the person ungracious and despised in the Court of heaven and therefore S. Iames in his accounts concerning an effective prayer not only requires that he be a just man who prayes but his prayer must be fervent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an effectuall fervent prayer so our English reads it it must be an intent zealous busie operative prayer for consider what a huge undeceney it is that a man should speak to God for a thing that he values not or that he should not value a thing without which he cannot be happy or that he should spend his religion upon a trifle and if it be not a trifle that he should not spend his affections upon it If our prayers be for temporall things I shall not need to stirre up your affections to be passionate for their purchase we desire them greedily we run after them intemperately we are kept from them with huge impatience we are delayed with infinite regret we preferre them before our duty we aske them unseasonably we receive them with our own prejudice and we care not we choose them to our hurt and hinderance and yet delightin the purchase and when we do pray for them we can hardly bring our selves to it to submit to Gods will but will have them if we can whether he be pleased or no like the Parasite in the Comedy Qui comedit quod fuit quod non fuit he eat all and more then all what was set before him and what was kept from him But then for spirituall things for the interest of our souls and the affairs of the Kingdome we pray to God with just such a zeal as a man begs of the Chirurgeon to cut him of the stone or a condemned man desires his executioner quickly to put him out of his pain by taking away his life when things are come to that passe it must be done but God knows with what little complacency and desire the man makes his request And yet the things of religion and the spirit are the only things that ought to be desired vehemently and pursued passionately because God hath set such a value upon them that they are the effects of his greatest loving kindnesse they are the purchases of Christs bloud and the effect of his continuall intercession the fruits of his bloudy sacrifice and the gifts of his healing and saving mercy the graces of Gods Spirit and the only instruments of felicity and if we can have fondnesses for things indifferent or dangerous our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg coldly and tamely for those things for which we ought to dye which are more precious then the globes of Kings and weightier then Imperiall Scepters richer then the spoils of the Sea or the treasures of the Indian hils He that is cold and tame in his prayers hath not tasted of the deliciousnesse of Religion and the goodnesse of God he is a stranger to the secrets of the Kingdome and therefore he does not know what it is either to have hunger or satiety and therefore neither are they hungry for God nor satisfied with the world but remain stupid and inapprehensive without resolution and determination never choosing clearly nor pursuing earnestly and therefore never enter into possession but alwaies stand at the gate of wearinesse unnecessary caution and perpetuall irresolution But so it is too often in our prayers we come to God because it is civill so to do and a generall custome but neither drawn thither by love nor pinch'd by spirituall necessities and pungent apprehensions we say so many prayers because we are resolved so to do and we passe through them sometimes with a little attention sometimes with none at all and can we think that the grace of Chastity can be obtain'd at such a purchase that grace that hath cost more labours then all the persecutions of faith and all the disputes of hope and all the expence of charity besides amounts to Can we expect that our sinnes should be waâ—hed by a lazie prayer Can an indifferent prayer quench the flatnes of hell or rescue us from an eternall sorrow Is lust so soon overcome that the very naming it can master it Is the Devill so slight and easie an enemy that he will fly away from us at the first word spoken without power and without vehemence Read and attend to the accents of the prayers of Saints I cryed day and night before thee O Lord my soul refused comfort my throat is dry with calling upon my God my knees are weak through fasting and Let me alone sayes God to Moses and I will not let thee go till thou hast blessed me said Jacob to the Angell And I shall tell you a short character of a fervent prayer out of the practise of S. Hierome in his Epistle to Eustochium de custodiâ virginitatis Being destitute of all help I threw my self down at the feet of Jesus I water'd his feet with tears and wiped them with my hair and mortified the lust of my flesh with the abstinence and hungry diet of many weeks I remember that in my crying to God I did frequently joyn the night and the day and never did intermit to call nor cease from beating my brest till the mercy of the Lord brought to me peace and freedome from temptation After many tears and my eyes fixed in heaven I thought my self sometimes encircled with troops of Angels and then at last I sang to God We will run after thee into the smell and deliciousnesse of thy precious ointments such a prayer as this will never return without its errand But though your person be as gracious as David or Job and your desire as holy as the love of Angels and your necessities great as a new penitent yet it pieâ—ces not the clouds unlesse it be also as loud as thunder passionate as the cries of women and clamorous as necessity And we may guesse at the degrees of importunity by the insinuation of the Apostle Let the marryed abstain for a time ut vacent orationi jejunio that they may attend to Prayer it is a great attendance and a long diligence that is promoted by such a separation and supposes a devotion that spends more then many hours for ordinary prayers and many hours of every day might well enough consist with an ordinary cohabitation but that which requires such a separation cals for a longer time and a greater attendance then we usually consider For every prayer we make is considered by God and recorded in heaven but cold prayers are not put into the account in order to effect and acceptation but are laid aside like the buds of roses which a cold wind hath nip'd into death and the discoloured tawny face of an Indian slave and when in order to your hopes of obtaining a great blessing you reckon up your prayers with which you have solicited your suit in the court of heaven you must reckon not by the number of the collects but
for us upon that condition and who then shall die again for us to get heaven for us upon easier conditions What would you do if God should command you to kill your eldest son or to work in the mines for a thousand yeers together or to fast all thy life time with bread and water were not heaven a great bargain even after all this and when God requires nothing of us but to live soberly justly and godly which very things of themselves to man are a very great felicity and necessary to his present well-being shall we think this to be a load and an unsufferable burden and that heaven is so little a purchase at that price that God in meer justice will take a death-bed sigh or groan and a few unprofitable tears and promises in exchange for all our duty Strange it should be so but stranger that any man should rely upon such a vanity when from Gods word he hath nothing to warrant such a confidence But these men do like the Tyrant Dionysius who stole from Apollo his golden cloak and gave him a cloak of Arcadian home-spun saying that this was lighter in summer and warmer in winter These men sacrilegiously rob God of the service of all their golden dayes and serve him in their hoary head in their furs and grave clothes and pretend that this late service is more agreeable to the Divine mercy on one side and humane infirmity on the other and so dispute themselves into an irrecoverable condition having no other ground to rely upon a death-bed or late-begun-repentance but because they resolve to enjoy the pleasures of sin and for heaven they will put that to the venture of an after-game These men sow in the flesh and would reap in the spirit live to the Devil and die to God and therefore it is but just in God that their hopes should be desperate and their craft be folly and their condition be the unexpected unfeared inheritance of an eternall sorrow Lastly Our last inquiry is into the time the last or latest time of beginning our repentance Must a man repent a yeer or two or seven yeers or ten or twenty before his death or what is the last period after which all repentance will be untimely and ineffectuall To this captious question I have many things to oppose 1. We have entred into covenant with God to serve him from the day of our Baptisme to the day of our death He hath sworn this oath to us that he would grant unto us that we being delivered from fear of our enemies might serve him without fear in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the dayes of our life Now although God will not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forget our infirmities but passe by the weaknesses of an honest a watchfull industrious person yet the Covenant he makes with us is from the day of our first voluntary profession to our grave and according as we by sins retire from our first undertaking so our condition is insecure there is no other Covenant made with us no new beginnings of another period but if we be returned and sin be cancelled and grace be actually obtained then we are in the first condition of pardon but because it is uncertain when a man can have masterd his vices and obtain'd the graces therefore no man can tell any set time when he must begin 2. Scripture describing the duty of repenting sinners names no other time but to day To day if ye will hear his voyce harden not your hearts 3. The duty of a Christian is described in Scripture to be such as requires length of time and a continued industry Let us run with patience the â—ace that is set before us and Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be wearied and faint in your mindes So great a preparation is not for the agony and contention of an hour or a day or a week but for the whole life of a Christian or for great parts of its abode 4. There is a certain period and time set for our repentance and beyond that all our industry is ineffectuall There is a day of visitation our own day and there is a day of visitation that is Gods day This appeared in the case of Jerusalem O Jerusalem Jerusalem if thou hadst known the time of thy visitation at least in this thy day Well! they neglected it and then there was a time of Gods visitation which was his day called in Scripture the day of the Lord and because they had neglected their own day they fell into inevitable ruine No repentance could have prevented their finall ruine And this which was true in a Nation is also clearly affirmed true in the case of single persons Look diligently lest any fail of the grace of God lest there be any person among you as Esau who sold his birth-right and afterwards when he would have inherited the blessing he was rejected for he found no place for his repentance though he sought it carefully with tears Esau had time enough to repent his bargain as long as he lived he wept sorely for his folly and carefulnesse sate heavy upon his soul and yet he was not heard nor his repentance accepted for the time was past And take heed saith the Apostle lest it come to passe to any of you to be in the same case Now if ever there be a time in which repentance is too late it must be the time of our death-bed and the last time of our life And after a man is fallen into the displeasure of Almighty God the longer he lies in his sin without repentance and emendation the greater is his danger and the more of his allowed time is spent and no man can antecedently or before-hand be sure that the time of his repentance is not past and those who neglect the call of God and refuse to hear him call in the day of grace God will laugh at them when their calamity comes they shall call and the Lord shall not hear them * And this was the case of the five foolish virgins when the arrest of death surprized them they discovered their want of oil they were troubled at it they beg'd oil they were refused they did something towards the proouring of the oil of grace for they went out to buy oil and after all this stir the bridegroom came before they had finished their journey and they were shut out from the communion of the bridegrooms joyes Therefore concerning the time of beginning to repent no man is certain but he that hath done his work Mortem venientem nemo hilaris excipit nisi qui se ad eam diù composuerat said Seneca He onely dies cheerfully who stood waiting for death in a ready dresse of a long preceding preparation He that repents to day repents late enough that he did not begin yesterday But he that puts it off till to morrow is
ΕÎΙΑΥΤΟΣ A COVRSE OF SERMONS FOR All the Sundaies Of the Year Fitted to the great Necessities and for the supplying the Wants of Preaching in many parts of this NATION Together with A Discourse of the Divine Institution Necessity Sacredness and Separation of the Office Ministeriall By JER TAYLOR D. D. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pindar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Commune periclum Omnibus Una salus LONDON Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1653. XXV SERMONS PREACHED AT GOLDEN-GROVE Being for the VVinter half-year BEGINNING ON ADVENT-SUNDAY UNTILL WHIT-SUNDAY By JEREMY TAYLOR D. D. Vae mihi si non Evangelizavero LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-Lane M. D C. LIII To the right Honourable and truely Noble RICHARD Lord VAUHAN Earle of Carbery c. MY LORD I Have now by the assistance of God and the advantages of your many favours finished a Year of Sermons which if like the first year of our Saviours preaching it may be annus acceptabilis an acceptable year to God and his afflicted hand-maid the Church of England a reliefe to some of her new necessities and an institution or assistance to any soule I shall esteem it among those honors and blessings with which God uses to reward those good intentions which himselfe first puts into our hearts and then recompenses upon our heads My Lord They were first presented to God in the ministeries of your family For this is a blessing for which your Lordship is to blesse God that your Family is like Gideons Fleece irriguous with a dew from heaven when much of the voicinage is dry for we have cause to remember that Isaac complain'd of the Philistims who fill'd up his wells with stones and rubbish and left no beauvrage for the Flocks and therefore they could give no milke to them that waited upon the Flocks and the flocks could not be gathered nor fed nor defended It was a designe of ruine and had in it the greatest hostility and so it hath been lately undique totis Vsque adeo turbatur agris En ipse capellas Protenus aeger ago hanc etiam vix Tityre duco But My Lord this is not all I would faine also complaine that men feele not their greatest evill and are not sensible of their danger nor covetous of what they want nor strive for that which is forbidden them but that this complaint would suppose an unnaturall evill to rule in the hearts of men For who would have in him so little of a Man as not to be greedy of the Word of God and of holy Ordinances even therefore because they are so hard to have and this evill although it can have no excuse yet it hath a great and a certain cause for the Word of God still creates new appetites as it satisfies the old and enlarges the capacity as it fils the first propensities of the Spirit For all Spirituall blessings are seeds of Immortality and of infinite felicities they swell up to the comprehensions of Eternity and the desires of the soule can never be wearied but when they are decayed as the stomach will be craving every day unlesse it be sick and abused But every mans experience tels him now that because men have not Preaching they lesse desire it their long fasting makes them not to love their meat and so wee have cause to feare the people will fall to an Atrophy then to a loathing of holy food and then Gods anger will follow the method of our sinne and send a famine of the Word and Sacraments This we have the greatest reason to feare and this feare can be relieved by nothing but by notices and experience of the greatnesse of the Divine mercies and goodnesse Against this danger in future and evill in present as you and all good men interpose their prayers so have I added this little instance of my care and services being willing to minister in all offices and varieties of imployment that so I may by all meanes save some and confirme others or at least that my selfe may be accepted of God in my desiring it And I thinke I have some reasons to expect a speciall mercy in this because I finde by the constitution of the Divine providence and Ecclesiasticall affaires that all the great necessities of the Church have been served by the zeale of preaching in publick and other holy ministeries in publick or private as they could be had By this the Apostles planted the Church and the primitive Bishops supported the faith of Martyrs and the hardinesse of Confessors and the austerity of the Retired By this they confounded Hereticks and evill livers and taught them the wayes of the Spirit and left them without pertinacy or without excuse It was Preaching that restored the splendour of the Church when Barbarisme and Warres and Ignorance either sate in or broke the Doctors Chaire in pieces For then it was that divers Orders of religious and especially of Preachers were erected God inspiring into whole companies of men a zeal of Preaching And by the same instrument God restored the beauty of the Church when it was necessary shee should be reformed it was the assiduous and learned preaching of those whom God chose for his Ministers in that work that wrought the Advantages and persuaded those Truths which are the enamel and beautie of our Churches And because by the same meanes all things are preserved by which they are produc'd it cannot but be certaine that the present state of the Church requires a greater care and prudence in this Ministerie then ever especially since by Preaching some endevour to supplant Preaching and by intercepting the fruits of the flocks to dishearten the Shepheards from their attendances My Lord your great noblenesse and religious charitie hath taken from mee some portions of that glory which I designed to my selfe in imitation of St. Paul towards the Corinthian Church who esteemed it his honour to preach to them without a revenue and though also like him I have a trade by which as I can be more usefull to others and lesse burthensome to you yet to you also under God I owe the quiet and the opportunities and circumstances of that as if God had so interweaved the support of my affaires with your charitie that he would have no advantages passe upon mee but by your interest and that I should expect no reward of the issues of my Calling unlesse your Lordship have a share in the blessing My Lord I give God thanks that my lot is fallen so fairely and that I can serve your Lordship in that ministerie by which I am bound to serve God and that my gratitude and my duty are bound up in the same bundle but now that which was yours by a right of propriety I have made publick that it may still be more yours and you derive to your selfe a comfort if you shall see the necessitie of others serv'd
