usefulnesse and advantages of its first intention But this I intended not to have spoken 2. Our Zeal must never carry us beyond that which is safe Some there are who in their first attempts and entries upon Religion while the passion that brought them in remains undertake things as great as their highest thoughts no repentance is sharp enough no charities expensive enough no fastings afflictive enough then totis Quinquatribus orant and finding some deliciousnesse at the first contest and in that activity of their passion they make vowes to binde themselves for ever to this state of delicacies The onset is fair but the event is this The age of a passion is not long and the flatulent spirit being breathed out the man begins to abate of his first heats and is ashamed but then he considers that all that was not necessary and therefore he will abate something more and from something to something at last it will come to just nothing and the proper effect of this is indignation and hatred of holy things an impudent spirit carelessenesse or despair Zeal sometimes carries a man into temptation and he that never thinks he loves God dutifully or acceptably because he is not imprison'd for him or undone or design'd to Martyrdome may desire a triall that will undoe him It is like fighting of a Duell to shew our valour Stay till the King commands you to fight and die and then let zeal do its noblest offices This irregularity and mistake was too frequent in the primitive Church when men and women would strive for death and be ambitious to feel the hangmans sword some miscarryed in the attempt and became sad examples of the unequall yoking a frail spirit with a zealous driver 3. Let Zeal never transport us to attempt anything but what is possible M. Teresa made a vow that she would do alwaies that which was absolutely the best But neither could her understanding alwaies tell her which was so nor her will alwayes have the same fervours and it must often breed scruples and sometimes tediousnesse and wishes that the vow were unmade He that vowes never to have an ill thought never to commit an error hath taken a course that his little infirmities shall become crimes and certainly be imputed by changing his unavoidable infirmity into vow-breach Zeal is a violence to a mans spirit and unlesse the spirit be secur'd by the proper nature of the duty and the circumstances of the action and the possibilities of the man it is like a great fortune in the meanest person it bears him beyond his limit and breaks him into dangers and passions transportations and all the furies of disorder that can happen to an abused person 4. Zeal is not safe unlesse it be in re probabili too it must be in a likely matter For we that finde so many excuses to untie all our just obligations and distinguish our duty into so much finenesse that it becomes like leaf-gold apt to be gone at every breath it can not be prudent that we zealously undertake what is not probable to be effected If we do the event can be nothing but portions of the former evill scruple and snares shamefull retreats and new fantastick principles In all our undertakings we must consider what is our state of life what our naturall inclinations what is our society and what are our dependencies by what necessities we are born down by what hopes we are biassed and by these let us measure our heats and their proper businesse A zealous man runs up a sandy hill the violence of motion is his greatest hinderance and a passion in Religion destroys as much of our evennesse of spirit as it sets forward any outward work and therefore although it be a good circumstance and degree of a spirituall duty so long as it is within and relative to God and our selves so long it is a holy flame but if it be in an outward duty or relative to our neighbours or in an instance not necessary it sometimes spoils the action and alwaies endangers it But I must remember we live in an age in which men have more need of new fires to be kindled within them and round about them then of any thing to allay their forwardnesse there is little or no zeal now but the zeal of envie and killing as many as they can and damning more then they can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smoke and lurking fires do corrode and secretly consume therefore this discourse is lesse necessary A Physitian would have but small imployment near the Riphâ—an Mountains if he could cure nothing but Calentures Catarrhes and dead palsies Colds and Consumptions are their evils and so is lukewarmnesse and deadnesse of spirit the proper maladies of our age for though some are hot when they are mistaken yet men are cold in a righteous cause and the nature of this evill is to be insensible and the men are farther from a cure because they neither feel their evill nor perceive their danger But of this I have already given account and to it I shall only adde what an old spirituall person told a novice in religion asking him the cause why he so frequently suffered tediousnesse in his religious offices Nondum vidisti requiem quam speramus nec tormenta quae timemus young man thou hast not seen the glories which are laid up for the zealous and devout nor yet beheld the flames which are prepared for the lukewarm and the haters of strict devotion But the Jewes tell that Adam having seen the beauties and tasted the delicacies of Paradise repented and mourned upon the Indian Mountains for three hundred years together and we who have a great share in the cause of his sorrowes can by nothing be invited to a persevering a great a passionate religion more then by remembring what he lost and what is laid up for them whose hearts are burning lamps and are all on fire with Divine love whose flames are fann'd with the wings of the holy Dove and whose spirits shine and burn with that fire which the holy Jesus came to enkindle upon the earth Sermon XV. The House of Feasting OR THE EPICVRES MEASVRES Part I. 1 Cor. 15. 32. last part Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye THis is the Epicures Proverb begun upon a weak mistake started by chance from the discourses of drink and thought witty by the undiscerning company and prevail'd infinitely because it struck their fancy luckily and maintained the merry meeting but as it happens commonly to such discourses so this also when it comes to be examined by the consultations of the morning and the sober hours of the day it seems the most witlesse and the most unreasonable in the world When Seneca describes the spare diet of Epicurus and Metrodorus he uses this expression Liberaliora sunt alimenta carceris sepositos ad capitale supplicium non tam angustè qui occisurus est pascit The prison keeps a
scorn his miraculous mercies How shall we dare to behold that holy face that brought salvation to us and we turned away and fell in love with death and kissed deformity and sins and yet in the beholding that face consists much of the glories of eternity All the pains and passions the sorrowes and the groans the humility and poverty the labours and the watchings the Prayers and the Sermons the miracles and the prophecies the whip and the nails the death and the buriall the shame and the smart the Crosse and the grave of Jesus shall be laid upon thy score if thou hast refused the mercies and design of all their holy ends and purposes And if we remember what a calamity that was which broke the Jewish Nation in pieces when Christ came to judge them for their murdering him who was their King and the Prince of life and consider that this was but a dark image of the terrors of the day of Judgement we may then apprehend that there is some strange unspeakable evill that attends them that are guilty of this death and of so much evill to their Lord. Now it is certain if thou wilt not be saved by his death you are guilty of his death if thou wilt not suffer him to save thee thou art guilty of destroying him and then let it be considered what is to be expected from that Judge before whom you stand as his murtherer and betrayer * But this is but half of this consideration 2. Christ may be crucified again and upon a new account put to an open shame For after that Christ had done all this by the direct actions of his Priestly Office of sacrificing himself for us he hath also done very many things for us which are also the fruits of his first love and prosecutions of our redemption I will not instance in the strange arts of mercy that our Lord uses to bring us to live holy lives But I consider that things are so ordered and so great a value set upon our souls since they are the images of God and redeemed by the Bloud of the holy Lamb that the salvation of our souls is reckoned as a part of Christs reward a part of the glorification of his humanity Every sinner that repents causes joy to Christ and the joy is so great that it runs over and wets the fair brows and beauteous locks of Cherubims and Seraphims and all the Angels have a part of that banquet Then it is that our blessed Lord feels the fruits of his holy death the acceptation of his holy sacrifice the graciousnesse of his person the return of his prayers For all that Christ did or suffer'd and all that he now does as a Priest in heaven is to glorifie his Father by bringing souls to God For this it was that he was born and dyed that he descended from heaven to earth from life to death from the crosse to the grave this was the purpose of his resurrection and ascension of the end and design of all the miracles and graces of God manifested to all the world by him and now what man is so vile such a malicious fool that will refuse to bring joy to his Lord by doing himself the greatest good in the world They who refuse to do this are said to crucifie the Lord of life again and put him to an open shame that is they as much as in them lies bring Christ from his glorious joyes