as many persons and in as many capacities and in the same dispositions as the Promises were applied and did relate in Circumcision to the same they do belong and may be applied in Baptism And let it be remembred That the Covenant which Circumcision did sign was a Covenant of Grace and 〈◊〉 the Promises were of the Spirit or spiritual it was made before the Law and could not be rescinded by the Legal Covenant nothing could be added to it or taken from it and we that are partakers of this grace are therefore partakers of it by being Christ's servants united to Christ and so are become Abraham's seed as the Apostle at large and prosessedly proves in divers places but especially in the fourth to the 〈◊〉 and the third to the Galatians And therefore if Infants were then admitted to it and consigned to it by a Sacrament which they understood not any more than ours do there is not any reason why ours should not enter in at the ordinary gate and door of grace as well as they Their Children were circumcised the eighth day but were instructed afterwards when they could enquire what these things meant Indeed their Proselytes were first taught then circumcised so are ours baptized but their Infants were consigned first and so must ours 16. Thirdly In Baptism we are born again and this Infants need in the present circumstances and for the same great reason that men of age and reason do For our natural birth is either of it self insufficient or is made so by the Fall of Adam and the consequent evils that Nature alone or our first birth cannot bring us to Heaven which is a supernatural end that is an end above all the power of our Nature as now it is So that if Nature cannot bring us to Heaven Grace must or we can never get thither if the first birth cannot a second must but the second birth spoken of in Scripture is Baptism A man must be born of 〈◊〉 and the Spirit And therefore Baptism is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the laver of a new birth Either then Infants cannot go to Heaven any way that we know of or they must be baptized To say they are to be left to God is an excuse and no answer for when God hath opened the door and calls that the entrance into Heaven we do not leave them to God when we will not carry them to him in the way which he hath described and at the door which himself hath opened we leave them indeed but it is but helpless and destitute and though God is better than man yet that is no warrant to us what it will be to the children that we cannot warrant or conjecture And if it be objected that to the New birth are required dispositions of our own which are to be wrought by and in them that have the use of Reason Besides that this is wholly against the Analogy of a New birth in which the person to be born is wholly a passive and hath put into him the principle that in time will produce its proper actions it is certain that they that can receive the new birth are capable of it The effect of it is a possibility of being saved and arriving to a supernatural felicity If Infants can receive this effect then also the New birth without which they cannot receive the effect And if they can receive Salvation the effect of the New birth what hinders them but they may receive that that is in order to that effect and ordained only for it and which is nothing of it self but in its institution and relation and which may be received by the same capacity in which one may be created that is a passivity or a capacity obediential 17. Fourthly Concerning pardon of sins which is one great effect of Baptism it is certain that 〈◊〉 have not that benefit which men of sin and age may receive He that hath a sickly stomach drinks wine and it not only refreshes his spirits but cures his stomach He that drinks wine and hath not that disease receives good by his wine though it does not minister to so many needs it refreshes though it does not cure him and when oyl is poured upon a man's head it does not always heal a wound but sometimes makes him a chearful countenance sometimes it consigns him to be a King or a Priest So it is in Baptism it does not heal the wounds of actual sins because they have not committed them but it takes off the evil of Original sin whatsoever is imputed to us by Adam's prevarication is washed off by the death of the second Adam into which we are baptized But concerning original sin because there are so many disputes which may intricate the Question I shall make use only of that which is confessed on both sides and material to our purpose Death came upon all men by Adam's sin and the necessity of it remains upon us as an evil consequent of the Disobedience For though death is natural yet it was kept off from man by God's favour which when he lost the banks were broken and the water reverted to its natural course and our nature became a curse and death a punishment Now that this also relates to Infants so far is certain because they are sick and die This the Pelagians denied not But to whomsoever this evil descended for them also a remedy is provided by the second Adam That as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive that is at the day of Judgment then death shall be destroyed In the mean time Death hath a sting and a bitterness a curse it is and an express of the Divine anger and if this sting be not taken away here we shall have no participation of the final victory over death Either therefore Infants must be for ever without remedy in this evil consequent of their Father's sin or they must be adopted into the participation of Christ's death which is the remedy Now how can they partake of Christ's death but by Baptism into his death For if there be any spiritual way 〈◊〉 it will by a stronger argument admit them to Baptism for if they can receive spiritual effects they can also receive the outward Sacrament this being denied only upon pretence they cannot have the other If there be no spiritual way extraordinary then the ordinary way is only left for them If there be an extraordinary let it be shewn and Christians will be at rest concerning their Children One thing only I desire to be observed That Pelagius denied Original Sin but yet denied not the necessity of Infants Baptism and being accused of it in an Epistle to Pope Innocent the First he purged himself of the suspicion and allowed the practice but denied the inducement of it which shews that their arts are weak that think Baptism to be useless to Infants if they be not formally guilty of the prevarication of Adam
God at first designed to us And therefore as our Baptism is a separation of us from unbelieving people so the descent of the Holy Spirit upon us in our Baptism is a consigning or marking us for God as the Sheep of his pasture as the Souldiers of his Army as the Servants of his houshold we are so separated from the world that we are appropriated to God so that God expects of us Duty and Obedience and all Sins are acts of Rebellion and Undutifulness Of this nature was the sanctification of Jeremy and John the Baptist from their mothers womb that is God took them to his own service by an early designation and his Spirit marked them to a holy Ministery To this also relates that of S. Paul whom God by a decree separated from his mother's womb to the Ministery of the Gospel the 〈◊〉 did antedate the act of the Spirit which did not descend upon him until the day of his Baptism What these persons were in order to exteriour Ministeries that all the faithful are in order to Faith and Obedience consigned in Baptism by the Spirit of God to a perpetual relation to God in a continual service and title to his Promises And in this sence the Spirit of God is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Seal In whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of Promise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Water washes the body and the Spirit seals the Soul viz. to a participation of those Promises which he hath made and to which we receive a title by our Baptism 22. Secondly The second effect of the Spirit is Light or Illumination that is the holy Spirit becomes unto us the Author of holy thoughts and firm perswasions and sets to his seal that the Word of God is true into the belief of which we are then baptized and makes Faith to be a Grace and the Understanding resigned and the Will confident and the Assent stronger than the premises and the Propositions to be believed because they are beloved and we are taught the ways of Godliness after a new manner that is we are made to perceive the Secrets of the Kingdom and to love Religion and to long for Heaven and heavenly things and to despise the World and to have new resolutions and new perceptions and new delicacies in order to the establishment of Faith and its increments and perseverance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God sits in the Soul when it is illuminated in 〈◊〉 as if he sate in his Throne that is he rules by a firm perswasion and intire principles of Obedience And therefore Baptism is called in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 illuminated Call to mind the former days in which you were illuminated and the same phrase is in the 6. to the Hebrews where the parallel places expound each other For that which S. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 illuminated he calls after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a receiving the knowledge of the truth and that you may perceive this to be wholly meant of Baptism the 〈◊〉 expresses it still by Synonyma's Tasting of the heavenly gift and made partakers of the Holy Ghost sprinkled in our hearts from an evil conscience and washed in our bodies with pure water all which also are a syllabus or collection of the several effects of the graces bestowed in Baptism But we are now instancing in that which relates most properly to the Understanding in which respect the Holy Spirit also is called Anointing or Unction and the mystery is explicated by S. John The Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you but as the same Anointing teacheth you of all things 23. Thirdly The Holy Spirit descends upon us in Baptism to become the principle of a new life to become a holy seed springing up to Holiness and is called by S. John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 of God and the purpose of it we are taught by him Whosoever is 〈◊〉 of God that is he that is regenerated and entred into this New birth doth not 〈◊〉 sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God The Spirit of God is the Spirit of life and now that he by the Spirit is born anew he hath in him that principle which if it be cherished will grow up to life to life eternal And this is the Spirit of Sanctification the victory over the World the deletery of Concupiscence the life of the Soul and the perpetual principle of Grace sown in our spirits in the day of our Adoption to be the sons of God and members of Christ's body But take this Mystery in the words of S. Basil. There are two Ends proposed in Baptism to wit to abolish the body of Sin that we may no more bring forth fruit unto death and to live in the Spirit and to have our fruit to Sanctification The Water represents the image of death receiving the body in its bosom as in a Sepulchre but the quickning Spirit sends upon us a vigorous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power or 〈◊〉 even from the beginning renewing our Souls from the death of sin unto life For as our Mortification is 〈◊〉 in the water so the Spirit works life in us To this purpose is the discourse of S. Paul having largely discoursed of our being baptized into the death of 〈◊〉 he adds this as the Corollary of all He that is dead is freed from sin that is being mortified and buried in the waters of Baptism we have a new life of Righteousness put into us we are quitted from the dominion of Sin and are planted together in the likeness of Christ's Resurrection that henceforth we should not serve sin 24. Fourthly But all these intermedial Blessings tend to a glorious Conclusion for Baptism does also consign us to a holy Resurrection It takes the sting of death from us by burying us together with Christ and takes 〈◊〉 Sin which is the sting of death and then we shall be partakers of a blessed Resurrection This we are taught by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his Death For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his Death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection That declares the real event in its due season But because Baptism consigns it and admits us to a title to it we are said with S. Paul to be risen with Christ in Baptism Buried with him in Baptism wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God which hath raised him from the dead Which expression I desire to be remembred that by it we may better understand those other
By which I also gather that it was so universal so primitive a practice to baptize Infants that it was greater than all pretences to the contrary for it would much have conduced to the introducing his opinion against Grace and Original Sin if he had destroyed that practice which seemed so very much to have its greatest necessity from the doctrine he denied But against Pelagins and against all that follow the parts of his opinion it is of good use which S. Austin Prosper and Fulgentius argue If Infants are punished for Adam's sin then they are also guilty of it in some sence Nimis enim impium est hoc de Dei sentire 〈◊〉 quòd à praevaricatione liberos cum reis 〈◊〉 esse 〈◊〉 So Prosper Dispendia quae slentes nascendo testantur dicito quo merito sub 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 judice 〈◊〉 sinullum peccatum 〈◊〉 arrogentur said S. Austin For the guilt of it signifies nothing but the obligation to the punishment and he that feels the evil consequent to him the sin is imputed not as to all the same dishonour or moral accounts but to the more material to the natural account and in Holy Scripture the taking off the punishment is the pardon of the sin and in the same degree the punishment is abolished in the same God is appeased and then the person stands upright being reconciled to God by his grace Since therefore Infants have the punishment of sin it is certain the sin is imputed to them and therefore they need being reconciled to God by Christ and if so then when they are baptized into Christ's Death and into his Resurrection their sins are pardoned because the punishment is taken off the sting of natural death is taken away because God's anger is removed and they shall partake of Christ's Resurrection which because Baptism does signifie and consign they also are to be baptized To which also add this appendent Consideration That whatsoever the Sacraments do consign that also they do convey and minister they do it that is God by them does it lest we should think the Sacraments to be mere illusions and abusing us by deceitful ineffective signs and therefore to Infants the grace of a title to a Resurrection and Reconciliation to God by the death of Christ is conveyed because it signifies and consigns this to them more to the life and analogy of resemblance than Circumcision to the Infant sons of Israel I end this Consideration with the words of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our birth by Baptism does cut off every unclean appendage of our natural birth and leads us to a celestial life And this in Children is therefore more necessary because the evil came upon them without their own act of reason and choice and therefore the grace and remedy ought not to stay the leisure of dull Nature and the formalities of the Civil Law 18. Fifthly The Baptism of Insants does to them the greatest part of that benefit which belongs to the remission of sins For Baptism is a state of Repentance and Pardon for ever This I suppose to be already proved to which I only add this Caution That the Pelagians to undervalue the necessity of Supervening grace affirmed that Baptism did minister to us Grace sufficient to live perfectly and without sin for ever Against this S. Jerome sharply declaims and affirms Baptismum praeterita donare peccata non suturam servare justitiam that is non statim justum facit omni plenum justitiâ as he expounds his meaning in another place Vetera peccata conscindit novas virtutes non tribuit dimittit à carcere dimisso si laboraverit praemia pollicetur Baptism does not so forgive future sins that we may do what we please or so as we need not labour and watch and fear perpetually and make use of God's grace to actuate our endeavours but puts us into a state of Pardon that is in a Covenant of Grace in which so long as we labour and repent and strive to do our duty so long our infirmities are pitied and our sins certain to be pardoned upon their certain conditions that is by virtue of it we are capable of Pardon and must work for it and may hope it And therefore Infants have a most certain capacity and proper disposition to Baptism for sin creeps before it can go and little undecencies are soon learned and malice is before their years and they can do mischief and irregularities betimes and though we know not when nor how far they are imputed in every month of their lives yet it is an admirable art of the Spirit of grace to put them into a state of Pardon that their remedy may at least be as soon as their necessity And therefore Tertullian and Gregory Nazianzen advised the Baptism of Children to be at three or four years of age meaning that they then begin to have little inadvertencies and hasty follies and actions so evil as did need a Lavatory But if Baptism hath an influence upon sins in the succeeding portion of our life then it is certain that their being presently innocent does not hinder and ought not to retard the Sacrament and therefore Tertullian's Quid festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem peccatorum What need Innocents hasten to the remission of sin is soon answered It is true they need not in respect of any actual sins for so they are innocent but in respect of the evils of their nature derived from their original and in respect of future sins in the whole state of their life it is necessary they be put into a state of Pardon before they sin because some sin early some sin later and therefore unless they be baptized so early as to prevent the first sins they may chance die in a sin to the pardon of which they have â—â—t derived no title from Christ. 19. Sixthly The next great effect of Baptism which Children can have is the Spir it of Sanctification and it they can be baptized with Water and the Spirit it will be sacriledge to rob them of so holy treasures And concerning this although it be with them as S. Paul says of Heirs The Heir so long as he is a child differeth nothing from a Servant though he be Lord of all and Children although they receive the Spirit of Promise and the Spirit of Grace yet in respect of actual exercise they differ not from them that have them not at all yet this hinders not but they may have them For as the reasonable Soul and all its Faculties are in Children Will and Understanding Passions and Powers of Attraction and Propulsion yet these Faculties do not operate or come ahead till time and art observation and experience have drawn them forth into action so may the Spirit of Grace the principle of Christian life be infused and yet lie without action till in its own day it is drawn forth For in every Christian there are three
said Tacitus out of Plato whose words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is naturally certain that the Cruelty of Tyrants torments themselves and is a hook in their nostrils and a scourge to their spirit and the pungency of forbidden Lust is truly a thorn in the flesh full of anguish and secret vexation Quid demens manifesta negas En pectus inustae Deformant maculae vitiisque inolevit imago said Claudian of Rusinus And it is certain to us and verified by the experience and observation of all wise Nations though not naturally demonstrable that this secret punishment is sharpned and promoted in degrees by the hand of Heaven the finger of the same hand that writ the Law in our Understandings 17. But the prevarications of the natural Law have also their portion of a special punishment besides the scourge of an unquiet spirit The man that disturbs his neighbour's rest meets with disturbances himself and since I have naturally no more power over my neighbour than he hath over me unless he descended naturally from me he hath an equal priviledge to defend himself and to secure his quiet by disturbing the order of my happy living as I do his And this equal permission is certainly so great a sanction and signature of the law of Justice that in the just proportion of my receding from the reasonable prosecution of my End in the same proportion and degree my own Infelicity is become certain and this in several degrees up to the loss of all that is of Life it self for where no farther duration or differing state is known there Death is ordinarily esteemed the greatest infelicity where something beyond it is known there also it is known that such prevarication makes that farther duration to be unhappy So that an affront is naturally punished by an affront the loss of a tooth with the loss of a tooth of an eye with an eye the violent taking away of another man's goods by the losing my own For I am liable to as great an evil as I infer and naturally he is not unjust that inflicts it And he that is drunk is a fool or a mad-man for the time and that is his punishment and declares the law and the sin and so in proportions to the transgressions of sobriety But when the first of the natural laws is violated that is God is disobeyed or dishonoured or when the greatest of natural evils is done to our Neighbour then Death became the penalty to the first in the first period of the World to the second at the restitution of the World that is at the beginning of the second period He that did attempt to kill from the beginning of Ages might have been resisted and killed if the assaulted could not else be safe but he that killed actually as Cain did could not be killed himself till the Law was made in Noah's time because there was no person living that had equal power on him and had been naturally injured while the thing was doing the assailant and the assailed had equal power but when it was done and one was killed he that had the power or right of killing his murtherer is now dead and his power is extinguished with the man But after the Floud the power was put into the hand of some trusted person who was to take the forfeiture And thus I conceive these natural reasons in order to their proper end became Laws and bound fast by the band of annexed and consequent penalties Metum prorsus noxam conscientiae pro foedere haberi said Tacitus And that fully explains my sence 18. And thus Death was brought into the world not by every prevarication of any of the Laws by any instance of unreasonableness 〈◊〉 in proportion to the evil of the action would be the evil of the suffering which in all cases would not arrive at death as every injury every intemperance should not have been capital But some things were made evil by a superinduced prohibition as eating one kinde of fruit some things were evil by inordination the first was morally evil the second was evil naturally Now the first sort brought in death by a prime sanction the second by degrees and variety of accident For every disobedience and transgression of that Law which God made as the instance of our doing him honour and obedience is an integral violation of all the band between him and us it does not grow in degrees according to the instance and subject matter for it is as great a disobedience to eat when he hath forbidden us as to offer to climb to Heaven with an ambitious Tower And therefore it is but reasonable for us to fear and just in him to make us at once suffer Death which is the greatest of natural evils for disobeying him To which Death we may arrive by degrees in doing actions against the reasonableness of Sobriety and Justice but cannot arrive by degrees of Disobedience to God or Irreligion because every such act deserves the worst of things but the other naturally deserves no greater evil than the proportion of their own inordination till God by a superinduced Law hath made them also to become acts of Disobedience as well as Inordination that is morally evil as well as naturally For by the Law saith S. Paul sin became exceeding sinful that is had a new degree of obliquity added to it But this was not at first For therefore saith S. Paul Before or until the Law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed when there is no Law meaning that those sins which were forbidden by Moses's Law were actually in the manners of men and the customs of the world but they were not imputed that is to such personal punishments and consequent evils which afterwards those sins did introduce because those sins which were only evil by inordination and discomposure of the order of man's end of living happily were made unlawful upon no other stock but that God would have man to live happily and therefore gave him Reason to effect that end and if a man became unreasonable and did things contrary to his end it was impossible for him to be happy that is he should be miserable in proportion But in that degree and manner of evil they were imputed and that was sanction enough to raise natural Reason up to the constitution of a Law 19. Thirdly The Law of Nature being thus decreed and made obligatory was a sufficient instrument of making man happy that is in producing the end of his Creation But as Adam had evil discourses and irregular appetites before he fell for they made him fall and as the Angels who had no Original sin yet they chose evil at the first when it was wholly arbitrary in them to do so or otherwise so did Man God made man upright and he sought out many inventions Some men were Ambitious and by incompetent means would make their brethren to be their
servants some were Covetous and would usurp that which by an earlier distinction had passed into private possession and then they made new principles and new discourses such which were reasonable in order to their private indirect ends but not to the publick benefit and therefore would prove unreasonable and mischievous to themselves at last 20. And when once they broke the order of creation it is easie to understand by what necessities of consequence they ran into many sins and irrational proceedings AElian tells of a Nation who had a Law binding them to beat their Parents to death with clubs when they lived to a decrepit and unprofitable age The Persian Magi mingled with their Mothers and all their nearest relatives And by a Law of the Venetians says Bodinus a Son in banishment was redeemed from the sentence if he killed his banished Father And in Homer's time there were a sort of Pirats who professed Robbing and did account it honourable But the great prevarications of the Laws of Nature were in the first Commandment when the tradition concerning God was derived by a long line and there were no visible remonstrances of an extraordinary power they were quickly brought to believe that he whom they saw not was not at all especially being prompted to it by Pride Tyranny and a loose imperious spirit Others 〈◊〉 to low opinions concerning God and made such as they list of their own and they were like to be strange Gods which were of Man's making When Man either maliciously or carelesly became unreasonable in the things that concerned God God was pleased to give him over to a reprobate mind that is an unreasonable understanding and false principles concerning himself and his Neighbour that his sin against the natural Law might become its own punishment by discomposing his natural happiness Atheism and Idolatry brought in all unnatural Lusts and many unreasonable Injustices And this we learn from S. Paul As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient that is incongruities towards the end of their creation and so they became full of unrighteousness lust covetousness malice envy strise and murther disobedient to parents breakers of Covenants unnatural in their affections and in their passions and all this was the consequent of breaking the first natural Law They changed the truth of God into a lie For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections 21. Now God who takes more care for the good of man than man does 〈◊〉 his own did not only imprint these Laws in the hearts and understandings of man but did also take care to make this light shine clear enough to walk by by adopting some instances of the natural Laws into Religion Thus the Law against Murther became a part of Religion in the time of Noah and some other things were then added concerning worshipping God against Idolatry and against unnatural and impure Mixtures Sometimes God superadded Judgments as to the 23000. Assyrians for Fornication For although these punishments were not threatned to the crime in the sanction and expression of any definite Law and it could not naturally arrive to it by its inordination yet it was as agreeable to the Divine Justice to inflict it as to inflict the pains of Hell upon evil livers who yet had not any revelation of such intolerable danger for it was sufficient that God had made such crimes to be against their very Nature and they who will do violence to their Nature to do themselves hurt and to displease God deserve to lose the title to all those good things which God was pleased to design for man's final condition And because it grew habitual customary and of innocent reputation it pleased God to call this precept out of the darkness whither their evil customs and false discourses had put it and by such an extraregular but very signal punishment to re-mind them that the natural permissions of Concubinate were only confined to the ends of mankind and were hallowed only by the Faith and the design of Marriage And this was signified by S. Paul in these words They that sin without the Law shall also perish without the Law that is by such Judgments which God hath inflicted on evil livers in several periods of the world irregularly indeed not signified in kind but yet sent into the world with designs of a great mercy that the ignorances and prevarications and partial abolitions of the natural Law might be cured and restored and by the dispersion of prejudices the state of natural Reason be redintegrate 22. Whatsoever was besides this was accidental and emergent Such as were the Discourses of wise men which God raised up in several Countreys and Ages as Job and Eliphaz and Bildad and those of the families of the Patriarchs dispersed into several countreys and constant Tradition in some noble and more eminent descents And yet all this was so little and imperfect not in it self but in respect of the thick cloud man had drawn before his Understanding that darkness covered the face of the earth in a great proportion Almost all the World were Idolaters and when they had broken the first of the natural Laws the breach of the other was not only naturally consequent but also by Divine judgment it descended infallibly And yet God pitying mankind did not only still continue the former remedies and added blessings giving them 〈◊〉 seasons and filling their hearts with food and gladness so leaving the Nations without excuse but also made a very noble change in the world For having chosen an excellent Family the Fathers of which lived exactly according to the natural Law and with observation of those few superadded Precepts in which God did specificate their prime Duty having swelled that Family to a great Nation and given them possession of an excellent Land which God took from seven Nations because they were egregious violators of the natural Law he was pleased to make a very great restitution and declaration of the natural Law in many instances of Religion and Justice which he framed into positive Precepts and adopted them into the family of the first original instances making them as necessary in the particulars as they were in the primary obligation but the instances were such whereof some did relate only to the present constitution of the Commonwealth others to such universal Contracts which obliged all the World by reason of the equal necessity of all mankind to admit them And these himself writ on Tables of stone and dressed up their Nation into a body politick by an excellent System of politick Laws and adorned it with a rare Religion and left this Nation as a piece of leven in a mass of dow not only to do honour to God and happiness to themselves by those instruments which he had now very much explicated but also to transmit
and unlearned as the elements of our mother-tongue But so are Mathematicks to a Scythian boor and Musick to a Camel 44. But I consider that the wisest persons and those who know how to value and entertain the more noble Faculties of their Soul and their precious hours take more pleasure in reading the productions of those old wise spirits who preserved natural Reason and Religion in the midst of heathen darkness such as are Homer Euripides Orpheus Pindar and Anacreon AEschylus and Menander and all the Greek Poets Plutarch and Polybius Xenophon and all those other excellent persons of both Faculties whose choicest Dictates are collected by Stobaeus Plato and his Scholars Aristotle and after him Porphyrie and all his other Disciples Pythagoras and his especially Hierocles all the old Academies and Stoicks within the Roman Schools more pleasure I say in reading these than the triflings of many of the later School-men who promoted a petty interest of a Family or an unlearned Opinion with great earnestness but added nothing to Christianity but trouble scruple and vexation And from hence I hope that they may the rather be invited to love and consider the rare documents of Christianity which certainly is the great Treasure-house of those excellent moral and perfective discourses which with much pains and greater pleasure we find respersed and thinly scattered in all the Greek and Roman Poets Historians and Philosophers But because I have observed that there are some principles entertained into the perswasions of men which are the seeds of evil life such as are the Doctrine of late Repentance the mistakes of the 〈◊〉 of the sins of 〈◊〉 the evil understanding the consequents and nature of Original sin the sufficiency of Contrition in order to pardon the efficacy of the Rites of 〈◊〉 without the necessity of 〈◊〉 adherencies the nature of Faith and many other I was diligent to remark such Doctrines and to pare off the mistakes so far that they hinder not Piety and yet as near as I could without engaging in any Question in which the very life of Christianity is not concerned Haec sum profatus haud ambagibus Implicita sed quae regulis aequi boni Suffulta rudibus pariter doctis patent My great purpose is to advance the necessity and to declare the manner and parts of a good 〈◊〉 and to invite some persons to the consideration of all the parts of it by intermixing something of pleasure with the use others by such parts which will better entertain their spirits than a Romance I have followed the design of Scripture and have given milk for babes and for stronger men stronger meat and in all I have despised my own reputation by so striving to make it useful that I was less careful to make it strict in retired sences and embossed with unnecessary but graceful ornaments I pray God this may go forth into a blessing to all that shall use it and reflect blessings upon me all the way that my spark may grow greater by kindling my brother's Taper and God may be glorified in us both If the Reader shall receive no benefit yet I intended him one and I have laboured in order to it and I shall receive a great recompence for that intention if he shall please to say this Prayer for me That while I have preached to others I may not become a cast-away AN EXHORTATION To the Imitation of the Life of Christ. HOwever the Person of JESUS CHRIST was depressed with a load of humble accidents and shadowed with the darknesses of Poverty and sad contingencies so that the Jews and the contemporary Ages of the Gentiles and the Apostles themselves could not at first 〈◊〉 the brightest essence of Divinity yet as a Beauty artificially covered with a thin cloud of Cypress transmits its excellency to the eye made more greedy and apprehensive by that imperfect and weak restraint so was the Sanctity and Holiness of the Life of JESUS glorious in its Darknesses and found Confessors and Admirers even in the midst of those despites which were done him upon the contrariant designs of malice and contradictory ambition Thus the wife of Pilate called him that just person Pilate pronounced him guiltless Judas said he was innocent the Devil himself called him the Holy one of God For however it might concern any man's mistaken ends to mislike the purpose of his Preaching and Spiritual Kingdom and those Doctrines which were destructive of their 〈◊〉 and carnal securities yet they could not deny but that he was a man of God of exemplar Sanctity of an Angelical Chastity of a Life sweet affable and complying with humane conversation and as obedient to Government as the most humble children of the Kingdom And yet he was Lord of all the World 2. And certainly very much of this was with a design that he might shine to all the generations and Ages of the World and become a guiding Star and a pillar of fire to us in our journey For we who believe that Jesus was perfect God and perfect Man do also believe that one minute of his intolerable Passion and every action of his might have been satisfactory and enough for the expiation and reconcilement of ten thousand worlds and God might upon a less effusion of bloud and a shorter life of merit if he had pleased have accepted humane nature to pardon and favour but that the Holy Jesus hath added so many excellent instances of Holiness and so many degrees of Passion and so many kinds of Vertues is that he might become an Example to us and reconcile our Wills to him as well as our Persons to his heavenly Father 3. And 〈◊〉 it will prove but a sad consideration that one drop of bloud might be enough to obtain our Pardon and the treasures of his bloud running out till the fountain it self was dry shall not be enough to procure our Conformity to him that the smallest minute of his expence shall be enough to justifie us and the whole Magazine shall not procure our Sanctification that at a smaller expence God might pardon us and at a greater we will not imitate him For therefore Christ hath suffered for us saith the Apostle leaving an Example to us that we might follow his steps The least of our Wills cost Christ as much as the greatest of our Sins And therefore he calls himself the Way the Truth and the Life That as he redeems our Souls from death to life by becoming Life to our Persons so he is the Truth to our Understandings and the Way to our Will and Affections enlightning that and leading these in the paths of a happy Eternity 4. When the King of Moab was pressed hard by the sons of Isaac the Israelites and Edomites he took the King of Edom's eldest Son or as some think his own Son the Heir of his Kingdom and offered him as a Holocaust upon the wall and the Edomites presently raised the siege at
these impurities and vanities Jesus hath redeemed all his Disciples and not only thrown out of his Temples all the impure rites of Flora and Cybele but also the trifling and unprofitable ceremonies of the more sober Deities not only Vices but useless and unprofitable Speculations and hath consecrated our Head into a Temple our Understanding to Spirit our Reason to Religion our Study to Meditation and this is the first part of the Sanctification of our Spirit 6. And this was the cause Holy Scripture commands the duty of Meditation in proportion still to the excellencies of Piety and a holy life to which it is highly and aptly instrumental Blessed is the man that meditates in the Law of the Lord day and night And the reason of the Proposition and the use of the Duty is expressed to this purpose Thy words have I hid in my heart that I should not sin against thee The placing and fixing those divine Considerations in our understandings and hiding them there are designs of high Christian prudence that they with advantage may come forth in the expresses of a holy life For what in the world is more apt and natural to produce Humility than to meditate upon the low stoopings and descents of the Holy Jesus to the nature of a Man to the weaknesses of a Child to the poverties of a Stable to the ignobleness of a Servant to the shame of the Cross to the pains of Cruelty to the dust of Death to the title of a Sinner and to the wrath of God By this instance Poverty is made honourable and Humility is sanctified and made noble and the contradictions of nature are amiable and 〈◊〉 for a wise election Thus hatred of sin shame of our selves confusion at the sense of humane misery the love of God confidence in his Promises desires of Heaven holy resolutions resignation of our own appetites 〈◊〉 to Divine will oblations of our selves Repentance and mortification are the proper emanations from Meditation of the sordidness of sin our proneness to it our daily miseries as issues of Divine vengeance the glories of God his infinite unalterable Veracity the satisfactions in the vision of God the rewards of Piety the rectitude of the Laws of God and perfection of his Sanctions God's supreme and paternal Dominion and his certain malediction of sinners and when any one of these Considerations is taken to pieces and so placed in the rooms of application that a piece of duty is conjoyned to a piece of the mystery and the whole office to the purchase of a grace or the extermination of a vice it is like opening our windows to let in the Sun and the Wind and Holiness is as proportioned an effect to this practice as Glory is to a persevering Holiness by way of reward and moral causality 7. For all the Affections that are in Man are either natural or by chance or by the incitation of Reason and discourse Our natural affections are not worthy the entertainments of a Christian they must be supernatural and divine that put us into the hopes of Perfection and Felicities and these other that are good unless they come by Meditation they are but accidental and set with the evening Sun But if they be produced upon the strengths of pious Meditation they are as perpetual as they are reasonable and excellent in proportion to the Piety of the principle A Garden that is watered with short and sudden showrs is more uncertain in its fruits and beauties than if a Rivulet waters it with a perpetual distilling and constant humectation And just such are the short emissions and unpremeditated resolutions of Piety begotten by a dash of holy rain from Heaven whereby God sometimes uses to call the careless but to taste what excellencies of Piety they neglect but if they be not produced by the Reason of Religion and the Philosophy of Meditation they have but the life of a Fly or a tall Gourd they come into the World only to say they had a Being you could scarce know their length but by measuring the ground they cover in their fall 8. For since we are more moved by material and sensible objects than by things merely speculative and intellectual and generals even in spiritual things are less perceived and less motive than particulars Meditation frames the understanding part of Religion to the proportions of our nature and our weakness by making some things more circumstantiate and material and the more spiritual to be particular and therefore the more applicable and the mystery is made like the Gospel to the Apostles Our eyes do see and our ears do hear and our hands do handle thus much of the word of life as is prepared for us in the Meditation 9. First And therefore every wise person that intends to furnish himself with affections of Religion or detestation against a Vice or glorifications of a Mystery still will proportion the Mystery and fit it with such circumstances of fancy and application as by observation of himself he knows aptest to make impression It was a wise design of Mark Antony when he would stir up the people to revenge the death of Caesar he brought his body to the pleading-place he shewed his wounds held up the rent mantle and shewed them the garment that he put on that night in which he beat the Nervii that is in which he won a victory for which his memory was dear to them he shewed them that wound which pierced his heart in which they were placed by so dear a love that he made them his heirs and left to their publick use places of delight and pleasure and then it was natural when he had made those things present to them which had once moved their love and his honour that grief at the loss of so honourable and so lov'd a person should succeed and then they were Lords of all their sorrow and revenge seldom slept in two beds And thus holy Meditation produces the passions and desires it intends it makes the object present and almost sensible it renews the first passions by a fiction of imagination it passes from the Paschal Parlour to Cedron it tells the drops of sweat and measures them and finds them as big as drops of bloud and then conjectures at the greatness of our sins it fears in the midst of Christ's Agonies it hears his groans it spies Judas his Lantern afar off it follows Jesus to Gabbatha and wonders at his innocence and their malice and feels the strokes of the Whip and shrinks the head when the Crown of Thorns is thrust hard upon his holy brows and at last goes step by step with Jesus and carries part of the Cross and is nailed fast with sorrow and compassion and dies with love For if the Soul be principle of its own actions it can produce the same effects by reflex acts of the Understanding when it is assisted by the Imaginative part as when it sees the thing
