God will forgive him and that repentance as it is now stated cannot be done At what time soever not upon a mans deathbed yet there are no such words in the whole Bible nor any neerer to the sense of them then the words I have now read to you out of the Prophet Ezekiel Let that therefore no more deceive you or be made a colour to countenance a persevering sinner or a deathbed penitent Neither is the duty of Repentance to be bought at an easier rate in the New Testament You may see it described in the 2 Cor. 7. 11. Godly sorrow worketh repentance Well but what is that repentance which is so wrought This it is Behold the self same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulnesse it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fear ye what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge These are the fruits of that sorrow that is effectual these are the parts of repentance clearing our selves of all that is past and great carefulnesse for the future anger at our selves for our old sins and fear lest we commit the like again vehement desires of pleasing God and zeal of holy actions and a revenge upon our selves for our sins called by Saint Paul in another place a judging our selves lest we be judged of the Lord. And in pursuance of this truth the primitive Church did not admit a sinning person to the publike communions with the faithfull till besides their sorrow they had spent some years in an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in doing good works and holy living and especially in such actions which did contradict that wicked inclination which led them into those sins whereof they were now admitted to repent And therefore we find that they stood in the station of penitents seven years 13 years and somtimes till their death before they could be reconciled to the peace of God and his Holy Church Scelerum si bene poenitet eradenda cupidinis pravi sunt elementa tenerae nimis mentes asperioribus Formandae studijs Horat. Repentance is the institution of a philosophical and severe life an utter extirpation of all unreasonablenesse and impiety and an addresse to and a finall passing through all the parts of holy living Now Consider whether this be imaginable or possible to be done upon our deathbed when a man is frighted into an involuntary a sudden and unchosen piety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hierocles He that never repents till a violent fear be upon him till he apprehend himself to be in the jawes of death ready to give up his unready and unprepared accounts till he sees the Judge sitting in all the addresses of dreadfulnesse and Majesty just now as he beleeves ready to pronounce that fearfull and intolerable sentence of Go ye cursed into everlasting fire this man does nothing for the love of God nothing for the love of vertue It is just as a condemned man repents that he was a Traytor but repented not till he was arrested and sure to die Such a repentance as this may still consist with as great an affection to sin as ever he had and it is no thanks to him if when the knife is at his throat then he gives good words and flatters But suppose this man in his health and the middest of all his lust it is evident that there are some circumstances of action in which the man would have refused to commit his most pleasing sin Would not the son of Tarquin have refused to ravish Lucrece if Junius Brutus had been by him Would the impurest person in the world act his lust in the market place or drink off an intemperate goblet if a dagger were placed at his throat In these circumstances their fear would make them declare against the present acting their impurities But does this cure the intemperance of their affections Let the impure person retire to his closet and Junius Brutus be ingaged in a far distant war and the dagger be taken from the drunkards throat and the fear of shame or death or judgement be taken from them all and they shall no more resist their temptation then they could before remove their fear and you may as well judge the other persons holy and haters of their sin as the man upon his death-bed to be penitent and rather they then he by how much this mans fear the fear of death and of the infinite pains of hell the fear of a provoked God and an angry eternall Judge are far greater then the apprehensions of publike shame or an abused husband or the poniard of an angry person These men then sin not because they dare not they are frighted from the act but not from the affection which is not to be cured but by discourse and reasonable acts and humane considerations of which that man is not naturally capable who is possessed with the greatest fear the fear of death and damnation If there had been time to cure his sin and to live the life of grace I deny not but God might have begun his conversion with so great a fear that he should never have wiped off its impression but if the man dies then dies when he onely declaims against and curses his sin as being the authour of his present fear and apprehended calamity It is very far from reconciling him to God or hopes of pardon because it proceeds from a violent unnaturall and intolerable cause no act of choice or vertue but of sorrow a deserved sorrow and a miserable unchosen unavoidable fear moriensque recepit Quas nollet victurus aquas He curses sin upon his deathbed and makes a Panegyrick of vertue which in his life time he accounted folly and trouble and a needlesse vexation Quae mens est hodie cur eadem non puero fuit vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genae I shall end this first Consideration with a plain exhortation that since repentance is a duty of so great and giant-like bulk let no man croud it up into so narrow room as that it be strangled in its birth for want of time and aire to breath in Let it not be put off to that time when a man hath scarce time enough to reckon all those particular duties which make up the integrity of its constitution Will any man hunt the wild boare in his garden or bait a bull in his closet will a woman wrap her childe in her handkerchiefe or a Father send his son to school when he is 50 yeers old These are undecencies of providence and the instrument contradicts the end And this is our case There is no roome for the repentance no time to act all its essentiall parts and a childe who hath a great way to go before he be wise may defer his studies and hope to become very learned in his old age and upon his deathbed as well as a vitious person may think to
I gave thee thy masters house and wives into thy bosom and the house of Israel and Judah and if this had been too little I would have given thee such and such things wherefore hast thou despised the name of the Lord but how infinitely more can God say to all of us then all this came to he hath anointed us kings and priests in the royal pristhood of Christianity he hath given us his holy spirit to be our guide his angels to be our protectors his creatures for our food and raiment he hath delivered us from the hands of Sathan hath conquered death for us hath taken the sting out and made it harmlesse and medicinal and proclaimed us heires of heaven coheires with the eternal Jesus and if after all this we despise the commandment of the Lord and defer and neglect our repentance what shame is great enough what miseries are sharp enough what hell painful enough for such horrid ingratitude Saint Lewis the King having sent Ivo Bishop of Chartres on an embassy the Bishop met a woman on the way grave sad Phantastick malancholy with fire in one hand and water in the other he asked what those symbols ment she answered my purpose is with fire to burn Paradise and with my water to quench the flames of hell that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear purely for the love of God But this woman began at the wrong end the love of God is not produced in us after we have contracted evil habits til God with his fan in his hand hath throughly purged the floore till he hath cast out all the devils and swept the house with the instrument of hope and fear and with the atchieuments and efficacy of mercies and judgements But then since God may truely say to us as of old to his rebellious people Am I a dry tree to the house of Israel that is do I bring them no fruit do they serve me for nought and he expects not our duty till first we feel his go odnesse we are now infinitely inexcusable to throw away so great riches to despise such a goodnesse However that we may see the greatnesse of this treasure of goodnesse God seldom leaves us thus for he sees be it spoken to the shame of our natures and the dishonour of our manners he sees that his mercies do not allure us do not make us thankful but as the Roman said felicitate corrumpimur we become worse for Gods mercy and think it will be alwayes holiday and are like the Christal of Arabia hardned notby cold but made crusty and stubborn by the warmth of the divine fire by its refreshments and mercies therfore to demonstrate that God is good indeed he con tinues his mercise still to us but in another instance he is merciful to us in punishing us that by such instruments we may be led to repentance which will scare us from sin he delivers us up to the paedagogy of the divine judgements and there begins the second part of Gods method intimated in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forbearance God begins his cure by causticks by incisions and instruments of vexation to try if the disease that will not yeild to the allectives of cordials and perfumes friction and baths may be forced out by deleteries soarifications and more salutary but least pleasing Physicke 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for bearance it is called in the text which signifies laxamentum or inducias that is when the decrees of the divine judgements temporal are gone out either wholly to suspend the execution of them which is induciae or a reprieve or else when God hath struck once or twice he takes on his hand that is laxamentum an ease of remission of his judgment in both these although in judgement God remembers mercy yet we are under discipline we are brought into the penitential chamber at least we are shewed the rod of God and if like Moses rod it turnes us into serpents and that we repent not but grow more Devils yet then it turnes into a rod again and finishes up the smiting or the first designed affliction But I consider it first in general the riches of the divine goodnesse is manifest in beginning this new method of curing us by severity and by a rod. And that you may not wonder that I expound this forbearance to be an act of mercy punishing I observe that besides that the word supposes the method changed and it is a mercy about judgements and their manner of execution it is also in the nature of the thing in the conjunction of circumstances and the designes of God a mercy when he threatens us or strike us into repentance We think that the way of blessings and prosperous accidents is the finer way of securing our duty and that when our heads are anointed our cups crowned and our tables full the very caresses of our spirits will best of all dance before the Ark and sing perpetual Anthemes to the honour of our Benefactor and Patron God and we are apt to dream that God will make his Saints raigne here as kings in a millenary kingdom and give them the riches and fortunes of this world that they may rule over men and sing psalms to God for ever But I remember what Xenophanes saies of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is like to men neither in shape nor in counsel he knowes that his mercies confirm some and encourage more but they convert but few alone they lead men to dissolution of manners and forgetfulnesse of God rather then repentance not but that mercies are competent and apt instruments of grace if we would but because we are more dispersed in our spirits and by a prosperous accident are melted into joy and garishnesse and drawn off from the sobriety of recollection Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked Many are not able to suffer and endure prosperity it is like the light of the sun to a weak eye glorious indeed in it self but not proportioned to such an instrument Adam himself as the Rabbins say did not dwell one night in Paradise but was poisoned with prosperity with the beauty of his fair wife and a beauteous tree and Noah and Lot were both righteous and examplary the one to Sodom the other to the old world so long as they lived in a place in which they were obnoxious to the common suffering but as soon as the one of them had scaped from drowning and the other from burning and were put into security they fell into crimes which have dishonoured their memories for above thirty generations together the crimes of drunkennesse and incest wealth and a full fortune make men licenciously vitious tempting a man with power to act all that he can desire or designe vitiously Indeirae faciles Namque ut opes nimias mundo fortuna subacto Intulit et rebus mores cessere secundis Cultus gest are decoros vix nuribus rapuere mares
infliction he strikes more gently and whereas God had designed it may be the death of thy self or thy neerest relative he is content to take the life of a childe and so he did to David when he forbore him the Lord hath taken away thy sin thou shalt not die neverthelesse the childe that is born unto thee that shall die sometimes he puts the evil off to a further day as he did in the case of Ahab and Hezekiah to the first he brought the evil upon his house and to the second he brought the evil upon his kingdom in his sons dayes God forgiving onely so as to respite the evil that they should have peace in their own dayes And thus when we have committed a sin against God which hath highly provoked him to anger even upon our repentance we are not sure to be forgiven so as we understand forgivenes that is to hear no more of it never to be called to an account but we are happy if God so forgives us as not to throw us into the insufferable flames of hell though he smite us still we groan for our misery till we chatter like a swallow as Davide expression is and though David was an excellent penitent yet after he had lost the childe begotten of Bathsheba and God had told him he had forgiven him yet he raised up his darling son against him and forced him to an inglorious flight and his son lay with his Fathers concubins in the face of all Israel so that when we are forgiven yet it is ten to one but GOD will make us to smart and roar for our sinnes for the very disquietnesse of our souls For if we sin and ask God forgivenesse and then are quiet we feele so little inconvenience in the trade that we may more easily be tempted to make a trade of it indeed I wish to God that for every sin we have committed we should heartily cry God mercy and leave it and judge our selves for it to prevent Gods anger but when we have done all that we commonly call repentance and when possibly God hath forgiven us to some purposes yet it may be he punishes our sin when we least think of it that sin which we have long since forgotten It may be for the lust of thy youth thou had a healthlesse old age an old religious person long agoe complained it was his case Quos nimis effraenes habui nunc vapulo renes Sic luitur juvellis culpa dolore senis It may be thy sore eyes are the punishment of thy intemperance seven years ago or God cuts thy dayes shorter and thou shalt die in a florid age or he raises up afflictions to thee in thine own house in thine own bowels or hath sent a gangren into thy estate or with any arrow out of his quiver he can wound thee and the arrow shall stick fast in thy flesh although God hath forgiven thy sin to many purposes Our blessed Saviour was heard in all that he prayed for said the Apostle and he prayed for the Jews that crucified him Father forgive them for they know not what they do and God did forgive that great sin but how far whereas it was just in God to deprive them of all possibility of receiving benefit from the death of Christ yet God admitted them to it he gave them time and possibilities and helps and great advantages to bring them to repentance he did not presently shut them up in his final and eternal anger and yet he had finally resolved to destroy their city and nation and did so but forbore them forty years gave them al the helps of miracles and sermons apostolical to shame them and force them into sorrow for their fault And before any man can repent God hath forgiven the man in one degree of forgivenesse for he hath given him grace of repentance and taken from him that final anger of the spirit of reprobation and when a man hath repented no man can say that God hath forgiven him to all purposes but he hath reserves of anger to punish the sin to make the man affraid to sin any more and to represent that when any man hath sinned what ever he does afterwards he shall be miserable as long as he lives vexed with its adherencies and its neighbour-hood and evil consequence For as no man that hath sinned can during his life ever returne to an integral and perfect innocence so neither shall he be restored to a perfect peace but must alwayes watch and strive against his sinne and alwayes mourn and pray for its pardon and alwayes finde cause to hate it by knowing himself to be for ever in danger of enduring some grievous calamity even for those sinnes for which he hath truely repented him for which God hath in many gracious degrees passed his pardon this is the manner of the dispensation of the divine mercy in respect of particular persons and nations too But sometimes we finde a severer judgement happening upon a people and yet in that sad story Gods mercy sings the triumph which although it be much to Gods glory yet it is a sad story to sinning people 600000. fighting men besides women and children and decrepit persons came out of Egypt and God destroyed them all in the wildernesse except Caleb and Joshuah and there it was that Gods mercy prevailed over his justice that he did not destroy the nation but still preserved a succession to Jacob to possesse the promise God drowned all the world except eight persons his mercy there also prevailed over his justice that he preserved a remnant to mankinde his justice devoured all the world and his mercy which preserved but eight had the honour of the prevailing attribute God destroyed Sodom and the five cities of the plain and rescued but four from the flames of that sad burning and of the four lost one in the flight and yet his mercy prevailed over his justice because he did not destroy all And in these senses we are to understand the excellency of the divine mercy even when he smites when he rebukes us for sin when he makes our beauty to fail and our flesh to consume away like a moth fretting a garment yet then his mercy is the prevailing ingredient If his judgements be but fines set upon our heads accord-to the mercy of our old lawes Salvo contenemento so as to preserve our estates to continue our hopes and possibilities of heaven and all the other judgements can be nothing but mercies excellent instruments of grace arts to make us sober and wise to take off from our vanity to restrain our wildnesses which if they were left unbridled would set all the world on fire Gods judgements ars like the censures of the Church in which a sinner is delivered over to Satan to be buffetted that the spirit may be saved the result of all this is that Gods mercies are not ought not cannot be instruments of confidence to sin because the
God for vengeance scarce two are noted by the publick eye and chastis'd by the hand of Justice it must follow from hence that it is but reasonable for the interest of vertue and the necessities of the world that the private should be judg'd and vertue should be tyed upon the spirit and the poor should be relieved and the oppressed should appeal and the noise of Widows should be heard and the Saints should stand upright and the Cause that was ill judged should be judged over again and Tyrants should be call'd to account and our thoughts should be examined and our secret actions view'd on all sides and the infinite number of sins which escape here should not escape finally and therefore God hath so ordained it that there shall be a day of doom wherein all that are let alone by men shall be question'd by God and every word and every action shall receive its just recompence of reward For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in the best copies not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The things done in the body so we commonly read it the things proper or due to the body so the expression is more apt and proper for not only what is done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the body but even the acts of abstracted understanding and volition the acts of reflexion and choice acts of self-love and admiration and what ever else can be supposed the proper and peculiar act of the soul or of the spirit is to be accounted for at the day of Judgement and even these may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because these are the acts of the man in the state of conjunction with the body The words have in them no other difficulty or variety but contain a great truth of the biggest interest and one of the most materiall constitutive Articles of the whole Religion and the greatest endearment of our duty in the whole world Things are so ordered by the great Lord of all the creatures that whatsoever we do or suffer shall be call'd to account and this account shall be exact and the sentence shall be just and the reward shall be great all the evils of the world shall be amended and the injustices shall be repaid and the divine Providence shall be vindicated and Vertue and Vice shall for ever be remark'd by their separate dwellings and rewards This is that which the Apostle in the next verse cals the terror of the Lord it is his terror because himself shall appear in his dresse of Majesty and robes of Justice and it is his terror because it is of all the things in the World the most formidable in it self and it is most fearfull to us where shall be acted the interest and finall sentence of eternity and because it is so intended I shall all the way represent it as the Lords terror that we may be afraid of sin for the destruction of which this terror is intended 1. Therefore we will consider the persons that are to be judged with the circumstances of our advantages or our sorrowes We must all appear 2. The Judge and his Judgement seat before the Judgment seat of Christ. 3. The sentence that they are to receive the things due to the body good or bad according as we now please but then cannot alter Every one of these are dressed with circumstances of affliction and afrightment to those to whom such terrors shall appertain as a portion of their inheritance 1. The persons who are to be judged even you and I and all the world Kings and Priests Nobles and Learned the Crafty and the Easie the Wise and the Foolish the Rich and the Poor the prevailing Tyrant and the oppressed Party shall all appear to receive ther Symbol and this is so farre from abating any thing of its terror and our dear concernment that it much increases it for although concerning Precepts and Discourses we are apt to neglect in particular what is recommended in generall and in incidencies of Mortality and sad events the singularity of the chance heightens the apprehension of the evill yet it is so by accident and only in regard of our imperfection it being an effect of self-love or some little creeping envie which adheres too often to the infortunate and miserable or else because the sorrow is apt to increase by being apprehended to be a rare case and a singular unworthinesse in him who is afflicted otherwise then is common to the sons of men companions of his sin and brethren of his nature and partners of his usuall accidents yet in finall and extreme events the multitude of sufferers does not lessen but increase the sufferings and when the first day of Judgement happen'd that I mean of the universall deluge of waters upon the old World the calamity swell'd like the floud and every man saw his friend perish and the neighbours of his dwelling and the relatives of his house and the sharers of his joyes and yesterdaies bride and the new born heir the Priest of the Family and the honour of the Kindred all dying or dead drench'd in water and the divine vengeance and then they had no place to flee unto no man cared for their souls they had none to goe unto for counsell no sanctuary high enough to keep them from the vengeance that rain'd down from heaven and so it shall be at the day of Judgement when that world and this and all that shall be born hereafter shall passe through the same Red sea and be all baptized with the same fire and be involv'd in the same cloud in which shall be thundrings and terrors infinite every Mans fear shall be increased by his neighbours shriekes and the amazement that all the world shall be in shall unite as the sparks of a raging furnace into a globe of fire and roul upon its own principle and increase by direct appearances and intolerable reflexions He that stands in a Church-yard in the time of a great plague and hears the Passing-bell perpetually telling the sad stories of death and sees crowds of infected bodies pressing to their Graves and others sick and tremulous and Death dress'd up in all the images of sorrow round about him is not supported in his spirit by the variety of his sorrow and at Dooms-day when the terrors are universall besides that it is in it self so much greater because it can affright the whole world it is also made greater by communication and a sorrowfull influence Grief being then strongly infectious when there is no variety of state but an intire Kingdome of fear and amazement is the King of all our passions and all the world its subjects and that shricke must needs be terrible when millions of Men and Women at the same instant shall fearfully cry
be cleansed by a timely repentance and cover'd by the Robe of Christ we shall suffer the anger of God the scorn of Saints and Angels and our own shame in the generall assembly of all mankind This argument is most considerable to them who are tender of their precious name and sensible of honour if they rather would chuse death then a disgrace poverty rather then shame let them remember that a sinfull life will bring them to an intolerable shame at that day when all that is excellent in heaven and earth shall be summon'd as witnesses and parties in a fearfull scrutiny The summe is this All that are born of Adam shall appear before God and his Christ and all the innumerable companies of Angels and Devils shall be there and the wicked shall be afrighted with every thing they see and there they shall see those good men that taught them the waies of life and all those evill persons whom themselves have tempted into the waies of death and those who were converted upon easier termes and some of these shall shame the wicked and some shall curse them and some shall upbraid them and all shall amaze them and yet this is but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beginning of those evils which shall never end till eternity hath a period but concerning this they must first be judged and that 's the second generall consideration We must appear before the Judgement seat of Christ and that 's a new state of terrors and afrightments Christ who is our Saviour and is our Advocate shall then be our Judge and that will strangely change our confidences and all the face of things 2. That 's then the place and state of our appearance Before the Judgement seat of Christ For Christ shall rise from the right hand of his Father he shall descend towards us and ride upon a cloud and shall make himself illustrious by a glorious Majesty and an innumerable retinue and circumstances of terror and a mighty power and this is that which Origen affirms to be the sign of the Son of Man Remalcus de Vaux in Harpocrate divino affirms that all the Greek and Latine Fathers consentientibus animis asseverant hoc signo Crucem Christi significari do unanimously affirm that the representment of the Crosse is the sign of the Son of Man spoken of Mat. 24. 30. And indeed they affirm it very generally but Origen after his manner is singular hoc signum Crucis erit cum Dominus ad judicandum venerit so the Church used to sing and so it is in the Sibyls verses O lignum felix in quo Deus ipse pependit Nec te terra capit sed coeli tecta videbis Cum renovata Dei facies ignita micabit The sign of the Crosse is that sign of the Son of Man when the Lord shall come to Judgement and from those words of Scripture They shall look on him whom they have pierced it hath been freely entertain'd at the day of Judgement Christ shall signifie his person by something that related to his passion his crosse or his wounds or both I list not to spin this curious cobweb but Origen's opinion seems to me more reasonable and it is more agreeable to the Majesty and Power of Christ to signifie himself with proportions of his glory rather then of his humility with effects of his being exalted into Heaven rather then of his poverty and sorrowes upon Earth and this is countenanced better by some Greek copies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is commonly read the sign of the Son of man in Heaven that is say they the signe of the Son of man imprinted upon a cloud but it is in others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the signe of the Son of man who is in the heavens not that the signe shall bee imprinted on a cloud or in any part of the heavens but that hee who is now in the heavens shall when he comes down have a signe and signification of his own that is proper to him who is there glorified and shall return in glory and he disparages the beauty of the Sun who inquires for a Rule to know when the Sun shines or the light breaks forth from its chambers of the East and the Son of man shall need no other signification but his infinite retinue and all the Angels of God worshipping him and sitting upon a cloud and leading the heavenly Host and bringing his Elect with him and being clothed with the robes of Majesty and trampling upon Devils and confounding the wicked and destroying Death but all these great things shall be invested with such strange circumstances and annexes of Mightynesse and Divinity that all the world shall confesse the glories of the Lord and this is sufficiently signified by St. Paul We shall all be set before the throne or place of Christ's judicature For it is written As I live saith the Lord every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confesse to God that is at the day of Judgment when wee are placed ready to receive our Sentence all knees shall bow to the holy Jesus and confesse him to be God the Lord meaning that our Lords presence shall be such as to force obeysance from Angels and Men and Devils and his addresse to Judgement shall sufficiently declare his Person and his Office and his proper glories This is the greatest Scene of Majesty that shall be in that day till the Sentence bee pronounced But there goes much before this which prepares all the world to the expectation and consequent reception of this mighty Judge of Men and Angels The Majesty of the Judge and the terrors of the Judgement shall bee spoken aloud by the immediate forerunning accidents which shall bee so great violences to the old constitutions of Nature that it shall break her very bones and disorder her till shee be destroyed St. Hierom relates out of the Jews books that their Doctors use to account 15 days of prodigie immediately before Christ's coming and to every day assigne a wonder any one of which if wee should chance to see in the days of our flesh it would affright us into the like thoughts which the old world had when they saw the countreys round about them cover'd with water and the Divine vengeance or as those poor people neer Adria and the Mediterranean sea when their houses and Cities are entring into graves and the bowells of the earth rent with convulsions and horrid tremblings The sea say they shall rise 15 cubits above the highest Mountaines and thence descend into hollownesse and a prodigious drought and when they are reduc'd again to their usuall proportions then all the beasts and creeping things the monsters and the usuall inhabitants of the sea shall be gathered together and make fearfull noyses to distract Mankind The birds shall mourne and change their song into threnes and sad accents rivers of fire shall rise from East to West and the stars
makes intercession for us with groans unutterable and all the holy men in the world pray for all and for every one and God hath instructed us with Scriptures and precedents and collaterall and direct assistances to pray and he incouraged us with divers excellent promises and parables and examples and teaches us what to pray and how and gives one promise to publique prayer and another to private prayer and to both the blessing of being heard * Adde to this account that God did heap blessings upon us without order infinitely perpetually and in all instances when we needed and when we needed not * He heard us when we pray'd giving us all and giving us more then we desired * He desired that we should aske and yet he hath also prevented our desires * He watch'd for us and at his own charge sent a whole order of men whose imployment is to minister to our souls and if all this had not been enough he had given us more also * He promised heaven to our obedience a Province for a dish of water a Kingdome for a prayer satisfaction for desiring it grace for receiving and more grace for accepting and using the first * He invited us with gracious words and perfect entertainments * He threatned horrible things to us if we would not be happy * He hath made strange necessities for us making our very repentance to be a conjugation of holy actions and holy times and a long succession * He hath taken away all excuses from us he hath called us off from temptation he bears our charges he is alwaies before-hand with us in every act of favour and perpetually slow in striking and his arrowes are unfeathered and he is so long first in drawing his sword and another long while in whetting it and yet longer in lifting his hand to strike that before the blow comes the man hath repented long unlesse he be a fool and impudent and then God is so glad of an excuse to lay his anger aside that certainly if after all this we refuse life and glory there is no more to be said this plain story will condemn us but the story is very much longer and as our conscience will represent all our sins to us so the Judge will represent all his Fathers kindnesses as Nathan did to David when he was to make the justice of the Divine Sentence appear against him * Then it shall be remembred that the joyes of every daies piety would have been a greater pleasure every night then the remembrance of every nights sin could have been in the morning * That every night the trouble and labour of the daies vertue would have been as much passed and turned to as very a nothing as the pleasure of that daies sin but that they would be infinitely distinguished by the remanent effects 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Musonius expressed the sense of this inducement and that this argument would have grown so great by that time we come to dye that the certain pleasures and rare confidences and holy hopes of a death-bed would be a strange felicity to the man when he remembers he did obey if they were compared to the fearfull expectations of a dying sinner who feels by a formidable and afrighting remembrance that of all his sins nothing remains but the gains of a miserable eternity * The offering our selves to God every morning and the thanksgiving to God every night hope and fear shame and desire the honour of leaving a fair name behinde us and the shame of dying like a fool every thing indeed in the world is made to be an argument and an inducement to us to invite us to come to God and be sav'd and therefore when this and infinitely more shall by the Judge be exhibited in sad remembrances there needs no other sentence we shall condemn our selves with a hasty shame and a fearfull confusion to see how good God hath been to us and how base we have been to our selves Thus Moses is said to accuse the Jewes and thus also he that does accuse is said to condemn as Verres was by Cicero and Claudia by Domitius her accuser and the world of impenitent persons by the men of Nineveh and all by Christ their Judge I represent the horror of this circumstance to consist in this besides the reasonablenesse of the Judgement and the certainty of the condemnation it cannot but be an argument of an intolerable despair to perishing souls when he that was our Advocate all our life shall in the day of that appearing be our Accuser and our Judge a party against us an injur'd person in the day of his power and of his wrath doing execution upon all his own foolish and malicious enemies * 2. Our conscience shall be our accuser but this signifies but these two things 1. that we shall be condemned for the evils that we have done and shall then remember God by his power wiping away the dust from the tables of our memory and taking off the consideration and the voluntary neglect and rude shufflings of our cases of conscience For then we shall see things as they are the evill circumstances and the crooked intentions the adherent unhandsomenesse and the direct crimes for all things are laid up safely and though we draw a curtain of cobweb over them and few figleaves before our shame yet God shall draw away the curtain and forgetfulnesse shall be no more because with a taper in the hand of God all the corners of our nastinesse shall be discovered And secondly it signifies this also that not only the Justice of God shall be confessed by us in our own shame and condemnation but the evill of the sentence shall be received into us to melt our bowels and to break our heart in pieces within us because we are the authors of our own death and our own inhumane hands have torn our souls in pieces Thus farre the horrors are great and when evill men consider it it is certain they must be afraid to dye Even they that have liv'd well have some sad considerations and the tremblings of humility and suspicion of themselves I remember S. Cyprian tels of a good man who in his agony of death saw a phantasme of a noble and angelicall shape who frowning and angry said to him Pati timetis exire non vultis Quid faciam vobis Ye cannot endure sicknesse ye are troubled at the evils of the world and yet you are loth to dye and to be quit of them what shall I do to you Although this is apt to represent every mans condition more or lesse yet concerning persons of wicked lives it hath in it too many sad degrees of truth they are impatient of sorrow and justly fearfull of death because they know not how to comfort themselves in the evill accidents of their lives and their conscience is too polluted to take death for sanctuary and
bound in heaven and whatsoever yee loose shall be loosed there that is you shall stand or fall according to the Sermons of the Gospel as the Ministers of the Word are commanded to preach so yee must live here and so yee must be judged hereafter yee must not look for that sentence by secret decrees or obscure doctrines but by plain precepts and certain rules But there are yet some more degrees of mercy 4. That sentence shall passe upon us not after the measures of Nature and possibilities and utmost extents but by the mercies of the Covenant we shall be judged as Christians rather then as men that is as persons to whom much is pardoned and much is pityed and many things are not accidentally but consequently indulged and great helps are ministred and many remedies supplyed and some mercies extraregularly conveyed and their hopes enlarged upon the stock of an infinite mercy that hath no bounds but our needs our capacities and our proportions to glory 5. The sentence is to be given by him that once dyed for us and does now pray for us and perpetually intercedes and upon soules that he loves and in the salvation of which himself hath a great interest and increase of joy And now upon these premises we may dare to consider what the sentence it self shall be that shall never be reversed but shall last for ever and ever Whether it be good or bad I cannot discourse now the greatnesse of the good or bad so farre I mean as is revealed to us the considerations are too long to be crouded into the end of a Sermon onely in generall 1. If it be good it is greater then all the good of this world and every mans share then in every instant of his blessed eternity is greater then all the pleasures of Mankind in one heap 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 man can never wish for any thing greater then this immortality said Posidippus 2. To which I adde this one consideration that the portion of the good at the day of sentence shall be so great that after all the labours of our life and suffering persecutions and enduring affronts and the labour of love and the continuall feares and cares of the whole duration and abode it rewards it all and gives infinitely more Non sunt condignae passiones hujus saeculi all the torments and evills of this world are not to be estimated with the joyes of the Blessed It is the gift of God a donative beyond the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the military stipend it is beyond our work and beyond our wages and beyond the promise and beyond our thoughts and above our understandings and above the highest heavens it is a participation of the joyes of God and of the inheritance of the Judge himselfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a day of recompenses in which all our sorrowes shall be turn'd into joyes our persecutions into a crown the Crosse into a Throne poverty to the riches of God losse and affronts and inconveniences and death into scepters and hymnes and rejoycings and Hallellujahs and such great things which are fit for us to hope but too great for us to discourse of while we see as in a glasse darkly and imperfectly And he that chooses to do an evill rather then suffer one shall finde it but an ill exchange that he deferred his little to change for a great one I remember that a servant in the old Comedy did chuse to venture the lash rather then to feel a present inconvenience Quia illud aderat malum istud aberat longiùs illud erat praesens huic erant dieculae but this will be but an ill account when the rods shall for the delay be turned into Scorpions and from easie shall become intolerable Better it is to suffer here and to stay till the day of restitution for the good and the holy portion for it will recompense both for the suffering and the stay But how if the portion be bad It shall be bad to the greatest part of mankinde that 's a fearfull consideration the greatest part of men and women shall dwell in the portion of Devils to eternall ages So that these portions are like the Prophets figs in the vision the good are the best that ever were and the worst are so bad that worse cannot be imagined For though in hell the accursed souls shall have no worse then they have deserved and there are not there overrunning measures as there are in heaven and therefore that the joyes of heaven are infinitely greater joyes then the pains of hell are great pains yet even these are a full measure to a full iniquity pain above patience sorrowes without ease amazement without consideration despair without the intervals of a little hope indignation without the possession of any good there dwels envie and confusion disorder and sad remembrances perpetuall woes and continuall shriekings uneasinesse and all the evils of the soul. But if we will represent it in some orderly circumstances we may consider 1. That here all the troubles of our spirits are little participations of a disorderly passion A man desires earnestly but he hath not or he envies because another hath something besides him and he is troubled at the want of one when at the same time he hath a hundred good things and yet ambition and envie impatience and confusion covetousnesse and lust are all of them very great torments but there these shall be in essence and abstracted beings the spirit of envie and the spirit of sorrow Devils that shall inflict all the whole nature of the evill and pour it into the minds of accursed men where it shall sit without abatement for he that envies there envies not for the eminence of another that sits a little above him and excels him in some one good but he shall envie for all because the Saints have all and they have none therefore all their passions are integral abstracted perfect passions and all the sorrow in the world at this time is but a portion of sorrow every man hath his share and yet besides that which all sad men have there is a great deal of sorrow which they have not and all the Devils portion besides that but in hell they shall have the whole passion of sorrow in every one just as the whole body of the Sun is seen by every one in the same Horizon and he that is in darknesse enjoyes it not by parts but the whole darknesse is the portion of one as well as of another If this consideration be not too Metaphysicall I am sure it is very sad and it relies upon this that as in heaven there are some holy Spirits whose crown is all love and some in which the brightest jewell is understanding some are purity and some are holinesse to the Lord so in the regions of sorrow evill
the second is irremediadle the first proclaims our folly and the second declares Gods finall justice in the first there is no comfort in the latter there is no remedy that therefore makes us miserable and this renders us desperate 3. This great truth is further manifested by the necessary and convenient appendages of prayer requir'd or advis'd or recommended in holy Scripture For why is Fasting prescribed together with prayer For neither if we eat are we the better neither if we eat not are we the worse and God does not delight in that service the first second and third part of which is nothing but pain and self-affliction But therefore fasting is usefull with prayer because it is a penall duty and an action of repentance for then onely God hears sinners when they enter first into the gates of repentance and proceed in all the regions of sorrow and carefulnesse and therefore we are commanded to fast that we may pray with more spirituality and with repentance that is without the loads of meat and without the loads of sin Of the same consideration it is that almes are prescribed together with prayer because it is a part of that charity without which our soules are enemies to all that which ought to be equally valued with our owne lives But besides this we may easily observe what speciall undecencies there are which besides the generall malignity and demerit are speciall deleteries and hinderances to our prayers by irreconciling the person of him that prays 1. The first is unmercyfulnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said one in Stobaeus and they were well joyned together He that takes Mercy from a Man is like him that takes an Altar from the Temple the Temple is of no use without an Altar and the Man cannot pray without mercy and there are infinite of prayers sent forth by men which God never attends to but as to so many sins because the men live in a course of rapine or tyranny or oppression or uncharitablenesse or something that is most contrary to God because it is unmercifull Remember that God sometimes puts thee into some images of his own relation We beg of God for mercy and our Brother begs of us for pity and therefore let us deal equally with God and all the world I see my selfe fall by a too frequent infirmity and still I beg for pardon and hope for pity thy brother that offends thee he hopes so too and would fain have the same measure and would be as glad thou wouldst pardon him as thou wouldest rejoyce in thy own forgivenesse I am troubled when God rejects my prayer or in stead of hearing my petition sends a judgement Is not thy Tenant or thy Servant or thy Client so to thee does not he tremble at thy frown and is of an uncertaine soule till thou speakest kindly unto him and observes thy lookes as hee watches the colour of the bean coming from thy box of Sentence life or death depending on it when he begs of thee for mercy his passion is greater his necessities more pungent his apprehension more brisk and sensitive his case dressed with the circumstances of pity and thou thy selfe canst better feel his condition then thou doest usually perceive the earnestnesse of thy own prayers to God and if thou regardest not thy brother whom thou seest whose case thou feelest whose circumstances can afflict thee whose passion is dressed to thy fancy and proportioned to thy capacity how shall God regard thy distant prayer or be melted with thy cold desire or softned with thy dry story or moved by thy unrepenting soul If I be sad I seek for comfort and goe to God and to the ministry of his creatures for it and is it not just in God to stop his own fountaines and seal the cisterns and little emanations of the creatures from thee who shuttest thy hand and shuttest thy eye and twistest thy bowells against thy brother who would as fain be comforted as thou It is a strange Iliacall passion that so hardens a mans bowells that nothing proceeds from him but the name of his own disease a Miserere mei Deus a prayer to God for pity upon him that will not shew pity to others We are troubled when God through severity breaks our bones and hardens his face against us but we think our poor brother is made of iron and not of flesh and bloud as we are God hath bound mercy upon us by the iron bands of necessity and though Gods mercy is the measure of his justice yet justice is the measure of our mercy and as we doe to others it shall be done to us even in the matter of pardon and of bounty of gentlenesse and remission of bearing each others burdens and faire interpretation Forgive us our trespasses as wee forgive them that trespasse against us so we pray The finall sentence in this affair is recorded by St. James Hee that shews no mercy shall have justice with out mercy as thy poor brother hath groan'd under thy cruelty and ungentle nature without remedy so shalt thou before the throne of God thou shalt pray and plead and call and cry and beg again and in the midst of thy despairing noyses be carryed in the regions of sorrow which never did and never shall feel a mercy God never can heare the prayers of an unmercifull man 2. Lust and uncleannesse is a direct enemy to the Praying man and an obstruction to his prayers for this is not onely a prophanation but a direct sacriledge it defiles a Temple to the ground it takes from a man all affection to spirituall things and mingles his very soul with the things of the world it makes his understanding low and his reasonings cheap and foolish and it destroys his confidence and all his manly hopes it makes his spirit light effeminate and fantastick and dissolves his attention and makes his mind so to disaffect all the objects of his desires that when he prays he is as uneasy as an impaled person or a condemned criminall upon the hook or wheel and it hath in it this evill quality that a lustfull person cannot pray heartily against his sin he cannot desire his cure for his will is contradictory to his Collect and he would not that God should hear the words of his prayer which he poor man never intended For no crime so seises upon the will as that some sins steale an affection or obey a temptation or secure an interest or work by the way of understanding but lust seises directly upon the will for the Devil knows well that the lusts of the body are soon cured the uneasynesse that dwels there is a disease very tolerable and every degree of patience can passe under it But therefore the Devill seises upon the will and that 's it that makes adulteries and all the species of uncleannesse and lust growes so hard a cure because the formality of it is that it will not be cured the
