It makes him apply himself c. we mean not that the encrease of sin produces faith formally but only inciteth to believe by way of instruction by shewing us what distress we are in and consequently in what a necessity of a deliverer The meditation of our sinful courses may disclose our misery not redress it may explore not mend a sinner like a touchstone to try not any way to alter him It is the controuling Spirit which must effectually renew our spirits and lead us to the Christ which our sins told us we had need of The sense of sin may rouze the soul but it is the Spirit of God that layes the toils the feeling of our guilt may beat the waters but it is the great fisher of our souls which spreads the nets which entraps us as we are in our way to Hell and leads us captive to salvation The mere gripings of our Conscience being not produced by any Pharmacon of the spirit but by some distemper arising from sin what anxiety doth it cause within us What pangs and twinges to the soul O Lord do thou regenerate us and then thy Holy Spirit shall sanctifie even our sins unto our good and if thy grace may lead us our sins shall pursue and drive us unto Christ Secondly by way of character how to distinguish a true convert from a false A man which from an inveterate desperate malady shall meet with a miraculous unexpected cure will naturally have some art of expression above an ordinary joy you shall see him in an extasie of thanksgiving and exultancy whilst another which was never in that distress quietly enjoys the same health and gives thanks softly by himself to his preserver So is it in the distresses of the soul which if they have been excessive and almost beyond hope of recovery as the miracle must so will the expression of this deliverance be somewhat extraordinary The soul which from a good moral or less sinful natural estate is magis immutata quam genita rather chang'd then regenerate into a spiritual goes through this business without any great noise the Spirit entring into it in a still small voice or at a breathing but when a robustous obdurate sinner shall be rather apprehended then called when the Sea shall be commanded to give up his ship-wrack't and the Sepulchre to restore her dead the soul surely which thus escapeth shall not be content with a mean expression but will practice all the Hallelujahs and Magnificats which the triumphant Liturgies of the Saints can afford it Wherefore I say if any one out of a full violent course of sinning conceive himself converted and regenerated let him examine what a degree of spiritual exultancy he hath attained to and if he find it but mean and slight and perfunctory let him somewhat suspect that he may the more confirm the evidence of his calling Now this spiritual exultancy of the regenerate consists both in a solemn humiliation of himself and a spiritual rejoycing in God his Saviour both exprest in Maries Magnificat where she specifies in the midst of her joy the lowliness of his handmaid and in St. Pauls victory-song over death So that if the conversion of an inordinate sinner be not accompanied with unwonted joy and sorrow with a godly sense of his past distress and a godly triumph for his delivery if it be not followed with a violent eagerness to fasten on Christ finally if there be not somewhat above ordinary in the expression then I counsel not to distrust but fear that is with a sollicitous not suspicious trembling to labour to make thy calling and election sure to pray to that Holy Spirit to strike our hearts with a measure of holy joy and holy sorrow some way proportionable to the size of those sins which in our unregeneracy reigned in us and for those of us whom our sins have separated far from him but his grace hath called home to him that he will not suffer us to be content with a distance but draw us close unto himself make us press toward the mark and fasten our selves on that Saviour which hath redeemed us from the body and guilt of this so great death The third Use is of comfort and confirmation to some tender souls who are incorporated into Christ yet finding not in themselves that excessive measure of humiliation which they observe in others suspect their own state and infinitely grieve that they can grieve no more Whereas this doctrine being observed will be an allay to their sorrow and wipe some unnecessary tears from their eyes For if the greatness of sin past or the plentiful relicks of sin remaining do require so great a measure of sorrow to expiate the one and subdue the other if it be a deliverance from an habituate servitude to all manner of sin which provokes this extraordinary pains of expression then certainly they who have been brought up with the spirit which were from their baptism never wholly deprived of it need not to be bound over to this trade of sorrow need not to be set apart to that perpetual humiliation which a more stubborn sin or Devil is wont to be cast out by I doubt not but a soul educated in familiarity with the spirit may at once enjoy her self and it and so that if it have an humble conceit of it self and a filial of God may in earth possess God with some clearness of look some serenity of affections some alacrity of heart and tranquility of spirit God delights not in the torment of his children though some are so to be humbled yea he delights not in such burnt offerings as they bestow upon him who destroy and consume and sacrifice themselves but the Lords delight is in them that fear him filially and put their trust i. e. assurance confidence in his mercy in them that rejoyce that make their service a pleasure not an affliction and thereby possess Heaven before they come to it 'T is observed in husbandry that soil laid on hard barren starved ground doth improve it and at once