not only bound by those lusts which they have embraced but likewise robbed of all their strength whereby they should break loose from those Bonds And this brings me to the Third kind of Hardness I named to you and that is Thirdly A Judicial a Penal Hardness when men are hardned by God by way of punishment for hardning themselves their Voluntary Hardness proves the mother of their Penal Hardness as you may see in the 12th of St. John 39 40. Therefore THEY COULD NOT BELIEVE BECAUSE THAT ISAIAH SAID HE HATH BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HARDNED THEIR HEARTS THAT THEY SHOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES NOR UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEARTS AND BE CONVERTED It is as St. Augustin observes (a) Peccatum est poena peccati causa peccati SIN IS BOTH THE PUNISHMENT CAUSE OF SIN which happens when the Soul is so overspread with the Contagion of Sin that all Spiritual food corrupts within it which God perceiving withdraws the wholsom food of his Grace he did before allow it He with-holds those Beams which before kept the heart soft and pliant and thereby it is congealed and frozen God being justly provoked withdraws his Grace and leaves us to our selves and though Satan tempts us to Obduration yet neither God nor Satan do really or effectually produce this Hardness in us we breed it in our selves as ill diet may occasion the stone in the Bladder but it is the inward distemper of the body that immediately breeds it For the further illustration whereof I shall as I promised endeavour to shew you SECONDLY How when God without any impeachment to his Justice may be said to Harden Mans Heart and First God may be said to Harden men when he withdraws his grace because men have first Hardened their hearts against it It being free for God to take the forfeiture of his grace and mercy when and how far he pleases For although that Help of General Grace allowed to all be if rightly improved sufficient to strengthen and Convert the Soul and to emancipate and make the Will Free Yet if we forfeit our Indentures by the abuse of our Liberty and neglect the Grace of God when offered to us he then may most justly withdraw it from us and take away the Patent our Wills had for the Priviledge of their Freedom To which purpose 't is generally observed by Divines that there is to every Sinner a time when the measure of his iniquity is filled up and Gods Patience in waiting for him is so wearied that he withdraws his grace and gives over calling him to Repentance this was wont to be called by the Jews THE MEASURE OF JUDGMENT i. e. such a pitch of Sin which Judgment inevitably followed And it is possible that to Obdurate Sinners such a time may be which may be their last for grace though not their last for life That they may live here and yet be dead eternally and that a time may be when * Heb. 10.26 THERE WILL REMAIN NO MORE SACRIFICE FOR SIN but Sinners are Sealed up to Obduration when God in Justice strikes them dead who would not live and consigns them to Damnation who were before resolved to Damn themselves And St. Basil hath asserted Gods Justice in this Case by affirming that God though he hardens mens hearts yet he is not the Author of Sin But that Sin is * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OF MANS OWN CHOICE not Originally and primarily from God or by any Positive Act of Gods upon him of which he gives us a lively instance in Pharaoh whom God found hardned he did not make him So. And if you read the story and observe the method of Gods Proceedings with Pharaoh you shall find Exod 8.15.32 that Pharaoh HARDNED HIS OWN HEART And when after so many miraculous Judgments He was not reformed then t is said in a new stile Exod. 9.10 10.27 That the LORD HARDNED PHARAOHS HEART But there is one Objection that seems to interfere with this Doctrine which I must remove and then I 'le shake hands with this Particular The OBJECTION IS THIS Did not God tell Moses at first before ever we read that Pharaoh paved his Heart with Obduration that he would Harden him Did not God say to Moses Exod. 4.21 DO ALL THE WONDERS BEFORE PHAROAH WHICH I HAVE PUT INTO THINE HAND BUT I WILL HARDEN HIS HEART THAT HE SHALL NOT LET THE PEOPLE GO Now these words of God I WILL HARDEN HIS HEART are recorded before we have any news of Pharaoh's Hardning himself To which I Answer That Gods foretelling so early that he would Harden Pharaoh's heart is no argument that he would do it immediately and without any Demerit of Pharaoh's but that God foreseeing and foreknowing that Pharaoh would lay the first stone of his Obduration and first harden himself said thereupon I WILL HARDEN HIS HEART Now that God foresaw Pharaoh's hardning himself