the wicked that the Canaanite may become an Israelite Thorns turned into lillies and Tares made good corn We may then observe from hence a double Corollarie or conclusion A Double Corollarie or conclusion The First Corollarie First the condition of God's people in this present world Secondly the grievous misery and calamity of this their condition First we may take notice of the condition of the people of God in this present world To be promiscuously blended with wicked men unequally yoaked with Infidels Much like unto the state of the Church of France because of the dinersity of religion the dispersion of Papists and Hugonites throughout the whole Kingdom is fitly compared to A Panthers or Leopards skin which is full of all kind of spots Such a speckled Beast is the visible Church upon Earth For though there be no communion betwixt light and darkness in theniselves yet is the light of saving truth and the darkness of errour and superstition confounded in the firmament of the Church as light and darkness are mixed in the Air. Though no fellowship be betwixt righteousness and unrighteousness in their nature yet is there a society in place we may and must separate from the fornicators of the world covetous extortioners and Idolaters both in affection action yet can we not separate and quit our selves of the place unless we should follow Saint Pauls direction and go out of the world 1 Cor. 5 10. Let then the giddy Separatists who first run out of their wits and then out of the Church let these I say travel into the remotest parts of the world and beyond the course of the Sun ultra Garamantas Indos to find out such a Church as is without spot or wrinkle wrinkle in doctrine spot in manners which Christ indeed purchased with his death (e) August lib. 1. Retract ca. 19. lib. 2. cap. 18. non quod jam sit talis sed quod praeparetur ut sit talis As Austin glosses upon the place Ephes 5.27 yet unless they can fly from themselves as well as they abandon the company of others they shall never be free of sinners And they must have a special heed lest while they mutter any thing secretly with themselves they talk not with a wicked person And if there be any like unto Saint Paul's Marriners who in a tempestuous storm go about to fly out of the ship of the Church and let down a Boat into the Sea under a colourable pretence of casting Anchor whereby the Ship should be more stedfast and so sayl into forrein parts I will only advise them in Saint Paul's words to the centurion and the souldiers Except these abide in the Ship ye cannot be safe Acts 27.30 31. Yet let no man think I limit salvation to any Topical or particular Church or have any oblique glance or gird at any of our Brethren who out of a religious intention of enlargement and propagation of the Gospel and conversion of poor pagan Insidels have changed their Church and Climate I rather accompany them with my most affectionate and hearty prayers yea with David's wishes for Jerusalem Psal 122.7 8 9. Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces For my Brethren and companions sake I will now say pence be within thee because of the House of the Lord our God I will procure thy wealth My speech onely aims and drives at new fangled Separatists who out of a dislike if not a detestation of the present Church as if the case thereof was not onely deplorate but desperate casting away the whole apple with the Hermits friend for some few specks of rottenness Or out of an ungrounded hope of devising or finding ready moulded to their hand such a Church as is free from errours and enormities schismatically divide and cut themselves off from the unity of that Body whereof they were late members These are the men to whom I recommend more Christian charity and Spiritual wisedom And turn them over to the preposition â—â— in the words of the Text for information and conviction both at once Suffer them both to grow tegether Secondly The Second Corollary we may from hence collect the matchless miseries of God's people in this present world whose souls are among it Lyons as the Psalmist sometimes complained Psal 57.4 Like unto Daniel in the Lyons Den who are necessitated to converse and to have at least a civil commerce and intercourse with the Sons of Belial And have just cause to bewail and bemoan their case in the words of David Psal 120.5 Woe is me that I remain in Meshech and dwel in the Tents of Kedar A double woe of God's people in this world And there is a double woe that attends and waits upon God's Servants here beneath First The inward corruption of their own nature being as a Rose that grows up with sharp prickles That there were Roses without prickles in Paradise was the conceit of great St. Basil Sure I am there is no Rose of grace without the prickles of corruption Secondly The outward and concomitant wickedness of others in that they are as a Lilly among Thorns The Prophet Isaiah displays them both and so may every child of God lament them after his Example Woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of polluted lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of polluted lips Isa 6.5 They are not only polluted in their own persons but are circled and incompassed with pollution on every side And