and favour and the happy consequences of it as to counterpoise all the danger of such enmity you may joyn hands with them But if His be the safer and more advantageous then hearken to his Propositions and beseechings for He does beg it of you As he treated this reconciliation in his Blood so he does in Petitions too For saith S. Paul We are Ambassadours for Christ as if God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead Be you reconciled and then be Generous towards your GOD and Saviour and having brought him as it were upon his knees reduc'd him to entreaties be friends and condescend to him and your own Happiness If He be for you take no care then who can be against you His Friendship will secure you not onely from your Enemies but from Hostility it self for when a man's wayes please the Lord he will make even his Enemies to be at peace with him Prov. 16. 7. He will reconcile all but Vices And afterwards see what a blessed throng of Friends we shall be all initiated into Heb. 12. 23. To an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the First-born that are written in Heaven to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of Just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant c. And of this blest Corona we our selves shall be a noble and a glorious part inflamed all with that mutual love that kindles Seraphims and that streams out into an heavenly glory filling that Region of immortal love and blessednesse and being Friends that is made one with Father Son and Holy Ghost that Trinity of Love we shall enjoy what we do now desire to ascribe to them All Honour Glory Power Majesty and Dominion for evermore Amen SERMON V. VVHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LEN. EZECH XXXIII 11. Why will ye Dye THe Words are part of a Debate which God had with the sinful House of Israel in which there are three things offer themselves to be considered First The Sinners Fate and choyce He will Dye That 's his End yea 't is his Resolution he will dye Secondly Gods inquiry for the Ground of this he seems astonished at the Resolution and therefore reasons with them about this their so mad choyce and questions Why will ye dye Which words are also Thirdly The debate of his Affections the reasoning of his Bowels and a most passionate Expostulation with them on account of that their Resolution Why will ye dye Which as it is adrest by God directly to the House of Israel so it would fit a Nation perverse as that which Mutinies against Miracles and Mercies is false to God Religion and their own Interests led by a Spirit of giddyness and srenzy unsteddy in all things but resolutions of Ruine that would teare open their old Wounds to let out Life and they will dye And though the Lord be pleased to work new prodigies of mercy for us and to say unto us in despite of all our Enemies both Forreign and Domestick Live The use we make of all is onely to debauch the Miracles and make Gods Mercies help to fill the measure of our Judgment live as if we would try all the wayes to Ruine and since God will thus deliver us from dangers we would call for them some other way But to prescribe to these is above the attempt of my endeavours May the blessed Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Holynesse and Peace and Order breath on their Counsels whom this is committed to I shall bend my Discourse to the Conviction of Sinners in particular and treat upon the words as if they had been spoke to us under the Gospel The first thing which my Text and God supposeth is the Sinners Fate and Choyce He will dye Even the second Death for it is appointed for all men once to dye and then cometh the Judgment which shall sentence him to another death that is immortal in which he and his misery must live for ever that is he must dye Everlastingly Such is first his fate That Sin and Death are of so near so complicated a relation as that though they were Twins the birth and Issue of one Womb and moment yet they are also one anothers Ofspring and beget each other while Sin bringeth forth Death as S. James saith and is the Parent of Perdition and yet the Man of Sin is the Son of Perdition as S. Paul saith and Iniquity is but destruction's birth onely it self derived And that this Death and Perdition is Eternal in the most sad sense of the word there are a thousand Texts that say This is the Message of God in the mouth and Blood of his Son who useth all the artifice of Words affirmative and negative to tell us so as if on purpose to preclude all doubt and subtersuge calls it Eternal fire and Eternal punishment where their worm dieth not their fire is not quenched Torment for ever and ever and the like Your Faith and certainty of which is as strong as your Christianity and therefore by attempting any farther proof of this to imply there is reason and necessity for doing so were to suppose my Hearers infidels But then this being granted that such is the sinners fate to lay down positively that it is his Choyce and that he doth resolve for Death is to suppose them worse than Infidels more than irrational and brutish Beasts cannot so desire against the possibilities of appetite break all the forces and instincts of Nature as to will destruction and choose misery Yet that the sinner does so is the ground of Gods Expostulation here Why will you dye David inquires as if it were a prodigy to find What man is he that lusteth to Live And sure the vicious man does not for Wisdome that is Virtue sayes He that sinneth against me woundeth his own Soul and all they that hate me love death Prov. 8. 36. And 't is most evident that they who eagerly and out of vehement affection pursue and seize those things to which they know destruction is annext inseparably they love and choose destruction though not for it self yet for the sake of that to which it clings He that is certain such a Potion howsoever sweetned and made palatable is compounded with the juice of deadly Nightshade if notwithstanding he will have the Poysonous draught it is apparent he resolves to dye And that I may evince this is a setled obstinate incorrigible resolution in him and by what wayes and steps it comes to be so I will lay before you the violent courses he does take to break through difficulties and obstructions that would trash and hinder him And when the avenues to Death are strongly guarded how he storms and forces them overcomes all resistance possible that he may seize on Sin and Death And First When such persons have entred the Profession of Christianity in Baptisme and
Custome that will ruine it eternally and when he shall bring against us an instance out of Hell here and the kindnesses of one among the Devils shall come in Judgement against us where we see the Rich man thought not of his own condemnation so much he thought of the averting that of his Brethren We might suppose a man in his condition could not consider any thing but his own Tortures O yes to preserve others from them yet when the man in Hell does so the men on Earth do think of nothing more than to entice others into them And is it not a strange Age then when to tempt is the only mode of kindnesse and men do scarcely know how to expresse themselves civil to their Friends but by pressing them to sin and so be sick with them as if this were the gentile use of Societies to season Youth into good Company and bring the Fashionable Vices into their acquaintance And 't is well if they stay there it happens so that Parts and Wit Faculties and Acquisitions do ingratiate men into these treacherous kindnesses and qualifie them for the desires and friendships of such persons as entertain them by softning them into loosnesse and then into prophannesse debauch their manners and then their Principles teach them to sport themselves with Vice and then with Holy things and after with Religion it self which is a greater Luxury than that their Ryots treat their Appetites withall the Luxury of wit And thus they educate them into Atheisme and these familiar Devils are call'd Acquaintances and Friends And indeed the Companions in sin a man would think should be dear friends such as pour an heart into one another in their common Cups shed Souls in their Lusts are friends to one another even into ruine and love to their own Condemnation are kind beyond the Altar-flames even to those everlasting fires such communications certainly cement affections so that nothing can divide them And let them do so but Lord send me the kindnesse of Hell rather one that will be a friend like this man in his Torments that with unsatisfied cares minded the reformation of his Friends Nay Father Abraham but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent which brings me to the Choice the second part If a Ghost should indeed appear to any of us in the midst of our Commissions it would certainly hurry us from our enjoyments and there are no such tyes and unions by which the advantages of sin do hold us fixt and joynted to them but the shake and tremble we should then be in would loosen and dissolve them all and make us uncling from them if we may believe discourses that tell us such a sight is able to startle a man however he be fixt by his most close Devotions for what the Jews were wont to say we shall dye because we have seen an Angel of the Lord from Heaven most men do fear if they should see the Spirit of a dead man from the Earth Indeed the affrights which men do usually conceive at the meer apprehension of such an apparition do probably arise from a surprise in being minded hastily of such a state for which they are not then prepared so as they would wish or hope to be to which they think that is a call for we shall dye said the Jews But not to ask the reason of this now but find the reason why our Rich man thinks when Moses and the Prophets cannot