his Word in his perfect Law There we shall see a true Christ his full image his will There we shall see him as he is behold him in his Nature in his Offices behold him with all his graces his precepts his promises with all the riches of his Gospel There we shall with open face not through the veil of Types and Ceremonies not through our own carnal lusts and phansies behold as in a glass accurately and studiously observe the glory of our Lord and Law-giver and be changed into the same Image be like unto him heavenly as he is heavenly be changed from glory to glory from the glory to serve him to the glory to reign with him even as by the Spirit of the Lord and the power of his Word and perfect Law By the power of which Law we walk on from strength to strength from vertue to vertue from one perfection to another till we be perfect men in Christ Jesus and fitted for that crown which is prepared and laid up for all those who love him in sincerity and truth and bow before him and keep his commandments and are obedient to this perfect Law The Three and Fortieth SERMON PART III. JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed WE began the last day to speak of the Perfection of the Gospel our Second point in the Character the Apostle here giveth us of it And the time not then permitting us to handle it throughly we shall make it the subject also of our present discourse We told you that God who proposed eternity of Happiness as the end of all Man's actions was never deficient or wanting in the administration of those means which might raise him to it God who built his Church upon a Rock upon the confession of that faith which will lift it up to heaven made it Militant and gave it rules and orders Laws and precepts by the observation of which it might become triumphant Take Man in what capacity you please in the Gospel he may find that which will fill and fit him in every condition We shewed this at large Now we will adde something and then apply all more home to our selves God as he made Man after his own image so made him to be partaker of that happiness vvhich He is This he called him to and pointeth out the vvay vvhich leadeth to it This is the way walk in it and be blessed And first he set up a light vvithin him conveying it in those natural impressions vvhich Tertullian calleth a legal Nature or a natural Law By that light vvhich is impossible to be extinguished every man that hath had some mediocrity of civil education is enabled to discern vvhat is good and just vvhat evil and unjust From this light breaketh forth one main beam vvhich shineth in all mens faces even that known precept so much commended by Heathens themselves As ye would that men should doe unto you even so doe ye unto them A command so equitable that the most unjust dare not quarrel it so evident that if it vvere possible to study ignorance none could ever attain to that height as to lose the knovvledge of it Non iniquitas delebit saith Augustine Sin it self though it blur and deface yet cannot utterly blot it out And one vvould think those characters vvhich God hath so firmly and deeply imprinted upon our souls were light enough to carry us on in our way And we find that by the help of this light alone some Heathens who never knew Christ have raised themselves to that pitch and height of natural and moral goodness that most Christians seem to stand in the valley below and look up and gaze upon them with admiration to see them to have made a fairer progress and steered a steadier course of virtue by the leading of this star then themselves have done by the lustre of the Sun of righteousness But yet this is not enough Sublimius quid sapit Christianus The Christian how faintly soever he goeth forward yet looketh higher then the natural man could possibly sore upon the wings of natural endowments He that draweth out his actions by the line and level of Nature onely is not yet a Christian Natura est prima omnium disciplina saith Tertullian Nature is our first School mistress But God added to this his written Law and in the last dayes spoke by his Son and revealed his will perfectly and fully in the Gospel Instrumentum literaturae adjecit siquis velit de eo inquirere He hath drawn an instrument and to Nature and Moses added his Gospel in which whosoever will enquire may most fully learn his will Here we are taught that fundamental lesson to Believe Which the Father calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a voluntary submission of the soul the obedience of the will and applying it to every precept Here we have those Divine precepts of Sanctity and Holiness the faithful commentaries of God's will which though they present nothing to our understanding to which the wisest Philosophers would not have subscribed yet forbad some things vvhich vvere not absolutely unlavvful by the Lavv of Nature even those acts in vvhich though to a natural eye there appeared no irregularity yet Reason it self vvould soon conclude it vvere better not to do then to do them For many lessons there be vvhich by the vvit of man had never been collected had not Christ the true Lawgiver gathered them to our hands What is said fabulously of some grounds in Italy that they bear an Olive and under that Olive a Vine and under that Vine Corn and under that Corn omne olerum genus all kind of profitable herbs and that without any hinderance of each other is most true of the doctrine of the Gospel There is in it such a real and profitable fertility that it beareth and yieldeth all the fatness of the Olive the sweetness of the Vine the strength of Corn something for every temper something that will prove food for every stomach The will of God declared by Christ is all these and more And in the Gospel it is proposed and laid open to the eye in its full proportion That doctrine which leadeth to happiness is plain and obvious Who knoweth not what it is to Believe in Christ and to Deny ungodliness and worldly lusts Who understandeth not our Saviour's Sermon on the mount If there be any more doctrines then we find in the Gospel then certainly they are of the number of those quae salvâ fide ignorari possunt which will not endanger us if we know them not And did we practise what is easie to know we should not thus be troubled to know what to practise It is not any defect in the rule any obscurity in the Gospel but the neglect of piety and religion and that integrity of life which
omnem which undergoeth the shock of the whole war observeth the enemy in all his stratagems wiles and enterprises meeteth and encountereth him in all his assaults meeteth him as a Serpent and is not taken with with his flattery meeteth him as Lion and is not dismayed at his roarring but keepeth and guideth us in an even and constant course in the midst of all his noise and allurements and so bringeth us though shaken and weather-beaten unto our end to the haven of rest where we would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have need of patience Quid enim malum nisi impatientia boni saith Tertullian For what is Evil but an impatience of that which is good What is Vice but an impatience of vertue Pride will not suffer us to be brought low Covetousness will not suffer us to open our hand Intemperance will not suffer us to put our knife to our throat The Love of the world is impatient of God himself His Word is a sword and his commands thunderbolts At the sound of them we are afraid and go away sorrowful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have need of patience For we must run our race in a constant and uninterrupted course in an awful reverence to our Law-giver living and dying under the shadow of his wings that whether we live or die we may be the Lord's Non habitat nisi qui verè habitat say the Civilians He is not said to dwell in a place who continueth not in it And he doth not remain in the Gospel who is ready upon every change of weather upon every blast and breathing of discontent to change his seat He doth not remain in it who if the rain descend and the flouds come and the winds blow will leave and forsake it though it be a rock which will easily defend him against all these For what evil can there be against which it hath not provided an antidote what tempest will it not shroud us against Bring Principalites and Powers the Devil and all his artillery unus sufficit Christus the Gospel alone is sufficient for us And in this we see the difference between the World and the Church The world passeth away 1 Cor. 7.31 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The fashion of the world the scene is every day changed and presenteth things in another shape But the Church is built upon a Rock Matth. 16. upon CHRIST that is upon that Faith in Christ which worketh by charity And he who is built upon this Rock who is fully persuaded that Christ is the best Master and that those duties which he teacheth are from heaven heavenly and will bring us thither is sufficiently armed against the flattery of Pleasure the lowring countenance of Disgrace the terrours of Poverty and Death it self against all wind and weather whatsoever that might move him from his place Look into the world There all things are as mutable as it self Omnia in impia fluctuant All things ebbe and flow in wicked men flie as a shadow and continue not Their Righteousness is like the morning dew Hos 13.3 dried up with the first Sun their Charity like a rock which must be strook by some Moses some Prophet and then upon a fit or pang no gushings forth but some droppings peradventure and then a dry rock again their Vows and Promises like their shadows at noon behind them their Friendship like Job's winter-brooks overflowing with words and then in summer when it is hottest in time of need quite dried up consumed out of its place their Temperance scarce holding out to the next feast nor their Chastity to the next twilight The world and the fashion of it passeth away but on the contrary the Gospel is the eternal word of God And as the gifts and calling of God are without repentance Rom. 11.29 Prov. 8.18 so his graces are durable riches opes densae firm and well compacted such as may be held against all assaults like him from whom they descend yesterday and to day and the same for ever Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unfeigned Love abiding Hope an anchor He that is a true Gospeller doth remain and continue and not wander from that which is good to that which is evil is not this day a Confessor and to morrow an Apostate doth not believe to day and to morrow renounce his Creed doth not love to day and loath to morrow doth not hope to day and droop to morrow but unum hominem agit he is the same man and doth the same things assiduè aequaliter constantly and equally He remaineth not in the Gospel in a calm onely and leaveth it when the winds rise but here he will remain fixed to those principles and acting by them vvhen the Sun shineth and vvhen the storm is loudest By the Gospel he fixeth and strengthneth all his decrees and resolutions and determinations that they are ever the same and about the same now beating down one sin anon another now raising and exalting this vertue anon that If you ask him a question saith Aristides the Sophister of Numbers or Measures he vvill give you the same answer to day vvhich he vvill give you to morrow and the next day and at the last breath that he draweth In the next place if we do not remain in the Law of liberty vve do not obey it as we should For to remain in the Gospel and to be in Christ are words of stability and durance and perpetuity For vvhat being is that vvhich anon is not What stability hath that vvhich changeth every moment What durance and perpetuity hath that vvhich is but a vapour or exhalation drawn up on high to fall and stink To remain in the Gospel and to remain for ever may seem two different things but in respect of the race vve are to run in respect of our salvation they are the very same We vvill not here dispute Whether Perseverance be a vertue distinct from other graces Whether as the Angels according as some Divines teach vvhich stood after the fall of the rest had a confirming grace given them from God which now maketh them utterly uncapable of any rebellious conceit so also the saving graces of God's Spirit bring vvith them into the soul a necessary and certain preservation from final relapse For there be vvho violently maintain it and there be vvho vvith as great zele and more reason deny it To ask Whether we may totally and finally fall from the grace and favour of God is not so pertinent as it is necessary to hearken to the counsel of the Apostle and to take heed lest we fall to take heed lest we be cut off and to beware of those sins vvhich if vve commit vve cannot inherit the kingdom of God For vvhat vvill it avail if vve be to every good work reprobate to comfort our selves that vve are of the number of the elect What vvill it help us if by adultery and murther and pride
Ishmael Thus by looking on the Persons in the Text you may plainly see the face and condition of the Church and that no priviledge she hath can exempt her from persecution This will yet more plainly appear from the very Nature and Constitution of the Church which is best seen in her blood when she is Militant Which is more full and expressive then any other representation or title that she hath The Church of Christ and the Kingdomes of the earth are not of the same making and constitution have not the same soul and spirit to animate them These may seem to be built upon Air they are so soon thrown down That is raised upon a holy Hill These have a weak and frail hand to set them up and as weak a hand may cast them down That is the work of Omnipotency which fenceth it about and secureth it from Death and Hell These depend upon the Opinions upon the Affections upon the Lusts of men which change oftner then the wind upon the breath of that monster the Multitude which is any thing and which is nothing which is it knoweth not what and never agreeth with it self is never one but in a tempest in tumult and sedition That is founded upon the eternal Decree and Will of God and upon Immutability it self and shall stand fast for ever These when they are in their height and glory are under uncertainty and chance The Church under the wing and shadow of that Providence which can neither erre nor miscarry but worketh mightily and irresistibly to its end His evertendis una dies hora momentum sufficit These are long a raysing and are blown down in a moment But the Church is as everlasting as his love that built it In a word these are worn out by Time The Church is but melted and purged in it and shall then be most glorious when Time shall be no more I know well Persecution appeareth to us as a Fury sent from hell and every hair every threat is a snake that hisseth at us but it is our Sensuality and Cowardise that whippeth us Yet the common consent of all men hath given her a fairer shape and they that run from her do prefer the suffering part And as our Saviour said Acts 20.35 It is more blessed to give then to receive so is it vox populi the voice of the People though they practice it not It is better to suffer then to oppress Even they who have the sword in their hand and breath nothing but terrour and death will rage yet more if you say they persecute you and either magnifie their cruelty with the name of Justice or else seek to perswade the world that they and they alone suffer persecution Every man flieth persecution and every man is willing to own it The Arians complained of the cruelty of the Orthodox and the Orthodox of the fury of the Arians Epist 48 68. Vos dicitis pati persecutionem saith Augustine to the Manichees You say you suffer but our houses are laid wast by you You say you suffer but your armed men put out our eyes You say you suffer but we fall by the sword What you do to us you will not impute to your selves but what you do to your selves you impute to us Thus it was then And how do we look back upon the Marian daies as if the bottomless pit did never smoke but then And are not they of the Romish party as loud in their complaints as if the Devil were never let loose till now We bring forth our Martyrs with a faggot on their shoulder and they theirs with a Tiburn-tippet as Father Latimer calleth it and both glory in Persecution We see then every party claimeth a title to Persecution and counteth it honour to be placed in the number of those that suffer And indeed Persecution is the honour the prosperity the flourishing condition of the Church for it maketh hâ—r indeed visible Nazianzene I remember calleth it the Sacrament and mystery of blood a visible sign of invisible grace where one thing is seen and another thing done where the Christian suffereth and rejoyceth is cast down and promoted falleth by the sword to rise to eternity where Glory lieth hid in Disgrace Advantage in Loss and Life in Death a Church shining in the midst of all the blackness and darkness and terrours of the world Epist 20. â—â— Floridi Martyres they are called by S. Cyprian But this you may say is true if we take the Church as Invisible made up of Sheep onely as Collection of Saints To speak truly Charity buildeth up no other Church For all she beholdeth are either so or in a possibility of having that honour though the eye of Faith can see but a small number to make up that body But take the Church under what notion you please yet it will be easie to observe that Persecution may enlarge her territories increase her number and make her more visible then she was when the weather was fair and no cloud or darkness hung over her that when her branches were lopt off she spread the more that when her members were dispersed there were more gathered to her that when they were driven about the world they carried that sweet-smelling savour about them which dtew in multitudes to follow them that in their flight they begat many children unto Christ Apolog. Crudelitas vestra illecebra est sectae saith Tertullian In the last place As it was then so it is now S. Paul doth not say It may be so or It is by chance but so it is by the Providence of God Provedentia ratio ordinis rerum ad finem Aquin. which is seen in the well ordering and bringing of every motion and action of man to a right end which commonly runneth in a contrary course to that which Flesh and Blood humane Infirmity would find out Eternity and Mortality Majesty and Dust and Ashes Wisdome and Ignorance steer not the same course nor are they bound to the same point My wayes are not your wayes nor my thoughts yours Isa 55.8 saith God by his Prophet to a foolish Nation who in extremity of folly would be wiser then God Mine are not as yours not such uncertain such vain such contradictory and deceitful thoughts but as far removed from yours as heaven is from the earth God hideth himself under a veil Deus tum maximè magnus eum homini pusillus tum maximè optimus cum ho â—ini non bonus Tert l. 2. adv Marcion c. 2. and is merciful when he seemeth angry and just when in outward appearance he favoureth oppression he shadoweth us under his wings when we think he thundreth against us and raiseth his Church as high as heaven when we tremble and imagin he hath opened the gates of hell to devour her Were Flesh and Blood to build a Church we should draw our lines out in a pleasant place It should
Faith so is Faith the foundation of an holy Conversation In this we edifie our selves and in this we sustain and uphold others In this we stand and in this we raise up others From Faith are the issues of life from Faith as from a fountain flow those waters of comfort which refresh the widow and the fatherless and that water of separation which purifieth us Numb 31.23 and keepeth us unspotted and white as snow But our Apostle mentioneth none of these and I will give you some reason at least a fair conjecture why he doth not First here where S. James telleth us what pure Religion is he doth not so much as name Faith For indeed Faith is the ground of the whole draught and portrayture of Religion and as we observe in it in pictures it is in shadow not exprest but yet seen It is supposed by the Apostle writing not to Infidels but to those who had already given up their names to Christ Faith is like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Mathematicks which Tully calleth initia Mathematicorum beginnings and principles which if we grant not we can make no progress in that science S. Paul calleth Faith a principle of the doctrine of Christ Heb. 6.1 And what necessity was there for my Apostle to commend that unto Christians which they had already embraced to direct them in that wherein they were perfect to urge that which they could not deny not deny nay of which they made their boast all the day long No S. James is for Ostende mihi He doth not once doubt of their faith but is very earnest to force it out that it may shew it self by works Then Faith is a star when it streameth out light and its beams are the works of charity Then Faith is a ship when pure Religion is the rudder to steer and guide it 1 Tim 1 19. that it dash not on a rock and be split Then Faith is the soul of the soul when by its quickning and enlivening power we run the wayes of Christs commandments Purè credunt pure ergo vivant pure ergo loquantur saith the Father Their belief is right therefore let their conversation be sincere No other conclusion can naturally be deduced from Faith and of it self it can yield no other And this it will yield if you do not in a manner destroy it and spoil it of its power and efficacy For what an inconsequence is this I believe that Christ hath taught me to be merciful Luk. 6 36. 1 Tim. 4.8 as my heavenly Father is merciful that Charity hath the promise of the world to come Therefore I will shut up my bowels This I am sure is one part of our belief if it be not our Creed is most imperfect and yet such practical conclusions do our Avarice and Luxury draw Our Faith is spread about the world but our Charity is a candle under a bushel O the great errour and folly of this our age which can shew us multitudes of men and women who as the Apostle speaketh are ever learning 2 Tim. 3.7 and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth who have conned their Creed by heart but have little skill or forgot the skill they have in the royal Law who cry up Faith as the Jews did the Temple of the Lord Jer. 4.7 Ch. 2. v. 17 20 26. and are very zealous for it yet suffer it to decay and waste till it be dead as my Apostle speaketh eat out the very heart of it by a careless and profane conversation as the Jews with their own hands did set fire on that Temple which they so much adored And this may be a second reason why S. James mentioneth not Faith in his character of Religion The power and efficacy of Faith having been every where preached-up men carnally minded did so fill their thoughts with the contemplation of that fundamental virtue that they left no room for other virtues not so efficacious indeed to justifie a sinner yet as necessary as Faith it self they did commend and extoll the power of Faith when it had no power at all in them nay which is the most fatal miscarriage of all they did make Faith an occasion through which sin revived which should have destroyed in them the whole body of sin Rom. 6.6 it being common to men at last to fix and settle their minds upon that object which hath been most often presented to them as the countrey peasant having heard much talk of the City of Rome began at last to think there was no other city but that If we look forward to the second chapter of this Epistle we shall think this more then a conjecture For there the Apostle seemeth to take away from Faith its attribute of saving Can faith save a man What an Heretick what a Papist would he be that should but put up this question in these our dayes wherein the SOLA JVSTIFICAT hath left Faith alone in the work of our salvation and yet the Question may be put up and the Resolve on the negative may be true Faith cannot save him certainly that saith he hath faith and hath not works Thus though S. James dispute indeed against Simon the Sorcerer and others as we may gather out of Irenaeus yet in appearance he levelleth his discourse against Paul the Apostle For Not by works but by faith saith S. Paul Not by faith but by works saith S. James and yet both are true the one speaking to the Jews who were all for the Law the other to those Christians who were all for Faith To these who had buried all thought of Good works in the pleasing but deceitful contemplation of Faith our Apostle speaketh no other language but Do this and exalteth Charity to the higher place that their vain boasting of Faith might not be heard For Faith saith he hath no tongue nay nor life without her And thus in appearrance he taketh from the one to establish the other and setteth up a throne for Charity not without some shew and semblance of prejudice to Faith For last of all to give you one reason more Faith indeed is naturally productive of Good works For what madness is it to see the way to eternity of bliss and not to walk in it Each article of our Creed pointeth as with a finger to some virtue to be wrought in the mind and published in the outward man If I believe that Christ is God it will follow I must worship him If he died for sin the consequenee is plain enough We must die to it If he so loved us the Apostle concludeth We must love one another Charity is the proper effect of Faith and upon Faith and Charity we build up our Hope If we believe the promises and perform the conditions if we believe him that loved us and love him and keep his commandments we are in heaven already But yet we may observe that the