deface and enrich it which yet in ground naturally fruitful and kept in heart and good case is esteemed unnecessary and burthensome You need not the application Again the husbandman can mend a dry stubborn wayward fruitless earth by overflowing of it and on such indeed is his ordinary requisite discipline to punish it for its amendment But there is a ground otherwise well tempered which they call a weeping ground whence continually water soaks out and this proves seldom fruitful if our learned husbandmen observe aright whereof there is sometime need of draining as well as watering The application is that your soul which either hath been naturally dry and barren or else over-wrought in the business of the world needs a flood of tears to soften and purge it But the well temper'd soul which hath never been out of heart but hath alwayes had some inward life some fatness of
immortalitatis and in time encrease and grow up to immortality There is no such encumbrance to trash us in our Christian Progress as a fancy that some men get possessed with that if they are elected they shall be called and saved in spight of their teeth every man expecting an extraordinary call because Saul met with one and perhaps running the more fiercely because Saul was then called when he was most violent in his full speed of malice against Christians In this behalf all that I desire of you is First to consider that though our regeneration be a miracle yet there are degrees of miracles and thou hast no reason to expect that the greatest and strongest miracle in the world shall in the highest degree be shewed in thy Salvation Who art thou that God should take such extraordinary pains with thee Secondly To resolve that many precious rays and beams of the Spirit though when they enter they come with power yet through our neglect may prove transitory pass by that heart which is not open for them And then thirdly You will easily be convinced that no duty concerns us all so strictly as to observe as near as we can when thus the Spirit appears to us to collect and muster up the most lively quick-sighted sprightfullest of our faculties and with all the perspectives that spiritual Opticks can furnish us with to lay wait for every glance and glimpse of its fire or light We have ways in nature to apprehend the beams of the Sun be they never so weak and languishing and by uniting them into a burning Glass to turn them into afire Oh that we were as witty and sagacious in our spiritual estate then it were easie for those sparks which we so often either contemn or stifle to thrive within us and at least break forth into a flame In brief Incogitancy and inobservance of Gods seasons supine numbness and negligence in spiritual affairs may on good grounds be resolved on as the main or sole cause of our final impenitence and condemnation it being just with God to take those away in a sleep who thus walked in a dream and at last to refuse them whom he hath so long sollicited He that hath scorned or wasted his inheritance cannot complain if he dies a bankrupt nor he that hath spent his candle at play count it hard usage that he is fain to go to bed darkling It were easie to multiply arguments on this theme from every minute of our lives to discern some pawn and evidence of Gods fatherly will and desire that we should live Let it suffice that we have been large if not abundant in these three chief ones First The giving of his Son to the World Secondly Dispatching the Gospel to the Gentiles And lastly The sending of his Spirit We come now to a view of the opposite trenches which lie pitched at the Gates of Hell obstinate and peremptory to besiege and take it Mans resolvedness and wilfulness to die my second part Why will you die There is no one conceit that engages us so deep to continue in sin that keeps us from repentance and hinders any seasonable Reformation of our wicked lives as a perswasion that God's will is a cause of all events Though we are not so blasphemous as to venture to define God the Author of sin yet we are generally inclined for a fancy that because all things depend on God's decree whatsoever we have done could not be otherwise all our care could not have cut off one sin from the Catalogue And so being resolved that when we thus sinned we could not chuse we can scarce tell how to repent for such necessary fatal misdemeanors the same excuses which we have for having sinned formerly we have for continuing still and so are generally better prepared for Apologies than Reformation Beloved it will certainly much conduce to our edification instead of this speculation whose grounds or truth I will not now examine to fix this practical theorem in our hearts that the will of man is the principal cause of all our evil that death either as it is the punishment of sin eternal death or as it is the sin it self a privation of the life of grace spiritual death is wholly to be imputed to our wilful will It is a Probleme in Aristotle why some Creatures are longer in conceiving and bringing forth than others and the sensiblest reason he gives for it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hardness of the Womb which is like dry earth that will not presently give any nourishment to either seed or plant and so is it in the spiritual conception and production of Christ that is of life in us The hardness and toughness of the heart the womb where he is to be born that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that dry Earth in the Philosophers or that way-side or at best stony ground in Christs phrase is the only stop and delay in begetting of life within us the only cause of either barrenness or hard travail in the Spirit Be the brain never so soft and pliable never so waxy and capable of impressions yet