make a man repent such a Ghost should We have it v. 28. they do but discourse to us but one from the dead could testifie he could bear witnesse that it is so as they say speak his own sight and knowledge and therefore though they hear not Moses and the Prophets yet if one went unto them from the dead they will repent For First one from the Dead could testifie that when we dye we do not cease to be and he would make appear that our departing hence is not annihilation and so would dash the hopes of Epicures such as I was and I may fear they are who as they live like Beasts do think to dye so too and who are rational in this alone that they desire to be but Animal And all the rest of men whether worldly or sensual that enclose their desires and enjoyments within this life and above all the Atheist that dares not look beyond it all these would be convinc'd by such an evidence Indeed this would take away the main encouragement of all ungodlinesse which upon little reasonings how thin soever that there 's no life after this does quicken and secure it self Wisd. 2. and therefore every Sect of men that did prescribe Morality did teach an after life nothing was more believ'd among the Heathen Their Tribunal below where three most severe Judges were appointed meant the same thing with our last Assize and their Elizian fields were but Poetical Paradise their Phlegethon River of Fire was set to expresse our stream of Brimstone flame Thus Resurrection in fable made them vertuous the ghesse at it made Socrates dye chearful and though his hopes had faint weak Principles they had Heroick almost Martyr resolutions And on the other side of those that among them deny'd an after life though we are told that Epicurus was a vertuous man yet his Sect did give name to Vice and is still the expression for it and all that did espouse the Tenents of it did the vices too the Sadduces among the Jews are call'd Epicures not onely for opinions sake because they did make God a body and totally denyed his Providence as Zakuth sayes but Epicures also for their practise sake For they used to scoff at the Pharisees for afflicting themselves by Fasting and Austerities in this life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when there is nothing at all of recompence for them in any life to come Yea and Josephus sayes of them they were the worst of all Sects living like savage Beasts towards one another and uncourteous to their own Sect us to strangers and this sayes he was but a natural effect of their Opinion which wholly denyed the Immortality of the Soul and all Rewards and Punishments after this Life which Principle one coming from the dead would rectifie and so contribute to Repentance Especially if Secondly that one were Lazarus if he that at the Supper of the Lamb sits next the Father of the faithful and the Friend of God in one of the higher Seats of Paradise in Abraham's Bosom if he would go and speak his knowledge of the Pleasures of that Bosom which he tasts and of the glories of that place and but compare them with the little gayeties of my Fathers House shew them the difference betwixt their Structures and that Foundation whose builder and maker God is betwixt the entertainments of their riotous Palates and the Festivals of the Blessed Trinity then sure they would disrellish those and catch at these
'T is true we are prity well reveng'd on them for setting us Examples so reproachful to us calling their Heroick Actions splendida peccata onely beauteous sins and well-fac'd wickednesses and we have a reason for it because they never heard of Christ whose Name and Merit 't is most certain is the onely thing that can give value and acceptance to mens best performances While on the other side we Christians comfort and secure our selves in our transgressions from this Child and from his Name But if this Child were set to raise us up from sin and to establish stronger arguments for a good life than the Heathen ever heard of more especial Divine engagements to vertue then if their Vertues were because they never heard of these engagements to them sins what censure will be past upon their Actions that know all those engagements and despise them a sharper certainly unlesse to defie knowledge and provoke against all Divine obligations all that God could lay shall prove more tollerable than to labour to obey without them without knowing why 'T is true they had not heard it may be of that Name than which there is no other Name under Heaven given unto men whereby they may be saved Yet they endeavoured in some measure to do that which He that owns that Name and wrought the Covenant of those Salvations does require We know that Name and have it call'd upon us and know too that be that names that Name that calls himself a Christian owns the being a retainer to the Holy Jesus must depart from iniquity otherwise it is no Name of Salvation to him yet we never mind the doing that and then which hath the better Plea the Heathen's sure were better though he were not vertuous And if so give me leave to tell you how not onely this Child but this Resurrection too is for our fall In the first Chapter to the Romans we shall find those Heathens when they did neglect to follow the direction of that Light within them by which they were able to discover in some measure the invisible things of God when they did no longer care to retain God in their knowledge then they quickly left off to be Men And when they ceast to hearken to their Reason they soon fell into a reprobate sense What was it else to change God into stocks and stones and Worship into most abominable wickednesse to make the Vilest creatures Deities and the foulest actions Religion to turn a disease into a God and a sin into Devotion a stupidity which nothing else but Gods desertion and reasons too could have betrayed them to and made them guilty of And then if by how much greater Light and means we have resisted we shall be proportionably more vile in the consequents of doing so keep at equal rates of distance from those Heathens that the aggravations of our guilt stand at from theirs Whether alas are we like to fall 'T is an amazing reflection one would tremble to consider how the Christian World does seem to hasten into that condition which S. Paul does there decipher You would think that Chapter were our Character But that we have reason to expect we shall fall lower into much more vile affections then those Heathens did as having fall'n down from a greater height then they Consider whether men do not declare they like not to retain God in their thoughts when they endeavour to dispute and to deride him too out of the World 'T is true they have not set up any sins or monsters in their Temples yet as they did But if they can empty them of God and Christ and their Religion and make room we may imagine easily whose Votaries they will be that live as if they thought themselves unhappy that they had not liv'd in those good Pagan dayes when they might have sinned with devotion been most wickedly Religious and most God-like in unchastities and other Villanies I dare say none of our fine Gentlemen or our great Wits would have been Atheists or irreligious then Think whether those are not already in that reprobate sense S Paul does speak of who have cast off all discriminating notions of good or evil who say in their hearts and affirm openly there are none such in truth and nature It would appear they were if we should try by those effects verse 29 30 31. or by that essential signature 32 vers they not onely commit such things but have pleasure in them that do them which because they cannot have from those commissions when they do not commit them therefore their debauched minds must be satisfied there is no evil in those doings and must reap the pleasure onely of such satisfactions That is have the satisfactions and pleasures onely of a Reprobate sense In fine because I dare not prosecute the Character Men sink so fast as if they were resolv'd to fall as far below Humanity as this Child did below his Divinity O do not you thus break Decrees frustrate and overthrow the everlasting Counsel of Gods will for good to you He set ordain'd this Child for your rising again Do not throw your selves down into Ruin in despite of his Predestinations He hath carried up your nature into Heaven plac'd Flesh in an union with Divinity set it there at the Right hand of God in Glory Do not you debase and drag it down again to Earth and Hell by Worldlynesse and Carnal sensuality Make appear this Child hath rais'd you up already made a Resurrection of your Souls and your affections they converse and trade in Heaven And that you do not degenerate from that nature of yours that is there Then this Child who is Himself the Resurrection and the Life will raise up your Bodies too and make them like his glorious Body by the working of his mighty Power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Blessing Power and Praise Dominion and Glory for Evermore SERMON XIII WHITE-HALL Novemb. 17. 1667. St. JAMES IV. 7. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you THese Words are easily resolved into two parts The first a Duty and the second to incourage the performance an assurance of an happy issue in the doing it The First the Duty in these words Resist the Devil the happy issue in those other he will flee from you For the more practical and usefull handling of these parts I shall endeavour to do these three things 1. View the Enemy we are to resist the Devil see his Strengths and what are his chief Engines his main Instruments of Battery whereby he shakes and does endeavour to demolish the whole frame of Vertue in mens lives shatters and throws down all Religious holy Resolutions and subjects men to himself and Sin 2. See what we are to do in opposition to all this and how and by what means we must resist 3. Prove to them