the person ungracious and despised in the Court of heaven and therefore S. Iames in his accounts concerning an effective prayer not only requires that he be a just man who prayes but his prayer must be fervent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an effectuall fervent prayer so our English reads it it must be an intent zealous busie operative prayer for consider what a huge undeceney it is that a man should speak to God for a thing that he values not or that he should not value a thing without which he cannot be happy or that he should spend his religion upon a trifle and if it be not a trifle that he should not spend his affections upon it If our prayers be for temporall things I shall not need to stirre up your affections to be passionate for their purchase we desire them greedily we run after them intemperately we are kept from them with huge impatience we are delayed with infinite regret we preferre them before our duty we aske them unseasonably we receive them with our own prejudice and we care not we choose them to our hurt and hinderance and yet delightin the purchase and when we do pray for them we can hardly bring our selves to it to submit to Gods will but will have them if we can whether he be pleased or no like the Parasite in the Comedy Qui comedit quod fuit quod non fuit he eat all and more then all what was set before him and what was kept from him But then for spirituall things for the interest of our souls and the affairs of the Kingdome we pray to God with just such a zeal as a man begs of the Chirurgeon to cut him of the stone or a condemned man desires his executioner quickly to put him out of his pain by taking away his life when things are come to that passe it must be done but God knows with what little complacency and desire the man makes his request And yet the things of religion and the spirit are the only things that ought to be desired vehemently and pursued passionately because God hath set such a value upon them that they are the effects of his greatest loving kindnesse they are the purchases of Christs bloud and the effect of his continuall intercession the fruits of his bloudy sacrifice and the gifts of his healing and saving mercy the graces of Gods Spirit and the only instruments of felicity and if we can have fondnesses for things indifferent or dangerous our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg coldly and tamely for those things for which we ought to dye which are more precious then the globes of Kings and weightier then Imperiall Scepters richer then the spoils of the Sea or the treasures of the Indian hils He that is cold and tame in his prayers hath not tasted of the deliciousnesse of Religion and the goodnesse of God he is a stranger to the secrets of the Kingdome and therefore he does not know what it is either to have hunger or satiety and therefore neither are they hungry for God nor satisfied with the world but remain stupid and inapprehensive without resolution and determination never choosing clearly nor pursuing earnestly and therefore never enter into possession but alwaies stand at the gate of wearinesse unnecessary caution and perpetuall irresolution But so it is too often in our prayers we come to God because it is civill so to do and a generall custome but neither drawn thither by love nor pinch'd by spirituall necessities and pungent apprehensions we say so many prayers because we are resolved so to do and we passe through them sometimes with a little attention sometimes with none at all and can we think that the grace of Chastity can be obtain'd at such a purchase that grace that hath cost more labours then all the persecutions of faith and all the disputes of hope and all the expence of charity besides amounts to Can we expect that our sinnes should be waâ—hed by a lazie prayer Can an indifferent prayer quench the flatnes of hell or rescue us from an eternall sorrow Is lust so soon overcome that the very naming it can master it Is the Devill so slight and easie an enemy that he will fly away from us at the first word spoken without power and without vehemence Read and attend to the accents of the prayers of Saints I cryed day and night before thee O Lord my soul refused comfort my throat is dry with calling upon my God my knees are weak through fasting and Let me alone sayes God to Moses and I will not let thee go till thou hast blessed me said Jacob to the Angell And I shall tell you a short character of a fervent prayer out of the practise of S. Hierome in his Epistle to Eustochium de custodiâ virginitatis Being destitute of all help I threw my self down at the feet of Jesus I water'd his feet with tears and wiped them with my hair and mortified the lust of my flesh with the abstinence and hungry diet of many weeks I remember that in my crying to God I did frequently joyn the night and the day and never did intermit to call nor cease from beating my brest till the mercy of the Lord brought to me peace and freedome from temptation After many tears and my eyes fixed in heaven I thought my self sometimes encircled with troops of Angels and then at last I sang to God We will run after thee into the smell and deliciousnesse of thy precious ointments such a prayer as this will never return without its errand But though your person be as gracious as David or Job and your desire as holy as the love of Angels and your necessities great as a new penitent yet it pieâ—ces not the clouds unlesse it be also as loud as thunder passionate as the cries of women and clamorous as necessity And we may guesse at the degrees of importunity by the insinuation of the Apostle Let the marryed abstain for a time ut vacent orationi jejunio that they may attend to Prayer it is a great attendance and a long diligence that is promoted by such a separation and supposes a devotion that spends more then many hours for ordinary prayers and many hours of every day might well enough consist with an ordinary cohabitation but that which requires such a separation cals for a longer time and a greater attendance then we usually consider For every prayer we make is considered by God and recorded in heaven but cold prayers are not put into the account in order to effect and acceptation but are laid aside like the buds of roses which a cold wind hath nip'd into death and the discoloured tawny face of an Indian slave and when in order to your hopes of obtaining a great blessing you reckon up your prayers with which you have solicited your suit in the court of heaven you must reckon not by the number of the collects but
have grace by which we do serve and it is something better consonant to the discourse of the Apostle For having enumerated the great advantages which the Gospell hath above those of the Law he makes an argument à majori and answers a tacite objection The Law was delivered by Angels but the Gospell by the Son of God The Law was delivered from Mount Sinai the Gospell from Mount Sion from the heavenly Jerusalem The Law was given with terrors and noises with amazements of the standers by and Moses himself the Minister did exceedingly quake and fear and gave demonstration how infinitely dangerous it was by breaking that Law to provoke so mighty a God who with his voice did shake the earth but the Gospell was given by a meek Prince a gentle Saviour with a still voice scarce heard in the streets But that this may be no objection he proceeds and declares the terror of the Lord Deceive not your selves our Law-giver appeared so upon earth and was so truly but now he is ascended into heaven and from thence he speaks to us See that ye refuse not him that speaketh for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven for as God once shaked the earth and that was full of terror so our Lawgiver shall do and much more and be farre more terrible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Prophet Haggai which the Apostle quotes here he once shook the earth But once more I shake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is in the Prophesie I will shake not the earth only but also heaven with a greater terror then was upon Mount Sinai with the voice of an Archangell with the trump of God with a concussion so great that heaven and earth shall be shaken in pieces and new ones come in their room This is an unspeakable and an unimaginable terror Mount Sinai was shaken but it stands to this day but when that shaking shall be the things that are shaken shall be no more that those things that cannot be shaken may remain that is not only that the clestiall Jerusalem may remain for ever but that you who do not turn away from the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus you who cannot be shaken nor removed from your duty you may remain for ever that when the rocks rend and the mountains flie in pieces like the drops of a broken cloud and the heavens shall melt and the Sun shall be a globe of consuming fire and the Moon shall be dark like an extinguish'd candle then you poor men who could be made to tremble with an ague or shake by the violence of a Northern winde or be remov'd from your dwellings by the unjust decree of a persecutor or be thrown from your estates by the violence of an unjust man yet could not be removed from your duty and though you went trembling yet would go to death for the testimony of a holy cause and you that would dye for your faith would also live according to it you shall be established by the power of God and supported by the arme of your Lord and shall in all this great shaking be unmovable as the corner stone of the gates of the new Jerusalem you shall remain and abide for ever This is your case And to summe up the whole force of the argument the Apostle addes the words of Moses as it was then so it is true now Our God is a consuming fire He was so to them that brake the Law but he will be much more to them that disobey his Son he made great changes then but those which remain are farre greater and his terrors are infinitely more intolerable and therefore although he came not in the spirit of Elias but with meeknesse and gentle insinuations soft as the breath of heaven not willing to disturb the softest stalk of a violet yet his second coming shall be with terrors such as shall amaze all the world and dissolve it into ruine and a Chaos This truth is of so great efficacy to make us do our duty that now we are sufficiently enabled with this consideration This is the grace which we have to enable us this terror will produce fear and fear will produce obedience and we therefore have grace that is we have such a motive to make us reverence God and fear to offend him that he that dares continue in sin and refuses to hear him that speaks to us from heaven and from thence shall come with terrors this man despises the grace of God he is a gracelesse fearlesse impudent man and he shall finde that true in hypothesi and in his own ruine which the Apostle declares in thesi and by way of caution and provisior ary terror Our God is a consuming fire this is the sense and design of the text Reverence and godly fear they are the effects of this consideration they are the duties of every Christian they are the grace of God I shall not presse them only to purposes of awfulnesse and modesty of opinion and prayers against those strange doctrines which some have introduc'd into Religion to the destruction of all manners and prudent apprehensions of the distances of God and man such as are the Doctrine of necessity of familiarity with God and a civill friendship and a parity of estate and an unevennesse of adoption from whence proceed rudenesse in prayers flat and undecent expressions affected rudenesse superstitious sitting at the holy Sacrament making it to be a part of Religion to be without fear and reverence the stating of the Question is a sufficient reproof of this folly whatsoever actions are brought into Religion without reverence and godly fear are therefore to be avoided because they are condemned in this advice of the Apostle and are destructive of those effects which are to be imprinted upon our spirits by the terrors of the day of Judgement But this fear and reverence the Apostle intends should be a deletery to all sin whatsoever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes the Etymologicum whatsoever is terrible is destructive of that thing for which it is so and if we fear the evill effects of sin let us flie from it we ought to fear its alluring face too let us be so afraid that we may not dare to refuse to hear him whose Throne is heaven whose Voice is thunder whose Tribunall is clouds whose Seat is the right hand of God whose Word is with power whose Law is given with mighty demonstration of the Spirit who shall reward with heaven and joyes eternall and who punishes his rebels that will not have him to reign over them with brimstone and fire with a worm that never dies and a fire that never is quenched let us fear him who is terrible in his Judgements just in his his dispensation secret in his providence severe in his demands gracious in his assistances bountifull in
as they would avoid death But certainly they have great cause to fear who are sure to be sick when the weather changes or can no longer retain their possession but till an enemy please to take it away or will preserve their honour but till some smiling temptation aske them to forgoe it 2ly They also have great reason to fear whose repentance is broken into fragments and is never a whole or entire change of life I mean those that resolve against a sin and pray against it and hate it in all the resolutions of their understanding till that unlucky period comes in which they use to act it but then they sin as certainly as they will infallibly repent it when they have done these are a very great many Christians who are esteemed of the better sort of penitents yet feel this feaverish repentance to be their best state of health they fall certainly in the returns of the same circumstances or at a certain distance of time but God knows they doe not get the victory over their sin but are within its power For this is certain they who sin and repent and sin again in the same or the like circumstances are in some degree under the power and dominion of sin when their actions can be reduc'd to an order or a method to a rule or a certainty that oftner hits then fails that sin is habituall though it be the least habit yet a habit it is every course or order or method of sin every constant or periodicall return every return that can be regularly observed or which a man can foresee or probably foretell even then when he does not intend it but prays against it every such sin is to be reckoned not for a single action or upon the accounts of a pardonable infirmity but it is a combination an evill state such a thing as the man ought to feare concerning himselfe lest he be surpriz'd and call'd from this world before this evill state be altered for if he be his securities are but slender and his hopes will deceive him It was a severe doctrine that was maintain'd by some great Clerks and holy men in the Primitive Church That Repentance was to be but once after Baptism One Faith one Lord one Baptisme one Repentance all these the Scripture saith and it is true if by repentance we mean the entire change of our condition for he that returns willingly to the state of an unbeleeving or a heathen profane person intirely and choosingly in defiance of and apostasie from his Religion cannot be renew'd againe as the Apostle twice affirms in his Epistle to the Hebrews But then concerning this state of Apostasie when it hapned in the case not of Faith but of Charity and obedience there were many fears and jealousies they were therefore very severe in their doctrines lest men should fall into so evill a condition they enlarged their fear that they might be stricter in their duty and generally this they did beleeve that every second repentance was worse then the first and the third worse then the second and still as the sin returned the Spirit of God did the lesse love to inhabit and if he were provoked too often would so withdraw his aides and comfortable cohabitation that the Church had little comfort in such children so said Clemens Alexandr stromat 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those frequent and alternate repentances that is repentances and sinnings interchangeably differ not from the conditions of men that are not within the covenant of grace from them that are not beleevers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 save onely says he that these men perceive that they sin they doe it more against their conscience then infidels and unbeleevers and therefore they doe it with lesse honesty and excuse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know not which is worse either to sin knowingly or wilfully or to repent of our sin and sin it over again And the same severe doctrine is delivered by Theodoret in his 12 book against the Greeks and is hugely agreeable to the discipline of the Primitive Church And it is a truth of so great severity that it ought to quicken the repentance and sowre the gayeties of easy people and make them fear whose repentance is therefore ineffectuall because it is not integrall or united but broken in pieces by the intervention of new crimes so that the repentance is every time to begin anew and then let it be considered what growth that repentance can make that is never above a week old that is for ever in its infancy that is still in its birth that never gets the dominion over sin These men I say ought to fear lest God reject their persons and deride the folly of their new begun repentances and at last be weary of giving them more opportunities since they approve all and make use of none their understanding is right and their will a slave their reason is for God and their affections for sin these men as the Apostles expression is walk not as wise but as fools for we deride the folly of those men that resolve upon the same thing a thousand times and never keep one of those resolutions These men are vaine and light easy and effeminate childish and abused these are they of whom our blessed Saviour said those sad decretory words Many shall strive to enter in and shall not be able SERMON VIII Part II. 3. THey have great reason to feare whose sins are not yet remitted for they are within the dominion of sin within the Kingdome of darknesse and the regions of feare Light makes us confident and Sin checks the spirit of a man into the pusillanimity and cowardize of a girle or a conscious boy and they doe their work in the days of peace and a wealthy fortune and come to pay their symbole in a warre or in a plague then they spend of their treasure of wrath which they laid up in their vessels of dishonour And indeed want of feare brought them to it for if they had known how to have accounted concerning the changes of mortality if they could have reckoned right concerning Gods judgements falling upon sinners and remembred that themselves are no more to God then that Brother of theirs that died in a drunken surfeit or was kill'd in a Rebell warre or was before his grave corrupted by the shames of lust if they could have told the minutes of their life and passed on towards their grave at least in religious and sober thoughts and consider'd that there must come a time for them to die and after death comes judgement a fearfull and an intolerable judgement it would not have come to this passe in which their present condition of affairs doe amaze them and their sin hath made them lyable unto death and that death is the beginning of an eternall evill In this case it is naturall to fear and if men consider their condition and know that all the felicity
and all the security they can have depends upon Gods mercy pardoning their sins they cannot choose but fear infinitely if they have not reason to hope that their sins are pardoned * Now concerning this men indeed have generally taken a course to put this affair to a very speedy issue God is mercifull and God forgive mee and all is done or it may be a few sighs like the deep sobbings of a man that is almost dead with laughter that is a trifling sorrow returning upon a man after he is full of sin and hath pleased himselfe with violence and revolving onely by a naturall change from sin to sorrow from laughter to a groan from sunshine to a cloudy day or it may be the good man hath left some one sin quite or some degrees of all sin and then the conclusion is firm he is rectus in Curâ—â his sins are pardoned he was indeed in an evill condition but now he is purged he is sanctified and clean These things are very bad but it is much worse that men should continue in their sin and grow old in it and arrive at consirmation and the strength of habituall wickednesse and grow fond of it and yet think if they die their account stands as fair in the eyes of Gods mercy as St. Peter's after his tears and sorrow Our sins are not pardoned easily and quickly and the longer and the greater hath been the iniquity the harder and more difficult and uncertain is the pardon it is a great progresse to return from all the degrees of death to life to motion to quicknesse to purity to acceptation to grace to contention and growth in grace to perseverance and so to pardon For pardon stands no where but at the gates of heaven It is a great mercy that signifies a finall and universall acquittance God sends it out in little scroles and excuses you from falling by the sword of the enemy or the secret stroke of an Angell in the days of the plague but these are but little entertainments and inticings of our hopes to work on towards the great pardon which is registred in the leaves of the Book of Life And it is a mighty folly to think that every little line of mercy signifies glory and absolution from the eternall wrath of God and therefore it is not to be wondred at that wicked men are unwilling to dye it is a greater wonder that many of them dye with so little resentment of their danger and their evill There is reason for them to tremble when the Judge summons them to appear When his messenger is clothed with horror and speaks in thunder when their conscience is their accuser and their accusation is great and their bills uncancell'd and they have no title to the crosse of Christ no advocate no excuse when God is their enemy and Christ is the injur'd person and the Spirit is grieved and sicknesse and death come to plead Gods cause against the man then there is reason that the naturall fears of death should be high and pungent and those naturall fears encreased by the reasonable and certain expectations of that anger which God hath laid up in heaven for ever to consume and destroy his enemies And indeed if we consider upon how trifling and inconsiderable grounds most men hope for pardon if at least that may be call'd hope which is nothing but a carelesse boldnesse and an unreasonable wilfull confidence we shall see much cause to pity very many who are going merrily to a sad and intolerable death Pardon of sins is a mercy which Christ purchased with his dearest blood which he ministers to us upon conditions of an infinite kindnesse but yet of great holinesse and obedience and an active living faith it is a grace that the most holy persons beg of God with mighty passion and labour for with a great diligence and expect with trembling fears and concerning it many times suffer sadnesses with uncertain soules and receive it by degrees and it enters upon them by little portions and it is broken as their sighs and sleeps But so have I seen the returning sea enter upon the strand and the waters rolling towards the shore throw up little portions of the tide and retire as if nature meant to play and not to change the abode of waters but still the floud crept by little steppings and invaded more by his progressions then he lost by his retreat and having told the number of its steps it possesses its new portion till the Angell calls it back that it may leave its unfaithfull dwelling of the sand so is the pardon of our sins it comes by slow motions and first quits a present death and turnes it may be into a sharp sicknesse and if that sicknesse prove not health to the soul it washes off and it may be will dash against the rock again and proceed to take off the severall instances of anger and the periods of wrath but all this while it is uncertain concerning our finall interest whether it be ebbe or floud and every hearty prayer and every bountifull almes still enlarges the pardon or addes a degree of probability and hope and then a drunken meeting or a covetous desire or an act of lust or looser swearing idle talk or neglect of Religion makes the pardon retire and while it is disputed between Christ and Christs enemy who shall be Lord the pardon fluctuates like the wave striving to climbe the rock and is wash'd off like its own retinue and it gets possession by time and uncertainty by difficulty and the degrees of a hard progression When David had sinned but in one instance interrupting the course of a holy life by one sad calamity it pleased God to pardon him but see upon what hard terms He prayed long and violently he wept sorely he was humbled in sackcloth and ashes he eat the bread of affliction and drank of his bottle of tears he lost his Princely spirit and had an amazing conscience he suffer'd the wrath of God and the sword never did depart from his house his Son rebell'd and his Kingdome revolted he fled on foot and maintained Spies against his childe hee was forc'd to send an army against him that was dearer then his owne eyes and to fight against him whom he would not hurt for all the riches of Syria and Egypt his concubines were desir'd by an incestuous mixture in the face of the sun before all Israel and his childe that was the fruit of his sin after a 7 days feaver dyed and left him nothing of his sin to show but sorrow and the scourges of the Divine vengeance and after all this God pardoned him finally because he was for ever sorrowfull and never did the sin againe He that hath sinned a thousand times for David's once is too confident if he thinks that all his shall be pardoned at a lesse rate then was used to expiate that one mischief of the religious King The son
first day in which he began to take sober counsels he throws himself back in the accounts of eternity and slides to the bottome of the hill from whence with sweat and labour of his hands and knees he had long been creeping he descends from the spirit to the flesh from honour to dishonour from wise principles to unthrifty practises like one of the vainer fellowes who grows a fool and a prodigall and a begger because he delights in inconsideration in the madnesse of drunkennesse and the quiet of a lazy and unprofitable life So that this man hath great cause to fear and if he does his fear is as the fear of enemies and not sons I do not say that it is a fear that is displeasing to God but it is such a one as may arrive at goodnesse and the fear of sons if it be rightly manag'd For we must know that no fear is displeasing to God no fear of it self whether it be fear of punishment or fear to offend the fear of servants or the fear of sons But the effects of fear doe distinguish the man and are to be entertain'd or rejected accordingly If a servile fear makes us to remove our sins and so passes us towards our pardon and the receiving such graces which may endear our duty and oblige our affection that fear is imperfect but not criminall it is the beginning of wisdome and the first introduction to it but if that fear sits still or rests in a servile minde or a hatred of God or speaking evill things concerning him or unwillingnesse to do our duty that which at first was indifferent or at the worst imperfect proves miserable and malicious so we do our duty it is no matter upon what principles we do it it is no matter where we begin so from that beginning we passe on to duties and perfection If we fear God as an enemy an enemy of our sins and of our persons for their sakes as yet this fear is but a servile fear it cannot be a filiall fear since we our selves are not sons but if this servile fear makes us to desire to be reconcil'd to God that he may no longer stay at enmity with us from this fear we shall soon passe to carefulnesse from carefulnesse to love from love to diligence from diligence to perfection and the enemies shall become servants and the servants shall become adopted sons and passe into the society and the participation of the inheritance of Jesus for this fear is also reverence and then our God in stead of being a consuming fire shall become to us the circle of a glorious crown and a globe of an eternall light SERMON IX Part III. I Am now to give account concerning the excesse of fear not directly and abstractedly as it is a passion but as it is subjected in Religion and degenerates into superstition For so among the Greeks fear is the ingredient and half of the constitution of that folly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Hesychius it is a fear of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 's more it is a timorousnesse the superstitious man is afraid of the gods said the Etymologist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fearing of God as if he were a tyrant and an unreasonable exacter of duty upon unequall terms and disproportionable impossible degrees and unreasonable and great and little instances 1. But this fear some of the old Philosophers thought unreasonable in all cases even towards God himself and it was a branch of the Epicurean Doctrine that God medled not any thing below and was to be loved and admired but not feared at all and therefore they taught men neither to fear death nor to fear punishment after death nor any displeasure of God His terroribus ab Epicuro soluti non metuimus Deos said Cicero and thence came this acceptation of the word that superstition should signifie an unreasonable fear of God It is true he and all his scholars extended the case beyond the measure and made all fear unreasonable but then if we upon grounds of reason and divine revelation shall better discern the measure of the fear of God whatsoever fear we find to be unreasonable we may by the same reason call it superstition and reckon it criminall as they did all fear that it may be call'd superstition their authority is sufficient warrant for the grammar of the appellative and that it is criminall we shall derive from better principles But besides this there was another part of its definition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the superstitious man is also an Idolater 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that is afraid of something besides God The Latines according to their custome imitating the Greeks in all their learned notices of things had also the same conception of this and by their word Superstitio understood the worship of Daemons or separate spirits by which they meant either their minores Deos or else their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their braver personages whose souls were supposed to live after death the fault of this was the object of their Religion they gave a worship or a fear to whom it was not due for when ever they worship'd the great God of heaven and earth they never cal'd that superstition in an evill sense except the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that beleeved there was no God at all Hence came the etymology of superstition it was a worshipping or fearing the spirits of their dead Heroes quos superstites credebant whom they thought to be alive after their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Deification or quos superstantes credebant standing in places and thrones above us and it alludes to that admirable description of old age which Solomon made beyond all the Rhetorick of the Greeks and Romans Also they shall be afraid of that which is high and fears shall be in the way intimating the weaknesse of old persons who if ever they have been religious are apt to be abused into superstition They are afraid of that which is high that is of spirits and separate souls of those excellent beings which dwell in the regions above meaning that then they are superstitious However fear is most commonly its principle alwaies its ingredient For if it enter first by credulity and a weak perswasion yet it becomes incorporated into the spirit of the man and thought necessary and the action it perswades to dares not be omitted for fear of an evill themselves dream of upon this account the sin is reducible to two heads the 1. is Superstition of an undue object 2. Superstition of an undue expression to a right object 1. Superstition of an undue object is that which the Etymologist cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the worshipping of idols the Scripture addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sacrificing to Daemons in St. Paul and in Baruch where although we usually read it sacrificing to Devils yet it was but accidentall that they were such for those indeed
were evill spirits who had seduced them and tempted them to such ungodly rites and yet they who were of the Pythagorean sect pretended a more holy worship and did their devotion to Angels But whosoever shall worship Angels do the same thing they worship them because they are good and powerfull as the Gentiles did the Devils whom they thought so and the error which the Apostle reproves was not in matter of Judgement in mistaking bad angels for good but in matter of manners and choice they mistook the creature for the Creator and therefore it is more fully expressed by St. Paul in a generall signification they worshipped the creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides the Creator so it should be read if we worship any creature besides God worshipping so as the worship of him becomes a part of Religion it is also a direct superstition but concerning this part of superstition I shall not trouble this discourse because I know no Christians blamable in this particular but the Church of Rome and they that communicate with her in the worshipping of Images of Angels and Saints burning lights and perfumes to them making offerings confidences advocations and vowes to them and direct and solemn divine worshipping the Symbols of bread and wine when they are consecrated in the holy Sacrament These are direct superstition as the word is used by all Authors profane and sacred and are of such evill report that where ever the word Superstition does signifie any thing criminall these instances must come under the definition of it They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cultus superstitum a cultus Daemonum and therefore besides that they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proper reproof in Christian Religion are condemned by all wise men which call superstition criminall But as it is superstition to worship any thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides the Creator so it is superstition to worship God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 otherwise then is decent proportionable or described Every inordination of Religion that is not in defect is properly called superstition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Maximus Tyrius The true worshipper is a lover of God the superstitious man loves him not but flatters To which if we adde that fear unreasonable fear is also superstition and an ingredient in its definition we are taught by this word to signifie all irregularity and inordination in actions of Religion The summe is this the Atheist cal'd all worship of God superstition the Epicurean cal'd all fear of God superstition but did not condemn his worship the other part of wise men cal'd all unreasonable fear and inordinate worship superstition but did not condemn all fear But the Christian besides this cals every error in worship in the manner or excesse by this name and condemns it Now because the three great actions of Religion are to worship God to fear God and to trust in him by the inordination of these three actions we may reckon three sorts of this crime the excesse of fear and the obliquity in trust and the errors in worship are the three sorts of superstition the first of which is only pertinent to our present consideration 1. Fear is the duty we owe to God as being the God of power and Justice the great Judge of heaven and earth the avenger of the cause of Widows the Patron of the poor and the Advocate of the oppressed a mighty God and terrible and so essentiall an enemy to sin that he spared not his own Son but gave him over to death and to become a sacrifice when he took upon him our Nature and became a person obliged for our guilt Fear is the great bridle of intemperance the modesty of the spirit and the restraint of gaieties and dissolutions it is the girdle to the soul and the handmaid to repentance the arrest of sin and the cure or antidote to the spirit of reprobation it preserves our apprehensions of the divine Majesty and hinders our single actions from combining to sinfull habits it is the mother of consideration and the nurse of sober counsels and it puts the soul to fermentation and activity making it to passe from trembling to caution from caution to carefulnesse from carefulnesse to watchfulnesse from thence to prudence and by the gates and progresses of repentance it leads the soul on to love and to felicity and to joyes in God that shall never cease again Fear is the guard of a man in the dayes of prosperity and it stands upon the watch-towers and spies the approaching danger and gives warning to them that laugh loud and feast in the chambers of rejoycing where a man cannot consider by reason of the noises of wine and jest and musick and if prudence takes it by the hand and leads it on to duty it is a state of grace and an universall instrument to infant Religion and the only security of the lesse perfect persons and in all senses is that homage we owe to God who sends often to demand it even then when he speaks in thunder or smites by a plague or awakens us by threatning or discomposes our easinesse by sad thoughts and tender eyes and fearfull hearts and trembling considerations But this so excellent grace is soon abused in the best and most tender spirits in those who are softned by Nature and by Religion by infelicities or cares by sudden accidents or a sad soul and the Devill observing that fear like spare diet starves the feavers of lust and quenches the flames of hell endevours to highten this abstinence so much as to starve the man and break the spirit into timorousnesse and scruple sadnesse and unreasonable tremblings credulity and trifling observation suspicion and false accusations of God and then vice being turned out at the gate returns in at the postern and does the work of hell and death by running too inconsiderately in the paths which seem to lead to heaven But so have I seen a harmlesse dove made dark with an artificiall night and her eyes ceel'd and lock'd up with a little quill soaring upward and flying with amazement fear and an undiscerning wing she made toward heaven but knew not that she was made a train and an instrument to teach her enemy to prevail upon her and all her defencelesse kindred so is a superstitious man zealous and blinde forward and mistaken he runs towards heaven as he thinks but he chooses foolish paths and out of fear takes any thing that he is told or fancios and guesses concerning God by measures taken from his own diseases and imperfections But fear when it is inordinate is never a good counsellor nor makes a good friend and he that fears God as his enemy is the most compleatly miserable person in the world For if he with reason beleeves God to be his enemy then the man needs no other argument to prove that he is undone then this that the fountain of blessing in this state in which the
man is will never issue any thing upon him but cursings But if he fears this without reason he makes his fears true by the very suspicion of God doing him dishonour and then doing those fond and trifling acts of jealousie which will make God to be what the man feared he already was We do not know God if we can think any hard thing concerning him If God be mercifull let us only fear to offend him but then let us never be fearfull that he will destroy us when we are carefull not to displease him There are some persons so miserable and scrupulous such perpetuall tormentors of themselves with unnecessary fears that their meat and drink is a snare to their consciences if they eat they fear they are gluttons if they fast they fear they are hypocrites and if they would watch they complain of sleep as of a deadly sin and every temptation though resisted makes them cry for pardon and every return of such an accident makes them think God is angry and every anger of God will break them in pieces These persons do not beleeve noble things concerning God they do not think that he is as ready to pardon them as they are to pardon a sinning servant they do not beleeve how much God delights in mercy nor how wise he is to consider and to make abatement for our unavoidable infirmities they make judgement of themselves by the measures of an Angell and take the accounts of God by the proportions of a Tyrant The best that can be said concerning such persons is that they are hugely tempted or hugely ignorant For although ignorance is by some persons named the mother of devotion yet if it fals in a hard ground it is the mother of Atheisme if in a soft ground it is the parent of superstition but if it proceeds from evill or mean opinions of God as such scruples and unreasonable fears do many times it is an evill of a great impiety and in some sense and if it were in equall degrees is as bad as Atheisme for he that sayes there was no such man as Julius Caesar does him lesse displeasure then he that sayes there was but that he was a Tyrant and a bloudy parricide And the Cimmerians were not esteemed impious for saying that there was no sun in the heavens But Anaxagoras was esteemed irreligious for saying the sun was a very stone And though to deny there is a God is a high impiety and intolerable yet he sayes worse who beleeving there is a God sayes he delights in humane sacrifices in miseries and death in tormenting his servants and punishing their very infelicities and unavoidable mischances To be God and to be essentially and infinitely good is the same thing and therefore to deny either is to be reckoned among the greatest crimes in the world Adde to this that he that is afraid of God cannot in that disposition love him at all for what delight is there in that religion which drawes me to the Altar as if I were going to be sacrificed or to the Temples as to the Dens of Bears Oderant quos metuunt sea colunt tamen whom men fear they hate certainly and flatter readily and worship timorously and he that saw Hermolaus converse with Alexander and Pausanias follow Philip the Macedonian or Chaeteas kissing the feet of Cajus Caligula would have observed how fordid men are made with fear and how unhappy and how hated Tyrants are in the midst of those acclamations which are loud and forc'd and unnaturall and without love or fair opinion And therefore although the Atheist sayes there is no God the scrupulous fearfull and superstitious man does heartily with what the other does beleeve But that the evill may be proportionable to the folly and the punishment to the crime there is no man more miserable in the world then the man who fears God as his enemy and Religion as a snare and duty as intolerable and the Commandements as impossible and his Judge as implacable and his anger as certain unsufferable and unavoidable whither shall this man goe where shall he lay his burden where shall he take sanctuary for he fears the Altars as the places where his soul bleeds and dies and God who is his Saviour he looks upon as his enemy and because he is Lord of all the miserable man cannot change his service unlesse it be apparently for a worse And therefore of all the evils of the minde fear is certainly the worst and the most intolerable levity and rashnesse have in it some spritefulnesse and greatnesse of action anger is valiant desire is busie and apt to hope credulity is oftentimes entertain'd and pleased with images and appearances But fear is dull and sluggish and treacherous and flattering and dissembling and miserable and foolish Every false opinion concerning God is pernicious and dangerous but if it be joyned with trouble of spirit as fear scruple or superstition are it is like a wound with an inflamation or a strain of a sinew with a contusion or contrition of the part painfull and unsafe it puts on to actions when it self is driven it urges reason and circumscribes it and makes it pityable and ridiculous in its consequent follies which if we consider it will sufficiently reprove the folly and declare the danger Almost all ages of the world have observed many instances of fond perswasions and foolish practises proceeding from violent fears and scruples in matter of Religion Diomedon and many other Captains were condemned to dye because after a great Naval victory they pursued the flying enemies and did not first bury their dead But Chabrias in the same case first buryed the dead and by that time the enemy rallyed and returned and beat his Navy and made his masters pay the price of their importune superstition they fear'd where they should not and where they did not they should From hence proceeds observation of signs and unlucky dayes and the people did so when the Gregorian account began continuing to call those unlucky dayes which were so signed in their tradition or Erra pater although the day upon this account fell 10 dayes sooner and men were transported with many other trifling contingencies and little accidents which when they are one entertain'd by weaknesse prevail upon their own strength and in sad natures and weak spirits have produced effects of great danger and sorrow Aristodemas King of the Messenians in his warre against the Spartans prevented the sword of the enemies by a violence done upon himself only because his dogs howl'd like wolves and the Soothsayers were afraid because the Briony grew up by the wals of his Fathers house and Nicias Generall of the Athenian forces sate with his armes in his bosome and suffered himself and 40000 men tamely to fall by the insolent enemy only because he was afraid of the labouring and eclipsed Moon When the Marble statues in Rome did sweat as naturally they did against all rainy weather