to be quitted But it is S. Chrysostom's Simile As a Lamb sucking the breast of its dam and Mother moves the head from one part to another till it hath found a distilling fontinel and then it fixes till it be satisfied or the 〈◊〉 cease dropping so should we in Meditation reject such materials as are barren like the tops of hills and six upon such thoughts which nourish and refresh and there dwell till the nourishment be drawn forth or so much of it as we can then temperately digest 14. Fifthly In Meditation strive rather for Graces than for Gifts for affections in the way of Vertue more than the overslowings of sensible Devotion and therefore if thou findest any thing by which thou mayest be better though thy spirit do not actually rejoyce or find any gust or relish in the manducation yet chuse it greedily For although the chief end of Meditation be Affection and not Determinations intellectual yet there is choice to be had of the Affections and care must be taken that the affections be desires of Vertue or repudiations and aversions from something criminal not joys and transportations spiritual comforts and complacencies for they are no part of our duty sometimes they are encouragements and sometimes rewards sometimes they depend upon habitude and disposition of body and seem great matters when they have little in them and are more bodily than spiritual like the gift of tears and yerning of the bowels and sometimes they are illusions and temptations at which if the Soul stoops and be greedy after they may prove like Hippomenes's golden Apples to Atalanta retard our course and possibly do some hazard to the whole race And this will be nearer reduced to practice if we consider the variety of matter which is fitted to the Meditation in several states of men travelling towards Heaven 15. For the first beginners in Religion are imployed in the mastering of their first Appetites casting out their Devils exterminating all evil customs lessening the proclivity of habits and countermanding the too-great forwardness of vicious inclinations and this which Divines call the Purgative way is wholly spent in actions of Repentance Mortification and Self-denial and therefore if a penitent person snatches at Comforts or the tastes of sensible Devotion his Repentance is too delicate it is but a rod of Roses and Jessamine If God sees the spirit broken all in pieces and that it needs a little of the oyl of gladness for its support and restitution to the capacities of its duty he will give it but this is not to be designed nor snatched at in the Meditation Tears of joy are not good expressions nor instruments of Repentance we must not gather grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles no refreshments to be looked for here but such only as are necessary for support and when God sees they are let not us trouble our selves he will provide them But the Meditations which are prompt to this Purgative way and practice of first beginners are not apt to produce delicacies but in the sequel and consequent of it Afterwards it brings forth the pleasant fruit of righteousness but for the present it hath no joy in it no joy of sense though much satisfaction to Reason And such are Meditations of the Fall of Angels and Man the Ejection of them from Heaven of our Parents from Paradise the Horrour and obliquity of Sin the Wrath of God the severity of his Anger Mortification of our body and spirit Self-denial the Cross of Christ Death and Hell and Judgment the terrours of an evil Conscience the insecurities of a Sinner the unreasonableness of Sin the troubles of Repentance the Worm and sting of a burthened spirit the difficulties of rooting out evil Habits and the utter abolition of Sin if these nettles bear honey we may fill our selves but such sweetnesses spoil the operations of these bitter potions Here therefore let your addresses to God and your mental prayers be affectionate desires of Pardon humble considerations of our selves thoughts of revenge against our Crimes designs of Mortification indefatigable solicitations for Mercy expresses of shame and confusion of face and he meditates best in the purgative way that makes these affections most operative and high 16. After our first step is taken and the punitive part of Repentance is resolved on and begun and put forward into good degrees of progress we then enter into the Illuminative way of Religion and set upon the acquist of Vertues and the purchase of spiritual Graces and therefore our Meditations are to be proportioned to the design of that imployment such as are considerations of the Life of Jesus Examples of Saints reasons of Vertue means of acquiring them designations of proper exercises to every pious habit the Eight Beatitudes the gifts and fruits of the Holy Ghost the Promises of the Gospel the Attributes of God as they are revealed to represent God to be infinite and to make us Religious the Rewards of Heaven excellent and select Sentences of holy persons to be as incentives of Piety These are the proper matter for Proficients in Religion But then the affections producible from these are love of vertue desires to imitate the Holy Jesus affections to Saints and holy persons conformity of choice subordination to God's will election of the ways of Vertue satisfaction of the Understanding in the ways of Religion and resolutions to pursue them in the midst of all discomforts and persecutions and our mental prayers or entercourse with God which are the present emanations of our Meditations must be in order to these affections and productions from those and in all these yet there is safety and piety and no seeking of our selves but designs of Vertue in just reason and duty to God and for his sake that is for his commandment And in all these particulars if there be such a sterility of spirit that there be no end served but of spiritual profit we are never the worse all that God requires of us is that we will live well and repent in just measure and right manner and he that doth so hath meditated well 17. From hence if a pious Soul passes to affections of greater sublimity and intimate and more immediate abstracted and immaterial love it is well only remember that the love God requires of us is an operative material and communicative love If ye love me keep my Commandments so that still a good life is the effect of the sublimest Meditation and if we make our duty sure behind us ascend up as high into the Mountain as you can so your ascent may consist with the securities of your person the condition of infirmity and the interests of your duty According to the saying of 〈◊〉 Our empty saying of 〈◊〉 and reciting verses in honour of his Name please not God so well as the imitation of him does advantage to us and a devout 〈◊〉 pleases the Spouse better than an idle Panegyrick Let your work
contagious 9. Thirdly And yet there is a degree of Mortification of spirit beyond this for the condition of our security may require that we not only deny to act our temptations or to please our natural desires but also to seek opportunities of doing displeasure to our affections and violence to our inclinations and not only to be indifferent but to chuse a contradiction and a denial to our strongest appetites to rejoyce in a trouble and this was the spirit of S. Paul I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulations and We glory in it Which joy consists not in any sensitive pleasure any man can take in asflictions and adverse accidents but in a despising the present inconveniences and looking through the cloud unto those great felicities and graces and consignations to glory which are the effects of the Cross Knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed that was the incentive of S. Paul's joy And therefore as it may consist with any degree of Mortification to pray for the taking away of the Cross upon condition it may consist with God's glory and our ghostly profit so it is properly an act of this vertue to pray for the Cross or to meet it if we understand it may be for the interest of the spirit And thus S. Basil prayed to God to remove his violent pains of Head-ach but when God heard him and took away his pain and Lust came in the place of it he prayed to God to restore him his Head-ach again that cross was gain and joy when the removal of it was so full of danger and temptation And this the Masters of spiritual life call being crucified with Christ because as Christ chose the death and desired it by the appetites of the spirit though his flesh smarted under it and groaned and died with the burthen so do all that are thus mortified they place misfortunes and sadnesses amongst things eligible and set them before the eyes of their desire although the flesh and the desires of sense are factious and bold against such sufferings 10. Of these three degrees of interiour or spiritual Mortification the first is Duty the second is Counsel and the third is Perfection We sin if we have not the first we are in danger without the second but without the third we cannot be perfect as our heavenly Father is but shall have more of humane infirmities to be ashamed of than can be excused by the accrescencies and condition of our nature The first is only of absolute necessity the second is prudent and of greatest convenience but the third is excellent and perfect And it was the consideration of a wise man that the Saints in Heaven who understand the excellent glories and vast differences of state and capacities amongst beatified persons although they have no envy nor sorrows yet if they were upon earth with the same notion and apprehensions they have in Heaven would not for all the world lose any degree of Glory but mortifie to the greatest 〈◊〉 that their Glory may be a derivation of the greatest ray of light every degree being of compensation glorious and disproportionably beyond the inconsiderable troubles of the greatest Self-denial God's purpose is that we abstain from sin there is no more in the Commandment and therefore we must deny our selves so as not to admit a sin under pain of a certain and eternal curse but the other degrees of Mortification are by accident so many degrees of Vertue not being enjoyned or counselled for themselves but for the preventing of crimes and for securities of good life and therefore are parts and offices of Christian prudence which whosoever shall positively reject is neither much in love with Vertue nor careful of his own safety 11. Secondly But Mortification hath also some designs upon the Body For the Body is the Shop and Forge of the Soul in which all her designs which are transient upon external objects are framed and it is a good servant as long as it is kept in obedience and under discipline but he that breeds his servant delicately will find him contumacious and troublesome bold and confident as his son and therefore S. Paul's practice as himself gives account of it was to keep his body under and bring it into subjection lest he should become a 〈◊〉 away for the desires of the Body are in the same things in which themselves are satisfied so many injuries to the Soul because upon every one of the appetites a restraint is made and a law placed sor Sentinel that if we transgress the bounds fixt by the divine 〈◊〉 it becomes a sin now it is hard for us to keep them within compass because they are little more than agents merely natural and therefore cannot interrupt their act but covet and desire as much as they can without suspension or coercion but what comes from without which is therefore the more troublesome because all such restraints are against nature and without sensual pleasure And therefore this is that that S. Paul said When we were in the flesh the 〈◊〉 of sin which were by the Law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto Death For these pleasures of the body draw us as loadstones draw iron not for love but for prey and nutriment it feeds upon the iron as the bodily pleasures upon the life of the spirit which is lessened and impaired according as the gusts of the flesh grow high and sapid 12. He that seeds a Lion must obey him unless he make his den to be his prison Our Lusts are as wild and as cruel Beasts and unless they feel the load of fetters and of Laws will grow unruly and troublesome and increase upon us as we give them food and satisfaction He that is used to drink high Wines is sick if he hath not his proportion to what degree soever his custom hath brought his appetite and to some men Temperance becomes certain death because the inordination of their desires hath introduced a custom and custom hath increased those appetites and made them almost natural in their degree but he that hath been used to hard diet and the pure stream his 〈◊〉 are much within the limits of Temperance and his desires as moderate as his diet S. Jerom affirms that to be continent in the state of Widowhood is barder than to keep our Firgin pure and there is reason that then the Appetite should be harder to be restrained when it hath not been accustomed to be denied but satisfied in its freer solicitations When a fontinel is once opened all the symbolical humours run thither and issue out and it is not to be stopped without danger unless the humour be purged or diverted So is the satisfaction of an impure desire it opens the issue and makes way for the emanation of all impurity and unless the desire be mortified
Man if they pass through an even and an indifferent life towards the issues of an ordinary and necessary course they are little and within command but if they pass upon an end or aim of difficulty or ambition they duplicate and grow to a 〈◊〉 and we have seen the even and temperate lives of indifferent persons continue in many degrees of Innocence but the Temptation of busie designs is too great even for the best of dispositions 7. But these Temptations are crasse and material and soon discernible it will require some greater observation to arm against such as are more spiritual and immaterial For he hath Apples to cousen Children and Gold for Men the Kingdoms of the World for the Ambition of Princes and the Vanities of the World for the Intemperate he hath Discourses and fair-spoken Principles to abuse the pretenders to Reason and he hath common Prejudices for the more vulgar understandings Amongst these I chuse to consider such as are by way of Principle or Proposition 8. The first great Principle of Temptation I shall note is a general mistake which excuses very many of our crimes upon pretence of Infirmity calling all those sins to which by natural disposition we are inclined though by carelesness and evil customs they are heightned to a habit by the name of Sins of infirmity to which men suppose they have reason and title to pretend If when they have committed a crime their Conscience checks them and they are troubled and during the interval and abatement of the heats of desire resolve against it and commit it readily at the next opportunity then they cry out against the weakness of their Nature and think as long as this body of death is about them it must be thus and that this condition may stand with the state of Grace And then the Sins shall return periodically like the revolutions of a Quartan Ague well and ill for ever till Death surprizes the mistaker This is a Patron of sins and makes the Temptation prevalent by an authentick instrument and they pretend the words of S. Paul For the good that I would that I do not but the evil that I would not that I do For there is a law in my members 〈◊〉 against the law of my mind bringing me into captivity to the law of Sin And thus the 〈◊〉 of Sin is mistaken for a state of Grace and the imperfections of the Law are miscalled the affections and necessities of Nature that they might seem to be incurable and the persons apt for an excuse therefore because for Nature there is no absolute cure But that these words of S. Paul may not become a 〈◊〉 of death and instruments of a temptation to us it is observable that the Apostle by a siction of person as is usual with him speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but under the 〈◊〉 obscurities insufficiencies and imperfections of the Law which indeed he there contends to have been a Rule good and holy apt to remonstrate our misery because by its prohibitions and limits given to natural desires it made actions before indifferent now to be sins it added many curses to the breakers of it and by an 〈◊〉 of contrariety it made us more desirous of what was now unlawful but it was a Covenant in which our Nature was restrained but not helped it was provoked but not sweetly assisted our Understandings were instructed but our Wills not sanctified and there were no suppletories of Repentance every greater sin was like the fall of an Angel irreparable by any mystery or express recorded or enjoyned Now of a man under this Govenant he describes the condition to be such that he understands his Duty but by the infirmities of Nature he is certain to fall and by the helps of the Law not strengthened against it nor restored after it and therefore he calls himself under that notion a miserable man sold under sin not doing according to the rules of the Law or the dictates of his Reason but by the unaltered misery of his Nature certain to prevaricate But the person described here is not S. Paul is not any justified person not so much as a Christian but one who is under a state of direct opposition to the state of Grace as will manifestly appear if we observe the antithesis from S. Paul's own characters For the Man here named is such as in whom sin wrought all concupiscence in whom sin lived and slew him so that he was dead in trespasses and sins and although he did delight in the Law after his inwardman that is his understanding had intellectual complacencies and satisfactions which afterwards he calls serving the Law of God with his mind that is in the first dispositions and preparations of his spirit yet he could act nothing for the law in his members did inslave him and brought him into captivity to the law of sin so that this person was full of actual and effective lusts he was a slave to sin and dead in trespasses But the state of a regenerate person is such as to have 〈◊〉 the flesh with the affections and lusts in whom sin did not reign not only in the mind but even also not in the mortal body over whom sin had no dominion in whom the old man was crucified and the body of sin was destroyed and sin not at all served And to make the antithesis yet clearer in the very beginning of the next Chapter the Apostle saith that the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death under which law he complained immediately before he was sold and killed to shew the person was not the same in these so different and contradictory representments No man in the state of Grace can say The evil that I would not that I do if by evil he means any evil that is habitual or in its own nature deadly 9. So that now let no man pretend an inevitable necessity to sin for if ever it comes to a custom or to a great violation though but in a single act it is a condition of Carnality not of spiritual life and those are not the infirmities of Nature but the weaknesses of Grace that make us sin so frequently which the Apostle truly affirms to the same purpose The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot or that ye do not do the things that ye would This disability proceeds from the strength of the flesh and weakness of the spirit For he adds But if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law saying plainly that the state of such a combate and disability of doing good is a state of a man under the Law or in the flesh which he accounts all one but every man that is sanctified
under the Gospel is led by the Spirit and walks in the Spirit and brings forth the fruits of the Spirit It is not our excuse but the aggravation of our sin that we fall again in despite of so many resolutions to the contrary And let us not flatter our selves into a confidence of sin by supposing the state of Grace can stand with the Custom of any sin for it is the state either of an animalis homo as the Apostle calls him that is a man in pure naturals without the clarity of divine Revelations who cannot perceive or understand the things of God or else of the carnal man that is a person who though in his mind he is convinced yet he is not yet freed from the dominion of sin but only hath his eyes opened but not his bonds loosed For by the perpetual analogy and frequent expresses in Scripture the spiritual person or the man redeemed by the spirit of life in Christ Jesus is free from the Law and the Dominion and the Kingdom and the Power of all sin For to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace 10. But sins of Infirmity in true sence of Scripture signifie nothing but the sins of an unholy and an unsanctified nature when they are taken for actions done against the strength of resolution out of the strength of natural appetite and violence of desire and therefore in Scripture the state of Sin and the state of Infirmity is all one For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly saith the Apostle the condition in which we were when Christ became a sacrifice for us was certainly a condition of sin and enmity with God and yet this he calls a being without strength or in a state of weakness and infirmity which we who believe all our strength to be derived from Christ's death and the assistance of the holy Spirit the fruit of his Ascension may soon apprehend to be the true meaning of the word And in this sence is that saying of our Blessed Saviour The whole have no need of a Physician but they that are weak for therefore Christ came into the world to save sinners those are the persons of Christ's Infirmary whose restitution and reduction to a state of life and health was his great design So that whoever sin habitually that is constantly periodically at the revolution of a temptation or frequently or easily are persons who still remain in the state of sin and death and their intervals of Piety are but preparations to a state of Grace which they may then be when they are not used to countenance or excuse the sin or to flatter the person But if the intermediate resolutions of emendation though they never run beyond the next assault of passion or desire be taken for a state of Grace blended with infirmities of Nature they become destructive of all those purposes through our mistake which they might have promoted if they had been rightly understood observed and cherished Sometimes indeed the greatness of a Temptation may become an instrument to excuse some degrees of the sin and make the man pitiable whose ruine seems almost certain because of the greatness and violence of the enemy meeting with a natural aptness but then the question will be whither and to what actions that strong Temptation carries him whether to a work of a mortal nature or only to a small irregularity that is whether to death or to a wound for whatever the principle be if the effect be death the man's case was therefore to be pitied because his ruine was the more inevitable not so pitied as to excuse him from the state of death For let the Temptation be never so strong every Christian man hath assistances sufficient to support him so as that without his own yielding no Temptation is stronger than that grace which God offers him for if it were it were not so much as a sin of infirmity it were no sin at all This therefore must be certain to us When the violence of our Passions or desires overcomes our resolutions and fairer purposes against the dictate of our Reason that indeed is a state of Infirmity but it is also of sin and death a state of Immortification because the offices of Grace are to crucifie the Old man that is our former aud impurer conversation to subdue the petulancy of our Passions to reduce them to reason and to restore Empire and dominion to the superiour Faculties So that this condition in proper speaking is not so good as the Infirmity of Grace but it is no Grace at all for whoever are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts those other imperfect ineffective resolutions are but the first approaches of the Kingdom of Christ nothing but the clarities of lightning dark as 〈◊〉 as light and they therefore cannot be excuses to us because the contrary weaknesses as we call them do not make the sin involuntary but chosen and pursued and in true speaking is the strength of the Lust not the infirmity of a state of Grace 11. But yet there is a condition of Grace which is a state of little and imperfect ones such as are called in Scripture Smoaking flax and bruised reeds which is a state of the first dawning of the Sun of Righteousness when the lights of Grace new rise upon our eyes and then indeed they are weak and have a more dangerous neighbourhood of Temptations and desires but they are not subdued by them they sin not by direct election their actions criminal are but like the slime of Nilus leaving rats half formed they sin but seldom and when they do it is in small instances and then also by surprise by inadvertency and then also they interrupt their own acts and lessen them perpetually and never do an act of sinfulness but the principle is such as makes it to be involuntary in many degrees For when the Understanding is clear and the dictate of Reason undisturbed and determinate whatsoever then produces an irregular action excuses not because the action is not made the less voluntary by it for the action is not made involuntary from any other principle but from some defect of Understanding either in act or habit or faculty For where there is no such defect there is a full deliberation according to the capacity of the man and then the act of election that follows is clear and full and is that proper disposition which makes him truly capable of punishment or reward respectively Now although in the first beginnings of Grace there is not a direct Ignorance to excuse totally yet because a sudden surprise or an inadvertency is not always in our power to prevent these things do lessen the election and freedom of the action and then because they are but seldom and never proceed to any length of time or any great instances of
crime and are every day made still more infrequent because Grace growing stronger the observation and advertency of the spirit and the attendance of the inner man grows more effectual and busie this is a state of the imperfection of Grace but a state of Grace it is And it is more commonly observed to be expressed in the imperfection of our good actions than in the irregularity of bad actions and in this sence are those words of our Blessed Saviour The Spirit 〈◊〉 is willing but the flesh is weak which in this instance was not expressed in sin but in a natural imperfection which then was a recession from a civility a not watching with the Lord. And this is the only Infirmity that can consist with the state of Grace 12. So that now we may lay what load we please upon our Nature and call our violent and unmortified desires by the name of an imperfect Grace but then we are dangerously mistaken and flatter our selves into an opinion of Piety when we are in the gall of bitterness so making our misery the more certain and irremediable because we think it needs nothing but a perpetuity and perseverance to bring us to Heaven The violence of Passion and Desires is a misery of Nature but a perfect principle of Sin multiplying and repeating the acts but not lessening the malignity But sins of Infirmity when we mean sins of a less and lower malice are sins of a less and imperfect choice because of the unavoidable imperfection of the Understanding Sins of Infirmity are always infirm sins that is weak and imperfect in their principle and in their nature and in their design that is they are actions incomplete in all their capacities but then Passions and periodical inclinations consisting with a regular and determined and actual understanding must never be their principle for whatsoever proceeds thence is destructive of spiritual life and inconsistent with the state of Grace But sins of infirmity when they pretend to a less degree of malignity and a greater degree of excuse are such as are little more than sins of pure and inculpable ignorance for in that degree in which any other principle is mixt with them in the same degree they are criminal and inexcusable For as a sin of infirmity is pretended to be little in its value and malignity so it is certain if it be great in the instance it is not a sin of infirmity that is it is a state or act of death and absolutely inconsistent with the state of Grace 13. Secondly Another Principle of Temptation pregnant with sin and fruitful of monsters is a weaker pretence which less wary and credulous persons abuse themselves withall pretending as a ground for their confidence and incorrigible pursuance of their courses that they have a Good meaning that they intend sometimes well and sometimes not ill and this shall be sufficient to sanctifie their actions and to hallow their sin And this is of worse malice when Religion is the colour for a War and the preservation of Faith made the warrant for destruction of Charity and a Zeal for God made the false light to lead us to Disobedience to Man and hatred of Idolatry is the usher of Sacriledge and the 〈◊〉 of Superstition the introducer of Profaneness and Reformation made the colour for a Schism and Liberty of conscience the way to a 〈◊〉 and saucy Heresie for the End may indeed hallow an indifferent action but can never make straight a crooked and irregular It was not enough for Saul to cry for God and the Sacrifice that he spared the fat flocks of Amalek and it would be a strange zeal and forwardness that rather than the Altar of incense should not smoak will burn Assa foetida or the marrow of a man's bones For as God will be honoured by us so also in ways of his own appointment for we are the makers of our Religion if we in our zeal for God do what he hath forbidden us And every sin committed for Religion is just such a violence done to it as it seeks to prevent or remedy 14. And so it is if it be committed for an end or pretence of Charity as well as of Religion We must be curious that no pretence engage us upon an action that is certainly criminal in its own nature Charity may sometimes require our Lives but no obligation can endear a Damnation to us we are not bound to the choice of an eternal ruine to save another Indeed so far as an Option will go it may concern the excrescences of Piety to chuse by a tacite or express act of volition to become Anathema for our brethren that is by putting a case and fiction of Law to suppose it better and wish it rather that I should perish than my Nation Thus far is charitable because it is innocent for as it is great love to our Countrey so it is no uncharitableness to our selves for such Options always are ineffective and produce nothing but rewards of Charity and a greater glory And the Holy Jesus himself who only could be and was effectively accursed to save us got by it an exceeding and mighty glorification and S. Paul did himself advantage by his charitable Devotion for his Countreymen But since God never puts the question to us so that either we or our Nation must be damned he having xt every man's final condition upon his own actions in the vertue and obedience of Christ if we mistake the expresses of Charity and suffer our selves to be damned indeed for God's glory or our Brethrens good we spoil the Duty and ruine our selves when our Option comes to act But it is observable that although Religion is often pretended to justifie a sin yet Charity is but seldom which makes it full of suspicion that Religion is but the cover to the Death's-head and at the best is but an accusing of God that he is not willing or not able to preserve Religion without our irregular and impious cooperations But however though it might concern us to wish our selves rather 〈◊〉 than Religion or our Prince or our Country should perish for I find no instances that it is lawful so much as to 〈◊〉 it for the preservation of a single friend yet it is against Charity to bring such a 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 and by sin to damn our selves really for a good end either 〈◊〉 Religion or Charity 15. Let us therefore serve God as he hath 〈◊〉 the way for all our accesses to him being acts of his free concession and grace must be by his 〈◊〉 designation and appointment We might as well have chosen what shape our 〈◊〉 should be of as of what instances the substance of our Religion should consist 16. Thirdly a third Principle of Temptation is an opinion of prosecuting actions of Civility Compliance and Society to the luxation of a point of Piety and 〈◊〉 Duty and good natures persons of humane and sweeter dispositions are
of Religion And beside that the Presence of God serves to all this it hath also especial influence in the disimprovement of Temptations because it hath in it many things contrariant to the nature and efficacy of Temptations such as are Consideration Reverence Spiritual thoughts and the Fear of God for where-ever this consideration is actual there either God is highly despised or certainly feared In this case we are made to declare for our purposes are concealed only in an incuriousness and inconsideration but whoever considers God as present will in all reason be as religious as in a Temple the Reverence of which place Custom or Religion hath imprinted in the spirits of most men so that as Ahasuerus said of Haman Will he ravish the Queen in my own house aggravating the crime by the incivility of the circumstance God may well say to us whose Religion compells us to believe God every-where present since the Divine Presence hath made all places holy and every place hath a Numen in it even the Eternal God we unhallow the place and desecrate the ground whereon we stand supported by the arm of God placed in his heart and enlightned by his eye when we sin in so sacred a Presence 34. The second great instrument against Temptation is Meditation of Death Raderus reports that a certain Virgin to restrain the inordination of intemperate desires which were like thorns in her flesh and disturbed her spiritual peace shut her self up in a Sepulchre and for twelve years dwelt in that Scene of death It were good we did so too making Tombs and Coffins presential to us by frequent meditation For God hath given us all a definitive arrest in Adam and from it there lies no appeal but it is infallibly and unalterably 〈◊〉 for all men once to die or to be changed to pass from hence to a condition of Eternity good or bad Now because this law is certain and the time and the manner of its execution is uncertain and from this moment Eternity depends and that after this life the final sentence is irrevocable that all the pleasures here are sudden transient and unsatisfying and vain he must needs be a 〈◊〉 that knows not to distinguish moments from Eternity and since it is a condition of necessity established by Divine decrees and fixt by the indispensable Laws of Nature that we shall after a very little duration pass on to a condition strange not understood then unalterable and yet of great mutation from this even of greater distance from 〈◊〉 in which we are here than this is from the state of Beasts this when it is considered must in all reason make the same impression upon our understandings and affections which naturally all strange things and all great considerations are apt to do that is create resolutions and results passing through the heart of man such as are reasonable and prudent in order to our own 〈◊〉 that we neglect the vanities of the present Temptation and secure our future condition which will till Eternity it self expires remain such as we make it to be by our deportment in this short transition and passage through the World 35. And that this Discourse is reasonable I am therefore confirmed because I find it to be to the same purpose used by the Spirit of God and the wisest personages in the world My soul is always in my hand therefore do I keep thy Commandments said David he looked upon himself as a dying person and that restrained all his inordinations and so he prayed Lord teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom And therefore the AEgyptians used to serve up a Skeleton to their Feasts that the dissolutions and vapours of wine might be restrained with that bunch of myrrh and the vanities of their eyes chastised by that sad object for they thought it unlikely a man should be transported far with any thing low or vicious that looked long and often into the hollow eye-pits of a Death's head or dwelt in a Charnel-house And such considerations make all the importunity and violence of sensual desires to disband For when a man stands perpetually at the door of Eternity and as did John the Almoner every day is building of his Sepulchre and every night one day of our life is gone and passed into the possession of death it will concern us to take care that the door leading to Hell do not open upon us that we be not crusht to ruine by the stones of our grave and that our death become not a consignation to us to a sad Eternity For all the pleasures of the whole world and in all its duration cannot make recompence for one hour's torment in Hell and yet if wicked persons were to 〈◊〉 in Hell for ever without any change of posture or variety of torment beyond that session it were unsufferable beyond the indurance of nature and therefore where little less than infinite misery in an infinite duration shall punish the pleasures of sudden and transient crimes the gain of pleasure and the exchange of banks here for a condition of eternal and miserable death is a permutation 〈◊〉 to be made by none but fools and desperate persons who made no use of a reasonable Soul but that they in their perishing might be convinced of unreasonableness and die by their own fault 36. The use that wise men have made when they reduced this consideration to practice is to believe every day to be the last of their life for so it may be and for ought we know it will and then think what you would avoid or what you would do if you were dying or were to day to suffer death by sentence and conviction and that in all reason and in proportion to the strength of your consideration you will do every day For that is the sublimity of Wisdom to do those things living which are to be desired and chosen by dying persons An alarm of death every day renewed and pressed earnestly will watch a man so tame and soft that the precepts of Religion will dwell deep in his spirit But they that make a covenant with the grave and put the 〈◊〉 day far 〈◊〉 them they are the men that eat spiders and toads for meat greedily and a Temptation to them is as welcome as joy and they seldom dispute the point in behalf of Piety or Mortification for they that look upon Death at distance apprehend it not but in such general lines and great representments that describe it only as future and possible but nothing of its terrors or 〈◊〉 or circumstances of advantage are discernible by such an eye that disturbs its 〈◊〉 and discomposes the posture that the object may seem another thing than what it is truly and really S. Austin with his Mother Monica was led one day by a Roman Prator to 〈◊〉 the tomb of Caesar. Himself thus describes the Corps
confession and undertaking a holy life and therefore in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are conjoyned in the significations as they are in the mystery it is a giving up our names to Christ and it is part of the foundation or the first Principles of the Religion as appears in S. Paul's Catechism it is so the first thing that it is for babes and Neophytes in which they are matriculated and adopted into the house of their Father and taken into the hands of their Mother Upon this account Baptism is called in antiquity 〈◊〉 janua porta Gratiae primus introitus Sanctorum adaeternam Dei Ecclesiae consuetudinem The gate of the Church the door of Grace the first entrance of the Saints to an eternal conversation with God and the Church Sacramentum initiationis intrantium Christianismum investituram S. Bernard calls it The Sacrament of initiation and the investiture of them that enter into the Religion And the person so entring is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of the Religion or a Proselyte and Convert and one added to the number of the Church in imitation of that of S. Luke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God added to the Church those that should be saved just as the Church does to this day and for ever baptizing Infants and Catechuments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are added to the Church that they may be added to the Lord and the number of the Inhabitants of Heaven 15. Secondly The next step beyond this is Adoption into the Convenant which is an immediate consequent of the first Presentation this being the first act of man that the first act of God And this is called by S. Paul a being baptized in one spirit into one body that is we are made capable of the Communion of Saints the blessings of the faithful the priviledges of the Church by this we are as S. Luke calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordained or disposed put into the order of Eternal Life being made members of the mystical Body under Christ our Head 16. Thirdly And therefore Baptism is a new birth by which we enter into the new world the new Creation the blessings and spiritualities of the Kingdom and this is the expression which our Saviour himself used Nicodemus Unless a man be born of Water and the Spirit and it is by S. Paul called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the laver of Regeneration for now we begin to be reckoned in new Census or account God is become our Father Christ our elder Brother the Spirit the earnest of our Inheritance the Church our Mother our food is the body and bloud of our Lord Faith is our learning Religion our employment and our whole life is spiritual and Heaven the object of our Hopes and the mighty price of our high Calling And from this time forward we have a new principle put into us the Spirit of Grace which besides our Soul and body is a principle of action of one nature and shall with them enter into the portion of our Inheritance And therefore the Primitive Christians who consigned all their affairs and goods and writings with some marks of their Lord usually writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ the Son of God our Saviour made it an abbreviature by writing only the Capitals thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Heathens in mockery and derision made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Fish and they used it for Christ as a name of reproach but the Christians owned the name and turned it into a pious Metaphor and were content that they should enjoy their pleasure in the Acrostich but upon that occasion Tertullian speaks pertinently to this Article Nos pisciculi sccundùm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nostrum Jesum Christum in aqua nascimur Christ whom you call a Fish we knowledge to be our Lord and Saviour and we if you please are the little fishes for we are born in water thence we derive our spiritual life And because from henceforward we are a new Creation the Church uses to assign new relations to the Catechumens Spiritual Fathers and Susceptors and at their entrance into Baptism the Christians and Jewish Proselytes did use to cancel all secular affections to their temporal relatives Nec quicquam priùs 〈◊〉 quà m contemnere Deos exuere patriam parentes liberos fratres vilia habere said Tacitus of the Christians which was true in the sence only that Christ said He that doth not hate father or mother for my sake is not worthy of me that is he that doth not hate them praeme rather than forsake me forsake them is unworthy of me 17. Fourthly In Baptism all our sins are pardoned according to the words of a Prophet I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness The Catechumen descends into the Font a Sinner he arises purified he goes down the son of Death he comes up the son of the Resurrection he enters in the son of Folly and prevarication he returns the son of Reconciliation he stoops down the child of Wrath and ascends the heir of Mercy he was the child of the Devil and now he is the servant and the son of God They are the words of Venerable Bede concerning this Mystery And this was ingeniously signified by that Greek inscription upon a Font which is so prettily contriv'd that the words may be read after the Greek or after the Hebrew manner and be exactly the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord wash my sin and not my face only And so it is intended and promised Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins and call on the Name of the Lord said Ananias to Saul for Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the washing of water in the word that is Baptism in the Christian Religion and therefore Tertullian calls Baptism lavacrum compendiatum a compendious Laver that is an intire cleansing the Soul in that one action justly and rightly performed In the rehearsal of which Doctrine it was not an unpleasant Etymology that 〈◊〉 Sinaita gave of Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which our sins are thrown off and they fall like leeches when they are full of bloud and water or like the chains from S. Peter's hands at the presence of the Angel Baptism is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an intire full forgiveness of sins so that they shall never be called again to scrutiny Omnia Daemonis armae His merguntur aquis quibus ille renascitur Infans Qui captivus erat The captivity of the Soul is taken away by the bloud of Redemption and the fiery darts of the Devil are quenched by these salutary waters and what the flames of Hell are expiating or punishing to eternal