enter but in that name and resemblance And when Truth appeareth in its rayes and glory and that light which doth most throughly and best discover it it runneth from Errour as from a monster and boweth to the Sceptre and command of Truth It is never so wedded to any conclusion though never so specious as not to be ready to put it by and forsake it when another presenteth it self which hath better evidence to speak for it and commend it to its choice and practice Thus S. Paul was a champion of the Law and after that a Martyr of the Gospel Thus he persecuted Christians and thus he dyed one Acts 10. Thus S. Peter would not converse and eat with the heathen as polluted and unclean yet when the sheet was let down and in it the will of Christ he preached unto them and baptized them This is the mother of all Repentance For what is Repentance but the changing of our mind upon better information This if it were well practised would fill the world which is now full of Errour with Recognitions and Recantations which are not only confessions but triumphs over a conquered Errour as the rejoycings and Jubilees of men who did fit in darkness but have now found the light This would be an amulet and sure preservative against Prejudice and those common and prevailing errours to which it giveth life and strength and which spread themselves as the Plague and infect whole families cities and nations In brief this would make our errours more venial and men more peaceable For he that seeketh the Truth with this impartial diligence is rather unfortunate then faulty if he miss it and men would never advance their opinion with that heat and malice against dissenters if they could once entertein this thought That it is possible that they themselves may erre and that that opinion in which they now say they will dye may be false if they did not rest in the first evidence as best and so suffer it to pass unquestioned 2 Pet. 1.19 and never seek for a sure word of prophesie or a well grounded assurance that this is one For if this were done as it should either Errour would not overtake or if it did it could not hurt us But this is an argument of a large compass a subject full and yielding much matter and I was but to declare my mind and intention which may better thrive and be more seen under the manage of more nimble and ready wits and the activity of a better penne Secondly as I thought it worth my pains and endeavour to strike at those common errours at which so many stumble and into which they willingly fall and with great complacency so did I set up in the course of my office and ministery this desire and I could not bring much more then desire to present in as fair an appearance as I could those more necessary and essential truths by the embracing of which we lay hold on happiness and come nearest to it and to set them up as a mark at which all mens actions should especially aim For if this be once obtained the other will follow of it self because these truths are not so obnoxious and open to prejudice and men would not run into so many obliquities if they did principally and earnestly intend that to which they are everlastingly and indispensably bound nor could they so often erre if they were willing to be good It was as wise counsel as could have been given to those who sat to solve knotty doubts and to determin controversies in Religion in the Council at Dort and it was given by a King and it would have made good his Motto and styled him a Peacemaker BEATI PACIFICI King James his Motto or Dicton though there had been nothing else to contribute to that title Paucissima definienda quia paucissima necessaria That they should not be too busie and earnest in defining and determining many things because so few were necessary Which counsel if men had thought it worth their ear and favour and willingly bowed to it had made the Church as Jerusalem a City compact within it self and there would have been abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth Psal 122 3. Psal 72.7 For Questions in Divinity are like Meats in this The more delicate and subtile they are the sooner they putrifie and by too much agitation and sifting annoy and corrupt the rule whilest men are more swift and eager in the pursuit and advance of that humour that raised them then in following those truths which are but few and easie Jude 19. and with which they might build themselves up in their holy faith Lex nos innocentes esse jubet non curiosos Senec. Controv Innocency and not Curiosity is the fulfilling of the Law as it is not Luxury which raiseth an healthful constitution but Temperance and those meats which are as wholesome as common The sum of all Christianity is made up in this To level and place all our hope where it should be on God through Jesus Christ our Lord to love him and keep his commandments which are both open and easie when we are willing In other more nice then useful disquisitions I am well pleased to be puzzled and to be at loss and yet am not at loss because I cannot lose that which I would not which I cannot have and resolve for God and not my self or indeed for my self because for God And my answer is most satisfactory That I believe the thing and God only knoweth the manner how it is and doth not therefore reveal it because it is not fit for me to know When I am to appear before God in his House and at his Table I recollect my thoughts and turn them upon my self I severely enquire in what terms I stand with God and my Neighbour whether there be nothing in me no imagination which standeth in opposition with Christ and so is not suitable with the feast nor with him that maketh it And when this is done my business is at an end for to attempt more is to do nothing or rather that which I should not do But I do not ask with the Schools How the ten Predicaments are in the Eucharist How the Bread is con-or transubstantiated or How the body of Christ is there For they who speak at distance most modestly and tell us it is not corporally but yet really there do not so define as to ascertain the manner but leave it in a cloud and out of sight Job 19.25 I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he will raise me up at the last day 1 Cor. 15.19 for he hath promised who raised himself and is the first fruits of them that slept But I do not enquire What manner of Trumpet it shall be that shall then sound nor of the Solemnity and manner of the proceeding at that day or How the body which shall rise
Augustine though the Head phansieth the Finger toucheth sonum sola chorda excutit there must be a string before there be musick So the Father and the holy Ghost did work in this mystery but incarnationis terminus Christus the Incarnation rested on the Son alone The Son is the Instrument by which was conveyed that melos salutare that heavenly Antheme which the Types did set and prefigure the Prophets descant upon and the Angels chant forth in a full Quire that Musick which hath filled heaven and earth with its sound It behoved his Power to restore us his Wisdome to reform us his Mercy to relieve us DEBVIT taketh them all in It ought it was convenient so to be Lastly DEBVIT reacheth the Assimilation it self and layeth hold on that too Made like he was and he ought to be so to satisfie in the same nature which had offended carnem gestare propter meam carnem Gregor to take flesh for my flesh and a soul for my soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to purge and refine me in my own to wash and cleanse the corruption of my flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the immense Ocean of his Divinity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things to be made like unto his brethren Debuit looks on all on his Godhead on his Person on his Assimilation God no Man or Angel The second Person in Trinity not the Father or the holy Spirit Made like unto his Brethren 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his naked Divinity though it might have saved us yet it was not so fit being at too great a distance from us Debuit slumbreth every storm answereth every doubt scattreth our fears removeth our jealousies and buildeth us up in our most holy faith Though he be God the Wisdome of God the Son of God yet he ought to be made like unto us to restore his Creature to exalt our Nature and in our shape and likeness in our flesh to pay down the price of our Redemption So then here is an Aptness and Conveniency But the words it behoved him imply also a kind of Necessity That God could be made like morâ—â—l man is a strange contemplation that he would is a rise and exaltatâ—on of that that he ought superexalteth and sets it at a higher pitch but that he must be so that Necessity in a manner should bring him down were not his Love infinite as well as his Power would stagger and amaze the strongest faith Who would believe such a report But he speaketh it himself Matth. 26.54 Mark 8.31 and it was the fire of his Love that kindled in him and then he spake it with his tongue He must die and if die be born He not onely is but would not onely would but ought not onely ought but of necessity must be made like unto his brethren I say a strange contemplation it is For there needed no such forcible tye no such chain of necessity to hold him Liberè egit what he did he did freely Nothing more free and voluntary more spontaneous then this his Assimilation For at his birth as if he had slacked his pace and delayed his Fathers expectation and not come at the appointed period of time he suddenly cryeth Lo I come in the volume of thy book it is written of me that I should do thy will O God Psal 40.7 8. He calleth it his desire and he had it written in his heart His Passion he calleth a baptisme as if he had been to be the better for it And in this Chapter as if there had been some defect some thing wanting to him before God is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 10. to make him perfect bâ— sufferings He was not whole and consummate before not what he should be Now he is T is true This condescension of his this assimilation was free and voluntary with more chearfulness and earnestness undertaken by him then received now by us It is our shame and sin that we dare not compare them that he should be so willing to be like us and we so unwilling to be like him but if we look back upon the precontract which past between his Father and him we shall then see a Debuit a kind of Necessity laid upon him Our Saviour himself speaketh it to his blessed mother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must go about my Fathers business Luke 2.49 We may measure his love by the decree that is we cannot measure it for the decree is eternal Before the foundation of the world was laid was this foundation laid an everlasting foundation to lay gold and silver upon all the rich and precious promises of the Gospel to lay our obedience and conformity to him upon and upon them both upon his love and our obedience to raise our selves up to that eternity which he hath purchased and promised to all his Brethren that are made like unto him Infinite love eternal love That which the eye of Flesh may count a dishonour was his joy his perfection His Love put a Debuit upon him a Necessity and brought him after a manner under the strict and peremptory terms of an Obligation under a Necessity of being born a Necessity of obedience a Necessity of dying Debuit taketh in all presenteth them to our admiration our joy our love our obedience gratitude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every way and in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren We have run the full compass of the Text and find our Saviour in every point of it like in all things And now to apply it If Christ be like unto us then we also ought to be like unto him and to have our Assimilation our Nativity by analogy and rules of proportion answerable unto his He was made like unto us you will say that he might save us Yea that he may present us to his Father by the virtue of his assimilation made like unto him for without this he cannot save us Behold here am I Hebr. 2.13 and the children which thou hast given me holy as I am holy just as I am just humble as I was humble A man conformable to Christ is the glory of this Feast Father John 17.24 I will that they whom thou hast given me and he gives him none but those who are like him be where I am Heaven hath received him And it will receive none but those who are like him Not those that name him Not those who set his name to their fraud to their malice to their perjury to their oppression Not those many Antichrists whose whole life is a contradiction to him All that he requireth at our hands all our gratitude all our duty is drawn together and consisteth in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be like unto him To be like unto him Why who would not be like unto him who would not be drawn after his similitude Like him we all would be in
his glory in his transfiguration on mount Tabor oh by all means build us hear a Tabernacle But to be like him in the cratch like him in the wilderness like him in his daily converse with men like him in the High priests hall like him in the garden like him on the Cross this we like not here we start back and are afraid of his countenance In humility in hunger and sweat in colours of blood few there be that would be drawn But if we will be his Brethren this is the copy we must take out these be our postures these our Colours bathed in his blood 't is true but withal bathed in the waters of affliction bathed in our tears bathed in our own blood We walk honestly as in the day in that day which he hath made We have our agony in our contrition and in our regeneration we hang upon the cross There our lusts and affections are fastned as it were with nayls and their strength taken from them that they cannot move in any opposition to Christ but our Anger turneth from our brothâ—r who is like him and is levell'd on sin which is most unlike him Our Love shutteth it self to the world and openeth it self to receive him The hardship we undergo bringeth in our fellowship with him Our suffering with him doth assimilate us and in a manner deify us Our following him in all his ways draweth us as near to him as Flesh and Blood can approach And our joy our greatest triumph is in this our Assimilation Thus we come forth like unto him In the next place as he was made like unto us so are we made like unto him We are not born so nor so by chance We cannot think our selves nor talk our selves into his likeness nor will he imprint it in us whilst we sleep or do worse This picture this resemblance is not drawn out with a thought or a word How many be there who bear Christ's name yet are not like unto him because they will not be made so Christians they are sine sanguine sudore without blood or sweat drawn out not by an obedient will but a flattering phansie They struggle not with temptation for they love it They fight not against their flesh but nourish and cherish it and make it their labour and ambition to please it They have no fear no trembling no agony no cross Nay they beat their fellow-servants and persecute them because they are like Christ They crucifie him in his members every day and yet present themselves to the world as his children as the very pictures of our Saviour These are so soon like him that they will never be made so When we see men fast and pray not that they have done evil but that they may do more the Pharisees did so when we see men bowing before Christ even when they are ready to lift up their heel against him when we hear them cry Hosanna to day and Crucifie him to morrow the Jews did so when we see men follow Christ as his Disciples and call him their Master and then sell him for some pieces of silver deliver him to their Lusts their Ambition their Covetousness Judas did so the Son of perdition and so nothing like unto a Saviour when we see men wash their hands as if they were clear of all guilt and yet in a tumult leave Religion to be torn in pieces and trod under feet and so that they can make their peace care not what becometh of Christ Pilate did so when we see men tempting Christ to turn stones into bread to do that by miracle for which he hath fitted ordinary proper means the Devil did so when we see these men and the world is full of such shall we say that they are like Christ We may say as well that the Pharisees were like him that the Jews were like him that Judas was like him that Pilate was like him that the Devil himself was like him as they No a Christian is not so soon made up doth not grow up a perfect man in Christ in a moment For though our first conversion be in an instant yet it is not so in an instant but that it is wrought in us by means and a new making there is whensoever we are made Christians To be like unto Christ is a work of time and we grow up to this similitude by degrees Our Faith meeteth with many rubs and difficulties to pass over For how often do we ask our selves the question How should this be And then when by prayer and meditation and continued exercise of piety we have got the victory we build and establish our selves in our most holy Faith Our Hope what is it but a conclusion gathered by much pains and experience by curious and watchful observation by a painful peregrination through all the powers of our souls and actions of our life And when with great contention we have settled these and see an evenness and regularity in them all then we rest in hope And for our Charity it is called the labour and work of Charity We must force out the love of the World before we bring in the love of our Brethren We must deny our covetousness before we can give a peny deny our appetite deny our selves before we can taste of the powers of the world to come We must maintain a tedious war against the flesh and be unlike our selves before we can be like unto Christ As he was made like unto us so must we be made like unto him And this is our union with him So we are made one even as he and his Father are one To draw the Parallel yet nearer As there was a debuit upon Christ so there is upon us As it behoved him to be made like unto us so it behoveth us to be made like unto him In the volume of the book it is written of him and in the same volume we shall find it written of us that we should do God's will and have his law in our hearts And in this as in other things Nihil priùs intuendum quà m quod decet our first thought should be What will become us To see Nero an Emperour with his fiddle or harp or in his buskins acting upon a stage to see Domitian catching of flyes or Hercules at the distaff what an incongruous thing is it An humble Christ and a proud Christian a meek Christ and a bloody Christian an obedient Christ and a traiterous Christian Christ in an agony and a Christian in pleasure Christ fasting and a Christian rioting Christ on the cross and a Christian in a Mahometical paradise non bene conveniunt there is no decorum in it nothing but soloecisme and absurdity which even offendeth their eyes who commit the same so boldly as if it carried with it some elegancy No we must act our parts with art and a decorum do that which behoveth us It is a Debt a Debt we must be paying
them were not an act of our Faith but of our Knowledge Therefore Christ shewed not himself openly to all the people at his resurrection Tert. Apol. ut fides non mediocri praemio destinata non nisi difficultate constaret that faith by which we are destined to a crown might not consist without some difficulty but commend it self by our obedience the perfection and beauty whereof is best seen in making its way through difficulties And so Hilary Habet non tam veniam quà m praemium ignorare quod credis Lib. 8. De Trin Not perfectly to know what thou certainly believest doth so little stand in need of pardon that it is that alone which draweth on the reward For what obedience can it be for me to assent to this That the whole is greater then the part that the Sun doth shine or any of those truths which are visible to the eye What obedience it is to assent to that which I cannot deny But when the object is in part hidden in part seen when the truth we assent to hath more probability to establish it then can be brought to shake it then our Saviour himself pronounceth John 20.29 Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed Besides it were in vain he should afford us more light who hath given us enough For to him that will not rest in that which is enough nothing is enough When God had divided the Red sea when he rained down Manna upon the Israelites and wrought many wonders amongst them the Text saith For all this they sinned still Psal 78.31 and believed not his wondrous works The Pharisees saw Christ's miracles yet would have stoned him They saw him raise Lazarus from the dead and would have killed them both The people said He hath done all things well Mar. 7.37 John 7.48 yet these were they that crucified the Lord of life Did any of the Pharisees believe in him We might ask Did any of his Disciples believe in him Christ himself calleth them Fools and slow of heart to believe what the Prophets had foretold Luke 24.25 Their Fear had sullied the evidence that they could not see it the Text sayth they forsook him and fled Matth. 26.56 And the reason of this is plain For though Faith be an act of the Understanding yet it dependeth upon the Will and men are incredulous nor for want of those means which may raise a faith but for want of will to follow that light which leadeth unto it they do not believe because they will not and so bear themselves strongly upon opinion preconceived beyond the strength of all evidence whatsoever When our affections and lusts are high and stand out against it the evidence is put by and forgot and the object which calls for our eye and faith begins to disappear and vanish and at last is nothing Quot voluntates tot fides saith Hilary So many Wills so many Creeds For there is no man that believeth more than he will To make this good we may appeal to men of the slendrest observation and least experience we may appeal to our very eye which cannot but see those uncertain and uneven motions in which men are carried on in the course of their life For what else is that that turneth us about like the hand of a Dial from one point to another from one perswasion to a contrary How cometh it to pass that I now embrace what anon I tremble at What is the reason that our Belief shifteth so many scenes and presenteth it self in so many several shapes now in the indifferency of a Laodicean anon in the violence of a Zealot now in the gaudiness of Superstition anon in the proud and scornful slovenry of factious Profaneness that many make so painful a peregrination through so many modes and forms of Religion and at last end in Atheists What reason is there There can be none but this the prevalency and victory of our Sensitive part over our Reason and the mutability yea and stubbornness of our Will which cleaveth to that which it will soon forsake but is strongly set against the Truth which bringeth with it the fairest evidence but not so pleasing to the sense This is it which maketh so many impressions in the mind Self-love and the Love of the world these frame our Creeds these plant and build these root and pull down build up a faith and then beat it to the ground and then set up another in its place James 1.8 2 Tim. 2 8 A double-minded man saith S. James is unstable in all his wayes Remember saith S. Paul that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised up from the dead according to my Gospel That is a sure foundation for our faith to build on There we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fair and certain pledges of faith as it were a commentary upon EGO VIVO or as so many beams of light to make it open and manifest to every eye which give up so fair an evidence that the malice of the Jew cannot avoid it Matth. 28.13 Let them say His Disciples stole him away whilest their stout watchmen slept What stole him away and whilest they slept It is a dream and yet it is not a dream it is a studied lye and doth so little shake that it confirmeth our faith so transparent that through it we may behold more clearly the face of Truth which never shineth brighter than when a lye is drawn before it to vail and shadow it Matth. 28.6 He is not here he is risen if an Angel had not spoken it yet the Earthquake the Clothes the Clothes so diligently wrapt up the Grave it self did speak it And where such strange impossibilities are brought in to colour and promote a lye they help to confute it Id negant quod ostendunt They deny what they affirm and Malice it self is made an argument for the truth 1 Cor. 15.5 6. For it we have a better verdict given by Cephas and the twelve yea we have a cloud of witnesses above five hundred brethren at once who would not make themselves the fathers of a lye to propogate that Gospel which either maketh our yea yea and nay nay or damneth us Nor did they publish it to raise themselves in wealth and honour For it teacheth them to contemn these matters maketh Poverty a beatitude and sheweth them a sword and persecution which they were sure to meet with and did afterwards in the prosecution of their office and publication of that faith Nor could they take any delight in such a lye as would gather so many clouds over their heads which would at last dissolve in that bitterness that would make life it self a punishment and at last take it away And how could they hope that men would ever believe that which themselves knew to be a lye These witnesses then are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many and beyond exception
from whence he looketh dovvn upon those vvho are such fools as to be virtuous and smileth to see them toil and svveat in such rugged and unpleasing vvayes carried on vvith a fear on the one side and a hope on the other of that which will never be And indeed how weary and how soon weary would men be of doing good if there were not a lasting recompense if they were not half-perswaded for a ful perswasion is but rare that there were something laid up in everlasting habitations Honour Repute and Advantage these may bring forth a Hypocrite these may bind on the phylacteries on a Pharisee but nothing can raise up a Saint but Eternity nor can that which fleeteth and passeth away build us up in a holy faith And then there would be no such ship as Faith which might fear a wreck 1 Tim. 1.19 no such anchor as Hope but our faith would be vain and our hope also vain and we left to be tossed up and down on the waves of uncertainty having no haven to thrust into but that which is as turbulent and uncertain as the sea it self and with it ebbeth and floweth and at last will ebb into nothing But I am alive for evermore deriveth an Eternity to that which in it self is fading maketh our actions which end in the doing and are quickly gone and past eternal our words which are but wind eternal and our thoughts which perish with us eternal We shall meet them again and feel the effect of them to all eternity It maketh Hell eternal that we may fly from it and Heaven eternal that we may press towards it and take it by violence Christ's living for ever eternizeth his Threatnings and maketh them terrible his Promises and maketh them perswasive and eloquent eternizeth our Faith and Hope eternizeth all that is praise-worthy that they may be as a pass or letters commendatory to prevail and procure us admittance into his presence who only hath immortality and can give eternal life This is the virtue and operation of I am alive for evermore For though a time will come that Christ shall not govern nor intercede yet the power of his Scepter and the virtue of his Intercession is carried on along with joy and happiness of the Saints as the Cause with the Effect even to all eternity shall have its operation in the midst of all our glorious ravishments and shall tune our Halellujahs and Songs of thanksgiving to this our Priest and King that liveth for evermore We pass now from the Duration and Continuance of his Life to his Power He hath the keys of Hell and of Death Habeo claves I have the keyes is a Metaphorical speech And Metaphorae ferascissimae controversiarum saith Martin Luther Metaphors are a soyl wherein controversies will grow up thick and twine and plat themselves one within the other whilest every man manureth them and soweth upon them what seed he please even that which may bring forth such fruit as may be most agreeable to his taste and humour Lord what a noise have these keyes made in the world You would think they were not Keyes but Bells sounding terrour to some and making others more bold and merry than they should be Some have gilded them over others have even worn and filed them quite away put them into so many hands that they have left none at all For though they know not well what they are yet every man taketh courage enough to handle them and let in and let out whom they please One faction turneth them against another the Lutherane against the Calvinist and diabolifieth him and the Calvinist against the Lutherane and superdiabolifieth him The Church of Rome made it a piece of wisdome to shut Us out and all that will not bow unto her as subordinate and dependant on that Church Which was but idle Physick and did neither hurt nor good but was as a dart sent after those who were gone out of reach a Curse denounced against those who heard it and blest themselves in it Indeed a point of ridiculously affected gravity such as that Church hath many For what prejudice could come to us by her shutting Us out who had already put our selves out of her Communion unless you will think the valour of that Souldier fit for Chronicle who cut of the head of a man who was dead before I have the keyes saith Christ and it is most necessary he should keep them in his hands For we see how dangerous it may prove to put them into the hand of a mortal man subject to passions and too often guided and commanded by them and we know what tragedies the mistaking of the Keyes have raised in the world And yet he that hath these Keyes this Power hath delegated also a power to his Apostles not only to preach the Gospel but to correct those who disobey it I would not attribute too much to the Pastours of the Church in this dull and iron or rather in this wanton age where any thing where nothing is thought too much for them where all hath been Preaching till all are Preachers Yet I cannot but think they have more to do than to speak in publick which it is thought every Christian may do They are the Ambassadours of Christ 2 Cor. 5.20 set apart on purpose in Christs stead to minister to his Church yea to rule and govern his Church 1 Tim. 3.5 5.17 it is S. Pauls phrase And they carry about with them his Commission a power delegated from him to sever the Goats from the Sheep even in this life that they may become Sheep to segregate them to abstein or withhold them Abstinere Cypr. Segregare Exauctorare Virgâ Pastorali ferire c. Hieron to exauctorate them to throw them out to strike them with the pastoral rod to anathematize them c. This was the language of the first and purest times By degrees this power fell in its esteem through some abuse of it it being drawn down from that most profitable and necessary end for which it was given And this at last brought all Religion into disgrace Nor indeed could it be otherwise For if upon the abuse of a thing we must straight call for the beesome to sweep it away what can stand long in its place The Temple is prophaned that must down to the ground Liberality is abused shut up your purse and your bowels together Prayer is abused and turned into babling tack up your tongues to the roof of your mouth Nay every thing in the world is abused therefore if this argument be good the world it self should long since have had its end But such a power Christ did leave unto his Church and the neglect of it on the one side and the contempt of it on the other hath brought in that lukewarmness and indifferency amongst the professours of Christianity which if God prevent not will at last shake and throw down the profession
