else but that which made him dye tickle cheer and heighten my self with Agonies You my intemperate Draughts my full bowles and the ryotous Evenings I have past look yonder what a sad night do these make Christ passe look what a Cup he holds which makes him fall lower to deprecate than ever my Excesses made me lye You my lazy Luxuries Fulnesse of Bread and Idlenesse whereby I have controul'd Gods Curse and onely in the Sweat of others Faces eat my Bread and in that dew drank up the Spirits of those multitudes that toyl to faintings to maintain my dissolute life see how he is forc't to bear the whole curse for me how the Thorns grow on his head and how he Sweats all over You my supine Devotions which do scarce afford my God a knee and lesse an heart not when I deprecating an eternity of all those Torments which kill'd Christ look yonder how he prayes behold him on his Face petitioning see there how he sweats and begs You my little Malices and my vexatious Anger 's that are hot and quick as Fire it self and that do fly as high too that are up at Heaven strait for the least wrong on Earth look how he bears his how his patience seems wounded onely in a wound that fell upon his persecutors and when one that came to apprehend him wrongfully was hurt as if the Sword of his defence had injur'd him he threatned and for ever curs'd the black deeds of that angry Weapon and made restitution of what he had not taken made his adversary whole whom he had not hurt See how with his cruel Judges he is as a Sheep that not before his shearers onely but before his Butcher too is dumb You my Scorns and my high Stomach that will take no satisfaction but Blood and Soul for the faults of inadvertency for such as not the wrong but humour makes offences look how they use him they buffet and revile and spit upon him Ye my dreadful Oaths and bitter imprecations which I use to lace my speeches with or belch out against any one that does offend me in the least making the Wounds and Blood of God and other such sad words either my foolish modes of speaking or the spittings of my peevishnesse There you may see what 't is I play with so you may behold the Life of Christ pouring out at those wounds which I speak so idly of and what I mingle with my sportive talk is Agony such as they that beheld afar off struck their breasts at and to see them only was a passion Ye my Atheismes and my Irreligion but alas you have no prospect yonder it s but faint before you who out-do the Example whatsoever Judas and the rest did to the Man Christ Jesus you attempt on God you invade Heaven Sentence Crucifie Divinity it self And now having shewed my Sins this Copy of themselves what they are in their own demerits when my bowels do begin to turn within me at that miserable usage which Christ underwent it will be a time to execute an act of Indignation at my self who have resetted in my bosom all these Traytors to my Saviour made those things the joy and entertainment of my life which had their hands in the Blood of my God and what a stupid senslesse Soul have I that was never troubled heartily at that which did make him almost out of hope and if this be the effect of sin then it is time for me to throw it off O my Jesu sure I am I am not able to support the weight of that thou didst sink under Thou didst come to bear our sins in thy own Body on the Tree therefore in thy Body they were nailed to the Crosse and then certainly I will not force and tear them thence No there I leave them and will never reassume them more which resolution is the effect of that vertue and efficacy which is in the Crosse of Christ to the crucifying of sin which is the second sense in which the Christian does professe with S. Paul I am Crucified with Christ. There are some Learned Men that when they would assign reasons sufficient to move Cod to lay the punishment of our iniquities upon his Son and execute that Indignation that was due to us on the most innocent most Holy Jesus give this onely that this was the highest and most signal way imaginable to discover Gods most infinite displeasure against Sin and by consequence to terrifie men from the practise of it For if any thing in Heaven or in Earth could make us fear and from henceforth commit no such evil it was surely this to see Sin sporting in the Agonies of Christ Iniquity triumphing in the Blood of God To see those dire instances of the deservings of a Sinner those amazing prelusions to his expectations and consider it was easier for God to execute all this upon his Son than suffer sin to go unpunisht Indeed they make all that is real in the whole account they give of satisfaction made to God for sin to consist in this that the temporal Death of Christ which God by vertue of his absolute Dominion may inflict on the most innocent taking away that which himself had given especially since Christ who had that right over his own life which none else had did of his own accord submit to it and he laid down his life who had a power to do so That Death I say might justly be ordain'd by God for an Example of his Wrath and Hatred against Sin and then might be accepted in the stead of their death who were warned by that example and affrighted from committing sin And truly there is colour for it for all satisfaction seems either of a losse sustain'd which is acquired by compensation or the satisfaction of our anger which is commonly appeased by the sufferings of the injurious party or else the satisfaction of our fears and doubts that we may be secure not to sustain the like again which is most likely to be best provided for by punishment For sure one will not venture upon that which he must suffer for the doing Now of all these the first the satisfaction of compensation as it cannot properly be made to God who could sustain no real diminution by Man's sin For though thy wickednesse saith Job may hurt a man as thou art yet if thou sinnest what doest thou against God or if thy transgressions be multiplyed what doest thou to him but onely as the breaking of his law does in S. Pauls expression dishonour him amongst men so also it were easie to demonstrate that this one example does exalt more of Gods attributes and to a greater height than either if his Law had been obey'd or executed if that either were our business or if this sort of satisfaction did not properly belong onely to the offended party not the supreme Judge or Governour as such under which notion God is here to
inferr Christ's Application that at least we begin to cease and sin no more least a worse thing come unto us I. He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceast from Sin None but He and He certainly When it appear'd that Eden had too much of Garden for innocence to dwell in and although man were made upright yet amidst such delights he could not be so a whole day but of the many inventions he found out the first was to destroy himself immediately and under the shadow of the Tree of life he wrought out death and made the Walks of Paradise lead him towards Hell God saw himself concern'd to take another course He sets a guard of fire about Eden about the place of pleasure as well as in the place of torments and there was as much need of flame to keep man out of Paradise as flame to fright him from Hell He makes the Earth not spring with Garden any more but bring forth thorns and bryars that might scratch and tear man in the pursuit of things below which if the Soul should cleave and cling unto the Earth might gore and stab it in the embrace Nothing but sufferings will do us good The Earth was most accurst to man when it was all Paradise nothing but the malediction could make it safe and bless it to us our happiness must be inflicted executed on us and we must be goaded into blessedness and therefore God hath put afflictions into every dispensation since the first Among the Jews sin did receive immediate punishment by the tenour of the Covenant and though the retributions of our Covenant be set at distance as far remote as Hell yet Christ has drest his very promises in sackcloth and in ashes tears and trouble when he would recompense heroick vertue he says it shall receive an hundred fold with persecution Mar. 10. 30. and he does grant us sufferings to you it is given in the behalf of Christ to suffer Phil. 1. 29. so that the sting of the Serpent is now the tempter his biteings and his venom moving us to obedience as much as his lying tongue did our first Parents to rebellion and when he does fulfill Gods threat and wound the heel he onely drives us faster away from him and makes us haste to him that flies to meet us with healing under his wings This method God hath alwaies us'd and the experience confirm'd by the blood of all ages even from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of this season of all the Prophets that went before us and the Apostles that came after them as if those were men inspir'd for ruine and what ever Judgment they denounc't it was their own burden and as if these were men chosen out for and delegated to persecution men appointed unto death as St. Paul expounds their office none escap't and the next succeeding times of Primitive Christianity were but Centuries of Martyrdom so many years of Fire and Faggot and worse tortures This method hath not past by any Grandeur but of those great ones that have been eminently good their afflictions have vy'd with their Majesty the Calendar hath had as much share of them as the Chronicle the Martyrology as the Annals and their bloud not their Purple put them in the Rubrick Gods Furnace made Crowns splendid gave them a Majesty of shine and an Imperial glory and so all our Crowns indeed must be prepar'd in the Furnace he that told us we must be Baptiz'd with fire saw there was something in us that the Christians water will not cleanse Baptism may wash sullays but not dross away That must be washt in flame and nothing else but fire will take away our base alloy And it cannot be otherwise never was there any other way to Glory for when God was to bring many Sons to glory he sanctified the very Captain of our salvation through sufferings Heb. 2. 10. Who though he were a Son and that the Son of God yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered Heb. 5. 8. This therefore is the only and most effectual way of teaching it when God speaks in Judgment and indeed he counts all other of his voices but as silence in comparison of this and though he gave his Law in Thunder and sent his Prophets daily to denounce wrath to transgression yet he reckons of all this as if he had said nothing till he speak Plagues and commands afflictions Psal. 50. 