amongst us and as sicknesse and war and other intermediall evills were lesser strokes in order to the finall anger of God against their Nation so are these and spirituall evills intermediall in order to the Eternall destruction of sinning and unrepenting Christians 5. When God had visited any of the sinners of Israel with a grievous sicknesse then they lay under the evil of their sin and were not pardoned till God took away the sicknesse but the taking the evill away the evill of the punishment was the pardon of the sin to pardon the sin is to spare the sinner and this appears For when Christ had said to the man sick of the palsey Son thy sins are forgiven thee the Pharisees accused him of blasohemy because none had power to forgive sins but God onely Christ to vindicate himselfe gives them an ocular demonstration and proves his words that yee may know the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins he saith to the man sick of the palsey Arise and walk then he pardoned the sin when he took away the sicknesse and proved the power by reducing it to act for if pardon of sins be any thing else it must be easier or harder if it be easier then sin hath not so much evill in it as a sicknesse which no Religion as yet ever taught If it be harder then Christs power to doe that which was harder could not be proved by doing that which was easier It remaines therefore that it is the same thing to take the punishment away as to procure or give the pardon because as the retaining the sin was an obligation to the evill of punishment so the remitting the sin is the disobliging to its penalty So farre then the case is manifest 6. The next step is this that although in the Gospel God punishes sinners with temporall judgements and sicknesses and deaths with sad accidents and evill Angels and messengers of wrath yet besides these lesser strokes he hath scorpions to chastise and loads of worse evils to oppresse the disobedient he punishes one sin with another vile acts with evill habits these with a hard heart and this with obstinacy and obstinacy with impenitence and impenitence with damnation Now because the worst of evills which are threatned to us are such which consign to hell by persevering in sin as God takes off our love and our affections our relations and bondage under sin just in the same degree he pardons us because the punishment of sin being taken off and pardoned there can remaine no guilt Guiltinesse is an unsignificant word if there be no obligation to punishment Since therefore spirituall evils and progressions in sin and the spirit of reprobation and impenitence and accursed habits and perseverance in iniquity are the worst of evils when these are taken off the sin hath lost its venome and appendant curse for sin passes on to eternall death onely by the line of impenitence and it can never carry us to hell if we repent timely and effectually in the same degree therefore that any man leaves his sin just in the same degree he is pardoned and he is sure of it For although curing the temporall evill was the pardon of sins among the Jews yet wee must reckon our pardon by curing the spirituall If I have sinned against God in the shamefull crime of Lust then God hath pardoned my sins when upon my repentance and prayers he hath given me the grace of Chastity My Drunkennesse is forgiven when I have acquir'd the grace of Temperance and a sober spirit My Covetousnesse shall no more be a damning sin when I have a loving and charitable spirit loving to do good and despising the world for every further degree of sin being a neerer step to hell and by consequence the worst punishment of sin it follows inevitably that according as we are put into a contrary state so are our degrees of pardon and the worst punishment is already taken off And therefore we shall find that the great blessing and pardon and redemption which Christ wrought for us is called sanctification holinesse and turning us away from our sins So St. Peter Yee know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation that 's your redemption that 's your deliverance you were taken from your sinfull state that was the state of death this of life and pardon and therefore they are made Synonyma by the same Apostle According as his divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godlinesse to live and to be godly is all one to remain in sin and abide in death is all one to redeem us from sin is to snatch us from hell he that gives us godlinesse gives us life and that supposes pardon or the abolition of the rites of eternall death and this was the conclusion of St. Peter's Sermon and the summe totall of our redemption and of our pardon God having raised up his Son sent him to blesse us in turning away every one of you from your iniquity this is the end of Christs passion and bitter death the purpose of all his and all our preaching the effect of baptisme purging washing sanctifying the work of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the same body that was broken and the same blood that was shed for our redemption is to conform us into his image and likenesse of living and dying of doing and suffering The case is plain just as we leave our sins so Gods wrath shall be taken from us as we get the graces contrary to our former vices so infallibly we are consign'd to pardon If therefore you are in contestation against sin while you dwell in difficulty and sometimes yeeld to sin and sometimes overcome it your pardon is uncertain and is not discernible in its progresse but when sin is mortified and your lusts are dead and under the power of grace and you are led by the Spirit all your fears concerning your state of pardon are causelesse and afflictive without reason but so long as you live at the old rate of lust or intemperance of covetousnesse or vanity of tyranny or oppression of carelesnesse or irreligion flatter not your selves you have no more reason to hope for pardon then a begger for a Crown or a condemned criminall to be made Heir apparent to that Prince whom he would traiterously have slain 4. They have great reason to fear concerning their condition who having been in the state of grace who having begun to lead a good life and give their names to God by solemne deliberate acts of will and understanding and made some progresse in the way of Godlinesse if they shall retire to folly and unravell all their holy vows and commit those evils from which they formerly run as from a fire or inundation their case hath in it so many evills that they have great reason to fear the anger of God and
unbeleevers and therefore they doe it with lesse honesty and excuse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know not which is worse either to sin knowingly or wilfully or to repent of our sin and sin it over again And the same severe doctrine is delivered by Theodoret in his 12 book against the Greeks and is hugely agreeable to the discipline of the Primitive Church And it is a truth of so great severity that it ought to quicken the repentance and sowre the gayeties of easy people and make them fear whose repentance is therefore ineffectuall because it is not integrall or united but broken in pieces by the intervention of new crimes so that the repentance is every time to begin anew and then let it be considered what growth that repentance can make that is never above a week old that is for ever in its infancy that is still in its birth that never gets the dominion over sin These men I say ought to fear lest God reject their persons and deride the folly of their new begun repentances and at last be weary of giving them more opportunities since they approve all and make use of none their understanding is right and their will a slave their reason is for God and their affections for sin these men as the Apostles expression is walk not as wise but as fools for we deride the folly of those men that resolve upon the same thing a thousand times and never keep one of those resolutions These men are vaine and light easy and effeminate childish and abused these are they of whom our blessed Saviour said those sad decretory words Many shall strive to enter in and shall not be able SERMON VIII Part II. 3. THey have great reason to feare whose sins are not yet remitted for they are within the dominion of sin within the Kingdome of darknesse and the regions of feare Light makes us confident and Sin checks the spirit of a man into the pusillanimity and cowardize of a girle or a conscious boy and they doe their work in the days of peace and a wealthy fortune and come to pay their symbole in a warre or in a plague then they spend of their treasure of wrath which they laid up in their vessels of dishonour And indeed want of feare brought them to it for if they had known how to have accounted concerning the changes of mortality if they could have reckoned right concerning Gods judgements falling upon sinners and remembred that themselves are no more to God then that Brother of theirs that died in a drunken surfeit or was kill'd in a Rebell warre or was before his grave corrupted by the shames of lust if they could have told the minutes of their life and passed on towards their grave at least in religious and sober thoughts and consider'd that there must come a time for them to die and after death comes judgement a fearfull and an intolerable judgement it would not have come to this passe in which their present condition of affairs doe amaze them and their sin hath made them lyable unto death and that death is the beginning of an eternall evill In this case it is naturall to fear and if men consider their condition and know that all the felicity and all the security they can have depends upon Gods mercy pardoning their sins they cannot choose but fear infinitely if they have not reason to hope that their sins are pardoned * Now concerning this men indeed have generally taken a course to put this affair to a very speedy issue God is mercifull and God forgive mee and all is done or it may be a few sighs like the deep sobbings of a man that is almost dead with laughter that is a trifling sorrow returning upon a man after he is full of sin and hath pleased himselfe with violence and revolving onely by a naturall change from sin to sorrow from laughter to a groan from sunshine to a cloudy day or it may be the good man hath left some one sin quite or some degrees of all sin and then the conclusion is firm he is rectus in Curâ—â his sins are pardoned he was indeed in an evill condition but now he is purged he is sanctified and clean These things are very bad but it is much worse that men should continue in their sin and grow old in it and arrive at confirmation and the strength of habituall wickednesse and grow fond of it and yet think if they die their account stands as fair in the eyes of Gods mercy as St. Peter's after his tears and sorrow Our sins are not pardoned easily and quickly and the longer and the greater hath been the iniquity the harder and more difficult and uncertain is the pardon it is a great progresse to return from all the degrees of death to life to motion to quicknesse to purity to acceptation to grace to contention and growth in grace to perseverance and so to pardon For pardon stands no where but at the gates of heaven It is a great mercy that signifies a finall and universall acquittance God sends it out in little scroles and excuses you from falling by the sword of the enemy or the secret stroke of an Angell in the days of the plague but these are but little entertainments and inticings of our hopes to work on towards the great pardon which is registred in the leaves of the Book of Life And it is a mighty folly to think that every little line of mercy signifies glory and absolution from the eternall wrath of God and therefore it is not to be wondred at that wicked men are unwilling to dye it is a greater wonder that many of them dye with so little resentment of their danger and their evill There is reason for them to tremble when the Judge summons them to appear When his messenger is clothed with horror and speaks in thunder when their conscience is their accuser and their accusation is great and their bills uncancell'd and they have no title to the crosse of Christ no advocate no excuse when God is their enemy and Christ is the injur'd person and the Spirit is grieved and sicknesse and death come to plead Gods cause against the man then there is reason that the naturall fears of death should be high and pungent and those naturall fears encreased by the reasonable and certain expectations of that anger which God hath laid up in heaven for ever to consume and destroy his enemies And indeed if we consider upon how trifling and inconsiderable grounds most men hope for pardon if at least that may be call'd hope which is nothing but a carelesse boldnesse and an unreasonable wilfull confidence we shall see much cause to pity very many who are going merrily to a sad and intolerable death Pardon of sins is a mercy which Christ purchased with his dearest blood which he ministers to us upon conditions of an infinite kindnesse but yet of great holinesse and obedience
and an active living faith it is a grace that the most holy persons beg of God with mighty passion and labour for with a great diligence and expect with trembling fears and concerning it many times suffer sadnesses with uncertain soules and receive it by degrees and it enters upon them by little portions and it is broken as their sighs and sleeps But so have I seen the returning sea enter upon the strand and the waters rolling towards the shore throw up little portions of the tide and retire as if nature meant to play and not to change the abode of waters but still the floud crept by little steppings and invaded more by his progressions then he lost by his retreat and having told the number of its steps it possesses its new portion till the Angell calls it back that it may leave its unfaithfull dwelling of the sand so is the pardon of our sins it comes by slow motions and first quits a present death and turnes it may be into a sharp sicknesse and if that sicknesse prove not health to the soul it washes off and it may be will dash against the rock again and proceed to take off the severall instances of anger and the periods of wrath but all this while it is uncertain concerning our finall interest whether it be ebbe or floud and every hearty prayer and every bountifull almes still enlarges the pardon or addes a degree of probability and hope and then a drunken meeting or a covetous desire or an act of lust or looser swearing idle talk or neglect of Religion makes the pardon retire and while it is disputed between Christ and Christs enemy who shall be Lord the pardon fluctuates like the wave striving to climbe the rock and is wash'd off like its own retinue and it gets possession by time and uncertainty by difficulty and the degrees of a hard progression When David had sinned but in one instance interrupting the course of a holy life by one sad calamity it pleased God to pardon him but see upon what hard terms He prayed long and violently he wept sorely he was humbled in sackcloth and ashes he eat the bread of affliction and drank of his bottle of tears he lost his Princely spirit and had an amazing conscience he suffer'd the wrath of God and the sword never did depart from his house his Son rebell'd and his Kingdome revolted he fled on foot and maintained Spies against his childe hee was forc'd to send an army against him that was dearer then his owne eyes and to fight against him whom he would not hurt for all the riches of Syria and Egypt his concubines were desir'd by an incestuous mixture in the face of the sun before all Israel and his childe that was the fruit of his sin after a 7 days feaver dyed and left him nothing of his sin to show but sorrow and the scourges of the Divine vengeance and after all this God pardoned him finally because he was for ever sorrowfull and never did the sin againe He that hath sinned a thousand times for David's once is too confident if he thinks that all his shall be pardoned at a lesse rate then was used to expiate that one mischief of the religious King The son of David died for his father David as well as he did for us he was the Lambe slain from the beginning of the world and yet that death and that relation and all the heap of the Divine favours which crown'd David with a circle richer then the royall diadem could not exempt him from the portion of sinners when he descended into their pollutions I pray God we may find the sure mercies of David and may have our portion in the redemption wrought by the Son of David but we are to expect it upon such terms as are revealed such which include time and labour and uncertainty and watchfulnesse and fear and holy living But it is a sad observation that the case of pardon of sins is so administred that they that are most sure of it have the greatest fears concerning it and they to whom it doth not belong at all are as confident as children and fooles who believe every thing they have a mind to not because they have reason so to doe but because without it they are presently miserable The godly and holy persons of the Church work out their salvation with fear and trembling and the wicked goe to destruction with gayety and confidence these men think all is well while they are in the gall of bitternesse and good men are tossed in a tempest crying and praying for a safe conduct and the sighs of their feares and the wind of their prayers waft them safely to their port Pardon of sins is not easily obtain'd because they who onely certainly can receive it find difficulty and danger and fears in the obtaining it and therefore their case is pityable and deplorable who when they have least reason to expect pardon yet are most confident and carelesse But because there are sorrows on one side and dangers on the other and temptations on both sides it will concern all sorts of men to know when their sins are pardoned For then when they can perceive their signes certain and evident they may rest in their expectations of the Divine mercies when they cannot see the signes they may leave their confidence and change it into repentance and watchfulnesse and stricter observation and in order to this I shall tell you that which shall never faile you a certaine signe that you may know whether or no and when and in what degree your persons are pardoned 1. I shall not consider the evils of sin by any Metaphysicall and abstracted effects but by sensible reall and materiall Hee that revenges himself of another does something that will make his enemy grieve something that shall displease the offender as much as sin did the offended and therefore all the evills of sin are such as relate to us and are to bee estimated by our apprehensions Sin makes God angry and Gods anger if it be turned aside will make us miscrable and accursed and therefore in proportion to this we are to reckon the proportions of Gods mercy in forgivenesse or his anger in retaining 2. Sin hath obliged us to suffer many evills even whatsoever the anger of God is pleased to inflict sicknesse and dishonour poverty and shame a caytive spirit and a guilty conscience famine and war plague and pestilence sudden death and a short life temporall death or death eternall according as God in the severall covenants of the Law and Gospel hath expressed 3. For in the law of Moses sin bound them to nothing but temporall evills but they were sore and heavy and many but these only there were threatned in the Gospel Christ added the menaces of evills spirituall and eternall 4. The great evill of the Jews was their abscission and cutting off from being Gods people to which eternall damnation answers
