against me is intollerable but if I choose the state of a servant I am free in my minde Libertatis servaveris umbrant Si quicquid jubeare velis certain it is that such a person who fain would but cannot choose but commit adultery or drunkennesse is the veriest slave to sin that can be imagined and not at all freed by the Spirit and by the liberty of the sons of God and there is no other difference but that the mistaken good man feels his slavery and sees his chains and his fetters but therefore it is certain that he is because he sees himself to be a slave No man can be a servant of sin and a servant of righteousnesse at the same time but every man that hath the Spirit of God is a servant of righteousnesse and therefore whosoever finde great sins to be unavoidable are in a state of death and reprobation as to the present because they willingly or unwillingly it matters not much whether of the two are servants of sin 2. Sins of infirmity as they are small in their instance so they put on their degree of excusablenesse onely according to the weaknesse or infirmity of a mans understanding So far as men without their own fault understand not their duty or are possessed with weaknesse of principles or are destitute and void of discourse or discerning powers and acts so far if a sin creeps upon them it is as naturall and as free from a law as is the action of a childe But if any thing else be mingled with it if it proceed from any other principle it is criminall and not excused by our infirmity because it is chosen and a mans will hath no infirmity but when it wants the grace of God or is mastered with passions and sinfull appetites and that infirmity is the state of unregeneration 3. The violence or strength of a temptation is not sufficient to excuse an action or to make it accountable upon the stock of a pitiable and innocent infirmity if it leaves the understanding still able to judge because a temptation cannot have any proper strengths but from our selves and because we have in us a principle of basenesse which this temptation meets and onely perswades me to act because I love it Joseph met with a temptation as violent and as strong as any man and it is certain there are not many Christians but would fall under it and call it a sin of infirmity since they have been taught so to abuse themselves by sowing fig-leaves before their nakednesse but because Joseph had a strength of God within him the strength of chastity therefore it could not at all prevail upon him Some men cannot by any art of hell be tempted to be drunk others can no more resist an invitation to such a meeting then they can refuse to die if a dagger were drunk with their heart blood because their evil habits made them weak on that part And some man that is fortified against revenge it may be will certainly fall under a temptation to uncleannesse for every temptation is great or small according as the man is and a good word will certainly lead some men to an action of folly while another will not think ten thousand pound a considerable argument to make him tell one single lie against his duty or his conscience 4. No habituall sin that is no sin that returns constantly or frequently that is repented of and committed again and still repented of and then again committed no such sin is excusable with a pretence of infirmity Because that sin is certainly noted and certainly condemned and therefore returns not because of the weaknesse of nature but the weaknesse of grace the principle of this is an evil spirit an habituall aversation from God a dominion and empire of sin and as no man for his inclination and aptnesse to the sins of the flesh is to be called carnall if he corrects his inclinations and turns them into vertues so no man can be called spirituall for his good wishes and apt inclinations to goodnesse if these inclinations passe not into acts and these acts into habits and holy customs and walkings and conversation with God But as natural concupiscence corrected becomes the matter of vertue so these good inclinations and condemnings of our sin if they be ineffective and end in sinfull actions are the perfect signes of a reprobate and unregenerate estate The sum is this An animal man a man under the law a carnall man for as to this they are all one is sold under sin he is a servant of corruption he falls frequently into the same sin to which he is tempted he commends the Law he consents to it that it is good he does not commend sin he does some little things against it but they are weak and imperfect his lust is stronger his passions violent and unmortified his habits vitious his customs sinfull and he lives in the regions of sin and dies and enters into its portion But a spirituall man a man that is in the state of grace who is born anew of the Spirit that is regenerate by the Spirit of Christ he is led by the Spirit he lives in the Spirit he does the works of God cheerfully habitually vigorously and although he sometimes slips yet it is but seldom it is in small instances his life is such as he cannot pretend to be justified by works and merit but by mercy and the faith of Jesus Christ yet he never sins great sins If he does he is for that present falne from Gods favour and though possibly he may recover and the smaller or seldomer the sin is the sooner may be his restitution yet for the present I say he is out of Gods favour But he that remains in the grace of God sins not by any deliberate consultive knowing act he is incident to such a surprize as may consist with the weaknesse and judgement of a good man but whatsoever is or must be considered if it cannot passe without consideration it cannot passe without sin and therefore cannot enter upon him while he remains in that state For he that is in Christ in him the body is dead by reason of sin and the Gospel did not differ from the Law but that the Gospel gives grace and strength to do whatsoever it commands which the Law did not and the greatnesse of the promise of eternall life is such an argument to them that consider it that it must needs be of force sufficient to perswade a man to use all his faculties and all his strength that he may obtain it God exacted all upon this stock God knew this could do every thing Nihil non in hoc praesumpsit Deus said one This will make a satyr chast and Silenus to be sober and Dives to be charitable and Simon Magus himself to despise reputation and Saul to turn from a Persecutor to an Apostle For since God hath given us reason
undisturbed posture so is the piety and so is the conversion of a man wrought by degrees and several steps of imperfection and at first our choices are wavering convinced by the grace of God and yet not perswaded and then perswaded but not resolved and then resolved but deferring to begin and then beginning but as all beginnings are in weaknesse and uncertainty and we flie out often into huge indiscretions and look back to Sodom and long to return to Egypt and when the storm is quite over we finde little bublings and unevennesses upon the face of the waters we often weaken our own purposes by the returns of sin and we do not call our selves conquerours till by the long possession of vertues it is a strange and unusual and therefore an uneasy and unpleasant thing to act a crime When Polemon of Athens by chance coming into the schools of Xenocrates was reformed upon the hearing of that one lecture some wise men gave this censure of him peregninatus est hujus animus in nequitiâ non habitavit his minde wandred in wickednesse and travelled in it but never dwelt there the same is the case of some men they make inroads into the enemies countrey not like enemies to spoil but like Dinah to be satisfied with the stranger beauties of the land till their vertues are defloured and they enter into tragedies and are possessed by death and intolerable sorrows but because this is like the fate of Jacobs daughter and happens not by designe but folly not by malice but surprise not by the strength of will but by the weaknesse of grace and yet carries a man to the same place whether a great vice usually does it is hugely pitiable and the persons are to be treated with compassion and to be assisted by the following considerations and exercises First let us consider that for a good man to be overtaken in a single crime is the greatest dishonour and unthriftinesse in the whole world As a fly in a box of ointment so is a little folly to him who is accounted wise said the Son of Sirach No man chides a fool for his weaknesses or scorns a childe for playing with flies and preferring the present appetite before all the possibilities of to morrows event But men wondered when they saw Socrates ride upon a cane and when Solomon laid his wisdom at the foot of Pharaohs daughter and changed his glory for the interest of wanton sleep he became the discourse of heaven and earth and men think themselves abused and their expectation cousened when they see a wise man do the actions of a fool and a good man seized upon by the dishonours of a crime But the losse of his reputation is the least of his evil It is the greatest improvidence in the world to let a healthful constitution be destroyed in the surfet of one night For although when a man by the grace of God and a long endeavour hath obtained the habit of Christian graces every single sin does not spoil the habit of vertue because that cannot be lost but as it was gotten that is by parts and succession yet every crime interrupts the acceptation of the grace and makes the man to enter into the state of enmity and displeasure with God The habit is onely lessened naturally but the value of it is wholly taken away and in this sence is that of Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Saint James well renders He that keeps the whole law and offends in one point is guilty of all that is if he prevaricates in any commandment the transgression of which by the law was capital shall as certainly die as if he broke the whole law and the same is the case of those single actions which the school calls deadly sins that is actions of choice in any sin that hath a name and makes a Kinde hath a distinct matter And sins once pardoned return again to al the purposes of mischief If we by a new sin forfeit Gods former loving kindnesse When the righteous man turneth from his righteousnesse and commiteth iniquity all his righteousnesse that he hath done shall not be remembred in the trespasse that he hath trespassed and in the sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die Now then consider how great a fool he is who when he hath with much labour by suffering violence contradicted his first desires when his spirit hath been in agony and care and with much uneasinesse hath denied to please the lower man when with many prayers and groans and innumerable sighs and strong cryings to God with sharp sufferances and a long severity he hath obtained of God to begin his pardon and restitution and that he is in some hopes to return to Gods favour and that he shall become an heire of heaven when some of his amazing fears and distracting cares begin to be taken off when he begins to think that now it is not certain he shall perish in a sad eternity but he hopes to be saved and he considers how excellent a condition that is he hopes when he dies to go to God and that he shall never enter into the possession of Devils and this state which is but the twilight of a glorious felicity he hath obtained with great labour and much care and infinite danger that this man should throw all this structure down and then when he is ready to reap the fruits of his labours by one indiscreet action to set fire upon his corn fields and destroy all his dearly earned hopes for the madnesse and loose wandrings of an hour This man is an indiscreet gamester who doubles his stake as he thrives and at one throw is dispossessed of all the prosperities of a luckie hand They that are poor as Plutarch observes are carelesse of little things because by saving them they think no great moments can accrue to their estates and they despairing to be rich think such frugality impertinent But they that feele their banks swell and are within the possibilities of wealth think it useful if they reserve the smaller minuts of expence knowing that every thing will adde to their heap but then after long sparing in one night to throw away the wealth of a long purchase is an imprudence becoming none but such persons who are to be kept under Tutors and Guardians and such as are to be chastised by their servants and to be punished by them whom they clothe and feed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These men sowe much and gather little stay long and return empty and after a long voyage they are dashed in pieces when their vessels are laden with the spoils of provinces Every deadly sin destroyes the rewards of a seven years piety I adde to this that God is more impatient at a sin committed by his servants then at many by persons that are his enemies and an uncivil answer from a son to a Father from an