is clear and evident from Exod. 3.19 AND I AM SURE THAT THE KING OF AEGYPT WILL NOT LET YOU GO NO NOT BY A MIGHTY HAND So that if you carefully peruse the History of Pharaoh's life and actions you will find that God did not Harden him till he had hardned himself six times against Gods heavy Judgments Which was a notable Example of Gods dealings with an Obdurate Sinner that hath filled up the measure of his Sins keeping him alive but without Grace without Repentance SECONDLY God may be said to harden men without any impeachment to his Justice by presenting occasions which Sinners through their own innate Corruption make instrumental to their Obduration but this can reflect no dishonour upon God nor blemish his Justice because these occasions are not designed by God to DECOY any into Sin but are good in themselves Light though good and pleasant in it self yet it hurts Sore Eyes What is there so good that obdurate Sinners will not abuse Pharaoh was Hardned by Miracles by which another man's Heart would have been mollified the Hardned Sinner like the Spider sucks poyson out of every thing He sucks poyson from that which was designed as an Antidote for him To this purpose 't is said Jer. 6.21 I WILL LAY STUMBLING BLOCKS BEFORE THIS PEOPLE that is such Occasions and Providences as through their own wilfull obdurateness are a means to ruin them It being Ordinary in Scripture to ascribe an Act to God whereof he gives the Occasion An Example of this may be Shimei's Cursing David which he told Abishai in 2 Sam. 16.11 that the Lord bid him do But how did the Lord bid him He gave him no outward Command neither did he move him to it by any internal impulse for if God had done either He had been the Author of Shimei's Cursing and Shimei had been blameless What other meaning then can these words THE LORD HAD BIDDEN HIM be capable of but this namely that God did present the Occasion in letting Shimei see David in that Affliction spoken of in the
12th verse and with a small retinue flying from his Son Absalom his Guards about him being then so small and inconsiderable that Shimei thought he might safely vomit out his rancour and fury against him In all which and the like actions God derogates nothing from his Justice these Occasions which God Presents being in themselves harmless though wicked men abuse them And this may suffice for the Second thing I was to shew you namely How and When God without any impeachment to his Justice may be said to Harden the Heart I Proceed now to shew you THIRDLY What are the Properties of a Hard Heart and the FIRST Property of a Hard Heart is this that it doth not yield to any means of grace For First It cannot be prevailed upon by the word of God which is a Powerful Agent the Preacher that speaks to obdurate Sinners speaks to Rocks rather than Men the Earth will sooner tremble than they Illis Robur Aes triplex circa pectus Their Hearts are so guarded with the Armour of Obduration that the Word of God though it be a two-edged Sword cannot enter into them Though God hath ordained a Function of men by whom he does beseech them though he arms their Messages and Doctrines with such Terrors as makes the very Devils tremble and joyns his holy Spirit too sends him in tongues of Fire that he also may preach to them and fright them with more flame yet Hardned Sinners break these Strengths and vanquish all the Arts and Strivings of the Almighty and though Gods Ambassadours flash Hell fire against their Vices in torrents of Scripture threatnings and Comminations they concern themselves no more than they would at the story of a new eruption of Aetna or Vesuvius their Hearts are turned into Stone into pure Mine and Quarry and thereupon such as Preach to them may be said to be damnati ad Metalla that old Roman Punishment condemned like slaves to dig in these Mines and Quarries So that as Cato Censorius paved the Courts of Judicature with sharp stones that men might not delight in Law-suits So the Courts of the Lords House are often paved with Hard Hearts that the Preacher might be discouraged from Preaching There is so much Ice in mens hearts there hath been so long a winter in their affections which are chill and dull to all goodness that the word of God which is said to be * Jerem. 