of David died for his father David as well as he did for us he was the Lambe slain from the beginning of the world and yet that death and that relation and all the heap of the Divine favours which crown'd David with a circle richer then the royall diadem could not exempt him from the portion of sinners when he descended into their pollutions I pray God we may find the sure mercies of David and may have our portion in the redemption wrought by the Son of David but we are to expect it upon such terms as are revealed such which include time and labour and uncertainty and watchfulnesse and fear and holy living But it is a sad observation that the case of pardon of sins is so administred that they that are most sure of it have the greatest fears concerning it and they to whom it doth not belong at all are as confident as children and fooles who believe every thing they have a mind to not because they have reason so to doe but because without it they are presently miserable The godly and holy persons of the Church work out their salvation with fear and trembling and the wicked goe to destruction with gayety and confidence these men think all is well while they are in the gall of bitternesse and good men are tossed in a tempest crying and praying for a safe conduct and the sighs of their feares and the wind of their prayers waft them safely to their port Pardon of sins is not easily obtain'd because they who onely certainly can receive it find difficulty and danger and fears in the obtaining it and therefore their case is pityable and deplorable who when they have least reason to expect pardon yet are most confident and carelesse But because there are sorrows on one side and dangers on the other and temptations on both sides it will concern all sorts of men to know when their sins are pardoned For then when they can perceive their signes certain and evident they may rest in their expectations of the Divine mercies when they cannot see the signes they may leave their confidence and change it into repentance and watchfulnesse and stricter observation and in order to this I shall tell you that which shall never faile you a certaine signe that you may know whether or no and when and in what degree your persons are pardoned 1. I shall not consider the evils of sin by any Metaphysicall and abstracted effects but by sensible reall and materiall Hee that revenges himself of another does something that will make his enemy grieve something that shall displease the offender as much as sin did the offended and therefore all the evills of sin are such as relate to us and are to bee estimated by our apprehensions Sin makes God angry and Gods anger if it be turned aside will make us miserable and accursed and therefore in proportion to this we are to reckon the proportions of Gods mercy in forgivenesse or his anger in retaining 2. Sin hath obliged us to suffer many evills even whatsoever the anger of God is pleased to inflict sicknesse and dishonour poverty and shame a caytive spirit and a guilty conscience famine and war plague and pestilence sudden death and a short life temporall death or death eternall according as God in the severall covenants of the Law and Gospel hath expressed 3. For in the law of Moses sin bound them to nothing but temporall evills but they were sore and heavy and many but these only there were threatned in the Gospel Christ added the menaces of evills spirituall and eternall 4. The great evill of the Jews was their abscission and cutting off from being Gods people to which eternall damnation answers amongst us and as sicknesse and war and other intermediall evills were lesser strokes in order to the finall anger of God against their Nation so are these and spirituall evills intermediall in order to the Eternall destruction of sinning and unrepenting Christians 5. When God had visited any of the sinners of Israel with a grievous sicknesse then they lay under the evill of their sin and were not pardoned till God took away the sicknesse but the taking the evill away the evill of the punishment was the pardon of the sin to pardon the sin is to spare the sinner and this appears For when Christ had said to the man sick of the palsey Son thy sins are forgiven thee the Pharisees accused him of blasphemy because none had power to forgive sins but God onely Christ to vindicate himselfe gives them an ocular demonstration and proves his words that yee may know the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins he saith to the man sick of the palsey Arise and walk then he pardoned the sin when he took away the sicknesse and proved the power by reducing it to act for if pardon of sins be any thing else it must be easier or harder if it be easier then sin hath not so much evill in it as a sicknesse which no Religion as yet ever taught If it be harder then Christs power to doe that which was harder could not be proved by doing that which was easier It remaines therefore that it is the same thing to take the punishment away as to procure or give the pardon because as the retaining the sin was an obligation to the evill of punishment so the remitting the sin is the disobliging to its penalty So farre then the case is manifest 6. The next step is this that although in the Gospel God punishes sinners with temporall judgements and sicknesses and deaths with sad accidents and evill Angels and messengers of wrath yet besides these lesser strokes he hath scorpions to chastise and loads of worse evils to oppresse the disobedient he punishes one sin with another vile acts with evill habits these with a hard heart and this with obstinacy and obstinacy with impenitence and impenitence with damnation Now because the worst of evills which are threatned to us are such which consign to hell by persevering in sin as God takes off our love and our affections our relations and bondage under sin just in the same degree he pardons us because the punishment of sin being taken off and pardoned there can remaine no guilt Guiltinesse is an unsignificant word if there be no obligation to punishment Since therefore spirituall evils and progressions in sin and the spirit of reprobation and impenitence and accursed habits and perseverance in iniquity are the worst of evils when these are taken off the sin hath lost its venome and appendant curse for sin passes on to eternall death onely by the line of impenitence and it can never carry us to hell if we repent timely and effectually in the same degree therefore that any man leaves his sin just in the same degree he is pardoned and he is sure of it For although curing the temporall evill was the pardon of sins
among the Jews yet wee must reckon our pardon by curing the spirituall If I have sinned against God in the shamefull crime of Lust then God hath pardoned my sins when upon my repentance and prayers he hath given me the grace of Chastity My Drunkennesse is forgiven when I have acquir'd the grace of Temperance and a sober spirit My Covetousnesse shall no more be a damning sin when I have a loving and charitable spirit loving to do good and despising the world for every further degree of sin being a neerer step to hell and by consequence the worst punishment of sin it follows inevitably that according as we are put into a contrary state so are our degrees of pardon and the worst punishment is already taken off And therefore we shall find that the great blessing and pardon and redemption which Christ wrought for us is called sanctification holinesse and turning us away from our sins So St. Peter Yee know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation that 's your redemption that 's your deliverance you were taken from your sinfull state that was the state of death this of life and pardon and therefore they are made Synonyma by the same Apostle According as his divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godlinesse to live and to be godly is all one to remain in sin and abide in death is all one to redeem us from sin is to snatch us from hell he that gives us godlinesse gives us life and that supposes pardon or the abolition of the rites of eternall death and this was the conclusion of St. Peter's Sermon and the summe totall of our redemption and of our pardon God having raised up his Son sent him to blesse us in turning away every one of you from your iniquity this is the end of Christs passion and bitter death the purpose of all his and all our preaching the effect of baptisme purging washing sanctifying the work of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the same body that was broken and the same blood that was shed for our redemption is to conform us into his image and likenesse of living and dying of doing and suffering The case is plain just as we leave our sins so Gods wrath shall be taken from us as we get the graces contrary to our former vices so infallibly we are consign'd to pardon If therefore you are in contestation against sin while you dwell in difficulty and sometimes yeeld to sin and sometimes overcome it your pardon is uncertain and is not discernible in its progresse but when sin is mortified and your lusts are dead and under the power of grace and you are led by the Spirit all your fears concerning your state of pardon are causelesse and afflictive without reason but so long as you live at the old rate of lust or intemperance of covetousnesse or vanity of tyranny or oppression of carelesnesse or irreligion flatter not your selves you have no more reason to hope for pardon then a begger for a Crown or a condemned criminall to be made Heir apparent to that Prince whom he would traiterously have slain 4. They have great reason to fear concerning their condition who having been in the state of grace who having begun to lead a good life and give their names to God by solemne deliberate acts of will and understanding and made some progresse in the way of Godlinesse if they shall retire to folly and unravell all their holy vows and commit those evils from which they formerly run as from a fire or inundation their case hath in it so many evills that they have great reason to fear the anger of God and concerning the finall issue of their souls For return to folly hath in it many evils beyond the common state of sin and death and such evils which are most contrary to the hopes of pardon 1. He that falls back into those sins he hath repented of does grieve the holy Spirit of God by which he was sealed to the day of redemption For so the Antithesis is plain and obvious If at the conversion of a sinner there is joy before the beatified Spirits the Angels of God and that is the consummation of our pardon and our consignation to felicity then we may imagine how great an evill it is to grieve the Spirit of God who is greater then the Angels The Children of Israel were carefully warned that they should not offend the Angel Behold I send an Angel before thee beware of him and obey his voyce provoke him not for he will not pardon your transgressions that is he will not spare to punish you if you grieve him Much greater is the evill if we grieve him who sits upon the throne of God who is the Prince of all the Spirits and besides grieving the Spirit of God is an affection that is as contrary to his felicity as lust is to his holinesse both which are essentiall to him Tristitia enim omnium spirituum nequissima est pessima servis Dei omnium spiritus exterminat cruciat Spiritum sanctum said Hennas Sadnesse is the greatest enemy to Gods servants if you grieve Gods Spirit you cast him out for he cannot dwell with sorrow and grieving unlesse it be such a sorrow which by the way of vertue passes on to joy and never ceasing felicity Now by grieving the holy Spirit is meant those things which displease him doing unkindnesse to him and then the grief which cannot in proper sense seise upon him will in certain effects return upon us Ita enim dica said Seneca sacer intra nos Spiritus sedet bonorum malorúmque nostrorum observator custos hic prout à nobis tractatus est ita nos ipse tractat There is a holy spirit dwels in every good man who is the observer and guardian of all our actions and as we treat him so will he treat us Now we ought to treat him sweetly and tenderly thankfully and with observation Deus praecepit Spiritum sanctum utpote pro naturae suae bono tenerum delicatum tranquillitate lenitate quiete pace tractare said Tertullian de Spectaculis The Spirit of God is a loving and a kind Spirit gentle and easy chast and pure righteous and peaceable and when he hath done so much for us as to wash us from our impurities and to cleanse us from our stains and streighten our obliquities and to instruct our ignorances and to snatch us from an intolerable death and to consign us to the day of redemption that is to the resurrection of our bodies from death corruption and the dishonors of the grave and to appease all the storms and uneasynesse and to make us free as the Sons of God and furnished with the riches of the Kingdome and all this with innumerable arts with difficulty and in despite of our lusts
