immortall yea even their mortall wounds make the sufferers immortall and presently transport us from the contemplation of felicity unto the fruition Whereas if the corn of our bodies be not cast into the earth by death we can have none of this increase which is the reason first that we celebrate the memory of the Saints not upon their birth-dayes but upon their death-dayes to shew how the day of our death is better than the day of our birth And secondly that many Holy men have wisht for death as Ieremy Iob Paul c. As who can either marvell or blame the desire of advantage for the weary traveller to long for rest the prisoner for liberty the banished for home it is so naturall that the contrary disposition were monstrous And indeed it is our ignorance and infidelity at least our impreparation that makes death seem other than advantage And look to it for he hardly mourns for the sinnes of the time who longs not to be freed from the time of sinne he but little loves his Saviour who is not willing to go unto him and is too fond of himself that would not go out of himself to God True he that beleeveth will not make haste Isa. 28.16 that is he will not go out by a back-door seek redresse by unlawfull means for though here he hath his pain and in Heaven he looks for his payment yet he will not make more haste than good speed Though he desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is best of all Phil. 1.23 24. Yet he is content to live yea he lives patiently though he dies joyfully In his wisdome he could chuse the gain of death but in his obedience he refuseth not the service of life and it is to be feared that God will refuse that soul which leaves the body before himself calls for it as Seneca speaks like a Divine Now what are we to learn from this double lesson but a two-fold instruction 〈…〉 unsent is death to the godly no other then the Brazen Serpent to the Israelites which was so farre from hurting them that contrarily it healed them And wouldest thou not fear death for to labour not to die is labour in vain and Kings in this are Subjects First Look through death at glory as lâ—t but the unfolded Heavens give way to Stevens eyes to behold Christ in the glory of his Father how willing is he to ascend by that stony passage Acts 7.56 59. Secondly Fear to commit the least sinne which is forbidden by so great a God and suffered for by so loving a Saviour Now God hath so farre forth forbidden revenge that he hath forbidden all kinde of hatred and malice for the Law in every Commandement is spirituall and bindes the heart as well as the hand and to thy power thou hast slain him whom thou hatest he is alive and yet thou hast kil'd him saith St Augustine and therefore these two hatred and murther are coupled together as yoak-fellowes in that long teame of the fleshes beastly works which draw men to perdition Rom. 1.29 Gal. 5.21 and wherein do they differ but as the Father and the Sonne or as Devill and evill only in a letter Yea saith Christ in the places before quoted Love your enemies do well to them that hate you overcome evill with good c. Luk 6.27 Rom. 12.21 Be so farre from snatching Gods weapon out of his hand that you rather master unkindnesse with kindnesse And as this is Gods word so hearing what the word speaks is an ear-mark of Christs sheep as witnesseth the chief sheepherd Joh. 8. He that is of God heareth Gods word and he is of an uncircumcised ear and one of the Devils Goats that wants this mark for he heareth it not because he is not of God Vers. 47. Wherefore lay it to heart lose not the priviledge of Gods protection by an unwarrantable righting of thy self Do not like the Fool that leapt in the water for fear of being drowned in the boat But above all fears fear him which after he hath kil'd hath power to cast into hell Luk. 12.5 compare the present with the future the action with the reward think thou seest beyond pleasing thy appetite and doing thine own will sinne against God beyond that death beyond death judgement beyond judgement hell beyond that no limits of time or torments but all easelesse and endlesse Thou cryest God be mercifull to me but be thou also mercifull to thy self Fear God fear sinne and fear nothing for sinne is the sting of all troubles pull out the sting and deride the malice of the Serpent Yea have but Gods warrant for what thou goest about and then let death happen it shall not happen amisse for the assurance of Gods call and protection when a mans actions are warranted by the Word will even take away the very fear of death for death as a Father well notes hath nothing terrible but what our life hath made so He that hath lived well is seldom unwilling to die life or death is alike welcome unto him for he knowes whiles he is here God will protect him and when he goes hence God will receive him I have so behaved my self saith St Ambrose to the Nobles of Millain that I am not asha 〈…〉 Hilarion These seventy years and upwards thou hast served the Lord therefore now go forth my soul with joy c. Whereas he that hath lived wickedly had rather lose any thing even his soul than his life whereby he tels us though his tongue expresse it not that he expects a worse estate hereafter How oft doth guiltinesse make one avoid what another would wish in this case Yea death was much facilitated by the vertues of a well-led life even in the Heathen Phocion being condemned to die and the executioner refusing to do his office unlesse he had twelve Drachmes paid him in hand Phocion borrowed it of a friend and gave it him ne mora fieret morti Again Cato was so resolute that he told Caesar he feared his pardon more than the pain he threatned him with And Aristippus as I take it though I may be mistaken told the Saylers that wondred why he was not as well as they afraid in a storm that the odds was much for they feared the torments due to a wicked life and he expected the reward of a good one It s a solid and sweet reason being rightly applied Vicâ— drawes death with a horrid look with a whip and flames and terrors but so doth not vertue Whence it was that death was ugly and fearfull unto Cicero wished for and desired of Cato and indifferent to Socrates Obj. But a violent and painfull death is by far more terrible and intollerable than a naturall Answ. Seldom have the Martyrs found it so but often the contrary which made them kisse the wheele that must kill them and think the stayres of the scaffold of their Martyrdom but so many degrees of
himself into the Sea Yea in case he sustain any great loss he is ready to make himself away as Menippus of Phenicia did who having lost his goods strangled himself Or like Dinarcus Phidon who at a certain loss cut his own throat to save the charge of a cord At least he feels more sorrow in losing his mony then ever he found pleasure in getting it nor will any condition content him for the lightness of his purse gives him an heavy heart which yet filled doth fill him with more care His medicin is his malady These rich men are no less troubled with that they possess lest they should lose it then poor men are for that they want In the day time he dares not go abroad for fear of robbing nor stay at home for fear of killing His thoughts are so troubled with fear of thieves that he cannot that he dares not sleep yea he fears a thief worse then the devil therefore will he be beholding to the devil for a spell to save him from the thief which once obtained a little Opium may rock his cares asleep and help him to a golden dream for all his minde and heart is to get mony if waking he talks of nothing but earth if sleeping he dreams of it Lastly as if all his delight were to vex himself he pines himself away with distrustful fear of want and projecting how he shall live hereafter and when he is old resembling Ventidius the Poet who would not be perswaded but he should dye a begger And Apicius the Romane who when he cast up his accounts and found but an hundered thousand crowns left murthered himself for fear he should be famished to death CHAP. XII SEventhly To the former miseries which a cruel Miser is justly plagued withall this may be added the dolefulness of his conscience for the sin of oppression lyes upon the soul as heavy as lead yea as the shaddow does ever follow the body so fear and desperation in all places and at all times do wait upon an evil conscience Sin armes a man against himself our peace ever ends with our innocency A Pithagorean bought a pair of shoos upon trust the Shoomaker dyes he is glad thinks them gained but a while after his conscience twitches him and becomes a continual chider he hereupon repairs to the house of the dead casts in his money with these words There take thy due thou livest to me though dead to all beside Micha stole from his mother eleven hundred shekels of silver but his complaining conscience made him to accuse himself and restore it again Iudg. 17. Il gotten goods lye upon the conscience as raw meat upon a sick stomack which will never let a man be well or at ease untill he hath cast it up again by restitution Means ill gotten is to the getter as the Angels book was to Saint Iohn When he eat it it was in his mouth as sweet as hony but when he had eaten it it became in his stomack as bitter as gall Rev. 10.10 The which is notably illustrated Iob 20.12 to 20. which together with the whole Chapter is marvellous good for cruel and unmerciful men to read for I may not stand here to repeat it Sweetness is promised in the bread of deceit but men finde it as gravel crashing between their teeth Nor will his troubled conscience suffer him to steal a sound sleep yea he sleeps as unquietly as it his pillow were stuft with Lawyers per-knives I may give ye a hint of these things from the word but onely God and he can tell how the remembrance of his forepast cozenages and oppression occasions his guilty conscience many secret wrings and pinches and gives his heart many a sore lash to increase the fear and horror of his soul every time he calls the same to remembrance which is not seldom As O poor wretches what do they indure how are they immerged in the horrors of a vulned conscience there is more ease in a nest of Hornets then under the sting of such a tormenting conscience He that hath this plague is like a man in debt who suspecteth that every bush he sees is a Sergant to arest and carry him away to prison It was Gods curse upon Cain when he had slain his brother Abel to suspect and fear that every one he met would kill him yea it makes him so afraid of every thing that a very Maulking frights him and it is much that he dares trust his Barber to shave him Dionysius was so troubled with fear and horror of conscience that not daring to trust his best friends with a razor he used to findge his beard with burning coals as Cicero records He is much like a Malefactor in prison who though he fare well yet is tormented with the thought of ensuing judgement It is the hand-writing on the wall that prints bloody characters in Belshazzars heart So that if any should deem a man the better or happier for being the richer he is very shallow as many looking on the outer face of things or see but the one side as they used to paint Antigonus that they might conceal his deformity on the other side see not how they smart in secret how their consciences gripe them Nor does any one know how the shoowrings the foot but he that wears the same Or admit the best that can come as suppose they can stop consciences mouth for a time or with the musick of their mony play it asleep for the present yet when they lye upon their death-beds it will sting them to the quick For when death besiegeth the body Satan will not fail to beleagure the soul yea then he will be sure to lay on load for as all corrupt humors run to the diseased and bruised part of the body so when conscience is once awakened all former sins and present crosses joyn together to make the bruise or sore more painful As every Creditor falls upon the poor man when he is once arested Or let it be granted that his conâ—cience never troubles him on his sick bed and that he have no bonds in his death as the Psalmist speaks Psal. 73. but departs likes a Lamb which is not onely possible but probable for more by many thousands go to hell like Naball then like Iudas more dye like sots in security then in despair of conscience yet all this is nothing for the sting of conscience here though it be intollerable is but a flea-biting to that he shall endure hereafter where the worm of conscience dyeth not and where the fire never goeth out This is part of sins wages and Satans reward We have sinned therefore our hearts are heavy Isa. 59.11 12. The sorrows of them that offer to another God as do the covetous shall be multiplyed says holy David Psal. 16.4 Yea Seneca an heathen could say that an evil life causeth an unquiet minde so that Satans government is rather a bondage then a government
yea he contemns all fears overlooks all impossibilities breaks through all difficulties with a resolute courage and flies over all carnall objections with celestiall wings because the strength of his God was the ground of his strength in God But secondly To shew that their courage is no lesse passive than active look upon that Noble Army of Martyrs mentioned in Ecclesiasticall History who went as willingly and cheerfully to the stake as our Gallants to a Play and leapt into their beds of flames as if they had been beds of down yea even weak women and young striplings when with one dash of a pen they might have been released If any shall yet doubt which of the two the Religious or Prophane are most valiant and couragious let them look upon the demeanour of the twelve Spies Numb the 13th and 14th Chapters and observe the difference between the two faithfull and true hearted and the other ten then will they conclude that Piety and Religion doth not make men Cowards or if it do that as there is no feast to the Churles so there is no fight to the Cowards True they are not soon nor easily provoked but all the better the longer the cold fit in an Ague the stronger the hot sit I know men of the Sword will be loth to allow of this Doctrine but truth is truth as well when it is not acknowledged as when it is and experience tells us that he who fears not to do evill is alwayes afraid to suffer evill Yea the Word of God is expresse That none can be truly valarous but such as are truly religious The wicked fly when none pursueth but the righteous are as bold as a Lyon Prov. 28.1 The reason whereof is If they live they know by whom they stand if they die they know for whose sake they fall But what speak I of their not fearing death when they shall not fear even the day of Iudgement 1 Joh. 4.17 Hast not thou O Saviour bidden us when the Elements shall be dissolved and the Heavens shall be flaming about our ears to lift up our heads with joy because our redemption draweth nigh Luk. 21.25 to 29. Wherefore saith the valiant Beleever come death come fire come whirlewinde they are worthy to be welcome that shall carry us to immortality Let Pagans and Infidels fear death saith St Cyprian who never feared God in their life but let Christians go to it as travellers unto their native home as Children unto their loving Father willingly joyfully Let such fear to die as have no hope to live a better life well may the brute beast fear death whose end of life is the conclusion of their being well may the Epicure tremble at it who with his life looketh to lose his felicity well may ignorant and unrepentant sinners quake at it whose death begins their damnation well may all those make much of this life who are not sure of a better because they are conscious to themselves that this dying life will but bring them to a living death they have all sown in sinne and what can they look to reap but misery and vanity sinne was their traffique and grief will be their gain detestable was their life and damnable will be their decease But it is otherwise with the Godly they may be killed but cannot be hurt for even death that fiend is to them a friend like the Red Sea to the Israelites which put them over to the Land of Promise while it drowned their enemies It is to the faithfull as the Angels were to Lot who snatcht him out of Sodome while the rest were consumed with fire and brimstone Every beleever is Christs betrothed Spouse and death is but a messenger to bring her home to her Husband and what chaste or loving Spouse will not earnestly desire the presence of her Bridegroom as St Austin speaks Yea the day of death to them is the day of their Coronation and what Princely heir does â—â—t long for the day of his instalment and rejoyce when it comes Certainly it was the sweetest voice that ever the Thief heard in this life when Christ said unto him This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luk. 23.43 In a word as death to the wicked puts an end to their short joyes and begins their everlasting sorrowes so to the Elect it is the end of all sorrow and the beginning of their everlasting joyes The end of their sorrow for whereas complaint of evils past sense of present and fear of future have shared our lives amongst them death is 1. A Supersedeas for all diseases the Resurrection knows no imperfection 2. It is a Writ of ease to free us from labour and servitude like Moses that delivered Gods people out of bondage and from brick-making in Aegypt 3. Whereas our ingresse into the world our progresse in it our egresse out of it is nothing but sorrow for we are born crying live grumbling and die sighing death is a medicine which drives away all these for we shall rise triumphing 4. It shall revive our reputations and cleer our Names from all ignominy and reproach yea the more contemptible here the more glorious hereafter Now a very Duellist will go into the field to seek death and finde honour 5. Death to the godly is as a Goal-delivery to let the Soul out of the prison of the body and set it free 6. Death frees us from sinne an Inmate that spite of our teeth will â—oust with us so long as life affords it house-room for what is it to the faithfull but the funerall of their vices and the resurrection of their vertues And thus we see that death to the Saints is not a penalty but a remedy that it acquits us of all our bonds as sicknesse labour sorrow disgrace imprisonment and that which is worse than all sinne that it is not so much the death of nature as of corruption and calamity But this is not half the good it doth us for it delivers us up and lets us into such Ioyes as eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath entred into the heart of man to conceive 1 Cor. 2.9 Yea a man may as well with a coal paint out the Sunne in all his splendor as with his pen or tongue expresse or with his heart were it as deep as the Sea conceive the fullnesse of those joyes and sweetnesse of those pleasures which the Saints shall enjoy at Gods right hand for evermore Psal. 16.11 In thy presence is the sullnesse of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore For quality they are pleasures for quantity fullnesse for dignity at Gods right hand for eternity for evermore and millions of years multiplied by millions make not up a minute to this eternity Our dissolution is nothing else but aeterni natalis the birth-day of eternity as Seneca calls it more truly than he was aware for when we are born we are mortall but when we are dead we are
required the second time 1 Ioh. 1.9 Now that Christ hath sufficiently satisfied for all the sins of the faithful and paid our debt even to the utmost farthing it is evident by many places of Scripture as Isa. 53.4.5 2 Cor. â— 21 Heb. 9.26 1 Pet. 2.24 Rom. 3.25.26 1 Ioh. 1.7.9 and sundry others Are we bound to perform perfect obedience to the Law bee performed it for us were wee for disobedience subject to the sentence of condemnation the curse of the Law and death of body and soul hee was condemned for us and bore the curse of the law hee died in our stead an ignominious death did wee deserve the anger of God hee indured his fathers wrathfull displeasure that so he might reconcile us to his father and set us at liberty Hee that deserved no sorrow felt much that wee who deserved much might â—eel none and by his wounds wee are healed Isa. 53.5 Adam eat the Apple Christ paid the price In a word whatsoever wee owed Christ discharged whatsoever we deserved he suffered if not in the self same punishments for hee being God could not suffer the eternall torments of Hell yet in proportion the dignity of his person being God and Man giving value unto his temporary punishments and making them of more value and worth than if all the world should have suffered the eternall torments of Hell for it is more for one that is eternall to die than for others to die eternally Therefore was the Son of God made the Son of man that the Sons of men might bee made the Sons of God and therefore was hee both God and man lest being in every respect God he had been too great to suffer for man or being in every respect man hee had been too weak to satisfie God Seeing therefore our Saviour Christ hath fully discharged our debt and mâ—de full satisfaction to his Fathers justice God cannot in equity exact of us a second paiment no more than the Creditor may justly require that his debt should bee twice paid once by the Surety and again by the Principall Again secondly it is the Lords Covenant made with his Church and committed to writing Ier. 31.34 Heb. 10.16 17. Psal. 32.10 Isa. 55.7 Ezek. 18.21 22 23. and 33.11 Mâ—l 3.17 Confirmed and ratified by his seals the Sacraments together with his Oath that there might be no place left for doubting for God willing more abundantly to shew unto the Heirs of promise the stableness of his counsell bound himself by an oath that by two immutable things wherein it is impossible that God should lie we might have strong consolation as the Apostle speaks Heb. 6.17.18 And lest the afflicted conscience should object that hee entred into covenant and made these promises to the Prophets Apostles and holy men of God but not to such hainous and rebellious sinners who have most justly deserved that God should pour out upon them the Vialls of his wrath and those fearfull punishments threatned in the Law All the promises made in the Gospel are generall indefinite and universall excluding none that turn from their sins by unfained repentance and beleeve in Christ Iesus testing on him alone for their salvation as appears Isa 55.1 Ezek. 33.11 Mark 16.16 Ioh. 3.14 15 16.36 and 6.37.40 Act. 10.43 1 Ioh. 2.1 Neither is there any limitation or exception of this or that sin for bee they never so grievous and manifold yet if wee perform the condition of faith and repentance they cannot debar us from receiving the benefit of God's mercy and Christ's merits as appears Isa. 1.18 Titus 2.14 1 Ioh. 1.7.9 And therefore unless thou conceivest of God that hee is unjust in his dealing untrue in his Word a covenant-breaker yea a perjured person which were most horrible blasphemy once to imagine thou must undoubtedly assure thy self that hee will pardon and forgive thee all thy sins bee they in number never so many and innumerable or in nature and quality never so hainous and damnable if then turnest unto him by unfained repentance and laiest hold upon Christ by a true and lively faith For consider doth the Lord say hee will extend his mercie unto all that come unto him doth hee invite every one doth hee say I would have all men saved and none to perish and dost thou say nay but hee will not extend his mercy unto mee hee will have mee to perish because I am a grievous sinner What is this but in effect and at a distance to contradict the Lord and give the lye to truth it self Indeed God says not Beleeve thou Iohn or Thomas and thou shalt bee saved but hee says Whosoever beleeveth and is baptized shall bee saved which is as good And yet thou exceptest thy self hee excludes none and dost thou exclude one and that one thy self Hee would have all men saved and thou comest in with thy exceptive All but mee Why thee a precious singularity but beware of it For whereas others that beleeve not the threatnings flatter away their souls in a presumptuous confidence thou by not beleeving the promises wilt cast away thine in a sullen prodigious desperateness if thou take not heed For infidelity on both sides is the cause of all of presumption in them of despair in thee of impiety in every one But bee better advised beleeve the Lord who never brake his Word with any soul. Thou wilt give credit to an man's bare word and hast thou no affiance in the mercifull promises of God past to thee by Word Oath Seals Scriptures Sacraments the death of his own Son and I presume the Spirits testimony if not now yet at other times take heed what thou dost for certainly nothing offends God more then the not taking of his Word Section 7. Objection I know well that Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness unto every one that beleeveth Rom. 10.4 But I want faith Answer This is the objection I expected for the true Christian is as fearfull to entertain a good opinion of himself as the false is unwilling to bee driven from it But is it so or doth Satan onely tell thee so I know it is not so I know that thou beleevest with some mixture of unbelief and that this is but a slander of Satans for as Satan slandereth us to God Iob 1.9 and God to us Gen. 3.4.5 so hee slandereth us to our selvs Iob 16.9 But least thou shouldest think I slander Satan know that you beleeve even whiles you complain of unbelief for as there could bee no shadow if there were no light so there cannot bee this fear where there is no faith They that know not Christ think it no such great matter to loose him But if God once say this is my Son Satan will say if thou hee the Son of God Matth. 3.17 and 4.3 That Divine testimony did not allay his malice but exasperate it Neither can the happy building of Lord I beleeve stand without that columne to under-prop it
