it grew temperate in its vain expense of uselesse leaves, and knotted into fair and juicy bunches, and made accounts of that losse of blood by the return of fruit: So is an afflicted Province, cured B of its surfets, and punished for its sins, and bleeds for its long riot, and is left ungoverned for its disobedience, and chastised for its wantonnesse, and when the sword hath let forth the corrupted blood, and the fire hath purged the rest, then it enters into the double joyes of restitution, and gives God thanks for his rod, and confesses the mercies of the Lord in making the smoke be changed into fire, and the cloud into a perfume, the sword into a staffe, and his anger into mercy.

Had not David suffered more if he had suffered lesse, and had he not been miserable unlesse he had been afflicted? he understood C it well when he said. It is good for me that I have been afflicted. He that was rival to Crassus, when he stood candidate to command the Legions in the Parthians warre was much troubled that he missed the dignity, but he saw himself blessed that he scaped the death, and the dishonour of the overthrow, by that time the sad news arrived at Rome. The Gentleman at Marseilles cursed his starres that he was absent when the ship set sail to sea, having long waited for a winde, and missed it; but he gave thanks to the providence that blest him with the crosse, when he knew that the ship perished in the voyage, and all the men were drowned: And D even those virgins and barren women in Jerusalem, that longed to become glad mothers, and for want of children would not be comforted, yet when Titus sacked the City, found the words of Jesus true Blessed is the womb that never bare, and the paps that never gave suck. And the world being governed with a rare variety, and changes of accidents, and providence; that which is a misfortune in the particular, in the whole order of things becomes a blessing bigger then we hoped for, then when we were angry with God for hindring us, to perish in pleasant waves, or when he was contriving to pour upon thy head a mighty blessing. Do E not think the Judge condemns you when he chides you, nor think to read thy own finall sentence by the first half of his words; Stand still and see how it will be in the whole event of things; let God speak his minde out; for it may be, this sad beginning is but an art to bring in, or to make thee to esteem, and entertain, and understand the blessing.

[Page] They that love to talk of the mercies of the Lord, and to recount A his good things, cannot but have observed that God delights to be called by such Appellatives which relate to miserable and afflicted persons: He is the Father of the fatherlesse, and an avenger of the widowes cause, he standeth at the right hand of the poor to save his soul from unrighteous Judges, and he is with us in tribulation: And upon this ground, let us account whether mercy be not the greater ingredient in that death and deprivation, when I lose a man and get God to be my Father; and when my weak arm of flesh is cut B from my shoulder, and God makes me to lean upon him, and becomes my Patron and my Guide, my Advocate and Defender: and if in our greatest misery Gods mercy is so conspicuous, what can we suppose him to be in the endearment of his loving Kindnesse? If his vail be so transparent, well may we know that upon his face dwels glory, and from his eyes light, and perpetuall comforts run in channels, larger then the returns of the Sea, when it is driven and forced faster into its naturall course, by the violence of a tempest from the North. The summe is this, God intends every accident should minister to vertue and every vertue is the mother and the nurse of joy, and both of them daughters of the Divine goodnesse, and therefore, if our sorrows do not passe into comforts, it is besides Gods intention; it is because we will not comply with the act C of that mercy which would save us by all means, and all varieties, by health and by sicknesse, by the life and by the death of our dearest friends, by what we choose and by what we fear; that as Gods providence rules over all chances of things, and all designes of men, so his mercy may rule over all his providence. D E

Sermon. XXVI. B The Miracles of the Divine Mercy. Part II.

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C 7. GOD having by these means secured us from the evils of nature and contingencies, he represents himself to be our Father, which is the great endearment, and tye, and expression, of a naturall, unalterable, and essentiall kindnesse, he next makes provisions for us to supply all those necessities which himself hath made. For even to make necessities, was a great circumstance of the mercy, and all the relishes of wine, and the savourinesse of meat, the sweet and the fat, the pleasure and the satisfaction, the restitution of spirits, and the strengthening of the heart, are not owing to the liver of the vine, or the kidneys of wheat, to D the blood of the grape, or the strength of the corne, but to the appetite, or the necessity; and therefore it is, that he that sits at a full table and does not recreate his stomack with fasting, and let his digestion rest, and place himself in the advantages of natures intervals, he loses the blessing of his daily bread, and leans upon his table as a sick man upon his bed, or the lion in the grasse, which he cannot feed on; but he that wants it, and sits down when nature gives the signe, rejoyces in the health of his hunger, and the taste of his meat, and the strengthening of his spirit, and gives God thanks while his bones and his flesh rejoyce in the provisions E of nature, and the blessing of God. Are not the imperfections of infancy, and the decayes of old age, the evils of our nature, because respectively they want desire, and they want gust and relish, and reflections upon their acts of sense? and when desire failes, presently the mourners go about the streets. But then, Eccles. 12. that these desires are so provided for by nature and art, by ordinary [Page] and extraordinary, by foresight and contingency, according A to necessity, and up unto conveniency, until we arrive at abundance, is a chain of mercies larger then the Bowe in the clouds, and richer then the trees of Eden, which were permitted to feed our miserable father: Is not all the earth our orchard, and our granary, our vineyard, and our garden of pleasure? and the face of the Sea is our traffique, and the bowels of the Sea is our vivarium, a place for fish to feed us, and to serve some other collaterall appendant needs; and all the face of heaven is a repository for influences and breath, fruitfull showers and fair refreshments; and when God made provisions for his other creatures, he gave it B of one kinde, and with variety no greater, then the changes of day and night, one devouring the other, or sitting down with his draught of blood, or walking upon his portion of grasse: But man hath all the food of beasts, and all the beasts themselves that are fit for food; and the food of Angels, and the dew of heaven, and the fatnesse of the earth; and every part of his body hath a provision made for it, and the smoothnesse of the olive, and the juice of the vine refresh the heart and make the face cheerfull, and serve the ends of joy, and the festivity of man, and are not onely to cure hunger or to allay thirst, but to appease a passion, and allay a sorrow. C It is an infinite variety of meat with which God furnishes out the table of mankinde; and in the covering our sin, and clothing our nakednesse, God passed from sig-leaves to the skins of beasts, from aprons to long-robes, from leather to wool, and from thence to the warmth of furres, and the coolnesse of silks, he hath dressed not onely our needs, but hath fitted the severall portions of the year, and made us to go dressed like our mother; leaving off the winter sables when the florid spring appears, and assoon as the Tulip fades we put on the robe of Summer, and then shear our sheep for Winter; and God uses us as Ioseph did his brother Benjamin, we D have many changes of raiment, and our messe is five times bigger then the provision made for our brothers of the Creation. But the providence and mercies of God are to be estimated also according as these provisions are dispensed to every single person. For that I may not remark the bounties of God, running over the tables of the rich, God hath also made provisions for the poorest person: so that if they can but rule their desires they shall have their tables furnished; and this is secured and provided for by one promise and two duties, by our Own labour, and our Brothers charity▪ and our faith in this affair is confirmed by all our own, and by all the E experience of other men. Are not all the men and the women of the world provided for, and fed and clothed till they die? and was it not alwayes so from the first morning of the creatures? and that a man is starved to death, is a violence and a rare contingency, happening almost as seldom as for a man to have but one eye: [Page] A and if our being provided for be as certain as for a man to have two eyes, we have reason to adore the wisdom, and admire the mercies of our Almighty Father. But these things are evident. Is it not a great thing that God hath made such strange provisions for our health? such infinite differences of Plants, and hath discovered the secrets of their nature by meer chance, or by inspiration? either of which is the miracle of providence, secret to us, but ordered by certain and regular decrees of heaven. It was a huge diligence and care of the divine mercy that discovered to man, the secrets of Spagyrick medicines, of stones, of spirits, and the results of 7. B or 8. decoctions, and the strange effects of accidental mixtures, which the art of man could not suspect, being bound up in the secret sanctuary of hidden causes, and secret natures, and being laid open by the concourse of 20. or 30. little accidents, all which were ordered by God, as certainly as are the first principles of nature, or the descent of sons from fathers in the most noble families.

But that which I shall observe in this whole affair is, that there are both for the provision of our tables, and the relief of our sicknesses, so many miracles of providence that they give plain demonstration what relation we bear to heaven: and the poor man need C not be troubled that he is to expect his daily portion after the Sun is up: for he hath found to this day he was not deceived, and then he may rejoyce because he sees by an effective probation that in heaven a decree was made, every day to send him provisions of meat and drink; and that is a mighty mercy, when the circles of heaven are bowed down to wrap us in a bosome of care, and nourishment, and the wisdom of God is daily busied to serve his mercy, as his mercy serves our necessities. Does not God plant remedies there where the diseases are most popular, and every Countrey is best provided against its own evils? Is not the Rhubarb found where D the Sun most corrupts the liver, and the Scabious by the shore of the Sea, that God might cure as soon as he wounds, and the inhabitants may see their remedy against the leprosie, and the scurvy, before they feel their sicknesse? And then to this we may adde, Natures commons and open fields, the shores of rivers, and the strand of the Sea, the unconfined air, the wildernesse that hath no hedge, and that in these every man may hunt and fowl and fish respectively; and that God sends some miracles and extraordinary blessings so for the publike good, that he will not endure they should be inclosed and made severall: Thus he is pleased to dispense E the Manna of Calabria, the medicinall waters of Germany, the Musles at Sluce at this day, and the Egyptian beans in the marishes of Albania, and the salt at Troas of old; which God to defeat the covetousnesse of man, and to spread his mercy over the face of the indigent, as the Sun scatters his beams over the bosome of the whole earth, did so order that as long as every man was permitted [Page] to partake, the bosome of heaven was open; but when man A gathered them into single handfulls, and made them impropriate, God gathered his hand into his bosome, and bound the heavens with ribs of brasse, and the earth with decrees of iron, and the blessing reverted to him that gave it, since they might not receive it, to whom it was sent. And in general, this is the excellency of this mercy, that all our needs are certainly supplied, and secured by a promise which God cannot break, but he that cannot breake the lawes of his own promises, can break the lawes of nature, that he B may perform his promise, and he will do a miracle rather then forsake thee in thy needs: So that our security and the relative mercy, is bound upon us by all the power and the truth of God.

8. But because such is the bounty of God, that he hath provided a better life for the inheritance of man, if God is so mercifull in making fair provisions for our lesse noble part, in order to the transition toward our Countrey, we may expect that the mercies of God hath rare arts to secure to us his designed bounty, in order to our inheritance, to that which ought to be our portion for ever. And here I consider, that it is an infinite mercy of the Almighty Father of mercies that he hath appointed to us such a religion that leads us to a huge felicity, through pleasant wayes. For the felicity that is designed to us is so above our present capacities C and conceptions, that while we are so ignorant as not to understand it, we are also so foolish as not to desire it with passions great enough to perform the little conditions of its purchase; God therefore knowing how great an interest it is, and how apt we would be to neglect it, hath found out such conditions of acquiring it which are eases and satisfaction to our present appetites. God hath bound our salvation upon us by the endearment of temporall prosperities; and because we love this world so well, God hath so ordered it, that even this world may secure the other. D And of this, God in old time made open profession, for when he had secretly designed to bring his people to a glorious immortality in another world, he told them nothing of that, it being a thing bigger then the capacity of their thoughts, or of their Theology, but told them that which would tempt them most, and endear obedience: If you will obey, ye shall eat the good things of the land: Ye shall possesse a rich countrey, ye shall triumph over your enemies, ye shall have numerous families, blessed children, rich granaries, over-running wine-presses; for God knew the cognation of most of them was so dear, between their affections and the good E things of this world, that if they did not obey in hope of that they did need, and fancy, and love, and see, and feel, it was not to be expected they should quit their affections for a secret in another world, whither before they come they must die, and lose all desire and all capacities of enjoyment. But this designe of God which [Page] A was bare-faced in the dayes of the law, is now in the Gospel interwoven secretly (but yet plain enough to be discovered by an eye of faith and reason) into every vertue, and temporal advantage is a great ingredient in the constitution of every Christian grace for so the richest tissue dazles the beholders eye when the Sun reflects upon the mettal, the silver and the gold weaved into phantastic imagery, or a wealthy plainnesse, but the rich wire and shining filaments are wrought upon cheaper silk, the spoil of worms and flies: so is the imbroidery of our vertue; the glories of the spirit dwell upon the face and vestment, upon the fringes and the B borders; and there we see the Beril and the Onyx, the Jasper and the sardyx, order and perfection love and peace and joy, mortification of the passions and ravishment of the will, adherencies to God and imitation of Christ, reception and entertainment of the Holy Ghost and longings after heaven, humility, and chastity, temperance, and sobriety; these make the frame of the garment, the cloaths of the soul that it may not be found naked in the day of the Lords visitation; but through these rich materials a thrid of silk is drawn, some compliance with worms and weaker creatures, something C that shall please our bowels, and make the lower man to rejoyce: they are wrought upon secular content, and material satisfactions, and now we cannot be happy unlesse we be pious, and the religion of a Christian is the greatest security and the most certain instrument of making a man rich, and pleased, and healthful and wise and beloved in the whole world. I shall now remark onely two or three instances; for the main body of this truth I have other Life of H. Jesus. part 3. Disc. 14. where represented.

1. The whole religion of a Christian as it relates to others is nothing but justice and mercy, certain parents of peace and benefit: D and upon this supposition what evil can come to a just and a merciful to a necessary and useful person? For the first permission of evil was upon the stock of injustice: He that kills may be killed, and he that does injury may be mischieved; he that invades another mans right, must venture the losse of his own; and when I put my Brother to his defence he may chance drive the evil so far from himself, that it may reach me; Laws and Judges, private & publick judicatures, wars and tribunals axes and wheels were made, not for the righteous, but for the unjust; and all that whole order of things and persons would be uselesse, if men did do as they would E willingly suffer. 2. And because there is no evil that can befal a just man unlesse it comes by injury and violence, our religion hath also made as good provisions against that too, as the nature of the thing will suffer; for by patience we are reconciled to the sufferance, and by hope and faith we see a certain consequent reward; and by praying for the persecuting man we are cured of all the evil of the minde, the envy and the fretfulnesse that uses to gall the [Page] troubled and resisting man; and when we turn all the passion into A charity, and God turns all the suffering into reward, there remains nothing that is very formidable. So that our religion obliges us to such duties which prevent all evils that happen justly to men, (and in our religion no man can suffer as a malefactor, if he follows the religion truely) and for the evils that are unavoidable and come by violence, the graces of this discipline turne them into vertues and rewards, and make them that in their event they are desirable and in the suffering they are very tolerable. 3. But then when we consider that the religion of a Christian consists in doing good to all men, that it is made up of mercies and friendships, of friendly conventions B and assemblies of Saints, that all are to do good works for necessary uses, that is to be able to be beneficial to the publick and not to be burthensome to any, where it can be avoided, what can be wished to man in relation to others, and what can be more beneficial to themselves then that they be such whom other men will value for their interest, such whom the publick does need, such whom Princes and Nobles ought to esteem, and all men can make use of according to their several conditions; that they are so well provided for that unlesse a persecution disables them they cannot onely maintain themselves, but oblige others to their C charity.

This is a temporal good which all wise men reckon as part of that felicity which recompences all the labours of their day, and sweetens the sleep of their night, and places them in that circle of neigbour-hood and amity where men are most valued and most secure. 4. To this we may adde this material consideration. That al those graces which oblige us to do good to others are nothing else but certain instruments of doing advantage to our selves. It is a huge noblenesse of charity to give alms not onely to our Brother, but for him, It is the Christian sacrifice, like that of Job who made D oblations for his sons when they feasted each other, fearing lest they had sinned against God; and if I give almes and fast and pray in behalf of my prince, or my Patron, my friend or my children, I do a combination of holy actions, which are of all things that I can do, the most effectual intercession for him, whom I so recommend; but then observe the art of this, and what a plot is laid by the divine mercy to secure blessing to to our selves. That I am a person fit to intercede and pray for him must suppose me a gracious person, one whom God rather will accept; so that before I be fit to pray and interpose for him; I must first become E dear to God, and my charity can do him no good, for whose interest I gave it, but by making me first acceptable to God, that so he may the rather hear me; and when I fast, it is first an act of repentance for my self before it can be an instrument of impetration for him. And thus I do my Brother a single benefit, by doing myself [Page] A a double one, and it is also so ordered that when I pray for a person for whom God will not hear me, yet then he will hear me for my self though I say nothing in my own behalf, and our prayers are like Jonathans arrows, if they fall short, yet they return my friend or my friendship to me; or if they go home, they secure him whom they pray for, and I have not onely the comfort of rejoycing with him but the honour and the reward of procuring him a joy; and certain it is that a charitable prayer for another, can never want what it asks, or instead of it, a greater blessing. The good man that saw his poor brother troubled because he B had nothing to present for an offering at the Holy communion (when all knew themselves obliged to do kindnesse for Christs poor members with which themselves were incorporated with so mysterious union) and gave him mony that he might present for the good of his soul as other Christians did, had not onely thereward of almes but of religion too; and that offering was well husbanded, for it did benefit to two souls; for as I sin when I make another sin: so if I help him to do a good, I am a sharer in the gains of his talent, and he shall not have the lesse but I shall be rewarded upon his stock. And this was it which David rejoyced in, Particeps C sum omnium timentium te; I am a partner, a companion of all them that fear thee, I share in their profits. If I do but rejoyce at every grace of God which I see in my Brother, I shall be rewarded for that grace; and we need not envy the excellency of another; It becomes mine as well as his: and if I do rejoyce, I shall have cause to rejoyce so excellent, so full, so artificial is the mercy of God in making and seeking and finding all occasions to do us good. 5. The very charity and love and mercy that is commanded in our religion is in it self a great excellency, not onely in order to heaven, but to the comforts of the earth too & such without which D a man is not capable of a blessing or a comfort; & he that sent charity and friendships into the world, intended charity to be as relative as justice, & to do its effect both upon the loving and the beloved person. It is a reward and a blessing to a kinde Father, when his children do well, and every degree of prudent love which he bears to them is an endearment of his joy; and he that loves them not, but looks upon them as burdens of necessity, and loads to his fortune, loses those many rejoycings and the pleasures of kindnesse, which they feast withal who love to divide their fortunes, amongst them, because they have already divided out large and E equal portions of their heart. I have instanced in this relation; but it is true in all the excellency of friendship; and every man rejoyces twice when he hath a partner of his joy; A friend shares my sorrow and makes it but a moiety; but he swells my joy and makes it double. For so two chanels divide the river and lessen it into rivulets, and make it foordable and apt to be drunk up at the first [Page] revels of the Sirian star; but two torches do not divide but increase A the flame; and though my tears are the sooner dryed up, when they run upon my friends cheeks in the furrows of compassion, yet when my flame hath kindled his lamp, we unite the glories and make them radiant like the golden Candle-sticks that burn before the throne of God, because they shine by numbers, by unions, and confederations of light and joy.

And now upon this account which is already so great I need not reckon concerning the collateral issues, and little streams of comfort which God hath made to issue from that religion to which God hath obliged us; such as are mutual comforts, visiting sick people, instructing B the ignorant and so becoming better instructed and fortified and comforted our selves by the instruments of our Brothers case and advantages; the glories of converting souls, of rescuing a sinner from hell, of a miserable man from the grave the honour and noblenesse of being a good man, the noble confidence, and the bravery of innocence, the ease of patience, the quiet of contentednesse, the rest of peacefulnesse, the worthinesse of forgiving others, the greatnesse of spirit that is in despising riches, and the sweetnesse of spirit that is in meeknesse and humility; these are Christian graces in every sense; favours of God and issues of his bounty C & his mercy; but al that I shal now observe further concerning them, is this, that God hath made these necessary; he hath obliged us to have them under pain of damnation, he hath made it so sure to us to become happy even in this world, that if we will not, he hath threatened to destroy us, which is, not a desire or aptnesse to do us an evil, but an art to make it impossible that we should For God hath so ordered it that we cannot perish unlesse we desire it our selves, and unlesse we will do our selves a mischief on purpose to get hell, we are secured of heaven, and there is not in the nature of things, any way that can more infallibly do the work of felicity upon creatures D that can choose, then to make that which they should naturally choose, be spiritually their duty, and that he will make them happy hereafter, if they will suffer him to make them happy here; But hardly stand another throng of mercies that must be considered by us, and God must be glorified in them, for they are such as are intended to preserve to us all this felicity.

9. God that he might secure our duty and our present and consequent felicity hath tied us with golden chaines and bound us not onely with the bracelets of love, and the deliciousnesse of hope, but with the ruder cords of fear and reverence, even with all the E innumerable parts of a restraining grace. For it is a huge aggravation of humane calamity to consider that after a man hath been instructed in the love and advantages of his Religion, and knows it to be the way of honour and felicity, and that to prevaricate his holy sanctions is certain death and disgrace to eternal ages, [Page] A yet that some men shall despise their religion, others shall be very weary of its laws, and cal the commandments a burden, and too many, with a perfect choice shall delight in death, and the wayes that lead thither, and they choose mony infinitely, and to rule over their Brother by al means, & to be revenged extremely, and to prevail by wrong and to do all that they can, and please themselves in all that they desire, and love it fondly, and be restlesse in all things but where they perish; if God should not interpose by the arts of a miraculous and merciful grace, and put a bridle in the mouth of our lusts, and chastise the sea of our follies by some heaps of sand or B the walls of a rock, we should perish in the deluge of sin universally as the old world did in that storm of the divine anger, the flood of waters. But thus God suffers but few adulteries in the world in respect of what would be if all men that desire to be adulterers had power & opportunity; and yet some men and very many women are by modesty and natural shamefacednesse chastised in their too forward appetites: or the laws of man or publick reputation or the undecency and unhandsome circumstances of sin check the desire and make it that it cannot arrive at act: for so have I seen C a busie flame sitting upon a sullen cole turn its point to all the angles and portions of its neighbour-hood and reach at a heap of prepared straw, which like a bold temptation called it to a restlesse motion and activity, but either it was at too big a distance or a gentle breath from heaven diverted the speare and the ray of the fire to the other side, and so prevented the violence of the burning, till the flame expired in a weak consumption, and dyed turning into smoak and the coolnesse of death and the harmlesnesse of a Cinder: and when a mans desires are winged with sailes and a lusty wind of passion and passe on in a smooth chanel of opportunity, God often D times hinders the lust and the impatient desire from passing on to its port, and entring into action, by a suddain thought, by a little remembrance of a word, by a fancy, by a sudden disability, by unreasonable and unlikely fears, by the suddain intervening of company, by the very wearinesse of the passion, by curiosity, by want of health, by the too great violence of the desire, bursting it self with its fulnesse into dissolution & a remisse easinesse, by a sentence of scripture, by the reverence of a good man, or else by the proper interventions of the spirit of grace chastising the crime and representing its appendant mischiefs and its constituent disorder and irregularity▪ E and after all this, the very anguish and trouble of being defeated in the purpose hath rolled it self into so much uneasinesse and unquiet reflections, that the man is grown a shamed and vexed into more sober counsels.

And the mercy of God is not lesse then infinite in separating men from the occasions of their sin, from the neighbour-hood and temptation; for if the Hyaena and a dog should be thrust into the [Page] same Kennel, one of them would soon finde a grave, and it may A be both of them their death; so infallible is the ruine of most men, if they be shewed a temptation: Nitre and resin, Naphtha and Bitumen, sulphur and pitch are their constitution, and the fire passes upon them infinitely, and there is none to rescue them. But God by removing our sins far from us, as far as the East is from the West not onely putting away the guilt, but setting the occasion far from us, extremely far; so far that sometimes we cannot sin and many times, not easily, hath magnified his mercy, by giving us safety in all those measures in which we are untempted. It would be the matter of new discourses, if I should consider concerning the variety B of Gods grace, his preventing and accompanying, his inviting and corroborating grace; his assisting us to will, his enabling us to do, his sending Angels to watch us, to remove us from evil company, to drive us with swords of fire from forbidden instances, to carry us by unobserved opportunities into holy company, to minister occasions of holy discourses, to make it by some means or other necessary to do a holy action, to make us in love with vertue, because they have mingled that vertue with a just and a fair interest, to some men by making religion that thing they live upon, to others, the means of their reputation, and the securities of their C honour, and thousands of wayes more, which every prudent man that watches the wayes of God cannot but have observed. But I must also observe other great conjugations of mercy, for he that is to passe through an infinite must not dwell upon everie little line of life.

10. The next order of mercies is such, which is of so pure, and unmingled constitution, that it hath at first no regard to the capacities and disposition of the receivers, and afterwards when it hath, it relates onely to such conditions, which it self creates and produces in the suscipient, I mean the mercies of the divine predestination. D For was it not an infinite mercy that God should predestinate all mankinde to salvation by Jesus Christ, even when he had no other reason to move him to do it but because man was miserable and needed his pity? But I shall instance onely in the intermediall part of this mysterious mercy. Why should God cause us to be born of Christian parents, and not to be circumcised by the impure hands of a Turkish Priest? What distinguished me from another, that my Father was severe in his discipline and carefull to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and I was not exposed to the carelesnesse of an irreligious guardian, and taught to steal, E and lie, and to make sport with my infant vices, and beginnings of iniquity? Who was it that discerned our persons from the lot of dying Chrysomes, whose portion must be among those who never glorified God with a free obedience? What had you done of good, or towards it, that you was not condemned to the stupid ignorance [Page] A which makes the souls of most men but a little higher then beasts, and who understand nothing of religion and noble principles, of parables and wise sayings of old men. And not onely in our cradles, but in our schools, and in our colledges, in our friendships, and in our marriages, in our enmities, and in all our conversation, in our vertues and in our vices, where all things in us were equal, or else we were the inferiour, there is none of us but have felt the mercies of many differencies. Or it may be my brother and I were intemperate, and drunk, and quarelsome, and he kill'd a man, but God did not suffer me to do so: He fell down and died with a B little disorder, I was a beast and yet was permitted to live, and not yet to die in my sins: He did a misse once and was surprized in that disadvantage: I sin daily and am still invited to repentance; he would fain have lived and amended; I neglect the grace, but am allowed the time. And when God sends the Angel of his wrath to execute his anger upon a sinfull people we are encompassed with funerals, and yet the Angel hath not smitten us: what or who makes the difference? We shall then see, when in the separations of eternity, we sitting in glory, shall see some of the partners of our sins carried into despair and the portions of the left hand, and roaring C in the seats of the reprobate; we shall then perceive that it is even that mercy which hath no cause but it self, no measure of its emanation but our misery, no natural limit but eternity, no beginning but God, no object but man, no reason but an essential and an unalterable goodnesse, no variety but our necessity and capacity, no change but new instances of its own nature, no ending or repentance, but our absolute and obstinate refusall to entertain it.

II. Lastly, All the mercies of God are concentred in that which is all the felicity of man; and God is so great a lover of souls that he provides securities and fair conditions for them, even D against all our reason and hopes, our expectations, and weak discoursings. The particulars I shall remark are these. 1. Gods mercy prevails over the malice and ignorances, the weaknesses and follies of men, so that in E the convention and assemblies of hereticks (as the word is usually understood for erring and mistaken people) although their doctrines are such that if men should live according to their proper and naturall consequences, they would live impiously, yet in every one of these there are persons so innocently and invincibly mistaken, and who mean nothing but truth, while in the simplicity of their heart they talk nothing but error, that in the defiance and contradiction of their own doctrines, they live according to its contradictory. He that beleeves contrition alone with confession to a Priest, is enough to expiate ten thousand sins, is furnished with an excuse easie enough to quit himself from the troubles of a holy life; and he that hath a great many cheap wayes of buying off his penances for a little money, even for the greatest [Page] sins, is taught a way not to fear the doing of an act, for which he A must repent; since repentance is a duty so soon, fo certainly, and so easily performed: But these are notorious doctrines in the Roman Church, and yet God so loves the souls of his creatures that many men who trust to these doctrines in their discourses, dare not rely upon them in their lives. But while they talk as if they did not need to live strictly, many of them live so strictly as if they did not beleeve so foolishly. He that tels, that antecedently God hath to all humane choice decreed man to heaven or to hell, takes B away from man all care of the way, because they beleeve that he that infallibly decreed that end, hath unalterably appointed the means, and some men that talk thus wildly live soberly, and are over-wrought in their understanding by some secret art of God, that man may not perish in his ignorance, but be assisted in his choice, and saved by the Divine mercies. And there is no sect of men but are furnished with antidotes and little excuses to cure the venom of their doctrine; and therefore although the adherent and constituent poison is notorious and therefore to be declined, yet because it is collaterally cured and over-poured by the torrent and wisdom of Gods mercies, the men are to be taken into the Quire that we may all joyn in giving of God praise for the operation of his hands. 2. I said formerly that there are many secret and undiscerned C mercies by which men live, and of which men can give no account till they come to give God thanks at their publication; and of this sort, is that mercy which God reserves for the souls of many millions of men and women concerning whom we have no hopes, if we account concerning them by the usuall proportions of revelation and Christian commandements, and yet we are taught to hope some strange good things concerning them by the analogy and generall rules of the Divine mercy. For what shall become of ignorant Christians, people that live in wildnesses and D places more desert then a primitive hermitage, people that are baptized, and taught to go to Church, it may be once a yeer, people that can get no more knowledge, they know not where to have it, nor how to desire it; and yet that an eternity of pains shall be consequent to such an ignorance is unlike the mercy of God, and yet that they should be in any dispositions towards an eternity of intellectuall joyes is no where set down in the leaves of revelation; and when the Jews grew rebellious, or a silly woman of the daughters of Abraham was tempted, and sinned, and punished with death, we usually talk as if that death passed on to a worse; E but yet we may arrest our thoughts upon the Divine mercies, and consider that it is reasonable to expect from the Divine goodnesse, that no greater forfeiture be taken upon a law, then was expressed in its sanction and publication. He that makes a law and bindes it with the penalty of stripes, we say he intends not to afflict the disobedient [Page] A with scorpions and axes; and it had been hugely necessary that God had scar'd the Jews from their sins by threatning the pains of hell to them that disobeyed, if he intended to inflict it; for although many men would have ventured the future, since they are not affrighted with the present and visible evil, yet some persons would have had more Philosophical and spiritual apprehensions then others, and have been infallibly cured in all their temptations with the fear of an eternall pain; and however, whether they had or no, yet since it cannot be understood how it consists with the Divine justice to exact a pain bigger then he B threatned, greater then he gave warning of so we are sure it is a great way off from Gods mercy to do so. He that usually imposes lesse, and is loth to inflict any and very often forgives it all, is hugely distant from exacting an eternall punishment, when the most that he threatned and gave notice of, was but a temporall. The effect of this consideration I would have to be this, that we may publikely worship this mercy of God which is kept in secret and that we be not too forward in sentencing all Heathens, and prevaricating Jews to the eternall pains of hell, but hope that they have a portion in the secrets of the Divine mercy, where also unlesse many C of us have some little portions deposited, our condition will be very uncertain, and sometimes most miserable. God knows best how intolerably accursed a thing it is to perish in the eternall flames of hell, and therefore he is not easie to inflict it: and if the joyes of heaven be too great to be expected upon too easie termes, certainly the pains of the damned are infinitely too big to passe lightly upon persons who cannot help themselves, and who if they were helped with clearer revelations would have avoided it: But as in these things we must not pry into the secrets of the Divine Oeconomy, being sure whether it be so or no, it is most just, even D as it is; so we may expect to see the glories of the Divine mercy made publike in unexpected instances at the great day of manifestation: And indeed our dead many times go forth from our hands very strangely and carelesly, without prayers, without Sacraments, without consideration, without counsel, and without comfort; and to dresse the souls of our dear people to so sad a parting is an imployment, we therefore omit, not alwayes because we are negligent, but because the work is sad and allay the affections of the world, with those melancholy circumstances; but if God did not in his mercies make secret and equivalent provisions for them, E and take care of his redeemed ones we might unhappily meet them in a sad eternity, and without remedy weep together and groan for ever. But God hath provided better things for them, that they without us, that is, without our assistances, shall be made perfect.

Sermon. XXVII. B The Miracles of the Divine Mercy. Part III.