weak servant for if the flesh be powerfull and opposite the spirit stays not there veniunt ad candida tecta columbae The old man and the new cannot dwell together and therefore here where the spirit inclining to good well disposed and apt to holy counsels does inhabit in society with the flesh it means onely a weak and unapt nature or a state of infant-grace for in both these and in these onely the text is verified 1. Therefore we are to consider the infirmities of the flesh naturally 2. It s weaknesse in the first beginnings of the state of grace its daily pretensions and temptations its excuses and lessenings of duty 3. What remedies there are in the spirit to cure the evils of nature 4. How far the weaknesses of the flesh can consist with the Spirit of grace in well grown Christians This is the summe of what I intend upon these words 1. Our nature is too weak in order to our duty and finall interest that at first it cannot move one step towards God unlesse God by his preventing grace puts into it a new possibility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is nothing that creeps upon the earth nothing that ever God made weaker then Man for God fitted Horses and Mules with strength Bees and Pismires with sagacity Harts and Hares with swiftnesse Birds with feathers and a light aëry body and they all know their times and are fitted for their work and regularly acquire the proper end of their creation but man that was designed to an immortall duration and the fruition of God for ever knows not how to obtain it he is made upright to look up to heaven but he knows no more how to purchase it then to climbe it Once man went to make an ambitious tower to outreach the clouds or the praeternaturall risings of the water but could not do it he cannot promise himself the daily bread of his necessity upon the stock of his own wit or industry and for going to heaven he was so far from doing that naturally that as soon as ever he was made he became the son of death and he knew not how to get a pardon for eating of an apple against the Divine commandement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Apostle By nature we were the sons of wrath that is we were born heirs of death which death came upon us from Gods anger for the sin of our first Parents or by nature that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really not by the help of fancy and fiction of law for so Oecumenius and Theophylact expound it but because it does not relate to the sin of Adam in its first intention but to the evill state of sin in which the Ephesians walked before their conversion it signifies that our nature of it self is a state of opposition to the spirit of grace it is privatively opposed that is that there is nothing in it that can bring us to felicity nothing but an obedientiall capacity our flesh can become sanctified as the stones can become children unto Abraham or as dead seed can become living corn and so it is with us that it is necessary God should make us a new creation if he means to save us he must take our hearts of stone away and give us hearts of flesh he must purge the old leaven and make us a new conspersion he must destroy the flesh and must breath into us Spiritum vitae the celestiall breath of life without which we can neither live nor move nor have our being No man can come unto mee said Christ unlesse my Father draw him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Divine love must come upon us and snatch us from our imperfection enlighten our understanding move and stirre our affections open the gates of heaven turn our nature into grace entirely forgive our former prevarications take us by the hand and lead us all along and we onely contribute our assent unto it just as a childe when he is tempted to learne to goe and called upon and guided and upheld and constrain'd to put his feet to the ground lest he feel the danger by the smart of a fall just so is our nature and our state of flesh God teaches us and invites us he makes us willing and then makes us able he lends us helps and guides our hands and feet and all the way constrains us but yet so as a reasonable creature can be constrained that is made willing with arguments and new inducements by a state of circumstances and conditionall necessities and as this is a great glorification of the free grace of God and declares our manner of cooperation so it represents our nature to be weak as a childe ignorant as infancy helplesse as an orphan averse as an uninstructed person in so geat degrees that God is forced to bring us to a holy life by arts great and many as the power and principles of the Creation with this onely difference that the subject matter and object of this new creation is a free agent in the first it was purely obedientiall and passive and as the passion of the first was an effect of the same power that reduced it to act so the freedome of the second is given us in our nature by him that onely can reduce it to act for it is a freedome that cannot therefore choose because it does not understand nor taste nor perceive the things of God and therefore must by Gods grace be reduced to action as at first the whole matter of the world was by Gods Almightynesse for so God worketh in us to will and to doe of his owne good pleasure 2. But that I may instance in particulars our naturall weaknesse appears best in two things even in the two great instances of temptation pleasure and pain in both which the flesh is destroyed if it be not helped by a mighty grace as certainly as the Canes doe bow their heads before the breath of a mighty wind 1. In pleasure we see it by the publick miseries and follies of the world An old Greek said well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is amongst men nothing perfect because men carry themselves as persons that are lesse then money servants of gain and interest we are like the follish Poet that Horace tells of Gestit enim nummum in loculos dimittere posthà c Securus cadat an recto stet fabula talo Let him but have money for rehearsing his Comedy he cares not whether you like it or no and if a temptation of money comes strong and violent you may as well tye a wilde dog to quietuesse with the guts of a tender Kid as suppose that most men can doe vertuously when they may sin at a great price Men avoyd poverty not onely because it hath some inconveniencies for they are few and little but because it is the nurse of vertue they run from it as Children from strict Parents and Tutors from those
half a dozen to God and one for his company or his friend his education or his appetite and if he hath parted from his folly yet he will remember the fleshpots and please himself with a phantastick sin and call it home through the gates of his memory and place it at the door of fancy that there he may behold it and consider concerning what he hath parted withall out of the fears and terrors of religion and a necessary unavoidable conscience Do not many men go from sin to sin even in their repentance they go backward from sin to sin and change their crime as a man changes his uneasie load and shakes it off from one shoulder to support it with the other How many severe persons virgins and widows are so pleased with their chastity and their abstinence even from lawfull mixtures that by this means they fall into a worse pride insomuch that I remember St. Austin said Audeo dicere superbis continentibus expedit cadere they that are chaste and proud it is sometimes a remedy for them to fall into sin and by the shame of lust to cure the devill of pride and by the sin of the body to cure the worser evils of the spirit and therefore he addes that he did beleeve God in a severe mercy did permit the barbarous nations breaking in upon the Roman Empire to violate many virgins professed in Cloisters and religious Families to be as a mortification of their pride lest the accidentall advantages of a continent life should bring them into the certain miseries of a spirituall death by taking away their humility which was more necessary then their virgin state It is not a cure that men may use but God permits it sometimes with greater safety through his wise conduct and over-ruling providence St. Peter was safer by his fall as it fell out in the event of things then by his former confidence Man must never cure a sin by a sin but he that brings good out of our evill he can when he please But I speak it to represent how deceitfully many times we do the work of the Lord. We reprove a sinning Brother but do it with a pompous spirit we separate from scandall and do it with glory and a gaudy heart we are charitable to the poor but will not forgive our unkinde enemies or we powre relief into their bags but we please our selves and drink drunk and hope to commute with God giving the fruit of our labours or effluxes of money for the sin of our souls And upon this account it is that two of the noblest graces of a Christian are to very many persons made a savour of death though they were intended for the beginning and the promotion of an eternal life and those are faith and charity some men think if they have faith it is enough to answer all the accusations of sin which our consciences or the Devils make against us If I be a wanton person yet my faith shall hide it and faith shall cover the follies of drunkennesse and I may all my life relye upon faith at last to quit my scores For he that is most carefull is not innocent but must be saved by faith and he that is least carefull may have faith and that will save him But because these men mistake concerning faith and consider not that charity or a good life is a part of that faith that saves us they hope to be saved by the Word they fill their bellies with the story of Frimalcions banquet and drink drunk with the newes of wine they eat shadows and when they are drowning catch at the image of the trees which hang over the water and are reflected from the bottome But thus many men do with charity Give almes and all things shall be clean unto you said our Blessed Saviour and therefore many keep a sin alive and make account to pay for it and God shall be put to relieve his own poor at the price of the sin of another of his servants charity shall take lust or intemperance into protection and men will not be kinde to their brethren unlesse they will be also at the same time unkinde to God I have understood concerning divers vicious persons that none have been so free in their donatives and offerings to Religion and the Priest as they and the Hospitals that have been built and the High-wayes mended at the price of souls are too many for Christendome to boast of in behalf of charity But as others mistake concerning faith so these do concerning its twin sister The first had faith without charity and these have charity without hope for every one that hath this hope that is the hope of receiving the glorious things of God promised in the Gospell purifies himself even as God is pure faith and charity too must both suppose repentance and repentance is the abolition of the whole body of sin the purification of the whole man But the summe of the Doctrine and case of conscience in this particular is this 1. Charity is a certain cure of sins that are past not that are present He that repents and leaves his sin and then relieves the poor and payes for his folly by a diminution of his own estate and the supplies of the poor and his ministring to Christs poor members turns all his former crimes into holinesse he purges the slains and makes amends for his folly and commutes for the baser pleasure with a more noble usage so said Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar Break off thy sins by righteousnesse and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor first be just and then be charitable for it is pity almes which is one of the noblest services of God and the greatest mercy to thy Brother should be spent upon sin and thrown away upon folly 2. Faith is the remedy of all our evils but then it is never of force but when we either have endevoured or undertaken to do all good this in baptisme that after faith and repentance at first and faith and charity at last and because we fail often by infirmity and sometimes by inadvertency sometimes by a surprize and often by omission and all this even in the midst of a sincere endevour to live justly and perfectly therefore the passion of our Lord payes for thus and faith layes hold upon that But without a hearty and sincere intent and vigorous prosecution of all the parts of our duty faith is but a word not so much as a cover to a naked bosome nor a pretence big enough to deceive persons that are not willing to be cousened 3. The bigger ingredient of vertue and evill actions will prevail but it is only when vertue is habituall and sins are single interrupted casuall and seldome without choice and without affection that is when our repentance is so timely that it can work for God more then we served under the tyranny of sin so that if you will account the whole
shall be pleasant while she lives and desired when she dies If not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Her grave shall be full of rottennesse and dishonour and her memory shall be worse after she is dead after she is dead For that will be the end of all merry meetings and I choose this to be the last advice to both 3. Remember the dayes of darknesse for they are many The joyes of the bridal chambers are quickly past and the remaining portion of the state is a dull progresse without variety of joyes but not without the change of sorrowes but that portion that shall enter into the grave must be eternall It is fit that I should infuse a bunch of myrrhe into the festivall goblet and after the Egyptian manner serve up a dead mans bones at a feast I will only shew it and take it away again it will make the wine bitter but wholesome But those marryed pairs that live as remembring that they must part again and give an account how they treat themselves and each other shall at the day of their death be admitted to glorious espousals and when they shall live again be marryed to their Lord and partake of his glories with Abraham and Joseph S. Peter and St. Paul and all the marryed Saints 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All those things that now please us shall passe from us or we from them but those things that concern the other life are permanent as the numbers of eternity and although at the resurrection there shall be no relation of husband and wife and no marriage shall be celebrated but the marriage of the Lambe yet then shall be remembred how men and women pass'd through this state which is a type of that and from this sacramentall union all holy pairs shall passe to the spirituall and eternall where love shall be their portion and joyes shall crown their heads and they shall lye in the bosome of Jesus and in the heart of God to eternall ages Amen Sermon XIX APPLES of SODOM OR The Fruits of Sinne. Part. I. Romans 6. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed For the end of those things is death THe son of Sirach did prudently advise concerning making judgements of the felicity or infelicity of men Judge none blessed before his death for a man shall be known in his children Some men raise their fortunes from a cottage to the chaires of Princes from a sheep-coat to a throne and dwell in the circles of the Sun and in the lap of prosperity their wishes and successe dwell under the same roof and providence brings all events into their design and ties both ends together with prosperous successes and even the little conspersions and intertextures of evill accidents in their lives are but like a faing'd note in musick by an artificiall discord making the ear covetous and then pleased with the harmony into which the appetite was inticed by passion and a pretty restraint and variety does but adorn prosperity and make it of a sweeter relish and of more advantages and some of these men descend into their graves without a change of fortune Eripitur persona manet res Indeed they cannot longer dwell upon the estate but that remains unrifled and descends upon the heir and all is well till the next generation but if the evill of his death and the change of his present prosperity for an intolerable danger of an uncertain eternity does not sowre his full chalice yet if his children prove vicious or degenerous cursed or unprosperous we account the man miserable and his grave to be strewed with sorrowes and dishonours The wise and valiant Chabrias grew miserable by the folly of his son Ctesippus and the reputation of brave Germanicus began to be ashamed when the base Caligula entred upon his scene of dishonourable crimes Commodus the wanton and feminine son of wise Antoninus gave a check to the great name of his Father and when the son of Hortensius Corbius was prostitute and the heir of Q. Fabius Maximus was disinherited by the sentence of the city Praetor as being unworthy to enter into the fields of his glorious Father and young Scipio the son of Africanus was a fool and a prodigall posterity did weep afresh over the monuments of their brave progenitors and found that infelicity can pursue a man and overtake him in his grave This is a great calamity when it fals upon innocent persons and that Moses died upon Mount Nebo in the sight of Canaan was not so great an evill as that his sons Eliezer and Gersom were unworthy to succeed him but that Priesthood was devolv'd to his Brother and the Principality to his servant And to Samuel that his sons prov'd corrupt and were exauthorated for their unworthinesse was an allay to his honour and his joyes and such as proclaims to all the world that the measures of our felicity are not to be taken by the lines of our own person but of our relations too and he that is cursed in his children cannot be reckoned among the fortunate This which I have discoursed concerning families in generall is most remarkable in the retinue and family of sin for it keeps a good house and is full of company and servants it is served by the possessions of the world it is courted by the unhappy flatter'd by fools taken into the bosome by the effeminate made the end of humane designs and feasted all the way of its progresse wars are made for its interest and men give or venture their lives that their sin may be prosperous all the outward senses are its handmaids and the inward senses are of its privie chamber the understanding is its counsellour the will its friend riches are its ministers nature holds up its train and art is its emissary to promote its interest and affairs abroad and upon this account all the world is inrolled in its taxing tables and are subjects or friends of its kingdome or are so kinde to it as to make too often visits and to lodge in its borders because all men stare upon its pleasures and are intic'd to tast of its wanton delicacies But then if we look what are the children of this splendid family and see what issue sinne produces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it may help to unite the charme Sin and concupiscence marry together and riot and feast it high but their fruits the children and production of their filthy union are ugly and deform'd foolish and ill natur'd and the Apostles cals them by their names shame and death These are the fruits of Sin the apples of Sodom fair outsides but if you touch them they turn to ashes and a stink and if you will nurse these children and give them whatsoever is dear to you then you may be admitted into the house of feasting and chambers of riot where sin dwels but if
