another now and then she must not count her self her Husbands Friend though she give him the greatest share in her affections no she is but a bosome Enemy And so any one vice allowed is a paramour sin is whoredom against Christ and our pretended friendship to him in all other obediences is but the kindness and the caresses of an Adulteress the meer hypocrisie and treachery of love If it be necessary to the gaining of Christ's friendship that thou do his commands 't is necessary that thou do them all that thou divorce thy self from thy beloved sin as well as any other Because his Friendship does no more require other obedience than it does that but is as inconsistent with thy own peculiar vice as with the rest Indeed it is impossible that it should bear with any they being all his murderers If thou canst find one sin that had no hand in putting Christ to Death one vice that did not come into the garden nor upon Mount Calvary that did not help to assassin thy Saviour even take thy fill of that But if each had a stab at him if no one of thy vices could have been forgiven had not thy Jesus dyed for it canst thou expect he should have kindness for his Agony or friendship for the man that entertains his Crucifiers in his heart If worldly cares which he calls Thorns fill thy head with Contrivances of Wealth and Greatness of filling Coffers and of platting Coronets for thee as the thorns did make him a Crown too wouldst thou have him receive thee and these in his bosome to gore his Heart as they did pierce his Head If thou delight in that intemperance which filled his deadly Cup which Vomited Gall into it can he delight in thee That Cup which made him fall upon his face to deprecate will he partake in as the pledge of mutuall love He that sunk under could not bear this load of thine when it was in his Cross upon his shoulders will he bear it and thee in his armes when thou fallest under it When thou wilt cast a shameful spewing on his glory too if he own such a Friend Thou that art so familiar with his Name as thou wer't more his Friend than any in the world whose Oaths and imprecations Moses sayes strike through that Name which they so often call upon thou mayst as well think his heart did attract the Spear that pierced it and the Wound close upon its head with unions of Love as that he hath kindness for thee If Christ may make Friendship with him that does allow himself a sin he may have fellowship with Belial For him to dwell in any heart that cherisheth a vice were to descend to Hell again But as far as those Regions of Darkness are from his Habitation of Glory and the Black Spirits of that place from being any of his Guard of holy Myriads so far is he from dwelling with or being friend to him that is a friend to any wickedness to him that will not do whatever he commands And now if these conditions seem hard if any do not care to be his Friend upon these terms they may betake themselves to others Let such make themselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousnesse A Friend indeed that hath not so much of the insincerities as many great ones have For this will furnish them with all that heart or lust can wish for all that necessity or wantonnesse proposeth to it self to dress out pomp or vice But yet when with enjoyment the affections grow and become so unquiet work them so as not to let their thoughts or actions rest make them quicken themselves and like the motions of all things that go downwards tending to the Earth increase by the continuance grow stronger and more violent towards the end then when they are most passionate it fails them And having filled their life with most unsatisfied tormenting cares it leaves them nothing but the guilt of all When their great Wealth shall shrink into a single sheet no more of it be left but a thin shroud and all their vast Inheritances but six foot of earth be gone yet the iniquity of all will stick close to them and this false Friend that does it Self forsake them will neither go along nor will let its pomp follow them raises a cry on them as high as Gods Tribunal the cry of all the Blood all the oppressed rights that bribery till then had stifled the groans of all those Poor that greatness covetousness or extortion had groun'd and crush't the yellings of those Souls that were starv'd for want of the Bread of life which yet they payed for and the price of it made those heaps which will that day appear against their Friends and Masters and prove their Adversaries to eternal Death Let others joy in Friends that Wine does get them such as have no qualification to endear them but this that they will not refuse to sin and to be sick with their Companions Men that do onely drink in their affections as full of friendship as of liquor and probably they do unload themselves of both at once part with their dearness and their drink together and alike I know not whether it be heats of mutual kindness that inflame these draughts and the desires of them so as if they did drink thirst but sure I am that these hot draughts begin the Lake of fire Let others please themselves in an affection that Carnality cements These are warm friendships I confess but Solomon will tell us whence they have their heat Her house saith he doth open into Hell and Brimstone kindles those libidinous flames There are strait bands fetters in those affections indeed for the same Wiseman sayes The Closets of that sinner are the Chambers of Death That none that go unto her return again or take hold of the paths of life it seems she is a friend that takes most irreversible dead hold she is not onely as insatiate but as inexorable as the Grave and the Eternal Chains of Fate are in those her embraces But God keep us from making such strict Covenants with Death from being at friendship with Hell or in a word that I say all at once with any that are good Companions onely in sinning Such men having no virtue in themselves must needs hate it in others as being a reproach to them and therefore they are still besieging it using all arts and stratagems to undermine it and having nothing else to recommend them into mens affections but their managery of vice no way to Merit but by serving iniquity they not onely comply with our own evil Inclinations that so they may be grateful and insinuate into us but they provoke too and inflame those tendencies that they may be more useful to us having no other means to work their ends And then such friends by the same reason must be false and treacherous and all that we declaime
severe a shape and gives the lineaments of so fierce displeasures against sin as do exceed all comprehension There was a passion in Christs Prayer to prevent his passion when he deprecated it with strong cryes and tears yea when his whole body wept tears as of blood to deprecate it and yet he cryed more dreadfully when he did suffer it The nayles that bor'd his hands the spear that pierc't his heart and made out-letts for his blood and Spirits did not wound him as that sting of death and torments sin did which made out-lets for God to forsake him and which drove away the Lord that was himself out of him Neither did his God forsake him onely but his most Almighty attributes were engag'd against him Gods Holinesse and Justice were resolv'd to make Christ an example of the sad demerit of Iniquity and his hatred of it Demerit so great as was valuable with the everlasting punishment of the World fal'n Angels and fal'n Men for to that did it make them lyable Now that God might appear to hate it at the rate of its deservings it was very necessary that it should be punisht if not by the execution of that sentence on Mankind as on the Devils yet by something that might be proportionable to it so to let us see the measures God abhors it by to what degrees the Lord is just and holy by those torments torments answerable to those attributes Now truly when we do reflect on this we cannot wonder if the Sinner be an enemy to the Crosse and hate the prospect of it which does give him such a perfect copy of his expectations when our Saviours draught which he so trembled at shall be the everlasting portion of his Cup For if God did so plague the imputation of Iniquity how will he torment the willful and impenitent commission of it But then when we consider those torments were the satisfaction for the sins of man methinks the sinner should be otherwise affected to them Christ by bearing the Cross gave God such satisfaction as did move him in consideration thereof to dispence with that strict Law which having broken we were forfeit to eternal death and to publish an act of grace whereby he does admit all to pardon of sins past and to a right to everlasting Life that will believe on him for sake their sins and live true Christians He there appears the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World for that he does as being a Lamb slain then he was our Sacrifice and that Crosse the Altar And the humbled sinner that repents for notwithstanding satisfaction God will not acept a Sinner that goes on by all those Agonies his holynesse would not be justifyed if when he had forsaken and tormented his own Son for taking sin upon him he should yet receive into his favour and his Heaven sinners that will not let go but will retain their sins but the penitent may plead this expiation Lo here I poor Soul prostrate at the footstool of the Crosse lay hold upon the Altar here 's my Sacrifice on which my sins are to be charg'd and not on me although so foul I am I cannot pour out tears sufficient to cleanse me yet behold Lord and see if there ever were any Sorrow like the sorrow of thy Son wherewith thou didst afflict him for these sins of mine And here is Blood also his Blood to wash me in and that Blood is within the Vaile too now and that my offering taken from the Crosse up to thy Throne thou hast accepted it and canst not refuse it now my Advocate does plead it and claims for me the advantage of the Crosse. Now that men should be Enemies to this and when they are forseit to eternal Ruine hate that which is to redeem the forfeiture that they should trample on the Crosse whereon their satisfactions were wrought tread down the Altar which they have but to lay hold on and be safe wage war with beat off and pursue a Lamb that Lamb of God that comes to take away their sins and make a spoyl and slaughter of their Sacrifice hostilely spill upon the ground that Blood that was appoynted for their Blood upon the Altar for their blood of sprinkling and was to appear in Heaven for them It men resolve to be on terms of Duell with their God and scorn that Satisfaction shall be made for them by any other way than by defiance and although their God do make the satisfactions for them to himself yet not endure it but choose quarrel rather this is so perverse and fatal an hostility as no tears are sufficient to bewail But possibly men sleight these satisfactions because some terms are put upon them which they know not how to comport with the merits of the Crosse must not be accounted to them but upon conditions which they are not able to perform they are required to master all their wicked Customes their untam'd appetites and settled habits to keep under their Concupiscence to calm their inclinations and their passions Now on such severe articles friendship with the Crosse they think is too hard bought But therefore Secondly that Crosse was the consideration upon which Grace is offer'd us whereby we are enabled to perform all this the power to will and strength to do all necessary aids from Heaven are granted to us as Christ merited them for us by his Sufferings and that Blood he shed upon the Crosse it is the Fountain 't is the Ocean of all grace And if temptations storm thee lay hold on that Crosse it is the Anchor of Salvation thou hast hold on tell thy God although thou art not able to resist and stand thou hast the price of strength that which did purchase it was paid down for thee on the Crosse and is at his right hand he hath it give me therefore grace for it let me have the value of that Blood the Blood of God in spiritual succours which may make me able to resist thy Enemies and do thy will Now God will never be unjust to deny any man those aids that were so dearly purchast for him and for which he hath receiv'd the price And then that men should be Enemies of the Crosse which is their Magazine of strength against their Enemies As men that do resist the having grace least it should change their inclinations as men that will not be impowered against Vice but will oppose the Aids of Heaven fight against the succours that are given them and destroy their own forces least with them they should be able to encounter sin and overcome it Thus wilfully to run against and charge their Anchor of Salvation to poyson to themselves the Fountain the whole Ocean of their graces is the state of them onely that do resolve and that had rather perish Once more on that Crosse was wrought a reconciliation betwixt God and Man and that upon such terms of honour to us Men
may dye before the Crown fall to him but it is impossible that we should misse of ours except we put our selves by by such choyces except we change it thus And on the other side we know men will adventure the Sentence of the Law by Robberies and murders to provide for lusts while they hope to be undiscovered But sure a Prison made delightful by all arts of pleasure and all plenties of it will not hire a man to own those actions which shall forfeit him to certain shameful Execution the next Sessions and yet this is the sinners state exactly he is ti'd and bound in the chain of his sins they are it may be chains of Gold and softned with delices but they reserve him to the Judgment of the great Assise And yet he chooses these and puts them on as ensigns of delight and honour Once more Do not men choose a present Agonie to keep off an after evill they teare their bowels with a Vomit to prevent a Surfeit they cup and scarifie and with all artifice of pain upon themselves kill a Disease yea they are well content to prolong torment so they may but prolong life and though the preservation of it prove onely continued pangs and all they can effect is onely this that they are longer dying yet they are glad to be so in all cases except where the prescription is virtue and the death prescribed against Eternall Now why do you choose thus onely in Sin and Hell 'T is clear the very pleasure you change Heaven for cannot invite you from this Life and then you that will suffer any thing rather than you will dye Why against all resistance will you dye for ever Is it Secondly because you know not what it is to dye the second Death at least your notions of it are so slight and easie that they cannot fright you from a pleasure or cope with a temptation to it and so though present satisfactions are not able to engage you upon present ruin they can upon the after-after-death Indeed the Sinner would have reason if it meant no more than hath been taught of late by one that hath gained many Proselytes among the Virtuosi of Religion After the Resurrection the Reprobates shall be saith he in the state that Adam and his Posterity were in after his Sin i. e. the state we are now in Live as we do Marry and give in Marriage and cease to be when they have got some heirs to succeed them in Tophet Poor unhappy Souls these that never had any sin to merit being there nor any Sentence to condemn them thither but this mans Who must put them there succssively one after other to find employment for Everlasting-fire A Doctrine such as had an Angel Preacht from Heaven by S. Paul's award he must have been Anathema when the Devil made Religions and Theology came from the bottomless Pit he never found out such an Engine to conveigh men into it as this pleasant notion of the punishment of sin therein as if Leviathan were made to take his pastime in that Lake also by such interpretations which surely were contrived to make out the Assertion of that Romish Priest who sayes that those in Hell love to be there nay more that 't was impossible for God to do a kinder thing for them than to put them there Doctrines to be abhorr'd as Hell it self and yet upon these grounds he builds their Church by demonstration so strong as that the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against it and in truth they have no reason to assault it on these terms But to passe by such dolages and frenzies you will be able sure to check all those presumptions which grow from sleight impressions of the second Death if you but take that prospect of it which the close of this time gives look forward through this season which is designed for you to prepare the way of the Lord to his passion in and you shall see the Death that does await iniquity If you behold him coming to Jerusalem with Hosannas and Palmes about him as if Death were his Triumph his Passion so desirable that he rode to meet it which he never did at any other time and then complaining he was straitned untill it were accomplisht as he had throws of Longing after it and singing when he went out to it you would believe the sinner never chose his death sweetned by his most pleasant sin with a more cheerful eagernesse But then open the Garden and you see his apprehensions of it throw him on his Face to pray against it See how he sweats and begs his very Prayer is a Passion the zeal of it is agony and canst thou choose that he so dreads and deprecates and when he durst not meet the apprehensions wilt thou stand the storm see what a sting death hath when it makes outlets for such clots and globes of blood and stings the Soul so too that it pours out it self in Sweat And then he sinks again under the deprecation of it and prayes that that Cup may passe from him Blessed Saviour when thou hadst just now made thy Death thy Legacy thy Sacrament dost thou intreat to scape this death if this Cup passe from thee what will the Cup of Blessing profit us thou hadst but now bequeathed a Cup to us which was the New Testament in thy Blood and now wilt thou not shed that Blood But dost thou refuse thy Cup Oh 't was a Cup of deadly Wine red with Gods Indignation poyson'd with Sin And can the sinner thirst for the Abysse of this the Lake that hath no bottom and when he goes again and prayes the same words the third time be yet not only so supine as not ask to scape it seldom and very sleight in any prayer or wish against it but also so resolv'd to have it as to gape that he may swill it down to everlastingness Follow him from that Garden and you see him even dying under his Cross he cannot bear that when it is laden with sin who yet upholdeth all things by the word of his power 'T is said the time will come when the sinner will cry out to the Hills to fall on him any weight but that of iniquity the burden of that is intollerable 't is easier for him to bear a mountain than a vice and yet Christ saith he hath a beam in his Eye and can he shrink at any weight whose part that is most sensible tender to an expression can bear that which shoulders must fall under onely Pillars can sustain Oh yes that which did sink the shoulders of Omnipotence Then the Mountains rather and the Rocks to cover but in vain they will not cover for thy very Groans will rent them Christs were so sad that his did they tore the Rocks and that which is much more inflexible the Monuments Death started at them and the bonds of the Grave loosened and the Dust was