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THere are very many more orders and conjugations of mercies, C but because the numbers of them naturally tend to their own greatnesse, that is, to have no measure, I must reckon but a few more, and them also without order; for that they do descend upon us, we see and feel, but by what order of things, or causes, is as undiscerned as the head of Nilus, or a sudden remembrance of a long neglected and forgotten proposition. 1. But upon this account it is, that good men have observed, that the providence of God is so great a provider for holy living, and does so certainly minister to religion, that nature and chance, the order of the world, and the influences of heaven are taught to serve the D ends of the Spirit of God, and the spirit of a man. I do not speak of the miracles that God hath in the severall periods of the world wrought for the establishing his lawes, and confirming his promises, and securing our obedience; though that was all the way the overflowings and miracles of mercy as well as power: but that which I consider is, that besides the extraordinary emanations of the Divine power upon the first and most solemn occasions of an institution and the first beginnings of a religion, such as were, the wonders God did in Egypt and in the wildernesse, preparatory to the sanction of that law, and the first covenant; and the miracles wrought E by Christ and his Apostles, for the founding and the building up the religion of the Gospel, and the new covenant: God does also do things wonderfull and miraculous, for the promoting the ordinary and lesse solemn actions of our piety, and to assist and accompany them in a constant and regular succession. It was a strange [Page] A variety of naturall efficacies, that Manna should stink in 24. hours if gathered upon Wednesday and Thursday, and that it should last till 48. hours if gathered upon the Even of the Sabbath; and that it should last many hundreds of yeers when placed in the Sanctuary by the ministery of the high Priest; but so it was in the Jews religion; and Manna pleased every palate, and it filled all appetites, and the same measure was a different proportion; it was much and it was little; as if nature, that it might serve religion, had been taught some measures of infinity, which is every where and no where, filling all things, and circumscribed with nothing, measured B by one Omer, and doing the work of two; like the crowns of Kings, fitting the browes of Nimrod and the most mighty Warriour, and yet not too large for the temples of an infant Prince. And not onely is it thus in nature, but in contingencies and acts depending, upon the choice of men; for God having commanded the sons of Israel to go up to Jerusalem to worship thrice every yeer, and to leave their borders to be guarded by women, and children and sick persons, in the neighbourhood of diligent and spitefull enemies, yet God so disposed of their hearts and opportunities, that they never entered the land when the people were at their solemnity; C untill they desecrated their rites, by doing at their Passeover the greatest sin and treason in the world; till at Easter they crucified the Lord of life and glory, they were secure in Jerusalem and in their borders; but when they had destroyed religion by this act, God took away their security, and Titus besieged the City at the feast of Easter, that the more might perish in the deluge of the Divine indignation.

To this observation the Jews adde, that in Jerusalem no man ever had a fall that came thither to worship; that at their solemn festivals there was reception in the Town for all the inhabitants of D the land; concerning which although I cannot affirm any thing, yet this is certain, that no godly person among all the tribes of Israel was ever a begger, but all the variety of humane chances, were over-ruled to the purposes of providence, and providence was measured by the ends of the religion, and the religion which promised them plenty, performed the promise till the Nation and the religion too began to decline, that it might give place to a better ministery, and a more excellent dispensation of the things of the world.

But when Christian religion was planted and had taken root, and E had filled all lands, then all the nature of things, the whole creation became servant to the kingdom of grace, and the Head of the religion is also the Head of the creatures, and ministers all the things of the world in order to the Spirit of grace: and now Angels are ministring spirits, sent forth to minister for the good of them that fear the Lord, and all the violences of men, and things of nature [Page] and choice, are forced into subjection and lowest ministeries, and to A cooperate as with an united designe to verifie all the promises of the Gospel, and to secure and advantage all the children of the kingdom, and now he that is made poor by chance, or persecution, is made rich by religion, and he that hath nothing, yet possesses all things, and sorrow it self is the greatest comfort, not only because it ministers to vertue, but because it self is one, as in the case of repentance; and death ministers to life, and bondage is freedom, and losse is gain, and our enemies are our friends, and every thing turns B into religion, and religion turns into felicity, and all manner of advantages. But that I may not need to enumerate any more particulars in this observation certain it is that Angels of light and darknesse, all the influences of heaven, and the fruits and productions of the earth, the stars, and the elements, the secret things that lie in the bowels of the Sea, and the entrails of the earth, the single effects of all efficients, and the conjunction of all causes, all events foreseen, and all rare contingencies, every thing of chance, and every thing of choice, is so much a servant to him whose greatest desire, and great interest, is by all means to save our souls, that we are thereby made sure, that all the whole creation shall be made to bend in all the flexures of its nature and accidents, that it may minister to religion, to the good of the Catholike Church, and every C person within its bosom, who are the body of him that rules over all the world, and commands them as he chooses.

2. But that which is next to this, and not much unlike the designe of this wonderfull mercy, is, that all the actions of religion, though mingled with circumstances of differing and sometimes of contradictory relations are so concentred in God their proper centre, and conducted in such certain and pure channels of reason and rule, that no one duty does contradict another; and it can never be necessary for any man in any case to sin. They that bound themselves D by an oath to kill Paul were not environed with the sad necessities of murder on one side, and vow-breach on the other, so that if they did murder him they were man-slayers, if they did not they were perjured; for God had made provision for this case, that no unlawful oath should passe an obligation. He that hath given his faith in unlawfull confederation against his Prince, is not girded with a fatall necessity of breach of trust on one side, or breach of allegeance on the other; for in this also God hath secured the case of conscience, by forbidding any man to make an unlawfull promise, and upon a stronger degree of the same reason, E by forbidding him to keep it in case he hath made it. He that doubts whether it be lawfull to keep the Sunday holy, must not do it during that doubt, because whatsoever is not of faith is sin; But yet Gods mercy hath taken care to break this snare in sunder, so that he may neither sin against the commandement, nor [Page] A against his conscience; for he is bound to lay aside his errour and be better instructed; till when, the scene of his sin lies in something that hath influence upon his understanding, not in the omission of the fact; No man can serve two Masters, but therefore he must hate the one and cleave to the other. But then if we consider what infinite contradiction there is in sin, and that the great long suffering of God is expressed in this, that God suffered the contradiction of sinners, we shall feel the mercy of God in the peace of our consciences and the unity of religion, so long as we do the work of God. It is a huge affront to a covetous man that he is the further off from B fulnesse by having great heaps & vast revenues; and that his thirst increases by having that which should quench it; and that the more he shall need to be satisfied, the lesse he shall dare to do it; and that he shall refuse to drink because he is dry; that he dyes if he tasts, and languishes if he does not; and at the same time he is full and empty, bursting with a plethory, and consumed with hunger, drowned with rivers of oyle and wine and yet dry as the Arabian sands; but then the contradiction is multiplyed and the labyrinths more amazed, when prodigality waits, upon another C curse, and covetousnesse heaps up, that prodigality may scatter abroad; then distractions are infinite, and a man hath two Devils to serve of contradictory designes and both of them exacting obedience more unreasonably then the Egyptian task-masters then there is no rest, no end of labours, no satisfaction of purposes, no method of things, but they begin where they should end, and begin again, and never passe forth to content or reason, or quietnesse, or possession. But the duty of a Christian is easie in a persecution, it is clear under a Tyranny, it is evident in despite of heresy, it is one in the midst of schisme, it is determined amongst infinite D disputes, being like a rock in the sea which is beaten with the tide and washed with retiring waters, and encompassed with mists, and appears in several figures, but it alwayes dips its foot in the same bottom and remaines the same in calms and storms, and survives the revolution of ten thousand tides, and there shall dwell till time and tides shall be no more: so is our duty, uniform and constant, open and notorious, variously represented, but in the same manner exacted; and in the interest of our souls God hath not exposed us to uncertainty or the variety of anything that can change, and it is by the grace and mercy of God put into the power of every E Christian to do that which God through Jesus Christ will accept to salvation; and neither men nor Devils shall hinder it unlesse we list our selves.

3. After all this we may sit down and reckon by great sums and conjugations of his gracious gifts, and tell the minuts of eternity by the number of the Divine mercies: God hath given his laws to rule us, his word to instruct us, his spirit to guide us, his [Page] Angels to protect us, his ministers to exhort us; he revealed all our duty A and he hath concealed whatsoever can hinder us, he hath affrighted our follies with feare of death and engaged our watchfulnesse by its secret coming; he hath exercised our faith by keeping private the state of souls departed, and yet hath confirmed our faith by a promise of a resurrection and entertained our hope by some general significations of the state of interval: His mercies make contemptible means instrumental to great purposes, and a small herb the remedy of the greatest diseases; he impedes the Devils rage and infatuates, his counsels, he diverts his malice, and defeats his purposes, he bindes him in the chaine of darknesse and gives him no power B over the children of light; he suffers him to walk in solitary places and yet fetters him that he cannot disturb the sleep of a childe; he hath given him mighty power & yet a young maiden that resists him shall make him flee away; he hath given him a vast knowledge and yet an ignorant man can confute him with the twelve articles of his creed, he gave him power over the winds and made him Prince of the air and yet the breath of a holy prayer can drive him as far as the utmost sea; and he hath so restrained him, that (except it be by faith) we know not whether there be any Devils yea, or no: for we never heard his noises, nor have seen his affrighting C shapes.] This is that great Principle of all the felicity we hope for, and of all the means thither, and of all the skill and all the strengths we haue to use those means he hath made great variety of conditions and yet hath made all necessary, and all mutual helpers, and by some instruments and in some respects they are all equal in order to felicity, to content and final and intermedial satisfactions: He gave us part of our reward in hand that he might enable us to work for more; he taught the world arts for use, arts for entertainment of all our faculties, and all our dispositions; he gives eternal gifts for temporal services and gives us whatsoever we want, D for asking, and commands us to ask, and theatens us if we will not ask, and punishes us for refusing to be happy. This is that glorious attribute that hath made order, and health, and harmony and hope, restitutions and variety, the joyes of direct possession, and the joyes, the artificial joyes of contrariety and comparison; he comforts the poor, and he brings down the rich, that they may be safe in their humility and sorrow, from the transportations of an unhappy and- uninstructed prosperity; he gives necessaries to all, and scatters the extraordinary provisions so, that every nation may traffick in charity, and commute for pleasures; He was the Lord of hosts, and he E is stil what he was, but he loves to be called the God of peace, because he was terrible in that, but he is delighted in this. His mercy is his glory, and his glory is the light of heaven; his mercy is the life of the creation and it fills all the earth, and his mercy is a sea too; and it fills all the abysses of the deep; it hath given us [Page] A promises for supply of whatsoever we need and relieves us in all our fears, and in all the evils that we suffer; his mercies are more then we can tell, and they are more then we can feel; for all the world in the abysse of the Divine mercies is like a man diving into the bottom of the sea, over whose head the waters run insensibly, and unperceived, and yet the weight is vast and the sum of them is unmeasurable, and the man is not pressed with the burden, nor confounded with numbers; and no observation is able to recount, no sense sufficient to perceive, no memory large enough to retain, no understanding great enough to apprehend this infinity, but B we must admire and love and worship, and magnify this mercy for ever and ever; that we we may dwell in what we feel, and be comprehended by that which is equal to God, and the parent of all felicity.

And yet this is but the one half. The mercies of giving I have now told of, but those of forgiving are greater, though not more. [He is ready to forgive] and upon this stock thrives the interest of our great hope, the hopes of a blessed immortality; for if the mercies of giving have not made our expectations big enough to entertain C the confidences of heaven; yet when we think of the graciousnesse and readinesse of forgiving, we may with more readinesse hope to escape hell, and then we cannot but be blessed by an eternal consequence: we have but small opinion of the Divine mercy, if we dare not believe concerning it, that it is desirous and able and watchful and passionate to keep us or rescue us respectively from such a condemnation the pain of which is insupportable, and the duration is eternal, and the extension is misery upon all our faculties, and the intension is great beyond patience or natural or supernatural abilities, and the state is a state of darknesse, D and despair, of confusion and amazement, of cursing and roaring, anguish of spirit, and gnashing of teeth, misery universal, perfect and irremediable. From this it is which Gods mercies would so fain preserve us: This is a state that God provides for his enemies, not for them that love him, that endeavour to obey though they do it but in weaknesse, that weep truely for their sins though but with a shower no bigger then the drops of pitty, that wait for his coming with a holy and pure flame, though their lamps are no brighter then a poor mans candle, though their strengths are no greater then a contrite reed or a strained arme, and their fires E have no more warmth then the smok of kindling flax; if our faith be pure and our love unfained, if the degree of it be great God will accept it into glory: if it be little he will accept it into grace, and make it bigger. For that is the first instance of Gods readinesse to forgive: he will upon any termes, that are not unreasonable and that do not suppose a remanent affection to sin keep us from the intolerable paines of hell. And indeed if we consider the [Page] constitution of the conditions which God requires, we shall soon A perceive God intends heaven to us as a meer gift, and that the duties on our part are but little entertainments and exercises of our affections and our love that the Devil might not seize upon that portion which to eternal ages shall be the instrument of our happinesse. For in all the parts of our duty it may be there is but one instance in which we are to do violence to our natural and first desires. For those men have very ill natures to whom vertue is so contrary that they are inclined naturally to lust, to drunkennesse and anger, and pride and covetousnesse, and unthankefulnesse and disobedience: Most men that are tempted with lust, could easily enough entertain the B sobrieties of other counsels, as of temperance, and justice, or religion, if it would indulge to them but that one passion of lust, & persons that are greedy of mony are not fond of amorous vanities nor care they to sit long at the wine and one vice destroyes another, and when one vice is consequent to another, it is by way of punishment and dereliction of the man, unlesse where vices have cognation, and seem but like several degrees of one another; and it is evil custome and superinduced habits that make artificiall appetites in most men to most sins; But many times their naturall temper vexes them into uneasie dispositions and aptnesses onely C to some one unhandsome sort of action; that one thing therefore is it in which God demands of thee mortification and self deniall.

Certain it is; There are very many men in the world that would fain commute their severity in al other instances for a licence in their one appetite; they would not refuse long prayers after a drunken meeting, or great almes to gether with one great lust; but then consider how easie it is for them to go to heaven; God demands of them for his sake & their own to crucifie but one natural lust, or one evil habit, (for all the rest they are easie enough to do themselves) & God will D give them heaven, where the joy is more then one, and I said it is but one mortification God requires of most men; for if those persons would extirp but that one thing in which they are principally tempted it is not easily imaginable that any lesse evill to which the temptation is trifling should interpose between them and their great interest. If Saul had not spared Agag, the people could not have expected mercy; and our little and inferiour appetites that rather come to us by intimation and consequent adherences, then by direct violence, must not dwell with him who hath crossed the violence of his distempered nature in a beloved instance; since E therefore this is the state of most men and God in effect demands of them but one thing, and in exchange for that will give them all good things, it gives demonstration of his huge easinesse to redeem us from that intolerable evil that is equally consequent to the indulging to one or to twenty sinful habits.

[Page] A 2. Gods readinesse to pardon appears in this, that he pardons before we ask, for he that bids us ask for pardon hath in designe and purpose done the thing already: for what is wanting on his 2. part in whose onely power it is to give pardon, and in whose desire it is that we should be pardoned, and who commands us to lay hold upon the offer; he hath done all that belongs to God; that is all that concerns the pardon: there it lies ready, it is recorded in the book of life, it wants nothing, but being exemplified and taken forth, and the Holy spirit stands ready to consigne and passe the privy signet, that we may exhibit it to devils and evil men when they tempt B us to despair or sin.

3. Nay God is so ready in his mercy that he did pardon us even 3. before he redeemed us: for what is the secret of the mysterie, that the eternal Son of God should take upon him our nature, and die our death and suffer for our sins and do our work, and enable us to do our own? he that did this is God: he who thought it no robbery to be equal with God: he came to satisfie himself, to pay to himself the price for his own creature: and when he did this for us that he might pardon us, was he at that instant angry with us? C was this an effect of his anger or of his love that God sent his Son to work our pardon and salvation? Indeed we were angry with God, at enmity with the the Prince of life: but he was reconciled to us so far, as that he then did the greatest thing in the world for us: for nothing could be greater then that God, the Son of God, should die for us: here was reconciliation before pardon: and God that came to die for us did love us first before he came: this was hasty love. But it went further yet.

4. God pardoned us before we sinned; and when he foresaw our 4. sin, even mine and yours, he sent his son to die for us; our pardon D was wrought and effected by Christs death above 1600. years ago; and for the sins of to morrow, and the infirmities of the next day Christ is already dead, already risen from the dead, and does now make intercession and atonement. And this is not onely a favour to us who were born in the due time of the Gospel, but to all mankinde since Adam; For God who is infinitely patient in his justice, was not at all patient in his mercy; he forbears to strike and punish us, but he would not forbear to provide cure for us, and remedy; for as if God could not stay from redeeming us, he promised the Redeemer to Adam, in the beginning of the worlds sin; & E Christ was the lamb slain from the begining of the world; and the covenant of the Gospel though it was not made with man yet it was from the beginning performed by God as to his part, as to the ministration of pardon; The seed of the woman was set up against the dragon as soon as ever the Tempter had won his first battle; and though God laid his hand, and drew a vail of types and secresy before the manifestation of his mercies, yet he did the work of redemption, [Page] and saved us by the covenant of faith, and the righteousnesse A of believing, and the mercies of repentance, the graces of pardon, and the blood of the slain lamb, even from the fall of Adam to this very day, and will do, till Christs second coming.

Adam fell by his folly and did not perform the covenant of one little work, a work of a single abstinence; but he was restored by faith in the seed of the woman; and of this righteousnesse Noah was a preacher; and by faith Enoch was traslated, and by faith a remnant was saved at the flood: and to Abraham this was imputed for righteousnesse and to all the Patriarks, and to al the righteous B judges, and holy Prophets, and Saints of the old Testament, even while they were obliged (so far as the words of their covenant were expressed) to the law of works, their pardon was sealed & kept with in the vail within the curtains of the sanctuary, and they saw it not then, but they feel it ever since; and this was a great excellency of the Divine mercy unto them: God had mercy on all mankinde before Christs manifestation, even beyond the mercies of their covenant: & they were saved as we are, by the seed of the woman by God incarnate by the lamb slain from the beginning of the world; not by works, for we all failed of them; that is, not by an exact obedience, but by C faith working by love, by sincere, hearty endeavours & believing God and relying upon his infinite mercy, revealed in part, and now fully manifest by the great instrument and means of that mercy Jesus Christ. So that here is pardon before we asked it; pardon before Christs coming, pardon before redemption; and pardon before we sinned: what greater readinesse to forgive us can be imagined? yes: there is one degree more yet; and that will prevent a mistake in this.

5. For God so pardoned us once, that we should need no 5. more pardon; he pardons us by turning every one of us away D from our iniquities; thats the purpose of Christ, that he might safely pardon us before we sinned; and we might not sin upon the confidence of pardon, he pardoned us not onely upon condition we would sin no more, but he took away our sin, cured our cursed inclinations, instructed our understanding, rectified our will, fortified us against temptations, and now every man whom he pardons he also sanctifies, and he is born of God, and he must not, will not, cannot sin, so long as the seed of God remains within him, so long as his pardon continues. This is the consummation of pardon. For if God had so pardoned us, as onely to take away our evils which are E past, we should have needed a second Saviour, and a redeemer for every month, and new pardons perpetually. But our blessed Redeemer hath taken away our sin not onely the guilt of our old, but our inclinations to new sins: he makes us like himself and commands us to live so, that we shall not need a second pardon, that is, [Page] A a second state of pardon: for we are but once baptized into Christs death, and that death was one, and our redemption but one, and our covenant the same, and as long as we continue within the covenant, we are still within the power and comprehensions of the first pardon.

6. And yet there is a necessity of having one degree of pardon 6. more beyond all this. For although we do not abjure our covenant and renounce Christ and extinguish the spirit, yet we resist him, and we grieve him: and we go off from the holinesse of the covenant, and return again, and very often step aside, and need B this great pardon to be perpetually applyed and renewed: and to this purpose: that we may not have a possible need without a certain remedy, the Holy Jesus, the Author, and finisher of our faith and pardon, sits in heaven in a perpetual advocation for us, that this pardon once wrought may be for ever applyed to every emergent need, and every tumor of pride, and every broken heart, and every disturbed conscience, and upon every true and sincere return of a hearty repentance: And now upon this title no more degrees can be added: it is already greater, and was before all our needs, C and was greater then the old covenant, and beyond the revelations, and did in Adams youth antidate the Gospel, turning the publike miseries by secret grace, into eternall glories. But now upon other circumstances it is remarkable and excellent, and swels like an hydropick cloud when it is fed with the breath of the morning tide, till it fills the bosome of heaven, and descends in dews and gentle showers, to water and refresh the earth.

7. God is so ready to forgive that himself works our dispositions 7. towards it, and either must in some degree pardon us before we are capable of pardon, by his grace making way for his mercy, D or else we can never hope for pardon. For unlesse God by his preventing grace should first work the first part of our pardon, even without any dispositions of our own to receive it, we could not desire a pardon, nor hope for it, nor work towards it, nor ask it, nor receive it; This giving of preventing grace, is a mercy of forgivenesse contrary to that severity by which some desperate persons are given over to a reprobate sense; that is, a leaving of men to themselves, so that they cannot pray effectually, nor desire holily, nor repent truly, nor receive any of those mercies which God designed so plenteously, and the Son of God purchased E so dearly for us. When God sends a plague of warre upon a land, in all the accounts of religion, and expectations of reason, the way to obtain our peace is to leave our sins, for which the warre was sent upon us, as the messenger of wrath: and without this, we are like to perish in the judgement. But then consider what a sad condition we are in, warre mends but few, but spoils multitudes; it legitimates rapine, and authorizes murder, [Page] and these crimes must be ministred to by their lesser relatives, by A covetousnesse, and anger, and pride, and revenge, and heats of blood, and wilder liberty, and all the evil that can be supposed to come from, or run to, such cursed causes of mischief. But then if the punishment increases the sin, by what instrument can the punishment be removed? How shall we be pardoned and eased, when our remedies are converted into causes of the sicknesse, and our antidotes are poison? Here there is a plain necessity of Gods preventing grace; and if there be but a necessity of it, that is enough to ascertain us we shall have it: But unlesse God should begin to pardon us first, for nothing, and against our own dispositions, B we see there is no help in us, nor for us. If we be not smitten we are undone, if we are smitten we perish: and as young Damarchus said of his Love, when he was made master of his wish; Salvus sum quia pereo, si non peream plane inteream, we may say of some of Gods judgements: We perish when we are safe, because our sins are not smitten, and if they be, then we are worse undone; because we grow worse for being miserable; but we can be relieved onely by a free mercy; for pardon is the way to pardon: and when God gives us our peny, then we can work for another, and a gift is the way to a grace, and all that we can do towards C it, is but to take it in Gods method; and this must needs be a great forwardnesse of forgivenesse, when Gods mercy gives the pardon, and the way to finde it, and the hand to receive it, and the eye to search it, and the heart to desire it; being busie and effective as Elijah's fire, which intending to convert the sacrifice into its own more spirituall nature of flames and purified substances; stood in the neighbourhood of the fuell, and called forth all its enemies, and licked up the hindering moisture, and the water of the trenches, and made the Altar send forth a phantastick smoke before the sacrifice was enkindled: So is the preventing grace of God, it D does all the work of our souls, and makes its own way, and invites it self, and prepares its own lodging, and makes its own entertainment, it gives us precepts and makes us able to keep them; it enables our faculties and excites our desires, it provokes us to pray, and sanctifies our heart in prayer, and makes our prayer go forth to act, and the act does make the desire valid, and the desire does make the act certain, and persevering; and both of them are the works of God: for more is received into the soul from without the soul, then does proceed from within the soul: It is more for the soul to be moved and disposed, then E to work when that is done: as the passage from death to life is greater then from life to action, especially since the action is owing to that cause that put in the first principle of life.

These are the great degrees of Gods forwardnesse and readinesse to forgive, for the expression of which no language is sufficient, [Page] A but Gods own words describing mercy in all those dimensions which can signifie to us its greatnesse and infinity. His mercy is great, his mercies are many, his mercy reacheth unto the heavens, it fils heaven and earth, it is above all his works, it endureth for ever, God pitieth as a Father doth his children; nay he is our Father, and the same also is the Father of mercy, and the God of all comfort: So that mercy and we have the same relation; and well it may be so, for we live and die together; for as to man onely, God shews the mercy of forgivenesse, so if God takes away his mercy, man shall be no more, no more capable of felicity, or of B any thing that is perfective of his condition, or his person. But as God preserves man by his mercy, so his mercy hath all its operations upon man, and returns to its own centre and incircumscription, and infinity, unlesse it issues forth upon us. And therefore besides the former great lines of the mercy of forgivenesse, there is another chain, which but to produce and tell its links, is to open a cabinet of Jewels, where every stone is as bright as a star, and every star is great as the Sun, and shines for ever, unlesse we shut our eyes, or draw the vail of obstinate and finall sins.

1. God is long-suffering, that is, long before he be angry, and 1. C yet God is provoked every day, by the obstinacy of the Jews, and the folly of the Heathens, and the rudenesse and infidelity of the Mahumetans, and the negligence and vices of Christians; and he that can behold no impurity is received in all places with perfumes of mushromes, and garments spotted with the flesh, and stained souls, and the actions and issues of misbelief, and an evil conscience, and with accursed sins that he hates, upon pretence of religion which he loves; and he is made a party against himself by our voluntary mistakes, and men continue ten yeers, and 20. and 30. and 50. in a course of sinning, and they grow old with the vices of their D youth; and yet God forbears to kill them, and to consigne them over to an eternity of horrid pains, still expecting that they should repent and be saved.

2. Besides this long-sufferance and for-bearing with an unwearied 2. patience, God also excuses a sinner oftentimes and takes a little thing for an excuse, so far as to move him to intermediall favours first; and from thence to a finall pardon. He passes by the sins of our youth with a huge easinesse to pardon, if he be intreated and reconciled by the effective repentance of a vigorous manhood; he takes ignorance for an excuse, and in every degree of its E being inevitable, or innocent in its proper cause, it is also inculpable and innocent in its proper effects, though in their own natures criminal. But I found mercy of the Lord because I did it in ignorance, saith S. Paul; he pities our infirmities and strikes off much of the account upon that stock; the violence of a temptation and restlesnesse of its motion, the perpetuity of its sollicitation, the wearinesse [Page] of a mans spirit, the state of sicknesse, the necessity of secular A affairs, the publike customs of a people have all of them a power of pleading and prevailing towards some degrees of pardon and diminution before the throne of God.

3. When God perceives himself forced to strike, yet then he 3. takes off his hand and repents him of the evil; It is as if it were against him, that any of his creatures should fall under the strokes of an exterminating fury.

4. When he is forced to proceed, he yet makes an end before 4. he hath half done; and is as glad of a pretence to pardon us, or to strike lesse, as if he himself had the deliverance and not we: When B Ahab had but humbled himself at the word of the Lord, God was glad of it and went with the message to the Prophet himself, saying, Seest thou not how Ahab humbles himself? What was the event of it? I will not bring the evil in his dayes, but in his sons dayes the evil shall come upon his house.

5 God forgets our sin and puts it out of his remembrance, that 5. is, he makes it as though it had never been; he makes penitence to be as pure as innocence to all the effects of pardon and glory: the memory of the sins shall not be upon record, to be used to any after act of disadvantage, and never shall return unlesse we force C them out of their secret places by ingratitude and a new state of sinning.

6. God sometimes gives pardon beyond all his revelations 6. and declared will, and provides suppletories of repentance, even then when he cuts a man off from the time of repentance, accepting a temporal death instead of an eternal: that although the Divine anger might interrupt the growing of the fruits, yet in some cases, and to some persons, the death and the very cutting off shall go no further, but be instead of explicite and long repentances. Thus it happened to Uzzah, who was smitten for his zeal, and D died in severity for prevaricating the letter, by earnestnesse of spirit to serve the whole religion. Thus it was also in the case of the Corinthians that died a temporal death for their undecent circumstances in receiving the holy Sacrament. Saint Paul who used it for an argument to threaten them into reverence, went no further, nor pressed the argument to a sadder issue then to die temporally.

But these suppletories are but seldom, and they are also great troubles, and ever without comfort, and dispensed irregularly, and that not in the case of habituall sins that we know of, or very great sins, but in single actions, or instances of a lesse malignity; E and they are not to be relied upon, because there is no rule concerning them; but when they do happen they magnifie the infinitenesse of Gods mercy which is commensurate to all our needs, and is not to be circumscribed by the limits of his own revelations.

7. God pardons the greatest sinners, and hath left them upon 7. [Page] A record: and there is no instance in Scripture of the Divine forgivenesse, but in such instances, the misery of which was a fit instrument to speak aloud the glories of Gods mercies, and gentlenesse, and readinesse to forgive: Such were S. Paul a persecutor, and S. Peter that forswore his Master, Mary Magdalene, with seven Devils, the thief upon the crosse, Manasses an Idolater, David a murderer and adulterer, the Corinthian for incest, the children of Israel for ten times rebelling against the Lord in the wildernesse, with murmuring, and infidelity, and rebellion, and schisme, and a golden calf, and open disobedience; and above all, I shall instance B in the Pharisees among the Jews, who had sinned against the Holy Ghost, as our Blessed Saviour intimates, and tels the particular, viz. in saying that the Spirit of God by which Christ did work was an evil spirit; and afterward they crucified Christ, so that two of the Persons of the most Holy Trinity were openly and solemnly defied, and God had sent out a decree that they should be cut off; yet 40. yeers time (after all this) was left for their repentance, and they were called upon by arguments more perswasive and more excellent in that 40. yeers, then all the Nation had heard from their Prophets, C even from Samuel to Zecharias: And Jonas thought he had reason on his side, to refuse to go to threaten Nineveh; he knew Gods tendernesse in destroying his creatures, and he should be thought to be but a false Prophet; and so it came to passe according to his belief. Jonah prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee Jonah 4. 2. Lord was not this my saying when I was yet in my countrey; therefore I fled for I knew thou wert a gracious God and mercifull, slow to anger, and of great kindnesse and repentest thee of the evil: He told before hand what the event would be; and he had reason to know it; God proclaimed it in a cloud before the face of all Israel, and D made it to be his Name, Miserator & misericors Deus. The Lord, Exod. 34. 6. the Lord God, mercifull and gracious, &c.

You see the largenesse of this treasure; but we can see no end, for we have not yet looked upon the rare arts of conversion; nor that God leaves the naturall habit of vertues, even after the acceptation is interrupted; nor his working extraregular miracles, besides the sufficiencie of Moses and the Prophets, and the New Testament, and thousands more which we cannot consider now.

But this we can, when God sent an Angel to pour plagues upon the earth, there were in their hands Phialae aureae, golden phials: E for the death of men is precious and costly, and it is an expence that God delights not in; but they were Phials, that is, such vessels as out of them no great evil could come at once; but it comes out with difficulty, sobbing and troubled as it passes forth; it comes thorow a narrow neck, and the parts of it croud at the port to get forth, and are stifled by each others neighbourhood; and all strive to get out, but few can passe, as if God did nothing but threaten, [Page] and draw his judgements to the mouth of the Phial with a full A body, and there made it stop it self.

The result of this consideration is, that as we fear the Divine judgements, so that we adore and love his goodnesse, and let the golden chains of the Divine mercy tie us to a noble prosecution of our duty and the interests of religion; For he is the worst of men whom Kindnesse cannot soften, nor endearments oblige whom gratitude cannot tie faster then the bands of life and death: He is an ill natur'd sinner if he will not comply with the sweetnesses of heaven, and be civill to his Angel guardian, or observant of his Patron God, who made him, and feeds him, and keeps all his faculties, B and takes care of him, and endures his follies, and waits on him more tenderly then a Nurse, more diligently then a Client, who hath greater care of him then his father, and whose bowels yern over him with more compassion then a mother; who is bountifull beyond our needs, and mercifull beyond our hopes, and makes capacities in us to receive more. Fear is stronger then death, and Love is more prevalent then Fear, and kindnesse is the greatest endearment of Love; and yet to an ingenuous person gratitude is greater then all these, and obliges to a solemn duty when love fails, and fear is dull and unactive, and death it self is despised: but the C man who is hardened against kindnesse, and whose duty is not made alive with gratitude, must be used like a slave, and driven like an ox, and inticed with goads and whips, but must never enter into the inheritance of sons: Let us take heed: for Mercy is like a rainbowe, which God set in the clouds to remember mankinde; it shines here as long as it is not hindered; but we must never look for it after it is night, and it shines not in the other world; if we refuse mercy here, we shall have justice to eternity. D E

B Sermon. XXVIII. A FVNERAL SERMON, Preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honorable and most vertuous Lady, The Lady FRANCES Countesse of CARBERY: C Who deceased October the 9th. 1650. at her House Golden-Grove in CARMARTHEN-SHIRE.

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To the right Honorable, and truly Noble, RICHARD Lord VAVGHAN, Earl of Carbery, Baron of Emlim and Molinger, Knight of D the Honorable Order of the Bath.