under the eye of heaven that many Nations are marked for intemperance and that it is lesse noted because it is so popular and universall and that even in the midst of the glories of Christianity there are so many persons drunk or too full with meat or greedy of lust even now that the Spirit of God is given to us to make us sober and temperate and chaste we may well imagine since all men have flesh and all men have nor the spirit the flesh is the parent of sin and death and it can be nothing else And it is no otherwise when we are tempted with pain We are so impatient of pain that nothing can reconcile us to it not the laws of God not the necessities of nature not the society of all our kindred and of all the world not the interest of vertue not the hopes of heaven we will submit to pain upon no terms but the basest and most dishonorable for if sin bring us to pain or affront or sicknesse we choose that so it be in the retinue of a lust and a base desire but we accuse Nature and blaspheme God we murmur and are impatient when pain is sent to us from him that ought to send it and intends it as a mercy when it comes But in the matter of afflictions and bodily sicknesse we are so weak and broken so uneasie and unapt to sufferance that this alone is beyond the cure of the old Philosophy Many can endure poverty and many can retire from shame and laugh at home and very many can endure to be slaves but when pain and sharpnesse are to be endured for the interests of vertue we finde but few Martyrs and they that are suffer more within themselves by their fears and their temptations by their uncertain purposes and violences to Nature then by the Hang-mans sword the Martyrdome is within and then he hath won his Crown not when he hath suffered the blow but when he hath overcome his fears and made his spirit conqueror It was a sad instance of our infirmity when of the 40 Martyrs of Cappadocia set in a freezing lake almost consummate and an Angell was reaching the Crowne and placing it upon their brows the flesh fail'd one of them and drew the spirit after it and the man was called off from his Scene of noble contention and dyed in warm water Odi artus fragilémque hunc corporis usum Desertorem animi We carry about us the body of death and we bring evils upon our selves by our follies and then know not how to bear them and the flesh forsakes the spirit And indeed in sicknesse the infirmity is so very great that God in a manner at that time hath reduced all Religion into one vertue Patience with its appendages is the summe totall of almost all our duty that is proper to the days of sorrow and we shall find it enough to entertain all our powers and to imploy all our aids the counsels of wise men and the comforts of our friends the advices of Scripture and the results of experience the graces of God and the strength of our own resolutions are all then full of imployments and find it work enough to secure that one grace For then it is that a could is wrapped about our heads and our reason stoops under sorrow the soul is sad and its instrument is out of tune the auxiliaries are disorder'd and every thought sits heavily then a comfort cannot make the body feel it and the soule is not so abstracted to rejoyce much without its partner so that the proper joyes of the soul such as are hope and wise discourses and satisfactions of reason and the offices of Religion are felt just as we now perceive the joyes of heaven with so little relish that it comes as news of a victory to a man upon the Rack or the birth of an heir to one condemned to dye he hears a story which was made to delight him but it came when he was dead to joy and all its capacities and therefore sicknesse though it be a good Monitor yet it is an ill stage to act some vertues in and a good man cannot then doe much and therefore he that is in the state of flesh and blood can doe nothing at all 4. But in these considerations we find our nature in disadvantages and a strong man may be overcome when a stronger comes to disarme him and pleasure and pain are the violences of choice and chance but it is no better in any thing else for nature is weak in all its strengths and in its fights at home and abroad in its actions and passions we love some things violently and hate others unreasonably any thing can fright us when we should be confident and nothing can scare us when we ought to feare the breaking of a glasse puts us into a supreme anger and we are dull and indifferent as a Stoick when we see God dishonour'd we passionately desire our preservation and yet we violently destroy our selves and will not be hindred we cannot deny a friend when he tempts us to sin and death and yet we daily deny God when he passionately invites us to life and health we are greedy after money and yet spend it vainly upon our lusts we hate to see any man flatter'd but our selves and we can endure folly if it be on our side and a sin for our interest we desire health and yet we exchange it for wine and madnesse we sink when a persecution comes and yet cease not daily to persecute our selves doing mischiefs worse then the sword of Tyrants and great as the malice of a Devill 5. But to summe up all the evills that can be spoken of the infirmities of the flesh the proper nature and habitudes of men are so foolish and impotent so averse and peevish to all good that a mans will is of it self onely free to choose evils Neither is it a contradiction to say liberty and yet suppose it determin'd to one object onely because that one object is the thing we choose For although God hath set life and death before us fire and water good and evill and hath primarily put man into the hands of his owne counsell that he might have chosen good as well as evill yet because he did not but fell into an evill condition and corrupted manners and grew in love with it and infected all his children with vicious examples and all nations of the world have contracted some universall stains and the thoughts of mans hearts are onely evill and that continually and there is not one that doth good no not one that sinneth not since I say all the world have sinned we cannot suppose a liberty of indifferency to good and bad it is impossible in such a liberty that there should be no variety that all should choose the same thing but a liberty of complacency or delight we may suppose that is so that though naturally he might
be impossible to doe our duty we weep for our sins but we weep more for the death of our dearest friends or other temporall sadnesses we say we had rather die then lose our saith and yet we doe not live according to it we lose our estates and are impatient we lose our vertue and bear it well enough and what vertue is so great as more to be troubled for having sin'd then for being asham'd and begger'd and condemn'd to die Here we are forced to a distinction there is a valuation of price and a valuation of sense or the spirit hath one rate of things and the flesh hath another and what we beleeve the greatest evill does not alwayes cause to us the greatest trouble which shews plainly that we are imperfect carnall persons and the flesh will in some measure prevaile over the spirit because we will suffer it in too many instances and cannot help it in all 9. The spirit is abated and interrupted by the flesh because the flesh pretends it is not able to doe those ministeries which are appointed in order to Religion we are not able to fast or if we watch it breeds gouts and catarrhes or charity is a grace too expensive our necessities are too big to do it or we cannot suffer pain and sorrow breeds death and therefore our repentances must be more gentle and we must support our selves in all our calamities for we cannot beare our crosses without a freer refreshment and this freedome passes on to licence and many melancholy persons drowne their sorrows in sin and forgetfulnesse as if sin were more tolerable then sorrow and the anger of God an easier load then a temporall care here the flesh betrayes its weaknesse and its follies For the flesh complains too soon and the spirit of some men like Adam being too fond of his Eve attends to all its murmurs and temptations and yet the flesh is able to bear farre more then is required of it in usuall duties Custome of suffering will make us endure much and feare will make us suffer more and necessity makes us suffer any thing and lust and desire makes us to endure more then God is willing we should and yet we are nice and tender and indulgent to our weaknesses till our weaknesses grow too strong for us And what shall we doe to secure our duty and to be delivered of our selves that the body of death which we bear about us may not destroy the life of the spirit I have all this while complain'd and you see not without cause I shall afterwards tell you the remedies for all this evill In the mean time let us have but mean opinions of our selves let us watch every thing of our selves as of suspected persons and magnifie the grace of God and be humbled for our stock and spring of follies and let us look up to him who is the fountaine of grace and spirituall strengths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And pray that God would give us what we ask and what we ask not for we want more helps then we understand and we are neerer to evill then we perceive and we bear sin and death about us and are in love with it and nothing comes from us but false principles and silly propositions and weak discourses and startings from our holy purposes and care of our bodies and of our palates and the lust of the lower belly these are the imployment of our lives but if wee design to live happily and in a better place it must be otherwise with us we must become new creatures and have another definition and have new strengths which we can onely derive from God whose grace is sufficient for us and strong enough to prevail over all our follies and infirmities SERMON XI Part II. IF it be possible to cure an evill nature we must inquire after remedies for all this mischief In order to which I shall consider 1. That since it is our flesh and bloud that is the principle of mischief we must not think to have it cured by washings and light medicaments the Physitian that went to cure the Hectick with quick-silver and fasting spittle did his Patient no good but himself became a proverb and he that by easie prayers and a seldome fast by the scattering of a little almes and the issues of some more naturall vertue thinks to cure his evill nature does fortifie his indisposition as a stick is hardened by a little fire which by a great one is devoured Quanto satius est mentem potius eluere quae malis cupiditatibus sordidatur uno virtutis ac fidei lavacro universa vitia depellere Better it is by an intire body of vertue by a living and active faith to cleanse the minde from every vice and to take off all superinduced habits of sin Quod qui fecerit quamlibet inquinatum ac sordidum corpus gerat satis purus est If we take this course although our body is foul and our affections unquiet and our rest discomposed yet we shall be masters of our resolution and clean from habituall sins and so cure our evill nature For our nature was not made evill but by our selves but yet we are naturally evill that is by a superinduced nature just as drunkards and intemperate persons have made it necessary to drink extremely and their nature requires it and it is health to them they dye without it because they have made to themselves a new constitution and another nature but much worse then that which God made their sin made this new nature and this new nature makes sin necessary and unavoidable so it is in all other instances Our nature is evill because we have spoil'd it and therefore the removing the sin which we have brought in is the way to cure our nature for this evill nature is not a thing which we cannot avoid we made it and therefore we must help it but as in the superinducing this evill nature we were thrust forward by the world and the Devill by all objects from without and weaknesse from within so in the curing it we are to be helped by God and his most holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We must have a new nature put into us which must be the principle of new counsels and better purposes of holy actions and great devotion and this nature is deriv'd from God and is a grace and a favour of heaven The same Spirit that caused the holy Jesus to be born after a new and strange manner must also descend upon us and cause us to be born again and to begin a new life upon the stock of a new nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Origen From him it first began that a divine and humane nature were weaved together that the humane nature by communication with the celestiall may also become divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not only in Jesus but in all that first
beleeve in him and then obey him living such a life as Jesus taught and this is the summe totall of the whole design As we have liv'd to the flesh so we must hereafter live to the spirit as our nature hath been flesh not only in its originall but in habits and affection so our nature must be spirit in habit and choice in design and effectuall prosecutions for nothing can cure our old death but this new birth and this is the recovery of our nature and the restitution of our hopes and therefore the greatest joy of mankinde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a fine thing to see the light of this sun and it is pleasant to see the storm allayed and turned into a smooth sea and a fresh gale our eyes are pleased to see the earth begin to live and to produce her little issues with particolour'd coats 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing is so beauteous as to see a new birth in a childlesse family And it is excellent to hear a man discourse the hidden things of Nature and unriddle the perplexities of humane notices and mistakes it is comely to see a wise man sit in the gates of the City and give right judgement in difficult causes But all this is nothing to the excellencies of a new birth to see the old man carryed forth to funerall with the solemn tears of repentance and buryed in the grave of Jesus and in his place a new creation to arise a new heart and a new understanding and new affections and excellent appetites for nothing lesse then this can cure all the old distempers 2. Our life and all our discourses and every observation and a state of reason and a union of sober counsels are too little to cure a peevish spirit and a weak reasoning and silly principles and accursed habits and evill examples and perverse affections and a whole body of sin and death It was well said in the Comedy Nunquam it a quisquam bene subductâ ratione ad vitam fuit Quin aetas usus semper aliquid apportet novi Aliquid moneat ut illa quae scire credas nescias Et quae tibi putas prima in experiundo repudies Men at first think themselves wise and are alwaies most confident when they have the least reason and to morrow they begin to perceive yesterdayes folly and yet they are not wise But as the little Embryo in the naturall sheet and lap of its mother first distinguishes into a little knot and that in time will be the heart and then into a bigger bundle which after some dayes abode grows into two little spots and they if cherished by nature will become eyes and each part by order commences into weak principles and is preserved with natures greatest curiosity that it may assist first to distinction then to order next to usefulnesse and from thence to strength till it arrive at beauty and a perfect creature so are the necessities and so are the discourses of men we first learn the principles of reason which breaks obscurely through a clond and brings a little light and then we discern a folly and by little and little leave it till that enlightens the next corner of the soul and then there is a new discovery but the soul is still in infancy and childish follies and every day does but the work of one day but therefore art and use experience and reason although they do something yet they cannot do enough there must be something else But this is to be wrought by a new principle that is by the Spirit of grace Nature and reason alone cannot do it and therefore the proper cure is to be wrought by those generall means of inviting and cherishing of getting and entertaining Gods Spirit which when we have observed we may account our selves sufficiently instructed toward the repair of our breaches and the reformation of our evill nature 1. The first great instrument of changing our whole nature into the state of grace flesh into the spirit is a firm belief and a perfect assent to and hearty entertainment of the promises of the Gospell for holy Scripture speaks great words concerning faith It quenches the fiery darts of the Devill saith St. Paul it overcomes the world saith St. John it is the fruit of the Spirit and the parent of love it is obedience and it is humility and it is a shield and it is a brestplate and a work and a mysterie it is a fight and it is a victory it is a pleasing God and it is that whereby the just do live by faith we are purified and by faith we are sanctified and by faith we are justified and by faith we are saved by this we have accesse to the throne of grace and by it our prayers shall prevail for the sick by it we stand and by it we walk and by this Christ dwels in our hearts and by it all the miracles of the Church have been done it gives great patience to suffer and great confidence to hope and great strength to do and infallible certainty to enjoy the end of all our faith and satisfaction of all our hopes and the reward of all our labours even the most mighty price of our high calling and if faith be such a magazine of spirituall excellencies of such universall efficacy nothing can be a greater antidote against the venome of a corrupted nature But then this is not a grace seated finally in the understanding but the principle that is designed to and actually productive of a holy life It is not only a beleeving the propositions of Scripture as we beleeve a proposition in the Metaphysicks concerning which a man is never the honester whether it be true of false but it is a beleef of things that concern us infinitely things so great that if they be so true as great no man that hath his reason and can discourse that can think and choose that can desire and work towards an end can possibly neglect The great object of our faith to which all other articles do minister is resurrection of our bodies and souls to eternall life and glories infinite Now is it possible that a man that beleeves this and that he may obtain it for himself and that it was prepared for him and that God desires to give it him that he can neglect and despise it and not work for it and perform such easie conditions upon which it may be obtained Are not most men of the world made miserable at a lesse price then a thousand pound a year Do not all the usurers and merchants all tradesmen and labourers under the Sun toil and care labour and contrive venture and plot for a little money and no man gets and scarce any man desires so much of it as he can lay upon three acres of ground not so much of will
to be our rest and then it is impossible we should be any longer slaves to sin and afflicted by the baser imployments of the flesh or carry burdens for the Devill and therefore the Scholiast upon Juvenal observed well Nullum malum gaudium est No true joy can be evill and therefore it was improperly said of Virgil Mala gaudia mentis calling lust and wilde desires the evill joyes of the minde Gaudium enim nisi sapienti non contingere said Seneca none but a wise and a good man can truly rejoyce The evill laugh loud and sigh deeply they drink drunk and forget their sorrowes and all the joyes of an evill man is only arts of forgetfulnesse devices to cover their sorrow and make them not see their death and its affrighting circumstances but the heart never can rejoyce and be secure be pleased and be at rest but when it dwels with holinesse the joyes that come from thence are safe and great unchangeable and unabated healthfull and holy and this is true joy and this is that which can cure all the little images of pleasure and temptation which debauch our nature and make it dwell with hospitals in the region of diseases and evill sorrowes St. Gregory well observed the difference saying that Corporall pleasures when we have them not inkindle a flame and a burning desire in the heart and make a man very miserable before he tasts them the appetite to them is like thirst and the desires of a feaver the pleasure of drinking will not pay for the pain of the desire and when they are enjoyed they instantly breed satiety and a loathing But spirituall rejoycings and delights are loathed by them that have them not and despised by them that never felt them but when they are once tasted they increase the appetite and swell it to bigger capacities and the more they are eaten the more they are desired and cannot become a wearinesse because they satisfie all the way and only increase the desire because themselves grow bigger and more amiable And therefore when this new and stranger appetite and consequent joy arises in the heart of man it so fils all the faculties that there is no gust no desire left for toads and vipers for hemlock and the deadly night-shade Sirenas hilarem navigantium poenam Blandásque mortes gaudiúmque crudele Quas nemo quondam deserebat auditas Prudens Ulysses dicitur reliquisse Then a man can hear the musick of songs and dances and think them to be heathenish noises and if he be engaged in the society of a woman singer he can be as unconcerned as a marble statue he can be at a feast and not be defil'd he can passe through theatres as through a street then he can look on money as his servant nec distant aera lupinis he can use it as the Greeks did their sharp coins to cast accounts withall and not from thence take the accounts of his wealth or his felicity If you can once obtain but to delight in prayer and to long for the day of a Communion and to be pleased with holy meditation and to desire Gods grace with great passion and an appetite keen as a Wolf upon the cold plains of the North If you can delight in Gods love and consider concerning his providence and busie your selves in the pursuit of the affairs of his Kingdome then you have the grace of devotion and your evill nature shall be cured 3. Because this great cure is to be wrought by the Spirit of God which is a new nature in us we must endevour to abstain from those things which by a speciall malignity are directly opposite to the spirit of reason and the spirit of grace and those are drunkennesse and lust He that is full of wine cannot be full of the spirit of God St. Paul noteth the hostility Be not drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit a man that is a drunkard does perire cito he perishes quickly his temptations that come to him make but short work with him a drunkard is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our English well expresses it it is a sottishnesse and the man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an uselesse senselesse person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all the evils of the world nothing is worse to a mans self nothing is more harmfull then this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Crobylus it deprives a wise man of his counsell and his understanding now because it is the greatest good that nature hath that which takes it away must needs be our greatest enemy Nature is weak enough of it self but drunkennesse takes from it all the little strengths that are left to it and destroyes the spirit and the man can neither have the strengths of nature nor the strengths of grace and how then can the man do wisely or vertuously Spiritus sanctus amat sicca corda the Spirit of Godloves dry hearts said the Christian Proverb and Josephus said of Samson 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it appears he was a Prophet or a man full of the Spirit by the temperance of his diet and now that all the people are holy unto the Lord they must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plutarch said of their consecrated persons they must have dry and sober purities for by this means their reason is usefull and their passions not violent and their discourse united and the precious things of their memory at hand and they can pray and read and they can meditate and practise and then they can learn where their naturall weaknesses are most urgent and how they can be tempted and can secure their aides accordingly but how is it possible that such a man should cure all the evils of his Nature and repair the breaches of Adams sin and stop all the effect which is upon him from all the evils of the world if he delights in seas of drink and is pleased with the follies of distemper'd persons and laughs loud at the childish humours and weak discourses of the man that can do nothing but that for which Dionysius slew Antiphon and Timagenes did fall from Caesars friendship that is play the fool and abuse his friend He cannot give good counsell or spend an hour in wise sayings but half a day they can talk ut foret unde corona cachinnum tollere possit to make the crowd laugh and consider not And the same is the case of lust because it is exactly contrary to Christ the King of Virgins and his holy Spirit who is the Prince of purities and holy thoughts it is a captivity of the reason and an inraging of the passions it wakons every night and rages every day in desires passionately and prosecutes violently it hinders businesse and distracts counsell it brings jealousies and enkindles wars it sins against the body and weakens the foul it defiles a Temple and drives the holy Spirit forth and it is so intire a prosecmion of the follies and weaknesses of
hath the same constitution that a man hath without the act of both it is as imperfect as a dead man the soul cannot produce the body of some actions any more then the body can put life into it and therefore an ineffective pity and a lazie counsell an empty blessing and gay words are but deceitfull charity Quod peto da Caï non peto consiliam He that gave his friend counsell to study the Law when he desired to borrow 20 l. was not so friendly in his counsell as he was uselesse in his charity spirituall acts can cure a spirituall malady but if my body needs relief because you cannot feed me with Diagrams or cloath me with Euclids elements you must minister a reall supply by a corporall charity to my corporall necessity This proposition is not only usefull in the doctrine of charity and the vertue of religion but in the professions of faith and requires that it be publick open and ingenuous In matters of necessary duty it is not sufficient to have it to our selves but we must also have it to God and all the world and as in the heart we beleeve so by the mouth we confesse unto salvation he is an ill man that is only a Christian in his heart and is not so in his professions and publications and as your heart must not be wanting in any good profession and pretences so neither must publick profession be wanting in every good and necessary perswasion The faith and the cause of God must be owned publiquely for if it be the cause of God it will never bring us to shame I do not say what ever we think we must tell it to all the world much lesse at all times and in all circumstances but we must never deny that which we beleeve to be the cause of God in such circumstances in which we can and ought to glorifie him But this extends also to other instances He that swears a false oath with his lips and unswears it with his heart hath deceived one more then he thinks for himself is the most abused person and when my action is contrary to men they will reprove me but when it is against my own perswasion I cannot but reprove my self and am witnesse and accuser and party and guilty and then God is the Judge and his anger will be a fierce executioner because we do the Lords work deceitfully 3. They are deceitfull in the Lords work that reserve one faculty for sin or one sin for themselves or one action to please their appetite and many for Religion Rabbt Kimchi taught his Scholars Cogitationem pravam Deus non habet vice facti nisi concepta fuerit in Dei sidem Religionem that God is never angry with an evill thought unlesse it be a thought of Apostasie from the Jewes religion and therefore provided that men be severe and close in their sect and party they might roll in lustfull thoughts and the torches they light up in the Temple might smoke with anger at one end and lust at the other so they did not flame out in egressions of violence and injustice in adulteries and fouler complications nay they would give leave to some degrees of evill actions for R. Moses and Selomoh taught that if the most part of a mans actions were holy and just though in one he sinned often yet the greater ingredient should prevail and the number of good works should outweigh the lesser account of evill things and this Pharisaicall righteousnesse is too frequent even amongst Christians For who almost is there that does not count fairly concerning himself if he reckons many vertues upon the stock of his Religion and but one vice upon the stock of his infirmity half a dozen to God and one for his company or his friend his education or his appetite and if he hath parted from his folly yet he will remember the fleshpots and please himself with a phantastick sin and call it home through the gates of his memory and place it at the door of fancy that there he may behold it and consider concerning what he hath parted withall out of the fears and terrors of religion and a necessary unavoidable conscience Do not many men go from sin to sin even in their repentance they go backward from sin to sin and change their crime as a man changes his uneasie load and shakes it off from one shoulder to support it with the other How many severe persons virgins and widows are so pleased with their chastity and their abstinence even from lawfull mixtures that by this means they fall into a worse pride insomuch that I remember St. Austin said Audco dicere superbis continentibus expedit cadere they that are chaste and proud it is sometimes a remedy for them to fall into sin and by the shame of lust to cure the devill of pride and by the sin of the body to cure the worser evils of the spirit and therefore he addes that he did beleeve God in a severe mercy did permit the barbarous nations breaking in upon the Roman Empire to violate many virgins professed in Cloisters and religious Families to be as a mortification of their pride lest the accidentall advantages of a continent life should bring them into the certain miseries of a spirituall death by taking away their humility which was more necessary then their virgin state It is not a cure that men may use but God permits it sometimes with greater safety through his wise conduct and over-ruling providence St. Peter was safer by his fall as it fell out in the event of things then by his former confidence Man must never cure a sin by a sin but he that brings good out of our evill he can when he please But I speak it to represent how deceitfully many times we do the work of the Lord. We reprove a sinning Brother but do it with a pompous spirit we separate from scandall and do it with glory and a gaudy heart we are charitable to the poor but will not forgive our unkinde enemies or we powre relief into their bags but we please our selves and drink drunk and hope to commute with God giving the fruit of our labours or effluxes of money for the sin of our souls And upon this account it is that two of the noblest graces of a Christian are to very many persons made a savour of death though they were intended for the beginning and the promotion of an eternal life and those are faith and charity some men think if they have faith it is enough to answer all the accusations of sin which our consciences or the Devils make against us If I be a wanton person yet my faith shall hide it and faith shall cover the follies of drunkennesse and I may all my life relye upon faith at last to quit my scores For he that is most carefull is not innocent but must be saved by faith and he that is least carefull may
is done then art and sophistry and adulterate dishes invite him to taste and die 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 well may a sober man wonder that men should be so much in love with earth and corruption the parent of rottennesse and a disease that even then when by all laws witches and inchanters murderers and manstealers are chastised and restrain'd with the iron hands of death yet that men should at great charges give pensions to an order of men whose trade it is to rob them of their temperance and wittily to destroy their health 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greek Fathers call such persons curvae in terris animae coelestium inanes people bowed downe to the earth lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God Aretinas mentes so Antidamus calls them men framed in the furnaces of Etruria Aretine spirits beginning and ending in flesh and filthynesse dirt and clay all over But goe to the Crib thou glutton and there it will be found that when the charger is clean yet natures rules were not prevaricated the beast eats up all his provisions because they are naturall and simple or if he leaves any it is because he desires no more then till his needs be served and neither can a man unlesse he be diseased in body or in spirit in affection or in habit eat more of naturall and simple food then to the satisfactions of his naturall necessities He that drinks a draught or two of water and cooles his thirst drinks no more till his thirst returnes but he that drinks wine drinks it again longer then it is needfull even so long as it is pleasant Nature best provides for her self when she spreads her own Table but when men have gotten superinduced habits and new necessities art that brought them in must maintain them but wantonnesse and folly wait at the table and sickness and death take away 2. Reason is the second measure or rather the rule whereby we judge of intemperance For whatsoever loads of meat or drink make the reason uselesse or troubled are effects of this deformity not that reason is the adequate measure for a man may be intemperate upon other causes though he doe not force his understanding and trouble his head Some are strong to drink and can eat like a wolfe and love to doe so as fire to destroy the stubble such were those Harlots in the Comedy Quae cum amatore suo cum coenant liguriunt These persons are to take their accounts from the measures of Religion and the Spirit though they can talk still or transact the affaires of the world yet if they be not fitted for the things of the Spirit they are too full of flesh or wine and cannot or care not to attend to the things of God But reason is the limit beyond which temperance never wanders and in every degree in which our discourse is troubled and our soul is lifted from its wheels in the same degree the sin prevails Dum sumus in quâdam delinquendi libidine nebulis quibusdam insipientiae mens obducitur saith St. Ambrose when the flesh-pots reek and the uncovered dishes send forth a nidor and hungry smels that cloud hides the face and puts out the eye of reason and then tell them mors in ollâ that death is in the pot and folly in the chalice that those smels are fumes of brimstone and vapours of Egypt that they will make their heart easie and their head sottish and their colour pale and their hands trembling and their feet tormented Mullorum leporúmque suminis exitus hic est Sulphureúsque color carnificésque pedes For that is the end of delicacies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dio Chrysostom palenesse and effeminacy and lazinesse and folly yet under the dominion of the pleasures of sensuality men are so stript of the use of reason that they are not onely uselesse in wise counsels and assistances but they have not reason enough to avoid the evils of their own throat and belly when once their reason fails we must know that their temperance and their religion went before 3. Though reason be so strictly to be preserved at our tables as well as at our prayers and we can never have leave to doe any violence to it yet the measures of Nature may be enlarged beyond the bounds of prime and common necessity For besides hunger and thirst there are some labours of the body and others of the mind and there are sorrows and loads upon the spirit by its communications with the indispositions of the body and as the labouring man may be supplyed with bigger quantities so the student and contemplative man with more delicious and spritefull nutriment for as the tender and more delicate easily-digested meats will not help to carry burthers upon the neck and hold the plough in society and yokes of the laborious oxen so neither will the pulse and the leeks Lavinian sausages and the Cisalpine tucets or gobbets of condited buls â—esh minister such delicate spirits to the thinking man but his notion will be flat as the noyse of the Arcadian porter and thick as the first juice of his countrey lard unlesse he makes his body a fit servant to the soul and both fitted for the imployment But in these cases necessity and prndence and experience are to make the measures and the rule and so long as the just end is fairly designed and aptly ministred to there ought to be no scruple concerning the quantity or quality of the provision and he that would stint a Swain by the commons of a Student and give Philot as the Candian the leavings of Pluto does but ill serve the ends of temperance but worse of prudence and necessity 4. Sorrow and a wounded spirit may as well be provided for in the quantity and quality of meat and drink as any other disease and this disease by this remedy as well as by any other For great sorrow and importune melancholy may be as great a sin as a great anger and if it be a sin in its nature it is more malignant and dangerous in its quality as naturally tending to murmur and despair wear inesse of Religion and hatred of God timorousnesse and jealousies fantastick images of things and superstition and therefore as it is necessary to restrain the feavers of anger so also to warm the freezings and dulnesse of melancholy by prudent and temperate but proper and apportion'd diets and if some meats and drinks make men lustfull or sleepy or dull or lazy or spritely or merry so far as meats and drinks can minister to the passion and the passion minister to vertue so far by this means they may be provided for Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish and wine to those that be of heavy hearts let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more said King Lemuel's Mother But this is not intended to be an habituall cure but
and all is well till the next generation but if the evill of his death and the change of his present prosperity for an intolerable danger of an uncertain eternity does not sowre his full chalice yet if his children prove vicious or degenerous cursed or unprosperous we account the man miserable and his grave to be strewed with sorrowes and dishonours The wise and valiant Chabrias grew miserable by the folly of his son Ctesippus and the reputation of brave Germanicus began to be ashamed when the base Caligula entred upon his scene of dishonourable crimes Commodus the wanton and feminine son of wise Antoninus gave a check to the great name of his Father and when the son of Hortensius Corbius was prostitute and the heir of Q. Fabius Maximus was disinherited by the sentence of the city Praetor as being unworthy to enter into the fields of his glorious Father and young Scipio the son of Africanus was a fool and a prodigall posterity did weep afresh over the monuments of their brave progenitors and found that infelicity can pursue a man and overtake him in his grave This is a great calamity when it fals upon innocent persons and that Moses died upon Mount Nebo in the sight of Canaan was not so great an evill as that his sons Eliezer and Gersom were unworthy to succeed him but that Priesthood was devolv'd to his Brother and the Principality to his servant And to Samuel that his sons prov'd corrupt and were exauthorated for their unworthinesse was an allay to his honour and his joyes and such as proclaims to all the world that the measures of our felicity are not to be taken by the lines of our own person but of our relations too and he that is cursed in his children cannot be reckoned among the fortunate This which I have discoursed concerning families in generall is most remarkable in the retinue and family of sin for it keeps a good house and is full of company and servants it is served by the possessions of the world it is courted by the unhappy flatter'd by fools taken into the bosome by the effeminate made the end of humane designs and feasted all the way of its progresse wars are made for its interest and men give or venture their lives that their sin may be prosperous all the outward senses are its handmaids and the inward senses are of its privie chamber the understanding is its counsellour the will its friend riches are its ministers nature holds up its train and art is its emissary to promote its interest and affairs abroad and upon this account all the world is inrolled in its taxing tables and are subjects or friends of its kingdome or are so kinde to it as to make too often visits and to lodge in its borders because all men stare upon its pleasures and are intic'd to tast of its wanton delicacies But then if we look what are the children of this splendid family and see what issue sinne produces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it may help to unite the charme Sin and concupiscence marry together and riot and feast it high but their fruits the children and production of their filthy union are ugly and deform'd foolish and ill natur'd and the Apostles cals them by their names shame and death These are the fruits of Sin the apples of Sodom fair outsides but if you touch them they turn to ashes and a stink and if you will nurse these children and give them whatsoever is dear to you then you may be admitted into the house of feasting and chambers of riot where sin dwels but if you will have the mother you must have the daughters the tree and the fruits go together and there is none of you all that ever enter'd into this house of pleasure but he left the skirts of his garment in the hands of shame and had his name roll'd in the chambers of death What fruit had ye then That 's the Question In answer to which question we are to consider 1. What is the summe totall of the pleasure of sin 2. What fruits and relishes it leaves behinde by its naturall efficiency 3. What are its consequents by its demerit and the infliction of the superadded wrath of God which it hath deserved Of the first St. Paul gives no account but by way of upbraiding asks what they had that is nothing that they dare own nothing that remains and where is it shew it what 's become of it Of the second he gives the summe totall all its naturall effects are shame and its appendages The third or the superinduc'd evils by the just wrath of God he cals death the worst name in it self and the greatest of evils that can happen 1. Let us consider what pleasures there are in sin most of them are very punishments I will not reckon nor consider concerning envie which one in Stobaeus cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the basest spirit and yet very just because it punishes the delinquent in the very act of sin doing as Aelian saies of the Polypus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he wants his prey he devours his own armes and the leannesse and the secret pangs and the perpetuall restlesnesse of an envious man feed upon his own heart and drink down his spirits unlesse he can ruine or observe the fall of the fairest fortunes of his neighbour The fruit of this tree are mingled and sowre and not to be indured in the very eating Neither will I reck on the horrid afrightments and amazements of murder nor the uneasinesse of impatience which doubles every evill that it feels and makes it a sin and makes it intolerable nor the secret grievings and continuall troubles of peevishnesse which makes a man uncapable of receiving good or delighting in beauties and fair intreaties in the mercies of God and charities of men It were easie to make a catalogue of sins every one of which is a disease a trouble in it's very constitution and its nature such are loathing of spirituall things bitternesse of spirit rage greedinesse confusion of minde and irresolution cruelty and despite slothfulnesse and distrust unquietnesse and anger effeminacy and nicenesse prating and sloth ignorance and inconstancy incogitancy and cursing malignity and fear forgetfulnesse and rashnesse pusillanimity and despair rancour and superstition if a man were to curse his enemy he could not wish him a greater evill then these and yet these are severall kinds of sin which men choose and give all their hopes of heaven in exchange for one of these diseases Is it not a fearfull consideration that a man should rather choose eternally to perish then to say his prayers heartily and affectionately But so it is with very many men they are driven to their devotions by custome and shame and reputation and civill compliances they sigh and look sowre when they are called to it and abide there as a man under the Chirurgeons hands smarting and fretting all the while or else he
forget the little accounts of his own seldom reading He also remembred this that his pleasures in reading books were more frequent while he remembred but little of yesterdays study and to morrow the book is newes and with its novelties gives him fresh entertainment while the retaining brain layes the book aside and is full already Every book is new to an ill memory and one long book is a Library and its parts return fresh as the morning which becomes a new day though by the revolution of the same sun Besides these it brought him to tell truth for fear of shame and in meer necessity made his speech little and his discourses short because the web drawn from his brain was soon spun out and his fountain grew quickly dry and left running throug◠forgetfulnesse * He that is not eloquent and faire spoken hath some of these comforts to plead in excuse of his ill fortune or defective nature For if he can but hold his peace he shall be sure not to be troublesome to his company not mark'd for lying or become tedious with multiplicity of idle talk He shall be presumed wise and oftentimes is so he shall not feel the wounds of contention nor be put to excuse an ill taken saying nor sigh for the folly of an irrecoverable word If his fault be that he hath not spoken that can at any time be mended but if he sinn'd in speaking it cannot be unspoken again Thus he escapes the dishonor of not being believed and the trouble of being suspected he shall never fear the Sentence of Judges nor the Decrees of Courts high reproaches or the angry words of the proud the contradiction of the disputing man or the thirst of talkers By these and many other advantages he that holds his peace and he that cannot speak may please themselves and he may at least have the rewards and effects of solitarinesse if he misses some of the pleasures of society But by the use of the tongue God hath distinguished us from beasts and by the well or ill using it we are distinguished from one another and therefore though silence be innocent as death harmlesse as a roses breath to a distant passenger yet it is rather the state of death then life and therefore when the Egyptians sacrificed to Harpocrates their god of Silence in the midst of their rites they cryed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Tongue is an Angel good or bad that 's as it happens Silence was to them a god but the Tongue is greater it is the band of humane entercourse and makes men apt to unite in Societies and Republicks and I remember what one of the Ancients said that we are better in the company of a known dog then of a man whose speech is not known ut externus alieno non sit hominis vice a stranger to a stranger in his language is not as a man to a man for by voices and homilies by questions and answers by narratives and invectives by counsell and reproofe by praises and hymnes by prayers and glorifications we serve Gods glory and the necessities of men and by the tongue our Tables are made to differ from Mangers our Cities from Deserts our Churches from Herds of beasts and flocks of sheep Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God spoken by the tongues of men and Angels and the blessed Spirits in heaven cease not from saying night and day their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their song of glory to him that sitteth on the throne and to the Lambe for ever and ever and then our imployment shall be glorious as our state when our tongues shal to eternall ages sing Allelujahs to their Maker and Redeemer and therefore since Nature hath taught us to speak and God requires it and our thankfulnesse obliges us and our necessities engage us and charity sometimes calls for it and innocence is to be defended and we are to speak in the cause of the oppressed and open our mouths in the cause of God and it is alwayes a seasonable prayer that God would open our lips that our mouth may doe the work of heaven and declare his praises and shew forth his glory it concerns us to take care that nature be changed into grace necessity into choice that while we speak the greatnesse of God and minister to the needs of our neighbor and doe the works of life and religion of society and prudence we may be fitted to bear a part in the songs of Angels when they shall rejoyce at the feast of the marriage supper of the Lambe But the tongue is a fountain both of bitter waters and of pleasant it sends forth blessing and cursing it praises God and railes at men it is sometimes set on fire and then it puts whole Cities in combustion it is unruly and no more to be restrained then the breath of a tempest it is volatile and fugitive reason should go before it and when it does not repentance comes after it was intended for an organ of the divine praises but the Devill often playes upon it and then it sounds like the Scriech-owle or the groans of death sorrow and shame folly and repentance are the notes and formidable accents of that discord We are all naturally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lovers of speech more or lesse and God reproves it not provided that we be also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wise and materiall usefull and prudent in our discourses For since speech is for conversation let it be also charitable and profitable let it be without sin but not without profit and grace to the hearers and then it is as God would have it and this is the precept of the text first telling us what we should avoyd and then telling us what we should pursue what our discourse ought not to be and 2ly what it ought to be there being no more variety in the structure of the words I shall 1. discourse of the vices of the tongue 2. of its duty and proper employment 1. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corrupt or filthy communication so we read it and it seems properly to note such communication as ministers to wantonnesse such as are the Fescennines of Ausonius the excrement and spume of Martial's verse and the Ephesiaca of Xenophon indeed this is such a rudenesse as is not to be admitted into civill conversation and is wittily noted by the Apostle charging that fornication should not be once named among them as becometh Saints not meaning that the vice should not have its name and filthy character but that nothing of it be named in which it can be tempting or offensive nothing tending to it or teaching of it should be named we must not have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fornication in our talk that 's such a basenesse that it not onely grieves the Divine Spirit but dishonors all its channels and conveyances the proper language of the
