c. Christ may seem to walk with us when he is not in all our wayes And as in dreams we seem to perform many things we do all things and we do nothing Nunc fora nunc lites laeti modò pompa theatri c. Auson Ephem we plead we wrestle we fight we triumph we sayl we fly we see not what is but hath been or should be done and all is but a dream So when we have made a phansiful peregrination through all the pleasant fields and rivers of milk through all the riches and glory of the Gospel and delights which it affordeth when we have seen our Saviour in his cratch led him to mount Calvary beheld him on his cross brought him back with triumph from his grave and placed him at the right hand of God we may think indeed we have walked all this while with Christ but when our conscience shall recover her light which was darkned with the pleasures and follies of this present life when she shall dart this light upon us and plainly tell us that we have not fasted with Christ that we have not watched one hour with him Matth. 26.18 Acts 10.38 Gal. 5.24 Hebr. 6.6 Rom. 13.14 that we have not gone about with him doing good that we have loved those enemies which he came to destroy that we have been so far from crucifying our flesh that we have crucified him again to fulfill the lusts thereof that the World and not Christ hath been the Form which moved us in the whole course of our life behold then it will appear that all was but a dream Foolish men that we are who hath bewitched us We dispute we write books we coin distinctions we study for the Truth we are angry for the Truth we lose our Peace for the Truth we fight for the Truth we die for the Truth and when all is done upon due examination nothing is done but we have spun a spiders web which the least breath of Gods displeasure will blow away We have known the way and approved it have subscribed that This is the way but have made no more progress towards our journeyes end then our picture hath we have but dreamt of Life Psal 23.4 Isa 9.2 and are still in the valley of the shadow of death And now what saith the Scripture Awake thou that sleepest Ephes 5.14 that dreamest and stand up from the dead Let us not please our selves with visions and dreams with the suborned flattery of our own imaginations Let us not think that if we seek the way and like it and speak well of it we are in heaven already or have that Hope that well grounded never-failing Hope which may entitle us to it Why should such a thought arise in our heart a thought that maketh us worse then fools or mad-men and will keep us so courting of sin labouring in iniquity and with greediness working out our own destruction a thought that shutteth out God and maketh an open entrance for a legion of Devils and then welcometh and attendeth them For all the sins which the Flesh is subject to or the Devil can suggest may well stay and find a place of rest with such a thought Why should we please and loose our selves in such a thought See here is water what doth let me to be baptized Acts 8.36 said the Eunuch to the Philip. Here is light what hindreth that we do not walk in it Behold Heaven openeth it self and displayeth all its beauty and glory why do we run from it Knowledge directeth but we will not follow Knowledge perswadeth but we will not hearken Knowledge commandeth but we rebel We are illuminated we profess we know Christ but we will not be sanctified Tit. 1.16 For by our works we deny him Our knowledge followeth and pursueth us we cannot shake it off it staieth with us whether we will or no it goadeth it provoketh it chideth it importuneth it triumpheth within us but yet not over us because those vanities which we are too familiar with will not suffer us to yield We cannot be ignorant of what we know but we are too often unwilling to do that of which we cannot be ignorant Our Self love undoeth us and our own Will driveth us on the rocks whilst the light within us pointeth out to the haven where we should be And the Knowledge within us which did exhort instruct and correct is made a Witness against us Luk 12.47 48 Matth. 4.16 and a Judge to condemn us to more stripes then they shall feel who had not so much as a glance of light but did sit in darkness and in the shadow of Death Let us then not fly but walk not hover aloft in the contemplation of what is to be done but stoop down and do it subdue our Will to our Knowledge our Sense to Reason Let us learn to walk and by walking be more learned then before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 3. For Practice saith Nazianzene is to Knowledge what Knowledge is to it a foundation As we build our Practice upon Knowledge for we must know before we can walk so we raise our Knowledge higher and higher upon Practice as Heat helpeth Motion and is increased by it and the torch burneth brighter being fanned by that air which it inlightneth Psal 25.14 The secret of the Lord is revealed to them that fear him and his covenant to give them more understanding saith David Let us then joyn 2 Pet. 1.6 8. as S. Peter exhorteth with Knowledge Temperance and with Temperance Patience and with Patience Godliness And these will make that we shall neither be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 idle and not walk nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 walk but to no purpose unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ For to joyn these two Knowledge and Practice and to abound more and more is to walk in Christ And thus we see a Christian mans life is not an empty and aery speculation a Sitting still or Standing but a Walk Let us now in the second place see wherein this motion or Walk principally consisteth And you may think perhaps that I shall now point out to the Denial of our selves Matth. 16.24 shew you Christ's Cross to take up and bid you follow him bid you fight against the World and all that is in the World the lust of the flesh 1 John ◠16 the lust of the eyes and the pride of life bid you lay hold on Christ love Christ be adopted be regenerate be called and converted With these generalities the Religion of too many is carried along not with the thing it self but the name And with these names and notions they play and please themselves as the silly Fly doth with the flame of the taper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till they lose their wings and feet and become but a body a lump that can neither walk nor move They deny themselves with an oath and
Powers and Principalities Laws and Precepts and all that is named of God Ambition maketh Laws Jura perjura Swear and forswear Arise kill and eat Covetousness maketh Laws condemneth us to the mines to dig and sweat Quocunque modo rem Gather and lay up Come not within the reach of Omri's statutes of humane Laws and you need not fear any Law of Christ. Private Interest maketh Laws and indeed is the Emperour of the world and maketh men slaves to crouch and bow under every burthen to submit to every Law of man though it enjoyn to day what it did forbid yesterday to raise up our heads and then duck at every shadow that cometh over us but we can see no such formidable power in the Royal Law of Christ because it breatheth not upon it to promote and uphold it but looketh as an enemy that would cast it down biddeth us deny our selves which we do every day for our lusts for our honour for our profit but cannot do it for Christ or for that crown which is laid up for those that do it Thus every thing hath power over us which may destroy us but Christ is not hearkned to nor those his Laws which may make us wise unto salvation For we are too ready to believe what some have been bold to teach that there are no such Laws at all in the Gospel Therefore in the last place let us cast this root of bitterness out of our hearts let us look upon it as a most dangerous and baneful errour an errour which hath brought that abomination of desolation into the world and into the lives and manners of Christians which have made them stink amongst the inhabitants of the earth amongst Jews and Pagans and Infidels which tremble to behold those works of darkness which they see every day not onely done but defended by those who call themselves the children of light Because in that name we bite and devour one another for this they despise the Gospel of Christ because we boast of it all the day long and make use of it as a Licence or Letters patent to be worse then they riot it in the light beat our fellow-servants defraud and oppress them which they do not in darkness and in the shadow of death The first Christians called the Gospel legem Christianam the Christian Law and so lived as under a Law so lived that nothing but the name was accused But the latter times have brought forth subtle Divines that have disputed away the Law and now there is scarce any thing left commendable but the name A Gospeller and worse then a Turk or Pagan a Gospeller and a Revenger a Gospeller and a Libertine a Gospeller and a Schismatick a Gospeller and a Deceiver a Gospeller and a Traitor a Gospeller that will be under no Law a Gospeller that is all for Love and Mercy and nothing for Fear I may say the Devil is a better Gospeller for he believeth and trembleth And indeed this is one of the Devils subtilest engines veritatem veritate concutere to shake and beat down one Truth with another to bury our Duty in the Good news to hide the Lord in the Saviour and the Law in the covering of Mercy to make the Gospel supplant it self that it may be of no effect to have no sound heard but that of Imputative righteousness From hence that irregularity and disobedience amongst Christians that liberty and peace in sin For when Mercy waiteth so close upon us and Judgment is far out of our sight we walk on pleasantly in forbidden paths and sin with the less regret sin and fear not pardon lying so near at hand To conclude then Let us not deceive our selves and think that there is nothing but Mercy and Pardon in the Gospel and so rely upon it till we commit those sins which shall be pardoned neither in this world nor in the world to come Nemo promittat sibi quod non promittit Evangelium saith Augustine Let no man make the promise larger then the Gospel hath made it nor so presume on the Grace of God as to turn it into wantonness so extol it as to depress it so trust to Mercy as to forfeit it but look into the Gospel and behold it in its own shape and face as pardoning sin and forbidding sin as a royal Release and a royal Law And look upon Christ the authour and finisher of our faith as a Jesus to save us Psal 2. and a Lord to command us as preaching peace and preaching a Law Rom. 8.3 condemning sin in his flesh dying that sin might dye and teaching us to destroy it in our selves In a word let us so look into the Gospel that it may be unto us the savour of life unto life and not the savour of death unto death so look upon Christ here that he may be our Lord to govern us and our Jesus to save us that we may be subject to his Laws and so be made capable of his mercy that we may acknowledge him to be our Lord and he acknowledge us before his Father that Death may lose its sting and Sin its strength and we may be saved in the last day through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Two and Fortieth SERMON PART II. 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 THat the Precepts of the Gospel do bind us as Laws ye have heard already and how the Doctrine of the Gospel is a Law We must in the next place see how it is a perfect Law And first That is perfect saith the Philosopher cui nihil adimi nec adjici potest from which nothing can be taken and to which nothing can be added Such is the Gospel You cannot adde to it you cannot take from it one lota or tittle If any shall adde unto these things Rev. 22.18 God shall adde to him the plagues that are written in this book And if any shall take away from them God shall take away his part out of the book of life There needeth no second hand to supply it and that hand deserveth to be cut off that shall corrupt or alter it For look upon the End which is Blessedness There you have it drawn out in the fairest lines that flesh and bloud can read in as large a representation as our humane nature is capable of Then view the Means to bring us to that end They are plainly exprest and set out there in such a character that we may run and read them open to our understanding exciting our faith raising our hope and even provoking us to action There is nothing which we ought to know nothing which we must believe nothing which we may hope for nothing which concerneth us to do nothing which may lift us up to happiness and carry us to the end but it is written
Daniel and his fellows were among them I will give you one reason more and I borrow it from S. Augustine who in his first book of the City of God touching upon this question Why the righteous partake with the wicked in common calamities maketh one especial cause to be That they use not that liberty they ought in reprehending of sinners but by their silence do as it were consent and partake in their sin and therefore in justice ought to partake in their punishment For indeed a great error it is and of so great an allay that it taketh us out of the shadow and protection of the Almighty outlaweth us from his common favours to imagine that the duty of reprehension is impropriate ad pertaineth onely to the Minister It is true the right of publick reprehension is intrusted as it were upon his office alone For if every member were a Tongue where were the Ear If every man were a publick Teacher where were the Hearer We need not preach against this for put it once in practice and it will soon preach down it self For if every man will act the King the Play is at an end before it begins And if every man can teach in publick I see no reason why any man should learn Yet as Tertullian spake in another case in publicos Hostes omnis homo miles est against traytors and common enemies every man is a Souldier so is it true here Every one that is of strength to pull a soul out of the fire is for this business by counsel by advise by rebuke a Priest neither must thou let him lie there to expect better help Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy brother and not suffer sin upon him or Levit. 