him without fear that we would do it in holinesse and Righteousness before him And if he would restore his opportunities of Worship how we would use them Thus we did labour to tempt God and draw him in to have compassion and this was Ephraims Imagination just I heard Ephraim bemoaning himself saith the Prophet as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoke turn thou me and I shall be turned turn my Captivity and I will turn my life But this was as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoke that did not like the straitness and pressure of it and would promise any thing to get it off thought it more easie to reform than bear Affliction But is this hopeful think you The Souldiers of Lyons that would ravish Death and break into the Grave for Lust it may be would have been modest and retired from the fair Palaces that are prepared to tempt and entertain that vice Cold and insensible of all those heats that Health and Beauty kindle but remember it was the taking off Gods Hand that hardned Pharaohs heart and a release from punishment was his Reprobation And as for those that were humbled under the Rod and when God had retrencht from their enjoyments did put restraints upon themselves gave over sinning I have a word of Caution for them that they examine well and take a care it be a ceasing from fin like that in the Text a dying to it that they no longer live the rest of their time in the flesh to the lusts of men For if this Old Man be onely cold and stiff not mortified by the calm and sunshine of peace likely to be warm'd into a recovery if thou owe all thy Innocence to thy Pressure wert onely plunder'd of thy sins and thy Vertue and Poverty hand in hand as they were born so they will dye together thy Vices and Revenues come in at once What is this but to invite new Desolations which God in kindness must send to take away the opportunities and foments of our ruining sins 't is true when God has wrought such most astonishing miracles of mercy for us when he did make Calamity contribute to our Happinesse when we were Shipwrackt to the Haven and the Shore when rains did advance us and we fell upwards it is an hopeful argument God would not do such mighty works on purpose to undo them we have good ground of confidence that he will preserve his own mercies and will not throw away the issues of his goodness in which his bounty hath so great an interest and share But yet if we debauch Salvation and make it serve our undoing if we order these opportunities of mercy so that they onely help us to fill up the measure of our sins if we teach Gods long suffering onely to work out our eternal sufferings these Mercies will prove very cruel to us and far from giving any colour for our hopes When the Prodigal was received into his Fathers house and arms had a Ring put on him and the fatted Calf killed for him if he should strait have invited the companions of his former riot to that fatted Calf and joyn'd his Harlot to him with that Ring he had deserved then to be disinheritated both from his Fathers house and pitty who would have had no farther entertainment nor no bowells for him To prevent such a fate let us make no relapses but quite cease from sin which if we do not do a little Logick will draw an unhappy inference from this Text if he that hath suffered hath ceast from sin then he that hath not ceast from sinning hath not suffered and then what is all this that we have felt and so layn under what is it if it be not suffering If this be but preparative then what is the full potion the Cup of Indignation when all his Violls shall be poured into it If such have been the beginnings of sufferings what shall the issues be If the morning dew of the day of punishment have been so full of blood what shall the Storm and Tempest be the deluge and inundation of Fury Take heed of making God relapse 't is in your power to prevent it your Reformation will be his preservative and Antidote That is the way to keep all whole to settle Government and Religion both at once to establish the Kings Throne and Christs For notwithstanding mens pretensions these Thrones are not at all inconsistent For that there must be no King but Christ that there cannot be a Kingdome here of this world because there is a Kingdome that is not of this world is such another Argument as that there cannot be an Earth because there is an Heaven Indeed if we fulfill my Text then we shall reconcile these Kingdoms and bring down Heaven into us for that 's a state where there is neither sin nor suffering where there shall be no tears because no guilt to merit them and no calamity to make them Now Reformation does work this here in some degree and afterwards our comforts that are checker'd with some sufferings and our piety which is soiled with spots shall change into Immortal and unsullied Glories to the Throne of which Glories he prepare us all Who washt us from our sins in his own Blood and by his sufferings hath made us Kings and Priests to God and his Father to whom be Glory and Dominion for ever and ever Amen SERMON II. VVHITE-HALL October 20. 1661. PSALM LXXIII 1. Truely God is good to Israel even to such as are of a Clean Heart ' T was a false Confidence the Jews did nourish That they should dwell securely in their Land notwithstanding their provocations because the Worship and the House of God was in it They did but trust on lying words the Prophet sayes when they did trust upon The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord As if the Temple were a Sanctuary for those that did profane it and the horns of the Altar would secure them when 't was the blood upon the Altar call'd for Vengeance Nor was that after-plea of theirs more valid We are the chosen Israel of God We have Abraham to our Father As if when by their works they had adopted to themselves another Parent were of their Father the Devil they could claim any but their present Fathers interest or have the blessings of forsaken Abraham Now if it be no otherwise with us but because in our Judah God is known his Name great in our Israel with us in Salem that is in peace he hath his Tabernacle now and his dwelling in Sion And so much knowledge such pretences to the Name of God and to his Worship are not with other Nations nor have they such advantages to know his Law If as each party of us does assume these Priviledges to it self so each do also rest in them although their Lives answer not these advantages If while they judge themselves Christs chosen Flock boast Covenants and
hereafter in the Jerusalem that is above To the state of which glorious Light He bring us all who is the brightness of his Fathers Glory To whom be Glory and Dominion for ever and ever Amen SERMON III. VVHITE-HALL Second Wednesday in Lent LEVIT 16. 31. Ye shall Afflict your Souls by a Statute for ever THe words are one Single Precept concerning one part of the Celebration of a Day I shall not take the Precept asunder into parts for it hath none but shall frame my Discourse to Answer three Enquiries that naturally offer themselves to be consider'd from these words And they are 1. What the Importance of the thing commanded is what is required in this Injunction Te shall Afflict your Souls 2. What Usefulnesse and Efficacy this Duty had upon that time in which it was prescribed what the Afflicting of the Soul contributed to the work of that Day that it should be made so indispensable an ingredient of its performances tyed to it by a Statute for ever 3. Whether that for ever do reach us which is the Application and brings all home to us First What the Import of the thing commanded the Afflicting of the Soul is The Arab. and Targum of Jerusalem Translate it Fasting yea and a Learned Rabbine sayes that wheresoever these two words are put together that is meant And indeed they are often joyned in Scripture to express it Psal. 35. 13. I afflicted my Soul with Fasting And the Prophet Isaiah speaking of this Day in my Text sayes Is it such a Fast that I have chosen A day for a man to Afflict his Soul Isa. 58. 5. Somewhat a strange expression it is for Fasting does afflict the Body properly and yet we find the like too in the other Extream We read of pampering the Soul Psa◠78. 18. They required 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meat for their Souls not to supply the Hunger of their Body that they had before but to indulge the Lusts of their mind they did not want food but variety Festival diet and a Table furnisht they would have and this luxuriancy and wantonness of Meat the Scripture calls meat for the Soul Such as God sayes in other places the Soul lusteth after Indeed forc't meats and things that please meerly by being rare and dear or by being extravagant these do not feed the Appetite but opinion and the mind it is the Soul onely that hungers after these Thus when I look after Wine in the glasse and make my Eye a Critique of its accidents and by the mode and fashion of it teach it to please or displease my judgment I do not here thirst after the cool moysture of it but the sparkling flame and do not drink the wine but the flavour and colour and this is all but notion Now certainly these are not proper objects for our appetites meat for the Body sayes the Scripture and it is the Stomack and not the Imagination that is hungry nor is it Fancy or the Soul that thirsts but 't is the Palate so that these are unnatural and monstrous satisfactions and appetites And yet to bring mens selves to this is one of the great masteries of Wit and Art to force themselves to find a relish in these things and then contrive them is a piece of skill which the advantages of parts and fortune are desireable mostly as they are useful to And a well studied Epicure one