21. after a Catalogue of sins he tells the man these things hast thou done and I kept silence though my Law did warn thee and my Messengers call'd to thee yet I hardly expect that thou shouldst hear those whispers with all those voyces I did scarce break silence but now I will reprove thee and thou shalt hear the rod or hear thy own groans under it For that we may be sure to hear this voyce God does by it open the ear Job 33. 14 15 16. God speaks once yea twice yet man perceiveth it not in a dream and in a vision then he opens the ears of men by Chastisements as it follows in four verses full of them 19 20 21 22. and sealeth his instruction that he may withdraw Man from his purpose i. e. that he may make him cease from sin It seems the place of Dragons is Gods chiefest School of Repentance and we may have a clearer sight of him in the dimness of anguish than Vision it self does give When men did not perceive that saith Job yet this open'd the Ear and so God sealeth the Instruction And truly when the Soul dissolves in Tears and when as David words it The heart in the midst of the body is even like melting wax then onely 't is susceptible of Impression then is the time for sealing the Instruction Nor does Chastisement open the Ear only but the understanding also I will give her trouble 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will take her into the Wilderness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he and speak unto her Heart There is convincing Experience of all this Pharaoh that was an Atheist in Prosperity does beg for prayers in Adversity before he suffers Pharaoh saies Who is the Lord that I should obey his voyce I know not the Lord neither will I let Israel go Exod. 5. 2. but yet Thunder preaches obedience into him and Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron and said I have sinned the Lord is righteous and I and my People are wicked intreat the Lord that there be no more mighty Thundrings no more Voices of God the Hebrew words it and I will let you go Exod 9. 27. And in the Book of Judges you will find that whole Age was nothing but a vicissitude of sinning and suffering divided betwixt Idolatry and Calamity When Gods hand was not on them they ran after other Gods as if to be freed from Oppression had been to be set free from Gods Worship and Service but when
be considered As neither does the second satisfaction that of anger the Judge being to be like his Law that hath no passions or affections And truly since the things that do satisfie our angers and revenges are no real goods the satisfactions of them are unnatural and therefore surely not Divine Monstrous appetite that hath learnt to desire mischief hath also taught us to delight in misery and be satisfied with the griefs of others which being nothing to us cannot be our good And although we are stil'd Children of Wrath as if our portion were to be onely plagues our inheritance perdition and the fearful issues of Gods Fury Yet since to be angry signifies in God no more than this to testifie what great abhorrency he hath to sin how contrary to him how not to be indur'd it is It was impossible for God when he had once resolv'd to pardon sin to testifie that more than by resolving not to pardon it without such an example so that it did satisfie his anger perfectly But all true satisfaction lyes in the provision that is made by punishment against future offences This is that which the Magistrate and Law requires nec enim irascitur sed cavet for by Punishment they cannot call back the offences that are past undo or make them not have been but they can make men not to dare to doe them again nor others by their example This is the end why they annex Penalties to their Laws expresly said so Deut. 19. 20. Which end therefore when they attain by Punishment the Law and Magistrate is satisfied For it is not so much the Death of the Offender that is satisfaction of the Law as the Example of Terror that it gives and therefore humane Lawgivers have oft thought fit to change the Penalty and where Death was appoynted to assign other sufferings that consist with Life and prolong Misery and Terror as Proscription and the Gallies c. Accordingly to propose an Example of Terror to us God laid all the severe inflictions of the Passion-day upon his own Son Now it is evident that the example of a Man suffering for the breach of Lawes does certainly hedge in those Lawes keep them more safe from violence therefore we see those Laws are best observ'd which the Magistrate's Sword does most guard and Experience would quickly make it good a Land would prove but a meer Shambles and a Man's life cheaper than a Beast's if Murtherers and Duellists shall get impunity more easily than he that steals an Horse or Sheep When on the other side that Nation from whom we most receive the fashions of our vices also whom the honour of that sin is most peculiar to though they seemed to value it above Estate and Life and Family and Soul yet we know could be beaten from it by some sharp examples And then when our Lawgiver as he spoke his Laws at first with Thunder and with Lightning as if they brought their Sentence along with them and the very promulgation was a copy and example of their Execution So also he did write those Laws in Blood to let us see what does await transgression how he that spar'd not his own dear Son will certainly not spare any impenitent this could not choose but have some influence if 't were consider'd Should we call to mind the kindnesse God had at this time to lost Man how he so long'd to pity him that he resolv'd not to pity himself how yet in all those turnings of his bowells within him his repentings over Man when his Compassion was at such an height as to give his well beloved Son to satisfie for our transgressions in the midst of all those inclinations to us at that very time how yet he did so hate our sins that nothing else could satisfie him but the Blood of God How he made the Son of God empty himself of his Divinity and of his Soul and all to raise a sum onely to purchase one example of that Indignation that attends a Sinner it will be easie then to recollect how insupportable that Wrath will be to the impenitent in the Day of his fierce Anger when he shall have no kindness left for them but the Omnipotence of Mercy will become Almighty Fury Who shall be able to avoid or to endure the issues of it shall I think to scape them when he spared not his Son or shall I venture upon bearing that to all Eternity which that Son was not able to support some hours Thus as S. Paul expresses God sending his own Son in the likenesse of sinful flesh a Sacrifice for sin condemned sin in the flesh that is he shewed what did await iniquity that men by so great an example of his Wrath might be frighted from the practise Et si quis morte Christi admonitus paniteat iste per mortem Christi peccato mortâ—â—s esse dicitur saith Origen on Rom. 6. 1. He who seeing that example of Christ Crucified for sin is warned by it into Repentance he is crucified with Christ. God dealing with us as Men do with a young Prince that must be disciplin'd by the correction of another for his faults and in this sense also our chastisement was upon Christ and by his stripes we are cur'd And now though I propose not this as if I thought this Reason were sufficient of it self which seems to give no good account how any could be ransomed e're Christ suffered which yet certainly they were the vertue of his Death extending to all former Ages as is proved most evidently Heb. 9. 25. a place which Crellius himself does give no satisfaction to if the satisfaction of his Death consisted onely in its being an Example it could no more satisfie for the sins of former Ages than it could be an Example e're it was in being If that Death were accepted in the stead of their death who by that Example are frighted into Repentance what was accepted for their sins who had no such vision of it as that it could or did affright them yet repented Yet to them that have beheld it in its vigour they that can controul this check to vice and when to shew us an Example it cost God the life of his own Son after the prospect of whose Cross he hath not any Terrour to propose this being the contrivance of the Divine mind and the stresse of all his most Almighty Attributes conjoyn'd in one compounded Miracle can yet make all this vain and fruitlesse and have no effect are nor feared nor warned by it but as if it signified no peril to their sins they can come once a year to entertain themselves with the Example and go from the Agonies unconcern'd to the sins that inflicted them and that shew forth themselves in them Who act as if those were the onely soft and pleasant things that crusht his Blood and Soul out as if those which did make the Son of God cry out as if he did almost
Lord appointed them they were so close a sence that our Saviour calls them Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven as if they lockt us in the Path of Piety and Life and we must pick or break all that the Key of Heavin can make fast burst Locks as well as Vows before we can get out have liberty to sin God having bounded in the Christians race as that among the Grecians was which had a River on one side and Swords points all along the other so that Destruction dwelt about it on the borders And God hath mounded ours with the River of Hell the Lake of Fire and with these spiritual Swords as S. Cyprian and S. Hierome call the Censures But yet a Mound too weak alas to stand the Resolution and assaults of Vices now adayes which do not onely make great breaches in the Fence but have quite thrown it down and slighted it and the Church dares not set it up again should she attempt it they would scoff it down Men will endure no bar in the way to Perdition they will have liberty of Ruine will not be guarded from it so far from brooking Censures they will suffer no Reproof nor Admonition not suffer one word betwixt them and death eternal But Fiftly Though we will not let Almighty God restrain us with his Censures yet he will do it with his Rod and set the sharp stakes of Affliction in our walk to keep us in thus he makes sins sometimes inflict themselves and then we straight resolve to break off from them and while we suffer shame and feel destruction in the vice we shrink and uncling And now the sinner would not dye especially if his Precipitance have thrown him to the consines of the grave and while he took his full careers of Vice the fury of his course did drive him to the ports of Ruine and Death seemed to make close