My Lord,

I Am not ashamed to professe that I pay this part of service to your Lordship most unwillingly: for it is a sad office to be the chief Minister in the house of mourning, and to present an interested person with a branch of Cypresse and a bottle of tears. And indeed, my Lord, it were more proportionable to your E needs to bring something that might alleviate your sorrow, then to dresse the hearse of your Dear Lady, and to furnish it with such circumstances, that it may dwell with you, and lie in your closet, and make your prayers and your retirements more sad and full of weepings. But because the Divine providence hath taken from you a person so excellent, a woman fit to converse with Angels, and Apostles, with Saints and Martyrs [Page] give me leave to present you with her picture; drawn in little and in A water-colours, sullied indeed with tears and the abrupt accents of a real and consonant sorrow; but drawn with a faithful hand, and taken from the life: and indeed it were too great a losse, to be deprived of her example and of her rule, of the original and the copy too. The age is very evil and deserved her not; but because it is so evil, it hath the more need to have such lives preserved in memory to instruct our piety, or upbraid our wickednesse. For now that God hath cut this tree of Paradise down from its seat of earth, yet so the dead trunk may support B a part of the declining Temple, or at least serve to kindle the fire on the altar. My Lord, I pray God this heap of sorrow may swell your piety till it breaks into the greatest joyes of God and of religion: and remember, when you pay a tear upon the grave, or to the memory of your Lady (that dear and most excellent soul) that you pay two more: one of repentance for those things that may have caused this breach; and another of joy for the mercies of God to your Dear departed Saint, that he hath taken her into a place where she can weep no more. My Lord, I think I shall, so long as I live, that is so long as I am

Your Lordships C most humble Servant TAYLOR. D E

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2 Samuel 14. 14.‘B For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again: neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him.’

WHen our blessed Saviour and his Disciples viewed the Temple, some one amongst them cryed out, Magister aspice, quales lapides! Master behold what fair, what great stones are here! Christ made no other C reply but foretold their dissolution and a world of sadnesse and sorrow which should bury that whole Nation when the teeming cloud of Gods displeasure should produce a storm which was the daughter of the biggest anger, and the mother of the greatest calamitie which ever crushed any of the sons of Adam [the time shall come, that there shall not be left one stone upon another.] The whole Temple and the Religion, the ceremonies ordained by God, and the Nation beloved by God and the fabrick erected for the service of God, shall run to their own period and lie down in their several graves. Whatsoever D had a beginning can also have an ending, and it shall die, unlesse it be daily watered with the purls flowing from the fountain of life▪ and refreshed with the dew of Heaven and the wells of God. And therefore God had provided a tree in Paradise to have supported Adam in his artificial immortality: Immortality was not in his nature, but in the hands, and arts, in the favour and superadditions of God. Man was alwaies the same mixture of heat and cold, of drynesse and moisture; ever the same weak things, apt to feel rebellion in the humors, and to suffer the evils of a civil war in his body natural: and therefore health and life was to descend upon E him from Heaven, and he was to suck life from a tree on earth; himself being but ingraffed into a tree of life, and adopted into the condition of an immortal nature: But he that in the best of his dayes was but a Cien of this tree of life, by his sin was cut off from thence quickly, and planted upon thorns, and his portion was for ever after among the flowers, which to day spring and [Page] look like health and beauty, and in the evening, they are sick, and A at night are dead, and the oven is their grave. And as before, even from our first spring from the dust of the earth, we might have died if we had not been preserved by the continual flux of a rare providence: so now that we are reduced to the laws of our own nature, we must needs die. It is natural, and therefore necessary; It is become a punishment to us, and therefore it is unavoidable, and God hath bound the evill upon us by bands of naturall and inseparable propriety, and by a supervening unalterable decree of Heaven: and we are fallen from our privilege, and are returned to the condition, of beast, and buildings, and common B things: And we see Temples defiled unto the ground, and they die by Sacrilege: and great Empires die by their own plenty and ease, full humors, and factious Subjects: and huge buildings fall by their own weight, and the violence of many winters eating and consuming the cement which is the marrow of their bones: and Princes die like the meanest of their Servants: and every thing findes a grave and a tomb; and the very tomb it self dies by the bignesse of its pompousnesse and luxury.

—Phario nutantia pondera saxo

Quae cineri vanus dat ruitura labor, C

and becomes as friable and uncombined dust as the ashes of the Sinner or the Saint that lay under it, and is now forgotten in his bed of darknesse: And to this Catalogue of mortality Man is inrolled with a [Statutum est] It is appointed for all men once to die, and after death comes judgement; and if a man can be stronger then nature, or can wrestle with a degree of Heaven, or can escape from a Divine punishment by his own arts, so that neither the power nor the providence of God, nor the laws of nature, nor the bands of eternal predestination can hold him, then he may live beyond the fate and period of flesh, and last longer then a flower: But if all D these can hold us and tie us to conditions, then we must lay our heads down upon a turfe and entertain creeping things in the cells and little chambers of our eyes, and dwell with worms till time and death shall be no more. We must needs die] That's our sentence. But that's not all.

We are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again] Stay. 1. We are as water, weak and of no consistence, alwaies descending abiding in no certain place, unlesse where we are detained with violence: and every little breath of winde makes us rough and tempestuous, and troubles our faces: every trifling E accident discomposes us; and as the face of the waters wafting in astrom so wrinkles it self that it makes upon its fore-head furrows deep and hollow like a grave: so do our great and little cares and trifles, first make the wrinkles of old age, and then they dig a grave for us: And there is in nature nothing so contemptible, [Page] A but it may meet with us in such circumstances, that it may be too hard for us in our weaknesses: and the sting of a Bee is a weapon sharp enough to pierce the finger of a childe, or the lip of a man: and those creatures which nature hath left without weapons, yet they are armed sufficiently to vex those parts of men which are left defenselesse and obnoxious to a sun beam, to the roughnesse of a sower grape, to the unevennesse of a gravel-stone, to the dust of a wheel, or the unwholesome breath of a star looking awry upon a sinner.

2. But besides the weaknesses and natural decayings of our bodies, B if chances and contingencies be innumerable, then no man can reckon our dangers, and the praeternatural causes of our deaths. So that he is a vain person whose hopes of life are too confidently increased by reason of his health: and he is too unreasonably timorous, who thinks his hopes at an end when he dwels in sickness. For men die without rule; and with, and without occasions; and no man suspecting or foreseeing any of deaths addresses, and no man in his whole condition is weaker then another. A man in a long Consumption is fallen under one of the solemnities and preparations to death: but at the same instant the most healthful person C is as neer death, upon a more fatal, and a more sudden, but a lesse discerned cause. There are but few persons upon whose foreheads every man can read the sentence of death written in the lines of a lingring sicknesse, but they (sometimes) hear the passing bell ring for stronger men, even long before their own knell calls at the house of their mother to open her womb and make a bed for them. No man is surer of to morrow then the weakest of his brethren: and when Lepidus and Aufidius stumbled at the threshold of the Senate and fell down and died, the blow came from heaven in a cloud but it struck more suddenly then upon the poor D slave that made sport upon the Theatre with a praemeditated and foredescribed death: Quod quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis cautum est in horas. There are sicknesses that walk in darknesse, and there are exterminating Angels that fly wrapt up in the curtains of immateriality and an uncommunicating nature; whom we cannot see, but we feel their force and sink under their sword, and from heaven the vail descends that wraps our heads in the fatal sentence. There is no age of man but it hath proper to it self some posterns and outlets for death, besides those infinite and open ports out of which myriads of men and women every day passe into the dark E and the land of forgetfulnesse. Infancie hath life but in effigie, or like a spark dwelling in a pile of wood: the candle is so newly lighted, that every little shaking of the taper, and every ruder breath of air, puts it out, and it dies. Childhood is so tender, and yet so unwary; so soft to all the impressions of chance, and yet so forward to run into them, that God knew there could be no security [Page] without the care and vigilance of an Angel-keeper: and the eyes of A Parents and the arms of Nurses, the provisions of art, and all the effects of Humane love and Providence are not sufficient to keep one childe from horrid mischiefs, from strange and early calamities and deaths, unlesse a messenger be sent from heaven to stand sentinel, and watch the very playings and the sleepings, the eatings and the drinkings of the children; and it is a long time before nature makes them capable of help: for there are many deaths, and very many diseases to which poor babes are exposed; but they have B but very few capacities of physick; to shew, that infancy is as liable to death as old age, and equally exposed to danger, and equally uncapable of a remedy: with this onely difference, that old age hath diseases incurable by nature, and the diseases of child-hood are incurable by art; and both the states are the next heirs of death.

3. But all the middle way the case is altered. Nature is strong, 3. and art is apt to give ease and remedy: but still, there is no security; and there, the case is not altered. 1 For there are so many diseases in men that are not understood. 2. So many new ones every year. 3 The old ones are so changed in circumstance, and intermingled with so many collateral complications. 4 The Symptoms are oftentimes so alike. 5 Sometimes so hidden and fallacious. C 6 Sometimes none at all (as in the most sudden and the most dangerous imposthumations.) 7 And then, the diseases in the inward parts of the body, are oftentimes such, to which no application can be made. 8 They are so far off, that the effects of all medicines can no otherwise come to them, then the effect and juices of all meats, that is, not till after two or three alterations, and decoctions, which change the very species of the medicament. 9 And after all this, very many principles in the art of Physick are so uncertain, that after they have been believed seven or eight ages, D and that upon them much of the practise hath been established; they come to be considered by a witty man, and others established in their stead; by which, men must practise, and by which three or four generations of men more (as happens) must live or die. 10. And all this while the men are sick, and they take things that certainly make them sicker for the present, and very uncertainly restore health for the future: that it may appear of what a large extent is humane calamity; when Gods providence hath not onely made it weak and miserable upon the certain stock of a various nature, and upon the accidents of an infinite contingency; but E even from the remedies which are appointed, our dangers and our troubles are certainly increased: so that we may well be likened to water; our nature is no stronger, our aboad no more certain; If the sluces be opened, it falls away and runneth apace; if its current be stopped, it swells and grows troublesome, and spils over [Page] A with a greater diffusion; If it be made to stand still it putrefies: and all this we do. For,

4. In all the processe of our health we are running to our grave: we open our own sluces by vitiousnesse, and unworthy actions; we pour in drink, and let out life; we increase diseases and know not how to bear them; we strangle our selves with our own intemperance; we suffer the feavers and the inflammations of lust, and we quench our souls with drunkennesse; we bury our understandings in loads of meat and surfets: and then we lie down upon our beds and roar with pain and disquietnesse of our souls: Nay, we B kill one anothers souls and bodies with violence and folly, with the effects of pride and uncharitablenesse; we live and die like fools, and bring a new mortality upon our selves; wars and vexatious cares, and private duels, and publike disorders, and every thing that is unreasonable, and every thing that is violent: so that now we may adde this fourth gate to the grave: Besides Nature and Chance, and the mistakes of art, men die with their own sins, and then enter into the grave in haste and passion, and pull the heavy stone of the monument upon their own heads. And thus we make our selves like water spilt on the ground: we throw away our lives as C if they were unprofitable, (and indeed most men make them so) we let our years slip through our fingers like water; and nothing is to be seen, but like a showr of tears upon a spot of ground; there is a grave digged, and a solemn mourning, and a great talk in the neighbourhood, and when the dayes are finished, they shall be, and they shall be remembred no more: And that's like water too, when it is spilt, it cannot be gathered up again.

There is no redemption from the grave.

—inter se mortales mutua vivunt

Et quasi cursores vitäi lampada tradunt.

D Men live in their course and by turns: their light burns a while, and then it burns blew and faint, and men go to converse with Spirits, and then they reach the taper to another; and as the hours of yesterday can never return again, so neither can the man whose hours they were, and who lived them over once, he shall never come to live them again, and live them better. When Lazarus, and the widows son of Naim, and Tabitha, and the Saints that appeared in Jerusalem at the resurrection of our blessed Lord, arose; they came into this world, some as strangers onely to make a visit, and all of them to manifest a glory: but none came upon the stock of a new E life, or entred upon the stage as at first, or to perform the course of a new nature: and therefore it is observable that we never read of any wicked person that was raised from the dead: Dives would fain have returned to his brothers house; but neither he, nor any from him could be sent: but all the rest in the New Testament (one onely excepted) were expressed to have been holy persons, [Page] or else by their age were declared innocent. Lazarus was A beloved of Christ: those souls that appeared at the resurrection were the souls of Saints: Tabitha raised by Saint Peter was a charitable and a holy Christian: and the maiden of twelve years old, raised by our blessed Saviour, had not entred into the regions of choice and sinfulnesse: and the onely exception of the widows son, is indeed none at all; for in it the Scripture is wholly silent; and therefore it is very probable that the same processe was used, God in all other instances having chosen to exemplifie his miracles of B nature to purposes of the Spirit, and in spirituall capacities. So that although the Lord of nature did break the bands of nature in some instances, to manifest his glory to succeeding, great and never failing purposes; yet (besides that this shall be no more) it was also instanced in such persons who were holy and innocent, and within the verge and comprehensions of the eternall mercy. We never read that a wicked person felt such a miracle, or was raised from the grave to try the second time for a Crown; but where he fell there he lay down dead, and saw the light no more.

This consideration I intend to you as a severe Monitor, and an advice of carefulnesse, that you order your affairs so that you may be partakers of the first resurrection, that is, from sin to grace, from the death of vitious habits, to the vigour, life and efficacy of C an habituall righteousnesse: For (as it hapned to those persons in the New Testament now mentioned, to them (I say) in the literall sense) Blessed are they that have part in the first resurrection, upon them the second death shall have no power: meaning that they who by the power of Christ and his holy Spirit were raised to life again, were holy and blessed souls, and such who were written in the book of God; and that this grace happened to no wicked and vitious person: so it is most true in the spirituall and intended sense: You onely that serve God in a holy life; you who are not dead in trespasses D and sins; you who serve God with an early diligence and an unwearied industry, and a holy religion, you, and you onely shall come to life eternall, you onely shall be called from death to life; the rest of mankind shall never live again but passe from death to death; from one death to another, to a worse; from the death of the body, to the eternall death of body and soul: and therefore in the Apostles Creed there is no mention made of the resurrection of wicked persons: but of the resurrection of the body to everlasting life. The wicked indeed shall be haled forth from their graves, from their everlasting prisons, where in chains of darknesse they are kept unto E the judgement of the great day: But this therefore cannot be called in sensu favoris, a resurrection, but the solennities of the eternall death; It is nothing but a new capacity of dying again; such a dying as cannot signifie rest; but where death means nothing but an intolerable and never ceasing calamity: and therefore these words [Page] A of my Text are otherwise to be understood of the wicked, otherwise of the godly: The wicked are spilt like water and shall never be gathered up again; no not in the gatherings of eternity; They shall be put into vessels of wrath and set upon the flames of hell; but that is not a gathering, but a scattering from the face and presence of God. But the godly also come under the sense of these words. They descend into their graves, and shall no more be reckoned among the living; they have no concernment in all that is done under the Sun. Agamemnon hath no more to do with the Turks armies invading and possessing that part of Greece where he reigned, then B had the Hippocentaur, who never had a beeing: and Cicero hath no more interest in the present evils of Christendome, then we have to do with his boasted discovery of Catilines conspiracie. What is it to me that Rome was taken by the Gauls? and what is it now to Camillus if different religions be tolerated amongst us? These things that now happen concern the living, and they are made the scenes of our duty or danger respectively: and when our wives are dead and sleep in charnel houses, they are not troubled when we laugh loudly at the songs sung at the next marriage feast; nor do they envy when another snatches away the gleanings C of their husbands passion.

It is true they envy not, and they lie in a bosome where there can be no murmure, and they that are consigned to Kingdoms, and to the feast of the marriage-supper of the Lamb, the glorious and eternall Bride-groom of holy souls, they cannot think our marriages here, our lighter laughings, and vain rejoycings considerable as to them. And yet there is a relation continued still. Aristotle said, that to affirm the dead take no thought for the good of the living is a disparagement to the laws of that friendship which in their state of separation they cannot be tempted to rescind. And the D Church hath taught in generall that they pray for us, they recommend to God the state of all their Relatives, in the union of the intercession that our blessed Lord makes for them and us: and Saint Ambrose gave some things in charge to his dying brother Satyrus, that he should do for him in the other world: he gave it him (I say) when he was dying, not when he was dead. And certain it is that though our dead friends affection to us is not to be estimated according to our low conceptions, yet it is not lesse, but much more then ever it was; it is greater in degree, and of another kind.

But then we should do well also to remember, that in this world E we are something besides flesh and blood; that we may not without violent necessities run into new relations, but preserve the affections we bear to our dead when they were alive: We must not so live as if they were perished, but so as pressing forward to the most intimate participation of the communion of Saints. And we also have some wayes to expresse this relation, and to bear a part in this [Page] communion, by actions of intercourse with them, and yet proper A to our state: such as are strictly performing the will of the dead, providing for, and tenderly and wisely educating their children, paying their debts, imitating their good example, preserving their memories privately, and publikely keeping their memorials, and desiring of God with hearty and constant prayer that God would give them a joyfull resurrection, and a mercifull judgement, (for so S. Paul prayed in behalf of Onesiphorus) that God would shew them 2 Tim. 1. 18.mercy in that day, that fearfull, and yet much to B be desired day, in which the most righteous person hath need of much mercy and pity, and shall find it. Now these instances of duty shew that the relation remains still; and though the Relict of a man or woman hath liberty to contract new relations; yet I do not finde they have liberty to cast off the old; as if there were no such thing as immortality of souls. Remember that we shall converse together again: let us therefore never do any thing of reference to them which we shall be ashamed of in the day when all secrets shall be discovered, and that we shall meet again in the presence of God: In the mean time, God watcheth concerning all their interest, and he will in his time both discover and recompense. For though, as to us, they are like water spilt, yet, to God, they are as water fallen into the sea, safe and united in his comprehension, and C inclosures.

But we are not yet passed the consideration of the sentence: This descending to the grave is the lot of all men. [neither doth God respect the person of any man] The rich is not protected for favour, nor the poor for pity, the old man is not reverenced for his age, nor the infant regarded for his tendernesse; youth and beauty, learning and prudence, wit and strength lie down equally in the dishonours of the grave. All men, and all natures, and all persons resist the addresses and solennities of death, and strive to preserve a D miserable and an unpleasant life; and yet they all sink down and die. For so have I seen the pillars of a building assisted with artificiall props bending under the pressure of a roof, and pertinaciously resisting the infallible and prepared ruine,

Donec certa dies omni compage solutâ

Ipsum cum rebus subruat auxilium,

till the determined day comes, and then the burden sunk upon the pillars, and disordered the aids and auxiliary rafters into a common ruine and a ruder grave: so are the desires and weak arts of man, with little aids and assistances of care and physick we strive to support E our decaying bodies, and to put off the evil day; but quickly that day will come, and then neither Angels nor men can rescue us from our grave; but the roof sinks down upon the walls, and the walls descend to the foundation; and the beauty of the face, and the dishonours of the belly, the discerning head and the servile [Page] A feet, the thinking heart, and the working hand, the eyes and the guts together shall be crush'd into the confusion of a heap, and dwell with creatures of an equivocall production, with worms and serpents, the sons and daughters of our own bones, in a house of durt and darknesse.

Let not us think to be excepted or deferred. If beauty, or wit, or youth, or Noblenesse, or wealth, or vertue could have been a defence, and an excuse from the grave, we had not met here to day to mourn upon the hearse of an excellent Lady; and God onely knows for which of us next the mourners shall go about the B streets, or weep in houses.

[...]

[...].

Il. [...].

We have lived so many years; and every day and every minute we make an escape from those thousands of dangers and deaths that encompasse us round about: and such escapings we must reckon to be an extraordinary fortune, and therefore that it cannot last long. Vain are the thoughts of Man, who when he is young or healthfull, thinks he hath a long threed of life to run over, and that it is violent and strange for young persons to die; and naturall and C proper onely for the aged. It is as naturall for a man to die by drowning as by a fever: And what greater violence or more unnaturall thing is it, that the horse threw his Rider into the river, then that a drunken meeting cast him into a fever; and the strengths of youth are as soon broken by the strong sicknesses of youth and the stronger intemperance, as the weaknesse of old age by a cough, or an asthma, or a continuall rheume: Nay it is more naturall for young Men and Women to die, then for old; because that is more naturall which hath more naturall causes; and that is more naturall which is most common: but to die with age is an D extreme rare thing; and there are more persons carried forth to buriall before the five and thirtieth year of their age, then after it. And therefore let no vain considence make you hope for long life. If you have lived but little, and are still in youth, remember that now you are in your biggest throng of dangers both of body and soul; and the proper sins of youth to which they rush infinitely and without consideration, are also the proper and immediate instruments of death. But if you be old you have escaped long and wonderfully, and the time of your escaping is out: you must not for everthink to live upon wonders, or that God will work miracles E to satisfie your longing follies, and unreasonable desires of living longer to sin and to the world. Go home and think to die, and what you would choose to be doing when you die, that do daily: for you will all come to that passe, to rejoyce that you did so, or wish that you had: that will be the condition of every one of us; for God regardeth no mans person.

[Page] Well! but all this you will think is but a sad story. What? we A must die, and go to darknesse and dishonour; and we must die quickly, and we must quit all our delights, and all our sins, or do worse, infinitely worse; and this is the condition of us all from which none can be excepted; every man shall be spilt and fall into the ground, and be gathered up no more. Is there no comfort after all this? shall we go from hence, and be no more seen, and have no recompense.

Miser, ô miser, aiunt, omnia ademit

Una die infausta mihi tot praemia vitae.

Shall we exchange our fair dwellings for a coffine, our softer beds B for the moistned and weeping turf, and our pretty children for worms, and is there no allay to this huge calamity? Yes, there is There is a [yet] in the Text: [For all this, yet doth God devise means that his banished be not expelled from him.] All this sorrow and trouble is but a phantasme, and receives its account and degrees from our present conceptions and the proportion to our relishes and gust.

When Pompey saw the Ghost of his first Lady Julia, who vexed his rest and his conscience for superinducing Cornelia upon her bed within the ten moneths of mourning, he presently fancied it, either C to be an illusion, or else that death could be no very great evil.

Aut nihil est sensus animis in morte relictum,

Aut morsipsa nihil—

Either my dead wife knows not of my unhandsome marriage, and forgetfulnesse of her; or if she does, then the dead live.

—longae, canitis si cognita, vitae

Mors media est—

Death is nothing but the middle point between two lives between this and another: concerning which comfortable mystery the holy D Scripture instructs our faith, and entertains our hope in these words. God is still the God of Abraham, Isaak, and Jacob; for all do live to him: and the souls of Saints are with Christ: I desire to be dissolved (saith S. Paul) and to be with Christ, for that is much better: and, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: they rest from their Vide 1 Cor. 15. 18. 1 Thess. 4. 16. Revel. 14. 13. John 5. 24. 2 Cor. 5. 8. & 6. labours, and their works follow them: For we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternall in the heavens: and this state of separation S. Paul calls, a being absent from the body, and being present with the Lord: This is one of Gods means which he hath E devised, that although our Dead are like persons banished from this world, yet they are not expelled from God: They are in the hands of Christ; they are in his presence; they are, or shall be clothed with a house of Gods making; they rest from all their labours; all tears are wiped from their eyes, and all discontents from their spirits; [Page] A and in the state of separation before the soul be reinvested with her new house the spirits of al persons are with God, so secured and so blessed, and so sealed up for glory, that this state of interval and imperfection is in respect of its certain event and end, infinitely more desirable then all the riches and all the pleasures, and all the vanities, and all the Kingdoms of this world.

I will not venture to determine what are the circumstances of the aboad of Holy Souls in their separate dwellings; and yet possibly that might be easier then to tell what or how the soul is and works in this world, where it is in the body tanquam B in alienâ domo, as in a prison, in fetters and restraints: for here the soal is discomposed and hindered, it is not as it shall be, as it ought to be, as it was intended to be; it is not permitted to its own freedom, and proper operation; so that all that we can understand of it here, is that it is so incommodated with a troubled and abated instrument, that the object we are to consider cannot be offered to us in a right line, in just and equal propositions or if it could, yet because we are to understand the soul by the soul, it becomes not onely a troubled and abused object, but a crooked instrument; and we here can consider it, just as a weak eye can behold C a staffe thrust into the waters of a troubled river; the very water makes a refraction, and the storm doubles the refraction, and the water of the eye doubles the species, and there is nothing right in the thing, the object is out of its just place, and the medium is troubled, and the organ is impotent: At cum exierit & in liberum coelum quasi in domum suam venerit, when the soul is entred into her own house, into the free regions of the rest and the neighbourhood of heavenly joyes, then its operations are more spiritual, proper, and proportioned to its being; and though we cannot see at such a distance, yet the object is more fitted if we had a capable D understanding; it is in it self in a more excellent and free condition.

Certain it is, that the body does hinder many actions of the soul: it is an imperfect body, and a diseased brain, or a violent passion that makes fools: no man hath a foolish soul; and the reasonings of men have infinite difference and degrees by reason of the bodies constitution. Among beasts which have no reason, there is a greater likenesse then between men, who have: & as by faces it is easier to know a man from a man, then a sparrow from a sparrow, or a squirrel from a squirrel: so the difference is very great in our E souls; which difference because it is not originally in the soul (and indeed cannot be in simple and spiritual substances of the same species or kind) it must needs drive wholly from the body, from its accidents and circumstances: from whence it follows, that because the body casts fetters and restraints, hindrances and impediments upon the soul, that the soul is much freer in the state of separation; [Page] and if it hath any any act of life, it is much more noble and A expedite.

That the soul is alive after our death, S. Paul affirms [Christ died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with 1 Thes. 5. 10. him.] Now it were strange that we should be alive, and live with Christ, and yet do no act of life: the body when it is asleep does many: and if the soul does none, the principle is lesse active then the instrument; but if it does any act at all in separation, it must necessarily be an act or effect of understanding; there is nothing else it can do. But this it can. For it is but a weak and an unlearned proposition to say, That the Soul can do nothing of it self, nothing B without the phantasmes and provisions of the body. For 1. In this life the soul hath one principle clearly separate, abstracted & immaterial, I mean, the Spirit of grace, which is a principle of life and action and in many instances does not all at communicate with matter, as in the infusion, superinduction and the creation of spiritual graces. 2. As nutrition, generation, eating and drinking are actions proper to the body and its state: so, extasies, visions, raptures, intuitive knowledge, and consideration of its self, acts of volition, and reflex acts of understanding are proper to the soul. 3. And therefore it is observable that S. Paul said that he knew not whether C his visions and raptures were in or out of the body: for by that we see his judgement of the thing, that one was as likely as the other, neither of them impossible or unreasonable; and therefore that the soul is as capable of action alone as in conjunction. 4. If in the state of blessednesse there are some actions of the soul which doe not passe through the body, such as contemplation of God, and conversing with spirits, and receiving those influences and rare immissions which coming from the Holy and mysterious Trinity make up the crown of glory; it follows that the necessity of the bodies ministery is but during the state of this life, and D as long as it converses with fire and water, and lives with corn and flesh, and is fed by the satisfaction of material appetits; which necessity and manner of conversation when it ceases, it can be no longer necessary for the soul to be served by phantasmes and material representations. 5. And therefore when the body shall be re-united, it shall be so ordered that then the body shall confesse it gives not any thing, but receives all its being and operation, its manner and abode from the soul, and that then it comes not to serve a necessity, but to partake a glory. For as the operations of the soul in this life, begin in the body, and by it the object is E transmitted to the soul: so then they shall begin in the soul and pass to the body; and as the operations of the soul by reason of its dependence on the body are animal, natural and material: so in the resurrection, the body shall be spiritual by reason of the preeminence, influence, and prime operation of the soul. Now between these [Page] A two states, stands the state of separation, in which the operations of the soul are of a middle nature, that is, not so spirituall as in the resurrection, and not so animal and natural as in the state of conjunction.

To all which I adde this consideration. That our souls have the same condition that Christs soul had in the state of separation; because he took on him all our nature, and all our condition; and it is certain, Christs soul in the three dayes of his separation did exercise acts of life, of joy and triumph, and did not sleep, but visited the souls of the Fathers, trampled upon the B pride of Devils, and satisfied those longing souls which were Prisoners of hope; and from all this we may conclude that the souls of all the servants of Christ are alive, and therfore do the actions of life, and proper to their state; and therefore it is highly probable that the soul works clearer, and understands brighter, and discourses wiser, and rejoyces louder, and loves noblier, and desires purer, and hopes stronger then it can do here.

But if these arguments should fail, yet the felicity of Gods Saints cannot fail. For suppose, the body to be a necessary instrument but C out of tune, and discomposed by sin and anger, by accident and chance, by defect and imperfections, yet, that it is better then none at all: and that if the soul works imperfectly with an imperfect body, that then she works not at all when she hath none; and suppose also that the soul should be as much without sense or perception in death, as it is in a deep sleep which is the image and shadow of death; yet then God devises other means that his banished be not expelled from him. For,

2. God will restore the soul to the body, and raise the body to such a perfection, that it shall be an Organ fitt to praise him upon; D it shall be made spiritual to minister to the soul, when the soul is turned into a Spirit, then the soul shall be brought forth by Angels from her incomparable and easie bed, from her rest in Christs Holy Bosome, and be made perfect in her being, and in all her operations; And this shall first appear by that perfection which the soul shall receive as instrumental to the last judgement: for then she shall see clearly all the Records of this world, all the Register of her own memory. For all that we did in this life, is laid up in our memories: and though dust and forgetfulnesse be drawn upon them, yet when God shall lift us from our dust, then shall E appear clearly all that we have done, written in the Tables of our conscience, which is the souls memory. We see many times, and in many instances, that a great memory is hindered and put out, and we thirty years after come to think of something that lay so long under a curtain; we think of it suddenly and without a line of deduction, or proper consequence: And all those famous memories, of Simonides and Theodectes, of Hortensius and Seneca, of [Page] Sceptius Metrodorus and Carneades, of Cyneas the Embassadour of A Pyrrhus, are onely the Records better kept, and lesse disturbed by accident and desease. For even the memory of Herods son of Athens, of Bathyllus and the dullest person now alive is so great, and by God made so sure a record of all that ever he did, that assoon as ever God shall but tune our instrument, and draw the curtains, and but light up the candle of immortality, there we shal finde it all, there we shall see all, and all the world shall see all; then we shall be made fit to converse with God after the manner of Spirits, we shall be like to Angels.

In the mean time, although upon the perswasion of the former B discourse it be highly probable that the souls of Gods servants do live in a state of present blessednesse; and in the exceeding joyes of a certain expectation of the revelation of the day of the Lord, and the coming of Jesus yet it will concern us onely to secure our state by holy living, and leave the event to God; that (as S. Paul said) whether present or absent, whether sleeping or waking, whether perceiving or perceiving not, we may be accepted of him: that when we are banished this world, and from the light of the sun, we may not be expelled from God, and from the light of his countenance, but that from our beds of sorrows, our souls may C passe into the bosome of Christ, and from thence to his right hand in the day of sentence: For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, & then if we have done wel in the body, we shal never be expelled from the beatifical presence of God, but be domesticks of his family, and heires of his Kingdom, and partakers of his glory.

Amen

§

I Have now done with my Text, but yet am to make you another Sermon. I have told you the necessity and the state of death; it may be too largely for such a sad story; I shal therefore now D with a better compendium teach you how to live by telling you a plain narrative of a life, which if you imitate and write after the copy, it will make, that death shall not be an evil, but a thing to be desired, and to be reckoned amongst the purchases and advantages of your fortune. When Martha and Mary went to weep over the E grave of their brother, Christ met them there and preached a Funeral Sermon, discoursing of the resurrection, and applying to the purposes of faith, and confession of Christ, and glorification of God: We have no other, we can have no better precedent to follow: and now that we are come to weep over the grave of our Dear Sister, this rare personage, we cannot chuse but have many vertues to learn, many to imitate, and some to exercise.

I chose, not to declare her extraction and genealogy. It was indeed fair and Honorable; but having the blessing to be descended from [Page] A worthy and Honoured Ancestors, and her self to be adopted and ingraffed into a more Noble family, yet she felt such outward appendages to be none of hers, because not of her choice, but the purchase of the vertues of others, which although they did ingage her to do noble things, yet they would upbraid all degenerate and lesse honourable lives then were those which began and increased the honour of the families. She did not love her fortune for making her noble; but thought it would be a dishonour to her if she did not continue her Noblenesse and excellency of vertue fit to be owned by persons relating to such Ancestors. It is fit for all us to B honour the Noblenesse of a family: but it is also fit for them that are Noble to despise it and to establish their honour upon the foundation of doing excellent things, and suffering in good causes, and despising dishonourable actions, and in communicating good things to others. For this is the rule in Nature: Those creatures are most Honourable which have the greatest power and do the greatest good: And accordingly my self have been a witnesse of it, how this excellent Lady would by an act of humility, and Christian abstraction strip her self of all that fair appendage of exteriour honour which C decked her person and her fortune; and desired to be owned by nothing but what was her own, that she might onely be esteemed Honourable according to that which is the honour of a Christian, and a wise person.

