repent That is to be sorrowfull and to leave all our sins and to make amends by a holy life For that we might be admitted and suffered to do so God was fain to pour forth all the riches of his goodnesse It cost our deerest Lord the price of his deerest blood many a thousand groans millions of prayers and sighes and at this instant he is praying for our repentance nay he hath prayed for our repentance these 1600. yeers incessantly night and day and shall do so till doomes day He sits at the right hand of God making intercession for us And that we may know what he prayes for he hath sent us Embassadours to declare the purpose of all his designe for Saint Paul saith We are Embassadours for Christ as though he did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God The purpose of our Embassy and Ministery is a prosecution of the mercies of God and the work of Redemption and the intercession and mediation of Christ It is the work of atonement and reconciliation that God designed and Christ died for and still prayes for and we preach for and you all must labour for And therefore here consider if it be not infinite impiety to despise the riches of such a goodnesse which at so great a charge with such infinite labour and deep mysterious arts invites us to repentance that is to such a thing which could not be granted to us unlesse Christ should die to purchase it such a glorious favour that is the issue of Christs prayers in heaven and of all his labours his sorrows and his sufferings on earth if we refuse to repent now we do not so much refuse to do our own duty as to accept of a reward it is the greatest and the dearest blessing that ever God gave to Men that they may repent and therefore to deny it or to delay it is to refuse health brought us by the skill and industry of the Physitian it is to refuse liberty indulged to us by our gracious Lord and certainly we had reason to take it very ill if at a great expence we should purchase a pardon for a servant and he out of a peevish pride or negligence shall refuse it the scorne payes it self the folly is its own scourge and sets down in an inglorious ruine After the enumeration of these glories these prodigies of mercies loving kindnesses of Christs dying for us and interceding for us and merely that we may repent and be saved I shall lesse need to instance those other particularities wherby God continues as by so many arguments of kindnesse to sweeten our natures and make them malleable to the precepts of love and obedience the twinne daughters of holy repentance but the poorest person amongst us besides the blessing and graces already reckoned hath enough about him and the accidents of every day to shame him into repentance Does not God send his angels to keep thee in all thy wayes are not they ministring spirits sent forth to wait upon thee as thy guard art not thou kept from drowning from fracture of bones from madnesse from deformities by the riches of the divine goodnesse Tell the joynts of thy body dost thou want a finger and if thou doest not understand how great a blessing that is do but remember how ill thou canst spare the use of it when thou hast but a thorn in it The very privative blessings the blessings of immunity safeguard and integrity which we all enjoy deserve a thanks giving of a whole life If God should send a cancer upon thy face or a wolf into thy brest if he should spread a crust of leprosie upon thy skin what wouldest thou give to be but as now thou art it wouldest thou not repent of thy sins upon that condition which is the greater blessing to be kept from them or to be cured of them and why therfore shall not this greater blessing lead thee to repentance why do we not so aptly promise repentance when we are sick upon the condition to be made well and yet perpetually forget it when we are well as if health never were a blessing but when we have it not rather I fear the reason is when we are sick we promised to repent because then we cannot sin the sins of our former life but in health our appetites return to their capacity and in all the way we despise the riches of the divine goodnesse which preserves us from such evils which would be full of horror and amazement if they should happen to us Hath God made any of you all chapfallen are you affrighted with spectars and illusions of the spirits of darknesse how many earthquakes have you been in how many dayes have any of you wanted ◠read how many nights have you been without sleep 〈◊〉 any of you distracted of your senses and if God gives you meat and drink health and sleep proper seasons of the year in the senses and an useful understanding what a great unworthynesse it is to be unthankful to so good a God so benigne a Father so gracious a Lord All the evils and basenesse of the world can shew nothing baser and more unworthy then ingratitude and therefore it was not unreasonably said of Aristottle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prosperity makes a man love God supposing men to have so much humanity left in them as to love him from whom they have received so many favours And Hippocrates said that although poor men use to murmur against God yet rich men will be offering sacrifice to their Diety whose beneficiaries they are Now since the riches of the divine goodnesse are so poured out upon the meanest of us all if we shal refuse to repent which is a condition so reasonable that God requiers it onely for our sake and that it may end in our felicity we do our selves despite to be unthankful to God that is we become miserable by making our selves basely criminal And if any man with whom God hath used no other method but of his sweetnesse and the effusion of mercies brings no other fruits but the apples of Sodom in return for all his culture and labours God wil cut off that unprofitable branch that with Sodom it may suffer the flames of everlasting burning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If here we have good things and a continual shower of blessings to soften our stony hearts and we shall remain obdurat against those sermons of mercy which God makes us every day there will come a time when this shall be upbraided to us that we had not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thankful minde but made God to sowe his seed upon the sand or upon the stones without increase or restitution It was a sad alarum which God sent to David by Nathan to upbraid his ingratitude I anointed thee king over Israel I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul
