authority and the person and the law and the religion The sin cannot grow to its height if it be crushed at the beginning unlesse it prosper in its progresse a man cannot easily fill up the measure of his iniquity but then that the sin swels to its fulnesse by prosperity and grows too big to be suppressed without a miracle it is so far from excusing or lessening the sin that nothing doth so nurse the sin as it It is not vertue because it is prosperous but if it had not been prosperous the sin could never be so great Facere omnia saevè Non impunè licet nisi dum facis A little crime is sure to smart but when the sinner is grown rich and prosperous and powerfull he gets impunity Jusque datum sceleri But that 's not innocence and if prosperity were the voice of God to approve an action then no man were vitious but he that is punished and nothing were rebellion but that which cannot be easily suppressed and no man were a Pirate but he that robs with a little vessell and no man could be a Tyrant but he that is no prince and no man an unjust invader of his neighbours rights but he that is beaten and overthrown Then the crime grows big and loud then it calls to Heaven for vengeance when it hath been long a growing when it hath thrived under the Devils managing when God hath long suffered it and with patience in vain expecting the repentance of a sinner he that treasures up wrath against the day of wrath that man hath been a prosperous that is an unpunished and a thriving sinner but then it is the sin that thrives not the man and that is the mistake upon this whole question for the sin cannot thrive unlesse the man goes on without apparent punishment and restraint And all that the man gets by it is that by a continual course of sin he is prepared for an intollerable ruine The Spirit of God bids us look upon the end of these men not the way they walk or the instrument of that pompous death When Epaminondas was asked which of the three was happiest himself Chalrias or Iphicrates bid the man stay till they were all dead for till then that question could not be answered He that had seen the Vandals besiege the city of Hippo and have known the barbarousnesse of that unchristned people and had observed that S. Augustine withall his prayers and vows could not obtain peace in his own dayes not so much as a reprieve for the persecution and then had observed S. Augustine die with grief that very night would have perceived his calamity more visible then the reward of his piety and holy religion When Lewis firnamed Pius went his voyage to Palestine upon a holy end and for the glory of God to fight against the Saracens and Turks and Mamalukes the world did promise to themselves that a good cause should thrive in the hands of so holy a man but the event was far otherwise his brother Robert was killed and his army destroyed and himself taken prisoner and the money which by his Mother was sent for his redemption was cast away in a storm and he was exchanged for the last town the Christians had in Egypt and brought home the crosse of Christ upon his shoulder in a real pressure and participation of his Masters sufferings When Charles the fifth went to Algier to suppresse pirates and unchristned villains the cause was more confident then the event was prosperous and when he was almost ruined in a prodigious storme he told the minutes of the clock expecting that at midnight when religious persons rose to Mattins he should be eased by the benefit of their prayers but the providence of God trod upon those waters and left no footstoops for discovery his navie was beat in pieces and his designe ended in dishonour and his life almost lost by the bargain Was ever cause more baffled then the Christian cause by the Turks in all Asia and Africa and some parts of Europe if to be persecuted and afflicted be reckoned a calamity What prince was ever more unfortunate then Henry the sixt of England and yet that age saw none more pious and devout and the title of the house of Lancaster was advanced against the right of York for three descents but then what was the end of these things the persecuted men were made Saints and their memories are preserved in honour and their souls shall reigne for ever and some good men were ingaged in a wrong cause and the good cause was sometimes managed by evil men till that the suppressed cause was lifted up by God in the hands of a young and prosperous prince and at last both interests were satisfied in the conjunction of two roses which was brought to issue by a wonderful chain of causes managed by the divine providence and there is no age no history no state no great change in the world but hath ministred an example of an afflicted truth and a prevailing sin For I will never more call that sinner prosperous who after he hath been permitted to finish his businesse shall die and perish miserably for at the same rate we may envie the happinesse of a poor fisherman who while his nets were drying slept upon the rock and dreamt that he was made a King on a sudden starts up and leaping for joy fals down from the rock and in the place of his imaginary felicities loses his little portion of pleasure and innocent solaces he had from the sound sleep and little cares of his humble cottage And what is the prosperity of the wicked to dwel in fine houses or to command armies or to be able to oppresse their brethren or to have much wealth to look on or many servants to feed or much businesse to dispatch and great cares to master these things are of themselves neither good nor bad but consider would any man amongst us looking and considering before hand kill his lawful King to be heire of all that which I have named would any of you choose to have God angry with you upon these terms would any of you be a perjured man for it all A wise man or a good would not choose it would any of you die an Atheist that you might live in plenty and power I belâ—â—ve you tremble to think of it It cannot therefore be a happinesse to thrive upon the stock of a great sin for if any man should contâ—act with an impure spirit to give his soul up at a certain day it may be 2â— years hence upon the condition he might for 20. years have his vain desires should we not think that person infinitely miserable every prosperous thriving sinner is in the same condition within these twenty years he shall be thrown into the portion of Devils but shall never come out thence in twenty millions of years His wealth must needs sit uneasie upon him that remembers that within a
