as all our happiness consists so God takes greatest complacency and delights in it above all his other Works He punishes to the third and fourth Generation but shews mercy unto thousands Therefore the Jews say that Michael 〈◊〉 with one wing and Gabriel with two meaning that the pacifying Angel the Minister of mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the exterminating Angel the Messenger of wrath is slow And we are called to our approximation to God by the practice of this Grace we are made partakers of the Divine nature by being merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful This mercy consists in the affections and in the effects and actions In both which the excellency of this Christian Precept is eminent above the goodness of the moral precept of the old Philosophers and the piety and charity of the Jews by virtue of the Mosaic Law The Stoick Philosophers affirm it to be the duty of a wise man to succour and help the necessities of indigent and miserable persons but at no hand to pity them or suffer any trouble or compassion in our affections for they intended that a wise person should be dispassionate unmoved and without disturbance in every accident and object and concernment But the Blessed Jesus who came to reconcile us to his Father and purchase us an intire possession did intend to redeem us from sin and make our passions obedient and apt to be commanded even and moderate in temporal affairs but high and active in some instances of spiritual concernment and in all instances that the affection go along with the Grace that we must be as merciful in our compassion as compassionate in our exteriour expressions and actions The Jews by the prescript of their Law were to be merciful to all their Nation and confederates in Religion and this their Mercy was called Justice He hath dispersed abroad and given to the poor his righteousness or Justice 〈◊〉 for ever But the mercies of a Christian are to extend to all Do good to all men especially to the houshold of Faith And this diffusion of a Mercy not only to Brethren but to Aliens and Enemies is that which S. Paul calls goodness still retaining the old appellative for Judaical mercy 〈◊〉 For scarcely for a 〈◊〉 man will one die yet peradventure for a good man some will even dare to die So that the Christian Mercy must be a mercy of the whole man the heart must be merciful and the hand operating in the labour of love and it must be extended to all persons of all capacities according as their necessity requires and our ability permits and our endearments and other obligations dispose of and determine the order 14. The acts of this Grace are 1. To pity the miseries of all persons and all calamities spiritual or temporal having a fellow-feeling in their afflictions 2. To be afflicted and sad in the publick Judgments imminent or incumbent upon a Church or State or Family 3. To pray to God for remedy for all afflicted persons 4. To do all acts of bodily assistence to all miserable and distressed people to relieve the Poor to redeem Captives to forgive Debts to disabled persons to pay Debts for them to lend them mony to feed the hungry and clothe the naked to rescue persons from dangers to defend and relieve the oppressed to comfort widows and fatherless children to help them to right that suffer wrong and in brief to do any thing of relief support succour and comfort 5. To do all acts of spiritual 〈◊〉 to counsel the doubtful to admonish the erring to strengthen the weak to resolve the scrupulous to teach the ignorant and any thing else which may be instrumental to his Conversion Perseverance Restitution and Salvation or may rescue him from spiritual dangers or supply him in any ghostly necessity The reward of this Vertue is symbolical to the Vertue it self the grace and glory differing in nothing but degrees and every vertue being a reward to it self The merciful shall receive mercy mercy to help them in time of need mercy from God who will not only give them the great mercies of Pardon and Eternity but also dispose the hearts of others to pity and supply their needs as they have done to others For the present there is nothing more noble than to be beneficial to others and to lift up the poor 〈◊〉 of the mire and rescue them from misery it is to do the work of God and for the future nothing is a greater title to a mercy at the Day of Judgment than to have shewed mercy to our necessitous Brother it being expressed to be the only rule and instance in which Christ means to judge the world in their Mercy and Charity or their Unmercifulness respectively I was hungry and ye fed me or ye fed me not and so we stand or fall in the great and eternal scrutiny And it was the prayer of Saint Paul Onesiphorus shewed kindness to the great Apostle The Lord shew him a mercy in that day For a cup of charity though but full of cold water shall not lose its reward 15. Sixthly Blessed are the Pure 〈◊〉 heart for they shall see God This purity of heart includes purity of hands Lord who shall dwell in thy Tabernacle even he that is of clean hands and a pure heart that is he that hath not given his mind unto vanity nor sworn to deceive his Neighbour It signifies justice of action and candour of spirit innocence of manners and sincerity of purpose it is one of those great circumstances that consummates Charity For the end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and of a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned that is a heart free from all carnal affections not only in the matter of natural impurity but also spiritual and immaterial such as are Heresies which are theresore impurities because they mingle secular interest or prejudice with perswasions in Religion Seditions hurtful and impious Stratagems and all those which S. Paul enumerates to be works or fruits of the flesh A good Conscience that 's a Conscience either innocent or penitent a state of Grace 〈◊〉 a not having prevaricated or a being restored to our Baptismal purity Faith unfeigned that also is the purity of Sincerity and excludes Hypocrisie timorous and half perswasions neutrality and indifferency in matters of Salvation And all these do integrate the whole duty of Charity But Purity as it is a special Grace signifies only honesty and uprightness of Soul without hypocrisie to God and dissimulation towards men and then a freedom from all carnal desires so as not to be governed or led by them Chastity is the purity of the body Simplicity is the purity of the spirit both are the Sanctification of the whole Man for the entertainment of the Spirit of Purity and the Spirit of Truth 16. The acts of this Vertue are 1. To quit all Lustful thoughts not to take delight in
