affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world NOthing more talkt of in the world then Religion nothing less understood nothing more neglected there being nothing more common with men then to be willing to mistake their way to withdraw themselves from that which is indeed Religion because it standeth in opposition to some pleasing errour which they are not willing to shake off Multi sibi sidem ipsi totuis consttiuunt quà m accipiunt dum quae volunt sapiunt nolunt sapere quae verá sunt cùm sapientiae haec veritas sit ea interdum sapere quae nolis Hilar l. 8. De Trin. Jam. 1.22 23. Ch. 4.3 Ch 1 26. and by the help of an unsatisfied and complying phansie to frame one of their own and call it by that name That which flattereth their corrupt hearts that which is moulded and attempered to their brutish designs that which smileth upon them in all their purposes and favoureth them in their unwarrantable undertakings that which biddeth them Go on and prosper in the wayes that leadeth unto death that with them is true Religion In this Chapter and indeed in every Chapter of this Epistle our Apostle hath made this discovery to our hands Some there were as he observeth that placed Religion in the ear did hear and not do and rested in that Some placed it in a formal devotion did pray but pray amiss and therefore did not receive Some placed it in a shadow and appearance seemed to be very religious but could not bridle their tongue and were safe they thought under this shadow Others there were that were partial in themselves despisers of the poor Ch. 2.4.6 17 c. Ch. 3.6 that had faith but no works and did boast of this Others had hell fire in their Tongue and carried about with them a world of iniquity which did set the wheel the whole course of Nature on fire Last of all some he observed warring and fighting and killing that they might take the prey Ch. 4.1 2. and divide the spoil Yet all these were religious Wisd 1.12 Every one sought out death in the errour of his life Phil. 3.14 and yet every one seemed to press forward towards the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus To these as to men ready to dash upon the rock shipwrack doth our Apostle cry out as from the shore to turn their compass and steer their course the right way Seeing them as it were run several wayes all to meet at last in the common gulf of eternal destruction he calleth and calleth aloud after them To the superstitious to the profane to the disputer the scribe to them that do but hear and to them that do but babble to them that do but profess and to them that do but believe the word is Be not deceived That is not it but this is pure Religion This is as the Prophet speaketh a voice behind them Isa 30.21 saying This is the way walk in it This is as a light held forth to shew them where they are to walk as a royal Standard set up to bring them to their colours This doth infinitatem rei ejicere as the Civilians speak taketh them from the Devils latitudes and exspatiations from frequent but fruitless Hearing from loud but heartless Prayer from their beloved but dead Faith from undisciplined and malitious Zeal from noise and blood from fighting and warring which could not but defile them and make them fit to receive nothing but the spots of the world from the infinite mazes and by-paths of errour and bringeth them into the way where they should be where they may move with joy and safety Eccl. 12.13 looking stedfastly towards the end Let us now hear the conclusion of the whole matter Whatsoever Divines have taught whatsoever Councels have determined whatsoever Schoolmen have defined whatsoever God spake in the old times whatsoever he spake in these last dayes that which hath filled so many volumes and brought upon us that weariness of the flesh which Solomon complaineth of Eccl. 12.12 in reading that multitude of books which the world doth now swarm with that which we study and contend and fight for as if it were in Democritus his well Rom. 13.9 or rather in Hell it self quite out of our reach or if there be any truth that is necessary any other commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying even in this of S. James Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this To visit the fatherless and widows c. I may call it the Picture of Religion in little in a small compass yet presenting all its lines and dimensions the whole Signature of Religion fit to be hung up in the Church of Christ and to be lookt upon by all that the people which are and shall be born may truly serve the Lord. May it please you therefore a while to cast your eyes upon it and with me to view I. The full Proportion and several Lineaments of it as it were its essential Parts which constitute and make it what it is We may distinguish them as the Jew doth the Law by Do and Do not The first is affirmative To do good To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction The second is negative Not to do evil To keep our selves unspotted from the world II. The colours and Beauty of it first in its Purity having no mixture secondly its Vndefiledness having no pollution III. The Epigraphe or Title of it the Ratification or Seal which is set to it to make it authentick and that not of men or by men but by the hand of God himself Matth. 3.17 17.5 which drew the first copy and pattern This is pure Religion before God and the Father As he gave witness to his Son from heaven This is my beloved Son so doth he also to Christian Religion Hebr. 12.2 of which he is the Authour and Finisher HAEC EST This is it and in this I am well pleased Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this Let us now in order view these And these two To do Good and To abstain from Evil our Charity to others in the one and our Charity to our selves in the other in being as those Dii benefici those Tutelar Gods to the Widows and Fatherless and as those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keeping all evil from our selves I call the essential parts of Religion without which it can no more subsist then a man can without a soul Jam. 2.26 For as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead also Not that we exclude Faith or Prayer or Hearing of the Word For without Faith Religion is but an empty name and it cometh by Hearing and is increased by Devotion Amb. in Psal 118. Faith is a foundation upon a foundation for as Truth is the foundation of
on them If his gracious and earnest call his Turn and his Turn will not turn us he hath placed Death in the way the King of terrours to affright us If we be not willing to dye we must be willing to turn If we will hear Reason we must hearken to his Voice And if he thus sendeth his Prophets and his voice from heaven after us if he make his Justice and Mercy his joynt Commissioners to force us back if he invite us to turn and threaten us if we do not turn either Love or Fear must prevail with us to turn with all our hearts And in this is set forth the singular mercy of our most gracious God Parcendo admonet ut corrigamur poenitendo Before he striketh he speaketh When he bendeth his bow when his deadly arrows are on the string yet his warning flieth before his shaft his word is sent out before the judgment the lightning is before his thunder Ecce saith Origen antequam vulneramur monemur When we as the Israelites here are running on into the very jaws of Death when we are sporting with our destruction in articulo mortis when Death is ready to seise on us and the pit openeth her mouth to take us in the Lord calleth and calleth again Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes And if all this be too little if we still venture on and drive forward in forbidden and dangerous wayes he draweth a sword against us and setteth before us the horrour of death it self Why will ye die Still it is his word before his blow his Convertimini before his Moriemini his praelusoria arma before his decretoria his blunt before his sharp his exhortations before the sentence Non parcit ut parcat non miseretur ut misereatur He is full in his expressions that he may be sparing in his wrath He speaketh words clothed with death that we may not die and is so severe as to threaten death that he may make room for his mercy and not inflict it Why will ye die There is virtue and power in it to quicken and rowse us up to drive us out of our evil wayes that we may live for ever This is the sum of the words The parts are two 1. an Exhortation 2. an Obtestation or Expostulation or a Duty and a Reason urging and inforcing that Duty The Exhortation or Duty is plain Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes The Obtestation or Reason as plain Why will ye dye O house of Israel I call the Obtestation or Expostulation a Reason and good reason I should do so For the Moriemini is a good Reason That we may not dye a good Reason why we should turn But it being tendred to us by way of expostulation it is another Reason and maketh the Reason operative and full of efficacy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reason invincible and unanswerable For this very Expostulation is an evidence fair and plain enough that God would not have us die and then it is as plain that if we die we have killed and destroyed our selves against his will Of these two in their order And first of the Exhortation and Duty In which we shall pass by these steps or degrees 1. We will look up upon the Authour and consider whose Exhortation it is 2. Upon the Duty it self and 3. in the last place upon that pugnacem calorem that lively and forcible heat of iteration and ingemination Turn ye turn ye the very life and soul of Exhortation And first we ask Quis Who is he that is thus urgent and earnest And as we read it is Ezekiel the Prophet And of Prophets S. Peter telleth us that they spake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet 1.21 as they were moved by the holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Isai 1. And they received the word non auribus sed animis not by the hearing of the ear but by inspiration and immediate revelation by a divine character and impression made in their souls So that this Exhortation to repentance will prove to be an Oracle from heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Divine and celestial remedy the prescript of Wisdome it self and to have been written with the finger of God And indeed we shall find that this duty of Turning the true nature of Repentance was never taught in the School of Nature never found in its true effigies and image in all its lines and dimensions in the books of the Heathen The Aristotelians had their Expiations the Platonicks their Purgations the Pythagoreans their Erinnys but not in relation to God or his Divine goodness and providence Tert. De poenit Aratione ejus tantum abfuerunt quantum à rationis autore They were as far to seek of the true reason and nature of Repentance as they were of the God of Reason himself Many useful lessons they have given us and some imperfect descriptions of it but those did rise no higher then the spring from whence they did flow the treasure of Nature and therefore could not lift men up to the sight of that peace and rest which is eternal They were as waters to refresh them and indeed they that tasted deepest of them had most ease and by living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the directions of Nature gained that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that peace and composedness of mind which they 〈…〉 Happiness and which was all they could attain to Tully and Câ—â—â—â—â— not such divided and distracted souls as Cataline and Cethegus Aristot l. 1. Eth. c. 13. 〈◊〉 had not those ictus laniatus those gashes and rents in his heart 〈◊〉 had Even their dreams were more sweet and pleasant then those of other men as being the resultancies and echos of those virtuous actions which they drew out in themselves by no other hand then that of Nature which looked not beyond that frailty which she might easily discover in her self and so measured out their happiness but by the Span by this present life Or if she did see a glimpse and faint shew of a future estate she did but see and guess at it and knew no more Reason it self did teach them thus much that Sin was unreasonable Nature it self had set a mark upon it omne malum aut timore aut pudore suffudit had either struck Vice pale Tert. De poenit or died it in a blush did either loose the joynts of sinners or change their countenance and put them in mind of their deviation from her rules by the shame of the fact and the fear they had to be taken in it These two made up that fraenum naturae that bridle of Nature to give wicked men a check and make them turn but not unto the Lord. For were there neither heaven nor hell neither reward nor punishment yet whilst we carry about with us this light of Reason Sin must needs have a foul face being so unlike unto Reason And if
and opposite to his Wisdome and Goodness and which his soul hateth as That he did decree to make some men miserable to the end he might make his Mercy glorious in making them happy that he did of purpose wound them that he might heal them That he did threaten them with death whose names he had written in the book of life That he was willing Man should sin that he might forgive him That he doth exact that Repentance as our duty which himself will work in us by an irresistable force That he commandeth intreateth beseecheth others to turn and repent whom himself hath bound and fettered by an absolute decree that they shall never turn That he calleth them to repentance and salvation whom he hath damned from all eternity If any certainly such beasts as these deserve to be struck through with a dart No it is not boldness Exod. 19.12 Hebr. 12.20 but humility and obedience to God's will to say He doth nothing but what becometh him and what his Wisdome doth justifie Eph. 1.8 He hath abounded towards us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Paul in all wisdome and prudence His Wisedome findeth out the means of salvation and his Prudence ordereth and disposeth them His Wisdome sheweth the way to life and his Prudence leadeth us through it to the end Wisdome was from everlasting Prov. 8.23 And as she was in initio viarum in the beginning of God's wayes so she was in initio Evangelii in the beginning of the Gospel which is called the wisedome of God And she fitted and proportioned means to that end means most agreeable and connatural to it She found out a way to conquer Death and him that hath the power of Death the Devil Hebr. 2.14 with the weapons of Righteousness to dig up Sin by the very roots that no work oâ— the flesh might shoot forth out of the heart any more to destroy it in its effects that though it be done yet it shall have no more force then if it were annihilated then if it had never been done and to destroy it in its causes that it may be never done again Immutabile quod factum est Quint. l. 7 to draw together Justice and Mercy which seemed to stand at distance and hinder the work and to make them meet and kiss each other in Christ's Satisfaction and ours for our Turn is our satisfaction all that we can make Condigna estsatisfactio mala facta corrigere correcta non reiterare Bern. de â—ust Dom. c. 1. Satisfactio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Antioch â—â—neil can 2. These she hath joyned together never to be severed Christ's Sufferings with our Repentance his agony with our sorrow his blood with our tears his flesh nailed to the cross with our lusts crucified his death for sin with our death to it his resurrection with our justification For he bore our sins that he might cast them away he shed his blood to melt our hearts he dyed that we might live and turn unto the Lord and he rose again for our justification and to gain authority to the doctrine of Repentance Our CONVERTIMINI our Turn is the best Commentary on his CONSVMMATVM EST It is finished for that his last breath breathed it into the world We may say it is wrapt up in the Inscription John 19.19 JESVS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS For in him even when he hung upon the cross were all the treasures of Wisdome and Knowledge hid Col. 2.3 In him his Justice and Mercy are at peace for to reconcile us unto God he reconciled them one to another The hand of Mercy was lifted up ready to seal our pardon we were in our blood and her voice was Live we were miserable Ezek. 16.6 and she was ready to relieve us our heart was sick and her bowels yerned But then Justice held up the sword ready to latch in our sides God loveth his Creature whom he made but hateth the Sinner whom he could not make And he must strike and yet is unwilling to strike If Justice had prevailed Mercy had been but as the morning dew Hos 6.4 13.3 and soon vanished before this raging heat And if Mercy had swallowed up Justice in victory God's hatred of sin and his fearful menaces against it had been but bruta fulmina and portended nothing but been void and of none effect Psal 130.3 Deus purgari homines à peccato maxime cupit ideoque agere poenitentiam jubet Lact. l. 6. c. 24. If God had been extreme to mark what is done amiss men would have sinned more and more because there would have been no hope of pardon And if his Mercy had sealed an absolute pardon men would have walked delicately and sported in their evil wayes because there would have been no fear of punishment And therefore his Wisdome drew his Justice and Mercy together and reconciled them both in Christ's propitiatory Sacrifice and our duty of Repentance the one freeing us from the guilt the other from the dominion of sin And so both are satisfyed Justice layeth down the sword and Mercy shineth in perfection of beauty Rom. 3.3 God hateth Sin but he seeth it condemned in the flesh of his Son and fought against by every member he hath He seeth it punisht in Christ and punisht also in every repentant sinner that turneth from his evil wayes He beholdeth the Sacrifice on the Cross and the Sacrifice also of a broken heart and for the sweet savour of the one he accepteth the other and is at rest Christ's death for sin procureth our pardon and our death to sin sueth it out Christ suffereth for sin we turn from it His satisfaction at once wipeth out the guilt and penalty our Repentance by degrees destroyeth Sin it self Tert. De anima c. 1. Haec est sapientia de schola caeli This is the method of Heaven This is that Wisdome which is from above Thus it taketh away the sins of the world And now Wisdome is compleat Justice is satisfied and Mercy triumpheth God is glorified Man is saved and the Angels rejoyce Heus tu peccator De poenit c. 8. bono animo sis vides ubi de tuo reditu gaudeatur saith Tertullian Take comfort sinner thou seest what joy there is in heaven for thy return What musick there is in a Turn which beiginneth on earth but reacheth up and filleth the highest heavens A repentant sinner is as a glass or rather Gods own renewed image on which God delighteth to look for there he beholdeth his Wisdome his Justice his Mercy and what wonders they all have wrought Behold the Shepherd of our souls see what lieth upon his shoulders Luke 15.5 6. You would think a poor Sheep that was lost Nay but he leadeth Sin and death and the Devil in triumph And thou mayest see the very brightness of his glory and the express image of his three most glorious
wrote no more but this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herode to Cassius Thou art mad So God may seem to send to his people GOD by his Prophet to the Israelites You are mad Therefore do my people run on in their evill wayes because they have no understanding Isa 5.13 For now look upon Death and that affrighteth us Look upon God and he exhorteth us Reflect upon our selves and we are an Israel a Church of God There is no cause of dying but not turning no cause of destruction but impenitency If we will not die we shall not die and if we will turn we cannot die at all If we die God passeth sentence upon us and condemneth us but killeth us not but perditio tua ex te Israel our destruction cometh from our selves It is not God it is not Death it self that killeth us but we die because we will Now by this touch and short descant on the words so much truth is conveyed unto us as may acquit and discharge God as no way accessory to our death And to make our passage clear and plain we will proceed by these steps or degrees and draw out these three Conclusions 1. That God is not willing we should die 2. That he is so far from willing our death that he hath plenteously afforded sufficient means of life and salvation which will bring in the third and last That if we die our death is voluntary that no other reason can be given of our death but our own will And the due consideration of these three may serve to awake our Shame as Death did our Fear which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 20. as Nazianzene speaketh another help and furtherance to work out our salvation And that God is not willing we should die is plain enough first from the Obtestation or Expostulation it self secondly from the Nature of God who thus expostulateth For 1. Why will ye die is the voice of a friend not of an enemy He that asks me why I will die by his very question assureth me he intendeth not to destroy me God is not as man Numb 23.19 that he should lie What he worketh he worketh in the clear and open day His fire is kindled to enflame us his water floweth to purge and cleanse us his oyl is powred forth to supple us His commands are not snares nor his precepts accusations He stampeth not the Devil's face upon his coyn He willeth not what he made not Wisd 1.13 and he made not Death saith the Wise man He wisheth he desireth we should live he is angry and sorry if we die He looketh down upon us and calleth after us he exhorteth and rebuketh and even weepeth over us Luk. 19.41 as our Saviour did over Jerusalem And if we die we cannot think that he that is Life it self should kill us If we must die why doth he yet complain why doth he expostulate For if the Decree be come forth if we be lost already why doth he yet call after us How can a desire or command breathe in those coasts which the power of an absolute will hath laid waste already If he hath decreed we should die he cannot desire we should live but rather the contrary that his Decree be not void and of no effect Otherwise to pass sentence and irrevocable sentence of death and then bid us live is to look for liberty and freedome in Necessity for a sufficient effect from an unsufficient cause to command and desire that which himself had made impossible to ask a dead man why he doth not live and to speak to a carcass and bid it walk Indeed by some this Why will ye die is made but sancta simulatio a kind of holy dissimulation so that God with them setteth up Man as a mark and then sticketh his deadly arrows in his sides and after asketh him why he will die And Why may he not saith one with the same liberty damn a soul as a hunter killeth a deer A bloody instance As if an immortal soul which Christ set at a greater rate then the world itself nay then his own most pretious blood were in his sight of no more value then a beast and God were a mighty Nimrod and did destroy mens souls for delight and pleasure Thus though they dare not call God the Authour of sin for who is so sinful that could hear that and not anathematize it yet others and those no children in understanding think it a conclusion that will naturally and necessarily follow upon such bloody premisses And they are more encouraged by those ill-boding words which have dropt from their quills For say some Vocat ut induret He calleth them to no other end but that he may harden them He hardeneth them that he may destroy them He exhorteth them to turn that they may not turn He asketh them why they will die that they may run on in their evil wayes even upon Death it self When they break his command they fulfil his will and it is his pleasure they should sin it is his pleasure they should die And when he calleth upon them not to sin when he asketh them why they will die he doth but dissemble for they are dead already horribili decreto by that horrible antecedaneous decree of Reprobation And now tell me If we admit of this what is become of the Expostulation what use is there of the Obtestation why doth he yet ask Why will ye die I called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reason unanswerable But if this phansie this interpretation take place it is no reason at all Why will ye die The answer is ready and what other answer can a poor praecondemned soul make Domine Deus tu nôsti Lord God thou knowest Thou condemnedst us before thou madest us Thou didst destroy us before we were And if we die even so good Lord For it is thy good pleasure Fato volvimur It is our destiny Or rather Est Deus in nobis Not a Stoical Fate but thy right hand and thy strong irresistable arm hath destroyed us And so the Expostulation is answered and the Quare moriemini is nothing else but Mortui estis Why will ye die that is the Text The Gloss is Ye are dead already But in the second place that this Expostulation is true and hearty may be seen in the very nature of God who is Truth it self who hath but one property and quality saith Trismegistus and that is Goodness Therefore he cannot bid us live when he intendeth to kill us Consider God before Man had fallen from him by sin and disobedience and we shall see nothing but the works of Goodness and Love Psal 8.3 The heavens were the works of his fingers He created Angels and Men He spake the word and all was done Hom. in Famem siccitatem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil What necessity was there that he should thus break forth into action Who compelled