to the labours of his life and the shame of his death they advance his enemies and refuse to advance the Kingdome of their Lord they put themselves in that state in which they were when Christ came to dye for them and now that he is in a state that he may rejoyce over them for he hath done all his share towards it every wicked man takes his head from the blessing and rather chuses that the Devill should rejoyce in his destruction then that his Lord should triumph in his felicity And now upon the supposition of these premises we may imagine that it will be an infinite amazement to meet that Lord to be our Judge whose person we have murdered whose honour we have disparaged whose purposes we have destroyed whose joyes we have lessened whose passion we have made ineffectuall and whose love we have trampled under our profane and impious feet 3. But there is yet a third part of this consideration As it will be inquir'd at the day of Judgement concerning the dishonours to the person of Christ so also concerning the profession and institution of Christ and concerning his poor Members for by these also we make sad reflexions upon our Lord. Every man that lives wickedly disgraces the religion and institution of Jesus he discourages strangers from entring into it he weakens the hands of them that are in already and makes that the adversaries speak reproachfully of the Name of Christ but although it is certain our Lord and Judge will deeply resent all these things yet there is one thing which he takes more tenderly and that is the uncharitablenesse of men towards his poor It shall then be upbraided to them by the Judge that himself was hungry and they refused to give meat to him that gave them his body and heart-bloud to feed them and quench their thirst that they denyed a robe to cover his nakednesse and yet he would have cloathed their souls with the robe of his righteousnesse lest their souls should be found naked in the day of the Lords visitation and all this unkindnesse is nothing but that evill men were uncharitable to their Brethren they would not feed the hungry nor give drink to the thirsty nor cloath the naked nor relieve their Brothers needs nor forgive his follies nor cover their shame nor turn their eyes from delighting in their affronts and evill accidents this is it which our Lord will take so tenderly that his Brethren for whom he died who suck'd the paps of his Mother that fed on his Body and are nourished with his Bloud whom he hath lodg'd in his heart and entertains in his bosome the partners of his Spirit and co-heirs of his inheritance that these should be deny'd relief and suffered to go away ashamed and unpitied this our blessed Lord will take so ill that all those who are guilty of this unkindnesse have no reason to expect the favour of the Court. 4. To this if we adde the almightinesse of the Judge his infinite wisdome and knowledge of all causes and all persons and all circumstances that he is infinitely just inflexibly angry and impartiall in his sentence there can be nothing added either to the greatness or the requisites of a terrible and an Almighty Judge For who can resist him who is Almighty Who can evade his scrutiny that knows all things Who can hope for pity of him that is inflexible Who can think to be exempted when the Judge is righteous and impartial But in all these annexes of the great
which is the second death no dying there but a being tormented burning in a lake of fire that is the second death For if life be reckoned a blessing then to be destitute of all blessing is to have no life and therefore to be intolerably miserable is this second death that is death eternall 3. And yet if God should deal with man hereafter more mercifully and proportionably to his weak nature then he does to Angels and as he admits him to repentance here so in hell also to a period of his smart even when he keeps the Angels in pain for ever yet he will never admit him to favour he shall be tormented beyond all the measure of humane ages and be destroyed for ever and ever It concerns us all who hear and beleeve these things to do as our blessed Lord will do before the day of his coming he will call and convert the Jews and strangers Conversion to God is the best preparatory to Dooms-day and it concerns all them who are in the neighbourhood and fringes of the flames of hell that is in the state of sin quickly to arise from the danger and shake the burning coals off our flesh lest it consume the marrow and the bones Exuenda est velociter de incendio sarcina priusquam flammis supervenientibus concremetur Nemo diu tutus est periculo proximus saith S. Cyprian No man is safe long that is so neer to danger for suddenly the change will come in which the Judge shall be called to Judgement and no man to plead for him unlesse a good conscience be his Advocate and the rich shall be naked as a condemned criminall to execution and there shall be no regard of Princes or of Nobles and the differences of mens account shall be forgotten and no distinction remaining but of good or bad sheep and goats blessed and accursed souls Among the wonders of the day of Judgement our blessed Saviour reckons it that men shall be marrying and giving in marriage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 marrying and crosse marrying that is raising families and lasting greatnesse and huge estates when the world is to end so quickly and the gains of a rich purchase so very a trifle but no trifling danger a thing that can give no security to our souls but much hazards and a great charge More reasonable it is that we despise the world and lay up for heaven that we heap up treasures by giving almes and make friends of unrighteous Mammon but at no hand to enter into a state of life that is all the way a hazard to the main interest and at the best an increase of the particular charge Every degree of riches every degree of greatnesse every ambitious imployment every great fortune every eminency above our brother is a charge to the accounts of the last day He that lives temperately and charitably whose imployment is religion whose affections are fear and love whose desires are after heaven and do not dwell below that man can long and pray for the hastning of the coming of the day of the Lord. He that does not really desire and long for that day either is in a very ill condition or does not understand that he is in a good * I will not be so severe in this meditation as to forbid any man to laugh that beleeves himself shall be called to so severe a Judgement yet S. Hierom said it Coram coelo terrâ rationem reddemus totius nostrae vitae tu rides Heaven and earth shall see all the follies and basenesse of thy life and doest thou laugh That we may but we have not reason to laugh loudly and frequently if we consider things wisely and as we are concerned but if we do yet praesentis temporis ita est agenda laetitia ut sequentis judicii amaritudo nunquam recedat à memoriâ so laugh here that you may not forget your danger lest you weep for ever He that thinks most seriously and most frequently of this fearfull appearance will finde that it is better staying for his joyes till this sentence be past for then he shall perceive whether he hath reason or no. In the mean time wonder not that God who loves mankinde so well should punish him so severely for therefore the evill fall into an accursed portion because they despised that which God most loves his Son and his mercies his graces and his holy Spirit and they that do all this have cause to complain of nothing but their own follies and they shall feel the accursed consequents then when they shall see the Judge sit above them angry and severe inexorable and terrible under them an intolerable hell within them their consciences clamorous and diseased without them all the world on fire on the right hand those men glorified whom they persecuted or despised on the left hand the Devils accusing for this is the day of the Lords terror and who is able to abideat Seu vigilo intentus studiis seu dormio semper Iudicis extremi nostras tuba personet aures SERMON IV. The Returne of PRAYERS Or The Conditions of a PREVAILING PRAYER John 9. 31. Now wee know that God heareth not sinners but if any man be a worshippar of God and doth his will him be heareth IKnow not which is the greater wonder either that prayer which is a duty so easie and facile so ready and apted to the powers and skill and opportunities of every man should have so great effects and be productive of such mighty blessings or that we should be so unwilling to use so easie an instrument of procuring so much good The first declares Gods goodnesse but this publishes mans folly and weaknesse who finds in himself so much difficulty to perform a condition so easie and full of advantage But the order of this infelicity is knotted like the foldings of a Serpent all those parts of easinesse which invite us to doe the duty are become like the joynes of a bulrush not bendings but consolidations and stiffenings the very facility becomes its objection and in every of its stages wee make or finde a huge uneasinesse At first wee doe not know what we ask and when we doe then we finde difficulty to bring our wils to desire it and when that is instructed and kept in awe it mingles interest and confounds the purposes and when it is forc'd to ask honestly and severely then it wills so coldly that God hates the prayer and if it desires fervently it sometimes turns that into passion and that passion breaks into murmurs or unquietnesse or if that be avoyded the indifferency cooles into death or the fire burns violently and is quickly spent our desires are dull as a rock or fugitive as lightening either wee aske ill things earnestly or good things remissely we either court our owne danger or are not zealous for our reall safety or if we be right in our matter or earnest in our affections and lasting in
