whence they had their birth so we say that in the book of Scripture divers matters histories examples judgements threatnings laws instructions and exhortations which like little rivers rejoyce the City of our God and serve to divers uses in the Church But after all Jesus Christ is the mark whereat all aim the Centre whither all return and guide our faith in him to find and obtain rest So Moses and the Prophets give their testimony Luk. 24.27 and the end of the Law is Jesus Christ Rom. 10.4 and to this intent speaks St. Paul 1 Cor. 2.2 that he will know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified because that is the summary and principal end of all the knowledge of the Scriptures which faith not onely beholds as a thing to be consented to but embraces it as the only subject where to find salvation and life Certainly faith believes the creation of the world the genealogy of the fathers the confusion of tongues in Babel the captivity of Israel in Egypt the exploits of the Judges and Kings given to the people of God for Liberators and from all these things there may be gathered divers instructions for this life but to find in this recital the means of our reconciliation with God of the remission of sins and the eternal glory it is not possible because it is not in any of these properly Where the Eternal offers and presents the gifts of his heavenly grace that is a Word of God which he pronounced to Adam with his own mouth after he had transgrest the commandment Thou shalt dye the death in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread Gen. 3.19 These things were conformable to the Law and Word of God all these fearful menaces which the friends of Job with so much preparative denounced to the hypocrites and wicked but these are so far from begetting or keeping up faith which as 't is requisite should be accompanied with peace and consolation that contrariwise they put the conscience into trouble they fill the sinful soul with fear and in stead of giving us access to God go chasing and banishing us behind his face as we read of the people of Israel who not able to abide the thundring voice of the Eternal giving his Law upon the mountain stood afar off and said to Moses Exod. 20.19 Speak thou with us and we will hear thee but let not God speak with us for fear we dye This very part of the word that commands obedience and prescribes a rule for works proposing blessing and life to those that accomplish it Do this and thou shalt live Luk. 10.28 Whosoever doth these things shall live by them Levit. 18.5 is not that where our faith rests because as it promises life to the observers so it denounces malediction against all those that do not abide in all the words of the Law to fulfil them And thus our conscience guilty of many transgressions cannot find nor affirm her assurance nor seek for remission of sins where there is nothing presented but wrath and judgment And therefore the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans and in that which he writes to the Galatians retires our faith from the Law and tells us openly that the Law is not of faith Gal. 3.12 that all they that are of the works of the Law are under the curse Gal. 3.10 11. that the Law was not given to quicken but contrary that it is the minister of death and of condemnation none being able to be justified before God by the works of the Law declaring with David those to be blessed to whom God imputes justice without works Psal 32.1 2. Nevertheless it ceases not to serve faith because by it comes the knowledge of sin and that it serves as a School-master to lead us to Christ Rom. 3.23 in whom we are freely justified by the grace of him by the redemption which is in Jesus Christ whom God hath proposed a mediator by faith in his blood by whom the remission of sin is announced to the end that in whatsoever we could not be justified by the Law whosoever believes might be justified by him Act. 13.39 For to him all the Prophets give testimony that whosoever shall believe in him shall have remission of sins by his name Act. 10.43 Hither it is properly that our faith is invited Whosoever is thirsty let him come to me and drink Joh. 7.37 Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy loden and I will refresh you Matth. 11.28 So that this Gospel of peace this word of reconciliation ministry of spirit and of life power of God unto salvation to all that believe Rom. 1.16 Which opens to us the Abysses of compassions of love grace and the good pleasure of God which deduces to us the coming the incarnation the suffrances the justice and the death of the Redeemer of the world and which represents to us the Holy Spirit applying and sealing by the preaching of the Gospel and the Sacraments these divine and heavenly benefits in our souls and rendring us assured of our reconciliation with God of the abolition of our offences of the imputation of the justice of Christ and of the gift of heavenly life The Gospel is the word of life saith St. Paul Rom. 10.8 It looks at the whole word of God but it embraces only his good will It approves all his truth but it runs only after his gratuity and then 't is best pleased and content when both are met in Christ in whom gratuity and verity are met justice and peace have kissed each other Psal 85.11 by whom the gratuity of God is multiplied upon us and his truth endures for ever Psal 117.2 We do not then reject any part of the word nor we do not tear the faith in pieces but in this general object we observe what is most proper and most particularly belongs to it by reason of the differing parts of it Be then the Word of God a Paradise to the faithful soul but so as among so many fruits of different tast and vertue she may find one tree of life that may fully satisfie the hunger of justice that she so seeks for let the Scripture be her Orchard but yet let there be one apple-tree whose shadow she desires sitting down under it and the fruit sweet to her palate let the truth of God be her garden of aromatique drugs but let there be one Rose of Sharon whose sweet smell may recover her fainting heart and which she may put in her bosome no otherwise then a bundle of myrrhe Cant. 1.13 He knows well enough that his Redeemer is living But if the Gospel be the particular object of faith from whence shall we say that Job learned this science and from whence he could draw the foundations of an assurance so firm since this was not but many ages after his death that the Gospel was publisht to the world or that the Saviour of the world was come to