will depart from us or if he staies he will strike us The best of these is bad enough and he is highly miserable Qui non sit tanto hoc custode securus whom an Angell cannot defend from mischief nor any thing secure him from the wrath of God It was the description and character which the Erythrean Sibyl gave of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is Gods appellative to be a giver of excellent rewards to just and innocent persons but to assign to evill men fury wrath and sorrow for their portion If I should lanch further into this Dead sea I should finde nothing but horrid shriekings and the skuls of dead men utterly undone Fearfull it is to consider that sin does not only drive us into calamity but it makes us also impatient and imbitters our spirit in the sufferance * It cryes loud for vengeance and so torments men before the time even with such fearfull outcries and horrid alarms that their hell begins before the fire is kindled * It hinders our prayers and consequently makes us hopelesse and helplesse * It perpetually affrights the conscience unlesse by its frequent stripes it brings a callousnesse and an insensible damnation upon it * It makes us to lose all that which Christ purchased for us all the blessings of his providence the comforts of his spirit the aids of his grace the light of his countenance the hopes of his glory it makes us enemies to God and to be hated by him more then he hates a dog and with a dog shall be his portion to eternall ages with this only difference that they shall both be equally excluded from heaven but the dog shall not and the sinner shall descend into hell and which is the confirmation of all evill for a transient sin God shall inflict an eternall Death Well might it be said in the words of God by the Prophet ponam Babylonem in possessionem Erinacei Babylon shall be the possession of an Hedgehog that 's a sinners dwelling incompassed round with thornes and sharp prickles afflictions and uneasinesse all over So that he that wishes his sin big and prosperous wishes his Bee as big as a Bull and his Hedgehog like an Elephant the pleasure of the honey would not cure the mighty sting and nothing make recompense or be a good equall to the evill of an eternall ruine But of this there is no end I summe up all with the saying of Publius Mimus Tolerabilior est qui mori jubet quà m qui malè vivere He is more to be endured that puts a man to death then he that betrayes him into sin For the end of this is death eternall Sermon XXII THE GOOD and EVILL TONGUE Ephes. 4. 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers HE that had an ill memory did wisely comfort himselfe by reckoning the advantages he had by his forgetfulnesse For by this means he was hugely secured against malice and ambition for his anger went off with the short notice and observation of the injury and he saw himself unfit for the businesses of other men or to make records in his head undertake to conduct the intrigues of affairs of a multitude who was apt to forget the little accounts of his own seldom reading He also remembred this that his pleasures in reading books were more frequent while he remembred but little of yesterdays study and tomorrow the book is newes and with its novelties gives him fresh entertainment while the retaining brain layes the book aside and is full already Every book is new to an ill memory and one long book is a Library and its parts return fresh as the morning which becomes a new day though by the revolution of the same sun Besides these it brought him to tell truth for fear of shame and in meer necessity made his speech little and his discourses short because the web drawn from his brain was soon spun out and his fountain grew quickly dry and left running through forgetfulnesse * He that is not eloquent and faire spoken hath some of these comforts to plead in excuse of his ill fortune or defective nature For if he can but hold his peace he shall be sure not to be troublesome to his company not mark'd for lying or become tedious with multiplicity of idle talk He shall be presumed wise and oftentimes is so he shall not feel the wounds of contention nor be put to excuse an ill taken saying nor sigh for the folly of an irrecoverable word If his fault be that he hath not spoken that can at any time be mended but if he sinn'd in speaking it cannot be unspoken again Thus he escapes the dishonor of not being believed and the trouble of being suspected he shall never fear the Sentence of Judges nor the Decrees of Courts high reproaches or the angry words of the proud the contradiction of the disputing man or the thirst of talkers By these and many other advantages he that holds his peace and he that cannot speak may please themselves and he may at least have the rewards and effects of solitarinesse if he misses some of the pleasures of society But by the use of the tongue God hath distinguished us from beasts and by the well or ill using it we are distinguished from one another and therefore though silence be innocent as death harmlesse as a roses breath to a distant passenger yet it is rather the state of death then life and therefore when the Egyptians sacrificed to Harpocrates their god of Silence in the midst of their rites they cryed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Tongue is an Angel good or bad that 's as it happens Silence was to them a god but the Tongue is greater it is the band of humane entercourse and makes men apt to unite in Societies and Republicks and I remember what one of the Ancients said that we are better in the company of a known dog then of a man whose speech is not known ut externus alieno non sit hominis vice a stranger to a stranger in his language is not as a man to a man for by voices and homilies by questions and answers by narratives and invectives by counsell and reproofe by praises and hymnes by prayers and glorifications we serve Gods glory and the necessities of men and by the tongue our Tables are made to differ from Mangers our Cities from Deserts our Churches from Herds of beasts and flocks of sheep Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God spoken by the tongues of men and Angels and the blessed Spirits in heaven cease not from saying night and day their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their song of glory to him that sitteth on the throne and to the Lambe for ever and ever and then our imployment shall be
spirits and have been obedient to the heavenly calling There shall stand the men of Ninevch and they shall stand upright in Judgement for they at the preaching of one man in a lesse space then forty dayes returned unto the Lord their God but we have heard him call all our lives and like the deaf Adder stopt our ears against the voice of Gods servants charme they never so wisely There shall appear the men of Capernaum and the Queen of the South and the Men of Berea and the first fruits of the Christian Church and the holy Martyrs and shall proclaim to all the world that it was not impossible to do the work of Grace in the midst of all our weaknesses and accidentall disadvantages and that the obedience of Faith and the labour of Love and the contentions of chastity and the severities of temperance and self-deniall are not such insuperable mountains but that an honest and a sober person may perform them in acceptable degrees if he have but a ready ear and a willing minde and an honest heart and this seen of honest persons shall make the Divine Judgement upon sinners more reasonable and apparently just in passing upon them the horrible sentence for why cannot we as well serve God in peace as others served him in war why cannot we love him as well when he treats us sweetly and gives us health and plenty honours or fair fortunes reputation or contentednesse quietnesse and peace as others did upon gibbets and under axes in the hands of tormentors and in hard wildernesses in nakednesse and poverty in the midst of all evill things and all sad discomforts Concerning this no answer can be made 4. But there is a worse sight then this yet which in that great assembly shall distract our sight and amaze our spirits There men shall meet the partners of their sins and them that drank the round when they crown'd their heads with folly and forgetfulnesse and their cups with wine and noises There shall ye see that poor perishing soul whom thou didst tempt to adultery and wantonnesse to drunkennesse or perjury to rebellion or an evill interest by power or craft by witty discourses or deep dissembling by scandall or a snare by evill example or pernicious counsell by malice or unwarinesse and when all this is summ'd up and from the variety of its particulars is drawn into an uneasie load and a formidable summe possibly we may finde sights enough to scare all our confidences and arguments enough to presse our evill souls into the sorrowes of a most intolerable death For however we make now but light accounts and evill proportions concerning it yet it will be a fearfull circumstance of appearing to see one or two or ten or twenty accursed souls despairing miserable infinitely miserable roaring and blaspheming and fearfully cursing thee as the cause of its eternall sorrowes Thy lust betray'd and rifled her weak unguarded innocence thy example made thy servant confident to lye or to be perjur'd thy society brought a third into intemperance and the disguises of a beast and when thou feest that soul with whom thou didst sin drag'd into hell well maist thou fear to drink the dregs of thy intolerable potion And most certainly it is the greatest of evils to destroy a soul for whom the Lord Jesus dyed and to undoe that grace which our Lord purchased with so much sweat and bloud pains and a mighty charity And because very many sins are sins of society and confederation such are fornication drunkennesse bribery simony rebellion schisme and many others it is a hard and a weighty consideration what shall become of any one of us who have tempted our Brother or Sister to sin and death for though God hath spar'd our life and they are dead and their debt-books are sealed up till the day of account yet the mischief of our sin is gone before us and it is like a murther but more execrable the soul is dead in trespasses and sins and sealed up to an eternall sorrow and thou shalt see at Dooms-day what damnable uncharitablenesse thou hast done That soul that cryes to those rocks to cover her if it had not been for thy perpetuall temptations might have followed the Lamb in a white robe and that poor man that is cloathed with shame and flames of fire would have shin'd in glory but that thou didst force him to be partner of thy basenesse And who shall pay for this losse a soul is lost by thy means thou hast defeated the holy purposes of the Lord 's bitter passion by thy impurities and what shall happen to thee by whom thy Brother dies eternally Of all the considerations that concern this part of the horrors of Dooms-day nothing can be more formidable then this to such whom it does concern and truly it concerns so many and amongst so many perhaps some persons are so tender that it might affright their hopes and discompose their industries and spritefull labours of repentance but that our most mercifull Lord hath in the midst of all the fearfull circumstances of his second coming interwoven this one comfort relating to this which to my sense seems the most fearfull and killing circumstance Two shall be grinding at one mill the one shall be taken and the other left Two shall be in a bed the one shall be taken and the other left that is those who are confederate in the same fortunes and interests and actions may yet have a different sentence for an early and an active repentance will wash off this account and put it upon the tables of the Crosse and though it ought to make us diligent and carefull charitable and penitent hugely penitent even so long as we live yet when we shall appear together there is a mercy that shall there separate us who sometimes had blended each other in a common crime Blessed be the mercies of of God who hath so carefully provided a fruitfull shower of grace to refresh the miseries and dangers of the greatest part of mankind Thomas Aquinas was used to beg of God that he might never be tempted from his low fortune to Prelacies and dignities Ecclesiasticall and that his minde might never be discomposed or polluted with the love of any creature and that he might by some instrument or other understand the state of his deceased Brother and the story sayes that he was heard in all In him it was a great curiosity or the passion and impertinencies of a uselesse charity to search after him unlesse he had some other personall concernment then his relation of kindred But truly it would concern very many to be solicitous concerning the event of those souls with whom we have mingled death and sin for many of those sentences which have passed and decreed concerning our departed relatives will concern us dearly and we are bound in the same bundles and shall be thrown into the same fires unlesse we repent for our own sins and double our
of man who is in the heavens not that the signe shall bee imprinted on a cloud or in any part of the heavens but that hee who is now in the heavens shall when he comes down have a signe and signification of his own that is proper to him who is there glorified and shall return in glory and he disparages the beauty of the Sun who inquires for a Rule to know when the Sun shines or the light breaks forth from its chambers of the East and the Son of man shall need no other signification but his infinite retinue and all the Angels of God worshipping him and sitting upon a cloud and leading the heavenly Host and bringing his Elect with him and being clothed with the robes of Majesty and trampling upon Devils and confounding the wicked and destroying Death but all these great things shall be invested with such strange circumstances and annexes of Mightynesse and Divinity that all the world shall confesse the glories of the Lord and this is sufficiently signified by St. Paul We shall all be set before the throne or place of Christ's judicature For it is written As I live saith the Lord every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall cenfesse to God that is at the day of Judgment when wee are placed ready to receive our Sentence all knees shall bow to the holy Jesus and confesse him to be God the Lord meaning that our Lords presence shall be such as to force obeysance from Angels and Men and Devils and his addresse to Judgement shall sufficiently declare his Person and his Office and his proper glories This is the greatest Scene of Majesty that shall be in that day till the Sentence bee pronounced But there goes much before this which prepares all the world to the expectation and consequent reception of this mighty Judge of Men and Angels The Majesty of the Judge and the terrors of the Judgement shall bee spoken aloud by the immediate forerunning accidents which shall bee so great violences to the old constitutions of Nature that it shall break her very bones and disorder her till shee be destroyed St. Hierom relates out of the Jews books that their Doctors use to account 15 days of prodigie immediately before Christ's coming and to every day assigne a wonder any one of which if wee should chance to see in the days of our flesh it would affright us into the like thoughts which the old world had when they saw the countreys round about them cover'd with water and the Divine vengeance or as those poor people neer Adria and the Mediterranean sea when their houses and Cities are entring into graves and the bowells of the earth rent with convulsions and horrid tremblings The sea say they shall rise 15 cubits above the highest Mountaines and thence descend into hollownesse and a prodigious drought and when they are reduc'd again to their usuall proportions then all the beasts and creeping things the monsters and the usuall inhabitants of the sea shall be gathered together and make fearfull noyses to distract Mankind The birds shall mourne and change their song into threnes and sad accents rivers of fire shall rise from East to West and the stars shall be rent into threds of light and scatter like the beards of comets Then shall bee fearfull earthquakes and the rocks shall rend in pieces the trees shall distill bloud and the mountains and fairest structures shall returne unto their primitive dust the wild beasts shall leave their dens and come into the companies of men so that you shall hardly tell how to call them herds of Men or congregations of Beasts Then shall the Graves open and give up their dead and those which are alive in nature and dead in fear shall be forc'd from the rocks whither they went to hide them and from caverns of the earth where they would fain have been concealed because their retirements are dismantled and their rocks are broken into wider ruptures and admit a strange light into their secret bowels and the men being forc'd abroad into the theatre of mighty horrors shall run up and downe distracted and at their wits end and then some shall die and some shall bee changed and by this time the Elect shall bee gathered together from the foure quarters of the world and Christ shall come along with them to judgment These signes although the Jewish Doctors reckon them by order and a method concerning which they had no revelation that appeares nor sufficiently credible tradition yet for the main parts of the things themselves the holy Scripture records Christs own words and concerning the most terrible of them the summe of which as Christ related them and his Apostles recorded and explicated is this The earth shall tremble and the powers of the heavens shall bee shaken the sun shall bee turned into darknesse and the moon into bloud that is there shall bee strange eclipses of the Sun and fearfull aspects in the Moon who when she is troubled looks red like bloud The rocks shall rend and the elements shall melt with fervent heat The heavens shall bee rolled up like a parchment the earth shall bee burned with fire the hils shall be like wax for there shall goe a fire before him and a mighty tempest shall be stirred round about him Dies irae Dies illa Solvet sêclum in faviliâ Teste David cum Sibyllâ The Trumpet of God shall sound and the voice of the Archangell that is of him who is the Prince of all that great army of Spirits which shall then attend their Lord and wait upon and illustrate his glory and this also is part of that which is called the signe of the Son of Man for the fulfilling off all these praedictions and the preaching the Gospel to all Nations and the Conversion of the Jews and these prodigies and the Addresse of Majesty make up that signe The notice of which things some way or other came to the very Heathen themselves who were alarum'd into caution and sobriety by these dreadfull remembrances Sic cum compage solutâ Saecula tot mundt suprema coëgerit hora Antiquum repetens iterum chaos omnia mistis Sidera sideribus concurrent ignea pontum Astra petent tellus extendere littora nolet Excutietque fretum fratri contraria Phoebe Ibit Totaque discors Machina divulsi turbabit foedera Mundi Which things when they are come to passe it will be no wonder if mens hearts shall faile them for feare and their wits bee lost with guilt and their fond hopes destroyed by prodigie and amazement but it will bee an extreme wonder if the consideration and certain expectation of these things shall not awake our sleeping spirits and raise us from the death of Sin and the basenesse of vice and dishonorable actions to live soberly and temperately chastly and justly humbly and obediently that is like persons that believe all this and such who are not mad men or