God for vengeance scarce two are noted by the publick eye and chastis'd by the hand of Justice it must follow from hence that it is but reasonable for the interest of vertue and the necessities of the world that the private should be judg'd and vertue should be tyed upon the spirit and the poor should be relieved and the oppressed should appeal and the noise of Widows should be heard and the Saints should stand upright and the Cause that was ill judged should be judged over again and Tyrants should be call'd to account and our thoughts should be examined and our secret actions view'd on all sides and the infinite number of sins which escape here should not escape finally and therefore God hath so ordained it that there shall be a day of doom wherein all that are let alone by men shall be question'd by God and every word and every action shall receive its just recompence of reward For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in the best copies not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The things done in the body so we commonly read it the things proper or due to the body so the expression is more apt and proper for not only what is done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the body but even the acts of abstracted understanding and volition the acts of reflexion and choice acts of self-love and admiration and what ever else can be supposed the proper and peculiar act of the soul or of the spirit is to be accounted for at the day of Judgement and even these may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because these are the acts of the man in the state of conjunction with the body The words have in them no other difficulty or variety but contain a great truth of the biggest interest and one of the most materiall constitutive Articles of the whole Religion and the greatest endearment of our duty in the whole world Things are so ordered by the great Lord of all the creatures that whatsoever we do or suffer shall be call'd to account and this account shall be exact and the sentence shall be just and the reward shall be great all the evils of the world shall be amended and the injustices shall be repaid and the divine Providence shall be vindicated and Vertue and Vice shall for ever be remark'd by their separate dwellings and rewards This is that which the Apostle in the next verse cals the terror of the Lord it is his terror because himself shall appear in his dresse of Majesty and robes of Justice and it is his terror because it is of all the things in the World the most formidable in it self and it is most fearfull to us where shall be acted the interest and finall sentence of eternity and because it is so intended I shall all the way represent it as the Lords terror that we may be afraid of sin for the destruction of which this terror is intended 1. Therefore we will consider the persons that are to be judged with the circumstances of our advantages or our sorrowes We must all appear 2. The Judge and his Judgement seat before the Judgment seat of Christ. 3. The sentence that they are to receive the things due to the body good or bad according as we now please but then cannot alter Every one of these are dressed with circumstances of affliction and afrightment to those to whom such terrors shall appertain as a portion of their inheritance 1. The persons who are to be judged even you and I and all the world Kings and Priests Nobles and Learned the Crafty and the Easie the Wise and the Foolish the Rich and the Poor the prevailing Tyrant and the oppressed Party shall all appear to receive ther Symbol and this is so farre from abating any thing of its terror and our dear concernment that it much increases it for although concerning Precepts and Discourses we are apt to neglect in particular what is recommended in generall and in incidencies of Mortality and sad events the singularity of the chance heightens the apprehension of the evill yet it is so by accident and only in regard of our imperfection it being an effect of self-love or some little creeping envie which adheres too often to the infortunate and miserable or else because the sorrow is apt to increase by being apprehended to be a rare case and a singular unworthinesse in him who is afflicted otherwise then is common to the sons of men companions of his sin and brethren of his nature and partners of his usuall accidents yet in finall and extreme events the multitude of sufferers does not lessen but increase the sufferings and when the first day of Judgement happen'd that I mean of the universall deluge of waters upon the old World the calamity swell'd like the floud and every man saw his friend perish and the neighbours of his dwelling and the relatives of his house and the sharers of his joyes and yesterdaies bride and the new born heir the Priest of the Family and the honour of the Kindred all dying or dead drench'd in water and the divine vengeance and then they had no place to flee unto no man cared for their souls they had none to goe unto for counsell no sanctuary high enough to keep them from the vengeance that rain'd down from heaven and so it shall be at the day of Judgement when that world and this and all that shall be born hereafter shall passe through the same Red sea and be all baptized with the same fire and be involv'd in the same cloud in which shall be thundrings and terrors infinite every Mans fear shall be increased by his neighbours shriekes and the amazement that all the world shall be in shall unite as the sparks of a raging furnace into a globe of fire and roul upon its own principle and increase by direct appearances and intolerable reflexions He that stands in a Church-yard in the time of a great plague and hears the Passing-bell perpetually telling the sad stories of death and sees crowds of infected bodies pressing to their Graves and others sick and tremulous and Death dress'd up in all the images of sorrow round about him is not supported in his spirit by the variety of his sorrow and at Dooms-day when the terrors are universall besides that it is in it self so much greater because it can affright the whole world it is also made greater by communication and a sorrowfull influence Grief being then strongly infectious when there is no variety of state but an intire Kingdome of fear and amazement is the King of all our passions and all the world its subjects and that shricke must needs be terrible when millions of Men and Women at the same instant shall fearfully cry
and our own consciences dear and be reconciled to the Judge by the severities of an early repentance and then we need to fear no accusers SERMON III. Part III. 3. IT remaines that we consider the Sentence it self We must receive according to what we have done in the body whether it be good or bad Judicaturo Domino lugubre mundus immugiet tribus ad tribum pectora ferient Potentissimi quondam reges nudo latere palpitabunt so St. Hierom meditates concerning the terror of this consideration The whole world shall groan when the Judge comes to give his Sentence tribe and tribe shall knock their sides together and through the naked breasts of the most mighty Kings you shall see their hearts beat with fearfull tremblings Tunc Aristotelis argumenta parum proderunt cum venerit filius pauperculae quaestuariae judicare orbem terra Nothing shall then be worth owning or the means of obtaining mercy but a holy conscience all the humane craft and trifling subtilties shall be uselesse when the Son of a poor Maid shall sit Judge over all the world When the Prophet Joel was describing the formidable accidents in the day of the Lords Judgement and the fearfull Sentence of an angry Judge he was not able to expresse it but flammered like a Childe or an amazed imperfect person A. A. A. diei quia propè est Dies Domini it is not sense at first he was so amazed he knew not what to say and the Spirit of God was pleased to let that signe remain like Agamemnon's sorrow for the death of Iphigenia nothing could describe it but a vail it must be hidden and supposed and the stammering tongue that is full of fear can best speak that terror which will make all the world to cry and shriek and speak fearfull accents and significations of an infinite sorrow and amazement But so it is there are two great days in which the fate of all the world is transacted This life is mans day in which man does what he please and God holds his peace Man destroys his Brother and destroyes himselfe and confounds Governments and raises Armies and tempts to sin and delights in it and drinks drunk and forgets his sorrow and heaps up great estates and raises a family and a name in the Annals and makes others fear him and introduces new Religions and confounds the old and changeth Articles as his interest requires and all this while God is silent save that he is loud and clamorous with his holy precepts and over-rules the event but leaves the desires of men to their owne choice and their course of life such as they generally choose But then God shall have his day too the day of the Lord shall come in which he shall speak and no man shall answer he shall speak in the voyce of thunder and fearfull noyses and man shall doe no more as he please but must suffer as he hath deserved When Zedekiah reigned in Jerusalem and persecuted the Prophets and destroyed the interests of Religion and put Jeremy into the Dungeon God held his peace save onely that he warned him of the danger and told him of the disorder but it was Zedekiah's day and he was permitted to his pleasure But when he was led in chains to Babylon and his eyes were put out with burning Basons and horrible circles of reflected fires then was Gods day and his voyce was the accent of a fearfull anger that broke him all in pieces It will be all our caâ—es unlesse we hear God speak now and doe his work and serve his interest and bear our selves in our just proportions that is as such the very end of whose being and all our faculties is to serve God and doe justice and charities to our Brother For if we doe the work of God in our own day wee shall receive an infinite mercy in the day of the Lord. But what that is is now to be inquired What wee have done in the body But certainly this is the greatest terror of all The thunders and the fires the earthquakes and the trumpets the brightnesse of holy Angels and the horror of accursed Spirits the voyce of the Archangel who is the Prince of the heavenly host and the Majesty of the Judge in whose service all that Army stands girt with holinesse and obedience all those strange circumstances which have been already reckoned and all those others which wee cannot understand are but little praeparatories and umbrages of this fearfull circumstance All this amazing Majesty and formidable praeparatories are for the passing of an eternall Sentence upon us according to what we have done in the body Woe and alas and God help us all All mankind is an enemy to God his nature is accursed and his manners are depraved It is with the nature of man and with all his manners as Philemon said of the nature of foxes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every fox is crafty and mischievous and if you gather a whole herd of them there is not a good natur'd beast amongst them all so it is with man by nature he is the child of wrath and by his manners he is the child of the Devill wee call Christian and wee dishonour our Lord and we are Brethren but we oppresse and murther one another it is a great degree of sanctity now a-days not to be so wicked as the worst of men and wee live at the rate as if the best of men did design to themselves an easier condemnation and as if the generality of men consider'd not concerning the degrees of death but did beleeve that in hell no man shall perceive any ease or refreshment in being tormented with a slower fire For consider what we doe in the body 12 or 14 years passe before we choose good or bad and of that which remaines above halfe is spent in sleep and the needs of Nature for the other halfe it is divided as the Stag was when the beasts went a hunting the Lyon hath five parts of sixe The businesse of the world takes so much of our remaining portion that Religion and the service of God have not much time left that can be spar'd and of that which can if we consider how much is allowed to crafty arts of cousenage to oppression and ambition to greedy desires and avaritious prosecutions to the vanities of our youth and the proper sins of every age to the meer idlenesse of man and doing nothing to his fantastick imaginations of greatnesse and pleasures of great and little devices of impertinent law-suites and uncharitable treatings of our Brother it will be intolerable when we consider that we are to stand or fall eternally according to what we have done in the body Gather it all together and set it before thy eyes Almes and Prayers are the summe of all thy good Were thy prayers made in feare and holinesse with passion and
of words and long prayers but by the measures of the Spirit by the holynesse of the soul and the justnesse of the desire and the usefulnesse of the request and its order to Gods glory and its place in the order of providence and the sincerity of our heart and the charity of our wishes and the perseverance of our advocation There are some as Tertullian observes qui loquacitatem facundiam existimant at impudentiam constantiam deputant They are praters and they are impudent and they call that constancy and importunity concerning which the advice is easy Many words or few are extrinsecall to the nature and not at all considered in the effects of prayer but much desire and much holinesse are essentiall to its constitution but we must be very curious that our importunity do not degenerate into impudence and a rude boldnesse Capitolinus said of Antonius the Emperour and Philosopher sanè quamvis esset constans erat etiam verecundus he was modest even when he was most pertinacious in his desires So must wee though wee must not be ashamed to aske for whatsoever we need Rebus semper pudor absit in arctis and in this sense it is true that Stasimus in the Comedy said concerning Meat Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet Nam ibi de divinis humanis cernitur Men must not be bashfull so as to lose their meat for that is a necessity that cannot bee dispensed withall so it is in our prayers whatsoever our necessity calls to us for we must call to God for and he is not pleased with that rusticity or fond modesty of being ashamed to ask of God any thing that is honest and necessary yet our importunity hath also bounds of modesty but such as are to be expressed with other significations and he is rightly modest towards God who without confidence in himself but not without confidence in Gods mercy nor without great humility of person and reverence of addresse presents his prayers to God as earnestly as he can Provided alwayes that in the greatest of our desires and holy violence we submit to Gods will and desire him to choose for us Our modesty to God in prayers hath no other measures but these 1. Distrust of our selves 2. Confidence in God 3. Humility of person 4. Reverence of addresse and 5. Submission to Gods will These are all unlesse also you will adde that of Solomon Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter a thing before God for God is in heaven and thou upon earth therefore let thy words be few These things being observed let your importunity be as great as it can it is still the more likely to prevaile by how much it is the more earnest and signified and represented by the most offices extraordinary 3ly The last great advantage towards a prevailing intercession for others is that the person that prayes for his relatives be a person of an extraordinary dignity imployment or designation For God hath appointed some persons and callings of men to pray for others such are Fathers for their Children Bishops for their Dioceses Kings for their Subjects and the whole Order Ecclesiast call for all the men and women in the Christian Church And it is well it is so for as things are now and have been too long how few are there that understand it to be their duty or part of their necessary imployment that some of their time and much of their prayers and an equall portion of their desires be spent upon the necessities of others All men doe not think it necessary and fewer practise it frequently and they but coldly without interest and deep resentment it is like the compassion we have in other mens miseries we are not concerned in it and it is not our case and our hearts ake not when another mans children are made fatherlesse or his wife a sad widow and just so are our prayers for their relief If we thought their evils to be ours if wee and they as members of the same body had sensible and reall communications of good and evill if we understood what is really meant by being members one of another or if we did not think it a spirituall word of art instrumentall onely to a science but no part of duty or reall relation sure we should pray more earnestly one for another then we usually doe How few of us are troubled when he sees his brother wicked or dishonorably vicious Who is sad and melancholy when his neighbour is almost in hell when he sees him grow old in iniquity How many days have we set apart for the publick relief and interests of the Kingdome How earnestly have we fasted if our Prince be sick or afflicted What almes have we given for our brothers conversion or if this be great how importunate and passionate have we been with God by prayer in his behalf by prayer and secret petition But however though it were well very well that all of us would think of this duty a little more because besides the excellency of the duty it self it would have this blessed consequent that for whose necessities we pray if we doe desire earnestly they should be relieved we would when ever we can and in all we can set our hands to it and if we pity the Orphan children and pray for them heartily we would also when we could relieve them charitably but though it were therefore very well that things were thus with all men yet God who takes care for us all makes provision for us in speciall manner and the whole Order of the Clergy are appointed by God to pray for others to be Ministers of Christs Priesthood to be followers of his Advocation to stand between God and the people and present to God all their needs and all their desires That this God hath ordained and appointed and that this rather he will blesse and accept appears by the testimony of God himself for he onely can be witnesse in this particular for it depends wholly upon his gracious favour and acceptation It was the case of Abraham and Abimelech Now therefore restore the man his wife for he is a Prophet and he will pray for thee and thou shalt live and this caused confidence in Micah Now know I that the Lord will doe me good seeing I have a Levite to my Priest meaning that in his Ministery in the Ministery of Priests God hath established the alternate returns of blessing and prayers the entercouses between God and his people And thorough the descending ages of the synagogue it came to be transmitted also to the Christian Church that the Ministers of Religion are advocates for us under Christ by the Ministery of Reconciliation by their dispensing the holy Sacraments by the Keyes of the Kingdome of heaven by Baptisme and the Lords Supper by binding and loosing by the Word of God and Prayer and therefore saith St. James If any man