Banquet Give us O Lord to consider that although sin in the beginning seem never so sweet unto us yet in the end it will prove the bane and ruine both of body and soul and so assist us with thy grace that wee may willingly part with our right eyes of pleasure and our right hands of profit rather then sin against thee and wrong our own consciences considering that it would bee an hard bargain â—or us to win the whole world and lose our own souls Blesse preserve and keep us from all the temptations of Satan the world and our wicked hearts from pride that Lucifer-like sin which is the fore-runner of destruction considering that thou resistest the proud and givest grace tò the humble from covetousnesse which is the root of all evil being taught out of thy word that the love of money hath caused many to fall into diverse temptations and snares which drown them in perdition and destruction from cruelty that infernal evil of which thou hast said that there shall be judgment mercilesse to him that sheweth not mercie from hypocrisie that sin with two faces whose reward is double damnation and the rather because wickednesse doth most rankle the heart when it is kept in and dissembled and for that in all the Scriptures we read not of an hypocrites repentance from whoredom which is a sin against a man's own body and the most inexcusable considering the remedy which thou hast appointed against it for the punishment whereof the Law ordained death and the Gospel excludeth from the Kingdom of Heaven from prophanation of thy day considering thou hast said that whosoever sanctifieth it not shall bee cut off from thy people and did'st command that he should be stoned to death who only gathered a â—ew sticks on that day from swearing which is the language of hell considering that because of oaths the Land doth mourn and thou hast threatned that thy curse shall never depart from the house of the swearer from drunkenness that monster with many heads and worse than beast like sin which in thy Word hath many fearfull woes denounced against it and the rather for that it is a sin like the pit of Hell out of which there is small hope of redemption Finally O Lord give us strength to resist temptation patience to endure affliction and constancie to persevere unto the end in thy truth that so having passed our pilgrimâ—ge here according to thy will we may be at rest with thee hereafter both in the night of death when our bodies shal sleep in the grave and in the day of our resurrection when they shall awake to judgment and both bodies and souls enjoy everlasting blisse These and all other good things which for our blindnesse we cannot ask vouchsafe to give us thine unworthy servants not for our sakes but for thy mercies sake and for thy Son our Saviour Iesus Christ sake in whom thou art well-pleased and in whom thou wast fully satisfied upon the Crosse for our sins who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth ever one God world without end Let thy mighty hand and out-stretched arm O Lord be still our defence thy mercie and loving kindnesse in Iesus Christ thy dear Son our salvation thy true and holy Word our instruction thy grace and holy Spirit our comfort consolation illumination and sanctification now and for ever Amen A Thanksgiving to be brought in to any or every one of them next before the Conclusion where the hand is placed ANd as we pray unto thee so we desire also to praise thee rendring unto thy Majestie upon the bended knees of our hearts all possible laud and thanksgiving for all thy mercies and favours spiritual and corporal temporal and eternal For that thou hast freely elected us to salvation from all eternity when thou hast passed by many millions of others both Men and Angels whereas we deserved to perish no lesse then they and thou mightest justly have chosen them and left us for that thou hast created us Men and not Beasts in England not in Aethiopia or any other savage Nation in this clear and bright time of the Gospel not 〈◊〉 the darknesse of Paganisme or Popery For thine unexpressible love in redeeming us out of Hell and from those unsufferable and endlesse torments by the pretious blood of thy dear Son who spared not himself that thou mightest spare us For calling us home to thee by the Ministry of thy Word and the work of thy good Spirit For the long continuance of thy Gospel with us the best of blessings For sparing us so long and giving us so large a time of repentance For justifying and in some measure sanctifying us and giving us ground for assured hope of being glorified in thy heavenly Kingdom For preserving us from so infinite many perils and dangers which might easily have befalne us every day to the taking away of either our estates our limbs or our lives For so plentifully and graciously blessing us all our life long with many and manifold good things both for necessity and delight For peace of conscience and content of minde For our health wealth limbs senses food raiment liberty prosperity For thy great mercie in correcting us and turning thy corrections to our good For preserving us in the night past from all dangers of body and soul and for infinite more mercies of which we could not well want any one and which are all greatned by being bestowed upon us who were so unworthy and have been so ungrateful for the same O that we could answer thee in our thankfulnesse and obedient walking one for a thousand Neither are we unmindful of those national blessings which thou hast vouchsafed unto our Land in general as namely that deliverance from the Spanish Invasion in 88 and from that divelish design of the Gunpowder-Treason for preserving us from the noisome and devouring Plague and Pestâ—lence Lord grant that our great unthankfulnesse for these thy mercies may not cause thee to deliver us into the hands of our enemies and although we have justly thereby deserved the same yet we beseech thee give us not up unto their wills neither suffer Popery ever to bear rule over us nor thy blessed Word and Sacraments to be taken away from us but continue them unto us and to our posterity after us if it be thy good pleasure untill the coming of thy Christ. Babes that are inexpert in the Word of righteousnesse use milk but strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age Heb. 5.13 14. THE STATE OF A CHRISTIAN lively set forth by an Allegorie of a Ship under Sayl. MY Bodie is the Hull the Keel my Back my Neck the Stem the Sides are my Ribs the Beams my Bones my Flesh thâ— Planks Gristles and Ligaments are the Pintels and Knee-timbers Arteries Veins and Sinews the several Seams of the Ship my Blood is the Ballast my Heart the principal Hold my Stomach the Cook-room my Liver
who heretofore gloried in my lawless liberty am now to be enclosed in the very claws of Satan as the trembling Partridge within the griping tallons of the ravening and devouring Falcon. Oh Cursed be the day when I was born and the time when my mother conceived me c. Job 3. Sect. 6. And so death having given thee thy fatal stroke the Devil shall seize upon or snatch away thy soul so soon as it leaves thy body Luk. 12.20 and hale the hence into the bottomless lake that burneth with fire and brimstone where she is to be kept in chains of darkness until the general judgment of the great day Jude 6 7. 1 Pet. 3.19 Rev. 21.8 Thy body in the mean time being cast into the earth expecting a fearfull resurrection when it shall be re-united to thy soul that as they sinned together so they may be everlastingly tormented together Heb. 10.27 At which general Iudgment Christ sitting upon his Throne Joh. 5.22 shall rip up all the Benefits he hath bestowed on thee and the miseries he hath suffered for thee and all the ungodly deeds that thou hast committed and all the hard speeches which thou hast spoken against him and his holy ones Jude 15. Eccles. 12.14 11.9 Within thee shall be thine own conscience more then a thousand witnesses to accuse thee the Devils who tempted thee to all thy lewdness shall on the â—ne side testifie with thy conscience against thee 〈◊〉 on the other side shall stand the holy Saints and Angels approv 〈…〉 thee all the world burning with flaming fire above thee an irefull Iudg of deserved vengeance ready to pronounce his heavy sentence upon thee beneath thee the fiery and sulphureous mouth of the bottomless pit gaping to receive thee Isa. 5.11 14. And in this wofull and dolefull condition thou must stand forth to receive with other Reprobates this thy sentence Rom. 14.10 2 Cor. 5.10 Depart from me there is a separaâ—ion from all joy and happiness ye cursed there is a black and direfull excommunication into fire there is the extremity of pain everlasting there is the perpetuity of punishment prepared for the Devil and his Angels there are thy infernal tormenting and tormented companions Matth. 25.41 O terrible sentence from which there is no escaping withstanding excepting or appealing Then O then shall thy mind be tormented to think how for the love of abortive pleasures which even perished before they budded thou haâ—t so foolishly lost Heavens joyes and incurred hellish pains which last to all eternity Luke 16.24 25. Thy conscience shall ever sting thee like an Adder when thou calleâ—t to mind how often Christ by his Ministers offered thee remission of sins and the Kingdom of Heaven freely if thou wouldst but believe and repent and how easily thou mightest have obtained mercy in those dayes How near thou wast many times to have repented and yet didst suffer the Devil and the World to keep thee still in impenitency and how the day of mercy is now past and will never dawn again Thy understanding shall be racked to consider how for momentary riches thou hast lost eternal treasure and exchanged Heavens felicity for Hells misery where every part and faculty both of thy body and soul shall be continually and alike tormented without intermission or dismission of pain or from it and be for ever deprived of the beatifical sight of God wherein consists the soveraign good and life of the soul. Thou shalt never see light nor the least sight of joy but lye in a perpetual prison of utter darkness where shall be no order but horrour no voice but howling and blaspheming no noise but screeching and gnashing of teeth no society but of the Devil and his Angels who being tormented themselves shall have no other ease but to wreak their fury in tormenting thee Matth. 13.42 25.36 c. Where shall be punishment without any pity misery without any mercy sorrow without succour crying without comfort malice without measure torment without ease Rev. 14.10 11. Where the wrath of God shall seize upon thy soul and body as the flame of fire does on the lump of pitch or brimstone Dan. 7.10 In which flame thou shalt ever be burning and never consumed ever dying and never dead ever roaring in the pangs of death and never rid of those pangs nor expecting â—â—d of thy pains So that after thou hast endured them so many thousand years as there are blades of grass on the earth or sands in the Sea 〈◊〉 on the heads of all the sons of Adam from the first to the last born 〈◊〉 there have been creatures in Heaven and Earth thou shalt be no nearer 〈◊〉 and of thy torments than thou wast the very first day that thou 〈…〉 into them yea so far are they 〈…〉 that they are ever 〈…〉 damned soul could but conceive some hope that those torments should have an end this would be some comfort to think that at length an â—nd will come but as often as thy mind shall think of this word never and thou shalt ever be thinking of it it will rend thy heart in pieces with â—â—ge and hideous lamentation as giving still new life to those unsufferable sorrows which exceed all expression or imagination It will be another hell in the midst of hell Wherefore consider seriously what I say and that while the compassionate arms of Iesus Christ lye open to receive you and do thereafter Prov. 1.24 c. Take warning by Pharaoh's example who in the Rich mans scalding torments hath a Discite à me Learn of me Luke 16.23 c. For he can testifie out of wofull experience that if we will not take warnâ—ing by the Word that gentle warner the next shall be harder the third and fourth harder than that yea as all the ten plagues did exceed one another so the eleventh single exceeds them altogether Innumerable are the curses of God against sinners Deut. 28. but the â—ast is the worst comprehending and transcending all the rest The fearfullest plagues God still reserves for the upshot all the former do but make way for the last Hâ—ll in Scripture is called a Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone and than the torment of the former what more acute than the smell of the latter what more noysome CHAP. XX. Sect. 1. THus I say shall they be bid Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire c. while on the contrary the same Christ shall say unto the other Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world Mat. 25 34. Which Kingdom is a place where are such joyes as eye hath not seen nor ear heared neither hath it entred into the heart of man to conceive 1 Cor. 2.9 A place where there shall be no evil present nor good absent Heb. 9.12 Mat. 6.20 In comparison whereof all the Thrones and Kingdoms upon earth are less than the drop of a bucket Deut. 10.14
as he came could receive no other answer then that he for his own part found himselfe very well at ease and they that were not had reason to seek out another seat that might like them better It is but a fable yet the moral is true perspicuous profitable Many shall one day repent that they were happy too soon Many a man cries out Oh that I were so rich so healthful so quiet so happy c. Alas though thou hadst thy wish for the present thou shouldst perhaps be a loser in the sequel The Physician doth not hear his Patient in what he would yet heareth him in taking occasion to do another thing more conducible to his health God loves to give us cools and heats in our desires and will so allay our joyes that their fruition hurt us not he knows that as it is with the body touching meats the greater plenty the less dainty and too long forbearance causeth a Surfet when we come to full food So it fares with the minde touching worldly contentments therefore he feeds us not with the dish but with the spoon and will have us neither cloyed nor famished In this life mercy and misery grief and grace good and bad are blended one with the other because if we should have nothing but comfort Earth would be thought Heaven besides if Christ-tide lasted all the year what would become of Lenâ— If every day were Good-Friday the World would be weary of Fasting Secundus calls death a sleep eternal the wicked mans fear the godly mans wish Where the conscience is clear death is looked for without fear yea desired with delight accepted with devotion why it is but the cessation of trouble the extinction of sin the deliverance from enemies a rescue from Satan the quiet rest of the body and infranchizement of the soul. The Woman great with childe is ever musing upon the time of her delivery and hath not he the like cause when Death is his bridge from wo to glory Though it be the wicked mans ship-wrack 't is the good mans putting into harbour And hereupon finding himself hated persecuted afflicted and tormented by enemies of all sorts he can as willingly leave the World as others can forgo the Court yea as willingly die as dine yea no woman with childe did ever more exactly count her time No Iew did ever more earnestly wish for the Iubile No servant so desires the end of his years No stranger so longs to be at home as he expects the promise of Christs coming It is the strength of his hope the sweet object of his faith in the midst of all sorrows the comfort of his heart the heart of all his comforts the incouragement of his wearied spirits the common clausule the continual period and shutting up of his Prayers Come Lord Iesus come quickly Whereas the Worlds Favourites go as unwillingly from hence as boyes from the midst of a game Neither hath the Rich man so much advantage of the poor in enjoying as the poor hath of the Rich in leaving True Rich men may also learn this slight for the way to grieve less is to love less And indeed what shouldest thou do in case thou seest that the World runs not on thy side but give over the World and be on Gods side Let us care little for the World that cares so little for us Let us cross sail and turn another way let us go forth therefore out of the Camp bearing his reproach for we have no continuing City but we seek one to come Heb. 13.13 14. CHAP. 8. That it keeps them alwayes prepared to the spiritual combate 5 FIfthly the Lord permitteth them often to afflict and assail us to the end we may be alwayes prepared for tribulation as wise Mariners in a calm make all their tackling sure and strong that they may be provided against the next storm which they cannot look to be long without Or as experienced Souldiers in time of peace prepare against the day of battel and so much the rather when they look every day for the approach of the enemy They saith Socrates that set sail into a calme Sea in a fair quiet weather have notwithstanding all instruments and materials ready which may be of use in a tempest so he that enjoyes a prosperous and happy estate if wise doth even in that time prepare for the harder and more cross occurrents and so much the rather because a great calme presageth a sudden storme The people of Laish being rich and wanting nothing grew careless and secure and being secure and mistrusting nothing they were smote with the edge of the sword and had their Citie burnt Iudg. 18. The way to be safe is never to be secure The wals of a City that are not repaired in peace will hardly be mended in a siege Alexander having set his Army in battel-array and finding a Souldier then mending his Armes cashiered him saying That was a time of dealing blows not of preparing weapons We are oft-times set upon to the end that we may continually buckle unto us the whole Armour of God prescribed by Paul Ephes. 6.13 to 19. That we may be alwayes ready for the battel by walking circumspectly not as fools but as wise Ephes. 5.15 Therefore redeeming the time because the dayes are evil Vers. 16. For as those that have no enemies to encounter them cast their armour aside and let it rust because they are secure from danger but when their enemies are at hand and sound the Alarum they both wake and sleep in their armour because they would be ready for the assault So if we were not often in skirmish with our enemies we should lay aside our spiritual armour but when wee have continual use of it we still keep it fast buckled unto us that being armed at all points we may be able to make resistance that we be not surpriz'd at unawars Neither would it be good for us at present if we had not these enemies to stand in awe and fear of but much more inconvenient in divers respects as wise Scipio that mirrour of wisdome told some who with no small joy avouched that the Common-wealth of Rome was now in safe estate seeing they had vanquished the Carthaginians and conquered the inhabitants of Pontus Neither would he for that only reason have Carthage destroy'd because it should hinder Rome from sleeping Yea God himself would have the Hitlites Gargesites Amorites Canaanites Peresites Hivites and Iebusites strong and warlike Nations to be in the midst of Israel lest Israel should sleep in sin and want matter for exercise fight and conquest Here may be felicity with security never with safety The time when the envious man did sowe his seed was whilest men were in bed No servants more orderly use their masters talent then those that ever fear their Masters sudden return No Houshoulder more safe than he who at every watch suspects the Thieves entring Sampson could not be bound till he