if the heart be but carnal if it have any thing much of that lust of the flesh 1 John ii 15. in its composition it will be hard for the spiritual life to be conceived in that man For Faith the only means by which Christ lives and dwells in us Ephes iii. 17. is to be seated in the heart i. e. the will and affections according to the express words That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith So that be your brains never so swelled and puft up with perswasions of Christ our Saviour be they so big that they are ready to ly-in and travail of Christ as Jove's did of Minerva in the Poem yet if the heart have not joyned in the conception if the seed sown have not taken root and drawn nourishment from the will it is but an aerial or phantastical birth or indeed rather a disease or tympany nay though it come to some proof and afterward extend and increase in limbs and proportions never so speciously yet if it be only in the brain neither is this to be accounted solid nourishment augmentation but such as a Camaelion may be thought to have that feeds on air and it self is little better and in sum not growth but swellings So then if the will either by nature or custom of sinning by familiarity and acquaintance making them dote on sensual objects otherwise unamiable by business and worldly ambitious thoughts great enemies to faith or by pride and contentment both very incident to noble Personages and great Wits to Courtiers and Scholars In brief if this Will the stronger and more active part of the Soul remain carnal either in indulgence to many or which is the snare of judicious men in chief of some one prime sin then cannot all the faith in the world bring that man to Heaven it may
of it to be for ever a solliciting and worshipping of darkness as Socrates was said to adore the clouds this is such a sottishness that the stupidst element under Heaven would naturally scorn to be guilty of for never was the Earth so peevish as to forbid the Sun when it should shine on it or to slink away or subduce it self from its rayes And yet this is our case beloved who do more amorously and flatteringly court and woo and sollicite darkness then ever the Heathens adored the Sun Not to wander out of the sphere my Text hath placed me in to shew how the light of the Gospel and Christianity is neglected by us our guilt will lie heavy enough on us if we keep us to the light only of natural reason within us How many sins do we daily commit which both nature and reason abhor and loath How many times do we not only unman but even uncreature our selves Aristotle observes that that by which any thing is known first that which doth distinguish one thing from another à priore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be called the beginning or cause of that thing and that the light of reason distinguishing one action from another being the first thing that teaches me that this is good that otherwise may from thence be termed the beginning of every reasonable action in us and then where ever this cause or beginning is left out and wanting there the thing produced is not so called a positive act or proper effect but a defect an abortion or still-born frustrate issue and of this condition indeed is every sin in us Every action where this law within us is neglected is not truly an action but a passion a suffering or a torment of the creature Thus do we not so much live and walk which note some action as lie entranced asleep nay dead in sin by this perversness 't is perpetual night with us nay we even die daily our whole life is but a multiplyed swoon or lethargie in which we remain stupid breathless sensless till the day of death or judgment with a hideous voice affrights and rouses us and we find our selves awake in Hell and so our dark souls having a long while groped wilfully in the Sun are at last lead to an everlasting inevitable darkness whither the mercy or rayes of the Sun can never pierce where it will be no small accession to our torment to remember and tremble at that light which before we scorn'd Thus I say do we in a manner uncreate our selves and by the contempt of this law of our creation even frustrate and bring to nothing our creation it self and this is chiefly by sins of sloth and stupid sluggish unactive vices which as I said make our whole life a continued passion never daring or venturing or attempting to act or do any thing in Church or Commonwealth either toward God or our Neighbour and of such a condition'd man no body will be so charitable as to guess he hath any soul or light of reason in him because he is so far from making use of it unless it be such a soul as Tully saith a Swine hath which serves it only instead of salt to keep it from stinking For 't is Aristotles observation that every one of the elements besides the earth was by some Philosopher or other defin'd to be the soul Some said the soul was fire some that 't was air some water but never any man was so mad as to maintain the earth to be it because 't was so heavy and unweildy So then this heavy motionless unactive Christian this clod of earth hath as I said uncreatured himself and by contemning this active reason within him even deprived himself of his soul Again how ordinary a thing is it to unman our selves by this contempt of the directions of reason by doing things that no man in his right mind would ever have patience to think of Beloved to pass by those which we call unnatural sins 1. so in the highest degree as too horrid for our nature set down in the latter end of this Chapter for all Christian ears to glow and tingle at and I had hoped for all English spirits to abhor and loath To pass these I say our whole life almost affords minutely sins which would not argue us men but some other creatures