19.17 according to the Hebrew that thou bear not sin for him This is spoke not to the Priest but to the people And in this respect the Cure of Souls is committed to every man as well as to the Priest Every man thus hath a cure of souls either of his child or his servant or his friend or his neighbour And if any of these perish through our default their blood shall be required at our hands For if we be bound to bring home our brothers beast if we find him go astray much more are we bound to bring home our straying brother himself Common charity requireth thus much at our hands And to make question of it is as if thou shouldst ask with Cain Am I my brothers keeper Art thou his keeper Yes thou art and his keeper to keep him in all his wayes his Physician to heal him his Counsellor to advise him his Priest his Bishop to rebuke and exhort him with all long-suffering And the neglect of this duty though in it self a great sin yet in this respect is much greater because it interesteth us in other mens sins It maketh a chast man in some sort guilty of uncleanness an honest man accessary to theft a meek man a kind of second to the murderer it bringeth the innocent person at least under the temporal curse that followeth those sins which his soul hateth but hath not soul enough to reprehend and so falleth into the same fire which he should have striven to have pulled his brother out of Therefore to conclude this since the neglect of this duty doth as it were pull down the banks and open a wide gap to sin and wickedness we have no reason to be at a stand and amazed if we see the righteous person sometimes overwhelmed with those flouds to which himself hath opened the way or under those judgments which his intempestive silence as well as other mens open sins hath called down upon a Nation And this may suffice to clear God's Justice from all imputation in the execution of his general judgments 3. It may be we need not move any question at all about this matter For in those common calamities which befall a people it may be God doth provide for the Righteous and deliver him though we perceive it not Some examples in Scripture make this very probable The old World is not drowned till Noah be shipt and in the Ark the shower of fire falleth not on Sodome till Lot be escaped Daniel and his fellows though they go away into captiviy with rebellious Judah yet their captivity is sweetned with honours and good respects in the Land into which they go and which was a kind of leading Captivity captive they had favour and were intreated as friends by their enemies who had invaded and spoiled them And may not God be the same still upon the like occasions How many millions of righteous persons have been thus delivered whose names notwithstanding are no where recorded Some things of no great worth are very famous in the world when many things of better worth lie altogether buried in obscurity Hor. l. 4. od 9. caruerunt quia vate sacro because they found none who could or would transmit them to posterity Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona No doubt but before and since millions have made the like escapes though their memory lieth raked up and buried in oblivion But suppose the righteous do tast of the same cup of bitterness with the wicked Calamitas non est poena militia est Min. Felix yet it hath not the same tast and relish to them both For Calamity is not alwaies a whip nor doth God alwaies punish them whom he delivereth over to the sword To lose my goods or life is one thing to be punisht another It is against the course of Gods providence and justice that Innocency should come under the lash Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right Gen. 18.25 Yes he shall yet without any breach of justice he may take away that breath of life which he breathed into our nostrils Rom. 5.14 though we had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression For he may do what he will with his own Matth. 20.15 and take away our goods or lives from us when and how he pleaseth because he is Lord over them and we have nothing which we received not from his hands God is not alwaies angry when he striketh nor is every blow we feel given by God the avenger He may strike as a Father Therefore these evils change their complexions and very natures with the subject upon whom they are wrought They are as Devils and have the blackness of darkness to some but are as Angels and messengers of light to others They lead the righteous through the valley of death into the land of the living when the wicked are hewn down by the sword to be fuel for the fire What though they both be joyned together in the same punishment as a Martyr and a Thief in the same chain August De civitate Dei l. 1. c. 8. yet manet dissimilitudo passorum in similitudine passionum Though the penalties may seem alike yet the difference is great betwixt
Ye Angels that do his will They are but finite agents and so not able to make good an infinite loss They are in their own nature mutable and so not fit to settle them who were more mutable more subject to change then themselves not able to change our vile bodies much less to change our souls which are as immortal as they yet lodged in tabernacles of flesh which will fall of themselves and cannot be raised again but by his power whom the Angels worship In prison we were and CVI ANGELORVM written on the door miserable captives so deplorably lost that the whole Hierarchie of Angels could not help us And if not the Angels not Moses sure though he were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nearest to God and saw as much of his Majesty as Mortality was able to bear Heb. 3.5 6. The Apostle tells us he was faithful in all his house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a servant but Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Son Smite he did the Aegyptians and led the people like sheep through the wilderness But he who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Captain of our salvation as he is stiled v. 10. was to cope with one more terrible then Pharaoh and all his host to put a hook into the nostrils of that great Leviathan to lead not the people alone but Moses also through darkness and death it self able to uphold and settle an Angel in his glorious estate and to rayse Moses from the dead Not Moses then but one greater then Moses Not the Angels but one whom the Angels worship who could command a whole Legion of them Not a Prophet Or if a Prophet the great Prophet which was to come If an Angel the Angel of the Covenant Certè hic Deus est even God himself Now Athanasius's Creed will teach us that there is but one God yet three Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost We must then find out to which of the Persons this oeconomie belongeth Not to the Father That great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is his He bringeth his first begotten into the world ch 1.6 that he may declare his name unto his brethren ch 2. Not the Holy Ghost We hear him ch 3. as an Herald calling to us To day if yee will hear his voyce And he is Vicarius Christi Christs Vicar on earth supplyeth his place in his absence and comforteth his children It must needs then be media Persona the second and middle Person the Son of God Matth. 8.29 Luke 4.41 The office will best fit him to be a Mediatour Ask the Divels themselves when he lived they roared it out Ask the Centurion and them that watched him at his death they speak it with fear and trembling Matth. 27.54 Truly this was the Son of God Christ then our Captain is the Son of God But God hath divers Sons some by Adoption and they are made so some by Nuncupation and they are but called so and some by Creation and they are created so They who rob and devest Christ of his Essence yet yeild him his Title and though they deny him to be God yet call him God's Son We must follow then the Philosophers method in his description of moral Happiness proceed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of negation and to establish Christ in his right of Filiation tell you 1. he is not a Son not adoptivus filius God's adopted Son who by some great merit of his could so dignifie himself as to deserve that title This was the dream or rather invention of Photinus A very dream indeed For then this Similation were not of God to Man but of Man to God the Text inverted quite No Imitatur adoptio prolem Adoption is but a supply a grafting of a strange branch into another stock But he whose name is The Branch grows up of himself of the same stock and root God of God very God of very God made manifest in the flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 2. not Filius nuncupativus God's Son by nuncupation his nominal Son Such a one Sabellius and the Patro-passiani phansied as if the Father had been assimilated and so called the Son impiously making the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost not three Persons but three Names 3. Lastly not Filius creatus God's created Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mere Creature and of a distinct essence from his Father as the more rigid Arians nor the most excellent Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in substance like unto the Father but not consubstantial with him as the more moderate whom the Fathers called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 half-Arians conceived To these Hereticks we reply Non est Filius Dei He is not thus the Son of God And as Aristotle tells us that his Moral Happiness is the chief Good but not that Good which the Voluptuary phansieth the Epicures Good nor that which Ambition flyes to the Politicians Good nor that which the Contemplative man abstracteth an universal notion and Idea of Good So may the Christian by the same method consider his Saviour his chief bliss and happiness and by way of negation draw him out of those foggs and mists where the wanton and unsanctified wits of men have placed him and bring him into the bosome of his Father and fall down and worship God and man Christ Jesus Behold a voyce from heaven spake it Matth. 3.17 17.5 This is my beloved Son We may suspect that voice when Photinus is the Echo An Angel from heaven said He shall be called the Son of the most High Luke 1.32 Our Faith starts back and will not receive it if Sabellius make the Glosse Our Saviour himself speaks it I and my Father are one John 10.30 The Truth it self will be corrupted if Arius be the Commentator To these we say He is not thus the Son of God Naz. Orat. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To contract the Personality with Sabellius or to divide the Deity with Arius are blasphemies in themselves diametrally opposed but equally to the truth The Captain of our salvation is the true Son of God begotten not made the Brightness of his Father streaming from him as Light from Light his Image not according to his humane Nature as Osiander but according to his Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image and Character not of any qualities in God but of his Person the true stamp of his substance begotten as Brightness from the Light as the Character from the Type as the Word from the Mind Which yet do not fully declare him Quis enarrabit saith the Prophet Who shall declare his generation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isa 53.8 Thy faith is thy honour a great favour it is that thou art taught to believe that he is the eternal begotten Son of God The manner is known only to the Father who begat and to the Son who is begotten If thy busy curiosity lead thee further 〈◊〉
the Son of God yet before he emptyed himself and took upon him the form of a servant sicut miseriam expertus non erat ita nec misericordiam experimento novit saith Hilary as he had no experience of sorrow so had he no experimental knowledge of mercy and compassion His own Hunger moved him to work that miracle of the Loaves for it is said in the Text Matth. 15.32 He had compassion on the multitude His Poverty made him an Orator for the poor and he beggeth with them to the end of the world He had not a hole to hide his head and his Compassion melted into tears at the sight of Jerusalem When he became a man of sorrows he became also a man of compassion And yet his experience of sorrow in truth added nothing to his knowledge but rayseth up a confidence in us to approach neer unto him who by his miserable experience is brought so neer unto us Col. 1.21 22. and hath reconciled us in the body of his flesh For he that suffered for us hath compassion on us and suffereth and is tempted with us even to the end of the world on the cross with S. Peter on the block with S. Paul in the fire with the Martyrs Hebr. 11.37 destitute afflicted tormented Would you take a view of Christ looking towards us with a melting eye You may see him in your own souls take him in a groan mark him in your sorrow behold him walking in the clefts of a broken heart bleeding in the gashes of a wounded spirit Or to make him an object more sensible you may see him every day begging in your streets When he telleth you He was dead he telleth you as much In as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood Hebr. 2.14 he also himself likewise took part of the same and in our flesh was hungry was spet upon was whipt was nayld to the cross which were as so many parts of that discipline which taught him to be merciful to be merciful to them who were tempted by hunger because he was hungry to be merciful to them who were tempted by poverty because he was poor to be merciful to those who tremble at disgrace because he was whipt to be merciful to them who will not yet will suffer for him who refuse and yet chuse tremble and yet venture are afraid and yet dye for him because as man he found it a bitter cup and would have had it pass from him who in the dayes of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears for mortal men Hebr. 5.7 for weak men for sinners Pertinacissimè durant quae discimus experientiâ This experimental knowledge is so rooted and fixed in him that it cannot be removed now no more then his natural knowledge He can as soon be ignorant of our actions as of our sufferings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot. Anal. post l. 2. c. 19. Hebr. 5.8 Isa 53.3 Experience saith the Philosopher is a collection of many particulars registred in our memory And this experience Christ had and our Apostle telleth us he learnt it and the Prophet telleth us he was vir sciens infirmitatum a man well read in sorrows acquainted with grief one who carryed it about with him from his cradle to his cross And by his Fasting and Tentation by his Agony and bloody sweat by his precious Death and Burial he remembreth us in famine in tentation in our agony he remembreth us in the hour of death and in our grave for he pitieth even our dust and will remember us in the day of judgment We have passed through the hardest part of this Method and yet it is as necessary as the End For there is no coming to the end without it no peace without trouble no life without death Not that Life is the proper effect of Death for this clear stream floweth from a higher and purer fountain even from the Will of God who is the fountain of life which meeting with our Obedience which is the conformity of our will to God's maketh its way with power through fire and water as the Psalmist speaketh through poverty and contumelies through every cloud and tempest through darkness and death it self and so carryeth it on to end and triumph in life I was dead that was his state of Humility but I am alive that is his state of Glory and is in the next place to be considered I am he that liveth Christ hath spoken it who is Truth it self and we may take his word for it And if we will not believe him when he sayth it neither should we believe if we should see him rising from the dead And this his life and resurrection is most conveniently placed in that Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy one to see corruption Psal 16.10 For what stronger reason can there be found out in matters of faith then the Will and Pleasure of that God who bringeth mighty things to pass To this end S. Paul citeth the second Psalm and S. Peter the sixteenth And in this the humble soul may rest and behold the object in its glory and so gather strength to rayse it self above the fading vanities of this world and reach and rise to immortality What fairer evidence then that of Scripture What surer word then the word of Christ He that cannot settle himself on this is but as S. Jude's cloud Jude 14. carryed about with every wind wheeled and circled about from imagination to imagination now raysed to a belief and anon cast down into the midst of darkness now assenting anon doubting and at last pressed down by his own unstableness into the pit of Infidelity He that will not walk by that light which shineth upon him whilst he seeketh for more must needs stumble and fall at those stones of offence which himself hath laid in his own way Acts 26.8 Why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead to life If such a thought arise in a Christian 9. Reason never set it up I verily thought with my self saith S. Paul but it was when he was under the Law And he whose thoughts are staggered here is under a worse law the law of his members his lusts by which his thoughts and actions are held up as by a law he is such a one as studieth to be an Atheist is ambitious to be like the beasts that perish and having nothing in himself but that which is worse than nothing is well content to be annihilated For why should such a temptation take any Christian Why should he desire clearer evidence Why should he seek for demonstration or that the Resurrection of Christ should be made manifest to the eye This is not to seek to confirm and establish but to destroy our faith For if these truths were as evident as it is that the Sun doth shine when it is day the apprehension of