shall escape for being secret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And all prejudices being laid aside it shall be considered concerning our evill rules and false principles Cum cepero tempus ego justitias judicabo when I shall receive the people I shall judge according unto right so we read When we shall receive time I will judge justices and judgements so the vulgar Latin reads it that is in the day of the Lord when time is put into his hand and time shall be no more he shall judge concerning those judgements when men here make of things below and the fighting man shall perceive the noises of drunkards and fools that cryed him up for daring to kill his Brother to have been evill principles and then it will be declared by strange effects that wealth is not the greatest fortune and ambition was not but an ill counsellor and to lye for a good cause was no piety and to do evill for the glory of God was but an ill worshipping him and that good nature was not well imploy'd when it spent it self in vicious company and evill compliances and that piety was not softnesse and want of courage and that poverty ought not to have been contemptible and that cause that is unsuccessefull is not therefore evill and what is folly here shall be wisdome there then shall men curse their evill guides and their accursed superinduced necessities and the evill guises of the world and then when silence shall be found innocence and eloquence in many instances condemned as criminall when the poor shall reign and Generals and Tyrants shall lye low in horrible regions when he that lost all shall finde a treasure and he that spoil'd him shall be found naked and spoil'd by the destroyer then we shall finde it true that we ought here to have done what our Judge our blessed Lord shall do there that is take our measures of good and evill by the severities of the word of God by the Sermons of Christ and the four Gospels and by the Epistles of S. Paul by Justice and charity by the Lawes of God and the lawes of wise Princes and Republicks by the rules of Nature and the just proportions of Reason by the examples of good men and the proverbs of wise men by severity and the rules of Discipline for then it shall be that truth shall ride in triumph and the holinesse of Christs Sermons shall be manifest to all the world that the Word of God shall be advanced over all the discourses of men and Wisdome shall be justified by all her children Then shall be heard those words of an evill and tardy repentance and the just rewards of folly We fools thought their life madnesse but behold they are justified before the throne of God and we are miserable for ever Here men think it strange if others will not run into the same excesse of riot but there they will wonder how themselves should be so mad and infinitely unsafe by being strangely and inexcusably unreasonable The summe is this The Judge shall appear cloathed with wisdome and power and justice and knowledge and an impartiall Spirit making no separations by the proportions of this world but by the measures of God not giving sentence by the principles of our folly and evill customes but by the severity of his own Laws and measures of the Spirit Non est judicium Dei sicut hominum God does not judge as Man judges 6. Now that the Judge is come thus arrayed thus prepared so instructed let us next consider the circumstances of our appearing and his sentence and first I consider that men at the day of Judgement that belong not to the portion of life shall have three sorts of accusers 1. Christ himself who is their Judge 2. Their own conscience whom they have injured and blotted with characters of death and foul dishonour 3. The Devill their enemy whom they served 1. Christ shall be their accuser not only upon the stock of those direct injuries which I before reckoned of crucifying the Lord of life once and again c. But upon the titles of contempt and unworthinesse of unkindnesse and ingratitude and the accusation will be nothing else but a plain representation of those artifices and assistances those bonds and invitations those constrainings and importunities which our dear Lord used to us to make it almost impossible to lye in sin and necessary to be sav'd For it will it must needs be a fearfull exprobration of our unworthinesse when the Judge himself shall bear witnesse against us that the wisdome of God himself was strangely imployed in bringing us safely to felicity I shall draw a short Scheme which although it must needs be infinitely short of what God hath done for us yet it will be enough to shame us * God did not only give his Son for an example and the Son gave himself for a price for us but both gave the holy Spirit to assist us in mighty graces for the verifications of Faith and the entertainments of Hope and the increase and perseverance of Charity * God gave to us a new nature he put another principle into us a third part of a perfective constitution we have the Spirit put into us to be a part of us as properly to produce actions of a holy life as the soul of man in the body does produce the naturall * God hath exalted humane nature and made it in the person of Jesus Christ to sit above the highest seat of Angels and the Angels are made ministring spirits ever since their Lord became our Brother * Christ hath by a miraculous Sacrament given us his body to eat and his bloud to drink he made waies that we may become all one with him * He hath given us an easie religion and hath established our future felicity upon naturall and pleasant conditions and we are to be happy hereafter if we suffer God to make us happy here and things are so ordered that a man must take more pains to perish then to be happy * God hath found out rare wayes to make our prayers acceptable our weak petitions the desires of our imperfect souls to prevail mightily with God and to lay a holy violence and an undeniable necessity upon himself and God will deny us nothing but when we aske of him to do us ill offices to give us poisons and dangers and evill nourishment and temptations and he that hath given such mighty power to the prayers of his servants yet will not be moved by those potent and mighty prayers to do any good man an evill turn or to grant him one mischief in that only God can deny us * But in all things else God hath made all the excellent things in heaven and earth to joyn towards holy and fortunate effects for he hath appointed an Angell to present the prayers of Saints and Christ makes intercession for us and the holy Spirit
of eternity it is a continuation to do that according to our measures which we shall be doing to eternall ages therefore think not that five or six hearty prayers can secure to thee a great blessing and a supply of a mighty necessity He that prays so and then leaves off hath said some prayers and done the ordinary offices of his Religion but hath not secured the blessing nor used means reasonably proportionable to a mighty interest 4. The prayers of a good man are oftentimes hindered and destitute of their effect for want of praying in good company for sometimes an evill or an obnoxious person hath so secured and ascertained a mischief to himself that he that stayes in his company or his traffick must also share in his punishment and the Tyrian sailers with all their vows and prayers could not obtain a prosperous voyage so long as Jonas was within the Bark for in this case the interest is divided and the publick sin prevails above the private piety When the Philosopher asked a penny of Antigonus he told him it was too little for a King to give when he asked a talent he told him it was too much for a Philosopher to receive for he did purpose to cousen his own charity and clude the others necessity upon pretence of a double inequality So it is in the case of a good man mingled in evill company if a curse be too severe for a good man a mercy is not to be expected by evill company and his prayer when it is made in common must partake of that event of things which is appropriate to that society The purpose of this caution is that every good man be carefull that he do not mingle his devotion in the communions of hereticall persons and in schismaticall conventicles for although he be like them that follow Absalom in the simplicity of their heart yet his intermediall fortune and the event of his present affairs may be the same with Absaloms and it is not a light thing that we curiously choose the parties of our Communion I do not say it is necessary to avoid all the society of evill persons for then we must go out of the world and when we have thrown out a drunkard possibly we have entertain'd an hypocrite or when a swearer is gone an oppressor may stay still or if that be remedied yet pride is soon discernible but not easily judicable but that which is of caution in this question is that we never mingle with those whose very combination is a sin such as were Corah and his company that rebelled against Moses their Prince and Dathan and Abiram that made a schisme in Religion against Aaron the Priest for so said the Spirit of the Lord Come out from the congregation of these men lest ye perish in their company and all those that were abused in their communion did perish in the gain-saying of Corah It is a sad thing to see a good man cousened by fair pretences and allured into an evill snare for besides that he dwels in danger and cohabits with a dragon and his vertue may change by evill perswasion into an evill disposition from sweetnesse to bitternesse from thence to evill speaking from thence to beleeve a lye and from beleeving to practise it besides this it is a very great sadnesse that such a man should lose all his prayers to very many purposes God will not respect the offering of those men who assemble by a peevish spirit and therefore although God in pity regards the desires of a good man if innocently abused yet as it unites in that assembly God will not hear it to any purposes of blessing and holinesse unlesse we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace we cannot have the blessing of the Spirit in the returns of a holy prayer and all those assemblies which meet together against God or Gods Ordinances may pray and call and cry loudly and frequently and still they provoke God to anger and many times he will not have so much mercy for them as to deny them but le ts them prosper in their sin till it swels to intolerable and impardonable * But when good men pray with one heart and in a holy assembly that is holy in their desires lawfull in their authority though the persons be of different complexion then the prayer flies up to God like the hymns of a Quire of Angels for God that made body and soul to be one man and God and man to be one Christ and three persons are one God and his praises are sung to him by Quires and the persons are joyned in orders and the orders into hierarchies and all that God may be served by unions and communities loves that his Church should imitate the Concords of heaven and the unions of God and that every good man should promote the interests of his prayers by joyning in the communion of Saints in the unions of obedience and charity with the powers that God and the Lawes have ordained The sum is this If the man that makes the prayer be an unholy person his prayer is not the instrument of a blessing but a curse but when the sinner begins to repent truly then his desires begin to be holy But if they be holy and just and good yet they are without profit and effect if the prayer be made in schisme or an evill communion or if it be made without attention or if the man soon gives over or if the prayer be not zealous or if the man be angry There are very many waies for a good man to become unblessed and unthriving in his prayers and he cannot be secure unlesse he be in the state of grace and his spirit be quiet and his minde be attentive and his society be lawfull and his desires earnest and passionate and his devotions persevering lasting till his needs be served or exchanged for another blessing so that what Laelius apud Cicer. de senectute said concerning old age neque in summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus potest ne sapienti quidem nec insipienti etiam in summâ copiâ non gravis that a wise man could not bear old age if it were extremely poor and yet if it were very rich it were intolerable to a fool we may say concerning our prayers they are sins and unholy if a wicked man makes them and yet if they be made by a good man they are ineffective unlesse they be improved by their proper dispositions A good man cannot prevail in his prayers if his desires be cold and his affections trifling and his industry soon weary and his society criminall and if all these appendages of prayer be observed yet they will do no good to an evill man for his prayer that begins in sin shall end in sorrow SERMON VI. Part III. 3. NExt I am to inquire and consider what degrees and circumstances of piety are requir'd to make us fit to be intercessors for
