to divide it into portions one act of Charity in an heroical degree or an habitual Charity in the degree of Vertue This instance is probation enough that the opinion of such a necessity of doing the best action simply and indefinitely is impossible to be safely acted because it is impossible to be understood Two talents shall be rewarded and so shall five both in their proportions He that sows sparingly shall reap sparingly but he shall reap Every man as he purposes in his heart so let him give The best action shall have the best reward and though he is the happiest who rises highest yet he is not sasest that enters into the state of disproportion to his person I find in the Lives of the later reputed Saints that S. Teresa à Jesu made a vow to do every thing which she should judge to be the best I will not judge the person nor censure the action because possibly her intention and desires were of greatest Sanctity but whosoever considers the story of her Life and the strange repugnancies in the life of man to such undertakings must needs fear to imitate an action of such danger and singularity The advice which in this case is safest to be followed is That we employ our greatest industry that we fall not into sin and actions of forbidden nature and then strive by parts and steps and with much wariness in attempering our zeal to superadd degrees of eminency and observation of the more perfect instances of Sanctity that doing some excellencies which God hath not commanded he may be the rather moved to pardon our prevaricating so many parts of our necessary duty If Love transport us and carry us to actions sublime and heroical let us follow so good a guide and pass on with diligence and zeal and prudence as far as Love will carry us but let us not be carried to actions of great eminency and strictness and unequal severities by scruple and pretence of duty lest we charge our miscarriages upon God and call the yoak of the Gospel insupportable and Christ a hard Task-master But we shall pass from Vertue to Vertue with more fafety if a Spiritual guide take us by the hand only remembring that if the Angels themselves and the beatisied Souls do now and shall hereafter differ in degrees of love and glory it is impossible the state of imperfection should be confined to the highest Love and the greatest degree and such as admits no variety no increment or difference of parts and stations 13. Secondly Our Love to God consists not in any one determinate Degree but hath such a latitude as best agrees with the condition of men who are of variable natures different affectious and capacities changeable abilities and which receive their heightnings and declensions according to a thousand accidents of mortality For when a Law is regularly prescribed to perions whose varieties and different constitutions cannot be regular or uniform it is certain 〈◊〉 gives a great latitude of perfermance and binds not to just atomes and points The Laws of God are like universal objects received into the Faculty partly by choice partly by nature but the variety of perfection is by the variety of the instruments and disposition of the Recipient and are excelled by each other in several sences and by themselves at several times And so is the practice of our Obedience and the entertainments of the Divine Commandments For some are of malleable natures others are morese some are of healthful and temperate constitutions others are lustful full of fancy full of appetite some have excellent leisure and opportunities of retirement others are busie in an active life and cannot with advantages attend to the choice of the better part some are peaceable and timorous and some are in all instances serene others are of tumultuous and unquiet spirits and these become opportunities of Temptation on one side and on the other occasions of a Vertue But every change of faculty and variety of circumstance hath influence upon Morality and therefore their duties are personally altered and increase in obligation or are slackned by necessities according to the infinite alteration of exteriour accidents and interiour possibilities 14. Thirdly Our Love to God must be totally exclusive of any affection to sin and engage us upon a great assiduous and laborious care to resist all Temptations to subdue sin to acquire the habits of Vertues and live holily as it is already expressed in the Discourse of Repentance We must prefer God as the object of our hopes we must chuse to obey him rather than man to please him rather than satisfie our selves and we must do violence to our strongest Passions when they once contest against a Divine Commandment If our Passions are thus regulated let them be fixed upon any lawful object whatsoever if at the same time we prefer Heaven and heavenly things that is would rather chuse to lose our temporal love than our eternal hopes which we can best discern by our refusing to sin upon the solicitation or engagement of the temporal object then although we feel the transportation of a sensual love towards a Wife or Child or Friend actually more pungent and sensible than Passions of Religion are they are less perfect but they are not criminal Our love to God requires that we do his Commandments and that we do not sin but in other things we are permitted in the condition of our nature to be more sensitively moved by visible than by invisible and spiritual objects Only this we must ever have a disposition and a mind prepared to quit our sensitive and pleasant objects rather than quit a Grace or commit a sin Every act of sin is against the Love of God and every man does many single actions of hostility and provocation against him but the state of the Love of God is that which we actually call the state of Grace When Christ reigns in us and sin does not reign but the Spirit is quickned and the Lusts are mortified when we are habitually vertuous and do acts of Piety Temperance and Justice frequently easily chearfully and with a successive constant moral and humane industry according to the talent which God hath intrusted to us in the banks of Nature and Grace then we are in the love of God then we love him with all our heart But if Sin grows upon us and is committed more frequently or gets a victory with less difficulty or is obeyed more readily or entertained with a freer complacency then we love not God as he requires we divide between him and sin and God is not the Lord of all our faculties But the instances of Scripture are the best exposition of this Commandment For David followed God with all his heart to do that which was right in his eyes and Josiah turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might Both these Kings did it and
praise so when it is presented to him he takes no contentment in it and if it be easie to want Praise when it is denied yet it is harder not to be delighted with it when it is offered But there is much reason that we should put restraints upon our selves lest if we be praised without desert we find a greater Judgment of God or if we have done well and received praise for it we 〈◊〉 all our reward which God hath deposited for them that receive not their good things in this life For as silver is tried in the melter and gold in the Crucible so is a man tried by the mouth of him that praises him that is he is either clarified from his dross by looking upon the praise as a homily to teach and an instrument to invite his duty or else if he be already pure he is consolidated strengthned in the sobriety of his spirit and retires himself closer into the strengths and securities of Humility Nay this step of Humility uses in very holy persons to be enlarged to a delight in affronts and disreputation in the world Now I begin to be Christ ' s Disciple said 〈◊〉 the Martyr when in his journey to Rome he suffered perpetual revilings and abuse S. Paul rejoyced in his infirmities and reproach and all the Apostles at Jerusalem went from the tribunal rejoycing that they were esteemed worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus This is an excellent condition and degree of Humility But I chuse to add one that is less but in all persons necessary 9. Fourthly Christ's Humble man is careful never to speak any thing that may redound to his own praise unless it be with a design of Charity or Duty that either God's glory or the profit of his neighbour be concerned in it but never speaking with a design to be esteemed learned or honourable S. Arsenius had been Tutor to three Caesars Theodosius Arcadius and Honorius but afterwards when he became Religious no word escaped him that might represent and tell of his former greatness and it is observable concerning S. Jerome that although he was of noble extraction yet in all his own Writings there is not the smallest intimation of it This I desire to be understood only to the sence and purposes of Humility and that we have no designs of vanity and phancy in speaking learnedly or recounting our exteriour advantages but if either the 〈◊〉 of our brother or the glory of God if either there be Piety or Charity in the design it is lawful to publish all those excellencies with which God hath distinguished us from others The young Marquess of Castilion being to do publick exercise in his course of Philosophy made it a case of Conscience whether he were bound to dispute his best fearing lest vanity might transport him in the midst of those praises which his Collegiates might give him It was an excellent consideration in the young Gentleman but in actions civil and humane since the danger is not so immediate and a little complacency becoming the instrument of vertue and encouragement of studies may with like care be referred to God as the giver and 〈◊〉 his praises he might with more safety have done his utmost it being in some sense a duty to encourage others to give account of our Graces and our labours and all the appendent vanity may quickly be suppressed A good name may give us opportunity of perswading others to their duty especially in an Age in which men chuse their Doctrines by the men that preach them and S. Paul used his liberty when he was zealous for his Corinthian Disciples but restrained himself when it began to make reflexions upon his own spirit But although a good name be necessary and in order to such good ends whither it may serve it is lawful to desire it yet a great name and a pompous honour and secular greatness hath more danger in it to our selves than ordinarily it can have of benefit to others and although a man may use the greatest honours to the greatest purposes yet ordinary persons may not safely desire them because it will be found very hard to have such mysterious and abstracted considerations as to separate all our proper interest from the publick end To which I add this consideration That the contempt of Honour and the instant pursuit of Humility is more effective of the ghostly benefit of others than Honours and great Dignities can be unless it be rarely and very accidentally 10. If we need any new incentives to the practice of this Grace I can say no more but that Humility is Truth and Pride is a Lie that the one glorifies God the other dishonours him Humility makes men like Angels Pride makes Angels to become Devils that Pride is Folly Humility is the temper of a holy spirit and excellent Wisdom that Humility is the way to glory Pride to ruine and confusion Humility makes Saints on Earth Pride undoes them Humility beatifies the Saints in Heaven and the Elders throw their Crowns at the foot of the Throne Pride disgraces a man among all the Societies of Earth God loves one and Satan solicits the cause of the other and promotes his own interest in it most of all And there is no one Grace in which Christ propounded himself imitable so signally as in this of Meekness and Humility for the enforcing of which he undertook the condition of a Servant and a life of Poverty and a death of Disgrace and washed the feet of his Disciples and even of Judas himself that his action might be turned into a Sermon to preach this Duty and to make it as eternal as his own Story The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesus who wert pleased to lay aside the Glories and incomprehensible Majesty which clothed thy Infinity from before the beginning of Creatures and didst put on a cloud upon thy Brightness and wert invested with the impure and imperfect broken robe of Humane nature and didst abate those Splendors which broke through the veil commanding Devils not to publish thee and men not to proclaim thy Excellencies and the Apostles not to reveal those Glories of thine which they discovered incircling thee upon mount Tabor in thy transfiguration and didst by perpetual Homilies and symbolical mysterious actions as with deep characters engrave Humility into the spirits of thy Disciples and the Discipline of Christianity teach us to approach near to these thy Glories which thou hast so covered with a cloud that we might without amazement behold thy Excellencies make us to imitate thy gracious Condescensions take from us all vanity and phantastick complacencies in our own persons or actions and when there arises a reputation consequent to the performance of any part of our Duty make us to 〈◊〉 the glory upon thee suffering nothing to adhere to our own spirits but shame at our own imperfection and thankfulness to thee for all thy assistences let us never seek the
to natural light being conversant about those things that do not derive their value and authority from any arbitrary constitutions but from the moral and intrinsick nature of the things themselves These Laws as being the results and dictates of right reason are especially as to their first and more immediate emanations the same in all Men in the World and in all Times and Places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ' as the Jewes call them Precepts that are evident among all Nations indeed they are interwoven into Mens nature inserted into the texture and constitution of their minds and do discover themselves as soon as ever they arrive to the free use and exercise of their reason That there are such Laws and Principles naturally planted in Mens breasts is evident from the consent of Mankind and the common experience of the World Whence else comes it to pass that all wicked Men even among the Heathens themselves after the commission of gross sins such as do more sensibly rouze and awaken conscience are filled with horrours and fears of punishment but because they are conscious to themselves of having violated some Law and Rule of Duty Now what Law can this be not the written and revealed Law for this the Heathens never had it must be therefore the inbred Law of Nature that 's born with them and fixed in their minds antecedently to any external revelation For when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature by the light and evidence by the force and tendency of their natural notions and dictates the things contained in the Law these having not a Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the reasonings of their minds in the mean while 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by turns accusing or else excusing one another that is although they had not a written Law as the Jewes had of old and we Christians have at this day yet by the help of their natural Principles they performed the same actions and discharged the same Duties that are contained in and commanded by the written and external Law shewing by their practices that they had a Law some common notions of good and evil written in their hearts And to this their very Consciences bear witness for according as they either observe or break these natural Laws their Consciences do either acquit or condemn them Hence we find God in the very infancy of the World appealing to Gain for the truth of this as a thing sufficiently plain and obvious Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance fallen if thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be lift up able to walk with a pleased and a chearful countenance the great indication of a mind satisfied in the conscience of its duty but if thou doest not well sin lies at the door the punishments of sin will be ready to follow thee and conscience as a Minister of vengeance will perpetually pursue and haunt thee By these Laws Mankind was principally governed in the first Ages of the World there being for near Two Thousand Years no other fixed and standing Rule of Duty than the dictates of this Law of Nature those Principles of Vice and Vertue of Justice and Honesty that are written in the heart of every Man 3. THE Jewes very frequently tell us of some particular commands to the number of Seven which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Precepts of the Sons of Noah Six whereof were given to Adam and his Children and the Seventh given to Noah which they thus reckon up The first was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning strange worship that they should not give Divine honour to Idols or the Gods of the Heathens answerable to the two first commands of the Decalogue Thou shalt have no other Gods but me thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image nor the likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above or in the Earth beneath or in the Water under the Earth thou shalt not bow down thy self to them or serve them for c. From the violation of this Law it was that Job one of the Patriarchs that lived under this dispensation solemnly purges himself when speaking concerning the worship of the Celestial Lights the great if not only Idolatry of those early Ages says he if I beheld the Sun when it shined or the Moon walking in her brightness and my heart hath been secretly inticed or my mouth hath kissed my hand this also were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge for I should have denied the God that is above The second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning blessing or worshipping that they should not blaspheme the Name of God This Law Job also had respect to when he was careful to sanctifie his Children and to propitiate the Divine Majesty for them every Morning for it may be said he that my Sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts The third was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the shedding of blood forbidding Man-slaughter a Law expresly renewed to Noah after the Flood and which possibly Job aimed at when he vindicates himself that he had not rejoyced at the destruction of him that hated him or lift up himself when evil found him Nor was all effusion of humane blood forbidden by this Law capital punishments being in some cases necessary for the preservation of humane Society but only that no Man should shed the blood of an innocent Person or pursue a private revenge without the warrant of publick Authority The fourth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the disclosing of uncleanness against filthiness and adultery unlawful marriages and incestuous mixtures If mine heart says Job in his Apology hath been deceived by a Woman or if I have laid wait at my neighbour's door then let my Wife grind c. for this is an heinous crime yea it is an iniquity to be punished by the Judges The fifth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning theft and rapine the invading another Man's right and property the violation of bargains and compacts the falsifying a Man's word or promise the deceiving of another by fraud lying or any evil arts From all which Job justifies himself that he had not walked with vanity nor had his foot hasted to deceit that his step had not turned out of the way nor his heart walked after his eyes nor any blot cleaved to his hands And elsewhere he bewails it as the great iniquity of the Times that there were some that removed the Land-marks that violently took away the Flocks and fed thereof that drove away the Asse of the Fatherless and took the Widows Oxe for a pledge that turned the needy out of the way and made the poor of the Earth hide themselves together c. The sixth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
and adherences of love and obedience to his heavenly Father were next to infinite yet in his external actions in which only with the correspondence of the Spirit in those actions he propounds himself imitable he did so converse with men that men after that example might for ever converse with him We find that some Saints have had excrescencies and eruptions of Holiness in the instances of uncommanded Duties which in the same particulars we find not in the story of the Life of Jesus John Baptist was a greater Mortifier than his Lord was and some Princes have given more money than all Christ's Family did whilest he was alive but the difference which is observable is that although some men did some acts of Counsel in order to attain that perfection which in Jesus was essential and unalterable and was not acquired by degrees and means of danger and difficulty yet no man ever did his whole duty save only the Holy Jesus The best of men did sometimes actions not precisely and strictly requisite and such as were besides the Precept but yet in the greatest flames of their shining Piety they prevaricated something of the Commandment They that have done the most things beyond have also done some things short of their duty But Jesus who intended himself the Example of Piety did in manners as in the rule of Faith which because it was propounded to all men was fitted to every understanding it was true necessary short easie and intelligible So was his Rule and his Copy 〈◊〉 not only with excellencies worthy but with compliances possible to be imitated of glories so great that the most early and constant industry must confess its own imperfections and yet so sweet and humane that the greatest infirmity if pious shall find comfort and encouragement Thus God gave his children Manna from Heaven and though it was excellent like the food of Angels yet it conformed to every palate according to that appetite which their several fancies and constitutions did produce 9. But now when the Example of Jesus is so excellent that it allures and tempts with its facility and sweetness and that we are not commanded to imitate a Life whose story tells of 〈◊〉 in Prayer and Abstractions of senses and immaterial Transportations and Fastings to the exinanition of spirits and disabling all animal operations but a Life of Justice and Temperance of Chastity and Piety of Charity and Devotion such a Life without which humane Society cannot be conserved and by which as our irregularities are made regular so our weaknesses are not upbraided nor our miseries made a mockery we find so much reason to address our selves to a heavenly imitation of so blessed a Pattern that the reasonableness of the thing will be a great argument to chide every degree and minute of neglect It was a strange and a confident encouragement which Phocion used to a timorous Greek who was condemned to die with him Is it not enough to thee that thou must die with Phocion I am sure he that is most incurious of the issues of his life is yet willing enough to reign with Jesus when he looks upon the Glories represented without the Duty but it is a very great stupidity and unreasonableness not to live with him in the imitation of so holy and so prompt a Piety It is glorious to do what he did and a shame to decline his Sufferings when there was a God to hallow and sanctifie the actions and a Man clothed with infirmity to undergo the sharpness of the passion so that the Glory of the person added excellency to the first and the Tenderness of the person excused not from suffering the latter 10. Thirdly Every action of the Life of Jesus as it is imitable by us is of so excellent merit that by making up the treasure of Grace it becomes full of assistances to us and obtains of God Grace to enable us to its imitation by way of influence and impetration For as in the acquisition of Habits the very exercise of the Action does produce a Facility to the action and in some proportion becomes the cause of its self so does every exercise of the Life of Christ kindle its own fires inspires breath into it self and makes an univocal production of its self in a differing subject And Jesus becomes the fountain of spiritual Life to us as the Prophet Elisha to the dead child when he stretched his hands upon the child's hands laid his mouth to his mouth and formed his posture to the boy and breathed into him the spirit returned again into the child at the prayer of Elisha so when our lives are formed into the imitation of the Life of the Holiest Jesus the spirit of God returns into us not only by the efficacy of the imitation but by the merit and impetration of the actions of Jesus It is reported in the Bohemian Story that S. Wenceslaus their King one winter-night going to his Devotions in a remote Church bare-footed in the snow and sharpness of unequal and pointed ice his servant Podavivus who waited upon his Master's piety and endeavoured to imitate his affections began to faint through the violence of the snow and cold till the King commanded him to follow him and set his feet in the same footsteps which his feet should mark for him the servant did so and either fansied a cure or found one for he followed his Prince help'd forward with shame and zeal to his imitation and by the forming footsteps for him in the snow In the same manner does the Blessed Jesus for since our way is troublesome obscure full of objection and danger apt to be mistaken and to affright our industry he commands us to mark his footsteps to tread where his feet have stood and not only invites us forward by the argument of his Example but he hath troden down much of the difficulty and made the way easier and fit for our feet For he knows our infirmities and himself hath felt their experience in all things but in the neighbourhoods of sin and therefore he hath proportioned a way and a path to our strengths and capacities and like Jacob hath marched softly and in evenness with the children and the cattel to entertain us by the comforts of his company and the influences of a perpetual guide 11. Fourthly But we must know that not every thing which Christ did is imitable by us neither did he in the work of our Redemption in all things imitate his heavenly Father For there are some things which are issues of an absolute Power some are expresses of supreme Dominion some are actions of a Judge And therefore Jesus prayed for his enemies and wept over Jerusalem when at the same instant his Eternal Father laughed them to scorn for he knew that their day was coming and himself had decreed their ruine But it became the Holy Jesus to imitate his Father's mercies for himself was the great instrument of