There be few things we do in our Age which are proper peculiar acts of men one man gives himself to eating and drinking and bestows his whole care on that one faculty which they call the vegetative growing faculty and then what difference is there betwixt him and a tree whose whole nature it is to feed and grow Certainly unless he hath some better imployment he is at best but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a plant-animal whose shape would perhaps persuade you that it hath some sense or soul in it but its actions betray it to be a meer plant little better then an Artichoak or Cabbage another goes a little higher yet not far doth all that his sense presents to him suffers all that his sensitive faculties lust and rage to exercise at freedom is as fierce as the Tyger as lustful as the Goat as ravenous as the Wolf and the like and all the beasts of the field and fowls of the air be but several Emblemes and Hieroglyphicks concurring to make up his character carries a wilderness about him as many sins as the nature of a sensitive creature is capable of and then who will stick to compare this man to the beasts that perish For 't is Theophilus his note that the cattle and beasts of the field were created the same day with man Gen. i. 25. to note 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brutish condition of some men and that therefore the blessing was not bestowed on them but reserved for the man which should have the dominion over them verse 26 28. In sum every action which Reason or Scripture or Gods spirit guides not in us is to be called the work of some other creature of one of these three sorts either earthly the work of a plant or sensual the work of a brute or thirdly above the condition of both these devillish Thus do you see the sin of the contempt of the light of nature which although it be dimm'd in us by our corruption yet shined so bright in the Heathen that they were left without excuse in the Jews that even their own hearts accused them for their rebellions and in us Christians that unless we move according to its directions we are fallen below the condition of men almost of creatures 'T were now superfluous farther to demonstrate it our time will be better spent if we close with some use of it and that will prove manifold 1. by way of caution not to deifie or exalt too high or trust in this light of nature It was once a perfect glorius rule but is now
noisome Soul or more truly that evil spirit Mark I. 23. that made the man disclaim and renounce Christ and his mercies when he came to cure Let us alone what have we to do with thee By which is noted That contentedness and acquiescence in sin that even stubborn wilfulness and resolvedness to die that a long sluggish custom in sin will bring us to and that you may resolve on as the main discernable cause of this weakness of the heart a habit and long service and drudgery in sin But then as a ground of that you may take notice of another a phansie that hath crept into most mens hearts and suffers them not to think of resisting any temptation to sin that all their actions as well evil as good were long ago determined and set down by God and now nothing left to them but a necessity of performing what was then determined I would fain believe that that old heresie of the Stoicks revived indeed among the Turks concerning the inevitable production of all things that fatal necessity even of sins should yet never have gotten any footing or entertainment among Christians but that by a little experience in the practice of the world I find it among many a main piece of their faith and the only point that can yield them any comfort that their sins be they never so many outragious are but the effects or at least the consequents of Gods decree that all their care and sollicitude and most wary endeavors could not have cut off any one sin from the Catalogue that unless God be pleased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to come down upon the Stage by the irresistible power of his constraining spirit as with a Thunderbolt from Heaven to shake and shiver to pieces the carnal man within them to strike them into a swoon as he did Saul that so he may convert them and in a word to force and ravish them to Heaven Unless he will even drive and carry them they are never likely to be able to stir to perform any the least work of reason but fall minutely into the most irrational unnatural sins in the world nay even into the bottom of that pit of Hell without any stop or delay or power of deliberating in this their precipice This is an heresie that in some Philosopher-Christians hath sprouted above ground hath shewed it self in their brains and tongues and that more openly in some bolder Wits but the Seeds of it are sown thick in most of our hearts I fear in every habitual sinner amongst us if we were but at leisure to look into our selves The Lord give us a heart to be forewarned in this behalf To return into the rode Our natural inclinations and propensions to sin are no doubt active and prurient enough within us somewhat of Jehu's constitution and temper they drive very furiously But then to perswade our selves that there is no means on earth besides the very hand of God and that out of our reach able to trash or overslow this furious driver that all the ordinary clogs that God hath provided us our reason and natural conscience as Men our Knowledge as Christians nay his restraining though not sanctifying graces together with the Lungs and Bowels of his Ministers and that energetical powerful Instrument the Gospel of Christ Which is the power of God unto salvation even to every Jew nay and Heathen Rom. 1. To resolve That all these are not able to keep us in any compass to quell any the least