it self and fill the world with Atheists which will learn by no Masters but such as instruct fools nor acknowledge any Keyes but those which may break their head But indeed we have had these Keyes too long in our hands For though they concern us yet are they not the keyes in the Text nor had we lookt upon them but that those of the Romish party wheresoever they find keys mentioned take them up and hang them on their Church But we must observe a difference betwixt the keyes of the kingdome of heaven Matth. 16.19 which were given to Peter and the keyes of Hell and of Death although with them when the Keyes are seen Heaven and Hell are all one For the key of David Rev. 3.7 which openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth was not given to the Apostles but is a regality and prerogative of Christ who only hath power of Life and Death over Hell and the Grave who therefore calleth himself the first and the last because although when he first publisht his Gospel he died and was buried yet he rose again to live for ever so to perfect the great work of our salvation and by his power to bind those in everlasting chains who stood out against him and to bring those that bow to his sceptre out of prison into liberty and everlasting life The power is his alone and he made it his by his sufferings Phil. 2.8 9. He was obedient to death therefore God did highly exalt him Phil. 2.7 11. He became a Lord by putting on the form of a servant But he hath delegated his power to his Apostles and those that succeed them to make us capable and fit subjects for his power to work upon which nevertheless will have its operation and effect either let us out or shut us up for ever under the power of Hell and of Death Were not he alive and to live for evermore we had been shut up in darkness and oblivion for ever But Christ living infuseth life into us that the bands of Hell and of Death can no more hold us than they can him There is such a place as Hell but to the living members of Christ there is no such place For it is impossible it should hold them You may as well place Lucifer at the right hand of God as a true Christian in Hell For how can Light dwell in Darkness How can Purity mix with stench How can Beauty stay with Horrour If Nature could forget her course and suffer contradictories to be drawn together and be both true yet this is such a contradiction as unless Christ could die again which is impossible can never be reconciled Matth. 5.18 Heaven and earth may pass away but Christ liveth for evermore and the power and virtue of his Life is as everlasting as Everlastingness it self Rev. 6.8 And again There was a pale horse and his name that sat on him was Death and he had power to kill with the sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth But now he doth not kill us he doth but stagger us and fling us down that we may rise again and tread him under our feet and by the power of an everliving Saviour be the death of Death it self Job 18.14 Death was the King of terrors and the fear of Death made us slaves Heb. 2.15 and kept us in servility and bondage all our life long made our pleasures less delightful and our virtues more tedious made us tremble and shrink from those Heroick undertakings for the truth of God But now they in whom Christ liveth and moveth and hath his being as in his own dare look upon Death in all his horror expeditum morti genus saith Tertullian and are ready to meet him in his most dreadful march with all his army of Diseases Racks and Tortures Man before he sinned knew not what Death meant then Eve familiarly conversed with the Serpent so do Christians with Death Having that Divine Image restored in them they are secure and fear it not For what can that Tyrant take from them Col. 3.3 Their life That is hid with Christ in God Psal 37.4 It cannot cut them off from pleasure for their delight is in the Lord. Matth. 6.20 It cannot rob them of their treasure for that is laid up in heaven It can take nothing from them but what themselves have already crucified Gal. 5.24 their Flesh It cannot cut off one hope one thought one purpose for all their thoughts purposes and hopes were leveld not on this but on another life And now Christ hath his keyes in his hand Death is but a name it is nothing or if it be something it is such a thing as troubled S Augustine to define what it is We call it a punishment but indeed it is a benefit a favour even such a favour that Christ who is as omnipotent as he is everlasting who can work all in all though he abolished the Law of Moses and of Ceremonies yet would not abrogate the law by which we are bound over unto death because it is so profitable and advantageous to us It was indeed threatned but it is now a promise or the way unto it for Death it is that letteth us into that which was promised It was an end of all it is now the beginning of all It was that which cut off life it is now that through which as through a gate we enter into it We may say it is the first point and moment of our after-eternity for it is so neer unto it that we can hardly sever them We live or rather labour and fight and strive with the World and with Life it self which is it self a temptation and whilst by the power of our everliving Christ we hold up and make good this glorious contention and fight and conquer and press forward towards the mark either nature faileth or is prest down with violence and we dye that is our language but the Spirit speaketh after another manner we sleep we are dissolved we fall in pieces our bodies from our souls and we from our miseries and temptations and this living everliving Christ gathereth us together again breatheth life and eternity into us that we may live and reign with him for evermore And so I have viewed all the parts of the Text being the main articles of our Faith 1 Christs Death 2. his Life 3. his eternal Life and last of all his Power of the Keyes his Dominion over Hell and Death We will but in a word fit the ECCE the Behold in the Text to every part of it and set the Seal Amen to it and so conclude And first we place the ECCE the Behold on his Death He suffered and dyed that he might learn to have compassion on thy miseries and on thy dust and raise thee from both and wilt thou learn nothing from his compassion
to the tentation which will not suffer it to come so near as to shake our constancy or drive us from our resolution It may lay hard at us to make us leave our hold and to repress and keep it back to strengthen and lift up our selves that we do not fall is the effect of our Watchfulness and Christian Fortitude Rom. 8.37 by which we are more then Conquerours To conclude this Though the Sense and Phansie receive the object which is a tentation though our natural temper incline to it and raise in us a kind of desire to it which is but a resultancy from the flesh yet if we stand upon our guard and watch we shall be so far from sinning that we shall raise that obedience upon it which maketh a way to happiness and the Soul shall be sospes Hieron Apronio fidei calore fervens inter tentamenta diaboli as S. Hierome speaketh safe and sound vigorous and lively in the midst of all these tentations shall be undefiled of that object which is fair and unshaken of that which is terrible to the sense Put on then the whole armour of God stand upon your guard Eph. 6.11 set up the Spirit against the Flesh your Reason against your Sense watch one eye with another your carnal eye with a spiritual eye your carnal ear with a spiritual ear check your phansy bound your inclination If the Flesh be weak let the Spirit be ready if one raise a liking or desire let the other work the miracle and cast it out And this is to work light out of darkness good out of that which might have been evil life out of that which might have been death This is indeed to watch And to the end that we may thus watch let us out of that which hath been said gather such rules and directions as may settle and confirm us in our Watch and carry on our care and solicitude unto the end that we may watch and so not enter into temptation And first we must study the temptations themselves so study them as to wipe off their paint strike off their illecebrae and beauty behold them in their proper and native colours and representations Optimus imperator qui habet cognitas res hostium Veget. He is the best Commander the best Watchman who knoweth his enemy and can see through his disguise and visour through his counterfeit terrours and lying boasts and knoweth what he is Indeed nothing can make tentations of any force but the opinion we have of them It is not Poverty that afflicteth me but the opinion that Poverty is evil It is not the evil it self but my own thoughts which deserve this ill at my hands I am afraid of it because I think it horrid and whilst I think I make it so It is not the blow of the tongue that can hurt me for it is but a word it is not a thunderbolt and if it were Sen. Nat. Quast yet the Stoick will tell us inhonestius est dejectione animi perire quà m fulmine It is not so great an evil nor so dishonourable to be struck with a thunderbolt as to be killed with fear far worse that my phansie should wound me then the tongue of an enemy For what secret force can there be in a calumniating tongue to pierce through our very hearts and to shake and disturb our minds We can hear it thunder and not be cast down but so improvident and cruel we are to our selves that a breath from Malice or Envy will lay us on the ground Non ex eo quod est fallimur sed ex eo quod non est We are not deceived with the realities but with the disguises and appearances of things with those shapes which we have given them We first make them idoles and then fall down and worship them We carelesly take in the object and let our phansie loose to work and hammer and polish it as Poets do make Gods of men and seas of little rivers And in this fair outside in which we have drest them things do deceive us If we would look nearer into them if we would define them res involutas evolvere unfold and lay them open take them out of that gaudiness in which they are wrapt they could not have this operation nor thus work upon us Sapiens est cui res sapiunt ut sunt He is a prudent man to whom things savour and relish as they are And our Vigilancy and spiritual Wisdome consisteth in distinguishing one thing from another in abstracting that evil that may be from that good that appeareth in discovering a Sophism from a Demonstration in being able to sever the colour and appearance of a thing from the thing it self Glory from Riches Misery from Poverty For truly these are not in them but are to be lookt for and feared in something else Did we contemplate onely that which is properly theirs which is onely theirs and not that which they have not but ex dono by our gift we should not so often stoop and submit to vile offices nor forsake our Reason to joyn with our Sense We should then look through the flatteries of the world and behold the inward horrour they conceal We should look through the terrours of the world and consider that inward sweetness and light which many times breaketh through them like lightning through a dark and sullen cloud We should not thus honour them with our fear nor would our hearts so often fail at the very sight of them We should not forfeit our souls to save our estates wound our conscience to secure our purse be perjured rather then imprisoned and so run into hell from the face and frown of a tyrant But as Gregory observeth Anima rebus praesentibus dedita abscondit sibi mala sequentia Hom. 39. in Isa when the Soul mixeth with the world and cleaveth to these temporary things when it is buried as it were in the flesh and carnall pleasures it draweth the veil before its face and obscureth and hideth from it self those evils which are sure to follow which could she truly discern she would watch and take courage against that temptation which she now not onely yieldeth to but embraceth And that we may throughly discern them which is the office of our Christian Vigilancy it will be necessary for us to compare them M. Seneca Cont. 164. For the Oratour will tell us Faciliùs latent quae non comparantur Those things which we look upon with a single eye but once do commonly lye hid and we see them as if we saw them not but when we look them over again and compare them with something better then they then we see them nearer and have a more direct and full view of them We see they are nothing or nothing what they seemed as when the Sun is up the lesser lights are obscured and the glory of the stars is not seen Beauty is
God This added to the rest maketh up a number an account Without this our joyning with such a body or company nay our appearing in his Courts our naming him and calling upon his name are but cyphers and signifie nothing It is not the Church but the Spirit of Christ and our own consciences which can witness to us that we are inhabitants of the new Jerusalem and dwell in Christ We read Gen. 45. that when Jacob had news that his son Joseph lived his heart fainted for he believed them not but at the sight of the chariots which Joseph sent to carry him his spirit revived So it is here When we shall be told or tell our selves for our selves are the likeliest to bring the news that we have been of such a Church of such a Congregation and applaud our selves for such a poor and unsignificant information bless our selves that the lines are fallen unto us in so goodly a place Psal 16.6 when we shall have well looked upon and examined all the priviledges and benefits we can gain by being parts of such a body all this will not assure us nor fix our anchor deep enough but will leave us to be tossed up and down upon the waves of uncertainty fainting and panting under doubt and unbelief For to recollect all in a word our admiring the Majesty of Christ our loving his command our relying on his protection and resting under the shadow of his wing again our sense and feeling of the operation of the Spirit of Christ by the practick efficacy of our knowledge the actuation and quickning of our faith and the power of it working an universal constant sincere obedience these are the chariots which Christ sendeth to carry us out of Egypt unto our celestial Canaan And when we see these and by a sweet and well-gained experience feel the power of them in our souls then we draw neer in full assurance then we joyfully cry out with Jacob It is enough then we know that our Joseph is alive and that Christ doth dwell and live in us of a truth And now to conclude and by way of conclusion to enforce all these to imprint and fasten them in your hearts what other motive need I use then the thing it self Christ in Man and Man in Christ For if honour or delight or riches will move us here they are all not as the world giveth them but as Truth it self giveth them A sight into which the Angels themselves stoop and desire to look into 1 Pet. 1.12 To be in Christ to dwell in Christ if a man did perfectly believe it of himself that he were the man non diu superstes maneret said Luther he would even be swallowed up and die of immoderate joy Here now is Life and Death set before us Heaven and Hell opened to our very eye If we do not dwell in Christ if we be not united to him we shall joyn our selves with something else with flesh and blood with the glory and vanity of the world which will but wait upon us to carry us to our grave feed us up and prepare us for the day of slaughter Oh who would dwell in a land darker then darkness it self who would be united with Death But if we dwell in Christ and he in us if he call us My little children and we cry Abba Father then what then Who can utter it The tongue of Men and Angels cannot express it Then as he said to the Father All mine are thine and thine are mine so all his is ours John 17.10 Col. 1.24 and all ours is his Our miseries are his and when we suffer we do but fill up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ He is in bonds