pursuance of this the same Apostle declares that the several states of sin are so many recessions from the state of Baptismal grace and if we arrive to the direct Apostasie and renouncing of or a contradiction to the state of Baptism we are then unpardonable because we are fallen from our state of Pardon This S. Paul conditions most strictly in his Epistle to the Hebrews This is the Covenant I will make in those days I will put my Laws in their hearts And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin that is our sins are so pardoned that we need no more oblation we are then made partakers of the death of Christ which we afterwards renew in memory and Eucharist and representment But the great work is done in Baptism for so it follows Having boldness to 〈◊〉 into the Holiest by the bloud of Jesus by a new and living way that is by the veil of his flesh his Incarnation But how do we enter into this Baptism is the door and the ground of this confidence for ever for so he adds Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water This is the consignation of this blessed state and the gate to all this mercy Let us hold fast the profession of our faith that is the Religion of a Christian the Faith into which we were baptized for that is the Faith that justifies and saves us Let us therefore hold fast this profession of this Faith and do all the intermedial works in order to the conservation of it such as are assembling in the Communion of Saints the use of the Word and Sacrament is included in the Precept mutual Exhortation good Example and the like For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth that is if we sin against the profession of this Faith and hold it not fast but let the Faith and the profession go wilfully which afterwards he calls a treading under foot the Son of God accounting the bloud of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and a doing despite to the spirit of grace viz. which moved upon those waters and did illuminate him in Baptism if we do this there is no more sacrifice for sins no more deaths of Christ into which you may be baptized that is you are fallen from the state of Pardon and Repentance into which you were admitted in Baptism and in which you continue so long as you have not quitted your baptismal Rights and the whole Covenant Contrary to this is that which S. Peter calls making our Calling and Election sure that is a doing all that which may continue us in our state of Baptism and the grace of the Covenant And between these two states of absolute Apostasie from and intirely adhering to and securing this state of Calling and Election are all the intermedial sins and being overtaken in single faults or declining towards vicious habits which in their several proportions are degrees of danger and insecurity which S. Peter calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a forgetting our Baptism or purification from our sins And in this sence are those words The just shall live by Faith that is by that profession which they made in Baptism from which if they swerve not they shall be supported in their spiritual life It is a Grace which by virtue of the Covenant consigned in Baptism does like a centre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to all the periods and portions of our life our whole life all the periods of our succeeding hopes are kept alive by this This consideration is of great use besides many other things to reprove the folly of those who in the Primitive Church deferred their Baptism till their death-bed because Baptism is a Laver of Sanctification and drowns all our sins and buries them in the grave of our Lord they thought they might sin securely upon the stock of an after-Baptism for unless they were strangely prevented by a sudden accident a death-bed Baptism they thought would secure their condition but early some of them durst not take it much less in the beginning of their years that they might at least gain impunity for their follies and heats of their youth Baptism hath influence into the pardon of all our sins committed in all the days of our folly and infirmity and so long as we have not been baptized so long we are out of the state of Pardon and therefore an early Baptism is not to be avoided upon this mistaken fancy and plot upon Heaven it is the greater security towards the pardon of our sins if we have taken it in the beginning of our days 20. Fifthly The next benefit of Baptism which is also a verification of this is a Sanctification of the baptized person by the Spirit of Grace Sanctus in hunc coelo descendit Spiritus amnem Coelestique sacras fonte maritat aquas Concipit unda Deum sanctámque liquoribus almis Edit ab aeterno semine progeniem The Holy Ghost descends upon the waters of Baptism and makes them prolifical apt to produce children unto God and therefore S. Leo compares the Font of Baptism to the Womb of the Blessed Virgin when it was replenished with the Holy Spirit And this is the Baptism of our dearest Lord his Ministers baptize with Water our Lord at the same time verifies their Ministery with giving the Holy Spirit They are joyned together by S. Paul We are by one Spirit baptized into one body that is admitted into the Church by baptism of Water and the Spirit This is that which our Blessed Lord calls a being born of Water and of the Spirit by Water we are sacramentally dead and buried by the Spirit we are made alive But because these are mysterious expressions and according to the style of Scripture high and secret in spiritual significations therefore that we may understand what these things signifie we must consider it by its real effects and what it produces upon the Soul of a man 21. First It is the suppletory of original Righteousness by which Adam was at first gracious with God and which he lost by his prevarication It was in him a principle of Wisdom and Obedience a relation between God and himself a title to the extraordinary mercies of God and a state of Friendship When he fell he was discomposed in all the links of the golden chain and blessed relation were broken and it so continued in the whole life of Man which was stained with the evils of this folly and the consequent mischiefs and therefore when we began the world again entring into the Articles of a new life God gave us his Spirit to be an instrument of our becoming gracious persons and of being in a condition of obtaining that supernatural End which
to him are forgiven not his own but the 〈◊〉 of another man None ought to be driven from Baptism and the Grace of God who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gentle and pious unto all and therefore much less Infants who more 〈◊〉 our aid and more need the Divine mercy because in the first beginning of their birth crying and 〈◊〉 they can do nothing but call for mercy and relief 〈◊〉 this reason it was saith 〈◊〉 that they to whom the secrets of the Divine 〈◊〉 were committed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their 〈◊〉 because there was born with them the impurities of sin which did need material Ablution as a Sacrament of spiritual purification For that it may appear that our sins have a proper analogy to this Sacrament the Body it self is called the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 and therefore the washing of the Body is not ineffectual towards the great work of Pardon and abolition Indeed after this Ablution there remains 〈◊〉 or the material part of our misery and sin For Christ by his death only took away that which when he did die for us he bare in his own body upon the tree Now Christ only bare the punishment of our sin and therefore we shall not die for it but the material part of the sin Christ bare not Sin could not come so near him it might make him sick and die but not disordered and stained He was pure from Original and Actual sins and therefore that remains in the body though the guilt and 〈◊〉 be 〈◊〉 off and changed into advantages and grace and the Actual are 〈◊〉 by the Spirit of Grace descending afterwards upon the Church and sent by our Lord to the same purpose 33. But it is not rationally to be answered what S. Ambrose says Quia omnis peccato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it were strange that sin and misery should seize upon the innocent and most 〈◊〉 persons and that they only should be left without a Sacrament and an instrument of expiation And although they cannot consent to the present susception yet neither do they refuse and yet they consent as much to the grace of the Sacrament as to the prevarication of Adam and because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under this it were but reason they should be relieved by that And it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Gregory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they should be consigned and sanctified without their own knowledge than to die without their being sanctified for so it happened to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Israel and if the conspersion and washing the door-posts with the bloud of a Lamb did sacramentally preserve all the first-born of Goshen it cannot 〈◊〉 thought impossible or unreasonable that the want of understanding in Children should hinder them from the blessing of a Sacrament and from being redeemed and washed with the bloud of the Holy Lamb who was 〈◊〉 for all from the beginning of the world 34. After all this it is not inconsiderable that we say the Church hath great power and authority about the Sacraments which is observable in many instances She appointed what persons she pleased and in equal power made an unequal dispensation and ministery The Apostles first dispensed all things and then they left off exteriour ministeries to attend to the Word of God and Prayer and S. Paul accounted it no part of his office to Baptize when he had been separated by imposition of hands at Antioch to the work of Preaching and greater ministeries and accounted that act of the Church the act of Christ saying Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the Gospel They used various forms in the ministration of Baptism sometimes baptizing in the name of Christ sometimes expresly invocating the Holy and ever-Blessed Trinity one while 〈◊〉 baptize 〈◊〉 as in the Latine Church but in the Greek Let the servant of Christ be baptized And in all Ecclesiastical ministeries the Church invented the forms and in most things hath often changed them as in Absolution Excommunication And sometimes they baptized people under their profession of Repentance and then taught them as it happened to the Goaler and his family in whose case there was no explicit Faith 〈◊〉 in the mysteries of Religion so far as appears and yet he and not only he but all his house were baptized at that hour of the night when the Earthquake was terrible and the 〈◊〉 was pregnant upon them and this upon their Master's account as it is likely but others were baptized in the conditions of a previous Faith and a new-begun Repentance They baptized in Rivers or in Lavatories by dipping or by sprinkling for so we find that S. Laurence did as he went to martyrdom and so the Church did sometimes to Clinicks and so it is highly convenient to be done in Northern Countries according to the Prophecy of 〈◊〉 So shall 〈◊〉 sprinkle many Nations according as the typical expiations among the Jews were usually by sprinkling And it is fairly relative to the mystery to the sprinkling with the 〈◊〉 of Christ and the watering of the furrows of our Souls with the dew of Heaven to make them to bring forth fruit unto the Spirit and unto Holiness The Church sometimes dipt the Catechumen three times sometimes but once Some Churches use Fire in their Baptisms so do the Ethiopians and the custom was ancient in 〈◊〉 places And so in the other Sacrament sometimes they stood and sometimes kneeled and sometimes received it in the mouth and sometimes in the hand one while in 〈◊〉 another while in unlevened bread sometimes the wine and water were mingled sometimes they were pure and they admitted some persons to it sometimes which at other times they rejected sometimes the Consecration was made by one form sometimes by another and to conclude sometimes it was given to Infants sometimes not And she had power so to do for in all things where there was not a Commandment of Christ expressed or implied in the nature and in the end of the Institution the Church had power to alter the particulars as was most expedient or conducing to edification And although the after-Ages of the Church which refused to communicate Infants have 〈◊〉 some little things against the lawfulness and those Ages that used it found out some pretences for its 〈◊〉 yet both the one and the other had liberty to follow their own necessities so in all things they followed Christ. Certainly there is 〈◊〉 more reason why Insants may be Communicated than why they may not be Baptized And that this discourse may 〈◊〉 to its first intention although there is no record extant of any Church in the world and from the Apostles days inclusively to this very day ever refused to Baptize their Children yet if they had upon any present reason they might also change 〈◊〉 practice when the reason should be 〈◊〉 and therefore if there were nothing else in it yet the universal practice of all Churches in all Ages is abundantly sufficient to determine us and to
desertions and anguish of spirit expecting all should work together for the best according to the promise if you can strengthen your selves in God when you are weakest believe when you see no hope and entertain no jealousies or suspicions of God though you see nothing to make you confident then and then only you have Faith which in conjunction with its other parts is able to save your Souls For in this precise duty of trusting God there are the rays of hope and great proportions of Charity and Resignation 17. The summ is that pious and most Christian sentence of the Author of the ordinary Gloss To believe in God through Jesus Christ is by believing to love him to adhere to him to be united to him by Charity and Obedience and to be incorporated into Christ ' s mystical body in the Communion of Saints I conclude this with a collation of certain excellent words of S. Paul highly to the present purpose Examine your selves Brethren whether ye be in the Faith prove your own selves Well but how Know you not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be Reprobates There 's the touchstone of Faith If Jesus Christ dwells in us then we are true Believers if he does not we are Reprobates we have no Faith But how shall we know whether Christ be in us or no Saint Paul tells us that too If Christ be in you the body is dead by reason of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness That 's the Christian's mark and the Characteristick of a true Believer A death unto sin and a living unto righteousness a mortified body and a quickned spirit This is plain enough and by this we see what we must trust to A man of a wicked life does in vain hope to be saved by his Faith for indeed his Faith is but equivocal and dead which as to his purpose is just none at all and therefore let him no more deceive himself For that I may still use the words of S. Paul This is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works For such and such only in the great scrutiny for Faith in the day of Doom shall have their portion in the bosom of faithful Abraham The PRAYER I. O Eternal GOD 〈◊〉 of all Truth and Holiness in whom to believe is life eternal let thy Grace descend with a mighty power into my Soul beating down every strong hold and vainer imagination and bringing every proud thought and my confident and ignorant understanding into the obedience of Jesus Take from me all disobdience and refractoriness of spirit all ambition and private and baser interests remove from me all prejudice and weakness of perswasion that I may wholly resign my Understanding to the perswasions of Christianity acknowledging Thee to be the principle of Truth and thy Word the measure of Knowledge and thy Laws the rule of my life and thy Promises the satisfaction of my hopes and an union with thee to be the consummation of Charity in the fruition of Glory Amen II. HOly JESUS make me to acknowledge thee to be my Lord and Master and my self a Servant and Disciple of thy holy Discipline and Institution let me love to sit at thy feet and suck in with my ears and heart the sweetness of thy holy Sermons Let my Soul be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace with a peaceable and docile disposition Give me great boldness in the publick Confession of thy Name and the Truth of thy Gospel in despite of all hostilities and temptations And grant I may always remember that thy Name is called upon me and I may so behave my self that I neither give scandal to others nor cause disreputation to the honour of Religion but that thou mayest be glorified in me and I by thy mercies after a strict observance of all the holy Laws of Christianity Amen III. O Holy and ever-Blessed SPIRIT let thy gracious influences be the perpetual guide of my rational Faculties Inspire me with Wisdom and Knowledge spiritual Understanding and a holy Faith and sanctifie my Faith that it may arise up to the confidence of Hope and the adherencies of Charity and be fruitful in a holy Conversation Mortifie in me all peevishness and pride of spirit all heretical dispositions and whatsoever is contrary to sound Doctrine that when the eternal Son of God the Author and Finisher of our Faith shall come to make scrutiny and an inquest for Faith I may receive the Promises laid up for them that believe in the Lord Jesus and wait for his coming in holiness and purity to whom with the Father and thee O Blessed Spirit be all honour and eternal adoration payed with all sanctity and joy and Eucharist now and for ever Amen SECT XI Of CHRIST's going to Jerusalem to the Passeover the first time after his Manifestation and what followed till the expiration of the Office of John the Baptist. The Visitation of the Temple Marke 11. 15. And Iesus went into y e Temple began to cast out them that sold bought in y e Temple and overthrew the tables of the money changers 16. And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the Temple The Conference with Nicodemus Iohn 3. 9. Nicodemus answered said unto him How can these things be 10. Iesus answered and sayd unto him Art thou a Master of Israel and knowest not these things 1. IMmediately after this Miracle Jesus abode a few days in Capernaum but because of the approach of the great Feast of Passeover he ascended to Jerusalem and the first publick act of record that he did was an act of holy Zeal and Religion in behalf of the honour of the Temple For divers Merchants and Exchangers of money made the Temple to be the Market and the Bank and brought Beasts thither to be sold for sacrifice against the great Paschal Solemnity At the sight of which Jesus being moved with zeal and indignation made a whip of cords and drave the Beasts out of the Temple overthrew the accounting Tables and commanded them that sold the Doves to take them from thence For his anger was holy and he would mingle no injury with it and therefore the Doves which if let loose would be detrimental to the owners he caused to be fairly removed and published the Religion of Holy places establishing their Sacredness for ever by his first Gospel-Sermon that he made at Jerusalem Take these things hence Make not my Father's House a house of merchandise for it shall be called a house of Prayer to all Nations And being required to give a sign of his Vocation for this being an action like the Religion of the Zelots among the Jews if it was not attested by something extraordinary might be abused into an excess of liberty he only foretold the
Souls let them have the diligence and the craft of Fishers the watchfulness and care of Shepherds the prudence of Politicks the tenderness of Parents the spirit of Government the wariness of Observation great knowledge of the dispositions of their people and experience of such advantages by means of which they may serve the ends of God and of Salvation upon their Souls 7. When Peter had received the fruits of a rich Miracle in the prodigious and prosperous draught of fishes he instantly falls down at the feet of Jesus and confesses himself a sinner and unworthy of the presence of Christ. In which confession I not only consider the conviction of his Understanding by the testimony of the Miracle but the modesty of his spirit who in his exaltation and the joy of a sudden and happy success retired into Humility and consideration of his own unworthiness lest as it happens in sudden joys the lavishness of his spirit should transport him to intemperance to looser affections to vanity and garishness less becoming the severity and government of a Disciple of so great a Master For in such great and sudden accidents men usually are dissolved and melted into joy and inconsideration and let fly all their severe principles and discipline of manners till as Peter here did though to another purpose they say to Christ Depart from me O Lord as if such excellencies of joys like the lesser Stars did disappear at the presence of him who is the fountain of all joys regular and just When the spirits of the Body have been bound up by the cold Winter air the warmth of the Spring makes so great an aperture of the passages and by consequence such dissolution of spirits in the presence of the Sun that it becomes the occasion of Fevers and violent diseases Just such a thing is a sudden Joy in which the spirits leap out from their cells of austerity and sobriety and are warmed into Fevers and wildnesses and forfeiture of all Judgment and vigorous understanding In these accidents the best advice is to temper and allay our joys with some instant consideration of the vilest of our sins the shamefulness of our disgraces the most dolorous accidents of our lives the worst of our fears with meditation of Death or the terrours of Dooms-day or the unimaginable miseries of damned and accursed spirits For such considerations as these are good instruments of Sobriety and are correctives to the malignity of excessive Joys or temporal prosperities which like Minerals unless allayed by art prey upon the spirits and become the union of a contradiction being turned into mortal medicines 8. At this time Jesus preached to the people from the Ship which in the fancies and tropical discoursings of the old Doctors signifies the Church and declares that the Homilies of order and authority must be delivered from the Oracle they that preach must be sent and God hath appointed Tutors and Instructors of our Consciences by special designation and peculiar appointment if they that preach do not make their Sermons from the Ship their discourses either are the false murmurs of Hereticks and false Shepherds or else of Thieves and invaders of Authority or corrupters of Discipline and Order For God that loves to hear us in special places will also be heard himself by special persons and since he sent his Angels Ministers to convey his purposes of old then when the Law was ordained by Angels as by the hands of a Mediatour now also he will send his servants the sons of men since the new Law was ordained by the Son of man who is the Mediatour between God and man in the New Covenant And therefore in the Ship Jesus preach'd but he had first caused it to put off from land to represent to us that the Ship in which we preach must be put off from the vulgar communities of men separate from the people by the designation of special appointment and of special Holiness that is they neither must be common men nor of common lives but consecrated by order and hallowed by holy living lest the person want authority in destitution of a Divine Character and his Doctrine lose its energy and power when the life is vulgar and hath nothing in it holy and extraordinary 9. The Holy Jesus in the choice of his Apostles was resolute and determined to make election of persons bold and confident for so the Galilaeans were observed naturally to be and Peter was the boldest of the Twelve and a good Sword-man till the spirit of his Master had fastened his sword within the scabbard and charmed his spirit into quietness but he never chose any of the Scribes and Pharisees none of the Doctors of the Law but persons ignorant and unlearned which in design and institutions whose divinity is not demonstrated from other Arguments would seem an art of concealment and distrust But in this which derives its raies from the fountain of wisdom most openly and infallibly it is a contestation against the powers of the world upon the interests of God that he who does all the work might have all the glory and in the productions in which he is fain to make the instruments themselves and give them capacity and activity every part of the operation and causality and effect may give to God the same honour he had from the Creation for his being the only workman with the addition of those degrees of excellency which in the work of Redemption of Man are beyond that of his Creation and first being The PRAYER O Eternal Jesu Lord of the Creatures and Prince of the Catholick Church to whom all Creatures obey in acknowledgment of thy supreme Dominion and all according to thy disposition cooperate to the advancement of thy Kingdom be pleased to order the affairs and accidents of the world that all things in their capacity may do the work of the Gospel and cooperate to the good of the Elect and retrench the growth of Vice and advance the interests of Vertue Make all the states and orders of men Disciples of thy holy Institution Let Princes worship thee and defend Religion let thy Clergy do thee honour by personal zeal and vigilancy over their Flocks let all the world submit to thy Scepter and praise thy Righteousness and adore thy Judgments and revere thy Laws and in the multitudes of thy people within the enclosure of thy Nets let me also communicate in the offices of a strict and religious duty that I may know thy voice and obey thy call and entertain thy Holy Spirit and improve my talents that I may also communicate in the blessings of the Church and when the Nets shall be drawn to the shore and the Angels shall make separation of the good Fishes from the bad I may not be rejected or thrown into those Seas of fire which shall afflict the enemies of thy Kingdom but be admitted into the societies of Saints and the everlasting communion of
thy 〈◊〉 and Glories O Blessed and Eternal Jesu Amen DISCOURSE IX Of Repentance 1. THE whole Doctrine of the Gospel is comprehended by the Holy Ghost in these two Summaries Faith and Repentance that those two potent and imperious Faculties which command our lower powers which are the fountain of actions the occasion and capacity of Laws and the title to reward or punishment the Will and the Understanding that is the whole man considered in his superiour Faculties may become subjects of the Kingdom servants of Jesus and heirs of glory Faith supplies our imperfect conceptions and corrects our Ignorance making us to distinguish good from evil not onely by the proportions of Reason and Custome and old Laws but by the new standard of the Gospel it teaches us all those Duties which were enjoyned us in order to a participation of mighty glories it brings our Understanding into subjection making us apt to receive the Spirit for our Guide Christ for our Master the Gospel for our Rule the Laws of Christianity for our measure of good and evil and it supposes us naturally ignorant and comes to supply those defects which in our Understandings were left after the spoils of Innocence and Wisdome made in Paradise upon Adam's prevarication and continued and encreased by our neglect evil customes voluntary deceptions and infinite prejudices And as Faith presupposes our Ignorance so Repentance presupposes our Malice and Iniquity The whole design of Christ's coming and the Doctrines of the Gospel being to recover us from a miserable condition from Ignorance to spiritual Wisdome by the conduct of Faith and from a vicious habitually-depraved life and ungodly manners to the purity of the Sons of God by the instrument of Repentance 2. And this is a loud publication of the excellency and glories of the Gospel and the felicities of man over all the other instances of Creation The Angels who were more excellent Spirits than humane Souls were not comprehended and made safe within a Covenant and Provisions of Repentance Their first act of volition was their whole capacity of a blissful or a miserable Eternity they made their own sentence when they made their first election and having such excellent Knowledge and no weaknesses to prejudge and trouble their choice what they first did was not capable of Repentance because they had at first in their intuition and sight all which could afterward bring them to Repentance But weak Man who knows first by elements and after long study learns a syllable and in good time gets a word could not at first know all those things which were sufficient or apt to determine his choice but as he grew to understand more saw more reasons to rescind his first elections The Angels had a full peremptory Will and a satisfied Understanding at first and therefore were not to mend their first act by a second contradictory But poor Man hath a Will alwayes strongest when his Understanding is weakest and chuseth most when he is least able to determine and therefore is most passionate in his desires and follows his object with greatest earnestness when he is blindest and hath the least reason so to do And therefore God pitying Man begins to reckon his choices to be criminal just in the same degree as he gives him Understanding The violences and unreasonable actions of Childhood are no more remembred by God than they are understood by the Child The levities and passions of Youth are not aggravated by the imputation of Malice but are sins of a lighter dye because Reason is not yet impressed and marked upon them with characters and tincture in grain But he who when he may chuse because he understands shall chuse the evil and reject the good stands marked with a deep guilt and hath no excuse left to him but as his degrees of Ignorance left his choice the more imperfect And because every sinner in the style of Scripture is a fool and hath an election as imperfect as is the action that is as great a declension from Prudence as it is from Piety and the man understands as imperfectly as he practises therefore God sent his Son to take upon him not the nature of Angels but the 〈◊〉 of Abraham and to propound Salvation upon such terms as were possible that is upon such a Piety which relies upon experience and trial of good and evil and hath given us leave if we chuse amiss at first to chuse again and chuse better Christ having undertaken to pay for the issues of their first follies to make up the breach made by our first weaknesses and abused understandings 3. But as God gave us this mercy by Christ so he also revealed it by him He first used the Authority of a Lord and a Creator and a Law-giver he required Obedience indeed upon reasonable terms upon the instance of but a few Commandments at first which when he afterwards multiplied he also appointed ways to expiate the smaller irregularities but left them eternally bound without remedy who should do any great violence or a crime But then he bound them but to a Temporal death Only this as an eternal death was also tacitely implied so also a remedy was secretly ministred and Repentance particularly preached by Homilies distinct from the Covenant of Moses's Law The Law allowed no Repentance for greater crimes he that was convicted of Adultery was to die without mercy but God pitied the miseries of man and the inconveniences of the Law and sent Christ to suffer for the one and remedy the other for so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead and that Repentance and Remission of sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations And now this is the last and only hope of Man who in his natural condition is imperfect in his customs vicious in his habits impotent and criminal Because Man did not remain innocent it became necessary he should be penitent and that this Penitence should by some means be made acceptable that is become the instrument of his Pardon and restitution of his hope Which because it is an act of favour and depends wholly upon the Divine dignation and was revealed to us by Jesus Christ who was made not onely the Prophet and Preacher but the Mediatour of this New Covenant and mercy it was necessary we should become Disciples of the Holy Jesus and servants of his Institution that is run to him to be made partakers of the mercies of this new Covenant and accept of him such conditions as he should require of us 4. This Covenant is then consigned to us when we first come to Christ that is when we first profess our selves his Disciples and his servants Disciples of his Doctrine and servants of his Institution that is in Baptism in which Christ who died for our sins makes us partakers of his death For we are buried by Baptism into his death saith S. Paul Which was also
represented in ceremony by the Immersion appointed to be the Rite of that Sacrament And then it is that God pours forth together with the Sacramental waters a salutary and holy fountain of Grace to wash the Soul from all its stains and impure adherences And therefore this first access to Christ is in the style of Scripture called Regeneration the New Birth Redemption Renovation Expiation or Atonement with God and Justification And these words in the New Testament relate principally and properly to the abolition of sins committed before Baptism For we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation to declare his Rightcousness for the remission of sins that are past To declare I say at this time his righteousness And this is that which S. Paul calls Justification by Faith that boasting might be excluded and the grace of God by Jesus made exceeding glorious For this being the proper work of Christ the first entertainment of a Disciple and manifestation of that state which is first given him as a favour and next intended as a duty is a total abolition of the precedent guilt of sin and leaves nothing remaining that can condemn we then freely receive the intire and perfect effect of that Atonement which Christ made for us we are put into a condition of innocence and favour And this I say is done regularly in Baptism and S. Paul expresses it to this sense after he had enumerated a series of Vices subjected in many he adds and such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified There is nothing of the old guilt remanent when ye were washed ye were sanctified or as the Scripture calls it in another place Ye were redeemed from your vain conversation 5. For this Grace was the formality of the Covenant Repent and believe the Gospel Repent and be converted so it is in S. Peter's Sermon and your sins shall be done away that was the Covenant But that Christ chose Baptism for its signature appears in the Parallel Repent and be baptized and wash away your sins For Christ loved his Church and gave himself for it That he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word That he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish The Sanctification is integral the Pardon is universal and immediate 6. But here the process is short no more at first but this Repent and be baptized and wash away your sins which Baptism because it was speedily administred and yet not without the preparatives of Faith and Repentance it is certain those predispositions were but instruments of reception actions of great facility of small employment and such as supposing the person not unapt did confess the infiniteness of the Divine mercy and fulness of the redemption is called by the Apostle a being justified freely 7. Upon this ground it is that by the Doctrine of the Church heathen persons strangers from the 〈◊〉 of grace were invited to a confession of Faith and dereliction of false Religions with a promise that at the very first resignation of their persons to the service of Jesus they should obtain full pardon It was S. Cyprian's counsel to old Demetrianus Now in the evening of thy days when thy Soul'is almost expiring repent of thy sins believe in Jesus and turn Christian and although thou art almost in the embraces of death yet thou shalt be comprehended of immortality Baptizatus ad horam securus bine exit saith S. Austin A baptized person dying immediately shall live eternally and gloriously And this was the case of the Thief upon the Cross he confessed Christ and repented of his sins and begged pardon and did acts enough to facilitate his first access to Christ and but to remove the hindrances of God's favour then he was redeemed and reconciled to God by the death of Jesus that is he was pardoned with a full instantaneous integral and clear Pardon with such a pardon which declared the glory of God's mercies and the infiniteness of Christ's merits and such as required a more reception and entertainment on man's part 8. But then we having received so great a favour enter into Covenant to correspond with a proportionable endeavour the benefit of absolute Pardon that is Salvation of our Souls being not to be received till the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord all the intervall we have promised to live a holy life in obedience to the whole Discipline of Jesus That 's the condition on our part And if we prevaricate that the mercy shewn to the blessed Thief is no argument of hope to us because he was saved by the mercies of the first access which corresponds to the Remission of sins we receive in Baptism and we shall perish by breaking our own promises and obligations which Christ passed upon us when he made with us the Covenant of an intire and gracious Pardon 9. For in the precise Covenant there is nothing else described but Pardon so given and ascertained upon an Obedience persevering to the end And this is clear in all those places of Scripture which express a holy and innocent life to have been the purpose and design of Christ's death for us and redemption of us from the former estate Christ bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead unto sins should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye are healed Exinde from our being healed from our dying unto sin from our being buried with Christ from our being baptized into his death the end of Christ's dying for us is that we should live unto righteousness Which was also highly and prophetically expressed by S. Zachary in his divine Ecstasie This was the oath which he sware to our Fore-father Abraham That he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hands of our Enemies might serve him without fear In holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life And S. Paul discourses to this purpose pertinently and largely For the grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all men Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts Hi sunt Angeli quibus in lavacro renunciavimus saith Tertullian Those are the evil Angels the Devil and his works which we deny or renounce in Baptism we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world that is lead a whole life in the pursuit of universal holiness Sobriety Justice and Godlinèss being the proper language to signifie our Religion and respects to God to our neighbours and to our selves And that this was the very end of our dying in Baptism and the design of Christ's manifestation of
our Redemption he adds Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Who gave himself for us to this very purpose that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Purifying a people peculiar to himself is cleansing it in the Laver of Regeneration and appropriating it to himself in the rites of Admission and Profession Which plainly designs the first consignation of our Redemption to be in Baptism and that Christ there cleansing his Church from every spot or wrinkle made a Covenant with us that we should renounce all our sins and he should cleanse them all and then that we should abide in that state Which is also very explicitely set down by the same Apostle in that divine and mysterious Epistle to the Romans How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death Well what then Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism into his death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life That 's the end and mysteriousness of Baptism it is a consignation into the Death of Christ and we die with him that once that is die to sin that we may for ever after live the life of righteousness Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin that is from the day of our Baptism to the day of our death And therefore God who knows the weaknesses on our part and yet the strictness and necessity of conserving Baptismal grace by the Covenant Evangelical hath appointed the auxiliaries of the Holy Spirit to be ministred to all baptized people in the holy Rite of Confirmation that it might be made possible to be done by Divine aids which is necessary to be done by the Divine Commandments 10. And this might not be improperly said to be the meaning of those words of our Blessed Saviour He that speaks a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him but he that speaks a word against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him That is those sins which were committed in Infidelity before we became Disciples of the Holy Jesus are to be remitted in Baptism and our first profession of the Religion but the sins committed after Baptism and Confirmation in which we receive the Holy Ghost and by which the Holy Spirit is grieved are to be accounted for with more severity And therefore the Primitive Church understanding our obligations according to this discourse admitted not any to holy Orders who had lapsed and fallen into any sin of which she could take cognisance that is such who had not kept the integrity of their Baptism but sins committed before Baptism were no impediments to the susception of Orders because they were absolutely extinguished in Baptism This is the nature of the Covenant we made in Baptism that 's the grace of the Gospel and the effect of Faith and Repentance and it is expected we should so remain For it is nowhere expressed to be the mercy and intention of the Covenant Evangelical that this Redemption should be any more than once or that Repentance which is in order to it can be renewed to the same or so great purposes and present effects 11. But after we are once reconciled in Baptism and put intirely into God's favour when we have once been redeemed if we then fall away into sin we must expect God's dealing with us in another manner and to other purposes Never must we expect to be so again justified and upon such terms as formerly the best days of our Repentance are interrupted not that God will never forgive them that sin after Baptism and recover by Repentance but that Restitution by repentance after Baptism is another thing than the first Redemption No such intire clear and integral determinate and presential effects of Repentance but an imperfect little growing uncertain and hazardous Reconciliation a Repentance that is always in production a Renovation by parts a Pardon that is revocable a Salvation to be wrought by fear and trembling all our remanent life must be in bitterness our hopes allayed with fears our meat attempered with Coloquintida and death is in the pot as our best actions are imperfect so our greatest Graces are but possibilities and aptnesses to a Reconcilement and all our life we are working our selves into that condition we had in Baptism and lost by our relapse As the habit lessens so does the guilt as our Vertues are imperfect so is the Pardon and because our Piety may be interrupted our state is uncertain till our possibilities of sin are ceased till our fight is finished and the victory therefore made sure because there is no more fight And it is remarkable that S. Peter gives counsel to live holily in pursuance of our redemption of our calling and of our escaping from that corruption that is in the world through Lust lest we lose the benefit of our purgation to which by way of antithesis he opposes this Wherefore the rather give diligence to make your calling and election sure And if ye do these things ye shall never fall Meaning by the perpetuating our state of Baptism and first Repentance we shall never fall but be in a sure estate our calling and election shall be sure But not if we fall if we forget we were purged from our old sins if we forfeit our calling we have also made our election unsure movable and disputable 12. So that now the hopes of lapsed sinners relie upon another bottom And as in Moses's Law there was no revelation of Repentance but yet the Jews had hopes in God and were taught the succours of Repentance by the Homilies of the Prophets and other accessory notices So in the Gospel the Covenant was established upon Faith and Repentance but it was consigned in Baptism and was verifiable onely in the integrity of a following holy life according to the measures of a man not perfect but sincere not faultless but heartily endeavoured but yet the mercies of God in pardoning sinners lapsed after Baptism was declared to us by collateral and indirect occasions by the Sermons of the Apostles and the Commentaries of Apostolical persons who understood the meaning of the Spirit and the purposes of the Divine mercy and those other significations of his will which the blessed Jesus left upon record in other parts of his Testament as in Codicills annexed besides the precise Testament it self And it is certain if in the Covenant of Grace there be the same involution of an after-Repentance as there is of present Pardon upon past Repentance and future Sanctity it is impossible to
