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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
body_n	nature_n	soul_n	unite_v	6,882	5	9.6339	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40888	LXXX sermons preached at the parish-church of St. Mary Magdalene Milk-street, London whereof nine of them not till now published / by the late eminent and learned divine Anthony Farindon ... ; in two volumes, with a large table to both.; Sermons. Selections. 1672	Farindon, Anthony, 1598-1658.	1672 (1672)	Wing F429_VARIANT; ESTC R37327	1,664,550	1,226

in sordibus naturae in the vileness of our nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 searching and purging the whole circle and compass of it and working out our corruption from the very root We have considered him in that height which no mortal eye can reach in his Divine nature and we have lookt him where he might be seen and heard and felt in his Humane nature We must now with a reverent and fearful hand but touch at the passive FIERI which pointeth out the union of both the Natures in one Person The Apostle telleth us DEBVIT FIERI SIMILIS That it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren And to the apprehension of this union as to the knowledge of God manuducimur per sensibilia as Ambrose saith we are led by weak and faint representations drawn from sensible things and by negations The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Quomodo is best answered by Non hoc modo Not after this manner He was made like unto us it is true but not so as flesh and blood may imagine or a wanton and busie wit conceive Not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil Hum. Christi Gen. not by any mutation of his Divine essence sine periculo statûs sui saith Tertulian without any danger of the least alteration of his state His glory did not take from him the form of a servant nor did this Assimilation lessen or alter him in that by which he was equal to his Father Concil 4. generale Nec sacramentum pietatis fit detrimentum Deitatis The mystery of godliness brought no detriment to the Deity Volusian asketh the Question Epist 3. How the immense Godhead could be shut up in the narrow confines of the Virgins womb To whom St. Augustine answereth Non corrupit immortalitatem non consumsit Divinitatem sed assumsit humanitatem And Leo Nec minorem absumsit glorificatio nec superiorem imminuit assumsio FACTVS EST He was made but non convertendo not by converting the Godhead into Flesh as Cerinthus nor the Flesh into the Godhead as Valentinus Not per modum conciliationis by reconciling the two Natures yet so that they remain two Persons and the Manhood be born while the Godhead standeth by Not per modum compositionis by compounding the Natures that after the union there should remain one entire Nature of both as Eutyches rendred himself in open Councel But per admirabilem mixturam as St. Augustine by an admirable and ineffable mixture Cath. or c. 27. Gregory Nyssene calleth him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Tertullian Deum carne mixtum in his Apology and Augustine Cyprian and Irenaeus use the same phrase a God mixt with our nature But not so as a drop of water cast into a vessel of wine and turned into that substance in which it is lost as Eutyches phansied but as the Soul and Body though two distinct natures grow into one Man so did the Godhead assume the Manhood without confusion of the Nature or distinction of the Persons They are united as the Sun and Light saith Justine Martyr as a Graft to a Plant say others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil As in a fiery Sword there are two distinct natures the Fire and the Sword two distinct acts to cut and to burn and two distinct effects cutting and burning from whence ariseth one common effect to cut burning and to burn cutting All this must be tasted cum grano salis 1 Tim. 3.16 and seasoned with a sober application For in all there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some resemblance but great disproportion This is a great mystery and mysteries cannot be feared nor sounded to the depth It is well we can flote upon the surface of these waters and with a trembling hand and fearful stroke strive forward by degrees till we come to the haven where we would be The Fathers agree that impossible it is not but inexplicable it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the span of humane Reason beyond the reach of the largest understanding removed so far from any mortal eye that we see it but at a distance a scintillation only and no more The Angels themselves those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 second Lights as Nazianzene calleth them wax dim with admiration and their holy desire is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stoop and bow down and look into this mystery 1 Pet. 1.12 All the representations the wit of man can find out cannot express it but they leave us still in our gaze and wonder whilest the manner of it is hid from our eyes and removed further out of sight then when we first lookt after it Those Beasts which came too near to this mountain this high mystery Heb. 12.20 were strucken through with a dart and staggered in the very attempt and left to walk uncertainly in that mist and darkness which their too daring curiosity had cast Orat. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. saith Nazianzene Hot and busie wits they were Arius was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a subtile Sophister Nestorius had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a quick wit and voluble tongue Apolinarius was the stoutest Champion the Church had against Arius in comparison of whom some thought the great Athanasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be but a child in understanding Not to mention Cerinthus Valentinus and Eutyches All these pressing too forward upon this great mystery were struck blind at the door and running contrary wayes met all in this that they ran the hazard of their own souls and of that which should have been as dear to them the peace of the Church It fareth with us in the pursuit of profound mysteries as with those who labor in rich mines When we dig too deep we meet with poysonous fogs and damps instead of treasure when we labor above we find less metal but more safety Humility and Purity of soul are the best convoyes in the wayes of knowledge Be not then too inquisitive to find out the manner of this union The holy Father Justine Martyr sealeth up thy lips that thou mayst not once think of asking the question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How it is and tells thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that thou art not like to meet with an answer And what greater folly can there be then to attempt to do that which cannot be done or to search for that which is past finding out or to be ever a beginning and never make an end John 5.39 Search the Scriptures for they are they that testifie of Christ. They testifie that he was God blessed for evermore Rom. 9.5 Joh. 1.1.14 that that Word which was God was also made flesh that he was the Son of God and the Son of Man The manner how the two Natures are united is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unsearchable and unfordable as Basil speaketh And the knowledge of it if our

Arts themselves are not liberal but when they make men so free and ingenuous Arithmetick and Geometry are but a kind of Legerdemain if they teach men onely metiri latifundia accommodare digitos avaritiae to measure Lordships and to tell money What need we instance in these The Word of God which bringeth salvation may bring death if it be not received with the meekness of a babe that we may grow thereby The Sacrament the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper which hath been magnified too much and yet cannot be magnified enough was ordained as Physick to renew and revive and quicken our souls but if it be not received to that end for which it was first instituted it is not Physick but damnation Non QUID sed QUEMADMODUM vers 29. It is not the bare Doing of a thing but the Manner of doing it the driving it on to its right end which giveth it its full beauty and perfection A sincere Heart and the Glory of God set the true image of Liberality on the gift of a mite Attention and Obedience make the Word the savour of life Humility and Repentance sanctifie a fast and Shewing of the death of the Lord maketh us truly partakers of his body and bloud Our Saviour Christ hath fully decided this controversie in a word and with one breath as it were hath said enough to still the tumults of the disputers which have been as the raging of the sea and to settle all the vain and needless controversies of this age John 6.63 even in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The flesh profiteth nothing it is the Spirit that quickeneth For to say his flesh profiteth nothing is a plain declaration that he meant not to give it us to eat That which is nourishment to the body is not proportioned to the soul nor will that which reneweth a soul restore the body to a healthful temper Who would go about to recover a sick man with an Oration of Tully's or set a joynt with an axiom of Philosophy Who can restore a sick soul with bread and wine with flesh or bloud Although these two parts the Soul and the Body are knit and united rogether and do sympathize so as that which refresheth the body doth affect and please the mind and that which cheareth the mind doth strengthen the body yet both the parts receive that which is proper to them the body that which is of a corporeal nature and the soul that which is spiritual and both mutually communicate to each other the fruit and benefit of both without the least confusion of their operations and proprieties Although we see the actions of the body as Hunger and Thirst many times attributed to the soul and the functions of the soul as to Will and the like to the body Therefore we must distinguish between the Meritorious cause and the Efficiency and Application of it which are both joyntly necessary but their manner of operation is diverse It was necessary that the flesh and bloud of Christ should be separated from each other in his violent death on the cross that his most precious bloud should be poured out for remission of sins but to make it a physical potion to make it nourishment to our souls it was not necessary that his bodily substance should be taken into ours For if it should our Saviout telleth us it would profit nothing And the reason is plain Because the merit and virtue of his death which is without us is made ours not by any fleshly conjunction or union with him who merited for us by offering himself but 1. by his Will by which he in a manner maketh it over unto us and 2. by our due receiving of it which is made complete by our Consent and Faith and Giving of thanks which is the work alone of that Spirit which quickeneth and giveth life The blessed Virgin did no doubt partake of the merit of Christ but not because she conceived and bore him nine moneths in her womb but in that she conceived him by faith in her heart Luke 11.27 28. The womb was blessed that bare him and the paps that gave him suck but they rather were blessed who heard his word and kept it The Flesh and Bloud of Christ doth truly quicken us as it was offered up for us a sacrifice on the cross as a meritorious cause and as he gave it for the salvation of the world But it doth not quicken by being received into our bodies but by being received into our souls His merit was enough to save the whole world and yet his merit were nothing if not applied and that application is not wrought without but within us not by the Spirit of life but by the force and power of his death and passion the meritorious cause Rom. 8.2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death What need we hear stir this Water of life and turn it into gall and bitterness Why should this Bread be gravel between our teeth Why should Christ's love be made the matter of war and contention It is called the Body and Bloud of Christ and it is called Bread and Cup in my Text And it is a miserable servitude saith Augustine signa pro rebus accipere to take the signs of things for the things themselves and not to be able to lift up the eye of our mind a-above the corporeal creature to take in eternal light That we may lift up ours let us fix it upon the end for which Christ offered his body and bloud and upon the end for which we are to receive the Sacrament and signs of it And let one end be the measure and rule of the other Let Christ lifted upon the cross draw us after him to follow as he leadeth His body was bruised and his bloud shed to purge us from all iniquity and to make us a peculiar people unto himself That was Christ's end And our end must be proportioned to it So to receive the Sacrament of his body and bloud that it may be instrumental to that end Which cannot be by eating his flesh and bloud that flesh which was crucified and that bloud which was shed One would think it impossible that any should think our Saviour should command us that which is impossible or shew us a way which cannot lead to the end Flesh and Bloud taken down into the stomach can no more feed and quicken a Soul then it can enter into the Kingdom of heaven But his Obedience his Humility his Cross and Passion his meritorious Suffering and Satisfaction these have power and influence on the Soul These are here presented to us as Manna and better then Manna and if we take them down and digest them they will turn into good bloud and feed us to eternal life His Body and Bloud were thus given and thus we must receive them Our Saviour calleth it his

pleasure is alwayes clouded with impurity and carrieth its filth along with it When it passeth those bounds which that God who knoweth whereof we are made hath set up with this Inscription Hitherto thou shalt go and no further NOT BURN BUT MARRY when it breaketh out beyond this brutish men may in their ruff and jollity count it what they please call it their Pleasure their Paradise but it breaketh forth like a plague and infection and is as loathsome as Hell it self The Apostle Rom. 1.26 calleth ungoverned lusts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vile and dishonourable he might have said brutish affections But indeed Beasts in this are not unconfined as Men they do not kick at and revolt from that law and order of Nature in which they were made so oft as Men do who should have dominion over them and themselves nor have they that curb of Reason which Man hath to check and bound them And therefore that wandring lust of theirs which carrieth them with a swindge and violence to the next object doth not dishonour them for it leaveth them what they were but Beasts still But Man who hath a power within him to controll his flesh and temper and regulate every inclination who hath a spirit given him to spiritualize his flesh and not his flesh to effeminate his spirit when he letteth the weaker prevail against the stronger the worse part against the better the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosophers call the body the beast against the Man doth not onely pollute his soul but leaveth a peculiar and proper blemish upon his body and may be compared to the beasts that perish Nay he is worse then they For when Man is compared to the Beasts he is the worst of all the herd It is against the very nature of the body thus to be used against that order which God hath constituted and established amongst men The body is not for fornication It was not made to bow to every smile to be ravished with every sound to worship every painted Jezebel but for the Lord and in the power of his strength to be killed and crucified and when it looketh forward beyond its bounds to feel the curb to be so subdued as if it were not as if it were soul or at least in a perpetual subserviencie and obedience to it Indeed if you read ver 15. you will think if it be not as the soul yet it hath near affinity with it and is copartner of the same honour Know ye not saith S. Paul that your bodies are the members of Christ What this vile body of ours to be a member of Christ Yes he bought it and united it to his mystical body as well as the soul and will at last raise it up and make it like unto his most glorious body And what doth the Apostle infer Even that which may make the wanton blush which may make him an Eunuch for the kingdom of heaven Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot It is an argument ab absurdo which will either drive us from uncleanness or upon a most fatal and hellish absurdity Even the young man in the Proverbs who was destitute of understanding would soon agree that it were the greatest folly in the world to think the soul can be united to Christ though it bring the member of an harlot along with it or to excuse our selves by nature and the inclination of our temper or because there is a fire within us to think it is better to let it burn and consume us then to quench it or that God may be glorified as he was by the Three children in this fiery furnace that God may be glorified vvhen that body vvhich is the vvork of his hands is dishonoured Fly fornication saith the Apostle vers 18. Other sins that a man committeth are without the body but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body Malice and Theft abuse the hand Pride lifteth up the head Curiosity rowleth the eye Anger changeth the countenance and dyeth the face Sloth foldeth the arms Envy gnaweth the heart but Lust and Uncleanness is a noisome steam exhaled from the flesh which when it hath conceived and brought forth blasteth and polluteth it Even Nature it self hath declared thus much in that it brought in that custom amongst the Heathen for what else could bring it in after unlawful pleasures to wash and bath themselves by which they did at once acknowledge and strive to purge away that pollution Other sins are from the flesh but this is more carnal then any of them it leaveth more spots and loathsome impressions on the flesh yea many times it bringeth its Hell its fire into it it-maketh it self so visible in the very face and body of man that you may run and read it or rather run from the man for fear of the fornicator now branded and disguised with his sin I remember Salust speaking of Covetousness disgraceth it in these words that it doth corpus animumque virilem effoeminare effeminate and corrupt not onely the mind but also the body of man And Phavorinus in Gellius giveth the reason Because they who make haste to be rich are many of them sedentary men versed onely in the easie and delicate wayes of gain as the Usurer whose plough as they say goeth on the Sabbath and whose work is done while he sleepeth and many others who we see grow rich without sweat of brow or trouble of body And in such no marvel if the vigour and generosity of their minds and bodies do languish and be lost Or rather this is the reason Because the covetous person hath his mind like a bow alwayes bent set continually upon his gain and having all his thoughts gathered together and sent that way he letteth them loose but seldom to imploy them for the behoof either of his body or his soul Now one would think that of Salust were a more proper expression of the effects of Uncleanness For certainly that doth effeminate both the mind and the body Indeed it doth more It not onely weakeneth but polluteth both Nay it is the Devil's net with which he catcheth two at once and dishonoureth them both For what difference between an harlot and the member nay the body of a harlot For he that joyneth himself with a harlot is one body For two saith he shall be one flesh vers 16. Therefore Christ who came to purge both body and soul doth guard and sense it against the very appearance of this sin doth omnium sylvam libidinum caedere as the Father speaketh cut down the whole wood and lop off every branch and sprig of Lust He tieth up the Tongue from filthy communication shutteth up the Eye from looking upon that beauty which may raise a desire stoppeth the Ear that it open not to flattery cutteth off the very beginnings and first offers and risings of lust that we may

didicit perfectè obedire l. 4. de instit Cae●ob he hath no judgement non habet suum velle he hath no will of his own when our understandings wills and affections are Christ's as if we were but one flesh and one bloud and one soul that we will neither know nor serve nor hearken to any but Christ that we will have no King no Priest no Prophet but him then we dwell in him More particularly thus If we dwell in Christ we shall 1. discover and admire his majesty 2. acknowledge his power and love his command 3. rely and depend upon him alone as our sure castle and protection We shall dwell as it were within the beauty of his rayes within his jurisdiction and under the shadow of his wing 1. If we dwell in Christ we shall discover and admire his Majesty We may observe that every thing that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any eminency sendeth a kind of majesty from it as the Sun doth its beams which maketh a welcome and pleasing glide into the minds of men and at once striketh them with admiration and with love Sometimes this appeareth in the persons sometimes in the manners and behaviour of men sometimes in the order and polity of a well-governed Common-wealth So we read the skin of Moses's face after he had talked with God Exod. 34.29 30. did shine so bright that Aaron and the people were afraid to come neer him So when holy Job went out to the gate the young men saw him and hid themselves Job 29.7 8. and the aged arose and stood up It sheweth it self also in a well-ordered Common-wealth It was called majestas pop Romani Majestas est in imperio atque in omni Pop. Rom. dignitate Quint. l. 7. Iustit c. 3. Matth. 17.2 6 the Majesty of the people of Rome Now if Christ be considered by thee as one in eminency and supreme thou wilt behold him not onely fair and lovely but clothed with Majesty I do not mean his Majesty in his transfiguration when his face did shine as the Sun and his Disciples fell on theirs nor his Majesty when he shall come to judge the quick and the dead and yet these are fit objects for the eye of Faith to look on but his Majesty in his cratch his Majesty in his humility his Majesty on the cross even here the thief discovered it and it was imputed to him for righteousness and made the Cross it self a gate and passage into Paradise But these are too remote and for the many we look upon them as at distance have so small regard of them as if they concerned us not We can see Majesty in a lump of flesh in those that cannot save themselves sooner then in him we call our Saviour But then canst thou discover Majesty in him now Majesty in his discipline Wisdome in the foolishness of Preaching Power in weakness now in this life when he is whipt and spit upon and crucified again when he liveth covered over with disgraces and contumelies when his Precepts are dragged in triumph after flesh and blood and whatsoever it dictateth when for one Hosanna he hath a thousand Crucifige's for one formal hypocritical acknowledgment a thousand spears in his sides when the Truth is what we will make it the Gospel esteemed no more then a fable and Christ himself if we look into mens lives the most disesteemed thing in the world When thou seest him in this cloud in this disfiguration in this Golgotha where is thy faith what eyes hast thou Doth he not still appear a worm Psal 22.6 and no man a man of sorrows When thou seest him thus Isa 53.2 3. is there any form that thou shouldest desire him Or dost thou even now see his glory as the glory of the onely-begotten Son of God 1 John 1.14 Doth he now appear to thee as the Head of all principality and power Col. 2.10 Canst thou see him in that naked Lazar that persecuted forlorn imprisoned Saint Doth his Majesty shine through the vanities of this World and make them loathsome through thy labour of charity and make it easie through persecution Hebr. 6.10 and make it joyful In the midst of rage and derision of fury and contumely is he still to thee the King of glory Psal 24.8 10. Then thou dwellest in him even in the beauty of holiness 2. If we dwell in Christ we shall be under his Command For they who command us do in a manner take us into themselves they possess and compass bound and keep us in on every side And if we dwell in Christ we shall be within his reach and power we shall not have our excursions and run from him into the streets and high wayes again into Beth●aven the house of vanity I say we shall be under Christs command we shall be his possession his propriety For Man is a little world I may say he is a little Common-wealth De Resurrect carn c. 40. Tertullian calleth him fibulam utriusque substantiae the clasp or button which tieth together divers substances and natures the Soul and the Body the Flesh and the Spirit And these two are contrary one to the other Gal. 5.17 saith S. Paul are carried divers wayes the Flesh to that which pleaseth it and the Spirit to that which is proportioned to it looking on things neither as delightful nor irksome but as they may be drawn in to contribute to the beauty and perfection of the soul These lust and struggle one against the other and Man is the field the theatre where this battle is fought and one part or other still prevaileth Many times nay most times God help us the Flesh with her sophistry prevaileth with the Will to joyn with her against the Spirit and then Sin taketh the chair the place of Christ himself and setteth us hard and heavy tasks setteth us to make brick but alloweth us no straw biddeth us please and content our selves but affordeth us no means to work it out See how Mammon condemneth one to the mines to dig for metalls and treasure for that money which will perish with him See how Lust fettereth another with a look with the glance of an eye bindeth him with a kiss a kiss that will at last bite like a Cockatrice See how Self-love driveth us on as Balaam did his beast on the point of the sword Thus Sin doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exercise its force and power Rom. 6.12 Lord it and King it reign in our mortal bodies Again sometimes and why but sometimes but sometimes the Will sanctified and upheld and encouraged by the Spirit of Christ taketh the Spirit 's part determineth for it against the Flesh chuseth any thing which the Spirit commendeth though it be compassed about with terrours and fearful apparitions though it be irksome and contrary to the Flesh And when we depose Mammon Matth. 16.24 crucifie the flesh deny our selves