things of God and all other duties to be the things of the world for it was a Pharisaicall device to cry Corban and to refuse to relieve their aged Parents it is good to give to a Church but it is better to give to the Poor and though they must be both provided for yet in cases of dispute Mercy carries the cause against Religion and the Temple And although Mary was commended for choosing the better part yet Mary had done worse if she had been at the foot of her Master when she should have relieved a perishing brother Martha was troubled with much serving that was more then need and therefore she was to blame and sometimes hearing in some circumstances may be more then needs and some women are troubled with over-much hearing and then they had better have been serving the necessities of their house 4. This rule is not to be extended to the relatives of Religion for although the things of the Spirit are better then the things of the World yet a spirituall man is not in humane regards to be preferred before Princes and noble personages Because a man is called spirituall in severall regards and for various measures and manners of partaking of the Spirit of grace or co-operating toward the works of the Spirit * A King and a Bishop both have callings in order to godlinesse and honesty and spirituall effects towards the advancement of Christs Kingdome whose representatives severally they are * But whether of these two works more immediately or more effectively cannot at all times be known and therefore from hence no argument can be drawn concerning doing them civill regards * and possibly the partaking the Spirit is a neerer relation to him then doing his ministeries and serving his ends upon others * and if relations to God and Gods Spirit could bring an obligation of giving proportionable civill honour every holy man might put in some pretence for dignities above some Kings and some Bishops * But as the things of the Spirit are in order to the affairs of another world so they naturally can inferre onely such a relative dignity as can be expressed in spirituall manners But because such relations are subjected in men of this life and we now converse especially in materiall and secular significations therefore we are to expresse our regards to men of such relations by proportionable expressions but because civill excellencies are the proper ground of receiving and exacting civill honors and spirituall excellencies doe onely claim them accidentally and indirectly therefore in titles of honour and humane regards the civill praeeminence is the appendix of the greatest civill power and imployment and is to descend in proper measures and for a spirituall relation to challenge a temporall dignity is as if the best Musick should challenge the best cloathes or a Lute-string should contend with a Rose for the honour of the greatest sweetnesse * Adde to this that although temporall things are in order to spirituall and therefore are lesse perfect yet this is not so naturally for temporall things are properly in order to the felicity of man in his proper and present constitution and it is by a supernaturall grace that now they are thrust forward to a higher end of grace and glory and therefore temporall things and persons and callings have properly the chiefest temporall regard and Christ took nothing of this away from them but put them higher by sanctifying and ennobling them * But then the higher calling can no more suppose the higher man then the richest trade can suppose the richest man From callings to men the argument is fallacious and a Smith is a more usefull man then he that teaches Logick but not always to be more esteemed and called to stand at the chairs of Princes and Nobles * Holy persons and holy things and all great relations are to be valued by generall proportions to their correlatives but if wee descend to make minute and exact proportions and proportion an inch of temporall to a minute of spirituall we must needs be hugely deceived unlesse we could measure the motion of an Angell by a string or the progressions of the Spirit by weight and measure of the staple * And yet if these measures were taken it would be unreasonable that the lower of the higher kind should be preferr'd before the most perfect and excellent in a lower order of things A man generally is to be esteemed above a woman but not the meanest of her subjects before the most excellent Queen not alwayes this man before this woman Now Kings and Princes are the best in all temporall dignities and therefore if they had in them no spirituall relations and consequent excellencies as they have very many yet are not to be undervalu'd to spirituall relations which in this world are very imperfect weak partiall and must stay till the next world before they are in a state of excellency propriety and perfection and then also all shall have them according to the worth of their persons not of their calling * But lastly what men may not challenge is not their just and proper due but spirituall persons and the neerest relatives to God stand by him but so long at they dwell low and safe in humility and rise high in nothing but in labours and zeal of soules and devotion * In proportion to this rule a Church may be pull'd down to save a Town and the Vessels of the Church may be sold to redeem Captives when there is a great calamity imminent and prepared for reliefe and no other way to succour it But in the whole the duty of zeale requires that we neglect an ordinary visit rather then an ordinary prayer and a great profit rather then omit a required duty No excuse can legitimate a sin and he that goes about to distinguish between his duty and his profit and if he cannot reconcile them will yet tie them together like a Hyaena and a Dog this man pretends to Religion but secures the world and is indifferent and lukewarme towards that so he may be warme and safe in the possession of this 2. To that fervour and zeal that is necessary and a duty it is required that we be constant and persevering Esto fidelis ad mortem said the Spirit of God to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna Be faithfull unto death and I will give thee a crown of life For he that is warm to day and cold to morrow zealous in his resolution and weary in his practises fierce in the beginning and slack and easie in his progresse hath not yet well chosen what side he will be of he sees not reason enough for Religion and he hath not confidence enough for its contrary and therefore he is duplicis animi as St. James calls him of a doubtfull mind For Religion is worth as much to day as it was yesterday and that cannot change though we doe and if we doe we have left God and whither
rubies adorn the necks and cheeks of women Pudicitia est pater eos magnificare qui nos socias sumpserunt sibi said the maiden in the comedy It is modesty to advance and highly to honour them who have honoured us by making us to be the companions of their dearest excellencies for the woman that went before the man in the way of death is commanded to follow him in the way of love and that makes the society to be perfect and the union profitable and the harmony compleat Inferior Matrona suo sit Sexte marito Non aliter fiunt foemina virque pares For then the soul and body make a perfect man when the soul commands wisely or rules lovingly and cares profitably and provides plentifully and conducts charitably that body which is its partner and yet the inferiour But if the body shall give lawes and by the violence of the appetite first abuse the understanding and then possesse the superior portion of the will and choice the body and the soul are not apt company and the man is a fool and miserable If the soul rules not it cannot be a companion either it must govern or be a slave Never was King deposed and suffered to live in the state of peerage and equall honour but made a prisoner or put to death and those women that had rather lead the blinde then follow prudent guides rule fools and easie men then obey the powerfull and the wise never made a good society in a house a wife never can become equall but by obeying but so her power while it is in minority makes up the authority of the man integrall and becomes one government as themselves are one man Male and Female created he them and called their name Adam saith the holy Scripture they are but one and therefore the severall parts of this one man must stand in the place where God appointed that the lower parts may do their offices in their own station and promote the common interest of the whole A ruling woman is intolerable Faciunt graviora coacta Imperio sexus But that 's not all for she is miserable too for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a sad calamity for a woman to be joyned to a fool or a weak person it is like a guard of geese to keep the Capitoll or as if a flock of sheep should read grave lectures to their shepherd and give him orders where he shall conduct them to pasture O verè Phyrgiae neque enim Phryges It is a curse that God threatned sinning persons Devoratum est robur eorum facti sunt quasi mulieres Effeminati dominabuntur eis To be ruled by weaker people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have a fool to ones master is the fate of miserable and unblessed people and the wife can be no waies happy unlesse she be governed by a prudent Lord whose commands are sober counsels whose authority is paternall whose orders are provisions and whose sentences are charity But now concerning the measures and limits of this obedience we can best take accounts from Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle in all things ut Domino as unto the Lord and that 's large enough as unto a Lord ut Ancilla Domino so St. Hierom understand it who neither was a friend to the sexe nor