our abode yet we misse in the manner and either we aske for evill ends or without religion and awefull apprehensions or we rest in the words and signification of the prayer and never take care to passe on to action or else we sacrifice in the company of Corah being partners of a schisme or a rebellion in religion or we bring unhallowed censers our hearts send up to God an unholy smoak a cloud from the fires of lust and either the flames of lust or rage of wine or revenge kindle the beast that is laid upon the altar or we bring swines flesh or a dogs neck whereas God never accepts or delights in a prayer unlesse it be for a holy thing to a lawfull end presented unto him upon the wings of Zeal and love of religious sorrow or religious joy by sanctified lips and pure bands and a sincere heart It must be the prayer of a gracious man and he is onely gracious before God and acceptable and effective in his prayer whose life is holy and whose prayer is holy For both these are necessary ingredients to the constitution of a prevailing prayer there is a holinesse peculiar to the man and a holinesse peculiar to the prayer that must adorn the prayer before it can be united to the intercession of the Holy Jesus in which union alone our prayers can be prevailing God heareth not sinners so the blind man in the text and confidently this we know he had reason indeed for his confidence it was a proverbiall saying and every where recorded in their Scriptures which were read in the synagogues every Sabbath day For what is the hope of the hypocrite saith Job will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him No he will not For if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear mee said David and so said the Spirit of the Lord by the Son of David When distresse and anguish cometh upon you Then shall they call upon mee but I will not answer they shall seek mee early but they shall not find mee and Isaiah When you spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you yea when you make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of bloud and again When they fast I will not hear their cry and when they will offer burnt offerings and oblations I will not accept them For they have loved to wander they have not refrained their feet therefore the Lord will not accept them hee will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins Upon these and many other authorities it grew into a proverb Deus non exaudit peccatores it was a known case and an established rule in the religion Wicked persons are neither fit to pray for themselves nor for others Which proposition let us first consider in the sense of that purpose which the blind man spoke it in and then in the utmost extent of it as its analogie and equall reason goes forth upon us and our necessities The man was cured of his blindnesse and being examined concerning him that did it named and gloryed in his Physitian but the spitefull Pharisees bid him give glory to God and defie the Minister for God indeed was good but he wrought that cure by a wicked hand No says he this is impossible If this man were a sinner and a false Prophet for in that instance the accusation was intended God would not hear his prayers and work miracles by him in verification of a lye A false Prophet could not work true miracles this hath received its diminution when the case was changed for at that time when Christ preached Miracles was the onely or the great verification of any new revelation and therefore it proceeding from an Almighty God must needs be the testimony of a Divine truth and if it could have been brought for a lye there could not then have been sufficient instruction given to mankind to prevent their beleef of false Prophets and lying doctrines But when Christ proved his doctrine by miracles that no enemy of his did ever doe so great before or after him then he also told that after him his friends should doe greater and his enemies should do some but they were fewer and very inconsiderable and therefore could have in them no unavoydable cause of deception because they were discovered by a Prophesie and caution was given against them by him that did greaten miracles and yet ought to have been beleeved if he had done but one because against him there had been no caution but many prophesies creating such expectations concerning him which he verified by his great works So that in this sense of working miracles though it was infinitely true that the blind man said then when he said it yet after that the case was alter'd and Sinners Magicians Astrologers Witches Hereticks Simoniacks and wicked persons of other instances have done miracles and God hath heard sinners and wrought his own works by their hands or suffered the Devill to doe his works under their pretences and many at the day of Judgment shall plead that they