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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	angel_n	descend_v	ladder_n	1,870	5	11.7110	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86270	Repentance and conversion, the fabrick of salvation: or The saints joy in heaven, for the sinners sorrow upon Earth. Being the last sermons preached by that reverend and learned John Hewyt, D.D. Late minister of St. Gregories by St. Pauls. With other of his sermons preached there. Dedicated to all his pious auditors, especially those of the said parish. Also an advertisement concerning some sermons lately printed, and presented to be the doctors, but are disavowed by Geo. Wild. Jo. Barwick.	Hewit, John, 1614-1658.; Wilde, George, 1610-1665.; Barwick, John, 1612-1664.	1658 (1658)	Wing H1637; Thomason E1776_1; ESTC R209722	86,537	249

of God that we understand not what it is to love him This Tree of Knowledge grows not in our Eden This flower springs not up in our Garden 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a gift dropt out of Heaven proceeding from the Father who is Love and Charity as St. John saith This is a divine liquor the true Nectar that God poures into our souls guttatim drop by drop as in narrow-neckt vessels Wherefore to accommodate our selves to our native slowness we 'll endeavour to infuse into our spirits by little and little so by degrees to arrive at the highest degree and Apex of Love There are five degrees of this our Love to God 1. The first is to love God for the good he doth us and we expect to receive from him still 2. Secondly To love him propter seipsum or sui ipsius gratia for his own sake because he is most excellent and most amiable 3. Thirdly To love God above all things nay your own selves but to love nothing in the World but for his sake 4. Fourthly To detest and abhor himself for the Love of God 5. Fifthly to love him as we shall in the life to come when we shall be in glory with this love the Saints are extasied and assist at the Throne of God in secula seculorum We call these Degrees of Love and not species or kinds because the superior contain the inferior as the chiefest white differs from the other parcels of the same colour that are less clear and transparent not in specie but in gradu we must remount up these degrees or stairs and rest our selves a little upon every one of them 1. The first degree and lowest is Five degrees by which we are brought to love God To love God for the good he doth us upon this step of Love was King David when in the 116 Psalm and in the 1 verse I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplication and so in the 18 Psalm for God will have respect and love from us because he extends his bounty so liberally to us 'T is God that created us 't is God that preserves and keeps us being created that nourisheth our bodies that cherisheth our souls that redeemeth us by his Son that governs us by his holy Spirit that instructeth us by his word that hath vouchsafed to admit us as his servants nay his friends and children and which is more the same with himself Plato playing the Philosopher with the grace of God Plato blessed God for three things thanked him for three things 1. That he was created a man and not a beast 2. That he was born a Graecian and not a Barbarian and 3. That he was a Philosopher Now we that are instructed in the School of Christ a School of more strict discipline So ought we for these especially make another kind of distribution of the grace of God and return him thanks for these three things 1. That of all Creatures we were created men 2. That of all men Christians And 3. That among those that are Christians he hath made us in the number of the true elect And if you please you may add a fourth That he hath adopted us by his Son Jesus Christ before the foundation of the World having been carefull of us not onely before we had any existence but even before the world had its creation Now if God did manifest his love to us before we were how liberally will he extend it to us how bountifully will it flow from him when we invocate and call upon his Sacred Name and affect him with a filial and reverential love Now the smaller our number is the larger is our priviledge the more extensive and diffusive is his bounty and goodness to us to endow us with sight among so many blind persons as the portion of Jacob in Aegypt solely enlightned in the midst of obscurity Cimmerian darkness like the fleece of Gideon that was only bedewed with the grace of God when the rest of the earth was dry and destitute of it God hath encircled us with abundance of examples of stupendious caecity or blindness that he might raise our estimation of light and that we might make a farther progress in the way of salvation that so whilest it is called to day we may steer the ship of our souls by the Lanthorn of his Word All these vertues the constellation of all these graces depend upon one Soveraign and Prime one viz. reconciliation with God by the passion of our blessed Jesus This is the Chanel through which the graces of God stream unto us 'T is Jacobs Ladder that joyns Heaven and Earth together that rejoyns God and Man The Angels ascending this Ladder represent our prayers that we