23.29 A FIRE cannot thaw or melt them And as a hard heart cannot be prevailed upon by the word of God So neither Secondly Will it be wrought upon by Gods good Spirit for though it cannot hinder the grace of God from shining upon it yet it may and often does hinder the workings and Operations of that grace and receives the grace of God in vain and * Heb. 10.29 DOES DESPIGHT TO THE SPIRIT OF GRACE and abuses and * Jude 4. TURNS THE GRACE OF GOD INTO WANTONNESS It was strange that Christ when he was upon Earth Converted so few the Evangelist wonder'd at it John 12.37 THOUGH HE HAD DONE SO MANY MIRACLES AMONG THEM YET THEY BELIEVED NOT IN HIM BUT he satisfies the wonder and gives the reason of it out of the Prophet Isaiah THEREFORE THEY COULD NOT BELIEVE BECAUSE THEIR HEARTS WERE HARDNED Their Hardness was the cause of their small progress in believing Engravers upon stone cannot rid much work they that Point and Polish Diamonds use much grinding to wear away a little unevenness And then Thirdly The hard heart will not be wrought upon by the mercy of God God's Mercy to Pharaoh hardned his Heart * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 HE HARDNED HIM BY HIS MERCY AND FORBEARANCE BY RESPITING HIS PUNISHMENT saith St. Basil The Hardned Sinner shrowds his Sins under the wings of Gods mercy He makes Gods mercy his Protection in Sin Accustomed dangers escaped harden the Sinner oftentimes to a Stupidity The ruder Marriners that have weathered out several storms will steal blaspheme and be drunk in the next tempest And Dion Cassius tells us that Catiline being accused for the murders and rapines committed on those whom Sylla had proscribed and escaping the condemnation under which others fell for the same Crimes * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 DID FROM THIS GROW MUCH WORSE The Hardned Sinner COMMITS the Attributes of God and as it were raises a Contest and Dispute between them and to all declarations of his future Justice he opposes that God is mercifull that satisfied with his own rectitude he descends not to mark mens follies and thus he baffles Gods Veracity with his Clemency and makes his long-suffering wear out the sense of his Justice How far such foolish Collections as these will prevail to harden mens hearts the Wise man tell us Eccles. 8.11 BECAUSE SENTENCE AGAINST AN EVIL WORK IS NOT SPEEDILY EXECUTED THEREFORE THE HEARTS OF THE SONS OF MEN ARE FULLY SET IN THEM TO DO EVIL Such is the hard-hearted Sinners misery that God cannot look friendly upon him but by his too much presuming upon it he ruines and undoes himself Heavens shining and smileing hurts him more than its lowring the longer the Hardned Sinner looks upon the Sun of Gods mercy he gathers the more spots and impairs the beavty of his Soul God is forced to be a tyrant to obdurate Sinners He must be always whipping and scourging them and till they are mollified and bettered by stripes He cannot in mercy remove his rod His taking away his plagues from them would be a greater Plague to them And then Fourthly A Hard Heart cannot sometimes be wrought upon by Gods Judgments As Gods mercy cannot draw it so his Judgments cannot drive it from Sin It is an insensate unrelenting Anvil to the heaviest Strokes of the Divine Vengeance It does like the Roman Emperour Caligula 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thunder back against God and shoot up a sin a provocation against Heaven for every arrow of Judgment shot down from Heaven It undervalues Gods Power Hector's and Braves his Omnipotence it continues to affront God to his face after all his Judgments as if he had wasted all his thunderbolts emptied his Quiver and broke his Sword in the last encounter and were like those poor Animals who lose their sting in the first wound they give He that should have seen the Tragical iniquity we read of in the City of Lyons which was so visited with the Pestilence that the Dead without a Figure buried their Dead falling down one upon another each being at once both a Carkass and a Grave He I say that should have seen this and observ'd withal that the Souldiers daily issued out of the Cittadel and deflowred Virgins even whilst they were giving up the ghost defiled Matrons even already dead COMMITTING with the dust warming the grave with sinful heats and coupling with the Plague and Death would certainly have been amazed to see men so hardned in sin as to Suffer and Sin together And thus
THE Nature Causes OF HARDNESS OF HEART Together with the Remedies against it Discovered in a SERMON Preached first before the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn and afterwards before the University in Great St. MARIES Church in CAMBRIDGE By Robert Neville B.D. Rector of Ansty Entered according to Order LONDON Printed for Benj. Billingsley at the Printing-Press under the Piazza of the Royal Exchange 1683. To the Worshipful my much Honoured Friend Colonel Richard Goulston OF WIDDIAL-HALL Esq One of his Majesty's Deputy-Lieutenants Justices of Peace for the County of HERTFORD Honoured Sir I Had no long Debate within my self whose Name I should borrow to Patronize this Discourse when I considered it had been delivered in Two Great