proportionable reception of his and hath also commanded us to ask pardon all days of our life even in our daily offices and to beg it in the measure and rule of our own Charity and Forgiveness to our Brother And therefore God in his infinite wisdom foreseeing our frequent relapses and considering our infinite infirmities appointed in his Church an ordinary ministery of Pardon designing the Minister to pray for sinners and promising to accept him in that his advocation or that he would open or shut Heaven respectively to his act on earth that is he would hear his prayers and verifie his ministery to whom he hath committed the word of Reconciliation This became a duty to Christian Ministers Spiritual persons that they should restore a person overtaken in a fault that is reduce him to the condition he begins to lose that they should pray over sick persons who are also commanded to confess their sins and God hath promised that the sins they have committed shall be forgiven them Thus S. Paul absolved the incestuous excommunicate Corinthian in the person of Christ he forgave him And this also is the confidence S. John taught the Christian Church upon the stock of the excellent mercy of God and propitiation of Jesus If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all 〈◊〉 Which discourse he directs to them who were Christians already initiated into the Institution of Jesus And the Epistles which the Spirit sent to the Seven Asian Churches and were particularly addressed to the Bishops the Angels of those Churches are exhortations some to Perseverance some to Repentance that they may return from whence they are fallen And the case is so with us that it is impossible we should be actually and perpetually free from sin in the long succession of a busie and impotent and a tempted conversation And without these reserves of the Divine grace and after-emanations from the Mercy-seat no man could be saved and the death of Christ would become inconsiderable to most of his greatest purposes for none should have received advantages but newly-baptized persons whose Albs of Baptism served them also for a winding-sheet And therefore our Baptism although it does consign the work of God presently to the baptized person in great certain and intire effect in order to the remission of what is past in case the Catechumen be rightly disposed or hinders not yet it hath also influence upon the following periods of our life and hath admitted us into a lasting state of Pardon to be renewed and actually applied by the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and all other Ministeries Evangelical and so long as our Repentance is timely active and affective 18. But now although it is infinitely certain that the gates of Mercy stand open to sinners after Baptism yet it is with some variety and greater difficulty He that renounces Christianity and becomes Apostate from his Religion not by a seeming abjuration under a storm but by a voluntary and hearty dereliction he seems to have quitted all that Grace which he had received when he was illuminated and to have lost the benefits of his Redemption and former expiation And I conceive this is the full meaning of those words of S. Paul which are of highest difficulty and latent sense For it is impossible for those who were once enlightned c. if they shall fall away to renew them again unto Repentance The reason is there subjoyned and more clearly explicated a little after For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remains no more sacrifice for sins For he hath counted the bloud of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite to the Spirit of Grace The meaning is divers according to the degrees of apostasie or relapse They who fall away after they were once enlightned in Baptism and felt all those blessed effects of the sanctification and the emanations of the Spirit if it be into a contradictory state of sin and mancipation and obstinate purposes to serve Christ's enemies then there remains nothing but a fearful expectation of Judgment but if the backsliding be but the interruption of the first Sanctity by a single act or an unconformed unresolved unmalicious habit then also it is impossible to renew them unto Repentance viz. as formerly that is they can never be reconciled as before integrally fully and at once during this life For that Redemption and expiation was by Baptism into Christ's death and there are no more deaths of Christ nor any more such sacramental consignations of the benefit of it there is no more sacrifice for sins but the Redemption is one as the Sacrifice is one in whose virtue the Redemption does operate And therefore the Novatians who were zealous men denied to the first sort of persons the peace of the Church and remitted them to the Divine Judgment The Church her self was sometimes almost as zealous against the second sort of persons lapsed into capital crimes granting to them Repentance but once by such disciplines consigning this truth That every recession from the state of Grace in which by Baptism we were established and consigned is a farther step from the possibilities of Heaven and so near a ruine that the Church thought them persons fit to be transmitted to a Judicature immediately Divine as supposing either her power to be too little or the others malice too great or else the danger too violent or the scandal insupportable For concerning such persons who once were pious holy and forgiven for so is every man and woman worthily and aptly baptized and afterwards fell into dissolution of manners extinguishing the Holy Ghost doing despite to the Spirit of Grace crucisying again the Lord of Life that is returning to such a condition from which they were once recovered and could not otherwise be so but by the death of our dearest Lord I say concerning such persons the Scripture speaks very suspiciously and to the sense and signification of an infinite danger For if the speaking a word against the Holy Ghost be not to be pardoned here nor hereafter what can we imagine to be the end of such an impiety which crucifies the Lord of Life and puts him to an open shame which quenches the Spirit doing despite to the Spirit of Grace Certainly that is worse than speaking against him And such is every person who falls into wilful Apostasie from the Faith or does that violence to Holiness which the other does to Faith that is extinguishes the sparks of Illumination quenches the Spirit and is habitually and obstinately criminal in any kind For the same thing that 〈◊〉 was in the first period of the world and Idolatry in the second the same is Apostasie in the last it is a state wholly contradictory to all our religious relation to God according to the
nature and manner of the present communication Only this last because it is more malicious and a declension from a greater grace is something like the fall of Angels And of this the Emperour Julian was a sad example 19. But as these are degrees immediately next and a little less so the hopes of pardon are the more visible Simon Magiss spake a word or at least thought against the Holy Ghost he thought he was to be bought with mony Concerning him S. Peter pronounced Thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity Yet repent pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee Here the matter was of great difficulty but yet there was a possibility 〈◊〉 at least no impossibility of recovery declared And therefore S. Jude bids us of some to have compassion making a difference and others save with fear pulling them out of the fire meaning that their condition is only not desperate And still in descent retaining the same proportion every lesser sin is easier pardoned as better consisting with the state of Grace the whole Spirit is not destroyed and the body of sin is not introduced Christ is not quite ejected out of possession but like an oppressed Prince still continues his claim and such is his mercy that he will still do so till all be lost or that he is provoked by too much violence or that Antichrist is put in substitution and sin reigns in 〈◊〉 mortal body So that I may use the words of Saint John These things I write unto you that ' you sin not But if any man sin we have an Advocate with the 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ the Righteous And he is a propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world That is plainly Although the design of the Gospel be that we should erect a Throne for Christ to reign in our spirits and this doctrine of Innocence be therefore preached that ye sin not yet if one be overtaken in a fault despair not Christ is our Advocate and he is the Propitiation he did propitiate the Father by his death and the benefit of that we receive at our first access to him but then he is our Advocate too and prays perpetually for our perseverance or restitution respectively But his purpose is and he is able so to do to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his Glory 20. This consideration I intend should relate to all Christians of the world And although by the present custom of the Church we are baptized in our infancy and do not actually reap that fruit of present Pardon which persons of a mature age in the primitive Church did for we yet need it not as we shall when we have past the calentures of Youth which was the time in which the wisest of our Fathers in Christ chose for their Baptism as appears in the instance of S. Ambrose S. Austin and divers others yet we must remember that there is a Baptism of the Spirit as well as of water and when-ever this happens whether it be together with that Baptism of water as usually it was when only men and women of years of discretion were baptized or whether it be ministred in the rite of Confirmation which is an admirable suppletory of an early Baptism and intended by the Holy Ghost for a corroborative of Baptismal grace and a defensative against danger or that lastly it be performed by an internal and merely spiritual Ministery when we by acts of our own election verifie the promise made in Baptism and so bring back the Rite by receiving the effect of Baptism that is when-ever the filth of our flesh is washt away and that we have the answer of a pure conscience towards God which S. Peter affirms to be the true Baptism and which by the purpose and design of God it is expected we should not defer longer than a great reason or a great necessity enforces when our sins are first explated and the sacrifice and death of Christ is made ours and we made God's by a more immediate title which at some time or other happens to all Christians that pretend to any hopes of Heaven then let us look to our standing and take heed lest we fall When we once have tasted of the heavenly gift and are made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come that is when we are redeemed by an actual mercy and presential application which every Christian that belongs to God is at some time or other of his life then a fall into a deadly crime is highly dangerous but a relapse into a contrary estate is next to desperate 21. I represent this sad but most true Doctrine in the words of S. Peter If after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again entangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the holy Commandment delivered unto them So that a relapse after a state of Grace into a state of sin into confirmed habits is to us a great sign and possibly in it self it is more than a sign even a state of reprobation and final abscission 22. The summ of all is this There are two states of like opposite terms First Christ redeems us from our vain conversation and reconciles us to God putting us into an intire condition of Pardon Favour Innocence and Acceptance and becomes our Lord and King his Spirit dwelling and reigning in us The opposite state to this is that which in Scripture is called a crucifying the Lord of Life a doing despite to the Spirit of grace a being entangled in the pollutions of the world the Apostasie or falling away an impotency or disability to do good viz. of such who cannot cease from sin who are slaves of sin and in whom sin reigns in their bodies This condition is a full and integral deletery of the first it is such a condition which as it hath no Holiness or remanent affections to Vertue so it hath no hope or revelation of a mercy because all that benefit is lost which they received by the death of Christ and the first being lost there remains no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful expectation of Judgment But between these two states stand all those imperfections and single delinquencies those slips and falls those parts of recession and apostasie those grievings of the Spirit and so long as any thing of the first state is left so long we are within the Covenant of grace so long we are within the ordinary limits of mercy and the Divine compassion we are in possibilities of
For there is an unpardonable estate by reason of its malice and opposition to the Covenant of Grace and there is a state unpardonable because the time of Repentance is past There are days and periods of Grace If thou hadst known at least in this thy day said the weeping Saviour of the world to foreknown and determined Jerusalem When God's decrees are gone out they are not always revocable and therefore it was a great caution of the Apostle that we should follow peace and holiness and look diligently that we fall not from the grace of God lest any of us become like 〈◊〉 to whose Repentance there was no place left though he sought it carefully with tears meaning that we also may put our selves into a condition when it shall be impossible we should be renewed unto Repentance and those are they who sin a sin unto death for whom we have from the Apostle no encouragement to pray And these are in so general and conclusive terms described in Scripture that every persevering sinner hath great reason to suspect himself to be in the number If he endeavours as soon as he thinks of it to recover it is the best sign he was not arrived so far but he that liveth long in a violent and habitual course of sin is at the margin and brim of that state of final reprobation and some men are in it before they be aware and to some God reckons their days swifter and their periods shorter The use I make of this consideration is that if any man hath reason to suspect or to be certain that his time of Repentance is past it is most likely to be a death-bed Penitent after a vicious life a life contrary to the mercies and grace of the Evangelical Covenant for he hath provoked God as long as he could and rejected the offers of Grace as long as he lived and refused Vertue till he could not entertain her and hath done all those things which a person rejected from hopes of Repentance can easily be imagined to have done And if there be any time of rejection although it may be earlier yet it is also certainly the last 31. Concerning the second I shall add this to the former discourse of it that perfect Pardon of sins is not in this world at all after the first emission and great efflux of it in our first Regeneration During this life we are in imperfection minority and under conditions which we have prevaricated and our recovery is in perpetual flux in heightnings and declensions and we are highly uncertain of our acceptation because we are not certain of our restitution and innocence we know not whether we have done all that is sufficient to repair the breach made in the first state of favour and Baptismal grace But he that is dead saith S. Paul is justified from sin not till then And therefore in the doctrine of the most learned Jews it is affirmed He that is guilty of the profanation of the Name of God he shall not interrupt the apparent malignity of it by his present Repentance nor make attonement in the day of Expiation nor wath the stains away by chastising of himself but during his life it remains wholly in suspence and before death is not extinguished according to the saying of the Prophet Esay This iniquity shall not be blotted out till ye die saith the LORD of Hosts And some wise persons have affirmed that Jacob related to this in his expression and appellatives of God whom he called the God of Abraham and the fear of his father Isaac because as the Doctors of the Jews tell us Abraham being dead was ascribed into the final condition of God's family but Isaac being living had apprehensions of God not only of a pious but also of a tremulous fear he was not sure of his own condition much less of the degrees of his reconciliation how far God had forgiven his sins and how far he had retained them And it is certain that if every degree of the Divine favour be not assured by a holy life those sins of whose pardon we were most hopeful return in as full vigour and clamorous importunity as ever and are made more vocal by the appendent ingratitude and other accidental degrees And this Christ taught us by a Parable For as the lord made his uncharitable servant pay all that debt which he had formerly forgiven him even so will God do to us if we from our hearts forgive not one another their trespasses Behold the goodness and severity of God saith S. Paul on them which fell severity but on thee goodness if thou continue in that goodness otherwise thou shalt be cut off For this is my Covenant which I shall make with them when I shall take away their sins And if this be true in those sins which God certainly hath forgotten such as were all those which were committed before our illumination much rather is it true in those which we committed after concerning whose actual and full pardon we cannot be certain without a revelation So that our pardon of sins when it is granted after the breach of our Covenant is just so secure as our perseverance is concerning which because we must ascertain it as well as we can but ever with fear and trembling so also is the estate of our Pardon hazardous conditional revocable and uncertain and therefore the best of men do all their lives ask pardon even of those sins for which they have wept bitterly and done the sharpest and severest penance And if it be necessary we pray that we may not enter into temptation because temptation is full of danger and the danger may bring a sin and the sin may ruine us it is also necessary that we understand the condition of our pardon to be as is the condition of our person variable as will sudden as affections alterable as our purposes revocable as our own good intentions and then made as ineffective as our inclinations to good actions And there is no way to secure our confidence and our hope but by being perfect and holy and pure as our heavenly Father is that is in the sence of humane capacity free from the habits of all sin and active and industrious and continuing in the ways of godliness For upon this only the Promise is built and by our proportion to this state we must proportion our confidence we have no other revelation Christ reconciled us to his Father upon no other conditions and made the Covenant upon no other articles but of a holy life in obedience universal and perpetual and the abatements of the rigorous sence of the words as they are such as may infinitely testifie and prove his mercy so they are such as must secure our duty and habitual graces an industry manly constant and Christian and because these have so great latitude and to what degrees God will accept our returns he hath
the same Saint When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord but if we would judge our selves we should not be judged where he expounds judged by chastened if we were severer to our selves God would be gentle and 〈◊〉 And there are only these two cautions to be annexed and then the direction is sufficient 1. That when promise of Pardon is annexed to any of these or another Grace or any good action it is not to be understood as if alone it were effectual either to the abolition or pardon of sins but the promise is made to it as to a member of the whole body of Piety In the coadunation and conjunction of parts the title is firm but not at all in distinction and separation For it is certain if we fail in one we are guilty of all and therefore cannot be repaired by any one Grace or one action or one habit And therefore Charity hides a multitude of sins with men and God too Alms deliver from death 〈◊〉 pierceth the clouds and will not depart before its answer be gracious and Hope purifieth and makes not ashamed and Patience and Faith and Piety to parents and Prayer and the eight Beatitudes have promises of this life and of that which is to come respectively and yet nothing will obtain these promises but the harmony and uniting of these Graces in a holy and habitual confederation And when we consider the Promise as singularly relating to that one Grace it is to be understood comparatively that is such persons are happy if compared with those who have contrary dispositions For such a capacity does its portion of the work towards complete Felicity from which the contrary quality does estrange and disintitle us 2. The special and minute actions and instances of these three preparatives of Repentance are not under any command in the particulars but are to be disposed of by Christian prudence in order to those ends to which they are most aptly instrumental and designed such as are Fasting and corporal severities in Satisfaction or the punitive parts of Repentance they are either vindictive of what is past and so are proper acts or effects of Contrition and godly sorrow or else they relate to the present and future estate and are intended for correction or emendation and so are of good use as they are medicinal and in that proportion not to be omitted And so is Confession to a Spiritual person an excellent instrument of Discipline a bridle of intemperate Passions an opportunity of Restitution Ye which are spiritual 〈◊〉 such a person overtaken in a fault saith the Apostle it is the application of a remedy the consulting with a guide and the best security to a weak or lapsed or an ignorant person in all which cases he is 〈◊〉 to judge his own questions and in these he is also committed to the care and conduct of another But these special instances of Repentance are capable of suppletories and are like the corporal works of Mercy necessary only in time and place and in accidental obligations He that relieves the poor or visits the sick chusing it for the instance of his Charity though he do not redeem captives is charitable and hath done his Alms. And he that cures his sin by any instruments by external or interiour and spiritual remedies is penitent though his diet be not 〈◊〉 and afflictive or his lodging hard or his sorrow bursting out into tears or his expressions passionate and dolorous I only add this that acts of publick Repentance must be by using the instruments of the Church such as she hath appointed of private such as by experience or by reason or by the counsel we can get we shall learn to be most effective of our penitential purposes And yet it is a great argument that the exteriour expressions of corporal severities are of good benefit because in all Ages wise men and severe Penitents have chosen them for their instruments The PRAYER O Eternal God who wert pleased in mercy to look upon us when we were in our 〈◊〉 to reconcile us when we were enemies to forgive us in the midst of our provocations of thy infinite and eternal Majesty finding out a remedy for us which man-kind could never ask even making an atonement for us by the death of thy Son sanctifying us by the bloud of the everlasting Covenant and thy all-hallowing and Divinest Spirit let thy 〈◊〉 so perpetually assist and encourage my endeavours conduct my will and fortifie my intentions that 〈◊〉 may persevere in that holy condition which thou hast put me in by the grace of the Covenant and the mercies of the Holy Jesus O let me never fall into those sins and retire to that vain conversation from which the eternal and merciful Saviour of the World hath redeemed me but let me grow in Grace adding Vertue to vertue reducing my purposes to act and increasing my acts till they grow into habits and my habits till they be confirmed and still confirming them till they be consummate in a blessed and holy perseverance Let thy Preventing grace dash all Temptations in their approach let thy Concomitant grace enable me to resist them in the assault and overcome them in the fight that my hopes be never discomposed nor my Faith weakned nor my confidence made remiss or my title and portion in the Covenant be lessened Or if thou permittest me at any time to 〈◊〉 which Holy Jesu avert for thy mercy and compession sake yet let me not sleep in sin but recall me instantly by the clamours of a nice and tender Conscience and the quickning Sermons of the Spirit that I may never pass from sin to sin from one degree to another lest sin should get the dominion over me lest thou be angry with me and reject me from the Covenant and I perish Purifie me from all 〈◊〉 sanctifie my spirit that I may be holy as thou art and let me never provoke thy jealousie nor presume upon thy goodness nor distrust thy mercies nor 〈◊〉 my Repentance nor rely upon vain confidences but that I may by a constant sedulous and timely endeavour make my calling and election sure living to thee and dying to thee that having sowed to the Spirit I may from thy mercies reap in the Spirit bliss and eternal sanctity and everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Saviour our hope and our mighty and ever-glorious Redeemer Amen Vpon Christ ' s Sermon on the Mount and of the Eight Beatitudes Moses delivers the Law Joh. 1. 17. The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Iesus Christ. These words the Lord spake unto all the Assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire with a great voice he wrote them in two Tables of stone delivered them unto me Deut. 5. 22. Christ preaches in the Mount He went up into a mountain opened his mouth taught them saying Blessed are the poor in
and therefore less likely to deceive for which reason it is said that he shall deceive if it were possible the very elect that is therefore not possible because that by which he insinuates himself to others is by the elect the Church and chosen of God understood to be his sign and mark of discovery and a warning And therefore as the Prophecies of Jesus were an infinite verification of his Miracles so also this Prophecy of Christ concerning Antichrist disgraces the reputation and faith of the Miracles he shall act The old Prophets foretold of the Messias and of his Miracles of power and mercy to prepare for his reception and entertainment Christ alone and his Apostles from him foretold of Antichrist and that he should come in all Miracles of deception and lying that is with true or false Miracles to perswade a lie and this was to prejudice his being accepted according to the Law of Moses So that as all that spake of Christ bade us believe him for the Miracles so all that foretold of Antichrist bade us disbelieve him the rather for his and the reason of both is the same because the mighty and surer word of Prophecy as S. Peter calls it being the greatest testimony in the world of a Divine principle gives authority or reprobates with the same power They who are the predestinate of God and they that are the praesciti the foreknown and marked people must needs stand or fall to the Divine sentence and such must this be acknowledged for no enemy of the Cross not the Devil himself ever foretold such a contingency or so rare so personal so voluntary so unnatural an event as this of the great Antichrist 12. And thus the Holy Jesus having shewed forth the treasures of his Father's Wisdom in Revelations and holy Precepts and upon the stock of his Father's greatness having dispended and demonstrated great power in Miracles and these being instanced in acts of Mercy he mingled the glories of Heaven to transmit them to earth to raise us up to the participations of Heaven he was pleased by healing the bodies of infirm persons to invite their spirits to his Discipline and by his power to convey healing and by that mercy to lead us into the treasures of revelation that both Bodies and Souls our Wills and Understandings by Divine instruments might be brought to Divine perfections in the participations of a Divine nature It was a miraculous mercy that God should look upon us in our bloud and a miraculous condescension that his Son should take our nature and even this favour we could not believe without many Miracles and so contrary was our condition to all possibilities of happiness that if Salvation had not marched to us all the way in Miracle we had perished in the ruines of a sad eternity And now it would be but reasonable that since God for our sakes hath rescinded so many laws of natural establishment we also for his and for our own would be content to do violence to those natural inclinations which are also criminal when they derive into action Every man living in the state of Grace is a perpetual Miracle and his Passions are made reasonable as his Reason is turned to Faith and his Soul to Spirit and his Body to a Temple and Earth to Heaven and less than this will not dispose us to such glories which being the portion of Saints and Angels and the nearest communications with God are infinitely above what we see or hear or understand The PRAYER O Eternal Jesu who didst receive great power that by it thou mightest convey thy Father's mercies to us impotent and wretched people give me grace to believe that heavenly Doctrine which thou didst ratifie with arguments from above that I may fully assent to all those mysterious Truths which integrate that Doctrine and Discipline in which the obligations of my duty and the hopes of my felicity are deposited And to all those glorious verifications of thy Goodness and thy Power add also this Miracle that I who am stained with Leprosie of sin may be cleansed and my eyes may be opened that I may see the wondrous things of thy Law and raise thou me up from the death of sin to the life of righteousness that I may for ever walk in the land of the living abhorring the works of death and darkness that as I am by thy miraculous mercy partaker of the first so also I may be accounted worthy of the second Resurrection and as by Faith Hope Charity and Obedience I receive the fruit of thy Miracles in this life so in the other I may partake of thy Glories which is a mercy above all Miracles Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean Lord I believe help mine unbelief and grant that no 〈◊〉 or incapacity of mine may hinder the wonderful operations of thy Grace but let it be thy first Miracle to turn my water into wine my barrenness into fruitfulness my aversations from thee into unions and intimate adhesions to thy infinity which is the fountain of mercy and power Grant this for thy mercie 's sake and for the honour of those glorious Attributes in which thou hast revealed thy self and thy Father's excellencies to the world O Holy and Eternal Jesu Amen The End of the Second Part. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE HISTORY OF THE Life and Death OF THE HOLY JESUS BEGINNING At the Second Year of his PREACHING until his ASCENSION WITH CONSIDERATIONS and DISCOURSES upon the several parts of the Story And PRAYERS fitted to the several MYSTERIES THE THIRD PART Seneca apud Lactant. lib. 6. c. 17. Hic est ille homo qui sive toto corpore tormenta patienda sunt sive flamma ore recipienda est sive extendenda per patibulum manus non quaerit quid patiatur sed quà m bene LONDON Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston 1675 TO The Right Honourable and Vertuous Lady The LADY FRANCES Countess of CARBERY MADAM SInce the Divine Providence hath been pleased to bind up the great breaches of my little fortune by your Charity and Nobleness of a religious tenderness I account it an excellent circumstance and handsomeness of condition that I have the fortune of S. Athanasius to have my Persecution relieved and comforted by an Honourable and Excellent Lady and I have nothing to return for this honour done to me but to do as the poor Paralyticks and infirm people in the Gospel did when our Blessed Saviour cured them they went and told it to all the Countrey and made the Vicinage full of the report as themselves were of health and joy And although I know the modesty of your person and Religion had rather do favours than own them yet give me leave to draw aside the curtain and retirement of your Charity for I had rather your vertue should blush than my unthankfulness make me ashamed Madam I intended by this Address not onely to return you spirituals for
to that person who with much kindness and importunity invited him to a Fever but certainly there was more pain in it than in the strictness of holy and severe Temperance And he that shall compare the troubles and dangers of an ambitious War with the gentleness and easiness of Peace will soon perceive that every Tyrant and usurping Prince that snatches at his neighbour's rights hath two armies one of men and the other of cares Peace sheds no bloud but of the pruned vine and hath no business but modest and quiet entertainments of the time opportune for Piety and circled with reward But God often punishes Ambition and Pride with Lust and he sent a thorn in the flesh as a corrective to the elevations and grandezza of S. Paul growing up from the multitude of his Revelations and it is not likely the punishment should have less trouble than the crime whose pleasures and obliquity this was designed to punish And indeed every experience can verifie that an Adulterer hath in him the impatience of desires the burnings of lust the fear of shame the apprehensions of a jealous abused and an inraged Husband He endures affronts mistimings tedious waitings the dulness of delay the regret of interruption the confusion and amazements of discovery the scorn of a reproached vice the debasings of contempt upon it unless the man grows impudent and then he is more miserable upon another stock But David was so put to it to attempt to obtain to enjoy Bathsheba and to prevent the shame of it that the difficulty was greater than all his wit and power and it drove him into base and unworthy arts which discovered him the more and multiplied his crime But while he enjoyed the innocent pleasures of his lawful bed he had no more trouble in it than there was in inclining his head upon his pillow The ways of sin are crooked desert rocky and uneven they are broad indeed and there is variety of ruines and allurements to entice fools and a large theatre to act the bloudy tragedies of Souls upon but they are nothing smooth or safe or delicate The ways of Vertue are streight but not crooked narrow but not unpleasant There are two Vices for one Vertue and therefore the way to Hell must needs be of greater extent latitude and dissemination But because Vertue is but one way therefore it is easie regular and apt to walk in without error or diversions Narrow is the gate and streight is the way It is true considering our evil customs and depraved natures by which we have made it so to us But God hath made it more passable by his grace and present aids and S. John Baptist receiving his Commission to preach Repentance it was expressed in these words Make plain the paths of the Lord. Indeed Repentance is a rough and a sharp vertue and like a mattock and spade breaks away all the roughnesses of the passage and hinderances of sin but when we enter into the dispositions which Christ hath designed to us the way is more plain and easie than the ways of Death and Hell Labour it hath in it just as all things that are excellent but no confusions no distractions of thought no amazements no labyrinths and intricacy of counsels But it is like the labours of Agriculture full of health and simplicity plain and profitable requiring diligence but such in which crafts and painful stratagems are useless and impertinent But Vice hath oftentimes so troublesome a retinue and so many objections in the event of things is so intangled in difficult and contradictory circumstances hath in it parts so opposite to each other and 〈◊〉 inconsistent with the present condition of the man or some secret design of his that those little pleasures which are its Fucus and pretence are less perceived and least enjoyed while they begin in phantastick semblances and rise up in smoak vain and hurtful and end in dissatisfaction 6. But it is considerable that God and the Sinner and the Devil all joyn in increasing the difficulty and trouble of sin upon contrary designs indeed but all cooperate to the verification of this discourse For God by his restraining grace and the checks of a tender Conscience and the bands of publick honesty and the sense of honour and reputation and the customs of Nations and the severities of Laws makes that in most men the choice of Vice is imperfect dubious and troublesome and the pleasures abated and the apprehensions various and in differing degrees and men act their crimes while they are disputing against them and the balance is cast by a few grains and scruples vex and disquiet the possession and the difference is perceived to be so little that inconsideration and inadvertency is the greatest means to determine many men to the entertainment of a sin And this God does with a design to lessen our choice and to disabuse our perswasions from arguments and weak pretences of Vice and to invite us to the trials of Vertue when we see its enemy giving us so ill conditions And yet the Sinner himself makes the business of sin greater for its nature is so loathsome and its pleasure so little and its promises so unperformed that when it lies open easie and apt to be discerned there is no argument in it ready to invite us and men hate a vice which is every day offered and prostitute and when they seek for pleasure unless difficulty presents it as there is nothing in it really to perswade a choice so there is nothing strong or witty enough to abuse a man And to this purpose amongst some others which are malicious and crafty the Devil gives assistance knowing that men despise what is cheap and common and suspect a latent excellency to be in difficult and forbidden objects and therefore the Devil sometimes crosses an opportunity of sin knowing that the desire is the iniquity and does his work sufficiently and yet the crossing the desire by impeding the act heightens the appetite and makes it more violent and impatient But by all these means sin is made more troublesome than the pleasures of the temptation can account for and it will be a strange imprudence to leave Vertue upon pretence of its difficulty when for that very reason we the rather entertain the instances of sin despising a cheap sin and a costly Vertue chusing to walk through the brambles of a Desart rather than to climb the fruit-trees of Paradise 7. Thirdly Vertue conduces infinitely to the Content of our lives to secular felicities and political satisfactions and Vice does the quite contrary For the blessings of this life are these that make it happy Peace and quietness Content and satisfaction of desires Riches Love of friends and neighbours Honour and reputation abroad a Healthful body and a long Life This last is a distinct consideration but the other are proper to this title For the first it is certain Peace was so designed by
that is to come That is plain And although Christ revealed his Father's mercies to us in new expresses and great abundance yet he took nothing from the world which ever did in any sense invite Piety or indear Obedience or cooperate towards Felicity And 〈◊〉 the Promises which were made of old are also presupposed in the new and mentioned by intimation and implication within the greater When our Blessed Saviour in seven of the Eight Beatitudes had instanced in new Promises and Rewards as Heaven Seeing of God Life eternal in one of them to which Heaven is as certainly consequent as to any of the rest he did chuse to instance in a temporal blessing and in the very words of the Old Testament to shew that that part of the old Covenant which concerns Morality and the rewards of Obedience remains firm and included within the conditions of the Gospel 16. To this purpose is that saying of our Blessed Saviour Man liveth not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God meaning that besides natural means ordained for the preservation of our lives there are means supernatural and divine God's Blessing does as much as bread nay it is Every word proceeding out of the 〈◊〉 of God that is every Precept and Commandment of God is so for our good that it is intended as food and Physick to us a means to make us live long And therefore God hath done in this as in other graces and issues Evangelical which he purposed to continue in his Church for ever He first gave it in miraculous and extraordinary manner and then gave it by way of perpetual ministery The Holy Ghost appeared at first like a prodigy and with Miracle he descended in visible representments expressing himself in revelations and powers extraordinary but it being a Promise intended to descend upon all Ages of the Church there was appointed a perpetual ministery for its conveyance and still though without a sign or miraculous representment it is ministred in Confirmation by imposition of the Bishop's hands And thus also health and long life which by way of ordinary benediction is consequent to Piety Faith and Obedience Evangelical was at first given in a miraculous manner that so the ordinary effects being at first confirmed by miraculous and extraordinary instances and manners of operation might for ever after be confidently expected without any dubitation since it was in the same manner consigned by which all the whole Religion was by a voice from Heaven and a verification of Miracles and extraordinary supernatural effects That the gift of healing and preservation and restitution of life was at first miraculous needs no particular probation All the story of the Gospel is one entire argument to prove it and amongst the fruits of the Spirit S. Paul reckons gifts of healing and government and helps or exteriour assistences and advantages to represent that it was intended the life of Christian people should be happy and healthful for ever Now that this grace also descended afterwards in an ordinary ministery is recorded by S. James Is any man sick amongst you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him anointing him with oyl in the name of the Lord that was then the ceremony and the blessing and effect is still for the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up For it is observable that the blessing of healing and recovery is not appendent to the Anealing but to the Prayer of the Church to manifest that the ceremony went with the first miraculous and extraordinary manner yet that there was an ordinary ministery appointed for the daily conveyance of the blessing the faithful prayers offices of holy Priests shall obtain life and health to such persons who are receptive of it and in spiritual and apt dispositions And when we see by a continual flux of extraordinary benediction that even some Christian Princes are instruments of the Spirit not only in the government but in the gifts of healing too as a reward for their promoting the just interests of Christianity we may acknowledge our selves convinced that a holy life in the faith and obedience of Jesus Christ may be of great advantage for our health and life by that instance to entertain our present desires and to establish our hopes of life eternal 17. For I consider that the fear of God is therefore the best antidote in the World against sickness and death because it is the direct enemy to sin which brought in sickness and death and besides this that God by spiritual means should produce alterations natural is not hard to be understood by a Christian Philosopher take him in either of the two capacities 2. For there is a rule of proportion and analogy of effects that if sin destroys not only the Soul but the Body also then may Piety preserve both and that much rather for if sin that is the effects and consequents of sin hath abounded then shall grace superabound that is Christ hath done us more benefit than the Fall of Adam hath done us injury and therefore the effects of sin are not greater upon the body than either are to be restored or prevented by a pious life 3. There is so near a conjunction between Soul and Body that it is no wonder if God meaning to glorifie both by the means of a spiritual life suffers spirit and matter to communicate in effects and mutual impresses Thus the waters of Baptism purifie the Soul and the Holy Eucharist not the symbolical but the mysterious and spiritual part of it makes the Body also partaker of the death 〈◊〉 Christ and a holy union The flames of Hell whatsoever they are torment accursed Souls and the stings of Conscience vex and disquiet the Body 4. And if we consider that in the glories of Heaven when we shall live a life purely spiritual our Bodies also are so clarified and made spiritual that they also become immortal that state of Glory being nothing else but a perfection of the state of Grace it is not unimaginable but that the Soul may have some proportion of the same operation upon the Body as to conduce to its prolongation as to an antepast of immortality 5. For since the Body hath all its life from its conjunction with the Soul why not also the perfection of life according to its present capacity that is health and duration from the perfection of the Soul I mean from the ornaments of Grace And as the blessedness of the Soul saith the Philosopher consists in the speculation of honest and just things so the perfection of the Body and of the whole Man consists in the practick the exercise and operations of Vertue 18. But this Problem in Christian Philosophy is yet more intelligible and will be reduced to certain experience if we consider good life in union and concretion with particular
