either maliciously or ignorantly and we stand upright in that particular by innocence and sometimes by penitence and all this while our Conscinence is our friend Sometimes our conscience does accuse us unto God and then we stand convict by our own judgement Sometimes if our conscience acquit us yet we are not thereby justified For as Moses accused the Jews so do Christ and his Apostles accuse us not in their personss but by their works and by their words by the thing it self by confronting the laws of Christ and our practises Sometimes the Angels who are the observers of all our works carry up sad tidings to the Court of Heaven against us Thus two Angels were the informers against Sodom but yet these were the last for before that time the cry of their iniquity had sounded loud and sadly in Heaven and all this is the direct and proper effect of his jealousie which sets spies upon all the actions and watches the circumstances and telâ—s the steps and attends the businesses the recreations the publications and retirements of every man and will not suffer a thought to wander but he uses means to correct it's errour and to reduce it to himself For he that created us and daily feeds us he that intreats us to be happy with an opportunity so passionate as if not we but himself were to receive the favour he that would part with his onely Son from his bosome and the embraces of eternity and give him over to a shameful and cursed death for us Cannot but be supposed to love us with a great love and to own us with an intire title and therefore that he would fain secure us to himself with an undivided possession and it cannot but be infinitely reasonable for to whom else should any of us belong but to God Did the world create us Or did lust ever do us any good Did Sathan ever suffer one stripe for our advantage Does not he study all the wayes to ruine us Doe the Sun or the stars preserve us alive Or do we get understanding from the Angels Did ever any joynt of our body knit or our heart ever keep one true minute of a pulse without God Had not we been either nothing or worse that is infinitely eternally miserable but that God made us capable and then pursued us with arts and devices of great mercy to force us to be happy Great reason therefore there is that God should be jealous lest we take any of our duty from him who hath so strangely deserved it all and give it to a creature or to our enemy who cannot be capable of any But however it will concern us with much caution to observe our own wayes since we are made a spectacle to God to Angels and to Men God hath set so many spies upon us the blessed Angels and the accursed Devils good men and bad men the eye of Heaven and eye of that eye God himself all watching lest we rob God of his Honour and our selves of our hopes For by his prime intention he hath chosen so to get his own glory as may best consist with our felicity His great designe is to be glorified in our being saved 3. Gods jealousie hath a sadder effect then all this For all this is for mercy but if we provoke this jealousie if he findes us in our spiritual whoredoms he is implacable that is he is angry with us to eternity unlesse we returne in time and if we do it may be he will not be appeased in all instances and when he forgives us he will make some reserves of his wrath he will punish our persons or our estate he will chastise us at home or abroad in our bodies or in our children for he will visit our sins upon our children from generation to generation and if they be made miserable for our sins they are unhappy in such parents but we bear the curse and the anger of God even while they bear his rod God visits the sins of the Fathers upon the children Thatâ—s the second Great stroke he strikes against sin and is now to be considered That God doth so is certain because he saith he doth and that this is just in him so to do is also as certain therefore because he doth it For as his lawes are our measures so his actions and his own will are his own measures He that hath right over all things and all persons cannot do wrong to any thing He that is essentially just and there could be no such thing as justice or justice it self could not be good if it did not derive from him it is impossible for him to be unjust But since God is pleased to speak after the manner of men it may well consist with our duty to enquire into those manners of consideration whereby we may understand the equity of God in this proceeding and to be instructed also in our own danger if we persevere in sin 1. No man is made a sinner by the fault of another man without his own consent For to every one God gives his choice and sets life and death before every of the sons of Adam and therefore this death is not a consequent to any sin but our own In this sense it is true that 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