in disgrace in prison with us and we bear them joyfully for we bear them with him who beareth all things Our miseries nay our sins are his He took them upon his shoulder upon his account He sweat he groned he died under them and by dying took away their strength Nay our good deeds are his and if they were not his they were not good Hebr. 13.15 for by him we offer them unto God by his hand in his name He is the Priest that prepareth and consecrateth them Our Prayers our Preaching our Hearing our Alms our Fasting if they were not his Nazianz. were but as the Father calleth the Heathen mans virtues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fair name a title of health upon a box of poison the letter Tau written in the forehead of a reprobate Again to make up the reciprocation as all ours are his so all his are ours What shall I say His Poverty his Dishonour his Sufferings his Cross are ours Yes they are ours because they are his If they had not been his they could not be ours none being able to make satisfaction but he none that could transfer any thing upon man but he that was the Son of man and Son of God His Miracles are ours for for us men and for our salvation were they wrought His Innocency his Purity his Obedience are ours For God so dealeth with us for his sake as if we were innocent and pure as if we our selves had satisfied Let S. Paul conclude for me in that divine and heavenly close of the third chapter of his former Epistle to the Corinthians Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods And if we be Christs Rom. 8.17 then we be heirs joynt-heirs with Jesus Christ As he is heir so have we in him right and title to be heirs and so we receive eternal happiness not onely as a gift but as an inheritance In a word we live with him we suffer with him we are buried with him we rise with him and when he shall come again in glory we who dwell in him now shall be ever with him even dwell and reign with him for evermore The Sixteenth SERMON PART I. EZEKIEL XXXIII 11. As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes For why will ye die O house of Israel WE have here a sudden and vehement out-cry Turn ye turn ye And those events which are sudden and vehement the Philosopher telleth us do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leave some notable mark and impression behind them An earthquake shaketh and dislocateth the earth a whirlwind rendeth the mountains and breaketh in pieces the rocks What is sudden at once striketh us with fear and admiration Greg. in loc Certainly reverenter pensandum est saith the Father This call of the Prophet requireth a serious and reverent consideration For if this vehement ingemination be not sharp and keen enough to enter our Souls and divide asunder the joynts and the marrow here is a Quare moriemini a Reason to set an edge
under the Law alone but also under the Gospel as a motive to turn us from sin and as a motive to strengthen and uphold us in the wayes of righteousness not onely as a restraint from sin but as a preservative of holiness and as a help and furtherance unto us in our progress in the wayes of perfection It may indeed seem a thing most unbefitting a Christian who should be led rather then drawn and not a Christian alone but any moral man Therefore Plato calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an illiberal and base disposition to be banisht the School of Morality And our great Master in Philosophy maketh Punishment one of the three things that belong to slaves as the rod doth saith Solomon to the fools back To be forced into goodness Prov. 26.3 to be frighted into health argueth a disposition which little setteth by health or goodness it self But behold a greater then Plato and Aristotle our best Master the Prince of Peace and Love himself striveth to awake and stir up this kind of fear in us telleth us of hell and everlasting darkness of a flaming fire of weeping and gnashing of teeth presenteth his Father the Father of Mercies with a thunderbolt in his hand Luk. 12.5 with power to kill both body and soul sheweth us our sin in a Deaths head and in the fire of hell as if the way to avoid sin were to fear Death and Hell and if we could once be brought to fear to die we should not die at all Many glorious things are spoken even of this Fear The Philosopher calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Psal 31 Tert. De poenit c. 6. the bridle of our Nature S. Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bridle of our lusts Tertullian Instrumentum poenitentiae an instrument to work out Repentance Pachomius placeth it supra decem millia paedagogorum maketh it the best Schoolmaster of ten thousand Hearken to the Trumpet of the Gospel be attentive to the Apostles voice What sound more frequent then that of Terrour able to shake and divide a soul from its sin Had Marcion seen our Saviour with a whip in his hand had he heard him cursing the Fig-tree and by that example punishing our sterility had he weighed the many woes he pronounced against sinners perhaps he would not have fallen into that impious conceit of two Gods For though the dispensation have not the same aspect under the Law as under the Gospel yet God is the same God still as terrible to sinners that will not turn as when he thundered from Mount Sinai 2 Cor. 5.11 And if we will not know and understand these terrours of the Lord if we make not this use of them to drive us unto Christ and to root and build us up in him the Gospel it self will be to us as the Law was to the Jews a killing letter For again as humane laws so Christs precepts have their force and life from reward and punishment And to this end we find not onely scripta supplicia those woes and menaces which are written in the Gospel but God hath imprinted a fear of punishment in the very hearts of men Juvenat â—at Esse aliquos manes subterranea regna That there remain punishments after life for sin was acknowledged by the very Heathen And we may easily be perswaded that had not this natural domestick fear come in between the world had been far more wicked then it is We see many are very inclinable to deny that there is either Heaven or Hell and would believe it because they would have it so many would be Atheists if they could but a secret whisper haunteth and pursueth them This may be so There is an appointed time to die and after that judgement may come There can be no danger in obedience there may be in sin and this though it do not make them good yet restraineth them from being worse Quibus incentivum impunitas timor taedium Freedom from punishment maketh sin pleasant and delightsome and so maketh it more sinful but fear of punishment maketh it irksome bringeth reluctancies and gnawings and rebukes of conscience For without it there could be none at all Till the whip is held up there is honey on the harlots lips and we would tast them often but that they bite like a cockatrice Non timemus peccare timemus ardere It is not sin we so much startle at but hell-fire is too hot for us And therefore S. Peter when he would work repentance and humility in us placeth us under Gods hand 1 Pet. 5. â— Humble your selves under the mighty hand of God which expresseth his Power his commanding attribute His omniscience findeth us out his wisdome accuseth us his justice condemneth us Potentia punit but it is his Hand his Power that punisheth us Take away his Hand and who feareth his Justice or regardeth his Wisdome or tarrieth for the twilight to shun his all-seeing Eye But cùm occidat when we are told that he can kill and destroy us then if ever we return and seek God early Psal 78.34 Again as the Fear of death may be Physick to purge and cleanse our souls from the contagion of sin so it may be an antidote and preservative against it It may raise me when I am fallen and it may supply me with strength that I fall not again It is a hand to lift me up and it is an hand to lead me when I am risen inter vada freta through all the dangers that attend me in my way As it is an introduction to piety so is it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Gregorie Nyssene Tract 1. in Psalm c. 8. a watch and a guard upon me to keep me that no temptation no scandal no stone of offense make me turn back again into my evil wayes For we must not think that when we are turned from our evil wayes we have left Fear behind us No she may go along with us in the wayes of righteousness and whisper us in the ear that God is the Lord most worthy to be feared She is our companion and leaveth us not nor can we shake her off till we are brought to our journeys end Our Love such as it is may well consist with Fear with the Fear of judgement Look upon the blessed Saints David a man after Gods own heart yet he had saith Chrysostome L. 1. De compunct c. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 6.1 Isa 38.14 15. Rom. 14 10. the memory of Gods judgements written in his very heart His thoughts were busied with it his meditations fixt here and it forced from him DOMINE NE IN FVRORE Correct me not O Lord in thy anger nor chastise me in thy wrath Hezekiah one of the best of the Kings of Judah yet walked in the bitterness of his soul did mourn like a dove and chatter like a Crane S. Paul buildeth up a tribunal and calleth
by them who will receive her nor dwell with those persons which contemn her nor save those who will destroy themselves To conclude this He is most unworthy to receive Grace who in the least degree detracteth from the power of it And he is as unworthy who magnifieth and rejecteth it and maketh his life an argument against his doctrine saith Grace cannot be resisted and resisteth it every day He that denieth the power of God's Grace is scarse a Christian And he is the worst of Christians who will not gird up his loins and work out his salvation but loitreth and standeth idle all the day long shadoweth and pleaseth himself under the expectation of what God will do and so turneth his grace into wantonness Let us not abuse the Grace of God and then we cannot magnifie it enough But he that will not set his hand to work upon a phansie that he wanteth Grace he that vvill not hearken after Grace though she knock and knock again as Fortune vvas said to have done at Galba's gate till she be vveary hath despised the Grace of God and cannot plead the vvant of that for any excuse vvhich he might have had but put it off nay vvhich he had but so used it as if it had been no Grace at all They that have Grace offered and repel it they that have antidotes against Death and vvill not use them can never ansvver the expostulation Why will ye die And certainly he that is so liberal of his Grace hath given us knovvledge enough to see the danger of those vvayes vvhich lead to Death And therefore in the next place Ignorance of our vvayes doth not minuere voluntarium make our sin less vvilful but rather aggrandize it For first vve may if vve vvill knovv every duty that tendeth to life and every sin that bringeth forth death 2 Cor. 2.11 We may know the Devils enterprises saith S. Paul And the ignorance of this findeth no excuse when we have power and faculty light and understanding When the Gospel shineth brightly upon us to dispell those mists which may be placed between the Truth and us Sub scientiae facultate nescire repudiatae magìs quà m non compertae veritatis est reatus Hil. in Psal 118. then if we walk in darkness and in the shadow of death we shall be found guilty not so much of not finding out the truth as of refusing it as Hilary speaketh of a strange contempt in not attaining that which is so easily atchieved and which is so necessary for our preservation I know every man hath not the same quickness of apprehension nor can every man make a Divine and it were to be wisht every man would know it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not for him that thresheth out the corn to resolve controversies or State questions But S. Peter requireth that every man should be able to give an answer 1 Pet. 3.15 a reason of his faith And if he can do that he knoweth the will of God and is well armed and prepared against death and may cope with him and destroy him if he will And this is no perplext nor intricate study but fitted and proportioned to the meanest capacity He that cannot be a Seraphical Divine may be a Christian He that cannot be a Rabbi may be an honest man And if men were as diligent in the pursuit of the truth as they are in managing their own temporal affairs if men would try as many conclusions for knowledge as they do for wealth and were as ambitious to be good as they are to be rich and great if they were as much afraid of Gods wrath as they are of poverty and the frown of a mortal this pretense of want of knowledge would be soon removed and quite taken out of the way Tit. 2.11 Acts 17.30 For now the Grace of God hath appeared unto all men and commanded all men every where to repent and turn from their evil wayes What apologie can the Oppressour have when Wisdome it self hath sounded in his ears and told him Lev. 19.18 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self for even flesh and bloud would soon conclude that no man will oppress himself What can the Revenger plead after the thunder Rom. 12.19 Vengeance is mine What can the Covetous pretend when he heareth Go sell all and give to the poor What can the Seditious say Matth. 19.21 when he is plainly told He that resisteth shall receive damnation Rom. 13.2 Can any man miss his way where there is so much light to direct him when he brought a great part of his lesson along with him into the world which he may run and read and understand How can he there erre dangerously where the Truth is fastned to a pillar where there is such a Mercury to shew him his way And therefore in the second place if we be ignorant it is because we will be ignorant If we could open a window into the breasts of men we should soon perceive a hot contention between their Knowledge and their Lusts strugling together like the twins in Rebekah's womb till at last their Lust supplanteth their Knowledge and gaineth the preeminence Nolunt intelligere nè cogantur facere saith Augustine They will not understand their duty lest that many draw upon them an obligation to do it nor will they see their errour because they have no mind to forsake it For their Knowledge pointeth towards life but not to be attained to but by sweat and blood which their Lust loatheth and trembleth at And therefore this knowledge is too wonderful for them Psal 139.6 nay it is as the gall of bitterness unto them As Nero's mother would not suffer him to study Philosophy quia imparaturo contraria Suet. Nerone c. 25. because it prescribeth many moral virtues as Sincerity Modesty and Frugality which sort not well with the Crown and must needs fall cross with those actions which Politie and Necessity many times ingage the Monarchs of the earth so do these look upon the Truth as a thing contrary to them as checking their Pride bridling their Malice bounding their Ambition chiding their Injustice threatning their Tyranny and so they study to unlearn suppress and silence it and will not hear it speak to them any more but set up a Lie first the childe then the parasite of their Lusts and enthrone it in its place to reign over them and guide them in all their waies I remember Bernard in one of his Sermons upon the Canticles telleth us that he observed many cast down and very sad and dejected upon the knowledge of the Truth not so much for that it did shew them the danger they were in and withal an open and effectual door to escape but that it choaked the passages and stopped up the way to their old asylum and sanctuary of Ignorance For Truth is not onely a light but a fire to scorch and burn
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