among the Jews yet wee must reckon our pardon by curing the spirituall If I have sinned against God in the shamefull crime of Lust then God hath pardoned my sins when upon my repentance and prayers he hath given me the grace of Chastity My Drunkennesse is forgiven when I have acquir'd the grace of Temperance and a sober spirit My Covetousnesse shall no more be a damning sin when I have a loving and charitable spirit loving to do good and despising the world for every further degree of sin being a neerer step to hell and by consequence the worst punishment of sin it follows inevitably that according as we are put into a contrary state so are our degrees of pardon and the worst punishment is already taken off And therefore we shall find that the great blessing and pardon and redemption which Christ wrought for us is called sanctification holinesse and turning us away from our sins So St. Peter Yee know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation that 's your redemption that 's your deliverance you were taken from your sinfull state that was the state of death this of life and pardon and therefore they are made Synonyma by the same Apostle According as his divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godlinesse to live and to be godly is all one to remain in sin and abide in death is all one to redeem us from sin is to snatch us from hell he that gives us godlinesse gives us life and that supposes pardon or the abolition of the rites of eternall death and this was the conclusion of St. Peter's Sermon and the summe totall of our redemption and of our pardon God having raised up his Son sent him to blesse us in turning away every one of you from your iniquity this is the end of Christs passion and bitter death the purpose of all his and all our preaching the effect of baptisme purging washing sanctifying the work of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the same body that was broken and the same blood that was shed for our redemption is to conform us into his image and likenesse of living and dying of doing and suffering The case is plain just as we leave our sins so Gods wrath shall be taken from us as we get the graces contrary to our former vices so infallibly we are consign'd to pardon If therefore you are in contestation against sin while you dwell in difficulty and sometimes yeeld to sin and sometimes overcome it your pardon is uncertain and is not discernible in its progresse but when sin is mortified and your lusts are dead and under the power of grace and you are led by the Spirit all your fears concerning your state of pardon are causelesse and afflictive without reason but so long as you live at the old rate of lust or intemperance of covetousnesse or vanity of tyranny or oppression of carelesnesse or irreligion flatter not your selves you have no more reason to hope for pardon then a begger for a Crown or a condemned criminall to be made Heir apparent to that Prince whom he would traiterously have slain 4. They have great reason to fear concerning their condition who having been in the state of grace who having begun to lead a good life and give their names to God by solemne deliberate acts of will and understanding and made some progresse in the way of Godlinesse if they shall retire to folly and unravell all their holy vows and commit those evils from which they formerly run as from a fire or inundation their case hath in it so many evills that they have great reason to fear the anger of God and concerning the finall issue of their souls For return to folly hath in it many evils beyond the common state of sin and death and such evils which are most contrary to the hopes of pardon 1. He that falls back into those sins he hath repented of does grieve the holy Spirit of God by which he was sealed to the day of redemption For so the Antithesis is plain and obvious If at the conversion of a sinner there is joy before the beatified Spirits the Angels of God and that is the consummation of our pardon and our consignation to felicity then we may imagine how great an evill it is to grieve the Spirit of God who is greater then the Angels The Children of Israel were carefully warned that they should not offend the Angel Behold I send an Angel before thee beware of him and obey his voyce provoke him not for he will not pardon your transgressions that is he will not spare to punish you if you grieve him Much greater is the evill if we grieve him who sits upon the throne of God who is the Prince of all the Spirits and besides grieving the Spirit of God is an affection that is as contrary to his felicity as lust is to his holinesse both which are essentiall to him Tristitia enim omnium spirituum nequissima est pessima servis Dei omnium spiritus exterminat cruciat Spiritum sanctum said Hennas Sadnesse is the greatest enemy to Gods servants if you grieve Gods Spirit you cast him out for he cannot dwell with sorrow and grieving unlesse it be such a sorrow which by the way of vertue passes on to joy and never ceasing felicity Now by grieving the holy Spirit is meant those things which displease him doing unkindnesse to him and then the grief which cannot in proper sense seise upon him will in certain effects return upon us Ita enim dica said Seneca sacer intra nos Spiritus sedet bonorum malorúmque nostrorum observator custos hic prout à nobis tractatus est ita nos ipse tractat There is a holy spirit dwels in every good man who is the observer and guardian of all our actions and as we treat him so will he treat us Now we ought to treat him sweetly and tenderly thankfully and with observation Deus praecepit Spiritum sanctum utpote pro naturae suae bono tenerum delicatum tranquillitate lenitate quiete pace tractare said Tertullian de Spectaculis The Spirit of God is a loving and a kind Spirit gentle and easy chast and pure righteous and peaceable and when he hath done so much for us as to wash us from our impurities and to cleanse us from our stains and streighten our obliquities and to instruct our ignorances and to snatch us from an intolerable death and to consign us to the day of redemption that is to the resurrection of our bodies from death corruption and the dishonors of the grave and to appease all the storms and uneasynesse and to make us free as the Sons of God and furnished with the riches of the Kingdome and all this with innumerable arts with difficulty and in despite of our lusts
fill a great house and is this sum that is such a trifle such a poor limited heap of dirt the reward of all the labour and the end of all the care and the design of all the malice and the recomponce of all the wars of the world and can it be imaginable that life it self and a long life an eternall and a happy life a kingdome a perfect kingdome and glorious that shall never have ending nor ever shall be abated with rebellion or fears or sorrow or care that such a kingdome should not be worth the praying for and quitting of an idle company and a foolish humour or a little drink or a vicious silly woman for it surely men beleeve no such thing They do not relye upon those fine stories that are read in books and published by Preachers and allow'd by the lawes of all the world If they did why do they choose intemperance and a feaver lust and shame rebellion and danger pride and a fall sacriledge and a curse gain and passion before humility and safety religion and a constant joy devotion and peace of conscience justice and a quiet dwelling charity and a blessing and at the end of all this a Kingdome more glorious then all the beauties the Sun did ever see Fides est velut quoddam aeternitatis exemplar praeterita simul praesentia futura sinu quodans vastissimo comprehendit ut nihil ei praetereat nil pereat praeeat nihil Now Faith is a certain image of eternity all things are present to it things past and things to come are all so before the eyes of faith that he in whose eye that candle is enkindled beholds heaven as present and sees how blessed thing it is to dye in Gods favour and to be chim'd to our grave with the Musick of a good conscience Faith converses with the Angels and antedates the hymnes of glory every man that hath this grace is as certain that there are glories for him if he perseveres in duty as if he had heard and sung the thanksgiving Song for the blessed sentence of Dooms-day And therefore it is no matter if these things are separate and distant objects none but children and fools are taken with the present trifle and neglect a distant blessing of which they have credible and beleeved notices Did the merchant see the pearls and the wealth he designs to get in the trade of 20 years And is it possible that a childe should when he learns the first rudiments of Grammar know what excellent things there are in learning whither he designs his labour and his hopes We labour for that which is uncertain and distant and beleeved and hoped for with many allaies and seen with diminution and a troubled ray and what excuse can there be that we do not labour for that which is told us by God and preach'd by his holy Son and confirmed by miracles and which Christ himself dyed to purchase and millions of Martyrs dyed to witnesse and which we see good men and wise beleeve with an assent stronger then their evidence and which they do beleeve because they do love and love because they do beleeve There is nothing to be said but that faith which did enlighten the blind and cleanse the Lepers and wash'd the soul of the Aethiopian that faith that cures the sick and strengthens the Paralytick and baptizes the Catechumens and justifies the faithfull and repairs the penitent and confirms the just and crowns the Martyrs that faith if it be true and proper Christian and alive active and effective in us is sufficient to appease the storm of our passions and to instruct all our ignorances and to make us wise unto salvation it will if we let it do its first intention chastise our errors and discover our follies it will make us ashamed of trifling interests and violent prosecutions of false principles and the evill disguises of the world and then our nature will return to the innocence and excellency in which God first estated it that is our flesh will be a servant of the soul and the soul a servant to the spirit and then because faith makes heaven to be the end of our desires and God the object of our love and worshippings and the Scripture the rule of our actions and Christ our Lord and Master and the holy Spirit our mighty assistance and our Counsellour all the little uglinesses of the world and the follies of the flesh will be uneasie and unsavory unreasonable and a load and then that grace the grace of faith that layes hold upon the holy Trinity although it cannot understand it and beholds heaven before it can possesse it shall also correct our weaknesses and master all our aversations and though we cannot in this world be perfect masters and triumphant persons yet we be conquerors and more that is conquerors of the direct hostility sure of a crown to be revealed in its due time 2. The second great remedy of our evill Nature and of the loads of the flesh is devotion or a state of prayer and entercourse with God For the gift of the Spirit of God which is the great antidote of our evill natures is properly and expresly promised to prayer If you who are evill give good things to your children that aske you how much more shall your Father from heaven give his holy Spirit to them that aske it That which in S. Luke is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the holy Spirit is called in St. Matthew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good things that is the holy Spirit is all that good that we shall need towards our pardon and our sanctification and our glory and this is promised to Prayer to this purpose Christ taught us the Lords Prayer by which we are sufficiently instructed in obtaining this Magazine of holy and usefull things But Prayer is but one part of devotion and though of admirable efficacy towards the obtaining this excellent promise yet it is to be assisted by the other parts of devotion to make it a perfect remedy to our great evill He that would secure his evill Nature must be a devout person and he that is devout besides that he prayes frequently he delights in it as it is a conversation with God he rejoyces in God and esteems him the light of his eyes and the support of his confidence the object of his love and the desires of his heart the man is uneasie but when he does God service and his soul is at peace and rest when he does what may be accepted and this is that which the Apostle counsels and gives in precept Rejoyce in the Lord alwaies and again I say rejoyce that is as the Levites were appointed to rejoyce because God was their portion in tithes and offerings so now that in the spirituall sense God is our portion we should rejoyce in him and make him our inheritance and his service our imployment and the peace of conscience
own brow it stays not to be tempted by little avocations and to creep into holes but runs into the sea through full and usefull channels So is a mans prayer if it moves upon the feet of an abated appetite it wanders into the society of every trifling accident and stays at the corners of the fancy and talks with every object it meets and cannot arrive at heaven but when it is carryed upon the wings of passion and strong desires a swift motion and a hungry appetite it passes on through all the intermediall regions of clouds and stays not till it dwells at the foot of the Throne where mercy sits and thence sends holy showers of refreshment I deny not but some little drops will turn aside and fall from the full channell by the weaknesse of the banks and hollownesse of the passage but the main course is still continued and although the most earnest and devout persons feel and complain of some loosenesse of spirit and unfixed attentions yet their love and their desire secure the maine portions and make the prayer to be strong fervent and effectuall Any thing can be done by him that earnestly desires what he ought secure but your affections and passions and then no temptation will be too strong A wise man and a full resolution and an earnest spirit can doe any thing of duty but every temptation prevailes when we are willing to die and we usually lend nothing to devotion but the offices that flatter our passions we can desire and pray for any thing that may serve our lust or promote those ends which we covet but ought to fear and fly from but the same earnestnesse if it were transplanted into Religion and our prayers would serve all the needs of the spirit but for want of it we do the Lords work deceitfully 3. Our Charity also must be fervent Malus est miles qui ducem suum gemens sequitur He that follows his Generall with a heavy march and a heavy heart is but an ill souldier but our duty to God should be hugely pleasing and we should rejoyce in it it must passe on to action and doe the action vigorously it is called in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the labour and travail of love A friend at a sneese and an almes-basket full of prayers a love that is lazy and a service that is uselesse and a pity without support are the images and colours of that grace whose very constitution and designe is beneficence and well-doing He that loves passionately will not onely doe all that his friend needs but all that himself can for although the law of charity is fulfilled by acts of profit and bounty and obedience and labour yet it hath no other measures but the proportions and abundance of a good mind and according to this God requires that we be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abounding and that alwayes in the work of the Lord if we love passionately we shall doe all this for love endures labour and calls it pleasure it spends all and counts it a gain it suffers inconveniencies and is quickly reconciled to them if dishonours and affronts be to be endured love smiles and calls them favours and wears them willingly alii jacuere ligati Turpitèr atque aliquis de Diis non tristibus optat Sic fieri turpis It is the Lord said David and I will be yet more vile and it shall be honour unto me thus did the Disciples of our Lord goe from tribunals rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer stripes for that beloved name and we are commanded to rejoyce in persecutions to resist unto bloud to strive to enter in at the strait gate not to be weary of well doing doe it hugely and doe it alwayes Non enim votis neque suppliciis muliebribus auxilia Deorum parantur sed vigilando agendo benè consulendo omnia prosperè cedunt No man can obtain the favour of God by words and imperfect resolutions by lazie actions and a remisse piety but by severe counsells and sober actions by watchfulnesse and prudence by doing excellent things with holy intentions and vigorous prosecutions Ubi socordiae ignaviae te tradideris nequidquam Deos implorabis If your vertues be lazy your vices will be bold and active and therefore Democritus said well that the painfull and the soft-handed people in Religion differ just as good men and bad nimirùm spe bonâ the labouring charity hath a good hope but a coole Religion hath none at all and the distinction will have a sad effect to eternall ages These are the great Scenes of duty in which we are to be fervent and zealous but because earnestnesse and zeal are circumstances of a great latitude and the zeale of the present age is starke cold if compar'd to the fervors of the Apostles and other holy primitives and in every age a good mans care may turne into scruple if he sees that he is not the best man because he may reckon his owne estate to stand in the confines of darknesse because his spark is not so great as his neighbors fires therefore it is sit that we consider concerning the degrees of the intention and forward heats for when we have found out the lowest degrees of zeale and a holy fervour we know that duty dwels there and whatsoever is above it is a degree of excellence but all that is lesse then it is lukewarmnesse and the state of an ungracious and an unaccepted person 1. No man is fervent and zealous as he ought but he that preferres Religion before businesse charity before his own ease the reliefe of his brother before money heaven before secular regards and God before his friend or interest Which rule is not to be understood absolutely and in particular instances but alwayes generally and when it descends to particulars it must be in proportion to circumstances and by their proper measures for 1. In the whole course of life it is necessary that we prefer Religion before any state that is either contrary to it or a lessening of at s duties He that hath a state of life in which he cannot at all in fair proportions tend to Religion must quit great proportions of that that he may enjoy more of this this is that which our blessed Saviour calls pulling out the right eye if it offend thee 2. In particular actions when the necessity is equall he that does not preferre Religion is not at all Zealous for although all naturall necessities are to be served before the circumstances and order of Religion yet our belly and our back our liberty and our life our health and a friend are to be neglected rather then a Duty when it stands in its proper place and is requir'd 3. Although the things of God are by a necessary Zeale to be preferred before the things of the world yet we must take heed that we doe not reckon Religion and orders of worshipping onely to be the
person fit to be trusted and though it cannot be expected men should be kinder to their friend or their Prince or their honour then to God and to their own souls and to their own bodies yet when men are not moved by what is sensible and materiall by that which smarts and shames presently they are beyond the cure of Religion and the hopes of Reason and therefore they must lie in hell like sheep death gnawing upon them and the righteous shall have domination over them in the morning of the resurrection Seras tutior ibis ad lucernas Haec hora non est tua cam furit Lyaeus Cùm regnant rosae cùm madent capilli Much safer it is to go to the severities of a watchfull and a sober life for all that time of life is lost when wine and rage and pleasure and folly steale away the heart of a man and make him goe singing to his grave I end with the saying of a wise man He is fit to sit at the table of the Lord and to feast with Saints who moderately uses the creatures which God hath given him But he that despises even lawfull pleasures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall not onely sit and feast with God but reign together with him and partake of his glorious Kingdome Sermon XVII THE MARRIAGE RING OR THE Mysteriousnesse and Duties of Marriage Part I. Ephes. 5. 32 33. This is a great mysterie But I speak concerning Christ and the Church Neverthelesse let every one of you in particular so love his Wife even as himself and the Wife see that shee reverence her Husband THe first blessing God gave to man was society and that society was a Marriage and that Marriage was confederate by God himself and hallowed by a blessing and at the same time and for very many descending ages not only by the instinct of Nature but by a superadded forwardnesse God himself inspiring the desire the world was most desirous of children impatient of barrennesse accounting single life a curse and a childlesse person hated by God The world was rich and empty and able to provide for a more numerous posterity then it it had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You that are rich Numenius you may multiply your family poor men are not so fond of children but when a family could drive their heards and set their children upon camels and lead them till they saw a fat soil watered with rivers and there sit down without paying rent they thought of nothing but to have great families that their own relations might swell up to a Patriarchat and their children be enough to possesse all the regions that they saw and their grand-children become Princes and themselves build cities and call them by the name of a childe and become the fountain of a Nation This was the consequent of the first blessing Increase and multiply The next blessing was the promise of the Messias and that also increased in men and women a wonderfull desire of marriage for as soon as God had chosen the family of Abraham to be the blessed line from whence the worlds Redeemer should descend according to the flesh every of his daughters hoped to have the honour to be his Mother or his Grand-mother or something of his kindred and to be childelesse in Israel was a sorrow to the Hebrew women great as the slavery of Egypt or their dishonours in the land of their captivity But when the Messias was come and his doctrine was published and his Ministers but few and the Disciples were to suffer persecution and to be of an unsetled dwelling and the Nation of the Jews in the bosome and society of which the Church especially did dwell were to be scattered and broken all in pieces with fierce calamities and the world was apt to calumniate and to suspect and dishonour Christians upon pretences and unreasonable jealousies and that to all these purposes the state of marriage brought many inconveniences it pleased God in this new creation to inspire into the hearts of his servants a disposition and strong desires to live a single life left the state of marriage should in that conjunction of things become an accidentall impediment to the dissemination of the Gospell which cal'd men from a confinement in their domestick charges to travell and flight and poverty and difficulty and Martyrdome upon this necessity the Apostles and Apostolicall men published Doctrines declaring the advantages of single life not by any commandement of the Lord but by the spirit of prudence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the present and then incumbent necessities and in order to the advantages which did accrew to the publick ministeries and private piety There are some said our blessed Lord who make themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdome of Heaven that is for the advantages and the ministery of the Gospell non ad vitae bonae meritum as St. Austin in the like case not that it is a better service of God in it self but that it is usefull to the first circumstances of the Gospell and the infancy of the Kingdome because the unmarryed person does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is apt to spirituall and Ecclesiasticall imployments first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy in his own person and then sanctified to publick ministeries and it was also of ease to the Christians themselves because as then it was when they were to flie and to flie for ought they knew in winter and they were persecuted to the four winds of heaven and the nurses and the women with childe were to suffer a heavier load of sorrow because of the imminent persecutions and above all because of the great fatality of ruine upon the whole nation of the Jewes well it might be said by St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such shall have trouble in the flesh that is they that are marryed shall and so at that time they had and therefore it was an act of charity to the Christians to give that counsell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I do this to spare you and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for when the case was alter'd and that storm was over and the first necessities of the Gospel served and the sound was gone out into all nations in very many persons it was wholly changed and not the marryed but the unmarryed had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 trouble in the flesh and the state of marriage returned to its first blessing non non erat bonum homini esse solitarium and it was not good for man to be alone But in this first intervall the publick necessity and the private zeal mingling together did sometimes over-act their love of single life even to the disparagement of marriage and to the scandall of Religion which was increased by the occasion of some pious persons renouncing their contract of marriage not consummate with unbeleevers For when Flavia Domitilla being converted by