of eternity and from this opinion conceive forc'd resolutions and unwilling obedience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Aristotle Good men are guided by reverence not by fear and they avoid not that which is afflictive but that which is dishonest they are not so good whose rule is otherwise But that we may take more exact measures I shall describe the proportions of Christian or godly fear by the following propositions 1. Godly fear is ever without despair because Christian fear is an instrument of duty and that duty without hope can never go forward For what should that man do who like Nausiclides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath neither spring nor harvest friends nor children rewards nor hopes A man will very hardly be brought to deny his own pleasing appetite when for so doing he cannot hope to have a recompense when the mind of a man is between hope and fear it is intent upon its work at post quam adempta spes est lassus curâ confectus stupet if you take away the hope the minde is weary spent with care hindred by amazements aut aliquem sumpserimus temerariâ in Deos desperatione saith Arnobius a despair of mercy makes men to despise God and the damned in hell when they shall for ever be without hope are also without fear their hope is turned into despair and their fear into blasphemy and they curse the fountain of blessing and revile God to eternall ages When Dionysius the Tyrant imposed intolerable tributes upon his Sicilian subjects it amazed them and they petitioned and cryed for help and flatter'd him and fear'd and obey'd him carefully but he impos'd still new ones and greater and at last left them poor as the valleys of Vesuvius or the top of Aetna but then all being gone the people grew idle and carelesse and walked in the markets and publick places cursing the Tyrant and bitterly scoffing his person and vices which when Dionysius heard he caused his Publicans and Committees to withdraw their impost for now sayes he they are dangerous because they are desperate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when men have nothing left they will despise their Rulers and so it is in Religion audaces cogimur essemetu If our fears be unreasonable our diligence is none at all and from whom we hope for nothing neither benefit nor indemnity we despise his command and break his yoke and trample it under our most miserable feet And therefore Aeschylus cals these people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hot mad and furious carelesse of what they do and he opposes them to pious and holy people Let your confidence be allayed with fear and your fear be sharpned with the intertextures of a holy hope and the active powers of our souls are furnished with feet and wings with eyes and hands with consideration and diligence with reason and incouragements But despair is part of the punishment that is in hell and the Devils still do evill things because they never hope to receive a good nor finde a pardon 2. Godly fear must alwaies be with honourable opinion of God without disparagements of his mercies without quarrellings at the intrigues of his providence or the rough wayes of his Justice and therefore it must be ever relative to our selves and our own failings and imperfections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God never walks perversely towards us unlesse we walk crookedly towards him And therefore persons that only consider the greatnesse and power of God and dwell for ever in the meditations of those severe executions which are transmitted to us by story or we observe by accident and conversation are apt to be jealous concerning God and fear him as an enemy or as children fear fire or women thunder only because it can hurt them Saepius illud cogitant quid possit is cujus in ditione sunt quà m quid debeat facere Cicero pro Quinctio they remember oftner what God can do then what he will being more afrighted at his Judgements then delighted with his mercy Such as were the Lacedaemonians when ever they saw a man grow popuâ—ar or wise or beloved and by consequence powerfull they turned him out of the countrey and because they were afraid of the power of Ismenias and knew that Pelopidas and Pherenicus and Androclydes could hurt them if they listed they banished them from Sparta but they let Epaminondas alone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being studious and therefore unactive and poor and therefore harmlesse It is harder when men use God thus and fear him as the great Justiciar of the world who sits in heaven and observes all we do and cannot want excuse to punish all mankinde But this caution I have now inserted for their sakes whose Schooles and Pulpits raise doctrinall fears concerning God which if they were true the greatest part of mankinde would be tempted to think they have reason not to love God and all the other part that have not apprehended a reason to hate him would have very much reason to suspect his severitie and their own condition Such are they which say that God hath decreed the greatest part of mankinde to eternall damnation and that only to declare his severity and to manifest his glory by a triumph in our torments and rejoycings in the gnashing of our teeth And they also fear God unreasonably and speak no good things concerning his Name who say that God commands us to observe Lawes which are impossible that think he will condemn innocent persons for errors of Judgement which they cannot avoid that condemn whole Nations for different opinions which they are pleased to call Heresie that think God will exact the duties of a man by the measures of an Angell or will not make abatement for all our pitiable infirmities The precepts of this caution are that we remember Gods mercy to be over all his works that is that he shewes mercy to all his creatures that need it that God delights to have his mercy magnified in all things and by all persons and at all times and will not suffer his greatest honour to be most of all undervalued and therefore as he that would accuse God of injustice were a blasphemer so he that suspects his mercy dishonours God as much and produces in himself that fear which is the parent of trouble but no instrument of duty 3ly Godly fear is operative diligent and instrumentall to caution and strict walking for so fear is the mother of holy living and the Apostle urges it by way of upbraiding What! doe wee provoke God to anger are we stronger then he meaning that if we be not strong enough to struggle with a feaver if our voyces cannot out-roar thunder if we cannot check the ebbing and flowing of the sea if we cannot adde one cubit to our stature how shall we escape the mighty hand of God And here heighten your apprehensions of the Divine power of his justice and severity of the fiercenesse of his anger and the sharpnesse of
forbidden When God bade the Isaaelites rise and goe up against the Canaanites and possesse the Land they would not stirre the men were Anakims and the Cities were impregnable and there was a Lyon in the way but presently after when God forbad them to goe they would and did goe though they died for it I shall not need to instance in particulars when the whole life of man is a perpetuall contradiction and the state of Disobedience is called the contradiction of Sinners even the man in the Gospell that had two sons they both crossed him even he that obeyed him and he that obeyed him not for the one said he would and did not the other said he would not and did and so doe we we promise faire and doe nothing and they that doe best are such as come out of darknesse into light such as said they would not and at last have better bethought themselves And who can guesse at any other reason why men should refuse to be temperate for he that refuses the commandement first does violence to the commandement and puts on a praeternaturall appetite he spoils his health and he spoils his understanding he brings to himself a world of diseases and a healthlesse constitution smart and sickly nights a loathing stomach and a staring eye a giddy brain and a swell'd belly gouts and dropsies catarrhes and oppilations If God should enjoyne man to suffer all this heaven and earth should have heard our complaints against unjust laws and impossible commandements for we complain already even when God commands us to drink so long as it is good for us this is one of his impossible laws it is impossible for us to know when we are dry or when we need drink for if we doe know I am sure it is possible enough not to lift up the wine to our heads And when our blessed Saviour hath commanded us to love our enemies we think we have so much reason against it that God will easily excuse our disobedience in this case and yet there are some enemies whom God hath commanded us not to love and those we dote on we cherish and feast them and as S. Paul in another case upon our uncomely parts we bestow more abundant comelinesse For whereas our body it self is a servant to our soule we make it the heir of all things and treat it here already as if it were in Majority and make that which at the best was but a weak friend to become a strong enemy and hence proceed the vices of the worst and the follies and imperfections of the best the spirit is either in slavery or in weaknesse and when the flesh is not strong to mischief it is weak to goodnesse and even to the Apostles our blessed Lord said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak The spirit that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inward man or the reasonable part of man especially as helped by the Spirit of Grace that is willing for it is the principle of all good actions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of working is from the spirit but the flesh is but a dull instrument and a broken arme in which there is a principle of life but it moves uneasily and the flesh is so weak that in Scripture to be in the flesh signifies a state of weaknesse and infirmity so the humiliation of Christ is expressed by being in the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God manifested in the flesh and what S. Peter calls put to death in the flesh St. Paul calls crucified through weaknesse and yee know that through the infirmity of the flesh I preached unto you said S. Paul but here flesh is not opposed to the spirit as a direct enemy but as a weak servant for if the flesh be powerfull and opposite the spirit stays not there veniunt ad candida tecta columbae The old man and the new cannot dwell together and therefore here where the spirit inclining to good well disposed and apt to holy counsels does inhabit in society with the flesh it means onely a weak and unapt nature or a state of infant-grace for in both these and in these onely the text is verified 1. Therefore we are to consider the infirmities of the flesh naturally 2. It s weaknesse in the first beginnings of the state of grace its daily pretensions and temptations its excuses and lessenings of duty 3. What remedies there are in the spirit to cure the evils of nature 4. How far the weaknesses of the flesh can consist with the Spirit of grace in well grown Christians This is the summe of what I intend upon these words 1. Our nature is too weak in order to our duty and finall interest that at first it cannot move one step towards God unlesse God by his preventing grace puts into it a new possibility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is nothing that creeps upon the earth nothing that ever God made weaker then Man for God fitted Horses and Mules with strength Bees and Pismires with sagacity Harts and Hares with swiftnesse Birds with feathers and a light a\l = e \ry body and they all know their times and are fitted for their work and regularly acquire the proper end of their creation but man that was designed to an immortall duration and the fruition of God for ever knows not how to obtain it he is made upright to look up to heaven but he knows no more how to purchase it then to climbe it Once man went to make an ambitious tower to outreach the clouds or the praeternaturall risings of the water but could not do it he cannot promise himself the daily bread of his necessity upon the stock of his own wit or industry and for going to heaven he was so far from doing that naturally that as soon as ever he was made he became the son of death and he knew not how to get a pardon for eating of an apple against the Divine commandement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Apostle By nature we were the sons of wrath that is we were born heirs of death which death came upon us from Gods anger for the sin of our first Parents or by nature that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really not by the help of fancy and fiction of law for so Oecumenius and Theophylact expound it but because it does not relate to the sin of Adam in its first intention but to the evill state of sin in which the Ephesians walked before their conversion it signifies that our nature of it self is a state of opposition to the spirit of grace it is privatively opposed that is that there is nothing in it that can bring us to felicity nothing but an obedientiall capacity our flesh can become sanctified as the stones can become children unto Abraham or as dead seed can become living corn and so it is with us that it is necessary God should make us a new
us free then are we free indeed 3. Sin does naturally introduce a great basenesse upon the spirit expressed in Scripture in some cases by the Devils entring into a man as it was in the case of Judas after he had taken the sop Satan entred into him and St. Cyprian speaking of them that after Baptisme lapsed into foul crimes he affirms that spiritu immundo quasi redeunte quatiuntur ut manifestum sit Diabolum in baptismo fide credentis excludi si fides postmodum defecerit regredi Faith and the grace of Baptisme turns the Devill out of possession but when faith fails and we loose the bands of Religion then the Devill returns that is the man is devolved into such sins of which there can be no reason given which no excuse can lessen which are set off with no pleasure advanced by no temptations which deceive by no allurements and flattering pretences such things which have a proper and direct contrariety to the good Spirit and such as are not restrained by humane laws because they are states of evill rather then evill actions principles of mischief rather then direct emanations such as are unthankfulnesse impiety giving a secret blow fawning hypocrisie detraction impudence forgetfulnesse of the dead and forgetting to do that in their absence which we promised to them in presence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concerning which sorts of unworthinesse it is certain they argue a most degenerous spirit and they are the effect the naturall effect of malice and despair an unwholesome ill natur'd soul a soul corrupted in its whole constitution I remember that in the Apologues of Phaedrus it is told concerning an ill natured fellow that he refused to pay his Symbol which himself and all the company had agreed should be given for every disease that each man had he denying his itch to be a disease but the company taking off the refusers hat for a pledge found that he had a scal'd head and so demanded the money double which he pertinaciously resisting they threw him down and then discovered he was broken bellied and justly condemned him to pay three Philippicles Quae fuerat fabula poena fuit One disease discovers it self by the hiding of another and that being open'd discovers a third He that is almost taken in a fault tels a lye to escape and to protect that lye he forswears himself and that he may not be suspected of perjury he growes impudent and that sin may not shame him he will glory in it like the slave in the Comedy who being torn with whips grinn'd and forc'd an ugly smile that it might not seem to smart * There