the glory of that to encourage us in the way Righteousness is the way and we must first know what it is before we can seek it And it is not at such a distance that we cannot easily approch it It is not in heaven that we should ask what wings we should take to flie unto it neither is it beyond the sea that we should travel for it Non nos per difficiles ad beatam vitam quaestiones vocat Deus saith Hilary God doth not hide himself and bid us seek him he doth not make darkness a pavilion about that Righteousness which he biddeth us seek but he hath brought it near unto us and put it into our very mouths and hearts and as he brought immortality and eternal life to light so he hath also made the way unto it plain and easie so that no mist can take it from our eyes but that which we cast our selves no night can hide it from us but that which our lusts and affections make It is a good observation of Seneca the Philosopher Nullius rei difficilis inventio nisi cujus hic unus inventae fructus est invenisse God hath so settled and ordered the course of things that there is nothing very hard to find out but that of which after all our labour we can reap no other fruit but this that we can say we have found it out Quod supra nos nihil ad nos as Socrates was wont to say Those curious speculations which are above us and out of our reach commonly pay us back nothing for that study and weariness of the flesh which we undergo in the pursuit of them but a bare sight and view of them which may bring some delight perhaps but no advantage to our minds As Favorinus in Gellius well replied to a busie and talkative Critick Abundè multa docuisti quae quidem ignorabamus scire haud sanè postulabamus Sir you have taught us too too many things which in truth we are ignorant of but of that nature that we did not desire to know them because they were of no use at all So many questions there have been started in Divinity which have no relation to righteousness or to the kingdom of God which we study without profit and may be ignorant of without danger And when men stand so long upon these they grow faint and weak in the pursuit of Righteousness lose the sight of that which they should seek whilest they seek that which profitteth not as the painter who had spent his best skill in painting of Neptune failed in the setting forth of the majesty of Jupiter In hoc studio multa delectant pauca vincunt as the Philosopher speaketh In the study of Divinity we may meet with many things which may touch our thoughts with some delight but the number of those is not great which will forward and promote us to our end Righteousness is the object here the way and who understandeth it not whose mouth is not full of it The very enemies of Righteousness know it well enough and bear witness to it but through the corruption of mens hearts it cometh to pass that as sometimes we mistake one object for another set up Pleasure for an Idol and Mammon for a God so we do many times not so much mistake as wilfully misinterpret that which is proposed unto us as most fit and worthy of our desires When the duty is hard and frighteth us with the presentment of some difficulty proposeth something which our flesh and sensual appetite distasteth and flyeth from then malumus interpretari quà m exsequi we had rather descant and make a commentary upon it then fully express it in the actions of our life and conversation As the Etrurian in the Poet bound living and dead bodies together so do we joyn that Righteousness which is indeed the way to the Kingdom of God to our dead and putrified conceits to our lukewarmness to our acedy and sloth nay to our sacriledge and impiety to our disobedience and want of natural affection to our high contempt of God's Majesty Or as Procrustes delt with his guests upon his bed of iron we either violently stretch it out or cut it shorter in some part or other that if our actions cannot apply themselves to it it may be brought down and racked and forced to apply it self to our actions If Righteousness excludeth Superstition yet it commendeth Reverence and even Idolatry it self shall go under that name It forbiddeth the love of the world but it biddeth us labour with our hands and this labour shall commend our tormenting care and solicitude and make Covetousness it self a vertue It dulleth the edge of revenge and maketh my anger set before the Sun but it kindleth my zeal and that fire shall consume the adversary Thus we can be righteous and Idolaters we can be righteous and Covetous we can be righteous and yet wash our feet in the bloud not of our enemies but our Brethren we can be what we will and yet be righteous and that is Righteousness not which the wisdom of God hath laid before us as our way but that which flesh and bloud shall set up with this false inscription Holiness to the Lord. And our weakest nay our worst endeavours though they stretch beyond the line or though they will not reach home but come far too short yet we call them by this name and they must go for Righteousness Not the way we should but the way we do walk in though it be out of the way though it lead to death that is the way We can take God's honour from him and do it with reverence we can be covetous and not love the world we can breathe forth the very gall of bitterness and spit it in our brother's face and yet be meek So what Hilary speaketh in another but the like case is most true Multi fidem ipsi potiùs constituunt quà m accipiunt Many there be even too many even the most who rather frame a religion to themselves and call it Righteousness then receive one What they will is Righteousness and what is Righteousness they will not cùm sapientiae haec veritas sit interdum sapere quae nolis when this is the greatest part of true wisdom to be wise against our selves against the wisdom of our flesh to condemn our appetite and our phansie of extreme folly when they put in for their share and would divide with righteousness To be wise against this wisdom is to be wise unto salvation to make haste to that object not which flattereth our sense but which is most proportioned to our reason to seek that which we would not have the streight and narrow and rugged way which leadeth to this Kingdom to seek the Truth though it imprison us and bind us to a stake Temperance though it wage war with our appetite Chastity though it shut up our eyes Self-denial though it take us from our selves and in
weighs the simplicity and severity of Christian religion from whence it should come to pass that many Christians surpass even Turks and Jews in fraud deceit and cruelty And the resolution is almost as strange For by the policy of Satan our very Religion is suborn'd to destroy it self which freely offering mercy to all offenders many hence take courage to offend more and more pardon being so near at hand They dare be worse then Turks upon this bare encouragement that they are Christians So that to that of S. Paul Rom. 7. Sin took an occasion by the Law we may adde Sin takes an occasion by the Gospel and so deceiveth us It is possible for an Atheist to walk by that light which he brought with him into the world Even Diagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might have been an honest man For that Wisdom vvhich guides us in our common actions of morality is nothing else saith Tully but ratio adulta perfecta Reason improved and perfected But the Christian hath the advantage of another light another lavv a light which came down from heaven and a royal Law to vvhich if he take heed he cannot go astray Miserable errour shall I call it It is too good a name It is Folly and Madness thus to be bankrupt with our riches to be weaker for our helps to be blinded with light in montes impingere as S. Augustine speaks having so much light to run upon such visible palpable and mountanous evils to enter the gates of our enemies as friends and think our selves in Dothan when we are in the midst of Samaria Let us not deceive our selves which were bought with a price and redeemed from errour Let us not flatter our selves to destruction It is not the name of Christian that will save us no more then Epictetus his lamp could make a Philosopher Nay it is not the name of Christ that can save us if we dishonour it and make it stink amongst the Canaanites and Perizzites among Turks and Jews and Infidels Behold thou art called a Christian and restest in the Gospel and makest thy boast of Christ If thou art a Christian then know also thou art the Temple of Christ not onely in which he dwells but out of which he utters his oracles to instruct others in the wayes of truth If thou art a Christian thou art a member of Christ a member not a sword to wound thy sick brother unto death The folly of thy wayes thy confidence in errour doth make the Turk smile and the Jew pluck the veil yet closer to his face It is a sad truth but a truth it is This stamping Religion with our own mark and setting upon it what image and superscription we please hath done more hurt to Christianity then all the persecutions for Christ to this day These by diminishing the number of Christians have increased it and by the blessing of God have added to the Church from day to day such as should be saved The Sword and the Flame have devoured the Christian but this is a gulff to swallow up Christianity it self What Seneca spake of Philosophy is true of Religion Fuit aliquando simplicior inter minora peccantes When men did frame and square their lives by the simplicity and plainness of the rule it was not so hard and busie a thing and there were fewer errours when the greatest errour was Impiety But after by degrees it began to spend and wast it self in hot and endless disputations one faction prescribing to another and promulging their dictates as Laws which many times were nothing else but the trophies of a prevailing side waxing worse and worse deceiving and being deceived And now all is heat and words and our Religion for the most part if I may so speak is a negative religion hath no positive reality in it at all Not to be a Papist is to be a Christian not to love the picture is to be a Saint not to love a Bishop is to be a Royal Priesthood not to be a Brownist or Anabaptist is to be Orthodox Should a Pagan stand by and behold our conversation he might well say Where is now their God Where is their Religion Thus hath the Church of Christ suffer'd from her own children from those who suck her breasts She had stretched her curtains further to receive in those who were without had they not been frighted back by the disconsonancy and horrour of their lives whom they saw in her bosome and she had had many mo children had not they who called her Mother been so ill-shapen and full of deformity and that is verified in her which was said of Julius Caesar Plures illum amici confoderunt quà m inimici She hath received more wounds from her friends then from her enemies Last of all This Errour in life and conversation this wilfull mistake of the rule we should walk by is an errour of the foulest aspect of greater allay then any other For in some things licet nescire quae nescimus it is lawfull to erre Errour in it self having no moral culpable deformity In some things oportet nescire quae nescimus we must not be too bold to seek lest we loose our way Some things are beside us some things are above us some things are not to be known and some things are impertinent In some things we erre and sin not for errantis nulla est voluntas saith the Law He that hath no knowledge hath no will But Self deceit in the plain and easie duties of our life is so far from making up an excuse that it aggravates our sin and makes it yet more sinfull For we blind our selves that we may fall into the ditch we will erre that we may sin with the less regret we place our Reason under the inferiour part of our soul that it may not check us when we are reaching at the forbidden fruit we say unto Reason as the Legion of Devils said to our Saviour What have we to do with thee art thou come to torment us before our time Art thou come to blast our delights to take the crown of roses from off our heads to retard and shackle us when we are making forward towards the mark to remove that which our eye longeth after to forbid that which vve desire and to command us to hate that vvhich vve best love We persuade down Reason vve chide down Reason vve reason down Reason and vvill be unreasonable that vve may be vvorse then the beasts that perish First vve vvash our hands vvith Pilate and then deliver up Jesus to be crucified Therefore thou art inexcusable O man whosoever thou art that thus deceivest thy self Yea so far is this Self-deceit from making up an excuse that it deserveth no pity For vvho vvill pity him vvho is vvilling to be deceived vvho makes haste to be deceived vvho makes it his crown and glory to be deceived Had it been an enemy that deceived me or had it been a friend
so few instances of Retractation but a Augustine one among the Antients and of later dayes b Bellarm. one more but such a one as did but like some Plumbers make his business worse by mending it So harsh a thing it is to the nature of Men to seem to have mistaken and so powerful is Prejudice For to confess an Errour is to say we wanted Wit And therefore we should flye from Prejudice as from a Serpent Gen. 3. For it deceiveth us as the Serpent did Eve giveth a No to Gods Yea maketh Men true and God a lyar and nulleth the sentence of death You shall dye the death when this is the Interpreter is your Eyes shall be opened and to deceive our selves is to be as Gods knowing good and evil And it may well be called a Serpent for the biting of it is like that of the Tarantula the working of its venome maketh us dance and laugh our selves to death For a setled prejudicate though false opinion may build up as strong resolutions as a true Saul was as zealous for the Law as Paul was for the Gospel A Heretick will be as loud for a fiction as the Orthodox for the Truth the Turk as violent for his Mahomet as a Christian for his Saviour Habet diabolus suos Martyres For the Devil hath his Martyrs as well as God And it is Prejudice which is that evil spirit that casteth them into the fire and the water that consumeth or drowneth them 1 Sam. 15.32 that leadeth them forth like Agag delicately to their death And this is most visible in those of the Church of Rome We may see even the marks upon them Obstinacy Insolency Scorn and contempt a proud and high Disdain of any thing that appeareth like reason or of any man that shall speak it to teach and recover them Which are certainly the signes of the biting of this Serpent Prejudice or as some will call it the marks of the Beast Quà m gravis incubat How heavy doth Prejudice lye upon them who are taught to renounce their very Sense and to mistrust nay to deny their Reason who see with other mens eyes Apul. De mundo and hear with other mens ears qui non animosed auribus cogitant who do not judge with their mind but with their ears The first prejudice is That theirs is the Catholick Church and cannot err and then all other search and enquiry is vain as a learned writer observeth For what need they go further to find the truth then to the high Priests chair to which it is bound And this they back and strengthen with many others of Antiquity making that most true which is most antient Quintil. And yet omnia vetera nova fuere that which is now old was at first new And by this Argument Truth was not Truth when it first began nor the Light Light when it first sprung from on high and visited us And besides Truth though it had found professours but in this latter age yet was first born because Errour is nothing else but a deviation from the Truth and cometh forth last and layeth hold on the heel of Truth to supplant it Besides these Councils Which may err and the Truth many times is voted down when it is put to most voices Nazianzene was bold to censure them as having seen no good effect of any of them And we our selves have seen and our eyes have dropped for it what a meer Name what Prejudice can do with the Many Nunquam tam benè cum rebus humanis agebatur ut plures essent meliores Sen. de Clement 1. and what it can countenance And many others they have of Miracles which were but lies of Glory which is but vanity of Universality which is bounded and confined to a certain place With these and the like that first prejudice That the Church cannot err is underpropt and upheld And yet again these depend upon that Such a mutual complication there is of Errours as in a bed of Snakes If the first be not true then these were nothing and if these pillars be once shaken and they are but mud that Church will soon sink in its reputation and not fit so high as magisterially to dictate to all the Churches of the world And as we have set up this Queen of Churches as an ensample of the effects of Prejudice so may we hold it up as a glass to see our own She saith we are a Schismatical We please and assure our selves that we are a Reformed Church And so we are and yet Prejudice may find a place even in the Reformation it self Rome is not only guilty of this but even some members of the Reformation who think themselves nearest to Christ when they run farthest from that Church though it be from the Truth it self And this is nothing else but Prejudice to judge our selves pure because our Church is purged to be less reformed because that is Reformed or to think that Heaven and Happiness will be raised and rest upon a Word or Name and that we are Saints as soon as we are Protestants Almost every Sect and every Faction laboureth under this Prejudice and feeleth it not but runneth away with its burden And too many there be who predestinate themselves to Heaven when they have made a surrendry of themselves to such a Church to such a company or collection nay sometimes but to such a man I accuse not Luther or Calvine of errour but honour them rather though I I know they were but men and I know they have erred or else our Church doth in many things and it were easie to name them But suppose they had broacht as many lyes as the Father of them could suggest yet they who have raised them in their esteem to such an height must needs have too open a breast to have received them as oracles and to have lickt up poyson it self if it had fallen from their pens since they have the same motive and inducement to believe them when they err which they have to believe them when they speak the truth and that is no more then their Name Orat. pro Muraena Tolle Catonem de Causa said Tully Cato was a name of virtue and carried authority with it and therefore he thought him not a fit witness in that cause against Muraena for his very name might overbear and sink it Tolle Augustinum de causa Take away the name of Augustine of Luther and Calvine and Arminius for they are but names not arguments There is but one Name by which we may be saved Acts 4.12 And his Name alone must have authority Hebr. 12.2 and prevail with us who is the authour and finisher of our faith VVe may honour others and give unto them that which is theirs but we must not deifie them nor pull Christ out of his throne to place them in his room Of this we may be sure There is
Christ in his shame in his sorrow in his agony take him hanging on the cross take him and take a pattern by him that as he was so we may be troubled for our sins that we may mingle our tears with his blood drag Sin to the bar accuse and condemn it revile and spit in its face at the fairest presentment it can make and then nail it to the cross that it may languish and faint by degrees till it give up the ghost and die in us Then lye we down in peace in the grave and expect a glorious resurrection when we shall receive Christ not in humility but in Majesty and with him all his riches and abundance all his promises even Glory and Immortality and Eternal life A SERMON Preached on Easter-Day REV. I. 18. I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Amen and have the keyes of Hell and of Death WE do not ask Of whom speaketh S. John this or Who is he that speaketh it For we have his character drawn out in lively colours in the verses going before my Text. The Divine calls him a voyce ver 12. when he meaneth the man who spake it I turned to see the voyce that spoke with me and in the next verse telleth us he was like to the Son of man in the midst of the seven golden Candlesticks governing his Church Lev. 26.11 12. setting his Tabernacle amongst men not abhorring to walk amongst them and to be their God that they might be his people Will you see his robes and attire Clothed he was with a garment down to the foot v. 13. which was the garment of the High Priest Hebr. 7.24 And his was an unchangeable Priesthood He had also a golden girdle or belt as a King For he is a King for ever and of his kingdome there shall be no end Luk. 1.33 Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loyns and faithfulness the girdle of his reins Isa 11.5 His head and his hairs were white as woll and as white as snow v. 14. his Judgment pure and uncorrupt not byassed by outward respects not tainted or corrupted by any turbulent affection but smooth and even as waters are when no wind troubleth them His eyes as a flame of fire piercing the inward man searching the secrets of the heart nor is there any action word or thought which is not manifest in his sight His feet like unto fine brass v. 15. sincere and constant like unto himself in all his proceedings in every part of his Oeconomy His voyce as the sound of many waters declaring his Fathers will with power and authority sounding out the Gospel of peace to all the world And last of all out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword v. 16. not onely dividing asunder the soul and the spirit Hebr. 4.12 but discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart and taking vengeance on those who persecute his Church His Majesty dazled every mortal eye his countenance was as the Sun shineth in his strength And now of him who walketh in the midst of his Church whose Mercy is a large robe reaching down to the feet who is girt with Power and clothed with Justice whose Wisdome pierceth even into darkness it self whose Word is heard from one end of the world to the other whose Majesty displayeth its beams through every corner of it we cannot but confess with Peter This is Christ Matth. 16.16 John 6.69 Hagg. 2.7 the Son of the living God And can the Saviour of the world the Desire of all nations the Glory of his Father Beauty it self appear in such a shape of terrour Shall we draw out a merciful Redeemer with a warriours belt with eyes of fire with feet of brass with a voyce of terrour with a sharp two-edged sword in his mouth Yes Such a High Priest became us Hebr. 7.26 who is not onely merciful but just not onely meek but powerful not only fair but terrible not onely clothed with the darkness of Humility but with the shining robes of Majesty who can dye and can live again and live for evermore who suffered himself to be judged and condemned and shall judge and condemn the world it self S. John indeed was troubled at this sight and fell down as dead but Christ rouzeth him up and biddeth him shake of that fear For he is terrible to none but those who make him so to Hereticks and Hypocrites and Persecutors of his Church to those who would have him neither wise nor just nor powerful Non accepimus iratum sed fecimus He is not angry till we force him It is rather our sins that run back again upon us as Furies than his wrath These make him clothe himself with vengeance and draw his sword To S. John to those that bow before him he is all sweetness all grace all salvation and upon these as upon S. John he layeth his right hand quickneth and rouzeth them up Fear not v. 17. neither my girdle of Justice nor my eyes of fire nor my feet of brass nor my mighty voyce nor my two-edged sword for my Wisdom shall guide you my Power shall defend you my Majesty shall uphold you and my Mercy shall crown you Fear not I am the first and the last more humble than any more powerful than any scorned whipped crucified and now highly exalted and Lord of all the world I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore c. These words I may call as Tertullian doth the Lord's Prayer breviarium Evangelii the Breviary or Sum of the whole Gospel or with Augustine Symbolum abbreviatum the Epitome or Abridgement of our Creed And such a short Creed we find in Tertullian which he calls Regulam veram immobilem irreformabilem the sole immutable and unalterable rule of Faith And then the Articles or parts will be 1. The Death of Christ I was dead 2. The Resurrection of Christ with the effect and power of it I am he that liveth 3. The Duration and continuance of his life It is to all eternity I am alive for evermore 4. The Power of Christ which he purchased by his death the Power of the keyes I have the keyes of Hell and of Death And all these are 1. ushered in with an ECCE Behold that we may consider it and 2. sealed and ratified with an AMEN that we may believe it that there be not in any of us as the Apostle speaketh an unbelieving heart to depart from the living God Hebr. 3.11 I am he that liveth and was dead Of the Death of Christ we spake the last day Par. 1. We shall onely now look upon it in reference to the Resurrection and consider it as past For it is FVI MORTVVS I was dead And in this we may see the method and proceeding of our Saviour which he drew out in his blood which must sprinkle those who are to be
the towers of a City these rend the Veil nay dig up the very foundation of the Temple The Spirit is named but from the Flesh is the persecution Matth 21.38 For what did the Husbandmen set upon the Lord of the vineyard but to gain the inheritance What set the whole city of Ephesus in an uproar but Demetrius his Rhetorick Acts 19.25 the brutish but strong perswasions of the flesh From this craft have we this gain Though the Truth and Religion be held up and shewed openly for a pretense yet envy and Malice Covetousness and Ambition envenom the heart and strengthen the hands of all the enemies of the Church these whet the sword these make the furnace of Persecution seven times hotter then it would be The flesh is the treasury from whence these winds blow that rage and beat down all before them Thus it is with every one that is born of the flesh he is ever in labour with mischief ever teeming and travelling with persecution and wanteth nothing but Occasion as a Midwife to bring it forth Now as we have beheld one person in this Tragedy and the chiefest actour so let us look upon the other the Patient born after the spirit And behold a Lamb for the Spirit who came down like a Dove begetteth no Tigers or Lions Behold a Man a Worm and no Man virum perpissitium Epist. 104. as Seneca calleth Socrates a man of sufferance deaf or if not yet dumb to all reproches and when injuries are loudest as silent as the Grave kissing the hand that striketh him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritualized in matter as Nazianzene candidatum crucis as Tertullian saith one that is so fitted and prepared for the Cross that he looketh upon it as upon a preferment Poor Lamb he cannot bite and devour he cannot scatter the counsels of the crafty he cannot bind the hands of the mighty Ignorant and foolish Psal 73.22 as David speaketh as a beast in this world a man in nothing but in Christ Jesus being elemented and made up of Love Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Meekness the principles of the Spirit Gal 5.22 having no security no policy no eloquence no strength but that which lieth in his innocency and truth which he carrieth about as a cure but it is lookt upon as a persecution by those who will not be healed Why hast thou set me up as a mark saith Job Why every one that is born of the spirit is set up as a mark S. Paul calleth it a spectacle 1 Cor. 4.0 He that is born of the spirit is no sooner thus born but he cometh forth a contentious man Jerem 15.10 that striveth with the whole earth The Spirit cannot breathe and work in him but it shaketh every corner of the earth every thing that is from the earth earthy It striveth to pull the Wanton from the harlots lips and to level the Ambitious with those who are of low degree it beateth the Covetous from his Mammon it wresteth the sword out of the hand of the Revenger it striketh out the teeth of the Oppressour Rom. 16.17 it marketh the Schismatick and avoideth him it anathematizeth the Heretick Numb 22 22. It is that Angel which standeth in our way when we are running greedily for a reward It is that Prophet that forewarneth us Jude 11. Dan. 5.5 that Hand on the wall that writeth against us that Cock that calleth us to repentance Matth. 26.74 that Trump that summoneth us to judgement Well said Martine Luther Nihil scandalosius veritate There is not a more offensive thing in the world then that spirit of Truth which begetteth and constituteth a Christian It much resembleth the Load stone qui trahit simul avertit is at once both attractive and averse at one part draweth the Iron at the other loatheth it The Truth knitteth all good men all that 〈◊〉 born of the spirit in a bond of peace but withdraweth it self and will not joyn with the evil with those who are born after the flesh and so maketh them enemies And therefore I may add to Luther Nihil periculosius veritate There is not a more dangerous thing in the world in respect of the world then the Truth For as the Truth as it was said of Noah Heb. 11.7 condemneth the world that is convinceth it of infidelity and so leaveth it open to the sentence of condemnation so doth the world also condemn the Truth 1. By reproching it Ecquis Christus cum sua fabula said the Heathen What ado here is with Christ and his Legend And so saith every Atheist in his heart every one that is born after the flesh 2. By selling it as the Wanton doth for a smile the Covetous for bread Isa 55.2 for that which is not bread the Ambitious for a breath a sound a thought the Superstitious for a picture an idole which is nothing 3. 1 Cor. 8.4 By violence against the friends and lovers of Truth that they may drive it out of the world by commanding and charging them to speak no more in that name Acts ◠17 5.28 by persecuting them as Ishmael did Isaac with ascoff For this is all we read Sarah saw Ishmael mocking And this scoff this derision Gen. 21.9 whatsoever it was S. Paul calleth persecution And this is the Devils Method to make a scoff the prologue to a Tragedy to usher in Persecution with a Jeer first put Christians in the skins of beasts and then bait them to death with dogs first disgrace them and then ad Leones Away with them to the Lions first call the orthodox Bishops traditores and then beat them down at the very Altar first make them vile and then nothing The Psalmist fully expresseth it Swords are in their lips Psal 59.7 For every word these scoffers speak eateth flesh It is a mock now it will be a blow it will be a wound It beginneth in a libell it endeth in Rise kill and eat The first letter the Alpha is a mock the last the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is desolation Thus the son of the free woman he that is born after the spirit is ever the patient and the son of the bond-woman he that is born after the flesh layeth on sure strokes Vnus venter sed non unus animus saith Augustine As the twins strove in the womb of Rebekah so these two the Good and the Evil strive in the World the one by silence the other by noise the one by being what he is the other by being angry that he is so the one by his life the other by his sword Art thou born of the Spirit Eccl. 2.1 a true member of Christ Then prepare thy self for temptation as the son of Sirach speaketh For when thou hast put on these graces that make thee one thou hast with them put on also a crown of thornes If thou be an Isaac thou shalt find an
