taken from thee it is its own defence and shine for righteousness shall go before thee and the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward and then 't is clearly prov'd that such a single Eie shall make the body full of light 2. Light do's signify holiness of life deeds truly Christian walk as Lights in the Lord nothing more common in Scripture and Darkness signifies a sinful and un-Christian life a life that 's full of deeds of darkness And then the words mean thus as the eie is the candle of the body lightens and directs it well if it be as it ought but otherwise very ill and the man is in the dark if his eie be ill and do not serve him so is the heart of man as to the guidance and direction of his actions if his eie be single if he have an heart taken off from the world a liberal bountiful mind not set upon the love and desire of the things of this world his whole body will be full of light his whole life will be very Christian all his actions holy and heavenly and to the making of them so liberality of mind hath a very observable influence It will incline a man wonderfully to pious courses it is a leading vertue as the eie is a leading part But if the eie be evil but if the heart be worldly set upon wealth either for it self or for those heights or fine things or pleasures which wealth do's procure if it be unsatisfied in these things for it self or envious at others for them the whole body will be full of darkness the whole life will be very un-Christian such a disposition of mind as that quite draws a man off from the temper that Christ requires the unsatisfied the envious and the covetous person can never serve God but only Sin those dispositions being the root of all evil Now if the light that is in thee be darkness if thy heart be un-Christian and if thy leading vertue that was to take thee off from all worldly inclinations be extinct and dark in thee how great is that darkness what an un-Christian life will there be and whatever light do's shine about thee of the Gospel whatever light thou dost pretend of knowledg or of whatsoever else there is a deep darkness dwells upon thy heart and is in all thy actions Now this sense we see connects what went before and that which follows after drives on our Savior's design that he is pressing here and to this sense Scripture alwaies speaks in the expressions of single and of evil eie of light and darkness and therefore this was certainly the sense that was intended by our Savior and to the prosecuting of it I shall shew 1. That to have a generous liberal mind an heart taken off from the self uses and advantages of wealth is the great means the great engine and instrument of making all the actions very Christian the life holy 2. This grace in the heart bounty of mind is a great evidence of a true Christian heart 3. A worldly heart loving and desiring wealth troubled at its condition envying others that are in better and for the ends of any advantages to it self straitning its liberality is not only in it self an un-Christian temper but such as is the root and cause of a life wholly un-Christian and unholy Of these in their order 1. To have a liberal mind c. That the throwing of this earth out of the heart is a most hopeful way of making the man clean and pure we have most pregnant Scripture Luke 11. 39 40 41. Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter but your inward part in full of ravening and wickedness Ye fools did not be that made that which is without make that which is within also But rather give alms of such things as you have and behold all things are clean unto you which bears this sene ye hypocritical Pharisees wash yor selve as if a man should wash his vessels the outside of them only leaving the insides of them full of filthiness for thus do ye wash your bodies leaving your souls full of all uncleaness This is an extreme folly for it your outward washings were in obedience to God you would cleanse the insides your hearts and souls as well as your bodies The best way of purifying your selves your estates your meats and drinks c. from all pollution cleaving to them is by works of mercy and liberal alms gifts and not by washing pots and vessels Thy broken meats thy scraps thy charities shall cleanse thy platters more than washing them shall do alms shall make all things clean But how this To cleanse hath two aspects either on the guilt of past actions or on the habits and dispositions to future commissions and is to cleanse us from the evil that we have don or to make us clean from those vices that were in us and which would make us do more evil the first of these is don by Repentance not by Alms. Indeed the Wise man saies the alms of a man is as a signet with the Lord and he will keep the good deeds of a man as the apple of an eie and give repentance to his sons and daughters Ecclesiasticus 17. 