are some sins which a man that is newly fallen cannot entertain There is no crime made ready for a young sinner but that which nature prompts him to Naturall inclination is the first tempter then compliance then custome but this being helped by a consequent folly dismantles the soul making it to hate God to despise Religion to laugh at severity to deride sober counsels to flie from repentance to resolve against it to delight in sin without abatement of spirit or purposes For it is an intolerable thing for a man to be tormented in his conscience for every sin he acts that must not be he must have his sin and his peace too or else he can have neither long and because true peace cannot come for there is no peace saith my God to the wicked therefore they must make a phantastick peace by a studied cousening of themselves by false propositions by carelesnesse by stupidity by impudence by sufferance and habit by conversation and daily acquaintances by doing some things as Absalom did when he lay with his fathers concubines to make it impossible for him to repent or to be forgiven something to secure him in the possession of hell Tute hoc intristi quod tibi exedendum est the man must thorough it now and this is it that makes men fall into all basenesse of spirituall sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when a man is come to the bottome of his wickednsse he despises all such as malice and despite rancor and impudence malicious studied ignorance voluntary contempt of all Religion hating of good men and good counsels and taking every wise man and wise action to be his enemy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this is that basenesse of sin which Plato so much detested that he said he should blush to be guilty of though he knew God would pardon him and that men should never know it propter solam peccati turpitudinem for the very basenesse that is in it A man that is false to God will also if an evill temptation overtakes him betray his friend and it is notorious in the covetous and ambitious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are an unthankfull generation and to please the people or to serve their interest will hurt their friends That man hath so lost himself to all sweetnesse and excellency of spirit that is gone thus farre in sin that he looks like a condemned man or is like the accursed spirits preserved in chains of darknesse and impieties unto the Judgement of the great Day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this man can be nothing but evill for these inclinations and evill forwardnesses this dyscrasie and gangren'd disposition does alwaies suppose a long or a base sin for their parent and the product of these is a wretchlesse spirit that is an aptnesse to any unworthinesse and an unwillingnesse to resist any temptation a perseverance in basenesse and a consignation to all damnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If men do evill things evill things shall be their reward If they obey the evill spirit an evill spirit shall be their portion and the Devill shall enter into them as he entred into Judas and fill them full of iniquity SERMON XXI Part III. 4. ALthough these are shamefull effects of sin and a man need no greater dishonour then to be a fool and a slave and a base person all which sin infallibly makes him yet there are some sins which are directly shamefull in their nature and proper disreputation and a very great many sins are the worst and basest in severall respects that is every of them hath a venomous quality of its own whereby it is marked and appropriated to a peculiar evill spirit The Devils sin was the worst because it came from the greatest malice Adams was the worst because it was of most universall efficacy and dissemination Judas sin the worst of men because against the most excellent person and the relapses of the godly are the worst by reason they were the most obliged persons But the ignorance of the Law is the greatest of evils if we consider its danger but covetousnesse is worse then it if we regard its incurable and growing nature luxury is most alien from spirituall things
ugly or a deformed person and yet will give a great price for a picture extreamly like him Humility is despised in substance but courted and admired in effigie And Aesops picture was sold two talents when himself was made a slave at the price of two Philippicks And because Humility makes a man to be honoured Therefore we imitate all its garbs and postures its civilities and silence its modesties and condescensions And to prove that we are extreamly proud in the midst of all this pagentry we should be extreamly angry at any man that should say we are proud And that 's a sure signe we are so And in the middest of all our Arts to seem Humble we use devices to bring our selves into talk we thrust our selves into company we listen at doors and like the great Beards in Rome that pretended Philosophy and strict life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We walk by the Obelisk and meditate in Piazza's that they that meet us may talk of us and they that follow may cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold there goes an excellent man He is very prudent or very learned or a charitable person or a good housekeeper or at least very Humble The Heart of man is deeply in love with wickednesse and with nothing else Against not onely the Lawes of God but against his own Reason it s own Interest and its own Securities For is it imaginable that a man who knows the Lawes of God the rewards of Vertue the cursed and horrid effects of sin that knows and considers and deeply sighes at the thought of the intolerable pains of Hell that knowes the joyes of Heaven to be unspeakable and that concerning them there is no temptation but that they are too big for man to hope for And yet he certainly beleeves that a holy life shall infallibly attain thither Is it I say imaginable that this man should for a transient Action forfeit all this Hope and certainly and knowing incur all that calamity Yea but the sin is pleasant and the man is clothed with flesh and blood and their appetites are materiall and importunate and present And the discourses of Religion are concerning things spirituall separate and apt for spirits Angels and souls departed To take off this also We will suppose the man to consider and really to beleeve that the pleasure of the sin is sudden vain empty and transient that it leaves bitternesse upon the tongue before it is descended into the bowels that there it is poison and makes the Belly to swell and the Thigh to rot That he remembers and actually considers that as soon as the moment of sin is past he shall have an intolerable Conscience and does at the instant compare moments with Eternity and with horrour remembers that the very next minute he is as miserable a man as is in the world Yet that this man should sin Nay suppose the sin to have no pleasure at all such as is the sin of swearing Nay suppose it really to have pain in it such as is the sin of Envy which never can have pleasure in its actions but much torment and consumption of the very heart What should make this man sin so for nothing so against himself so against all Reason and Religion and Interest without pleasure for no reward Here the heart betrayes it self to be desperately wioked What man can give a reasonable account of such a man who to prosecute his revenge will do himself an injury that he may do a lesse to him that troubles him Such a man hath given me ill language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My head akes not for his language nor hath he broken my thigh nor carried away my land But yet this man must be requited Well suppose that But then let it be proportionable you are not undone let not him be so Oh yes for else my revenge triumphs not Well if you do yet remember he will defend himself or the Law will right him at least do not do wrong to your self by doing him wrong This were but Prudence and self-Interest And yet we see that the heart of some men hath betrayed them to such furiousnesse of Appetite as to make them willing to die that their enemie may be buried in the same Ruines Jovius Pontanus tells of an Italian slave I think who being enraged against his Lord watched his absence from home and the employment and inadvertency of his fellow-servants he locked the doors and secured himself for a while and Ravished his Lady then took her three sons up to the battlements of the house and at the return of his Lord threw one down to him upon the pavement and then a second to rend the heart of their sad Father seeing them weltring in their blood and brains The Lord begd for his third and now his onely Son promising pardon and libertie if he would spare his life The slave seemed to bend a little and on condition his Lord would cut off his own Nose he would spare his Son The sad Father did so being willing to suffer any thing rather then the losse of that Childe But as soon as he saw his Lord all bloody with his wound he threw the third Son and himself down together upon the Pavement The story is sad enough and needs no lustre and advantages of sorrow to represent it But if a man sets himself down and considers sadly he cannot easily tell upon what sufficient inducement or what principle the slave should so certainly so horridly so presently and then so eternally ruine himself What could he propound to himself as a recompence to his own so immediate Tragedy There is not in the pleasure of the revenge nor in the nature of the thing any thing to tempt him we must confesse our ignorance and say that The Fleart of man is desperately wicked and that is the truth in generall but we cannot fathom it by particular comprehension For when the heart of man is bound up by the grace of God and tied in golden bands and watched by Angels tended by those Nurse-keepers of the soul it is not easie for a man to wander And the evil of his heart is but like the ferity and wildnesse of Lyons-whelps But when once we have broken the hedge and got into the strengths of youth and the licenciousnesse of an ungoverned age it is wonderfull to observe what a great inundation of mischief in a very short time will overflow all the banks of Reason and Religion Vice first is pleasing then it grows easie then delightfull then frequent then habituall then confirmed then the man is impenitent then he is obstinate then he resolves never to Repent and then he is Damned And by that time he is come half way in this progresse he confutes the Philosophy of the old Moralists For they not knowing the vilenesse of mans Heart not considering its desperate amazing Impiety knew no other degree of wickednesse but This That men preferred Sense
waters of affliction And accordding as the world grew more enlightned by faith so it grew more dark with mourning sorrowes God sometimes sent a light of fire and pillar of a cloud and the brightnesse of an angel and the lustre of a star and the sacrament of a rainbowe to guide his people thorough their portion of sorrows and to lead them through troubles to rest But as the Sun of righteousnesse approached towards the chambers of the East and sent the harbingers of light peeping through the curtains of the night and leading on the day of faith and brightest revelation so God sent degrees of trouble upon wise and good men that now in the same degree in the which the world lives by faith and not by sense in the same degree they might be able to live in vertue even while she lived in trouble and not reject so great a beauty because she goes in mourning and hath a black cloud of cypresse drawn before her face literally thus God first entertained their services and allured and prompted on the infirmities of the infant world by temporal prosperity but by degrees changed his method and as men grew stronger in the knowledge of God and the expectations of heaven so they grew weaker in their fortunes more afflicted in their bodies more abated in their expectations more subject to their enemies and were to endure the contradiction of sinners and the immission of the sharpnesses of providence and divine Oeconomy First Adam was placed in a Garden of health and pleasure from which when he fell he was onely tied to enter into the covenant of natural sorrows which he and all his posteritie till the flood run through but in all that period they had the whole wealth of the earth before them they need not fight for empires or places for their cattle to grase in they lived long and felt no want no slavery no tyrannie no war and the evils that happened were single personal and natural and no violences were then done but they were like those things which the law calls rare contingencies for which as the law can now take no care and make no provisions so then there was no law but men lived free and rich and long and they exercised no vertues but natural and knew no felicity but natural and so long their prosperity was just as was their vertue because it was a natural instrument towards all that which they knew of happinesse * But this publick easinesse and quiet the world turned into sin and unlesse God did compel men to do themselves good they would undoe themselves and then God broke in upon them with a flood and destroyed that generation that he might begin the government of the world upon a new stock and binde vertue upon mens spirits by new bands endeared to them by new hopes and fears Then God made new laws and gave to Princes the power of the sword and men might be punshed to death in certain cases and mans life was shortened and slavery was brought into the world and the state of servants and then war began and evils multiplied upon the face of the earth in which it is naturally certain that they that are most violent and injurious prevailed upon the weaker and more innocent and every tyranny that began from Nimrod to this day and every usurper was a peculiar argument to shew that God began to teach the world vertue by suffering and