in that decorum which is most orderly and proportionate to his perfective End of a happy life which Christian Religion calls Sobriety and it is a prohibition of those uncharitable self-destroying sins of Drunkenness Gluttony and inordinate and unreasonable manners of Lust destructive of Nature's intendments or at least no ways promoting them For it is naturally lawful to satisfie any of these desires when the desire does not carry the satisfaction beyond the design of Nature that is to the violation of health or that happy living which consists in observing those Contracts which mankind thought necessary to be made in order to the same great End unless where God hath superinduced a restraint making an instance of Sobriety to become an act of Religion or to pass into an expression of Duty to him But then it is not a natural but a Religious Sobriety and may be instanced in fasting or abstinence from some kinds of meat or some times or manners of conjugation These are the three natural Laws described in the Christian Doctrine that we live 1. Godly 2. Soberly 3. Righteously And the particulars of the first are ordinarily to be determined by God immediately or his Vicegerents and by Reason observing and complying with the accidents of the world and dispositions of things and persons the second by the natural order of Nature by sense and by experience and the third by humane contracts and civil Laws 13. The result of the preceding discourse is this Man who was designed by God to a happy life was fitted with sufficient means to attain that End so that he might if he would be happy but he was a free Agent and so might chuse And it is possible that Man may fail of his End and be made miserable by God by himself or by his neighbour or by the same persons he may be made happy in the same proportions as they relate to him If God be angry or disobeyed he becomes our enemy and so we fail If our Neighbour be injured or impeded in the direct order to his happy living he hath equal right against us as we against him and so we fail that way An dif I be intemperate I grow sick and worsted in some Faculty and so I am unhappy in my self But if I obey God and do right to my Neighbour and confine my self within the order and design of Nature I am secured in all ends of Blessing in which I can be assisted by these three that is by all my relatives there being no End of man designed by God in order to his Happiness to which these are not proper and sufficient instruments Man can have no other relations no other discourses no other regular appetites but what are served and satisfied by Religion by Sobriety and by Justice There is nothing whereby we can relate to any person who can hurt us or do us benefit but is provided for in these three These therefore are all and these are sufficient 14. But now it is to be enquired how these become Laws obliging us to sin if we transgress even before any positive Law of God be superinduced for else how can it be a natural Law that is a Law obliging all Nations and all persons even such who have had no intercourse with God by way of special revelation and have lost all memory of tradition For either such persons whatsoever they do shall obtain that End which God designed for them in their nature that is a happy life according to the duration of an immortal nature or else they shall perish for prevaricating of these Laws And yet if they were no Laws to them and decreed and made sacred by sanction promulgation and appendent penalties they could not so oblige them as to become the Rule of Vertue or Vice 15. When God gave us natural Reason that is sufficient ability to do all that should be necessary to live well and happily he also knew that some Appetites might be irregular just as some stomachs would be sick and some eyes blind and a man being a voluntary Agent might chuse an evil with as little reason as the Angels of darkness did that is they might do unreasonably because they would do so and then a man's Understanding should serve him but as an instrument of mischief and his Will carry him on to it with a blind and impotent desire and then the beauteous order of creatures would be discomposed by unreasonable and unconsidering or evil persons And therefore it was most necessary that Man should have his appetites 〈◊〉 within the designs of Nature and the order to his End for a Will without the restraint of a superior power or a perfect Understanding is like a knife in a child's hand as apt for mischief as for use Therefore it pleased God to bind man by the signature of Laws to observe those great natural reasons without which man could not arrive at the great End of God's designing that is he could not live well and happily God therefore made it the first Law to love him and which is all one to worship him to speak honour of him and to express it in all our ways the chief whereof is Obedience And this we find in the instance of that positive Precept which God gave to Adam and which was nothing but a particular of the great general But in this there is little scruple because it is not imaginable that God would in any period of time not take care that himself be honoured his Glory being the very end why he made Man and therefore it must be certain that this did at the very first pass into a Law 16. But concerning this and other things which are usually called natural Laws I consider that the things themselves were such that the doing them was therefore declared to be a Law because the not doing them did certainly bring a punishment proportionable to the crime that is a just deficiency from the End of creation from a good and happy life 2. And also a punishment of a guilty Conscience which I do not understand to be a 〈◊〉 of Hell or of any supervening penalty unless the Conscience be accidentally instructed into such fears by experience or revelation but it is a malum in genere Rationis a disease or evil of the Reasonable faculty that as there is a rare content in the discourses of Reason there is a satisfaction an acquiescency like that of creatures in their proper place and definite actions and competent perfections so in prevaricating the natural Law there is a dissatisfaction a disease a removing out of the place an unquietness of spirit even when there is no monitor or observer Adeo facinora atque flagitia sua ipsi quoque in supplicium verterant Neque frustra 〈◊〉 Plato sapientiae firmare solitus est si 〈◊〉 Tyrannorum mentes posse aspici laniatus 〈◊〉 quando ut corpora verberibus ita saevitia libidine malis consultis animus dilaceretur