was to put all to the sword and the event was he spared one too many 2 Sam. 1. for one of them was his executioner God biddeth us destroy the whole body of sin Rom. 6.6 12. to leave no sin reigning in our mortal bodies and if we favour and spare but one that one if we turn not from it will be strong enough to turn us to destruction Again it is Obedience onely that commendeth us to God and that as exact and perfect as the equity of the Gospel requireth and so every degree of sin is rebellion God requireth totam voluntatem the whole will for indeed where it is not whole it is not at all it is not a will and integram poenitentiam a solid entire universal conversion True obedience saith Luther non transit in genus deliberativum doth not demur and deliberate I may add non transit in genus judiciale It doth not take upon it self to determine which commandment is to be kept and which may be omitted what is to be done and what to be left undone For as our Faith is imperfect if it be not equal to the truth revealed so is our Obedience imperfect when it is not equal to the command and both are unavailable because in the one we stick at some part of the truth revealed and in the other come short of the command and so in the one we distrust God in the other we oppose him What is a Sigh if my Murmuring drown it What is my Devotion if my Impatience chill it What is my Liberality if my Uncleanness defile it What are my Prayers if my partial Obedience turn them into sin What is a morsel of bread to one poor man when my Oppression hath eaten up a thousand What is my Faith if my Malice make me worse then an Infidel The voice of Scripture the language of Obedience is to keep all the commandments the language of Repentance to depart from all iniquity All the Virtues in the world cannot wash off the guilt of one unrepented sin Mic. 6.7 Shall I give my first born for my transgression saith the Prophet the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul Shall I bring the merits of one Saint the supererogations of another and add to these the treasury of the Church Shall I bring my Almes my Devotion my Tears All these will vanish at the guilt of one sin and melt before it as wax before the Sun For every sin is as Seneca speaketh of Alexander's in killing Callisthenes De Benef. crimen aeternum an everlasting sin which no virtue of our own but a full complete Repentance can redeem As oft as it shall be said that Alexander slew so many thousand Persians it will be replyed he did so but withal he slew Callisthenes He slew Darius it is true and Callisthenes too He wan all as far as the very Ocean it is true but he killed Callisthenes And as oft as we shall fill our minds and flatter our selves with the forbearance of these or those sins our Conscience will check and take us up and tell us But we have continued in this or that beloved sin And none of all our performances shall make so much to our comfort as one unrepented sin shall to our reproch And now because in common esteem One is no number and we scarce count him guilty of sin who hath but one fault let us well weigh the danger of any one sin be it Fornication Theft Covetousness or whatsoever is called sin and though perhaps we may dread it the less because it is but one yet we shall find good reason to turn from it because it is sin And 1. Every particular sin is of a monstrous aspect being committed not onely against the Law written but against the Law of Nature which did then characterize the soul when the soul did first inform the body For though we call those horrid sins unnatural which S. Paul speaketh against Rom. 1. yet in true estimation every sin is so being against our very Reason which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very first law written in our hearts Or. 34. saith Nazianzene Sin is an unreasonable thing nor can it defend it self by discourse or argument If heaven were to be bought with sin it were no purchase for by every evil work I forfeit not onely my Christianity but my Manhood I am robbed of my chiefest jewel and I my self am the thief Who would buy eternity with sin who would buy immortality upon such loathsome terms If Christ should have promised heaven upon condition of a wicked life who would have believed there had been either Christ or heaven And therefore it is laid as an imputation upon Man Solum hoc animal naturae fines transgreditur No Creature breaketh the bounds and limits which Nature hath set but Man And there is much of truth in it Man when he sinneth is more unbounded and irregular then a Beast For a Beast followeth the conduct of his natural appetite but Man leaveth his Reason behind which should be more powerful and is as natural to him as his Sense Man Psal 49.20 saith the Prophet David that understandeth not is like to the beasts that perish And Man that is like to a beast is worse then a Beast No Fox to Herode Luke 13.32 no Goat to the Wanton no Tiger to the Murderer No Wolf to the Oppressour no Horseleach to the Covetous For Beasts follow that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instinct of nature by which they are carried to the object but Man maketh Reason which should come in to rescue him from sin an instrument of evil so that his Reason which was made as a help as his God on earth serveth onely to make him more unreasonable Consider then though it be but one sin yet so far it maketh thee like unto a Beast nay worse then any though it be but one yet it hath a monstrous aspect and then turn from it 2. Though it be but one yet it is very fruitful and may beget another nay multiply it self into a numerous issue into as many sins as there be hairs of thy head It is truly said Omne verum omni vero consonat There is a kind of agreement and harmony in truths And the devout Schoolman telleth us that the whole Scripture is but one copulative proposition because the precepts therein contained are many and yet but one many in regard of the diversity of those works that perfect them yet but one in respect of that root of charity which beginneth them So peccatum est multiplex unum There is a kind of dependency between sins and a growth in wickedness one drawing and deriving poyson from another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Epiphanius speaketh of Heresies Haeres Basilid as the Asp doth from the Viper which being set in opposition to any particular virtue creepeth on and multiplieth and gathereth strength to the endangering of

it threatned in these words Lest a worse thing come unto thee That these words Sin no more are plain and that Christ meant as he spake appeareth by this Commination Lest a worse thing come unto thee For if we will read his meaning in his words we may say this is machaera conditionalis his conditional sword as the Father calleth it which if we sin again will be latched in our sides If one evil will not cure us God's quiver is full and he hath more arrows to shoot Sin no more Take heed thou be not the same thou wert before those thirty eight years nor commit that sin again which crippled thee and brought thee to the pool's side If thou darest yet venture a worse punishment standeth at thy doors ready to seize upon thee Now a Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one living creature made up of two diverse substances the Soul and the Body so the danger which besetteth him the evils which compass him about and threaten him are of a diverse nature Some strike at the body others enter the soul There are terrours by night and the arrow that flyeth by day and there is another plague the plague of the Heart A worse thing will come unto thee worse to thy Body and worse to thy Soul Thou shalt be a worse Paralytick and a worse Man nearer to death and nearer to hell The reiteration of thy sin shall awake heavier judgments which shall fall both on thy outward and on thy inward man We shall speak something of them both and first of God's Temporal judgments The last is the worst It was so with Pharaoh The death of the First-born in Egypt was more terrible then the Frogs or the Locusts or the Hail or the Murrain It was so with God's own people He punished them and they sinned still and he increased their punishment When they were fed to the full they did commit adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots houses As fed horses in the morning they neighed after their neighbours wives God hireth out forein enemies Egypt and Assyria he sendeth out his great army his Caterpillars and Palmer-worms he hireth out Nebuchadnezzar and calleth him his servant and payeth him his wages How oft did they provoke him and how oft did he punish them He leadeth them into Captivity and bringeth them back again For all this they sinned yet more against him and committed those sins which even the Heathen were ashamed of And at last they killed the Prince of life and crucified their Messias who was manifested unto them by signs and wonders And now behold their house is left desolate and they are become the scorn of Nations and a proverb to all the world Afflictions and calamities sometimes are corrections sometimes executions In the first God cometh as a Father in the last as a Judge God goeth like the Consuls of Rome Virgas habet secures He hath a Rod and an Axe carried before him At first he chastiseth us with his Rods and then with his Axe Job on the Dunghil David flying before Absalom these felt his Rod But the old World before the Floud the Cananite and the Amorite when their wickedness was full the Jews and Jerusalem these were hewen down with the Axe This impotent man at the pool's side was but under the Rod but when Christ telleth him if he sin again a worse thing should fall unto him he sheweth him the Axe and holdeth it over his head Quod solus fulmen mittit Jupiter placabile est saith Seneca perniciosum de quo deliberat The first thunderbolt God sendeth carrieth not so much fire with it but rather light to shew us our danger But if we put him to deliberate and to enter into controversie with us if we put him to the question What shall I do that I have not done the next will scatter us and dash us to pieces The first is light the second is a consuming fire Correct us O Lord in thy judgment not in thy fury is a prayer for the first kind against the second Pius Quintus lying on his death bed grievously tormented with the Stone was often heard to send forth this pious prayer Domine addas ad dolorem modò addas ad patientiam Lord adde unto my grief so thou adde unto my patience Patience in this kind as it is the best remedy of a disease so doth increase our crown and glory O felicem servum cujus emendationi instat Dominus cui dignatur irasci Oh happy servant whom the Lord taketh such pains to correct whom he loveth so well as thus to be angry with him But if we will not hearken to his Rod then he whetteth his Axe and maketh it ready Perdidimus utilitatem calamitatis We have lost all the profit which we might have received He hath spent his rods in vain and therefore if we take not heed he will strike us so as to cut us off and will give us our portion with sinners The judgments of God are like unto the Waters which came out of the Temple At first they are shallow and come up but to the ankles anon they are deeper Ezek. 47. and come up to the loins and at last they are so deep that we can gain no passage over them Thus doth the Justice and Providence of God follow us in all our wayes Aeschylus calleth it the harmony of God others his Geometry by which he observeth a kind of method and measure and proportion Librat iter ad iram suam saith the Psalmist Psal 78.50 He maketh a way to his anger He weigheth the Punishment and the Sin as in the scales He correcteth us if we fall and if we will fall again Hos 5.5 he layeth on heavier strokes He maketh our iniquity testifie against us maketh what we do witness and proclaim that to be just which we suffer Which though it be not alwaies visible to the eye for Deo constat justitiae suae ratio The reason as of God's Mercy so also of his Justice is ever with himself yet is it certain and judgment followeth the wicked whithersoever they go and hangeth over them as the sword did over Damocles by a hair ready to fall And that it falleth not but leaveth them in their ruff and jollity in their pride going on in their sin is to their greatest punishment Nam quanta est poena nulla poena Not to be punished at all is the greatest punishment of all and nothing is more deplorable then the happiness of a wicked man For the delay of punishment is but to make it more seasonable to stay it now and inflict it at such a time and in such a place and after such a manner as God's wisdome knoweth to be fittest God's wayes are in the whirlwind saith Nahum and his footsteps are not known saith the Psalmist yet his end is certain to work an harmony out of the greatest disorder to raise beauty

which must not be left out unless we will dimidiare Christum 1 John 1.7 take Christ by halfs by Purging and clensing us from all our sins And all by the virtue of this price For he did not buy us that we should sell our selves He did not pay our debts that we should run on in arrears He did not buy us out of the power of Satan to leave us there He did not satisfie for sins to make us greater sinners And what Purgation is that which leaveth us more unclean beasts then before Christ doth both or he will do neither He freeth us from the condemnation of sin and he freeth us from the tyranny and dominion of sin His bloud speaketh better things then that of Abel It speaketh for pardon but speaketh for repentance it distilleth sweetly to wash out the guilt of sin and to wash out the pollution of sin In a word Christ did not pay down a price for our liberty to leave us still in bonds he did not come down from heaven to carry us thither with all our sins that is with Hell about us But when he buyeth us out of prison he looketh and waiteth to see with what chearfulness we will come forth When he calleth us to liberty he calleth to us as the Angel did to S. Peter Gird your selves cast your sins from you and follow me FACIO UT FACIAS as it is in the Law Ye are bought with a price that is Christ's act But our act also is required which may bear a fair correspondence and analogy with his Ye are redeemed that is the Benefit and a great one and Therefore glorifie God our Duty is the inference And our Duty should as naturally issue from a Benefit as Light doth from the Sun or a Conclusion from its Principles If Christ begin and pay down the price we must and right reason will have us conclude Therefore glorifie God in our body and in our spirit which are God's This I say is our Duty and commendeth it self in the next place to your consideration It is the nature of a Benefit to bind us to the performance of that which shall make it a benefit to establish a Law which shall establish that and make it beneficial Love will empty it self but it will not lose it self but deriveth its influence upon the heart it shineth on to work something in it which may bear some similitude and likeness to its self which indeed is Glory When God speaketh to us in love he expecteth that it should echo back again upon him in glory For why should so great love be lost And lost it is and even dead in us if it work no life nor spirit in us to magnifie his name if we look upon it as that which will deliver us whether we will or no and save us though we slight it God loveth us that we may love him and so love our selves And all his commands all our duties and obligations are founded on his love Therefore as he hath a bright and piercing so he hath a jealous eye His name is Jealous Exod. 34.14 And if we will see his likeness and representation we may behold it in the Prophet's vision where he presenteth God like unto a man made of amber Ezek. 8.2 whose upper part did shine and his lower was of fire Which representeth God unto us as a Lover and a Jealous Lover The appearance of brightness did express the purity and vehemencie of his Love And it never shined brighter then in our Redemption And the fire downward his Jealousie and Anger which will smoke against those that dishonour him after such a favour Of all the attributes of God this of Love seemeth to have the dominion and preeminence and sheweth and declareth it self by most manifest signs and notorious effects And this Love in God as in Man is alwayes accompanied with Jealousie which cannot endure a rival or an enemy or that that which he bought with a price should be snatched out of his hands Nec adversarium patitur nec comparem He can neither endure an adversary nor a sharer A sharer is no better to him then an adversary His Love carrieth the resemblance of the love of a husband to his wife And so he speaketh to Jerusalem as to his espoused wife Thy beauty was perfect which I put upon thee But thou playedst the harlot Ezek. 16. and hast poured forth thy fornications on every one that passed by Where we may conceive God to be as it were in trouble and in rage in such a passion as a man is when he taketh his wife in the act of adultery And his anger is the greater because his love was so great For Jealousie which is nothing at first but the vehemencie of Love when it hath an image of jealousie set up to provoke it groweth hotter and hotter and at last burneth like fire God's Love is jealous and would not be cast away and here in this his buying us it shineth most brightly wherefore if it work nothing in us by its beams it will become a fire to consume us For shall Christ call us to glory and we dishonour him Shall his Love make up the Premisses and shall we against nature deny the Conclusion Shall the benefit come towards us and we run from our duty Shall he redeem our souls from hell and our bodies from the grave and shall we prostitute and pawn and sell them to the Destroyer No The Glory of God is like Himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Beginning and the End the first wheel and the last Take the whole subsistence of a Christian in the state of Grace and in the state of Glory and it is nothing else but one continued and constant motion of glorifying God For why hath God done these great things for us why did he buy us with a price but ad laudem gloriae suae as S. Paul repeateth it again and again Ephes 1. to the praise of his glory and S. Peter that we shew forth his praise 1 Pet. 2.9 Herein is my Father glorified saith Christ that you bear much fruit Jo●n 15.8 So you see our Redemption principally dependeth upon the glory of God Eph. 3.10 In that it beginneth For it was his manifold wisdom that made way for it For that it is furthered and promoted For we are strengthned with might by his Spirit in the inner man according to the riches of his glory Eph. 3.16 Then it is completed to his Glory The same word in Scripture includeth both Revel 19.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salvation and the Glory of our salvation It is the voice of the people in Heaven Hallelujah salvation and glory and honour and power to the Lord our God The choicest and last end which God proposeth to himself in the work of our salvation is the manifestation of his perfection that is his Glory Which consisteth in