will be grains of allowance to thee without question therefore be converted and turn from the broad way of sin and death to the narrow path of life and eternal glory for such a soul will be acceptable unto the Lord the blessed Quire of Angels will rejoyce at the conversion of such a sinner For according to my Text joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repententh more then over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance So much for this time Repentance Conversion THE Fabrick of Salvation In the Gospel according to St. Luke Chap. 15. vers 7. it is thus written I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more then over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance WE have already discoursed upon these words SERM. II. and demonstrated unto you both by Scripture and other authority the necessity and excellency of Repentance We have largely discoursed of the nature of repentance and defined it unto you Now not to detain you with any farther repetition we shall immediately fall upon the second observation that we raised from the words of the Text and that was this viz. How to become true poenitents And really beloved hic labor hoc opus est or at least should be this should be the white at which every true Christian should level his thoughts This ought to be the Asylum unto which every godly man should have recourse when he is prosecuted and persecuted both by sin and Satan This should be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sum of every mans actions and the chiefest and first of his intentions the cream and top of his holy ambition But where shall we traffick for true penitent souls what climate affords them all Nations are more or less given to some hainous crime To be sober among the Germans setled among the French chaste among the Italians and loyal among the English is rare and worthy admiration you need not make any strict inquisition after impiety there is enough daily presented upon the stage of the world there is too too much God knows Truth the pure innocent undefiled Truth like the Dove of Noah flies about and scarce gets any room for her footing she is mounted to heaven with Astraea but if you desire to finde out a whorish Achan a covetous Ahab a hard-hearted Pharaoh a Nebuchadonozor quaffing in the bowls of the Sanctuary a sacrilegious fellow buying Bishops Lands you may meet with him in every corner Scatent plateae hujusmodi viris nequam for truth is expelled nunc dierum To be true and loyal marcheth in the rank of impossibilities as the world is now but let us operum dare labour tooth and nail as we say proverbially to avoid the accursed punishment of impenitent persons seek after the remission of sins by the bloody death and passion of our Saviour and lay hold with the hand of faith on all Gospel-promises applicable to a conscience-wounded sinner that so after we have lived a life of grace here in this vale of misery we may enjoy a life of glory in perpetuum hereafter Now the main point intended in this discourse is to discover unto you some wayes or means how to apprehend when you are truly penitent that I shall demonstrate unto you 1. Negatively and 2. Affirmatively 1. Negatively and here I will declare unto you beloved auspiciis Divinis by the help of the Deity what it is not viz. being true penitents and that in 5. particulars 5 Discoveries of true penitency which shall be as so many brands on their foreheads to inform the world of their impenitency 1. He is no true penitent that is not so perplexed as to be gnawen at the very heart by that viper Sorrow for his many enormous offences and sensible of the need that he stands in of Gods mercy an Ocean of mercy nay unless he think the burthen of his sin so ponderous and weighty so filthy and impure as to require every drop of the blood of our Saviour to satisfie for them King David if it be not a crime to allow him his Title having implunged himself into a gulf and multitude of sins begs a multitude of mercies as it appears in the 51. Psal vers the 1. Have mercy upon me O God according to thy loving kindness according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions We stand in need of a Sea of mercies for the innumerable number of our hainous crimes that we are guilty of Now he that is so hardned with the yoke of sin that he is become brawny and insensible of the weight and hainousness of it this man hath no penitent frame of spirit and we may safely say without any prejudice to our charity or incurring the evil of censure that such a man is no true penitent 2. They are not become true penitents no nor in the way to repentance that are so far from being grieved at sin as to make no bones of great sins nay to dally and toy with sin and impiety but 't is bad handling such edged tools for the sword of Gods indignation will soon cut them off swearing with such persons is but a grace and lustre to their speech a splendor but I fear such a one as will light them to hell lying but wit's craft or policy drunkenness jovialness or good fellowship whoring a trick of youth covetousness thriftiness thus do they baptize vice by the name of vertue see how bestial fowl and deformed a thing vice is that it dare not appear in its own native deformity and hue but it must borrow the Mask of vertue they think that they can shift well enough without mercy and imagine that three words at the last gasp is sufficient to save their soul but I pray God they may not share with that Gentleman in fortune that was very debauched and had streamed out his youth in wine and venery who being desired by his Confessor to acknowledge his misdemeanors towards God and man and to beseech God to vouchsafe him pardon of his sins put him off with a pish Three words at last are of sufficient power to save my soul meaning Miserere mei Deus but it hapned that this Gentleman not long after as he was riding over a bridge his horse slipt and down fell horse and man into the river and in falling instead of Miserere mei Deus he was heard to say Capiat omnia Daemon The devil take both horse and man sad words to be the vehiculo animae suae to waft his soul over into the other world a sweet Epilogue to the Tragedy of his life His Catastrophe was as damnable as his whole life abominable and odious This will be a caveat to all serious and solid Christians to avoid procrastination in repentance and endeavour after it with all possible speed 3. They are not true penitens that are meerly earal verbal and worded
engaged into a business with so much vigor as when they were assured of success by the answers of Oracles We are called by the vocation of God to the possession of the heavenly Canaan He promises us for the getting it his conduct favour and assistance so that with Job we may very well say I shall see God And what then remains but that casting down every burden and the sin that so easily enlaces us we may pursue with constancy the course set before us and traversing all dangers and going under hope against hope we may have our eyes upon Jesus Christ the author and finisher of our faith that so we may more and more in his love revive the strength of ours and recollect in him every day new vigor until the time that from vertue to vertue we may appear before his Sacred face where receiving the Crown and heap of his blessings we may glorifie him for ever as to him appertains honour and glory from this time forth and from generation to generation Amen THE SAINTS COMFORT in the day of death In the book of Job the 19 Chapter and the 25 verse it is thus written As for me I know that my Redeemer liveth c. IT is impossible to please God without faith Heb. 11.6 SERM. VI. for 't is necessary that he that comes to God believe not only that he is but that he is a rewarder of those that seek him To God that dwells in the Heavens we go by faith not by view All the view that conducts us to eternal salvation is faith And therefore as in vain the Sun sends forth his light in vain does it enlighten so many torches in the Heavens and discovers upon Earth so rich an embroidery of leaves and flowers for those that are without eyes So as unprofitable are the marveiles which the wisdom of God hath display'd in all this universe and the divine mysteries which it hath discovered in the clearness of his holy word for those that are without faith God complaines Esai 65. that in vain he hath stretcht out his hands to a rebellious and contradicting people and St. Paul Heb. 4.2 gives a reason why the word of preaching hath not profited the people of the Jewes and it is because it was not mingled with faith in those that heard it Who hath believed our preaching and to whom hath the arm of the Eternal been revealed Isai 53.1 