and most astonishing approaches when standing on the brink of the Abysse he takes a prospect of the dismal state that must receive him and his Vices then he trembles and flyes his apprehensions swoon his Soul hath dying qualins caused as much by the Nausea of sin as by the fear of Hell he is in agonies of passion and of prayer both against his former courses he never will come near them more and now sure God hath catch't him and his will is wholly bent another way now he will live the new life if God will grant him any But alas have we never seen when God hath done this for him stretch't out his Arm of Power hal'd him from the brow of the Pit and set him further off how he does turn and drive on furiously in the very same path that leads to the same Ruine and he recovers into death eternal And now this Will is grown too strong for the Almighty's powerful methods and frustrates the whole Counsell of God for his Salvation neglects his Calls and Importunacies whereby he warns him to consult his safety to make use of Grace in time not to harden his heart against his own mercies and perish in despight of mercy And when he can reject Gods Graces and his Judgments thus defie his Conscience and his own Experience too there is but one thing left wherein this Resolution can shew its courage and that is Sixthly His own present Interests All which the sinner can break through and despise to get at Death It is so usual to see any of the gross wasting Vices when it is once espoused murder the Reputation and all those great concerns that do depend upon a mans Esteem eat out his Wealth and Understanding make him pursue pernicious wayes and Counsells besot him and enslave him fill his life with disquiet shame and needinesse and the sad consequents of that Contempt and all that 's Miserable and unpittied in this Life and yet the sin with all these disadvantages is lovely not to be divorc't nor torn off from him that I were vain should I attempt to prove a thing so obvious I shall give but one instance of the power of the Will the violence and fury of its inclimations to ruine The man who for anothers inadvertency possibly such as their own rules of Honour will not judge affront yea sometimes without any shadow of a provocation meerly because he will be rude does that upon which they must call one another to account and to their last account indeed at Gods dread Judgment feat whither when he hath sacrific'd two Families it may be all their hopes and comforts in this Life two Souls which cost the Blood of God having assaulted Death when it was aâ—m'd and at his heart and charged Damnation to take Hell by Violence he comes with his own and his Brother's blood upon his Soul to seize his Sentence Go ye Cursed into everlasting Fire 'T is plain against all Interests of this World and the World to come this man will dye And yet this is one of the laudable and generous Customes of the Age. Neither doth this man stand alone the desperate Rebel would come into the Induction that without any hopes sets all on fire to consume all here and to begin his Flames hereafter But I have said enough to prove the Resoluteness of a Sinners Will which is so great indeed that it is this especially which does enhance the guilt of sin into the merit of an endlesse punishment this persevering obstinacy does deserve Hell and make it just For whatsoever inequality there is betwixt the short liv'd pleasures of a sin which dye while they are tasted and put out themselves and those eternal never dying retributions of Vengeance As sure there is also betwixt the life of Man and several of those petty felonies that forfeit it yet the Law does not murder when it Executes I might have instanc't in the gathering sticks upon the Sabbath day in Israel For since the preservation of publique safety and propriety is valuable with the lives of many men and to secure that and affright the Violation it was necessary to affix such punishments to such offences they that know the penalty and wilfully meerly to feed their other vices run upon it justly suffer it So that Man might not rob himself of that immortal Glory which God had ordain'd him when he did see it absolutely necessary thus to hedge Vice with Eternal Death And as he set Angels and Flaming Swords to keep him out of Paradise so to set Fiends and Flames to guard Hell from him and to entail those Torments on Man's sin which he had prepared for the Devil and sealed the Deed in the Blood of his Son If notwithstanding men renounce the blessedness and against all their Interests and Obligations in spight of all the arts and Powers of Heaven they will have the Torments and what they never would attempt for Paradise invade those flames to get to Hell 't is very just that God should let them have it should not break his
Decrees dispence with Holy Laws so confirm'd meerly to gratifie those that are obstinate for ruine and against his whole Gospel quench Hell fires because men are resolv'd to run into them This Will does as it were even the Scales betwixt the Sin and the Damnation equal the pleasure to the punishment and fill the distance from a moment to Eternity But though this Will do clear Gods Justice yet it does not satisfie his Reason he seems astonisht at the choyce God himself cannot find a Ground for such a Resolution and therefore does enquire Why will ye dye Which is God's question and my second part Is it the present pleasure sin does tempt your sensuality withall whose agitations are so quick and strong that they surprize or break the forces of your Reason and your Principles put the Mind in disorder and then seize it with such violence as to lead it captive to the Law of Sin and Death 'T is true indeed thus both of them had their original so they prevail'd in Paradise for when the Woman saw the Tree was good for food and pleasant to the eye and a Tree to be desired to make one wise she took thereof and she did eat although she knew that God had said In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye Gen. 3. But there was generous pleasure here such as tempted the Soul assaulted it with the appearances of Wisdome and divine Knowledge Te shall be as Gods Gen. 3. 5. And sure 't is no great wonder if the proper pleasures of the mind ingage it therefore when God would give a Precept liable to a Temptation of being broke he laid it in the sphere of those things that delight the Soul of Knowledge but far be it that those of sensuality should ever have prevail'd Man may yield to the pleasure of being like God but for pleasure to make himself a Beast is contradiction to Nature For pleasure is but satisfaction of our appetites and the more natural the inclination is the higher and more powerful that nature and the desire eagerer so much the more delightful is the satisfaction Now it is certain that the reasonable faculty the Soul or Spirit is the highest and most proper nature of a man In all the rest he 's not a step remov'd from Beasts unlesse it be in shape but in the accurateness of his senses is below them far and therefore must be so in sensual satisfactions but in his Soul he borders upon Angels and does come towards God Now then that Soul being mans peculiar nature the highest part of him It follows its delights Spiritual reasonable Joyes must needs be the most natural and most proper for it most conform'd to it and therefore the most taking with it This may be cleared most irrefragably A Beast hath several ingredients of Nature in his making he is an heavy body and a Vegetable and he hath also sense which is his highest nature Now though the only inclination of heavy bodies be to fall down to the Earth and this be also natural to a Beast we do not find that 't is his greatest pleasure sure he had rather feed than tumble in the Pasture his chief delight lyes in the satisfaction of his chiefest faculties wherein he does excell his Senses and as Beasts differ and transcend in these so do their pleasures also differ and exceed A man also as Aristotle sayes does live a threefold Life At first he is but a Plant-man a growing span of living Creature and he 's born only into Animality a Life of Sense and at last Educated into reasonable Now the delights of his first Stages whilst onely Vegetation and Sense live although proportioned to those states yet have no savour to the mind he grows through Nuts and Rattles to the use of Reason and the pleasures of it also these must keep even with the growing faculties and become higher rational and manly Which if they do not but the man still dwell upon the satisfactions of sense he does confound the Stages contradict the progresses of Nature he hath the age and strength of Reason but to play the Child with to exert it in those things that are but a Man's Rattles hath the sagacity of an Intelligence meerly to find out how to be a brute with greater luxury and rellish Come therefore shew me now the sins which the delights of Reason do betray you to and I 'le admit the plea But if you live your own reverse that you may dye renounce all your own pleasures first that so you may renounce the joyes of God and Heaven and fall from Nature that you may fall into Hell this case hath no pretence those pleasures cannot toll man on to death which till the man be dead and the brute onely live within him cannot be his pleasures and it is plain they are not pleasures to a Sober man that lives the life of Reason not to say of Grace Nor are they such to any man till he have train'd and exercis'd himself into an habit of enduring them and by a discipline of Torment made himself experienc't for Vice and for Damnation Nor is there ever any pleasure in some vices what is there in the dismal Wishes of mans imprecating passion there cannot be musick in those harsh horrours and yet these sinners will destruction so as that they call to God to pour it on them and tear it down from Heaven so that Pain and Disease seem to sauce those delights and Death to be the tempter to the pleasure 't is evident mens reasons and their Practises must be first debauch't that they may count them Pleasures and therefore pleasure cannot be the first mover in the sinners race to Death But I will grant that the Spirit and Flesh of Man by their so strait alliance and perpetual converse may grow to have the same likes and dislikes have but one appetite and this alas be that of flesh to whose only satisfactions the man useth himself by long Custome of which the Soul doth so imbibe the Inclinations of the Body that nothing of another kind can possibly be relisht In this case sensuality hath pleasures yet such as cannot answer Gods inquiry for do but consult mans other Choyces and you find a present satisfaction cannot work his Resolutions to forgo great after-hopes or run upon a foreseen ruine Who will exchange his right to the Reversion of a Crown which from his Father he shall certainly inherit and succeed to if he do out live him for a present Scene of Royalty and choose a painted Coronet the pomps and adorations of a Stage and the applauses of a Groud before the reall Glories of his Kingdom the love and the obedience of his Subjects And yet my Soul the disproportion of the sinners terms is infinitely greater and there is no hazzard which to make his choyce of present things more flattering the others hopes are liable to For that Heir of the Crown