profit our neighbour for so it must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good speech such as is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the edification of necessity the phrase is an Hebraisme where the genitive case of a substantive is put for the adjective and meanes that our speech be apted to necessary edification or such edification as is needfull to every mans particular case that is that we so order our communication that it be apt to instruct the ignorant to strengthen the weak to recall the wanderer to restraine the vicious to comfort the disconsolate to speak a word in season to every mans necessity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it may minister grace something that may please and profit them according as they shall need all which I shall reduce to these three heads 1. To Instruct. 2. To Comfort 3. To Reprove 1. Our conversation must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apt to teach For since all our hopes on our part depend upon our obedience to God and conformity to our Lord Jesus by whom our endevours are sanctified and accepted and our weaknesses are pardoned and all our obedience relies upon and is incouraged and grounded in faith and faith is founded naturally and primarily in the understanding we may observe that it is not onely reasonably to be expected but experimentally felt that in weak and and ignorant understandings there are no sufficient supports for the vigorousnesse of a holy life there being nothing or not enough to warrant and strengthen great resolutions to reconcile our affections to difficulties to make us patient of affronts to receive deeper mortifications and ruder usages unlesse where an extraordinary grace supplies the want of ordinary notices as the Apostles were enabled to their preachings But he therefore that carries and imports into the understanding of his Brother notices of faith and incomes of spirituall propositions and arguments of the Spirit enables his brother towards the work and practises of a holy life and though every argument which the Spirit of God hath made and recorded in holy Scripture is of it selfe inducement great enough to endear obedience yet it is not so in the event of things to every mans infirmity and need but in the treasures of the Spirit in the heaps and variety of institution and wise discourses there will not onely be enough to make a man without excuse but sufficient to doe his work and to cure his evill and to fortifie his weaker parts and to comply with his necessities for although Gods sufficient grace is present to all that can use it yet if there be no more then that it is a sad consideration to remember that there are but few that will be saved if they be helped but with just so much as can possibly doe the work and this we may well be assured of if we consider that God is never wanting to any man in what is simply necessary but then if we adde this also that of the vast numbers of men who might possibly be saved so few really are so we shall perceive that that grace which onely is sufficient is not sufficient sufficient to the thing is not sufficient for the person and therefore that God does usually give us more and we need more yet and unlesse God works in us to will and to doe we shall neither will nor doe though to will be in the power of our hand yet we will not will it follows from hence that all they who will comply with Gods method of graciousnesse and the necessities of their Brethren must endevour by all meanes and in all their owne measures and capacities to lay up treasures of notices and instructions in their brothers soul that by some argument or other they may be met withall and taken in every corner of their conversation Adde to this that the duty of a man hath great variety and the souls of men are infinitely abused and the persuasions of men are strangely divided and the interests of men are a violent and preternaturall declination from the strictnesses of vertue and the resolutions of men are quickly altered and very hardly to be secured and the cases of conscience are numerous and intricate and every state of life that hath its proper prejudice and our notices are abused by our affections and we shall perceive that men generally need knowledge enough to over-power all their passions to root out their vitious inclinations to master their prejudice to answer objections to resist temptations to refresh their wearynesse to fixe their resolutions and to determine their doubts and therefore to see your brother in a state of ignorance is to see him unfurnished and unprepared to all good works a person safe no longer then till a temptation comes and one that cannot be saved but by an absolute unlimited predestination a favour of which he hath no promise no security no revelation and although to doe this God hath appointed a speciall Order of men the whole Ecclesiasticall Order whom he feeds at his owne charges and whom men rob at their owne perill yet this doth not disoblige others for every Master of a family is to instruct or cause his family to be instructed and catechised every Governour is to instruct his charge every Man his Brother not alwayes in person but ever by all possible and just provisions For if the people dye for want of knowledge they who are set over them shall also die for want of charity Here therefore we must remember that it is the duty of us all in our severall measures and proportions to instruct those that need it and whose necessity is made ready for our ministration and let us tremble to think what will be the sad account which we shall make when even our families are not taught in the fundamentals of Religion for how can it be possible for those who could not account concerning the stories of Christs life and death the ministeries of their redemption the foundation of all their hopes the great argument of all their obediences how can it be expected that they should ride in triumph over all the evills which the Devill and the World and their owne follies daily present to them in the course of every dayes conversation And it will be an ill return to say that God will require no more of them then he hath given them for suppose that be true in your own sense yet he will require it of thee because thou gavest them no more and however it is a formidable danger and a trifling hope for any man to put all the hopes of his being saved upon the onely stock of ignorance for if his ignorance should never be accounted for yet it may leave him in that state in which his evills shall grow great and his sins may be irremediable 2. Our Conversation must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apt to comfort the disconsolate and then this men in present can feel no greater charity For since halfe the
we have the Spirit S. John spake a hard saying but by the spirit of manifestation we are also taught to understand it Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God The seed of God is the spirit which hath a plastic power to efform us in similitudinem filiorum Dei into the image of the sons of God and as long as this remains in us while the Spirit dwels in us We cannot sin that is it is against our natures our reformed natures to sin And as we say we cannot endure such a potion we cannot suffer such a pain that is we cannot without great trouble we cannot without doing violence to our nature so all spirituall men all that are born of God and the seed of God remains in them they cannot sin cannot without trouble and doing against our natures and their most passionate inclinations A man if you speak naturally can masticate gums and he can break his own legs and he can sip up by little draughts mixtures of Aloes and Rhubarb of Henbane or the deadly Nightshade but he cannot do this naturally or willingly cheerfully or with delight Every sin is against a good mans nature he is ill at case when he hath missed his usual prayers he is amazâ—d if he have fallen into an errour he is infinitely ashamed of his imprudence he remembers a sin as he thinks of an enemy or the horrors of a midnight apparition for all his capacities his understanding and his choosing faculties are filled up with the opinion and perswasions with the love and with the desires of God and this I say is the Great benefit of the Spirit which God hath given to us as an antidote against worldly pleasures And therefore S. Paul joynes them as consequent to each other For it is impossible for those who were once enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come c. First we are enlightned in Baptisme and by the Spirit of manifestation the revelations of the Gospel then we relish and taste interiour excellencies and we receive the Holy Ghost the Spirit of confirmation and he gives us a taste of the powers of the world to come that is of the great efficacy that is in the Article of eternall life to perswade us to religion and holy living then we feel that as the belief of that Article dwels upon our understanding and is incorporated into our wils and choice so we grow powerfull to resist sin by the strengths of the Spirit to defie all carnall pleasure and to suppresse and mortifie it by the powers of this Article those are the powers of the world to come 2. The Spirit of God is given to all who truly belong to Christ as an anidote against sorrows against impatience against the evil accidents of the world and against the oppression and sinking of our spirits under the crosse There are in Scripture noted two births besides the naturall to which also by analogy we may adde a third The first is to be born of water and the Spirit It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one thing signified by a divided appellative by two substantives water and the Spirit that is Spiritus aqueus the Spirit moving upon the waters of Baptisme The second is to be born of Spirit and fire for so Christ was promised to baptize us with the Holy Ghost and with fire that is cum spiritu igneo with a fiery spirit the Spirit as it descended in Pentecost in the shape of fiery tongues And as the watry spirit washed away the sins of the Church so the spirit of fire enkindles charity and the love of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes Plutarch the Spirit is the same under both the titles and it enables the Church with gifts and graces And from these there is another operation of the new birth but the same Spirit the spirit of rejoycing or spiritus exultans spiritus laetitiae Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in beleeving that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost There is a certain joy and spirituall rejoycing that accompanies them in whom the Holy Ghost doth dwell a joy in the midst of sorrow a joy given to allay the sorrows of saecular troubles and to alleviate the burden of persecution This S. Paul notes to this purpose And ye became followers of us and of the Lord having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost Worldly afflictions and spirituall joyes may very well dwell together and if God did not supply us out of his storehouses the sorrows of this world would be mere and unmixt and the troubles of persecution would be too great for naturall confidences For who shall make him recompence that lost his life in a Duel fought about a draught of wine or a cheaper woman What arguments shall invite a man to suffer torments in testimony of a proposition of naturall Philosophy And by what instruments shall we comfort a man who is sick and poor and disgrac'd and vitious and lies cursing and despairs of any thing hereafter That mans condition proclaims what it is to want the Spirit of God the Spirit of comfort Now this Spirit of comfort is the hope and confidence the certain expectation of partaking in the inheritance of Jesus This is the faith and patience of the Saints this is the refreshment of all wearied travellers the cordiall of all languishing sinners the support of the scrupulous the guide of the doubtfull the anchor of timorous and fluctuating souls the confidence and the staff of the penitent He that is deprived of his whole estate for a good conscience by the Spirit he meets this comfort that he shall finde it again with advantage in the day of restitution and this comfort was so manifest in the first dayes of Christianity that it was no infrequent thing to see holy persons court a Martyrdom with a fondnesse as great as is our impatience and timorousnesse in every persecution Till the Spirit of God comes upon us we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inopis nos atque pusilli finxerunt animi we have little souls little faith and as little patience we fall at every stumbling block and sink under every temptation and our hearts fail us and we die for fear of death and lose our souls to preserve our estates or our persons till the Spirit of God fills us with joy in beleeving and a man that is in a great joy cares not for any trouble that is lesse then his joy and God hath taken so great care to secure this to us that he hath turn'd it into a precept Rejoyce evermore and Rejoyce in the Lord always and again I say rejoyce But this
is his gain and this man understands the things of God and is ready to die for Christ and fears nothing but to sin against God and his will is filled with love and it springs out in obedience to God and in charity to his brother and of such a man we cannot make judgement by his fortune or by his acquaintance by his circumstances or by his adherencies for they are the appendages of a naturall man but the spirituall is judged of no man that is the rare excellencies that make him happy do not yet make him illustrious unlesse we will reckon Vertue to be a great fortune and holinesse to be great Wisedom and God to be the best Friend and Christ the best Relative and the Spirit the hugest advantage and Heaven the greatest Reward He that knows how to value these things may sit down and reckon the felicities of him that hath the Spirit of God The purpose of this Discourse is this That since the Spirit of God is a new nature and a new life put into us we are thereby taught and enabled to serve God by a constant course of holy living without the frequent returns and intervening of such actions which men are pleased to call sins of infirmity Whosoever hath the Spirit of God lives the life of grace The Spirit of God rules in him and is strong according to its age and abode and allows not of those often sins which we think unavoidable because we call them naturall infirmities But if Christ he in you the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousnesse The state of sin is a state of death the state of a man under the law was a state of bondage and infirmity as S. Paul largely describes him in the seventh Chapter to the Romanes but he that hath the Spirit is made alive and free and strong and a conquerour over all the powers and violencies of sin such a man resists temptations falls not under the assault of sin returns not to the sin which he last repented of acts no more that errour which brought him to shame and sorrow but he that falls under a crime to which he still hath a strong and vigorous inclination he that acts his sin and then curses it and then is tempted and then sins again and then weeps again and calls himself miserable but still the inchantment hath confined him to that circle this man hath not the Spirit for where the Spirit of God is there is liberty there is no such bondage and a returning folly to the commands of sin But because men deceive themselves with calling this bondage a pitiable and excusable infirmity it will not be uselesse to consider the state of this question more particularly lest men from the state of a pretended infirmity fall into a reall death 1. No great sin is a sin of infirmity or excusable upon that stock But that I may be understood we must know that every sin is in some sense or other a sin of infirmity When a man is in the state of spirituall sicknesse or death he is in a state of infirmity for he is a wounded man a prisoner a slave a sick man weak in his judgement and weak in his reasoning impotent in his passions of childish resolutions great inconstancy and his purposes untwist as easily as the rude conjuncture of uncombining cables in the violence of a Northern tempest and he that is thus in infirmity cannot be excused for it is the aggravation of the state of his sin he is so infirm that he is in a state unable to do his duty Such a man is a servant of sin a slave of the Devil an heir of corruption absolutely under command and every man is so who resolves for ever to avoid such a sin and yet for ever falls under it for what can he be but a servant of sin who fain would avoid it but cannot that is he hath not the Spirit of God within him Christ dwels not in his soul for where the Son is there is liberty and all that are in the Spirit are sons of God and servants of righteousnesse and therefore freed from sin But then there are also sins of infirmity which are single actions intervening seldom in litle instances unavoidable or through a faultlesse ignorance Such as these are alwayes the allays of the life of the best men and for these Christ hath payd and they are never to be accounted to good men save onely to make them more wary and more humble Now concerning these it is that I say No great sin is a sin of excusable or unavoidable infirmity Because whosoever hath received the Spirit of God hath sufficient knowledge of his duty and sufficient strengths of grace and sufficient advertency of minde to avoid such things as do great and apparent violence to piety and religion No man can justly say that it is a sin of infirmity that he was drunk For there are but three causes of every sin a fourth is not imaginable 1. If ignorance cause it the sin is as full of excuse as the ignorance was innocent But no Christian can pretend this to drunkennesse to murder to rebellion to uncleannesse For what Christian is so uninstructed but that he knows Adultery is a sin 2. Want of observation is the cause of many indiscreet and foolish actions Now at this gap many irregularities do enter and escape because in the whole it is impossible for a man to be of so present a spirit as to consider and reflect upon every word and every thought but it is in this case in Gods laws otherwise then in mans the great flies cannot passe thorow without observation little ones do and a man cannot be drunk and never take notice of it or tempt his neighbours wife before he be aware therefore the lesse the instance be the more likely it is to be a sin of infirmity and yet if it be never so little if it be observed then it ceases to be a sin of infirmity 3. But because great crimes cannot pretend to passe undiscernably it follows that they must come in at the door of malice that is of want of Grace in the absence of the Spirit they destroy where ever they come and the man dies if they passe upon him It is true there is flesh and blood in every regenerate man but they do not both rule the flesh is left to tempt but not to prevail And it were a strange condition if both the godly and the ungodly were captives to sin and infallibly should fall into temptation and death without all difference saue onely that the godly sins unwillingly and the ungodly sins willingly But if the same things be done by both and God in both be dishonoured and their duty prevaricated the pretended unwillingnesse is the signe of a greater and a baser slavery and of a condition lesse to be endured For the servitude which is
to choose and a promise to exchange for our temperance and faith and charity and justice for these I say happinesse exceeding great happinesse that we shall be Kings that we shall reigne with God with Christ with all the holy Angels for ever in felicities so great that we have not now capacities to understand it our heart is not big enough to think it there cannot in the world be a greater inducement to engage us a greater argument to oblige us to do our duty God hath not in heaven a bigger argument it is not possible any thing in the world should be bigger which because the Spirit of God hath revealed to us if by this strength of his we walk in his wayes and be ingrafted into his stock and bring forth his fruits the fruits of the Spirit then we are in Christ and Christ in us then we walk in the spirit and the Spirit dwels in us and our portion shall be there where Christ by the Spirit maketh intercession for us that is at the right hand of his Father for ever and ever Amen Sermon III. THE DESCENDING AND ENTAILED CVRSE Cut off Exodus 20. part of the 5. verse I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me 6. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my Commandements IT is not necessary that a Common-wealth should give pensions to Oratours to disswade men from running into houses infected with the plague or to intreat them to be out of love with violent torments or to create in men evil opinions concerning famine or painfull deaths Every man hath a sufficient stock of self love upon the strength of which he hath entertained principles strong enough to secure himself against voluntary mischiefs and from running into states of death and violence A man would think that this I have now said were in all cases certainly true and I would to God it were For that which is the greatest evil that which makes all evils that which turns good into evil and every naturall evil into a greater sorrow and makes that sorrow lasting and perpetual that which sharpens the edge of swords and makes agues to be fever and 〈◊〉 to turn into plagues that which puts stings into every fly and uneasinesse to every trifling accident and strings every whâ—â— with scorpions you know I must needs mean sin that evil men suffer patiently and choose willingly and run after it greedily and will not suffer themselves to be divorced from it and therefore God hath hired servants to fight a-against this evil he hath set Angels with fiery swords to drive us from it he hath imployed Advocates to plead against it he hath made Laws and Decrees against it he hath dispatched Prophets to warn us of it and hath established an Order of men men of his own family and who are fed at his own charges I mean the whole Order of the Clergy whose office is like watchmen to give an alarum at every approach of sin with as much affrightment as if an enemy were neer or the sea broke in upon the flat Countrey and all this onely to perswade men not to be extremely miserable for nothing for vanity for a trouble for a disease for some sins naturally are diseases and all others are naturall nothings meer privations or imperfections contrary to goodnesse to felicity to God himself And yet God hath hedged sin round about with thorns and sin of it self too brings thorns and it abuses a man in all his capacities and it places poison in all those seats and receptions where he could possibly entertain happinesse For if sin pretend to please the sense it doth first abuse it shamefully and then humours it it can onely feed an impostume no naturall reasonable and perfective appetite and besides its own essentiall appendages and proprieties things are so ordered that a fire is kindled round about us and every thing within us above below us and on every side of us is an argument against and an enemy to sin and for its single pretence that it comes to please one of the senses one of those faculties which are in us the same they are in a Cow it hath an evil so communicative that it doth not onely work like poison to the dislolution of soul and body but it is a sicknesse like the plague it infects all our houses and corrupts the air and the very breath of heaven for it moves God first to jealousie and that takes off his friendship and kindnesse towards us and then to anger and that makes him a resolved enemy and it brings evil not onely upon our selves but upon all our relatives upon our selves and our children even the children of our Nephews Ad natos natorum qui nascentur ab illis to the third and fourth generation and therefore if a man should despise the eye or sword of man if he sins he is to contest with the jealousie of a provoked God If he doth not regard himself let him pity his pretty children If he be angry and hates all that he sees and is not solioitous for his children yet let him pitty the generations which are yet unborn let him not bring a curse upon his whole family and suffer his name to rot in curses and dishonours let not his memory remain polluted with an eternal stain if all this will not deter a man from sin there is no instrument left for thats mans vertue no hopes of his felicity no recovery of his sorrows and sicknesses but he must sink under the stroaks of a jealous God into the dishonour of eternal ages and the groanings of a never ceasing sorrow God is a jealous God that is the first great stroke he strikes against sin he speakes after the manner of men and in so speaking we know he that is jealous is suspicious he is inquisitive he is implacable 1. God is pleased to represent himself a person very suspioious both in respect of persons and things For our persons we give him cause enough for we are sinners from our Mothers woâ—â—b we make solemn vows and break them instantly we cry for pardon and still renew the sin we desire God to try us once more and we provoke him ten times further we use the means of grace to cure us and we turn them into vices and opportunites of sin we curse our sins and yet long for them extremely we renounce them publickly and yet send for them in private and shew them kindnesse we leave little offiences but our faith and our charity is not strong enough to Master great ones and sometimes we are sham'd out of great ones but yet entertain little ones or if we disdain both yet we love to remember them and delight in their past actions and bring them home to us at least by fiction of imagination and we love to be
betrayed into them we would fain have things so ordered by chance or power that it may seem necessary to sin or that it may become excusable and dressed fitly for our own circumstances and for ever we long after the flesh pots of Egypt the garlick and the Onions and we so little do esteeme Manna the food of Angels we so loath the bread of Heaven that any temptation will make us return to our fetters and our bondage and if we do not tempt our selves yet we do not resist a temptation or if we pray against it we desire not to be heard and if we be assisted yet we will not work together with those assistances so that unlesse we be forced nothing will be done we are so willing to perish and so unwilling to be saved that we minister to God reason enough to suspect us and therefore it is no wonder that God is jealous of us We keep company with Harlots and polluted persons we are kind to all Gods Enemies and love that which he hates how can it be otherwise but that we should be suspected Let us make our best of it and see if we can recover the good opinion of God for as ye we are but suspected persons 2. And therefore God is inquisitive he looks for that which he fain would never finde God sets spies upon us he looks upon us himself through the Curtains of a cloud and he sends Angels to espie us in all our wayes and permits the Devil to winnow us and to accuse us and erects a Tribunal and witnesses in our own consciences and he cannot want information concerning our smalest irregularities Sometimes the Devil accuses but he also sometimes accuses us falsly either malioâ—ously or ignorantly and we stand upright in that particular by innocence and sometimes by penitence and all this while our Conscinence is our friend Sometimes our conscience does accuse us unto God and then we stand convict by our own judgement Sometimes if our conscience acquit us yet we are not thereby justified For as Moses accused the Jews so do Christ and his Apostles accuse us not in their personss but by their works and by their words by the thing it self by confronting the laws of Christ and our practises Sometimes the Angels who are the observers of all our works carry up sad tidings to the Court of Heaven against us Thus two Angels were the informers against Sodom but yet these were the last for before that time the cry of their iniquity had sounded loud and sadly in Heaven and all this is the direct and proper effect of his jealousie which sets spies upon all the actions and watches the circumstances and tells the steps and attends the businesses the recreations the publications and retirements of every man and will not suffer a thought to wander but he uses means to correct it's errour and to reduce it to himself For he that created us and daily feeds us he that intreats us to be happy with an opportunity so passionate as if not we but himself were to receive the favour he that would part with his onely Son from his bosome and the embraces of eternity and give him over to a shameful and cursed death for us cannot but be supposed to love us with a great love and to own us with an intire title and therefore that he would fain secure us to himself with an undivided possession and it cannot but be infinitely reasonable for to whom else should any of us belong but to God Did the world create us Or did lust ever do us any good Did Sathan ever suffer one stripe for our advantage Does not he study all the wayes to ruine us Doe the Sun or the stars preserve us alive Or do we get understanding from the Angels Did ever any joynt of our body knit or our heart ever keep one true minute of a pulse without God Had not we been either nothing or worse that is infinitely eternally miserable but that God made us capable and then pursued us with arts and devices of great mercy to force us to be happy Great reason therefore there is that God should be jealous lest we take any of our duty from him who hath so strangely deserved it all and give it to a creature or to our enemy who cannot be capable of any But however it will concern us with much caution to observe our own wayes since we are made aspectacle to God to Angels and to Men God hath set so many spies upon us the blessed Angels and the accursed Devils good men and bad men the eye of Heaven and eye of that eye God himself all watching lest we rob God of his Honour and our selves of our hopes For by his prime intention he hath chosen so to get his own glory as may best consist with our felicity His great designe is to be glorified in our being saved 3. Gods jealousie hath a sadder effect then all this For all this is for mercy but if we provoke this jealousie if he findes us in our spiritual whoredoms he is implacable that is he is angry with us to eternity unlesse we returne in time and if we do it may be he will not be appeased in all instances and when he forgives us he will make some reserves of his wrath he will punish our persons or our estate he will chastise us at home or abroad in our bodies or in our children for he will visit our sins upon our children from generation to generation and if they be made miserable for our sins they are unhappy in such parents but we bear the curse and the anger of God even while they bear his rod God visits the sins of the Fathers upon the children That 's the second Great stroke he strikes against sin and is now to be considered That God doth so is certain because he saith he doth and that this is just in him so to do is also as certain therefore because he doth it For as his lawes are our measures so his actions and his own will are his own measures He that hath right over all things and all persons cannot do wrong to any thing He that is essentially just and there could be no such thing as justice or justice it self could not be good if it did not derive from him it is impossible for him to be unjust But since God is pleased to speak after the manner of men it may well consist with our duty to enquire into those manners of consideration whereby we may understand the equity of God in this proceeding and to be instructed also in our own danger if we persevere in sin 1. No man is made a sinner by the fault of another man without his own consent For to every one God gives his choice and sets life and death before every of the sons of Adam and therefore this death is not a consequent to any sin but our own In this sense it is true that
if the fathers eat sowre grapes the childrens teeth shall not be set on edge and therefore the sin of Adam which was derived to all the world did not bring the world to any other death but temporall by the intermediall stages of sickness and temporal infelicities And it is not said that sin passed upon all men but death that also no otherwise but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in as much as al men have sinned as they have followed the steps of their father so they are partakers of this death And therefore it is very remarkable that death brought in by sin was nothing superinduced to man man onely was reduced to his own naturall condition from which before Adams fall he stood exempted by supernaturall favour and therefore although the taking away that extraordinary grace or priviledge was a punishment yet the suffering the naturall death was directly none but a condition of his creation naturall and therefore not primarily evil but if not good yet at least indifferent And the truth and purpose of this observation will extend it self if we observe that before any man died Christ was promised by whom death was to lose its sting by whom death did cease to be an evil and was or might be if we do belong to Christ a state of advantage So that we by occasion of Adams sin being returned to our naturall certainty of dying do still even in this very particular stand between the blessing and the cursing If we follow Christ death is our friend If we imitate the praevarication of Adam then death becomes an evil the condition of our nature becomes the punishment of our own sin not of Adams for although his sin brought death in yet it is onely our sin that makes death to be evil And I desire this to be observed because it is of great use in vindicating the Divine justice in the matter of this question The materiall part of the evil came from our father upon us but the formality of it the sting and the curse is onely by our selves 2. For the fault of others many may become miserable even all or any of those whose relation is such to the sinner that he in any sense may by such inflictions be punished execrable or oppressed Indeed it were strange if when a plague were in Ethiopia the Athenians should be infected or if the house of Pericles were visited and Thucydides should die for it For although there are some evils which as Plutarch saith are ansis propagationibus praedita incredibili celeritate in longinquum penetrantia such which can dart evil influences as Porcupines do their quils yet as at so great distances the knowledge of any confederate events must needs be uncertain so it is also uselesse because we neither can joyne their causes nor their circumstances nor their accidents into any neighbourhood of conjunction Relations are seldome noted at such distances and if they were it is certain so many accidents will intervene that will out-weigh the efficacy of such relations that by any so far distant events we cannot be instructed in any duty nor understand our selves reproved for any fault But when the relation is neerer and is joyned under such a head and common cause that the influence is perceived and the parts of it do usually communicate in benefit notices or infelicity especially if they relate to each other as superiour and inferiour then it is certain the sin is infectious I mean not onely in example but also in punishment And of this I shall shew 1. In what instances usually it is so 2. For what reasons it is so and justly so 3. In what degree and in what cases it is so 4. What remedies there are for this evil 1. It is so in kingdoms in Churches in families in politicall artificiall and even in accidentall societies When David numbred the people God was angry with him but he punished the people for the crime seventy thousand men died of the plague and when God gave to David the choice of three plagues he chose that of the pestilence in which the meanest of the people and such which have the least society with the acts and crimes of Kings are most commonly devoured whilest the powerfull and sinning persons by arts of physick and flight by provisions of nature and accidents are more commonly secured * But the story of the Kings of Israel hath furnished us with an example sitted with all the stranger circumstances in this question Joshuah had sworn to the Gibeonites who had craftily secured their lives by exchanging it for their liberties Almost 500. yeers after Saul in zeal to the men of Israel and Judah slew many of them After this Saul dies and no question was made of it But in the dayes of David there was a famine in the land three yeers together and God being inquired of said it was because of Saul his killing the Gibeonites What had the people to do with their Kings fault or at least the people of David with the fault of Saul That we shall see anon But see the way that was appointed to expiate the crime and the calamity David took seven of Sauls sons and hanged them up against the Sun and after that God was intreated for the land The story observes one circumstance more that for the kindnesse of Jonathan David spared Mephibosheth Now this story doth not onely instance in Kingdoms but in families too The fathers fault is punished upon the sons of the family and the Kings fault upon the people of his land even after the death of the King after the death of the father Thus God visited the sin of Ahab partly upon himself partly upon his sons I will not bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house Thus did God slay the childe of Bathsheba for the sin of his father David and the whole family of Eâ—i all his kinred of the neerer lines were thrust from the priesthood and a curse made to descend upon his children for many ages that all the males should die young and in the flower of their youth The boldnesse and impiety of Cham made his posterity to be accursed and brought slavery into the world Because Ataalek fought with the sons of Israel at Rephidim God took up a quarrell against the nation for ever And above all examples is that of the Jews who put to death the Lord of life and made their nation to be an anathema for ever untill the day of restitution His blood be upon us and upon our children If we shed innocent blood If we provoke God to wrath If we oppresse the poor If we crucifie the Lord of life again and put him to an open shame the wrath of God will be upon us and upon our children to make us a cursed family and who are the sinners to be the stock and original of the curse the pedigree of the misery
shall derive from us This last instance went further then the other of families and kingdoms For not onely the single families of the Jews were made miserable for their Fathers murdering the Lord of life nor also was the Nation extinguished alone for the sins of their Rulers but the religion was removed it ceased to be God peoples the synagogue was rejected and her vail rent and her privacies dismantled and the Gentiles were made to be Gods people when the Jews inclosure was disparkd I need not further to instance this proposition in the case of National Churches though it is a sad calamity that is fallen upon the al seven Churches of Asia to whom the spirit of God wrote seven Epistles by Saint John and almost all the Churches of Africa where Christ was worshipped and now Mahomet is thrust in substitution and the people are servants and the religion is extinguished or where it remains it shines like the Moon in an Eclipse or like the least spark of the pleiades seen but seldom And that rather shining like a gloworm then a taper enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousnesse I shall adde no more instances to verifie the truth of this save onely I shall observe to you that even there is danger in being in evil company in suspected places in the civil societies and fellowships of wicked men Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum vnlgarit arcanae sub ijsdem sit trabibus fragilemque mecum solvat phaselum saepe Diespiter Neglectus in cesto addidit in tegrum And it hapned to the Mariners who carried Jonah to be in danger with a horrid storme because Jonah was there who had sinned against the Lord. Many times the sin of one man is punished by the falling of a house or a wall upon him and then al the family are like to be crushed with the same ruine so dangerous so pestilential so infectious a thing is sin that it scatters the poison of its breath to all the neighbourhood and makes that the man ought to be avoided like a person infected with the plague Next I am to consider why this is so and why it is justly so To this I answer 1. Between Kings and their people Parents and their children there is so great a necessitude propriety and entercourse of nature dominion right and possession that they are by God and the laws of Nations reckoned as their Goods and their blessings The honour of a King is in the multitude of his people and children are a gift that cometh of the Lord and happy is that man that hath his quiver full of them and Lo thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord his wife shall be like the fruitful vine by the wals of his house his children like olive branches round about his Table Now if children be a blessing then to take them away in anger is a curse and if the losse of flocks and herds the burning of houses the blasting of fields be a curse how much greater is it to lose our children and to see God slay them before our eyes in hatred to our persons and detestation and loathing of our basenesse When Jobs Messengers told him the sad stories of fire from Heaven the burning his sheep and that the Sabeans had driven his Oxen away and the Chaldeans had stolne his Camels these were sad arrests to his troubled spirit but it was reserved as the last blow of that sad execution that the ruines of a house had crush'd his Sons and Daughters to their graves Sons daughters are greater blessings then sheep Oxen they are not servants of profit as sheep are but they secure greater ends of blesssing they preserve your Names they are so many titles of provision providence every new childe is a new title to Gods care of that family They serve the ends of honour of commonwealths and Kingdoms they are images of our souls and images of God and therefore are great blessings and by consequence they are great riches though they are not to be sold for mony and surely he that hath a cabinet of invaluable jewels will think himself rich though he never sells them Does 〈◊〉 take care for Oxen said our blessed Saviour much more for you yea all and every one of your children are of more value then many Oxen when therefore God for your sin strikes them with crookednesse with deformity with foolishnesse with impertinent and caytive spirits with hasty or sudden deaths it is a greater curse to us then to lose whole herds of cattel of which it is certain most men would be very sensible They are our goods they are our blessings from God therefore we are striken when for our sakes they dye Therefore we may properly be punished by evils happening to our Relatives 2. But as this is a punishment to us so it is not unjust as to them though they be innocent For all the calamities of this life are incident to the most Godly persons of the world and since the King of Heaven and earth was made a man of sorrows it cannot be called unjust or intolerable that innocent persons should be pressed with temporal infelicities onely in such cases we must distinguish the misery from the punishment for that all the world dyes is a punishment of Adams sin but it is no evil to those single persons that die in the Lord for they are blessed in their death Jonathan was killed the same day with his Father the King and this was a punishment to Saul indeed but to Jonathan it was a blessing for since God had appointed the kingdom to his neighbour it was more honourable for him to die fighting the Lords battel then to live and see himself the lasting testimony of Gods curse upon his Father who lost the Kingdom from his family by his disobedience That death is a blessing which ends an Honorable and prevents an inglorious life And our children it may be shall be sanctified by a sorrow and purified by the fire of affliction and they shall receive the blessing of it but it is to their Fathers a curse who shall wound their own hearts with sorrow and cover their heads with a robe of shame for bringing so great evil upon their house 3. God hath many ends of providence to serve in this dispensation of his judgements * 1. He expresses the highest indignation against sin and makes his examples lasting communicative and of great effect it is a little image of hell and we shall the lesse wonder that God with the pains of eternity punishes the sins of time when with our eyes we see him punish a transient action with a lasting judgement * 2. It arrests the spirits of men and surprises their loosenesses and restrains their gaiety when we observe that the judgements of God finde us out in all relations and turns our comforts into sadnesse and makes our families the scene of sorrows and we can escape him no
atonement for the children of Israel Thus the sons of Rechab obtain d the blessing of an enduring and blessed family because they were most strict religious observers of their fathers precept and kept it after his death abstained from wine for ever and no temptation could invite them to taste it for they had as great reverence to their fathers ashes as being children they had to his rod to his eyes Thus a man may turn the wrath of God from his family secure a blessing for posterity by doing some great noble acts of charity or a remarkable chastity like that of Joseph or an expensive an effectionate religion and love to Christ and his servants as Mary Magdalene did Such things as these which are extraordinary egressions and transvolations beyond the ordinary course of an even piety God loves to reward with an extraordinary favour and gives it testimony by an extraregular blessing One thing more I have to adde by way of advice and that is that all parents and fathers of families from whose loyns a blessing or a curse usually does descend be very carefull not onely generally in all the actions of their lives for that I have already pressed but particularly in the matter of repentance that they be curious that they finish it do it thorowly for there are certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leavings of repentance which makes that Gods anger is taken from us so imperfectly and although God for his sake who died for us will pardon a returning sinner bring him to heaven through tribulation a fiery triall yet when a man is weary of his sorrow his fastings are a load to him his sins are not so perfectly renounced or hated as they ought the parts of repentance which are left unfinished do sometimes fall upon the heads or upon the fortunes of the children I do not say this is regular and certain but sometimes God deals thus For this thing hath been so and therefore it may be so again we see it was done in the case of Ahab he humbled himself and went softly and lay in sackcloth and called for pardon and God took from him a judgement which was falling heavily upon him but we all know his repentance was imperfect and lame The same evil fell upon his sons for so said God I will bring the evil upon his house in his sons dayes Leave no arreares for thy posterity to pay but repent with an integral a holy and excellent repentance that God being reconciled to thee thoroughly for thy sake also he may blesse thy seed after thee And after all this adde a continual a fervent a hearty a never ceasing prayer for thy children ever remembring when they beg a blessing that God hath put much of their fortune into your hands and a transient formal God blesse thee will not out-weigh the load of a great vice and the curse that scatters from thee by virtual contact and by the chanels of relation if thou beest a vicious person Nothing can issue from thy fountain but bitter waters And as it were a great impudence for a condemned Traitor to beg of his injured Prince a province for his son for his sake so it is an ineffective blessing we give our children when we beg for them what we have no title to for our selves Nay when we can convey to them nothing but a curse The praier of a sinner the unhallowed wish of a vitious Parent is but a poor donative to give to a childe who suck'd poison from his nurse and derives cursing from his Parents They are punished with a double torture in the shame and paines of the damned who dying Enemies to God have left an inventary of sins and wrath to be divided amongst their children But they that can truely give a blessing to their children are such as live a blessed life and pray holy prayers and perform an integral repentance and do separate from the sins of their Progenitors and do illustrious actions and begin the blessing of their family upon a new stock for as from the eyes of some persons there shoots forth a visible influence and some have an evileye and are infectious some look healthfully as a friendly planet and innocent as flowers and as some fancies convey private effects to confederate and allayed bodyes and between the very vital spirits of friends and Relatives there is a cognation and they refresh each other like social plants and a good man is a * friend to every Good man and they say that an usurer knows an usurer and one rich man another there being by the very manners of men contracted a similitude of nature and a communication of effects so in parents and their children there is so great a society of nature and of manners of blessing and of cursing that an evil parent cannot perish in a single death and holy parents never eat their meal of blessing alone but they make the roome shine like the fire of a holy sacrifice and a Fathers or a Mothers piety makes all the house festivall and full of joy from generation to generation Amen Sermon V. THE Invalidity of a late or death-bed Repentance 13. Jeremy 16. Give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darknesse and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light or left while ye look for light he shall turn it into the shadow of death and make it grosse darknesse GOd is the eternall fountain of honour and the spring of glory in him it dwells essentially from him it derives originally and when an action is glorious or a man is honourable it is because the action is pleasing to God in the relation of obedience or imitation and because the man is honoured by God or by Gods Vicegerent and therefore God cannot be dishonoured because all honour comes from himself he cannot but be glorified because to be himself is to be infinitely glorious And yet he is pleased to say that our sins dishonour him and our obedience does glorifie him But as the Sun the great eye of the world prying into the recesses of rocks and the hollownesse of valleys receives species or visible forms from these objects but he beholds them onely by that light which proceeds from himself So does God who is the light of that eye he receives reflexes and returns from us and these he calls glorifications of himself but they are such which are made so by his own gracious acceptation For God cannot be glorified by any thing but by himself and by his own instruments which he makes as mirrours to reflect his own excellency that by seeing the glory of such emanations he may rejoyce in his own works because they are images of his infinity Thus when he made the beauteous frame of heaven and earth he rejoyced in it and glorified himself because it was the glasse in which he beheld his wisedom and Almighty