Faith And although in the natural or philosophical sence Faith and Charity are distinct habits yet in the sence of a Christian and the signification of duty they are the same for we cannot believe aright as Believing is in the Commandment unless we live aright for our Faith is put upon the account just as it is made precious by Charity according to that rare saying of S. 〈◊〉 recorded by the supposed S. Denis Charity is the greatest and the least Theologie all our Faith that is all our Religion is compleated in the duties of universal Charity as our Charity or our manner of living is so is our Faith If our life be unholy it may be the faith of Devils but not the Faith of Christians For this is the difference 10. The faith of the Devils hath more of the Understanding in it the Faith of Christians more of the Will The Devils in their saith have better Discourse the Christians better affections They in their faith have better Arguments we more Charity So that Charity or a good life is so necessary an ingredient into the definition of a Christian's Faith that we have nothing else to distinguish it from the faith of Devils and we need no trial os our Faith but the examination of our lives If you keep the Commandments of God then have you the Faith of Jesus they are immediate in S. John's expression but if you be 〈◊〉 and ungodly you are in S. Paul's list amongst them that have no saith Every Vice that rules amongst us and sullies the fair beauty of our Souls is a conviction of Infidelity 11. For it was the Faith of Moses that made him despise the riches of Egypt the Faith of 〈◊〉 that made him valiant the Faith of Joseph that made him chast Abraham's Faith made him obedient S. Mary Magdalen's Faith made her penitent and the Faith of S. Paul made him travel so far and suffer so much till he became a prodigy both of zeal and patience Faith is a Catholicon and cures all the distemperatures of the Soul it 〈◊〉 the World saith S. John it works rightcousness saith S. Paul it purifies the heart saith S. Peter it works Miracles saith our Blessed Saviour Miracles in Grace always as it did Miracles in nature at its first publication and whatsoever is good if it be a Grace it is an act of Faith if it be a reward it is the fruit of Faith So that as all the actions of man are but the productions of the Soul so are all the actions of the new man the effects of Faith For Faith is the life of Christianity and a good life is the life of Faith 12. Upon the grounds of this discourse we may understand the sence of that Question of our Blessed Saviour When the son of man comes shall he find Faith on earth Truly just so much as he finds Charity and holy living and no more For then only we can be confident that Faith is not failed from among the children of men when we seel the heats of the primitive Charity return and the calentures of the first old Devotion are renewed when it shall be accounted honourable to be a servant of Christ and a shame to commit a sin then and then only our Churches shall be Assemblies of the faithful and the Kingdoms of the world Christian Countries But so long as it is notorious that we have made Christian Religion another thing than what the Holy Jesus designed it to be when it does not make us live good lives but it self is made a pretence to all manner of impiety a stratagem to serve ends the ends of covetousness of ambition and revenge when the Christian Charity ends in killing one another for Conscience sake so that Faith is made to cut the throat of Charity and our Faith kills more than our Charity preserves when the Humility of a Christian hath indeed a name amongst us but it is like a mute person talk'd of only while Ambition and Rebellion Pride and Scorn Self-seeking and proud undertakings transact most of the great affairs of Christendom when the custody of our Senses is to no other purposes but that no opportunity of pleasing them pass away when our Oaths are like the fringes of our discourses going round about them as if they were ornaments and trimmings when our Blasphemies Prophanation Sacriledge and Irreligion are become scandalous to the very Turks and Jews while our Lusts are always habitual sometimes unnatural will any wise man think that we believe those Doctrines of Humility and Obedience of Chastity and Charity of Temperance and Justice which the Saviour of the World made sacred by his Sermon and example or indeed any thing he either said or did promised or threatned For is it possible a man with his wits about him and believing that he should certainly be damned that is be eternally tormented in body and Soul with terments greater than can be in this world if he be a Swearer or Lier or Drunkard or cheats his neighbour that this man should dare to do these things to which the temptations are so small in which the delight is so inconsiderable and the satisfaction so none at all 13. We see by the experience of the whole world that the belief of an honest man in a matter of temporal advantage makes us do actions of such danger and difficulty that half so much industry and 〈◊〉 would ascertain us into a possession of all the Promises Evangelical Now let any man be asked whether he had rather be rich or be saved he will tell you without all doubt Heaven is the better option by infinite degrees for it cannot be that Riches or Revenge or Lust should be directly preferred that is be thought more eligible than the glories of Immortality That therefore men neglect so great Salvation and so greedily run after the satisfaction of their baser appetites can be attributed to nothing but want of Faith they do not heartily believe that Heaven is worth so much there is upon them a stupidity of spirit and their Faith is dull and its actions suspended most commonly and often interrupted and it never enters into the Will so that the Propositions are considered nakedly and precisely in themselves but not as referring to us or our interests there is nothing of Faith in it but so much as is the first and direct act of Understanding there is no consideration nor reflexion upon the act or upon the person or upon the subject So that even as it is seated in the Understanding our Faith is commonly lame mutilous and imperfect and therefore much more is it culpable because it is destitute of all cooperation of the rational appetite 14. But let us consider the power and efficacy of worldly Belief If a man believes that there is gold to be had in Peru for fetching or Pearls and rich Jewels in India for the exchange of trifles he