into the Memory where it is as operative to destroy as it was in the Affection to increase it self For but to remember sin and to contemplate the horrour of it and the Hell it deserveth is enough to bow our wills and break our hearts and lay them open that they may be fit receptacles of comfort He were a bold sinner that durst look his sin full in the face Now affliction and mourning bring us to this sight wipe off the paint of Sin strip her of her scutcheons and pendants of her glory and beauty and shew her openly in all her deformity not with Pleasure and Honour and Riches but with the Wrath of God Death and Hell waiting upon her that we may defie and mortifie Sin and then triumph over it And then we are brought back from the valley of the shadow of death into green pastures and led beside the still waters the waters of rest and refreshing for God is with us and his rod and his staff with which he guideth us comfort us as it is Psal 23. And now in the last place you see the rock out of which you must hew your Comfort even out of Sorrow it self Or you may see Joy and Comfort shoot forth from Mourning as lightning from a thick and dark cloud Or rather this Consolation ariseth not so much from Affliction and Mourning it self as from the cause of it Sometimes we mourn in prison and in torments for righteousness sake And there cannot be a greater argument out of which we may conclude in comfort then this that at once we are made witnesses and examples of righteousness at once glorifie God and purchase a crown of Glory for our selves And thus comfort is conveyed to us through our own bloud Sometimes we suffer disgrace and loss of goods because we had rather be poor then be as rich and evil as they that make us poor and sit in the lowest form then be higher and worse This troubleth us and this comforteth us For thus to be poor is to be in the Rich mans bosome thus to be in the dust is to be in Heaven Sometimes we mourn as under the rod and are brought to Affliction as to a School of discipline And if we can read and understand the mystery of Affliction as Nazianzene calleth it if we can see mercy in anger a Father in a Lord if we can behold him with a rod in his hand and healing under his wings and so learn the lesson which he would teach us learn by poverty to enrich our selves with grace by disgrace to honour our selves by imprisonment to seek liberty in Christ if we can learn by those evils which can but touch us to chase away those which will destroy us if we can be such proficients in this School this also may trouble us and this will comfort us If we hearken not to the rod it may prove a Scorpion But if we thus bow and kiss it it will not onely bud and blossome as Aaron's did but bring forth the sweet fruit of Consolation And thus this miracle of Consolation is wrought in us first by the power of God's Grace which maketh his smitings healings and his wounds kisses and then by a strong actuating and upholding our Reason in the contemplation of God's most fatherly power and wisdome which will check and give lawes to the inferiour powers and faculties of the soul and draw them in obedience unto it self that all melancholick fancies may vanish all sensual grief may be swallowed up in victory in this in the content and rest we find in the end which we obtain or for which we suffer and mourn So the blessed Virgin had comfort even when she stood by the Cross vveeping and her soul was filled with it even then when it was pierced through as with a sword In a word mourning is a remedy and all remedies bring comfort And this is of the number of those remedies quae potentiae suae qualitate consumptâ desinunt cùm profuerint which having consumed and spent its virtue vanisheth away and leaveth to be when it hath wrought its just effect For he that is comforted feeleth not what he feeleth but his contemplation carrieth his mind to heaven when his senses peradventure labour under those displeasing objects which are contrary to them At the same time Moses may be in the Mount and the common people rebell and commit idolatry below At the same time the Martyr may roar on the rack and yet in his heart sing an hymn of praise to the King of Glory Reason may so far subdue the Flesh as to make it suffer but it cannot make it senseless for then it could not suffer then it were not flesh Affliction will be heard and felt and seen in its violent operation seen in its terrour heard in contumelies and reproaches and felt in its smart but in all these the Spirit is more then conquerour and delighteth it self with terrour feedeth and feasteth on reproaches and findeth a complacency in smart and pain it self And then when we are under the rod and suffer for sin and not for piety as sensual grief may occasion spiritual so spiritual sorrow and displacency hath alwaies comfort attending it For sorrow and comfort in course affect the soul and with such dispatch and celerity that we rather feel then discern it The devout School-man giveth the instance in the quavering and trembling motion of a Bell after the stroke or of a Lute string after the touch and observeth such an Harmony in the heart by the mutual touch of Sorrow and Comfort And David hath joyned them together in the second Psalm Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce with trembling When Affliction striketh the heart the sound will end in Joy and Comfort will be the resultance Mourning is a dark and melancholick thing and maketh a kind of night about us but when the Spirit saith Let there be light there will be light light in the Understanding rectitude in the Will order and peace in the Passions serenity in the Soul sin not in the Affection but in the Memory where it is kept to be whipt and crucified health in the Soul strength in our spiritual Pulse chearfulness to run the wayes of God's commandments the best and onely comforts in the world true symptomes of a spiritual health and fair pledges and types of that everlasting comfort which the God of all consolation will give to those who thus mourn in Sion For conclusion to apply all to our selves in a word I need not exhort you to hang down the head and mourn and walk humbly before your God Behold God himself hath spoken to us in the whirlwind He hath spoken in thunder and shaken our Joyes beat down all before our eyes in which our eyes took pleasure and of which we could say we had a delight therein He hath shaken the pillars of the earth He hath shaken the pillar of Truth the Church He hath shaken
him in the Sacrament we many times leave our callings but to hear of him But yet all these may be rather profers then motions rather pleasing thoughts then painful strugglings with our selves rather a looking upwards then a rising cogitationes similes conatibus expergisci volentium as S. Augustine speaketh of himself in his Confessions thoughts like unto the endeavours of men half-asleep who would and would not be awaked who seem to move and stir and lightly lift up the head and then fall down fast asleep fall back again into their graves and into the place of silence Nay 3. This Speculation this naked approbation is but a dream Visus adesse mihi Christ may seem to rouze us when he moveth us not at all And as in dreams we seem to perform we do every thing and we do nothing Nunc fora nunc lites we plead we wrastle we fight we triumph we sail we flie and all is but a dream So when we have seen the Gospel as in a map when we have made a phansiful peregrination through all the riches and glories and delights it affordeth when we have seen our Saviour in the cratch led him into the High priest's hall followed him to mount Calvary seen him on his cross brought him back again with triumph from his grave we may think indeed we are risen with him But when Conscience shall begin to be enlightned and dart her piercing raies upon us and plainly tell us that we have not fasted with him that we have not watched with him that we have not gone about with him doing good that we have been so far from crucifying our flesh for his sake that we have crucified him again to fulfil the lusts thereof that the World and not Christ hath been the form that moved us in the whole course of our life that our rising hath been nothing else but deceptio visûs an apparition a phantasm a jugling and Pharasaical vaunting of our selves behold then it will appear that all was but a dream that we have seen Christ rising from the dead and acknowledged the power of his resurrection but are no more risen our selves then our pictures that we have but dreamed of life and are still under the power of Darkness and in the valley and shadow of Death For conclusion then What saith the Scripture Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead For this is to know and feel the power of Christ's resurrection Let us not please our selves with visions and dreams with the flattery of our own imaginations Let us not think that if we have magnified the power of the Resurrection we are therefore already risen For we can never demonstrate this power till we actually rise Let Knowledge beget Practice and Practice encrease our Knowledge Let us know Christ that is obey him Let us know the power of his resurrection that is rise from the death of Sin to walk in righteousness For this is with open face to behold the glory of Christ and his Resurrection This practick and affective Knowledge maketh us one with Christ Col 3.5 Rom 6.6 Col. 3 3. 2 Cor. 5.15 giveth us a fellowship of his sufferings conformeth and fashioneth us to his death mortifieth our earthly members destroyeth the whole body of sin maketh us die with Christ and live unto Christ unto him who died for us and is risen again By this we are made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 limmers nay the very pictures of the Passion and Resurrection that we may be dead to sin and alive to righteousness that we may deal with our Sin as â—â—e Jews did with Christ hate and persecute it lay wait for it send forth a band of souldiers all the strength we have to apprehend and take it drag it to the bar accuse and condemn it revile and spit in its face that there may be vinegar in our tears and gall in our Repentance that we may nail Sin to the cross and put it out of ease that it live but a dying life not able to move our members more then he can his who is nailed to a tree that it faint and languish by degrees and at last give up the ghost and then that we may rise again that the good Spirit may descend from heaven and remove the many stones the many vicious habits and customs that lie heavy upon us that we may leave our graves and our grave-cloths behind us all pretenses and palliations all ties and bonds of sin and whatsoever hath any sent or savour of corruption To conclude This is truly to know Christ and the power of his resurrection And this Knowledge will melt us this liquefaction will transform us and this transformation unite us to Christ and this union will be our exultation and this exultation an everlasting jubilee In a word This will quit us of all uncertainties lead us through all difficulties and by these means we shall attain to not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bare but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a full resurrection which no death no evil shall follow a Resurrection to eternity of life of bliss and glory The Fourteenth SERMON ACTS I. 10 11. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up behold two men stood by them in white apparel Which also said Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing into heaven This same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven HEaven is a fair sight and every eye beholdeth it but without Jesus we would not look upon Heaven it self Here we have them both presented to the eye This Jesus was taken up into heaven and that tâ—â— Disciples might see it he led them out as far as to Bethany Luke 24.50 he brought them to mount Olivet to an open and conspicuous place and made them spectators of his Triumph that they might preach it to the whole world Christ was willing to imploy their sight to confirm this main Article of the Ascension But yet as Christ liketh not every touch but there is a NOLI ME TANGERE Touch me not because I am not yet ascended so there is a QUID STATIS INTUENTES a check given to the eye because he is ascended already When the cloud hath taken him up no looking after him He loveth to be seen not to be gazed after Our love he approveth but not our curiosity Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were looking stedfastly toward heaven there stood by them saith the Text two men IN ALBIS in white apparel in the same colour they saw them in at his Tomb and as there so here they came not by chance but were dispatched as messengers from heaven at once to draw the Disciples eyes from needless gazing and to confirm them in the belief of their Master's Ascension The one they do by way of Question Why stand ye gazing into heaven the other by a plain and positive
and casteth us on the ground and maketh us fome at our mouths fome out our own shame it casteth us into the fire and water burneth and drowneth us in our lusts And if it bid us Do this we do it We are perjured to save our goods beat down a Church to build us a banquetting-house take the vessels of the Sanctuary to quaff in fling away eternity to retain life and are greater devils that we may be the greater men Whilest Sin reigneth in our mortal bodies the curse of Canaan is upon us we are servi servorum the slaves of slaves And if we will judge aright there is no other slavery but this Now empti estis By the power of Christ these chains are struck off For he therefore bought us with a price that we should no longer be servants unto Sin but be a peculiar people unto himself full of good works which are the ensigns and flags of liberty which they carry about with them whose feet are enlarged to run the wayes of God's commandments Again there is a double Dominion of Sin a dominion to Death and a dominion to Difficulty a power to slay us and a power to hold us that we shall not easily escape And first if we touch the forbidden fruit we dye if we sin our sin lieth at the door ready to devour us For he saith our Saviour that committeth sin is the servant of sin obnoxious to all those penalties which are due to sin under the sentence of death His head is forfeited and he must lay it down Ye are dead saith S. Paul in trespasses and sins not onely dead as having no life no principle of spiritual motion not able to lift up an eye to heaven but dead as we say in Law having no right nor title but to death we may say heirs of damnation And then Sin may hold us and so enslave us that we shall love our chains and have no mind to sue for liberty that it will be very difficult which sometimes is called in Scripture Impossibility to shake off our fetters Sin gaining more power by its longer abode in us first binding us with it self and then with that delight and profit which it bringeth as golden chains to tye us faster to it self and then with its continuance with its long reign which is the strongest chain of all But yet empti estis Christ hath laid down the price and bought us and freed us from this dominion hath taken away the strength of Sin that it can neither kill us nor detain us as its slaves and prisoners There is a power proceedeth from him which if we make use of as we may neither Death nor Sin shall have any dominion over us a power by which we may break those chains of darkness asunder Look up upon him with that faith of which he was the authour and finisher and the victory is ours Bow to his Sceptre and the Kingdom of Sin and Death is at an end For though he hath bought us with a price yet he put it not into the hands of those fools who have no heart but laied it down for those who will with it sue out their freedom in this world For that which we call liberty is bondage and that which we call bondage is freedom Rom. 6.20 When we were the servants of sin we were free from righteousness and we thought it a glorious liberty But this Liberty did enslave us Prov. 10.24 For that which the wicked feared shall come upon him They that built the tower of Babel did it that they might not be scattered and they were scattered say the Rabbies in this world and in the world to come So whilest men pursue their unlawful