the eternal Compassion and was the instance of Mercy and therefore in the operation of his Father's design every action of his was univocal and he shewed the power of his Divinity in nothing but in miracles of Mercy and illustrations of Faith by creating arguments of Credibility In the same proportion we follow Jesus as himself followed his Father For what he abated by the order to his intendment and design we abate by the proportions of our Nature for some excellent acts of his were demonstrations of Divinity and an excellent Grace poured forth upon him without measure was their instrument to which proportions if we should extend our infirmities we should crack our sinews and dissolve the silver cords before we could entertain the instances and support the burthen Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights but the manner of our Fastings hath been in all Ages limited to the term of an artificial day and in the Primitive Observations and the Jewish Rites men did eat their meal as soon as the Stars shone in the firmament We never read that Jesus laughed and but once that he rejoyced in spirit but the declensions of our Natures cannot bear the weight of a perpetual grave deportment without the intervals of refreshment and free alacrity Our ever-blessed Saviour suffered the Devotion of Mary Magdalene to transport her to an expensive expression of her Religion and twice to anoint his feet with costly Nard and yet if persons whose conditions were of no greater lustre or resplendency of Fortune than was conspicuous in his family and retinue should suffer the same profusion upon the dressing and perfuming their bodies possibly it might be truly said It might better be sold and distributed to the poor This Jesus received as he was the CHRIST and Anointed of the Lord and by this he suffered himself to be designed to Burial and he received the oblation as Eucharistical for the ejection of seven Devils for therefore she loved much 12. The instances are not many For how-ever Jesus had some extraordinary transvolations and acts of emigration beyond the lines of his even and ordinary conversation yet it was but seldom for his being exemplary was of so great consideration that he chose to have fewer instances of Wonder that he might transmit the more of an imitable Vertue And therefore we may establish this for a rule and limit of our imitations Because Christ our Law-giver hath described all his Father's will in Sanctions and signature of Laws whatsoever he commanded and whatsoever he did of precise Morality or in pursuance of the Laws of Nature in that we are to trace his footsteps and in these his Laws and his practice differ but as a Map and a Guide a Law and a Judge a Rule and a Precedent But in the special instances of action we are to abate the circumstances and to separate the obedience from the effect whatsoever was moral in a ceremonial performance that is highly imitable and the obedience of Sacrificing and the subordination to Laws actually in being even now they are abrogated teach us our duty in a differing subject upon the like reason Jesus's going up to Jerusalem to the Feasts and his observation of the Sabbaths teach us our duty in celebration of Festivals constitute by a competent and just Authority For that which gave excellency to the observation of Mosaical Rites was an Evangelical duty and the piety of Obedience did not only consecrate the observations of Levi but taught us our duty in the constitutions of Christianity 13. Fifthly As the Holy Jesus did some things which we are not to imitate so we also are to do some things which we cannot learn from his Example For there are some of our Duties which presuppose a state of Sin and some suppose a violent temptation and promptness to it and the duties of prevention and the instruments of restitution are proper to us but conveyed only by Precept and not by Precedent Such are all the parts and actions of Repentance the duties of Mortification and Self-denial For whatsoever the Holy Jesus did in the matter of Austerity looked directly upon the work of our Redemption and looked back only on us by a reflex act as Christ did on Peter when he looked him into Repentance Some states of life also there are which Jesus never led such are those of temporal Governors Kings and Judges Merchants Lawyers and the state of Marriage in the course of which lives many cases do occur which need a Precedent and the vivacity of an excellent Example especially since all the rules which they have have not prevented the subtilty of the many inventions which men have found out nor made provision for all contingencies Such persons in all their special needs are to govern their actions by the rules of proportion by analogy to the Holiness of the person of Jesus and the Sanctity of his Institution considering what might become a person professing the Discipline of so Holy a Master and what he would have done in the like case taking our heights by the excellency of his Innocency and Charity Only remember this that in such cases we must always judge on the strictest side of Piety and Charity if it be a matter concerning the interest of a second person and that in all things we do those actions which are farthest removed from scandal and such as towards our selves are severe towards others full of gentleness and sweetness For so would the righteous and merciful Jesus have done these are the best analogies and proportions And in such 〈◊〉 when the Wells are dry let us take water from a Cistern and propound to our selves some exemplar Saint the necessities of whose life have determined his Piety to the like occurrences 14. But now from these particulars we shall best account to what the duty of the Imitation of Jesus does amount for it signifies that we should walk as he walked tread in his steps with our hand upon the Guide and our eye upon his Rule that we should do glory to him as he did to his Father and that whatsoever we do we should be careful that it do him honour and no reproach to his Institution and then account these to be the integral parts of our Duty which are imitation of his Actions or his Spirit of his Rule or of his Life there being no better Imitation of him than in such actions as do him pleasure however he hath expressed or imitated the precedent 15. He that gives Alms to the poor takes Jesus by the hand he that patiently endures Injuries and affronts helps him to bear his Cross he that comforts his brother in Affliction gives an amiable kiss of peace to Jesus he that bathes his own and his neighbour's sins in tears of penance and compassion washes his Master's feet We lead Jesus into the recesses of our heart by holy Meditations and we enter into his heart when we express him in our actions for so
look upon my miseries thy holy Hands be stretched out to my relief and succour let some of those precious distilling Tears which nature and thy compassion and thy Sufferings did cause to distill and drop from those sacred fontinels water my stony heart and make it soft apt for the impressions of a melting obedient and corresponding love and moisten mine eyes that I may upon thy stock of pity and weeping mourn for my sins that so my tears and sorrows being drops of water coming from that holy Rock may indeed be united unto thine and made precious by such holy mixtures Amen 3. BLessed Jesus now that thou hast sanctified and exalted Humane nature and made even my Body precious by a personal uniting it to the Divinity teach me so reverently to account of it that I may not dare to prophane it with impure lusts or caitive affections and unhallow that ground where thy holy feet have troden Give to me ardent desires and efficacious prosecutions of these holy effects which thou didst design for us in thy Nativity and other parts of our Redemption give me great confidence in thee which thou hast encouraged by the exhibition of so glorious favours great sorrow and confusion of face at the sight of mine own imperfections and estrangements and great distances from thee and the perfections of thy Soul and bring me to thee by the strictnesses of a Zealous and affectionate imitation of those Sanctities which next to the hypostatical Union added lustre and excellency to thy Humanity that I may live here with thee in the expresses of a holy life and die with thee by mortification and an unwearied patience and reign with thee in immortal glories world without end Amen DISCOURSE I. Of Nursing Children in imitation of the Blessed Virgin-Mother 1. THese later Ages of the world have declined into a Softness above the effeminacy of Asian Princes and have contracted customes which those innocent and healthful days of our Ancestors knew not whose Piety was natural whose Charity was operative whose Policy was just and valiant and whose Oeconomy was sincere and proportionable to the dispositions and requisites of Nature And in this particular the good women of old gave one of their instances the greatest personages nurst their own Children did the work of Mothers and thought it was unlikely women should become vertuous by ornaments and superadditions of Morality who did decline the laws and prescriptions of Nature whose principles supply us with the first and most common rules of Manners and more perfect actions In imitation of whom and especially of the Virgin Mary who was Mother and Nurse to the Holy Jesus I shall endeavour to correct those softnesses and unnatural rejections of Children which are popular up to a custom and fashion even where no necessities of Nature or just Reason can make excuse 2. And I cannot think the Question despicable and the Duty of meanest consideration although it be specified in an office of small esteem and suggested to us by the principles of Reason and not by express sanctions of Divinity For although other actions are more perfect and spiritual yet this is more natural and humane other things being superadded to a full Duty rise higher but this builds stronger and is like a part of the foundation having no lustre but much strength and however the others are full of ornament yet this hath in it some degrees of necessity and possibly is with more danger and irregularity omitted than actions which spread their leaves fairer and look more gloriously 3. First here I consider that there are many sins in the scene of the Body and the matter of Sobriety which are highly criminal and yet the Laws of God expressed in Scripture name them not but men are taught to distinguish them by that Reason which is given us by nature and is imprinted in our understanding in order to the conservation of humane kind For since every creature hath something in it sufficient to propagate the kind and to conserve the individuals from perishing in confusions and general disorders which in Beasts we call Instinct that is an habitual or prime disposition to do certain things which are proportionable to the End whither it is designed Man also if he be not more imperfect must have the like and because he knows and makes reflexions upon his own acts and understands the reason of it that which in them is Instinct in him is natural Reason which is a desire to preserve himself and his own kind and differs from Instinct because he understands his Instinct and the reasonableness of it and they do not But Man being a higher thing even in the order of creation and designed to a more noble End in his animal capacity his Argumentative Instinct is larger than the Natural Instinct of Beasts for he hath Instincts in him in order to the conservation of Society and therefore hath Principles that is he hath natural desires to it for his own good and because he understands them they are called Principles and Laws of Nature but are no other than what I have now declared for Beasts do the same things we do and have many the same inclinations which in us are the Laws of Nature even all which we have in order to our common End But that which in Beasts is Nature and an impulsive force in us must be duty and an inviting power we must do the same things with an actual or habitual designation of that End to which God designs Beasts supplying by his wisdom their want of understanding and then what is mere Nature in them in us is Natural reason And therefore Marriage in men is made sacred when the mixtures of other creatures are so merely natural that they are not capable of being vertuous because men are bound to intend that End which God made And this with the superaddition of other Ends of which Marriage is representative in part and in part effective does consecrate Marriage and makes it holy and mysterious But then there are in marriage many duties which we are taught by Instinct that is by that Reason whereby we understand what are the best means to promote the End which we have assigned us And by these Laws all unnatural mixtures are made unlawful and the decencies which are to be observed in Marriage are prescribed us by this 4. Secondly Upon the supposition of this Discourse I consider again that although to observe this Instinct or these Laws of Nature in which I now have instanced be no great vertue in any eminency of degree as no man is much commended for not killing himself or for not degenerating into beastly Lusts yet to prevaricate some of these Laws may become almost the greatest sin in the world And therefore although to live according to Nature be a testimony fit to give to a sober and a temperate man and rises no higher yet to do an action against Nature is the greatest
favourable And it is considerable that nothing is worse than Death but Damnation or something that partakes of that in some of its worst ingredients such as is a lasting Torment or a daily great misery in some other kind And therefore since no humane Law can bind a man to a worse thing than Death if Obedience brings me to death I cannot be worse when I disobey it and I am not so bad if the penalty of death be not expressed And so for other penalties in their own proportions This Discourse is also to be understood concerning the Laws of Peace not of War not onely because every disobedience in War may be punished with death according as the reason may chance but also because little things may be of great and dangerous consequence But in Peace it is observable that there is no humane positive superinduced Law but by the practice of all the world which because the 〈◊〉 of the Prince is certainly included in it is the surest interpretation it is dispensed withall by ordinary necessities by reason of lesser inconveniences and common accidents thus the not saying of our Office daily is excused by the study of Divinity the publishing the banns of Matrimony by an ordinary incommodity the Fasting-days of the Church by a little sickness or a journey and therefore much rather if my Estate and most of all if my Life be in danger with it and to say that in these cases there is no interpretative permission to omit the particular action is to accuse the Laws and the Law-giver the one of unreasonableness the other of uncharitableness 22. Fourthly These Considerations are upon the execution of the duty but even towards Man our obedience must have a mixture of the Will and choice like as our injunction of obedience to the Divine Command With good will doing service saith the Apostle for it is impossible to secure the duty of inferiours but by conscience and good will unless provision could be made against all their secret arts and concealments and escapings which as no providence can foresee so no diligence can cure It is but an eye-service whatsoever is compelled and involuntary nothing rules a man in private but God and his own desires and they give Laws in a Wilderness and accuse in a Cloister and do execution in a Closet if there be any prevarication 23. Fifthly But obedience to humane Laws goes no farther we are not bound to obey with a direct and particular act of Understanding as in all Divine Sanctions for so long as our Superiours are fallible though it be highly necessary we conform our wills to their innocent Laws yet it is not a duty we should think the Laws most prudent or convenient because all Laws are not so but it may concern the interest of humility and self-denial to 〈◊〉 subject to an inconvenient so it be not a sinful Command for so we must chuse an affliction when God offers it and give God thanks for it and yet we may cry under the smart of it and call to God for ease and remedy And yet it were well if inferiours would not be too busie in disputing the prudence of their Governours and the convenience of their Constitutions Whether they be sins or no in the execution and to our particulars we are concern'd to look to I say as to our particulars for an action may be a sin in the Prince commanding it and yet innocent in the person executing as in the case of unjust Wars in which the Subject who cannot ought not to be a Judge yet must be a Minister and it is notorious in the case of executing an unjust sentence in which not the Executioner but the Judge is only the unjust person and he that serves his Prince in an unjust War is but the executioner of an unjust sentence But what-ever goes farther does but undervalue the person slight the Government and unloose the golden cords of Discipline For we are not intrusted in providing for degrees so we secure the kind and condition of our actions And since God having derived rays and beams of Majesty and transmitted it in parts upon several states of men hath fixed humane authority and dominion in the golden candlestick of Understanding he that shall question the prudence of his Governour or the wisdom of his Sanction does unclasp the golden rings that tie the purple upon the Prince's shoulder he tempts himself with a reason to disobey and extinguish the light of Majesty by overturning the candlestick and hiding the opinion of his wisdom and understanding And let me say this He that is confident of his own understanding and reasonable powers and who is more than he that thinks himself wiser than the Laws needs no other Devil in the neighbourhood no tempter but himself to pride and vanity which are the natural parents of Disobedience 24. But a man's Disobedience never seems so reasonable as when the Subject is forbidden to do an act of Piety commanded indeed in the general but uncommanded in certain circumstances And forward Piety and assiduous Devotion a great and undiscreet Mortifier is often tempted to think no Authority can restrain the fervours and distempers of zeal in such holy Exercises and yet it is very often as necessary to restrain the indiscretions of a forward person as to excite the remissness of the cold and frozen Such persons were the Sarabaites spoken of by 〈◊〉 who were greater labourers and stricter mortifiers than the Religious in Families and Colledges and yet they endured no Superiour nor Laws But such customs as these are Humiliation without Humility humbling the body and exalting the spirit or indeed Sacrifices and no Obedience It was an argument of the great wisdom of the Fathers of the 〈◊〉 when they heard of the prodigious Severities exercised by 〈◊〉 Stylites upon himself they sent one of the Religious to him with power to enquire what was his manner of living and what warrant he had for such a rigorous undertaking giving in charge to command him to give it over and to live in a community with them and according to the common institution of those Religious families The Messenger did so and immediately 〈◊〉 removed his foot from his Pillar with a purpose to descend but the other according to his Commission called to him to stay telling him his station and severity was from God And he that in so great a Piety was humble and obedient did not undertake that Strictness out of singularity nor did it transport him to vanity for that he had received from the Fathers to make judgment of the man and of his institution whereas if upon pretence of the great Holiness of that course he had refused the command the spirit of the person was to be declared caitive and imprudent and the man 〈◊〉 from his troublesom and ostentous vanity 25. Our Fasts our Prayers our Watchings our Intentions of duty our frequent Communions and