dishonour and impiety in the world I mean of actions whose scene lies in the Body and disentitles us to all relations to God and vicinity to Vertue 5. Thirdly Now amongst actions which we are taught by Nature some concern the being and the necessities of Nature some appertain to her convenience and advantage and the transgressions of these respectively have their heightnings or depressions and therefore to kill a man is worse than some preternatural pollutions because more destructive of the end and designation of Nature and the purpose of instinct 6. Fourthly Every part of this Instinct is then in some sense a Law when it is in a direct order to a necessary End and by that is made reasonable I say in some sence it is a Law that is it is in a near disposition to become a Law It is a Rule without obligation to a particular punishment beyond the effect of the natural inordination and obliquity of the act it is not the measure of a moral good or evil but of the natural that is of comely and uncomely For if in the individuals it should fail or that there pass some greater obligation upon the person in order to a higher end not consistent with those means designed in order to the lesser end in that particular it is no fault but sometimes a vertue And therefore although it be an Instinct or reasonable towards many purposes that every one should beget a man in his own image in order to the preservation of nature yet if there be a superaddition of another and higher end and contrary means perswaded in order to it such as is holy Coelibate or Virginity in order to a spiritual life in some persons there the instinct of Nature is very far from passing obligation upon the Conscience and in that instance ceases to be reasonable And therefore the Romans who invited men to marriage with priviledges and punished morose and ungentle natures that refused it yet they had their chaste and unmarried Vestals the first in order to the Commonwealth these in a nearer order to Religion 7. Fifthly These Instincts or reasonable inducements become Laws obliging us in Conscience and in the way of Religion and the breach of them is directly criminal when the instance violates any end of Justice or Charity or Sobriety either designed in Nature's first intention or superinduced by God or man For every thing that is unreasonable to some certain purpose is not presently criminal much less is it against the Law of Nature unless every man that goes out of his way sins against the Law of Nature and every contradicting of a natural desire or inclination is not a sin against a law of Nature For the restraining sometimes of a lawful and a permitted desire is an act of great Vertue and pursues a greater reason as in the former instance But those things only against which such a reason as mixes with Charity or Justice or something that is now in order to a farther end of a commanded instance of Piety may be without errour brought those things are only criminal And God having first made our instincts reasonable hath now made our Reason and Instincts to be spiritual and having sometimes restrained our Instincts and always made them regular he hath by the intermixture of other principles made a separation of Instinct from Instinct leaving one in the form of natural inclination and they rise no higher than a permission or a decency it is lawful or it is comely so to do for no man can asfirm it to be a Duty to kill him that assaults my life or to maintain my children for ever without their own industry when they are able what degrees of natural fondness 〈◊〉 I have towards them nor that I sin if I do not marry when I can contain and yet every one of these may proceed from the affections and first inclinations of Nature but until they mingle with Justice or Charity or some instance of Religion and Obedience they are no Laws the other that are so mingled being raised to Duty and Religion Nature inclines us and Reason judges it apt and requisite in order to certain ends but then every particular of it is made to be an act of Religion from some other principle as yet it is but fit and reasonable not Religion and particular Duty till God or man hath interposed But whatsoever particular in nature was fit to be made a Law of Religion is made such by the superaddition of another principle and this is derived to us by tradition from Adam to Noah or else transmitted to us by the consent of all the world upon a natural and prompt reason or else by some other instrument derived to us from God but especially by the Christian Religion which hath adopted all those things which we call things honest things comely and things of good report into a law and a duty as appears Phil. 4. 8. 8. Upon these Propositions I shall infer by way of Instance that it is a Duty that Women should nurse their own Children For first it is taught to women by that Instinct which Nature hath implanted in them For as Favorinus the Philosopher discoursed it is but to be half a Mother to bring forth Children and not to nourish them and it is some kind of Abortion or an exposing of the Infant which in the reputation of all wise Nations is infamous and uncharitable And if the name of Mother be an appellative of affection and endearments why should the Mother be willing to divide it with a stranger The Earth is the Mother of us all not only because we were made of her Red clay but chiefly that she daily gives us food from her bowels and breasts and Plants and Beasts give nourishment to their off-springs after their production with greater tenderness than they bare them in their wombs and yet Women give nourishment to the Embryo which whether it be deformed or perfect they know not and cannot love what they never saw and yet when they do see it when they have rejoyced that a Child is born and forgotten the sorrows of production they who then can first begin to love it if they begin to divorce the Infant from the Mother the Object from the Affection cut off the opportunities and occasions of their Charity or Piety 9. For why hath Nature given to women two exuberant Fontinels which like two Rocs that are twins feed among the Lilics and drop milk like dew from Hermon and hath invited that nourishment from the secret recesses where the Infant dwelt at first up to the Breast where naturally now the Child is cradled in the entertainments of love and maternal embraces but that Nature having removed the Babe and carried its meat after it intends that it should be preserved by the matter and ingredients of its constitution and have the same diet prepared with a more mature and proportionable digestion If Nature