sin we are inclined to that unless God will by force make Saints of us we must needs presently be Devils and so leave all to Gods omnipotent working and never make use of those powers with which he hath already furnished us This is a monstrous piece of unchristian divinity a way by advancing the Grace of God to destroy it and by depending on the Holy Ghost to grieve if not to sin against him to make the corruption of our nature equal to nay surpassing the punishment of the Devils a necessary and irreversible obduration in all kinds and measures of sin This one practical Heresie will bring us through all the prodigies of the old Philosophical Sects from Stoicks to Epicurism and all sensual Libertinism and from thence to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Pythagoreans For unless the soul that is now in one of us had been transplanted from a Swine or some other the most stupid sottish degenerous sort of Beasts it is impossible that it should thus naturally and necessarily and perpetually and irrecoverably delight wallow in every kind of sensuality without any check or contradiction either of Reason or Christianity If I should tell you that none of you that hath understood and pondered the Will of God wants abilities in some measure to perform it if he would muster up all his forces at time of need that every Christian hath grace enough to smother lusts in the Womb and keep them at least from bringing forth to quell a temptation before it break out into an actual sin you would think perhaps that I flattered you and deceived my self in too good an opinion of your strength Only thus much then It would be somewhat for your edification to try what you could do Certainly there is much more in a Christians power if he be not engaged in a habit of sin than we imagine though not for the performing of good yet for the inhibiting of evil And therefore bethinking our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Arrian That we are the sons of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us not have too low and degenerous an opinion of our selves Do but endeavour resolutely and couragiously to repel temptations as often as they sollicite thee make use of all thy ordinary restraints improve thy natural fear and shamefac'dness thy Christian education tender disposition to the highest pitch do but hold sincerely as long as thou art able and though I will not say that all thy sins shall be confin'd to those two heads of original a branch of which are evil motions and of omission yet I will undertake that thou shalt have an easier burthen of actual commissions upon thy soul and that will prove a good ease for thee Those are they that weigh it down into the deep that sink it desperateliest into that double Tophet of obduration and despair Final obduration being a just judgment of God on one that hath fill'd up the measure of his iniquities that hath told over all the hairs of his head and sands of the Sea in actual sins and a necessary consummation of that despair the first part the Prologue and Harbinger to that worm in Hell 'T were easie to shew how faith might afford a Christian sufficient guard and defence against the keenest weapon in the Devils armory and retort every stroke upon himself But because this is the Faith only of a Wife not as we now consider as a woman at
been so long frozen in sin and petrified even into Adamant Beloved as a man may come to such an estate of grace here that he may be most sure he shall not fall as St. Paul in likelihood was when he resolved that nothing could separate him So may a man be engaged so far in sin that there is no rescuing from the Devil There is an irreversible estate in evil as well as good and perhaps I may have arrived to that before my hour of death for I believe Pharaoh was come to it Exod. ix 34. after the seventh Plague hardning his heart and then I say it is possible that thou that hitherto hast gone on in habituate stupid customary rebellions mayest be now at this minute arrived to this pitch That if thou run on one pace farther thou art engaged for ever past recovery And therefore at this minute in the strength of your age and lusts this speech may be as seasonable as if death were seizing on you Why will you die At what time soever thou repentest God will have mercy but this may be the last instant wherein thou canst repent the next sin may benumb or fear thy heart that even the pangs of death shall come on thee insensibly that the rest of thy life shall be a sleep or lethargy and thou lie stupid in it till thou findest thy self awake in flames Oh if thou shouldst pass away in such a sleep Again I cannot tell you whether a death-bed repentance shall save you or no. The Spouse sought Christ on her bed but found him not Cant. iii. 1. The last of Ecclesiastes would make a man suspect that remembring God when our feeble impotent age comes on us would stand us in little stead Read it for it is a most learned powerful Chapter This I am sure of God hath chosen to himself a people Zealous of good works Tit. ii 14. And they that find not some of this holy fire alive within them till their Souls are going out have little cause to think themselves of God's election So that perhaps there is something in it that Matth. iii. 8. the Exhortation bring forth fruits worthy of repentance is exprest by a tense that ordinarily signifies time past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have brought forth fruits It will not be enough upon an exigence when there is no way but one with me to be inclinable to any good works to resolve to live well when I expect to die I must have done this and more too in my life if I expect any true comfort at my death There is not any point we err more familiarly in and easily