and to be prevented with the following cautions least a man suffers like a fool and a malefactour or inherits damnation for the reward of his imprudent suffering 1. They that suffer any thing for Christ and are ready to die for him let them do nothing against him For certainly they think too highly of martyrdom who beleeve it able to excuse all the evils of a wicked life A man may give his body to be burned and yet have no charity and he that dies without â—harity dies without God for God is love And when those who fought in the dayes of the Maccabees for the defence of true Religion and were killed in those holy warres yet being dead were found having about their necks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or pendants consecrated to idols of the Jamnenses it much allayed the hope which by their dying in so good a cause was entertained concerning their beatificall resurrection He that overcomes his fear of death does well but if he hath not also overcome his lust or his anger his baptisme of blood will not wash him clean Many things may make a man willing to die in a good cause Publike reputation hope of reward gallantry of spirit a confident resolution and a masculine courage or a man may be vexed into a stubborn and unrelenting suffering But nothing can make a man live well but the grace and the love of God But those persons are infinitely condemned by their last act who professe their religion to be worth dying for and yet are so unworthy as not to live according to its institution It were a rare felicity if every good cause could be mannaged by good men onely but we have found that evil men have spoiled a good cause but never that a good cause made those evil men good and holy If the Governour of Samaria had crucified Simon Magus for receiving Christian Baptisme he had no more died a martyr then he lived a saint For dying is not enough and dying in a good cause is not enough but then onely we receive the crown of martyrdom when our death is the seal of our life and our life is a continuall testimony of our duty and both give testimony to the excellencies of the religion and glorifie the grace of God If a man be gold the fire purges him but it burns him if he be like stubble cheap light and uselesse For martyrdom is the consummation of love But then it must be supposed that this grace must have had its beginning and its severall stages and periods and must have passed thorow labour to zeal thorow all the regions of duty to the perfections of sufferings and therefore it is a sad thing to observe how some empty souls will please themselves with being of such a religion or such a cause and though they dishonour their religion or weigh down the cause with the prejudice of sin beleeve all is swallowed up by one honourable name or the appellative of one vertue If God had forbid nothing but heresie and treason then to have been a loyall man or of a good beleef had been enogh but he that forbad rebellion forbids also swearing and covetousnesse rapine and oppression lying and cruelty And it is a sad thing to see a man not onely to spend his time and his wealth and his money and his friends upon his lust but to spend his sufferings too to let the canker-worm of a deadly sin devour his Martyrdom He therefore that suffers in a good cause let him be sure to walk worthy of that honour to which God hath called him Let him first deny his sins and then deny himself and then he may take up his crosse and follow Christ ever remembring that no man pleases God in his death who hath walked perversely in his life 2. He that suffers in a cause of God must be indifferent what the instance be so that he may serve God I say he must be indifferent in the cause so it be a cause of God and indifferent in the suffering so it be of Gods appointment For some men have a naturall aversation to some vices or vertues and a naturall affection to others One man will die for his friend and another will die for his money Some men hate to be a rebell and will die for their Prince but tempt them to suffer for the cause of the Church in which they were baptized and in whose communion they look for heaven and then they are tempted and fall away Or if God hath chosen the cause for them and they have accepted it yet themselves will choose the suffering Right or wrong some men will not endure a prison and some that can yet choose the heaviest part of the burden the pollution and stain of a sin rather then lose their money and some had rather die twice then lose their estates once In this our rule is easie Let us choose God and let God choose all the rest for us it being indifferent to us whether by poverty or shame by lingring or a sudden death by the hands of a Tyrant Prince or the despised hands of a base usurper or a rebell we receive the crown and do honour to God and to Religion 3. Whoever suffer in a cause of God from the hands of cruell and unreasonable men let them not be too forward to prognosticate evil and death to their enemies but let them solace themselves in the assurance of the divine justice by generall consideration and in particular pray for them that are our persecutours Nebuchadnezzar was the rod in the hand of God against the Tyrians and because he destroyed that city God rewarded him with the spoil of Egypt and it is not alwayes certain that God will be angry with every man by whose hand affliction comes upon us And sometimes two armies have met and fought and the wisest man amongst them could not say that either of the Princes had prevaricated either the lawes of God â—or of Nations and yet it may be some superstitious easie and half witted people of either side wonder that their enemies live so long And there are very many cases of warre concerning which God hath declared nothing and although in such cases he that yeelds and quits his title rather then his charity and the care of so many lives is the wisest and the best man yet if neither of them will do so let us not decree judgements from heaven in cases where we have no word from heaven and thunder from our Tribunals where no voice of God hath declared the sentence But in such cases where there is an evident tyranny or injustice let us do like the good Samaritan who dressed the wounded man but never pursued the thief let us do charity to the afflicted and bear the crosse with noblenesse and look up to Jesus who endured the crosse and despised the shame but let us not take upon us the office of God who will judge the Nations righteously
yet it is onely our sin that makes death to be evil And I desire this to be observed because it is of great use in vindicating the Divine justice in the matter of this question The materiall part of the evil came from our father upon us but the formality of it the sting and the curse is onely by our selves 2. For the fault of others many may become miserable even all or any of those whose relation is such to the sinner that he in any sense may by such inflictions be punished execrable or oppressed Indeed it were strange if when a plague were in Ethiopia the Athenians should be infected or if the house of Pericles were visited and Thucydides should die for it For although there are some evils which as Plutarch saith are ansis propagationibus praedita incredibili celeritate in longinquum penetrantia such which can dart evil influences as Porcupines do their quils yet as at so great distances the knowledge of any confederate events must needs be uncertain so it is also uselesse because we neither can joyne their causes nor their circumstances nor their accidents into any neighbourhood of conjunction Relations are seldome noted at such distances and if they were it is certain so many accidents will intervene that will out-weigh the efficacy of such relations that by any so far distant events we cannot be instructed in any duty nor understand our selves reproved for any fault But when the relation is neerer and is joyned under such a head and common cause that the influence is perceived and the parts of it do usually communicate in benefit notices or infelicity especially if they relate to each other as superiour and inferiour then it is certain the sin is infectious I mean not onely in example but also in punishment And of this I shall shew 1. In what