who have acted Madness and pretended Inspirations and when these are destitute of a Prophetick spirit if they resolve to serve themselves upon the pretences of it they are disposed to the imitation if not to the sufferings of Madness and it would be a great folly to call such Dei plenos full of God who are no better than phantastick and mad People 23. This we are sure of that many Illusions have come in the likeness of Visions and absurd fancies under the pretence of Raptures and what some have called the spirit of Prophecy hath been the spirit of Lying and Contemplation hath been nothing but Melancholy and unnatural lengths and stilness of Prayer hath been a mere Dream and hypochondriacal devotion and hath ended in pride or despair or some sottish and dangerous temptation It is reported of Heron the Monk that having lived a retired mortified and religious life for many years together at last he came to that habit of austerity or singularity that he refused the festival refection and freer meals of Easter and other Solemnities that he might do more eminently than the rest and spend his time in greater abstractions and contemplations but the Devil taking advantage of the weakness of his melancholick and unsettled spirit gave him a transportation and an ecstasie in which he fansied himself to have attained so great perfection that he was as dear to God as a crowned Martyr and Angels would be his security for indemnity though he threw himself to the bottome of a Well He obeyed his fancy and temptation did so bruised himself to death and died possessed with a persuasion of the verity of that Ecstasie and transportation 24. I will not say that all violences and extravagancies of a religious fancy are Illusions but I say that they are all unnatural not hallowed by the warrant of a Revelation nothing reasonable nothing secure I am not sure that they ever consist with Humility but it is confessed that they are often produced by Self-love Arrogancy and the great opinion others have of us I will not judge the condition of those persons who are said to have suffered these extraordinaries for I know not the circumstances or causes or attendants or the effects or whether the stories be true that make report of them but I shall onely advise that we follow the intimation of our Blessed Saviour that we sit down in the lowest place till the Master of the Feast comes and bids us sit up higher If we entertain the inward Man in the purgative and illuminative way that is in actions of Repentance Vertue and precise Duty that is the surest way of uniting us to God whilest it is done by Faith and Obedience and that also is Love and in these peace and safety dwell And after we have done our work it is not discretion in a servant to hasten to his meal and snatch at the refreshment of Visions Unions and Abstractions but first we must gird our selves and wait upon the Master and not sit down our selves till we all be called at the great Supper of the Lamb. 25. It was therefore an excellent desire of St. Bernard who was as likely as any to have such altitudes of Speculation if God had really dispensed them to persons holy phantastick and Religious I pray God grant to me peace of spirit joy in the 〈◊〉 Ghost to compassionate others in the midst of my mirth to be charitable in simplicity to rejoyce with them that rejoyce and to mourn with them that mourn and with these I shall be content other Exaltations of Devotion I leave to Apostles and Apostolick men the high Hills are for the Harts and the climbing Goats the stony Rocks and the recesses of the earth for the Conies It is more healthful and nutritive to dig the earth and to eat of her fruits than to stare upon the greatest glories of the Heavens and live upon the beams of the Sun so unsatisfying a thing is Rapture and transportation to the Soul it often distracts the Faculties but seldome does advantage 〈◊〉 and is full of danger in the greatest of its lustre If ever a man be more in love with God by such instruments or more indeared to Vertue or made more severe and watchful in his Repentance it is an excellent grace and gift of God but then this is nothing but the joys and comfort of ordinary Meditation those extraordinary as they have no sense in them so are not pretended to be instruments of Vertue but are like Jonathan's arrows shot beyond it to signifie the danger the man is in towards whom such arrows are shot but if the person be made unquiet unconstant proud pusillanimous of high opinion pertinacious and confident in uncertain judgments or desperate it is certain they are temptations and illusions so that as all our duty consists in the ways of Repentance and acquist of Vertue so there rests all our safety and by consequence all our solid joys and this is the effect of ordinary pious and regular Meditations 26. If I mistake not there is a temptation like this under another name amongst persons whose Religion hath less discourse and more fancy and that is a Familiarity with God which indeed if it were rightly understood is an affection consequent to the Illuminative way that is an act or an effect of the vertue of Religion and Devotion which consists in Prayers and addresses to God Lauds and Eucharists and Hymns and confidence of coming to the throne of Grace upon assurance of God's veracity and goodness infinite so that Familiarity with God which is an affection of Friendship is the entercourse of giving and receiving blessings and graces respectively and it is produced by a holy life or the being in the state of Grace and is part of every man's inheritance that is a friend of God But when familiarity with God shall be esteemed a privilege of singular and eminent persons not communicated to all the faithful and is thought to be an admission to a nearer entercourse of secrecy with God it is an effect of Pride and a mistake in judgment concerning the very same thing which the old Divines call the Unitive way if themselves that claim it understood the terms of art and the consequents of their own intentions 27. Onely I shall observe one Circumstance That Familiarity with God is nothing else but an admission to be of God's Family the admission of a servant or a son in minority and implies Obedience Duty and Fear on our parts Care and Providence and Love on God's part And it is not the familiarity of Sons but the impudence of proud Equals to express this pretended privilege in 〈◊〉 unmannerly and unreverent addresses and discourses and it is a sure rule that whatsoever heights of Piety union or familiarity any man pretends to it is of the Devil unless the greater the pretence be the greater also be the Humility of the man The highest flames are the most
tremulous and so are the most holy and eminent Religious persons more full of awfulness and fear and modesty and humility so that in true Divinity and right speaking there is no such thing as the Unitive way of Religion save onely in the effects of duty obedience and the expresses of the precise vertue of Religion Meditations in order to a good life let them be as exalted as the capacity of the person and subject will endure up to the height of Contemplation but if Contemplation comes to be a distinct thing and something besides or beyond a distinct degree of vertuous Meditation it is lost to all sense and Religion and prudence Let no man be hasty to eat of the fruits of Paradise before his time 28. And now I shall not need to enumerate the blessed fruits of holy Meditation for it is a Grace that is instrumental to all effects to the production of all Vertues and the extinction of all Vices and by consequence the inhabitation of the Holy Ghost within us is the natural or proper emanation from the frequent exercise of this Duty onely it hath something particularly excellent besides its general influence for Meditation is that part of Prayer which knits the Soul to its right object and confirms and makes actual our intention and Devotion Meditation is the Tongue of the Soul and the language of our spirit and our wandring thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of Meditation and recessions from that Duty and according as we neglect Meditation so are our Prayers imperfect Meditation being the Soul of Prayer and the intention of our spirit But in all other things Meditation is the instrument and conveyance it habituates our affections to Heaven it hath permanent content it produces constancy of purpose despising of things below inflamed desires of Vertue love of God self-denial humility of understanding and universal correction of our life and manners The PRAYER HOly and Eternal Jesus whose whole Life and Doctrine was a perpetual Sermon of Holy life a treasure of Wisedom and a repository of Divine materials for Meditation give me grace to understand diligence and attention to consider care to lay up and carefulness to reduce to practice all those actions discourses and pious lessons and intimations by which thou didst expresly teach or tacitly imply or mysteriously signifie our Duty Let my Understanding become as spiritual in its imployment and purposes as it is immaterial in its nature fill my Memory as a vessel of Election with remembrances and notions highly compunctive and greatly incentive of all the parts of 〈◊〉 Let thy holy Spirit dwell in my Soul instructing my Knowledge sanctifying my Thoughts guiding my Affections directing my Will in the choice of Vertue that it may be the great imployment of my life to meditate in thy Law to study thy preceptive will to understand even the niceties and circumstantials of my Duty that Ignorance may neither occasion a sin nor become a punishment Take from me all vanity of spirit lightness of fancy curiosity and impertinency of inquiry illusions of the Devil and phantastick deceptions Let my thoughts be as my Religion plain honest pious simple prudent and charitable of great imployment and force to the production of Vertues and extermination of Vice but suffering no transportations of sense and vanity nothing greater than the capacities of my Soul nothing that may minister to any intemperances of spirit but let me be wholly inebriated with Love and that love wholly spent in doing such actions as best please thee in the conditions of my infirmity and the securities of Humility till thou shalt please to draw the curtain and reveal thy interiour beauties in the Kingdom of thine eternal Glories which grant for thy mercie 's sake O Holy and Eternal Jesu Amen The goodly CEDAR of Apostolick Catholick EPISCOPACY compared with the moderne Shoots Slips of divided NOVELTIES in the Church before the Introduction of the Apostles Lives In Rama was there a voice heard lamentation and weeping and great mourning â—â—â—hel weeping for her Children and would not be Comforted because they are not SECT VI. Of the Death of the Holy Innocents or the Babes of Bethlehem and the Flight of JESVS into Egypt The killing the Infants S. MAT. 2. 18 In Rama was there a voice heard Lamentation and weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for her children and would not be conforted because they are not The flight into Egipt S. MAT. 2. 14. When he arose he took the young Child and his mother by night and departed into egipt 1. ALL this while Herod waited for the return of the Wise men that they might give directions where the Child did lie and his Sword might find him out with a certain and direct execution But when he saw that he was mocked of the Wise men he was exceeding wroth For it now began to deserve his trouble when his purposes which were most secret began to be contradicted and diverted with a prevention as if they were resisted by an all-seeing and almighty Providence He began to suspect the hand of Heaven was in it and saw there was nothing for his purposes to be acted unless he could dissolve the golden chain of Predestination Herod believed the divine Oracles foretelling that a King should be born in Bethlehem and yet his Ambition had made him so stupid that he attempted to cancel the Decree of Heaven For if he did not believe the Prophecies why was he troubled If he did believe them how could he possibly hinder that event which God had foretold himself would certainly bring to pass 2. And therefore since God already had hindered him from the executions of a distinguishing sword he resolved to send a sword of indiscrimination and confusion hoping that if he killed all the Babes of Bethlehem this young King's Reign also should soon determine He therefore sent forth and 〈◊〉 all the children that were in Bethlehem and all the coasts thereof from two years old and under according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the Wise men For this Execution was in the beginning of the second year after Christ's Nativity as in all probability we guess not at the two years end as some suppose because as his malice was subtile so he intended it should be secure and though he had been diligent in his inquiry and was near the time in his computation yet he that was never sparing of the lives of others would now to secure his Kingdom rather over-act his severity for some moneths than by doing execution but just to the tittle of his account hazard the escaping of the Messias 3. This Execution was sad cruel and universal no abatements made for the dire shriekings of the Mothers no tender-hearted souldier was imployed no hard-hearted person was softned by the weeping eyes and pity-begging looks of those Mothers that wondred how it was possible any person should hurt their pretty Sucklings no
of Discipline and Society opportunities of Perfection Privacy is the best for Devotion and the Publick for Charity In both God hath many Saints and Servants and from both the Devil hath had some 8. His Sermon was an Exhortation to Repentance and an Holy life He gave particular schedules of Duty to several states of persons sharply reproved the 〈◊〉 for their Hypocrisie and Impiety it being worse in them because contrary to their rule their profession and institution gently guided others into the ways of Righteousness calling them the streight ways of the Lord that is the direct and shortest way to the Kingdom for of all Lines the streight is the shortest and as every Angle is a turning out of the way so every Sin is an obliquity and interrupts the journey By such 〈◊〉 and a Baptism he disposed the spirits of men for the entertaining the 〈◊〉 and the Homilies of the Gospel For John's Doctrine was to the Sermons of Jesus as a Preface to a Discourse and his Baptism was to the new Institution and Discipline of the Kingdom as the Vigils to a Holy-day of the same kind in a less degree But the whole Oeconomy of it represents to us that Repentance is the first intromission into the Sanctities of Christian Religion The Lord treads upon no paths that are not hallowed and made smooth by the sorrows and cares of Contrition and the impediments of sin cleared by dereliction and the succeeding fruits of emendation But as it related to the Jews his Baptism did signifie by a cognation to their usual Rites and Ceremonies of Ablution and washing Gentile Proselytes that the Jews had so far receded from their duty and that Holiness which God required of them by the Law that they were in the state of strangers no better than Heathens and therefore were to be treated as themselves received Gentile Proselytes by a Baptism and a new state of life before they could be fit for the reception of the 〈◊〉 or be admitted to his Kingdom 9. It was an excellent sweetness of Religion that had entirely 〈◊〉 the Soul of the Baptist that in so great reputation of Sanctity so mighty concourse of people such great multitudes of Disciples and confidents and such throngs of admirers he was humble without mixtures of vanity and confirmed in his temper and Piety against the strength of the most impetuous temptation And he was tried to some purpose for when he was tempted to confess himself to be the CHRIST he refused it or to be Elias or to be accounted that Prophet he refused all such great appellatives and confessed himself only to be a Voice the lowest of Entities whose being depends upon the Speaker just as himself did upon the pleasure of God receiving form and publication and imployment wholly by the will of his Lord in order to the manifestation of the Word eternal It were 〈◊〉 that the spirits of men would not arrogate more than their own though they did not lessen their own just dues It may concern some end of Piety or Prudence that our reputation be preserved by all just means but never that we assume the dues of others or grow vain by the spoils of an undeserved dignity Honours are the rewards of Vertue or engagement upon Offices of trouble and publick use but then they must suppose a preceding worth or a fair imployment But he that is a Plagiary of others titles or offices and dresses himself with their beauties hath no more solid worth or reputation than he should have nutriment if he ate only with their mouth and slept their slumbers himself being open and unbound in all the Regions of his Senses The PRAYER O Holy and most glorious God who before the publication of thy eternal Son the Prince of Peace didst send thy Servant John Baptist by the examples of Mortification and the rude Austerities of a penitential life and by the Sermons of Penance to remove all the impediments of sin that the ways of his Lord and ours might be made clear ready and expedite be pleased to let thy Holy Spirit lead me in the streight paths of Sanctity without deslections to either hand and without the interruption of deadly sin that I may with facility Zeal 〈◊〉 and a persevering diligence walk in the ways of the Lord. Be pleased that the Axe may be laid to the root of Sin that the whole body of it may be cut down in me that no fruit of Sodom may grow up to thy displeasure Throughly purge the floor and 〈◊〉 of my heart with thy Fan with the breath of thy Diviner Spirit that it may be a holy repository of Graces and full of benediction and Sanctity that when our Lord shall come I may at all times be prepared for the entertainment of so Divine a Guest apt to lodge him and to feast him that he may for ever delight to dwell with me And make me also to dwell with him sometimes retiring into his recesses and private rooms by Contemplation and admiring of his Beauties and beholding the Secrets of his Kingdom and at all other times walking in the Courts of the Lord's House by the diligences and labours of Repentance and an Holy life till thou shalt please to call me to a nearer communication of thy Excellencies which then grant when by thy gracious assistances I shall have done thy works and glorified thy holy Name by the strict and never-failing purposes and proportionable endeavours of Religion and Holiness through the merits and mercies of Jesus Christ. Amen DISCOURSE IV. Of Mortification and corporal Austerities 1. FRom the days of John the Baptist the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force said our Blessed Saviour For now that the new Covenant was to be made with Man Repentance which is so great a part of it being in very many actions a punitive duty afflictive and vindicative from the days of the Baptist who first by office and solemnity of design published this Doctrine violence was done to the inclinations and dispositions of Man and by such violences we were to be possessed of the Kingdom And his Example was the best 〈◊〉 upon his Text he did violence to himself he lived a life in which the rudenesses of Camel's hair and the lowest nutriment of Flies and Honey of the Desart his life of singularity his retirement from the sweetnesses of Society his resisting the greatest of Tentations and despising to assume false honours were instances of that violence and explications of the Doctrine of Self-denial and Mortification which are the Pedestal of the Cross and the Supporters of Christianity as it distinguishes from all Laws Religions and Institutions of the World 2. Mortification is the one half of Christianity it is a dying to the World it is a denying of the Will and all its natural desires An abstinence from pleasure and sensual complacencies that the 〈◊〉 being subdued to the spirit both may joyn in the
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
Duty tempts to the breaking of the Vow or at least makes the man impatient when he cannot persist with content nor retire with 〈◊〉 21. It therefore concerns all Spiritual Guides to manage their new Converts with sober counsels and moderate permissions knowing that sublime speculations in the Metaphysicks are not fit entertainment for an infant-understanding There is milk for babes and strong meat for men of riper Piety and it will imploy all the regular strength of young beginners to contest against the reliques of those mischiefs which remain since the expulsion of the Old man and to master those difficulties which by the nature of the state are certainly consequent to so late mutation And if we by the furies of Zeal and the impatience of mistaken Piety are violent and indiscreet in the destroying of our Enemies we probably may tread the thistle down and trample upon all its appearances and yet leave the root in the ground with haste and imprudent forwardness Gentle and soft counsels are the surest Enemies to your Vice and the best conservators and 〈◊〉 of a vertuous state but a hasty charge and the conduct of a young Leader may engage an early spirit in dangers and dishonours And this Temptation is of so much greater danger because it 〈◊〉 a face of Zeal and meets with all encouragements from without every man being apt to cherish a Convert and to enflame his new 〈◊〉 but few consider 〈◊〉 inconveniences that are consequent to indiscreet beginnings and the worse events usually appendent to 〈◊〉 inconveniences 22. Indeed it is not usual that Prudence and a new-kindled Zeal meet in the 〈◊〉 person but it will therefore concern the safety of new Converts who cannot guide themselves to give themselves up to the conduct of an experienced Spiritual person who being disinterest in those heats of the 〈◊〉 apprehensions and being long taught by the observation of the accidents of a spiritual life upon what rocks Rashness and Zeal usually do engage us can best tell what degrees and what instances of Religion they may with most safety undertake but for the general it is best in the addresses of Grace to follow the course of Nature let there be an Infancy and a Childhood and a vigorous Youth and by the divers and distant degrees of increment let the persons be established in Wisdom and Grace But above all things let them be careful that they do not lay upon themselves Necessities of any lasting course no Vows of perpetuity in any instance of uncommanded action or degree of Religion for he may alter in his capacity and exteriour condition he may see by experience that the particular engagement is imprudent he may by the virtue of Obedience be engaged on a duty inconsistent with the conveniences and advantages of the other and his very loss of liberty in an uncommanded instance may tempt him to inconvenience But then for the single and transient actions of Piety although in them the danger is less even though the imprudence be great yet it were well if new beginners in Religion would attempt a moderate and an even Piety rather than actions of eminency lest they retire with shame and be 〈◊〉 with scruple when their first heats are spent and expire in weariness and temptation It is good to keep within the circuits of a man's affections not stretching out all the degrees of fancy and desire but leaving the appetites of Religion rather unsatisfied and still desiring more than by stretching out the whole faculty leave no desires but what are fulfilled and wearied 23. Thirdly I shall not need here to observe such Temptations which are direct invitations to sin upon occasion of the Piety of holy persons such as are Security too much Confidence Pride and Vanity these are part of every man's danger and are to be considered upon their several arguments Here I was only to note the general instruments of mischief It remains now that I speak of such Remedies and general Antidotes not which are proportioned to Sins in special but such as are preventions or remedies and good advices in general 24. First Let every man abstain from all Occasions of sin as much as his condition will permit And it were better to do some violence to our secular affairs than to procure apparent or probable danger to our Souls For if we see not a way open and ready prepared to our iniquity our desires oftentimes are not willing to be troubled but Opportunity gives life and activeness to our appetites If David had not from his towers beheld the private beauties of Bathsheba Uriah had lived and his Wife been unattempted but sin was brought to him by that chance and entring at the casements of his eyes set his heart on fire and despoiled him of his robes of honour and innocence The riches of the wedge of gold and the beauty of the Babylonish garment made Achan sacrilegious upon the place who was innocent enough in his preceding purposes and therefore that Soul that makes it self an object to sin and invites an Enemy to view its possessions and live in the vicinage loves the sin it self and he that is pleased with the danger would willingly be betrayed into the necessity and the pleasure of the sin for he can have no other ends to entertain the hazards but that he hath a farther purpose to serve upon them he loves the pleasure of the sin and therefore he would make the condition of sinning certain and unavoidable And therefore Holy Scripture which is admirable and curious in the cautions and securities of Vertue does not determine its Precepts in the precise commands of vertuous actions but also binds up our senses obstructs the passage of Temptation blocks up all the ways and avenues of Vice commanding us to make a covenant with our eyes not to look upon a Maid not to sit with a woman that is a singer not to consider the wine when it sparkles and gives its colour rightly in the cup but to set a watch before our mouths to keep the door of our lips and many more instances to this purpose that sin may not come so near as to be repulsed as knowing sin hath then prevailed too far when we give the denial to its solicitations 25. We read a Story of a vertuous Lady that desired of S. Athanasius to procure for her out of the number of the Widows fed from the Ecclesiastical Corban an old woman morose peevish and impatient that she might by the society of so ungentle a person have often occasion to exercise her Patience her Forgiveness and Charity I know not how well the counsel succeeded with her I am sure it was not very safe and to invite the trouble to triumph over it is to wage a war of an uncertain issue for no end but to get the pleasures of the victory which oftentimes do not pay for the trouble never for the danger An Egyptian who acknowledged Fire for his God