the law was a state of bondage and infirmity as S. Paul largely describes him in the seventh Chapter to the Romanes but he that hath the Spirit is made alive and free and strong and a conquerour over all the powers and violencies of sin such a man resists temptations falls not under the assault of sin returns not to the sin which he last repented of acts no more that errour which brought him to shame and sorrow but he that falls under a crime to which he still hath a strong and vigorous inclination he that acts his sin and then curses it and then is tempted and then sins again and then weeps again and calls himself miserable but still the inchantment hath confined him to that circle this man hath not the Spirit for where the Spirit of God is there is liberty there is no such bondage and a returning folly to the commands of sin But because men deceive themselves with calling this bondage a pitiable and excusable infirmity it will not be uselesse to consider the state of this question more particularly lest men from the state of a pretended infirmity fall into a reall death 1. No great sin is a sin of infirmity or excusable upon that stock But that I may be understood we must know that every sin is in some sense or other a sin of infirmity When a man is in the state of spirituall sicknesse or death he is in a state of infirmity for he is a wounded man a prisoner a slave a sick man weak in his judgement and weak in his reasoning impotent in his passions of childish resolutions great inconstancy and his purposes untwist as easily as the rude conjuncture of uncombining cables in the violence of a Northern tempest and he that is thus in infirmity cannot be excused for it is the aggravation of the state of his sin he is so infirm that he is in a state unable to do his duty Such a man is a servant of sin a slave of the Devil an heir of corruption absolutely under command and every man is so who resolves for ever to avoid such a sin and yet for ever falls under it for what can he be but a servant of sin who fain would avoid it but cannot that is he hath not the Spirit of God within him Christ dwels not in his soul for where the Son is there is liberty and all that are in the Spirit are sons of God and servants of righteousnesse and therefore freed from sin But then there are also sins of infirmity which are single actions intervening seldom in litle instances unavoidable or through a faultlesse ignorance Such as these are alwayes the allays of the life of the best men and for these Christ hath payd and they are never to be accounted to good men save onely to make them more wary and more humble Now concerning these it is that I say No great sin is a sin of excusable or unavoidable infirmity Because whosoever hath received the Spirit of God hath sufficient knowledge of his duty and sufficient strengths of grace and sufficient advertency of minde to avoid such things as do great and apparent violence to piety and religion No man can justly say that it is a sin of infirmity that he was drunk For there are but three causes of every sin a fourth is not imaginable 1. If ignorance cause it the sin is as full of excuse as the ignorance was innocent But no Christian can pretend this to drunkennesse to murder to rebellion to uncleannesse For what Christian is so uninstructed but that he knows Adultery is a sin 2. Want of observation is the cause of many indiscreet and foolish actions Now at this gap many irregularities do enter and escape because in the whole it is impossible for a man to be of so present a spirit as to consider and reflect upon every word and every thought but it is in this case in Gods laws otherwise then in mans the great flies cannot passe thorow without observation little ones do and a man cannot be drunk and never take notice of it or tempt his neighbours wife before he be aware therefore the lesse the instance be the more likely it is to be a sin of infirmity and yet if it be never so little if it be observed then it ceases to be a sin of infirmity 3. But because great crimes cannot pretend to passe undiscernably it follows that they must come in at the door of malice that is of want of Grace in the absence of the Spirit they destroy where ever they come and the man dies if they passe upon him It is true there is flesh and blood in every regenerate man but they do not both rule the flesh is left to tempt but not to prevail And it were a strange condition if both the godly and the ungodly were captives to sin and infallibly should fall into temptation and death without all difference saue onely that the godly sins unwillingly and the ungodly sins willingly But if the same things be done by both and God in both be dishonoured and their duty prevaricated the pretended unwillingnesse is the signe of a greater and a baser slavery and of a condition lesse to be endured For the servitude which is against me is intollerable but if I choose the state of a servant I am free in my minde Libertatis servaveris umbram Si quicquid jubeare velis certain it is that such a person who fain would but cannot choose but commit adultery or drunkennesse is the veriest slave to sin that can be imagined and not at all freed by the Spirit and by the liberty of the sons of God and there is no other difference but that the mistaken good man feels his slavery and sees his chains and his fetters but therefore it is certain that he is because he sees himself to be a slave No man can be a servant of sin and a servant of righteousnesse at the same time but every man that hath the Spirit of God is a servant of righteousnesse and therefore whosoever finde great sins to be unavoidable are in a state of death and reprobation as to the present because they willingly or unwillingly it matters not much whether of the two are servants of sin 2. Sins of infirmity as they are small in their instance so they put on their degree of excusablenesse onely according to the weaknesse or infirmity of a mans understanding So far as men without their own fault understand not their duty or are possessed with weaknesse of principles or are destitute and void of discourse or discerning powers and acts so far if a sin creeps upon them it is as naturall and as free from a law as is the action of a childe But if any thing else be mingled with it if it proceed from any other principle it is criminall and not excused by our infirmity because it is chosen and a mans will hath no