2. She had a strict and severe education, and it was one of Gods graces and favours to her. For being the Heiresse of a great fortune, and living amongst the throng of persons in the sight of vanities and empty temptations, that is, in that part of the Kingdom where greatnesse is too often expressed in great follies, and great vices, God had provided a severe and angry education to chastise the forwardnesses D of a young spirit, and a fair fortune; that she might for ever be so far distant from a vice, that she might onely see it and loath it, but never tast of it, so much as to be put to her choice whether she would be vertuous or no. God intending to secure this soul to himself, would not suffer the follies of the world to seize upon her by way of too neer a trial, or busie temptation.

3. She was married young; and besides her businesses of religion seemed to be ordained in the providence of God to bring to this Honourable family a part of a fair fortune, and to leave behinde her a fairer issue worth ten thousand times her portion: and as if this had E been all the publick businesse of her life; when she had so far served Gods ends, God in mercy would also serve hers, and take her to an early blessednesse.

4. In passing through which line of providence, she had the art to secure her eternal interest, by turning her condition into duty, & expressing her duty in the greatest eminency of a vertuous, prudent and rare affection, that hath been known in any example. I will not [Page] give her so low a testimony, as to say onely that she was chast; She A was a person of that severity, modesty, and close religion (as to that particular) that she was not capable of uncivil temptation; and you might as well have suspected the sun to smell of the poppy that he looks on, as that she could have been a person apt to be sullyed by the breath of a foul question.

5. But that which I shall note in her, is that which I would have exemplar to all Ladies, and to all women. She had a love so great for her Lord, so intirely given up to a dear affection, that she thought the same things and loved the same loves, and hated according to the same enmities, and breathed in his soul, and lived in his presence, B and languished in his absence: and all that she was or did, was onely for and to her Dearest Lord,

Si gaudet, si slet, si tacit, hunc loquitur.

Coenat, propinat, poscit, negat, innuit, unus

Naevius est:—

and although this was a great enamel to the beauty of her soul, yet it might in some degrees be also a reward to the vertue of her Lord: For she would often discourse it to them that conversed with her; that he would improve that interest which he had in her affection to the advantages of God, and of religion: and she would delight to say, that he called her C to her devotions, he encouraged her good inclinations he directed her piety, he invited her with good books: and then she loved religion, which she saw was not onely pleasing to God, and an act or state of duty, but pleasing to her Lord, and an act also of affection and conjugal obedience; and what at first she loved the more forwardly for his sake; in the using of religion left such relishes upon her spirit, that she found in it amability enough, to make her love it for its own. So God usually brings us to him by instruments of nature and affections, and then incorporates us into his inheritance, by the more immediate relishes of Heaven, and the secret D things of the Spirit. He only was (under God) the light of her eyes, and the cordiall of her spirits, and the guide of her actions, and the measure of her affections, till her affections swelled up into a religion, and then it could go no higher, but was confederate with those other duties which made her dear to God. Which rare combination of duty and religion, I choose to expresse in the words of Solomon: She forsook not the guide of her youth, nor brake the Covenant of her God. Prov. 2. 17.

6. As she was a rare wife: so she was an excellent Mother. For in so tender a constitution of spirit as hers was, and in so great a E kindnesse towards her children, there hath seldom been seen a stricter and more curious care of their persons, their deportment, their nature, their disposition, their learning and their customs: And if ever kindnesse and care did contest, and make parties in her, yet her care and her severity was ever victorious; and she knew [Page] A not how to do an ill turn to their severer part, by her more tender and forward kindnesse. And as her custome was, she turned this also into love to her Lord. For she was not onely diligent to have them bred nobly and religiously, but also was carefull and solicitous, that they should be taught to observe all the circumstances & inclinations, the desires and wishes of their Father; as thinking, that vertue to have no good circumstances which was not dressed by his copy, and ruled by his lines, and his affections: And her prudence in the managing her children was so singular and rare, that when ever you mean to blesse this family, and pray a hearty and a B profitable prayer for it, beg of God, that the children may have those excellent things which she designed to them, and provided for them in her heart and wishes, that they may live by her purposes, and may grow thither, whither she would fain have brought them. All these were great parts of an excellent religion as they concerned her greatest temporal relations.

7. But if we examine how she demeaned her self towards God, there also you will finde her, not of a common, but of an exemplar piety. She was a great reader of Scripture, confining her self to great portions every day; which she read, not to the purposes C of vanity, and impertinent curiosities, not to seem knowing, or to become talking, not to expound and Rule, but to teach her all her duty, to instruct her in the knowledge and love of God and of her Neighbours; to make her more humble, and to teach her to despise the world, and all its gilded vanities; and that she might entertain passions wholly in designe and order to heaven. I have seen a female religion that wholly dwelt upon the face and tongue; that like a wanton and an undressed tree spends all its juice in suckers and irregular branches, in leafs and gumme, and after all such goodly outsides you should never eat an apple, or be delighted with D the beauties, or the perfumes of a hopefull blossome. But the religion of this excellent Lady was of another constitution; It took root downward in humility, and brought forth fruit upward in the substantiall graces of a Christian, in charity and justice, in chastity and modesty, in fair friendships and sweetnesse of society: She had not very much of the forms and outsides of godlinesse; but she was hugely carefull for the power of it, for the morall, essentiall, and usefull parts; such which would make her be, not seem to be religious.

8. She was a very constant person at her prayers, and spent all E her time which Nature did permit to her choice, in her devotions, and reading and meditating and the necessary offices of houshold government, every one of which is an action of religion, some by nature, some by adoption. To these also God gave her a very great love to hear the word of God preached; in which because I had sometimes the honour to minister to her, I can give this certain testimony, [Page] that she was a diligent, watchfull and attentive hearer: and A to this had so excellent a judgement, that if ever I saw a woman whose judgement was to be revered, it was hers alone: and I have sometimes thought that the eminency of her discerning faculties did reward a pious discourse, and placed it in the regions of honour and usefulnesse, and gathered it up from the ground, where commonly such homilies are spilt, or scattered in neglect and inconsideration. But her appetite was not soon satisfied with what was usefull to her soul: she was also a constant Reader of Sermons, and B seldome missed to read one every day; and that she might be full of instruction and holy principles, she had lately designed to have a large Book in which she purposed to have a stock of Religion transcrib'd in such assistances as she would chuse, that she might be readily furnished and instructed to every good work. But God prevented that, and hath filled her desires not out of cisterns and little aquaeducts, but hath carried her to the fountain, where she drinks of the pleasures of the river, and is full of God.

9. She alwayes lived a life of much Innocence, free from the violences of great sins: her person, her breeding, her modesty, her honour, her religion, her early marriage, the Guide of her soul, and the Guide of her youth, were as so many fountains of restraining grace to her, to keep her from the dishonours of a crime. Bonum est C portare jugum ab adolescentiâ: it is good to bear the yoak of the Lord from our youth; and though she did so, being guarded by a mighty providence, and a great favour and grace of God from staining her fair soul with the spots of hell, yet she had strange fears and early cares upon her; but these were not onely for her self, but in order to others, to her neerest Relatives. For she was so great a lover of this Honourable family of which now she was a Mother, that she desired to become a chanel of great blessings to it unto future ages, and was extremely jealous lest any D thing should be done, or lest any thing had been done, though an age or two since, which should intail a curse upon the innocent posterity; and therefore (although I do not know that ever she was tempted with an offer of the crime) yet she did infinitely remove all sacrilege from her thoughts, and delighted to see her estate of a clear and disintangled interest: she would have no mingled rights with it; she would not receive any thing from the Church, but religion and a blessing: and she never thought a curse and a sin far enough off, but would desire it to be infinitely distant; and that as to this family God had given much honour and a wise head to govern it, so he would also for ever give many E more blessings: And because she knew that the sins of Patents descend upon Children, she endevoured by justice and religion, by charity and honour to secure that her chanel should convey nothing but health, and a fair example, and a blessing.

10. And though her accounts to God was made up of nothing [Page] A but small parcels, little passions, and angry words, and trifling discontents, which are the allayes of the piety of the most holy persons, yet she was early at her repentance; and toward the latter end of her dayes, grew so fast in religion as if she had had a revelation of her approaching end; and therefore that she must go a great way in a little time: her discourses more full of religion, her prayers more frequent, her charity increasing; her forgivenesse more forward, her friendships more communicative, her passion more under discipline, and so she trimm'd her lamp, not thinking her night was so neer, but that it might shine also in the day time, in the Temple, B and before the Altar of incense.

But in this course of hers there were some circumstances, and some appendages of substance, which were highly remarkable.

1. In all her Religion, and in all her actions of relation towards God, she had a strange evennesse and untroubled passage, sliding toward her Ocean of God and of infinity with a certain and silent motion. So have I seen a river deep and smooth passing with a still foot and a sober face, and paying to the Fiscus, the great Exchequer of the Sea, the Prince of all the watry bodies, a tribute C large and full: and hard by it a little brook skipping and making a noise upon its unequall and neighbour bottom; and after all its talking and bragged motion, it payed to its common Audit no more then the revenues of a little cloud, or a contemptible vessel: So have I sometimes compar'd the issues of her religion to the solemnities and fam'd outsides of anothers piety. It dwelt upon her spirit, and was incorporated with the periodicall work of every day: she did not beleeve that religion was intended to minister to fame and reputation, but to pardon of sins, to the pleasure of God, and the salvation of souls. For religion is like the breath of Heaven; D if it goes abroad into the open air, it scatters and dissolves like camphyre: but if it enters into a secret hollownesse, into a close conveyance, it is strong and mighty, and comes forth with vigour and great effect at the other end, at the other side of this life, in the dayes of death and judgement.

2. The other appendage of her religion, which also was a great ornament to all the parts of her life, was a rare modesty and humility of spirit, a confident despising and undervaluing of her self. For though she had the greatest judgement, and the greatest experience of things and persons that I ever yet knew in a person of E her youth, and sex, and circumstances; yet as if she knew nothing of it she had the meanest opinion of her self; and like a fair taper when she shined to all the room, yet round about her own station she had cast a shadow and a cloud, and she shined to every body but her self. But the perfectnesse of her prudence and excellent parts could not be hid; and all her humility, and arts of concealment, made the vertues more amiable and illustrious. For as pride [Page] sullies the beauty of the fairest vertues, and makes our understanding A but like the craft and learning of a Devil: so humility is the greatest eminency, and art of publication in the whole world; and she in all her arts of secrecy and hiding her worthy things, was but like one that hideth the winde, and covers the oyntment of her right hand.

I know not by what instrument it hapned; but when death drew neer, befor it made any shew upon her body, or revealed it self by a naturall signification, it was conveyed to her spirit: she had a strange secret perswasion that the bringing this Childe should be her last scene of life: and we have known, that the soul when she is about to disrobe her self of her upper garment, sometimes speaks B rarely Magnifica verba: mors propè admota excutit; sometimes it is prophetical; sometimes God by a superinduced perswasion wrought by instruments, or accidents of his own, serves the ends of his own providence and the salvation of the soul: But so it was, that the thought of death dwelt long with her, and grew from the first steps of faney and fear, to a consent, from thence to a strange credulity, and expectation of it; and without the violence of sicknesse she died, as if she had done it voluntarily, and by designe, and for fear her expectation should have been deceived, or that she should C seem to have had an unreasonable fear, or apprehension; or rather (as one said of Cato) sic abiit è vitâ ut causam moriendi nactam se esse gauderet, she died, as if she had been glad of the opportunity.

And in this I cannot but adore the providence and admire the wisdom and infinite mercies of God. For having a tender and soft, a delicate and fine constitution and breeding, she was tender to pain, and apprehensive of it, as a childs shoulder is of a load and burden: Grave est tenerae cérvici jugum; and in her often discourses of death, which she would renew willingly and frequently, she would tell, that she feared not death, but she feared the sharp pains D of death: Emori nolo, me esse mortuam non curo: The being dead, and being freed from the troubles and dangers of this world, she hoped would be for her advantage; and therefore that was no part of her fear: But she believing the pangs of death were great, and the use and aids of reason little, had reason to fear left they should do violence to her spirit and the decency of her resolution. But God that knew her fears, and her jealousie concerning her self, fitted her with a death so easie, so harmlesse, so painlesse, that it did not put her patience to a severe trial. It was not (in all appearance) of so much trouble, as two fits of a common ague; so carefull E was God to remonstrate to all that stood in that sad attendance, that this soul was dear to him: and that since she had done so much of her duty towards it, he that began would also finish her redemption, by an act of a rare providence, and a singular mercy. Blessed be that goodnesse of God, who does so careful actions of mercy [Page] A for the ease and security of his servants. But this one instance was a great demonstration that the apprchension of death is worse then the pains of death: and that God loves to reprove the unreasonablenesse of our fears, by the mightiness, and by the arts of his mercy.

She had in her sickness (if I may so cal it, or rather in the solemnities, and graver preparations towards death) some curious and wellbecoming fears, concerning the final state of her soul. But from thence she passed into a deliquium, or a kinde of trance, and as soon as she came forth of it, as if it had been a vision, or that she had conversed with an Angel, and from his hand had received a label or scroll of the book of life, and there seen her name enrolled, she cried B out aloud, [Glory be to God on high: Now I am sure I shall be saved.] Concerning which manner of discoursing we are wholy ignorant, what judgement can be made: but certainly there are strange things in the other world; and so there are in all the immediate preparation to it; and a little glimps of heaven, a minutes conversing with an Angel, any ray of God, any communication extraordinary from the spirit of comfort which God gives to his servants in strange and unknown manners, are infinitely far from illusions; and they shall then be understood by us, when we feel them, and when our new and C strange needs shall be refreshed by such unusual visitations.

But I must be forced to use summaries and arts of abbreviature in the enumerating those things in which this rare Personage was dear to God and to all her Relatives.

If we consider her Person, she was in the flower of her age, Jucundum cum aetas florida ver ageret; of a temperate, plain and natural diet; without curiosity or an intemperate palate; she spent lesse time in dressing, then many servants; her recreations were little and seldom, her prayers often, her reading much: she was of a most noble and charitable soul; a great lover of honourable actions and D as great a despiser of base things; hugely loving to oblige others, and very unwilling to be in arrear to any upon the stock of courtesies and liberality; so free in all acts of favour, that she would not stay to hear her self thanked, as being unwilling that what good went from her to a needful or an obliged person should ever return to her again; she was an excellent friend, and hugely dear to very many, especially to the best and most discerning persons, to all that conversed with her, and could understand her great worth and sweetnesse: she was of an Honourable, a nice and tender reputation; and of the pleasures of this world which were laid before E her in heaps she took a very small and inconsiderable share, as not loving to glut her self with vanity, or to take her portion of good things here below.

If we look on her as a Wife, she was chast and loving, fruitful and discreet, humble and pleasant, witty and complyant, rich and fair, & wanted nothing to the making her a principal and a precedent to the [Page] best Wives of the world, but a long life, and a full age. A

If we remember her as a Mother; she was kinde and severe, careful and prudent, very tender, & not at al fond, a greater lover of her childrens souls, then of their bodies, and one that would value them more by the strict rules of honour and proper worth, then by their relation to her self.

Her servants found her prudent, and fit to Govern, and yet openhanded and apt to reward; a just Exactor of their duty and a great Rewarder of their diligence. B

She was in her house a comfort to her dearest Lord, a guide to her children, a Rule to her Servants, an example to all.

But as she related to God in the offices of Religion, she was even and constant, silent and devout, prudent and material: she loved what she now enjoyes, and she feared what she never felt, and God did for her what she never did expect. Her fears went beyond all her evil; and yet the good which she hath received was, and is, and ever shall be beyond all her hopes.

She lived as we al should live, and she died as I fain would die—

Et cum supremos Lachesis perneverit annos,

Non aliter cineres mando jacere meos.

I pray God I may feel those mercies on my death-bed that she felt, C and that I may feel the same effect of my repentance which she feels of the many degrees of her innocence. Such was her death that she did not die too soon; and her life was so useful and so excellent that she could not have lived too long. Nemo parum diu vixit qui virtutis perfectae perfecto functus est munere: and as now in the grave it shall not be enquired concerning her, how long she lived, but how well? so to us who live after her to suffer a longer calamity, it may be some ease to our sorrows, and some guide to our lives, and some securitie to our conditions, to consider that God hath brought the piety of a yong Lady to the early rewards of a never ceasing, and D never dying eternity of glory. And we also if we live as she did, shall partake of the same glories; not onely having the honour of a good name and a dear and honoured memory, but the glories of these glories, the end of all excellent labours, and all prudent counsels, and all holy religion, even the salvation of our souls in that day, when all the Saints, and amongst them this excellent Woman shall be shown to all the world to have done more, and more excellent things then we know of or can describe. Mors illos consecrat, quorum exitum & qui timent, laudant: Death consecrates and makes sacred that person whose excellency was such, that they that are not E displeased at the death, cannot dispraise the life; but they that mourn sadly, think they can never commend sufficiently.

The end.

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§

§

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CLERVS DOMINI: OR, A DISCOURSE OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION, Necessity, Sacrednesse, and Separation OF THE OFFICE MINISTERIAL.

TOGETHER WITH THE NATURE AND MANNER OF its Power and Operation.

WRITTEN By the speciall command of our late KING.

BY JER. TAYLOR D. D.

ACADEMIA ◆ OXONIENSIS ◆

LONDON, Printed by James Flesher, for R. Royston at the Angel in Ivie-Lane. 1651.

THE Divine institution and necessity B OF THE OFFICE MINISTERIAL, &c.

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A

SECT. I.

WHen severall Nations, and differing Religions have without any famous mutuall intercourse C agreed upon some common rites, and formes of Religion, because one common effect cannot descend from chance, it is certain they come to them by reason, or tradition from their common Parents, or by imitation; something, that hath a common influence. If reason be the principle, then it is more regular and 1. lasting, and admits of no other variety, then as some men grow unreasonable, or that the reason ceases; If tradition be the fountain, then it is not onely universall, and increases as the world is peopled, D but remains also so long as we retain reverence to our Parents, or that we doe not think our selves wiser then our forefathers; But these two have produced Customes and Laws of the highest obligation: for whatsoever we commonly call the Law of Nature, it is either a custome of all the world derived from Noah or Adam; or else it is therefore done, because naturall reason teaches us to doe it in the order to the preservation of our selves and the publique.

But imitation of the customes of a wise nation, is something lesse, 2. and yet it hath produced great consent in externall rites and offices of Religion. And since there is in ceremonies so great indifferency, E there being no antecedent law to determine their practise, nothing in their nature to make them originally necessary, they grow into a Custome or a Law according as they are capable; For if a wise Prince, or a Governour, or a Nation, or a famous family hath chosen rites of common Religion, such as were consonant to the Analogy of his duty, expressive of his sense, decent in the expression, [Page] grave in the forme, or full of ornament in their representment, A such a thing is capable of no greater reason and needs no greater authority, but hath been, and may reasonably enough be imitated upon the reputation of their wisdome, and disinterested choice, who being known wise persons, or nations, took them first into their religious offices.

Thus the Jews and the Gentiles used Valer. Maxim. l. 1. c. 1. Philostr. lib. 2. white garments in their 3. holy offices, and the Christians thought it reasonable enough from so united example to doe so too. Example was reason great enough for that. The Dion hist. li. 54 Gentile Priests were forbid to touch a dead body, to A. Gell. lib. 10. c. 15. eate leavened bread, to Ibid. mingle with secular imployments during B their attendance in holy offices; these they took up from the pattern of the Jews, and professed it reasonable to imitate a wise people in the rituals of their religion. The Gentile Priests used Ring and Staffe and Mitre (saith Philostratus:) the Primitive Lib. 3. Bishops did so too; and in the highest detestation of their follies thought they might wisely enough imitate their innocent customes and Priestly ornaments, and hoped they might better reconcile their mindes to the Christian Religion by compliance in ceremonials, then exasperate them by rejecting their ancient and innocent ceremonies: for so the Apostles invited and inticed Judaisme into C Christianity.

And Tertullian complains of the Devils craft, who by imitating the Christian rites reconciled mens mindes with that compliance to a more charitable opinion of the Gentile superstition. ‘The Devill intending to draw the professors of truth to his own portion, or to preserve De praescript. c. 40. his own in the same fetters he first put upon them, imitates the rites of Hujus sunt partes invertendi veritatem, qui ipsas quoque res sacramentorum divinorum in idolorum mysteriis aemulatur. Tingit & ipse quosdam utique credentes & fideles suos: expiationem delictorum de lavacro re-promittit, & sic adhut initiat Mithrae: signat illic in srontibus milites suos, celebrat & panis oblationem & imaginem resurrectionis inducit, & sub gladio redimit coronam. Quid, quod & summum Pontificem in unis nuptiis statuit? habet & virgines, habet & continentes. Qui ergo ipsas res de quibus sacramenta Christi administrantur tam amulanter affectavit exprimere in negotiis idololatriae, utique & idem & eodem ingenio gestiit, & potuit instrumenta quoque divinarum rerum et sanctorum Christianorum sensum de sensibus, verba de verbis, parabolas de parabolis, profanae & aemulae sidei attemperare. E our religion, adopting them into his superstition. He baptizes some of his disciples, and when he initiates them to the worship of Mithra promiseth them pardon of sins, by that rite, he signes his souldiers in their forehead, he represents the oblation of bread, and introduces representments of D the resurrection, and laboriously gets martyrs to his cause. His Priests marry but once; he hath his virgins and his abstemious and continent followers: that what Christians love and the world commends in them, being adopted into the rituals of Idolatry, may allure some with the beauty and fair imagery, and abuse others with colour and phantastick faces.’

And thus also all wise men that intended to perswade others to 4. their religion, did it by retaining as much as they innocently could of the other, that the change might not be too violent, and the [Page] A persons be more endeared by common rites and the relation and charity of likenesse and imitation. Thus did the Church and the Synagogue, thus did the Gentiles both to the Jews and to the Christians; and all wise men did so.

Censor. de die natal. c. 1. The Gentiles offered first fruits to their Gods, and their tithes 5. to Hercules, Sueton. in Vesp [...]s. kept vigils and anniversaries, forbad marriages without the consent of Parents, and clandestine contracts; these were observed with some variety according as the people were civill or learned; and according to the degree of the tradition, or as the thing Livi. decad. 1. lib. 10. was reasonable, so these customes were more or lesse universall.

B But when all wise people, nay when absolutely all the world have consented upon a rite, it cannot derive from a fountain lower then 6. the current, but it must either be a command which God hath given to all the world; (and so Socrates in Xenophon, Quod ab omnibus gentibus observatum est, id non nisi à Deo sancitum esse dicendum est) or Lib. 4. de factis & dict. Socr. a tradition, or a law descending from our common parents, or a reason derived from the nature of things; there cannot in the world be any thing great enough to take away such a rite, except an expresse divine commandement: and a man by the same reason may marry his nearest relative as he may deny to worship God by the recitation C of his prayses and excellencies; because reason and a very common tradition have made almost all the world consent in these two things that we must abstain from the mixtures of our nearest kindred, and that we must worship God by recounting and declaring excellent things concerning him.

I have instanced in two things in which I am sure to finde the fewest adversaries, (I said the fewest; for there are some men which 7. have lost all humanity) but these two great instances are not attested with so universall a tradition and practise of the world as this that is now in question. For in some nations they have married their D sisters, so did the Magi among the Persians: [...], says Tatianus in Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromat. 3. and Bardisanes Syrus in Eusebius. And the Greeks worshipped Hercules by railing, and Mercury by throwing stones at him. Lib. 4. praepar. Evangel. But there was never any people but had their Priests and Presidents of religious rites, and kept holy things within a mure, that the people might not approach to handle the mysteries: and therefore besides that it is a recession from the customes of mankinde, and charges us with the disrespect of all the world (which is an incuriousnesse next to infinite) it is also a doing against that which all the E reason of all the wise men of the world have chosen antecedently or ex post facto, and he must have a strange understanding, who is not perswaded by that which hath determined all the world.

For religion cannot be at all in communities of men without some to guide, to minister, to preserve and to prescribe the offices and ministeries: What can profane holy things but that which [Page] makes them common? and what can make them common more A then when common persons handle them, when there is no distinction of Persons in their ministration? For although places are good accessories to religion, yet in all religions they were so accidentall to it, that a sacrifice might hallow the place, but the place (unlesse it were naturally impure) could not desecrate the sacrifice: and therefore Jacob worshipped upon a stone, offered upon a turfe, and the Arke rested in Obed-Edoms house, and was holy in Dagons Temple; and hils and groves, fields and orchards, according to the severall customes of the nations, were the places of addresse; But a common person ministring, was so near a circumstance, and B was so mingled with the action, that since the materiall part and exteriour actions of Religion could be acted and personated by any man, there was scarce any thing left to make it religious, but the attrectation of the rites by a holy person; A Holy place is something, a separate time is something, a prescript form of words is more, & separate and solemn actions are more yet; but all these are made common by a cōmon person, & therfore without a distinction of persons have not a natural and reasonable distinction of solemnity & exterior religion.

And indeed it were a great disreputation to religion, that all great and publique things, and every artifice or profitable science should C 8. in all the societies of men be distinguished by professors, artists and proper ministers; and onely religion should lie in common, apt to be bruised by the hard hand of mechanicks, and sullied by the ruder touch of undiscerning and undistinguished persons; for although the light of it shines to all, and so farre every mans interest is concerned in religion, yet it were not handsome that every man should take the taper in his hand: and religion is no more to be handled by all men, then the laws are to be dispensed by all, by whom they are to be obeyed; though both in religion and the laws, all men have a common interest. D

For since all meanes must have some equality or proportion towards their end, that they may of their own being or by institution 9. be symbolicall, it is but reasonable that by elevated and sublimed instruments we should be promoted towards an end supernaturall and divine; now besides, that of all the instruments of distinction, the person is the most principall and apt for the honour of religion (and to make our religion honourable is part of the religion it self) it is also apt for the uses of it; such as are, preserving the rights, ordering, decent ministration, dispensing the laws of religion, judging causes, ceremonies and accidents; and he that appoints not offices E to minister his religion, cares not how it is performed; and he that cares so little, will finde a great contempt passe upon it, and a cheapnesse meaner then of the meanest civill offices; and he that is content with that, cares not how little honour God receives, when he presents to him a cheape, a common, and a dishonorable religion.

[Page] A But the very naturall design of religion forces us to a distinction 10. of persons in order to the ministration; for besides that every man is not fit to approach to God with all his sordes and adherent indispositions; an assignment in reason must be made of certain persons, whose calling must be holy, and their persons taught to be holy, by such a solemn and religious assignment; that those persons being made higher then the people by their calling and religion, and yet our brethren in nature, may be intermediall between God and the people, and present to God the peoples needs, and be instrumentall to the reconveying Gods blessing upon those whose B fiduciaries they are. This last depends upon Gods own act, and designation, and therefore must afterwards be proved by testimonies of his own, that he hath accepted such persons to such purposes; but the former part we our selves are taught by naturall reason, by the rules of proportion, by the honour we owe unto religion, by the hopes of our own advantages, and by the distance between God and us, towards which we should thrust up persons as high as they are capable. And that all the world hath done prudently in this, we are confirmed by Gods own act, who knowing it was most agreeable, not onely to the constitution of religion, and of our addresses C to God, but to our meer necessities also, did in his glorious wisdome send his sonne, and made him apt to become a mediator between himself and us, by clothing him with our nature, and decking him with great participation of his own excellencies, that he might doe our worke, the worke of his own humane nature, and by his great sanctity and wisdome approach neer to Gods mercy seat, whither our imperfections and sins could not have neer accesse.

And this consideration is not onely good reason, but true divinity, and was a consideration in the Greek Church, and affixed to the 11. head of a prayer as the reason of their addresse to God in designing D ministers in religion. O Lord God who because mans nature cannot of it selfe approach to thy glorious Deity, [...]. In ordinat. Episc. [...], &c. hast appointed Masters and Teachers of the same passions with our selves, whom thou hast placed in thy throne, viz. in the ministery of the kingdome, to bring sacrifices and oblations in behalfe of thy people, &c. And indeed if the greatnesse of an imployment separates persons from the vulgus, either we must thinke the immediate offices of religion and the entercourse with God to be the meanest of imployments, or the persons so officiating to receive their estimate E according to the excellency of their offices.

And thus it was amongst the Jews and Gentiles before Christs time, amongst whom they not onely separated persons for the service 12. of their Gods respectively, but chose the best of men and the Princes of the people to officiate in their mysteries, and adorned them with the greatest honours and speciall immunities. Among the [Page] Jews, the Priesthood was so honourable, that although the expectation A which each Tribe had of the Messias was reason enough to make them observe the law of distinct marriages, yet it was permitted to the Tribe of Levi to marry with the Kingly Tribe of Judah, that they also might have the honour and portion of the Messias's most glorious generation; and for the Priesthood of Aaron it was [...], saith Philo, a celestiall honour, not an earthly, a heavenly profession, and it grew so high and was so naturalized into that nation to honour their Priests and mystick persons, that they made it the pretence of their B warres and mutinies against their conquerours. Honor sacerdotii firmamentum potentiae assumebatur, saith Tacitus, speaking of their warres against Antiochus; the honour of their Priesthood was the strength of their cause, and the pretence of their armes; and all the greatest honour they could doe to their Priesthood they fairly derived from a divine precept, that the Prince and the People and the Elders and the Synagogue should goe in and out, that is, should commence and finish their greatest and most solemn actions at the voice and command of the Priest; And therefore King Agrippa did himself honour in his Epistle to Cajus Caesar. [...]. I had Kings that were my ancestors, and C some of them were high Priests, which dignity they esteemed higher then their Royall purple, beleeving that Priesthood to be greater then the kingdome, as God is greater then men.

And this great estimate of the Ministers of their religion derived 13. it selfe from the Jewes unto their enemies the Philistines that dwelt upon their skirts; insomuch that in the hill of God where there was a garrison of the Philistines, there was also a colledge of Prophets 1 Sam. 10. 5. & 10. newly instituted by Samuel (from whom because he was D their founder, S. Peter reckoned the ordinary descent from Samuel) Acts 3. 24. unharmed and undisturbed though they were enemies to the nation; and when David fled from Saul, he came to Naioth where the Prophets dwelt, and thought to take sanctuary there, knowing it was a priviledged place; there it was where Sauls messengers, and Saul himselfe 1 Sam. 19. 18. turned Prophets, that they might estimate the place and preserve its priviledge, himselfe becoming one of their society.

For this was observed amongst all nations that besides the band 14. of humanity forbidding souldiers to touch unarmed people, as by all religions and all nations Priests ever were, the very sacrednesse E of their persons should exempt them from violence, and the chances or insolencies of warre. Thus the Cretians did to their Priests and to the [...] the persons who were appointed for buriall of the dead, the same with the [...], or fossarii in the Primitive Church, no souldiers durst touch them; they had the priviledge of [Page] A religion, the immunity of Priests, Hos quae necabant non erant purae manus; and therefore it grew up into a proverb, when they intended to expresse a most destructive and unnaturall warre, [...], not so much as the Priests that carried fire before the army did escape; the same with that in Homer in the case of messengers,

[...]

Iliad. μ. vide 1. li. Eustath.

[...]

Not so much as a messenger returned into the City: These were sacred and therefore exempt persons, and so were the Elei B among the Grecians as being sacred to Jupiter, safe from the hostility of a professed enemy; the same which was observed amongst the Romans,

Quis homo est tantâ confidentiâ

Qui sacerdotem audeat violare!

Plautus in Rudent.

At magno cum malo suo fecit Herculè.

But this is but one instance of advantage.