to marriage But his mistake is soon confuted by the text It is not ut Dominis be subject to your husbands as unto Lords but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in all religion in reverence and in love in duty and zeal in faith and knowledge or else 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie wives be so subject to your husbands but yet so that at the same time ye be subject to the Lord. For that 's the measure of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things and it is more plain in the parallell place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is fit in the Lord Religion must be the measure of your obedience and subjection intra limites disciplinae so Tertullian expresses it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Clemens Alex. In all things let the wise be subject to the husband so as to do nothing against his will those only things excepted in which he is impious or refractary in things pertaining to wisdome and piety But in this also there is some peculiar caution For although in those things which are of the necessary parts of faith and holy life the woman is only subject to Christ who only is and can be Lord of consciences and commands alone where the conscience is instructed and convinced yet as it is part of the mans office to be a teacher and a prophet and a guide and a Master so also it will relate very much to the demonstration of their affections to obey his counsels to imitate his vertues to be directed by his wisdome to have her perswasion measured by the lines of his excellent religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It were hugely decent saith Plutarch that the wife should acknowledge her husband for her teacher and her guide for then when she is what he please to efform her he hath no cause to complain if she be no better 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his precepts and wise counsels can draw her off from vanities and as he said of Geometry that if she be skill'd in that she will not easily be a gamester or a dancer may perfectly be said of Religion If she suffers her self to be guided by his counsell and efformed by his religion either he is an ill master in his religion or he may secure in her and for his advantage an excellent vertue And although in matters of religion the husband hath no empire and command yet if there be a place lest to perswade and intreat and induce by arguments there is not in a family a greater endearment of affections then the unity of religion and anciently it was not permitted to a woman to have a religion by her self Eosdem quos maritus nosse Deos colere solos uxor debet said Plutarch And the rites which a woman performes severally from her husband are not pleasing to God and therefore Pomponia Graecina because she entertain'd a stranger religion was permitted to the judgement of her husband Plantius And this whole affair is no stranger to Christianity For the Christian woman was not suffered to marry an unbelieving man and although this is not to be extended to different opinions within the limits of the common faith yet thus much advantage is won or lost by it that the complyance of the wife and submission of her understanding to the better rule of her husband in matters of Religion will help very much to warrant her though she should be misperswaded in a matter lesse necessary yet nothing can warrant her in her separate rites and manners of worshippings but an invincible necessity of conscience and a curious infallible
if the fathers eat sowre grapes the childrens teeth shall not be set on edge and therefore the sin of Adam which was derived to all the world did not bring the world to any other death but temporall by the intermediall stages of sickness and temporal infelicities And it is not said that sin passed upon all men but death that also no otherwise but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in as much as al men have sinned as they have followed the steps of their father so they are partakers of this death And therefore it is very remarkable that death brought in by sin was nothing superinduced to man man onely was reduced to his own naturall condition from which before Adams fall he stood exempted by supernaturall favour and therefore although the taking away that extraordinary grace or priviledge was a punishment yet the suffering the naturall death was directly none but a condition of his creation naturall and therefore not primarily evil but if not good yet at least indifferent And the truth and purpose of this observation will extend it self if we observe that before any man died Christ was promised by whom death was to lose its sting by whom death did cease to be an evil and was or might be if we do belong to Christ a state of advantage So that we by occasion of Adams sin being returned to our naturall certainty of dying do still even in this very particular stand between the blessing and the cursing If we follow Christ death is our friend If we imitate the praevarication of Adam then death becomes an evil the condition of our nature becomes the punishment of our own sin not of Adams for although his sin brought death in yet it is onely our sin that makes death to be evil And I desire this to be observed because it is of great use in vindicating the Divine justice in the matter of this question The materiall part of the evil came from our father upon us but the formality of it the sting and the curse is onely by our selves 2. For the fault of others many may become miserable even all or any of those whose relation is such to the sinner that he in any sense may by such inflictions be punished execrable or oppressed Indeed it were strange if when a plague were in Ethiopia the Athenians should be infected or if the house of Pericles were visited and Thucydides should die for it For although there are some evils which as Plutarch saith are ansis propagationibus praedita incredibili celeritate in longinquum penetrantia such which can dart evil influences as Porcupines do their quils yet as at so great distances the knowledge of any confederate events must needs be uncertain so it is also uselesse because we neither can joyne their causes nor their circumstances nor their accidents into any neighbourhood of conjunction Relations are seldome noted at such distances and if they were it is certain so many accidents will intervene that will out-weigh the efficacy of such relations that by any so far distant events we cannot be instructed in any duty nor understand our selves reproved for any fault But when the relation is neerer and is joyned under such a head and common cause that the influence is perceived and the parts of it do usually communicate in benefit notices or infelicity especially if they relate to each other as superiour and inferiour then it is certain the sin is infectious I mean not onely in example but also in punishment And of this I shall shew 1. In what instances usually it is so 2. For what reasons it is so and justly so 3. In what degree and in what cases it is so 4. What remedies there are for this evil 1. It is so in kingdoms in Churches in families in politicall artificiall and even in accidentall societies When David numbred the people God was angry with him but he punished the people for the crime seventy thousand men died of the plague and when God gave to David the choice of three plagues he chose that of the pestilence in which the meanest of the people and such which have the least society with the acts and crimes of Kings are most commonly devoured whilest the powerfull and sinning persons by arts of physick and flight by provisions of nature and accidents are more commonly secured * But the story of the Kings of Israel hath furnished us with an example sitted with all the stranger circumstances in this question Joshuah had sworn to the Gibeonites who had craftily secured their lives by exchanging it for their liberties Almost 500. yeers after Saul in zeal to the men of Israel and Judah slew many of them After this Saul dies and no question was made of it But in the dayes of David there was a famine in the land three yeers together and God being inquired of said it was because of Saul his killing the Gibeonites What had the people to do with their Kings fault or at least the people of David with the fault of Saul That we shall see anon But see the way that was appointed to expiate the crime and the calamity David took seven of Sauls sons and hanged them up against the Sun and after that God was intreated for the land The story observes one circumstance more that for the kindnesse of Jonathan David spared Mephibosheth Now this story doth not onely instance in Kingdoms but in families too The fathers fault is punished upon the sons of the family and the Kings fault upon the people of his land even after the death of the King after the death of the father Thus God visited the sin of Ahab partly upon himself partly upon his sons I will not bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house Thus did God slay the childe of Bathsheba for the sin of his father David and the whole family of Eâ—i all his kinred of the neerer lines were thrust from the priesthood and a curse made to descend upon his children for many ages that all the males should die young and in the flower of their youth The boldnesse and impiety of Cham made his posterity to be accursed and brought slavery into the world Because Ataalek fought with the sons of Israel at Rephidim God took up a quarrell against the nation for ever And above all examples is that of the Jews who put to death the Lord of life and made their nation to be an anathema for ever untill the day of restitution His blood be upon us and upon our children If we shed innocent blood If we provoke God to wrath If we oppresse the poor If we crucifie the Lord of life again and put him to an open shame the wrath of God will be upon us and upon our children to make us a cursed family and who are the sinners to be the stock and original of the curse the pedigree of the misery
