their disordered appetites Ask if they find not themselves uneasy when they consider how short and low their pleasure is compared with the irksom diseased shamefulness of their sin See how heavily the Ambitious proud person walks between his eager desires and doubtful expectations under his false hopes and true fears and then judge whether his wearisom days and restless nights can bring him any true content Should I instance in the idle Gallant whose time like a burthen lies upon his hands or in the contentious wrangler or unpeaceable brawler the secret whisperer or the open detractor I should tire your patience sooner than want a proof that sin is a wearisom uneasy heavy restless burthen and that it is necessary by the way of virtue to come unto Christ for ease and Rest The Angel in Tobit bids Tobias take out the gall of the fish to cure his blindness if we rip the bowels of worldly sinful lusts and pleasures and take out the gall of them that is to say seriously look upon the bitterness they bring with them and the gall and wormwood they leave behind them it may prove a remedy of our Spiritual blindness yet such is our short-sightedness that we think we are at ease under our load and at Rest in our sore Travel Sin turns all things up side down it sets Earth above and Heaven below Reason at the footstool and brutish appetite on the Throne and having thus lookt downward for our Rest and happiness we are ashamed to look Heaven in the face and having lost Heaven for Earth by sin we look downward still as fearing that Hell which we have so well deserved and this is it which makes Men suffer all sorts of diseases the Gout the Stone Tooth-aches and all kind of Tortures rather than die because ill led lives leave Men under anxious fears and sad doubtings what shall be their future state When Tamberlin commanded all Leprous persons to be put to death lest they should lead a miserable life the poor Lepers thought his mercy cruel and would have endured more willingly two Leprosies than one death not because of any great comfort they took in their lives but because they knew not what might follow after death To lose this life without assurance or hopeful probability of a better is doleful and bitter but to lose it with assurance from Gods own Mouth of a far worse of incurring an eternal death anguish and pain without mitigation this makes death deadly indeed when the sinner must die again for the sin he dies in when the first death leads to a second and when all the terrors and sorrows and pains of the first death are but the evidences of more or worse to follow when the fire that 's now begun to be kindled will burn down to the lowest hell Deut. 32.22 If we believe this in good earnest why do we not hate sin worse than death Because sin is the cause of all this the cause of death and all that is deadly It makes us liable to a dreadful account at the day of Judgment and makes our whole life restless and uneasy This being so how dare we trifle away one day or hour more of that term or time of Trial upon which though so short and so uncertain depends such a life and such a death such joys and such sorrows such rest and such disquiet to all eternity Methinks if Heaven cannot allure us with all the joys and blessed eternal Rest there to be had Hell might affright us with its dreadful sufferings into our duty and compel us to make God at least our last refuge if not our first choice No loss so great as the loss of God and the Kingdom of Heaven and that Rest we are there invited to No Prison so loathsom as the bottomless pit of horror and darkness No sight so ghastly as that of frightful fiends No shriekings so terrible as those of damned Ghosts No stench so noisom as that of the lake of fire and brimston No fire so hot as of the wrath of God which puts the sinner into chains never to be loosed into darkness never to be enlightened and gives him gnashing of teeth never to be remedied gnawing vipers never to be pulled off and this makes up such a mass of woes such a deadly death as exceeds all humane eloquence to express much more all patience to endure Now to avoid all this St. Paul tells us Heb. 12.1 what we must do we must lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us and run with patience the race that is set before us running the way of Gods Commandements which St. Paul calls here a race is the way to this everlasting Rest therefore let us so run that we may obtain it and then our recompence is a Crown of life if we slothfully neglect it our punishment is Tribulation and anguish endless and intolerable the worm of conscience that never dies the fire of hell that never goes out Were we left to the glimmering suspicious light of natural reason as most Nations were of old and many are still to guess at the way that leads to this everlasting Rest or to find it out by a painful enquiry through many difficulties and impediments of a contrary erroneous Education we were by far the more