piously dart up to Heaven the Angels descending signifie the blessings of God that are distilled in answer to our prayers Jacob sleeping at the foot of the Ladder intimates unto us the quiet and tranquillity of conscience that we enjoy under the cool and comfortable shade of his intercession Before man was environed with horror and astonishment he could not cast his eye aside but he met with an object of fear If he look't upon God he discerned a consuming fire a supream Justice armed with revenge against sinners If he cast his eye upon the Law he immediately perceived the arrest of condemnation If he viewed the Heaven he concluded himself excluded thence by reason of sin If the World he saw his irreparable loss of dominion over the Creatures if himself a thousand spiritual and corporal infirmities At the signes of Heaven and the Earth-quake he was ague-struck with fear Then Satan Death Hell were his inveterate foes that either drew him to perdition or did behel and wrack him with the expectation of them But now every person that hath confidence in Christ Jesus changes his language and speaks in a more pleasing dialect If he look upon God he 'll say 'T is my Father that hath adopted me If his thoughts pitch upon the day of Judgement he 'll bespeak himself thus My Elder Brother sits there and he that is my Judge is also my Counsellor If he think on the Angels he cries out They are my guardians Psalm the 34. If he view the Heaven he terms it his habitation If he hear it thunder he 'll reply 'T is the voice of my Father If he consider the Law The Son of God saith he hath accomplisht it for me If he swim with the flowing tide of prosperity he 'll say God hath reserved better things for me If in the low ebb of adversity Jesus Christ hath endured far more for me God exerciseth or proves corrects or afflicts me making me therein conformable to his Son If he thinks on Hell the Devil or Death then he will triumph over all with the holy Apostle in the 1 to the Corinth the 15 Ch. and the 55 56 and 57 vers O Death where is thy

torna Vepreta Rosas Postremò affectus sacrosque exponit amores Visceraque aeterni semper aperta DEI. Sic benè percurris diae Theoremata vitae Gloria Rostrorum Deliciaeque Togae Quaeque doces vitâ peragis Fatoque potitus Inter coelicolas stas numerande Choros J. W. IN LAUDEM Perillustris Literatissimique JOANNIS HEUETI D. D. Ad nodum reverendi nec non Orthodoxa pietate fide integritate spectatissimi ADsis Melpomene lugubribus adsis Iambis Ut rores teneras Imbre cadente genas Ite procul nugae fallacia numina vatum Fictaque de nimio monstra creata mero Non Phoci aut Aganippe tuas jactate Paludes Dulcius ex Sacro Fonte bibuntur aquae HEWETTUM non vana juvant dum coelica pangat Et canat Angelicos sacra Thalia sonos Heu dolor at mediis vates abscinditur annis Et cadit offenso victima Grata Deo Induitur pulla viduata Ecclesia veste Et Pietas socio semisepulta rogo Dum Doctor venerande cadas flentumque veharis Fluminibus superis velificando plagis Nam Coelo adscripsit pietas virtusque dicavit Pectora in tacto candidiora Nive Ergo quid insano juvat indulgere dolori Fataque flebilibus commemorare modis Praesulis erepti terris dum luce potiri Nec Fato poterat nobiliore mori J. G. Repentance Conversion THE Fabrick of Salvation In the Gospel according to St. Luke Chap. 15. vers 7. it is thus written I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more then over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance NO man can be so sordidly blockish SERM. I. or so wickedly profane as to deny the necessity and benefit of Repentance Nor can there be any that plead a right to the title of Christians but will acknowledge themselves so implunged into Sin as without Repentance they deserve to be wrapt up in the embraces of eternal flames This is the stable foundation upon which the solid Christian builds the assured Fabrick of his future felicity There is a procul O procul it o profane written upon the gates of heaven unless Repentance procure you entrance Since therefore Beloved 't is so necessary a Christian duty I have made choice of this Text wherein not to stand upon Divisions for we have too many of them already there are Two Parts present themselves to your Meditation 1. That there is joy in heaven for the souls of the just that are already converted as appears by that Conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or quam then that hath reference to somewhat preceding 2. That there is far more joy in heaven for the conversion of a penitent sinner This second in Order though first placed in the Verse shall be the subject of our ensuing Discourse We must therefore consider 1. What Repentance is and 2. How to become true Penitents 1. What it is and that you shall know by this ensuing Definition 'T is a new Creation or sacred Metamorphosis of the soul converting it from sin to God The Greek word is very emphatical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which imports as much as a recollecting of the minde and meditating as it were upon former offences so as to repent and be heartily sorry for them not with a superficial and slight kinde of grief but a real cordial and extraordinary Compunction and Contrition for sin Now this