For as St. Paul speaks of the Jews Had they known it they had not crucified the Lord of glory so may we of the Devil Had he known Christ to be God and Man and the Saviour of the world he would never have put into the heart of Judas to betray him nor have moved the Jews to put him to death by which the determinate counsel of God was brought to pass and by which himself was trod under-foot and his kingdom overthrown But such a Captain it behoved us to have who could be tempted but could not sin who might be set hard at but could not be overthrown who could discover the falacies of that subtle Sophister who could subsist and not turn stones into bread who could go up to the pinacle of the Temple and come down from it who could see the world and the glory of it and contemn it The Schoolmen where they speak of this Tentation of Christ tell us of a double tentation an inward and an outward and rank our Saviour with our first Parents in the state of innocency who as they imagine could have no inward tentation at all because the Flesh was then in full and perfect subjection to Reason and their Reason in due obedience to God whose Phansie could receive no species or phantasms but upon deliberate counsel whose Understanding had no cloud to obscure it and whose Will waited as an handmaid on the Understanding and followed as that led All this may be true and yet might our first Parents be tempted inwardly For Tentation if it go no further is no sin We are then tempted when objects are proposed to the Eye and then pass to the Phansie and from thence are tendred to the Understanding I may see an object suppose the forbidden fruit and think of it and know it and yet not sin It is beauty in the Eye and so in the Phansie and it may be so in the Understanding and yet the Will may not incline to it because Reason may judge it though fair to the eye yet dangerous to the touch Scire malum non facit scientem malum To know evil cannot denominate us evil For God who is a pure essence and Purity it self knows Evil more exactly then we and therefore hates it with a perfecter hatred then we can I may know the Apple to be fair to look to and pleasant of taste and yet not taste it I may know that Bread is the staff of our life and yet rely more upon the providence of God then on bread I may know that the nearest way down from the pinacle is to fling my self off and yet chuse the safer and go down by the stairs I may see Riches to be the God of this world and yet count them as dung For I cannot see but the tentation may be inward and yet no sin Nay if it be but a tentation it is not sin and if it be sin the tentation is at an end And if the tentation had not its operation upon the will and inward man as well as upon the outward and sensitive part let them tell me how Adam fell Besides there is a great disproportion between the state of the first Adam and the state of the second between our first Parents and Christ For although they were created upright and in a state of innocency for indeed they could not be created otherwise by God who is Goodness it self yet we do not read that they were conceived by the holy Ghost In Christ there was no sin nor could there be He had not only Nolle peccare but Non posse peccare not only a Will not to sin but an Impossibility of sinning although Durand upon I know not what grounds phansieth the contrary The Prince of this world comes and hath nothing in me saith our John 14 30. Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing in him which he might accuse not only no sin but no fuel for his scintillations his sparkles his tentations no fuel for his sullen tentations to fall upon and smoke up in distrust no combustible matter for his glorious tentations to settle upon and flame up in ambition There was nothing in Christ which the Devil had or could make his no Ignorance of what he should do no Dulness of Mind no Difficulty in resisting tentations The second Adam was like unto the first in all things not only in his state of innocency but in his fall sin only excepted But in Adam though there was no fomes peccati no fuel yet there was a possibility of sinning which was ad instar fomitis and which the Devil made use of as of fuel in which he raised that fire that consumed him to dust and ashes brought death and the condition of mortality both upon him and his progeny We will not here make any curious search to find out the degrees of this Tentation of our Saviour or what operation it had upon him Scrutari hoc temeritas est credere pietas est nosse vita est vita aeterna To dive too far into this into the manner how the tentation wrought would be rashness to believe that Christ was tempted is an act of piety and to know it and make use of it is life and life eternal And I know that discourses of this nature are not welcome in this age where not Schoolmen but dunces are most in request where men are afraid to hear of any truth that is new to them and disdain to know more then they know already although if they were diligent they might learn more in their Catechisme And indeed in this point we can walk no further then we have light from the Scripture And there we find that Christ did suffer something when he was tempted that he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he was touched Hebr. 2. 18. with the feeling of our infirmities like unto us in all things sin only excepted And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he learnt something that is obedience Hebr. 4. 15. by the things which he suffered This we may receive simplici notâ fide by a plain and common faith And we dare not stretch further for fear we stretch beyond the line Tempted he was but temptations did fall upon him as waves upon a rock which dashed them into ayr into nothing or as hailstones upon marble erepitant solvuntur They made some noyse but no impression they did no sooner fall but were dissolved And this is enough for any to know but those quibus nihil est satis who will know more then they can know It is sufficient for us to know that our Saviour was tempted and it will be very necessary for us to know the end why he was tempted For as he was made Man so also was he tempted for our sakes First as he was made a sacrifice for sin so here he made himself an ensample which we should follow when the enemy assaults us For as Commentators on Aristotle
The Gods themselves have not strength enough to strive against Necessity but he is weaker than a man who yieldeth where there is no necessity The VVoman gave it me then is but a weak apology Further yet What was the gift was it of so rich a value as to countervail the loss of Paradise No it was DE FRUCTU ARBORIS the fruit of the tree We call it an Apple Some would have it to be an Indian Fig. The Holy Ghost vouchsafeth not once to name it or to tell us what it was Whatsoever it was it was but fruit and of that tree of which Man was forbidden to eat upon penalty of death Quasi vero rationis aliquid Gen. 2. 17. haberet haec defensio saith a Father As if this defense had any shew of reason in it when he confesseth that he preferred this apple this slight gift of the Woman before the command of God The Woman gave me of the tree and I did eat Here are two God and the Woman the Gift and the Command the Apple and Obedience To hearken to the Woman and to be deaf to God to forsake the command for the gift to fling off obedience at the sight of an apple is that which sheweth Adam's sin in its full magnitude and yet is taken-in here for an apologie But perhaps this fruit may be of high price this apple may be an apple of God with this glorious inscription upon it ERITIS SICUT DII if ye eat it ye shall be as Gods Who would not venture then to touch upon such hopes who would not eat an Apple to become a God It is true if this had not been the Devil's inscription whose every letter is a lie and whose greatest gift is not worth an apple whose kingdoms of the world and glorie of Mat. 4. 8. them are overbought with a thought Mala emtio saith the Oratour semper ingrata est quia semper exprobrare videtur domino stultitiam An evil bargain is an ey-sore because it alwayes upbraideth him with folly who made it And such a bargain here had our first father made He had bought gravel for bread wind for treasure spem pretio hope for a certainty a lie for truth an apple for paradise The Woman the Gift the gift of an Apple these are brought-in for an excuse but are indeed a libel Further still to aggrandize Adam's fault consider how the reason of his excuse doth render it most unreasonable Why doth he make so buisy a defense why doth he shift all the blame from himself upon the woman Here was no just detestation of the offence but only fear of punishment The fruit of the tree had been pleasant to the eyes and tast but MORTE MORIERIS Thou shalt surely die was bitter as gall He would offend Gen. 3. 6. Gen. 2. 17. with the woman but with the woman he would not be punished For love of her he did eat but now he hath eaten see how he loveth her Behold the Lord cometh with a fiery sword to take vengeance for his sin Doth he oppose himself to the danger doth he stand between the sword and his wife doth he urge her weakness doth he plead for her doth he call for the blow on himself No She gave and let the blow light upon her Pernitiosè misericors pernitiosiùs crudelis saith Bernard He had been too pliant and kind to sin with his wife but now most cruel when he should be merciful It was too much mercy to joyn with her in the sin but cruelty without mercy to leave her in the Punishment And here is a sign that Adam is fallen indeed even fallen from the high degree of a Lord to the low condition of a Servant who feareth not to offend but to be punished would break the command at pleasure but that Death is the best reward that followeth To a good man Punishment appeareth not in so horrid a shape as sin for punishment is but the evil of passion inflicted for the evil of action and of the two the evil of action is far the worse The lips of an harlot are far worse then the biting of a cockatrice Theft is far worse then the whip Yea to sin as Anselm saith is far worse then to be damned For there is a kind of justice in punishment which is not sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither God nor Man will deny but that it is most just that he who sinneth should suffer for his sin Omnis pana si justa est peccati paena est saith Augustine But for sin punishment were not just We may bespeak Adam in the stile of the imperial Law ipse te subdedisti paenae thou hast brought thy self under punishment and deservest to have it doubled for shifting it off to thy wife He had taken possession of Paradise upon condition and had made a contract with God And the Scholiast on the fifth of Aristotle's Ethicks will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is in punishment a kind of giving and receiving in which the nature of all contracts doth consist He who receiveth by theft 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Latine phrase is dabit paenas he must give punishment Adam receiveth an apple and he must give paradise yea his life for it We have said enough to shew that Adam did but pavementare peccatum as St. Augustin speaketh parget and plaister ever his sin and did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alleage that for a cause of his transgression which in truth was none But In the last place that which maketh his apologie worse than a lie and rendreth his excuse inexcusable is that he removeth the fault from the Woman on God himself Not the Woman alone is brought in but MULIER QUAM TU DEDISTI The Woman whom thou gavest me she gave me of the tree and I did eat Which indeed is a plain sophism non causae pro causa That is made a cause which is not a cause but an occasion only It is a common axiome Causa causae est causa causati That which produceth the cause produceth also the effect of that cause And it is true in Causes and effects essentially coordinate But here it is not so God indeed gave Adam the Woman but he gave him not the Woman to give him the Apple Dedit sociam non tentatricem He gave her for a companion not for a tempter He gave her not to do that which he had so plainly forbidden The true cause of Adam's sin was in himself and in his own will It was not the Woman which God gave him but the Woman which he gave himself who gave him the fruit God gave him a Woman to be obedient to him not to command him God gave him a Will to incline to his command but not to break it Whatsoever God gave him was good The Woman was good the Fruit was good his Will was good the Command was good but he gave himself a Woman who was
nothing profits evil men more than the company of the good How many Saints may the holy conversation of one man beget How many Martyrs hath the patience and silence of one man brought to the stake How many Evil men have lost themselves and their evil in the company of the Good We must not therefore make the separation before the time For we may be in Societate impiorum in the company of evil men but in solitudine vitiorum in respect of their evil be alone We may be with them in participatione sacramentorum sayth Augustine in the participation of the same sacraments but not in consensione factorum in our consent to their evil deeds We may be like the Ark of Noah in the deluge yet not drown'd like Mose's Bush in the fire yet not burnt We may carry about with us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plato calls it a kind of charm and spell which may slumber our turbulent affections and those motions which are so ready to subvert our Reason that we may be near enough to them to help them but yet at such a distance that no poyson which is breathed from them shall hurt us I Please all men in all things sayth St. Paul all men even evil men not by fashioning himself to them 1 Cor. 10. 33. but by reforming them to the copie of his own innocency For what saith Tertullian Numquid Saturnalia celebrans hominibus placebat did he please men by celebrating the same heathenish idolatrous Feasts with them No but by gravity and patience by modesty and integrity Again I was made all things to all men Numquid idololatris idololatres What was he 1 Cor. 9. 22. made an idolater to idolaters a heathen to heathens and a carnal man to carnal men No there was no such friendship between St. Paul and evil men He was not drawn by them but made it his industry to draw them unto him He made not himself like unto them but made them like unto himself He pleased evil men but it was to make them good And in this manner licet convivere commori non licet We may live with evil men but we may not die with them We may possess the world with them but not their error And this is it by which we of the reformed Churches justify our separation from the Church of Rome We do it not as the Donatists did of old and our Separatists now a dayes only to avoid the communion of bad men but to free our selves from a necessity of joyning with bad men in their impieties We go not from them but from their dangerous errors We divide not our selves from them for our hearts desire is that they may repent and be saved but from their superstition And thus to divide our selves is no Schism but Christian animosity And in this case we say with Cyprian Pereant sibi solis qui perire volunt If they will perish let them perish to themselves alone III. God suffers this mixture of Good and Evil men not only for the reformation of the Evil but also for the benefit of the Good For mali bonis prosunt saith the Father Evil men may prove advantageons to the good They may awake many glorious virtues in them which otherwise would be but as the seed in the ground not yet in the ear and blossome Plutarch hath written a Book How togather profit from an enemy How to make our selves better by them who would make us worse But Christ in the Book of his Gospel hath taught us yet a more excellent way How to improve our Virtue by other mens sin How to increase more and more in good by the very sight of evil How to make those sins which press others down to Hell as a Scale and Ladder to lift us up to Heaven so that we may make friends not only of the unrighteous Mammon but even of unrighteous men to lift us up unto those everlasting habitations Some men there are who for want of skill in this book and through ignorance of this art put upon themselves a strange behaviour and at the very thought of wicked men are so troubled and transported that they forget they are men and subject to the same infirmities that they forget they are Christians who should work a cure upon them and not murder them You may behold them angry and fierce cruel and bloudy breathing forth nothing but curses and exsecrations As with a Sword in my bones my enemies reproach me whilst they daily say unto me Where is thy God saith David Objurgant Psal 41. 10. quasi oderint their very reprehensions are Swords and their exhortations the expressions of their hatred With James and John those Sons of Thunder they are ready with their Domine vis dicamus ut ignis descendat If it were in their power they would call down fire from heaven to destroy them Luk. 9. 54. as Elias did To put off all bowels of compassion with them is to put off the Old man So that if we rightly consider it they are greater Sinners than those they condemn and it may be said to them as the one Thief said to the other Do you not fear God seeing you are in the same condemnation Thus it is with evil men They grow worse and worse by that which should better them and their ungrounded Zeal consumes not them but their Charity But he who is a Son of Peace hath learnt that thriving art to be richer for other mens poverty to rayse himself higher and higher at the sight of his brothers fall to make others sin the occasion of many virtues in himself to say unto himself There they are fallen that I may look to my steps And here his Circumspection shews it self He had broke the Law and my eyes shall gush out with rivers of water In those tears his Piety is resplendent He is sore wounded but I will powr oyl into his wounds Here his Charity stretcheth forth her hand even that Charity which shall hide a multitude of sins Thus by the Wisdom and providence of God Sin which bringeth forth Death may bring forth life and the wicked many times are turned from the error of their way at the sight of those virtues which shine in glory at the sight of their Sin In a word the Good are made manifest by the Evil and the Evil may be converted by the Good Still this difference there will be in the Church and the Salutation here is directed to both both to the Sons of peace and to those who will not receive it Into whatsoever house they goe the Disciples must say peace be unto this House And so much be spoken concerning the Difference of the Persons We come now in the second place to the Nature and Property of the Salutation That it will rest on none but those who are prepared to receive it Peace will rest on none but on a Son of Peace on him who is worthy
binding then a debt surely you would think that due from them to him who had begotten them nay who was sacrificed for them and saved them for these glorious terms the Apostle gives himself saved them I say not their Bodies from the Grave but their Souls from Death O my Brethren there was a time when men sold all they had and laid it down at the Apostles feet there was a time even in our memory when Sacriledg was thought a sin and men conceived the maintenance of a lawful Clergy as sacred as their own Revenues in the time when axes and hammers were lifted up to build not to break down the carved works of the Sanctuary yet something is due still at least to give a cup of cold water in the name of a Prophet to hold up their weak hands and to support their feeble knees with your staff of Bread For though St. Paul would have worked with his hands now had they not been lock't up with manicles rather then prove burdensome to them for then was not a time to receive Gifts in the infancy of the Church yet he always says he might claim it as a recompence that he had power to challenge it and proves it by all kind of Arguments 1 Cor. 9. from Custom Reason and Scripture and least you should pretend the abrogation of this Law by Christ the Apostle adds v. 14. That the Lord hath ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel he hath ordained it enacted it and made it a Law for ever he hath tied and bound you up to it for ever it is not left to your choice and discretion And our Saviour when he sends out his Apostles calls their maintenance their Hire Mat. 10. 10. as if there did pass a tacite contract and bargain between the Preacher and the Audience that if he feeds their souls they should feed his body if he gives them the water of life he may claim a draught from out of their well as due and that he who deals the bread of life about should have in return the bread that perishes a fair exchange you 'l say on your parts Carnal for Spiritual things and a Birth-right that gives you title to become the heirs of God for a small mess of porridge The second advantage we have by Charity is the Exercise of our Patience before the day of Tryal come upon us Who pray among you would leave at this very instant his whole Estate to preserve his Conscience if violence should offer to take it from him or who would go immediately from this very place to the stake if God should call him thither but Charity leads us to this perfection for whosoever gives away of his own willingly may come in time to endure quietly if it be forced from him and who can chearfully part with some to relieve his Brethren will at last arrive so far as contentedly to loose all so he may preserve his Conscience My Brethren 't is all the business of our Time Diligence and Experience to be a Christian for though God did sometimes extraordinarily pour forth as much of his Spirit into some Vessels of Mercy as enabled them at once to become Christians and Martyrs both together ready to lay down their lives for the Faith as soon as ever they did believe Yet 't is said of Christ that notwithstanding he was a Son yet learnt he obedience by the things which he suffered Heb. 5. 8. He learnt it Let others learn to measure the Earth do you learn to despise it and let Philosophers dispute the causes of lightnings storms and thunder but do you Christians learn the way to Mount Sion where you may stand above them all The last and highest benefit we receive by our Charity is that as God will most severely punish the neglect of this duty so if we do perform it he will account himself in debt to us for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God will 1 Pet. 3. thank you for this for this God will in a manner acknowledge himself beholding to you You lend to the Lord lend to him who possesses all already as if God would willingly part with his whole right and title to this world so we in compassion to our poor Brethren would give him the least return of it again God owes you a blessing which you shall be sure to have not only hereafter but here also if we can believe God for whom it is impossible to lye For as God did certainly punish some with temporal punishments for offending against the Gospel as he did the Corinthians with diseases and sudden death for their prophaning the Lords Supper So 1 Cor 11. 30. likewise may not we doubt but God under the Gospel also rewards those who obey even with temporal blessings and if you observe it nothing prospers here better then this vertue of Charity For the very Politian himself advises us to help our very enemies if we mistrust they can get out of themselves because thus we shall make them our friends Beasts have so much reason and civility to return a courtesie Nature is still calling upon us for this duty so earnestly as some have wished their very friends to whom they stand most obliged in misery for no other reason but that they might relieve them and be quit of this debt On the contrary 't is remarkable what great advantages some have missed meerly because they knew not how to give in season For there is he saith Solomon that withholds what is meet but it tends to poverty Prov. 11. 24. But suppose men do turn inhumane and ungrateful yet still he that gives to the poor shall not lack Prov. 28. 27. For God in your extremities will either afford you an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a place to slip out of or else give you strength to suffer which in effect is all one No great matter whether the three Children be in the Furnace or out of it so the flame does not so much as singe them and then you will without all question receive an ample reward in the world to come For if Heaven do stand open to such as have their sins forgiven then you for your Charity shall be sure to enter in for Charity shall cover the multitude of sins If your luxury did make your Saviour faste the feeding of his afflicted members that will feed him again and if your wantonness in apparel stript him in covering their nakedness you shall cloath him again in short if your sins crucified him in relieving them you revive him and make him alive again upon the earth This Sacrifice will expiate all Give to the poor what thou hast and all shall be clean unto you says our Saviour Luke 11. 41. Again do you think such as do all the whole will of God shall inherit eternal life then your Charity must of necessity let you in for Charity is the fulfilling both of the Law and the Prophets