it may deliver it self of more evil humours Of what kinde soever thy sufferings be it is doubtlesse the fittest for thy souls recovery or else God the only wise Physician would not appoint it Now who would not be willing to bleed when by that means an inveterate sicknesse may be prevented Yea it is a happy blood-letting which saves the life which makes Saint Austine say unto God Let my body be crucified or burnt or do with it what thou wilt so thou save my soul. And another let me swim a River of boiling brimstone to live eternally happy rather then dwell in a Paradise of pleasure to be damned after death CHAP. 11. That it makes them humble 8 EIghtly that we may have an humble conceit of our selves and wholly depend upon God We received the sentence of death in our selves saith the Apostle because we should not trust in our selves but in God who raiseth us up from the dead 2 Cor. 1.9 When Babes are afraid they cast themselves into the armes and bosome of their Mother A Hen leading her chickens into the Sun they fall a playing with the dust she may cluck them to her long enough they will not come But when they see the Kite then they come without calling and so it fares with Gods children till afflictions come The Prodigall never thought of his Father till he wanted husks The hemorrhoisse never made out to Christ till all her money was gone The widow that is left alone trusteth in God saith the Apostle 1 Tim. 5.5 who while she had an husband leaned too much upon him The poor man depends not upon the relief of others untill he findes nothing at home Till our means is spent we are apt to trust in uncertain riches but after in the Name of the Lord Zeph. 3.12 As a bore himself bold upon his forces as being five hundred and fourscore thousand strong till he was over-matcht with an Army of a thousand thousand Ethiopians this made him cry Help us O Lord our God for we rest on thee 2 Chron. 14. God crosses many times our likeliest projects and makes the sinews of the arme of flesh to crack that being unbottomed of the creature we may trust in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy 1 Tim. 6.17 The people of Laish because they wanted nothing would have businesse with no man Iudg. 18.7 Where is no want is much wantonness and to be rich in temporals hastens poverty in spirituals The Moon is never eclipsed but in the full but the fuller she is still the more remote from the Sun I thought in my prosperity saith David I shall never be moved But thou didst hide thy face and I was troubled Then turned I unto thee c. Psal. 30.6 7 8. It is high time to humble them that do not finde themselves to stand in need of God When a stubborn Delinquent being committed was no whit mollified with his durance but grew more perverse then he was before one of the Senators said to the rest Let us forget him a while and then he will remember himself Loving Spaniels the more they are beaten the more tractable and gentle do they appear and apply themselves more diligently to their Masters call The Heart is so hot of it self that if it had not the Lungs as Fannes to blow winde upon it and kindely moisture to cool it it would soon perish with the own heat and yet when that moisture growes too redundant it again drowns the Heart Who so nourisheth his servant daintily from his Child-hood shall after finde him stubborn In prosperity we are apt to think our selves men good enough we see not our need of God but let him send the Cross it confutes us presently and shews us our nothingness Even Saint Paul was sick of this disease he began to be puft up until the Messenger of Satan was sent to take him down 2 Corinthians 12.7 And Saint Peter Matthew 26.33 Though all men should forsake thee yet I will never forsake thee bravely promised but Peter the same night sware I know not the man cowardly answered It is one thing to suffer in speculation and another in practice It is a wonder to see how the best men may be mistaken in their own powers When our Saviour propounds to Iames and Iohn Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of And to be baptized with the Baptism that I shall be baptized with Out of an eager desire of the honour they are apt to undertake the condition and answer accordingly We are able Matth. 20.22 But alas poor men no thanks to them that they were able to run away as they did when their Master was apprehended For God must give us his daily bread to feed us and his daily breath to quicken us or we quickly perish yet how common is it for men to brag and crack of what they can do yea one that hath but a wooden head and a leaden heart how will he help it out with a brazen face and a golden hand for being as great in pride as he is small in desert he will keep a do in an audacious masterliness as if with Simon Magus he would bear down all with large proffers But this cannot be so pleasing to nature as it is hateful to God Neither can there be a worse sign of ensuing evil then for a man in a carnal presumption to vaunt of his own abilities How justly doth God suffer that man to be foiled purposely that he may be ashamed of his own vain self-confidence When a great Prelate durst write Ego et Rex meus I and my King the King subscribed in Act Ego et servus meus I and my slave and quickly took down the main Mast of his Ambition so will God do by all proud men and make them know that all their worthiness is in a capable misery which he can soon do for let him but make our Purses light our hearts will soon grow heavy at least let him with that deprive us of his other blessings we become as dust coagulated and kneaded into Earth by tears And certainly if God own such a man he will quicken his sight with this Copris Yea he will leave him to himself and let him fall into some foul sin as he did Peter And Saint Augustine is peremptory that it hath been profitable for proud men to fall into some gross offence for they have not lost so much by their fall as they have got by being down It is better to be humble under sin then be proud of grace Of the two to be a Pharisee is worse then to be a Publican to be proud of good Endowments is worse then to have neither pride nor good Endowments Yea in this case the party is not only bettered but others learn Humility thereby for who can do other then yearn and fear to see so rich and goodly a Vessel split as David or Solomon
2.21 Again The Disciple saith Christ is not above his Master but whosoever will be a perfect Disciple shall be as his Master Luke 6.40 Yea Saint Paul made this the most certain testimony and seal of his Adoption hâ—re and glory â—fterwards his words are these having delivered that the spirit of God heareth witnesse with our spirits that we are the children of God and â—â—â—ving added If we be children we are also heires even the heirs of God and heirs annexed with Christ if so be that we suffer with him that we may also be glorified with him making suffering as a principall condition annexed which is as if he had said it is impossible we should be glorified with him except we first suffer with him Rom. 8.16 17. Whereupon having in another place reckoned up all priviledges which might minister unto him occasion of boasting he concludeth that what things were gain unto him those he accounted losse for Christ that he might know the fellowship of his sufferings and be made conformable to his death Phil. 3.10 So that as he bare his crosse before he wore his crown and began to us in the cup of his Fathers displeasure so we must pledge him our part and fill up that which is behinde of his sufferings Colos. 1.24 Whence the Church which is mysticall Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 is called Gods threshing-floor Isa. 21.10 A Brand taken out of the fire Zach. 3.2 compared to Noahs Ark which was tossed to and fro upon the waves to Moses Bush burning with fire Exod. 3.2 to the stones of the Temple which were first hewn in the Mountain before set in the building And set forth by that white Horse in the Revelation that is ever followed and chased by the Red Apoc. 6.2 4. by the sacrifices of the Law which were to pass the fire ere accepted Rom. 12.1 So that there is no Heaven to be had without touching upon Hell coasts as the Calendar tels us we come not to Ascension-day till the Passion-week be past Suffering is the way to reigning Through many tribulations must we enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Acts 14.22 And indeed who would not be ambitious of the same entertainment which Christ himself had Godfrey of Boloigne refused to be crownd in Ierusalem with a Crown of Gold because Christ his Master had in that place been crowned with a Crown of Thorns It was told a poor Martyr in Queen Maries dayes for a great favour forsooth that he should put his leg in the same hole of the Stocks that Iohn Philpot had done before And yet thy sufferings as they are nothing to what thy sins have deserved so they are nothing to what thy Saviour hath suffered for he endured many a little death all his life long for thy sake and at length that painful and cursed death of the cross To say nothing of the soul of his sufferings which his soul then suffered when he sweat cloâ—s of blood in the Garden Now why must we pledge our Saviour and sill up the measure of his sufferings Not that Christs sufferings are incompleat nor to satisfie Gods justice for sin for that 's done already once for all by him who bare our sins in his body on the Tree the just suffering for the unjust and indenting for our freedom as the Articles of Agreement fiâ—ly and fairly drawn out by himself declare Iohn 3.15 16. and 18.8 And Gods Acquittance which we have to shew under his own hand Mat. 3.17 Neither doth God afflict his Church for any delight he takes in their trouble for he afflicts not willingly Lament 3.33 Ier. 31.20 Isa. 63.9 Nor yet to shew his sovereignty Isai. 45.9 Rom. 9.29 to 24. Nor lastly is it meerly for his own glory without any other respect but out of pure necessity and abundant love to us as the Reasons both before and after shew Again by suffering we become followers of our Brethren who went before us Brethren saith Saint Paul ye are become followers of the Churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Iesus because ye have also suffered the same things of your own Countrey-men even as they have of the Iews 1 Thess. 2.14 It was the lot of Christ and must be of all his followers to do good and to suffer evil Wherefore let us be exhorted in the words of Saint Peter to rejoyce in suffering forasmuch as we with all the Saints are partakers of Christs sufferings that when his glory shall appear we may be glad and rejoyce 1 Pet. 4.13 And what greater promotion can flesh and blood be capable of then a conformity to the Lord of glory Christ wore a Crown of Thorns for me and shall I grudge to wear this Paper-cap for him said Iohn Husse when they put a Cap upon him that had ugly Devils painted on it with the Title of Heresie Never did Neck-kerchief become me so well as this Chain said Alice Drivers when they fastened her to the Stake to be burnt And what said a French Martyr when a Rope was pur about his fellow Give me that Gold Chain and dub me a Knight of that Noble Order CHAP. 13. That it increaseth their faith 10 TEnthly because the malice of our enemies serves to increase our faith for the time to come when we consider how the Lord hath delivered us formerly God hath delivered me saith Paul out of the mouth of the Lion meaning Nero and he will deliver me from every evil work and will preserve me unto his heavenly Kingdom 2 Tim. 4.17 18. When Saul tells David Thou art not able to go against this great Philistine to fight with him for thou art a boy and he is a man of war from his youth What saith David Thy servant kept his fathers Sheep and there came a Lion and likewise a Bear and took a Sheep out of the flock and I went out after him and smote him and took it out of his mouth and when he rose against me I caught him by the beard and smote him and slue him so thy servant slue both the Lion and the Bear Therefore mark the inference this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them Yea saith he the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of Lion and out of the paw of the Bear he will deliver me out of the hands of this Philistine 1 Sam. 17.33 to 37. Observe how confidently he speaks That Tree is deepest rooted in the Earth which is most shaken by the windes and they weak usually that are planted in pleasant Valleys so the Tree of Faith the more it is shaken with the violent storms of trouble the faster it becomes rooted by patience Alexander being trained up in huge and mighty enterprizes when he was to fight with men and beasts haughty enemies and huge Elephants said Lo a danger somewhat equivalent to my minde He can never be a good Souldier that hath not felt the toil of a battel Ease and plenty made Hannibal say he
for banishing it was better not to let him stirre out of Macedoneia where all men knew that he lyed then to send him among strangers who not knowing him might admit his slanders for truth better he speak where we are both known then where we are both unknown And this made Chrysippus when one complained to him that his friend had reproached him privately answer Ah but chide him not for then he will do as much in publike Neglect will sooner kill an injury than Revenge These tongue-squibs or crackers of the brain will die alone if we revive them not the best way to have them forgotten by others is first to forget them our selves Yea to contemn an enemy is better then either to fear him or answer him When the Passenger gallops by as if his fear made him speedy the Cur followes him with open mouth and swiftnesse let him turn to the brawling Cur and he will be more fierce but let him ride by in a confident neglect and the Dog will never stir at him or at least will soon give over and be quiet Wherefore when aspersed labour as the eclipsed Moon to keep on our motion till we wade out of the shadow and receive our former splendor To vex other men is but to prompt them how they should again vex us Two earthen pots floating on the water with this Inscription If we knock we crack was long ago made the Emblem of England and the Low-Countreys When two friends fall out if one be not the wiser they turn love into anger and passion passion into evil words words into blowes and when they are fighting a third adversary hath a fair advantage to insult over them both As have you not sometimes seen two neighbours like two Cocks of the Game pick out one anothers eyes to make the Lawyers sport it may be kill them As while Iudah was hot against Israel and Israel hot against Iudah the King of Syria smote them both At least Sathan that common and arch enemy will have us at advantage For as vain men delight when two Dogs or two Cocks are a fighting to encourage and prick them forward to the combate Even so doth Satan deal with us Controversies like a pair of Cudgels are thrown in by the Devill and taken up by male-contents who baste one another while he stands by and laughs And we cannot please the Divell better for as the Master of the Pit oft sets two Cocks to fight together unto the death of them both and then after mutuall conquest suppeth perchance with the fighters bodies Even so saith Gregory doth the Devill deal with men He is an enemy that watcheth his time and while we wound one another he wounds and wins all our souls Thus like the Frog and the Mouse in the Fable while men fight eagerly for a toy the Kite comes that Prince and chief Foul that ruleth in the aire and snatcheth away both these great warriours Or like two Emmets in the mole hill of this earth we fight for the mastery in mean while comes the Robin-red breast and picks both up and so devours them But on the other side by gentlenesse we may as much pleasure our selves It is said of Aristides when he perceived the open scandall which was like to arise by reason of the contention sprung up between him and Themistocles that he besought him mildly after this manner Sir we both are no mean men in this Common-wealth our dissention will prove no small offence unto others nor disparagement to our selves wherefore good Themistocles let us be at one again and if we will needs strive let us strive who shall excell other in vertue and love And we read of Euclides that when his Brother in a variance between them said I would I might die if I be not revenged of thee he answered again Nay let me die for it if I perswade thee not otherwise before I have done by which one word he presently so won his Brothers heart that he changed his minde and they parted friends Milde words and gentle behaviour may be resembled to Milk that quencheth Wild-fire or Oyl that quencheth Lime which by water is kindled And this was Davids way of overcoming 1 Sam. 24. He whose Harp had wont to quiet Sauls frenzie now by his kindnesse doth calm his fury so that now he sheds tears instead of blood here was a victory gotten and no blow stricken The King of Israel set bread and water before the host of the King of Syria when he might have slain them 2 King 6.23 What did he lose by it or had he cause to repent himself No he did thereby so prevent succeeding quarrels that as the Text saith the bands of Aram came no more into the Land of Israel so every wise Christian will do good to them that do hurt to him yea blesse and pray for them that curse him as our Saviour adviseth neither is he a fool in it for if grace comes and nothing will procure it sooner than prayers and good examples though before they were evil enemies now they shall neither be evil nor enemies It was a witty answer of Socrates who replied when one asked him why he took such a mans bitter railing so patiently It is enough for one to be angry at a time For if a wise man contend with a foolish man saith Salomon whether he be angry or laugh there is no rest Prov. 29.9 whereas gentle speech appeaseth wrath and patience bridleth the secret pratling of mockers and blunteth the point of their reproach Had not Gideon Judg. 8. learned to speak fair as well as to smite he had found work enough from the swords of Iosephs sonnes but his good words are as victorious as his sword his pacification of friends better than his execution of enemies Vers. 2 3. As it is not good to flatter or lye no more is it in some cases to speak the truth we know the Asse and the Hound in the Fable were both kild by the Lyon the one for hiâ— slattery in commending the sweetnesse of his breath the other for his plain dealing when he affirmed it had an ill savour whereas the Fox by pretending he could not smell by reason of a cold he had got saved his life Rage is not ingendred but by the concurrence of cholers which are easily produced one of another and born at an instant When the stone and the steel mâ—ets the issue ingendred from thence is fire whereas the sword of anger being struck upon the soft pillow of a milde spirit is broken The shot of the Cannon hurts not Wool and such like yeelding things but that which is hard stubborn and resisting He is fuller of passion than reason that will flame at every vain tongues puff A man that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green and open which otherwise would heal and do well Anger to the soul is like a coal on the flesh or garment cast it off suddenly it doth
himself with an unnecessary weapon one sword can serve both his enemy and him Goliahs own weapon shall serve to behead the Master so this mans own tongue shall serve to accuse himself and acquit thee Yea as David had Goliah to bear his sword for him so thy very enemy shall carry for thee both sword and shield even sufficient for defence as well as for offence Wherefore in these cases it hath been usuall for Gods people to behave themselves like dead Images which though they be rayled on and reviled by their enemies yet have ears and hear not mouthes and speak not hands and revenge not neither have they breath in their nostrils to make reply Psal. 115.5 6 7. If you will see it in an example look upon David he was a deaf and dumb at reproach as any stock or stone They that seek after my life saith he lay snares and they that go about to do me evil talk wicked things all the day sure it was their vocation to backbite and slander but I was as deaf and heard not and as one dumb which doth not open his mouth I was as a man that heareth not and in whose mouth are no reproofs Psal. 38.12 13. This innocent Dove was also as wise as a Serpent in stopping his ears and refusing to hear the voice of these blasphemous Inchanters charmed they never so wisely And as their words are to be contemned by us so are their challenges to fight When a young Gallant would needs pick a quarrell with an ancient tried Souldier whose valour had made him famous it was generally held that he might with credit refuse to fight with him until his worth shoult be known equivalent to his saying Your ambition is to win honour upon me whereas I shall receive nothing but disgrace from you The Goshawke scorns to fly at Sparrows Those noble Doggs which the King of Albany presented to Alexander out of an overflowing of courage contemned to encounter with any beasts but Lyons and Elephants as for Staggs wilde Boars and Bears they made so little account of that seeing them they would not so much as remove out of their places And so the Regenerate man which fighteth daily with their King Satan scorns to encounter with his servant and slave the carnall man And this is so far from detracting that it adds to his honour and shews his courage and fortitude to be right generous and noble Again secondly The wager is unequall to lay the life of a Christian against the life of a Russian and the blind sword makes no difference of persons the one surpassing the other as much as Heaven Earth Angels men or men beasts even Aristippus being derided by a scarless souldier for drooping in danger of shipwrack could answer Thou and I have not the like cause to be afraid for thou shalt only lose the life of an Asse but I the life of a Philosopher The consideration whereof made Alexander when he was commanded by Philip his Father to wrastle in the games of Olympia answer he would if there were any Kings present to strive with him else not which is our very Case and nothing is more worthy our pride than that which will make us most humble if we have it that we are Christians When an Embassadour told Henry the fourth that Magnificent King of France concerning the King of Spains ample Dominions First said he He is King of Spain is he so saith Henry and I am King of France but said the other He is King of Portugall and I am King of France saith Henry He is King of Naples and I am King of France He is King of Sicily and I am King of France He is King of Nova Hispaniola and I am King of France He is King of the West Indies and I said Henry am King of France He thought the Kingdom of France only equivalent to all those Kingdoms The application is easie the practise usuall with so many as know themselves heirs apparent to an immortall Crown of glory And as touching their future estate Fret not thy self saith David because of the wicked men neither be envious for the evill doers for they shall soon be cut down like grass and shall wither as the green herb Psal. 37.1 2. This doth excellently appear in that remarkable example of Samaria besieged by Benhadad and his Host 2 King 7.6 7. As also in Haeman who now begins to envy where half an hour since he had scorned as what could so much vex that insulting Agagite as to be made a Lackie to a despised Iew yea not to mention that which followed stay but one hour more the basest slave of Persia will not change conditions with this great favourite though he might have his riches and former honour to boot I might instance the like of Pharaoh Exod. 15.9 10 19. Senacherib Isa. 37.36 37 38. Herod Acts 12.22 23 and many others but experience shews that no man can sit upon so high a Cogue but may with turning prove the lowest in the wheele and that pride cannot climbe so high but Iustice will sit above her And thus are they to be contemned and pitied while they live and when they die 3. After death the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation saith Peter and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished 2 Pet. 2.9 Alas were thy enemy sure to enjoy more Kingdoms than ever the Devill shewed Christ to be more healthfull than Moses to live longer than Methuselah yet being out of Gods favour this is the end to have his Body lye hid in the silent dust and his Soul tormented in hell fiâ—e And upon this consideration when Dionysius the Tyrant had plotted the death of his Master Plato and was defeated by Platos escape out of his Dominions when the Tyrant desired him in writing not to speak evil of him the Philosopher replied That he had not so much idle time as once to think of him knowing there was a just God would one day call him to a reckoning The Moon looks never the paler when Wolves howâ— against it neither is she the slower in her motion howbeit some Sheepherd or Lyon may watch them a good turn Wherefore saith St Gregory Pray for thine enemies Yea saith St Paul be gentle toward all that do thee evill and instruct them with meekness proving if God at any time will give them repentance that they may knrw the truth and some to amendment of life out of the snare of the Devill of whom they are taken prisoners to do his will 2 Tim. 2.25 26. Which thing himself had formerly found of force for with that contrary breath I mean that one prayer which St Steven made at his death he was of a so made a friend of a Saul a Paul of a Persecutor a Preacher of an Imposter a Pastor a Doctor of a Seducer of a Pirate a Prelate of a blasphemer a blesser of a thief