will not be stopt by purposes and easie desires 13. Since therefore the Body is the instrument of sins the fewel and the incentive our Mortification must reach thither also at least in some degrees or it will be to small purpose to think of mortifying our spirit in some instances of Temptation In vain does that man think to keep his honour and Chastity that invites his Lust to an activeness by soft beds and high diet and idleness and opportunity Make the Soul's instrument unapt and half the work is done And this is true in all instances of Carnality or natural desires whose scene lies in the lower region of Passions and are acted by the Body but the operation of the cure must be in proportion to the design as the mortification of the Spirit is in several degrees so the mortification of the Body also hath its several parts of prudence injunction and necessity For the prescribing all sorts of Mortifications corporal indefinitely and indiseriminately to all persons without separation of their ends and distinct capacities is a snare to mens Consciences makes Religion impertinently troublesome occasions some men to glory in corporal Austerity as if of it self it were an act of Piety and a distinction of the man from the more imperfect persons of the world and is all the way unreasonable and inartificial 14. First Therefore such whose ingagements in the world or capacities of person confine them to the lowest and first step of Mortification those who fight only for life and liberty not for priviledges and honour that are in perpetual contestation and close fightings with sin it is necessary that their Body also be mortified in such a degree that their desires transport them not beyond the permissions of Divine and humane Laws let such men be strict in the rules of Temperance and Sobriety be chaste within the laws of Marriage cherish their body to preserve their health and their health to serve God and to do their offices To these persons the best instruments of Discipline are the strict laws of Temperance denying all transgressions of the appetite boiling over its margent and proper limit assiduous Prayer and observation of the publick laws of 〈◊〉 which are framed so moderate and even as to be proportionable to the common manner of living of persons secular and incumbred For though many persons of common imployments and even manner of living have in the midst of worldly avocations undertaken Austerities very rude and rigorous yet it was in order to a higher mortification of spirit and it is also necessary they should if either naturally or habitually or easily they suffer violent transportation of Passions for since the occasions of anger and disturbance in the world frequently occur if such Passions be not restrained by greater violence than is competent to the ordinary offices of a moderate Piety the cure is weaker than the humour and so leaves the work imperfect 15. Secondly But this is coincident to the second degree of Mortification for if either out of desire of a farther step towards perfection or out of the necessities of nature or evil customs it be necessary also to subdue our Passions as well as the direct invitations to sin in both these cases the Body must suffer more Austerities even such as directly are contrariant to every passionate disturbance though it be not ever sinful in the instance All Mortifiers must abstain from every thing that is unlawful but these that they may abstain from things unlawful must also deny to themselves satisfaction in things lawful and pleasant and this is in a just proportion to the End the subduing the Passions lest their liberty and boldness become licentious And we shall easier deny their importunity to sin when we will not please them in those things in which we may such in which the fear of God and the danger of our Souls and the convictions of Reason and Religion do not immediately cooperate And this was the practice of David when he had thirsted for the water of Bethlehem and some of his Worthies ventured their lives and brought it he refused to drink it but poured it upon the ground unto the Lord that is it became a Drink-offering unto the Lord an acceptable Oblation in which he 〈◊〉 his desires to God denying himself the satisfaction of such a desire which was natural and innocent save that it was something nice delicate and curious Like this was the act of the Fathers in the mountain Nitria to one of which a fair cluster of dried grapes being sent he refused to taste them lest he should be too sensual and much pleased but sent them to another and he to a third and the same consideration transmitted the Present through all their Cells till it came to the first man again all of them not daring to content their appetite in a thing too much desired lest the like importunity in the instance of a sin should prevail upon them To these persons the best instruments of Discipline are subtractions rather than imposition of Austerities let them be great haters of corporal pleasures eating for necessity diet 〈◊〉 and cheap abridging and making short the opportunities of natural and permitted solaces refusing exteriour comforts not chusing the most pleasant object nor suffering delight to be the end of eating and therefore separating delight from it as much as prudently they may not being too importunate with God to remove his gentler hand of paternal correction but inuring our selves to patient suffering and indifferent acceptation of the Cross that God lays upon us at no hand living delicately or curiously or impatiently And this was the condition of S. Paul suffering with excellent temper all those persecutions and inconveniences which the enemies of Religion loaded him withall which he called bearing the marks of the Lord Jesus in his body and carrying about in his body the dying or mortification of the Lord Jesus it was in the matter of Persecution which because he bare patiently and was accustomed to and he accepted with indifference and renunciation they were the mortifications and the marks of Jesus that is a true 〈◊〉 to the Passion of Christ and of great effect and interest for the preventing sins by the mortification of his natural desires 16. Thirdly But in the pale of the Church there are and have been many tall Cedars 〈◊〉 tops have reached to Heaven some there are that chuse afflictions of the Body that by turning the bent and inclination of their affections into sensual 〈◊〉 they may not only cut off all pretensions of Temptation but grow in spiritual Graces and perfections intellectual and beatified To this purpose they served themselves with the instances of Sack-cloth Hard lodging long Fasts Pernoctation in prayers Renunciation of all secular possessions great and expensive Charity bodily Labours to great weariness and affiction and many other prodigies of voluntary suffering which Scripture and the