frighted into Resurrection and more the Hypostatick Union seem'd rent by them the God to have forsaken his own person And can the sinner hope to stand this shock will the courage of his Iniquity make his heart harder than those Rocks more insensible than the Grave and better able to endure than he that was a God and will you dye into this state eternally which it was necessary for him to have the assistance of Divinity in his person that he might be able to endure one day and which yet notwithstanding made one day intolerable The sum is this a person so desiring death and yet so dreading it and sinking under the essayes of it and this person the Son of God and that dread meerly because there was sin in the Death for if this were not in the cause no Martyr but had born death with more courage but that Son of God all this as it does leave no Reason for the sinners choyce of death Eternal so neither doth it leave a possibility of bearing it And if so give me leave in God's Name to Expostulate the last imployment of these words Why will ye dye After this killing prospect while the damp of it is on you let my Bowells debate with you which yearn more over you than they did over my Beloved Son in whom I was well pleased when I have sent my onely Son God one with my own Self to be made Man that he might suffer what was necessary to be suffer'd to preserve you from eternal sufferings when I have laid on him that was brought up with me from everlasting and that was daily my Delight all your Iniquities and my own Indignation that so you might be freed from both When I have found out made an Expiation with which I am more pleased than ever your transgressions offended me which hath quite blotted out your sins and my Displeasure when your Redemption from death is made the Ransom paid the Price is in my hand why do you then refuse your selves your own Eternal Blessednesse which was thus dearly purchas'd and is ready for you Why will you seize that Indignation which you are redeemed from and force those sufferings on your selves which have been laid already and inflicted on another 'T is a small thing that you refuse me the return of my Expence that which I gave my Son for but do you renounce Happinesse because my Love and Blood is in it and will you dye because you may and I desire you should live when my Son went from the essential felicities of my bosome to embrace Agonies and dy'd for you why will you also dye as you have slain his Person will you Crucifie his Kindnesse too and crucifie your selves rather than have it and having us'd him most despightfully will you therefore use his favours so and not let his Death and Passion do you any good contemn his methods of Salvation his divine Acts of making you for ever Blessed is your Saviour and Life it self so hateful to you and after such Redemption of your persons is there no redemption of your Will from perishing nothing of value that can bribe your choyce against it nothing that can betroth you into a desire of Life and take you off from your resolves to dye had I set no advantage on the other side if sin had sweetned misery to your palate it had been no such great despite and contradiction to Appetite but when Heaven and the Joyes of God are in the Scale against it to prefer Misery is Wretchless beyond aggravation Oh why will you rather dye Those very things that tempt your Wills were they abstracted from the death they do inveigle you into were they sincere and innocent if they were set against that Life that blessed life immortal Life would vanish quite in the comparison when you should see they are but frolicks of delight that never take you but when you are tun'd up to them in moods and fits and the complacencies you take in them are but starts of Appetite that swells and breaks out to them and then falls again and so the pleasures dye even in the birth and therefore cannot satisfie indeed do but disquiet an immortal appetite such as man's is so that it were impossible to choose a life these rather although there were no misery annex't to them if you consider'd For it were to resolve that a few drops were more than an immence Ocean of Delight a Moment longer than Eternity a Part were bigger than the Whole an Atome greater than an Infinite Now there is nothing then that can prefer these to your choyce but the Death only and Oh will ye without and against all Temptation Will ye dye O thou my Soul take other Resolutions thou feest the things that men with so much care and sin provide to make their lives delightful here although successe answer their care are vain and helpless things and life it self as vain and I must dye and drop from them and therefore be thou sure to take a care their treacherous comforts do not make me dye into the everlasting want of them and of all comforts The Artificial pleasures of the Palate whether in meats or drinks forc't tast's that do at once satisfie and provoke the Appetite will rellish ill when I begin to swallow down my spittle but sure I am I am invited to the Supper of the Lamb to drink new Wine with Christ in my Father's Kingdom The fatted Calf is dressing for my Entertainment and shall I choose to be a while a Glutton with the Swine rather than the eternall Guest of my Father's Table and Bosom and refuse these for a few sick Excesses which would end in qualms and gall and vomits if there were no guilt to rejolt too and which will kindle a perpetual Feaver The Honours and the Glories of this Life will loose their shine when I am going to make my Bed in the Dark in a black lonely desolate hole of Earth my Gayeties must dye when I must say to Corruption thou art my Father and to the Worm thou art my Mother and my Sister And if there were pride or ambition in them their Worm will never dye that Pride will make me fall as low as Lucifer that Glory will go out into utter darknesse and that Ambition change my Honour into everlasting Shame Envy and Torment But sure I am that there are Glorious Robes and Thrones and Scepters in God's promises and let thy gayety my Soul be in the Robe of Immortality the Throne of thy Ambition that of Glory When I shall lye tortur'd or languishing in my last Bed Palaces and Possessions will no more relieve me than the Landskip of them in the Hangings can do it And if there were Covetousness Bribery Sacriledge or Injustice in them I shall be carryed out of these and have no other Habitation assigned me but with the Devil and his Angels shall inherit and possesse nothing but the Almighty's
inclines it draws the whole Man after it If any thing in us be crucified in a Conformity to Christ it must be this for in that death wherein Christ offered up himself upon the Crosse where although the Divine Nature gave the value 't was onely the Humane Nature made the Offering there it was the crucifying his own Will that above all other the ingredients made his Death a Sacrifice and the price of our Redemption God that had given him his Blood and Life might call for it again when and how he saw good and being due it was not properly a price that could be given him for sin but his free voluntary choice his being willing to endure the Agonies and Contempts of the Crosse his stabbing his own natural desires with a resolute determination Not my will but thine be done This his own Will was his own offering and such is ours if we be Crucified with Christ made conformable to his death if we present our selves a Sacrifice acceptable to the Lord for our will is not given up to him till it do perfectly comport with his but that it cannot do till we renounce our own desires till we have brought our selves to an indifference in outward things to such a resignation as she is storied to have had who being in her Sicknesse bid to choose whether she rather would have Health or Death made answer Vehementissimè desidero ut non facias voluntatem meam Domine this above all I desire that thou wilt not do my will I would have thee not do what I desire and would have So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole of us the Spirit Soul and Flesh go to make up this person and the body of Sin is the Old man entire I whole I am nothing but a mass of guilts my Senses are the bands of wickednesse that procure for my evil inclinations my members are the weapons of unrighteousness my Body is a body of Sin and Death and the affections of my Soul are Lusts its faculties are the powers of Sin yea and the Spirit of my mind that Breath of God is putrefied that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Angel-part of me is fall'n and turn'd Apostate and however I be partly Son of Man and partly Son of God yet I am wholly Child of Wrath and so fit to be Crucified Which calls me to the next Enquiry to the nature of the duty here intended I am Crucified What is design'd by it S. Paul does perfectly declare Rom. 6. 6. Our old man is crucified with Christ that the body of Sin might be destroyed that we should no longer serve sin So that it means a through Repentance and abandoning of former evil Courses A Duty which there are few men but in some instants of their life think absolutely necessary and perswade themselves they do perform it At some time or other they are forc't to recollect and grow displeas'd and angry at their sins and have some sad reflections on them beg for mercy and forgiveness and do think of leaving them and when they have return'd to them again they shake the head and chafe and curse at their own weaknesse and renew their purposes it may be and do this as oft as such a Season as this is or other like occasions suggest it to or move them And with this they satisfie themselves and hope if God do please to take them hence in some such muddy gloomy fit of their Repentance all 's well Now shall we call this being Crucified are there Racks and Tortures in this discipline hath a Spear prickt them to the heart and no blood nor no water no tears gush out thence hath it made no issue for some hearty Sorrow to purle out Indeed I must confesse the Scripture does sometimes word the performance of this duty in expressions that are not so sower but of an easier importance as first put off the Old Man as if all were but Garment put it off I say not as they stript our Saviour in order to his Scourgings and his Crosse but intimating to us what an easie thing it is to cast off Sin for them who do begin with it betimes before it get too close to the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. saith Theophyl even as easie as putting off thy Cloaths and thy Repentance is but as thy Shift thy change of life like changing thy Apparel But alas for all the easienesse which this expression hints where the sins also lye in the Attire as besides emulation pride vainglory great uncharitablenesse and inhumanity cruel injustice and oppression often do when many are undone through want of those dues which do furnish other men with the excesses of this kind when the sins therefore lye in the attire and they may put them off without a Metaphor yet it is so hard that it cannot be done sometimes the worth of a whole Province hangs upon a slender thread about a neck a Patrimony thrust upon one joynt of one least finger and these warts of a Rock or a Shell-fish with the appendages eat out Estates and starve poor Creditors for whom indeed they should command these stones to be made bread but that 's Miracle too stubborn for their Vertue And then how will they proceed to the next expression of this duty Circumcise your selves to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your hearts Jer. 4. 4. These are harder and more bloody words they differ in the pain and anguish that they put us to as much as to uncloath and flea would do It appears indeed this punishment of fleaing often went before the Crosse. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Ctesiâ—s of one having his Skin pull'd off he was Crucified And the scourges in some measure did inflict this on our Saviour when they put off his Cloaths they stript his Skin also left him no covering but some rags of that which whipping had torn from his flesh Yet this expression sounds harsher when it bids us circumcise the foreskin of our hearts and tear it from thence flea that When long conversation with the pleasures of a sin hath not onely given them Regallias but hath made them necessary to us so as that we cannot be without them when Custome craves with greater feaver than our thirst when if we want it we have qualms faintings of Soul as if the life were in that blood of the grape when men can part as easily with their own bowells as the Luxuries that feed them if you take away their dishes then you take their souls which dwell in them when the sins of the Bed are as needful and refreshing as the sleeps of it when to bid a man not look not satisfie his lustful eye is every jot as cruel as that other If thine eye offend thee pluck it out For if he must no more find pleasure in his sight he hath no use of it yea if this be indeed a kindnesse not to leave him Eyes
yet as if it were not full of Earth nor had been satisfied with it in the Sepulchre they gape still like the Grave that never can be satisfied And we see others who as if this Resurrection were but a start out of a sleep or lucid interval of former madnesse have their hands ready not onely to tear off the hair the unessential accessary beauties of the Body of the Church and State but to scratch the Face pull out the Eyes and tear open those Wounds which their last fit of Fury did inflict so to let Life out again And as for the Community of the Nation 't is true we are as it were risen from the Grave but have we not brought up with us the Plague sores are not the Spots upon us still the venome ulcer and infection about us Yea more contracted Stench and Putresaction such as Death and the Grave do add and coming from the dead we will not yet part with these but dresse our selves in those infected and defiled grave-clothes and rise into corruption and so confute Gods Method of a Refurrection 't were happier if we would so far confute the Text that coming our selves from the dead we would renounce communion with all Deaths adherencies begin the incorruptible which shall be consummated when we shall rise again a Church triumphant when Death shall be swallowed up in Victory and neither Sin nor Repentance shall be any more but Holinesse and Life and Glory too shall be Immortal and unchangeable To which c. SERMON XII CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Decemb. 31. 1665. LUKE II. part of the 34. vers Behold this Child is set for the Fall and Rising again of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be spoken against AND Simeon Blessed them and said c. A Benediction sure of a most strange importance If to bring forth one that is to be a large Destruction if to be delivered of a Child that must be for the Fall of many and the killing of the Mother's self be blessed if Swords and Ruins be Comforts then my Text is full of these But if this be to Blesse what is it to forespeak and abode ill Yet however ominous and fatal the words are they give us the event and the design too of the Blessed Incarnation of the Son of God the Child of this Text and of this Season A short view of Gods Counsel in it and the Effects of it The Effects in these particulars 1. This Child is for the Fall of many 2. For the Rising again of many 3. For a Sign With the quality of that sign he is for a sign that shall be spoken against 2. The Counsel and Design of this is signifyed in the word here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is set and preordain'd to be all this First of the first Effect This Child is for the Fall of many And here I shall but onely name that way whereby many men set this Child for their own Fall while they make his holy Time to be but a more solemn opportunity of sinning We know many celebrate this great Festival with Surfeits and Excesses the usual appendages of Feasting Oaths and Curses the ingredients of Gaming Dallyance and Lasciviousnesse the attendants of Sporting of all which this seems as it were the Anniversary a set time for their return Thus indeed the Israelites did solemnize the Birth of their Idol-Calf They sate down to Eat and Drink and rose up to Play And must we celebrate this Child too like that Calf because he was born among Brutes And must his Votaries also be of the Herd And he live and be worship'd alwayes in a Stable Because God became Man must Men therefore become Beasts Is it fit to honour that Child with Iniquity and Loosnesse that did come into the World upon designs of Holinesse to settle a most strict Religion Nothing can be more incongruous than this and certainly there is nothing of Gods Counsel in it But to you whose time seems nothing else but a constant Festival always hath the Leisure and the Plenties and the Sports of one who as to these things keep a Christmass all your life this Season as it does not seem to challenge those things to it self peculiarly so I shall not now insist on them but proceed to those ways by which Simeon did Prophecy This Child would be for the fall of many in Israel And they are three 1. This Child whom I but now declar'd God had prepar'd to be the Glory of his People Israel yet his Birth was so inglorious and his Life answerable to it shall be so mean and poor and his Death so full of shame and curse that these shall prove a scandal to his People who shall be offended at them and being prepossest with prejudices of a Pompous Royal Messiah they will not believe in this but reject a Saviour that comes upon those disadvantages which will therefore prove occasions of falling to them That it was so is expresly said Behold I lay in Sion a Chief Corner-stone a stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence And that it was so upon this account is clear the Great ones cry out of him This fellow we know not whence he is They that seem'd to know whence did upbraid him with it Is not this the Carpenter And therefore with a deal of scorn they question Do any of the Rulers or the Pharisees believe in him Yea Christ himself knew this would be so great a Scandal that in the 11 Chapter of S. Mathew in the close of many Miracles which he wrought on purpose to demonstrate he was the Messiah he adds vers 6. and blessed is he that shall not be offended in me As if he thought his mean condition would prove a greater argument against him than his mighty Works were for him And it were a vaster Prodigy to see the Saviour of the World the promised Messiah poor and abject than to see one cure the Blind and heal the Lame and raise the Dead and they might think they had a stranger Miracle to confirm their unbelief than any he would work to make them believe in him And really that the Kingdom of the Messiah which the Prophets did expresse in terms as high as their own Extasies and Raptures in transported words as if it vied with Gods Dominion both for extent and for duration should prove at last an Empire onely over twelve poor Fishermen and Publicans and one of them a Traytor too And that He that was born this King should be born in a Stable while he liv'd that he should not have an hole to put his Head in nor his Corps in when he died but his Grave too must be Charity this would startle any that did wait for the Redemption of Israel in those glorious expresses which the Prophets trac't it out in To you indeed that are Votaries to this Child are confirmed Christians these seeming disadvantages can give no prejudice
executions of that Mercy and while God was plotting an Incarnation for the everlasting Safety of Mankind prevails with him to decree Ruins by the means of that Salvation to Decree even in the midst of all those strivings of his Mercies that that Issue of his kindnesse should be for the fall of such as they Oh! let such consider whether they are likely to escape that which is set and ordein'd for them by God Whether they can hope for a Redemption when the onely great Redeemer is appointed for the Instrument of their Destruction and God is so bent on their ruiâ—e that to purchase it he gives this Child his Son Yea when he did look down upon this Son in Agonies and on the Crosse in the midst of that sad prospect yet the Ruin of such sinners which he there beheld in his Sons Blood was a delight to him that also was a Sacrifice and a sacrifice of a sweet smell to him For S. Paul sayes We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that perish because we are the savour of Death unto death to them As if their Brimstone did ascend like Incense shed a persume up to God and their everlasting burnings were his Altar-fires kindled his holocausts and he may well be pleased with it for he ordein'd it 'T is true indeed This Child riding as in Triumph in the midst of his Hosannas when he saw one City whose fall he was set for on this very accompt He was so far from being pleas'd with it that he wept over it in pity But alas that onely more declares the most deplored and desperate condition of such sinners Blessed Saviour hadst thou no Blood to shed for them nothing but Tears or didst thou weep to think thy very Bloodshed does but make their guilt more crimson who refuse the mercy of that Bloodshed all the time that is offered Sad is their state that can find no pity in the Tears of God and remedilesse their Condition for whom all that the Son of God could do was to weep over them all that he did do for them was to be for their fall too sad a part indeed for Festival Solemnity very improper for a Benedictus and Magnificat To celebrate the greatest act of kindness the Almighty could design onely by the miseries it did occasion to magnifie the vast descent of God from Heaven down to Earth onely by reason of the fall of Man into the lowest Hell of which that was the cause My Text hath better things in view The greatnesse of that fall does but add height to that Resurrection which He also is the cause of For Behold this Child is set for the rising again of many My remaining part Rising again does not particularly and only refer to the fore-going fall here in the Text which this Child did occasion as I shewed you but to the state wherein all Mankind both in its nature and its Customes lay ingulfâ—d the state of Ignorance and sin A state from which recovery is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resurrection and a reviving in this Life and so call'd in Scripture often as Ephes. 5. 14. Wherefore he saith Awake thou that sleepest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and arise from the dead And Rom. 6. 13. Yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousnesse unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead Now to raise us from the death of sin into the life of Righteousnesse by the amendment of our own lives to recover us into a state of Vertue is the thing this Child is said here to be set for This was that which God thought worth an Incarnation Neither was there any greater thing in the prospect of his everlasting Counsel when he did decree his Son into the World than that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is set for this The Word was made Flesh to teach practise and perswade to Vertue To make men Reform their lives was valued at the price of a Person of the Trinity Piety and his Exiâ—anition yea his Blood and Life were set at the same rates All of him given for our recovery The time would fail me if I should attempt onely to name the various methods he makes use of to effect this How this Child that was the brightnesse of his Fathers Glory came to lighten us shining in his Doctrine and Example How he sent more light The fiery Tongues Illuminations of the Holy Ghost to guid us in the ways of Piety How he suffered Agonies and Death for sin to appale and fright us from it How he Rose again to confirm Judgment to us to demonstrate the rewards of Immortality to them that will repent and leave their sins and everlasting Torments to those that refuse this Grace Grace purchased with the Blood of God to enable them to repent and leave Besides all these the Arts and Mesnage of his Providence in preventing and following us by Mercies and by Judgments importuning us and timeing all his blessed Methods of Salvation to our most advantage Arts God knows too many if they serve us onely to resist and turn to wantonnesse and aggravation if we make no other use of Grace but this to sin against and overcome all Grace and make it bolster Vice by teaching it to be an incouragement to go on in it from some hopes we entertain by reason of this Child instead of doing that which he was set Decreed to make us do And really I would be glad to see this everlasting Counsel of the Lord had had some good effects some though never so little happy execution of this great Decree and that that which God ordein'd from all Eternity upon such glorious and magnificent terms were come to passe in any kind Now certainly there are no evident signs of any great recovery this Child hath wrought among us in the World that 's now call'd Christian. After those Omnipotent inforcives to a vertuous life which he did work out if we take a prospect of both Worlds it would be hard to know which were the Heathen and there would appear scarce any other notice of a Christ among us but that we blaspheme Him or deride Him Sure I am there are no Footsteps of him in the lives of the community of Men And I am certain that you cannot shew me any Heathen Age outgoing ours either in loosnesse and foul Esseminacies or in sordidnesse and base injustice or in frauds and falsenesse or Malignity hypocrisie or treachery or to name no more even in the lowest most ignoble disingenious sorts of Vice In fine men are now as Earthy Sensual yea and Devilish as when Sins and Devils were their Gods Yea I must needs say that those times of dark and Heathen Ignorance were in many men times of shining Vertue and the little spark of Light within them brake out through all obstructions into a glory of Goodnesse to the wonder and Confusion of most Christians