of us And first we may lay it as a ground That nothing properly provoketh it self as Fire doth not provoke it self to burn nor the Sun to shine For the next and necessary causes of things are rather Efficients then Provocations which are alwayes external either to the person or principal or part which is the principal and special agent And so the Will of man doth consummate and finish sin but provoketh it not but is enticed to that evil or frighted from that which is good by some outward object which first presenteth it self unto the Sense which carrieth it to the Phansie which conveyeth it to the Understanding whence ariseth that fight and contention between the inferiour part of the Soul and the superiour the Sensual appetite and the Reason not to be decided or determined but by the Will And then the Will like Moses Exod. 17.11 holdeth up his hands as it were and is steady and strong the Reason prevaileth and when it letteth them down the Sense The Senses then are as Hierome calleth them fenestrae animae the windows of the Soul through which tentations enter to flatter and woo the Phansie and Affections to joyn with the principal faculties of the Soul to beget that Sin which begetteth Death And if you will observe how they work by the Senses upon the Soul you will soon find that they do it not by force and battery but by allurement and speaking it fair or else by frowns and terrours that there is no such force in their arguments which spiritual wisdome and vigilancy may not assoil that there is no such beauty on them which may not be loathed no such horrour which we may not slight and contemn First they work us occasions of sin And all the power that Occasion hath is but to shew it self If it kill it is as the Basilisk by the eye by looking towards us or indeed rather by our looking towards it Occasion is a creature of our own making we give it being or it would not be and it is in our power as the Apostle speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 11 12. to cut it off When we see the Golden wedge we know it is but a clod of earth Wee see beauty and can call it the colour and symmetry of flesh and bloud of dust and ashes and unless we make it so it is no more Indeed we commonly say Occasio facit furem that Occasion maketh a thief but the truth is it is the Thief that maketh the occasion For the Object being let in by the Senses calleth out the Soul which frameth and fashioneth it and bringeth it to what form it please maketh Beauty a net and Riches a snare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Psal 1 Hieron And therefore bonum est non tangere it is not safe to see or touch There is danger in a very touch in a cast of the eye Upon a look or touch the Soul may fly out to meet the Object and be entangled unawares Vtinam nec videre possimus quod facere nobis nefas est We may sometimes make it our wish not to see that which we may not do not to touch that which may be made an occasion of sin not to look upon wine when it is red Prov. 23.31 nor the strange woman when she smileth For in the second place Objects are not onely made occasions of sin but are drest up and trimmed by the Father of lies who taketh up a chamber in our Phansie in that shape and form in those fair appearances which may deceive us There is a kind of Rhetorick and eloquence in them but not that of the Oratours of Greece which was solid and rational but that of the later Sophisters which consisted in elegancies and figures and Rhetorical colours that which Plato calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flattery and popular eloquence For as they who deliver up themselves to Fortune and tread the wayes to honour and the highest place do commonly begin there with smiles where they mean to shake a whip and cringe and bow and flatter the common people whom they intend to enslave stroke and clap them and so get up and ride the Beast to their journeys end so do these tentations insinuate and win upon the weaker part of man whilst the stronger is left to watch work upon that part first which is easier to be seduced then the Reason or Will which must needs deny them admittance if they came and presented themselves in their own shape and were not first let in by the Senses and Phansie and there coloured over and beautified and in this dress sent up unto them Indeed the Senses are merely passive receive the object and no more The Eye doth see and the Ear hear and the Hands feel and their work and office is transacted And thus if I be watchful I may see Vanity and detest it I may hear Blasphemy and abhorre it I may touch and not be defiled But as the Prophet speaketh Death cometh in at the windows Jer. 9.21 and so by degrees entreth into the palace of our Mind The Civilians tell us Possessio acquiritur etiamsi in angulo tantùm ingrediamur We take possession of a house though we come but into a corner of it So through our negligence and unwariness many times nay most times it falleth out that when the temptation hath gained an entrance at the eye or ear it presseth forward to the more retired and more active faculties and at last gaineth dominion over the whole man from the Senses it is transmitted to the Phansy which hath a creating faculty to make what she pleaseth of what she list to put new forms and shapes upon objects to make Gods of clay to make that delightful which in it self is grievous that desirable which is lothsome that fair and beautiful which is full of horrour to set up a golden calf and say it as a God August lib. Music c. 11. Et habentur phantasmata pro cognitis These shews and apparitions are taken for substances these airy phantasmes for well-grounded conclusions And the Mind of man doth so apply it self unto them ut dum in his est cogitatio ea intellectu cerni arbitramur that what is but in the Phansy and wrapped up in a thought is supposed to be seen by the eye of the Understanding in the same shape What we think is so and with us in these our distempers Opinion and Knowledge are one and the same thing And this inflameth and maddeth the Affections that they forget their objects and look and run wild another way Our Hatred is placed on that which we should love and our Love on that which we should detest we fear that which we should embrace and we hope for that which we should fear we are angry with a friend and well pleased with an enemy Now profaneness soundeth better then a hymn or a Psalm of thanksgiving Hilar in Psal
we now speak of a thousand a million a world of men are with him but as one man When the Lord Chief Justice of Heaven and Earth shall sit to do judgement upon sinners what Caligula once wantonly wished to the people of Rome all the world before him have but as it were one neck and if it please him by that jus pleni dominii by that full power and dominion he hath over his creature he may as he welnear did in the Deluge strike it off at a blow His judgements are past finding out and therefore not to be questioned A Platone dicitur Deus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Plutarch Quaest. convival l. 8. q. c. He is the great Geometrician of the World which made all things in number weight and measure and doth infinitely surpass all humane inventions whatsoever and therefore we cannot do him less honour then Hiero King of Sicily did to Archimedes the great Mathematician When he saw the engines he made and the marvellous effects they did produce he caused it to be proclaimed that whatsoever Archimedes did after affirm how improbable soever it might seem yet should not once be called into question but be received and entertained as a truth Let the course of things be carried on as it will let Death pass over the door of the Egyptian and smite the Israelite let God's Thunder miss the house of Dagon and shiver his own Tabernacle yet God is just and true and every man a liar that dareth but ask the question Why doth God this Look over the book of Job and you shall see how Job and his Friends are tost up and down on this great deep For it being put to the question why Job was so fearfully handled his Friends ground themselves upon this conclusion That all affliction is for sin and so lay folly and hypocrisie to his charge and tell him roundly that the judgments of God had now found him out though he had been a close irregular and with some art and cunning hid himself from the eye of the World But Job on the contrary as stoutly pleadeth and defendeth his innocency his justice his liberality and could not attain to the sight of the cause for which Gods hand was so heavy on him Why should his Friends urge him any more Job 19.22 or persecute him as God They dispute in vain Job 21.34 for in their answers he seeth nothing but lies At last when the controversie could have no issue Deus è machina God himself cometh down from heaven and by asking one question putteth an end to the rest Job 38.2 Who is this that darkneth counsel by words without knowledge He condemneth Job and his Friends of ignorance and weakness in that they made so bold and dangerous an attempt as to seek out a cause or call God's judgments into question 2. Because this is a point which may seem worthy to be insisted upon for it hath well-nigh troubled the whole world to see the righteous and wicked tyed together in the same chain and speeding alike in general and oecumenical plagues that Mans reason may not take offense and be scandalized we will give you some reasons why God should hold so unrespective a hand First good reason it is that they who partake in the sin should partake also in the punishment Now though in great and crying sins the righteous partake not with the wicked yet in smaller they evermore concur For who is he amongst the sons of men that can presume himself free from these kind of sins And then if the wages of the smallest sin can be no less then death and eternal torment we have no cause to complain if God use his rod who might strike with the sword if he chastise us on earth who might thrust us into hell This is enough to clear God from all injustice For who can complain of temporal who doth justly deserve eternal pains Or why should they be severed in the penalty who are joyned together in the cause But further yet what though the fault of the one be much the less yet it will not therefore follow if we rightly examine it that the punishment should be the less For though it may seem a paradox which I shall speak unto you yet it will stand with very good reason that great cause many times there may be why the smaller sin should be amerced and fined with the greater punishment In the Penitential Canons he that killeth his mother is enjoynd ten years penance but he that killeth his wife is enjoynd far more And the reason is immediately given not because this is the greater sin but because men are commonly more apt to fall into the sin of murdering their wives then their mothers It is true the reason is larger then the instance and it teacheth us thus much That in appointing the mulct for sin men ought not onely to consider the greatness of it but the aptness of men to fall into it For that of St. Augustine is most true Tantò crebriora quantò minora Because they are the less men presume the oftner to commit them And therefore it may seem good wisdome when ordinary punishment will not serve to redress sins to enhance and improve their penalty We read in our books that there was a Law in Rome that he who gave a man a box on the ear was to pay the sum of twelve pence of our money And Aulus Gellius doth tell us that there was a loose but a rich man who being disposed to abuse the Law was wont to walk the streets with a purse of money and still as he met any man he would give him a box on the ear and then twelve pence Now to repress the insolence of such a fellow there was no way but to encrease the value of the mulct Which course the God of heaven and earth may seem to take with us when his ordinary and moderate punishments will not serve to restrain us from falling into smaller sins He sharpneth the penalty that at last we may learn to account no sin little which is committed against an infinite Majesty and not make the gentleness of the Law an occasion of sin And to this end he coupleth both good and bad in those general plagues which by his providence do befall the world He speaketh evil he doth evil to whole Nations amongst whom notwithstanding some righteous persons are Ah sinful nation a people laden with iniquity a seed of evil doers Isa 1.4 10. princes of Sodom people of Gomorrah these are the names by which he stileth the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem amongst whom we cannot doubt but there were many good though no other yet certainly Isaiah the Prophet who spake these words And as he giveth them all one name without regard of difference so he maketh them all good and bad to drink alike of one cup of captivity though no doubt many of great uprightness though
The unbelieving man that dwelleth not in Christ hath either no place to fly to or else that he flyeth to is as full of molestation and torment as that he did fly from He flieth to himself from himself He flieth to his wit and that befooleth him he flieth to his strength and that overthroweth him he flieth to his friend and he faileth him He asketh himself counsel and mistrusteth it He asketh his friend counsel and is afraid of it He flieth to a Reed for a staff to Impotency and Folly and hath not what he looked for when he hath what he looked for He is ever seeking ease and never at rest And vvhen these evils vvithout him stir up a worse evil within him a conscience which calleth his sins to remembrance vvhat a perplexed and distracting thing is he what shifts and evasions doth he catch at He runneth from room to room from excuse to excuse from comfort to comfort He fluttreth and flieth to and fro as the Raven and would rest though it vvere on the outside of the Ark. This is the condition of those vvho are not in Christ But he that dwelleth in him that abideth in him knoweth not vvhat Fear is Col. 2.3 because he is in him in whom all the treasures of wisdome and power are hid and so hath ever his protection about him He knoweth not vvhat danger is for Wisdome it self conducteth him He knoweth not what an enemy is for power guardeth him He knoweth not vvhat misery is for he liveth in the region of happiness He that dwelleth in him cannot fear what Man vvhat Devil vvhat Sin can do unto him because he is in his armory abideth safely as in a Sanctuary 2 Tim. 1.12 under his wing I know whom I have trusted saith S. Paul not the World not my friends not my Riches not my Self Not onely the World and Riches and Friends are a thin shelter to keep off a storm but I know nothing in my self to uphold my self but I know whom I have trusted my Christ my King my Governour and Counsellor who hath taken me under his roof who cannot deny himself but in these evil dayes in that great day will be my patrone my defence my protection Thus doth the true Christian dwell abide in Christ 1. admiring his majesty 2. loving his command 3. depending vvholly upon his protection These three fill up our first part our first proposition That some act is required on our parts here expressed by dwelling in him We pass now to our second That something is also done by Christ in us some virtue proceedeth from him vvhich is here called dwelling in us There goeth forth virtue and power from him from his promises from his precepts from his life from his passion and death from vvhat he did from vvhat he suffered as there did to the vvoman who touching the hem of his garment was healed of her bloody issue Mark 5. Luke 8. a power by which he sweetly and secretly and powerfully characterizeth our hearts and writeth his mind in our minds and so taketh possession of them and draweth them into himself The Apostle telleth us he dwelleth in us by his spirit Rom. 8 11 14 and that we are led by the spirit in the whole course of our life Eph. 2.22 and that we are the habitation of God through the spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his tabernacle his temple which he consecrateth and setteth apart to his own use and service There is no doubt but a power cometh from him but I am almost afraid to say it there having been such ill use made of it For though it be come already Rom. 1.16 for the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation yet is it still expected expected indeed rather then hoped for For when it doth come we shut the door and set up our will against it and then look faintly after it and perswade our selves it will come at last once for all There is power in his Precepts for our Reason subscribeth and signeth them for true There is power in his Promises they shine in glory These are the power of Christ to every one that believeth And how can we be Christians if we believe not But this is his ordinary power which like the Sun in commune profertur is shewn on all at once There yet goeth a more immediate power and virtue from him we deny it not which like the wind worketh wonderful effects but we see not whence it cometh John 3.8 nor whither it goeth neither the beginning nor the end of it which is in another world The operations of the Spirit by reason they are of another condition then any other thought or working in us whatsoever are very difficult and obscure as Scotus observeth upon the Prologue to the Sentences for the manner not to be perceived no not by that soul wherein they are wrought Profuisse deprehendas quomodo profuerunt non deprehendes as Seneca in another case That they have wrought you shall find but the secret and retired passages by which they wrought are impossible to be brought to demonstration But though we cannot discern the manner of his working yet we may observe that in his actions and operations on the soul of man he holdeth the course even of natural agents in this respect that they strive to bring in their similitude and likeness into those things on which they work by a kind of force driving out one contrary with another to make way for their own form So Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac Jacob and every creature begetteth according to its own kind Plato said of Socrates's wise sayings that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the children of his mind so resembling him that you might see all Socrates in them So it is with Christ Where he dwelleth he worketh by his spirit something like unto himself He altereth the whole frame of the heart driveth out all that is contrary to him 2 Cor. 10.5 all imaginations which exalt themselves against him and never leaveth purging and fashioning us till a new creature like himself be wrought till Christ be fully formed in us Gal. 4.19 So it is with every one in vvhom Christ dwelleth And this he doth by the power of his Spirit 1. by quickning our Knowledge by shewing us the riches of his Gospel his beauty and majesty the glory and order of his house and that vvith that convincing evidence that vve are forced to fall dovvn and vvorship by filling our soul vvith the glory of it as God filled the tabernacle vvith his Exod. 40. that all the powers and faculties of the soul are ravisht vvith the sight and come vvillingly as the Psalmist speaketh fall down vvillingly before him by moving our soul as our Soul doth our Body that when he saith Go vve go and vvhen he saith Do this vve do it So it is in every one in vvhom Christ dwelleth 2. He dwelleth in us
before he went to his own place It may seem strange indeed but it is true and there is no reason it should seem strange For why should it seem strange that God should leave us once who have left him so often that when he can do no more to his Vineyard he should pluck up the hedge Isa 5. and lay it open to bring forth nothing but briars and thorns that when we have abused his Mercy he should be angry that when we defy him he should fling us off that when we will be evil he should let us alone It is our own folly that maketh it a Paradox Our Ignorance of our selves and of God our high and vile esteem of his Mercy our false glossing and misinterpreting his Judgments have made it a heresie anathematized and exploded it And now any Now any time is soon enough with them who will sin but would not be punished who put God from them but would not be left to themselves who would repent and yet sin would be saved but not now These are the Soloecismes of Delay the contradictions and absurdities of wilful sinners such who would turn yet will go on in their sins It were easie to fill our mouth with arguments But Delay in our onsets and progress to Eternity is of so foul and monstrous an aspect that there need no tongue of Men or Angels to set forth the horrour of it Every eye that seeth it must needs turn it self away every thought that receiveth it must distast and condemn it even the heart that is deceived with it cannot but tremble at it Amongst so many that have perished amongst so many that may perish by it it never yet found one patrone any one man that had a good word for it or did dare to say it were not a sin to trust to it Even when we delay we condemn our selves and yet still hope and still delay We condemn it in others and of those who have been long evil we are too ready to say They will never be good He that hearkeneth to the call and turneth at the first sound of it condemneth it for he flingeth it off as if Death were in it He that expecteth an hour when the hour is Now condemneth it condemneth it by his very expectation condemneth it by his fear For he that doth but hope for such an hour cannot but entertain some fear that it may never come and so conclude against himself that that opportunity which hath a being and subsistence is far better and to be preferred before that which love of vanity and his hope hath made up which is nothing but in expectation Thus we delay and check and comfort our selves and yet delay and destroy our selves and look for salvation in medio gehennae In Cant. Ser. 75. saith Bernard in the midst of hell which is wrought already and must be wrought out by us in medio terrae in the midst of the earth For conclusion then Turn ye turn ye that is Turn ye now There is but one Now There may be many more but most true it is there is but one Hom. 41. Tene quod certum dimitte quod incertum saith Augustine Let us lay hold on that which is certainly ours let us not send our thoughts and hopes afar off to that which hath no better foundation to rest on then Uncertainty it self Let us not hope to raise Eternity upon a thought of that which may be or rather of that which may not be For we may as well consult and determine what we will do when we are dead as what we will do in this kind hereafter If it be never wrought out of its contingency if it never come to pass the difference is not great For that which may be and that which never shall be may be the same That which may be and may not be hath no entity at all Arestot De incerp c. 9. and so cannot be the object of our Knowledge nor bear either an Affirmation or Negation And wilt thou settle a resolution on such a Contingency resolve to do that at such a time which thou canst not tell whether it will ever come or no resolve upon that of which thou canst neither affirm nor deny that it shall ever be Wilt thou hazard the favour of God thy soul and salvation upon the hope of that which is not and may be nothing This were to let go Juno and embrace a cloud to set thy happiness on the cast of a die to call the things that are not as if they were in brief to set up an idole a false hope a gilded nothing and fall down and worship it and forsake that present opportunity which is the voice of God and bespeaketh us to make no more delayes but to turn Now. The word now soundeth let us hearken now We have been told by him who had it from Christ 2 Cor. 6.2 as Christ had it from his Father that now is the acceptable time now is the day of salvation and we were never yet told of any other day Did ever yet any Prophet or Apostle exhort you to turn to morrow At what time soever is not When you please but Though you have not yet left your evil wayes yet now you may turn At what time soever is Now. Divinity or the Doctrine of the Gospel is practical and considereth not contingencies but necessaries In it there is nothing presented to us in the future tense but Salvation which is a thing of another world The means are all derived to us in the present To day if you will hear his voice Psal 95.7 Deny your selves Take up your Cross Mortifie your fleshly lusts to day Believe now Love him now Hope in him now That which is to come or may be in respect of our duty is not considerable in that science but left in his hands who is the Antient of dayes Dan. 7.9 who being eternal may indulge as many opportunities as in wisdom he shall think fit but his command is Now. He may receive us at any time but he bindeth us to the present We have been told nay we can tell our selves that Now is better then To morrow that we have but one day one moment which we can call ours and after that Time may be no more We have heard that Delay is a Tyrant a Pharaoh layeth more work upon us Exod. 5.7 8. doubleth and trebleth nay infinitely multiplieth our task and yet alloweth us no straw withdraweth the means the helps and advantages we had to turn or else maketh us weak and impotent less able to use them delivereth us over to more difficulties more pangs and troubles and tormenting agonies then we should have felt if we had cast her off and begun betimes And shall we yet delay We have heard that it is a sin to delay and maketh Sin yet more sinful that it is the Devils first heave to throw us into that gulf
