usefulnesse and advantages of its first intention But this I intended not to have spoken 2. Our Zeal must never carry us beyond that which is safe Some there are who in their first attempts and entries upon Religion while the passion that brought them in remains undertake things as great as their highest thoughts no repentance is sharp enough no charities expensive enough no fastings afflictive enough then totis Quinquatribus orant and finding some deliciousnesse at the first contest and in that activity of their passion they make vowes to binde themselves for ever to this state of delicacies The onset is fair but the event is this The age of a passion is not long and the flatulent spirit being breathed out the man begins to abate of his first heats and is ashamed but then he considers that all that was not necessary and therefore he will abate something more and from something to something at last it will come to just nothing and the proper effect of this is indignation and hatred of holy things an impudent spirit carelessenesse or despair Zeal sometimes carries a man into temptation and he that never thinks he loves God dutifully or acceptably because he is not imprison'd for him or undone or design'd to Martyrdome may desire a triall that will undoe him It is like fighting of a Duell to shew our valour Stay till the King commands you to fight and die and then let zeal do its noblest offices This irregularity and mistake was too frequent in the primitive Church when men and women would strive for death and be ambitious to feel the hangmans sword some miscarryed in the attempt and became sad examples of the unequall yoking a frail spirit with a zealous driver 3. Let Zeal never transport us to attempt anything but what is possible M. Teresa made a vow that she would do alwaies that which was absolutely the best But neither could her understanding alwaies tell her which was so nor her will alwayes have the same fervours and it must often breed scruples and sometimes tediousnesse and wishes that the vow were unmade He that vowes never to have an ill thought never to commit an error hath taken a course that his little infirmities shall become crimes and certainly be imputed by changing his unavoidable infirmity into vow-breach Zeal is a violence to a mans spirit and unlesse the spirit be secur'd by the proper nature of the duty and the circumstances of the action and the possibilities of the man it is like a great fortune in the meanest person it bears him beyond his limit and breaks him into dangers and passions transportations and all the furies of disorder that can happen to an abused person 4. Zeal is not safe unlesse it be in re probabili too it must be in a likely matter For we that finde so many excuses to untie all our just obligations and distinguish our duty into so much finenesse that it becomes like leaf-gold apt to be gone at every breath it can not be prudent that we zealously undertake what is not probable to be effected If we do the event can be nothing but portions of the former evill scruple and snares shamefull retreats and new fantastick principles In all our undertakings we must consider what is our state of life what our naturall inclinations what is our society and what are our dependencies by what necessities we are born down by what hopes we are biassed and by these let us measure our heats and their proper businesse A zealous man runs up a sandy hill the violence of motion is his greatest hinderance and a 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 Riphâ—an Mountains if he could cure nothing but Calentures Catarrhes and dead palsies 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
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 meeknesse 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 he art 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 saculari after the manner of men divorc'd from the usuall entercourses of the world still their desire of single life increased because the old necessity lasted and a new one did supervene Afterwards the case was altered and then the single life was not to be chosen for it self nor yet in imitation of the first precedents for it could not be taken out from their circumstances and be used alone He therefore that thinks he is a more holy person for being a virgin or a widower or that he is bound to be so because they were so or that he cannot be a religious person because he is not so hath zeal indeed but not according to knowledge But now if the single state can be taken out and put to new appendages and fitted to the end of another grace or essentiall duty of Religion it will well become a Christian zeal to choose it so long as it can serve the end with advantage and security Thus also a zealous person is to chuse his fastings while they are necessary to him and are acts of proper mortification while he is tempted or while he is under discipline while he repents or while he obeys but some persons fast in zeal but for nothing else fast when they have no need when there is need they should not but call it religion to be miserable or sick here their zeal is folly for it is neither an act of Religion nor of prudence to fast when fasting probably serves no end of the spirit and therefore in the fasting dayes of the Church although it is warrant enough to us to fast if we had no end to serve in it but the meer obedience yet it is necessary that the superiors should not think the Law obeyed unlesse the end of the first institution be observed a fasting day is a day of humiliation and prayer and fasting being nothing it self but wholly the handmaid of a further grace ought not to be devested of its holinesse and sanctification and left like the wals of a ruinous Church where there is no duty performed to God but there remains something of that which us'd to minister to Religion The want of this consideration hath caus'd so much scandall and dispute so many snares and schismes concerning Ecclesiasticall fasts For when it was undressed and stripp'd of all the ornaments and usefull appendages when from a solemn day it grew to be common from thence to be lesse devout by being lesse seldome and lesse usefull and then it passed from a day of Religion to be a day of order and from fasting till night to fasting till evening-song and evening-song to be sung about twelve a clock and from fasting it was changed to a choice of food from eating nothing to eating fish and that the letter began to be stood upon and no usefulnesse remain'd but what every of his own piety should put into it but nothing was enjoyn'd by the Law nothing of that exacted by the superiours then the Law fell into disgrace and the design became suspected and men were first insnared and then scandalized and then began to complain without remedy and at last took remedy themselves without authority the whole affair fell into a disorder and a mischief and zeal was busie on both sides and on both sides was mistaken because they fell not upon the proper remedy which was to reduce the Law to the