temperate to have got a habit of sobriety or chastity or humility is the work of a life And if we do but consider that he that lives well from his younger yeers or takes up at the end of his youthfull heats and enters into the courses of a sober life early diligently and vigorously shall finde himself after the studies and labours of 20. or 30. yeers piety but a very imperfect person many degrees of pride left unrooted up many inroads of intemperance or beginnings of excesse much indevotion and backwardnesse in religion many temptations to contest against and some infirmities which he shall never say he hath master'd we shall finde the work of a holy life is not to be deferred till our dayes are almost done till our strengths are decayed our spirits are weak and our lust strong our habits confirmed and our longings after sin many and impotent for what is very hard to be done and is alwayes done imperfectly when there is length of time and a lesse work to do and more abilities to do it withall when the time is short and almost expired and the work made difficult and vast and the strengths weaker and the faculties are disabled will seem little lesse then absolutely impossible * I shall end this generall consideration with the question of the Apostle If the righteous scarcely be saved if it be so difficult to overcome our sins and obtain vertuous habits difficult I say to a righteous a sober and well living person where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear What shall become of him who by his evil life hath not onely removed himself from the affections but even from the possibilities of vertue He that hath lived in sin will die in sorrow The Invalidity of a death-bed Repentance Part. II. BUt I shall pursue this great and necessary truth first by shewing what parts and ingredients of repentance are assigned when it is described in holy Scripture Secondly by shewing the necessities the absolute necessities of a holy life and what it means in Scripture to live holily Thirdly by considering what directions or intimations we have concerning the last time of beginning to repent and what is the longest period that any man may venture with safety And in the prosecution of these particulars we shall remove the objections those aprons of fig-leaves which men use for their shelter to palliate their sin and to hide themselves from that from which no rocks or mountains shall protect them though they fall upon them that is the wrath of God First That repentance is not onely an abolition and extinction of the body of sin a bringing it to the altar and slaying it before God and all the people but that we must also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mingle gold and rich presents the oblation of good works and holy habits with the sacrifice I have already proved but now if we will see repentance in its stature and integrity of constitution described we shall finde it to be the one half of all that which God requires of Christians Faith and Repentance are the whole duty of a Christian. Faith is a sacrifice of the understanding to God Repentance sacrifices the whole will That gives the knowing this gives up all the desiring faculties That makes us Disciples this makes us servants of the Holy Jesus Nothing else was preached by the Apostles nothing was enjoyned as the duty of man nothing else did build up the body of Christian religion So that as faith contains all that knowledge which is necessary to salvation So repentance comprehends in it all the whole practise and working duty of a returning Christian And this was the sum totall of all that Saint Paul preached to the Gentiles when in his farewell Sermon to the Bishops and Priests of Ephesus he professed that he kept back nothing that was profitable to them and yet it was all nothing but this Repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ so that whosoever believes in Jesus Christ and repents towards God must make his accounts according to this standard that is to believe all that Christ taught him and to do all that Christ commanded and this is remarked in Saint Pauls Catechisme where he gives a more particular Catalogue of fundamentals he reckons nothing but Sacraments and faith of which he enumerates two principal articles resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement whatsoever is practical all the whole duty of man the practice of all obedience is called repentance from dead works which if we observe the singularity of the phrase does not mean sorrow For sorrow from dead works is not sense but it must mean mutationem status a conversion from dead works which as in all motions supposes two terms from dead works to living works from the death of sin to the life of righteousnesse I will adde but two places more out of each Testament one in which I suppose you may see every lineament of this great duty described that you may no longer mistake a grashopper for an Eagle Sorrow and holy purposes for the intire duty of repentance In the 18. of Ezek. 21. you shall finde it thus described But if the wicked will turne from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not die or as it is more fully described in Ezek. 33. 14. When I say unto the wicked Thou shalt surely die If he turn from his sin and do that which is lawful and right if the wicked restore the pledge give again that he had robbed walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity he shall surely live he shall not die Here onely is the condition of pardon to leave all your sins to keep all Gods statutes to walk in them to abide to proceed and make progresse in them and this without the interruption by a deadly sin without committing iniquity to make restitution of all the wrongs he hath done all the unjust money he hath taken all the oppressions he hath committed all that must be satisfied for and repayed according to our ability we must make satisfaction for all injury to our Neighbours fame all wrongs done to his soul he must be restored to that condition of good things thou didst in any sense remove him from when this is done according to thy utmost power then thou hast repented truely then thou hast a title to the promise thou shalt surely live thou shalt not die for thy old sins thou hast formerly committed Onely be pleased to observe this one thing that this place of Ezekiel is it which is so often mistaken for that common saying At what time soever a sinner repents him of his sins from the bottom of his heart I will put all his wickednesse out of my remembrance saith the Lord For although at what time soever a sinner does repent as repentance is now explained
deceive you The man deceives because he is false and the staffe because it is weak and the heart because it is both So that it is deceitful above all things that is failing and disabled to support us in many things but in other things where it can it is false and desperately wicked The first sort of deceitfulnesse is its calamitie and the second is its iniquity and that is the worst Calamitie of the two 1. The heart is deceitfull in its strength and when we have the groweth of a Man we have the weaknesses of a childe nay more yet and it is a sad consideration the more we are in age the weaker in our courage It appears in the heats and forwardnesses of new converts which are like to the great emissions of Lightning or like huge fires which flame and burn without measure even all that they can till from flames they descend to still fires from thence to smoak from smoak to embers from thence to ashes cold and pale like ghosts or the phantastick images of Death And the primitive Church were zealous in their Religion up to the degree of Cherubins and would run as greedily to the sword of the hangman to die for the cause of God as we do now to the greatest joy and entertainment of a Christian spirit even to the receiving of the holy Sacrament A man would think it reasonable that the first infancy of Christianity should according to the nature of first beginnings have been remisse gentle and unactive and that according us the object or evidence of faith grew which in every Age hath a great degree of Argument superadded to its confirmation so should the habit also and the grace the longer it lasts the more obiections it runs through it still should shew a brighter and more certain light to discover the divinity of its principle and that after the more examples and new accidents and strangenesses of providence and daily experience and the multitude of miracles still the Christian should grow more certain in his faith more refreshed in his hope and warm in his charity the very nature of these graces increasing and swelling upon the very nourishment of experience and the multiplication of their own acts And yet because the heart of man is false it suffers the fires of the Altar to go out and the flames lessen by the multitude of fuel But indeed it is because we put on strange fire put out the fire upon our hearths by letting in a glaring Sun beam the fire of lust or the heates of an angry spirit to quench the fires of God and suppresse the sweet cloud of incense The heart of man hath not strength enough to think one good thought of itself it cannot command its own attention to a prayer of ten lines long but before its end it shall wander after some thing that is to no purpose and no wonder then that it grows weary of a holy religion which consists of so many parts as make the businesse of a whole life And there is no greater argument in the world of our spiritual weaknesse and falsnesse of our hearts in the matters of religion then the backwardnesse which most men have alwayes and all men have somtimes to say their prayers so weary of their length so glad when they are done so wittie to excuse and frustrate an opportunity and yet there is no manner of trouble in the duty no wearinesse of bones no violent labours nothing but begging a blessing and receiving it nothing but doing our selves the greatest honour of speaking to the greatest person and greatest king of the world and that we should be unwilling to do this so unable to continue in it so backward to return to it so without gust and relish in the doing it can have no visible reason in the nature of the thing but something within us a strange sicknesse in the heart a spiritual nauseating or loathing of Manna something that hath no name but we are sure it comes from a weake a faint and false heart And yet this weak heart is strong in passions violent in desires unresistable in its appetites impatient in its lust furious in anger here are strengths enough one would think But so have I seen a man in a feaver sick and distempered unable to walk lesse able to speak sence or to do an act of counsel and yet when his feaver hath boild up to a delirium he was strong enough to beat his nurse keeper and his doctor too and to resist the loving violence of all his friends who would faine binde him down to reason and his bed And yet we still say he is weak and sick to death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for these strengths of madnesse are not health but furiousnesse and disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is weaknesse another way And so are the strengths of a mans heart they are fetters and manacles strong but they are the cordage of imprisonment so strong that the heart is not able to stir And yet it cannot but be a huge sadnesse that the heart shall pursue a temporal interest with wit and diligence and an unwearied industry and shall not have strength enough in a matter that concerns its Eternal interest to answer one obiection to resist one assault to defeate one art of the divel but shall certainly and infallibly fall when ever it is tempted to a pleasure This if it be examined will prove to be a deceit indeed a pretence rather then true upon a just cause that is it is not a natural but a moral a vicious weaknesse and we may try it in one or two familiar instances One of the great strengths shall I call it or weaknesses of the heart is that it is strong violent and passionate in its lusts and weak and deceitful to resist any Tell the tempted person that if he act his lust he dishonours his body makes himself a servant to follie and one flesh with a harlot he defiles the Temple of God and him that defiles a Temple will God destroy Tell him that the Angels who love to be present in the nastinesse and filth of prisons that they may comfort and assist chast souls and holy persons there abiding yet they are impatient to behold or come neer the filthynesse of a lustful person Tell him that this sin is so ugly that the divels who are spirits yet they delight to counterfeit the acting of this crime and descend unto the daughters or sons of men that they may rather lose their natures then not help to set a lust forward Tell them these and ten thousand things more you move them no more then if you should read one of Tullies orations to a mule for the truth is they have no power to resist it much lesse to master it their heart fails them when they meet their Mistresse and they are driven like a fool to the stocks or a Bull to the slaughter-house And
before Reason and their understandings were abused in the choice of a temporall before an intellectuall and eternall good But they alwayes concluded that the Will of man must of necessity follow the last dictate of the understanding declaring an object to be good in one sence or other Happy men they were that were so Innocent that knew no pure and perfect malice and lived in an Age in which it was not easie to confute them But besides that now the wells of a deeper iniquity are discovered we see by too sad experience that there are some sins proceeding from the heart of man which have nothing but simple and unmingled malice Actions of meer spite doing evil because it is evil sinning without sensuall pleasures sinning with sensuall pain with hazard of our lives with actuall torment and sudden deaths and certain and present damnation sins against the Holy Ghost open hostilities and professed enmities against God and all vertue I can go no further because there is not in the world or in the nature of things a greater Evil. And that is the Nature and Folly of the Devil he tempts men to ruine and hates God and onely hurts himself and those he tempts and does himself no pleasure and some say he increases his own accidentall torment Although I can say nothing greater yet I had many more things to say if the time would have permitted me to represent the Falsenesse and Basenesse of the Heart 1. We are false our selves and dare not trust God 2. We love to be deceived and are angry if we be told so 3. We love to seem vertuous and yet hate to be so 4. We are melancholy and impatient and we know not why 5. We are troubled at little things and are carelesse of greater 6. We are overjoyed at a petty accident and despise great and eternall pleasures 7. We beleeve things not for their Reasons and proper Arguments but as they serve our turns be they true or false 8. We long extreamly for things that are forbidden us And what we despise when it is permitted us we snatch at greedily when it is taken from us 9. We love our selves more then we love God and yet we eat poysons daily and feed upon Toads and Vipers and nourish our deadly enemies in our bosome and will not be brought to quit them but brag of our shame and are ashamed of nothing but Vertue which is most honourable 10. We fear to die and yet use all means we can to make Death terrible and dangerous 11. We are busie in the faults of others and negligent of our own 12. We live the life of spies striving to know others and to be unknown our selves 13. We worship and flatter some men and some things because we fear them not because we love them 14. We are ambitious of Greatnesse and covetous of wealth and all that we get by it is that we are more beautifully tempted and a troop of Clients run to us as to a Pool whom first they trouble and then draw dry 15. We make our selves unsafe by committing wickednesse and then we adde more wickednesse to make us safe and beyond punishment 16. We are more servile for one curtesie that we hope for then for twenty that we have received 17. We entertain slanderers and without choice spread their calumnies and we hugg flatterers and know they abuse us And if I should gather the abuses and impieties and deceptions of the Heart as Chrysippus did the oracular Lies of Apollo into a Table I fear they would seem Remedilesse and beyond the cure of watchfulnesse and Religion Indeed they are Great and Many But the Grace of God is Greater and if Iniquity abounds then doth Grace superabound and that 's our Comfort and our Medicine which we must thus use 1. Let us watch our hearts at every turn 2. Deny it all its Desires that do not directly or by consequence end in godlinesse At no hand be indulgent to its fondnesses and peevish appetites 3. Let us suspect it as an Enemy 4. Trust not to it in any thing 5. But beg the grace of God with perpetuall and importunate prayer that he would be pleased to bring good out of these evils and that he would throw the salutary wood of the Crosse the merits of Christs death and passion into these salt waters and make them healthful and pleasant And in order to the mannaging these advises and acting the purposes of this prayer let us strictly follow a rule and choose a Prudent and faithful guide who may attend our motions and watch our counsels and direct our steps and prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths streight apt and imitable For without great watchfulnesse and earnest devotion and a prudent Guide we shall finde that true in a spiritual sense which Plutarch affirmed of a mans body in the natural that of dead Buls arise Bees from the carcases of horses hornets are produced But the body of man brings forth serpents Our hearts wallowing in their own natural and acquired corruptions will produce nothing but issues of Hell and images of the old serpent the divel for whom is provided the everlasting burning Sermon IX THE FAITH and PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS OR The righteous cause oppressed 1 Peter 4. 17. For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God and if it first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God 18. And if the righteous scarcely be saved where shal the ungodly and the sinner appear SO long as the world lived by sense and discourses of natural reason as they were abated with humane infirmities and not at all heightned by the spirit divine revelations So long men took their accounts of good and bad by their being prosperous or unfortunate and amongst the basest and most ignorant of men that onely was accounted honest which was profitable and he onely wise that was rich and that man beloved of God who received from him all that might satisfie their lust their ambition or their revenge Fatis accede deisque colâ— felices miseros fuge sidera terra ut distant flamma maeri sic utile recto But because God sent wise men into the world and they were treated rudely by the world and exercised with evil accidents and this seemed so great a discouragement to vertue that even these wise men were more troubled to reconcile vertue and misery then to reconcile their affections to the suffering God was pleased to enlighten their reason with a little beame of faith or else heightned their reason by wiser principles then those of vulgar understandings and taught them in the clear glasse of faith or the dim perspective of Philosophy to look beyond the cloud and there to spie that there stood glories behinde their curtain to which they could not come but by passing through the cloud and being wet with the dew of heaven and the
waters of affliction And accordding as the world grew more enlightned by faith so it grew more dark with mourning sorrowes God sometimes sent a light of fire and pillar of a cloud and the brightnesse of an angel and the lustre of a star and the sacrament of a rainbowe to guide his people thorough their portion of sorrows and to lead them through troubles to rest But as the Sun of righteousnesse approached towards the chambers of the East and sent the harbingers of light peeping through the curtains of the night and leading on the day of faith and brightest revelation so God sent degrees of trouble upon wise and good men that now in the same degree in the which the world lives by faith and not by sense in the same degree they might be able to live in vertue even while she lived in trouble and not reject so great a beauty because she goes in mourning and hath a black cloud of cypresse drawn before her face literally thus God first entertained their services and allured and prompted on the infirmities of the infant world by temporal prosperity but by degrees changed his method and as men grew stronger in the knowledge of God and the expectations of heaven so they grew weaker in their fortunes more afflicted in their bodies more abated in their expectations more subject to their enemies and were to endure the contradiction of sinners and the immission of the sharpnesses of providence and divine Oeconomy First Adam was placed in a Garden of health and pleasure from which when he fell he was onely tied to enter into the covenant of natural sorrows which he and all his posteritie till the flood run through but in all that period they had the whole wealth of the earth before them they need not fight for empires or places for their cattle to grase in they lived long and felt no want no slavery no tyrannie no war and the evils that happened were single personal and natural and no violences were then done but they were like those things which the law calls rare contingencies for which as the law can now take no care and make no provisions so then there was no law but men lived free and rich and long and they exercised no vertues but natural and knew no felicity but natural and so long their prosperity was just as was their vertue because it was a natural instrument towards all that which they knew of happinesse * But this publick easinesse and quiet the world turned into sin and unlesse God did compel men to do themselves good they would undoe themselves and then God broke in upon them with a flood and destroyed that generation that he might begin the government of the world upon a new stock and binde vertue upon mens spirits by new bands endeared to them by new hopes and fears Then God made new laws and gave to Princes the power of the sword and men might be punshed to death in certain cases and mans life was shortened and slavery was brought into the world and the state of servants and then war began and evils multiplied upon the face of the earth in which it is naturally certain that they that are most violent and injurious prevailed upon the weaker and more innocent and every tyranny that began from Nimrod to this day and every usurper was a peculiar argument to shew that God began to teach the world vertue by suffering and that therefore he suffered Tyrannies and usurpations to be in the world and to be prosperous and the rights of men to be snatched away from the owners that the world might be established in potent and setled governments and the sufferers be taught al the passive vertues of the soul. For so God brings good out of evil turning Tyranny into the benefits of Government and violence into vertue and sufferings into rewards and this was the second change of the world personal miseries were brought in upon Adam and his posterity as a punishment of sin in the first period and in the second publick evils were brought in by tyrants and usurpers and God suffered them as the first elements of vertue men being just newly put to schoole to infant sufferings But all this was not much Christs line was not yet drawn forth it began not to appear in what family the King of sufferings should descend till Abrahams time and therefore till then there were no greater sufferings then what I have now reckoned But when Abrahams family was chosen from among the many nations and began to belong to God by a special right and he was designed to be the Father of the Messias then God found out a new way to trie him even with a sound affliction commanding him to offer his beloved Isaac but this was accepted and being intended by Abraham was not intended by God for this was a type of Christ and therefore was also but a type of sufferings excepting the sufferings of the old periods and the sufferings of nature and accident we see no change made for a long while after but God having established a law in Abrahams family did build it upon promises of health and peace and victory and plenty and riches and so long as they did not prevaricate the law of their God so long they were prosperous but God kept a remnant of Cananites in the land like a rod held over them to vex or to chastise them into obedience in which while they persevered nothing could hurt them and that saying of David needs no other sence but the letter of its own expression I have been young and now am old and yet saw I never the righteous for saken nor his seed begging their bread The godly generally were prosperous and a good cause seldome had an ill end and a good man never died an ill death till the law had spent a great part of its time and it descended towards its declension and period But that the great prince of sufferings might not appear upon his stage of tragedies without some forerunners of sorrow God was pleased to choose out some good men and honour them by making them to become little images of suffering I saiah Jeremy and Zachary were martyrs of the law but these were single deaths Shadrac Meshec and Abednego were thrown into a burning furnace and Daniel into a den of lions and Susanna was accused for adultery but these were but little arrests of the prosperity of the Godly as the time drew neerer that Christ should be manifest so the sufferings grew bigger and more numerous and Antiochus raised up a sharp persecution in the time of the Maccabees in which many passed through the red sea of blood into the bosome of Abraham then Christ came and that was the third period in which the changed method of Gods providence was perfected for Christ was to do his great work by sufferings by sufferings was to enter into blessednesse by his passion he
was made prince of the Catholickchurch and as our Head was so must the members be God made the same covenant with us that he did with his most holy Son Christ obtaind no better conditions for us then for himself that was not to be looked for the servant must not be above his master it is well if he be as his Master if the world persecuted him they will also persecute us and from the dayes of John the Baptist the kingdome of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force not the violent doers but the sufferers of violence for though the old law was established in the promises of temporal prosperity yet the gospel is founded in temporal adversity It is directly a covenant of sufferings and sorrows for now the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God that 's the sence and designe of the text and I intend it as a direct antinomy to the common perswasions of tyrannous carnal and vicious men who reckon nothing good but what is prosperous for though that proposition had many degrees of truth in the beginning of the law yet the case is now altered God hath established its contradictory and now every good man must look for persecution and every good cause must expect to thrive by the sufferings and patience of holy persons and as men do well and suffer evil so they are dear to God and whom he loves most he afflicts most and does this with a designe of the greatest mercy in the world 1. Then the state of the Gospel is a state of sufferings not of temporal prosperities this was foretold by the prophets a fountain shall go out of the house of the Lord irrigabit torrentem spinarum so it is in the vulgar latin and it shall water the torrent of thorns that is the state or time of the gospel which like a torrent shall cary all the world before it and like a torrent shall be fullest in ill weather and by its banks shall grow nothing but thorns and briers sharp afflictions temporal infelicities and persecution This sense of the words is more fully explained in the book of the prophet Isa. upon the ground of my people shall thorns and briers come up how much more in all the houses of the city of rejoycing which prophecy is the same in the stile of the prophets that my text is in the stile of the Apostles the house of God shall be watered with the dew of heaven and there shall spring up briers in it judgement must begin there but how much more in the houses of the city of rejoycing how much more among them that are at ease in Sion that serve their desires that satisfie their appetites that are given over to their own hearts lust that so serves themselves that they never serve God that dwell in the city of rejoycing they are like Dives whose portion was in this life who went in fine linnen and fared deliciously every day they indeed trample upon their briers and thorns and suffer them not to grow in their houses but the roots are in the ground and they are reserved for fuel of wrath in the day of everlasting burning Thus you see it was prophesied now see how it was performed Christ was the captain of our sufferings and he began He entred into the world with all the circumstances of poverty he had a star to illustrate his birth but a stable for his bed chamber and a manger for his cradle the angels sang hymnes when he was born but he was cold and cried uneasy and unprovided he lived long in the trade of a carpenter he by whom God made the world had in his first years the businesse of a mean and an ignoble trade he did good where ever he went and almost where ever he went was abused he deserved heaven for his obedience but found a crosse in his way thither and if ever any man had reason to expect fair usages from God and to be dandled in lap of ease softnes and a prosperous fortune he it was onely that could deserve that or any thing that can be good But after he had chosen to live a life of vertue of poverty and labour he entred into a state of death whose shame and trouble was great enough to pay for the sins of the whole world And I shall choose to expresse this mystery in the vvords of scripture he died not by a single or a sudden death but he was the Lambe slain from the beginning of the world For he was massacred in Abel saith Saint Paulinus he was tossed upon the waves of the Sea in the person of Noah It was he that went out of his Countrey when Abraham was called from Charran and wandred from his native soil He was offered up in Isaac persecuted in Jacob betrayed in Joseph blinded in Sampson affronted in Moses sawed in Esay cast into the dungeon with Jeremy For all these were types of Christ suffering and then his passion continued even after his resurrection for it is he that suffers in all his members it is he that endures the contradiction of all sinners it is he that is the Lord of life and is crucified again and put to open shame in all the sufferings of his servants and sins of rebels and defiances of Apostates and renegados and violence of Tyrants and injustice of usurpers and the persecutions of his Church It is he that is stoned in Saint Stephen flayed in the person of Saint Bartholomew he was rosted upon Saint Laurence his Gridiron exposed to lyons in Saint Ignatius burned in Saint Polycarpe frozen in the lake where stood fourty Martyrs of Cappadocia Unigenitus enim Dei ad peragendum mortis suae sacramentum consummavit omne genus humanarum passionum said Saint Hilary The Sacrament of Christs death is not to be accomplished but by suffering all the sorrows of humanity All that Christ came for was or was mingled with sufferings For all those little joyes which God sent either to recreate his person or to illustrate his office were abated or attended with afflictions God being more carefull to establish in him the Covenant of sufferings then to refresh his sorrows Presently after the Angels had finished their Halleluiahs he was forced to fly to save his life and the air became full of shrikes of the desolate mothers of Bethlehem for their dying Babes God had no sooner made him illustrious with a voyce from heaven and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him in the waters of Baptisme But he was delivered over to be tempted and assaulted by the Devil in the wildernesse His transfiguration was a bright ray of glory but then also he entred into a cloud and was told a sad story what he was to suffer at Jerusalem And upon Palme-Sunday when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem and was adorned with the acclamations of a King and a God he wet the Palmes with
his tears sweeter then the drops of Mannah or the little pearls of heaven that descended upon mount Hermon weeping in the midst of this triumph over obstinate perishing and maliciour Jerusalem For this Jesus was like the rain-bowe which God set in the clouds as a sacrament to confirm a promise and establish a grace he was half made of the glories of the light and half of the moisture of a cloud in his best dayes he was but half triumph and half sorrow he was sent to tell of his Fathers mercies and that God intended to spare us but appeared not but in the company or in the retinue of a shower and of foul weather But I need not tell that Jesus beloved of God was a suffering person that which concerns this question most is that he made for us a covenant of sufferings His Doctrines were such as expressely and by consequent enjoyne and suppose sufferings and a state of affliction His very promises were sufferings his beatitudes were sufferings his rewards and his arguments to invite men to follow him were onely taken from sufferings in this life and the reward of sufferings hereafter For if we summon up the Commandements of Christ we shall finde humility mortification self-deniall repentance renouncing the world mourning taking up the crosse dying for him patience and poverty to stand in the chiefest rank of Christian precepts and in the direct order to heaven He that will be my Disciple must deny himself and take up his crosse and follow me We must follow him that was crowned with thorns and sorrows him that was drenchd in Cedron nailed upon the Crosse that deserved all good and suffered all evil That is the summe of Christian Religion as it distinguishes from all the Religions of the world To which we may adde the expresse Precept recorded by Saint James Be afflicted and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into weeping You see the Commandements Will you also see the Promises These they are In the world yee shall have tribulation in me ye shall have peace and through many tribulations ye shall enter into heaven and he that loseth father and mother wives and children houses and lands for my Names sake and the Gospel shall receive a hundred fold in this life with persecution that 's part of his reward And he chastiseth every son that he receiveth and if you be exempt from sufferings ye are bastards and not sons These are some of Christs promises will you see some of Christs blessings that he gives his Church Blessed are the poor Blessed are the hungry and thirsty Blessed are they that mourn Blessed are the humble Blessed are the persecuted Of the eight Beatitudes five of them have temporall misery and meannesse or an afflicted condition for their subject Will you at last see some of the reward which Christ hath propounded to his servants to invite them to follow him When I am lifted up I will draw all men after me when Christ is lifted up as Moses lift up the serpent in the wildernesse that is lifted upon the Crosse then he will draw us after him To you it is given for Christ saith Saint Paul when he went to sweeten and to flatter the Philippians Well what is given to them Some great favours surely true It is not onely given that you beleeve in Christ though that be a great matter but also that you suffer for him that 's the highest of your honour And therefore saith Saint James My brethren count it all joy when ye enter into divers temptations And Saint Peter Communicating with the sufferings of Christ rejoyce And Saint James again We count them blessed that have suffered And Saint Paul when he gives his blessing to the Thessalonians he uses this form of prayer Our Lord direct our hearts in the charity of God and in the patience and sufferings of Christ. So that if wee will serve the King of sufferings whose crown was of thorns whose seepter was a reed of scorne whose imperiall robe was a scarlet of mockery whose throne was the Crosse We must serve him in sufferings in poverty of spirit in humility and mortification and for our reward we shall have persecution and all its blessed consequents Atque hoc est esse Christianum Since this was done in the green-tree what might we expect should be done in the dry Let us in the next place consider how God hath treated his Saints and servants and the descending ages of the Gospel That if the best of Gods servants were followers of Jesus in this covenant of sufferings we may not think it strange concerning the fiery tryall as if some new thing had happened to us For as the Gospel was founded in sufferings we shall also see it grow in persecutions and as Christs blood did cement the corner stones and the first foundations So the blood and sweat the groans and sighings the afflictions and mortifications of saints and martyrs did make the super structures and must at last finish the building If I begin with the Apostles who were to perswade the world to become Christian and to use proper Arguments of invitation we shall sinde that they never offered an Argument of temporall prosperity they never promised Empires and thrones on earth nor riches nor temporall power and it would have been soon confuted if they who were whipt and imprisoned banished and scattered persecuted and tormented should have promised Sun-shine dayes to others which they could not to themselves Of all the Apostles there was not one that died a naturall death but onely Saint John and did he escape Yes But he was put into a Cauldron of scalding lead and oyl before the Port Latin in Rome and scaped death by miracle though no miracle was wrought to make him scape the torture And besides this he lived long in banishment and that was worse then Saint Peters chains Sanctus Petrus in vinculis Johannes ante portam latinam were both dayes of Martyrdom and Church Festivals and after a long and laborious life and the affliction of being detained from his crown and his sorrows for the death of his fellow-disciples he dyed full of dayes and sufferings And when Saint Paul was taken into the Apostolate his Commissions were signed in these words I will shew unto him how great things he must suffer for my Name and his whole life was a continuall suffering Quotidiè morior was his Motto I die daily and his lesson that he daily learned was to know Christ Jesus and him crucified and all his joy was to rejoyce in the Crosse of Christ and the changes of his life were nothing but the changes of his sufferings and the variety of his labours For though Christ hath finished his own sufferings for expiation of the world yet there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 portions that are behinde of the sufferings of Christ which must
the servants of God have put on the armour of righteousnesse on the right hand and on the left that is in the sufferings of persecution or the labours of mortification in patience under the rod of God or by election of our own by toleration or self denial by actual martyrdom or by aptnesse or disposition towards it by dying for Christ or suffering for him by being willing to part with all when he calls for it and by parting with what we can for the relief of his poor members For know this there is no state in the Church so serene no days so prosperous in which God does not give to his servants the powers and opportunities of suffering for him not onely they that die for Christ but they that live according to his laws shall finde some lives to part with and many wayes to suffer for Christ. To kill and crucifie the old man and all his lusts to mortifie a beloved sin to fight against temptations to do violence to our bodies to live chastly to suffer affronts patiently to forgive injuries and debts to renounce all prejudice and interest in religion and to choose our side for truthes sake not because it is prosperous but because it pleases God to be charitable beyond our power to reprove our betters with modesty and opennesse to displease men rather then God to be at enmity with the world that you may preserve friendship with God to denie the importunity and troublesome kindnesse of a drinking friend to own truth in despite of danger or scorn to despise shame to refuse worldly pleasure when they tempt your soul beyond duty or safety to take pains in the cause of religion the labour of love and the crossing of your anger peevishnesse and morosity these are the daily sufferings of a Christian and if we performe them well wil have the same reward and an equal smart and greater labour then the plain suffering the hangmans sword This I have discoursed to represent unto you that you cannot be exempted from the similitude of Christs sufferings that God will shut no age nor no man from his portion of the crosse that we cannot fail of the result of this predestination nor without our own fault be excluded from the covenant of sufferings judgement must begin at Gods house and enters first upon the sons and heirs of the kingdom and if it be not by the direct persecution of Tyrants it will be by the persecution of the devil or infirmities of our own flesh But because this was but the secondary meaning of the text I return to make use of all the former discourse 1. Let no Christian man make any judgement concerning his condition or his cause by the external event of things for although in the law of Moses God made with his people a covenant of temporal prosperity and his Saints did binde the kings of the Amorites and the Philistines in chains and their nobles with links of iron and then that was the honour which all his Saints had yet in Christ Jesus he made a covenant of sufferings most of the graces of Christianity are suffering graces and God hath predestinated us to sufferings and we are baptised into suffering and our very communions are symbols of our duty by being the sacrament of Christs death and passion and Christ foretold to us tribulation and promised onely that he would be with us in tribulation that he would give us his spirit to assist us at tribunals and his grace to despise the world and to contemn riches and boldnesse to confesse every article of the Christian faith in the face of armies and armed tyrants and he also promised that all things should work together for the best to his servants that is he would out of the eater bring meat and out of the strong issue sweetnesse and crowns and scepters should spring from crosses and that the crosse it self should stand upon the globes and scepters of Princes but he never promised to his servants that they should pursue Kings and destroy armies that they should reign over the nations and promote the cause of Jesus Christ by breaking his commandments The shield of faith and the sword of the spirit the armour of righteousnesse and the weapons of spiritual warfare these are they by which christianity swelled from a small company and a lesse reputation to possesse the chaires of Doctors and the thrones of princes and the hearts of all men But men in all ages will be tampering with shadows and toyes The Apostles at no hand could endure to hear that Christs kingdom was not of this world and that their Master should die a sad and shameful death though that way he was to receive his crown and enter into glory and after Christs time when his Disciples had taken up the crosse and were marching the Kings high way of sorrows there were a very great many even the generality of Christians for two or three ages together who fell on dreaming that Christ should come and reign upon earth again for a thousand years and then the Saints should reigne in all abundance of temporal power and fortunes but these men were content to stay for it till after the resurrection in the mean time took up their crosse and followed after their Lord the King of sufferings But now adayes we finde a generation of men who have changed the covenant of sufferings into victories and triumphs riches and prosperous chances and reckon their Christianity by their good fortunes as if Christ had promised to his servants no heaven hereafter no spirit in the mean time to refresh their sorrows as if he had enjoyned them no passive graces but as if to be a Christian and to be a Turk were the same thing Mahomet entered and possessed by the sword Christ came by the crosse entered by humility and his saints possesse their souls by patience God was fain to multiply miracles to make Christ capable of being a man of sorrows and shall we think he will work miracles to make us delicate He promised us a glorious portion hereafter to which if all the sufferings of the world were put together they are not worthy to be compared and shall we with Dives choose our portion of good things in this life If Christ suffered so many things onely that he might give us glory shall it be strange that we shall suffer who are to receive this glory It is in vain to think we shall obtain glories at an easier rate then to drink of the brook in the way in which Christ was drenched When the Devil appeared to Saint Martin in a bright splendid shape and said he was Christ he answered Christus non nisi in cruce apparet suis in hac vita And when Saint Ignatius was newly tied in a chain to be led to his martyrdom he cryed out nunc incipio esse Christianus And it was observed by Minutius Felix and was indeed a great and excellent truth omnes
viri fortes quos Gentiles praedicabant in exemplum aerumnis suis inclytifloruerunt The Gentiles in their whole religion never propounded any man imitable unlesse the man were poor or persecuted Brutus stood for his countries liberty but lost his army and his life Socrates was put to death for speaking a religious truth Cato chose to be on the right side but happened to fall upon the oppressed and the injured he died together with his party Victrix causa Deis placuit sed vict a Catoni And if God thus dealt with the best of Heathens to whom he had made no cleare revelation of immortal recompences how little is the faith and how much lesse is the patience of Christians if they shall think much to suffer sorrows since they so clearly see with the eye of faith the great things which are laid up for them that are faithful unto the death Faith is uselesse if now in the midst of so great pretended lights we shall not dare to trust God unlesse we have all in hand that we desire and suffer nothing for all we can hope for They that live by sense have no use of faith yet our Lord Jesus concerning whose passions the gospel speaks much but little of his glorifications whose shame was publick whose pains were notorious but his joyes and transfigurations were secret and kept private he who would not suffer his holy mother whom in great degrees he exempted from sin to be exempted from many and great sorrows certainly intends to admit none to his resurrection but by the doors of his grave none to glory but by the way of the crosse If we be planted into the likenesse of his death we shall be also of his resurrection else on no termes Christ took away sin from us but he left us our share of sufferings and the crosse which was first printed upon us in the waters of baptisme must for ever be born by us in penance in mortification in self-denial and in martyrdom and toleration according as God shall require of us by the changes of the world and the condition of the Church For Christ considers nothing but souls he values not their estate or bodies supplying our want by his providence and being secured that our bodies may be killed but cannot perish so long as we preserve our duty and our consciences Christ our Captain hangs naked upon the crosse our fellow souldiers are cast into prison torne with Lions rent in sunder with trees returning from their violent bendings broken upon wheels rosted upon gridirons and have had the honour not onely to have a good cause but also to suffer for it and by faith not by armies by patience not by fighting have overcome the world sit anima mea cum Christianis I pray God my soul may be among the Christians and yet the Turks have prevailed upon a great part of the Christian world and have made them slaves and tributaries and do them all spite and are hugely prosperous but when Christians are so then they are tempted and put in danger and never have their duty and their interest so well secured as when they lose all for Christ and are adorned with wounds or poverty change or scorn affronts or revilings which are the obelisks and triumphs of a holy cause Evil men and evil causes had need have good fortune and great successe to support their persons and their pretences for nothing but innocence and Christianity can flourish in a persecution I summe up this first discourse in a word in all the Scripture and in all the Authentick stories of the Church we finde it often that the Devil appeared in the shape of an Angell of light but was never suffered so much as to conterfeit a persecuted sufferer say no more therefore as the murmuring Israelites said If the LORD be with us why have these evils apprehended us for if to be afflicted be a signe that God hath forsaken a man and refuses to own his religion or his question then he that oppresses the widow and murders the innocent and puts the fatherlesse to death and follows providence by doing all the evils that he can that is all that God suffers him he I say is the onely Saint and servant of God and upon the same ground the wolf and the fox may boast when they scatter and devour a flock of lambs and harmlesse sheep Sermon X. The Faith and Patience of the SAINTS OR The righteous cause oppressed Part II. IT follows now that we inquire concerning the reasons of the Divine Providence in this administration of affairs so far as he hath been pleased to draw aside the curtain and to unfold the leaves of his counsels and predestination and for such an inquiry we have the precedent of the Prophet Jeremy Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let us talk to thee of thy judgements wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously Thou hast planted them yea they have taken root they grow yea they bring forth fruit Concerning which in generall the Prophet Malachy gives this account after the same complaint made And now we call the proud happy and they that work wickednesse are set up yea they that tempt God are even delivered They that feared the Lord spake often one to another and the Lord hearkened and heard and a book of remembrance was written before time for them that feared the Lord and thought upon his Name and they shall be mine saith the Lord of Hosts in that day when I binde up my jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him Then shall ye return and discern betwen the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not In this interval which is a valley of tears it is no wonder if they rejoyce who shall weep for ever and they that sow in tears shall have no cause to complain when God gathers all the mourners into his kingdom they shall reape with joy For innocence and joy were appointed to dwel together for ever And joy went not first but when innocence went away sorrow and sicknesse dispossessed joy of its habitation and now this world must be alwayes a scene of sorrows and no joy can grow here but that which is imaginary and phantastick there is no worldly joy no joy proper for this world but that which wicked persons fancy to themselves in the hopes and designes of iniquity He that covets his neighbours wife or land dreams of fine things and thinks it a fair condition to be rich and cursed to be a beast and die or to lie wallowing in his filthinesse but those holy souls who are not in love with the leprosie the Itch for the pleasure of scratching they know no pleasure can grow from the thorns which Adam planted in the hedges of Paradise and that sorrow which