gives demonstration of his huge easinesse to redeem us from that intolerable evil that is equally consequent to the indulging to one or to twenty sinful habits 2. Gods readinesse to pardon appears in this that he pardons before we ask for he that bids us alk for pardon hath in designe and purpose done the thing already for what is wanting on his part in whose onely power it is to give pardon and in whose desire it is that we should be pardoned and who commands us to lay hold upon the offer he hath done all that belongs to God that is all that concerns the pardon there it lies ready it is recorded in the book of life it wants nothing but being exemplified and taken forth and the Holy spirit stands ready to consigne and passe the privy signet that we may exhibit it to devils and evil men when they tempt us to despair or sin 3. Nay God is so ready in his mercy that he did pardon us even before he redeemed us for what is the secret of the mysterie that the eternal Son of God should take upon him our nature and die our death and suffer for our sins and do our work and enable us to do our own he that did this is God he who thought it no robbery to be equal with God he came to satisfie himself to pay to himself the price for his own creature and when he did this for us that he might pardon us was he at that instant angry with us was this an effect of his anger or of his love that God sent his Son to work our pardon and salvation Indeed we were angry with God at enmity with the the Prince of life but he was reconciled to us so far as that he then did the greatest thing in the world for us for nothing could be greater then that God the Son of God should die for us here was reconciliation before pardon and God that came to die for us did love us first before he came this was hasty love But it went further yet 4. God pardoned us before we sinned and when he foresaw our sin even mine and yours he sent his son to die for us ouâ— pardon was wrought and effected by Christs death above 1600 years ago and for the sins of to morrow and the infirmities of the next day Christ is already dead already risen from the dead and does now make intercession and atonement And this is not onely a favour to us who were born in the due time of the Gospel but to all mankinde since Adam For God who is infinitely patient in his justice was not at all patient in his mercy he forbears to strike and punish us but he would not forbear to provide cure for us and remedy for as if God could not stay from redeeming us he â—romised the Redeemer to Adam in the beginning of the worlds sin Christ was the lamb slain from the begining of the world and the covenant of the Gospel though it was not made with man yet it was from the beginning performed by God as to his part as to the ministration of pardon The seed of the woman was set up against the dragon as soon as ever the Tempter had won his first battle and though God laid his hand and drew a vail of types and secresy before the manifestation of his mercies yet he did the work of redemption and saved us by the covenant of faith and the righteousnesse of believing and the mercies of repentance the graces of pardon and the blood of the slain lamb even from the fall of Adam to this very day and will do till Christs second coming Adam fell by his folly and did not perform the covenant of one little work a work of a single abstinence but he was restored by faith in the seed of the woman and of this righteousnesse Noah was a preacher and by faith Enoch was traslated and by faith a remnant was saved at the flood and to Abraham this was imputed for righteousnesse and to all the Patriarks and to all the righteous judges and holy Prophets and Saints of the old Testament even while they were obliged so far as the words of their covenant were expressed to the law of works their pardon was sealed kept with in the vail within the curtains of the sanctuary and they saw it not then but they feel it ever since and this was a great excellency of the Divine mercy unto them God had mercy on all mankinde before Christs manifestation even beyond the mercies of their covenant they were saved as we are by the seed of the woman by God incarnate by the lamb slain from the beginning of the world not by works for we all failed of them that is not by an exact obedience but by faith working by love by sincere hearty endeavours believing God and relying upon his infinite mercy revealed in part and now fully manifest by the great instrument and means of that mercy Jesus Christ. So that here is pardon before we asked it pardon before Christs coming pardon before redemption and pardon before we sinned what greater readinesse to forgive us can be imagined yes there is one degree more yet and that will prevent a mistake in this 5. For God so pardoned us once that we should need no more pardon he pardons us by turning every one of us away from our iniquities that 's the purpose of Christ that he might safely pardon us before we sinned and we might not sin upon the confidence of pardon he pardoned us not onely upon condition we would sin no more but he took away