its abode For some sins are so agreeable to the spirit of a fool and an abused person because he hath fram'd his affections to them and they comply with his unworthy interest that when God out of an angry kindnesse smites the man and punishes the sin the man does fearfully defend his beloved sin as the serpent does his head which he would most tenderly preserve But therefore God that knowes all our tricks and devices our stratagems to be undone hath therefore apportioned out his punishments by analogies by proportions and entaile so that when every sin enters into its proper portion we may discern why God is angry and labour to appease him speedily 2. The second appendage to this consideration is this that there are some states of sin which expose a man to all mischief as it can happen by taking off from him all his guards and defences by driving the good Spirit from him by stripping him of the guards of Angels But this is the effect of an habituall sin a course of an evill life and it is called in Scripture a grieving the good Spirit of God But the guard of Angels is in Scripture only promised to them that live godly The Angels of the Lord pitch their tents round about them that fear him and delivereth them said David 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Hellenists use to call the Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 watchmen which custody is at first designed and appointed for all when by baptisme they give up their names to Christ and enter into the covenant of Religion And of this the Heathen have been taught something by conversation with the Hebrewes and Christians unicuique nostrum dare paedagogum Deum said Seneca to Lucilius non primarium sed ex eorum numero quos Ovidius vocat ex plebe deos There is a guardian God assigned to every one of us of the number of those which are of the second order such are those of whom David speaks before the Gods will I sing praise unto thee and it was the doctrine of the Stoicks that to every one there was assigned a Genius and a Juno Quamobrem major coelitum populus etiam quam hominum intelligi potest quum singuli ex semetipsis totidem Deos faciant Junones geniosque adoptando sibi said Pliny Every one does adopt Gods into his family and get a Gunius and a Juno of their own Junonem meam iratam habeam it was the oath of Quartilla in Petronius and Socrates in Plato is said to swear by his Juno though afterwards among the Romans it became the womans oath and a note of effeminacy But the thing they aim'd at was this that God took a care of us below and sent a ministring spirit for our defence but that this is only upon the accounts of piety they know not But we are taught it by the Spirit of God in Scripture For the Angels are ministring spirits sent forth to minister to the good of them who shal be heirs of salvation and concerning St. Peter the faithfull had an opinion that it might be his Angell agreeing to the Doctrine of our blessed Lord who spake of Angels appropriate to his little ones to infants to those that belong to him Now what God said to the sons of Israel is also true to us Christians Behold I send an Angell before thee beware of him and obey his voice provoke him not for he will not pardon your trangressions So that if we provoke the Spirit of the Lord to anger by a course of evill living either the Angell will depart from us or if he staies he will strike us The best of these is bad enough and he is highly miserable Qui non sit tanto hoc custode securus whom an Angell cannot defend from mischief nor any thing secure him from the wrath of God It was the description and character which the Erythrean Sibyl gave of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is Gods appellative to be a giver of excellent rewards to just and innocent persons but to assign to evill men fury wrath and sorrow for their portion If I should lanch further into this Dead sea I should finde nothing but horrid shriekings and the skuls of dead men utterly undone Fearfull it is to consider that sin does not only drive us into calamity but it makes us also impatient and imbitters our spirit in the sufferance * It cryes loud for vengeance and so torments men before the time even with such fearfull outcries and horrid alarms that their hell begins before the fire is kindled * It hinders our prayers and consequently makes us hopelesse and helplesse * It perpetually affrights the conscience unlesse by its frequent stripes it brings a callousnesse and an insensible damnation upon it * It makes us to lose all that which Christ purchased for us all the blessings of his providence the comforts of his spirit the aids of his grace the light of his countenance the hopes of his glory it makes us enemies to God and to be hated by him more then he hates a dog and with a dog shall be his portion to eternall ages with this only difference that they shall both be equally excluded from heaven but the dog shall not and the sinner shall descend into hell and which is the confirmation of all evill for a transient sin God shall inflict an eternall Death Well might it be said in the words of God by the Prophet ponam Babylonem in possessionem Erinacei Babylon shall be the possession of an Hedgehog that 's a sinners dwelling incompassed round with thornes and sharp prickles afflictions and uneasinesse all over So that he that wishes his sin big and prosperous wishes his Bee as big as a Bull and his Hedgehog like an Elephant the pleasure of the honey would not cure the mighty sting and nothing make recompense or be a good equall to the evill of an eternall ruine But of this there is no end I summe up all with the saying of Publius Mimus Tolerabilior est qui mori jubet quà m qui malè vivere He is more to be endured that puts a man to death then he that betrayes him into sin For the end of this is death eternall Sermon XXII THE GOOD and EVILL TONGUE Ephes. 4. 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers HE that had an ill memory did wisely comfort himselfe by reckoning the advantages he had by his forgetfulnesse For by this means he was hugely secured against malice and ambition for his anger went off with the short notice and observation of the injury and he saw himself unfit for the businesses of other men or to make records in his head undertake to conduct the intrigues of affairs of a multitude who was apt to
made so uneasie to him by the scorn and harsh reproaches of the mighty But Princes and Nobles often die with this disease And when the Courtiers of Alexander counterfeited his wry neck and the Servants of the Sicilian Tyrant pretended themselves dim sighted and on purpose rushed one against another and overthrew the meat as it was served to his table onely because the Prince was short-sighted they gave them sufficient instances in what state of affaires they stood with them that waited it was certain they would commend every foolish answer and pretend subtilty in every absurd question and make a petition that their base actions might passe into a law and be made to be the honor and sanctity of all the people and what proportions or wayes can such great personages have towards felicity when their vice shall be allowed and praised every action that is but tolerable shall be accounted heroicall and if it be intolerable among the wise it shall be called vertuous among the flatterers Carneades said bitterly but it had in it too many degrees of truth that Princes and great personages never learn to doe any thing perfectly well but to ride the great horse quia scil ferociens bestia adulari non didicit because the proud beast knows not how to flatter but will as soon throw him off from his back as he will shake off the son of a Potter But a Flatterer is like a neighing Horse that neigheth under every rider and is pleased with every thing and commends all that he sees and tempts to mischief and cares not so his friend may but perish pleasantly And indeed that is a calamity that undoes many a soul we so love our peace and sit so easily upon our own good opinions and are so apt to flatter our selves and leane upon our own false supports that we cannot endure to be disturb'd or awakened from our pleasing lethargy For we care not to be safe but to be secure not to escape hell but to live pleasantly we are not solicitous of the event but of the way thither and it is sufficient if we be perswaded all his well in the mean time we are carelesse whether indeed it be so or no and therefore we give pensions to fools and vile persons to abuse us and cousen us of felicity But this evill puts on severall shapes which we must discover that they may not cousen us without our observation For all men are not capable of an open flattery And therefore some will dresse their hypocrisie and illusion so that you may feel the pleasure and but secretly perceive the complyance and tendernesse to serve the ends of your folly perit procari si latet said Plancus If you be not perceived you lose your reward if you be too open you lose it worse 1. Some flatter by giving great names and propounding great examples and thus the Aegyptian villains hung a Tumblers rope upon their Prince and a Pipers whistle because they called their Ptolemy by the name of Apollo their God of Musick This put buskins upon Nero and made him fidle in all the great Towns of Greece When their Lords were Drunkards they called them Bacchus when they were Wrestlers they saluted them by the name of Hercules and some were so vain as to think themselves commended when their Flatterers told aloud that they had drunk more then Alexander the Conquerour And indeed nothing more abuses easie fooles that onely seek for an excuse for their wickednesse a Patron for their vice a warrant for their sleepy peace then to tell stories of great examples remarked for the instances of their temptation When old Cato commended meretricious mixtures and to prevent adulteries permitted fornication the youth of the succeeding ages had warrant enough to goe ad olentes fornices into their chambers of filthy pleasure Quidam notus homo cum exiret fornice macte Virtute esto inquit sententia dia Catonis And it would passe the goblets in a freer circle if a flattering man shall but say Narratur prisci Catonis saepè mero caluisse virtus that old Cato would drink hard at sun-set When Varro had noted that wise and severe Salust who by excellent sententious words had reproved the follies of lust was himselfe taken in adultery The Romane youth did hug their vice and thought it grew upon their nature like a mans beard and that the wisest men would lay their heads upon that threshold and Seneca tels that the women of that age despised the adultery of one man onely and hated it like marriage and despis'd that as want of breeding and grandeur of spirit because the braver Spartans did use to breed their children promiscuously as the Heards-men doe cattle from the fairest Buls And Arrianus tels that the women would defend their basenesse by the doctrine of Plato who maintain'd the community of women This sort of flattery is therefore more dangerous because it makes the temptation ready for mischief apted and dressed with proper materiall and imitable circumstances The way of discourse is far about but evill examples kill quickly 2. Others flatter by imitation for when a crime is rare and insolent singular and out of fashion it must be a great strength of malice and impudence that must entertain it but the flattering man doing the vice of his Lord takes off the wonder and the fear of being stared at and so incourages it by making it popular and common Plutarch tels of one that divorced himself from his wife because his friend did so that the other might be hardened in the mischief and when Plato saw his scholars stoop in the shoulders and Aristotle observed his to stammer they began to be lesse troubled with those imperfections which they thought common to themselves and others 3. Some pretend a rusticity and downright plainnesse and upon the confidence of that humour their friends vice and flatter his ruine Seneca observed it of some of his time alius quidam adulatione clam utebatur parcè alius ex aperto palm rusticitate simulatâ quasi simplicitas illa ars non sit They pretend they love not to dissemble and therefore they cannot hide their thoughts let their friend take it how he will they must commend that which is commendable and so man that is willing to dye quietly is content with the honest heartynesse and downright simplicity of him that with an artificial rudenesse dress'd the flattery 4. Some will dispraise themselves that their friend may think better of himselfe or lesse severely of his fault 5. Others will reprove their friend for a trifle but with a purpose to let him understand that this is all for the honest man would have told his friend if it had been worse 6. Some will laugh and make a sport of a vice and can hear their friend tell the cursed narrative of his adultery of his drunkennesse of his craft and unjust purchases and all this shall prove but a merry scene
patefactus the manifestation of the Spirit ad aedificationem as the Apostle calls it for edification and building us up to be a Holy Temple to the Lord. 2. But when we had been taught all these mysterious articles we could not by any humane power have understood them unlesse the Spirit of God had given us a new light and created in us a new capacity and made us to be a new creature of another definition Animalis homo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as S. Jude expounds the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the animal or the naturall man the man that hath not the Spirit cannot discern the things of God for they are spiritually discerned that is not to be understood but by the light proceeding from the Sun of righteousnesse and by that eye whose bird is the Holy Dove whose Candle is the Gospel Scio incapacem te sacramenti Impie Non posse coecis mentibus mysterium Haurire nostrum nil diurnum nox capit He that shall discourse Euclids elements to a swine or preach as Venerable Bede's story reports of him to a rock or talk Metaphysicks to a Bore will as much prevail upon his assembly as S. Peter and S. Paul could do upon uncircumcised hearts and ears upon the indisposed Greeks and prejudicate Iews An Ox will relish the tender flesh of Kids with as much gust and appetite as an unspirituall and unsanctified man will do the discourses of Angels or of an Apostle if he should come to preach the secrets of the Gospel And we finde it true by a sad experience How many times doth God speak to us by his servants the Prophets by his Son by his Apostles by sermons by spirituall books by thousands of homilies and arts of counsell and insinuation and we sit as unconcerned as the pillars of a Church and hear the sermons as the Athenians did a story or as we read a gazet and if ever it come to passe that we tremble as Felix did when we hear a sad story of death of righteousnesse and judgement to come then we put it off to another time or we forget it and think we had nothing to do but to give the good man a hearing and as Anacharsis said of the Greeks they used money for nothing but to cast account withall so our hearers make use of sermons and discourses Evangelical but to fill up void spaces of our time to help to tell an hour with or without tediousnesse The reason of this is a sad condemnation to such persons they have not yet entertained the Spirit of God they are in darknesse they were washed in water but never baptized with the Spirit for these things are spiritually discerned They would think the Preacher rude if he should say they are not Christians they are not within the Covenant of the Gospel but it is certain that the spirit of Manifestation is not yet upon them and that is the first effect of the Spirit whereby we can be called sons of God or relatives of Christ. If we do not apprehend and greedily suck in the precepts of this holy Discipline as aptly as Merchants do discourse of gain or Farmers of fair harvests we have nothing but the Name of Christians but we are no more such really then Mandrakes are men or spunges are living creatures 3. The Gospel is called Spirit because it consists of Spiritual Promises and Spiritual precepts and makes all men that embrace it truly to be Spiritual men and therefore S. Paul addes an Epithete beyond this calling it a quiohening Spirit that is it puts life into our Spirits which the law could not The law bound us to punishment but did not help us to obedience because it gave not the promise of Eternal life to its Disciples The Spirit that is the Gospel onely does this and this alone is it which comforts afflicted mindes which puts activenesse into wearyed Spirits which inflames our cold desires and does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blows up sparks into live coles and coles up to flames and flames to perpetual burnings and it is impossible that any man who believes and considers the great the infinite the unspeakable the unimaginable the never ceasing joyes that are prepared for all the sons and daughters of the Gospel should not desire them and unlesse he be a fool he cannot but use means to obtain them effective hearty pursuances For it is not directly in the nature of a man to neglect so great a good there must be something in his manners some obliquity in his will or madnesse in his intellectuals or incapacity in his naturals that must make him sleep such a reward away or change it for the pleasure of a drunken feaver or the vanity of a Mistresse or the rage of a passion or the unreasonablenesse of any sin However this promise is the life of all our actions and the Spirit that first taught it is the life of our soules 4. But beyond this is the reason which is the consummation of all the faithful The Gospel is called the Spirit because by and in the Gospel God hath given to us not onely the Spirit of manifestation that is of instruction and of Catechisme of faith and confident assent but the Spirit of Confirmation or obsignation to all them that believe and obey the Gospel of Christ that is the power of God is come upon our hearts by which in an admirable manner we are made sure of a glorious inheritance made sure I say in the nature of the thing and our own persuasions also are confirmed with an excellent a comfortable a discerning and a reasonable hope in the strength of which and by whose ayde as we do not doubt of the performance of the promise so we vigorously pursue all the parts of the condition and are mabled to work all the work of God so as not to be affrighted with fear or seduced by vanity or oppressed by lust or drawn off by evil example or abused by riches or imprison'd by ambition and secular designes This the Spirit of God does work in all his Servants and is called the spirit of obsignation or the confirming spirit because it confirms our hope and assures our title to life eternall and by means of it and other it 's collateral assistances it also confirms us in our duty that we may not onely professe in word but live lives according to the Gospel And this is the sense of the Spirit mentiond in the Text ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you That is if ye be made partakers of the Gospel or of the spirit of manifestation if ye be truly intitled to God and have received the promise of the Father then are ye not carnall men ye are spirituall ye are in the Spirit if ye have the Spirit in one sense to any purpose ye have it also in another if the Spirit be