fools but will order their actions according to these notices For if they doe not believe these things where is their Faith If they doe believe them and sin on and doe as if there were no such thing to come to passe where is their Prudence and what is their hopes and where their Charity how doe they differ from beasts save that they are more foolish for beasts goe on and consider not because they cannot but we can consider and will not we know that strange terrors shall affright us all and strange deaths and torments shall seise upon the wicked and that we cannot escape and the rocks themselves will not bee able to hide us from the fears of those prodigies which shall come before the day of Judgement and that the mountains though when they are broken in pieces we call upon them to fall upon us shall not be able to secure us one minute from the present vengeance and yet we proceed with confidence or carelesnesse and consider not that there is no greater folly in the world then for a man to neglect his greatest interest and to die for trifles and little regards and to become miserable for such interests which are not excusable in a Childe He that is youngest hath not long to live Hee that is thirty forty or fifty yeares old hath spent most of his life and his dream is almost done and in a very few moneths hee must be cast into his eternall portion that is hee must be in an unalterable condition his finall Sentence shall passe according as hee shall then bee found and that will be an intolerable condition when he shall have reason to cry out in the bitternesse of his soule Eternall woe is to mee who refus'd to consider when I might have been saved and secured from this intolerable calamity But I must descend to consider the particulars and circumstances of the great consideration Christ shall be our Judge at Doomes-day SERMON II. Part II. 1. IF we consider the person of the Judge we first perceive that he is interested in the injury of the crimes he is to sentence Videbunt quem crucifixerunt and they shal look on him whom they have pierced It was for thy sins that the Judge did suffer such unspeakable pains as were enough to reconcile all the world to God The summe and spirit of which pains could not be better understood then by the consequence of his own words My God my God why hast thou forsaken me meaning that he felt such horrible pure unmingled sorrowes that although his humane nature was personally united to the Godhead yet at that instant he felt no comfortable emanations by sensible perception from the Divinity but he was so drenched in sorrow that the Godhead seemed to have forsaken him Beyond this nothing can be added but then that thou hast for thy own particular made all this in vain and ineffective that Christ thy Lord and Judge should be tormented for nothing that thou wouldst not accept felicity and pardon when he purchased them at so dear a price must needs be an infinite condemnation to such persons How shalt thou look upon him that fainted and dyed for love of thee and thou didst scorn his miraculous mercies How shall we dare to behold that holy face that brought salvation to us and we turned away and fell in love with death and kissed deformity and sins and yet in the beholding that face consists much of the glories of eternity All the pains and passions the sorrowes and the groans the humility and poverty the labours and the watchings the Prayers and the Sermons the miracles and the prophecies the whip and the nails the death and the buriall the shame and the smart the Crosse and the grave of Jesus shall be laid upon thy score if thou hast refused the mercies and design of all their holy ends and purposes And if we remember what a calamity that was which broke the Jewish Nation in pieces when Christ came to judge them for their murdering him who was their King and the Prince of life and consider that this was but a dark image of the terrors of the day of Judgement we may then apprehend that there is some strange unspeakable evill that attends them that are guilty of this death and of so much evill to their Lord. Now it is certain if thou wilt not be saved by his death you are guilty of his death if thoa wilt not suffer him to save thee thou art guilty of destroying him and then let it be considered what is to be expected from that Judge before whom you stand as his murtherer and betrayer * But this is but half of this consideration 2. Christ may be crucified again and upon a new account put to an open shame For after that Christ had done all this by the direct actions of his Priestly Office of sacrificing himself for us he hath also done very many things for us which are also the fruits of his first love and prosecutions of our redemption I will not instance in the strange arts of mercy that our Lord uses to bring us to live holy lives But I consider that things are so ordered and so great a value set upon our souls since they are the images of God and redeemed by the Bloud of the holy Lamb that the salvation of our souls is reckoned as a part of Christs reward a part of the glorification of his humanity Every sinner that repents causes joy to Christ and the joy is so great that it runs over and wets the fair brows and beauteous locks of Cherubims and Seraphims and all the Angels have a part of that banquet Then it is that our blessed Lord feels the fruits of his holy death the acceptation of his holy sacrifice the graciousnesse of his person the return of his prayers For all that Christ did or suffer'd and all that he now does as a Priest in heaven is to glorifie his Father by bringing souls to God For this it was that he was born and dyed that he descended from heaven to earth from life to death from the crosse to the grave this was the purpose of his resurrection and ascension of the end and design of all the miracles and graces of God manifested to all the world by him and now what man is so vile such a malicious fool that will refuse to bring joy to his Lord by doing himself the greatest good in the world They who refuse to do this are said to crucifie the Lord of life again and put him to an open shame that is they as much as in them lies bring Christ from his glorious joyes to the labours of his life and the shame of his death they advance his enemies and refuse to advance the Kingdome of their Lord they put themselves in that state in which they were when Christ came to dye for them and now that he is in a state that he may rejoyce over them
to us to invite us to come to God and be sav'd and therefore when this and infinitely more shall by the Judge be exhibited in sad remembrances there needs no other sentence we shall condemn our selves with a hasty shame and a fearfull confusion to see how good God hath been to us and how base we have been to our selves Thus Moses is said to accuse the Jewes and thus also he that does accuse is said to condemn as Verres was by Cicero and Claudia by Domitius her accuser and the world of impenitent persons by the men of Nineveh and all by Christ their Judge I represent the horror of this circumstance to consist in this besides the reasonablenesse of the Judgement and the certainty of the condemnation it cannot but be an argument of an intolerable despair to perishing souls when he that was our Advocate all our life shall in the day of that appearing be our Accuser and our Judge a party against us an injur'd person in the day of his power and of his wrath doing execution upon all his own foolish and malicious enemies * 2. Our conscience shall be our accuser but this signifies but these two things 1. that we shall be condemned for the evils that we have done and shall then remember God by his power wiping away the dust from the tables of our memory and taking off the consideration and the voluntary neglect and rude shufflings of our cases of conscience For then we shall see things as they are the evill circumstances and the crooked intentions the adherent unhandsomenesse and the direct crimes for all things are laid up safely and though we draw a curtain of cobweb over them and few figleaves before our shame yet God shall draw away the curtain and forgetfulnesse shall be no more because with a taper in the hand of God all the corners of our nastinesse shall be discovered And secondly it signifies this also that not only the Justice of God shall be confessed by us in our own shame and condemnation but the evill of the sentence shall be received into us to melt our bowels and to break our heart in pieces within us because we are the authors of our own death and our own inhumane hands have torn our souls in pieces Thus farre the horrors are great and when evill men consider it it is certain they must be afraid to dye Even they that have liv'd well have some sad considerations and the tremblings of humility and suspicion of themselves I remember S. Cyprian tels of a good man who in his agony of death saw a phantasme of a noble and angelicall shape who frowning and angry said to him Pati timetis exire non vultis Quid faciam vobis Ye cannot endure sicknesse ye are troubled at the evils of the world and yet you are loth to dye and to be quit of them what shall I do to you Although this is apt to represent every mans condition more of lesse yet concerning persons of wicked lives it hath in it too many sad degrees of truth they are impatient of sorrow and justly fearfull of death because they know not how to comfort themselves in the evill accidents of their lives and their conscience is too polluted to take death for sanctuary and to hope to have amends made to their condition by the sentence of the day of Judgement Evill and sad is their condition who cannot be contented here nor blessed hereafter whose life is their misery and their conscience is their enemy whose grave is their prison and death their undoing and the sentence of Dooms-day the beginning of an intolerable condition 3. The third sort of accusers are the Devils and they will do it with malicious and evill purposes The Prince of the Devils hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for one of his chiefest appellatives The accuser of the Brethren he is by his professed malice and imployment and therefore God who delights that his mercy should triumph and his goodnesse prevail over all the malice of men and Devils hath appointed one whose office is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to reprove the accuser and to resist the enemy and to be a defender of their cause who belong to God The holy Spirit is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a defender the evill spirit is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the accuser and they that in this life belong to one or the other shall in the same proportion be treated at the day of Judgement The Devill shall accuse the Brethren that is the Saints and servants of God and shall tell concerning their follies and infirmities the sins of their youth and the weaknesse of their age the imperfect grace and the long schedule of omissions of duty their scruples and their fears their diffidences and pusillanimity and all those things which themselves by strict examination finde themselves guilty of and have confessed all their shame and the matter of their sorrowes their evill intentions and their little plots their carnall confidences and too fond adherences to the things of this world their indulgence and easinesse of government their wilder joyes and freer meals their losse of time and their too forward and apt compliances their trifling arrests and little peevishnesses the mixtures of the world with the things of the Spirit and all the incidences of humanity he will bring forth and aggravate them by the circumstance of ingratitude and the breach of promise and the evacuating all their holy purposes and breaking their resolutions and rifling their vowes and all these things being drawn into an intire representment and the bils clog'd by numbers will make the best man in the world â—â—em foul and unhandsome and stained with the characters of death and evill dishonour But for these there is appointed a defender The holy Spirit that maketh intercession for us shall then also interpose and against all these things shall oppose the passion of our blessed Lord and upon all their defects shall cast the robe of his righteousnesse and the sins of their youth shall not prevail so much as the repentance of their age and their omissions be excused by probable intervening causes and their little escapes shall appear single and in disunion because they were alwaies kept asunder by penitentiall prayers and sighings and their seldome returns of sin by their daily watchfulnesse and their often infirmities by the sincerity of their souls and their scruples by their zeal and their possions by their love and all by the mercies of God and the sacrifice which their Judge offer'd and the holy Spirit made effective by daily graces and assistances These therefore infallibly go to the portion of the right hand because the Lord our God shall answer for them But as for the wicked it is not so with them for although the plain story of their life be to them a sad condemnation yet what will be answered when it shall be told concerning them that they despised Gods mercies and feared
name was led to execution every man cursed him but no man wept Deformitas exitus misericordiam abstulerat saith Tacitus The filthinesse of his life and death took away pity So it is with us in our prayers while we love our sin we must nurse all its children and when we roare in our lustfull beds and groane with the whips of an exterminating Angell chastising those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aretas calls them the lusts of the lower belly wantonnesse and its mother intemperance we feel the price of our sin that which God foretold to be their issues that which he threatned us withall and that which is the naturall consequent and its certaine expectation that which we delighted in and chose even then when we refused God and threw away felicity and hated vertue For punishment is but the latter part of sin it is not a new thing and distinct from it or if we will kisse the Hyaena or clip the Lamia about the neck we have as certainly chosen the taile and its venemous embraces as the face and lip Every man that sins against God and loves it or which is all one continues in it for by interpretation that is love hath all the circumstances of unworthinesse towards God hee is unthankfull and a breaker of his vowes and a despiser of his mercies and impudent against his judgments he is false to his profession false to his faith hee is an unfriendly person and useth him barbarously who hath treated him with an affection not lesse then infinite and if any man does half so much evill and so unhandsomely to a man we stone him with stones and curses with reproach and an unrelenting scorn And how then shall such a person hope that God should pity him for God better understands and deeper resents and more essentially hates and more severely exacts the circumstances and degrees of basenesse then we can doe and therefore proportionably scorns the person and derides the calamity Is not unthankfulnesse to God a greater basenesse and unworthinesse then unthanfulnesse to our Patron And is not hee as sensible of it and more then wee These things are more then words and therefore if no man pities a base person let us remember that no man is so base in any thing as in his unhandsome demeanour towards God Doe wee not professe our selves his servants and yet serve the Devill Doe we not live upon Gods provision and yet stand or work at the command of lust or avarice humane regards and little interests of the world We call him Father when we desire our portion and yet spend it in the society of all his enemies In short Let our actions to God and their circumstances be supposed to be done towards men and we should scorn our selves and how then can we expect God should not scorne us and reject our prayer when we have done all the dishonour to him and with all the unhandsomnesse in the world Take heed lest we fall into a condition of evill in which it shall be said You may thank your selves and be infinitely afraid lest at the same time we be in a condition of person in which God will upbraid our unworthinesse and scorne our persons and rejoyce in our calamity The first is intolerable the second is irremediadle the first proclaims our folly and the second declares Gods finall justice in the first there is no comfort in the latter there is no remedy that therefore makes us miserable and this renders us desperate 3. This great truth is further manifested by the necessary and convenient appendages of prayer requir'd or advis'd or recommended in holy Scripture For why is Fasting prescribed together with prayer For neither if we eat are we the better neither if we eat not are we the worse and God does not delight in that service the first second and third part of which is nothing but pain and self-affliction But therefore fasting is usefull with prayer because it is a penall duty and an action of repentance for then onely God hears sinners when they enter first into the gates of repentance and proceed in all the regions of sorrow and carefulnesse and therefore we are commanded to fast that we may pray with more spirituality and with repentance that is without the loads of meat and without the loads of sin Of the same consideration it is that almes are prescribed together with prayer because it is a part of that charity without which our soules are enemies to all that which ought to be equally valued with our owne lives But besides this we may easily observe what speciall undecencies there are which besides the generall malignity and demerit are speciall deleteries and hinderances to our prayers by irreconciling the person of him that prays 1. The first is unmercyfulnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said one in Stobaeus and they were well joyned together He that takes Mercy from a Man is like him that takes an Altar from the Temple the Temple is of no use without an Altar and the Man cannot pray without mercy and there are infinite of prayers sent forth by men which God never attends to but as to so many sins because the men live in a course of rapine or tyranny or oppression or uncharitablenesse or something that is most contrary to God because it is unmercifull Remember that God sometimes puts thee into some images of his own relation We beg of God for mercy and our Brother begs of us for pity and therefore let us deal equally with God and all the world I see my selfe fall by a too frequent infirmity and still I beg for pardon and hope for pity thy brother that offends thee he hopes so too and would fain have the same measure and would be as glad thou wouldst pardon him as thou wouldest rejoyce in thy own forgivenesse I am troubled when God rejects my prayer or in stead of hearing my petition sends a judgement Is not thy Tenant or thy Servant or thy Client so to thee does not he tremble at thy frown and is of an uncertaine soule till thou speakest kindly unto him and observes thy lookes as hee watches the colour of the bean coming from thy box of Sentence life or death depending on it when he begs of thee for mercy his passion is greater his necessities more pungent his apprehension more brisk and sensitive his case dressed with the circumstances of pity and thou thy selfe canst better feel his condition then thou doest usually perceive the earnestnesse of thy own prayers to God and if thou regardest not thy brother whom thou seest whose case thou feelest whose circumstances can afflict thee whose passion is dressed to thy fancy and proportioned to thy capacity how shall God regard thy distant prayer or be melted with thy cold desire or softned with thy dry story or moved by thy unrepenting soul If I be sad I seek for comfort and goe to God and to the ministry of his
keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace we cannot have the blessing of the Spirit in the returns of a holy prayer and all those assemblies which meet together against God or Gods Ordinances may pray and call and cry loudly and frequently and still they provoke God to anger and many times he will not have so much mercy for them as to deny them but le ts them prosper in their sin till it swels to intolerable and impardonable * But when good men pray with one heart and in a holy assembly that is holy in their desires lawfull in their authority though the persons be of different complexion then the prayer flies up to God like the hymns of a Quire of Angels for God that made body and soul to be one man and God and man to be one Christ and three persons are one God and his praises are sung to him by Quires and the persons are joyned in orders and the orders into hierarchies and all that God may be served by unions and communities loves that his Church should imitate the Concords of heaven and the unions of God and that every good man should promote the interests of his prayers by joyning in the communion of Saints in the unions of obedience and charity with the powers that God and the Lawes have ordained The sum is this If the man that makes the prayer be an unholy person his prayer is not the instrument of a blessing but a curse but when the sinner begins to repent truly then his desires begin to be holy But if they be holy and just and good yet they are without profit and effect if the prayer be made in schisme or an evill communion or if it be made without attention or if the man soon gives over or if the prayer be not zealous or if the man be angry There are very many waies for a good man to become unblessed and unthriving in his prayers and he cannot be secure unlesse he be in the state of grace and his spirit be quiet and his minde be attentive and his society be lawfull and his desires carnest and passionate and his devotions persevering lasting till his needs be served or exchanged for another blessing so that what Laelius apud Cicer. de senectute said concerning old age neque in summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus potest ne sapienti quidem nec insipienti etiam in summâ coptâ non gravis that a wise man could not bear old age if it were extremely poor and yet if it were very rich it were intolerable to a fool we may say concerning our prayers they are sins and unholy if a wicked man makes them and yet if they be made by a good man they are ineffective unlesse they be improved by their proper dispositions A good man cannot prevail in his prayers if his desires be cold and his affections trifling and his industry soon weary and his society criminall and if all these appendages of prayer be observed yet they will do no good to an evill man for his prayer that begins in sin shall end in sorrow SERMON VI. Part III. 3. NExt I am to inquire and consider what degrees and circumstances of piety are requir'd to make us fit to be intercessors for others and to pray for them with probable effect I say with probable effect for when the event principally depends