than our spiritual condition what is likely to become of us after death Any slight phansie that Christ died for us in particular we take for a Faith that will be sure to save us Now there is no way to preserve our selves from this Error but to measure our Faith and Hopes by our Obedience that if we sincerely obey God then are we true believers And this cannot well be done by any that begins not till he is on his death-bed be his inclinations to good then never so strong his faith in Christ never so lusty yet how knows he whether it is only fear of death and a conviction that in spight of his teeth he must now sin no longer that hath wrought these inclinations produced this faith in him Many a sick man resolves strongly to take the Physicians dose in hope that it will cure him yet when he comes to taste its bitterness will rather die than take it If he that on his death-bed hath made his solemnest severest Vows should but recover to a possibility of enjoying those delights which now have given him over I much fear his fiercest resolutions would be soon out-dated Such inclinations that either hover in the Brain only or float on the Surface of the Heart are but like those wavering temporary thoughts Jam. i. 6. Like a wave of the Sea driven by the wind and tost they have no firmness or stable consistence in the Soul it will be hard to build Heaven on so slight a foundation All this I have said not to discourage any tender languishing Soul but by representing the horrors of death to you now in health to instruct you in the doctrine of Mortality betimes so to speed and hasten your Repentance Now as if to morrow would be too late as if there were but a small Isthmus or inch of ground between your present mirth and jollity and your everlasting earnest To gather up all on the Clue Christ is now offered to you as a Jesus The times and sins of your Heathenism and unbelief God winketh at Acts xvii 30. The Spirit proclaims all this by the Word to your hearts and now God knows if ever again commands all men every where to repent Oh that there were such a Spirit in our hearts such a zeal to our eternal bliss and indignation at Hell that we would give one heave and spring before we die that we would but answer those invitations of mercy those desires of God that we should live with an inclination with a breath with a sigh toward Heaven Briefly if there be any strong violent boisterous Devil within us that keeps possession of our hearts against God if the lower sensual part of our Soul if an habit of sin i. e. a combination or legion of Devils will not be over-topped by reason or grace in our hearts if a major part of our carnal faculties be still canvasing for Hell if for all our endeavors and pains it may appear to us that this kind of evil spirit will not be cast out save only by Fasting and Prayer Then have we yet that remedy left First To fast and pine and keep him weak within by denying him all foreign fresh Provision all new occasions of sin and the like and so to block and in time starve him up And then secondly To pray that God will second and fortifie our endeavours that he will force and rend and ravish this carnal Devil out of us that he will subdue our wills to his will that he will prepare and make ready life for us and us for life that he will prevent us by his grace here and accomplish us with his glory hereafter Now to him c. The VII Sermon JER v. 2. Though they say the Lord liveth surely they swear falsly NOt to waste any time or breath or which men in this delicate and effeminate Age are wont to be most sparing and thrifty of any part of your precious patience unprofitably but briefly to give you a guess whither our discourse is like to lead you We will severally lay down and sort to your view every word of the Text single and so we may gather them up again and apply them to their natural proper purposes First then the particle Though in the front and surely in the body of the Text are but bands
moral men seem to me in as good if not better case than the other term of comparison the careless negligent debauch't men For upon their grounds is it not as easie for the converting spirit to enter and subdue one Lucifer one proud Devil in the heart otherwise pretty well qualified as to deal with a whole legion of blasphemous violent riotous railing ignorant Devils I have done all with the confutation of this loose groundless opinion which if 't were true would yet prove of dangerous consequence to be preached in abating and turning our edge which is of it self blunt and dull enough toward goodness nay certainly it hath proved scandalous to those without as may appear by that boast and exultancy of Campian in his Eighth reason where he upbraids us English-men of our abominable Lutheran licentious doctriâ—e as he calls it Quanto sceleratior es tanto vicinior gratiae and therefore I do not repent that I have been somewhat large in the refuting of it as also because it doth much import to the clearing of my discourse for if the meer moral men be farthest from Heaven then have I all this while busied my self and tormented you with an unprofitable nay injurious preparation whereas I should have prescribed you a shorter easier call by being extremely sinful according to these two Aphorisms of Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The strongest bodies are in greatest danger and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and height of a disease is the fittest opportunity for a miraculous cure But beloved let us more considerately bethink our selves let us study and learn and walk a more secure probable way to Heaven and for those of us which are yet unregenerate though we obtained no grace of God but that of nature and reason and our Christianity to govern us yet