were evill spirits who had seduced them and tempted them to such ungodly rites and yet they who were of the Pythagorean sect pretended a more holy worship and did their devotion to Angels But whosoever shall worship Angels do the same thing they worship them because they are good and powerfull as the Gentiles did the Devils whom they thought so and the error which the Apostle reproves was not in matter of Judgement in mistaking bad angels for good but in matter of manners and choice they mistook the creature for the Creator and therefore it is more fully expressed by St. Paul in a generall signification they worshipped the creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides the Creator so it should be read if we worship any creature besides God worshipping so as the worship of him becomes a part of Religion it is also a direct superstition but concerning this part of superstition I shall not trouble this discourse because I know no Christians blamable in this particular but the Church of Rome and they that communicate with her in the worshipping of Images of Angels and Saints burning lights and perfumes to them making offerings confidences advocations and vowes to them and direct and solemn divine worshipping the Symbols of bread and wine when they are consecrated in the holy Sacrament These are direct superstition as the word is used by all Authors profane and sacred and are of such evill report that where ever the word Superstition does signifie any thing criminall these instances must come under the definition of it They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cultus superstitum a cultus Daemonum and therefore besides that they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proper reproof in Christian Religion are condemned by all wise men which call superstition criminall But as it is superstition to worship any thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides the Creator so it is superstition to worship God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 otherwise then is decent proportionable or described Every inordination of Religion that is not in defect is properly called superstition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Maximus Tyrius The true worshipper is a lover of God the superstitious man loves him not but flatters To which if we adde that fear unreasonable fear is also superstition and an ingredient in its definition we are taught by this word to signifie all irregularity and inordination in actions of Religion The summe is this the Atheist cal'd all worship of God superstition the Epicurean cal'd all fear of God superstition but did not condemn his worship the other part of wise men cal'd all unreasonable fear and inordinate worship superstition but did not condemn all fear But the Christian besides this cals every error in worship in the manner or excesse by this name and condemns it Now because the three great actions of Religion are to worship God to fear God and to trust in him by the inordination of these three actions we may reckon three sorts of this crime the excesse of fear and the obliquity in trust and the errors in worship are the three sorts of superstition the first of which is only pertinent to our present consideration 1. Fear is the duty we owe to God as being the God of power and Justice the great Judge of heaven and earth the avenger of the cause of Widows the Patron of the poor and the Advocate of the oppressed a mighty God and terrible and so essentiall an enemy to sin that he spared not his own Son but gave him over to death and to become a sacrifice when he took upon him our Nature and became a person obliged for our guilt Fear is the great bridle of intemperance the modesty of the spirit and the restraint of gaieties and dissolutions it is the girdle to the soul and the handmaid to repentance the arrest of sin and the cure or antidote to the spirit of reprobation it preserves our apprehensions of the divine Majesty and hinders our single actions from combining to sinfull habits it is the mother of consideration and the nurse of sober counsels and it puts the soul to fermentation and activity making it to passe from trembling to caution from caution to carefulnesse from carefulnesse to watchfulnesse from thence to prudence and by the gates and progresses of repentance it leads the soul on to love and to felicity and to joyes in God that shall never cease again Fear is the guard of a man in the dayes of prosperity and it stands upon the watch-towers and spies the approaching danger and gives warning to them that laugh loud and feast in the chambers of rejoycing where a man cannot consider by reason of the noises of wine and jest and musick and if prudence takes it by the hand and leads it on to duty it is a state of grace and an universall instrument to infant Religion and the only security of the lesse perfect persons and in all senses is that homage we owe to God who sends often to demand it even then when he speaks in thunder or smites by a plague or awakens us by threatning or discomposes our easinesse by sad thoughts and tender eyes and fearfull hearts and trembling considerations But this so excellent grace is soon abused in the best and most tender spirits in those who are softned by Nature and by Religion by infelicities or cares by sudden accidents or a sad soul and the Devill observing that fear like spare diet starves the feavers of lust and quenches the flames of hell endevours to highten this abstinence so much as to starve the man and break the spirit into timorousnesse and scruple sadnesse and unreasonable tremblings credulity and trifling observation suspicion and false accusations of God and then vice being turned out at the gate returns in at the postern and does the work of hell and death by running too inconsiderately in the paths which seem to lead to heaven But so have I seen a harmlesse dove made dark with an artificiall night and her eyes ceel'd and lock'd up with a little quill soaring upward and flying with amazement fear and an undiscerning wing she made toward heaven but knew not that she was made a train and an instrument to teach her enemy to prevail upon her and all her defencelesse kindred so is a superstitious man zealous and blinde forward and mistaken he runs towards heaven as he thinks but he chooses foolish paths and out of fear takes any thing that he is told or fancios and guesses concerning God by measures taken from his own diseases and imperfections But fear when it is inordinate is never a good counsellor nor makes a good friend and he that fears God as his enemy is the most compleatly miserable person in the world For if he with reason beleeves God to be his enemy then the man needs no other argument to prove that he is undone then this that the fountain of blessing in this state in which the
things of God and all other duties to be the things of the world for it was a Pharisaicall device to cry Corban and to refuse to relieve their aged Parents it is good to give to a Church but it is better to give to the Poor and though they must be both provided for yet in cases of dispute Mercy carries the cause against Religion and the Temple And although Mary was commended for choosing the better part yet Mary had done worse if she had been at the foot of her Master when she should have relieved a perishing brother Martha was troubled with much serving that was more then need and therefore she was to blame and sometimes hearing in some circumstances may be more then needs and some women are troubled with over-much hearing and then they had better have been serving the necessities of their house 4. This rule is not to be extended to the relatives of Religion for although the things of the Spirit are better then the things of the World yet a spirituall man is not in humane regards to be preferred before Princes and noble personages Because a man is called spirituall in severall regards and for various measures and manners of partaking of the Spirit of grace or co-operating toward the works of the Spirit * A King and a Bishop both have callings in order to godlinesse and honesty and spirituall effects towards the advancement of Christs Kingdome whose representatives severally they are * But whether of these two works more immediately or more effectively cannot at all times be known and therefore from hence no argument can be drawn concerning doing them civill regards * and possibly the partaking the Spirit is a neerer relation to him then doing his ministeries and