And by the light which shineth in his works in thy self and in his word quasi porrectâ manu as Lactantius speaketh as with a hand stretched out he beckeneth to thee to raise thee from the dust and out of thy bloud that thou mayst lift up thy head to look up and seek him who is so manifest to the eye and so willing to be found For in the next place as God is an object to be sought so he is the sole and adequate object of our desires For howsoever they may wander and with the Bee seek honey on every leaf and plant yet they are unquiet and restless and never satisfied but in God Therefore as he hath graciously condescended to open and discover some part of his beauty and majesty that we might love him and fall down and worship him so he hath also made the mind of man a thing of infinite capacity utterly unsatiable in this world There is not any finite thing which can possibly give it full content Covetousness is not filled with riches Ambition is not dulled or taken off with honours nor Lust quenched with pleasure These daughters of the horse-leach when they are full and ready to break still cry Give Give Hoc habent non respiciunt They never look back upon what they have but still drive forward for more If these things were fit objects to seek they would no doubt do what at first sight they promise satisfie the desire But Desire maketh haste and flyeth towards them and when it hath overtaken them is as restless as before Sitis altera crescit Still as one desire is satisfied another ariseth Nay the same desire multiplyeth it self We wander from one object from one vanity to another and many times back again unto the same and that befalleth us which befalleth unskilful builders quibus sua semper displicent ut semper destruant quod semper aedificent who are alwayes displeased with what they do and what they build they destroy and then build again We will and we will not and we will again and indeed know not what to will Or it fareth with us as it doth with some men who have queasie stomachs our appetite cometh by eating majora cupere ex his discimus the obtaining of some is the way and means to desire more Now we cannot think that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this infinite appetite of a soul is a thing that befalleth us by chance For then certainly it would not be alwayes nor would it be in all For those things saith the Philosopher which fall out alwayes or for the most part cannot be casual but have set and constant cause And if this vast appetite be not casual and by chance then it must needs be implanted in the soul by God himself And if so then it must necessarily have something to which it tendeth For it is a known axiom in Philosophy Deus natura nihil frustra faciunt God and Nature make nothing in vain Look into the body of man so many parts so many passages so many desires yet none of them in vain He that hath made hunger hath made bread to stanch it he that hath made thirst hath made drink to quench it he hath fitted some object to every look and inclination to every motion and desire And we cannot think but that the same God hath proportioned something to this infinite Thirst and Hunger in the soul to allay it Which if we cannot find here neither in the seat of Honour when it is built highest nor in our barns and granaries when they are most filled nor in the field of Pleasure when it yieldeth most variety neither in the Throne nor in our Treasures nor in Dalilah's lap seeing the whole world is not large enough for the heart of man nor can afford any thing that can fill it though we walk about it and double Methusalah's age nay though we should not end but with it we shall be forced to confess that we must seek satisfaction somewhere else even in God who can alone satisfie this infinite appetite of our souls in whose presence there is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore So having presented to you the true Object and shewed you what you must seek to wit God alone I pass to the Act to teach you what it is to seek him which is my next part Seek yee the Lord. Having discovered the beauty and majesty of the Object one would think our desire should be on the wing nor should there need the voice of a Prophet to quicken us and bid us seek him The Prophet David Psal 24. telleth us there is a generation of them that seek the Lord. Some seek him in lectulo in their bed have peradventure a pleasant dream of God talk much of him as men may do in a dream and when judgement shall awake them behold it was but a dream to be interpreted as dreams use to be by contraries Some seek him in plateis in the wide and open streets think to find him with ease with hearkning after him but then it followeth quaerunt sed non inveniunt eum they seek him but they do not find him Some seek him and sit still and gaze some seek him and gad and wander some seek him and are unwilling to find him as St. Augustine in his Confessions telleth us that he prayed to God against sin but was afraid God should hear him too soon especially in the sin of lust quam malebat expleri quàm extingui which he had rather should be satisfied then quenched Every man is a severe Justitiary against another mans sin but a patron and protector of his own Sin oh it is an ugly monster and every man is ready to fling his dart at it Sin it is that for which the Land mourneth by which the Church is rent and the whole world put out of frame This the worst sinners breathe forth with as much ease as they commit sin But In my rebellion saith the traitour In my lust saith the wanton I● 〈◊〉 oppression saith the covetous In this sin the Lord be merciful to m●●● m●●●ful unto me though I love it and love to commit it Some sin or other there is to which our natural temper and complexion swayeth us which we can willingly hear reviled and which we can disgrace our selves and yet are unwilling to leave it behind us when we seek Nay we may say as the Disciples did to Christ in the Gospel A multitude there be that throng and press upon God as if they could not overtake him soon enough How doth their zeal wax hot as an oven how do their words fall from them not like dew but like hailstones and coales of fire how do they mourn for Zion and cry down the iniquities of the time when no mans iniquity cryeth louder for vengeance then theirs how do they monopolize the Spirit appropriate Assurance of salvation and

Ye Angels that do his will They are but finite agents and so not able to make good an infinite loss They are in their own nature mutable and so not fit to settle them who were more mutable more subject to change then themselves not able to change our vile bodies much less to change our souls which are as immortal as they yet lodged in tabernacles of flesh which will fall of themselves and cannot be raised again but by his power whom the Angels worship In prison we were and CVI ANGELORVM written on the door miserable captives so deplorably lost that the whole Hierarchie of Angels could not help us And if not the Angels not Moses sure though he were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nearest to God and saw as much of his Majesty as Mortality was able to bear Heb. 3.5 6. The Apostle tells us he was faithful in all his house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a servant but Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Son Smite he did the Aegyptians and led the people like sheep through the wilderness But he who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Captain of our salvation as he is stiled v. 10. was to cope with one more terrible then Pharaoh and all his host to put a hook into the nostrils of that great Leviathan to lead not the people alone but Moses also through darkness and death it self able to uphold and settle an Angel in his glorious estate and to rayse Moses from the dead Not Moses then but one greater then Moses Not the Angels but one whom the Angels worship who could command a whole Legion of them Not a Prophet Or if a Prophet the great Prophet which was to come If an Angel the Angel of the Covenant Certè hic Deus est even God himself Now Athanasius's Creed will teach us that there is but one God yet three Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost We must then find out to which of the Persons this oeconomie belongeth Not to the Father That great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is his He bringeth his first begotten into the world ch 1.6 that he may declare his name unto his brethren ch 2. Not the Holy Ghost We hear him ch 3. as an Herald calling to us To day if yee will hear his voyce And he is Vicarius Christi Christs Vicar on earth supplyeth his place in his absence and comforteth his children It must needs then be media Persona the second and middle Person the Son of God Matth. 8.29 Luke 4.41 The office will best fit him to be a Mediatour Ask the Divels themselves when he lived they roared it out Ask the Centurion and them that watched him at his death they speak it with fear and trembling Matth. 27.54 Truly this was the Son of God Christ then our Captain is the Son of God But God hath divers Sons some by Adoption and they are made so some by Nuncupation and they are but called so and some by Creation and they are created so They who rob and devest Christ of his Essence yet yeild him his Title and though they deny him to be God yet call him God's Son We must follow then the Philosophers method in his description of moral Happiness proceed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of negation and to establish Christ in his right of Filiation tell you 1. he is not a Son not adoptivus filius God's adopted Son who by some great merit of his could so dignifie himself as to deserve that title This was the dream or rather invention of Photinus A very dream indeed For then this Similation were not of God to Man but of Man to God the Text inverted quite No Imitatur adoptio prolem Adoption is but a supply a grafting of a strange branch into another stock But he whose name is The Branch grows up of himself of the same stock and root God of God very God of very God made manifest in the flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 2. not Filius nuncupativus God's Son by nuncupation his nominal Son Such a one Sabellius and the Patro-passiani phansied as if the Father had been assimilated and so called the Son impiously making the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost not three Persons but three Names 3. Lastly not Filius creatus God's created Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mere Creature and of a distinct essence from his Father as the more rigid Arians nor the most excellent Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in substance like unto the Father but not consubstantial with him as the more moderate whom the Fathers called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 half-Arians conceived To these Hereticks we reply Non est Filius Dei He is not thus the Son of God And as Aristotle tells us that his Moral Happiness is the chief Good but not that Good which the Voluptuary phansieth the Epicures Good nor that which Ambition flyes to the Politicians Good nor that which the Contemplative man abstracteth an universal notion and Idea of Good So may the Christian by the same method consider his Saviour his chief bliss and happiness and by way of negation draw him out of those foggs and mists where the wanton and unsanctified wits of men have placed him and bring him into the bosome of his Father and fall down and worship God and man Christ Jesus Behold a voyce from heaven spake it Matth. 3.17 17.5 This is my beloved Son We may suspect that voice when Photinus is the Echo An Angel from heaven said He shall be called the Son of the most High Luke 1.32 Our Faith starts back and will not receive it if Sabellius make the Glosse Our Saviour himself speaks it I and my Father are one John 10.30 The Truth it self will be corrupted if Arius be the Commentator To these we say He is not thus the Son of God Naz. Orat. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To contract the Personality with Sabellius or to divide the Deity with Arius are blasphemies in themselves diametrally opposed but equally to the truth The Captain of our salvation is the true Son of God begotten not made the Brightness of his Father streaming from him as Light from Light his Image not according to his humane Nature as Osiander but according to his Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image and Character not of any qualities in God but of his Person the true stamp of his substance begotten as Brightness from the Light as the Character from the Type as the Word from the Mind Which yet do not fully declare him Quis enarrabit saith the Prophet Who shall declare his generation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isa 53.8 Thy faith is thy honour a great favour it is that thou art taught to believe that he is the eternal begotten Son of God The manner is known only to the Father who begat and to the Son who is begotten If thy busy curiosity lead thee further 〈◊〉

his own Like a man a man of sorrows a worm and no man a despised rejected man He will have us call him so he hath put it into our Creed and counts it no disparagement He set a time for it and when the appointed time came he was made like unto us and all generations may speak it to his glory to the end of the world Before he appeared darkly wrapped up in Types veiled in Dreams beheld in Visions That hee appeareth in the likeness of our flesh that he appeareth and speaketh and suffereth in our flesh is the high prerogative of the Gospel And here he publisheth himself in every way of representation 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our Image or likeness in the form of a servant our very picture a living picture a picture drawn out to life indeed such a picture as one man is of another 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of Comparison For how hath he spread and dilated himself by a world of comparisons He is a Shepherd to guide and feed us a Captain to lead us a Prophet to teach us He is a Priest and he is the Sacrifice for us He is Bread to strengthen us a Vine to refresh us a Lamb that we may be meek a Lion that we may be valiant a Worm that we may be patient a Door to let us in and the Way through which we pass into life He is any thing that will make us like him Sin and Error and the Devil have not appeared in more shapes to deceive and destroy us then Christ hath to save us 3. Lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his exemplary Virtues and those raised to such a high pitch of perfection that neither the cursed Hereticks nor the miscreant Turk nor the Devil himself could reach and blemish it Never was Righteousness in its vertical point but in him where it cast not the least shadow for Envy or Detraction to walk in Amongst all the Heresies the Church was to cope withal we read of none that called his piety into question And all this for our sakes that in his Meekness we may shut up our Anger in his Humility abate our Pride in his Patience still and charm our Frowardness in his Bounty spend our selves in his Compassion and Bowels melt our stony hearts and in his perfect Obedience beat down our Rebellion He appeared not in the Cloud or the fiery Pillar not in Darkness and Tempest not in those wayes of his which are as hard to finde out as the passage of an arrow in the air or a ship in the sea but in tegmine carnis as Arnobius speaks under no other covert than that of our flesh so like us that we may take a pattern by him This indeed may seem an indignity to God And in all ages there have been found some who have thought so Not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Heathen who in Tatianus in plain terms tell the Christians they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betray too great a folly in believing it but even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justine Martyr speaketh Christians themselves and children of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene calls them ill lovers of Christ who did rob him with a complement and to uphold his honour did devest him of his Deity Marcian and Valentinus could not endure to hear that Christ took the same nature and substance with Man but will have him to have brought a body from heaven The Manichees would not yield so much but ran into the phansie of an aereous imaginary body Arius circumscribed him within the nature of Man and brought him within the circle and circumgyration of Time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There was a time when he was not was an article of his Creed Nestorius did not in terminis divide Christ into two Persons but denying the Communication of Idiomes did in effect bring in what he seemed to deny a Duality of Sons Homo Christus nascitur non Deus The Man Christ was born not God saith he And it was his common proverb Noli gloriari Judaee The Jew had no cause to boast who had crucified not the Lord of life but a man Bimestrem trimestrem Deum nunquam confitebor was his reply to Cyril at Ephesus and so he flung out of the Councel Whilest with great shew of piety and reverence they stood up to remove from God the Nature they unadvisedly put upon him the Weakness of Man drew him out to our distempers and sick constitution as if God were like unto us in our worst complexion who are commonly very tender and dainty what likeness we take and affect that similitude alone which presents us greater and fairer than we are Our pictures present not us but a better face and a more exact proportion and with it the best part of our wardrobe We are but grashoppers but would come forth and be seen taller than we are by the head and shoulders in the largeness and height of the Anakim This opinion we have of our selves and therefore are too ready to perswade our selves that God is of our mind and that God will descend so low as to take the likeness of a mortal though he tell us so himself yet we will not believe it Which is to measure out the immense Goodness and Wisdome of God by our digit and scantling by the imaginary line of a wanton and sick phansie to bound and limit his determinate will by a piece of sophistry and subtle wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. to teach God to put our own shapes upon him to confine him to a thought And then Christ hath two Persons or but one Nature a Body and not a Body is a God alone or a Man alone The whole body of Religion and our Christian Faith must shiver and flie into pieces But we have not so learned Christ not learned to abuse and violate his great love and to call it good manners not to make shipwrack of our faith and then to urge our fears and unprescribed and groundless jealousies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why should we fear where no fear is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene Shall his honour be the less because he hath laid it down for our sakes Shall he lose in his esteem because he fell so low for our advancement Or can we be afraid of that Humility which purchased us glory and returned in triumph with the keyes of Hell and of death He made himself a Shepherd and laid down his life for his Sheep and shall we make that an argument that he is not a King He clothed himself with our flesh lights a candle sweeps the house descends to low offices for our sake so far from being ashamed of our nature that he made hast to assume it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and dost thou impute this to God No to us his Humility is as full of wonder as his Majesty Non erubescimus de Christo

it self and fill the world with Atheists which will learn by no Masters but such as instruct fools nor acknowledge any Keyes but those which may break their head But indeed we have had these Keyes too long in our hands For though they concern us yet are they not the keyes in the Text nor had we lookt upon them but that those of the Romish party wheresoever they find keys mentioned take them up and hang them on their Church But we must observe a difference betwixt the keyes of the kingdome of heaven Matth. 16.19 which were given to Peter and the keyes of Hell and of Death although with them when the Keyes are seen Heaven and Hell are all one For the key of David Rev. 3.7 which openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth was not given to the Apostles but is a regality and prerogative of Christ who only hath power of Life and Death over Hell and the Grave who therefore calleth himself the first and the last because although when he first publisht his Gospel he died and was buried yet he rose again to live for ever so to perfect the great work of our salvation and by his power to bind those in everlasting chains who stood out against him and to bring those that bow to his sceptre out of prison into liberty and everlasting life The power is his alone and he made it his by his sufferings Phil. 2.8 9. He was obedient to death therefore God did highly exalt him Phil. 2.7 11. He became a Lord by putting on the form of a servant But he hath delegated his power to his Apostles and those that succeed them to make us capable and fit subjects for his power to work upon which nevertheless will have its operation and effect either let us out or shut us up for ever under the power of Hell and of Death Were not he alive and to live for evermore we had been shut up in darkness and oblivion for ever But Christ living infuseth life into us that the bands of Hell and of Death can no more hold us than they can him There is such a place as Hell but to the living members of Christ there is no such place For it is impossible it should hold them You may as well place Lucifer at the right hand of God as a true Christian in Hell For how can Light dwell in Darkness How can Purity mix with stench How can Beauty stay with Horrour If Nature could forget her course and suffer contradictories to be drawn together and be both true yet this is such a contradiction as unless Christ could die again which is impossible can never be reconciled Matth. 5.18 Heaven and earth may pass away but Christ liveth for evermore and the power and virtue of his Life is as everlasting as Everlastingness it self Rev. 6.8 And again There was a pale horse and his name that sat on him was Death and he had power to kill with the sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth But now he doth not kill us he doth but stagger us and fling us down that we may rise again and tread him under our feet and by the power of an everliving Saviour be the death of Death it self Job 18.14 Death was the King of terrors and the fear of Death made us slaves Heb. 2.15 and kept us in servility and bondage all our life long made our pleasures less delightful and our virtues more tedious made us tremble and shrink from those Heroick undertakings for the truth of God But now they in whom Christ liveth and moveth and hath his being as in his own dare look upon Death in all his horror expeditum morti genus saith Tertullian and are ready to meet him in his most dreadful march with all his army of Diseases Racks and Tortures Man before he sinned knew not what Death meant then Eve familiarly conversed with the Serpent so do Christians with Death Having that Divine Image restored in them they are secure and fear it not For what can that Tyrant take from them Col. 3.3 Their life That is hid with Christ in God Psal 37.4 It cannot cut them off from pleasure for their delight is in the Lord. Matth. 6.20 It cannot rob them of their treasure for that is laid up in heaven It can take nothing from them but what themselves have already crucified Gal. 5.24 their Flesh It cannot cut off one hope one thought one purpose for all their thoughts purposes and hopes were leveld not on this but on another life And now Christ hath his keyes in his hand Death is but a name it is nothing or if it be something it is such a thing as troubled S Augustine to define what it is We call it a punishment but indeed it is a benefit a favour even such a favour that Christ who is as omnipotent as he is everlasting who can work all in all though he abolished the Law of Moses and of Ceremonies yet would not abrogate the law by which we are bound over unto death because it is so profitable and advantageous to us It was indeed threatned but it is now a promise or the way unto it for Death it is that letteth us into that which was promised It was an end of all it is now the beginning of all It was that which cut off life it is now that through which as through a gate we enter into it We may say it is the first point and moment of our after-eternity for it is so neer unto it that we can hardly sever them We live or rather labour and fight and strive with the World and with Life it self which is it self a temptation and whilst by the power of our everliving Christ we hold up and make good this glorious contention and fight and conquer and press forward towards the mark either nature faileth or is prest down with violence and we dye that is our language but the Spirit speaketh after another manner we sleep we are dissolved we fall in pieces our bodies from our souls and we from our miseries and temptations and this living everliving Christ gathereth us together again breatheth life and eternity into us that we may live and reign with him for evermore And so I have viewed all the parts of the Text being the main articles of our Faith 1 Christs Death 2. his Life 3. his eternal Life and last of all his Power of the Keyes his Dominion over Hell and Death We will but in a word fit the ECCE the Behold in the Text to every part of it and set the Seal Amen to it and so conclude And first we place the ECCE the Behold on his Death He suffered and dyed that he might learn to have compassion on thy miseries and on thy dust and raise thee from both and wilt thou learn nothing from his compassion