man was ever so desirous to save his life as Christ was to lose it witnesse that speech I have a baptisme to be baptised with and how am I pained till it be accomplished Luk. 12.50 His minde was in pain till his body and soul came to it And to him that disswaded him from it he used no other termes than avoid Satan And thirdly With what patience he suffered all let both Testaments determine he was oppressed and afflicted yet did he not open his mouth he was brought as a sheep to the slaughter and as a sheep before the shearer is dumb so opened he not his mouth Isa. 53.7 His behaviour was so mild and gentle that all the malice of his enemies could not wrest an angry word from him Yea when his own Disciple was determined to betray him I see not a frown I hear not a check from him again but what thou doest do quickly O the admirable meeknesse of this Lamb of God! Why do we startle at our petty wrongs and swell with anger and break into furious revenges upon every occasion when the pattern of our patience lets not fall one harsh word upon so foul and bloody a Traytor When the Jews cried out Crucifie him as before they cried out His blood be upon us and upon our Children he out cries Father pardon them being beaten with Rods crowned with Thorns pierced with Nayls nayled to the Crosse bathed all his body over in blood filled with reproaches c in the very pangs of death as unmindfull of all his great griefs he prayeth for his persecutors and that earnestly Father forgive them Pendebat tamen petebat as St Augustine sweetly O patient and compassionate love Yee wicked and foolish Iews you would be miserable he will not let you His ears had been still more open to the voice of grief than of malice and so his lips also are open to the one shut to the other Thus Christ upon the Crosse as a Doctor in his chair read to us all a Lecture of Patience for his actions are our instructions and the same that Gideon spake to Israel he speaks still to us as ye see me do so do you And no man be he never so cunning or practised can make a strait line or perfect circle by steddinesse of hand which may easily be done by the help of a Rule or Compasse Besides is Christ gone before us in the like sufferings what greater incouragement When we read that Caesars example who not only was in those battels but went before them yea his very Eye made his Souldiers prodigall of their blood when we read that young King Philip being but carried in his Cradle to the Warres did greatly animate the Souldiers Besides what servanâ— will wish to fare better than his Lord Is it meet that he who is not only thy Master but thy Maker should passe his time in continuall travell and thou in continuall case When a lewd Malefactor being condemned to die with just Phocion rayled at the Iudge the Law his Accusers and looked on Death with terrour and amazednesse he thus cheered him with encouragement Dost thou grudge to die with Phocion so say I to thee Dost thou grudge to suffer with thy Saviour O blessed Iesus O thou Co-eternall Sonne of thine Eternall Father why should I think strange to be scourged with tongue or hand when I see thee bleeding what lashes can I fear either from Heaven or Earth since thy scourges have been born for me and have sanctified them to me True It is Satans policy to make men beleeve that to do and suffer as a Christian is so extreamly difficult for them that it is altogether impossible wherein he deals like the inhospitable Salvages of some Countreys who make strange fires and a shew of dismall torrours upon the shores keep passengers from landing But if Christ be gone before us in the like and it is for his sake that we smart then we may be sure to have him present with us even within us by his spirit 1 Pet. 4.12 13 14. to assist us and prevent our enemies and is not he able enough to vindicate all our wrongs Learn we therefore from him to suffer Innocently Patiently Wilt thou saith one look to reign and not expect to suffer Why Christ himself went not up to his glory until first he suffered pain Or wilt thou saith Saint Cyprian be impatient by seeking present revenge upon thine enemies when Christ himself is not yet revenged of his enemies Do thou bear with others God bears with thee Is there a too much which thou canst suffer for so patient a Lord But to go on wilt thou follow Gods example Then note whereas Christ hath in many particulars commanded us to follow his example yet in no place saith Saint Chrysostome he inferreth we should be like our Heavenly Father but in doing good to our enemies And therein resemble we the whole three Persons in Trinity God was only in the still winde Christ is compared to a Lamb the holy Ghost to a Dove Now if we will resemble these three Persons we must be softly Lambs Doves but if on the contrary we be fierce cruell and take revenge so using violence we resemble rather the devil who is called a roaring Lion and the wicked who are termed Dogges Wolves Tygers c. 3. To adde to the precept of God and the practice of our Saviour the example of Gods people they are patient in suffering of injuries that they might imitate the Saints in all ages They were so and we are likewise commanded to follow their steps as in all things which are good so especially in this Take my brethren the Prophets saith Saint Iames for an example of suffering adversities and of long patience Jam. 5.10 â—â—ethren saith Saint Paul to the Thessalonians Ye are become followers of the Churches of God which in Iudes are in Christ Iesus because ye have also suffered the same things of your own Countreymen even as they have of the Iews 1 Thes. 2.14 And to the Philippians Be ye Followers of me Brethren and look on them which walk so as ye have us for an example Phil. 3.17 And see how he followed his Masters example for who amongst us so loves his benefactors as Saint Paul loved his malefactors He would do any thing even he rased out of the book of life to save them that would do any thing to â—ell him Amongst many examples recorded for thy imitation and mine Behold the patience of Iob. Jam. 5.11 of Abraham Gen. 20.17 18. of Isaâ—c Chap. 26 1â— of Ioseph Chap. 3â— 32 33. who notwithstanding his brethren hated him for his goodnesse and could not speak peaceably unto him conspired to kill him stript him of his Goat cast him into a pit sold him for a slave recompenc'd them good for evil when he was armed with power to revenge for when these his enemies did hunger he fed them when they were thirsty he gave
finde many acts of deception in the Saints I finde infirmity in those acts but that any one of them hath scoft at and hated another for goodness I finde not or that have used to dispute against it Gregory Nazianzen I pray minde it seriously told his friends that Iulian would prove a notorious wicked man he took such delight in disputing against that which was good Much less that any after regeneration have in this case been cruel If we would know saith Chrysostome a Wolf from a Sheep since their cloathing is alike look to their fangs and their mouth if they be bloody for who ever saw the lips of a Sheep besmeared with blood which being so No matter though the gate be strait and the way narrow if the end to which it leadeth be everlasting life 5 Use. 5 Fiftly if in conclusion the most malicious and damnable practices of our worst and greatest enemies prove no other in effect to us then did the malice of Iosephs brethren Mistress and Lord to him the first in selling of him the second in falsly accusing him the third in imprisoning him all which made for his inestimable good and benefit then the malice of Haman to Mordecai and the Iews whose bloody decree obtein'd against them procured them exceeding much joy and peace then Balaaâ—s malice to the children of Israel whose desire of cursing them caused the Lord so much the more to bless them Numbers 23. Then the Devils spite to Iob who pleasured him more by his sore afflicting him then any thing else could possibly have done whether we regard his name children substance or soul then Iudas his treason against the Lord of life whose detestable fact served not only to accomplish his will but the means also of all their salvations that either before or after should believe in him this should move wonder to astonishment and cause us to cry out with the Apostle O the deepness of the riches both of the wisdome and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and his wayes past finding out Rom. 11.33 O the wonderful and sovereign goodness of our God! that turns all our Poisons into Cordials that can change our terrours into pleasures and makes the greatest evils beneficial unto us for they are evil in their own nature and strong temptations to sin Iames 1.2 also fruits of sin and part of the curse and work those former good effects not properly by themselves but by accident as they are so disposed by the infinite wisdom goodness and power of God who is able to bring light out of darkness and good out of evil yea this should tutour us to love our enemies We love the medicine nor for its own sake but for the health it brings us and to suffer chearfully whatsoever is laid upon us for how can Gods Church in general or any member in particular but fare wel since the very malice of their enemies benefits them How can we but say Let the World frown and all things in it run cross to the grain of our mindes Yet With thee ô Lord is mercy and plenteous redemption thou makest us better by their making us worse Objection But perhaps thou hast not proved the truth of this by thy own knowledge and particular experience Answer If thou hast not thou shalt in due time the end shall prove it stay but till the conclusion and thou shalt see that there is no cross no enemy no evils can happen unto thee that shall not be turned to good by him that dwelleth in thee Will you take Saint Pauls word for it or rather Gods own word who is Truth it self and cannot lie His words are We know that all things work together for the best unto them that love God even to them that are called of his purpose Rom. 8.28 And in Verse 35 36. after he hath declared that Gods chosen people shall suffer tribulation and anguish and persecution and famine and nakedness peril sword c. be killed all the day long and counted as sheep for the slaughter he concludeth with Nevertheless in all these things we are more then conquerours through him that loved us and so goeth on even to a challenge of our worst enemies Death Angels Principalities and Powers things present and to come height depth and what other creature besides should stand in opposition What voluminous waves be here for number and power and terrour yet they shall not separate the Ark from Christ nor a soul from the Ark nor a body from the soul nor an hair from the body to do us hurt What saith David Mark the upright man and behold the just for the end of that man is peace Psal. 37.37 Mark him in his setting out he hath many oppositions mark him in the journey he is full of tribulations but mark him in the conclusion and the end of that man is peace In Christ all things are ours 1 Cor. 3.22 How is that Why we have all things because we have the Haver of all things And if we love Christ all things work together for our good yea for the best Rom. 8.28 And â—f all things quoth Luther then even sin it self And indeed how many have we known the better for their sin That Mary Magdalen had never loved so much if she had not so much sinned had not the incestuous person sinned so notoriously he had never been so happy God took the advantage of his humiliation for his conversion Had not one foot slipt into the mouth of Hell he had never been in this forwardness to Heaven Sin first wrought sorrow saith Saint Augustine and now godly sorrow kills sin the daughter destroyes the mother neither do our own sins onely advantage us but other mens sins work for our good also Objection But may some say Can any good come out of such a Nazarite Answer Yes The advantage we have by Christ is more then the loss we had by Adam If Arrius had not held a Trinity of Substances with a Trinity of Persons and Sabellius an Unity of Persons with an Unity of Essences the Mysteries of the Trinity had not been so clearly explaned by those great Lights of the Church If Rome had not so violently obtruded her Mâ—rits the doctrine of Iustification onely by faith in Christ might have been less digested into mens hearts We may say here as Saint Augustine doth of Carthage and Rome if some enemies had not contested against the Church it might have gone worse with the Church Lastly suppose our enemies should kil us they shall not hurt but pleasure us yea even death it self shall work our good That Red-sea shall put us over to the Land of Promise and we shall say to the praise of God we are delivered we are the better for our enemies the better for our sins the better for death yea better for the Devil and to think otherwise even for the present were not onely to derogate from the wisdom power and goodness
10.29.30 Let the Powder-Traytors plot and contrive the ruinâ— of our state never so cunningly and closey let them go on to the utmost as there wanted nothing but an actor to bring on that Catholick dooms-day yet before the match could bee brought to the Powder their artificiall fire-works were discovered their projection prodition deperdition all disclosed and seasonably returned on their own heads And the like of their invincible Navie And of Pope Alexander the sixth who prepared a feast for diverse Cardinalls and Senators purposing to poyson them but by the providence of God they escaped and hee alone was poysoned Let Iezabel fret her heart out and swear by her gods that Eliah shall die yet shee shall bee frustrate Eliah shall bee safe Let the red Dragon spout forth floods of venom against the Church the Church shall have wings given her to flie away she shal be delivered Rev. 12. Let the Scribes and Pharisees with their many false witnesses accuse Christ never so yet in spite of malice innocency shall find abbettors and rather than hee shall want witnesses the mouth of Pilate shall bee opened to his justification Yea let Ionas through frailty run away from the execution and embassage of God's charge and thereupon bee cast into the Sea though the waves require him of the Ship and the Fish require him of the waves yet the Lord will require him of the Fish even the Sea and the Fish had as great a charge for the Prophet as the Prophet had a charge for Niniveh for this is a sure rule if in case God gives any of the creatures leave to afflict us yet hee will be sure to lay no more upon us than we are able or he will make us able to bear yea than shall make for our good and his glory Hee hath a provident care over all the Creatures even Beasts and Plants and certainly wee are more precious than Fowls and Flowers yet the Lord cares for them Will the House-holder take care to water the herbs of his Garden or to fodder his Cattell and suffer his Men and Maids to famish through hunger and thirst Or wil hee provide for his Men and Maids and let his own children starve Surely if a man provide not for his own Hee hath denyed the faith and is worse than an Infidell 1 Tim. 5.8 Far bee it then from the great Hous-holder and Iudge of all the earth not to provide for his dear Children and Servants what shall bee most necessary for them indeed wee may fear our own flesh as Saint Paul did but God is faithfull and will not suffer us to bee tempted above our strength but will even give the issue with the temptation and in the mean time support us with his grace 2 Cor. 12.9 You have an excellent place to this purpose Ier. 15.20 21. Section 2. Objection But wee see by experience that God gives wicked men power often times to take away the very lives of the godly Answ. What then If wee lose the lives of our bodies it is that wee may save the lives of our souls and attain the greater degree of glory Luk. 9.24 and so wee are made gainers even by that loss Now if God takes away temporall and gives eternall life for it there is no hurt done us hee that promiseth ten pieces of silver and gives ten pieces of gold breaks no promise Peace bee unto this house was the Apostles salutation but it was not meant of an outward peace with men of the world and Christ â—aith you shall have rest Matth. 11.28 but it is rest unto your souls Again thou hast merited a three-fold death if thou bee'st freed from the two worser spirituall and eternall and God deal favourably with thee touching thy naturall death hee is mercifull if not thou must not think him unjust Though the Devill and the world can hurt us aswell as other men in our outward and bodily estates as the Devill had power over Iob in his ulcers over his children in their death over Mary Magdalen that was possessed and over that daughter of Abrahams Luk 13. whom hee kept bound 18. years ver 16. yet they can do us no hurt nor indanger our souls they shall lose nothing but their dross as in Zachary 13.9 Isa. 12. Let them sluce out our blood our souls they cannot so much as strike let wild beasts tear the body from the soul yet neither body nor soul are thereby severed from Christ. Yea they can neither deprive us of our spirituall treasure here nor eternall hereafter which makes our Saviour say Fear yee not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell Matth. 10.28 The body is but the Bark Cabinet Case or Instrument of the soul and say it falls in pieces there is but a pitcher broken the soul a glorious Ruby held more fit to bee set in the crown of glory than here to bee trodeâ— under foot by dirtie swine and therefore so soon as separated the Angels convey her hence to the place of everlasting bliss Alas what can they do they cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus Rom 8 38.39 Yea they are so far from doing us harm as that contrariwise wee are much the better for them In all these these things wee are more than conquerours through him that loved us ver 37. Whatsoever then becoms of goods or lives happie are wee so long as like wise Souldiers wee guard the vitall parts while the soul is kept found from impatience from distrust c. Our enemie may afflict us hee cannot hurt 〈◊〉 Objection Nevertheless that which I suffer is exceeding grievous Answer Not so grievous as it might have been for hee that hath afflicted thee for a time could have held thee longer hee that toucheth thee in part could have stricken thee in whole hee that laid this upon thy body hath power to lay a greater Rod both upon thy body and soul. Again there is no chastisement not grievous the bone that was dis-jointed cannot bee set right without pain no potion can cure us if it work not and it works not except it make us sick Nay my very disease is not so painfull for the time as my remedy how doth it turn the stomack and wring the in trails and work a worse distemper than that whereof I formerly complained neither could it bee so wholesome if it were less unpleasing neither could it make mee whole if it did not â—iâ—st make mee sick But wee are contented with that sickness which is the way to health There is a vexation without hurt such is this wee are afflicted not overpressed needy not desperate persecuted not forsaken cast down but perish not how should wee when all the evill in a City comâ— from the providence of a good God which can neither bee impotent nor unmeâ—cifull It is the Lord let him do