serving his ends upon others * and if relations to God and Gods Spirit could bring an obligation of giving proportionable civill honour every holy man might put in some pretence for dignities above some Kings and some Bishops * But as the things of the Spirit are in order to the affairs of another world so they naturally can inferre onely such a relative dignity as can be expressed in spirituall manners But because such relations are subjected in men of this life and we now converse especially in materiall and secular significations therefore we are to expresse our regards to men of such relations by proportionable expressions but because civill excellencies are the proper ground of receiving and exacting civill honors and spirituall excellencies doe onely claim them accidentally and indirectly therefore in titles of honour and humane regards the civill praeeminence is the appendix of the greatest civill power and imployment and is to descend in proper measures and for a spirituall relation to challenge a temporall dignity is as if the best Musick should challenge the best cloathes or a Lute-string should contend with a Rose for the honour of the greatest sweetnesse * Adde to this that although temporall things are in order to spirituall and therefore are lesse perfect yet this is not so naturally for temporall things are properly in order to the felicity of man in his proper and present constitution and it is by a supernaturall grace that now they are thrust forward to a higher end of grace and glory and therefore temporall things and persons and callings have properly the chiefest temporall regard and Christ took nothing of this away from them but put them higher by sanctifying and ennobling them * But then the higher calling can no more suppose the higher man then the richest trade can suppose the richest man From callings to men the argument is fallacious and a Smith is a more usefull man then he that teaches Logick but not always to be more esteemed and called to stand at the chairs of Princes and Nobles * Holy persons and holy things and all great relations are to be valued by generall proportions to their correlatives but if wee descend to make minute and exact proportions and proportion an inch of temporall to a minute of spirituall we must needs be hugely deceived unlesse we could measure the motion of an Angell by a string or the progressions of the Spirit by weight and measure of the staple * And yet if these measures were taken it would be unreasonable that the lower of the higher kind should be preferr'd before the most perfect and excellent in a lower order of things A man generally is to be esteemed above a woman but not the meanest of her subjects before the most excellent Queen not alwayes this man before this woman Now Kings and Princes are the best in all temporall dignities and therefore if they had in them no spirituall relations and consequent excellencies as they have very many yet are not to be undervalu'd to spirituall relations which in this world are very imperfect weak partiall and must stay till the next world before they are in a state of excellency propriety and perfection and then also all shall have them according to the worth of their persons not of their calling * But lastly what men may not challenge is not their just and proper due but spirituall persons and the neerest relatives to God stand by him but so long at they dwell low and safe in humility and rise high in nothing but in labours and zeal of soules and devotion * In proportion to this rule a Church may be pull'd down to save a Town and the Vessels of the Church may be sold to redeem Captives when there is a great calamity imminent and prepared for reliefe and no other way to succour it But in the whole the duty of zeale requires that we neglect an ordinary visit rather then an ordinary prayer and a great profit rather then omit a required duty No excuse can legitimate a sin and he that goes about to distinguish between his duty and his profit and if he cannot reconcile them will yet tie them together like a Hyaena and a Dog this man pretends to Religion but secures the world and is indifferent and lukewarme towards that so he may be warme and safe in the possession of this 2. To that fervour and zeal that is necessary and a duty it is required that we be constant and persevering Esto fidelis ad mortem said the Spirit of God to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna Be faithfull unto death and I will give thee a crown of life For he that is warm to day and cold to morrow zealous in his resolution and weary in his practises fierce in the beginning and slack and easie in his progresse hath not yet well chosen what side he will be of he sees not reason enough for Religion and he hath not confidence enough for its contrary and therefore he is duplicis animi as St. James calls him of a doubtfull mind For Religion is worth as much to day as it was yesterday and that cannot change though we doe and if we doe we have left God and whither
Nereus and Achilleus the Eunuchs refused to marry Aurelianus to whom she was contracted if there were not some little envie and too sharp hostility in the Eunuchs to a marryed state yet Aurelianus thought himself an injur'd person and caus'd St. Clemens who vail'd her and his spouse both to dye in the quarrell St. Thecla being converted by St. Paul grew so in love with virginity that she leap'd back from the marriage of Tamyris where she was lately ingaged St. Iphigenia denyed to marry King Hirtacus and it is said to be done by the advice of St. Matthew And Susanna the Niece of Diocletian refus'd the love of Maximianus the Emperour and these all had been betrothed and so did St. Agnes and St. Felicula and divers others then and afterwards insomuch that it was reported among the Gentiles that the Christians did not only hate all that were not of their perswasion but were enemies of the chast lawes of marriage And indeed some that were called Christians were so forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats Upon this occasion it grew necessary for the Apostle to state the question right and to do honour to the holy rite of marriage and to snatch the mystery from the hands of zeal and folly and to place it in Christs right hand that all its beauties might appear and a present convenience might not bring in a false Doctrine and a perpetuall sin and an intolerable mischief The Apostle therefore who himself had been a marryed man but was now a widower does explicate the mysteriousnesse of it and describes it's honours and adornes it with rules and provisions of Religion that as it begins with honour so it may proceed with piety and end with glory For although single life hath in it privacy and simplicity of affaires such solitarinesse and sorrow such leasure and unactive circumstances of living that there are more spaces for religion if men would use them to these purposes and because it may have in it much religion and prayers and must have in it a perfect mortification of our strongest appetites is therefore a state of great excellency yet concerning the state of marriage we are taught from Scripture and the sayings of wise men great things and honourable Marriage is honourable in all men so is not single life for in some it is a snare and a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a trouble in the flesh a prison of unruly desires which is attempted daily to be broken Celibate or single life is never commanded but in some cases marriage is and he that burns sins often if he marries not he that cannot contain must marry and he that can contain is not tyed to a single life but may marry and not sin Marriage was ordained by God instituted in Paradise was the relief of a naturall necessity and the first