he did return to slay them then they sought him and they returned to enquire early after God and they remembred that God was their Rock and the high God was their Redeemer Psal. 78. 34 35. So that from such induction the Prophet might pronounce that when Gods Judgments are in the Earth the Inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness Esay 26. 9. and S. Peter in the Text they that have suffered in the flesh have ceased from sin Which calls me to my second Task 2. To shew first by what arts the flesh engages men into courses of sin and by what methods it does work them up to the heights of it That I may Secondly declare how sufferings blast those methods and make all the arts of flesh either unpracticable or too weak 1. That the carnal appetite should reach after and give up it self to sensual delights is so far from strange that it is its nature 't is the law of the members the very signature of flesh an inclination imprinted into it of which it can no more devest it self than the heated Deer can restrain it self from thirsting and panting after water brooks But when Reason and Religion have set bounds to this appetite for it to scorn these mounds for that Law in the members to fight with and prevail against the Law in the mind those original dictates born in it and Christian Principles infused into it this is the Fleshes aim and sin Now this it does by exciting to ill actions as being sauc'd with pleasures and contents and by indisposing to good actions as being troublesome or not at all delightfull to the sense and as for all other delights it hath no apprehension of but indisposeth for them perfectly So that this it does it engages too much in Pleasures here and it takes off all cares or thoughts of any joyes hereafter both these I will shew you and thus it works 1. It prevails with us to indulge our selves the fall use of lawful pleasures and for this the Flesh will urge it is the end of their Creation to do otherwise were to evacuate Gods purpose in the making Did he give us good things not to enjoy them Thus every sort of sin insinuates it self at first Youth will not deny it self converses with temptations although he have reason to fear they will commit a rape upon his warmer passions which are chaf't by such encounters But God has not forbid him Conversation and why should he be an Anchoret and recluse in the throngs of Cities and of Courts Another that would not by any means be luxurious or intemperate yet goes as near them as he can and contrives to enjoy all those delights that do indeed but sauce Intemperance and make Excesse palatable And truly why should he restrain himself from meats and drinks and be a Jew again All these believe they live righteously soberly and Godly enough This resolution works in every recreation pleasure honour and advantage of this World men are content to make as near approaches to the sin as they can and indeed believe they have no reason to be morose unto themselves I will deny my self nothing that God hath not denyed me but enjoy as far as possibly and lawfully I may But then by doing thus it Secondly does oft take in somewhat of the immoderate and unlawful which cannot be avoided both because it is hard to set the exact bounds and limits of what is lawful The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Line that meers out Vertue from its neighbour Vice is not so plain in every place as to chalk out exactly to this point thou mayst come and no farther hence the man sometimes mistakes himself into a fault however the extremity of lawful is we know the confines and very edge of vice And then to him that playes upon the brink of sin it is a very easie step into it and indeed unavoydable when a man is rusht and hurried on not onely by his inward stings and incitations but by the practise of the World which makes use of that holy Name of Friendship to bring vice into our acquaintance and to befriend us into everlasting Death of such Friends I can have legions in Hell and the God of this World will serve me upon this account to procure for my Sin and my Destruction but howsoever when the Appetite is heated they are not to be denyed Thirdly this happening therefore sometimes proves a Snare and bait still to go on both as it takes away the horrour and the a versation of the sins which at the first seem uncouth till a man be experienced in them and also as it smooths the way for such beginnings do nurse up an Habit and prepare a Custome and make vice very easie which at first it is not while the Appetite is modest and not able to digest full Doses till use enlarge and stretch it And now the Mind which by these means tasts diverse Pleasures and the Degrees of them and finds a gust in them yet not being satisfied in any one as 't is impossible it should be stirs up the Appetite to vary and proceed that that contentment which single pleasures could not afford diversified might make up Wretched Nature using that as an Attractive which should repell for who would hugg a Cloud embrace that which does not cannot satisfie but onely Flesh which for that very reason hunts on and follows the scent And by doing so a while it brings upon it self Fourthly Something like a necessity of doing so Thus Continence would be some mens Disease and the Intemperate cannot live without his Vice but gapes as much as Thirst and Feavour do and if he have not satisfaction suffers as many qualms and pangs as his riot used to cause in the Apprentisage of his sin so that there is a kind of necessity of the practise and he wisely seeming to make a vertue of necessity begins to think them the onely happiness at least of this life freely without reluctancy embracing them And now the Flesh is Callous and if you doubt how it could so harden it self as not to be pervious to any stings of Conscience but Proof against all Pricks though Experiment may perswade you yet I will shew you the Method As all Appetite you know is blind so the Guides also of Carnall appetite The senses are very short sighted they cannot look forward to the next Life to the hopes of Heaven or the pains of Hell to bring them into the ballance with the present pleasure and see which does over weigh The Flesh onely lives extempore looks but upon that which is before it scarce on that We have sufficient experience of this for when one vice will not look forwards a year or two to the penury and rottenness some courses do pull down And when another vice as if it had learnt to fulfill our Saviours command and take no care for the morrow will not think of the next mornings pains and
Headach Nay when the ambitious Usurper will not look just before him to see where he does place his steps on Precipices and Sword points to note how the Pyramids he does climb are made slippery with blood Pyramids did I say pointed Reeds rather things that have not strength to bear but onely sharpnesse to stab and where the man 's own weight makes his Upholders fail and wound him both together at once sink under him and pierce him thorough Nay we see many whose sins inflict themselves who may be truely said to bear their Iniquities yet choose those sins that bring their Plagues along with them for we see men with most excessive difficulty practise a vice onely that they may have the vice swallow sickness drink Convulsions and dead Paralyses foaming Epilepfies onely that all this may be easie to them And this is but one instance of the many that might be made just as the King of Pontus that ate Poyson that so he might be used to it Strange that a man should torture himself with all those deadly symptomes that Poyson racks the body with onely that he might eat Poyson yet just such is the Sinners Design and all the ease and pleasure he acquires at last in sinning is but familiarity of Poyson custome of Danger and acquaintance of Ruine Good God! that men should train and exercise themselves so for perdition that they should go through a discipline of torments to get an Habit of destroying themselves that they should work out their own condemnation with hardships and agonies that as if 't were too easie to goe down the hill to Hell the descent shall be made craggy and they force breaches into it and great headlong Precipices to make the way more painful and more dangerous to make the fall more wounding and more irrecoverable And what shall give a check where difficulty does provoke and torments do ingratiate Well But though Flesh be so short sighted and inconsiderate the mind might trash it by suggesting other sorts of punishments that do await transgression Why truely if rude unmannerly Conscience do sometimes thrust in the thoughts of Hell the Flesh which I told you is not terrified with any thing but what it feels now Conscience presents Hell as a thing of hereafter not till Death be past it satisfies Conscience with a Repentance of Hereafter before Death come I will be sorry for my sins and God is merciful Conscience being thus quieted and both Raines and Spur given to the Flesh it takes its full carier and leaves behind all thoughts of Repentance and indeed of God or Heaven the hope and joyes of which are the onely possible method that is left to take off the Man from his eager pursuit or to divert him in his course But as to that also that I may shew you the next heat The Mind that is immerst in body and hath been long accustomed to tast no pleasure but the carnal ones its fancy fill'd with those Ideas it does imbibe such a tincture of sensuality receives such an infusion of Flesh and is so impregnated with the fumes of Carnality which clog the Spirit that its complexion and temper is quite altered it is diluted and deprest and so grown stupid and unactive to all higher things Heaven and all after things it may be are the prejudice of such persons not their perswasions some thin conceptions of such things have been thrown into them but never were improved for their Mind hath otherwise been employed and they can have no appetite to them because they have never had any tast or relish of any thing but sensual And indeed that both longings after and thoughts of a better Life should be altogether dead in the carnal man is but a natural and necessary effect of the verge of his Delights For what motive is there in Heaven to stir up his appetite to whom Heaven it self would not be a place of Joy For I am verily perswaded were the Carnal man in those Eternal Mansions compast with streams of Glory it were impossible for him to take delight in them and he would grope for Paradise in the midst of Heaven As much impossible as for the most unlearned Ideot to satisfie himself with the pleasures of a Mathematical demonstration Let him have the Hecatombe and let Pythagor as be an Epicure on the dimensions of a Triangle the other hath no palate for these pleasures and indeed how could the unclean lascivious person please himself in the enjoyment of those Felicities that have no Sex Where they neither Marry nor are given in Marriage Or how the Riotous that Eats to eat eats to hunger and provoke not satisfie how will he content himself there where their happiness is they shall neither hunger nor thirst or the Incendiaries that love to set all on fire what should they do there where there are no flames but such as kindle Seraphins so that flesh and blood not only shall not but cannot enjoy the Kingdome of God And why then should they long after or think of it Nay I would this unhappy Age and an unlucky axiome of Aristotles did not convince that they do think there are no such things Sensual pleasures are corruptive of Principles saith he and indeed where Damnation is the conclusion 't is a much quieter and more easie thing for Men of Wit and Understanding to deny the Principles than granting them to lye under the torture of being lyable to such an inference they therefore that resolve to love this Life and all the sinful pleasures of it at the next step resolve there is no other Life And now this pamper'd and puft Flesh is got into the Psalmists Chair the Chair of Scorners and 't is one of the Luxuries of their life to scoff at them who are so foolish as to be Religious and to deny their flesh its present appetites and pleasures on such thin after-hopes here their Wit also is an Epicure and Feasts and Triumphs distates and professes in that chair 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Chair of Pestilences as the LXX translate and very truly for such men shed a Sphere of Contagion about them and their Discourses are effluvia of the Plague and the breath of Pestilence But how to get Flesh down out of this Chair that 's the difficulty yet that my Text will tell us for all this progress of the Flesh is trasht and checkt by Sufferings for He that hath suffered hath ceast from Sin Which how I will briefly shew you The Fleshes first art was by immersing it self in the full Lawfull use of Pleasures and by consequence in the immoderate to prevail with the Soul to find a gust in them and from a continued enjoyment to conclude them necessary and so from the importunities of a perpetual temâ—…d an accustomed satisfaction to think of nothing 〈◊〉 this life Now it is plain Affliction made this Art unpracticable for that it did do so was every
sins are so not that our Enemies are sunk but that our flesh is vanquisht that sub hoc signo ninces is thus also come to passe with the Standard of the Crosse that Cross on which our selves were Crucified we have overcome and with this Christian banner we have put to flight the Armies of our Heathen Vices For thus it must be if my Text be true and sure it is not possible it should be otherwise For look upon the Muster-roll of these our Foes which S. Paul does produce Gal. 5. 19. 20 21. and see which of them could escape it runs thus Adultery Fornication uncleanness lasciviousness Idolatry Witchcraft Hatred Variance Emulations Wrath Strife Seditions Heresies Envyings Murder Drunkenness Revellings To begin with the great Commanders those that lead the Van and bring up the Reare Uncleannesse and Revellings They that consider how they not onely suffered for but by these Vices which did misplace mens watches and attendances sins that were not onely like Achans in our Army and ruin'd it by bringing the accursed thing into it but were like Hannibal's Numidians in the Roman Army that did at once betray to and inflict Ruine sins that did merit and effect Destruction and made as well as provok'd overthrows and sins that by Gods goodnesse did cut off themselves whilethey did bring men into a condition that would not bear such Vices These are the guilts of Wealth and Splendor that do attend Felicity and Pomp it is not onely hopeful that men did resolve to be reveng'd on these great workers of their mischief and will no more resett such traitors in their bosoms but sure these sins are ceast that did put out themselves Then for Seditions They who consider when they broke the Scepter they left us nothing but the Rod of God instead of it a Rod that turned straight into a Serpent that changed our Seas into Blood or rather made new Seas of our own blood that brought Locusts over the Earth and Frogs into the Temple also to croak there that struck Lights here worse than Egyptian Darkness and destroyed all the first born of the Nation all the Nobles of the Land these will easily believe that we have felt this Rod too much to seize upon it hastily again the Scepter is restored and this Rod like to that in Israel laid up I hope within the Ark together with the Tables of the Law never to be disjoyn'd from Gods Commands nor taken thence against them Next for Heresies Truely we have left us none to revive or to make new the mischief both of them and their Cause the want of Government in the Church is now discerned and remedied And for Divisions and Schismes they who reflect on the sad issues of them how well meaning soever all their Causes were will certainly avoid them To see how while we quarelled for the Fringes of Religion we tore the seameless Coat of Christ to pieces yea and the body too How when we first dislikt a Liturgy the daily Sacrifice of Prayer was made to cease and then the House of Prayer was demolisht next Christs our Lords Prayer was rejected that Liturgy of his own framing thrown away in the Rubbish of his Temple and then it was a sin to pray at all His Table we must have remov'd and then his Supper was so too and that Great Mystery of our Religion the Sacrament of our Redemption was buryed in the Ruines of his Altar To see how thus out of heats of Religion we destroyed all Religion because that some adjacent Circumstances did not please us and fetcht a Coal from the Altar to set fire to and burn down the Temple because the building of some out-court was we thought irregular is Document enough not to attempt this any more for Religions sake For now it would be in despite of Christ who hath almost verified the Jewish accusation of him Destroy this Temple also and in three dayes he will build it up again and hath built it up we hope as he did that of his own Body never to fall again by us Surely we will not kill this Body of his out of Love to him and make his Temple his burnt Offering When God hath set our sins in order thus before our eyes shewed them us in their sad effects there is no fear that we should fall in love with them But where it is not thus where Gods last and most working Method hath been able to produce no good I must to keep my word Apply the Danger In that case what remains but the Curse of the ground Heb. 6. 8. which if after all the Husband-mans methods of Care and Art it bring forth only thorns and briars it is rejected by him he will bestow no more labour on it but can hardly forbear cursing such an ill piece of ground and its end is to be burnt So we after Gods Husbandry of Afflictions when the Plowers plowed upon our backs and made long furrows and the Iron teeth of Oppressors as it were harrowed us if we bring forth onely the fruits of the Flesh we are rejected reprobated God will bestow no more arts on us we are not far from his curse and there remains onely a fearfull looking for of Judgment and ficry Indignation If any did continue refractory to the Rod sinn'd under and against Judgment and did commit with an high hand even while the Lords hand was stretcht out against them what shall reform what can express their guilt To have beheld that tragical iniquity we read of Lyons where when the City was so visited with the Pestilence that scarce any were free that the Dead without a figure buried their dead falling down one upon another each being at once a Carcass and a grave the Souldiers of the Cittadel would daily issue forth and deflour Virgins now giving up the ghost defile Matrons even already dead committing with the dust warming the grave with sinful heats and coupling with the Plague and Death would not this have seemed the Landskip of Hell to us when they suffer and sin together yet when a Church and State were on their death-beds Gods tokens on them visited with the treasures of his Plagues and our selves sinking in that our Ruine if any went a whoreing after their own flesh still fulfilling the lusts thereof and in the midst of Deaths searching for sins what was this but to do the same things whose story does affright us while the actions please and in this case what method will be useful do we think our selves of that generous kind that will do nothing by compulsion but will for kindness and though we would not be chained yet we will be drawn to Vertue by the cords of Love and now God hath shewn mercy on us we will return him service out of gratitude Truely I make no question but most of us have promised some such things to God how if he would but save us from our Enemies that we might serve