upon that which is not within our own election such as are the lives and actions of others all that we can consider in this affair is whether wee be persons fit to pray in the behalf of others that hinder not but are persons within the limit and possibilities of the presentmercy When the Emperour Maximinus was smitten with the wrath of God and a sore disease for his cruell persecuting the Christian cause and putting so many thousand innocent and holy persons to death and he understood the voice of God and the accents of thunder and discerned that cruelty was the cause he revoked their decrees made against the Christians recall'd them from their caves and deserts their sanctuaries and retirements and enjoyned them to pray for the life and health of their Prince They did so and they who could command mountaines to remove and were obeyed they who could doe miracles they who with the key of prayer could open Gods four closets of the wombe and the grave of providence and rain could not obtain for their bloudy Emperour one drop of mercy but he must die miserable for over God would not be intreated for him and though he loved the prayer because he loved the Advocates yet Maximinus was not worthy to receive the blessing And it was threatned to the rebellious people of Israel and by them to all people that should sin grievously against the Lord God would break their staffe of bread and even the righteous should not be prevailing intercessors Though Noah Job or Daniel were there they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousnesse saith the Lord God and when Abraham prevailed very far with God in the behalf of Sodome and the five Cities of the Plain it had its period If there had been ten righteous in Sodom it should have been spared for their sakes but four onely were found and they onely delivered their own souls too but neither their righteousnesse nor Abrahams prayer prevailed any further and we have this case also mentioned in the New Testament If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death he shall aske and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death At his prayer the sinner shall receive pardon God shall give him life for them to him that prays in their behalf that sin provided it be not a sin unto death For there is a sin unto death but I doe not say that he shall pray for it There his Commission expires and his power is confin'd For there are some sins of that state and greatnesse that God will not pardon S. Austin in his books de sermone Domini in monte affirms it concerning some one single sin of a perfect malice It was also the opinion of Origen and Athanasius and is followed by venerable Bede and whether the Apostle means a peculiar state of sin or some one single great crime which also supposes a precedent and a present state of criminall condition it is such a thing as will hinder our prayers from prevailing in their behalf we are therefore not encouraged to pray because they cannot receive the benefit of Christs intercession and therefore much lesse of our Advocation which onely can prevail by vertue and participation of his mediation For whomsoever Christ prays for them wee pray that is for all them that are within the covenant of repentance for all whose actions have not destroyed the very being of Religion who have not renounc'd their faith nor voluntarily quit their hopes nor openly opposed the Spirit of grace nor
grown by a long progresse to a resolute and finall impiety nor done injustices greater then sorrow or restitution or recompense or acknowledgment However though it may be uncertain and disputed concerning the number of sins unto death and therefore to pray or not to pray is not matter of duty yet it is all one as to the effect whether we know them or no for though we intend charity when we pray for the worst of men yet concerning the event God will take care and will certainly return thy prayer upon thy own head though thou didst desire it should water and refresh thy neighbors drynesse and St. John so expresses it as if he had left the matter of duty undetermin'd because the instances are uncertain yet the event is certainly none at all therefore because we are not encouraged to pray and because it is a sin unto death that is such a sin that hath no portion in the promises of life and the state of repentance But now suppose the man for whom wee pray to be capable of mercy within the covenant of repentance and not farre from the Kingdome of heaven yet 2ly No prayers of others can further prevail then to remove this person to the next stage in order to felicity When S. Monica prayed for her son she did not pray to God to save him but to cōvert him and when God intended to reward the prayers and almes of Cornelius he did not do it by giving him a Crown but by sending an Apostle to him to make him a Christian the meaning of which observation is that we may understand that as in the person prayed for there ought to be the great disposition of being in a saveable condition so there ought also to be all the intermediall aptnesses for just as he is disposed so can we prevail and the prayers of a good man first prevail in behalf of a sinner that he shall be invited that he shall be reproved and then that he shall attend to it then that he shall have his heart open'd and then that he shall repent And still a good mans prayers follow him thorough the severall stages of pardon of sanctification of restraining graces of a mighty providence of great assistance of perseverance and a holy death No prayers can prevaile upon an undisposed person For the Sun himself cannot enlighten a blind eye nor the soule move a body whose silver cord is loosed and whose joints are untyed by the rudenesse and dissolutions of a pertinacious sicknesse But then suppose an eye quick and healthfull or apt to be refreshed with light and a friendly prospect yet a glow-worm or a diamond the shels of pearl or a dead mans candle are not enough to make him discern the beauties of the world and to admire the glories of creation Therefore 2. As the persons must be capable for whom we pray so they that pray for others must be persons extraordinary in something 1. If persons be of an extraordinary piety they are apt to be intercessors for others This appeares in the case of Job When the wrath of God was kindled against Eliphaz and his two friends God commanded them to offer a sacrifice but my servant Job shall pray for you for him will I accept and it was so in the case of the prevaricating Israelites God was full of indignation against them and smote them Then stood up Phinehas and prayed and the plague ceased For this man was a good man and the spirit of an extraordinary zeal filled him and he did glory to God in the execution upon Zimri and his fair Madianite And it was a huge blessing that was intail'd upon the posterity of Abraham Isaac and Jacob because they had a great Religion a great power with God and their extraordinary did consist especially in the matter of prayers and devotion for that was eminent in them besides their obedience for so Maimonides tells concerning them that Abraham first instituted Morning prayer The affairs of Religion had not the same constitution then as now They worshipped God never but at their Memorials and in places and seldome times of separation The bowed their head when they came to a hallowed stone and upon the top of their staffe and worshipped when they came to a consecrated pillar but this was seldome and they knew not the secrets and the priviledges of a frequent prayer of intercourses with God by ejaculations and the advantages of importunity and the Doctors of the Jews that record the prayer of Noah who in all reason knew the secret best because he was to teach it to all the world yet have transmitted to us but a short prayer of some seaven lines long and this he onely said within the Ark in that great danger once on a day provoked by his fear and stirred up by a Religion then made actuall in those days of sorrow and penance But in the descending ages when God began to reckon a Church in Abraham's family there began to be a new institution of offices and Abraham appointed that God should be prayed to every morning Isaac being taught by Abraham made a law or at least commended the practise and adopted it into the Religion that God should be worshipped by decimation or tithing of our goods and he added an order of prayer to be said in the afternoon and Jacob to make up the office compleat added evening prayer and God was their God and they became fit persons to blesse that is of procuring blessings to their relatives as appears in the instances of their own families of the King of Egypt and the Cities of the Plain For a man of an ordinary piety is like Gideons fleece wet in its own locks but it could not water a poor mans Garden But so does a thirsty land drink all the dew of heaven that wets its face and a great shower makes no torrent nor digs so much as a little furrow that the drils of the water might passe into rivers or refresh their neighbours wearinesse but when the earth is full and hath no strange consumptive needs then at the next time when God blesses it with a gracious shower it divides into portions and sends it abroad in free and equall communications that all that stand round about may feel the shower So is a good mans prayer his own cup is full it is crowned with health and overflowes with blessings and all that drink of his cup and eat at his table are refreshed with his joys and divide with him in his holy portions And indeed he hath need of a great stock of piety who is first to provide for his own necessities and then to give portions to a numerous relation It is a great matter that every man needs for himself the daily expences of his own infirmities the unthriving state of his omission of duties and recessions from perfection and sometimes the great losses and shipwracks the plundrings and burning of his house by
concerning the finall issue of their souls For return to folly hath in it many evils beyond the common state of sin and death and such evils which are most contrary to the hopes of pardon 1. He that falls back into those sins he hath repented of does grieve the holy Spirit of God by which he was sealed to the day of redemption For so the Antithesis is plain and obvious If at the conversion of a sinner there is joy before the beatified Spirits the Angels of God and that is the consummation of our pardon and our consignation to felicity then we may imagine how great an evill it is to grieve the Spirit of God who is greater then the Angels The Children of Israel were carefully warned that they should not offend the Angel Behold I send an Angel before thee beware of him and obey his voyce provoke him not for he will not pardon your transgressions that is he will not spare to punish you if you grieve him Much greater is the evill if we grieve him who sits upon the throne of God who is the Prince of all the Spirits and besides grieving the Spirit of God is an affection that is as contrary to his felicity as lust is to his holinesse both which are essentiall to him Tristitia enim omnium spirituum nequissima est pessima servis Dei omnium spiritus exterminat cruciat Spiritum sanctum said Hennas Sadnesse is the greatest enemy to Gods servants if you grieve Gods Spirit you cast him out for he cannot dwell with sorrow and grieving unlesse it be such a sorrow which by the way of vertue passes on to joy and never ceasing felicity Now by grieving the holy Spirit is meant those things which displease him doing unkindnesse to him and then the grief which cannot in proper sense seise upon him will in certain effects return upon us Ita enim dica said Seneca sacer intra nos Spiritus sedet bonorum malorúmque nostrorum observator custos hic prout à nobis tractatus est ita nos ipse tractat There is a holy spirit dwels in every good man who is the observer and guardian of all our actions and as we treat him so will he treat us Now we ought to treat him sweetly and tenderly thankfully and with observation Deus praecepit Spiritum sanctum utpote pro naturae suae bono tenerum delicatum tranquillitate lenitate quiete pace tractare said Tertullian de Spectaculis The Spirit of God is a loving and a kind Spirit gentle and easy chast and pure righteous and peaceable and when he hath done so much for us as to wash us from our impurities and to cleanse us from our stains and streighten our obliquities and to instruct our ignorances and to snatch us from an intolerable death and to consign us to the day of redemption that is to the resurrection of our bodies from death corruption and the dishonors of the grave and to appease all the storms and uneasynesse and to make us free as the Sons of God and furnished with the riches of the Kingdome and all this with innumerable arts with difficulty and in despite of our lusts and reluctancies with parts and interrupted steps with waitings and expectations with watchfulnesse and stratagems with inspirations and collaterall assistances after all this grace and bounty and diligence that we should despite this grace and trample upon the blessings and scorn to receive life at so great an expence and love of God this is so great a basenesse and unworthynesse that by troubling the tenderest passions it turns into the most bitter hostilities by abusing Gods love it turns into jealousie and rage and indignation Goe and sin no more lest a worse thing happen to thee 2. Falling away after we have begun to live well is a great cause of fear because there is added to it the circumstance of inexcuseablenesse The man hath been taught the secrets of the Kingdome and therefore his understanding hath been instructed he hath tasted the pleasures of the Kingdome and therefore his will hath been sufficiently entertain'd He was entred into the state of life and renounced the ways of death his sin began to be pardoned and his lusts to be crucified he felt the pleasures of victory and the blessings of peace and therefore fell away not onely against his reason but also against his interest and to such a person the Questions of his soul have been so perfectly stated and his prejudices and inevitable abuses so cleerly taken off and he was so made to view the paths of life and death that if he chooses the way of sin again it must be not by weaknesse or the infelicity of his breeding or the weaknesse of his understanding but a direct preference or prelation a preferring sin before grace the spirit of lust before the purities of the soul the madnesse of drunkennesse before the fulnesse of the Spirit money before our friend and above our Religion and Heaven and God himself This man is not to be pityed upon pretence that he is betrayed or to be relieved because he is oppressed with potent enemies or to be pardoned because he could not help it for he once did help it he did overcome his temptation and choose God and delight in vertue and was an heir of heaven and was a conqueror over sin and delivered from death and he may do so still and Gods grace is upon him more plentifully and the lust does not tempt so strongly and if it did he hath more power to resist it and therefore if this man fals it is because he wilfully chooses death it is the portion that he loves and descends into with willing and unpityed steps Quà m vilis facta es nimis iterans vias tuas said God to Judah 3. He that returns from vertue to his old vices is forced to doe violence to his own reason to make his conscience quiet he does it so unreasonably so against all his fair inducements so against his reputation and the principles of his society so against his honour and his promises and his former discourses and his doctrines his censuring of men for the same crimes and the bitter invectives and reproofs which in the dayes of his health and reason he used against his erring Brethren that he is now constrained to answer his own arguments he is intangled in his own discourses he is shamed with his former conversation and it will be remembred against him how severely he reproved and how reasonably he chastised the lust which now he runs to in despite of himself and all his friends And because this is his condition he hath no way left him but either to be impudent which is hard for him at first it being too big a naturall change to passe suddenly from grace to immodest circumstances and hardnesses of face and heart or else therefore he must entertain new
principles and apply his minde to beleeve a lye and then begins to argue There is no necessity of being so severe in my life greater sinners then I have been saved Gods mercies are greater then all the sins of man Christ dyed for us and if I may not be allowed to sin this sin what ease have I by his death or this sin is necessary and I cannot avoid it or it is questionable whether this sin is of so deep a die as is pretended or flesh and bloud is alwaies with me and I cannot shake it off or there are some Sects of Christians that do allow it or if they do not yet they declare it easily pardonable upon no hard terms and very reconcileable with the hopes of heaven or the Scriptures are not rightly understood in their pretended condemnations or else other men do as bad as this and there is not one in ten thousand but hath his private retirements from vertue or else when I am old this sin will leave me and God is very pityfull to mankinde But while the man like an intangled bird flutters in the net and wildly discomposes that which should support him and that which holds him the net and his own wings that is the Lawes of God and his own conscience and perswasion he is resolved to do the thing and seeks excuses afterwards and when he hath found out a fig-leav'd apron that he could put on or a cover for his eyes that he may not see his own deformity then he fortifies his error with irresolution and inconsideration and he beleeves it because he will and he will because it serves his turn then he is entred upon his state of fear and if he does not fear concerning himself yet his condition is fearfull and the man haih 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reprobate minde that is a judgement corrupted by lust vice hath abused his reasoning and if God proceeds in the mans method and lets him alone in his course and gives him over to beleeve a lye so that he shall call good evill and evill good and come to be heartily perswaded that his excuses are reasonable and his pretences fair then the man is desperately undone through the ignorance that is in him as St. Paul describes his condition his heart is blinde he is past feeling his understanding is darkned then he may walk in the vanity of his minde and give himself over to lasciviousnesse and shall work all uncleannesse with greedinesse then he needs no greater misery this is the state of evill which his fear ought to have prevented but now it is past fear and is to be recovered with sorrow or else to be run through till death and hell are become his portion siunt novissima illus pejora pejoribus his latter end is worse then his beginning 4. Besides all this it might easily be added that he that fals from vertue to vice again addes the circumstance of ingratitude to his load of sins he sins against Gods mercy and puts out his own eyes he strives to unlearn what with labour he hath purchased and despises the trabell of his holy daies and throws away the reward of vertue for an interest which himself despised the first day in which he began to take sober counsels he throws himself back in the accounts of eternity and slides to the bottome of the hill from whence with sweat and labour of his hands and knees he had long been creeping he descends from the spirit to the flesh from honour to dishonour from wise principles to unthrifty practises like one of the vainer fellowes who grows a fool and a prodigall and a begger because he delights in inconsideration in the madnesse of drunkennesse and the quiet of a lazy and unprofitable life So that this man hath great cause to fear and if he does his fear is as the fear of enemies and not sons I do not say that it is a fear that is displeasing to God but it is such a one as may arrive at goodnesse and the fear of sons if it be rightly manag'd For we must know that no fear is displeasing to God no fear of it self whether it be fear of punishment or fear to offend the fear of servants or the fear of sons But the effects of fear doe distinguish the man and are to be entertain'd or rejected accordingly If a servile fear makes us to remove our sins and so passes us towards our pardon and the receiving such graces which may endear our duty and oblige our affection that fear is imperfect but not criminall it is the beginning of wisdome and the first introduction to it but if that fear sits still or rests in a servile minde or a hatred of God or speaking evill things concerning him or unwillingnesse to do our duty that which at first was indifferent or at the worst imperfect proves miserable and malicious so we do our duty it is no matter upon what principles we do it it is no matter where we begin so from that beginning we passe on to duties and perfection If we fear God as an enemy an enemy of our sins and of our persons for their sakes as yet this fear is but a servile fear it cannot be a filiall fear since we our selves are not sons but if this servile fear makes us to desire to be reconcil'd to God that he may no longer stay at enmity with us from this fear we shall soon passe to carefulnesse from carefulnesse to love from love to diligence from diligence to perfection and the enemies shall become servants and the servants shall become adopted sons and passe into the society and the participation of the inheritance of Jesus for this fear is also reverence and then our God in stead of being a consuming fire shall become to us the circle of a glorious crown and a globe of an eternall light SERMON IX Part III. IAm now to give account concerning the excesse of fear not directly and abstractedly as it is a passion but as it is subjected in Religion and degenerates into superstition For so among the Greeks fear is the ingredient and half of the constitution of that folly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Hesychius it is a fear of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 's more it is a timorousnesse the superstitious man is afraid of the gods said the Etymologist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fearing of God as if he were a tyrant and an unreasonable exacter of duty upon unequall terms and disproportionable impossible degrees and unreasonable and great and little instances 1. But this fear some of the old Philosophers thought unreasonable in all cases even towards God himself and it was a branch of the Epicurean Doctrine that God medled not any thing below and was to be loved and admired but not feared at all and therefore they taught men neither to fear death nor to fear punishment after death nor any displeasure of God His terroribus