on those actions which in themselves are lawful Nay multa mandata vitiat it may make that unlawful which is commanded Hebr. 10.31 Oh it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! but how fearful is it to have his hand fall upon us when we stand at his Altar to see him frown and hear him thunder when we worship in anger to question us when we are doing our duty What a dart would it be to pierce our souls through and through if God should now send a Prophet to us to tell us that our frequenting the Church and coming to his Table are distastful to him that our fasts are not such as he hath chosen and that he hateth them as much as he doth our Oppression and Cruelty to which they may be the prologue that he will have none of the one because he will have none of the other And yet if we terminate Religion in these outward formalities make them wait upon our lusts to bring them with more smoothness and with more state and pomp and applause to their end to that which they look so earnestly upon if we thus appear before God he that shall tell us as much of our Hearing and Fasting and Frequenting the Church shall be as true a Prophet as Micah the Morasthite was And now to conclude if you ask me wherewith ye shall come before the Lord and bow your selves before the most High look further into the Text and there you have a full and complete Directory Do justly love mercy and walk humbly with your God With these you may approch his courts and appear at his altar In aram Dei justitia imponitur saith Lactantius De vero cultu l. 6. c. 24. Justice and Mercy and Sincerity are the best and fittest sacrifices for the Altar of God which is the Heart of man an Altar that must not be polluted with blood Hoc qui exhibet toties sacrificat quoties bonum aliquid aut pium facit The man that is just and merciful doth sacrifice as oft as he doth any just and merciful act Come then and appear before God and offer up these Nor need you fear that ridiculous and ungodly imputation which presenteth you to the world under the name of mere moral men Bear it as your crown of rejoycing It is stigma Jesu Christi a mark of Christ Jesus And none will lay it upon you as a defect but they who are not patient of any loss but of their honesty who have learnt an art to joyn together in one the Saint and the Deceiver who can draw down heaven to them with a thought and yet supplant and overreach their brother as cunningly as the Devil doth them Bonus vir Caius Seius Caius Seius is a good man Tertull. Apolog. his only fault is that he is a Christian would the Heathen say He is a good moral man but he is not of the Elect that is one of our faction saith one Christian of another I much wonder how long a good moral man hath been such a monster What is the Decalogue but an abbridgment of Morality What is Christs Sermon on the mount but an improvement of that and shall Civil and honest conversation then be the mark of a Reprobate Shall Nature bring forth a Regulus a Cato a Fabricius Just and Honest men and shall Grace and the Gospel of Christ bring forth nothing but Zanies but Players and Actours of Religion but Pharisees and Hypocrites Or was the New creature the Christian raised up to thrust the Moral man out of the world Must all be Election and Regeneration Must all Religion be carried along in phrases and words and noise and must Justice and Mercy be exposed as monsters and flung out into the land of oblivion Or how can they be elect and regenerate who are not just and merciful No The Moral man that keepeth the commandments is not far from the kingdome of God Mark 12.34 and he that is a Christian and buildeth up his Morality and Justice and Mercy upon his Faith in Christ and keepeth a good conscience and doth to others what he would that others should do unto him Matth. 7.12 shall enter in and have a mansion there when speculative and Seraphick Hypocrites who decree for God and preordain there a place for themselves shall be shut out of doors Come then and appear before God with these with Innocence and Integrity and Mercifulness Wash your hands in innocency Psal 26.6 Rev. 1.6 and compass his altar For Christ hath made us Priests unto his Father there is our Ordination To offer up spiritual sacrifice 1 Pet. 2.5 there is our duty and performance By Jesus Christ there is our seal to make good and sure our acceptance Chrysostom besides that great Sacrifice of the Cross In Psal 59. hath found out many more Martyrdome Prayer Justice Almes Praise Compunction and Humility and he bringeth in too the Preaching of the Word Epist. 87. Which all make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil a most magnificent and pretious sacrifice We need not cull out any more then these in the Text for in offering up these we shall find the true nature and reason of a Sacrifice observed For to make any thing a true Sacrifice there must be a plain and express change of the thing that is offered It was a Bull or a Ram but it is set apart and consecrate to God And it is a Sacrifice and must be slain And this is remarkable in all these in which though no Death befall us as in the Beast offered in Sacrifice but that Death which is our Life our Death to sin yet a change there is which being made to the honour of Gods Majesty is very pleasing and acceptable in his sight When we do justly we have slain the Beast the worst part of us our Love of the world our filthy Lusts our Covetousness and Ambition which are the life and soul of Fraud and Violence and Oppression by which they live and move and have their being When we offer up our Goods there is a change For how strong is our affection to them how do we adore them as Gods are they not in common esteem as our life and blood and do we not as willingly part with our breath as with our wealth Hebr. 13.16 Now who so doth good and distributeth and scattereth his wealth he poureth forth his very blood bindeth the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar letteth out all worldly desires with his wealth and hath slain that sacrifice saith S. Paul with which God is well pleased And last of all Humility wasteth and consumeth us to nothing maketh us an Holocaust a whole-burnt-offering nothing in our selves nothing in respect of God and by this our exinanition it exalteth all the Graces of God in us filleth us with life and glory with high apprehensions with lively anticipations of that which
arguitur then conquereth when it cannot prevail is then understood when it is opposed and then gaineth honour when it cannot win assent Oh what a victory and triumph had Christs Innocency over the heart and tongue of Pilate even then when he gave sentence of death against him Luke 23.24 v. 4 14. Be it as you require this his Ambition and Fears forced from him but I find no fault in this man this was the victory of Christs Innocency which made his Judge his Advocate who at once pleadeth for him and condemneth him How glorious were the blessed Martyrs in their thoughts who dragged them to execution How do the wicked Saint them in their heart whom they gnash at with their teeth How do their Passions rage against them when their Reason acquitteth them How do good men beat down and dismay their enemies in their very fall and how do their enemies secretly wish that being such they would not be such but cast in their lots with them Ecclus. 49.1 and be as wicked as they The remembrance of Josiah saith the Wiseman is like a perfume as sweet as honey in all mens mouthes For as the one taketh the Sense so doth the other surprise the Reason and is as proper and natural to the Understanding as Honey and Musick are to the Sense And this is taken from the common stock of Nature and we never lose it but with our selves nor can we lay it by till we are unmanned and like Nebuchadnezzar driven into the field and turned into beasts For who was ever so intemperate as to condemn Temperance for a vice Who was ever such a traitour as to write a panegyrick on Rebellion Who was ever such a devil as not to wish himself a Saint We deny not but that continuance in sin advantage and prosperity in sin the pleasures of sin the long-suffering of God which may be lookt upon as an applause from heaven the cringes and idolatry of Parasites the profit of sin the honour of sin may swell and puff up a man of Belial and build him up into a most unholy faith That thus thus it should be That there is no virtue but a thriving vice no holiness but powerful and glorious hypocrisie That Vice bowed to is virtue and Virtue whipt and disgraced is vice But then many a sad interval he hath many a twinge and gnawing at his heart that he dare not look upon his Sin but in this dress and state and maugre all these many a bitter remembrance which disquieteth and buffeteth him that in this height and glory he shaketh and wavereth and is unstedfast in this his faith that he cannot give a full and constant assent to that which he is so willing to believe cannot be perswaded of what he is perswaded nor believe what he doth believe but is sick and well is resolved and trembleth condemneth and absolveth himself every day and cannot live in peace in that sin in which nevertheless he may be resolved to dye To conclude this Even they who weary themselves in the wayes of wickedness know there is no rest but in this Good and those fools who count Piety as madness when they make a truce with their Passions and consult with Reason are so wise as to see and admire and acknowledge the beauty of this Good Fourthly as this Good in the Text is lovely and amiable so is it filling and satisfying so fitted to the Soul that it filleth it when nothing else can For that which filleth a thing must be proportioned to it The Heart of man is a little member It will not saith S. Bernard give a Kite its breakfast and yet it is too large a receptacle of too great a compass for the whole world to fill In hoc toto nihil singulis satis est There is nothing in the whole Universe which is taken for enough by any one particular man nothing in which the appetite of a single man can rest Only this Good here in the Text can fit it because it is fitted to it Honour is but air and is lost in the grasping Riches are but earth and sink from us in the digging Pleasures are but shadows and slip through our embraces but this Good is a solid permanent lasting thing changeth the Soul into it self filleth it in every part and bringeth delight where it filleth I have seen an end of all perfection but thy law is exceeding large Psal 119.96 saith David So large as to fill the soul as with marrow and fatness Nieremb De art vol. We are told by those who have written of the Indians that there are certain birds there which seem to call passengers to them making a kind of articulate noise Lo here it is and when passengers deceived with this note draw near to that place from whence the sound came the birds fly away and at some distance renew their note and still as the passengers approach fly away and then take up the same note till they have quite led them out of their way Penes historicos fides esto Let the truth of this be what it will What these birds are said to do that which we so much dote on and follow after the things of the world which are the Good that is most sought after do truly act Some song they sing some pleasure they present to draw us near unto them For that which is pleasant and fair to the sense hath not only a voice but is eloquent to perswade and it seemeth to bespeak us Lo here it is Here is Happiness and when we send out our Desires to overtake it they miss and come short and are frustrate Our Covetousness followeth it but it flyeth away Still we pursue it and that still withdraweth and so we lose our way wander and erre open to the rage of every beast of every temptation that assaulteth us and at last fall into the pit of destruction And here is the difference between that which is truly good and that which but coloureth for it and appeareth so In the one our Appetite pleaseth us but experience is distastful it is honey in the desire but gall in the taste In the other in that which is truly good our Appetite many times is dull and queazy but when we have tasted and chewed upon it it is sweeter then the honey or the honey-comb It may be gall in the appetite but in the taste it is manna If you put them into the scales to weigh them there is no comparison You may as well measure Time with Eternity or weigh one sand of the shore with the whole Ocean For he that feedeth on Lyes must needs be empty when it is truth alone that filleth us Last of all as this Good filleth and satisfieth us so it giveth a sweet relish and tast even to Misery it self and those evils which we so fear as if there were none but those It maketh those things which are not good in themselves
spread some part of its poyson and malignity amongst those who may seem to have been sent down from heaven to purge it out We cannot but magnifie the name of God for this blessed Reformation of the Church and bless their memories which were the Instruments But yet some there be who have thought it a just complaint that at least some of those who did bear a name with the best did not so much seek Gods honour as their own and the improvement of their estate and enlargement of their territories more then the advancement of Piety and so to recover the Church drew more blood from her then was necessary Excessit medicina modum nimiúmque secuta est Quâ morbi duxere manus Lucan l 2. I will hear pass no censure upon it and yet one would think Jupiter's cloak would sit best on his own sh ulders But we may have leave to look back and bewail it and at least wish that the hand which was so active to cure had not made so deep an incision as to leave no blood that there had been some other way found out to restore her to her health and soundness then that which at first made her poor and at last nothing But this is but our wish and not our censure and we may spend our affection there where we may not venture our judgement Dan. 4.11 12 20 21. The Tree which grew up and was strong whose leaves were fair and fruit much whose height seemed to reach to heaven and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth whose boughs spread even to the envy of her who sitteth as a Queen amongst the nations is now hewen down Rev. 18.7 and scarce a stump of the roots left in the earth So that we may wish for that which we can never hope And yet we might have observed some of those who cryed Down with it Psal 137.7 down with it to the ground even those who first laid the ax to the root of the tree sad and heavy and angry Esth 6. as Haman was when he waited on Mordecai now clad with that honour which his ambition had prophesied and decreed to himself much troubled that they gathered so little fruit from the branches when the tree was fallen But to proceed this contagion hath spread it self well-near over the face of all Christendome where most men count that lawful purchase which they can lay hold on much like Vibius in Tacitus l. 4. Hist pecuniâ ingenio inter claros magìs quà m bonos more famous for their worldly providence and wealth then their honesty What should I speak of Thieves that are dragged to the bar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 11. Noct. Attic c. 18. The Greek proverb telleth us there be thieves that keep holiday and old Cato in Gellius that those who steal from private men are fed with the bread of affliction held in misery and irons but fures publici in auro purpura your publick thieves glitter in purple and gold and none dare say Black is their eye as the word is for fear of losing their own There have been Laws made against those who dig down walls by night who sell adulterate and mixt corn who suppress and hoord their corn to sell it dearer whom Basil calleth the Hucksters and Factours of the common calamity Laws against Impostors and Cheaters and the authority of the Magistrate hath influence upon men of what calling or quality soever Lex Metella exstat fullonibus dicta adeo omnia maâ—oribus curae fuere Plin. N. Q. 35. 13. In the Common-wealth of Rome there was a Law to regulate Fullers and in ours a Parliamentary Statute that Cord-wainers should look to their sowing-threads and that their wax should be well tempered But what Law can restrain them who can deal with the Law as Alexander did with the Gordian knot cut it asunder with their sword I meane can defeat and baffle the Law by their power and wealth or those who as Tully spake of a certain Oratour Brut. sive de claris Orat. are lubrici incomprehensibles so slippery that the Law cannot lay hold on them so cunning that they can deceive the eyes of the Sun and Justice it self and rob the poor even at noonday who can make up the ruines of their estate which the Dye or the Strumpet hath wasted with the tears of the widow and fatherless and then think with that Emperour nunquam se prosperiori aleâ usos that they never threw a more fortunate cast in their life Yet such we have in the world and they call themselves Christians Thus have we shaken both the pillars of Justice Nature and Grace and put behind our backs the lessons of the one and the precepts of the other that we may run with less regret and controll to that forbidden tree which we delight to look on Nature is swallowed up in victory by the Love of the world buried and raked up in the Lust of the eyes the Lust of the flesh and the Pride of life and then on this foundation of Innocency we build in blood on this ground of Justice we set up Oppression Nay which is yet worse Nature is swallowed up in victory by Grace it self the Decalogue is lost in our Creed and Honesty in Faith For a strange conceit is now crept into the world That how regardless soever we be of those seeds of Goodness how forgetful soever of that which Nature dictateth to us yet if we can hear of Honesty talk of Honesty and cast some of our gall and bitterness upon that Injustice which is to us as sweet as honey we may be good Christians enough and the onely religious men in the world And as the Antients in time of superstition did appropriate Religion to that kind of life which did least express it and men were then said ingredi Religionem to enter into Religion when they went into a Monastery and put on a Monks coul so there are a generation of men amongst us who talk of nothing more then Religion as if it must needs live and dye with them and yet do only take her mantle and visor and in it walk on the whole course of their life here beating their fellow-servants here defaming one and defrauding another and defaming him that they may defraud him They sharply inveigh against and lash the iniquities of the time they are severe Justitiaries and chastise all but themselves as the wanton women in Ausonius did crucify Cupid on the wall Ausonii Cupido Crucifixus sibi ignoscunt plectunt Deum they know well enough how to pardon themselves for fraud for lying for false weights and measures for covetousness and malice and the whole body of their Religion is made up in this to fling disgrace upon the name of Dishonesty and so punish it but in a picture For conclusion then To avoid these rocks at which so many
walk as if he were a near spectatour as if he were visible before us Not to shroud and mantle our selves Not to run into the thicket as if there he could not see us but so to behave our selves as if he were a stander by and eye-witness of all our actions to curb our phansie keep our tongue be afraid of every action upon this certain perswasion That God is at hand For as God is EMANVEL God with us when he blesseth us and doth us good so do we walk with God when we bless him and do our duties Josh 1.5 As I was with Moses so will I be with thee saith God to Joshua Then God is with us when he strengthneth our hands when he shadoweth us under his wing when he poureth forth his graces upon us and when we walk with him when we bowe before him use all the faculties of our souls and move every mâ—mber of our bodies as his and as in his sight when we devote our selves to him alone Psal 123.2 when our eye looketh upon him as the eye of the handmaid on the eye of her mistress and by a strict and sincere obedience we follow him in all those waies which he hath appointed for us This I take to be the meaning of the words We shall draw all within the compass of these considerations 1. That God hath an all-seeing eye that he seeth all ad nudum as the Schools speak naked as they are surveyeth our actions heareth our words and searcheth the very inwards of the heart 2. That truly to believe this is the best preservative of the other two the best means to establish Justice and uphold Mercy in us to keep us in an even and unerring course of obedience For will any man offend his God in his very eye And 3. we shall discover and point out those who do not thus walk with God but walk in the haughtiness and deceitfulness of their hearts as if God had neither eye to see nor ear to hear nor hand to punish them that we may mark and avoid them And this shall serve for use and application First that we may walk humbly with our God this must be laid as a foundation to build upon as the primum movens as that which first setteth us a walking and putteth us into this careful and humble posture That God is present every where and seeth and knoweth all things And here we must not make too curious and bold a disquisition concerning the manner how God is present every where and how he seeth all things It is enough for us to believe he doth so and not to seek to know that which he never told us and which indeed he cannot tell us because we cannot apprehend it For how can we receive knowledge of which we are not capable Jer 23.24 Isa 66.1 Job 11.8 9. We read that he filleth the earth and the heaven that heaven is his throne and the earth his footstool that he is higher then heaven and deeper then hell and longer then the earth and broader then the sea that he is not far from every one of us Acts 17.27 28 that in him we live and move and have our being Psal 147.5 Hebr. 4.13 that his understanding is infinite that there is no creature which is not manifest in his sight that all things are naked to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 open as the entrails of a beast cut down in the back for sacrifice that he looketh down from heaven on the children of men Psal 14.2 Job 34.21 Jer 16.17 that his eyes are upon all their waies that neither they nor their iniquity are hid from his face hoc satìs est dixisse Deo And this is enough for God to tell us and this is enough for us to know I dare be bold to say saith S. Augustine Forsitan nec ipse Johannes dicit de Deo ut est S. John was an Eagle and flew aloft to a higher pitch then the rest but could not soar so high as to bring us down a full relation and tell us what God is This is a message which no man can bring nor no man can hear He was a man inspired from God himself If he had not been inspired he could have said but little and being a man he could say no more They that walk in valleys and in low places see not much more ground then they tread they that are in deep wells see onely that part of the world which is over their heads but he that is on the top of some exceeding high mountain seeth all the level even the whole country which is about him So it standeth betwixt us mortals and our incomprehensible God We that live in this world are confined as it were into a valley or pit we see no more then the bounds which are set us will give us leave and that which our scant and narrow wisdome and providence foreseeth when the eye thereof is clearest is full of uncertainty as depending upon causes which may not work or if they do by the intervening of some cross accident may fail But God who is that supreme and sublime Light and by reason of his wonderful nature so high exalted as from some exceeding high mountain seeth all men at once all actions all casualties present and to come and with one cast of his eye measureth them all This we are told and it is enough for us that God hath told us so much that he is in heaven and yet not confined to that place that he is every where though we do not know how that he seeth all things knoweth all things that he is Just and Wise and Omnipotent And here we may walk with safety for the ground is firm under us Upon this we may build up our selves on our most holy faith Upon this we may build up our Love which alwaies eyeth him our Honour to him which ever boweth before him our Patience which beareth every burden as if we saw him laying it on our Fear to which every place is as mount Sinai where it trembleth before him our Hope which layeth hold on him as if he were present in all the hardship we undergo our Obedience which alwaies worketh as in his eye To venture further is to venture as Peter did upon the sea Matth. 14. where we are sure to sink Nor will Christ reach out his hand to help us but we shall be swallowed up in that depth which hath no bottom Rom. 11.33 and be lost in that which is past finding out For this is the just punishment of our bold and too forward Curiosity It worketh on busily and presseth forward with great earnestness to see it self defeated it loseth that which it might grasp and findeth nothing It is enough for us to see the back-parts of God that is Exod. 33.23 as much as he is pleased to shew us And the want of this moderation hath occasioned