by his Son Christ Jesus the Prince of Peace and Righteousness So that Justice doth raise it self upon these two pillars Nature and Religion which are like the two pillars in the porch of the Temple Jachin and Boaz 1 Kings 7.21 and do strengthen and establish Justice as that doth the pillars of the earth Cant. 5 15. or as the Legs of the Bridegroom in the Canticles which were as pillars of marble set upon sockets of pure gold For the wisdome and strength of Christ and Christianity consist in adorning and improving of Nature and setling a true and perfect Religion and the sockets the bases are of pure gold Basis aurea timor plenus disciplinae saith Ambrose The golden Basis which upholdeth all is a well-disciplined Fear by which we walk with circumspection and carefully observe the Law of Nature and the Law of Christ and by the Law of Nature and the brighter and clearer light of Scripture so steer our course that we dash not against those dangerous rocks of Deceit and Violence of Oppression and Wrong that we may not spem nostram alienis miseriis inaugurare increase our selves by diminishing others not rise by another mans ruin not be enriched by another mans loss not begin and inaugurate and crown our hopes and desires with other mens miseries nor bath our selves with delight in the tears of the widow and the fatherless but rather suffer wrong then do it rather lose our coat then take away our brothers vitâmque impendere vero rather lose that we have yea life it self then our Honesty and so by being Men and by being Christians fulfil all Righteousness And first Nature it self hath hewn and squared all Mankind as it were out of the same quarry and rock hath built them up out of the same Materials into a Body and Society into a City compact within it self For the whole World is but as one City and all the Men therein in respect of mutual offices of love are but of one Corporation Isa 51.1 Look unto the rock out of which you were hewn and the hole of the pit whence you were digged Look unto the common seed plot out of which you were all extracted and there you shall discover that near relation and fraternity that maketh every man a Neighbor a Brother to every man how they are not onely together children of Corruption and kin to the Worm and Rottenness but the workmanship of the same immortal Hand and illimitted Power Sons of one Father Gen. 1 26. who hath built them up in his image and according to his likeness which though it may be more resplendent and more improved in one then in another yet is that impression which is made and stampt on all From the same Rock are hewed out the weak and feeble man and Ish the man of strength Job 21.24 who hath milk in his breasts and marrow in his bones From the same Hand is that face we turn away from and that face we so much gaze on the Scribe and the active Idiote the narrow understanding that receiveth little and the active and piercing wit which runneth to and fro the earth the plain simple man that hath no ends and the subtile Politician who multiplieth his every day and can compass them all Of the same extraction are the purple Gallant and the russet pilgrime And he that made all casteth an equal eye on all bindeth every hand from violence and every heart from forging deceit maketh every man a guard and protection to every man giveth every man a guard and conduct for himself and others And to every man the word is given Psal 105.15 Touch not another and Do him no harm Thus hath God fensed us in and taken care that the strong man bind not the weak that the Scribe over-reach not the idiote that the Politician supplant not the innocent that the experienced man defraud not the ignorant but that every mans strength and wit and experience and wisdome should be advantageous and not hurtful to others that so the weak man may be strong with another mans strength and the ignorant man wise with anothers experience and the idiote be secured by the wisdome of the Scribe For who hath made all these have not I the Lord And then if he made them and linkt them together in one common tye of nature 1 Cor. 4.7 quis discernet as the Apostle speaketh who shall divide and separate them who shall divide the rich from the poor that he should set him at his footstool and despise him the strong from the weak that he should beat him to the ground the wise from the ignorant that he should baffle and deceive him Indeed some distance some difference some precedency of one before the other may shew it self to an eye of flesh but yet even an eye of flesh may see how to reunite and gather them together as one and the same in their original RESPICITE ZVR Look unto the rock the vein out of which you were taken and then what Moses spake to the Israelites when they strove together may be spoken to all the men in the world Acts 7.26 Sirs you are brethren why do you defraud or use violence why do you wrong one to another But in the next place besides this our common Extraction the God of Nature who hath built us all out of the same materials hath also imprinted those Principles those Notions those Inclinations in the heart of every man which may be as so many buttresses and supporters to uphold this frame and to make us dwell together in all simplicity and innocency of conversation not in envy and malice in fraud and deceit but with courtesie and affability helping and supporting one another which is that Justice which God requireth at our hands Nulla anima sine crimine quia nulla sine boni semine saith Tertullian No soul can plead Not guilty here because no soul is destitute of this seed of Goodness And thus we see in Rom. 1. where S. Paul maketh up that catalogue of foul irregularities Rom. 1.29 c. he draggeth the unrighteous the covetous the malicious the deceitful the inventors of evil things the covenant-breakers to no other tribunal then that of Nature and condemneth them by no other Law then that which we brought with us into the world Quaedam jura non scripta Senec. contr Solonis leges ligneis axibus incisae Gell. l. 2. c. 12. sed omnibus scriptis certiora saith the Oratour This Law is not written and therefore is written to all and being connatural to us is more sure and infallible then those which are written in wood or engraven in brass or marble And one would think that it were as superfluous and needless to make any other Law to bind us to Justice and upright dealing one towards another as to command children to love their parents or parents to be indulgent to their children

For why should that be urged with that vehemency to which mens natural bent and inclination carrieth them and would certainly continue them and hold them up in eaven course of Justice and Honesty did not education and their familiar converse and dalliance with the world corrupt and blind them To this Law of Nature S. James seemeth to call us back chap. 3. where he maketh it as a strange thing to be wondred at James 3.9 c. that the same tongue that blesseth God should yet curse men who are made after the similitude of God As if he should have said Curse him not Deceive him not for if thou curse him if thou deceive him thou cursest and deceivest God after whose similitude he is made My brethren these things ought not so to be They are as much against Nature as for the same fountain to send forth sweet and bitter water or for a fig-tree to bear olives or a vine figs. S. Paul shutteth up the Lyars mouth with the same argument Ephes 4 25. Wherefore cast off lying and speak truth every one to his neighbour The reason followeth For we are members one of another Thou art a part of him and he is a part of thee being both hewn out of the same rock formed and shaped of the same mould therefore by lying to thy brother thou puttest a cheat upon thy self and as far as in thee lyeth upon that God that made you both and gave you Tongues not to lye but to instruct and Wits not to deceive but counsel and help one another And therefore he deterreth men from fraud and violence by no other argument then this That God is the avenger of such things 1 Thess 4.6 as if the Lye had been told unto and the Cheat put upon him When Mans Justice to man faileth there Gods vengeance is ready to make a supply For saith Clemens Vidisti fratrem tuum vidisti Deum tuum Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. When thou lookest upon thy brother thou seest God himself as near as Mortality can discover him He is the fairest copie thou canst see him by fairer then the Heaven of heavens and those ministers of light fairer then the fairest Star then the Sun in the Firmament when he rejoyceth to run his race 1 John 4.20 Hence S. John concludeth positively and peremptorily If a man say he loveth God and hateth his brother and he that deceiveth him he that oppresseth him hateth him or else despiseth him which is worse he is a lyar And his reason is irrefragable For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen in whom he seeth himself in whom he seeth his God and so hath Love conveyed into his heart by his very eye many visible motives to win him to this duty how can he love God whom he hath not seen 1 Tim. 6.16 whom no man hath seen or can see but as the Apostle speaketh 1 Cor. 13.12 through a glass darkly in his Words and in his Works of which Man is the brightest mirrour and giveth the fairest and clearest representation of him So that now we may see all Mankind tyed and united together in this love-knot of Nature knit together as Men that they should not fly asunder and then return again one upon another not as Men but as Snakes and Vipers look back but with an evil eye approch neer but in a cloud or tempest not look but envy not speak but lye not touch but strike not converse with but defraud and oppress one another Which is against that Law with which we were born and which we carry about with us whithersoever we go and whatsoever we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How gratious and helpful a creature is one man to another if he continue so a Man and receive no new impression from the Flesh from Self-love and those transitory Vanities below if he be not byassed and wheeled from this natural motion by the World and so fit to be driven into the field with Nebuchadnezzar being turned Fox or Lion or Tiger or Panther or worse then any of those Beasts because he is a Man For so many forms he may receive having once degenerated from his own And then it is not Look upon men as of the same mould and frame as brethren by nature as auxiliaries and supplyes as keepers and guardians but CAVETE AB HOMINIBVS Beware of men Matth. 10.7 A warning and caution given by our Saviour himself and a strange caution it is from him who so loved men that he dyed for them Beware of men beware of them thus transformed thus brutifyed That smiling friend may be a tempter He that calleth himself a Saint may be a seducer His oylie tongue may wound thee his embrace crush thee to pieces that demure countenance shadow a legion of Devils Look not upon his phylacteries the Man is a Pharisee and this Angel-keeper may be thy murderer And thus it is when the course of nature is turned backward and Man degenerateth from himself and maketh his Reason which should be an instrument and promoter of Justice a servant to Sin and a weapon of Unrighteousness This the Love of the world and the Wisdome of the flesh can do Victrix etiam de Natura triumphat When it prevaileth it moveth and troubleth the wheel as S. James calleth it the whole course of our Nativity and triumpheth over Nature it self Now to draw this yet nearer to our purpose Speak what we will of Profit and Commodity the Heathen Oratour by the very light of Nature hath told us That they who divide Profit from Justice and Honesty and call that profit and advantage which is unlawfully gotten or detained with the same hand lift at the very foundation of Nature and strive to put out that light which they cannot utterly extinguish Ista duo facimus ex uno saith Seneca Though we make Profit and Honesty two things yet they are but one and the same And therefore to rise upon another mans ruines Subvertunt homines ea quae sunt sundamenta Naturae cùm utilitatem ab honestate sejungunt Tull. De Off. l. 3. to enrich our selves by fraud and deceit is as much against Nature saith Tully as Poverty which pincheth it or Grief which afflicteth it or Death which dissolveth it For Poverty may strip the body Grief may trouble it and Death may strike it to the ground but yet they leave a soul and Injustice is its destruction and leaveth a dead soul in a living body For as we have already shewn Man is naturally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sociable creature but Violence and Deceit quite destroy all society And Tully giveth the same reason in his Offices which S. Paul doth against Schisme in his Epistles 1 Cor. 12.26 If one member suffer all the members suffer with it and therefore the intent and purpose of all must be saith the Oratour ut eadem sit utilitas uniuscujusque

straiten our bowels or seal up our lips or wither our hands when we look upon the World but as our stage where we must act our parts and display the glories of Mercy where we must wast our selves drop our tears run in to succour those who are roughly handled in it and thus tread it under our feet and then take our Exit and go out When we can forget our Honour and remember the poor forsake all rather then our brethren and desire not to be rich but in good works when we have so incorporated our brethren into our selves that we stand and fall are happy and miserable together when we consider them as ingrafted into the same Christ and in him to be preferred before the whole world and to be lookt upon as those for whom we must dye then we love Mercy Luke 6.36 then we are merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful Thus if we be qualified we shall become the temples and habitations of Mercy and as our bodies shall after their resurrection so our souls shall here have novas dotes be endowed with activity chearfulness and purity And first our Mercy will be in a manner Natural unto us secondly it will be Constant thirdly it will be Sincere fourthly it will be Delightful to us It will be natural not forced it will be constant not flitting it will be sincere not feigned and it will be delightful that we shall long to bring it into act And first we then love it when it is in a manner made natural to us For we never fully see the beauty of it till we are made new creatures and have new eyes 1 John 3.9 Then as the New creature cannot sin as S. John speaketh that is can do nothing that is contrary and destructive to that form which constituteth a new creature no more can a Merciful man do any thing which will not savour of Mercy but doth as naturally exercise himself in it as the Sun doth send forth its beams or the Heavens their influence For the Spirit of God hath made his heart a fountain of Mercy as he made the Sun a fountain of light And if he break not forth into action it is from defect of means or occasion or some cross accident which cometh over him which do but cloud and eclipse his Mercy as the interposition of a gross body doth eclipse the Sun but not put out its light At the very sight of Misery Mercy is awake up and either doing or suffering Who is weak and I am not weak 2 Cor. 11.29 saith S. Paul who is offended and I burn not If I but see one weak I faint and if I see him vexed I am on fire Nature is active and will work to its end Heavy bodies will descend and light bodies will mount upwards and Mercy will give and lend and forgive it cannot be idle Inquies opere suo pascitur It is restless and is made more restless by its work which is indeed its pleasure It is then most truly Mercy when it sheweth it self If occasion presenteth it self it soon layeth hold on it If an object appear it is carried to it with the speed of a Thought and reacheth it as soon If there be no object it createth one if there be no occasion it studyeth one Is there yet any left of the house of Saul 2 Sam. 9.1 that I may shew kindness to for Jonathans sake And Is there no Lazar to feed no Widow to visit no Wounds to bind up no weak Brother to be restored none that be in darkness and errour to be brought into the light These are the Quaeres and the true dialect this is the ambition of Mercy It longeth more for an occasion to vent it self then the Adulterer doth for the twilight layeth hold on the least as on a great one thinketh nothing too high nothing too low which it can reach is still in motion because it moveth not like artificial bodies by art or outward force but by a principle of life the Spirit of Love it moveth not as a Clock which will stand still when the plummet is on the ground but its motion is natural as that of the Spheres which are wheeled about without cessation and return by those points by which they past and indeed may be said rather to rest then to move because they move continually and in the same place Misery is the point and the object of Mercy and at that it toucheth everlastingly Mercy and Misery still go together and eye each other The eye of Misery looketh up upon Mercy and the eye of Mercy looketh down upon Misery Like the two Cherubins they have ever their faces one towards another Their eyes are both full and ready to drop and run down The eye of Misery is ever open and Mercy hideth not her eye Prov. 28.27 By this you may judge of your acts of Liberality You may look upon them as those sacrifices with which God is pleased when you find something within you that enlargeth you that openeth your mouth and hand Hebr. 13.16 35. that you cannot but speak and do When you find a heat within you that thaweth and melteth you that you pour out your selves on your brethren then your works of Mercy are of a sweet-smelling favour when Love setteth them on fire Secondly Mercy being made natural unto us will be also constant It will be fixt in the firmament of the Soul and shine and derive its influence uncessantly and equally doing good unto all men while it hath time Gal. 6.10 that is at all times When the Heart dissenteth from it self and Love onely uniteth and maketh it one when it is a divided heart divided between God and the World hath inconstant motions and changeable counsels joyneth with the object and leapeth from the object is willing to day and loathing to morrow this day cleaving to the object and even sick for love as Amnon was for Tamar 2 Sam. 13 4. and the next day thrusting it out of doors chusing without judgement and then altering upon experience In such a heart Mercy cannot dwell And from hence it is that we see men every day so unlike themselves now giving anon oppressing now reaching out an almes and by and by threatning with the sword now giving their brother the right hand of fellowship and within a while with that hand plucking him by the throat now pitying him that lyeth in the dust anon crying out So so thus we would have it For indeed their Pity and their Rage their Mercy and their Cruelty have the same original and are raised upon the same ground Love of themselves and not of Mercy And thus they do some acts of Mercy magno impetu sed semel with much earnestness and zeal but not often like some birds whose notes or rather noise we hear one part of the year and then they leave us vanish out of sight and hearing and as

as a Command and as S. Pauls Command First it cometh under command Which leaveth it not to us to do when and how we please but maketh it necessary to be observed as necessary for us to do as to Believe in Christ For howsoever we may count these as petty duties and of a lower form yet our blessed Saviour putteth an high esteem upon them yea upon the least title and Iota of them Matth. 5.19 and telleth us plainly that if any shall break one of these least commandments which regulate our conversation with men he shall be called the least in the kingdome of heaven that is shall be of no esteem at all shall be shut out of that Kingdom And indeed a strange thing it may seem that Faith and Hearing and Prayer and Fasting and many times but the formality of them should make up the main Battalia in our spiritual Warfare Judg. 7.6 7. as those three hundred did in Gideon's army and those homiletical virtues Silence Peaceableness Honesty Meekness Doing our own business Industry in our calling like those who lapped not should be left behind as not fit for service Matth. 16.18 It is true the Church is founded upon a rock upon Faith in Christ but then Faith implyeth Practice even the practice of those virtues which concern us as members of the Commonwealth as well as of the Church For the Commonwealth is not in the Church but the Church in the Commonwealth for every Commonwealth is not Christian 1 Tim. 3.5 And as S. Paul telleth us that he that knoweth not how to rule his own house is not fit to take care of the Church no more can he who at pleasure breaketh these tyes and ligaments with which Nature and Religion have linkt him in a body politick and that many times under pretense of Religion boast or comfort himself in his relation to Christ He that is not a good member of the Commonwealth is not a true member of the Church He that is not a good Servant or a good Master a good Governour or a good Subject he that is not a Just dealer an honest Tradesman a faithful Labourer he that loveth not his neighbour as himself he that is not quiet and peaceable and industrious let him deceive himself as he please can have nothing but the name of a Christian For what will Hearing onely or Praying or Fasting lye upon this foundation 1 Cor. 3.10 11. Was Jesus Christ laid as the foundation onely to bear up speculative and phansiful men onely to bear up Pharisees and Hypocrites Will not Discretion and seasonable Silence and Honesty and Diligence in our calling concurre to that superstructure which must rise up as high as heaven Will our Eye or Tongue or Ear or Knee or Phansie bow and incline God and will he not once look down upon our Order upon our peaceable and honest Conversation with men Is Religion turned Anchorete and shut up within our selves there onely to listen after words and sounds and breathe them out again and must not she come forth to order our steps amongst men May she not be seen in a settled Mind and Eye in a labouring Hand as well as in an open Ear and a busie Tongue which speaketh loud and oft of Gods Kingdom when we do those things which will shut us out Let us not deceive our selves To be quiet to meddle in our own business to labour with our hands are sub praecepto under command and binding tendred to us and prescribed as a Law Indeed Nature and Reason one would think should bind us and guide our motion in that sphere or place wherein we are fixt For why should not every man be what he is made to be And although I do not think that every command in the Gospel is juris naturalis and so made known to us by the light of Nature for Nature certainly could not teach us to dye for our brethren 1 John 3.16 which yet the Gospel doth yet there is nothing commanded there which carryeth not with it a natural dignity and beseemingness Vide Grot. l. 1. de Jure Belli pacis c. 12. §. 6. to which with a little instruction and upon serious consideration we shall willingly subscribe And these duties which we now speak of may seem clearly to issue from those dictates of Nature That we should do to others as we would be done to That all things should be done decently and to edification That nothing should be done against conscience which had been of force for the ordering of mens actions of this nature though the Scripture had never expressed them and were of force before the Gospel was written and did bind us not onely because they were written but because they were just For why should he who would not be spoiled himself rob another Why should he who maketh his house his castle be so ready to invade and break into his neighbours Why should he who is even sick of a cheat be so ready to put one upon another Why should he that would be quiet at home be so troublesome abroad Why should not Ahab be as willing to part with his crown as to take Naboths vineyard But Christ the best Master and Lawgiver that ever was came not to destroy but to perfect Nature not to blot out those common notions which we brought into the world with us but to make them more legible to improve them and so make them his Law And if we look upon them as not belonging to us we our selves cannot belong to the Covenant of grace for even these duties are weaved in and made a part of the Covenant and if we break the one we break the other and not onely if we believe not but if we live not peaceably Heb. 3.18 if we stretch beyond our line if we labour not in our calling Rom. 12.18 we shall not enter into his rest For these also are his Laws 2 Cor. 10.14 15. and these doth our blessed Apostle teach and command And to conclude such a power hath Christ left in his Church conferred it first on his Apostles and then on those who were to succeed and supply their place who were to speak after them in the person and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ We will not dispute now what power it is It is sufficient to say it is not an earthly but a heavenly power derived from Christ himself the Fountain and Original of all Power whatsoever As Christs Kingdom is not of this world Joh. 18.36 so is not this Power of that nature as to stand in need of an army of souldiers to defend and hold it up but it is like the object and matter it worketh upon spiritual a power to command to remember every man of his duty in Church or Commonwealth For the Church and Commonwealth are two distinct but not contrary things and both powers were ordained to uphold and defend