Repentance presupposeth some sin formerly committed some crime heretofore perpetrated That we are all infected with the Leprosie of sin no rational Christian I presume will deny or dare gainsay Our first parents have infused or rather left a taint of their first sin upon all their posterity so that no man how devout soever he be can plead a freedom from Original corruption Nemo non inficitur Adami labe All persons are infected with the sin of our first parents and as thorow a chanel the tincture of it hath taken its course to the whole world You may as well separate hic homo and hoc individuum as Man and Original sin Besides this how is our life made up of an infinite number of offences and trespasses 'T is but a fasciculus or forrago peccatorum a Bundle or Miscelany of sin sins Original and sins Actual sins of Omission and sins of Commission sins of ignorance and sins of Knowledge sins against the Law of God and sins against his Gospel sins against Light and sins against Love Our sinful Words are more then word can express our sinful Thoughts are more then thought can conceive our sinful Deeds have been so many in number and so hainous in nature that we have scarce left number for more or place for worse Nay the very Heathens though poysoned with Idolatry and guided by no other light but the Rush-candle of Nature could cry out Nemo sine crimine vivit All men sin Since therefore we are all more or less vitious all more or less peccato dediti since we are all sick of this disease of sin all troubled with this malady we must seek out a Physician that may prescribe us a Medicine a Cure for this our filthy Leprosie The Physician is our Saviour JESUS and so much is intimated unto us by his Name in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which hath its derivation from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to heal and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to save first he heals and then he saves first he remedies the distemper of the body and then he saves the soul And that you may be inexcusable if you split the precious vessels of your souls upon the rock of Perdition and without defence that you may not pretend either a sinful Bashfulness or Insufficiencie and Unworthiness He himself hath vouchsafed to descend so far below himself as to give you invitation Matth. 11.28 Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavie laden and I will ease you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is in the Original all ye that groan under the weight of sin as Porters do under a heavie burthen and I will ease you saith our Saviour So that whosoever he be that groans under the weight of sin and lies under the wrack of a pricking Conscience may come unless he be wilfully bent upon his own ruine and receive help from the Prince of Physicians and the God of them too For he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world as that pious Anagram of his blessed Name doth intimate unto us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou art the Lamb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the irreprehensible Lamb or Lamb without spot or blemish but the Original signifies somewhat more so undefiled and so pure that Momus himself cannot tell how to carp at him Nay the blessed Angels Heaven it self rejoyceth at the conversion of a penitent sinner Repentance therefore is a thing necessary and requisite to the salvation of a soul Christ is our Physician and

will be grains of allowance to thee without question therefore be converted and turn from the broad way of sin and death to the narrow path of life and eternal glory for such a soul will be acceptable unto the Lord the blessed Quire of Angels will rejoyce at the conversion of such a sinner For according to my Text joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repententh more then over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance So much for this time Repentance Conversion THE Fabrick of Salvation In the Gospel according to St. Luke Chap. 15. vers 7. it is thus written I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more then over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance WE have already discoursed upon these words SERM. II. and demonstrated unto you both by Scripture and other authority the necessity and excellency of Repentance We have largely discoursed of the nature of repentance and defined it unto you Now not to detain you with any farther repetition we shall immediately fall upon the second observation that we raised from the words of the Text and that was this viz. How to become true poenitents And really beloved hic labor hoc opus est or at least should be this should be the white at which every true Christian should level his thoughts This ought to be the Asylum unto which every godly man should have recourse when he is prosecuted and persecuted both by sin and Satan This should be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sum of every mans actions and the chiefest and first of his intentions the cream and top of his holy ambition But where shall we traffick for true penitent souls what climate affords them all Nations are more or less given to some hainous crime To be sober among the