deceive you The man deceives because he is false and the staffe because it is weak and the heart because it is both So that it is deceitful above all things that is failing and disabled to support us in many things but in other things where it can it is false and desperately wicked The first sort of deceitfulnesse is its calamitie and the second is its iniquity and that is the worst Calamitie of the two 1. The heart is deceitfull in its strength and when we have the groweth of a Man we have the weaknesses of a childe nay more yet and it is a sad consideration the more we are in age the weaker in our courage It appears in the heats and forwardnesses of new converts which are like to the great emissions of Lightning or like huge fires which flame and burn without measure even all that they can till from flames they descend to still fires from thence to smoak from smoak to embers from thence to ashes cold and pale like ghosts or the phantastick images of Death And the primitive Church were zealous in their Religion up to the degree of Cherubins and would run as greedily to the sword of the hangman to die for the cause of God as we do now to the greatest joy and entertainment of a Christian spirit even to the receiving of the holy Sacrament A man would think it reasonable that the first infancy of Christianity should according to the nature of first beginnings have been remisse gentle and unactive and that according us the object or evidence of faith grew which in every Age hath a great degree of Argument superadded to its confirmation so should the habit also and the grace the longer it lasts the more obiections it runs through it still should shew a brighter and more certain light to discover the divinity of its principle and that after the more examples and new accidents and strangenesses of providence and daily experience and the multitude of miracles still the Christian should grow more certain in his faith more refreshed in his hope and warm in his charity the very nature of these graces increasing and swelling upon the very nourishment of experience and the multiplication of their own acts And yet because the heart of man is false it suffers the fires of the Altar to go out and the flames lessen by the multitude of fuel But indeed it is because we put on strange fire put out the fire upon our hearths by letting in a glaring Sun beam the fire of lust or the heates of an angry spirit to quench the fires of God and suppresse the sweet cloud of incense The heart of man hath not strength enough to think one good thought of itself it cannot command its own attention to a prayer of ten lines long but before its end it shall wander after some thing that is to no purpose and no wonder then that it grows weary of a holy religion which consists of so many parts as make the businesse of a whole life And there is no greater argument in the world of our spiritual weaknesse and falsnesse of our hearts in the matters of religion then the backwardnesse which most men have alwayes and all men have somtimes to say their prayers so weary of their length so glad when they are done so wittie to excuse and frustrate an opportunity and yet there is no manner of trouble in the duty no wearinesse of bones no violent labours nothing but begging a blessing and receiving it nothing but doing our selves the greatest honour of speaking to the greatest person and greatest king of the world and that we should be unwilling to do this so unable to continue in it so backward to return to it so without gust and relish in the doing it can have no visible reason in the nature of the thing but something within us a strange sicknesse in the heart a spiritual nauseating or loathing of Manna something that hath no name but we are sure it comes from a weake a faint and false heart And yet this weak heart is strong in passions violent in desires unresistable in its appetites impatient in its lust furious in anger here are strengths enough one would think But so have I seen a man in a feaver sick and distempered unable to walk lesse able to speak sence or to do an act of counsel and yet when his feaver hath boild up to a delirium he was strong enough to beat his nurse keeper and his doctor too and to resist the loving violence of all his friends who would faine binde him down to reason and his bed And yet we still say he is weak and sick to death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for these strengths of madnesse are not health but furiousnesse and disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is weaknesse another way And so are the strengths of a mans heart they are fetters and manacles strong but they are the cordage of imprisonment so strong that the heart is not able to stir And yet it cannot but be a huge sadnesse that the heart shall pursue a temporal interest with wit and diligence and an unwearied industry and shall not have strength enough in a matter that concerns its Eternal interest to answer one obiection to resist one assault to defeate one art of the divel but shall certainly and infallibly fall when ever it is tempted to a pleasure This if it be examined will prove to be a deceit indeed a pretence rather then true upon a just cause that is it is not a natural but a moral a vicious weaknesse and we may try it in one or two familiar instances One of the great strengths shall I call it or weaknesses of the heart is that it is strong violent and passionate in its lusts and weak and deceitful to resist any Tell the tempted person that if he act his lust he dishonours his body makes himself a servant to follie and one flesh with a harlot he defiles the Temple of God and him that defiles a Temple will God destroy Tell him that the Angels who love to be present in the nastinesse and filth of prisons that they may comfort and assist chast souls and holy persons there abiding yet they are impatient to behold or come neer the filthynesse of a lustful person Tell him that this sin is so ugly that the divels who are spirits yet they delight to counterfeit the acting of this crime and descend unto the daughters or sons of men that they may rather lose their natures then not help to set a lust forward Tell them these and ten thousand things more you move them no more then if you should read one of Tullies orations to a mule for the truth is they have no power to resist it much lesse to master it their heart fails them when they meet their Mistresse and they are driven like a fool to the stocks or a Bull to the slaughter-house And
if he shall dash against the wall because it showes him his face just as it is his face is not so ugly as his manners And yet our heart is so impatient of seeing its own staines that like the Elephant it tramples in the pure streames and first troubles them then stoops and drinks when he can least see his huge deformitie 2. In order to this we heap up teachers of our own and they guide us not whither but which way they please for we are curious to go our own way and carelesse of our Hospitall or Inne at night A faire way and a merry company and a pleasant easie guide will entice us into the Enemies quarters and such guides we cannot want Improbitati occasio nunquam defuit If we have a minde to be wicked we shall want no prompters and false teachers at first creeping in unawares have now so filled the pavement of the Church that you can scarce set your foot on the ground but you tread upon a snake Cicero l. 7. ad Atticum undertakes to bargain with them that kept the Sybils books that for a sum of money they shall expound to him what he please and to be sure ut quidvis potius quam Regem proferrent They shall declare against the government of kings say that the Gods will endure any thing rather then Monarchy in their beloved republick And the same mischief God complains of to be among the Jews the Prophets prophecie lies and my people love to have it so and what will the end of these things be even the same that Cicero complain'd of Ad opinionem imperitorum fictas esse Religiones Men shall have what Religion they please and God shall be intitled to all the quarrels of covetous and Ambitious persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Demosthenes wittily complained of the Oracle An answer shall be drawn out of Scripture to countenance the designe God made to Rebel against his own Ordinances And then we are zealous for the Lord God of Hosts and will live and die in that quarrel But is it not a strange cozenage that our hearts shall be the main wheel in the engine and shall set all the rest on working The heart shall first put his own candle out then put out the eye of reason then remove the Land-mark and dig down the causeywayes and then either hire a blinde guide or make him so and all these Arts to get ignorance that they may secure impiety At first man lost his innocence onely in hope to get a little knowledge and ever since then lest knowledge should discover his errour and make him returne to innocence we are content to part with that now and to kow nothing that may discover or discountenance our sins or discompose our secular designe And as God made great revelations and furnished out a wise Religion and sent his spirit to give the gift of Faith to his Church that upon the foundation of Faith he might build a holy life now our hearts love to retire into Blindnesse sneak under the covert of False principles and run to a cheape religion and an unactive discipline and make a faith of our own that we may build upon it ease and ambition and a tall fortune and the pleasures of revenge and do what we have a minde to scarce once in seven years denying a strong and an unruly appetite