God as he did we should rather as he did offer up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him for our Brethren then smite them with our tongues then tell of the misery of these wounded ones that is speak vauntingly and Psal 69. 26. preach thereof as the word signifies then thus rain down upon them their own snares halestones and coals of fire I confess prudent and discreet reprehension is as a gracious and seasonable rain as precious balm but rash and inconsiderate censure is as a Tempest or Hurrican to waste a soul to carry all before it and to digg up a good name by the roots And as it is truly said that most men speak against Riches not out of hatred but love unto them so do many declaim against Sin not out of hatred to sin but out of love to themselves which may be as great a crime as that they speak against Signum putant bonae conscientiae aliis malè dicere They think it a sign of a good conscience in themselves to speak evil of others and conceit themselves good if they can say others are evil For as true Righteousness speaks alwaies in compassion but that which is false and counterfeit breaths forth nothing but wrath and reviling and indignation Remember those that are in bonds as if you were bound with them and as being your selves in the Hebr. 13. 3. body as being in the body obnoxious to the same evils in a mortal body Rom. 8. 11. an earthly body and a corruptible body And remember those who are 1 Cor. 15. 40. 53. in their sins which are the bonds I am sure and fetters of the soul as being also in that body of death as being under that burden that presseth Rom. 7. 24. down and under sin that hangeth so fast on that we shall never fling it Hebr. 12. 1. off till we cast off our bodies being in the same polluted garments which will stick close to us till we be uncloathed and cloathed upon 2 Cor. 5. 4. and mortality be swallowed up of life Look not upon thy Brethren as Grashoppers and upon thy felf as a strong and perfect man in Christ as if thou wert spiritual heavenly impeccable and as far removed from Sin as God himself But rather as St. Paul was made a Jew to the Jew so be thou as a sick man ministring to the sick handling another 1 Cor. 9. 20. with the same compassion thou wouldst have extended to thy self if thou thy self should be in his case If thou despise and reproach him I am sure thou art in a far worse For be he what the frailty of the Flesh the subtilty of Satan and the flattery of a vain World can make him yet he is thy Brother be he sick well-near unto death yet he is thy Brother be he the lost sheep yet he is thy Brother and Christ may fetch him back again even upon thy shoulders that is by thy compassion and thy care be he amongst the swine with the Prodigal yet he is thy Brother for within a while he may come back again to his Father and thy Fathers house If he be to thee as an heathen or publican yet he must also be Brother And further we press not this Use So then neither Error nor Sin can unty this knot can dissolve and break this relation of Brethren I named a third but I am well-near ashamed to name it again or bring it in competition with Error or Sin because an offense against God should more provoke us then any injury done to our selves Which our Apostle here sets so light by that although the Galatians had even questioned his Apostleship and preferred Peter and James and John before him yet he passeth it by as not worth the taking notice of Like Socrates who being overcome in judgment profest he had no reason to be angry with his enemies unless it were for this that they conceived and believed they had hurt him And here St. Paul saith Ye have not hurt me at all And indeed no injury can be done by a brother to a brother For the injury is properly done to God who made them Brethren and fellow-servants and who reserves all power of revenge unto himself who is their common Master and the God of revenge If a brother strike us we should saith Chrysostom kiss his hand if he would destroy us our revenge should be to save him Ignoscat tibi Christus saith Nazianzene to a young man that was suborn'd to kill him Christ forgive thee who hath also forgiven me and dyed to save me Ille idoneus patientiae sequester He is the best Advocate for our patience the best Decider of all our controversies and debates If you gage and lay down your injury with him he is the Revenger if your loss he is the Restorer if your grief he is the Physician if your death he will raise you up again But we shall no further prosecute this because it will fall in with our last part We will rather having as ye have read secured and fortified the Brethren walk about yet a while longer and tell the towers and bulwarks which the God of Love hath raised and set up to uphold them And they are 1. Pleasure excessive Pleasure 2. Profit great Profit 3. Necessity extream Necessity All these serve to maintain and uphold this Brotherhood For Brotherly Love is 1. pleasant and delightful 2. profitable and advantageous 3. so necessary that it had been better for us never to have been then not to love the Brethren For the first hear what the Psalmist saith Behold how good and joyful Psalm 133. 1. a thing it is for Brethren to dwell together in unity Not only it is so but it is worth our observing and we are called to behold and consider it Which if we did with a serious eye we should not so slight and undervalue it as we do For Pleasure is winning and attractive It is a motive above all eloquence more persuasive then the words of the wise Oh that we could be once brought to be well perswaded of this Pleasure and did not so dote on that which hath no true pleasure at all in it The Hills saith the Prophet David are girded with gladness Psalm 65. 12. Things are figuratively said to be glad when they attain unto and abide in their natural perfection So the Light is said to rejoyce when it shineth clear and continually because then it is in its highest and fullest splendor Now there can be no higher perfection for a Christian then to love the Brethren He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God 1 John 4. 16. in him and By this men shall know you are my Disciples if ye have John 13. 35. love one to another saith Christ by the same John in his Gospel What perfection greater then for a man to dwell in God and to have God dwell in
they do well to be angry even to death but not at their sin of themselves but their brethren For Meekness and cruelty cannot harbor in the same breast Nor will it come near the habitations of Covetousness Ambition and Hypocrisie for where these make their entrance Meekness takes the wing and flyes away Therefore to conclude let us mark these men and avoid them as the Apostle counsels And though they bring us into bondage though they smite us on the face though they take from us all that we have let us pity them and send after them more then they desire our prayers that God will open their eyes that they may see the snare of the Devil which holds them fast while they defie him and all his works and what a poor and narrow space there is betwixt them and Hell while they think they are in the presence and favour of God In a word though they curse let us bless though they rage let us pray and as the Apostle counsels Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away from us with all Eph. 4. 31 32. malice And let us be kind and meek one to another tender-hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven us The Third SERMON PART III. MATTH V. 5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth WE cannot insist too long upon this subject yet we must insist longer then at first we did intend For this holy oyl like that of the Widows increaseth under our hands and flows more plentifully by being powred out That which our last reached unto you was the Object of Meekness which we found to be as large as the whole world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Paul Let your moderation be known unto all men For Meekness is not cloyster'd up within the walls of one Society nor doth it hide it self behind the curtains of Solomon but looks further upon the tents of Kedar upon Bethel and Bethaven We could not nor was it necessary to gather and fetch in all particulars but we then confined our meditations to those which we thought most pertinent and within their compass took in the rest which were Error in opinion and which is the greater error nay the greater heresie saith Erasmus Error in life and conversation Where we took off those common pretenses and excuses which Christians usually bring in as Advocates to plead for them when they forget that Meekness without which they cannot be Christians For what is in Error or in Sin which may raise my anger against my brother Errantis poena est doceri saith Plato If he erre his punishment is to be taught and if he sin we must molest and pursue him and beat upon him with line upon line with reprehension upon reprehension till we convert him If he erre why should I be angry and if he sin why should I hate him The way to uphold a falling House is not to demolish it nor is it the way to remove Sacriledge to beat the Temple down When we fight against Sin and Error we must make Christ our patern qui vulnus non hominem secat qui secat ut sanet who levels his hand and knife against the disease not against the man and never strikes but where he means to heal And now to add something which the time would not before permit Let us but a while put upon our selves the person of our adversaries and ours upon them and conceive it as possible for our selves to erre as for them and if we do not thus think we fall upon an error which will soon multiply and draw with it many more For we cannot erre more dangerously then by thinking we cannot erre And then to this let us joyn a prudent consideration of those truths wherein we both agree which peradventure may be more and more weighty then those in which we differ that so by the lustre and brightness of these the offence taken by the other may vanish as the mist before the Sun For why should they who agree in those truths that may lift them both up together to Heaven fall asunder and stand at distance as enemies for those which have no such force and activity This is to hazard the benefit of the one for the defense of the other and for the love of a truth not necessary to abate our love of that which should save us to forfeit our Charity in a violent contention for Faith and so be shut out of Heaven for our wild and impertinent knocking at the gates Therefore in all our disputes and debates with those whom we are so ready to condemn of error let us walk by this rule which Reason and Revelation have drawn out to be our guide and direction That no Text in Scripture can retain the sense and meaning of the blessed Spirit which doth not edifie in Charity Knowledge puffeth up swelleth us beyond our sphere and compass but it is Charity alone that doth edifie which in all things dictates what is expedient for all and so builds us up together in a holy Faith We cannot think that Doctrine can be of any use in the Church which exasperates and envenoms one man against another It is St. Bernards observation And therefore Moderation and Meekness is that Salt which Christ requires to be in us that wise and prudent seasoning Mark 5. 90. of our words that purging of our affections amongst which Ambitions and Envyings are the most violent Have this salt in your selves and then as it follows you shall have peace one with another And this Peace will beget in you a holy emulation to work out your eternal peace together with fear and trembling Secondly for Sin why judgest thou thy brother or so much forgettest that name as to be enraged against him The judgment is the Lord's who seeth things that are not as if they were What though he be fallen upon a stone and sore bruised he may be raised again and be built upon that foundation which is sure and hath this zeal The Lord knoweth who are his This open Profaner may become a zealous Professor this false witness may be a true Martyr this Persecutor of the Church may at last be a glorious member of it and a stout Champion for the Truth He that led the Saints bound to Jerusalem did himself afterwards rejoyce in his bonds and suffer and dye for that truth which he prosecuted The Apostle where he erects a kind of discipline amongst the Thessalonians thus 2 Thess 3. 14. draws it forth If any man obey not our word that is be refractory to the Gospel of Christ have no company with that man that he may be ashamed that seing others avoid him he may be forced to dwell at home to have recourse unto himself to hold colloquy with his own soul and to find out the plague in his heart which makes him thus like a Pelican in
vent it not in language to imagine I may vent so I do not strike and when I strike to comfort my self because anothers little finger is greater than my Loyns to commend the Rod because it is not a Scorpion to say of those sins which surprise me because I do not fear them as Lot did of Zoar Are they not little ones may I not commit them and yet my soul live to make my Not doing of evil an apology for my Not doing of good my Not thrusting my Neighbour out of his own doors a sufficient warrant for my Not receiving him into mind to think that any degree of Meekness is enough is to forfeit all and loose my title to the inheritance of the earth It is I confess a sad observation but too manifestly true that if Meekness be a virtue so proper so essential to the Church then the Church is not so visible as we pretend but we must seek for the Church in the Church it self For if Meekness have yet a place it must be which is very strange in the hearts of men in the inward man For to the eye every hand is lifted up every mouth open and they who call themselves the Members of the Church are very active to bite and devour one another And it is not probable that their hearts should melt within them and their bowels yearn whose mouths are as open Sepulchres and whose feet are swift to shed bloud Is Meekness a note of the Church Certainly we may distinguish Christians from the World by nothing surer then by Malice in which they surpass both the Turk and the Jew And where most is required least is found ODIUM THE OLOGORUM The Malice of Divines was in Luther's time a Proverb but now the Proverb is enlarged and will take in the greatest part of Christendome The Papist breatheth nothing but curses and Anathema's and maketh his way with sire and sword where Reason and Religion shut him out Others who are no Papists yet are as malicious and bloudy as they and persecute their Brethren under that name call them Papists and spoil them as the Heathen did of old who put Christians into the skins of Beasts and with Dogs baited them to death If you think not if you act not if you look not if you move not as they do you are a child of perdition devoted to ruine and death If you preach any other Doctrine then that which they receive then you are accursed though you were an Angel from Heaven Forgive you that were a sin not to be forgiven Heaven and Earth shall pass away rather then one tittle and jot of what they have set up shall fail I have much wondred with my self how men could so assure themselves of Heaven and yet kindle such a Hell in their breasts how they could appropriate a meek Saviour to themselves and even claim him as their peculiar as the Heathen did their Deities and yet breathe nothing but hailstones and coles of fire how they should call themselves Evangelicos the only Gospellers and yet be such strangers such enemies to that virtue which is most commended in the Gospel how they should forgive none on earth and yet so boldly conclude that their pardon is sealed in Heaven that they should expect so much mercy from that God whom they proclaim so cruel as to damn men as they destroy their Brethren for no other reason but because he will I cannot here but wonder and lament and pray that this malice of their heart may be forgiven them for we cannot but perceive that they in the very gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity And I bespeak you as our Saviour did his Disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees For if a little leaven will leaven the whole lump what will such a lump of malice do Even infect the whole body of your Religion Your Hearing your Prayers your Fasts will taste of bloud Let us then mark and avoid them Let us devest our selves not of all power but of all will to hurt Let that alway sound in our ear which is as good Gospel as That Christ died for the World That if we forgive not we are in the number of Unbelievers and are condemned already Let us reserve nothing to our selves but that which is ours Meekness and Patience and leave to God that which is his Judgment and Retribution Commit all Jovi Vindici to the God of Revenge For he is the best Umpire for our patience If we put our injury into his hands he is our revenger if our loss he can restore it if our grief he is our Physician if our death he can raise us up again Quantum mansuetudini licet ut Deum habeat debitorem Lord what a power hath Meekness which maketh God our debtour for our losses for our contumelies for our reproaches for our death for all who hath bound himself to repay us with honour with riches with advantage with usury with the inheritance of the earth and with everlasting life The Fourth SERMON PART IV. MATTH V. 5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth I Have bestowed many words upon this Virtue of Meekness But I have not yet said enough neither indeed can I licèt toto modio dimensum darem as he speaketh though I should give it you out by the bushel full measure pressed down and running over Nunquam nimis dicitur quod nunquam satìs discitur We cannot repeat that Lesson too often which we can never be so perfect in as we should And he certainly is no friend to Meekness who is impatient at her name though it sound never so often in his ear For can he love Meekness that is afraid of her picture and description Or can he stand out the shock of those evils which wait upon and follow every motion of his life who cannot bring a few hours patience to hear of that virtue which is the only buckler to quench those darts I would I could give you her in a full and compleat piece the whole Signature every line all her Dimensions I would I could present her naked before your eyes in all her rayes with all her beauty and glory her power in conquering her wisdom in defeating those injuries which press hard upon yea overthrow and triumph over all the power and policy of the world that so you might fall in love with her and fasten her to your souls and make her a part of them For then indeed we should see concurrere bellum atque virum every man strong against a battaglia every man chasing his ten thousand we should see a meek soul in contention with the world and by doing nothing treading it under foot And this we have attempted formerly to do but we have not done it in so full and fair a draugh as we desired Yet though you have not had the one half told you you have heard enough to move you with the Queen
which a Minister may be arraigned no Sermons more applauded then those that strike at the Ephod nothing that the peoples ears do more itch after or more greedily suck in than the Disgrace or Weakness of their leaders I will speak it and as Salvian spake in another case utinam mentirer I would to God in this I were a liar I would you might accuse I would you might justly reprove me no news more welcome especially to the wicked then that which carrieth with it the sin of a Teacher No calling more spurned I mean by the wisest then that of Priesthood As Job speaketh they whose fathers he refused to set with the dogs of his flock mockt him so the children of fools more vile then the earth make their Pastours their song and the greatest sinners the most debaucht sinners when they have outcries within them when they have a tempest within them when their conscience affrights them with doleful alarums will still the noise will becalm the tempest will drown the cryes with this breath with this poysonous blast with a defamation of the Messengers and Ministers of the Lord. But let these men know that a day will come when no excuse shall lull them asleep when their conscience shall awake them when the billows shall rise higher when the tempest shall be louder when the cry shall be more hideous when they shall know that though God will require their bloud at their Pastors hand yet it is a poor comfort to them to dye in their sin whenas he shall be punished for giving and they for following a bad example But as this concerns most especially the Ministers of the Lord and those that serve at the Altar so in the next place it concerneth the people too and that nearly as nearly as the safety of their souls concerns them For Beloved the womb of Sin is not barren but she is very fruitful and brings forth too without sorrow or travel The Devil hath his Crescite multiplicate Increase and multiply It is enough for Sin to shew her self and be delivered And therefore most true it is Plus exemplo peccatur quà m scelere We sin more against God by example then by the sin it self Adultery whilst it lyes close in the thought is only hurtful at home but if it break forth into act it spreads its contagion and it seizeth upon this Christian and that Christian and in them it multiplies and like the Pestilence goeth on insensible invisible inavoidable If the father be given to that great sin of Taking Gods name in vain it will soon be upon the tongue of the little infant and he will speak it as his own language nay he will speak it before he can speak his own language before he knows whether it be a sin or no he will be as by birth so by sin a child It was held a miracle that Nicippus Sheep did yean a Lion and almost impossible it is that he should swear that never heard an oath before that the child should be like a Lion greedy of the prey and the father as innocent as a Lamb that so many should trace the paths of Death the broad way to Destruction without a leader Hence it is that in punishing of sin God looks not only with the eye of Justice upon it as it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a transgression of the law but as it is exemplary as it hinders the edification of the body of Christ and the gathering together of the Saints and is the milstone that hangs upon the neck of the sinner and sinketh him not only for the particular sin it self but because he hath been an occasion of his brothers fall Thus then you see we must be careful in the performance of this duty in respect both of our selves and of others also of our selves in removing the lets and observing the rules of Imitation of others in so going before them that we lay not a stumbling-block for them in the way And thus much the general doctrine of Imitation implyed here hath afforded us Behold now the love of a good Father the tender care of our best Master He will not only set his best Scholars over us and teach us by others but he will read the lecture himself and be a patern for our Imitation And so I come to the more especial Object of Imitation here proposed and that is GOD Be yee followers of God The Soul of man as it takes not the infection of original sin before its union with the Body so makes the Body her minister as it were and helper to abate Corruption to keep down Concupiscence to make the shafts of the Devil less mortal She sees with the eyes and hears with the ears and reacheth forth the hands and walks with the feet But yet all this is an argument of weakness and imperfection that we stand in need of these helps that I must learn of him whose pedigree is the same with mine who is an Adamite as well as I who was conceived in sin as I was nay more that a rational and immortal creature must be sent to School to an Ox and an Ass nay to the Pismire Therefore Isa 1. 3. Prov. 6. 6. the Soul is then most her self and comes nighest to her former estate when forgetting the weight and hinderance of the body she enjoyes her self and takes wings as it were and soars up in the contemplation of God and his goodness cùm id esse incipit quod se esse credit as Cyprian speaks when she begins to be that which she must needs believe her self to be of a celestial and heavenly beginning When the inward man lifts it self up with the contempt of the outward then we are illuminated with blindness we are cloathed with nakedness we see without eyes we walk without feet we hear without ears and we encrease our spiritual wealth by not making use of those outward gifts which seem to enrich us Hence it is that God so often calls upon us to take up our thoughts from the earth and imploy them above and to have our conversation in heaven And to this end he speaks to us in Scripture after the manner of men and tells us that he is gracious and merciful and long-suffering And when he calls that cruel servant to account for pulling his fellow by the throat he condemns him by example O thou wicked servant I forgave thee all that debt because Matth. 18. 32 33. thou desiredst me Oughtest not thou also to have had pity on thy fellow-servant even as I had of thee Not that these virtues are in God as accidents To say this were to be blasphemous and to deny him to be God They are so indeed in Man and admit degrees of perfection and imperfection but in God they are essential He is Justice he is Mercy he is Truth he is Wisdom it self And therefore the Schoolmen call them as they are in God exemplares virtutes no