material and circumstantiate actions of Piety For these have great powers and influences even in Nature to restore health and preserve our lives Witness the sweet sleeps of temperate persons and their constant appetite which Timotheus the son of Conon observed when he dieted in Plato's Academy with severe and moderated diet They that sup with Plato are well the next day Witness the symmetry of passions in meek men their freedome from the violence of inraged and passionate indispositions the admirable harmony and sweetness of content which dwells in the retirements of a holy Conscience to which if we add those joys which they only understand truly who feel them inwardly the joys of the Holy Ghost the content and joys which are attending upon the lives of holy persons are most likely to make them long and healthful For now we live saith S. Paul if ye stand fast in the Lord. It would prolong S. Paul's life to see his ghostly children persevere in holiness and if we understood the joys of it it would do much greater advantage to our selves But if we consider a spiritual life abstractedly and in it self Piety produces our life not by a natural efficiency but by Divine benediction God gives a healthy and a long life as a reward and blessing to crown our Piety even before the sons of men For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the Earth but they that be cursed of him shall be cut off So that this whole matter is principally to be referred to the act of God either by ways of nature or by instruments of special providence rewarding Piety with a long life And we shall more fully apprehend this if upon the grounds of Scripture Reason and Experience we weigh the contrary Wickedness is the way to shorten our days 19. Sin brought Death in first and yet Man lived almost a thousand years But he sinned more and then Death came nearer to him for when all the World was first drowned in wickedness and then in water God cut him shorter by one half and five hundred years was his ordinary period And Man sinned still and had strange imaginations and built towers in the air and then about Peleg's time God cut him shorter by one half yet two hundred and odd years was his determination And yet the generations of the World returned not unanimously to God and God cut him off another half yet and reduced him to one hundred and twenty years And by Moses's time one half of the final remanent portion was pared away reducing him to threescore years and ten so that unless it be by special dispensation men live not beyond that term or thereabout But if God had gone on still in the same method and shortned our days as we multiplied our sins we should have been but as an Ephemeron Man should have lived the life of a Fly or a Gourd the morning should have seen his birth his life have been the term of a day and the evening must have provided him of a shroud But God seeing Man's thoughts were onely evil continually he was resolved no longer so to strive with him nor destroy the kinde but punish individuals onely and single persons and if they sinned or if they did obey regularly their life should be proportionable This God set down for his rule Evil shall 〈◊〉 the wicked person and He that keepeth the Commandments keepeth his own Soul but he that despiseth his own ways shall die 20. But that we may speak more exactly in this Probleme we must observe that in Scripture three general causes of natural death are assigned Nature Providence and Chance By these three I onely mean the several manners of Divine influence and operation For God only predetermines and what is changed in the following events by Divine permission to this God and Man in their several manners do cooperate The saying of David concerning Saul with admirable Philosophy describes the three ways of ending Man's life David said furthermore As the LORD liveth the LORD shall smite him or his day shall come to die or he shall descend into battel and perish The first is special Providence The second means the term of Nature The third is that which in our want of words we call Chance or Accident but is in effect nothing else but another manner of the Divine Providence That in all these Sin does interrupt and retrench our lives is the undertaking of the following periods 21. First In Nature Sin is a cause of dyscrasies and distempers making our bodies healthless and our days few For although God hath prefixed a period to Nature by an universal and antecedent determination and that naturally every man that lives temperately and by no supervening accident is interrupted shall arrive thither yet because the greatest part of our lives is governed by will and understanding and there are temptations to Intemperance and to violations of our health the period of Nature is so distinct a thing from the period of our person that few men attain to that which God had fixed by his first law and 〈◊〉 purpose but end their days with folly and in a period which God appointed 〈◊〉 with anger and a determination secondary consequent and accidental And therefore says David Health is far from the 〈◊〉 for they regard not thy statutes And to this purpose is that saying of Abenezra He that is united to God the Fountain of Life his Soul being improved by Grace communicates to the Body an establishment of its radical moisture and natural heat to make it more healthful that so it may be more instrumental to the spiritual operations and productions of the Soul and it self be preserved in perfect constitution Now how this blessing is contradicted by the impious life of a wicked person is easie to be understood if we consider that from drunken Surfeits come Dissolution of members Head-achs Apoplexies dangerous Falls Fracture of bones Drenchings and dilution of the brain Inslammation of the liver Crudities of the stomach and thousands more which Solomen sums up in general terms Who hath woe who hath sorrow who hath redness of eyes they that tarry long at the 〈◊〉 I shall not need to instance in the sad and uncleanly consequents of Lusts the wounds and accidental deaths which are occasioned by Jealousies by Vanity by Peevishness vain Reputation and Animosities by Melancholy and the despair of evil Consciences and yet these are abundant argument that when God so permits a man to run his course of Nature that himself does not intervene by an extraordinary 〈◊〉 or any special acts of providence but only gives his ordinary assistence to natural causes a very great part of men make their natural period shorter and by sin make their days miserable and few 22. Secondly Oftentimes Providence intervenes and makes the way shorter God for the iniquity of man not suffering Nature to take her course but stopping
men do very indiscreetly and may occasion the alienation of some mens minds from the entertainments of Religion but this being accidental to the thing it self and to the purpose of the man is not the Sin of Scandal but it is the Indiscretion of Scandal if by such means he divorces any man's mind from the cohabitation and unions of Religion and yet if the purpose of the man be to affright weaker and unwise persons it is a direct Scandal and one of those ways which the Devil uses toward the peopling of his kingdom it is a plain laying of a snare to entrap feeble and uninstructed souls 5. But if the pious action have been formerly joyned with any thing that is truly criminal with Idolatry with Superstition with impious Customs or impure Rites and by retaining the Piety I give cause to my weak brother to think I approve of the old appendage and by my reputation invite him to swallow the whole action without discerning the case is altered I am to omit that pious action if it be not under command until I have acquitted it from the suspicion of evil company But when I have done what in prudence I guess sufficient to thaw the frost of jealousie to separate those dissonancies which formerly seemed united I have done my duty of Charity by endeavouring to free my brother from the snare and I have done what in Christian prudence I was obliged when I have protested against the appendent crime If afterwards the same person shall entertain the crime upon pretence of my example who have plainly 〈◊〉 it he lays the snare for himself and is glad of the pretence or will in spite enter into the net that he might think it reasonable to rail at me I may not with Christian charity or prudence wear the picture of our Blessed Lord in rings or medals though with great affection and designs of doing him all the honour that I can if by such Pictures I invite persons apt more to follow me than to understand me to give Divine honour to a Picture but when I have declared my hatred of Superstitious worshippings and given my brother warning of the snare which his own mistake or the Devil's malice was preparing for him I may then without danger signifie my Piety and affections in any civil representments which are not against God's Law or the Customs of the Church or the analogy of Faith And there needs no other reason to be given for this Rule than that there is no reason to be given against it if the nature of the thing be innocent and the purpose of the man be pious and he hath used his moral industry to secure his brother against accidental mischances and abuses his duty in this particular can have no more parts and instances 6. But it is too crude an assertion to affirm indefinitely that whatsoever hath been abused to evil or superstitious purposes must presently be abjured and never entertained for fear of Scandal for it is certain that the best things have been most abused Have not some persons used certain verses of the Psalter as an antidote against the Tooth-ach and carried the blessed Sacrament in pendants about their necks as a charm to countermand Witches and S. John's Gospel as a spell against wild beasts and wilder untamed spirits Confession of sins to the Ministers of Religion hath been made an instrument to serve base ends and so indeed hath all Religion been abused and some persons have been so receptive of Scandal that they suspected all Religion to be a mere stratagem because they have observed very many men have used it so For some natures are like Spunges or Sugar whose utmost verge if you dip in Wine it drowns it self by the moisture it sucks up and is drenched all over receiving its alteration from within it s own nature did the mischief and plucks on its own dissolution And these men are greedy to receive a Scandal and when it is presented but in small instances they suck it up to the dissolution of their whole Religion being glad of a quarrel that their impieties may not want all excuse But yet it is certainly very unreasonable to reject excellent things because they have been abused as if separable accidents had altered natures and essences or that they resolve never to forgive the duties for having once fallen into the hands of unskilful or malicious persons Hezekiah took away the brazen Serpent because the people abused it to Idolatry but the Serpent had long before lost its use and yet if the people had not been a peevish and refractory and superstitious people in whose nature it was to take all occasions of Superstition and farther yet if the taking away such occasions and opportunities of that Sin in special had not been most agreeable with the designs of God in forbidding to the people the common use of all Images in the second Commandment which was given them after the erection of that brazen Statue Hezekiah possibly would not or at least had not been bound to have destroyed that monument of an old story and a great blessing but have sought to separate the abuse from the minds of men and retained the Image But in Christianity when none of these circumstances occur where by the greatness and plenty of revelations we are more fully instructed in the ways of Duty and when the thing it self is pious and the abuse very separable it is infinite disparagement to us or to our Religion either that our Religion is not sufficient to cure an abuse or that we will never part with it but we must unpardonably reject a good because it had once upon it a crust or spot of leprosie though since it hath been washed in the waters of Reformation The Primitive Christians abstained from actions of themselves indifferent which the unconverted people used if those actions were symbolical or adopted into false Religions or not well understood by those they were bound to satisfie But when they had washed off the accrescences of Gentile Superstition they chose such Rites which their neighbours used and had designs not imprudent or unhandsome and they were glad of a Heathen Temple to celebrate the Christian Rites in them and they made no other change but that they ejected the Devil and invited their Lord into the possession 7. Thirdly In things merely indifferent whose practice is not limited by command nor their nature heightned by an appendent Piety we must use our liberty so as may not offend our Brother or lead him into a sin directly or indirectly For Scandal being directly against Charity it is to be avoided in the same measure and by the same proportions in which Charity is to be pursued Now we must so use our selves that we must cut off a foot or pluck out an eye rather than the one should bear us and the other lead us to sin and death we must rather rescind all the natural and sensual
and miserable to all eternity It was a sad calamity that fell upon the Man of Judah that returned to eat bread into the Prophet's house contrary to the word of the Lord He was abused into the act by a Prophet and a pretence of a command from God and whether he did violence to his own understanding and believed the man because he was willing or did it in sincerity or in what degree of sin or excuse the action might consist no man there knew and yet a Lion slew him and the lying Prophet that abused him escaped and went to his grave in peace Some persons joyned in society or interest with criminals have perished in the same Judgments and yet it would be hard to call them equally guilty who in the accident were equally miserable and involved And they who are not strangers in the affairs of the world cannot but have heard or seen some persons who have lived well and moderately though not like the 〈◊〉 of the Holocaust yet like the ashes of Incense sending up good perfumes and keeping a constant and slow fire of Piety and Justice yet have been surprised in the midst of some unusual unaccustomed irregularity and died in that sin A sudden gayety of fortune a great joy a violent change a friend is come or a marriage-day hath transported some persons to indiscretions and too bold a licence and the indiscretion hath betrayed them to idle company and the company to drink and drink to a fall and that hath hurri'd them to their grave And it were a sad sentence to think God would not repute the untimely death for a punishment great enough to that deflexion from duty and judge the man according to the constant tenor of his former life unless such an act was of malice great enough to outweigh the former habits and interrupt the whole state of acceptation and grace Something like this was the case of 〈◊〉 who espying the tottering Ark went to support it with an unhallowed hand God smote him and he died immediately It were too severe to say his zeal and indiscretion carried him beyond a temporal death to the ruines of Eternity Origen and many others have made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdome of Heaven and did well after it but those that did so and died of the wound were smitten of God and died in their folly and yet it is rather to be called a sad consequence of their indiscretion than the express of a final anger from God Almighty For as God takes off our sins and punishments by parts remitting to some persons the sentence of death and inflicting the fine of a temporal loss or the gentle scourge of a lesser sickness so also he lays it on by parts and according to the proper proportions of the man and of the crime and every transgression and lesser deviation from our duty does not drag the Soul to death eternal but God suffers our Repentance though imperfect to have an imperfect effect knocking off the fetters by degrees and leading us in some cases to a Council in some to Judgment and in some to Hell-fire but it is not always certain that he who is led to the prison-doors shall there lie entombed and a Man may by a Judgment be brought to the gates of Hell and yet those gates shall not prevail against him This discourse concerns persons whose life is habitually fair and just but are surprised in some unhandsome but less criminal action and 〈◊〉 or suffer some great Calamity as the instrument of its expiation or amendment 3. Secondly But if the person upon whom the Judgment falls be habitually vicious or the crime of a clamorous nature or deeper tincture if the man sin a sin unto death and either meets it or some other remarkable calamity not so feared as death provided we pass no farther than the sentence we see then executed it is not against Charity or prudence to say this calamity in its own formality and by the intention of God is a Punishment and Judgment In the favourable cases of honest and just persons our sentence and opinions ought also to be favourable and in such questions to encline ever to the side of charitable construction and read other ends of God in the accidents of our neighbour than Revenge or express Wrath. But when the impiety of a person is scandalous and notorious when it is clamorous and violent when it is habitual and yet corrigible if we find a sadness and calamity dwelling with such a sinner especially if tho punishment be spiritual we read the sentence of God written with his own hand and it is not 〈◊〉 of opinion or a pressing into the secrets of Providence to say the same thing which God hath published to all the world in the 〈◊〉 of his Spirit In such cases we are to observe the severity of God on them that fall severity and to use those Judgments as instruments of the fear of God arguments to hate sin which we could not well do but that we must look on them as verifications of God's threatning against great and impenitent sinners But then if we descend to particulars we may easily be deceived 4. For some men are diligent to observe the accidents and chances of Providence upon those especially who differ from them in Opinion and whatever ends God can have or whatever sins man can have yet we lay that in fault which we therefore hate because it is most against our interest the contrary Opinion is our enemy and we also think God hates it But such fancies do seldom serve either the ends of Truth or Charity Pierre Calceon died under the Barber's hand there wanted not some who said it was a Judgement upon him for condemning to the fire the famous Pucelle of France who prophesied the expulsion of the English out of the Kingdom They that thought this believed her to be a Prophetess but others that thought her a Witch were willing to 〈◊〉 out another conjecture for the sudden death of the Gentleman Garnier Earl of Gretz kept the Patriarch of Jerusalem from his right in David's Tower and the City and died within three days and by Dabert the Patriarch it was called a Judgment upon him for his Sacrilege But the uncertainty of that censure appeared to them who considered that Baldwin who gave commission to Garnier to withstand the Patriarch did not die but Godsrey of 〈◊〉 did die immediately after he had passed the right of the Patriarch and yet when Baldwin was beaten at Rhamula some bold People pronounced that then God punished him upon the Patriarch's score and thought his Sacrilege to be the secret cause of his overthrow and yet his own Pride and Rashness was the more visible and the Judgment was but a cloud and passed away quickly into a succeeding Victory But I instance in a trisle Certain it is that God removed the Candlestick from the Levantine Churches because he had
a quarrel unto them for that punishment is never sent upon pure designs of emendation or for direct and immediate purposes of the Divine glory but ever makes reflexion upon the past sin but when we descend to a judgment of the particulars God walks so in the dark to us that it is not discerned upon what ground he smote them Some say it was because they dishonoured the eternal Jesus in denying the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son And in this some thought themselves sufficiently assured by a sign from Heaven because the Greeks lost Constantinople upon Whitsunday the day of the Festival of the Holy Spirit The Church of Rome calls the Churches of the Greek Communion Schismatical and thinks God righted the Roman quarrel when he revenged his own Some think they were cut off for being Breakers of Images others think that their zeal against Images was a means they were cut off no sooner and yet he that shall observe what innumerable Sects Heresies and Factions were commenced amongst them and how they were wanton with Religion making it serve ambitious and unworthy ends will see that besides the ordinary conjectures of interested persons they had such causes of their ruine which we also now feel heavily incumbent upon our selves To see God adding eighteen years to the life of Hezekiah upon his Prayer and yet cutting off the young Son of David begotten in adulterous embraces to see him rejecting Adonijah and receiving Solomon to the Kingdom begotten of the same Mother whose Son God in anger formerly slew to observe his mercies to Manasses in accepting him to favour and continuing the Kingdom to him and his severity to Zedekiah in causing his eyes to be put out to see him rewarding Nebuchadnezzar with the spoils of Egypt for destroying Tyre and executing God's severe anger against it and yet punishing others for being executioners of his wrath upon Jerusalem even then when he purposed to chastise it to see 〈◊〉 raised from a Peasant to a Throne and Pompey from a great Prince reduced to that condition that a Pupil and an Eunuch passed sentence of death upon him to see great fortunes fall into the hand of a Fool and Honourable old persons and Learned men descend to unequal Beggery to see him strike a stroke with his own hand in the Conversion of Saul and another quite contrary in the cutting off of Judas must needs be some restraint to our judgments concerning the general state of those men who lie under the rod but it proclaims an infinite uncertainty in the particulars since we see contrary accidents happening to persons guilty of the same crime or put in the same indispositions God hath marked all great sins with some signal and express Judgments and hath transmitted the records of them or represented them before our eyes that is hath done so in our Age or it hath been noted to have been done before and that being sufficient to affright us from those crimes God hath not thought it expedient to do the same things to all persons in the same cases having to all persons produced instances and examples of fear by fewer accidents sufficient to restrain us but not enough to pass sentence upon the changes of Divine Providence 5. But sometimes God speaks plainer and gives us notice what crimes he punishes in others that we may the rather decline such rocks of offence If the Crime and the Punishment be symbolical and have proportion and correspondence of parts the hand of God strikes the Man but holds up one finger to point at the Sin The death of the child of Bathsheba was a plain declaration that the anger of God was upon David for the Adulterous mixture That Blasphemer whose Tongue was presently struck with an ulcerous tumour with his tongue declared the glories of God and his own shame And it was not doubted but God when he smote the Lady of Dominicus Silvius the Duke of Venice with a loathsome and unsavory disease did intend to chastise a remarkable vanity of hers in various and costly Perfumes which she affected in an unreasonable manner and to very evil purposes And that famous person and of excellent learning Giacchettus of Geneva being by his Wife found dead in the unlawful embraces of a stranger woman who also died at the same instant left an excellent example of God's anger upon the crime and an evidence that he was then judged for his intemperate Lust. Such are all those punishments which are natural consequents to a Crime as Dropsies Redness of eyes Dissolution of nerves Apoplexies to continual Drunkenness to intemperate Eating Short lives and Sudden deaths to Lust a Caitive slavish disposition and a Foul diseased body Fire and Sword and Depopulation of Towns and Villages the consequents of Ambition and unjust Wars Poverty to Prodigality and all those Judgments which happen upon Cursings and horrid Imprecations when God is under a Curse called to attest a Lie and to connive at impudence or when the Oppressed persons in the bitterness of their souls wish evil and pray for vengeance on their Oppressors or that the Church upon just cause inflicts Spiritual censures and delivers unto Satan or curses and declares the Divine sentence against sinners as S. Peter against Ananias and Sapphira and S. Paul against Elymas and of old Moses against Pharaoh and his Egypt of this nature also was the plague of a withered hand inflicted upon 〈◊〉 for stretching forth his hand to strike the Prophet In these and all such instances the off-spring is so like the parent that it cannot easily be concealed Sometime the crime is of that nature that it cries aloud for vengeance or is threatned with a special kind of punishment which by the observation and experience of the World hath regularly happened to a certain sort of persons such as are dissolutions of Estates the punishment of Sacrilege a descending curse upon posterity for four generations specially threatned to the crime of Idolatry any plague whatsoever to Oppression untimely death to Murther an unthriving estate to the detention of Tithes or whatsoever is God's portion allotted for the services of Religion untimely and strange deaths to the Persecutors of Christian Religion Nero killed himself Domitian was killed by his servants Maximinus and Decius were murthered together with their children Valerianus imprisoned flay'd and slain with tortures by Sapor King of Persia Diocletian perished by his own hand and his House was burnt with the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from above Antiochus the President under Aurelian while Agapetus was in his agony and sufferance of Martyrdom cried out of a flame within him and died Flaccus vomited out his entrails presently after he had caused Gregory Bishop of Spoleto to be slain and Dioscorus the father of S. Barbara accused and betrayed his Daughter to the Hangman's cruelty for being a Christian and he died by the hand of God by fire from Heaven These
are God's tokens marks upon the body of insected persons and declare the malignity of the disease and bid us all beware of those determined crimes 6. Thirdly But then in these and all other accidents we must first observe from the cause to the effect and then judge from the effect concerning the nature and the degree of the cause We cannot conclude This family is lessened beggered or extinct therefore they are guilty of Sacrilege but thus They are Sacrilegious and God hath blotted out their name from among the posterities therefore this Judgment was an express of God's anger against Sacrilege the Judgment will not conclude a Sin but when a Sin infers the Judgment with a legible character and a prompt signification not to understand God's choice is next to stupidity or carelesness Arius was known to be a seditious heretical and dissembling person and his entrails descended on the earth when he went to cover his feet it was very suspicious that this was the punishment of those sins which were the worst in him But he that shall conclude Arius was an Heretick or Seditious upon no other ground but because his bowels gushed out begins imprudently and proceeds uncharitably But it is considerable that men do not arise to great crimes on the sudden but by degrees of carelesness to lesser impieties and then to clamorous sins And God is therefore said to punish great crimes or actions of highest malignity because they are commonly productions from the spirit of Reprobation they are the highest ascents and suppose a Body of sin And therefore although the Judgment may be intended to punish all our sins yet it is like the Syrian Army it kills all that are its enemies but it hath a special commission to fight against none but the King of Israel because his death would be the dissolution of the Body And if God humbles a man for his great sin that is for those acts which combine and consummate all the rest possibly the Body of sin may separate and be apt to be scattered and subdued by single acts and instruments of mortification and therefore it is but reasonable in our making use of God's Judgments upon others to think that God will rather strike at the greatest crimes not only because they are in themselves of greatest malice and iniquity but because they are the summe total of the rest and by being great progressions in the state of sin suppose all the rest included and we by proportioning and observing the Judgment to the highest acknowledge the whole body of sin to lie under the curse though the greatest only was named and called upon with the voice of thunder And yet because it sometimes happens that upon the violence of a great and new occasion some persons leap into such a sin which in the ordinary course of sinners uses to be the effect of an habitual and growing state then if a Judgment happens it is clearly appropriate to that one great crime which as of it self it is equivalent to a vicious habit and interrupts the acceptation of all its former contraries so it meets with a curse such as usually God chuses for the punishment of a whole body and state of sin However in making observation upon the expresses of God's anger we must be careful that we reflect not with any bitterness or scorn upon the person of our calamitous Brother left we make that to be an evil to him which God intends for his benefit if the Judgment was medicinal or that we increase the load already great enough to sink him beneath his grave if the Judgment was intended for a final abscission 7. Fourthly But if the Judgments descend upon our selves we are to take another course not to enquire into particulars to find out the proportions for that can only be a design to part with just so much as we must needs but to mend all that is amiss for then only we can be secure to remove the Achan when we keep nothing within us or about us that may provoke God to jealousie or wrath And that is the proper product of holy fear which God intended should be the first effect of all his Judgments and of this God is so careful and yet so kind and provident that fear might not be produced always at the expence of a great suffering that God hath provided for us certain prologues of Judgment and keeps us waking with alarms that so he might reconcile his mercies with our duties Of this nature are Epidemical diseases not yet arrived at us prodigious Tempests Thunder and loud noises from Heaven and he that will not fear when God speaks so loud is not yet made soft with the impresses and perpetual droppings of Religion Venerable Bede reports of S. Chad that if a great gust of Wind suddenly arose he presently made some holy ejaculation to beg favour of God for all mankind who might possibly be concerned in the effects of that Wind but if a Storm succeeded he fell prostrate to the earth and grew as violent in Prayer as the Storm was 〈◊〉 at Land or Sea But if God added Thunder and Lightning he went to the Church and there spent all his time during the Tempest in reciting Litanies Psalms and other holy Prayers till it pleased God to restore his favour and to seem to forget his anger And the good Bishop added this reason Because these are the extensions and stretchings forth of God's hand and yet he did not strike but he that trembles not when he sees God's arm held forth to strike us understands neither God's mercies nor his own danger he neither knows what those horrours were which the People saw from mount Sinai nor what the glories and amazements shall be at the great day of Judgment And if this Religious man had seen Tullus Hostilius the Roman King and Anastasius a Christian Emperor but a reputed Heretick struck dead with Thunderbolts and their own houses made their urns to keep their ashes in there could have been no posture humble enough no Prayers devout enough no place holy enough nothing sufficiently expressive of his fear and his humility and his adoration and Religion to the almighty and infinite power and glorious mercy of God sending out his Emissaries to denounce war with designs of peace A great Italian General seeing the sudden death of Alfonsus Duke of Ferrara kneeled down instantly saying And shall not this sight make me religious Three and twenty thousand fell in one night in the Assyrian Camp who were all slain for Fornication And this so prodigious a Judgement was recorded in Scripture for our example and affrightment that we should not with such freedom entertain a crime which destroyed so numerous a body of men in the darkness of one evening Fear and Modesty and universal Reformation are the purposes of God's Judgments upon us or in our neighbourhood 8. Fifthly Concerning Judgments happening to a Nation or a Church the
Breach of publick faith desending Pirates and the like When a publick Judgment comes upon a Nation these things are to be thought upon that we may not think our selves acquitted by crying out against Swearing and Drunkenness and Cheating in manufactures which unless they be of universal dissemination and made national by diffusion are paid for upon a personal score and the private infelicities of our lives will either expiate or punish them severely But while the People mourns for those sins of which their low condition is capable sins that may produce a popular Fever or perhaps the Plague where the misery dwells in Cottages and the Princes often have indemnity as it was in the case of David yet we may not hope to appease a War to master a Rebellion to cure the publick Distemperatures of a Kingdom which threaten not the People only or the Governours also but even the Government it self unless the sins of a more publick capacity be cut off by publick declarations or other acts of national Justice and Religion But the duty which concerns us all in such cases is that every man in every capacity should enquire into himself and for his own portion of the Calamity put in his own symbol of Emendation for his particular and his Prayers for the publick interest in which it is not safe that any private persons should descend to particular censures of the crimes of Princes and States no not towards God unless the matter be notorious and past a question but it is a sufficient assoilment of this part of his duty if when he hath set his own house in order he would pray with indefinite significations of his charity and care of the publick that God would put it into the hearts of all whom it concerns to endeavour the removal of the sin that hath brought the exterminating Angel upon the Nation But yet there are sometimes great lines drawn by God in the expresses of his anger in some Judgments upon a Nation and when the Judgment is of that danger as to invade the very Constitution of a Kingdom the proportions that Judgments many times keep to their sins intimate that there is some National sin in which either by diffusion or representation or in the direct matter of sins as false Oaths unjust Wars wicked Confederacies or ungodly Laws the Nation in the publick capacity is delinquent 12. For as the Nation hath in Sins a capacity distinct from the sins of all the People inasmuch as the Nation is united in one Head guarded by a distinct and a higher Angel as Persia by Saint Michael transacts affairs in a publick right transmits insluence to all particulars from a common fountain and hath entercourse with other collective Bodies who also distinguish from their own particulars so likewise it hath Punishments distinct from those infelicities which vex particulars Punishments proportionable to it self and to its own Sins such as are Change of Governments of better into worse of Monarchy into Aristocracy and so to the lowest ebb of Democracy Death of Princes Infant Kings Forein Invasions Civil Wars a disputable Title to the Crown making a Nation tributary Conquest by a Foreiner and which is worst of all removing the Candlestick from a People by extinction of the Church or that which is necessary to its conservation the several Orders and Ministeries of Religion and the last hath also proper sins of its own analogy such as are false Articles in the publick Confessions of a Church Schism from the Catholick publick Scandals a general Viciousness of the Clergy an Indifferency in Religion without warmth and holy fires of Zeal and diligent pursuance of all its just and holy interests Now in these and all parallel cases when God by Punishments hath probably marked and distinguished the Crime it concerns publick persons to be the more forward and importunate in consideration of publick Irregularities and for the private also not to neglect their own particulars for by that means although not certainly yet probably they may secure themselves from falling in the publick calamity It is not infallibly sure that holy persons shall not be smitten by the destroying Angel for God in such deaths hath many ends of mercy and some of Providence to serve but such private and personal emendations and Devotions are the greatest securities of the men against the Judgment or the evil of it preserving them in this life or wasting them over to a better Thus many of the Lord's champions did fall in battel and the armies of the 〈◊〉 did twice prevail upon the juster People of all Israel and the Greek Empire hath declined and shrunk under the fortune and power of the Ottoman Family and the Holy Land which was twice possessed by Christian Princes is now in the dominion of unchristened Saracens and in the production of these alterations many a gallant and pious person suffered the evils of war and the change of an untimely death 13. But the way for the whole Nation to proceed in cases of epidemical Diseases Wars great Judgments and popular Calamities is to do in the publick proportion the same that every man is to do for his private by publick acts of Justice Repentance Fastings pious Laws and execution of just and religious Edicts making peace quitting of unjust interests declaring publickly against a Crime protesting in behalf of the contrary Vertue or Religion and to this also every man as he is a member of the body politick must co-operate that by a Repentance in diffusion help may come as well as by a Sin of universal dissemination the Plague was hastened and invited the rather But in these cases all the work of discerning and pronouncing concerning the cause of the Judgment as it must be without asperity and only for designs of correction and emendation so it must be done by Kings and Prophets and the assistence of other publick persons to whom the publick is committed Josua cast lots upon Achan and discovered the publick trouble in a private instance and of old the Prophets had it in commission to reprove the popular iniquity of Nations and the consederate sins of Kingdomes and in this Christianity altered nothing And when this is done modestly prudently humbly and penitently oftentimes the tables turn immediately but always in due time and a great Alteration in a Kingdome becomes the greatest Blessing in the world and fastens the Church or the Crown or the publick Peace in bands of great continuance and security and it may be the next Age shall feel the benefits of our Sufferance and Repentance And therefore as we must endeavour to secure it so we must not be too decretory in the case of others or disconsolate or diffident in our own when it may so happen that all succeeding generations shall see that God pardoned us and loved us even when he smote us Let us all learn to fear and walk humbly The Churches of Laodicea and the Colossians suffered