is not enough to punish it all that while it must suffer with the Body but it must have an age of Vengeance besides particularly for it self to plague it for those things it could not execute and punish it for what it did not really enjoy onely because it did allow it self to desire and contrive them and it must be tormented for those unsatisfied desires And though indeed desires where they are violent if they be not allayed by satisfaction are but so much agony yet do they merit and pull on them more these torments shall be plagued and the soul suffer for its very passion even from Death to the last Judgment and 't is but just that being it usurp't upon the pleasures and the sins of Flesh it should also seize on and take possession of the Vengeance appointed for those sins it should invade and should usurp their condemnation But why do I stand pressing aggravations against uncleanness of Heart in an Age when God knows Vice hath not so much modesty or fear to keep within those close and dark restraints Instead of that same Cleannesse which the Text requires we may find Purity indeed of several sorts but 't is either pure Fraud or pure Impiety the one of these does make a strange expression very proper pure Corruption for so it is sincere and without mixture nothing but it self no spots of Clean to chequer it but all stain The other is pure white indeed but it is that of whited Sepulchres a Life as clean as Light a bright pure Conversation but it shines with that light onely which Satan does put on when he transformes himself into an Angell of light and it is but a glory about a fiend But yet this shines however whereas others do stand Candidates of Vice and would be glorious in wickednesse and that is such a splendor as if Satan should dresse himself with the shine of his own flaming Brimstone and make himself a glory with the streamings of his Lake of Fire And yet thus is the world we do not onely see men serve some one peculiar vicious inclination and cherish their own wickednesse but they make every vice their own as if the Root of bitterness branch't out in each sort of Impiety in them such fertile soyls of sin they are here insincerity were to be wisht and where there is not cleanness that there were a Mask that there were the Religion of Hypocrisie We may remember God was good to Israel of old by obligation and performance the one a◠great as he could enter the other great to miracle and astonishment when after seventy years Captivity and Desolation he did rebuild a Temple where there was no monument of its Ruines and raised a Nation and Government of which there was no Reliques And yet at last when the Religion of some turned into Faction of others into Prophanenesse when the strictest Sect of them the Pharises became most holy out wardly to have the better means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mischief those that were not of their party and got a great opinion of Sanctity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as to be believed in whatsoever they did speak against the King or chief Priests and that so far as to be able openly to practice against both and raise commotions They are Josephus words of them and when another Sect the Zelots the most pernicious of all saith Bertram did commit Murders Sacriledge Prophanations and all kind of Villanies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with good Intentions saith the same Josephus and when those who did not separate into Sects but were the Church of Israel became lukewarme supine and negligent in their Profession yea and licentious and Prophane fit onely to be joyned with Publicans in Christs expressions when sin grewgenerally Impudent when they did live as if they would be Scandalous as well as vicious as if they lov'd the guilt as much as the delights of sin and cared not to be wicked to themselves but must debauch as if they did enjoy the ruine of other persons sinning just as the Devil does who does not taste the sin but feasts upon the Sinners Condemnation Then did God execute a Vengeance whose prediction was fit to be mistaken for that of the Day of Judgment and whose event almost fulfil'd the terrors of that day I need not draw resemblances shew how Gods goodness to our Israel does equall that to them applying to our selves their Raptures how when the Lord turned the Captivity of our Sion we also were like them that dream surprized with Mercy Indeed as in a Dream Ideas are not alwayes well connected there is no chain or thread of fancies and the thoughts are not joynted regular and even but there are breaches and disorder in them still the Images of sleep being like Nebuchadnezzar's made of such things as do not well unite So there is something I confess like this in our condition for with our gold and silver our precious things that are restored there is Iron and Clay not onely meaner mixtures but such things as will not close or be soder'd but do incline to part asunder and would moulder and tend towards dissolution and just as in a Dream the composure of things is not so undisturb'd but that there is some confusedness neither our affections nor practises do perfectly cement but yet I hope it is no dream of mercy 't is not a Phantasme or an Apparition of Gods kindness but the Lord will be truly good to us Yet if we do proceed as Israel and equal it in provocations But I will make no parallels publique clamors do that too loud these do display the factions of iniquity among us and muster up the several parties of our vices too and each man is as perfect in the guilts of all sides that he is not of as if their memories were the books that shall be opened at the Day of Judgment some men can point you out our Pharisees and Zelots others can shew you our prophane licentious Professors Lay and Clergy both and indeed we need not go far to seek any or all of these nor do we want our Sadduces Now if all this be true then as those were the signs of the Son of Man's coming to them in Judgment so we may fear they are his Harbingers to us If they be I am sure the onely way to make his coming good to us is to prepare for it by cleansing from all filthiness and insincerity then though he come clothed with a Glory of flaming Vengeance yet will those streams of Fire find nothing to consume or wash away in us but through that flame the pure in heart shall see God so as that that sight shall be the Beatick Vision Yea they shall see the Goodnesse of the Lord in the Land of the Living they shall see Jerusalem in prosperity all their life long and Peace here upon Israel and in his light they shall see light
those satisfactions would more afflict our Souls and more restrain our vices than that which was made for us by the Death of Christ and how can this be rectified unlesse by some severities upon our selves we give our selves a piercing sense of what our sin deserves and grateful apprehensions of what our Surety suffer'd for us When in sad private earnest I have thought fit to Afflict my Soul with some austere mortifications and when my fainting Spirits are scarce able to sustain my Body that sinks under the load of it self then I may have some tender apprehensions of that weight that sunk the Son of God and 't was my weight that he fell under But he that cannot think fit to revenge a year of follies and of vices with a few weeks severer life sure thinks his Saviour suffered much in vain quorsum perditio haec why must the Blood of God be paid for sin when I cannot afford a little self-denyal for it Why such great Agonies of the Holy Jesus when I cannot find in my heart to bear a little strictnesse for it But I could easily deduce were I not to suppose it done before that sure as if the Church had thought a Statute had annext these two for ever they have been joyn'd from the beginings of our Christianity it was the Fast that did attend our Saviours sufferings that in part caused the Contest about Easter which Polycarpe S. John's Disciple manag'd and then there was a Fast so soon and he that tells us this Irenaeus Schollar to that Polycarpe sayes some observ'd it many dayes some forty dayes also if we can take the Antient Ruffinus's authority but for a Comma And if the Antient Fathers do expound aright Christ himself thought that men were interested so much in his Death that they would Fast by reason of it When the Bridegroom is taken from them then shall they Fast in those dayes Upon which words they say the Season was determin'd to this Duty by the Gospel But they may say so who knew how to perswade men to take up restraints of strictest discipline and of severest Piety But we cannot engage them into order or from Scandal they made them fast we cannot make them temperate Blessed Saviour what kind of Christians didst thou hope for thy Disciples of whom thou wer't so confident they would so concern themselves in thy Passion as to Fast because of it when in our times Christians will not be kept from their Excesses by it not in those dayes of Fasting which thy Primitive followers did Celebrate with abstinences that did almost mortifie indeed and slay the Body of Flesh as well as Sin and we in imitation of them in answer of thy confidences will not abate a Meal nor an intemperance will eat and Riot too and make a Lent of Bacchanals Thus we prepare load for thy Day of Passion sin on to add weight to thy Crosse and yet we our selves will not be humbled under them It is in vain to tell men thou expectest they should mortifie that it will spirit their Repentance for they will have no kind of Penitence for sin but such as will let them return to sin again suffer no discipline with which their vices too cannot consist for they can scarce live if they make not themselves chearful with them even in this time of Sadnesse and in sight of the Memorial of thy sufferings for them Indeed when I consider how this Season is hedg'd in from Vice by all Gods Indignation threatned at first suffered at last pronounc't in Commination executed in Passion Ash-wednesday gave us all Gods Curses against Sinners all which Good Friday shews inflicted on our Saviour Thus we began Cursed are the Unmerciful the Fornicators and Adulterers the Covetous persons Worshippers of Images Slanderers Drunkards and Extortioners and we shall see the Son of God made this Curse for them yea we our selves said Amen to all as testifying that that Curse is due to all When I consider this I say I cannot choose but be astonish't to behold how men can break through all Gods Curses and their own to get at Vice first seale Gods Maledictions then provoke and incur them instantly as if they lov'd and would commit a Rape upon Perdition as if because men have so long in Oaths beg'd God to damn them and he hath not done it yet they would now do it in their Prayers too make their Devotions as well as Imprecations consign them to the wrath of God He that does love cursing thus in the Passive sense surely as David sayes it shall come unto him it shall be unto him as the Garment that covereth him it shall enter into his bowels like Water and like Oyl into his Bones Psal. 109. 17 18 19. And truly amongst those things which we did Curse there are that will fulfill all that most literally the Ryots of thy gaudy bravery that make thee gripe extort spend thy own wealth and other mens undo thy self and Creditors be sordid and in Debt meerly to furnish trappings to dresse thy self for others eyes and may be sins these bring a Curse to cover thee as does thy Garment yea and they gird it to thee The draughts of thy Intemperance carry the malediction down into the Bowells like Water yea like Wine into the very Spirits There is another of them too that will conveigh the Curse like Oyl into the Bones till it eat out the marrow and leave nothing but it self to dwell within them yea till it putrefie the bones till it prevent the Grave and Judgment too while the living sinner invades the rottennesse of the one and torments of the other and then the Lents and abstinencies that the sin prescribes shall be observed exactly onely to qualifie them for more sin and condemnation may be at the best but to recover them from what it hath inflicted when yet alas they are too soft and tender the Lord knows to endure any severities to work out their Repentance and Atonement And yet sure these the sinner does go through have nothing to commend them which these other do not much more abound with If those are not grievous to thee because they are so wholesome and though it be a miserable thing to go through all their painful squalid methods yet how disgustful so-ere by the benefit of their cure they excuse their offensivenesse and ingratiate the present injury they do the Flesh by the succeeding health they help thee to and by the Death they do secure thee from Why sure to omit that the other have all these advantages none have so calm and so establisht health as the abstemious and continent and their mind is still serene their temper never clouded but besides this the Christians bitter poâ—ions do purge away that sickness that would end in death eternal his fastings starve that worm that otherwise would gnaw the Soul immortally his weepings quench the everlasting burnings yea there is cheerful Pleasure in the
and favour and the happy consequences of it as to counterpoise all the danger of such enmity you may joyn hands with them But if His be the safer and more advantageous then hearken to his Propositions and beseechings for He does beg it of you As he treated this reconciliation in his Blood so he does in Petitions too For saith S. Paul We are Ambassadours for Christ as if God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead Be you reconciled and then be Generous towards your GOD and Saviour and having brought him as it were upon his knees reduc'd him to entreaties be friends and condescend to him and your own Happiness If He be for you take no care then who can be against you His Friendship will secure you not onely from your Enemies but from Hostility it self for when a man's wayes please the Lord he will make even his Enemies to be at peace with him Prov. 16. 7. He will reconcile all but Vices And afterwards see what a blessed throng of Friends we shall be all initiated into Heb. 12. 23. To an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the First-born that are written in Heaven to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of Just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant c. And of this blest Corona we our selves shall be a noble and a glorious part inflamed all with that mutual love that kindles Seraphims and that streams out into an heavenly glory filling that Region of immortal love and blessednesse and being Friends that is made one with Father Son and Holy Ghost that Trinity of Love we shall enjoy what we do now desire to ascribe to them All Honour Glory Power Majesty and Dominion for evermore Amen SERMON V. VVHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LEN. EZECH XXXIII 11. Why will ye Dye THe Words are part of a Debate which God had with the sinful House of Israel in which there are three things offer themselves to be considered First The Sinners Fate and choyce He will Dye That 's his End yea 't is his Resolution he will dye Secondly Gods inquiry for the Ground of this he seems astonished at the Resolution and therefore reasons with them about this their so mad choyce and questions Why will ye dye Which words are also Thirdly The debate of his Affections the reasoning of his Bowels and a most passionate Expostulation with them on account of that their Resolution Why will ye dye Which as it is adrest by God directly to the House of Israel so it would fit a Nation perverse as that which Mutinies against Miracles and Mercies is false to God Religion and their own Interests led by a Spirit of giddyness and srenzy unsteddy in all things but resolutions of Ruine that would teare open their old Wounds to let out Life and they will dye And though the Lord be pleased to work new prodigies of mercy for us and to say unto us in despite of all our Enemies both Forreign and Domestick Live The use we make of all is onely to debauch the Miracles and make Gods Mercies help to fill the measure of our Judgment live as if we would try all the wayes to Ruine and since God will thus deliver us from dangers we would call for them some other way But to prescribe to these is above the attempt of my endeavours May the blessed Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Holynesse and Peace and Order breath on their Counsels whom this is committed to I shall bend my Discourse to the Conviction of Sinners in particular and treat upon the words as if they had been spoke to us under the Gospel The first thing which my Text and God supposeth is the Sinners Fate and Choyce He will dye Even the second Death for it is appointed for all men once to dye and then cometh the Judgment which shall sentence him to another death that is immortal in which he and his misery must live for ever that is he must dye Everlastingly Such is first his fate That Sin and Death are of so near so complicated a relation as that though they were Twins the birth and Issue of one Womb and moment yet they are also one anothers Ofspring and beget each other while Sin bringeth forth Death as S. James saith and is the Parent of Perdition and yet the Man of Sin is the Son of Perdition as S. Paul saith and Iniquity is but destruction's birth onely it self derived And that this Death and Perdition is Eternal in the most sad sense of the word there are a thousand Texts that say This is the Message of God in the mouth and Blood of his Son who useth all the artifice of Words affirmative and negative to tell us so as if on purpose to preclude all doubt and subtersuge calls it Eternal fire and Eternal punishment where their worm dieth not their fire is not quenched Torment for ever and ever and the like Your Faith and certainty of which is as strong as your Christianity and therefore by attempting any farther proof of this to imply there is reason and necessity for doing so were to suppose my Hearers infidels But then this being granted that such is the sinners fate to lay down positively that it is his Choyce and that he doth resolve for Death is to suppose them worse than Infidels more than irrational and brutish Beasts cannot so desire against the possibilities of appetite break all the forces and instincts of Nature as to will destruction and choose misery Yet that the sinner does so is the ground of Gods Expostulation here Why will you dye David inquires as if it were a prodigy to find What man is he that lusteth to Live And sure the vicious man does not for Wisdome that is Virtue sayes He that sinneth against me woundeth his own Soul and all they that hate me love death Prov. 8. 36. And 't is most evident that they who eagerly and out of vehement affection pursue and seize those things to which they know destruction is annext inseparably they love and choose destruction though not for it self yet for the sake of that to which it clings He that is certain such a Potion howsoever sweetned and made palatable is compounded with the juice of deadly Nightshade if notwithstanding he will have the Poysonous draught it is apparent he resolves to dye And that I may evince this is a setled obstinate incorrigible resolution in him and by what wayes and steps it comes to be so I will lay before you the violent courses he does take to break through difficulties and obstructions that would trash and hinder him And when the avenues to Death are strongly guarded how he storms and forces them overcomes all resistance possible that he may seize on Sin and Death And First When such persons have entred the Profession of Christianity in Baptisme and