its abode For some sins are so agreeable to the spirit of a fool and an abused person because he hath fram'd his affections to them and they comply with his unworthy interest that when God out of an angry kindnesse smites the man and punishes the sin the man does fearfully defend his beloved sin as the serpent does his head which he would most tenderly preserve But therefore God that knowes all our tricks and devices our stratagems to be undone hath therefore apportioned out his punishments by analogies by proportions and entaile so that when every sin enters into its proper portion we may discern why God is angry and labour to appease him speedily 2. The second appendage to this consideration is this that there are some states of sin which expose a man to all mischief as it can happen by taking off from him all his guards and defences by driving the good Spirit from him by stripping him of the guards of Angels But this is the effect of an habituall sin a course of an evill life and it is called in Scripture a grieving the good Spirit of God But the guard of Angels is in Scripture only promised to them that live godly The Angels of the Lord pitch their tents round about them that fear him and delivereth them said David 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Hellenists use to call the Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 watchmen which custody is at first designed and appointed for all when by baptisme they give up their names to Christ and enter into the covenant of Religion And of this the Heathen have been taught something by conversation with the Hebrewes and Christians unicuique nostrum dare paedagogum Deum said Seneca to Lucilius non primarium sed ex eorum numero quos Ovidius vocat ex plebe deos There is a guardian God assigned to every one of us of the number of those which are of the second order such are those of whom David speaks before the Gods will I sing praise unto thee and it was the doctrine of the Stoicks that to every one there was assigned a Genius and a Juno Quamobrem major coelitum populus etiam quam hominum intelligi potest quum singuli ex semetipsis totidem Deos faciant Junones geniosque adoptando sibi said Pliny Every one does adopt Gods into his family and get a Gunius and a Juno of their own Junonem meam iratam habeam it was the oath of Quartilla in Petronius and Socrates in Plato is said to swear by his Juno though afterwards among the Romans it became the womans oath and a note of effeminacy But the thing they aim'd at was this that God took a care of us below and sent a ministring spirit for our defence but that this is only upon the accounts of piety they know not But we are taught it by the Spirit of God in Scripture For the Angels are ministring spirits sent forth to minister to the good of them who shal be heirs of salvation and concerning St. Peter the faithfull had an opinion that it might be his Angell agreeing to the Doctrine of our blessed Lord who spake of Angels appropriate to his little ones to infants to those that belong to him Now what God said to the sons of Israel is also true to us Christians Behold I send an Angell before thee beware of him and obey his voice provoke him not for he will not pardon your trangressions So that if we provoke the Spirit of the Lord to anger by a course of evill living either the Angell will depart from us or if he staies he will strike us The best of these is bad enough and he is highly miserable Qui non sit tanto hoc custode securus whom an Angell cannot defend from mischief nor any thing secure him from the wrath of God It was the description and character which the Erythrean Sibyl gave of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is Gods appellative to be a giver of excellent rewards to just and innocent persons but to assign to evill men fury wrath and sorrow for their portion If I should lanch further into this Dead sea I should finde nothing but horrid shriekings and the skuls of dead men utterly undone Fearfull it is to consider that sin does not only drive us into calamity but it makes us also impatient and imbitters our spirit in the sufferance * It cryes loud for vengeance and so torments men before the time even with such fearfull outcries and horrid alarms that their hell begins before the fire is kindled * It hinders our prayers and consequently makes us hopelesse and helplesse * It perpetually affrights the conscience unlesse by its frequent stripes it brings a callousnesse and an insensible damnation upon it * It makes us to lose all that which Christ purchased for us all the blessings of his providence the comforts of his spirit the aids of his grace the light of his countenance the hopes of his glory it makes us enemies to God and to be hated by him more then he hates a dog and with a dog shall be his portion to eternall ages with this only difference that they shall both be equally excluded from heaven but the dog shall not and the sinner shall descend into hell and which is the confirmation of all evill for a transient sin God shall inflict an eternall Death Well might it be said in the words of God by the Prophet ponam Babylonem in possessionem Erinacei Babylon shall be the possession of an Hedgehog that 's a sinners dwelling incompassed round with thornes and sharp prickles afflictions and uneasinesse all over So that he that wishes his sin big and prosperous wishes his Bee as big as a Bull and his Hedgehog like an Elephant the pleasure of the honey would not cure the mighty sting and nothing make recompense or be a good equall to the evill of an eternall ruine But of this there is no end I summe up all with the saying of Publius Mimus Tolerabilior est qui mori jubet quà m qui malè vivere He is more to be endured that puts a man to death then he that betrayes him into sin For the end of this is death eternall Sermon XXII THE GOOD and EVILL TONGUE Ephes. 4. 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers HE that had an ill memory did wisely comfort himselfe by reckoning the advantages he had by his forgetfulnesse For by this means he was hugely secured against malice and ambition for his anger went off with the short notice and observation of the injury and he saw himself unfit for the businesses of other men or to make records in his head undertake to conduct the intrigues of affairs of a multitude who was apt to
a man should depart this world in one of those godly fits as he thinks them he is no neerer to obtain his blessed hope then a man in the stone collick is to health when his pain is eased for the present his disease still remaining and threatning an unwelcome return That resolution onely is the beginning of a holy repentance which goes forth into act and whose acts enlarge into habits and whose habits are productive of the fruits of a holy life From hence we are to take our estimate whence our resolutions of piety must commence He that resolves not to live well till the time comes that he must die is ridiculous in his great designe as he is impertinent in his intermedial purposes and vain in his hope Can a dying man to any real effect resolve to be chast for vertue must be an act of election and chastity is the contesting against a proud and an imperious lust active flesh and insinuating temptation And what doth he resolve against who can no more be tempted to the sin of unchastity then he can returne back again to his youth and vigour And it is considerable that since all the purposes of a holy life which a dying man can make cannot be reduced to act by what law or reason or covenant or revelation are we taught to distinguish the resolution of a dying man from the purposes of a living and vigorous person Suppose a man in his youth and health mooved by consideration of the irregularity and deformity of sin the danger of its productions the wrath and displeasure of Almightie God should resolve to leave the puddles of impurity and walk in the paths of righteousnesse can this resolution alone put him into the state of grace is he admitted to pardon and the favour of God before he hath in some measure performed actually what he so reasonably hath resolved By no means For resolution and purpose is in its own nature and constitution an imperfect act and therefore can signifie nothing without its performance and consummation It is as a faculty is to the act as spring is to the harvest as seed time is to the Autumne as Egges are to birds or as a relative to its correspondent nothing without it And can it be imagined that a resolution in our health and life shall be ineffectual without performance and shall a resolution barely such do any Good upon our deathbed Can such purposes prevail against a long impiety rather then against a young and a newly begun state of sin Will God at an easier rate pardon the sins of fifty or sixty yeers then the sins of our youth onely or the iniquity of five yeers or ten If a holy life be not necessary to be liv'd why shall it be necessary to resolve to live it But if a holy life be necessary then it cannot be sufficient meerly to resolve it unlesse this resolution go forth in an actuall and reall service Vain therefore is the hope of those persons who either go on in their sins before their last sicknesse never thinking to return into the wayes of God from whence they have wandred all their life never renewing their resolutions and vows of holy living or if they have yet their purposes are for ever blasted with the next violent temptation More prudent was the prayer of David Oh spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen And something like it was the saying of the Emperour Charles the fifth Inter vitae negotia mortis diem oportet spacium intercedere When ever our holy purposes are renewed unlesse God gives us time to act them to mortifie and subdue our lusts to conquer and subdue the whole kingdom of sin to rise from our grave and be clothed with nerves and flesh and a new skin to overcome our deadly sicknesses and by little and little to return to health and strength unlesse we have grace and time to do all this our sins will lie down with us in our graves * For when a man hath contracted a long habit of sin and it hath been growing upon him ten or twenty fourty or fifty yeers whose acts he hath daily or hourly repeated and they are grown to a second nature to aim and have so prevailed upon the ruines of his spirit that the man is taken captive by the Devil at his will he is fast bound as a slave tugging at the oar that he is grown in love with his fetters and longs to be doing the work of sin is it likely that all this progresse and groweth in sin in the wayes of which he runs fast without any impediment is it I say likely that a few dayes or weeks of sicknesse can recover him the especiall hindrances of that state I shall afterwards consider but Can a man be supposed so prompt to piety and holy living a man I mean that hath lived wickedly a long time together can he be of so ready and active a vertue upon the sudden as to recover in a moneth or a week what he hath been undoing in 20 or 30 yeers Is it so easie to build that a weak and infirm person bound hand and foot shall be able to build more in three dayes then was a building above fourty yeers Christ did it in a figurative sence but in this it is not in the power of any man so suddenly to be recovered from so long a sicknesse Necessary therefore it is that all these instruments of our conversion Confession of sins praying for their pardon and resolutions to lead a new life should begin before our feet slum le upon the dark mountains lest we leave the work onely resolved upon to be begun which it is necessary we should in many degrees finish if ever we mean to escape the eternall darknesse For that we should actually abolish the whole body of sin and death that we should crucifie the old man with his lusts that we should lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us that we should cast away the works of darknesse that we should awake from sleep and arise from death that we should redeem the time that we should cleanse our hands and purifie our hearts that we should have escaped the corruption all the corruption that is in the whole world through lust that nothing of the old leaven should remain in us but that we be wholly a new lump throughly transformed and changed in the image of our minde these are the perpetuall precepts of the Spirit and the certain duty of man and that to have all these in purpose onely is meerly to no purpose without the actuall eradication of every vitious habit and the certain abolition of every criminall adherence is clearly and dogmatically decreed every where in the Scripture For they are the words of Saint Paul they that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts the work