himself to his house who received him with gladness and repentance of his crimes purging his Conscience and filling his heart and house with joy and sanctity for immediately upon the arrival of the Master at his house he offered restitution to all persons whom he had injured and satisfaction and half of his remanent estate he gave to the poor and so gave the fairest entertainment to Jesus who brought along with him Salvation to his house There it was that he spake the Parable of the King who concredited divers talents to his servants and having at his return exacted an account rewarded them who had improved their bank and been faithful in their trust with rewards proportionable to their capacity and improvement but the negligent servant who had not meliorated his stock was punished with ablegation and 〈◊〉 to outer darkness And from hence sprang up that dogmatical proposition which is mysterious and 〈◊〉 in Christianity To him that hath shall be given and from him that hath not shall be taken away even what he hath After this going forth of Jericho he cured two blind men upon the way 5. Six days before Easter Jesus came to Bethany where he was feasted by Martha and Mary and accompanied by Lazarus who sate at the table with Jesus But Mary brought a pound of Nard Pistick and as formerly she had done again anoints the feet of Jesus and fills the house with the odour till God himself smelt thence a savour of a sweet-smelling sacrifice But Judas Iscariot the Thief and the Traitor repined at the vanity of the expence as he pretended because it might have been sold for three hundred pence and have been given to the poor But Jesus in his reply taught us that there is an opportunity for actions of Religion as well as of Charity Mary did this against the Burial of Jesus and her Religion was accepted by him to whose honours the holocaust of love and the oblations of alms-deeds are in their proper seasons direct actions of worship and duty But at this meeting there came many Jews to see Lazarus who was raised from death as well as to see Jesus and because by occasion of his Resurrection many of them believed on Jesus therefore the Pharisees deliberated about putting him to death But God in his glorious providence was pleased to preserve him as a trumpet of his glories and a testimony of the Miracle thirty years after the death of Jesus 6. The next day being the fifth day before the Passeover Jesus came to the foot of the mount of Olives and sent his Disciples to Bethphage a village in the neighbourhood commanding them to unloose an asse and a colt and bring them to him and to tell the owners it was done for the Master's use and they did so and when they brought the Asse to Jesus he rides on him to Jerusalem and the People having notice of his approach took branches of Palm-trees and went out to meet him strewing branches and garments in the way crying out Hosanna to the son of David Which was a form of exclamation used to the honour of God and in great Solemnities and signifies Adoration to the Son of David by the rite of carrying branches which when they used in procession about their Altars they used to pray Lord save us Lord prosper us which hath occasioned the reddition of Hoschiannah to be amongst some that Prayer which they repeated at the carrying of the Hoschiannah as if it self did signifie Lord save us But this honour was so great and unusual to be done even to Kings that the Pharisees knowing this to be an appropriate manner of address to God said one to another by way of wonder Hear ye what these men say For they were troubled to hear the People revere him as a God 7. When Jesus from the mount of Olives beheld Jerusalem he wept over it and foretold great sadnesses and infelicities futurely contingent to it which not only happened in the sequel of the story according to the main issues and significations of this Prophecy but even to minutes and circumstances it was verified For in the mount of Olives where Jesus shed tears over perishing Jerusalem the Romans first pitched their Tents when they came to its final overthrow From thence descending to the City he went into the Temple and still the acclamations followed him till the Pharisees were ready to burst with the noises abroad and the tumults of envy and scorn within and by observing that all their endeavours to suppress his glories were but like clapping their hands to veil the Sun and that in despight of all their stratagems the whole Nation was become Disciple to the glorious Nazarene And there 〈◊〉 cured certain persons that were blind and lame 8. But whilest he abode at Jerusalem certain Greeks who came to the Feast to worship made their address to Philip that they might be brought to Jesus Philip tells Andrew and they both tell Jesus who having admitted them discoursed many things concerning his Passion and then prayed a petition which is the end of his own Sufferings and of all humane actions and the purpose of the whole Creation Father glorifie thy Name To which he was answered by a voice from Heaven I have both glorified it and will glorifie it again But this nor the whole series of Miracles that he did the Mercies the Cures nor the divine Discourses could gain the Faith of all the Jews who were determined by their humane interest for many of the Rulers who believed on him durst not confess him because they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God Then Jesus again exhorted all men to believe on him that so they might in the same act believe on God that they might approach unto the light and not abide in darkness that they might obey the commandments of the Father whose express charge it was that Jesus should preach this Gospel and that they might not be judged at the last Day by the Word which they have rejected which Word to all its observers is everlasting life After which Sermon retiring to Bethany he abode there all Night 9. On the morrow returning to Jerusalem on the way being hungry he passed by a Fig-tree where expecting fruit he found none and cursed the Fig-tree which by the next day was dried up and withered Upon occasion of which preternatural event Jesus discoursed of the power of Faith and its power to produce Miracles But upon this occasion others the Disciples of Jesus in after-Ages have pleased themselves with phancies and imperfect descants as that he cursed this Tree in mystery and secret intendment it having been the tree in the eating whose fruit Adam prevaricating the Divine Law made an inlet to sin which brought in death and the sadnesses of Jesus's Passion But Jesus having entred the City came into the Temple and preached the Gospel and the chief Priests and
praise of men from unhandsome actions from flatteries and unworthy discourses nor entertain the praise with delight though it proceed from better principles but fear and tremble lest we deserve punishment or lose a reward which thou hast deposited for all them that seek thy glory and despise their own that they may imitate the example of their Lord. Thou O Lord didst triumph over Sin and Death subdue also my proud Understanding and my prouder Affections and bring me under thy yoak that I may do thy work and obey my Superiours and be a servant of all my brethren in their necessities and esteem my self inferiour to all men by a deep sense of my own unworthiness and in all things may obey thy Laws and conform to thy precedents and enter into thine inheritance O Holy and Eternal Jesus Amen DISCOURSE XIX Of the Institution and Reception of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper 1. AS the Sun among the Stars and Man among the sublunary creatures is the most eminent and noble the Prince of the inferiours and their measure or their guide so is this action among all the instances of Religion it is the most perfect and consummate it is an union of Mysteries and a consolidation of Duties it joyns God and Man and confederates all the Societies of men in mutual complexions and the entertainments of an excellent Charity it actually performs all that could be necessary for Man and it presents to Man as great a thing as God could give for it is impossible any thing should be greater than himself And when God gave his Son to the world it could not be but he should give us all things else and therefore this Blessed Sacrament is a consigning us to all Felicities because after a mysterious and ineffable manner we receive him who is Light and Life the fountain of Grace and the sanctifier of our secular comforts and the author of Holiness and Glory But as it was at first so it hath been ever since Christ came into the world and the world knew him not so Christ hath remained in the world by the communications of this Sacrament and yet he is not rightly understood and less truly valued But Christ may say to us as once to the woman of Samaria Woman if thou didst know the gift of God and who it is that speaks to thee thou wouldst ask him So if we were so wise or so fortunate to know the excellency of this Gift of the Lord it would fill us full of wonder and adoration joy and thankfulness great hopes and actual felicities making us heirs of glory by the great additions and present increment of Grace 2. After supper Jesus took bread and blessed it and made it to be a heavenly gift He gave them bread and told them it was his body that Body which was broken for the redemption of Man for the Salvation of the world S. Paul calls it bread even after Consecration The Bread which we break is it not the communication of the Body of Christ So that by divine Faith we are taught to express our belief of this Mystery in these words The Bread when it is consecrated and made sacramental is the Body of our Lord and the fraction and distribution of it is the communication of that Body which died for us upon the Cross. He that doubts of either of the parts of this Proposition must either think Christ was not able to verifie his word and to make bread by his benediction to become to us to be his body or that S. Paul did not well interpret and understand this Mystery when he called it bread Christ reconciles them both calling himself the bread of life and if we be offended at it because it is alive and therefore less apt to become food we are invited to it because it is bread and if the Sacrament to others seem less mysterious because it is bread we are heightned in our Faith and reverence because it is life The Bread of the Sacrament is the life of our Soul and the Body of our Lord is now conveyed to us by being the Bread of the Sacrament And if we consider how easie it is to Faith and how impossible it seems to Curiosity we shall be taught confidence and modesty a resigning our understanding to the voice of Christ and his Apostles and yet expressing our own articles as Christ did in indefinite significations And possibly it may not well consist with our Duty to be inquisitive into the secrets of the Kingdom which we see by plain event hath divided the Church almost as much as the Sacrament hath united it and which can only serve the purposes of the School and of evil men to make Questions for that and Factions for these but promote not the ends of a holy life Obedience or Charity 3. Some so observe the literal sence of the words that they understand them also in a natural Some so alter them by metaphors and preternatural significations that they will not understand them at all in a proper We see it we feel it we taste it and we smell it to be Bread and by Philosophy we are led into a belief of that substance whose accidents these are as we are to believe that to be fire which burns and flames and shines but Christ also affirmed concerning it This is my Body and if Faith can create an assent as strong as its object is infallible or can be as certain in its conclusion as sense is certain in its apprehensions we must at no hand doubt but that it is Christ's Body Let the sence of that be what it will so that we believe those words and whatsoever that sence is which Christ intended that we no more doubt in our Faith than we do in our Sense then our Faith is not reproveable It is hard to do so much violence to our Sense as not to think it Bread but it is more unsafe to do so much violence to our Faith as not to believe it to be Christ's Body But it would be considered that no interest of Religion no saying of Christ no reverence of Opinion no sacredness of the Mystery is disavowed if we believe both what we hear and what we see He that believes it to be Bread and yet verily to be Christ's Body is only tied also by implication to believe God's Omnipotence that he who affirmed it can also verifie it And they that are forward to believe the change of substance can intend no more but that it be believed verily to be the Body of our Lord. And if they think it impossible to reconcile its being Bread with the verity of being Christ's Body let them remember that themselves are put to more difficulties and to admit of more Miracles and to contradict more Sciences and to refuse the testimony of Sense in affirming the special manner of Transubstantiation And therefore it were safer to admit the words in their first sence in
our life and he dwells in the body and the spirit of every one that eats Christ's flesh and drinks his bloud Happy is that man that sits at the Table of Angels that puts his hand into the dish with the King of all the Creatures and feeds upon the eternal Son of God joyning things below with things above Heaven with Earth Life with Death that mortality might be swallowed up of life and Sin be destroyed by the inhabitation of its greatest Conqueror And now I need not enumerate any particulars since the Spirit of God hath ascertained us that Christ enters into our hearts and takes possession and abides there that we are made Temples and celestial mansions that we are all one with our Judge and with our Redeemer that our Creator is bound unto his Creature with bonds of charity which nothing can dissolve unless our own hands break them that Man is united with God and our weakness is fortified by his strength and our miseries wrapped up in the golden leaves of glory 2. Hence it follows that the Sacrament is an instrument of reconciling us to God and taking off the remanent guilt and stain and obligations of our sins This is the 〈◊〉 that was shed for you for the remission of sins For there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus And such are all they who worthily eat the flesh of Christ by receiving him they more and more receive remission of sins redemption sanctification wisdom and certain hopes of glory 〈◊〉 as the Soul touching and united to the flesh of Adam contracts the stain of original misery and imperfection so much the 〈◊〉 shall the Soul united to the flesh of Christ receive pardon and purity and all those blessed emanations from our union with the Second Adam But this is not to be understood as if the first beginnings of our pardon were in the holy Communion for then a man might come with his impurities along with him and lay them on the holy Table to stain and pollute so bright a presence No first Repentance must 〈◊〉 the ways of the Lord and in this holy Rite those words of our Lord are verified He that is justified let him be justified 〈◊〉 that is here he may receive the increase of Grace and as it grows so sin dies and we are reconciled by nearer unions and approximations to God 9. Thirdly The holy Sacrament is the pledge of Glory and the earnest of Immortality for when we have received him who hath overcome Death and henceforth dies no more he becomes to us like the Tree of life in Paradise and the consecrated Symbols are like the seeds of an eternal duration springing up in us to eternal life nourishing our spirits with Grace which is but the prologue and the infancy of Glory and differs from it only as a Child from a Man But God first raised up his Son to life and by giving him to us hath also consigned us to the same state for our life is hid with Christ in God When we lay down and cast aside the impurer robes of flesh they are then but preparing for glory and if by the only touch of Christ bodies were redintegrate and restored to natural perfections how shall not we live for ever who eat his flesh and drink his bloud It is the discourse of S. Cyril Whatsoever the Spirit can convey to the body of the Church we may expect 〈◊〉 this Sacrament for as the Spirit is the instrument of life and action so the bloud of Christ is the conveyance of his Spirit And let all the mysterious places of holy Scripture concerning the effects of Christ communicated in the blessed Sacrament be drawn together in one Scheme we cannot but observe that although they are so expressed as 〈◊〉 their meaning may seem intricate and involved yet they cannot be drawn to any meaning at all but it is as glorious in its sense as it is mysterious in the expression and the more intricate they are the greater is their purpose no words being apt and proportionate to signifie this spiritual secret and excellent effects of the Spirit A veil is drawn before all these testimonies because the people were not able to behold the glory which they cover with their curtain and Christ dwelling in us and giving us his flesh to 〈◊〉 and his bloud to drink and the hiding of our life with God and the communication of the body of Christ and Christ being our life are such secret glories that as the fruition of them is the portion of the other world so also is the full perception and understanding of them for therefore God appears to us in a cloud and his glories in a veil that we understanding more of it by its concealment than we can by its open face which is too bright 〈◊〉 our weak eyes may with more piety also entertain the greatness by these indefinite and mysterious significations than we can by plain and direct intuitions which like the Sun in a direct ray enlightens the object but confounds the organ 10. I should but in other words describe the same glories if I should add That this holy Sacrament does enlighten the spirit of Man and clarifie it with spiritual discernings and as he was to the two Disciples at 〈◊〉 so also to other faithful people Christ is known in the breaking of bread That it is a great defence against the hostilities of our ghostly enemies this Holy Bread being like the Cake in 〈◊〉 's Camp overturning the tents of 〈◊〉 That it is the relief of our sorrows the antidote and preservative of Souls the viand of our journey the guard and passe-port of our death the wine of Angels That it is more healthful than Rhubarb more pleasant than Cassia That the Betele and 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 the Moly or Nepenthe of Pliny the Lirinon of the 〈◊〉 the Balsam of 〈◊〉 the Manna of Israel the Honey of Jonathan are but weak expressions to tell us that this is excellent above Art and Nature and that nothing is good enough in Philosophy to become its 〈◊〉 All these must needs fall very short of those plain words of Christ This is my Body The other may become the ecstasies of Piety the transportation of joy and wonder and are like the discourse of S. 〈◊〉 upon mount Tabor he was resolved to say some great thing but he knew not what but when we remember that the Body of our Lord and his Bloud is communicated to us in the Bread and the Chalice of blessing we must sit down and rest our selves for this is the mountain of the Lord and we can go no farther 11. In the next place it will 〈◊〉 our enquiry to consider how we are to prepare our selves For at the gate of life a man may meet with death and although this holy Sacrament be like Manna in which the obedient find the relishes of Obedience the chaste of
Purity the meek persons of Content and Humility yet vicious and corrupted palats find also the gust of death and Coloquintida The Sybarites invited their women to their solemn sacrifices a full year before the solemnity that they might by previous dispositions and a long foresight 〈◊〉 with gravity and fairer order the celebration of the rites And it was a reasonable answer of Pericles to one that ask'd him why he being a Philosophical and severe person came to a wedding trimmed and adorned like a Paranymph I come adorned to an adorned person trimmed to a Bridegroom And we also if we come to the marriage of the Son with the Soul which marriage is celebrated in this sacred Mystery and have not on a wedding garment shall be cast into outer darkness the portion of undressed and unprepared souls 12. For from this Sacrament are excluded all unbaptized persons and such who lie in a known sin of which they have not purged themselves by the apt and proper instruments of Repentance For if the Paschal Lamb was not to be eaten but by persons pure and clean according to the sanctifications of the Law the Son of God can less endure the impurities of the Spirit than God could 〈◊〉 the uncleannesses of the Law S. Paul hath given us instruction in this First let a man examine himself and so let him eat For he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to himself not discerning the Lord's body That is although in the Church of Corinth by reason of the present Schism the publick Discipline of the Church was neglected and every man permitted to himself yet even then no man was disobliged from his duty of private Repentance and holy preparations to the perception of so great a mystery that the Lord's body may be discerned from common nutriment Now nothing can so unhallow and desecrate the rite as the remanent affection to a sin or a crime unrepented of And Self-examination is prescribed not for it self but in order to abolition of sin and death for it self is a relative term and an imperfect duty whose very nature is in order to something beyond it And this was in the Primitive Church understood to so much severity that if a man had relapsed after one publick Repentance into a 〈◊〉 crime he was never again readmitted to the holy Communion and the Fathers of the Council of 〈◊〉 call it a mocking and jesting at the Communion of our Lord to give it once again after a Repentance and a relapse and a second or third postulation And indeed we use to make a sport of the greatest instruments of Religion when we come to them after an habitual vice whose face we have it may be wetted with a tear and breathed upon it with a sigh and abstained from the worst of crimes for two or three days and come to the Sacrament to be purged and to take our rise by going a little back from our sin that afterwards we may leap into it with more violence and enter into its utmost angle This is dishonouring the body of our Lord and deceiving our selves Christ and Belial cannot cohabit unless we have left all our sins and have no fondness of affection towards them unless we hate them which then we shall best know when we leave them and with complacency entertain their contraries then Christ hath washed our feet and then he invites us to his holy Supper Hands dipt in bloud or polluted with unlawful gains or stained with the spots of flesh are most unfit to handle the holy body of our Lord and minister nourishment to the Soul Christ loves not to enter into the mouth full of cursings oathes blasphemies revilings or evil speakings and a heart full of vain and vicious thoughts stinks like the lake of Sodom he finds no rest there and when he enters he is vexed with the unclean conversation of the impure inhabitants and flies from thence with the wings of a Dove that he may retire to pure and whiter habitations S. Justin Martyr reckoning the predispositions required of every faithful soul for the entertainment of his Lord says that it is not lawful for any to eat the Eucharist but to him that is washed in the laver of regeneration sor the remission of sins that believes Christ's Doctrine to be true and that lives according to the Discipline of the Holy Jesus And therefore S. Ambrose refused to minister the holy Communion to the Emperor Theodostus till by publick Repentance he had reconciled himself to God and the society of faithsul people after the furious and cholerick rage and slaughter committed at Thessalonica And as this act was like to cancellating and a circumvallation of the holy mysteries and in that sence and so far was a proper duty sor a Prelate to whose dispensation the rites are committed so it was an act of duty to the Emperor of paternal and tender care not of proper authority or jurisdiction which he could not have over his Prince but yet had a care and the supravision of a Teacher over him whose Soul S. Ambrose had betrayed unless he had represented his indisposition to communicate in expressions of Magisterial or Doctoral authority and truth For this holy Sacrament is a nourishment of spiritual life and therefore cannot with effect be ministred to them who are in the state of spiritual death it is giving a Cordial to a dead man and although the outward rite be ministred yet the Grace of the Sacrament is not communicated and therefore it were well that they also abstained from the rite it self For a fly can boast of as much priviledge as a wicked person can receive from this holy Feast and oftentimes pays his life sor his access to sorbidden delicacies as certainly as they 13. It is more generally thought by the Doctors of the Church that our Blessed Lord administred the Sacrament to Judas although he knew he sold him to the Jews Some others deny it and suppose Judas departed presently after the sop given him before he communicated However it was Christ who was Lord of the Sacraments might dispense it as he pleased but we must minister and receive it according to the rules he hath since described but it becomes a precedent to the Church in all succeeding Ages although it might also have in it something extraordinary and apter to the first institution for because the fact of Judas was secret not yet made notorious Christ chose rather to admit him into the rites of external Communion than to separate him with an open shame for a fault not yet made open For our Blessed Lord did not reveal the man and his crime till the very time of ministration if Judas did communicate But if Judas did not communicate and that our Blessed Lord gave him the sop at the Paschal Supper 〈◊〉 at the interval between it and the institution of his own it is certain that
and tyranny over Consciences 14. The duty of Preparation that I here discourse of is such a Preparation as is a disposition to life it is not a matter of convenience or advantage to repent of our sins before the Communion but it is of absolute necessity we perish if we neglect it for we cat 〈◊〉 and Satan enters into us not Christ. And this Preparation is not the act of a day or a week but it is a new state of life no man that is an habitual sinner must come to this Feast till he hath wholly changed his course of life And then according as the actions of infirmity have made 〈◊〉 or greater invasion upon his peace and health so are the acts of Repentance to be proportioned in which the greatness of the prevarications their neighbourhood to death or their frequent repetition and the conduct of a Spiritual man are to give us counsel and determination When a ravening and hungry Wolf is destitute of prey he 〈◊〉 the turf and loads his stomach with the glebe he treads on but as soon as he finds better food he vomits up his first load Our secular and sensual affections are loads of earth upon the Conscience and when we approach to the Table of the Lord to eat the bread of the elect and to drink the wine of Angels we must reject such impure adhesions that holy persons being nourished with holy Symbols may be sanctified and receive the eternal reward of Holiness 15. But as none must come hither but they that are in the state of Grace or Charity and the love of God and their Neighbours and that the abolition of the state of sin is the necessary preparation and is the action of years and was not accepted as sufficient till the expiration of divers years by the Primitive Discipline and in some cases not till the approach of Death so there is another Preparation which is of less necessity which supposes the state of Grace and that oil is burning in our lamps but yet it is a preparation of ornament a trimming up the Soul a dressing the spirit with degrees and instances of Piety and progresses of perfection and it consists in setting apart some portion of our time before the Communion that it be spent in Prayer in Meditations in renewing the vows of holy Obedience in Examining our Consciences in Mortifying our lesser irregularities in Devotions and actions of precise Religion in acts of Faith of Hope of Charity of Zeal and holy desires in acts of Eucharist or Thanksgiving of Joy at the approach of so blessed opportunity and all the acts of Vertue whatsoever which have indefinite relation to this and to other mysteries but yet are specially to be exercised upon this occasion because this is the most perfect of external 〈◊〉 and the most mysterious instrument of sanctification and perfection There is no time or degree to be determined in this Preparation but they to whom much is forgiven will love much and they who 〈◊〉 the excellence and holiness of the Mystery the glory of the Guest that comes to inhabit and the undecency of the closet of their Hearts by reason of the adherencies of impurity the infinite benefit then designed and the increase of degrees by the excellence of these previous acts of Holiness will not be too inquisitive into the necessity of circumstances and measures but do it heartily and devoutly and reverently and as much as they can ever esteeming it necessary that the actions of so great solemnity should by some actions of Piety attending like handmaids be distinguished from common imployments and remarked for the principal and most solemn of religious actions The Primitive Church gave the holy Sacrament to Infants immediately after Baptism and by that act transmitted this Proposition That nothing was of absolute necessity but Innocency and purity from sin and a being in the state of Grace other actions of Religion are excellent addition to the dignity of the person and honour of the mystery but they were such of which Infants were not capable The summ is this After the greatest consociation of religious duties for Preparation no man can be sufficiently worthy to communicate let us take care that we be not unworthy by bringing a guilt with us or the remanent affection to a sin Est gloriosus sanè convictus Die Sed illi qui invitatur non qui invisus est 16. When the happy hour is come in which the Lord vouchsafes to enter into us and dwell with us and be united with his servants we must then do the same acts over again with greater 〈◊〉 intension confess the glories of God and thy own unworthiness praise his mercy with ecstasie of thanksgiving and joy make oblation of thy self of all thy faculties and capacities pray and read and meditate and worship And that thou mayest more opportunely do all this rise early to meet the Bridegroom pray for special assistance enter into the assembly of faithful people chearfully attend there diligently demean thy self reverently and before any other meat or drink receive the Body of thy Saviour with pure hands with holy intention with a heart full of joy and faith and hope and wonder and Eucharist These things I therefore set down irregularly and without method because in these actions no rule can be given to all persons and only such a love and such a Religion in general is to be recommended which will over-run the banks and not 〈◊〉 stand confined within the margent of rules and artificial prescriptions Love and Religion are boundless and all acts of grace relating to the present Mystery are sit and proportioned entertainments of our Lord. This only remember that we are by the Mystery of one bread confederated into one body and the communion of Saints and that the 〈◊〉 which we then commemorate was designed by our Lord for the benefit of all his Church Let us be sure to draw all faithful people into the society of the present Blessing joyning with the holy Man that ministers in prayers and offerings of that Mystery for the 〈◊〉 of all sorts of men of Christ's Catholick Church And it were also an excellent act of Christian communion and agreeable to the practice of the Church in all Ages to make an Oblation to God for the poor that as we are 〈◊〉 by Christ's body so we also should 〈◊〉 Christ's body making such returns as we can a grain of Frankincense in exchange for a Province an act of duty and Christian Charity as Eucharistical for the present Grace that all the body may rejoyce and glory in the Salvation of the Lord. 17. After thou hast received that pledge of immortality and antepast of glory even the Lord's Body in a mystery leave not thy Saviour there alone but attend him with holy thoughts and colloquies of Prayer and Eucharist It was sometime counted infamous for a woman to entertain a second love till the body of her
this instance there was a rare mixture of effects as there was in Christ of Natures the voice of a Man and the power of God For it is observed by the Doctors of the Primitive Ages that from the Nativity of our Lord to the day of his Death the Divinity and Humanity did so communicate in effects that no great action passed but it was like the Sun shining through a cloud or a beauty with a thin veil drawn over it they gave illustration and testimony to each other The Holy Jesus was born a tender and a crying Infant but is adored by the Magi as a King by the Angels as their GOD. He is circumcised as a Man but a name is given him to signifie him to be the SAVIOUR of the World He flies into Egypt like a distressed Child under the conduct of his helpless Parents but as soon as he enters the Country the Idols fall down and confess his true Divinity He is presented in the Temple as the Son of man but by Simeon and Anna he is celebrated with divine praises for the MESSIAS the SON OF GOD. He is baptized in Jordan as a Sinner but the Holy Ghost descending upon him proclaimed him to be the well-beloved of God He is hungry in the Desart as a Man but sustained his body without meat and drink for forty days together by the power of his Divinity There he is tempted of Satan as a weak Man and the Angels of light minister unto him as their supreme Lord. And now a little before his death when he was to take upon him all the affronts miseries and exinanitions of the most miserable he receives testimonies from above which are most wonderful For he was tranfigured upon Mount Tabor entred triumphantly into Jerusalem had the acclamations of the people when he was dying he darkned the Sun when he was dead he opened the sepulchres when he was fast nailed to the Cross he made the earth to tremble now when he suffers himself to be apprehended by a guard of Souldiers he strikes them all to the ground only by replying to their answer that the words of the Prophet might be verified Therefore my people shall know my Name therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak behold it is I. 10. The Souldiers and servants of the Jews having recovered from their fall and risen by the permission of Jesus still persisted in their enquiry after him who was present ready and desirous to be sacrificed He therefore permitted himself to be taken but not his Disciples for he it was that set them their bounds and he secured his Apostles to be witnesses of his suffering and his glories and this work was the Redemption of the world in which no man could have an active share he alone was to tread the wine-press and time enough they should be called to a fellowship of sufferings But Jesus went to them and they bound him with cords and so began our liberty and redemption from slavery and sin and cursings and death But he was bound faster by bands of his own his Father's Will and Mercy Pity of the world Prophecies and Mysteries and Love held him fast and these cords were as strong as death and the cords which the Souldiers malice put upon his holy hands were but symbols and figures his own compassion and affection were the morals But yet he undertook this short restraint and condition of a prisoner that all sorts of persecution and exteriour calamities might be hallowed by his susception and these pungent sorrows should like bees sting him and leave their sting behind that all the sweetness should remain for us Some melancholick Devotions have from uncertain stories added sad circumstances of the first violence done to our Lord That they bound him with three cords and that with so much violence that they caused bloud to start from his tender hands That they 〈◊〉 then also upon him with a violence and incivility like that which their Fathers had used towards Hur the brother of Aaron whom they choaked with impure spittings into his throat because he refused to consent to the making a golden Calf These particulars are not transmitted by certain Records Certain it is they wanted no malice and now no power for the Lord had given himself into their hands 11. S. Peter seeing his Master thus ill used asked Master shall we strike with the sword and before he had his answer cut off the ear of Malchus Two swords there were in Christ's family and S. Peter bore one either because he was to kill the Paschal Lamb or according to the custom of the Country to secure them against beasts of prey which in that region were frequent and dangerous in the night But now he used it in an unlawful war he had no competent authority it was against the Ministers of his lawful Prince and against our Prince we must not draw a sword for Christ himself himself having forbidden us as his kingdom is not of this world so neither were his defences secular he could have called for many legions of Angels for his guard if he had so pleased and we read that one Angel slew 185000 armed men in one night and therefore it was a vast power which was at the command of our Lord and he needs not such low auxiliaries as an army of Rebels or a navy of Pirates to 〈◊〉 his cause he first lays the foundation of our happiness in his sufferings and hath ever since supported Religion by patience and suffering and in poverty and all the circumstances and conjunctures of improbable causes Fighting for Religion is certain to destroy Charity but not certain to support Faith S. Peter therefore may use his keys but he is commanded to put up his sword and he did so and presently he and all his fellows fairly ran away and yet that course was much the more Christian for though it had in it much infirmity yet it had no malice In the mean time the Lord was pleased to touch the ear of Malchus and he cured it adding to the first instance of power in throwing them to the ground an act of miraculous mercy curing the wounds of an enemy made by a friend But neither did this pierce their callous and obdurate spirits but they led him in uncouth ways and through the brook Cedron in which it is said the ruder souldiers plunged him and passed upon him all the affronts and rudenesses which an insolent and cruel multitude could think of to signifie their contempt and their rage And such is the nature of evil men who when they are not softned by the instruments and arguments of Grace are much hardned by them such being the purpose of God that either Grace shall cure sin or accidentally increase it that it shall either pardon it or bring it to greater punishment for so I have seen healthful medicines abused by the incapacities of a
with purple and crowned him with thorns and put a cane in his hand for a scepter and bowed their knees before him and saluted him with mockery with a Hail King of the Jews and 〈◊〉 beat him and spate upon him and then Pilate brought him forth and shewed this sad spectacle to the people hoping this might move them to compassion who never loved to see a man prosperous and are always troubled to see the same man in misery But the Earth which was cursed for Adam's sake and was sowed with thorns and thistles produced the full harvest of them and the Second Adam gathered them all and made garlands of them as ensigns of his Victory which he was now in pursuit of against Sin the Grave and Hell And we also may make our thorns which are in themselves 〈◊〉 and dolorous to be a Crown if we bear 〈◊〉 patiently and unite them to Christ's Passion and offer them to his honour and bear them in his cause and rejoyce in them for his sake And indeed after such a grove of 〈◊〉 growing upon the head of our Lord to see one of Christ's members soft delicate and effeminate is a great indecency next to this of seeing the Jews use the King of glory with the greatest reproach and infamy 12. But nothing prevailing nor the Innocence of Jesus nor his immunity from the sentence of Herod nor the industry and diligence of Pilate nor the misery nor the sight of the afflicted Lamb of God at last for so God decreed to permit it and Christ to 〈◊〉 it Pilate gave sentence of death upon him having first washed his hands of which God served his end to declare the Innocence of his Son of which in this whole process he was most curious and suffered not the least probability to adhere to him yet Pilate served no end of his nor preserved any thing of his innocence He that 〈◊〉 upon a Prince and cries Saving your honour you are a Tyrant and he that strikes a man upon the face and cries him mercy and undoes him and says it was in jest does just like that person that sins against God and thinks to be excused by saying it was against his Conscience that is washing our hands when they are stained in bloud as if a ceremony of purification were enough to cleanse a soul from the stains of a spiritual impurity So some refuse not to take any Oath in times of Persecution and say it obliges not because it was forced and done against their wills as if the doing of it were washed off by protesting against it whereas the protesting against it declares me criminal if I rather chuse not death than that which I profess to be a sin But all the persons which cooperated in this death were in this life consigned to a fearful judgment after it The Jews took the bloud which Pilate seemed to wash off upon themselves and their children and the bloud of this Paschal Lamb stuck upon their forehead and marked them not to escape but to fall under the sword of the destroying Angel and they perished either by a more hasty death or shortly after in the extirpation and miserable ruine of their Nation And Pilate who had a less share in the crime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a black character of a secular Judgment for not long after he was by Vitellius the President of Syria sent to Rome to answer to the crimes objected against him by the Jews whom to please he had done so much violence to his Conscience and by 〈◊〉 sentence he was banished to Vienna deprived of all his honours where he lived ingloriously till by impatience of his calamity he killed himself with his own hand And thus the bloud of Jesus shed for the Salvation of the world became to them a Curse and that which purifies the Saints stuck to them that shed it and mingled it not with the tears of Repentance to be a leprosie loathsome and incurable So Manna turns to worms and the wine of Angels to Vineger and Lees when it is received into impure vessels or tasted by wanton palats and the Sun himself produces Rats and Serpents when it reflects upon the dirt of Nilus The PRAYER O Holy and immaculate Lamb of God who wert pleased to 〈◊〉 shame and sorrow to be brought before tribunals to be accused maliciously betrayed treacherously condemned unjustly and scourged most 〈◊〉 suffering the most severe and most unhandsome inflictions which could be procured by potent subtle and extremest malice and didst 〈◊〉 this out of love greater than the love of Mothers more affectionate than the tears of joy and pity dropt from the eyes of most passionate women by these fontinels of bloud issuing forth life and health and pardon upon all thine enemies teach me to apprehend the baseness of Sin in proportion to the greatest of those calamities which my sin made it necessary for thee to susfer that I may hate the cause of thy 〈◊〉 and adore thy mercy and imitate thy charity and copy 〈◊〉 thy patience à nd humility and love thy person to the uttermost extent and degrees of my affections Lord what am I that the eternal Son of God should 〈◊〉 one stripe for me But thy Love is infinite and how great a misery is it to provoke by sin so great a mercy and despise so miraculous a goodness and to do fresh despite to the Son of God But our sins are innumerable and our infirmities are mighty Dearest Jesu pity me for I am accused by my own Conscience and am found guilty I am stripped naked of my Innocence and bound fast by Lust and tormented with stripes and wounds of enraged Appetites But let thy Innocence excuse me the robes of thy Righteousness cloath me thy Bondage set me free and thy Stripes heal me that thou being my Advocate my Physician my Patron and my Lord I may be adopted into the union of thy Merits and partake of the efficacy of thy Sufferings and be crowned as thou art having my sins changed to vertues and my thorns to rays of glory under thee our Head in the participations of Eternity O Holy and immaculate Lamb of God Amen DISCOURSE XX. Of Death and the due manner of Preparation to it 1. THE Holy Spirit of God hath in Scripture revealed to us but one way of preparing to Death and that is by a holy life and there is nothing in all the Book of Life concerning this exercise of address to Death but such advices which suppose the dying person in a state of Grace S. James indeed counsels that in sickness we should send for the Ministers Ecclesiastical and that they pray over us and that we confess our sins and they shall be forgiven that is those prayers are of great efficacy for the removing the sickness and taking off that punishment of sin and healing them in a certain degree according to the efficacy of the ministery and the dispositions or capacities of the sick person But