expert in the mysteries of Eating is a singularly qualified and most grateful person It were in vain to ask what else such men can be good for that being their Profession they are out at most other things Indeed the Soul that dwells in Dishes and is stew'd in its own Luxuries grows loose and does dissolve its sinews melt all its firmness of mind forsakes it the man is strong for nothing but for Lusts his faculties are choak'd and stifled they stagnate and are mir'd within him and there corrupt and putrefie And then what Cranes will force out thence and wind up such a Soul into the practises and expectations of Plety will make it mind and entertain the hopes and Duties of Religion what macerations what Chymistry will defecate a Spirit so incarnated and rectifie it into such a fineness as befits that state where all their blessednesse have no sensual relish but are sublimed into Divine and purely Spirituall Lord God! that thou shouldst shed a Rational Angelick Soul into us a thing next to the Being of thy Selfe and We make it employ it selfe to animate onely the organs of Intemperance and Gluttony and their appendant lusts Only inspire us how to be but more Sagacious indeed but more luxurious Bruits when thou hast set us here to train and discipline our selves for a condition of such glorious Joyes as are fit to entertain Souls of Reason with and to make them blessed which to enter upon our Bodies must drop from us our Souls must be clarified from Flesh and Flesh it self re fined into a Spirit that we should make our selves Antipodes to this walk contrary to all and so debase our spirits as that they are qualified for no other satisfaction but those of dull sense and carnality Adam fell his great Fall by Eating but ever since men fall further by riotous intemperate Eating He fell from Paradise and they from Reason the Man sinks into Beast and the Soul falls into very Flesh and hath no other faculties or appetites but fleshly ones Such people of all others are not to be raised up by Religion their fulness gives no place to that but does exclude it God did complain of this of old 32. Deut. 15. Je surun waxed fat and kicked that we may see they want no bruitish quality who do allow themselves the appetite of Bruits they that pamper themselves like to fed Horses will also neigh like them and kick even him that fed them thou art waxen fat thou art covered with fatness then he forsook God that made him and lightly esteemed the Rock of his Salvation When they came once where they did suck hony out of the Rock and Oyl out of the flinty Rock they could not mind the Rock of their Salvation Indeed this sensuality as it consumes Estates eats Time and all the faculties of the Mind so it devours all Religion too it hath not onely a particular opposition to some one duty as the other Vices have but by a direct influence it destroyes the whole foundation of Virtue and obedience to God I mean subordination of the lower appetite to Reason and Religion which it renverses quite and breeds an universal cachexy of the Soul as well as Body For ever since Adam did eat of the forbidden Fruit the carnal mind we know is neither subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be as S. Paul sayes Rom. 8. 7. because Gods Commands are restraints upon those things which Flesh desires eagerly Now therefore while that Mind is unsubdued it must needs lust
Decrees dispence with Holy Laws so confirm'd meerly to gratifie those that are obstinate for ruine and against his whole Gospel quench Hell fires because men are resolv'd to run into them This Will does as it were even the Scales betwixt the Sin and the Damnation equal the pleasure to the punishment and fill the distance from a moment to Eternity But though this Will do clear Gods Justice yet it does not satisfie his Reason he seems astonisht at the choyce God himself cannot find a Ground for such a Resolution and therefore does enquire Why will ye dye Which is God's question and my second part Is it the present pleasure sin does tempt your sensuality withall whose agitations are so quick and strong that they surprize or break the forces of your Reason and your Principles put the Mind in disorder and then seize it with such violence as to lead it captive to the Law of Sin and Death 'T is true indeed thus both of them had their original so they prevail'd in Paradise for when the Woman saw the Tree was good for food and pleasant to the eye and a Tree to be desired to make one wise she took thereof and she did eat although she knew that God had said In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye Gen. 3. But there was generous pleasure here such as tempted the Soul assaulted it with the appearances of Wisdome and divine Knowledge Te shall be as Gods Gen. 3. 5. And sure 't is no great wonder if the proper pleasures of the mind ingage it therefore when God would give a Precept liable to a Temptation of being broke he laid it in the sphere of those things that delight the Soul of Knowledge but far be it that those of sensuality should ever have prevail'd Man may yield to the pleasure of being like God but for pleasure to make himself a Beast is contradiction to Nature For pleasure is but satisfaction of our appetites and the more natural the inclination is the higher and more powerful that nature and the desire eagerer so much the more delightful is the satisfaction Now it is certain that the reasonable faculty the Soul or Spirit is the highest and most proper nature of a man In all the rest he 's not a step remov'd from Beasts unlesse it be in shape but in the accurateness of his senses is below them far and therefore must be so in sensual satisfactions but in his Soul he borders upon Angels and does come towards God Now then that Soul being mans peculiar nature the highest part of him It follows its delights Spiritual reasonable Joyes must needs be the most natural and most proper for it most conform'd to it and therefore the most taking with it This may be cleared most irrefragably A Beast hath several ingredients of Nature in his making he is an heavy body and a Vegetable and he hath also sense which is his highest nature Now though the only inclination of heavy bodies be to fall down to the Earth and this be also natural to a Beast we do not find that 't is his greatest pleasure sure he had rather feed than tumble in the Pasture his chief delight lyes in the satisfaction of his chiefest faculties wherein he does excell his Senses and as Beasts differ and transcend in these so do their pleasures also differ and exceed A man also as Aristotle sayes does live a threefold Life At first he is but a Plant-man a growing span of living Creature and he 's born only into Animality a Life of Sense and at last Educated into reasonable Now the delights of his first Stages whilst onely Vegetation and Sense live although proportioned to those states yet have no savour to the mind he grows through Nuts and Rattles to the use of Reason and the pleasures of it also these must keep even with the growing faculties and become higher rational and manly Which if they do not but the man still dwell upon the satisfactions of sense he does confound the Stages contradict the progresses of Nature he hath the age and strength of Reason but to play the Child with to exert it in those things that are but a Man's Rattles hath the sagacity of an Intelligence meerly to find out how to be a brute with greater luxury and rellish Come therefore shew me now the sins which the delights of Reason do betray you to and I 'le admit the plea But if you live your own reverse that you may dye renounce all your own pleasures first that so you may renounce the joyes of God and Heaven and fall from Nature that you may fall into Hell this case hath no pretence those pleasures cannot toll man on to death which till the man be dead and the brute onely live within him cannot be his pleasures and it is plain they are not pleasures to a Sober man that lives the life of Reason not to say of Grace Nor are they such to any man till he have train'd and exercis'd himself into an habit of enduring them and by a discipline of Torment made himself experienc't for Vice and for Damnation Nor is there ever any pleasure in some vices what is there in the dismal Wishes of mans imprecating passion there cannot be musick in those harsh horrours and yet these sinners will destruction so as that they call to God to pour it on them and tear it down from Heaven so that Pain and Disease seem to sauce those delights and Death to be the tempter to the pleasure 't is evident mens reasons and their Practises must be first debauch't that they may count them Pleasures and therefore pleasure cannot be the first mover in the sinners race to Death But I will grant that the Spirit and Flesh of Man by their so strait alliance and perpetual converse may grow to have the same likes and dislikes have but one appetite and this alas be that of flesh to whose only satisfactions the man useth himself by long Custome of which the Soul doth so imbibe the Inclinations of the Body that nothing of another kind can possibly be relisht In this case sensuality hath pleasures yet such as cannot answer Gods inquiry for do but consult mans other Choyces and you find a present satisfaction cannot work his Resolutions to forgo great after-hopes or run upon a foreseen ruine Who will exchange his right to the Reversion of a Crown which from his Father he shall certainly inherit and succeed to if he do out live him for a present Scene of Royalty and choose a painted Coronet the pomps and adorations of a Stage and the applauses of a Groud before the reall Glories of his Kingdom the love and the obedience of his Subjects And yet my Soul the disproportion of the sinners terms is infinitely greater and there is no hazzard which to make his choyce of present things more flattering the others hopes are liable to For that Heir of the Crown