fire without Metaphor So that desire alone without its satisfaction is so much of Hell and yet this is the worldly sensual mans estate exactly here on Earth for he hath nothing but desires and lusts and his condition is not easier at all for how is Tantalus more wretched than a Midas or than any covetous wretch who in the midst of affluence and heaps hungers as much as Midas did for meat and for Gold too and can touch neither for his uses so that the Worlds delights are very like the miserys of Hell and men with so much eager and impatient pursuit do but anticipate their torments and invade Damnation here And if the case be so sure there is no great self-denyal in our Psalmist here when he resolves to desire nothing upon Earth in comparison of his God 'T is no such glorious conquest of my Appetite to make it not pursue a present Hell and an eternal one annext to it before a Saviour Yet the world does so Some there are that desire Money rather and although when Judas did so this desire could not bear it self but cast all back again and though it did disgorge it burst him too the Sin it self supply'd the Law and his guilt was his Execution Yet this will not terrifie men will do the like betray a Master and a Saviour and a God onely not for so little money peradventure Others when the Lord paid his own Blood for their Redemption yet if their wrath thirsts for his Blood that does offend them their revenge makes their Enemies the sweeter blood though their own Soul bleed to death in his stream To others the deservings of the partner of an unclean moment are much greater than all that the Lord Jesus knew to merit at their hands or purchase for them And it is no wonder they are so ungrateful to their Saviour when they are so barbarous to themselves as to choose not to have present Divine Possessions rather than not suffer the vengeance of their own Appetites choose meerly to desire here though that be to do what they do in Hell rather than have in Heaven O thou my Soul if thou wilt needs desire propose at least some satisfaction to thy Appetite do not covet onely needs thirst for a feaver and desire meerly to inflame desire and Torments But seek there where all thy wants will find an infinite happy supply even in thy Saviour covet the riches of his Grace and Goodnesse thirst for the fountain opened for transgression for the waters of the well of Life desire him that is the desire of all Nations yet why should we desire even him when we have him in Heaven and we have nothing upon Earth left to desire but that God who hath exalted him unto his Kingdom in Heaven would in his due time exalt us also to the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before To whom c. SERMON VII VVHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LENT 1663 4. MARK I. 3. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. I Shall not break this single short Command asunder into Parts but shall instead of doing that observe three Advents of our Saviour in this Life before that last to Judgment For each of which as it must concern us there must be preparation made by us In pressing which I do not mean to urge you to do that which none but God can do It is not in man to direct his own wayes much lesse the Lords The very preparations of the Heart are from Him Therefore supposing the preventings of his Graces I shall subjoyn that the Comporting with those graces the using of his strengths to the rooting out of our selves all aversation to Virtue and all love of Vice and planting other inclinations even Resolutions of good life is the onely thing that can make way for Christ and for his benefits Now of those Advents the First was when he came Commission'd by God to reveal his Will to propose the Gospel to our belief the coming of Christ as a Prophet which particularly is intended in the Text. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is written prepare ye the way of the Lord. The Second was that coming which the Prophet Isay did foresee and in the astonishment of Vision askt Who is this that comes from Edom with dy'd garments from Bozrah travelling in the greatness of his Strength Why is he red in his Apparrel and his garments like him that treadeth in the Wine-fat And it was the prospect of him when he came to tread the Wine press of the Wrath of God to Sacrifice himself for us upon the Crosse his coming as a Priest The Third is when he comes to visit for Iniquity coming coercively as a King with his Iron Rod to execute his threats on the rebellious those that will not have him reign over them This coming also was considered in my Text for in the parallel place of S. Matth. it is said Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand for this is he of whom it was spoken by the Prophet Esaias saying the Voyce of one crying in the Wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord. For each of these in order I shall shew you what prepares his way beginning with the first His coming as a Prophet appearing in the World to reveal his Father's Will the Gospel Now the Preparative for this Appearance is discovered easily we find both in this Chapter and the parallel places that John came to make way for it by the Baptism and Preaching of Repentance and it was Prophecied of him that he should go before him in the Spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the Fathers with the Children and the Disobedient to the Wisdom of the Just to the minding of just things so to make ready a people prepared for the Lord Luke 1. 17. And this is a preparative so necessary that the Nation of the Jewes affirm it is meerly for the want of this that he does yet deferr his coming And though the appointed time for it be past yet because of their sinfulnesse and impenitence he does not appear adding If Israel Repent but one day presently the Messias cometh And it is thus far true that though it hindred not his coming yet it hindred his receiving although it did not make him stay it made him be refus'd I may lay all down in this Proposition Where there is not the preparation of Repentance where there are not inclinations and desires for Virtue if Christ come with the glad tidings of the Gospel He is sure to be rejected his Religion disbeliev'd If the Word of the Son of God might be taken in his own case this would be soon evinc't for when He came unto his own they were so far from preparing his way that they received him not but did reject and would not entertain him as one sent from God of all this he onely
the Gospel And here I hope I shall have no reflections to make as to preparing for this coming Christ certainly did find his Way prepared so to this Nation that we believe he was more early entertain'd in it than almost any where in the whole Gentile World And ever since his cares for it were so particular that they who would fulfil the Revelation in this Church seem to err with some reason when as his regards were so peculiar for this as if he had not concern'd himself in any other And sure none other ever had so long such opportunities and advantages so that I cannot press you to prepare the Lord's Way since he is among us Righteous art thou O Lord and wonderful in thy Mercies yet if I might plead with Thee concerning them I would enquire what hast thou done here all this while after thy so long abode among us what are we the better The last attempt of God to reclaim Man when he had shewed the world all other means were fruitlesse was by Thee His Son by whom he did conveigh all the full measures of his Graces and now what effect of these is there in us Shew me how all this care and cost hath made us be more just sober or chast in any way more virtuous than those Heathens whose Religion came from Hell We find Thee saying I beheld Sathan as Lightning fall from Heaven his Power vanishing like that which does but flash and perish never can be recollected But alas that falling flash hath kindled foul heats that will break out into Fire and Brimstone Idolatry 't is true is profligated hence the Devil is not worshipped as he was with a Religion of Impieties Uncleannesses Drunkeness and the like But yet the same things are now made to consist with thy Religion as well as with that of the Devil and we can do all those things and be Christians Some as if their Profession were a Charm which made them shot-free from Gods threats do they what they will they will adventure any the most desperate Impiety and choose Damnation in a sin and yet believe be confident and so secure On others it does work indeed the Form of Godliness makes them such perfect Pageants of Religion that they oft fall in love with their own Vizour and please themselves as if their dress were Nature while yet under that form there are the greatest falsnesses and black treacherous designs the most unjust and Bloody practises that even make the Form of Godlynesse look dismal and yet all this joyned with so much superciliousnesse with such difference to Christ that you would say the Pharisees were now all of Christ's side And iâ— this all the Lord came hither for to be a Sanctuary for the prophane a Cloak for Hypocrites Give me leave to relate a Story I have read of four or five Vessels of Portugals who were Shipwrackt to the drowning of almost five hundred men onely fifty three escaped and they were left naked and hurt upon an Island Desolate as the Israelites Wildernesse which needed the same Miracle to sustain them and found the like For God as it were rained Fish upon them and so did that which kept them alive till at last they espyed a large Boat of Chineses making to the shore to take in Water in that Island and the people coming all to Land for their refreshment which they seeing resolved to make themselves the Masters of their Boat and Goods and go away in it A man would have thought their own sad state in that Land of Desolation should have taught them Compassion