instances usually it is so 2. For what reasons it is so and justly so 3. In what degree and in what cases it is so 4. What remedies there are for this evil 1. It is so in kingdoms in Churches in families in politicall artificiall and even in accidentall societies When David numbred the people God was angry with him but he punished the people for the crime seventy thousand men died of the plague and when God gave to David the choice of three plagues he chose that of the pestilence in which the meanest of the people and such which have the least society with the acts and crimes of Kings are most commonly devoured whilest the powerfull and sinning persons by arts of physick and flight by provisions of nature and accidents are more commonly secured * But the story of the Kings of Israel hath furnished us with an example fitted with all the stranger circumstances in this question Joshuah had sworn to the Gibeonites who had craftily secured their lives by exchanging it for their liberties Almost 500. yeers after Saul in zeal to the men of Israel and Judah slew many of them After this Saul dies and no question was made of it But in the dayes of David there was a famine in the land three yeers together and God being inquired of said it was because of Saul his killing the Gibeonites What had the people to do with their Kings fault or at least the people of David with the fault of Saul That we shall see anon But see the way that was appointed to expiate the crime and the calamity David took seven of Sauls sons and hanged them up against the Sun and after that God was intreated for the land The story observes one circumstance more that for the kindnesse of Jonathan David spared Mephibosheth Now this story doth not onely instance in Kingdoms but in families too The fathers fault is punished upon the sons of the family and the Kings fault upon the people of his land even after the death of the King after the death of the father Thus God visited the sin of Ahab partly upon himself partly upon his sons I will not bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house Thus did God slay the childe of Bathsheba for the sin of his father David and the whole family of Eli all his kinred of the neerer lines were thrust from the priesthood and a curse made to descend upon his children for many ages that all the males should die young and in the flower of their youth The boldnesse and impiety of Cham made his posterity to be accursed and brought slavery into the world Because Amalek fought with the sons of Israel at Rephidim God took up a quarrell against the nation for ever And above all examples is that of the Jews who put to death the Lord of life and made their nation to be an anathema for ever untill the day of restitution His blood be upon us and upon our children If we shed innocent blood If we provoke God to wrath If we oppresse the poor If we crucifie the Lord of life again and put him to an open shame the wrath of God will be upon us and upon our children to make us a cursed family and who are the sinners to be the stock and original of the curse the pedigree of the misery shall derive from us This last instance went further then the other of families and kingdoms For not onely the single families of the Jews were made miserable for their Fathers murdering the Lord of life nor also was the Nation extinguished alone for the sins of their Rulers but the religion was removed it ceased to be God peoples the synagogue was rejected and her vail rent and her privacies dismantled and the Gentiles were made to be Gods people when the Jews inclosure was disparkâ—d I need not further to instance this proposition in the case of National Churches though it is a sad calamity that is fallen upon the al seven Churches of Asia to whom the spirit of God wrote seven Epistles by Saint John and almost all the Churches of Africa where Christ was worshipped and now Mahomet is thrust in substitution and the people are servants and the religion is extinguished or where it remains it shines like the Moon in an Eclipse or like the least spark of the pleiades seen but seldom And that rather shining like a gloworm then a taper enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousnesse I shall adde no more instances to verifie the truth of this save onely I shall observe to you that even there is danger in being in evil company in suspected places in the civil societies and fellowships of wicked men Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum vulgarit arcanae sub ijsdem sit trabibus fragilemque mecum solvat phaselum saepe Diespiter Neglectus in cesto addidit in tegrum And it hapned to the Mariners who carried Jonah to be in danger with a horrid storme because Jonah was there who had sinned against the Lord. Many times the
resurrection else on no termes Christ took away sin from us but he left us our share of sufferings and the crosse which was first printed upon us in the waters of baptisme must for ever be born by us in penance in mortification in self-denial and in martyrdom and toleration according as God shall require of us by the changes of the world and the condition of the Church For Christ considers nothing but souls he values not their estate or bodies supplying our want by his providence and being secured that our bodies may be killed but cannot perish so long as we preserve our duty and our consciences Christ our Captain hangs naked upon the crosse our fellow souldiers are cast into prison torne with Lions rent in sunder with trees returning from their violent bendings broken upon wheels rosted upon gridirons and have had the honour not onely to have a good cause but also to suffer for it and by faith not by armies by patience not by fighting have overcome the world sit anima mea cum Christianis I pray God my soul may be among the Christians and yet the Turks have prevailed upon a great part of the Christian world and have made them slaves and tributaries and do them all spite and are hugely prosperous but when Christians are so then they are tempted and put in danger and never have their duty and their interest so well secured as when they lose all for Christ and are adorned with wounds or poverty change or scorn affronts or revilings which are the obelisks and triumphs of a holy cause Evil men and evil causes had need have good fortune and great successe to support their persons and their pretences for nothing but innocence and Christianity can flourish in a persecution I summe up this first discourse in a word in all the Scripture and in all the Authentick stories of the Church we finde it often that the Devil appeared in the shape of an Angell of light but was never suffered so much as to conterfeit a persecuted sufferer say no more therefore as the murmuring Israelites said If the LORD be with us why have these evils apprehended us for if to be afflicted be a signe that God hath forsaken a man and refuses to own his religion or his question then he that oppresses the widow and murders the innocent and puts the fatherlesse to death and follows providence by doing all the evils that he can that is all that God suffers him he I say is the onely Saint and servant of God and upon the same ground the wolf and the fox may boast when they scatter and devour a flock of lambs and harmlesse sheep Sermon X. The Faith and Patience of the SAINTS OR The righteous cause oppressed Part