inconsequences for Gedeon to argue Gods absence by affliction his presence by deliverances and the unlikely-hood of success by his own disability Iudg. 6.13.15 It is no argument that Christ is not in the Ship because tempests and storms arise The valiant man was herâ— weak weak in faith weak in discourse for rather should hee have inferred Gods presence upon their correction for wheresoever God chastiseth there hee is yea there hee is in mercy nothing more proves us his than his stripes hee will not bestow whipping where hee loves not fond nature indeed thinks God should not suffer the wind to blow upon his dear ones because her self makes this use of her own indulgence but none out of the place of torment have suffered so much as his dear Children If hee had said wee are Idolaters therefore the Lord hath forsaken us because wee have forsaken him instead of the Lord hath delivered us unto the Medianites therefore hee hath forsaken us the sequell had been as good as now it 's faulty for sins not afflictions argue God absent Yea commonly the measure of our sufferings is according to the measure of grace in us and Gods love to us Hee is a chosen vessell unto mee saith God to Ananias touching Paul therefore hee must suffer great things for my sake Act. 9.15.16 Iob for a righteous and upright man had no fellow by the testimony of God himself Iob 1.8 Yet the next news we hear of him Iob is afflicted in his Sons in his substance in his body from the crown of the head to the soal of the foot Saint Austin when God called him was far more assaulted by Satan than Alippius because God had endued him with greater learning and gifts and intended him an instrument of bringing more glory to his Name And lastly as Christ was annointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows Psal. 45.7 so hee was annointed with the oil of sadness above his fellows as was his back so was his burthen as were his parts so were his passions and his stroaks answerable to his strength Never any have had so bitter draughts upon earth as those he loves best and that of Saint Austin is a sure rule whom God smites not hee loves not If hee do not think thee worthy of his Rod he will never think thee worthy of his Crown Yea where he uses not the Rod he means to use the Sword Never was Ierusalems condition so desperate as when God said unto her My fury shall depart from thee I will bee quiet and no more angry Ezek 16.42 Thus not to bee angry was the greatest anger of all Never were the Iews more to bee pitied than when their Prophet delivered these words from the Lord Why should yee bee stricken any more Isa. 1.5 Not to â—e afflicted is to be forsaken And as the sick man is in small hope of his life when the Physitian giveth him over so his soul is in a desperate case whom God forbeareth to chastise for his sins As many there be who never knew what any sorrow meant unless it were such as Amnons such as Ahabs when they are crossed in their corruptions curbed in their lewd courses or restrained of their wicked wills But let them take it for a fearfull signe of som sore judgement to come Saint Ambrose Bishop of Millain as Paulinus relates took into a Rich mans house as hee travelled who that he might bid him throughly welcom entertained him both with great cheer and curteous discourses and amongst other matters told of his continued happiness and that hee never suffered any ill all his days but had all things as hee would and happiness so flowing in upon him that hee knew not what calamity meant which conference did so startle Saint Ambrose that presently hee took his leave telling his company that hee feared to stay in that place which never felt any disaster and was no sooner gon thence but suddenly the house fell down and proved a grave to all her inhabitants Polycrates King of the Samians never felt any ill all his life his hopes never fell short of his expectation he could not wish for the thing which was not fulfilled what hee willed hee did Yea having but once a King of excellent rarity that fell into the water this loss was recovered for the Fish was taken which had swallowed it and was presented to Polycratus but at length all this his happiness epilogized in a gallowes None more happy than great Pompey all his life yet at last hee was made to drink his own blood by the hands of the Executioner Who but Andronicus Emperour of the East for many years but at length hee was set upon a scabbed Chamelt with a Crown of Onions platted on his head and in great mockery carâ—ied in triumph through the City And dots not sacred Writ certifie how Haman whose command ere while almost reached to Heaven was instantly adjudged by the King to the Gibbet while Mordecai who was condemned to the â—alter was all of a suddain made second in the Kingdom Nevertheless as Haman rejoiced in his preâ—â—rment to the 〈◊〉 Banâ—â—â—t which was the 〈◊〉 way to his destruction so many 〈…〉 onely argument of Gods love and that they are in favour with him because they prosper in all their ways which would make a wise man the more suspicious for as Seneca that wise Roman saith he that hath been longest happy shall at length have his portion of misery and who so seemeth to bee dismissed is but deferred And commonly their change is not more dolefull than sudden for as it often hapneth that in very fair weather a storm doth arise and as I have read of certain Trees which on Munday have been growing in the Forrest and before Sunday following under sail on the Sea so the same hour hath seen the knee bowing to the head and again the head stooping and doing reverence to the knee as every age gives instance for else I might muster up a multitude of examples for proof of the point Or in case it seems better yet it is worse with them when their life and happiness shall end together as it fared with Belshazzar who was sitting at a Feast 〈◊〉 ly while on a sudden Death came like a Voyder to take him away And Pope Adrian who when hee was to dye brake out into this expression Oh my soul whither art thou going thou shalt never bee merry again Neither are men of this world whose bellies God filleth with his hid treasure upon occasion of their outward prosperity onely apt to bee brought into a fools Paradise of thinking themselvs to bee the speciall darlings of God but even the godly themselvs have oftentimes their eyes so dazled with the outward glittering and flourishing estate of the wicked that thereupon they are ready to say of them The generation of Gods children as it fared with David Psal. 73.15 But these are not sober thoughts yea they are rather the dreams
instead of all their posterity before they had issue and the Covenant being made with them as publick persons not for themselves onely but for their Posterity who were to stand or fall with them they being left to the freedom of their own wills in transgressing the commandment of God by eating the forbidden fruit through the temptation of Satan have made us and all mankind descending from them by ordinary generation as guilty of their sin as any heir is liable to his fathers debt Their act being ours as the act of a Knight or Burgess in the Parliament House is the act of the whole County in whose name and room they sit and whom they represent by which means our Nature is so corrupted that we are utterly indisposed and made opposite unto all that is spiritually good and wholly inclined to all evil and that continually and have also lost our communion with God incurred his displeasure and curse so as we are justly liable to all punishments both in this life and in the life to come Now for the fuller confirming and amplifying of what hath been said touching Original sin take only these ensuing Scriptures and Auhorisms without any needless connexion that I may be so much the briefer Sect. X. Amongst many others the most pregnant Scriptures for the confirming of this point I hold to be these The fathâ—rs have eaten sowre grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge Jer. 31.29 was a true proverb though by them abused By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned Rom. 5.12 to 21. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one Job 14.4 See Chap. 15.14 15 16. We are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags Isa. 64 6. By the works of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight Rom. 3.20 There is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Rom. 3.21 22 23. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually And it repented the Lord that he had made man Gen. 6 5 6. Both Iews and Gentiles are all under sin As it is written there is none righteous no not one There is none that understandeth there is none that seeketh after God They are all gone on t of the way they are altogether become unprofitable there is none that doeth good no not one Their throat is an open sepulchre the poyson of Asps is under their lips there is no fear of God before their eyes Rom. 3.9 to 20. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts murthers adulteries fornications thefts false witness blasphemies Mat. 15.19 See Gal. 5.19 20 21. Whence come wars and sightings amongst you come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members James 4.1 Unto them that are unbelieving is nothing pure but even their minde and conscience is defiled Tit. 1.15 I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my minde and bringing me into captivity to the Law of sin which is in my members O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death c Rom. 7.14 to 25. where the Apostle speaks all this and a great deal more of himself see Ephes. 2.2 3. Gal. 3.10 Yet how many that grieve for their other sins which are never troubled for their Original corruption which should above all be bewailed even as the mother and nurse of all the rest and thought worthy not of our sighs alone but of our tears For this is the great wheel of the Clock that sets all the other wheels a moving while it seems to move slowest And never did any truly and orderly repent that began not here esteeming it the most foul and hatefull of all as David Psal. 51.5 And Paul crying out of it as the most secret deceitfull and powerfull evil Rom. 7.23 24. And indeed if we but clearly saw the foulness and deceitfulness of it we would not suffer our eyes to sleep nor our eye-lids to slumber until a happy change had wrought these hearts of ours which by nature are no better then so many styes of unclean Devils to become habitations for the God of Iacob Sect. XI We are the cursed seed of rebellious parents neither need we anymore to condemn us then what we brought into the world with us In Adam the root of all we all so sinned that if we had no inherent sin of our own this imputed sin of his were enough to damn us 〈…〉 Utter the branches cannot be better They were the fountain we the springs if the fountain be filthy so must the springs VVhence it is that holy David cries out Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me Psal. 51.5 Tantillus puer tantus peccator saith St Austin when a little childe I was a great sinner As in the little and tender bud is infolded the leaf the blossom and the fruit so even in the heart of a young child there is a bundle and pack of folly laid up as Solomon affirms Pro. 22.15 And as Moses Speaks The thoughts of mans heart are evil even from his childhood Gen. 6.5 8.21 VVe brought a world of sin into the world with us and were condemned so soon as conceived we were adjudged to eternal death before we lived a temporal life As admit thou hadst never offended in the least thought word or deed all thy life yea admit thou couldest now keep all the commandments actually and spiritually yet all this were nothing it could not keep thee out of Hell since that Original sin which we drew from the loins of our first Parents is enough to damn us Sin and corruption are the riches that we bequeath to our children rebellion the inheritance that we have purchased for them death the wages that we have procured them God made us after his own image but by sin we have turned the image of God into the image of Satan Yea like Satan we can do nothing else but sin and make others sin too who would not so sin but for us As a furnace continually sparkles as the raging Sea foams and casts up mire and dirt and as a filthy dunghil does continually reak forth and evaporate odious odors so do our hearts naturally stream forth unsavory eructations unholy lusts and motions even continually As O the infinitely intricate windings and turnings of the dark labyrinths of mans heart who findes not in himself an indisposition of minde to all good and an inclination to all evil O the strange monsters the ugly odious hideous fiends the swarms litters legions of noisom lusts that are coâ—ched in the stinking styes of every one of our deceitfull hearts insomuch that if all our thoughts did but break forth into action
the satisfying of his justice and also freeing us from the guilt and punishment of either And that with as much brevity as may stand with perspicuity First in general we must undoubtedly know that the sole perfection of a Christian is â—he imputation of Christs righteousnesse and the not imputation of his own unrighteousnesse as appears by the whole current of Scripture of which a few Even the Son of man came to give his life a ransom for many Mark 10.45 As in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15.21 22. As by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous c. Rom. 5.18 19. As by the offence of one the fault came on all men to condemnation so by the justifying of one the benefit abounded towards all men to the justification of life Rom. 5.18 Unto Iesus Christ that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood Rev. 1.5 The blood of Iesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all our sins 1 Joh. 1.7 he is the reconciliation for our sins c. 1 Joh. 2 1 2. He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 He was delivered to death for our sins and is risen again for our justification Rom. 4.25 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree by whose stripes we were healed 1 Pet. 2.24 He was wounded for our transgressions he was broken for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we were healed Isa. 53.5 Neither is there salvation in any other for among men there is given none other name under Heaven whereby we must be saved Acts 4.12 The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Iesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.23 I am the resurrection and the life he that beleeveth in me although he were dead yet shall he live John 11.25 You hath he quickned that were dead in trespasses and sins Ephes. 2.1 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved Joh. 4.16 to 20. God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life Rom. 5 6. to 11 read to the end of the Chapter See more Iohn 1.29 Acts 13.39 Rom. 6.4 to 23. and 8.2 3. and 10. 3,4 1 Cor. 15.56 Col. 1.14 Gal 3.22 Heb. 9.28 1 Pet. 1.18 19 20. 1 Joh. 3.8 Sect. XVIII As Christ was a sinner onely by the imputation of our sins so we are just onely by the imputation of his righteousness Our good works were they never so many and rare cannot justify us or deserve any thing at Gods hands it is onely in Christ that they are accepted and only for Christ that they are rewarded Yea the opinion of thine own righteousnesse makes thy condition far worse then the wickedest mans alive For Christ that came to save all weary and heavy laden sinners be they never so wicked neither came to save or once to call thee that hast no sin but art righteous enough without him As hear his own words to the proud Pharisees who had the same thoughts of themselves as thou hast They that be whole need not a Physitian but they that are sick I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance The lost sheep of the house of Israel Mat. 9.13 and 10.6 and 15.24 and 18.11 Nor can any soul be so dangerously sick as thou who art least sensible of thy being sick Briefly until with Saint Paul thou renounceth thine own righteousness seest thy self the greatest of sinners art able to discern sin in every thing thou canst think speak or do and that thy very righteousness is no better then a menstruous cloth Isai. 64.6 thou canst have no part in Christ. And untill Christ shall become thine by Regeneration and a lively faith Thou art bound to keep the whole Law actually and spiritually with thy whole man thy whole life or else suffer eternal death and destruction of body and soul in Hell for thy not keeping it So that thou hast yet to answer and I pray mind it seriously for all the sins that ever thou hast committed who art not able to answer for one of the least of them For the wages of sin any sin be it never so small is eternal death Rom. 6.23 Gal. 2.16 19 20 21. Neither let Satan nor thy own deceitfull heart delude thee in thinking that thou hast faith when thine own words declare the contrary Nor would I ask any more evidence against thee in this then thine own mouth in saying that thou never doubtedst in all thy life for this makes it plain that thou never hadst faith nor ever knewest what saith means For he who never doubted never believed and Satan hath none so sure as those whom he never yet assaulted Sect. XIX But this being a main fundamental point which every man is bound to know I will more particularly and fully explain it as thus Man being in a most miserable and undone condition by reason of Original and actual sin and of the curse due to both being liable to all miseries in this life and adjudged to suffer eternal torments in hell-fire after death having no possibility to escape the fierce wrath of Almighty God who had already pronounced sentence upon him VVhen neither Heaven Earth nor Hell could have yeilded any satisfactory thing besides Christ that could have satisfied Gods justice and merited Heaven for us then O then God of his infinite wisdome and goodness did not onely find out a way to satisfie his justice and the Law but even gave us his own Son out of his bosome and his Son gave himself to die even the most shameful painful and cursed death of the Cross to redeem us that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Iohn 3.16 A mercy bestowed and a way found out that may astonish all the sons of men on earth and Angels in Heaven VVherefore wonder at this you that wonder at nothing that the eternal God would die to redeem our worse then lost souls that we might not die eternally O the deepnesse of Gods love O the unmeasurable measure of his bounty O Son of God who can sufficiently admire thy love or commend thy pity or extol thy praise It was a wonder that thou madest us for thy self more that thou madest thy self man
for us but most of all that thou shouldest unmake thy selfe that thou shouldest dye to save us VVhich salvation stands in two things First in freeing and delivering us from Hell Secondly In the possession of Heaven and eternal life Christ by his death merits the first for us and by his obedience fulfilling the law merits the second The parts of our justification are likewise two the remission of our sins and the imputation of Christs righteousnesse whereby we have freedom from all evill here and the perfection of all good and happinesse in heaven Insomuch that all those Millions of mercies that we have received from before and since we were born either for soul or body even to the least bit of bread we eat or shall enjoy to eternity Christ of his free grace hath purchased for us with the price of his own precious blood For which see Psal. 68.19 and 145.15 16. and 75.6 7. Hear this all you that care to be saved God will pardon all your sins he will give you an eternall crown of glory in heaven if you unfainedly repent and wholly rely upon Christ for your salvation by a lively faith and that because he is just for although the Lord cannot in justice let sin go unpunished for the wages of sin is eternal death Rom. 6.23 death in the person if not in the surety Yet Christ hath sufficiently satisfied for all the sins of the faithful and paid their dept even to the utmost farthing as is evident by Isai. 53.4 5. 2 Cor. 5.21 Heb. 9.26 1 Pet. 2.24 Rom. 3.25 26. 1 Ioh. 1.7 9. and sundry other places As are we bound to perform perfect obedience to the Law Christ performed it for us VVetâ— we for disobedience subject to the sentence of condemnation the curse of the Law and death of body and soul He was condemned for us and bore the curse of the Law he died in our stead an ignominious 〈◊〉 Did we deserve the anger of God he endured his Fathers wrathful displeasure that so he might reconcile us to his Father and set us at liberty He that deserved no sorrow felt much that we who deserved much might feel none And by his wounds we are healed Isai. 53.5 Adam eat the apple Christ paid the price In a word whatsoever we owed Christ discharged whatsoever we deserved he suffered if not in the self-same punishments for he being God could not suffer the eternal torments of Hell yet in proportion the dignity of his Person he being God and Man giving value unto his temporary punishments and making them of more value and worth then if all the world should have suffered the eternal torments of Hell For it is more for one that is eternal to die then for others to die eternally Therefore was the Son of God made the Son of man that the Sons of men might be made the Sons of God and therefore was he both God and man lest being in every respect God he had been too great to suffer for man or being in every respect man he had been too weak to satisfie God And so much for explication of the Third Principle mentioned in the beginning Sect. XX. But now comes the hardest part of my work to be performed For admit the Natural man be convinced of the truth of these three fundamental Principles never so clearly yet he will draw such a conclusion from the premisses that he will be never the better for what hath been told him yea he will decoct all even the mercy and goodness of God into poyson For what will such a one suggest to himself the Devil helping forward Let it be granted will he say that I were every way wretched and miserable a great sinner both originally and actually and likewise liable to all the plagues of this life and of that to come yet I thank God I am well enough so long as Christ hath paid my ransom and freed me from all by a new Covenant the tenure whereof is Believe and Live whereas at first it was do this and live to which I answer In Covenants and Indentures between party and party there are alwayes articles and conditions to be performed on the one side as well as promises to be fullfilled on the other as saith Pareus Now as God hath covenanted and bound himself by his word and Seal to remit thee thy sins adopt thee his child by regeneration and give thee the Kingdome of Heaven and eveâ—lasting life by and for his sons sake so Christ hath for and on thy behalf undertaken yea thou thy self didst for thy part bind thy self by covenant promise and vow in thy baptism that thou wouldest forsake the Devil and all his works constantly believe Gods holy Word and obediently keep his Commandments the better thereby to expresse thy thankfulness towards him for so great a benefit 1 Pet. 3.21 Psal. 116.12 13 14. And we know that in Covenants and Indentures if the Conditions be not kept the Obligation is not in force VVhereby millions Magus like after the water of baptism which is a Seal of the Covenant of Grace go to the fire of Hell Yea except we repent and believe the Gospel threats and precepts aswel as promises that holy Sacrament together with the 〈…〉 to us our salvation will be an obligation under our own hand and seal against us and so prove a seal of our greater condemnation Therefore the main question is VVhether thou art a believer For although Christ in the Gospel hath made many large and precious promises there are none so general which are not limited with the condition of faith and the fruit thereof unfained repentance and each of them are so tied and entailed that none can lay claim to them but true believers which repent and turn from all their sins to serve him in holiness without which no man shall see the Lord Heb. 12.14 Isa. 59.20 As for instance Our Saviour hath made publick Proclamation Mark 16.16 That whosoever shall believe and be baptised shall be saved but mark what withal is added he that will not believe shall be damned Again God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3.15 16. And that none may deceive themselves he addeth He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather then light John 3.19 20. And again As many as received him to them he gave power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name Joh. 1.12 Again Heb. 5.9 He is said to be the Author of eternal salvation unto all that obey him not unto them which continue in their rebellious wickedness and never submit themselves to be ruled by the scepter of