forward in the wayes of righteousness till we are brought to that place of rest where there is no evil to turn from but all shall turn to our salvation Thus much of the Exhortation Turn ye turn ye The next is the Reason or Expostulation For why will ye die O house of Israel The Twentieth SERMON PART V. EZEKIEL XXXIII 11. Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes For why will ye die O house of Israel WHY will ye die is an Obtestation or Expostulation I called it a Reason and good reason I should do so For the moriemini is a good reason That we may not die a good reason to make us turn But being tendered to us by way of expostulation it is another reason putteth life and efficacy into it and maketh it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reason invincible and unanswerable The Israelite though now in his evil wayes dareth not say he will die and therefore must lay his hand upon his mouth and turn God who is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free from all passion being to deal with Man subject to passion seemeth to put on Passion Exprimit in se ut exprimat de te saith S. Augustine He expresseth a kind of anger that thou mayest abhorre thy self for sin He seemeth sorrowful that thou mayest be melted into tears He putteth on a kind of wonder that thou mayest have confusion of face Will ye die why will ye die It moveth him much that Israel his chosen people should die that his house that he built upon a strong foundation and strengthened and supported on every side should even whilest he shined upon it sink and swerve and fall to ruine that the signature on his right hand should be defaced that the apple of his eye should be thus toucht This is enough to put God himself into passion to make him cry out and complain QVARE MORIEMINI Why will ye die O house of Israel Certainly the manner of speach maketh it evident that moved he was So it is Affections are commotions saith the Philosopher and many times make us speak what otherwise we would not Figura dictionis the tenour of our speach varieth with our mind and our very action and gesture and voice put on the shape of our affections The language here is sharp and violent not per rectam orationem by way of a plain and positive declaration of our mind but by a sudden and well-prest interrogation It is quick and round and leaveth a mark and imputation behind it He saith not The wayes ye walk in are evil turn from them If ye turn not ye run upon your death but QVARE MORIEMINI Why will ye die The question putteth it out of all question that God was either angry or sorrowful or struck with admiration The language of a quiet mind is as quiet as the mind This is sudden and vehement the very dialect of one in passion What coast soever the wind came from the storm is raised the tempest is high QVARE MORIEMINI Why will ye die is the voice of anger and sorrow the breathings and noise of a troubled mind Indeed all those attributes of Gods Will which we call affections from some likeness and analogy they bear with ours his Goodness and Love his Anger and Hatred his Fear and Grief may seem to meet here in this Obtestation His Love speaketh for he would not have us die His Anger speaketh for he is angry with us because we will not live He hateth Death and therefore would destroy it His Hope speaketh Isa 3◠1◠for he doth expect and wait that he may be gratious And he is even jealous of men that they will yet run on in their evil wayes and then he speaketh in his Fear and is brought to his Nè fortè I will not do this lest they sin Exod. 33.3 and I consume them in the way He is brought lower yet even to a kind of Despair QVID FACIENDVM What should I do to my vineyard Isa 5.4 which I have not done He loveth us even when we are his enemies that we may be his friends He is afraid of our ruine when we run boldly toward it He is troubled at our folly when we pride our selves and triumph in it He serveth with our sins and is wearied with our iniquities Isa 43.24 when we run at large and feel them not He is sorry for our transgressions when we leap and rejoyce in them He would be our God and we will not be his people He would have us live and we will die Good God! what an horrid spectacle is an Israelite a Christian in viis malis that runneth on in his evil wayes God cometh not near him but in a tempest at the very first sight of him he is in passion beginneth to ask questions is at his QVARE Why will ye do this And we cannot easily discern whether it be Quare exprobantis an upbraiding question or Quare indignantis an angry question or Quare dolentis a question raised and forced out by grief or Quare admirantis a question of one amazed at such extremity of folly or Quare accusantis whether it be not the form of a Bill of accusation and he draw articles against them Indeed this last includeth all For by way of upbraiding in grief and anger full of astonishment seeing such strange contempt he proceedeth against them ex formula formally and legally as we use in our Courts of Justice So that here as Rhetoricians will tell us Interrogatio pro accusatione est this Question is a plain Indictment And the arguments to convince them are drawn 1. Ab Inutili from the danger of the way Ducit ad mortem It leadeth unto death 2. Ab absurdo from the incongruity and absurdity which apparently followeth if they turn not That any should be willing to die is a great folly but nothing more absurd then that Israel should that the house of Israel should fall to pieces and ruine it self So then for the Convertimini or Repentance a reason we find but for the Moriemini for Death none at all nay many reasons there are we should not die First Gods Goodness who calleth after us warneth us of the danger qui minatur mortem nè inferat who threatneth death that we may not die Secondly He hath made us an house built us together on a sure foundation that we may mutually support each other from ruine and destruction Thirdly Death as the Philosopher calleth it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most terrible thing that can shew it self to flesh and blood able to fright any man from those wayes which lead unto it So that the conclusion which can follow hence can be no other then this If we die it will be in nobis ipsis in our selves and we shall be found guilty of our own destruction and the onely murderers of our own souls We have here a large field to walk over but we must
meaning is His absolute will is that they should die And let them shift as they please and wind and turn themselves to slip out of reach after all defalcations and subtractions they can make it will arise near to this sum which I am almost afraid to give you That God is willing we should die For to this purpose they bring in also Gods Providence To this purpose I should have said to none at all For though God rule the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by this law of Providence as Nazianzene calleth it though he disposeth and ordereth all things and all actions of men yet he layeth not any law of Necessity upon all things Some effects he hath fitted with necessary causes Prima part q. 22. art 4. that they may infallibly fall out saith Aquinas and to other effects which in their own nature are contingent he hath applyed contingent causes so that that shall fall out necessarily which his Providence hath so disposed of and that contingently which he hath left in a contingency And both these in the nature of things necessary and contingent are within the verge and rule of his Providence and he altereth them not but extra ordinem when he would do some extraordinary work Psal 104.19 when he would work a miracle The Sun knoweth his seasons and the Moon its going down and this in a constant and unchangeable course but yet he commanded the Sun to stand still in Gibeon and the Moon in the valley of Ajalon Josh 10.12 But then I think all events are not as necessary as the change of the Moon or the setting of the Sun for all have not so necessary causes Unless you will say to walk or stand to be rich or poor to fall in battel or to conquer are as necessary effects as Darkness when the Sun setteth or Light when it riseth in our Horizon And this indeed may bring in a new kind of Predestination to walk or to stand to Riches and Poverty to Victory and Captivity as well as to everlasting Life and everlasting Perdition But posito sed non concesso Let us suppose it though we grant it not that the Providence of God hath laid a necessity upon such events as these yet it doth not certainly upon those actions which concern our everlasting welfare which either raise us up to heaven or cast us down to destruction It were not much material at least a good Christian might think so whether we sit or walk whether God predetermin that we be rich or poor that we conquer or be overcome What is it to me though the Sun stand still if my feet be at liberty to run the wayes of Gods commandments What is it to me if the Moon should start out of her sphere if I lose not the sight of that brightness which should direct me in my way to bliss What were it to me if I were necessitated to beggery so I be not a predestinate bankrupt in the city of the Lord Let him do what he will in heaven and in earth let the Sun go back let the Stars lose their light let the wheel of Nature move in a contrary way let the pillars of the world be shaken Let him do what he will it concerneth us not further then that we say Amen so be it For we must give him leave who made the world to govern it If all other events and actions were necessary we might well sit down and lay our hands upon our mouth But here lis est de tota possessione We speak not of riches and poverty or fair weather and tempests but of everlasting life and everlasting damnation And to entitle God either directly or indirectly to the sins and death of wicked men so to lay the Scene that it shall appear though masked and vailed with limitations and distinctions and though they be not positive yet leave such premisses out of which this conclusion may easily be drawn is a high reproch to Gods infinite Goodness a blasphemy however men wipe their mouthes after it of the greatest magnitude Not to speak the worst it is to stand up and contradict God to his face and when he sweareth he would not have us die to proclaim it to all the world that there be thousands whom he hath killed already and destroyed before they were and so decreed to do that from all eternity which in time he swore he would not do I speak not this to rake the ashes of any of those who are dead that either maintained or favoured this opinion nor to stir the choler of any man living who may love this child for the fathers sake but for the honour of God and his everlasting Goodness which I conceive to be strangely violated by this doctrine of efficacious Permission or by that shift and evasion of a positive Efficiency joyned as it is said inseparably with this Permission of sin which is so far from colouring it over or giving any loveliness to it that it rendreth it more horrid and deformed and is the louder blasphemy of the two which clotheth as it were a Devil with Light who yet breaketh through it and rageth as much as if he had been in his own shape Permission is a fair word and bodeth no harm but yet it breatheth forth that poysonous exhalation which killeth us For but to be permitted to sin is to be a child appointed to death The antients especially the Athenians did account some words ominous and therefore they never used to speak them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Prison they called the House Helladius apud Photium the Hangman the Common Officer and the like And the Romanes would not once mention Death or say their friend was dead but Humanitus illi accidit We may render it in the Scripture-phrase He is gone the way of all the earth Josh 23.14 1 Kings 2.2 What their phansie led them to Religion should perswade us to think that some words there be which we should be afraid to mention when we speak of God Excitation to sin Inclination Induration Reprobration as they are used are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ill-boding words But yet we must not with the Heathen onely change the language and mean the same thing and call it Permission when our whole discourse driveth this way to bring it forward and set it up for a flat and absolute Compulsion For this is but to plough the wind to make a way which closeth of it self as soon as it is made This is not to teach men but to amaze them Sermo per deflexus anfractus veritatem potiùs quaerit quà m ostendit saith Hilary When men broach these contradictions to known and common principles when they make these Meanders these windings and turnings in their discourses they make it also apparent that they are still in their search and have not yet found out the
faction What press on to make thy self better and make thy self worse go up to the Temple to pray and profane it What go to Church and there learn to pull it down Why Oh why will ye thus die O house of Israel Oh then let us look about us with a thousand eyes let us be wise and consider what we are and where we are that we are a House and so ought every man to fill and make good his place and mutually support each other that we are a Family and must be active in those offices which are proper to us and so with united forces keep Death from entring in that we are the Israel of God his chosen people chosen therefore that we may not cast away our selves 1 Tim. 3.15 that we are his Church which is the pillar and ground of truth a pillar to lean on that we fall not and holding out and urging the truth which is able to save us that we may not die We have God's Word to quicken us his Sacraments to strengthen and confirm us his Grace to prevent and follow us We have many helps and huge advantages And if we look up upon them and lay hold on them if we hearken to his Word resist not his Grace neither idolize nor profane his Sacraments but receive them with reverence as they were instituted in love if we hear the Church if we hear one another if we confirm one another Rom. 6.9 Gal. 7.16 if we watch over our selves and one another Death shall have can have no more dominion over us we shall not we cannot die at all but as many as thus walk in the common light of the house of Israel peace shall be upon them and mercy and upon the Israel of God And now we must draw towards a conclusion and we must conclude and shut up all in nobis ipsis in our selves If we die it is quia volumus because we will die For look above us and there is God the living God the God of life saying to us Live Look before us and there is Death breathing terrour to drive us from it shewing us his dart that we may hold up our buckler Look about us and there are armouries of weapons treasuries of wisdome shops of physick balm and ointments helps and advantages pillars and supporters to uphold us that we may stand and not fall into the pit which openeth its mouth but will shut it again if we flie from it which is not cannot be is nothing if we do not dig it our selves The Church exhorteth instructeth correcteth God calleth inviteth expostulateth Death it self threatneth us that we may not come near Thus are we compassed about auxiliorum nube with a cloud of helps and advantages The Church is loud Death is terrible God's Nolo is loud I will not the death of a sinner Ezek. 33.11 and confirmed with an oath As he liveth He would not have us die And it is plain enough in his lightning and in his thunder in his expostulations and wishes in his anger in his grief in his spreading out his hands in his administration of all means sufficient to protect and guard us from it And it excludeth all Stoical Fate all necessity of sinning or dying There is nothing above us nothing before us nothing about us which can necessitate or bind us over to Death so that if we die it is in our volo in our Will we die for no other reason but that which is not reason Quia volumus Because we will die We have now brought you to the very cell and den of Death where this monster was framed and fashioned where it was first conceived brought forth and nursed up I have discovered to you the original and beginnings of Sin whose natural issue is Death and shut it up in one word the Will That which hath so troubled and amused men in all the ages of the Church to find out that which some have sought in heaven in the bosome of God as if his Providence had a hand in it and others have raked hell and made the Devil the authour of who is but a perswader and a soliciter to promote it that which others have tied to the chain of Destiny whose links are filed by the phansie alone and made up of air and so not strong enough to bind men much less the Gods themselves as it is said that which many have busied themselves in a painful and unnecessary search to find out openiâ—g the windows of Heaven to find it there running to and fro about the Universe to find it there and searching Hell it self to discover it we may discover in our own breasts in our own heart The Will is the womb that conceiveth this monster this viper which eateth through it and destroyeth the mother in the birth For that which is the beginning of action is the beginning of Sin and that which is the beginning of Sin is the cause of Death In homine quicquid est sibi proficit saith Hilary In Psal 118 There is nothing in Man nothing in the world which he may not make use of to avoid and prevent Death And in homine quicquid est sibi nocet There is nothing in Man nothing in the world which he may not make an occasion and instrument of sin That which hurteth him may help him That which circumspection and diligence may make an antidote neglect and carelesness may turn into poyson 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil As Goodness so Sin is the work of our Will not of Necessity If they were wrought in us against our will there could be neither good nor evil I call heaven and earth to witness Deut. 30.19 said GOD by his servant Moses I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing And what is it to set it before them but to put it to themselves to put it into their own hands to put it to their choice Chuse then which you will The Devil may tempt the Law occasion sin Rom. 7.11 the Flesh may be weak Temptations may shew themselves but not any of these not all of these can bring in a necessity of dying For the Question or Expostulation doth not run thus Why are you under a Law Why are you weak or Why are you dead for reasons may be given for all these and the Justice and Wisdome of God will stand up to defend them But the Question is Why will ye die for which there can be no other reason given but our Will And here we must make a stand and take our rise from this one word this one syllable our Will For upon no larger foundation then this we either build our selves up into a temple of the Lord or into that tower of Babel and Confusion which God will destroy We see here all is laid upon the Will But such is our folly and madness so full of contradictions is a wilfull sinner Wisd 1.16 that
though he call Death unto him both with words and works though he be found guilty and sentence of death past upon him yet he cannot be wrought into such a perswasion That he was ever willing to die Tert. Apol c. 1. Nolumus nostrum quia malum agnoscimus We will not call sin ours because we know it evil and so are bold to exonerate and unload our selves upon God himself It is true there is light but we are blind and cannot see it There is comfort soundeth every where but we are deaf and cannot hear it There is supply at hand but we are bound and fettered Jer. 8.22 and can make no use of it There is balm in Gilead but we are lame and have no hand to apply it We complain of our natural weakness of our want of grace and assistance When we might know the danger we are in we plead ignorance When we willingly yield our members servants unto sin Rom. 6.13 19. we have learnt to say We did not do it plenâ voluntate with full consent and will and what God hath clothed with Death we cloath with the fair gloss of a good intention and meaning We complain of our bodies and of our souls as if the Wisdome of God had failed in our creation We would be made after another fashion that we might be good and yet when we may be good we will be evil And these webs a sick and unsanctified phansie will soon spin out These are receipts and antidotes of our own tempering devised and made use of against the gnawings of conscience These we study and are ready and expert in and when Conscience beginneth to open and chide these are at hand to quiet it and put it to silence We carry them about for ease and comfort but to as little purpose as the women in Chrysostom's time bound the coins of Alexander the Great or some part of S. John's Gospel to ease them of the head-ach For by these receipts and spells we more envenom our souls and draw nearer to Death by thinking to fly from it and are tenfold more the servants of Satan because we are willing to do him service but not willing to wear his livery And thus excusando exprobramus our apologies defame us our false comforts destroy us and we condemn our selves with an excuse To draw then the lines by which we are to pass we will first take off the Moriemini the cause of our Death from our Natural weakness and from the Deficiency of Grace For neither can our natural weakness betray nor can there be such a want of grace as to enfeeble nor hath Satan so much power as to force the Will and so there will be no necessity of dying either in respect of our natural weakness or in regard of Gods strengthning hand and withholding his grace And then in the next place we will shew that neither Ignorance of our duty nor Regret or Reluctancy of Conscience nor any Pretense or good Intention can make Sin less sinfull or our death less voluntary And so we will bring Death to their doors who have sought it out who have called it to them vvho are confederate vvith it and are vvorthy to be partakers thereof And First Why will ye die O house of Israel Why will ye die vve may perhaps ansvver vve are dead already Haeret lateri lethalis arundo The poysoned and deadly dart is in our sides Adam sinned and vve die Omnes eramus in illo uno cum ille unus nos omnes perdidit We vvere all the loins of that one man Adam vvhen that one man slevv us all And this we are too ready to confess that we are born in sin Nay we fall so low as to damn our selves before we were born This some may do in humility but most are well content it should be so well pleased in their pedegree well pleased to be brought into the world in that filth and uncleanness which God doth hate and make the unhappiness of their birth an advocate to plead for those pollutions for those wilfull and beloved sins which they fall into in the remaining part of their life as being the proper and natural issues of that Weakness and Impotency with which we were sent into the world But this is not true in every part That vveakness vvhatsoever it is can dravv no such necessity upon us nor can be vvrought into an apology for sin or an excuse for dying For to include and vvrap up all our actual sin in the folds of original vveakness is nothing else but to cancel our own debts and obligations Licentiam usurpare praetexto necessitatis Tert. De cult Faemin and to put all upon our first parents score and so make Adam guilty of the sins of the whole world Our natural and original weakness I will not now call into question since it hath had such Grandees in our Church men of great learning and piety for its nursing Fathers and that for many centuries of years but yet I cannot see why it should be made a cloak to cover our other transgressions or why we should miscarry so often with an eye cast back upon our first fall which is made ours but in another man nor any reason though it be a plant watered by the best hands why men should be so delighted in it why they should lie down and repose themselves under its shadow why they should be so willing to be weak and so unwilling to hear the contrary why men should take so much pains to make the way to happiness narrower and the way to death broader then it is in a word why we should thus magnifie a temptation and desparage our selves why we should make each importunate object as powerful and irresistible as God himself and our selves as idoles even nothing in this world Petrarch 1.3 R. S. c. 1. Magna pars humanarum que relarum non injusta modò materiâ sed stulta est The world is full of complaints and excuses but the complaints which the world putteth forth are for the most part most unjust and void of that reason which should present and commend them For when our souls are pressed down and overcharged with sin when we feel the gripes and gnawings of our conscience we commonly lay hold on those remedies which are worse then the disease and suborn an unseasonable and ill-applied conceit of our own natural weakness which is more dangerous then the temptation as an excuse and comfort of our overthrow We fall and plead we were weak and fall more then seven times a day and hold up the same plea still till we fall into that place where we shall be muzled and speachless not able to say a word where our complaints will end in curses in weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth Hieron Amando Omnes nostris vitiis favemus quod propriâ facimus voluntate ad naturae referimus necessitatem We are