fell back at two or three words from a silly maid To keep us from such distempers it will be good to set Gods judgments alwaies before our eyes And as Faith so Hope which is as the blood of the soul to keep it in life and cheerfulness may be over heated Our Expectation may prove unsavoury if it be not seasoned with some grains of this salt and Hope like strong wine may intoxicate and stupify our sense if as with water we do not mix and temper it with this Fear Therefore the Prophet David maketh a rare composure of them both TIMENTES CONFIDITE Ye that fear the Lord trust in the Lord As if where there is no Fear Psal 115.11 there were no confidence And without Fear there would be a strange a taxie and disorder in the soul and our hope would breath out it self and be no more Hope but Presumption Navigamus saith S. Hierom spei velo We hoyse up the sayls of Hope Now if the sayls be too full there may be as much danger in the sayl as in a rock and not onely a Temptation but our Hope may wreck us Then our Hope sayleth on in an even course when Fear as a contrary wind shortneth and stayeth her Tert. de Idol c. ult then inter sinis scopulos she passeth by every rock and by every reach tuta si cauta secura si solicita safe if wary and secure if solicitous To recollect all and conclude Thus may Fear temper our Love that it be not too bold our Faith that it be not too forward and our Hope that it be not too confident It may make our Love reverent our Faith discreet and our Hope cautelous that so we may go on in a straight and even course with all the riches and substance of our Faith from virtue to virtue from one degree of perfection to another I made Fear but a buttress Tertullian calleth it fundamentum De cultu Foem c. 2. the foundation of these three Theological virtues Faith Hope and Charity And when is the foundation most necessary Not when the timber is squaring and the walls rising but when it is arched and vaulted and compact by its several contignations and made into an house Then if the foundation be not sure mole suâ ruit not the rain and the wind the floods but even it s own weight will shake and disjoynt and throw it down When we are shaped and framed and built up to be Temples of the holy Ghost then Ecclus. 27.3 if thou keep not thy self diligently in the Fear of the Lord in the Fear of his displeasure and his wrath and in the fear of the last account this house this Temple will soon be overthrown For as the Temple was said to be built in great joy and great mourning that they could not discern the shout of joy for the noise of weeping Ezr. 3.12 13. so our spiritual building is raised and supported with great hope and great fear and it may be sometimes we shall not discern which is greatest our fear or our hope But when we are strong 1 Cor. 12.10 then are we weak when we are rich then are we poor when we hope then we fear and our weakness upholdeth our strength our poverty preserveth our wealth and our Fear tempereth our Hope that our strength overthrow us not that our riches begger us not that our hope overwhelm us not Quantò magìs crescimus tantò magìs timemus the more we increase in virtue the more we fear Thus manente timore stat aedificium whilst this butteress this foundation of Fear lasteth the house standeth Thus we work out our salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 I speak not this to dead in any soul any of those comforts which Faith or Love or Hope have begotten in them or to choke and stifle any fruit or effect of the Spirit of love Phil. 1.9 10. No I pray with S. Paul that your love may abound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet more and more but as it follows there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in knowledge and in all judgment that you may discern things that differ one from another a phansie from a reality a flash of Love from the pure flame of love a notion of Faith from true Faith and Hope from Presumption For how many sin and yet how few think of punishment How many offend God and yet call themselves his friends How many are wilfull in their disobedince and yet peremptory in their hope How many run on in their evil wayes and leave Fear behind them which never overtaketh them but is furthest off when they are nearest to their journeys end and within a step of the Tribunal For that which made them sinful maketh them senseless And they easily subborn false comforts the weakness of the flesh which they never resisted and the Mercy of God which they ever abused to chace away all fear and so they depart we say in peace but are lost for ever For as the Historian observeth of men in place and authority Curtius de Alexandro Cùm se fortunae permittunt etiam naturam dediscunt when they rely wholly upon their greatness and authority they lose their very nature and turn savage and quite forget that they are Men in like manner it befalleth these spiritualized men who build up to themselves a pillar of assurance and lean and rest themselves upon it They lose their nature and reason and forget to fear or be disconsolate and become like those whom the Philosopher calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because their boast was they did not fear a thunder-bolt Fear not them that can kill the body Matth. 10.28 Isa 53.1 Psal 29.5 Psal 72.18 saith our Saviour Whom do they fear else Who hath believed our report or to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed That arm which breaketh the Cedars of Libanus in pieces that arm which onely doth wondrous works is ever lifted up and we sport and walk delicately under it when we tremble and couch under that which is as ready to wither as to strike Behold dust and ashes invested with power behold Man who is of as near kin to the Worm and Corruption as our selves and see how he aweth us and boundeth us and keepeth us to on every side If he say Do this we do it We subscribe to that as a truth which we know to be false we make our Yea Nay and our Nay Yea we renounce our understandings and enslave our wills change our Religion as we do our clothes and fit them to the times and fashion we pull down resolutious cancel oathes we are votaries to day and break to morrow we surrender up our souls and bodies we deliver up our Conscience in the midst of all its cryings and gain-sayings and lay it down at the foot of a fading and transitory Power which breatheth it self forth as the wind whilst it seeketh

of the world cannot receive a poor Christ The Pride of life cannot receive an humble Christ The Lust of the flesh cannot receive a chaste Christ The sinner who confesseth and crucifieth him cannot receive him Those Antichrists cannot receive Christ no though they knock and knock again though they cry and cry aloud though they fast and pray and sequester themselves at some set times Then onely we are fit to receive him when we are Christi-formes made conformable to him The humble and obedient heart is his house his Temple and he will dwell in it for he taketh a delight therein Sequester then your selves draw your thoughts and apply them to this great benefit fast and pray and commune with your selves but do not then say We have done all that thou commandest us but let all these begin and end in obedience and holiness Let that be on the top the chief mark you aim at Tie it to you as an ornament of grace upon your head as a chain about your neck all the dayes of your life This will make you fit for Christ fit to receive his Body and Bloud and all the benefits of his Cross and his love will stream forth in the bloud which he shed and feed and nourish your souls to eternal life This I conceive to be the full compass of this duty of Examining of our selves And as it is necessary at all times so ought we especielly at this time to use it when we are to approch the Table of the Lord to make it our preparation before the receiving of the Sacrament He that neglected the Passeover was to be cut off from among his people And he that eateth and drinketh unworthily without examination of himself eateth and drinketh his own damnation because he discerneth not that is neglecteth the Lord's body Here at this Table thou dost as it were renew thy Covenant and here thou must renew thy Examination and see what failings and defects thou hast had and what diligence thou hast used in keeping of thy Covenant and bewail the one and increase and advance the other Consider whose Body and Bloud it is thou art to receive and in what habitude and relation thou art unto him and try thy Repentance thy Faith thy Charity For these unite thee to Christ bring thee so near as to dwell in him transform thee after his image and so give thee right and title to him and to all the riches and wisdom which are hidden in him Examine first your Repentance therefore Whether it be true and unfeigned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that circumcision made without hands Col. 2.11 Whether it be moved and carried on by a true spring hatred of sin and love of Christ Whether it be constant and uniform and universal consisting not in a head hanging down and a heart lifted up in to-day's sorrow and to-morrow's relapse in the detestation of idolatry and the love of sacrilege For this is as Luther saith poenitere simul non poenitere satis to repent and not repent to rise and fall and fall and rise This is not to repent but prevaricate to forsake our own cause and promote the Devil's No that Repentance which must place us at this Table must devote and consecrate us wholly to him whose Table it is And as our sins crucified him so must our repentance crucifie us and offer us up unto him as a holocaust or whole-burnt-offering who offered up himself a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world In the next place the Apostle exhorteth us to examine our selves whether we be in the Faith or no 2 Cor. 13.5 to prove our selves whether Christ be in us Without Faith there is no true Repentance There may be some distaste some regret some sorrow but not according to God Some distaste even those have had who never heard of Christ But it will not raise and improve it self not draw on a constant and serious resolution to shake off that which distasteth us to lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us till Faith possesseth our hearts and a firm persuasion that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself 2 Cor. 5.19 I believed and therefore I spake saith David We believe and therefore we examine our selves and take a strict survey of our souls we grone under our burthen and desire ease we find our selves sick and run to the Physician we find our selves dead in sin and flie to the Fountain of life Faith is the salt which seasoneth all our actions Nor will Christ admit us to his Table without it nor give himself to those who do not believe in him Faith is the mouth of the soul and with it we receive Christ To come unto him and receive him and believe in him are one and the same thing As the Word preached did not profit them that heard it Hebr. 4.2 not being mixed with faith not having this salt so the Sacraments are but bare signs and signifie nothing to them that believe not Accedens Verbum ad elementum facit Sacramentum non quia dicitur sed quia creditur saith Augustine The Word added to the Element maketh a Sacrament not because it is spoken but because it is believed That is without faith it profiteth nothing in respect of us although by Divine institution it hath force and power and ought to quicken and enliven us By the eye of Faith alone we follow Christ through every passage and period of his blessed oeconomy we behold him in the manger in his swadling-cloths and worship him we follow him in the streets going about and doing good and imitate him we behold him in his agonie and are nailed with him to his cross we see him rising and ascending and behold the heavens open and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God and lastly we behold him here in the Sacrament and lift up our hearts above these visible Elements to those things which are spiritual and invisible we see in them Christ's body lifted up upon the cross as the Serpent was in the wilderness and by this sight by this Faith we are cured Here in the Sacrament our Saviour again presenteth himself unto us openeth his wounds sheweth us his hands and his side speaketh to us as he did to Thomas Reach hither your fingers and behold my hands and reach hither your hands and thrust them into my side Take eat This is my body and be not faithless but believing Here shake off that chilness that restiveness that weariness and faintness of your faith here warm and actuate and quicken it Here God doth not shew us his face his extraordinary glory and majesty which no mortal can behold and live but we see him as it were in his back-parts and in these outward Elements Here he exhibiteth and giveth us his Son who is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his Person in whom he hath

found her greatest enemies in her own house Christian Liberty if we keep it within its bounds is Christ's purchase and legacy and the Christian's patrimony and inheritance But if we suffer it to fly out and overflow and break down its banks and limits and to be driven on violently with every wind of doctrine it will at last bring in a deluge of disorder and the dissolution of the Church it self and for a Congregation of Saints it will present us with a herd and rabble of Corahs and Rabshakehs and Shebas whose surname is Christian No Liberty must not onely have Sobriety and Charity to restrain it but lawful Autority to countermand it This is the full compass of our Christian Liberty drawn out by the hand of Humility it self And therefore we must not as S. Basil speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 remove these everlasting bounds For if we run over them or pluck them up our LICET is a NON LICET what is lawful is made sinful our very Liberty enthralleth us and we most rashly and unwisely enslave our selves with a privilege And therefore I should tell you of another SUB to strengthen this And it is involved in it and without it there is no Subjection without Subjection no Coming under and without that no Humility I cannot tell whether I should call it a SUB or no. For here is no descent no coming under It is onely to be what we are to keep our own places and to know what rank or station we are in That Corah rise not up against Moses nor Absalom think his head fit for his father's crown That every Artizan meddle not in our matters of Divinity That Mechanicks teach not Superiours how to govern nor Divines how to preach A Subordination will do well In the course of Nature we plainly see it the Heaven stretched forth as a canopy to compass the Air the Air moving about the Earth and the Earth keeping its Centre and the Centre immoveable The Sun knoweth his season and the Moon her going down The Stars start not out of their spheres Heavy bodies asccnd not nor do light bodies strive downwards All the parts of the Universe are linked and tied together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the law of Providence and to this end that they may subsist and stand fast for ever It is so in the wayes of Grace which entereth not violently but by degrees thy Faith under Hearing and thy Obedience under Faith thy Experience under Patience and thy Hope under Experience And it is so or should be so in every Body either Civil or Ecclesiastical Every member must keep its place and office The Foot is not to see nor the Eye to walk nor the Tongue to hear nor the Ear to speak Not all Prophets not all Teachers not all Apostles but every man in his own order As a garden saith Nazianzene drawn out by a skilful hand presenteth the eye with more delight then one single flower doth and as the Heaven with all its ornaments is more glorious then one single Star and as the Body is more beautiful then the Hand or Eye so a well-ordered Church where it is is more glorious then one man of what eminency soever more glorious then when every man will be a Church himself and every man teach and grovern every man it being the glory of the Church not to be one but one of many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle a body fitly joyned and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth and entire body made up of the collection of all the members into the unity thereof so that each member hath its place and dependancy and subordination and cannot subsist without it We see what amazing effects are wrought when the Waters are lifted up into the Air or when the Air getteth into the caverns of the Earth We hear it from above in thunders and we feel it from below in earthquakes Thunder and Earthquakes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 names of perturbation and disorder And what Thunder is in the air that is Sedition in a Commonwealth and what Earthquakes are that are Schisms in a Church They rent and tear the body of it as we read that some Earthquakes have removed pieces of ground from one place to another And all this is for want of Humility for want of this SUB Subordination all because every wheel will not move in its own place a wheel within a wheel or a sphere within a sphere but every man in the first orb the great wheel compassing all A great evil this under the Sun and if it hath not had edge enough to cut us to the heart our hearts are stone and therefore to be removed by Humility Every man must learn to keep his SUB his dependance and not at pleasure with the help of a pretence leap over it Every man wherein he is called ought there to abide and not start aside into anothers place not superbire not superire It is the School-man's Etymon not be proud and walk over his station and then look down with contempt upon the place where he should stand I may now perhaps seem to some to stand guilty of a foul neglect of those circumstances which should as it were stand about my Text and guard it I may seem to have mistook both the Times and my Text. For in these times to speak of Subordination is in effect to chide the Winds to whistle down a Tempest to commend Order in a wilderness and when all is consumed with fire conclamare cives to call out to neighbours to help to quench it But Speciosum nomen Ordinis saith Hilary The name of Peace and Order is a fair and specious name and the doctrine of it is never unseasonable And if Confusion seem the best order to some as Snow appeared black to Anaxagoras yet it may still have the same face and countenance to others at least put them in remembrance from whence they are fallen But what is this to Humility Yes much as the Apostle speaketh every manner of way You might expect perhaps that I should have shewed you the blushing Cheek the drooping Eye the cast down Countenance the Head hanging down like a bulrush that I should have commended to your Lowliness and Dejection of mind Contempt and Hatred of our selves And so I have and I have done it in this in commending to you practick Humility For so a learned Writer paraphraseth my Text Deo vos regendos permittite Submit your selves to God's goverment and walk in those wayes which he hath appointed for you And if we look back upon particulars we shall find it true For the Servant to be under the Master is to be under God For this is the will of God saith the Apostle For the Wife to be under the power of her Husband is to be under God For he so ordained it For the Son to be under the Father Gen. 3. is to be under God It is his