which in a greater measure and upon more variety of rules the Governours of Churches are obliged But that which Christian Simplicity prohibits is the mixing arts and unhandsome means for the purchase of our ends witty counsels that are underminings of our neighbour destroying his just interest to serve our own stratagems to deceive infinite and insignificant answers with fraudulent design unjust and unlawful concealment of our purposes fallacious promises and false pretences flattery and unjust and unreasonable praise saying one thing and meaning the contrary pretending Religion to secular designs breaking faith taking false oaths and such other instruments of humane purposes framed by the Devil and sent into the world to be perfected by man Christian Simplicity speaks nothing but its thoughts and when it concerns Prudence that a thought or purpose should be concealed it concerns Simplicity that silence be its cover and not a false vizor it rather suffers inconvenience than a lie it destroys no man's right though it be inconsistent with my advantages it reproves freely palliates no man's wickedness it intends what it ought and does what is bidden and uses courses regular and just sneaks not in corners and walks always in the eye of God and the face of the world 7. Jesus told Nathanael that he knew him when he saw him under the Fig-tree and Nathanael took that to be probation sufficient that he was the 〈◊〉 and believed rightly upon an insufficient motive which because Jesus did accept it gives testimony to us that however Faith be produced by means regular or by arguments incompetent whether it be proved or not proved whether by chance or deliberation whether wisely or by occasion so that Faith be produced by the instrument and love by Faith God's work is done and so is ours For if S. Paul rejoyced that Christ was preached though by the 〈◊〉 of peevish persons certainly God will not reject an excellent product because it came from a weak and sickly parent and he that brings good out of evil and rejoyces in that good having first triumphed upon the evil will certainly take delight in the Faith of the most ignorant persons which his own grace hath produced out of innocent though insufficient beginnings It was folly in Naaman to refuse to be cured because he was to recover only by washing in Jordan The more incompetent the means is the greater is the glory of God who hath produced waters from a rock and fire from the collision of a sponge and wool and it is certain the end unless it be in products merely natural does not take its estimate and degrees from the external means Grace does miracles and the productions of the Spirit in respect of its instruments are equivocal extraordinary and supernatural and ignorant persons believe as strongly though they know not why and love God as 〈◊〉 as greater spirits and more excellent understandings and when God pleases or if he sees it expedient he will do to others as to Nathanael give them greater arguments and better instruments for the confirmation and heightning of their 〈◊〉 than they had for the first production 8. When Jesus had chosen these few Disciples to be witnesses of succeeding accidents every one of which was to be a probation of his mission and Divinity he entred into the theatre of the world at a Marriage-feast which he now first hallowed to a Sacramental signification and made to become mysterious he now began to chuse his Spouse out from the communities of the world and did mean to endear her by unions ineffable and glorious and consign the Sacrament by his bloud which he first gave in a secret 〈◊〉 and afterwards in 〈◊〉 and apparent effusion And although the Holy Jesus did in his own person consecrate Coelibate and Abstinence and Chastity in his Mother's yet by his 〈◊〉 he also hallowed Marriage and made it honourable not only in civil account and the rites of Heraldry but in a spiritual sence he having new sublim'd it by making it a Sacramental representment of the union of Christ and his 〈◊〉 the Church And all married persons should do 〈◊〉 to remember what the conjugal society does represent and not break the matrimonial bond which is a 〈◊〉 ligament of Christ and his Church for whoever dissolves the sacredness of the Mystery and unhallows the Vow by violence and impurity he dissolves his relation to Christ. To break faith with a Wife or Husband is a divorce from Jesus and that is a separation from all possibilities of Felicity In the time of the 〈◊〉 Statutes to violate Marriage was to do injustice and dishonour and a breach to the sanctions of Nature or the first constitutions But two bands more are added in the Gospel to make Marriage more sacred For now our Bodies are made Temples of the Holy Ghost and the Rite of Marriage is made significant and Sacramental and every act of Adultery is Profanation and Irreligion it 〈◊〉 a Temple and deflours a Mystery 9. The Married pair were holy but poor and they wanted wine and the Blessed Virgin-Mother pitying the 〈◊〉 of the young man complained to Jesus of the want and 〈◊〉 gave her an answer which promised no satisfaction to her purposes For now that Jesus had lived thirty years and done in person nothing answerable to 〈◊〉 glorious Birth and the miraculous accidents of his Person she longed till the time 〈◊〉 in which he was to manifest himself by actions as miraculous as the Star of his Birth She knew by the rejecting of his Trade and his going abroad and probably by his own 〈◊〉 to her that the time was near and the forwardness of her love and holy desires 〈◊〉 might go some minutes before his own precise limit However 〈◊〉 answered to this purpose to shew that the work he was to do was done not to satisfie her importunity which is not occasion enough for a Miracle but to prosecute the great work of Divine designation For in works spiritual and religious all exteriour relation ceases The world's order and the manner of our nature and the infirmities of our person have produced Societies and they have been the parents of Relation and God hath tied them fast by the knots of duty and made the duty the occasion and opportunities of reward But in actions spiritual in which we relate to God our relations are sounded upon the Spirit and therefore we must do our duties upon considerations separate and spiritual but never suffer temporal relations to impede our Religious duties Christian Charity is a higher thing than to be confined within the terms of dependence and correlation and those endearments which leagues or nature or society have made pass into spiritual and like Stars in the presence of the Sun appear not when the heights of the Spirit are in place Where duty hath prepared special instances there we must for Religion's sake promote them but even to our Parents or our Children the charities
powers to reject any proposition and to believe well is an effect of a singular predestination and is a Gift in order to a Grace as that Grace is in order to Salvation But the insufficiency of an argument or disability to prove our Religion is so far from disabling the goodness of an ignorant man's Faith that as it may be as strong as the Faith of the greatest Scholar so it hath full as much excellency not of nature but in order to Divine acceptance For as he who believes upon the only stock of Education made no election of his Faith so he who believes what is demonstrably proved is forced by the demonstration to his choice Neither of them did 〈◊〉 and both of them may equally love the Article 3. So that since a 〈◊〉 Argument in a weak understanding does the same work that a strong Argument in a more 〈◊〉 and learned that is it convinces and makes Faith and yet neither of them is matter of choice if the thing believed be good and matter of 〈◊〉 or necessity the Faith is not rejected by God upon the weakness of the first nor accepted upon the strength of the latter principles when we are once in it will not be enquired by what entrance we passed thither whether God leads us or drives us in whether we come by Discourse or by Inspiration by the guide of an Angel or the conduct of Moses whether we be born or made Christians it is indifferent so we be there where we should be for this is but the gate of Duty and the entrance to Felicity For thus far Faith is but an act of the Understanding which is a natural Faculty serving indeed as an instrument to Godliness but of it self no part of it and it is just like fire producing its act inevitably and burning as long as it can without power to interrupt or suspend its action and therefore we cannot be more pleasing to God for understanding rightly than the fire is for burning clearly which puts us evidently upon this consideration that Christian Faith that glorious Duty which gives to Christians a great degree of approximation to God by Jesus Christ must have a great proportion of that ingredient which makes actions good or bad that is of choice and effect 4. For the Faith of a Christian hath more in it of the Will than of the Understanding Faith is that great mark of distinction which separates and gives formality to the Covenant of the Gospel which is a Law of Faith The Faith of a Christian is his Religion that is it is that whole conformity to the Institution or Discipline of Jesus Christ which distinguishes him from the believers of false Religions And to be one of the faithful signifies the same with being a Disciple and that contains Obedience as well as believing For to the same sense are all those appellatives in Scripture the Faithful Brethren Believers the Saints Disciples all representing the duty of a Christian A Believer and a Saint or a holy person is the same thing Brethren signifies Charity and Believers Faith in the intellectual sence the Faithful and Disciples signifie both for besides the consent to the Proposition the first of them is also used for Perseverance and Sanctity and the greatest of Charity mixt with a confident Faith up to the height of Martyrdom Be faithful unto the death said the Holy Spirit and I will give thee the Crown of life And when the Apostles by way of abbreviation express all the body of Christian Religion they call it Faith working by Love which also S. Paul in a parallel place calls a New Creature it is a keeping of the Commandments of God that is the Faith of a Christian into whose desinition Charity is ingredient whose sence is the same with keeping of God's Commandments so that if we desine Faith we must first distinguish it The faith of a natural person or the saith of Devils is a 〈◊〉 believing a certain number of Propositions upon conviction of the Understanding But the Faith of a Christian the Faith that justifies and saves him is Faith working by Charity or Faith keeping the Commandments of God They are distinct Faiths in order to different ends and therefore of different constitution and the instrument of distinction is Charity or Obedience 5. And this great Truth is clear in the perpetual testimony of Holy Scripture For Abraham is called the Father of the Faithful and yet our Blessed Saviour told the Jews that if they had been the sons of Abraham they would have done the works of Abraham and therefore Good works are by the Apostle called the sootsteps of the Faith of our Father Abraham For Faith in every of its stages at its first beginning at its increment at its greatest perfection is a Duty made up of the concurrence of the Will and the Understanding when it pretends to the Divine acceptance Faith and Repentance begin the Christian course Repent and believe the Gospel was the summ of the Apostles Sermons and all the way after it is Faith working by Love Repentance puts the first spirit and life into Faith and Charity preserves it and gives it nourishment and increase it self also growing by a mutual supply of spirits and nutriment from Faith Whoever does heartily believe a Resurrection and Life eternal upon certain Conditions will certainly endeavour to acquire the Promises by the Purchase of Obedience and observation of the Conditions For it is not in the nature or power of man directly to despise and reject so 〈◊〉 a good So that Faith supplies Charity with argument and maintenance and Charity supplies Faith with life and motion Faith makes Charity reasonable and Charity makes Faith living and effectual And therefore the old Greeks called Faith and Charity a miraculous Chariot or Yoke they bear the burthen of the Lord with an equal consederation these are like 〈◊〉 twins they live and die together Indeed Faith is the first-born of the twins but they must come both at a birth or else they die being strangled at the gates of the womb But if Charity like Jacob lays hold upon his elder brother's heel it makes a timely and a prosperous birth and gives certain title to the eternal Promises For let us give the right of primogeniture to Faith yet the Blessing yea and the Inheritance too will at last fall to Charity Not that Faith is disinherited but that Charity only enters into the possession The nature of Faith passes into the excellency of Charity before they can be rewarded and that both may have their estimate that which justifies and saves us keeps the name of Faith but doth not do the deed till it hath the nature of Charity For to think well or to have a good opinion or an excellent or a fortunate understanding entitles us not to the love of God and the consequent inheritance but to chuse the ways of the Spirit and
to relinquish the paths of darkness this is the way of the Kingdom and the purpose of the Gospel and the proper work of Faith 6. And if we consider upon what stock Faith it self is instrumental and operative of Salvation we shall find it is in it self acceptable because it is a Duty and commanded and therefore it is an act of Obedience a work of the Gospel a submitting the Understanding a denying the Affections a laying aside all interests and a bringing our thoughts under the obedience of Christ. This the Apostle calls the Obedience of Faith And it is of the same condition and constitution with other Graces all which equally relate to Christ and are as firm instruments of union and are washed by the bloud of Christ and are sanctified by his Death and apprehend him in their capacity and degrees some higher and some not so high but Hope and Charity apprehend Christ in a measure and proportion greater than Faith when it distinguishes from them So that if Faith does the work of Justification as it is a mere relation to Christ 〈◊〉 so also does Hope and Charity or if these are Duties and good works so also is Faith and they all being alike commanded in order to the same end and encouraged by the same reward are also accepted upon the same stock which is that they are acts of Obedience and relation too they obey Christ and lay hold upon Christ's merits and are but several instances of the great duty of a Christian but the actions of several faculties of the 〈◊〉 Creature But 〈◊〉 Faith is the beginning Grace and hath insluence and causality in the production of the other 〈◊〉 all the other as they are united in Duty are also united in their Title and appellative they are all called by the name of Faith because they are parts of Faith as Faith is taken in the larger sence and when it is taken in the strictest and distinguishing sence they are 〈◊〉 and proper products by way of natural emanation 7. That a good life is the genuine and true-born issue of Faith no man questions that knows himself the Disciple of the Holy Jesus but that Obedience is the same thing with Faith and that all Christian Graces are parts of its bulk and constitution is also the doctrine of the Holy Ghost and the Grammar of Scripture making Faith and Obedience to be terms coincident and expressive of each other For Faith is not a single Star but a Constellation a chain of Graces called by S. Paul the power of God unto salvation to every believer that is Faith is all that great instrument by which God intends to bring us to Heaven and he gives this reason In the Gospel the 〈◊〉 cousness of God is revealed from faith to faith for it is written The 〈◊〉 shall live by Faith Which discourse makes Faith to be a course of Sanctity and holy 〈◊〉 a continuation of a Christian's duty such a duty as not only gives the first breath but by which a man lives the life of Grace The just shall live by Faith that is such a Faith as grows from step to step till the whole righteousness of God be fulfilled in it From faith to faith saith the Apostle which S. 〈◊〉 expounds From Faith believing to Faith obeying from imperfect Faith to Faith made perfect by the animation of Charity that he who is justified may be justified still For as there are several degrees and parts of Justification so there are several degrees of Faith answerable to it that in all sences it may be true that by Faith we are justified and by Faith we live and by Faith we are saved For if we proceed from Faith to Faith from believing to obeying from Faith in the Understanding to Faith in the Will from Faith barely assenting to the revelations of God to Faith obeying the Commandments of God from the body of Faith to the soul of Faith that is to Faith sormed and made alive by Charity then we shall proceed from Justification to Justification that is from Remission of Sins to become the Sons of God and at last to an actual possession of those glories to which we were here consigned by the fruits of the Holy Ghost 8. And in this sence the Holy Jesus is called by the Apostle the Author and 〈◊〉 of our Faith he is the principle and he is the promoter he begins our Faith in Revelations and perfects it in Commandments he leads us by the assent of our Understanding and finishes the work of his grace by a holy life which S. Paul there expresses by its several constituent parts as laying aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets us and running with patience the race that is set before us resisting unto bloud striving against sin for in these things Jesus is therefore made our example because he is the Author and Finisher of our Faith without these Faith is imperfect But the thing is something plainer yet for S. James says that Faith lives not but by Charity and the life or essence of a thing is certainly the better part of its constitution as the Soul is to a Man And if we mark the manner of his probation it will come home to the main point For he proves that Abraham's saith was therefore imputed to him for Righteousness because he was justified by Works Was not Abraham our Father justified by Works when he offered up his son And the Scripture was fulfilled saying Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness For Faith wrought with his Works and made his Faith perfect It was a dead and an imperfect Faith unless Obedience gave it being and all its integral or essential parts So that Faith and Charity in the sence of a Christian are but one duty as the Understanding and the Will are but one reasonable Soul only they produce several actions in order to one another which are but divers 〈◊〉 and the same spirit 9. Thus S. Paul describing the Faith of the Thessalonians calls it that whereby they turned from Idols and whereby they served the living God and the Faith of the Patriarchs believed the world's Creation received the Promises did Miracles wrought Rightcousness and did and suffered so many things as make up the integrity of a holy life And therefore disobedience and unrighteousness is called want of Faith and Heresie which is opposed to Faith is a work of the flesh because Faith it self is a work of Righteousness And that I may enumerate no more particulars the thing is so known that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in propriety of language signifies 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 is rendred disobedience and the not providing for our families is an act of 〈◊〉 by the same reason and analogy that 〈◊〉 or Charity and a holy life are the duties of a Christian of a justifying