blessing from the Lord he gave to Man not a friend but a wife that is a friend and a wife too for a good woman is in her soul the same that a man is and she is a woman only in her body that she may have the excellency of the one and the usefulnesse of the other and become amiable in both it is the seminary of the Church and daily brings forth sons and daughters unto God it was ministred to by Angels and Raphael waited upon a young man that he might have a blessed marriage and that that marriage might repair two fad families and blesse all their relatives Our blessed Lord though he was born of a maiden yet she was vail'd under the cover of marriage and she was marryed to a widower for Joseph the supposed Father of our Lord had children by a former wife The first Miracle that ever Jesus did was to doe honour to a wedding marriage was in the world before sin and is in all ages of the world the greatest and most effective antidote against sin in which all the world had perished if God had not made a remedy and although sin hath sour'd marriage and stuck the mans head with cares and the womans bed with sorrowes in the production of children yet these are but throws of life and glory and she shall be saved in child-bearing if she be found in faith and righteousnesse Marriage is a Schoole and exercise of vertue and though Marriage hath cares yet the single life hath desires which are more troublesome and more dangerous and often end in sin while the cares are but instances of duty and exercises of piety and therefore if single life hath more privacy of devotion yet marriage hath more necessities and more variety of it and is an exercise of more graces In two vertues celibate or single life may have the advantage of degrees ordinarily and commonly that is in chastity and devotion but as in some persons this may fail and it does in very many and a marryed man may spend as much time in devotion as any virgins or widowes do yet as in marriage even those vertues of chastity and devotion are exercised so in other instances this state hath proper exercises and trials for those graces for which single life can never be crown'd Here is the proper scene of piety and patience of the duty of Parents and the charity of relatives here kindnesse is spread abroad and love is united and made firm as a centre Marriage is the nursery of heaven the virgin sends prayers to God but she carries but one soul to him but the state of marriage fils up the numbers of the elect and hath in it the labour of love and the delicacies of friendship the blessing of society and the union of hands and hearts it hath in it lesse of beauty but more of safety then the single life it hath more care but lesse danger it is more merry and more sad is fuller of sorrowes and fuller of joyes it lies under more burdens but it is supported by all the strengths of love and charity and those burdens are delightfull Marriage is the mother of the world and preserves Kingdomes and fils Cities and Churches and Heaven it self Celibate like the flie in the heart of an apple dwels in a perpetuall sweetnesse but sits alone and is confin'd and dies in singularity but marriage like the usefull Bee builds a house and gathers sweetnesse from every flower and labours and unites into societies and republicks and sends out colonies and feeds the world with delicacies and obeys their king and keeps order and exercises many vertues and promotes the interest of mankinde and is that state of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Single life makes men in one instance to be like Angels but marriage in very many things makes the chast pair to be like to Christ. This is a great mystery but it is the symbolicall and sacramentall representment of the greatest mysteries of our Religion
Christ descended from his Fathers bosome and contracted his divinity with flesh and bloud and marryed our Nature and we became a Church the spouse of the bridegroom which he cleansed with his bloud and gave her his holy Spirit for a dowry and heaven for a joynture begetting children unto God by the Gospel this spouse he hath joyn'd to himself by an excellent charity he feeds her at his own table and lodges her nigh his own heart provides for all her necessities relieves her sorrowes determines her doubts guides her wandrings he is become her head and she as a signet upon his right hand he first indeed was betrothed to the Synagogue and had many children by her but she forsook his love and then he marryed the Church of the Gentiles and by her as by a second venter had a more numerous issue atque una domus est omnium filiorum ejus all the children dwell in the same house and are heirs of the same promises intituled to the same inheritance Here is the eternall conjunction the indissoluble knot the exceeding love of Christ the obedience of the Spouse the communicating of goods the uniting of interests the fruit of marriage a celestiall generation a new creature Sacramentum hoc magnum est this is the sacramentall mystery represented by the holy rite of marriage so that marriage is divine in its institution sacred in its union holy in the mystery sacramentall in its signification honourable in its appellative religious in its imployments It is advantage to the societies of men and it is holinesse to the Lord. Diâ—o autem in Christo Ecclesiâ It must be in Christ and the Church If this be not observed marriage loses its mysteriousnesse but because it is to effect much of that which it signifies it concerns all that enter into those golden fetters to see that Christ and his Church be in at every of its periods and that it be intirely conducted and over-rul'd by Religion for so the Apostle passes from the sacramentall rite to the reall duty Neverthelesse that is although the former discourse were wholly to explicate the conjunction of Christ and his Church by this similitude yet it hath in it this reall duty that the man love his wife and the wife reverence her husband and this is the use we shall now make of it the particulars of which precept I shall thus dispose 1. I shall propound the duty as it generally relates to Man and Wife in conjunction 2. The duty and power of the Man 3. The rights and priviledges and the duty of the Wife 1. In Christo Ecclesia that begins all and there is great need it should be so for they that enter into the state of marriage cast a dye of the greatest contingency and yet of the greatest interest in the world next to the last throw for eternity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life or death felicity or a lasting sorrow are in the power of marriage A woman indeed ventures most for she hath no sanctuary to retire to from an evill husband she must dwell upon her sorrow and hatch the egges which her own folly or infelicity hath produced and she is more under it because her tormentor hath a warrant of prerogative and the woman may complain to God as subjects do of tyrant Princes but otherwise she hath no appeal in the causes of unkindenesse And though the man can run from many hours of his sadnesse yet he must return to it again and when he sits among his neighbours he remembers the objection that lies in his bosome and he sighes deeply Ah tum te miserum malique fati Quem attract is pedibus patente portâ Percurrent mugilésque raphanique The boyes and the pedlers and the fruiterers shall tell of this man when he is carryed to his grave that he lived and dyed a poor wretched person The Stags in the Greek Epigram whose knees were clog'd with frozen snow upon the mountains came down to the brooks of the vallies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hoping to thaw their joynts with the waters of the stream but there the frost overtook them and bound them fast in ice till the young heardsmen took them in