this Signet he will take away this Hedge he will dry this Fleece he will pull this Eagle out of her nest Though she make her nest high he will pluck her down from Jer. 49. 15 16. thence She shall be small among the heathen And this Populus meus shall be populus nullus this his people shall be no people but a scatter'd nation the scorn of the world in quos omnium Caesarum ira detumuit who have smarted as slaves under each Emperor whose very name shall be odious as it is at this day Beloved to come home to our selves and to change Jewry into England If they then surely we now are populus Dei Gods people as much endeared as much obliged as ever the Jews were When the cloud of Superstition darkned England God dispersed that cloud and placed the Candle in the candlestick the Gospel in the Church And this Taper hath burnt bright these many years we may say by miracle for our enemies whole industry hath been to extinguish it We have also seen Gods wonders on the deep For when we saw no door of hope to pass through as the Prophet speaks when our enemies were ready to devour us as with an East-wind God scattered them And that Navy which his Holiness had christned and called Invincible in a moment was overcome and a Coin was stampt with a fitter name a new inscription VENIT IVIT FUIT It came it went away it came just to nothing Nay when Hell it self fought against us and there lacked nothing but the touch of a match to our destruction God in an instant blasted and nullified the design of bloudy men They were in travel with mischief and were delivered too but they brought forth a lye These loving kindnesses I know you all will say deserve to be written in a pillar of marble with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond and to be shewen to all posterity But Beloved it is not verbal thanks alone that God requires but we must write these favours in our hearts and the remembrance of them must drive us to repentance for that great sin of Ingratitude it must win us to obedience and inforce us to a more Christian conversation and that citò hodiè without delay this day lest God remove his Providence from our Tabernacle lest he blow out our Taper and remove our Candlestick lest he darken our Sun and turn our Moon into bloud lest he furbish that sword which is already drawn against us to cut us off and destroy us The Jews were his children as dear to him as we are and now they are cast away cut off small and despised amongst men Besides this larger Volume of Gods blessing each Christian hath at least a pocket Manual in which he may read Gods love unto himself and tell what he hath done for his soul If thou be rich it was God's love that made thee so and he looks for some restitution by the hands of the poor If thou be full of daies thou hadst them from Gods right hand and he gave them not that thou shouldst still be a child in understanding If thou be an Absolom for beauty God made not so fair a soul for a bad guest a foul soul If thou hast a good thought it was Gods love that wrought it and thou must not be so unkind as to stifle it If thou hast a holy intendment it was God that raised it and it is sacriledge to pull it down If thou hast Perseverance in goodness it was God that continued it and thy prayer must be that he will not depart from thee And then if out of all these thou findest a full perswasion that thy sins are forgiven and that thou art lovely in Gods sight thou must also encrease thy obedience and as thou tastest of Gods love in the highest degree so thou must wind up this obedience to the highest pin thou must be a follower of God as a child worthy to be beloved worthy to be dear Which is the last step of this Gradation and comes now to be handled A child of God and a dear child A great priviledge a great tye But now not only to be so but to be made worthy to be so not only to be endeared but to be filius diligibilis a child worthy of love and of a deformed and defaced person to be made amiable this is that cord of man that band of Love that draws us this is the covering of that Black which the Sun had looked upon this is the work of our Cant. 1. well-beloved Christ Jesus And now he calleth Arise my love my fair one and come away As when St. Chrysostome makes it an argument of the dignity of the Soul that whereas a Body naturally deformed cannot by the most skilful Artist be brought to an apt and seemly proportion yet the soul polluted crooked and maimed may be cleansed and set as it were and made straight again So must we here with the Apostle make it not only an argument of Gods Love but a great motive to our Obedience That our sins are forgiven us That they shall not be imputed unto us That we shall appear before our Judge not in our own likeness but in the likeness of our elder Brother Christ Jesus who is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods well-beloved Son in whom he is well-pleased When Joseph a fair person and well-favoured was enticed by Potiphars wife to lie with her his answer was My master hath made me ruler over his house and hath committed all into my hand he hath kept nothing from me but thee How then shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God Beloved each Christian should thus dispute with himself I was sore wounded and God hath procured a salve for my sore and shall I therefore lye still and bleed my self to death He hath for my sake humbled his Son he hath multiplyed his mercies upon me and shall I make his Mercy a cause of my obstinacie in sin He hath kept nothing from me but his Honor and shall I strive to diminish that He hath freely forgiven me my sin and shall Sin therefore abound God forbid God forbid that our Practice should not as well give Rome the lye as our Doctrine She imputes it unto us that we lull men asleep on the Pillow of Security that we sing a Requiem to their souls when the conscience is most clamorous that we are meer Solifidians leaning upon a Reed relying only upon an empty and hollow Faith that we do per contemplationem volare saith Bellarmine hover as it were on the wings of Contemplation that we hope to go to Heaven with only thinking of it and never strive for inherent Righteousness and that our Assurance that our sins are forgiven us is praesidium peccati the Devils fense and a strong bullwark that the kingdom of Sin cannot be demolisht in us So charitable is their opinion of us And although
Gods Messengers do lift up their voice like a trumpet against Sin and whip the vice of Security out of the Temple although our Pulpits ring and sound again with the Doctrine of Good works and not one of our Writers that ever I could see except some few hare-brained Lutherans did ever let fall from their quills one word that might prejudice the necessity thereof yet they cry out as men at great fires as yet were the only incendiaries and Religion were now a laying on the pile and the whole Christian world by us to be set on combustion It is true Beloved we could pay them with their own coyn we could cast before their eyes their Hay and their Stubble stuff fit for the fire their Indulgences and private Masses their Pardons for sins not yet committed pillows indeed and true dormitories to lay men asleep on But Recrimination is no remedy and Silence is the best answer to Impudence Our best way to confute them is by our practice as Diogenes confuted Zeno that believed there was no such thing as Motion by walking over the room So if Christ say unto us Your sins are forgiven you let us then take up our beds and walk Let him that lies on the bed of Security arise from that bed on the bed of Idleness awake from that sleep from that slumber and unfold his hands and stand up and walk before God in the land of the living For Beloved what are we believers are we faithful Why then we must nay we cannot chuse but be obedient For Faith and Assurance of forgiveness is the ground and foundation not only of Christian Charity but also of all other virtues of all true Obedience having its residence not only in the Understanding but also in the Will not floating in the brain but enflaming the heart and thereby gaining dominion and a kingdom over the affections Hence Faith is called obedience 2 Thess 1. 8. where Paul saith that there is a flaming fire provided for those who obey not the Gospel of Christ For as he obeys his Physician not who believes he is skilful but who observes his prescripts who takes the Recipe and is careful of his own health and his Physicians honor so he is truly faithful that obeys the Gospel of Christ who doth not only believe that Christ is a most able Physician of his soul and that the Gospel is the best Physick the best Purgation but he who takes this Physick although there be Wormwood or Gall or Aloes in it who embraceth and receiveth Christ being offered unto him although he bring grief and afflictions along with him who observes his rules although he prescribes Diligence and Industry and Carefulness who doth therefore the more hate Sin because it is forgiven him lastly who doth the more love God because through Christ he is made a son worthy to be beloved For as Seneca saith well Non est res delicata Vivere It is nothing of delicacy and delight to Live but even in this afflictions and sorrow will make us wish for death So it is not all pleasure all content to be a Christian There are thorns as well as roses there are the waters of Marah as well as those flowing with milk and honey there are sorrows within and fightings without there are the marks of Christ Jesus to be born there is a book of Lamentations like that of Ezekiels to be devoured Gal. 6. and digested too In thy way to Heaven there lies a sword saith Chrysostome and fire and contumelies and disgrace and thou canst not go about but this Sword must prick thee this Fire scorch thee these Disgraces light on thee And before thou go thy journey thy very bosome friends thy old acquaintance thy Sins are to renounced I have cast away all worldly desires saith Nazianzene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since I came to be of the order of Christ and to rank my self amongst Christians And Pity it is saith Cyprian that frons cum Dei signo pura that forhead which was signed with the sign of the Cross should ever be compassed about with the Devils Garland And The Apostles of Christ saith he were tryed by afflictions and torments and the Cross it self nè de Christo esset delicata confessio that the tryal might be solid and the confession then made not when there was a calm when the brim of the water was smooth and even not in the sun-shine but in the storm and tempest when Persecution raged and the Sword glittered and the Enemy was terrible This was the true tryal of a Christian And indeed Beloved the Gospel of which when we hear we think of mercy not of grace is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bitter-sweet a potion indeed and more cordial then we can imagine but not without its bitterness Nay further yet the Gospel holdeth us with a stronger bond then the Law For although it add nothing to the Law in respect of innovation as if that were defective yet it doth in respect of illustration and interpretation Our Saviour proposed non nova sed novè not new commands but after a new manner It was said of old Thou shalt not steal but thou mayest do this by denying an almes for that is furtum interpretativum theft by way of interpretation because thou keepest that from the poor man which is due unto him In the Law it is written Thou shalt not commit adultery under the Gospel an Eunuch may commit it for he may fabulari cum oculis as St. Augustine speaks And he who hath looked upon a woman to lust after her is guilty of this sin saith our Saviour The language of the Law was An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but now it is Good for evil Bless for a curse And plus lex quà m amisit invenit the Law was a gainer not a loser by this precept of Christ I say unto you Love your enemies Therefore the Schoolmen well call the Gospel onus allevians a lightning burden much like the Wing of a bird which maketh the bird heavier but yet it is that it flies with Beloved to shut up all in a word As he spake of Victory It is not gotten sedendo votis by sitting still and wishing for it so our spiritual Conquest flies not down into our bosome whilst we sit folding of our arms Nor will Balam's wish be the chariot to carry us to heaven Let me dye the death of the righteous Neither will the walls of Sin fall down with good desires with religious wishes as the walls of Jericho did with rams horns No the World is deceitful still and the Devil is a Devil still and we are yet in the flesh and a wonder it were that we alone amongst other Christians should tread the paths of life and never sweat in them that this way should be a way of bloud when the Apostles walkt in it and strowed with roses now for us Or can we expect
we look towards the mercy-seat and if God extreamly mark what is done amiss whose joynts of his loins are not loosed whose knees smite not one against another who is there able to abide it God is our Judge and he alone must quit us He is offended and he must forgive us Come and let us return unto him for he hath suffered us to be spoiled and he will heal us to be wounded and he will bind us up After two dayes he will revive us and the third he will raise us up He is our Creditour and hath taught us to pray unto him to forgive us our debts Every sin properly is against him either immediately when we sin against the first Table or mediately when we sin against the second when we strike God through our neighbour's side and so by breaking the Law wrong the Law-giver And therefore he only can forgive our sins against whom our sins are most properly committed Nathan indeed pronounced Davids pardon Deus transtulit peccatum and so may be said to remit his sin ministerialiter by way of office and ministery but God did it autoritativè by way of power right and autority Nathan had his commission from God and if comfort had not shined from thence David had still lain in sorrow and as yet remained in the dust of Death Ten moneths were now passed since his sin was committed and yet we read of no compunction He lay stupefied in sin and was like a man sleeping in the midst of his enemies Oh then whose heart can conceive those thoughts which possessed him when he awaked His river of tears could not now express his grief He saw God who was wont to guide him in his paths and direct him in his wayes now withdrawing himself hiding his face from him and leaving him under the burden of his sin And high time it was to call him back again to seek him by importunity of prayer to send after him sighs and groans to sow in tears that he might reap in joy Look now upon David whosoever thou art that carriest Man and Frailty about thee Behold him lying on the ground see him pressed down with the burden of his sin and then think his case thine Think the time may come when thou mayest have no feeling of Christ at all and thy poor soul may be as a man desolate in the night without comfort that it may be beaten down to the dust and thy belly cleave unto the earth Tell me whom then wilt thou fly unto for succour what balme wilt thou search out to refresh thee The Pope may be liberal and open his treasuries and let fly an Indulgence But it is not a Pardon from him can help thee Alass miserable comfort is this A merry tale well told is far better Yet it may be thou hopest to make the law of Unrighteousness thy strength to drown thy sorrows in a cup of wine to leave them behind thee and lose them amongst merry company In this thou dost but like the Dog break the chain and draw a great part of it after thee O then if thou fall with David with David trust in the Lord. What if his Jealousie burn like fire let thy tears quench it Let thy prayers like pillars of smoke mount upwards and pierce the clouds and offer an holy violence to God Then when Hope is almost changed into Despair thou shalt find Christ and feel him coming again then Faith shall revive and lay faster hold on him then shall the joy of thy salvation be restored And when thy soul is heavy and thy heart is disquieted and thy bowels vexed within thee then will he look upon thy misery and cause his face to shine and the peace of conscience like a sweet sleep shall fall upon thee I come now in the third place to speak of the Person King David Restore to me And who can look upon him but thorough tears Who can behold him and not look down unto his own steps Whose pride can lift him up so high as to make him think the Devil cannot reach him and pull him down Or is not David sent to us as Nathan was to him to tell us by his example that unless God put under his hand he that stands surest may take a fall and that he who thinks himself like mount Sion may be moved Surely if there be such Perfectionists such proud Pharisees that dare fling a stone at an adultress and proclaim themselves without sin if there be any whose Purity dare stand out with God and answer him more then for one of a thousand they might well take leave to demand that priviledge which that cursed Sect in Saxony bragged of of whom Sleidan reporteth Who boasted that they had private conference with God and a command from him to kill all the wicked of the earth and so to make a new world whose purity should plead for it self and not need the help of a Mediatour But these men were possessed with more then a Novation spirit and in their adventure to hell out-bid the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which the manners of many turbulent spirits in our Church have long since Englished Whose Religion as Nazianzene speaketh was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose piety was boasting whose purity was impure We craftily made as he after observes the elegancy of the name a bait to catch the ignorant and unwary multitude Cursed and cruel men who have not so much pity in them as the Levite in the Gospel He saw the man wounded vouchsafed him a look and then passed by These by a witty and new kind of cruelty as Cyprian calls it till him that is already wounded take away even the hope of recovery and oppose the thunder of an excommunication even to the least noise of sin refusing the penitency and contrition of their brother and denying the mercy of their Father which is in heaven justly deserving a hell because they threaten it and the surest heirs of damnation because they make all others so But what is this the state of Mankind that we must either be viler then the worms of the earth only fuel for hell-fire or else stand out with God and contend for purity with the Most High No foolish Sectary we have better learned Christ Each Christian if he look upon David will quickly see upon what ground he stands and that if every fall after Baptism were as far as hell Gods promise would be suspected and Repentance which is offered to the greatest sinner would be proposed to mock not to comfort us like a staff held out to look on not to help us or like a mess of meat upon a dead mans grave for which we should be never awhit the better We behold the Saints throwing down their crowns before the Throne and can we either with the Anabaptist think we can attain to a perfect Rev. 4. degree of regeneration or with the supererogating Papist rob God of his honor pull heaven