at least Gods Mercies to them should have taught them Justice to others But when men have received great signall instances of Gods Protecting mercies they think then that they are his Favourites and then they may do any thingâ— They therefore get into a Wood near the Shore and Boat and it was ordered among them that whom the Captain should pronounce Jesus three times then they should run out of the Wood and seize the Vessel Lord would not such a word be a Spell and Charm against unmerciful inhumane and unjust Designs would it not exorcize all impious Contrivances It is no new thing to preface mischief with an holy Name and bring in Jesus in the Prologue to Iniquity to talk of God and act the Devil They seiz'd it and driving from the Land left the true Owners of the Vessel to possesse their misery Being secure they searcht and found no person in it but a Child of thirteen years of age and they fell to what Victuals they met and having eatex with hands lifted up they praised God solemnly and then proceeded to cut out and shore the Silks and Riches of the Vessel The Boy seeing all this and drown'd in Tears would not be comforted by them who promised him all friendly usage but he desired rather to go Dye with his Father than live with such wicked people Being reprehended for that speech Would you know said he why I said it Because I saw you when you had fill'd your Bellies praise your God with hands lift up and yet for all that like Hypocrites never care for making restiâ—ntion of what you have stollen but be you sure that after Death you shall feel the rigorous Chastisement of the Lord Almighty The Captain admiring would needs perswade him to be a Christian Whereunto earnestly beholding him he answered I understand not what you mean declare it first and you shall know my mind And being told by them of the blessed Authour and the purity of our Religion what God did to Redeem us from our sins and what holy Laws he hath left us With Eyes and Hands lift up he weeping said Blessed be thy Power O Lord that permits such people to live on the Earth that speak so well of Thee and yet so ill observe thy Law as these blinded Miscreants do who think that Robbing and Preaching are things that can be acceptable to thee And so return'd to his Tears and obstinacy To see the strictnesse of the Christians obligations and the loosenesse of their Lives to see their Practises dash against their Professions 'T is such a thing as makes them be the Scorn of honest Heathen Children And is this all that men are required to prepare the way of the Lord for Is this all he can do after so many Centuries of the abode of him and his Religion among us While there is no more of his influence appears I must suspect he is not here the Lord is not among us but is gone And certainly if it be possible to drive him out if there be any Art of doing that we have Professors of that Mystery and the Drolls are they That men should sin against him by transgressing of his Laws is no wonder for there is invitation to it in the Blood That some did count him an Impostor is not strange they had not met it may be with means of
despair were the onely fit things to make men jolly And do thus as they did it in despite to this great method of Salvation as if they did enjoy the indignation and the wrath of God as if those Agonies like the other difficulties of their sins did more provoke to them or like the Paschal bitter herbs that typified them were as sawce to the Ryots of their vices These certainly are men of a most desperate appetite and courage But 't is much more to be lamented that the Law of God does not seem better guarded by this dire example than it was of old among the Jews when it shew'd the Sinner his deservings onely by the dying of his Beast and had no other fence nor satisfaction than the blood of Bulls and Goats It is not very visible that it hath wrought upon consideration so as to make us more fear and beware nay we may question whether the example of my Bullock dying for my sin would not restrain and terrifie me more than that of Jesus Crucified for it If I were to expiate the Blood with which I word my anger and my oaths with the blood of my own Flocks if that Luxury which plunders every Element and brings a little Universe at once upon my Table to treat it self withal were but to kill one Heifer for the Temple and I to expiate each surfeit by one such Religious Ryâ—t Were I to quench the feavers of an Intemperance with a drink-offering 't is possible I should not be so prone to sacrifice to my Genius if I must sacrifice to God for doing so and I should be more tender of my Beasts than I am of my Saviour Now how comes this to passe It is impossible that we should be so apprehensive of our own demerits should we see them represented in the sufferings of a Beast as when they are shewed to us in those of the Son of God What is it then should we account our selves to suffer in our Beast His Death were our own losse and punishment And had we no communion in this Death of Christ was not that our own or account we our concern and share in that lesse valuable than in that of our Beast Far be this from us we are no further Christians than we can affirm with S. Paul who challengeth a fellowship in all Christ's sufferings and boasts it saying I am Crucified with Christ. Which brings me to the last sense of the words I have a share and am a partner in that Cross and all the satisfactions that were wrought upon it This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3. 10. a partaking in Christs Passion having his Sufferings communicated to us made our own as if we had been crucified with him as much as he that offered a peace offering was said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 10. 18. to communicate with the Altar and partake the Sacrifice which he really did We read indeed there in the sixteenth veâ—se that in the Sacrament there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sheding of Christs Blood is there communicated reckoned to us but it is communicated in a Cup of Blessing And is this to be a partner in his Crucifixion to partake onely the Sacrament of Crucifixion not to receive the wounds and torments but the benefits the pledge of the satisfactions of the Crosse the seal of the Remissions that he purchas'd on it Blessed Jesu we should have born thy pangs and all the dire things thou didst suffer ought to have been ours eternally that Agony which an Angels comfort could not calm that dreadful Terrour which exprest it self in the cold Sweat of clotted Blood that greater Terrour which came so near Despair as to make thee cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me all should have been our portion to everlastingnesse and spent their fury on our Souls And wilt thou have us bear no more of this than the remembrance all our Mount Olivet and Golgotha be onely the Lords Table and his Entertainment dost thou communicate thy Agonies in Eucharistick wine and is this to be Crucified with Christ so he does account it seems He that by vertue of the Crosse of Christ hath crucified his body of Sin Christs satisfactions are accounted to him he is esteemed to have a fellowship in all the sufferings to have had an hand in all that was done for man on the Crosse they are all reckoned his And as Christ bore the guilt of all our doings on the Tree so he will have us bear the name and merit and reward of his for as S. Paul does expresse Rom. 6. 5. We are planted together in the likeness of his death by being made conformable to that in crucifying of our sins we are inoculated as it were and both together ingraffed in into the Crosse and so there is deriv'd to us the vertue of that Stem that Root of Expiation and Atonement and by this insertion being as the same S. Paul sayes Phil. 3. 9. found in him we have his righteousness That poor Soul that does throw himself down in the strict humiliations of Repentance at the footstool of the Crosse and there beholds his Saviour dying for him and that is himself by Penitence incorporated into him graffed into his Death and planted in his very Passion as Origen and Thomas interpret He may take confidence to say Behold Lord if the satisfactions of thy eternal Justice be acceptable to thee if the blood of God that is offer'd up without spot be a well pleasing Sacrifice look down at once on thy Messiah and on my poor Soul turn not thy face from me for whatever my guilts are I have an equal Sacrifice those are my satisfactions and that blood my offering the Passion and propitiation of the Crosse are mine I am crucified with Christ. We have gone through all the Parts all the Considerations of this expression and have no more now to take notice of but this that all of them must go together that they never are fulfill'd asunder but he onely whom the efficacy of the Crosse of Christ hath wrought on to the Crucifying of sin he onely hath the satisfactions of the Crosse imputed to him he is planted with ingraffed into Christ For if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are done away 2 Cor. 5. 17. Whosoever is not such he hath no interest in the Jesus of that day He may perchance in some one of those easie Saviours which these times afford wherein Opinions call'd holy or a sanctifi'd Faction give such interests and to be in a party is to be in Christ or else he may depend upon that Christ that may be had with meer Dependance that is ours if we perswade our selves he is so Now sure he that is perswaded he is Christ's is either truly so perswaded or else falsly if but falsly that will not advantage him for God will never save a man for believing a lye