22. the happiest way of purchase for a family in the world The give to children an estate perchance is but to give an instrument of vice bestow the means of sining on them at best 't is but to leave them pomp and superfluity but to give Repenetance to them is to give security of everlasting blessedness this is as it were to entail Heaven on ones children But this is not the thing we mean we are to see how Alms should make us clean from vice It is observ'd by a Reverend Expositor that our Savior speaking Syriack useth a word for alms which in that language and Arabick signifies cleansing that is give Alms which as it comes from a word that signifies to cleanse so all shall be clean to you and they give this reason of the notion they derive Alams from a word that signifies to cleanse quod opes ab inquinamento animum ab avaritiae sordibus purgat because 1. Alms purgeth our wealth from the pollution and filthiness that adheres to it As among the Jews it was not lawful for any man to use the increase of his own land or cattle to eat part of his own harvest nor feed on his own vineyard or imploy the profits of any one beast of his own herd or flock till he had given up to God the first-born of that beast offered the first fruits every year of his fruit-yards and dedicated a first sheaf of his harvest this must sanctify all the rest which till then was unclean not to be used by him to this it seems our Savior do's look in his direction There is an unclean tacke in every thing that comes from earth it do's derive a soil and
and Sun and a City and a Candle things that are visible or else diffusive of their vertues and then concludes Let your light or rather So let your light as a candle gives light unto all that are in the house So do ye Let your light shine hefore men Light is set here for Christian Holiness and Purity as I shall shew you and that most fitly because nothing so pure as Light clear as shine and noon-day nor nothing so diffusive it shews it self to all so that the thing meant by it is an open visible Holiness of Conversation Or secondly more especially to represent the Purity of a Christian Life Light is so clear that it is set to express the very Holiness of God himself 1 John 1. 5. This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is Light and in him is no darkness at all And indeed Light was the very first emanation of God in the Creation he said first let there be light And it is the most spiritual and pure of all visible corporeal beings its motions seem instantaneous and by a kind of omnipresence it fills the medium and appears entire in every part of it yea farther it is not liable to stain or sulliage sun-shine is as bright upon a Cottage as a Palace a dung-hill as a bed of Roses you may extinguish light but not defile it No expression comes near the clearness of light and this our Holiness is to strive after But thirdly most of all to represent the open visibility of Christian virtue Nothing is so easily seen as Light for indeed nothing can be seen but by it in a moment it will scatter it self over the whole Hemisphere yea Heaven it self does not bound the Sun-shine and it passes thro the Firmament Even so diffusive should our Piety be shining before men and like the Sun 's light too spreading into Heaven shining before Angels and making them rejoice A Christian is not to suffer any man to walk in the dark either of ignorance or of sin whom his knowledg or example may recover he must instruct and enlighten the mind he must reform and enlighten the will and the affections His pious actions must be always shining in his eyes to guide and stir him up and every one must be Christ's star to lead to him They that be wise saith Daniel c. 12. 3. shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever Yea they are to shine so as they may turn many that shining being both their glory and their duty And St Paul tells how they are to shine Phil. 2. 15. Be blameless and harmless the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom ye shine as lights in the world All men look upon you and therefore you are to give them good example They are as watch-towers upon the sea that have lights placed in them to guide the Mariners into safe harbor to teach them how to shun the rocks and this they are to do both by their own practice and by reproof Eph. 5. 11 13. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light When those foul acts that are don of them in secret are reproved by a man that hath this Divine Light in him then it appears how foul and wicked they are which the darkness of their souls would not let them see John 3. 