duty to come out and not still to love our fetters because our Redeemer hath led Captivity captive But we may say truly of this first Redemption what some in St. Paul said falsly of the second Resurrection This Redemption is past already past on our Redeemers side nothing left undone by him only it remains on ours to sue out our pardon and make our Redemption sure Nor is it any derogation from our Saviours merit that we have a part in this work For would we have our Saviour redeem them from prison who will not go out free them from sin who are resolved to continue in sin because this grace hath abounded and will be more slaves because they had leave to be free or seal up their Redemption who will not sue it out But now this is but redemptio elevans as the Schools speak a Redemption which lifts us up from our former low condition and puts us in a fair possibility of enlargement nay in a certainty if we our selves hinder not But yet when it hath its proper and natural working when we do not ponire obicem when we hinder it not it works according to the capacity of the subject It works out Sin yet leaves us sinners it regulates our Passions let leaves us subject to them it works out Fear yet leaves us fearful The Old man is crucified but not yet dead the Passions are subdued but not quite extinguished The Inward man dare look Death and all the terrors of the world in the face but the Outward man turns away from such sight And therefore there is another Redemption that they call praeservantem which settles and establishes us preserves us in an Angelical state free from Sin from Passions from Fear And when this comes we shall sin no more hope no more fear no more All sins shall be purged out all hope shall be fulfilled all tears shall be wiped from our eyes and all trembling from our hearts And this is the Redemption here meant the only trust of the Christian the expectation of the faithful the water of life to refresh them in this valley of tears the only cordial for the passion of the Heart the only rock for Hope to anchor at the true fountain from which the waters of Comfort and Salvation are to be drawn But then I must tell you this Fountain of comfort is like the pool of Bethesda it is not medicinable till an Angel hath stirred it For our own carnal Imaginations may be as so many evil Angels to trouble it and then we draw bitterness and poyson instead of comfort For a little to change St. Paul's words Why should it be thought a thing incredible why should it be thought a thing desirable with some men that the world and all that is in the world should have an end Why should they desire the coming of Christ Should he come to meet the Hypocrite with his form of Religion his feigned sighs and cheating grones as he is acting his part and playing Judas in the shape of Peter Should he meet Balaam when he is not so wise as his Ass or Jonah when he runs from Niniveh to Tarsus Should he come to us at midnight when we are in our beds of lust and sensuality Can there be any comfort to the wicked in that fire which devours before him or in that tempest which is round about him But if we be qualified as we ought to be if we repent of our sins and bring forth fruits worthy of amendment of life if we keep our loins girt and our lamps burning if we be doing our Masters will and waiting for his coming then the signs of his coming that fill the hearts of others with dread will fill ours with joy Then when the ungodly shall cry to the mountains to cover them we shall look up with confidence and lift up our heads for our redemption draweth nigh The Twelfth SERMON Preached before the HONORABLE JUDGES AT AN ASSIZES HELD AT Northampton ROM XIII 4. He beareth not the sword in vain THE words are St. Pauls And it sounds well when an Apostle blows the trumpet before the Magistrate and proclaims his power But as the sound was good so was it now high time it should be heard Christianity was at the bar and the Gospel arraigned of high Treason Christ and Caesar were set at odds and as if his Disciples had forsaken him to follow Judas the Acts 5. Galilaean and of Christians were turned Gaulenites the rumor was that this new doctrine endangered the State and one Kingdome was set up to ruin another and the knitting of a Church was the untying of civil Society This was one of the Devils first assaults against the Church And he made it not but upon advantage For a sect of people there were who as Josephus saith would have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no Lord but God no King but the King of Kings and all this under the fair pretense of maintaining their priviledge and freedom They would have heard with delight St. Paul speak of a quiet and peaceable life but his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be subject was a word which bored their ears and changed their countenance What sell their freedom to buy their peace and after an entail of Liberty yield their neck to the yoke of Subjection This was not for the honor of a Galilaean or a Jew of those who had Abraham to their father This coat of Disobedience you see was made up by others but some said Christianity did wear it Therefore the Apostle here presents her in an humble posture upon the knee bowing to the Sword and kneeling to Authority And he proceeds like a perfect Methodist In the former Chapter he laid open and unfolded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that large body of Philosophy those numerous precepts of mutual conversation He levelled the hills and raised the valleys he disarmed men of all instruments of private revenge and he points in this Chapter to the higher Powers and enjoyeth Loyalty and Obedience And having laid his ground work and drawn that first and fundamental axiome That all Power and Jurisdiction is from God he brings in the Magistrate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—â— a souldier with a Sword in his hand and the motto is NON FRUSTRA For he beareth not the sword in vain We no sooner hear of a Sword but we think of Power When the Angel held one at the East-side of Paradise it was to keep the way of the tree of life When Abraham drew one for recovery of his Nephew Lot he had jus gladii the power of the Sword and so had David when he smote his enemies on the hinder parts Do we hear the Word called a sword It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mighty in operation Is the Spirit a sword That Sword is power So saith St. Ambrose Spiritus gladius verbi verbum gladius Spiritûs The Word is the sword of the Spirit and the
prevaile No he must back and strengthen it with the Judicial Sin must be brought forth and seen in its own shape Murder wallowing in the bloud she spilt Fornication in a whitesheet with shame upon her forehead Blasphemy with its brains dasht out Idleness starved Theft sub hasta brought to publick sale and condemned to slavery But under the Gospel Hell it self is unlockt her mouth open'd and all her terrors displaied Who would now think that this were not enough to stay our fliting humour to quell our raging temper to bind our unlimited desires Who would not think that this two-edged sword of the Word would frustrate and annihilate all other swords If I had set my face to Destruction this should turn me if I were rushing forward this should stay me But alass we break through these repagula we run over these sufflamina God speaks in us by the Law of Nature but we hear him not He writes to us by way of Letter and Epistle in his Divine Law but we answer him not Besides this we too often reject and reverberate his gracious instructions and incitements by the wise counsel and examples of good men In both God beckneth to us It is now high time he speak to us through a vaile of Bloud that he put the bridle into our mouths If Hell will not fright us then we must hear those more formidable words as S. Augustine saith more formidable to humane ears Occido Proscribo Mitto in exilium Death Proscription Banishment Tribuno opus carcere Lay the whip upon the fools back For to be thus question'd many times prevails more then a Catechisme Therefore Theodorete calls this Sword this Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a most catholick and soveraign remedy and Luther necessarium corruptae naturae remedium a necessary remedy for weak decayed nature When the Fear of God boundeth us not imponit timorem humanum saith Irenaeus he aws us with the Sword and humane Authority When the destillation of his dew and small rain will not soften us down came his hailstones and coals of fire to break us A remedy it is our disposition and temper looks for and requires For we are led for the most part by the Sense We love and fear at a distance And as the object is either nigh or remote so it either affects or frights us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The greatest evils and so the greatest goods too are least sensible Villam malumus quam caelum saith Augustine We had rather have a Farme a Cottage than Paradise and three lives in that than eternity in Heaven We had rather be rich than good mighty then just Saint Ambrose gives the reason For saith he quis unquam justitiam contrectavit Who ever saw Virtue or felt and handled Justice And as our Love so stands our Fear Caesarem magis timemus quam Jovem We fear Man more than God and the shaking of his whip than the scorpions of a Deity A Dag at hand frights more than great Ordinance from the Mount and a Squib than a crack of Thunder He that could jest at a Deity trembled at a Thunder-bolt The Adulterer saith Job watcheth for his twilight as if God had his night And The ungodly lyeth in wait to spoil the poor saith David He seeketh a day and an opportunity as if God had not one every moment and he doth it secretly as if that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that revenging Eye were put out And though he stand as a butt for Gods Vengeance and a mark for his arrow and fuel for his fire the very centre wherein all Gods curses may meet yet he cleaves to his sin he hugs and embraces it Would you have a separation and divorce made It is more probable a Whip should do it then a Sermon an Officer then a Preacher a Warrant then an Anathema You must sue for it in the Court of Justice not in the Church So sensual so senseless many are Therefore the Holy Ghost in Scripture presents and fashions himself to the natural affections of men And that we may not turn bankrupts and sport or sell away our livelihood and estate in Heaven and so come to a spiritual nothing to bring us to the other world he tells us of something which we most fear in this To those who love liberty he speaks of a prison a jaylor an arrest Those who dare not step into the house of mourning he tells of weeping and gnashing of teeth and to those tender constitutions who can endure no smart he threatens many stripes NON SINE CAUSA GLADIUM is the servants and hirelings argument and many times it convinces and confutes him it dulls and deads the edge of his affection It destroys Murder in anger quenches Adultery in the desire sinks Pride in the rising binds Theft in the very purpose and ut seta filum as the bristle draweth the thread it fits and prepares a way for Charity and Religion it self We may now then engrave this NON FRUSTRA upon the Sword and settle it as an undoubted conclusion That Autority was not granted in vain Unless you will say that the Law was in vain and Reason in vain and Man in vain unless you will Put the FRUSTRA upon the Church the World Hell Heaven it self And if the Sword be not in vain then in the next place by an easie illation the Duty of the Magistrate will follow which is Operam fortem diligentem dare as the form runs Strenuously to contend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nè frustrà that he bear not the Sword in vain My third and last part There is no danger of a frustrà but here For potestas habet se indifferenter ad bonum malum saith Aquinas Autority though directed and ordained to good alone yet stands in an even aspect and indifferency to both good and evil In it is the life of the innocent and in it is the destruction of the wicked and it may be the flourishing of the wicked and the death of the innocent The Magistrate may as the Devil is said to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 invert the order of things put shame upon Integrity and security upon Sin The Sword is an instrument and he may use it as he will and so of a fiery and sharp sword he may make it gladium ficulneum a wooden and unprofitable sword and then the drunkard may reel in the streets and injury may rage at noon-day for all that or pictum gladium no better then a Sword in a painted cloth only to be lookt upon He may use it not like a Sword but like David's rasour to cut deceitfully or he may let it rust in his hands that as that Lawyer complained of the Sword in his time it may be fit for nothing but to cut a purse let out a bribe Thus it may be But our task is to keep off this Frustrà from the Magistrate And see in my Text they are severd
his cross that we might lift up our Hearts and so lift him up again and present him to his Father Who for his sake when he sees him as the Ark lifted up will bring mighty things to pass will scatter our Sins which are our greatest enemies and separate them from us as far as the East is from the West And though they be as the Smoke of the bottomless pit he will drive them away and though they be complicated and bound together as wax into a kind of body he will melt them and deliver us from this body of Death For what Sin of ours dares shew it self when this Captaine of ours shall arise Let God arise that is the first verse of this Psalm that is our Prayer And let us conclude with the Psalm in Thanksgiving and ascribe the strength unto God saying His excellency is over his Israel to deliver them from their Enemies and to deliver them from their Sins and his Strength is in the clouds O God thou art terrible in thy holy places The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power to his people against the machinations of Men and against the wills of the Devil against sinful Men and against Sin it self Blessed be God And let all the people say AMEN The Fifteenth SERMON Gen. III. 12. And the man said The Woman whom thou gavest to be with me she gave me of the tree and I did eat WE have here the antiquity of Apologies we find them almost as ancient as the World it self For no sooner had Adam sinned but he runneth behind the bush No sooner had our first parents broken that primor dial Law as Tertullian calleth it which was the womb and matrix of all after-laws but they hide themselves Vers 8. amongst the trees of the Garden and as if they had made a covenant and agreement they joyntly frame excuses The Man casteth it off upon the Woman and in effect upon God himself The Woman gave it me and Thou gavest me the Woman and thus he lyeth down and sleepeth and is at rest The Woman removeth it from herself upon the Serpent The Serpent beguiled me and I did eat So that now Vers 13. God having made inquisition for the fact neither Adam nor Eve are returned but the Serpent nay indeed God himself who maketh the Inquiry is charged as a party and accessory The Man did eat because the Woman gave and God gave the Woman and Adam thinketh himself safe behind this bush And therefore as Adam hideth himself from God so doth God return his folly upon his own head and seemeth to seek him as if he were hid indeed Adam where art thou in a kind of ironie he acteth the part of an ignorant person he calleth as at a distance and seemeth not to know him who was so unwilling to be known Or if we take Tertullian's interpretation Adv. Marcion l. 2. we must not read it simplici modo id est interrogatorio sono UBI ES ADAM as a plain and easy and kind interrogation WHERE ART THOU ADAM sed impresso incusso imputativo ADAM UBI ES but as a sharp and smart demand as a demand with an imputation ADAM WHERE ART THOU that is jam non hic es Thou art not here not where thou wast not in paradise not in a state of immortality but in a state of perdition in a state of corruption never more open and naked then in the thicket and behind the bush This was not quaestio but vagulatio as it is called in the XII Tables All the thick trees in the Garden could not conceal Adam and keep him from the eyes of his God but thus God was pleased to question his folly with some bitterness and scorn It is the first question that was ever put to Man And we may be sure all is not well when God asketh questions His Laws his Precepts his Counsels yea his Comminations are all delivered per rectam orationem by a plain and positive declaration of his mind HOC FAC ET VIVES Do this and live Luk. 10. 23 If thou eatest of the forbidden fruit thou shalt dic the death What he commandeth Gen. 2. 17. to be done he supposeth will be done and never beginneth to ask questions till our Disobedience questioneth his Law Then he proceedeth against us ex formula in a kind of legal and judiciarie way When the Angels fall he calleth after them How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer Isa 14. 12. son of the morning and when Adam is in the thicket he seeketh him Adam where art thou A question one would think of force to plow up his heart and to rend it in pieces that so his sin might evaporate and let it self out by an humble confession a question sufficient one would think to fill his soul with sorrow horrour and amazement But though Adam were now out of the thicket he was behind the bush still He striveth to hide himself from God when he is most naked and speaketh of his Fear and of his Nakedness but not at all of his Sin I heard thy voice saith he in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid my self He Gen. 3. 10. was sensible not of the breach of the Law but of his nakedness It was the voice of God that frighted him not his transgression We commonly say Suam quisque homo rem bene meminit that every man hath a good memorie for that which concerneth him Only Sin which is properly ours and whereof we are the proprietaries to which we can entitleneither God nor the Devil nor any other creature but our selves we are unwilling to own and to call ours Ours it is whilst it is in committing on it we spend and exhaust ourselves we prostitute our wills we give up our affections we sell our selves all the faculties of our souls and all the parts of our bodies we woe it we wait for it we purchase it But when it is committed we cast it from us we look upon it as upon a bastard issue we strive to raize it out of our memories we are afraid when we are deprehended we deny when we are accused when we are questioned our to answer is an excuse Nolumns esse nostrum quia malum agnoscimus Ours we will not call it because we know it to be evil One would think that Excuse were the natural offspring of Sin or rather that Sin and Excuse were twins Omne malum pudore natura suffundit No sooner hath Sin stained the soul but shame dieth the face with a blush The Philosopher will tell us that shame is nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fear of just reprehension which to avoid we seek out many inventions We run behind the bush and when the voice of God calleth us from thence we make a thicket of our own a multitude of excuses where we think our selves more safe then amongst all
his baits to catch it When we hide it in sloth and idleness we hide it in a grave which he digged to bury it When we think to save it we loose it But when we hide it in Christ when we do Deum per Christum colere worship God through Jesus Christ our Lord when we rely on his power in Christ which is the foundation of all Christian Religion then our life having put off the old Adam is clothed with righteousness and is in a manner divine our mortal hath put on immortality and having hid our sins and weakness in Christ the image of God brightly shines forth in every action and the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal flesh so that our life with 2 Cor. 1. 11. him and his life in our mortal flesh in our weekness in our infirmities arms us against all assaults and makes us more then conquerors Now in the last place Christ 's help we need not doubt of if we be not wanting unto our selves For we have not such an high Priest who will not help us But which is one and the chief end of his Tentation who is merciful and faithful and was tempted that he might succour them which are tempted He hath not only Power for so he may have and not shew it but also Will and Propension Desire and diligent Care to hold them up that are set upon for the tryal of their faith Indeed Mercy without Power can beget a good wish but no more and Power without Mercy will neither strengthen a weak knee nor heal a broken heart But Mercy and Power together will work a miracle will hold us up when we are ready to fall will give legs to the lame and eyes to the blind and strength to the weak will make a fiery fornace a bath make a rack a bed will keep us the same men amidst the changes and armies of sorrows will moderate our sorrows when they are great that they be not long and when they are of continuance will call the evils that are as if they were not will uphold us against the terrors of Death and when he soundeth his retreat and takes us off from the field by Death will receive us to glory And this Compassion and Mercy though it were coeternal with Christ as God yet as Man he learnt it by his sufferings saith the Apostle Hebr. 5. 8. For the way indeed to know anothers misery is to be first sensible of our own For we commonly see that men who are softly and delicately brought up have hearts of flint If Dives be clothed in purple and fare deliciously every day it is no marvail to see him less merciful then his Doggs when Lazarus was at his door But you may say Could Christ who was the Son of God forget to be merciful or was he now to learn it as a new lesson who by his wisdome made the heavens because his mercy endureth for ever No He saw Joseph in the stocks Job on the dung-hill and the Mariners in the tempest He heard the sighs and complaints of the poor he numbred all their tears and had compassion on his afflicted ones even as a father hath on his only child But then before he emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant sicut miseriam expertus Phil. 2. 7. non erat ita nec misericordiam experimento novit as he had no acquaintance with sorrow so neither had he any experimental knowledge of mercy and compassion In his sufferings he had tryal of misery and learn't to be merciful His own Hunger moved him to work that miracle of the Loaves For it is said in the Text He had compassion on the multitude His Poverty made him an Orator for the poor and he beggs with them and his Compassion melted him into tears at the sight of Jerusalem When he became a man of sorrows he became also a man of compassion And yet his experience of sorrow added in truth nothing to his knowledge But it rowseth our confidence to approach with boldness near unto him who by his miserable experience is brought nearer to us and hath thus reconciled us in the body 1 Cor. 21. 12. of his flesh For he that suffered for us hath compassion on us and suffers and is tempted with us even to the end of the world He was on the cross with St. Peter on the block with St. Paul in the fire with the Martyrs He in his members is still destitute afflicted tormented Would you take a view of Christ You may look upon him in your own souls take him in a groan mark him in a sigh behold him bleeding in the gashes of a wounded spirit Or to make him an object more sensible you may see him every day begging at your doors Christ learnt this Compassion in our flesh saith the Apostle Inasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and bloud he also himself Hebr. 2. 14. likewise took part of the same and in our Flesh he was hungry was spit upon was whipped was nayled to the cross And all these were as it were so many parts of that discipline which taught him to be merciful to be merciful to them who are tempted by famine in that he was hungry to be merciful to them who are tempted by riches because he was poor to be merciful to them who tremble at disgrace because he was whipt and to be merciful to them who will not yet will suffer for him who refuse and yet chuse tremble and venture are afraid and yet dye for him because as Man he found Death a bitter cup and would have had it pass from him Who in the dayes of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears for mortal men for weak men for sinners for those whose life is a warfare Pertinacissimè durant quae discimus experientiâ This experimental knowledge is rooted in Christ is sixt and cannot now be removed no more then his natural knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Philosopher Experience is a kind of collection and multiplication of remembrances the issue and child of memory Usus me genuit mater peperit Memoria It proceedeth from the memory of many particulars And this experience Christ had And as the Apostle tells us he learnt so the Prophet tell us he was acquainted with our griefs and carried our sorrowes about with him even from his birth from his cradle to his cross By his fasting and tentation by his agony and bloudy sweat by his precious death and burial He remembers us in famine and tentation in our agony and bloudy sweat and all the penance we do upon our selves for sin He remembers us in the hour of death and in our grave and will remember us at the day of Judgment As a father pitieth his children so he pities us Psal 103. 13. and the reason is given verse 14. For he knoweth our frame he remembreth we are