some sense or other In the wisdom of the Ancient it was observed that there are four great cords which tye the heart of Man to inconvenience and a prison making it a servant of vanity and an heir of corruption 1. Pleasure and 2. Pain 3. Fear and 4. Desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These are they that exercise all the wisdom and resolutions of man and all the powers that God hath given him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Agathon These are those evil Spirits that possess the heart of man mingle with al his actions so that either men are tempted to 1. lust by pleasure or 2. to baser arts by covetousness or 3. to impatience by sorrow or 4. to dishonourable actions by fear and this is the state of man by nature and under the law and for ever till the Spirit of God came and by four special operations cur'd these four inconveniences and restrained or sweetned these unwholesome waters 1. God gave us his Spirit that we might be insensible of worldly pleasures having our souls wholly filâ—d with spiritual and heavenly relishes For when Gods Spirit hath entred into us and possessed us as his Temple or as his dwelling instantly we begin to taste Manna and to loath the diet of Egypt we begin to consider concerning heaven and to prefer eternity before moments and to love the pleasures of the soul above the sottish and beastly pleasures of the body Then we can consider that the pleasures of a drunken meeting cannot make recompence for the pains of a surfet and that nights intemperance much lesse for the torments of eternity Then we are quick to discern that the itch and scab of lustful appetites is not worth the charges of a Surgeon much lesse can it pay for the disgrace the danger the sicknesse the death and the hell of lustfull persons Then we wonder that any man should venture his head to get a crown unjustly or that for the hazard of a victory he should throw away all his hopes of heaven certainly A man that hath tasted of Gods Spirit can instantly discern the madnesse that is in rage the folly and the disease that is in envy the anguish and tediousnesse that is in lust the dishonor that is in breaking our faith and telling a lie and understands things truly as they are that is that charity is the greatest noblenesse in the world that religion hath in it the greatest pleasures that temperance is the best security of health that humility is the surest way to honour and all these relishes are nothing but antepasts of heaven where the quintessence of all these pleasures shall be swallowed for ever where the chast shall follow the Lamb and the virgins sing there where the Mother of God shall reign and the zealous converters of souls and labourers in Gods vineyard shall worship eternally where S. Peter and S. Paul do wear their crown of righteousnesse and the patient persons shall be rewarded with Job and the meek persons with Christ and Moses and all with God the very expectation of which proceeding from a hope begotten in us by the spirit of manifestation and bred up and strengthened by the spirit of obsignation is so delicious an entertainment of all our reasonable appetites that a spirituall man can no more be removed or intic d from the love of God and of religion then the Moon from her Orb or a Mother from loving the son of her joyes and of her sorrows This was observed by S. Peter As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby if so be that ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious When once we have tasted the grace of God the sweetnesses of his Spirit then no food but the food of Angels no cup but the cup of Salvation the Divining cup in which we drink Salvation to our God and call upon the Name of the Lord with ravishment and thanksgiving and there is no greater externall testimony that we are in the spirit and that the spirit dwels in us then if we finde joy and delight and spirituall pleasures in the greatest mysteries of our religion if we communicate often and that with appetite and a forward choice and an unwearied devotion and a heart truly fixed upon God and upon the offices of a holy worship He that loaths good meat is sick at heart or neer it and he that despises or hath not a holy appetite to the food of Angels the wine of elect souls is fit to succeed the Prodigal at his banquet of sinne and husks and to be partaker of the table of Devils but all they who have Gods Spirit love to feast at the supper of the Lamb and have no appetites but what are of the spirit or servants to the spirit I have read of a spiritual person who saw heaven but in a dream but such as made great impression upon him and was represented with vigorous and pertinacious phantasines not easily disbanding and when he awaked he knew not his cell he remembred not him that slept in the same dorter nor could tell how night and day were distinguished nor could discern oyl from wine but cal d out for his vision again Redde mihi campos meos floridos columnam auream comitem Hieronymum assistentes Angelos Give me my fields again my most delicious fields my pillar of a glorious light my companion S. Jereme my assistant Angels and this lasted till he was told of his duty and matter of obedience and the fear of a sin had disincharmed him and caused him to take care lest he lose the substance out of greedinesse to possesse the shadow And if it were given to any of us to see Paradise or the third heaven as it was to S. Paul could it be that ever we should love any thing but Christ or follow any Guide but the Spirit or desire any thing but Heaven or understand any thing to be pleasant but what shall lead thither Now what a vision can do that the Spirit doth certainly to them that entertain him They that have him really and not in pretence onely are certainly great despisers of the things of the world The Spirit doth not create or enlarge our appetites of things below Spirituall men are not designâ—d to reign upon earth but to reign over their lusts and sottish appetites The Spirit doth not enflame our thirst of wealth but extinguishes it and makes us to esteem all things as lesse and as dung so that we may gain Christ No gain then is pleasant but godlinesse no ambition but longings after heaven no revenge but against our selves for sinning nothing but God and Christ Deus meus omnia and date nobis animas catera vobis tollite as the king of Sodom said to Abraham Secure but the souls to us and take our goods Indeed this is a good signe that
shall derive from us This last instance went further then the other of families and kingdoms For not onely the single families of the Jews were made miserable for their Fathers murdering the Lord of life nor also was the Nation extinguished alone for the sins of their Rulers but the religion was removed it ceased to be God peoples the synagogue was rejected and her vail rent and her privacies dismantled and the Gentiles were made to be Gods people when the Jews inclosure was disparkd I need not further to instance this proposition in the case of National Churches though it is a sad calamity that is fallen upon the al seven Churches of Asia to whom the spirit of God wrote seven Epistles by Saint John and almost all the Churches of Africa where Christ was worshipped and now Mahomet is thrust in substitution and the people are servants and the religion is extinguished or where it remains it shines like the Moon in an Eclipse or like the least spark of the pleiades seen but seldom And that rather shining like a gloworm then a taper enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousnesse I shall adde no more instances to verifie the truth of this save onely I shall observe to you that even there is danger in being in evil company in suspected places in the civil societies and fellowships of wicked men Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum vnlgarit arcanae sub ijsdem sit trabibus fragilemque mecum solvat phaselum saepe Diespiter Neglectus in cesto addidit in tegrum And it hapned to the Mariners who carried Jonah to be in danger with a horrid storme because Jonah was there who had sinned against the Lord. Many times the sin of one man is punished by the falling of a house or a wall upon him and then al the family are like to be crushed with the same ruine so dangerous so pestilential so infectious a thing is sin that it scatters the poison of its breath to all the neighbourhood and makes that the man ought to be avoided like a person infected with the plague Next I am to consider why this is so and why it is justly so To this I answer 1. Between Kings and their people Parents and their children there is so great a necessitude propriety and entercourse of nature dominion right and possession that they are by God and the laws of Nations reckoned as their Goods and their blessings The honour of a King is in the multitude of his people and children are a gift that cometh of the Lord and happy is that man that hath his quiver full of them and Lo thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord his wife shall be like the fruitful vine by the wals of his house his children like olive branches round about his Table Now if children be a blessing then to take them away in anger is a curse and if the losse of flocks and herds the burning of houses the blasting of fields be a curse how much greater is it to lose our children and to see God slay them before our eyes in hatred to our persons and detestation and loathing of our basenesse When Jobs Messengers told him the sad stories of fire from Heaven the burning his sheep and that the Sabeans had driven his Oxen away and the Chaldeans had stolne his Camels these were sad arrests to his troubled spirit but it was reserved as the last blow of that sad execution that the ruines of a house had crush'd his Sons and Daughters to their graves Sons daughters are greater blessings then sheep Oxen they are not servants of profit as sheep are but they secure greater ends of blesssing they preserve your Names they are so many titles of provision providence every new childe is a new title to Gods care of that family They serve the ends of honour of commonwealths and Kingdoms they are images of our souls and images of God and therefore are great blessings and by consequence they are great riches though they are not to be sold for mony and surely he that hath a cabinet of invaluable jewels will think himself rich though he never sells them Does 〈◊〉 take care for Oxen said our blessed Saviour much more for you yea all and every one of your children are of more value then many Oxen when therefore God for your sin strikes them with crookednesse with deformity with foolishnesse with impertinent and caytive spirits with hasty or sudden deaths it is a greater curse to us then to lose whole herds of cattel of which it is certain most men would be very sensible They are our goods they are our blessings from God therefore we are striken when for our sakes they dye Therefore we may properly be punished by evils happening to our Relatives 2. But as this is a punishment to us so it is not unjust as to them though they be innocent For all the calamities of this life are incident to the most Godly persons of the world and since the King of Heaven and earth was made a man of sorrows it cannot be called unjust or intolerable that innocent persons should be pressed with temporal infelicities onely in such cases we must distinguish the misery from the punishment for that all the world dyes is a punishment of Adams sin but it is no evil to those single persons that die in the Lord for they are blessed in their death Jonathan was killed the same day with his Father the King and this was a punishment to Saul indeed but to Jonathan it was a blessing for since God had appointed the kingdom to his neighbour it was more honourable for him to die fighting the Lords battel then to live and see himself the lasting testimony of Gods curse upon his Father who lost the Kingdom from his family by his disobedience That death is a blessing which ends an Honorable and prevents an inglorious life And our children it may be shall be sanctified by a sorrow and purified by the fire of affliction and they shall receive the blessing of it but it is to their Fathers a curse who shall wound their own hearts with sorrow and cover their heads with a robe of shame for bringing so great evil upon their house 3. God hath many ends of providence to serve in this dispensation of his judgements * 1. He expresses the highest indignation against sin and makes his examples lasting communicative and of great effect it is a little image of hell and we shall the lesse wonder that God with the pains of eternity punishes the sins of time when with our eyes we see him punish a transient action with a lasting judgement * 2. It arrests the spirits of men and surprises their loosenesses and restrains their gaiety when we observe that the judgements of God finde us out in all relations and turns our comforts into sadnesse and makes our families the scene of sorrows and we can escape him no
as Churches use to remove the accursed thing from sticking to the communities of the faithful and the sins of Christians from being required of the whole Congregation by excommunicating and censuring the delinquent persons so the Heires and sons of families are to 〈◊〉 from their house the curse descending from their Fathers 〈◊〉 by 1. Acts of disavowing the sins of their Ancestors 2. By praying for pardon 3. by being humbled for them 4. By renouncing the example and 5. Quitting the affection to the crimes 6. By not imitaing the actions in Kinde or in semblance and similitude and lastly 7. By refusing to rejoyce in the ungodly purchases in which their Fathers did amisse and dealt wickedly Secondly But after all this many cases do occur in which we finde that innocent sons are pâ—â—istied The remedies I have already discoursed of are for such children who have in some manner or other contracted and derived the sin upon themselves But if we inquire how those sons who have no 〈◊〉 or affinity with their fathers sins or whose fathers sins were so transient that no benefit or effect did passe upon their posterity how they may prevent or take off the curse that lyes upon the family for their Fathers faults this will have some distinct considerations 1. The pious children of evil Parents are to stand firme upon the confidence of the Divine grace and mercy and upon that persuasion to begin to work upon a new stock For it is as certain that he may derive a blessing upon his Posterity as that this Parents could transmit a curse and if any man by piety shall procure Gods favour to his Relatives and children it is certain that he hath done more then to escape the punishment of his Fathers follies If sin doth abound and evils by sin are derived from his Parents much more shall grace super abound and mercy by grace If he was in danger from the crimes of others much rather shall he be secured by his own piety For if God punishes the sins of the fathers to four generations yet he rewards the piety of fathers to ten to hundreds and to thousands Many of the Ancestors of Abraham were persons not noted for religion but suffered in the publike impiety and almost universal idolatry of their ages and yet all the evils that could thence descend upon the family were wiped off and God began to reckon with Abraham upon a new stock of blessings and piety and he was under God the Original of so great a blessing that his family for 1500. years together had from him a title to many favours and what ever evils did chance to them in the descending ages were but single evils in respect of that treasure of mercies which the fathers piety had obtained to the whole nation And it is remarkable to observe how blessings did stick to them for their fathers sakes even whether they would or no. For first his Grand-childe Esau proved a naughty man and he lost the great blessing which was in tailed upon the family but he got not a curse but a lesse blessing and yet because he lost the greater blessing God excluded him from being reckoned in the elder time for God foreseeing the event so ordered it that he should first lose his birth-right and then lose the blessing for it was to be certain the family must be reckoned for prosperous in the proper line and yet God blessed Esau into a great Nation and made him the Father of many Princes Now the line of blessing being reckoned in Jacob God blessed his family strangely and by miracle for almost five generations he brought them from Egypt by mighty signes and wonders and when for sin they all died in their way to Canaan two onely excepted God so ordered it that they were all reckoned as single deaths the Nation still descending like a river whose waters were drunk up for the beauvrage of an army but still it keeps its name and current and the waters are supplied by showers and springs and providence After this iniquity still increased and then God struck deeper and spread curses upon whole families he translated the Priesthood from line to line he removed the Kingome from one family to another and still they sinned worse and then we read that God smote almost a whole tribe the tribe of Benjmin was almost extinguished about the matter of the Levites Concubine but still God remembred his promise which he made with their forefathers and that breach was made up After this we finde a greater rupture made and ten tribes fell into idolatry and ten tribes were carried captives into Assyria and never came again But still God remembred his covenant with Abraham and left two Tribes but they were restlesse in their provocation of the God of Abraham and they also were carried captive But still God was the God of their fathers and brought them back and placed them safe and they grew again into a Kingdom and should have remained for ever but that they killed one that was greater then Abraham even the Messias and then they were rooted out and the old covenant cast off and God delighted no more to be called the God of Abraham but the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. As long as God kept that relation so long for the fathers sakes they had a title and an inheritance to a blessing for so saith Saint Paul As touching the election they are beloved for the Fathers sakes I did insist the longer upon this instance that I might remonstrate how great and how sure and how persevering mercies a pious Father of a family may derive upon his succeeding generations And if we do but tread in the footsteps of our Father Abraham we shall inherit as certain blessings But then I pray adde these considerations 1. If a great impiety and a clamorous wickednesse hath stained the honour of a family and discomposed its title to the Divine mercies and protection it is not an ordinary piety that can restore this family An ordinary even course of life full of sweetnesse and innocency will secure every single person in his own eternal interest but that piety which must be a spring of blessings and communicative to others that must plead against the sins of their Ancestors and begin a new bank of mercies for the Relatives that must be a great and excellent a very religious state of life A smal pension will maintain a single person but he that hath a numerous family and many to provide for needs a greater providence of God and a bigger provision for their maintenance and a small revenue will not keep up the dignity of a great house especially if it be charged with a great debt And this is the very state of the present question That piety that must be instrumental to take off the curse imminent upon a family to blesse a numerous posterity to secure a fair condition to many ages and to pay the