our sin cured our cursed inclinations instructed our understanding rectified our will fortified us against temptations and now every man whom he pardons he also sanctifies and he is born of God and he must not will not cannot sin so long as the seed of God remains within him so long as his pardon continues This is the consummation of pardon For if God had so pardoned us as onely to take away our evils which are past we should have needed a second Saviour and a redeemer for every month and new pardons perpetually But our blessed Redeemer hath taken away our sin not onely the guilt of our old but our inclinations to new sins he makes us like himself and commands us to live so that we shall not need a second pardon that is a second state of pardon for we are but once baptized into Christs death and that death was one and our redemption but one and our covenant the same and as long as we continue within the covenant we are still within the power and comprehensions of the first pardon 6. And yet there is a necessity of having one degree of pardon more beyond all this For although we do not abjure our covenant and renounce Christ and extinguish the spirit yet we resist him and we grieve him and we go off from the holinesse of the
speak to us by his servants the Prophets by his Son by his Apostles by sermons by spirituall books by thousands of homilies and arts of counsell and insinuation and we sit as unconcerned as the pillars of a Church and hear the sermons as the Athenians did a story or as we read a gazet and if ever it come to passe that we tremble as Felix did when we hear a sad story of death of righteousnesse and judgement to come then we put it off to another time or we forget it and think we had nothing to do but to give the good man a hearing and as Anacharsis said of the Greeks they used money for nothing but to cast account withall so our hearers make use of sermons and discourses Evangelical but to fill up void spaces of our time to help to tell an hour with or without tediousnesse The reason of this is a sad condemnation to such persons they have not yet entertained the Spirit of God they are in darknesse they were washed in water but never baptized with the Spirit for these things are spiritually discerned They would think the Preacher rude if he should say they are not Christians they are not within the Covenant of the Gospel but it is certain that the spirit of Manifestation is not yet upon them and that is the first effect of the Spirit whereby we can be called sons of God or relatives of Christ. If we do not apprehend and greedily suck in the precepts of this holy Discipline as aptly as Merchants do discourse of gain or Farmers of fair harvests we have nothing but the Name of Christians but we are no more such really then Mandrakes are men or spunges are living creatures 3. The Gospel is called Spirit because it consists of Spiritual Promises and Spiritual precepts and makes all men that embrace it truly to be Spiritual men and therefore S. Paul addes an Epithete beyond this calling it a quickening Spirit that is it puts life into our Spirits which the law could not The law bound us to punishment but did not help us to obedience because it gave not the promise of Eternal life to its Disciples The Spirit that is the Gospel onely does this and this alone is it which comforts afflicted mindes which puts activenesse into wearyed Spirits which inflames our cold desires and does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blows up sparks into live coles and coles up to flames and flames to perpetual burnings and it is impossible that any man who believes and considers the great the infinite the unspeakable the unimaginable the never ceasing joyes that are prepared for all the sons and daughters of the Gospel should not desire them and unlesse he be a fool he cannot but use means to obtain them effective hearty pursuances For it is not directly in the nature of a man to neglect so great a good there must be something in his manners some obliquity in his will or madnesse in his intellectuals or incapacity in his naturals that must make him sleep such a reward away or change it for the pleasure of a drunken feaver or the vanity of a Mistresse or the rage of a passion or the unreasonablenesse of any sin However this promise is the life of all our actions and the Spirit that first taught it is the life of our soules 4. But beyond this is the reason which is the consummation of all the faithful The Gospel is called the Spirit because by and in the Gospel God hath given to us not onely the Spirit of manifestation that is of instruction and of Catechisme of faith and confident assent but the Spirit of Confirmation or obsignation to all them that believe and obey the Gospel of Christ that is the power of God is come upon our hearts by which in an admirable manner we are made sure of a glorious inheritance made sure I say in the nature of the thing and our own persuasions also are confirmed with an excellent a comfortable a discerning and a reasonable hope in the strength of which and by whose ayde as we do not doubt of the performance of the promise so we vigorously pursue all the parts of the condition and are inabled to work all the work of God so as not to be affrighted with fear or seduced by vanity or oppressed by lust or drawn off by evil example or abused by riches or imprison'd by ambition and secular designes This the Spirit of God does work in all his Servants