have done miracles in Christs name and yet they shall be rejected Christ knows them not and their portion shall bee with dogs and goats and unbeleevers There is in this case onely this difference that they who doe miracles in opposition to Christ doe them by the power of the Devill to whom it is permitted to doe such things which wee think miracles and that is all one as though they were but the danger of them is none at all but to them that will not beleeve him that did greater miracles and prophesied of these lesse and gave warning of their attending danger and was confirmed to be a true teacher by voices from heaven and by the resurrection of his body after a three days buriall So that to these the proposition still remains true God hears not sinners God does not work those miracles but concerning sinning Christians God in this sense and towards the purposes of miracles does hear them and hath wrought miracles by them for they doe them in the name of Christ and therefore Christ said cannot easily speak ill of him and although they either prevaricate in their lives or in superinduced doctrines yet because the miracles are a verification of the Religion not of the opinion of the power or truth of Christ not of the veracity of the man God hath heard such persons many times whom men have long since and to this day call Hereticks such were the Novatians and Arrians For to the Heathens they could onely prove their Religion by which they stood distinguished from them but we find not that they wrought miracles among the Christians or to verifie their superstructures and private opinions But besides this yet we may also by such means arrest the forwardnesse of our judgments and condemnations of persons disagreeing in their opinions from us for those persons whose faith
aut ulla Maria purificent said Lactantius they come to their prayers dressed round about with wickednesse ut quercus hederâ and think God will accept their offering if their skin be wash'd as if a river could purifie their lustfull souls or a sea take off their guilt But David reconciles the ceremony with the mysterie I will wash my hands I will wash them in innocency and so will I goe to thine altar Hae sunt verae munditiae saies Tertullian non quas plerique superstitione curant ad omnem orationem etiam cum lavacro totius corporis aquam sumentes This is the true purification not that which most men doe superstitiously cleansing their hands and washing when they go to prayers but cleansing the soul from all impiety and leaving every affection to sin then they come pure to God And this is it which the Apostle also signifies having translated the Gentile and Jewish ceremony into the spirituality of the Gospell I will therefore that men pray every where levantes puras manus lifting up cleane hands so it is in the Vulgar Latine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in the Greek holy hands That 's the purity that God looks for upon them that lift up their hands to him in prayer and this very thing is founded upon the Naturall constitution of things and their essentiall proportion to each other 1. It is an act of profanation for any unholy person to handle holy things and holy offices For if God was ever carefull to put all holy things into cancels and immure them with acts and laws and cautions of separation and the very sanctification of them was nothing else but the solemn separating them from common usages that himself might bee distinguished from men by actions of propriety it is naturally certain he that would be differenc'd from common things would be infinitely divided from things that are wicked If things that are lawfull may yet be unholy in this sense much more are unlawfull things most unholy in all senses If God will not admit of that which is beside Religion he will lesse endure that which is against Religion And therefore if a common man must not serve at the altar how shall he abide a wicked man to stand there No he will not indure him but he will cast him and his prayer into the separation of an infinite and eternall distance Sic profanatis sacris peritura Troja perdidit primùm Deos So Troy entred into ruine when their prayers became unholy and they profan'd the rites of their Religion 2. A wicked person while he remains in that condition is not the naturall object of pity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Zeno Mercy is a sorrow or a trouble at that misery which falls upon a person which deserv'd it not And so Aristotle defines it it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When we see the person deserves a better fortune or is dispos'd to a fairer intreaty then wee naturally pity him and Sinon pleaded for pity to the Trojans saying Miserere animi non digna serentis For who pityeth the tears of a base man who hath treacherously murthered his friend or who will lend a friendly sigh when he sees a traitor to his country passe forth through the execrable gates of cities and when any circumstance of basenesse that is any thing that takes off the excuse of infirmity does accompany a sin such as are ingratitude perjury perseverance delight malice treachery then every man scorns the criminall and God delights and rejoyces in and laughs at the calamity of such a person When Vitellius with his hands bound behind him his Imperiall robe rent and with a dejected countenance and an ill name was led to execution every man cursed him but no man wept Deformitas exitus misericordiam abstulerat saith Tacitus The filthinesse of his life and death took away pity So it is with us in our prayers while we love our sin we must nurse all its children and when we roare in our lustfull beds and