power And when God destroyed the old world in that also he glorified himself for in those waters he saw the image of his justice they were the looking glasse for that Attribute and God is said to laugh at and rejoyce in the destruction of a sinner because he is pleased with the Oeconomy of his own lawes and the excellent proportions he hath made of his judgements consequent to our sins But above all God rejoyced in his Holy Son for he was the image of the Divinity the character and expresse image of his person in him he beheld his own Essence his wisedom his power his justice and his person and he was that excellent instrument designed from eternall ages to represent as in a double mirrour not onely the glories of God to himself but also to all the world and he glorified God by the instrument of obedience in which God beheld his own dominion and the sanctity of his lawes clearly represented and he saw his justice glorified when it was fully satisfied by the passion of his Son and so he hath transmitted to us a great manner of the Divine glorification being become to us the Authour and the Example of giving glory to God after the manner of men that is by well-doing and patient suffering by obeying his lawes and submitting to his power by imitating his holinesse and confessing his goodnesse by remaining innocent or becoming penitent for this also is called in the Text GIVING GLORY TO THE LORD OUR GOD. For he that hath dishonoured God by sins that is hath denied by a morall instrument of duty and subordination to confesse the glories of his power and the goodnesse of his lawes and hath dishonoured and despised his mercy which God intended as an instrument of our piety hath no better way to glorifie God then by returning to his duty to advance the honour of the Divine Attributes in which he is pleased to communicate himself and to have entercourse with man He that repents confesses his own errour and the righteousnesse of Gods lawes and by judging himself confesses that he deserves punishment and therefore that God is righteous if he punishes him and by returning confesses God to be the fountain of felicity and the foundation of true solid and permanent joyes saying in the sense and passion of the Disciples Whither shall we go for thou hast the words of eternall life and by humbling himself exalts God by making the proportions of distance more immense and vast and as repentance does contain in it all the parts of holy life which can be performed by a returning sinner all the acts and habits of vertue being but parts or instances or effects of repentance so all the actions of a holy life do constitute the masse and body of all those instruments whereby God is pleased to glorifie himself * For if God is glorified in the Sunne and Moon in the rare fabrick of the honey-combs in the discipline of Bees in the oeconomy of Pismires in the little houses of birds in the curiosity of an eye God being pleased to delight in those little images and reflexes of himself from those pretty mirrours which like a crevice in a wall thorow a narrow perspective transmit the species of a vast excellency much rather shall God be pleased to behold himself in the glasses of our obedience in the emissions of our will and understanding these being rationall and apt instruments to expresse him farre better then the naturall as being neerer communications of himself But I shall no longer discourse of the Philosophy of this expression certain it is that in the stile of Scripture repentance is the great glorification of God and the Prophet by calling the people to give God glory calls upon them to repent and so expresses both the duty and the event of it the event being Glory to God on high and peace on earth and good will towards men by the sole instrument of repentance And this was it which Joshuah said to Achan Give I pray thee glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession unto him that one act of repentance is one act of glorifying God and this David acknowledged Against thee onely have I sinned ut tu justificeris that thou mightest be justified or cleared that is that God may have the honour of being righteous and we the shame of receding from so excellent a perfection or as S. Paul quotes and explicates the place Let God be true and every man a liar as it is written that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings and mightest overcome when thou art judged But to clear the sense of this expression of the Prophet observe the words of S. John and men were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the name of God who hath power over those plagues and they repented not to give him glory So that having strength and reason from these so many authorities I may be free to read the words of my Text thus Repent of all your sins before God cause darknesse and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and then we have here the duty of repentance and the time of its performance it must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a seasonable and timely repentance a repentance which must begin before our darknesse begin a repentance in the day time ut dum dies est operemini that ye may work while it is to day lest if we stumble upon the dark mountains that is fall into the ruines of old age which makes a broad way narrow and a plain way to be a craggy mountain or if we stumble and fall into our last sicknesse instead of health God send us to our grave and instead of light and salvation which we then confidently look for he make our state to be outer darknesse that is misery irremediable misery eternall This exhortation of the Prophet was alwayes full of caution and prudence but now it is highly necessary since men who are so clamorously called to repentance that they cannot avoid the necessity of it yet that they may reconcile an evil life with the hopes of heaven have crowded this duty into so little room that it is almost strangled and extinct and they have lopped off so many members that they have reduced the whole body of it to the dimensions of a little finger sacrificing their childhood to vanity their youth to lust and to intemperance their manhood to ambition and rage pride and revenge secular desires and unholy actions and yet still further giving their old age to covetousnesse and oppression to the world and to the Devil and after all this what remains for God and for Religion Oh for that they wll do well enough upon their death-bed they will think a few godly thoughts they will send for a Priest to minister comfort to them they will pray and ask God forgivenesse and receive the holy Sacrament and leave their goods behinde them disposing them to
their friends and relatives and some Dole and issues of the almes-basket to the poor and if after all this they die quietly and like a lambe and be canoniz'd by a brib'd flatterer in a funerall sermon they make no doubt but they are children of the kingdom and perceive not their folly till without hope of remedy they roar in their expectations of a certain but a horrid eternity of pains * Certainly nothing hath made more ample harvests for the Devil then the deferring of repentance upon vain confidences and lessening it in the extension of parts as well as intension of degrees while we imagine that a few tears and scatterings of devotion are enough to expiate the basenesse of a fifty or threescore yeers impiety This I shall endeavour to cure by shewing what it is to repent and that repentance implies in it the duty of a life or of many and great of long and lasting parts of it and then by direct arguments shewing that repentance put off to our death-bed is invalid and ineffectuall sick languid and impotent like our dying bodies and disabled faculties 1. First therefore Repentance implies a deep sorrow as the beginning and introduction of this duty not a superficiall sigh or tear not a calling our selves sinners and miserable persons this is far from that godly sorrow that worketh repentance and yet I wish there were none in the world or none amongst us who cannot remember that ever they have done this little towards the abolition of their multitudes of sins but yet if it were not a hearty pungent sorrow a sorrow that shall break the heart in pieces a sorrow that shall so irreconcile us to sin as to make us rather choose to die then to sin it is not so much as the beginning of repentance But in Holy Scripture when the people are called to repentance and sorrow which is ever the prologue to it marches sadly and first opens the scene it is ever expressed to be great clamorous and sad it is called a weeping sorely in the verse next after my text a weeping with the bitternesse of heart a turning to the Lord with weeping fasting and mourning a weeping day and night the sorrow of heart the breaking of the spirit the mourning like a dove and chattering like a swallow and if we observe the threnes and sad accents of the Prophet Jeremy when he wept for the sins of his Nation the heart-breakings of David when he mourned for his adultery and murder and the bitter tears of Saint Peter when he washed off the guilt and basenesse of his fall and the denying his Master we shall be sufficiently instructed in this praeludium or introduction to repentance and that it is not every breath of a sigh or moisture of a tender eye not every crying Lord have mercy upon me that is such a sorrow as begins our restitution to the state of grace and Divine favour but such a sorrow that really condemnes our selves and by an active effectual sentence declares us worthy of stripes and death of sorrow and eternall paines and willingly endures the first to prevent the second and weeps and mourns and fasts to obtain of God but to admit us to a possibility of restitution and although all sorrow for sins hath not the same expression nor the same degree of pungency and sensitive trouble which differs according to the temper of the body custome the sexe and accidental tendernesse yet it is not a Godly sorrow unlesse it really produce these effects that is 1. That it makes us really to hate 2. actually to decline sin and 3. produce in us a fear fo Gods anger a sense of the guilt of his displeasure and 4. Then such consequent trouble as can consist with such apprehension of the Divine displeasure which if it expresse not in tears and hearty complaints must be expressed in watchings and strivings against sin in confessing the goodnesse and justice of God threatning or punishing us in patiently bearing the rod of God in confession of our sins in accusation of our selves in perpetual begging of pardon and mean and base opinions of our selves and in al the natural productions from these according to our temper and constitution it must be a sorrow of the reasonable faculty the greatest in its kinde and if it be lesse in kinde or not productive of these effects it is not a godly sorrow not the exordium of repentance But I desire that it be observed that sorrow for sins is not Repentance not that duty which gives glory to God so as to obtain of him that he will glorifie us Repentance is a great volume of duty and Godly sorrow is but the frontispiece or title page it is the harbinger or first introduction to it or if you will consider it in the words of Saint Paul Godly sorrow worketh repentance sorrow is the Parent and repentance is the product and therefore it is a high piece of ignorance to suppose that a crying out and roaring for our sins upon our deathbed can reconcile us to God our crying to God must be so early and so lasting as to be able to teeme and produce such a daughter which must live long and grow from an Embryo to an infant from infancy to childhood from thence to the fulnesse of the stature of Christ and then it is a holy and a happy sorrow but if it be a sorrow onely of a death-bed it is a fruitlesse shower or like the rain of Sodom not the beginning of repentance but the kindling of a flame the comencement of an eternal sorrow For Ahab had a great sorrow but it wrought nothing upon his spirit it did not reconcile his affections to his duty and his duty to God Judas had so great a sorrow for betraying the innocent blood of his Lord that it was intolerable to his Spirit and he burst in the middle and if meer sorrow be repentance then hell is full of penitents for there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth for evermore Let us therefore beg of God as Calebs daughter did of her Father dedisti mihi terram aridam da etiam irriguam thou hast given me a dry land give me also a land of waters a dwelling place in tears rivers of tears ut quoniam non sumus digni oculos orando ad coelum levare at simus digni oculos plorando caecare as Saint Austins expression is that because we are not worthy to lift up our eyes to heaven in prayer yet we may be worthy to weep our selves blinde for sin the meaning is that we beg sorrow of God such a sorrow as may be sufficient to quench the flames of lust and surmount the hills of our pride and may extinguish our thirst of covetousnesse that is a sorrow that shall be an effective principle of arming all our faculties against sin and heartily setting upon the work of grace and the persevering labours of a holy life *
God will forgive him and that repentance as it is now stated cannot be done At what time soever not upon a mans deathbed yet there are no such words in the whole Bible nor any neerer to the sense of them then the words I have now read to you out of the Prophet Ezekiel Let that therefore no more deceive you or be made a colour to countenance a persevering sinner or a deathbed penitent Neither is the duty of Repentance to be bought at an easier rate in the New Testament You may see it described in the 2 Cor. 7. 11. Godly sorrow worketh repentance Well but what is that repentance which is so wrought This it is Behold the self same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulnesse it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fear ye what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge These are the fruits of that sorrow that is effectual these are the parts of repentance clearing our selves of all that is past and great carefulnesse for the future anger at our selves for our old sins and fear lest we commit the like again vehement desires of pleasing God and zeal of holy actions and a revenge upon our selves for our sins called by Saint Paul in another place a judging our selves lest we be judged of the Lord. And in pursuance of this truth the primitive Church did not admit a sinning person to the publike communions with the faithfull till besides their sorrow they had spent some years in an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in doing good works and holy living and especially in such actions which did contradict that wicked inclination which led them into those sins whereof they were now admitted to repent And therefore we find that they stood in the station of penitents seven years 13 years and somtimes till their death before they could be reconciled to the peace of God and his Holy Church Scelerum si bene poenitet eradenda cupidinis pravi sunt elementa tenerae nimis mentes asperioribus Formandae studijs Horat. Repentance is the institution of a philosophical and severe life an utter extirpation of all unreasonablenesse and impiety and an addresse to and a finall passing through all the parts of holy living Now Consider whether this be imaginable or possible to be done upon our deathbed when a man is frighted into an involuntary a sudden and unchosen piety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hierocles He that never repents till a violent fear be upon him till he apprehend himself to be in the jawes of death ready to give up his unready and unprepared accounts till he sees the Judge sitting in all the addresses of dreadfulnesse and Majesty just now as he beleeves ready to pronounce that fearfull and intolerable sentence of Go ye cursed into everlasting fire this man does nothing for the love of God nothing for the love of vertue It is just as a condemned man repents that he was a Traytor but repented not till he was arrested and sure to die Such a repentance as this may still consist with as great an affection to sin as ever he had and it is no thanks to him if when the knife is at his throat then he gives good words and flatters But suppose this man in his health and the middest of all his lust it is evident that there are some circumstances of action in which the man would have refused to commit his most pleasing sin Would not the son of Tarquin have refused to ravish Lucrece if Junius Brutus had been by him Would the impurest person in the world act his lust in the market place or drink off an intemperate goblet if a dagger were placed at his throat In these circumstances their fear would make them declare against the present acting their impurities But does this cure the intemperance of their affections Let the impure person retire to his closet and Junius Brutus be ingaged in a far distant war and the dagger be taken from the drunkards throat and the fear of shame or death or judgement be taken from them all and they shall no more resist their temptation then they could before remove their fear and you may as well judge the other persons holy and haters of their sin as the man upon his death-bed to be penitent and rather they then he by how much this mans fear the fear of death and of the infinite pains of hell the fear of a provoked God and an angry eternall Judge are far greater then the apprehensions of publike shame or an abused husband or the poniard of an angry person These men then sin not because they dare not they are frighted from the act but not from the affection which is not to be cured but by discourse and reasonable acts and humane considerations of which that man is not naturally capable who is possessed with the greatest fear the fear of death and damnation If there had been time to cure his sin and to live the life of grace I deny not but God might have begun his conversion with so great a fear that he should never have wiped off its impression but if the man dies then dies when he onely declaims against and curses his sin as being the authour of his present fear and apprehended calamity It is very far from reconciling him to God or hopes of pardon because it proceeds from a violent unnaturall and intolerable cause no act of choice or vertue but of sorrow a deserved sorrow and a miserable unchosen unavoidable fear moriensque recepit Quas nollet victurus aquas He curses sin upon his deathbed and makes a Panegyrick of vertue which in his life time he accounted folly and trouble and a needlesse vexation Quae mens est hodie cur eadem non puero fuit vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genae I shall end this first Consideration with a plain exhortation that since repentance is a duty of so great and giant-like bulk let no man croud it up into so narrow room as that it be strangled in its birth for want of time and aire to breath in Let it not be put off to that time when a man hath scarce time enough to reckon all those particular duties which make up the integrity of its constitution Will any man hunt the wild boare in his garden or bait a bull in his closet will a woman wrap her childe in her handkerchiefe or a Father send his son to school when he is 50 yeers old These are undecencies of providence and the instrument contradicts the end And this is our case There is no roome for the repentance no time to act all its essentiall parts and a childe who hath a great way to go before he be wise may defer his studies and hope to become very learned in his old age and upon his deathbed as well as a vitious person may think to