II. IT follows now that we inquire concerning the reasons of the Divine Providence in this administration of affairs so far as he hath been pleased to draw aside the curtain and to unfold the leaves of his counsels and predestination and for such an inquiry we have the precedent of the Prophet Jeremy Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let us talk to thee of thy judgements wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously Thou hast planted them yea they have taken root they grow yea they bring forth fruit Concerning which in generall the Prophet Malachy gives this account after the same complaint made And now we call the proud happy and they that work wickednesse are set up yea they that tempt God are even delivered They that feared the Lord spake often one to another and the Lord hearkened and heard and a book of remembrance was written before time for them that feared the Lord and thought upon his Name and they shall be mine saith the Lord of Hosts in that day when I binde up my jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him Then shall ye return and discern betwen the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not In this interval which is a valley of tears it is no wonder if they rejoyce who shall weep for ever and they that sow in tears shall have no cause to complain when God gathers all the mourners into his kingdom they shall reape with joy For innocence and joy were appointed to dwel together for ever And joy went not first but when innocence went away sorrow and sicknesse dispossessed joy of its habitation and now this world must be alwayes a scene of sorrows and no joy can grow here but that which is imaginary and phantastick there is no worldly joy no joy proper for this world but that which wicked persons fancy to themselves in the hopes and designes of iniquity He that covets his neighbours wife or land dreams of fine things and thinks it a fair condition to be rich and cursed to be a beast and die or to lie wallowing in his filthinesse but those holy souls who are not in love with the leprosie the Itch for the pleasure of scratching they know no pleasure can grow from the thorns which Adam planted in the hedges of Paradise and that sorrow which was brought in by sin must not go away till it hath returned us into the first condition of innocence the same instant that quits us from sin and the failings of mortality the same instant wipes all tears from our eyes but that is not in this world In the mean time God afflicts the godly that he might manifest many of his attributes and his servants exercise many of their vertues Nec fortuna probat causas sequiturque merentes sed vaga percunctos nullo discrimine fertur scilicet est aliud quod nos cogatque rogatque Majus in proprias ducat mortalia leges For without sufferings of Saints God should lose the glories of 1. Bringing good out of evil 2. Of being with us in tribulation 3. Of sustaining our infirmities 4 Of triumphing over the malice of his enemies 5. Without the suffering of Saints where were the exaltation of the crosse the conformity of the members to Christ their Head the coronets of Martyrs 6. Where were the trial of our faith 7. Or the exercise of long suffering 8. Where were the opportunities to give God the greatest love which cannot be but by dying and suffering for him 9. How should that which the world calls folly prove the greatest wisdom 10. and God be glorified by events contrary to the probability and expectation of their causes By the suffering of Saints Christian religion is proved to be most excellent whilst the iniquity and cruelty of the adversaries proves the illecebra sectae as Tertullians phrase is it invites men to consider the secret excellencies of that religion for which and in which men are so willing to die for that religion must needs be worth looking into which so many wise
and when he hath delivered up our bodies will rescue our souls from the hands of unrighteous judges I remember in the story that Plutarch tels concerning the soul of Thespesius that it met with a Prophetick Genius who told him many things that should happen afterwards in the world and the strangest of all was this That there should be a King Qui bonus cum sit tyrannide vitam finiet An excellent Prince and a good man should be put to death by a rebell and usurping power and yet that Prophetick soul could not tell that those rebels should within three yeers die miserable and accursed deaths and in that great prophecy recorded by Saint Paul That in the last dayes perillous times should come and men should be traitours and selvish having forms of godlinesse and creeping into houses yet could not tell us when these men should come to finall shame and ruine onely by a generall signification he gave this signe of comfort to Gods persecuted servants But they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifest to all men that is at long running they shall shame themselves and for the elects sake those dayes of evil shall be shortned But you and I may be dead first And therefore onely remember that they that with a credulous heart and a loose tongue are too decretory and enunciative of speedy judgements to their enemies turn their religion into revenge and therefore do beleeve it will be so because they vehemently desire it should be so which all wise and good men ought to suspect as lesse agreeing with that charity which overcomes all the sins and all the evils of the world and sits down and rests in glory 4. Do not trouble your self by thinking how much you are afflicted but consider how much you make of it For reflex acts upon the suffering it self can lead to nothing but to pride or to impatience to temptation or apostacy He that measures the grains and scruples of his persecution will soon sit down and call for ease or for a reward will think the time long or his burden great will be apt to complain of his condition or set a greater value upon his person Look not back upon him that strikes thee but upward to God that supports thee and forward to the crown that is set before thee and then consider if the losse of thy estate hath taught thee to despise the world whether thy poor fortune hath made thee poor in spirit and if thy uneasie prison sets thy soul at liberty and knocks off the fetters of a worse captivity For then the rod of suffering turns into crowns and scepters when every suffering is a precept and every change of condition produces a holy resolution and the state of sorrows makes the resolution actuall and habituall permanent and persevering For as the silk-worm eateth it self out of a seed to become a little worm and there feeding on the leaves of mulberies it grows till its coat be off and then works it self into a house of silk then casting its pearly seeds for the young to breed it leaveth its silk for man and dieth all white and winged in the shape of a flying creature So is the progresse of souls when they are regenerate by Baptisme and have cast off their first stains and the skin of worldly vanities by feeding on the leaves of Scriptures and the fruits of the vine and the joyes of the Sacrament they incircle themselves in the rich garments of holy and vertuous habits then by leaving their blood which is the Churches seed to raise up a new generation to God they leave a blessed memory and fair example and are themselves turned into Angels whose