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Cujacius adds out out of the Basilicae not to men asleep And can we then think that that Knowledge which is saving which must make us happy is of so easie purchase that it will be sown in every ground or as the Devils Tares will grow up whilst we sleep There is indeed that relation that sympathy betwixt the Soul of man and the Truth that there is between the Seed and the Ground but if it be not tilled and manured if not cultivated and prepared it will yield never an ear of corn but bring forth bryars and thorns But we leave this and pass to the third which is Method and orderly proceeding in the wayes of our calling As in all Sciences so in the businesses of Christianity we must not think to huddle up matters hand over head as we please Nemo vellus portat ad fullonem no man carries his fleece to the Fuller first before it be spun out and woven Si te titillat clericatûs desiderium saith St. Hierome If thou hast a kind of spiritual itch and be tickled with a desire of being a Preacher if thou thinkest the nearest way to heaven is to go up into the Pulpit yet at least discas quod possis docere learn that first which thou mayest after teach and think there is a pair of stairs unto Knowledge as well as into the Pulpit and that thither thou must ascend by steps and by degrees Learn it by thy Sermon if any thing may be learnt out of it that as thou dividest thy Text and thou handlest each part in its order so thou must divide the parts of thy life and spend them upon those particulars which will promote thy knowledge Sunt gradus multi per quos ad domum Veritatis ascenditur saith Lactantius There be certain steps and degrees by which we ascend into the house of Truth and we must pass step by step unto it For she will admit of no guests who will leap over the wall but of those onely who come orderly and mannerly in She looks down as it were upon us and observes how we come towards her If we are upon the wing or leap up two or three steps at once she shuts her door and turns her back upon us To see him a Master of a Ship in the Adriatick Sea who could never rule a cock-boat in a fish-pond him a Captain who was never yet a Souldier and him a teacher who is to learn is a strange kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an immethodical disorderly proceeding which is used in the world and what can the issue be but a Shipwrack a Defeat gross Ignorance and Confusion The last is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exercise and practice of truths in that order in which we learnt there This is of singular use to drive them home as a nayl is by the masters of the assemblies to make them enter the soul and the spirit the joynts and the marrow to do something by way of preparation which may bear some affinity and correspondence with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief work we have to do Our preparations must not be like to those prefaces and proems which the old Orators used to frame and lay by them to serve for any tract or oration but it must be such as will fit and joyn it self to the work and be one entire piece You see our Saviour here makes use of Solitude and Fasting and Prayer and what more agreeable then these to the work which he had to do which was indeed to go about doing good and then to suffer death for the sin of the world which was now no paradise but a wilderness It is a sign of a happy progress when our preparation is a kind of type and presage of our work when our rising is fair when the beholder may say He is much given to meditation it is like he will be a Divine He is gone into the wilderness he hath retired himself sure he hath some great work in hand But the event is most unprosperous when Idleness and Ignorance are made the key of the Scripture when Darkness must usher in the Light and Belial be a fore-runner to God No work ends well which begins not well which is taken in hand without due preparation When we have taken any great work upon us it will be good for us to follow our Saviours method first retire from the world and go out into the wilderness first fast and pray and then work miracles And so much be spoken of the first reason of our Saviours Secession his Preparation to his work The second is That he might be fitter for Prayer In monte orationi adhaeret miracula in urbibus exercet For Prayer he chuseth the mountain for his Works the city He prayed all night saith the Father and wrought his miracles in the day Our Saviour often retired as we find in Scripture and for this end And when he gives us directions for Prayer one is Enter into thy chamber into thy closet Shut thy door Hide thy self for a little Isa 26. 20. time Which are works pointing out to those things which must be done without noise Every good work requires the whole man a soul divided and taken from the world but especially Prayer which is ascensus mentis in Deum a kind of an ascent of the mind unto God SURSUM CORDA Lift up your hearts They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mystical words But how can we lift up a heart of flesh It is much it should ascend having such a weight upon it as the Body having an Eve which cannot alwaies be closed an Ear which cannot ever be shut but when the weight of Sin hangs upon it when it is clog'd with impertinent thoughts how should it ascend Nunc creberrimè in oratione mea aut per porticus deambulo aut de faenore computo saith St. Hierome Now many times it falls out in my prayer that I do nothing less then pray I cry for Mercy but the thought of Judgment is loud I pray for chastity when lustful thoughts sport in my heart I walk I talk I fight I dispute I tell money in my prayer and indeed I do but say my prayers Therefore intention of mind is most necessary to Prayer which is torn and distracted if it be not fastned on God alone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is thought to be an Apostolical Constitution Be thou not double-minded in thy prayer Let not one thought stifle another the thought of the world quench the desire of a blessing Let not thy wandring imaginations contradict thy Prayers Let not thy Devotion be stained with bloud or polluted with lust or spotted with the world Quomodo te à Deo audiri postulas saith Cyprian cùm teipsum non audis How canst thou hope to be heard of God when thou dost not hear thy self how canst thou expect that he should understand thee when thou canst not tell
we are risen up most ready to fall We might here enlarge our Discourse but I had rather tender you the reasons Why it is so And we draw the first from the Envy of the Devil who cannot behold God nor any thing that is like unto him but is troubled with his beauty and is troubled with the least reflexion of his beauty is troubled with his infinite goodness and is troubled with his created goodness is troubled with his nature and is troubled with his name Who if he could would rob God of his purchase and would overthrow the heavens and all that ever God made all the created substances in the world Pervicacissimus hostis nunquam otium sui patitur saith Tertullian His malice is so great that he is never at rest He watcheth every good thing in its bud to nip it in its blossom to blast it in its fruit to spoil it And then he rageth most when man is delivered from his rage Tunc accenditur cùm exstinguitur Then is he most enflamed when his darts are quencht And indeed this is the nature of Envy to be restless never to sleep The Hebrews express Envy by the Eye Why is thy eye evil that is Why art thou envious The Devil hath an eye which is alwayes open observing not only the fruits of Holiness but the very seeds The Poor that is envious looks with an evil eye upon the peny that another hath He that is illiterate is angry with a letter he that is weak wisheth all were cripples This torments the Devil as much as Hell it self Invidia primùm mordax suis Envy hath a venomous tooth but it is first fastned in it self It is the pain and death of our Enemy not only to be punished with his own sin but with our goodness not only to be grieved at his own overthrow but at our hope of victory and therefore he kindles and is on fire at the sight not only of the Sun but of a Star yea at the least scintillation and glimpse of Goodness A good thought is a look towards heaven and this he strives to divert A good profession is a profer and he abates our strength in the way An Abba Father is a call to Love and he strives to disinherit us Ever as we make forward he is ready to assault us placing horror in our way that we may fear to proceed And like a cunning enemy he sets upon us at our first onset lest we gather strength He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Cyril speaks fierce and violent in his opposition A wise-man being askt how a man might preserve himself from the evil eye of Envy well replyed Si nihil feliciter gesseris If thou delight not in the practice of that which is good and beest not happy in thy undertakings Extreme Misery hath this priviledge that it stands out of the ken and reach of Envy Therefore as St. Augustine tells us Non invident archangelis angeli the Angels do not envy the Arch-angels because they are both eminently good So we cannot think that the evil spirits do envy one another because they are eminently evil and equally miserable It is therefore the duty of a Christian to make himself an object from the envy of Satan to shew forth those good works which may provoke him to build up that resolution which may anger him to make that glorious profession which may torment him For from his envy we cannot be free till we are like him till we are Diaboli so his children are called in Scripture Devils as miserable as he Whilst we lye like dry bones at the graves Ezek. 37. mouth he is quiet and still he doth not admoenire nor legiones adducere he doth not besiege us nor draw forth his troops and legions against us nec vult artem consumi ubi non potest ostendi nor will he spend his art and cunning there where he cannot shew it But when these dry bones hear the word of the Lord when the spirit breatheth into them and they live when we stand up upon our feet and make an exceeding great army when we make our members the weapons of righteousness to fight against him when he hears our songs of praise when he sees our alms when our tears drop upon his fire to quench it then the Worm begins to knaw then he walks about us and observes in what part we are weakest then he is a Serpent a Lyon a Devil Timagenes was well content that Rome should be set on fire but it troubled him much that it should rise higher and be more glorious then before So it troubleth the Devil to see him who took a fall and a bruise to be built up stronger then he was to see him who was dead in sin become a new creature and a child of wrath become the son of God And therefore hither he brings his forces that if he cannot hinder those beginnings yet he may stay them there and stop them at the first that they may be no more then beginnings that a Jew may be circumcised and no more a Christian baptised and no more that Judas may be an Apostle and no more and a Christian have that name and no more Well you may bring out the corner-stone and cry Grace grace unto it Well you may please your selves with the profession of Christianity you may lay your foundation than which no other can be laid a JESUS CHRIST but you shall build upon it not gold and silver and precious stones but wood and hay and stubble Satan will suffer thee to contend for that faith which was once delivered to the Saints to be zealous for the Lord of hosts This man shall stand up for his Christ another shall bring him forth in another shape Thou shalt dispute for the Truth thou shalt fight for the Truth The world shall be on fire for the Truth For all this is but noyse and he is very well-pleased with any noyse but that of Good works for that comes up into the presence of God In all other contentions though the cry be for Religion he is commonly one In these out-cryes and exclamations Christ indeed is named but it so falls out that every man is for him and every man against him every man speaks for him and every man contradicteth him every man cryes Hosanna Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord and every man drives him out of their coasts Religion is the badge and Religion is the word and indeed it is but a badge and a word you see and hear all The rest is Fraud and Malice and Uncleanness a wandring Eye a wanton Ear a hollow Heart a rough Hand and the name of Christian is taken in by the by to countenance these to put a gloss upon our Fraud that it may be holy to colour our Malice with zeal to make our Uncleanness the infirmity of a Saint as if you drew out the picture of a Devil
knock as Fortune is said to have done at Galba's gates till he be weary Wilt thou not move unless with the hand of violence he drive thee before him Wilt thou still be evil and pretend he will not make thee good What a dishonor is this to thy King to entitle him to thy disobedience and make him guilty of that treason which is committed against himself Beloved this is to be ignorant of the nature of this Kingdome and injurious to the King himself and the highest pitch of rebellion to make him if not the author yet the occasioner of it No he helps us he doth not force us He leads not drives us He works in us but not without us For these two Grace and Free-will are not co-ordinate but subordinate Non partim gratia partim liberum arbitrium saith St. Bernard Grace and Free-will do not share our obedience between them sed totum singula peragunt but each of them doth perform the whole work Grace doth it wholly and Free-will doth it wholly sed ut totum in illo sic totum ex illa as it is wholly wrought by the Free-will of man so is the Free-will of man wholly enabled thereunto by the Grace of God which helps to determine the Will Attribute what you will to Gods Grace every good work and word and thought You cannot attribute too much you cannot attribute enough But when you have set God at this height in that proper Zenith where his natural Goodness hath placed him oh then draw him not down again to the mire where you ly wallowing to be partaker with your filth Do not weaken him by giving him an attribute of Power Say not when he doth not reign in your hearts that it is because he will not The voice of his Psal 77. 18. thunder is in the heaven The Vulgar renders it VOX TONITRUI IN ROTA The voice of his thunder is in the wheel It is heard of men who are willing to walk in the wheel and circle of Discipline and Virtue which have their thoughts collected and raised from the sensual vanities of this word And then by the power of this voice by the Power of Gods Grace like a wheel they are rowled about and are lifted up and do touch the earth but in puncto as it were but in a point having not the least relish of the world And this is the power and virtue of the Kingdome of Grace We pass now to the third head of difference which consists in the Compass and Circuit of this Kingdome which is as large as all the world In this respect all Kingdomes come short of it every one having its bounds which it cannot pass without violence A foolish title it is which some give the Emperor of Rome as if he had power over the most remote and unknown people of the world Bartolus counts him no less than an he etick who denies it But his arguments are no better than the Emperors Title which is but nominal They tell us that he calls himself MUNDI DOMINUM The Lord of all the world and that Rome hath the appellation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the whole world given it by Writers of latter times So the Poet Orbem jam totum victor Romanus habebat But these are but hyperboles spoken by way of excess and excellency So Jewry is also called in Scripture For Jerusalem is said to be placed in the midst of the earth that is in the midst of Judaea as the City Delphi is called orbis umbilicus the Navel of the world because it is scituate in the midst of Greece But without hyperbole Christ is the Catholick and universal Monarch of the whole world He seeth and ruleth all places All places are to him alike We need not vow a pilgrimage to Rome or to Jerusalem we need not take our scrip and staff to go thither De Britannia de Hierosolymis aequaliter patet aura coelestis The way to this Kingdome is as near out of Britanny as out of Hierusalem saith St. Hierome to Paulinus Totius mundi vox una CHRISTUS Christ is become the language of the whole world The Prophets are plain the Psalms full of testimonies In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed saith God to Abraham Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance Psal 2. 8. and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession saith God to Christ The Gospel must be preached to all nations saith our Saviour But as the Sun hath its race through all the world but yet doth not shine in every part at once but beginneth in the East and passeth to the South and so to the West and as it passeth forward it bringeth light to one place and withdraweth it from another so is it with the Sun of righteousness he spreads his beams on those who were in darkness and the shadow of death and makes it night to them who had the clearest noon Not that his race is confined as is the Suns but because of the interposition of mens sins who exclude themselves from his beams And now to proceed to our fourth head of difference As this is the largest of all Kingdomes so it is the most lasting Other Kingdomes last not Quibus evertendis una dies hora momentum sufficit Though they have been many years a raising to their height yet a day an hour a moment is enough to blow them down and lay them level with the ground And while they last they continue not uniform but have their climacterical years and fatal periods Though they grow up like the tree and be Dan. 4. strong and their height reach unto heaven yet there may come an Angel some messenger from heaven and hew down the tree and cut off his branches and scatter his fruit and not leave so much as the stump of its root in the earth Justine hath calculated the three first Monarchies and Sleidan all four and we have seen their beginning and their end But the God of heaven hath set up a Kingdome which shall never be destroyed and it shall break to pieces and consume all those Kingdoms but it self shall stand fast Dan. 2. 44. for ever We will conclude with the Riches of this Kingdome If Money were virtue and earthly Honor salvation if the Jasper were holiness and the Sapphire obedience if those Pearls in the Revelation were virtues then that of our Saviour would be true in this sense also The Kingdome of heaven would be taken by violence The Covetous the Ambitious the Publicanes and Sinners would all be candidati angelorum joynt-suiters and competitors for an angels place Behold then in this Kingdome are Riches which never fail not Money but Virtue not Honor but Salvation not the Jasper and the Sapphire but that Pearl which is better than all our estate For God and the Saints when they speak of Profit and Gain take it not in that
off that yoke which Custome hath put on but I cannot conceive how it should reign ad necessitatem so to necessitate our damnation as to take off that last comfort we are capable of which is hope The Church when she strikes the sinner with the spiritual sword of Excommunication doth not with that blow cut off Hope Vulnus non hominem secat secat ut sanet She strikes rather at the wound which is already made than at the man to wound him deeper She strikes him to heal him Delivers him to Satan to deliver him from Satan She shuts him out to keep him in Abstention Pulsion Exclusion Exauctoration Ejection Ejeration all these phansies we find in the ancients for Excommunication yet all these are not of so malignant power as to shrivel up all our Hope but rather they beget a hope that the excommunicated person will run back to the bosome of that Church which did therefore cast him out that she might receive him again more fair and healthful than before Did Love dwell in us continually we should not be so willing to hear nor so ready to talk of the everlasting destruction of our brethren Malo non credere sit falsum omne quod sanguinis est as St. Hierome spake in another case We should rather not believe that it were so and wish it false though it were most probably true It hath been therefore the practise of the ancient Church and it is in present use with our own to pray for all Jews Turks Infidels and Hereticks for all those to whose blindness the light of the Gospel is not yet known that they may be drawn out of the darkness of ignorance and be converted and see the beauty of that truth which may save them even to those whose damnation sleepeth not For this is most agreeable to that Will of God which is known and which is therefore known that it may be the rule of our actions Nor do we herein offend against that secret Will of his For most true it is that we may bonâ voluntate velle quae Deus non vult saith St. Augustine will and with a very good will those things which God will not And our prayers thus sent up though they prevail not in that against which God hath secretly determined yet shall prevail to draw down a blessing upon our heads for thus conforming our selves to Gods Natural and Known Will And this leads us one step further to the consideration of God's Occasioned and Consequent Will by which he punisheth those that obstinately continue in sin And to this Will of his we are bound to conform although for the reasons but now alledged we are not bound to pray that all unrepentant sinners may be damned but rather that they may repent God will proceed to punishment He hath whet his sword and he will make it drunk in the bloud of his enemies whether we pray that he will do it or not To this Will of his they who have made themselves the children of perdition must conform even against their will And our conformity consists but in this to rest contented herewithal and to admire Gods uncontroulable Justice which no Covetousness can bribe no Power affright no Riches corrupt no Fear bend and to cry out with the Father O quanta est subtilitas judiciorum Dei O quà m districtè agitur bonorum malorumque retributio O the infinite wisdome of the judgments of the Lord O how exactly and precisely will he reward the good and punish the impenitent sinner Every thing that God will do is not a fit object for our devotion nor are we bound to pray for every thing that he will do Nay in some cases as it hath been shewed we may pray against it God may perhaps purpose the death of my father For me to will the same is no less sin than Parracide God upon fore-knowledge of Judas his transgression did determine that Judas should go to his own place but Judas was not bound to will the same No his greatest sin was that he so behaved himself as if he had willed it indeed In a word I am not bound to say FIAT to all that God will do but when he hath done it to sit down and build my patience upon this consideration That whatsoever he will do or hath done must needs be just Absolutio difficultatum in his ipsis requirenda est è quibus videtur exsistere saith Hilary We must see the resolution of doubts which may hence arise even from that which raised them or from whence they were occasioned And we cannot be at any loss in our conformity if we do not first mistake that Will of God to which we should conform The Schoolmen who are very apt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make ropes of sand or rather with little children to blow-up those bubbles which are lost in the making amongst many other empty and unnecessary questions have started up this as of some bulk and substance when indeed it is but very airy They ask Whether if God should reveal to a particular person that he should be damned he were bound to conform his will and give assent and not pray against it A vain speculation like that of Buridans Ass which stood between two bottles of hey and starved because he knew not which to chuse Men may suppose what they please the Heavens to stand still and the Earth to move and wheel about as Copernicus did They may suppose that God will send his Angel with a revelation who would not send Lazarus with a message to Dives his brethren But let me also suppose that men are wise unto sobriety and then I will move one question more and that is What reason possibly they can imagine to move this doubt God doth not send any such revelation We have Moses and the Prophets we have the Gospel of Christ If we look for any revelation we must find it there There as in a glass we may see either the regularity or deformity of our wills There we may hear that voice which speaks comfort to the penitent and denounceth vengeance on obstinate offenders Nolo ut mihi Deus mittat Angelos saith Martin Luther I would not that God should send down his Angel with a revelation For he that brings any revelation to me which is not in Scripture shall find no more credit than the Puck in the Church-yard And if it be in Scripture the message though of an Angel is but superfluous Suppose God will do that which he never will and you may raise as many doubts and questions as you please Again if God did reveal it yet it might be lawful nay thou art commanded to pray against it God revealed to David that the child which was born to him in adultery should surely dye yet David besought God for the child and fasted and lay all night upon the earth And his reason is Who can tell whether God will be 2 Sam. 12.