with so little relish that it comes as news of a victory to a man upon the Rack or the birth of an heir to one condemned to dye he hears a story which was made to delight him but it came when he was dead to joy and all its capacities and therefore sicknesse though it be a good Monitor yet it is an ill stage to act some vertues in and a good man cannot then doe much and therefore he that is in the state of flesh and blood can doe nothing at all 4. But in these considerations we find our nature in disadvantages and a strong man may be overcome when a stronger comes to disarme him and pleasure and pain are the violences of choice and chance but it is no better in any thing else for nature is weak in all its strengths and in its fights at home and abroad in its actions and passions we love some things violently and hate others unreasonably any thing can fright us when we should be confident and nothing can scare us when we ought to feare the breaking of a glasse puts us into a supreme anger and we are dull and indifferent as a Stoick when we see God dishonour'd we passionately desire our preservation and yet we violently destroy our selves and will not be hindred we cannot deny a friend when he tempts us to sin and death and yet we daily deny God when he passionately invites us to life and health we are greedy after money and yet spend it vainly upon our lusts we hate to see any man flatter'd but our selves and we can endure folly if it be on our side and a sin for our interest we desire health and yet we exchange it for wine and madnesse we sink when a persecution comes and yet cease not daily to persecute our selves doing mischiefs worse then the sword of Tyrants and great as the malice of a Devill 5. But to summe up all the evills that can be spoken of the infirmities of the flesh the proper nature and habitudes of men are so foolish and impotent so averse and peevish to all good that a mans will is of it self onely free to choose evils Neither is it a contradiction to say liberty and yet suppose it determin'd to one object onely because that one object is the thing we choose For although God hath set life and death before us fire and water good and evill and hath primarily put man into the hands of his owne counsell that he might have chosen good as well as evill yet because he did not but fell into an evill condition and corrupted manners and grew in love with it and infected all his children with vicious examples and all nations of the world have contracted some universall stains and the thoughts of mans hearts are onely evill and that continually and there is not one that doth good no not one that sinneth not since I say all the world have sinned we cannot suppose a liberty of indifferency to good and bad it is impossible in such a liberty that there should be no variety that all should choose the same thing but a liberty of complacency or delight we may suppose that is so that though naturally he might choose good yet morally he is so determin'd with his love to evill that good seldome comes into dispute and a man runs to evill as he runs to meat or sleep for why else should it be that every one can teach a childe to be proud or to swear to lie or to doe little spites to his play-fellow and can traine him up to infant follies But the severity of Tutors and the care of Parents discipline and watchfulnesse arts and diligence all is too little to make him love but to say his prayers or to doe that which becomes persons design'd for honest purposes and his malice shall out-run his yeares he shall be a man in villany before he is by law capable of choice or inheritance and this indisposition lasts upon us for ever even as long as we live just in the same degrees as flesh and blood does rule us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Art of Physicians can cure the evills of the body but this strange propensity to evill nothing can cure but death the grace of God eases the malignity here but it cannot be cured but by glory that is this freedome of delight or perfect unabated election of evill which is consequent to the evill manners of the world although it be lessened by the intermediall state of grace yet it is not cured untill it be changed into its quite contrary but as it is in heaven all that is happy and glorious and free yet can choose nothing but the love of God and excellent things because God fills all the capacities of Saints and there is nothing without him that hath any degrees of amability so in the state of nature of flesh and blood there is so much ignorance of spirituall excellencies and so much proportion to sensuall objects which in most instances and in many degrees are prohibited that as men naturally know no good but to please a wilde indetermin'd infinite appetite so they will nothing else but what is good in their limit and proportion and it is with us as it was with the shee-goat that suckled the wolves whelp he grew up by his nurses milke and at last having forgot his foster mothers kindnesse eat that udder which gave him drink and nourishment Improbit as nullo flectitur obsequio for no kindnesse will cure an ill nature and a base disposition so are we in the first constitution of our nature so perfectly given to naturall vices that by degrees we degenerate into unnaturall and no education or power of art can make us choose wisely or honestly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Phalaris There is no good nature but onely vertue till we are new created we are wolves and serpents free and delighted in the choice of evill but stones and iron to all excellent things and purposes 2. Next I am to consider the weaknesse of the flesh even when the state is changed in the beginning of the state of grace For many persons as soon as the grace of God rises in their hearts are all on fire and inflamed it is with them as Homer said of the Syrian starre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It shines finely and brings feavers splendor and zeal are the effects of the first grace and sometimes the first turnes into pride and the second unto uncharitablenesse and either by too dull and slow motions or by too violent and unequall the flesh will make pretences and too often prevail upon the spirit even after the grace of God hath set up its banners in our hearts 1. In some dispositions that are forward and apt busie and unquiet when the grace of God hath taken possessions and begins to give laws it seems so pleasant and gay to their undiscerning spirits to be delivered from the
women and young persons by reputation in the more aged and by honour in the more noble and by conscience in all have fortified the spirit of Man that men dare not prevaricate their duty though they be tempted strongly and invited perpetually and this is a partition wall that separates the spirit from the flesh and keeps it in its proper strengths and retirements But here the spirit of man for all that it is assisted strongly breaks from the inclosure and runnes into societies of flesh and sometimes despises reputation and sometimes supplies it with little arts of flattery and self-love and is modest as long as it can be secret and when it is discovered it growes impudent and a man shelters himselfe in crouds and heaps of sinners and beleeves that it is no worse with him then with other mighty criminals and publick persons who bring sin into credit amongst fooles and vicious persons or else men take false measures of fame or publick honesty and the world being broken into so many parts of disunion and agreeing in nothing but in confederate vices and grown so remisse in governments and severe accounts every thing is left so loose that honour and publick fame modesty and shame are now so slender guards to the spirit that the flesh breaks in and makes most men more bold against God then against men and against the laws of Religion then of the Common-wealth 7. When the spirit is made willing by the grace of God the flesh interposes in deceptions and false principles If you tempt some man to a notorious sin as to rebellion to deceive his trust or to be drunk he will answer he had rather die then doe it But put the sin civilly to him and let it be disguised with little excuses such things which indeed are trifles but yet they are colours fair enough to make a weak pretence and the spirit yeelds instantly Most men choose the sin if it be once disputable whether it be a sin or no If they can but make an excuse or a colour so that it shall not rudely dash against the conscience with an open professed name of Sin they suffer the temptation to doe its worst If you tempt a man you must tell him 't is no sin or it is excusable this is not rebellion but necessity and selfe defence it is not against my allegiance but is a performing of my trust I doe it for my friend not against my Superiour I doe it for a good end and for his advantage this is not drunkennesse but free mirth and fair society it is refreshment and entertainment of some supernumerary hours but it is not a throwing away my time or neglecting a day of salvation and if there be any thing more to say for it though it be no more then Adams fig-leaves or the excuses of children and truants it shall be enough to make the flesh prevail and the spirit not to be troubled for so great is our folly that the flesh always carries the cause if the spirit can be cousen'd 8. The flesh is so mingled with the spirit that we are forced to make distinctions in our appetite to reconcile our affections to God and Religion lest it be impossible to doe our duty we weep for our sins but we weep more for the death of our dearest friends or other temporall sadnesses we say we had rather die then lose our faith and yet we doe not live according to it we lose our estates and are impatient we lose our vertue and bear it well enough and what vertue is so great as more to be troubled for having sin'd then for being asham'd and begger'd and condemn'd to die Here we are forced to a distinction there is a valuation of price and a valuation of sense or the spirit hath one rate of things and the flesh hath another and what we beleeve the greatest evill does not alwayes cause to us the greatest trouble which shews plainly that we are imperfect carnall persons and the flesh will in some measure prevaile over the spirit because we will suffer it in too many instances and cannot help it in all 9. The spirit is abated and interrupted by the flesh because the flesh pretends it is not able to doe those ministeries which are appointed in order to Religion we are not able to fast or if we watch it breeds gouts and catarrhes or charity is a grace too expensive our necessities are too big to do it or we cannot suffer pain and sorrow breeds death and therefore our repentances must be more gentle and we must support our selves in all our calamities for we cannot beare our crosses without a freer refreshment and this freedome passes on to licence and many melancholy persons drowne their sorrows in sin and forgetfulnesse as if sin were more tolerable then sorrow and the anger of God an easier load then a temporall care here the flesh betrayes its weaknesse and its follies For the flesh complains too soon and the spirit of some men like Adam being too fond of his Eve attends to all its murmurs and temptations and yet the flesh is able to bear farre more then is required of it in usuall duties Custome of suffering will make us endure much and feare will make us suffer more and necessity makes us suffer any thing and lust and desire makes us to endure more then God is willing we should and yet we are nice and tender and indulgent to our weaknesses till our weaknesses grow too strong for us And what shall we doe to secure our duty and to be delivered of our selves that the body of death which we bear about us may not destroy the life of the spirit I have all this while complain'd and you see not without cause I shall afterwards tell you the remedies for all this evill In the mean time let us have but mean opinions of our selves let us watch every thing of our selves as of suspected persons and magnifie the grace of God and be humbled for our stock and spring of follies and let us look up to him who is the fountaine of grace and spirituall strengths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And pray that God would give us what we ask and what we ask not for we want more helps then we understand and we are neerer to evill then we perceive and we bear sin and death about us and are in love with it and nothing comes from us but false principles and silly propositions and weak discourses and startings from our holy purposes and care of our bodies and of our palates and the lust of the lower belly these are the imployment of our lives but if wee design to live happily and in a better place it must be otherwise with us we must become new creatures and have another definition and have new strengths which we can onely derive from God whose grace is sufficient for us and strong enough to prevail over all our
can never go too far But then be carefull that this zeal of thy neighbours amendment be only expressed in waies of charity not of cruelty or importune justice He that strikes the Prince for justice as Solomons expression is is a companion of murderers and he that out of zeal of Religion shall go to convert Nations to his opinion by destroying Christians whose faith is intire and summ'd up by the Apostles this man breaks the ground with a sword and sowes tares and waters the ground with bloud and ministers to envie and cruelty to errors and mistake and there comes up nothing but poppies to please the eye and fancy disputes and hypocrisie new summaries of Religion estimated by measures of anger and accursed principles and so much of the religion as is necessary to salvation is laid aside and that brought forth that serves an interest not holinesse that fils the Schooles of a proud man but not that which will fill Heaven Any zeal is proper for Religion but the zeal of the sword and the zeal of anger this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bitternesse of zeal and it is a certain temptation to every man against his duty for if the sword turns preacher and dictates propositions by empire in stead of arguments and ingraves them in mens hearts with a ponyard that it shall be death to beleeve what I innocently and ignorantly am perswaded of it must needs be unsafe to try the spirits to try all things to make inquiry and yet without this liberty no man can justifie himself before God or man nor confidently say that his Religion is best since he cannot without a finall danger make himself able to give a right sentence and to follow that which he findes to be the best this may ruine souls by making Hypocrites or carelesse and complyant against conscience or without it but it does not save souls though peradventure it should force them to a good opinion This is inordination of zeal for Christ by reproving St. Peter drawing his sword even in the cause of Christ for his sacred and yet injured person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Theophylact teaches us not to use the sword though in the cause of God or for God himself because he will secure his own interest only let him be served as himself is pleased to command and it is like Moses passion it throwes the tables of the Law out of our hands and breaks them in pieces out of indignation to see them broken This is the zeal that is now in fashion and hath almost spoyl'd Religion men like the Zelots of the Jewes cry up their Sect and in it their interest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they affect Disciples and fight against the opponents and we shall finde in Scripture that when the Apostles began to preach the meeknesse of the Christian institution salvations and promises charity and humility there was a zeal set up against them the Apostles were zealous for the Gospell the Jewes were zealous for the Law and see what different effects these two zeals did produce the zeal of the Law came to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they stirred up the City they made tumults they persecuted this way unto the death they got letters from the high Priest they kept Damascus with a Garrison they sent parties of souldiers to silence and to imprison the Preachers and thought they did God service when they put the Apostles to death and they swore neither to eat nor to drink till they had killed Paul It was an old trick of the Jewish zeal Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos They would not shew the way to a Samaritan nor give a cup of cold water but to a circumcised brother That was their zeal But the zeal of the Apostles was this they preached publickly and privately they prayed for all men they wept to God for the hardnesse of mens hearts they became all things to all men that they might gain some they travel'd through deeps and deserts they indured the heat of the Syrian Starre and the violence of Euroclydon winds and tempests seas and prisons mockings and scourgings fastings and poverty labour and watching they endured every man and wronged no man they would do any good thing and suffer any evill if they had but hopes to prevail upon a soul they perswaded men meekly they intreated them humbly they convinced them powerfully the watched for their good but medled not with their interest and this is the Christian zeal the zeal of mecknesse the zeal of charity the zeal of patience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in these it is good to be zealous for you can never goe farre enough 2. The next measure of zeal is prudence For as charity is the matter of zeal so is discretion the manner It must alwaies be for good to our neighbour and there needs no rules for the conducting of that provided the end be consonant to the design that is that charity be intended and charity done But there is a zeal also of Religion or worshipping and this hath more need of measures and proper cautions For Religion can turn into a snare it may be abused into superstition it may become wearinesse in the spirit and tempt to tediousnesse to hatred and despair and many persons through their indiscreet conduct and furious marches and great loads taken upon tender shoulders and unexperienced have come to be perfect haters of their joy and despisers of all their hopes being like dark Lanthorns in which a candle burnes bright but the body is incompassed with a crust and a dark cloud of iron and these men keep the fires and light of holy propositions within them but the darknesse of hell the hardnesse of a vexed heart hath shaded all the light and makes it neither apt to warm nor to enlighten others but it turnes to fire within a feaver and a distemper dwels there and Religion is become their torment 1. Therefore our zeal must never carry us beyond that which is profitable There are many institutions customes and usages introduced into Religion upon very fair motives and apted to great necessities but to imitate those things when they are disrobed of their proper ends is an importune zeal and signifies nothing but a forward minde and an easie heart and an imprudent head unlesse these actions can be invested with other ends and usefull purposes The primitive Church were strangely inspired with a zeal of virginity in order to the necessities of preaching and travelling and easing the troubles and temptations of persecution but when the necessity went on and drove the holy men into deserts that made Colleges of Religious and their manner of life was such so united so poor so dressed that they must live more non saeculari after the manner of men divore'd from the