groane with the whips of an exterminating Angell chastising those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aretas calls them the lusts of the lower belly wantonnesse and its mother intemperance we feel the price of our sin that which God foretold to be their issues that which he threatned us withall and that which is the naturall consequent and its certaine expectation that which we delighted in and chose even then when we refused God and threw away felicity and hated vertue For punishment is but the latter part of sin it is not a new thing and distinct from it or if we will kisse the Hyaena or clip the Lamia about the neck we have as certainly chosen the taile and its venemous embraces as the face and lip Every man that sins against God and loves it or which is all one continues in it for by interpretation that is love hath all the circumstances of unworthinesse towards God hee is unthankfull and a breaker of his vowes and a despiser of his mercies and impudent against his judgments he is false to his profession false to his faith hee is an unfriendly person and useth him barbarously who hath treated him with an affection not lesse then infinite and if any man does half so much evill and so unhandsomely to a man we stone him with stones and curses with reproach and an unrelenting scorn And how then shall such a person hope that God should pity him for God better understands and deeper resents and more essentially hates and more severely exacts the circumstances and degrees of basenesse then we can doe and therefore proportionably scorns the person and derides the calamity Is not unthankfulnesse to God a greater basenesse and unworthinesse then unthanfulnesse to our Patron And is not hee as sensible of it and more then wee These things are more then words and therefore if no man pities a base person let us remember that no man is so base in any thing as in his unhandsome demeanour towards God Doe wee not professe our selves his servants and yet serve the Devill Doe we not live upon Gods provision and yet stand or work at the command of lust or avarice humane regards and little interests of the world We call him Father when we desire our portion and yet spend it in the society of all his enemies In short Let our actions to God and their circumstances be supposed to be done towards men and we should scorn our selves and how then can we expect God should not scorne us and reject our prayer when we have done all the dishonour to him and with all the unhandsomnesse in the world Take heed lest we fall into a condition of evill in which it shall be said You may thank your selves and be infinitely afraid lest at the same time we be in a condition of person in which God will upbraid our unworthinesse and scorne our persons and rejoyce in our calamity The first is intolerable
of the most secret sin transparent as a net and visible as the Chian wines in the purest Crystall For besides that God takes care of Kings and of the lives of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 driving away evill from their persons and watching as a Mother to keep gnats and flies from her dear boy sleeping in the cradle there are in the machinations of a mighty mischief so many motions to be concentred so many wheels to move regularly and the hand that turns them does so tremble and there is so universall a confusion in the conduct that unlesse it passes suddenly into act it will be prevented by discovery and if it be acted it enters into such a mighty horror that the face of a man will tell what his heart did think and his hands have done And after all it was seen and observed by him that stood behinde the cloud who shall also bring every work of darknesse into light in the day of strange discoveries and fearfull recompences and in the mean time certain it is that no man can long put on a person and act a part but his evill manners will peep through the corners of the white robe and God will bring an hypocrite to shame even in the eyes of men 2. A second superinduced consequent of sin brought upon it by the wrath of God is sin when God punishes sin with sin he is extreamly angry for then the punishment is not medicinal but finall and exterminating God in that case takes no care concerning him though he dies and dies eternally I do not here speak of those sins which are naturally consequent to each other as evill words to evill thoughts evill actions to evill words rage to drunkennesse lust to gluttony pride to ambition but such which God suffers the mans evill nature to be tempted to by evill opportunities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the wrath of God and the man is without remedy It was a sad calamity when God punished Davids adultery by permitting him to fall to murder and Solomons wanton and inordinate love with the crime of idolatry and Ananias his sacriledge with lying against the holy Ghost and Judas his covetousnesse with betraying his Lord and that betraying with despair and that despair with self-murder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One evill invites another and when God is angry and withdrawes his grace and the holy Spirit is grieved and departs from his dwelling the man is left at the mercy of the mercilesse enemy and he shall receive him only with variety of mischiefs like Hercules when he had broken the horn of Achelous he was almost drown'd with the floud that sprung from it and the evill man when he hath pass'd the first scene of his sorrowes shall be intic'd or left to fall into another For it is a certain truth that he who resists or that neglects to use Gods grace shall fall into that evill condition that when he wants it most he shall