Light is the first and most excellent work of God in the elementary world the eye is the most admirable beauty of all the humane body it is the joy of our life the address of our actions and the cleerest window of the soul the eye and light of our soul is faith without which it remaines in darkness ignorant of the way of God confused in all her actions and plunged in mourning and despair and therefore it is also the chief gift of heavenly grace the first tract of the Image of God that is markt in our hearts the first action of our spiritual life and the foundation and origine of all other vertues By this light Job acknowledges and discovers the eternal benefits which recompense his temporal losses he finds spiritual sweetness which tempers the bitterness of his corporal dolours he sees and embraces the perdurable felicity of the second life which reinforces his soul against the apprehensions of death For this cause we have so long insisted to describe and represent to you the nature of this faith by winding it out of ignorance from the confusion and uncertainty wherein they seek to fold it up that withdraw souls from the true spring of life and divert it to the crackt cisterns of superstition to engrave the lively tracts of it as deep in your souls as Job desired to have them imprinted in the hard rock that so the deduction which we shall make you after him of the mysteries of your redemption may not be unfruitful to you but that being guided by this divine and heavenly torch you may there find that assurance firmity and consolation that Joy inenarrable and glorious which is necessary for you in the midst of so many evils and combats as the enemies of the truth of God do deliver and prepare for his Church Before we come to a more particular consideration of the Redeemer and of this life resurrection and glory which he hath purchased for us by the price of his redemption we must upon these words make some general remark which may be proper to confirm us as much in the verity of our faith as they will make us see that it is venerable for antiquity and alwaies veritable and constant in her unity We see the dolours of Job encrease against all other remedies drawn either from hope of temporal things or from any rules of the law and to acquiesce in one onely Jesus Christ seeking in the only benefit of his redemption his repose and hope where he teaches us clearly that the principal and special object of faith hath at all times been the promise of the grace and salvation which was to be purchased by this Mediator betwixt God and men which holding and embracing she finds and not till then her repose and tranquillity The whole Word of God is truly the proportioned object to th'extent of our faith and according to the intelligence and approbation of the understanding she embraces it wholly and can go no further and in every thing and every where she reputes God to be true whether he command or forbid whether he promise or threaten whether he instruct or correct she leads all her thoughts captive under obedience she receives all his commands with humility she keeps her self to his prohibitions with fear she embraces his promises with affection she fears his threatnings she hearkens to his instructions and profits by his corrections for if faith doubt and go reeling in uncertainty of any one point of whatsoever is manifested in the Word of God there will afterwards need no great violence to shake it in all other things and to throw it head-long into infidelity And therefore when we give for the principal object of faith the promise of salvation and grace we will not subtract it to other parts of the word as leaving it indifferent and every one to liberty of believing or mis-believing at his fancy but contrariwise knowing that all hath been brought to us not by the will of man but by the inspiration of the eternal spirit which hath guided the tongues and pens of those that have announced and left written this holy word we maintain that the verity of it must be wholly and in every part both heard and received with the like reverence But we say moreover that as the waters of the Sea are for divers ends spread abroad and go creeping through an infinity of chanels over and under the face of the earth yet in such sort that at last they return all into the bosom of the Ocean from
accomplish the work of our redemption The Law and the Prophets endured till John but since his time the Kingdom of God is Evangelized Luk. 16.16 Many Kings and Prophets have desired to see the things which were seen when Jesus Christ converst in the world and they have not seen them Luk. 10.24 And therefore Jesus Christ prefers the least that were under the Gospel before the greatest that were under the Law St. John pointed at him with his hand and shewed him to the World to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins for which cause he was raised above the Prophets and because he had not seen nor shew'd the glory and vertue which followed his death and his resurrection he was therefore set below the Apostles And St. Paul saith that the grace which hath been given us in Jesus Christ from eternal times is now manifested by the apparition of our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath destroyed death and put into light both life and immortality by the Gospel It seems then that this mystery of our redemption hath been hidden from precedent ages and that the ancient Fathers have had nothing but shadows and figures of things that were to come And yet Jesus Christ himself gives this testimony to Abraham that he desired to see this day of his and hath seen it and rejoyced Joh. 8.56 and St. Peter 1 Pet. 1.10 that the Prophets have enquired and made diligent search concerning the salvation of souls the reward of faith and by the Prophetick spirit in them have declared the sufferances which were to come to Jesus Christ and the joyes which were to follow them And for this reason it is that the Son of God sayes He had the testimony of Moses and the Prophets and that the Scriptures of the old Testament bare witness of him Joh. 5.39 To know then how that must be understood to resolve us in this appearance of contrariety and to begin our undermining at the foundation of Papistical errors touching the state of the souls of the Fathers deceased before the coming of Christ let us learn then from this confession of faith so fair so firm so clear as it can be in the noon day of the Gospel that we have no other faith nor other means of salvation then what the ancient Patriarchs had before us and that the ancient Covenant contracted with them in the substance and truth is the same thing with the new one contracted with us that are fallen into these later times all the difference which is in them consisting only in the order and the means of the dispensation which according to the diversity of times hath made it assume divers visages for as the Apostle Heb. 1.1 2. God hath heretofore many times and after many sorts spoken to the fathers by the Prophets and in these later times by his Son Jesus Christ. Where he seems to distinguish the times by the coming of the Son of God betwixt the preceding ages and those that were to come after The first part hath had divers seasons and divers manners according to which this dispensation hath been ordered The first season is counted from the fall of Adam unto Abraham during which we had no declaration more express of this eternal alliance of God with men then that which is contained in few words but of an high and full signification The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the Serpent Gen. 