who is there that can refrain from breaking forth into that pathetical and melting speech in this respect Woe is me for I am undone Needs must it be as a deep taint and a fretting corrosive to the hearts and spirits of God's people that there should be so many outside Hypocrites in the Church no better then Stage-players in religion and like unto that silly Stage-player who pronounced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with his tongue and pointed unto the Earth with his finger And so did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commit a kind of Solaecisme and absurdity with his hand And as it was said of one that painted his Hair with a false colour that he wore a lye in his head and was guilty of Sophistery in his locks So are there too too many of such deceitful Sophisters even in the profession of godliness it self who by their painting and false colours carry a lye not in their head but in their heart being inwardly nothing less then what they outwardly appear Thereby starting and staggering the judgments of those that are wavering and unstable who are ready hereupon to passe a peremptory and downright censure (m) Linacre on the 5.6 â— cap. of Matth. Aut hoc non est Evangelium aut isti non sunt Evangelici Either this is not the Gospel or these are not true Gospellers And opening the mouths of other to speak evil of the way of the Lord to jest and
of his own councel and to the managing of his inbred liberty either in the election of good or evil and so suffering it to come to pass And by this sufferance of God it is as a just reason of the being though not from it as a procuring and producing cause that sin entred at the first and as yet continues in the world Christ lets the Tares spring and grow in that he doth not let them for though God evermore hinders sin by his Justice and opposes a spiritual impediment thereunto the prohibitions and communications of his word like unto the Angel that appeared unto Balaam with a drawn sword in his hand to cross him in his way yet God doth not alwaies hinder sin by his power and make use of a natural impediment in denying the assistance of his Providence or in restraining and cutting them short in the act of sin as when he contracted and shrunk the sinews of Jerobeams Arme which being once stretcht forth to lay violent hands upon the Prophet he was utterly disabled from pulling it in again Neither need we make search for any other reason of Gods proceedings than the short and modest answer of the School In particular administration a provident Ruler prevents what lies in him all inconveniencies but in the universal government of the world it seemed best to divine wisedom to suffer some evil not for want of power to hinder it but out of his abundant goodness (t) Miro ineffabili modo non fit praeter Dei voluntatem quod etiam contra ejus voluntatem sit Quia nec fieret nisi sineret nec utique nolens Nec sineret bonus fieri male nisi etiam omnipotnes de malo facere possit bene Augustin Enchirid ad Laurentium And God who is infinite both in goodness and power hath thought it more expedient and conducing to the illustration of his glory to bring good out of evil then not to permit or suffer it to be at all And as he suffers it to enter so to continue in the world till the men of corrupt minds dispute against his providence quarrel his justice blasphemously gain-say the truth of the Divinity and conclude with David's Fool There is no God (u) Tertul. de Patient cap. 2. Plures Dominum idcirco non credunt quia tamdiu saeculo iratum nesciunt saith Tertullian This tamdiu or length of time extends and reaches unto the end of the world Sin and the world are of an age for their birth beginning and they have the self same end and period And as our Saviour informs us in the words of the Text Let both grow together until the Harvest Christ suffers the Tares so long and therein presents himself in his own person as a pattern for our imitation Secondly Secondly to the servants of the Housholder this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or suffer hath reference to the servants of the Housholder who complained of the springing up of the Tares being directed unto them as a rule of direction in the case to suffer them by his example And so it may be considered in a double manner And so considered in a double maner First as a rational counsel and advice touching Tares in the generality Secondly as a peremptory and strict command in respect of particular Tares and offences First First as a Rational counsel touching tares in the general this word suffer may be conceiv'd is a counsel to the Servants to permit though not allow those evil and enormities errours in doctrine corruption in manners which they can no way reform and remedy Christ indeed suffers them willingly and out of the fulness of his power which he might as easily prevent as rectifie But as for the servants of Christ they are constrained to suffer them against their will in regard of their impotency and disability both in the withstanding and removal of them As for particular mischiefs and grievances they are not they ought not to be once indured There must be no toleration of several Religions and Professions in the same State and