have least It is so with every man he that hath the greatest want of the grace of God shall want it more if this great want proceeded once from his own sin Habenti dabitur said our blessed Lord to him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundantly from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath It is a remarkable saying of David I have thought upon thy name O Lord in the night season and have kept thy Law this I had because I kept thy Commandements keeping Gods Commandements was rewarded with keeping Gods Commandements And in this world God hath not a greater reward to give for so the soul is nourished unto life so it growes up with the increase of God so it passes onto a perfect man in Christ so it is consigned for heaven and so it enters into glory for glory is the perfection of grace and when our love to God is come to its state and perfection then we are within the circles of a Diadem and then we are within the regions of felicity And there is the same reason in the contrary instance The wicked person fals into sin and this he had because he sinn'd against his maker Tradidit Deus eos in desideria cordis eorum and it concerns all to observe it and if ever we finde that a sin succeeds a sin in the same instance it is because we refuse to repent but if a sin succeeds a sin in another instance as if lust followes pride or murder drunkennesse it is a sign that God will not give us the grace of repentance he is angry at us with a destructive fury he hath dipt his arrowes in the venome of the serpent and whets his-sword in the forges of hell then it is time that a man withdraw his foot and that he start back from the preparations of an intolerable ruine For though men in this case grow insensible and that 's part of the disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostome it is the biggest part of the evill that the man feels it not yet the very antiperistasis or the contrariety the very horror and bignesse of the danger may possibly make a man to contend to leap out of the fire and sometimes God works a miracle and besides his own rule delights to reform a dissolute person to force a man from the grave to draw him against the bent of his evill habits yet it is so seldome that we are left to consider that such persons are in a desperate condition who cannot be saved unlesse God is pleased to work a miracle 3. Sinne brings in its retinue fearfull plagues and evill angels messengers of the displeasure of God concerning which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there are enough of dead I mean the experience is so great and the notion so common and the examples so frequent and the instances so sad that there is scarce any thing new in this particular to be noted but something is remarkable and that is this that God even when he forgives the sin does reserve such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such remains of punishment and those not only to the lesse perfect but to the best persons that it makes demonstration that every sinner is in a worse condition then he dreams of For consider can it be imagined that any one of us should escape better then David did we have reason to tremble when we remember what he suffered even when God had seal'd his pardon Did not God punish Zedekiah with suffering his eyes to be put out in the house of bondage was not God so angry with Valentinian that he gave him into his enemies hand to be flay'd alive Have not many persons been struck suddenly in the very act of sin and some been seised upon by the Devill and carryed away alive These are fearfull contingencies but God hath been more angry yet rebellion was punished in Corah and his company
in order to his amendment * by an authorized person * in the limits of a just reproofe * upon just occasion * and so as may not doe him mischief in the event of things For so we finde that our blessed Saviour cal'd his Disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foolish and S. James used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain man signifying the same with the forbidden raca 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain uselesse or empty and St. Paul calls the Galatians mad and foolish and bewitched and Christ called Herod Fox and St. John called the Pharisees the generation of vipers and all this matter is wholly determined by the manner and with what minde it is done If it be for correction and reproofe towards persons that deserve it and by persons whose authority can warrant a just and severe reproofe and this also be done prudently safely and usefully it is not contumely But when men upon all occasions revile an offending person lessening his value sowring his spirit and his life despising his infirmities tragically expressing his lightest misdemeanour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being tyrannically declamatory and intolerably angry for a trifle these are such who as Apollonius the Philosopher said will not suffer the offending person to know when his fault is great and when 't is little For they who alwayes put on a supreme anger or expresse the lesse anger with the highest reproaches can doe no more to him that steals then to him that breaks a Crystall Non plus aequo non diutiùs aequo was a good rule for reprehension of offending servants But no more anger no more severe language then the thing deserves if you chide too long your reproofe is changed into reproach if too bitterly it becomes railing if too loud it is immodest if too publick it is like a dog 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the man told his wife in the Greek Comedy to follow me in the streets with thy