3.15 upon which promise confirmed declared and entertained by the usage of sacrifices and carried from hand to hand and from father to son during all the first age of the world this faith was sustained and the hope of the faithful founded In the second season from Abraham to Moses during which Job lived a true Son of Abraham both according to the flesh and to the promise this general promise was as it were restrained in the family and posterity of this Holy Patriarch when God made this alliance with him that he would be their God and they his children and discocovered to him that from him should go forth the Redeemer of the World when he said that in his seed all the Nations of the World should be blessed Genes 12. giving him beside the sacrifices the particular seal of the circumcision as a sign of the justice of faith Rom. 4.11 The third was from Moses to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ where in a more especial and ample manner God was pleased to instruct his people exposing and confirming his Covenant unto them after divers fashions in which are remarkable two principal parts having reference each to other and ordained one for the love of the other Like the two Cherubims who being placed one right against the other and extending their wings one toward the other did both of them look toward the propitiatory Exod. 25.20 the one was the Law promising life and everlasting benediction under the condition of a most perfect observation of his commands A condition impossible to corrupted nature whose imaginations were nothing but evil at all times and yet very necessary and useful to make men know the duty wherein they were obliged to make them sensible of weakness and to make them comprehend the horrour of that condemnation into which their transgressions had precipitated them by that means to conduct them to the second part of the Covenant which was all of it purely Evangelical as that which under divers figures and ceremonies did represent mans reconciliation to God and his plenary deliverance by the ransom of that infinite merit of the sacrifice of the death and passion of Christ After this in the fulness of time came the great Redeemer of our soules who abolished the first means that he might establish the second abolish'd I say not wholly but in part not in the substance but in the accidents For as for the first part he exacts no more as it were by force of maledictions that perfect obedience of the Law but supplying the defects of nature by the abundant effusion of his spirit of grace he draws from sanctified hearts a voluntary obedience And in the second he hath caused the body to succeed the shadows the truth the figures the thing the signes all these things having been fulfilled in the death of Christ And from hence may we easily comprehend the difference that there is betwixt the new Covenant and the old between the faith of the Fathers that lived under the Law and theirs that live under the Gospel For it is the same thing in substance Having God for the Author his grace and mercy for the cause and the satisfaction of Christ for the meritorious foundation The same things promised grace and glory God is to us both a Sun and a Shield he gives both grace and glory and withholds no good thing from such as wait upon him Distributed in general by the same means and the preaching of the word Hearken and your soules shall live Isai 55.3 the
what is feigned of the Phoenix in a bed of spices in odors of devotion kindled by the beams of the true Sun of righteousness quickning out of the ashes an acceptable sacrifice to the Father of Lights for he delighteth not in the death of a sinner but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live 'T is not a light sorrow or petty sigh or a Miserere mei Domine at the last gasp when the soul is going to give his ultimum vale to the body will serve your turn or procure pardon of your sins from God no no you must labour to be humbled more deeply for your enormous offences and hainous sins which seale the heavens with their clamor and cry for vengeance from the Lord of heaven so that if we could possibly shed tears of blood for our crimson scarlet sins we should do it for all come short of that grief for sin and real contrition of heart that we ought to have Could we stream out the residue of our dayes that it shall please the Almighty to allow us in this vale of misery could we consume and wast the Taper of our life in sighs and heart-breaking groans 't were all little enough to beg and obtain pardon of God for our sins You must bath the Leprosie of your sin in a Jordan of tears before you can come to the Land of Canaan the Zoar of salvation Life you know is uncertain death certain you had best therefore beloved take hold of opportunity by the fore-lock for post est occasio calva an opportunity once slipt is seldom recover'd whilst it is call'd to day harden not your heart Nemo sibi crastinum promittat Let no man assure himself of the morrow for death wrestleth with every man and serius aut citius mortem properamus adunam sooner or later he gets a fall he hath tript up the heels of all our Ancestors and you know not how soon he may foyl you Venienti occurrite morbo meet the distemper and remedy it whilst it is curable Delays in rebus sanctis are very dangerous repent therefore of your sins before death that though he be termed by the Heathen Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he may be to you a Messenger that bringeth glad tidings a guide to conduct you from a momentany unto eternal life which we shall enjoy with God in secula seculorum I could wish cordially that that saying of that good old man St. Cyprian were not so true as daily experience manifests it In aetate senescunt in pietate juvenescunt Most men now adayes have gray heads and green wits capita cana and corda vana and when their heads are ful of silver hairs they have not so much as suckt in their Rudiments they have need of milk the food of babes and sucklings instead of the more solid grounds and fundamentals of Religion Whereas ancient Christians should be walking Laws and talking Statutes their dicta edicta and their actiones axiomata as Gregory Nazianzen saith 'T is a sad thing to be near heaven and never the near to be at the gates of death before they have learnt one lesson of repentance and if their repentance be sorrowless 't will prove but a sorry one Old men should like trees of righteousnesse bear fruit in their old age when their heads are candied with hoary hair but not the fruits of old age covetousness suspicion and the like If the Evangelists in their time could cry out Repent repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand it must of necessity be nearer at hand now then it was then therefore beloved I have the more cause to press this Doctrine of repentance upon you and let me tell you that there is no musick so melodious in the ears of God as that which resounds from a broken instrument God loves a broken heart and yet he 'll have the whole heart or none 't is strange and yet true repentance is a consumption yet no sickness and what man would not willingly condescend to undergo such a consumption here that he might not be consumed in endless easeless and remediless flames and torments hereafter One thing I do very much admire at viz. how they can expect favour from God that will grant favour to none but upon the divels conditions in the 24 of St. Matthew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if falling down thou wilt worship They would have others fall down and worship them when as they will not worship and adore God