felicity is to do the will of God as their imployments was in this world to suffer it fiat voluntas tua is our daily prayer and that is of a passive signification thy will be done upon us and if from thence also we translate it into an active sence and by suffering evils increase in our aptnesses to do well we have done the work of Christians and shall receive the reward of Martyrs 5. Let our suffering be entertained by a direct election not by collateral ayds and phantastick assistances It is a good refreshment to a weak spirit to suffer in good company and so Phoeion encouraged a timerous Greek condemned to die and he bid him be confident because that he was to die with Phocion and when 40. Martyrs in Cappadocia suffered and that 〈◊〉 souldier standing by came and supplyed the place of the one Apostate who fell from his crown being overcome with pain it added warmth to the frozen confessors and turnd them into consummate Martyrs But if martyrdom were but a phantastick thing or relyed upon vain accidents and irregular chances it were then very necessary to be assisted by images of things and any thing lesse then the proper instruments of religion But since it is the greatest action of the religion and relies upon the most excellent promises and its formality is to be an action of love and nothing is more firmely chosen by an after election at least then an act of love to support Martyrdom or the duty of sufferings by false arches and exteriour circumstances is to build a tower upon the beams of the Sun or to set up a woodden ladder to climbe up to Heaven the soul cannot attain so huge and unimaginable felicities by chance and instruments of fancy and let no man hope to glorifie God and go to Heaven by a life of sufferings unlesse he first begin in the love of God and from thence derive his choice his patience and considence in the causes of vertue and religion like beams and warmth and influence from the body of the Sun Some there are that fall under the burden when they are pressed hard because they use not the proper instruments in fortifying the will in patience and resignation but endeavour to lighten the burden in imagination and when these temporary supporters fail the building that relies upon them rushes into coldnesse recidivation and lukewarmnesse and among all instances that of the main question of the Text is of greatest power to abuse imprudent and lesse severe persons Nullos esse Deos inane coelum Affirmat Selius probatque Quod se videt dum negat haec beatum When men choose a good cause upon confidence that an ill one cannot thrive that is not for the love of vertue or duty to God but for profit and secular interests they are easily lost when they see the wickednesse of the enemy to swell up by impunity and successe to a great evil for they have not learned to distinguish a great growing sin from a thriving and prosperous fortune Vlla si juris tibi pejerati Poena Barine noeuisset unquam Dente si nigro fieret vel uno turpior ungui Crederem They that beleeve and choose because of idle fears and unreasonable fancies or by
purposes yet it may be he punishes our sin when we least think of it that sin which we have long since forgotten It may be for the lust of thy youth thou hast a healthlesse old age an old religious person long agoe complained it was his case Quos nimis effraenes habui nunc vapulo renes Sic luitur juvenis culpa dolore senis It may be thy sore eyes are the punishment of thy intemperance seven years ago or God cuts thy dayes shorter and thou shalt die in a florid age or he raises up afflictions to thee in thine own house in thine own bowels or hath sent a gangren into thy estate or with any arrow out of his quiver he can wound thee and the arrow shall stick fast in thy flesh although God hath forgiven thy sin to many purposes Our blessed Saviour was heard in all that he prayed for said the Apostle and he prayed for the Jews that crucified him Father forgive them for they know not what they do and God did forgive that great sin but how far whereas it was just in God to deprive them of all possibility of receiving benefit from the death of Christ yet God admitted them to iâ— he gave them time and possibilities and helps and great advantages to bring them to repentance he did not presently shut them up in his final and eternal anger and yet he had finally resolved to destroy their city and nation and did so but forbore them forty years gave them al the helps of miracles and sermons apostolical to shame them and force them into sorrow for their fault And before any man can repent God hath forgiven the man in one degree of forgivenesse for he hath given him grace of repentance and taken from him that final anger of the spirit of reprobation and when a man hath repented no man can say that God hath forgiven him to all purposes but he hath reserves of anger to punish the sin to make the man affraid to sin any more and to represent that when any man hath sinned what ever he does afterwards he shall be miserable as long as he lives vexed with its adherencies and its neighbour-hood and evil consequence For as no man that hath sinned can during his life ever returne to an integral and perfect innocence so neither shall he be restored to a perfect peace but must alwayes watch and strive against his sinne and alwayes mourn and pray for its pardon and alwayes finde cause to hate it by knowing himself to be for ever in danger of enduring some grievous calamity even for those sinnes for which he hath truely repented him for which God hath in many gracious degrees passed his pardon this is the manner of the dispensation of the divine mercy in respect of particular persons and nations too But sometimes we finde a severer judgement happening upon a people and yet in that sad story Gods mercy sings the triumph which although it be much to Gods glory yet it is a sad story to sinning people 600000. sighting men besides women and children and decrepit persons came out of Egypt and God destroyed them all in the wildernesse except Caleb and Joshuah and there it was that Gods mercy prevailed over his justice that he did not destroy the nation but still preserved a succession to Jacob to possesse the promise God drowned all the world except eight persons his mercy there also prevailed over his justice that he preserved a remnant to mankinde his justice devoured all the world and his mercy which preserved but eight had the honour of the prevailing attribute God destroyed Sodom and the five cities of the plain and rescued but four from the flames of that sad burning and of the four lost one in the flight and yet his mercy prevailed over his justice because he did not destroy all And in these senses we are to understand the excellency of the divine mercy even when he smites when he rebukes us for sin when he makes our beauty to fail and our flesh to consume away like a moth fretting a garment yet then his mercy is the prevailing ingredient If his judgements be but sines set upon our heads accord-to the mercy of our old lawes Salvo contenemento so as to preserve our estates to continue our hopes and possibilities of heaven and all the other judgements can be nothing but mercies excellent instruments of grace arts to make us sober and wise to take off from our vanity to restrain our wildnesses which if they were left unbridled would set all the world on fire Gods judgements are