Kingdom which though a Politique Machiavilian may well approve as useful and advantagious And a Turkish Sultan account this diversity as pleasing a sight and spectacie in the eye of his indifferent and neutral judgement as variety of flowers being prickt in the same Nosegay which make it more sweet and beautiful yet in this to plow with an Oxe and an Asse to sow God's field with Meslain and apparrel the body of the Church with a Linsey wolsey garment in a spiritual sense and was therein especially forbidden unto the Jows yea this is to endeavour a communion with light and darkness and accord with Christ and Belial and with the silly Hermit of old to mediate a peace betwixt God and the Divel There must be no toleration of Stews and Brothel-Houses Cages of unclean Birds in a Christian Commonwealth which are not onely publiquely professed and licensed in the Church and City of Rome by the Popes Holiness and under his nose but are solemnly defended and maintained (x) Watson lib. 2. Quodl 4. Artic. pag. 31. cum approbatione as lawful as any Citizen Magistrate order of Religion or the Pope himself which Watson the Priest avoucheth to be the Tenet of no mean Jesuit And this is one difference among many other betwixt the Church of Christ and the Antichristian Synagogue of Satan wherein vices are not only perpetrated and committed but priviledged by authority and observed with a kind of religious reverence (z) Cypr. Epist 2. cap. 3. Fiunt miseris religiosa Delicta as Saint Cyprian speaks of the Heathen whereas in the Church of Christ though the self sume vices are by some entertained yet do they not find either Patrons or Proctours to plend for them no Magistrate either supreme or subordinate to establish them by a royall Decree or support them by their power I say there is not any particular evil that must in any case be tolerated yet considering the deplorable condition of this present world which even lies in wickedness 1 John 5.19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is under the power and dominion of the Divel as the word imports So that though superintendent Governours be never so vigilant by their inspection and circumspection never so active and zealous in execution though those Hydras heads of that Monster sin be never so oft out off yet new heads arise fresh in the room and many for one There is an indispensable and unavoidable necessity of an involuntary toleration of sin in the general which they cannot redress and of suffering the Tares of iniquity according to our Saviours councel which they cannot with any possibility extirpate or root up Toleramus quae tollere non possumus sed qui tolorat non amat etsi tolerare amat saith Saint Austin They must tolerate what they cannot take away And albeit no man loves what he suffers yet he loves
with her hair disheveld and her torn garments should shew the womb that bare thee and the paps that gave thee suck If that thy aged and hoary-headed Father should lie in the threshold to detain thee in a course of wickedness or hinder thy passage unto Christ In such a case as this Cast down thy Infant run over thy mother tread and trample thy father under feet And with dry eyes run yea flie to the Banner of Christ's crosse It is the onely piety to be accounted even cruel for Christs sake and the highest strain and pitch of natural affection to prove unnatural in the cause of Christianity The second cause of this Almost in Christianity is the inordinate love of worldly promotion and preferment Worldly promotions and preferments when men make the world their standing mark and do only rove at God when they do uti frnendis frui utendis Make use of God onely who should be enjoyed to serve their own turn and enjoy the world which should be but barely used and that as though we used it not It was the world that made Demas a Renegado and a Revolter from his profession Demas hath forsaken me and embraced this present world so St. Paul complains of him 2 Tim. 4.10 And it is the love of the world that is as (g) Amor rerum temporalium est viscus alarum spiritualium August Baldwino ferventi Monacho ac Abbati calido Episcopo tepido frigido Archiepiscopo PopeVrbans Letter to him Gerald. Camb. Itinerar Birdlime to the wings of the foul that keeps it from soaring and mounting upward unto God and from seeking those things that are above It was the downright confession of Theodorus a Jew That it was neither ignorance nor hatred of the true Religion that captivated him in his errors but onely his preheminence and temporal dignities in his own Country that disswaded him from the embracing of Christianity And it may be this was it that prevailed with Agrippa in my Text who eame and Bernice with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a great deal of pomp and outside bravery Acts 25.23 And it is like enough that this vain shew and fancy of earthly glory so bleared and misted and cast such a Dust in the eye of his judgement that he could not find the right Way to Christianity The third cause of this Almost in Christianity is the inordinate love of some vitious and sinful lust Of vicious and sinful lusts Non faciunt bonos vel malos mores nisi boni vel mali amores August Epist 52. a Dalilah and darling sin What though