that therefore he suffered Tyrannies and usurpations to be in the world and to be prosperous and the rights of men to be snatched away from the owners that the world might be established in potent and setled governments and the sufferers be taught al the passive vertues of the soul. For so God brings good out of evil turning Tyranny into the benefits of Government and violence into vertue and sufferings into rewards and this was the second change of the world personal miseries were brought in upon Adam and his posterity as a punishment of sin in the first period and in the second publick evils were brought in by tyrants and usurpers and God suffered them as the first elements of vertue men being just newly put to schoole to infant sufferings But all this was not much Christs line was not yet drawn forth it began not to appear in what family the King of sufferings should descend till Abrahams time and therefore till then there were no greater sufferings then what I have now reckoned But when Abrahams family was chosen from among the many nations and began to belong to God by a special right and he was designed to be the Father of the Messias then God found out a new way to trie him even with a sound affliction commanding him to offer his beloved Isaac but this was accepted and being intended by Abraham was not intended by God for this was a type of Christ and therefore was also but a type of sufferings excepting the sufferings of the old periods and the sufferings of nature and accident we see no change made for a long while after but God having established a law in Abrahams family did build it upon promises of health and peace and victory and plenty and riches and so long as they did not prevaricate the law of their God so long they were prosperous but God kept a remnant of Cananites in the land like a rod held over them to vex or to chastise them into obedience in which while they persevered nothing could hurt them and that saying of David needs no other sence but the letter of its own expression I have been young and now am old and yet saw I never the righteous for saken nor his seed begging their bread The godly generally were prosperous and a good cause seldome had an ill end and a good man never died an ill death till the law had spent a great part of its time and it descended towards its declension and period But that the great prince of sufferings might not appear upon his stage of tragedies without some forerunners of sorrow God was pleased to choose out some good men and honour them by making them to become little images of suffering I saiah Jeremy and Zachary were martyrs of the law but these were single deaths Shadrac Meshec and Abednego were thrown into a burning furnace and Daniel into a den of lions and Susanna was accused for adultery but these were but little arrests of the prosperity of the Godly as the time drew neerer that Christ should be manifest so the sufferings grew bigger and more numerous and Antiochus raised up a sharp persecution in the time of the Maccabees in which many passed through the red sea of blood into the bosome of Abraham then Christ came and that was the third period in which the changed method of Gods providence was perfected for Christ was to do his great work by sufferings by sufferings was to enter into blessednesse by his passion he
was made prince of the Catholickchurch and as our Head was so must the members be God made the same covenant with us that he did with his most holy Son Christ obtaind no better conditions for us then for himself that was not to be looked for the servant must not be above his master it is well if he be as his Master if the world persecuted him they will also persecute us and from the dayes of John the Baptist the kingdome of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force not the violent doers but the sufferers of violence for though the old law was established in the promises of temporal prosperity yet the gospel is founded in temporal adversity It is directly a covenant of sufferings and sorrows for now the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God that 's the sence and designe of the text and I intend it as a direct antinomy to the common perswasions of tyrannous carnal and vicious men who reckon nothing good but what is prosperous for though that proposition had many degrees of truth in the beginning of the law yet the case is now altered God hath established its contradictory and now every good man must look for persecution and every good cause must expect to thrive by the sufferings and patience of holy persons and as men do well and suffer evil so they are dear to God and whom he loves most he afflicts most and does this with a designe of the greatest mercy in the world 1. Then the state of the Gospel is a state of sufferings not of temporal prosperities this was foretold by the prophets a fountain shall go out of the house of the Lord irrigabit torrentem spinarum so it is in the vulgar latin and it shall water the torrent of thorns that is the state or time of the gospel which like a torrent shall cary all the world before it and like a torrent shall be fullest in ill weather and by its banks shall grow nothing but thorns and briers sharp afflictions temporal infelicities and persecution This sense of the words is more fully explained in the book of the prophet Isa. upon the ground of my people shall thorns and briers come up how much more in all the houses of the city of rejoycing which prophecy is the same in the stile of the prophets that my text is in the stile of the Apostles the house of God shall be watered with the dew of heaven and there shall spring up briers in it judgement must begin there but how much more in the houses of the city of rejoycing how much more among them that are at ease in Sion that serve their desires that satisfie their appetites that are given over to their own hearts lust that so serves themselves that they never serve God that dwell in the city of rejoycing they are like Dives whose portion was in this life who went in fine linnen and fared deliciously every day they indeed trample upon their briers and thorns and suffer them not to grow in their houses but the roots are in the ground and they are reserved for fuel of wrath in the day of everlasting burning Thus you see it was prophesied now see how it was performed Christ was the captain of our sufferings and he began He entred into the world with all the circumstances of poverty he had a star to illustrate his birth but a stable for his bed chamber and a manger for his cradle the angels sang hymnes when he was born but he was cold and cried uneasy and unprovided he lived long in the trade of a carpenter he by whom God made the world had in his first years the businesse of a mean and an ignoble trade he did good where ever he went and almost where ever he went was abused he deserved heaven for his obedience but found a crosse in his way thither and if ever any man had reason to expect fair usages from God and to be dandled in lap of ease softnes and a prosperous fortune he it was onely that could deserve that or any thing that can be good But after he had chosen to live a life of vertue of poverty and labour he entred into a state of death whose shame and trouble was great enough to pay for the sins of the whole world And I shall choose to expresse this mystery in the vvords of scripture he died not by a single or a sudden death but he was the Lambe slain from the beginning of the world For he was massacred in Abel saith Saint Paulinus he was tossed upon the waves of the Sea in the person of Noah It was he that went out of his Countrey when Abraham was called from Charran and wandred from his native soil He was offered up in Isaac persecuted in Jacob betrayed in Joseph blinded in Sampson affronted in Moses sawed in Esay cast into the dungeon with Jeremy For all these were types of Christ suffering and then his passion continued even after his resurrection for it is he that suffers in all his members it is he that endures the contradiction of all sinners it is he that is the Lord of life and is crucified again and put to open shame in all the sufferings of his servants and sins of rebels and defiances of Apostates and renegados and violence of Tyrants and injustice of usurpers and the persecutions of his Church It is he that is stoned in Saint Stephen flayed in the person of Saint Bartholomew he was rosted upon Saint Laurence his Gridiron exposed to lyons in Saint Ignatius burned in Saint Polycarpe frozen in the lake where stood fourty Martyrs of Cappadocia Unigenitus enim Dei ad peragendum mortis suae sacramentum consummavit omne genus humanarum passionum said Saint Hilary The Sacrament of Christs death is not to be accomplished but by suffering all the sorrows of humanity All that Christ came for was or was mingled with sufferings For all those little joyes which God sent either to recreate his person or to illustrate his office were abated or attended with afflictions God being more carefull to establish in him the Covenant of sufferings then to refresh his sorrows Presently after the Angels had finished their Halleluiahs he was forced to fly to save his life and the air became full of shrikes of the desolate mothers of Bethlehem for their dying Babes God had no sooner made him illustrious with a voyce from heaven and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him in the waters of Baptisme But he was delivered over to be tempted and assaulted by the Devil in the wildernesse His transfiguration was a bright ray of glory but then also he entred into a cloud and was told a sad story what he was to suffer at Jerusalem And upon Palme-Sunday when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem and was adorned with the acclamations of a King and a God he wet the Palmes with
very purpose of his mercy is to the contrary and the very manner of his Oeconomy and dispensation is such that Gods mercy goes along in complection and conjunction with his judgements the riches of his forbearance is this that he forbears to throw us into hell and sends the mercies of his rod to chide us unto repentance and the mercies of his rod to punish us for having sinned and that when we have sinned we may never think our selves secured nor ever be reconciled to such dangers and deadly poisons This this is the manner of the divine mercy Go now fond man and because God is merciful presume to sin as heaving grounds to hope that thou mayest sin and be safe all the way If this hope shall I call it or sordid flattery could be reasonable then the mercies of God would not leade us to repentance so unworthy are we in the sense and largenesse of a wide fortune and pleasant accident For impunity was never a good argument to make men to obey laws quotusquisque reperitur qui impunitate proposita abstinere possit injurijs Impunitas est maxima peccandi illecebra said Cicero and therefore the wisdom of God hath so ordered the actions of the world that the most fruitful showres shall be wrapped up in a cover of black clouds that health shall be conveyed by bitter and ill tasted drugs that the temples of our bodies shall be purged by whips and that the cords of the whip shall be the cords of love to draw us from the intanglings of vanity and folly This is the long suffering of God the last remedy to our diseased souls and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Phalaris unlesse we be senselesse we shall be brought to sober courses by all those sad accidents and wholsome but ill tasting mercies which we feele in all the course and the succession of the divine long sufferance The use of all the premises is that which Saint Paul expresses in the text that we do not despise all this and he onely despises not who serves the ends of God in all these designes of mercy that is he that repents him of his sins But there are a great many despisers all they that live in their sins they that have more blessings then they can reckon houres in their lives that are courted by the divine favour and woed to salvation as if mankinde were to give not to receive so great a blessing all they that answer not to so friendly summons they are despisers of Gods mercies and although God overflows with mercies and does not often leave us to the onely hopes of being cured by unctions and gentle cataplasmes but proceeds further and gives us stibium or prepared steele sharp arrows of his anger and the sword and the hand of sicknesse yet we are not sure of so much favour as to be entertained longer in Gods hospital but may be thrust forth among the incurabili Plutarch reports concerning swine that then optick nervs are so disposed to turne their eyes downwards that they cannot look upwards nor behold the face of heaven unlesse they be thrown upon their backs such Swine are we we seldom can look up to heaven til God by his judgements throws us upon our backs till he humbles us softens us with showers of our own blood and tears of sorrow and yet God hath not promised that he will do so much for us but for ought we know as soon as ever the devil enters into our swinish and brutish hearts we shall run down the hill and perish in the floods and seas of intolerable miserie And therefore besides that it is a huge folly in us that we wil not be cured with pleasant medicines but must be longing for colliquintida and for vomits for knives and poniards instead of the gentle shoures of the divine refreshments besides that this is an imprudence and sottishnesse we do infinitely put it to the venture whether we shall be in a saveable condition or no after the rejection of the first state of mercies But however then begins the first step of the judgement and pungent misery we are perishing people or if not yet at the last not to be cured without the abscision of a member without the cutting of a hand or leg or the putting out of an eye we must be cut to take the stone out of our hearts and that is a state of a very great infelicity and if we scape the stone we cannot