Germans setled among the French chaste among the Italians and loyal among the English is rare and worthy admiration you need not make any strict inquisition after impiety there is enough daily presented upon the stage of the world there is too too much God knows Truth the pure innocent undefiled Truth like the Dove of Noah flies about and scarce gets any room for her footing she is mounted to heaven with Astraea but if you desire to finde out a whorish Achan a covetous Ahab a hard-hearted Pharaoh a Nebuchadonozor quaffing in the bowls of the Sanctuary a sacrilegious fellow buying Bishops Lands you may meet with him in every corner Scatent plateae hujusmodi viris nequam for truth is expelled nunc dierum To be true and loyal marcheth in the rank of impossibilities as the world is now but let us operum dare labour tooth and nail as we say proverbially to avoid the accursed punishment of impenitent persons seek after the remission of sins by the bloody death and passion of our Saviour and lay hold with the hand of faith on all Gospel-promises applicable to a conscience-wounded sinner that so after we have lived a life of grace here in this vale of misery we may enjoy a life of glory in perpetuum hereafter Now the main point intended in this discourse is to discover unto you some wayes or means how to apprehend when you are truly penitent that I shall demonstrate unto you 1. Negatively and 2. Affirmatively 1. Negatively and here I will declare unto you beloved auspiciis Divinis by the help of the Deity what it is not viz. being true penitents and that in 5. particulars 5 Discoveries of true penitency which shall be as so many brands on their foreheads to inform the world of their impenitency 1. He is no true penitent that is not so perplexed as to be gnawen at the very heart by that viper Sorrow for his many enormous offences and sensible of the need that he stands in of Gods mercy an Ocean of mercy nay unless he think the burthen of his sin so ponderous and weighty so filthy and impure as to require every drop of the blood of our Saviour to satisfie for them King David if it be not a crime to allow him his Title having implunged himself into a gulf and multitude of sins begs a multitude of mercies as it appears in the 51. Psal vers the 1. Have mercy upon me O God according to thy loving kindness according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions We stand in need of a Sea of mercies for the innumerable number of our hainous crimes that we are guilty of Now he that is so hardned with the yoke of sin that he is become brawny and insensible of the weight and hainousness of it this man hath no penitent frame of spirit and we may safely say without any prejudice to our charity or incurring the evil of censure that such a man is no true penitent 2. They are not become true penitents no nor in the way to repentance that are so far from being grieved at sin as to make no bones of great sins nay to dally and toy with sin and impiety but 't is bad handling such edged tools for the sword of Gods indignation will soon cut them off swearing with such persons is but a grace and lustre to their speech a splendor but I fear such a one as will light them to hell lying but wit's craft or policy drunkenness jovialness or good fellowship whoring a trick of youth covetousness thriftiness thus do they baptize vice by the name of vertue see how bestial fowl and deformed a thing vice is that it dare not appear in its own native deformity and hue but it must borrow the Mask of vertue they think that they can shift well enough without mercy and imagine that three words at the last gasp is sufficient to save their soul but I pray God they may not share with that Gentleman in fortune that was very debauched and had streamed out his youth in wine and venery who being desired by his Confessor to acknowledge his misdemeanors towards God and man and to beseech God to vouchsafe him pardon of his sins put him off with a pish Three words at last are of sufficient power to save my soul meaning Miserere mei Deus but it hapned that this Gentleman not long after as he was riding over a bridge his horse slipt and down fell horse and man into the river and in falling instead of Miserere mei Deus he was heard to say Capiat omnia Daemon The devil take both horse and man sad words to be the vehiculo animae suae to waft his soul over into the other world a sweet Epilogue to the Tragedy of his life His Catastrophe was as damnable as his whole life abominable and odious This will be a caveat to all serious and solid Christians to avoid procrastination in repentance and endeavour after it with all possible speed 3. They are not true penitens that are meerly earal verbal and worded