and Judicious Auditories one of the Honourable Inns of Courts and the most Ancient and Learned University of the Nation My Thoughts presently fastned upon Colonel Goulston a Person who hath suckt much Excellent Learning from the Breasts of both Universities and been refined and polished by an Inns of Court Education as the best qualified to do me such an Honour And though it seems little less than a Libelling your Judgment to publish my Hopes of its owning so Mean and Sorry a Pamphlet yet I have presumed to give you the Trouble of this Address not from any Opinion I have of the Value of what I present to you but because the Honour and Happiness of some years Neighbourhood and Conversation have given me a more than ordinary Assurance that your Candor and Charity will be ready to Pardon the Faults and Umbrage the many Imperfections of it Were I inclin'd to put off the Divine and put on the Courtier I could as some have done in Addresses of this Nature cross the Seas and Rifle Foreign Countries for DIAMONDS RVBIES to SET in and enrich your Name and Exalt and Imbellish your Virtues with High and strained Hyperboles But my own plain and honest Temper hath made me a faithful Friend to Truth and an inveterate Enemy to Paint and Varnish nor do I here so much pretend to draw a curious Picture of your Virtues as to give you a rude Draught of my grateful Resentments of those many Neighbourly Kindnesses you have heaped upon Honoured Sir Your most Faithful and Humble Servant R. Neville Ansty Novemb. 29. 1682. A SERMON Preached Before both the Honourable Society OF LINCOLN's-INN And the University at Great St. MARIES CHURCH IN CAMBRIDGE Hebr. 3. part of the 15th Verse Harden Not Your Hearts THough we are in the hand of a skilful Artificer that of the knottiest and crookedest Timber can make Beams and Rafters for his own House that can square the Marble and Flint as well as the Free-stone And though the Sunshine of Divine Grace can melt and thaw the Ice of the most congealed hardned Heart and God can turn men extempore into Saints by his Omnipotent Convincing Spirit yet if we observe the more Ordinary Course of God's Proceedings we shall find that there is a Peculiar Temper of Mind which is most agreeable to the receiving of Christ which those that are Owners of are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fit or disposed for the Kingdom of God They must have that peculiar Temper wherein the Gospel will take root and prosper namely an Humble Flexible and Soft Heart whereas on the other side there is * Luc. 9.62 AN EVIL HEART OF UNBELIEF and * Heb. 3.12 A REPROBATE Mind and * 2 Cor. 13.5 A HARD HEART * Heb. 3.13 HARDENED THROUGH THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN against which St. Paul gives us this necessary Caution here in my Text saying HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS From which words I shall endeavour to shew you these Four things First How and when Man Hardens his own Heart Secondly How and when God without any impeachment to his Justice may be said to Harden the Heart Thirdly What are the Properties of a Hard Heart Fourthly By What means we may avoid this Hardness this Obduration And First I shall shew you How and When Man Hardens his own Heart For the more perfect discovery whereof I must acquaint you with three sorts of Hardness First A Natural Hardness the Hardness of our Natural Inclination which was Born with us Secondly A Voluntary Hardness A Hardness acquired by our own Resolutions and Endeavours Thirdly A Penal A Judicial Hardness First A Natural Hardness or the Hardness of our Natural Inclination which was Born with us Physicians tell us of a disease converting the Womb into a Hard Stone and the Story in Crollius of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Child of a perfect stony Substance is asserted by others and such Children are we by Nature Children of a perfect stony Substance of stony Hearts There grows A hard Pearl in the Understanding the Eye of Our Souls which makes us almost Blind The Soul of the Natural man is so stupified by Obduration that it measures all Divine Truths by the Standard of Sense and Reason The Eye of his Soul looking downward sees clear enough but if it looks up to the Sun of Righteousness 't is presently dazled We are Naturally Eagle-Ey'd in Worldly things Mole-Ey'd in Heavenly in Spiritual things The Will of a meer Natural man before the Grace of God Emancipates and sets it free and makes it capable of any good impression is obstinate and impenetrable We may as easily pierce a Rock or dissolve a Flint as prevail upon it when 't is overgrown with that Crust of Natural Hardness which oftentimes is improved and increased by the Addition of a Voluntary and