Dejecisti eos dum elevarentur saith the Psalmist a strange kind of expression Thou hast taken them down whilest thou liftedst them up this seems to have an allusion to the Eagle and other birds of prey who having found an Oyster that they with their own strength cannot break or open they soar aloft and spying the clift of a rock for they are very quick-sighted as natural Philosophers inform us they let the Oyster fall perpendicularly and so it breaking to pieces they come to their desired food so God he lifts them up on high that they may the better get a fall Tolluntur in altum Ut lapsu graviore ruant Such haughty minds are not season'd aright they have no true frame of a penitent spirit neither will God accept of such persons and till you be reconciled to God through his son Jesus Christ and are washed and cleansed from all your iniquities by the tears of repentance and be converted from sin to God your case is desperate and it had been better for you to have been a beast than a man Display your sins before God not hypocritically but really for there is no dissembling with God and confession in your mouth if it be hypocritical will be like a Shibboleth in the Hebrew you cannot pronounce it without lisping your sins are hainous confess them cordially to be so your sins are many in number acknowledg them to be so the Terra incognita of your corruptions is far larger then the Terra cognita But let not the hainousness of thy sin the number or multitude of them deter thee from repentance but proceed with a holy resolution to go through all difficulties by the help of Christ Jesus and all objections that the world the flesh and the devil can alleadge against you till you have obtained pardon and remission of your sins never cease till you come to a period for he that intends to sing Te Deum to the Almighty must not break off till he come to the end Proceed I say beloved ad finem usque and rely upon the merits of our Jesus and be not put off by the hainousness of your sins and the rigour of the Law of God for if the most holy man that ever breath'd upon the face of the earth should be weighed in the balance of the Sanctuary and no grain of favour be allowed him then without all doubt mene tekel might be applied to him he would be found too light There
men that speak more then they really intend this is not repentance but a little lip-labour a foolish weak stratagem a meer external pomp of words for which the Pharisees were reprehended by our Saviour long since 'T is strange that men should be so meanly brained as to imagine the putting of a cheat upon God to what purpose should the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be conferred upon him If you are bent to sin cannot be reclaim'd from your lewd courses but must have your swinge and forsake your Creator in the dayes of your youth and you are resolved to run to hell in full career and no perswasion will operate or work upon you then must you look to the event and feel the smart of Gods rod and the weight of his indignation And 't were better far in my judgment for a man not to be born then to be deprived and robbed of the lustre of Gods emparadising countenance whose frown 's a hell whose smile 's a heaven for there is hell where God is absent and there heaven where he is present Think not then to deprive God of one of his most Glorious Attributes viz. Omniscience by endeavouring to counterfeit a kind of repentance when you have no such intent but still tread the paths of the impiously profane and commit sins so in private though as damnable as secret I will only bestow a golden sentence of St. Augustines on you Quaere locum ubi te Deus non videat fac quid vis Find out a place where you may commit sin unseen and then do what you please not a couch-bed-sin but lies open to the perspicuity of Gods all-seeing eye 't is not the slender barricado of a curtain can defend you or prevent his sight nay there is a sentence of infelicity and not prospering pronounced upon all secret Sinners in the 28. of the Prov. vers 13. He that hideth his sins shall not prosper but he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Therefore be real and repent cordially cheat not your pretious souls of so heavenly a viaticum unless you intend and are desperately resolute and bent to defraud your self of eternal felicity and so be cast into hell irrecoverably Repent Repent beloved strive and endeavour after reconciliation with God get the wedding-garment on that you may enter into the Bride-chamber and be a welcom guest to God the Father Cease provoking of him to wrath by your hainous sin For it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10. And if the wrath of a King be as the roaring of a Lyon that can only prejudice the body how much more heavy and weighty shall the wrath and indignation of God be Matth. 5.30 who can cast both body and soul into eternal unquenchable burnings 4. It argues a mans repentance not to be solid or laid upon a good foundation when they are induced to it for fear of shame and punishment and were it not for this he could willingly devote his dayes to sin and uncleanness though they may be accounted true penitents and so esteemed by the world many Pharisaical persons may put such a gloss upon their sins that their Apocryphal deeds may pass for Canonical actions but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The all-seeing eye of God will soon pierce into the inmost chambers of their hearts and discover their deceit how closely and privately soever they carry it This will cut the comb of all hypocrites and counterfeits that think an outward colour or superficial shew is satisfactory acceptable to God though like the externally specious Apples of Sodom they be rotten at the core such persons are like the Cynamon-tree whose bark is better than the substance The Lord is infinitely offended at such proceedings and testifieth his dislike thereof This people saith he come near me with their lips and honour me with their mouths but their hearts are far from me so the Lord telleth the Jews in the 42 ch of the prophecy of holy Jeremiah the 20. verse They did but dissemble with him in their hearts and promised to do his will but they do nothing but the contrary and follow their own lusts God abhors and detests such persons he will spue them out of his mouth and never suffer them to be partakers of his Heavenly Kingdom Let all such hypocritical persons take notice and consider the judgement of God on Ananias and Sapphira Acts the 5. who because they would videri tantum seem only religious and forward to sell their Lands and give it to the poor thus covetousness cannot walk without the cloak of religion to cover its deformity therefore the Lord smote them both dead And that Christ might manifest how vile and odious hypocritical persons are in the sight of the Lord He tells us in the Gospel of St. Matthew chap. 24. vers 51. All vile sinners shall have their portion with hypocrites because if there be one place in hell hotter then another that may be termed locus hypocritarum The seat of hypocrites Therefore we should all endeavour to get a sound heart free from dissimulation and hypocrisie which may be an acceptable sacrifice to God and well-pleasing that he may smell a sweet savour from all our pious works 5. Fifthly and lastly it is a sign of impenitency when men are so impiously bold as to stand on their own merits and desert their own goodness and worthiness when they approach the presence of God like the proud Pharisee Luke the 18.11 12. I thank thee O God that I am not as other men are extortioners unjust adulterers or even as this