frighted into Resurrection and more the Hypostatick Union seem'd rent by them the God to have forsaken his own person And can the sinner hope to stand this shock will the courage of his Iniquity make his heart harder than those Rocks more insensible than the Grave and better able to endure than he that was a God and will you dye into this state eternally which it was necessary for him to have the assistance of Divinity in his person that he might be able to endure one day and which yet notwithstanding made one day intolerable The sum is this a person so desiring death and yet so dreading it and sinking under the essayes of it and this person the Son of God and that dread meerly because there was sin in the Death for if this were not in the cause no Martyr but had born death with more courage but that Son of God all this as it does leave no Reason for the sinners choyce of death Eternal so neither doth it leave a possibility of bearing it And if so give me leave in God's Name to Expostulate the last imployment of these words Why will ye dye After this killing prospect while the damp of it is on you let my Bowells debate with you which yearn more over you than they did over my Beloved Son in whom I was well pleased when I have sent my onely Son God one with my own Self to be made Man that he might suffer what was necessary to be suffer'd to preserve you from eternal sufferings when I have laid on him that was brought up with me from everlasting and that was daily my Delight all your Iniquities and my own Indignation that so you might be freed from both When I have found out made an Expiation with which I am more pleased than ever your transgressions offended me which hath quite blotted out your sins and my Displeasure when your Redemption from death is made the Ransom paid the Price is in my hand why do you then refuse your selves your own Eternal Blessednesse which was thus dearly purchas'd and is ready for you Why will you seize that Indignation which you are redeemed from and force those sufferings on your selves which have been laid already and inflicted on another 'T is a small thing that you refuse me the return of my Expence that which I gave my Son for but do you renounce Happinesse because my Love and Blood is in it and will you dye because you may and I desire you should live when my Son went from the essential felicities of my bosome to embrace Agonies and dy'd for you why will you also dye as you have slain his Person will you Crucifie his Kindnesse too and crucifie your selves rather than have it and having us'd him most despightfully will you therefore use his favours so and not let his Death and Passion do you any good contemn his methods of Salvation his divine Acts of making you for ever Blessed is your Saviour and Life it self so hateful to you and after such Redemption of your persons is there no redemption of your Will from perishing nothing of value that can bribe your choyce against it nothing that can betroth you into a desire of Life and take you off from your resolves to dye had I set no advantage on the other side if sin had sweetned misery to your palate it had been no such great despite and contradiction to Appetite but when Heaven and the Joyes of God are in the Scale against it to prefer Misery is Wretchless beyond aggravation Oh why will you rather dye Those very things that tempt your Wills were they abstracted from the death they do inveigle you into were they sincere and innocent if they were set against that Life that blessed life immortal Life would vanish quite in the comparison when you should see they are but frolicks of delight that never take you but when you are tun'd up to them in moods and fits and the complacencies you take in them are but starts of Appetite that swells and breaks out to them and then falls again and so the pleasures dye even in the birth and therefore cannot satisfie indeed do but disquiet an immortal appetite such as man's is so that it were impossible to choose a life these rather although there were no misery annex't to them if you consider'd For it were to resolve that a few drops were more than an immence Ocean of Delight a Moment longer than Eternity a Part were bigger than the Whole an Atome greater than an Infinite Now there is nothing then that can prefer these to your choyce but the Death only and Oh will ye without and against all Temptation Will ye dye O thou my Soul take other Resolutions thou feest the things that men with so much care and sin provide to make their lives delightful here although successe answer their care are vain and helpless things and life it self as vain and I must dye and drop from them and therefore be thou sure to take a care their treacherous comforts do not make me dye into the everlasting want of them and of all comforts The Artificial pleasures of the Palate whether in meats or drinks forc't tast's that do at once satisfie and provoke the Appetite will rellish ill when I begin to swallow down my spittle but sure I am I am invited to the Supper of the Lamb to drink new Wine with Christ in my Father's Kingdom The fatted Calf is dressing for my Entertainment and shall I choose to be a while a Glutton with the Swine rather than the eternall Guest of my Father's Table and Bosom and refuse these for a few sick Excesses which would end in qualms and gall and vomits if there were no guilt to rejolt too and which will kindle a perpetual Feaver The Honours and the Glories of this Life will loose their shine when I am going to make my Bed in the Dark in a black lonely desolate hole of Earth my Gayeties must dye when I must say to Corruption thou art my Father and to the Worm thou art my Mother and my Sister And if there were pride or ambition in them their Worm will never dye that Pride will make me fall as low as Lucifer that Glory will go out into utter darknesse and that Ambition change my Honour into everlasting Shame Envy and Torment But sure I am that there are Glorious Robes and Thrones and Scepters in God's promises and let thy gayety my Soul be in the Robe of Immortality the Throne of thy Ambition that of Glory When I shall lye tortur'd or languishing in my last Bed Palaces and Possessions will no more relieve me than the Landskip of them in the Hangings can do it And if there were Covetousness Bribery Sacriledge or Injustice in them I shall be carryed out of these and have no other Habitation assigned me but with the Devil and his Angels shall inherit and possesse nothing but the Almighty's
the dead Secondly That one Lazarus and he First One out of Abraham's Bosom Secondly One that had seen him also in his Torments and could testifie of them v. 27. Thirdly We have here these fancied hopes all dash't in Abraham's answer And he said unto him if they believe not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead First of the first the Charitable careful contrivances this Rich man in Hell had for his Brethren upon Earth Nay Father Abraham c. It is commonly reported of men who know themselves infected by the Plague that they desire to infect as many others as they can they contrive to spread the Contagion and love society of Ruin and we are sure it is so in that Plague of the Soul Sin This humour did not content it self to debauch Heaven and unpeople Paradise but all the Ages of the world make up its Triumph and every sin that ever was and misery that shall be is its issue Lucifer's pride would have a train of Angels and Mankind to wait upon him in destruction And in such an attendance though to his everlasting cost he does still pride himself he feeds upon that envy that devours him and cheers himself with adding fewel to his flames that do torment him and upon this account enjoyes his own Agonies and God's Indignation And then it is no wonder if his Agents upon Earth enjoy the sport and if the Devil does not more please himself to see his Dominions enlarg'd and the business of Hell go forward than wicked men do in having others become like themselves as if they did derive to themselves and possess the pleasure as they do the guilt of those whom they draw in and the delight like the sin were all in all and all in every part of the whole Company that joyn in wickedness But it should seem 't is otherwise with the Sinners in Hell Our Rich man here when he saw his own estate remedilesse so vast a gulf betwixt him and the Bosom of Comfort that not the least drop of refreshment no not the hopes nor wishes of it could passe thence to him but Torment sealed upon him by an irreversible Decree he begins then to contrive for his Brethren how their falling into the like estate with him might be prevented v. 27 28. Nor satisfied with this when Abraham replyes they are provided well enough they have Moses and the Prophets the one Preaching the Law to them whose Rules they have made as familiar to them as their dresse they put on daily Gods Commandments and their duty make his Precepts their frontlets and their wristbands And the other the Prophets are Commissioned from God to lay before their eyes the issue of transgression give them a vision of the Judgments that await their sins and come to them burdned with the fore-knowledge of the sinners expectations so that except they will resolve to choose destruction wilfully to assault their own perdition there is no fear they should come thither those tell them as much as any from the dead can do Ah! but thinks he all those methods I had yet I am here and then let them have one other for as now after this little tast of Torments were I to live again I should most certainly avoid this place and lead another kind of life than that which does expire into this Tophet So if one went