and pride and covetousnesse and unthankefulnesse and disobedience Most men that are tempted with lust could easily enough entertain the sobrieties of other counsels as of temperance and justice or religion if it would indulge to them but that one passion of lust persons that are greedy of mony are not fond of amorous vanities nor care they to sit long at the wine and one vice destroyes another and when one vice is consequent to another it is by way of punishment and dereliction of the man unlesse where vices have cognation and seem but like several degrees of one another and it is evil custome and superinduced habits that make artificiall appetites in most men to most sins But many times their naturall temper vexes them into uneasie dispositions and aptnesses onely to some one unhandsome sort of action that one thing therefore is it in which God demands of thee mortification and self deniall Certain it is There are very many men in the world that would fain commute their severity in al other instances for a licence in their one appetite they would not refuse long prayers after a drunken meeting or great almes to gether with one great lust but then consider how easie it is for them to go to heaven God demands of them for his sake their own to crucifie but one natural lust or one evil habit for all the rest they are easie enough to do themselves God will give them heaven where the joy is more then one and I said it is but one mortification God requires of most men for if those persons would extirp but that one thing in which they are principally tempted it is not easily imaginable that any lesse evill to which the temptation is trifling should interpose between them and their great interest If Saul had not spared Agag the people could not have expected mercy and our little and inferiour appetites that rather come to us by intimation and consequent adherences then by direct violence must not dwell with him who hath crossed the violence of his distempered nature in a beloved instance since therefore this is the state of most men and God in effect demands of them but one thing and in exchange for that will give them all good things it gives demonstration of his huge easinesse to redeem us from that intolerable evil that is equally consequent to the indulging to one or to twenty sinful habits 2. Gods readinesse to pardon appears in this that he pardons before we ask for he that bids us ask for pardon hath in designe and purpose done the thing already for what is wanting on his part in whose onely power it is to give pardon and in whose desire it is that we should be pardoned and who commands us to lay hold upon the offer he hath done all that belongs to God that is all that concerns the pardon there it lies ready it is recorded in the book of life it wants nothing but being exemplified and taken forth and the Holy spirit stands ready to consigne and passe the privy signet that we may exhibit it to devils and evil men when they tempt us to despair or sin 3. Nay God is so ready in his mercy that he did pardon us even before he redeemed us for what is the secret of the mysterie that the eternal Son of God should take upon him our nature and die our death and suffer for our sins and do our work and enable us to do our own he that did this is God he who thought it no robbery to be equal with God he came to satisfie himself to pay to himself the price for his own creature and when he did this for us that he might pardon us was he at that instant angry with us was this an effect of his anger or of his love that God sent his Son to work our pardon and salvation Indeed we were angry with God at enmity with the the Prince of life but he was reconciled to us so far as that he then did the greatest thing in the world for us for nothing could be greater then that God the Son of God should die for us here was reconciliation before pardon and God that came to die for us did love us first before he came this was hasty love But it went further yet 4. God pardoned us before we sinned and when he foresaw our sin even mine and yours he sent his son to die for us our pardon was wrought and effected by Christs death above 1600. years ago and for the sins of to morrow and the infirmities of the next day Christ is already dead already risen from the dead and does now make intercession and atonement And this is not onely a favour to us who were born in the due time of the Gospel but to all mankinde since Adam For God who is infinitely patient in his justice was not at all patient in his mercy he forbears to strike and punish us but he would not forbear to provide cure for us and remedy for as if God could not stay from redeeming us he promised the Redeemer to Adam in the beginning of the worlds sin Christ was the lamb slain from the begining of the world and the covenant of the Gospel though it was not made with man yet it was from the beginning performed by God as to his part as to the ministration of pardon The seed of the woman was set up against the dragon as soon as ever the Tempter had won his first battle and though God laid his hand and drew a vail of types and secresy before the manifestation of his mercies yet he did the work of redemption and saved us by the covenant of faith and the righteousnesse of believing and the mercies of repentance the graces of pardon and the blood of the slain lamb even from the fall of Adam to this very day and will do till Christs second coming Adam fell by his folly and did not perform the covenant of one little work a work of a single abstinence but he was restored by faith in the seed of the woman and of this righteousnesse Noah was a preacher and by faith Enoch was traslated and by faith a remnant was saved at the flood and to Abraham this was imputed for righteousnesse and to all the Patriarks and to al the righteous judges and holy Prophets and Saints of the old Testament even while they were obliged so far as the words of their covenant were expressed to the law of works their pardon was sealed kept with in the vail within the curtains of the sanctuary and they saw it not then but they feel it ever since and this was a great excellency of the Divine mercy unto them God had mercy on all mankinde before Christs manifestation even beyond the mercies of their covenant they were saved as we are by the seed of the woman by God incarnate by the lamb slain from the beginning of
Spirits and then they reach the taper to another and as the hours of yesterday can never return again so neither can the man whose hours they were and who lived them over once he shall never come to live them again and live them better When Lazarus and the widows son of Naim and Tabitha and the Saints that appeared in Jerusalem at the resurrection of our blessed Lord arose they came into this world some as strangers onely to make a visit and all of them to manifest a glory but none came upon the stock of a new life or entred upon the stage as at first or to perform the course of a new nature and therefore it is observable that we never read of any wicked person that was raised from the dead Dives would fain have returned to his brothers house but neither he nor any from him could be sent but all the rest in the New Testament one onely excepted were expressed to have been holy persons or else by their age were declared innocent Lazarus was beloved of Christ those souls that appeared at the resurrection were the souls of Saints Tabitha raised by Saint Peter was a charitable and a holy Christian and the maiden of twelve years old raised by our blessed Saviour had not entred into the regions of choice and sinfulnesse and the onely exception of the widows son is indeed none at all for in it the Scripture is wholly silent and therefore it is very probable that the same processe was used God in all other instances having chosen to exemplifie his miracles of nature to purposes of the Spirit and in spirituall capacities So that although the Lord of nature did break the bands of nature in some instances to manifest his glory to succeeding great and never failing purposes yet besides that this shall be no more it was also instanced in such persons who were holy and innocent and within the verge and comprehensions of the eternall mercy We never read that a wicked person felt such a miracle or was raised from the grave to try the second time for a Crown but where he fell there he lay down dead and saw the light no more This consideration I intend to you as a severe Monitor and an advice of carefulnesse that you order your affairs so that you may be partakers of the first resurrection that is from sin to grace from the death of vitious habits to the vigour life and efficacy of an habituall righteousnesse For as it hapned to those persons in the New Testament now mentioned to them I say in the literall sense Blessed are they that have part in the first resurrection upon them the second death shall have no power meaning that they who by the power of Christ and his holy Spirit were raised to life again were holy and blessed souls and such who were written in the book of God and that this grace happened to no wicked and vitious person so it is most true in the spirituall and intended sense You onely that serve God in a holy life you who are not dead in trespasses and sins you who serve God with an early diligence and an unwearied industry and a holy religion you and you onely shall come to life eternall you onely shall be called from death to life the rest of mankind shall never live again but passe from death to death from one death to another to a worse from the death of the body to the eternall death of body and soul and therefore in the Apostles Creed there is no mention made of the resurrection of wicked persons but of the resurrection of the body to everlasting life The wicked indeed shall be haled forth from their graves from their everlasting prisons where in chains of darknesse they are kept unto the judgement of the great day But this therefore cannot be called in sensu favoris a resurrection but the solennities of the eternall death It is nothing but a new capacity of dying again such a dying as cannot signifie rest but where death means nothing but an intolerable and never ceasing calamity and therefore these words of my Text are otherwise to be understood of the wicked otherwise of the godly The wicked are spilt like water and shall never be gathered up again no not in the gatherings of eternity They shall be put into vessels of wrath and set upon the flames of hell but that is not a gathering but a scattering from the face and presence of God But the godly also come under the sense of these words They descend into their graves and shall no more be reckoned among the living they have no concernment in all that is done under the Sun Agamemnon hath no more to do with the Turks armies invading and possessing that part of Greece where he reigned then had the Hippocentaur who never had a beeing and Cicero hath no more interest in the present evils of Christendome then we have to do with his boasted discovery of Catilines conspiracie What is it to me that Rome was taken by the Gauls and what is it now to Camillus if different religions be tolerated amongst us These things that now happen concern the living and they are made the scenes of our duty or danger respectively and when our wives are dead and sleep in charnel houses they are not troubled when we laugh loudly at the songs sung at the next marriage feast nor do they envy when another snatches away the gleanings of their husbands passion It is true they envy not and they lie in a bosome where there can be no murmure and they that are consigned to Kingdoms and to the feast of the marriage-supper of the Lamb the glorious and eternall Bride-groom of holy souls they cannot think our marriages here our lighter laughings and vain rejoycings considerable as to them And yet there is a relation continued still Aristotle said that to affirm the dead take no thought for the good of the living is a disparagement to the laws of that friendship which in their state of separation they cannot be tempted to rescind And the Church hath taught in generall that they pray for us they recommend to God the state of all their Relatives in the union of the intercession that our blessed Lord makes for them and us and Saint Ambrose gave some things in charge to his dying brother Satyrus that he should do for him in the other world he gave it him I say when he was dying not when he was dead And certain it is that though our dead friends affection to us is not to be estimated according to our low conceptions yet it is not lesse but much more then ever it was it is greater in degree and of another kind But then we should do well also to remember that in this world we are something besides flesh and blood that we may not without violent necessities run into new relations but preserve the affections we bear to our dead when
diuturni sed sempiterni Epiphanius charges not the opinion upon Origen and yet he was free enough in his animadversion and reproof of him but S. Austin did and confuted the opinion in his books De civitate Dei However Origen was not the first that said the pains of the damned should cease Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Tryphon expresses it thus Neither do I say that all the souls do dye for that indeed would be to the wicked a gain unlooked for What then the souls of the godly in a better place of the wicked in a worse do tarry the time of Judgement then they that are worthy shall never dye again but those that are designed to punishment shall abide so long as God please to have them to live and to be punished But I observe that the primitive Doctors were very willing to believe that the mercy of God would finde out a period to the torment of accursed souls but such a period which should be nothing but eternall destruction called by the Scripture the second death only Origen as I observed is charg'd by S. Austin to have said they shall return into joyes and back again to hell by an eternall revolution But concerning the death of wicked souls and its being broke into pieces with fearfull torments and consumed with the wrath of God they had entertain'd some different fancies very early in the Church as their sentences are collected by S. Hierome at the end of his Commentaries upon Isay and Ireneus disputes it largely that they that are unthankfull to God in this short life and obey him not shall never have an eternall duration of life in the ages to come sed ipse se privat in saeculum saeculi perseverantiâ he deprives his soul of living to eternall ages for he supposes an immortall duration not to be naturall to the soul but a gift of God which he can take away and did take away from Adam and restored it again in Christ to them that beleeve in him and obey him for the other they shall be raised again to suffer shame and fearfull torments and according to the degree of their sins so shall be continued in their sorrowes and some shall dye and some shall not dye the Devill and the Beast and and they that worshipped the Beast and they that were marked with his Character these S. John saith shall be tormented for ever and ever he does not say so of all but of some certain great criminals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all so long as God please some for ever and ever and some not so severely And whereas the generall sentence is given to all wicked persons to all on the left hand to go into everlasting fire it is answered that the fire indeed is everlasting but not all that enters into it is everlasting but only the Devils for whom it was prepared and others more mighty criminals according as S. John intimates though also everlasting signifies only to the end of its proper period Concerning this Doctrine of