him honours the Emperour Conrade the Second when he triumphed after the conquest of Italy had a joy bigger than their heart and their phancy swelled it till they burst and died Death can enter in at any door 〈◊〉 of Nice died with excessive laughter so did the Poet Philemon being provoked to it only by seeing an Asse eat sigs And the number of persons who have been found suddenly dead in their beds is so great that as it ingages many to a more certain and regular devotion for their Compline so it were well it were pursued to the utmost intention of God that is that all the parts of Religion should with zeal and assiduity be entertained and finished that as it becomes wise men we never be surprised with that we are sure will sometime or other happen A great General in Italy at the sudden death of Alsonsus of Ferrara and Lodovico 〈◊〉 at the sight of the sad accident upon Henry II. of France now mentioned turned religious and they did what God intended in those deaths It concerns us to be curious of single actions because even in those shorter periods we may expire and 〈◊〉 our Graves But if the state of life be contradictory to our hopes of Heaven it is like affronting of a Cannon 〈◊〉 a beleaguer'd Town a month together it is a contempt of safety and a rendring all Reason useless and unprofitable but he only is wise who having made Death familiar to him by expectation and daily apprehension does at all instants go forth to meet it The wise Virgins went forth to meet the Bridegroom for they were ready Excellent therefore is the counsel of the Son of Sirach Use Physick or ever thou be sick 〈◊〉 Judgment examine thy self and in the day of visitation thou shalt finde mercy Humble thy self before then be sick and in the time of sins shew Repentance Let nothing hinder thee to pay thy 〈◊〉 in due time and defer not until death to be justified 5. Secondly I consider that it osten happens that in those few days of our last visitation which many Men design for their Preparation and Repentance God hath expressed by an exteriour accident that those persons have deceived themselves and neglected their own Salvation S. Gregory reports of Chrysaurius a Gentleman in the Province of 〈◊〉 rich vicious and witty lascivious covetous and proud that being cast upon his Death-bed he phansied he saw evil spirits coming to arrest him and drag him to Hell He fell into great agony and trouble shrieked out called for his son who was a very religious person flattered him as willing to have been rescued by any thing but perceiving his danger increase and grown desperate he called loud with repeated clamours Give me respite but till the morrow and with those words he died there being no place left 〈◊〉 his Repentance though he sought it carefully with tears and groans The same was the case of a drunken Monk whom Venerable Bede mentions Upon his Death bed he seemed to see Hell opened and a place assigned him near to Caiaphas and those who crucified our dearest Lord. The religious persons that stood about his Bed called on him to repent of his sins to implore the mercies of God and to trust in Christ But he answered with reason enough This is no time to change my life the sentence is passed upon me and it is too late And it is very considerable and sad which Petrus Damianus tells of Gunizo a sactious and ambitious person to whom it is said the Tempter gave notice of his approaching death but when any Man preached Repentance to him out of a strange incuriousness or the spirit of reprobation he seemed like a dead and unconcerned person in all other discourses he was awake and apt to answer For God had shut up the gates of Mercy that no streams should issue forth to quench the flames of Hell or else had shut up the gates of reception and entertainment that it should not enter either God denies to give them pardon when they call or denies to them a power to call they either cannot pray or God will not answer Now since these stories are related by Men learned pious and eminent in their generations and because they served no design but the ends of Piety and have in them nothing dissonant from revelation or the frequent events of Providence we may upon their stock consider that God's Judgements and visible marks being set upon a state of Life although they happen but seldom in the instances yet they are of universal purpose and signfication Upon all Murtherers God hath not thrown a thunder-bolt nor broke all sacrilegious persons upon the wheel of an inconstant and ebbing estate nor spoken to every Oppressor from Heaven in a voice of thunder nor cut off all Rebels in the first attempts of insurrection But because he hath done so to some we are to look upon those Judgments as Divine accents and voices of God threatning all the same crimes with the like events and with the ruines of eternity For though God does not always make the same prologues to death yet by these few accidents happening to single persons we are to understand his purposes concerning all in the same condition it was not the person so much as the estate which God then remarked with so visible characters of his displeasure 6. And it seems to me a wonder that since from all the records of Scripture urging the uncertainty of the day of death the horrour of the day of Judgment the severity of God the dissolution of the world the certainty of our account still from all these premisses the Spirit of God makes no other inference but that we watch and stand in a readiness that we live in all holy conversation and godliness and that there is no one word concerning any other manner of an essentially-necessary Preparation none but this yet that there are Doctrines commenced and Rules prescribed and Offices set down and Suppletories invented by Curates of Souls how to prepare a vicious person and upon his Death-bed to reconcile him to the hopes and promises of Heaven Concerning which I desire that every person would but enquire where any one promise is recorded in Scripture concerning such addresses and what Articles CHRIST hath drawn up between his Father and us concerning a Preparation begun upon our Death-bed and if he shall find none as most certainly from Genesis to the Revelation there is not a word concerning it but very much against it let him first build his hopes upon this proposition that A holy life is the onely Preparation to a happy death and then we can without danger proceed to some other Considerations 7. When a good man or a person concerning whom it is not certain he hath lived in habitual Vices comes to die there are but two general ways of entercourse with him the one to keep him from
Prophets of the Lord. And S. Austin upon the Incursion of the Vandals into Africa called his Clergy together and at their Chapter told them he had prayed to God either to deliver his People from the present calamity or grant them patience to bear it or that he would take him out of the world that he might not see the miseries of his Diocese adding that God had granted him the last and he presently fell sick and died in the siege of his own Hippo. And if Death in many cases be desirable and for many reasons it is always to be submitted to when God calls And as it is always a misery to fear death so it is very often a sin or the effect of sin If our love to the world hath fastened our affections here it is a direct sin and this is by the son of Sirach noted to be the case of rich and great personages How bitter O death is thy remembrance to a man that is at rest in his possessions But if it be a fear to perish in the ruines of Eternity they are not to blame for fearing but that their own ill lives have procured the fear And yet there are persons in the state of Grace but because they are in great imperfection have such lawful fears of Death and of entring upon an uncertain Sentence which must stand eternally irreversible be it good or bad that they may with piety and care enough pray David's prayer O spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen But in this and in all other cases Death must be accepted without murmur though without fear it cannot A man may pray to be delivered from it and yet if God will not grant it he must not go as one hal'd to execution but if with all his imperfect fears he shall throw himself upon God and accept his sentence as righteous whether it speak life or death it is an act of so great excellency that it may equal the good actions of many succeeding and surviving days and peradventure a longer life will be yet more imperfect and that God therefore puts a period to it that thou mayest be taken into a condition more certain though less eminent However let not the fears of Nature or the fear of Reason or the fears of Humility become accidentally criminal by a murmur or a pertinacious contesting against the event which we cannot hinder but ought to accept by an election secondary rational and pious and upon supposition that God will not alter the sentence passed upon thy temporal life always remembring that in Christian Philosophy Death hath in it an excellency of which the Angels are not capable For by the necessity of our Nature we are made capable of dying for the Holy Jesus and next to the privilege of that act is our willingness to die at his command which turns necessity into vertue and nature into grace and grace to glory 20. When the sick person is thus disposed let him begin to trim his wedding-garment and dress his Lamp with the repetition of acts of Repentance perpetually praying to God for pardon of his sins representing to himself the horror of them the multitude the obliquity being helped by arguments apt to excite Contrition by repetition of penitential Psalms and holy Prayers and he may by accepting and humbly receiving his sickness at God's hand transmit it into the condition of an act or effect of 〈◊〉 acknowledging himself by sin to have deserved and procured it and praying that the punishment of his crimes may be here and not reserved for the state of Separation and for ever 21. But above all single acts of this exercise we are concerned to see that nothing of other mens Goods stick to us but let us shake it off as we would a burning coal 〈◊〉 our flesh for it will destroy us it will carry a curse with us and leave a curse behind us Those who by thy means or importunity have become vicious exhort to Repentance and holy life those whom thou hast cozened into crimes restore to a right understanding those who are by violence and interest led captive by thee to any undecency restore to their liberty and encourage to the prosecution of holiness discover and confess thy fraud and unlawful arts cease thy violence and give as many advantages to Vertue as thou hast done to Viciousness Make recompence for bodily wrongs such as are wounds dismembrings and other disabilities restore every man as much as thou canst to that good condition from which thou hast removed him restore his Fame give back his Goods return the Pawn release 〈◊〉 and take off all unjust invasions or surprises of his Estate pay Debts satisfie for thy fraud and injustice as far as thou canst and as thou canst and as soon or this alone is weight enough no less than a Mil-stone about thy Neck But if the dying man be of God and in the state of Grace that is if he have lived a holy life repented seasonably and have led a just sober and religious conversation in any acceptable degree it is to be supposed he hath no great account to make for unpretended injuries and unjust detentions for if he had detained the goods of his neighbour fraudulently or violently without amends when it is in his power and opportunity to restore he is not the man we suppose him in this present Question and although in all cases he is bound to restore according to his ability yet the act is less excellent when it is compelled and so it seems to be if he have continued the injustice till he is forced to quit the purchace However if it be not done till then let it be provided for then And that I press this duty to pious persons at this time is only to oblige them to a diligent scrutiny concerning the lesser omissions of this duty in the matter of fame or lesser debts or spiritual restitution or that those unevennesses of account which were but of late transaction may now be regulated and that whatsoever is undone in this matter from what principle soever it proceeds whether of sin or only of forgetfulness or of imperfection may now be made as exact as we can and are obliged and that those excuses which made it reasonable and lawful to defer Restitution as want of opportunity clearness of ability and accidental inconvenience be now laid aside and the action be done or provided for in the midst of all objections and inconvenient circumstances rather than to omit it and hazard to perform it 22. Hither also I reckon resolutions and forward purposes of emendation and greater severity in case God return to us hopes of life which therefore must be re-inforced that we may serve the ends of God and understand all his purposes and make use of every opportunity every sickness laid upon us being with a design of drawing us nearer
death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a Name above every name Thus his present life was a state of merit and work and as a reward of it he was crowned with glory and immortality his Name was exalted his Kingdom glorified he was made the Lord of all the Creatures the first-fruits of the Resurrection the exemplar of glory and the Prince and Head of the Catholick Church and because this was his recompence and the fruits of his Humility and Obedience it is certain it was not a necessary consequence and a natural efflux of the personal union of the Godhead with the Humanity This I discourse to this purpose that we may not in our esteem lessen the suffering of our dearest Lord by thinking he had the supports of actual Glory in the midst of all his Sufferings For there is no one minute or ray of Glory but its fruition does outweigh and make us insensible of the greatest calamities and the spirit of pain which can be extracted from all the infelicities of this world True it is that the greatest beauties in this world are receptive of an allay of sorrow and nothing can have pleasure in all capacities The most beautious feathers of the birds of Paradise the Estrich or the Peacock if put into our throat are not there so pleasant as to the eye But the beatifick joys of the least glory of Heaven take away all pain wipe away all tears from our eyes and it is not possible that at the same instant the Soul of Jesus should be ravished with Glory and yet abated with pains grievous and 〈◊〉 On the other side some say that the Soul of Jesus upon the Cross suffered the pains of Hell and all the torments of the damned and that without such sufferings it is not imaginable he should pay the price which God's wrath should demand of us But the same that reproves the one does also reprehend the other for the Hope that was the support of the Soul of Jesus as it confesses an imperfection that is not consistent with the state of Glory so it excludes the Despair that is the torment proper to accursed souls Our dearest Lord suffered the whole condition of Humanity Sin only excepted and freed us from Hell with suffering those sad pains and merited Heaven for his own Humanity as the Head and all faithful people as the Members of his mystical Body And therefore his life here was only a state of pilgrimage not at all trimmed with beatifick glories Much less was he ever in the state of Hell or upon the Cross felt the formal misery and spirit of torment which is the 〈◊〉 of damned spirits because it was impossible Christ should despair and without Despair it is impossible there should be a Hell But this is highly probable that in the intension of degrees and present anguish the Soul of our Lord might feel a greater load of wrath than is incumbent in every instant upon perishing souls For all the sadness which may be imagined to be in Hell consists in acts produced from principles that cannot surpass the force of humane or Angelical nature but the pain which our Blessed Lord endured for the expiation of our sins was an issue of an united and concentred anger was received into the heart of God and Man and was commensurate to the whole latitude of the Grace Patience and Charity of the Word incarnate The Crucisixion Mark 15 25. Erat autem Hora tertia crucifixerunt eum Mark 15 25. And is was the third houre they crucified him The takeing down from the Cross. Luk. 23 50 And there was a man named Ioseph a Counsellour he was a good man a lust y e same had not consented to y e counsell deed of them 52. This man went unto Pilate begged y e Body of Iesus 53 And he took it down wrapped it in linen layd it in a Sepulehre that was hewn in stone wherein never man before was layd 6. And now behold the Priest and the Sacrifice of all the world laid upon the Altar of the Cross bleeding and tortured and dying to reconcile his Father to us and he was arrayed with ornaments more glorious than the robes of Aaron The Crown of Thorns was his Mitre the Cross his Pastoral staffe the Nails piercing his hands were in stead of Rings the ancient ornament of Priests and his flesh rased and checker'd with blew and bloud in stead of the parti-coloured Robe But as this object calls for our Devotion our Love and Eucharist to our dearest Lord so it must needs irreconcile us to Sin which in the eye of all the world brought so great shame and pain and amazement upon the Son of God when he only became engaged by a charitable substitution of himself in our place and therefore we are assured by the demonstration of sense and experience it will bring death and all imaginable miseries as the just expresses of God's indignation and hatred for to this we may apply the words of our Lord in the prediction of miseries to Jerusalem If this be done in the green tree what shall be done in the dry For it is certain Christ infinitely pleased his Father even by becoming the person made 〈◊〉 in estimate of Law and yet so great Charity of our Lord and the so great love and pleasure of his Father exempted him not from suffering pains intolerable and much less shall those escape who provoke and displease God and despise so great Salvation which the Holy Jesus hath wrought with the expence of bloud and so precious a life 7. But here we see a great representation and testimony of the Divine Justice who was so angry with sin who had so severely threatned it who does so essentially hate it that he would not spare his only Son when he became a conjunct person relative to the guilt by undertaking the charges of our Nature For although God hath set down in holy Scripture the order of his Justice and the manner of its manifestation that one Soul shall not perish for the sins of another yet this is meant for Justice and for Mercy too that is he will not curse the Son for the Father's fault or in any relation whatsoever substitute one person for another to make him involuntarily guilty But when this shall be desired by a person that cannot finally perish and does a mercy to the exempt persons and is a voluntary act of the suscipient and shall in the event also redound to an infinite good it is no deflection from the Divine Justice to excuse many by the affliction of one who also for that very suffering shall have infinite compensation We see that for the sin of Cham all his posterity were accursed the Subjects of David died with the Plague because their Prince numbred the people Idolatry is punished in the children of the fourth generation
shame and unworthiness he submitted to the death of the Cross and by his voluntary acceptation and tacite volition of it made it equivalent to as great a punishment of his own susception he shewed an incomparable modesty begging but for a remembrance only he knew himself so sinful he durst ask no more he reproved the other Thief for Blasphemy he confessed the world to come and owned Christ publickly he prayed to him he hoped in him and pitied him shewing an excellent Patience in this sad condition And in this I consider that besides the excellency of some of these acts and the goodness of all the like occasion for so exemplar Faith never can occur and until all these things shall in these circumstances meet in any one man he must not hope for so safe an Exit after an evil life 〈◊〉 the confidence of this example But now Christ had the key of Paradise in his hand and God blessed the good Thief with this opportunity of letting him in who at another time might have waited longer and been tied to harder conditions And indeed it is very probable that he was much advantaged by the intervening accident of dying at the same time with Christ there being a natural compassion produced in us towards the partners of our miseries For Christ was not void of humane passions though he had in them no imperfection or irregularity and therefore might be invited by the society of misery the rather to admit him to participate his joys and S. Paul proves him to be a merciful high Priest because he was touched with a feeling of our infirmities the first expression of which was to this blessed Thief Christ and he together sate at the Supper of bitter herbs and Christ payed his symbol promising that he should that day be together with him in Paradise 12. By the Cross of Christ stood the Holy Virgin Mother upon whom old Simeon's Prophecy was now verified for now she felt a sword passing through her very soul she stood without clamour and womanish noises sad silent and with a modest grief deep as the waters of the abysse but smooth as the face of a pool full of Love and Patience and Sorrow and Hope Now she was put to it to make use of all those excellent discourses her Holy Son had used to build up her spirit and fortifie it against this day Now she felt the blessings and strengths of Faith and she passed from the griefs of the Passion to the expectation of the Resurrection and she rested in this Death as in a sad remedy for she knew it reconciled God with all the World But her Hope drew a veil before her Sorrow and though her Grief was great enough to swallow her up yet her Love was greater and did swallow up her grief But the Sun also had a veil upon his face and taught us to draw a curtain before the Passion which would be the most artificial expression of its greatness whilest by silence and wonder we confess it great beyond our expression or which is all one great as the burthen and baseness of our sins And with this veil drawn before the face of Jesus let us suppose him at the gates of Paradise calling with his last words in a loud voice to have them opened that the King of glory might come in The PRAYER O Holy Jesus who for our sakes didst suffer incomparable anguish and pains commensurate to thy Love and our Miseries which were infinite that thou mightest purchase for 〈◊〉 blessings upon Earth and an inheritance in Heaven dispose us by Love Thankfulness Humility and Obedience to receive all the benefit of thy Passion granting unto us and thy whole Church remission of all our sins integrity of mind health of body competent maintenance peace in our days a temperate air fruitfulness of the earth unity and integrity of Faith extirpation of Heresies reconcilements of Schisms destruction of all wicked counsels intended against us and bind the hands of Rapine and Sacriledge that they may not destroy the vintage and root up the Vine it self Multiply thy Blessings upon us sweetest Jesus increase in us true Religion sincere and actual devotion in our Prayers Patience in troubles and whatsoever is necessary to our Soul's health or conducing to thy Glory Amen II. O Dearest Saviour I adore thy mercies and thy incomparable love expressed in thy so voluntary susception and affectionate suffering such horrid and sad Tortures which cannot be remembred without a sad compassion the waters of bitterness entred into thy Soul and the storms of Death and thy Father's anger broke thee all in pieces and what shall I do who by my sins have so tormented my dearest Lord what Contrition can be great enough what tears sufficiently expressive what hatred and detestation of my crimes can be equal and commensurate to those sad accidents which they have produced Pity me O Lord pity me dearest God turn those thy merciful eyes towards me O most merciful Redeemer for my sins are great like unto thy Passion full of sorrow and shame and a burthen too great for me to bear Lord who hast done so much for me now only speak the word and thy servant shall be whole Let thy Wounds heal me thy Vertues amend me thy Death quicken me that I in this life suffering the cross of a sad and salutary Repentance in the union and merits of thy 〈◊〉 and Passion may die with thee and rest with thee and rise again with thee and live with thee for ever in the possession of thy Glories O dearest Saviour Jesus Amen SECT XVI Of the Resurrection and Ascension of JESUS The Burial of Iesus Mat 27 57 When the even was come there came a rich man of Arimathea named Jo seph who also himself was Jesus Disciple he went to Pilate beggd the body of Jesus Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered And when Ioseph had taken the body he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth layd it in his own new tomb which he had hewen out in y e rock The Resurrection of Iesus Mat 28 2 And behold there was a great earthquake for the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven came rolled back y e stone from the doore and sate upon it And for feare of him the keepers did shake became as dead men And the Angel sayd unto the woman Fear not ye for I know that ye seek Iesus that was crucified He is not here for he is Risen as he sayd 1. WHile it was yet early in the morning upon the first day of the week Mary Magdalen and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought sweet spices to the Sepulchre that they might again embalm the Holy Body for the rites of Embalming among the Hebrews used to last forty days and their love was not satisfied with what Joseph had done They therefore hastned to the grave and after they had expended their money and bought the
parent of as great Religion as the good women make their fancy their softness and their passion 12. Our Blessed Lord appeared next to Simon and though he and John ran forthtogether and S. John outran Simon although Simon Peter had denied and forsworn his Lord and S. John never did and followed him to his Passion and his death yet Peter had the savour of seeing Jesus first Which some Spiritual persons understand as a testimony that penitent 〈◊〉 have accidental eminences and priviledges sometimes 〈◊〉 to them beyond the temporal graces of the just and innocent as being such who not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the remanent and inherent evils even of repented sins and their aptnesses to relapse but also because those who are true Penitents who understand the infiniteness of the Divine mercy and that for a sinner to pass from death to 〈◊〉 from the state of sin into pardon and the state of Grace is a greater gift and a more excellent and improbable mutation than for a just man to be taken into glory out of gratitude to God and indearment 〈◊〉 so great a change added to a fear of returning to such danger and misery will re-enforce all their industry and double their study and 〈◊〉 more diligently and watch more carefully and redeem the 〈◊〉 and make amends for their omissions and oppose a good to the former evils beside the duties of the 〈◊〉 imployment and then commonly the life of a holy Penitent is more holy active zealous and impatient of Vice and more rapacious of Vertue and holy actions and arises to greater 〈◊〉 of Sanctity than the even and moderate affections of just persons who as our Blessed Saviour's expression is 〈◊〉 no Repentance that is no change of state nothing but a perseverance and an improvement of degrees There is more joy in heaven before the Angels of God over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 than 〈◊〉 ninety nine just persons that need it not for where sin hath abounded there doth grace super abound and that makes joy in Heaven 13. The Holy Jesus having received the affections of his most passionate Disciples the women and S. 〈◊〉 puts himself upon the way into the company of two good men going to Emmaus with troubled spirits and a reeling faith shaking all its upper building but leaving some of its foundation firm To them the Lord discourses of the necessity of the Death and Resurrection of the 〈◊〉 and taught them not to take estimate of the counsels of God by the designs and proportions of man for God by ways contrary to humane judgment brings to pass the purposes of his eternal Providence The glories of Christ were not made pompous by humane circumstances his Kingdom was spiritual he was to enter into Felicities through the gates of Death he refused to do Miracles before 〈◊〉 and yet did them before the people he confuted his accusers by silence and did not descend from the Cross when they offered to believe in him if he would but 〈◊〉 them to be perswaded by greater arguments of his power the miraculous circumstances of his Death and the glories of his Resurrection and by walking in the secret paths of Divine election hath commanded us to adore his footsteps to admire and revere his Wisdom to be satisfied with all the events of Providence and to rejoyce in him if by Afflictions he makes us holy if by Persecutions he supports and enlarges his Church if by Death he brings us to life so we arrive at the communion of his Felicities we must let him chuse the way it being sufficient that he is our guide and our support and our exceeding great reward For therefore Christ preached to the two Disciples going to 〈◊〉 the way of the Cross and the necessity of that passage that the wisdom of God might be glorified and the conjectures of man ashamed But whilest his discourse lasted they knew him not but in the breaking of bread he discovered himself For he turned their meal into a Sacrament and their darkness to light and having to his Sermon added the Sacrament opened all their discerning faculties the eyes of their body and their understanding too to represent to us that when we are blessed with the opportunities of both those instruments we want no exteriour assistence to guide us in the way to the knowing and enjoying of our Lord. 14. But the Apparitions which Jesus made were all upon the design of laying the foundation of all Christian Graces for the begetting and establishing Faith and an active Confidence in their persons and building them up on the great fundamentals of the Religion And therefore he appointed a general meeting upon a mountain in Galilee that the number of witnesses might not only disseminate the same but establish the Article of the Resurrection for upon that are built all the hopes of a Christian and if the dead rise not then are we of all men most miserable in quitting the present possessions and entertaining injuries and affronts without hopes of reparation But we lay two gages in several repositories the Body in the bosome of the earth the Soul in the 〈◊〉 of God and as we here live by Faith and lay them down with hope so the 〈◊〉 is a restitution of them both and a state of re-union And therefore although the glory of our spirits without the body were joy great enough to make compensation for mere than the troubles of all the world yet because one shall not be glorified without the other they being of themselves incomplete substances and God having revealed nothing clearly concerning actual and complete felicities till the day of Judgment when it is promised our bodies shall rise therefore it is that the Resurrection is the great Article upon which we rely and which Christ took so much care to prove and ascertain to so many persons because if that should be disbelieved with which all our felicities are to be received we have nothing to establish our Faith or entertain our Hope or satisfie our desires or make retribution for that state of secular inconveniences in which by the necessities of our nature and the humility and patience of our Religion we are engaged 15. But I consider that holy Scripture onely instructs us concerning the life of this world and the life of the Resurrection the life of Grace and the life of Glory both in the body that is a life of the whole man and whatsoever is spoken of the Soul considers it as an essential part of man relating to his whole constitution not as it is of it self an intellectual and separate substance for all its actions which are separate and removed from the body are relative and incomplete Now because the Soul is an incomplete substance and created in relation to the Body and is but a part of the whole man if the Body were as eternal and incorruptible as the Soul yet the separation of the one from the other would be
helped by none comforted by none and he makes himself a companion of Devils to everlasting ages but in the judgment of Repentance and Tribunal of the Church the penitent sinner is prayed for by a whole army of militant Saints and causes joy to all the Church triumphant And to establish this Tribunal in the Church and to transmit pardon to penitent sinners and a salutary judgment upon the person and the crime and to appoint Physicians and Guardians of the Soul was one of the designs and mercies of the Resurrection of Jesus And let not any Christian man either by false opinion or an unbelieving spirit or an incurious apprehension undervalue or neglect this ministery which Christ hath so sacredly and solemnly established Happy is he that dashes his sins against the rock upon which the Church is built that the Church gathering up the planks and fragments of the shipwreck and the shivers of the broken heart may re-unite them pouring Oil into the wounds made by the blows of sin and restoring with meekness gentleness care counsel and authority persons overtaken in a fault For that act of Ministery is not ineffectual which God hath promised shall be ratified in Heaven and that Authority is not contemptible which the Holy Jesus conveyed by breathing upon his Church the Holy Ghost But Christ intended that those whom he had made Guides of our Souls and Judges of our Consciences in order to counsel and ministerial pardon should also be used by us in all cases of our Souls and that we go to Heaven the way he hath appointed that is by offices and ministeries Ecclesiastical 17. When our Blessed Lord had so confirmed the Faith of the Church and appointed an Ecclesiastical Ministery he had but one work more to do upon earth and that was the Institution of the holy Sacrament of Baptism which he ordained as a solemn Initiation and mysterious Profession of the Faith upon which the Church is built making it a solemn Publication of our Profession the rite of Stipulation or entring Covenant with our Lord the solemnity of the Paction Evangelical in which we undertake to be Disciples to the Holy Jesus that is to believe his Doctrine to fear his Threatnings to rely upon his Promises and to obey his Commandments all the days of our life and he for his part actually performs much and promises more he takes off all the guilt of our preceding days purging our Souls and making them clean as in the day of innocence promising withall that if we perform our undertaking and remain in the state in which he now puts us he will continually assist us with his Spirit prevent and attend us with his Grace he will deliver us from the power of the Devil he will keep our Souls in merciful joyful and safe custody till the great Day of the Lord he will then raise our Bodies from the Grave he will make them to be spiritual and immortal he will re-unite them to our Souls and beatifie both Bodies and Souls in his own Kingdom admitting them into eternal and unspeakable glories All which that he might verifie and prepare respectively in the presence of his Disciples he ascended into the bosome of God and the eternal comprehensions of celestial Glory The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesus who hast overcome Death and triumphed over all the powers of Hell Darkness Sin and the Grave manifesting the truth of thy Promises the power of thy Divinity the majesty of thy Person the rewards of thy Glory and the mercies and excellent designs of thy Evangelical Kingdom by thy glorious and powerful Resurrection preserve my Soul from eternal death and make me to rise from the death of Sin and to live the life of Grace loving thy Perfections adoring thy Mercy pursuing the interest of thy Kingdom being united to the Church under thee our Head conforming to thy holy Laws established in Faith entertained and confirmed with a modest humble and certain Hope and sanctified by Charity that I engraving thee in my heart and submitting to thee in my spirit and imitating thee in thy glorious example may be partaker of thy Resurrection which is my hope and my desire the support of my Faith the object of my Joy and the strength of my Confidence In thee Holy Jesus do I trust I confess thy Faith I believe all that thou hast taught I desire to perform all thy injunctions and my own undertaking my Soul is in thy hand do thou support and guide it and pity my infirmities and when thou shalt reveal thy great Day shew to me the mercies and effects of thy Advocation and Intercession and Redemption Thou shalt answer for me O Lord my God for in thee have I trusted let me never be confounded Thou art just thou 〈◊〉 merciful thou art gracious and compassionate thou hast done miracles and prodigies of favour to me and all the world Let not those great actions and sufferings be ineffective but make me capable and receptive of thy Mercies and then I am certain to receive them I am thine O save me thou art mine O Holy Jesus O dwell with me for ever and let me dwell with thee adoring and praising the eternal glories of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen THE END 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE TABLE OF The Life of CHRIST Where are more Numbers than one the first Number denotes the Page the latter the Number of the Section A. ABsolution of dying Persons of what benefit 407. 23. Whether to be given to all that desire it 408. 24. Acceptable Year of the Lord what it means 186. 22. Actions of Jesus confuted his Accusers 390. 2. Acts of Vertue to be done by sick and dying Persons 405 406. 19 20. Accusation of Criminals not to be aggravated odiously 393. 8. It ought to be onely for purposes of Charity ibid. Accusation of innocent persons ought to be born patiently by the innocent 393. 9. Accusation of Jesus 352. 24. Adam buried in Golgotha 354. 31. Adoption of Sons 316. 7. Advent of our Lord must be entertained with joy 156. 3. Adultery made more criminal under the Gospel than under the Law 249. 37 c. Adultery of the eyes 250. 36. Adrian the Emperour built a Temple to Venus and Adonis in the place of Christ's Birth 14. 6. Agony of Jesus in the Garden 350. 20. Agesilaus was more commended for his modesty and obedience than for his prosperous good Conduct 50. 25. Albes or white garments wore by the Church and why 393. 9 10. Alms intended for a defensative against Covetousness 258. 1. Ordinarily to be according to our ability ibid. Sometimes beyond in what cases ibid. Necessities of all indigent people are the object of our Alms 259. 3. Manner of Alms an office of Christian prudence ibid. The two Altars in Solomon's Temple what they did represent 83. 4. Ambitious seeking Ecclesiastical Dignities very criminal 96. 2. Ambition is
in Sickness or suffered how far 404. 18. Predestination to be searched for in the Books of Scripture and Conscience 313. It is God's great Secret not to be inquired into curiously ibid. It was revealed to the Apostles concerning their own particulars and how ibid. It was conditional ibid. The ground of true Joy 223. 17. To be estimated above Priviledges ibid. Phavorinus his Discourse concerning enquiring into Fortunes 313. 2. Preparation to the Lord's Supper 374. 11. Of two sorts viz. of Necessity and of Ornament 365. A Duty of unlimited time ibid. Preparation to Death no other but a holy Life 397. 1. Parables 292. 10. 326. 25. 323. 345. Pilate's usage and deportment towards Jesus 395. 352. 26. He broke the Jewish and Tiberian Law in the Execution of Jesus 352. 28. Sent to Rome by Vitellius 395. 12. Banished to Vienna ibid. Killed himself ibid. Prayer of Jesus in the Garden made excellent by all the requisites of Prayer 384. 4. Prelates are Shepherds and Fishers 330. Their Duty and Qualifications ibid. 153. Pride incident to spiritual Persons 100. 88. Gifts extraordinary ought not to make us proud 156. Promise to God and Swearing by him in the matter of Vows is all one 269. 20. Promises made to single Graces not effectual but in conjunction with all parts of our Duty 218. Promises Temporal do also belong to the Gospel 302. Pierre Calceon condemned the Pucelle of France 337. 4. Peter rebuked for fighting 322. 21. Rebuked the saying of his Lord concerning the Passion 321. 10. He was sharply reproved for it ibid. 358. 2. He received the power of the Keys for himself and his Successors in the Apostolate 322. 324. Denied his Master 351. 23. Repented ibid. 391. Prophets must avoid suspicion of Incontinence 189. 4. Prophecy of Jesus 349. Prudence of a Christian described 156. Piety an excellent disposition to justifying Faith 190. Publican an Office of Honour among the Romans 185. 18. Hated by the Jews and Greeks ibid. Prejudice an enemy to Religion 189. It brings a Curse ibid. Publick fame a Rule of Honour 172. Purity Evangelical described 228. It s Act and Reward ibid. Q. QUarrel between Jews and Samaritans 182. The ground of it ibid. Question of Original Sin stated in order to Practice 38. 4. 296. 3. Questions Whether we are bound to suffer Death or Imprisonment rather than break a Humane Law 47. 21. Whether Christ did truly or in appearance onely increase in Wisdome 74. 5. Whether is more advantage to Piety a retired and contemplative or a publick and active Life 80. 5 6. Whether way of serving God is better the way of 〈◊〉 or the way of Affections 42. 8. 424. 11. Whether Faith of Ignorant persons produced by insufficient Arguments be acceptable 157. 7. 159. Whether purposes of good Life upon our Death-bed can be 〈◊〉 212. 39. How long time must Repentance of an evil Life begin before our Death 217. 48. Whether we be always bound to do absolutely the best thing 234. 11. Whether it be lawful for Christians to swear 238. 18. Whether it be lawful to swear by a Creature in such cases wherein it is permitted to swear by God 241. 23. Whether a Virgin may not kill a Ravisher 255. 7. Whether it be lawful to pray for Revenge 257. 10. Whether it be lawful for Christians to go to Law and in what cases 255. 8. Whether actual Intention in our Prayers be simply necessary 267. 16. Whether is better Publick or Private Prayer 270. 22. 75. Whether is better Vocal or Mental Prayer 270. 23. Whether a Christian ought to be or can be in this Life ordinarily certain of Salvation 313. Whether a thing in its own nature indifferent is to be thrown off if it have been abused to Superstition 330. 6. Whether it be lawful to fight a Dùell 253. 5 6 c. Whether men be to be kept from receiving the Sacrament for private Sins 376. 13. Whether is better to communicate often or seldom 378. 18. Whether a Death-bed Penitent after a wicked Life is to be absolved if he desires it 403. 13. Whether the same Person is to be communicated 407. 23. Whether Christ was in the state of Comprehension during his Passion 413. 414. Whether Christ suffered the pains of Hell upon the Cross ibid. How the Divine Justice could consist with Punishing the innocent Jesus 415. 7 8. Whether Saints enjoy the 〈◊〉 Vision before the Day of Judgment 423. 429. 15. R. RAshness an enemy to good Counsels and happy Events 11. Religion as excellent in its silent Affections as in its exteriour Actions 4. 30. Religion its Comforts and Refreshments 58. When necessary ibid. Not greedily to be sought after 100. 11 12. Vide Spiritual Sadness Religion pretended to evil purposes 66. 1. It is a publick Vertue 75. It observes the smallest things 272. It s Pretence does not hallow every Action 170. Religion of Holy Places 171. In differing Religions how the parties are to deme an themselves 187. Ministers of Religion to be content if their Labours be not successful 195. They are to have a Calling from the Church 196. Ought to live well ibid. Religion of a Christian purifies and reigns in the Soul 232. 3. It best serves our Temporal ends 303. Not to be neglected upon pretence of Charity 346. Affections of Religion are estimated by their own Excellency not by the Donative so it be our best 360. 8. Religious Actions to be submitted to the Conduct of spiritual Guides 48. A religious person left a Vision to obey his Orders 49. 25. Religious Actions to be repeated often by Sick and Dying persons 406. Rebellion against Prince and Priest more severely punished than Murmurers against GOD 50. 26. Repentance necessary to humane nature 198. The ends of its Institution 198. Revealed first by Christ as a Law 199. Not allowed in the Law of Moses for greater Crimes ibid. Repentance and Faith the two hands to apprehend Christ ibid. After Baptism not so clearly expressed to be accepted nor upon the same terms as before 199. 201. It is a collection of holy Duties 210. The extirpation of all vicious Habits 210. Described ibid. It is not meerly a Sorrow 211. 36. Nor meerly a Purpose 212. Too late upon our Death-bed 214. Publick Repentance must use the instruments of the Church 218. Must begin immediately after Sin 391. 398. Promoted by the Devil when it is too late 392. 7. Repentance of Esau ibid. Repentance accidentally may have advantages beyond Innocence 391. Repenting often and sinning often and 〈◊〉 changing is a sign of an ill condition 106. Revenues not to be greedily sought for by Ecclesiasticks 71. 9. They are dangerous to all men ib. That the Roman Empire was permitted to the power and management of the Devil the opinion of some 100. 14. How the Righteousness of Christians must exceed the Righteousness of Pharisees 233. Revenge forbidden 245. 253.