all tender and favourable to our own sins and because they pleased us when we committed them we are unwilling to revile them now but wipe off as much of their filth as we can because we resolve to commit them again and those transgressions which our Lusts conceived and brought forth by the midwifery of our Will we remove as far as we can and lay them at the door of Necessity and are ready to complain of God and Nature it self Now this complaint against Nature when we have sinned is most unjust For God and Nature hath imprinted in our souls those common principles of goodness That good is to be embraced and evil to be abandoned That we must do to others as we would be done to those practick notions those anticipations Natura nos ad optimam mentem genuit Quint. l. 12. Inst as the Stoicks call them of the mind and preparations against Sin and Death which if we did not wilfully stifle and choke them might lift up our souls far above those depressions of Self-love and Covetousness and those evils which destroy us quae ratio semel in universum vincit which Reason with the help of Grace overcometh at once For Reason doth not onely arm and prepare us against these inrodes and incursions against these as we think so violent assaults but also when we are beat to the ground it checketh and upbraideth us for our fall Indeed to look down upon our selves and then lift up our eyes to him from whom cometh our salvation Psal 62.1 121.1 is both the duty and security of the sons of Adam And when we watch over our selves and keep our hearts with diligence when we strive with our inclination and weakness as well as we do with the temptation Psal 103.14 then if we fall God remembreth whereof we are made considereth our condition that we are but men and though we fail his mercy endureth for ever But to think of our weakness and then to fall and because we came infirm and diseased into the world to kill our selves Wisd 1.12 to seek out Death in the errour of our life to dally and play with danger to be willing to joyn with the temptation at the first shew and approch as if we were made for no other end and then to complain of weakness is to charge God and Nature foolishly and not onely to impute our sins to Adam but to God himself And thus we bankrupt our selves and complain we were born poor we criple our selves and then complain we are lame we deliver up our selves and fall willingly under the temptation and then pretend it was a son of Anak too strong for such grashoppers as we We delight in sin we trade in sin we were brought up in it and we continue in it and make it our companion our friend with which we most familiarly converse and then comfort our selves and cast all the fault on our temper and constitution and the corruption of our nature and we attribute our full growth in sin to that seed of sin which we should have choked which had never shot up into the blade and born such evil fruit but that we manured and watered it and were more then willing that it should grow and multiply And this though it be a great sin as being the mother of all those mishapen births and monsters which walk about the world we dress and deck up and give it a fair and glorious name and call it Humility Which is Humilitas maximum fidei opus Hil. in Psal 130. saith Hilary the hardest and greatest work of our faith to which it is so unlike that it is the greatest enemy it hath and every day weakneth and disenableth it that it doth not work by charity but leaveth us Captives to the world and sin which but for this conceit it would easily vanquish and tread down under our feet We may call it Humility but it is Pride a stubborn and insolent standing out with God that made us upon this foul and unjust pretense That he made us so humilitas sophistica saith Petrus Blesensis the humility of hypocrites which at once boweth and pusheth out the horn in which we disgrace and condemn our selves that we may do what we please and speak evil of our selves that we may be worse Rom. 7.24 Oh wretched men that we are we groan it out and there is musick in the sound which we hear and delight in and carry along in our mind and so become wretched indeed even those miserable sinners which will ever be so And shall we call this Humility If it be Col. 2.18 it is as the Apostle speaketh a voluntary humility but in a worse sense He is the humblest man that doth his duty For that Humility which is commended to us in Scripture letteth us up to heaven this which is so epidemical sinketh us into the lowest pit That Humility boweth us down with sorrow this bindeth our hands with sloth that looketh upon our imperfections past this maketh way for more to come that ventureth and condemneth it self condemneth it self and ventureth further this runneth out of the field and dare not look upon the enemy Nec mirum si vincantur qui jam victi sunt And it is no marvel they should fall and perish whom their own so low and groundless opinion hath already overthrown For first though I deny not a derived Weakness and from Adam though I leave it not after Baptisme as subsistent by it self or bound to the centre of the earth with the Manichee nor washt to nothing in the Font with others yet it is easie to deceive our selves and to think it more contagious then it is more operative and more destructive then it would be if we would shake off this conceit and rowse our selves and stand up against it Ignaviâ nostrâ fortis est It may be it is our sloth and cowardise that maketh it strong Certainly there must be more force then this hath to make us so wicked as many times we are and there be more promoters of the kingdom of Darkness in us then that which we brought with us into the world Lord what a noise hath Original sin made amongst the sons of Adam and what ill use hath been made of it When this Lion roareth all the Beasts of the forrest tremble and yet are beasts still We hear of it and are astonished and become worse and worse and yet there are but few that exactly know what it is When we are Infants we do not know that we are so no more then the Tree doth that it grows Much less can we discover what poyson we brought with us into the world which as it is the nature of some kind of poyson though it have no visible operation for the present may some years after break forth from the head to the foot in swellings and sores full of corruption and not be fully purged out to our
us not onely a direction but a Satyre It teacheth us to deny ungodly lusts Tit. 2.12 and if we obey not it censureth and condemneth us This Ignorance then cannot excuse our Sin or make our Death less voluntary because our Lust hath taken the place of Knowledge and dictateth for it and we grope at noon-day and will not see those sins which though they be works of darkness yet are as visible as the light it self Rebellion is not therefore no sin because it cometh gravely towards us in the habit of Zeal and Religion Profaneness is not excusable because fanatick persons count Reverence Superstition Deceit is not warrantable because I hold it as a positive truth That the wicked have title to the things of this world and my phantastick Lusts have drawn out another conclusion where there was no medium no premisses to be found That I am a righteous person and then followeth a conclusion as wilde as that That I may rob and spoil them But these are but bella tectoriala artificial daubings and the weakest eye may see through them and discover a monster And as Tully in one of his books De Finibus telleth us that those Philosophers who would not plainly say that Pleasure was their summum bonum or chiefest happiness but Vacuity of sorrow and trouble did vicinitate versari bordered and came near to that which they first called it so the world hath found out divers names to colour and commend their foulest sins but bring them to the trial and they must needs mean one and the same thing and that Zeal and Rebellion Devotion and Profaneness Taking from the wicked and downright Cosenage are at no greater distance then these two a Fiend and a Devil but that the Devil is then worst when he taketh the name of an Angel of light 2 Cor. 11.14 The truth is plain enough but the Prince of this world hath so blinded men that they will not see it For their Lust which laid their Conscience asleep hath taken the chair and prescribeth for it and driveth them on to do that which was never done nor seen Judg. 19.30 Wisd 2.11 to tread all Laws of God and man under feet and make their strength the Law of unrighteousness I know not whether we may call this Ignorance or no. It is too good a name for it and nothing but our Charity can make it so or grace it so much If it be Ignorance it is a proud puffing majestick insolent ignorance Maimonid More Neroch part 3. c. 41. The Jewish Rabbies might well say Error doctrinae reputatur pro superbia This ignorance is nothing but pride or the issue of it even of that pride which threw Lucifer down from heaven and raiseth men here upon earth to fling them down after him But in the last place to conclude this If this Ignorance be not affected or rather forced and made a pillow to sleep on yet if it proceed onely from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non-attention and supine negligence to keep it out yet in matters which concern life and death we are as much bound to know the means how as to strive to attain the one and escape the other Pet. Aerod de Reb. Iudicat de Eide Relig. c. 5. Idem For what I ought to do I ought to know The Jews have a saying Delinquit propheta qui à propheta decipitur It is a great fault in a Prophet to be deceived though by another Prophet The Civilians Imperitia medicorum dolo comparatur Ignorance in a Physician is a kind of cheat and a bloody cheat Plin. N. Hist. for the ignorant Physician negotiatur animas hominum saith old Cato in Pliny doth trade and deceive men out of their lives when they most trust in him If a man be ignorant and will administer Physick he will kill If a man be ignorant and will preach he will also prophesie lies If he be a Magistrate and will govern he will also shake the pillars of the Common-wealth If he be a Christian and be ignorant then as he will profess so also will he run into the snares of the Devil And this his Ignorance is no plea against that Law which he was bound to know as well as to keep Ex toto noluisse debet Sen. Contr. l. 5. c. 5. qui imprudentia defenditur He that will plead ignorance â—r Errour for an excuse must have his whole will strongly set up against it and then the great difficulty or impossibility of avoiding it may be his advocate and speak for him but if he make room for it when he might exclude it if he embrace that which may let it in or make no use of the light that detecteth it if he will or reject not or be indifferent if he distast the truth for some cross aspect it hath on his designs and love a lie because it smileth upon them and promoteth them then this Ignorance is a sin and the last the greatest and therefore cannot make up an excuse for another sin for those sins which it bringeth in in triumph but it is so much the more malignant in that he had light but did turn his face away and would not see it or did hate and despise it and blow it out For he that will not know the wayes of life or calleth his evil wayes by that name may vvell be asked the question Why he will die Ignorance then is not alvvayes an excuse For some are negligent and indifferent will not take the pains to lift themselves up to the truth by those steps and degrees which are set for them and are the way unto it and so walk as in the night which themselves have made because they would not look upon the Sun Others study and affect it and when the truth will not go along with them to the end of their designes they perswade themselves into those errours which are more proportioned to it and will friendly wait upon them and be serviceable to fill and answer that expectation which their lust had raised and call them by that name They will not know what they cannot but know nor see Death though he stand before them in their way and so are led on with pomp and state with these false perswasions with these miserable comforters to their grave But in the next place when we find some check of conscience some regret some gainsayings in our mind that vve are unvvilling to go on in these evil vvayes and yet take courage and proceed vve are ready to please our selves vvith this thought and are soon of the opinion that vvhat vve are doing or have done already if it be evil yet is done against our vvill And if Destruction overtake us it seiseth on them that did so much hate and abhor it that they shook and trembled vvhen it did but shevv it self to them in a thought And this I take to be an errour as full of danger
as we please and bulge but swell our sayls and bear forward boldly till at last we are carried upon that rock which sinketh us for ever And therefore to conclude this a good Intention cannot pull out the sting from Death nor the guilt from Sin but if we sin though it be with an honest mind we sin voluntarily In brief though we know it not to be a sin though from the tribunal of Conscience we check our selves before we commit it though we do evil but intend good though we see it not though we approve it not though we intend it not as evil yet evil it is and a voluntary evil and without repentance hath no better wages then death and this Expostulation may be put up to us QVARE MORIEMINI Why will ye die For we cannot say but they are willing to die who make such hast to the pit of ruine and in their swift and eager pursuit of Death do but cast back a faint look toward the land of the living We must now draw towards a conclusion and conclude and shut up all even Death it self in the Will of man We cannot lay it upon any natural Weakness nor upon the Want of grace and assistance We cannot plead Ignorance nor the Distaste and Reluctancy of our mind Nor can a good Intention name that Will good which is sixt on evil nor the Means which we use commend and secure that end which is the work of Sin and hath Death waiting upon it If we die we can find no other answer to this question Why will ye die but that which is not worth the putting up It is quia volumus because we will die Take all the Weakness or Corruption of our nature look upon that inexhaustible fountain of Grace but as we think dryed up take the darkness of our Understanding the cloud is from the Will Nolumus intelligere We will not understand Take all those sad symptomes and prognosticks of death a wandring unruly phansy it is the Will whiffeth it about Turbulent Passions the tempest is from the Will Etiam quod invitus facere videor si facio voluntate facio even that which I do with some reluctancy if I do it I do it willingly All provocations and incitements imaginable being supposed no Love no Fear no Anger not the Devil himself can determin the Will or force us into action and if we die it is quia volumus because we will die If Death be the conclusion that which inferreth it is the Will of man which brought Sin and Death into the world And this may seem strange that any should be willing to die Ask the profanest person living that hath sold himself to wickedness and so is even bound over to Death and he will tell you he is willing to be saved Heaven is his wish and eternal happiness his desire As for Death the remembrance of it is bitter unto him Death Eccl. 41.1 if you do but name it he trembleth The Glutton is greedy after meat but loatheth a disease The wanton seeketh out pleasures but not those evils they carry with them under their wing The Revenger would wash his feet in the bloud of his enemy but not be drowned in it The Thief would steal but would not grind in the prison But the Philosopher will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot. Eth. 2.1 The beginning of all these is in the Will He that will be intemperate will surfet he that will be wanton will be weak he that taketh the sword will perish by the sword Matth. 26.52 he that will spoil will be spoiled and he that will sin will die Every mans death is a voluntary act not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. out of any natural appetite to perish but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his own choice who did chuse it though not in se not in it self which is so terrible but in causis as the Schools speak in its causes in those sins in which it is bound up and from which it cannot be severed Sin carrieth Death in its womb and if we sin we are condemned and dead already We may see it smile upon us in some alluring pleasure we may see it glitter in a piece of gold or woo us in the rayes of Beauty but every smile every resplendeney every raie is a dart and striketh us through Why will we dye Why The holy Ghost is high and full in the expressing it We love Death and Love saith the Father Prov. 8.36 is vehemens voluntas a vehement and an active will It is said to have wings and to flie to its object but it needeth them not for it is ever with it The Covetous is kneaded in with the world they are but one lump It is his God one in him and he in it The Wanton calleth his strumpet his Soul and when she departeth from him he is dead The Ambitious feedeth on Honour as it is said Chamelions do on air a disgrace killeth him Amamus mortem we love Death which implyeth a kind of union and connaturality and complacency in Death Again exsultamus rebus pessimis Prov. 2.14 we rejoyce and delight in evil Ecstasin patimur so some render it we are transported beyond our selves we talk of it we dream of it we sweat for it we fight for it we travel for it we triumph in it we have a kind of traunce and transformation we have a jubile in sin and we are carried delicately and with triumph to our death Isa 28.15 Nay further yet we are said to make a covenant with Death We joyn with it and help it to destroy our selves As Jehoshaphat said to Ahab 1 Kings 22.4 I am as thou art and my people as thy people we have the same friends and the same enemies we love that that upholdeth its dominion and we fight against that that would destroy it We strengthen and harden our selves against the light of Nature and the light of Grace against Gods whispers and against his loud calls against his exhortations and obtestations and expostulations which are strength enough to discern Death and pull him from his pale horse And all these will make it a Volumus at least not a Velleity as to good but an absolute vehement Will After we have weighed the circumstances pondered the danger considered and consulted we give sentence on Death's side and though we are unwilling to think so yet we are willing to die To love Death to rejoyce in Death to make a covenant with Death will make the Volumus full To the question Why will ye die no other answer can be given but We will For if we should ask further Yea but why will ye here we are at a stand horrour and amazement and confusion shut up our mouth in silence as Matth. 22.12 when the Guest was questioned how he came thither the Text saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 capistratus est he
not dare so oft to offend and which is most strange had not Christ so loved us we had not persecuted him had he not been a sacrifice we had been more willing to have made him an ensample For we hope his Love that nailed him to the cross will be ready to meet and succour and embrace us in any posture in any temper whatsoever though we come towards him clothed with vengeance Zeph. 1.8 in anger and fury with strange apparel in wantonness and lust polluted and spotted with the world Thus doth the sophistry of our Sensual part prevail against the demonstrations of Reason which doth bring Christ in as dead for our sins but withall as a Lord to help us to destroy Sin by the power of his death For both these are friendly linked together in the Lord's Death his Love and his Ensample Et magnum nobis quà m parvo constat exemplum And this great example how little doth it cost us Not to be spit upon and buffeted and crucified not to suffer and die It is no more then this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew it forth in our selves till he come Which is the Act here required and my next Part. And this we must do if we will be fitted for this Feast and be welcome guests at the Lord's Table Divines have told us of a threefold manner of feeding on the flesh of Christ a Sacramental alone a Spiritual alone and a Sacramental and Spiritual both Which distinction may not be rejected if it be rightly understood 1. They that come to this Table and receive the Sacrament without faith and devotion may be said indeed to eat the Body of Christ as that name is usually given to the Sacrament and sign and the Sacrament of the body of Christ after a manner is the Body of Christ and yet that of S. Augustine is true He that sheweth not forth his death eateth not his flesh but is guilty of the body and bloud of Christ a Communicant and no Communicant an enemy and not a guest fitter to be dragged to the bar then to be placed at his Table And what a morsel is that with which we take down Death and the Devil together 2. Some there be whom not contempt and neglect but necessity the great patroness of humane infirmitie keepeth from the Lord's Table and Sacrament and yet they shew his death look up upon his cross draw it out in their heart in bleeding characters apply it by faith and make it their meditation day and night And these though they feed not on him Sacramentally yet spiritually are partakers of his body and bloud and so made heirs of salvation though they eat not this bread nor drink of this cup. For what cannot be done cannot bind Some Actions are counted as done though they be never brought forth into act If the heart be ready though the tongue be silent as a viol on the wall yet we sing and give praise Persecution may shut up the Church-doors yet I may love the place where God's honour dwelleth Persecution may seal up the Priest's lips shut me up in prison and feed me with no other bread then that of affliction yet even in the lowest dungeon I may feed on this Bread of life I may be valiant and not strike a blow I may be liberal and not give a mite hospital when I have not a hole to hide my head in He that taketh my purse from me doth not rob me of my piety he that sequestereth my estate yet leaveth me my charity and he that debarreth me the Table cannot keep me from Christ As I told you out of Ambrose Manducans non manducat I may eat the Bread and not be partaker of the Body so Non Manducans manducat Though I take not down the outward elements yet I may feed on Christ But happy yea thrice happy is their condition who can do both so receive panem Domini the Lord's bread that they may receive also pane 〈◊〉 Dominum be partakers of the Lord himself who is the Bread of life Blessed is he that thus eateth Bread with him at his Table For he feedeth on him Sacramentally and spiritually both Here he findeth those gracious advantages his Faith actuated his Hope exalted his Charity dilated the Covenant renewed the Promises and Love of Christ sealed and ratified to him with his bloud And this we shall do this comfort and joy we shall find even a new heaven in our souls if we shew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 preach and publish his death Which we may look upon at first as a duty of quick dispatch but if we look upon it again well weigh and consider it we shall find that it calleth for and requireth our greatest care and industry For it is not to turn the story of Christ's passion into a Tragedy to make a scenical representation of his death with all the art and colours of Rhetorick to declaim against the Jews malice or Judas's treason or Pilate's in justice but rather to declaim preach against our selves to hate and abhor crucifie our selves Nos nos homicidae We we alone are the murtherers Our Treachery was the Judas that betrayed him our Malice the Jew which accused him our Perjury the false witness against him our Injustice the Pilate that condemned him Our Pride scorned him our Envy grinned at him our Luxury â—pit upon him our Covetousness sold him Our corrupt bloud was drawn out of his wounds our swellings pricked with his thorns our sores lanced with his spear and the whole body of Sin stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life This indeed doth shew his death This consideration doth present the Passion but in a rude and imperfect piece The death of the Lord is shewn almost by every man and every day Some shew it but withal shew their vanity and make it manifest to all men Some shew it by shewing the Cross by signing themselves with the sign of it Some to shew it shew a Body which cannot be seen being hid under the accidents of Bread and Wine Some shew their wit instead of Christ's Passion lift it up as he was upon the cross shew it with ostentation Some shew their rancour and malice about a feast of Love and so draw out Christ with the claw of a Devil Phil. 1.15 Some preach it as S Paul speaketh out of envy and strife and some also of good will Some preach it and preach against it Some draw out Christ's Passion and their Religion together and all is but a picture and then sound a trumpet make a great cry as the painter who had drawn a Souldier with a sword in his hand did sound an alarm that he might seem to fight But this doth not shew the Lord's death but as Tertullian speaketh id negat quod ostendit denieth what it sheweth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew to preach the death of the Lord is more We may observe that
To whatsoever it turneth it self it turneth from that which it first lookt upon and loseth one engagement in another because it cannot fit and apply it self to both How then can one and the same man bestow himself upon Christ and upon the World It is not with the Will and Affections as it is with the Intellectual faculty The Understanding may easily sever one thing from another and understand them both nay it hath power to abstract and separate things really the same and consider them in this difference but it is the property of the Will and Affections in unum ferri se in unitatem colligere to collect and unite and become one with the Object Nor can our Desires be carried to two contrary objects at one and the same time We may apprehend Christ as righteous and holy and the World and the Riches of it as Vanity it self but we cannot at once serve Christ as just and holy and love the World and the vanities thereof Our Saviour telleth us we shall love the one and hate the other lean to the one and despise the other If it be a love to the one it will be at best but a liking of the other if it be a will to the one it will be but a velleity to the other if it be a look on the one it will be but a glance on the other And this Liking this Velleity this glance are no better then Disservice then Hatred and Contempt For these proceed from my Understanding but my Love from my Will which is fixed not where I approve but where I choose It is easie to say and we say it too often for the Divil is ready to suggest it It is true we set our affections upon things below but yet so that we do not omit the duties of Divine worship We are willing to please men but we doubt not but we may please Christ also We are indeed time servers but we are frequent hearers of the Word We pour oyl into our brothers ears but we drop sometimes a peny into the Treasury Thus we please others and we please our selves we betray others and are our own parasites But Christ is ready to seal our lips with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No man can serve two Masters So that you see what a weak foundation that Hope hath which is thus built up upon a divided Love and Service It is built in the air nay it hath not so sure a basis it is built upon nothing it is raised upon Impossibility Secondly the Servant must have his eye upon his Master and as he seeth him do must do likewise Isai 62.10 Now Christ is called Gods Servant and he broke through Poverty Disgrace and the terrours of Death it self that he might do his Fathers will omitted no tittle or Iota of it But he that would not break a bruised reed shook the cedars of Libanus pronounced as many woes to the Pharisees as they had sins called Herod Fox pluckt off every visour plowed up every conscience and thus shook the powers of Hell Joh. 6.38 and destroyed the Kingdome of Satan for he came not to do his own but his Fathers will Look upon his acts of Mercy even them he did not to please men De Trin. l. 2. Non habent Divina adulationem saith Hilary His Divine works his works of Love and Compassion had nothing of Flattery in them Joh 8 50. He did them not as seeking his own glory For he had a quire of Angels to chant his praise He did them not to flatter men For he needed not that which is ours Psal 24.1 50.12 for the world was his and all that therein is Power cannot flatter and Mercy is so intent on its work that it thinketh of nothing else To work wonders to please men were the greatest wonder of all And thus should we look upon him and teach our brethren as he wrought miracles not for praise which may make us worse not for riches which may make us poorer then we were 2 Cor. 2.10 5.20 but beseech them in Christs stead and in the person of Christ and speak like him in whose mouth there was neither flattery nor gâ—ile speak the truth though it dispease speak the truth though the Heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing speak the truth though for ought we know it may be the last word we speak speak the truth though it nayl us to the cross where we shall most resemble him with this title THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST as his was THE KING OF THE JEWS He that taketh nothing but his name that serveth the world that flattereth when he biddeth him rebuke and pleaseth others when they displease Christ is not his servant but his enemy one of those many Antichrists or if his servant such a servant as Peter was when he denied him as Judas when he betrayed him And he will take it for more disservice to betray him in his members then in his person and is troubled more at the sight of those wounds which were made in his mystical body then he was at those which were made in his flesh He willingly suffered the pains of death that they might not die Isa 53.7 Himself was lead to death as a sheep to the slaughter and opened not his mouth Acts 8.32 Acts 8.3 9.4 but when he saw havock made of his Church he cryed out Saul Saul why persecutest thou me And in this every false Teacher is worse then Peter when he was at the worst every flatterer is worse then Judas every seducer is worse then the Jews when they nayled Christ to the cross For lastly Servus pro nullo est A Servant is nothing is no person in law hath no power of his own Servitus morti aequiparatur say the Civilians A Servant is as a dead man and cannot act nor move of himself but is actuated as it were by the power and command of his Lord and Master and never goeth but when he saith Go never doth but what he biddeth him do and doth not interpret but execute his will Non oportet villicum plus sapere quà m dominum saith Columella It is a most unfit and disadvantageous thing for the Farmer or Husbandman to be wiser then his Lord. For when the Lord commandeth one thing and the Servant thinketh it fitter to do another the crop and harvest will be but thin And it is so in our spiritual Husbandry It savoureth of too much boldness and presumption for the Servant to be wiser then his Master and there will be but small increase when the Master calleth for the whip and the Servant bringeth the merry harp and the lute when he calleth for a talent to reckon but a mite and when he writeth an hundred to take the bill and set down fifty It is the greatest folly in the world to be thus wise when wisdome it self prescribeth when he condemneth the Love of