desires that they may be free by pursuing them they are enslaved enslaved in this world and in the world to come But let us follow the Apostle But now being made free from sin Rom. 6.22 you are servants unto God See here a service which is liberty and liberty which is bondage the same word having divers significations as it is placed And let us sue out Liberty in its best sense in foro misericordiae in the Court of Mercy Behold here is the price the bloud of Christ And you have your Charter ready drawn If the Son make you free John 8.36 Acts 16. that is buy you with a price ye shall be free indeed Which words are like that great earthquake when Paul and Sylas prayed and sung Psalms At the very hearing of them the foundation of Hell shaketh and every mans chains are loosed For every man challengeth an interest in the Son and so layeth claim to this freedom Every man is a Christian and so every man free The price is laid down and we may walk at liberty It fareth with us as with men who like the Athenians hearken after news Whilest we make it better we make it worse and lose our Charter by enlarging it But if we will view the Text we may observe there is one word there which will much lessen this number and point out to them as in chains who talk and boast so much of freedom And it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye shall be free indeed not in shew or persuasion For Opinion and Phansie will never strike off these chains but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really substantially free and indeed not free 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in appearance or in a dream which they may be whose damnation sleepeth not Many persuade themselves into an opinion they call it an Assurance of freedom when they have sold themselves Many sleep as S. Peter did between the two souldiers bound with these chains Many thousands perish in a dream build up to themselves an assurance which they call their Rock and from this rock they are cast down into the bottomless pit and that which is proposed as the price of their liberty hath been made a great occasion to detain them in servitude and captivity which is the more heavy and dangerous because they call it Freedom Therefore we must once more look back upon that place of S. John and there we shall find that they shall be free whom the Son maketh free So that the reality and truth of our freedom dependeth wholly upon his making us free If he make us free if we come out of his hand formed by his Word and transformed by the virtue of the price he gave for us then we shall be free indeed If we have been turned upon his wheel we shall be vessels of honour And now it will concern us to know aright what the meaning of his buying is and the manner how he maketh us free 1 Cor. 7.23 By Purchase by buying us with a price and so it is here Col. 2.14 By Taking away the hand-writing which was against us and nailing it to his cross Eph. 5.2 By Satisfaction being made a sweet-smelling sacrifice to God for us But then also
then a plain commentary on this verse And in this sense my Text is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pretious antidote against Errour against those errours which are most fatall and dangerous to the soul the errours in our life and conversation In many things saith S. James we offend and erre all For 1. few men have learnt that precept of Pythagoras to Reverence themselves to give that reverence to their own Judgment and Reason which they will to the beck of a Superiour the voice of a Custom or the vote of the beast of many heads the Multitude And though Errour have a foul name yet we are never better pleased then when we put a cheat upon our selves bowing to our Sense and as stiff as adamant to our Reason never lying more grosly then when we speak to our selves and bear both the parts in the Dialogue How easily do we persuade and win our selves to that which if a Prophet should commend unto us we would not receive him in that name and for which we should anathematize an Angel 2. Being deceived and making a kind of sport and pastime in our errour we are very ready to entertein a low conceit even of God himself as if blindness might happen to his all-seeing eye and he might also be deceived and mocked When through negligence or wilfullness we cannot raise our selves to be like unto him so far as possibility will permit we make him like unto us smiling upon us and favouring us in all our undertakings Men asleep in sin dream of a sleeping God and men who have blinded themselves phansie a God that will not see Lastly having made Darkness as a pavilion round about us we drowse on securely and dream of life in the very shadow of Death securi adversus Deos hominesque fearing neither God nor Man little heeding what we sow and not weighing well what we shall hereafter reap Now to men thus asleep running wilfully into errour and then delighting themselves in it our Apostle lifts up his voice Awake you that thus sleep Be not deceived And this precept he strengthens and doubles by two infallible positions the one grounded on the Wisdom of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is not mocked the other on his Justice which gives to every man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to his work For what a man soweth that shall he also reap In sum thus Be not deceived that is Deceive not your selves in those plain and obvious duties of Christianity For as Gods Wisdom cannot subscribe to this wilfull errour so his Justice will punish it There is no deluding the eye of the one nor avoiding the stroke of the other It is a foolish errour to think you may do what you list and have what you list that you may sow tares and reap good corn that you may sow to the flesh and reap from the spirit The parts then are three 1. a Dehortation from errour Be not deceived In which we shall point out first to the Nature and then to the Danger of the errour we must fly from 2. a Vindication of the Wisdom of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is not mocked I call it a Vindication of Gods Wisdom not that God hath need of any to stand up and speak for him for Gods Wisdom will justifie it self and he that denies him to be wise denies him to be God But in respect of a secret persuasion which finds place and lurks in the hearts of those who deceive themselves That God will not be so severe as he gives himself out for but will measure their actions by the same rule and line which themselves make use of And to strive to shake and remove this persuasion will be a sufficient discharge of this point 3. The last is a Declaration of the Justice of God proportioning the â—arvest to the seed And this shall serve onely for conclusion and as a motive to enforce the rest that upon the wings of Hope or of Fear we may make haste and fly away from this den of Errour Be not deceived These words have the form of a general Dehortation from all errour but must be taken in a more restrained and limited sense For to be free from all errour is not to put off the Old man but to put off our Humanity There be some truths to which common understandings are not equall which either stand at such a distance that we cannot ken them or want a fit medium to convey their species and representations For the Understanding like the bodily eye is not of the same quickness and sharpness in all One man discovers the star it self when another scarce sees my finger that points to it Nor need we draw it to fundamental truths in such a manner as to go in quest to find out the exact number of them and to deliver it by tale to them who are so vain as to demand it at our hands as now of late being put to their shifts they of the Church of Rome have learnt to do as if after sixteen hundred years and more Christians were at loss and to seek for that without which they cannot be Christians It may suffice that the Will of God is the main fundamental point of our Religion the several branches whereof he hath spread abroad and most plainly revealed in his Gospel The will of God conteined in his word is plain though the mysteries are great delivered to us as oracles but not as riddles his will I say not onely concerning what he will do in Christ for us but also concerning what he will have us to do our selves as he hath chosen us in him Eph. 1.4 that we should be holy and without blame before him in love Now whethersoever of these two we look upon Be not deceived is a good Caveat the errours on both sides deing dangerous But the metaphor of Sowing in the Text which implyeth an outward act directeth our discourse to the last And matters of Faith are like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those initia Mathematicorum as Tully calleth them the beginning and principles of that Science S. Paul termeth them the principles of the doctrine of Christ Numb 6. â— These must be taken for granted for we speak not to infidels but to such as have already given up their names unto Christ Be not deceived then is in effect Deceive not your selves in the common actions of your life which then befalls us when contrary to the evidence which we already have and which fairly offers it self if we would entertain it we proceed to action and venture upon that which we know or may easily know is unlawful if we will but pause and consult with Reason and so wander in the region of light deceive our selves when the day is brightest and so loose our selves in the mist which we our selves cast when at once we profer and check our selves and yet resolve to condemn what we embrace and embrace what
that deceived me every man vvould be ready to say Ah my brother or Ah his glory but vvhen it is I my self deceive my self when I my self am the cheater and the fool and never think my self vviser then vvhen I beguile my self it is a thing indeed to be lamented with tears of bloud but yet it deserves no pity at all Nulla est eorum habenda ratio qui se conjiciunt in non necessarias angustias saith the Civilian The Law helps not those vvho entangle themselves with intricate perplexities nor doth the light of the Gospel shine comfortably upon those vvho vvill not see it It is a true saying He that will not be saved must perish Dyed Abner as a fool dyeth saith David Doth this man erre as a fool erreth or is he deceived for want of understanding or because of the remoteness and distance of the object Then our Saviour himself will plead for him John 9. If you were blind you should have no sin But in the Self-deceiver it is not so His hands are not bound nor his feet tyed in fetters of brass His eye is clear but he dimms it The object is near him even in his mouth and his heart but he puts it from him The law is quick and lively but he makes it a dead letter He turns the day into darkness gropeth at noon as at midnight and turns the morning it self into the shadow of death We have a worthy Writer who himself was Ambassadour in Turky that hath furnisht us with a polite narration of the manners of the people and the customes of the places Amongst the rest he tells us what himself observed that when the Turks did fall to their cups and were resolved to fill themselves with such liquor as they knew would intoxicate and make them drunk they were wont to make a great and unusual noyse with which they called down their Soul to the remotest part of their bodies that it might be as it were at distance and so not conscious of their brutish intemperance Beloved our practice is the very same When we venture upon some gross notorious sin which commends and even sanctifieth it self by some profit or pleasure it brings along with it we straight call down our Reason that it may not check us when we are reaching at the prey nor pull us back when we are climbing to honour nor work a loathing in us of those pleasures which we are drinking down as the ox doth water we say unto it Art thou come to blast our riches and to poyson our delights Shall we now part with the wedge of gold shall we fly the harlots lips as a cocatrice Shall we lay our honour in the dust Shall every thing which our soul loveth be like the mountain which must not be toucht Avoid Reason not now Reason but Satan to trouble and torment us What have we to do with thee Thou art an offense unto us a stone of offense a scandal And now if there be a Dixit Dominus against us if the Lord say it he doth not say it if a Prophet speak it he prophesies lyes if Christ speak it we bid him Depart from us for we will be sinful men And hence it comes to pass that our errour is manifest and yet not seen that our errour is known but not acknowledged that our errour is punisht but not felt Hence it comes to pass that we regard not the truth we are angry with the truth we persecute the truth that admonitions harden us that threatnings harden us that judgments harden us that both the sunshine and the storm when God shines upon us and when he thunders against us we are still the same knowing enough but basely prostituting our knowledge and experience to the times and our lusts false to God and our selves and so walking on triumphantly in the errours of our life dreaming of eternity till at last we meet with what we never dreamt of death and destruction Read 2 Kings 8. and see the meeting of Elisha and Hazael The Text saith v. 11 12 13. The man of God wept And when Hazael askt him Why weepeth my Lord the Prophet answered Because I know the evil that thou wiâ—t do to the children of Israel Their strong holds thou wilt set on fire and their young men thou wilt slay with the sword and wilt dash their children and rip up their women with child What did Hazael now think Even think himself as innocent as those children What is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing Should the same weeping Prophet have wept out such a Prophesie to some of after ages and have told them Thus and thus you shall do actions that have no savour of Man or Christian actions which the Angels desire not to look upon and which Men themselves tremble to think on would they not have replied as Hazael did Are we Dogs and Devils that we should do such things And yet we know such things have been done I might here enlarge my self and proceed to discover yet a further danger For Errour is fruitful and multiplies it self It seldom ends where it begins but steals upon us as the Night first in a twilight then in thicker darkness Onely the difference is it is commonly night with us when the Sun is up and in our hemisphere We run upon Errour when Light it self is our companion and guide First we deceive our selves with some gloss some pretense of our own Our passion our lust our own corrupt heart deceiveth us And anon our Night is dark as Hell it self and we are willing to think that God may be of our mind well pleased with our errour Now against this we must set up the Wisdom of God Be not deceived It is not so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is not mocked saith our Apostle This I call'd the Vindication of Gods Wisdom my second part Of which in the next place The Nine and Twentieth SERMON PART II. GALAT. VI. 7. Be not deceived God is not mocked For whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap HAving done with the first part of the Text a Dehortation from Errour in these words Be not deceived I proceed to the second which I call a Vindication of God's Wisdome in the next words God is not mocked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an undeniable position The eyes of the Lord saith the Prophet 2 Chron. 16.9 run to and fro throughout the whole earth Deus videt and Deus judicat are common notions which we receive è censu naturae out of the stock and treasury of Nature there being such a sympathy betwixt these principles and the mind of Man that so far forth as the acknowledgment of these will bring us the soul is naturaliter Christiana a Christian by nature it self without the help of Grace There was no man ever who acknowledged a God but gave him a bright and piercing eye This is