God 1. by the Knowledge not onely of natural and transitory things but also of those which pertain to everlasting life Col. 3.10 Being renewed in knowledge after the image of him who created him 2. in the Rectitude and Sanctity of his Will Put on the new man Eph. 4.24 which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness 3. in the ready Obedience of the outward parts and inward faculties to the beck and command of Reason which being as a spark from the Divine nature a breathing from God should look forward and upward upon its Original and present our bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God I say Rom. 12.1 God hath imprinted his image on Man And what communion hath God with Belial or the image of God with the fashion of this world What relation hath an immortal substance with that which passeth away 1 Cor. 7.31 Take Man for that Miracle of the world as Trismegistus calleth him for that other that Lesser world the very tye and bond of all the other parts for whose sake they were made and in whose Nature the nature of the Universe is in a manner seen which order and harmony being disturbed was renewed and restored again by Christ who is the perfect Image of God the express character of his Person and brightness of his glory Rom. 8. And what conversation should we have but in heaven And if the whole nature of created things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the creature it self groneth to be delivered from the bondage of corruption certainly Man the compendium and tie of all the Little world which by his default made the other parts subject to vanity must needs grone in himself waiting for the adoption and redemption of his body not onely from corruption but from temptation when his eye shall behold no vanity his ear hear nothing but Hallelujahs and his very body become in a manner spiritual Or take man as made after God's Image by which he hath that property which no other creature hath to Understand and Will and Reason and Determine by which he sendeth his thoughts whither he pleaseth now beyond the seas by and by back again and then to heaven it self as Hilary speaketh by which he is capable of God and may be partaker of him And we cannot think we had an Understanding given us onely to forge deceit to contrive plots to find out the twilight an opportunity to do mischief to invent instruments of musick new delights to frame an art a method a craft of enjoying the pleasures which are but for a season we cannot think our Will was given us to catch at shadows and apparitions to wait upon the Flesh which fighteth against the Spirit and this Image within us we cannot think God gave us Reason to distinguish us from the other creatures that it should subject us to the creature that it should make us worse then the beasts that perish And therefore Christ the end of whose coming was to renew God's Image decayed and defaced in Man did lay the ax to the root of the tree did level all spreading and overtopping imaginations all thoughts which bowed themselves and inclined to the world 2 Cor. 10.5 bringing them into captivity unto the obedience of the Gospel put out our eyes and cut off our hands so far as they might be occasional to evil and nailed not onely our sins but our flesh to his cross For as we are risen with him so are we crucified with him who being lift up himself did draw us after him to heavenly things to heavenly places brought back the Lost sheep Psal 23. the soul into green and fat pastures out of the way of the world the way that leadeth to Death to the paths of righteousness bringeth back the Soul to its original to that for which it was made James 1.25 Hence the Gospel is called a perfect Law of Liberty Whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty A perfect Law because it barreth up every passage and rivulet shutteth up every crany that may let the soul out to wander after the things of this world tieth us up closer then humane Reason could and improveth and exalteth our Reason to busie it self on its proper object those things which are above And it is called a Law of liberty because they who will be subject to this Law who will be Gospellers indeed must free themselves from those defects and sins which no humane Law nor yet the Law of Moses did punish So that Christian Religion doth in a manner destroy the world before its dissolution maketh that which men so run after so wooe so lay hold on a thing of nothing or worse then nothing maketh that which we made our staff to lean on a serpent to run from or maketh the world but a prison which we must struggle to get out of but a Sodom out of which we must haste to escape to the holy hill to the mountain lest we be consumed or at best but as a stage to act our parts on where when we have disgraced reviled and trode it under our feet we must take our Exit and go out And indeed secondly there is no proportion at all between sensible things and a Soul which is a Spirit and immortal And in this also it resembleth that God who breatheth it into us As Lactantius saith God is not hungry that you need give him meat he is not thirsty that you need pour out drink to him nor is he in the dark that you need light up tapers The world is the Lord's and all that therein is So it is with the Soul What is a banquet of wine what is musick what is a feast what is beauty what is a wedge of gold to a Soul The world is the Soul 's and all that therein is And to behold the creature and in the world as in a book to study and find out the Creator to contemplate his Majesty his Goodness his Wisdom to discover that happiness which is prepared for it to find out conclusions to behold the heavens the work of God's fingers and to purchase a place there to converse with Seraphim and Cherubim elevated thoughts towring imaginations holy desires these are fit food for the Soul and proportioned to it And again as the things above are proportioned to the Soul so they alone can satisfie it The things below are too narrow too transitory Beauty like the Rainbow is oculi opus the work of the eye of the imagination Specta paulisper non erit Do but look a little longer and it will not be seen Riches bring care and torment as well as delight and when they have for a while mocked us they take the wing and flee away Honour I cannot well tell you what it is it is so near to Nothing But whatsoever it be it commonly falleth to the dust and findeth no better sepulchre then disgrace The fashion of

so urgent for the fourth If we could prevail with men to abstain from fleshly lusts which fight against the soul we should bring in that Reverence which doth preach and promulge that abstinence If we were glorious within our clothing also would be wrought gold If the power of Godliness had once filled the Heart it would evaporate and breathe it self forth and command the Head the Hand the Eye the Knee Where true Devotion is the Text the Gloss and Commentary is outward Reverence which is as inseparable from Religion as Light is from the Sun When all flesh had corrupted its wayes when the wickedness of men was great upon earth then brake in this Deluge of profaneness and the Ark the Church floateth upon the face of it with some few persons who strive to save themselves from such a froward generation When Covetousness came in gravely in the mantle of Religion and with a broom in its hand to sweep and purge the Temple every thing it swept out though Gold was but rubbish and filth and went under the name of Superstition But it did not sweep so clean but it left some riches that is some Superstition behind and to rid that remainder away it blasted those harmless and useful Ceremonies that outward Reverence which the Saints and Martyrs of the purest times made their badge and cognizance to distinguish them from Infidels and Atheists And not content to pluck off the visour it mangled the very face of Religion and left no more sign of devotion in men then in the pillars of the Church which are present both alike the one as reverent as the other And it is no wonder that men should cry down outward Worship when they have in their doctrine given so deep a wound to Religion it self For these Spiritual men are they who have published it to the world and left it upon record to all posterity That the foulest sins quae culmen criminum tenent which sit at the top and are the ugliest in appearance as Adultery Murther and the like are so far from endangering the elect that they advantage them rather That a man may make himself the member of an harlot and yet remain a member of Christ still When we hear this the other petty cracks need not astonish us That Bishops are the limbs of Antichrist Priests the Locusts of the lowest pit the remembrance and honourable mention of the Saints Superstition and bowing and kneeling Idolatry I say we need not wonder at this For as old Cato when the women of Rome brake in tumultuously into the Senate to hinder the promulgation of a Law which was enacting there to restrain their luxury told the Senators that this was their fault and they might blame themselves for if they had taught their wives modesty at home they should not have seen them so bold in the Senate-house so all that Irreverence which we see in the house of God is not kindled as we may think from that false fire of Irregular zele but this Irregular zele this false Fire is struck out of the flint out of an hard and obdurate heart not to consume the Zelote but his brethren not to eat up himself but devour others and so make way for Covetousness and Sacriledge those ravenous wolves to divide the spoil Oh what a Zele is that which is the issue of Covetousness and Oppression Like mother like daughter as the Prophet Ezekiel speaketh We see those goodly Mannors those Honours and Riches which Law and Justice hath set out of our reach and then our heart is hot within us and this fire burneth and we call it Zele And with this we can draw them near unto us and make them ours nay justifie Oppression it self and make it Law cry down Ceremony and Reverence as dogs bark at the Moon call it Superstition and know not what it is For when we are asked what Superstition is we are struck dumb This is Superstition that is concluded that is it is we know not what It is very hard one would think that there should be no use of the members of the body but in sin that Devotion should be shut up in the inward man and when it commandeth the Hat the Hand the Eye the Knee it should lose its name and be called Idolatry that the Body should be all motion in civil worship change and vary it gestures bow and cringe and tremble before that mortal whose breath is in his nostrils and in those offices which are due to an eternal God should be a statue 'T is true indeed Devotion and all other virtues are principally in the mind but they are evermore consummate by outward acts The Philosopher vvill tell us Virtutis tota laus in actione consistit that the vvhole praise of Virtue is in action For what habit is that which produceth no act What Liberality is that which never stretcheth forth the hand What Temperance is that which putteth not the knife to the throat What Fortitude is that which beateth down no strong hold What Patience is that which beareth nothing And then what Devotion is that which is dumb nay which is dead and moveth neither hand nor foot Habet de suo anima cogitare velle cupere disponere saith Tertullian The Soul hath from it self to Think to Will to Desire to Dispose sed ad perficiendum operam carnis exspectat but to complete and perfect these it calleth for and expecteth the help and aid of the Body What Musick is that that is not heard What an artificer is he that hath no hand That art deserveth not the name which endeth in it self For every Habit as it is an act in respect of the power from whence it came so is but a power or faculty in respect of the act Certainly that Devotion is but a phansie which never speaketh nor boweth nor falleth down and worshippeth It is of good useth which Irenaeus observeth Alia Deus mandat principaliter alia per consequentiam There be some duties which God doth more principally enjoyn others but by necessary consequence The purity of the heart he first looketh upon and then the gracious effects of it made visible in the flesh and outward man My son give me thy heart that is the first But My son give me thy hand and knee and as David speaketh every member that thou hast this also is the voice and command of God If you ask where God doth expresly command this ceremonious and outward worship I answer It was not necessary God should For even Nature it self commandeth it and common Reason which is a Law within us may teach us that that Body which is God's should bow before him And if peradventure God hath not expresly commanded it yet virtually and in the general he hath Abel offered a sacrifice to the Lord and the Text saith that the Lord had respect to Abel and to his offering But that God commanded him to bring an offering Gen 28.

The treasures thereof are infinite the minerals thereof are rich assiduè pleniùs responsura fodienti The more they are digged the more plentifully do they offer themselves that all the wit of men and Angels can never be able to draw them dry But even this Word many times is but a word and no more Sometimes it is a killing letter Such vain and unskilful pioneers we are that for the most part we meet with poisonous damps and vapours instead of treasure I might adde a third Teacher Christ's Discipline which when we think of nothing but of Jesus by his rod and afflictions putteth us in remembrance that he is the Lord. This Teacher hath a kind of Divine authority and by this the Spirit breatheth many times with more efficacy and power then by the Church or the Word then by the Prophets and Apostles and holy Scriptures For when we are disobedient to his Church deaf to his Word at the noise of these many waters we are afraid and yield our necks unto his yoke All these are Teachers But their authority and power and efficacy they have from the Spirit The Church if not directed by the Spirit were but a rout or Conventicle the Word if not quickned by the Spirit a dead letter and his Discipline a rod of iron first to harden us and then break us to pieces But AFFLAT SPIRITUS the Spirit bloweth upon his Garden the Church and the spices thereof flow And then to disobey the Church is to resist the Spirit INCUBAT SPIRITUS The holy Ghost sitteth upon the seed of the Word and hatcheth a new creature a subject to this Lord. MOVET SPIRITUS The Spirit moveth upon these waters of bitterness and then they make us fruitful to every good work In a word The Church is a Teacher and the Word is a Teacher and Afflictions are Teachers but the Spirit of God the holy Ghost is all in all I might here enter a large field full of delightful variety But I forbear and withdraw my self and will onely remember you that this Spirit is a spirit that teacheth Obedience and Meekness that if we will have him light upon us we must receive him as Christ did in the shape of a Dove in all innocency and simplicity He telleth us himself that with a froward heart he will not dwell and then sure he will not enlighten it For as Chrysostom well observeth that the Prophets of God and Satan did in this notoriously differ that they who gave Oracles from God gave them with all mildness and temper without any fanatick alteration but they who gave Oracles by motion from the Devil did it with much distraction and confusion with a kind of fury and madness so we shall easily find that those motions which descend not from above are earthly sensual and devilish that in them there is strife and envying and confusion and every evil work but the wisdom which is from above from the holy Ghost is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated James 3. full of mercy and good fruits Be not deceived When thy Anger rageth the Spirit is not in that storm When thy Disobedience to Government is loud he speaketh not in that thunder When thy Zele is mad and unruly he dwelleth not in that fiery hush When the faculties of thy soul are shaken and dislocated by thy stubborn and perverse passions that thou canst neither look nor speak nor move aright he will not be in that earthquake But in the still voice and the cool of the day in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the calm and tranquility and peace of thy soul he cometh when that storm is slumbred that earthquake setled that thunder stilled that fire quenched And he cometh as a light to shew thee the beauty and love of thy Saviour and the glory and power of thy Lord. And though he be sole Instructor yet he descendeth to make use of means and if thou wilfully withdraw thy self from these thou art none of his celestial Auditory To conclude Wilt thou know how to speak this language truly that Jesus is the Lord and assure thy self that the Spirit teacheth thee so to speak Mark well then those symptoms and indications of his presence those marks and signs which he hath left us in his word to know when the voice is his For though as the Kingdom of heaven so the Spirit of God cometh not with observation yet we may observe whether he be come or no. Remember then first that he is a Spirit and the Spirit of God and so is contrary to the Flesh and teacheth nothing that may flatter or countenance it or let it loose to insult over the Spirit For this is against the very nature of the Spirit as much as it is for light bodies to descend or heavy to move upwards Nay Fire may descend and the Earth may be moved out of its place the Sun may stand still or go back Nature may change its course at the word and beck of the God of Nature but this is one thing which God cannot do he cannot change himself nor can his Spirit breathe any doctrine forth that savoureth of the World or the Flesh or Corruption Therefore we may nay we must suspect all those doctrines and actions which are said to be effects and products of the blessed Spirit when we observe them drawn out and levelled to carnal ends and temporal respects For sure the Spirit can never beat a bargain for the world and the Truth of God is the most unproportioned price that can be laid out on such a purchace When I see a man move his eyes compose his countenance order and methodize his gesture and behaviour as if he were now on his death-bed to take his leave of the world and to seal that Renouncement which he made at the Font when I hear him loud in prayer and as loud in reviling the iniquities of the times wishing his eyes a fountain of tears to bewail them day and night when I see him startle at a mis-placed word as if it were a thunderbolt when I hear him cry as loud for a Reformation as the idolatrous Priests did upon their Baal I begin to think I see an Angel in his flight and mount going up into heaven But after all this devotion this zele this noise when I see him stoop like the Vultur and fly like lightning to the prey I cannot but say within my self O Lucifer son of the morning how art thou fallen from heaven how art thou brought down to the ground nay to hell it self Sure I am the holy Ghost looketh upward moveth upward directeth us upward and if we follow him neither our doctrine nor our actions will ever savour of this dung Remember again that he is SPIRITUS RECTUS a right Spirit as David calleth him Psal 51. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 winding and turning several wayes now to God and anon nay at once to Mammon now glancing

may enter an action he is a debtour who is any wayes obliged to me For obligatio parit actionem an obligation doth naturally produce an action Now as there be divers sorts of Obligations so there be of Debts As there is obligatio ex contractu an obligation upon contract and stipulation so there is obligatio ex debito maleficio an obligation by some offence or evil we commit against our neighbour either by theft or rapine by damage or injury For not onely my Goods but my Good name is mine and my Body is mine and he that falleth upon my goods and taketh them away he that falleth upon my sheep and camels and driveth them away he that sharpneth his tongue as a razor to wound my reputation he that putteth forth his hand to touch my flesh and my bones obligeth himself and becometh my debtour Qui injuriam facit minor est He that doth an injury for that very reason is under him that suffered it and obliged to him the greatest Tyrant to the meanest peasant in the land Indeed I may forfeit all these to the Law and Justice and so make my riches and possessions nay my life and good name as debts For in punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Philosopher There is a kind of giving and receiving in which the nature of all contracts consisteth He that receiveth by injustice must give punishment his goods to be confiscate his name to infamy his body to prison and his life to the Law So that when the hand of violence or deceit taketh from me my goods when the cruel and bloud-thirsty man spoileth me of my life when the tongue that is set on fire by hell rageth against my good name when evil men defraud and spoile me though they rejoyce as those who have made a great purchase and conquest yet if they cast up their accounts and take a just calculation they shall find that all this is but debt and that they are obliged to those whom they have put in fetters ingaged to those whom they have disgraced and indebted to those whom they have made poor Briefly to take the full compass and latitude of this word debts Whatsoever may distast us whatsoever may raise our anger whatsoever may bear an action be it an injury which the Law doth punish or a disgrace and contumely quàm magis queri quàm exequi possumus against which we can oppose nothing but complaint be it a blemish on our name or a furrow on our back or a devastation of our estate be it Ishmael's scoff or Shimei's railing or Zedekiah's blow on the cheek whatsoever our weakest enemy can think or speak whatsoever our strongest can do against us whatsoever we may unjustly suffer all these come under this name and may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 debts And now having shewed you what these Debts are we come next to declare the Manner how we must forgive them and to draw out the force and extent of this SICUT that we may see wherein the parity and similitude consisteth and how our forgiveness of our brother's debts must answer God's remission of ours And here we cannot well tell how to fix the SICUT whether upon our selves or upon God nor suddenly determine whether God should forgive us as we forgive or we forgive as God doth For first as S. Hierome falling upon that speech of our Saviour Be it unto thee according to thy faith breaketh forth into a pious admiration of it Hanc ego vocem audire nolo I will not hear this speech for it is terrible in my ears For if it be done unto me according to my faith I am utterly lost because the Envious man hath sown tares amonst the wheat so we may more feelingly and truly pronounce that if God do forgive but as we forgive we may be cast into prison with our pardon and release in our hands For what is our Forgiveness We forgive many times when we cannot revenge we do not bite because we have no teeth We forgive the loss of our honour which Ambition hath made something the loss of our goods which our Covetousness hath set a price upon We forgive a blow for fear of a greater Our Forgiveness is commonly the child of Fear or Necessity or Weakness or at the best shaken from us by this thunder That if we forgive not we our selves shall lie in prison till we have paid the utmost farthing SICUT ET NOS as we forgive is such a condition as we shall hardly trust to a part of our Pater Noster but we most unfit to say it But then for us to forgive as God is impossible For Mercy which is but a quality in us is essential in him And he punisheth and forgiveth without any change at all I may say both his Revenge and Forgiveness are effects of the same Goodness which he is When we offend him it is impossible to stand in his sight because he is good but when by repentance we leave off to be evil we then draw near unto him for the same reason And thus to the good he is a wing to shadow them but to the evil a consuming fire So that there will be found a greater distance between our Forgiveness and his then there is between heaven and earth between a mortal Man and immortal God And the SICUT will hold on neither side If God should forgive as Man we were most miserable and for Man to forgive as God is impossible We must then limit and confine the SICUT the similitude to the thing it self to Remission of debts and the likeness must be placed in this not that we forgive as God or God as us but that as God forgiveth our debts so we forgive our debtours But now because a condition and necessity is laid upon us to forgive our debtours though we cannot raise it to so high a pitch as to equal his yet we must make his the rule and pattern of ours Neque enim aliter in nobis erit dignitas Divinae majestatis nisi imitatio fuerit Divinae voluntatis saith Leo For we can be no otherwise partakers of his excellency and Divine majesty then by imitation of his Divine will And if any virtue then this certainly of Mercy and Compassion doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make us like unto God And to strive for perfection in this kind though our perfection cannot in any kind equal his is the greatest commendation we can give a Christian That which Quintillian giveth to Tully in respect of Eloquence Defuit ei summa illa ad quam tamen nemo propriùs accessit He cometh short of the perfection of God yet none ever came nearer then he Now though we cannot but be unwilling that God should proportion out his forgiveness by ours yet we shall find it a great part of our spiritual wisdom to regulate ours by his and to forgive our debtours SICUT as he forgiveth us And first