to that person who with much kindness and importunity invited him to a Fever but certainly there was more pain in it than in the strictness of holy and severe Temperance And he that shall compare the troubles and dangers of an ambitious War with the gentleness and easiness of Peace will soon perceive that every Tyrant and usurping Prince that snatches at his neighbour's rights hath two armies one of men and the other of cares Peace sheds no bloud but of the pruned vine and hath no business but modest and quiet entertainments of the time opportune for Piety and circled with reward But God often punishes Ambition and Pride with Lust and he sent a thorn in the flesh as a corrective to the elevations and grandezza of S. Paul growing up from the multitude of his Revelations and it is not likely the punishment should have less trouble than the crime whose pleasures and obliquity this was designed to punish And indeed every experience can verifie that an Adulterer hath in him the impatience of desires the burnings of lust the fear of shame the apprehensions of a jealous abused and an inraged Husband He endures affronts mistimings tedious waitings the dulness of delay the regret of interruption the confusion and amazements of discovery the scorn of a reproached vice the debasings of contempt upon it unless the man grows impudent and then he is more miserable upon another stock But David was so put to it to attempt to obtain to enjoy Bathsheba and to prevent the shame of it that the difficulty was greater than all his wit and power and it drove him into base and unworthy arts which discovered him the more and multiplied his crime But while he enjoyed the innocent pleasures of his lawful bed he had no more trouble in it than there was in inclining his head upon his pillow The ways of sin are crooked desert rocky and uneven they are broad indeed and there is variety of ruines and allurements to entice fools and a large theatre to act the bloudy tragedies of Souls upon but they are nothing smooth or safe or delicate The ways of Vertue are streight but not crooked narrow but not unpleasant There are two Vices for one Vertue and therefore the way to Hell must needs be of greater extent latitude and dissemination But because Vertue is but one way therefore it is easie regular and apt to walk in without error or diversions Narrow is the gate and streight is the way It is true considering our evil customs and depraved natures by which we have made it so to us But God hath made it more passable by his grace and present aids and S. John Baptist receiving his Commission to preach Repentance it was expressed in these words Make plain the paths of the Lord. Indeed Repentance is a rough and a sharp vertue and like a mattock and spade breaks away all the roughnesses of the passage and hinderances of sin but when we enter into the dispositions which Christ hath designed to us the way is more plain and easie than the ways of Death and Hell Labour it hath in it just as all things that are excellent but no confusions no distractions of thought no amazements no labyrinths and intricacy of counsels But it is like the labours of Agriculture full of health and simplicity plain and profitable requiring diligence but such in which crafts and painful stratagems are useless and impertinent But Vice hath oftentimes so troublesome a retinue and so many objections in the event of things is so intangled in difficult and contradictory circumstances hath in it parts so opposite to each other and 〈◊〉 inconsistent with the present condition of the man or some secret design of his that those little pleasures which are its Fucus and pretence are less perceived and least enjoyed while they begin in phantastick semblances and rise up in smoak vain and hurtful and end in dissatisfaction 6. But it is considerable that God and the Sinner and the Devil all joyn in increasing the difficulty and trouble of sin upon contrary designs indeed but all cooperate to the verification of this discourse For God by his restraining grace and the checks of a tender Conscience and the bands of publick honesty and the sense of honour and reputation and the customs of Nations and the severities of Laws makes that in most men the choice of Vice is imperfect dubious and troublesome and the pleasures abated and the apprehensions various and in differing degrees and men act their crimes while they are disputing against them and the balance is cast by a few grains and scruples vex and disquiet the possession and the difference is perceived to be so little that inconsideration and inadvertency is the greatest means to determine many men to the entertainment of a sin And this God does with a design to lessen our choice and to disabuse our perswasions from arguments and weak pretences of Vice and to invite us to the trials of Vertue when we see its enemy giving us so ill conditions And yet the Sinner himself makes the business of sin greater for its nature is so loathsome and its pleasure so little and its promises so unperformed that when it lies open easie and apt to be discerned there is no argument in it ready to invite us and men hate a vice which is every day offered and prostitute and when they seek for pleasure unless difficulty presents it as there is nothing in it really to perswade a choice so there is nothing strong or witty enough to abuse a man And to this purpose amongst some others which are malicious and crafty the Devil gives assistance knowing that men despise what is cheap and common and suspect a latent excellency to be in difficult and forbidden objects and therefore the Devil sometimes crosses an opportunity of sin knowing that the desire is the iniquity and does his work sufficiently and yet the crossing the desire by impeding the act heightens the appetite and makes it more violent and impatient But by all these means sin is made more troublesome than the pleasures of the temptation can account for and it will be a strange imprudence to leave Vertue upon pretence of its difficulty when for that very reason we the rather entertain the instances of sin despising a cheap sin and a costly Vertue chusing to walk through the brambles of a Desart rather than to climb the fruit-trees of Paradise 7. Thirdly Vertue conduces infinitely to the Content of our lives to secular felicities and political satisfactions and Vice does the quite contrary For the blessings of this life are these that make it happy Peace and quietness Content and satisfaction of desires Riches Love of friends and neighbours Honour and reputation abroad a Healthful body and a long Life This last is a distinct consideration but the other are proper to this title For the first it is certain Peace was so designed by