theirs so severe and yet so moderated there is lesse to be objected then against the supposed fancy of Origen for it is a strange consideration to suppose an eternall torment to those to whom it was never threatned to those who never heard of Christ to those that liv'd probably well to heathens of good lives to ignorants and untaught people to people surprised in a single crime to men that dye young in their naturall follies and foolish lusts to them that fall in a sudden gaiety and excessive joy to all alike to all infinite and eternall even to unwarned people and that this should be inflicted by God who infinitely loves his creature who dyed for them who pardons easily and pities readily and excuses much and delights in our being saved and would not have us dye and takes little things in exchange for great it is certain that Gods mercies are infinite and it is also certain that the matter of eternall torments cannot truly be understood and when the School-men go about to reconcile the Divine justice to that severity and consider why God punishes eternally a temporall sin or a state of evill they speak variously and uncertainly and unsatisfyingly But that in this question we may separate the certain from the uncertain 1. It is certain that the torments of hell shall certainly last as long as the soul lasts for eternall and everlasting can signifie no lesse but to the end of that duration to the perfect end of the period in which it signifies So Sodom and Gomorrah when God rained down hell from heaven upon the earth as Salvian's expression is they are said to suffer the vengeance of eternall fire that is of a fire that consumed them finally and they never were restored and so the accursed souls shall suffer torments till they be consumed who because they are immortall either naturally or by gift shall be tormented for ever or till God shall take from them the life that he restored to them on purpose to give them a capacity of being miserable and the best that they can expect is to despair of all good to suffer the wrath of God never to come to any minute of felicity or of a tolerable state and to be held in pain till God be weary of striking This is the gentlest sentence of some of the old Doctors But 2. the generality of Christians have been taught to beleeve worse things yet concerning them and the words of our blessed Lord are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eternall affliction or smiting Nec mortis poenas mors altera finiet hujus Horaque erit tantis ultima nulla malis And S. John who well knew the minde of his Lord saith The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever and they have no rest day nor night that is their torment is continuall and it is eternall Their second death shall be but a dying to all felicity for so death is taken in Scripture Adam dyed when he eat the forbidden fruit that is he was lyable to sicknesse and sorrowes and pain and dissolution of soul and body and to be miserable is the worse death of the two they shall see the eternall felicity of the Saints but they shall never taste of the holy Chalice Those joyes shall indeed be for ever and ever for immortality is part of their reward and on them the second death shall have no power but the wicked shall be tormented horridly and insufferably till death and hell be thrown into the lake of fire and shall be no more which is the second death But that they may not imagine that this second death shall be the end of their pains S. Iohn speaks expresly what that is Rev. 21. 8. The fearfull and unbeleeving the abominable and the murderers the whoremongers and sorcerers the idolaters and all lyars shall have their part in the lake wich burneth with fire and brimstone
up his soul is one that hath no charity no love to God no trust in promises no just estimation of the rewards of a noble contention Perfect love casts out fear faith the Apostle that is he that loves God will not fear to dye for him or for his sake to be poor In this sense no man can fear man and love God at the same time and when St. Laurence triumph'd over Valerianus St. Sebastian over Diocletian St. Vincentius over Dacianus and the armies of Martyrs over the Proconsuls accusers and executioners they shew'd their love to God by triumphing over fear and leading captivity captive by the strength of their Captain whose garments were red from Bozrah 3. But this fear is also tremulous and criminall if it be a trouble from the apprehension of the mountains and difficulties of duty and is called pusillanimity For some see themselves encompassed with temptations they observe their frequent fals their perpetuall returns from good purposes to weak performances the daily mortifications that are necessary the resisting naturall appetites and the laying violent hands upon the desires of flesh and bloud the uneasinesse of their spirits and their hard labours and therefore this makes them afraid and because they despair to run through the whole duty in all its parts and periods they think as good not begin at all as after labour and expence to lose the Jewell and the charges of their venture St. Austin compares such men to children and phantastick persons afrighted with phantasmes and specters Terribiles visu formae the sight seems full of horror but touch them and they are very nothing the meer daughters of a sick brain and a weak heart an infant experience and a trifling judgement so are the illusions of a weak piety or an unskilfull unconfident soul they fancy to see mountains of difficulty but touch them and they seem like clouds riding upon the wings of the winde and put on shapes as we please to dream He that denies to give almes for fear of being poor or to entertain a Disciple for fear of being suspected of the party or to own a duty for fear of being put to venture for a crown he that takes part of the intemperance because he dares not displease the company or in any sense fears the fears of the world and not the fear of God this man enters into his portion of fear betimes but it will not be finished to eternall ages To fear the censures of men when God is your Judge to fear their evill when God is your defence to fear death when he is the entrance to life and felicity is unreasonable and pernicious but if you will turn your passion into duty and joy and security fear to offend God to enter voluntarily into temptation fear the alluring face of lust and the smooth entertainments of intemperance fear the anger of God when you have deserved it and when you have recover'd from the snare then infinitely fear to return into that condition in which whosoever dwels is the heir of fear and eternall sorrow Thus farre I have discoursed concerning good fear and bad that is filiall and servile they are both good if by servile we intend initiall or the new beginning fear of penitents a fear to offend God upon lesse perfect considerations But servile fear is vitious when it still retains the affection of slaves and when its effects are hatred wearinesse displeasure and want of charity and of the same cogrations are those fears which are superstitious and worldly But to the former sort of vertuous fear some also adde another which they call Angelicall that is such a fear as the blessed Angels have who before God hide their faces and tremble at his presence and fall down before his footstool and are ministers of his anger and messengers of his mercy and night and day worship him with the profoundest adoration This is the same that is spoken of in the Text Let us serve God with reverence and godly fear all holy fear partakes of the nature of this which Divines call Angelicall and it is expressed in acts of adoration of vowes and holy prayers in hymnes and psalmes in the eucharist and reverentiall addresses and while it proceeds in the usuall measures of common duty it is but humane but as it arises to great degrees and to perfection it is Angelicall and Divine and then it appertains to mystick Theologie and therefore is to be considered in another place but for the present that which will regularly concern all our duty is this that when the fear of God is the instrument of our duty or Gods worship the greater it is it is so much the better It was an old proverbiall saying among the Romans Religentem esse oportet religiosum nefas Every excesse in the actions of religion is criminall they supposing that in the services of their gods there might be too much True it is there may be too much of their undecent expressions and in things indifferent the very multitude is too much and becomes an undecency and if it be in its own nature undecent or disproportionable to the end or the rules or the analogy of the Religion it will not stay for numbers to make it intolerable but in the direct actions of glorifying God in doing any thing of his Commandements or any thing which he commands or counsels or promises to reward there can never be excesse or superfluity and therefore in these cases do as much as you can take care that your expressions be prudent and safe consisting with thy other duties and for the passions or vertues themselves let them passe from beginning to great progresses from man to Angel from the imperfection of man to the perfections of the sons of God and when ever we go beyond the bounds of Nature and grow up with all the extention and in the very commensuration of a full grace we shall never go beyond the excellencies of God For ornament may be too much and turn to curiosity cleanlinesse may be changed into nicenesse and civill compliance may become flattery and mobility of tongue may rise into garrulity and fame and honour may be great unto envie and health it self if it be athletick may by its very excesse become dangerous but wisdome and duty and comelinesse and discipline a good minde and eloquence and the fear of God and doing honour to his holy Name can never exceed but if they swell to great proportions they passe through the measures of grace and are united to felicity in the comprehensions of God in the joyes of an eternall glory Sermon X. The Flesh and the Spirit Part I. Matt. 26. 41. latter part The Spirit indeed is willing but the Flesh is weake FRom the beginning of days Man hath been so crosse to the Divine commandements that in many cases there can be no reason given why a man should choose some ways or doe some actions but onely because they are
Dominicus Catalusius the Prince of Lesbos kept company with his Lady when she was a Leper and these are greater things then to die But the cases in which this can be required are so rare and contingent that holy Scripture instances not the duty in this particular but it contains in it that the husband should nourish and cherish her that he should refresh her sorrowes and intice her fears into confidence and pretty arts of rest for even the fig-trees that grew in Paradise had sharp pointed leaves and harshnesses fit to mortifie the too forward lusting after the sweetnesse of the fruit But it will concern the prudence of the husbands love to make the cares and evils as simple and easie as he can by doubling the joyes and acts of a carefull friendship by tolerating her infirmities because by so doing he either cures her or makes himself better by fairly expounding all the little traverses of society and communication by taking every thing by the right handle as Plutarchs expression is for there is nothing but may be misinterpreted and yet if it be capable of a fair construction it is the office of love to make it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Love will account that to be well said which it may be was not so intended and then it may cause it to be so another time 3. Hither also is to be referred that he secure the interest of her vertue and felicity by a fair example for a wife to a husband is like a line or superficies it hath dimensions of its own but no motion or proper affections but commonly put on such images of vertues or vices as are presented to them by their husbands Idea and if thou beest vicious complain not that she is infected that lies in the bosome the interest of whose love ties her to transcribe thy copy and write after the characters of thy manners Paris was a man of pleasure and Helena was an adulteresse and she added covetousnesse upon her own account But Ulysses was a prudent man and a wary counsellor sober and severe and he efformed his wife into such imagery as he desir'd and she was chast as the snows upon the mountains diligent as the fatall sisters alwaies busie and alwaies faithfull 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she had a lazie tongue and a busie hand 4. Above all the instances of love let him preserve towards her an inviolable faith and an unspotted chastity for this is the marriage Ring it tyes two hearts by an eternall band it is like the Cherubims flaming sword set for the guard of Paradise he that passes into that garden now that is immur'd by Christ and the Church enters into the shades of death No man must touch the forbidden Tree that in the midst of the garden which is the tree of knowledge and life Chastity is the security of love and preserves all the mysteriousnesse like the secrets of a Temple Under this lock is deposited security of families the union of affections the repairer of accidentall breaches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is a grace that is shut up and secur'd by all arts of heaven and the defence of lawes the locks and bars of modesty by honour and reputation by fear and shame by interest and high regards and that contract that is intended to be for ever is yet dissolv'd and broken by the violation of this nothing but death can do so much evill to the holy ties of marriage as unchastity and breach of faith can The shepherd Cratis falling in love with a she goat had his brains beaten out with a buck as he lay asleep and by the lawes of the