Acquired Hardness which brings me to the Second kind of Hardness and that is Secondly A Voluntary Hardness A Hardness acquired by our own Resolutions and Endeavours A Wilful Hardness when men have wilfully persisted in long continued Habits of many sins which like gravel after long continuance in the Bladder Cake into a Stone and make their hearts hard and obdurate They have enslaved themselves by a strong Habit of Obduration they are bored through the Ear and are resolvedly bent not to change their Servile and Slavish condition The Cords of Sin with which they have bound themselves are of their own twisting and those Cords are twisted into so strong a Habit that they are not easily broken and when men have brought themselves into these Circumstances they are almost under a fatal Necessity of committing Sin I do not believe saith a * Dr. Tillotson's Sermon on Heb. 3.13 pag. 13. Reverend Author that God hath Predestinated any man to ruine But by a long Course of Wilful Sins men may in a manner Predestinate themselves to it and Choose wickedness so long till at last it becomes Necessary and continue to be bad men upon the same account that the Historian Extravagantly saith Cato was Vertuous (*) Quia aliter esse non potuit vellei Paterc BECAUSE HE COULD NOT BE OTHERWISE being bound in the chains of their own wickedness nay like Sampson
much for the First Property of a hard heart that it does not yield to any means of Grace Secondly A SECOND Property of a hard heart is this that it hath no Feeling in it it is insensate It is observed in the Body that the rest of the senses may be distempered and lost without much impairing the health of it but only the Touch cannot which therefore is called the SENSE of life because that Part or Body which is deprived of Feeling is also at deaths door and hath no more life in it than it hath reliques of this Sense So is it also in Spiritual matters of all other Symptoms this of a hardned Senlesness is most dangerous and as the Greek Physicians are wont to say of a desperate disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very very mortal A Man may not feel an aile and yet not be in health and it is a good degree of health to know our disease For if a Sinner grow once so hard and senseless as that no Physick no means will work upon that Body of death that does encompass him Conclamatum est We may ring his Funeral knell for though he be alive and in this world he is dead to all Grace and goodness If there be no remorse no grief no dislike of sin then woe be to us this is descensus Averni the lowest stair that leads to the Chambers of death I have read that near the City of Capena lay a stone of great note which upon great droughts the People would bring into the City and large showers of rain would presently fall but if we would be tenderly sensible of and weep large showers of penetential tears for our sins we must on the contrary beg of God to remove the stone out of our hearts and give us a soft and tender heart a heart of flesh And thus having described to you the Properties of a Hard Heart it is high time I should make use of those words of Hipocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Furnish your selves with all the Softning Plaisters you can which may either prevent or remove this Obduration And this brings me to the Fourth thing I was to shew you And that is Fourthly By What means we may avoid this Hardness And First If you would avoid it avoid gross Sins for they wast the Conscience make havock of grace and render the heart hard and callous When David cut off the lap of Saul's garment 't is said his heart smote him but when he fell into those foul sins of Adultery and Murder it is not then said his Heart smote him it grew hard upon the commission of those gross sins till God dispatcht the Prophet Nathan to him to rouse and awake him As for Sins of Infirmity which are sins of a less and imperfect Choice some Passions blinding or corrupting the Judgment they are entailed upon All and as the Schoolmen say Possibility of Sinning is included in the notion of a Creature But though all men are prone to Sins of Infirmty and yet all mens Hearts are not so Hardned as Habitually to commit gross and scandalous Sins they have not such vitiated Palats as to be able to drink down the worst dregs and lees of Vice When Conscience saith to any person this is a Great Sin Commit it not and yet in despite of Conscience and the Checks it gives him he will run on It is just with Conscience when its Counsel is rejected like Achitophel to strangle and stiffle it self And as we must abstain from gross Sins so if we would avoid Hardness of Heart Secondly We must be careful not to harbour any the smallest Sin with