upon the interest of a just conscience and holy religion This is such a desperate method of impiety so certain arts and apt instruments for the Divel that it does his work intirley and produces an infallible damnation 3. But the heart of man hath yet another stratagem to secure its iniquity by the means of ignorance and that is Incogitancy or Inconsideration For there is wrought upon the spirits of many men great impression by education by a modest and temperate nature by humane Laws and the customes severities of sober persons and the fears of religion and the awfulnesse of a reverend man and the several arguments and endearments of vertue And it is not in the nature of some men to do an act in despite of reason and Religion and arguments and Reverence and modesty and fear But men are forced from their sin by the violence of the grace of God when they heare it speak But so a Roman Gentleman kept off a whole band of souldiers who were sent to murther him and his eloquence was stronger then their anger and designe But suddenly a rude trooper rushed upon him who neither had nor would heare him speak and he thrust his spear into that throat whose musick had charmed all his fellows into peace and gentlenesse So do we The Grace of God is Armour and defence enough against the most violent incursion of the spirits and the works of darknesse but then we must hear its excellent charms and consider its reasons and remember its precepts and dwell with its discourses But this the heart of man loves not If I be tempted to uncleannesse or to an act of oppression instantly the grace of God represents to me that the pleasure of the sin is transient and vain unsatisfying and empty That I shall die and then I shall wish too late that I had never done it It tells me that I displease God who made me who feeds me who blesses me who fain would save me It represents to me all the joyes of Heaven and the horrours and amazements of a sad eternity And if I will stay and heare them ten thousand excellent things besides fit to be twisted about my understanding for ever But here the heart of man shuffles all these discourses into disorder and will not be put to the trouble of answering the objections but by a meer wildenesse of purpose and rudnesse of resolution ventures super totam materiam at all and does the thing not because it thinks it fit to do so but because it will not consider whether it be or no it is enough that it pleases a present appetite and if such incogitancy comes to be habitual as it is in very many men first by resisting the motions of the holy spirit then by quenching him we shall find the consequents to be first an Indifferencie then a dulnesse then a Lethargie then a direct Hating the wayes of God and it commonly ends in a wretchlessenesse of spirit to be manifested on our death-bed when the man shall passe hence not like the shadow but like the dog that departeth without sence or interest or apprehension or real concernment in the considerations of eternity and t is but just when we will not heare our king speak and plead not to save himself but us to speak for our peace and innocency and Salvation to prevent our ruine and our intolerable calamity certainly we are much in love with the wages of death when we cannot endure to heare God cal us back and stop our ears against the voice of the charmer charme
us choose God and let God choose all the rest for us it being indifferent to us whether by poverty or shame by lingring or a sudden death by the hands of a Tyrant Prince or the despised hands of a base usurper or a rebell we receive the crown and do honour to God and to Religion 3. Whoever suffer in a cause of God from the hands of cruell and unreasonable men let them not be too forward to prognosticate evil and death to their enemies but let them solace themselves in the assurance of the divine justice by generall consideration and in particular pray for them that are our persecutours Nebuchadnezzar was the rod in the hand of God against the Tyrians and because he destroyed that city God rewarded him with the spoil of Egypt and it is not alwayes certain that God will be angry with every man by whose hand affliction comes upon us And sometimes two armies have met and fought and the wisest man amongst them could not say that either of the Princes had prevaricated either the lawes of God or of Nations and yet it may be some superstitious easie and half witted people of either side wonder that their enemies live so long And there are very many cases of warre concerning which God hath declared nothing and although in such cases he that yeelds and quits his title rather then his charity and the care of so many lives is the wisest and the best man yet if neither of them will do so let us not decree judgements from heaven in cases where we have no word from heaven and thunder from our Tribunals where no voice of God hath declared the sentence But in such cases where there is an evident tyranny or injustice let us do like the good Samaritan who dressed the wounded man but never pursued the thief let us do charity to the afflicted and bear the crosse with noblenesse and look up to Jesus who endured the crosse and despised the shame but let us not take upon us the office of God who will judge the Nations righteously and when he hath delivered up our bodies will rescue our souls from the hands of unrighteous judges I remember in the story that Plutarch tels concerning the soul of Thespesius that it met with a Prophetick Genius who told him many things that should happen afterwards in the world and the strangest of all was this That there should be a King Qui bonus cum sit tyrannide vitam finiet An excellent Prince and a good man should be put to death by a rebell and usurping power and yet that Prophetick soul could not tell that those rebels should within three yeers die miserable and accursed deaths and in that great prophecy recorded by Saint Paul That in the last dayes perillous times should come and men should be traitours and selvish having forms of godlinesse and creeping into houses yet could not tell us when those men should come to finall shame and ruine onely by a generall signification he gave this signe of comfort to Gods persecuted servants But they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifest to all men that is at long running they shall shame themselves and for the elects sake those dayes of evil shall be shortned But you and I may be dead first And therefore onely remember that they that with a credulous heart and a loose tongue are too decretory and enunciative of speedy judgements to their enemies turn their religion into revenge and therefore do beleeve it will be so because they vehemently desire it should be so which all wise and good men ought to suspect as lesse agreeing with that charity which overcomes all the sins and all the evils of the world and sits down and rests in glory 4. Do not trouble your self by thinking how much you are afflicted but consider how much you make of it For reflex acts upon the suffering it self can lead to nothing but to pride or to impatience to temptation or a postacy He that measures the grains and scruples of his persecution will soon sit down and call for ease or for a reward will think the time long or his burden great will be apt to complain of his condition or set a greater value upon his person Look not back upon him that strikes thee but upward to God that supports thee and forward to the crown that is set before thee and then consider if the losse of thy estate hath taught thee to despise the world whether thy poor fortune hath made thee poor in spirit and if thy uneasie prison sets thy soul at liberty and knocks off the fetters of a worse captivity For then the rod of suffering turns into crowns and scepters when every suffering is a precept and every change of condition produces a holy resolution and the state of sorrows makes the resolution actuall and habituall permanent and persevering For as the silk-worm eateth it self out of a seed to become a little worm and there feeding on the leaves of mulberies it grows till its coat be off and then works it self into a house of silk then casting its pearly seeds for the young to breed it leaveth its silk for man and dieth all white and winged in the shape of a flying creature So it the progresse of souls when they are regenerate by Baptisme and have cast off their first stains and the skin of world 〈…〉 by feeding on the leaves of Scriptures and the fruits of 〈…〉 and the joyes of the Sacrament they incircle themselves in the rich garments of holy and vertuous habits then by leaving their blood which is the Churches seed to raise up a new generation to God they leave a blessed memory and fair example and are themselves turned into Angels whose felicity is to do the will of God as their imployments was in this world to suffer it fiat voluntas tua is our daily prayer and that is of a passive signification thy will be done upon us and if from thence also we translate it into an active sence and by suffering evils increase in our aptnesses to do well we have done the work of Christians and shall receive the reward of Martyrs 5. Let our suffering be entertained by a direct election not by collateral ayds and phantastick assistances It is a good refreshment to a weak spirit to suffer in good company and so Phocion encouraged a timerous Greek condemned to die and he bid him be confident because that he was to die with Phocion and when 40 Martyrs in Cappadocia suffered and that a souldier standing by came and supplyed the place of the one Apostate who fell from his crown being overcome with pain it added warmth to the frozen confessors and turnd them into consummate Martyrs But if martyrdom were but a phantastick thing or relyed upon vain accidents and irregular chances it were then very necessary to be assisted by images of things and any thing lesse then the