Romans a man might kill his daughter or his wife if he surprised her in the breach of her holy vowes which are as sacred as the threads of life secret as the privacies of the sanctuary and holy as the society of Angels Nullae sunt inimicitiae nisi amoris acerbae and God that commanded us to forgive our enemies left it in our choice and hath not commanded us to forgive an adulterous husband or a wife but the offended parties displeasure may passe into an eternall separation of society and friendship Now in this grace it is fit that the wisdome and severity of the man should hold forth a pure taper that his wife may by seeing the beauties and transparency of that Crystall dresse her minde and her body by the light of so pure reflexions It is certain he will expect it from the modesty and retirement from the passive nature and colder temper from the humility and fear from the honour and love of his wife that she be pure as the eye of heaven and therefore it is but reason that the wisdome and noblenesse the love and confidence the strength and severity of the man should be as holy and certain in this grace as he is a severe exactor of it at her hands who can more easily be tempted by another and lesse by her self These are the little lines of a mans duty which like threds of light from the body of the Sun do clearly describe all the regions of his proper obligations Now concerning the womans duty although it consists in doing whatsoever her husband commands and so receives measures from the rules of his government yet there are also some lines of life depicted upon her hands by which she may read and know how to proportion out her duty to her husband 1. The first is obedience which because it is no where enjoyned that the man should exact of her but often commanded to her to pay gives demonstration that it is a voluntary cession that is required such a cession as must be without coercion and violence on his part but upon fair inducements and reasonablenesse in the thing and out of love and honour on her part When God commands us to love him he means we should obey him This is love that ye keep my Commandements and if ye love me said our Lord keep my Commandements Now as Christ is to the Church so is man to the wife and therefore obedience is the best instance of her love for it proclaims her submission her humility her opinion of his wisdome his preeminence in the family the right of his priviledge and the injunction imposed by God upon her sexe that although in sorrow she brings forth children yet with love and choice she should obey The mans authority is love and the womans love is obedience and it was not rightly observed of him that said when woman fell God made her timorous that she might be rul'd apt and easie to obey for this obedience is no way founded in fear but in love and reverence Receptae reverentiae est si mulier viro subsit said the Law unlesse also that we will adde that it is an effect of that modesty which like
truth and if she be deceived alone she hath no excuse if with him she hath much pity and some degrees of warranty under the protection of humility and duty and dear affections and she will finde that it is part of her priviledge and right to partake of the mysteries and blessings of her husbands religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Romulus A woman by the holy Lawes hath right to partake of her husbands goods and her husbands sacrifices and holy things Where there is a schisme in one bed there is a nursery of temptations and love is persecuted and in perpetuall danger to be destroyed there dwell jealousies and divided interests and differing opinions and continuall disputes and we cannot love them so well whom we beleeve to be lesse beloved of God and it is ill uniting with a person concerning whom my perswasion tels me that he is like to live in hell to eternall ages 2. The next line of the womans duty is compliance which S. Peter cals the hidden man of the heart the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit and to it he opposes the outward and pompous ornament of the body concerning which as there can be no particular measure set down to all persons but the propositions are to be measured by the customes of wise people the quality of the woman and the desires of the man yet it is to be limited by Christian modesty and the usages of the more excellent and severe matrons Menander in the Comedy brings in a man turning his wife from his house because she stain'd her hair yellow which was then the beauty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A wise woman should not paint A studious gallantry in cloathes cannot make a wise man love his wife the better 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Comedy such gayeties are fit for tragedies but not for the uses of life decor occultus recta venustas that 's the Christian womans finenesse the hidden man of the heart sweetnesse of manners humble comportment fair interpretation of all addresses ready compliances high opinion of him and mean of her self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To partake secretly and in her heart of all his joyes and sorrowes to beleeve him comly and fair though the Sun hath drawn a cypresse over him for as marriages are not to be contracted by the hands and eye but with reason and the hearts so are these judgements to be made by the minde not by the sight and Diamonds cannot make the woman vertuous nor him to value her who sees her put them off then when charity and modesty are her brghtest ornaments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And indeed those husbands that are pleased with undecent gayeties of their wives are like fishes taken with ointments and intoxicating baits apt and easie for sport and mockery but uselesse for food and when Circe had turned Ulysses companions into hogs and monkies by pleasures and the inchantments of her bravery and luxury they were no longer usefull to her she knew not what to do with them but on wise Ulysses she was continually enamour'd Indeed the outward ornament is fit to take fools but they are not worth the taking But she that hath a wise husband must intice him to an eternall dearnesse by the vail of modesty and the grave robes of chastity the ornament of meeknesse and the jewels of faith and charity she must have no fucus but blushings her brightnesse must be purity and she must shine round about with sweetnesses and friendship and she shall be pleasant while she lives and desired when she dies If not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Her grave shall be full of rottennesse and dishonour and her memory shall be worse after she is dead after she is dead For that will be the end of all merry meetings and I choose this to be the last advice to both 3. Remember the dayes of darknesse for they are many The joyes of the bridal chambers are quickly past and the remaining portion of the state is a dull progresse without variety of joyes but not without the change of sorrowes but that portion that shall enter into the grave must be eternall It is fit that I should infuse a bunch of myrrhe into the festivall goblet and after the Egyptian manner serve up a dead mans bones at a feast I will only shew it and take it away again it will make the wine bitter but wholesome But those marryed pairs that live as remembring that they must part again and give an account how they treat themselves and each other shall at the day of their death be admitted to glorious espousals and when they shall live again be marryed to their Lord and partake of his glories with Abraham and Joseph S Peter and St. Paul and all the marryed Saints 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All those things that now please us shall passe from us or we from them but those things that concern the other life are permanent as the numbers of eternity and although at the resurrection there shall be no relation of husband and wife and no marriage shall be celebrated but the marriage of the Lambe yet then shall be remembred how men and women pass'd through this state which is a type of that and from this sacramentall union all holy pairs shall passe to the spirituall and eternall where love shall be their portion and joyes shall crown their heads and they shall lye in the bosome of Jesus and in the heart of God to eternall ages Amen Sermon XIX APPLES of SODOM OR The Fruits of Sinne. Part. I. Romans 6. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed For the end of those things is death THe son of Sirach did prudently advise concerning making judgements of the felicity or infelicity of men Judge none blessed before his death for a man shall be known in his children Some men raise their fortunes from a cottage to the chaires of Princes from a sheep-coat to a throne and dwell in the circles of the Sun and in the lap of prosperity their wishes and successe dwell under the same roof and providence brings all events into their design and ties both ends together with prosperous successes and even the little conspersions and intertextures of evill accidents in their lives are but like a faing'd note in musick by an artificiall discord making the ear covetous and then pleased with the harmony into which the appetite was inticed by passion and a pretty restraint and variety does but adorn prosperity and make it of a sweeter relish and of more advantages and some of these men descend into their graves without a change of fortune Eripitur persona manet res Indeed they cannot longer dwell upon the estate but that remains unrifled and descends upon the heir
rejoycing must be onely in the hope that is laid up for us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Apostle Rejoycing in hope For although God sometimes maks a cup of sensible comfort to overflow the spirit of a man and thereby loves to refresh his sorrows yet that is from a secret principle not regularly given not to be waitd for not to be prayed for and it may fail us if we think upon it but the hope of life eternall can never fail us and the joy of that is great enough to make us suffer any thing or to do any thing ibimus ibimus utcunque praecedes supremum Carpere iter comites parati To death to bands to poverty to banishment to tribunals any whither in hope of life eternall as long as this anchor holds we may suffer a storm but cannot suffer shipwrack And I desire you by the way to observe how good a God we serve and how excellent a Religion Christ taught when one of his great precepts is that we should rejoyce and be exceeding glad and God hath given us the spirit of rejoycing not a sullen melancholy spirit not the spirit of bondage or of a slave but the Spirit of his Son consigning us by a holy conscience to joyes unspeakable and full of glory And from hence you may also infer that those who sink under a persecution or are impatient in a sad accident they put out their own fires which the Spirit of the Lord hath kindled and lose those glories which stand behinde the cloud Part II. 3. THe Spirit of God is given us as an antidote against evil concupiscences and sinfull desires and is then called the spirit of prayer and supplication For ever since the affections of the outward man prevaild upon the ruins of the soul all our desires were sensuall and therefore hurtfull for ever after our body grew to be our enemy In the loosnesses of nature and amongst the ignorance or imperfection of Gentile Philosophy men used to pray with their hands full of rapine and their mouths of blood and their hearts of malice and they prayed accordingly for an opportunity to steal for a fair body for a prosperous revenge for a prevailing malice for the satisfaction of whatsoever they could be tempted to by any object by any lust by any Devil whatsoever The Jews were better taught for God was their teacher and he gave the spirit to them in single rayes But as the spirit of obsignation was given to them under a seal and within a veile so the spirit of Manifestation or patefaction was like the gem of a vine or the bud of a rose plain indices and significations of life and principles of juice and sweetnesse but yet scarce out of the doors of their causes they had the infancy of knowledge and revelations to them were given as Catechisme is taught to our children which they read with the eye of a bird and speak with the tongue of a bee and understand with the heart of a childe that is weakly and imperfectly and they understood so little that 1. They thought God heard them not unlesse they spake their prayers at least efforming their words within their lips and 2. Their forms of prayer were so few and seldome that to teach a forme of prayer or to compose a collect was thought a worke fit for a Prophet or the founder of an institution 3. Adde to this that as their promises were temporal so were their hopes as were their hopes so were their desires and according to their desires so were their prayers And although the Psalms of David was their Creat office and the treasury of devotion to their Nation and very worthily yet it was full of wishes for temporals invocations of GOD the Avenger on GOD the Lord of Hosts on God the Enemy of their Enemies and they desired their Nation to be prospered and themselves blessed and distinguished from all the world by the effects of such desires This was the state of prayer in their Synagogue save onely that it had also this allay 4. That their addresses to GOD were crasse material typical and full of shadows and imagery paterns of things to come and so in its very being and constitution was relative and imperfect But that we may see how great things the Lord hath done for us God hath powred his spirit into our hearts the spirit of prayer and supplication and now 1. Christians pray in their spirit with sighs and groans and know that GOD who dwells within them can as clearly distinguish those secret accents