excusable but when by the mercy of God we have the Gospel sounding in our Ears and the way to this Rest chalkt out before our Eyes in holy Scripture and lively Oracles with all the powerful perswasive motives of hope and love inviting us to it on the one hand and all the cogent constraining motives of threats and fear to drive us to it hearten'd on with promises assistances and instructions on the other hand what pretence of excuse can we have that we should fall short of this Rest But some are often enquiring what is the lowest degree of holiness faith and obedience that is consistent with the escaping of hell or hope of Heaven They would know what is the lowest rate that Heaven and eternal Rest will come at The greatest part of those that would be resolved in this enquiry are of a most disingenuous unworthy disposition for when God hath obliged us by so many mercies assistances encouragements and rewards thus to beat down as low as they can the price of all his kindness and bounty 't is a dangerous sign that he that seeks heaven and happiness so faintly will not seek it long for we Sail against Tide in our Voyage to Heaven and earnest diligence is required in the passage thither but if we begin to lay aside our Sails and Oares we shall by the very stream of our nature the world and the flesh be carried backward to perdition The way to Heaven is upward but the ground is falling that we tread on and the heaviness of our nature doth perpetually expose us to relapses 'T is very probable that he that is so jealous and wary
a bowing to our Lord Jesus when he is named we have been often told is what they bring as their greatest proof of superstition and will-worship whereas the last is manifestly no more than to glorify with the body or knee at sometime that which is lawful to do at any time to whom God hath commanded us to bow our souls and bodies and that to the glory of the Father And to think that a Surplice is more superstitious than a Gown or other garment which God hath neither Commanded nor forbidden is it self a great superstition Nor can that or the signing with the Cross be with any colour of truth or reason called will-worship which the Church professeth she useth not as any part of Gods Worship but as an indifferent yet decent ceremony to signify and teach Man with not to Worship God with and what is not owned as any Worship cannot surely be called Will-worship But when all is done is this all that must keep us at everlasting difference and separation Can they strein at such Gnats or rather startle at such shadows of Dreams in their own phansies yet swallow such Camels as disobedience to lawful superiors in Church and State The hanious breach of Unity and Charity peace and order in one and the other exposing both to the common enemy first to deride reproach and despise us then to undermine and ruine us How many Papists how many Hereticks of several sorts yea how many Atheists and scornful deriders of all Religion have these our causeless obstinate divisions bred amongst us And shall not these dreadful effects of Schism at length affright us into Unity Wo be to them by whom these offences come and wo be to them by whose default they still continue Wo to them that have so torn the Church in pieces that now the great things of the Gospel of Christ which God hath written with the Pen of a Diamond or Sun beam are either neglected or called in question while they contend without bowels of pity mercy or piety write in gall and fight in blood for such things as are at the best but Hay and Stubble compared with the precious foundation of our Religion God grant both us and them while it is time if yet it be so wisdom and grace to know and follow the things belonging to our peace here and hereafter and to take Christ's Yoak upon us and learn of him who was meek and lowly in heart that so we may find Rest unto our Souls And let us do this the rather because what health is to the body or calmness to the Sea such is peace and concord to a Church and State But should it be asked of us as Joram did of Jehu is it peace Jehu we must answer now as he did then what peace so long as our rents and divisions our separatists and dissenters are so many Our Saviour foresaw and prophesied of these very days in which we live inimici domestici ones foes shall be they of ones own houshold perditio tua ex te Jerusalems sorrows are from her own Sons What contentions so sharpe and lasting as those which arise amongst Brethren The nearer the Relation the greater the feude and the farther off usually from reconciliation Witness the sad breaches which too often happen between persons solemnly conjoyned by the strictest ties and bonds of amity above and before any other I mean the Married Couple who might come in and claim their portion of this eternal Rest who are presumed to assist each other in all the great affairs of life whose joys are or might be doubled and their sorrows abated by a mutual bearing