noxious and malignant humor It is but a word but a syllable but as the cloud in the Book of Kings as big as a mans hand but as that anon covered all the heavens over and yielded great store of rain so may this word this syllable yield us plenty of instruction But we will confine and limit our discourse and draw those lines which we will pass by and which we will not exceed We shall shew 1. how Sin is ours 2. That all sins are ours 3. That they are only ours and lastly That they are wholly and totally ours that so we may agere poenitentìam plenam as the Ancients used to speak that our exomologesis may be open and sincere and our repentance full and compleat And of these in their order There is nothing more properly ours than Sin Not our Bodies For God formed Man of the dust of the ground de limo terrae quasi ex utero matris Gen. 2 7. saith Tertullian shaped him out of the earth as out of his mothers womb Not our Souls For he breathed into us the breath of life Not our Understandings For he kindled this great light in our souls Not our Affections For he imprinted them in our nature Not the Law For it is but a beam and a radiation from that eternal Law which was alwayes with him Quòd lex bona est nostrum non est quòd malè vivimus nostrum That the Law is just and holy and true is not from us but that we break this law this we can attribute to none but our selves Nec nobis quicquam infoelicius in peccato habemus quà m nos auctores And this may seem our greatest infelicity that when Sin lyes at our doors we can find no father for it but our selves and that we are the authors of that evil which destroys us Now this propriety which we have to Sin ariseth from the very nature of Man who was not made only Lord of the world but had free possession given him of himself and that freedom and power of Will which was libripens emancipati à Deo boni which doth hold the balance and weigh and poise both Good and Evil and may touch and strike either skale as he pleaseth For Man is not good or evil by necessity or chance but by the freedom of his Will quod à Deo rationaliter attributum ab homine verò quà voluit agitatum which was wisely given him of God but is managed by man at pleasure and levelled and directed to either object either good or evil either life or death So that it is not my Knowledge of evil it is not my Remembrance of evil it is not my Contemplation of sin nay it is not my Acting of sin I mean the producing of the outward act which makes Sin mine but my Will Voluntas mali malos efficit sed scientia mali non facit scientes malos saith Parisiensis Sin may be in the understanding and in the Memory and yet not mine I may know it and loath it I may remember and abhor it I may do some act which the Law forbids and yet not break that Law But when my Will which doth reign as an Empress over every faculty of the soul and over every part of the body which saith unto this part Go and it goes and to another Do this and it doth it when this commanding faculty doth once yield and give her assent against that Law which is just fit jam proprietas mali in homine quodammodo natura saith Tertullian then Sin is our choice our purchase our possession and there ariseth a kind of propriety and it is made in a manner natural unto us because we receive and admit it into our very nature at that gate which we might have shut against it The Adulterer may think that he is not guilty of sin till he have taken his fill of lust but that sin was his when his will first yielded An putas tunc primùm te intrare meritorium cùm fornicem meretricis ingrederis saith St. Ambrose Dost thou think thou then first entredst the stews when thou didst first set foot in the harlots house Intrasti jam cùm cogitationes tuas meretrix intravit Thou wert in already when the strange woman entred thy thoughts And when thy will had determined its act thou wert an adulterer though thou knewest no woman And St. Augustine gives the reason Nihil enim aliud quà m ipsum velle est habere quod volumus For to have that which I will it is enough to will it Villicus si velit nihil peccat saith Columella The Steward or Farmer doth nothing amiss unless he will Homo potest peccare sed si nolit non facit saith the Father Man may sin but if he sin there can be no other reason given but his Will For the Will is of that power as to entitle me to sin though I break not forth into action and when I am forced to the outward act to quit me from the guilt of sin to denominate me either evil or good when I do neither evil nor good and when my hands are shackled and bound Lucrece was ravisht by Tarquin and yet was as chast as before and the Oratour said well Duo fuerunt adulterium unus admisit There were two in the fact and but one committed adultery For natural Reason did suggest this Mentem peccare non corpus That it is the Mind and Will and not the Body which sins and where there is a strong resolution not to offend there can be no offense at all For it is not in my power what to do or not to do but it is in my power to will or not to will to make choice or refuse And therefore there is no such danger in the doctrine of Freewill as some have phansied to themselves and brought it in as an argument against it that it is dangerous For though my Will be free my Power is restrained and hath bounds set it Thus far shall I go and no farther 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hierocles Those things which are before me I may choose but those I cannot which are out of my reach I may will the ruin of a Kingdom when I am not able to destroy a cottage I may will the death of my brother and yet not be able to lift up my finger against him My Will is illimited but my Power hath bounds And indeed it was not an argument against Freewill but a Rhetorical flourish and empty boast which we find in Martin Luther Veniant magnifici illi liberi arbitrii ostentatores saith he Let those loud and glorious upholders of Freewill come and shew this freedom but in the killing of a flea For he mistook and made our Power and Will to an act all one when it is plain and manifest that he who cannot challenge a power to kill a flea yet may put on a will and resolution to murder a
〈…〉 Sin and embrace it may at a second or third view see it again and defie it But he that will erre because he will erre he that so dotes on his error as wantons do on their strumpets and will more firmly cleave to it because it is exploded is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 incurable And you may be sure his Ignorance is his for he took it up as a jewel and will not let it go or part with it upon any perswasion For let us conceive as favourably as we please of our ignorances and errors there are none which in respect of our particular duties might not have bin Ours but ours they are none which were in my power to withstand but are mine If Negligence and Carelesness let them in and a slothful Indifferency to examine them give them a fair welcome if we make room for them when we might with ease exclude them we cannot be ignorant to whom they belong Ex toto enim noluisse debet qui imprudentiâ defenditur saith the Orator For Ignorance is no excuse if it be not alone and where the Will is not firmly planted against it If we either will them or embrace what may promote them or not make use of all the helps to oppose them if we will or reject not or be indifferent we must own not onely our Sins of Ignorance but our Ignorances as Sins For both are voluntary and ours But now in the last place if our sins of Infirmity if our sins of Ignorance be voluntary and ours yet our sins of Subreption which steal upon us at unawares may seem to be wholy ab extrâ from without and not to have had principium in nobis their beginning from us as sudden Anger sudden Dejection of mind sudden Murmuring and the like wrought in us by the sudden assault of some evil which is distastful and contrary to our nature For here there is no truce given to Reason no time for consulation As when a spark of fire falls into gunpowder you cannot tell which was first the touch of the fire or the flash so here Temptation and Sin may seem to be both at once In other sins I have some space and time to deliberate and I may make a pause and stand rerum expendere causas and weigh each scruple and circumstance The Murderer hath time to consider that that bloud which is shed cannot be purged but by the bloud of him that shed it The Adulterer hath space enough to see death in a kiss and that to commit that loathsome fact is to take the members of Christ and to make them the members of an harlot Such kind of sins admit of parley and do not prevail but by degrees But these sins of Subreption and Inadvertency lie in ambush and strike before they are seen and may seem rather to be certain recoylments and resultances from the Sense than any acts of the Will Yet even these sins sudden Anger sudâ—â—n Dejection of the mind an Oath upon a blow or a Curse upon a sudden an 〈…〉 violent injury are voluntary and ours For they had not bin if the Wil 〈…〉 d stood up in any resistance or opposition It being not necessary that a 〈…〉 ow should beget a Curse or that these so sudden surprizals should force th 〈…〉 onsent of the Will To a Christian Souldier every day is dies praeliaris 〈…〉 day of battel or rather in every moment of his life he must either fight 〈…〉 repare himself to fight For even in our spiritual warfare there is not al 〈…〉 es 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a just battel drawn out not alwaies signa obvia signis but so 〈…〉 mes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 furta belli sudden eruptions thefts and advantages of wa 〈…〉 nd the Souldier of Christ must not onely be ready to resist in the full shew 〈…〉 march of the enemy but expect and wait for him that when he comes 〈…〉 her he come in pomp and with troops of temptations whether he fig 〈…〉 â—gainst us in open field or whether he come by night and steal upon us una 〈…〉 he may find us as ready for defense as he is to strike And let us arm o 〈…〉 lves with this consideration That as he comes forward sometimes an 〈…〉 ws himself in Pleasures and Beauty and Wealth and the Vanities of this 〈…〉 d so he may come behind us in a sudden Injury in the deceitful Ingratitude of a friend in the Treachery of a neer acquaintance That every moment he may come and that this may be the moment And so by this providence and preparation we shall defeat him so that whensoever he comes he shall come too late We read in Gellius of Aristippus who being askt by a luxurious wanton who was in the same ship with him Why he being a Philosopher lookt pale and discovered some tokens of fear in the Tempest when himself was not afraid reply'd That indeed there was not the same reason to both for he needed not be sollicitous for the life of a wicked knave but there was great reason there should be care taken for the life of Aristippus that excellent Philosopher But the other Stoick's answer there is more full and comes home to our purpose For he tells us out of Epictetus That there be certain apparitions and Visions of the mind which the Philosophers call phantasias Phansies by which the mind of man at the first face and shew of an evil is touched and moved and these are not within the power of the Will but press-in by a kind of violence And there are certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condescensions or approbations of these phansies which are voluntary and can have no existence but by the Will So that the mind of the wisest man may be stirred and moved at a crack of thunder at the fall of an house at some sudden and unexpected message because these quick and violent motions do officium mentis rationis praevertere prevent and hinder the office of the mind and step in between Reason and the Man But yet notwithstanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he doth not consent he doth not approve these visions and phansies and though his colour Change yet there is no alteration in his mind no mutation of his Counsels but he is constant to himself and holds fast his resolution That these things are not to be fear'd Now if the Philosopher could gain such stability and equality of mind as not to condescend and yield to these sudden surprisals onely by the light and direction of Nature the Christian no doubt may be as well prepared as he yea make a fairer progress in the arts of living in the waies of prudence and circumspection may not onely learn to be angry and sin not but not to be angry at all to have a buckler ready to hold up against sudden strokes as well as a sword to chase away an open enemy to stand in proctnctu upon his
afflictions which may tempt us to evil but hath also afforded us his grace and assistance as a staff by which we may walk And as when the children of Israel were in the wilderness he rained down Manna upon them and led them as it were by the hand till they came into the land of promise and tasted of the milk and honey there so God deals with all that call upon his name whilst they are in via in this their peregrination ever and anon beset with Philistines and Amalekites with those temptations which may deter them in their journey he rains down abundance of his Grace and is ready at hand to assist them against the violence of temptations till he have brought them to the celestial Canaan where is fulness of joy for evermore And therefore as he hath given us a command to try our obedience so he hath commanded us also to call upon him for assistance that we may obey Et scimus quià petentes libenter exaudit quando hoc petitur largiri quod jubet And we know it is impossible he should deny us our request when we desire him to grant us that which he commands We beg his assistance against the lusts of the flesh he commands us to mortifie them against the pollutions of the world his will is our sanctification against the Devil he bids us tread him under foot And can we once doubt of his help and assistance to the performance of that which he exacts at our hands as service due and pleasing to his Majesty The defect of Grace cannot be in the conduit in the conveyance but in the vessel which should receive it Which if it be vas obturatum a vessel shut up or closed or full already of filth and uncleanness or if it do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leak or let Grace slip no marvel then if the dew of heaven fall beside and we remain dry and empty And what greater folly then to complain of the Want of that Grace which we might have had nay which we had neglected and fell with our staff in our hand were evil when we had helps enough to be good when we shut our eyes to cry out there is no light like the foolish old woman in Seneca who was blind through age yet could not be perswaded but that the room was dark Our error and grand mistake is that whereas God is bountiful of his Grace to assist us we phansie to our selves an irresistible and necessitating Grace as if God did raise up children unto Abraham out of very stones And therefore we conceive that when we rusht upon sin as the horse doth into the battle God might have restrained us and kept us back when we were adulterers he might have made us chast And when we sin we wipe our mouths and comfort our selves that if God give us grace we will not sin again And what is this but to turn the Grace of God into wantonness and magnifying his Grace to entitle him to our sins It is not here The Lord shall fight for thee and thou shalt sit still but thou must buckle on thy armor and make use of his assistance when it offers it self thou must be as officious to wait on that as that is on thee If thou hast a good thought by his Grace thou hast it and thou must not be so unkind as to stifle it If a holy intention it is his Grace that raised it and it is a kind of sacriledge to pull it down If a strong resolution it is Grace that built it and thy care must be that it fall not to the ground To attribute all unto God is both very safe and very dangerous safe in our thanks and acknowledgments dangerous in the performance of our duty safe when we work our selves but dangerous when we put our hands into our bosome For he that will not rowse himself up and make haste to fly from Sin upon a phansie that he wants Grace hath already despised the Grace of God and cannot plead for an excuse the Want of that which he might have had nay which he had and chased from him And in this respect when we have light and will not work in the light when we have Gods Grace assisting us and will not make use of it when we have determents from Sin and yet will embrace it we must need stand guilty as wilfull offenders and confess that it was neither Adam nor the Devil nor the shortness of Gods hand did betray us but our own will that though we were weak in the first Adam yet we recovered our strength in the second that the Devil would have fled if we had resisted and that Grace was not wanting unto us but we were wanting unto Grace and therefore stand no more to deny or interpret this conclusion but subscribe to it with tears of bloud and make an unfeigned and sincere confession That the sins which we have committed are OURS and only OURS And now in the last place as they are only Ours so they are fully and totally Ours And if we strive to make a defalcation we add unto their bulk and make them more mountainous than before And as we do minuendo numerum augere by seeking to make our sins fewer then they are sin more and so increase their number so by attempting to make them less we make them greater Excusando exprobramus Our Apology upbraids us and we condemn our selves with an excuse Some perswade themselves their sin is much less because they sinned not as they say with full consent but renitente reluctante conscientia Their mind was long pausing and fluctuating before they did it But this is so far from extenuating the fault that it doth much aggravate it For a sin it is in the avoiding of Sin to make any stand or deliberation at all Deliberanda enim omnino non sunt in quibus est turpis ipsa deliberatio saith Tully There is no room for doubt and consultation where the consultation it self is foul and blameable Why should I halt so between these two the Committing or not committing of sin Why should I doubt when I know it to be sin Why should I ask my self that foolish question Shall I or shall I not when the sin is so manifest and death so visible in the sin These pawses and reluctations which we make our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we subborn as comforts and excuses of sin are nothing else but certain presages and forerunners of wilfull transgression How readest thou What are the Commandments Thou shalt not commit adultery Thou shalt not steal Never stand inaking demurs nor asking of questions but resolve not to do them For as Mucianus in Tacitus well observeth of the common souldiers in time of faction so is it here Qui deliberant desciverunt They who deliberate and are uncertain which side to cleave to have in effect revolted already We take notice of that in our sins which
Seneca says is observable between the wanton and his paramour Grata sunt si impulerunt gratiora si essregerunt They are admitted friendly when they knock or flatter or steal but have double welcome when they break in upon us when they enter though we struggle and strive with them For then we think we may say We have sinned indeed but against our will But this is nothing else but as Tertullian says gaudere de contumeliâ nostrâ to boast and triumph in our reproach or as the Apostle speaks to rejoyce in our shame and we know all such rejoycing is evil A man that sinneth at this rate against the dictates and checks of his Conscience is carried as it were by a mighty torrent which as the Orator describes it doth Saxa divolvere pontes dedignari tumbles stones before it breaks down bridges and makes a way where it finds none So the Will here being vehement and stubborn maketh haste to sin and breaketh through all obstacles that stand in its way And though Sin appear not in its best dress vestitior ornatior gay and trim but clothed about with Death yet she runneth to embrace and hug it Though she hear the Law thundring out dreadful curses though she have a voice behind her and a voice within her saying Touch not Taste not this pleasant cup will be bitterness in the latter end yet she readily taketh it from the Tempters hand and drinketh it off with greediness as if it were pure honey without any mixture of gall and poyson Surely this is to commit sin with an high hand and with a stiff neck This maketh Sin exceeding sinful Thus Murder and Adultery were greater crimes in David then in an uncircumcised Philistine and Treason was of a fowler aspect in Judas an Apostle than it would have been in Barabbas a murderer Hence our Saviour denounceth a heavy woe against Chorazim and Bethsaida because they did per tantorum operum detrimenta Christum contemnere multiply their sins when he multiplyed his mighty works and the means and helps by which they might have avoided them and were very evil when each miracle bespake them to be very good To conclude this point As the Orator tells us Honesta verba moribus perdidimus that by our evil manners we have lost the proper signification of many good and honest words so on the other side we have almost lost the knowledge of our evil manners and sins in words in deputativis assumptivis in those borrowed appellations and assumptitious names which we have given them calling them sins of Infirmity when we have strength enough to avoid them sins of Ignorance when we dammed up our own lights sins not fully voluntary when we are worse then horse and mule and will take neither bit nor bridle sins committed with half awill when our Conscience checks our Will and cannot prevail But names cannot change things Men are the same though they have new names given them My servant is not a Gentleman though I call him master Neither are our sins less sinful for all the excuses wherewith we disguise them The Poet telleth us that men indeed call things thus or thus but that the Gods have other names for them So let us give what titles we please to our sins and pretend what we will of them as that they were done out of Infirmity or Ignorance not with a full consent with half a will yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sentence and judgment is Gods and he hath other names for them And our best way and safest course were in rebus Dei uti sermone Dei to use Gods own language and call them as he doth to hate them as he doth to judge our selves that he may not judge us to punish sin our selves that he may not punish us for it and as it is enjoyned in Auricular confession to lay open and naked as near as we can every circumstance before him For this is the true method of reckoning with God and casting up our accounts the true valuation of our debts Thus we may hide our sins by revealing them we may diminish them by addition by making them great we may make them little and by making them many make them none at all and so fit and prepare our selves to receive illapsum misericordiae the sweet dew and influence of Gods Mercy in a plenary absolution in the forgiveness and remission of our sins And so I pass to that which when we first enter'd upon this Petition we reserved for the clause and shutting up of all and for the last thing to be consider'd to wit What is meant by Remission and Forgiveness of sins When we say Forgive us our trespasses we beg of God that although he may most justly yet he will not punish us for our sins but so remit them as to free us from that death which is the only wages due unto sin in a word that he will justifie us freely by Faith in Christ and impute to us as he did to Abraham faith for righteousness The people of Israel when they saw that Moses delaid to come down out of the mount began to murmur against God and to refuse him for their leader calling unto Aaron Up make us Gods which shall go before us And they had a God fit for them Nam processit eis bubulum caput saith Tertullian For they had an oxe or rather a calves head to lead them So when men will not follow that way which God and Religion leads them nor rest satisfied with the SIC SCRIPTUM EST Thus it is written commonly they make them Gods of their own and have some such idol as the Israelites had some phansie of their own to go before them Est haec perversitas hominum salutaria excutere Such is the folly and perversity of men to examine those things which are tender'd to them for their health to question their physick not to take it down and when a pearl is laid open before them not to buy it but ask what it is There is no point more plain and yet none hath been more stumbled at then the doctrine of Justification and Remission of sins No sooner was this seed sown by the Author and Finisher of our Faith but the Devil mingled his tares with it which were ready to choak it Ebion and Cerinthus denying the Divinity of Christ and conceiving that it dwelt in him indeed but so as in one of the Prophets though in a more eminent manner conceived also that we had not remission of sins by Christ alone but by the observation of the Law The Manichees thought cujusvis esse credere that it was a matter of no great difficulty to believe and that faith was as easie as a thought and therefore that severity of life contempt of the world and to sell and forsake all that we have were wrought out with care and solicitude were that which would make us acceptable before God and make us