and read their meaning in the Spirit as plainly as he knows the voice of his own thunder or could discern the letter of the law written in the tables of stone by the finger of God 2. likewise the spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought That is when God sends an affliction or persecution upon us we are indeed extreme apt to lay our hand upon the wound and never take it off but when we lift it up in prayer to be delivered from that sadnesse and then we pray fervently to be cured of a sicknesse to be delivered from a Tyrant to be snatched from the grave not to perish in the danger But the spirit of God hath from all sad accidents drawn the veil of errour and the cloud of intolerablenesse and hath taught us that our happinesse cannot consist in freedom or deliverances from persecutions but in patience resignation and noble sufferance and that we are not then so blessed when God hath turn'd our scourges into ease and delicacy as when we convert our very scorpions into the exercise of vertues so that now the spirit having helped our infirmities that is comforted our weaknesses and afflictions our sorrows and impatience by this proposition that All things work together for the good of them that fear God he hath taught us to pray for grace for patience under the crosse for Charity to our persecutors for rejoycing in tribulations for perseverance and boldnesse in the faith and for whatsoever will bring us safely to Heaven 3. Whereas onely a Moses or a Samuel a David or a Daniel a John the Baptist or the Messias himself could describe and indite formes of prayer and thanksgiving to the time and accent of Heaven now every wise and good Man is instructed perfectly in the Scriptures which are the writings of the spirit what things he may and what things he must ask for 4. The Spirit of God hath made our services to be spiritual intellectual holy and effects of choice and religion the consequents of a spiritual sacrifice and of a holy union with God The prayer of a Christian is with the effects of the spirit of Sanctification and then we pray with the Spirit when we pray with Holinesse which is the great fruit the principal gift of the spirit And this is by Saint James called the prayer of faith and is said to
for us upon that condition and who then shall die again for us to get heaven for us upon easier conditions What would you do if God should command you to kill your eldest son or to work in the mines for a thousand yeers together or to fast all thy life time with bread and water were not heaven a great bargain even after all this and when God requires nothing of us but to live soberly justly and godly which very things of themselves to man are a very great felicity and necessary to his present well-being shall we think this to be a load and an unsufferable burden and that heaven is so little a purchase at that price that God in meer justice will take a death-bed sigh or groan and a few unprofitable tears and promises in exchange for all our duty Strange it should be so but stranger that any man should rely upon such a vanity when from Gods word he hath nothing to warrant such a confidence But these men do like the Tyrant Dionysius who stole from Apollo his golden cloak and gave him a cloak of Arcadian home-spun saying that this was lighter in summer and warmer in winter These men sacrilegiously rob God of the service of all their golden dayes and serve him in their hoary head in their furs and grave clothes and pretend that this late service is more agreeable to the Divine mercy on one side and humane infirmity on the other and so dispute themselves into an irrecoverable condition having no other ground to rely upon a death-bed or late-begun-repentance but because they resolve to enjoy the pleasures of sin and for heaven they will put that to the venture of an after-game These men sow in the flesh and would reap in the spirit live to the Devil and die to God and therefore it is but just in God that their hopes should be desperate and their craft be folly and their condition be the unexpected unfeared inheritance of an eternall sorrow Lastly Our last inquiry is into the time the last or latest time of beginning our repentance Must a man repent a yeer or two or seven yeers or ten or twenty before his death or what is the last period after which all repentance will be untimely and ineffectuall To this captious question I have many things to oppose 1. We have entred into covenant with God to serve him from the day of our Baptisme to the day of our death He hath sworn this oath to us that he would grant unto us that we being delivered from fear of our enemies might serve him without fear in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the dayes of our life Now although God will not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forget our infirmities but passe by the weaknesses of an honest a watchfull industrious person yet the Covenant he makes with us is from the day of our first voluntary profession to our grave and according as we by sins retire from our first undertaking so our condition is insecure there is no other Covenant made with us no new beginnings of another period but if we be returned and sin be cancelled and grace be actually obtained then we are in the first condition of pardon but because it is uncertain when a man can have masterd his vices and obtain'd the graces therefore no man can tell any set time when he must begin 2. Scripture describing the duty of repenting sinners names no other time but to day To day if ye will hear his voyce harden not your hearts 3. The duty of a Christian is described in Scripture to be such as requires length of time and a continued industry Let us run with patience the â—ace that is set before us and Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be wearied and faint in your mindes So great a preparation is not for the agony and contention of an hour or a day or a week but for the whole life of a Christian or for great parts of its abode 4. There is a certain period and time set for our repentance and beyond that all our industry is ineffectuall There is a day of visitation our own day and there is a day of visitation that is Gods day This appeared in the case of Jerusalem O Jerusalem Jerusalem if thou hadst known the time of thy visitation at least in this thy day Well! they neglected it and then there was a time of Gods visitation which was his day called in Scripture the day of the Lord and because they had neglected their own day they fell into inevitable ruine No repentance could have prevented their finall ruine And this which was true in a Nation is also clearly affirmed true in the case of single persons Look diligently lest any fail of the grace of God lest there be any person among you as Esau who sold his birth-right and afterwards when he would have inherited the blessing he was rejected for he found no place for his repentance though he sought it carefully with tears Esau had time enough to repent his bargain as long as he lived he wept sorely for his folly and carefulnesse sate heavy upon his soul and yet he was not heard nor his repentance accepted for the time was past And take heed saith the Apostle lest it come to passe to any of you to be in the same case Now if ever there be a time in which repentance is too late it must be the time of our death-bed and the last time of our life And after a man is fallen into the displeasure of Almighty God the longer he lies in his sin without repentance and emendation the greater is his danger and the more of his allowed time is spent and no man can antecedently or before-hand be sure that the time of his repentance is not past and those who neglect the call of God and refuse to hear him call in the day of grace God will laugh at them when their calamity comes they shall call and the Lord shall not hear them * And this was the case of the five foolish virgins when the arrest of death surprized them they discovered their want of oil they were troubled at it they beg'd oil they were refused they did something towards the proouring of the oil of grace for they went out to buy oil and after all this stir the bridegroom came before they had finished their journey and they were shut out from the communion of the bridegrooms joyes Therefore concerning the time of beginning to repent no man is certain but he that hath done his work Mortem venientem nemo hilaris excipit nisi qui se ad eam diù composuerat said Seneca He onely dies cheerfully who stood waiting for death in a ready dresse of a long preceding preparation He that repents to day repents late enough that he did not begin yesterday But he that puts it off till to morrow is
walked upon the pavements of heaven whose feet were clothed with stars whose eyes were brighter then the Sun whose voice is louder then thunder whose understanding is larger then that infinite space which we imagine in the uncircumscribed distance beyond the first orbe of heaven a person to whom felicity was as essential as life to God this was the onely person that was designed in the eternal decrees of the divine predestination to pay the price of a soul to ransom us from death lesse then this person could not do it for although a soul in its essence is finite yet there were many infinites which were incident and annexed to the condition of lost souls For all which because provision was to be made nothing lesse then an infinite excellence could satisfie for a soul who was lost to infinite and eternal ages who was to be afflicted with insupportable and indetermined that is next to infinite paines who was to bear the load of an infinite anger from the provocation of an eternal God and yet if it be possible that infinite can receive degrees this is but one half of the abysse and I think the lesser for that this person who was God eternal should be lessened in all his appearances to a span to the little dimensions of a man and that he should really become very contemptibly little although at the same time he was infinitely and unalterably great that is essential natural and necessary felicity should turn into an intolerable violent and immense calamity to his person that this great God should not be admitted to pay the price of our redemption unlesse he would suffer that horrid misery which that lost soul should suffer as it represents the glories of his goodnesse who used such rare and admirable instruments in actuating the designes of his mercy so it shewes our condition to have been very desperate and our losse invaluable A soul in Gods account is valued at the price of the blood and shame and tortures of the Son of God and yet we throw it a way for the exchange of sins that a man naturally is ashamed to own we lose it for the pleasure the sottish beastly pleasure of a night I need not say we lose our soul to save our lives for though that was our blessed Saviours instance of the great unreasonablenesse of men who by saving their lives lose them that is in the great account of Dooms-day though this I say be extreamly unreasonable yet there is something to be pretended in the bargain nothing to excuse him with God but something in the accounts of timerous men but to lose our souls with swearing that unprofitable dishonourable and unpleasant vice to lose our souls with disobedience or rebellion a vice that brings a curse and danger all the way in this life To lose our souls with drunkennesse a vice which is painfull and sickly in the very acting it which hastens our damnation by shortning our lives are instances fit to be put in the stories of fools and mad-men and all vice is a degree of the same unreasonablenesse the most splendid temptation being nothing but a prety well weaved fallacy a meer trick a sophisme and a cheating and abusing the understanding but that which I consider here is that it is an affront and contradiction to the wisdom of God that we should so slight and undervalue a soul in which our interest is so concerned a soul which he who made it and who delighted not to see it lost did account a fit purchase to be made by the exchange of his Son the eternal Son of God To which also I adde this additionall account that a soul is so greatly valued by God that we are not to venture the losse of it to save all the world For therefore whosoever should commit a sin to save kingdoms from perishing or if the case could be put that all the good men and good causes and good things in this world were to be destroyed by Tyranny and it were in our power by perjury to save all these that doing this sin would be so farre from hallowing the crime that it were to offer to God a sacrifice of what he most hates and to serve him with swines blood and the rescuing all these from a Tyrant or a hangman could not be pleasing to God upon those termes because a soul is lost by it which is in it self a greater losse and misery then all the evils in the world put together can out-ballance and a losse of that thing for which Christ gave his blood a price Persecutions and temporal death in holy men and in a just cause are but seeming evils and therefore not to be bought off with the losse of a soul which is a real but an intolerable calamity And if God for his own sake would not have all the world saved by sin that is by the hazarding of a soul we should do well for our own sakes not to lose a soul for trifles for things that make us here to be miserable and even here also to be ashamed 3. But it may be some natures or some understandings care not for all this therefore I proceed to the third and most material consideration as to us and I consider what it is to lose a soul which Hierocles thus explicates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An immortall substance can die not by ceasing to be but by losing all being well by becomming miserable And it is remarkable when our blessed Saviour gave us caution that we should not fear them that can kill the body onely but fear him he sayes not that can kill the soul But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him that is able to destroy the body and soul in hell which word signifieth not death but tortures For some have chosen death for sanctuary and fled to it to avoid intolerable shame to give a period to the sence of a sharp grief or to cure the earthquakes of fear and the damned perishing souls shall wish for death with a desire impatient as their calamity But this shall be denied them because death were a deliverance a mercy and a pleasure of which these miserable persons must despair of for ever I shall not need to represent to your considerations those expressions of Scripture which the Holy Ghost hath set down to represent to our capacities the greatnesse of this perishing choosing such circumstances of character as were then usuall in the world and which are dreadful to our understanding as any thing Hell fire is the common expression for the Eastern nations accounted burnings the greatest of their miserable punishments and burning malefactours was frequent brimstone and fire to Saint John Revel 14. 10. calls the state of punishment prepared for the Devil and all his servants he adding the circumstance of brimstone for by this time the Devil had taught the world more ingenious pains and himself was new escaped out of boiling oil and brimstone and such