and is called the spirit of obsignation or the confirming spirit because it confirms our hope and assures our title to life eternall and by means of it and other its collateral assistances it also confirms us in our duty that we may not onely professe in word but live lives according to the Gospel And this is the sense of the Spirit mentionâ—d in the Text ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you That is if ye be made partakers of the Gospel or of the spirit of manifestation if ye be truly intitled to God and have received the promise of the Father then are ye not carnal men ye are spirituall ye are in the Spirit if ye have the Spirit in one sense to any purpose ye have it also in another if the Spirit be in you you are in it if it hath given you hope it hath also inabled and ascertainâ—d your duty For the Spirit of manifestation will but upbraid you in the shame and horrours of a sad eternity if you have not the Spirit of obsignation if the Holy Ghost be not come upon you to great purposes of holinesse all other pretences are vain ye are still in the flesh which shall never inherit the kingdom of God In the Spirit that is in the power of the spirit so the Greeks call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is possessed by a spirit whom God hath filled with a coelestial immission he is said to be in God when God is in him and it is a similitude taken from persons encompassed with guards they are in custodiâ that is in their power under their command moved at their dispose they rest in their time and receive laws from their authority and admit visiters whom they appoint and must be employed as they shall suffer so are men who are in the Spirit that is they beleeve as he teaches they work as he inables they choose what he calls good they are friends of his friends and they hate with his hatred with this onely difference that persons in custody are forced to do what their keepers please and nothing is free but their wils but they that are under the command of the Spirit do all things which the Spirit commands but they do them cheerfully and their will is now the prisoner but it is in liberâ custodiâ the will is where it ought to be and where it desires to be and it cannot easily
them into those sins whereof they were now admitted to repent And therefore we find that they stood in the station of penitents seven years 13 years and somtimes till their death before they could be reconciled to the peace of God and his Holy Church Scelerum si bene poenitet eradenda cupidinis pravi sunt elementa tenerae nimis mentes asperioribus Formandae studijs Horat. Repentance is the institution of a philosophical and severe life an utter extirpation of all unreasonablenesse and impiety and an addresse to and a finall passing through all the parts of holy living Now Consider whether this be imaginable or possible to be done upon our deathbed when a man is frighted into an involuntary a sudden and unchosen piety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hierocles He that never repents till a violent fear be upon him till he apprehend himself to be in the jawes of death ready to give up his unready and unprepared accounts till he sees the Judge sitting in all the addresses of dreadfulnesse and Majesty just now as he beleeves ready to pronounce that fearfull and intolerable sentence of Go ye cursed into everlasting fire this man does nothing for the love of God nothing for the love of vertue It is just as a condemned man repents that he was a Traytor but repented not till he was arrested and sure to die Such a repentance as this may still consist with as great an affection to sin as ever he had and it is no thanks to him if when the knife is at his throat then he gives good words and flatters But suppose this man in his health and the middest of all his lust it is evident that there are some circumstances of action in which the man would have refused to commit his most pleasing sin Would not the son of Tarquin have refused to ravish Lucrece if Junius Brutus had been by him Would the impurest person in the world act his lust in the market place or drink off an intemperate goblet if a dagger were placed at his throat In these circumstances their fear would make them declare against the present acting their impurities But does this cure the intemperance of their affections Let the impure person retire to his closet and Junius Brutus be ingaged in a far distant war and the dagger be taken from the drunkards throat and the fear of shame or death or judgement be taken from them all and they shall no more resist their temptation then they could before remove their fear and you may as well judge the other persons holy and haters of their sin as the man upon his death-bed to be penitent and rather they then he by how much this mans fear the fear of death and of the infinite pains of hell the fear of a provoked God and an angry eternall Judge are far greater then the apprehensions of publike shame or an abused husband or the poniard of an angry person These men then sin not because they dare not they are frighted from the act but not from the affection which is not to be cured but by discourse and reasonable acts and humane considerations of which that man is not naturally capable who is possessed with the greatest fear the fear of death and damnation If there had been time to cure his sin and to live the life of grace I deny not but God might have begun his conversion with so great