to tell them how it is with me sure then they would repent and not come hither therefore I pray thee send Nay Father Abraham c. I cannot here assent to Cardinal Cajetan's account that all this earnestnesse was onely pride in our Rich man and a desire to have the glory of his Family advance'd which as he laboured to raise here by Wealth so now finding by sad experience that was but a weak foundation to build a lasting House upon and that all the shine of it was but false treacherous light such as did end in flame with him and having made discovery of other greater glorys that Abraham and Lazarus possest he would have his Family as high and bright as they and this their Repentance which he took such care for was but in order to that exaltation If it were so truly it is the first pride I ever read of that would content it self with no meaner a dress than the Robes of Immortality and was ambitious of the Throne of Glory I have heard I confesse of a proud lowlinesse where the humility is but the manage and the art of being lofty is onely assum'd condescention whereby men but descend to be extol'd and stoop to take advantage for their mount But never heard of any pride that aimed to raise it self by the humiliations of Repentance that laid its groundwork in that dust and ashes cloath'd it self in the sackcloth and neglected rudnesses of a pious penitent sorrow The prides of this side Hell are of a different garb I 'm sure if theirs be such if they design by those just means to settle the inheritance of Heaven in their familys sure the vices of Hell may be fit patterns for our Religious performances and 't were to be desired that all Christians had this mans ardencies and flames in their affections to their houses Yet neither can I from this one particular instance draw any general proposition concerning the kindness of that place to sinners upon Earth although all those that make this History not Parable would give me colour for it But waving that since Christ hath so framed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a relation of such words as they would have spoke had they spoke on this occasion I shall take that as ground enough to apply it to the conviction of those who are so far from these Charitable designs to the Souls of others that they contrive nothing more than how to have the company of their friends in those wayes that lead to this place of Torment prevail with them to joyn in sinning and shew a vice how to insinuate into them The kindnesses of our man here in the flames were divine God-like Charities compared to these Our Saviour sayes Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones for I say unto you that in Heaven their Angels do alwayes behold the Face of my Father which is in Heaven Mat. 18. 10. Which one expounds if we neglect to do what shall be in our power to preserve the meanest Christians from vice and sleight their sinning their Tutelary Angels that have continual recourse to God and are high in his favour will make complaints of us in their behalf at least they will if we offend them and any action of ours prove an occasion of their sins And if a favourite of Heaven shall accuse us to the Lord for that Then how will he complain of us when we tempt when he shall have to say against us that we have ensnared and drawn such a Soul into a
executions of that Mercy and while God was plotting an Incarnation for the everlasting Safety of Mankind prevails with him to decree Ruins by the means of that Salvation to Decree even in the midst of all those strivings of his Mercies that that Issue of his kindnesse should be for the fall of such as they Oh! let such consider whether they are likely to escape that which is set and ordein'd for them by God Whether they can hope for a Redemption when the onely great Redeemer is appointed for the Instrument of their Destruction and God is so bent on their ruiâ—e that to purchase it he gives this Child his Son Yea when he did look down upon this Son in Agonies and on the Crosse in the midst of that sad prospect yet the Ruin of such sinners which he there beheld in his Sons Blood was a delight to him that also was a Sacrifice and a sacrifice of a sweet smell to him For S. Paul sayes We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that perish because we are the savour of Death unto death to them As if their Brimstone did ascend like Incense shed a persume up to God and their everlasting burnings were his Altar-fires kindled his holocausts and he may well be pleased with it for he ordein'd it 'T is true indeed This Child riding as in Triumph in the midst of his Hosannas when he saw one City whose fall he was set for on this very accompt He was so far from being pleas'd with it that he wept over it in pity But alas that onely more declares the most deplored and desperate condition of such sinners Blessed Saviour hadst thou no Blood to shed for them nothing but Tears or didst thou weep to think thy very Bloodshed does but make their guilt more crimson who refuse the mercy of that Bloodshed all the time that is offered Sad is their state that can find no pity in the Tears of God and remedilesse their Condition for whom all that the Son of God could do was to weep over them all that he did do for them was to be for their fall too sad a part indeed for Festival Solemnity very improper for a Benedictus and Magnificat To celebrate the greatest act of kindness the Almighty could design onely by the miseries it did occasion to magnifie the vast descent of God from Heaven down to Earth onely by reason of the fall of Man into the lowest Hell of which that was the cause My Text hath better things in view The greatnesse of that fall does but add height to that Resurrection which He also is the cause of For Behold this Child is set for the rising again of many My remaining part Rising again does not particularly and only refer to the fore-going fall here in the Text which this Child did occasion as I shewed you but to the state wherein all Mankind both in its nature and its Customes lay ingulfâ—d the state of Ignorance and sin A state from which recovery is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resurrection and a reviving in this Life and so call'd in Scripture often as Ephes. 5. 14. Wherefore he saith Awake thou that sleepest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and arise from the dead And Rom. 6. 13. Yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousnesse unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead Now to raise us from the death of sin into the life of Righteousnesse by the amendment of our own lives to recover us into a state of Vertue is the thing this Child is said here to be set for This was that which God thought worth an Incarnation Neither was there any greater thing in the prospect of his everlasting Counsel when he did decree his Son into the World than that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is set for this The Word was made Flesh to teach practise and perswade to Vertue To make men Reform their lives was valued at the price of a Person of the Trinity Piety and his Exiâ—anition yea his Blood and Life were set at the same rates All of him given for our recovery The time would fail me if I should attempt onely to name the various methods he makes use of to effect this How this Child that was the brightnesse of his Fathers Glory came to lighten us shining in his Doctrine and Example How he sent more light The fiery Tongues Illuminations of the Holy Ghost to guid us in the ways of Piety How he suffered Agonies and Death for sin to appale and fright us from it How he Rose again to confirm Judgment to us to demonstrate the rewards of Immortality to them that will repent and leave their sins and everlasting Torments to those that refuse this Grace Grace purchased with the Blood of God to enable them to repent and leave Besides all these the Arts and Mesnage of his Providence in preventing and following us by Mercies and by Judgments importuning us and timeing all his blessed Methods of Salvation to our most advantage Arts God knows too many if they serve us onely to resist and turn to wantonnesse and aggravation if we make no other use of Grace but this to sin against and overcome all Grace and make it bolster Vice by teaching it to be an incouragement to go on in it from some hopes we entertain by reason of this Child instead of doing that which he was set Decreed to make us do And really I would be glad to see this everlasting Counsel of the Lord had had some good effects some though never so little happy execution of this great Decree and that that which God ordein'd from all Eternity upon such glorious and magnificent terms were come to passe in any kind Now certainly there are no evident signs of any great recovery this Child hath wrought among us in the World that 's now call'd Christian. After those Omnipotent inforcives to a vertuous life which he did work out if we take a prospect of both Worlds it would be hard to know which were the Heathen and there would appear scarce any other notice of a Christ among us but that we blaspheme Him or deride Him Sure I am there are no Footsteps of him in the lives of the community of Men And I am certain that you cannot shew me any Heathen Age outgoing ours either in loosnesse and foul Esseminacies or in sordidnesse and base injustice or in frauds and falsenesse or Malignity hypocrisie or treachery or to name no more even in the lowest most ignoble disingenious sorts of Vice In fine men are now as Earthy Sensual yea and Devilish as when Sins and Devils were their Gods Yea I must needs say that those times of dark and Heathen Ignorance were in many men times of shining Vertue and the little spark of Light within them brake out through all obstructions into a glory of Goodnesse to the wonder and Confusion of most Christians