he hath made it so sure to us to become happy even in this world that if we will not he hath threatened to destroy us which is not a desire or aptnesse to do us an evil but an art to make it impossible that we should For God hath so ordered it that we cannot perish unlesse we desire it our selves and unlesse we will do our selves a mischief on purpose to get hell we are secured of heaven and there is not in the nature of things any way that can more infallibly do the work of felicity upon creatures that can choose then to make that which they should naturally choose be spiritually their duty and that he will make them happy hereafter if they will suffer him to make them happy here But hardly stand another throng of mercies that must be considered by us and God must be glorified in them for they are such as are intended to preserve to us all this felicity 9. God that he might secure our duty and our present and consequent felicity hath tied us with golden chaines and bound us not onely with the bracelets of love and the deliciousnesse of hope but with the ruder cords of fear and reverence even with all the innumerable parts of a restraining grace For it is a huge aggravation of humane calamity to consider that after a man hath been instructed in the love and advantages of his Religion and knows it to be the way of honour and felicity and that to prevaricate his holy sanctions is certain death and disgrace to eternal ages yet that some men shall despise their religion others shall be very weary of its laws and cal the commandments a burden and too many with a perfect choice shall delight in death and the wayes that lead thither and they choose mony infinitely and to rule over their Brother by al means to be revenged extremely and to prevail by wrong and to do all that they can and please themselves in all that they desire and love it fondly and be restlesse in all things but where they perish if God should not interpose by the arts of a miraculous and merciful grace and put a bridle in the mouth of our lusts and chastise the sea of our follies by some heaps of sand or the walls of a rock we should perish in the deluge of sin universally as the old world did in that storm of the divine anger the flood of waters But thus God suffers but few adulteries in the world in respect of what would be if all men that desire to be adulterers had power opportunity and yet some men and very many women are by modesty and natural shamefacednesse chastised in their too forward appetites or the laws of man or publick reputation or the undecency and unhandsome circumstances of sin check the desire and make it that it cannot arrive at act for so have I seen a busie flame sitting upon a sullen cole turn its point to all the angles and portions of its neighbour-hood and reach at a heap of prepared straw which like a bold temptation called it to a restlesse motion and activity but either it was at too big a distance or a gentle breath from heaven diverted the speare and the ray of the fire to the other side and so prevented the violence of the burning till the flame expired in a weak consumption and dyed turning into smoak and the coolnesse of death and the harmlesnesse of a Cinder and when a mans desires are winged with sailes and a lusty wind of passion and passe on in a smooth chanel of opportunity God often times hinders the lust and the impatient desire from passing on to its port and entring into action by a suddain thought by a little remembrance of a word by a fancy by a sudden disability by unreasonable and unlikely fears by the suddain intervening of company by the very wearinesse of the passion by curiosity by want of health by the too great violence of the desire bursting it self with its fulnesse into dissolution a remisse easinesse by a sentence of scripture by the reverence of a good man or else by the proper interventions of the spirit of grace chastising the crime and representing its appendant mischiefs and its constituent disorder and irregularity and after all this the very anguish and trouble of being defeated in the purpose hath rolled it self into so much uneasinesse and unquiet reflections that the man is grown a shamed and vexed into more sober counsels And the mercy of God is not lesse then infinite in separating men from the occasions of their sin from the neighbour-hood and temptation for if the Hyaena and a dog should be thrust into the same Kennel one of them would soon finde a grave and it may be both of them their death so infallible is the ruine of most men if they be shewed a temptation Nitre and resin Naphtha and Bitumen sulphur and pitch are their constitution and the fire passes upon them infinitely and there is none to rescue them But God by removing our sins far from us as far as the East is from the West not onely putting away the guilt but setting the occasion far from us extremely far so far that sometimes we cannot sin and many times not easily hath magnified his mercy by giving us safety in all those measures in which we are untempted It would be the matter of new discourses if I should consider concerning the variety of Gods grace his preventing and accompanying his inviting and corroborating grace his assisting us to will his enabling us to do his sending Angels to watch us to remove us from evil company to drive us with swords of fire from forbidden instances to carry us by unobserved opportunities into holy company to minister occasions of holy discourses to make it by some means or other necessary to do a holy action to make us in love with vertue because they have mingled that vertue with a just and a fair interest to some men by making religion that thing they live upon to others the means of their reputation and the securities of their honour and thousands of wayes more which every prudent man that watches the wayes of God cannot but have observed But I must also observe other great conjugations of mercy for he that is to passe through an infinite must not dwell upon everie little line of life 10. The next order of mercies is such which is of so pure and unmingled constitution that it hath at first no regard to the capacities and disposition of the receivers and afterwards when it hath it relates onely to such conditions which it self creates and produces in the suscipient I mean the mercies of the divine predestination For was it not an infinite mercy that God should predestinate all mankinde to salvation by Jesus Christ even when he had no other reason to move him to do it but because man was miserable and needed his pity
own entertainment it gives us precepts and makes us able to keep them it enables our faculties and excites our desires it provokes us to pray and sanctifies our heart in prayer and makes our prayer go forth to act and the act does make the desire valid and the desire does make the act certain and persevering and both of them are the works of God for more is received into the soul from without the soul then does proceed from within the soul It is more for the soul to be moved and disposed then to work when that is done as the passage from death to life is greater then from life to action especially since the action is owing to that cause that put in the first principle of life These are the great degrees of Gods forwardnesse and readinesse to forgive for the expression of which no language is sufficient but Gods own words describing mercy in all those dimensions which can signifie to us its greatnesse and infinity His mercy is great his mercies are many his mercy reacheth unto the heavens it fils heaven and earth it is above all his works it endureth for ever God pitieth as a Father doth his children nay he is our Father and the same also is the Father of mercy and the God of all comfort So that mercy and we have the same relation and well it may be so for we live and die together for as to man onely God shews the mercy of forgivenesse so if God takes away his mercy man shall be no more no more capable of felicity or of any thing that is perfective of his condition or his person But as God preserves man by his mercy so his mercy hath all its operations upon man and returns to its own centre and incircumscription and infinity unlesse it issues forth upon us And therefore besides the former great lines of the mercy of forgivenesse there is another chain which but to produce and tell its links is to open a cabinet of Jewels where every stone is as bright as a star and every star is great as the Sun and shines for ever unlesse we shut our eyes or draw the vail of obstinate and finall sins 1. God is long-suffering that is long before he be angry and yet God is provoked every day by the obstinacy of the Jews and the folly of the Heathens and the rudenesse and infidelity of the Mahumetans and the negligence and vices of Christians and he that can behold no impurity is received in all places with perfumes of mushromes and garments spotted with the flesh and stained souls and the actions and issues of misbelief and an evil conscience and with accursed sins that he hates upon pretence of religion which he loves and he is made a party against himself by our voluntary mistakes and men continue ten yeers and 20. and 30. and 50. in a course of sinning and they grow old with the vices of their youth and yet God forbears to kill them and to consigne them over to an eternity of horrid pains still expecting that they should repent and be saved 2. Besides this long-sufferance and for-bearing with an unwearied patience God also excuses a sinner oftentimes and takes a little thing for an excuse so far as to move him to intermediall favours first and from thence to a finall pardon He passes by the sins of our youth with a huge easinesse to pardon if he be intreated and reconciled by the effective repentance of a vigorous manhood he takes ignorance for an excuse and in every degree of its being inevitable or innocent in its proper cause it is also inculpable and innocent in its proper effects though in their own natures criminal But I found mercy of the Lord because I did it in ignorance saith S. Paul he pities our infirmities and strikes off much of the account upon that stock the violence of a temptation and restlesnesse of its motion the perpetuity of its sollicitation the wearinesse of a mans spirit the state of sicknesse the necessity of secular affairs the publike customs of a people have all of them a power of pleading and prevailing towards some degrees of pardon and diminution before the throne of God 3. When God perceives himself forced to strike yet then he takes off his hand and repents him of the evil It is as if it were against him that any of his creatures should fall under the strokes of an exterminating fury 4. When he is forced to proceed he yet makes an end before he hath half done and is as glad of a pretence to pardon us or to strike lesse as if he himself had the deliverance and not we When Ahab had but humbled himself at the word of the Lord God was glad of it and went with the message to the Prophet himself saying Seest thou not how Ahab humbles himself What was the event of it I will not bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes the evil shall come upon his house 5 God forgets our sin and puts it out of his remembrance that is he makes it as though it had never been he makes penitence to be as pure as innocence to all the effects of pardon and glory the memory of the sins shall not be upon record to be used to any after act of disadvantage and never shall return unlesse we force them out of their secret places by ingratitude and a new state of sinning 6. God sometimes gives pardon beyond all his revelations and declared will and provides suppletories of repentance even then when he cuts a man off from the time of repentance accepting a temporal death instead of an eternal that although the Divine anger might interrupt the growing of the fruits yet in some cases and to some persons the death and the very cutting off shall go no further but be instead of explicite and long repentances Thus it happened to Uzzah who was smitten for his zeal and died in severity for prevaricating the letter by earnestnesse of spirit to serve the whole religion Thus it was also in the case of the Corinthians that died a temporal death for their undecent circumstances in receiving the holy Sacrament Saint Paul who used it for an argument to threaten them into reverence went no further nor pressed the argument to a sadder issue then to die temporally But these suppletories are but seldom and they are also great troubles and ever without comfort and dispensed irregularly and that not in the case of habituall sins that we know of or very great sins but in single actions or instances of a lesse malignity and they are not to be relied upon because there is no rule concerning them but when they do happen they magnifie the infinitenesse of Gods mercy which is commensurate to all our needs and is not to be circumscribed by the limits of his own revelations 7. God pardons the greatest sinners and hath left them upon record