us choose God and let God choose all the rest for us it being indifferent to us whether by poverty or shame by lingring or a sudden death by the hands of a Tyrant Prince or the despised hands of a base usurper or a rebell we receive the crown and do honour to God and to Religion 3. Whoever suffer in a cause of God from the hands of cruell and unreasonable men let them not be too forward to prognosticate evil and death to their enemies but let them solace themselves in the assurance of the divine justice by generall consideration and in particular pray for them that are our persecutours Nebuchadnezzar was the rod in the hand of God against the Tyrians and because he destroyed that city God rewarded him with the spoil of Egypt and it is not alwayes certain that God will be angry with every man by whose hand affliction comes upon us And sometimes two armies have met and fought and the wisest man amongst them could not say that either of the Princes had prevaricated either the lawes of God or of Nations and yet it may be some superstitious easie and half witted people of either side wonder that their enemies live so long And there are very many cases of warre concerning which God hath declared nothing and although in such cases he that yeelds and quits his title rather then his charity and the care of so many lives is the wisest and the best man yet if neither of them will do so let us not decree judgements from heaven in cases where we have no word from heaven and thunder from our Tribunals where no voice of God hath declared the sentence But in such cases where there is an evident tyranny or injustice let us do like the good Samaritan who dressed the wounded man but never pursued the thief let us do charity to the afflicted and bear the crosse with noblenesse and look up to Jesus who endured the crosse and despised the shame but let us not take upon us the office of God who will judge the Nations righteously and when he hath delivered up our bodies will rescue our souls from the hands of unrighteous judges I remember in the story that Plutarch tels concerning the soul of Thespesius that it met with a Prophetick Genius who told him many things that should happen afterwards in the world and the strangest of all was this That there should be a King Qui bonus cum sit tyrannide vitam finiet An excellent Prince and a good man should be put to death by a rebell and usurping power and yet that Prophetick soul could not tell that those rebels should within three yeers die miserable and accursed deaths and in that great prophecy recorded by Saint Paul That in the last dayes perillous times should come and men should be traitours and selvish having forms of godlinesse and creeping into houses yet could not tell us when those men should come to finall shame and ruine onely by a generall signification he gave this signe of comfort to Gods persecuted servants But they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifest to all men that is at long running they shall shame themselves and for the elects sake those dayes of evil shall be shortned But you and I may be dead first And therefore onely remember that they that with a credulous heart and a loose tongue are too decretory and enunciative of speedy judgements to their enemies turn their religion into revenge and therefore do beleeve it will be so because they vehemently desire it should be so which all wise and good men ought to suspect as lesse agreeing with that charity which overcomes all the sins and all the evils of the world and sits down and rests in glory 4. Do not trouble your self by thinking how much you are afflicted but consider how much you make of it For reflex acts upon the suffering it self can lead to nothing but to pride or to impatience to temptation or a postacy He that measures the grains and scruples of his persecution will soon sit down and call for ease or for a reward will think the time long or his burden great will be apt to complain of his condition or set a greater value upon his person Look not back upon him that strikes thee but upward to God that supports thee and forward to the crown that is set before thee and then consider if the losse of thy estate hath taught thee to despise the world whether thy poor fortune hath made thee poor in spirit and if thy uneasie prison sets thy soul at liberty and knocks off the fetters of a worse captivity For then the rod of suffering turns into crowns and scepters when every suffering is a precept and every change of condition produces a holy resolution and the state of sorrows makes the resolution actuall and habituall permanent and persevering For as the silk-worm eateth it self out of a seed to become a little worm and there feeding on the leaves of mulberies it grows till its coat be off and then works it self into a house of silk then casting its pearly seeds for the young to breed it leaveth its silk for man and dieth all white and winged in the shape of a flying creature So it the progresse of souls when they are regenerate by Baptisme and have cast off their first stains and the skin of world 〈…〉 by feeding on the leaves of Scriptures and the fruits of 〈…〉 and the joyes of the Sacrament they incircle themselves in the rich garments of holy and vertuous habits then by leaving their blood which is the Churches seed to raise up a new generation to God they leave a blessed memory and fair example and are themselves turned into Angels whose felicity is to do the will of God as their imployments was in this world to suffer it fiat voluntas tua is our daily prayer and that is of a passive signification thy will be done upon us and if from thence also we translate it into an active sence and by suffering evils increase in our aptnesses to do well we have done the work of Christians and shall receive the reward of Martyrs 5. Let our suffering be entertained by a direct election not by collateral ayds and phantastick assistances It is a good refreshment to a weak spirit to suffer in good company and so Phocion encouraged a timerous Greek condemned to die and he bid him be confident because that he was to die with Phocion and when 40 Martyrs in Cappadocia suffered and that a souldier standing by came and supplyed the place of the one Apostate who fell from his crown being overcome with pain it added warmth to the frozen confessors and turnd them into consummate Martyrs But if martyrdom were but a phantastick thing or relyed upon vain accidents and irregular chances it were then very necessary to be assisted by images of things and any thing lesse then the
man that suffers sorrow and persecution ought to be relieved by us but needs not be pitied in the summe of affairs But since the two estates of the world are measured by time and by eternity and divided by joy and sorrow and no man shall have his portions of joyes in both the durations the state of those men is insupportably miserable who are fatted for slaughter and are crowned like beasts for sacrifice who are feared and fear who cannot enjoy their purchases but by communications with others and themselves have the least share but themselves are alone in the misery and the saddest dangers and they possesse the whole portions of sorrows to whom their prosperity gives but occasions to evil counsels and strength to do mischief or to nourish a serpent or oppresse a neighbour or to nurse a lust to increase folly and treasure up calamity And did ever any man see or story tell that any tyrant Prince kissed his rods and axes his sword of justice and his Imperiall ensignes of power They shine like a taper to all things but it self but we read of many Martyrs who kissed their chains and hugged their stakes and saluted their hangman with great endearments and yet abating the incursions of their seldom sins these are their greatest evils and such they are with which a wise and a good man may be in love And till the sinners and ungodly men can be so with their deep groans and broken sleeps with the wrath of God and their portions of eternity till they can rejoyce in death and long for a resurrection and with delight and a greedy hope can think of the day of judgement we must conclude that their glasse gems and finest pageantry their splendid outsides and great powers of evil cannot make amends for that estate of misery which is their portion with a certainty as great as is the truth of God and all the Articles of the Christian Creed Miserable men are they who cannot be blessed unlesse there be no day of judgement who must perish unlesse the word of God should fail If that be all their hopes then we may with a sad spirit and a soul of pity inquire into the Question of the Text Where shall the ungodly and sinner appear Even there where Gods face shall never shine where there shall be fire and no light where there shall be no Angels but what are many thousands yeers ago turned into Devils where no good man shall ever dwell and from whence the evil and the accursed shall never be dismissed O my God let my soul never come into their counsels nor lie down in their sorrows Sermon XII THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE IVDGMENTS OR Gods Method in curing Sinners 2. Romanes 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance FRom the beginning of Time till now all effluxes which have come from God have been nothing but emanations of his goodnesse clothed in variety of circumstances He made man with no other designe then that man should be happy and by receiving derivations from his fountain of mercy might reflect glory to him And therefore God making man for his own glory made also a paradise for mans use and did him good to invite him to do himself a greater for God gave forth demonstrations of his power by instances of mercy and he who might have made ten thousand worlds of wonder and prodigy and created man with faculties able onely to stare upon and admire those miracles of mightinesse did choose to instance his power in the effusions of mercy that at the same instant he might represent himself desireable and adorable in all the capacities of amability that is as excellent in himself and profitable to us For as the Sun sends forth a benigne and gentle influence on the seed of Plants that it may invite forth the active and plastick power from its recesse and secresie that by rising into the tallnesse and dimensions of a tree it may still receive a greater and more refreshing influence from its foster-father the prince of all the bodies of light and in all these emanations the Sun its self receives no advantage but the honour of doing benefits so doth the Almighty Father of all the creatures He at first sends forth his blessings upon us that we by using them aright should make our selves capable of greater while the giving glory to God and doing homage to him are nothing for his advantage but onely for ours our duties towards him being like vapours ascending from the earth not at all to refresh the region of the clouds but to return back in a fruitfull and refreshing shower And God created us not that we can increase his felicity but that he might have a subject receptive of felicity from him thus he causes us to be born that we may be capable of his blessings he causes us to be baptized that we may have a title to the glorious promises Evangelicall he gives us his Son that we may be rescued from hell and when we constraine him to use harsh courses towards us it is also in mercy he smites us to cure a disease he sends us sicknesse to procure our health and as if God were all mercy he his mercifull in his first designe in all his instruments in the way and in the end of the journey and does not onely shew the riches of his goodnesse to them that do well but to all men that they may do well he is good to make us good he does us benefits to make us happy and if we by despising such gracious rayes of light and heat stop their progresse and interrupt their designe the losse is not Gods but ours we shall be the miserable and accursed people This is the sense and paraphrase of my Text. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse c. Thou dost not know that is thou considerest not that it is for further benefit that God does thee this the goodnesse of God is not a designe to serve his own ends upon thee but thine upon him The goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance Here then is Gods method of curing man-kind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First goodnesse or inviting us to him by sugred words by the placid arguments of temporall favour and the propositions of excellent promises Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the same time although God is provoked every day yet he does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he tolerates our stubbornnesse he forbears to punish and when he does begin to strike takes his hand off and gives us truce and respite For so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies laxamentum and inducias too Thirdly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 still a long putting off and deferring his finall destroying anger by using all meanes to force us to repentance and this especially by the way of judgements these being the last reserves of the Divine mercy and
how ever we esteem it is the greatest instance of the divine long sufferance that is in the world After these instruments we may consider the end the strand upon which these land us the purpose of this variety of these laborious and admirable arts with which God so studies and contrives the happinesse and salvation of man it is onely that man may be brought by these meanes unto repentance and by repentance may be brought to eternall life This is the treasure of the Divine goodnesse the great and admirable efflux of the eternal beneficence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the riches of his goodnesse which whosoever despises despises himself and the great interest of his own felicity he shall die in his impenitence and perish in his folly 1. The first great instrument that God chooses to bring us to him is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 profit or benefit and this must needs be first for those instruments whereby we have a being are so great mercies that besides that they are such which give us the capacities of all other mercies they are the advances of us in the greatest instances of promotion in the world For from nothing to something is an infinite space and a man must have a measure of infinite passed upon him Before he can perceive himself to be either happy or miserable he is not able to give God thanks for one blessing untill he hath received many But then God intends we should enter upon his service at the beginning of our dayes because even then he is before-hand with us and hath already given us great instances of his goodnesse What a prodigy of favour is it to us that he hath passed by so many formes of his creatures and hath not set us down in the rank of any of them till we came to be paul◠minores angelis a little lower then the angels and yet from the meanest of them God can perfect his own praise The deeps and the snows the hail and the rain the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea they can and do glorifie God and give him praise in their capacity and yet he gave them no speech no reason no immortall spirit or capacity of eternall blessednesse but he hath distinguished us from them by the absolute issues of his predestination and hath given us a lasting and eternall spirit excellent organs of perception and wonderfull instruments of expression that we may joyn in consort with the morning star and bear a part in the Chorus with the Angels of light to sing Alleluiah to the great Father of men and Angels But was it not a huge chain of mercies that we were not strangled in the regions of our own naturall impurities but were sustained by the breath of God from perishing in the womb where God formed us in secreto terrae told our bones and kept the order of nature and the miracles of creation and we lived upon that which in the next minute after we were born would strangle us if it were not removed but then God took care of us and his hands of providence clothed us and fed us But why do I reckon the mercies of production which in every minute of our being are alike and continued and are miracles in all senses but that they are common and usuall I onely desire you to remember that God made all the works of his hands to serve him and indeed this mercy of creating us such as we are was not to lead us to repentance but was a designe of innocence he intended we should serve him as the Sun and the Moon do as fire and water do never to prevaricate the laws he fixed to us that we might have needed no repentance But since we did degenerate and being by God made better and more noble creatures then all the inhabitants of the air the water and the earth besides we made our selves baser and more ignoble then any For no dog crocodile or swine was ever Gods enemy as we made our selves yet then from thence forward God began his work of leading us to repentance by the riches of his goodnesse He causeth us to be born of Christian parents under whom we were taught the mysteriousnesse of its goodnesse and designes for the redemption of man And by the designe of which religion repentance was taught to mankind and an excellent law given for distinction of good and evil and this is a blessing which though possibly we do not often put into our eucharisticall Letanies to give God thanks for yet if we sadly consider what had become of us if we had been born under the dominion of a Turkish Lord or in America where no Christians do inhabite where they worship the Devil where witches are their priests their prophets their phisitians and their Oracles can we choose but apprehend a visible notorious necessity of perishing in those sins which we then should not have understood by the glasse of a divine law to have declined nor by a revelation have been taught to repent of But since the best of men does in the midst of all the great advantages of lawes and examples and promises and threatnings do many things he ought to be ashamed of and needs to repent of we can understand the riches of the Divine goodnesse best by considering that the very designe of our birth and education in the Christian religion is that we may recover of and cure our follies by the antidote of repentance which is preached to us as a doctrine and propounded as a favour which was put into a law and purchased for us by a great expence which God does not more command to us as a duty then he gives us a blessing For now that we shall not perish for our first follies but be admitted to new conditions to be repaired by second thoughts to have our infirmities excused and our sins forgiven our habits lessened and our malice cured after we were wounded and sick and dead and buried and in the possession of the Devil this was such a blessing so great riches of the Divine goodnesse that as it was taught to no religion but the Christian revealed by no law-giver but Christ so it was a favour greater then ever God gave to the Angels and Devils for although God was rich in the effusion of his goodnesse towards them yet they were not admitted to the condition of second thoughts Christ never shed one drop of blood for them his goodnesse did not lead them to repentance but to us it was that he made this largesse of his goodnesse to us to whom he made himself a brother and sucked the paps of our mother he paid the scores of our sin and shame and death onely that we might be admitted to repent and that this repentance might be effectuall to the great purposes of felicity and salvation And if we would consider this sadly it might make us better to understand our madnesse and folly in refusing to
very purpose of his mercy is to the contrary and the very manner of his Oeconomy and dispensation is such that Gods mercy goes along in complection and conjunction with his judgements the riches of his forbearance is this that he forbears to throw us into hell and sends the mercies of his rod to chide us unto repentance and the mercies of his rod to punish us for having sinned and that when we have sinned we may never think our selves secured nor ever be reconciled to such dangers and deadly poisons This this is the manner of the divine mercy Go now fond man and because God is merciful presume to sin as heaving grounds to hope that thou mayest sin and be safe all the way If this hope shall I call it or sordid flattery could be reasonable then the mercies of God would not leade us to repentance so unworthy are we in the sense and largenesse of a wide fortune and pleasant accident For impunity was never a good argument to make men to obey laws quotusquisque reperitur qui impunitate proposita abstinere possit injurijs Impunitas est maxima peccandi illecebra said Cicero and therefore the wisdom of God hath so ordered the actions of the world that the most fruitful showres shall be wrapped up in a cover of black clouds that health shall be conveyed by bitter and ill tasted drugs that the temples of our bodies shall be purged by whips and that the cords of the whip shall be the cords of love to draw us from the intanglings of vanity and folly This is the long suffering of God the last remedy to our diseased souls and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Phalaris unlesse we be senselesse we shall be brought to sober courses by all those sad accidents and wholsome but ill tasting mercies which we feele in all the course and the succession of the divine long sufferance The use of all the premises is that which Saint Paul expresses in the text that we do not despise all this and he onely despises not who serves the ends of God in all these designes of mercy that is he that repents him of his sins But there are a great many despisers all they that live in their sins they that have more blessings then they can reckon houres in their lives that are courted by the divine favour and woed to salvation as if mankinde were to give not to receive so great a blessing all they that answer not to so friendly summons they are despisers of Gods mercies and although God overflows with mercies and does not often leave us to the onely hopes of being cured by unctions and gentle cataplasmes but proceeds further and gives us stibium or prepared steele sharp arrows of his anger and the sword and the hand of sicknesse yet we are not sure of so much favour as to be entertained longer in Gods hospital but may be thrust forth among the incurabili Plutarch reports concerning swine that then optick nervs are so disposed to turne their eyes downwards that they cannot look upwards nor behold the face of heaven unlesse they be thrown upon their backs such Swine are we we seldom can look up to heaven til God by his judgements throws us upon our backs till he humbles us softens us with showers of our own blood and tears of sorrow and yet God hath not promised that he will do so much for us but for ought we know as soon as ever the devil enters into our swinish and brutish hearts we shall run down the hill and perish in the floods and seas of intolerable miserie And therefore besides that it is a huge folly in us that we wil not be cured with pleasant medicines but must be longing for colliquintida and for vomits for knives and poniards instead of the gentle shoures of the divine refreshments besides that this is an imprudence and sottishnesse we do infinitely put it to the venture whether we shall be in a saveable condition or no after the rejection of the first state of mercies But however then begins the first step of the judgement and pungent misery we are perishing people or if not yet at the last not to be cured without the abscision of a member without the cutting of a hand or leg or the putting out of an eye we must be cut to take the stone out of our hearts and that is a state of a very great infelicity and if we scape the stone we cannot escape the surgeons knife if we scape death yet we have a sicknesse and though that be a great mercy in respect of death yet it is as great a misery in respect of health and that is the first punishment for the despite done to the first and most sensible mercies we are fallen into a sicknesse that cannot be cured but by disease and hardship But if this despite runs further and when the mercies look on us with an angry countenance and that God gives us onely the mercy of a punishment if we despise this too we increase but our misery as we increase our sin the summe of which is this that if Pharaoh will not be cured by one plague he shall have ten and if ten will not do it the great and tenth wave which is far bigger then all the rest the severest and the last arrow of the quiver then we shall perish in the red sea the sea of flames and blood in which the ungodly shall roule eternally But some of these despisers are such as are unmooved when God smites others like Gallio when the Jews took Softhenes and beat him in the pleading place he cared for none of these things he was not concerned in that interest and many Gallio's there are amongst us that understand it not to be a part of the divine method of Gods longsufferance to strike others to make us afraid But however we sleep in the midst of such alarums yet know that there is not one death in all the neighbour-hood but is intended to thee every crowing of the cock is to awake thee to repentance and if thou sleepest still the next turn may be thine God will send his Angel as he did to Peter and smite thee on thy side and wake thee from thy dead sleep of sin and sottishnesse But beyond this some are despisers still and hope to drown the noises of mount Sinai the sound of Canons of thunders and lightnings with a counternoise of revelling and clamorous roarings with merry meetings like the sacrifices to Moloch they sound drums and trumpets that they might not hear the sad shrikings of their children as they were dying in the cavety of the brazen idoll and when their conscience shrikes out or murmurs in a sad melancholy or something that is dear to them is smitten they attempt to drown it in a sea of drink in the heathenish noises of idle and drunken company and that which God sends to lead them to repentance leads them
to a taverne not to refresh their needs of nature or for ends of a tolerable civility or innocent purposes but like the condemned persons among the Levantines they tasted wine freely that they might die and be insensible I could easily reprove such persons with an old Greek proverb mentioned by Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You shall ill be cured of the knotted Gout if you have nothing else but a wide shoe But this reproof is too gentle for so great a madnesse it is not onely an incompetent cure to apply the plaister of a sin or vanity to cure the smart of a divine judgement but it is a great increaser of the misery by swelling the cause to bigger and monstrous proportions It is just as if an impatient fool feeling the smart of his medicine shall tear his wounds open and throw away the instruments of his cure because they bring him health at the charge of a little pain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is full of stripes and troubles and decked round about with thorns he is neer to God But he that because he sits uneasily when he sits neer the King that was crowned with thorns shall remove thence or strew flowers roses and Jessamine the downe of thistles and the softest Gossamere that he may die without pain die quietly and like a lamb sink to the bottom of hell without noise this man is a fool because he accepts death if it arrest him in civil language is content to die by the sentence of an eloquent Judge and prefers a quiet passage to hell before going to heaven in a storm That Italian Gentleman was certainly a great lover of his sleep who was angry with the lizard that wak't him when a viper was creeping into his mouth when the Devil is entring into us to poison our spirits and steal our souls away while we are sleeping in the lethargy of sin God sends his sharp messages to awaken us and we call that the enemy and use arts to cure the remedy not to cure the disease There are some persons that will never be cured not because the sicknesse is incurable but because they have ill stomacks and cannot keep the medicine Iust so is his case that so despises Gods method of curing him by these instances of long-sufferance that he uses all the arts he can to be quit of his Physitian and to spill his physick and to take cordials as soon as his vomit begins to work There is no more to be said in this affair but to read the poor wretches sentence and to declare his condition As at first when he despised the first great mercies God sent him sharpnesses and sad accidents to ensober his spirits So now that he despises this mercy also the mercy of the rod God will take it away from him and then I hope all is well Miserable man that thou art this is thy undoing if God ceases to strike thee because thou wilt not mend thou art sealed up to ruine and reprobation for ever The Physitian hath giv◠thee over he hath no kindnesse for thee This was the desperate estate of Judah Ah sinfull nation a people laden with iniquity they have forsaken the Lord they have provoked the Holy One of Israel why should ye be stricken any more This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most bitter curse the greatest excommunication when the delinquent is become a heathen and a publicane without the covenant out of the pale of the Church the Church hath nothing to do with them for what have I to do with them that are without said Saint Paul It was not lawfull for the Church any more to punish them and this court Christian is an imitation and paralell of the justice of the court of heaven When a sinner is not mended by judgements at long running God cuts him off from his inheritance and the lot of sons he will chastise him no more but let him take his course and spend his portion of prosperity such as shall be allowed him in the great Oeconomy of the world Thus God did to his Vineyard which he took such pains to fence to plant to manure to dig to cut and to prune and when after all it brought forth wilde grapes the last and worst of Gods anger was this Auferam sepem ejus God had fenced it with a hedge of thorns and God would take away all that hedge he would not leave a thorn standing not one judgement to reprove or admonish them but all the wilde beasts and wilder and more beastly lusts may come and devour it and trample it down in scorn And now what shall I say but those words quoted by Saint Peter in his Sermon Behold ye despisers and wonder and perish perish in your own folly by stubbornesse and ingratitude For it is a huge contradiction to the nature and designes of God God calls us we refuse to hear he invites us with fair promises we hear and consider not he gives us blessings we take them and understand not his meaning we take out the token but read not the letter then he threatens us and we regard not he strikes our neighbours and we are not concerned then he strikes us gently but we feel it not then he does like the Physitian in the Greek Epigram who being to cure a man of a Lethargy locked him into the same room with a mad-man that he by dry beating him might make him at least sensible of blows but this makes us instead of running to God to trust in unskilfull Physitians or like Saul to run to a Pythonisse we run for cure to a crime we take sanctuary in a pleasant sin just as if a man to cure his melancholy should desire to be stung with a Tarantula that at least he may die merily what is there more to be done that God hath not yet done he is forced at last to break off with a Curavimus Babylonem non est sanata we dressed and tended Babylon but she was incurable there is no help but such persons must die in their sins and lie down in eternall sorrow Sermon XIV Of Growth in Grace 2 Pet. 3. 18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ to whom be glory both now and for ever Amen WHen Christianity like the day spring from the East with a new light did not onely inlighten the world but amazed the mindes of men and entertained their curiosities and seized upon their warmer and more pregnant affections it was no wonder that whole Nations were converted at a Sermon and multitudes were instantly professed and their understandings followed their affections and their wills followed their understandings and they were convinced by miracle and overcome by grace and passionate with zeal and wisely governed by their Guides and ravished with the sanctity of the Doctrine and the holinesse of their examples And this was not onely their duty but a great
to passe from thence and as it is in the natural so it is in the spiritual nothing but the union of faith and obedience can secure our regeneration and our new birth and can bring us to see the light of heaven but there are a thousand passages of turning into darknesse and it is not enough that our bodies are exposed to so many sad infirmities and dishonourable imperfections unlesse our soul also be a subject capable of so many diseases follies irregular passions false principles accursed habits and degrees of perversnesse that the very kindes of them are reducible to a method and make up the part of a science There are variety of stages and descents to death as there are diversity of torments and of sad regions of misery in hell which is the centre and kingdom of sorrows But that we may a little refresh the sadnesses of this consideration for every one of these stages of sin God hath measured out a proportion of mercy for if sin abounds grace shall much more abound and God hath concluded all under sin not with purposes to destroy us but Ut omnium misereatur that he might have mercy upon all that light may break forth from the deepest inclosures of darknesse and mercy may rejoyce upon the recessions of justice and grace may triumph upon the ruins of sin and God may be glorified in the miracles of our conversion and the wonders of our preservation and glories of our being saved There is no state of sin but if we be persons capable according to Gods method of healing of receiving antidotes we shall finde a sheet of mercy spread over our wounds and nakednesse If our diseases be small almost necessary scarce avoidable then God does and so we are commanded to cure them and cover them with a vail of pity compassion and gentle remedies If our evils be violent inveterate gangrened and incorporated into our nature by evil customes they must be pulled from the flames of hell with censures and cauteries and punishments and sharp remedies quickly and rudely their danger is present and sudden its effect is quick and intolerable and there is no soft counsels then to be entertained they are already in the fire but they may be saved for all that so great so infinite so miraculous is Gods mercy that he will not give a sinner over though the hairs of his head be singed with the flames of hell Gods desires of having us to be saved continue even when we begin to be damned even till we will not be saved and are gone beyond Gods method and all the revelations of his kindnesse And certainly that is a bold and a mighty sinner whose iniquity is sweld beyond all the bulk and heap of Gods revealed loving kindnesse If sin hath sweld beyond grace and superabounds over it that sin is gone beyond the measures of a man such a person is removed beyond all the malice of humane nature into the evil and spite of Devils and accursed spirits there is no greater sadnesse in the world then this God hath not appointed a remedy in the vast treasures of grace for some men and some sins they have sinned like the falling Angels and having over run the ordinary evil inclinations of their nature they are without the protection of the divine mercy and the conditions of that grace which was designed to save all the world was sufficient to have saved twenty This is a condition to be avoyded with the care of God and his Angels and all the whole industry of man In order to which end my purpose now is to remonstrate to you the several states of sin and death together with those remedies which God had proportioned out to them that we may observe the evils of the least and so avoid the intolerable mischiefs of the greater even of those sins which still are within the power and possibilities of recovery lest insensibly we fall into those sins and into those circumstances of person for which Christ never died which the Holy Ghost never means to cure and which the eternal God never will pardon for there are of this kinde more then commonly men imagine whilest they amuse their spirits with gaietyes and false principles till they have run into horrible impieties from whence they are not willing to withdraw their foot and God is resolved never to snatch and force them thence I of some have compassion and these I shall reduce to four heads or orders of men and actions all which have their proper cure pro portionable to their proper state gentle remedies to the lesser irregularities of the soul. The first are those that sin without observation of their particular state either because they are uninstructed in the special cases of conscience or because they do an evil against which there is no expresse commandment It is a sad calamity that there are so many milions of men and women that are entred into a state of sicknesse and danger and yet are made to believe they are in perfect health and they do actions concerning which they never made a question whether they were just or no nor were ever taught by what names to call them For while they observe that modesty is sometimes abused by a false name and called clownishnesse want of breeding and contentednesse and temperate living is suppressed to be want of courage and noble thoughts and severity of life is called imprudent and unsociable and simplicity and hearty honesty is counted foolish and unpolitick they are easily tempted to honour prodigality and foolish dissolution of their estates with the title of liberal and noble usages timorousnesse is called caution rashnesse is called quicknesse of spirit covetousnesse is frugality amorousnesse is society and gentile peevishnesse and anger is courage flattery is humane and courteous and under these false vails vertue sliâ—s away like truth from under the hand of them that fight for her and leave vices dressed up with the same imagery and the fraud not discovered till the day of recompences when men are distingushed by their rewards But so men think they sleep freely when their spirits are loaden with a Lethargy and they call a hestick-feaver the vigour of a natural heat tell nature changes those lesse discerned states into the notorious images of death Very many men never consider whether they sin or no in 10000. of their actions every one of which is very disputable and do not think they are bound to consider these men are to be pitied and instructed they are to be called upon to use religion like a daily diet their consciences must be made tender and their Catechisme enlarged teach them and make them sensible and they are cured But the other in this place are more considerable Men sin without observation because their actions have no restraint of an expresse Commandment no letter of the law to condemn them by an expresse sentence And this happens when the crime is comprehended under
build our duty upon our own bottoms as supported with the grace of God there is no vice but may finde a Patron and no age or relation or state of life but will be an engagement to sin And we shall think it necessary to be lustfull in our youth and revengefull in our man hood and covetous in our old age and we shall perceive that every state of men and every trade and profession lives upon the vices of others or upon their miseries and therefore they will think it necessary to promote or to wish it If men were temperate Physitians would be poor and unlesse some Princes were ambitious or others injurious there would be no imployment for souldiers The Vintners retail supports the Merchants trade and it is a vice that supports the Vintners retail and if all men were wise and sober persons we should have fewer beggers and fewer rich and if our Law-givers should imitate Demades of Athens who condemned a man that lived by selling things belonging to funeralls as supposing he could not choose but wish the death of men by whose dying he got his living we should finde most men accounted criminalls because vice is so involved in the affairs of the world that it is made the support of many trades and the businesse of great multitudes of men Certainly from hence it is that iniquity does so much abound and unlesse we state our questions right and perceive the evil to be designed onely from our selves and that no such pretence shall keep off the punishment or the shame from our selves we shall fall into a state which is onely capable of compassion because it is irrecoverable and then we shall be infinitely miserable when we can onely receive an uselesse and ineffective pity Whatsoever is necessary cannot be avoided He therefore that shall say he cannot avoid his sin is out of the mercies of this Text they who are appointed Guides Physitians of souls cannot to any purpose do their offices of pity It is necessary that we serve God and do our duty and secure the interest of our souls and be as carefull to preserve our relations to God as to our friend or Prince But if it can be necessary for any man in any condition to sin it is also necessary for that man to perish Sermon XVII The severall states and degrees of Sinners WITH The manner how they are to be treated Part II. 4. THe last sort of them that sin and yet are to be treated with compassion is of them that interrupt the course of an honest life with single acts of sin stepping aside and starting like a broken bowe whose resolution stands fair and their hearts are towards God and they sojourn in religion or rather dwell there but that like evil husbands they go abroad and enter into places of dishonour and unthriftinesse Such as these all stories remember with a sad character and every narrative concerning David which would end in honour and fair report is sullied with the remembrances of Bathsheba and the Holy Ghost hath called him a man after Gods own heart save in the matter of Uriah there indeed he was a man after his own heart even then when his reason was stolne from him by passion and his religion was sullied by the beauties of a fair woman I wish we lived in an age in which the people were to be treated with concerning renouncing the single actions of sin and the seldome interruptions of piety Men are taught to say that every man sins in every action he does and this is one of the doctrines for the beleeving of which he shall be accounted a good man and upon this ground it is easie for men to allow themselves some sins when in all cases and in every action it is unavoidable I shall say nothing of the Question save that the Scripture reckons otherwise * and in the accounts of Davids life reckon but one great sin * and in Zachary and Elizabeth gave a testimony of an unblameable conversation * and Hezekiah did not make his confession when he prayed to God in his sicknesse and said he had walked uprightly before God * and therefore Saint Paul after his conversion designed and laboured hard therefore certainly with hopes to accomplish it that he might keep his conscience void of offence both towards God and towards man * and one of Christs great purposes is to present his whole Church pure and spotlesse to the throne of grace and* Saint John the Baptist offended none but Herod * and no pious Christian brought a bill of accusation against the holy Virgin Mother * certain it is that God hath given us precepts of such a holinesse and such a purity such a meeknesse and such humility as hath no pattern but Christ no precedent but the purities of God and therefore it is intended we should live with a life whose actions are not checker'd with white and black half sin and half vertue Gods sheep are not like Jacobs flock streaked and spotted it is an intire holinesse that God requires and will not endure to have a holy course interrupted by the dishonour of a base and ignoble action I do not mean that a mans life can be as pure as the Sun or the rayes of celestial Jerusalem but like the Moon in which there are spots but they are no deformity a lessening onely and an abatement of light no cloud to hinder and draw a vail before its face but sometimes it is not so serene and bright as at other times Every man hath his indiscretions and infirmities his arrests and sudden incursions his neighbourhoods and semblances of sin his little vidences to reason and peevish melancholy and humorous Phantastick discourses unaptnesses to a devout prayer his fondnesses to judge favourably in his own cases little deceptions and voluntary and involuntary cousenages ignorances and inadvertencies carelesse hours and unwatchful seasons but no good man ever commits one act of adultery no godly man wil at any time be drunk or if he be he ceases to be a godly man and is run into the confines of death and is sick at heart and may die of the sicknesse die eternally This happens more frequently in persons of an infant piety when the vertue is not corroborated by a long abode and a confirmed resolution and an usual victory and a triumphant grace and the longer we are accustomed to piety the more imfrequent will be the little breaches of folly and a returning sin But as the needle of a compasse when it is directed to its beloved star at the first addresses waves on either side and seems indifferent in his courtship of the rising or declining sun and when it seems first determined to the North stands a while trembling as if it suffered inconvenience in the first fruition of its desires and stands not still in a full enjoyment till after first a great variety of motion and then an
undisturbed posture so is the piety and so is the conversion of a man wrought by degrees and several steps of imperfection and at first our choices are wavering convinced by the grace of God and yet not perswaded and then perswaded but not resolved and then resolved but deferring to begin and then beginning but as all beginnings are in weaknesse and uncertainty and we flie out often into huge indiscretions and look back to Sodom and long to return to Egypt and when the storm is quite over we finde little bublings and unevennesses upon the face of the waters we often weaken our own purposes by the returns of sin and we do not call our selves conquerours till by the long possession of vertues it is a strange and unusual and therefore an uneasy and unpleasant thing to act a crime When Polemon of Athens by chance coming into the schools of Xenocrates was reformed upon the hearing of that one lecture some wise men gave this censure of him peregninatus est hujus animus in nequitiâ non habitavit his minde wandred in wickednesse and travelled in it but never dwelt there the same is the case of some men they make inroads into the enemies countrey not like enemies to spoil but like Dinah to be satisfied with the stranger beauties of the land till their vertues are defloured and they enter into tragedies and are possessed by death and intolerable sorrows but because this is like the fate of Jacobs daughter and happens not by designe but folly not by malice but surprise not by the strength of will but by the weaknesse of grace and yet carries a man to the same place whether a great vice usually does it is hugely pitiable and the persons are to be treated with compassion and to be assisted by the following considerations and exercises First let us consider that for a good man to be overtaken in a single crime is the greatest dishonour and unthriftinesse in the whole world As a fly in a box of ointment so is a little folly to him who is accounted wise said the Son of Sirach No man chides a fool for his weaknesses or scorns a childe for playing with flies and preferring the present appetite before all the possibilities of to morrows event But men wondered when they saw Socrates ride upon a cane and when Solomon laid his wisdom at the foot of Pharaohs daughter and changed his glory for the interest of wanton sleep he became the discourse of heaven and earth and men think themselves abused and their expectation cousened when they see a wise man do the actions of a fool and a good man seized upon by the dishonours of a crime But the losse of his reputation is the least of his evil It is the greatest improvidence in the world to let a healthful constitution be destroyed in the surfet of one night For although when a man by the grace of God and a long endeavour hath obtained the habit of Christian graces every single sin does not spoil the habit of vertue because that cannot be lost but as it was gotten that is by parts and succession yet every crime interrupts the acceptation of the grace and makes the man to enter into the state of enmity and displeasure with God The habit is onely lessened naturally but the value of it is wholly taken away and in this sence is that of Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Saint James well renders He that keeps the whole law and offends in one point is guilty of all that is if he prevaricates in any commandment the transgression of which by the law was capital shall as certainly die as if he broke the whole law and the same is the case of those single actions which the school calls deadly sins that is actions of choice in any sin that hath a name and makes a Kinde hath a distinct matter And sins once pardoned return again to al the purposes of mischief If we by a new sin forfeit Gods former loving kindnesse When the righteous man turneth from his righteousnesse and commiteth iniquity all his righteousnesse that he hath done shall not be remembred in the trespasse that he hath trespassed and in the sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die Now then consider how great a fool he is who when he hath with much labour by suffering violence contradicted his first desires when his spirit hath been in agony and care and with much uneasinesse hath denied to please the lower man when with many prayers and groans and innumerable sighs and strong cryings to God with sharp sufferances and a long severity he hath obtained of God to begin his pardon and restitution and that he is in some hopes to return to Gods favour and that he shall become an heire of heaven when some of his amazing fears and distracting cares begin to be taken off when he begins to think that now it is not certain he shall perish in a sad eternity but he hopes to be saved and he considers how excellent a condition that is he hopes when he dies to go to God and that he shall never enter into the possession of Devils and this state which is but the twilight of a glorious felicity he hath obtained with great labour and much care and infinite danger that this man should throw all this structure down and then when he is ready to reap the fruits of his labours by one indiscreet action to set fire upon his corn fields and destroy all his dearly earned hopes for the madnesse and loose wandrings of an hour This man is an indiscreet gamester who doubles his stake as he thrives and at one throw is dispossessed of all the prosperities of a luckie hand They that are poor as Plutarch observes are carelesse of little things because by saving them they think no great moments can accrue to their estates and they despairing to be rich think such frugality impertinent But they that feele their banks swell and are within the possibilities of wealth think it useful if they reserve the smaller minuts of expence knowing that every thing will adde to their heap but then after long sparing in one night to throw away the wealth of a long purchase is an imprudence becoming none but such persons who are to be kept under Tutors and Guardians and such as are to be chastised by their servants and to be punished by them whom they clothe and feed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These men sowe much and gather little stay long and return empty and after a long voyage they are dashed in pieces when their vessels are laden with the spoils of provinces Every deadly sin destroyes the rewards of a seven years piety I adde to this that God is more impatient at a sin committed by his servants then at many by persons that are his enemies and an uncivil answer from a son to a Father from an