escape the surgeons knife if we scape death yet we have a sicknesse and though that be a great mercy in respect of death yet it is as great a misery in respect of health and that is the first punishment for the despite done to the first and most sensible mercies we are fallen into a sicknesse that cannot be cured but by disease and hardship But if this despite runs further and when the mercies look on us with an angry countenance and that God gives us onely the mercy of a punishment if we despise this too we increase but our misery as we increase our sin the summe of which is this that if Pharaoh will not be cured by one plague he shall have ten and if ten will not do it the great and tenth wave which is far bigger then all the rest the severest and the last arrow of the quiver then we shall perish in the red sea the sea of flames and blood in which the ungodly shall roule eternally But some of these despisers are such as are unmooved when God smites others like Gallio when the Jews took Softhenes and beat him in the pleading place he cared for none of these things he was not concerned in that interest and many Gallio's there are amongst us that understand it not to be a part of the divine method of Gods longsufferance to strike others to make us afraid But however we sleep in the midst of such alarums yet know that there is not one death in all the neighbour-hood but is intended to thee every crowing of the cock is to awake thee to repentance and if thou sleepest still the next turn may be thine God will send his Angel as he did to Peter and smite thee on thy side and wake thee from thy dead sleep of sin and sottishnesse But beyond this some are despisers still and hope to drown the noises of mount Sinai the sound of Canons of thunders and lightnings with a counternoise of revelling and clamorous roarings with merry meetings like the sacrifices to Moloch they sound drums and trumpets that they might not hear the sad shrikings of their children as they were dying in the cavety of the brazen idoll and when their conscience shrikes out or murmurs in a sad melancholy or something that is dear to them is smitten they attempt to drown it in a sea of drink in the heathenish noises of idle and drunken company and that which God sends to lead them to repentance leads them
do but entice a mans resolutions to disband they unravel and untwist his holy purposes and begin in infirmities and proceed in folly and end in death 7. He that is grown in grace pursues vertue for its own interest purely and simply without the mixture and allay of collateral designes and equally inclining purposes God in the beginning of our returns to him entertains us with promises and threatnings the apprehensions of temporal advantages with fear and shame and with reverence of friends and secular respects with reputation and coercion of humane laws and at first men snatch at the lesser and lower ends of vertue and such rewards are visible and which God sometimes gives in hand to entertain our weak and imperfect desires The young Philosophers were very forward to get the precepts of their sect and the rules of severity that they might discourse with Kings not that they might reform their own manners and some men study to get the ears and tongues of the people rather then to gain their souls to God and they obey good laws for fear of punishment or to preserve their own peace and some are worse they do good deeds out of spite and preach Christ out of envy or to lessen the authority and fame of others some of these lessen the excellency of the act others spoil it quite it is in some imperfect in others criminal in some it is consistent with a beginning infant-grace in others it is an argument of the state of sin and death but in all cases the well grown Christian he that improoves or goes forward in his way to heaven brings vertue forth not into discourses and panegyrickes but into his life and manners his vertue although it serves many good ends accidentally yet by his intention it onely suppresses his inordinate passions makes him temperate and chast casts out his devils of drunkennesse and lust pride and rage malice and revenge it makes him useful to his brother and a servant of God and although these flowers cannot choose but please his eye and delight his smell yet he chooses to gather honey and licks up the dew of heaven and feasts his spirit upon the Manna and dwells not in the collateral usages and accidental sweetnesses which dwell at the gates of the other senses but like a Bee loads his thighs with wax and his bag with honey that is with the useful parts of vertue in order to holinesse and felicity Of which the best signes and notices we can take will be if we as earnestly pursue vertues which are acted in private as those whose scene lies in publick If we pray in private under the onely eye of God and his ministring angels as in Churches if we give our almes in secret rather then in publick if we take more pleasure in the just satisfaction of our consciences and securing our reputation if we rather pursue innocence then seek an excuse if we desire to please God though we lose our fame with men if we be just to the poorest servant as to the greatest prince if we choose to be among the jewels of God though we be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the off-scouring of the world if when we are secure from witnesses and accusers and not obnoxious to the notices of the law we think our selves obliged by conscience and practise and live accordingly then our services and intentions in vertue are right then we are past the twilights of conversion and the umbrages of the world and walk in the light of God of his word and of his spirit of grace and reason as becometh not babes but men in christ Jesus In this progresse of grace I have not yet expressed that perfect persons should serve God out of mere love of God and the divine excellencies without the considerations of either heaven or hell such a thing as that is talked of in mystical Theology And I doubt not but many good persons come to that growth of Charity that the goodnesse and excellency of God are more incumbent and actually pressing upon their spirit then any considerations of reward But then I shall adde this that when persons come to that hight of grace or contemplation rather and they love God for himself and do their duties in order to the fruition of him and his pleasure all that is but heaven in another sense and under another name just as the mystical Theologie is the highest duty and the choicest parts of obedience under a new method but in order to the present that which I call a signification of our growth in grace is a pursuance of vertue upon such reasons as are propounded to us as motives in Christianity such as are to glorifie God and to enjoy his promises in the way and in our country to avoid the displeasure of God and to be united to his glories and then to exercise vertue in such parts and to such purposes as are useful to good life and profitable to our neighbours not to such onely where they serve reputation or secular ends For though the great Physitian of our souls hath mingled profits and pleasures with vertue to make its chalice sweet and apt to be drank off yet he that takes out the sweet ingredient and feasts his palate with the lesse wholsome part because it is delicious serves a low end of sense or interest but serves not God at all and as little does benefit to the soul such a person is like Homers bird deplumes himselfe to feather all the naked callows that he sees and holds a taper that may light others to heaven while he burns his own fingers but a well grown person out of habit and choice out of love of vertue and just intention goes on his journey in straight wayes to heaven even when the bridle and coercion of laws or the spurs of interest or reputation are laid aside and desires witnesses of his actions not that he may advance his fame but for reverence and fear and to make it still more necessary to do holy things 8. Some men there are in the beginning of their holy walking with God and while they are babes in Christ who are presently busied in delights of prayers and rejoyce in publick communion and count all solemn assemblies festival but as they are pleased with them so they can easily be without them It is a signe of a common and vulgar love onely to be pleased with the company of a friend and to be as well with out him amoris at morsum qui verè senserit he that ha's felt the stings of a sharp and very dear affection is impatient in the absence of his beloved object the soul that is sick and swallowed up with holy fire loves nothing else all pleasures else seem unsavory company is troublesome visitors are tedious homilies of comfort are flat and uselesse The pleasures of vertue to a good and perfect man are not like the perfumes of Nard Pistick which is very delightful
knowing that even in this sense time was very pretious and the opportunitie of giving glory to God by the offices of an excellent religion was not too deare a purchase at that rate But then when the wolves had entred into the folds and seized upon a lamb the rest fled and used all the innocent arts of concealment Saint Athanasius being overtaken by his persecutors but not known and asked whether he saw Athanasius passing that way pointed out forward with his finger non longè abest Athanasius the man is not far off a swift foot-man will easily overtake him And Saint Paul divided the councell of his Judges and made the Pharisees his parties by a witty insinuation of his own belief of the resurrection which was not the main question but an incident to the matter of his accusation And when Plinius secundus in the face of a Tyrant court was pressed so invidiously to give his opinion concerning a good man in banishment and under the disadvantage of an unjust sentence he diverted the snare of Marcus Regulus by referring his answer to a competent judicatory according to the laws being pressed again by offering a direct answer upon a just condition which he knew they would not accept and the third time by turning the envy upon the impertinent and malicious Orator that he won great honour the honour of a severe honesty and a witty man and a prudent person The thing I have noted because it is a good pattern to represent the arts of honest evasion and religious prudent honesty which any good man may transcribe and turn into his own instances if an equal case should occur For in this case the rule is easy If we are commanded to be wise and redeeme our time that we serve God and religion we must not use unlawful arts which set us back in the accounts of our time no lying Subterfuges no betraying of a truth no treachery to a good man no insnaring of a brother no secret renouncing of any part or proposition of our religion no denying to confesse the article when we are called to it For when the primitive Christians had got a trick to give money for certificates that they had sacrificed to idols though indeed they did not do it but had corrupted the officers and ministers of state they dishonoured their religion and were marked with the appellative of libellatici Libellers and were excommunicate and cast off from the society of Christians and the hopes of Heaven till they had returned to God by a severe repentance optanduum est ut quod libenter facis din facere possis It is good to have time long to doe that which wee ought to doe but to pretend that which we dare not doe and to say we have when we have not if we know we ought not is to dishonour the cause and the person too it is expressly against confession of Christ of which Saint Paul saith by the mouth confession is made unto salvation And our Blessed Saviour he that confesseth me before men I will confesse him before my Heavenly Father and if here he refuseth to own me I will not own him hereafter it is also expressly against Christian fortitude and noblenesse and against the simplicity and sincerity of our religion and it turnes prudence into craft and brings the Devil to wait in the temple and to minister to God and it is a lesser Kinde of apostacy and it is well that the man is tempted no further for if the persecutors could not be corrupted with money it is ods but the complying man would and though he would with the money hide his shame yet he will not with the losse of all his estate redeeme his religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some men will lose their lives rather then a faire estate and doe not almost all the armies of the world I mean those that fight in the justest causes pretend to fight and die for their lands and liberties and there are too many also that will die twice rather then be beggers once although we all know that the second death is intolerable Christian prudence forbids us to provoke a danger and they were fond persons that run to persecution and when the Proconsul sate on the life and death and made strict inquisition after Christians went and offered themselves to die and he was a fool that being in Portugal run to the Priest as he elevated the host and overthrew the mysteries and openly defied the rites of that religion God when he sends a persecution will pick out such persons whom he will have to die and whom he will consigne to banishment and whom to poverty In the mean time let us do our duty when we can and as long as we can and with as much strictnesse as we can walking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostles Phrase is not prevaricating in the least tittle and then if we can be safe with the arts of civil innocent inoffensive compliance let us blesse God for his permissions made to us and his assistances in the using them But if either we turne our zeal into the ambition of death and the follies of an unnecessary beggery or on the other side turn our prudence into craft and covetousnesse to the first I say that God hath no pleasure in fooles to the latter If you gain the whole world and lose your own soul your losse is infinite and intolerable Sermon XXI Of Christian Prudence Part II. 4. IT is the office of Christian prudence so to order the affaires of our life as that in all the offices of our souls and conversation we do honour and reputation to the religion we professe For the follies and vices of the Professors give great advantages to the adversary to speak reproachfully and does aliene the hearts and hinder the complyance of those undetermined persons who are apt to be perswaded if their understandings be not prejudiced But as our necessary duty is bound upon us by one ligament more in order to the honour of the cause of God so it particularly bindes us to many circumstances adjuncts and parts of duty which have no other commandment but the law of prudence There are some sects of Christians which have some one constant indisposition which as a character divides them from all others and makes them reproved on all hands some are so suspitious and ill natured that if a person of a facile nature and gentle disposition fall into their hands he is presently sowred and made morose unpleasant and uneasy in his conversation Others there are that do things so like to what themselves condemn that they are forced to take sanctuary and labour in the mine of unsignificant distinctions to make themselves believe they are innocent and in the mean time they offend all men else and open the mouths of their adversaries to speak reproachful things true or false as it happens And it requires a great wit to understand all the