like to censures of the Church in which a sinner is delivered over to Satan to be buffetted that the spirit may be saved the result of all this is that Gods mercies are not ought not cannot be instruments of confidence to sin because the very purpose of his mercy is to the contrary and the very manner of his Oeconomy and dispensation is such that Gods mercy goes along in complection and conjunction with his judgements the riches of his forbearance is this that he forbears to throw us into hell and sends the mercies of his rod to chide us unto repentance and the mercies of his rod to punish us for having sinned and that when we have sinned we may never think our selves secured nor ever be reconciled to such dangers and deadly poisons This this is the manner of the divine mercy Go now fond man and because God is merciful presume to sin as heaving grounds to hope that thou mayest sin and be safe all the way If this hope shall I call it or sordid flattery could be reasonable then the mercies of God would not leade us to repentance so unworthy are we in the sense and largenesse of a wide fortune and pleasant accident For impuâ—ity was never a good argument to make men to obey laws quotusqâ—isque reperitur qui impunitate proposita abstinere possit injurijs Impunitas est maxima peccandi illecebra said Cicero and therefore the wisdom of God hath so ordered the actions of the world that the most fruitful showres shall be wrapped up in a cover of black clouds that health shall be conveyed by bitter and ill tasted drugs that the temples of our bodies shall be purged by whips and that the cords of the whip shall be the cords of love to draw us from the intanglings of vanity and folly This is the long suffering of God the last remedy to our diseased souls and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Phalaris unlesse we be senselesse we shall be brought to sober courses by all those sad accidents and wholsome but ill tasting mercies which we feele in all the course and the â—â—ccession of the divine long sufferance The use of all the premises is that which Saint Paul expresses in the text that we do not despise all this and he onely despises not who serves the ends of God in all these designes of mercy
disarm the Princes and it will be hard to perswade that Kings are bound to protect and nourish those that will prove ministers of their own exauctoration And no Prince can have juster reason to forbid nor any man have greater reason to deny communion to a family then if they go about to destroy the power of the one or corrupt the duty of the other The particulars of this rule are very many I shall onely instance in one more because it is of great concernment to the publike interest of Christendome There are some persons whose religion is hugely disgraced because they change their propositions according as their temporall necessities or advantages do return They that in their weaknesse and beginning cry out against all violence as against persecution and from being suffered swell up till they be prosperous and from thence to power and at last to Tyranny and then suffer none but themselves and trip up those feet which they humbly kissed that themselves should not be trampled upon these men tell all the world that at first they were pusillanimous or at last outragious that their doctrine at first served their fear and at last served their rage and that they did not at all intend to serve God and then who shall believe them in any thing else Thus some men declaim against the faults of Governours that themselves may governe and when the power was in their hands what was a fault in others is in them necessity as if a sin could be hallowed for comming into their hands Some Greeks at Florence subscribed the Article of Purgatory and condemned it in their own Diocesses And the Kings supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical was earnestly defended against the pretences of the Bishop of Rome and yet when he was thrust out some men were and are vâ—olent to submit the King to their Consistories as if he were Supreme in defiance of the Pope and yet not Supreme over his own Clergy These Articles are mannaged too suspitiously Omnia si perdas famam servare memento You lose all the advantages to your cause if you lose your reputation 5 It is a duty also of Christian prudence that the teachers of others by authority or reprovers of their vices by charity should also make their persons apt to do it without objection Lori pedem rectus derideat Aethiopem albus No man can endure the Gracchi preaching against sedition nor Verres prating against theevery or Milo against homicide and if Herod had made an oration of humility or Antiochus of mercy men would have thought it had been a designe to evil purposes He that means to gain a soul must not make his Sermon an ostentation of his Eloquence but the law of his own life If a Gramarian should speak solaecismes or a Musician sing like a bittern he becomes ridiculous for offending in the faculty he professes So it is in them who minister to the conversion of souls If they fail in their own life when they professe to instruct another they are defective in their proper part and are unskilfull to all their purposes and the Cardinal of Crema did with ill successe tempt the English priests to quit their chaste marriages when himself was deprehended in unchaste embraces For good counsel seems to be unhallowed when it is reached forth by an impure hand and he can ill be beleeved by another whose life so confutes his rules that it is plain he does not beleeve himself Those Churches that are zealous for souls must send into their ministeries men so innocent that evil persons may have no excuse to be any longer vitious When Gorgias went about to perswade the Greeks to be at peace he had eloquence enough to do advantage to his cause and reason enough to presse it But Melanthius was glad to put him off by telling him that he was not fit to perswade peace who could not agree at home with his wife nor make his wife agree with her maid and he that could not make peace between three single persons was unapt to prevail for the reuniting fourteen or fifteen Common-wealths And this thing Saint Paul remarks by enjoyning that a Bishop should be chosen such a one as knew well to rule his own house or else he is not fit to rule the Church of God And when thou perswadest thy brother to be chaste let not him deride thee for thy intemperance and it will ill become thee to be severe against an idle servant if thou thy self beest uselesse to the publike and every notorious vice is infinitely against the spirit of government and depresses the man to an evennesse with common persons Facinus quos inquinat aequat to reprove belongs to a Superiour and as innocence gives a man advantage over his brother giving him an artificiall and adventitious authority so the follies and scandals of a publike and Governing man destroyes the efficacy of that authority that is just and naturall Now this is directly an office of Christian prudence that good offices and great authority become not ineffective by ill conduct Hither also it appertains that in publike or private reproofs we observe circumstances of time of place of person of disposition The vices of a King are not to be opened publikely and Princes must not be reprehended as a man reproves his servant but by Categoricall