receive what-ever comes or is offered them be it bribe or other sinful bait not once thinking this is forbidden fruit and thou shalt die the death That think the vowed enemy of their souls can offer them a bait without a hook you cannot but acknowledg them stark fools though thou thy self beest one of the number Again for men to dishonour God and blaspheme his Name while he does support and relieve them to runne from him while he does call them and forget him while he does seed them To imitate the Common Protestants in Queen Maries time who laughed the Martyrs to scorn and esteemed them superstitious fools to lose their lives and fortunes for matters of Religion accounting faith holinesse immortality of the soul c. meer fopperies and illusions To be quick-sighted in other mens failings and blinde to their own Are not these so many infallible properties of a fool and yet these are the lively characters of every sensuallist In so much that if I should give you a list or Catalogue of all the fools in one City or County You would blesse your selves that there are so few Bedlam houses and yet so many out of their wits that can not perceive or discern the same And yet no wonder for as I told you-ere-while Sensual men are so be-nighted and puzled with blindnesse that they know no other way then the flesh leads them Yea many by losse of conscience become Atheists and by losse of reason Beasts Yea to any thing that is spiritually good the natural man is blinde and deafe and dead as ye may see by these ensuing Scriptures 1 Tim. 5.6 Rom. 1.21 22 25. Ephes. 5.14 Isa. 6.9 10. John 12 40. Psal. 69.23 Matth. 4.16 15.14 Ephes. 4.18 19. 5.8 1 Pet. â—9 Acts 28.27 Rom. 11.8 Matth. 23.16 17.19.24.26 27.3 4 5. 2 Pet. 2.16 Revel 3.17 Rom. 6.13 8.11 Micah 7.16 Psal. 58.4 Eph. 2.1 If our Gospel he hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the god of this world hath blinded 2 Cor. 4â— 3 4. But it is otherwise with the godly as let Satan or the world offer a wise Christian the bait of pleasure or profit his answer shall be I will not buy repentance so dear I will not lose my soul to please my sense If affliction comes he will consider that Gods punishments for sinne calls for conversion from sin and in case God speaks to him by his Word to forsake his evill wayes and turn again to him he will amend his course lest if he heare not the word he should feel the sword Whereas nothing will confute a fool but fire and brimstone The Lord spake to Manasses and to his people but they would not regard Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the Captains of the Host of the King of Ashur that took Manasses and put him in fetters and brought him in chains and carried him to Babel 2 Chron. 33.10 11. Fools saith holy David by reason of their transgression and because of their iniquity Psal. 107.17 From which words Musculus infers that all wilfull transgressors are arrant fools And it is the saying of Cardan That dishonesty is nothing else but folly and madnesse Yea Solomon throughout all his Proverbs by a fool means the natural man and by a wise man a man sanctified O that it were rightly learned and laid to heart by all that are yet in the state of un-regeneracy for it is every one of their cases To conclude in a word Without knowledge the soul is not good Prov. 19.2 The ignorant cannot be innocent I am the light of the world sayes our Saviour John 8.12 12.46 Where light is not Christ is not for Christ is light § 59. And so according to my skill I have performed what I at first promised It remains before we leave it that some use be made thereof that so both wise and weak may learn something from what hath been spoken of this subject Wherefore in the first place If it be so that both the sensual and rational even all that are yet in their natural estate are uncapable of divine and super-natural knowledge that they are blinde touching spiritual things Then let not any carnal wretch hereafter dare to speak evill of the things actions or persons that are out of the reach of his capacity but silently suspend his judgement untill he be better informed For as it pertaineth not to the Rustick to jugde of letters So it belongeth not to natural men to judg of spiritual things Yea let those ignorant ones that have used to speak evill of the way of truth learn to kick no more against the pricks lest they bring upon themselves the same curse that their fellows did who brought up an evill report of the Holy Land Num. 13 32 33. 14.23 14. Yea put case they shall think they do God good service in it as many do in persecuting and putting to death his children and Ambassadors John 16.2 as a world of examples witnesse Yea the Iews thought they did marvellous well in crucifying the Lord of life But what says the holy Ghost Prov. 14. There is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death vers 12. Even the Powder-traytors thought they merited when they intended to blow up the whole State Alass Natural men are no more fit to judge of spiritual matters then blinde men are sit to judge of colours And yet none more forward then they as you may see by those blinde Sodomites that dealt so roughly and coursely with Lot and his two Angels Gen. 19.1 to 12. That they are ignorant and so unfit is evident of what is recorded of â—ichâ—l 2 Sam. 6.16 Of Nichodemus John 3.4 Of Festus Acts 26.24 And lastly of Paul before his conversion I was saith he a blasphemer a persecutor and an opposer of Christ and his members but I did it ignoâ—â—â—â—ly through unbelief 1 Tim. 1.13 It 's worth your observing too that 〈◊〉 no sooner enlightned with the saving knowledge of Iesus Christ 〈◊〉 was of a contrary judgement and preached that faith which before â—e â—â—â—demned and persecuted And this will be every one of their cases 〈…〉 if not in this life yet hereafter when Hell flames hath opened their eyes they will confesse We fools thought his life madnesse and his end to be without honour How is he now numbred with the children of God and his lot among the Saints And when they shall see it they shall be troubled with horrible fear and shall be amazed at the strangeness of his salvation so far beyond all that they looked for and groaning for anguish of spirit shall say within themselves This is he whom we once had in deâ—ision and in a proverb of reproach therefore have we erred from the way of truth we wearied our selves in the way of wickedness and destruction but as for the way of the Lord we have not known it The light of
the clock esteeming every minute a month and thy present misery unsupportable What then will it be to lie in stames of fire to which our fire is but ayre in comparison fire and brimstone kept in the highest flame by the unquenchable wrath of God world without end where thou shalt have nothing about thee but darkness and horrour wayling and wringing of hands desperate yellings and gnashing of teeth thy old companions in vanity and sin to ban and curse thee the Devils insulting over thee with cruelty and scorn the never-dying worm of conscience to feed upon thy soul and flesh for ever and ever O everlasting eternity a never-dying life an ever-living death Which yet is but just with God for if thou mightest have lived for ever thou wouldst have sinned for ever If God would everlastingly have spared thee thou wouldest have everlastingly hated and provoked him What then can be more equal then that thou shouldst suffer everlastingly O then bethink thy self of this word eternal and everlasting and ponder upon it yea do but indeed believe it and it will be enough to break thine hard heart and make it relent and repent and thereby prevent the wrath to come It will put thee to a demur What have I done what am I now about whether will this course tend how will it end what will become of me if I go on in chambering and wantonness surfeting and drunkenness strife and envying swearing prophaneness earthly-mindedness and the like For indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish shall be upon the soul of every one that doth evil and continueth therein as the Apostle witnesseth Rom. 2.8 9. O then break off thy sins without delay and let there be an healing of thine errors Sect. 3. Neither is the extremity of pain inferiour to the perpetuity of it it is a place full of horrour and amazedness where is no remission of sin no dismission of pain no intermission of sense no permission of comfort its torments are both intollerable and interminable and 〈◊〉 neither he enda 〈…〉 The pangs of the first death are pleasant compared with those of the second For mountains of sand were lighter and millions of years shorter than a tithe of those torments Rev. 20.10 Iude 7. It is a death which hath no death it hath a beginning it hath no ending Matth. 3.12 Isa. 66 24. The pain of the body is but the body of pain the anguish of the soul is the soul of anguish For should we first burn off one hand then another after that each arm and so all the parts of the body it would be deemed intollerable and no man would endure it for all the profits and pleasures this world can afford and yet it is nothing to the burning of body and soul in hell Should we endure ten thousand years torments in hell it were grievous but nothing to eternity Should we suffer one pain it were miserable enough but if ever we come there our pains shall be for number and kinds infinitely various as our pleasures have been here every sence and member each power and faculty both of soul and body shall have their several objects of wretchedness and that without intermission or end or easâ— or patience to endure it Luke 12 5. 16.23 Matth. 3.12 5.22 22.23 The Schools affirm that the least torture in Hell exceeds the greatest that can be devised by all the men on earth even as the least joy in Heaven surpasseth the greatest comfort here on earth There is scarce any pain here on earth but there is ever some hope of ease mitigation or intermission of some relief or deliverance but in Hell their torments are easeless endless and remediless unsufferable and yet ineviteable and themselves left hopeless helpless pittyless It were misery enough to have the head-ach tooth-ach Collick gowt burning in the fire or if there be any thing more grievous Yea should all these and many more meet together in one man at one instant they would come infinitely short of the pains of Hell Yea they would all bâ— bar as the stinging of Antes to the lashes of those Scorpions but as drâ—pes to those Vials of wrath as sparks to that flame as Chrysostome speaks The Furnace of Babell was but a flea-biting to this tormenting Tophet prepared of old Isa. 30. He hath made it deep and large the pile thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it vers 32. So that it were happy for reprobate spirits if they were in no worse condition than so many Toads or Serpents As consider If a dark dungeon here be so loathsome what is that dungeon of eternal of utter darkness If material fire be so terrible what is Hell fire Here we cry out of a burning feaver or if a very coal from the hearth do but light on our flesh O how it grieves us we cannot hold our finger for one minute in scalding lead but there both body and soul shall fry in everlasting flames and be continually tormented by infernal fiends whose society alone would be sufficiently frightfull Sect. 4. Now consider Is one hours twitches of tâ—â—â—orm of conscience here yoâ— one minutes tâ—â—ch of a tooth pulling out so unsufferable what is a 〈…〉 mented in that flame what think we shall that torment be when body and soul come to be united in torment since the pains of Hell are more exquisite than all the united torments that the earth can invent Yea the pains and sufferings of the damned are ten thousand times more than can be imagined by any heart under heaven and can rather through necessity be endured than expressed It is a death never to be painted to the life no pen nor pencil nor art nor heart can comprehend it Matth. 18.8 9 10. 25.30 Luke 16 23 24. 2 Pet. 2.4 Isa. 5.14 30 33. Prov. 15.11 Yea were all the land paper and all the water ink every plant a pen and every other creature a ready Writer yet they could not set down the least piece of the great pains of hell-fire Now add eternity to extremity and then consider hell to be hell indeed For if the Ague of a year or the Collick of a month or the Rack of a day or the burning of an hour be so bitter here how will it break the hearts of the wicked to feel all these beyond all measure beyond all time So that it is an evil and bitter thing to depart from the living God We poor mortals until God does bring us from under the power of Satan unto himself do live in the world as if hell were not so hot noâ— the Devil so black as indeed they are as if Hell and Heaven were the one not worth the avoiding the other not worth the enjoying but the heat of fire was never painted and the Devil is more deformed than represented on the wall There are unexpressible torments in Hell as well
as unspeakable joyes in Heaven Nor will this be their case alone that are desparately wicked cursing and blaspheming Drunkards and sheders of blood but of all impenitent persons As for instance They who have lived in the fire of lust here must not think much to be scorched in the flames of Hell hereafter Heb. 13.4 Rev. 21.8 22.15 The detractor is a devil above ground his tongue is already set on fire from hell James 3.6 Rev. 16.10 11. which does sadly presage what will be his portion for ever unless repentaâ—ce quench those flames and so of the like offenders Psal. 9.17 Revel 22.12 As what sayes the Apostle Neither fornicators nor thieves nor murtherers nor drunkards nor swearers nor raylors nor lyers nor covetous persons nor unbelievers nor no unrighteous persons shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven but shall have their part and portion in that lake which burneth with the fire and brimstone which is the second death 1 Cor. 6.9 10. Rev. 21.8 which did they well consider they durst not continue in the practise of these sins without fear or remorse or care of amendment Sect. 5. Now what heart would not bleed to see men run headlong into these tortures that are thus intollerable Dance hoodwinkt into this perdition O that it were allowed to the desperate russians of our dayes that swear and curse drink and drab rob shed blood c. as if Heaven were blind and deaf to what they do to have but a sight of this Hell how would it charm their mouths appale their spirits strikâ— fear and astonishment into their hearts Yea if a sinner could see but one glimpse of hell or be suffered to look one moment into that fiery Lake he would rath 〈…〉 sin Nor can I think they would do as they do if they did but either see or foresee what they shall one day without serious and unfeigned repentance feel And indeed therefore are we dissolute because we do not think what a judgment there is after our dissolution because we make it the least and last thing we think on yea it is death we think to think upon death and we cannot endure that dolefull bell which summons us to judgment Lam. 1.9 Deut. 32.29 Oh that men would believe and consider this truth and do accordingly Oh that thou wouldest remember that there is a day of account a day of death a day of judgment coming Heb. 9.27 Matth. 25. wherein the Lord Iesus Christ shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire to render vengeance unto them which obey not his Gospel and to punish them with everlasting perdition from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power as the Apostle speaks 2 Thes. 1.7 8 9. Iude 15. Isa. 33 14. Mat. 25.46 As consider seriously I beseech you whether it will not be worth the while so to foresee the torments of Hell that you may prevent them Or if otherwise will you not one day wish you had when death comes and arrests you to appear before the great and terrible Iudge of all the world Luke 16 23. to 32. Matth. 13.30 38. at which time an Assizes or Quarter-Sessions shall be held within thee where Reason shall sit as Iudge and Satan shall put in a Bill of Indictment as long as that Book in Zechary Chap. 5.2 Ezek. 2.9 10. wherein shall be alleged all the evil deeds that ever thou hast committed and all the good deeds that ever thou hast omitted with their several circumstances that may aggravate them Eccles. 11.9 12.14 2 Cor. 5.10 and all the curses and judgments that are due to every sin Thine own Conscience shall accuse thee and thy memory shall give bitter evidence against thee and thou shalt condemn thy self before the just condemnation of thy Iudg who knows all thy misdeeds better than thy self 1 Iohn 3 20. Which sins of thine will not then leave thee but cry unto thee We are thy works and we will follow thee Rev. 14.13 And then who can sufficiently express what thy grief and anguish will be when the summons both of the first and second death do overtake thee at once Prov. 1.27 And when at once thou shalt think of thy sins past thy present misery and the terrour of thy torments to come and how thou hast made Earth thy Paradise thy belly thy God and lust thy Law so sowing vanity and reaping misery And finding that as in thy prosperity thou neglectedst to serve God so now in thy adversity God refuseth to save thee Prov. 1.24 to 32. Ezek. 23.35 When thou shalt call to mind the many warnings thou hast had of this dolefull day from Christs faithfull Ambassadours and how thou then madest but a mock or jeer at it Prov. 1 25. and think how for the short sinfull pleasures thou hast enjoyed thou must endure eternal pains Luk. 16.24 25. Rev. 6.12.10.18 Which yet thou shalt think most just and equal saying As I have deserved so I am served for I was oft enough offered mercy yea 〈◊〉 to accept thereof but I preferrâ—◠〈◊〉 pleasing of my 〈…〉 and the allurements of Satan than the Word of God or the motions of his holy Spirit Prov. 1.24 c. Mark 16.16 And which I would have thee think upon Hell fire is made more hot by neglecting so great salvation Heb. 2.3 This is the condemnation saith our Saviour none like this that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil Joh. 3.29 Now salvation is freely offered but men reject it hereafter they would accept of salvation but God will reject them Yea then a whole world if thou hadst it for one hours delay or â—â—spite that thou mightest have space to repent and sue unto God for mercy but it cannot be because thy body which joyned with thy soul in thy sinfull actions is now altogether unfit to joyn with her in the exercise of repentance and repentance must be of the whole man Besides death will take no pitty the Devil knows no mercy and the God of mercy will have utterly forsaken thee Then wilt thou say Oh that I had been more wise or that I were now to begin my life again then would I contemn the world with all its vanities yea if Satan should then offer me all the treasures pleasures and promotions of this world he should never entice me to forget the terrours of this dreadfull hour and those worse which are to follow Luke 16.24 c. 13.28 But Oh wretched Caitiff that I am how hath the Devil and my own deceitfull and devilish heart deluded me and how am I served accordingly For now is my case more miserable than the most despised Toad or Serpent that perisheth when it dieth in that I must go to answer at the great Judgement-seat for all my sins that am not able to answer for one of the least of them Eccles. 12.14 Mat. 18.34 that I
then their flesh and brains be worth That more is thrown out of one swines nose and mouth and guts then would maintein five sufficient families 2. Br. That it is not to be imagined what all the Drunkards in one shire or County do devour worse then throw away in one yeare when it hath been known if we may give credit to Authors and the oaths of others that two and thirtie in one cluster have made themselves drunk that six and thirty have drank themselves dead in the place with carowsing of healths that at one supper one and fourtie have killed themselves with striving for the conquest that two have drank each of them a peck at a draught that four men have drank four gallons of wine at a sitting that one man hath drank two gallons of wine and two more three gallons of wine a piece at a time that one Drunkard in a few hours drank four gallons of wine that four ancient men 〈…〉 all three hundred cups of wine amongst four men and lastly that three women came into a Tavern in Fleetstreet when I was a boy take it upon Claptons Oath and credit who drew the Wine and drank fourtie nine quarts of Sack two of them sixteen a piece and the third to get the victorie seventeen quarts of Sack Which being so what may the many millions of these ding-thristy dearth-makers coâ—sume in a year in all the three Nations Nor need it seem incredible that common drunkards should drink thus for they can disgorge themselves at pleasure by onely putting their finger to their throat And they will vomit as if they were so many live Whales spuing up the Ocean which done they can drink afresh Or if not so yet custome hath made it to passe through them as through a tunnel or streiner whereby it comes out again as sheer wine as it went in as hath been observed Nor hath the richest Sherrie or old Canarie any more operation with them then a cup of six hath with me And no marvel for if physick be taken too oft it will not work like physick but nature entertains it as a friend not as a Physitian yea poison by a familiar use becomes natural food As Aristotle in an example of a Maid who used to pick spiders off the walls and eat them makes plain 3. Br. That as Drunkards have lost the prerogative of their creation and are changed with Nebuchadnezar Dan. 4.16 from men into beasts so they turn the sanctuarie of life into the shambles of death yea thousands when they have made up the measure of their wickednesse are taken away in God's just wrath in their drink as it were with the weapon in their bellies it faring with them as it did with that Pope whom the Divel is said to have slain in the very instant of his Adulterie and carrie him quick to hell being suddenly struck with death as if the execution were no lesse intended to the soul then to the bodie That by the Law of God in both Testaments He that will not labour should not eat Gen. 3.19 Prov. 20.4 2 Thes. 3.10 because he robs the Common-wealth of that which is altogether as profitable as land or treasure But Drunkards are not onely lazie get-nothings but they are also riotous spend-alls and yet these drunken drones these gut-mongers these Quagmirists like vagrants and vermine do nothing all their life-long that may tend to any good as is storied of Margites and yet devour more of the fat of the Land then would plentifully maintein those millions of poor in the Nation that are ready to famish A thing not fit to be suffered in any Christian Common-wealth yea far fitter they were stoned to death as by the Law of God they ought Deut. 21.20 21. since this might bring them to repentance whereas now they spend their daies in mirth and suddenly they go down into hell Iob 21.13 Drunkards being those swine whom the legion carries headlong into the Sea or pit of perdition 4. Br. That every hour seems a day and every day a month to a drunkard that is not spent in a Tap-house yea they seem to have nailed their ears to the door of some Taverne or Tap-hous and to have agreed with Satan Master it is good being here That where ever the Drunkards house is his dwelling is at the Aâ—e-house except all his money be spent and then if his wife will fetch him home with a lanthorne and his men with a barrow he comes with 〈…〉 That the pot is no sooner from their lips but they are melancholy and their hearts as heavie as if a milstone lay upon it Or rather they are vexed like Saul with an evil-spirit which nothing will drive away but drink and Tobacco They so wound their consciences with all kinde of prodigious wickednesse and so exceedingly provoke God that they are rackt in conscience and tortured with the very flashes of hell-fire That they drink to the end onely that they may forget God his threats and judgments that they may drown conscience and put off all thoughts of death hell and to hearten and harden themselves against all the messages of God and threats of the Law which is no other in mitigating the pangs of conscience then as a saddle of gold to a galled-horse or a draught of poison to quench a man's thirst That if they might have their wills none should refuse to be drunk unpunished or be drunk unrewarded at the common charge As how will they boast what they drank and how many they conquer'd at such a meeting making it their onely glory That the utmost of a Drunkards honestie is good-fellowship that temperance and sobrietie with them is nothing but humour and singularitie and that they drink not for strength or need but for lust and pride to shew how full of Satan they are and how near to swine That though these swinish swill-bouls make their gullet their god and sacrifice more to their god-bellie then those Babylonians did to their god Bell Bell the Dragon ver 3. yet they will say yea swear that they drink not for love of drink though they love it above health wealth credit childe wief life heaven salvation all They no more care for wine then Esau did for his pottage for which he sold his birth-right Isa. 56.12 5. Br. That Drunkards are the Divels captives at his command and ready to do his will and that he rules over and workes in them his pleasure 2 Tim. 2.26 Eph. 2.2 that he enters into them and puts it into their hearts what he will have them to do Iohn 13.2 Acts 5.3 1 Chron. 21.1 opens their mouths speaks in and by them Gen. 3.1 to 6. stretcheth out their hands and they act as he will have them Acts 12 1 2. Rev. 2.10 he being their father Gen. 3.15 Iohn 8.44 their king Iohn 12.31 14.30 and their god 2 Cor 4.4 Eph. 2.2 And which is worst of all that drunkennesse