their stranger snare It is the unhappy chance of many men finding many inconveniences upon the mountains of single life they descend into the vallies of marriage to refresh their troubles and there they enter into fetters and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a mans or womans peevishnesse and the worst of the evill is they are to thank their own follies for they fell into the snare by entring an improper way Christ and the Church were no ingredients in their choice but as the Indian women enter into folly for the price of an Elephant and think their crime warrantable so do men and women change their liberty for a rich fortune like Eriphyle the Argive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she prefer'd gold before a good man and shew themselves to be lesse then money by overvaluing that to all the content and wise felicity of their lives and when they have counted the money and their sorrowes together how willingly would they buy with the losse of all that money modesty or sweet nature to their relative the odde thousand pound would gladly be allowed in good nature and fair manners As very a fool is he that chooses for beauty principally cui sum eruditi oculi stulta mens as one said whose eyes are witty and their soul sensuall It is an ill band of affections to tye two hearts together by a little thread of red and white 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And they can love no longer but untill the next ague comes and they are fond of each other but at the chance of fancy or the small pox or childebearing or care or time or any thing that can destroy a pretty flower But it is the basest of all when lust is the Paranymph and solicits the suit and makes the contract and joyn'd the hands for this is commonly the effect of the former according to the Greek proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 At first for his fair cheeks and comely beard the beast is taken for a Lion but at last he is turn'd to a Dragon or a Leopard or a Swine That which is at first beauty on the face may prove lust in the manners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Eubulus wittily reprehended such impure contracts they offer in their maritall sacrifices nothing but the thigh and that which the Priests cut from the goats when they were laid to bleed upon the Altars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said St. Clement He or she that looks too curiously upon the beauty of the body looks too low and hath flesh and corruption in his heart and is judg'd sensuall and earthly in his affections and desires Begin
deceive you The man deceives because he is false and the staffe because it is weak and the heart because it is both So that it is deceitful above all things that is failing and disabled to support us in many things but in other things where it can it is false and desperately wicked The first sort of deceitfulnesse is its calamitie and the second is its iniquity and that is the worst Calamitie of the two 1. The heart is deceitfull in its strength and when we have the groweth of a Man we have the weaknesses of a childe nay more yet and it is a sad consideration the more we are in age the weaker in our courage It appears in the heats and forwardnesses of new converts which are like to the great emissions of Lightning or like huge fires which flame and burn without measure even all that they can till from flames they descend to still fires from thence to smoak from smoak to embers from thence to ashes cold and pale like ghosts or the phantastick images of Death And the primitive Church were zealous in their Religion up to the degree of Cherubins and would run as greedily to the sword of the hangman to die for the cause of God as we do now to the greatest joy and entertainment of a Christian spirit even to the receiving of the holy Sacrament A man would think it reasonable that the first infancy of Christianity should according to the nature of first beginnings have been remisse gentle and unactive and that according us the object or evidence of faith grew which in every Age hath a great degree of Argument superadded to its confirmation so should the habit also and the grace the longer it lasts the more obiections it runs through it still should shew a brighter and more certain light to discover the divinity of its principle and that after the more examples and new accidents and strangenesses of providence and daily experience and the multitude of miracles still the Christian should grow more certain in his faith more refreshed in his hope and warm in his charity the very nature of these graces increasing and swelling upon the very nourishment of experience and the multiplication of their own acts And yet because the heart of man is false it suffers the fires of the Altar to go out and the flames lessen by the multitude of fuel But indeed it is because we put on strange fire put out the fire upon our hearths by letting in a glaring Sun beam the fire of lust or the heates of an angry spirit to quench the fires of God and suppresse the sweet cloud of incense The heart of man hath not strength enough to think one good thought of itself it cannot command its own attention to a prayer of ten lines long but before its end it shall wander after some thing that is to no purpose and no wonder then that it grows weary of a holy religion which consists of so many parts as make the businesse of a whole life And there is no greater argument in the world of our spiritual weaknesse and falsnesse of our hearts in the matters of religion then the backwardnesse which most men have alwayes and all men have somtimes to say their prayers so weary of their length so glad when they are done so wittie to excuse and frustrate an opportunity and yet there is no manner of trouble in the duty no wearinesse of bones no violent labours nothing but begging a blessing and receiving it nothing but doing our selves the greatest honour of speaking to the greatest person and greatest king of the world and that we should be unwilling to do this so unable to continue in it so backward to return to it so without gust and relish in the doing it can have no visible reason in the nature of the thing but something within us a strange sicknesse in the heart a spiritual nauseating or loathing of Manna something that hath no name but we are sure it comes from a weake a faint and false heart And yet this weak heart is strong in passions violent in desires unresistable in its appetites impatient in its lust furious in anger here are strengths enough one would think But so have I seen a man in a feaver sick and distempered unable to walk lesse able to speak sence or to do an act of counsel and yet when his feaver hath boild up to a delirium he was strong enough to beat his nurse keeper and his doctor too and to resist the loving violence of all his friends who would faine binde him down to reason and his bed And yet we still say he is weak and sick to death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for these strengths of madnesse are not health but furiousnesse and disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is weaknesse another way And so are the strengths of a mans heart they are fetters and manacles strong but they are the cordage of imprisonment so strong that the heart is not able to stir And yet it cannot but be a huge sadnesse that the heart shall pursue a temporal interest with wit and diligence and an unwearied industry and shall not have strength enough in a matter that concerns its Eternal interest to answer one obiection to resist one assault to defeate one art of the divel but shall certainly and infallibly fall when ever it is tempted to a pleasure This if it be examined will prove to be a deceit indeed a pretence rather