The Gentiles having once separated their Priests, and affixed 15. them to the ministeries of religion, thought nothing great enough either to expresse the dignity of their imployment, or good C enough to doe honour to their persons, and it is largely discoursed of by Cicero, in the case of the Roman Augures, Maximum autem & Cicero lib. 2. de leg. praestantissimum in Rep. jus est Augurum, cum est authoritati conjunctum; neque verò hoc quia sum ipse Augur ita sentio, sed quia sio existimare nos necesse est. Quid enim majus est, si de jure quaerimus, quàm posse à summis imperiis & summis potestatibus comitia tollere? concilia vel instituta dimittere, vel habita rescindere? Quid magnificentius quàm posse decernere ut magistratu se abdicent consules? quid religiosius quàm cum populo, cum plebe agendi jus aut dare aut non dare? It was a vast power these men had, to be in proportion to their greatest honour: they had D power of bidding and dissolving publick meetings, of indicting solemnities of religion; just as the Christian Bishops had in the beginning of Christianity; they commanded publick fasts, at their indiction onely they were celebrated; Benè autem quod & Episcopi Tertulli. adv. psychicos c. 13. universae plebi mandare jejunia assolent; non dico industriâ stipium conferendarum, ut vestrae capturae est, sed interdum, & aliquâ sollicitudinis Ecclestasticae causâ. The Bishops also called publick conventions Ecclesiasticall. Aguntur praecepta per Graecias illas certis in locis concilia ex universis Ecclesiis, per quae et altior a quaeque in commune tractantur Ibid. & ipsarepraesentatio totius nominis Christiani magna veneratione celebratur. E It was so in all religions; the Antistites, the presidents of rites and guides of consciences had great immissions and influences into the republick, and communities of men, and they verified the saying of Tacitus, Deûm munere summum pontisicem, etiam summum hominem esse, non aemulatione, non odio, aut privatis affectionibus obnoxium. Lib. 3. Annal. The chief Priest was ever the chief man, and free from the [Page] envies, and scornes, and troubles of popular peevishnesse and contumacy; A and that I may use the expression of Tacitus, utque glisceret dignatio sacerdotum, (for all the great traverses of the republick were in their disposing) atque ipsis promptior animus foret ad capessendas ceremonias, the very lower institutions of their religion were set up with the markes of speciall laws and priviledges; insomuch that the seat of the Empresse in the Theatre was among the Vestall virgins. Lib. 4. Annal.

But the highest had all that could be heaped upon them, till 16. their honours were as sublimed as their functions. Strabo Geogr. lib. 17. Amongst the Ethiopians the Priests gave laws to their Princes, and they used their B power sometimes to the ruine of their Kings, till they were justly removed; Aelian: var. hist. lib. 14. c. 34. Joseph. antiq. lib. 14. c. 16. Caesar com. de bello Gall. li. 6. Among the Egyptians the Priests were their Judges; so they were in Athens; for the Areopagites were Priests; and the Druids among the Gaules were Judges of murder, of titles of land, of bounds, and inheritances, magno apud eos sunt honore, nam fere de omnibus controversiis publicis privatisque constituunt; and for the Magi of Persia and India, Strabo reports [...], they conversed with Kings, meaning they were their counsellours and guides of their consciences. And Herodotus in Eustathius tells us of C Eustath. in Il. a. the [...], the divine order of Prophets or Priests in Delphos, [...], they did eate of the publick provisions together with Kings. By these honours they gave testimony of their religion, not onely separating certain persons for the service of their Temples, but also separating their condition from the impurities and the contempt of the world; as knowing, that they who were to converse with their Gods, were to be elevated from the common condition of men and vulgar miseries.

[...]

Porphirius citat ex Eurip. 4. [...].

[...], D

[...].

As soon as I was made a Priest of Idaean Jupiter, all my garments were white, and I declined to converse with mortals. Novae sortis oportet illum esse qui jubente Deo canat, said Seneca. He had need be of a distinct and separate condition that sings to the honour and at the command of God: thus it was among the Jews and Heathens.

SECT. II. E

NOw if Christian Religion should doe otherwise then all the 1. world hath done, either it must be because the rites of Christianity are of no mystery and secret dispensation, but common actions of an ordinary addresse, and cheap devotion, or else [Page] A because we under value all religion; that is, because indeed we have nothing of it; The first is dishonorable to Christianity, and false as its greatest enemy; The second, is shame to us; and both so unreasonable and unnaturall, that if we separate not certain persons for the ministeries of Christianity, we must confesse we have the worst religion, or that we are the worst of men.

But let us consider it upon its proper grounds. When Christ had 2. chosen to himselfe twelve Apostles, and was drawing now to the last scene of his life, he furnished them with commissions and abilities to constitute and erect a Church, and to transmit such powers B as were apt for its continuation and perpetuity. And therefore to the Apostles in the capacity of Church officers, he made a promise That he would be with them untill the end of the world; they might presonally be with him untill the end of the world, but he could not be here with them, who after a short course run, were to goe hence, and be no more seen: and therefore for the verification of the promise it is necessary that since the promise was made for the benefit of the Church, and to them as the ministers of the benefit, so long as the benefit was to be dispensed, so long they were to be succeeded to, and therefore assisted by the Holy Jesus according to C that glorious promise: [...]. ‘Not onely to the Apostles, but absolutely and indefinitely to all Christs disciples, their successors, he promised to abide for ever, even to the consummation of the world, to the whole succession of the Clergy: so Theophylact upon this place.’

And if we consider what were the power and graces Jesus committed 3. to the dispensation of the Apostles, such as were not temporary, D but lasting, successive, and perpetuall, we must also conclude the ministery to be perpetuall. I instance first in the power of binding and loosing remitting and retaining sins, which Christ gave them together with his breathing on them the holy Spirit, and a legation, and a speciall commission, as appears in S. John; which John 20. 21. power, what sense soever it admits of, could not expire with the persons of the Apostles, unlesse the succeeding ages of the Church had no discipline, or government, no scandals to be removed, no weak persons offended, no corrupt members to be cut off, no hereticks rejected, no sins, or no pardon; and that were a more heresie, E then that of the Novatians, for they onely denyed this ministery in some cases; not in all: saying, Priestly absolution was not fit to be dispensed to them, who in time of persecution had sacrificed to idols. [...]. Vide Socrat. li. 1. c. 7. Sozom. l. 1. c. 20. [ [...], To these] onely, pardon is to be dispensed without the ministery of the Priest, To these] who were [Page] [...], sacrificers, and mingled the table of the Lord A with the table of devils. Against other sinners they were not so severe. But however, so long as that distinction remaines, of sinnes unto death, and sinnes not unto death; there are a certain sort of sins which are remediable, and cognoscible, and judicable, and a power was dispensed to a distinct sort of persons, to remit or retain those sins; which therefore must remain with the Apostles for ever, that is, with their persons first, and then with the [...] with their successors; because the Church needs it for ever; and there was nothing in the power that by relating to a present and temporary occasion did insinuate its short life and speedy expiration. B

In execution of this power and pursuance of this commission, for which the power was given; the Apostles went forth, and all 4. they upon whom this signature passed, [...], executed this power in appropriation and distinct ministery: it was the sword of their proper ministery; and S. Paul does almost exhibite his commission and reades the words when he puts it in execution, and does highly verifie the parts and the consequence of this argument; God hath reconciled us to himself 2 Cor. 5. 20. by Christ Jesus, and hath given to us the ministery of reconciliation; and it followes, now then we are Embassadours for Christ. The ministery C of reconciliation, is an appropriate ministery, It is committed to us; we are Embassadours, it is appropriate by virtue of Christs mission, and legation. He hath given to us, he hath made and deputed certain Embassadours whom he hath sent upon the message, and ministery of reconcilement; which is a plain exposition of the words of his commission, before recorded; John 20. 21.

And that this also descended lower we have the testimony of S. James, who advises the sick person to send for the Elders of the 5. Church, that they may pray over him, that they may anoint him, James 5. that in that society there may be consession of sins by the clinick or D sick person, and that after these preparatives, and in this ministery, his sins may be forgiven him. Now that this power fell into succession, this instance proves; for the Elders were such who had not the commission immediately from Christ, but were [...], they were fathers of the people, but sons of the Apostles, and therefore it is certain the power was not personall, and meerly Apostolicall, but derived upon others by such a communication, as gives evidence the power was to be succeeded in; And when went it out? when the anointing and miraculous healing ceased? There is no reason for that. For forgivenesse of sins was not a thing visible, and E therefore could not be of the nature of miracles to confirme the faith and christianity first, and after its work was done, return to God that gave it; neither could it be onely of present use to the Church, but as eternall and lasting as sin is: and therefore there could be nothing in the nature of the thing to make it so much as suspicious, it was presently to expire.

[Page] A To which also I adde this consideration, that the Holy Ghost which was to enable the Apostles in the precise office Apostolicall, as it was an office extraordinary, circumstantionate, definite, and to expire, all that, was promised should descend upon them after Christs ascension, and was verified in Pentecost; for to that purpose to bring all things to their minde, all of Christs doctrine and all that was necessary of his life and miracles, and a power from above to enable them to speake boldly and learnedly, and with tongues, all that, besides the other parts of ordinary power, was given them ten days after the Ascension. And therefore the breathing the holy B Ghost upon the Apostles in the octaves of the resurrection, and this mission with such a power, was their ordinary mission, a sending them as ordinary Pastors, and Curates of souls, with a power to govern, (binding and loosing can mean no lesse: and they were the words of the promise) with a power to minister reconciliation: (for so S. Paul expounds remitting and retaining) which two were the great hinges of the Gospell, the one to invite and collect a Church, the other to govern it, the one to dispense the greatest blessing in the world, the other to keep them in capacities of enjoying it. For since the holy Ghost was now actually given to these C purposes here expressed, and yet in order to all their extraordinaries and temporary needs was promised to descend after this, there is no collection from hence more reasonable, then to conclude all this to be part of their commission of ordinary Apostleship, to which the ministers of religion were in all ages to succeed. In attestation of all which, who please may see the united testimony of In John 20. S. Cyrill, Ibid. S. Chrysostome, In 1 Tim. 4. S. Ambrose, Homil. 26. in Evang. S. Gregory, and the Quest. 93. Author of the questions of the old and new Testament, who unlesse by their calling shall rather be called persons D interest, then by reason of their famous piety and integrity shall be accepted as competent, are a very credible, and fair representment of this truth, and that it was a doctrine of Christianity, that Christ gave this power to the Apostles for themselves, and their successors for ever, and that therefore as Christ in the first donation, so also some Churches in the tradition of that power used the same forme of words intending the collation of the same power and separating persons for the work of that ministery. I end this with the counsell S. Augustine gives to all publick penitents, Veniant ad Antistites per quos illis in Ecclesia claves ministrantur, & a praepositis sacrorum accipiant satisfactionis suae modum, let them come to the Presidents E of religion by whom the Keys are ministred, and from the governours of holy things let them receive those injunctions which shall exercise and signifie their repentance.

SECT. III.

[Page]

THe second power I instance in is preaching the Gospel: for A which work he not onely at first designed Apostles, but 1. others also were appointed for the same work forever, to all generations of the Church. This Commission was signed immediately before Christs ascension; All power is given to me in heaven Mat. 28. 19, 20. and in earth, Goe yee therefore and teach all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and loe I am with you always even unto the end of the world. First, Christ declared his own B commission, [all power is given him into his hand] he was now made King of all the creatures, and Prince of the Catholick Church; and therefore as it concerned his care and providence to look to his cure, and flock, so he had power to make deputations accordingly [Goe yee therefore,] implying that the sending them to this purupose was an issue of hispower, either because the authorizing certain persons was an act of power, or else because the making them doctors of the Church and teachers of the Nations, was a placing them in an eminency above their scholars; and converts, and so also was an emanation of that power which derived upon C Christ from his Father, from him descended upon the Apostles. And the wiser persons of the world have always understood, that a power of teaching was a presidency and authority; for sinco all dominion is naturally founded in the understanding; although civill government accidentally, and by inevitable publick necessity relies upon other titles, yet where the greatest understanding and power of teaching is, there is a naturall preheminence and superiority eatenus, that is according to the proportion of the excellency; and therefore in the instance of S Paul we are taught the style of the court, and Disciples sit at the feet of their Masters, as he did at the feet of his D Tutor Gamaliel, which implies duty, submission, and subordination; and indeed it is the highest of any kinde, not onely because it is founded upon nature, but because it is a submission of the most imperious faculty we have, even of that faculty which when we are removed from our Tutors, is submitted to none but God; for no man hath power over the understanding faculty; and therefore so long as we are under Tutors and instructors, we give to them that duty, in the succession of which claim, none can succeed but God himself, because none else can satisfie the understanding but he.

Now then because the Apostles were created Doctors of all the E world, hoc ipso they had power given them over the understandings 2. of their disciples, and they were therefore fitted with an infallible spirit, and grew to be so authentick that their determination was the last addresse of all inquiries in questions of Christianity: and although they were not absolute Lords of their faith and understandings, [Page] A as their Lord was, yet they had, under God, a supreme care, and presidency, to order, to guide, to instruct, and to satisfie their understandings; and those whom they sent out upon the same errand, according to the proportion and excellency of their spirit, had also a degree of superiority and eminency; and therefore they who were [...] Labourers in the word and doctrine, were also [...] Presbyters that were Presidents and Rulers of the Church; and this eminency is for ever to be retained according as the unskilfulnesse of the Disciple retains him in the forme of Catechumens, or as the excellency of the instructor still B keeps the distance, or else, as the office of teaching being orderly and regularly assigned makes a legall, politicall, and positive authority, to which all those persons are for orders sake to submit, who possibly in respect of their personall abilities might be exempt from that authority.

Upon this ground it is, that learning amongst wise persons is 3. esteemed a title of nobility and secular eminency: Ego enim quid aliud munificentiae adhibere potui, ut studia, ut sic dixerim, in umbr a educata è quibus claritudo venit, said Seneca to Nero. And Aristotle and Apud Tacitum lib. 18. Arist. lib. 4. Polit. c. 4. A. Gellius. lib. 19. c. 10. A. Gellius affirme that not onely excellency of extraction, or great C fortunes, but learning also makes noble; circumundique sedentibus multis doctrinâ, aut genere, aut fortunâ nobilibus viris: and therefore the Lawyers say, that if a legacy be given pauperi nobili, the executors, if they please, may give it to a Doctor. I onely make this use of Barthol. in l. Judices. Cod. de dignit. l. 12. Baldus in l. nemini. C. de advo. divers. judic. it, that they who are by publick designation appointed to teach, are also appointed in some sense to governe them: and if learning it self be a faire title to secular opinion, and advantages of honour, then they who are professors of learning, and appointed to be publick teachers, are also set above their disciples as farre as the chair is above the Area or floor, that is, in that very relation of teachers and D scholars: and therefore among the heathen the Priests who were to answer de mysteriis, sometimes bore a scepter.

[...].

Upon which verse of Homer Eustathius observes, [...], The scepter was not onely an ensigne of a King, but of a Judge and of a Prophet; it signified a power of answering in judgment, and wise sentences. This discourse was occasioned by our blessed Saviours illative; All power is given me, goe yee therefore and teach; and it concludes, that the authority of Preaching is more then the faculty, that it includes power and E presidency, that therefore a separation of persons is ex abundanti inferred, unlesse order and authority be also casuall, and that all men also may be Governours as well as Preachers.

Now that here was a plain separation of some persons for this ministery, I shall not need to prove by any other argument besides the 4. words of the Commission; save onely that this may be added, that [Page] here was more necessary, then a commission; great abilities, speciall A assistances, extraordinary and divine knowledge, and understanding the mysteries of the kingdome; so that these abilities were separations enough of the persons, and designation of the officers; But this may possibly become the difficulty of the question; For, when the Apostles had filled the world with the Sermons of the Gospel, and that the holy Ghost descended in a plentifull manner, then was the prophecy of Joel fulfilled, Old men dreamed dreams, and young men saw visions, and sons and daughters did prophecy; now the case was altered; and the disciples themselves start up doctors, and women prayed and prophecied, and Priscilla sate in the chaire B with her husband Aquila, and Apollos sat at their feet: and now all was common again; and therefore although the commission went out first to the Apostles, yet when by miracle God dispensed great gifts to the Laity, and to women, he gave probation that he intended that all should prophecy and preach, lest those gifts should be to no purpose. This must be considered.

1. These gifts were miraculous verifications of the great promise 5. of the Father, of sending the holy Ghost, and that all persons were capable of that blessing in their severall proportions, and that Christianity did descend from God were ex abundanti proved by those C extraregular dispensations: so that here is purpose enough signified although they be not used to inferre an indistinction of officers in this ministery.

2. These gifts were given extraregularly; but yet with some difference of persons; for all did not prophecy, nor all interpret, 6. nor all speak with tongues; they were but a few that did all this; we finde but the daughters of one man onely, and Priscilla among all the nations of the Jews that ever did prophecy, of the women; and of Laymen I remember not one but Aquila and Agabus; and these will be but too straight an argument to blend a whole order of men in a popular and vulgar indiscrimination. D

3. These extraordinary gifts were no authority to those who had them, and no other commission, to speake in publick. And therefore 7. S. Paul forbids the women to speak in the Church, and yet it was not denyed but some of them might have the spirit of prophecy. Speaking in the Church was part of an ordinary power, to which not onely ability but authority also and commission are required: That was clearly one separation; women were not capable of a clericall imployment, no not so much as of this ministery of preaching. And by this we may take speedier account concerning Deaconesses in the Primitive Church; de Diaconissâ ego Bartholomaus dispono; O E Lib. 8. c. 26. Episcope, impones ei manus praesentibus Presbyteris, Diaconis & Diaconissis, & dices, Respice super hanc famulam tuam; so it is in the constitutions Apostolicall under the name of S. Clement: By which it should seem they were ordained for some Ecclesiasticall ministery; [Page] A which is also more credible by those words of Tertullian, Quantae In exhort. ad castitatem. igitur & quae in Ecclesiis ordinari solent, quae Deo nubere maluerunt? And Sozomen tells of Olympias, Hanc enim cum genere esset nobilissimo, Lib. 4. c. 9. quamvis juvenculam ex quo vidua facta erat, quia ex praescripto Ecclesiae egregiè philosophatur, in Ministram Nectarius ordinat: and such a one it was, whom S. Basil called impollutam sacerdotem; whatsoever Lib. de virg. these Deaconesses could be, they could not speake in publick unlesse they did prevaricate the Apostolicall rule, given to the Corinthian and Ephesian Churches: And therefore though Olympias was an excellent person, yet she was no preacher; she was a Philosopher, B not in her discourse, but in her manner of living and beleeving: Philosophata ex ecclesiae praescripto, and that could not be by preaching: but these Deaconesses after the Apostolicall age, were the same with the [...], the good women, that did domestick offices and minister to the temporall necessity of the Churches in the days of the Apostles; Such a one was Phoebe of Cenchrea; but they were not admitted to any holy or spirituall office: so we have certain testimony from antiquity, whence the objection comes. For so the Nicene councell expresly: [...] &c. [...]. c. 19. Deaconesses are to be reckoned C in the Laity, because they have no imposition of hands, viz. for any spirituall office. For they had imposition of hands in some places to temporall administrations about the Church, and a solemn benediction, but nothing of the [...]; the same were the [...], the Presbyteresses who were Heres. 79. the [...], or the governesses of women, in order to manners and religion; but these, though (as Tertullian affirmes, and Zonaras and Balsamo confesse) they were solemnly ordained and set over the women in such offices, yet pretended to nothing of the D clericall power or the right of speaking in publick. So Epiphanius: There is an order of deaconesses in the [...]. Church, but not to medle, or to attempt any of the holy offices. And in this sense it was that S. Ambrose reckons it In 1 Tim. c. 3. amongst the heresies of the Cataphrygians, that they ordained their Deaconesses, viz. to spirituall ministeries; but those women that desire to be meddling are not moved with such discourses; they care for none of all these things; therefore I remit them to the precept of the Apostle. But I suffer not a woman to teach but to be in 1 Tim. 2. 12. silence.

E And as for the men who had gifts extraordinary of the Spirit, although they were permitted at first in the Corinthian Church (before 8. there was a Bishop, or a fixed colledge of Clergy) to utter the inspired dictates of the Spirit, yet whether they were Lay or Clergy is not there expressed; and it is more agreeable to the usuall dispensation that the prophets of ordinary ministery, though [Page] now extraordinarily assisted should prophecy in publick; but however, A when these extraordinaries did cease, if they were common persons, they had no pretence to invade the Chaire (nor that we finde ever did:) for an ordinary ability to speake was never any warrant to disturb an order; unlesse they can say the words of S. Paul [Whereunto I am ordained a Preacher,] they might not invade the office. To be able to performe an office, though it may be a fair disposition to make the person capable to receive it orderly, yet it does not actually invest him; every wise man is not a Counsellour of State, nor every good Lawyer a Judge. And I doubt not but in the Jewish religion there were many persons as able to pray as their B Priests, who yet were wiser then to refuse the Priests advocation apud Deum and reciting offices in behalfe of the people: Orabit pro eo sacerdos was the order of Gods appointing, though himself were a devout person and of an excellent spirit. And it had need be something extraordinary that must warrant an ordinary person to rise higher then his own evennesse; and ability or skill is but a possibility, and must be reduced to act by something that transmits authority, or does establish order, or distinguish persons, and separate professions. And it is very remarkable that when Judas had miscarried and lost his Apostolate, it was said, that it was necessary for C some body to be chosen to be a witnesse of Christs resurrection. Two were named, of ability sufficient, but that was not all: they must choose one, to make up the number of the twelve, a distinct separate person; which shews that it was not onely a work (for that, any of them might have done) but an office of ordinary ministery. The ability of doing which work although all they that lived with Jesus, might either have had, or received at Pentecost, yet the authority and grace was more: the first they had upon experience, but this onely by divine election: which is a demonstration that every person that can doe offices clericall is not permitted to doe them, and that besides the knowledge and naturall or artificiall D abilities, a divine qualification is necessary.

And therefore God complains by the Prophet, I have not sent them, and yet they run; and the Apostle leaves it as an established 9. rule, How shall they preach except they be sent? which two places, I shall grant to be meant concerning a distinct and a new message; Prophets must not offer any doctrine to the people or pretend a doctrine for which they had not a commission from God. But which way soever they be expounded, they will conclude right in this particular. For if they signifie an ordinary mission, then there is an ordinary mission of preachers which no man must usurpe unlesse he can prove E his title certainly and clearly, derivative from God; which when any man of the Laity can doe, we must give him the right hand of fellowship, and wish him good speed. But if these words signifie an extraordinary case, and that no message must be pretended by Prophets [Page] A but what they have commission for, then must not ordinary persons pretend an extraordinary mission to an ordinary purpose: for besides, that God does never doe things unreasonably, nor will endure that order be interrupted to no purpose, he will never give an extraordinary Commission unlesse it be to a proportionable end; whosoever pretends to a license of preaching by reason of an extraordinary calling, must look that he be furnished with an extraordinary message, lest his Commission be ridiculous; and when he comes he must be sure to shew his authority by an argument proportionable; that is, by such a probation without which B no wise man can reasonably beleeve him; which cannot be lesse then miraculous and divine. In all other cases he comes under the curse of the non missi those whom God sent not, they goe on their own errand, and must pay themselves their wages.

But besides that, the Apostles were therefore to have an immediate 10. mission, because they were to receive new instructions: these instructions were such as were by an ordinary, and yet by a distinct ministery to be conveyed for ever after, and therefore did design an ordinary, successive, and lasting power and authority. Nay our blessed Lord went one step further in this provision, even to remark C the very first successors and partakers of this power, to be taken into the lot of this ministery; and they were the seventy two whom Christ had sent (as probationers of their future preaching) upon a short errand into the Cities of Judah: But by this assignation of more persons then those to whom he gave immediate commission, he did declare that the office of preaching was to be dispensed by a separate and peculiar sort of men, distinct from the people, and yet by others then those who had the commission extraordinary; that is, by such who were to be called to it by an ordinary vocation.

As Christ constituted the office and named the persons, both extraordinary D 11. and ordinary, present and successive; so he provided gifts for them too; that the whole dispensation might be his and might be apparent. And therefore Christ when he ascended up on high gave gifts to men, to this very purpose; and these gifts comming from the same Spirit made separation of distinct ministeries under the same Lord. So S. Paul testifies expresly. Now there are 1 Cor. 12. 4. diversities of gifts, but the same spirit, [...] [there are different administrations] differencies of ministeries; it is the proper word for Church offices; the ministery, is distinguished by the gift; It is not a gift for the ministery, but the ministery it selfe is the E gift▪ and distinguished accordingly. An extraordinary ministery needs an extraordinary and a miraculous gift; that is a miraculous calling and vocation and designation by the holy Ghost; but an ordinary gift cannot sublime an ordinary person to a supernaturall imployment; and from this discourse of the differing gifts of the Spirit, S. Paul without any further artifice, [Page] concludes that the Spirit intended a distinction of Church officers A for the work of the ministery; for the conclusion of the discourse is; that God hath set some in the Church, first Apostles, secondarily Prophets, Vers. 28. thirdly Teachers; and lest all Gods people should usurpe these offices, which God by his Spirit hath made separate and distinguished, he addes, Are all Apostles? are all Prophets? are all Teachers? If so, then were all the body one member, quite contrary to nature and to Gods Oeconomy.

And that this designation of distinct Church officers is for ever, S. Paul also affirmes as expresly as this question shall need; He gave 12. Ephes. 4. 11. some Apostles, some Prophets, and some Evangelists, and some Pastors and B Teachers, [...], for the work of the ministery, till we all arrive at the unity of faith, which as soon as it shall happen, then commeth the end. Till the end be, the [...] the work of the Ministery must goe forwards, and is incumbent upon the Pastors and Teachers; this is their work, and they are the ministers, whom the holy Ghost designed.

1. For, I consider that either to preach requires but an ordinary or an extraordinary ability; if it requires an extraordinary, they who 13. are illiterate and unlearned persons are the unfittest men in the world for it; if an ordinary sufficiency will discharge it, why cannot they C suppose the clergy of a competency, and strength sufficient to doe that which an ordinary understanding, and faculties can performe? what need they entermeddle with that, to which no extraordinary assistance is required? or else why do they set their shoulder to such a work, with which no strength but extraordinary, is commensurate? in the first case it is needlesse; in the second it is uselesse; in both vain and impertinent. For either no man needs their help, or if they did, they are very unable to help; I am sure they are, if they be unlearned persons; and if they be learned, they well enough know that to teach the people is not a power of speaking, but is also an act of jurisdiction D and authority, and in which, order is at least concerned in an eminent degree: Learned men are not so forward; and those are most confident who have least reason.

2. Although as Homilies to the people are now used according to the smallest rate, many men more preach then should, yet besides 14. that to preach prudently, gravely, piously and with truth, requires more abilities then are discernible by the people, such as make even a plain work reasonable to wise men, and usefull to their hearers, and acceptable to God; besides this, I say, the office of teaching is of larger extent then making homilies or speaking prettily enough to E please the common and undiscerning auditors. They that are appointed to teach the people must respondere de jure, give account of their faith in defiance of the numerous armies of Hereticks; they must watch for their flock, and use excellent arts to arme them against all their weaknesses from within, and hostilities from without; [Page] A they must streng then the weak, confirme the strong, compose the scrupulous, satisfie the doubtfull, and be ready to answer cases of conscience; and I beleeve there are not so little as 5000 cases already started up among the Casuists, and for ought I know, there may be 5000 times 5000. And there are some cases of conscience that concern Kings and kingdomes in the highest mysteriousnesse, both of State and Religion, and they also belong to Pastors for the interests of Religion, and Teachers to determine or advise in. [...]. Eustath. in Iliad. [...]. The preachers B were always messengers between God and men, being Mediators by their sacrifices, and they were interested in their councells, and greater causes; And if religion can have influences into councells of Princes and publick interest of kingdomes, and that there can be any difficulty, latent senses, intricacy of question, or mysteriousnesse in Divinity, it will be found that there are other parts of the Preachers office, besides making homilies, and that when so great skill is required it will not be easie to make pretenses to invade it; unlesse a man cannot be an excellent Lawyer without twenty years skill and practise, besides excellency of naturall indowments, and C yet can be an excellent Teacher and guide in all cases of conscience, meerly with opening his mouth, and rubbing his forehead hard. But God hath taken order that those whom he hath appointed teachers of the people, should make it the work and businesse of their lives, that they should diligently attend to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine, that they may watch over their flock, over whom the holy Ghost hath made them overseers. The inconvenience that this discourse is like to meet withall is, that it concerns those men who are sure not to understand it: for they that have not the wisdome of Prophets and wise men, cannot easily be brought to D know the degrees of distance between the others wisdome and their own ignorance. To know that there is great learning beyond us is a great part of learning; but they that have the confidence in the midst of their deepest ignorance to teach others, want both modesty and understanding too, either to perceive or to confesse their own wants, they never kissed the lips of the wise, and therefore thinke all the world breaths a breath as fenny and moorish as themselves.

3. Besides the consideration of the ability that a separate number 15. of men should be the teachers, and it be not permitted promiscuously to every person of a confident language and bold fancy, is E highly necessary in the point of prudence and duty too. Of Prudence, because there can be no security against all the evill doctrines of the world in a promiscuous unchosen company of Preachers. For if he be allowed the pretense of an extraordinary, he shall belie the holy Spirit, to cousen you, when he hath a minde to it: If you [Page] allow him nothing but an ordinary spirit, that is, abilities of art and A nature, there cannot in such discourses be any compensation for the disorder, or the danger, or the schismes, and innumerable Churches, when one head and two members shall make a distinct body, and all shall pretend to Christ, without any other common term of union. And this which is disorder in the thing, is also dishonourable to this part of religion; and the divine messages shall be conveyed to the people by common Curriers or rather messengers by chance, and as they goe by; whereas God sent at first Embassadours extraordinary, and then left his Leigers in his Church for ever. But there is also a duty too to be secured; for they that have the guiding of souls must remember B that they must be [...], must render an account; and that cannot be done with joy, when it shall be indifferent to any man to superseminate what he please: and (by the way) I suppose, they who are apt to enter into the Chaire of Doctors and Teachers, would be unwilling to be charged with a cure of souls; If they knew what that means, they would article more strictly before they would stand charged with it; and yet it is harder to say that there is no such thing as the cure of souls; that Christ left his flock to wander and to guide themselves, or to finde shepheards at the charges of accident and chance. Christ hath made a better provision, C and after he had with the greatest earnestnesse committed to S. Peter the care of feeding his lambes and sheep, S. Peter did it carefully, and thought it part of the same duty to provide other shepheards who should also feed the flocks by a continuall provision and attendance; The Presbyters which are among you, I who also am a Presbyter exhort, feed the flock of God which is among you, [...], 1 Pet. 5. 1, 2. doing the office of Bishops over them, taking supravision or oversight of them willingly and of a ready minde. The Presbyters and Bishops, they are to feed the flock, there was a [...] a flock to be distinguished from the [...], the shepheards, the D elders [...] and the flock among you, distinguished by a regular office of teaching and a relation of shepheards and sheep.

But this discourse would be unnecessarily long unlesse I should omit many arguments, and contract the rest. I onely shall desire it 16. be considered, concerning the purpose of that part of divine providence, in giving the Christian Church commandements concerning provisions to be made for the preachers; Let the Elders that rule well have a double honour, an elder brothers portion at least, both of honour 1 Tim. 5. and maintenance, especially, if they labour in the word and doctrine; and the reason is taken out of Moses Law, but derived from E the naturall, Bovi trituranti non ligabis os. For God hath ordained that those that labour in the Gospell should live of the Gospell. This argument will force us to distinguish persons, or else our purses will; and if all will have a right to preach the Gospell that thinke themselves able, then also they have a right to be maintained too.

[Page] A I shall adde no more, ¹ God hath designed persons to teach the people, ² charged them with the cure of souls, ³ given them commission to goe into all the world, ⁴ given them gifts accordingly, ⁵ charged the people to attend and to obey, ⁶ hath provided them maintenance and support, and ⁷ separated them to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine from the affaires of this world, that they may attend to these, by the care of the whole man. If any man in charity or duty will doe any ghostly offices to his erring or weak brother, he may have a reward of charity: for in this sense it is that Tertullian says, that in remote and barbarous countreys the B Laity doe Sacerdotio aliquatenus fungi. But if he invades the publick chair he may meet with the curse of Corah, if he intends maliciously; or if he have fairer, but mistaken purposes, the gentler sentence passed upon Uzzah may be the worst of his evill portion.

SECT. IV.

I Instance next in the case of Baptisme, which indeed hath some 1. difficulty and prejudice passed upon it, and although it be put in the same Commission, intrusted to the same persons, be a sacred ministery, a Sacrament and a mysterious rite: C whose very Sacramentall and separate nature, requires the solemnity of a distinct order of persons for its ministration, yet if the Laity may be admitted to the dispensation of so sacred and solemn rites, there is nothing in the calling of the Clergy that can distinguish them from the rest of Gods people, but they shall be holy enough, to dispense holy offices without the charges of paying honour and maintenance to others to doe what they can doe themselves.