by early engagements tyed themselves to the observation of its duties if principles of probity in Nature fomented by others instil'd with Education have made impressions of duty on the mind and wrought a reverence and awe of God and of Religion which is a fence about them and does keep off Vice by making it seem strange uncouth and difficult while these fears and aversations are rooted in them why then the first thing that they do as soon as Youth and the Temptations do stir within them is to poyson these their own Principles by evil Conversation and from that and Example take infusions which shall impregnate them with humours of being in the fashion of the World Thus they labour to strangle the then troublesome modesties of Nature and of Virtuous breeding thus they look out ill Company to infect themselves And surely they that seek the Plague and run into infection we have cause to fear they have a Resolution to dye But Secondly If notwithstanding this in the first practises of Vice their former Principles stir and ferment within and fret the Conscience set that on working why then if the sin sting gently do but prick the heart and make an out-let for a little gush of Sorrow then in spight of Scripture they do teach themselves to think that grief Repentance and by the help of that conceit this sorrow cools and doth allay the swelling of the mind washes away the guilt and thought of the commission they have been sad and they believe repented as if those stings opened the fountain for transgression and those little wounds did flow with Balsom for themselves And by this means that sting of the old Serpent fin while it pretends to cure by hurting thus proves indeed the Tempter to go on For if this be all why should a man renounce all the Contents and satisfactions of his Inclinations and mortifie and break his nature to avoid a thing which is so easily repented for No if it be no worse they can receive this Serpent in their bosome dare meet his sting and run upon these wounds and they do so till the frequent pungencies and cicatrices have made the Conscience callous and insensible the heart hardned But if their first essays of sin were made unfortunate by Notoreitie or some unhappy circumstance and so the wound were deep and the Conscience troublesome and restlesse because this is very uneasie these inward groans make discord in their cheerful aires make their life harsh they therefore find it necessary to confront the shame with Courage of iniquity go boldly on that so they may outlook it sear their own Conscience that its wounds may not bleed And as those Fiends of Men who Sacrific'd their Children in the fire to Moloch that they might not hear their Infants shreek nor their own Bowels croke had noyses made with Timbrels to out-voice them So these to drown the cryes and howlings of their wounded mind put themselves in perpetual hurry of divertisement and vice make Tophet about themselves and with the noyse of Ryots overcome all other because they will not hearken to those groans that call for the Physician of Souls and then sure these resolve to dye Nay if this will not keep them quiet you may see them sometimes ruffle with their own Consciences defie present Convictions in the very instant of Commission men so set on Death that they Condemn themselves in that which they allow And though a man would think there should be little satisfaction in those pleasures which Condemnation thrusts it self into and which have an alloy of so sad apprehensions yet such are it seems the satisfactions of sin For while it stabs and gashes He brave Hero of Iniquity can charge the wounds and take the Vice Yea Thirdly though the Lord himself appear and take part in the Quarrel joyn with our Principles and Conscience against the fin and with importunate calls alarm us give us no rest ordain a Function of men by whom he does beseech us dresses their Messages with Promises of that which God is blessed in and arms them too with Terrors such as Devils tremble at and joyns his Holy Spirit too that Power of the Highest sends him in Tongues of Fire that he also may Preach this to our very Hearts and fright us with more flame And yet the sinner breaks these strengths and vanquishes the Arts and strivings of Divine Compassion If these Embassadors speak Charms it is but what God tells our Prophet in this Chapter v. 32. And lo thou art unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant voyce and can play well on an Instrument And it does dye like that as it there follows They hear thy words but they do them not And if they flash in Hell against their vices in torrents of threatning Scripture they concern themselves no more than they would in the story of a new Eruption of Mount AEtna or Vesuvius Yea they do quench the Spirit and his fires do not like the deaf Adder stop their ears against his whisperings and the charms of Heaven that were a weaker and less valiant guilt but are Religious in hearing them curious that they may be spoke with all advantages to make it harder not to yield and live that so they may expresse more resolution to perish and with more courage and solemnity may sin and dye Nay more when God hath found an Art to draw themselves into a League and Combination against their vices bound them in Sacraments to Virtue made them enter a Covenant of Piety and seal it in the Blood of God and by that foederall Rite with hands lift up and seizing on Christ's Body and with holy Vows oblige themselves to the performances or to the Threats of Gospel which they see executed in that Sacrament before their eyes see there death is the wages of iniquity they shew themselves its damned consequences while they behold it tear Christ's Body spill his Blood and Crucifie the Son of God yet neither will this frightful spectacle nor their own ties hold them from sin and ruine they break these bonds asunder to get at them The Wiseman sayes that wicked men seek death and make a Covenant with it and so it seems But sure they are strange wilful men that seek it at Gods Table in the Bread of Life that will wade through an Ocean of mercy to get at Perdition and find it in the Blood of Christ will drink Damnation in the Cup of Blessing men that poyson Salvation to themselves They that contract thus for Destruction and tye it to them at the Altar with such sacred Rites and Articles are sure resolv'd and love to dye Fourthly God had provided other Guards to secure men from sin and Death the Censures of the Church of which this Time was the great Season and the discipline of abstinence we now use is a piteous relique all that the world will bear it seems But as the
Lord appointed them they were so close a sence that our Saviour calls them Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven as if they lockt us in the Path of Piety and Life and we must pick or break all that the Key of Heavin can make fast burst Locks as well as Vows before we can get out have liberty to sin God having bounded in the Christians race as that among the Grecians was which had a River on one side and Swords points all along the other so that Destruction dwelt about it on the borders And God hath mounded ours with the River of Hell the Lake of Fire and with these spiritual Swords as S. Cyprian and S. Hierome call the Censures But yet a Mound too weak alas to stand the Resolution and assaults of Vices now adayes which do not onely make great breaches in the Fence but have quite thrown it down and slighted it and the Church dares not set it up again should she attempt it they would scoff it down Men will endure no bar in the way to Perdition they will have liberty of Ruine will not be guarded from it so far from brooking Censures they will suffer no Reproof nor Admonition not suffer one word betwixt them and death eternal But Fiftly Though we will not let Almighty God restrain us with his Censures yet he will do it with his Rod and set the sharp stakes of Affliction in our walk to keep us in thus he makes sins sometimes inflict themselves and then we straight resolve to break off from them and while we suffer shame and feel destruction in the vice we shrink and uncling And now the sinner would not dye especially if his Precipitance have thrown him to the consines of the grave and while he took his full careers of Vice the fury of his course did drive him to the ports of Ruine and Death seemed to make close and most astonishing approaches when standing on the brink of the Abysse he takes a prospect of the dismal state that must receive him and his Vices then he trembles and flyes his apprehensions swoon his Soul hath dying qualins caused as much by the Nausea of sin as by the fear of Hell he is in agonies of passion and of prayer both against his former courses he never will come near them more and now sure God hath catch't him and his will is wholly bent another way now he will live the new life if God will grant him any But alas have we never seen when God hath done this for him stretch't out his Arm of Power hal'd him from the brow of the Pit and set him further off how he does turn and drive on furiously in the very same path that leads to the same Ruine and he recovers into death eternal And now this Will is grown too strong for the Almighty's powerful methods and frustrates the whole Counsell of God for his Salvation neglects his Calls and Importunacies whereby he warns him to consult his safety to make use of Grace in time not to harden his heart against his own mercies and perish in despight of mercy And when he can reject Gods Graces and his Judgments thus defie his Conscience and his own Experience too there is but one thing left wherein this Resolution can shew its courage and that is Sixthly His own present Interests All which the sinner can break through and despise to get at Death It is so usual to see any of the gross wasting Vices when it is once espoused murder the Reputation and all those great concerns that do depend upon a mans Esteem eat out his Wealth and Understanding make him pursue pernicious wayes and Counsells besot him and enslave him fill his life with disquiet shame and needinesse and the sad consequents of that Contempt and all that 's Miserable and unpittied in this Life and yet the sin with all these disadvantages is lovely not to be divorc't nor torn off from him that I were vain should I attempt to prove a thing so obvious I shall give but one instance of the power of the Will the violence and fury of its inclimations to ruine The man who for anothers inadvertency possibly such as their own rules of Honour will not judge affront yea sometimes without any shadow of a provocation meerly because he will be rude does that upon which they must call one another to account and to their last account indeed at Gods dread Judgment feat whither when he hath sacrific'd two Families it may be all their hopes and comforts in this Life two Souls which cost the Blood of God having assaulted Death when it was aâ—m'd and at his heart and charged Damnation to take Hell by Violence he comes with his own and his Brother's blood upon his Soul to seize his Sentence Go ye Cursed into everlasting Fire 'T is plain against all Interests of this World and the World to come this man will dye And yet this is one of the laudable and generous Customes of the Age. Neither doth this man stand alone the desperate Rebel would come into the Induction that without any hopes sets all on fire to consume all here and to begin his Flames hereafter But I have said enough to prove the Resoluteness of a Sinners Will which is so great indeed that it is this especially which does enhance the guilt of sin into the merit of an endlesse punishment this persevering obstinacy does deserve Hell and make it just For whatsoever inequality there is betwixt the short liv'd pleasures of a sin which dye while they are tasted and put out themselves and those eternal never dying retributions of Vengeance As sure there is also betwixt the life of Man and several of those petty felonies that forfeit it yet the Law does not murder when it Executes I might have instanc't in the gathering sticks upon the Sabbath day in Israel For since the preservation of publique safety and propriety is valuable with the lives of many men and to secure that and affright the Violation it was necessary to affix such punishments to such offences they that know the penalty and wilfully meerly to feed their other vices run upon it justly suffer it So that Man might not rob himself of that immortal Glory which God had ordain'd him when he did see it absolutely necessary thus to hedge Vice with Eternal Death And as he set Angels and Flaming Swords to keep him out of Paradise so to set Fiends and Flames to guard Hell from him and to entail those Torments on Man's sin which he had prepared for the Devil and sealed the Deed in the Blood of his Son If notwithstanding men renounce the blessedness and against all their Interests and Obligations in spight of all the arts and Powers of Heaven they will have the Torments and what they never would attempt for Paradise invade those flames to get to Hell 't is very just that God should let them have it should not break his
raised to life again by it we shall rise to Immortality of Life and blessednesse receive all that we do believe more than we can comprehend receive the end of our Faith the salvation of our Souls Which God of his Mercy state us all in for the sake of Jesus Christ the Authour and the Finisher of our Faith and the Captain of our Salvation To whom with the Father c. SERMON IX VVHITE-HALL Sixth Wednesday in LENT 1664 5. GAL. 11. 20. I am Crucified with Christ. THE Ancient Observation of this Time would justifie my choyce make the Text Seasonable in the most severe sense it can put on when in their Exomologeses they ate onely the Bread of Sorrow and tears were their Drink day and night so as that in the Agonies of their Repentance they did Crucifie without a Metaphor and mâ—rtifie the Body of Flesh as well as Sin But it seems to have happened in our Sins as in our great Diseases men are grown more skilfull and have found out much more grateful wayes of Cure there is no need of going through a discipline of Torments a whole course of Medicinal Cruelty but they can heal at least palliate with more ease and speed Besides that Christianity is now of a more delicate and tender make and cannot bear austerities neither come I here to call for them or to provoke their Constitutions if they have found a softer and more pleasant way to Heaven on Gods Name let them walk in it onely in our walk we are now coming within ken of the Crosse of Christ and we can bear commemorations of his Passion they make the closing Ceremony of this Season which was set aside on purpose by the preparations of Humiliation to fit us for the performances and expiations of that Day by Repentance to to put off our Old Man the whole Bâ—dy of Sin that we may hang it on his Crosse as we go by That is the onely use of this time and the onely application of that Day Which I crave leave to shew you how to make at once And without this that Ceremony howsoever solemn will be meâ—rly pageantry not Worship the observation but dramatick and we shall have no part in the Atonement onely in the Scene of that dayes Tragedy rather than Sacrifice He onely Celebrates that Passion onely he partakes that Offering who can say with S. Paul I am Crucified with Christ. In which words we shall first endeavour to discover what this person is I. Secondly what the Nature is of that Condition and estate which S. Paul does affirm here of that person and that First in it self Crucified I am Crucified Secondly in its adjunct with Christ Which because it cannot signifie conjunction in time he is not now upon the Crosse that I might say now I am Crucified with him nor when He was was I that I might say then I am Crucifiâ—d with Christ but we shall find it hath other importances First it implies a likeness to Christ's Passion I am Crucified as he was so it means through the whole Rom. 6. and the being crucified with Christ is what S. Paul elsewhere expresses by the being made conformable to his death Secondly it imports more even Communication and partaking with him in his Passion being planted together in the likenesse of his death Rom. 6. 5. and I am Crucified with Christ does mean I have a fellowship of his Sufferings as he words it Phil. 3. 10. Thirdly it means also a conjunction of causal relation that there is a Vertue and Efficacy in the Crosse of Christ to work the Sinner into Crucifying of his sin so the particle must needs import Ephes. 2. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath set us together with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Where we are neither in conformity nor fellowship but onely in our head and in our cause so I am Crucified with Christ does mean his Passion hath an influence to Crucifie and cause in me the death of Sin Of these in order and First what this person is I say not who we know it was S. Paul but what And the reason of the Enquiry is because we find indeed elsewhere crucifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts required and we are also bid to mortifie our members that are on the Earth such as Fornication and Uncleannesse Covetousnesse and the like But these are not I how am I mortified in these Is it because it may be they are grown so dear to me that I am Crucified in their destruction and long practice and acquaintance hath riveted them into my very heart Now the Wen we know though an excrescent tumour but an accessory bag of noxious humours yet if it lay hold on any noble part take in some Nerve or Artery then he must cut the thread of Life that cuts it off So he must rent my heart indeed that tears my pleasures from me Life it self does seem to have so little satisfaction without them that it is a death to me to part with them Or else hath the Old Man no Soul is he all Flesh and hath Iniquity debas'd the whole of him so that his very Spirit is become Body of Sin so as that Wickednesse should be our very Being be all one with us and I and my corruptions prove denominations of one importance signifie the very same so it is indeed Besides the carnal part that is sold under sin and consequently does deserve the Cross that punishment of Slaves the part also that is in the quite opposite extream that lusts against the flesh that must be made away Be ye transform'd by the renewing of your mind Rom. 12. 2. And if there be any sublimer and more defaecated part in that it must submit to the same Fate Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind Ephes. 4. 23. Corruption hath invaded that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the diviner ruling part is grown a slave to the Beast part of him it hath debaucht its notions whereby it should discriminate good from evil so that now it can discern no natural difference between them but does measure both meerly by his present inclinations and concerns and the eternal Lawes of Honesty are blotted out and principles of interest and irreligion rais'd there in the place and buttress'd by false reasonings and discourses Now all these Fortresses of Vice that maintain and secure a man in sin must be demolisht all such imaginations cast down and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and every thought brought into Captivity to the obedience of Christ That Spirit of the mind must be destroyed and we transformed into persons of new notions and reasonings But above all the remaining part of man his own Will must be mortified which besides its natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by perverse inclinings to sollicitations of flesh is most corrupted and most dangerous in that which way soever it