then true upon a just cause that is it is not a natural but a moral a vicious weaknesse and we may try it in one or two familiar instances One of the great strengths shall I call it or weaknesses of the heart is that it is strong violent and passionate in its lusts and weak and deceitful to resist any Tell the tempted person that if he act his lust he dishonours his body makes himself a servant to follie and one flesh with a harlot he defiles the Temple of God and him that defiles a Temple will God destroy Tell him that the Angels who love to be present in the nastinesse and filth of prisons that they may comfort and assist chast souls and holy persons there abiding yet they are impatient to behold or come neer the filthynesse of a lustful person Tell him that this sin is so ugly that the divels who are spirits yet they delight to counterfeit the acting of this crime and descend unto the daughters or sons of men that they may rather lose their natures then not help to set a lust forward Tell them these and ten thousand things more you move them no more then if you should read one of Tullies orations to a mule for the truth is they have no power to resist it much lesse to master it their heart fails them when they meet their Mistresse and they are driven like a fool to the stocks or a Bull to the slaughter-house And
to a taverne not to refresh their needs of nature or for ends of a tolerable civility or innocent purposes but like the condemned persons among the Levantines they tasted wine freely that they might die and be insensible I could easily reprove such persons with an old Greek proverb mentioned by Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You shall ill be cured of the knotted Gout if you have nothing else but a wide shoe But this reproof is too gentle for so great a madnesse it is not onely an incompetent cure to apply the plaister of a sin or vanity to cure the smart of a divine judgement but it is a great increaser of the misery by swelling the cause to bigger and monstrous proportions It is just as if an impatient fool feeling the smart of his medicine shall tear his wounds open and throw away the instruments of his cure because they bring him health at the charge of a little pain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is full of stripes and troubles and decked round about with thorns he is neer to God But he that because he sits uneasily when he sits neer the King that was crowned with thorns shall remove thence or strew flowers roses and Jessamine the downe of thistles and the softest Gossamere that he may die without pain die quietly and like a lamb sink to the bottom of hell without noise this man is a fool because he accepts death if it arrest him in civil language is content to die by the sentence of an eloquent Judge and prefers a quiet passage to hell before going to heaven in a storm That Italian Gentleman was certainly a great lover of his sleep who was angry with the lizard that wak't him when a viper was creeping into his mouth when the Devil is entring into us to poison our spirits and steal our souls away while we are sleeping in the lethargy of sin God sends his sharp messages to awaken us and we call that the enemy and use arts to cure the remedy not to cure the disease There are some persons that will never be cured not because the sicknesse is incurable but because they have ill stomacks and cannot keep the medicine Iust so is his case that so despises Gods method of curing him by these instances of long-sufferance that he uses all the arts he can to be quit of his Physitian and to spill his physick and to take cordials as soon as his vomit begins to work There is no more to be said in this affair but to read the poor wretches sentence and to declare his condition As at first when he despised the first great mercies God sent him sharpnesses and sad accidents to ensober his spirits So now that he despises this mercy also the mercy of the rod God will take it away from him and then I hope all is well Miserable man that thou art this is thy undoing if God ceases to strike thee because thou wilt not mend thou art sealed up to ruine and reprobation for ever The Physitian hath giv◠thee over he hath no kindnesse for thee This was the desperate estate of Judah Ah sinfull nation a people laden with iniquity they have forsaken the Lord they have provoked the Holy One of Israel why should ye be stricken any more This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most bitter curse the greatest excommunication when the delinquent is become a heathen and a publicane without the covenant out of the pale of the Church the Church hath nothing to do with them for what have I to do with them that are without said Saint Paul It was not lawfull for the Church any more to punish them and this court Christian is an imitation and paralell of the justice of the court of heaven When a sinner is not mended by judgements at long running God cuts him off from his inheritance and the lot of sons he will chastise him no more but let him take his course and spend his portion of prosperity such as shall be allowed him in the great Oeconomy of the world Thus God did to his Vineyard which he took such pains to fence to plant to manure to dig to cut and to prune and when after all it brought forth wilde grapes the last and worst of Gods anger was this Auferam sepem ejus God had fenced it with a hedge of thorns and God would take away all that hedge he would not leave a thorn standing not one judgement to reprove or admonish them but all the wilde beasts and wilder and more beastly lusts may come and devour it and trample it down in scorn And now what shall I say but those words quoted by Saint Peter in his Sermon Behold ye despisers and wonder and perish perish in your own folly by stubbornesse and ingratitude For it is a huge contradiction to the nature and designes of God God calls us we refuse to hear he invites us with fair promises we hear and consider not he gives us blessings we take them and understand not his meaning we take out the token but read not the letter then he threatens us and we regard not he strikes our neighbours and we are not concerned then he strikes us gently but we feel it not then he does like the Physitian in the Greek Epigram who being to cure a man of a Lethargy locked him into the same room with a mad-man that he by dry beating him might make him at least sensible of blows but this makes us instead of running to God to trust in unskilfull Physitians or like Saul to run to a Pythonisse we run for cure to a crime we take sanctuary in a pleasant sin just as if a man to cure his melancholy should desire to be stung with a Tarantula that at least he may die merily what is there more to be done that God hath not yet done he is forced at last to break off with a Curavimus Babylonem non est sanata we dressed and tended Babylon but she was incurable there is no help but such persons must die in their sins and lie down in eternall sorrow Sermon XIV Of Growth in Grace 2 Pet. 3. 18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ to whom be glory both now and for ever Amen WHen Christianity like the day spring from the East with a new light did not onely inlighten the world but amazed the mindes of men and entertained their curiosities and seized upon their warmer and more pregnant affections it was no wonder that whole Nations were converted at a Sermon and multitudes were instantly professed and their understandings followed their affections and their wills followed their understandings and they were convinced by miracle and overcome by grace and passionate with zeal and wisely governed by their Guides and ravished with the sanctity of the Doctrine and the holinesse of their examples And this was not onely their duty but a great