you will have the mother you must have the daughters the tree and the fruits go together and there is none of you all that ever enter'd into this house of pleasure but he left the skirts of his garment in the hands of shame and had his name roll'd in the chambers of death What fruit had ye then That 's the Question In answer to which question we are to consider 1. What is the summe totall of the pleasure of sin 2. What fruits and relishes it leaves behinde by its naturall efficiency 3. What are its consequents by its demerit and the infliction of the superadded wrath of God which it hath deserved Of the first St. Paul gives no account but by way of upbraiding asks what they had that is nothing that they dare own nothing that remains and where is it shew it what 's become of it Of the second he gives the summe totall all its naturall effects are shame and its appendages The third or the superinduc'd evils by the just wrath of God he cals death the worst name in it self and the greatest of evils that can happen 1. Let us consider what pleasures there are in sin most of them are very punishments I will not reckon nor consider concerning envie which one in Stobaeus cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the basest spirit and yet very just because it punishes the delinquent in the very act of sin doing as Aelian saies of the Polypus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he wants his prey he devours his own armes and the leannesse and the secret pangs and the perpetuall restlesnesse of an envious man feed upon his own heart and drink down his spirits unlesse he can ruine or observe the fall of the fairest fortunes of his neighbour The fruit of this tree are mingled and sowre and not to be indured in the very eating Neither will I reck on the horrid afrightments and amazements of murder nor the uneasinesse of impatience which doubles every evill that it feels and makes it a sin and makes it intolerable nor the secret grievings and continuall troubles of peevishnesse which makes a man uncapable of receiving good or delighting in beauties and fair intreaties in the mercies of God and charities of men It were easie to make a catalogue of sins every one of which is a disease a trouble in it's very constitution and its nature such are loathing of spirituall things bitternesse of spirit rage greedinesse confusion of minde and irresolution cruelty and despite slothfulnesse and distrust unquietnesse and anger effeminacy and nicenesse prating and sloth ignorance and inconstancy incogitancy and cursing malignity and fear forgetfulnesse and rashnesse pusillanimity and despair rancour and superstition if a man were to curse his enemy he could not wish him a greater evill then these and yet these are severall kinds of sin which men choose and give all their hopes of heaven in exchange for one of these diseases Is it not a fearfull consideration that a man should rather choose eternally to perish then to say his prayers heartily and affectionately But so it is with very many men they are driven to their devotions by custome and shame and reputation and civill compliances they sigh and look sowre when they are called to it and abide there as a man under the Chirurgeons hands smarting aud fretting all the while or else he passes the time with incogitancy and hates the imployment and suffers the torments of prayers which he loves not and all this although for so doing it is certain he may perish what fruit what deliciousnesse can he fancy in being weary of his prayers There is no pretence or colour for these things Can any man imagine a greater evill to the body and soul of a man then madnesse and furious eyes and a distracted look palenesse with passion and trembling hands and knees and furiousnesse and folly in the heart and head and yet this is the pleasure of anger and for this pleasure men choose damnation But it is a great truth that there are but very few sins that pretend to pleasure although a man be weak and soon deceived and the Devill is crafty and sin is false and impudent and pretences are too many yet most kinds of sins are reall and prime troubles to the very body without all manner of deliciousnesse even to the sensuall naturall and carnall part and a man must put on something of a Devill before he can choose such sins and he must love mischief because it is a sin for in most instances there is no other reason in the world Nothing pretends to pleasure but the lusts of the lower belly ambition and revenge and although the catalogue of sins is numerous as the production of fishes yet these three only can be apt to consen us with a fair outside and yet upon the survey of what fruits they bring and what taste they have in the manducation besides the filthy relish they leave behind we shall see how miserably they are abused and fool'd that expend any thing upon such purchases 2. For a man cannot take pleasure in lusts of the flesh in gluttony or drunkennesse unlesse he be helped forward with inconsideration and folly For we see it evidently that grave and wise persons men of experience and consideration are extremely lesse affected with lust and loves the hare-brain'd boy the young gentleman that thinks nothing in the world greater then to be free from a Tutor he indeed courts his folly and enters into the possession of lust without abatement consideration dwels not there but when a sober man meets with a temptation and is helped by his naturall temper or invited by his course of life if he can consider he hath so many objections and fears so many difficulties and impediments such sharp reasonings and sharper jealousies concerning its event that if he does at all enter into folly it pleases him so little that he is forced to do it in despite of himself and the pleasure is so allayed that he knowes not whether it be wine or vinegar his very apprehension and instruments of relish are fill'd with fear and contradicting principles and the deliciousnesse does but affricare cutem it went but to the skin but the allay went further it kept a guard within and suffered the pleasure to passe no further A man must resolve to be a fool a rash inconsiderate person or he will feel but little satisfaction in the enjoyment of his sin indeed he that stops his nose may drink down such corrupted waters and he understood it well who chose rather to be a fool Dum mala delectent mea me vel denique fallant Quà m sapere ringi so that his sins might delight him or deceive him then to be wise and without pleasure in the enjoyment So that in effect a man must lose his discerning faculties before he discerns the little phantastick joyes of his concupiscence which demonstrates how vain how empty of pleasure
study and indefatigable diligence of many moneths he enters upon possession and finds them not of so long abode as one of his cares which in so vast numbers made so great a portion of his life afflicted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The enjoying of sin for a season St. Paul cals it he names no pleasures our English translation uses the word of enjoying pleasures but if there were any they were but for that season that instant that very transition of the act which dies in its very birth and of which we can only say as the minstrell sung of Pacuvius when he was carryed dead from his supper to his bed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A man can scarce have time enough to say it is alive but that it was nullo non se die extuiâ—t it died every day it lived never unto life but lived and dyed unto death being its mother and its daughter The man dyed before the sin did live and when it had lived it consign'd him to dye eternally Adde 〈◊〉 this that it so passes away that nothing at all remains behind it that is pleasant it is like the path of an arrow in the air the next morning no man can tell what is become of the pleasures of the last nights sin they are no where but in Gods books deposited in the conscience and sealed up against the day of dreadfull accounts but as to the man they are as if they never had been and then let it be considered what a horrible aggravation it will be to the miseries of damnation that a man shall for ever perish for that which if he looks round about he cannot see nor tell where it is He that dies dies for that which is not and in the very little present he findes it an unrewarding interest to walk seven dayes together over sharp stones only to see a place from whence he must come back in an hour If it goes off presently it is not worth the labour if it stayes long it growes tedious so that it cannot be pleasant if it stayes and if it does stay it is not to be valued Haec mala mentis gaudia It abides too little a while to be felt or called pleasure and if it should abide longer it would be troublesome as pain and loath'd like the tedious speech of an Orator pleading against the life of the innocent 9. Sin hath in its best advantages but a trifling inconsiderable pleasure because not only God and reason conscience and honour interest and lawes do sowre it in the sense and gust of pleasure but even the devill himself either being over-ruled by God or by a strange unsignificant malice makes it troublesome and intricate intangled and involv'd and one sin contradicts another and vexes the man with so great variety of evils that if in the course of Gods service he should meet with half the difficulty he would certainly give over the whole imployment Those that St. James speaks of who prayed that they might spend it upon their lusts were covetous and prodigall and therefore must endure the torments of one to have the pleasure of another and which is greater the pleasure of spending or the displeasure that it is spent and does not still remain after its consumption is easie to tell certain it is that this lasts much longer Does not the Devill often tempt men to despair and by that torment put bars and locks upon them that they may never return to God Which what else is it but a plain indication that it is intended the man should feel the images and dreams of pleasure no longer but till he be without remedy Pleasure is but like centries or woodden frames set under arches till they be strong by their own weight and consolidation to stand alone and when by any means the Devill hath a man sure he takes no longer care to cousen you with pleasures but is pleased that men should begin an early hell and be tormented before the time Does not envie punish or destroy flattery and self-love sometimes torment the drunkard and intemperance abate the powers of lust and make the man impotent and lazinesse become a hinderance to ambition and the desires of man wax impatient upon contradicting interests and by crossing each others design on all hands lessen the pleasure and leave the man tormented 10. Sinne is of so little relish and gust so trifling a pleasure that it is alwayes greater in expectation then it is in the possession But if men did before hand see what the utmost is which sinne ministers to please the beastly part of man it were impossible it should be pursued with so much earnestnesse and disadvantages It is necessary it should promise more then it can give Men could not otherwise be cousened And if it be inquired why men should sin again after they had experience of the little and great deception It is to be confessed it is a wonder they should but then we may remember that men sinne again though their sinne did afflict them they will be drunk again though they were sick they will again commit folly though they be surprised in their shame though they have needed an hospitall and therefore there is something else that moves them and not the pleasure for they doe it without and against its interest but either they still proceed hoping to supply by numbers what they finde not in proper measures or God permits them to proceed as an instrument of punishment or their understandings and reasonings grow cheaper or they grow in love with it and take it upon any terms or contract new appetites and are pleased with the baser and the lower reward of sinne but whatsoever can be the cause of it it is certain by the experience of all the world that the fancy is higher the desires more sharp and the reflexion more brisk at the door and entrance of the entertainment then in all the little and shorter periods of its possession for then it is but limited by the naturall measures and abated by distemper and loathed by enjoying and disturbed by partners and dishonoured by shame and evill accidents so that as men coming to the river Lucius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and seeing waters pure as the tears of the spring or the pearls of the morning expects that in such a fair promising bosome the inmates should be fair and pleasant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but findes the fishes black filthy and unwholesome so it is in sinne its face is fair and beauteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Softer then sleep or the dreams of wine tenderer then the curds of milk Euganeâ quantumvis mollior agnâ but when you come to handle it it is filthy rough as the Porcupine black as the shadowes of the night and having promised a fish it gives a scorpion and a stone in stead of bread II. The fruits of its present possession the pleasures of its taste are lesse
conscience it self dares not expect it SERMON XX. Part II. WE have already opened this dunghill cover'd with snow which was indeed on the outside white as the spots of leprosie but it was no better and if the very colours and instruments of deception if the fucus and ceruse be so spotted and sullyed what can we suppose to be under the wrinkled skin what in the corrupted liver and in the sinks of the body of sin That we are next to consider But if we open the body and see what a confusion of all its parts what a rebellion and tumult of the humors what a disorder of the members what a monstrosity or deformity is all over we shall be infinitely convinced that no man can choose a sin but upon the same ground on which he may choose a feaver or long for madnesse or the gout Sin in its naturall efficiency hath in it so many evils as must needs afright a man and scare the confidence of every one that can consider * When our blessed Saviour shall conduct his Church to the mountains of glory he shall present it to God without spot or wrinkle that is pure and vigorous intirely freed from the power and the infection of sin Upon occasion of which expression it hath been spoken that sin leaves in the soul a stain or spot permanent upon the spirit discomposing the order of its beauty and making it appear to God in sordibus in such filthinesse that he who is of pure eyes cannot behold But roncerning the nature or proper effects of this spot or stain they have not been agreed Some call it an obligation or a guilt of punishment so Scotus Some fancy it to be an elongation from God by a dissimilitude of conditions so Peter Lombard Alexander of Ales sayes it is a privation of the proper beauty and splendor of the soul with which God adorn'd it in the creation and superaddition of grace and upon this expression they most agree but seem not to understand what they mean by it and it signifies no more but as you describing sicknesse call it a want of health and folly a want of wisdome which is indeed to say what a thing is not but not to tell what it is But that I may not be hindred by this consideration we may observe that the spots and stains of sin are metaphoricall significations of the disorder and evill consequents of sin which it leaves partly upon the soul partly upon the state and condition of a man as meeknesse is called an ornament and faith a shield and salvation a helmet and sin it self a wrinkle corruption rottennesse a burden a wound death filthinesse so it is a 3 defiling of a man that is as the body contracts nastinesse and dishonour by impure contacts and adherencies so does the soul receive such a change as must be taken away before it can enter into the eternall regions and house of purity But it is not a distinct thing not an inherent quality which can be separated from other evill effects of sin which I shall now reckon by their more proper names and St. Paul comprises under the scornfull appellative of shame 1. The first naturall fruit of sin is ignorance Man was first tempted by the promise of knowledge he fell into darknesse by beleeving the Devill holding forth to him a new light It was not likely good should come of so foul a beginning that the woman should beleeve the Devill putting on no brighter shape then a snakes skin she neither being afraid of sin nor afrighted to hear a beast speak and he pretending so weakly in the temptation that he promised only that they should know evill for they knew good before and all that was offered to them was the experience of evill and it was no wonder that the Devill promised no more for sin never could perform any thing but an experience of evill no other knowledge can come upon that account but the wonder was why the woman should sin for no other reward but for that which she ought to have fear'd infinitely for nothing could have continued her happinesse but not to have known evill Now this knowledge was the introduction of ignorance For when the understanding suffered it self to be so baffled as to study evill the will was as foolish to fall in love with it and they conspir'd to undoe each other For when the will began to love it then the understanding was set on work to commend to advance to conduct and to approve to beleeve it and to be factious in behalf of the new purchase I do not beleeve the understanding part of man received any naturall decrement or diminution For if to the Devils their naturals remain intire it is not likely that the lesser sin of man should suffer a more violent and effective mischief Neither can it be understood how the reasonable soul being immortall both in it self and its essentiall faculties can lose or be lessened in them any more then it can die But it received impediment by new propositions It lost and willingly forgot what God had taught and went away from the fountain of truth and gave trust to the father of lies and it must without remedy grow foolish and so a man came to know evill just as a man is said to taste of death for in proper speaking as death is not to be felt because it takes away all sense so nether can evill be known because whatsoever is truly cognoscible is good and true and therefore all the knowledge a man gets by sin is to feel evill he knowes it not by discourse but by sense not by proposition but by smart The Devill doing to man as Esculapius did to Neoclides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he gave him a formidable collyrium to torment him more the effect of which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Devill himself grew more quick-sighted to abuse us but we became more blinde by that opening of our eyes I shall not need to discourse of the Philosophy of this mischief and by the connexion of what causes ignorance doth follow sin but it is certain whether a man would fain be pleased with sin or be quiet or fearlesse when he hath sinned or continue in it or perswade others to it he must do it by false propositions by lyings and such weak discourses as none can beleeve but such as are born fools or such as have made themselves so or are made so by others Who in the world is a verier fool a more ignorant wretched person then he that is an Atheist A man may better beleeve there is no such man as himself and that he is not in being then that there is no God for himself can cease to be and once was not and shall be changed from what he is and in very many periods of his life knowes not that he is and so it is every night with him when he sleeps but none of these can