of each others good or adverse fortune insomuch that when their scene of life is come to an end and the Curtain drawn they may lay them down in peace and change the labour of a weary life for the joys of a blessed eternal Rest But how much otherwise falls it often out even between these dearest friends What bitter complainings are frequently heard in our streets from Persons joyned in holy Wedlock when but once disaffected to one another The unruly torrent of dissentions oft times runs so high that the Man hates his own flesh and the Woman man makes head against her Husband and these though sacredly conjoyn'd and made one become two again so bitterly divided that no wholsom words nor sage counsel can ever sweeten or reconcile them For prevention of this great unkind mischief which so often happens amongst us and so much hinders that Rest and quiet here that much conduceth to a blessed endless Rest hereafter Men should do well wisely to consider that whoso enters the State of Marriage casts a Dye of the greatest contingency and yet of the greatest concern in the World next to that of Eternity it self Deliberandum diu quod statuendum semel Men had need consider well of that which must be resolved on once for all and must either bring a great and lasting content and happiness or trouble and misery as lasting as life it self A Woman indeed ventures most for she hath no Sanctuary to retire to from the sad misfortune of an ill choice she must dwell upon her sorrow and hath no appeal from his unkindness but that of Subjects from Tyrant Princes Prayers and Tears and though the Man hath more diversions yet when it comes to his turn to lie under this unremediable sadness he must return to it again and whilst he is sitting amongst his Neighbours he remembers the objection in his bosom and sighs deeply It hath been the unhappy chance of many who enter the honourable state of Marriage upon some dishonourable aims or other to be bound to sorrow and vexation for many years by the Cords of their Consorts peevish disorder and the worst of the evil is they are to thank their own follies for making no better choice For God and goodness were less in their thoughts and had less interest in their choice than mony to gratify their worldly covetousness or beauty their inordinate lust Men and Women change their liberty of single life for a rich fortune prefer Gold before virtue and shew themselves to be less than money by valuing it more than the wise content and lasting felicity of their lives and when they have counted their money and sorrows well over how willingly would they buy with the loss of all that money modesty sweetness of conversation temperance and faithfulness in their Consort But they are chained with the fetters they chose and they are no whit the less chains nor the easier for being made of Gold or Silver but sometimes the worse Nor doth he honour Marriage aright who chooseth it only or principally for beauty Cui sunt eruditi oculi sed stulta mens Whose Eyes are judicious but his soul and thoughts sensually foolish A little thread of red and white is an ill band of Conjugal affections to tie hearts together in all conditions till death since their
love is nor can it be any better or more durable than its cause and they are fond of each other as long as phansie and health lasts But sickness child-bearing care time and any thing almost that destroys a flower may destroy that love which at the best is but earthly and sensual He that will find Rest and quiet in his Conjugal State here must begin it with God and goodness with wise and virtuous designs Then is Marriage honourable indeed when good and fair intentions conduct and manage it The preservation of a Family the production of Children the avoyding of fornication the refreshment of a wise and virtuous society all these are honourable ends Society was the first designed it is not good for Man to be alone Children the next increase and multiply The avoiding Fornication the last and that will be hardly avoide by Marriage unless you chuse such a Consort whom you can love in all conditions and outward changes The first makes Marriage delightful the second necessary to the publick the third to this or that particular Person The first makes the Mans heart glad the second is a friend to Families Cities and Kingdoms Churches and Heaven the third is an enemy to Hell and an Antidote to the chiefest inlet to damnation To have a lasting quiet and sure content in the Conjugal life it is prudent and useful that all offences of each other be warily avoided at the first beginnings especially of their conversation An infant blossom is quickly blasted and the love of lately Married Persons is busie and tender inquisitive and jealous and apt to take a fright or alarm at every unkind word or carriage But after the hearts of Man and Wife are endeared to each other by natural confidence and experience trifling accidents cannot disturb their united affections