without which it cannot be so Thy Charity must be active in thy Hands in casting thy bread upon the waters vocal in thy Tongue in ministring a word of comfort in due season compassionate in thy Heart leading thee to the House of mourning and making thee mourn with them that mourn and lament with them that lament It must be like the Sun which casts its beams and influence on every man Semper debio charitatem quae cùm impenditur debitur saith Augustine Love is a debt we owe one to another that we may be one a debt every man owes to every man a debt which though I alwayes pay I alwayes owe and even when I pay it I remain still a debtor For again if we be Christians then though we are many members yet are we many members of that body 1 Cor. 12.12 which is one partakers of the same bread of life 1 Cor. 10.17 nay being many we are one bread and one body That which was disperst into many being gathered thus is but one Partakers of the same Sacraments which our Saviour did not onely institute as memorials of his death and as channels and conveyances of comfort to our sick and weary souls but also as remembrances unto us of that debt of Charity which unless we will forfeit our title of Christian we are bound with cheerfulness to pay one to another Multa sunt sed illa multa sunt hoc unum ONE ANOTHER includes many but those Many are but this one mystical body Each member is lame and imperfect by it self and stands in need of this uniting What the Hand is that is the Foot and what the Eye is that is the Hand in that respect it is a member for all are members S. Paul in the Pulpit was no more a member then the Thessalonians to whom he writ He that is a perfect man is no more a member then he that is a new born babe in Christ and he that is least holds his relation as well as he that is greatest in the kingdome of Christ Now if all be members and the same body each must concur to cherish each other that the whole may be preserved Take but an Arm from the body but a Hand from that arm but a Finger from that hand and the blemish is of the whole In the Church of Christ communis metus gaudium timor here we are all one and all mens joys and sorrows and fears are one and the same As each Man as I told you before so each Christian is as a glass to another and they are mutually so I see my sorrow in my brothers tears and he sees his tears in my sorrow He sees my Charity in my alms and I see his Devotion in his prayers I cast a beam of comfort upon him and he reflects a blessing upon me There is a preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture which joyns men together makes ONE ANOTHER as one and draws a multitude to unity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 12. Let us weep with them that weep and lament with them that lament Luc. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the woman in the Parable Rejoyce together with me Eph. 2. for I have found my groat And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are fellow-citizens with the Saints They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together upholding and rejoycing one another in every function Phinehas is meek with Moses and Moses is zealous with Phinehas A Christian is chast with Joseph and repents with Peter is rich with his brothers wealth prudent with his brothers wisdome mighty with his power and immortalized with his eternity The Angels rejoyce at our conversion and we praise God for the Angels joy they ministring to us on earth and we converse with them to heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are together in what estate soever in joy together and in grief together rising and drooping both alike suffering together mourning together praying together And if we observe that form of prayer which Christ hath taught us our prayer is not then private when we pray in private OUR FATHER takes in ONE ANOTHER even the whole Church We cannot pray for our selves unless we pray for others also Nay he prayes not well saith Calvine that begins not with the Church The Church prayes for every man and every man for the whole Church Quod est omnium est singulorum that which is all mens is every mans and that which is every mans belongs unto the whole And thus much we have found in the Object in ONE ANOTHER even enough to draw on the Act For on these three our common Condition our Relation as Men and our Relation as Christians as on a sure foundation doth our Saviour and his blessed Apostles build us up in our holy love build us up as so many parts mutually upholding one another and growing up into a Temple of the Lord. These are the Principles and the Premises and from these they draw this Conclusion That being thus linked and united and built together we should uphold and comfort one another Which is my second part the Act it self to Comfort and offers it self next to your Christian consideration CONSOLEMINI ALII ALIOS Comfort one another To comfort is a word of a large and much extended sense and signification spreading it self equally with all the army of sorrows and with all the evils in the world and opposing it self to all To comfort may be to be eyes to the blind and feet to the lame to cloth the naked and feed the hungry and to put the hand to uphold that which is failing Sustentanda domus jam ruitura saith Tully It is as the underpropping of a house ready to sink Comfort you comfort you my people saith God Isa 40.1 speak comfortably to Jerusalem LOQUIMINI AD COR Speak to the heart of them Speak and do something which may heal a wounded heart rowse a drooping spirit give it a kind of resurrection and restore it to its former estate which may work light out of darkness content in poverty joy in persecution and life in Death it self To Renew Restore Quicken Lift up Refresh Encourage Sustein all those are in this one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comfort ye For Alass my brother or Ah his glory are but words verba sine penu pecuniâ as he in Claudius speaks words without help prescripts without medicine most unactive and unsignificant words To a man naked and destitute of food Depart in peace Be warmed Be filled are but words but faint and liveless wishes especially if they proceed from him who can do more and yet will do no more then speak and wish They are the dialect of the Hypocrite whose religion floats on his tongue or is written in his forehead whose heart is marble when his words are as soft as butter whose Charity is onely in picture and shew and whose very Mercy is cruelty For what greater
the living to preserve the memory of the dead For this were the Diptychs read in the Church which were two leaves or tables on the one whereof were written the names of those pious men and Confessors who were yet alive and on the other of those who had dyed in the Lord and were at rest To this end Churches were dedicate to God but bore the names of Saints to preserve their memory I might tell you and that truly if there be any truth in Story but I am unwilling to bring the Martyrs of Christ within the least suspicion of being superstitious but History hath told us that they hung up their pictures in their private shops and houses that they engraved the pictures of the Apostles in their very drinking-cups celebrated their feast-dayes honoured their memories framed Panegyricks of them wrote their Lives Basil wrote the Life of Barlaam who was but a poor Shepherd Nazianzene of Basil and of others which he saith he left to posterity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a common table of virtue for all the world to behold For since men are delighted in the imitation of others and led more easily by examples then laws what more profitable course could the Church of Christ have found out then the preservation of the acts and memory of the Saints and transmitting them to posterity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Gregory Nyssene speaketh as provision to help and uphold us in our way How are we affected with these narrations What deep impressions do they make How do our minds naturally cleave unto them like stars fastned to their orbs and so move together with them We are on the dunghil with Job in a bed of tears with David on our knees with Daniel ready to be offered up with St. Paul at the stake and on the rack and at the block with the Martyrs The very remembrance of good men of the Saints of God is a degree and an approach unto Holiness To drive this yet a little more home The Apostle's counsel to the Hebrews is to consider 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 narrowly to mark and observe and to study Heb. 10.24 one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to whet and sharpen each others affection now dulled perhaps with vain and impertinent speculations to provoke unto love and good works To this end God hath placed us in the Communion of Saints a benefit which we either understand not or undervalue and he hath ordained it that one Christian should be as a lesson to another which he should take out and learn and teach again and then strive to improve For it is in this as it is in Arts and Sciences Qui agit ut prior sit forsitan si non transierit aequabit He who stirred up with an holy ambition maketh it his industry to exceed his patern may become as glorious a star as he yea by his holy emulation peradventure far out-shine him Qui sequitur cupit consequi For he who followeth others maketh it his aim we may be sure if not to exceed yet to overtake them And this use we have of Examples They are set before us to raise up in us an holy emulation It is true Emulation hath this common with Envy that we sorrow and are angry but the Philosopher putteth the difference 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We sorrow not that others are beautified with graces but that we our selves are not This Sorrow and Anger hath not the same rise and ground in the one as in the other For this godly Sorrow in holy emulation bringeth forth a repentance not to be repented of and our indignation is not on the Saint we look upon but on our selves and it proceedeth from a love and admiration of those Heroes whom virtue and piety have made glorious in our eyes Love and Hope are both antidotes against the venom and poison of Envy but are the ingredients which make up the wholsom composition of Emulation No such Sorrow and Anger in Emulation as that which setteth the teeth of Envy on edge but there is Love which carryeth fire in it and is full of activity and impatient of delay and Hope quae expeditam reddit operationem which setteth us forward in our way and maketh our feet like hinds feet not to follow but to run after those who are gone before and are now in termino at their journeys end Divina dispensatio quot justos exhibuit tot astra supra peccatorum tenebras misit saith Gregory As many just and holy men as the Providence of God hath shewed to the world so many Stars hath he fixed in the firmament of the Church to lighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Dionysius Longinus Such is the delight we take in example that we see many men are rapt and inspired with other mens spirits And as the Priests of Apollo at a chink or opening of the earth received a Divine breath and inspiration which so filled them that they could give answer to those who consulted the Oracle so from the virtues and holiness of good men if we look stedfastly upon them and consider them aright 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as by so many sacred doors and conveyances are derived those defluxions of piety which do so fill us that we are able with alacrity and a kind of tryumph to follow after In a word by the virtue of Imitation it is that we become meek with Moses patient with Job chaste with Joseph upright with David that we forget what is behind and press toward the mark with St. Paul who here calleth after us to be Followers of him My next part And here we have a hard task St. Paul an ensample which all men magnifie but few follow QUOTIDIE MORIOR I dye daily was his Motto and we had rather chuse another who tremble at the very thought that we must dye once St. Paul a mark for all the miseries in the world to shoot at In afflictions necessities distresses in stripes and imprisonment in watchings and fastings Who would be drawn out in these colours Who would be such a Paul though it were to be a Saint Follow him perhaps into the third heaven we would but we have no mind to follow him through tumults on earth and tempests at Sea before Tyrants and to the block here we turn countenance and cannot stir a foot But then I told you he taketh in all the Saints the glorious company of the Apostles the noble army of martyrs Menander fecit Andriam Perinthiam He that made one made both He that was glorious in St. Paul was glorious in all the rest St. Paul I think the best servant that ever Christ had upon the earth the Map of all the Saints And he that followeth him must follow all An ensample one would think not to be reached by imitation Difficulty is the great excuse of the world and because things are hard to be
omnem which undergoeth the shock of the whole war observeth the enemy in all his stratagems wiles and enterprises meeteth and encountereth him in all his assaults meeteth him as a Serpent and is not taken with with his flattery meeteth him as Lion and is not dismayed at his roarring but keepeth and guideth us in an even and constant course in the midst of all his noise and allurements and so bringeth us though shaken and weather-beaten unto our end to the haven of rest where we would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have need of patience Quid enim malum nisi impatientia boni saith Tertullian For what is Evil but an impatience of that which is good What is Vice but an impatience of vertue Pride will not suffer us to be brought low Covetousness will not suffer us to open our hand Intemperance will not suffer us to put our knife to our throat The Love of the world is impatient of God himself His Word is a sword and his commands thunderbolts At the sound of them we are afraid and go away sorrowful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have need of patience For we must run our race in a constant and uninterrupted course in an awful reverence to our Law-giver living and dying under the shadow of his wings that whether we live or die we may be the Lord's Non habitat nisi qui verè habitat say the Civilians He is not said to dwell in a place who continueth not in it And he doth not remain in the Gospel who is ready upon every change of weather upon every blast and breathing of discontent to change his seat He doth not remain in it who if the rain descend and the flouds come and the winds blow will leave and forsake it though it be a rock which will easily defend him against all these For what evil can there be against which it hath not provided an antidote what tempest will it not shroud us against Bring Principalites and Powers the Devil and all his artillery unus sufficit Christus the Gospel alone is sufficient for us And in this we see the difference between the World and the Church The world passeth away 1 Cor. 7.31 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The fashion of the world the scene is every day changed and presenteth things in another shape But the Church is built upon a Rock Matth. 