he bearing them upon his tender body with an even and excellent and dispassionate spirit offered up these beginnings of sufferings to his Father to obtain pardon even for them that injured him and for all the World 6. Judas now seeing that this matter went farther than he intended it repented of his fact For although evil persons are in the progress of their iniquity invited on by new arguments and supported by confidence and a careless spirit yet when iniquity is come to the height or so great a proportion that it is apt to produce Despair or an intolerable condition then the Devil suffers the Conscience to thaw and grow tender but it is the tenderness of a Bile it is soreness rather and a new disease and either it comes when the time of Repentance is past or leads to some act which shall make the pardon to be impossible and so it happened here For Judas either impatient of the shame or of the sting was thrust on to despair of pardon with a violence as hasty and as great as were his needs And Despair is very often used like the bolts and bars of Hell-gates it 〈◊〉 upon them that had entred into the suburbs of eternal death by an habitual sin and it secures them against all retreat And the Devil is forward enough to bring a man to Repentance provided it be too late and Esau wept bitterly and repented him and the five foolish Virgins lift up their voice aloud when the gates were shut and in Hell men shall repent to all eternity But I consider the very great folly and infelicity of Judas it was at midnight he received his money in the house of Annas betimes in that morning he repented his bargain he threw the money back again but his sin stuck close and it is thought to a 〈◊〉 eternity Such is the purchace of Treason and the reward of Covetousness it is cheap in its offers momentany in its possession unsatisfying in the fruition uncertain in the stay sudden in its 〈◊〉 horrid in the remembrance and a ruine a certain and miserable ruine is in the event When Judas came in that sad condition and told his miserable story to them that set him on work they 〈◊〉 him go away unpitied he had served their ends in betraying his Lord and those that hire such servants use to leave them in the disaster to shame and to sorrow and so did the Priests but took the money and 〈◊〉 to put it into the treasury because it was the price of bloud but they made no scruple to take it from the treasury to buy that bloud Any thing seems lawful that serves the ends of ambitious and bloudy persons and then they are scrupulous in their cases of Conscience when nothing of Interest does intervene for evil men make Religion the servant of Interest and sometimes weak men think that it is the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 Religion and suspect that all of it is a design because many great Politicks make it so The end of the Tragedy was that Judas died with an ignoble death marked with the circumstances of a horrid Judgment and perished by the most infamous hands in the world that is by his own Which if it be confronted against the excellent spirit of S. Peter who did an act as contradictory to his honour and the grace of God as could be easily imagined yet taking sanctuary in the arms of his Lord he lodged in his heart for ever and became an example to all the world of the excellency of the Divine Mercy and the efficacy of a holy Hope and a hearty timely and an operative Repentance 7. 〈◊〉 now all things were ready for the purpose the High Priest and all his Council go along with the Holy Jesus to the house of Pilate hoping he would verifie their Sentence and bring it to execution that they might 〈◊〉 be rid of their fears and enjoy their sin and their reputation quietly S. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the High Priest caused the Holy Jesus to be led with a cord about his neck and in memory of that the Priests for many Ages 〈◊〉 a stole about theirs But the Jews did it according to the custom of the Nation to signifie he was condemned to death they desired Pilate that he would crucifie him they having 〈◊〉 him worthy And when Pilate enquired into the particulars they gave him a general and an indefinite answer If he were not guilty we would not have brought him 〈◊〉 thee they intended not to make Pilate Judge of the cause but 〈◊〉 of their cruelty But Pilate had not learned to be guided by an implicite faith of such persons which he knew to be malicious and violent and therefore still called for instances and arguments of their Accusation And that all the world might see with how great unworthiness they prosecuted the 〈◊〉 they chiefly there accused him of such crimes upon which themselves condemned him not and which they knew to be false but yet likely to move Pilate if he had been passionate or inconsiderate in his sentences He offered to make himself a King This 〈◊〉 happened at the entry of the Praetorium for the 〈◊〉 who made no conscience of killing the King of Heaven made a conscience of the external customs and ceremonies of their Law which had in them no interiour sanctity which were apt to separate them 〈◊〉 the Nations and remark them with characters of Religion and abstraction it would defile them to go to a Roman Forum 〈◊〉 a capital action was to be judged and yet the effusion of the best bloud in the world was not esteemed against their 〈◊〉 so violent and blind is the spirit of malice which turns humanity into 〈◊〉 wisdom into craft diligence into subornation and Religion into Superstition 8. Two other articles they alledged against him but the first concerned not Pilate and the second was involved in the third and therefore he chose to examine him upon this only of his being a King To which the Holy Jesus answered that it is true he was 〈◊〉 King indeed but not of this world his Throne is Heaven the Angels are his Courtiers and the 〈◊〉 Creation are his Subjects His Regiment is spiritual his 〈◊〉 are the Courts of Conscience and Church-tribunals and at Dooms-day the Clouds The Tribute which he demands are conformity to his Laws Faith 〈◊〉 and Charity no other Gabels but the duties of a holy Spirit and the expresses of a religious Worship and obedient Will and a consenting Understanding And in all this Pilate thought the interest of 〈◊〉 was not invaded For certain it is the Discipline of Jesus confirmed it much and supported it by the strongest pillars And here Pilate saw how impertinent and malicious their Accusation was And we who declaim against the unjust proceedings of the Jews against our dearest Lord should do well to take care that we in accusing any of our Brethren either with malicious purpose or with