to be to him the same as Appetite to Tantalus that which he must not satsifie and is his hell 'T is easie if the lust be got no further than the Eye to pull them out together but if through that it shoot into the Blood and Spirits mix heats with those if it enwrap the heart twist with its strings and warm the Soul with its desires so that it Spirit all the motions all the thoughts and wishes of the heart when it is thus to make the heart to stifle its own motions stab its thoughts and strangle all its wishes to untwist and disentangle and to tear it thence if this be to be Circumcised with the Circumcision of Christ and he that hath not the sign of this the Seal of the New Covenant as he that in the Old had not the other was must be cut off our long habituated hardned Sinners must not think that there is any thing of true Repentance in their easie perfunctory sleight performances there is something like Death in the Duty which yet is required of us farther under variety of more severe expressions for we are bid thirdly to slay the Body of Sin Rom. 6. 6. to mortifie our members Col. 3. 5. and to crucyfie Gal. 6. 14. which how it may be done the next consideration of S. Pauls condition in the Text and my next part declare I am Crucified with Christ that is first as he was by being made conformable to his Death And truly should we trace him through all the stages of his Passion we should hardly find one passage but is made to be transcribed by us in dealing with our sins First he began it with Agony when his Soul was exceeding heavy for it labour'd with such weight of indignation as did make the Son of God to sink under the meer apprehension And he was sorrowful unto Death so as that his whole body did weep blood The Sinners passion his Repentance is exactly like it it begins alwayes with grief and sense of weight whoever is regenerate was conceiv'd in sorrow and brought forth with pangs and the Child of God too is born weeping And for loads the Church when she does call us to shew forth this Death of Christ as if she did prescribe that very Agony requires that we should find that Garden at the Altar makes us say we are heartily sorry for our misdoings the remembrance of them is grievous unto us the burden of them is intollerable So that the Sinner's Soul must be exceeding heavy too Secondly There he is betrayed by his own domestick sold for the poorest price imaginable as a Slave for thirty pieces of silver I shall not mind you what unworthy things the love of Money does engage men to to sell a Christ a Saviour and a God! and rather than stand out at such a base rate as we scorn to buy a sin at every single act 's engagement to Damnation costs more than the Ransom of the world is sold for and the Blood of God is purchas'd cheaper than any one opportunity of vice does stand us in But I onely mind you here that he shall have a better hire that will but be a Judas to his own iniquities do but betray thy Regent sins deliver them up and thou shalt have everlasting Heaven Thirdly we find him next carryed before the High Priest And the strictest times of Christianity would serve their sins so to receive his doom upon them to be excommunicated into reformation But I shall not urge how we can discover to a Physician our shames all our most putrid guilts as well as Ulcers and make him our Confessor in our most secret sins neither will I be inquisitive why the Physicians of our souls are balk'd but will passe this part of the Conformity and follow Christ to Pontins Pilate And for this part we our selves are Fitted the whole furniture of a Judicial Court all that makes up both Bench and Barr is born within us God hath given us a Conscience whereby we are a Law to our selves Rom. 2. We have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Jews did want such evidence as is sufficient to condemn us the same Conscience that is privy to our doings and stands by our thoughts and sees through our intentions is a thousand witnesses And that there may be a Prosecutor our own thoughts accuse us saith S. Paul and if we will give them way will aggravate each Circumstance of guilt and danger bark and howl and cry as loud against us as the Jews did against Christ for Sin is of so murthering a guilt it will be sure to slay it self and that he may not want his deserved Ruin the Sinner makes his own Indictement yea and his own Sentence too for our own heart condemns us saith S. John And when ever it does so Oh that we would follow it through all the gradations that brought Christ to Death and use our wickednesse as he was us'd strip it from its Cloaths bare it from its fair pretexts it useth to be drest in Lay our anger naked from all those excuses which our provocations that either wrath or humour will be sure to think intollerable do make for it strip our pride and vanity from those paints and dresses which the Custome of the Age that does require and warrant strange things dawbs the sin with use our Luxuries and Intemperances so and the other greater and more thirsty dropsie that of Wealth and of unjust unworthy gains which there are richer Luxuries in too And there are none of these but have their pleas their colours which they set themselves out in to please the Appetite and to deceive the Mind all which we must strip off and then when we have laid them naked spit upon them vomit all our spleen and contumelious despite at that which hath made us so ugly in Gods sight scourge it with Austerities and buffet it as they did Christ and S. Paul did himself 1 Cor. 19. 27. And when the Body of Sin is thus tamed and weakened it will be easie then to lead it out and crucifie it A Crucifiction this that does make our Good-Friday be a day of Expiation and Atonement to us A sight which next to that of his own Son upon the Crosse is the most acceptable to the Lord when he does see us execute his Enemies although they be our selves and Crucifie the dear Affections of our bosome as God did This is indeed to be conform'd unto the death of Christ. If I might have leave to go before you and to let you into the Example draw the Curtain from before the Passion I would call my Sins out drag them to behold that prospect hale them into the Garden shew them how he was us'd there You my Extravagancies of my youth my mad follies and wild jollities come see my Saviour yonder how he swoons when guilt began to make approaches towards him and can I make my self merry with nothing
else but that which made him dye tickle cheer and heighten my self with Agonies You my intemperate Draughts my full bowles and the ryotous Evenings I have past look yonder what a sad night do these make Christ passe look what a Cup he holds which makes him fall lower to deprecate than ever my Excesses made me lye You my lazy Luxuries Fulnesse of Bread and Idlenesse whereby I have controul'd Gods Curse and onely in the Sweat of others Faces eat my Bread and in that dew drank up the Spirits of those multitudes that toyl to faintings to maintain my dissolute life see how he is forc't to bear the whole curse for me how the Thorns grow on his head and how he Sweats all over You my supine Devotions which do scarce afford my God a knee and lesse an heart not when I deprecating an eternity of all those Torments which kill'd Christ look yonder how he prayes behold him on his Face petitioning see there how he sweats and begs You my little Malices and my vexatious Anger 's that are hot and quick as Fire it self and that do fly as high too that are up at Heaven strait for the least wrong on Earth look how he bears his how his patience seems wounded onely in a wound that fell upon his persecutors and when one that came to apprehend him wrongfully was hurt as if the Sword of his defence had injur'd him he threatned and for ever curs'd the black deeds of that angry Weapon and made restitution of what he had not taken made his adversary whole whom he had not hurt See how with his cruel Judges he is as a Sheep that not before his shearers onely but before his Butcher too is dumb You my Scorns and my high Stomach that will take no satisfaction but Blood and Soul for the faults of inadvertency for such as not the wrong but humour makes offences look how they use him they buffet and revile and spit upon him Ye my dreadful Oaths and bitter imprecations which I use to lace my speeches with or belch out against any one that does offend me in the least making the Wounds and Blood of God and other such sad words either my foolish modes of speaking or the spittings of my peevishnesse There you may see what 't is I play with so you may behold the Life of Christ pouring out at those wounds which I speak so idly of and what I mingle with my sportive talk is Agony such as they that beheld afar off struck their breasts at and to see them only was a passion Ye my Atheismes and my Irreligion but alas you have no prospect yonder it s but faint before you who out-do the Example whatsoever Judas and the rest did to the Man Christ Jesus you attempt on God you invade Heaven Sentence Crucifie Divinity it self And now having shewed my Sins this Copy of themselves what they are in their own demerits when my bowels do begin to turn within me at that miserable usage which Christ underwent it will be a time to execute an act of Indignation at my self who have resetted in my bosom all these Traytors to my Saviour made those things the joy and entertainment of my life which had their hands in the Blood of my God and what a stupid senslesse Soul have I that was never troubled heartily at that which did make him almost out of hope and if this be the effect of sin then it is time for me to throw it off O my Jesu sure I am I am not able to support the weight of that thou didst sink under Thou didst come to bear our sins in thy own Body on the Tree therefore in thy Body they were nailed to the Crosse and then certainly I will not force and tear them thence No there I leave them and will never reassume them more which resolution is the effect of that vertue and efficacy which is in the Crosse of Christ to the crucifying of sin which is the second sense in which the Christian does professe with S. Paul I am Crucified with Christ. There are some Learned Men that when they would assign reasons sufficient to move Cod to lay the punishment of our iniquities upon his Son and execute that Indignation that was due to us on the most innocent most Holy Jesus give this onely that this was the highest and most signal way imaginable to discover Gods most infinite displeasure against Sin and by consequence to terrifie men from the practise of it For if any thing in Heaven or in Earth could make us fear and from henceforth commit no such evil it was surely this to see Sin sporting in the Agonies of Christ Iniquity triumphing in the Blood of God To see those dire instances of the deservings of a Sinner those amazing prelusions to his expectations and consider it was easier for God to execute all this upon his Son than suffer sin to go unpunisht Indeed they make all that is real in the whole account they give of satisfaction made to God for sin to consist in this that the temporal Death of Christ which God by vertue of his absolute Dominion may inflict on the most innocent taking away that which himself had given especially since Christ who had that right over his own life which none else had did of his own accord submit to it and he laid down his life who had a power to do so That Death I say might justly be ordain'd by God for an Example of his Wrath and Hatred against Sin and then might be accepted in the stead of their death who were warned by that example and affrighted from committing sin And truly there is colour for it for all satisfaction seems either of a losse sustain'd which is acquired by compensation or the satisfaction of our anger which is commonly appeased by the sufferings of the injurious party or else the satisfaction of our fears and doubts that we may be secure not to sustain the like again which is most likely to be best provided for by punishment For sure one will not venture upon that which he must suffer for the doing Now of all these the first the satisfaction of compensation as it cannot properly be made to God who could sustain no real diminution by Man's sin For though thy wickednesse saith Job may hurt a man as thou art yet if thou sinnest what doest thou against God or if thy transgressions be multiplyed what doest thou to him but onely as the breaking of his law does in S. Pauls expression dishonour him amongst men so also it were easie to demonstrate that this one example does exalt more of Gods attributes and to a greater height than either if his Law had been obey'd or executed if that either were our business or if this sort of satisfaction did not properly belong onely to the offended party not the supreme Judge or Governour as such under which notion God is here to
be considered As neither does the second satisfaction that of anger the Judge being to be like his Law that hath no passions or affections And truly since the things that do satisfie our angers and revenges are no real goods the satisfactions of them are unnatural and therefore surely not Divine Monstrous appetite that hath learnt to desire mischief hath also taught us to delight in misery and be satisfied with the griefs of others which being nothing to us cannot be our good And although we are stil'd Children of Wrath as if our portion were to be onely plagues our inheritance perdition and the fearful issues of Gods Fury Yet since to be angry signifies in God no more than this to testifie what great abhorrency he hath to sin how contrary to him how not to be indur'd it is It was impossible for God when he had once resolv'd to pardon sin to testifie that more than by resolving not to pardon it without such an example so that it did satisfie his anger perfectly But all true satisfaction lyes in the provision that is made by punishment against future offences This is that which the Magistrate and Law requires nec enim irascitur sed cavet for by Punishment they cannot call back the offences that are past undo or make them not have been but they can make men not to dare to doe them again nor others by their example This is the end why they annex Penalties to their Laws expresly said so Deut. 19. 20. Which end therefore when they attain by Punishment the Law and Magistrate is satisfied For it is not so much the Death of the Offender that is satisfaction of the Law as the Example of Terror that it gives and therefore humane Lawgivers have oft thought fit to change the Penalty and where Death was appoynted to assign other sufferings that consist with Life and prolong Misery and Terror as Proscription and the Gallies c. Accordingly to propose an Example of Terror to us God laid all the severe inflictions of the Passion-day upon his own Son Now it is evident that the example of a Man suffering for the breach of Lawes does certainly hedge in those Lawes keep them more safe from violence therefore we see those Laws are best observ'd which the Magistrate's Sword does most guard and Experience would quickly make it good a Land would prove but a meer Shambles and a Man's life cheaper than a Beast's if Murtherers and Duellists shall get impunity more easily than he that steals an Horse or Sheep When on the other side that Nation from whom we most receive the fashions of our vices also whom the honour of that sin is most peculiar to though they seemed to value it above Estate and Life and Family and Soul yet we know could be beaten from it by some sharp examples And then when our Lawgiver as he spoke his Laws at first with Thunder and with Lightning as if they brought their Sentence along with them and the very promulgation was a copy and example of their Execution So also he did write those Laws in Blood to let us see what does await transgression how he that spar'd not his own dear Son will certainly not spare any impenitent this could not choose but have some influence if 't were consider'd Should we call to mind the kindnesse God had at this time to lost Man how he so long'd to pity him that he resolv'd not to pity himself how yet in all those turnings of his bowells within him his repentings over Man when his Compassion was at such an height as to give his well beloved Son to satisfie for our transgressions in the midst of all those inclinations to us at that very time how yet he did so hate our sins that nothing else could satisfie him but the Blood of God How he made the Son of God empty himself of his Divinity and of his Soul and all to raise a sum onely to purchase one example of that Indignation that attends a Sinner it will be easie then to recollect how insupportable that Wrath will be to the impenitent in the Day of his fierce Anger when he shall have no kindness left for them but the Omnipotence of Mercy will become Almighty Fury Who shall be able to avoid or to endure the issues of it shall I think to scape them when he spared not his Son or shall I venture upon bearing that to all Eternity which that Son was not able to support some hours Thus as S. Paul expresses God sending his own Son in the likenesse of sinful flesh a Sacrifice for sin condemned sin in the flesh that is he shewed what did await iniquity that men by so great an example of his Wrath might be frighted from the practise Et si quis morte Christi admonitus paniteat iste per mortem Christi peccato mortâ—â—s esse dicitur saith Origen on Rom. 6. 1. He who seeing that example of Christ Crucified for sin is warned by it into Repentance he is crucified with Christ. God dealing with us as Men do with a young Prince that must be disciplin'd by the correction of another for his faults and in this sense also our chastisement was upon Christ and by his stripes we are cur'd And now though I propose not this as if I thought this Reason were sufficient of it self which seems to give no good account how any could be ransomed e're Christ suffered which yet certainly they were the vertue of his Death extending to all former Ages as is proved most evidently Heb. 9. 25. a place which Crellius himself does give no satisfaction to if the satisfaction of his Death consisted onely in its being an Example it could no more satisfie for the sins of former Ages than it could be an Example e're it was in being If that Death were accepted in the stead of their death who by that Example are frighted into Repentance what was accepted for their sins who had no such vision of it as that it could or did affright them yet repented Yet to them that have beheld it in its vigour they that can controul this check to vice and when to shew us an Example it cost God the life of his own Son after the prospect of whose Cross he hath not any Terrour to propose this being the contrivance of the Divine mind and the stresse of all his most Almighty Attributes conjoyn'd in one compounded Miracle can yet make all this vain and fruitlesse and have no effect are nor feared nor warned by it but as if it signified no peril to their sins they can come once a year to entertain themselves with the Example and go from the Agonies unconcern'd to the sins that inflicted them and that shew forth themselves in them Who act as if those were the onely soft and pleasant things that crusht his Blood and Soul out as if those which did make the Son of God cry out as if he did almost
despair were the onely fit things to make men jolly And do thus as they did it in despite to this great method of Salvation as if they did enjoy the indignation and the wrath of God as if those Agonies like the other difficulties of their sins did more provoke to them or like the Paschal bitter herbs that typified them were as sawce to the Ryots of their vices These certainly are men of a most desperate appetite and courage But 't is much more to be lamented that the Law of God does not seem better guarded by this dire example than it was of old among the Jews when it shew'd the Sinner his deservings onely by the dying of his Beast and had no other fence nor satisfaction than the blood of Bulls and Goats It is not very visible that it hath wrought upon consideration so as to make us more fear and beware nay we may question whether the example of my Bullock dying for my sin would not restrain and terrifie me more than that of Jesus Crucified for it If I were to expiate the Blood with which I word my anger and my oaths with the blood of my own Flocks if that Luxury which plunders every Element and brings a little Universe at once upon my Table to treat it self withal were but to kill one Heifer for the Temple and I to expiate each surfeit by one such Religious Ryâ—t Were I to quench the feavers of an Intemperance with a drink-offering 't is possible I should not be so prone to sacrifice to my Genius if I must sacrifice to God for doing so and I should be more tender of my Beasts than I am of my Saviour Now how comes this to passe It is impossible that we should be so apprehensive of our own demerits should we see them represented in the sufferings of a Beast as when they are shewed to us in those of the Son of God What is it then should we account our selves to suffer in our Beast His Death were our own losse and punishment And had we no communion in this Death of Christ was not that our own or account we our concern and share in that lesse valuable than in that of our Beast Far be this from us we are no further Christians than we can affirm with S. Paul who challengeth a fellowship in all Christ's sufferings and boasts it saying I am Crucified with Christ. Which brings me to the last sense of the words I have a share and am a partner in that Cross and all the satisfactions that were wrought upon it This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3. 10. a partaking in Christs Passion having his Sufferings communicated to us made our own as if we had been crucified with him as much as he that offered a peace offering was said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 10. 18. to communicate with the Altar and partake the Sacrifice which he really did We read indeed there in the sixteenth veâ—se that in the Sacrament there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sheding of Christs Blood is there communicated reckoned to us but it is communicated in a Cup of Blessing And is this to be a partner in his Crucifixion to partake onely the Sacrament of Crucifixion not to receive the wounds and torments but the benefits the pledge of the satisfactions of the Crosse the seal of the Remissions that he purchas'd on it Blessed Jesu we should have born thy pangs and all the dire things thou didst suffer ought to have been ours eternally that Agony which an Angels comfort could not calm that dreadful Terrour which exprest it self in the cold Sweat of clotted Blood that greater Terrour which came so near Despair as to make thee cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me all should have been our portion to everlastingnesse and spent their fury on our Souls And wilt thou have us bear no more of this than the remembrance all our Mount Olivet and Golgotha be onely the Lords Table and his Entertainment dost thou communicate thy Agonies in Eucharistick wine and is this to be Crucified with Christ so he does account it seems He that by vertue of the Crosse of Christ hath crucified his body of Sin Christs satisfactions are accounted to him he is esteemed to have a fellowship in all the sufferings to have had an hand in all that was done for man on the Crosse they are all reckoned his And as Christ bore the guilt of all our doings on the Tree so he will have us bear the name and merit and reward of his for as S. Paul does expresse Rom. 6. 5. We are planted together in the likeness of his death by being made conformable to that in crucifying of our sins we are inoculated as it were and both together ingraffed in into the Crosse and so there is deriv'd to us the vertue of that Stem that Root of Expiation and Atonement and by this insertion being as the same S. Paul sayes Phil. 3. 9. found in him we have his righteousness That poor Soul that does throw himself down in the strict humiliations of Repentance at the footstool of the Crosse and there beholds his Saviour dying for him and that is himself by Penitence incorporated into him graffed into his Death and planted in his very Passion as Origen and Thomas interpret He may take confidence to say Behold Lord if the satisfactions of thy eternal Justice be acceptable to thee if the blood of God that is offer'd up without spot be a well pleasing Sacrifice look down at once on thy Messiah and on my poor Soul turn not thy face from me for whatever my guilts are I have an equal Sacrifice those are my satisfactions and that blood my offering the Passion and propitiation of the Crosse are mine I am crucified with Christ. We have gone through all the Parts all the Considerations of this expression and have no more now to take notice of but this that all of them must go together that they never are fulfill'd asunder but he onely whom the efficacy of the Crosse of Christ hath wrought on to the Crucifying of sin he onely hath the satisfactions of the Crosse imputed to him he is planted with ingraffed into Christ For if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are done away 2 Cor. 5. 17. Whosoever is not such he hath no interest in the Jesus of that day He may perchance in some one of those easie Saviours which these times afford wherein Opinions call'd holy or a sanctifi'd Faction give such interests and to be in a party is to be in Christ or else he may depend upon that Christ that may be had with meer Dependance that is ours if we perswade our selves he is so Now sure he that is perswaded he is Christ's is either truly so perswaded or else falsly if but falsly that will not advantage him for God will never save a man for believing a lye