20. it is set down as the property of light to reprove evil deeds by discovering to them the ugliness of their courses and shewing the fair example of a contrary life to turn them from the evil of their ways This is to let their light shine before men Another expression is of a Candle v. 15. of which the ground is the same with that of the other the Light of the world onely the Type sinks a little The Light there had a larger Sphere for the Sun gives shine to all the world but the Candle here gives light but unto all that are in the house as our Savior words it or at least that are in the room Now this Emblem was also very necessary the greatest part of men are of a lower rank and emploiment than their example should have influence upon very many or that their actions should be called Sunshine the acts of their calling are low and so are those of their Piety and Religion not considerable enough to be view'd or look'd upon by many others they are not any thing notably and how then can they be exemplary in their lives They are too much clouded both in their fortunes and their emploiments and their faculties to send forth any Raies they cannot shine Why yet for these our Savior hath a Type here in his Sermon as also a great part of his life was the very practice of this exemplariness in a very low and ordinary condition From the time that he disputed with the Doctors at twelve years old the shine and glory of which action may seem enough to have temted one to shew forth his light in an eminent manner to have presently undertaken emploiments wherein he might have bin seen yet till the time that he was thirty years old he retired himself and was subject to his Parents living with and serving them privately at Nazareth Luke 2. 51. who God knows were of a very mean condition and consequently so was he working with his hands in a mean trade Now all this while how did his light shine before men when it was immur'd in a Carpenter's work-house Why even then it did in exemplary humility great obedience pious carriage and virtuous diligence ordering his conversation in that very mean condition so as that made him gracious in the sight of God and of men v. 52. So that from his behavior in that low estate men accounted him a very good person And then whosoever thou art be thou never so low Christ hath shewed thee how to shine before men as he did tho he were the Son of Righteousness Thou canst not be too mean to be obedient to be careful in thy service to be harmless never doing or speaking ill of any body thou canst not be too low to be abased nor consequently to have occasion to shew forth patience meekness and longsuffering and gentleness those glorious however humble virtues And this is truly to make thy light shine before men Tho thy example be not big enough to be look'd upon by a whole Shire nor yet a Parish nor a Township thou canst not be accounted the light of the world yet be thou never so little thou maiest shine forth as a Candle give example to the Family in which thou art by those virtues of being harmless If thou have not so much Piety so much Light as will shine abroad and make a day
no such command and it were not my duty for till then I knew nothing of it this alone therefore do's propose and apply duty to us and consequently whether that which it proposes be my duty really in it self or no yet I must needs look upon it as so having no other direction imaginable what to do or forbear but what my conscience some way instructed tells me God or my Governors have commanded or forbid me So that if I am resolv'd in my mind of the sinfulness and obliquity of an action propos'd tho really the thing be innocent yet to me in my present circumstance 't will be utterly unlawful and tho the action be innocent the agent will be guilty 2. That God hath plac'd the conscience in us as the only next and immediate rule of all our actions according to which they are to be directed which if they be not they are faulty as every thing that swerves from its rule is not right tho what I have said will sufficiently prove yet Scripture do's confirm when it saies Rom. 14. 23. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin that is to say whatsoever is contrary to the perswasion of lawfulness that is in other words contrary to conscience is sin whatsoever he do's as long as he thinks in conscience he should not do it he sins whether the thing be sin or no as that was no sin of which he there spake And reason good for we are so far honest hearted lovers of God as we embrace that which our hearts are really possest is his service and our duty and hate the contrary that is as we follow our conscience conscience being nothing but the persuasion that this is duty which if we go against 't is sure we like and follow that which in our thoughts is vicious and wicked be it what it will in it self to us 't is so 't is sure the inclinations and the actions pursue vice when they pursue that which they cannot look upon but as vice Conscience therefore is the rule from which 't is sin to recede 'T is with fair pretence to reason said that nothing can be a rule which is it self crooked and irregular That which is strait is indeed said to be index sui obliqui and having justified its own rectitude becomes qualified to be a test of right and wrong in others For certainly if the man knew what God's Law do's require of him in that case the conscience do's not erre if he do not know what God's word do's require how can he follow it against that which his conscience tells him God requires And it is certain if the man should suspend his action and have not reason to act according to his erring conscience he never can have reason to act according to a conscience well-inform'd not when it tells him God is to be lov'd for it is sure his conscience do's as much propose the error as his duty as it do's