esse Caesar sed tunc maximè occidi videretur that they conceived it not as a thing done and past as if he were killed already but as if he were now under the parricides hands Certainly no blot can be great enough for injuries nor are they truly and sincerely forgiven till we are willing till we study to forget them Nemo diu tutus periculo proximus There is no long safety to be expected where danger is at hand Therefore we must in this as in all other duties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 follow God as the Pythagoreans counselled For if we measure our selves by our selves if we raise not the SICUT as high as our Father of whom we beg mercy we shall fail of the condition and so bring upon our selves an uncapability of pardon But to forgive freely and voluntarily to forgive sincerely and fully to take off not onely our anger from injuries but to drive them out of our memory is Divino more ignoscere to forgive as God And indeed in the next place this maketh us like unto God and investeth us with his power by which we overcome all injuries whatsoever and scatter them as dust before the wind By this we break the cedars of Libanon in pieces the tallest enemies we have by this we ●ill the raging of the sea and the madness of the people Fot who would 〈◊〉 forgive a bedlam by this we pour coals of fire upon our most obdurate enemies and melt and thaw them by this we work miracles And indeed Mercy is a great miracle For Beloved that power which we use in resistance and revenge is not power but weakness Vera magnitudo est non posse nocere verior nolle The true power by which a Christian prevaileth is seen in this not to be able to do hurt the greatest power not to be willing And if we will make a truce with our Passions and a while consult with Reason we shall soon discover that the desire to shew our power in revenge of an injury hath its beginning from extreme weakness Omnis ex infirmitate feritas saith Seneca All fierceness and desire of revenge is from infirmity and proceedeth from that womanish and brutish part of man nay from those vices which make us worse then the beasts that perish Chap. 4.1 From whence come wars and fightings saith S. James from whence contentions and strifes come they not from hence even from your lusts which war in your members from Pride Covetousness Luxury Ambition and Self-love In urbe luxuria creatur saith Tully ex luxuria exsisttat avaritia necesse est ex avaritia erumpat audacia unde omnia scelera gignuntur In the city Luxury is begot and that calleth in Covetousness as a necessary supply to feed and nourish it Covetousness bringeth in Audacious and impudent behaviour and this filleth all with Bloud and Oppression Ambition giveth the stab for a lye Covetousness layeth hold on the throat for a peny Luxury will wade to pleasure though it be through bloud and Self-love maketh every look a frown every frown a blow and every blow death And this is extreme weakness and infirmity We may think indeed we have done wonders when we have laid our brother at our feet when we have put him in fetters and ript up his bowels and made him pay his debt with his bloud but in all this our glory is our shame For in this contention we never triumph till we yield When we are weak then are we strong when we suffer disgrace then are we honourable and we overcome not when we resist but when we dye By this an enemy is a friend By this saith the Father the Mother in the Macchabees priùs viscera carnifici quam verba impendit gave the executioner her bowels but not a word This restoreth what was stoln from me bringeth back what the robber taketh keepeth my name when it is most defiled as a precious ointment and maketh the day of death better then the day of my birth In a word this Deus averruncus chaseth away all evil whatsoever cancelleth all debts is a severe act and the onely antidote against Malice which cannot be overcome saith the Apostle but with good and sheweth from whence it hath its original by manifesting it self in a full and plenary forgiveness of all injury and oppression and contumely of all that cometh under the name of debt I may now seem perhaps to have stretched this Condition too far For we are very willing that God should enlarge his mercy but that ours be drawn into as narrow a compass as may be We would clip our wings to cover but a few but call upon him to spread his wings to cover all offences And therefore it is safer to stretch the condition then to contract and confine it because we are so ready transilire lineas to leap over the bounds which are set us and so take line and liberty to exact some debts and at last break loose upon all and when our revenge hath its full swinge say we seek but our own I had rather therefore tell you what you may not do then what you may And if you shall ask me whether it be not lawful in some cases to fetch back and exact your own I shall say as St. Augustine do of Time If you ask me once I can tell you but if you ask me again I can give you no answer For I fear such a question proceedeth from an evil disposition which would fain break its bounds For can Charity ask how far she may molest a brother and be Charity Would Mercy which should run like a river and overflow to refresh every dry place seek out inventions to divert or dam up her self Shall we strive to make the condition easier which in respect of the promise would be very easie though it were much harder then it is But yet by this I neither strike the sword out of the Magistrate's hand nor make the Laws of men void and of no effect For the Condition here is put in respect of injuries For though it be far better I should lose my coat then revenge my self because by the law of equity no man can be judge in his own cause yet let the Magistrate restore my coat to me and the act is not revenge but justice Justice saith Plutarch accompanieth God himself and breatheth revenge against those who break his Law which men also by the light of nature use against one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are citizens and members of a body politick This SICUT therefore this Condition is laid down to order and compose our minds to the pardon of those wrongs which are offered to our private persons but it bindeth not the Judge who is a publick person and standeth in the midst as it were between two opposite sides to draw them together and make them one again to use his power not onely rescindendo peccatori to cut of the wicked

and the service of God but even after the means which may bring us unto it with what joy do we embrace all opportunities how do we bless and magnifie every Ordinance how doth every occasion appear unto us as the cloud that covered the Tabernacle what a light is every glimmering what a Sun is every star how doth the least help raise us up and the smallest advantage fill us with joy Psal 119.60 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We no sooner say We will go but we are at our journeys end We make haste and delay not to keep God's commandments Alacrity is a sign that devotion is sincere and as it were natural Nature runneth her course chearfully without interruption and displayeth her self with a kind of triumph in every creature The Moon knoweth her appointed seasons Psal 104.19 and the Sun his going down And the Sphears are constantly wheeled about with a perpetual motion Iterum redeunt per quod ibant They still hast from the same point and back to it again Naturae animalium à nullo doctae sunt saith Hipprocrates The natures and qualities of living creatures are not conveyed into them by long instruction but what they do they do by nature and that with ease and alacrity Who taught Fire to burn or Trees to grow Who taught heavy bodies to descend or light ones to mount aloft We may say they were all taught by God by that Power which Philosophers call Nature And thus it is with those who being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taught of God are well-affected unto and love his service they have as it were a second nature put into them Rom. 12.2 2 Cor. 5.17 The Apostle calleth it a renewing of the mind and a new creature They are carried with facility and chearfulness to their end and strive forward to the things which are above with as great propensity and readiness as light bodies move upwards Psal 42.1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God saith the Psamist As Nature is operative and forcible in the one so is the Spirit in the other And as Nature doth her work with ease so doth Grace All difficulty and slowness is from the earth earthy from the flesh from corruption An unclean heart maketh virtue an heavy task but a right spirit maketh it a delight Nihil difficile amanti There is nothing of difficulty in that which a man loveth The fool goeth to his duty as to the correction of the stocks Prov. 7.22 But he that is wise and loveth goodness is delighted with the very thought and contemplation thereof even when it is beset with terrour and difficulty A good man hath more reluctancy to evil then an evil man to good He falleth not from his duty but by some strong temptation which surprizeth him unawares but the other nè rectè quidem facere sine scelere potest as Tullie speaketh of Vatinius committeth an offence even when he doth that which is right and defileth a good deed in the doing The one loveth the work it felf the other is dragged to it as an ox to the slaughter Prov. 7.22 It was well said of Hilarie Minus est facere quam diligere To do a virtuous act is not so considerable as to love it For it may be done grudgingly and with an evil mind which is indeed not to do it but to turn bread into stones hony into gall and bitterness that which should feed and cherish into an offence But when Love hath wrought in us an alacrity to our duty then it is in a manner become natural to us We call it an Habit And it is a fair note of a virtuous habit if the acts of virtue be performed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with oblectation of mind For if the soul be well disposed and qualified if it be fitted and shaped to that which is good joy maketh an effusion and flux there and letteth out the heart IBIMUS We will go into the house of the Lord We long to be there We will hasten our pace We will break through all difficulties in the way No chains shall keep us back but those of Necessity And though these lay hold on us yet if our will be free and have determined its act the duty is dispatched If we look toward the Temple with a longing eye we serve God there though we enter not into it For plus est diligere quàm facere If I love and will I have done my work before I begin Again chearfulness is a sign of perfection in our devotion Till a thing be perfect it is in a manner streightned and contracted in it self there is in it a kind of striving towards its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in a journey though it is some pleasure to look back upon that part of the way which we have left behind us yet it troubleth us to look forward upon that which is yet before us and we are never merry indeed till we sit down at our journeys end Semivirtues dispositions faint inclinations to duty may warm perhaps but cannot enflame us they make us neither active nor chearful nor constant in our wayes Non facimus assiduè non aequaliter saith the Stoick We do our duty neither constantly nor equally We do it to day and leave it undone to morrow We do this thing to day and to morrow the quite contrary One day as St. Hierome saith in the Church another in the theatre one day devout another profane to day hang down the head like a bulrush to morrow lift up our heads on high and exalt our selves without measure This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this irregularity and inconstancy of behaviour as St. Basil calleth it is visible in the lives of those men whom the love of God hath not built up and rooted in that which is good For the seeming goodness of such is not natural but forced and artificial like the motions in water-works which while the water runneth in the trough present us with some delightful sight it may be some history of the Bible as the Faith of Abraham the Devotion of David the Humility of the Publicane but when the water is once run out all is done and there is no more to be seen Thus outward respects love of a good name profit and advantage may carry us about a while and present us to the view as men washed and cleansed as Prophets and holy persons but when those fail we suddenly fall to the mire where we first wallowed and are three times more polluted then before For that form of godliness did not proceed from a right principle from the love of that we did but from the love of something else which is contrary to it from the love of the Flesh which Religion crucifieth from the love of Profit which Piety casteth behind her from the love of Glory which Devotion blusheth at from the love of the World which Faith

with a dropping eye novv filling his mouth vvith laughter and anon roaring for the very grief of his heart Men are happy saith Aristotle but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as men as Men vvho are turned upon the vvheel of Change now looking tovvards heaven and anon on the ground Such is Man and such is every man And every man may see himself in every man He may see himself in anothers Fear vvhich betrays the soul I may say scarce leaves a soul leaves not as Augustine speaks cor in corde a heart in a heart betrays it of all its succours of those helps which Reason or Scripture brings and therefore in Scripture it is said to lay hold on us to come upon us to fall upon us to fall upon us as a mountain or Hill A burden certainly it is and we lye buried under it not able to move hand or foot not able to look towards that which might rid and ease us of it but looking towards some Hill to hide us or mountain to cover us Doth any man ly under this weight Every man may One tells another what his condition is Again one may see himself in anothers Grief which is another burthen that presseth down Why art thou cast down Psal 42. saith David O my soul bowed down as with a burden And Psalm 40. Innumerable evils have taken hold of me I feal the weight upon my Head for so the phrase signifies For heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop saith his son Solomon incurvat bows it crookeneth it casts it down it dries the bones it dims the eyes it dulls the spirits it deads the Heart it weakens the memory it takes the man from the man and makes him like unto those who have been dead long ago In grief we know not what to do we do we know not what The hands hang down the knees are weak the eye is on the ground What part is there of the body what faculty of the soul that can look up And such is Man such is every man Is any man then every man may be thus cast down Alii alios one tells another what his condition is Yet turther one may see himself in anothers Complaints and Repinings Fear and Sorrow are the mother and the nurse that begin and foment all Murmuring which is nothing else but a kind of distaste and grudging of the mind Why dost thou set me up as a mark saith Job Why do thy terrours affright me Why hast thou cast me off saith David Why go I so heavily all the day long Imperari dolori silentium non potest Fear and Grief will be asking of questions cannot be silent This is the foul ill-favoured issue of Fear and Grief a Giant that fights against Heaven a Monster that breaths its poyson in the very face of God I call it a Monster For it is begotten of divers passions which meeting and ingendring in the heart bring it forth to quarrel the wisdome and question the providence of God to censure his counsels and condemn his proceedings Why should the heathen and the people imagine a vain thing Why should my enemy live and my friend dye why should wicked men prosper in their wayes and the righteous be trodden under foot Why should Pharaoh sit on a throne and the Israelites labour at the brick-kil This doth Fear and Grief force out of the heart and out of this abundance the mouth speaketh And such is man such is every man Doth one man complain and murmur Another may And he that speaks to his heart to comfort him may have the same luctations and swellings in his which may at last break forth into the like murmurings and complaints One man sees the changeableness of his mortal condition in another sees that he may be every thing and that as the Psalmist speaks he is nothing In his best condition and in his worst condition another man is his glass In anothers sickness he may see that disease which may seize on himself In anothers poverty he may behold his own riches with winges In anothers disgrace he may perceive his own honour falling to the ground And in anothers death he may read his own mortality and look upon himself as a living dying man In what appearance or representation soever he beholds another he sees either a picture or prophesie of himself When he sees a Man a man of sorrows a man of fears a man breathing forth complaints a man washing his couch with his tears those streams of bloud which issue forth from a wounded heart he beholds himself One mans necessities are but a lesson and an argument which plainly demonstrate what another man may be They are also a silent and powerful appeal to his Compassion and a secret beseeching him to do unto him as he would be done unto in the like case to be of the same mind which certainly he will be when with this Lazar he lyes at the gates of another ONE ANOTHER is of a large extent and compass takes in the whole Church I may say takes in the whole world makes it a Church without which it were but a scatterd multitude makes it a World without which it were but a Chaos and a confusion One is divers from another and that we can hardly distinguish them they are so like a circle whose every part is like unto every part and whose every part should be united in love as in a point I need not carry this consideration further It is so obvious and visible that every eye sees it which the God of this world hath not blinded We may run and read it in that relation in which men stand one to another as Men. Nature it self hath hewed and fashioned out all mankind as it were out of the same quarry and rock into a body or society as a City Compact within it self Isay 51 1. Look unto the rock out of which you are hewn and to the hole of the pit whence you are digged Look to the common seed-plot and matter out of which you were all extracted and there you shall see that neer relation which is between one and the another how one man and every man which makes one man as every man and every man as that one is not onely a child of Corruption and kin to the Worm and Rottenness but the workmanship of an immortal Hand of an unlimitted Power who hath built up one and every one in his image and according to his likeness Which image though it may be more resplendent and improved in one then another yet is that impression which is stampt on all One man and every man hath the same image and superscription From the same rock and vein are hewn out the weak and feeble man and Ish the man of strength From the same hand is the face we turn away from and the face which we so gaze on Of the same extraction are the poor and the rich For we are neither

cruelty can there be then to have a box of oyntment in our hand and not to pour it forth on him that languisheth but leave him dying and say we wish him well No to Comfort is to restore and set one another at rights again the Erring by counsel the Weak by assistance the Poor by supply the Sorrowful by sweet and seasoanble argument and perswasion Otherwise it is not comfort For what comfort is that which leaves us comfortless which leaves the Ignorant in his darkness the Poor in want the Weak on the ground and the Sorrowful man in his gulf LOQUIMINI AD COR Speak to the Heart If we speak not to the heart to lift up that our words are wind Comfort by Counsel is very useful for those who mourn in Sion Rei infinitatem ejicere optima medicina To bound the cause of mens grief to remove those many circumstances which increase and multiply it and so to bring it in as it is and shew what little cause men have to grieve is the best Physick in this particular Our present and future condition our Mortality and our Resurrection are of force enough to wipe all tears from our eyes and to make our Grave appear as a house of rest rather then as a pit of destruction But this is but one particular in which we are obliged to this duty Comforting one another Charity hath more hands then Briareus and more eyes then Argus She hath an eye on every one that is as the Canonist speaketh persona miserabilis a miserable and wretched person She hath a hand on every sore and malady And yet she hath but one hand and one eye but reached forth and rowling on every corner of the earth where storms arise ready to slumber and becalm them Now to Comfort is a work of Charity and Charity hath a double act actum elicitum and actum imperatum an inward act and outward and the latter is the perfecting and consummation of the former For what a poor empty Thing is a Thought or a Word without a Hand and what an uncharitable Thing is Comfort without Compassion then I truly comfort my brother when my Hand is active as well as my Heart And yet if they be true they are never severed For if the Bowels yearn the Hand will stretch it self forth and those comforts which are sincere and real are nothing else but the largess and donatives of the Heart It was a speech of a churl in Plautus familiam alere non possum misericordiâ Compassion and Charity will not feed a family But the Christian is the better husband Qui spargit ecclesiae colligit sibi He that scattereth his comforts to the distressed gathereth for himself and in a religious policy by emptying his store filleth his garners This was the practice and the policy of the first and purest times verba in opera vertere to turn words into works that they might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 words of comfort but quickned and enlivened with action Frequent visitation of the sick sustentation of the needy gratulations and benedictions speak plainly the sickness and the heat of their Charity and upbraid the verbal Religion of these latter times which breaths forth ayre instead of comfort and talks of the way to heaven but never treads in it That was Comfort indeed which clothed the naked and fed the hungry made the dry stick blossome and revived the drooping spirits as Jacobs were revived when he saw the chariots which his son Joseph had sent To draw towards a conclusion We must well consider from what principle this Act is wrought from what spring it moves For we may think we do it when we do not so much as think to do it We may give scorn and contempt for comfort or comfort with scorn and contempt which is panis lapidosus bread made up with gravel that will trouble us in taking it down Our comfort may proceed from a hollow heart and then it is but a sound and the mercy of a bloudy Pharisee It may be ministred through a trumpet and then it is lost in that noyse Nay it may be an act of cruelty to make Cruelty more cruel as we read of an Emperour that did never pronounce sentence of death sine perfectione clementiae but with a preface of Clemency a well-worded mild prologue before a Tragedy Lastly Comfort may be the product of Fear We may be free in our comforts for fear of offence and help one that we displease not another And what pitty is it that so free and noble a virtue as Charity should be enslaved But indeed Charity is not bound nor is that Charity which is beat out with the hammer and wrought out of us by force All these are false principles Pride Hypocrisie Vain-glory Fear and Charity issues from these as water through mud and is defiled in the passage Therefore it is best raised on the Law of Nature and on the royal Law of Grace These are pillars that will sustein it Remember them that be in adversity as being your selves also in the body Hebr. 13.3 in a body mortal and corruptible a body of the same mould 1 Cor. 15.53 like to that which you cherish and uphold And then we are to love and comfort one another even as Christ loved us saith the Apostle Christ is our pattern our motive the true principle of Charity and what is done it should be though it be but the gift of a cup of cold water which is done in his name Then the waters of comfort flow kindly and sweetly when they relish of a bleeding heart and the bloud of a merciful Redeemer Then this act is mightily performed when we do it as the sons of Adam and as the members of Christ Acts 17.26 when we do it as men of one bloud and of one common faith Tit. 2.4 And now to conclude Let us do it yea let us be ambitious to do it For as we have great motives so we have many occasions sad occasions to draw it forth Day unto day uttereth knowledge Every day presents us with some object or other And Occasion they say will make a thief why should it not make a Comforter If it can work out evil out of a corrupt I see no reason why it should not work out this good out of a compassionate heart why it should not work that compassion in us which will stream forth in rivers of comfort Shall Occasion be no where powerful but in evil I remember Chrysologus speaking of the Rich man in the Gospel tells us that God did on purpose cast Lazarus down at his gate that he might be pietatis conflatorium as a forge to melt his iron bowels Tot erant pauperis ora quot vulnera he had so many mouths to bespeak and admonish the rich man as he had sores and wounds His whole body and his ulcerated flesh was as a stage prepared and fitted for Compassion and