number of those that by professing themselves Protestants discredit the Protestant Religion Who because they have been Christened as Simon Magus was received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper like Iudas and for company go to Church also as Dogs do are called Christians as we call the Heathen Images gods yea and being blinded by the Prince of darknesse 2 Cor. 4.4 think to be saved by Christ though they take up Arms against him and are no more like Christians then Michols Image of Goats hair was like David Who make the world only their god and pleasure or profit alone their Religion Who are so gracelesse that God is not in all their thoughts except to blaspheme him and to spend his daies in the Divel's service Who being Christians in name will scoffe at a Christian indeed Who honour the dead Saints in a cold profession while they worrey the living Saints in a cruel persecution Who so hate Holiness that they will hate a man for it and say of good living as Festus of great Learning It makes a man mad whose hearts will rise at the â—ight of a good man as some stomachs will rise at the sight of sweet meats Whose Religion is to oppose the power of Religion and whose knowledge of the Truth to know how to argue against the Truth Who justifie the wicked and condemne the â—ust who call Zeal madness and Religion foolishness Who love their sins so much above their souls that they will not onely mock their Admonisher scoff at the means to be saved and make themselves merry with their own damnations but even hate one to the death for shewing them the way to eternal life who will condemne all for Round-heads that have more Religion then an Heathen or knowledg of heavenly things then a childe in the womb hath of the things of this life or conscience then an Atheist or care of his soul then a Beast and are mockers of all that march not under the pay of the Divel Who with Adam will become Satans bond-slaves for an Apple and like Esau sell their Birth-right of Grace here and their Blessing of Glory hereafter for a messe of Pottage Who prefer the pleasing of their palates before the saving of their souls who have not onely cast off Religion that should make them good men but reason also that should make them men Who waste virtues faster then riches and riches faster then any virtues can â—et them Who do nothing else but sin and make others sin too who spend their time and patrimonies in Riot and upon Dice Drabs Drunkennesse who place all their felicity in a Tavern or Brothel house where Harlots and Sycophants rifle their Estates and then send them to rob Who will borrow of every one but never intend to satisfie any one Who glory in their shame and are ashamed of that which should and would be their glory Who desire not the reputation of honesty but of good fellowship Who instead of quenching their thirst drown their senses and had rather leave their wits then the wine behinde them Who place their paradise in their throats heaven in their guts and make their belly their god Who pour their Patrimonies down their throats and throw the house so long out at windows that at length their house throws them out of doors Who think every one exorbitant that walks not after their rule Who will traduce all whom they cannot seduce even condemning with their tongues what they commend in their consciences Who as they have no reason so they will hear none Who are not more blinde to their own faults then quick-sighted in other mens Who being displeased with others will flie in their Makers face and tear their Saviours Name in pieces with oaths and execrations as being worse then any mad dog that flies in his Masters face that keeps him Who swear and curse even ouâ— of custome as currs bark yea they have so sworn away all grace thar they count it a grace to swear and being reproved for swearing they will swear that they swore not Or perhaps they are covetous Cormorants greedy Gripers miserly Muck-worms all whose reaches are at riches Who make gold their god and commodity the stern of their consciences Who hold every thing lawful if it be gainful Who prefer a little base peâ—f before God and their own salvations and who being faâ—ted with Gods blessings do spurn at his precepts Who like men sleeping in a boat are carried down the stream of this World until they arrive at their graves-end Death without once waking to bethink themselves whether they are a going to Heaveu or Hell Or Ignorant and Formal Hypocrites who do as they see others do without either conscience of sin or guidance of reason Who do what is morally good more for fear of the Law then for love of the Gospel Who fear the Magistrate more then they fear God or the Divel regard more the blasts of men's breath then the fire of God's wrath will tremble more at â—â—e thought of a Bayliffe or a Prison then of Satan or Hell and everlasting perdition Who will say they love God and Christ yet hate all that any way resemble him are slint unto God wax to Satan have their ears alwaies open to the Tempter shut to their Maker and Redeemer will chuse rather to disobey God then displease great Ones fear more the Worlds scorns then His anger and rather then abridge themselves of their pleasure will incur the displeasure of God Who will do what God forbids yet confidently hope to escape what He threatens Who will do the Divels works onely and yet look for Christs wages expect that Heaven will meet them at their last hour when all their life long they have galloped in the beaten Road towards Hell Who expect to have Christ their Redeemer and Advocate when their consciences tell them that they seldom remember him but to blaspheme him and more often name him in their Oaths and Curses then in their Praiers Who will persecute Honest and Orthodox Christians and say they mean base and dissâ—â—bling Hypocrites Who think they do God service in killing his servants Joh. 10.2 Who will boast of a strong faith and yet fall short of the Divels in believing Jam. 2.19 Who turn the grace of God into wantonness as if a condemned person should head his Drum of Rebellion with his Pardon resolving to be evil because God is good Who will not believe what is written till they feel what is written and whom nothing will confute but fire and brimstone Who think their villainy is unseen because it is unpunished and therefore live like beasts because they think they shall die like beasts Considering the swarms Legions Millions of these I say and many the like which I cannot stand to repeat As also in reference to Levit. 19.17 Isa. 58.1 And out of compassion to their pretious souls there are above twenty several Books purposely composed wherein are proper remedies of
Cor. 4.12 4. § But this is not one half of thine offence For whom doest thou curse Alas the Creatures that displease thee are but Instruments thy sin is the cause and God the author 2 Sam. 16.11 Psal. 39.9 10. Gen. 45.8 Ioh 1.21 from whom thou hast deserved it and ten thousand times a greater crosse but in stead of looking up from the stone to the hand which threw it or from the effect to the cause as Gods people doe thou like a mastiff â—og settest upon the stone or weapon that hurts thee But in this case Who are you angry withall Does your horse the dice the rain or any other creature displease you Alas they are but servants and if their Master bid smite they must not forbear they may say truly what Rabshekeh usurped Isa. 36.10 Are we come without the Lord and all that hear thee may say as the Prophet did to Senacherib 2 King 19.22 Whom hast thou blasphemed and against whom hast thou exalted thy self even against the Holy One of Israel 5. § Besides why dost thou curse thine enemie if he be so but because thou canst not be suffered to kill him For in heart and Gods account thou art a murtherer in wishing him the pox plague or that he were hanged or damned Nor will it be any rare thing at the day of judgment for cursers to be indicted of murther For like Shimei and Goliah to David thou wouldst kill him if thou durst thou doest kill him so far as thou canst I would be loath to trust his hands that bans me with his tongue Had David been at the mercie of either Shimei or Goliah and not too strong for them he had then breathed his last Nor is it commonly any sin committed or just offence given thee that thou cursest Who could have lesse deserved those curses and stones from Shimei then David Yea did not that head deserve to be tonguelesse that body to be headlesse that so undeservedly cursed such an Innocent as after it fell out For the curses and stones which Shimei threw at David rebounted upon Shimei and split his heart yea and at last knockâ— out his brains and the like of Goliahs curses which is also thy very case For 〈…〉 Curser meant it Prov. 26.2 yea though thou cursest yet God will blesse Psal. 109.28 â—ut thy curses shall be sure to rebound back into thine own brest Psal. 7.14 15 16 Prov. 14.30 Cursing mouths are like ill made Piâ—â—eâ— which while men discharge at others recoil in splinters on their own faces Their words and wishes be but whirlwinds which being breathen forth return again to the same place As hear how the Holy Ghost delivers it Psal. 109. As he loved cursing so shall it come unto him and as he loved not blessing so shall it be far from him As he cloathed himself with cursing like a garment so shall it come unto his bowels like water and like oil into his bones let it be unto him as a garment to cover him and for a girdle wherewith he shall always be girded v. 17 18 19. Hear this all ye whose tongnes run so fast on the Devils errand you loved cursing you shall have it both upon you about you and in you and that everlastingly if you persevere and go on for Christ himself at the last day even he which came to save the world shall say unto all such Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his Angels Mat. 25.41 Where they shall do nothing but curse for evermore for they no farther apprehending the goodnesse mercie and bounty of God then by the sense of their own torments the effects of his justice shall hate him and hating him they shall curâ—e him Rev. 16.11 They suffer and they blaspheme there is in them a furious malice against him being cursed of him they re-curse him they curse him for making them curse him for condemning them curse him because being adjudged to death they can never find death they curse his punishments because they are so unsufferable curse his mercies because they may never taste them curse the bloud of Christ shed on the Crosse because it hath satisfied for millions and done their unbeleeving souls no good curse the Angels and Saints in heaven because they see them in joy and themselves in torment Cursings shall be their sins and their chief ease Blasphemies their prayers Lacrymae their notes Lamentation all their harmony these shall be their evening songs their morning songs their mourning songs for ever and ever And indeed who shall go to Hell if Cursers should be left out Wherefore let all those learn to blesse that look to be heirs of the blessing 7. § But to be in Hell and there continue everlastingly in a bed of quenchlesse flames is not all For this is the portion even of Negative and vicelesse Christians if they be not vertuous Of such as do not swear exexcept they fear an oath That abound in good duties if they do them not out of faith and because God commands them that he may be glorified and others edified thereby Whereas thou doest supererogate of Satan in damning many souls besides thine own Thou hast had a double portion of sin to other men here and therefore must have a double portion of torment to them hereafter The number and measure of thy torments shall be according to the multitude and magnitude of thine offences Rev. 20.12 13. 22.12 Luk. 12.47 Mat. 10.15 Rom. 2.5 6. And those offences if I could stand to aggravate them by their severall circumstances would appear 〈…〉 With thy swearing and cursing thou doest not only wound thine own soul worse then the Baalites wounded their own bodies for thou wilfully muâ—therest thine own soul and that without any inducement as hath been proved But thou art so pernicious that this is the least part of thy mischief for thou drawest vengeance upon thousands by thy infectious and damnable example as how can it be otherwise Thou doest not only infect thy companions but almost all the heaâ— or come near thee Yea little children in the streets have learnt of thee to rap out oaths and belch out curses and scoffs almost as frequently as thy self and through thy accustomary swearing learned to speak English and Oaths together and so to blaspheme God almost so soon as he hath made them And not only so but thy example infects others and they spread it abroad to more like a malicious man sick of the plague that runs into the throng to disperse his infection whose mischief but-weighs all penalty It is like the setting a mans owne house on fire it burnes many of his neighbours houses and he shall answer for all the spoil So that the infection of sin is much worse then the act 8 § Nor wilt thou cease to sin when thou shalt cease to live but thy wickednesse will continue longer then thy life For as if we sow good workâ—
not be King if Christ should reign And the Pharisees knew that they should be deâ—â—ised if Christ were regarded And this makes them watch for our halting and withall as sharp sighted as Eagles to spy faults in us Briefly They put their own faults in that part of the Wallet which is behinde them but ours in the other part or end which is before them Indeed self-examination would make their judgements more charitable Fifthly They delight in censuring and slandering us because Satan who in their God 2 Cor. 4.4 and their Prâ—nce Ioh. 14.30 and works in them hiâ— pleasure Eph. 2.2 2 Tim. 2.26 is ever prompting them thereunto Acts 5.3 Rev. 12.10 For it is Satan that speaks in and by them as once he did by the Serpent It is his minde in their mouth his heart in their lips Mat. 16.23 And they being his Sons Servants and Subjects thirst to do him what honour and service they can Nor can they pleasure him more it being the hopefullest way to discourage men in the way to heaven quench the good motions of Gods spirit kill the buds and beginnings of grace draw them back to the world and so by consequence damn their souls that can be to see that whatsoever they do or speak base constructions are made thereof Hereupon that subtil Serpent does like Maximinus who set on work certain vile persons to accuse the Christians of hainous crimes that so he might persecute them with the more shew of reason True they poor souls do not know that Satan speaks in and by them As those four hundred of Ahalâ— Prophets in whom this evil spirit spake did not know that Satan spake by them 1 King 22.22 Neither did Iudas know when he eat the sop that Satan entred into him and put it into his heart to betray Christ Iohn 13.20 Neither do Magistrates when they cast the servants of God into prison once imagine that the devill makes them his jaylors but he doth so 〈◊〉 whence that Phrase of the Holy Ghost The Devil shall cast some of you into prison Rev. 2.10 They are his instruments but he is the princâ—pal Author Neither did Ananias and Saphira once think that Satan had filled their heartâ—â— or put that lye into their mouths which they were strook dead for Acts yeâ— the Holy Ghost tells us plainly that he did so ver 3. No Eve in Paradise 〈◊〉 not the least suspition that it was Satan that spake to her by the Serpent nor Adam that it was the Devils minde in her mouth when 〈◊〉 to eat the forbidden fruit Nor did David once dream that it was Satan which moved him to number the people 1 Chron. 21.1 Much lesse 〈…〉 who so dearly loved Christ imagine that he was set on by Satan to 〈◊〉 his own Lord and Master with those affectionate words 〈…〉 self for if Christ had pitied himself Peter and all the world had 〈…〉 yet he was so which occasioned Christ to answer him Get 〈…〉 Satan Matth. 16.22 23. Whence we may argue That if Satan can 〈…〉 the best and wisest of Gods servants do him such service 〈…〉 besides their intention how much more can he make 〈…〉 dren and servants who are kept by him in 〈…〉 at his will 2 Tim. 2.26 and whom he altogether ruleth and worketh his pleasure in Ephes. 2.2 3. as I might give you instances of all sorts Our Saviour tells us that they shall think they do God service in persecuting 〈◊〉 servants as the Jews formerly did in putting his Prophets to death John 16 â—â— and experience shows that thousands in these dayes do so and why diâ— Soul make havock of the Church but in zeal to the traditions of his Fathers Gal. 1.14 There was a Monk poysoned Henry the seventh Emperour of Germany with the Sacramental Bread and thought he did God good service in so doing So did the Powder Traitors when they intended to blow up the whole State Maximinian thought the blood of Christians would be an acceptable sacrifice to his gods So Francis the second of France and Philip the second of Spain thought of the Lutherans blood in their Dominions In the sixth Council of Toledo It was enacted That the King of Spain should suffer none to live in his Dominions that professed not the Roman Catholick Religion Whereupon King Philip having hardly escaped shipwrack as he returned from the Low Countries said he was delivered by the singular providence of God to root out Lutheranism which he presently began to do professing that he had rather have no Subjects then such And how could this be if Satan did not hold the Stern * One that formerly held it not enough to be bad himself except he railed at and persecuted the good hath now given ten thousand of these Books to clear the sight of others who look upon Religion and holiness with Satans Spectacles Wherefore such as will need but call at James Crumps in Little Bartholomews in Well-yard and have them grâ—tis so long as they last and afterwards at Mr. Cripps his Shop 〈◊〉 Popes Hâ—â—d Alley also for pence 〈…〉 * It is the usuall lot of the godly to suffer for speaking of truth but the Divels servants prevail most by telling of lies as when the Jews accused Paul to Agrippa they charged him with many things but proved nothing neither could they well undoe us if first they did not falsly accuse us as it fared with Iezabel touching Naboth and the wife of Potiphar touching Iosâ—ph We read that the Chief Priests Elders and all the counsel sought false Witnesses to accuse Christ of hainous evils that so they might crucifie him by a Law Matth. 26.59 〈◊〉 innocency is no shelter against persecution Again Why do all the Serpents seed censure and in censuring stan 〈…〉 but that they may incite and stir up others to do the like Re 〈…〉 those ancient enemies of the Gospel who clad the Martyrs in the 〈…〉 wilde Beasts to animate the Dogs to tear them Nor will the 〈…〉 multitude be wanting what lyes in them for they like so ma 〈…〉 have not heads sufficient to direct them and therefore do only 〈◊〉 they see others do They are a generation that for matter of Religi 〈…〉 discern between their right hand and their left as 〈◊〉 committing of evill with ignorant persons who are Cisterns to sin 〈◊〉 to grace As in the Sodomites Gen. 19.4 to 12. In Koraâ— and his â—â—0 followers In Demetrius and his fellows Acts 19. c. And the like in our times as how many thousands do censure and blaspheme the godly because they hear others do so for other reason they can give none Thus I might go on in giving you other reasons of their censuring and slandering us as one in regard of Satan who loseth so many of his Subjects or Captives as turn beleevers for every repentant sinner is as a prisoner broke loose from his chains of darknesse And another in regard of the World which loseth a limb