the truth the man as really believes the one is to be don as the other and hath no reason to make difference and therefore if at any time he must follow his conscience he must alwaies and it will be sin to act against it be it what it will But then you 'l hope it will excuse to act according to it Oh no alas for that 's the second thing in this case of erring conscience if a man act according to his conscience he sins too if he act against the Law of God Scripture will furnish me with several examples and proofs of this and 't is a doctrine worth the taking notice of it having prov'd to so many persons a plea for actions otherwise abominable they follow'd their conscience 't was it may be mistake in judgment but 't was uprightness of heart sincerity of conscience Now to take off this color which I shall do with all imaginable plainess Our Savior John 16. 2. foretells to his Disciples they shall put you out of their Synagogues yea the time will come that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he do's offer God an oblation or worship shall think it not only lawful but acceptable to God and of the nature of a Sacrifice which propitiates for other offences to put you to death See here a conscience bravely glos'd when the error look'd like Religion and Attonement a color not at all strange to our daies in such another case and yet these Jews that did so for of them he speaks were given up to the direst punishments that ever any nation did groan under Of the same Jews S. Paul saies Rom. 10. 2. I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledg that is I must testify of them that they are very many of them great zealots for their Law as that which is commanded them by God and so in their way and heart zealous to have God obeied only for want of knowledg they are mistaken in their zeal Here is strong conscience granted in these Jews and that built up upon a Law of God then indeed outdated which yet thro a zealous earnestness they were ignorant of but yet the following this zeal and conscience was plagued with total induration of of that people c. 11. 8 9 10. Nor was this S. Pauls heat against that persecuting nation but that Apostle do's more plainly yet and home to our matter say of himself Acts 23. 1. I have liv'd in all good conscience before God until this day I have all my life long even when I was a defender of the Mosaical Law against Christ's reformation acted sincerely and uprightly according to my conscience and again 2 Tim. 1. 3. I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers with a pure conscience i. e. whom I have obeied sincerely all my time even when thro ignorance I persecuted the Christian faith doing according to the dictate of my conscience and as I was perswaded I ought to do And now if conscience will excuse there was enough of that a good conscience and a pure conscience and will his fiery persecutions nâ—w by vertue of his conscience be Christned holy zeal shall the pure conscience make his bloudy hands to be undefil'd Oh no 't was Blasphemy and injury and persecution for all 't was conscience 1 Tim. 1. 13. I was before a blasphemer c. and notwithstanding I did it all in the uprightness and sincerity of my heart I am the chief of sinners v. 15. And let us not suppose these aggravations were laid on by S. Paul upon himself because of his unbelief that that was the only thing that gave guilt to his actions and that we thro faith and assurance shall escape if we do such gross actions out of an erring conscience For on the contrary S. Paul do's bring his unbelief not as the Aggravation but the Apology of his crimes he pleads that for himself v. 13. and he finds
things that go by in a Whirl-wind come in storm and so they pass away refuse inmortal Hallelujahs for a Song cast away solid Joys and an Eternal weight of Blessedness for froth for the shadow of smoak Perchance this may be said for them the nearness of the object does impose upon them they choose something in present rather than dry future hopes But then when that advantage to lies on the other side their Choice hath no Temptation when the Pious mans possessions are in hand the others onely in desire in view indeed they may be he does catch at and pursue them still But the hinder Wheel of the Chariot that presses and with larger turns and rowlings hastens after may as soon hope to undertake the first as that man reach a satisfaction still it removes and he does onely heat his appetite in posting after it onely get more desire Now 't is prodigious that these great Men of Sense should be men of such Faith and Expectation as to trust and hope in things that have so constantly so daily mock'd their confidences and desires yet be not onely Infidels to all Gods blessed preparations which they have nor reason nor Experience against but also have no sense nor relish of himself in present Not taste nor see how gracious the Lord is 'T is said that the desires of Earthly sensual things do make the greatest part of the Torments of Hell Now though this Doctrine be false and pernicious yet 't is plain that Torment must attend strong passions