world Christians should not be such fighting people and Clergy men should not command Armies and Kings should not be drunk and subjects should not strike Princes for justice and an old man should not be youthfull in talk or in his habit and women should not swear and great men should not lie and a poor man should not oppresse for besides the sin of some of them there is an undecency in all of them and by being contrary to the end of an office or the reputation of a state or the sobrieties of a graver or sublimed person they asperse the religion as insufficient to keepe the persons within the bounds of fame and common reputation But above all things those sects of Christians whose professed doctrine brings destruction and diminution to government give the most intolerable scandal and dishonour to the institution and it had been impossible that Christianity should have prevailed over the wisdom and power of the Greeks and Romans if it had not been humble to superiours patient of injuries charitable to the needy a great exactour of obedience to Kings even to heathens that they might be won and convinced and to persecutours that they might be sweetned in their anger or upbraided for their cruel injustice for so doth the humble vine creep at the foot of an oak and leans upon its lowest base and begs shade and protection and leave to grow under its branches and to give and take mutuall refreshment and pay a friendly influence for a mighty patronage and they grow and dwell together and are the most remarkable of friends and married pairs of all the leavie nation Religion of it self is soft easie and defenselesse and God hath made it grow up with empire and to leane upon the arms of Kings and it cannot well grow alone and if it shall like the Ivy suck the heart of the oak upon whose body it grew and was supported it will be pulled down from its usurped eminency and fire and shame shall be its portion We cannot complain if Princes arm against those Christians who if they are suffered to preach will 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 justci 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 violent 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 Aethiopemalbus No man can endure the Gracchi preaching against sedition nor Uerres 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
to our short lived memories or to the broken records and fragments of story lest after the inundation of barbarisme and war and change of Kingdoms and corruption of Authors but by its relation to the fountain of our truths and the birth of our religion under our Fathers in Christ the holy Apostles and Disciples a Camel was a new thing to them that saw it in the fable But yet it was created as soon as a cow or the domestick creatures and some people are apt to call every thing new which they never heard of before as if all religion were to be measured by the standards of their observation or country customs Whatsoever was not taught by Christ or his Apostles though it came in by Papias or Dionysius by Arius or Liberius is certainly new as to our account and whatsoever is taught to us by the Doctors of the present age if it can shew its test from the beginning of our period for revelaltion is not to be called new though it be pressed with a new zeal and discoursed of by unheard of arguments that is though men be ignorant and need to learn it yet it is not therefore new or unnecessary 2. Some would have false teachers sufficiently signified by a name or the owning of a private Appellative as of Papist Lutheran Calvenists Zuinglian Socinian think it is enough to denominat them not of Christ if they are called by the name of a man And indeed the thing is in it self ill but then if by this mark we shall esteem false teachers sufficiently signified we must follow no man no Church nor no communion for all are by their adversaries marked with an appellative of separation and singularity and yet themselves are tenacious of a good name such as they choose or such as is permitted to them by fame and the people and a natural necessity of making a distinction Thus the Donatist called themselves the flock of God and the Novatians called the Catholicks traditors and the Eustathians called themselves Catholikes and the worshippers of images made Iconoclast to be a name of scorn and men made names as they listed or as the fate of the market went And if a Doctor preaches a doctrine which another man likes not but preaches the contradictory he that consents and he that refuses have each of them a teacher by whose name if they please to wrangle they may be signified It was so in the Corinthian Church with this onely difference that they divided themselves by names which signified the same religion I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I am of Peter and I of Christ these Apostles were ministers of Christ and so does every teacher new or old among the Christians pretend himself to be Let that therefore be examined if he ministers to the truth of Christ and the religion of his master let him be entertained as a servant of his Lord but if an appellative be taken from his name there is a faction commenced in it and there is a fault in the men if there be none in the doctrine but that the doctrine be true or false to be received or to be rejected because of the name is accidental and extrinsecall and therefore not to be determined by this signe 3. Amongst some men a sect is sufficiently thought to be reproved if it subdivides and breaks into little fractions or changes its own opinions indeed if it declines its own doctrine no man hath reason to beleeve them upon their word or to take them upon the stock of reputation which themselves being judges they have forfeited and renounced in the changing that which at first they obtruded passionately And therefore in this case there is nothing to be done but to beleeve the men so farre as they have reason to beleeve themselves that is to consider when they prove what they say and they that are able to do so are not persons in danger to be seduced by a bare authority unlesse they list themselves for others that sink under an unavoidable prejudice God will take care for them if they be good people and their case shall be considered by and by But for the other part of the signe when men fall out among themselves for other interests or opinions it is no argument that they are in an errour concerning that doctrine which they all unitedly teach or condemn respectively but it hath in it some probability that their union is a testimony of truth as certainly as that their fractions are a testimony of their zeal or honesty or weaknesse as it happens and if we Christians be too decretory in this instance it will be hard for any of us to keep a Jew from making use of it against the whole religion which from the dayes of the Apostles hath been rent into innumerable sects and under-sects springing from mistake or interest from the arts of the Devil or the weaknesse of man But from hence we may make an advantage in the way of prudence and become sure that all that doctrine is certainly true in which the generality of Christians who are divided in many things yet do constantly agree and that that doctrine is also sufficient since it is certain that because in all Communions and Churches there are some very good men that do all their duty to the getting of truth God will not fail in any thing that is necessary to them that honestly and heartily desire to obtain it and therefore if they rest in the heartinesse of that and live accordingly and superinduce nothing to the destruction of that they have nothing to do but to rely upon Gods goodnesse and if they perish it is certain they cannot help it and that is demonstration enough that