Publican I fast twice a week I give tithes of all that I possess but the Publican that only smote his breast and said only God be merciful to me a sinner went down to his house justified saith the Text rather then the boasting Pharisee such tumours are as great scars and imperfections to the soul as a wound or wen to a rare complexion We should all cast away our own righteousness as a menstruous rag and rely wholly upon the meritorious death and passion of the immaculate Lamb of God his Christ and our Saviour for the salvation of our immortal souls We should totally devest our selves of all worth for we are all sinful dust and ashes and therefore may well make this expostulation with all men Homo bulla quid superbis O man thou that art but an aiery bubble Why art thou proud Thou that art a bubble that is made of nothing and when made as soon blown to nothing Cum sis humi limus cur non es humillimus Since you are composed of the dung of the ground of earth why are you not according to the matter you were created of mean and humble The whole world is not able to satisfie their ambition but the aspiring Pyramid of their thoughts mounteth and still lesseneth by degrees till it come to a meer punctum Most
with the faith of the children of God to whom they rather serve as means to advance them towards that glory which they wait for rendring by a holy vigilance the hope of their vocation still more firm Yet they will say There is nothing so much recommended to us in Scripture as fear Work out your salvation with FEAR and trembling Philip. 2.12 Happy is the man that FEARETH alwayes Prov. 28.14 Be not high-minded but FEAR Rom. 11.20 Pass the time of your sojourning here in FEAR 1 Pet. 1.17 Certainly if it were necessary to oppose to these passages that recommend fear those that chase it from our hearts for one we might oppose thirty there being nothing more common in all the course of Scripture then these words which are addrest to the faithful Fear not But the Word of God never belies it self and therefore 't is necessary that there be a fear of two sorts one that is compatible with assurance a good a holy a commendable fear because it leads us to God the other that extinguishes it and makes us flye from the face of God as Adam did after his sin Gen. 3.8 and this is that which the fear of God ought to chase and banish from every faithful soul And therefore 't is no wonder if fear and assurance be met in one and the same subject in divers respects So when I consider the Law with those thunders and lightnings and threatnings and curses my soul is ready to vanish for fear but when I turn my self to the gracious promises of the Gospel she fills her self with assurance when I consider my own demerit I enter into distrust but under the merits of Christ I re-assure my self again I tremble over the pendant slippery paths of this life but I comfort my self when I see the hand of God that sustains me And thus I serve the Lord in fear and rejoyce before him in trembling Psal 2.11 This is that filial fear that makes Gods children prudent in their waies not that spirit of fear that torments the consciences of the wicked Rom. 8.15 not that which proceeds from distrust of power or despair of the good will of God but which is born out of the knowledge of dangers that environ us and from the sense of our own infirmity not that which trembles for punishment but that which is apprehensive for the sin not that which flyes from the face of God but that which hath recourse to his grace And such a one as if there were no punishment nor recompense no Hell nor Paradise would not omit her duty toward God but would take heed to displease him This goes equal steps with that assurance which is reckoned among the gifts that are shed upon the Son of God Isai 12.2 who was not able to enter into any distrust of the love of his Father But what relation to this reverence of true children to their father hath this trouble and uncertain trembling fear which the Roman Doctors cast into mens consciences Certainly among so divers fluctuations wherewith as impetuous winds our souls since sin are miserably agitated there is none more strange then this fear nor among the judgments wherewith God threatens and punishes the wicked there is none more terrible then this cry of fear which he sends into their eares Job 15.21 This trembling heart this dimness of eyes this distress of soul which makes their life so doubtful before them that at evening they say Deut. 28.67 Who shall let us see the morning and in the morn they demand Who shall let us see the evening Fear like a terrible voice wakens the soul by startings and so seizes it that it remains insensible to every thing except that stroke of astonishment that beats it and from that which is nothing makes it feel a thousand dolorous passions and whereas we feel not other evils more then they are in us and the cause remains there yet fear calls back evils that are past multiplying and engrossing those that are present and anticipating those that are not yet and perhaps that shall never be and so forges imaginary torments wherewith it makes miserable souls sensible of a thousand real sorrows The mortal enemy of all repose it ravages in an instant whatsoever is either pleasant or delightful in life and like a feaverish heat it infects and imbitters the best prepared sweetnesses bringing in a profound sadness into our hearts which so gnawes and undermines them as the rust doth steel and makes us draw a life after us more miserable then death Inconsiderate passion which continually represents to our eyes the image of the danger that attends us and is thereby so troublesome that we can neither see nor foresee for remedies neither more nor less then an abysse where waters drawn out of the deep whirl about with so much impetuosity giving us afar off the warning of ship-wrack and yet draws us in by such an astonishment that we are plunged and swallowed up in the gulf that we would so fain escape Thus it awakes in our souls a vehement desire to avoid that mischief that treads upon our heeles but it so troubles and astonishes all our senses that losing both our judgment and discourse we precipitate our selves into the danger from which our fear seems to lend us wings and then it happens to us as at other times we dream when prest by some enemies as we think or by some hideous fantosm we seek to flye away but cannot because our heavy bodies or else our trasht feet will not follow our desire or if a light seeming swiftness answer our fear and seem to skip over furlongs yet which way so ever we turn in the trouble of this affright though panting for pain this funeral-object meets us every where giving us the chase and leaving us nothing but complaint in which we would fain cry out but cannot because the apprehension stops our voice and tyes up our trembling and stammering tongue to the roof of our mouths So those that are seized with this passion apprehend every thing and fall foul upon all They are afraid of their dreams they are troubled at their fancies They give themselves to be abused by lying spirits they take all that they meet with for ill presages and sometimes come to fall into such a confusion of spirit that they throw themselves head-long into despair Histories afford us but too many examples of those who being unable to deliver themselves from this passion have yielded up themselves to death finding more sweetness in death then in the fear of dying Whosoever beholds an affrighted man may easily read in the tracts of his visage and in all the actions of his body what the trouble and confusion is that agitates his soul for to observe his scattered eyes his bleak face his pale and shaking lips his dry mouth his furred tongue his confused voice his beating heart his panting flanks his knees knocking together his stumbling feet and all the