propositions by abstracted declamations by reprehensions of a crime in its single nature in private with humility and arts of insinuation And it is against Christian prudence not onely to use a Prince or great Personage with common language but it is as great an imprudence to pretend for such a rudenesse the examples of the Prophets in the old Testament For their case was extraordinary their calling peculiar their commission special their spirit miraculous their authority great as to that single mission they were like thunder or the trump of God sent to do that office plainly for the doing of which in that manner God had given no commission to any ordinary minister And therefore we never finde that the Priests did use that freedom which the Prophets were commanded to use whose very words being put into their mouthes it was not to be esteemed an humane act or a lawfull manner of doing an ordinary office neither could it become a precedent to them whose authority is precarious and without coërcion whose spirit is allayed with Christian graces and duties of humility whose words are not prescribed but left to the conduct of prudence as it is to be advised by publike necessities and private circumstances in ages where all things are so ordered that what was fit and pious amongst the old Jews would be incivil and intolerable to the latter Christians He also that reproves a vice should also treat the persons with honour and civilities and by fair opinions and sweet addresses place the man in the regions of modesty and the confines of grace and the fringes of repentance For some men are more
ever accounted when our duty leads us into a persecution * Hither also appertain that we never do a thing that we know we must repent of * that we do not admire too many things nor anything too much * that we be even in prosperity * and patient in adversity but transported with neither into the regions of despair or levity pusillanimity or Tyranny dejection or Garishnesse * alwayes to look upon the sear we have impressed upon our flesh and no more to handle dangers and knives to abstain from ambitious and vexatious suits not to contend with a mighty man * ever to listen to him who according to the proverb hath four ears Reason Religion wisdom and experience * rather to lose a benefit then to suffer a detriment and an evil * to stop the beginnings of evil * to pardon and not to observe all the faults of friends or enemies * of evils to choose the least * and of goods to choose the greatest if it be also safest * not to be insolent in successe but to proceed according to the probability of humane causes and contingencies * ever to be thankful for benefits * and profitable to others and useful in all that we can * to watch the seasons and circumstances of actions * to do that willingly which cannot be avoided lest the necessity serve anothers appetite and it be lost to all our purposes Insignis enim est prudentiae ut quod non facere non possis id facere ut libenter fecisse videaris * not to pursue difficult uncertain and obscure things with violence and passion These if we observe we shall do advantage to our selves and to the religion and avoid those evils which fools and unwary people suffer for nothing dying or bleeding without cause and without pity I end this with the saying of Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue is but a shadow and a servile imployment unlesse it be adorned and instructed with prudence which gives motion and conduct spirits and vigourousnesse to religion making it not onely humane and reasonable but Divine and caelestial Sermon XXIII OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY Matthew 10. latter part of Ver. 16. And harmlesse as doves OUR Blessed Saviour having prefac'd concerning Prudence addes to the integrity of the precept and for the conduct of our religion that we be simple as well as prudent innocent as well as wary harmlesse and safe to gether do well for without this blessed union prudence turns into craft and simplicity degenerates into folly Prudens simplicitas is Martial's character of a good man a wary and cautious innocence a harmlesse providence and provision Verâ simplicitate bonus a true simplicity is that which leaves to a man arms defensive his castles and strong forts but takes away his swords and spears or else his anger and his malice his peevishnesse and spite But such is the misery and such is the iniquity of mankinde that craft hath invaded all the contracts and entercourses of men and made simplicity so weak a thing that it is grown into contempt sometimes with and sometimes without reason Et homines simplices minimè malos the Romans called parum cautos saepè stolidos unwary fools and defenselesse people were called simple and when the innocency of the old simple Romans in Junius Brutus time in Fabritius and Camillus began to degenerate and to need the Aquilian law to force men to deal honestly quickly the mischief increased till the Aquilian law grew as much out of power as honesty was out of countenance And there and every where else men thought they got a purchase when they met with an honest man and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A fool is a profitable person and he that is simple is little better then mad And so it is when simplicity wants prudence He that because he means honestly himself thinks every man else does so and therefore is unwary in all or any of his entercourses is a simple man in an evil sence and therefore Saint Gregory Nazianzen remarks Constantius with a note of folly for suffering his easie nature to be abused by Georgius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Princes simplicity so he calls it for reverence but indeed it was folly for it was zeal without knowledge But it was a better temper which he observed in his own father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such a simplicity which onely wanted craft or deceit but wanted no prudence or caution and that is truly Christian simplicity or the sincerity of an honest and ingenious and a fearlesse person and it is a rare band not onely of societies and contracts but also of friendships and advantages of mankinde We do not live in an age in which there is so much need to bid men be wary as to take care that they be innocent Indeed in religion we are usually too loose and ungirt exposing our selves to temptation and others to offence and our name to dishonour and the cause it self to reproach and we are open and ready to every evil but persecution from that we are close enough and that alone we call prudence but in the matter of interest we are wary as serpents subtil as foxes vigilant as the birds of the night rapacious as Kites tenacious as grapling hooks and the weightiest anchors and above all false and hypocritical as a thin crust of ice spread upon the face of a deep smooth and dissembling pit if you set your foot your foot slips or the ice breaks and you sink into death and are wound in a sheet of water descending into mischief or your grave suffering a great fall or a sudden death by your confidence and unsuspecting foot There is an universal crust of hypocrisie that covers the face of the greatest part of mankinde Their religion consists in forms and outsides and serves reputation or a designe but does not serve God Their promises are but fair language and the civilities of the Piazzas or Exchanges and disband and unty like the air that beat upon their teeth when they spake the delicious and hopefull words Their oaths are snares to catch men and make them confident Their contracts are arts and stratagems to deceive measured by profit and possibility and every thing is lawfull that is gainfull and their friendships are trades of getting and their kindnesse of watching a dying friend is but the office of a vulture the gaping for a legacy the spoil of the carcasse and their sicknesses are many times policies of state sometimes a designe to shew the riches of our bed-chamber and their funeral tears are but the paranymphs and pious solicitors of a second Bride and every thing that is ugly must be hid and every thing that is handsome must be seen and that will make a fair cover for a huge deformity and therefore it is as they think necessary that men should alwayes have some pretences