which commend us to God are as the branches and veins and Holiness as the blood and juice to make them live I do not intend to compare them one with the other because all are necessary and the neglect of any one doth frustrate all the rest And the Wise-man hath forbid us to ask why this is better then that for every one of them in his due time and place is necessary It hath been the great mistake and fault of those who profess Christianity to shrink up its veins and lop off its branches contenting themselves with a partial Holiness Some have placed it in a sigh or sad look and called it Repentance others in the tongue and hand and called it Zeal others in the heart in a good intention and called it Piety Others have made it verbum abbreviatum a short word indeed and called it Faith Few have been solicitous and careful to preserve it in integritate tota solida solid and entire but vaunt and boast themselves as great poficients in Holiness and yet never study to be quiet have little peace with others yet are at peace with themselves are very religious and very profane are very religious and very turbulent have the tongues of Angels but no hand at all to do their own business and to work in their calling And therefore we may observe that the Apostle in every Epistle almost taketh pains to give a full and exact enumeration of every duty of our lives that the man of God may be perfect to every good work 2 Tim. 3.17 He teacheth us not onely those domestick and immanent virtues if I may so call them which are advantageous to our selves alone as Faith and Hope and the like which justifie that person onely in whom they dwell but emanant publick and homiletical virtues of common conversation which are for the edification and good of others as Patience Meekness Liberality and Love of quietness and peace My Faith saveth none but my self my Hope cannot raise my brother from despair yet my Faith is holy Jude 20. saith S. Jude and my Hope is a branch and vein of Holiness and issueth from it But my Patience my Meekness my Bounty my Love and Study of quietness and peace sibi parciores forìs totae sunt Ambros exercise their act and empty themselves on others These link and unite men together in the bond of Love in which they are one and move together as one build up one anothers Faith cherish one anothers Hope pardon one anothers injuries bear one anothers burden and so in this bond in this mutual and reciprocal discharge of all the duties and offices of holiness are carried together to the same place of rest So that to Holiness of life more is required then to believe or hope or pour forth our souls or rather our words before God It is true this is the will of God but we must go farther even to perfection and love the brethren and study to be quiet for this also is the will of God and our sanctification What is a Sigh if my Murmuring drown it What is my Devotion If my Impatience disturb it What is my Faith if my Malice make me worse then an infidel What are my Prayers if the Spirit of Unquietness scatter them Will we indeed please God and walk as we ought We must then as S. Peter exhorteth adde to our faith virtue to our virtue knowledge 2 Pet. 1.5 c. to knowledge temperance to temperance patience to patience godliness to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness love or as S. Paul here commandeth not onely abstain from fornication from those vices which the worst of men are ready to fling a stone at but those gallant and heroick vices which shew themselves openly before the Sun and the people who look savourably and friendly on them and cry them up for zeal and religion even from all animosity and turbulent behaviour we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 study to be quiet and be ambitious of it Thus our Apostle bespeaketh the Thessalonians We beseech you brethren that ye increase more and more and in the words of my Text that ye study to be quiet and do your own business and work with your own hands as we commanded you In which words first a Duty is proposed Study to be quiet Secondly the Means promoting this duty are prescribed causae producentes and conservantes the causes which bring it forward and hold it up laid down 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to do your own business 2. work with your own hands The former shutteth out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all pragmatical curiosity and stretching beyond our line and that compass wherein God hath bound and circumscribed us the later 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all unactiveness and supine negligence in our own place and station The third and last part makes this a necessary Study and bringeth it under command you must do it as I commanded you Or because to be quiet is here proposed as matter of study we will consider 2. the Object or thing it self in which our study must be seen and it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a quiet and peaceable behaviour 2. the Act which requireth the intention of our mind thoughtfulness and a diligent luctation and contention with our selves We must make it our study 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be ambitious of it 3. the Method we must use We must meddle with our own business and work with our hands 4. the Warrant of this method I have commanded it And of these we shall speak in their order First to be quiet is nothing else but to be peaceable to keep our selves in an even and constant temper to settle and compose our affections that they carry us not in a violent and unwarranted motion against those with whom we live though they speak what we are unwilling to hear and do what we would not behold though their thoughts be not as our thoughts nor their wayes as our wayes though they be contrary to us that there be 1 Cor. 12.25 as S. Paul speaketh no schisme in the body but that the members may have the same care one of another that we do not start out of the orb wherein we are fixt and then set it on fire because we think it moveth disorderly but that we look on all with a charitable and Evangelical eye not pale because others are rich not sick for our neighbours vineyard not sullen because others are chearful not angry because others are weak not clouded with envy and malice because others in some respects outshine us 1 Tim. 2.2 but as S. Paul speaketh leading a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty for the Gospel of Christ hath left us no other eye but that of Charity to look abroad with that the peace of God rule in our hearts Col. 3.15 to the which also we are called in one body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
strait then the Epicure shall see that it was not below him to sit in heaven and look upon the children of men no dishonour to his Majesty to manage and guide all those things which are done under the Moon that he may ride upon the Cherubin and yet number every hair of our head and observe the Sparrow that falleth from the house-top then we shall see him and we shall see all things put under his feet even Heresie and Schism Profaneness and Atheism Sin and Death Hell and the Devil himself This he hath in effect done already by the virtue and power of his Cross and therefore may be said to be come But because we resist and hinder that will not suffer him to make his conquest full and when we cannot reach him at the right hand of God pursue and fight against him in his members he will come again and then cometh the end another consummatum est all shall be finished his victory and triumph complete and he shall lift up the heads of his despised servants and tread down all his enemies under his feet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the most proper sense triumph Coloss 2.15 and make a shew of them openly And this is a fit object for a Christian to look upon Of this more The Eleventh SERMON PART II. MATTH XXIV 42. Yee know not what hour your Lord doth come WE have already beheld the Person Your Lord and we have placed him on his tribunal as a Judge John 5.22 For the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son You have seen his Dominion in his Laws which are fitted and proportioned to it Psal 45.6 As his sceptre is a sceptre of righteousness so his Laws are just No man no Devil can question them We approve them as soon as we hear them and we approve them when we break them for that check which our conscience giveth us is an approbation You have seen the Virtue and Power of his Dominion For what is Regal right without Regal power What is a Lord without a sword Or what is a sword if one cannot manage it What is a wise-man if a wiser then he what is a strong man if a stronger then he cometh upon him Es 9.6 Psal 76.7 But our Lord as he is called Wonderful Counsellour so is he the Mighty God Who can stand before him when he is angry We have shewed you the large Compass and Circuit of his Dominion No place so distant or remote to which it doth not reach It is over them that love him and over them that crucifie him It is over them that honour him and over them that put him to open shame Luke 1.33 And last of all you have seen the Durability or rather the Eternity of his Dominion Of his Kingdome there shall be no end saith the Angel to Mary And take the words going before He shall reign over the house of Jacob and the sense will be plain For as long as there is a house of Jacob a people and Church on earth so long shall he reign Hebr. 7.24 As his Priesthood so his Dominion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and shall never pass away We must now fix our eyes upon him as ready to descend in puncto reversûs settled in his place but upon his return The Lord will come It is a word of the future tense as all predictions are of things to come and it is verbum operativum a word full of efficacy and virtue 1. to awake and stir up our Faith 2. to raise our Hope and 3. to inflame our Charity It is an object for our Faith to look on for our Hope to reach at and for our Charity to embrace First it offereth it self to our Faith For ideo Deus abscessit ut fides nostra corroboretur Therefore doth our Saviour stay and not bow the heavens and come down that our Faith which may reach him there may be built up here upon earth And he is therefore absent and in a manner lieth hid that this eye might find him out For Faith is a kind of prospective or optick instrument by which we see things afar off as if they were near at hand things that are not yet as if they were It turneth venturus est into the present tense It beholdeth Christ not onely sitting at the right hand of God but as now already descending with a shout With this eye of faith I see new heavens and a new earth a new face of every thing I see what a nothing that is which mortals sweat and fight for what a nothing the world is for I see it on fire I see Righteousness peace order constancy duration even whilst I walk in this shop of vanities this world of wickedness this Chaos and confusion this seat of change I see honesty pitied scorned baffled Honesty lifted up on high far above reproch or injury I see Injustice powerful all-conquering triumphant Injustice trembling before this Lord arraigned condemned flung down into the lowest pit there to be whipt with many stripes I see now the wisdome of men made foolishness 1 Cor. 1.20 25 and the foolishness of God wiser then men I see that restored which I saw lost I see the eye that was bored out in its place again I see the plowed back with no furrow on it I see Herod in prison and John Baptist with his head on I see my goods restored before I lose them and I am in heaven before the blow is given in bliss when every eye doth pity me And what is now left for the boasting Tyrant to do What can he take from me that is worth a thought What can he strip me off but that which I have laid down and left already behind me Will he have my goods The treasury where they are kept is out of his reach Will he take from me my good name It is written in the book of life Or will he take my life He cannot For it is hid with Christ in God Col. 3.3 This is sancta impudentia Fidei the holy boldness and confidence of Faith to break through flesh and blood all difficulties whatsoever to draw down heaven to earth and if the object be invisible to make it visible if it be at distance to make it present If the Lord say he will come to Faith he is come already This operation Faith will have if it be not dulled and deaded by our sensuality For what Faith is that which is not accompanied with these high apprehensions and resolutions equal to them What Faith is that which leaveth us weary of the truth and ashamed of our profession What Faith is that which we are so ready at every frown to renounce Shall I call that Faith which cannot strike the timbrel out of our hands nor the strumpet out of our arms that sheweth Christ coming to the Covetous yet leaveth him digging in the earth to the Ambitious and cannot stop
him in his mount to the Hypocrite and cannot strike off his mask to the Politician 2 Tim. 3.15 and cannot make him wise unto salvation that cannot make us displease our selves that cannot make us love our selves not aw an eye not bind an hand not silence a word not stifle a thought but leaveth us with as little power and activity as they who have been dead long ago although the VENTVRVS EST the doctrine of Christs second advent sound as loud as the Trump shall do at the last day Faith shall we call this or a weak and faint perswasion or a dream or an echo from an hollow heart which when all the world proclaimeth he will come resoundeth it back again into the world a Faith which can speak but not walk or work a Faith which may dwell in the heart of an hypocrite a murderer a devil For all this one may believe or at least profess and yet be that liar that Antichrist 1 Joh. 2.22 4.3 which denieth Jesus to be Lord or that he ever came in the flesh or will come again to judge both the quick and the dead Secondly as it casteth an aspect upon our Faith so it doth upon our Hope Padag 1. which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the blood of our Faith saith Clemens Alexandrinus without which it will grow faint and pale and languish Oportet habere aliquem spei cumulum Advers â—â—ostic c. 6. saith Tertullian and therefore this addition of Hope to Faith is necessary For if we had all Faith and had not Hope this Faith would profit us nothing Faith without Hope may be in hell as well as on the earth Believe who does not or at least say so But how many expect Christs coming how many are saved The Apostle speaketh of a fearful looking for of judgement Heb. 10.27 Indeed they who hope not for Christs coming who do but talk of it and are unwilling to believe themselves may be said to look for it because they ought to do it And his coming is as certain as if they did Truly and properly they cannot be said to expect it For how should that be in their expectation which is not so much as in their thought Hope will not raise it self upon every Faith nor is that Faith which most of the world depend on a fit basis for hope to build upon Even he that despaireth believeth or else he could not despair For who will droop for fear of that veniet of that Judgement which he is so willing to perswade himself will never come Foolish men that we are who hath bewitched us that we should glory in Faith and hope and make them the subjects of our songs and rejoycing when our Faith is but such a one as is dead and our Hope at last will make us ashamed when our Faith is the same which is in hell and our Hope will leave us with the Devil and his angels a Faith worse then Infidelity and a Hope more dangerous then Despair Faith when we do not believe and a Hope when there is great reason we should despair and which will serve onely to add to the number of our stripes yet this is the Faith this is the Hope of the Hypocrite of the formal Christian These are thy Gods O Israel Therefore in the last place that we may joyn these two together Faith and Hope we must draw in that excellent gift of Charity which is Copulatrix virtus saith Cyprian the uniting and coupling Virtue not onely of men but of these two Theological Virtues which will not meet together but in Love or if they do with so little truth and reality that they will rather disadvantage then help us For where Virtue is not the name is but an accusation I told you before that Hope doth suppose Faith For we cannot hope for that which we do not believe Yet Faith such as it may be may shew it self and speak proud words when Charity is thrust out of doors Many there be who have subscribed to the VENIVRVS EST that the Lord will come who have little reason to hope for his coming Rev. 22.12 How many believe he will come and bring his reward with him and yet strike off their own chariot-wheels and drive but heavily towards it How many believe there is a Judge to come and wish there were none Rom. 5.5 Faith saving Faith Hope Hope that will not make ashamed cannot dwell in the heart till Charity hath taken up a room But when she is shed and spread abroad in our hearts then they are in conjunction meet together and kiss each other Faith is a foundation and on it our Love raiseth it self as high as heaven in all the several branches and parts of it Because I believe I love And when my Love is real and perfect my Hope springeth up and bloometh and flourisheth My Faith seeth the object my Love imbraceth it and the means unto it and my Hope layeth hold on it and even taketh possession of it And therefore this Coming of the Lord is a threat and not a promise if they meet not If Faith work not by Love and both together raise not a Hope VENTVRVS EST he will come is a thunderbolt And thus as it looketh upon Faith and Hope so it calleth for our Charity For whether we will or no whether we believe or no whether we hope or no he will certainly come but when we love him 2 Tim. 4.8 then we love also his appearance and his coming and our Love is a subscription to his Promise by which we truly testifie our consent and sympathize with him and say Amen to his Promise that he will come we echo it back again to him Even so come Rev. 22.20 Lord Jesus For that of Faith may be in a manner forced that of Hope may be groundless but this of Love is a free and voluntary subscription Though I know he will come yet I shall be unwilling he should come upon me as an enemy that he should come to me when I sit in the chair of the scornful or lie in the bed of lust or am wallowing in the mire or weltring in my own blood or washing my feet in the blood of my brethren For can any condemned person hope for the day of execution But when I love him and bow before him when I have improved his talent and brought my self to that temper and constitution that I am of the same mind with this Lord and partaker of his divine nature 2 Pet. â— 4 then Faith openeth and displayeth her self and Hope towreth us up as high as the right hand of God and would bring him down never at rest never at an end but panting after him till he do come crying out with the souls under the altar How long Lord How long How long This is the very breathing and language of Hope Then Substantia mea apud te Psal 39.7 as
done or may do then do what they should are so much in heaven and to so little purpose that they lose it But the Apostle's method is sure 2 Pet. 1.10 to use diligence to make our election sure and so read the Decree in our Obedience and sincere Conversation and if we can perswade our selves that our names are written in the book of Life yet so to behave our selves Phil. 2.12 so to work on with fear and trembling as if it were yet to be done As it was told the Philosopher that he might have seen the figure of the stars in the water but could not see the water in the stars All the knowledge we can gain of the Decree is from our selves It is written in heaven and the characters we read it by on earth are Faith and Repentance If we believe and repent then God speaketh to us from heaven and telleth us we shall not die If we be dead to sin and alive to righteousness we are enrolled and our names are written in the book of Life Here here alone is the Decree legible and if our eye fail not in the one it cannot be deceived in the other If we love Christ and keep his commandments we are in the number of the elect and were chosen from all eternity Be not then cast down and dejected in thy self with what God hath done or may do by his absolute Power For thou maist build upon it He never saved an impenitent nor will ever cast away a repentant sinner Behold he calleth to thee now by his Prophet QVARE MORIERIS Why wilt thou die Didst thou ever hear from him or from any Prophet a MORIERIS that thou shalt die or a MORTVVS ES that thou art dead already Thou hast his Prayers his Entreaties and Beseechings He spreadeth forth his hands all the day long Isa 65.2 Rom. 10.21 Deut. 32.29 Luke 1.55 73. Thou hast his Wishes Oh that thou wert wise so wise as to look upon the MORIEMINI to consider thy last end Thou hast his Covenant which he sware to our fore-fathers Abraham and his seed for ever His Comminations his Obtestations his Expostulations thou mayest read but didst thou ever read the Book of life Look on the MORIEMINI look on the Deaths head in the Text look not into the Book of life Thou hast other care that lieth upon thee thou hast other business to do Thou hast an Understanding to adorn a Will to watch over Affections to bridle the Flesh to crucifie Temptations to struggle with the Devil to encounter Think then of thy Duty not of the Decree and the sincere performance of the duty will seal the Decree Eph. 4.30 and seal thee up to the day of redemption It is a good rule which Martine Luther giveth us Dimitte Scripturam ubi obscura est tene ubi certa Where the Text is dark and obscure suspend thy judgement and where it is plain and easy express and manifest it in thy conversation which is the best descant on a plain song Thou readest there are vessels made to dishonour Rom. 9.21 2 Tim. 2.20 Whether God made them so as some will have it or they made themselves so as Basil and Chrysostom interpret it it concerneth not thee That which concerneth thee is plain thou mayest run and read it 1 Thes 4.4 Jude 20. that thou must possess thy vessel in honour and build up thy self in thy holy faith The Quare moriemini is plain It is plain that God is not willing thou shouldest die but hath shewed thee a plain passage unto life He hath not indeed supplied thee with means to interpret riddles and untie knots and explain and resolve hard texts of Scripture but he hath supplied thee with means of life hath brought thee to the gates of paradise Psal 16.6 to the wayes of life to the vvells of salvation The lines are fallen to thee in a fair place Behold he hath placed thee in domo Israelis in the house of Israel in domo salutis in the house of salvation Which is next to be considered The Two and Twentieth SERMON PART VII EZEKIEL XXXIII 11. For why will ye die O house of Israel GOD is not vvilling vve should die He is Goodness it self and no evil can proceed from him no not the evil of punishment For it is his strange work Orat. Quid Deus non sic autor mali and rather ours then his saith Basil If our sins did not call and cry out for it he vvould not do it as delighting rather to see his glory in that image vvhich is like him then in that vvhich is defaced and torn and mangled and novv burning in hell Ipse te subdidisti poenae that is the stile of the Imperial Law His wrath could not kindle nor Hell burn till we did blow the coals We bring our selves under punishment and then God striketh and we die and are lost for ever It was his Goodness that made us and it was his Goodness which made a Law and made it possible to be kept And in the same stream of Goodness were conveyed unto us sufficient and abundant means by the right use of which we might be carried on in an even and constant course of obedience to that Law and so have a clearer knowledge of God a nearer union with him a taste of the powers of the world to come Hebr. 6.5 Psal 16.12 a share and part in that fulness of joy which is at his right hand for evermore And why then will ye die O house of Israel And indeed why should Israel why should any of the house of Israel die For take it in the letter for the Jews take it in the application for us Christians take it for the Synagogue which is the type Rom. 9.6 or take it for the Church which is Israel indeed as the Apostle calleth it and a strange thing it is and as full of shame as wonder that any one should die in the house of Israel or perish in the Church Si honoratior est persona Salvian l. 1 de Gub. M. major est peccantis invidia The malice of sin is proportioned to the person that commits it It is not so strange a thing to die in the streets of Askelon as in the house of Israel nor for a Turk or Infidel to be lost as for a Christian For though the condition of the person cannot change the species of the sin for Sin is the same in whomsoever it is yet it hath not so foul an aspect in one as in another it crieth not so loud in the dark as in the light It is most fatal and destructive where there are most means to avoid it and most mortal where there is most light to discover its deformity A wicked Israelite is worse then an Edomite and a bad Christian worsâ— then a Turk or a Jew To be in the house of Israel to be a member of the Church
manifested his Wisdome his Justice his Love in whom he hath made the fullest discovery of himself that he is to us merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth whom he offereth unto us to be seen with the eye of our faith to be embraced with the arms of our affections to be received into the stomach of our souls and so to be conveyed through all the powers and parts of the inward man that we may grow up in him who is our Head and being partakers of him be made partakers of that glory which he hath purchased for us All this is made good unto us by Faith but In the last place not by a dead and unactive Faith looking up upon Christ but gathering no strength or virtue from him and no more considering our high Priest then as if he had never offered himself never satisfied for us for how can we think that heaven should be built upon such aire that that peace which passeth our thought should be bought at so cheap a rate as a thought but a Faith which worketh by Charity and that both towards God and towards our brethren For these two Christian virtues are inseparable and bear witness one to the other My Faith begetteth my Charity and my Charity publisheth and declareth my Faith They go hand in hand and help and advance each other He that separateth them doth not thereby prove that they are separate in themselves but that they are separate from him and that he hath but one of them and that also not the thing but the name For what Faith is that that worketh not by Love and what Love is that that is not kindled in us by Faith They are like Hippocrates his twins they live and die together When Faith is alive Charity is working of miracles healing the sick giving eyes to the blind and scattering her bread on the waters When Faith doth but float on the tongue Charity is but good words Depart in peace c. When Faith waxeth feeble Charity is but cold and when Charity cannot stretch out the hand nor open the mouth the Apostle telleth us Faith is dead It hath been the great fault of the world to make Faith an Idol and Charity Nothing But we must joyn them together before we come to Christ's Table or else we do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 approve our selves Nay they must be joyned together or they will not subsist but such a Faith and such a Charity as are heard but neither seen nor felt such a Faith and such a Charity as are but names and may be written on the visour of an hypocrite Let them therefore both meet and be united in our trial and preparation to this Sacrament which is a Sacrament of Union not onely of the Head with the Members but of the Members one with another under one Head Christ joyneth us unto himself by Love and by the same Love commandeth us to grow up together into one body and not to flie asunder by pride and malice and contention He that loveth God will love his brother also If we believe in Christ if the eye of our Faith be so clear as to see him with all his riches and glories with that glory which he hath prepared for us we cannot but love him and if we love him this Love will distil to the very skirts of his garment to the lowest member he hath Our Love of God consisteth in our admiration of his Majesty in a due acknowledgment of and subjection to his Wisdom and Justice and Power which we see but at distance in those effects which they produce but it is most visible in these our communications one to another I love God is soon said but it is a lie saith S. John if I love not my brother also It is reported of this Evangelist in whose Epistles this precept of LOVE is so often mentioned that being aged and brought to the congregation in a chair because through weakness he was not able to hold out in a continued speech his whole Sermon was but a repitition of these words Children love one another And being asked the reason his answer was Quia praeceptum Christi est si solum fiat sufficit That it was the precept of the Lord and if this onely were observed all was done And no doubt it is the peculiar precept of the Lord and sufficient of it self For if it be done as it ought it cannot but proceed from the Love of God since the Love of our selves and the Love of the world is the onely hinderance of this Love For why doth an injury stir my bloud and invenom my gall but because I love my passion and had rather be its slave then at the command of Christ to master it Why doth a disgrace cloud me with melancholy but because I had rather have my name great on earth then written in the book of life Why do we persecute and oppress our brethren but because we seek rather esteem from men then the face and favour of God Private interest is the great God of this world to which most do homage before which millions of men fall down and worship and then leave the Love of God behind them tread their brethren under feet and make that desolation which at this day we see on the earth Love of one another is a plant of our heavenly Father's setting But where doth it grow May we find it in the Commonwealth There is Love but it is set in dung in earthly hopes or fleshly respects And it groweth up in shew of some bulk and greatness but it beareth no better fruit then Complement and Good language If you shake and trouble it this fruit falleth and is turned into stones It beginneth in a kiss and endeth in a wound Like the thieves Salvian speaketh of it embraceth and killeth Shall we look for it in the Church That is a Paradise indeed and there it should grow But then it is in that Church which is not seen for there is little of it in that which is visible There are almost as many sects as men There every phansie is a sword keen enough to make a division Every slight opinion setteth men at variance and for that which is but opinion for that which is nothing men bite and devour one another A Church militant indeed it may well be called in this sense For there is nothing but wars and fighting noise and confusion such a Church Militant as in the greatest part of it shall never be Triumphant And yet here in the Church visible it is preached on the house tops Here it is taught by the Word and here it is taught by the Sacrament But to the most the one is but a sound and the other a sign and if it be but a sound and no more it is a knell and if we receive no more then a bare sign we receive more then we should the sentence of condemnation In