it well Can there be a longer journey then from earth to heaven and a shorter time than a moment Yet such is our journey such is our time Repent therefore now while it is called to day harden not your hearts for procrastination is dangerous doubt not of the power of God for he is Omnipotent and this attribute of his is manifested in every petty piece of the Hexameron Fabrick There is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something that may challenge our admiration even in the borders of a gaudy Butterfly saith Aristotle which do afford an evident smack or view of the Omnipotency of God Rely upon him therefore fear sin and avoid it because it offends so gracious a God 3. The third step to true repentance is a constant and setled resolution never to sin or displease God to do his will walk in the way of his Commandments I do not say that a truly sanctified person never sins at all but he never sins with an intent and purpose to sin he takes no delight or complacency in sin 't is the sole object of his hatred and resolveth to please God as far as possibly he may by the grace of God that strengthens him When he can say with holy David Psalm the 18. and the 23. I have refrained my feet from every evil way Again 1 John 3.9 He that is born of God sinneth not i. e. not with a full purpose of heart or with a delight in it or affection to it but they constantly strive against it shun and avoid the occasions of sin suspect themselves upon every occasion and are continually arm'd to give battel to the devil and his temptations In may things we sin all saith St. James But if we can but say really and experimentally that it is against our intention that we hate abhor detest sin with an unutterable hatred and that we condemn the very sins we commit then we may be comforted receive joy and assure our selves that we are true penitents for this takes away the dominion of sin in our mortal bodies doth not quite thrust it out it doth devest it of its authority so that it hath no power to prejudice or injure us in our salvation 4. The fourth sign of or way unto true repentance is an aggravation of our sins when we render them hainous in the sight of God acknowledging we have sinned so much that we deserve eternal damnation we deserve that the Vials of Gods wrath should be poured down upon our heads You would fare the better not the worse for aggravating your transgressions For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believed in him might not perish but have everlasting life This is a sic without sicut Such a so as never man loved so and all this for the salvation of mankind 5. The fifth and last sign of or step unto repentance is a frank and free confession of sins not extorted and wrung out of you but flowing from you liberally chearfully and really in hope of the pardon and remission of them We must so confess our sins as to beg pardon for them and to entreat the Lord to have pity on us out of the bowels of his tender compassion Do not abscond and conceal your sins manifest them publickly both to God and man be cordially penitent for them and no doubt but the merciful God will save your souls Confession of sins is the forerunner of remission and this must not be flashy and for a time but so long as are our years upon the earth measured out for he that will serve the primus motor must not write his ne ultra till he come to the Terminus ad quem He must proceed with a courage we must confess them openly and not like the worldly wise whose wisdom Lactantius saith abscondit non abscindit peccata conceals and not cuts asunder or separates sin Now we must confesse our sins 1. To God and 2. To Man 1. To God as holy David teacheth us in his own example Psalm the 51. vers 4. Against thee against thee only have I sinned and again in the 32 Psam vers the 6. I said I will confess my sins unto the Lord and so thou forgavest the wickedness of my sin 'T is true we may injure men by our sin as David did Uriah but being sin the chiefest wrong and injury falleth upon God 2. We must confess to men and that both privately and publickly according to the quality of the sin for though we condemn auricular confession as a trick of State-policy yet we allow and not only so but exhort all Christians to a true voluntary and sincere confession of their sins to the Bishop and Superintendents of the Church confession must be made to men in respect of the Church that the Congregation that hath been offended may be satisfied and that others may be deterred from falling into the same sins as it is in the 2 Epistle to St. Timothy 4 ch and the 26 vers Them that sin rebuke openly that the rest may fear And last of all in respect of the Sinner himself that he may be humbled for it for were it a pecuniary mulct onely and his purse were to do penance he would not probably value that but now it may bring him to an humiliation and a sincere repentance accompanied with a godly life hereafter Now this serves to condemn all those that are so far from acknowledging and confessing their sins as to justifie themselves in them and plead for them with all the Rhetorick they have so that if any one in a Christian way reprove them with meekness 't is verba ventis dare to prattle to the wind they will probably reply with some such kind of cross answer What need you busie your self about the state of my soul I shall be responsible not to you for it look to your self first if they carouse follow strange attire they will say they do but as others do 't is the fashion what care they and this slye trick of dissimulation we suckt from our first Parents Genesis the 3. and the 12. where when Adam was examined he posted off the matter from himself to his wife The woman that thou gavest me she gave me of the fruit and I did eat We are unwilling to confess and acknowledg our sins when as we have encouragement enough for it from our Text since there is such an excessive joy in Heaven at the conversion of one Sinner God himself rejoyceth the blessed quire of Angels rejoyce and all the Host of Heaven How then should we labour after true repentance since we have so many sacred invitations to it in holy writ Since God himself doth vouchsafe to come and invite us unto him and promiseth us acceptance from him he will bid us welcom be confident beloved whenever we approach his presence with a real and a contrite heart Overcome your selves though it be very difficult for