clamorous tongue is to doe as dogs doe not as persons civill or religious 4. The fourth instance of the calumniating filthy communication is that which we properly call slander or the inventing evill things falsely imputing crimes to our neighbor Falsum crimen quasi venenatum telum said Cicero A false tongue or a foul lye against a mans reputation is like a poysoned arrow it makes the wound deadly and every scratch to be incurable Promptissima vindicta contumelia said one To reproach and rail is a revenge that every girl can take But falsely to accuse is spiteful as Hel and deadly as the blood of Dragons Stoicus occidit Baream delator amicum This is the direct murther of the Tongue for life and death are in the hand of the tongue said the Hebrew proverbe and it was esteemed so vile a thing that when Jesabel commanded the Elders of Israel to suborn false witnesses against Naboth she gave them instructions to take two men the sons of Belial none else were fit for the imployment Quid non audebis perfida lingua loqui This was it that broke Ephraim in judgement and executed the fierce anger of the Lord upon him God gave him over to be oppressed by a false witnesse quoniam coepit abire post sordes therefore he suffered calumny and was overthrown in judgement This was it that humbled Joseph in fetters and the iron entred into his soule but it crushed him not so much as the false tongue of his revengefull Mistresse untill his cause was known and the Word of the Lord tryed him This was it that flew Abimelech and endanger'd David it was a sword in manu linguae Doeg in the hand of Doegs tongue By this Siba cut off the legs of Mephibosheth and made his reputation lame forever it thrust Jeremy into the dungeon and carryed Susanna to her stake and our Lord to his Crosse and therefore against the dangers of a slandering tongue all laws have so cautelously arm'd themselves that besides the severest prohibitions of God often recorded in both Testaments God hath chosen it to be one of his appellatives to be the Defender of them a party for those whose innocency and defencelesse state makes them most apt to be undone by this evill spirit I mean pupils and widows the poore and the oppressed And in pursuance of this charity the Imperiall laws have invented a juramentum de calumniâ on oath to be exhibited to the Actor or Plaintiff that he beleevs himself to have a just cause and that he does not implead his adversary calumniandi animo with false instances and indefencible allegations and the Defendant is to swear that he thinks himselfe to use onely just defences and perfect instances of resisting and both of them obliged themselves that they would exact no proofe but what was necessary to the truth of the Cause And all this defence was nothing but necessary guards For a spear and a sword and an arrow is a man that speaketh false witnesse against his neighbour And therefore the laws of God added yet another bar against this evill and the false Accuser was to suffer the punishment of the objected crime and as if this were not sufficient God hath in severall ages wrought miracles and raised the dead to life that by such strange appearances they might relieve the oppressed Innocent and load the false accusing Tongue with shame and horrible confusion So it happen'd in the case of Susanna the spirit of a man was put into the heart of a childe to acquit the vertuous woman and so it was in the case of Gregory Bishop of Agrigentum falsely accused by Sabinus and Crescentius Gods power cast the Devill out of Eudocia the Devill or spirit of Slander and compelled her to speak the truth St. Austin in his book De curâ promortuis tels of a dead Father that appeared to his oppressed Son and in a great matter of Law delivered him from the teeth of false accusation So was the Church of Monts rescued by the appearance of Aia the deceased wife of Hidulphus their Earle as appears in the Hanovian story and the Polonian Chronicles tell the like of Stanislaus Bishop of Cracovia almost oppressed by the anger and calumny of Boleslaus their King God relieved him by the testimony of St. Peter their Bishop or a Phantasme like him But whether these records may be credited or no I contend not yet it is very materiall which Eusebius relates of the three false witnesses accusing Narcissus Bishop of Jerusalem of an infamous crime which they did affirming it under severall curses the first wishing that if he said false God would destroy him with fire the second that he might die of the Kings evil the third that he might be blind and so it came to passe the first being surprised with fire in his owne roofe amaz'd and intricated confounded and despairing paid the price of his slander with the pains of most fearfull flames and the second
I gave thee thy masters house and wives into thy bosom and the house of Israel and Judah and if this had been too little I would have given thee such and such things wherefore hast thou despised the name of the Lord but how infinitely more can God say to all of us then all this came to he hath anointed us kings and priests in the royal pristhood of Christianity he hath given us his holy spirit to be our guide his angels to be our protectors his creatures for our food and raiment he hath delivered us from the hands of Sathan hath conquered death for us hath taken the sting out and made it harmlesse and medicinal and proclaimed us heires of heaven coheires with the eternal Jesus and if after all this we despise the commandment of the Lord and defer and neglect our repentance what shame is great enough what miseries are sharp enough what hell painful enough for such horrid ingratitude Saint Lewis the King having