I gave thee thy masters house and wives into thy bosom and the house of Israel and Judah and if this had been too little I would have given thee such and such things wherefore hast thou despised the name of the Lord but how infinitely more can God say to all of us then all this came to he hath anointed us kings and priests in the royal pristhood of Christianity he hath given us his holy spirit to be our guide his angels to be our protectors his creatures for our food and raiment he hath delivered us from the hands of Sathan hath conquered death for us hath taken the sting out and made it harmlesse and medicinal and proclaimed us heires of heaven coheires with the eternal Jesus and if after all this we despise the commandment of the Lord and defer and neglect our repentance what shame is great enough what miseries are sharp enough what hell painful enough for such horrid ingratitude Saint Lewis the King having sent Ivo Bishop of Chartres on an embassy the Bishop met a woman on the way grave sad Phantastick malancholy with fire in one hand and water in the other he asked what those symbols ment she answered my purpose is with fire to burn Paradise and with my water to quench the flames of hell that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear purely for the love of God But this woman began at the wrong end the love of God is not produced in us after we have contracted evil habits til God with his fan in his hand hath throughly purged the floore till he hath cast out all the devils and swept the house with the instrument of hope and fear and with the atchieuments and efficacy of mercies and judgements But then since God may truely say to us as of old to his rebellious people Am I a dry tree to the house of Israel that is do I bring them no fruit do they serve me for nought and he expects not our duty till first we feel his go odnesse we are now infinitely inexcusable to throw away so great riches to despise such a goodnesse However that we may see the greatnesse of this treasure of goodnesse God seldom leaves us thus for he sees be it spoken to the shame of our natures and the dishonour of our manners he sees that his mercies do not allure us do not make us thankful but as the Roman said felicitate corrumpimur we become worse for Gods mercy and think it will be alwayes holiday and are like the Christal of Arabia hardned notby cold but made crusty and stubborn by the warmth of the divine fire by its refreshments and mercies therfore to demonstrate that God is good indeed he con tinues his mercise still to us but in another instance he is merciful to us in punishing us that by such instruments we may be led to repentance which will scare us from sin he delivers us up to the paedagogy of the divine judgements and there begins the second part of Gods method intimated in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forbearance God begins his cure by causticks by incisions and instruments of vexation to try if the disease that will not yeild to the allectives of cordials and perfumes friction and baths may be forced out by deleteries soarifications and more salutary but least pleasing Physicke 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for bearance it is called in the text which signifies laxamentum or inducias that is when the decrees of the divine judgements temporal are gone out either wholly to suspend the execution of them which is induciae or a reprieve or else when God hath struck once or twice he takes on his hand that is laxamentum an ease of remission of his judgment in both these although in judgement God remembers mercy yet we are under discipline we are brought into the penitential chamber at least we are shewed the rod of God and if like Moses rod it turnes us into serpents and that we repent not but grow more Devils yet then it turnes into a rod again and finishes up the smiting or the first designed affliction But I consider it first in general the riches of the divine goodnesse is manifest in beginning this new method of curing us by severity and by a rod. And that you may not wonder that I expound this forbearance to be an act of mercy punishing I observe that besides that the word supposes the method changed and it is a mercy about judgements and their manner of execution it is also in the nature of the thing in the conjunction of circumstances and the designes of God a mercy when he threatens us or strike us into repentance We think that the way of blessings and prosperous accidents is the finer way of securing our duty and that when our heads are anointed our cups crowned and our tables full the very caresses of our spirits will best of all dance before the Ark and sing perpetual Anthemes to the honour of our Benefactor and Patron God and we are apt to dream that God will make his Saints raigne here as kings in a millenary kingdom and give them the riches and fortunes of this world that they may rule over men and sing psalms to God for ever But I remember what Xenophanes saies of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is like to men neither in shape nor in counsel he knowes that his mercies confirm some and encourage more but they convert but few alone they lead men to dissolution of manners and forgetfulnesse of God rather then repentance not but that mercies are competent and apt instruments of grace if we would but because we are more dispersed in our spirits and by a prosperous accident are melted into joy and garishnesse and drawn off from the sobriety of recollection Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked Many are not able to suffer and endure prosperity it is like the light of the sun to a weak eye glorious indeed in it self but not proportioned to such an instrument Adam himself as the Rabbins say did not dwell one night in Paradise but was poisoned with prosperity with the beauty of his fair wife and a beauteous tree and Noah and Lot were both righteous and examplary the one to Sodom the other to the old world so long as they lived in a place in which they were obnoxious to the common suffering but as soon as the one of them had scaped from drowning and the other from burning and were put into security they fell into crimes which have dishonoured their memories for above thirty generations together the crimes of drunkennesse and incest wealth and a full fortune make men licenciously vitious tempting a man with power to act all that he can desire or designe vitiously Indeirae faciles Namque ut opes nimias mundo fortuna subacto Intulit et rebus mores cessere secundis Cultus gest are decoros vix nuribus rapuere mares
to a taverne not to refresh their needs of nature or for ends of a tolerable civility or innocent purposes but like the condemned persons among the Levantines they tasted wine freely that they might die and be insensible I could easily reprove such persons with an old Greek proverb mentioned by Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You shall ill be cured of the knotted Gout if you have nothing else but a wide shoe But this reproof is too gentle for so great a madnesse it is not onely an incompetent cure to apply the plaister of a sin or vanity to cure the smart of a divine judgement but it is a great increaser of the misery by swelling the cause to bigger and monstrous proportions It is just as if an impatient fool feeling the smart of his medicine shall tear his wounds open and throw away the instruments of his cure because they bring him health at the charge of a little pain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is full of stripes and troubles and decked round about with thorns he is neer to God But he that because he sits uneasily when he sits neer the King that was crowned with thorns shall remove thence or strew flowers roses and Jessamine the downe of thistles and the softest Gossamere that he may die without pain die quietly and like a lamb sink to the bottom of hell without noise this man is a fool because he accepts death if it arrest him in civil language is content to die by the sentence of an eloquent Judge and prefers a quiet passage to hell before going to heaven in a storm That Italian Gentleman was certainly a great lover of his sleep who was angry with the lizard that wak't him when a viper was creeping into his mouth when the Devil is entring into us to poison our spirits and steal our souls away while we are sleeping in the lethargy of sin God sends his sharp messages to awaken us and we call that the enemy and use arts to cure the remedy not to cure the disease There are some persons that will never be cured not because the sicknesse is incurable but because they have ill stomacks and cannot keep the medicine Iust so is his case that so despises Gods method of curing him by these instances of long-sufferance that he uses all the arts he can to be quit of his Physitian and to spill his physick and to take cordials as soon as his vomit begins to work There is no more to be said in this affair but to read the poor wretches sentence and to declare his condition As at first when he despised the first great mercies God sent him sharpnesses and sad accidents to ensober his spirits So now that he despises this mercy also the mercy of the rod God will take it away from him and then I hope all is well Miserable man that thou art this is thy undoing if God ceases to strike thee because thou wilt not mend thou art sealed up to ruine and reprobation for ever The Physitian hath giv◠thee over he hath no kindnesse for thee This was the desperate estate of Judah Ah sinfull nation a people laden with iniquity they have forsaken the Lord they have provoked the Holy One of Israel why should ye be stricken any more This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most bitter curse the greatest excommunication when