but that he should truly be perswaded so without this duty is impossible for he that is Christ's hath crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts therefore by good Logick he that hath not crucified them is not Christ's and evidently whosoever is not crucified at all he is not crucified with Christ. And sure I need not put you in remembrance that the man in whom sin reigns and whensoere his Lusts and Passions bid him go he goeth or come he cometh or do this he doeth it that the body of sin is not crucified in him that which were nayled and settel'd on the Crosse and slain there could not command and rule him so Or if sins dominion be not so absolute but God hath got some footing so as that his Law hath power in the man's mind so as to make him make resistances against his sin and he dislikes it but alas commits it still yet what he does allows not but returns to do it at the next temptation afterwârds would faâ—â— be good yet does not find how to perform something governs in his members leading that Law in his mind into captivity to the law of sin this man although he hath the body of death yet 't is not crucified and slain for it does live and exercise the greatest tyranny upon him forces him to serve and to obey against his mind it overcomes his own heart and all inclinations to good and conquers God within him Till men have left off the custome of the works of sin and all grosse deeds of the flesh it were as vain to prove they are not crucified as that he is alive that walks and eats Those works they are the fruits of the flesh the of-spring of its lusts and were that crucified and we by likenesse to Christ's death planted into the Crosse we could no more produce them than that dead Tree the Crosse could bear fruit or then a Carcasse could have heat to generate or the grave become a womb the dust bring forth Secondly Yea more they perform not the outward actions of life who have but the image of death on them and a man asleep works not yet is alive his fancy and his inwards work and if sin be onely kept from breaking out and men commit not grosse deeds of the flesh but yet indulge to these things in imagination and the heart cherish them in phansie and design and wish onely restrain the practice or indulge to spiritual wickednesses you may as well say that a man is dead because he does not walk abroad because he keeps within doors and lives onely in his Closet or his Bed-Chamber as say that sin is crucified which while it stirs but in the heart it is not dead Thirdly Once more we part from all acquaintance with the dead the Corps of one that had the same Soul with us howsoever we may have some throws of grief to leave it yet we put it from us we admit it to no more embraces but if 't were the loathsome Carcasse of a Villain Traytor that was Executed we turn from the sight as from a siend it is a detestable and accursed spectacle And so he that hath put his Body of sin to death would have great aversations to it yea how dear soever it had been he would no more endure the least acquaintance with it then he would go seek for his old conversations in the Chambers of Death he would shun the sight of any the most bosom custome as he would the Ghost of his dead Friend he would abandon it as a most ghastly dreadful spectacle he would also bury these his dead out of his sight Thus he must needs be dispos'd that hath crucified his Old man And they that are thus dead with Christ shall also live with him yea those that are thus crucified with him he hath already rais'd up together and hath made them sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus There already in their cause and in their right and pledge and there hereafter in effect and full enjoyment SERMON X. CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Novemb. 5. 1665. LUKE IX 55. Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of THE state of that great controversie which the words suppose between the Jews and the Samaritans as it then stood seems briefly thus Those that were planted in the Regions of Samaria by Salmaneser however great Idolaters at first having admitted in a while the God of Israel among their Gods and after having an High-Priest of Aaron's Line a Temple too built on that place where Abraham and the Fathers of the Hebrews friends of God did choose to offer Sacrifice and on that very place where God himself enjoyn'd the Law and all the Blessings of it to be publisht to the People on Mount Gerizim which therefore seems to have pretences to vye with Mount Zion for there also the Lord commanded the Blessing An Altar too saith Benjamin in his Itinerary made of the same stones that God commanded to be taken out of Jordan and set up for a memorial of his Peoples passage through it And besides all this having the Law of Moses too when they had all these pretensions to the God of Israel they clave to him alone and wholly threw off their Idolatry So Epiphanius does affirm expresly And their countrey being as Josephus sayes the receptacle of all discontented fugitive Jews a great part of it too planted with them by Alexander they espoused the Worship of the Jews and came to differ very little either in the Doctrine or the practise of Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having all things as it were the very same the only distance seems to be betwixt their Temples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just as the Woman states it to our Saviour 4. Joh. Our Fathers Worshipped in this Mountain but ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to Worship So that if we audit the account of the Samaritane guilt they separated from the place of Worship which God had appointed and set up another in a word they were Schismaticks Whether this be such a guilt as should make those terms equivalent He is a Samaritane and hath a Devil I shall not say but it is such as makes our Saviour say somewhat exclusively Salvation is of the Jews All the Blessings and Salvations of the Law did indeed hover on Mount Gerizim were given thence that was the place of them but they were cut away when Schisme came The Church is not a place of blessing when 't is built against the Church The Altar hath no Hornes to lay hold on for refuge but to push and gore onely when it is set up against the Altar and Gerizim is Ebal when it stands in competition with Mount Zion Well this onely thing does breed the greatest distances imaginable in the Nations nothing more divides than Separation and Schisme and then these Samaritanes as all Separatists do grew such
the dead Secondly That one Lazarus and he First One out of Abraham's Bosom Secondly One that had seen him also in his Torments and could testifie of them v. 27. Thirdly We have here these fancied hopes all dash't in Abraham's answer And he said unto him if they believe not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead First of the first the Charitable careful contrivances this Rich man in Hell had for his Brethren upon Earth Nay Father Abraham c. It is commonly reported of men who know themselves infected by the Plague that they desire to infect as many others as they can they contrive to spread the Contagion and love society of Ruin and we are sure it is so in that Plague of the Soul Sin This humour did not content it self to debauch Heaven and unpeople Paradise but all the Ages of the world make up its Triumph and every sin that ever was and misery that shall be is its issue Lucifer's pride would have a train of Angels and Mankind to wait upon him in destruction And in such an attendance though to his everlasting cost he does still pride himself he feeds upon that envy that devours him and cheers himself with adding fewel to his flames that do torment him and upon this account enjoyes his own Agonies and God's Indignation And then it is no wonder if his Agents upon Earth enjoy the sport and if the Devil does not more please himself to see his Dominions enlarg'd and the business of Hell go forward than wicked men do in having others become like themselves as if they did derive to themselves and possess the pleasure as they do the guilt of those whom they draw in and the delight like the sin were all in all and all in every part of the whole Company that joyn in wickedness But it should seem 't is otherwise with the Sinners in Hell Our Rich man here when he saw his own estate remedilesse so vast a gulf betwixt him and the Bosom of Comfort that not the least drop of refreshment no not the hopes nor wishes of it could passe thence to him but Torment sealed upon him by an irreversible Decree he begins then to contrive for his Brethren how their falling into the like estate with him might be prevented v. 27 28. Nor satisfied with this when Abraham replyes they are provided well enough they have Moses and the Prophets the one Preaching the Law to them whose Rules they have made as familiar to them as their dresse they put on daily Gods Commandments and their duty make his Precepts their frontlets and their wristbands And the other the Prophets are Commissioned from God to lay before their eyes the issue of transgression give them a vision of the Judgments that await their sins and come to them burdned with the fore-knowledge of the sinners expectations so that except they will resolve to choose destruction wilfully to assault their own perdition there is no fear they should come thither those tell them as much as any from the dead can do Ah! but thinks he all those methods I had yet I am here and then let them have one other for as now after this little tast of Torments were I to live again I should most certainly avoid this place and lead another kind of life than that which does expire into this Tophet So if one went to tell them how it is with me sure then they would repent and not come hither therefore I pray thee send Nay Father Abraham c. I cannot here assent to Cardinal Cajetan's account that all this earnestnesse was onely pride in our Rich man and a desire to have the glory of his Family advance'd which as he laboured to raise here by Wealth so now finding by sad experience that was but a weak foundation to build a lasting House upon and that all the shine of it was but false treacherous light such as did end in flame with him and having made discovery of other greater glorys that Abraham and Lazarus possest he would have his Family as high and bright as they and this their Repentance which he took such care for was but in order to that exaltation If it were so truly it is the first pride I ever read of that would content it self with no meaner a dress than the Robes of Immortality and was ambitious of the Throne of Glory I have heard I confesse of a proud lowlinesse where the humility is but the manage and the art of being lofty is onely assum'd condescention whereby men but descend to be extol'd and stoop to take advantage for their mount But never heard of any pride that aimed to raise it self by the humiliations of Repentance that laid its groundwork in that dust and ashes cloath'd it self in the sackcloth and neglected rudnesses of a pious penitent sorrow The prides of this side Hell are of a different garb I 'm sure if theirs be such if they design by those just means to settle the inheritance of Heaven in their familys sure the vices of Hell may be fit patterns for our Religious performances and 't were to be desired that all Christians had this mans ardencies and flames in their affections to their houses Yet neither can I from this one particular instance draw any general proposition concerning the kindness of that place to sinners upon Earth although all those that make this History not Parable would give me colour for it But waving that since Christ hath so framed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a relation of such words as they would have spoke had they spoke on this occasion I shall take that as ground enough to apply it to the conviction of those who are so far from these Charitable designs to the Souls of others that they contrive nothing more than how to have the company of their friends in those wayes that lead to this place of Torment prevail with them to joyn in sinning and shew a vice how to insinuate into them The kindnesses of our man here in the flames were divine God-like Charities compared to these Our Saviour sayes Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones for I say unto you that in Heaven their Angels do alwayes behold the Face of my Father which is in Heaven Mat. 18. 10. Which one expounds if we neglect to do what shall be in our power to preserve the meanest Christians from vice and sleight their sinning their Tutelary Angels that have continual recourse to God and are high in his favour will make complaints of us in their behalf at least they will if we offend them and any action of ours prove an occasion of their sins And if a favourite of Heaven shall accuse us to the Lord for that Then how will he complain of us when we tempt when he shall have to say against us that we have ensnared and drawn such a Soul into a