but will vanish at the sight and remembrance of weightier obligements and so after their having lived in peace and love and joy for a while on Earth they may meet and rejoyce together in Heaven to all eternity That the Married life may prove happy Let every one love his Wife as himself saith St. Paul The Husbands power over his Wife is Fatherly and Friendly not Magisterial She that is bound to leave Father and Mother and Brother for thee is miserably abused if she find it otherwise A Mans dominion over his Wife is like that of his Soul over his body for which it takes a wise care and useth it tenderly and it is often led by its tolerable inclinations and desires save when they are evil or dangerously tending to that which is so The Government is and ought to be divided since the Woman also hath Gods Image stampt upon her and may sometimes assist and supply her Husbands wisdom And as to the Family si tu Cajus ego Caja was publickly proclaimed upon the threshold of the Husband when his Bride first enter'd under his roof and although there is a just measure of obedience due from the Wife yet that 's scarcely at all expressed in the Husbands directions in holy Scripture but all his duty is signified by love by nourishing and cherishing by honouring her as the weaker Vessel by not being bitter to her by dwelling with her according to knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be not bitter against her that 's the first and lowest signification of love A civil Person is never bitter against a stranger much less a friend that enters his roof and is secured there by the laws of Hospitality and he surely is strangely rude who useth her rudely that quits all her interest for him and is besides as much the same Person as another can be the same having the same Religion Children and Family and is fled for protection as to a Sanctuary not only to his house but to his bosom and heart Marcus Aurelius said well that a wise Man will often admonish his Wife reprove her seldom but never lay his hands upon her St. Chrisostom tells us that an Husband reviling or striking his Wife is as if a King should use his Viceroy so from whom most of that reverence and Majesty must needs depart which at first he put upon him and the Subjects will pay him the less duty by how much the rudelier the Prince hath treated him the loss redounds to the King himself and the Government will be thereby disordered and ruin'd He that loves not his Wife and Children feeds a Lyoness and breeds nothing but fears and sorrows to himself nor can blessing it self make him happy All the Commandements of God injoyning a Man to love his Wife are but so many invitations to him to be happy himself and make her and his Children so If mutual love be once secured there can be no great danger from any thing else because such love as makes the Man chast keeps the Woman also within the sober bounds of modest chastity Obedience is the Womans duty which though no where expresly enjoyned the Man to exact yet is often commanded the Woman to pay and the less it is exacted the better and more kindly is it when duly paid both in the sight of God and Man And this proclaims her humility and reverend esteem of his Wisdom and is an acknowledgment of the injunction imposed by God and though in sorrow she bring forth Children yet with love and joy she may bring them up The Womans obedience though largely extended by St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephe. 5.24 In every thing yet 't is limited by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 't is fit in the Lord Collos 3.18 The Womans duty obliges her to put on the Ornament of a meek and quiet Spirit which is in the sight of God of great price Sweetness of manners humble comportment fair interpretation of all things that are capable of it an industrious hand a silent tongue a faithful heart to his Person and Bed his Purse and Estate And that this may be done with chearfulness it is one excellent height of Christian Religion above not only the Heathens and Mahometans but the Mosaical allowances that it hath provided for Union between Man and Wife by forbidding strictly Poligamy or the having many Wifes and also hath forbidden divorce except in case of Adultery By forbidding Poligamy our Religion hath prevented all those Domestick emulations which would necessarily almost arise between a Leah and a Rachel though in Jacobs Family a Sarah and a Hagar though in Abrahams house The Mans love runs in a fuller stream because not divided into many rivolets and the Womans love and faithfulness is demanded more justly because it hath an equal proportionable answer without the provocation of any Corrival And then by forbidding divorce upon any pretence but that of Adultery it makes peace more necessary and contention more terrible seeing if they will not become a mutual comfort they must always endure that mutual torment from which they are allowed no refuge If all this be not