covenant and return again and very often step aside and need this great pardon to be perpetually applyed and renewed and to this purpose that we may not have a possible need without a certain remedy the Holy Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith and pardon sits in heaven in a perpetual advocation for us that this pardon once wrought may be for ever applyed to every emergent need and every tumor of pride and every broken heart and every disturbed conscience and upon every true and sincere return of a hearty repentance And now upon this title no more degrees can be added it is already greater and was before all our needs and was greater then the old covenaut and beyond the revelations and did in Adams youth antidate the Gospel turning the publike miseries by secret grace into eternall glories But now upon other circumstances it is remarkable and excellent and swels like an hydropick cloud when it is fed with the breath of the morning tide till it fills the bosome of heaven and descends in dews and gentle showers to water and refresh the earth 7. God is so ready to forgive that himself works our dispositions towards it and either must in some degree pardon us before we are capable of pardon by his grace making way for his mercy or else we can never hope for pardon For unlesse God by his preventing grace should first work the first part of our pardon even without any dispositions of our own to receive it we could not desire a pardon nor hope for it nor work towards it nor ask it nor receive it This giving of preventing grace is a mercy of forgivenesse contrary to that severity by which some desperate persons are given over to a reprobate sense that is a leaving of men to themselves so that they cannot pray effectually nor desire holily nor repent truly nor receive any of those mercies which God designed so plenteously and the Son of God purchased so dearly for us When God sends a plague of warre upon a land in all the accounts of religion and expectations of reason the way to obtain our peace is to leave our sins for which the warre was sent upon us as the messenger of wrath and without this we are like to perish in the judgement But then consider what a sad condition we are in warre mends but few but spoils multitudes it legitimates rapine and authorizes murder and these crimes must be ministred to by their lesser relatives by covetousnesse and anger and pride and revenge and heats of blood and wilder liberty and all the evil that can be supposed to come from or run to such cursed causes of mischief But then if the punishment increases the sin by what instrument can the punishment be removed How shall we be pardoned and eased when our remedies are converted into causes of the sicknesse and our antidotes are poison Here there is a plain necessity of Gods preventing grace and if there be but a necessity of it that is enough to ascertain us we shall have it But unlesse God should begin to pardon us first for nothing and against our own dispositions we see there is no help in us nor for us If we be not smitten we are undone if we are smitten we perish and as young Damarchus said of his Love when he was made master of his wish Salvus sum quia pereo si non peream plane inteream we may say of some of Gods judgements We perish when we are safe because our sins are not smitten and if they be then we are worse undone because we grow worse for being miserable but we can be relieved onely by a free mercy for pardon is the way to pardon and when God gives us our peny then we can work for another and a gift is the way to a grace and all that we can do towards it is but to take it in Gods method and this must needs be a great forwardnesse of forgivenesse when Gods mercy gives the pardon and the way to finde it and the hand to receive it and the eye to search it and the heart to desire it being busie and effective as Elijah's fire which intending to convert the sacrifice into its own more spirituall nature of flames and purified substances stood in the neighbourhood of the fuell and called forth all its enemies and licked up the hindering moisture and the water of the trenches and made the Altar send forth a phantastick smoke before the sacrifice was enkindled So is the preventing grace of God it does all the work of our souls and makes its own way and invites it self and prepares its own lodging and makes its own entertainment it gives us precepts and makes us able to keep them it enables our faculties and excites our desires it provokes us to pray and sanctifies our heart in prayer and makes our prayer go forth to act and the act does make the desire valid and the desire does make the act certain and persevering and both of them are the works of God for more is received into the soul from without the soul then does proceed from within the soul It is more for the soul to be moved and disposed then to work when that is done as the passage from death to life is greater then from life to action especially since the action is owing to that cause that put in the first principle of life These are the great degrees of Gods forwardnesse and readinesse to forgive for the expression of which no language is sufficient but Gods own words describing mercy in all those dimensions which can signifie to us its greatnesse and infinity His mercy is great his mercies are many his mercy reacheth unto the heavens it fils heaven and earth it is above all his works it endureth for ever God pitieth as a Father doth his children nay he is our Father and the same also is the Father of mercy and the God of all comfort So that mercy and we have the same relation and well it may be so for we live and die together for as to man onely God shews the mercy of forgivenesse so if God takes away his mercy man shall be no more no more capable of felicity or of any thing that is perfective of his condition or his person But as God preserves man by his mercy so his mercy hath all its operations upon man and returns to its own centre and incircumscription and infinity unlesse it issues forth upon us And therefore besides the former great lines of the mercy of forgivenesse there is another chain which but to produce and tell its links is to open a cabinet of Jewels where every stone is as bright as a star and every star is great as the Sun and shines for ever unlesse we shut our eyes or draw the vail of obstinate and finall sins 1. God is long-suffering that is long before he be angry and yet God is provoked every day by