no-where punctually described he that is most severe in his determination does best secure himself and by exacting the strictest account of himself shall obtain the easier scrutiny at the hands of God The use I make of this consideration is to the same purpose with the former For if every day of sin and every criminal act is a degree of recess from the possibilities of Heaven it would be considered at how great distance a death-bed Penitent after a vicious life may apprehend himself to stand for mercy and pardon and since the terms of restitution must in labour and in extension of time or intension of degrees be of value great enough to restore him to some proportion or equivalence with that state of Grace from whence he is fallen and upon which the Covenant was made with him how impossible or how near to impossible it will appear to him to go so far and do so much in that state and in those circumstances of disability 32. Concerning the third particular I consider that Repentance as it is described in Scripture is a system of holy Duties not of one kind not properly consisting of parts as if it were a single Grace but it is the reparation of that estate into which Christ first put us a renewing us in the spirit of our mind so the Apostle calls it and the Holy Ghost hath taught this truth to us by the implication of many appellatives and also by express discourses For there is in Scripture a Repentance to be repented of and a Repentance never to be repented of The first is mere Sorrow for what is past an ineffective trouble producing nothing good such as was the Repentance of Judas he repented and hanged himself and such was that of Esau when it was too late and so was the Repentance of the five foolish Virgins which examples tell us also when ours is an impertinent and ineffectual Repentance To this Repentance Pardon is nowhere promised in Scripture But there is a Repentance which is called Conversion or Amendment of life a Repentance productive of holy fruits such as the Baptist and our Blessed Saviour preached such as himself also propounded in the example of the Ninivites they repented at the preaching of Jonah that is they fasted they covered them in sackcloth they cried mightily unto God yea they turned every one from his evil way and from the violence that was in their hands And this was it that appeased God in that instance God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil and did it not 33. The same Character of Repentance we find in the Prophet Ezekiel When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed and doth that which is lawful and right If the wicked restore the pledge give again that he had robbed walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity he hath done that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not die And in the Gospel Repentance is described with as full and intire comprehensions as in the old Prophets For Faith and Repentance are the whole duty of the Gospel Faith when it is in conjunction with a practical grace signifies an intellectual Faith signifies the submission of the understanding to the Institution and Repentance includes all that whole practice which is the intire duty of a Christian after he hath been overtaken in a fault And therefore Repentance first includes a renunciation and abolition of all evil and then also enjoyns a pursuit of every vertue and that till they arrive at an habitual confirmation 34. Of the first sence are all those expressions of Scripture which imply Repentance to be the deletery of sins Repentance from dead works S. Paul affirms to be the prime Fundamental of the Religion that is conversion or returning from dead works for unless Repentance be so construed it is not good sence And this is therefore highly verified because Repentance is intended to set us into the condition of our first undertaking and articles covenanted with God And therefore it is a redemption of the time that is a recovering what we lost and making it up by our doubled industry Remember whence thou art fallen repent that is return and do thy first works said the Spirit to the Angel of the Church of Ephesus or else I will remove the Candlestick except thou repent It is a restitution If a man be overtaken in a fault restore such a one that is put him where he was And then that Repentance also implies a doing all good is certain by the Sermon of the Baptist Bring forth fruits meet for Repentance Do thy first works was the Sermon of the Spirit Laying aside every weight and the sin that easily encircles us let us run with patience the race that is set before us So S. Paul taught And S. Peter gives charge that when we have escaped the corruptions of the world and of lusts besides this we give all diligence to acquire the rosary and conjugation of Christian vertues And they are proper effects or rather constituent parts of a holy Repentance For godly sorrow worketh Repentance saith S. Paul not to be repented of and that ye may know what is signified by Repentance behold the product was carefulness clearing of themselves indignation fear vehement desires zeal and revenge to which if we add the Epithet of holy for these were the results of a godly sorrow and the members of a Repentance not to be repented of we are taught that Repentance besides the purging out the malice of iniquity is also a sanctification of the whole man a turning Nature into Grace Passions into Reason and the flesh into spirit 35. To this purpose I reckon those Phrases of Scripture calling it a renewing of our minds a renewing of the Holy Ghost a cleansing of our hands and purifying our hearts that is a becoming holy in our affections and righteous in our actions a a transformation or utter change a crucifying the flesh with the affections and lusts a mortified state a purging out the old leven and becoming a new conspersion a waking out of sleep and walking honestly as in the day a being born again and being born from above a new life And I consider that these preparative actions of Repentance such as are Sorrow and Confession of sins and Fasting and exteriour Mortifications and severities are but fore-runners of Repentance some of the retinue and they are of the family but they no more complete the duty of Repentance than the harbingers are the whole Court or than the Fingers are all the body There is more joy in Heaven said our Blessed Saviour over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety nine just persons who need no repentance There is no man but needs a tear and a sorrow even for
a sesterce was the loss of a moral 〈◊〉 and every gaining of a talent was an action glorious and heroical But Poverty of spirit accounts Riches to be the servants of God first and then of our selves being sent by God and to return when he pleases and all the while they are with us to do his business It is a looking upon riches and things of the earth as they do who look upon it from Heaven to whom it appears little and unprofitable And because the residence of this blessed Poverty is in the mind it follows that it be here understood that all that exinanition and renunciation abjection and humility of mind which depauperates the spirit making it less worldly and more spiritual is the duty here enjoyned For if a man throws away his gold as did Crates the Theban or the proud Philosopher Diogenes and yet leaves a spirit high aiery phantastical and vain pleasing himself and with complacency reflecting upon his own act his Poverty is but a circumstance of Pride and the opportunity of an imaginary and a secular greatness Ananias and Sapphira renounced the world by selling their possessions but because they were not poor in spirit but still retained the affections to the world therefore they kept back part of the price and lost their hopes The Church of Laodicea was possessed with a spirit of Pride and flattered themselves in imaginary riches they were not poor in spirit but they were poor in possession and condition These wanted Humility the other wanted a generous contempt of worldly things and both were destitute of this Grace 5. The acts of this Grace are 1. To cast off all inordinate affection to Riches 2. In heart and spirit that is preparation of mind to quit the possession of all Riches and actually so to do when God requires it that is when the retaining Riches loses a Vertue 3. To be well pleased with the whole oeconomy of God his providence and dispensation of all things being contented in all estates 4. To imploy that wealth God hath given us in actions of Justice and Religion 5. To be thankful to God in all temporal losses 6. Not to distrust God or to be solicitous and fearful of want in the future 7. To put off the spirit of vanity pride and phantastick complacency in our selves thinking lowly or meanly of whatsoever we are or do 8. To prefer others before our selves doing honour and prelation to them and either contentedly receiving affronts done to us or modestly undervaluing our selves 9. Not to praise our selves but when God's glory and the edification of our neighbour is concerned in it nor willingly to hear others praise us 10. To despoil our selves of all interiour propriety denying our own will in all instances of subordination to our Superiours and our own judgment in matters of difficulty and question permitting our selves and our affairs to the advice of wiser men and the decision of those who are trusted with the cure of our Souls 11. Emptying our selves of our selves and throwing our selves wholly upon God relying upon his Providence trusting his Promises craving his Grace and depending upon his strength for all our actions and deliverances and duties 6. The reward promised is the Kingdome of Heaven Fear not little Flock it is your Father's pleasure to give you a Kingdom To be little in our own eyes is to be great in God's the Poverty of the spirit shall be rewarded with the Riches of the Kingdoms of both Kingdoms that of Heaven is expressed Poverty is the high-way of Eternity But therefore the Kingdom of Grace is taken in the way the way to our Countrey and it being the forerunner of glory and nothing else but an antedated Eternity is part of the reward as well as of our duty And therefore whatsoever is signified by Kingdome in the appropriate Evangelical sense is there intended as a recompence For the Kingdom of the Gospel is a congregation and society of Christ's poor of his little ones they are the Communion of Saints and their present entertainment is knowledge of the truth remission of sins the gift of the Holy Ghost and what else in Scripture is signified to be a part or grace or condition of the Kingdom For to the poor the Gospel is preached that is to the poor the Kingdome is promised and ministred 7. Secondly Blessed are they that Mourn for they shall be comforted This duty of Christian mourning is commanded not for it self but in order to many good ends It is in order to Patience Tribulation worketh Patience and therefore we glory in them saith S. Paul and S. James My brethren count it all joy when ye enter into divers temptations Knowing that the trial of your faith viz. by afflictions worketh Patience 2. It is in order to Repentance Godly sorrow worketh Repentance By consequence it is in order to Pardon for a contrite heart God will not reject And after all this it leads to Joy And therefore S. James preached a Homily of Sorrow Be afflicted and mourn and weep that is in penitential mourning for he adds Humble your selves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up The acts of this duty are 1. To bewail our own sins 2. To lament our infirmities as they are principles of sin and recessions from our first state 3. To weep for our own evils and sad accidents as they are issues of the Divine anger 4. To be sad for the miseries and calamities of the Church or of any member of it and indeed to weep with every one that weeps that is not to rejoyce in his evil but to be compassionate and pitiful and apt to bear another's burthen 5. To avoid all loose and immoderate laughter all dissolution of spirit and manners uncomely jestings free revellings carnivals and balls which are the perdition of precious hours allowed us for Repentance and possibilities of Heaven which are the instruments of infinite vanity idle talking impertinency and lust and very much below the severity and retiredness of a Christian spirit Of this Christ became to us the great example for S. Basil reports a tradition of him that he never laughed but wept often And if we mourn with him we also shall rejoyce in the joys of eternity 8. Thirdly Blessed are the Meek for they shall possess the earth That is the gentle and softer spirits persons not turbulent or unquiet not clamorous or impatient not over-bold or impudent not querulous or discontented not brawlers or contentious not nice or curious but men who submit to God and know no choice of fortune or imployment or success but what God chuses for them having peace at home because nothing from without does discompose their spirit In summe Meekness is an indifferency to any exteriour accident a being reconciled to all conditions and instances of Providence a reducing our selves to such an evenness and interiour satisfaction
as all our happiness consists so God takes greatest complacency and delights in it above all his other Works He punishes to the third and fourth Generation but shews mercy unto thousands Therefore the Jews say that Michael 〈◊〉 with one wing and Gabriel with two meaning that the pacifying Angel the Minister of mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the exterminating Angel the Messenger of wrath is slow And we are called to our approximation to God by the practice of this Grace we are made partakers of the Divine nature by being merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful This mercy consists in the affections and in the effects and actions In both which the excellency of this Christian Precept is eminent above the goodness of the moral precept of the old Philosophers and the piety and charity of the Jews by virtue of the Mosaic Law The Stoick Philosophers affirm it to be the duty of a wise man to succour and help the necessities of indigent and miserable persons but at no hand to pity them or suffer any trouble or compassion in our affections for they intended that a wise person should be dispassionate unmoved and without disturbance in every accident and object and concernment But the Blessed Jesus who came to reconcile us to his Father and purchase us an intire possession did intend to redeem us from sin and make our passions obedient and apt to be commanded even and moderate in temporal affairs but high and active in some instances of spiritual concernment and in all instances that the affection go along with the Grace that we must be as merciful in our compassion as compassionate in our exteriour expressions and actions The Jews by the prescript of their Law were to be merciful to all their Nation and confederates in Religion and this their Mercy was called Justice He hath dispersed abroad and given to the poor his righteousness or Justice 〈◊〉 for ever But the mercies of a Christian are to extend to all Do good to all men especially to the houshold of Faith And this diffusion of a Mercy not only to Brethren but to Aliens and Enemies is that which S. Paul calls goodness still retaining the old appellative for Judaical mercy 〈◊〉 For scarcely for a 〈◊〉 man will one die yet peradventure for a good man some will even dare to die So that the Christian Mercy must be a mercy of the whole man the heart must be merciful and the hand operating in the labour of love and it must be extended to all persons of all capacities according as their necessity requires and our ability permits and our endearments and other obligations dispose of and determine the order 14. The acts of this Grace are 1. To pity the miseries of all persons and all calamities spiritual or temporal having a fellow-feeling in their afflictions 2. To be afflicted and sad in the publick Judgments imminent or incumbent upon a Church or State or Family 3. To pray to God for remedy for all afflicted persons 4. To do all acts of bodily assistence to all miserable and distressed people to relieve the Poor to redeem Captives to forgive Debts to disabled persons to pay Debts for them to lend them mony to feed the hungry and clothe the naked to rescue persons from dangers to defend and relieve the oppressed to comfort widows and fatherless children to help them to right that suffer wrong and in brief to do any thing of relief support succour and comfort 5. To do all acts of spiritual 〈◊〉 to counsel the doubtful to admonish the erring to strengthen the weak to resolve the scrupulous to teach the ignorant and any thing else which may be instrumental to his Conversion Perseverance Restitution and Salvation or may rescue him from spiritual dangers or supply him in any ghostly necessity The reward of this Vertue is symbolical to the Vertue it self the grace and glory differing in nothing but degrees and every vertue being a reward to it self The merciful shall receive mercy mercy to help them in time of need mercy from God who will not only give them the great mercies of Pardon and Eternity but also dispose the hearts of others to pity and supply their needs as they have done to others For the present there is nothing more noble than to be beneficial to others and to lift up the poor 〈◊〉 of the mire and rescue them from misery it is to do the work of God and for the future nothing is a greater title to a mercy at the Day of Judgment than to have shewed mercy to our necessitous Brother it being expressed to be the only rule and instance in which Christ means to judge the world in their Mercy and Charity or their Unmercifulness respectively I was hungry and ye fed me or ye fed me not and so we stand or fall in the great and eternal scrutiny And it was the prayer of Saint Paul Onesiphorus shewed kindness to the great Apostle The Lord shew him a mercy in that day For a cup of charity though but full of cold water shall not lose its reward 15. Sixthly Blessed are the Pure 〈◊〉 heart for they shall see God This purity of heart includes purity of hands Lord who shall dwell in thy Tabernacle even he that is of clean hands and a pure heart that is he that hath not given his mind unto vanity nor sworn to deceive his Neighbour It signifies justice of action and candour of spirit innocence of manners and sincerity of purpose it is one of those great circumstances that consummates Charity For the end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and of a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned that is a heart free from all carnal affections not only in the matter of natural impurity but also spiritual and immaterial such as are Heresies which are theresore impurities because they mingle secular interest or prejudice with perswasions in Religion Seditions hurtful and impious Stratagems and all those which S. Paul enumerates to be works or fruits of the flesh A good Conscience that 's a Conscience either innocent or penitent a state of Grace 〈◊〉 a not having prevaricated or a being restored to our Baptismal purity Faith unfeigned that also is the purity of Sincerity and excludes Hypocrisie timorous and half perswasions neutrality and indifferency in matters of Salvation And all these do integrate the whole duty of Charity But Purity as it is a special Grace signifies only honesty and uprightness of Soul without hypocrisie to God and dissimulation towards men and then a freedom from all carnal desires so as not to be governed or led by them Chastity is the purity of the body Simplicity is the purity of the spirit both are the Sanctification of the whole Man for the entertainment of the Spirit of Purity and the Spirit of Truth 16. The acts of this Vertue are 1. To quit all Lustful thoughts not to take delight in
partakers of thy Purities give unto us tender bowels that we may suffer together with our calamitous and necessitous Brethren that we having a fellow-feeling of their miseries may use all our powers to help them and ease our selves of our common sufferings But do thou O Holy Jesu take from us also all our great calamities the Carnality of our affections our Sensualities and Impurities that we may first be pure then peaceable living in peace with all men and preserving the peace which thou hast made for us with our God that we may never commit a sin which may interrupt so blessed an atonement Let neither hope nor fear tribulation nor anguish pleasure nor pain make us to relinquish our interest in thee and our portion of the everlasting Covenant But give us hearts constant bold and valiant to confess thee before all the world in the midst of all disadvantages and contradictory circumstances chusing rather to beg or to be disgraced or 〈◊〉 or to die than quit a holy Conscience or renounce an Article of Christianity that we either in act when thou shalt call us or always in preparation of mind suffering with thee may also reign with thee in the Church Triumphant O Holy and most merciful Saviour Jesu Amen DISCOURSE X. A Discourse upon that part of the Decalogue which the Holy JESVS adopted into the Institution and obligation of Christianity 1. WHen the Holy Jesus had described the Characterisms of Christianity in these Eight Graces and Beatitudes he adds his Injunctions that in these Vertues they should be eminent and exemplar that they might adorn the Doctrine of God for he intended that the Gospel should be as Leven in a lump of dough to season the whole mass and that Christians should be the instruments of communicating the excellency and reputation of this holy Institution to all the world Therefore Christ calls them Salt and Light and the societies of Christians a City set upon a hill and a 〈◊〉 set in a candlestick whose office and energy is to illuminate all the vicinage which is also expressed in these preceptive words Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven which I consider not only as a Circumstance of other parts but as a precise Duty it self and one of the Sanctions of Christianity which hath so confederated the Souls of the Disciples of the Institution that it hath in some proportion obliged every man to take care of his Brother's Soul And since Reverence to God and Charity to our Brother are the two 〈◊〉 Ends which the best Laws can have this precept of exemplary living is enjoyned in order to them both We must shine as lights in the world that God may be glorified and our Brother edified that the excellency of the act may 〈◊〉 the reputation of the Religion and invite men to confess God according to the sanctions of so holy an Institution And if we be curious that vanity do not mingle in the intention and that the intention do not spoil the action and that we suffer not our lights to shine that men may magnifie us and not glorifie God this duty is soon performed by way of adherence to our other actions and hath no other difficulty in it but that it will require our prudence and care to preserve the simplicity of our purposes and humility of our spirit in the midst of that excellent reputation which will certainly be consequent to a holy and exemplary life 2. But since the Holy Jesus had set us up to be lights in the world he took care we should not be stars of the least magnitude but eminent and such as might by their great emissions of light give evidence of their being immediately derivative from the Sun of Righteousness He was now giving his Law and meant to retain so much of Moses as Moses had of natural and essential Justice and Charity and superadd many degrees of his own that as far as Moses was exceeded by Christ in the capacity of a Law-giver so far Christianity might be more excellent and holy than the Mosaical Sanctions And therefore as a Preface to the Christian Law the Holy Jesus declares that unless our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees that is of the stricter sects of the Mosaical Institution we shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven Which not only relates to the prevaricating Practices of the Pharisees but even to their Doctrines and Commentaries upon the Law of Moses as appears evidently in the following instances For if all the excellency of Christianity had consisted in the mere command of Sincerity and prohibition of Hypocrisie it had nothing in it proportionable to those excellent promises and clearest revelations of Eternity there expressed nor of a fit imployment for the designation of a special and a new Law-giver whose Laws were to last forever and were established upon foundations stronger than the pillars of Heaven and Earth 3. But S. Paul calling the Law of Moses a Law of Works did well insinuate what the Doctrine of the Jews was concerning the degrees and obligations of Justice for besides that it was a Law of Works in opposition to the Law of Faith and so the sence of it is formerly explicated it is also a Law of Works in opposition to the Law of the Spirit and it is understood to be such a Law which required the exteriour Obedience such a Law according to which S. Paul so lived that no man could reprove him that is the Judges could not tax him with prevarication such a Law which being in very many degrees carnal and material did not with much severity exact the intention and purposes spiritual But the Gospel is the Law of the spirit If they failed in the exteriour work it was accounted to them for sin but to Christians nothing becomes a sin but a failing and prevaricating spirit For the outward act is such an emanation of the interiour that it enters into the account for the relation sake and for its parent When God hath put a duty into our hands if our spirits be right the work will certainly follow but the following work receives its acceptation not from the value the Christian Law hath precisely put upon it but because the spirit from whence it came hath observed its rule the Law of Charity is acted and expressed in works but hath its estimate from the spirit Which discourse is to be understood in a limited and qualified signification For then also God required the Heart and interdicted the very concupiscences of our irregular passions at least in some instances but because much of their Law consisted in the exteriour and the Law appointed not nor yet intimated any penalty to evil thoughts and because the expiation of such interiour irregularities was easie implicite and involved in their daily Sacrifices without special trouble therefore the old Law