for those actions which may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plato speaks make us in some degree like unto God Therefore even Heathens themselves have acknowledged that Life and Reason are given to Men to this end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we may follow God Now so far as we follow him so near are we to him And though he be angry with that person who hath not sued out his pardon yet he loveth his virtues Though he will not know him not acknowledge him to be his yet he doth not frown upon those actions in which he resembles him He is not angry with his Patience his Fidelity his Truth but with those his sins which make him guilty of eternal death For suppose a Christian that believes be of a wicked and an Infidel of an honest conversation certainly of the two the Infidel is nearest to the kingdom of heaven No These actions of piety are not sins but they are not conducible to eternal life They have their reward but not that reward which is laid up for the righteous The Law is broken and all the works I do not say of all the virtuous Heathens but of all the Saints of all the Martyrs that have ever been cannot satisfie for the least breach of the Law no more than a Traytor can redeem his treason against the King by giving of alms or which is more by dying for his country For whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin to bear not only its heavy burden but the whip not only to be at its beck and when it says Do this to do it but to be punisht for sin to be lyable to those lashes of conscience and to be reserved in everlasting chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day He is captive sold under sin driven out from the face of God under the power of that Law which is a killing letter obnoxious to all the Woes which are denounced against sinners And thus he stands till he doth postliminio recipere recover and receive his liberty till he be redeemed and brought back again And by justification and free pardon quasi jure postliminii as by a law of recovery he is reinstaled into that liberty which he lost and doth omnia sua recipere receive all that might be his his Filiation his Adoption his Title to a Kingdome putatur semper fuisse in civitate he is graciously accepted as if he had never been lost as if he had alwayes been a free denizon of the City of God and never fled from thence as if he had never forfeited his right His sins are wiped out as if they had never been This we beg in the first place That we may be reconciled unto God That being justified we may have peace But then in the next place our Petition is NE INDUCAT That he will not lead us into temptation That we may sin no more Not that we approve of that error of Jovinian That after we are baptized after we are reconciled unto God we cannot be tempted by Satan and That those who sin were never truly baptized were baptizati aquâ non spiritu baptized with water only and not with the holy Ghost or That this Petition did belong only to the Catechument those novices in Christianity which were not yet admitted into the Church and not to believing Christians This error is at large confuted by St. Hierom. For why else those warnings those preparations those warlike oppositions against Satan Why should we say this Prayer at all if after reconcilement there were an impossibility of sinning But it is impossible only impossibilitate juris as the Civilians speak not that it cannot be done but that it should not be done For thus the Law supposeth obligations to be performances and that necessarily done which we are bound to do What should be done is done and it is impossible to be otherwise When we are iustified there is mors criminum and vita virtutum as St. Cyprian speaks or as the Apostle we are dead to sin and alive to righteousness Indeed Justification is nothing else but an action of God or a certain respect and relation by which we are acquitted of our sins And although it be done without any respect had to good works yet it is not done without them Although it be not a change from one term to another from Sin to Holiness yet is no man justified without this change Therefore not only Faith but Charity also is required as a condition at their hands who will be saved But it hath pleased God to justifie us freely by his grace and to impute Rom. 3. 24. not our Goodness but Faith to us for righteousness Christus justificat Rom. 4. 22. sed justificabiles Christ indeed justifies but not those who make themselves uncapable of his Grace As Fire burns but such matter as is combustible and the Soul animates a sick or crasie body perhaps but not a carkass So That Faith justifies a sinner and That Charity doth not justifie are both true but it is as true Faith cannot justifie him who loveth not the Eph. 6. 24. Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Christus justificat impium sed poenitentem Christ justifies a sinner but a sinner that repents It is true that the Schools tell us Justificatio non fit sine interna renovatione We cannot be justified without renewing and inward change But this change doth not justifie us Therefore where they enhaunce Good works and give them a share in our Justification they do veritatem tenere non per vera as Hilary speaks speak some truth but not truly apply it or rather as Tertullian speaks veritatem veritate concutere shake and overthrow one truth with another Good works are necessary they must abound in us God delights in them and rewards them But what concurrence have these with Remission of sins which is the free gift of God and proceeds from no other fountain but his own Will and infinite Mercy To bring this home to our present purpose Our victory over tentations is neither the cause of Remission of sins nor yet the necessary effect Not the cause For what power have the acts of Holiness to abolish the act of one sin which is past and for which we are condemned already Nor the necessary effect For then when Sin is once forgiven we could sin no more nor be lead into tentation Therefore when we read that the justified person is freed from sin we must understand that he is free from the guilt of former sins not from the danger of future and in the Fathers fides est genitrix bonae voluntatis that Faith is the mother of a good will we find not what Faith alwayes doth but what it should do and what it is ordeined for what it would produce if no cross action of ours did intervene to hinder it In a word let us not only in our Pater Noster but in the whole course
of our lives joyn these two Petitions together When our sins are forgiven Let us pray and labor too that we be not led into tentation And that for many reasons which we must duly weigh and consider as we tender the welfare and salvation of our souls First Remission and Forgiveness as it nullifies former sins so doth it multiply those that follow as it takes away the guilt from the one so it adds unto the guilt of the other and makes Sin over-sinful We are now Children and must not speak our former dialect words cloathed about with Death but our language and voice must be Abba Father and every action such a one as a Father may look upon and be well pleased And this first word of our Nativity as Cyprian speaks Our Father which art in heaven is as a remembrance to put us in mind that we have renounced all carnality and know only our Father which is in heaven Reatus impii pium nomen saith Salvian A good name is part of the guilt of a wicked man Our Religion which we profess will accuse us and that relation which we have to God will condemn us Plutarch said well I had rather a great deal men should say there were no such man as Plutarch than that they should say there was one Plutarch that would eat up his children as soon as they were born as the Poets speak of Saturn And better it were that it should be said we were no Christians than that we were Christians ready to devour one another Christians but adulterers Christians but malitious the children of God with the teeth of a Lion delighting in those sins which we abjure and every day committing that for which we beg pardon every day This consideration was it I suppose that caused divers Christians to do what some of the Fathers have condemned defer their Baptism And when they were baptized what a multitude of ceremonies did they use what prayers what geniculations what fastings what watchings First they breathed upon them thrice and thrice bad Satan avoid that Christ might enter Secondly they exorcised them that the evil Spirit might depart and give place Then they gave them salt that their putrid sins might be cleansed Then they touched their nostrils and their ears They anointed their breasts and their shoulders They anointed their head and covered it They put upon them white apparel They laid their hands upon them that they might receive the grace of the Spirit Of all which we may say as Hilary doth of Types Plus significant quà m agunt They had more signification than virtue or power and were intimations what piety is required of them who have given up their names unto Christ how foul Sin appears in him that is washed and how dangerous it is after reconcilement Now as in the conversation of men we cannot easily judge where Love is true and where it is feigned by a smile or by fair language or by the complement of the tongue or hand and therefore some opportunity some danger must offer it self by the undertaking of which our friendship is tryed as Gold is in the fire so we cannot judge of Repentance that it is true by an exterminated countenance by the beating of the breast by the hanging down of the head no not by our sighs and groans by our tears and prayers by our ingemination of DIMITTE NOBIS Lord Forgive us which many times are no better than so many complements with God than the flattery of our lips and hands But when temptations rush-in upon us when they threaten in afflictions when they smile upon us in the pleasures of the world then it will appear whether that which was in voto in our desires were also in affectu in our resolution And if we bear not this tryal we have no reason to be too confident of our Pardon Again if we sue for pardon of sin and then sin afresh we become more inclinable to sin then we were before It is more easie to abstein from the pleasures of Sin before we have tasted them then it will be afterwards as its harder to remain a widow then to continue a virgin harder not to look back toward Sodom after one hath left it then it would have been to have kept out of it at first That which is once done hath some affinity with that which is done often and that which is done often is near to that which is done alwayes God indeed in Scripture is said to harden mens hearts and some be very forward to urge those Texts yet Induration is the proper and natural effect of continuance in sin For every man saith Basil is shaped and formed and configured as it were to the common actions of his life whether they be good or evil Long continuance in sin causeth that which Theodoret calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reverberating heart an heart which is as marble to all the threatnings and promises of God it worketh in the sinner that difficulty and inability of resisting tentations that he becomes even a devil to himself and will fall without them And this may seem to fall as a just judgment of God on those who fix their eyes so steddily upon the Mercy-seat that they quite forget the two Tables who are all for the REMITTE but not at all for the NE INDUCAS very earnest for Remission of sins but faint and backward in resisting Tentations I will not deliver it as a positive truth but it is good for us to cast an eye of jealousie upon it as if it were so That there may be a measure of sins which being once full God will expect no longer a certain period of time when he will neither comfort us with his Mercy nor assist us with his Grace but deliver us up to Satan to his buffetings and siftings to his craft and malice deliver us up to Sin and to the Occasions of Sin that having held-out his hand all the day as the Prophet speaks he will now call them in again and as we mockt his patience laugh at our calamity Prov. 1. It is a sign of a pious mind to fear sometimes where no fear is and even in plano in the plainest way to suppose there may be a block to stumble at If it be not true it is a wholsome meditation to think the measure of our sin is so near full that the next sin we commit may fill it that there is a Rubicon set as to Caesar which if thou pass thou art proclaimed a Traitor a river Kidron as to Shimei which if thou go over thou shalt dye thy bloud shall 2 Kings 2. 37. be upon thine own head Now is the acceptable hour now is the day of salvation 2 Cor. 6. 2. and if thou art so dazled with the beauty of Mercy that thou canst not see death in a Tentation horror upon Sin to morrow will be too late And here in the last place as the case stands
Tertullian that upon this command he might build up a glorious ensample for us and teach us to esteem our Children the fruit of our body our best hopes and expectation as nothing in respect of God And the Devil is said to tempt Job but to another end to make him curse God to his face In both under the name of temptation those adverse and contrary things are comprehended by which we may be withdrawn and hindred in the race which we run For the command to Abraham was a grievous command grievous to flesh and bloud for a father to slay his son and might have shook his faith And the Devils tentation was such a touch of Job as might have overthrown him Only here is the difference There was love in Gods tryal which made it a tryal of a Father and no more but there was malice in the Devils which made it the tryal of an Enemy a bloudy tryal to undermine and overthrow Gods tryal did bespeak obedience but the Devils tryal breathed-forth nothing but destruction But here the word INDUCAS or INFERAS Lead us not into tentation may seem to imply that God sometime not only brings us but leads us into tentations there to be as it were shut-up and detained For that may be the force of the word as if we were so cast upon tentations that they might lay-hold and take possession of us And if it would not bear this sense yet even the word Tentation may signifie no less than a Withdrawing us from God And so it is taken 1 Cor. 7. 5. where Paul admonishing the married couple to separate themselves but for a season adds the reason Lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency Which is nothing else than Lest Satan make you sin through incontinency And Gal. 6. 1. he bespeaks them brethren If any man be overtaken in a fault restore him in the spirit of meekness lest thou also be tempted which must needs be the very same with that before Lest thou also be overtaken with a fault And 1 Thes 3. 5. Lest the tempter have tempted you and our labour be in vain For though by adversity or some other temptation they were solicited to sin yet it doth not follow that their labour should be in vain but it was then in vain when they yielded unto the temptation and did actually sin Now it cannot be attributed to God that he thus tempts us God is a Tempter of no man We Jam. 1. 13. will therefore before we descend to particulars lay-down these two positions 1. God doth permit us to be led into tentations 2. God doth but permit us That we are led unto tentations is by the permission of God and this permission is not efficacious for if we will we may overcome them Nothing more contrary and abhorrent to the will of God than Sin and yet the Permission of Sin is a positive act of his will for he will permit it For though God made Man upright yet he made him also mutable the root of which mutability was the freedom of his Will by which Man might incline to either side and either embrace tentations or resist them Man being thus built-up did owe unto his Maker absolute and constant obedience and obedient he could not be if he had not been thus built-up Therefore his Understanding and Will were to be exercised the one with Arguments the other with Occasions the one of which might discover the Resolution the other the Election of Man which way he would take whether to the right hand or to the left These arguments and occasions are that which we call Temptations Which though they naturally light upon the outward man yet do formally aime at the inward For Obedience hath reference to some law by which it must be squared and directed and therefore God hath made Man capable of one made him Dominum rerum temporumque Master and Lord of his own actions and imprinted in him a Will which may either joyn with the Sensitive part against Reason which make us to every good work reprobate or else with Reason against the Sensual appetite which works in us a conformity to Gods will He that is capable of this Law must have some power and faculty left to break it Otherwise it were a vanity to enact a Law Who would speak to the Grass to grow or to the Fire to burn or to a Stone to lye still and move no more Quis unquam lapidem coronavit quod virgo permanserit saith St. Hierome Who ever put the crown of virginity upon a Stone upon his head who could not possibly defile himself There is a nullity in every Law if the persons to whom it is given be necessitated to either part of the contradiction to keep or not to keep it Obedience is nothing else but a bowing of the Will and conforming it to the Law of God against all those assaults which like so many winds beat upon the Will which is a free faculty to drive it from that object to which the will of God confines it to that which indeed it may choose but for the VETO the prohibition written upon it to dull and take off that inclination Now the Will of man having this natural propriety to be libripens emancipati à Deo boni to weigh that good which is proposed as it were in the scales and to chuse and refuse it is that which turns Tentations from that end for which they were permitted and ordained makes Satans darts more fiery his enterprises more subtle his arguments more strong his occasions more powerful and his tentations more perswasive than indeed they are so that what God ordained for our tryal and crown is made a means of our downfal and condemnation All the weakness of our soul all those sad symptoms and prognosticks of death all the sins of the world though permitted by God and suggested by Satan are properly and principally from the Will Suppose a darkness on the Understanding the cloud is from the Will and therefore God often complaineth not that we do not but that we will not understand That my Anger rageth my Love burneth my Grief is impatient and my Joy is mad all is from the Will All arguments all occasions all tentations all provocations supposed no outward force no flattery no violence not all the power of Hell can determine our Will or force us unto action NULLUM MALUM EST NATURALE That no evil is natural is the substance of that great dispute of St. Augustine against the Manichee And then certainly nullum malum est supernaturale no evil is or can be supernatural The highest Heaven is not the coast from whence this pestilential wind doth blow And therefore the Father laies it down as a fundamental principle MALUM NON EXORTUM NISI EX LIBERO ARBITRIO Sin could have no beginning or being but from the Will of man God permits the Devil tempts outward objects are busie in our eyes every