to allay a sorrow For imagine a man great in his dominion as Cyrus rich as Solomon victorious as David beloved like Titus learned as Trismegist powerful as all the Roman greatnesse all this and the results of all this give him no more pleasure in the midst of a feaver or the tortures of the stone then if he were only lord of a little dish and a dishfull of fountain water Indeed the excellency of a holy conscience is a comfort and a magazine of joy so great that it sweetens the most bitter potion of the world and makes tortures and death not only tolerable but amiable and therefore to part with this whose excellency is so great for the world that is of so inconsiderable a worth as not to have in it recompence enough for the sorrows of a sharp disease is a bargain fit to be made by none but fools and mad men Antiochus Epiphanes Herod the great his grand child Agrippa were sad instances of this great truth to every of which it happened that the grandeur of their fortune the greatnesse of their possessions and the encrease of their estate disappeared and expired like Camphire at their arrest by those several sharp diseases which covered their head with Cypresse and hid their crowns in an inglorious grave For what can all the world minister to a sick person If it represents all the spoils of nature and the choicest delicacies of land and sea Alas his appetite is lost and to see a pibble stone is more pleasing to him For he can look upon that without loathing but not so upon the most delicious fare that ever made famous the Roman luxury Perfumes make his head ake if you load him with jewels you presse him with a burden as troublesome as his grave-stone and what pleasure is in all those possessions that cannot make his pillow easie nor tame the rebellion of a tumultuous humour not restore the use of a withered hand or straighten a crooked finger vain is the hope of that man whose soul rests upon vanity and such unprofitable possessions 5. Suppose a man lord of all this world an universal Monarch as some princes have lately designed all that cannot minister content to him not that content which a poor contemplative man by the strength of Christian Philosophy and the support of a very small fortune daily does enjoy All his power and greatnesse cannot command the sea to overflow his shores or to stay from the retiring to the opposit strand It cannot make his children dutiful or wise though the world admired at the greatness of Philip the second 's fortune in the accession of Portugal and the East Indies to his principalities yet this could not allay the infelicitie of his family and the unhandsomenesse of his condition in having a proud and indiscreet and a vitious young prince likely to inherit all his greatnesse And if nothing appears in the face of such a fortune to tell all the world that it is spotted and imperfect yet there is in all conditions of the world such wearinesse and tediousnesse of the spirits that a man is evermore pleased with hopes of going off for the present then in dwelling upon that condition which it may be others admire and think beauteous but none knoweth the smart of it but he that drank off the little pleasure and felt the ill relish of the appendage How many Kings have groaned under the burden of their crowns and have sunk down and died How many have quitted their pompous cares and retired into private lives there to enjoy the pleasures of Philosophy and religion which their thrones denied And if we consider the supposition of the Text the thing will demonstrate it self For he who can be supposed the owner and purchaser of the whole world must either be a King or a private person A private person can hardly be supposed to be the man For if he be subject to another how can he be Lord of the whole world But if he be a King it is certain that his cares are greater then any mans his fears are bigger his evils mountainous the accidents that discompose him are more frequent and sometimes intolerable and of all his great possessions he hath not the greatest use and benefit But they are like a great harvest which more labourers must bring in and more must eat of onely he is the centre of all the cares and they fix upon him but the profits run out to all the lines of the circle to all that are about him whose good is therefore greater then the good of the Prince Because what they enjoy is the purchase of the Princes care and so they feed upon his cost Privatusque magis vivam to Rege beatus Servants live the best lives for their care is single onely how to please their Lord but all the burden of a troublesome providence and ministration makes the outside pompous and more full of ceremony but they intricate the condition and disturb the quiet of the great possessor And imagine a person as blest as can be supposed upon the stock of worldly interest when all his accounts are cast up he differs nothing from his subjects or his servants but in meer circumstance nothing of reality or substance He hath more to wait at his Table or persons of higher rank to do the meanest offices more ceremonies of addresse a fairer Escutcheon louder titles But can his multitude of dishes make him have a good stomack or does not satiety cloy it when his high diet is such that he is not capable of being feasted and knows not the frequent delights and oftener possibilities a poor man hath of being refreshed while not onely his labour makes hunger and so makes his meat delicate and then it cannot be ill fare let it be what it will but also his provision is such that every little addition is a direct feast to him while the great owner of the world giving to himself the utmost of his desires hath nothing left beyond his ordinary to become the entertainment of his festival dayes but more loads of the same meat And then let him consider how much of felicity can this condition contribute to him In which he is not further gone beyond a person of a little fortune in the greatnesse of his possession then he is fallen short in the pleasures and possibility of their enjoyment And that is a sad condition when like Midas all that the man touches shall turn to gold and his is no better to whom a perpetual full table not recreated with fasting not made pleasant with intervening scarcity ministers no more good then a heap of gold does that is he hath no benefit of it save the beholding of it with his eyes Cannot a man quench his thirst as well out of an Urn or Chalice as out of a whole River It is an ambitious thirst and a pride of draught that had rather lay
opinion had been true and that accursed souls should have ease and a period to their tortures after a thousand years I pray let it be considered whether it be not a great madnesse to choose the pleasures or the wealth of a few years here with trouble with danger with uncertainty with labour with intervalls of sicknesse and for this to endure the flames of hell for a thousand yeers together The pleasures of the world no man can have for a hundred yeers and no man hath pleasure a hundred dayes together but he hath some trouble intervening or at least a wearinesse and a loathing of the pleasure and therefore to endure insufferable calamities suppose it be for a hundred yeers without any interruption without so much comfort as the light of a small candle or a drop of water amounts to in a fever is a bargain to be made by no man that loves himself or is not in love with infinite affliction If a man were condemned but to lie still or to lie a bed in one posture without turning for seven yeers together would he not buy it off with the losse of all his estate If a man were to be put upon the rack for every day three moneths together suppose him able to live so long what would he do to be quit of his torture Wouldany man curse the King to his face if he were sure to have both his hands burnt off and to be tormented with torments three yeers together Would any man in his wits accept of a hundred pound a yeer for fourty yeers if he were sure to be tormented in the fire for the next hundred yeers together without intermission Think then what a thousand yeers signifie Ten ages the age of two Empires but this account I must tell you is infinitely short though I thus discourse to you how great fools wicked men are though this opinion should be true A goodly comfort surely that for two or three yeers sottish pleasure a man shall be infinitely tormented but for a thousand yeers But then when we cast up the minutes and yeers and ages of eternity the consideration it self is a great hell to those persons who by their evil lives are consigned to such sad and miserable portions A thousand yeers is a long while to be in torment we finde a fever of 21. dayes to be like an age in length but when the duration of an intolerable misery is for ever in the height and for ever beginning and ten thousand yeers hath spent no part of its terme but it makes a perpetual efflux and is like the centre of a circle which ever transmits lines to the circumference this is a consideration so sad that the horrour of it and the reflexion upon its abode and duration make a great part of the hell for hell could not be hell without the despair of accursed souls for any hope were a refreshment and a drop of water which would help to allay those flames which as they burn intolerably so they must burn for ever And I desire you to consider that although the Scripture uses the word fire to expresse the torments of accursed souls yet fire can no more equal the pangs of hell then it can torment a material substance the pains of perishing souls being as much more afflictive then the smart of fire as the smart of fire is troublesome beyond the softnesse of Persian carpets or the sensuality of the Asian Luxury for the pains of hell and the perishing or losing of the soul is to suffer the wrath of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our God is a consuming fire that is the fire of hell when God takes away all comfort from us nothing to support our spirit is left us when sorrow is our food and tears our drink when it is eternal night without Sun or star or lamp or sleep when we burn with fire without light that is are loaden with sadnesse without remedy or hope or ease and that this wrath is to be expressed and to fall upon us in spiritual immateriall but most accursed most pungent and dolorous emanations then we feel what it is to lose a soul. We may guesse at it by the terrours of a guilty conscience those verbera laeniatus those secret lashings and whips of the exterminating Angel those thorns in the soul when a man is haunted by an evil spirit those butcheries which the soul of a Tyrant or a violent or a vitious person when he falls in to fear or any calamity does feel are the infinite arguments that Hell which is the consummation of the torment of conscience just as man-hood is the consummation of infancy or as glory is the perfection of grace is an affliction greater then the bulk of heaven and earth for there it is that God powrs out the treasures of his wrath and empties the whole magazin of thunder bolts and all the armory of God is imployed not in the chastising but in the tormenting of a perishing soul. Lucian brings in Radamanthus telling the poor wandring souls upon the banks of Elysium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for every wickednesse that any man commits in his life when he comes to hell he hath stamped upon his soul an invisible brand and mark of torment and this begins here and is not cancelled by death but there is enlarged by the greatnesse of infinite and the aboads of eternity How great these tormens of conscience are here let any man imagine that can but understand what despair means despair upon just reason let it be what it will no misery can be greater then despaire and because I hope none here have felt those horrors of an evil conscience which are consignations to eternity you may please to learn it by your own reason or els by the sad instances of story It is reported of Petrus Ilosuanus A Polonian School-master that having read some ill managed discourses of absolute decrees and divine reprobation began to be Phantastick and melancholy and apprehensive that he might be one of those many whom God had decreed for hell from all eternity from possible to probable from probable to certain the temptation soon carried him and when he once began to believe himself to be a person inevitably perishing it is not possible to understand perfectly what infinite fears and agonies and despairs what tremblings what horrors what confusion and amazement the poor man felt within him to consider that he was to be tormented extremely without remedy even to eternal ages This in a short continuance grew insufferable and prevailed upon him so far that he hanged himself and left this account of it or to this purpose in writing in his study I am gone from hence to the flames of hell have forced my way thither being impatient to try what those great torments are which here I have heard with an insupportable amazement this instance may suffice to show what it is to lose a soul. But I will take
minuts in that pain of posture and to abide the stroke of his pursuing enemies His condition was sad when his arts of remedy were so vain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soph. A condemned man hath but small comfort to stay the singing of a long psalm it is the case of every vitious person Hell is wide open to every impenitent persevering sinner to every unpurged person Noctes atque dies patet atri Janua Ditis And although God hath lighted his candle and the lantern of his word and clearest revelations is held out to us that we can see hell in its worst colours and most horrid representments yet we run greedily after bables into that praecipice which swallows up the greatest part of man kinde and then onely we begin to consider when all consideration is fruitlesse He therefore is a huge fool that heaps up riches that greedily pursues the world and at the same time for so it must be heaps of wrath to himself against the day of wrath when sicknesse death arrests him then they appear unprofitable himself extreamly miserable if you would know how great that misery is you may take account of it by those fearful words and killing Rhetorick of Scripture It is a fearful things to fall into the hands of the living God and who can dwell with the everlasting burning That is No patience can abide there one houre where they must dwell for ever Sermon XX. OF CHRISTIAN PRVDENCE Matthew 10. latter part of Ver. 16. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmlesse as doves WHen our B. Saviour entailed a law a condition of sufferings promised a state of persecution to his servants and withall had charmed them with the bands unactive chains of so many passive graces that they should not be able to stir against the violence of Tyrants or abate the edge of axes by any instrument but their own blood being sent forth as sheep among wolves innocent and silent harmlesse and defencelesse certainly exposed to sorrow and uncertainly guarded in their persons their condition seemed nothing else but a designation to slaughter and when they were drawn into the folds of the church they were betrayed into the hands of evil men infinitely and unavoidably and when an Apostle invited a proselyte to come to Christ it was in effect a snare laid for his life and he could neither conceal his religion nor hide his person nor avoid a captious question nor deny his accusation nor elude the bloody arts of Orators and informers nor break prisons nor any thing but die If the case stood just thus it was well eternity stood at the outer doors of our life ready to receive such harmlesse people but surely there could be no art in the designe no pitying of humane weaknesses no complying with the condition of man no allowances made for customs and prejudices of the world no inviting men by the things of men no turning nature into religion but it was all the way a direct violence and an open prostitution of our lives and a throwing away our fortune into a sea of rashnesse and credulity But therefore God ordered the affaires and necessities of religion in other wayes and to other purposes Although God bound our hands behinde us yet he did not tie our understandings up although we might not use our swords yet we might use our reason we were not suffered to be violent but we might avoid violence by all the arts of prudence and innocence if we did take heed of sin we might also take heed of men because in al contentions between wit and violence prudence rudenesse learning and the sword the strong hand took it first and the strong head possessed it last the strong man first governed and the witty man succeeded him and lasted longer it came to passe that the wisdom of the Father hath so ordered it that all his Disciples should overcome the power of the Roman legions by a wise religion and prudence and innocence should become the mightiest guards and the Christian although exposed to persecution yet is so secured that he shall never need to die But when the circumstances are so ordered that his reason is convinced that then it is fit he should fit I say in order to Gods purposes and his own For he that is innocent is safe against all the rods and the axes of all the Consuls of the world if they rule by justice and he that is prudent will also escape from many rudenesses and irregular violences that can come by injustice and no wit of man no government no armies can do more for Caesar perished in the midst of all his legions and all his honours and against chance and irregularities there is no provision lesse then infinite that can give security and although prudence alone cannot do this yet innocence gives the greatest title to that providence which onely can if he pleases and will if it be fitting Here then are the two armes defensive of a Christian Prudence against the evils of men Innocence against the evils of Devils and all that relates to his kingdom Prudence fences against persecution and the evil snares against the opportunities and occasions of sin it prevents surprizes it fortifies all its proper weaknesses it improves our talents it does advantage to the kingdom of Christ and the interests of the Gospel it secures our condition and instructs our choice in all the wayes and just passages to felicity it makes us to live profitably and die wisely and without it simplicity would turn to sillinesse zeal into passion passion into fury religion into scandal conversation into a snare civilities into temptation curtesies into danger and an imprudent person falls into a condition of harmelesse rich and unwary fools or rather of birds sheep and bevers who are hunted and persecuted for the spoils of their Fleece or their flesh their skins or their entrails and have not the foresight to avoid a snare but by their fear and undefending follies are driven thither where they die infallibly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every good man is incircled with many enemies and dangers and his vertue shall be rifled and the decency of his soul and spirit shall be discomposed and turned into a heap of inarticulate and disorderly fancies unlesse by the methods and guards of prudence it be mannaged and secured But in order to the following discourse and its method we are first to consider whether this be or indeed can be a commandement or what is it For can all men that give up their names in baptisme be enjoyned to be wise and prudent It is as if God would command us to be eloquent or witty men fine speakers or strait bodied or excellent schollers or rich men If he please to make us so we are so and prudence is a gift of God a blessing of an excellent nature and of great leisure and a wise opportunity and a severe education and a
necessary God would not do it But if it be worth it and all of it be necessary why should we not labour in order to this great end If it be worth so much to God it is so much more to us for if we perish his felicity is undisturbed but we are undone infinitely undone It is therefore worth taking in a spirituall guide so far we are gone But because we are in the question of prudence we must consider whether it be necessary to do so For every man thinks himself wise enough as to the conduct of his soul and managing of his eternal interest and divinity is every mans trade and the Scriptures speak our own language and the commandments are few and plain and the laws are the measure of justice and if I say my prayers and pay my debts my duty is soon summed up and thus we usually make our accounts for eternity and at this rate onely take care for heaven but let a man be questioned for a portion of his estate or have his life shaken with diseases then it will not be enough to employ one agent or to send for a good woman to minister a potion of the juices of her country garden but the ablest Lawyers and the skilfullest Physitians the advice of friends and huge caution and diligent attendances and a curious watching concerning all the accidents and little passages of our disease and truly a mans life and health is worth all that and much more and in many cases it needs it all But then is the soul the onely safe and the onely trifling thing about us Are not there a thousand dangers and ten thousand difficulties and innumerable possibilities of a misadventure Are not all the congregations in the world divided in their doctrines and all of them call their own way necessary and most of them call all the rest damnable we had need of a wise instructor and a prudent choice at our first entrance and election of our side and when we are well in the matter of Faith for its object and jnstitution all the evils of my self and all the evils of the Church and all the good that happens to evil men every day of danger the periods of sicknesse and the day of death are dayes of tempest and storm and our faith wil suffer shipwrack unlesse it be strong and supported and directed But who shall guide the vessel when a stormy passion or a violent imagination transports the man who shall awaken his reason and charm his passion into slumber instruction How shal a man make his fears confident and allay his confidence with fear and make the allay with just proportions and steere evenly between the extremes or call upon his sleeping purposes or actuate his choices or binde him to reason in all the wandrings and ignorances in his passion and mistakes For suppose the man of great skil and great learning in the wayes of religion yet if he be abused by accident or by his own will who shall then judge his cases of conscience and awaken his duty and renew his holy principle and actuate his spiritual powers For Physitians that prescribe to others do not minister to themselves in cases of danger and violent sicknesses and in matter of distemperature we shall not finde that books alone will do all the work of a spiritual Physitian more then of a natural I will not go about to increase the dangers and difficulties of the soul to represent the assistance of a spiritual man to be necessary But of this I am sure our not understanding and our not considering our soul make us first to neglect and then many times to lose it But is not every man an unequal judge in his own case and therefore the wisdom of God and the laws hath appointed tribunals and Judges and arbitrators and that men are partial in the matter of souls it is infinitely certain because amongst those milions of souls that perish not one in ten thousand but believes himself in a good condition and all sects of Christians think they are in the right and few are patient to enquire whether they be or no then adde to this that the Questions of souls being clothed with circumstances of matter and particular contingency are or may be infinite and most men are so infortunate that they have so intangled their cases of conscience that there where they have done something good it may be they have mingled half a dozen evils and when interests are confounded and governments altered and power strives with right and insensibly passes into right and duty to God would fain be reconciled with duty to our relatives will it not be more then necessary that we should have some one that we may enquire of after the way to heaven which is now made intricate by our follies and inevitable accidents But by what instrument shall men alone and in their own cases be able to discern the spirit of truth from the spirit of illusion just confidence from presumption fear from pusillanimity are not all the things and assistances in the world little enough to defend us against pleasure and pain the two great fountains of temptation is it not harder to cure a lust then to cure a feaver and are not the deceptions and follies of men and the arts of the Devil and inticements of the world the deceptions of a mans own heart and the evils of sin more evil and more numerous then the sicknesses and diseases of any one man and if a man perishes in his soul is it not infinitely more sad then if he could rise from his grave and die a thousand deaths over Thus we are advanced a second step in this prudential motive God used many arts to secure our souls interest and there is infinite dangers and infinite wayes of miscarriage in the souls interest and therefore there is great necessity God should do all those mercies of security and that we should do all the under-ministeries we can in this great work But what advantage shall we receive by a spiritual Guide much every way For this is the way that God hath appointed who in every age hath sent a succession of spiritual persons whose office is to minister in holy things and to be stewards of Gods houshold shepherds of the stock dispensers of the mysteries under mediators and ministers of prayer preachers of the law expounders of questions monitors of duty conveiances of blessings and that which is a good discourse in the mouth of another man is from them an ordinance of God and besides its natural efficacy and perswasion it prevails by the way of blessing by the reverence of his person by divine institution by the excellency of order by the advantages of opinion and assistances of reputation by the influence of the spirit who is the president of such ministeries and who is appointed to all Christians according to the despensation that is appointed to them to the people
need to bid men be wary as to take care that they be innocent Indeed in religion we are usually too loose and ungirt exposing our selves to temptation and others to offence and our name to dishonour and the cause it self to reproach and we are open and ready to every evil but persecution from that we are close enough and that alone we call prudence but in the matter of interest we are wary as serpents subtil as foxes vigilant as the birds of the night rapacious as Kites tenacious as grapling hooks and the weightiest anchors and above all false and hypocritical as a thin crust of ice spread upon the face of a deep smooth and dissembling pit if you set your foot your foot slips or the ice breaks and you sink into death and are wound in a sheet of water descending into mischief or your grave suffering a great fall or a sudden death by your confidence and unsuspecting foot There is an universal crust of hypocrisie that covers the face of the greatest part of mankinde Their religion consists in forms and outsides and serves reputation or a designe but does not serve God Their promises are but fair language and the civilities of the Piazzas or Exchanges and disband and unty like the air that beat upon their teeth when they spake the delicious and hopefull words Their oaths are snares to catch men and make them confident Their contracts are arts and stratagems to deceive measured by profit and possibility and every thing is lawfull that is gainfull and their friendships are trades of getting and their kindnesse of watching a dying friend is but the office of a vulture the gaping for a legacy the spoil of the carcasse and their sicknesses are many times policies of state sometimes a designe to shew the riches of our bed-chamber and their funeral tears are but the paranymphs and pious solicitors of a second Bride and every thing that is ugly must be hid and every thing that is handsome must be seen and that will make a fair cover for a huge deformity and therefore it is as they think necessary that men should alwayes have some pretences and forms some faces of religion or sweetnesse of language confident affirmatives or bold oaths protracted treaties or multitude of words affected silence or grave deportment a good name or a good cause a fair relation or a worthy calling great power or a pleasant wit any thing that can be fair or that can be usefull any thing that can do good or be thought good we use it to abuse our brother or promote our interests Leporina resolved to die being troubled for her husbands danger and he resolved to die with her that had so great a kindnesse for him as not to out-live the best of her husbands fortune It was agreed and she temperd the poyson and drank the face of the unwholesome goblet but the weighty poyson sunke to the bottome and the easie man drank it all off and died and the woman carried him forth to funeral and after a little illnesse which she soon recovered she enterd upon the inheritance and a second marriage Tuta frequensque via est This is an usual and a safe way to cozen upon colour of friendship or religion but that is hugely criminal to tell a lie to abuse a mans belief and by it to enter upon any thing of his possession or his injury is a perfect destruction of all humane society the most ignoble of all humane follies perfectly contrary to God who is Truth it self the greatest argument of a timorous and a base a cowardly and a private minde not at all honest or confident to see the Sun a vice fit for slaves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dio Chrysostomus calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the most timorous and the basest of beasts use craft and lie in wait and take their prey and save their lives by deceit and it is the greatest injury to the abused person in the world for besides that it abuses his interest it also makes him for ever insecure and uneasie in his confidence which is the period of cares the rest of a mans spirit it makes it necessary for a man to be jealous and suspicious that is to be troublesome to himself and every man else and above all lying or craftinesse and unfaithful usages robs a man of the honour of his soul making his understanding uselesse and in the condition of a fool spoiled and dishonoured and despised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Said Plato Every soul loses truth very unwillingly Every man is so great a lover of truth that if he hath it not he loves to beleeve he hath and would fain have all the world to beleeve as he does either presuming that he hath truth or else hating to be deceived or to be esteemed a cheated and an abused person Non licet suffurari mentem hominis etiam Samaritani said R. Moses sed veritatem loquere atque age ingenuè If a man be a Samaritan that is a hated person a person from whom you differ in matter of religion yet steal not his minde away but speak truth to him honestly and ingenuously A mans soul loves to dwell in truth it is his resting place and if you take him from thence you take him into strange regions a place of banishment and dishonour Qui ignotos loedit latro appellatur qui amicos paulò minus quam parricida He that hurts strangers is a thief but he that hurts his friends is little better then a parricide That 's the brand and stigma of hypocrisie and lying it hurts our friends mendacium in damnum potens and makes the man that owns it guilty of a crime that is to be punished by the sorrows usually suffered in the most execrable places of the cities But I must reduce the duty to particulars and discover the contrary vice by the several parts of its proportion 1. The first office of Christian simplicity consists in our religion and manners that they he open and honest publike and justifiable the same at home and abroad for besides the ingenuity and honesty of this there is an indispensable and infinite necessity it should be so because whoever is a hypocrite in his religion mocks God presenting to him the outside and reserving the inward for his enemy which is either a denying God to be the searcher of our hearts or else an open defiance of his omniscience and of his justice To provoke God that we may deceive men to defie his Almightinesse that we may abuse our brother is to destroy all that is Sacred all that is prudent it is an open hostility to all things humane and divine a breaking from all the bands of all relations and uses God so cheaply as if he were to be treated or could be cozened like a weak man and an undiscerning and easie merchant But so is the life of many men Vita fallax abditos sensus
harmlesse and without an evil sting 3. Christian simplicity relates to promises and acts of grace and favour and its caution is that all promises be simple ingenuous agreeable to the intention of the promiser truly and effectually expressed and never going lesse in the performance then in the promise and words of the expression concerning which the cases are several 1. First all promises in which a third or a second person hath no interest that is the promises of kindnesse and civilities are tied to passe into performance secundum aequum bonum and though they may oblige to some small inconvenience yet never to a great one and I will visit you to morrow morning because I promised you and therefore I will come etiamsi non concoxero although I have not slept my full sleep but Si febricitavero if I be in a feaver or have reason to fear one I am disobliged For the nature of such promises bears upon them no bigger burthen then can be expounded by reasonable civilities and the common expectation of kinde and the ordinary performances of just men who do excuse and are excused respectively by all rules of reason proportionably to such small entercourses and therefore although such conditions be not expressed in making promises yet to perform or rescind them by such laws is not against Christian simplicity 2. Promises in matters of justice or in matters of grace as from a superiour to an inferiour must be so singly and ingenuously expressed intended and performed accordingly that no condition is to be reserved or supposed in them to warrant their non-performance but impossibility or that which is next to it an intolerable inconvenience in which cases we have a natural liberty to commute our promises but so that we pay to the interested person a good at least equal to that which we first promised And to this purpose it may be added that it is not against Christian simplicity to expresse our promises in such words which we know the interested man will understand to other purposes then I intend so it be not lesse that I mean then that he hopes for When our Blessed Saviour told his disciples that they should sit upon twelve thrones they presently thought they had his bond for a kingdom and dreamt of wealth and honour power and a splendid court and Christ knew they did but did not disintangle his promise from the enfolded and intricate sence of which his words were naturally capable but he performed his promise to better purposes then they hoped for they were presidents in the conduct of souls Princes of Gods people the chief in sufferings stood neerest to the crosse had an elder brothers portion in the Kingdom of grace were the founders of Churches and dispensers of the mysteries of the kingdom and ministers of the spirit of God and chanels of mighty blessings under mediators in the Priesthood of their Lord and their names were written in heaven and this was infinitely better then to groan and wake under a head pressed with a golden crown and pungent cares and to eat alone and to walk in a croud and to be vexed with all the publick and many of the private evils of the people which is the sum Total of an earthly Kingdom When God promised to the obedient that they should live long in the land which he would give them he meant it of the land of Canaan but yet reserved to himself the liberty of taking them quickly from that land and carrying them to a better He that promises to lend me a staffe to walk withal and instead of that gives me a horse to carry me hath not broken his promise nor dealt deceitfully And this is Gods dealing with mankinde he promises more then we could hope for and when he hath done that he gives us more then he hath promised God hath promised to give to them that fear him all that they need food and raiment but he addes out of the treasures of his mercy variety of food and changes of raiment some to get strength and some to refresh something for them that are in health and some for the sick And though that skins of buls and stagges and foxes and bears could have drawn a vail thick enough to hide the apertures of sin and natural shame and to defend us from heat and cold yet when he addeth the fleeces of sheep and beavers and the spoiles of silk worms he hath proclaimed that although his promises are the bounds of our certain expectation yet they are not the limits of his loving kindnesse and if he does more then he hath promised no man can complain that he did otherwise and did greater things then he said thus God does but therefore so also must we imitating that example and transcribing that copy of divine truth alwayes remembring that his promises are yea and Amen And although God often goes more yet he never goes lesse and therefore we must never go from our promises unlesse we be thrust from thence by disability or let go by leave or called up higher by a greater intendment and increase of kindnesse And therefore when Solyman had sworn to Ibrahim-Bassa that he would never kill him so long as he were alive he quitted himself but ill when he sent an Eunuch to cut his throat when he slept because the Priest told him that sleep was death His act was false and deceitful as his great prophet But in this part of simplicity we Christians have a most especiall obligation for our religion being ennobled by the most and the greatest promises and our faith made confident by the veracity of our Lord and his word made certain by miracles and prophecies and voices from heaven and all the testimony of God himself and that truth it self is bound upon us by the efficacy of great endearments and so many precepts if we shall suffer the faith of a Christian to be an instrument to deceive our brother and that he must either be incredulous or deceived uncharitable or deluded like a fool we dishonour the sacrednesse of the institution and become strangers to the spirit of truth and to the eternall word of God Our Blessed Lord would not have his disciples to swear at all no not in publick Judicature if the necessities of the world would permit him to be obeyed If Christians will live according to the religion the word of a Christian were sufficient instrument to give testimony and to make promises to secure a faith and upon that supposition oathes were uselesse and therefore forbidden because there could be no necessity to invoke Gods name in promises or affirmations if men were indeed Christians and therefore in that case would be a taking it in vain but because many are not and they that are in name oftentimes are so in nothing else it became necessary that man should swear in judgment and in publick courts but consider who it was that invented and made the necessitie of
to lie in judgment is directly against the being of government the honour of Tribunals and the commandement of God and therefore by no accident can be hallowed it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle said of a lie it is a thing evil in it self that is it is evil in the whole kinde ever since it came to be forbidden by God and therefore all those instances of crafty and delusive answers which are recorded in scripture were extrajudicial and had not this load upon them to be a deceiving of authority in those things where they had right to command or inquire either were before or besides the commandment not at all against it and since the law of Moses forbad lying in judgement onely by that law we are to judge of those actions in the old testament which were committed after its publication and because in the sermons of the prophets and especially in the new testament Christ hath superadded or enlarged the law of ingenuity hearty simplicity we are to leave the old scripture precedents upon the ground of their own permissions and finish our duty by the rules of our religion which hath so restrained our words that they must alwayes be just and alwayes charitable and there is no leave given to prevaricate but to such persons where there can be no obligation persons that have no right such with whom no contract can be made such as children and fools and infirm persons whose faculties are hindred or depraved I remember that Secundus extremely commends Arria for deluding her husbands fears concerning the death of his beloved boy and wiped her eyes and came in confidently and sate by her husbands bed-side and when she could no longer forbear to weep her husbands sicknesse was excuse enough to legitimate that sorrow or else she could retire but so long she forbore to confess the boy's death til Caecinna Paetus had so far recovered that he could go forth to see the boy and need not fear with sorrow to returne to his disease It was indeed a great kindnesse and a rare prudence as their affaires and laws were ordered but we have better means to cure our sick our religion can charme the passion and enable the spirit to entertain and master a sorrow and when we have such rare supplies out of the store-houses of reason and religion we have lesse reason to use these arts and little deviees which are arguments of an infirmity as great as is the charity and therefore we are to keep our selves strictly to the foregoing measures Let every man speak the truth to his neighbour putting away lying for we are members one of another and be as harmlesse as doves saith our blessed Saviour in my text which contain the whole duty concerning the matter of truth and sincerity in both which places truth and simplicity are founded upon justice and charity and therefore wherever a lie is in any sense against justice and wrongs any thing of a man his judgement and his reason his right or his liberty it is expresly forbidden in the Christian religion what cases we can truly suppose to be besides these the law forbids not and therefore it is lawful to say that to my self which I believe not for what innocent purpose I please and to all those over whose understanding I have or ought to have right These cases are intricate enough and therefore I shall return plainly to presse the doctrine of simplicity which ought to be so sacred that a man ought to do nothing indirectly which it is not lawful to own to receive no advantage by the sin of another which I should account dishonest if the action were my own for whatsoever disputes may be concerning the lawfulnesse of pretending craftily in some rare and contingent cases yet it is on all hands condemned that my craft should do injury to my brother I remember that when some greedy and indigent people forged a will of Lucius Minutius Basilius and joyned M. Crassus and Q. Hortensius in the inheritance that their power for their own interest might secure the others share they suspecting the thing to be a forgery yet being not principals and actors in the contrivance alieni facinoris munus culum non repudiaverunt refused not to receive a present made them by anothers crime but so they entred upon a moiety of the estate and the biggest share of the dishonour we must not be crafty to anothers injury so much as by giving countenance to the wrong for Tortoises and the Estrich hatch their egges with their looks onely and some have designes which a dissembling face or an acted gesture can produce but as a man may commit adultery with his eye so with his eye also he may tell a lie and steal with one finger and do injury collaterally and yet designe it with a direct intuition upon which he looks with his face over his shoulder and by whatsoever instrument my neighbour may be abused by the same instrument I sin if I do designe it antecedently or fal upon it together with something else or rejoyce in it when it is done 7. One thing more I am to adde that it is not lawful to tell a lie in jest It was a vertue noted in Aristides and Epaminondes that they would not lie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in sport and as Christian simplicity forbids all lying in matter of interest and serious rights so there is an appendix to this precept forbidding to lie in mirth for of every idle word a man shall speak he shall give account in the day of judgment and such are the jestings which S. Paul reckons amongst things uncomly But amongst these fables apologues parables or figures of Rhetorick and any artificial instrument of instruction or innocent pleasure are not to be reckoned But he that without any end of charity or institution shal tell lies onely to become ridiculous in himself or mock another hath set some thing upon his doomsday book which must be taken off by water or by fire that is by repentance or a judgement Nothing is easier then simplicity and ingenuity it is open and ready without trouble and artificial cares fit for communities and the proper vertue of men the necessary appendage of useful speech without which language were given to men as nails and teeth to Lions for nothing but to do mischief it is a rare instrument of institution and a certain token of courage the companion of goodnesse and a noble minde the preserver of friendship the band of society the security of merchants and the blessing of trade it prevents infinite of quarrels and appeals to Judges and suffers none of the evils of Jealousie men by simplicity converse as do the Angels they do their own work and secure their proper interest and serve the publick and do glory to God But hypocrites and liars and dissemblers spread darknesse over the face of affaires and make men like the blinde to