an intent to contemplate his face but he transforms him into his own likeness or similitude by the irradiation of his splendor and perfection And if God be Charity and Love as the holy Apostle St. John affirms and all Christians are engaged to believe in the 1. of St. John 4 Chap. 8 vers it follows of necessity that the creature being by this beatifical vision made like unto God should be ravished with love and all on a flame with this spiritual fire Such a fire as hath imposed a name on the Seraphims to termed because of their ardor which is no other thing but the Love of God the fervor of their zeal and their promptitude and agility in his service This now should serve for a Use of exhortation to all good Christians Use viz. to labour after the love of God with all humility pious speed and integrity of heart that so they might be like unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle expresseth it And unless you be drunk with momentary and totally deprived of a sense or imagination of the super-excellency and plerophory of joy that is in Heaven you cannot but strive by a holy life and conversation to attain unto the everlasting Crown of Glory and the seat and society of the blessed Angels in Heaven where you shall chant forth in aeternum Hallelujahs to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost and live in felicity and joy that is unutterable to the praise and glory of Gods immortal name without care sorrow grief or distraction world without end Use 2 This serves for a Use of terror and horror to all wicked persons whose whole life hath been a perpetual wilful violation of Gods Law without any repentance of or amendment and conversion from their misdemeanours and offences They shall never enter into the joy of the Lord but have that terrible doleful doom and sentence passed upon them Go ye cursed into everlasting darkness where there is nothing but weeping and wayling and gnashing of teeth totally deprived of Gods comfortable soul-vivifying presence being entombed alive in this pit of darkness ubi miseriae ubi tenebrae ubi horror aeternus ubi nulla spes boni nulla desperatio mali where you shall be surrounded with miseries benegroed in more then cimmerian and that perpetuall darkness too overwhelmed by and implunged into eternal horror where there is no hope of restitution to a blessed or redemption from an accursed estate but there must be tormented world without end Thus have I demonstrated unto you the happiness of those that fear God and their unhappiness that go a whoring after the lusts and concupiscences of the flesh we have shewn you the five Degrees of Love toward God and our meditation cannot soar any higher this is the last round of Jacobs Ladder that conveys us to Heaven We all profess I must confess to love God but few do it seriously and cordially and by this kind of external pomp and outward shew of profession we deceive ignorant man nay we put a fallacy upon our selves But there is no humane policy or sophistry that can cheat a God wherefore it is necessary for the prevention and knowledge of such counterfeit hypocritical persons to bring them to the touch and try what metal they are composed of to discern the true sincere and pure Love of God from the false and counterfeit And as there are five degrees of our Love to God so there are five marks or tokens visible enough whereby we may discern whether or no we have the true Love of God 5 Marks of Gods Love which we shall only enumerate and so conclude for the present 1 Mark The first mark or token of our Love to God is this viz. It extinguisheth all other unchaste and inordinate Love 2 Mark The second mark and effect of this Love is the peace and tranquillity of the soul and conscience The third mark is 3 Mark our Love towards our Neighbour The fourth mark is 4 Mark the delight and pleasure that we have and take in communing and conversing with God The fifth mark is 5 Mark a zeal for the glory of God that is increased or diminished according as God is honoured or dishonoured He whosoever he be that perceives these effects wrought in him may assure himself that he loves God with a true real and religious Love and though it may happen sometimes that his love may be abated the heat of his zeal be somewhat quenched the vigor of his affection somewhat debilitated though this Love be weak yet it argues it not to be false it is true for all that for as a weak faith is a good faith so a weak love is a good love The very Apostles themselves were termed by our Saviour men of little faith though it be small so it encrease