frequency in prayers and that part of zeal which relates to it is to be upon no account but of an holy spirit a wise heart and reasonable perswasion for if it begins upon passion or fear in imitation of others or desires of reputation honour or phantastick principles it will be unblessed and weary unprosperous and without return or satisfaction therefore if it happen to begin upon a weak principle be very curious to change the motive and with all speed let it be turned into religion and the love of holy things then let it be as frequent as it can prudently it cannot be amisse 2. When you are entred into a state of zealous prayer and a regular devotion what ever interruption you can meet with observe their causes and be sure to make them irregular seldome and contingent that your omissions may be seldome and casuall as a bare accident for which no provisions can be made for if ever it come that you take any thing habitually and constantly from your prayers or that you distract from them very frequently it cannot be but you will become troublesome to your self your prayers will be uneasie they will seem hinderances to your more necessary affairs of passion and interest and the things of the world and it will not stand still till it comes to Apostasie and a direct despite and contempt of holy things For it was an old rule and of a sad experience Tepiditas si callum obduxerit fiet apostasia if your lukewarmnesse be habituall and a state of life if it once be hardned by the usages of many daies it changes the whole state of the man it makes him an apostate to devotion Therefore be infinitely carefull in this particular alwayes remembring the saying of St. Chrysostome Docendi praedicandi officia alia cessant suo tempore precandi autem nunquam there are seasons for teaching and preaching and other outward offices but prayer is the duty of all times and of all persons and in all contingences From other things in many cases we can be excused but from prayer never In this therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is good to be zealous 2. Concerning the second instance I named viz. To give almes above our estate it is an excellent act of zeal and needs no other caution to make it secure from illusion and danger but that our egressions of charity do not prejudice justice See that your almes do not other men wrong and let them do what they can to thy self they will never prejudice thee by their abundance but then be also carefull that the pretences of justice do not cousen thy self of thy charity and the poor of thine almes and thy soul of the reward He that is in debt is not excused from giving almes till his debts are paid but only from giving away such portions which should and would pay them and such which he intended should do it There are lacernae divitiarum and crums from the table and the gleanings of the harvest and the scatterings of the vintage which in all estates are the portions of the poor which being collected by the hand of providence and united wisely may become considerable to the poor and are the necessary duties of charity but beyond this also every considerable relief to the poor is not a considerable diminution to the estate and yet if it be it is not alwaies considerable in the accounts of Justice for nothing ought to be pretended against the zeal of almes but the certain omissions or the very probable retarding the doing that to which we are otherwise obliged He that is going to pay a debt and in the way meets an indigent person that needs it all may not give it to him unlesse he knowes by other means to pay the debt but if he can do both he hath his liberty to lay out his money for a Crown But then in the case of provision for children our restraint is not so easie or discernible 1. Because we are not bound to provide for them in a certain portion but may do it by the analogies and measures of prudence in which there is a great latitude 2. Because our zeal of charity is a good portion for them and layes up a blessing for inheritance 3. Because the fairest portions of charity are usually short of such sums which can be considerable in the duty of provision for our children 4. If we for them could be content to take any measure lesse then all any thing under every thing that we can we should finde the portions of the poor made ready to our hands sufficiently to minister to zeal and yet not to intrench upon this case of conscience But the truth is we are so carelesse so unskil'd so unstudied in religion that we are only glad to make an an excuse and to defeat our souls of the reward of the noblest grace we are contented if we can but make a pretence for we are highly pleased if our conscience be quiet and care not so much that our duty be performed much lesse that our eternall interest be advanced in bigger portions We care not we strive not we think not of getting the greater rewards of Heaven and he whose desires are so indifferent for the greater will not take pains to secure the smallest portion and it is observable that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the least in the Kingdome of heaven is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as good as none if a man will be content with his hopes of the lowest place there and will not labour for something beyond it he does not value it at all and it is ten to one but will lose that for which he takes so little pains and is content with so easie a security He that does his almes and resolves that in no case he will suffer inconvenience for his brother whose case it may be is into erable should do well to remember that God in some cases requires a greater charity and it may be we shall be called to dye for the good of our brother and that although it alwaies supposes a zeal and a holy fervour yet sometimes it is also a duty and we lose our lives if we go to save them and so we do with our estates when we are such good husbands in our Religion that we will serve all our own conveniences before the great needs of a hungry and afflicted brother God oftentimes takes from us that which with so much curiosity we would preserve and then we lose our money and our reward too 3. Hither is to be reduced * the accepting and choosing the counsels Evangelicall * the virgin or widow estate in order to Religion * selling all and giving it to the poor * making our selves Eunuchs for the Kingdome of Heaven * offering our selves to death voluntary in exchange or redemption of the life of a most usefull person as Aquila and Priscilla who ventur'd their lives for St.
Paul * the zeal of souls * St. Paul's preaching to the Corinthian Church without wages remitting of rights and forgiving of debts when the obliged person could pay but not without much trouble * protection of calamitous persons with hazard of our own interest and a certain trouble concerning which and all other acts of zeal we are to observe the following measures by which our zeal will become safe and holy and by them also we shall perceive the excesses of Zeal and its inordinations which is the next thing I am to consider 1. The first measure by which our zeal may comply with our duty and its actions become laudable is charity to our neighbour For since God receives all that glorification of himself whereby we can serve and minister to his glory reflected upon the foundation of his own goodnesse and bounty and mercy and all the Allellujahs that are or ever shall be sung in heaven are praises and thank givings and that God himself does not receive glory from the acts of his Justice but then when his creatures will not rejoyce in his goodnesse and mercy it followes that we imitate this originall excellency and pursue Gods own method that is glorifie him in via misericordiae in the way of mercy and bounty charity and forgivenesse love and fair compliances There is no greater charity in the world then to save a soul nothing that pleases God better nothing that can be in our hands greater or more noble nothing that can be a more lasting and delightfull honour then that a perishing soul snatched from the flames of an intolerable Hell and born to Heaven upon the wings of piety and mercy by the Ministery of Angels and the graces of the holy Spirit shall to eternall ages blesse God and blesse thee Him for the Author and finisher of salvation and thee for the Minister and charitable instrument that bright starre must needs look pleasantly upon thy face for ever which was by thy hand plac'd there and had it not been by thy Ministery might have been a â—ooty coal in the regions of sorrow Now in order to this God hath given us all some powers and ministeries by which we may by our charity promote this Religion and the great interest of souls Counsels and prayers preaching and writing passionate desires and fair examples going before others in the way of godlinesse and bearing the torch before them that they may see the way and walk in it This is a charity that is prepared more or lesse for every one and by the way we should do well to consider what we have done towards it For as it will be a strange arrest at the day of Judgement to Dives that he fed high and sufferred Lazarus to starve and every garment that lies by thee and perishes while thy naked brother does so too for want of it shall be a bill of Inditement against thy unmercifull soul so it will be in every instance in what thou couldst profit thy brother and didst not thou art accountable and then tell over the times in which thou hast prayed for the conversion of thy sinning brother and compare the times together and observe whether thou hast not tempted him or betrayed him to a sin or encourag'd him in it or didst not hinder him when thou mightest more frequently then thou hast humbly and passionately and charitably and zealously bowed thy head and thy heart and knees to God to redeem that poor soul from hell whither thou seest him descending with as much indifferency as a stone into the bottome of a well In this thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a good thing to be zealous and put forth all your strength for you can never go too far But then be carefull that this zeal of thy neighbours amendment be only expressed in waies of charity not of cruelty or importune justice He that strikes the Prince for justice as Solomons expression is is a companion of murderers and he that out of zeal of Religion shall go to convert Nations to his opinion by destroying Christians whose faith is intire and summ'd up by the Apostles this man breaks the ground with a sword and sowes tares and waters the ground with bloud and ministers to envie and cruelty to errors and mistake and there comes up nothing but poppies to please the eye and fancy disputes and hypocrisie new summaries of Religion estimated by measures of anger and accursed principles and so much of the religion as is necessary to salvation is laid aside and that brought forth that serves an interest not holinesse that fils the Schooles of a proud man but not that which will fill Heaven Any zeal is proper for Religion but the zeal of the sword and the zeal of anger this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bitternesse of zeal and it is a certain temptation to every man against his duty for if the sword turns preacher and dictates propositions by empire in stead of arguments and ingraves them in mens hearts with a ponyard that it shall be death to beleeve what I innocently and ignorantly am perswaded of it must needs be unsafe to try the spirits to try all things to make inquiry and yet without this liberty no man can justifie himself before God or man nor confidently say that his Religion is best since he cannot without a finall danger make himself able to give a right sentence and to follow that which he findes to be the best this may ruine souls by making Hypocrites or carelesse and complyant against conscience or without it but it does not save souls though peradventure it should force them to a good opinion This is inordination of zeal for Christ by reproving St. Peter drawing his sword even in the cause of Christ for his sacred and yet injured person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Theophylact teaches us not to use the sword though in the cause of God or for God himself because he will secure his own interest only let him be served as himself is pleased to command and it is like Moses passion it throwes the tables of the Law out of our hands and breaks them in pieces out of indignation to see them broken This is the zeal that is now in fashion and hath almost spoyl'd Religion men like the Zelots of the Jewes cry up their Sect and in it their interest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they affect Disciples and fight against the opponents and we shall finde in Scripture that when the Apostles began to preach the meeknesse of the Christian institution salvations and promises charity and humility there was a zeal set up against them the Apostles were zealous for the Gospell the Jewes were zealous for the Law and see what different effects these two zeals did produce the zeal of the Law came to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they stirred up the City they made tumults they persecuted this way unto the death they got letters from the