eternal Other acts of Religion such as are uncovering the head 〈◊〉 the knee falling upon our face stooping to the ground reciting praises are by the consent of Nations used as testimonies of civil or religious veneration and do not always pass for confessions of a Divinity and therefore may be without sin used to Angels or Kings or Governours or to persons in any sence more excellent than our selves provided they be intended to express an excellency no greater than is proper to their dignities and persons not in any sence given to an Idol or false Gods But the first sort are such which all the world hath consented to be actions of Divine and incommunicable Adoration and such which God also in several Religions hath reserved as his own appropriate regalities and are Idolatry if given to any Angel or man 9. The next Duties are 2. Love 3. and Obedience but they are united in the Gospel This is Love that we keep his Commandments and since we are for God's sake bound also to love others this Love is appropriate to God by the extension of parts and the intension of degrees The Extension signifies that we must serve God with all our Faculties for all division of parts is hypocrisie and a direct prevarication our Heart must think what our Tongue speaks our Hands act what we promise or purpose and God's enemies must have no share so much as in appearance or dissimulation Now no Creature can challenge this and if we do Justice to our neighbours though unwillingly we have done him no injury for in that case he only who sees the irregularity of our thoughts is the person injured And when we swear to him our heart must swear as well as our tongue and our hands must pay what our lips have promised or else we provoke him with an imperfect sacrifice we love him not with all our mind with all our strength and all our faculties 10. But the difficulty and question of this Commandment lies in the Intension For it is not enough to serve God with every Capacity Passion and Faculty but it must be every degree of every Faculty all the latitude of our Will all the whole intension of our Passions all the possibility and energy of our Senses and our Understanding which because it is to be understood according to that moderate sentence and account which God requires of us set in the midst of such a condition so attended and depressed and prejudiced the full sence of it I shall express in several Propositions 11. First The Intension of the Love to which we are obliged requires not the Degree which is absolutely the greatest and simply the most perfect For there are degrees of Grace every one of which is pleasing to God and is a state of Reconciliation and atonement and he that breaks not the bruised reed nor quenches the smoaking slax loves to cherish those endeavours which beginning from small principles pass through the variety of degrees and give demonstration that though it be our duty to contend for the best yet this contention is with an enemy and that enemy makes an abatement and that abatement being an imperfection rather than a sin is actually consistent with the state of Grace the endeavour being in our power and not the success the perfection is that which shall be our reward and therefore is not our present duty And indeed if to do the best action and to love God as we shall do in Heaven were a present obligation it would have been clearly taught us what is simply the best action whereas now that which is of it self better in certain circumstances is less perfect and sometimes not lawful and concerning those circumstances we have no rules nor any guide but prudence and probable inducements so that it is certain in our best endeavours we should only increase our scruples in stead of doing actions of the highest perfections we should crect a tyranny over our Consciences and no augmentation of any thing but the trouble And therefore in the Law of Moses when this Commandment was given in the same words yet that the sence of it might be clear the analogy of the Law declared that their duty had a latitude and that God was not so strict a task-master but that he left many instances of Piety to the voluntary Devotion of his servants that they might receive the reward of Free-will-offerings But if these words had obliged them to the greatest degree that is to all the degrees of our capacities in every instance every act of Religion had been duty and necessity 12. And thus also it was in the Gospel Ananias and Sapphira were killed by sentence from Heaven for not performing what was in their power at first not to have promised but because they brought an obligation upon themselves which God brought not and then prevaricated they paid the forfeiture of their lives S. Paul took no wages of the Corinthian Churches but wrought night and day with his own hand but himself says he had power to do otherwise There was laid upon him a necessity to preach but no necessity to preach without wages and support There is a good and a better in Virginity and Marriage and yet there is no command in either but that we abstain from sin we are left to our own election for the particular having no necessity but power in our will David prayed seven times a day and Daniel prayed three times and both were beloved of God The Christian masters were not bound to manumit their slaves and yet were commended if they did so Sometimes the Christians fled in Persecution S. Paul did so and S. Peter did so and S. Cyprian did so and S. Athanasius and many more But time was when some of these also chose to suffer death rather than to fly And if to fly be a permission and no duty there is certainly a difference of degrees in the choice to fly is not so great a suffering as to die and yet a man may innocently chuse the easier And our Blessed Lord himself who never failed of any degree of his obligations yet at some time prayed with more zeal and servour than at other times as a little before his Passion Since then at all times he did not do actions of that degree which is absolutely the greatest it is evident that God's goodness is so great as to be content with such a Love which parts no share between him and sin and leaves all the rest under such a liberty as is only encouraged by those extraordinary rewards and crowns proportioned to heroical endeavours It was a pretty Question which was moved in the Solitudes of Nitria concerning two Religious Brothers the one gave all his goods to the poor at once the other kept the inheritance and gave all the revenue None of all the Fathers knew which was absolutely the better at once to renounce all or by repetition of charitable acts
Humility of trust in God's providence it is therefore Pride and Murther and Injustice and infinite Unreasonableness and nothing of a Christian nothing of excuse nothing of honour in it if God and wise men be admitted Judges of the Lists And it would be considered that every one that fights a Duell must reckon himself as dead or dying for however any man flatters himself by saying he will not kill if he could avoid it yet rather than be killed he will and to the danger of being killed his own act exposes him now is it a good posture for a man to die with a sword in his hand thrust at his Brother's breast with a purpose either explicit or implicit to have killed him Can a man die twice that in case he miscarries and is damned for the first ill dying he may mend his fault and die better the next time Can his vain imaginary and phantastick shadow of Reputation make him recompence for the disgrace and confusion of face and pains and horrors of Eternity Is there no such thing as forgiving injuries nothing of the discipline of Jesus in our spirits are we called by the name of Christ and have nothing in us but the spirit of Cain and Nimrod and Joab If neither Reason nor Religion can rule us neither interest nor safety can determine us neither life nor Eternity can move us neither God nor wise men be sufficient Judges of Honour to us then our damnation is just but it is heavy our fall is certain but it is cheap base and inglorious And let not the vanities or the Gallants of the world slight this friendly monition rejecting it with a scorn because it is talking like a Divine it were no disparagement if they would do so too and believe accordingly and they would find a better return of honour in the crowns of Eternity by talking like a Divine than by dying like a fool by living in imitation and obedience to the laws of the Holy Jesus than by perishing or committing Murther or by attempting it or by venturing it like a weak impotent passionate and brutish person Upon this Chapter it is sometime asked whether a Virgin may not kill a Ravisher to defend her Chastity Concerning which as we have no special and distinct warrant so there is in reason and analogy of the Gospel much for the negative For since his act alone cannot make her criminal and is no more than a wound in my body or a civil or a natural inconvenience it is unequal to take a life in exchange for a lesser injury and it is worse that I take it my self Some great examples we find in story and their names are remembred in honour but we can make no judgement of them but that their zeal was reproveable for its intemperance though it had excellency in the matter of the Passion 8. But if we may not secure our Honour or be revenged for injuries by the sword may we not crave the justice of the Law and implore the vengeance of the Judge who is appointed for vengeance against evil doers and the Judge being the King's Officer and the King God's Vicegerent it is no more than imploring God's hand and that is giving place to wrath which S. Paul speaks of that is permitting all to the Divine Justice To this I answer That it is not lawful to go to Law for every occasion or slighter injury because it is very distant from the mercies forgiveness and gentleness of a Christian to contest for Trifles and it is certain that the injuries or evil or charges of trouble and expence will be more vexatious and afflictive to the person contested than a small instance of wrong is to the person injured And it is a great intemperance of anger and impotence of spirit a covetousness and impatience to appeal to the Judge for determination concerning a lock of Camel's hair or a Goat's beard I mean any thing that is less than the gravity of Laws or the solemnity of a Court and that does not out-weigh the inconveniencies of a Suit But this we are to consider in the expression of our Blessed Saviour If a man will sue thee at the Law and take thy Cloak let him have thy Coat also Which words are a particular instance in pursuit of the general Precept Resist not or avenge not evil The primitive Christians as it happens in the first fervours of a Discipline were sometimes severe in observation of the letter not subtlely distinguishing Counsels from Precepts but swallowing all the words of Christ without chewing or discrimination They abstained from Tribunals unless they were forced thither by persecutors but went not thither to repeat their goods And if we consider Suits of Law as they are wrapp'd in circumstances of action and practice with how many subtleties and arts they are managed how pleadings are made mercenary and that it will be hard to find right counsel that shall advise you to desist if your cause be wrong and therefore there is great reason to distrust every Question since if it be never so wrong we shall meet Advocates to encourage us and plead for it what danger of miscarriages of uncharitableness anger and animosities what desires to prevail what care and fearfulness of the event what 〈◊〉 temptations do intervene how many sins are secretly 〈◊〉 in our 〈◊〉 and actions if a Suit were of it self never so lawful it would concern the duty of a Christian to avoid it as he prays against temptations and cuts off the opportunities of a sin It is not lawful for a Christian to sue his brother at the Law unless he can be patient if he loses and charitable if he be wronged and can 〈◊〉 his end without any mixture of Covetousness or desires to prevail without Envy or can believe himself wrong when his Judge says he is or can submit to peace when his just cause is oppressed and rejected and condemned and without pain or regret can sit down by the loss of his right and of his pains and his money And if he can do all this what need he go to Law He may with less trouble and less danger take the loss singly and expect God's providence for reparation than disentitle himself to that by his own srowardness and take the loss when it comes loaden with many circumstances of trouble 9. But however by accident it may become unlawful to go to Law in a just cause or in any yet by this Precept we are not 〈◊〉 To go to Law for revenge we are simply 〈◊〉 that is to return evil for evil and therefore all those Suits which are for vindictive sentences not for reparative are directly criminal To follow a Thief to death for spoiling my goods is extremely unreasonable and uncharitable for as there is no proportion between my goods and his life and therefore I demand it to his evil and injury so the putting him to death
insert in pursuance of that caution given to the Church of Thessalonica by S. Paul If any one will not work neither let him eat for we must be careful that our Charity which is intended to minister to poor mens needs do not minister to idleness and the love of beggery and a wandring useless unprofitable life But abating this there is no other consideration that can exempt any needy person from participation of your Charity not though he be your Enemy for that is it which our Blessed Saviour means in the appendix of this Precept Love your Enemies that is according to the exposition of the Apostle If thine enemy hunger 〈◊〉 him if he thirst give him drink not though he be an Unbeliever not though he be a vicious person provided only that the vice be such to which your relief ministers no fuel and adds no flame and if the mere necessities of his nature be supplied it will be a fair security against the danger but if the vice be in the scene of the body all freer comforts are to be denied him because they are but incentives of sin and Angels of darkness This I the rather insert that the pride and supercilious austerities of some persons become not to them an instrument of excuse from ministring to needy persons upon pretence their own sins brought them into that condition For though the causes of our calamities are many times great secrets of Providence yet suppose the poverty of the man was the effect of his Prodigality or other baseness it matters not as to our duty how he came into it but where he is lest we also be denied a visit in our sicknesses and a comfort in our sorrow or a counsel in our doubts or aid in any distress upon pretence that such sadness was procured by our sins and ten to one but it was so Do good to all faith the Apostle but especially to the family of faith for to them our Charity is most proper and proportioned to all viz. who are in need and cannot relieve themselves in which number persons that can work are not to be accounted So that if it be necessary to observe an order in our Charity that is when we cannot supply and suffice for all our opportunities of mercy then let not the Brethren of our Lord go away ashamed and in other things observe the order and propriety of your own relations and where there is otherwise no difference the degree of the necessity is first to be considered This also if the necessity be 〈◊〉 and extreme what-ever the man be he is first to be relieved before the lesser necessities of the best persons or most holy poor But the proper objects of our Charity are old persons sick or impotent laborious and poor Housekeepers Widows and Orphans people oppressed or persecuted for the cause of Righteousness distressed Strangers Captives and abused Slaves prisoners of Debt To these we must be liberal whether they be holy or unholy remembring that we are sons of that Father who makes the dew of Heaven to drop upon the dwellings of the righteous and the fields of sinners 4. Thirdly The Manner of giving Alms is an office of Christian prudence for in what instances we are to exemplifie our Charity we must be determined by our own powers and others needs The Scripture reckons entertaining strangers visiting the sick going to prisons feeding and cloathing the hungry and naked to which by the exigence of the poor and the analogy of Charity many other are to be added The Holy Jesus in the very Precept instanced in lending money to them that need to borrow and he adds looking for nothing again that is if they be unable to pay it Forgiving Debts is a great instance of mercy and a particular of excellent relief but to imprison men for Debt when it is certain they are not able to pay it and by that prison will be far more disabled is an uncharitableness next to the cruelties of salvages and at infinite distance from the mercies of the Holy Jesus Of not Judging PART III. ANother instance of Charity our great Master inserted in this Sermon not to judge our Brother and this is a Charity so cheap and so reasonable that it requires nothing of us but silence in our spirits We may perform this duty at the charge of a negative if we meddle not with other mens affairs we shall do them no wrong and purchase to our selves a peace and be secured the rather from the 〈◊〉 sentence of a severer Judge But this interdict forbids only such judging as is ungentle and uncharitable in criminal causes let us find all the ways to alleviate the burthen of the man by just excuses by extenuating or lessening accidents by abatement of incident circumstances by gentle sentences and whatsoever can do relief to the person that his spirit be not exasperated that the crime be not the parent of impudence that he be not insulted on that he be invited to repentance and by such sweetnesses he be led to his restitution This also in questions of doubts obliges us to determine to the more favourable sence and we also do need the same mercies and therefore should do well by our own rigour not to disintitle our selves to such possibilities and reserves of Charity But it is foul and base by detraction and iniquity to blast the reputation of an honourable action and the fair name of vertue with a calumny But this duty is also a part of the grace of Justice and of Humility and by its relation and kindred to so many vertues is furnished with so many arguments of amability and endearment The PRAYER HOly and merciful Jesus who art the great principle and the instrument of conveying to us the charity and mercies of Eternity who didst love us when we were enemies forgive us when we were debtors recover us when we were dead ransom us when we were slaves relieve us when we were poor and naked and wandring and full of sadness and necessities give us the grace of Charity that we may be pitiful and compassionate of the needs of our necessitous Brethren that we may be apt to relieve them and that according to our duty and possibilities we may rescue them from their calamities Give us courteous affable and liberal souls let us by thy example forgive our debtors and love our enemies and do to them offices of civility and tenderness and relief always propounding thee for our pattern and thy mercies for our precedent and thy Precepts for our rule and thy Spirit for our guide that we shewing mercy here may receive the mercies of Eternity by thy merits and by thy charities and dispensation O Holy and merciful Jesus Amen DISCOURSE XII Of the Second additional Precept of Christ viz. Of PRAYER Non magna loquimur sed vivimus Cum clamore valido et lachrymas prâ—ces offerens exauditus â—â—â—
coat that lies by him as the portion of moths and for the shoes which are the spoils of mouldiness and the contumely of plenty Grant me O Lord not what I desire but what is profitable for me For sometimes we desire that which in the succeeding event of things will undo us This rule is in all things that concern our selves There is some little difference in the affairs and necessities of other men for provided we submit to the Divine Providence and pray for good things for others only with a tacite condition so far as they are good and profitable in order to the best ends yet if we be particular there is no covetousness in it there may be indiscretion in the particular but in the general no fault because it is a prayer and a design of Charity For Kings and all that are in authority we may yet enlarge and pray for a peaceable reign true lieges strong armies victories and fair success in their just wars health long life and riches because they have a capacity which private persons have not and whatsoever is good for single persons and whatsoever is apt for their uses as publick persons all that we may and we must pray for either particularly for so we may or in general significations for so we must at least that we may lead a godly peaceable and quiet life in all godliness and honesty that is S. Paul's rule and the prescribed measure and purpose of such prayers And in this instance of Kings we may pray for defeating all the King's enemies such as are truly such and we have no other restraint upon us in this but that we keep our desires confined within the limits of the end we are commanded that is so far to confound the King's enemies that he may do his duty and we do ours and receive the blessing ever as much as we can to distinguish the malice from the person But if the enemies themselves will not also separate what our intentions distinguish that is if they will not return to their duty then let the prayers operate as God pleases we must be zealous for the end of the King's authority and peaceable government By enemies I mean Rebels or Invaders Tyrants and 〈◊〉 for in other Wars there are many other considerations not proper for this place 13. The next consideration will be concerning the Manner I mean both the manner of our Persons and the manner of our Prayers that is with what conditions we ought to approach to God and with what circumstances the Prayers may or ought to be performed The Conditions to make our Prayers holy and certain to prevail are 1. That we live good lives endeavouring to conform by holy obedience to all the Divine Commandments This condition is expresly recorded by S. John Beloved if our hearts condemn us not then have we confidence towards God and whatsoever we ask of him we shall obtain and S. James affirms that the effectual servent prayer of a righteous man availeth much and our Blessed Saviour limiting the confidence of our Prayers for Forgiveness to our Charity and forgiving others plainly tells us that the uncharitable and unrighteous person shall not be heard And the blind man in the Gospel understood well what he said Now we know that God heareth not sinners but if any man be a worshipper and doth his will him he heareth And it was so decreed and resolved a point in the doctrine of their Religion that it was a proverbial saying And although this discourse of the blind man was of a restrained occasion and signified if Christ had been a false Prophet God would not have attested his Sermons with the power of Miracles yet in general also he had been taught by David If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear my prayer And therefore when men pray in every place for so they are commanded let them lift up pure hands without anger and contention And indeed although every sin entertained with a free choice and a full understanding is an obstruction to our Prayers yet the special sin of Uncharitableness makes the biggest cloud and is in the proper matter of it an indisposition for us to receive mercy for he who is softned with apprehension of his own needs of mercy will be tender-hearted towards his brother and therefore he that hath no bowels here can have no aptness there to receive or heartily to hope for mercy But this rule is to be understood of persons who persevere in the habit and remanent affections of sin so long as they entertain sin with love complacency and joy they are in a state of enmity with God and therefore in no fit disposition to receive pardon and the entertainment of friends but penitent sinners and returning souls loaden and grieved with their heavy pressures are next to holy innocents the aptest persons in the world to be heard in their Prayers for pardon but they are in no farther disposition to large favours and more eminent charities A sinner in the beginning of his Penance will be heard for himself and yet also he needs the prayers of holy persons more signally than others for he hath but some very few degrees of dispositions to reconciliation but in prayers of intercession or mediation for others only holy and very pious persons are fit to be interested All men as matter of duty must pray for all men but in the great necessities of a Prince of a Church or Kingdom or of a family or of a great danger and calamity to a single person only a Noah a David a Daniel a 〈◊〉 an Enoch or Job are fit and proportioned advocates God so requires Holiness in us that our Prayers may be accepted that he entertains them in several degrees according to the degrees of our Sanctity to fewer or more purposes according as we are little or great in the kingdom of Heaven As for those irregular donations of good things which wicked persons ask for and have they are either no mercies but instruments of cursing and crime or else they are designs of grace intended to convince them of their unworthiness and so if they become not instruments of their Conversion they are aggravations of their Ruine 14. Secondly The second condition I have already explained in the description of the Matter of our Prayers For although we may lawfully ask for whatsoever we need and this leave is consigned to us in those words of our Blessed Saviour Your heavenly Father knoweth what you have need of yet because God's Providence walks in the great deep that is his foot-steps are in the water and leave no impression no former act of grace becomes a precedent that he will give us that in kind which then he saw convenient and therefore gave us and now he sees to be inconvenient and therefore does deny Therefore in all things but what are matter of necessary and