In opposition to which, I first consider, that the ordinary minister 2. of baptisme is a person consecrated; the Apostles and their D successors in the office Apostolicall, and all those that partake of that power; and it needs no other proof, but the plain production of the Commission; they who are teachers by ordinary power, and authority, they also had command to baptize all nations: and baptisme being the solemn rite of initiating disciples, and making the first publick profession of the institution, it is in reason and analogy of the mystery to be ministred by those who were appointed to collect the Church, and make Disciples. It is as plain and decretory a Commission, as any other mysteriousnesse of Christianity; and hath been accepted so for ever as the doctrine of Christianity, as E may appear in Epist. ad Heron. Ignatius, Lib. de bapt. Tertullian, Epist. 1. c. 9. S. Gelasius, Haeres. 79. S. Epiphanius, and Dial. ad Lucifer. S. Hierom; who affirme in variety of senses, that Bishops, Priests and Deacons onely are to baptize; some by ordinary right, some by deputation; of which I shall afterwards give account; But all the Jius ordinarium they intend to fixe upon the Clergy according to divine institution and commandement. So that in case lay-persons [Page] might baptize [...] & [...], upon urgent necessity, A yet this cannot upon just pretence invade the ordinary ministery, because God hath dispensed the affairs of his Church, so that cases of necessity doe not often occurre to the prejudice and dissolution of publick order, and ministeries; and if permissions being made to supply necessities, be brought further then the case of exception gives leave, the permission is turned into a crime, and does greater violence to the rule, by how much it was fortified by that very exception, as to other cases not excepted. And although in case of extreme necessity every man may preach the Gospell, as to dying Heathens, or unbeleeving persons, yet if they do this without such, B or the like necessity, what at first was charity, in the other case is schisme and pride, the two greatest enemies to charity in the world.

But now for the thing it self, whether indeed any case of necessity can transmit to lay persons a right of baptizing, it must be 3. distinctly considered. Some say it does. For Ananias baptized Paul, who yet (as it is said) was not in holy orders; and that the 3000 Converts at the first Sermon of S. Peter were all baptized by the Apostles, is not easily credible, it being too numerous a body for so few persons to baptize; and when Peter had preached to C Cornelius and his family, he caused the brethren that came along with him to baptize them; and whether hands had been imposed on them or no, is not certain: And in pursuance of the instance of Ananias, and the other probabilities the Doctors of the Church have declared their opinions [...], In cases of necessity, a lay person may baptize. So Tertullian in his book of baptisme, Alioqui & Laicis jus est baptizandi. Quod enim ex aequo accipitur, ex aequo dari potest. The Dial. adv. Lucifer. reason is also urged by S. Hierome to the same purpose, onely requiring that the baptizer be a Christian, supposing whatsoever they have received they may also give; but because the reason concludes D not, because (as themselves beleeve) a Presbyter cannot collate his Presbyterate, it must therefore rest onely upon their bare authority; if it shall be thought strong enough to bear the weight of the contrary reasons. And the Fathers in the councell of Eliberis determined, Peregrè navigantes, aut si ecclesia in proximo non fuerit, posse fidelem, qui lavacrum suum integrum habet, nec sit bigamus, baptizare Can. 38. in necessitate infirmitatis positum Catechumenum, it a ut si supervixerit, ad Episcopum eum producat, ut per manus impositionem proficere possit. The Synod held at Alexandria under Alexander their Bishop approved the baptisme of the children by Athanasius, being but a E boy; and the Nicene Fathers ratifying the baptisme made by hereticks Ruffin. lib. 10. c. 14. (amongst whom they could not but know in some cases, there was no true Priesthood or legitimate ordination) must by necessary consequence suppose baptisme to be dispensed effectually by laypersons. And S. Hierome is plain. Baptizare si necessitas cogat, scimus [Page] A etiam licere Laicis; the same almost with the Canon of the fourth Councell of Carthage, Mulier baptizare non praesumat nisi necessitate Can. mulier de consecr. dist. li. 4. sent. dist. 6. cogente: though, by the way, these words of [cogente necessitate] are not in the Canon, but thrust in by Gratian and Peter Lombard. And of the same opinion is S. Ambrose, or he who under his name wrote the Commentaries upon the fourth to the Ephesians, Epist. 1. P. Gelasius, Lib. 2. Contr. Epist. Parmen. c. 13. S. Augustine and Lib. 2. de di. vin. off. c. 24. Isidor, & generally all the Scholars after their Master.

But against this doctrine were all the African Bishops for about 150 years; who therefore rebaptized persons returning from hereticall conventicles; Because those hereticall Bishops being deposed 4. B and reduced into Lay communion, could not therefore collate baptisme, for their want of holy Orders: as appears in S. Basils canonicall Epistle to Amphilochius, where he relates their reason, and refutes it not. And however Firmilian and S. Cyprian might be deceived in the thinking heretickes, quite lost their orders; yet in this they were untouched, that although their supposition was questionable, yet their superstructure was medled with, viz. that if they had been Lay persons, their baptizations were null and invalid.

I confesse the opinion hath been very generally taken up in these last ages of the Church, almost with a Nemine contradicente; the 5. C first ages had more variety of opinion: and I think it may yet be considered anew upon the old stock. For since absolutely, all the Church affixes the ordinary ministery of baptism to the Clergy; if others doe baptize, doe they sin, or doe they not sin? That it is no sinne, is expresly affirmed in the 16 Canon of Nicephorus of C. P. If the own Father baptizes the child, or any other Christian man, it is no sinne. Lib. 2. Contr. Epist. Parmen. c. 13. S. Augustine is almost of another [...]. minde, & si Laicus necessitate compulsus baptismum dederit, nescio an pie quisquam dixerit, Baptismum esse repetendum: Nullâ enim cogente necessitate si fiat, D alieni muner is usurpatio est; si autem necessitas urgeat, aut nullum aut veniale delictum est. And of this minde are all they who by frequent using of that saying have made it almost proverbiall, Factum valet, fieri non debet. If they doe not sinne, then women & Lay men have as much right from Christ to baptize as Deacons or Presbyters; then they may upon the same stock and right doe it as Deacons doe: for if a Bishop was present it was not lawfull for Deacons, as is expresly affirmed by S. Ignatius in his Epistle to Heron the Deacon; and S. Epiphanius with the same words denies a sus baptizandi, to women and to Deacons; and both of them Haeres. 19. E affirme it to be proper to Bishops. Further yet, Tertullian and De bapt. adv. Lucifer. S. Hierom deny a power to Presbyters to doe it without Episcopall dispensation. Now if Presbyters and Deacons have this power onely by leave and in certain cases, then it is no more then women have; onely that they are fitter persons to be intrusted with the deputation; a lesse necessity will devolve it upon Presbyters then [Page] upon Deacons, and upon Deacons then Lay men, and a lesse yet will A cast it upon Lay men then women; and this difference is in respect of humane order and positive constitution, but in the nature of the thing according to this doctrine all persons are equally receptive of it: And therefore to baptize is no part of the grace of Orders, no fruit of the holy Ghost, but a work which may be done by all, and at some times must; and if baptisme may, then it will be hard to keep all the other rites from the common inrodes, and then the whole office wil perish.

But if Lay persons baptizing, though in case of necessity, doe sin, as S. Augustine seems to say they doe, then it is certain, Christ never 6. gave them leave so much as by insinuation; and then neither B can the Church give leave; for she can give leave for no man to sin; and besides, such a deputation were to no purpose; Because no person shall dare to doe it, for evill is not to be done, though for the obtaining the greatest good: and it will be hard to state the question, so that either the childe shall perish, or some other must perish for it; for he that positively ventures upon a sin for a good end, worships God with a sinne, and therefore shall be thank'd with a damnation, if he dies before repentance; but if the childe shall not perish in such case of not being baptized, then why should any man break the rule of institution? and if he shall perish without being C baptized, then God hath affixed the salvation of the childe upon the condition of another mans sinne.

3. And indeed the pretence of cases of necessity may doe much towards the excusing an irregularity in an exterior rite, though of 7. divine institution, [...]. But it will not be easily proved that God hath made any such necessities, it is Eurip. certain that for persons having the use of reason God hath provided a remedy that no lay persons should have need to baptize a Catechumen; for his votum or desire of Baptisme shall serve his turne; And it will be unimaginable that God hath made no provision for infants, D and yet put it upon them in many cases with equall necessity, which without breach of a divine institution cannot be supplied.

4. If a Lay person shall baptize, whether or no shall the person baptized receive benefit, or will any more but the outward act be done? 8. for that the Lay person shall convey rem Sacramenti or be the minister of sacramentall grace, is no where revealed in Scripture, and is against the Analogy of the Gospell; for the verbum reconciliationis, all the whole ministery of reconciliation is intrusted to the Priest, Nobis, De captivit. Babyl. c. de ordine, & in l. deinstituendis ministris and senatum Pragensem in l. de missâ abrogandâ, in l. de notis ecclesiae. (saith S. Paul) to us who are Embassadors. And what difference is there, if cases of necessity be pretended in the defect of other ministeries, E but that they also may be invaded? and cases of necessity may by other men also be numbred in the other Sacrament; and they have done so, and I know, who said that no man must consecrate the Sacramēt of the Lords supper but he that is lawfully called, except there be a case of necessity; and that there may be a case of necessity for the blessed [Page] A Sacrament, there needs no other testimony then the Can. 13. Nicene councell; which calls the Sacrament in the article of death [...] viaticum, the most necessary provision for our journey: and if a lay person absolves, there is as much promise of the validity of one as of the other, unlesse it be said, that there may be absolute necessity of baptisme, but not so of absolution; which the maintainers of the other opinion are not apt to professe. And therefore S. Augustine did not know whether baptisme administred by a lay person be to be repeated or no; Nescio an piè quisquam dixerit, he knew not; neither doe I. But Simeon of Thessalonica is confident B [...] No man baptizes but he that is in holy orders; the baptisme is null; I cannot say so; nor can I say [...], Let it be received. Onely I offer this to consideration; if a Deacon can doe no ministeriall act with effect, but a lay person may doe the same with effect upon the person suscipient, what is that supernaturall grace and inherent and indelible character which a Deacon hath received in his ordination? If a Deacon can doe no supernaturall act which were void and null if done by him that is not a Deacon, he hath no character, no spirituall inherent power; and that he is made the ordinary minister of it, is for order sake; C but he that can doe the same thing, hath the same power and ability; by this ground a Lay person and a Deacon are not distinguished by any inherent character, and therefore they who understand the spirituall powers and effects of ordination in the sense and expression of an inherent and indelible character, will finde some difficulty in allowing the effect of a lay baptisme.

But I consider that the instances of Scripture brought for the 9. lawfulnesse of lay administration, if they had no particular exception, yet are impertinent to this question: for it is not with us pretended in any case to be lawfull, but in extreme necessity: And D therefore, S. Peters deputing the brethren who come with him to Cornelius to baptize his family, is nothing to our purpose, and best answers it selfe; for either they were of the Clergy, who came with them, or else lay persons may baptize by the right of an ordinary deputation, without a case of necessity: for here was none; S. peter might have done it himself.

And as for Ananias, he was one of the seventy two; and if that be nothing, yet he was called to that ministration about Paul as 10. Paul himselfe was to the Apostleship even by an immediate vocation, and mission from Christ himselfe. And if this answer were not E sufficient (as it is most certainly) the argument would presse further then is intended; for Ananias tells him, he was sent to him that he might lay his hands on him that he might receive the holy Ghost: and to doe that was more then Philip could doe, though he was a Deacon, and in as great a necessity as this was: And yet besides all this this was not a case of necessity, unlesse there was never a Presbyter [Page] or Deacon in all Damascus, or that God durst not trust any of them A with Paul, but onely Ananias, or that Paul could not stay longer without baptisme, as many thousand converts did in descending ages.

And for the other conjecture it is not considerable at all; for the 11. Apostles might take three or four days time to baptize the 3000; there was no hurt done if they had stayed a week: the text insinuates nothing to the contrary; The same day about 3000 were added to the Church; then they were added to the Church, that is, by virtue and efficacy of that Sermon, who, it may be, considered some while of S. Peters discourse, and gave up their names upon mature deliberation and positive conviction. But it is not said they were baptized the same B day; and yet it was not impossible for the twelve Apostles to doe it in one day, if they had thought it reasonable.

For my own particular I wish we would make no more necessities then God made, but that we leave the administration of the Sacraments 12. to the manner of the first institution, and the Clericall offices be kept with their cancells, that no Lay hand may pretend a reason to usurpe the sacred ministery; and since there can be no necessity for unbaptized persons of years of discretion, because their desire may supply them, it were well also, if our charity would finde some other way also, to understand Gods mercy towards C infants: for certainly he is most mercifull and full of pity to them also; and if there be no neglect of any of his own appointed ministeries, so as he hath appointed them, me thinks it were but reasonable to trust his goodnesse with the infants in other cases; for it cannot but be a jealousie and a suspicion of God, a not daring to trust him, and an unreasonable proceeding beside, that we will rather venture to dispense with divine institution, then thinke that God will; or that we shall pretend more care of children then God hath; when we will breake an institution, and the rule of an ordinary ministery of Gods appointing, rather then cast them upon God; as D if God loved this ceremony better then he loved the child: for so it must be, if the childe perishes for want of it: and yet still me thinkes according to such doctrine, there was little or no care taken for infants; for when God had appointed a ministery, and fixed it with certain rules and a proper deputation; in reason (knowing in all things else how mercifull God is and full of goodnesse) we should have expected that God should have given expresse leave to have gone besides the first circumstances of the Sacrament if he had intended we might or should; and that he should have told us so too; rather then by leaving them fast tyed without any expresse E cases of exception, or markes of difference, permit men to dispute and stand unresolved between a case of Duty, and a point of Charity; for although God will have mercy rather then sacrifice, yet when both are commanded, God takes order they shall never crosse each other, and sacrifice is to be preferred before mercy, when the sacrifice [Page] A is in the commandement and the mercy is not: as it is in the present question. And if it were otherwise in this case, yet because God loves mercy so well, why should we not thinke, that God himself will shew this mercy to this Infant when he hath not expressed his pleasure that we should doe it? we cannot be more mercifull then he is.

The Church of England hath determined nothing in this particular, 13. that I know of; onely when in the first Liturgy of King Edward the sixt, a rubrick was inserted permitting midwives to baptize in cases of extreme danger, it was left out in the second Liturgies, B which is at least an argument she intended to leave the question undetermined; if at least that omission of the clause was also not a rejection of the Article: Onely this Epiphanius objects it against the Marcionites, and Tertullian against the Gnosticks, that they did permit De praescript. haeres. 42. women to baptize: I cannot say but they made it an ordinary imployment, and a thing besides the case of necessity: I know not whether they did or no. But if they be permitted it is considerable whither the example may drive: Tertullian de baptismo. Petulans mulier quae usurpavit docere, an non utique & tingendi jus sibi pariet? that I may turn Tertullians Thesis into an Interrogative. The women usurpe the office C of teaching, if also they may be permitted to baptize, they may in time arrogate and invade other ministeries; or if they doe not by reason of the naturall and politicall incapacity of their persons, yet others may upon the same stock: for necessity consists not in a Mathematicall point, but hath latitude which may be expounded to inconvenience; and that I say truth and feare reasonably, I need no other testimony then the Greek Church, for amongst them a [ [...]] the absence of the Priest is necessity enough for a woman to baptize; for so says Gabriel Philadelphiensis Tractat. de sacramento cap. de baptismo. [...].. In the absence of a Priest a Christian Laick may baptize whether it be man or D woman; either may doe it; and whether that be not onely of danger in the sequel, but in it selfe a very dissolution of all discipline, I leave it to the Church of England to determine as for her own perticular, that at least the Sacrament be left intirely to clericall dispensation according to divine commandement.

One thing I offer to consideration; that since the keyes of the 14. kingdome of heaven be most notoriously and signally used in baptisme, in which the kingdome of heaven the Gospel, and all its promises, is opened to all beleevers, and though as certainly yet lesse principally in reconciling penitents, and admitting them to the communion E of the faithfull, it may be of ill consequence, to let them be usurped by hands to whom they were not consigned. Certain it is S. Peter used his keyes, and opened the kingdome of heaven Acts 2. 38. first, when he said, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sinnes, and ye shall receive the gift of the holy Ghost. However as to the main question, we have not onely [Page] the universall doctrine of Christendome, but also expresse authority A and commission in Scripture, sending out Apostles and Apostolicall men, persons of choice and speciall designation to baptize all nations, and to entertain them into the services and institution of the holy Jesus.

SECT. V.

I Shall instance but once more, but it is in the most solemn, sacred and divinest mystery of our Religion; that in which the Clergy 1. in their appointed ministery doe [...] stand between B God and the people, and doe fulfill a speciall and incomprehensible ministery, which the Angels themselves doe look into with admiration; to which the people if they come without fear, cannot come without sinne; and this is of so sacred and reserved mysteriousnesse, that but few have dared to offer at with unconsecrated hands: some have. But the Eucharist is the fulnesse of all the mysteriousnesse of our religion; and the Clergy when they officiate here, are most truly in the phrase of Saint Paul dispensatores mysteriorum Dei dispensers 1 Cor. 4. 1. of the great mysteries of the kingdome. For (to use the word of S. Cyprian.) Jesus Christ is our high Priest, and himself became our C sacrifice which he finished upon the crosse in a reall performance, and now Ad Caecil. Ep. 63. Si Jesus Christus dominus & Deus noster ipse est summus sacerdos Dei patris & sacrificium Patri seipsum primus obtulit, & hoc fieri in sui commemorationem praecepit, uti (que) ille sacerdos vice Christi vere sungitur qui id quod Christus fecit, imitatur: & sacrificium verum & plenum tunc offert in Ecclesiâ Deo Patri, si incipiat offerre secundum quod ipsum Christum videat obtulisse. in his office of Mediatorship makes intercession for us by a perpetuall exhibition of himselfe, of his own person in heaven, which is a continuall, actually represented argument to move God to mercy to all that beleeve in, and obey the Holy Jesus.

Now Christ did also establish a number of select persons, to be ministers of this great sacrifice, finished upon the crosse; that they 2. also should exhibit and represent to God (in the manner which their D Lord appointed them) this sacrifice, commemorating the action and suffering of the great Priest; and by way of prayers and impetration, offering up that action in behalfe of the people, [...] Orat. 11. (as Gregory Naz. expresses it) sending up sacrifices to be laid upon the Altar in heaven, that the Church might be truly united unto Christ their head, and in the way of their ministery may doe what he does in heaven; for he exhibites the sacrifice, that is, himselfe, actually and presentially in heaven: the Priest on earth commemorates the same, and by his E prayers represents it God in behalf of the whole Catholick Church; presentially too, by another and more mysterious way of presence; but both Christ in heaven, and his ministers on earth doe actuate that sacrifice, and apply it to its purposed designe by praying to God in virtue and merit of that sacrifice; Christ himselfe, in a high [Page] A and glorious manner; the ministers of his priesthood (as it becomes ministers) humbly, sacramentally, and according to the energy of humane advocation and intercession; This is the summe and great mysteriousnesse of Christianity, and is now to be proved.

This is expresly described in Scripture; that part concerning 3. Christ is the doctrine of S. Paul who disputes largely concerning Christs priesthood; affirming that Christ is a Priest for ever; he hath therefore an unchangeable priesthood, because he continueth for ever, and he lives for ever to make intercession for us; this he does as Heb. 7. 23. &c. Priest, and therefore it must be by offering a sacrifice [for every high B Priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices] and therefore it is necessary And 8. v. 2, 3. &c. he also have something to offer, as long as he is a Priest, that is, for ever, till the consummation of all things; since therefore he hath nothing new to offer, and something he must continually offer, it is evident, he offers himselfe as the medium of advocation, and the instance and argument of a prevailing intercession: and this he calls [a more excellent ministery] and by it, Jesus is a minister of the Sanctuary and of the true Tabernacle, that is, he as our high Priest officiates in heaven, in the great office of a Mediator, in the merit and power of his death and resurrection. Now what Christ does always C in a proper and most glorious manner, the ministers of the Gospell also doe in theirs: commemorating the sacrifice upon the crosse, giving thanks, and celebrating a perpetuall Eucharist for it, and by declaring the death of Christ, and praying to God in the virtue of it, for all the members of the Church and all persons capable; it is in genere orationis a sacrifice, and an instrument of propitiation, as all holy prayers are in their severall proportions.

And this was by a precept of Christ; Hoc facite, Doe this in remembrance 4. of me. Now this precept is but twice reported of, in the new Testament, though the institution of the Sacrament, be four times. D And it is done with admirable mystery; to distinguish the severall interest, and operations which concern severall sorts of Christians in their distinct capacities: S. Paul thus represents it; [Take eat—This doe in remembrance of me] plainely referring this precept to all that are to eate and drinke the symbols: for they also doe in their manner enunciate, declare, or represent, the Lords death till he come. And S. Paul prosecutes it with instructions particular to the [...], to them that doe communicate, as appears in the succeeding cautions against unworthy manducation and for due preparation to its reception. But S. Luke reports it, plainly to another purpose, E [and he took bread, and gave thankes, and brake it, and gave it unto them, saying: This is my body which is given for you; Hoc facite, This] doe in remembrance of me: [This] cannot but relate to accepit, gratias egit, fregit, distribuit; Hoc facite. Here was no manducation expressed, and therefore Hoc facite concerns the Apostles in the capacity of ministers, not as receivers but as Consecrators and Givers; and if [Page] the institution had been represented in one scheme without this mysterious A distinction, and provident separation of imployment, we had been eternally in a cloud, and have needed a new light to guide us; but now the spirit of God hath done it in the very first fountains of Scripture.

And this being the great mystery of Christianity and the onely remanent expresse of Christs sacrifice on earth, it is most consonant 5. to the Analogy of the mystery, that this commemorative sacrifice be presented by persons as separate, and distinct in their ministery, as the sacrifice it selfe is from, and above the other parts of our religion. B

Thus also the Church of God hath for ever understood it, without 6. any variety of sense or doubtfulnesse of distinguishing opinions. It was the great excellency and secret ministery of the religion, to consecrate and offer the holy symbols and sacraments: I shall transcribe a passage out of Justin Martyr giving the account of it to Antoninus Pius in his oration to him; and it will serve in stead of many; for it tells the religion of the Christians in this mystery, and gives a full account of all the ceremony. [...], &c. ‘When the prayers are done, then C Vide etiam Justin. in Apol. 2. is brought to the President of the brethren [the Priest] the bread, and the Chalice of wine mingled with water, which being received he gives praise and glory to the Father of all things, and presents them in the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and largely gives thankes, that he hath been pleased to give us these gifts: and when he hath finished the prayers and thanksgiving, all the people that is present, with a joyfull acclamation, say Amen. Which when it is done by the Presidents and people, those which amongst us are called Deacons and Ministers, distribute to every one that is present, that they may partake of him, in whom D the thanks were presented, the Eucharist, bread, wine, and water; and may beare it to the absent. Moreover this nourishment is by us called the Eucharist; which it is lawfull for none to partake, but to him who beleeves our doctrine true, and is washed in the Laver for the remission of sins, and regeneration, and that lives so as Christ delivered. For we doe not take it as common bread & common drink; but as by the word of God Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world was made flesh, and for our salvation sake had flesh and bloud: after the same manner also we are taught that this nourishment, in which by the prayers of his word, which is from him the food in which thanks are given, or the consecrated food by wch our flesh E & bloud by mutation or change are nourished, is the flesh & bloud of the incarnate Jesus. For the Apostles in their commentaries wch they wrote, which are called the Gospells, so delivered, that Jesus commanded. For when he had given thanks and taken bread he [Page] A said, Doe this in remembrance of me; This is my body; And likewise taking the Chalice, and having given thanks he said, [This is my bloud,] and that he gave it to them alone.]’ This one testimony I reckon as sufficient: who please to see more, may observe the tradition full, testified and intire, in Epist. ad Trallian. Ignatius, Lib. 1. c. 31. & lib. 8. c. ult. Clemens Romanus, or who ever wrote the Apostolicall constitutions in his name, De praescript. Tertullian, Lib. 1. Ep. 2. & 9. & lib. 3. Epist. 15. S. Cyprian, Apol. 2. cum de Ischirâ rationem reddit cum calice sacro uti non potuisse. S. Athanasius, Haeres. 79. Epiphanius, Lib. 2. de bapt. c. 8. S. Basil, Lib. 3. & 6. de sacerd. Homil. 51. & 83. in Matth. & hom. 60. ad pop. An. ioch. S. Chrysostome, (almost every where) Contr. Lucifer. & Ep. 1. ad. Heliodor. & 85. ad Evagrium & ad Hedito. 150. 9. 2. S. Hierome, Lib. 20. de Civ. c. [...]0. S. Augustine: and indeed we cannot look in vain, into any of the old writers: The summe of whose doctrine in this particular, I B shall represent in the words of the most ancient of them, S. Ignatius, saying that he is worse then an infidell that offers to officiate about the holy Altar unlesse he be a Bishop or a Priest.

And certainly he could upon no pretence have challenged the 7. Appellative of Christian, who had dared either himselfe to invade the holy rites within the Cancels, or had denyed the power of celebrating this dreadfull mystery to belong onely to sacerdotall ministration. C For either it is said to be but common bread and wine, and then, if that were true, indeed any body may minister it; but then they that say so are blasphemous, they count the bloud of the Lord [...], (as S. Paul calls it in imitation of the words of institution) The bloud of the Covenant or new Testament, a Heb. 10. 26. profane or common thing; they discerne not the Lords body; they know not that the bread that is broken is the communication of Christs body: But if it be a holy, separate, or divine and mysterious thing, who can make it (ministerially I mean) and consecrate or sublime it from common and ordinary bread, but a consecrate, separate, and sublimed D person? It is to be done either by a naturall power, or by a supernaturall. A naturall, cannot hallow a thing in order to God; and they onely have a supernaturall, who have derived it from God in order to this ministration; who can show that they are taken up into the lot of that Deacon-ship, which is the type and representment of that excellent ministery of the true Tabernacle where Jesus himselfe does the same thing, in a higher and a more excellent manner.

This is the great secret of the kingdome, to which in the Primitive Church, many who yet had given up their names to Christ by 8. E designation, or solemnity were not admitted, so much as to the participation; as the Catechumens, the Audientes, the Poenitentes, Neophytes, and Children: and the ministery of it was not onely reserved for sacred persons, but also performed with so much mysterious secrecy, that many were not permitted so much as to see. This is that rite, in which the Priest intercedes for, and blesses the people; [Page] offering in their behalfe, not onely their prayers, but applying A the sacrifice of Christ to their prayers, and representing them with glorious advantages, and tithes of acceptation, which because it was so excellent, celestiall, sacred, mysticall, and supernaturall, it raised up the persons too; that the ministeriall Priesthood in the Church, might according to the nature of all great imployments, passe an excellency and a value upon the ministers.

And therefore according to the naturall reason of religion and the devotion of all the world, the Christians, because they had the 9. greatest reason so to doe, did honour their Clergy with the greatest veneration, and esteem. It is without a Metaphor regale sacerdotium B a royall Priesthood, so S. Peter; which although it be spoken in 1 Pet. 2. 9. generall of the Christian Church, and in an improper large sense, is verified of the people, yet it is so to be expounded, as that parallel place of the books of Moses, from whence the expression is borrowed, Yee shall be a kingdome of Priests and an Holy Nation; which plainly by the sense and Analogy of the Mosaick law, signifies a Exod. 19. 6. nation blessed by God with rites and ceremonies of a separate religion; a kingdome in which Priests are appointed by God; a kingdome, in which nothing is more honourable then the Priesthood; for it is certain, the nation was famous in all the world, for an honorable C Priesthood; and yet the people were not Priests in any sense, but of a violent Metaphor. And therefore the Christian ministery having greater privileges, and being honoured with attrectation of the body and bloud of Christ, and offices serving to a better Covenant, may with greater argument be accounted excellent, honorable, and royall; and all the Church be called a royall Priesthood, the denomination being given to the whole, from the most excellent part; because they altogether make one body under Christ the head, the medium of the union being the Priests, the collectors of the Church, and instrument of adunation; and reddendo singula singulis D dividing to each his portion of the expression, the people is a peculiar people, the Clergy a holy Priesthood: and all in conjunction, and for severall excellencies a chosen Nation: so that [...] is the same with [...] the Priesthood of the kingdome, that is, the ministery of the Gospell: for in the new Testament the kingdome] signifies the Gospell: and [...] is the same with [...], Kingly is of, or belonging to the Gospell: for therefore it is observable, it is not [...] but [...], not well rendred by the vulgar Latine regale sacerdotium; as if Kingly were the Appellative or Epithete of this Priesthood; it is regium, a Priesthood E appertaining to the kingdome of the Gospel; and the Priest being enumerated distinctly from the people, the Priests of the kingdome and the people of the kingdome are all holy and chosen; but in their severall manner: the Priests of the kingdome those, the people of the kingdome, these; these to bring or designe a spirituall sacrifice, [Page] A the Priest to offer it; or altogether, to sacrifice; the Priest by his proper ministery, the people by their assent, conjunction and assistance, chosen to serve God, not onely in their own formes, but under the ministrations of an honourable Priesthood.

And in al the descent of Christian religion it was indeed honorable, [...], 10. saith S. Chrysostome the Christian Priesthood does its ministery and is perfected on earth, but hath the beauty, order, and excellency of the heavenly Lib. 3. de saccr. hosts: so that I shall not need to take notice of the Lamina Apud Euseb. hist. lib. 5. c. 25. aurea which Polycrates reports S. John to have worne in token of his B royall Priesthood, a wreath of Gold; (so also did S. James Bishop of De script. in Iacobo Haeres. 78. Jerusalem, as S. Hierome and Epiphanius report) nor the exemption of the Clergy from tribute, their authority with the people, their great donatives and titles of secular advantage: these were accidentall to the Ministery, and relyed upon the favour of Princes, and devotion of the people; and if they had been more, yet are lesse then the honours God had bestowed upon it: for certainly there is not a greater degree of power in the world then to remit and retain sinnes, and to consecrate the sacramentall symbols into the mysteriousnesse of Christs body and bloud; nor a greater honour, then that God C in heaven should ratifie what the Priest does on earth; & should admit him to handle the sacrifice of the world, and to present the same which in heaven is presented by the eternall Jesus.

[...],

[...]

[...].

So Gregory Nazienzen describes the honour and mysteriousnesse of the Priests power: They minister the spirituall and unbloudy sacrifice, they are honourable Guardians of soules, they bear the work of God in their hands. And S. Hierom speaking of these words of S. Paul, I am D ordained a preacher and an Apostle; Quod Paulus ait, [Apostolus Jesu Christi] tale mihi videtur quasi dixisset, praefectus praetorio Augusti Caesaris, magister exercitus Tiberii imperatoris. And a little after, grandem 1 Tim. 1. 3. inter Christianos sibi vindicans dignitatē Apostolorum se Christi titulo praenotavit, ut ex ipsa lecturos nominis autoritate deterreret, indicans omnes qui Christo crederent, debere esse sibi subjectos. And therefore S. Chrysostome says it is the trick of hereticks not to give to Bishops titles of their eminency and honour which God hath vouchsafed them: Ut Diabolus it a etiam quilibet facit haereticus vehementissimus in tempore persecutionis, loquens cum Pontisice, nec eum vocat Pontisicem, E nec Archiepiscopum, nec religiosissimum, nec sanctum, sed quid? Reverentia tua &c. nomina illi adducit communia, ejus negans autoritatem: Diabolus hoc tunc fecit in Deo: It is [...] and [...], A separating and purifying order of men, so Dionysius calls it: but Nazianzen speaks greater and more glorious words yet; and yet what is no more then a sober truth; for he calls the Priest [...]. Orat. 1. [Page] A He stands with Angels and is magnified with Archangels; he sends sacrifices to celestiall altar, and is consecrated in the Priesthood of Christ, a divine person, and an instrument of making others so too. I shall adde no more as to this particular. The expresse precepts of God in Scripture are written in great characters, there is a double honour to be given to the Ecclesiasticall 1 Tim. 5. 17. Rulers. Rulers that also labour in the word and doctrine: There is obedience due to them, obedience in all things, and estimation, and Heb. 13. 17. 2 Cor. 2. 9. love, [...], very abundantly; esteem such very highly for B 1 Thes. 5. 12. Gal. 6. 1. their worke sake; a communicating to them in all good things; and their offices are described to be great, separate, busie, eminent and profitable, [...] they are Rulers, Presidents, set over us in the Lord, taking care for us, labouring in doctrine, spirituall persons, restorers of them that were overtaken in a fault, curates of souls, such as must give an account for them, the salt, the light of the world, shepheards; and much more signifying work, and rule and care and honour. But next to the words of Scripture there can no more be said concerning the honour of the sacred order of the Clergy, then is said by S. Chrysostome in his books Desacerdotio, and S. Ambrose De dignitate sacerdotali, and no C greater thing can be supposed communicated to men then to be the Ministers of God, in the great conveyances of grace, and instruments of God in the pardon of sins, in the consecration of Christs body and bloud, in the guidance and conduct of souls. And this was the stile of the Church, calling Bishops and Priests according to their respective capacity, Stewards of the grace of God, leaders [...]. of the blind, a light of them that sit in darknesse, instructors of the ignorant, teachers of babes, stars in the world, amongst whom ye shine as lights in the world, and that is Scripture too; starres in Christs right hand, lights set upon the candlesticks: And D now supposing these premises, if Christendome had not paid proportionable esteem to them, they had neither known how to value religion or the mysteries of Christianity. But that all Christendome ever did pay the greatest reverence to the Clergy and religious veneration, is a certain argument that in Christian Religion the distinction of the Clergy from the Laity, is supposed as a praecognitum, a principle of the institution. I end this with the words of the 7th generall Councell: It is manifest to all the world that in the Priesthood Can. 14. [...]. there is order and distinction, and to observe the ordinations and elections of the Priesthood with strictnesse and severity is well pleasing to God. E

A SECT. VI.