fire of Hell or that our names are writ in Heaven it is enough to make us both patient and thankful though the trifles we delight in be taken from us But most men are so far from this that if God does not answer their desires in every thing they will take pleasure in nothing they will flight all his present mercies and former favours because in one thing he crosses them Liâ—â— Ahab they are more displeased for one thing they want or rather fain and pretend they want or at least have no right unto than they are thankfull for a thousand things they enjoy though the least mercy they injoy is beyond their best merit They are ready to receive all while they return nothing but sin and disobedience wherein they more than abound for they have done more against God in one week than they have done for him ever since they were born Yea such sotts they are that if another displease them they will be revenged on themselves grow melancholy and discontent like foolish Children who will forbear their meat and gâ—â—w sick of the sullens if never so little crost Yea though men have all â—heir hearts can wiâ—h and might if they would and had but the wiâ— and grace be as happy as any men alive yet some small trifle shall make them weary of themselves and every thing else as it fared with foolish â—â—man Esther 5.13 More particularly if their purses grow light their â—earts grow heavy yea as if men did delight to vex themselves how many are there that of happy make themselves miserable or more miâ—serable than they need by looking upon miseries in multiplying glasses the opinion onely of being poor or fear that they may be so when they are old makes them never injoy a merry day when they neither want nor are like to doe and every man is so miserable as he thinks himself The raft of goods or evils does greatly depend on the opinion we have of them SECT 2. Thus millions are miserable melancholy discontent by their own concelt when thousands would think themselves happy had they but a piece of their happiness Which discontent or melancholy occasions more murmuring amongsts us than ever there was among those Israelitos in the wilderness an unthankfulness able to make or keep them poor and miserable and that everlastingly Indeed because judgement is not executed speedily Eccles. 8.11 they think it no sin at all such is their ignorance Otherwise they might know that as the Israelites was so their murmuring is against even the holy One of Israel as Isaiah affirmed of Sensâ—â—â—erib 2 King 19.22 And David of Goliah 1 â—am 17.36 45. The Lord sâ—yes Moses to the people when they grumbled for want of bread and also to Daâ—hau and Abiram heareth your murmuring against him and what are we your murmurings are not against us but against the Lord Exod. 16.8 Numb 16.15 21. Onely this is the difference multitudes of them were destroyed suddenly even fourteen thousand and seven hundred at a clap yea they had all been consumed in a moment for their murmuring had not Moses stood up in the gap and interceded for them Numb 16.41 to 50. and 32.10 to 14. and 26.64 65 and 11.12 33. and 14.12 22 23. and 21.5 6. Whereas millions among us do the like and are not stung with fiery Serpents as they were because they are reserved without repentance to a fiery Serpent in Hell Nor stricken with death temporall because reserved to death â—ternal But God is the same God still and as just now as ever though now under the Gospel instead of corporall judgements he inflicts many times spirituall as blindness of mind hardness of heart and finall impenitency the fore-runner of eternal destruction of body and soul in that burning lake Revel 19.20 For why is their ruine recorded but for our learning and warning â— Cor. 10 11. Neither is forbearance any acquittance yea to be let go on in a continual repeating of so great a sin under such meanes of light and grace uncontrouled is the greatest unhappiness the heaviest â—urle because such seldom rest untill they come to that evill from which there is no redemption God owes that man a greivous payment whom he suffers to run on so long unquestioned and his punishment shall be greater when he comes to reckon with him for all his faults together O that men 〈◊〉 but seriously consider this before it proves too late â— and before the draw-bridge be taken up for favours bestowed and deliverances from dangers bind to gratitude or else the more bonds of duty the more plagues for neglect The contribution of blessings require retribution of obedience or will bring distribution of judgements Yea argue with all the world and they will conclude that there is no vice 〈◊〉 ingratitude and meer ingratitude returnes nothing for good but these return evill for good yea the greatest evill for the greatest good being more ingrateful to God and Christ than can be exprest by the best Oratour alive Our Redeemer hath done and suffered more or would do did we not so daily provoke him for which read Gods goodness and Englands unthankfulness more for us than either can be exprest or conceived by any heart were it as deep as the Sea Yea God hath removed so many evils from us and conferred so many good things upon us that they are beyond thought or imagination And were the whole Heaven turned into a Book and all the Angels deputed Writers therein they could not set down all the good which Gods love in Christ hath done us As consider if we are so bound to bless God for his external temporal inferiour earthly perishing benefits as food rayâ—â—nt friends fire air water health wealth life limbs liberty senses and a thousand the like what praise do we owe him for the lasting fruits of his eternal love and mercy and how thankful should we strive to be And as much do we owe unto God for the dangers from which he delivers us as for the great and many mercies he hath bestowed upon us Neither could we possibly be unthankful if we seriously thought upon what God gives and what he forgives Besides which would also be thought upon what should we have if we did truly love and serve Christ who hath done all this for his enemies neglecting and dishounouring him SECT 3. Now can any one in common reason meditate so unbottomed a love and not study and strive for an answerable thankful demeanour yet as if all that Christ hath done for us were nothing to move us we are so far from being thankful that our whole life language and religion is nought else but one continued act of muttering and murmuring this is the case and it is the case of almost who not And is this a small matter Is it Gods unspeakable mercy that we are not at this present frying in Hell flames never to be freed and do we complain for want of a
we cannot miscarry if we trust to his Yet this is to be considered that God does not work upon us as upon blocks and stones in all and every respect passive but converts our wils to will our own conversion He that made thee without thy self will not justifie nor save thee without thy self Without thy merit indeed not without thine endeavour When those deadly waters were healed by the Prophet the outward act must be his the power Gods he cast the salt into the spring and said Yhus saith the Lord I have healed these waters there shall not be from thence any more death or barrennesse Elisha was the Instrument but far was he from challenging ought to himself Wherefore be sure to use that power which Christ shall give thee and then my soul for thine he will not be wanting on his part And amongst other thine endeavour exercise Prayer Omit not to beg of God for the grace thou wantest and praise him for what thou obtainest Abhor to attribute or ascribe ought to thy doing trust only to Christs obedience in whom only what we do is accepted and for whom only it is rewarded Now you are to know that as no Sacrifice was without Incense so must no service be performed without Prayer And Prayer is like the Merchants Ship to fetch in heavenly commodities It is the Key of Heaven as St Austin terms it and the Hand of a Christian which is able to reach from earth to Heaven and to take forth every manner of good gift out of the Lords Treasury Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name saies Christ believing he will give it you John 16.23 Matth. 21.22 Unto fervent Prayer God will deny nothing It is like Sauls Sword and Ionathans bow that never returned empty Like Ahimaaz that alwaies brought good tydings It is worth the obseâ—ving how Cornelius his serious exercise of this duty of Prayer brought unto him first an Angel then an Apostle and then the Holy Ghost himself Hast thou then a desire after that happinesse before spoken of seek first to have the asistance of Gods Spirit and his love shed abroad in thine heart by the Holy Ghost Wouldst thou have the love of God and the asistance of his Spirit ask it of him by Prayer who saith If any of you lack in this kind let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him James 1.5 Wouldst thou pray that thou maist be heard Ask in faith and waver not for he that wavereth is like a wave of the Sea tost of the wind and carried away Vers. 6. Wouldst thou have faith be diligent to hear the Word preached which is the sword of the Spirit that killeth our corruptions and that unresistable Cannon-shot that battereth and beateth down all the strong holds of sinne and Satan Rom. 10.17 Unto him therefore that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think I commend thee CHAP. XIV Lastly For conclusion of this point Wouldst thou be a contented and Happy man then strive to be a Thankefull man and when God hath the fruit of his mercies he will not spare to sow much where he reapes much Wouldest thou become thankefull then bethink thy self what cause thou hast by calling to mind and considering what God and Christ hath done for thee As first That he is the Authour of thy natural life For in him we live and move and have our being Act. 17.28 Secondly Of thy spiritual life Thus I live saies Paul yet not I now but Christ liveth in me Gal. 2.20 Thirdly Of thy eternal life 1 Joh. 1. He is the way the truth and the life John 14.6 The resurrection and the life John 11.25 Or more particularly thus In the first place He gave us our selves and all the creatures to be our servants yea he created us after his own Image in righteousnesse and holinesse and in perfect knowledge of the truth with a power to stand and for ever to continue in a most blessed and happy condition and this deserves all possible thankfulnesse But this was nothing in comparison For when we were in a sad condition when we had forfeited all this and our selves when by sinne we had turned that Image of God into the Image of Satan and wilfully plunged our souls and bodies into eternal torments when we were become his enemies mortally hating him and to our utmost fighting against him and taking part with his only enemies Sin and Satan not having the least thought or desire of reconcilement but a perverse and obstinate will to resist all means tending thereunto He did redeem us not only without asking but even against our wils so making of us his cursed enemies servants of servants sons of sons heirs and coheirs with Christ Gal 4.7 Here was a fathomlesse depth a wonder beyond all wonders 2. But that we may the better consider what an alms or boon God gave us when he gave us his Son Observe that when neither Heaven Earth nor Hell could have yielded any satisfactory thing besides Christ that could have satisfied Gods justice and merited Heaven for us then O then God in his infinite wisdom and goodnesse did not only find out a way to satisfie his Justice and the Law but gave us his Sonne his only begotten Son his only beloved Son out of his bosome And his Son gave himself to die even the most shamefull painfull and cursed death of the Crosse to redeem us That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3.16 The very thought of which death before he come to it together with the weight and burthen of our sinnes put him into such an Agony in the Garden that it made him to sweat even drops of blood A mercy bestowed and a way found out that may astonish all the sonnes of men on earth and Angels in Heaven Wherefore O wonder at this you that wonder at nothing That the Lord should come with such a price to redeem our worse than lost souls and to bring salvation to us even against our wils The Lord Iesus Christ being rich for our sakes became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich 2 Cor. 8.9 Even the eternal God would die that we might not die eternally O the deepnesse of Gods love O the unmeasurable measure of his bounty O Son of God! who can sufficiently expresse thy love Or commend thy pity Or extol thy praise It was a wonder that thou madest us for thy self more that thou madest thy self man for us but most of all that thou shouldest unmake thy self that thou shouldest die to save us 3. And which is further considerable It cost God more to redeem the world than to make it In the Creation he gave thee thy self but in the Redemption he gave thee himself The Creation of all things cost him but six daies to finish it the Redemption of man cost him
the other into life eteâ—nall Matth. 25.31 to 47. Where are two things considerable They to save their purses would not be at a little cost for the poore while they lived and what have they got by it Now they are dead bâ—t firâ—t an everlasting separation from Gods blisfull presence and thâ—se unutterable joyes before mentioned and to be for ever confined in a bed of quenchlesse flames For this departure is not for a day nor for years of dayes nor for millions of yeares but for eternity into such paynes as can neither be expressed nor conceived There shall be no end of plagues to the wicked and unmercifull Math. 25.41 Mark 9.44 Their worme shall not dye neither shall their fire be quenched Isa. 66.24 Neither is the extremity of paine inferiour to the perpetuity of it Rev. 19.20 20.14 18.6 2 Pet. 2.4 Heb. 10 2â— Jude 6. The plagues of the first death are pleasant compared with those of the second For mountaines of sand were lighter and millions of yeares shorter then a tythe of these torments Rev. 20.10 Iude 7. The pain of the body is but the body of paine the anguish of the soule is the soule of anguish For should we first burn off one hand then another after that each arme and so all the parts of the body it would be deemed intolerable and no man would endure it for all the pleasures and profits this world can afford and yet it is nothing to that burning of body and soule in Hell Should we endure ten thousand yeares torments in Hell it were grievous but nothing to eternity should we suffer one paine it were miserable enough but if ever we come there our payns shall be for number and kinds infinitely various as our pleasures have been here Every sense and member each power and faculty both of soul and body shall have their severall objects of wretchednesse and that without intermission or end or ease or patience to endure it Luke 12.5 16. â—4 Matth. 3.12 Yea the paynes and sufferings of the damned are ten thousand times more than can be imagined by any heart under heaven It is a death never to be painted to the life no pen nor pensill nor art nor heart can comprehend it Mat. 18.8 9. 25 30. 2 Pet. 2.4 Isa. 5.14 30.33 CHAP. XXXIII Now what heart would not bleed to see men yea multitudes run head long into these tortures that are thus intolerable dance hood-wink'd iâ—to this perdition O the folly and madnesse of those that prefer earth yea hell to heaven time to eternity the body before the soule yea the outward estate before either soule or body These are the worlds fooles meer children that prefer an apple before their inheritance Besotted sensualists that consider not how this life of ours if it were not short yet it is miserable and if it were not miserable yet it is short that suffer themselves to be so bewitcht with the love of their money and their hearts to be rivered to the earth to be so inslaved to covetousnesse as to make gold their God Certainly were they allowed to have but a fight of this Hell they woâ—ld not do thus if they did but either see or foresee what they shall one day without serious and unfeigned repentance feel they would not be hired with all the worlds wealth to hazard in the least the losse of those everlasting joyes before spoken of or to purchase and plunge themselves into those caselesse and everlasting flames of fire and brimstone in hell there to fry body and soule where shall be an innumerable company of Devils and damned spirits to affright and torment them but not one to comfort or pity them But O that thou who art the Sacred Monarch of this mighty frame wouldst give them hearts to believe at least that the soule of all sufferings are the sufferings of the soule that as painted fire is to materiall such is materiall to hell fire That things themselves are in the invisible world in the world visible but their shadowes onely And that whatsoever wicked men enjoy here it is but as in a dream their plenty is but like a drop of pleasure before a river of sorrow and displeasure and whatsoever the godly feel but as a drop of misery before a river of mercy and glory Then would they thinke it better to want all things then that one needfull thing whereas now they desire all other things and neglect that one thing which is so needfull They would be glad to spare something from their superfluities yea if need requâ—re even from their necessaries that they might relieve and cherish the poor distressed members of Iesus Christ. And let so much serve to have been spoken of the reasons that concern our selves in particular and how God hath promised to blesse the merciful man in his soule body name and estate I should now go on to declare that what the liberall man gâ—ves his seed shall inherâ—t But I consider that if for the increasing of their estates for the obtaining of heaven and the avoyding of everlasting destruction of body and soule in Hell will not prevail with rich men to do some good with their goods while they lâ—ve whatsoever else can be spoken will be lost labour and to no purpose I grant there are some of them such desperate doting fools that they can find in their hearts to damn their own souls and go to hell to leave their sonnes rich and therefore it will not be amisse to set down or poynt them to a few of those promises which God hath made to the mercifull or liberall mans seed and posterity after him I 'le alleadge but three places onely CHAP. XXXIV That if we bountifully relieve the poor the reward of onr charity shall not onely extend to us but also to our Off-spring and Progeny the Prophet Esay witnesseth Chap. 58. where he tells us that if we will draw out our soule to the hungry and satisfie the afflicted soule the Lord will not onely satisfie our soules in drought make fat our bones but that those also that some of us sâ—â—ll prosper unto many generations ver 10 11 12. And also the Psalmist Psal. 37. I have been young and now am old saith hee yet have I not seene the righteous forsaken not his â—ood begging bread vers 26â— then gives the reason He is ever mercâ—full and endeth and his seed enjoyes the blessing vers 26. And so Psal. 112. His seed shall be mighty upon earth the generation of the righteous shall be blessed Vers. 2. to 6. Now what better inheritance can we leave to our Children then the blessing of God which like an ever-springing fountaine will nourish and comfort them in the time of drought when as our owne provision which we have left unto them may faile and when the heate of affliction ariseth will like standing waters be dried up Nor is this only probable but God hath set down
In which laborious travels and affairs of the Church in teaching writing confuting exhorting expounding he continued about fifty two years unto the times of Decius Gallus divers and great persecutions he sustained but especially under Decius in his Body he sustained Bonds and Torments Rackings with Bars of Iron stinking and dark Dungeons be sides terrible threats of Death and Burning all which he manfully and constantly suffered for Christ Yet at length like an Isickle he that could endure the rough Northern wind of Persecution wel enough melted with the heat of the Sun sweet Allurements and fair Promises of Satan and his Adherents his own flesh also proving a treacherous Solicitor For in the end being brought by the Idolatrous Infidels to an Altar of theirs he shamefully condescended to offer Incense thereupon in manner as followeth by his own Confession When saith he I sought to allure win these Idolaters by cunning means to the knowledge of the Son of God after much fisting they promimised me unhappy man that they would by crafty conveyances avoid the subtilty of Satan and be baptized But being ignorant and unskilful in their divers cunning sleights they together with the Devil undermined my simplicity and Satan turning himself into an Angel of light reasoned with me that same night saying When thou art up in the Morning go on and perswade them and bring them unto God and in case they demand ought of thee so they will hearken and condescend unto thee do what thou shalt think necessary without staggering at all at the matter to the end many may besaved And again the Devil going before to prepare the way whetted their Wits to devise mischief against me silly Wretch and sowed in their minds hypocrisie dissimulation and deceit But I O unhappy creature skipping out of my Bed at the dawning of the day could not finish my wonted Devotions neither accomplish my usual prayer But wishing that all men might be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth I folded and wrapped my self in the snares of the Devil I got me unto the wicked Assembly I required of them to perform the Covenant made the night before and coming as I thought unto the Baptism I silly soul not knowing of any thing answered but in a word and became reproachfully defamed I spake without malice yet felt I their inveterate and deadly spite for instantly the Divel raised an Assembly about me who carried me to an Altar of theirs where a foul filthy Ethopian being appointed this option or choice was offered unto me namely Whether I would sacrifice to the Idol or have my Body polluted with that foul and ugly Ethiopian In which strait I having ever kept my Chastity undefiled and much abhorring that filthy villany to be done to my body brake out into many moans lamentations and cryes against both Yet O wretched man that I am at length yeilded rather to sacrifice Whereupon the Judge putting Incense into my hand caused me to set it to the fire upon the Altar for the which impiety I was delivered both from that and Martyrdom But upon my discharge the Devil raised such an out-cry in the City in pronouncing against me that just and yet unjust sentence Origen hath sacrificed Whereupon he was excommunicated out of the Church and driven with shame and sorrow out of Alexandria and going to Ierusalem and being there among the Congregation was requested by the Priests to make some Exhortation in the Church to the people the which he refused to do for a great while but at length being constrained through importunity he rose up and turning the booke as though he would have expounded some place of the Scripture he hap'ned upon read onely the 16. verse of the 50. Psalm where he found it thus written But God said unto the sinner What hast thou to do to declare my Statutes or that thou shouldst take my Covenant into thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my Word behind thee Which being read he shut the Book and sate down weeping and wailing the whole Congregation weeping and lamenting with him he said unto the Church Wo is me my Mother which brought me forth as an high and lofty Terret yet suddenly I am turned down to the ground as a fruitful Tree yet quickly withered as a burning Light yet forthwith darkned as a running Fountain yet by and by dried up Wo is me that ever I was decked with all gifts and graces and now seem pitifully to be deprived of all The Lord hath made and ingrafted me a fruitful Vine but instead of pleasant Clusters of Grapes I brought forth pricking Thorns Let the Well-springs of tears be stirred up and let my Cheeks be watered let them flow upon the earth and moisten it for that I am soaked in sin and bound in mine iniquity every creature sorroweth and may well pity my case for that I was wont heretofore to pour out my prayers unto God for them all but now there is no salve for me Where is he that went down from Ierusalem to Iericho who also salved and cured him that was wounded of the Thieves Whenas I went about to enlighten others I darkned my self when I endeavoured to bring others from death to life I brought my self from life to death Oh blinded heart how didst thou not remember O foolish mind how didst thou not bethink thy self O witless brain how didst thou not understand O thou Sence of Understanding Where didst thou sleep But it was the Devil which provoked thee to slumber and sleep and in the end to slay thy unhappy wretched soul He bound my power and might and wounded me I bewail sometime the fall of Sampson but now have I faln far worse my self I bewailed heretofore the fall of Solomon yet now am I faln far worse my self I have bewailed heretofore the estate of all sinners yet now am I plunged worse then them all Sampson had the hair of his head clipt off but the Crown of Glory is faln off my head Sampson lost the carnal eyes of his body but my spiritual eyes are digged out Even as he was severed from the Israelites and held captive among Idolaters so I have separated my self from the Church of God and am joined with evil spirits Alas my Church liveth yet am I a Widower Alas my Sons be alive yet am I barren Alas O Spirit which camest heretofore down upon me why hast thou forsaken me O thou Devil what hast thou done unto me O Satan how hast thou wounded me It was the wiliness of a Woman that brought Sampson to his confusion but it was my own Tongue that brought me to this sinful Fall Alas every Creature rejoiceth and I alone forsaken and sorrowful Bewaile him that is bereaved of the Holy Ghost bewail me that am thrust out of the Wedding-Chamber of Christ bewail me that am tormented with the prick of Conscience for now it behoveth me to shed infinite tears