a fear that he should never have wiped off its impression but if the man dies then dies when he onely declaims against and curses his sin as being the authour of his present fear and apprehended calamity It is very far from reconciling him to God or hopes of pardon because it proceeds from a violent unnaturall and intolerable cause no act of choice or vertue but of sorrow a deserved sorrow and a miserable unchosen unavoidable fear moriensque recepit Quas nollet victurus aquas He curses sin upon his deathbed and makes a Panegyrick of vertue which in his life time he accounted folly and trouble and a needlesse vexation Quae mens est hodie cur eadem non puero fuit vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genae I shall end this first Consideration with a plain exhortation that since repentance is a duty of so great and giant-like bulk let no man croud it up into so narrow room as that it be strangled in its birth for want of time and aire to breath in Let it not be put off to that time when a man hath scarce time enough to reckon all those particular duties which make up the integrity of its constitution Will any man hunt the wild boare in his garden or bait a bull in his closet will a woman wrap her childe in her handkerchiefe or a Father send his son to school when he is 50 yeers old These are undecencies of providence and the instrument contradicts the end And this is our case There is no roome for the repentance no time to act all its essentiall parts and a childe who hath a great way to go before he be wise may defer his studies and hope to become very learned in his old age and upon his deathbed as well as a vitious person may think to recover from all his ignorances and prejudicate opinions from all his false principles and evil customs from his wicked inclinations and ungodly habits from his fondnesses of vice and detestations of vertue from his promptnesse to sin and unwillingnesse to grace from his spiritual deadnesse and strong sensuality upon his deathbed I say when he hath no naturall strength and as little spirituall when he is criminal and impotent hardned in his vice and soft in his fears full of passion and empty of wisdom when he is sick and amazed and timorous and confounded and impatient and extremely miserable And now when any of you is tempted to commit a sin remember that sin will ruine you unlesse you repent of it * But this you say is no news and so far from affrighting you from sin that God knows it makes men sin the rather For therefore they venture to act the present temptation because they know if they repent God will forgive them and therefore they resolve upon both to sin now and to repent hereafter Against this folly I shall not oppose the consideration of their danger and that they neither know how long they shall live nor whether they shall die or no in this very act of sinne though this consideration is very materiall and if they should die in it or before it is washed off they perish But I consider these things 1 That he that resolves to sin upon a resolution to repent by every act of sin makes himself more uncapable of repenting by growing more in love with sin by remembring its pleasures by serving it once more and losing one degree more of the liberty of our spirit and if you resolve
without huge disturbances but by being also Atheistical in their opinions and to believe that the story of hell is but a bug-bear to affright children and fools easy believing people to make them soft and apt for government and designes of princes and this is an opinion that befriends none but impure and vicious persons others there are that believe God to be all mercy that he forgets his justice believing that none shall perish with so sad a ruine if they do but at their death-bed ask God forgivenesse and say they are sorry but yet continue their impiety till their house be ready to fall being like the Circassians whose Gentlemen enter not into the Church till they be threescore years old that is in effect till by their age they cannot any longer use rapine till then they hear service at their windows dividing unequally their life between sin and devotition dedicateing their youth to robbery and their old age to a repentance without restitution Our youth and our man-hood and old age are all of them due to God and justice and mercy are to him equally essential and as this life is a time of the possibilities of mercy so to them that neglect it the next world shall be a state of pure and unmingled justice Remember the fatal and decretory sentence which God hath passed upon all man-kinde it is appointed to all men once to die and after death comes judgement and if any of us were certain to die next morning with what earnestnesse should we pray with what hatred should we remember our sins with what scorn should we look upon the licentious pleasures of the world then nothing could be welcome unto us but a prayer book no company but a Comforter and a Guide of souls no imployment but repentance no passions but in order to religion no kindnesse for a lust that hath undone us and if any of you have been arrested with alarmes of death or been in hearty fear of its approach remember what thoughts and designes then possessed you how precious a soul was then in your account and what then you would give that you had despised the world and done your duty to God and man and lived a holy life It will come to that again and we shall be in that condition in which we