and bring forth fruit Matth. 13 5-8 For that is good ground not onely where Truth groweth but which is fit to receive it All forestalled imaginations and prejudicate opinions are as thorns to choke it up or they make the heart as stony ground in which if the Truth spring up it is soon parched for lack of rooting and withereth away What can that heart bring forth or what can it receive which is full already Ye have heard what Prejudice is In the next place consider the danger of it how it obstructeth and shutteth up the wayes of Truth and leaveth them unoccupied or to allude to the words of my Text how it spoileth the market I have shewed you the Serpent I must now shew you its Sting And indeed as the Serpent deceived Eve Gen. 3 1-5 so Prejudice deceiveth us It giveth a No to God's Yea maketh Men true and God a liar nulleth the sentence of death and telleth us we shall not die at all Ye shall die if this be the interpreter is Your eyes shall be opened and to deceive our selves is to be as Gods knowing good and evil I do not much mistake in calling Prejudice a Serpent For the biting of it is like that of the Tarantula the working of its venome maketh men dance and laugh themselves to death How do we delight our selves in errour and pity those who are in the Truth How do we lift up our heads in the wayes that lead unto death and contemn yea persecute them that will not follow us What a paradise is our ditch and what an hell do we behold them in who are not fallen into it Our flint is a diamond and a diamond is a flint Virtue is vice and vice virtue Errour is truth and truth errour Heaven is covered with darkness and hell is the kingdome of light Nothing appeareth to us as it is in its own shape but Prejudice turneth day into night and the light it self into darkness A setled prejudicate though false opinion will build up as strong resolutions as a true one Saul was as zelous for the Law as Paul was for the Gospel Hereticks are as loud for a fiction as the Orthodox for the Truth the Turk as violent for his Mahomet as the Christian for Christ Habet Diabolus suos martyres Even the Devil hath his Martyrs as well as God Mark 9.22 And it is Prejudice that is that evil Spirit that casteth them into fire and into water that consumeth or drowneth them 1 Sam. 15.32 that leadeth them forth like Agag delicately to their death If this poison will not fright us if these bitings be insensible and we will yet play with this Serpent let us behold it as a fiery Serpent stinging men to death enraging them to wash their hands in one anothers bloud turning plow shares into swords and fithes into spears making that desolation which we see on the earth beating down Churches grinding the facc of the innocent smoking like the bottomless pit breathing forth Anathemaes proscriptions banishment death If there be war this beateth up the drum If there be persecution this raised it If a deluge of iniquity cover the face of the earth this brought it in Is there any evil in the City which this hath not done This poison hath spread it self through the greatest part of mankind yea even Christendome is tainted with it and the effects have been deadly Errour hath gained a kingdome and in the mean while Truth like Psyche in Apuleius is commended of all yet refused of most is counted a pearl and a rich merchandise yet few buy it Ye have seen it already in general and in gross We will make it yet more visible by pointing as it were with the finger and shewing you it in particulars And first its biting is most visible and eminent in those of the Church of Rome For ye may even see the marks upon them Obstinacy Perverseness Insolency Scorn and Contempt a proud and high Disdain of any thing that appeareth like reason or of any man that shall be so charitable as to teach them which are certainly the signs of the bitings of this Serpent Prejudice if not the marks of the Beast Quà m gravis incubat How heavy doth Prejudice lie upon them who have renounced their very Sense and are taught to mistrust yea deny their Reason Who see with other mens eyes and hear with other mens ears nec animo sed auribus cogitant do not judge with their mind but with their ears Not the Scripture but the Church is their oracle And whatsoever that speaketh though it were a congregation of hereticks is truth And so it may be for ought they can discover For that theirs is the true Catholick Church is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which must be granted and not further sought into Once to doubt of it is heresie This prejudice once taken in That that Church cannot erre and though not well digested yet in a manner consubstantiated and connaturalized with them frustrateth yet forbiddeth all future judgment yea inhibiteth all further search or enquiry which may uncloud the Reason and bring her into that region of light where she may see the very face of Truth and so regain her proper place her office and dignity and condemn that which she bowed and submitted to when she was made a servant and slave of men and taught to conclude with the Church though against her self to say what that saith to do what that biddeth to be but as the echo of her decrees and canons though it be but in one as in her Bishop in many as in the Consistory in more as in a general Councel though it be but a name For they that lie under this prejudice in a manner do profess to all the world that they have unmanned themselves Prov. 20.27 blown out that candle of the Lord which was kindled in them that they received eyes but not to see ears but not to hear and reason but not to understand and judge that they are ready to believe that that which is black is white and that snow it self is as black as ink as the Academick thought if the Pope shall think good so to determine it To dispute with these is operam ludere to lose our labour and mispend our time It is altogether vain to seek to perswade those who will not be perswaded though they be convinced nor yield when they are overcome Though seven yea seventy times seven wisemen bring reason and arguments against them they do but beat the air What speak we to him of colours who must not see or urge him with reason who hath renounced it There cannot be a more prevalent reason given then that which Sense and Experience bring yet we see Bread and it is flesh we see Wine and it is very Bloud because the Church saith it There cannot be a more reasonable thing then that Reason should be our judge yet Reason
Therefore in the third place if we consider the Church which is at her best nothing else but a collection and a body of righteous men we shall find that whilest she is on the earth she is Militant And no other title doth so fully express her For do we say she is Visible The best and truest parts of her are not so 2 Tim. 2.19 For the Lord onely knoweth who are his Do we call her Catholick and Vniversal She is so when her number is but small she was so when Christ first built her as an house upon a rock open to all though not many rich not many noble entred Shall we give her the high and proud Title of Infallible Although she be so in many things without which she cannot be a Church yet in many things we erre all But when we draw her in her own bloud when we call her Militant when we bring her in fighting not onely against Flesh and Bloud against Men but against all the Powers of Darkness then we shew and describe her as she is To say she is the body of Christ filled with him who filleth all things is to set her up as a mark for the World and the Devil to shoot at and thus to set her up is to build her up into a Church So that though Persecution come forth with more or less horrour yet to say the Church is ever free from all persecution is as full of absurdity as to say a man may live without a Soul But now take it with all its terrour accompanied with whips and scorpions with fire and sword with banishment and with death it self yet is it so far from destroying this body of the righteous which we call the Church that it rather establisheth enlargeth and adorneth it For this is the Kingdom of Christ And Christ's Kingdom is not of this world but culled and chosen out of the world John 18.35 And in this the Kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of Christ differ That which doth ruine the one doth build up the other The sword and fire and persecution demolish the Kingdomes of this world but these evermore enlarge the Church and stretch forth the curtains of her habitation Those may perish and have their fatal period but this is everlasting as his love is that built it and shall stand fast for ever Those are worn out by time but this is but melted and purged in it and shall then be most glorious when Time shall be no more Therefore I may be bold to present you with a speculation which may seem a paradox but being well examined will be found a truth and it is this That persecution is so far from ruining the righteous that it is to them as peace For if Peace signifie the integrity and whole perfection of ones good estate as it doth in Scripture often then may Persecution well deserve that name which bringeth the righteous out of the shadow into the sun setteth them on the stage there to act their parts spectantibus Angelis Archangelis before God and Angels and men maketh them more glorious putteth them to their whole armoury their whole strength the whole substance of their faith as Tertullian calleth it that they may suffer and conquer which is indeed to build them up into a Church And therefore Nazianzene calleth it the mystery of persecution where one thing is seen and another done where glory lieth hid in disgrace increase in diminution and life in death it self ecclesiae in attonito the righteous stirring and moving in their place in the midst of all these amazements and terrours of the world And thus some analogy and resemblance there is between the persecution of the righteous and the peace of the world For as in times of peace we every one sit under his own vine and fig-tree every one walketh in his own calling the merchant trafficketh the trades-man selleth the husbandman tilleth and ploweth the ground and the scholar studieth so the time of persecution though it breatheth nothing but terrour is by God's grace made the accepted time to the godly and the day of salvation a day for them to work in their calling when they sit under the shadow of God's wings when they study patience and Christian resolution when they plough up their fallow ground and sowe the seeds of righteousness when they traffick for the rich pearl and buy it with their bloud when every one in his place acteth by the virtue and to the honour and glory of the Head who himself was consecrate and made perfect by sufferings We may demonstrate this to the very eye For never did the branches of the true Vine more flourish then when they were lopped and pruned never did they more multiply then when they were diminished Constantine we are told brought in the outword peace of the Church but it is plain and evident that Christianity did spread it self in Asia Africk and Europe in far greater proportion in three hundred years before that Emperour then it did many hundred years after For Persecution occasioneth dispersion and dispersion spreadeth the Gospel It is S. Hierom's observation in the life of Malchus That the Church of Christ was sub tyrannis aurea that under tyrants it was as gold tried in the fire giving forth the lustre of pure doctrine and faith Sed postquam coepit habere Christianos Imperatores but when the Emperours themselves were Christians she grew up in favour and outward state but fell short in piety and righteousness and as Cassander professeth of the Church of Rome Crescentibus divitiis decrevit pietas what she got in wealth and pomp she lost in devotion and at last grew rich in all things but good works In time of persecution and dispersion how many children were begot unto the Church When persecution was loudest then the righteous did grow up and flourish When tyrants forbad men to speak in the name of Christ then totius mundi vox una Christus then was Christ as the same Father speaketh become the voice and language of the whole world Plures efficimur quoties metimur saith Tertullian When the righteous are drove about the world and when they are drove out of the world then they multiply To conclude this So far as righteousness or the Graces of the Spirit from bringing any privilege to exempt men from persecution that through the malice of Satan and the corruption of men they are rather provocations to raise one and make Persecution it self a privilege For in the last place it cometh not by chance that the righteous are persecuted What hath Chance to do in the school of Providence No Persecution is brought towards the righteous by the providence and wisdome of a loving Father Tam pater nemo tam sapiens nemo No such Father and none so provident I say by the providence and wisdome of God which consisteth in well ordering and bringing every thing to its right end by
world of our name or credit above the truth of Christ which calleth us out of the world Again this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this full persuasion of mind is prevalent on both sides both in good and evil both for truth and errour A thief may go as chearfully to his death as a martyr The Egyptians saith Tully would endure any torture rather then violate their Ibis or an Aspe or a Dog or a Crocodile The Priests of Mithras passed the sword the fire and famine even fourscore several torments and that with ostentation of alacrity onely that they might be his Priests We have read of Hereticks who have sung in the midst of the flames Nay of Atheists as Scipio Tettus who now burning for setting up a school of Atheism clapped his hands in the midst of his torments Such strength hath persuasion on both sides In illis pietas in istis cordis duritia operatur The love of the truth prevaileth in the righteous and the love of errour in the other Such a power hath the Devil over those hearts which by God's permission he possesseth He can perswade Judas to deny his Master and he can perswade him to hang himself He can drive men into errour and lead them along in triumph rejoycing to their death He can teach men first to kill others then themselves He can first make the grossest errour delightful and then death it self Habet Diabolus suos martyres For the Devil hath his martyrs as well as God The Manichees were Martyrs for they boasted that they suffered persecution and yet did those outrages which none but persecutours could do The Donatists were Martyrs and yet did ravish virgins break open prisons fling the Communion-bread to dogs Garnet was a Martyr and Faux a Martyr when they would have blown up a Kingdom which may be done without gunpowder The Massalians in Epiphanius buried their bodies who were killed for despising and denying the Law and for worshipping of Idols and sung hymns and made panegyricks on them and called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sect of Martyrs So that you see every man is ready to say he is persecuted every man suffereth for righteousness sake every man is a Martyr In every nation and in every people in every sect and in every conventicle we may find Martyrs But this is not the noble army of Martyrs where none are listed but those who suffer for righteousness sake It is not pretense but Truth that must set this crown upon our heads This is praise worthy saith St. Peter 1 Pet. 2.19.20 if a man for conscience toward God endure grief and that not an erring conscience it is very strange we should erre in any of those things for which we must suffer For what glory is it if when you are buffetted for your faults you take it patiently but if when you do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable with God St. Bernard determineth all in brief proposing to us two things which make death precious and persecution a blessing vitam causam sed ampliùs causam quà m vitam the life of them that suffer and the cause for which they are persecuted but the cause more then the life For seldom will an evil man suffer in a good cause and he is not good who suffereth in a bad for that for which he suffereth maketh him evil If he suffer as a malefactour he is one But when both commend our sufferings then are they praise-worthy That sacrifice is of a sweet-smelling savour which both a good cause and a good life offer up And first the Cause it must be the love of Righteousness For we see as I told you men will suffer for their lusts suffer for their profit suffer for fear suffer for disdain as Cato is blamed by Augustine for killing himself because the haughtiness of his mind could not stoop to be beholden to Caesar and therefore cùm non potuit pedibus fugit manibus whom he could not fly from with his feet he did with his hands and killed himself Which argued a lower spirit and was an act of more dejection and baseness then it would have been to have kissed the foot of Caesar Some we see will venture themselves for their name and hazard their souls for reputation which is but another man's thought But neither are these our pleasure our profit our honour causes why we should suffer death or venture our lives To be willing rather to lose my goods then my humour and my life then my reputation is not to set a right estimate upon them For my goods are God's blessings and I must not exchange them but for better My life is that moment on which eternity dependeth and we should not look back upon that opinion of honour which remaineth behind us but rather look forward upon that infinite space that eternity of bliss or pain which befalleth us immediately after our last breath Be sure your cause be good or else to venture goods or life upon it is the worst kind of prodigality in the world For he that knoweth what life is and the true use of it had he many lives to spare yet would be loth to part with any one of them but upon the best terms We must deal with our life as we do with our money We must not be covetous of it desire life for no other use but to live as covetous persons desire money onely to have it Neither ought we to be prodigal of life and trifle it away upon every occasion To know when and in what cases to offer our selves to suffer and die is a great part of our spiritual wisdom Nam impetu quodam instinctu currere ad mortem cum multis commune Brutishly to run upon and hasten our death is a thing that many men may do as we see brute beasts many times run upon the spears of such as pursue them Sed deliberare causas expendere utque suaserit ratio vitae mortisque consilium suscipere vel ponere ingentis est animi Wisely to look into and weigh every occasion and as judgment and true discretion shall direct so to entertain a resolution either of life or death this is indeed true fortitude and magnanimity Every low and light consideration is not to hold esteem and keep equipage with that Truth which must save us There is nothing but Righteousness which hath this prerogative to call for our lives and it will pay them back with eternity Righteousness which is nothing else but our obedience to the Gospel of Christ and those precepts which he hath left behind to draw us after him We must rather renounce our lives and goods then these rather not be men then not be good Christians Matth. 10.39 Here that is true He that findeth his life for they who to escape danger deny the truth count that escape a thing found and gained look upon it as a new purchase
the highest heavens for evermore The Sixteenth SERMON PART II. 1 COR. VI. 20. For ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are God's THese words are a Logical Enthymeme consisting of two parts an Antecedent Ye are bought with a price and a Consequent naturally following Therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are God's God's by Creation and God's by Redemption the Body bought and redeemed from the dust to which it must have fallen for ever and the Soul from a worse death the death of sin from those impurities which bound it over to an eternity of punishment and therefore both to be consecrated to him who bought them How God is to be glorified in our spirit we have already shewn to wit by a kind of assimilation by framing and fashioning our selves to the will and mind of God He that is of the same mind with God glorifieth him by bowing to him in his still voice and by bowing to him in his thunder by hearkening to him when he speaketh as a Father and by hearkening to him when he threatneth as a Lord by hearkening to his mercy and by hearkening to his rod. For the Glory of a King is most resplendent in the obedience of his subjects In a word we glorifie God by Justice and Mercy and those other vertues which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 defluxions and emanations from his infinite goodness and light In a just and perfect man God shineth in glory and all that behold him will say that God is in him of a truth The Glory of God is that immense ocean into which all streams must run Our Creation our Redemption are to his glory Nay the Damnation of the wicked at last emptieth it self and endeth here This his wisdom worketh out of his dishonour and forceth it out of blasphemy it self But God's chief glory and in which he most delighteth is from our submissive yielding to his natural and primitive intent which is that we should follow and be like him in all purity and holiness In this he is well pleased that we should do that which is pleasing in his sight Then he looketh with an eye of favour and complacency upon Man his creature when he appeareth in that shape and form which he prescribed when he seeth his own image in him when he is what he would have him be when he doth not change the glory of God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things when he doth not prostitute that Understanding to folly which should know him and that Will to vanity which should seek him nor fasten those Affections to the earth which should wait upon him alone when he falleth not from his state and condition but is holy as God is holy merciful as God is merciful perfect as God is perfect Then is he glorified then doth he glory in him Deut. 30.9 and rejoyce over him as Moses speaketh as over the work of his hands as over his image and likeness not corrupted not defaced Then is Man taught Canticum laudis nothing else but the Glory and Praise of his Maker Thus do we glorifie God in our spirit Now to pass to that which we formerly did but touch upon Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made up of both of Body and Spirit and therefore must glorifie God not onely in the spirit but in the body also For such a near conjunction there is between the Body and the Soul that nothing but Death can divorce them and that too but for a while a sleeping-time after which they shall be made up into one again either to howl out their blasphemie or to sing a song of praise to their Maker for evermore If we will not glorifie God in our body by chastity by abstinence by patience here we shall be forced to do it by weeping and gnashing of teeth hereafter It is true the body is but flesh 2 Cor. 4.11 yet the life of Jesus may be made manifest in this our flesh It is but dust and ashes but this dust and ashes may be raised up and made a Temple of the holy Ghost a Temple in which we offer up ch 6.19 not beasts our raging lusts and unruly affections nor the foul stench and exhalations of our corrupted hearts but the sweet incense of our devotion not whole drink offerings but our tears and strong supplications such a Temple which it self may be a sacrifice a holy and acceptable sacrifice Rom. 12.1 post Dei templum sepulcrum Christi saith Tertullian and being a Temple of God be made a sepulchre of Christ by bearing about in it the dying of our Lord Jesus For when we beat it down and bring it in subjection when we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep it chast and pure quench those unholy fires which are even ready to kindle and flame up in it bind and tye it up from joyning with that forbidden object to which its bent and natural inclination carrieth it when we have set a watch at every sense at every door which may be an in-let to the Enemy when we have learned so far to love it as to despise it to esteem of it as not ours but his that made it to be macerated and diminished to be spit upon and whipt to be stretched out on the rack to be ploughed up with the scourge to be consumed in the fire when his honour calleth for it when with S. Paul we are ready to offer it up then is the power of Christ's death visible in it and the beauty of that sight is the glory of God First we glorifie God in our bodies when we use them for that end to which he built them up when we make them not the weapons of sin but the weapons of righteousness when we do not suffer them to make our Spirit and Reason their servants to usher in those delights which may flatter and please them but bring them under the law and command of Reason Touch not Taste not Handle not which by its power may check the weakness of the Flesh and so uphold and defend it from those allurements and illusions from that deep ditch that hell into which it was ready to fall and willing to be swallowed up Now saith S. Paul vers 13◠the body is not for fornication It was not created for that end For how can God who is Purity it self create a body for uncleanness Not then for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body Who made it as an instrument which the mind might use to the improvement and beautifying of it self as a vessel to be possest by us in holiness and honour 1 Thes 4.4 his Temple and thy vessel his Temple that thou mayest not profane it and thy vessel that thou mayest not defile and pollute it nor defile thy soul in it For this kind of