heaven We will therefore proceed to the next point the Meanes we must use to remain in this Law of liberty And 1. we must not forget what we hear 2. we must do the work We shall but lightly touch and paraphrase them and so draw towards a conclusion I. That vve may remain we must not be forgetful hearers For as it is true qui obscurè loquitur tacet he that speaketh darkly or as S. Paul speaketh in an unknown tongue is as if he were ●umb and silent so he that heareth and forgetteth is as if he were deaf Both fall short of that end for which Speech and Hearing were ordained This is to take up water in a sieve to let in and out nay to let in and loath and in this reciprocal intercourse of Hearing and Forgetting to spin out the thred of our life and at the end thereof to look for Blessedness which is due onely to the doing of the work This is to give the Law of Liberty no more space to breathe in then from the pulpit to our pew from the Preacher's mouth to our ear No If we vvill remain in it we must hear and not forget that is we must remember it bind it as a sign upon our hand and as frontlets between our eyes which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unmoveable write it on the posts of our doors Deut. 6.8 nay write it in our hearts and by continual meditation make it more visible more clear more appliable then before make that which written i● but a dead letter or spoken is but a sound of power and energy to quicken and enliven us make this Law as powerful as the voice of God when he teareth the rocks and breaketh the cedars of Libanus mighty through God to cast down imaginations and to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of it self And this is to look upon it as the Priest did upon his Breast-plate upon the Urim and Thummim to direct vvhat to do and vvhat not to do when to go out against the enemy and vvhen to shun him when to encounter a temptation vvhen to flye from it Thus vve set it up in defence of it self set it up against that alluring Vanity which may steal away our Love against that Doubt that Suggestion vvhich may enfeeble our Hope against that Temptation vvhich may shake our Faith and so keep us in it keep us in all our vvayes that we forsake not our station This is to hear indeed Audire est aedificare saith Augustine To hear is to build up and settle our selves in this Law of Liberty Mens videt mens audit as Epicharmus said It is the Mind that seeth and the Mind that heareth Without it the Eye it self is blind and the Ear deaf of no use at all when they end in themselves II. We must not onely hear the Word and remember it but do the work by a religious Alchymy verba in opera v●rtere turn Words into Works that they may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 words quickned and enlivened with action And this will make our soul like unto the Law signe and characterize it with it this will drive it home as a nail fastened by the Masters of the assemblies make it enter the soul and the spirit the joints and the marrow This is as the Philosopher speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to try and exercise the mind by frequent actions or as St. Paul to exercise our selves unto all godliness 1 Tim. 4.7 Et quantum valet exercitatio as Aeschylus cried out at a sword-●●ght O the force and power of practice and exercise The people are troubled and the wounded man is silent As Experience is a multiplication of particular remembrances so is a Habit which is a second Nature a body as it were made up of many actions Piety and Religion is increased and confirmed by use And as the painful Bee in opere nascitur is bred in the honey it maketh so is Goodness raised and exalted in the work that it doth Every good act is a degree to another Every portion of Grace is generative nourisheth it self and if it be not hindred begetteth a numerous issue Patience begetteth experience experience hope hope Rom. 5.4 confidence As it was said of Alexander Unaquaeque victoria instrumentum sequentis Every conquest he gained made way to a new one so every step we make in the way to happiness bringeth us not only so far in our way but enableth us with strength to go forward The further we go the more active we are He that denieth his Hunger will not hearken to his Lust He that is harsh to his appetite in one request will more easily put it off in a second He that strugleth with a temptation now will anon chase it away He that is liberal to the poor may in time sell all that he hath and at last lay down his life for the Gospel Some we see there be who for want of exercise and experience are shaken with every wind with every breath with shews and apparitions and are overthrown with a look either of allurement or terrour who know not what temptations mean and so suffer them to work and steal nearer upon them till they enter into their souls nay they are ready to tempt Temptation it self and greedily invite that to them which will destroy them Others there are who by frequent exercise and assiduous luctation and striving with themselves have gained such an habit of Piety and so subdued the Flesh to the Spirit that they find no such great difficulty in the combat but rejoyce as mighty men to run the race To them Musick is a sound and no more Gold but a clod of earth Beauty bur a vanishing colour They look upon shining temptations and are not taken upon the blackest temptations and are not dismayed but stand and remain in that Law of Liberty to which they were called free from the guilt of sin and so free from the dominion of sin that they slight its terrours and deny its flatteries defie and keep it out not only when it threatneth but when it fawneth and beggeth an entrance Such is the power of this spiritual Exercise such advantage we have by our continued obedience and doing the work The Hebrew Doctours have found out a double Crown Auditionis and Operis one for Hearing another for the Work I would not the Ear should lose its ornament yet sure Obedience and the Doing of the work have the especial promise of the crown It is S. Paul's doctrine Not the hearers of the Law are just before God Rom. 2.13 but the doers of the Law shall be justified For conclusion then Beloved let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and let us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 patiently remain in it Let us not give it a lodging in the hollow of the Ear for so it will not long stay with us but the next

actions are sometimes to be forborn if they be not expedient 639. 1102. Laws necessary for Man 1066. Laws still are framed and given by the prevailing party 1070. Reasons why humane Laws must needs be defective 121. 131. If we will be just we must do many things that mens L. enjoyn not 121. Many wayes to pervert and elude the Laws 122. 132. The Law of Nature more firm and binding then any written Law 124. 127 128. How far it carried some Heathen 1083 1084. Laws of Men and Laws of God compared 168. 228. 230. The Law of God is perfect 1088. but not so perfect as the Gospel 1078. Christ came not to dissolve the Law either of Nature or of Moses 1068. What arguments some Gospellers use to shake off the yoke of the Law 1068. Some will not allow Christ to be a Law-giver nor his Gospel a Law 1068 c. What a world of Laws are they subject to that will not obey Christs 1070 1071. Christ hath reformed and enlarged the Law and exacteth far more of us then the Law did 1078 1079. 1098. The Law of Christ teacheth us to look higher then the natural man could sore 1084. Christ's Laws as well as Mans have their force and life from Rewards and Punishments 390. 1122. Their nature and excellent effects 1067. Whether God's Laws may be exactly and fully obeyed 109 c. v. Gospel Many think Law and Liberty contrary things and that they are never free but when lawless 1099. But there is no liberty but under some Law 1099. ¶ Lawgivers the Disciples of God 106. v. GOD. Lev. x. 10. 1033. ¶ xix 17. 293. Libellatici 1121. Libertines errours confuted 392 c. v. Papists Liberty Our Christian Liberty wherein it consisteth 1097 c. Many abuse it 640. 1103. It is restrained by Sobriety Charity Autority 638 c. 1101 c. Men love to hear of Christian L. but not to have it confined 691. Doctrines of Liberty though true yet are not to be pressed 618. How to stand fast in our Christian Liberty 1103. How Law and Liberty can both be said of the Gospel 1099. c. Obedience to Law is Liberty to Angels to Men to the inanimate Creatures 1100. Lie The Persians told their children they might lie to their enemies but not to their friends 134. Life of Man short and uncertain 356. It is too pretious a thing to be prodidally flung away for a trifle 705 706. but it must be willingly parted with for Righteousness sake 706. We live not indeed till our new birth 1003. London's privileges and London's sins 422 423. 920. D. Longinus 103. LORD This word expresseth the Majesty and Greatness of God 103. and remembreth us of our allegeance 114. If we will not own Christ for our Lord he will not be our Saviour 760 c. 1072. v. Christ Jesus Love v. Charity Christ God Love is the most eminent and potent among the Affections 66. 550 551. It s mighty force 23. 66. 75. 192 193. It setteth all the other Affections on work 550 551. It is like Fire 550 743. Love Worldly and Godly 338. Love of our Selves how dangerous 856 857. v. Self-love They who love the World have no Love to God or Man 890 891. v. World How strangely Love blindeth the Judgment 670. That which we love is either our joy or our grief 570. Love both in God and Man is accompanied with Jealousie 743. What it is to love God 1012. Its effects in the soul 1013. It is the noblest motive to duty 395. 743. It maketh a man earnest and chearfull in duty 843 c. Where Love is cold and defective there is an irregular and inconstant behaviour 845. It may stand with Fear 394. v. Fear If not tempered with Fear it may be too bold 396. 399. Love coupleth not onely Men but also Faith and Hope together 242. 736. Love hath the advantage of Knowledge 977. It is better to love good then to do it 149. Not to love that which is good is to hate it 689 690. What a strange strait St. Paul's Love of Christ brought him into 1006 c. 1010. Our Love should be fixed on the Truth 672. Love of the Truth will not onely burn within us but also shine forth to others 551 c. Our Love of God hath inseparably united to it the Love of our Brethren 1009. To love them that love us is but the rudiments of Charity Christians have an higher an harder lesson 1087. Love of our Brother how to be shewn 576 c. Luk. xi 41. 831. ¶ xii 4 5. 394. ¶ 32. 397. ¶ xiv 13 14. 690. ¶ xvi 25 617. ¶ xvii 10. 1092. ¶ xix 41 c. 359. 795 c. ¶ xxii 42. 266. Lust v. Ignorance Luther 526. 682. Lutheranes depend no less on Luther then the Papists do on the Pope or on their Church 682. The reply of a Prince to the Lutheranes 1070. Luxurie Unnecessary Arts at first the daughters now the nurses of Luxurie 219. Lycurgus 231. 301. M. MAd-men v. Fools Majesty what 311. Maldonate's spite against Calvine 922. He rejected an interpretation that he held best onely because Calvine's 671. Malice and Ign. misconstrue every thing 961 962. 965 966. But their mis-interpretations will not prevail against the Truth 963. Malice against the Truth is downright or interpretative and both must be cast away 688 c. Man created and preserved by God and vvhy 104 105. 107. 115 116. 647. 649. Why created so excellent a creature 87. 647. His beauty and perfection consisteth in obedience and conformity to God 107. Man is a most goodly creature if not transformed by sin 125 135. By sin he is become worse then any Beast 378. How degenerated from his original and how to be restored 782. How weak and indigent 313. 938. How uneven and changeable 383. 773. How subject to chance 936. Other creatures can attein their ends of themselves but Man cannot without a guide 1066. How Christ hath honoured Man and how he ought to honour himself 218. He is too excellent a creature to mind earthly things 647 c. 653. He is a voluntary agent in the work of his conversion 435 436. 584-587 Man is a fair mirrour to behold God in 125. He is a theatre where the Flesh and the Spirit are fighting continually 312. 767. Every Man is a glass for another to see himself in 936 937. All have one common extraction 938. In Nature's Heraldry all Men are equal 279. All by nature are brethren and therefore should help and not hurt one another 123. 938. Arguments to move us thereunto 938. What helps Nature hath supplied Man with 939. His Body and Soul opposit each to other 159. His Mind curious and restless 218. 248. It should not be overtasked 249. What it is that can satisfie him 90 91. 786. Impossible for Man to equal God 1087. He is not to be accounted a Man who wanteth reason 96. The fickleness of Man's

mind whence 554. Men love to hide their sins and to make shew of their good deeds 167 168. Man is never free but while he is obedient to Law 1100 c. v. Liberty How Man is Lord of all his actions 257. Man ever laid open to tentations how and why 280. Few Men fully perswaded of their mortality 250 251. Manichees 8. 165. 171. 412. 705. 752. Many v. Multitude Marcion 8 9. 21. 23. 246. 390. 412. 808. Marie the Mother of our Lord a blessed person 985. Some will not call her Saint 986. Others make her more 986. Mark xiv 36. expounded 25. Marriage v. Husband Perfection may be had as well in a Married as in a single life 1090. The inconveniencies of Marriage nothing so dangerous as Sin 1090. Martyrdome An excellent encomium of it 754. How to be armed for Martyrdome 192. A good life and a good cause go to the making of a Martyr 705. Their gallant and triumphant carriage in their sufferings 26. 568 569. Fear of hell made them so couragious 391. v. Sufferings Every Christian is designed to Martyrdome 573. There may be a Martyrdome before Martyrdome 82. The Devil and Errour have their Martyrs as well as God and the Truth 704 705. 912. Some slain for throwing down Images not allowed the title of Martyrs 215. Massalians 705. Mass-book Some condemn some truths because they are in the Mass-book 671. Masters of families Their Duty 545. Mathematicks No such certainty to be looked for in Ethicks as in M. 1015. Matth. v. 22 28 32 34 39 44. 1079. ¶ 48. 1087. how eluded 690. ¶ vi 25 34. 222. ¶ vii 12. 127. ¶ viii 26. 314. ¶ x. 16. 130. ¶ xi 30. 481. ¶ xxii 30. 939. ¶ xxiv Christ's Sermon in this chapter concerning the signes of his second coming nearly concerneth us 1042 1043. Matrimonie and Virginity weighed together 1090. Meaning A good Meaning or intention a poor excuse for sin 443. 447 448. Means v. End Many gaze and dote on the Means and regard not the end 988 989. Means if not made good use of turne to our great disadvantage 424. 555. Measures v. Weights Meats now under the Gospel may be indifferently used or not used 1098. Mecenas 383. Mechanick A witless etymon of the word 522. Meddling with other mens matters reproved 212. 640 641. It is against not onely the laws of Christianity 213. but also the method of Nature 214 216. Meddling busy-busy-bodies are enemies to others and themselves also 215. They are ridiculous and prodigious 216. Idleness is the root of this vice 218. Meditation on good things how advantageous 206. 691. It is to be seconded by Practice 207. Meditation what 597. 1107. Memorie Of the Memorie 828. What a gratious efficacie the Memorie of God's Mercy hath upon the soul 828 829. Our Memories are apt to forget God's mercies and have need of reviving 589. 596. ¶ What care vvas taken to preserve the Memorie of the Saints 1019. Mercy praised 138. 147. It is an inseparable companion of Justice 138 139. We are as much bound to do acts of Mercy as not to do an injurie 139. 142 143. Nothing more sutable to the Nature of Man then Mercy 140. Mercy maketh Man like unto God 279. What influence God's Mercy and ours have one upon another 815. v. Forgiveness Mercy maketh a sympathie and harmonie in the Church 141. Why worldly men like it not 142. It is often rewarded in this life but in the next infallibly 143. The M. of the primitive Christians how far beyond ours 144 145. Less danger to exceed herein then to fall short 145. Distinctions coyned to elude Texts that enjoyn Mercy 146. Compassion the spring of Mercy 147. 149. v. Almes To love Mercy what 150. Mercie is natural 150. constant 151. sincere 152. delightful 153. Objects of Mercy appear every where 154. Motives to Mercy 153. Our Mercy to others is the rent God respecteth for his M. to us 154. God's Mercy and his Justice reconciled by Christ's Death and our Repentance 347. Why the antient Fathers were so profuse yet sparing tenderers of God's Mercy 349 350. The Mercy of God fearfully abused by some 276. Make not Mercy an occasion of sin 352 353. Mercy and Judgment should compose our song 353. Judgement followeth Mercy at the heels 360. v. GOD. The use we should make of God's Mercies 579. 590. 1072. Sins after Mercy the greater 612 613. Mercy is of most efficacie to humble our hearts 643. Merits The doctrine of Merits overthrown 812 813. 1126. All we can do or suffer is far short of meriting heaven 233. 993. 1126. Messias Christ is not such a Messias as the Jews looked for and as some worldly-minded Christians frame to themselves 33. A glorious Messiah was exspected by the Jews 553 554. 559. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 336. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 336. Metaphors fruitfull of controversie 46. Their use 229. Metellus Numidicus 668. Method and Order how necessarie to be followed 885. as necessarie in Christ's School as in humane Arts and Sciences 68. 947. Want of Method what mischief it worketh in the world 892. c. 945 946. Meum and Tuum quarrelsome vvords 840. Milk by some not allowed to be eaten 752. Mind v. Man The Mind is the Man and the action too 622 623. It cannot intend several things at once 509. Whether it be not necessarie that the Mind should still fluctuate and be lost in uncertainties 678. The Mind is apt to be dazled with some lesser good vvhen it should be intent upon far greater 988 989. Ministers must not flatter 511 512. v. Flattery Miracles v. Conversion The end and use of Miracles 572 c. 957 c. 968 969. 978. 988. In respect of the Agent properly there is no Miracle 969. Why M. are now ceased 970. Of Popish Miracles 970. He that will not believe the Word vvould not believe a Miracle 734. 970. What Christ did in person he doth still spiritually by his Church 970. Christ's Miracles preferred before Moses's 978. Christ's M. were supernaturall publick quick perfect 979. Miracles should fill us with admiration 979. Miracles may be scoffed at by profane men 956 c. Miserie to be chosen rather then Iniquity 127. Mockery Most mens conversation is but a Mockery of God 919 c. 958. How vvicked men are said to mock God vvho in very deed cannot be mocked 923 c. God will return the Mock upon them that mock him 925. v. Scoff Moderation to be observed 56. Moderation in the pursuit of Knowledge commended 248. Modestie in apparel to be used 1101. Monitours vve should be to one another 576. Monks and Friars censured 220. v. Perfection Solitarie Montanus 65. 752. Morality scorned and derided by speculative hypocrites 83. Morall Laws v. Ceremonie Morall virtues are not natural 199. but must be studied and laboured for 205. Of the Morall virtues of the Heathen 663. v. Heathen Morose v. Christianity Mortality Of our Mortality 538. How little believed