of Moses law but would use it when there was just reason which was one part of the things which the using of circumcision could signifie So our blessed Saviour pretended that he would passe forth beyond Emaus out if he intended not to do it yet he did no injury to the two disciples for whose good it was that he intended to make this offer and neither did he prevaricate the strictnesse of simplicity and sincerity because they were persons with whom he had made no contracts to whom he had passed no obligation and in the nature of the thing it is proper and natural by an offer to give an occasion to another to do a good action and in case it succeeds not then to do what we intended not and so the offer was conditional But in all cases of bargaining although the actions of themselves may receive naturally another sense yet I am bound to follow that signification which may not abuse my brother or pollute my own honesty or snatch or rifle his interest Because it can be no ingredient into the commutation if I exchange a thing which he understands not and is by errour lead into this mistake and I hold forth the fire and delude him and amuse his eye for by me he is made worse But secondly as our actions must be of a sincere and determinate signification in contracts so must our words in which the rule of the old Roman honesty was this Uterque si ad eloquendum venerit non plus quam semel eloquetur Every one that speaks is to speak but once that is but one thing because commonly that is truth truth being but one but errour and falsehood infinitely various and changeable and we shall seldom see a man so stiffned with impiety as to speak little and seldome and pertinaciously adhere to a single sense and yet that at first and all the way after shall be a lie Men use to go about when they tell a lie and devise circumstances and stand off at distance and cast a cloud of words and intricate the whole affair and cozen themselves first and then cozen their brother while they have minced the case of conscience into little particles and swallowed the lie by crumbs so that no one passage of it should rush against the conscience nor do hurt until it is all got into the belly and unites in the effect for by that time two men are abused the Merchant in his soul and the Contractor in his interest and this is the certain effect of much talking and little honesty but he that means honestly must speak but once that is one truth and hath leave to vary within the degrees of just prices and fair conditions which because they have a latitude may be enlarged or restrained according as the Merchant please save onely he must never prevaricate the measures of equity and the proportions of reputation and the publike But in all the parts of this traffick let our words be the significations of our thoughts and our thoughts designe nothing but the advantages of a permitted exchange In this case the severity is so great so exact and so without variety of case that it is not lawfull for a man to tell a truth with a collateral designe to cozen and abuse and therefore at no hand can it be permitted to lie or equivocate to speak craftily or to deceive by smoothnesse or intricacy or long discourses But this precept of simplicity in matter of contract hath one step of severity beyond this In matter of contract it is not lawfull so much as to conceal the secret and undiscernable faults of the merchandize but we must acknowledge them or else affix prices made diminute and lessened to such proportions and abatements as that fault should make Caveat emptor is a good caution for him that buyes and it secures the seller in publike Judicature but not in court of conscience and the old lawes of the Romans were as nice in this affair as the conscience of a Christian. Titus Claudius Centimalus was commanded by the Augures to pull down his house in the Coelian mountain because it hindred their observation of the flight of birds he exposes his house to sale Publius Calpurnius buyes it and is forced to pluck it down But complaining to the Judges had remedy because Claudius did not tell him the true state of the inconvenience He that sels a house infected with the plague or haunted with evil spirits sels that which is not worth such a price which it might be put to if it were in health and peace and therefore cannot demand it but openly and upon publication of the evil To which also this is to be added that in some great faults and such as have danger as in the cases now specified no diminution of the price is sufficient to make the Merchant just and sincere unlesse he tels the appendant mischief because to some persons in many cases and to all persons in some cases it is not at all valuable and they would not possesse it if they might for nothing Marcus Gratidianus bought a house of Sergius Orata which himself had sold before But because Sergius did not declare the appendant vassalage and service he was recompenced by the Judges for although it was certain that Gratidianus knew it because it had been his own yet Oportuit ex bonâ fide denunciari said the law it concerned the ingenuity of a good man to have spoken it openly In all cases it must be confessed in the price or in the words But when the evil may be personal and more then matter of interest and money it ought to be confessed and then the goods prescribed lest by my act I do my neighbour injury and I receive profit by his dammage Certain it is that ingenuity is the sweetest and easiest way there is no difficulty or cases of conscience in that and it can have no objection in it but that possibly sometimes we lose a little advantage which it may be we may lawfully acquire but still we secure a quiet conscience and if the merchandise be not worth so much to me then neither is it to him if it be to him it is also to me and therefore I have no losse no hurt to keep it if it be refused but he that secures his own profit and regards not the interest of another is more greedy of a full purse then of a holy conscience and prefers gain before justice and the wealth of his private before the necessity of publike society and commerce being a son of earth whose centre is it self without relation to heaven that moves upon anothers point and produces flowers for others and sends influence upon all the world and receives nothing in return but a cloud of perfume or the smell of a fat sacrifice God sent justice into the world that all conditions in their several proportions should be equall and he that receives a good should pay
Spirits and then they reach the taper to another and as the hours of yesterday can never return again so neither can the man whose hours they were and who lived them over once he shall never come to live them again and live them better When Lazarus and the widows son of Naim and Tabitha and the Saints that appeared in Jerusalem at the resurrection of our blessed Lord arose they came into this world some as strangers onely to make a visit and all of them to manifest a glory but none came upon the stock of a new life or entred upon the stage as at first or to perform the course of a new nature and therefore it is observable that we never read of any wicked person that was raised from the dead Dives would fain have returned to his brothers house but neither he nor any from him could be sent but all the rest in the New Testament one onely excepted were expressed to have been holy persons or else by their age were declared innocent Lazarus was beloved of Christ those souls that appeared at the resurrection were the souls of Saints Tabitha raised by Saint Peter was a charitable and a holy Christian and the maiden of twelve years old raised by our blessed Saviour had not entred into the regions of choice and sinfulnesse and the onely exception of the widows son is indeed none at all for in it the Scripture is wholly silent and therefore it is very probable that the same processe was used God in all other instances having chosen to exemplifie his miracles of nature to purposes of the Spirit and in spirituall capacities So that although the Lord of nature did break the bands of nature in some instances to manifest his glory to succeeding great and never failing purposes yet besides that this shall be no more it was also instanced in such persons who were holy and innocent and within the verge and comprehensions of the eternall mercy We never read that a wicked person felt such a miracle or was raised from the grave to try the second time for a Crown but where he fell there he lay down dead and saw the light no more This consideration I intend to you as a severe Monitor and an advice of carefulnesse that you order your affairs so that you may be partakers of the first resurrection that is from sin to grace from the death of vitious habits to the vigour life and efficacy of an habituall righteousnesse For as it hapned to those persons in the New Testament now mentioned to them I say in the literall sense Blessed are they that have part in the first resurrection upon them the second death shall have no power meaning that they who by the power of Christ and his holy Spirit were raised to life again were holy and blessed souls and such who were written in the book of God and that this grace happened to no wicked and vitious person so it is most true in the spirituall and intended sense You onely that serve God in a holy life you who are not dead in trespasses and sins you who serve God with an early diligence and an unwearied industry and a holy religion you and you onely shall come to life eternall you onely shall be called from death to life the rest of mankind shall never live again but passe from death to death from one death to another to a worse from the death of the body to the eternall death of body and soul and therefore in the Apostles Creed there is no mention made of the resurrection of wicked persons but of the resurrection of the body to everlasting life The wicked indeed shall be haled forth from their graves from their everlasting prisons where in chains of darknesse they are kept unto the judgement of the great day But this therefore cannot be called in sensu favoris a resurrection but the solennities of the eternall death It is nothing but a new capacity of dying again such a dying as cannot signifie rest but where death means nothing but an intolerable and never ceasing calamity and therefore these words of my Text are otherwise to be understood of the wicked otherwise of the godly The wicked are spilt like water and shall never be gathered up again no not in the gatherings of eternity They shall be put into vessels of wrath and set upon the flames of hell but that is not a gathering but a scattering from the face and presence of God But the godly also come under the sense of these words They descend into their graves and shall no more be reckoned among the living they have no concernment in all that is done under the Sun Agamemnon hath no more to do with the Turks armies invading and possessing that part of Greece where he reigned then had the Hippocentaur who never had a beeing and Cicero hath no more interest in the present evils of Christendome then we have to do with his boasted discovery of Catilines conspiracie What is it to me that Rome was taken by the Gauls and what is it now to Camillus if different religions be tolerated amongst us These things that now happen concern the living and they are made the scenes of our duty or danger respectively and when our wives are dead and sleep in charnel houses they are not troubled when we laugh loudly at the songs sung at the next marriage feast nor do they envy when another snatches away the gleanings of their husbands passion It is true they envy not and they lie in a bosome where there can be no murmure and they that are consigned to Kingdoms and to the feast of the marriage-supper of the Lamb the glorious and eternall Bride-groom of holy souls they cannot think our marriages here our lighter laughings and vain rejoycings considerable as to them And yet there is a relation continued still Aristotle said that to affirm the dead take no thought for the good of the living is a disparagement to the laws of that friendship which in their state of separation they cannot be tempted to rescind And the Church hath taught in generall that they pray for us they recommend to God the state of all their Relatives in the union of the intercession that our blessed Lord makes for them and us and Saint Ambrose gave some things in charge to his dying brother Satyrus that he should do for him in the other world he gave it him I say when he was dying not when he was dead And certain it is that though our dead friends affection to us is not to be estimated according to our low conceptions yet it is not lesse but much more then ever it was it is greater in degree and of another kind But then we should do well also to remember that in this world we are something besides flesh and blood that we may not without violent necessities run into new relations but preserve the affections we bear to our dead when