freely and delight himself and to the banquets of a full table serve up the chalice of tears and sorrow and no bread of affliction Certainly he that makes much of himself hath no great indignation against the sinner when himself is the man And it is but a gentle revenge and an easie judgment when the sad sinner shall do penance in good meals and expiate his sin with sensual satisfaction So that Fasting relates to Religion in all variety and difference of time it is an antidote against the poison of sensual temptations an advantage to Prayer and an instrument of extinguishing the guilt and the affections of sin by judging our selves and representing in a Judicatory of our own even our selves being Judges that sin deserves condemnation and the sinner merits a high calamity Which excellencies I repeat in the words of Baruch the Scribe he that was Amanuensis to the Prophet Jeremy The soul that is greatly vexed which goeth stooping and feeble and the eyes that fail and the hungry soul will give thee praise and righteousness O Lord. 5. But now as Fasting hath divers ends so also it hath divers Laws If Fasting be intended as an instrument of Prayer it is sufficient that it be of that quality and degree that the spirit be clear and the head undisturbed an ordinary act of Fast an abstinence from a meal or a deferring it or a lessening it when it comes and the same abstinence repeated according to the solemnity and intendment of the offices And this is evident in reason and the former instances and the practice of the Church dissolving some of her Fasts which were in order only to Prayer by noon and as soon as the great and first solemnity of the day is over But if Fasting be intended as a punitive act and an instrument of Repentance it must be greater S. Paul at his Conversion continued three days without eating or drinking It must have in it so much affliction as to express the indignation and to condemn the sin and to judge the person And although the measure of this cannot be exactly determined yet the general proportion is certain for a greater sin there must be a greater sorrow and a greater sorrow must be attested with a greater penalty And Ezra declares his purpose thus I proclaimed a Fast that we might afflict our selves besore God Now this is no farther required nor is it in this sense 〈◊〉 useful but that it be a trouble to the body an act of judging and severity and this is to be judged by proportion to the sorrow and indignation as the sorrow is to the crime But this affliction needs not to leave any remanent effect upon the body but such transient sorrow which is consequent to the abstinence of certain times designed for the solemnity is sufficient as to this purpose Only it is to be renewed often as our Repentance must be habitual and lasting but it may be commuted with other actions of severity and discipline according to the Customs of a Church or the capacity of the persons or the opportunity of circumstances But if the Fasting be intended for Mortification then it is fit to be more severe and medicinal by continuance and quantity and quality To Repentance total abstinences without interruption that is during the solemnity short and sharp are most apt but towards the mortifying a Lust those sharp and short Fasts are not reasonable but a diet of Fasting an habitual subtraction of nutriment from the body a long and lasting austerity increasing in degrees but not violent in any And in this sort of Fasting we must be highly careful we do not violate a duty by sondness of an instrument and because we intend Fasting as a help to mortifie the Lust let it not destroy the body or retard the spirit or violate our health or impede us in any part of our necessary duty As we must be careful that our Fast be reasonable serious and apt to the end of our designs so we must be curious that by helping one duty uncertainly it do not certainly destroy another Let us do it like honest persons and just without artifices and hypocrisie but let us also do it like wise persons that it be neither in it self unreasonable nor by accident become criminal 6. In the pursuance of this Discipline of Fasting the Doctors of the Church and Guides of Souls have not unusefully prescribed other annexes and circumstances as that all the other acts of deportment be symbolical to our Fasting If we fast for Mortification let us entertain nothing of temptation or semblance to invite a Lust no sensual delight no freer entertainments of our body to countenance or corroborate a passion If we fast that we may pray the better let us remove all secular thoughts for that time for it is vain to alleviate our spirits of the burthen of meat and drink and to depress them with the loads of care If for Repentance we fast let us be most curious that we do nothing contrary to the design of Repentance knowing that a sin is more contrary to Repentance than Fasting is to sin and it is the greatest stupidity in the world to do that thing which I am now mourning for and for which I do judgment upon my self And let all our actions also pursue the same design helping one instrument with another and being so zealous for the Grace that we take in all the aids we can to secure the Duty For to fast from flesh and to eat delicate fish not to eat meat but to drink rich wines freely to be sensual in the objects of our other appetites and restrained only in one to have no dinner and that day to run on hunting or to play at cards are not handsome instances of sorrow or devotion or self-denial It is best to accompany our Fasting with the retirements of Religion and the enlargements of Charity giving to others what we deny to our selves These are proper actions and although not in every instance necessary to be done at the same time for a man may give his Alms in other circumstances and not amiss yet as they are very convenient and proper to be joyned in that society so to do any thing contrary to Religion or to Charity to Justice or to Piety to the design of the person or the design of the solemnity is to make that become a sin which of it self was no vertue but was capable of being hallowed by the end and the manner of its execution 7. This Discourse hath hitherto related to private Fasts or else to Fasts indefinitely For what rules soever every man is bound to observe in private for Fasting piously the same rules the Governours of a Church are to intend in their publick prescription And when once Authority hath intervened and proclaimed a Fast there is no new duty incumbent upon the private but that we obey the circumstances letting them
to chuse the time and the end for us and though we must prevaricate neither yet we may improve both we must not go less but we may enlarge and when Fasting is commanded only for 〈◊〉 we may also use it to Prayers and to Mortification And we must be curious that we do not obey the letter of the prescription and violate the intention but observe all that care in publick Fasts which we do in private knowing that our private ends are included in the publick as our persons are in the communion of Saints and our hopes in the common inheritance of sons and see that we do not fast in order to a purpose and yet use it so as that it shall be to no purpose Whosoever so fasts as that it be not effectual in some degree towards the end or so fasts that it be accounted of it self a duty and an act of Religion without order to its proper end makes his act vain because it is unreasonable or vain because it is superstitious The PRAYER O Holy and Eternal Jesu who didst for our sake fast forty days and forty nights and hast left to us thy example and thy prediction that in the days of thy absence from us we thy servants and children of thy Bride-chamber should fast teach us to do this act of discipline so that it may become an act of Religion Let us never be like Esau valuing a dish of meat above a blessing but let us deny our appetites of meat and drink and accustom our selves to the yoak and subtract the fuel of our Lusts and the incentives of all our unworthy desires that our bodies being free from the intemperances of nutriment and our spirits from the load and pressure of appetite we may have no desires but of thee that our outward man daily decaying by the violence of time and mortified by the abatements of its too free and unnecessary support it may by degrees resign to the intire dominion of the Soul and may pass from vanity to Piety from weakness to ghostly strength from darkness and mixtures of impurity to great transparences and clarity in the society of a beatified Soul reigning with thee in the glories of Eternity O Holy and Eternal Jesu Amen DISCOURSE XIV Of the Miracles which JESVS wrought for confirmation of his Doctrine during the whole time of his Preaching Mary Martha A woman named Martha received him into her house And her sister Mary sat at Iesus feet and heard his word But Martha was cumbred about much serving And Iesus said unto her Martha Martha thou art careful troubled about many things but one thing is needfull Mary hath chosen that good part Luk. 10. 38 39 40 41 42. The dried hand healed devil cast out Mat 12. 10 And behold There was a man which had his hand dryed up c. 13. Then said he unto the man stretch sorth thine hand c. 22. Then was brought to him one possessed with a Devill c. and he healed him 1. WHen Jesus had ended his Sermon on the Mount he descended into the valleys to consign his Doctrine by the power of Miracles and the excellency of a rare Example that he might not lay a yoak upon us which himself also would not bear But as he became the authour so also the finisher of our Faith what he designed in proposition he represented in his own practice and by these acts made a new Sermon teaching all Prelates and spiritual persons to descend from their 〈◊〉 of contemplation and the authority and business of their discourses to apply themselves to do more material and corporal mercies to afflicted persons and to preach by Example as well as by their Homilies For he that teaches others well and practises contrary is like a fair candlestick bearing a goodly and bright taper which sends forth light to all the house but round about it self there is a shadow and circumstant darkness The Prelate should be the light consuming and spending it self to enlighten others scattering his rays round about from the 〈◊〉 of Contemplation and from the 〈◊〉 of Practice but himself always tending upwards till at last he expires into the element of Love and celestial fruition 2. But the Miracles which Jesus did were next to infinite and every circumstance of action that passed from him as it was intended for Mercy so also for Doctrine and the impotent or diseased persons were not more cured than we instructed But because there was nothing in the actions but what was a pursuance of the Doctrines delivered in his Sermons in the Sermon we must look after our Duty and look upon his practice as a verification of his Doctrine instrumental also to other purposes Therefore in general if we consider his Miracles we shall see that he did design them to be a compendium of Faith and Charity For he chose to instance his Miracles in actions of Mercy that all his powers might especially determine upon bounty and Charity and yet his acts of Charity were so miraculous that they became an argument of the Divinity of his Person and Doctrine Once he turned water into wine which was a mutation by a supernatural power in a natural suscipient where a person was not the subject but an Element and yet this was done to rescue the poor Bridegroom from affront and trouble and to do honour to the holy rite of Marriage All the rest unless we except his Walking upon the waters during his natural life were actions of relief and mercy according to the design of God manifesting his power most chiefly in shewing mercy 3. The great design of Miracles was to prove his Mission from God to convince the world of sin to demonstrate his power of forgiving sins to indear his Precepts and that his Disciples might believe in him and that believing they might have life through his name For he to whom God by doing Miracles gave testimony from Heaven must needs be sent from God and he who had received power to restore nature and to create new organs and to extract from incapacities and from privations to reduce habits was Lord of Nature and therefore of all the world And this could not but create great confidences in his Disciples that himself would verifie those great Promises upon which he established his Law But that the argument of Miracles might be infallible and not apt to be reproved we may observe its eminency by divers circumstances of probability heightned up to the degree of moral demonstration 4. First The Holy Jesus did Miracles which no man before him or at that time ever did Moses smote the Rock and water gushed out but he could not turn that water into wine Moses cured no diseases by the empire of his will or the word of his mouth but Jesus healed all infirmities Elisha raised a dead Child to life but Jesus raised one who had been dead four
Master gave the same reward though the times of their working were different as their calling and employment had determined the opportunity of their labours DISCOURSE XVII Of Scandal or Giving and taking Offence 1. A Sad curse being threatned in the Gospel to them who offend any of Christ's little ones that is such as are novices and babes in Christianity it concerns us to learn our duty and perform it that we may avoid the curse for Woe to all them by whom offences come And although the duty is so plainly explicated and represented in gloss and case by the several Commentaries of S. Paul upon this menace of our Blessed Saviour yet because our English word Offence which is commonly used in this Question of Scandal is so large and equivocal that it hath made many pretences and intricated this article to some inconvenience it is not without good purpose to draw into one body those Propositions which the Masters of Spiritual life have described in the managing of this Question 2. First By whatsoever we do our duty to God we cannot directly do offence or give scandal to our Brother because in such cases where God hath obliged us he hath also obliged himself to reconcile our duty to the designs of God to the utility of Souls and the ends of Charity And this Proposition is to be extended to our Obedience to the lawful Constitutions of our competent Superiours in which cases we are to look upon the Commandment and leave the accidental events to the disposition of that Providence who reconciles dissonancies in nature and concentres all the variety of accidents into his own glory And whosoever is offended at me for obeying God or God's Vicegerent is offended at me for doing my duty and in this there is no more dispute but whether I shall displease God or my peevish neighbour These are such whom the Spirit of God complains of under other representments They think it strange we run not into the same excess of riot Their eye is evil because their Master's eye is good and the abounding of God's grace also may become to them an occasion of falling and the long-suffering of God the encouragement to sin In this there is no difficulty for in what case soever we are bound to obey God or Man in that case and in that conjunction of circumstances we have nothing permitted to our choice and have no authority to remit of the right of God or our Superiour And to comply with our neighbour in such Questions besides that it cannot serve any purposes of Piety if it declines from Duty in any instance it is like giving Alms out of the portion of Orphans or building Hospitals with the money and spoils of Sacriledge It is pusillanimity or hypocrisie or a denying to confess Christ before men to comply with any man and to offend God or omit a Duty Whatsoever is necessary to be done and is made so by God no weakness or peevishness of man can make necessary not to be done For the matter of Scandal is a duty beneath the prime obligations of Religion 3. Secondly But every thing which is used in Religion is not matter of precise Duty but there are some things which indeed are pious and religious but dispensable voluntary and commutable such as are voluntary Fasts exteriour acts of Discipline and Mortification not enjoyned great degrees of exteriour Worship Prostration long Prayers Vigils and in these things although there is not directly a matter of Scandal yet there may be some prudential considerations in order to Charity and Edification By pious actions I mean either particular pursuances of a general Duty which are uncommanded in the instance such as are the minutes and expresses of Alms or else they are commended but in the whole kind of them unenjoyned such as Divines call the Counsels of perfection In both these cases a man cannot be scandalous For the man doing in charity and the love of God such actions which are aptly expressive of love the man I say is not uncharitable in his purposes and the actions themselves being either attempts or proceedings toward Perfection or else actions of direct Duty are as innocent in their productions as in themselves and therefore without the malice of the recipient cannot induce him into sin and nothing else is Scandal To do any pious act proceeds from the Spirit of God and to give Scandal from the Spirit of Malice or Indiscretion and therefore a pious action whose fountain is love and 〈◊〉 cannot end in Uncharitableness or Imprudence But because when any man is offended at what I esteem Piety there is a question whether the action be pious or no therefore it concerns him that works to take care that his action be either an act of Duty though not determined to a certain particular or else be something 〈◊〉 in Scripture or practised by a holy person there recorded and no-where reproved or a practice warranted by such precedents which modest prudent and religious persons account a sufficient inducement of such particulars for he that proceeds upon such principles derives the warrant of his actions from beginnings which secure the particular and quits the Scandal 4. This I say is a security against the Uncharitableness and the Sin of Scandal because a zeal of doing pious actions is a zeal according to God but it is not always a security against the Indiscretion of the Scandal He that reproves a foolish person in such circumstances that provoke him or make him impudent or blasphemous does not give Scandal and brings no sin upon himself though he occasioned it in the other But if it was probable such effects would be consequent to the reprehension his zeal was imprudent and rash but so long as it was zeal for God and in its own matter lawful it could not be an active or guilty Scandal but if it be no zeal and be a design to entrap a man's unwariness or passion or shame and to disgrace the man by that means or any other to make him sin then it is directly the offending of our Brother They that preach'd Christ out of envy intended to do offence to the Apostles but because they were impregnable the sin rested in their own bosom and God wrought his own ends by it And in this sence they are Scandalous persons who fast for Strife who pray for Rebellion who intice simple persons into the snare by colours of Religion Those very exteriour acts of Piety become an Offence because they are done to evil purposes to abuse Proselytes and to draw away Disciples after them and make them love the sin and march under so splendid and fair colours They who out of strictness and severity of perswasion represent the conditions of the Gospel alike to every person that is nicer than Christ described them in all circumstances and deny such liberties of exteriour desires and complacency which may be reasonably permitted to some
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
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