let us not contemn those ordinary restraints which these will afford us let us attend in patience sobriety and humility and prayers the good time and leisures of the spirit let us not make our reasonable soul our profession of men of Christians ashamed of us let not the heathen and beasts have cause to blush at us let us remain men till it may please him to call us into Saints lest being plunged in habitual confident sinning that Hell and Tophet on Earth the very omnipotent mercy of God be in a manner foiled to hale us out again let us improve rack and stretch our natural abilities to the highest that although according to our thirteenth Article we cannot please God yet we may not mightily provoke him Let every man be in some proportion to his gifts Christs Baptist and forerunner and harbinger in himself that whensoever he shall appear or knock he may enter lodge and dwell without resistence Lastly after all thy preparations be not secure if the bridegroom will not vouchsafe to rest with you all your provision is in vain all the morality and learning and gifts and common graces unless Christ at last be born in us are but embryo's nay abortives rude imperfect horrid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Philosopher dies in his nonage in whom Christ was never born The highest reach of years and learning is but infancy without the virility and manhood of the spirit by which we are made perfect men in Christ Jesus Wherefore above all things in the world let us labour for this perfection let us melt and dissolve every faculty and spirit about us in pursuit of it and at last seal and bless and crown our endeavours with our prayers and with all the Rhetorick and means and humility and violence of our souls importune and lay hold on the sanctifying Spirit and never leave till he hath blessed and breathed on us O thou mighty controuling holy hallowing Ghost be pleased with thine effectual working to suppress in us all resistence of the pride of nature and prepare us for thy kingdom of grace here and glory hereafter Now to him which hath elected us hath created and redeemed us c. The X. Sermon JOHN vii 48. Have any of the Pharisees believed on him IT is observable from History with what difficulty Religion attempts to propagate and establish it self with the many what Countenance and encouragement it hath required from those things which are most specious and pompous in the World how it hath been fain to keep its dependencies and correspondencies and submit to the poor condition of sustaining it self by those beggarly helps which the World and the flesh will afford it Two main pillars which it relies on are Power and Learning the Camp and the Schools or in a word authority of great ones and countenance of Scholars the one to force and extort obedience the other to insinuate belief and assent the first to ravish the second to perswade One instance for all if we would plant Christianity in Turky we must first invade and conquer them and then convince them of their follies which about an hundred years ago Cleonard proposed to most Courts of Christendom and to that end himself studied Arabick that Princes would joyn their strength and Scholars their brains and all surprize them in their own land and language at once besiege the Turk and his Alcoran put him to the sword and his religion to the touchstone command him to Christianity with an high hand and then to shew him the reasonableness of our commands Thus also may we complain but not wonder that the Reformation gets ground so slow in Christendom because the forces and potent abettors of the Papacy secure them from being led captive to Christ as long as the Pope is riveted so fast in his chair and as long as the rulers take part with him there shall be no doubt of the truth of their religion unless it please God to back our arguments with steel and to raise up Kings and Emperours to be our Champions we may question but never confute his supremacy Let us come with all the power and Rhetorick of Paul and Barnabas all the demonstrations of reason and spirit yet as long as they have such Topicks against us as the authority of the Rulers and Pharisees we may dispute out our hearts and preach out our Lungs and gain no proselytes all that we shall get is but a scoffe and a curse a Sarcasm and an Anathema in the words next after my text This people which know not the law are cursed there is no heed to be taken to such poor contemptible fellows To bring all home to the business of the text Let Christ come with all the enforcement and violence and conviction of his spirit sublimity of his speech and miracles all the power of Rhetorick and Rhetorick of his power so that all that see or hear bear witness that never man spake as this man yet all this shall be accounted but a delusion but an inchantment of some seduced wretches unless the great men or deep scholars will be pleased