but that he should truly be perswaded so without this duty is impossible for he that is Christ's hath crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts therefore by good Logick he that hath not crucified them is not Christ's and evidently whosoever is not crucified at all he is not crucified with Christ. And sure I need not put you in remembrance that the man in whom sin reigns and whensoere his Lusts and Passions bid him go he goeth or come he cometh or do this he doeth it that the body of sin is not crucified in him that which were nayled and settel'd on the Crosse and slain there could not command and rule him so Or if sins dominion be not so absolute but God hath got some footing so as that his Law hath power in the man's mind so as to make him make resistances against his sin and he dislikes it but alas commits it still yet what he does allows not but returns to do it at the next temptation afterwârds would faâ—â— be good yet does not find how to perform something governs in his members leading that Law in his mind into captivity to the law of sin this man although he hath the body of death yet 't is not crucified and slain for it does live and exercise the greatest tyranny upon him forces him to serve and to obey against his mind it overcomes his own heart and all inclinations to good and conquers God within him Till men have left off the custome of the works of sin and all grosse deeds of the flesh it were as vain to prove they are not crucified as that he is alive that walks and eats Those works they are the fruits of the flesh the of-spring of its lusts and were that crucified and we by likenesse to Christ's death planted into the Crosse we could no more produce them than that dead Tree the Crosse could bear fruit or then a Carcasse could have heat to generate or the grave become a womb the dust bring forth Secondly Yea more they perform not the outward actions of life who have but the image of death on them and a man asleep works not yet is alive his fancy and his inwards work and if sin be onely kept from breaking out and men commit not grosse deeds of the flesh but yet indulge to these things in imagination and the heart cherish them in phansie and design and wish onely restrain the practice or indulge to spiritual wickednesses you may as well say that a man is dead because he does not walk abroad because he keeps within doors and lives onely in his Closet or his Bed-Chamber as say that sin is crucified which while it stirs but in the heart it is not dead Thirdly Once more we part from all acquaintance with the dead the Corps of one that had the same Soul with us howsoever we may have some throws of grief to leave it yet we put it from us we admit it to no more embraces but if 't were the loathsome Carcasse of a Villain Traytor that was Executed we turn from the sight as from a siend it is a detestable and accursed spectacle And so he that hath put his Body of sin to death would have great aversations to it yea how dear soever it had been he would no more endure the least acquaintance with it then he would go seek for his old conversations in the Chambers of Death he would shun the sight of any the most bosom custome as he would the Ghost of his dead Friend he would abandon it as a most ghastly dreadful spectacle he would also bury these his dead out of his sight Thus he must needs be dispos'd that hath crucified his Old man And they that are thus dead with Christ shall also live with him yea those that are thus crucified with him he hath already rais'd up together and hath made them sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus There already in their cause and in their right and pledge and there hereafter in effect and full enjoyment SERMON X. CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Novemb. 5. 1665. LUKE IX 55. Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of THE state of that great controversie which the words suppose between the Jews and the Samaritans as it then stood seems briefly thus Those that were planted in the Regions of Samaria by Salmaneser however great Idolaters at first having admitted in a while the God of Israel among their Gods and after having an High-Priest of Aaron's Line a Temple too built on that place where Abraham and the Fathers of the Hebrews friends of God did choose to offer Sacrifice and on that very place where God himself enjoyn'd the Law and all the Blessings of it to be publisht to the People on Mount Gerizim which therefore seems to have pretences to vye with Mount Zion for there also the Lord commanded the Blessing An Altar too saith Benjamin in his Itinerary made of the same stones that God commanded to be taken out of Jordan and set up for a memorial of his Peoples passage through it And besides all this having the Law of Moses too when they had all these pretensions to the God of Israel they clave to him alone and wholly threw off their Idolatry So Epiphanius does affirm expresly And their countrey being as Josephus sayes the receptacle of all discontented fugitive Jews a great part of it too planted with them by Alexander they espoused the Worship of the Jews and came to differ very little either in the Doctrine or the practise of Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having all things as it were the very same the only distance seems to be betwixt their Temples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just as the Woman states it to our Saviour 4. Joh. Our Fathers Worshipped in this Mountain but ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to Worship So that if we audit the account of the Samaritane guilt they separated from the place of Worship which God had appointed and set up another in a word they were Schismaticks Whether this be such a guilt as should make those terms equivalent He is a Samaritane and hath a Devil I shall not say but it is such as makes our Saviour say somewhat exclusively Salvation is of the Jews All the Blessings and Salvations of the Law did indeed hover on Mount Gerizim were given thence that was the place of them but they were cut away when Schisme came The Church is not a place of blessing when 't is built against the Church The Altar hath no Hornes to lay hold on for refuge but to push and gore onely when it is set up against the Altar and Gerizim is Ebal when it stands in competition with Mount Zion Well this onely thing does breed the greatest distances imaginable in the Nations nothing more divides than Separation and Schisme and then these Samaritanes as all Separatists do grew such
which do exceed them by a whole Infinity and will out-live them an Eternity And here should I attempt what he would have had Lazarus perform to dash out the blessednesse of that place making the first draught of them with notions of delight not such as the understanding cannot apprehend but such as seize the heart with pleasure in this Life and that give it the strongest agitations here and sweetning that by those transendencies which I could fill it up with and should I raise it then with shadow evince that reason though it cannot fathom can yet by sure Discourse conclude the greatnesse of those glories which I would leave for your expectations to loose themselves into should I attempt all this I were an insolent undertaker Yet were it very easie to describe them so as that viewing them with the things below these would vanish in the comparison And to do so much was the utmost that our Rich man could design by sending Lazarus who if he could have been believ'd might probably have done the work for if Faith did but do what Lazarus did look into Abraham's Bosom were it but turn'd into a little vision and but as cleer an evidence of things not seen as eye-sight hath of its temptations had the spiritual object but that advantage the carnal hath of being present now it is the work of Faith to give it that advantage sure it would be impossible for the sensitive objects the pleasures are the Profits of this world which are so far inferiour to the other in desirablenesse and onely make advantage of their being present when the other is so far of 't would be impossible for them to gain our wills consent at any time and therefore when those glories shall be present to the Soul 't will be impossible for any other object to steal or ravish any way to engage one thought away from them In Heaven they cannot wish to sin Nay the flash alone of that glory fascinates the heart Peter and James and John saw but a glimpse of it and that transfigur'd too onely the other way that Moses and Elias were for the glory suffered an exinanition and they but wak'd into the sight of it so that 't was but an apparition of Heaven and yet they never would have left the place which it once lightned Master it is good for us to be here let us go down no more never converse with any thing beneath Mount Tabor but let us build three Booths such Tents would be like that which He hath spread and such Booths be some of the many Mansions of his House who spreadeth out the Heavens for a Tent for himself to dwell in But the truth is while men do onely hear of Joyes above and have but thin neglected notions of them and on the other side a sense of present profits pleasures honours which the world affords they will not be affected with the future dry hopes of those as with all these in present will not have as effectual a tast of the Supper of the Lamb as of their own delicious daily fare nor be as much wrought upon by the Promises of being Cloath'd upon with the white Robe of Immortality and by the mentions of a Crown although of Glory as they are pleas'd with their own Royal Purples they have much surer Conviction of the delights of present things than of those far removed futurities but now if Lazarus would go from Abraham's Bosom he might Convince them from his own Experience and then they would Repent Especially Thirdly because Lazarus hath seen me in my Torments and can give account of them wherefore I pray thee Father Abraham send him for if such an one went unto them from the Dead one that could testifie of this place he would tell them such sad stories of my condition here how in lieu of all my sumptuous fare I have nothing now but gnashing of teeth streams indeed of Brimstone and a lake of fire but everlasting feaver of thirst for my delicious intemperate Palate my short-liv'd sins turn'd to eternal Agonies sure this would prevail with them to cut off their sins by Repentance before Death cut off their sin and them together and so they might prevent the coming hither And very probably it might have taken for upon such Conviction 't is hard not to resolve to change for who is he that can resolve thus with himself well I will now content my self with everlasting Condemnation and this sin for I see they are consequent now this I cannot leave therefore let the other come they that were once affected with the apprehensions of the greatnesse and the certainty of that Damnation cannot resolve thus and therefore we see fewer men adventure to transgress Man's Law whose Punishment is neer and most assur'd than God's Commandments And when their fears of the Lords Judgments stare them in the face they quickly tremble into the terrours and the agonies of Penitence For who dares sin and who does not repent upon his Death-bed he sinks at the remembrance of his former draughts when he does apprehend his next is like to be in the Infernal Lake he hath the frost of the Grave on him when he but thinks of his lascivious heats and does think too that his hot lustful Bed will turn him off strait into Tophet And then if Lazarus could raise these apprehensions in them sure they would repent 'T is plain these were the grounds our Rich man built this his request upon I do not lay them as infallible I make no question but that men are able to defie their knowledge and charge through their own belief to sin and to destruction but commonly men do not lay things deep enough to their heart to be throughly convinc't in earnest and thus he believed for had Abraham granted his desire and sent Lazarus to testifie the Glories he had tasted in himself and the Torments he had seen their Brother in all he could hope from this was but to make them more believe the one and other therefore he thought for want of this they would miscarry and this alone would do it so that we may conclude that in the judgment of one that dy'd without Repentance having resisted all God's Methods and knew upon what score he did it and suffered the deserved pains of so doing the reason why men do not repent is because they are not sufficiently convinc't of the next Life and of its two Eternities of Joy and Torment they do not credit them but notwithstanding all that God hath done his truths want witnessing for if one went unto them from the Dead one that could testifie they would Repent I should now make reflections on this and our selves together and truly all this would bespatter fouly such as go on in a vice for it does conclude concerning them that they do not believe Gods Truths but in the midst of their professions of Religion are Infidels 't is plain they are so
able to dead the force of the activity of all that Moses sayes although acknowledged with that veneration which the Jews receive Moses with whose credit they themselves do say no Miracle can be wrought so great as to be able to add to or diminish from why then that same improbity within a while will with more ease work off the force of this new confirmation so that it will be vain Indeed 't is possible that the surprize of such a Miracle just as any other suddain and amazing accident may make a man consider what though he did afore believe yet he did not mind nor lay to heart yet when the astonishment of that is over the motives then are left to their own strength and can work only by their own activity which we see hath been able to do nothing so that a miracle at most can be but a more aâ—ful remembrancer Now sure to bring this to our selves we want none such nor do they prove much useful Occasions of astonishment and such fatall remembrancers have come and taken up their habitation in our Land and make approaches towards hover over every place Long Bills of mortality and sad knells and dreadful passing-bells these are all messengers from the dead that come posting to us swift a Gods Arrows And one would think we should take notice of their message hear them when they passe so near us when they seem to call out to our selves when a thousand do fall besides us and ten thousand at our right hand wherefore should not an Army of such Carcasses become as moving as one Ghost should Lazarus come forth with all his sores they would not be so terrible as these carbuncles and ulcers of the Plague And the destroying Angel out of Heaven with his Sword drawn one would expect should be as efficacious as a Preacher out of Abrahams Bosom And yet men do not seem to hearken any more to these than they do to us when we either Preach or which they think much lesse when we read Scripture to them that is when they hear Moses and the Prophets Men have the same security as to their sins which they had in the freest times whatever fears possess them they are not the fears of God those that make men depart from evil none of those that fright into Repentance we have no Religious cares upon us now more than at other times but Vice as if that also had a Sanctuary under the Lords wings and might retire under his feathers to be safe dreads no Terrours of the Night nor Arrows of the Day but walks as open and as unconcern'd as ever And now should we behold a mad man on his death-bed spending his onely one remaining minute in execrations the paleness of a shrowd upon his face but Blood and crimson Sins upon his tongue the frost of the Grave over all his parts but a lascivious heat in his discourse in fine one that had nothing left alive of him but his Iniquity would not an horrour seize you at that sight and the same frost possesse you but to hear him and yet his madness is his excuse and his disease his Innocence Should we see one that had no other madness no other sickness but his sin do thus would it not be more horrid and is it not the same to see a Nation as it were upon its Death-bed visited with all the treasures of Gods Plagues his tokens on it and every place and man in fearful expectations and yet no allay of Vice Wickednesse as outragious as ever while it is thus with what face can we beg of God to keep from us this Plague and grievous sicknesse when we do onely mean to make this use of such indulgence to cherish another Plague in our own hearts What can we say to prove it would not be a mercy to us to be suddenly cut off even in the midst of our iniquity when by our going on in sin in the midst of Destruction we make appear if he should let us live yet we would onely live to finish our iniquities And longer time would have no other use but to fill up a greater measure of sin What answer do we make to all these Messengers of Death that come so thick about us what do we that may justifie Gods care in sending us so many warnings But 't is no Wonder if the onely neighbourhood of Death have not been able to prevail upon us have you not seen one whom his own iniquity or Gods immediate Hand hath by a Sicknesse or by some sad Accident cast to the very brink of Death so as the Grave seemed to begin to take possession of him and all his hopes sickned and dy'd so that recovery from that condition may be well as 't is in Scripture often called a Rising have you not seen him in that state when he supposed that sinning was now done with him and the next thing was Judgment when God's Tribunall seemed to be within his view and Hell to gape for him as wide as the Grave both opening to receive their parts of him at the same time and himself ready to divide himself into those two sad Habirations With what effectuall Sermon will he then Preach to himself against his sins and that you may be sure shall work upon him he instantly resolves against his Vices he will not carry them along with him out of this Life but cast them off as too sad dangerous Company nor yet if God shall lend him life will he retain them but it shall be a New Life which he will lead And yet when God hath rais'd him up after a while he returns to his vomit his Sins recover with his Body he owes his Innocence but to his Weaknesse nor is it more long liv'd his holy purposes decay as his strength grows and dye as soon as setled health does come And he who never would commit the Sin again when he was Dying mends into it again And then what hopes is there in this mistaken Method when we see men come themselves from the Dead unto themselves yet cannot make themselves Repent But if we are not all concerned in this take a more spreading and more visible experiment If ever one came from the Dead this Church and State came thence And by as great a Miracle of Resurrection But where is the Repentance such a Miracle may have flattered our Expectations with as I am confident the resolutions of it did in that sad dying state are not some men as violent in those wicked practises that merited our former Ruine and others in those cursed Principles that did inflict it as they ever were 't is said by many that have evil will at Sion and it is our concern to take a care they speak not truth that in the Church some that are risen up again have still the silence of the Grave upon them and are as dumb as if their mouth were yet full of their monument Earth And