[Page]

ASsoon as God began to constitute a Church and fix the Priesthood, which before was very ambulatory, and dispensed into all families, but ever officiated by the Major domo, God gives the power and designs the person. And therefore Moses consecrated Aaron agitatus à Deo consecrationis Principe saith Dionysius, Eccles. Hierarch. Moses performed the externall rites of designation, but God was the consecrator, [...]. Moses appointed Aaron to the Priesthood, and B Dionys. ibid. gave him the order, but it was onely as the Minister and Deputy of God, under God the chief consecrator. And no man taketh upon him this honour but he that was called of God as was Aaron, saith S. Paul. For in every Priesthood God designed and appointed the ministery, and collates a power, or makes the person gratious: either gives him a spirituall ability of doing something which others have not, or if he be onely imployed in praying and presenting sacrifices of beasts for the people, yet that such a person should be admitted to a neerer addresse, and in behalf of the people, must depend upon Gods acceptation, and therefore upon divine constitution; for there can C be no reason given in the nature of the thing, why God will accept the intermediation of one man for many, or why this man more then another, who possibly hath no naturall or acquired excellency beyond many of the people, except what God himself makes, after the constitution of the person. If a spirituall power be necessary to the ministration, it is certain, none can give it but the fountain and the principle of the Spirits emanation. Or if the graciousnesse and aptnesse of the person be required, that also being arbitrary, preternaturall and chosen, must derive from the divine election: For God cannot be prescribed unto by us, whom he shall D hear, and whom he shall entertain in a more immediate addresse, and freer entercourse.

And this is divinely taught us by the example of the high Priest 2. himself; who, because he derived all power from his Father, and all his gratiousnesse and favour in the office of Priest and Mediator, was also personally chosen and sent, and took not the honour but as it descended on him from God, that the honour and the Heb. 5. 5. power, the ability, and the ministery, might derive from the same fountain. Christ did not glorisie himself to become high Priest. Honour may be deserved by our selves, but always comes from others; E and because no greater honour then to be ordained for men in things pertaining to God, every man must say as our blessed High Priest said of himself: If I honour my self, my honour is nothing; it is God that honoureth me; For Christ being the fountain of Evangelicall ministery, is the measure of our dispensations, and the rule of Ecclesiasticall oeconomy; and therefore we must not arrogate any power [Page] from our selves, or from a lesse authority then our Lord and Master A did: and this is true and necessary in the Gospell, rather then in any ministery or Priesthood that ever was, because of the collation of so many excellent and supernaturall abilities which derive from Christ upon his Ministers, in order to the work of the Gospel.

And the Apostles understood their duty in this particular, as in 3 all things else; for when they had received all this power from above they were carefull to consign the truth, that although it be [...], a divine grace in a humane ministery, and that although [...] yet [...], [...]. that is, He that is ordained by men, yet receives his B power from God; not at all by himself; and from no man as from the Heb. 5. fountain of his power; And this I say the Apostles were carefull to consign in the first instance of Ordination in the case of Mathias. Thou Lord shew which of these two thou hast chosen: God was the Elector, Acts 1. 24. and they the Ministers; and this being at the first beginning of Christianity, in the very first designation of an ecclesiasticall person, was of sufficient influence into the religion for ever after; and taught us to derive all clericall power from God; and therefore by such means and Ministeries which himself hath appointed, but in no hand to be invaded, or surprized in the entrance, or polluted in C the execution.

This descended in the succession of the Churches doctrine for ever. Receive the holy Ghost, said Christ to his Apostles, when he enabled 4. them with Priestly power; and S. Paul to the Bishops of Asia said, The holy Ghost hath made you Bishops or Overseers; because no mortall Chrysost. lib. 3. de Sacerdot. Quippe non mortalis quispiam, non Angelus, non Archangelus, non alia quaevis creat a potentia, sed ipse Para [...]l [...]tus ordinem esusmodi disposuit. man, no Angel, or Archangell, nor any other created power, but the Holy Ghost alone hath constituted this order, saith S. Chrysostome. And this very thing, besides the matter of fact, and the plain donation of the power by our blessed Saviour, is intimated by the words of Christ otherwhere; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the vineyard that he will send labourers into his harvest; Now his mission is not onely a D designing of the persons, but enabling them with power; because he never commands a work but he gives abilities to its performance; and therefore still in every designation of the person, by what ever ministery it be done, either that ministery is by God constituted to be the ordinary means of conveying the abilities, or else God himself ministers the grace immediately. It must of necessity come from him some way or other.

[...]

[...]

James 1. 17.

S. James hath adopted it into the family of Evangelicall truths E; [...], and therefore [...], every perfect gift, and therefore every perfecting gift, which in the stile of the Church is the gift of Ordination, is from above, the gifts of perfecting the persons of the Hierarchy, and ministery Evangelicall; [Page] A which thing is further intimated by S. Paul, Now he which stablisheth us with you [ [...]] in order to Christ [and Christian Religion] is God, 2 Cor. 1. 21. and that his meaning be understood concerning the [...] of establishing him in the ministery, he addes [...], and he which anointeth us is God, and hath sealed us with an verse 22. earnest of his Spirit [unction] and [consignation] and [establishing by the holy Spirit:] the very stile of the Church for ordination [...], it was said of Christ, Him hath the Father John 6. 27. sealed, that is, ordained him the Priest and Prophet of the world; and this he plainly spoke as their Apostle and President in religion. [...], &c. B Not as Lords over your faith, but fellow-workers; he spake of himself and Timothy, concerning whose Ministery in order to them, he now gives account: [...]: God anoints the Priest, and God consigns him with the holy Ghost, that is the Principale quaesitum, that is the main question.

And therefore the Author of the books of Ecclesiasticall hierarchy, 5. giving the rationale of the rites of Ordination, says that the Priest is made so [...] by way of proclaiming and publication of the person, signifying, That the holy man that consecrates is but [...]. C the proclaimer of the divine election, but not by any humane power or proper grace does he give the perfect gift and consecrate the person. And In Ora. in laudem sui patris. [...]. Nazianzen, speaking of the rites of ordination hath this expression, with which the divine grace is proclaimed: (And Billius renders it ill by superinvocatur.) He makes the power of consecration to be declarative; which indeed is a lesser expression of a fuller power, but it signifies as much as the whole comes to; for it must mean, God does transmit the grace [at] or [by] or [in] the exteriour ministery, and the Minister is [...] a declarer] not by the word of his mouth, distinct from the D work of his hand: But by the ministery, he declares the work of God, then wrought in the person suscipient. And thus in absolution the Priest declares the act of God pardoning, not that he is a Preacher onely of the pardon upon certain conditions, but that he is not the principall agent, but by his ministery declares and ministers the effect and work of God. And this interpretation is clear in the instance of the blessed Sacrament, where not onely the Priest but the people doe [...] declare the Lords death, not by a Homily, but by virtue of the mystery which they participate. And in the instance of this present question, the consecrator does declare E the power to descend from God upon the person to be ordained.

But thus the whole action being but a ministery is a declaration 6. of the effect and grace of Gods vouchsafing; and because God does it not immediately, and also because such effects are invisible and secret operations, God appointing an externall rite and ministery, does it, that the private working of the Spirit may become as perceived [Page] as it can be, that is, that it may by such rites be declared to all the A world what God is doing, and that man cannot doe it of himself; and besides the reasonablenesse of the thing, the very words in the present allegation doe to this very sense expound themselves: for [...] and [...] are the same thing and expressive of each other; the consecrator declares, that is, he doth not do it by collation of his own grace or power, but the grace of God and power from above.

And this doctrine we read also in S. Cyprian towards the end of his Epistle to Cornelius: ut Dominus qui Sacerdotes sibi in ecclesia sua eligere & constituere dignatur, electos quoque & constitutos sua voluntate B Epist. 45. atque opitulatione tueatur: It is a good prayer of ordination; [that the Lord who vouchsafes to choose and consecrate Priests in his Church, would also be pleased by his ayd and grace to defend them whom he hath so chosen and appointed] Homo manum imponit, & De dignit. Sacer. c. 5. & in comment. in 1 Tim. c. 2. & in 1 Cor. 12. in illud [Divisiones gratiarum.] Deus largitur gratiam: Sacerdos imponit supplicem dextram, Deus benedicit potenti dextra, saith S. Ambrose, man imposes his hand, but God gives the grace: the Bishop layes on his hand of prayer, and God blesses with his hand of power. The effect of this discourse is plain; the grace and powers that enable men to minister in the mysteries of the Gospel is so wholly from God, that whosoever assumes C it without Gods warrant, and besides his way; ministers with a vain, sacrilegious, and ineffective hand, save onely that he disturbs the appointed order, and does himself a mischief.

SECT. VII.

BY this ordination the persons ordained are made ministers of the Gospel, stewards of all its mysteries, the light, the salt 1. of the earth, the shepheard of the flock, Curates of soules; these are their offices, or their appellatives (which you please) for the Clericall ordination is no other, but a sanctification of the person D in both senses; that is, 1 a separation of him to do certain mysterious actions of religion: which is that sanctification by which Jeremy and S. John the Baptist were sanctified from their mothers wombs. 2 It is also a sanctification of the person, by the increasing or giving respectively to the capacity of the suscipient, such graces as make the person meet to speak to God, to pray for the people, to handle the mysteries, and to have influence upon the cure.

The first sanctification is a designation of the person; which 2. must of necessity be some way or other by God: because it is a neerer approach to him, a ministery of his graces, which without his E appointment, a man must not, cannot any more doe, then a messenger can cary pardon to a condemned person, which his Prince never sent. But this separation of the person, is not onely a naming of the man, (for so farre the separation of the person may be previous [Page] A to the ordination: for so it was in the ordinations of Mathias and the seven Deacons; The Apostles [...] they appointed two, before God chose by lot; and the whole Church chose the seven Deacons before the Apostles imposed hands;) but the separation, or this first sanctification of the person, is a giving him a power to doe such offices, which God hath appointed to be done to him, and for the people, which we may clearly see and understand in the instance of Job and his friends: For when God would be intreated in behalfe of Eliphaz and his companions, he gave order that Job should make the addresse; Goe to my servant, he shall pray for you, and Job 42. 8. B him will I accept; this separation of a person for the offices of advocation, is the same thing which I mean by this first sanctification; God did it, and gave him a power and authority to goe to him, and put him into a place of trust and favour about him, and made him a minister of the sacrifice; which is a power and eminency above the persons for whom he was to sacrifice, and a power or grace from God to be in neernesse to him. This I suppose to be the great argument for the necessity of separating a certain order of men for ecclesiasticall ministeries: And it relies upon these propositions. 1. All power of ordination descends from God, and he C it is who sanctifies and separates the person. 2. The Priest by God is separate to be the gracious person to stand between him and the people. 3. Hee speaks the word of God, and returns the prayers and duty of the people, and reconveyes the blessings of God by his prayer and by his ministery. So that although every Christian must pray, and may be heard, yet there is a solemn person appointed to pray in publick: and though Gods spirit is given to all that aske it, and the promises of the Gospel are verified to all that obey the Gospell of Iesus, yet God hath appointed sacraments and solemnities, by which the promises and blessings are ministred D more solemnly, and to greater effects. All the ordinary devotions the people may doe alone; the solemn, rituall, and publick, the appointed Minister onely must do. And if any man shall say, because the Priests ministery is by prayer, every man can doe it, and so, no need of him; by the same reason he may say also that the Sacraments are unnecessary, because the same effect which they produce is also in some degree the reward of a private piety, and devotion. But the particulars are to be further proved and explicated as they need.

Now what for illustration of this article I have brought from the E instance of Job, is true in the ministers of the Gospell, with the superaddition 3. of many degrees of eminency. But still in the same kind, for the power God hath given, is indeed mysticall; but it is not like a power operating by way of naturall or proper operation; it is not vis but facultas, not an inherent quality that issues out actions by way of direct emanation, like naturall or acquired habits, but it is a grace [Page] or favour done to the person, and a qualification of him in genere politico, A he receives a politick, publick, and solemn capacity, to intervene between God and the people; and although it were granted that the people could do the externall work, or the action of Church ministeries, yet they are actions to no purpose, they want the life and all the excellency, unlesse they be done by such persons whom God hath called to it, and by some means of his own hath expressed his purpose to accept them in such ministrations.

And this explication will easily be verified in all the particulars of the Priests power; because all the ministeries of the Gospell are 4. in genere orationis, (unlesse we except preaching, in which God speaks B by his servants to the people) the minister by his office is an intercessor with God, and the word used in Scripture for the Priests officiating, signifies his praying [ [...]] as they were ministring or doing their Liturgy, the work of their supplications and intercession; and therefore the Apostles positively included all their whole ministery in these two: [but we will give our selves to the word of God and to prayer; the prayer of consecration, the prayer of absolution, the prayer of imposition of hands: they had nothing else to doe, but pray and preach. And for this reason it was, that the Apostles in a sense neerest to the letter did verifie the precept of our blessed C Saviour; Pray continually, that is, in all the offices, acts, parts and ministeries of a dayly Liturgy.

This is not to lessen the power, but to understand it; for the Priests ministery is certainly the instrument of conveying all the 5. blessings of the people, which are annexed to the ordinary administration of the Spirit. But when all the office of Christs Priesthood in heaven is called intercession for us, and himself makes the sacrifice of the Crosse, effectuall to the salvation and graces of his Church, by his prayer, since we are ministers of the same Priesthood, can there be a greater glory then to have our ministery like to that of D Jesus? not operating by virtue of a certain number of syllables, but by a holy, solemn, determined and religious prayer, in the severall manners and instances of intercession; according to the analogy of all the religions in the world, whose most solemn mystery, was then most solemn prayer: I mean it in the matter of sacrificing; which also is true in the most mysterious solemnity of Christianity in the holy Sacrament of the Lords supper, which is hallowed and Cap. ult. de Eccles. Hier. [...]. lifted up from the common bread and wine by mysticall prayers and solemn invocations of God. And therefore S. Dionysius calls the forms of consecration [...] prayers of consecration, and E S. Cyrill in his 3 mystagogique Catechism says the same. The Eucharisticall bread [after the invocations of the holy Ghost] is not any longer common bread, but the body of Christ.

For although it be necessary that the words which in the Latin Church have been for a long time called the words of consecration 6 [Page] A (which indeed are more properly the words of institution) should be repeated in every consecration, because the whole action is not completed according to Christs pattern, nor the death of Christ so solemnly enunciated without them yet even those words also are part of a mysticall prayer; and therefore as they are not onely intended there [...], by way of history or narration (as In Exposit. Liturg. Cabasil. mistakes;) so also in the most ancient Liturgies, they were not onely read [...], or as a meer narrative, but also with the form of an addresse, or invocation: Fiat hic panis corpus Christi, & fiat hoc vinum sanguis Christi, Let this bread be made the body of B Christ, &c. So it is in S. James his Liturgy, S. Clement, S. Marks, and the Greek Doctors: And in the very recitation of the words of institution, the people ever used to answer [Amen] which intimates it to have been a consecration in genere orationis, called by S. Paul benediction, or the bread of blessing, and therefore S. Austin expounding those words of S. Paul [Let prayers and supplications and intercessions, and giving of thanks be made] saith, Eligo in his verbis Epist. 59. q. 5. hoc intelligere, quod omnis vel pene omnis frequent at ecclesia, ut [precationes] accipiamus dictas quas fecimus in celebratione sacramentorum antequam illud quod est in Domini mensâ accipiat benedici: [orationes] C cum benedicitur, & ad distribuendum comminuitur: quam totam orationem pene omnis ecclesia Dominicâ oratione concludit. The words and form of consecration he calls by the name of [orationes] supplications; the prayers before the consecration [preces] and all the whole action [oratio:] and this is according to the stile and practise, and sense of the whole Church or very neer the whole. And S. Basil saith, that there is more necessary to consecration then the words recived by the Apostles and by the Evangelists. ‘* The words of invocation in the shewing the bread of the Cap. 27. de spi. S. [...] Eucharist, and the cup of blessing, who of all the Saints D have left to us? For we are not content with those which the Apostle and the Evangelists mention: but both before and after, we say other words, having great power towards the mystery, [...] which we have received by tradition.’ These words set down in Scripture they retained as a part of the mystery cooperating to the solemnity, manifesting the signification of the rite, the glory of the change, the operation of the Spirit, the death of Christ, and the memory of the sacrifice; but this great work which all Christians knew to be E done by the holy Ghost, the Priest did obtain by prayer and solemn invocation: according to the saying of Proclus of C. P. speaking of the tradition of certain prayers used in the mysteries, and indited by the Apostles (as it was said) but especially in S. James his Liturgy: By these prayers (saith he) they expected the coming of the holy Ghost, that his divine presence might make the bread and the wine [Page] mixt with water to become the body and bloud of our blessed Saviour. A

And S. Justin Martyr very often calls the Eucharist food made 7. sacramentall and eucharisticall by prayer; and Origen, Apol. 2. pro Christianis li. 8 contra Cels. [...]. Matth. 15. we eat the bread [...] holy, and made the body of Christ by prayer: Verbo Dei & per obsecrationem sanctificatus, bread sanctified by the word of God, and by prayer, viz. the prayer of consecration: prece mystica is S. Austins expression of it: Lib. 3. de Tri. cap. 4. Corpus Christi & sanguinem dicimus illud tantum, quod ex fructibus terrae acceptum & pree mystica consecratum ritè sumimus. That onely we call the body and bloud of Christ which we receive of the fruits of the earth and being consecrated by the mysticall prayer, we take according to the rite. And S. Hierom chides the insolency of some B Deacons towards Priests, upon this ground. Quis patiatur ut mensarum & viduarum minister supra cos se tumidus esserat, ad quorum proces, Christi corpus sanguisque consicitur? [...] Lib. 4. de side cap. 14. [...]. Vide Optat. Mil [...]vit. lib. 6. contra Parmenian. Who can suffer that the Ministers of widdows and tables should advance themselves above those [at whose prayers] the body and bloud of Christ are exhibited or made presentiall. I adde onely the words of Damascen The bread and wine are changed into the body and bloud of Christ supernaturally by invocation and coming of the Holy Ghost.

Now whether this consecration by prayer, did mean to reduce C 8. the words of institution to the sense and signification of a prayer, or S. Cyprian lib. 5. c. ult. Eusebius Emissen. Serm. 5. de Paschate. that they mean, the consecration was made by the other prayers annexed to the narrative of the institution, according to the severall senses of the Greek and Latin Church, yet still the ministery of the Priest whether in the words of consecration, or in the annexed prayers is still by way of prayer. Nay further yet, the whole mystery it self is operative in the way of prayer, saith Cassander, in behalf of the School and of all the Roman Church; and indeed S. Ambrose and De Iteratione in consultat. others of the Fathers in behalf of the Church Catholick. Nunc Christus offertur, sed offertur quasi homo, quasi recipiens passionem, & offert D seipsum quasi Sacerdos ut peccata nostra dimittat hic in imagine [ibi in veritate, ubi apudpatrem quasi advocatus intervenit] So that what the Priest does here, being an imitation of Christ does in heaven, is by the sacrifice of a solemn prayer, and by the representing the action and passion of Christ, which is effectuall in the way of prayer, and by the exhibiting it to God by a solemn prayer, and advocation, in imitation of, and union with Christ. All the whole office is an office of intercession, as it passes from the Priest to God, and from the people to God; And then for that great mysteriousnesse, which is the sacramentall change, which is that which passes from God unto the people by the Priest, that also is obtained and effected E by way of prayer.

For since the Holy Ghost is the consecrator, either he is called 9. down by the force of a certain number of syllables, which that he will verifie, himself hath no where described; and that he means not [Page] A to do it he hath fairly intimated, in setting down the institution in words of great vicinity, to expresse the sense of the mystery, but yet of so much difference and variety as will shew, this great change is not wrought by such certain and determined words, [The bloud of the New Testament] so it is in S. Matthew and S. Mark, [The new Testament in my bloud] so S. Paul and S. Luke, My body which is broken, My body which is given, &c. and to think otherwise is so neer the Gentile rites, and the mysteries of Zoroastes, and the secret operations of the Enthei and heathen Priests, that unlesse God had declared expressely such a power to be affixed to the recitation of such B certain words, it is not with too much forwardnesse to be supposed true in the spirituality of the Gospel.

But if the Spirit descends not by the force of syllables, it follows 10. he is called down by the prayers of the Church, presented by the Priests, which indeed is much to the honour of God and of religion, an endearment of our duty, is according to the analogy of the Gospell, and a proper action or part of spirituall sacrifice, that great excellency of Evangelicall religion.

For what can be more aptand reasonable to bring any great blessing from God then prayer, which acknowledges him the fountain 11. C of blessing, and yet puts us into a capacity of receiving it by way of morall predisposition, that holy graces may descend into holy vessels, by holy ministeries, and conveyances; and none are more fit for the employment then prayers, whereby we blesse God, and blesse the symbols, and aske that God may blesse us, and by which every thing is sanctified, viz. by the word of God and prayer, that is, by Gods benediction and our impetration; according to the use of the word in the saying of our blessed Saviour, Man lives [by every word] that proceeds out of the mouth of God: that is, by Gods blessing; to which, prayer is to be joyned, that we may cooperate with God D in a way most likely to prevail with him; and they are excellent words which De iteratione. Atque hinc adeo credo Apostolicas ipsas jam inde ab initio Ecclesias aliquas, hujusmodi preces ad mysteriorum celebrationem adhibuisse; imo Christum ipsum non solâ verborum recitatione, sed etiam eulogiâ ante ipsam mysteriorum confectionem, & postea hymmo usum fuisse manifestum est. Cassander hath said to the purpose; Some Apostolicall Churches from the beginning used such solemn prayers to the celebration of the mysteries, and Christ himself beside that he recited the words (of institution) he blessed the Symbols before and after, sung an Ecclesiasticall hymn. And therefore the Greek Churches which have with more severity kept the first and most ancient forms of consecration, then the Latin Church; affirm that the consecration is made by solemn invocation alone, and the very recitation of the words spoken in the body of a prayer are used for argument to move God to hallow the gifts and as an expression and determination of the desire. And E this, [...]. Gabriel of Philadelphia observes out of an Apostolical Liturgy, The words of our Lord [ [...]] antecedently and by way of institution, and incentive are the form, together with the words which the Priest afterwards recites according as it is set down in the divine Liturgy. It is supposed he meanes the Liturgy reported to be made by S. James, [Page] which is of the most ancient use in the Greek Church, and all Liturgies A in the world in their severall Canons of communion, doe now, and did for ever mingle solemn prayers together with recitation of Christs words; The Church of England does most religiously observe it according to the custome and sense of the primitive Liturgies; who always did beleeve the consecration not to be a naturall effect, and change finished in any one instant, but a divine alteration consequent to the whole ministery: that is, the solemn prayer and invocation.

Now if this great ministery be by way of solemn prayer it will easier be granted that so the other are. For absolution and reconciliation B 12. of penitents I need say no more, but the question of S. Austin, Lib. 3. de bap. contr. Donat. c. 16. Quid est aliud manus impositio, quam or atio super hominem? And the Priestly absolution is called by Saint Leo Sacerdotum supplicationes, the prayers of Priests: and in the old Ordo Romanus, and in the Pontificall Epist. 92. the forms of reconciliation were [Deus te absolvat] the Lord pardon thee, &c. But whatsoever the forms were (for they may be optative, or indicative, or declarative,) the case is not altered as to this question; for whatever the act of the Priest be, whether it be the act of a Judge, or of an Embassadour, a Counsellor, or a Physitian, or all this, the blessing which he ministers is by way of a solemn C prayer, according to the exigence of the present rite; and the form of words doth not alter the case; for [Ego benedico, & Deus benedicat] is the same, and was no more when God commanded the Priest in expresse terms to blesse the people; onely the Church of late, chooses the indicative form, to signifie that such a person is by authority and proper designation appointed the ordinary minister of benediction. For in the sense of the Church and Scripture, none can give blessing but a superiour, and yet every person may say in charity God blesse you; He may not be properly said to blesse, for the greater is not blessed of the lesser by Saint Pauls rule; the Priest D may blesse, or the Father may, and yet their benediction, (save that it signifies the authority, and solemn deputation of the person to such an ordinary Ministery) signifies but the same thing; that is, it operates by way of prayer; but is therefore prevalent and more effectuall because it is by persons appointed by God. And so it is in absolution, for he that ministers the pardon being the person that passes the act of God to the penitent, and the act of the penitent to God; all that manner that the Priest interposes for the penitent to God is by way of prayer, and by the mediation of intercession; for there is none else in this imaginable; and the other of passing Gods act upon the penitent is by way of interpretation and enunciation, as E an Embassador, and by the word of his ministery; in persona Christi condonavi, I pardon in the person of Christ: saith S. Paul, in the first he is [...]; in the second he is [...]; in both, a minister of divine benediction [Page] A to the people, the anointing from above descends upon Aarons beard, and so by degrees to the skirts of the people; and yet in those things which the Priest or the Prophet does but signifie by divine appointment, he is said to doe the thing, which he onely signifies and makes publick as a Minister of God: thus God sent Jeremie, he set him over the Nations to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, to 1 Jer. 10. throw down, and to build, and to plant; and yet in all this his ministery was nothing but Propheticall: and he that converts a sinner is said to save him, and to hide a multitude of sins; that is, he is instrumentall to it and ministers in the imployment; so that here also, Verbum est B oratio, the word of God and prayer do transact both the parts of this office. And I understand, though not the degree and excellency, yet the truth of this manner of operation in the instance of Isaac blessing Jacob, which in the severall parts was expressed in all forms, indicative, optative, enunciative, and yet there is no question but it was intended to do Jacob benefit by way of impetration; so that although the Church may expresse the acts of her ministery in what form she please, and with design to make signification of another article, yet the manner of procuring blessings and graces for the people is by a ministery of interpellation and prayer, we having no C other way of addresse or return to God but by petition and eucharist.

17. I shall not need to instance any more, S. Austin summes up all the Ecclesiasticall ministeries in an expression fully to this purpose; 13. Si ergo ad hoc valet quod dictum est in Evangelio, Deus peceatorem Lib. 31. de bapt. con. Donat. c. 20. non audit, ut per peceatorem sacramenta non celebrentur, Quomodo exaudit—deprecantem vel super aquam baptismi, vel super oleum, vel super Eucharistiam, vel super capita eorum super quibus manus imponitur? with S. Austin, praying over the symbols of every Sacrament, and sacramental, is all one with celebrating the mystery. And therefore in D the office of Consecration in the Greek Church, this power passes upon the person ordained. That he may be worthy to aske things of thee for the salvation of the people, that is, to celebrate the Sacraments and [...] in consecrat. Episc. [...]. Rites, and that thou wilt hear him: which fully expresses the sense of the present discourse, that the first part of that grace of the holy Spirit which consecrates the Priest, the first part of his sanctification, is a separation of the person to the power of intercession, for the people, and a ministeriall mediation, by the ministration of such rites and solemn invocations which God hath appointed or designed.

E And now this sanctification which is so evident in Scripture, tradition, and reason, taken from proportion and analogy to religion, is so far from making the power of the holy man lesse then is supposed, that it shews the greatnesse of it by a true representment; and preserves the sacrednesse of it so within its own cancels, that it will be the greatest sacriledge in the world to invade it, for who ever [Page] will boldly enter within this vail, nisi qui vocatur sicut Aaron, unlesse A he be sanctified as is the Priest, who is [...], as Nazianzen calls him, a Minister cooperating with Christ, he does without leave call himself a man of God, a Mediator between God and the people under Christ, he boldly thrusts himself into the participation of that glorious mediation which Christ officiates in heaven; all which things as they are great honours to the person, rightly called to such vicinity and indearments with God, so they depend wholly upon divine dignation of the grace & vocation of the person.

2 Now for the other part of spirituall emanation or descent of 15. graces in sanctification of the Clergy, that is in order to the performance B of the other, [...]; that's the sense of it, that God who is the lover of soules may grant a pure and unblameable Priesthood; and certainly they who are honoured with so great a grace as to be called to officiate in holy and usefull Ministeries have need also of other graces to make them persons holy in habit and disposition, as well as holy in calling, and therefore God hath sent his Spirit to furnish his Emissaries with excellencies proportionable to their need and the usefulnesse of the Church. At the beginning of Christianity God gave gifts extraordinary, as boldnesse of spirit, fearless C courage, freedome of discourse, excellent understanding, discerning of spirits, deep judgement, innocence and prudence of deportment, the gift of tongues, these were so necessary at the institution of the Christian Church, that if we had not had testimony of the matter of fact, the reasonablenesse of the thing would prove the actuall dispensation of the Spirit; because God never fails in necessaries; But afterward, when all the extraordinary needs were served, the extraordinary stock was spent and God retracted those issues into their fountains, and then the graces that were necessary for the well discharging the [...], the Priestly function, were such as D make the person of more benefit to the people, not onely by being exemplary to them, but gracious and loved by God; and those are spirituall graces of sanctification.

And therefore Ordination is a collation of holy graces of sanctification; 16. of a more excellent faith, of fervent charity, of providence and paternall care: Gifts which now descend not by way of miracle, as upon the Apostles, are to be acquired by humane industry, by study and good letters, and therefore are presupposed in the person to be ordained; to which purpose the Church now examines the abilities of the man, before she lays on hands; and therefore the Church does not suppose that the Spirit in ordination descends in E gifts, and in the infusion of habits, and perfect abilities, though then also, it is reasonable to beleeve that God will assist the pious and carefull endeavours of holy Priests, and blesse them with speciall ayds and cooperation; because a more extraordinary ability is [Page] A needfull for persons so designed; But the proper and great aid which the spirit of ordination gives, is such instances of assistance which make the person more holy.

And this is so certainly true, that even when the Apostle had ordained 17. Timothy to be Bishop of Ephesus, he calls upon him to stirre up the gift of God, which was in him by the putting on of his hands, & that gift is a rosary of graces; what graces they are he enumerates in the following words: God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power, of love, [...], and of a modest and sober mind (and these words are made part of the form of collating the Episcopall order in the church of Eng.) Here is all that descend from the Spirit in ordination, B [...] power, that is, to officiate and intercede with God in the parts of ministery, and the rest are such as implie duty, such as make him fit to be a Ruler in paternal and sweet government, modesty, sobriety, love; And therfore in the forms of ordination of the Gr. Church (wch are therfore highly to be valued, because they are most ancient, have suffered the least change, & been polluted with fewer interests) the mystical prayer of ordination names graces in order to holiness. We pray thee that the grace of the ever holy Spirit may descend upon him, [...]. Fill him ful of all faith & love and power & sanctification by the illumination of thy holy & life-giving Spirit: & the reason why these things C are desir'd, & given, is in order to the right performing his holy offices [...]. that he may be worthy to stand without blame at thy Altar, to preach the Gospell of thy Kingdome, to minister the words of thy truth, to bring to thee gifts, & spiritual sacrifices, to renew the people with the laver of regeneratiō.

