can never go too far But then be carefull that this zeal of thy neighbours amendment be only expressed in waies of charity not of cruelty or importune justice He that strikes the Prince for justice as Solomons expression is is a companion of murderers and he that out of zeal of Religion shall go to convert Nations to his opinion by destroying Christians whose faith is intire and summ'd up by the Apostles this man breaks the ground with a sword and sowes tares and waters the ground with bloud and ministers to envie and cruelty to errors and mistake and there comes up nothing but poppies to please the eye and fancy disputes and hypocrisie new summaries of Religion estimated by measures of anger and accursed principles and so much of the religion as is necessary to salvation is laid aside and that brought forth that serves an interest not holinesse that fils the Schooles of a proud man but not that which will fill Heaven Any zeal is proper for Religion but the zeal of the sword and the zeal of anger this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bitternesse of zeal and it is a certain temptation to every man against his duty for if the sword turns preacher and dictates propositions by empire in stead of arguments and ingraves them in mens hearts with a ponyard that it shall be death to beleeve what I innocently and ignorantly am perswaded of it must needs be unsafe to try the spirits to try all things to make inquiry and yet without this liberty no man can justifie himself before God or man nor confidently say that his Religion is best since he cannot without a finall danger make himself able to give a right sentence and to follow that which he findes to be the best this may ruine souls by making Hypocrites or carelesse and complyant against conscience or without it but it does not save souls though peradventure it should force them to a good opinion This is inordination of zeal for Christ by reproving St. Peter drawing his sword even in the cause of Christ for his sacred and yet injured person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Theophylact teaches us not to use the sword though in the cause of God or for God himself because he will secure his own interest only let him be served as himself is pleased to command and it is like Moses passion it throwes the tables of the Law out of our hands and breaks them in pieces out of indignation to see them broken This is the zeal that is now in fashion and hath almost spoyl'd Religion men like the Zelots of the Jewes cry up their Sect and in it their interest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they affect Disciples and fight against the opponents and we shall finde in Scripture that when the Apostles began to preach the meeknesse of the Christian institution salvations and promises charity and humility there was a zeal set up against them the Apostles were zealous for the Gospell the Jewes were zealous for the Law and see what different effects these two zeals did produce the zeal of the Law came to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they stirred up the City they made tumults they persecuted this way unto the death they got letters from the high Priest they kept Damascus with a Garrison they sent parties of souldiers to silence and to imprison the Preachers and thought they did God service when they put the Apostles to death and they swore neither to eat nor to drink till they had killed Paul It was an old trick of the Jewish zeal Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos They would not shew the way to a Samaritan nor give a cup of cold water but to a circumcised brother That was their zeal But the zeal of the Apostles was this they preached publickly and privately they prayed for all men they wept to God for the hardnesse of mens hearts they became all things to all men that they might gain some they travel'd through deeps and deserts they indured the heat of the Syrian Starre and the violence of Euroclydon winds and tempests seas and prisons mockings and scourgings fastings and poverty labour and watching they endured every man and wronged no man they would do any good thing and suffer any evill if they had but hopes to prevail upon a soul they perswaded men meekly they intreated them humbly they convinced them powerfully the watched for their good but medled not with their interest and this is the Christian zeal the zeal of mecknesse the zeal of charity the zeal of patience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in these it is good to be zealous for you can never goe farre enough 2. The next measure of zeal is prudence For as charity is the matter of zeal so is discretion the manner It must alwaies be for good to our neighbour and there needs no rules for the conducting of that provided the end be consonant to the design that is that charity be intended and charity done But there is a zeal also of Religion or worshipping and this hath more need of measures and proper cautions For Religion can turn into a snare it may be abused into superstition it may become wearinesse in the spirit and tempt to tediousnesse to hatred and despair and many persons through their indiscreet conduct and furious marches and great loads taken upon tender shoulders and unexperienced have come to be perfect haters of their joy and despisers of all their hopes being like dark Lanthorns in which a candle burnes bright but the body is incompassed with a crust and a dark cloud of iron and these men keep the fires and light of holy propositions within them but the darknesse of hell the hardnesse of a vexed heart hath shaded all the light and makes it neither apt to warm nor to enlighten others but it turnes to fire within a feaver and a distemper dwels there and Religion is become their torment 1. Therefore our zeal must never carry us beyond that which is profitable There are many institutions customes and usages introduced into Religion upon very fair motives and apted to great necessities but to imitate those things when they are disrobed of their proper ends is an importune zeal and signifies nothing but a forward minde and an easie heart and an imprudent head unlesse these actions can be invested with other ends and usefull purposes The primitive Church were strangely inspired with a zeal of virginity in order to the necessities of preaching and travelling and easing the troubles and temptations of persecution but when the necessity went on and drove the holy men into deserts that made Colleges of Religious and their manner of life was such so united so poor so dressed that they must live more non saeculari after the manner of men divore'd from the