they cannot perish considering the justice and goodnesse of our Lord and Judge 4. Whoever break the bands of a Society or Communion and go out from that Congregation in whose Confession they are baptized do an intolerable scandal to their doctrine and persons and give suspicious men reason to decline their Assemblies and not to choose them at all for any thing of their authority or outward circumstances and Saint Paul bids the Romans to mark them that cause divisions and offences But the following words make their caution prudent and practicable contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them they that recede from the doctrine which they have learned they cause the offence and if they also obtrude this upon their congregations they also make the division For it is certain if we receive any doctrine contrary to what Christ gave and the Apostles taught for the authority of any man then we call men Masters and leave our Master which is in heaven and in that case we must separate from the Congregation and adhere to Christ but this is not to be done unlesse the case be evident and notorious But as it is hard that the publike doctrine of a Church should be rifled
But I shall instance onely in the intermediall part of this mysterious mercy Why should God cause us to be born of Christian parents and not to be circumcised by the impure hands of a Turkish Priest What distinguished me from another that my Father was severe in his discipline and carefull to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and I was not exposed to the carelesnesse of an irreligious guardian and taught to steal and lie and to make sport with my infant vices and beginnings of iniquity Who was it that discerned our persons from the lot of dying Chrysomes whose portion must be among those who never glorified God with a free obedience What had you done of good or towards it that you was not condemned to the stupid ignorance which makes the souls of most men but a little higher then beasts and who understand nothing of religion and noble principles of parables and wise sayings of old men And not onely in our cradles but in our schools and in our colledges in our friendships and in our marriages in our enmities and in all our conversation in our vertues and in our vices where all things in us were equal or else we were the inferiour there is none of us but have felt the mercies of many differencies Or it may be my brother and I were intemperate and drunk and quarelsome and he kill'd a man but God did not suffer me to do so He fell down and died with a little disorder I was a beast and yet was permitted to live and not yet to die in my sins He did a misse once and was surprized in that disadvantage I sin daily and am still invited to repentance he would fain have lived and amended I neglect the grace but am allowed the time And when God sends the Angel of his wrath to execute his anger upon a sinfull people we are encompassed with funerals and yet the Angel hath not smitten us what or who makes the difference We shall then see when in the separations of eternity we sitting in glory shall see some of the partners of our sins carried into despair and the portions of the left hand and roaring in the seats of the reprobate we shall then perceive that it is even that mercy which hath no cause but it self no measure of its emanation but our misery no natural limit but eternity no beginning but God no object but man no reason but an essential and an unalterable goodnesse no variety but our necessity and capacity no change but new instances of its own nature no ending or repentance but our absolute and obstinate refusall to entertain it II. Lastly All the mercies of God are concentred in that which is all the felicity of man and God is so great a lover of souls that he provides securities and fair conditions for them even against all our reason and hopes our expectations and weak discoursings The particulars I shall remark are these 1. Gods mercy prevails over the malice and ignorances the weaknesses and follies of men so that in the convention and assemblies of hereticks as the word is usually understood for erring and mistaken people although their doctrines are such that if men should live according to their proper and naturall consequences they would live impiously yet in every one of these there are persons so innocently and invincibly mistaken and who mean nothing but truth while in the simplicity of their heart they talk nothing but error that in the defiance and contradiction of their own doctrines they live according to its contradictory He that beleeves contrition alone with confession to a Priest is enough to expiate ten thousand sins is furnished with an excuse easie enough to quit himself from the troubles of a holy life and he that hath a great many cheap wayes of buying off his penances for a little money even for the greatest sins is taught a way not to fear the doing of an act for which he must repent since repentance is a duty so soon fo certainly and so easily performed But these are notorious doctrines in the Roman Church and yet God so loves the souls of his creatures that many men who trust to these doctrines in their discourses dare not rely upon them in their lives But while they talk as if they did not need to live strictly many of them live so strictly as if they did not beleeve so foolishly He that tels that antecedently God hath to all humane choice decreed man to heaven or to hell takes away from man all care of the way because they beleeve that he that infallibly decreed that end hath unalterably appointed the means and some men that talk thus wildly live soberly and are over-wrought in their understanding by some secret art of God that man may not perish in his ignorance but be assisted in his choice and saved by the Divine mercies And there is no sect of men but are furnished with antidotes and little excuses to cure the venom of their doctrine and therefore although the adherent and constituent poison is notorious and therefore to be declined yet because it is collaterally cured and over-poured by the torrent and wisdom of Gods mercies the men are to be taken into the Quire that we may all joyn in giving of God praise for the operation of his hands 2. I said formerly that there are many secret and undiscerned mercies by which men live and of which men can give no account till they come to give God thanks at their publication and of this sort is that mercy which God reserves for the souls of many millions of men and women concerning whom we have no hopes if we account concerning them by the usuall proportions of revelation and Christian commandements and yet we are taught to hope some strange good things concerning them by the analogy and generall rules of the Divine mercy For what shall become of ignorant Christians people that live in wildnesses and places more desert then a primitive hermitage people that are baptized and taught to go to Church it may be once a yeer people that can get no more knowledge they know not where to have it nor how to desire it and yet that an eternity of pains shall be consequent to such an ignorance is unlike the mercy of God and yet that they should be in any dispositions towards an eternity of intellectuall joyes is no where set down in the leaves of revelation and when the Jews grew rebellious or a silly woman of the daughters of Abraham was tempted and sinned and punished with death we usually talk as if that death passed on to a worse but yet we may arrest our thoughts upon the Divine mercies and consider that it is reasonable to expect from the Divine goodnesse that no greater forfeiture be taken upon a law then was expressed in its sanction and publication He that makes a law and bindes it with the penalty of stripes we