Herod do many things and hear John Baptist gladly yet if his Herodias come in the way she will soon take off the edge of his Devotion And howsoever Foelix trembled being hammered upon the Anvil of St. Pauls ministery yet his Drusilla his bosome sin of lasciviousness and incontinency marrs all This is the reason of our Saviours counsel To pluck out the right Eye and to cut off the right Hand Mattli 5.29 30. For if this right eye or right hand be left behind an Herodias or Drusilla That which Divines stile Peccatum in deliciis a delicate and dainty lust a tender and beloved corruption This will so entangle and enveigle the Heart and make another Agrippa of it That it shall be but Almost perswaded to be a Christian The second cause of this Almost in Christianity A second cause of this Almost in Christianity Immoderate fear is immoderate Fear The terrour of the crosse the amazement of triall and temptation and the frightful Bugbears of Persecution These are the main matters that stave men off from coming unto Christ The slothfull man saith a Lyon is in the way a Lyon is in the streets Prov. 26.13 Such is the spiritual sluggishness and faint-hearted-cowardize of our natures who preoccupate and forestall our hearts with superfluous fears speak in the language of the sluggard a Lyon is in the way of Christianity (h) Si coelum stetit si terra movit si fames si lues statim Christianos ad Leonem Tertul. Apol. cap. 40. Christianos ad Leonem which was the outragious outery of the Heathen There is nothing to be found there but death and destruction Insomuch that when Christ began to instruct his Disciples of his going up to Hierusalem of his suffering many things of the Elders and of being slain the third day they all lent a deaf Ear unto it and St. Peter who was forwarder then the rest began to rebuke him saying Master This shall not be unto thee Matth. 16.21 22. Men cannot endure to hear of suffering and they that would fain raign with Christ will in no case be brought in the mind to suffer with him They will not accept of Christ for their spiritual Husband upon the just conditions of marriage for better for worse for richer for poorer in sickness and in health They fancy not a poor neglected despised and persecuted Redeemer Nor can they be allured and invited to accompany their Saviour in reproach and ignominy in poverty and nakedness in imprisonment and banishment and to dy with him upon mount Calvary (h) Non est in Deum delicata secura confessio Qui in me credit debet sanguinem suum fundere Hieronym It is no delicate or secure thing to confess Christ that man which believes in him must so cast up his account and reckoning as to be ready to lay down his life and to shed his blood for him This is it that makes men look a skue upon Christ as a meer stranger as if with St. Peter they knew not the man and to follow him a far of after his example and that for dread of their own danger This is it that makes so many Agrippa's in times of temptation who upon this very ground and reason are but almost perswaded to become Christians Seeing then Agrippa brake of as it were in the middle of a sentence and slopt as at a full point where he should have made a comma or a colon yet remained but a Semi-Christian and that after the hearing of another Apollo St. Paul mighty in the Scriptures who preached a penetrating and a peircing Sermon and with a deep tent and keen lancet searcht his conscience to the quick we may from hence observe the truth of that Divine Aphorisme and Theological Maxime The first Corollary That there is not a (i) It is given to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdome of Heaven but to them it is not given Matth. 13.11 Fides inchoata perfecta donum Dei est hoc donum quibusdam dari quibusdam non dari omnino non dubitet qui non vult manifestissimis sacris literis repugnare August de Praedest sanct cap. 9. Quidam sic opinantur quasi Deus recesse habeat praestare etiam indignis quod spospondit liberalitatem ejus faciunt servitutem Sed Deus
because ye go to law one with another why do ye not suffer wrong why do ye not rather suffer your selves to be defrauded this was the 〈◊〉 the spiritual impotency and infirmity of their dispositions that they did not voluntarily relinquish and in some measure recede from their own right thereby to piece and flitch up differences out of a zealous desire and endeavour after brotherly love and concord This was very remarkable and signal in Gregory Nazianzen who when the Council of Constantinople was split in two about the choice of a Bishop he took his leave both of the Council and of his Bishoprick with this farewel speech (z) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gregor Naz. vita If I be the cause of this dissension I am not better then the Prophet Jonas cast me forth into the sea so shall the sea be calm unto you onely remember that of Zacharie love the truth and peace 3. The third work of charity is a liberal communicating and distributing with a free heart and an open hand to the necessities of our brethren who soe hath this worlds good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him â—how dwelleth the love of God in him The third Work of Charity A free distributing to the necessity of our