life of man the rule is good and the greater ingredient shal prevail and he shall certainly be pardoned and accepted whose life is so reformed whose repentance is so active whose return is so early that he hath given bigger portions to God then to Gods enemy But if we account so as to divide the measures in present possession the bigger part cannot prevail a small or a seldome sin spoils not the sea of piety but when the affection is divided a little ill destroyes the whole body of good the cup in a mans right hand must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must be pure although it be mingled that is the whole affection must be for God that must be pure and unmingled if sin mingles in seldome and unapproved instances the drops of water are swallowed up with a whole vintage of piety and the bigger ingredient is the prevailing in all other cases it is not so for one sin that we choose and love and delight in will not be excused by 20 vertues and as one broken link dissolves the union of the whole chain and one jarring and untuned string spoils the whole musick so is every sin that seises upon a portion of our affections if we love one that one destroyes the acceptation of all the rest And as it is in faith so it is in charity He that is a Heretick in one article hath no saving faith in the whole and so does every vicious habit or unreformed sin destroy the excellency of the grace of charity a wilfull error in one article is Heresie and every vice in one instance is Malice and they are perfectly contrary and a direct darknesse to the two eyes of the soul faith and charity 4. There is one deceit more yet in the matter of the extension of our duty destroying the integrity of its constitution for they do the work of God deceitfully who think God sufficiently served with abstinence from evill and converse not in the acquisition and pursuit of holy charity and religion This Clemens Alexandrinus affirmes of the Pharisees they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they hoped to be justified by abstinence from things forbidden but if we will be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sons of the kingdome we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Besides this and supposing a proportionable perfection in such an innocence we must love our brother and do good to him and glorifie God by a holy Religion in the communion of Saints in faith and Sacraments in almes and counsell in forgivenesses and assistances Flee from evill and do the thing that is good and dwell for evermore said the Spirit of God in the Psalmes and St. Peter Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust give all diligence to adde to your faith vertue to vertue patience to patience godlinesse and brotherly kindnesse and charity Many persons think themselves fairly assoiled because they are no adulterers no rebels no drunkards not of scandalous lives In the mean time like the Laodiceans they are naked and poor they have no catalogue of good things registred in heaven no treasures in the repositories of the poor neither have the poor often prayed concerning them Lord remember thy servants for this thing at the day of Judgement A negative Religion is in many things the effects of lawes and the appendage of sexes the product of education the issues of company and of the publick or the daughter of fear and naturall modesty or their temper and constitution and civill relations common fame or necessary interest Few women swear and do the debaucheries of drunkards and they are guarded from adulterous complications by spies and shame by fear and jealousie by the concernment of families and the reputation of their kindred and therefore they are to account with God beyond this civill and necessary innocence for humility and patience for religious fancies and tender consciences for tending the sick and dressing the poor for governing their house and nursing their children and so it is in every state of life When a Prince or a Prelate a noble and a rich person hath reckon'd all his immunities and degrees of innocence from those evils that are incident to inferiour persons or the worser sort of their own order they do the work of the Lord and their own too very deceitfully unlesse they account correspondencies of piety to all their powers and possibilities they are to reckon and consider concerning what oppressions they have relieved what causes and what fatherlesse they have defended how the work of God and of Religion of justice and charity hath thriv'd in their hands If they have made peace and encouraged Religion by their example and by their lawes by rewards and collaterall incouragements if they have been zealous for God and for Religion if they have imployed ten talents to the improvement of Gods bank then they have done Gods work faithfully if they account otherwise and account only by ciphers and negatives they can expect only the rewards of innocent slaves they shall escape the furca and the wheel the torments of lustfull persons and the crown of flames that is reserved for the ambitious or they shall not be gnawn with the vipers of the envious or the shame of the ingratefull but they can never upon this account hope for the crowns of Martyrs or the honorary rewards of Saints the Coronets of virgins and Chaplets of Doctors and Confessors And though murderers and lustfull persons the proud and the covetous the Heretick and Schismatick are to expect flames and scorpions pains and smart poenam sensus the Schooles call it yet the lazic and the imperfect the harmlesse sleeper and the idle worker shall have poenam damni the losse of all his hopes and the dishonours of the losse and in the summe of affairs it will be no great difference whether we have losse or pain because there can be no greater pain imaginable then to lose the sight of God to eternall ages 5. Hither are to be reduced as deceitfull workers those that promise to God but mean not to pay what they once intended * people that are confident in the day of ease and fail in the danger * they that pray passionately for a grace and if it be not obtained at that price go no further and never contend in action for what they seem to contend in prayer * such as delight in forms and outsides and regard not the substance and design of every institution * that think it a great sin to tast bread before the receiving the holy Sacrament and yet come to communicate with an ambitious and revengefull soul * that make a conscience of eating flesh but not of drunkennesse * that keep old customes and old sins together * that pretend one duty to excuse another religion against charity or piety to parents against duty to God private promises against publick duty the keeping of an oath against breaking of a Commandement honour against modesty