have faith and that will save him But because these men mistake concerning faith and consider not that charity or a good life is a part of that faith that saves us they hope to be saved by the Word they fill their bellies with the story of Frimalcions banquet and drink drunk with the newes of wine they eat shadows and when they are drowning catch at the image of the trees which hang over the water and are reflected from the bottome But thus many men do with charity Give almes and all things shall be clean unto you said our Blessed Saviour and therefore many keep a sin alive and make account to pay for it and God shall be put to relieve his own poor at the price of the sin of another of his servants charity shall take lust or intemperance into protection and men will not be kinde to their brethren unlesse they will be also at the same time unkinde to God I have understood concerning divers vicious persons that none have been so free in their donatives and offerings to Religion and the Priest as they and the Hospitals that have been built and the High-wayes mended at the price of souls are too many for Christendome to boast of in behalf of charity But as others mistake concerning faith so these do concerning its twin sister The first had faith without charity and these have charity without hope for every one that hath this hope that is the hope of receiving the glorious things of God promised in the Gospell purifies himself even as God is pure faith and charity too must both suppose repentance and repentance is the abolition of the whole body of sin the purification of the whole man But the summe of the Doctrine and case of conscience in this particular is this 1. Charity is a certain cure of sins that are past not that are present He that repents and leaves his sin and then relieves the poor and payes for his folly by a diminution of his own estate and the supplies of the poor and his ministring to Christs poor members turns all his former crimes into holinesse he purges the stains and makes amends for his folly and commutes for the baser pleasure with a more noble usage so said Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar Break off thy sins by righteousnesse and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor first be just and then be charitable for it is pity almes which is one of the noblest services of God and the greatest mercy to thy Brother should be spent upon sin and thrown away upon folly 2. Faith is the remedy of all our evils but then it is never of force but when we either have endevoured or undertaken to do all good this in baptisme that after faith and repentance at first and faith and charity at last and because we fail often by infirmity and sometimes by inadvertency sometimes by a surprize and often by omission and all this even in the midst of a sincere endevour to live justly and perfectly therefore the passion of our Lord payes for this and faith layes hold upon that But without a hearty and sincere intent and vigorous prosecution of all the parts of our duty faith is but a word not so much as a cover to a naked bosome nor a pretence big enough to deceive persons that are not willing to be cousened 3. The bigger ingredient of vertue and evill actions will prevail but it is only when vertue is habituall and sins are single interrupted casuall and seldome without choice and without affection that is when our repentance is so timely that it can work for God more then we served under the tyranny of sin so that if you will account the whole life of man the rule is good and the greater ingredient shal prevail and he shall certainly be pardoned and accepted whose life is so reformed whose repentance is so active whose return is so early that he hath given bigger portions to God then to Gods enemy But if we account so as to divide the measures in present possession the bigge◠part cannot prevail a small or a seldome sin spoils not the sea of piety but when the affection is divided a little ill destroyes the whole body of good the cup in a mans right hand must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must be pure although it be mingled that is the whole affection must be for God that must be pure and unmingled if sin mingles in seldome and unapproved instances the drops of water are swallowed up with a whole vintage of piety and the bigger ingredient is the prevailing in all other cases it is not so for one sin that we choose and love and delight in will not be excused by 20 vertues and as one broken link dissolves the union of the whole chain and one jarring and untuned string spoils the whole musick so is every sin that seises upon a portion of our affections if we love one that one destroyes the acceptation of all the rest And as it is in faith so it is in charity He that is a Heretick in one article hath no saving faith in the whole and so does every vicious habit or unreformed sin destroy the excellency of the grace of charity a wilfull error in one article is Heresie and every vice in one instance is Malice and they are perfectly contrary and a direct darknesse to the two eyes of the soul faith and charity 4. There is one deceit more yet in the matter of the extension of our duty destroying the integrity of its constitution for they do the work of God deceitfully who think God sufficiently served with abstinence from evill and converse not in the acquisition and pursuit of holy charity and religion This Clemens Alexandrinus affirmes of the Pharisees they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they hoped to be justified by abstinence from things forbidden but if we will be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sons of the kingdome we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Besides this and supposing a proportionable perfection in such an innocence we must love our brother and do good to him and glorifie God by a holy Religion in the communion of Saints in faith and Sacraments in almes and counsell in forgivenesses and assistances Flee from evill and do the thing that is good and dwell for evermore said the Spirit of God in the Psalmes and St. Peter Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust give all diligence to adde to your faith vertue to vertue patience to patience godlinesse and brotherly kindnesse and charity Many persons think themselves fairly assoiled because they are no adulterers no rebels no drunkards not of scandalous lives In the mean time like the Laodiceans they are naked and poor they have no catalogue of good things registred in heaven no treasures in the repositories of the poor neither have the poor often prayed concerning them Lord remember thy servants for this thing at the day
of Judgement A negative Religion is in many things the effects of lawes and the appendage of sexes the product of education the issues of company and of the publick or the daughter of fear and naturall modesty or their temper and constitution and civill relations common fame or necessary interest Few women swear and do the debaucheries of drunkards and they are guarded from adulterous complications by spies and shame by fear and jealousie by the concernment of families and the reputation of their kindred and therefore they are to account with God beyond this civill and necessary innocence for humility and patience for religious fancies and tender consciences for tending the sick and dressing the poor for governing their house and nursing their children and so it is in every state of life When a Prince or a Prelate a noble and a rich person hath reckon'd all his immunities and degrees of innocence from those evils that are incident to inferiour persons or the worser sort of their own order they do the work of the Lord and their own too very deceitfully unlesse they account correspondencies of piety to all their powers and possibilities they are to reckon and consider concerning what oppressions they have relieved what causes and what fatherlesse they have defended how the work of God and of Religion of justice and charity hath thriv'd in their hands If they have made peace and encouraged Religion by their example and by their lawes by rewards and collaterall incouragements if they have been zealous for God and for Religion if they have imployed ten talents to the improvement of Gods bank then they have done Gods work faithfully if they account otherwise and account only by ciphers and negatives they can expect only the rewards of innocent slaves they shall escape the furca and the wheel the torments of lustfull persons and the crown of flames that is reserved for the ambitious or they shall not be gnawn with the vipers of the envious or the shame of the ingratefull but they can never upon this account hope for the crowns of Martyrs or the honorary rewards of Saints the Coronets of virgins and Chaplets of Doctors and Confessors And though murderers and lustfull persons the proud and the covetous the Heretick and Schismatick are to expect flames and scorpions pains and smart poenam sensus the Schooles call it yet the lazie and the imperfect the harmlesse sleeper and the idle worker shall have poenam damni the losse of all his hopes and the dishonours of the losse and in the summe of affairs it will be no great difference whether we have losse or pain because there can be no greater pain imaginable then to lose the sight of God to eternall ages 5. Hither are to be reduced as deceitfull workers those that promise to God but mean not to pay what they once intended * people that are confident in the day of case and fail in the danger * they that pray passionately for a grace and if it be not obtained at that price go no further and never contend in action for what they seem to contend in prayer * such as delight in forms and outsides and regard not the substance and design of every institution * that think it a great sin to tast bread before the receiving the holy Sacrament and yet come to communicate with an ambitious and revengefull soul * that make a conscience of eating flesh but not of drunkennesse * that keep old customes and old sins together * that pretend one duty to excuse another religion against charity or piety to parents against duty to God private promises against publick duty the keeping of an oath against breaking of a Commandement honour against modesty reputation against piety the love of the world in civill instances to countenance enmity against God these are the deceitfull workers of Gods work they make a schisme in the duties of Religion and a warre in heaven worse then that between Michael and the Dragon for they divide the Spirit of God and distinguish his commandements into parties and factions by seeking an excuse sometimes they destroy the integrity and perfect constitution of duty or they do something whereby the effect and usefulnesse of the duty is hindred concerning all which this only can be said they who serve God with a lame sacrifice and an imperfect duty a duty defective in its constituent parts can never enjoy God because he can never be divided and though it be better to enter into heaven with one foot and one eye then that both should be cast into hell because heaven can make recompence for this losse yet nothing can repair his losse who for being lame in his duty shall enter into hell where nothing is perfect but the measures and duration of torment and they both are next to infinite SERMON XIII Part II. 2. THe next enquiry is into the intention of our duty and here it will not be amisse to change the word fraudulentèr or dolosè into that which some of the Latin Copies doe use Maledictus qui facit opus Dei negligentèr Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently or remissely and it implyes that as our duty must be whole so it must be fervent for a languishing body may have all its parts and yet be uselesse to many purposes of nature and you may reckon all the joynts of a dead man but the heart is cold and the joynts are stiffe and fit for nothing but for the little people that creep in graves and so are very many men if you summe up the accounts of their religion they can reckon dayes and months of Religion various offices charity and prayers reading and meditation faith and knowledge catechisme and sacraments duty to God and duty to Princes paying debts and provision for children confessions and tears discipline in families and love of good people and it may be you shall not reprove their numbers or find any lines unfill'd in their tables of accounts but when you have handled all this and consider'd you will find at last you have taken a dead man by the hand there is not a finger wanting but they are stiffe as Isicles and without flexure as the legs of Elephants such are they whom S. Bernard describes whose spirituall joy is allayed with tediousnesse whose compunction for sins is short and seldome whose thoughts are animall and their designes secular whose Religion is lukewarm their obedience is without devotion their discourse without profit their prayer without intention of heart their reading without instruction their meditation is without spirituall advantages and is not the commencement and strengthning of holy purposes and they are such whom modesty will not restrain nor reason bridle nor discipline correct nor the fear of death and hell can keep from yeelding to the imperiousnesse of a foolish lust that dishonors a mans understanding and makes his reason in which he most glories to be weaker then the