indies day by day tending to perfection 't will without doubt end in happiness and eternal joy Thus have I laid down these five degrees or marks of our true love to God which I shall desist from discoursing any farther on at present but commit you to God and leave the handling of them to the next opportunity If God permit Amen THE SAINTS COMFORT in the day of death In the book of Job the 19 Chapter and the 25 verse it is thus written I know that my Redeemer liveth c. HE alwayes goes stumblingly SERM. V. that walks in the night said Jesus Christ the true light of the World Joh. 11.10 And he that walketh in darkness knows not whither he goes said his beloved disciple If there be any thing wherein this may be clearly known is is in the mistake of judgement which those make of themselves who being destitute of the celestial light of verity suffer themselves to be led away by their own natural darkness For there is nothing more frequent in their mouths then the complaint of their misfortunes nor nothing more rare then the confession of their faults they out-speak their punishments and palliate their crimes they declare themselves miserable but would not be thought wicked you shall often hear the Philosophers call man a dream of a shaddow a weather-cock of inconstancy an example of weakness a general rendezvous of dolours and misfortunes A Democritus laughing at his folly an Heraclitus bemoaning his calamities The one termes those happy that go quickly out of the world and th' other those more happy that never come into it All too much occupied in the sense of their misery but never in searching or acknowledging their sins All accusing Nature as a stepdame but no man himself as a rebellious or disobedient child He of all men seems to have best hit of mans condition who hath qualified him the miserablest and proudest of creatures for whereas all declamations upon the pitiful estate of humane nature ought to be so many lively lessons of true humility and that cloud of misfortunes that showres on their

of Heaven and these devout Jews here whom it pitied to see the glory of Zion laid in the dust wept when they remembred it Appl. What shall we say then of those who now in the time of our Church and Kingdoms calamity when God seems to call to us as sometimes Jehu did Who is on my side who When the Church cries to us as sometimes she did Is it nothing to you all ye that passe by the way have ye no regard behold and see if ever sorrow were like my sorrow yet neither in heed to his voice nor in pity to her complaints will they humble themselves by fasting and prayer to cry to Heaven for mercy upon her but rather when God calls to mourning they are a revelling they drink wine in bowles and anoint themselves with precious oyntments but remember not the afflictions of Joseph wherefore I have sworn by my self saith the Lord God of hosts I abhor the excellency of Jacob Amos 6.6 8. And let such read the 22 Chapter of Isaiah vers 12 13 14. and tremble at the close of it Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till you dye Ye would take it in foul disgrace to be called hard-hearted Jews yet these were more compassionate of the Churches miseries then are many of you these wept when they remembred Zion How then shall not our hearts agonize under Gods displeasure and our bedewed cheeks trickle down with tears for the miseries of our Church and State seeing the Heavens themselves have with waterish eyes long wept for our calamities not with dews but showers of compassion all the summer long and still now in winter keep their gloomy face to reproove the hardness of our obdurate hearts that can neither weep for our own nor pity the miseries of others O insensate hearts Is it nothing to you that you all passe by Zions sorrow wherewith the Lord hath afflicted her in the day of his fierce anger The senceless creatures groan and travel in a fellow-feeling pain but you when your own members suffer and perish O where are the sounding of your bowels are they quite restrained The earth trembles at the voice of God the Sea saw him and was afraid and the rocks cleft at our Saviours passion and shall men be so obdurate as not to be moved nor split asunder at a Church and a Kingdoms passion If rocks be more affected then we O God take away from us these obdurate hearts of flesh and give us hearts of stone that seeing we cannot with innocent yet we may with hearts broken by repentance for all these sins that have pulled down those judgments upon our heads by these waters of Babylon sit down and weep when we remember thee O Zion And so I have done with the words in their literal sense and proceed now to them Secondly in their moral sense of which briefly In this sense St. Hilary St. Augustine Hugo de Sancto Victore Hugo Cardinalis with many others have taken these words nor in this do we offer any violence to the truth of the history but only digest gesta in exemplum scripta in doctrina as saith St. Hilary the passages into example and Scripture into doctrine The soul we all know hath four several states 1. Of innocence 2. Of a lapsed condition 3. Of renovation by grace 4. Of expectation of glory And going along with her from her first instant of creation to the last of eternity we