black lines of reprobation drawn out by the hand of Justice Oh that thou hadst known now whilest I speak whilest the word is in my mouth yet it is time hitherto is thy day NUNC AUTEM But now the word is spoken that time is past and cannot be recalled Hitherto was DIES TUA thy day but now the night is come Hitherto the light did shine and thou mightest have seen it but now omnium dierum soles occiderunt thy Sun is for ever set and darkness is come upon thee and that which might procure thy peace is hid from thy eyes for ever Beloved compare Jerusalem's state with the age of a man and you shall find as in that so in this there is a HAEC DIES TUA a This thy day in which thou mayest seek God and work thy peace and a NUNC AUTEM a Now when they shall be hidden from thine eyes Every man hath his day his allotted time in which he may seek and find God Hic meus est dixere dies And this day may be a feast-day or a day of trouble it may beget an eternal day or it may end in the shadow of death and everlasting darkness Oh that we men were wise but so wise as the creatures which have no reason so wise as to know our seasons to discover saltem hanc diem nostram this our day wherein we may yet see the things of our peace Oh that we could but behold that decretory moment in which mercy shall forsake us and justice cut off our hopes for ever But though there be such a day such a moment yet this day this moment like the day of Judgment is not known to any and God hath on purpose hid it from our eyes that we might have a godly jealousie of every moment of our life to come lest peradventure it may be the NUNC the Now wherein those things which concern our peace may be hidden from our eyes 2 Pet. 3.15 For as the long-sufferance of the Lord is our salvation so is every day every hour of our life On this hour on this moment Eternity may depend And who would perfunctorily let pass such an hour such a day which carrieth along with it eternity either of pain or bliss Flatter not thy self that thy day may be a long day or that thy last day may be that day Think not in thy heart that the NUNC AUTEM the decretory Now is yet afar off that whensoever thou seekest the Lord he will be found that when every action of thy life hath its proper season thy seeking of God hath none but what thou thy self appointest that thy failing in an hour may forfeit thy estate on earth but thy prodigally mis-spending of many years can no whit endanger thy title to Heaven Repentance indeed hath a blessing whensoever it cometh Pharaoh Judas Julian the Apostate could they have repented might have been saved But God who hath promised to Repentance a blessing at all times hath not promised repentance or power to repent when we list He that hath promised to be found at any time that we seek him hath not promised that we shall seek him when we please If thou pass thy NUNC thy Now thy allotted time he may give thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a heart that cannot repent nor seek him And it is justice with God to punish continuance in sin with final impenitency and to leave that heart which will not be softned unto it self till it be harder then the neither milstone Ephraim is joyned to idols Hos 4.17 let him alone And if the heart be alone it will soon turn stone and harden of it self The examples of Manasseh of him that was called at the eleventh hour of the thief on the cross are solatia poenitentium non subsidia rebellium saith Augustine These are left as comforts to the truly penitent not to chear and strenthen the heart of a rebellious sinner These becken to us and call upon us If you will enquire enquire return come Isa 21.12 but put no dispensation into our hands to seek when we please It will be good then for us if we will not believe this doctrine to be at least jealous of it as if it were most true to make every Now the last now to cast away our sins for fear that they may cleave as fast unto us as the leprosie did on Gehazi and his seed even for ever Pietas etiam tuta pertimescit It is the part of a pious mind sometimes to fear where no fear is and in the most plain and even ground to suspect a stone of offense Nor can we possibly be too scrupulous of our own salvation That thou mayst therefore meet with the Lord IN INVENIRI SUO whilest he may be found think that a time may come when thou mayst not be able to seek him Such a thought if it improve it self into a resolution will enlarge thy feet to seek and run after him Fear lest the measure of thy iniquity be almost full and perswade thy self thy next sin may fill it such a fear will make thee as bold as a lion in the wayes of God Such a perswasion that thou mayst fail and fall is far more safe then a groundless phantastical faith that thou shalt stand fast for ever Think that there is a Rubicon a river Kidron set thee which if thou pass thou shalt dye the death Think this is thy day and time of seeking and though it be not yet think it the last If it be an errour it is a happy errour that hasteneth thee to thy God If it be not the last if thy day have yet more hours more Nows in it yet the night will come when thou canst not seek him a night on thy understanding that thou shalt not have light to seek him a night of spiritual dulness when thou shalt have no mind to seek him and thy last night Death it self when thou canst seek no more And therefore let us seek him in this our day whilest he calleth upon us before our measure be full for then he will speak no more before we are past our bounds for there Death waiteth upon us ready to arrest us before our glass is run our day spent for then time shall be no more Let us seek him IN INVENIRI SUO whilest he may be found And here if you expect I should point out to a certain time the time is Now. Now the Prophet speaketh now the word soundeth in your ears To day now if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts For why is it spoken but that we should hear it Seek him now is an exhortation and if we obey not it is an argument against us that we deserve to hear it no more We are willing that what we speak should stand not a word we utter must fall to the ground If we speak to a friend and he turn away the ear it is a quarrel If
peculiar precepts quibus respondere liberum est Nolo which some must keep and others may answer they will not but universal and common and binding all alike Haec obligationis nostrae ratio est secreto fidelissimo hunc thesaurum depositi commendati nobis praecepti reservare saith Hilary This is the nature and force of our obligation to God to keep his commandments and faithfully to preserve that rich treasure which he hath deposited and laid up with us and commended to our charge For In the next place not to keep covenant with God but prodigally to misspend that substance which he gave us nay not to improve it but when he cometh to ask for his Talent to shew him a Napkin is a plain Forfeiture and bringeth us in danger of the Law And though we did owe our selves before even all that we have yet we were never properly Debtors till now But now it is debitum liquidum a plain and manifest Debt because we can give no account of what we have received at God's hands For what account can he give of his Soul who hath sold it to sin What tender can he make of his Affections who hath buried them in the world What Love can he present that hath pawned it to vanity What Fear can he make shew of who lived as if God could not be angry Or how should he appear before God who is long since lost to himself For St. Augustine needed not to have retracted that speech of his UT REDDERER MIHI CUI ME MAXIME DEBEO That I might be restored to my self to whom I did especially owe my slf and changed it into this UT REDDERER DEO that I might be restored and paid back unto God unto whom alone I am due The truth is Till Man be quite lost to himself to his Reason and Obedience and all that may style him Man he is still in manutenentia Dei in the hands and power and protection of God But when Man prodigally spendeth his estate amongst harlots and breaketh his covenant with God he maketh another contract with the World the Flesh and the Devil For Sin as it is in one respect a forfeiture and bringeth us in debt so on the other side it is a contract and bargain such as it is For can we call Death and Hell a purchase What hath Luxury brought in but rottenness to my bones and emptiness to my purse What hath my Soul gained but blackness and darkness and deformity What have I for my Trust in the world but Despair in God for my Integrity and Honesty which I flung away but Wealth perhaps or Honour or Pleasures which are but for a moment Which all are but speciosa supplicia Though we look upon them as glorious and gawdy ornaments and wear them as chains about our necks yet are they but shackles and the very chains of darkness In a word what have we for the Favour of God which we slighted but a gnawing Worm and a tormenting Conscience For In the last place the Penalty followeth Qui autor legis idem est exactor He that lent me these sums cometh to require and exact them at my hands and I have nothing to give him which I may call my own but the breach of his Law and he hath power not onely to sell me to Punishment for sin and to Sin for punishment but to expose me to shame not onely to kill the body but to put both body and soul into hell The penalty cometh in close upon the breach of contracts We have not such a God in the New Testament as Marcion the heretick phansied to himself qui solis literis prohibet delinquere who giveth no further check and restraint unto sin then by letters and words that doth fear to condemn what he cannot but disapprove that doth not hate what he doth not love and who beareth with that being done which he forbad to be done No He whose voice was in the thunder This thou shalt do thundereth still Ego condo mala It is I that create all those evils which flesh and bloud trembleth at His Sword hath still this inscription SI NOLUERITIS HIC GLADIUS VOS COMEDET If you will not obey this sword shall devour you Now in Obligations between man and man the Forfeiture and Penalty are expresly set down and the Creditor cannot exact two talents where the penalty is but one but here though the penalty is exprest yet not the measure unless in those comfortless terms That they are immeasurable Which when God remitteth and forgiveth to the penitent he manifesteth his infinite Goodness but when he inflicteth it as due to him who would needs die in his debt he magnifieth his Justice And S. Augustine giveth the reason Quia meliùs ordinatur natura ut justè doleat in supplicio quà m ut impunè gaudeat in peccato Because it is far better ordered that Justice should bring the impenitent to smart in punishment then that Impunity should encourage him forever to triumph in sin And he that peremptorily will offend doth by consequent will also the punishment which is due unto him Thus he that would not give God his obedience and so pay him his own must give himself to be dragged into prison He that would not be brought under the power of the Law must be brought under the stroke of the Law He that would not once read it when it is written for our instruction and presented in a golden character with precious promises must look upon it when it is a killing letter and as terrible as Death For Divines will tell us Per peccatum homo Dei potestati non est subtractus Man though by sin he runneth away from his God yet is still in his chain and though he have put on the Devil's livery yet he is still within the verge and reach of God's power who can deliver him up to Satan and make his new master whom he serveth his goaler and executioner For the Obligation still holdeth and God hath the hand-writing against us as S. Paul calleth it Which whether we term the Decalogue with some which was written with the finger of God or our own Memory with others which is nothing else but a gallery hung round about with our own deformities or whether with Aquinas we call it the Memory of God where our sins are written with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond whatsoever it is and wheresoever you place it it still looketh towards us In the Law there is horror and in God's memory our sins where they are sealed up as in a bag Job 14.17 where he keepeth them as his proofs and evidences by which he may convict us and that they may be in a readiness Lam. 1.14 hath bound our transgressions by his hands And lastly in our own memories are the very same bills and accusations which are in the register of God Nam qui peccat peccati sui
God grant there be no legio sulminatrix in this sense no thundring Regiment to call down the tempest of Gods wrath not upon their enemies but themselves Look into the Temple There God is present we may be sure as present as in heaven it self and no doubt many come to it as to the place of his habitation But we may with the cast of an eye discover not a few who come disguised indeed as if they meant to hide themselves from God but of so irreverent deportment as if the place were not dreadful and God were not here Look into the City That is Jerusalem the faithful city But how is the faithful city become an harlot what is her Religion but a mockery What mock fasts when she fasts to turn away Gods judgment and is her self the greatest judgment God hath sent upon the land What mock-prayer whilest she prayes for that she will not have prays for peace and beats up the drum I should not indeed have given her her portion with the Hypocrite but that her shew of holiness is too thin a scarf and her wickedness is too transparent Look into the Country I know there is sancta rusticitas that God may be served with the hammer in the hand and will hearken to an Halelujah sung at the Plow tayl But what coldness do we find amongst many what indifferency what halting between God and Baal I hope there are not many but a few are too many of those who can salute Anthony or Caesar as occasion serves and will be very good subjects when the King prevails And now last of all look into the Church that indeed is made a spectacle unto the world unto Angels unto men and hath been lookt upon with such an evil eye that now we can scarce see it unless we will seek it in a Conventicle which they call a Synod a great part whereof scarce understands the word Yet look upon this Heaven in its beauty before the powers of it were shaken and we fear we might have seen some Angels fallen from their estate some wandring stars some reaping plentifully that did sow nothing that indeed had nothing to sow many striving to enter in but not at the strait gate Go run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem Look into that part of the world which we call Christendom and there you shall see Religion follow and lacquey it to the World to the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life varying in its shape and complexion as that alters and changes running along in the same stream and channel looking towards one haven but carryed as it were with the tide into another carryed captives according to the will of the enemy and yet triumphing in the name of the Lord. There you may see men that call themselves the Temples of the Holy Ghost like those Egyptian Temples of a fair and glorious fabrick without but having nothing but Cats and Crocodiles within instead of Gods There you may observe the same men professing Christ sighing and groning out Christ and yet putting him to open shame making this poor Christ a way to Riches this humble Christ a way to Honour making this meek Lamb a Butcher bringing him as the Jesuite doth as a patron and promoter and abettor of all the cruelty they practice upon their brethren of all their unjust designs not an accessory but principal for they are begun and ended in his name The same Christians ravisht at the glory of his Promises and crest-fall'n at the voice of his Command confessing themselves sinners yet not sensible of their sin proclaiming Heaven the onely blessed estate and yet never moving towards it bound to the Haven of rest and yet steering their course into the gulf of destruction calling Christ with one Prophet the desire of all nations and yet looking upon him with so small regard as if as another Prophet speaketh there were nothing to be seen in him that we should desire him begging Life most importunately and yet most passionately making love to Death made up of so many contradictions that it might pose a considering man and make him at one view resolve as the Cynick did when he beheld the Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man is the most generous plant in nature and at another view with the same Cynick when he saw the Sooth-sayers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pronounce Man the most ridiculous creature in the mass Run I say to and fro through the world by the wonderful frame whereof we might learn to know God but we turn away our eye from Christ and learn to mock him by its vanities These are the last dayes and S. Peters prophesie is fulfilled It is become the language of the world an oeconomical language Tush God doth not see Atheisme and Profaneness will certainly bring this gray-headed World with sorrow to its grave For as Demodocus said of the Melesians that they were not fools but did the same things which fools use to do so may we of these profane mockers Atheists we will not call them but most plain it is they do the very same things for which we call men so And thus much of the first point That the Conversation of men for the most is but a mockery of God We see then that this disease doth eructare se ab animo in superficiem as Tertullian speaks exhale and breathe it self forth and is visible in the outward man And the behaviour of many profess what they will is but a mocking of God But further yet in the second place it may be in votis We may not onely live as if God did not see but we may wish from our hearts that he had no eye at all For we never make worse wishes then when we are the servants of Sin our Wishes commonly being proportioned to our Actions Lust brings forth the one and Fear the other If we sin we fear and if Fear be the mother and midwife of our Wish the Wish that it brings forth will prove a monster Take us in any state in any condition but this non satis patemus Deo we are never open enough to God Fling us into prison and we desire our sighs may come before him Lead us into captivity we cry out with the Prophet Behold Lord for we are in distress Lay us on our bed of sickness and we call upon him to look upon us and to come so near as to turn our bed Lay us in our grave and our hope is he will breathe upon our dust but when we sin and our conscience presents unto us the countenance of an angry God then we put him far from us we are willing he should depart from us who have departed from him we wish for some rock to hide us or some mountain to cover us from his sight then we could be content and it is even our wish that he had no eye at all We have an author who
to Death should be to us as the strait and narrow way and that onely broad and easie which leadeth to life in a word that we should sow so sparingly in the one and so plentifully in the other so cheerfully in the one and so grudgingly in the other when the harvests are so different when the one shall bring us full sheaves of Comfort the other yield us nothing but Corruption and that Corruption which is worse then Nothing And so I pass from the Labour of the wicked in sowing to their Harvest I would not call it so but something it is they shall receive answerable to their labour For whatsoever a man sâ—wes that shall he also reap James 1.15 The Seed is sowen Lust hath conceived and brought it forth and with it brought forth Death something answerable to it Generat mortem It begetteth Death as a mother bringeth forth a child like unto her self And what more natural and more congruous then that a Mock should beget a Mock and Laughter Scorn and Neglect Anger and Sin Death If you set at naught all my counsel I also will laugh at your calamity Prov. 1.25 saith the Wisdom of God If you forsake him he will forsake you 2 Chron. 15.2 saith Azariah If you will walk contrary to me Lev. 26.27 28. I will walk contrary to you also in fury saith God by Moses If they stand out with him Jer. 44.11 he will set his face against them Such a reciprocation there is between the Seed and the Harvest between Sin and Punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Philosopher as in all contracts there is a giving and receiving He that receiveth by theft dat poenas That is the phrase must give punishment Ipse te subdidisti poena It is the stile of the Imperial Law You have sinned and brought your self under punishment you have sinned and must pay for it He that tasts the lips of the Harlot must feel the biting of the Cockatrice He that eateth stolne bread shall find it gravel in his mouth to break his teeth It was suavis sweet it will in the end be lapidosus as Seneca renders it stony bread Pride goeth before Destruction Prov. 16.18 saith Solomon goeth before it and ushereth it in The wages of sin is Death saith S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a metaphor taken from war which is a kind servitude for which they received diarium bread every day so that Punishment is the Sinners allotted daily bread The Latine word is merces Wages as due to the Sinner as Hire is to the Labouror and follows as naturally as Harvest doth the Seed-time Sin and Punishment are bound up as it were in the same volume in the beginning Sin in the close Punishment as the Seed-time and the Harvest are in the compass of the same year Nay Sin carries Punishment in its very womb and can be delivered of nothing else So that when the sinner is punished that is but done which in a manner is done already The Hebrew Doctours say Molitur farina molita That corn is ground which was ground before a dead lion is killed and a burning torch is put to the city which is on fire already And if we observe it the metaphor of Sowing doth speak so much For the Seed-time is but a kind of prophesie or rather an exspectation of the Harvest The husbandman is said exspectare annum to exspect the year in proximum annum dives rich upon the next year For he that plows 1 Cor. 9.10 plows in hope saith S. Paul and he that sows sows in hope The Seed lies in the womb of the Earth and Sin in the womb of Time and yet a little while and the harvest will come Onely the one is more certain then the other and here the metaphor will not hold For he that sows corn doth not alwayes reap The heavens may be as brass and the earth as iron Terra eunucha as one speaks the earth may be barren and not bring forth But he that sows to the flesh shall certainly reap corruption He smote the people in his wrath and none hindreth Isa 14.6 some time there is indeed between the Stripe and the Punishment but what is some time to eternity For as sinners mock God so God may seem in a manner to mock their security with his delay admonendi dissimulatione decipere not to favour them so much as to be angry with them as to give them any warning to use the same method in punishing which they do in sinning They defer their repentance and God deferreth his punishment They say Tush he doth not see and he is as still and silent as if he did not see indeed They are stubborn in their ways and he prepares his deadly weapons Cum perversis perversè ages saith the Prophet David by a kind of a Catachristical metaphor With the froward thou wilt shew thy self froward or perverse and obstinate as they He will deal with them by law of Retaliation that there shall be a kind of analogy and proportion of conveniency and likeness between the fact and the punishment that is their wayes were crooked though they seemed strait so the punishment which he inflicts shall be just though it seem perverse as being of another hue and colour from his behaviour to them in the time of their ruff and jollity that as they once judged their actions good because they felt no smart so now they shall know them to be evil by the smart which they shall feel and find what seed they sowed by the harvest which they shall reap And in this is seen first the Justice and secondly the Providence of God For first though God delight not in the death of a sinner though he made not Hell for Men nor Men for Hell yet he is delighted in his own Justice according to which punishment is due to sinners For is it not just that he that sows should reap I say God is delighted in his Justice He cloths himself with it as with a garment as with a robe of honour is clad with Zeal as with a cloak he puts it on as an helmet of salvation upon his head he rowseth himself up as a mighty man he cries out Ah I will be avenged of my enemies Though the pillars of the earth shake and the world be burnt with fire and the Heavens gathered together as a scroll yet Gods Justice is as eternal as himself and stands fast for evermore Dives's wealth cannot bribe it Tertullians's eloquence cannot charm it Herods glory cannot bow it all the power and wealth and eloquence of the world cannot move it but it is levelled at Sin and through all these sends its arrow to it as to a mark And neither God nor Man deny but that it is just saith Plato that he that sins should be punished that he that sows should reap Secondly here is manifestly seen God's Providence which brings Sin
prince of this world above every high thing that exalteth it self against Christ and the knowledge of God He is not partiarius divinae sententiae a divider with God and the World in one part from the heaven heavenly and in the other part from the earth earthy but he is awake and alive and active in the performance of every good duty His obedience is universal and equal like unto a Circle and consists in an equality of life in every respect answering to the rule the command of God as a Circle doth in every part equally look upon the Point or Center And being thus qualified we may say of him as the Disciples did of Christ SVRREXIT VERE Luke 24.34 He is risen indeed Thus then you see our Regeneration is here expressed by our rising with Christ We might afford you many other resemblances but we must hasten But here some man may say How are the dead raised and by what power do their souls come to this state of life I will not say with the Apostle Thou fool But certainly there is no man so weak in faith but must confess that he that raiseth our vile bodies must also raise our vile and unclean souls he that calleth us from the dust of the grave must also call us from the death of sin he that changes our bodies must renew our minds In our corporal resurrection and in our spiritual resurrection God is all in all But yet the Soul doth not rise again as the Body which is dust and near to nothing but as a soul which hath an Understanding though darkned and a Will though perverted and Affections though disordered And as we pray Turn us so vve promise that vve vvill turn unto the Lord. He purgeth us and vve clense our selves He breaks our hearts and vve plow them up We are told that he createth a new heart in us and vve are exhorted to be renewed in our minds But solus Deus for all this God doth all For this New creature springeth up indeed out of the earth and groweth up and flourisheth illapsa maturantis gratia by the influence of Gods maturing and ripening grace vvhich drops upon our hearts as the rain and distills as the dew upon the tender herb Take if you please S. Bernards determination and it is this This our rising saith he is from God and from Man from Gods grace and from Mans will but not so as if these two were coordinate but subordinate Grace and our Will do not share the work between them sed totum singula peragunt but each of them perform the whole work Grace doth it wholly and our Will wholly God doth save us and vve vvork out our salvation sed ut totum in illo sic totum ex ipso but so that it is vvrought by the Will of man so is mans Will vvholly enabled thereunto by the Grace of God vvhich determineth the vvill if not physically at least morally And this may satisfie any but those qui vinci possunt persuaderi non possunt vvho may be overcome vvith the force of truth but not persuaded We may ask the question How we are raised Divines may dispute and determine at pleasure But it vvould be a more profitable question to ask our selves Whether we are willing to be raised Whether when God calls us and the Angel is ready to roll away the stone when his countenance shines upon us and when all lets and impediments are removed we had not rather still rot in our graves then be up and walking We may ask with the woman that went to the sepulchre Who shall roll away the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre but we must ask and examine our selves also Whether we are well content it should be removed and not rather defer our rising in hope that a time will come when we shall be pluckt out of our graves whether we will or no and vainly think that we had not lain so long in the dust had God been willing to raise us This is not to magnifie the Grace of God but to turn it as S. Jude speaks into wantonness v. 4. and in a manner to charge God with our death as if he were well pleased to see us in the grave who calleth on us and commands us to come out and threatens a worse place if we make not haste to come out To attribute good by our Rising to God is our duty and we deserve not his grace if we will not acknowledge it but to attribute our not Rising to him is a sin and a sin which we must rise from or we shall never rise Hos 13.14 Wherefore as he says I will ransome thee from the power of the grave I will redeem thee from death so he says also by the Prophet Esay and the Apostle repeats it Ephes 5. Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give the light That this our Conversion or our Rising with Christ must be like Christ's Resurrection early and without delay The Apostle's word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye are risen with Christ This manner of speech which the Apostle uses is a most effectual persuasion In civil business we have a rule Fides habita saepe obligat fidem It is a good means to make one an honest man to pretend that we take him to be a very honest man and deal with him as if indeed he were so For shame to fail of that expectation which goes of a man many times makes him do better then he would With this art doth S. Paul deal with his Colossians and by pretending that he supposeth them to be already risen he doth most effectually persuade them to rise For they cannot rise too soon they cannot rise soon enough For it is not here as it is in other affairs It is a property of things belonging to the world not to be seasonable but at certain times and there is nothing which doth so much commend our actions as the choice of fit times and seasons in which they are done Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intempestivenes and to be ignorant of times and occasions fitting every business is counted amongst men a great vice and imperfection For the World is like a Theatre in which all things cannot come at once upon the stage and every thing hath but its part its proper scene and time of action It is with the things of this world as with harps and other curious instruments of musick which are put out of order with every change of weather So the alteration of every circumstance brings them out of tune But the things of God are of another nature As himself is such are they alwayes the same Pietas omnium horarum res est omnium aetatum The practice of Godliness is at all times seasonable That precept of S. Paul Be instant in season and out of season concerns not onely the Preacher of the word but also every person that