And therefore S. Gratiam Apostolis à Christo collatam qua sanctificarentur: ut per spiritum sanctum à propriis peccatis absolverenture. Lib. 12. in 10. cap. 56. Cyrill says that Christs saying [receive ye the 18. Holy Ghost] signifies grace given by Christ to the Apostles, whereby they were sanctified: that by the Holy Ghost they might be absolved from their sins, saith Homil. in 8uas. Paschae. Haymo; and Saint Lib. 2. cap. ult. de adulter. conjug. Austin says, that many persons that were snatched violently to be made Priests or Bishops, who had in their former purposes determined to marry D and live a secular life, have in their ordination received the gift of continency. And therefore there was reason for the greatnesse of the solemnities used in all ages in separation of Priests from the world, insomuch that whatsoever was used in any sort of sanctification or solemn benediction by Moses law, all that was used in consecration of the Priest, who was to receive the greatest measure of sanctification. Eadem item vis etiam Sacerdotem augustum & honorandum facit novitate benedictionis à communitate vulgi segregatum. Cum enim heri unus è plebe esset, repente redditur praeceptor, praeses, Doctor pietatis, mysteriorum latentium Praesul &c. Invisibili quadam vi, E ac gratia invisibilem animam in melius transformatam gerens, that is, improved in all spiritual graces; which is highly expressed by Sozo. l. 7. c. 10. Martyrius who said to Nectarius; Tu ô beate recens baptizatus & purificatus, & mox insuper sacerdotio auctus es; utr aque autem haec peccatorum expiatoria esse Deus constituit: which are not to be expounded as if ordination did conferre the first grace, which in the Schools is understood [Page] onely to be expiatorious; but the increment of grace, and A sanctification; and that also is remissive of sins, which are taken off by parts as the habit decreases; and we grow in Gods favour, as our graces multiply or grow.

Now that these graces being given in ordination are immediate 19. emanations of the holy Spirit, and therefore not to be usurped or pretended to by any man, upon whom the holy Ghost in ordination hath not descended, I shall lesse need to prove, because it is certain upon the former grounds, and will be finished in the following discourses; and it is in the Greek Ordination given as a reason of the former prayer, [...], B For not in the imposition of my hands, but in the overseeing providence of thy rich mercies, grace is given to them that are worthy. So that we see, more goes to the fitting of a person for Ecclesiasticall Ministeries then is usually supposed; together with the power, a grace is specially collated, and that is not to be taken up and laid down, and pretended to by every bolder person. The thing is sacred, separate, solemn, deliberate, derivative from God, and not of humane provision, or authority, or pretence, or disposition.

SECT. VIII. C

THe holy Ghost was the first consecrator, that is made evident; and the persons first consecrated were the Apostles, 1. who received the severall parts of the Priestly order, at severall times; the power of consecration of the Eucharist, at the institution of it; the power of remitting and retaining sinnes in the octaves of Easter; the power of baptizing & preaching, together with universall jurisdiction, immediately before the Ascension, when they were commanded to goe into all the world preaching and baptizing. This is the whole office of the Priesthood, and nothing of this D was given in Pentecost when the holy Spirit descended and rested upon all of them; the Apostles, the brethren, the women; for then they received those great assistances which enabled them who had been designed for Embassadors to the world, to doe their great work; and others of a lower capacity had their proportion, as the effect of the promise of the Father, and a mighty verification of the truth of Christianity.

Now all these powers which Christ had given to his Apostles were by some means or other to be transmitted to succeeding persons, E 2. because the severall Ministeries were to abide for ever. All nations were to be converted, a Church to be gathered and continued, the new Converts to be made Confessors, and consigned with baptism, sins to be remitted, flocks to be fed and guided, and the Lords death declared, represented, exhibited, and commemorated untill [Page] A his second coming. And since the powers of doing these offices, are acts of free and gracious concession, emanations of the holy Spirit, and admissions to a vicinity with God, it is not onely impudence and sacriledge in the person, falsly to pretend, that is, to bely the holy Ghost, and thrust into these offices, but there is an impossibility in the thing, it is null in the very deed doing, to handle these mysteries without some appointment by God; unlesse he calls and points out the person, either by an extraordinary or by an ordinary vocation; Of these I must give a particular account.

The extraordinary calling was first, that is, the immediate; for 3. B the first beginning of a lasting necessity, is extraordinary, and made ordinary in succession, and by continuation of a fixed and determined Ministery. The first of every order hath another manner of constitution, then all the whole succession. The rising of the spring is of greater wonder, and of more extraordinary and latent reason, then the descent of the current; and the derivation of the powers of the holy Ghost that make the Priestly order, are just like the creation, the first man was made with Gods own hands, and all the rest by God, cooperating with a humane act; and there is never the same necessity as at first for God to create man. The species or kind C shall never fail, but be preserved in an ordinary way: And so it is in the designation of the Ministers of Evangelicall Priesthood; God breathed into the Apostles [...], the breath of the life-giving spirit; and that breath was to be continued in a perpetuall, univocall production; they who had received, they were also to give; and they onely could.

Grace cannot be conveyed to any man, but either by the fountain 4. or by the channell; by the Author, or by the Minister. God onely is the fountain and Author; and he that makes himself the Minister whom God appointed not, does in effect make himself the D Author; for he undertakes to dispose of grace which he hath not received, to give Gods goods upon his own authority; which he that offers at, without Gods warrant, does it onely upon his own. And so either he is the Author, or an Usurper, either the fountain, or a dry cloud, which in effect calls him either blasphemous, or sacrilegious.

But the first and immediate derivation from the fountain, that 5. onely I affirm to be miraculous, and extraordinary; as all beginnings of essences and graces of necessity must; those persons who receive the first issues, they onely are extraordinarily called; all that E succeed are called or designed by an ordinary vocation, because whatsoever is in the succession is but an ordinary necessity, to which God hath proportioned an ordinary Ministery; and when it may be supplyed by the common provisions to look for an extraordinary calling, is as if a man should expect some new man to be created, as Adam was; it is to suppose God will multiply beeings and operations [Page] without necessity. God called at first, and if he had not called, A man could not have come to him in his neernesse of a holy Ministery; he sent persons abroad, and if he had not sent they could not have gone; but after that he had appointed by his own designation persons who should be Fathers in Christ, he called no more, but left them to call others: He first immediately gives the [...], the grace, and leaves this as a Depositum to the Church, faithfully to be kept till Christs second coming; and this Depositum is the doctrine and discipline of Jesus; he opens the door, and then left it open, commanding all to come in that way, into the Ministry and tuition of the flock, calling all that came in by windows, B and posterns, and oblique ways, theeves and robbers. And it is observable, that the word vocation or calling in Scripture when it is referred Acts 13. 2. 16. 10. to a designation of persons to the Ministery, it always signifies that which we term, calling extraordinary; it always signifies, an immediate act of God; which also ceased when the great necessity expired, that is, when the fountain had streamed forth abundantly, and made a current to descend without interruption. The purpose of Heb. 5. 4. 5. 10. this discourse is, that now no man should in these days of ordinary Ministery, look for an extraordinary calling nor pretend in order to vainer purposes any new necessities. C

They are fancies of a too confident opinion, and over-valuing of 6. our selves, when we think the very beeing of a Church is concerned in our mistakes; and if all the world be against us, we are not ashamed of our folly, but think truth is failed from among the children of men, and the Church is at a losse, and the current derived from the first emanations is dryed up, and then he that is boldest to publish his follies is also as apt to mistake his own boldnesse for a call from God, as he did at first his own vain opinion for a necessary truth; and then he is called extraordinarily, and so ventures into the secrets of the Sanctuary. First, he made a necessity more then ever D God made, and then himself finds a remedy that God never appointed. He that thinks every shaking of the Ark is absolute ruine to it, when peradventure it was but the weaknesse of his own eyes that made him fancy what was not, may also think he heares a call from above to support it, which indeed was nothing but a noyse in his own head: And there is no cure for this, but to cure the man, and set his head right. For he that will pretend any thing that is beyond ordinary, as he that will say he hath two reasonable soules within him, or three wills, is not to be confuted but by Physick, or by tying him to abjure his folly till he were able to prove it. E

But God by promising that his Church should abide forever, and that the gates of hell should not prevail against it, but that himself 7. would be with her to the end of the world, hath sufficiently confuted the vanity of those men, who that they might thrust themselves into an office, pretend the dissolution of the very beeing of the [Page] A Church: For if the Church remains in her beeing, let her corruptions be what they will, the ordinary Prophets have power to reform them; and if they doe not, every man hath power to complain, so he does it with peace, and modesty, and truth, and necessity.

2. And there is no need of an extraordinary calling to amend such 8. things which are certain, foreseen events; and such were heresies and corruption in doctrine and manners, for which God appointed an ordinary Ministery to take cognisance and make a remedy, for which himself when he had told us, heresies must needs be, yet made no provisions extraordinary, but left the Church sufficiently instructed B by her Rule, and guided by her Pastors.

3 When Christ meanes to give us a new Law, then he will give us a new Priesthood, a new Ministery: One will not be changed 9. without the other; God now no more comes in a mighty rushing winde, but in a still voice, in the gentle homilies of ordinary Prophets; and now that the Law by which we are to frame our understandings and our actions is established, we must not expect an Apostle to correct every abuse; for if they will not hear Moses and the Prophets, if one should come from the dead or an Angel come from heaven, it is certain they will not be entertained, but till the C wonder be over, and the curiosity of news be satisfied.

Against this, it is pretended that Christ promised to be with his Church for ever, upon condition the Church would do their duty; 10. Volket lib. 6. cap. 18. but they being but a company of men, have power to choose, and they may choose amisse; and if all should doe so, Christs promises may fail us, though not fail of their intentions; and then in this case the Church failing, either there must be an extraordinary calling of single persons, or else any man may enter into the ordinary way, which is all one with an extraordinary: for it is extraordinary that common persons should by necessity be drawn into an imployment D which by ordinary vocation they are not to meddle with.

Against this we can (thanks be to God for it) pretend the experience of 16 ages; for hitherto it hath ever been in the Christian 11. Church, that God hath preserved a holy Clergy in the same proportion as he hath preserved a holy people; never yet were the Clergy all Antichristian, in the midst of Christian Churches; and we have no reason to fear it will be so now, after so long an experience to expound the promises of our Lord to the sense of a perpetuall Ministery and a perpetual Church, by the means of ordinary ministrations.

E And how shall the Church be supposed to fail since God hath made no provisions for its restitution? For by what means should 12. Ibid. cap. 19. the Church be renewed and Christianity restored? Not by Scripture? For we have no certainty that the Scriptures which we have this day, are the same which the Apostles delivered, and shall remain so for ever; but onely 1. the reputation and testimony of all [Page] Christian Churches, (which also must transmit the same by a continuall A successive testimony to the following, or else they will be of an uncertain faith,) and 2. the confidence of the divine providence and goodnesse, who will not let us want what is fit for us, that without which we cannot attain the end to which in mercy he hath designed us. Now the same Arguments which we have for the continuation of Scripture, we have for the perpetuity of a Christian Clergy, that is, besides the so long actuall succession and continuance, we have the goodnesse and unalterable sweetnesse of the divine mercies, who will continue such Ministeries which himself hath made the ordinary means of salvation; he would not have made B them the way to heaven and of ordinary necessity, if he did not mean to preserve them: indeed if the ordinary way should fail, God will supply another way to them that doe their duty; but then Scripture may as well fail as the ordinary succession of the Clergy; they both were intended but as the ordinary ministeries of salvation, and if Scripture be kept for the use of the Church, it is more likely the Church will be preserved in its necessary constituent parts then the Scripture; because Scripture is preserved for the Church, it is kept that the Church might not fail. For as for the fancy that all men being free agents may choose amisse; suppose that; but then may C they not all consent to the corruption or destroying of Scripture? yea, but God will preserve them from that, or will overrule the event: yea, but how doe they know that? what revelation have they? yet grant that too, but why then will he not also over-rule the event in the matter of universall Apostasie? for both of them are matter of choyce.

But then that all the Clergy should consent to corrupt Scripture, 13. or to loose their faith, is a most unreasonable supposition; for supposing there is a naturall possibility, yet it is morally impossible; and we may as well fear that all the men of the world will be vitious D upon the same reason; for if all the Clergy may, then all the people may, and you may as well poyson the Sea, as poyson all the springs; and it is more likely all the Ideots and the ordinary persons in the world should be cousened out of their religion, then that all the wise men and Antistites, the Teachers, Doctors, and publick Ministers of religion should. And when all men turn Mariners, or Apothecaries, or that all men will live single lives, and turn Monks, and so endanger the species of mankind to perish, (for there is a great fear of that too) that is, when all the world choose one thing (for if two men doe, two thousand may doe it if they will, and so may all E upon this ground) then also we may fear that all the Governours of the Church may fail, because some doe, and more have, and all may; till then, there will be no need of an extraordinary commission; but the Church shall goe on upon the stock of the first calling, and designation, which was extraordinary. The Spirit issued [Page] A out at first miraculously, and hath continued running still in the first channels by ordinary conducts, and in the same conveyances it must run still, or it cannot without a miracle derive upon us, who stand at infinite distance from the fountain. Since then there is now no more expectation of an extraordinary calling (and to do so were an extraordinary vanity) it remains that the derivation of the ministeriall power be by an ordinary conveyance.

The Spirit of God in Scripture hath drawn a line, and chalked 14. out the path that himself meant to tread in giving the graces of Evangelicall ministrations. At first, after that Christ had named B twelve, (one whereof was lost) they not having an expresse command for the manner of ordination, took such course as reason and religion taught them. They named two persons, and prayed God to choose one; and to manifest it by lot; which was a way lesse then the first designation of the other eleven; and yet had more of the extraordinary in it, then could be reasonably continued in an ordinary succession. The Apostles themselves had not as yet received skill enough how to officiate in their ordinary ministery, because the Holy Ghost was not yet descended.

But when the Holy Ghost descended, then the work was to begin; C 15. the Apostles wanted no power necessary for the main work of the Gospel; but now also they received Commissions to dispense the Spirit to all such purposes to which he was intended. They before had the office in themselves, but it was not communicable to others, till the Spirit, the anointing from above, ranne over to the fringes of the Priests garments; they had it but in imperfection and unactive faculties; So saith Theophylact: He breathed, not now giving to them Theophylact. in 20. Johan. [...]. the perfect gift of the Holy Ghost, for that he intended to give at Pentecost: but he prepared them for the fuller reception of it. They had the gift before, but not the perfect consummation of it, that was reserved D for the great day; and because the power of consecration is the [...] or perfection of the Priestly order, it was the proper emanation of this days glory, then was the [...], the perfection of what power Christ had formerly consigned. For of all faculties, that is not perfect which produces perfect and excellent actions in a direct line, actions of a particular sort; but that which produces the actions, and enables others to doe so too; for then the perfection is inherent, not onely formally, but virtually and eminently; and that's the crown of habits, and naturall faculties. Now besides the reasonablenesse of the thing, this is also verified by a certainty E that will not easily fail us; by experience and ex postfacto; For as we doe not find the Apostles had before Pentecost a productive power, which made them call for a miracle, or a speciall providence by lots, so we are sure that immediately after Pentecost they had it: for they speedily began to put it in execution and it is remarkable, that the Apostles did not lay hands upon Mathias he being [Page] made Apostle before the descent of the Holy Ghost: they had no A power to doe it, they were not yet made Ministers of the Spirit; which because afterwards presently they did, concludes fairly that at Pentecost they were amongst other graces made the ordinary Ministers of Ordination.

This I say is certain, that the holy Ghost descending at Pentecost, they instantly did officiate in their ministeriall offices, they preached, they baptized, they confirmed and gave the holy Spirit of obsignation, and took persons into the Lot of their Ministery, doing of it by an externall rite and solemn invocation: and now the extraordinary way did cease; God was the fountain of the power, but man B conveyed it by an externall rite; And of this Saint Paul who was the onely exception from the common way, takes notice; calling himself an Apostle, not of man, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ; implying that he had a speciall honour done, to be chosen an Apostle in an extraordinary way; therefore others might be Apostles, and yet not so as he was; for else his expression had been all one, as if one should say Titius the sonne of a man, not begotten of an Angell, or Spirit, nor produced by the Sunne or Starre, but begotten by a man of a woman: the discourse had been ridiculous, for no man is born otherwise; and yet he also had something of the ordinary too; for C in an extraordinary manner he was sent to be ordained in an ordinary ministery. And yet because the ordinary ministery was setled, Saint Paul was called to an account for so much of it as was extraordinary; and was tyed to doe that which every man now is bound to doe, that shall pretend a calling extraordinary, viz. to give an extraordinary proof of his extraordinary calling: which when he had done in the College of Jerusalem, the Apostles gave him the right hand of fellowship, and approved his vocation; which also shews, that now the way of Ordination was fixed and declared to be by humane ministery; of which I need no other proof but the instances D of Ordinations recorded in Scripture, and the no instances to the contrary, but of Saint Paul, whose designation was as immediate as that of the 11 Apostles, though his Ordination was not. I end this with the saying of Job the Monk: Concerning the Order of Priesthood it is supernaturall and unspeakable. He that yesterday and the day before was Tract. de Sacrament. [...]. in the form of Ideots, and private persons, to day by the power of the Holy Ghost, and the voice of the chief Priest, and laying on of hands, receives so great an improvement and alteration, that he handles and can consecrate the divine mysteries of the holy Church, and becomes (under Christ) a Mediator [Ministeriall] between God and man, and exalted to E hallow himself and sanctifie others: The same almost with the words of Gregory Nyssen, in his book De sancto baptismate.

[Page] A This is the summe of the preceding discourses; God is the Consecrator; man is the Minister; the separation is mysterious and 17. wonderfull; the power great and secret; the office, to stand between God and the people, in the ministery of the Evangelicall rites; the calling to it ordinary, and by a setled Ministery, which began after the descent of the holy Ghost in Pentecost.

This great change was in nothing expressed greater, then that 18. Saul upon his Ordination changed his name, which Saint Chrysostome Homil. 28. in Acta 18. observing, affirms the same of S. Peter. I conclude, Differentiam inter ordinem & plebem constituit Ecclesiae authoritas & honor per Exhort. ad castitat. B ordin is consessum sanctificatus à Deo, saith Tertullian. The authority of the whole Church of God hath made distinction between the person ordained and the people, but the honour and power of it is derived from the sanctification of God: It is derived from him, but conveyed by an ordinary Ministery of his appointing: Whosoever therefore with unsanctified, that is, with unconsecrated hands shall dare to officiate in the ministerial office, separate by God, by gifts, by graces, by publick order, by an established rite, by the institution of Jesus, by the descent of the holy Ghost, by the word of God, by the practise of the Apostles, by the practise of sixteen ages of the Catholick Church, C by the necessity of the thing, by reason, by analogy to the discourse of all the wise men that ever were in the world; that man like his predecessor Corah brings an unhallowed Censer, which shall never send up a right cloud of incense to God, but yet that unpermitted, and disallowed smoak shall kindle a fire, even the wrath of God which shall at least destroy the sacrifice: His work shall be consumed, and when upon his repentance himself escapes, yet it shall be so as by fire that is, with danger, and losse, and shame, and trouble. For our God is a consuming fire.

D Remember Corah and all his company.

[...].

E The End.

The Printer to the Reader.

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THe absence of the Author, and his inconvenient distance from London, hath occasioned some lesser escapes in the impression of these Sermons, and the Discourse annexed. The Printer thinks it the best instance of pardon if his Escapes be not layd upon the Author, and he hopes they are no greater then an ordinary understanding may amend, and a little charity may forgive.

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A Table to both the Volumes of Sermons.

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A.

WHo shall be the Accusers of sinners, that belong not to life in the great judgement, Vol. 1. p. 23

Almes: wherein and how far our respects to the duties of justice may withhold our hands from giving almes, 1. 183

Of the Angel Guardian, 1. 263. C

Athanasius being overtaken by his persecutors in his flight from them, how he concealed himself, 2. 260

Atheism; the folly of it, 1. 262. B

B.

Bishop: whether the calling of a King or a Bishop is to be preferred, 1. 174

C.

Celibate: a comparison between it and marriage, 1. 223

Certainty of salvation: how to confute such vain confidences, 1. 87

Comfort: we must in our discourse comfort our brethren where there is cause, 1. 327

Complying: of complying with superiors in their sins, by imitation of them, 2. 206. B

Conscience: the torments of an unquiet conscience described and considered, 1. 20

Confession: of revealing secrets delivered under the seal of Confession, 1. 306. D

Covetousnesse in Scripture hath other names besides its own, 1. 302. A

Cursing, 1. 317

Custome; its ill effects upon man. 1. 267

D.

Dreams; the vanity of them, 1. 121

Deceit: various sorts of men, that do the work of the Lord deceitfully, 1. 155. & seq.

Despise: who despise the mercies of God, 2. 167. D. their condition dangerous, 168

Detraction, 1. 312. E

Doctrines; how we are to try them, 2. 285 & 275

E.

Eccles. 12. 5. explicated, 1. 115

Ephes. 1. 4, 5. explicated, 2. 301

[...]; what St. Paul meant by it, 1. 301. D

Evill nature; how one may cure it in himself, 1. 147

F.

Faith: divers sorts of insufficient faith, 1. 169

Fasting, 1. 188

Fear; its severall acceptions, 1. 86. the properties of a religious fear, 1. 88. & seq. of fear in times of persecution, 1. 102

Flattery, 1. 318 severall wayes of it, 1. 320

Flesh; the weaknesse of flesh, and its naturall powers, 1. 128

Fortune: disadvantages of a great fortune, 1. 179

G.

God: a scheme of what he hath done for us in order to our salvation, 1. 24. the manner of jealousie in God, 2. 29. B. that it is not injust in God to punish one for the sin of another, 2. 35. D. his ends in doing it, 2. 36. B. in what instances he punishes one person for the sin of another, 2. 37. D. how God can be glorified by us, 2. 53. the goodnesse of God towards us, 2. 146, & 148, & 149. how great impiety to despise such goodnesse, 2. 150. E. his long suffering towards us, 2. 153, & 159. his not punishing sinners, sometimes no mercy, 2. 163.

Gospel; the mysterious articles thereof, 2. 2. that they could be revealed by none but the Spirit, Ib. nor can be received but by the help of the Spirit, 2. 3. why the Gospel is called Spirit, 2. 4. the Gospel a covenant of sufferings, 2. 107. C. & 108, & seq.

Grace: what is the state of grace, 2. 155. he is not in the state of grace, who retains affections to any one sin, 2. 155. degrees of increasing grace, 2. 178. how to discern our growth in grace, 2. 180. & seq. the manner of its growth, 2. 192. E. a caution to be taken with the rules of discerning our growth in grace, 2. 194. signes of growth in grace given by some, 2. 195

H.

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Heart; reasons why God chooseth to be served by it principally, 1. 155. weaknesse of the heart in relation to good actions, 2. 83. its strength in lusts and sinfull passions, 2. 84. its deceitfulnesse, 2. 102. & vol. 2. ser. 7. per tot. it is deceitfull in its purposes and resolutions, 2. 87. in its designes, 2. 89. our hearts are blinde, 2. 92. by what means the heart of man procures its owne ignorance, 2. 94. the hardnesse of the heart, 2. 98. the heart is proud, lb. it is deeply in love with wickednesse, 2. 99. how we are to treat our hearts, 2. 102. D

Hell; the opinion of some of the primitive Fathers concerning the eternity of the pains of hell, 1. 39.

Husband, the rules of his love to his Wife, 1. 234. & seq.

I.

Idle words, how farre forbidden or lawfull, 1. 292

Iesting, 1. 301. & seq. against profane jesting, 1. 305

Iealousie, the circumstances of it in God, 2. 29. B

Impunity, not alwaies an argument of mercy, 2. 163

Ignorance, an effect of sin, 1. 26

Instruction; that we ought to teach and instruct others, 1. 325

Intemperance in eating and drinking, an enemy to health, 1. 198, destructive of wisdome, 1. 107. the measures of temperance in eating and drinking, 1. 109

Intercession in prayer, vol. 1. ser. 6. per tot. Ioy, what the joy of the ungodly is, 1. 145

1 Ioh. 3. 9. explained. 2. 9

Iudgment, the necessity of a day of universall Judgement, 1. 2. signes of the day of Judgement, which the Jews give, 1. 11 to be unmoved at the judgements of God on others, how dangerous a folly, 2. 168. E

K.

King: whether the calling of a King or Bishop is to be preferred in our choyce, 1. 174

L.

Life: the necessity of holy life, 2. 72

Luke 11. 47. explicated, 2. 43. A

Lukewarmnesse, in what sense God hates it, 1. 165. the reasons why, 1. 166

M.

[...], 2. 159

Man; God hath provided better for the naturall appetites of man then other earthly creatures, 1. 193. the vanity of mans life and strength, 2. 81.

Mat. 12. 36. explicated, 1. 291

Marriage; a comparison between it and celibate, 1. 223. rules for deportment of married persons, 1. 225 & seq.

Minister; of the efficacy of prayer made by an evill Minister, 1. 79

Miracles; of the probation of Religion by them, 1. 46

Mirth, 1. 304

P.

Pardon of sin; the signes of it, 1. 99. not obtained without difficulty, 1. 97

Pleasures of the world no proper instruments of felicity, 1. 193. pleasures of sin considered, 1. 247. found to be troublesome in their acquisition, 1. 250. the Spirit of God is given as a preservative against it.

Perseverance, 1. 176

Persecution; the benefit and usefulnesse of persecution and suffering, 1. 120, 121. rules for the practise of them, that are under persecution, 2. 133. & seq.

Poverty, its benefits, 2. 129. E

Popes of Rome, a character of them given by one. 2. 173. D

Prayer; of frequency in it, 179. a caution concerning frequency of prayer, 1. 181. E why the prayers of good men often prevail not. 1. 59

Prosperity, no argument of a just cause, 2. 125. E. we must not expect it in this life, 2. 116. prosperity of the wicked what it is, how vain, 2. 127

R.

Recidivation, 1. 109. & seq

Railing and reviling, 1. 313

Religion, how far it is to be preferred before secular businesse, 1. 173. how far delight in works of Religion is required, 1. 177. against compulsive courses in the propagating of Religion. 1. 185

Repentance, broken into fragments is to be suspected, 1. 92. how it glorifies God, 2. 54. A. what it is in its essence and necessary [Page] properties, 2. 55. & seq. & 66. sorrow alone is not repentance, 2. 57. there must be a dereliction of sinne, 2. 58. B. a death-bed repentance insufficient, 2. 63, 64. & ser. 5. per tot. & 2. 68. E. there is a kinde of repentance, that is consistent with the greatest affection to sin, 2. 69. B. it ought not to be delayed, 2. 70. B. of them that are bold in sin, upon a resolution to repent, 2. 70. of what use it is, to make that question, Whether God can save a dying man that then begins to repent, 2. 74. C. when is the latest time of beginning repentance, 2. 75. how this doctrine is to be separated from despair, 2. 77. how contradicted by the mercies of Christ, 2. 78. A. the thief upon the Crosse no objection against this, 2. 78

Reproofe; it is a duty, 1. 328. the rules of managing it, 1. 330. of bearing reproof, 2. 183

Resolving to live a good life, what efficacy it hath (as a part of repentance) without performance, 2. 60

Restitution: of that restitution which those sons are to make, who are made rich by the rapine and oppression of their Ancestors, 2. 44

S.

[...], what it is, 1. 289 D

Secrets; of revealing them, 1. 305

Sins; how far faith and charity prevaile to the blotting out of sins, 1. 160

Sin; its pleasures considered, 1. 247. found to be troublesome in their acquisition, 1. 250. its solly, 1. 263. it makes a man morally weak, 1. 265. the custome of it prevails against the interest of man, 1. 268. A. and against his experience, Ibid. C. it introduces basenesse upon the spirit, 1. 270. many sins directly shamefull in their nature, 1. 273. the shame that follows sin, 1. 275. & seq. sin cannot be concealed, 1. 276. C God punishes sin with sin, 1. 278. the horrid punishments of sin, 1. 280. & seq. the punishment of some sins is foreseen and usuall, 1. 282. D. whether we sin in every action, 2. 210. E. of sins of infirmity, 2. 22. & seq. we doe not sufficiently beware of sin, 2. 28. how the guilt and punishment of it is propagated, 2, 31. D. upon whom the punishment of sin descends by propagation, 2. 34. why this guilt and punishment of sin is thus propagated, 2. 35. E. that it is not in just in God to doe so, Ib. D. Gods ends in doing it, 1. 36. B. in what cases one person is punished for the sin of another, 2. 37. D. what remedies there are against the danger of such punishments 2. 40. to be used by such sons, &c. as are partners in the guilt, Ib. & seq. by such as are innocent, 2 46. C

Silence; the praise of it, 1. 296, & 1. 341. C. its moderation, 1. 296. E

Sinners; how God treats them, 2. 197. the orders of lesser sinners explicated, who are to be treated gently by men, 2. 199. rules and helps for the use of them, that are good men generally, but interrupt their state by some failings, 2. 214. & seq. how the hopes of their pardon stands that are grosse sinners, 2. 220

Slander, 1. 311. & 319

What is the Signe of the Son of man, mentioned, Mat. 24. 30. 1. 10

Soul; how great a charity to save the soul of a Brother, 1. 184

Spirit; what it is to grieve him, 1. 210. what it is to be in the Spirit, 2. 5. all that belong to Christ have the Spirit of Christ, 2. 6. how the Spirit is given in the Gospel, 2. 7. B. it is given as a remedy against worldly pleasure, 2. 8. as a remedy against sorrow, 2. 10. as an antidote against evill concupiscences, 2. 12. the measure of the Spirit in Christians compared with those measures which the Jews had, 2. 13. the effects of the Spirit in a Christian, 2. 14, 15. He helps our infirmities in prayer, 2. 15. of praying in the Spirit, 2. 15. E. the spirituall man, and naturall man compared, 2. 23

Speaking: of much speaking, 1. 290 examples of men that abstained from speaking a long time, 1. 294. E. St. Gregory Naz. abstained from speaking one whole Lent, 1. 295. B. St. Paul the Hermit was so ashamed of a foolish question, that he spake not for 3 yeares after, 1. 295. C. Cicero affirmed, that he never spake that of which he repented, 1. 297. C. censured for it by St. Augustine, Ibid. Remedies against such speaking considered and prescribed, 1. 298. Stultiloquy, 1. 300. Scurrility, 1. 301. & seq. contentious speaking, 1. 309. the Duties of the Tongue in speaking, 1. 325

Sufferings; Gods method in bringing them into the world, 2. 105. the Gospel a covenant of sufferings, 2. 107. C. reasons of Gods providence for the sufferings of his Children, 2. 120. C. & 130. C. the advantages of them, 2. 138. D. the end of them, 2. 144

State of separation. 2. 367

Superstition, 1. 114. & seq. per tot.

Successe, no argument of a just cause, 2. 125. E. & 1. 155

Sword, not a competent instrument to propagate Religion by it, 1. 186

Swearing, 1. 307. common swearing maketh perjury common, 1. 308

T.

Temperance; the measures of temperance in eating and drinking, 1. 209

[Page] Teachers: of false teachers, 2. 94. D. how to discern them from good, 2. [...]74

W.

Wife: the rules of her obedience to the husband, 1. 240. & seq. of her complyance with him, 1 242

V.

Vertue is to be loved for it selfe, not for the consequent reward, 2. 187 Understanding; how it was impaired in the fall of man: not by a change of its essentiall faculties, but by impeding them, 1. 261. D

Z.

Zeale; its rules, 1. 173 and excesses, 1. 185

THE END.

[Page]

Information about this book

Title statement

Eniautos a course of sermons for all the Sundaies of the year : fitted to the great necessities, and for the supplying the wants of preaching in many parts of this nation : together with a discourse of the divine institution, necessity, sacredness and separation of the office ministeriall / by Jer. Taylor ...

Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.

Edition statement

1653

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) :

Date

2005-12 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A63888

ID [STC]

Wing T329

ID [STC]

ESTC R1252

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

11875825

ID [OCLC]

ocm 11875825

ID [VID]

50231

Availability

This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal. The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Series

Early English books online.

Notes

(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A63888)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 50231)

Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 828:3)

Source

— Eniautos a course of sermons for all the Sundaies of the year : fitted to the great necessities, and for the supplying the wants of preaching in many parts of this nation : together with a discourse of the divine institution, necessity, sacredness and separation of the office ministeriall / by Jer. Taylor ..., Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667..

Extent

[12], 334, [18], 378, [4], 55, [7] p.

Printed for Richard Royston ...,. London :: 1653.. (First word of title transliterated from Greek.) (Each part issued and catalogued separately.) (Index: p. [3]-[6] at end.) (Errata: p. [1] at end of XXV sermons.) (Reproduction of original in the Huntington Library.) (XXV sermons preached at Golden-Grove : being for the winter half-year -- XXVIII sermons preached at Golden Grove : being for the summer half-year -- Clerus Domini, or, A discourse of the divine institution, necessity, sacrednesse, and separation of the office ministerial.)

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