the griefs of a Christian whether they be instances of Repentance or parts of Persecution or exercises of Patience end in joy and endless comfort Thus Jesus like a Rainbow half made of the glories of light and half of the moisture of a cloud half triumph and half sorrow entred into that Town where he had done much good to others and to himself received nothing but affronts yet his tenderness encreased upon him and that very journey which was Christ's last solemn visit for their recovery he doubled all the instruments of his Mercy and their Conversion He rode in triumph the 〈◊〉 sang Hosannah to him he cured many diseased persons he wept for them and pitied them and sighed out the intimations of a Prayer and did penance for their ingratitude and stayed all day there looking about him towards evening and no man would invite him home but he was forced to go to Bethany where he was sure of an hospitable entertainment I think no Christian that reads this but will be full of indignation at the whole City who for malice or for fear would not or durst not receive their Saviour into their houses and yet we do worse for now that he is become our Lord with mightier demonstrations of his eternal power we suffer him to look round about upon us for months and years together and possibly never entertain him till our house is ready to rush upon our heads and we are going to unusual and stranger habitations And yet in the midst of a populous and mutinous City this great King had some good subjects persons that threw away their own garments and laid them at the feet of our Lord that being devested of their own they might be re-invested with a robe of his Righteousness wearing that till it were changed into a stole of glory the very ceremony of their reception of the Lord became symbolical to them and expressive of all our duties 7. But I consider that the Blessed Jesus had affections not less than infinite towards all mankind and he who wept upon Jerusalem who had done so great despight to him and within five days were to fill up the measure of their iniquities and do an act which all Ages of the world could never repeat in the same instance did also in the number of his tears reckon our sins as sad considerations and incentives of his sorrow And it would well become us to consider what great evil we do when our actions are such as for which our Blessed Lord did weep He who was seated in the bosom of Felicity yet he moistened his 〈◊〉 Lawrels upon the day of his Triumph with tears of love and bitter allay His day of Triumph was a day of Sorrow and if we would weep for our sins that instance of sorrow would be a day of triumph and 〈◊〉 8. From hence the Holy Jesus went to Pethany where he had another manner of reception than at the Holy City There he supped for his goodly day of Triumph had been with him a fasting-day And Mary Magdalen who had spent one box of Nard pistick upon our Lord's feet as a sacrifice of Eucharist for her Conversion now bestowed another in thankfulness for the restitution of her Brother Lazarus to life and consigned her Lord unto his Burial And here she met with an evil interpreter 〈◊〉 an Apostle one of the Lord 's own Family pretended it had been a better Religion to have given it to the poor but it was Malice and the spirit either of Envy or Avarice in him that passed that sentence for he that sees a pious action well done and seeks to undervalue it by telling how it might have been better reproves nothing but his own spirit For a man may do very well and God would accept it though to say he might have done better is to say only that action was not the most perfect and absolute in its kind but to be angry at a religious person and without any other pretence but that he might have done better is spiritual Envy for a pious person would have nourished up that infant action by love and praise till it had grown to the most perfect and intelligent Piety But the event of that man gave the interpretation of his present purpose and at the best it could be no other than a rash judgment of the action and intention of a religious thankful and holy person But she found her Lord who was her 〈◊〉 in this become her Patron and her Advocate And hereafter when we shall find the Devil the great Accuser of God's Saints object against the Piety and Religion of holy persons a cup of cold water shall be accepted unto reward and a good intention heightned to the value of an exteriour expression and a piece of gum to the equality of a 〈◊〉 and an action done with great zeal and an intense love be acquitted from all its adherent imperfections Christ receiving them into himself and being like the Altar of incense hallowing the very smoak and raising it into a flame and entertaining it into the embraces of the firmament and the bosom of Heaven Christ himself who is the Judge of our actions is also the entertainer and object of our Charity and Duty and the Advocate of our persons 9. Judas who declaimed against the woman made tacite reflexions upon his Lord for suffering it and indeed every obloquy against any of Christ's servants is looked on as an arrow shot into the heart of Christ himself And now a Persecution being begun against the Lord within his own Family another was raised against him from without For the chief Priests took crafty counsel against Jesus and called a Consistory to contrive how they might destroy him and here was the greatest representment of the goodness of God and the ingratitude of man that could be practised or understood How often had Jesus poured forth tears for them how many sleepless nights had he awaked to do them advantage how many days had he spent in Homilies and admirable visitations of Mercy and Charity in casting out Devils in curing their sick in correcting their delinquencies in reducing them to the ways of security and peace and that we may use the greatest expression in the world that is his own in gathering them as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings to give them strength and warmth and life and ghostly nourishment And the chief Priests together with their faction use all arts and watch all opportunities to get Christ not that they might possess him but to destroy him little considering that they extinguish their own eyes and destroy that spring of life which was intended to them for a blissful immortality 10. And here it was that the Devil shewed his promptness to furnish every evil-intended person with apt instruments to act the very worst of his intentions the Devil knew their purposes and the aptness and proclivity of Judas and by bringing these together he
thee at an estimate beyond all the wealth of nature to buy wisdome and not to sell it to part with all that we may enjoy thee and let no temptation abuse our understandings no loss vex us into impatience no frustration of hope fill us with indignation no pressure of calamitous accidents make us angry at thee the fountain of love and blessing no Covetousness transport us into the suburbs of Hell and the regions of sin but make us to love thee as well as ever any creature loved thee that we may never burn in any fires but of a holy love nor sink in any inundation but what proceeds from penitential showrs and suffer no violence but of implacable desires to live with thee and when thou callest us to suffer with thee and for thee 3. LOrd let me never be betrayed by my self or any violent accident and 〈◊〉 temptation let me never be sold for the vile price of temporal gain or transient pleasure or a pleasant dream but since thou hast bought me with a price even then when thou wert sold thy self let me never be separated from thy possession I am thine bought with a price Lord save me and in the day when thou bindest up thy Jewels remember Lord that I cost thee as dear as any and therefore cast me not into the portion of Judas but let me walk and dwell and bathe in the field of thy bloud and pass from hence pure and sanctified into the society of the elect Apostles receiving my part with them and my lot in the communications of thy inheritance O gracious Lord and dearest Saviour Jesus Amen Considerations upon the Washing of the Disciples Feet by JESUS and his Sermon of Humility He washeth his Disciples feet Iohn 13. 5. After that he powreth water into a baso◠and began to wash the Disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded 6. Then cometh he to Simon Peter Peter saith unto him Lord doest thou wash my feet The Institution of his last Supper Mark 14. 22. And as they did eat Lesus took bread blessed brake it gaue to them said Take eat this is my body And he took y e Cup when he had given thanks he gave it to them they all dranke of it In the 〈◊〉 of the Communion 1. THE Holy JESUS went now to eat his last Paschal Supper and to finish the work of his Legation and to fulfill that part of the Law of Moses in every of its smallest and most minute particularities in which also the actions were significant of spiritual duties which we may transfer from the letter to the spirit in our own instances That as JESUS ate the Paschal Lamb with a staff in his Hand with his Loins girt with sandals on his Feet in great haste with unlevened Bread and with bitter Herbs so we also should do all our services according to the signification of these symbols leaning upon the Cross of JESUS for a staff and bearing the rod of his Government with Loins girt with Angelical Chastity with shoes on our Feet that so we may guard and have custody over our affections and be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace eating in haste as becomes persons hungring and thirsting after Righteousness doing the work of the Lord zealously and fervently without the leven of Malice and secular interest with bitter herbs of Self-denial and Mortification of our sensual and inordinate desires The sence and mystery of the whole act with all its circumstances is That we obey all the Sanctions of the Divine Law and that every part of our Religion be pure and peaceable chaste and obedient confident in God and diffident in our selves frequent and zealous humble and resigned just and charitable and there will not easily be wanting any just circumstance to hallow and consecrate the action 2. When the Holy Jesus had finished his last Mosaic Rite he descends to give example of the first fruit of Evangelical Graces he rises from Supper lays aside his garment like a servant and with all the circumstances of an humble ministery washes the feet of his Disciples beginning at the first S. Peter until he came to Judas the Traitor that we might in one scheme see a rare conjunction of Charity and Humility of Self-denial and indifferency represented by a person glorious and great their Lord and Master sad and troubled And he chose to wash their feet rather than their head that he might have the opportunity of a more humble posture and a more apt signification of his Charity Thus God lays every thing aside that he may serve his servants Heaven stoops to earth and one abyss calls upon another and the Miseries of man which were next to infinite are excelled by a Mercy equal to the immensity of God And this washing of their feet which was an accustomed civility and entertainment of honoured strangers at the beginning of their meal Christ deferred to the end of the Paschal Supper that it might be the preparatory to the second which he intended should be festival to all the world S. Peter was troubled that the hands of his Lord should wash his servants feet those hands which had opened the eyes of the blind and cured lepers and healed all diseases and when lift up to Heaven were omnipotent and could restore life to dead and buried persons he counted it a great indecency for him to suffer it but it was no more than was necessary for they had but lately been earnest in dispute for Precedency and it was of it self so apt to swell into tumour and inconvenience that it was not to be cured but by some Prodigy of Example and Miracle of Humility which the Holy Jesus offered to them in this express calling them to learn some great Lesson a Lesson which God descended from Heaven to earth from riches to poverty from essential innocence to the disreputation of a sinner from a Master to a Servant to learn us that is that we should esteem our selves but just as we are low sinful miserable needy and unworthy It seems it is a great thing that man should come to have just and equal thoughts of himself that God used such powerful arts to transmit this Lesson and engrave it in the spirits of men and if the Receipt fails we are eternally lost in the mists of vanity and enter into the condition of those Angels whom Pride transformed and spoiled into the condition of Devils and upon consideration of this great example Guericus a good man cried out Thou hast overcome O Lord thou hast overcome my Pride this Example hath mastered me I deliver my self up into thy hands never to receive liberty or exaltation but in the condition of thy humblest servant 3. And to this purpose S. Bernard hath an affectionate and devout consideration saying That some of the Angels as soon as they were created had an ambition to
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
and pleasure 2. Love desires to do all good to its beloved object and that is the greatest love which gives us the greatest blessings And the Sacrament therefore is the argument of his greatest love for in it we receive the honey and the honey-comb the Paschal Lamb with his bitter herbs Christ with all his griefs and his Passion with all the salutary effects of it 3. Love desires to be remembred and to have his object in perpetual representment And this Sacrament Christ designed to that purpose that he who is not present to our eyes might always be present to our spirits 4. Love demands love again and to desire to be beloved is of it self a great argument of love And as God cannot give us a greater blessing than his Love which is himself with an excellency of relation to us superadded so what greater demonstration of it can he make to us than to desire us to love him with as much earnestness and vehemency of desire as if we were that to him which he is essentially to us the author of our being and our blessing 5. And yet to consummate this Love and represent it to be the greatest and most excellent the Holy Jesus hath in this Sacrament designed that we should be united in our spirits with him incorporated to his body partake of his Divine nature and communicate in all his Graces and Love hath no expression beyond this that it desires to be united unto its object So that what Moses said to the men of Israel What nation is so great who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things for which we call upon him we can enlarge in the meditation of this Holy Sacrament for now the Lord our God calls upon us not only to be nigh unto him but to be all one with him not only as he was in the Incarnation flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone but also to communicate in spirit in grace in nature in Divinity it self 7. Upon the strength of the premisses we may sooner take an estimate of the Graces which are conveyed to us in the reception and celebration of this Holy Sacrament and Sacrifice For as it is a Commemoration and representment of Christ's Death so it is a commemorative Sacrifice as we receive the symbols and the mystery so it is a Sacrament In both capacities the benefit is next to infinite First For whatsoever Christ did at the Institution the same he commanded the Church to do in remembrance and repeated rites and himself also does the same thing in Heaven for us making perpetual Intercession for his Church the body of his redeemed ones by representing to his Father his death and sacrifice there he sits a high Priest continually and offers still the same one perfect sacrifice that is still represents it as having been once finished and consummate in order to perpetual and never-failing events And this also his Ministers do on earth they offer up the same Sacrifice to God the sacrifice of the Cross by prayers and a commemorating rite and representment according to his holy Institution And as all the effects of Grace and the titles of glory were purchased for us on the Cross and the actual mysteries of Redemption perfected on earth but are applied to us and made effectual to single persons and communities of men by Christ's Intercession in Heaven so also they are promoted by acts of Duty and Religion here on earth that we may be workers together with God as S. Paul expresses it and in virtue of the eternal and all-sufficient Sacrifice may offer up our prayers and our duty and by representing that sacrifice may send up together with our prayers an instrument of their graciousness and acceptation The Funerals of a deceased friend are not only performed at his first interring but in the monthly minds and anniversary commemorations and our grief returns upon the fight of a picture or upon any instance which our dead friend desired us to preserve as his memorial we celebrate and exhibite the Lora's death in sacrament and symbol and this is that great express which when the Church offers to God the Father it obtains all those blessings which that sacrifice purchased Themistocles snatch'd up the son of King Admetus and held him between himself and death to mitigate the rage of the King and prevailed accordingly Our very holding up the Son of God and representing him to his Father is the doing an act of mediation 〈◊〉 advantage to our selves in the virtue and efficacy of the Mediatour As Christ is a Priest in Heaven for ever and yet does not sacrifice himself afresh nor yet without a sacrifice could he be a Priest but by a daily ministration and intercession represents his sacrifice to God and offers himself as sacrificed so he does upon earth by the ministery of his servants he is offered to God that is he is by Prayers and the Sacrament represented or offered up to God as sacrificed which in effect is a celebration of his death and the applying it to the present and future necessities of the Church as we are capable by a ministery like to his in Heaven It follows then that the celebration of this Sacrifice be in its proportion an instrument of applying the proper Sacrifice to all the purposes which it first designed It is ministerially and by application an instrument propitiatory it is Eucharistical it is an homage and an act of adoration and it is impetratory and obtains for us and for the whole Church all the benefits of the sacrifice which is now celebrated and applied that is As this Rite is the remembrance and ministerial celebration of Christ's sacrifice so it is destined to do honour to God to express the homage and duty of his servants to acknowledge his supreme dominion to give him thanks and worship to beg pardon blessings and supply of all our needs And its profit is enlarged not only to the persons celebrating but to all to whom they design it according to the nature of Sacrifices and Prayers and all such solemn actions of Religion 8. Secondly If we consider this not as the act and ministery of Ecclesiastical persons but as the duty of the whole Church communicating that is as it is a 〈◊〉 so it is like the Springs of Eden from whence issue many Rivers or the Trees of celestial Jerusalem bearing various kinds of Fruit. For whatsoever was offered in the Sacrifice is given in the Sacrament and whatsoever the Testament bequeaths the holy Mysteries dispense 1. He that 〈◊〉 my 〈◊〉 and drinketh my bloud abideth in me and 〈◊〉 in him Christ in his Temple and his resting-place and the worthy Communicant is in Sanctuary and a place of protection and every holy Soul having feasted at his Table may say as S. Paul 〈◊〉 live yet not I but Christ liveth in me So that to live is Christ Christ is
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
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
wickedness as by keeping back part of his estate to think to deceive the Holy Ghost That before it was sold it was wholly at his own disposure and after it was perfectly in his own power fully to have performed his vow So that it was capable of no other interpretation than that herein he had not only abused and injured men but mocked God and what in him lay lyed to and cheated the Holy Ghost who he knew was privy to the most secret thoughts and purposes of his heart This vvas no sooner said but suddenly to the great terror and amazement of all that vvere present Ananias vvas arrested vvith a stroke from Heaven and fell dovvn dead to the ground Not long after his Wife came in vvhom Peter entertained vvith the same severe reproofs vvherevvith he had done her Husband adding that the like sad fate and doom should immediately seize upon her who thereupon dropt down dead As she had been Copartner with him in the Sin becoming sharer with him in the punishment An Instance of great severity filling all that heard of it with fear and terror and became a seasonable prevention of that hypocrisie and dissimulation wherewith many might possibly think to have imposed upon the Church 9. THIS severe Case being extraordinary the Apostles usually exerted their power in such Miracles as were more useful and beneficial to the World Curing all manner of Diseases and dispossessing Devils In so much that they brought the Sick into the Streets and laid them upon Beds and Couches that at least Peter's shadow as he passed by might come upon them These astonishing Miracles could not but mightily contribute to the propagation of the Gospel and convince the World that the Apostles were more considerable Persons than they took them for poverty and meanness being no bar to true worth and greatness And methinks Erasmus his reflection here is not unseasonable that no honour or soveraignty no power or dignity was comparable to this glory of the Apostle that the things of Christ though in another way were more noble and excellent than any thing that this World could afford And therefore he tells us that when he beheld the state and magnificence wherewith Pope Julius the Second appeared first at Bononia and then at Rome equalling the triumphs of a Pompey or a Caesar he could not but think how much all this was below the greatness and majesty of S. Peter who converted the World not by Power or Armies not by Engines or 〈◊〉 of pomp and grandeur but by faith in the power of Christ and drew it to the admiration of himself and the same state says he would no doubt attend the Apostles Successours were they Men of the same temper and holiness of life The Jewish Rulers alarm'd with this News and awakened with the growing numbers of the Church sent to apprehend the Apostles and cast them into Prison But God who is never wanting to his own cause sent that Night an Angel from Heaven to open the Prison doors commanding them to repair to the Temple and to the exercise of their Ministery Which they did early in the Morning and there taught the People How unsuccessful are the projects of the wisest Statesmen when God frowns upon them how little do any counsels against Heaven prosper In vain is it to shut the doors where God is resolved to open them the firmest Bars the strongest Chains cannot hold where once God has designed and decreed our liberty The Officers returning the next Morning found the Prison shut and guarded but the Prisoners gone Wherewith they acquainted the Council who much wondred at it but being told where the Apostles were they sent to bring them withóut any noise or violence before the Sanhedrim where the High Priest asked them how they durst go on to propagate that Doctrine which they had so strictly commanded them not to preach Peter in the name of the rest told them That they must in this case obey God rather than men That though they had so barbarously and contumeliously treated the Lord Jesus yet that God had raised him up and exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour to give both repentance and remission of sins That they were witnesses of these things and so were those Miraculous Powers which the Holy Ghost conferred upon all true Christians Vexed was the Council with this Answer and began to consider how to cut them off But Gamaliel a grave and learned Senator having commanded the Apostles to withdraw bad the Council take heed what they did to them putting them in mind that several persons had heretofore raised parties and factions and drawn vast Numbers after them but that they had miscarried and they and their designs come to nought that therefore they should do well to let these men alone that if their doctrines and designs were meerly humane they would in time of themselves fall to the ground but if they were of God it was not all their power and policies would be able to defeat and overturn them and that they themselves would herein appear to oppose the counsels and designs of Heaven With this prudent and rational advice they were satisfied and having commanded the Apostles to be scourged and charged them no more to preach this doctrine restored them to their liberty Who notwithstanding this charge and threatning returned home in a kind of triumph that they were accounted worthy to suffer in so good a cause and to undergo shame and reproach for the sake of so good a Master Nor could all the hard usage they met with from men discourage them in their duty to God or make them less zealous and diligent both publickly and privately to preach Christ in every place SECT VIII Of S. Peter's Acts from the Dispersion of the Church at Jerusalem till his contest with S. Paul at Antioch The great care of the Divine Providence over the Church Peter dispatched by the Apostles to confirm the Church newly planted at Samaria His 〈◊〉 and silencing Simon Magus there His going to Lydda and curing AEneas His raising Dorcas at Joppa The 〈◊〉 of all sorts of Creatures presented to him to prepare him for the conversion of the Gentiles His going to Cornelius and declaring God's readiness to receive the Gentiles into the Church The Baptizing Cornelius and his Family Peter censured by the Jews for conversing with the Gentiles The mighty prejudices of the Jews against the Gentiles noted out of Heathen Writers Peter cast into prison by Herod Agrippa miraculously delivered by an Angel His discourse in the Synod at Jerusalem that the Gentiles might be received without being put under the obligation of the Law of Moses His unworthy compliance with the Jews at Antioch in opposition to the Gentiles Severely checked and resisted by S. Paul The ill use Porphyry makes of this difference The conceit of some that it was not Peter the Apostle but one of the Seventy 1. THE Church had been