down to meat and will come forth and sâ—rve thee that is will fill thee with all those comforts enrich thee with all those blessings give thee all that honour which he hath promised to those who trie and examine and make themselves fit to be guests at his Table I must conclude though I should proceed to the second Part the Grant and the Privilege But he that hath performed the first is already intitled to the second and may nay ought to eat of that bread â—nd drink of that cup For even the Privilege it self is a Duty But the time is spent and I fear your patience I will but re-assume my Text and there needeth no more Use For you see my Text it self is an Exhortation Let a man examine himself A man that is every man Let him that taketh the tribunal and sitteth upon the life and death of his brethren that exalteth himself as God and taketh the keyes out of his hand and bindeth and looseth at pleasure that wondereth how such or such a man who is not his brother in evil as factious as himself dareth approch the Table of the Lord let him examine himself Let him look into himself and there he shall see a great wonder a Wolf and a Lamb a John Baptist and a Herod a Devil and a Saint bound up together in one man the greatest prodigy in the world and as ominous as any ominous to his neighbours ominous to Commonwealths and ominous to all that live in the same coasts And let them examine themselves who with their Tribunitial VETO forbid all to come to this Feast who will not submit to their Examination Young men and maids old men as well as children they that have been catechised and instructed in season and out of season whom they themselves have taught for many years all must pass by this door of Trial to the Table of the Lord. I shall be bold to ask them a question since they ask so many WHERE IS IT WRITTEN Ostendat scriptum Hermogenis officina It is plain in my Text that we are bound to examine our selves but that some should be set apart to examine others we do not read And quorsum docemur si semper docendi simus why are we taught so much if we are ever to learn Certainly that Charity believeth little which will suspect that a man full of years and who hath sate at his feet many of them should now in his old age and gray hairs be to be instructed in the principles of faith It is true we cannot be too diligent in instructing one another in the common salvation we cannot labour enough in this work of building up one another in our holy faith and it concerneth every man to seek knowledge at those lips that preserve it and if he doubt to make them his oracle who are set over him in the Lord For Ignorance as well as Profaneness maketh us uncapable of this Privilege unfit to come to this Feast But this formal and magisterial Examination for ought we can judge can proceed from no other Spirit then that which was sent from Rome to Trent in a Cloke-bag and there at the XIII Session made Auricular Confession a necessary preparative for the receiving of the Sacrament Sacramental Confession and Sacramental Examination may have the same ends and the same effects and there may be as idle and as fruitless questions asked at the one as at the other But I judge them not onely call upon them in the Apostle's words Let them examine themselves whether Love of the world Love of preeminence or Love of mens souls do fan that fiery zele which is so hot in the defence of it Let them also examine themselves who are God's familiars and yet fight against him who know what is done in his closet and do what they please at his footstool and so upon a feigned assurance of life build nothing but a certainty of death who think nay profess and write it that the Elect of which number you may be sure they make themselves may fall into the greatest sins Adultery Murther and Treason and yet still remain men after God's heart and the members of Christ and that to think the contrary is an opinion Stygiae infernalis incredulitatis which upholdeth a Stygian and hellish incredulity and can proceed from none but the Devil himself Let these I say examine themselves And if this Luciferian pride will once bow to look into this charnel-house of rotten bones if the hypocrite will pluck off his visour and behold his face naked as it is in the glass of God's Word we need not call so loud on open and notorious offenders Intestinum malum periculosius These intestine secret applauded errours are most dangerous and that wound which is least visible must be most searched But the exhortation concerneth all Let the Pharisee examine himself and let the Publican examine himself Let the Oppressour examine himself and melt in compassion to the poor Let the Intemperate examine himself and wage war with his appetite Let the Covetous person examine himself and tread Mammon under his feet Let the Deceitful man examine himself and do that which is just Let him that is secure and let him that feareth Let him that is confident and let him that wavereth Let the proud spirit and let the drooping spirit examine himself Let every man examine himself Let every man that nameth Christ and in that Name draweth near to his Table depart from all iniquity And then behold here is a Grant passed over to them a Privilege enrolled and upon record They may eat of this bread and drink of thiâ— cup taste and see how gracious the Lord is be partakers of his body and bloud that is of all the benefits of his Cross Redemption Justification his continued and uninterrupted Intercession for us Peace of conscience unspeakable Joy in the holy Ghost And when he shall come again in glory they shall have a gracious reception and admittance to sit down at his Table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Patriarchs and all the Apostles and that noble army of Martyrs in the Kingdom of heaven And with these ravishing thoughts I shut up all and leave them with you to dwell and continue and abound in you and to bring you with comfort on the next great Lord's day to the Table of the Lord. The Seven and Twentieth SERMON GAL. I. 10. The last part of the Verse For do I now perswade men or God or do I seek to please men For if I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ WHich words admit a double sense but not contrary for the one is virtually included in the other As first If I should yet do as I did when I was a Jew seek to please men and to gain repute and honour and wealth fit my doctrine to their corrupt disposition I should never have entred into Christs service which setteth
hopes or satisfie his lusts or justifie his anger or answer his love or look friendly on that which his wild passions drive him to Opinion is as a wheel on which the greatest part of the world are turned and wheeled about till they fall of several waies into several evils and do scarce touch at Truth in the way Opinion buildeth our Church chuseth our Preacher formeth our Discipline frameth our Gesture measureth our Prayers methodizeth our Sermons Opinion doth exhort instruct correct teach and command If it say Go we go and if it say Do this we do it We call it our Conscience and it is our God and hath more worshippers then Truth For though Opinion have a weaker ground-work then Truth yet she buildeth higher but it is but hay and stubble fit for the fire Good God! what a Babel may be erected upon a thought I verily thought Acts 26.9 12 14. saith S. Paul and what a whirlwind was that thought It drove him to Damascus with letters and made him kick against the pricks Psal 74.6 Shall I tell you that it was but Phansie that in Davids time beat down the carved works with axes and hammers that it was but a thought that destroyed the Temple it self that killed the Prophets and persecuted the Apostles and crucified the Lord of life himself And therefore it will concern us to watch our Phansie and to deal with it as mothers do with their children who when they desire that which may hurt them deny them that but to still and quiet them give them some other thing they may delight in take away a knife and give them an apple So when our Phansie sporteth and pleaseth it self with vain and aery speculations let us suspect and quarrel them and by degrees present unto it the very face of Truth as the Stoick speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epictet sift and winnow our imaginations bring them to the light and as the devout Schoolman speaketh Gerson resolve all our affectual notions by the Accepistis by the Rule and so demolish all those idoles which our Passions by the help of Phansie have set up For why should such a deceit pass unquestioned why should such an imposture scape without a mark 3. But now if we may not walk SICVT VISVM EST as it seemeth good unto us yet we may SICVT VISVM EST SPIRITVI SANCTO as it seemeth good to the holy Ghost Yes for that is to walk according to the Rule for he speaketh in the Word And to walk after the Spirit and to walk by this Rule are one and the same thing But yet the World hath learned a cursed art to set them at distance and when the Word turneth from us and will not be drawn up to our Phansie to carry on our pleasing but vain imaginations we then appeal to the Spirit we bring him in either to deny his own word or which in effect is the same to interpret it against his own meaning and so with reverence be it spoken make him no better then a Knight of the post to witness a lie This we would do but cannot For make what noise we will and boast of his name we are still at Visum est nobis it is but Phansie still it is our own Spirit not the holy Ghost Matth. 24.24 1 John 4.1 For as there be many false Christs so there are many false spirits and we are commanded not to believe but to try them and what can we try them by but by the Rule And as they will say Lo here is Christ or there is Christ so they will say Lo here is the Spirit and there is the Spirit The Pope layeth claim to it and the Enthusiast layeth claim to it and whoso will may lay claim to it on the same grounds when neither hath any better argument to prove it by then their bare words no evidence but what is forged in that shop of vanities their Phansie Idem Accio Titióque Both are alike in this And if the Pope could perswade me that he never opened his mouth but the Spirit spake by him I would then pronounce him Infallible and place him in the Chair and if the Enthusiast could build me up in the same faith and belief of him I would be bold to proclaim the same of him and set him by his side and seek the Law at his mouth Would you know the two grand Impostours of the world which have been in every age and made that desolation which we see on the earth They are these two a pretended Zeal and a pretense of the Spirit If I be a Zelote what dare I not do And when I presume I have the Spirit what dare I not say What action so foul which these may not authorize what wickedness imaginable which these may not countenance What evil may not these seal for good and what good may they not call evil Oh take heed of a false light and too much fire These two have walkt these many ages about the earth not with the blessed Spirit which is a light to illuminate and as fire to purge us but with their Father the Devil transformed into Angels of light and burning Seraphim and have led men upon those Precipies into those works of darkness which no night is dark enough to cover I might here much enlarge my self for it is a subject fitter for a whole Sermon then a part of one and for a Volume then a Sermon but I must conclude And for conclusion let us whilst the light shineth in the world walk on guided by the Rule which will bring us at last to the holy mount For objects will not come to us but have onely force to move us to come to them Eternal happiness is a fair sight and spreadeth its beams and unvaileth its beauty to win our love to allure and draw us And if it draw us we must up and be stirring and walk on to meet it What that devout writer saith of his Monk Climacus is true of the Christian He is assidua naturae violentia His whole life is a constant continued violence against himself against his corrupt nature which as a weight hangeth upon him and cloggeth and fettereth him which having once shaken off he not onely walketh but runneth the wayes of Gods commandments Psal 119.32 Rom. 13.13 Again let us walk honestly as in the day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as becometh Christians in our several stations and conditions of life and not think Christ dishonoured if we mingle him with the common actions of our life We never dishonour him more then when we take him not in and use him not as our guide and rule even in those actions which for the grossness of the subject and matter they work on may seem to have no savour or relish of that which we call Religion Be not deceived He that thus taketh him in is a Priest and a King the most honourable person
best and most experienced Masters so doth he condescend and indulge to our infirmity and appointeth the fittest for us and those of whom we will soonest learn Our first question commonly is Who is the Preacher We deliver up our Judgments to our Affections and converse rather with mens fortunes then their persons and make use of no other rule in our censure of what is done or said then the Man himself that did or spake it If Honour or Power or Wealth have made the man great in our eyes then whatsoever he speaketh is an oracle though it be a doctrine of Devils and have the same Father which all other lyes have Truth doth seldome go down with us unless it be presented in the cup in which we love to divine and prophesie Eccl. 9.15 There was a poor wise man found saith Solomon that delivered the city by his wisdome but none remembred or considered this poor wise man For Poverty is a cloud and casteth a darkness over that which is begot of light sullieth every perfection that is in us hideth it from an eye of flesh which cannot see Wisdome and Poverty together in one man whereas Folly it self shall go for Wisdome and carry away that applause which is due to it if it dwell in the heart or issue from the mouth of a purple and gallant fool Vt sumuâ— sic judicamus As we are so we judge and it is not our Reason which concludeth but our Sense and Affection If we love Beauty every painted wanton is as the Queen of Sheba and may ask Solomon a question If Riches Dives with us will be a better Evangelist then S. Luke If our eyes dazle at Majesty Acts 12.21 22 Herodes royal apparel will be a more eloquent oratour then he that speaketh and the people shall give a shout and cry The voice of a God and not of a man Do but ask our selves the question Doth not Affection to the person beget Admiration in you and Admiration commend whatsoever he saith and gild over Errour and Sin it self and make them current Do not your Hopes or Fears or Love make up every opinion in you and build you up in your most unholy faith Is not the Coward or the Dotard or the Worldling in your Creed and Profession Do you not measure out one another as you do a tree by the bulk and trunk and count him best who is most worth Is not this the compass by which you steer Is not this the bond of your peace the cement of all your friendship Doth not this outward respect serene or cloud your countenance and as the wind and the state of things change make you to day the dearest friends and to morrow the deadliest enemies Can you think ill of them you gain by or speak ill of them you fear Can he be evil who is powerful or dare you be more wise then he that hath thirty legions We may say this is a great evil under the sun But it is the property of the blessed Spirit to work good out of evil to teach us to remember what we are by those who so soon make us forget what we are to make use of Riches which we dote on of Power which we tremble at of that Glory which we have in admiration to instruct us to the knowledge of our condition and to put us in mind of our mortality and frailty by Kings whom we count as Gods Behold a King from his throne proclaimeth it to his subjects and all the world That his Power is but as a shadow cast from a mortal his Glory but his garment which he cannot wear long and his Riches but the embroidery which will be as soon worn out And when we have gazed and fallen down and worshipt and are thus lost in our own thoughts if we could take away the film from our eye which the world hath drawn over it and see every thing in its nature and substance as it is we should behold in all these raies of glory and power and wealth nothing but David the stranger So that we see Kings who are our nursing-Fathers are become our School-masters to teach us Psal 49.10 For we see that ignorant and foolish men perish and they dye as fools dye not remembred nor thought on as if nothing fell to the ground but their Folly The begger dyeth Luke 16.22 but what is that to the rich who cannot see him carried by the Angels into Abrahams bosome The righteous also perish and no man layeth it to heart I Isa 57.1 but Kings of the earth fall and cannot fall but with observation they fall as a star are soon mist in their orb and soon forgot But then living Kings make their Throne a Pulpit and preach from thence and publish to the world their own frail and fading condition measure out their life by a span Psal 39.5 12. Psal 85.8 and prophesie the end of it call their life a Pilgrimage and shall we not hearken what the Lord God doth say by such royal Prophets Shall their Power make us beasts of burden to carry it whithersoever their beck shall direct us and shall not their Doctrine and Example perswade us that we are men travelling men hasting to another counâ—ry Behold then here David a Prophet and a King made and set up an ensample to us And if David be a stranger upon the earth we can draw no other conclusion then this Then certainly much more we If David and all his Fathers if pious Kings and bloudy Tyrants if good and bad found no setled estate no abiding place here why should we be so foolish and ignorant as to turmoil or sport and delight our selves under the expectation of it If Kings be pulled down from their thrones and fall to the dust we have reason to cast up our accounts and reckon upon it that we are gliding and passing nay posting and flying as so many shadows and that our removal is at hand 1 Cor. 10.11 For these things happened to them for ensamples and they are written for our admonition They prophesied to us and they spake to us I may say They died to us and to all that shall follow them to the last man that shall stand upon the earth When Adam had lived nine hundred and thirty years Gen. 5.5 he dyed led the way to his posterity not that they should live so long but that they should surely dye every son of his till the second coming of the second and last Adam Abraham was a stranger and Moses a stranger and David a stranger that we might look back upon them and see our condition When Patriarchs and Prophets and Kings preach not onely living but dying not onely dying but dead we shall not onely dye but dye in our sins if we take not out the lesson and learn to speak in their dialact and language ACCOLAE SVMVS ET PEREGRINI We are strangers and pilgrimes on the
bring him forward to that end for which the miracle was wrought Therefore the same providence and mercy which raised him up at the pool's side found him out in the Temple to make yet deeper impressions in him to open his understanding that he might know what he was yet ignorant of who it was that had made him whole and so believe in him and be saved For indeed we are too ready to gaze so long on the miracle till we forget the hand that wrought it to delight our selves so much in health as not to think of the Physician and to lose a benefit by our enjoying of it Christ must therefore appear a second time again and again and find us out or we shall lose him and our selves for ever Christ will find them will be found of them that seek him not that they may learn to seek him His love is never weary and yet never resteth but in its end He worketh miracles and can he do more Yes give light to the miracle and make it a lesson to instruct us even sow his miracles that we may reap the fruit of them cure our eyes that our understandings may be opened to know him give us ears that we may hearken to his word restore our limbs that we may take up our cross and follow him that the diseases of our bodies being cured may be to us as the serpent in the wilderness was to the Israelites to be looked upon that we may be healed that our former deafness may make us more ready to hear what God will say our former blindness may make us more delight to behold the wonders of his Law our former palsie may teach us not to be wavering or double-minded but to move regularly in the wayes of God and to persevere therein unto the end The miracle is even cast away if it have no further operation then on our bodies Christ's love is cast away if we take his loaves and feed not on him if we behold his miracles and not believe if he give us sight and we see him not if he give us life and we be dead to him if he give us health and we make our strength the law of unrighteousness if we draw not down his miracles to that end for which he wrought them Rise saith he take up thy bed and walk The lame impotent man doth so and goeth his way but Christ followeth him as if the miracle were yet nothing followeth him to the Temple and then beginneth his cure when the man was whole Mark 8. When he first put his hands upon the blind man he saw men walking as trees This was miraculous but not a miracle But Christ again put his hands upon his eyes and then he looked up and saw every man clearly Christ ever worketh to perfeâ—â—â—on He came into the world that they that see not may see and that they that are lame may go but he doth not leave them when they but see men walk like trees in a weak and uncertain knowledge of him he doth not begin and desist but followeth his cure presseth upon us giveth us daily visits leaveth no means unassayed no way untroden nothing unattempted which his wisdom thinketh fit His end is to drive up every thing to the end to make his miracles his benefits his miraculous birth his glorious oeconomy his victorious death and passion powerful to attain their end to wit the glory of his Father and the salvation of our souls If I do not love the Creatouâ—â—â—â—t is all the beauty of the Universe If I do not repent what are a◠〈◊〉 glories of the Gospel If I do but walk and go and rejoyce in my health what is the miracle of curing How should this love of Christ affect and ravish our souls how should this fire kindled in our flesh inflame and incite us to cooperate with him and to help him to his end Nor will he take it as a disparagement if when he hath wrought what he pleased we put to our hand and work what we ought if when he hath wrought a miracle we do our duty if when he hath made us whole we flye that sin as a serpent which first bit us and struck us lame if when he hath provided us materials to our hand and taught us to be workmen we build up our selves in our most holy Faith Oh it is a foul and sad ingratitude to defeat Christ of his end and when he would finish his work to hinder him when he maketh his benefits a reason why we should sin no more to be so unreasonable as to sin more and more to look no further then the miracle which is done then the benefit we receive to feel our blood dancing in our veins to see our garners full to have our bodies cured and our estates cured and then think all is done Behold Christ still followeth after us to find us out nor will he leave us so For most true it is he would not work miracles but for this end Where he saw unbelief ready to step in between the miracles and the end he would not do them Matth. 13.58 He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief No whatsoever he did whatsoever he spake was for us men and for our salvation As he said of the voice of the Angel which was heard as thunder from heaven Joh. 12.29 30. This voice came not for me but for your sakes so all his miracles all his benefits even the Creation it self are for our sakes He made not the world for himself For his happiness is in himself Patuit coelum antè quà m via saith the Father He made heaven for Man and then shevved him the way to enter into it and take possession of it Whatsoever he doth in heaven and in earth tendeth to dravv us nearer to him He vvould not thunder but to make us melt he would not come towards us in a tempest but to teach us to bow to his power and so make it a buckler to defend us he would not shine upon us but to draw us to the true light he would not have sent his Prophets he would not have sent his Son to vvork vvonders amongst us but to dravv us vvith these cords of love to himself and that we might believe God to be the onely true God and him whom he hath sent Jesus Christ For this end Christ found this man and for this end he seeketh out us that all his miracles and benefits and promises may have their end And why then should he still suffer such contradiction of sinners Why do we then rejoyce at our health and be afraid of his precepts be willing to be raised and yet stiâ—â— carry that enemy about with us which first cast us down rise and walk and then sin again This is to defeat the miracle to abuse the mercy and to resist the power of Christ that though it work what we wonder at yet it shall
God's benefits whether Beauty or Wit or Riches or Health is to make them benefits indeed But if we turn them into wantonness they will be turned into judgements we shall be the verier fools for our Wit the poorer for our Riches the more deformed for our Beauty the more despicable for our Power our Health shall be worse then a disease and Miracles themselves shall stand up to condemn us But if we behold that is consider them they will be as the influences of heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 defluxions from God himself distilling upon us to refresh and quicken us and make us active in those duties which return them back again with praise unto their Fountain And in the strength of them we shall walk on from faith to virtue from virtue to knowledge from knowledge to temperance from temperance to patience till we are brought into the presence of God who is the giver of all things In a word If we thus behold and consider God's benefits we shall sin no more nor shall a worse thing come unto us Which is our third and last part and cometh next to be handled The Fifth SERMON PART III. JOHN V. 14. Sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee MAN hath not found out more wayes to destroy himself then God hath to save him You shall find God's preventing mercy his following mercy Psal 59.10 Psal 23.6 Psal 119. Psal 6.2 his reviving and quickening mercy his healing mercy Here they are all even a multitude of mercies Healing Preventing Following and Reviving Here I told you is 1. Misericordia solicita Mercy sollicitous to perfect and complete the cure The healing of this impotent mans body was but as a glimmering light as the dawning of the day Mercy will yet shine brighter upon him 2. Misericordia excitans Mercy rousing him up to remember what he was by the pool's side and to consider what he now is in the Temple And these two we have already displayed before you 3. The last now sheweth it self in rayes and light and full beauty Misericordia praecipiens Mercy teaching and prescribing for the future I may call it a Logical Rational Concluding Mercy making the miracle as the Premisses and drawing from it Salvation as the Conclusion Behold thou art made whole Therefore sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee The words are plain and need not the gloss of any learned Interpreter And we find that those lessons which are most plain are most necessary as those things which are most common are most useful When we are to build an house we do not go to the mines for gold or to the rocks for perle but to the quarry for stone Corn which feedeth us groweth almost in every field and Sheep which clothe us grase in flocks upon the mountains But those things quibus luxuria Pretium fecit which would be of little esteem did not our luxury set a price upon them are remote and in a manner hidden from us and we find them out with labour and hazard of our lives So it is in spiritual matters Those truths which are necessary lie open and naked to the understanding so that he that runneth may read them But more abstruse and subtle speculations as they are not necessary so are they set at distance and are hard to find out For it is not Curiosity but Humility that must build us up in our most holy Faith And yet the plainest truths in Scripture require our pains and labour as much as the obscurest We may observe that in the winter-season when the Sun is far removed from us we lay our selves open and walk the fields and use means to receive the light and heat of it but in the summer when it is almost over our heads we retire our selves and draw a curtain to exclude both light and heat The same behaviour we put on in our Christian walk When the Sun of righteousness cometh near us and shineth in our very faces we run with Adam into the thicket and hide our selves in excuses but when he withdraweth and as it were hideth himself and will not tell us what is not necessary for us to know we gaze after him and are most busie to walk where we have no light The obscurer places in Scripture are like unto the Sun in winter We delight to use all means to gain the light and meaning of them But the plainest are like the Sun in summer They come too near our Zenith their light and heat offend us they scald and trouble us by telling us plainly of our duty and therefore we use art and draw the curtain against them to keep off their heat As we have heard of the people of Africk that they every morning curse the Sun because the heat of it annoyeth them These plain words of the Text are a notable instance For to defeat the true meaning of them what art do we use what curtains do we draw When we should sin no more we question the possibility of the precept and whether there be any such estate or no As if Christ did bid us sin no more when he knew we could not but sin again and again And then we multiply our sins as we do our dayes and make them keep time almost with every hour and moment of our life And to this end we draw distinctions before the words to keep of their light SIN NO MORE that is Not unto death or SIN NO MORE that is Not with a full consent Not without some reluctancy or strugling of conscience And now where is this Text Even lost and swallowed up and buried in the glosses of flesh and bloud We may we think observe it and yet sin as oft as the flesh or the world shall require it Let us then take some pains to raise the Text from this grave and take off those cloths in which it is enwrapped let us draw it from those clouds and curtains wherewith it is obscured In the course of our speech we shall meet with some of them Now we shall take the words in their natural meaning as they lie And in them you may observe 1. the Prescript or Caution Sin no more 2. the Danger of not observing it If we sin again a worse thing will come unto us And by these we may try our selves as the Eagle doth her young ones If with open eyes w◠can look upon the Text as it lies in its full strength and meaning then are we of the true airy but if we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if we be weak sighted and cannot endure the light and heat of it we may then justly suspect our selves to be but bastard and counterfeit Christians First of all we shall consider how far the words Sin no more do extend and stretch themselves secondly the Possibility of keeping of them The first is a consideration of some consequence that we may not violate the word of God nor do the Scripture any