viri fortes quos Gentiles praedicabant in exemplum aerumnis suis inclytifloruerunt The Gentiles in their whole religion never propounded any man imitable unlesse the man were poor or persecuted Brutus stood for his countries liberty but lost his army and his life Socrates was put to death for speaking a religious truth Cato chose to be on the right side but happened to fall upon the oppressed and the injured he died together with his party Victrix causa Deis placuit sed vict a Catoni And if God thus dealt with the best of Heathens to whom he had made no cleare revelation of immortal recompences how little is the faith and how much lesse is the patience of Christians if they shall think much to suffer sorrows since they so clearly see with the eye of faith the great things which are laid up for them that are faithful unto the death Faith is uselesse if now in the midst of so great pretended lights we shall not dare to trust God unlesse we have all in hand that we desire and suffer nothing for all we can hope for They that live by sense have no use of faith yet our Lord Jesus concerning whose passions the gospel speaks much but little of his glorifications whose shame was publick whose pains were notorious but his joyes and transfigurations were secret and kept private he who would not suffer his holy mother whom in great degrees he exempted from sin to be exempted from many and great sorrows certainly intends to admit none to his resurrection but by the doors of his grave none to glory but by the way of the crosse If we be planted into the likenesse of his death we shall be also of his resurrection else on no termes Christ took away sin from us but he left us our share of sufferings and the crosse which was first printed upon us in the waters of baptisme must for ever be born by us in penance in mortification in self-denial and in martyrdom and toleration according as God shall require of us by the changes of the world and the condition of the Church For Christ considers nothing but souls he values not their estate or bodies supplying our want by his providence and being secured that our bodies may be killed but cannot perish so long as we preserve our duty and our consciences Christ our Captain hangs naked upon the crosse our fellow souldiers are cast into prison torne with Lions rent in sunder with trees returning from their violent bendings broken upon wheels rosted upon gridirons and have had the honour not onely to have a good cause but also to suffer for it and by faith not by armies by patience not by fighting have overcome the world sit anima mea cum Christianis I pray God my soul may be among the Christians and yet the Turks have prevailed upon a great part of the Christian world and have made them slaves and tributaries and do them all spite and are hugely prosperous but when Christians are so then they are tempted and put in danger and never have their duty and their interest so well secured as when they lose all for Christ and are adorned with wounds or poverty change or scorn affronts or revilings which are the obelisks and triumphs of a holy cause Evil men and evil causes had need have good fortune and great successe to support their persons and their pretences for nothing but innocence and Christianity can flourish in a persecution I summe up this first discourse in a word in all the Scripture and in all the Authentick stories of the Church we finde it often that the Devil appeared in the shape of an Angell of light but was never suffered so much as to conterfeit a persecuted sufferer say no more therefore as the murmuring Israelites said If the LORD be with us why have these evils apprehended us for if to be afflicted be a signe that God hath forsaken a man and refuses to own his religion or his question then he that oppresses the widow and murders the innocent and puts the fatherlesse to death and follows providence by doing all the evils that he can that is all that God suffers him he I say is the onely Saint and servant of God and upon the same ground the wolf and the fox may boast when they scatter and devour a flock of lambs and harmlesse sheep Sermon X. The Faith and Patience of the SAINTS OR The righteous cause oppressed Part II. IT follows now that we inquire concerning the reasons of the Divine Providence in this administration of affairs so far as he hath been pleased to draw aside the curtain and to unfold the leaves of his counsels and predestination and for such an inquiry we have the precedent of the Prophet Jeremy Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let us talk to thee of thy judgements wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously Thou hast planted them yea they have taken root they grow yea they bring forth fruit Concerning which in generall the Prophet Malachy gives this account after the same complaint made And now we call the proud happy and they that work wickednesse are set up yea they that tempt God are even delivered They that feared the Lord spake often one to another and the Lord hearkened and heard and a book of remembrance was written before time for them that feared the Lord and thought upon his Name and they shall be mine saith the Lord of Hosts in that day when I binde up my jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him Then shall ye return and discern betwen the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not In this interval which is a valley of tears it is no wonder if they rejoyce who shall weep for ever and they that sow in tears shall have no cause to complain when God gathers all the mourners into his kingdom they shall reape with joy For innocence and joy were appointed to dwel together for ever And joy went not first but when innocence went away sorrow and sicknesse dispossessed joy of its habitation and now this world must be alwayes a scene of sorrows and no joy can grow here but that which is imaginary and phantastick there is no worldly joy no joy proper for this world but that which wicked persons fancy to themselves in the hopes and designes of iniquity He that covets his neighbours wife or land dreams of fine things and thinks it a fair condition to be rich and cursed to be a beast and die or to lie wallowing in his filthinesse but those holy souls who are not in love with the leprosie the Itch for the pleasure of scratching they know no pleasure can grow from the thorns which Adam planted in the hedges of Paradise and that sorrow which
one and he whom I serve is obliged to feed and to defend me in the same proportions as I serve and justice is a relative terme and supposes two persons obliged and though fortunes are unequal and estates are in majority and subordination and men are wise or foolish honoured or despised yet in the entercourses of justice God hath made that there is no difference and therefore it was esteemed ignoble to dismisse a servant when corn was dear in dangers of shipwrack to throw out an unprofitable boy and keep a fair horse or for a wise man to snatch a plank from a drowning fool or if the Master of the ship should challenge the board upon which his passenger swims for his life or to obtrude false moneys upon others which we first took for true but at last discovered to be false or not to discover the gold which the merchant sold for alchimy The reason of all these is because the collateral advantages are not at all to be considered in matter of rights and though I am dearest to my self as my neighbour is to himself yet it is necessary that I permit him to his own advantages as I desire to be permitted to mine Now therefore simplicity and ingenuity in all contracts is perfectly and exactly necessary because its contrary destroys that equality which justice hath placed in the affaires of men and makes all things private and makes a man dearer to himself and to be preferred before Kings and republicks and Churches it destroyes society and it makes multitudes of men to be but like heards of beasts without proper instruments of exchange and securities of possession without faith and without propriety concerning all which there is no other account to be given but that the rewards of craft are but a little money and a great deal of dishonour and much suspicion and proportionable scorn watches and guards spies and jealousies are his portion But the crown of justice is a fair life and a clear reputation an inheritance there where justice dwells since she left the earth even in the kingdome of the just who shall call us to judgement for every word and render to every man according to his works and what is the hope of the hypocrite though he hath gained when the Lord taketh away his soul Tollendum esse ex rebus contrahendis omne mendacium That 's the sum of this rule no falshod or deceit is to be endured in any contract 5. Christian simplicity hath also its necessity and passes obligation upon us towards enemies in questions of law or war Plutarch commends Lysander and Philopaemen for their craft and subtilty in war but commends it not as an ornament to their manners but that which had influence into prosperous events just as Ammianus affirms nullo discrimine virtutis ac doli prosperos omnes laudari debere bellorum eventus whatsoever in war is prosperous men use to commend But he that is a good souldier is not alwayes a good man Callicratidas was a good man and followed the old way of downright hostility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Lysander was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a crafty man full of plots but not noble in the conduct of his armes I remember Euripides brings in Achilles commending the ingenuity of his breeding and the simplicity and noblenesse of his own heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The good old man Chiron was my Tutor and he taught me to use simplicity and honesty in all my manners It was well and noble But yet some wise men do not condemn all souldiers that use to get victories by deceit Saint Austin allows it to be lawful and Saint Chrysostome commends it These Good men supposed that a crafty victory was better then a bloody war and certainly so it is if the power gotten by craft be not exercised in blood But this businesse as to the case of conscience will quickly be determined Enemies are no persons bound by contract and society and therefore are not obliged to open hostilities and ingenuous prosecutions of the war and if it be lawful to take by violence it is not unjust to take the same thing by craft But this is so to be understood that where there is an obligation either by the law of nations or by special contracts No man dare to violate his faith or honour but in these things deal with an ingenuity equal to the truth of peacefull promises and acts of favour and endearment to our relatives Josephus tells of the sons of Herod that in their enmities with their Vncle Pherora and Salome they had disagreeing manners of prosecution as they had disagreeing hearts some railed openly and thought their enmity the more honest because it was not concealed but by their ignorance and rude untutor'd malice lay open to the close designes of the elder brood of foxes In this because it was a particular and private quarrel there is no rule of conscience but that it be wholly laid aside and appeased with charity for the opennesse of the quarrel was but the rage and indiscretion of the malice and the close designe was but the craft and advantage of the malice But in just wars on that side where a competent authority and a just cause warrants the arms and turns the active opposition into the excuse and licence of defence there is no restraint upon the actions and words of men in the matter of sincerity but that the laws of nations be strictly pursued and all parties promises and contracts observed religiously by the proportion of a private Christian ingenuity We finde it by wise and good men mentioned with honour that the Romans threw bread from the besieged Capitol into the stations of the Gauls that they might think them full of corn and that Agesilaus discouraged the enemies by causing his own men to wear crowns in token of a Navall victory gotten by Pisander who yet was at that time destroyed by Conon and that Flaccus said the city was taken by Emilius or that Joshua dissembled a flight at Ai and the Consul Quinctius told aloud that the left wing of the enemies was fled and that made the right wing fly or that Valerius Levinus bragged prudently that he had killed Pyrrhus and that others use the ensigns of enemies colours and garments concerning which sort of actions and words Agesilaus in Plutarch said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is just and pleasant profitable and glorious but to call a parley and fall in upon the men that treat to swear a peace and watch advantage to entertain Heralds and then to torment them to get from them notices of their party these are such which are dishonorable and unjust condemned by the laws of nations and essential justice by all the world and the Hungarian army was destroyed by a divine judgement at the prayer appeal of the Mahumetan enemy for their violating their faith and honour
Ocean and to span the measures of eternity I must do it by the great lines of revelation and experience and tell concerning Gods mercy as we do concerning God himself that he is that great fountain of which we all drink and the great rock of which we all eat and on which we all dwell and under whose shadow we all are refreshed Gods mercy is all this and we can onely draw great lines of it and reckon the constellations of our hemisphere instead of telling the number of the stars we onely can reckon what we feel and what we live by And though there be in every one of these lines of life enough to ingage us for ever to do God service and to give him praises yet it is certain there are very many mercies of God upon us and toward us and concerning us which we neither feel nor see nor understand as yet but yet we are blessed by them and are preserved and secured and we shall then know them when we come to give God thanks in the festivities of an eternall sabbath But that I may confine my discourse into order since the subject of it cannot I consider 1. That mercy being an emanation of the Divine goodnesse upon us and supposes us and found us miserable In this account concerning the mercies of God I must not reckon the miracles and graces of the creation or any thing of the nature of man nor tell how great an endearment God passed upon us that he made us men capable of felicity apted with rare instruments of discourse and reason passions and desires notices of sense and reflections upon that sense that we have not the deformity of a Crocodile nor the motion of a Worm nor the hunger of a Wolf nor the wildenesse of a Tigre nor the birth of Vipers nor the life of flies nor the death of serpents Our excellent bodies and usefull faculties the upright motion and the tenacious hand the fair appetites and proportioned satisfactions our speech and our perceptions our acts of life the rare invention of letters and the use of writing and speaking at distance the intervals of rest and labour either of which if they were perpetual would be intolerable the needs of nature and the provisions of providence sleep and businesse refreshments of the body and entertainment of the soul these are to be reckoned as acts of bounty rather then mercy God gave us these when he made us and before we needed mercy these were portions of our nature or provided to supply our consequent necessities but when we forfeited all Gods favour by our sins then that they were continued or restored to us became a mercy and therefore ought to be reckoned upon this new account for it was a rare mercy that we were suffered to live at all or that the Anger of God did permit to us one blessing that he did punish us so gently But when the rack is changed into an ax and the ax into an imprisonment and the imprisonment changed into an enlargement and the enlargement into an entertainment in the family and this entertainment passes on to an adoption these are steps of a mighty favour and perfect redemption from our sin and the returning back our own goods is a gift and a perfect donative sweetned by the apprehensions of the calamity from whence every lesser punishment began to free us and thus it was that God punished us and visited the sin of Adam upon his posterity He threatned we should die and so we did but not so as we deserved we waited for death and stood sentenced and are daily summoned by sicknesses and uneasinesse and every day is a new reprieve and brings a new favour certain as the revolution of the Sun upon that day and at last when we must die by the irreversible decree that death is changed into a sleep and that sleep is in the bosom of Christ and there dwels all peace and security and it shall passe forth into glories and felicities We looked for a Judge and behold a Saviour we feared an accuser and behold an Advocate we sate down in sorrow and rise in joy we leaned upon Rhubarb and Aloes and our aprons were made of the sharp leaves of Indian fig-trees and so we fed and so were clothed But the Rhubarb proved medicinal and the rough leaf of the tree brought its fruit wrapped up in its foldings and round about our dwellings was planted a hedge of thornes and bundles of thistles the Aconite and the Briony the Night-shade and the Poppy and at the root of these grew the healing Plantain which rising up into a talnesse by the friendly invitation of a heavenly influence turn'd about the tree of the crosse and cured the wounds of the thorns and the curse of the thistles and the malediction of man and the wrath of God Si sic irascitur quomodo convivatur If God be thus kinde when he is Angry what is he when he feasts us with caresses of his more tender Kindnesse All that God restored to us after the foâ—feiture of Adam grew to be a double Kindnesse for it became the expression of a bounty which knew not how to repent a graciousnesse that was not to be altered though we were and that was it which we needed That 's the first generall all the bounties of the creation became mercies to us when God continued them to us and restored them after they were forfeit 2. But as a circle begins every where and ends no where so do the mercies of God after all this huge progresse now it began anew God is good and gracious and God is ready to forgive Now that he had once more made us capable of mercies God had what he desired and what he could rejoyce in something upon which he might pour forth his mercies and by the way this I shall observe for I cannot but speak without art when I speak of that which hath no measure God made us capable of one sort of his mercies and we made our selves capable of another God is good and gracious that is desirous to give great gifts and of this God made us receptive first by giving us naturall possibilities that is by giving those gifts he made us capable of more and next by restoring us to his favour that he might not by our provocations be hindered from raining down his mercies But God is also ready to forgive and of this kinde of mercy we made our selves capable even by not deserving it Our sin made way for his grace and our infirmities called upon his pity and because we sinned we became miserable and because we were miserable we became pitiable and this opened the other treasure of his mercy that because our sin abounds his grace may superabound In this method we must confine our thoughts 1. Giving Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee 2. Forgiving Thou Lord art good