of their vicious worships had more force with them then miracle and reason And while the Christian disposest their Deities he was himself turned out of all his own possessions and although he made their God confess himself a Devil yet still poor he was made to suffer as a malefactour And 't is not strange if men now stick as closely to their vices as those did to the Gods that patronized them and it be as hard to exorcise the Devil out of their affections and practices as it was then out of Heathen Votaries or Temples They are as fierce against the Christian Religion for their lusts sake as those for their Venus and the very same account that made those Heathen customs or the lying wonders of false Christs or Pharaoh's Magicians signs be more persuasive then the other more real miracles namely because they sided with their inclinations and interests This very account makes little difficulties which Almighty God hath left in our Religion as he suffered signs and lying wonders heretofore for trials yea makes cavils mere exceptions pass for reasons most invincible be disputed urg'd with great concern and passion against all those methods of conviction which God hath afforded Christianity Now if this be to receive Religion as a little Child 't is with the frowardnesse of Children when they are displeas'd or ill at ease who resist and quarrell with the thing that is to make them well or please them and returne the Parents cares to ease and quiet them with little outrages and vexing And do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unwise Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee Hath he not made thee and establisht thee Ask thy Father and he will shew thee thy Elders and they will tell thee Deâ—t 32. 6 7. Now have Children any other way to know their Parents then to let their Father shew them and their Elders tell them Or should we cast off the relation and tenounce all the obedience due to it because we are not sure of it our selves For ought we know those may not be our Parents we have only testimony for it Thus we serve our God on that account and yet Hath he not made thee and establisht thee As he began us so did he not nurse and bear us in his arms and carry us in all our weaknesses and difficulties till he brought us up to a full strength Till by a miraculous and signal providence he had establisht settled us and after all these cares bestowed upon us do we prove a generation of vipers onely such as do requite the bowels that did bear and nourish them by preying on them and consuming them Or like the of-spring of a Spider who when he hath spent himself with weaving nets and working of them into labyrinths to be the granaries and the defences of his brood to catch them prey and to secure them then the strongest of his young ones when he is by these his cares establisht and grown ripe to destroy makes those threads fatal to his parent which he spun out of his bowels to be thread of life to him And shall we be such children to our Father that establisht us make all his plenties turn to poison in us and invenome us against himself make his miraculous mercies furnish us for the abuse and provocation of him his blest Providence serve onely to afford us arguments against it self help to confute it self because it hath so prospered doth still suffer us But after all this is he not thy Father that hath bought thee who to all his titles to us his endearing obligations notwithstanding our despites and provocations of them yet did give the life of his own Son to purchase o're again the same relation to us that we might have right to the inheritance of his Kingdom And then however we have hitherto affronted let us be content now to be bought and hir'd to receive that Kingdom of God as his children for if children then heirs heirs of God and joynt heirs with Christ who died to make us Kings and Priests to God and his Father To whom be glory c. A SERMON PREACHED IN S. PETERS WESTMINSTER ON Sunday Jan. 6. 1660. at the Consecration of the Right Reverend Fathers in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of Bristoll EDWARD Lord Bishop of Norwich NICHOLAS Lord Bishop of Hereford WILLIAM Lord Bishop of Glocester BY RICHARD ALLESTRY D. D. Canon of Christ Church in Oxford and one of His Majesties Chaplains LONDON Printed by Thomas Roycroft for James Allestry at the Rose and Crown in Saint Paul's Church-yard 1669. TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD GILBERT LORD Bishop of LONDON and Dean of His Majesties Chappel Royal. My LORD WHEN I consider with what reluctancies I appear thus in publick I have all reason to suspect and fear lest this offering which like an unwilling Sacrifice was dragg'd to the Altar and which hath great defects too will be far from propitiating either for its self or for the votary But I must crave leave to add that how averse soever I was to the publishing this rude Discourse I make the Dedication with all possible zeal and ready cheerfulness For I exspect your Lordship to be a Patron not only to my Sermon but to my Subject Such a separate eminence of virtue and of sweetness mixt together may hope to ingratiate Your Function to a Generation of men that will not yet know their own good but resist mercy and are not content to be happy And for my self Your Lordships great goodness and obligingness hath encourag'd me not only to hope that you will pardon all the miscarriages of what I now present but also to presume to shelter it and my self under your Lordships Name and Command and to honour my self before the world by this address and by assuming the relation of My Lord Your Lordships most humbly devoted and most faithful Servant RICH. ALLESTRY SERMON XVI IN St. PETERS WEST MINSTER January 6. 1660. ACTS XIII 2. The Holy Ghost said Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them AND as they ministred to the Lord and fasted the holy Ghost said Although that ministring to God by prayer and fasting be the indicted and appropriate acts to preface such Solemnities as this and that not Sermons but Litanies and intercessions are the peculiar adherents of Embers and of Consecrations and those vigorous strivings with Almighty God by Prayer are the birth-pangs in which Fathers are born unto the Church Yet since that novv this Sacred Office is it self oppos'd and even the Mission of Preachers preach'd against and the Authority that sends despis'd as Antichristian vvhilst separation and pretence unto the Holy Ghost set up themselves against the strict injunction of the Holy Ghost to separate the Pulpit that othervvhiles hath fought against it must novv attone its errours by attending on the Altar and the bold ungrounded claimes of Inspiration that false teachers
though we do not find that done yet vve do find his piety and his uprightness made the standard by vvhich that of his Successors is meted Of one 't is said he walked in the waies of David his father of another he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord but not like unto David his father And because David vvent aside and vvas upright vvith an Exception once therefore it is said The Lord was with Iehoâ—haphat because he walkt in the first â— ayes of his father David But besides this his very name is given to two Zorobabel and the Messiah both vvhich vvere to be the restorers of their people the one from Sin and Hell to re-establish the Kingdome of heaven it self the other to deliver his people from Babel and to repair a broken Nation and demolish'd Temple And for this vvork God bids them seek David their King The vvaies from Babel to Ierusalem from the Confusion of a people to a City that is at unity in it self the City of God where he appears in perfect beauty and where the throne of the house of David is must be the first vvaies of David in those he vvalk'd to Sion and did invest his people in God's promises the vvhole land of Canaan In those Zorobabel brought them back to that land and Sion And in these our Messiah leads us to Mount Sion that is above to the celestial Ierusalem does build an universal Church and Heaven it self And all that have the like to do must vvalk in those first waies fulfill that part of David and must copy Christ. Such the repairers of great breaches must be these are the vvaies to settle Thrones the only vvaies in vvhich vve may find the goodness of the Lord vvhich to fear is the third direction and my last part They shall fear the Lord and his goodness 3. That Israel vvho came but now out of the furnate should fear the Lord vvhose vvrath did kindle it vvhose justice they had found such a consuming fire as to make the Temple it self a Sacrifice and the vvhole Nation a burnt-offering is reasonable to expect but vvhen his goodness had repair'd all this to require them to fear that does seem hard That that goodness vvhich vvhen it is once apprehended does commit a rape upon our faculties and being tasted melts the heart and causes dissolution of soul through swoons of complacency that this should be received vvith dread and treâ—bling is most strange Indeed the Psalmist saies There is mercy with God that he may be feared for vvere there not vve should grow desperate but how to fear those mercies is not easie 'T is true when God made his goodness pass before Moscs shewed him the glory of it as he saies in those most comfortable attributes the sight of vvhich is beatiâ—ick Vision Exod. 34. 6 c. The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin if that vvhich follows there be part of it and that will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers up on the children unto the third and fourth generation if this be one ray of the glory of goodness if it dart out such beams alas 't is as devouring as the lake of fire his very goodness stabs vvhole successions at once and the guilty may tremble at it for themselves and their posterity But if those vvords do mean as vve translate those very vvords Jer. 46. 