tentations but lead us into them not only shews us that which may hurt us but betrays us to it And no doubt such there are But here we must be wary that we raise not arguments from meer sound of the words Expetit sensus interpretationis gubernaculum saith Tertullian We must make use of the light which a just interpretation may bring Universa Scriptura quasi una propositio copulativa saith Gerson there is such a sympathy such an analogy between one part and another that the whole Scripture may seem to be but one entire copulative proposition Therefore where two places seem to look divers waies we must not be too forward to adhere or fasten to either but ex praepositis consequentibus as Hilary teacheth us by comparing that which goes before with that which follows after by help of plain and open places bring them together and make them one in understanding which cannot possibly be opposite in sense It cannot be that that should be the sense of any part of Scripture which contradicts any principle of truth or violates any attribute of God as his Goodness his Wisdom his Justice I will not say as the Father upon occasion doth Talia si dicunt Prophetae non erunt mei If the Prophets or Apostles speak any such words they shall be none of mine but rather be confident that whatsoever at first to an indiligent Reader the words may sound the Prophets and Apostles could not mean And in common reason that which is plain and acknowledged on all sides to be true should give light to that which is obscure and be as an Oath for confirmation to set an end to all strife and controversie To examine some places of this nature In 2 Sam. 24. 1. after we are told that the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel it presently follows and he moved David against them to say Go number Israel and Judah And some have been too ready to lay hold on this and urge it as a plain testimony that God many times makes Satan his instrument and by him inciteth and moveth men to sin Which notwithstanding the gross absurdity of the thing it self and a plain testimony of Scripture That God tempteth no man that is incites or solicites Jam. 1. 13. none to sin doth evidently demonstrate to be most false And this He in Samuel is pointed-out by name and is no other than Satan himself Now the 1 Chron. 21. 1. reason of this grand mistake and blasphemy was no other than this that this He moved David is brought-in close to that That God was angry so that it might seem to be referred unto Him because there is no mention there of any other But yet they might have observed that it is a common thing with the Hebrews to bring-in their Verbs many times without the Person who is the agent so that these words ET INSTIGAVIT DAVIDEM he moved David by the common opinion of Grammarians may be thus supplyed ET INSTIGAVIT IS QUI INSTIGAVIT He moved him that moved him that is the Devil But that 1 Kings 22. is more plain There comes-forth an evil Spirit and offers as it were himself to assist and help God to destroy Ahab For when God asks Who shall perswade Ahab to fall at Ramoth-Gilead the evil Spirit answers him That will I How saith God I will go forth saith he and be a lying Spirit in the mouth of all his prophets Go saith God and prevail If we take the words as they sound here was more than Permission Here was a Command and God may seem to have given the Spirit a Commission and deputed him as an instrument to destroy Ahab But if we rightly weigh each circumstance all will amount to no more than Permission For though God gave-way to the evil Spirit yet was it not infallibly necessary that Ahab should be deceived If he would he might have hearkened to Micaiah the true Prophet and cast the lying Prophets into prison there to eat the bread of sorrow and drink the water of affliction GO AND DO SO are the words of an offended God who when he found an instrument ready to his hands would not hinder that voluntary profer of the evil Spirit which he knew how to use to execute his vengeance upon that wicked King Occulta justitiae licentia malignis spiritibus datur saith Gregory ut quos volentes in peccati laqueo strangulant in peccati poenam etiam nolentes trahant Even the evil Spirits have a kind of licence a Writ De puniendo peccatore given them that they who are so gentle and willing to be led into the snare of the Devil may be dragged by them to punishment against their will Again God indeed is said in Scripture to have hardened Pharaoh's heart to give-up men to their own lust to vile affections and to a reprobate mind c. But all this in effect is no more as I have elsewhere shewn at large than that God hath so ordained hath set things in such a course that if men continue in sin they shall be hardned if they love temptations they shall be led into them and if they will needs play and sport with these Serpents they shall at last be stung to death To conclude then God tempteth no man God solicites no man to sin much less doth he lead or force men into this snare No God is faithful and will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength He doth not bid us fight when he hath disarmed us nor assist that enemy which he bids us resist nor lead us into those tentations which we are sure to fall under But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is true and faithful and to expose us a prey to a merciless and invincible enemy is prejudicial to the Faith and Truth and Sincerity of God He leaves Tentations as they are allurements and terrors and no more And he leaves us as we are with Understanding to discern what is true and what is counterfeit and with a Will of greater activity than the Rhetorick of a pleasing or the terror of a fearful tentation As he leaves us Sense to receive objects so he leaves us Reason to weigh and ponder them to consider what deceit may be in Beauty and what danger in Honour to consider that a light affliction may bring a great weight of glory that though Pleasure flatter yet I may run from it and though Affliction threaten yet I may embrace it and count the strokes of the one better than the kisses of the other God is faithful and will with the tentation also make a way to escape 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle not make a way with the breath of his Omnipotency but make a way so plain and easie and passable that if thou wilt thou maist escape flee from the noise of the fear and yet not fall into the pit and come out of the midst of the pit and yet
torpid and tender constitution many of us are that we wish it were so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We would neither have it rain upon us nor would we feel the heat of the Sun To struggle with Affliction and to stand the snock of a Temptation is a thing tedious and irksome to our nature NE NOCEAT That it may not hurt us is not enough NE TANGAT is our prayer we desire it shall not touch us What Antony imputed to Augustus may pass as a just censure upon us in this our warfare Rectis oculis nè aspicere potuisse rectam aciem We cannot look upon these armies of sorrows and temptations with a stedfast and settled eye When they appear before us in their full shew and march we are ready to hide our selves as it was said of him We only look up unto heaven vota solùm Diis fundentes pouring forth our fears and desires before God praying not for victory but for the removal of these sad spectacles not to be delivered in battel but not to fight The reason of this is from hence That we do judicium tradere affectibus submit our judgments to our Affections nay to our Sense so that the same horror which the Sense apprehends affects the Rational part and a stripe on the Body leaveth a mark on the Understanding We are ignorant of the nature and quality or rather of the operation and end of these things which we call evil we make not a true and just estimate of them but like bad artificers we look upon the matter so much that we quite forget what it may make To us a knotty piece of wood is so and no more a viper is a viper and the Devil a Serpent and a Lion and no more But a skilful artificer out of this piece of wood will make a God the Apothecary can find treacle in this viper And if we stand upon our guard the Devil saith Chrysostom would be evil to himself and not to us But this is not the true meaning To be delivered from evils is not so to be delivered as by a kind of priviledge to be quite exempt from the least touch of them This were too high a pitch for our mortal nature to reach unto This were not to be delivered but to be as God To be delivered here supposeth a possibility nay a necessity of sufferance For necesse est ut veniant it is necessary that some of these evils should befall us or else we cannot properly be said to be delivered from evil Huic nimis boni est cui nihil est mali He hath too much good who was never acquainted with evil Indeed Tertullian renders it EVEHE NOS A MALO Lift and carry us up out of the sight of evil But then he seems in the word evil to allude to a snare And then it is no more then this Lift us aloft above evil that it prove not a snare unto us If we be poor and miserable let not our poverty or misery ensnare us In Acts 2. 24. Christ is said to have loosed the sorrows of hell And St. Augustine gives this gloss Non illos quibus nexus est sed nè necteretur Not those sorrows wherewith he was bound but that he might not be bound at all with them But such a Deliverance as this from all kind of evil cannot be lookt for on earth For Man is born to labour and sorrow as the sparks fly upwards saith Eliphas And these may seem to proceed from his Job 5. 7. very nature as the Sparks do from Fire Now as soon as any Evils seize on us we are in chains and as willing to shake them off as any prisoner his gieves Here is the difference No prisoner can be said to be at liberty till his fetters be off but we may be delivered when these evils hang on us and these chains be made ornaments of Grace The Civilians will tell us Auxilium venit cùm cessat periculum that we may then be said to have received aid when the danger is past So may we be said to have deliverance when the noxious quality of the evil is spent when God hath placed us over it as he did Moses over Pharaoh to rule and govern it given us a divine power over it that though it rise up against us again and again and will not let us go yet we shall at last overthrow it So then we shall lie-down in sorrow and misery as Christ did in his grave and yet as he was free amongst the dead though dead yet to rise again and triumph over Death so shall we be free even in this our bondage as weak and yet strong as dying and behold we live as sorrowful yet alway rejoycing as chastized and yet not killed And as He by dying overcame Death so we by suffering evil shall gain a conquest over Evil that we may now rejoyce and sing Where is thy sting The sting of these sensible Evils is Sin But thanks be to God who hath given us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. And thus are we delivered from Evil NE NOCEAT that it do not hurt us But there is a further Deliverance UT PROSIT that it may help us that out of this Eater may come meat even sweeter than hony or the hony-comb Indeed these two are never asunder If it do not hurt us it will help us If it do not weary our Patience it confirms it If our Faith fal not it strengthens it There is no medium here but this operation or that it will have either it will make us better or it will make us worse In a word Every Evil that befalls us is either our physick or our poyson either the savour of life unto life or the savour of death unto death Now God is said to deliver us from evil when he drives it home to that end which he intends when he deads that operation which the Devil hath put in it and maketh it work-on in a contrary course For as it is the work of the Devil to raise evil out of good so is it the very nature and property of God to force good out of evil nay many times out of Sin it self The Devil thrusts hard against us that we may fall not a dart he throws but with a full intent to wound us unto death But God shortens his strength in the way that many times it falls short and reacheth not home or if it do reach home and stick in our sides our faith shall quench it and the wound he gives us shall cure us and make us more healthful He maketh Affliction more bitter than it is that we may murmure and complain and run from our station and he makes Riches and Pleasures far more sweet than they are that we may taste them often and surfet on them and for love of them loath the water of life But God changeth the complexion of Evil and though it be gall in
the mouth he makes it become a cordial in the stomach that so we may say with David It is good for me that I have been afflicted And he puts gall and wormwood on Pleasure that we may seek it where it is in his Law and Testimonies that neither Sorrow dismay nor Pleasure deceive us We may truly say The very finger of God is here For it is the work of God to create Good out of Evil and Light out of Darkness which are heterogeneous and of a quite contrary nature For as the Apostle tells us that every creature of God is good being sanctified by the word of God so when God speaks the word even the worst Evil is Good and not to be refused because by this word it is sanctified and set apart and consecrated as a holy thing to holy uses The word of God is as the words of consecration And when he speaks the word then the things of this world receive another nature and new names and have their denomination not from what they appear but from what they do not from their smart but from their end Then that which I call Poverty shall make me rich and that which I esteem Disgrace shall stile me honourable Then the reproach of Christ is greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt Then this Affliction this light and momentany affliction shall bring with it an eternal weight of glory And therefore we may behold the blessed Saints of God triumphing in their misery and counting those blows which the wicked roar under as favours and expressions of Gods love John and Peter esteemed it an honour and high preferment and rejoyced as they who are raised from the dunghil to the throne that they were thought worthy to suffer shame And so doth Paul For after he had Act. 5. 41. besought the Lord thrice to be freed from that buffeting of Satan and had 2 Cor. 12. recoverd that answer My grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is perfected is made open and manifest in weakness he presently breaksforth into these high triumphant expressions Most gladly will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me So rest upon me that no evil may rest upon me to hurt me that I may have a feeling and a comfortable experimental knowledge of it For this I take pleasure in infirmities in reproaches in necessities in persecutions in distresses for Christs sake for when I am weak then am I strong My opinion is alterd my thoughts are not the same my judgment is divers from what it was That which was terrible to my Sense is pleasing to my Reason That which was Persecution is a Blessing That which was a Serpent is a Rod to work wonders and forward my deliverance Nova rerum facies There appears a new face and shape of things as there doth to a man who is removed out of a dungeon into the light And as Plato tells us that when the Soul is delivered from the Body for we may call even Death it self a deliverance it doth find a strange alteration and things in the next world divers from what they were in this so when the Soul is delivered from Sin every thing appears to us in another shape Pleasure without its paint and Sorrow without its smart The Devil is not an Angel of light but a Devil a Lion a Serpent a Destroyer in what shape soever he puts-on Oppidum mihi carcer solitudo paradisus saith St. Hierom A City is a prison and the Wilderness a paradise The waters of Affliction break-in but the bloud of Christ is mingled with them Here is the gall of bitterness but the power of Christ works with it and it is sweeter than hony or the hony-comb For this cause I am wel pleased in infirmities I am saith St. Paul so far from desiring to be freed from them that I take Christs word as a kiss and think it best with me when it is worst Let him handle me how he will so he fling me not out of his hands For if I be in his hands though the World frown and the Devil rage yet his hand will be exalted and his mighty power will be eminent in my weakness If God be with us no Evil can be against us Therefore the Apostle calleth Affliction a gift To you saith he it is given not onely to believe on him but also to suffer for his Phil. 1. 29. sake not forced upon you as a punishment but vouchsafed you as a gift We mistake when we call it evil It is a donative and a largess from a royal Prince to his Souldiers who have stood it out manfully and quit themselves well in the day of battel When men have been careful in their waies and have been upright and sincere towards God in all their conversation then God doth grace and honour them by making them champions for his truth and putting them upon the brunt He doth not lend or sell them to calamities but appoints it to them as an office as a high place of dignity as a Captains place a Witnesses place a Helpers place And how great an honour is it to fight and die for the Truth How great an honour is it to be a Witness for God and to help the Lord First God crowneth us with his grace and favour and then by the Grace of God we are what we are holy and just and innocent before him and then he crowns our Innocency with another crown the crown of Martyrdom Quarta perennis erit And at last he crowns us with that everlasting crown of Glory This is truly to be delivered from all evil to be delivered that it may not hurt us and to be delivered that it may help us But we have run too long in generalities we must be more particular For I fear we do not thus understand it nor pray to be delivered in this manner or if we do quod voto volumus affectu nolumus our affections do not follow our prayers When we think of Smart and Sorrow we are all for Gods Preventing grace to step in between us and the Evil that it come not near us not for his Assisting grace by which we may change its nature and make it good unto us for his Effective providence which may remove it out of sight not for his Permissive by which he suffers it to approach near unto us to set upon us and fight against us and put us to the tryal of our strength But beloved we must joyn them both together or else we do not put up our petitions aright We must desire Health for it self but be content with Physick for Healths sake We must look upon Evil and present it before our eyes as our Saviour in that fearful hour did Gods Wrath towards mankind not yet appeased and Death in its full strength and Hell not yet mastered by any and then on the other side a World to be saved
out prayers as in an humble embassage to crave Gods aid and auxiliary forces For as God hath his army to fight against his enemies his Locust his Caterpillar and his Palmer-worme so hath he his army to defend those Joel 2. who are under his protection his Angels and Archangels who are all ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation Hebr. 1. 14. Nor can we think but that this army is stronger than all the troops of the Prince of darkness and that God by these is able to curb and restrain the violence and fury of Satan Nor could we hope to resist our spiritual Enemy sine naturae potioris auxilio but by the aid and assistance of those creatures which are of a more excellent being Therefore Justin Martyr tells us that God hath given the Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a care and providence over us Tertullian that they do universam paraturam hominis modulari elegantly and aptly and harmoniously order and govern the whole course of our life And no question though we perceive it not they do many good offices for mankind they rowse up the Melancholick comfort the Poor chide the Wanton moderate the Chollerick They are very ready to defend us there where we are the weakest and to dull the force of every dart which is thrown at us We will not now question Whether every man hath his Angel-keeper Which Basil so often and other of the Fathers affirm or Whether children in age have their tutelary Angels which our Saviour seems to intimate or children in understanding men of weaker capacities in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this doubtful and uncertain combat where there is so little light and so much danger have their Angels to defend them from the sleights and enterprises of Satan or How the blessed Angels minister for us We are sure they pitch their tents about us and do many offices for us though we perceive it not We have an author who writes of the Meteors it is Garcaeus I mean who was of opinion that whereas many times before great tempests there is wont to be heard in the air above us a great noise and rushing the cause of this was the bandying of good and evil angels the one striving to annoy us with tempests the other to preserve us from danger The truth of this I know not But as about Moses 's body so about every faithful person these do contend the one to hazard the other to deliver Therefore we may well pray that as the Devil inspires us with evil thoughts so the good Angels may inspire us with good and that if Hell open her mouth to devour us Heaven would open its gate that from thence there may descend the influence of Grace to save us And nemo officiosior Deo there is none more officious than God Who is not afar off from our tears but listens when we call is with us in all our wayes waits on us ponders our steps and our goings and when we are ready to fall nay inter pontem fontem in our fall is ready to help and save us And officiocissima res est gratia his Grace is the most diligent and officious thing in the world quasi in nostram jurata salutem as if it were our sworn friend and were bound by solemn oath to attend and guard us When doth the Devil roar and we hear not a kind of watch-word within us NO LITE TIMERE Fear it not all this is but noise And when doth he flatter and we hear not a voice behind us NO LITE PRAESUMERE Be not too bold it is the Devil it is thy utter Enemy And in all time of tribulation in all time of our wealth this Grace is sufficient for us But further yet in the last place we beg Gods immediate Assistance his Efficacious and Saving Grace that he will not only send his Angels but make us Angels to our selves For no man can be delivered from evil nisi in quantum angelus esse coepit but so far forth as he is become an Angel yea nisi in quantum Deus esse coepit but so far forth as he is become a God partaker saith St. Peter of the divine nature and endued with wisdom from above Therefore we must pray with Solomon for an understanding heart for the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of counsel for the assistance of Gods holy Spirit which is Christs Vicar here on earth for that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual wisdome which may make us wise unto salvation that we may have eye-sight and fore-sight and over-sight that we may see and fore-see and over-see that evil which is near at hand and about us in all our paths that we be not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Peter speaks purblind stricken with gross darkness like the Sodomites to stumble at the threshold nay in montes impingere as St. Augustine speaks run upon evils never so palpable visible mountainous evils and see them not enter the gates of our enemies as friends and think our selves at Dothan when we are in the midst of Samaria We read that the men of the first age knew not what Death meant or what it was to dye but fell to the ground as men ly-down upon their beds when they are weary or rather fell to the ground like Beasts not thinking of Death or what might follow And indeed the reason why we fall so often into Evil is because we see it not know not what it is not what it means as if to sin were nothing else but to lye down and rest nothing else but to satisfie the Sense and to please the Appetite as if Sin were as natural as to eat Therefore we pray Lord open our eyes that we may see it and so fly away and escape And as we pray for Sight so we do for Foresight For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Alexandrinus The Understanding is the Eye and the Far the Eye to see afar off and the Ear to listen and give notice of danger yet at some distance to know the signs of Sin as we do of the heavens to say This Bread may â—e gravel this Beauty deceitful and this Wine a mocker This rage of Satan may praise the Lord and this his fawning may make me dishonor him This his war may work my peace and his truce may be but a borrowed space of time to undermine me Magna tentatio est tentatione carere It may be a great tentation to be without one and a great evil not sometimes to taste of evil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Understanding and a good mind and much forecast lead us to a paradise of bliss Scelera consilia non habent It is easie to rush upon evil but we cannot avoid it without forecast and counsel And therefore in the third place we desire not only an Eye which may see and foresee but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil speaks