seek them in this perverse age where there are many that are more ready to sell their Country their Brethren and Parents for a little silver then to forsake them for the glory of God Where this rage of getting goods this infernal fury of avarice so possesses the greatest part of men that are so far from quitting their riches to follow Christ that contrarily they do not stick to truck with Jesus Christ for riches and do willingly leave the certain hope of the glory of heaven for the uncertain promise of some honour or some command in the world though but for three dayes and where at last in stead of the joy which the children of God resent in their tribulations and the actions of thanks which they render to God in the midst of his corrections we see painted upon the faces of the most modest a consternation and a sadness which witnesses that we regard his fatherly rods with a wicked eye and that these light afflictions do send us to deaths door notwithstanding the Weight of Justice which they carry nor the glory that followes them can any waies awaken nor cheer up our hearts And what is this but that faith goes by little and little failing and falling to the ground that we have no more but an appearance of piety and a shew of godliness but have renounced the force of it we believe not in the promises of God and Atheisme is but too far insinuated into the greatest part of souls that are slaves to the perishable Mammon that love your pleasures more then God unworthy to have an immortal spirit that set your affections upon things that have not so much honour as to be mortal Of all that which you sow to the flesh what do you reap but corruption What can you hope for after the contempt of the heavenly gift whereof you have tasted Of this power of the world to come which you have known of this spirit of grace which you have grieved of this blood of the Covenant which you tread under foot but an horrible expectation of the judgement of God a fervour of fire consuming his adversaries and a vengeance as much redoubled as the knowledge which you have had renders you more wicked and inexcusable You then faithful souls to whom God hath given better inspirations at this noyse and report of the faith of your fore-fathers awaken earnestly this drowziness of your own turn away your hearts from the vanity of this flower of the world that passeth see that your life is but a wind and that death shall shortly pull to ground and reduce to nothing this terrestrial and miserable masse And therefore seek while you are here below the spiritual goods of your souls that may follow you toward the Heavens And forasmuch as the light of the Gospel discovers move clearly to you then the Fathers could see under the shadows of the Law Love them therefore more ardently pursue them more constantly And since we are regenerate into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead to obtain the incorruptible inheritance which cannot be contaminate nor withered but is reserved in the Heaâ—en for us Let us make lighter of the World and of her goods of these bodies and of these delights and esteem it a great gain to have lost them that we may gain Jesus Christ And that being found in him having not our own justice which is of the Law but his which is by faith we may also in him and by him obtain this good which eye hath not seen nor ear hath heard nor hath entred into the heart of man and which God hath prepared for those that love him 1 Cor. 2.9 To which God the Father the Son and Holy Ghost be honour and glory from henceforth and for evermore Amen ZION in Sack-cloath AND HER SAINTS in Tears In the 137 Psalm the first verse it is thus written By the waters of Babylon we sate down and wept when we remembred thee O Zion A Sad Text in a sadder time SERM. VII in which the rivers of Babylon swelled not so high with inundation of water in the letter as the waters in the Metaphor out-swelling and breaking down their banks have overflown both our Church and State The waies of Zion mourn and her children are set to a task of weeping whilest they behold the ruine of their Mother by the Caledonean Boars on th' one side and the mixt but wilder Herd then those of Africa the Foxes busily undermining the vineyard whilest the fowls of the air th' Atheists as did the fowls on Abrahams divided sacrifice seize on the divided Church she in the mean while doubtful to which as most powerful though alike pernicious she should yield up her life Religion for a prey And who is there now if not a stranger in Israel whose fears have not taught his eyes acquaintance with his heart to pour out water before the Lord with them at Mizpeth 1 Sam. 7.6 or whose heart hath not borrowed from his eye compassion with Jeremy Mine eye affecteth my heart because of the slain of the daughter of my people Lam. 3.5 and if so how shall not our better devotion hallow so pious an expence by sending them both up in an humble importunity of prayer to work an atonement with Heaven that we may recover the departed glory of Israel and the Ark of the Lord now captiv'd by the Philistins may be brought back to us though but upon the necks of the scarce yoked beasts Happy are those tears that are made the rich tribute of the Churches ransom happy those passionate groans that hasten to prevent a Jeremies reiterated lamentation a Jerusalems once total final expiring happy those childrens prevailing prayers that make their mother a debtor for that life she gave their offerers who as they live at her breasts so how shall they not expire in her blood if either tainted by corruption or let out by cruelty It is 't is true our unfortunate and deplorable condition to see these sad times of distraction and persecution which as they are for the tryal of our patience who are called to suffering and for the exercise of their wisdom to be honoured with publick counsel so they are for the actuating of all our devotions whose hearts would faint did not our eyes wait and our hands knock for a speedy composure and expected deliverance from the gates of Heaven And those that feel not great strivings of heart for the division of Ruben those whose bowels are restrained whose souls bleed not within themselves by compassion do with the actor of a mischief contract a guilt and by their own neutrality appropriate to themselves a curse Curse ye Merosh yea curse yea bitterly because they came not forth to help the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty Judges 5.13 a Text however sacrilegiously inverted by irreligious religious interpreters yet God does expect our help and we help