shall find all of them in the Text. 1. That of innocence but implied so as that captivity supposeth a foregoing freedom this freedom was that of our created holiness which we enjoyed in Paradise that new Jerusalem that vision of peace but God knows we stay'd not long there before we were carried captive by the devil into Babylon from Paradise into the world from our country into exile from liberty into servitude from glory into disgrace from pleasure into grief from happiness into misery from integrity into corruption from life into death and therefore Merito illic sedemus merito flemus there we deservedly sit and weep as Hugo Victorinus concludes and that is the second state 2. The souls lapsed condition figured in Babylon and the waters of Babylon That Babylon properly signifies a City of confusion and that mystically here is meant this sinful world is agreed on by a general suffrage of Fathers and therefore consonantly they make the waters of Babylon to be bona temporalia so Hugo Cardinalis temporal things which as the rivers stay not but pass from one elbow of earth unto another the world passeth away and the lusts thereof 1 Joh. 2.17 or as Victorinus calls them decursiones nostrae corruptiones the decursions of our corruption and mortality which as Solomon speaks tend to the grave as the rivers into the Sea or as saith St. Augustine flumina Babyloniae sunt omnia quae hic amantur transeunt the rivers of Babylon are all transitory things whereon we set our hearts and so St. Hilarie omnia saeculi corporalium opera all secular and corporal travels which like rivers are transient without the least station for what bodily pleasure is it but when once 't is past by that time becomes none What earthly joy that dies not in the sense and perishes not in the enjoying yet are these those rivers on which the heart of man sets and fastens his delight and engulphs his care till at last they drown his soul and sink it as low as that pit which knows no bottom 3. But not so the Saints whose spiritualized souls are lifted up to a third state of graces renovation who though they do with patience wait their desired change in this flesh of sin as well as of mortality and so may be said to sit by the waters of Babylon which they account no better then the place of their short captivity yet humiliatione humiliati saith St. Augustine they sit in humiliation so Victorinus not erect by pride nor cast down by despair but humbly set so Hugo Cardinalis because they attend that misery in which they are that happiness from which they are distant Or there they sit but 't is supra flumina above the waters so the old Latine word reads it The Citizens of Babylon so drench themselves into the delights of the sinful world as they drown themselves in their pleasing but deadly waters whereas the Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem sit higher sit above not so low as to fear drowning nor so high as not to need to weep and weep they do too as well as sit if sitting be a posture that pleaseth the body weeping I am sure is an evacuation that easeth the soul O quam fic flere juvat saith St. Hierome O what sweets are there in hallowed tears how the soul delights to melt it self into such blessed showers because when she goeth into the lowest pitch of mourning she is then lifted up into the highest rapture of joy You have heard of them that have wept for joy but not so oft of them that have rejoyced for weeping yet of all the passions the soul is owner of she is a debtor to none more for her joy then this this is her rich treasure in which she traffiques with Heaven this the rarest dissolved pearl with which she defrayes all the passages of her captivity through the valley of tears Feel'st thou sin sit down and weep there is no innocence so clear among mortal men as that which is drencht in tears Fear'st thou hell sit down and weep flames cannot burn where these drops do fall O happy weeping that redeems from eternal weeping 4. But lookest thou up to Heaven that last state of thy souls glory her Country her Kingdom her Security sit down and weep that thy Pilgrimage is prolonged that mortality is not swallowed up of life that thou art yet a stranger and a sojourner nor art thou yet joyned with those innumerable companies of Angels and the first born that are written in Heaven O when shall that time be when our souls being delivered from the Babylon of this world from the prison of this flesh from the bondage of this corruption shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God How long Lord till these souls of ours which like streams here wander from the fountain of bliss be again re-admitted into that glorious source of immortality For this we breathe for this we groan for this each devout heart weeps when he recounts the miseries of this present exile but the happiness of Zion which we expect where all tears shall be wiped from our eyes where is no death nor sorrow nor lamentation any more but all joyes tranquillity and peace even for ever and ever To which the God of mercy for his Sons sake who is gone before us thither in his due time bring us to whom with the holy and ever-blessed Trinity three Persons and one God be all honour and glory world without end Amen FINIS