many times then that which we gain by lawful and prescribed means then that which we buy For it moveth like a tempest and driveth down all even the Truth it self before it Look over the whole catalogue of the sons of Belial and take a view of all the turbulent spirits that have been in the world and ye shall find the most of them to have been Enthusiasts pretenders to an unsought for and suddain revelation most wicked because so soon good and extremely ignorant because wise in an instant James 3.17 But the Truth which is from above and is not thrown down but bought from thence is pure and peaceable and easie to be intreated full of good works and without hypocrisie And it self is conveyed into us the right way so it ordereth every motion and action regulateth the whole progress of our life and maketh it like unto it self That may seem an harsh saying of Metellus Numidicus and had a Christian Divine uttered it Gell. lib. 1. c. 6. he had gone for a Pelagian His demum Deos propitios esse aequum est qui sibi adversarii non sunt Dii immortales approbare virtutem non adhibere debent It is a kind of justice that God should be favourable to those who are not enemies to themselves God sitteth above as one that hath set us our task and observeth our hands and doth not do all himself But his reason certainly is orthodox Quid nos à Deo diutiùs exspectemus nisi errationibus finem faciamus What can we expect from the God of truth if we still follow lies and will make no end of running from the truth God hath so ordered that nothing of great moment can be suddenly done Every work must find us fitted and prepared or else we shall find it will fly out of our reach Hence the Philosopher giveth this reason why there be so few wise men Quia pauci Sapientiam dignam putant nisi quam in transitu cognoscant Because the most have so low an opinion of the Truth that they think her not worth saluting unless it be by the by The reason why men know not the Truth is because they reverence it not but think it is a wind which will blow when they list that it will enter them without entreaty become theirs when they please yea whether they will or no. This is the cause why Truth which is the best merchandise is so seldom bought and phansies of our own are entertained in its place Hence it is that all our silver is dross our coyn counterfeit and our actions bear so little of the image and face of Truth upon them that To be merciful is but to fling a mite into the treasury To fast is to abstain for a day To pray is but to say Lord hear me or which is worse to multiply words without sense To love the Truth is but to hear it preached To be a Christian is onely to profess it To have faith is to boast of it To have hope is to say so and To be full of charity is but to do good to our selves These graces we deny not are infused yet they are gained encreased and confirmed in us by care and diligence Faith cometh by hearing saith the Apostle Rom. 10.17 We cannot but observe that in our greener years we are catechized and instructed and in our riper age when reason is improved in us we look over our evidence again and again and by the miracles and innocency of our Saviour and by the excellency of his doctrine and by the joynt testimony of the Apostles and the huge improbability that they should deceive us Jude 20. we are built up and building implieth labour on our most holy Faith which worketh by Charity Gal. 5.6 When that Faith which is not thus bought but is brought in without any motives or inducements without study or meditation which is not bought but created by our selves and so is a phansie rather then Faith bringeth forth nothing praiseworthy is not a foundation of good works but a mere pillar of our own setting up to lean upon and to uphold and comfort a spirit that would otherwise droop when we have committed evil If mens Faith did cost them more sure they would make more use of it then they do And for Hope What is it but a conclusion gathered by long experience by curious and watchful observation by a painful peregrination through all the powers of our soul and an exact search of all the actions of our life which if answerable to the Truth produce a firm Hope if not our Hope we may call an anchor Heb. 6.19 but it is of no more use then an anchor painted upon a wall or rather it is not an anchor but a rock at which we may shipwreck and sink I might instance in more For thus it is in all the passages of our life There is nothing wrought in us but with pains at least nothing that is worth possessing Nay those evils which we should dispossess our selves of do not alwayes enter with ease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostome Even the things of the Devil are not attained without labour and cost How laborious is thy Revenge how busie thy Cruelty how watchful and studious thy Lust what penance doth thy Covetousness put thee to And if our vices cost us so dear and stand us at so high a rate shall we think that that Truth will run after us and follow us in all our wayes which bringeth along with it an eternal weight of glory Can a negligent and careless glance upon the Bible can our airy and empty speculations can the wantonness of our ear can our confidence and ignorance straight make us Evangelists Or is it probable that Truth should come è profundo putei out of the bottom of the well and offer her self to them who stand idle at the mouth and top of it and will let down no pitcher to draw it up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Olymp. od 5. as Pinder speaketh Labour and cost wait still upon the Truth Nor will she visit and abide with us unless these usher her in and attend upon her Like Jabez Truth is most honourable but we bear it with pain 1 Chron. 4.9 In a word Truth is the gift of God but conditional given on condition that we fit our selves to receive it It cometh down from heaven but it must be called for here on earth Think not it will fall upon thee by chance or come to thee at any time Eccl. 11.9 12.1 if not in the dayes of thy youth yet in the evil dayes and the years in which thou shalt have no pleasure that it will offer it self in thine old age on thy bed of sickness that it will joyn and mingle it self with thy last breath and carry thy soul to happiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now is the market now is the Truth set to sale as it
not from the Father and the Son but from our fleshly Lusts 1 Pet 2.11 from the beast within us that fighteth against our Soul I am weary of this Spirit I am sure the world hath reason to be so and to cast it out There is a third which I am ashamed of and I have much wondred that ever any who with any diligence had searched the Scriptures or but tasted of the word of truth could have so ethnick a stomach as to digest it But we see some have taken it down with pleasure and it serveth as hot waters to ease them of a pang of that worm which gnaweth within them Shall I name it to you It is Tying of the Truth to the wheel of Fortune or to set it forth in its fairest dress to the Providence of God which moveth in a certain course but most uncertain to us and is then least visible when it is most seen A Prejudice raised out of prosperity and good success Which befalleth the bad as well as the good 2 Sam. 11.25 as the Sword devoureth one as well as another If Event could crown or condem an action Virtue and Vice were not at such a distance as God and Nature have set them That would be Virtue in this age which was Vice in the former that which is true to day might be false to morrow For the same lot befalleth them both That storm which now beateth upon the one may anon be as sharp and violent against the other And indeed Virtue is most fair and glorious in the foulest weather This action hath prospered in my hand Therefore God hath signified it as just is an argument which an Heathen would deny who had but seen the best intentions and goodliest resolutions either by subtilty or violence oft beaten down to the ground Certainly no true Israelite could thus conclude 2 Kings 22.2 who had seen Josiah walking in all the wayes of David his father 2 Kings 23.29 and yet at the last stricken down by the hand of Pharaoh Nechoh in the battel at Megiddo It was indeed the argument of the Epicure against the Providence of God Lucret. l. 2. Aedes saepe suas disturbat That Jupiter let fall his thunderbolts upon his own houses and temples But the Christian can draw no such inferences and conclusions who knoweth the wayes of God are past finding out Rom. 11 3◠Gal. 6.14 that the world must be crucified unto him and he unto the world that he must * Acts 14.22 make his way through many afflictions and troubles to his everlasting rest All that can be said is God permitteth it For for any command 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where is it to be found And how can we conclude of that which we do not cannot know Permit it he doth and so he doth all the evil in the world for if he did not permit it it could not be done Hence it is that the storm falleth upon the best as well as upon the worst But to the one though ye call it a Storm it is indeed a gracious rain to water and refresh them as for the other it sweepeth them away and swalloweth them up for ever God's Judgements are like his Spirit Joh. 3.8 a wind that bloweth where it lifteth and we hear the sound thereof but cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth neither for what cause in particular they are sent nor what is their end Permission is no fit basis to build a Command upon Nor can Approbation be the consequent where Permission onely is the antecedent We can no more draw such a conclusion from such premisses then we can strike water out of a flint or fire out of a cake of ice The wicked prosper in their wayes Every Sorcerer is not struck blind Every sacrilegious Ananias is not stricken dead Every Sodom is not consumed with fire But this doth not justifie Sorcery and Sacrilege and Unnatural lust And The righteous are cast down and perish Every just man doth not flourish as a green bay-tree Nay rather as the Apostle saith Not many wise not many noble 1 Cor. 1.26 c. so not many just not many righteous do flourish But this doth not condemn Innocency nor on the sudden as it were transubstantiate and change Virtue into Vice I have the rather brought this Prejudice forth and exposed it to shame because it is common especially amongst the common sort who are as good Logicians as they are Divines whose very natural Logick their Reason is tainted and corrupted by the world in which they live and to which in a manner they grow It is vox populi the language of the Many and it is taken up too oft He hath taken a wrong course Ye see God doth not bless it This is not just For it doth not thrive A Prejudice this which quite putteth out their eyes that they cannot distinguish evil from good nor good from evil the Devil's snare and he hath scarce such another in which he taketh so many He was unfortunate Therefore he was not wise He prospered in his wayes Therefore his wayes were right It is plebiscitüm an Ordinance of the people And sometimes it is senatus consultum an Ordinance of those who count themselves wise And it hath been rescriptum Imperatoris the rescript and determination of the highest A Prejudice which may drive a man like Nebuchadnezzar amongst beasts and make him worse then they An opinion which first withereth a soul that it can bear no fruit and then leaveth it as fuel for hell fire for ever An opinion bellied like the Trojane horse in which lie lurking oppression Deceit Treason all the enemies of Truth and the Father of lies the Devil himself ready to break forth and destroy and devour a soul A foundation and basis large enough to raise a Babel upon all the evil we can do all the evil we can think even confusion it self The hope of good success may flatter me into the greatest sin and when success hath crowned that hope it will dress that sin in the grave mantle of Virtue and Piety and so shut out Repentance for ever Ye see the danger of Prejudice It lieth as a serpent in our way Gen. 49.17 as an adder in our path to bite our heels to hinder us that we cannot travel to the market where Truth is to be bought Let us therefore lay aside all Prejudice and as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Truth 1 Pet. 2.2 that we may grow thereby Let us not build our faith upon any particular Church or Sect For it is possible that a Church may erre and so deceive us Hear O Israel when the Church speaketh but not so as when God speaketh and publisheth his commands Hear the Church Matth. 18.17 but then when she speaketh the words of God Let not a name and glorious title dazle our eyes He will make but an ill
the Church is and not like unto the world Wonder not then for the Church hath its peace even in persecution And that we may not think it strange let us not frame and fashion to our selves a Church by the world For by looking too stedfastly upon this world we carry the impression it maketh in us whithersoever we go and that maketh Persecution appear to us in such a monstrous shape that we begin to question the providence of God in suffering it to rage within his territories How doth it amaze us to see Innocency trod down by Power to see a Saint whipped by a Devil But in the world we are born in the world we are the world is the greatest part of our study and hence it cometh to pass that in the pursuit of the knowledge of Christ and his Church we are ready to phansie something to our selves like unto the world Temporal Felicity and Peace is the desire of the whole world and upon this some have made it a note and mark of the true Church like the Musician in Tully who being asked what the Soul was answered that it was an harmony is à principiis artis suae non recessit He knew not saith he how to leave the principles of his own art From hence it is that when we see persecution and the sword and fire rage against the true professours we are at our wits end and think that not onely the glory is departed but the light of Israel is quite put out that when desolation hath shaken a Kingdom the gates of hell have prevailed against the Church As groundless a conceit well near as if we should take the description of Heaven in the Revelation to be true in the letter and that it is a City of pure Gold that the foundations of the walls are adorned with pretious stones that every gate is a pearl and the streets shine like glass Let us then wipe out this carnal errour out of our hearts That the Kingdom of Christ doth hold proportion with the form and managing of these Kingdoms below here on earth that the same peace doth continue and the same division and pâ—â—secution dissolve and ruine both that the same violence which removeth the Candlestick doth blow out the light And let us abstract and wean our selvâ—â— from the world let us be dead to the world let us crucifie the world in a word let us not love the world nor the things of the world and we shall then begin to think persecution a blessing and all these conceits of outward peace and felicity will vanish into nothing And therefore in the third place let us cast down these imaginations these bubbles of wind blown and raised up by the flesh the worser part which doth soonest bring on a persecution and soonest fear one and let us in the place of these build up a royal fort build up our selves in our most holy faith and so fit and prepare our selves against this fiery tryal For as those are called mysteries which are precedaneous and go before the mysteries and he may be said to fight who doth but flourish and arm and fit himself for the battel so the blessed Spirit of God every where calleth upon those who are his souldiers to watch and stand upon their guard to put on the whole armour of God that when the devil assaulteth them in a storm of persecution they may be able to stand Eph. 6.11 to look upon the sword beforehand to take it up and handle it to dispute it out of its force and terrour and so by a familiar conversing with it beforehand by opposing our hopes of happiness and the promises of life to the terrours that death may bring opposing the second part of my Text to the first the Kingdom of heaven to persecution we may abate its force and violence and so by a due preparation conquer before we suffer and leave the persecutor no more power but to kill us And to this end let us view and well look upon the beauty and glory of Righteousness and learn to love it to make it our counsellour our oracle whilest the light shineth upon our heads to let it have a command over us and when it saith Do this to do it For if we thus make it our joy and our crown display it abroad in every action of our life in the time of peace we shall not part with it at a blast nor fling it off and forsake it in time of persecution If we love Righteousness Righteousness will love us and cleave close to us when our friends and acquaintance leave us and fall away like leaves in Autumn A good conscience is an everlasting never-failing foundation but the clamours and checks of a polluted one will give us no leisure at all to build up an holy resolution For when we have a long time detained the truth in righteousness kept it down as a prisoner and not suffered it to work in us when in the whole course of our life we have kept her captive under our sensual lusts and affections it is not probable that in time of danger and astonishment it should have so much power over us as to win us to suffer for its sake but these sensual lusts which in time of peace did keep the Truth and Righteousness under will now shew themselves again in time of persecution and be as forcible to deter us from those evils which are so but in shew and appearance as they were to plunge us into those evils of sin which are true and real If then thou wilt be fitted for Persecution and so for Blessedness first persecute thy self crucifie thy flesh with the lusts and affections raise up a persecution in thy own breast banish every idle thought silence every loud and clamorous desire whip and correct every wandring phansie beat down every thing that standeth in opposition to Righteousness be thus dead unto thy self and then neither death nor life neither fear of death nor hopes of life neither principalities nor powers neither present evils nor those to come shall ever be able to shake thy confidence or separate thee from the love of Righteousness which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And now as we have brought the Righteous person into this Field of bloud and prepared and strengthned him against the horror of it so must we bring the Persecutor also that he may behold what desolation he hath made Why boastest thou thy self in thy mischief O mighty man That thou hast sped that thou hast divided the prey that thou hast made Innocence it self to lick the dust of thy feet that thou hast spilt the bloud of the righteous as water on the ground Thus did the tyrants of old triumph and dance in the bloud which they shed Behold thou persecutest thy self and though the righteous fall under thee yet thou sufferest most Every blow thou givest them entereth into thy own soul that power with which
it What is comfort to him that will not be comforted What is heaven to a child of perdition It is a word of the future tense as all promises are of things to come And it is verbum operativum a word full of efficacy and virtue to awake and stir up our Faith to raise our Hope and enflame our Charity It hath a kindly aspect upon all these And first upon our Faith For ideò abcessit Dominus ut fides nostra aedificetur Our Saviour was therefore taken up into heaven that our faith which may reach him there may be built up here on earth He therefore lay hid that this eye might search him out Faith is a kind of Prospective or optick instrument by which we see things afar off as if they were near at hand and things that are not yet as if they now were It turneth Veniet into the present tense and beholdeth Christ as â—ow already descending with a shout And this is sancta impudentia fidei the holy boldness and confidence of Faith to break through all difficulties whatsoever if the object be in heaven to place it on earth if it be invisible to make it visible and if Christ say he will come to say he is come already And now Beloved try and examine your selves whether ye be in this faith In other things how cautelous we are what counsel do we ask how do we use our own and other mens eyes and how are we grieved how crest-fallen if we be over-reached as one that is beaten in battel and hath lost the day But then how easily are we abused how willing to deceive our selves how well pleased to erre where the errour is fatal and deleterial to the soul Will not a weak and groundless opinion a phansie a shadow be taken for that Faith which is the substance of things not seen Glorious things are spoken of Faith It is called a full assent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a full assurance a full persuasion of mind And is ours so Nay for the most of us would we did but believe the second coming of Christ as we do a story out of our own Chronicles nay as many times we believe a lie Would our faith were but as a grain of mustard-seed Even such a faith if it did not remove mountains yet would level many would silence many a proud word would restrain us from those sins which have nothing of the pain but are as loathsome as Hell it self Nequicquam segniùs credita movent quà m cognita saith one Those things which are but credible and believed move and set us a working many times as powerfully as those things which we know What maketh us venture our selves by sea and by land rise up early and lie down late bear all things endure all things but a firm belief that this is the way to honour and wealth What Faith then is that which cannot strike the timbrel out of our hands nor the strumpet out of our arms which cannot make us displease our selves nor unfold our arms not silence a word not stifle a thought but leaveth us with as little life and motion as those who have been dead long ago although the VENIET the doctrine of Christ's second Advent sound as loud as the Trump shall do at the last day Faith shall we call this or a Dream or an Echo from a sepulcher of rotten bones which when all the world proclaimeth Christ's second coming resoundeth it back again into the world a Faith that can speak but cannot walk nor work a Faith that may dwell in the heart of an hypocrite a murtherer a traitor a Devil For all these may believe or at least profess that Christ will come again and yet be that liar that Antichrist which denieth Jesus to be the Christ or that he ever came in the flesh Secondly as this VENIET casteth an aspect upon Faith so it doth upon Hope which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bloud of our soul saith Clement without which it will be faint and pale and languish Therefore oportet habere aliquem spei cumulum saith Terrullian this addition of Hope to Faith is most necessary For if we had all Faith and had no Hope this all would profit us nothing Faith without Hope may be in hell as well as on earth For magnifie Faith as much as you please and make it an Idol and fall down and worship it It is a true saying and worthy of all acceptation BY FAITH WE ARE SAVED But we have reason to fear that this true saying hath damned many not in it self for so Tâ—uth can bring forth nothing but life but through the corruption of mens hearts which turneth Manna it self into poison and Life into Death And let me tell you Hope will not raise it self upon every Faith nor is Faith alvvayes a fit basis for Hope to build on He that despaireth believeth or he could not despair For vvho can droop for fear of that VENIET that Judgment vvhich he believeth vvill never come Oh foolish men that vve are who hath bewitched us that vve should glory in Faith and Hope make them the subject of our songs of praise and rejoycing when our Faith is but such a one as is dead and our Hope at last will make us ashamed when our Faith is the same which is in hell and our Hope vvill leave us vvith the Devil and his Angels a Faith vvorse then Infidelity and a Hope as dangerous as Despair and that serve onely to adde to the number of our stripes yet this is the Faith this is the Hope of the world These are thy Gods O Israel Therefore in the third place that vve may joyn these tvvo together Faith and Hope vve must dravv in that excellent gift of Charity which is copulatrix virtus the coupling vertue not onely of Men but of these two Theological vertues For as I told you though Hope do suppose Faith yet Faith may shew it self vvhen Hope is thrust out of doors and many there be vvho have subscribed to the VENIET that Christ will come again vvho have small reason to hope for his coming How many believe that he will come and bring his reward with him and yet strike off their own chariot-wheels and drive but heavily towards it How many believe there is a Judge to come and wish there were none Faith and Hope dwell not in the heart till Charity hath taken up the room But when she is shed and spred abroad in our hearts then they are in conjunction and meet together and kiss each other Therefore this promise of Christ's coming is a threat a thunderbolt if these three Graces meet not if Faith work not by Love and both together raise a Hope And as VENIET here looketh upon our Faith and Hope so it calleth for our Charity For velimus nolimus veniet whether we will or no whether we bâ—lieve or no whether we hope or no he will certainly come But when