of Heaven and these devout Jews here whom it pitied to see the glory of Zion laid in the dust wept when they remembred it Appl. What shall we say then of those who now in the time of our Church and Kingdoms calamity when God seems to call to us as sometimes Jehu did Who is on my side who When the Church cries to us as sometimes she did Is it nothing to you all ye that passe by the way have ye no regard behold and see if ever sorrow were like my sorrow yet neither in heed to his voice nor in pity to her complaints will they humble themselves by fasting and prayer to cry to Heaven for mercy upon her but rather when God calls to mourning they are a revelling they drink wine in bowles and anoint themselves with precious oyntments but remember not the afflictions of Joseph wherefore I have sworn by my self saith the Lord God of hosts I abhor the excellency of Jacob Amos 6.6 8. And let such read the 22 Chapter of Isaiah vers 12 13 14. and tremble at the close of it Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till you dye Ye would take it in foul disgrace to be called hard-hearted Jews yet these were more compassionate of the Churches miseries then are many of you these wept when they remembred Zion How then shall not our hearts agonize under Gods displeasure and our bedewed cheeks trickle down with tears for the miseries of our Church and State seeing the Heavens themselves have with waterish eyes long wept for our calamities not with dews but showers of compassion all the summer long and still now in winter keep their gloomy face to reproove the hardness of our obdurate hearts that can neither weep for our own nor pity the miseries of others O insensate hearts Is it nothing to you that you all passe by Zions sorrow wherewith the Lord hath afflicted her in the day of his fierce anger The senceless creatures groan and travel in a fellow-feeling pain but you when your own members suffer and perish O where are the sounding of your bowels are they quite restrained The earth trembles at the voice of God the Sea saw him and was afraid and the rocks cleft at our Saviours passion and shall men be so obdurate as not to be moved nor split asunder at a Church and a Kingdoms passion If rocks be more affected then we O God take away from us these obdurate hearts of flesh and give us hearts of stone that seeing we cannot with innocent yet we may with hearts broken by repentance for all these sins that have pulled down those judgments upon our heads by these waters of Babylon sit down and weep when we remember thee O Zion And so I have done with the words in their literal sense and proceed now to them Secondly in their moral sense of which briefly In this sense St. Hilary St. Augustine Hugo de Sancto Victore Hugo Cardinalis with many others have taken these words nor in this do we offer any violence to the truth of the history but only digest gesta in exemplum scripta in doctrina as saith St. Hilary the passages into example and Scripture into doctrine The soul we all know hath four several states 1. Of innocence 2. Of a lapsed condition 3. Of renovation by grace 4. Of expectation of glory And going along with her from her first instant of creation to the last of eternity we shall find all of them in the Text. 1. That of innocence but implied so as that captivity supposeth a foregoing freedom this freedom was that of our created holiness which we enjoyed in Paradise that new Jerusalem that vision of peace but God knows we stay'd not long there before we were carried captive by the devil into Babylon from Paradise into the world from our country into exile from liberty into servitude from glory into disgrace from pleasure into grief from happiness into misery from integrity into corruption from life into death and therefore Merito illic sedemus merito flemus there we deservedly sit and weep as Hugo Victorinus concludes and that is the second state 2. The souls lapsed condition figured in Babylon and the waters of Babylon That Babylon properly signifies a City of confusion and that mystically here is meant this sinful world is agreed on by a general suffrage of Fathers and therefore consonantly they make the waters of Babylon to be bona temporalia so Hugo Cardinalis temporal things which as the rivers stay not but pass from one elbow of earth unto another the world passeth away and the lusts thereof 1 Joh. 2.17 or as Victorinus calls them decursiones nostrae corruptiones the decursions of our corruption and mortality which as Solomon speaks tend to the grave as the rivers into the Sea or as saith St. Augustine flumina Babyloniae sunt omnia quae hic amantur transeunt the rivers of Babylon are all transitory things whereon we set our hearts and so St. Hilarie omnia saeculi corporalium opera all secular and corporal travels which like rivers are transient without the least station for what bodily pleasure is it but when once 't is past by that time becomes none What earthly joy that dies not in the sense and perishes not in the enjoying yet are these those rivers on which the heart of man sets and fastens his delight and engulphs his care till at last they drown his soul and sink it as low as that pit which knows no bottom 3. But not so the Saints whose spiritualized souls are lifted up to a third state of graces renovation who though they do with patience wait their desired change in this flesh of sin as well as of mortality and so may be said to sit by the waters of Babylon which they account no better then the place of their short captivity yet humiliatione humiliati saith St. Augustine they sit in humiliation so Victorinus not erect by pride nor cast down by despair but humbly set so Hugo Cardinalis because they attend that misery in which they are that happiness from which they are distant Or there they sit but 't is supra flumina above the waters so the old Latine word reads it The Citizens of Babylon so drench themselves into the delights of the sinful world as they drown themselves in their pleasing but deadly waters whereas the Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem sit higher sit above not so low as to fear drowning nor so high as not to need to weep and weep they do too as well as sit if sitting be a posture that pleaseth the body weeping I am sure is an evacuation that easeth the soul O quam fic flere juvat saith St. Hierome O what sweets are there in hallowed tears how the soul delights to melt it self into such blessed showers because when she goeth into the lowest pitch of mourning she is then lifted up into the highest rapture of joy You have heard of them that have wept for joy but not so oft of them that have rejoyced for weeping yet of all the passions the soul is owner of she is a debtor to none more for her joy then this this is her rich treasure in which she traffiques with Heaven this the rarest dissolved pearl with which she defrayes all the passages of her captivity through the valley of tears Feel'st thou sin sit down and weep there is no innocence so clear among mortal men as that which is drencht in tears Fear'st thou hell sit down and weep flames cannot burn where these drops do fall O happy weeping that redeems from eternal weeping 4. But lookest thou up to Heaven that last state of thy souls glory her Country her Kingdom her Security sit down and weep that thy Pilgrimage is prolonged that mortality is not swallowed up of life that thou art yet a stranger and a sojourner nor art thou yet joyned with those innumerable companies of Angels and the first born that are written in Heaven O when shall that time be when our souls being delivered from the Babylon of this world from the prison of this flesh from the bondage of this corruption shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God How long Lord till these souls of ours which like streams here wander from the fountain of bliss be again re-admitted into that glorious source of immortality For this we breathe for this we groan for this each devout heart weeps when he recounts the miseries of this present exile but the happiness of Zion which we expect where all tears shall be wiped from our eyes where is no death nor sorrow nor lamentation any more but all joyes tranquillity and peace even for ever and ever To which the God of mercy for his Sons sake who is gone before us thither in his due time bring us to whom with the holy and ever-blessed Trinity three Persons and one God be all honour and glory world without end Amen FINIS