the change of years but it discovers pride or lust it was not shame to be old or wearied and worn out with age but it is a shame to dissemble nature by a wanton vizor So sin retires from blushing into shame if it be discover'd it is not to be endured and if we go to hide it we make it worse But then if we remember how ambitious we are for fame and reputation for honour and a fair opinion for a good name all our dayes and when our dayes are done and that no ingenuous man can enjoy any thing he hath if he lives in disgrace and that nothing so breaks a mans spirit as dishonour and the meanest person alive does not think himself fit to be despised we are to consider into what an evill condition sin puts us for which we are not only disgraced and disparaged here marked with disgracefull punishments despised by good men our follies derided our company avoided and hooted at by boyes talk'd of in fairs and markets pointed at and described by appellatives of scorn and everybody can chide us and we dye unpitied and lye in our graves eaten up by wormes and a foul dishonour but after all this at the day of Judgement we shall be called from our charnell houses where our disgrace could not sleep and shall in the face of God in the presence of Angels and Devils before all good men and all the evill see and feel the shame of all our sins written upon our foreheads Here in this state of misery and folly we make nothing of it and though we dread to be discovered to men yet to God we confesse our sins without a trouble or a blush but tell an even story because we finde some formes of confession prescrib'd in our prayer books and that it may appear how indifferent and unconcerned we seem to be we read and say all and confesse the sins we never did with as much sorrow and regret as those that we have acted a thousand times But in that strange day of recompences we shall finde the Devill to upbraid the criminall Christ to disown them the Angels to drive them from the seat of mercy and shame to be their smart the consigning them to damnation they shall then finde that they cannot dwell where vertue is rewarded and where honour and glory hath a throne there is no vail but what is rent no excuse to any but to them that are declared as innocent no circumstances concerning the wicked to be considered but them that aggravate then the disgrace is not confin'd to the talk of a village or a province but is scattered to all the world not only in one age shall the shame abide but the men of all generations shall see and wonder at the vastnesse of that evill that is spread upon the souls of sinners for ever and ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No night shall then hide it for in those regions of darknesse where the dishonoured man shall dwell for ever there is nothing visible but the shame there is light enough for that but darknesse for all things else and then he shall reap the full harvest of his shame all that for which wise men scorned him and all that for which God hated him all that in which he was a fool and all that in which he was malicious that which was publick and that which was private that which fools applauded and that which himself durst not own the secrets of his lust and the criminall contrivances of his thoughts the base and odious circumstances and the frequency of the action and the partner of his sin all that which troubles his conscience and all that he willingly forgets shall be proclaim'd by the trumpet of God by the voice of an Archangell in the great congregation of spirits and just men There is one great circumstance more of the shame of sin which extremely enlarges the evill of a sinfull state but that is not consequent to sin by a naturall emanation but is superinduc'd by the just wrath of God and therefore is to be consider'd in the third part which is next to be handled 3. When the Boeotians asked the Oracle by what they should become happy the answer was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wicked and irreligious persons are prosperous and they taking the Devill at his word threw the inspired Pythian the ministring witeh into the sea hoping so to become mighty in peace and warre The effect of which was this The Devill was found a lyar and they fools at first and at last felt the reward of irreligion For there are to some crimes such events which are not to be expected from the connexion of naturall causes but from secret influences and undiscernible conveyances * that a man should be made sick for receiving the holy Sacrament unworthily and blinde for resisting the words of an Apostle a preacher of the Lawes of Jesus and dye suddenly for breaking of his vow and committing sacriledge and be under the power and scourge of an exterminating Angell for climbing his Fathers bed these are things beyond the worlds Philosophy But as in Nature so in Divinity too there are Sympathies and Antipathies effects which we feel by experience and are forewarned of by revelation which no naturall reason can judge nor any providence can prevent but by living innocently and complying with the Commandements of God The rod of God which cometh not into the lot of the righteous strikes the sinning man with sore strokes of veng eance 1. The first that I shall note is that which I called the aggravation of the shame of sin and that is an impossibility of being concealed in most cases of heinous crimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let no man suppose that he shall for ever hide his sin a single action may be conveyed away under the covert of an excuse or a privacy escaping as Ulysses did the search of Polyphemus and it shall in time be known that it did escape and shall be discover'd that it was private that is that it is so no longer But no wicked man that dwelt and delighted in sin did ever go off from his scene of unworthinesse without a filthy character The black veile is thrown over him before his death and by some contingency or other he enters into his cloud because few sins determine finally in the thoughts but if they dwell there they will also enter into action and then the thing discovers it self or else the injured person will proclaim it or the jealous man will talk of it before it 's done or curious people will inquire and discover or the spirit of detraction shall be let loose upon him and in spite shall declare more then he knowes not more then is true The Ancients especially the Scholars of Epicurus beleev'd that no man could be secured or quiet in his spirit from being discovered Scelus aliqua tutum nulla securum tulit They are not secure even when
they are safe but are afflicted with perpetuall jealousies and every whisper is concerning them and all new noises are arrests to their spirits and the day is too light and the night is too horrid and both are the most opportune for their discovery and besides the undiscernible connexion of the contingencies of providence many secret crimes have been published by dreams and talkings in their sleep It is the observation of Lucretius Multi de magnis per somnum rebus loquuntur Indictóque sui facti persaepe fuêre And what their understanding kept a guard upon their fancy let loose fear was the bars and locks but sleep became the key to open even then when all the senses were shut and God rul'd alone without the choice and discourse of man And though no man regards the wilder talkings of a distracted man yet it hath sometimes hapned that a delirium and a feaver fear of death and the intolerable apprehensions of damnation have open'd the cabinet of sin and brought to light all that was acted in the curtains of night Quippe ubi se multis per somnia saepe loquentes Aut morbo delirantes protrâxe feruntur Et celata diu in medium peccata dedisse But there are so many wayes of discovery and amongst so many some one does so certainly happen that they are well summ'd up by Sophocles by saying that time hears all and tels all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A cloud may be its roof and cover till it passes over but when it is driven by a fierce winde or runs fondly after the Sun it layes open a deformity which like an ulcer had a skin over it and a pain within and drew to it a heap of sorrowes big enough to run over all its inclosures Many persons have betrayed themselves by their own fears and knowing themselves never to be secure enough have gone to purge themselves of what no body suspected them offer'd an Apology when they had no accuser but one within which like a thorn in the flesh or like a word in a fools heart was uneasie till it came out Non amo se nimium purgitantes when men are over-busie in justifying themselves it is a sign themselves think they need it Plutarch tels of a young gentleman that destroyed a swallow's nest pretending to them that reproved him for doing the thing which in their superstition the Greeks esteemed so ominous that the little bird accused him for killing his Father And to this purpose it was that Solomon gave counsell Curse not the King no not in thy thought nor the rich in thy bedchamber for a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that that hath wings shall tell the matter Murder and treason have by such strange wayes been revealed as if God had appointed an Angell president of the revelation and had kept this in secret and sure ministry to be as an argument to destroy Atheisme from the face of the earth by opening the secrets of men with this key of providence Intercepting of letters mistaking names false inscriptions errors of messengers faction of the parties fear in the actors horror in the action the majesly of the person the restlesnesse of the minde distracted looks wearinesse of the spirit and all under the conduct of the Divine wisdome and the Divine vengeance make the covers of the most secret sin transparent as a net and visible as the Chian wines in the purest Crystall For besides that God takes care of Kings and of the lives of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 driving away evill from their persons and watching as a Mother to keep gnats and flies from her dear boy sleeping in the cradle there are in the machinations of a mighty mischief so many motions to be concentred so many wheels to move regularly and the hand that turns them does so tremble and there is so universall a confusion in the conduct that unlesse it passes suddenly into act it will be prevented by discovery and if it be acted it enters into such a mighty horror that the face of a man will tell what his heart did think and his hands have done And after all it was seen and observed by him that stood behinde the cloud who shall also bring every work of darknesse into light in the day of strange discoveries and fearfull recompences and in the mean time certain it is that no man can long put on a person and act a part but his evill manners will peep through the corners of the white robe and God will bring an hypocrite to shame even in the eyes of men 2. A second superinduced consequent of sin brought upon it by the wrath of God is sin when God punishes sin with sin he is extreamly angry for then the punishment is not medicinal but finall and exterminating God in that case takes no care concerning him though he dies and dies eternally I do not here speak of those sins which are naturally consequent to each other as evill words to evill thoughts evill actions to evill words rage to drunkennesse lust to gluttony pride to ambition but such which God suffers the mans evill nature to be tempted to by evill opportunities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the wrath of God and the man is without remedy It was a sad calamity when God punished Davids adultery by permitting him to fall to murder and Solomons wanton and inordinate love with the crime of idolatry and Ananias his sacriledge with lying against the holy Ghost and Judas his covetousnesse with betraying his Lord and that betraying with despair and that despair with self-murder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One evill invites another and when God is angry and withdrawes his grace and the holy Spirit is grieved and departs from his dwelling the man is left at the mercy of the mercilesse enemy and he shall receive him only with variety of mischiefs like Hercules when he had broken the horn of Achelous he was almost drown'd with the floud that sprung from it and the evill man when he hath pass'd the first scene of his sorrowes shall be intic'd or left to fall into another For it is a certain truth that he who resists or that neglects to use Gods grace shall fall into that evill condition that when he wants it most he shall have least It is so with every man he that hath the greatest want of the grace of God shall want it more if this great want proceeded once from his own sin Habenti dabitur said our blessed Lord to him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundantly from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath It is a remarkable saying of David I have thought upon thy name O Lord in the night season and have kept thy Law this I had because I kept thy Commandements keeping Gods Commandements was rewarded with
Me è Coelo ad Barathrum demisit peccatum vos ullum in terra locum tutum existimabitis Sin thrust me from heaven to hell and do you think on earth to have security Men use to presume that they shall go unpunished but we see what little reason we have so to flatter and undoe our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that hath sinn'd must look for a Judgement and how great that is we are to take our measures by those sad instances of vengeance by which God hath chastised the best of men when they have committed but a single sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sin is damnable and destructive and therefore as the asse refused the barley which the fatted swine left perceiving by it he was fatted for the slaughter Tuum libenter prorsus appeterem cibam Nisi qui nutritus illo est jugulatus foret we may learn to avoid these vain pleasures which cut the throat after they are swallowed and leave us in that condition that we may every day fear lest that evill happen unto us which we see fall upon the great examples of Gods anger and our fears cannot ought not at all to be taken off but by an effective busie pungent hasty and a permanent repentance and then also but in some proportions for we cannot be secured from temporall plagues if we have sinn'd no repentance can secure us from all that nay Gods pardon or remitting his finall anger and forgiving the pains of hell does not secure us here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but sin lies at the door ready to enter in and rifle all our fortunes 1. But this hath two appendages which are very considerable and the first is that there are some mischiefs which are the proper and appointed scourges of certain sins and a man need not aske Cujus vulturis hoc erit cadaver what vultur what death what affliction shall destroy this sinner The sin hath a punishment of its own which usually attends it as giddinesse does a drunkard He that commits sacriledge is marked for a vertiginousnesse and changeable fortune Make them O my God like unto a wheel of an unconstant state and we and our fathers have seen it in the change of so many families which have been undone by being made rich they took the lands from the Church and the curse went along with it and the misery and the affliction lasted longer then the sin Telling lies frequently hath for its punishment to be given over to believe a lye and at last that no body shall beleeve it but himself and then the mischief is full he becomes a dishonoured and a baffled person The consequent of lust is properly shame and witchcraft is still punished with basenesse and beggery and oppression of widowes hath a sting for the tears of the oppressed are to the oppressour like the waters of jealousie making the belly to swell and the thigh to rot the oppressor seldome dies in a tolerable condition but is remark'd towards his end with some horrible affliction The sting of oppression is darted as a man goes to his grave In these and the like God keeps a rule of striking In quo quis peccat in eo punitur The Divine Judgement did point at the sin lest that be concealed by excuses and protected by affection and increased by passion and destroy the man by its abode For some sins are so agreeable to the spirit of a fool and an abused person because he hath fram'd his affections to them and they comply with his unworthy interest that when God out of an angry kindnesse smites the man and punishes the sin the man does fearfully defend his beloved sin as the serpent does his head which he would most tenderly preserve But therefore God that knowes all our tricks and devices our stratagems to be undone hath therefore apportioned out his punishments by analogies by proportions and entaile so that when every sin enters into its proper portion we may discern why God is angry and labour to appease him speedily 2. The second appendage to this consideration is this that there are some states of sin which expose a man to all mischief as it can happen by taking off from him all his guards and defences by driving the good Spirit from him by stripping him of the guards of Angels But this is the effect of an habituall sin a course of an evill life and it is called in Scripture a grieving the good Spirit of God But the guard of Angels is in Scripture only promised to them that live godly The Angels of the Lord pitch their tents round about them that fear him and delivereth them said David 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Hellenists use to call the Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 watchmen which custody is at first designed and appointed for all when by baptisme they give up their names to Christ and enter into the covenant of Religion And of this the Heathen have been taught something by conversation with the Hebrewes and Christians unicuique nostrum dare paedagogum Deum said Seneca to Lucilius non primarium sed ex eorum numero quos Ovidius vocat ex plebe deos There is a guardian God assigned to every one of us of the number of those which are of the second order such are those of whom David speaks before the Gods will I sing praise unto thee and it was the doctrine of the Stoicks that to every one there was assigned a Genius and a Juno Quamobrem major coelitum populus etiam quam hominum intelligi potest quum singuli ex semetipsis totidem Deos faciant Junones gentosque adoptando sibi said Pliny Every one does adopt Gods into his family and get a Gunius and a Juno of their own Junonem meam iratam habeam it was the oath of Quartilla in Petronius and Socrates in Plato is said to swear by his Juno though afterwards among the Romans it became the womans oath and a note of effeminacy But the thing they aim'd at was this that God took a care of us below and sent a ministring spirit for our defence but that this is only upon the accounts of piety they knew not But we are taught it by the Spirit of God in Scripture For the Angels are ministring spirits sent forth to minister to the good of them who shal be heirs of salvation and concerning St. Peter the faithfull had an opinion that it might be his Angell agreeing to the Doctrine of our blessed Lord who spake of Angels appropriate to his little ones to infants to those that belong to him Now what God said to the sons of Israel is also true to us Christians Behold I send an Angell before thee beware of him and obey his voice provoke him not for he will not pardon your trangressions So that if we provoke the Spirit of the Lord to anger by a course of evill living either the Angell