shall perfectly understand that all the things and pleasures of the world are vain and unprofitable and irkesome and that he onely is a wise man who secures the interest of his soul though it be with the losse of all this world and his own life into the bargain When we are to depart this life to go to strange company and stranger places and to an unknown condition then a holy conscience will be the best security the best possession it wil be a horror that every friend we meet shall with triumph upbraid to us the sottishnesse of our folly Lo this is the goodly change you have made you had your good things in your life time and how like you the portion that is reserved to you for ever The old Rabbins those Poets of religion report of Moses that when the courtiers of Pharaoh were sporting with the childe Moses in the chamber of Pharaohs daughter they presented to his choice an ingot of gold in one hâ—â—d and a cole of fire in the other and that the childe snatched at tâ—e coal thrust it into his mouth and so singed and parched his tongue that he stammered ever after and certainly it is infinitely more childish in us for the glittering of the small gloworms and the charcoal of worldly possessions to swallow the flames of hell greedily in our choice such a bit will produce a worse stammering then Moses had for so the aâ—ccursed and lost souls have their ugly and horrid dialect they roare and blaspheme blaspheme and roare for ever And suppose God should now at this instant send the great Archangel with his trumpet to summon all the world to judgement would not all this seem a notorious visible truth a truth which you will then wonder that every man did not lay to his heart and preserve therein actual pious and effective consideration let the trumpet of God perpetually sound in your ears surgite mortui venite ad judicium place your selves by meditation every day upon your death-bed and remember what thoughts shall then possesse you and let such thoughts dwell in your understanding for ever and be the parent of all your resolutions and actions The Doctors of the Jews report that when Absalom hanged among the oakes by the haire of the head he seemed to see under him hell gaping wide ready to receive him and he durst not cut off the hair that intangled him for fear he should fall into the horrid lake whose portion is flames and torment but chose to protract his miserable life a few minuts in that pain of posture and to abide the stroke of his pursuing enemies His condition was sad when his arts of remedy were so vain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soph. A condemned man hath but small comfort to stay the singing of a long psalm it is the case of every vitious person Hell is wide open to every impenitent persevering sinner to every unpurged person Noctes atque dies patet atri Janua Ditis And although God hath lighted his candle and the lantern of his word and clearest revelations is held out to us that we can see hell in its worst colours and most horrid representments yet we run greedily after bables into that praecipice which swallows up the greatest part of man-kinde and then onely we begin to consider when all consideration is fruitlesse He therefore is a huge fool that heaps up riches that greedily pursues the world and at the same time for so it must be heaps of wrath to himself against the day of wrath when sicknesse death arrests him then they appear unprofitable himself extreamly miserable if you would know how great that misery is you may take account of it by those fearful words and killing Rhetorick of Scripture It is a fearful things to fall into the hands of the living God and who can dwell with the everlasting burning That is No patience can abide there one houre where they must dwell for ever Sermon XX. OF CHRISTIAN PRVDENCE Matthew 10. latter part of Ver. 16. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmlesse as doves WHen our B. Saviour entailed a law a condition of sufferings promised a state of persecution to his servants and withall had charmed them with the bands unactive chains of so many passive graces that they should not be able to stir against the violence of Tyrants or abate the edge of axes by any instrument but their own blood being sent forth as sheep among wolves innocent and silent harmlesse and defencelesse certainly exposed to sorrow and uncertainly guarded in their persons their condition seemed nothing else but a designation to
much troubled that he missed the dignity but he saw himself blessed that he scaped the death and the dishonour of the overthrow by that time the sad news arrived at Rome The Gentleman at Marseilles cursed his starres that he was absent when the ship set sail to sea having long waited for a winde and missed it but he gave thanks to the providence that blest him with the crosse when he knew that the ship perished in the voyage and all the men were drowned And even those virgins and barren women in Jerusalem that longed to become glad mothers and for want of children would not be comforted yet when Titus sacked the City found the words of Jesus true Blessed is the womb that never bare and the paps that never gave suck And the world being governed with a rare variety and changes of accidents and providence that which is a misfortune in the particular in the whole order of things becomes a blessing bigger then we hoped for then when we were angry with God for hindring us to perish in pleasant wayes or when he