Lord. And again Phil. iii. 13. most evidently Forgetting those things that are behind and reaching out to those things which are before I press toward the mark c. like a racer in the heat of his course whose eyes desires to anticipate his feet and enjoy the goal before he reach it These three carriages of the regenerate man fully prove our observation for if either of the two former sights could afford him any content if either his former or present state did not sufficiently terrifie him he would not be so eager on the third it being the folly of humane pride and self-love to contemn any forraign aid as long as it finds either appearance or hope of domestick If in the view of his former life he should find any thing either good or not extremely bad and sinful he would under-prize the mercy of that Saviour that redeem'd him from so poor a guilt if he could observe in his present state any natural firmness or stability any inherent purity any essential justice he might possibly sacrifice to his own nets and reckoning himself in perfect peace with God neither invoke and seek nor acknowledge a Mediatour But when in his former life he shall find nothing but the matter and cause of horrour and amazement nothing but hideous ghastly affrightments yea and a body of damnation when in hope to mend himself and ease his fears he shall fly to the comfort of his present converted state and yet there also espy many thorns of temptations how can he but be frighted out of himself How can he but fly from the scene of those his torments and seek out and importune the mercy of a Saviour which may deliver him out of all his fears After the example of our Apostle in my Text where he does more peremptorily apprehend Christ and more bodily believe That he came into the world to save sinners because of all sinners he was chief making his own sinfulness being the object and external motive of Gods mercy an argument and internal motive of his own faith and confidence The plain meaning of this Thesis is that among men things are not alway valued according to the merit of their nature for then each commodity should be equally prized by all men and the man in health should bestow as much charges on physick as the diseased but each thing bears its several estimation by its usefulness and the riches of every merchandize is encreased accordingly as men to whom it is proferred do either use or want it Moreover this usefulness is not to be reckoned of according to truth but opinion not according to mens real wants but according to the sense which they have of their wants so a man distracted because he hath not so much reason about him as to observe his disease will contemn Hellebore or any other the most precions Recipe for this cure and generally no man will hasten to the Physician or justly value his art and drugs but he whom misery hath taught the use of them So then unless a man have been in some spiritual danger and by the converting Spirit be instructed into a sense and apprehension of it he will not sufficiently observe the benefit and use of a deliverer unless he feel in himself some stings of the relicks of his sin some pricks of the remaining Amorite he will not take notice of the want and necessity which he hath of Christs mediation But when he shall with a tenderness of memory survey the guilt of his former state from the imputation not importunity whereof he is now justified when he shall still feel within him the buffetings of Satan and sensibly observe himself not fully sanctified then and not before will he with a zealous earnestness apprehend the profit yea necessity of a Saviour whose assistance so nearly concerns him The second ground of this position is That an extraordinary undeserved deliverance is by an afflicted man received with some suspition the consideration of the greatness of the benefit makes him doubt of the truth of it and he will scarce believe so important an happiness befaln him because his misery could neither expect nor hope it Hence upon the first notice of it he desires to ascertain it unto his sense by a sudden possession of it and not at all to defer the enjoying of that mercy which his former misery made infinitely worthy of all acceptation Thus may you see a ship-wrackt man recovered to some refuge cling about and almost incorporate himself unto it because the fortune of his life depends on that succour The new regenerate man finding in the Scripture the promise of a Redeemer which shall free him from those engagements which his former bankrupt estate had plung'd him in cannot delay so great an happiness but with a kind of tender fear and filial trembling runs and strives as the Disciples to the Sepulchre to assure his necessitous soul of this acceptable salvation even sets upon his Saviour with a kind of violence and will seem to distrust his promise till his seal shall authorize and confirm it Thus did the greatness of the work of the unexpected resurrection beget in Thomas a suspition and incredulity I will not believe c. where our charity may conjecture that he above all the rest was not absolutely resolved not to believe the resurrection but that he being absent at the first apparition would not take so important a miracle upon trust but desired to have that demonstrated to his sense which did so nearly concern his faith that so by putting his finger into the print of the nails and thrusting his hand into his side he might almost consubstantiate and unite himself unto his Saviour and at once be assured of the truth and partake of the profit of the resurrection Hear but the voice of the Spouse and any further proofs shall be superfluous where in violence and jealousie of love she importunes the Eternal presence of the Beloved Set me as a seal upon thy heart as a seal upon thine arm for love is strong as death jealousie as cruel as the grave the coals thereof are coals of fire which hath a vehement flame She had before often lost her beloved which made her so fiercely fasten on him for having roused him ruit in amplexus she rusht into his embraces she held him and would not let him go Thus you see the jealousie and eagerness of love produc'd by either a former loss or present more then ordinary want of the object both which how pertinent they are to the regenerate man either observing his past sins or instant temptations this discourse hath already made manifest The Use of this Thesis to wit that the greatness of ones sins makes the regenerate man apply himself more fiercely to Christ is first by way of caution that we mistake not a motive for an efficient an impulsive for a principal cause For where we say