which do exceed them by a whole Infinity and will out-live them an Eternity And here should I attempt what he would have had Lazarus perform to dash out the blessednesse of that place making the first draught of them with notions of delight not such as the understanding cannot apprehend but such as seize the heart with pleasure in this Life and that give it the strongest agitations here and sweetning that by those transendencies which I could fill it up with and should I raise it then with shadow evince that reason though it cannot fathom can yet by sure Discourse conclude the greatnesse of those glories which I would leave for your expectations to loose themselves into should I attempt all this I were an insolent undertaker Yet were it very easie to describe them so as that viewing them with the things below these would vanish in the comparison And to do so much was the utmost that our Rich man could design by sending Lazarus who if he could have been believ'd might probably have done the work for if Faith did but do what Lazarus did look into Abraham's Bosom were it but turn'd into a little vision and but as cleer an evidence of things not seen as eye-sight hath of its temptations had the spiritual object but that advantage the carnal hath of being present now it is the work of Faith to give it that advantage sure it would be impossible for the sensitive objects the pleasures are the Profits of this world which are so far inferiour to the other in desirablenesse and onely make advantage of their being present when the other is so far of 't would be impossible for them to gain our wills consent at any time and therefore when those glories shall be present to the Soul 't will be impossible for any other object to steal or ravish any way to engage one thought away from them In Heaven they cannot wish to sin Nay the flash alone of that glory fascinates the heart Peter and James and John saw but a glimpse of it and that transfigur'd too onely the other way that Moses and Elias were for the glory suffered an exinanition and they but wak'd into the sight of it so that 't was but an apparition of Heaven and yet they never would have left the place which it once lightned Master it is good for us to be here let us go down no more never converse with any thing beneath Mount Tabor but let us build three Booths such Tents would be like that which He hath spread and such Booths be some of the many Mansions of his House who spreadeth out the Heavens for a Tent for himself to dwell in But the truth is while men do onely hear of Joyes above and have but thin neglected notions of them and on the other side a sense of present profits pleasures honours which the world affords they will not be affected with the future dry hopes of those as with all these in present will not have as effectual a tast of the Supper of the Lamb as of their own delicious daily fare nor be as much wrought upon by the Promises of being Cloath'd upon with the white Robe of Immortality and by the mentions of a Crown although of Glory as they are pleas'd with their own Royal Purples they have much surer Conviction of the delights of present things than of those far removed futurities but now if Lazarus would go from Abraham's Bosom he might Convince them from his own Experience and then they would Repent Especially Thirdly because Lazarus hath seen me in my Torments and can give account of them wherefore I pray thee Father Abraham send him for if such an one went unto them from the Dead one that could testifie of this place he would tell them such sad stories of my condition here how in lieu of all my sumptuous fare I have nothing now but gnashing of teeth streams indeed of Brimstone and a lake of fire but everlasting feaver of thirst for my delicious intemperate Palate my short-liv'd sins turn'd to eternal Agonies sure this would prevail with them to cut off their sins by Repentance before Death cut off their sin and them together and so they might prevent the coming hither And very probably it might have taken for upon such Conviction 't is hard not to resolve to change for who is he that can resolve thus with himself well I will now content my self with everlasting Condemnation and this sin for I see they are consequent now this I cannot leave therefore let the other come they that were once affected with the apprehensions of the greatnesse and the certainty of that Damnation cannot resolve thus and therefore we see fewer men adventure to transgress Man's Law whose Punishment is neer and most assur'd than God's Commandments And when their fears of the Lords Judgments stare them in the face they quickly tremble into the terrours and the agonies of Penitence For who dares sin and who does not repent upon his Death-bed he sinks at the remembrance of his former draughts when he does apprehend his next is like to be in the Infernal Lake he hath the frost of the Grave on him when he but thinks of his lascivious heats and does think too that his hot lustful Bed will turn him off strait into Tophet And then if Lazarus could raise these apprehensions in them sure they would repent 'T is plain these were the grounds our Rich man built this his request upon I do not lay them as infallible I make no question but that men are able to defie their knowledge and charge through their own belief to sin and to destruction but commonly men do not lay things deep enough to their heart to be throughly convinc't in earnest and thus he believed for had Abraham granted his desire and sent Lazarus to testifie the Glories he had tasted in himself and the Torments he had seen their Brother in all he could hope from this was but to make them more believe the one and other therefore he thought for want of this they would miscarry and this alone would do it so that we may conclude that in the judgment of one that dy'd without Repentance having resisted all God's Methods and knew upon what score he did it and suffered the deserved pains of so doing the reason why men do not repent is because they are not sufficiently convinc't of the next Life and of its two Eternities of Joy and Torment they do not credit them but notwithstanding all that God hath done his truths want witnessing for if one went unto them from the Dead one that could testifie they would Repent I should now make reflections on this and our selves together and truly all this would bespatter fouly such as go on in a vice for it does conclude concerning them that they do not believe Gods Truths but in the midst of their professions of Religion are Infidels 't is plain they are so
severe a shape and gives the lineaments of so fierce displeasures against sin as do exceed all comprehension There was a passion in Christs Prayer to prevent his passion when he deprecated it with strong cryes and tears yea when his whole body wept tears as of blood to deprecate it and yet he cryed more dreadfully when he did suffer it The nayles that bor'd his hands the spear that pierc't his heart and made out-letts for his blood and Spirits did not wound him as that sting of death and torments sin did which made out-lets for God to forsake him and which drove away the Lord that was himself out of him Neither did his God forsake him onely but his most Almighty attributes were engag'd against him Gods Holinesse and Justice were resolv'd to make Christ an example of the sad demerit of Iniquity and his hatred of it Demerit so great as was valuable with the everlasting punishment of the World fal'n Angels and fal'n Men for to that did it make them lyable Now that God might appear to hate it at the rate of its deservings it was very necessary that it should be punisht if not by the execution of that sentence on Mankind as on the Devils yet by something that might be proportionable to it so to let us see the measures God abhors it by to what degrees the Lord is just and holy by those torments torments answerable to those attributes Now truly when we do reflect on this we cannot wonder if the Sinner be an enemy to the Crosse and hate the prospect of it which does give him such a perfect copy of his expectations when our Saviours draught which he so trembled at shall be the everlasting portion of his Cup For if God did so plague the imputation of Iniquity how will he torment the willful and impenitent commission of it But then when we consider those torments were the satisfaction for the sins of man methinks the sinner should be otherwise affected to them Christ by bearing the Cross gave God such satisfaction as did move him in consideration thereof to dispence with that strict Law which having broken we were forfeit to eternal death and to publish an act of grace whereby he does admit all to pardon of sins past and to a right to everlasting Life that will believe on him for sake their sins and live true Christians He there appears the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World for that he does as being a Lamb slain then he was our Sacrifice and that Crosse the Altar And the humbled sinner that repents for notwithstanding satisfaction God will not acept a Sinner that goes on by all those Agonies his