and most infinite desires which are radicated in the Sinner's heart and which he carries hence and cannot there deposite and to which yet satisfactions are impossible against his knowledg to be mad to have what he knows all the World cannot make it possible for him to have this tears his Soul Affections these that may be said in some sense to fulfil some of the expressions of the Torments of that place their Envy makes the gnashing of their Teeth and their Desires are their Vultures Thus Tantalâ—s's riotous hunger that does gnaw his bowels is his Worm that never dies and his intemperate thirst his everlasting burnings and his Water that he cannot reach or taste of is his Lake of fire without Metaphor So that desire alone without its satisfaction is so much of Hell and yet this is the worldly sensual mans estate exactly here on Earth for he hath nothing but desires and lusts and his condition is not easier at all for how is Tantalus more wretched than a Midas or than any covetous wretch who in the midst of affluence and heaps hungers as much as Midas did for meat and for Gold too and an touch neither for his uses so that the Worlds delights are very like the miseries of Hell and men with so much eager and impatient pursuit do but anticipate their torments and invade Damnation here And if the case be so sure there is no great self-denial in our Psalmist here when he resolves to desire nothing upon Earth in comparison of his God 'T is no such glorious conquest of my Appetite to make it not pursue a present Hell and an eternal one annex'd to it before a Saviour Yet the World does so Some there are that desire Money rather and although when Judas did so this desire could not bear it self but cast all back again and though it did disgorge it burst him too the Sin it self supply'd the Law and his guilt was his Execution Yet this will not terrifie men will do the like betray a Master a Saviour and a God onely not for so little money peradventure Others when the Lord paid his own Blood for their Redemption yet if their wrath thirsts for his Blood that does offend them their revenge makes their Enemies the sweeter blood though their own Soul bleed to death in his stream To others the deservings of the Partner of an unclean moment are much greater than all that the Lord Jesus knew to merit at their hands or purchase for them And it is no wonder they are so ungrateful to their Saviour when they are so barbarous to themselves as to choose not to have present Divine Possessions rather than not suffer the vengeance of their own Appetites choose meerly to desire here though that be to do what they do in Hell rather than have in Heaven O thou my Soul if thou wilt needs desire propose at least some satisfaction to thy Appetite do not covet onely needs thirst for a feaver and desire meerly to inflame desire and Torments But seek there where all thy wants will find an infinite happy supply even in thy Saviour covet the riches of his Grace and Goodness thirst for the fountain opened for transgression for the waters of the well of Life desire him that is the desire of all Nations yet why should we desire even him when we have him in Heaven and we have nothing upon Earth left to desire but that God who hath exalted him unto his Kingdom in Heaven would in his due time exalt us also to the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before To whom c. The Seventh SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LENT 1663 4. MARK I. 3. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. I Shall not break this single short Command asunder into Parts but shall instead of doing that observe three Advents of our Saviour in this Life before that last to Judgment For each of which as it must concern us there must be preparation made by us In pressing which I do not mean to urge you to do that which none but God can do It is not in man to direct his own ways much less the Lords The very preparations of the Heart are from him Therefore supposing the preventings of his Graces I shall subjoyn that the Comporting with those graces the using of his strengths to the rooting out of our selves all aversation to Virtue and all love of Vice and planting other inclinations even Resolutions of good life is the onely thing that can make way for Christ and for his benefits Now of those Advents the First was when he came Commission'd by God to reveal his Will to propose the Gospel to our belief the coming of Christ as a Prophet which particularly is intended in the Text. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is written prepare ye the way of the Lord. The Second was that coming which the Prophet Isay did foresee and in the astonishment of Vision ask'd Who is this that comes from Edom with dy'd garments from Bozrah travelling in the greatness of his Strength Why is he red in his Apparel and his garments like him that treadeth in the Wine-fat And it was the Prospect of him when he came to tread the Wine-press of the Wrath of God to Sacrifice himself for us upon the Cross his coming as a Priest The Third is when he comes to visit for Iniquity coming