was contriving to pour upon thy head a mighty blessing Do not think the Judge condemns you when he chides you nor think to read thy own finall sentence by the first half of his words Stand still and see how it will be in the whole event of things let God speak his minde out for it may be this sad beginning is but an art to bring in or to make thee to esteem and entertain and understand the blessing They that love to talk of the mercies of the Lord and to recount his good things cannot but have observed that God delights to be called by such Appellatives which relate to miserable and afflicted persons He is the Father of the fatherlesse and an avenger of the widowes cause he standeth at the right hand of the poor to save his soul from unrighteous Judges and he is with us in tribulation And upon this ground let us account whether mercy be not the greater ingredient in that death and deprivation when I lose a man and get God to be my Father and when my weak arm of flesh is cut from my shoulder and God makes me to lean upon him and becomes my Patron and my Guide my Advocate and Defender and if in our greatest misery Gods mercy is so conspicuous what can we suppose him to be in the endearment of his loving Kindnesse If his vail be so transparent well may we know that upon his face dwels glory and from his eyes light and perpetuall comforts run in channels larger then the returns of the Sea when it is driven and forced faster into its naturall course by the violence of a tempest from the North. The summe is this God intends every accident should minister to vertue and every vertue is the mother and the nurse of joy and both of them daughters of the Divine goodnesse and therefore if our sorrows do not passe into comforts it is besides Gods intention it is because we will not comply with the act of that mercy which would save us by all means and all varieties by health and by sicknesse by the life and by the death of our dearest friends by what we choose and by what we fear that as Gods providence rules over all chances of things and all designes of men so his mercy may rule over all his providence Sermon XXVI The Miracles of the Divine Mercy Part II. 7. GOD having by these means secured us from the evils of nature and contingencies he represents himself to be our Father which is the great endearment and tye and expression of a naturall unalterable and essentiall kindnesse he next makes provisions for us to supply all those necessities which himself hath made For even to make necessities was a great circumstance of the mercy and all the relishes of wine and the savourinesse of meat the sweet and the fat the pleasure and the satisfaction the restitution of spirits and the strengthening of the heart are not owing to the liver of the vine or the kidneys of wheat to the blood of the grape or the strength of the corne but to the appetite or the necessity and therefore it is that he that sits at a full table and does not recreate his stomack with fasting and let his digestion rest and place himself in the advantages of natures intervals he loses the blessing of his daily bread and leans upon his table as a sick man upon his bed or the lion in the grasse which he cannot feed on but he that wants it and sits down when nature gives the signe rejoyces in the health of his hunger and the taste of his meat and the strengthening of his spirit and gives God thanks while his bones and his flesh rejoyce in the provisions of nature and the blessing of God Are not the imperfections of infancy and the decayes of old age the evils of our nature because respectively they want desire and they want gust and relish and reflections upon their acts of sense and when desire failes presently the mourners go about the streets But then that these desires are so provided for by nature and art by ordinary and extraordinary by foresight and contingency according to necessity and up unto conveniency until we arrive at abundance is a chain of mercies larger then the Bowe in the clouds and richer then the trees of Eden which were permitted to feed our miserable father Is not all the earth our orchard and our granary our vineyard and our garden of pleasure and the face of the Sea is our traffique and the bowels of the Sea is our vivarium a place for fish to feed us and to serve some other collaterall appendant needs and all the face of heaven is a repository for influences and breath fruitfull showers and fair refreshments and when God made provisions for his other creatures he gave it of one kinde and with variety no greater then the changes of day and night one devouring the other or sitting down with his draught of blood or walking upon his portion of grasse But man hath all the food of beasts and all the beasts themselves that are fiâ— for food and the food of Angels and the dew of heaven and the fatnesse of the earth and every part of his body hath a provision made for it and the smoothnesse of the olive and the juice of the vine refresh the heart and make the face cheerfull and serve the ends of joy and the festivity of man and are not onely to cure hunger or to allay thirst but to appease a passion and allay a sorrow It is an infinite variety of meat with which God furnishes out the table of mankinde and in the covering our sin and clothing our nakednesse God passed from sig-leaves to the skins of beasts from aprons to long-robes from leather to wool and from thence to the warmth of furres and the coolnesse of silks he