16. upon CHRIST that is upon that Faith in Christ which worketh by charity And he who is built upon this Rock who is fully persuaded that Christ is the best Master and that those duties which he teacheth are from heaven heavenly and will bring us thither is sufficiently armed against the flattery of Pleasure the lowring countenance of Disgrace the terrours of Poverty and Death it self against all wind and weather whatsoever that might move him from his place Look into the world There all things are as mutable as it self Omnia in impia fluctuant All things ebbe and flow in wicked men flie as a shadow and continue not Their Righteousness is like the morning dew Hos 13.3 dried up with the first Sun their Charity like a rock which must be strook by some Moses some Prophet and then upon a fit or pang no gushings forth but some droppings peradventure and then a dry rock again their Vows and Promises like their shadows at noon behind them their Friendship like Job's winter-brooks overflowing with words and then in summer when it is hottest in time of need quite dried up consumed out of its place their Temperance scarce holding out to the next feast nor their Chastity to the next twilight The world and the fashion of it passeth away but on the contrary the Gospel is the eternal word of God And as the gifts and calling of God are without repentance Rom. 11.29 Prov. 8.18 so his graces are durable riches opes densae firm and well compacted such as may be held against all assaults like him from whom they descend yesterday and to day and the same for ever Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unfeigned Love abiding Hope an anchor He that is a true Gospeller doth remain and continue and not wander from that which is good to that which is evil is not this day a Confessor and to morrow an Apostate doth not believe to day and to morrow renounce his Creed doth not love to day and loath to morrow doth not hope to day and droop to morrow but unum hominem agit he is the same man and doth the same things assiduè aequaliter constantly and equally He remaineth not in the Gospel in a calm onely and leaveth it when the winds rise but here he will remain fixed to those principles and acting by them vvhen the Sun shineth and vvhen the storm is loudest By the Gospel he fixeth and strengthneth all his decrees and resolutions and determinations that they are ever the same and about the same now beating down one sin anon another now raising and exalting this vertue anon that If you ask him a question saith Aristides the Sophister of Numbers or Measures he vvill give you the same answer to day vvhich he vvill give you to morrow and the next day and at the last breath that he draweth In the next place if we do not remain in the Law of liberty vve do not obey it as we should For to remain in the Gospel and to be in Christ are words of stability and durance and perpetuity For vvhat being is that vvhich anon is not What stability hath that vvhich changeth every moment What durance and perpetuity hath that vvhich is but a vapour or exhalation drawn up on high to fall and stink To remain in the Gospel and to remain for ever may seem two different things but in respect of the race vve are to run in respect of our salvation they are the very same We vvill not here dispute Whether Perseverance be a vertue distinct from other graces Whether as the Angels according as some Divines teach vvhich stood after the fall of the rest had a confirming grace given them from God which now maketh them utterly uncapable of any rebellious conceit so also the saving graces of God's Spirit bring vvith them into the soul a necessary and certain preservation from final relapse For there be vvho violently maintain it and there be vvho vvith as great zele and more reason deny it To ask Whether we may totally and finally fall from the grace and favour of God is not so pertinent as it is necessary to hearken to the counsel of the Apostle and to take heed lest we fall to take heed lest we be cut off and to beware of those sins vvhich if vve commit vve cannot inherit the kingdom of God For vvhat vvill it avail if vve be to every good work reprobate to comfort our selves that vve are of the number of the elect What vvill it help us if by adultery and murther and pride
useful and advantageous to us and as S. Basil observeth De Gratiar actione T. 1. p. 357. it is not changed or lost in the multitude and throng of those evils which compass us about on every side but changeth and turneth them and maketh them helpers of our joy maketh Loss gain enricheth Poverty ennobleth Disgrace shineth upon Afflictions that we may rejoyce in them crowneth Persecution with blessedness and is that alone which maketh Saints and canonizeth Martyrs It is the delight of Man the delight of Angels the delight and glory of God himself In respect of Religion it is not material whether we be rich or poor naked or clothed at the mill or on the throne Censum non requirit nudo homine contenta est Religion and Piety require nothing but a Man For it were strange we should think this Good was shewed this Religion ordained to put us to charges Indeed he that imbraceth it and keepeth this treasure in his heart can never be poor nor weak nor naked nor dishonourable For in what weakness is not he strong In what solitude hath not he troops to guard him Or when is he poor who possesseth all things When is he alone who hath Piety for his companion and the Angels for his Ministers When is he dishonourable who is clothed with this robe of righteousness He that hath nothing in this world if he hath not this art of enjoying Nothing Perdidit inselix totum nil hath utterly lost the benefit of that Nothing This may seem a Paradox and so doth every thing to the Flesh and to the Sensitive part which doth confine and regulate it which indeed is to honour and spiritualize it but Reason and Religion discover more gross absurdities and soloecismes in the motions and applications of the Sense which wasteth it self in its inclinations and longings and is lost in its paradise in that flattering object to which it was carried with such violence And so we are made poor in the midst of our heaps base and dishonourable in our Zeneth when we are at the highest we are sick and tremble as Belshazzar did at a feast and are quickly weary of those delights we longed for we have least when we have most and have nothing when we have all when with this Good here in the Text when in appearance we have nothing we have more then this world can give and are then richest when we are thrown out of it and are then at the end of our hopes when to the eye of flesh we are lost for ever Again as this Good sweetneth our Misery so it improveth our Wealth maketh that useful to us which might otherwise ruine us maketh that as a chain and ornament about our necks which the Devil useth to make his snare Parisiensis calleth it honestissimum furem the honestest thief in the world which by taking from us maketh us richer In a word it maketh the unrighteous Mammon a friend Luke 16.9 Non enim auri vitium est avaritia Covetousness is not the fault of Gold nor Gluttony of Meats nor Drunkenness of Wine but of men nec dificitur ad mala sed malè saith Augustine We fail not in things evil in their own nature but our great defect is that even against the order of Nature we abuse those things to evil which are naturally good All the riches in the world cannot raise a cloud Mark 12.42 saith Basil but yet we see the widows two mites did purchase heaven All the dainties all the glory which we see cannot bring us back again into Paradise Matth. 10.42 and yet a cup of cold water shall find its reward And this is the end why they are given to wit to be subservient to this Good to be the matter whereon it may shew its art and skill and extract Manna out of meat and the Water of life out of drink and Eternity out of that which passeth away as a shadow and returneth no more For sensible things saith Basil are as types and representations of spiritual and point out to them as the Sacrifices under the Law did to Christ and shall have their consummatum est and be abolisht as they were and therefore we may so far make use of them and it is the best use we can put them to as to make us in love with this true Good which will lead us unto bliss and so think of them as if there no gold at Ophir no pearl but Sanctity no riches but Godliness no purchase but Eternity And this is the Good in the Text 1. fitted and proportioned to the nature of our soul 2. fitted to all sorts and conditions of men 3. lovely and amiable in the eyes of all 4. filling and satisfying all and 5. giving a sweet relish to the worst of evils which we use most to fear and making that which is not good in it self good and profitable and advantageous to us View it well and consider it and you cannot but say it is worth the shewing worth the sight and worth the purchase though we lay down all that we are worth for it And now to proceed that you may fall in love with it and embrace it it is 1. laid open and naked and manifested unto you 2. publisht by open proclamation as a Law which hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a forcing and necessitating power that if the cords of Love will not draw you the bonds and force of a Law may confine you to it 1. God sheweth it He hath shewed thee O man what is good 2. He requireth it he willeth and commandeth it and what doth the Lord require of thee but c. First that which is truly good is open and manifest unto all God exposeth and layeth it open putteth it to sale Isa 55.1 Matth. 13.44 45. Matth. 5.15 Gal 6.16 and biddeth us come and buy It is a treasure and he hath unlockt it it is a pearl and he hath opened the casket It is his light and he hideth it not under a bushel It is a rule by which we are to walk and being it concerneth our conduct in our way it is easie and obvious and open to the weakest understanding Suâ fronte proponitur saith Tertullian It is presented to us without any mask or veil For indeed it is the property of a Rule to be so perspicuous Otherwise it is not a Rule but an Oracle or rather a Snare to catch us For how shall we be able to embrace it if we cannot see it How shall we be able to do our duty if we know not what it is If the trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to battle 1 Cor. 14 8 saith S. Paul If this Good be clouded with darkness and perplexities who shall gird up his loyns to make his approches and addresses to it It is true indeed to draw near to lay hold and joyn with it having no better retinue commonly then Contempt and
Reproch then Misery and Affliction then Persecution and Death being compassed about with these terrours is a matter of difficulty in regard of our Weakness and Frailty which loveth not to look upon Beauty in such a dress and of that domestick war which is within us and that fight and contention which is between the Flesh and the Spirit And in this respect it is a narrow way and we must use a kind of violence upon our selves to work through it to our end But yet it is shewn and manifested and the knowledge of the way is not shut up and barricadoed except to those who are not willing to find it but run a contrary way by some false light which they had rather look upon and follow then that which leadeth them upon the pricks upon labour and sorrow and difficulty Whatsoever concerneth a Man is easie to be seen for it is as open as the Day In other passages and dispensations of himself in other effects of his power and wisdome God is a God afar off but in this which concerneth us he is near at hand Jer. 23.23 he is with us about us and within us In other things which will no whit advantage us to see he maketh darkness his pavilion round about him Psal 18.11 but in this he displayeth his beams His way is in the whirlwind Nah. 1.3 Psal 77.19 and his footsteps are not known Why he lifteth up one on high and layeth another in the dust Why he now shineth upon my tabernacle and anon beateth upon it with his tempest Why he placeth a man of Belial in the throne and setteth the poor innocent man to grind at the mill Why he passeth by a brothel-house and with his thunder beateth down his own temple Why he keepeth not a constant course in his works but to day passeth by us in a still voice and to morrow in an earthquake as it is far removed out of our ken and sight so to know it would not promote or forward us in our motion to happiness We are the wiser that we do not know these things For there is no greater folly in the world then for a mortal finite creature to discover such a mad ambition as to desire to know as much and be as wise as his Creatour This was my infirmity Psal 77.10 saith David I was even sick when I did think of it and he checketh himself for it Behold the world is my stage and here I must move by that light which God hath offered me and not be put out of my part to a full shame by a bold and unseasonable contemplation of his proceedings not run out of my own wayes by gazing too boldly on his My business is to embrace this Good Psal 91.11 12. and that will be my Angel to keep me in all my wayes that I dash not my foot against a stone against perplext and cross events which are those stones we so hardly digest I cannot know why God lifteth up one and pulleth down another but if I cleave to this Psal 75.7 this will lift up my head even when I am down It is not fit I should know why the wicked prosper Jer. 12.1 but by this light I see a Serpent in their Paradise which will deceive and sting them to death Why they prosper I cannot find out but he that seemeth to hide himself cometh so near me as to tell me that their prosperity shall slay them Prov. 1.32 that their greatest happiness is their greatest curse and if there be a hell on earth it is better then their heaven It is not convenient for me to know things to come quem mihi Horat. l. i. od 11. quem tibi Finem Dii dederint what will be my end and what will be theirs to know the number of their dayes how long they shall rage and I suffer These are like the secrets of great Princes and they may undo us and therefore they are lockt up from us in the prescience and bosome of God and he keepeth the key himself and will not shew them But cast thy burden upon him Psal 55.22 do thy duty exercise thy self in that which he hath shewn and then thou mayest lye down and rest upon this that their damnation sleepeth not 2 Pet. 2.3 that their rage shall not hurt thee and that thy patience shall crown thee In a word If it be evil and thou foreseest it it may cast thee down too low and if it be good it may lift thee up too high and thy exaltation may be more dangerous then thy fall Psal 34.14 1 Pet. 3.11 but eschew evil and follow that which is good and this will be a certain prophesie and presage of a good end be it what it will whether it come to meet thee in the midst of rayes or of a tempest These things God will not shew thee because thy eye is too weak to receive them Nor in the next place will he answer thy Curiosity and determin every question which thou art too ready to put up nor redeem thee from those doubts and perplexities which not Knowledge but Ignorance hath led thee into and so left thee in that maze and labyrinth out of which thou canst not get For it favoureth more of Ignorance then of Knowledge to venture in our search without light to conclude without premisses and to affect the knowledge of that which we must needs know was yet never discovered and therefore can never be known That Good which is good for us God bringeth out of the treasurie of his Wisedome Psal 34.8 and layeth it before us and biddeth us come and see how gracious he is But that which is curiosae disquisitionis as Tertullian speaketh of a more subtle nature he keepeth from our eyes For Religion may stand fast as mount Sion though it have not those deeper speculations to support it which many times supplant and undermine it and rob it of that precious time and those earnest endeavours which were due and consecrated to it alone What a fruitless dispute might that seem to be between S. Hierome and S. Augustine concerning the Original of the Soul when after long debate and some heat and frequent intercourse of letters S. Augustine himself confesseth in his Retractations De origine animae nec tunc sciebam nec adhuc scio Concerning the Soul's original I knew nothing then and know as little now What a needless controversie arose between the Eastern and the Western Bishops concerning the time of the keeping of the Feast of Easter when whensoever they kept it they gave some occasion to standers by of fear that they kept it both with the leaven of malice and uncharitableness And what a weakness is it to put that to the question which before inquiry made we may easily know we shall never find Many such questions have been in agitation many such inquiries made and some others of another