28. I vvill not leave thee altogether unpunish'd yet will not utterly cut off not make a full end of the guilty vvhen I visit iniquities upon the children but vvill leave them a remnant still then there is nothing dreadful in â—t but those very visitations have kindness in them and his rod comforts and this issue of his goodness also is not terrible but lovely To fear God's goodness therefore is to revere it to entertain it vvith a pious â—stonishment acknowledging themselves unworthy of the crums of it especially not daring to provoke it by surfeting or by presuming on it or by abusing it to serve ill ends or any other than God sent it for those of piety and obedience not to comply vvith vvhich is to defeat God's kindness and the designs of it If vvhen they sought the Lord he vvas found of them and came to his dwelling place onely to be forc'd thence again by their abominations if vvhen his goodness had restor'd all to them they had David their King but to conspire against an Altar onely to pollute and a Temple to separate from as Manasses the Priest Sanballat's son in law vvith his accomplices did doe this vvere both to affront and to renounce that goodness vvhich above all things they must dread the doing for if this be offended too ruine is irreversible thoâ—e is no other attribute in God a sinner can fly to vvith any hope His Holiness cannot behold iniquity his Iustice speaks nothing but condemnation to guilt his Power vvithout kindness is but omnipotent destruction but if vve have his Goodness on our side vve have an Advocate in his own bosome that vvill bear up against the rest for his mercy is over all his attributes as vvell as vvorks but if this also be exasperated and kindness grow severe there is no refuge in the Lord no shadow of him to take Sanctuary under for there is nothing to allay the anger of his Compassion and Bounty This sure is the extreamest terrour we are to dread his kindness more than his severity and wrath we have an antidote a buckler against these but none against the other if it be provok'd and if the heats of love take fire and rise into indignation 't is unquenchable flame and everlasting burning Therefore when God hath done all things that he can do or they can wish then most of all they must fear the Lord and his goodness My Text and I have spoke all this vvhile to the Iews nor do I know vvhether I need to address any other vvay all this did so directly point at us The glories of this day need not the foil of those calamities from vvhich this day redeem'd to set them off Or you may read them in my Prophet here and our own guilts will make too sad a Comment on his Text who were more barbarous Assyrians to our selves We also were without a Prince and without Sacrifice had neither King nor Church nor Offices because we our selves had destroy'd them and that we might not have them had engag'd or covenanted against them ty'd to our miseries so that without perjury we could neither be without them nor yet have them As we had broke through all our sacred oaths to invade and usurp calamity and guilt so neither could we repent without breach of Vows If â—â— is were not enough to make us be without a God too then to drive him away vve
hath almost undone us and truly where it does not better it is the most fearful of Gods Attributes or Plagues for it does harden there S. Paul says so in the forecited place and Origen does prove this very thing did harden Pharaâ—hs heart indulgence was his induration Now induration is the being put in Hell upon the Earth There is the same impenitence in both and judgment is pronounced already on the hardned and the life they lead is but the interval betwixt the Sentence and the Execution and all their sunshine of Prosperity is but kindled Brimstone onely without the stench And then to make the treasures of Gods bounty be treasures of vvrath to us to make his kindness his long-suffering that is S. Peter says salvation condemn us his very goodness be Hell to us But sure so great a goodness as this we have tasted cannot have such deadly issues and it was great indeed so perfectly miraculous in such strange and continued successes resisting our contrivances and our sins too over-coming all opposition of our vices and our own policies that do not comport with it and in despight of all still doing us good it was fatality of goodness Now sure that which is so victorious will not be worsted by us But Oh! have we not reason so much more to fear the goodness The greater and more undeserved it is the more suspicious it is As if it were the last bâ—azâ— of the Candle of the Lord when its light gasps its flâ—sh of shine before it do go out the dying struggles and extream efforts of goodness to see if at the last any thing can be wâ—oughâ— by it And if we did consider how some men menage the present goodness make use of this time of it and take and catch we would believe they did â—ear the departure of it But vet it is in our power to fix it here If we repent Gods gifts then are witâ— out repentance but one of us must change Bâ—ing Piety and Vertue into countenance and fashion and God will dwell among us Nay S. Paul says Goodness to thee if thou continue in his goodness If we our selves do not forsake it and renounce it not fear it so aâ— to flâ—â— from it but with the fears of sinking men that catch anâ— grasp lay fast dead hold upon it if as God promâ—ses he so put his fear in our hearts that vve never depart from it fear that hath love in it and is as unitive as that then it shâ—ll never depart from us but we shall see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living and shall be taken thence to the eternal fulness of it This day shall be the Birth-day of Immortal Life the entring on a Kingdom that cannot be moved A Crown tâ—us beautified is a Crovvn of glory here and shall add weight and splendor to the Crown hereafter A Church thus furnished is a Church Tâ—umphant in this World and such a Government is the Kingdom of Heaven upon Earth and then we shall all reign with him who is the King of Kings and vvho vvashed us in his Blood to make us Kings and Priests to God and his Father To vvhom be glory and dominion for ever Amen FINIS SERMON XVIII AT CHRIST'S-CHURCH in Oxford on St. Steven's Day MATTH V. 44. But I say unto you love your Enemies blesse them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you I Need no Artifice to tie this Subject and this Day together The Saint whose memory we celebrate was the Martyr of this Text and 't is impossible to keep the Feast but by a resolution of obeying these Commands you being call'd together on this day to beseech God to grant that you by the example of this first Martyr St. Stephen who pray'd for his Murderers may learn to love your Enemies and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you A strange command in an age in which we scarcely can finde men that love their friends nor any thing but that which serves their interests or pleasures that indeed love nothing but themselves nor is it onely injury that works their hate and enmity but difference in opinion divides hearts and men are never to be reconcil'd that have not the same mind in every thing as if one Heaven should not hold them that have not one judgement in all things we see that one Church cannot hold them and they that have but one same God one Redeemer and Saviour one Holy Spirit of Supplication cannot agree yet in one Prayer to him though they have but one same thing to pray for to him will not meet in their Worship because they doe not in some Sentiments and 't is no wonder all Christ's reasonings and upbraidings all the Advantages He does propose to them that love the shames he casts on them that doe not by putting them out of his Train into the condemnation of Publicans 't is no wonder all this does not work with them whom their own sufferings and black Calamities will not convince There is not one of us but knows that thus our miseries began but few years since and yet we that have suffered for and by our Divisions whose quarrels wounded the whole Nation and our selves who have wept so much bloud at once to vent and to bewail our differences are still as full of the same animosities as ever and want nothing but opportunity to confound all again Religion and our selves And in the name of God what did Christ mean when He prescrib'd this Precept when he disputed prest it thus or what doe Christians mean when they doe break and tear this Precept and themselves Though I be farre from any hopes to reconcile our Parties as by Gods help I shall ever be from making any yet I will offer an Expedient to make them not so noxious namely if they will keep the differences of their judgements from breaking out into their affections and actions And though while meekness and obedience to Governours and the whole constellation of Gospel-graces doe not seem to shine so fair as man's own reputation or humor or possibly some strict opinion which they have own'd and the shew of holiness that glitters in it while 't is thus I say we cannot look any party will yield all doe or will believe themselves to be in the right Yet I will give them leave to think so and my prescription shall concern them equally although they be and by addressing my Discourse to them that are so really I shall conclude more forcibly them that are not who ere they be for sure I am none can be more in the right than those whom Christ lays this injunction upon than his Disciples and Apostles as relating to those that would be their Enemies as such yet 't is to them he speaks here I say unto you love your enemies c. The words