of roaring fury assaults a rock for many ages and yet makes not the least impression on it but is beat back and made retire in empty some in insignificant passion vvhen a few single drops that distil gently down upon a rock though of Marble or a small trickle of vvater that only vvets and glides over the stone insinuate themselves into it and soften it so as to steal themselves a passage through it And yet Government hath a rod too vvhich like Moses's can break the rock and fetch a stream out of the heart of quarre and vvhich must be used also the Holy Spirit himself breathed tempest vyhen he came blew in a mighty boisterous VVinde nor does he alwayes vvhisper soft things he came down first in a sound from heaven and spoke thunder nor did it vvant lightning the tongue was double flame Of some we know we must have a Compassion but others must be saved vvith terror Iude 22 23. vvhich drives me on to the last piece of their vvork The Censures of the Church the burthen of the Keys vvhich passing by the private use of them in voluntary penitences and discipline upon the sick as they signifie publick exclusion out of the Church for scandalous Enormities and re-admission into it upon repentance have been sufficiently evinc'd to belong to the Governours of the Church The Exercise of these is so much their work that Saint Paul calls them the VVeapons of their spiritual VVarfare by which they do cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the Knowledge of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10 4 5. a blessed victory even for the Conquered and these the only VVeapons to atchieve it with If those vvho sin scandalously and will not heat the admonitions of the Church were cast out of the Church if not Religion Reputation would restrain them somewhat not to be thought fit company for Christians would surely make them proud against their Vices Shame the design'd Effect of these Censures hath great pungencies the fear of it does goad men into actions of the greatest hazard and the most unacceptable such as have nothing lovely in them but are vvholly distastful There is a Sin whose face is bloody dismal and yet because t is countenanc'd by the Roysting Ruffian part of the world men will defie Reason and Conscience Man's and God's Law venture the ruine of all that is belov'd and dear to them in this vvorld and assault death and charge and take Hell by violence rather then be asham'd before those valiant sinners Satans Hectors and they must never come into such Company if they do not go boldly on upon the sin is of more force vvith them than all the indearments of this World than all their fear of God and Death and that vvhich follows Now if Religion could but get such Countenance by the Censures of the Church and every open sinner had this certain fear I should be turn'd out of all Christian company shall be avoided as unfit for Conversation vvould it not have in some degree the like effect and if the motive be as much exactly vvould not men be chast or sober or obedient for that very reason for vvhich they will now be kil'd and be damn'd Without all question Saint Peter's Censure on the intemperate 1 Cor. 5. must needs be reformation to him 'T is such a sentence to the drunkard Not to company vvith him vvhose Vice is nothing but the sauce of Company and vvho does sin against his Body and against his faculties and against his Conscience is sick and is a Sott and goes to Hell meerly for Societies sake Now the infliction of these censures is so much the vvork to vvhich Church governours are call'd by the Holy Ghost that they are equally call'd by him to it and to Himself both are alike bestow'd upon them Receive the Holy Ghost vvhose sins ye retain they are retained John 20. 22. And in the first derivations of this office it vvas performed vvith severities such as this age I doubt vvill not believe and vvhen they had no temporal sword to be auxiliary to these Spiritual vveapons And now to make reflections on this is not for me to undertake in such a state of the Church as ours is vvherein the very faults of some do give them an Indemnity vvho having drawn themselves out of the Church from under its authority are also got out of the power of its Censures So children that do run away from their Fathers house they do escape the Rod but they do not consider that vvithall they run away from the inheritance and many times in those that do not do so but stay vvithin the family long intermission of the Rod and indulg'd licence makes them too big and heady to be brought under discipline And is 't not so vvith us Among many of those that stay vvithin the Church I know not vvhether I do vvell to say so vvhen of these I mean there is little other Evidence of their doing so but this that they vvill sâ—ear and drink of the Churches side Blessed Sons of a demoliâ—â—ed Church vvho think to raise their Mother a temple by throwing stones at her by reason of the late overthrow of government and discipline and the consequent licenses Vice hath been so nurst up not only by an universal barefac'd uncorrected practice but by principles of liberty that can dispute down all Ecclesiastical restraints and have set up the Religion of License that now sin is grown so outragious as to be too strong for discipline nay rather than it should be set up 't is to be feared they vvould endeavour to renverse all in the Church and enterprise as much in their vices quarrel as others have done for mistaken Religion And indeed to vvhat purpose vvere the Censures vvâ—ose first and medicinal effect is shame amongst men vvhere 't is in very many instances the only shameful thing not to be vitious vvhere men stand candidates for the reputation of glorious sinners take to themselves sins they have not committed that are not theirs and usurp Vice sins and damnations hypocrites What vvork is here for discipline But this state wants not precedents the censures of the Church vvere not only lay'd aside in the Vastations of tâ—e Arrian heresy and persecution vvhen the weapons of the Churches warfare vvere too weak to make defence against all their cruelties and impieties and before that in Diocletian's daies against the Lapsi But vve find also that Saint Paul is forc'd to break out only in a passionate with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I would they vvere even cut off that trouble you cut off by excommunication he means Gal. 5. 12. When he saw the ill humours vvere too spreading and too tough also Sedition and Schisme wide and obstinate so that neither his authority could reach nor his methods cure but were more likely to exasperate them then he
faith why didst thou doubt couldst thou imagine I vvould not sustein thee in the doing vvhat I bid thee do In answering my call But vvhy seek we experience of so old a date There is a more encouraging miracle in these late calls themselves Had God sustein'd the Order in its Offices and dignities amidst those vvaves that vvrack'd the Church of late it had been prodigy of undeserved Compassion to our Nation but vvhenas all was sunk to bid the sea give up what it had so allowed and consumed this is more than to catch a sinking Peter or to save a falling Church The vvork of Resurrection is emphatically call'd the working of God's mighty power and does out-sound that of his ordinary conservation And truly 't was almost as easie to imagination how the scattered Atomes of mens dust should order themselves and reunite and close into one flesh as that the parcels of our Discipline and Service that were lost in such a vvild confusion and the Offices buried in the rubbish of the demolisht Churches should rise again in so much order and beauty Stantia non poterant tecta probare Deum This calling of the Spirit is like that when the Spirit moved upon the face of the abyss and call'd all things out of their no-seeds there or like the call of the last Trump Thus by the miraculous mercies of these calls God hath provided for our hopes and warranted our faith of his protections yet he hath also sent us more security hath given us a Constantine if his own be not a greater Name and more deserving of the Church for which it is well known to some he did contrive and order when he could neither plot nor hope for his own Kingdome and did vvith passion labour a succession in your Order vvhen he did not know how to lay designes for the succession of himself or any of his Fathers house to his own Crown and dignity Nor is the secular arme all your security God himself hath set yet more guards about his consecrated ones he hath severe things for the violaters of them Moses the meekest man upon the Earth that in his life vvas never angry but once at the rebellious seems very passionate in calling Vengeance on those that stir against these holy Offices Smite through the loines of all that rise against them and of them that hate them that they rise not again the loines vve know are the nest of posterity so that strike through the loines is stab the succession destroy at once all the posterity of them that vvould cut off this Tribe and hinder its succession Nor vvas this Legal Spirit Gospel is as severe Those in Saint Judge that despise these Governours that do as Corah and his Complices did vvho gathered themselves against Moses and Aaron and said You take too much upon you ye sons of Levi since all the Congregation is holy every one of them and the Lord is among them wherefore then lift you up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord vvords these that vve are vvell acquainted with and vvhich it seems St. Iude looks on as sins under the Gospel these perish in the gainsaying of Core vvhom God vvould not prepare for punishment by death but he and his accomplices went quick into it He would not let them stay to dy but the Lord made a new thing to shew his detestation of this sin and the Earth swallow'd it in the Commission and all that were alli'd and appertain'd to them that had an hand in it And truely they may well expect strange recompences who do attempt so strange a Sacriledge as to pull stars out of Christ's own right hand from vvhence vve have his vvord that no man shall be able to pluck any but if they shine thence on their Orbs below and convert many to righteousness their light shall blaze out into glory and they shall ever dwell at his right hand To vvhich right hand He that brought again from the dead the Lord Iesus that great Shepheard and Bishop of the sheep and set him there He also bring you our Pastors and us your flock vvith you and set us vvith his sheep on his right hand To vvhom vvith the same Iesus and the Holy Ghost be ascribed all blessing honour glory and power from henceforth for ever Amen FINIS A SERMON PREACHED AT HAMPTON-COURT On the 29th of May 1662. Being the Anniversary of His Sacred Majesties Most happy Return BY RICHARD ALLESTRY D. D. and Chaplain to His MAjESTY LONDON Printed by Thomas Roycroft for Iames Allestry at the Rose and Crown in Saint Paul's Church-yard 1669. TO The Right Honourable EDWARD Earl of Clarendon Lord high Chancellour of England and Chancellour of the University of Oxford My LORD TO vouch your Lordships commands for the publishing this Discourse I might reasonably think would be to libel your judgment and the prefixing your Name to it and this mean address would look rather like revenge than homage or obedience if I did not know that low performances are due to the transcendency of such a subject as I then discours'd upon and such a Patron as I now dedicate to So I lie prostrate under my great Arguments here insufficiency is Art and Rhetorick And the truth is my Lord it was not this which made me so sollicitous to avoid your injunctions but apprehensions of the unusefulness of the Discourse itself When God's most signal methods of all sorts do not seem to have wrought much conviction vvhen neither our own dismal guilts nor miseries nor most express miracles of deliverance have made us sensible but after the equally stupendous 3 Oth of January and 29th of May and the black time that interven'd we are still the same perverse untractable people vvhen luxury is the retribution made for plenty license for liberty and Atheism for Religion vvhil'st miracles of mercy are acknowledged only by prodigies of ingrateful disobedience and on the other side vvhen factious humours swell against all Laws as they vvould either over-flow those mounds or make them yield and give way to them vvhen Declarations and Decrees which were infallible when they came only from a party of a part of a Parliament are neither of force nor esteem when they have all solemnity and obligation that just and full authority can give alas what hopes of doing any thing can a weak Harangue entertain But my Lord since you are pleas'd to command I give up both it and my understanding to your Lordship and the weaker the Discourse is so much the more pregnant testimony is it of the obsequiousness of My Lord Your Lordships most devoted and most humble Servant RICH. ALLESTRY SERMON XVII AT HAMPTON-COURT May 29. 1662. HOSEA III. 5. Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God and David their King and shall fear the Lord and his goodness HE had said in the vvords before that the children
when he cannot give a Lamb for his Transgression he gives some of himself he offers Hunger for Shewbread and Thirst for a Drink offering he consecrates a Meal instead of a Beast and sheds a sower fasting sigh for Incense and this he hopes God will accept as Sacrifice And truely the Text sayes no day of Expiation could be kept without it Noâ— does the Scripture want great instances of its effect towards Atonements of Gods wrath How when Judgment was given on a Nation or Person and Execution going out against them yet this rever'st the Sentence Ahab is a great proof of this 1 King 21. 27. And it came to passe when Ahab heard those words that he rent his Clothes and put Sackcloth upon his flesh and Fasted and lay in Sackcloth and went softly And the Word of the Lord came unto Elijah the Tishbite saying Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me Because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his dayes One Fasting-day secured a Life the weaknesses it brought upon the body upheld it against all Gods threats Vengeance pronounc't and coming out against him falls to ground if Ahab humble and Afflict his Soul Gods stretcht out Arm will not strike Sackcloth nor wound through Fasting Garments One fit of it removes his Judgments a whole Age and had it been sincere and persevering how had it wip't them out to everlastingnesse Nineve is another instance of the practice and successe of this even among the Heathens Nor should it seem to have lesse Efficacy among Christians The Primitive Fathers call these severities Satisfaction for sin and Compensations the Price with which they are bought off the things that cover them and blot them out and which Propitiate and appease God for them not in their sense who force up these Expressions to a strange height of meaning and yet have quite beat down the Practise as to the publique wholesome use of them out of the Church But though these sayings assign not the Power and just Efficacy of that discipline in it self yet they do the acceptance and effect of it by virtue of Christs Satisfaction A Fainting Body cannot bear indeed the weight of our iniquities nor will lowest prostrations in the dust bury them in the dust or Tears alone blot out our Guilt but Christ having done that which is effectual to all this and requiring no more of thee to make that thine as he does every where most solemnly avow but faithfull humbling of thy self in an afflictive sorrow for what 's past and so to mortifie as to work out Repentance the doing this is doing what he does require and consequently will accept These satisfie the Command and therefore God though not by a condignity of performance yet as Conditions which his Covenant of Grace hath set us which when they are fulfilled then God is satisfied thy sins are expiated and thou art pardoned And so in this lower sense these are thy Satisfactions with which God is well pleased And thus these self Afflictions of the Sinner supply Gods Indignation and divert it They leave no place nor businesse for it and by these short severities upon himself he does make void he does expunge the Sentence of eternal Torments saith Tertullian As thou becomest severe against thy self so will the Lord abate of his severities and he will spare and he will pitty thee in that he sees thou wilt not spare thy self How can he choose but be appeased towards thee when he shall see thee executing his Sentence even upon thy own self and punishing his Enemies although they be thy Members so that by this means thou dost censure thy self into Gods Absolutions afflict thy self into his Pardons and dost condemn thy self into eternal Life Our Church sayes the same thing That in the Primitive Church there was a Godly Discipline that at the beginning of Lent such persons as were notorious sinners were put to open Pennance and punished in this world that their Souls might be saved in the Day of the Lord and she does wish if her wishes be of any force and value when her Orders and Constitutions are not that Discipline could be restored But this I shall not presse if all those whom the Primitive Church Condemned or S. Paul sentenced were so used if every Schismatick that lyes tearing himself and others off from the Lords Body were rejected and if the Fornicator that joyns himself to his unclean Accomplice were disjoyned from Christ and not suffered to make his members be the members of an Harlot if every scandalous debauching offender that lyes corrupting Christs Body spreading contagion thrusting the gangreen forward were cut off and these and all the rest delivered up to Satan alas what part would Christ have left of his own Body Sed illos defendit numerus junctaeque umbone phalanges and that I fear too in more senses than the Poet means Therefore I shall not urge the Churches Wish but only see whether the Statute in the Text sayes any thing to this and whether the for ever do reach us Which is my third and last Enquiry Thirdly Divers of the Jews Rites are said to be and be prescribed for ever although those very Rites and the whole oeconomy of their Covenant were to be chang'd and cease among other reasons as the Fathers say because they foresignifie and point at things in the new Covenant which were to last till Covenants and Rites shall be no more and so their meaning and signification was to be for ever Now truely that their Expiation Performances those which I am upon did so the whole Epistle to the Hebrews is employ'd to prove the Margent of your Bibles in this Chapter so refer you to the places that I shall not need to make it out Christ did fulfill the Temple and the Altar part yea and the refuse outcast part of the Atonement satisfied the Religion and the contempt of that dayes offices He was the whole true Expiation Now does this Expiation as theirs did require afflicting of the Soul in its attendance or was that but a Ceremony of their Rite and though a Jew must mourn and Fast to see his sin killing a Beast and when he does behold his wickednesse eating up a Goat for a Sin offering he must deny himself his daily bread and suffer thirst if his Iniquities drink but the blood of Bullocks yet when we behold ours embrew themselves in the Blood of the Son of God not onely lay hands and confessions on his head but drive Thorns into it make him cry out almost despair and Dye we need not be concern'd so much as to do ought of that either in order to the better Celebration of that Expiation or on the very day of it Indeed if we consider most mens practises it would appear most probable that if we were to expiate our sins as the Jews did by sacrificing of our Flocks not of our Jesus