sent Ivo Bishop of Chartres on an embassy the Bishop met a woman on the way grave sad Phantastick malancholy with fire in one hand and water in the other he asked what those symbols ment she answered my purpose is with fire to burn Paradise and with my water to quench the flames of hell that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear purely for the love of God But this woman began at the wrong end the love of God is not produced in us after we have contracted evil habits til God with his fan in his hand hath throughly purged the floore till he hath cast out all the devils and swept the house with the instrument of hope and fear and with the atchieuments and efficacy of mercies and judgements But then since God may truely say to us as of old to his rebellious people Am I a dry tree to the house of Israel that is do I bring them no fruit do they serve me for nought and he expects not our duty till first we feel his go odnesse we are now infinitely inexcusable to throw away so great riches to despise such a goodnesse However that we may see the greatnesse of this treasure of goodnesse God seldom leaves us thus for he sees be it spoken to the shame of our natures and the dishonour of our manners he sees that his mercies do not allure us do not make us thankful but as the Roman said felicitate corrumpimur we become worse for Gods mercy and think it will be alwayes holiday and are like the Christal of Arabia hardned notby cold but made crusty and stubborn by the warmth of the divine fire by its refreshments and mercies therfore to demonstrate that God is good indeed he con tinues his mercise still to us but in another instance he is merciful to us in punishing us that by such instruments we may be led to repentance which will scare us from sin he delivers us up to the paedagogy of the divine judgements and there begins the second part of Gods method intimated in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forbearance God begins his cure by causticks by incisions and instruments of vexation to try if the disease that will not yeild to the allectives of cordials and perfumes friction and baths may be forced out by deleteries soarifications and more salutary but least pleasing Physicke 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for bearance it is called in the text which signifies laxamentum or inducias that is when the decrees of the divine judgements temporal are gone out either wholly to suspend the execution of them which is induciae or a reprieve or else when God hath struck once or twice he takes on his hand that is laxamentum an ease of remission of his judgment in both these although in judgement God remembers mercy yet we are under discipline we are brought into the penitential chamber at least we are shewed the rod of God and if like Moses rod it turnes us into serpents and that we repent not but grow more Devils yet then it turnes into a rod again and finishes up the smiting or the first designed affliction But I consider it first in general the riches of the divine goodnesse is manifest in beginning this new method of curing us by severity and by a rod. And that you may not wonder that I expound this forbearance to be an act of mercy punishing I observe that besides that the word supposes the method changed and it is a mercy about judgements and their manner of execution it is also in the nature of the thing in the conjunction of circumstances and the designes of God a mercy when he threatens us or strike us into repentance We think that the way of blessings and prosperous accidents is the finer way of securing our duty and that when our heads are anointed our cups crowned and our tables full the very caresses of our spirits will best of all dance before the Ark and sing perpetual Anthemes to the honour of our Benefactor and Patron God and we are apt to dream that God will make his Saints raigne here as kings in a millenary kingdom and give them the riches and fortunes of this world that they may rule over men and sing psalms to God for ever But I remember what Xenophanes saies of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is like to men neither in shape nor in counsel he knowes that his mercies confirm some and encourage more but they convert but few alone they lead men to dissolution of manners and forgetfulnesse of God rather then repentance not but that mercies are competent and apt instruments of grace if we would but because we are more dispersed in our spirits and by a prosperous accident are melted into joy and garishnesse and drawn off from the sobriety of recollection Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked Many are not able to suffer and endure prosperity it is like the light of the sun to a weak eye glorious indeed in it self but not proportioned to such an instrument Adam himself as the Rabbins say did not dwell one night in Paradise but was poisoned with prosperity with the beauty of his fair wife and a beauteous tree and Noah and Lot were both righteous and examplary the one to Sodom the other to the old world so long as they lived in a place in which they were obnoxious to the common suffering but as soon as the one of them had scaped from drowning and the other from burning and were put into security they fell into crimes which have dishonoured their memories for above thirty generations together the crimes of drunkennesse and incest wealth and a full fortune make men licenciously vitious tempting a man with power to act all that he can desire or designe vitiously Indeirae faciles Namque ut opes nimias mundo fortuna subacto Intulit et rebus mores cessere secundis Cultus gest are decoros vix nuribus rapuere mares