passion in Religion destroys as much of our evennesse of spirit as it sets forward any outward work and therefore although it be a good circumstance and degree of a spirituall duty so long as it is within and relative to God and our selves so long it is a holy flame but if it be in an outward duty or relative to our neighbours or in an instance not necessary it sometimes spoils the action and alwaies endangers it But I must remember we live in an age in which men have more need of new fires to be kindled within them and round about them then of any thing to allay their forwardnesse there is little or no zeal now but the zeal of envie and killing as many as they can and damning more then they can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smoke and lurking fires do corrode and secretly consume therefore this discourse is lesse necessary A Physitian would have but small imployment near the Riphaean Mountains if he could cure nothing but Calentures Catarrhes and dead palfies Colds and Consumptions are their evils and so is lukewarmnesse and deadnesse of spirit the proper maladies of our age for though some are hot when they are mistaken yet men are cold in a righteous cause and the nature of this evill is to be insensible and the men are farther from a cure because they neither feel their evill nor perceive their danger But of this I have already given account and to it I shall only adde what an old spirituall person told a novice in religion asking him the cause why he so frequently suffered tediousnesse in his religious offices Nondum vidisti requiem quam speramus nec tormenta quae timemus young man thou hast not seen the glories which are laid up for the zealous and devout nor yet beheld the flames which are prepared for the lukewarm and the haters of strict devotion But the Jewes tell that Adam having seen the beauties and tasted the delicacies of Paradise repented and mourned upon the Indian Mountains for three hundred years together and we who have a great share in the cause of his sorrowes can by nothing be invited to a persevering a great a passionate religion more then by remembring what he lost and what is laid up for them whose hearts are burning lamps and are all on fire with Divine love whose flames are fann'd with the wings of the holy Dove and whose spirits shine and burn with that fire which the holy Jesus came to enkindle upon the earth Sermon XV. The House of Feasting OR THE EPICVRES MEASVRES Part I. 1 Cor. 15. 32. last part Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye THis is the Epicures Proverb begun upon a weak mistake started by chance from the discourses of drink and thought witty by the undiscerning company and prevail'd infinitely because it struck their fancy luckily and maintained the merry meeting but as it happens commonly to such discourses so this also when it comes to be examined by the consultations of the morning and the sober hours of the day it seems the most witlesse and the most unreasonable in the world When Seneca describes the spare diet of Epicurus and Metrodorus he uses this expression Liberaliora sunt alimenta carceris sepositos ad capitale supplicium non tam angustè qui occisurus est pascit The prison keeps a better table and he that is to kill the criminall to morrow morning gives him a better supper over night By this he intended to represent his meal to be very short for as dying persons have but little stomach to feast high so they that mean to cut the throat will think it a vain expence to please it with delicacies which after the first alteration must be poured upon the ground and looked upon as the worst part of the accursed thing And there is also the same proportion of unreasonablenesse that because men shall die to morrow and by the sentence and unalterable decree of God they are now descending to their graves that therefore they should first destroy their reason and then force dull time to run faster that they may dye sottish as beasts and speedily as a flie But they thought there was no life after this or if there were it was without pleasure and every soul thrust into a hole and a dorter of a spans length allowed for his rest and for his walk and in the shades below no numbring of healths by the numerall letters of Philenium's name no fat Mullets no Oysters of Luerinus no Lesbian or Chian Wines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore now enjoy the delicacies of Nature and feel the descending wines distilled through the limbecks of thy tongue and larynx and suck the delicious juice of fishes the marrow of the laborious Oxe and the tender lard of Apultan Swine and the condited bellies of the scarus but lose no time for the Sun drives hard and the shadow is long and the dayes of mourning are at hand but the number of the dayes of darknesse and the grave cannot be told Thus they thought they discoursed wisely and their wisdome was turned into folly for all their arts of providence and witty securities of pleasure were nothing but unmanly prologues to death fear and folly sensuality and beastly pleasures But they are to be excused rather then we They placed themselves in the order of beasts and birds and esteemed their bodies nothing but receptacles of flesh and wine larders and pantries and their soul the fine instrument of pleasure and brisk perception of relishes and gusts reflexions and duplications of delight and therefore they treated themselves accordingly But then why we should do the same things who are led by other principles and a more severe institution and better notices of immortality who understand what shall happen to a soul hereafter and know that this time is but a passage to eternity this body but a servant to the soul this soul a minister to the Spirit and the whole man in order to God and to felicity this I say is more unreasonable then to eat aconite to preserve our health and to enter into the floud that we may die a dry death this is a perfect contradiction to the state of good things whither we are designed and to all the principles of a wise Philophy whereby we are instructed that we may become wise unto salvation That I may therefore do some assistances towards the curing the miseries of mankinde and reprove the follies and improper motions towards felicity I shall endevour to represent to you 1. That plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instruments of felicity 2. That intemperance is a certain enemy to it making life unpleasant and death troublesome and intolerable 3. I shall adde the rules and measures of temperance in eating and drinking that nature and grace may joyne to the constitution of mans felicity 1. Plenty and the pleasures of the world are