Brethren 1 Ioh. 3.17 and then do men shut their bowels of compassion when they shut their hands and are close fisted and in so doing how dwelleth the love of God in them and the Apostles interrogation hath in it the force of a vehement negation that there is no love at all It is a grosse yet common error of the Papists to confound good works in the general with works of charity and liberality as if the part and the whole were all one and there were no other works besides and yet almes-deeds are good works good in their kind and nature Good and profitable unto men Titus 3.8 And much more profitable unto our selves for howsoever works of charity are not either efficient or meritorius causes entitling or interessing us in the Kingdome of Heaven which descends upon us as an inheritance provided by our Father from all Eternity and purchased in the fulness of time by the blood of Christ Yet are they a necessary condition and an effectual means of our entrance and actual possession of that Kingdome the rule and measure of Christs award in pronouncing and passing that definitive sentence at the great and general judgment of the latter day Mat. 25.34 35 36. Come ye blessed children of my Father receive the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world For I was an hungred and ye gave me meat I was thirsty and ye gave me drink I was a stranger and ye took me in naked and ye cloathed me I was sick and ye visited me I was in prison and ye came unto me Thus will Christ entertain and welcome men into his Kingdom at the day of his appearance And that is the reason of Saint Paul's charge to Timothy Why those that are rich in this world should be rich in good works Ready to distribute willing to communicate Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life 1 Tim. 6.17 18 19. 4. The Fourth work of charity is the exercise of benevolence and beneficence The fourth Work of Charity The doing good to our Enemies to such as are most alienated and estranged from us the person of professed Enemies And that whether enemies in Opinion Affection Action we must according to our Saviours counsel Love Bless Pray Do good to them and by all means possible intend and further their temporal and much more their eternal welfare This is the Genius of the Gospel the discriminating character of Christianity from all other professions and all Religions (a) Amicos diligere est omnium inimicos autem solorum Christianorum Tertul. ad Scapulam cap. 1. For men to love their Friends is common to all but to love their Enemies is proper and peculiar to Christians And herein must we express evidence our charity to enemies by an unfained earnest desire of their conversion to the unity of faith and love If that a member be dissected and out off from the society of (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we forthwith carefully closs and bind it up and use the best means of art and skill to incorporate it with the c fellows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is St. Chrysostom's comparison Even so should all our attempts endeavours aim and level at this main project and design The Application in a threefold Consectary Inference to reunite and combine our most enraged and implacable Enemies in the bond of Christian communion and Brotherly fellowship from which they are severed and divided for want of Charity 1. And is St. Paul's Aphorism sound Divinity Let all your things be done with charity The First affording matter of Grief and Sorrow That which we may from hence observe in the first place is matter of grief and sorrow Private grief and publick sorrow A copious Theme and subject large enough to make up a full volume of the same Argument with the Roll of Ezechiel ' s prophecy that was written within and without with lamentation and mourning and woe And just cause there is now if ever for every man in his own person to renew and take up that melting desire of the pathetical Prophet Jer. 2.1 O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I may weep day and night for the want of this grace and charity Oh Charity the map and mirrour of Excellency the glory of graces the bond of peace the bond of perfectness the desire and delight of Angels the lively image and portraicture of God himself which is everywhere stiled The peace of God and the God of peace (c) Nazianz. Orat. 14. pag. 214. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzen Which is of God and is God For God is love 1 John 4.8 Not only causally in us but formally in himself though not as an Affection but as his Nature Oh thou highly beloved and lovely Love the fairest among vertues Beautiful as Tirzah comely as Hierusalem What is become of thee where dost thou abide and dwell Hast thou quite left this habitable world and art ascended and gone up to Heaven there to enjoy the sight of Gods blessed Face and to repose and rest thy self in his Bosom from whence thou first came (d) Nazianz Orat. 14. pag. 214. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the passionate complaint of Gregory Nazianzen O dear and precious peace a Grace that is generally commended and cried up by all but observed and practised by a very few Where hast thou forsaken us for so long time And when oh when wilt thou