vanity or the next business will drive it away and take its place Nor let us make a room for it in our Phansie For it is an easie matter to think we are free when we are in chains Who is so wicked that he is not ready to persuade himself he is just And that false persuasion too shall go for the dictate of the Holy Ghost Paganism it self cannot shew such monsters as many of them are who call themselves Saints But let us gird up our loins and be up and doing the work those works of piety which the Gospel injoyneth It is Obedience alone that tieth us to God and maketh us free denisons of that Jerusalem which is above In it the Beauty the Liberty the Royalty the Kingdom of a Christian is visible and manifest For by it we sacrifice not our Flesh but our Will unto God and so have one and the same will with him and if we have his will we have his power also and his wisdom to accompany it and to to fulfil all that we can desire or expect Servire Deo regnare est To serve God is to reign as Kings here and will bring us to reign with him for evermore Let us then stand fast in our obedience which is our liberty against all the wiles and invasions of the enemy all those temptations which will shew themselves in power and craft to remove us from our station In a calm to steer our course is not so difficult but when the tempest beateth hard upon us not to dash against the rock will commend our skill Every man is ready to build a tabernacle for Christ when he is in his glory but not to leave him at the Cross is the glory and crown of a Christian And first let us not dare a temptation as Pliny dared the vapour at Mount Vesuvius and died for it Let us not offer and betray our selves to the Enemy For he that affecteth and loveth danger is in the ready way to be swallowed up in that gulf Valiant men saith the Philosopher are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quiet and silent before the combat but in the trial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ready and active But audacious daring men are commonly loud and talkative before encounters but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flag and fail in them The first weigh the danger and resolve by degrees the other are peremptory and resolve suddenly and talk their resolution away It is one thing to talk of a tempest at sea another to discourse of it leaning against a wall It is one thing to dispute of pain another to feel it Grief and Anguish hath not such a sting in the Stoicks gallery as it hath on the rack For there Reason doth fight but with a shadow and a representation here with the substance it self And when things shew themselves naked as they are they stir up the affections When the Whip speaketh by its smart not by my phansie when the Fire is in my flesh not my understanding when temptations are visible and sensible then they enter the soul and the spirit then they easily shake that resolution which was so soon built and soon beat down that which was made up in haste Therefore let us not rashly thrust our selves upon them But in the second place let us arm and prepare our selves against them For Preparation is half the conquest It looketh upon them handleth and weigheth them before hand seeeth where their great strength lieth and goeth forth in the power of the Spirit and in the name of Christ and so maketh us more then conquerers before the sight And this is our Martyrdom in peace For the practice of a Christian in the calmest times must nothing differ in readiness and resolution from times of rage and fire As Josephus speaketh of the military exercises practised amongst the Romans that they differed from a true battel only in this that their battel was a bloudy exercise and their exercise a bloudless battel So our preparation should make us martyrs before we come to resist ad sanguinem to shed a drop of bloud To conclude as the Apostle exhorteth let us take unto us the whole armour of God that we may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand to stand against the horrour of a prison against the glittering of the sword against the terrour of death to stand as expert souldiers of Christ and not to forsake our place to stand as mount Sion which cannot be moved in a word to be stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord. For whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed The Seven and Fortieth SERMON PART VII JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed TO Persevere or continue in the Gospel and To be blessed for ever are the two stages of a Christian the one here on earth the other in heaven and there is scarce a moment but a last breath between them nothing but a mouldering and decaying wall this tabernacle of flesh which falleth down suddenly and then we pass and enter And that we may persevere and continue means are here prescribed first assiduous Meditation in this Law we must not be forgetful hearers of it but look into it as into a glass vers 23 24. yet not as a man that beholdeth his natural face in a glass and then goeth away and forgetteth himself not as a man who looketh carelesly casteth an eye and thinketh no more of it but rather as a woman who looketh into her glass with intention of mind with a kind of curiosity and care stayeth and dwelleth upon it fitteth her attire and ornaments to her by a kind of method setteth every hair in its proper place and accurately dresseth and adorneth her self by it And sure there is more care and exactness due to the soul then to the body Secondly that we may continue and persevere we must not only hear and remember but do the work For Piety is confirmed by Practice To these we may now add a third which hath so near a relation to Practice that it is even included in it and carrried along with it And it is To be such students in Christ's School as S. Paul was Acts 24.16 To study and exercise our selves to have alwayes a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men Not to triflle with our God or play the wanton with our Conscience Not to displease and wound her in one particular with a resolution to follow her in the rest Not to let our love of the world or fear of danger make that a truth which we formerly
c. He who hath no part in the first R. shall have none in the second 996. Newness of life often called Rising 997. The woful state of a Soul not yet risen from the death of Sin 997. Our Conversion may be stiled Rising because this World may go for a grave 998. and because as in that of the Body so in this of the Soul there will be a change 999. and that universal of every part 1000. In both our corporal and spiritual R. God is all in all 1001. yet in that of the Soul we are bid to do something 1001. It behoveth us rather to enquire Whether we are willing to be raised then How we are raised 1001. Our spiritual R. should be early and without delay 1002. c. We must manifest our spiritual R. by our good Works 1004. and by our Affection to the things above 654. Revelation Of the Book of the Revelation and its Interpreters 244. Rev. i. 12-18 paraphrased 36. ¶ xiv 13. 709. ¶ xx 6. 244. Revenge though perhaps allowed by the Old T. is forbidden by the New 1079. It is allowed by Philosophers c. is forbidden by the Gospel 202. It is an act and argument of impotency 820. Reverence What 460. Some allege Reverence to excuse their neglect of Communicating 459 460. Reverence and Obedience must go together 462. Reverent gestures in God's service not to be blamed as Idolatrous Popish superstitious 963. R. though by some held superstitious is comely and necessary 162 163. 745. 755 c. and to be used in our service of God 634 635. v. Form Humility Worship Where there is Devotion there is also a Reverent deportment 755. 757 758. 981. It is due in God's house in respect of the Angels 857. and of Men both good and bad 858. Covetousness and Sacriledge drive Reverence out of the Church 755. Some questions for them to answer who scruple outward R. in the Church 757. Irreverent persons arguments answered 859. v. Irreverence The Papists say of us That having no Reverence we have no Church 757. The Reverence of the primitive times and that of this Age how different 757 758. 981. Rewards the most powerful Rhetorick 636. v. Laws Riches and Honours and Pleasures the creatures of our Phansie 32. v. World These even Reason teacheth us to contemn 126. 134. Why God giveth Riches 139 c. Neither do Riches invite Christ nor Poverty exclude him 974. Our Riches are then most ours when we part with them to the poor 142. For we are Stewards rather then Proprietaries 140. 142. The best use of Riches 143. R. how abused 594. 620. c. As Riches may be a snare so Poverty may be a gulf 1089. R. may be an instrument of Perfection as well as Poverty 1090. R. are not as the World accounteth them certain signs of God's love 619. They are held Necessaries and Ornaments of Virtue yet are not so 620. but rather an hindrance to it 620. and helps to evil 621. Yet they are not so in themselves but men make them so 621. 897 898. Rich men are admired and even adored in the world 616 617. but a Wo is denounced against them by God 616 c. Pelagius's opinion That no Rich man can be saved is a wholsome errour 618. What it is that draweth the Wo upon the Rich 622. That Rich men may escape the Wo they must cast away their Riches but how 622. 1090. Riches must be brought into subjection to Christianity 622. We must not set our hearts on them 623. 1090. We must contemn them 623. or else they will make us contemn our brethren 623. and draw contempt on us 624. We must be jealous of our selves that we love them too well 624. How R. should be looked upon and handled and used by us 625. 896 c. Right hand v. Christ Righteous The R. sometimes suffer with the wicked and why 291 c. They are often preserved in publick calamities 294. Though they tast of the same cup with others yet it hath not the same tast to both 294. v. God's people Righteousness Many call that Righteousness which is quite another thing 867. 883. 891 892. The R. of the Heathen though it could not save them yet shameth many among us 868. The R. of the Jews very weak and imperfect 869. The R. of the Scribes and Pharisees what 869. Legal and Evangelical R. how different 870. Christ's imputed R. vindicated from mis-interpretations 870 c. The R. of Faith what 872. What R. the Gospel requireth of us 873. Many challenge the name of R. who bid defiance to the thing 873. Imputed R. should be a motive to Inherent R. 872 c. 993. Many conceit they are Seekers of Righteousness vvhen they are not 875. To name R. yea to commend it is not enough 876. Neither is Hearing of R. as many think enough 877. No nor bare Praying for it 877 878. Seeking of R. is To have a Will ready to entertein it 878. and that a chearful quiet Angelical Will 879 880. and a Will that is constant and regular that will make us seek R. sincerely as God seeketh our happiness 880 881. If vve seek R. aright we shall still be sensible of our want of it 881 882. we shall love and affect it exceedingly 882 and shall be kept from it neither by flattery nor affrightments 883 884. R. is to be sought in the first place before the things of this life 884 c. If we seek it not first vve seek it not at all 890. What a world of wickedness proceedeth from seeking these things before Righteousness 891 c. But they who first seek R. cannot doubt of a sufficient portion of these things 900. Rom. i. 28. 3. 9. ¶ vii 19. 879. ¶ viii 15. 397. ¶ 28 29 30. 697. ¶ ix 3. 1007 1008. ¶ xi 20 21. 392. Romanes They having been at first all for handsome servants were afterwards as much for dwarfs applied 651. Romish The R. Church counteth all goats that are not within her fold 319. S. SAbellius 5. Sabinus Calvisius Sabinus a man strangely conceited 870. 993. Sacraments A Sacrament must be immediately instituted by Christ himself 451. Out of Christ's side came both the Sacraments 469. How quarrelled by many 582 583. They are highly to be honoured 303. v. Word They are too highly esteemed by some too little by others 81. Sacrifices no essential part of God's service 70 71. not really good in themselves but onely as commanded 72. Why the Jews vvere commanded to offer S. to God 72. v. Ceremonies Outward worship The Sacrifices of Christians 83 84. A broken heart the best S. 325. Chastity Temperance Patience present our bodies as a S. unto God 749 754. Sacrilege once was a sin now some count it a virtue 581 582. Against S. 848 849. 854. Saints as St. Hierome saith never called in Scripture inhabitants of the earth 536. How to be honoured by us 1021. Some forsooth will not allow the title
bound our discourse within the compass of those observations which first offer themselves and without any force or violence may naturally be deduced from the words And we shall first take notice of the course and method God taketh to turn us He draweth a sword against us he threatneth Death and so awaketh our Fear that our fear may carry us out of our evil wayes Secondly God is not willing we should die Thirdly He is not any way defective in the administration of the means of life Last of all If we die the fault is onely in our selves and our own wills ruine us Why will ye die O house of Israel We begin with the first the course that God taketh to turn us He asketh us Why will ye die In which we shall pass by these steps or degrees Shew you 1. what Fear is 2. how useful it may be in our conversion 3. that it is not onely useful but good and lawful and injoyned both to those who are yet to turn and those who are converted already The fear of death and the fear of Gods wrath may be a motive to turn me from sin and it may be a motive to strengthen and uphold me in the wayes of righteousness God commendeth it to us timor iste timendus non est we need not be afraid of this Fear Death is the King of terrours to command our Fear that seeing Death in our evil wayes ready to destroy us Job 18.14 we may look about and consider in what wayes we are and for fear of death turn from sin which leadeth unto it Thus God doth amorem timore pellere subdue one passion with another drive out Love with Fear the Love of the world with the Fear of death He presenteth himself unto us in divers manners according to the different operations of our affections sometimes with his rich promises to make us hope and sometimes with fearful menaces to strike us with fear sometimes in glory to encourage us and sometimes in a tempest and whirlwind Clem. Alexandr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to affright us He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 various and manifold in the dispensation of his goodness that if Hope drive us not to the promises yet fear might carry us from death and Death from sin and so at last beget a Hope and delight and ravish us with the glory of that which before we could not look upon Now what Fear is we may guess by Hope for they are both hewed as it were out of the same rock Expectation is the common matter out of which they are framed As hope is nothing else but an expectation of that which is good so Fear saith the Philosopher hath its beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the imagination of some approching evil Arist Rhet. 2. c. 6. Where there is Hope there is Fear and where there is Fear there is Hope For he that doth fear some evil may befal him retaineth some hope that he may escape it and he that hopeth for that which is desirable standeth in some fear that he may not reach and possess it So you see Hope and Fear though they seem to look at distance one upon the other yet are alwayes in conjunction and are levelled on the same object till they lose their names and the one end in Confidence the other in Despair Now of all the passions of the mind Fear may seem to be the most unprofitable Wisd 17.12 Curt. l. 3. For the Wise man will tell us it is nothing else but the betraying of those succours which Reason offereth And the Historian speaking of the Persians who in their flight flung away their weapons of defence shutteth up all with this Epiphonema Adeò pavor ipsa auxilia formidat Such is the nature of Fear that it disarmeth us and maketh us not onely run from danger but from those helps and succours which might prevent and keep it off It matureth and ripeneth mischief anticipateth evil and multiplieth it and by a vain kind of providence giveth those things a being which are not Spe jam praecipit hostem saith the Poet It presenteth our enemy before us when he is not near and latcheth the sword in our bowels before the blow is given And indeed such many times are the effects of Fear But as Alexander sometimes spake of that fierce and stately steed Bucephalus Curt. l. 1. Qualem isti equum perdunt dum per imperitiam mollitiem uti nesciunt What a brave Horse is spoiled for want of manning so may we of Fear A most useful passion is lost because we do not manage and order it as we should We suffer it to distract and amaze when it should poyse and byas us We make it our enemy when it might be our friend to guard and protect us and by a prophetical presage or mistrust keep off those evils which are in the approch ready to assault us For prudentia quaedam divinatio est Vit Pompon Attici our Prudence which alwayes carrieth with it Fear is a kind of divination Our Passions are as winds and as they may thrust us upon the rocks so they may drive and carry us on to the haven where we would be All is in the right placing of them Passiones aestimantur objectis Our passions are as the objects are they look on and by them they are measured and either fall or rise in their esteem To fear an enemy is Cowardise to fear labour is Slothfulness to fear the face of man is something near to Baseness and Servility to be afraid of a command because it is difficult is Disobedience but Pone Deum saith S Augustine place God as the object and to fear him not onely when he shineth in mercy but when he is girded with Majesty to fear him not onely as a Father but as a Lord nay to fear him when he cometh with a tempest before him is either a virtue or else leadeth unto it Now to shew you how fear worketh and how useful it may be to forward our Turn we may observe first that it worketh upon our Memory reviveth those characters of sin which long custome had sullied and defaced and maketh that deformity visible which the delight we took in sin had vailed and hid from our sight When the Patriarchs had sold their brother Joseph into Egypt for ten years space and above whilst they dreaded nothing they never seemed to have any sense of their fact but looked upon it as lawful or warrantable sale or made as light of it as if it had been so Joseph was sold and they thought themselves well rid of a Dreamer But when they were now come down into Egypt Gen. 42.21 22 and were cast into prison and into a fear withall that they should be there chained up as captives and slaves then and not till then it appeared like an ill bargain then they could give it its right name and call it
a sin against their brother We are doubtless guilty of our brothers death say they one to another And Said I not saith Ruben that you should not offend against the lad Thus whilst our Sun shineth clear without cloud or tempest all conscience of sin is asleep and we forget what we have done even as soon as we have done it and it is to us as if it never had been or appeareth in such a shape as we can delight in But when the weather changeth and the tempest is loud when the pale countenance of Death is turned towards us then our countenance changeth because our mind doth so we have other thoughts and other eyes and by the very sight of Death are led to the sense of sin Now our sin which was buried in oblivion is raised again and appeareth in its own shape with that terrour and deformity that we begin to hate and at last are willing to destroy it Death hath a terrible look but the sight of Death may make us live Numb 21.9 as the brazen serpent did heal those who were bitten in the Wilderness onely by being looked upon For Secondly having a sense and feeling of our sin we begin to advise with our selves and ask counsel of our Reason which before we had left behind us and our thoughts which were let loose and sent abroad after every vanity that came near us are collected and turned inward upon themselves to revolve and see what an ill flight they made and what poyson they gathered where they sought for Manna and how they were worse then lost in such deceitful objects Aristot Rhet. 2. c. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fear bringeth us saith the Philosopher to consultation Call the steward to account Luke 16 3. and he is presently at his What shall I do When a King goeth to war and War is a bloody and fearful trade the Text telleth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 14.31 he sitteth down first and taketh counsel Fear is the mother of a Device and Consultation dieth with Fear When we presume counsel is but a reproch and is taken as an injury and when we despair it is too late There be three things saith S. Basil which perfect and consummate every consultation and bring it to the end for which it was held First we consult secondly we settle and establish our consultations and last of all we gain a constancy and perseverance in those actions which our consultations have engaged and encouraged us in And all these three we ow to Fear Did we not fear we should not consult did not Fear urge and drive us on we should not determin and when this breath departeth our counsels fall and all our thoughts perish Present Christ unto us in all his beauty with his spicy cheecks and curled locks with hony under his tongue as he is described in the Canticles present him as a Jesus and we grow too familiar with him Present him on the mount at his Sermon and perhaps we will give him the hearing Present him as a Rock and we see a hole to run into sooner then a foundation to lay that on which is like him and we run on with ease in our evil wayes having such a friend such an indulgent Saviour alwayes in our eye 1 Thes 4.16 But present him descending with a shout and with the trump of God and then we begin to remember that for all these evil wayes we shall be brought into judgement Eccl. 11.9 Our counsels shift as the wind bloweth and upon better motion and riper consideration we are ready to alter our decrees For these three follow close upon each other Pâ—llemus horrescimus circumspicimus Epist saith Pliny First Fear striketh us pale then putteth us into a fit of trembling at last wheeleth us about to see and consider the danger we are in This consideration followeth us nor can we shake it off longiorÃsque timoris causa timor est This wind increaseth as it goeth driveth us to consultation carrieth us on to determin and by a continued force bindeth and fasteneth us to our counsels And therefore Aquinas telleth us that our Turn proceedeth from the fear of punishment tanquam à primo motu as from that which first setteth it a moving For though true Repentance be the gift of God yet fear worketh that disposition in us by which we turn when God doth turn us The Fear of punishment restraineth us from sin In that restraint a Hope of pardon sheweth it self Upon this Hope we build up and strengthen our Resolution And at last we see the horrour of sin not in the punishment but in the sin hate our folly more then the whip and our evil wayes more then Death it self And this we call a filial Fear which hath more of Love then Fear and yet doth not shut out Fear quite For a good son may fear the anger of a good father And thus God is pleased to condescend to our weakness and accept this as our reasonable service at our hands though our chiefest motive to serve him at first were nothing else but a flash from the Quare moriemini nothing else but a Fear of Death For in the last place this is a principal effect of the fear of punishment In Psalm 32. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil As it bringeth us to consultation so is it a fair introduction to piety it self Fear taketh us by the hand and is a Schoolmaster unto us And when fear hath well disciplined catechized us then Love taketh us in hand and perfecteth our conversion So that we may seem to go from Fear to Love as from a School to an University Gen. 28.12 Jacob seeth a Ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reaching up to heaven And we may observe that Jacob maketh Fear the first step of the ladder For when he awaketh as in an ecstasie he cryeth out How dreadful is this place v. 17. So that Fear is as it were the first rung and step of the ladder God is on the top and Angels ascend and descend Love and Zeal and many Graces are between Think what we please disgrace it if we will and fasten to it the badge of Slavery and Servility yet it is a blessed thing thus to fear it is the first step to happiness and one step helpeth us up to another and so by degrees we are brought ad culmen Sionis to the top of the ladder to the top of perfection to God himself whose Majesty first woundeth us with fear and then gently bindeth us up and maketh us to love him who leadeth us through darkness through dread and terrour into great light maketh us tremble first that we may at last be as mount Sion and stand fast and firm for ever Psal 125.1 We now pass and rise one step higher to take a view of this Fear of punishment not onely as useful but lawful and commanded not