and the service of God but even after the means which may bring us unto it with what joy do we embrace all opportunities how do we bless and magnifie every Ordinance how doth every occasion appear unto us as the cloud that covered the Tabernacle what a light is every glimmering what a Sun is every star how doth the least help raise us up and the smallest advantage fill us with joy Psal 119.60 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We no sooner say We will go but we are at our journeys end We make haste and delay not to keep God's commandments Alacrity is a sign that devotion is sincere and as it were natural Nature runneth her course chearfully without interruption and displayeth her self with a kind of triumph in every creature The Moon knoweth her appointed seasons Psal 104.19 and the Sun his going down And the Sphears are constantly wheeled about with a perpetual motion Iterum redeunt per quod ibant They still hast from the same point and back to it again Naturae animalium à nullo doctae sunt saith Hipprocrates The natures and qualities of living creatures are not conveyed into them by long instruction but what they do they do by nature and that with ease and alacrity Who taught Fire to burn or Trees to grow Who taught heavy bodies to descend or light ones to mount aloft We may say they were all taught by God by that Power which Philosophers call Nature And thus it is with those who being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taught of God are well-affected unto and love his service they have as it were a second nature put into them Rom. 12.2 2 Cor. 5.17 The Apostle calleth it a renewing of the mind and a new creature They are carried with facility and chearfulness to their end and strive forward to the things which are above with as great propensity and readiness as light bodies move upwards Psal 42.1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God saith the Psamist As Nature is operative and forcible in the one so is the Spirit in the other And as Nature doth her work with ease so doth Grace All difficulty and slowness is from the earth earthy from the flesh from corruption An unclean heart maketh virtue an heavy task but a right spirit maketh it a delight Nihil difficile amanti There is nothing of difficulty in that which a man loveth The fool goeth to his duty as to the correction of the stocks Prov. 7.22 But he that is wise and loveth goodness is delighted with the very thought and contemplation thereof even when it is beset with terrour and difficulty A good man hath more reluctancy to evil then an evil man to good He falleth not from his duty but by some strong temptation which surprizeth him unawares but the other nè rectè quidem facere sine scelere potest as Tullie speaketh of Vatinius committeth an offence even when he doth that which is right and defileth a good deed in the doing The one loveth the work it felf the other is dragged to it as an ox to the slaughter Prov. 7.22 It was well said of Hilarie Minus est facere quam diligere To do a virtuous act is not so considerable as to love it For it may be done grudgingly and with an evil mind which is indeed not to do it but to turn bread into stones hony into gall and bitterness that which should feed and cherish into an offence But when Love hath wrought in us an alacrity to our duty then it is in a manner become natural to us We call it an Habit And it is a fair note of a virtuous habit if the acts of virtue be performed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with oblectation of mind For if the soul be well disposed and qualified if it be fitted and shaped to that which is good joy maketh an effusion and flux there and letteth out the heart IBIMUS We will go into the house of the Lord We long to be there We will hasten our pace We will break through all difficulties in the way No chains shall keep us back but those of Necessity And though these lay hold on us yet if our will be free and have determined its act the duty is dispatched If we look toward the Temple with a longing eye we serve God there though we enter not into it For plus est diligere quà m facere If I love and will I have done my work before I begin Again chearfulness is a sign of perfection in our devotion Till a thing be perfect it is in a manner streightned and contracted in it self there is in it a kind of striving towards its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in a journey though it is some pleasure to look back upon that part of the way which we have left behind us yet it troubleth us to look forward upon that which is yet before us and we are never merry indeed till we sit down at our journeys end Semivirtues dispositions faint inclinations to duty may warm perhaps but cannot enflame us they make us neither active nor chearful nor constant in our wayes Non facimus assiduè non aequaliter saith the Stoick We do our duty neither constantly nor equally We do it to day and leave it undone to morrow We do this thing to day and to morrow the quite contrary One day as St. Hierome saith in the Church another in the theatre one day devout another profane to day hang down the head like a bulrush to morrow lift up our heads on high and exalt our selves without measure This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this irregularity and inconstancy of behaviour as St. Basil calleth it is visible in the lives of those men whom the love of God hath not built up and rooted in that which is good For the seeming goodness of such is not natural but forced and artificial like the motions in water-works which while the water runneth in the trough present us with some delightful sight it may be some history of the Bible as the Faith of Abraham the Devotion of David the Humility of the Publicane but when the water is once run out all is done and there is no more to be seen Thus outward respects love of a good name profit and advantage may carry us about a while and present us to the view as men washed and cleansed as Prophets and holy persons but when those fail we suddenly fall to the mire where we first wallowed and are three times more polluted then before For that form of godliness did not proceed from a right principle from the love of that we did but from the love of something else which is contrary to it from the love of the Flesh which Religion crucifieth from the love of Profit which Piety casteth behind her from the love of Glory which Devotion blusheth at from the love of the World which Faith
Father doth of Idolatry It is summus seculi reatus tota causa judicii It is a vocal crying sin which like the importunate Widow in the Gospel will not suffer the Judge to rest till he do justice This filleth the world with the evil of sin and of punishment not so much a firm opinion that God may be deceived and mocked as a bold presumption by which we make him such a God as we would have him a God that may be trifled with a God that like the Heathen Gods may be taken by the beard that those fierce astonishing speeches which we find in Scripture are but words of art 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken to affright men rather then words of intended truth which will bring effect according to their natural meaning as indulgent fathers many times threaten their children with much hard language which they never intend to make good And this conceit of Gods facility and easiness that he so quickly admits of excuse is the principal ground and occasion of all the sins in the world To make it plainer yet and point out to some particulars in which we mock God when we imagine no such thing and so to conclude this point I cannot imagine when I consider that Majesty which no mortal can comprehend that Dust and Ashes the works of Gods hand should be able to put a trick upon him and mock him This were to set his creature in his Throne and place extreme Weakness and Folly above Wisdome it self Psal 50. Thou verily thoughtest I was like unto thee saith God to the Hypocrite It was but a thought a wavering imagination which enters and goes out and never remains at one stay God is not cannot be mocked For if he had believed there was a God Diagoras himself would not have mockt him nor ever thought it possible But the truth is as the relation stands betwixt God and his creature Man is said to do that which he doth not which he cannot do to fight with him who is omnipotent to dispute with him whom we cannot answer one of a thousand to contend to grieve him who cannot be moved to weary him to press him as a cart is with sheaves who by his word made and by his word beareth all things who is to himself an everlasting sabbath and rest Non ille minùs peccat cui sola deest facultas saith the Casuist We do not do it the less because we cannot do it because we vvould do it if we could Ipsa sibi imputatur voluntas saith the Father To vvill it is to do it To look upon a woman and lust after her is to commit adultery yet the vvoman as chast as before So God cannot be mockt yet vve may mock him As in the rape of Lucrece two are in the fact yet but one as Augustine speaks committed adultery For if Tully could truly say that to resist the Law of Nature and to vvalk contrary to that light which vve brought vvith us into the vvorld is nothing less then Gigantum more bellare cum Diis to vvage vvar vvith the Gods as the Giants did then may vve as truly affirm that to dissemble vvith God to flatter him vvith our lips vvhen our heart is far from him to fall down before him in a complement vvhen vve break his laws to act our part as upon a stage to vvish he had no eye to study to believe it is to mock him To be more particular yet For yet you may ask vvherein vve mock him For vve are very slow and unwilling to believe any evil of our selves and are hardly induced to think vve ever did that vvhich vve do every day Mock God! nay God forbid And that God forbid that prayer Mal. 3.7 is but a mock God calls to the Jews Return unto me and they reply Wherein shall we return as if they never had been averse from him but had been alwayes vvith him even in his bosome And vers 8. Ye have robbed me saith God and they say Wherein have we robbed thee as if they vvere utterly ignorant of any such matter but had been vvholly imployed in bringing tiths into his store-house and meat into his house They forsook him they robb'd him and yet are innocent They did and did not and God himself is made no better then a columniator So that this position is true in this sense also God is not mocked for no man thinks no man vvill acknovvledge no man dares profess that he mocks him But vve cannot thus shake off the guilt nor put it from us For vvhen vve do those things to God vvhich vve do to men vvhen vve mock them this is enough to put us into the seat of Mockers and enroll us amongst the Mockers of God When Laban gave Jacob blear-ey'd Leah for beautiful Rachel Gen. 29.25 it vvas a mock What hast thou done saith Jacob did not I serve thee for Rachel why hast thou mocked me When Micah laid an image in the bed for David and said he was sick it vvas a mock For Saul said unto Micah why hast thou deceived me When God requires justice and righteousness and we bring him vain oblations when he calls for the heart and we lift up our voice when he calls for a working fighting conquering faith and we give him a dead faith when God calls for Faith which is a stone a corner-stone to build that Obedience upon which shall reach to Heaven and we make Faith a pillow to sleep on and sin the more securely because we believe when God bids us strengthen our hands that hang down and we open our ears when God bids us Vp and be doing and we count all done in Hearing when God calls for a New creature and we return him circumcision and uncircumcision empty sacraments and lazy formalities Deut. 15. when God requires a sacrifice without blemish and we offer up that which is lame or blind when God requires perfection and we give him our weak blind halting endeavours when God seeks a Man and we give him a picture Psal 35.16 what are we but hypocritical mockers For what are Hypocrites but Players the Zanias of Religion whose art it is to deceive who are so long conversant in outward performances that they rest in them as in the end of the Law are content with shews and expressions and at last think there is no service no religion but in these As the poor Spartan travailing into another country and seeing the beams and posts of houses squared and carved which he had never seen before asked if trees did grow so in those countries So these mockers of God these formal professours having been long acquainted with a form of Godliness sqared and carved and set out with shew and advantage considering what eloquence there is in an attentive Ear a turned Eye an Angels Tongue a forced Sigh to win applause and make them glorious in the eyes of men fall at last upon this
speak of him before tyrants and not be ashamed then he hath cast out a spirit which was dumb But I rather keep me to the words of the Text As he spake these things Doth he not still speak the same things Hebr. 13.8 Jesus Christ is yesterday and to day and the same for ever Nec refert saith the Father per quem sed quid à quo It is not material whose tongue is made use of so it be Christ that speaketh these things And how often doth he speak these things But where is the FACTUM EST that which cometh to pass is scarcely discernable Auditis laudatis Ye hear him speak and perhaps ye commend him Deo gratias God be thanked for that yet But when this is done nothing cometh to pass Semen accipitis verba redditis Ye receive the seed of the Word and all the harvest vve see is but weeds We see it not in the extension of your hands in the largeness of your alms in the lifting up of your hands in your devotion at prayers we see it not in your reverence meekness and patience Well saith the Father Toleramus illae tremimus inter illa We suffer it and tremble at it Your words are but leaves it is fruit and encrease that we require Be not deceived Every good lesson should be unto you as a miracle to move you to give sentance for Christ against the Pharisees and all the enemies he hath against the Pride that despiseth him the Luxury that defileth him that Disobedience that trampleth him under foot Every good motion for therein Christ speaketh to us should beget a resolution every resolution a good work every good work a love of goodness and the love of goodness should root and stablish and build us in the faith In a word every DIXIT of Christ's should be answered with a FACTUM EST from us every work every word of his should be a sufficient motive and a fair occasion to us to magnifie the power of the Speaker in our souls and in our bodies and with this Woman here in the very face of the enemie in the midst of all the noise Detraction can make to lift up our voice and give testimony unto Christ who is so powerful both in word and deed And so I pass from the Motive and Occasion to the Person who from what she saw and heard gave this free attestation A certain woman of the company Here are two circumstances that may seem to weaken and infringe the testimony and take from the credit of the miracle 1. that she was a Woman and 2. that she was but one of the multitude S. Gregory will tell us MVLIER tam pro infirmitate ponitur quà m pro sexa That this word Woman in Scripture sometimes noteth the Sex and sometimes signifieth Infirmity And in the antient Comedians Mulier es is a term of reproch For as the Schoolman hath observed foeminarum aviditas pertinacior in affectu fragilior in cognitione The affections of Women commonly outrun their understanding and they are then most in flame when they have least light Again this circumstance That she was but one of the multitude might have been laid hold on by the Pharisees as an argument against Christ Might they not have reviled her as they did the man who was born blind and received his sight and said unto her Thou art but one Joh. 9.34 and dost thou teach us But such is the nature of Truth that it can receive no prejudice but will prevail against all contradiction though it have but one witness and find no better champion then a Woman Suis illa contenta est viribus nec spoliatur vi suâ etiamsi nullum habeat vindicem saith Arnobius She resteth upon her own basis and is content with her own strength which she cannot lose though she find no undertaker Truth doth not fail though a Pharisee oppose it but is of strength sufficient to make the weakest of its champions conquerer For the foolishness of God is wiser then men 1 Cor. 1.25 and the weakness of God is stronger then men Neither Number nor Sex hath so much power upon Truth as to alter its complexion Whether they be many or few weak or strong that profess it Truth is still the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one and the same hue and colour Gen. 49.19 As it was said of Gad A troop may overcome it may silence and suppress it for a while but it shall overcome at the last Yet a conceit hath possessed the world That there is a kind of virtue or magick in Number and the Truth breatheth onely in those quarters where there are most voices to proclaim it And many are so bewitched that they think it a gross absurdity for one man in the defense of Truth to stand up against a multitude and they will make this advocate because he is but one an argument against the Truth What would these men have thought of Christ had they seen him among the Pharisees or heard the shout of the people crying aloud John 18.40 Not this man but Barabbas Indeed neither the Paucity nor the Number of professours is an argument to demonstrate the Truth These pillars do not support her We have rather great reason to suspect the doctrine that is cryed up by the voice and humme of the multitude I have much wondred that they who talk so much of the Church have made this a note and mark whereby we may know it For experience hath sufficiently taught us that were it to put to the vote of the multitude we should scarce have any face of a Church at all It never went so well with the world that the most should be best Therefore S. Hierome is peremptory that multitude of associates demonstrate rather an Heretick then a Catholick We may be then well content to hear the Church of Rome boast and triumph that she hath enlarged her dwelling and spred her self from one end of the world unto the other and to lay it as an imputation upon us that our number is so small that we scarce are visible sed illos Defendit numerus junctaeque umbone phalanges The whole world is theirs praeter Italian Hispaniam totam All Italy and all Spain is theirs And besides these and many other Kingdomes which the Cardinal reckoneth up they may take-in the New world for advantage An happiness which we hereticks cannot hope for Non enim debet nunc incipere Ecclesia crescere cùm jam senuerit saith he For the Church cannot encrease now she is old and hide-bound and past growth Who would ever have thought that so sick and lothsome meditations should have dropped from so learned a pen Might not the antient Hereticks have taken-up the same plea when the whole world as S Hierome speaketh was become Arian And himself confesseth that if one province alone hold the true faith that one province may be
respect of himself but not of the precepts of Christ It trod down the Man but not the Christian under its feet It devoted the Honour and Repute and Esteem which he had in Christs Church to his brethren but not his Soul I could wish to be accursed to be Anathema i. e. to be in esteem as a sacrilegious person who for devouring holy things is Anathema cut off and separated from the society of men to suffer for them the most ignominious death for so the word doth often signifie to be separate from Christ from the body and Church of Christ and of his Apostle and Embassadour to be made the off-scouring of the world the most contemptible person on earth a spectacle to God and to men and to Angels And this could not but proceed from an high degree and excess of Love Love may break forth and pass over all privileges honours profits yea and life it self but it never leaves the Law of God behind it For the breach of Gods law is his dishonour and love if it be spiritual and heavenly is a better methodist then to seek to gain glory to God by that which takes it away at the same time to cry Haile to Christ and crucifie him It was indeed a high degree of the Love of Gods Glory and his brethrens salvation which exprest this wish here from the Apostle and which brought him into this strait but his wish was not irregular and his Doubt was not of that nature but he could make himself away to escape and did resolve at last against himself for the Glory of God and for the good of his brethren For the Glory of God first That that must be the first the first mover of our Christian obedience For though there be other motives and we do well to be moved by them the Perfecting of our reason the Beautifying of the Soul and the Reward it self yet this is first to be looked upon with that eye of our faith wherewith we look upon God Heaven is a great motive but the Glory of God is above the highest Heavens and for his Glories sake we have our conversation there We do not exclude other motives as unfit to be lookt upon For it is lawful saith Gregory for a Christian remunerationis linteo sudores laboris sui tergere to make the sight of the reward as a napkin to wipe off the sweat of his brows and comfort the labour of his obedience with hope But the chief and principal matter must be the Glory of God The other ends are involved in this sicut rota in rota as a wheel within a wheel a sphere within a sphere but the Glory of God is the first compassing wheel which must set all the rest a working We must neither live nor dye but to God's glory The Glory of God and our Happiness run round in the same cord or gyre but the Glory of God is primum mobile still on the top And then our Love to God comes nearest and hath the fairest resemblance to the Love God hath to us whose actions are right in themselves though they end in themselves whose glory is the good of his creature In a word he that loveth God perfectly cannot but deny himself neglect himself perish and be lost to himself but then he riseth again and is found in God whilst he thinks nothing but of him whilst he thinks he is loved of him and thus lives in him whilst he is thus lost Amor testamentum amantis Our Love to God should be as our last will and testament wherein we deliver up all to him our whole life on earth and some few years which we might have in heaven to him we thus love To this high pitch and unusual degree of love our Apostle had attained What is his desire but to be with Christ Oh for the wings of a Dove for he cannot be with him soon enough But then the desire of Gods Glory stays him in his flight and deteins him yet longer among the sons of men to make them the sons of God and so to glorifie God on earth And this inclination to glorifie God is in a manner natural to those who are made partakers of the Divine nature and the neerer we come to the nature of God the more do we devote and surrender our selves for his glory We will do any thing suffer any thing for the glory of God In the next place This Love of Gods Glory hath inseparably united to it the Love of our brethrens Good For wherein is Gods Glory more manifested then in the renewing of his image in men who are filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the glory and praise of God It is true Phil. 1.11 the Heavens declare the Glory of God But the glory of God is not so resplendent in the brightest Star in the Sun when he runneth his race as in the New creature in Man transformed by the renewing of his mind There is Gods image nay saith Tertullian his similitude and likeness There he appears in glory There is Wisdome his Justice his Mercy are displayed and made manifest There his glory appears as in his holy Temple For as the Woman is the glory of the Man in being subject to him so are we the glory of God when we are Deiformes when our Will is subject and conformed to him when our Will is bound up in his Will For then it may be said that God is in us of a truth shining in the perfection of beauty in those graces and perfections which are the beams of his in our Meekness and Liberality and Justice and Patience and Long-suffering which are the Christians Tongue and Glory and do more fully set forth Gods praise then the tongues of Men and Angels can do Thus Gods Glory is carried along in the continued stream and course of all our actions Thus doth it break forth and is seen in every work of our hand and is the eccho and resultance of every word we speak The eccho of every word nay the spring of every thought which begat that word and work Now to improve the Glory of God in his brethren to build them up in their most holy faith and upon that foundation to raise that Holiness and Righteousness which are the fairest representations of it did S. Paul after that contention and luctation in himself after he had lookt upon that place which was prepared for him in heaven and that place of trouble and anxiety to which he was called on earth determine for that which was not best for himself but most fit and necessary to promote Gods glory by the furtherance of the Philippians faith And thus as every creature doth by the sway of Nature strive to get something of the like kind something like unto it self as Fire by burning kindles and begets it self in every matter that is combustible so doth every true Disciple of