holynesse would not be justifyed if when he had forsaken and tormented his own Son for taking sin upon him he should yet receive into his favour and his Heaven sinners that will not let go but will retain their sins but the penitent may plead this expiation Lo here I poor Soul prostrate at the footstool of the Crosse lay hold upon the Altar here 's my Sacrifice on which my sins are to be charg'd and not on me although so foul I am I cannot pour out tears sufficient to cleanse me yet behold Lord and see if there ever were any Sorrow like the sorrow of thy Son wherewith thou didst afflict him for these sins of mine And here is Blood also his Blood to wash me in and that Blood is within the Vaile too now and that my offering taken from the Crosse up to thy Throne thou hast accepted it and canst not refuse it now my Advocate does plead it and claims for me the advantage of the Crosse. Now that men should be Enemies to this and when they are forseit to eternal Ruine hate that which is to redeem the forfeiture that they should trample on the Crosse whereon their satisfactions were wrought tread down the Altar which they have but to lay hold on and be safe wage war with beat off and pursue a Lamb that Lamb of God that comes to take away their sins and make a spoyl and slaughter of their Sacrifice hostilely spill upon the ground that Blood that was appoynted for their Blood upon the Altar for their blood of sprinkling and was to appear in Heaven for them It men resolve to be on terms of Duell with their God and scorn that Satisfaction shall be made for them by any other way than by defiance and although their God do make the satisfactions for them to himself yet not endure it but choose quarrel rather this is so perverse and fatal an hostility as no tears are sufficient to bewail But possibly men sleight these satisfactions because some terms are put upon them which they know not how to comport with the merits of the Crosse must not be accounted to them but upon conditions which they are not able to perform they are required to master all their wicked Customes their untam'd appetites and settled habits to keep under their Concupiscence to calm their inclinations and their passions Now on such severe articles friendship with the Crosse they think is too hard bought But therefore Secondly that Crosse was the consideration upon which Grace is offer'd us whereby we are enabled to perform all this the power to will and strength to do all necessary aids from Heaven are granted to us as Christ merited them for us by his Sufferings and that Blood he shed upon the Crosse it is the Fountain 't is the Ocean of all grace And if temptations storm thee lay hold on that Crosse it is the Anchor of Salvation thou hast hold on tell thy God although thou art not able to resist and stand thou hast the price of strength that which did purchase it was paid down for thee on the Crosse and is at his right hand he hath it give me therefore grace for it let me have the value of that Blood the Blood of God in spiritual succours which may make me able to resist thy Enemies and do thy will Now God will never be unjust to deny any man those aids that were so dearly purchast for him and for which he hath receiv'd the price And then that men should be Enemies of the Crosse which is their Magazine of strength against their Enemies As men that do resist the having grace least it should change their inclinations as men that will not be impowered against Vice but will oppose the Aids of Heaven fight against the succours that are given them and destroy their own forces least with them they should be able to encounter sin and overcome it Thus wilfully to run against and charge their Anchor of Salvation to poyson to themselves the Fountain the whole Ocean of their graces is the state of them onely that do resolve and that had rather perish Once more on that Crosse was wrought a reconciliation betwixt God and Man and that upon such terms of honour to us Men
of roaring fury assaults a rock for many ages and yet makes not the least impression on it but is beat back and made retire in empty some in insignificant passion vvhen a few single drops that distil gently down upon a rock though of Marble or a small trickle of vvater that only vvets and glides over the stone insinuate themselves into it and soften it so as to steal themselves a passage through it And yet Government hath a rod too vvhich like Moses's can break the rock and fetch a stream out of the heart of quarre and vvhich must be used also the Holy Spirit himself breathed tempest vyhen he came blew in a mighty boisterous VVinde nor does he alwayes vvhisper soft things he came down first in a sound from heaven and spoke thunder nor did it vvant lightning the tongue was double flame Of some we know we must have a Compassion but others must be saved vvith terror Iude 22 23. vvhich drives me on to the last piece of their vvork The Censures of the Church the burthen of the Keys vvhich passing by the private use of them in voluntary penitences and discipline upon the sick as they signifie publick exclusion out of the Church for scandalous Enormities and re-admission into it upon repentance have been sufficiently evinc'd to belong to the Governours of the Church The Exercise of these is so much their work that Saint Paul calls them the VVeapons of their spiritual VVarfare by which they do cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the Knowledge of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10 4 5. a blessed victory even for the Conquered and these the only VVeapons to atchieve it with If those vvho sin scandalously and will not heat the admonitions of the Church were cast out of the Church if not Religion Reputation would restrain them somewhat not to be thought fit company for Christians would surely make them proud against their Vices Shame the design'd Effect of these Censures hath great pungencies the fear of it does goad men into actions of the greatest hazard and the most unacceptable such as have nothing lovely in them but are vvholly distastful There is a Sin whose face is bloody dismal and yet because t is countenanc'd by the Roysting Ruffian part of the world men will defie Reason and Conscience Man's and God's Law venture the ruine of all that is belov'd and dear to them in this vvorld and assault death and charge and take Hell by violence rather then be asham'd before those valiant sinners Satans Hectors and they must never come into such Company if they do not go boldly on upon the sin is of more force vvith them than all the indearments of this World than all their fear of God and Death and that vvhich follows Now if Religion could but get such Countenance by the Censures of the Church and every open sinner had this certain fear I should be turn'd out of all Christian company shall be avoided as unfit for Conversation vvould it not have in some degree the like effect and if the motive be as much exactly vvould not men be chast or sober or obedient for that very reason for vvhich they will now be kil'd and be damn'd Without all question Saint Peter's Censure on the intemperate 1 Cor. 5. must needs be reformation to him 'T is such a sentence to the drunkard Not to company vvith him vvhose Vice is nothing but the sauce of Company and vvho does sin against his Body and against his faculties and against his Conscience is sick and is a Sott and goes to Hell meerly for Societies sake Now the infliction of these censures is so much the vvork to vvhich Church governours are call'd by the Holy Ghost that they are equally call'd by him to it and to Himself both are alike bestow'd upon them Receive the Holy Ghost vvhose sins ye retain they are retained John 20. 22. And in the first derivations of this office it vvas performed vvith severities such as this age I doubt vvill not believe and vvhen they had no temporal sword to be auxiliary to these Spiritual vveapons And now to make reflections on this is not for me to undertake in such a state of the Church as ours is vvherein the very faults of some do give them an Indemnity vvho having drawn themselves out of the Church from under its authority are also got out of the power of its Censures So children that do run away from their Fathers house they do escape the Rod but they do not consider that vvithall they run away from the inheritance and many times in those that do not do so but stay vvithin the family long intermission of the Rod and indulg'd licence makes them too big and heady to be brought under discipline And is 't not so vvith us Among many of those that stay vvithin the Church I know not vvhether I do vvell to say so vvhen of these I mean there is little other Evidence of their doing so but this that they vvill sâ—ear and drink of the Churches side Blessed Sons of a demoliâ—â—ed Church vvho think to raise their Mother a temple by throwing stones at her by reason of the late overthrow of government and discipline and the consequent licenses Vice hath been so nurst up not only by an universal barefac'd uncorrected practice but by principles of liberty that can dispute down all Ecclesiastical restraints and have set up the Religion of License that now sin is grown so outragious as to be too strong for discipline nay rather than it should be set up 't is to be feared they vvould endeavour to renverse all in the Church and enterprise as much in their vices quarrel as others have done for mistaken Religion And indeed to vvhat purpose vvere the Censures vvâ—ose first and medicinal effect is shame amongst men vvhere 't is in very many instances the only shameful thing not to be vitious vvhere men stand candidates for the reputation of glorious sinners take to themselves sins they have not committed that are not theirs and usurp Vice sins and damnations hypocrites What vvork is here for discipline But this state wants not precedents the censures of the Church vvere not only lay'd aside in the Vastations of tâ—e Arrian heresy and persecution vvhen the weapons of the Churches warfare vvere too weak to make defence against all their cruelties and impieties and before that in Diocletian's daies against the Lapsi But vve find also that Saint Paul is forc'd to break out only in a passionate with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I would they vvere even cut off that trouble you cut off by excommunication he means Gal. 5. 12. When he saw the ill humours vvere too spreading and too tough also Sedition and Schisme wide and obstinate so that neither his authority could reach nor his methods cure but were more likely to exasperate them then he