the dominion of the Grave nor was it consistent with the justice and goodness of God and especially with those Divine predictions which had expresly foretold he should rise again from the dead David having more particularly foretold That his 〈◊〉 should rest in hope that God would not leave his Soul in Hell neither suffer his holy one to see corruption but would make known to him the ways of life That this prophecy could not be meant concerning David himself by whom it was spoken he having many Ages since been turn'd to ashes his body resolv'd into rottenness and putrefaction his Tomb yet visible among them from whence he never did return that therefore it must needs have been prophetically spoken concerning Christ having never been truly fulfill'd in any but him who both died and was risen again whereof they were witnesses Yea that he was not only risen from the dead but ascended into Heaven and according to David's prediction State down on God's right hand until he made his Enemies his foot-stool which could not be primarily meant of David he never having yet bodily ascended into Heaven that therefore the whole house of Israel ought to believe and take notice that this very Jesus whom they had crucified was the person whom God had appointed to be the Messiah and the Saviour of his Church 4. THIS discourse in every part of it like so many daggers pierc'd them to the heart who thereupon cried out to Peter and his Brethren to know what they should do Peter told them that there was no other way than by an hearty and sincere repentance and a being baptized into the Religion of this crucified Saviour to 〈◊〉 their guilt to obtain pardon of sin and the gifts and benefits of the Holy Ghost That upon these terms the promises of the new Covenant which was ratified by the death of Christ did belong to them and their children and to all that should effectually believe and embrace the Gospel Further pressing and perswading them by doing thus to save themselves from that unavoidable ruine and destruction which this wicked and untoward generation of obstinate unbelieving Jews were shortly to be exposed to The effects of his preaching were strange and wonderful as many as believed were baptized there being that day added to the Church no less than three thousand souls A quick and plentiful harvest the late sufferings of our Saviour as yet fresh bleeding in their memories the present miraculous powers of the Holy Ghost that appeared upon them the zeal of his Auditors though heretofore misplaced and misguided and above all the efficacy of Divine grace contributing to this numerous conversion 5. THOUGH the converting so vast a multitude might justly challenge a place amongst the greatest miracles yet the Apostles began now more particularly to exercise their miraculous power Peter and John going up to the Temple about three of the clock in the afternoon towards the conclusion of one of the solemn hours of prayer for the Jews divided their day into four greater hours each quarter containing three lesser under it three of which were publick and stated times of prayer instituted say they by the three great Patriarchs of their Nation the first from six of the clock in the morning till nine called hence the third hour of the day instituted by Abraham this was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or morning prayer the second from nine till twelve called the sixth hour and this hour of prayer ordain'd by Isaac this was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or mid-day prayer the third from twelve till three in the afternoon called the ninth hour appointed by Jacob called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or evening prayer and at this hour it was that these two Apostles went up to the Temple where they found a poor impotent Cripple who though above forty years old had been lame from his Birth lying at the beautiful Gate of the Temple and asking an Alms of them Peter earnestly looking on him told him he had no money to give him but that he would give him that which was a great deal better restore him to his health and lifting him up by the hand commanded him in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth to rise up and walk The word was no sooner said than the thing was done Immediately the Nerves and Sinews were inlarged and the Joynts returned to their proper use The man standing up went into the Temple walking leaping and praising God The beholding so suddain and extraordinary a Cure begot great admiration in the minds of the People whose curiosity drew them to the Apostles to see those who had been the Authors of it Which Peter taking notice of began to discourse to them to this effect That there was no reason they should wonder at them as if by their own skill and art they had wrought this Cure it being intirely done in the Name of their crucified Master by the Power of that very Christ that Holy and Just Person whom they themselves had denyed and delivered up to Pilate and preferred a Rebel and a Murtherer before him when his Judge was resolved to acquit him and that though they had put him to death yet that they were witnesses that God had raised him up again and that He was gone to Heaven where he must remain till the times of the General Restitution That he presumed that this in them as also in their Rulers was in a great measure the effect of ignorance and the not being throughly convinced of the Greatness and Divinity of his Person which yet God made use of for the bringing about his Wife and Righteous Designs the accomplishing of what he had foretold concerning Christ's Person and Sufferings by Moses and Samuel and all the holy Prophets which had been 〈◊〉 the World began That therefore it was now high time for them to repent and turn to God that their great wickedness might be expiated and that when Christ should shortly come in Judgment upon the Jewish Nation it might be a time of comfort and refreshing to them what would be of vengeance and destruction to other men that they were the peculiar persons to whom the blessings of the promises did primarily appertain and unto whom God in the first place sent his Son that he might derive his blessing upon them by turning them away from their iniquities While Peter was thus discoursing to the People in one place we may suppose that John was preaching to them in another and the success was answerable The Apostles cast out the seed and God immediately gave the increase There being by this means no 〈◊〉 than Five Thousand brought over to the Faith though'tis possible the whole Body of Believers might be comprehended in that Number 6. WHILE the Apostles were thus Preaching the Priests and Sadducees who particularly appeared in this business as being enemies to all tumults or what ever might disturb their present ease and quiet the only
justified upon terms of perfect and intire obedience there is now no other way but this That the promise by the Faith of Christ be given to all them that believe i. e. this Evangelical method of justifying sincere believers Besides the Jewish Oeconomy was deficient in pardoning sin and procuring the grace and favour of God it could only awaken the knowledge of sin not remove the guilt of it It was not possible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should take away sin all the 〈◊〉 of the Mosaick Law were no further available for the pardon of sin than merely as they were founded in and had respect to that great sacrifice and expiation which was to be made for the sins of mankind by the death of the Son of God The Priests though they daily ministred and oftentimes offered the same sacrifices yet could they never take away sins No that was reserved for a better and a higher sacrifice even that of our Lord himself who after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God having completed that which the repeated sacrifices of the Law could never effect So that all men being under guilt and no justification where there was no remission the Jewish Oeconomy being in it self unable to pardon was incapable to justifie This S. Paul elsewhere declared in an open Assembly before Jews and Gentiles Be it known unto you men and brethren that through this man Christ Jesus is preached unto you forgiveness of sins And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses 13. FOURTHLY He proves that Justification by the Mosaick Law could not stand with the death of Christ the necessity of whose death and sufferings it did plainly evacuate and take away For if righteousness come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain If the Mosaical performances be still necessary to our Justification then certainly it was to very little purpose and altogether unbecoming the wisdom and goodness of God to send his own Son into the World to do so much for us and to suffer such exquisite pains and tortures Nay he tells them that while they persisted in this fond obstinate opinion all that Christ had done and suffered could be of no advantage to them Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not again intangled in the yoke of bondage the bondage and servitude of the Mosaick rites Behold 〈◊〉 Paul solemnly say unto you That if you be Circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing For I testifie again to every man that is Circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole Law Christ is become of none effect to you whosoever of you are justified by the Law ye are fallen from grace The summ of which argument is That whoever lay the stress of their Justification upon Circumcision and the observances of the Law do thereby declare themselves to be under an obligation of perfect obedience to all that the Law requires of them and accordingly supersede the vertue and efficacy of Christ's death and disclaim all right and title to the grace and favour of the Gospel For since Christ's death is abundantly sufficient to attain its ends whoever takes in another plainly renounces that and rests upon that of his own chusing By these ways of reasoning 't is evident what the Apostle drives at in all his discourses about this matter More might have been observed had I not thought that these are sufficient to render his design especially to the unprejudiced and impartial obvious and plain enough 14. LASTLY That S. Paul's discourses about Justification and Salvation do immediately refer to the controversie between the Orthodox and Judaizing Christians appears hence that there was no other controversie then on foot but concerning the way of Justification whether it was by the observation of the Law of Moses or only of the Gospel and the Law of Christ. For we must needs suppose that the Apostle wrote with a primary respect to the present state of things and so as they whom he had to deal with might and could not but understand him Which yet would have been impossible for them to have done had he intended them for the controversies which have since been bandied with so much zeal and fierceness and to give countenance to those many nice and subtil propositions those curious and elaborate schemes which some men in these later Ages have drawn of these matters 15. FROM the whole discourse two Consectaries especially plainly follow I. Consect That works of Evangelical obedience are not opposed to Faith in Justification By works of Evangelical obedience I mean such Christian duties as are the fruits not of our own power and strength but God's Spirit done by the assistance of his grace And that these are not opposed to Faith is undeniably evident in that as we observed before Faith as including the new nature and the keeping God's commands is made the usual condition of Justification Nor can it be otherwise when other graces and vertues of the Christian life are made the terms of pardon and acceptance with Heaven and of our title to the merits of Christ's death and the great promise of eternal life Thus Repentance which is not so much a single Act as a complex body of Christian duties Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out So Charity and forgiveness of others Forgive if ye have ought against any that your Father also which is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses For if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father also will forgive you But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive yours Sometimes Evangelical obedience in general God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him If we walk in the light as God is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the bloud of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin What priviledge then has Faith above other graces in this matter are we justified by Faith We are pardoned and accepted with God upon our repentance charity and other acts of Evangelical obedience Is Faith opposed to the works of the Mosaick Law in Justification so are works of Evangelical obedience Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God Does Faith give glory to God and set the crown upon his head Works of Evangelical obedience are equally the effects of Divine grace both preventing and assisting of us and indeed are not so much our works as his So that the glory of all must needs be intirely resolved into the grace of God nor can any
God has made them Authentick and consecrated them part of the holy Canon 6. BEING thus satisfied in the Canonicalness of this Epistle none but S. Jude could be the Author of it for who but he was the Brother of S. James a character by which he is described in the Evangelical story more than once Grotius indeed will needs have it written by a younger Jude the fifteenth Bishop of Jerusalem in the reign of Adrian and because he saw that that passage the Brother of James stood full in his way he concludes without any shadow of reason that it was added by some Transcriber But is not this to make too bold with Sacred things is not this to indulge too great a liberty this once allowed 't will soon open a door to the wildest and most extravagant conjectures and no man shall know where to find sure-sooting for his Faith But the Reader may remember what we have elsewhere observed concerning the Posthume Annotations of that learned man Not to say that there are many things in this Epistle that evidently refer to the time of this Apostle and imply it to have been written upon the same occasion and about the same time with the second Epistle of Peter between which and this there is a very great affinity both in words and matter nay there want not some that endeavour to prove this Epistle to have been written no less than twenty seven years before that of Peter and that hence it was that Peter borrowed those passages that are so near a-kin to those in this Epistle The design of the Epistle is to preserve Christians from the infection of Gnosticism the loose and debauched principles vented by Simon Magus and his followers whose wretched doctrines and practises he briefly and elegantly represents perswading Christians heartily to contend for the Faith that had been delivered to them and to avoid these pernicious Seducers as pests and fire-brands not to communicate with them in their sins lest they perished with them in that terrible vengeance that was ready to overtake them The End of S. Jude's Life THE LIFE OF S. MATTHIAS S. MATHIAS He preached the Gospell in Ethiopia suffered Martyrdome and was buried there S. Hierom. St. Matthias his Martyrdom Hebr. 11 37. They were stoned they were sawn asunder they were tempted were slain with the sword S. Matthias one of the Seventy Judas Iscariot whence A bad Minister nulls not the ends of his ministration His worldly and covetous temper His monstrous ingratitude His betraying his Master and the aggravations of the sin The distraction and horror of his mind The miserable state of an evil and guilty Conscience His violent death The election of a new Apostle The Candidates who The Lot cast upon Matthias His preaching the Gospel and in what parts of the World His Martyrdom when where and how His Body whither translated The Gospel and Traditions vented under his name 1. SAINT Matthias not being an Apostle of the first Election immediately called and chosen by our Saviour particular remarks concerning him are not to be expected in the History of the Gospel He was one of our Lord's Disciples and probably one of the Seventy that had attended on him the whole time of his publick Ministry and after his death was elected into the Apostleship upon this occasion Judas Iscariot so called probably from the place of his nativity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of Kerioth a City anciently situate in the Tribe of Judah had been one of the Twelve immediately called by Christ to be one of his intimate Disciples equally impowered and commissioned with the rest to Preach and work Miracles was numbred with them and had obtained part of their Ministry And yet all this while was a man of vile and corrupt designs branded with no meaner a character than Thief and Murderer To let us see that there may be bad servants in Christ's own family and that the wickedness of a Minister does not evacuate his Commission nor render his Office useless and ineffectual The unworthiness of the instrument hinders not the ends of the ministration Seeing the efficacy of an ordinance depends not upon the quality of the person but the Divine institution and the blessing which God has entailed upon it Judas preached Christ no doubt with zeal and fervency and for any thing we know with as much success as the rest of the Apostles and yet he was a bad man a man acted by 〈◊〉 and mean designs one that had prostituted Religion and the honour of his place to covetousness and evil arts The love of money had so intirely possessed his thoughts that his resolutions were bound for nothing but interest and advantage But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare This covetous temper betrayed him as in the issue to the most fatal end so to the most desperate attempt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Origen calls the putting Christ to death the most prodigious impiety that the Sun ever shone on the betraying his innocent Lord into the hands of those who he knew would treat him with all the circumstances of insolent scorn and cruelty How little does kindness work upon a disingenuous mind It was not the honour of the place to which when thousands of others were passed by our Lord had called him the admitting him into a free and intimate fellowship with his person the taking him to be one of his peculiar domesticks and attendants that could divert the wretch from his wicked purpose He knew how desirous the great men of the Nation were to get Christ into their hands especially at the time of the Passeover that he might with the more publick disgrace 〈◊〉 sacrificed before all the people and therefore bargains with them and for no greater a summ than under four pounds to betray the Lamb of God into the paws of these Wolves and Lions In short he heads the party conducts the Officers and sees him delivered into their hands 2. BUT there 's an active principle in man's breast that seldom suffers daring sinners to pass in quiet to their Graves Awakened with the horror of the fact conscience began to rouze and follow close and the man was unable to bear up under the furious revenges of his own mind As indeed all wilful and deliberate sins and especially the guilt of bloud are wont more sensibly to alarm the natural notions of our minds and to excite in us the fears of some present vengeance that will seise upon us And how intolerable are those scourges that lash us in this vital and tender part The spirit of the man sinks under him and all supports snap asunder As what case or comfort can he enjoy that carries a Vultur in his bosom always gnawing and preying upon his heart Which made Plutarch compare an evil Conscience to a Cancer in the breast that perpetually gripes and stings the Soul with the pains of an intolerable
Anger is an explication and more severe commentary upon the Sixth Commandment it is more than probable that this Anger to which condemnation is threatned is such an Anger as hath entertained something of mischief in the spirit And this agrees well enough with the former interpretation save that it affirms no degree of anger to be criminal as to the height of condemnation unless it be with a thought of violence or desires of revenge the other degrees receiving their heightnings and declensions as they keep their distance or approach to this And besides by not limiting or giving caution concerning the cause it restrains the malice only or the degree but it permits other causes of anger to be innocent besides those spiritual and moral of the interests of God's glory and Religion But this is also true which soever of the readings be retained For the irascible faculty having in nature an object proper to its constitution and natural design if our anger be commenced upon an object naturally troublesome the anger is very natural and no-where said to be irregular And he who is angry with a servant's unwariness or inadvertency or the remisness of a child's spirit and application to his studies or on any sudden displeasure is not in any sense guilty of prevaricating the Sixth Commandment unless besides the object he adds an inequality of degree or unhandsome circumstance or adjunct And possibly it is not in the nature of man to be strict in discipline if the prohibitions of Anger be confined only to causes of Religion and it were hard that such an Anger which is innocent in all effects and a good instrument of Government should become criminal and damnable because some instances of displeasure are in actions not certainly and apparently sinful So that our Blessed Saviour forbidding us to be angry without a cause means such causes which are not only irregularities in Religion but 〈◊〉 in manners and an Anger may be religious and political and oeconomical according as it meets with objects proper to it in several kinds It is sometimes necessary that a man carry a tempest in his face and a rod in his hand but for ever let him have a smooth mind or at least under command and within the limits of Reason and Religion that he may steer securely and avoid the rocks of sin for then he may reprove a friend that did amiss or chastise an offending son or correct a vicious servant The summe is this There are no other bounds to hallow or to allow and legitimate Anger but that 1. The cause be Religion or matter of Government 2. That the degree of the Anger in prudent accounts be no bigger than the cause 3. That if it goes forth it be not expressed in any action of uncharitableness or unseasonable violence 4. Whether it goes forth or abides at home it must not dwell long any-where nor abide in the form of a burning coal but at the most of a thin flame thence passing into air salutary and gentle fit to breath but not to blast There is this onely nicety to be observed That although an Anger arising for Religion or in the matter of 〈◊〉 cannot innocently abide long yet it may abide till it hath passed forth into its proper and temperate expression whether of reprehension or chastisement and then it must sit down But if the Anger arises from another cause provided it be of it self innocent not sinful in the object or cause the passion in its first spring is also innocent because it is 〈◊〉 and on the sudden unavoidable but this must be suppressed within and is not permitted to express it self at all for in that degree in which it goes out of the mouth or through the eyes or from the hand in that degree it is violent ought to be corrected and restrained for so that passion was intended to be turned into vertue For this passion is like its natural parent or instrument And if Choler keeps in its proper seat it is an instrument of digestion but if it goes forth into the stranger regions of the body it makes a Fever and this Anger which commences upon natural causes though so far as it is natural it must needs be innocent yet when any consent of the will comes to it or that it goes forth in any action or voluntary signification it also becomes criminal Such an Anger is only permitted to be born and die but it must never take nourishment or exercise any act of life 33. But if that prohibition be 〈◊〉 then it is certain the analogy of the Commandment of which this is an explication refers it to Revenge or Malice it is an Anger that is Wrath an Anger of Revenge or Injury which is here prohibited And I add this consideration That since it is certain that Christ intended this for an explication of the prohibition of Homicide the clause of without cause seems less natural and proper For it would intimate that though anger of Revenge is forbidden when it is rash and unreasonable yet that there might be a cause of being angry with a purpose of revenge and recompence and that in such a case it is permitted to them to whom in all other it is denied that is to private persons which is against the meekness and charity of the Gospel More reasonable it is that as no man might kill his Brother in Moses's Law by his own private authority so an Anger is here forbidden such an Anger which no qualification can permit to private persons that is an Anger with purposes of Revenge 34. But Christ adds that a farther degree of this sin is when our Anger breaks out in contumelies and ill language and receives its increment according to the degree and injury of the reproach There is a Homicide in the tongue as well as in the heart and he that kills a mans reputation by calumnies or slander or open reviling hath broken this Commandment But this is not to be understood so but that persons in authority or friends may reprehend a vicious person in language proper to his crime or expressive of his malice or iniquity Christ called Herod Fox and although S. Michael brought not a railing accusation against Satan yet the Scripture calls him an Accuser and Christ calls him the Father of lies and S. Peter a devourer and a roaring Lion and S. John calls Diotrephes a lover of pre-eminence or ambitious But that which is here forbidden is not a representing the crimes of the man for his emendation or any other charitable or religious end but a reviling him to do him mischief to murther his reputation which also shews that whatever is here forbidden is in some sense or other accounted Homicide the Anger in order to reproach and both in order to murther subject to the same punishment because forbidden in the same period of the Law save only that according to the degrees of the sin Christ
proportions several degrees of punishment in the other world which he apportions to the degrees of death which had ever been among the Jews viz. the Sword Stoning to death which were punishments legal and judicial and the Burning infants in the Valley of Hinnom which was a barbarous and superstitious custome used formerly by their Fathers in imitation of the Phoenician accursed rites 35. The remedies against Anger which are prescribed by Masters of spiritual life are partly taken from rules of Prudence partly from Piety and more precise rules of Religion In Prudence 1. Do not easily entertain or at all encourage or willingly hear or promptly believe Tale-bearers and reporters of other mens faults for oftentimes we are set on fire by an ignis 〈◊〉 a false flame and an empty story 2. Live with peaceable people if thou canst 3. Be not inquisitive into the misdemeanours of others or the reports which are made of you 4. Find out reasons of excuse to alleviate and lessen the ignorances of a friend or carelesnesses of a servant 5. Observe what object is aptest to inflame thee and by special arts of fortification stop up the avenues to that part If Losses if Contempt if Incivilities if Slander still make it the greatest part of your imployment to subdue the impotency of that Passion that is more apt to raise tempests 6. Extirpate petty curiosities of Apparel Lodging Diet and learn to be indifferent in circumstances and if you be apt to be transported with such little things do some great thing that shall cut off their frequent intervening 7. Do not multiply secular cares and troublesome negotiations which have variety of conversation with several humours of men and accidents of things but frame to thy self a life simple as thou canst and free from all affectations 8. Sweeten thy temper and allay the violence of thy spirit with some convenient natural temperate and medicinal solaces for some dispositions we have seen inflamed into Anger and often assaulted by Peevishness through immoderate fasting and inconvenient austerities 9. A gentle answer is an excellent Remora to the progresses of Anger whether in thy self or others For Anger is like the waves of a troubled sea when it is corrected with a soft reply as with a little strand it retires and leaves nothing behind it but froth and shells no permanent mischief 10. Silence is an excellent art and that was the advice which S. Isaac an old religious person in the Primitive Church is reported to have followed to suppress his Anger within his breast and use what means he could there to strangle it but never permitting it to go forth in language Anger and Lust being like fire which if you enclose suffering it to have no emission it perishes and dies but give it the smallest vent and it rages to a consumption of all it reaches And this advice is coincident with the general rule which is prescribed in all temptations that Anger be suppressed in its cradle and first assaults 11. Lastly let every man be careful that in his Repentance or in his Zeal or his Religion he be as dispassionate and free from Anger as is possible lest Anger pass upon him in a reflex act which was rejected in the direct Some mortifiers in their contestation against Anger or any evil or troublesome principle are like Criers of Assizes who calling for silence make the greatest noise they are extremely angry when they are fighting against the habit or violent inclinations to Anger 36. But in the way of more strict Religion it is advised that he who would cure his Anger should pray often It is S. Austin's counsel to the Bishop Auxilius that like the Apostles in a storm we should awaken Christ and call to him for aid lest we shipwreck in so violent 〈◊〉 and impetuous disturbances 2. Propound to thy self the example of Meek and Patient persons remembring always that there is a family of Meek Saints of which Moses is the Precedent a family of Patient Saints under the conduct of Job every one in the mountain of the Lord shall be gathered to his own Tribe to his own Family in the great day of Jubilee and the Angry shall perish with the effects of Anger and peevish persons shall be vexed with the disquietness of an eternal worm and sting of a vexatious Conscience if they suffer here the transportations and saddest effects of an unmortified habitual and prevailing anger 3. Above all things endeavour to be humble to think of thy self as thou deservest that is meanly and unworthily and in reason it is to be presumed thou wilt be more patient of wrong quiet under affronts and injuries susceptive of inconveniences and apt to entertain all adversities as instruments of Humiliation deleteries of Vice corrections of undecent Passions and instruments of Vertue 4. All the Reason and all the Relations and all the Necessities of mankind are daily arguments against the violences and inordinations of Anger For he that would not have his Reason confounded or his discourse useless or his family be a den of Lions he that would not have his Marriage a daily duel or his Society troublesome or his Friendship formidable or his Feasts bitter he that delights not to have his Discipline cruel or his Government tyrannical or his Disputations violent or his Civilities unmannerly or his Charity be a rudeness or himself brutish as a Bear or peevish as a Fly or miserable upon every accident and in all the changes of his life must mortifie his Anger For it concerns us as much as Peace and Wisdome and Nobleness and Charity and Felicity are worth to be at peace in our breasts and to be pleased with all God's Providence and to be in charity with every thing and with every man 37. Thou shalt not commit Adultery These two Commandments are immediate to each other and of the greatest cognation for Anger and Lust work upon one subject and the same fervours of bloud which make men revengeful will also make men unchast But the prohibition is repeated in the words of the old Commandment so it was said to them of old which was not only a prohibition of the violation of the rights of Marriage but was even among the Jews extended to signifie all mixture of sexes not matrimonial For Adultery in Scripture is sometimes used to signifie Fornication and Fornication for Adultery as it is expressed in the permissions of Divorce in the case of Fornication and by Moses's Law Fornication also was forbidden and it was hated also and reproved in the natural But it is very probable that this Precept was restrained only to the instance of Adultery in the proper sense that is violation of Marriage for Moses did in other annexes of the Law forbid Fornication And as a blow or wound was not esteemed in Moses's Law a breach of the sixth Commandment so neither was any thing but Adultery esteemed a violation of the
in the same mystical Head is an adunation nearer to identity than those distances between Parents and Children which are only cemented by the actions of Nature as it is of distinct consideration from the spirit For Jesus pointing to his Disciples said Behold my Mother and my Brethren for whosoever doth the will of my Father which is in heaven he is my Brother and Sister and Mother 14. But the Pharisees upon the occasion of the Miracles renewed the old quarrel He casteth out Devils by Beelzebub Which senseless and illiterate objection Christ having confuted charged them highly upon the guilt of an unpardonable crime telling them that the so charging those actions of his done in the virtue of the Divine Spirit is a sin against the Holy Ghost and however they might be bold with the Son of Man and prevarications against his words or injuries to his person might upon Repentance and Baptism find a pardon yet it was a matter of greater consideration to sin against the Holy Ghost that would find no pardon here nor hereafter But taking occasion upon this discourse he by an ingenious and mysterious Parable gives the world great caution of recidivation and backsliding after Repentance For if the Devil returns into a house once swept and garnished he bringeth seven spirits more impure than himself and the last estate of that man is worse than the first 15. After this Jesus went from the house of the Pharisee and coming to the Sea of Tiberias or Genezareth for it was called the Sea of Tiberias from a Town on the banks of the Lake taught the people upon the shore himself sitting in the ship but he taught them by Parables under which were hid mysterious senses which shined through their veil like a bright Sun through an eye closed with a thin eye-lid it being light enough to shew their infidelity but not to dispell those thick Egyptian darknesses which they had contracted by their habitual indispositions and pertinacious aversations By the Parable of the Sower scattering his seed by the way side and some on stony some on thorny some on good ground he intimated the several capacities or indispositions of mens hearts the carelesness of some the frowardness and levity of others the easiness and softness of a third and how they are spoiled with worldliness and cares and how many ways there are to miscarry and that but one sort of men receive the word and bring forth the fruits of a holy life By the Parable of Tares permitted to grow amongst the Wheat he intimated the toleration of dissenting Opinions not destructive of Piety or civil societies By the three Parables of the Seed growing insensibly of the grain of Mustard-seed swelling up to a tree of a little Leven qualifying the whole lump he signified the increment of the Gospel and the blessings upon the Apostolical Sermons 16. Which Parables when he had privately to his Apostles rendred into their proper senses he added to them two Parables concerning the dignity of the Gospel comparing it to Treasure hid in a field and a Jewel of great price for the purchace of which every good Merchant must quit all that he hath rather than miss it telling them withall that however purity and spiritual perfections were intended by the Gospel yet it would not be acquired by every person but the publick Professors of Christianity should be a mixt multitude like a net inclosing fishes good and bad After which discourses he retired from the Sea side and went to his own City of Nazareth where he preached so excellently upon certain words of the Prophet 〈◊〉 that all the people wondred at the wisdom which he expressed in his Divine discourses But the men of Nazareth did not do honour to the Prophet that was their Countryman because they knew him in all the disadvantages of youth and kindred and trade and poverty still retaining in their minds the infirmities and humilities of his first years and keeping the same apprehensions of him a man and a glorious Prophet which they had to him a child in the shop of a Carpenter But when Jesus in his Sermon had reproved their infidelity at which he wondred and therefore did but few Miracles there in respect of what he had done at Capernaum and intimated the prelation of that City before 〈◊〉 they thrust him out of the City and led him to the brow of the hill on which the City was built intending to throw him down headlong But his work was not yet finished therefore he passing through the midst of them went his way 17. Jesus therefore departing from Nazareth went up and down to all the Towns and Castles of Galilce attended by his Disciples and certain women out of whom he had cast unclean spirits such as were Mary Magdalen Johanna wife to Chuza Herod's Steward Susanna and some others who did for him offices of provision and ministred to him out of their own substance and became parts of that holy Colledge which about this time began to be 〈◊〉 because now the Apostles were returned from their Preaching full of joy that the Devils were made subject to the word of their mouth and the Empire of their Prayers and invocation of the holy Name of Jesus But their Master gave them a lenitive to asswage the tumour and excrescency intimating that such priviledges are not solid foundations of a holy joy but so far as they cooperate toward the great end of God's glory and their own Salvation to which when they are consigned and their names written in Heaven in the book of Election and Registers of Predestination then their joy is reasonable holy true and perpetual 18. But when Herod had heard these things of Jesus presently his apprehensions were such as derived from his guilt he thought it was John the Baptist who was risen from the dead and that these mighty works were demonstrations of his power increased by the superadditions of immortality and diviner influences made proportionable to the honour of a Martyr and the state of separation For a little before this time Herod had sent to the Castle of Macheruns where John was prisoner and caused him to be beheaded His head Herodias buried in her own Palace thinking to secure it against a re-union lest it should again disturb her unlawful Lusts and disquiet Herod's conscience But the body the Disciples of John gathered up and carried it with honour and sorrow and buried it in Sebaste in the confines of Samaria making his grave between the bodies of 〈◊〉 and Abdias the Prophets And about this time was the Passeover of the Jews DISCOURSE XV. Of the Excellency Ease Reasonableness and Advantages of bearing Christ ' s Yoke and living according to his Institution Ecce agnus Dei gui toâ—lit peccata Mundi Iohn 1. 29. Behold the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the World The Christian's Work and Reward Matth. 11. 29 30. Take my yoke upon
you learn of me For my yoke is easie my burthen is light Revel 2 10. Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life 1 Cor. 9. 24 25. So run that ye may obtain Every man that striueth for y e mastery is temperate in all things now they do it to obtain a corrupible crown but we an incorruptible THE Holy Jesus came to break from off our necks two great yokes the one of Sin by which we were fettered and imprisoned in the condition of slaves and miserable persons the other of Moses's Law by which we were kept in pupillage and minority and a state of Imperfection and asserted us into the glorious liberty of the sons of God The first was a Despotick Empire and the Government of a Tyrant the second was of a School-master severe absolute and imperious but it was in order to a farther good yet nothing pleasant in the sufferance and load And now Christ having taken off these two hath put on a third He quits us of our Burthen but not of our Duty and hath changed the former Tyranny and the less-perfect Discipline into the sweetness of paternal regiment and the excellency of such an Institution whose every Precept carries part of its reward in hand and assurances of after-glories Moses's Law was like sharp and unpleasant Physick certainly painful but uncertainly healthful For it was not then communicated to them by promise and universal revelations that the end of their Obedience should be Life eternal but they were full of hopes it might be so as we are of health when we have a learned and wise Physician But as yet the Reward was in a cloud and the hopes in fetters and confinement But the Law of Christ is like Christ's healing of diseases he does it easily and he does it infallibly The event is certainly consequent and the manner of cure is by a touch of his hand or a word of his mouth or an approximation to the hem of his garment without pain and vexatious instruments My meaning is that Christianity is by the assistance of Christ's spirit which he promised us and gave us in the Gospel made very easie to us And yet a reward so great is promised as were enough to make a lame man to walk and a broken arm endure the burthen a reward great enough to make us willing to do violence to all our inclinations passions and desires A hundred weight to a giant is a light burthen because his strength is disproportionably great and makes it as easie to him as an ounce is to a child And yet if we had not the strength of giants if the hundred weight were of Gold or Jewels a weaker person would think it no trouble to bear that burthen if it were the reward of his portage and the hire of his labours The Spirit is given to us to enable us and Heaven is promised to encourage us the first makes us able and the second makes us willing and when we have power and affections we cannot complain of pressure And this is the meaning of our Blessed Saviour's invitation Come to me for my burthen is light my 〈◊〉 is easie which S. John also observed For this is the love of God that we keep his Commandments and his Commandments are not grievous For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh even our Faith that is our belief of God's promises the promise of the Spirit for present aid and of Heaven for the future reward is strength enough to overcome all the world 2. But besides that God hath made his yoke easie by exteriour supports more than ever was in any other Religion Christianity is of it self according to humane estimate a Religion more easie and desirable by our natural and reasonable appetites than Sin in the midst of all its pleasures and imaginary felicities Vertue hath more pleasure in it than Sin and hath all satisfactions to every desire of man in order to humane and prudent ends which I shall represent in the consideration of these particulars 〈◊〉 To live according to the Laws of Jesus is in some things most natural and proportionable to the desires and first intentions of Nature 2. There is in it less trouble than in Sin 3. It conduces infinitely to the content of our lives and natural and political satisfactions 4. It is a means to preserve our temporal lives long and healthy 5. It is most reasonable and he only is prudent that does so and he a fool that does not And all this besides the considerations of a glorious and happy Eternity 3. Concerning the First I consider that we do very ill when in stead of making our Natural infirmity an instrument of Humility and of recourse to the grace of God we pretend the sin of Adam to countenance our actual sins natural infirmity to excuse our malice either laying Adam in fault for deriving the disability upon us or God for putting us into the necessity But the 〈◊〉 that we feel in this are from the rebellion of the inferiour Appetite against Reason or against any Religion that puts restraint upon our first desires And therefore in carnal and sensual instances accidentally we 〈◊〉 the more natural averseness because God's Laws have put our irascible and concupiscible faculties in fetters and restraints yet in matters of duty which are of immaterial and spiritual concernment all our natural reason is a perfect enemy and contradiction to and a Law against Vice It is natural for us to love our Parents and they who do not are unnatural they do violence to those dispositions which God gave us to the constitution of our Nature and for the designs of Vertue and all those tendernesses of affection those bowels and relenting dispositions which are the endearments of Parents and Children are also the bands of duty Every degree of love makes duty delectable and therefore either by nature we are inclined to hate our Parents which is against all reason and experience or else we are by nature enclined to do to them all that which is the effect of love to such Superiours and principles of being and dependency and every prevarication from the rule effects and expresses of love is a contradiction to Nature and a mortification to which we cannot be invited by any thing from within but by something from without that is violent and preternatural There are also many other vertues even in the matter of sensual appetite which none can lose but by altering in some degree the natural disposition And I instance in the matter of Carnality and Uncleanness to which possibly some natures may think themselves apt and disposed but yet God hath put into our mouths a bridle to curb the licentiousness of our speedy appetite putting into our very natures a principle as strong to restrain it as there is in us a disposition apt to invite us and this is