and passive obedience of Christ The act of Justification is the act of a Judge and this cannot concern us so much as the benefit it self which is the greatest that can be given not so much as our duty to fit us for the act Oh that men would learn to speak of the acts of God in his own language and not seek out divers inventions which do not edifie but many times rend the Church in pieces and expose the truth it self to reproch which had triumphed gloriously over Errour had men contended only for that common faith which was once delivered to the Saints My sheep hear my voice saith Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil They hear and obey and do not dispute and ask questions They taste not trouble and mud that clear fountain of the water of life And as in Justification so in the point of Faith by which we are justified What profit is there so busily to enquire whether the nature of Faith consisteth in an obsequious assent or in the appropriation of the grace and mercy of God or in a meer fiducial apprehension and application of the merits of Christ What will this add to me what cubit what hair to my stature if so be I settle and rest upon this that the Faith by which I am justified must not be a dead faith but a faith working by charity Oh let me try and examine my Faith let me build my self up in it and upon it those actions of Obedience and Holiness which are the language of Faith and speak her to be alive and then I shall not trouble my self too much to determine utrùm fides quae viva or quà viva Whether a living Faith justifieth or whether it justifieth as a living Faith Whether Good works are necessary to Justification as Efficient or Concomitant For it is enough to know that a dead Faith is not sufficient for this work and that Faith void of good works is dead and therefore that must needs be a living Faith which worketh by charity Whether Charity concur with Faith to the act of Justification as some would have it Whether it have an equal efficacy or unequal or none at all Whether the power of justifying be attributed to Faith as the fountain and mother of all good works or as it bringeth these good works into act or it have this force by it self alone as it apprehendeth the merits of Christ although even in that act it is not alone In the midst of all this noise in the midst of all these doubts and disputations it is enongh for me to be justified And what is enough if it be not enough to be saved Which I may be by following in the way that is smooth and plain and not running out into the mazes and labyrinths of disputes It is the voice of the Gospel behind thee HAEC EST VIA This is the way FAITH WORKING BY CHARITY and thou mayest walk in it and never ask any more questions But if men will inquire let them inquire But let them take heed that they lose not themselves in their search and dispute away their Faith talk of Faith and be worse then Infidels of Justification and please themselves in unrighteousness of Christ's active obedience and be to every good work reprobate of his Passive obedience and deny him when they should suffer for him of the inconsistency of Faith and Good works in our justification and set them at as great a distance in their lives and conversation and because they do not help to justifie us think they have no concurrence at all in the work of our salvation For we are well assured of the one and fight for it and most men are too bold and confident in the other But the doctrine of the Cospel is a perfect Law and bindeth us to both both to believe and to do for it requireth a working and an active Faith In the book of God all our members were written All our members yea and all the faculties of our soul And in his Gospel he hath framed laws and precepts to order and regulate them all in every act in every motion and inclination which if the Eye offend pluck it out if the Hand cut it off limit the Understanding to the knowledge of God bind the Will to obedience moderate and confine those two Turbulent Tribunes of the soul the Concupiscible and Irascible appetites direct our Fear level our Hope fix our Joy restrain our Sorrow condescend to order our Speech frame our Gesture fashion our Apparel set and compose our outward Behaviour Instances in Scripture in every particular are many and obvious And the time would fail me to mention them all In a word then This Law is fitted to the whole man to every faculty of the soul to every member of the body fitted to us in every condition in every relation in every motion It will reign with thee it will serve with thee It will manage thy riches comfort thy poverty ascend the throne with thee sit down with thee on the dunghil It will pray with thee fast with thee labour with thee rest and keep a Sabbath with thee It will govern a Church it will order thy family It will raise a kingdom within thee not to be divided in it self free from mutinies and seditions and those tumults and disturbances which thy flesh with its lusts and affections may raise there It will live with thee stand by thee at thy death and be that Angel which shall carry thee into Abraham's bosom It will rise again with thee and set the crown of glory upon thy head And is there yet any more Or what need there more then that which is necessary There can be but one God one Heaven one Religion one way to Blessedness and there is but one Law And this runneth the whole compass directeth us not only ad ultimum sed usque ad ultimum not only to that which is the end but to the means to every passage and approch to every help and advantage towards it leadeth us through the manifold changes and chances of this world through fire and water through honour and dishonour through peace and persecution and uniteth us to that one God giveth us right and title to that one heaven and bringeth us home to that one end for which we were made And is there yet any more Yes Particular cases may be so many and various that they cannot all come within the compass of this Law It is true But then they are cases of our own making cases which we need not make sometimes raised by weakness sometimes by wilfulness sometimes even by that sin it self which reigneth in our mortal bodies And to such this Law is as an ax to cut them off But be their original what it will if this Law reach them not or if they bear no analogy or affinity with those cases which are contained in the Gospel nor depend upon them by any
Every wilful sin is fruitful and seldom endeth in it self He that telleth a lie is in a disposition to betray a Kingdom He that slandereth his neighbour is in an aptitude to blaspheme God We may see Wantonness even budding out of Luxury Strife shooting forth out of Covetousness out of Strife Murther He that yieldeth up his Conscience for his flesh and State will be the more pliable to yield it up when they call for it upon the hardest terms Take heed of these yieldings and condescensions Saepè peccat qui semel One fall naturally draweth on another and that a third till we come in profundum to the very bottom Every little sin if we commit it because we think it little is a great one and carrieth as it were written in its forehead BEHOLD A TROOP COMETH Therefore to conclude this let us not trifle with our conscience but honour it And we honour our Conscience as we do our God for she is as our God upon earth We honour her when we observe her and bow to every beck hearken what she will say and do it and what she forbiddeth avoid not touch not taste not handle â—â—ye from it as from a serpent that doth now flatter but will hereafter sting us to death It is no honour to commend Conscience and wound her to call her a Temple of Solomon a Paradise of delights the Court of God and the Habitation of the Spirit as Bernard calleth a good Conscience Then we honour her when we make her so when we let her keep her throne when we bow to her sceptre when the image of her Dictates is visible in all the emanations of our Soul in our Thoughts when they are such as she would mould in our Words when we speak after her and in our Works when she doth begin and finish them When we subscribe to her first commands which we received when we were free from all interpellations of Fear or Hope and fall not off at their after-solicitations to the contrary and then build up a false persuasion in honour of it and call it Conscience offend and sin against her and then give up her name to an Idol When she commandeth silence and we blaspheme when she lifteth up our heart to heaven and our thoughts are full of adulteries when she prescribeth patience and we strike when she bindeth our hands and we break loose when she sealeth up our lips and we will open them to perjury when by-respects shall win us to that of which she hath said see you do it not when vve are not vvhat she would have us to be but fashion our selves to the world and yet bear her image and superscription are the worst of men with a Good conscience then we dishonour her place her under our lusts and most loathsome desires take her from her throne and lay her in a Golgotha They who look as she looketh and speak as she speaketh and do as she commandeth they vvho obey her these alone are they vvho honour her And then as she is our God on earth that is as she is in the place of God so vvhat God spake of himself will be verified of our Conscience also They that honour her she will honour She will be as our Angel to keep us in all our wayes that we hurt not our foot against any stone of offence She will root and build us up in the faith and in a constant obedience to this perfect law of liberty She vvill settle and establish us to remain in it and set the crown upon our heads even all the Blessedness this life is capable of and that Blessedness which remaineth for ever in the life to come And so we have brought you to the last and best of all the Reward set down in the last words This man shall be blessed in his deed This is the End of all and the End is the crown of all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle The End is that which all look upon In this all our desires and endeavours and counsels meet and rest It is that which giveth force to a Law which maketh Perfection something and Liberty a gift And vvithout it a Law vvere void and no Law Perfection vvere nothing and Liberty but a name The end shineth and casteth an influence and lustre upon all upon the Law upon Perfection upon Liberty For we are obedient to the Law we strive forward to Perfection we stand fast in our Liberty for some end and that is Blessedness Reward and Punishment are the two adamantine pillars saith Plato of a Commonwealth And they are the two pillars vvhich uphold the Church Democritus called them Gods that bear and uphold all things These lead us under a Law guide us to Perfection and uphold us in Liberty If those were not these could not be but all Law Perfection and Liberty would fall to the ground If Heaven were not happiness it were not worth a thought much less our violence To enjoy something better then what we do is the basis and foundation on which every action is raised For who doeth any thing onely that he may do it That action is vain that endeth in it self Fruition is the ultimus terminus the last end of all Knowledge and Volition For To know onely to know is no better then Ignorance And in every act of the Will it is manifest For no man willeth onely that he may will no man loveth onely that he may love no man hateth onely that he may hate no man hopeth onely that he may hope but in every proffer inclination and determination of the Will we look further then the act in which it endeth When we desire any thing we do it with an intent to be united to it to meet and embrace it and from that union something else in which the desire may rest and be fully satisfied This made Moses meek Abraham obedient David devout Job patient This made Apostles and Martyrs this led them through honour and dishonour through good report and evil report and at last brought them to the cross and to the block the next stage unto Blessedness For that which moveth the Will to obedience of the Law is before the obedience it self as that which exciteth and worketh it If this be not set up there is no such thing as Conscience or Obedience at least our Conscience would lose its office and neither accuse nor excuse us neither be our comforter nor tormenter If there were no Hell there were no worm and if there were no Heaven in the next there were no joy in this life The Apostle is plain Without faith that is Heb. 11.6 without a full persuasion of a future estate it is impossible to please God And He that cometh unto God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him And in this appeareth the glory and excellency of the Gospel of Christ of this Law of Liberty that
corruption of our hearts findeth something in Faith her self to abate and weaken her force and power and to take off her activity and so maketh the very object of Faith an encouragement to evil and which is a sad speculation the Mercy of God a kind of temptation to sin Merey is a precious oyntment and mercy breaketh our head Mercy blotteth out sin and Mercy reviveth it Mercy is our hope and Mercy is made our confusion We should sin no more Psal 136. but we do sin more and more because his mercy endureth for ever We are the worse for the Goodness of God We post to destruction because he is said to make hast to help us We turn the grace of God into wantonness and make this Queen of his glorious Attributes to wait on our lust Of a covering a purging a healing a saving I tremble to speak it we make it a damning Mercy For had we not abused it had we not relied upon it too much had we not laid upon it all our uncleanness our impenitency our wilful obstinacy in sin it would have upheld us and lifted us up as high as heaven but our bold presumption layeth hold on it and it flingeth us off and we fall from it into the bottomless pit This then we may take for a sufficient reason why our Apostle putteth not Faith into his description of pure Religion In the next place as he doth not mention Faith so he passeth by in silence rather then forgetteth those other excellent duties Prayer and Hearing of the Word For whatsoever high esteem we put upon these two howsoever we magnifie them till they are nothing till our selves are worse than nothing worse than the beasts that perish yet are they not the end And their end is perdition who make them so and who think that to ask a blessing is to have it when they put it from them or that to hear of God is to love him and to hear of that happiness which he hath laid up is to be in Paradise The perfection of the creature saith the Philosopher is ad naturae suae finem pervenire to attain to the end for which he was made And the end of the Christian is to be like unto Christ that where he is he may be also That is his end John 14.3 that is his perfection Now to draw this home these two to Hear and to Pray do not make us like unto Christ but are means to renew the image of God in us that so we may resemble him They are not the haven to which we are bound but are prosperous and advantageous windes to carry us to it Quod per se bonum est semper est bonum That which is good in it self and for it self is alwayes good as true Piety true Religion but those duties which tend to it have their raward or punishment as they reach or miss of that end What is Hearing if it beget not obedience what are Prayers if they be but the calves of our lips Oh it is a sad question to be asked when we shall see Christians full of malice and deceit Have they not heard Rom. 10.18 They have heard that Malice shall destroy the wicked that Deceit is an abomination that Oppression shall eat them up yet will be such monsters as if they had never heard Oh it is a sad expostulation to the wicked Have they not heard And as sad a return may be made to prayers We may stretch out our hands Isa 1.15 and God hide his eyes from us we may make many prayers and he not hear We may lift up our hands and voice unto heaven and our minds stay below wallowing in the mire of foul pollutions mixt and ingendred with the vanities of the world For as we may fast to strife and debate Isa 58.4 so we may pray to strife and debate As there may be a politick Fast so our Prayer may have more in it of craft than devotion We may make it a trade a craft an occupation and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stoutly labour and hold out Rom 12.12 Matth. 11.12 23 14. not to take the kingdome of heaven but to devour widows houses We may make this Key of the gates of heaven become a picklock to open chests and so debase it to most vile offices which is a sin cujus non audeo dicere nomen for which I have no name bad enough And what is Prayer then What are the Means if we rest in them as in the end what are they if we draw and force them to a bad end what are they if we make no use of them at all or make this sad and fatall use of them if our Prayers bring down a curse if our Hearing flatter us in our disobedience if we hear and pray and perish These and whatsoever else of this nature have all their worth and efficacy from Religion from Charity to our selves and others These are the wings on which our Prayers ascend and mount up to the presence of God to bring down a blessing from thence These sanctifie our Fasts These open the ears of the deaf Matth. 13.14 that hearing they may hear and understand These consecrate our Pulpits and are the best panegerycks on our Sermons making them indeed the word of God Hebr. 4.12 powerful in operation Without these our Prayers are but babling and the Sermons which we hear are but so many libels against us or as so many knells and sad indications that they that hear them are condemned and dead already To visite the fatherless and widows in affliction that is To be full of good works to renounce and abstain from the pleasures of the world for those pleasures we dote on those riches we sweat for are those that bespot us is a far harder task then to say a hundred Pater nosters to continue our prayers as S. Paul did his preaching until midnight Acts 20.7 or to hear a Sermon every day Bid the wanton leave the lips of the harlot bid the ambitious make himself equal to them of low degree Rom. 12.16 1 Tim. 6.18 bid the mammonist be rich in good works and if they do not openly profess it yet the conjecture will be easy and probable that the wanton will chuse rather to fast twice in the week with the Pharisee than to make himself an eunuch for the kingdome of heaven Luke 18.12 Matth. 19.12 the ambitious and covetous will rather say their prayers for such can but say them then to stay themselves in the eager pursuit of their ends but so long as to give an almes the ambitious will pray and hear and do any thing rather than fall lower and the Miser will chain his ears to the pulpit rather than open them to the complaint of the poor Orat. ad Ditescentes S. Basil observed long since 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that he knew many who without
of themselves but he that thus findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it The loss of our lives for righteousness sake is a purchase Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven For this Stephen was stoned Paul beheaded the Martyrs tortured So persecuted they the Prophets which were before you In the next place as a good Cause so a good Life doth fit and qualifie us to suffer for righteousness sake Non habent martyrum mortem qui non habent Christianorum vitam saith Augustine He dieth not the death of a Martyr who liveth not the life of a Christian An unclean beast is not fit to make a sacrifice Nor will the crown of Martyrdome sit upon his head who goeth on in his sin It is to the wicked that God saith What hast thou to do to declare my statutes and What hast thou to do to suffer for them For he that suffereth for them declareth them Therefore S. Augustine calleth the Donatists who in a perverse emulation of the glory of the true Martyrs leapt down from rocks and flung themselves into the water and were drowned sceleratos homicidas wicked homicides and unnatural murtherers of themselves What Cyprian speaketh of Schism is as true of other mortal sins not repented of Non Martyrium tollit not Martyrdom it self can expiate or blot it out For can we think that he that hath taken his fill in sin all his life long and still made his strength the law of unrighteousness should in a moment wash away all his filth and pollutions baptismo sanguinis with his own bloud It may supply for those other pious souls who were never washed in the other laver that of Baptism because persecution or death deprived them of that benefit for what cannot be done cannot oblige But how a man should draw out his life in an open hostility to Christ and trifle with him and contemn him all his dayes and then before repentance and reconciliation which indeed is in the very act of hostility bow to him and die for him I cannot see Take S. Pauls black catalogue of the works of the flesh Adultery Gal. 3. fornication uncleanness lasciviousness idolatry witchcraft hatred variance emulation wrath strife seditions heresies envyings murthers drunkenness revellings and not one of these but will infringe and weaken the testimony of any man and render him a suspected witness in our Courts on Earth And shall the truth of Christ stand in need of such Knights of the post who will speak for her when they oppose her Take that bed-roll of wicked men which the Apostle prophesied should come in these last and perilous times 2 Tim. 3 1-5 Lovers of their own selves Covetous Boasters Proud Blasphemers Disobedient to parents Vnthankful Vnholy Without natural affection Truce-breakers False accusers Incontinent Fierce Despisers of those that are good Traitors Heady High minded Lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof and may not the Gospel be ashamed of such Professors and Martyrs as these Or shall we look for heaven in hell and hope to find a Martyr amongst a generation of vipers Or is he fit to be advocate for any truth who hath the faith of Christ with respect of persons Then we shall have factious Martyrs seditious Martyrs malicious Martyrs profane Martyrs sacrilegious Martyrs And if these be Martyrs we may say of them as Tertullian did of the Heathen Gods Potiores apud inferos There be honester men in hell then these No a good Cause and a good Life must be our conductors to the Cross must lead us by the hand to the fiery trial must as it were anoint us to our graves and prepare us for this great work Otherwise whatsoever we suffer is not properly Persecution but an execution of justice It may be here perhaps demanded What then shall he do who having fettered himself in the snare of the Devil hath not yet shaken it off by true repentance whose conscience condemneth him of many gross and grievous sins which yet himself hath not condemned in his flesh by practising the contrary vertues What shall a notorious sinner do if he be called to this great office if his fortunes and life be brought in hazard for the profession of some article of faith or some truth which he believeth is necessary to salvation What shall he do being shut up between these three a bad conscience assurance of that truth he professeth and the terrour of death Shall he hold fast the truth or subscribe to the contrary Shall he suffer without true repentance of his former sins or repent of the truth which he professeth Shall he deny against his conscience what he knoweth to be true or shall he suffer and comfort himself in this one act as a foundation firm enough to raise a hope on of remission of sin Here is a great streight a sad Dilemma like that of the servant in the Comedy Si faxit perit si non faxit vapulat If he do it he may perish and if he do it not he may be beaten He may suffer for the truth and yet suffer for his sins and if he do it not he hath denied the faith and is worse then an infidel But beloved this is an instance like that of Buridan's ass between two bottles of hay knowing not which to chuse an instance of what peradventure never or very seldom cometh to pass We may suppose what we please we may suppose the heavens to stand still and the earth to move and some have thought so we may suppose what in nature is impossible And this if it be not impossible yet is so improbable that it hardly can gain so much credit as to win an assent For that he who all his life long hath cast Christ's word 's behind him should now seal them with his bloud that they are true that a conscience so beaten so wasted so overwhelmed with the habit of sins should now take in and entertain a fear of so little a sin as the denial of one truth in respect of the contempt of all that he that hath swallowed this monstrous camel should strain at this gnat that he that hath trampled Christ's bloud under his feet should shed his own for some one dictate of his is a thing which we may suppose but hardly believe Or tell me Where should this sting and power of conscience lye hid Or can conscience drive us to the confession of one truth which had no power to withhold us from polluting our selves with so many sins Holding faith saith S. Paul 1 Tim. 1.19 and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made ship-wreck So near an alliance there is between Faith and a good Conscience that we must either keep them both or lose them both Faith as Saint Paul intimateth in that Text is as the
ship and an undefiled Conscience as the rudder If you strike off the rudder or let it go the ship will soon dash against the rocks But yet let us suppose that such a case may fall out though very rarely that the Conscience having been asleep for a long while may at length be awakened by the horrour of a prison and captivity and then break forth with power and strength to make such a man a champion for the Truth We may here say Men and brethren what shall this man do Shall he forsake the Truth against conscience God forbid For if that which is not of faith that is of conscience and a full perswasion of mind be sin then that which is against it is greater But may he not deny it with a mind to gain further time of repentance and so to fit himself to this work to make himself a better and more acceptable sacrifice to God No this is as dangerous as the other For evil is no good foundation to raise up that which is good upon We must not saith S. Paul do evil that good may come thereby And how can we hope that God should give us time to repent of our former sins when we adde this sin to the rest the Denial of the Truth Why may we not rather fear that he will cut us off in this very thought who to flie from the fire of his jealousie run further into it Certainly we cannot merit of God by our demerits We cannot make one sin a way to the remission of the rest It is not likely we should be carried into heaven on the Devil 's back or go through hell into paradise What shall he do then Shall he lay down his life Yes he must for it is better to die then to sin better to breathe out my last then to countermand my conscience better not to be then to be an apostate But then you will say being pressed down with the burthen of his sins how shall he be able to lift up his head What hope can breathe to comfort him in the midst of so many clamours and affrights When Conscience is loud against him what shall silence her Whither should he flie or whither should he go Even let him bow to that power which is over him and now come and desire him and in all humility beg the prorogation of life for so much time in which he may approve his repentance and make it evident both to God and man But if this be not granted as persecutors are alwaves in hast cannot sleep till he that offendeth them be in his grave then let him throw himself down before the throne of God and before his mercy-seat and with the Thief on the cross confess he doth receive the due reward of his deeds and with him cry loud unto Jesus to remember him And why should not we hope well of this man though he came in but at the eleventh hour of the day nay when his sun was even setting and his day well-near shut up Although he hath not the excuse that no man hired him yet he hath this comfort that his Lord may do what he will with his own He may rouse up himself with the extraordinary favour and mercy of God whose eye is good howsoever ours be evil and who though he hath bound us to timely repentance yet hath not bound himself not to accept of the latest if it be serious And that this man's is so no better argument can be brought then that which is written with his own bloud And now what is his hope His hope is even in Christ if not the most certain hope as certain as theirs who have served him in righteousness and holiness all the dayes of their life yet it cometh so near unto it that there cannot be one more certain then this And to conclude this we need not fear to number him amongst those who are persecuted for righteousness sake amongst those of whom that voice from heaven speaketh Rev. 14.13 Blessed are the dead who dye in the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those who are destined as sacrifices and appointed as children to death for they shall rest from their labours and their works shall follow them And thus have you seen Persecution entailed as it were upon the children of God and What it is to suffer for righteousness sake Thus have we led you through this Field of bloud Let us now look back upon it and see what we can bring along with us for our further use and instruction And it looketh indifferently both upon those whose feet are swift to shed bloud and on those righteous persons who are fitted to poure it forth Eadem catena militem custodiam They are as it were linked together The persecuted and persecutor imply and suppose one another and are never asunder But let them that suffer have the first place And first knowing these terrours as the Apostle speaketh seeing Persecution is as it were entailed upon the righteous person seeing there is a kind of providence and necessity it should be so let us learn first as S. Peter speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to think it strange concerning this fiery tryal not to dote too much upon this outward guilded peace and perpetuity in publick profession or when we see these things think some strange thing is come unto us For what strange thing is it that wicked men should persecute the righteous that a serpent should bite or a lion roar that the world should be the world and the Church the Church Or what is now done which hath not been done in all the ages of the world For let us ask the dayes of old and they will tell us that outward Peace and Perpetuity of profession have more diligently attended Superstition and Idolatry then true Profession Look upon the Kingdom of Judah and see how there as upon a stage the service of God and Idolatry had interchangeably as it were their scenes and mutually succeeded one another But Superstition was still longer-lived and breathed with less trouble then true Religion which did shine for a while in peace but was soon over-shadowed with a cloud All that I shall say is but what our Saviour said to Nicodemus of our new birth Nolite mirari Wonder not at it For whatsoever changes and alterations there be in the outward profession of Religion Religion and the Church are ever the same the same in a cloud and obscurity that they were when they shined gloriously before the sun and the people the same in persecution which they were in peace but far more glorious For from these outward things if we would speak in the holy language befalleth the true Church of Christ neither peace nor war but as the blessed Angels have their motions and qualities and attributes which we are utterly ignorant of yet known to themselves so Peace and War and Persecution and other attributes we give the Church are such as