Ocean and to span the measures of eternity I must do it by the great lines of revelation and experience and tell concerning Gods mercy as we do concerning God himself that he is that great fountain of which we all drink and the great rock of which we all eat and on which we all dwell and under whose shadow we all are refreshed Gods mercy is all this and we can onely draw great lines of it and reckon the constellations of our hemisphere instead of telling the number of the stars we onely can reckon what we feel and what we live by And though there be in every one of these lines of life enough to ingage us for ever to do God service and to give him praises yet it is certain there are very many mercies of God upon us and toward us and concerning us which we neither feel nor see nor understand as yet but yet we are blessed by them and are preserved and secured and we shall then know them when we come to give God thanks in the festivities of an eternall sabbath But that I may confine my discourse into order since the subject of it cannot I consider 1. That mercy being an emanation of the Divine goodnesse upon us and supposes us and found us miserable In this account concerning the mercies of God I must not reckon the miracles and graces of the creation or any thing of the nature of man nor tell how great an endearment God passed upon us that he made us men capable of felicity apted with rare instruments of discourse and reason passions and desires notices of sense and reflections upon that sense that we have not the deformity of a Crocodile nor the motion of a Worm nor the hunger of a Wolf nor the wildenesse of a Tigre nor the birth of Vipers nor the life of flies nor the death of serpents Our excellent bodies and usefull faculties the upright motion and the tenacious hand the fair appetites and proportioned satisfactions our speech and our perceptions our acts of life the rare invention of letters and the use of writing and speaking at distance the intervals of rest and labour either of which if they were perpetual would be intolerable the needs of nature and the provisions of providence sleep and businesse refreshments of the body and entertainment of the soul these are to be reckoned as acts of bounty rather then mercy God gave us these when he made us and before we needed mercy these were portions of our nature or provided to supply our consequent necessities but when we forfeited all Gods favour by our sins then that they were continued or restored to us became a mercy and therefore ought to be reckoned upon this new account for it was a rare mercy that we were suffered to live at all or that the Anger of God did permit to us one blessing that he did punish us so gently But when the rack is changed into an ax and the ax into an imprisonment and the imprisonment changed into an enlargement and the enlargement into an entertainment in the family and this entertainment passes on to an adoption these are steps of a mighty favour and perfect redemption from our sin and the returning back our own goods is a gift and a perfect donative sweetned by the apprehensions of the calamity from whence every lesser punishment began to free us and thus it was that God punished us and visited the sin of Adam upon his posterity He threatned we should die and so we did but not so as we deserved we waited for death and stood sentenced and are daily summoned by sicknesses and uneasinesse and every day is a new reprieve and brings a new favour certain as the revolution of the Sun upon that day and at last when we must die by the irreversible decree that death is changed into a sleep and that sleep is in the bosom of Christ and there dwels all peace and security and it shall passe forth into glories and felicities We looked for a Judge and behold a Saviour we feared an accuser and behold an Advocate we sate down in sorrow and rise in joy we leaned upon Rhubarb and Aloes and our aprons were made of the sharp leaves of Indian fig-trees and so we fed and so were clothed But the Rhubarb proved medicinal and the rough leaf of the tree brought its fruit wrapped up in its foldings and round about our dwellings was planted a hedge of thornes and bundles of thistles the Aconite and the Briony the Night-shade and the Poppy and at the root of these grew the healing Plantain which rising up into a talnesse by the friendly invitation of a heavenly influence turn'd about the tree of the crosse and cured the wounds of the thorns and the curse of the thistles and the malediction of man and the wrath of God Si sic irascitur quomodo convivatur If God be thus kinde when he is Angry what is he when he feasts us with caresses of his more tender Kindnesse All that God restored to us after the foâ—feiture of Adam grew to be a double Kindnesse for it became the expression of a bounty which knew not how to repent a graciousnesse that was not to be altered though we were and that was it which we needed That 's the first generall all the bounties of the creation became mercies to us when God continued them to us and restored them after they were forfeit 2. But as a circle begins every where and ends no where so do the mercies of God after all this huge progresse now it began anew God is good and gracious and God is ready to forgive Now that he had once more made us capable of mercies God had what he desired and what he could rejoyce in something upon which he might pour forth his mercies and by the way this I shall observe for I cannot but speak without art when I speak of that which hath no measure God made us capable of one sort of his mercies and we made our selves capable of another God is good and gracious that is desirous to give great gifts and of this God made us receptive first by giving us naturall possibilities that is by giving those gifts he made us capable of more and next by restoring us to his favour that he might not by our provocations be hindered from raining down his mercies But God is also ready to forgive and of this kinde of mercy we made our selves capable even by not deserving it Our sin made way for his grace and our infirmities called upon his pity and because we sinned we became miserable and because we were miserable we became pitiable and this opened the other treasure of his mercy that because our sin abounds his grace may superabound In this method we must confine our thoughts 1. Giving Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee 2. Forgiving Thou Lord art good
make recompence for this heap of sorrows when ever God shall send such swords of fire even the mercies of God which then will be made publick when we shall hear such afflicted people sing Inconvertendo captivitatem Sion with the voice of joy and festival eucharist among such as keep holy day and when peace shall become sweeter and dwell the longer and in the mean time it serves religion and the affliction shall try the children of God and God shall crown them and men shall grow wiser and more holy and leave their petty interstes and take sanctuary in holy living and be taught temperance by their want and patience by their suffering and charity by their persecution and shall better understand the duty of their relations and at last the secret worm that lay at the root of the plant shall be drawn forth and quite extinguished For so have I known a luxuriant Vine swell into irregular twigs and bold excrescencies and spend it self in leaves and little rings and affoord but trifling clusters to the wine-presse and a faint return to his heart which longed to be refreshed with a full vintage But when the Lord of the vine had caused the dressers to cut the wilder plant and made it bleed it grew temperate in its vain expense of uselesse leaves and knotted into fair and juicy bunches and made accounts of that losse of blood by the return of fruit So is an afflicted Province cured of its surfets and punished for its sins and bleeds for its long riot and is left ungoverned for its disobedience and chastised for its wantonnesse and when the sword hath let forth the corrupted blood and the fire hath purged the rest then it enters into the double joyes of restitution and gives God thanks for his rod and confesses the mercies of the Lord in making the smoke be changed into fire and the cloud into a perfume the sword into a staffe and his anger into mercy Had not David suffered more if he had suffered lesse and had he not been miserable unlesse he had been afflicted he understood it well when he said It is good for me that I have been afflicted He that was rival to Crassus when he stood candidate to command the Legions in the Parthians warre was much troubled that he missed the dignity but he saw himself blessed that he scaped the death and the dishonour of the overthrow by that time the sad news arrived at Rome The Gentleman at Marseilles cursed his starres that he was absent when the ship set sail to sea having long waited for a winde and missed it but he gave thanks to the providence that blest him with the crosse when he knew that the ship perished in the voyage and all the men were drowned And even those virgins and barren women in Jerusalem that longed to become glad mothers and for want of children would not be comforted yet when Titus sacked the City found the words of Jesus true Blessed is the womb that never bare and the paps that never gave suck And the world being governed with a rare variety and changes of accidents and providence that which is a misfortune in the particular in the whole order of things becomes a blessing bigger then we hoped for then when we were angry with God for hindring us to perish in pleasant waves or when he was contriving to pour upon thy head a mighty blessing Do not think the Judge condemns you when he chides you nor think to read thy own finall sentence by the first half of his words Stand still and see how it will be in the whole event of things let God speak his minde out for it may be this sad beginning is but an art to bring in or to make thee to esteem and entertain and understand the blessing They that love to talk of the mercies of the Lord and to recount his good things cannot but have observed that God delights to be called by such Appellatives which relate to miserable and afflicted persons He is the Father of the fatherlesse and an avenger of the widowes cause he standeth at the right hand of the poor to save his soul from unrighteous Judges and he is with us in tribulation And upon this ground let us account whether mercy be not the greater ingredient in that death and deprivation when I lose a man and get God to be my Father and when my weak arm of flesh is cut from my shoulder and God makes me to lean upon him and becomes my Patron and my Guide my Advocate and Defender and if in our greatest misery Gods mercy is so conspicuous what can we suppose him to be in the endearment of his loving Kindnesse If his vail be so transparent well may we know that upon his face dwels glory and from his eyes light and perpetuall comforts run in channels larger then the returns of the Sea when it is driven and forced faster into its naturall course by the violence of a tempest from the North. The summe is this God intends every accident should minister to vertue and every vertue is the mother and the nurse of joy and both of them daughters of the Divine goodnesse and therefore if our sorrows do not passe into comforts it is besides Gods intention it is because we will not comply with the act of that mercy which would save us by all means and all varieties by health and by sicknesse by the life and by the death of our dearest friends by what we choose and by what we fear that as Gods providence rules over all chances of things and all designes of men so his mercy may rule over all his providence Sermon XXVI The Miracles of the Divine Mercy Part II. 7. GOD having by these means secured us from the evils of nature and contingencies he represents himself to be our Father which is the great endearment and tye and expression of a naturall unalterable and essentiall kindnesse he next makes provisions for us to supply all those necessities which himself hath made For even to make necessities was a great circumstance of the mercy and all the relishes of wine and the savourinesse of meat the sweet and the fat the pleasure and the satisfaction the restitution of spirits and the strengthening of the heart are not owing to the liver of the vine or the kidneys of wheat to the blood of the grape or the strength of the corne but to the appetite or the necessity and therefore it is that he that sits at a full table and does not recreate his stomack with fasting and let his digestion rest and place himself in the advantages of natures intervals he loses the blessing of his daily bread and leans upon his table as a sick man upon his bed or the lion in the grasse which he cannot feed on but he that wants it and sits down when nature gives the signe rejoyces in the health of his hunger and the taste of his
But I shall instance onely in the intermediall part of this mysterious mercy Why should God cause us to be born of Christian parents and not to be circumcised by the impure hands of a Turkish Priest What distinguished me from another that my Father was severe in his discipline and carefull to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and I was not exposed to the carelesnesse of an irreligious guardian and taught to steal and lie and to make sport with my infant vices and beginnings of iniquity Who was it that discerned our persons from the lot of dying Chrysomes whose portion must be among those who never glorified God with a free obedience What had you done of good or towards it that you was not condemned to the stupid ignorance which makes the souls of most men but a little higher then beasts and who understand nothing of religion and noble principles of parables and wise sayings of old men And not onely in our cradles but in our schools and in our colledges in our friendships and in our marriages in our enmities and in all our conversation in our vertues and in our vices where all things in us were equal or else we were the inferiour there is none of us but have felt the mercies of many differencies Or it may be my brother and I were intemperate and drunk and quarelsome and he kill'd a man but God did not suffer me to do so He fell down and died with a little disorder I was a beast and yet was permitted to live and not yet to die in my sins He did a misse once and was surprized in that disadvantage I sin daily and am still invited to repentance he would fain have lived and amended I neglect the grace but am allowed the time And when God sends the Angel of his wrath to execute his anger upon a sinfull people we are encompassed with funerals and yet the Angel hath not smitten us what or who makes the difference We shall then see when in the separations of eternity we sitting in glory shall see some of the partners of our sins carried into despair and the portions of the left hand and roaring in the seats of the reprobate we shall then perceive that it is even that mercy which hath no cause but it self no measure of its emanation but our misery no natural limit but eternity no beginning but God no object but man no reason but an essential and an unalterable goodnesse no variety but our necessity and capacity no change but new instances of its own nature no ending or repentance but our absolute and obstinate refusall to entertain it II. Lastly All the mercies of God are concentred in that which is all the felicity of man and God is so great a lover of souls that he provides securities and fair conditions for them even against all our reason and hopes our expectations and weak discoursings The particulars I shall remark are these 1. Gods mercy prevails over the malice and ignorances the weaknesses and follies of men so that in the convention and assemblies of hereticks as the word is usually understood for erring and mistaken people although their doctrines are such that if men should live according to their proper and naturall consequences they would live impiously yet in every one of these there are persons so innocently and invincibly mistaken and who mean nothing but truth while in the simplicity of their heart they talk nothing but error that in the defiance and contradiction of their own doctrines they live according to its contradictory He that beleeves contrition alone with confession to a Priest is enough to expiate ten thousand sins is furnished with an excuse easie enough to quit himself from the troubles of a holy life and he that hath a great many cheap wayes of buying off his penances for a little money even for the greatest sins is taught a way not to fear the doing of an act for which he must repent since repentance is a duty so soon fo certainly and so easily performed But these are notorious doctrines in the Roman Church and yet God so loves the souls of his creatures that many men who trust to these doctrines in their discourses dare not rely upon them in their lives But while they talk as if they did not need to live strictly many of them live so strictly as if they did not beleeve so foolishly He that tels that antecedently God hath to all humane choice decreed man to heaven or to hell takes away from man all care of the way because they beleeve that he that infallibly decreed that end hath unalterably appointed the means and some men that talk thus wildly live soberly and are over-wrought in their understanding by some secret art of God that man may not perish in his ignorance but be assisted in his choice and saved by the Divine mercies And there is no sect of men but are furnished with antidotes and little excuses to cure the venom of their doctrine and therefore although the adherent and constituent poison is notorious and therefore to be declined yet because it is collaterally cured and over-poured by the torrent and wisdom of Gods mercies the men are to be taken into the Quire that we may all joyn in giving of God praise for the operation of his hands 2. I said formerly that there are many secret and undiscerned mercies by which men live and of which men can give no account till they come to give God thanks at their publication and of this sort is that mercy which God reserves for the souls of many millions of men and women concerning whom we have no hopes if we account concerning them by the usuall proportions of revelation and Christian commandements and yet we are taught to hope some strange good things concerning them by the analogy and generall rules of the Divine mercy For what shall become of ignorant Christians people that live in wildnesses and places more desert then a primitive hermitage people that are baptized and taught to go to Church it may be once a yeer people that can get no more knowledge they know not where to have it nor how to desire it and yet that an eternity of pains shall be consequent to such an ignorance is unlike the mercy of God and yet that they should be in any dispositions towards an eternity of intellectuall joyes is no where set down in the leaves of revelation and when the Jews grew rebellious or a silly woman of the daughters of Abraham was tempted and sinned and punished with death we usually talk as if that death passed on to a worse but yet we may arrest our thoughts upon the Divine mercies and consider that it is reasonable to expect from the Divine goodnesse that no greater forfeiture be taken upon a law then was expressed in its sanction and publication He that makes a law and bindes it with the penalty of stripes we
own entertainment it gives us precepts and makes us able to keep them it enables our faculties and excites our desires it provokes us to pray and sanctifies our heart in prayer and makes our prayer go forth to act and the act does make the desire valid and the desire does make the act certain and persevering and both of them are the works of God for more is received into the soul from without the soul then does proceed from within the soul It is more for the soul to be moved and disposed then to work when that is done as the passage from death to life is greater then from life to action especially since the action is owing to that cause that put in the first principle of life These are the great degrees of Gods forwardnesse and readinesse to forgive for the expression of which no language is sufficient but Gods own words describing mercy in all those dimensions which can signifie to us its greatnesse and infinity His mercy is great his mercies are many his mercy reacheth unto the heavens it fils heaven and earth it is above all his works it endureth for ever God pitieth as a Father doth his children nay he is our Father and the same also is the Father of mercy and the God of all comfort So that mercy and we have the same relation and well it may be so for we live and die together for as to man onely God shews the mercy of forgivenesse so if God takes away his mercy man shall be no more no more capable of felicity or of any thing that is perfective of his condition or his person But as God preserves man by his mercy so his mercy hath all its operations upon man and returns to its own centre and incircumscription and infinity unlesse it issues forth upon us And therefore besides the former great lines of the mercy of forgivenesse there is another chain which but to produce and tell its links is to open a cabinet of Jewels where every stone is as bright as a star and every star is great as the Sun and shines for ever unlesse we shut our eyes or draw the vail of obstinate and finall sins 1. God is long-suffering that is long before he be angry and yet God is provoked every day by the obstinacy of the Jews and the folly of the Heathens and the rudenesse and infidelity of the Mahumetans and the negligence and vices of Christians and he that can behold no impurity is received in all places with perfumes of mushromes and garments spotted with the flesh and stained souls and the actions and issues of misbelief and an evil conscience and with accursed sins that he hates upon pretence of religion which he loves and he is made a party against himself by our voluntary mistakes and men continue ten yeers and 20. and 30. and 50. in a course of sinning and they grow old with the vices of their youth and yet God forbears to kill them and to consigne them over to an eternity of horrid pains still expecting that they should repent and be saved 2. Besides this long-sufferance and for-bearing with an unwearied patience God also excuses a sinner oftentimes and takes a little thing for an excuse so far as to move him to intermediall favours first and from thence to a finall pardon He passes by the sins of our youth with a huge easinesse to pardon if he be intreated and reconciled by the effective repentance of a vigorous manhood he takes ignorance for an excuse and in every degree of its being inevitable or innocent in its proper cause it is also inculpable and innocent in its proper effects though in their own natures criminal But I found mercy of the Lord because I did it in ignorance saith S. Paul he pities our infirmities and strikes off much of the account upon that stock the violence of a temptation and restlesnesse of its motion the perpetuity of its sollicitation the wearinesse of a mans spirit the state of sicknesse the necessity of secular affairs the publike customs of a people have all of them a power of pleading and prevailing towards some degrees of pardon and diminution before the throne of God 3. When God perceives himself forced to strike yet then he takes off his hand and repents him of the evil It is as if it were against him that any of his creatures should fall under the strokes of an exterminating fury 4. When he is forced to proceed he yet makes an end before he hath half done and is as glad of a pretence to pardon us or to strike lesse as if he himself had the deliverance and not we When Ahab had but humbled himself at the word of the Lord God was glad of it and went with the message to the Prophet himself saying Seest thou not how Ahab humbles himself What was the event of it I will not bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes the evil shall come upon his house 5 God forgets our sin and puts it out of his remembrance that is he makes it as though it had never been he makes penitence to be as pure as innocence to all the effects of pardon and glory the memory of the sins shall not be upon record to be used to any after act of disadvantage and never shall return unlesse we force them out of their secret places by ingratitude and a new state of sinning 6. God sometimes gives pardon beyond all his revelations and declared will and provides suppletories of repentance even then when he cuts a man off from the time of repentance accepting a temporal death instead of an eternal that although the Divine anger might interrupt the growing of the fruits yet in some cases and to some persons the death and the very cutting off shall go no further but be instead of explicite and long repentances Thus it happened to Uzzah who was smitten for his zeal and died in severity for prevaricating the letter by earnestnesse of spirit to serve the whole religion Thus it was also in the case of the Corinthians that died a temporal death for their undecent circumstances in receiving the holy Sacrament Saint Paul who used it for an argument to threaten them into reverence went no further nor pressed the argument to a sadder issue then to die temporally But these suppletories are but seldom and they are also great troubles and ever without comfort and dispensed irregularly and that not in the case of habituall sins that we know of or very great sins but in single actions or instances of a lesse malignity and they are not to be relied upon because there is no rule concerning them but when they do happen they magnifie the infinitenesse of Gods mercy which is commensurate to all our needs and is not to be circumscribed by the limits of his own revelations 7. God pardons the greatest sinners and hath left them upon record
and there is no instance in Scripture of the Divine forgivenesse but in such instances the misery of which was a fit instrument to speak aloud the glories of Gods mercies and gentlenesse and readinesse to forgive Such were S. Paul a persecutor and S. Peter that forswore his Master Mary Magdalene with seven Devils the thief upon the crosse Manasses an Idolater David a murderer and adulterer the Corinthian for incest the children of Israel for ten times rebelling against the Lord in the wildernesse with murmuring and infidelity and rebellion and schisme and a golden calf and open disobedience and above all I shall instance in the Pharisees among the Jews who had sinned against the Holy Ghost as our Blessed Saviour intimates and tels the particular viz. in saying that the Spirit of God by which Christ did work was an evil spirit and afterward they crucified Christ so that two of the Persons of the most Holy Trinity were openly and solemnly defied and God had sent out a decree that they should be cut off yet 40. yeers time after all this was left for their repentance and they were called upon by arguments more perswasive and more excellent in that 40. yeers then all the Nation had heard from their Prophets even from Samuel to Zecharias And Jonas thought he had reason on his side to refuse to go to threaten Nineveh he knew Gods tendernesse in destroying his creatures and he should be thought to be but a false Prophet and so it came to passe according to his belief Jonah prayed unto the Lord and said I pray thee Lord was not this my saying when I was yet in my countrey therefore I fled for I knew thou wert a gracious God and mercifull slow to anger and of great kindnesse and repentest thee of the evil He told before hand what the event would be and he had reason to know it God proclaimed it in a cloud before the face of all Israel and made it to be his Name Miserator misericors Deus The Lord the Lord God mercifull and gracious c. You see the largenesse of this treasure but we can see no end for we have not yet looked upon the rare arts of conversion nor that God leaves the naturall habit of vertues even after the acceptation is interrupted nor his working extraregular miracles besides the sufficiencie of Moses and the Prophets and the New Testament and thousands more which we cannot consider now But this we can when God sent an Angel to pour plagues upon the earth there were in their hands Phialae aureae golden phials for the death of men is precious and costly and it is an expence that God delights not in but they were Phials that is such vessels as out of them no great evil could come at once but it comes out with difficulty sobbing and troubled as it passes forth it comes thorow a narrow neck and the parts of it croud at the port to get forth and are stifled by each others neighbourhood and all strive to get out but few can passe as if God did nothing but threaten and draw his judgements to the mouth of the Phial with a full body and there made it stop it self The result of this consideration is that as we fear the Divine judgements so that we adore and love his goodnesse and let the golden chains of the Divine mercy tie us to a noble prosecution of our duty and the interests of religion For he is the worst of men whom Kindnesse cannot soften nor endearments oblige whom gratitude cannot tie faster then the bands of life and death He is an ill natur'd sinner if he will not comply with the sweetnesses of heaven and be civill to his Angel guardian or observant of his Patron God who made him and feeds him and keeps all his faculties and takes care of him and endures his follies and waits on him more tenderly then a Nurse more diligently then a Client who hath greater care of him then his father and whose bowels yern over him with more compassion then a mother who is bountifull beyond our needs and mercifull beyond our hopes and makes capacities in us to receive more Fear is stronger then death and Love is more prevalent then Fear and kindnesse is the greatest endearment of Love and yet to an ingenuous person gratitude is greater then all these and obliges to a solemn duty when love fails and fear is dull and unactive and death it self is despised but the man who is hardened against kindnesse and whose duty is not made alive with gratitude must be used like a slave and driven like an ox and inticed with goads and whips but must never enter into the inheritance of sons Let us take heed for Mercy is like a rainbowe which God set in the clouds to remember mankinde it shines here as long as it is not hindered but we must never look for it after it is night and it shines not in the other world if we refuse mercy here we shall have justice to eternity Sermon XXVIII A FVNERAL SERMON Preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honorable and most vertuous Lady The Lady FRANCES Countesse of CARBERY Who deceased October the 9th 1650. at her House Golden-Grove in CARMARTHEN-SHIRE To the right Honorable and truly Noble RICHARD Lord VAVGHAN Earl of Carbery Baron of Emlim and Molinger Knight of the Honorable Order of the Bath My Lord I Am not ashamed to professe that I pay this part of service to your Lordship most unwillingly for it is a sad office to be the chief Minister in the house of mourning and to present an interested person with a branch of Cypresse and a bottle of tears And indeed my Lord it were more proportionable to your needs to bring something that might alleviate your sorrow then to dresse the hearse of your Dear Lady and to furnish it with such circumstances that it may dwell with you and lie in your closet and make your prayers and your retirements more sad and full of weepings But because the Divine providence hath taken from you a person so excellent a woman fit to converse with Angels and Apostles with Saints and Martyrs give me leave to present you with her picture drawn in little and in water-colours sullied indeed with tears and the abrupt accents of a real and consonant sorrow but drawn with a faithful hand and taken from the life and indeed it were too great a losse to be deprived of her example and of her rule of the original and the copy too The age is very evil and deserved her not but because it is so evil it hath the more need to have such lives preserved in memory to instruct our piety or upbraid our wickednesse For now that God hath cut this tree of Paradise down from its seat of earth yet so the dead trunk may support a part of the declining Temple or at least serve to kindle the fire on the altar My
is There is a yet in the Text For all this yet doth God devise means that his banished be not expelled from him All this sorrow and trouble is but a phantasme and receives its account and degrees from our present conceptions and the proportion to our relishes and gust When Pompey saw the Ghost of his first Lady Julia who vexed his rest and his conscience for superinducing Cornelia upon her bed within the ten moneths of mourning he presently fancied it either to be an illusion or else that death could be no very great evil Aut nihil est sensus animis in morte relictum Aut morsipsa nihil Either my dead wife knows not of my unhandsome marriage and forgetfulnesse of her or if she does then the dead live longae canitis si cognita vitae Mors media est Death is nothing but the middle point between two lives between this and another concerning which comfortable mystery the holy Scripture instructs our faith and entertains our hope in these words God is still the God of Abraham Isaak and Jacob for all do live to him and the souls of Saints are with Christ I desire to be dissolved saith S. Paul and to be with Christ for that is much better and Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord they rest from their labours and their works follow them For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternall in the heavens and this state of separation S. Paul calls a being absent from the body and being present with the Lord This is one of Gods means which he hath devised that although our Dead are like persons banished from this world yet they are not expelled from God They are in the hands of Christ they are in his presence they are or shall be clothed with a house of Gods making they rest from all their labours all tears are wiped from their eyes and all discontents from their spirits and in the state of separation before the soul be reinvested with her new house the spirits of al persons are with God so secured and so blessed and so sealed up for glory that this state of interval and imperfection is in respect of its certain event and end infinitely more desirable then all the riches and all the pleasures and all the vanities and all the Kingdoms of this world I will not venture to determine what are the circumstances of the aboad of Holy Souls in their separate dwellings and yet possibly that might be easier then to tell what or how the soul is and works in this world where it is in the body tanquam in alienâ domo as in a prison in fetters and restraints for here the soal is discomposed and hindered it is not as it shall be as it ought to be as it was intended to be it is not permitted to its own freedom and proper operation so that all that we can understand of it here is that it is so incommodated with a troubled and abated instrument that the object we are to consider cannot be offered to us in a right line in just and equal propositions or if it could yet because we are to understand the soul by the soul it becomes not onely a troubled and abused object but a crooked instrument and we here can consider it just as a weak eye can behold a staffe thrust into the waters of a troubled river the very water makes a refraction and the storm doubles the refraction and the water of the eye doubles the species and there is nothing right in the thing the object is out of its just place and the medium is troubled and the organ is impotent At cum exierit in liberum coelum quasi in domum suam venerit when the soul is entred into her own house into the free regions of the rest and the neighbourhood of heavenly joyes then its operations are more spiritual proper and proportioned to its being and though we cannot see at such a distance yet the object is more fitted if we had a capable understanding it is in it self in a more excellent and free condition Certain it is that the body does hinder many actions of the soul it is an imperfect body and a diseased brain or a violent passion that makes fools no man hath a foolish soul and the reasonings of men have infinite difference and degrees by reason of the bodies constitution Among beasts which have no reason there is a greater likenesse then between men who have as by faces it is easier to know a man from a man then a sparrow from a sparrow or a squirrel from a squirrel so the difference is very great in our souls which difference because it is not originally in the soul and indeed cannot be in simple and spiritual substances of the same species or kind it must needs drive wholly from the body from its accidents and circumstances from whence it follows that because the body casts fetters and restraints hindrances and impediments upon the soul that the soul is much freer in the state of separation and if it hath any any act of life it is much more noble and expedite That the soul is alive after our death S. Paul affirms Christ died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him Now it were strange that we should be alive and live with Christ and yet do no act of life the body when it is asleep does many and if the soul does none the principle is lesse active then the instrument but if it does any act at all in separation it must necessarily be an act or effect of understanding there is nothing else it can do But this it can For it is but a weak and an unlearned proposition to say That the Soul can do nothing of it self nothing without the phantasmes and provisions of the body For 1. In this life the soul hath one principle clearly separate abstracted immaterial I mean the Spirit of grace which is a principle of life and action and in many instances does not all at communicate with matter as in the infusion superinduction and the creation of spiritual graces 2. As nutrition generation eating and drinking are actions proper to the body and its state so extasies visions raptures intuitive knowledge and consideration of its self acts of volition and reflex acts of understanding are proper to the soul. 3. And therefore it is observable that S. Paul said that he knew not whether his visions and raptures were in or out of the body for by that we see his judgement of the thing that one was as likely as the other neither of them impossible or unreasonable and therefore that the soul is as capable of action alone as in conjunction 4. If in the state of blessednesse there are some actions of the soul which doe not passe through
making a noise upon its unequall and neighbour bottom and after all its talking and bragged motion it payed to its common Audit no more then the revenues of a little cloud or a contemptible vessel So have I sometimes compar'd the issues of her religion to the solemnities and fam'd outsides of anothers piety It dwelt upon her spirit and was incorporated with the periodicall work of every day she did not beleeve that religion was intended to minister to fame and reputation but to pardon of sins to the pleasure of God and the salvation of souls For religion is like the breath of Heaven if it goes abroad into the open air it scatters and dissolves like camphyre but if it enters into a secret hollownesse into a close conveyance it is strong and mighty and comes forth with vigour and great effect at the other end at the other side of this life in the dayes of death and judgement 2. The other appendage of her religion which also was a great ornament to all the parts of her life was a rare modesty and humility of spirit a confident despising and undervaluing of her self For though she had the greatest judgement and the greatest experience of things and persons that I ever yet knew in a person of her youth and sex and circumstances yet as if she knew nothing of it she had the meanest opinion of her self and like a fair taper when she shined to all the room yet round about her own station she had cast a shadow and a cloud and she shined to every body but her self But the perfectnesse of her prudence and excellent parts could not be hid and all her humility and arts of concealment made the vertues more amiable and illustrious For as pride sullies the beauty of the fairest vertues and makes our understanding but like the craft and learning of a Devil so humility is the greatest eminency and art of publication in the whole world and she in all her arts of secrecy and hiding her worthy things was but like one that hideth the winde and covers the oyntment of her right hand I know not by what instrument it hapned but when death drew neer befor it made any shew upon her body or revealed it self by a naturall signification it was conveyed to her spirit she had a strange secret perswasion that the bringing this Childe should be her last scene of life and we have known that the soul when she is about to disrobe her self of her upper garment sometimes speaks rarely Magnifica verba mors propè admota excutit sometimes it is prophetical sometimes God by a superinduced perswasion wrought by instruments or accidents of his own serves the ends of his own providence and the salvation of the soul But so it was that the thought of death dwelt long with her and grew from the first steps of faney and fear to a consent from thence to a strange credulity and expectation of it and without the violence of sicknesse she died as if she had done it voluntarily and by designe and for fear her expectation should have been deceived or that she should seem to have had an unreasonable fear or apprehension or rather as one said of Cato sic abiit è vitâ ut causam moriendi nactam se esse gauderet she died as if she had been glad of the opportunity And in this I cannot but adore the providence and admire the wisdom and infinite mercies of God For having a tender and soft a delicate and fine constitution and breeding she was tender to pain and apprehensive of it as a childs shoulder is of a load and burden Grave est tenerae cérvici jugum and in her often discourses of death which she would renew willingly and frequently she would tell that she feared not death but she feared the sharp pains of death Emori nolo me esse mortuam non curo The being dead and being freed from the troubles and dangers of this world she hoped would be for her advantage and therefore that was no part of her fear But she believing the pangs of death were great and the use and aids of reason little had reason to fear left they should do violence to her spirit and the decency of her resolution But God that knew her fears and her jealousie concerning her self fitted her with a death so easie so harmlesse so painlesse that it did not put her patience to a severe trial It was not in all appearance of so much trouble as two fits of a common ague so carefull was God to remonstrate to all that stood in that sad attendance that this soul was dear to him and that since she had done so much of her duty towards it he that began would also finish her redemption by an act of a rare providence and a singular mercy Blessed be that goodnesse of God who does so careful actions of mercy for the ease and security of his servants But this one instance was a great demonstration that the apprchension of death is worse then the pains of death and that God loves to reprove the unreasonablenesse of our fears by the mightiness and by the arts of his mercy She had in her sickness if I may so cal it or rather in the solemnities and graver preparations towards death some curious and well-becoming fears concerning the final state of her soul. But from thence she passed into a deliquium or a kinde of trance and as soon as she came forth of it as if it had been a vision or that she had conversed with an Angel and from his hand had received a label or scroll of the book of life and there seen her name enrolled she cried out aloud Glory be to God on high Now I am sure I shall be saved Concerning which manner of discoursing we are wholy ignorant what judgement can be made but certainly there are strange things in the other world and so there are in all the immediate preparation to it and a little glimps of heaven a minutes conversing with an Angel any ray of God any communication extraordinary from the spirit of comfort which God gives to his servants in strange and unknown manners are infinitely far from illusions and they shall then be understood by us when we feel them and when our new and strange needs shall be refreshed by such unusual visitations But I must be forced to use summaries and arts of abbreviature in the enumerating those things in which this rare Personage was dear to God and to all her Relatives If we consider her Person she was in the flower of her age Jucundum cum aetas florida ver ageret of a temperate plain and natural diet without curiosity or an intemperate palate she spent lesse time in dressing then many servants her recreations were little and seldom her prayers often her reading much she was of a most noble and charitable soul a great lover of honourable actions and as great a
way of naturall or proper operation it is not vis but facultas not an inherent quality that issues out actions by way of direct emanation like naturall or acquired habits but it is a grace or favour done to the person and a qualification of him in genere politico he receives a politick publick and solemn capacity to intervene between God and the people and although it were granted that the people could do the externall work or the action of Church ministeries yet they are actions to no purpose they want the life and all the excellency unlesse they be done by such persons whom God hath called to it and by some means of his own hath expressed his purpose to accept them in such ministrations And this explication will easily be verified in all the particulars of the Priests power because all the ministeries of the Gospell are in genere orationis unlesse we except preaching in which God speaks by his servants to the people the minister by his office is an intercessor with God and the word used in Scripture for the Priests officiating signifies his praying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were ministring or doing their Liturgy the work of their supplications and intercession and therefore the Apostles positively included all their whole ministery in these two but we will give our selves to the word of God and to prayer the prayer of consecration the prayer of absolution the prayer of imposition of hands they had nothing else to doe but pray and preach And for this reason it was that the Apostles in a sense neerest to the letter did verifie the precept of our blessed Saviour Pray continually that is in all the offices acts parts and ministeries of a dayly Liturgy This is not to lessen the power but to understand it for the Priests ministery is certainly the instrument of conveying all the blessings of the people which are annexed to the ordinary administration of the Spirit But when all the office of Christs Priesthood in heaven is called intercession for us and himself makes the sacrifice of the Crosse effectuall to the salvation and graces of his Church by his prayer since we are ministers of the same Priesthood can there be a greater glory then to have our ministery like to that of Jesus not operating by virtue of a certain number of syllables but by a holy solemn determined and religious prayer in the severall manners and instances of intercession according to the analogy of all the religions in the world whose most solemn mystery was then most solemn prayer I mean it in the matter of sacrificing which also is true in the most mysterious solemnity of Christianity in the holy Sacrament of the Lords supper which is hallowed and lifted up from the common bread and wine by mysticall prayers and solemn invocations of God And therefore S. Dionysius calls the forms of consecration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prayers of consecration and S. Cyrill in his 3 mystagogique Catechism says the same The Eucharisticall bread after the invocations of the holy Ghost is not any longer common bread but the body of Christ. For although it be necessary that the words which in the Latin Church have been for a long time called the words of consecration which indeed are more properly the words of institution should be repeated in every consecration because the whole action is not completed according to Christs pattern nor the death of Christ so solemnly enunciated without them yet even those words also are part of a mysticall prayer and therefore as they are not onely intended there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of history or narration as Cabasil mistakes so also in the most ancient Liturgies they were not onely read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as a meer narrative but also with the form of an addresse or invocation Fiat hic panis corpus Christi fiat hoc vinum sanguis Christi Let this bread be made the body of Christ c. So it is in S. James his Liturgy S. Clement S. Marks and the Greek Doctors And in the very recitation of the words of institution the people ever used to answer Amen which intimates it to have been a consecration in genere orationis called by S. Paul benediction or the bread of blessing and therefore S. Austin expounding those words of S. Paul Let prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks be made saith Eligo in his verbis hoc intelligere quod omnis vel pene omnis frequent at ecclesia ut precationes accipiamus dictas quas fecimus in celebratione sacramentorum antequam illud quod est in Domini mensâ accipiat benedici orationes cum benedicitur ad distribuendum comminuitur quam totam orationem pene omnis ecclesia Dominicâ oratione concludit The words and form of consecration he calls by the name of orationes supplications the prayers before the consecration preces and all the whole action oratio and this is according to the stile and practise and sense of the whole Church or very neer the whole And S. Basil saith that there is more necessary to consecration then the words recived by the Apostles and by the Evangelists * The words of invocation in the shewing the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing who of all the Saints have left to us For we are not content with those which the Apostle and the Evangelists mention but both before and after we say other words having great power towards the mystery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we have received by tradition These words set down in Scripture they retained as a part of the mystery cooperating to the solemnity manifesting the signification of the rite the glory of the change the operation of the Spirit the death of Christ and the memory of the sacrifice but this great work which all Christians knew to be done by the holy Ghost the Priest did obtain by prayer and solemn invocation according to the saying of Proclus of C. P. speaking of the tradition of certain prayers used in the mysteries and indited by the Apostles as it was said but especially in S. James his Liturgy By these prayers saith he they expected the coming of the holy Ghost that his divine presence might make the bread and the wine mixt with water to become the body and bloud of our blessed Saviour And S. Justin Martyr very often calls the Eucharist food made sacramentall and eucharisticall by prayer and Origen we eat the bread holy and made the body of Christ by prayer Verbo Dei per obsecrationem sanctificatus bread sanctified by the word of God and by prayer viz. the prayer of consecration prece mystica is S. Austins expression of it Corpus Christi sanguinem dicimus illud tantum quod ex fructibus terrae acceptum pree mystica consecratum ritè sumimus That onely we call the