satisfaction and delight By giving way to little Sins one after another we are prepared and disposed for greater and our strongest Resolutions against them are broken for though they be not snapt in sunder at once yet by this means they are untwisted by degrees and then it is easie to break them one Thread after another 't is scarce imaginable of what Strength and Vigour one Sinful Action be it never such a Dwarf in our Eyes is to Procreat and beget more for Sin is Prolifical and Fruitful and though there be no Blessing annext to it yet it does strangly ENCREASE MVLTIPLY There are certain Rudiments and First Elements of Vices in which men are first enter'd they advance gradually to more gross and heinous Crimes Our Saviour reproves the Pharisees in the Gospel because they would strain at Gnats and swallow Camels but yet it is true that men learn at length to swallow Camels by swallowing Gnats at first * Juvenal Nemo repente fuit turpissimus No Sinner is so adventurous as to attempt the greatest Sins at first the way by which men train up themselves to the committing gross and heinous Sins is by not making Conscience of committing less Sins and yet I know not (a) Nescio an possimus leve aliquod peccatum dicere quod in der contemptum admittitur saith Paulinus in St. Jerom WHETHER WE CAN CALL ANY SIN LITTLE THAT IS COMMITTED AGAINST GOD Small Contempts against Great Princes are accounted great Crimes for what is wanting in the thing is made up in the Worth of the Person How great a Sin then is the smallest Contempt of the Majesty of God To which I may also add that when a small Sin comes by Design and is Acted with Knowledge and Deliberation the Malice of the Agent heightens the smallness of the Act and makes up the Iniquity It is incredible how insensibly many small Sins heighten and inflame our Reckonings and encrease our Spiritual Hardness Oh then that we would * Cant. 2.15 TAKE THESE LITTLE FOXES * Psal 1 37.9 that WE WOULD DASH THESE BABYLON's BRATS AGAINST THE WALLS And this brings me to the Third Remedy against Obduration and that is Thirdly To nip the forbidden Fruit of Sin in the Bud before it grows into a Habit Ibi maxime oportet observare Peccatum ubi nasci solet saith St. Jerom Observe and Kill Sin in its infancy Crush this Cockatrice in the Egg The Tree which was in the beginning but a small Plant may at length bear its Head and Branches so high as to cast a most dangerous Shadow Even the smallest Pullulations of Sin must not be neglected the first Blossoms of Iniquity must be blown away For Sin is of a growing multiplying nature there is usually a Concatenation of Vices one Devil brings seven other Devils One Sin makes a Bridge for more to come over like the Waves of the Sea the End of the one is the Beginning of the other If we go with Sin one Mile it will compel us to go with it twain It will swell like the Cloud Elijah saw from the Bigness of a Man's Hand to such a vast Expansion as will cover the Skie No man descends to the worst at first but gradually Step by Step as Marriners setting sail first lose the sight of the Shore then of the Houses then of the Steeples then Mountains and Land Few or none are so hardned and desperate at first as to leap into Hell Alipius in St. Austin who went only at first for Company to those bloody Spectacles of the Gladiators came at last to applaud them We know where we begin and set out in Sin but we know not where we shall End or take up as no man can say He will let in just so many Palefuls of the Sea and no more Stulta res est Nequitiae Modus saith Seneca 't is a foolish ridiculous thing for a man to think to set bounds to himself in any thing that is bad or to hope to sin by Rules of Art and in Number Weight and Measure Fourthly and Lastly If you would avoid this Hardness use fervent and constant Prayer Let us importune God to cut the Thread of our Wickedness that we may not spin it out to such a length Let us sue out a Divorce between us and our Beloved Sins that Harden us The Fire of Prayer must never go out if we expect that such Mettal as a Hard Heart consists of should ever be melted by it Those who endeavour Chymically to extract the Philosopher's Stone must never let their Fire go out and so those who would extract and draw the Stone out of their Hearts must never let the Fire of their Devotion go out this Fire like that of the Vestal Virgins at Rome must be alway kept Burning Now that we may make an Experiment of this last Recipe of Prayer against Obduration let us Begg of God to take away these Hearts of Stone from within us and give us Hearts of Flesh for his dear Son Jesus Christ his sake to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour Glory and Praise both now and for ever FINIS