God has made them Authentick and consecrated them part of the holy Canon 6. BEING thus satisfied in the Canonicalness of this Epistle none but S. Jude could be the Author of it for who but he was the Brother of S. James a character by which he is described in the Evangelical story more than once Grotius indeed will needs have it written by a younger Jude the fifteenth Bishop of Jerusalem in the reign of Adrian and because he saw that that passage the Brother of James stood full in his way he concludes without any shadow of reason that it was added by some Transcriber But is not this to make too bold with Sacred things is not this to indulge too great a liberty this once allowed 't will soon open a door to the wildest and most extravagant conjectures and no man shall know where to find sure-sooting for his Faith But the Reader may remember what we have elsewhere observed concerning the Posthume Annotations of that learned man Not to say that there are many things in this Epistle that evidently refer to the time of this Apostle and imply it to have been written upon the same occasion and about the same time with the second Epistle of Peter between which and this there is a very great affinity both in words and matter nay there want not some that endeavour to prove this Epistle to have been written no less than twenty seven years before that of Peter and that hence it was that Peter borrowed those passages that are so near a-kin to those in this Epistle The design of the Epistle is to preserve Christians from the infection of Gnosticism the loose and debauched principles vented by Simon Magus and his followers whose wretched doctrines and practises he briefly and elegantly represents perswading Christians heartily to contend for the Faith that had been delivered to them and to avoid these pernicious Seducers as pests and fire-brands not to communicate with them in their sins lest they perished with them in that terrible vengeance that was ready to overtake them The End of S. Jude's Life THE LIFE OF S. MATTHIAS S. MATHIAS He preached the Gospell in Ethiopia suffered Martyrdome and was buried there S. Hierom. St. Matthias his Martyrdom Hebr. 11 37. They were stoned they were sawn asunder they were tempted were slain with the sword S. Matthias one of the Seventy Judas Iscariot whence A bad Minister nulls not the ends of his ministration His worldly and covetous temper His monstrous ingratitude His betraying his Master and the aggravations of the sin The distraction and horror of his mind The miserable state of an evil and guilty Conscience His violent death The election of a new Apostle The Candidates who The Lot cast upon Matthias His preaching the Gospel and in what parts of the World His Martyrdom when where and how His Body whither translated The Gospel and Traditions vented under his name 1. SAINT Matthias not being an Apostle of the first Election immediately called and chosen by our Saviour particular remarks concerning him are not to be expected in the History of the Gospel He was one of our Lord's Disciples and probably one of the Seventy that had attended on him the whole time of his publick Ministry and after his death was elected into the Apostleship upon this occasion Judas Iscariot so called probably from the place of his nativity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of Kerioth a City anciently situate in the Tribe of Judah had been one of the Twelve immediately called by Christ to be one of his intimate Disciples equally impowered and commissioned with the rest to Preach and work Miracles was numbred with them and had obtained part of their Ministry And yet all this while was a man of vile and corrupt designs branded with no meaner a character than Thief and Murderer To let us see that there may be bad servants in Christ's own family and that the wickedness of a Minister does not evacuate his Commission nor render his Office useless and ineffectual The unworthiness of the instrument hinders not the ends of the ministration Seeing the efficacy of an ordinance depends not upon the quality of the person but the Divine institution and the blessing which God has entailed upon it Judas preached Christ no doubt with zeal and fervency and for any thing we know with as much success as the rest of the Apostles and yet he was a bad man a man acted by 〈◊〉 and mean designs one that had prostituted Religion and the honour of his place to covetousness and evil arts The love of money had so intirely possessed his thoughts that his resolutions were bound for nothing but interest and advantage But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare This covetous temper betrayed him as in the issue to the most fatal end so to the most desperate attempt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Origen calls the putting Christ to death the most prodigious impiety that the Sun ever shone on the betraying his innocent Lord into the hands of those who he knew would treat him with all the circumstances of insolent scorn and cruelty How little does kindness work upon a disingenuous mind It was not the honour of the place to which when thousands of others were passed by our Lord had called him the admitting him into a free and intimate fellowship with his person the taking him to be one of his peculiar domesticks and attendants that could divert the wretch from his wicked purpose He knew how desirous the great men of the Nation were to get Christ into their hands especially at the time of the Passeover that he might with the more publick disgrace 〈◊〉 sacrificed before all the people and therefore bargains with them and for no greater a summ than under four pounds to betray the Lamb of God into the paws of these Wolves and Lions In short he heads the party conducts the Officers and sees him delivered into their hands 2. BUT there 's an active principle in man's breast that seldom suffers daring sinners to pass in quiet to their Graves Awakened with the horror of the fact conscience began to rouze and follow close and the man was unable to bear up under the furious revenges of his own mind As indeed all wilful and deliberate sins and especially the guilt of bloud are wont more sensibly to alarm the natural notions of our minds and to excite in us the fears of some present vengeance that will seise upon us And how intolerable are those scourges that lash us in this vital and tender part The spirit of the man sinks under him and all supports snap asunder As what case or comfort can he enjoy that carries a Vultur in his bosom always gnawing and preying upon his heart Which made Plutarch compare an evil Conscience to a Cancer in the breast that perpetually gripes and stings the Soul with the pains of an intolerable