the delinquent is become a heathen and a publicane without the covenant out of the pale of the Church the Church hath nothing to do with them for what have I to do with them that are without said Saint Paul It was not lawfull for the Church any more to punish them and this court Christian is an imitation and paralell of the justice of the court of heaven When a sinner is not mended by judgements at long running God cuts him off from his inheritance and the lot of sons he will chastise him no more but let him take his course and spend his portion of prosperity such as shall be allowed him in the great Oeconomy of the world Thus God did to his Vineyard which he took such pains to fence to plant to manure to dig to cut and to prune and when after all it brought forth wilde grapes the last and worst of Gods anger was this Auferam sepem ejus God had fenced it with a hedge of thorns and God would take away all that hedge he would not leave a thorn standing not one judgement to reprove or admonish them but all the wilde beasts and wilder and more beastly lusts may come and devour it and trample it down in scorn And now what shall I say but those words quoted by Saint Peter in his Sermon Behold ye despisers and wonder and perish perish in your own folly by stubbornesse and ingratitude For it is a huge contradiction to the nature and designes of God God calls us we refuse to hear he invites us with fair promises we hear and consider not he gives us blessings we take them and understand not his meaning we take out the token but read not the letter then he threatens us and we regard not he strikes our neighbours and we are not concerned then he strikes us gently but we feel it not then he does like the Physitian in the Greek Epigram who being to cure a man of a Lethargy locked him into the same room with a mad-man that he by dry beating him might make him at least sensible of blows but this makes us instead of running to God to trust in unskilfull Physitians or like Saul to run to a Pythonisse we run for cure to a crime we take sanctuary in a pleasant sin just as if a man to cure his melancholy should desire to be stung with a Tarantula that at least he may die merily what is there more to be done that God hath not yet done he is forced at last to break off with a Curavimus Babylonem non est sanata we dressed and tended Babylon but she was incurable there is no help but such persons must die in their sins and lie down in eternall sorrow Sermon XIV Of Growth in Grace 2 Pet. 3. 18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ to whom be glory both now and for ever Amen WHen Christianity like the day spring from the East with a new light did not onely inlighten the world but amazed the mindes of men and entertained their curiosities and seized upon their warmer and more pregnant affections it was no wonder that whole Nations were converted at a Sermon and multitudes were instantly professed and their understandings followed their affections and their wills followed their understandings and they were convinced by miracle and overcome by grace and passionate with zeal and wisely governed by their Guides and ravished with the sanctity of the Doctrine and the holinesse of their examples And this was not onely their duty but a great
and all the security they can have depends upon Gods mercy pardoning their sins they cannot choose but fear infinitely if they have not reason to hope that their sins are pardoned * Now concerning this men indeed have generally taken a course to put this affair to a very speedy issue God is mercifull and God forgive mee and all is done or it may be a few sighs like the deep sobbings of a man that is almost dead with laughter that is a trifling sorrow returning upon a man after he is full of sin and hath pleased himselfe with violence and revolving onely by a naturall change from sin to sorrow from laughter to a groan from sunshine to a cloudy day or it may be the good man hath left some one sin quite or some degrees of all sin and then the conclusion is firm he is rectus in Curâ—â his sins are pardoned he was indeed in an evill condition but now he is purged he is sanctified and clean These things are very bad but it is much worse that men should continue in their sin and grow old in it and arrive at consirmation and the strength of habituall wickednesse and grow fond of it and yet think if they die their account stands as fair in the eyes of Gods mercy as St. Peter's after his tears and sorrow Our sins are not pardoned easily and quickly and the longer and the greater hath been the iniquity the harder and more difficult and uncertain is the pardon it is a great progresse to return from all the degrees of death to life to motion to quicknesse to purity to acceptation to grace to contention and growth in grace to perseverance and so to pardon For pardon stands no where but at the gates of heaven It is a great mercy that signifies a finall and universall acquittance God sends it out in little scroles and excuses you from falling by the sword of the enemy or the secret stroke of an Angell in the days of the plague but these are but little entertainments and inticings of our hopes to work on towards the great pardon which is registred in the leaves of the Book of Life And it is a mighty folly to think that every little line of mercy signifies glory and absolution from the eternall wrath of God and therefore it is not to be wondred at that wicked men are unwilling to dye it is a greater wonder that many of them dye with so little resentment of their danger and their evill There is reason for them to tremble when the Judge summons them to appear When his messenger is clothed with horror and speaks in thunder when their conscience is their accuser and their accusation is great and their bills uncancell'd and they have no title to the crosse of Christ no advocate no excuse when God is their enemy and Christ is the injur'd person and the Spirit is grieved and sicknesse and death come to plead Gods cause against the man then there is reason that the naturall fears of death should be high and pungent and those naturall fears encreased by the reasonable and certain expectations of that anger which God hath laid up in heaven for ever to consume and destroy his enemies And indeed if we consider upon how trifling and inconsiderable grounds most men hope for pardon if at least that may be call'd hope which is nothing but a carelesse boldnesse and an unreasonable wilfull confidence we shall see much cause to pity very many who are going merrily to a sad and intolerable death Pardon of sins is a mercy which Christ purchased with his dearest blood which he ministers to us upon conditions of an infinite kindnesse but yet of great holinesse and obedience and an active living faith it is a grace that the most holy persons beg of God with mighty passion and labour for with a great diligence and expect with trembling fears and concerning it many times suffer sadnesses with uncertain soules and receive it by degrees and it enters upon them by little portions and it is broken as their sighs and sleeps But so have I seen the returning sea enter upon the strand and the waters rolling towards the shore throw up little portions of the tide and retire as if nature meant to play and not to change the abode of waters but still the floud crept by little steppings and invaded more by his progressions then he lost by his retreat and having told the number of its steps it possesses its new portion till the Angell calls it back that it may leave its unfaithfull dwelling of the sand so is the pardon of our sins it comes by slow motions and first quits a present death and turnes it may be into a sharp sicknesse and if that sicknesse prove not health to the soul it washes off and it may be will dash against the rock again and proceed to take off the severall instances of anger and the periods of wrath but all this while it is uncertain concerning our finall interest whether it be ebbe or floud and every hearty prayer and every bountifull almes still enlarges the pardon or addes a degree of probability and hope and then a drunken meeting or a covetous desire or an act of lust or looser swearing idle talk or neglect of Religion makes the pardon retire and while it is disputed between Christ and Christs enemy who shall be Lord the pardon fluctuates like the wave striving to climbe the rock and is wash'd off like its own retinue and it gets possession by time and uncertainty by difficulty and the degrees of a hard progression When David had sinned but in one instance interrupting the course of a holy life by one sad calamity it pleased God to pardon him but see upon what hard terms He prayed long and violently he wept sorely he was humbled in sackcloth and ashes he eat the bread of affliction and drank of his bottle of tears he lost his Princely spirit and had an amazing conscience he suffer'd the wrath of God and the sword never did depart from his house his Son rebell'd and his Kingdome revolted he fled on foot and maintained Spies against his childe hee was forc'd to send an army against him that was dearer then his owne eyes and to fight against him whom he would not hurt for all the riches of Syria and Egypt his concubines were desir'd by an incestuous mixture in the face of the sun before all Israel and his childe that was the fruit of his sin after a 7 days feaver dyed and left him nothing of his sin to show but sorrow and the scourges of the Divine vengeance and after all this God pardoned him finally because he was for ever sorrowfull and never did the sin againe He that hath sinned a thousand times for David's once is too confident if he thinks that all his shall be pardoned at a lesse rate then was used to expiate that one mischief of the religious King The son
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