is There is a yet in the Text For all this yet doth God devise means that his banished be not expelled from him All this sorrow and trouble is but a phantasme and receives its account and degrees from our present conceptions and the proportion to our relishes and gust When Pompey saw the Ghost of his first Lady Julia who vexed his rest and his conscience for superinducing Cornelia upon her bed within the ten moneths of mourning he presently fancied it either to be an illusion or else that death could be no very great evil Aut nihil est sensus animis in morte relictum Aut morsipsa nihil Either my dead wife knows not of my unhandsome marriage and forgetfulnesse of her or if she does then the dead live longae canitis si cognita vitae Mors media est Death is nothing but the middle point between two lives between this and another concerning which comfortable mystery the holy Scripture instructs our faith and entertains our hope in these words God is still the God of Abraham Isaak and Jacob for all do live to him and the souls of Saints are with Christ I desire to be dissolved saith S. Paul and to be with Christ for that is much better and Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord they rest from their labours and their works follow them For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternall in the heavens and this state of separation S. Paul calls a being absent from the body and being present with the Lord This is one of Gods means which he hath devised that although our Dead are like persons banished from this world yet they are not expelled from God They are in the hands of Christ they are in his presence they are or shall be clothed with a house of Gods making they rest from all their labours all tears are wiped from their eyes and all discontents from their spirits and in the state of separation before the soul be reinvested with her new house the spirits of al persons are with God so secured and so blessed and so sealed up for glory that this state of interval and imperfection is in respect of its certain event and end infinitely more desirable then all the riches and all the pleasures and all the vanities and all the Kingdoms of this world I will not venture to determine what are the circumstances of the aboad of Holy Souls in their separate dwellings and yet possibly that might be easier then to tell what or how the soul is and works in this world where it is in the body tanquam in alienâ domo as in a prison in fetters and restraints for here the soal is discomposed and hindered it is not as it shall be as it ought to be as it was intended to be it is not permitted to its own freedom and proper operation so that all that we can understand of it here is that it is so incommodated with a troubled and abated instrument that the object we are to consider cannot be offered to us in a right line in just and equal propositions or if it could yet because we are to understand the soul by the soul it becomes not onely a troubled and abused object but a crooked instrument and we here can consider it just as a weak eye can behold a staffe thrust into the waters of a troubled river the very water makes a refraction and the storm doubles the refraction and the water of the eye doubles the species and there is nothing right in the thing the object is out of its just place and the medium is troubled and the organ is impotent At cum exierit in liberum coelum quasi in domum suam venerit when the soul is entred into her own house into the free regions of the rest and the neighbourhood of heavenly joyes then its operations are more spiritual proper and proportioned to its being and though we cannot see at such a distance yet the object is more fitted if we had a capable understanding it is in it self in a more excellent and free condition Certain it is that the body does hinder many actions of the soul it is an imperfect body and a diseased brain or a violent passion that makes fools no man hath a foolish soul and the reasonings of men have infinite difference and degrees by reason of the bodies constitution Among beasts which have no reason there is a greater likenesse then between men who have as by faces it is easier to know a man from a man then a sparrow from a sparrow or a squirrel from a squirrel so the difference is very great in our souls which difference because it is not originally in the soul and indeed cannot be in simple and spiritual substances of the same species or kind it must needs drive wholly from the body from its accidents and circumstances from whence it follows that because the body casts fetters and restraints hindrances and impediments upon the soul that the soul is much freer in the state of separation and if it hath any any act of life it is much more noble and expedite That the soul is alive after our death S. Paul affirms Christ died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him Now it were strange that we should be alive and live with Christ and yet do no act of life the body when it is asleep does many and if the soul does none the principle is lesse active then the instrument but if it does any act at all in separation it must necessarily be an act or effect of understanding there is nothing else it can do But this it can For it is but a weak and an unlearned proposition to say That the Soul can do nothing of it self nothing without the phantasmes and provisions of the body For 1. In this life the soul hath one principle clearly separate abstracted immaterial I mean the Spirit of grace which is a principle of life and action and in many instances does not all at communicate with matter as in the infusion superinduction and the creation of spiritual graces 2. As nutrition generation eating and drinking are actions proper to the body and its state so extasies visions raptures intuitive knowledge and consideration of its self acts of volition and reflex acts of understanding are proper to the soul. 3. And therefore it is observable that S. Paul said that he knew not whether his visions and raptures were in or out of the body for by that we see his judgement of the thing that one was as likely as the other neither of them impossible or unreasonable and therefore that the soul is as capable of action alone as in conjunction 4. If in the state of blessednesse there are some actions of the soul which doe not passe through
to follow and now that we are come to weep over the grave of our Dear Sister this rare personage we cannot chuse but have many vertues to learn many to imitate and some to exercise I chose not to declare her extraction and genealogy It was indeed fair and Honorable but having the blessing to be descended from worthy and Honoured Ancestors and her self to be adopted and ingraffed into a more Noble family yet she felt such outward appendages to be none of hers because not of her choice but the purchase of the vertues of others which although they did ingage her to do noble things yet they would upbraid all degenerate and lesse honourable lives then were those which began and increased the honour of the families She did not love her fortune for making her noble but thought it would be a dishonour to her if she did not continue her Noblenesse and excellency of vertue fit to be owned by persons relating to such Ancestors It is fit for all us to honour the Noblenesse of a family but it is also fit for them that are Noble to despise it and to establish their honour upon the foundation of doing excellent things and suffering in good causes and despising dishonourable actions and in communicating good things to others For this is the rule in Nature Those creatures are most Honourable which have the greatest power and do the greatest good And accordingly my self have been a witnesse of it how this excellent Lady would by an act of humility and Christian abstraction strip her self of all that fair appendage of exteriour honour which decked her person and her fortune and desired to be owned by nothing but what was her own that she might onely be esteemed Honourable according to that which is the honour of a Christian and a wise person 2. She had a strict and severe education and it was one of Gods graces and favours to her For being the Heiresse of a great fortune and living amongst the throng of persons in the sight of vanities and empty temptations that is in that part of the Kingdom where greatnesse is too often expressed in great follies and great vices God had provided a severe and angry education to chastise the forwardnesses of a young spirit and a fair fortune that she might for ever be so far distant from a vice that she might onely see it and loath it but never tast of it so much as to be put to her choice whether she would be vertuous or no. God intending to secure this soul to himself would not suffer the follies of the world to seize upon her by way of too neer a trial or busie temptation 3. She was married young and besides her businesses of religion seemed to be ordained in the providence of God to bring to this Honourable family a part of a fair fortune and to leave behinde her a fairer issue worth ten thousand times her portion and as if this had been all the publick businesse of her life when she had so far served Gods ends God in mercy would also serve hers and take her to an early blessednesse 4. In passing through which line of providence she had the art to secure her eternal interest by turning her condition into duty expressing her duty in the greatest eminency of a vertuous prudent and rare affection that hath been known in any example I will not give her so low a testimony as to say onely that she was chast She was a person of that severity modesty and close religion as to that particular that she was not capable of uncivil temptation and you might as well have suspected the sun to smell of the poppy that he looks on as that she could have been a person apt to be sullyed by the breath of a foul question 5. But that which I shall note in her is that which I would have exemplar to all Ladies and to all women She had a love so great for her Lord so intirely given up to a dear affection that she thought the same things and loved the same loves and hated according to the same enmities and breathed in his soul and lived in his presence and languished in his absence and all that she was or did was onely for and to her Dearest Lord Si gaudet si slet si tacit hunc loquitur Coenat propinat poscit negat innuit unus Naevius est and although this was a great enamel to the beauty of her soul yet it might in some degrees be also a reward to the vertue of her Lord For she would often discourse it to them that conversed with her that he would improve that interest which he had in her affection to the advantages of God and of religion and she would delight to say that he called her to her devotions he encouraged her good inclinations he directed her piety he invited her with good books and then she loved religion which she saw was not onely pleasing to God and an act or state of duty but pleasing to her Lord and an act also of affection and conjugal obedience and what at first she loved the more forwardly for his sake in the using of religion left such relishes upon her spirit that she found in it amability enough to make her love it for its own So God usually brings us to him by instruments of nature and affections and then incorporates us into his inheritance by the more immediate relishes of Heaven and the secret things of the Spirit He only was under God the light of her eyes and the cordiall of her spirits and the guide of her actions and the measure of her affections till her affections swelled up into a religion and then it could go no higher but was confederate with those other duties which made her dear to God Which rare combination of duty and religion I choose to expresse in the words of Solomon She forsook not the guide of her youth nor brake the Covenant of her God 6. As she was a rare wife so she was an excellent Mother For in so tender a constitution of spirit as hers was and in so great a kindnesse towards her children there hath seldom been seen a stricter and more curious care of their persons their deportment their nature their disposition their learning and their customs And if ever kindnesse and care did contest and make parties in her yet her care and her severity was ever victorious and she knew not how to do an ill turn to their severer part by her more tender and forward kindnesse And as her custome was she turned this also into love to her Lord. For she was not onely diligent to have them bred nobly and religiously but also was carefull and solicitous that they should be taught to observe all the circumstances inclinations the desires and wishes of their Father as thinking that vertue to have no good circumstances which was not dressed by his copy and ruled by
frequent using of that saying have made it almost proverbiall Factum valet fieri non debet If they doe not sinne then women Lay men have as much right from Christ to baptize as Deacons or Presbyters then they may upon the same stock and right doe it as Deacons doe for if a Bishop was present it was not lawfull for Deacons as is expresly affirmed by S. Ignatius in his Epistle to Heron the Deacon and S. Epiphanius with the same words denies a sus baptizandi to women and to Deacons and both of them affirme it to be proper to Bishops Further yet Tertullian and S. Hierom deny a power to Presbyters to doe it without Episcopall dispensation Now if Presbyters and Deacons have this power onely by leave and in certain cases then it is no more then women have onely that they are fitter persons to be intrusted with the deputation a lesse necessity will devolve it upon Presbyters then upon Deacons and upon Deacons then Lay men and a lesse yet will cast it upon Lay men then women and this difference is in respect of humane order and positive constitution but in the nature of the thing according to this doctrine all persons are equally receptive of it And therefore to baptize is no part of the grace of Orders no fruit of the holy Ghost but a work which may be done by all and at some times must and if baptisme may then it will be hard to keep all the other rites from the common inrodes and then the whole office wil perish But if Lay persons baptizing though in case of necessity doe sin as S. Augustine seems to say they doe then it is certain Christ never gave them leave so much as by insinuation and then neither can the Church give leave for she can give leave for no man to sin and besides such a deputation were to no purpose Because no person shall dare to doe it for evill is not to be done though for the obtaining the greatest good and it will be hard to state the question so that either the childe shall perish or some other must perish for it for he that positively ventures upon a sin for a good end worships God with a sinne and therefore shall be thank'd with a damnation if he dies before repentance but if the childe shall not perish in such case of not being baptized then why should any man break the rule of institution and if he shall perish without being baptized then God hath affixed the salvation of the childe upon the condition of another mans sinne 3. And indeed the pretence of cases of necessity may doe much towards the excusing an irregularity in an exterior rite though of divine institution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But it will not be easily proved that God hath made any such necessities it is certain that for persons having the use of reason God hath provided a remedy that no lay persons should have need to baptize a Catechumen for his votum or desire of Baptisme shall serve his turne And it will be unimaginable that God hath made no provision for infants and yet put it upon them in many cases with equall necessity which without breach of a divine institution cannot be supplied 4. If a Lay person shall baptize whether or no shall the person baptized receive benefit or will any more but the outward act be done for that the Lay person shall convey rem Sacramenti or be the minister of sacramentall grace is no where revealed in Scripture and is against the Analogy of the Gospell for the verbum reconciliationis all the whole ministery of reconciliation is intrusted to the Priest Nobis saith S. Paul to us who are Embassadors And what difference is there if cases of necessity be pretended in the defect of other ministeries but that they also may be invaded and cases of necessity may by other men also be numbred in the other Sacrament and they have done so and I know who said that no man must consecrate the Sacramēt of the Lords supper but he that is lawfully called except there be a case of necessity and that there may be a case of necessity for the blessed Sacrament there needs no other testimony then the Nicene councell which calls the Sacrament in the article of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viaticum the most necessary provision for our journey and if a lay person absolves there is as much promise of the validity of one as of the other unlesse it be said that there may be absolute necessity of baptisme but not so of absolution which the maintainers of the other opinion are not apt to professe And therefore S. Augustine did not know whether baptisme administred by a lay person be to be repeated or no Nescio an piè quisquam dixerit he knew not neither doe I. But Simeon of Thessalonica is confident 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No man baptizes but he that is in holy orders the baptisme is null I cannot say so nor can I say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let it be received Onely I offer this to consideration if a Deacon can doe no ministeriall act with effect but a lay person may doe the same with effect upon the person suscipient what is that supernaturall grace and inherent and indelible character which a Deacon hath received in his ordination If a Deacon can doe no supernaturall act which were void and null if done by him that is not a Deacon he hath no character no spirituall inherent power and that he is made the ordinary minister of it is for order sake but he that can doe the same thing hath the same power and ability by this ground a Lay person and a Deacon are not distinguished by any inherent character and therefore they who understand the spirituall powers and effects of ordination in the sense and expression of an inherent and indelible character will finde some difficulty in allowing the effect of a lay baptisme But I consider that the instances of Scripture brought for the lawfulnesse of lay administration if they had no particular exception yet are impertinent to this question for it is not with us pretended in any case to be lawfull but in extreme necessity And therefore S. Peters deputing the brethren who come with him to Cornelius to baptize his family is nothing to our purpose and best answers it selfe for either they were of the Clergy who came with them or else lay persons may baptize by the right of an ordinary deputation without a case of necessity for here was none S. peter might have done it himself And as for Ananias he was one of the seventy two and if that be nothing yet he was called to that ministration about Paul as Paul himselfe was to the Apostleship even by an immediate vocation and mission from Christ himselfe And if this answer were not sufficient as it is most certainly the argument
give us these gifts and when he hath finished the prayers and thanksgiving all the people that is present with a joyfull acclamation say Amen Which when it is done by the Presidents and people those which amongst us are called Deacons and Ministers distribute to every one that is present that they may partake of him in whom the thanks were presented the Eucharist bread wine and water and may beare it to the absent Moreover this nourishment is by us called the Eucharist which it is lawfull for none to partake but to him who beleeves our doctrine true and is washed in the Laver for the remission of sins and regeneration and that lives so as Christ delivered For we doe not take it as common bread common drink but as by the word of God Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world was made flesh and for our salvation sake had flesh and bloud after the same manner also we are taught that this nourishment in which by the prayers of his word which is from him the food in which thanks are given or the consecrated food by which our flesh bloud by mutation or change are nourished is the flesh bloud of the incarnate Jesus For the Apostles in their commentaries which they wrote which are called the Gospells so delivered that Jesus commanded For when he had given thanks and taken bread he said Doe this in remembrance of me This is my body And likewise taking the Chalice and having given thanks he said This is my bloud and that he gave it to them alone This one testimony I reckon as sufficient who please to see more may observe the tradition full testified and intire in Ignatius Clemens Romanus or who ever wrote the Apostolicall constitutions in his name Tertullian S. Cyprian S. Athanasius Epiphanius S. Basil S. Chrysostome almost every where S. Hierome S. Augustine and indeed we cannot look in vain into any of the old writers The summe of whose doctrine in this particular I shall represent in the words of the most ancient of them S. Ignatius saying that he is worse then an infidell that offers to officiate about the holy Altar unlesse he be a Bishop or a Priest And certainly he could upon no pretence have challenged the Appellative of Christian who had dared either himselfe to invade the holy rites within the Cancels or had denyed the power of celebrating this dreadfull mystery to belong onely to sacerdotall ministration For either it is said to be but common bread and wine and then if that were true indeed any body may minister it but then they that say so are blasphemous they count the bloud of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Paul calls it in imitation of the words of institution The bloud of the Covenant or new Testament a profane or common thing they discerne not the Lords body they know not that the bread that is broken is the communication of Christs body But if it be a holy separate or divine and mysterious thing who can make it ministerially I mean and consecrate or sublime it from common and ordinary bread but a consecrate separate and sublimed person It is to be done either by a naturall power or by a supernaturall A naturall cannot hallow a thing in order to God and they onely have a supernaturall who have derived it from God in order to this ministration who can show that they are taken up into the lot of that Deacon-ship which is the type and representment of that excellent ministery of the true Tabernacle where Jesus himselfe does the same thing in a higher and a more excellent manner This is the great secret of the kingdome to which in the Primitive Church many who yet had given up their names to Christ by designation or solemnity were not admitted so much as to the participation as the Catechumens the Audientes the Poenitentes Neophytes and Children and the ministery of it was not onely reserved for sacred persons but also performed with so much mysterious secrecy that many were not permitted so much as to see This is that rite in which the Priest intercedes for and blesses the people offering in their behalfe not onely their prayers but applying the sacrifice of Christ to their prayers and representing them with glorious advantages and tithes of acceptation which because it was so excellent celestiall sacred mysticall and supernaturall it raised up the persons too that the ministeriall Priesthood in the Church might according to the nature of all great imployments passe an excellency and a value upon the ministers And therefore according to the naturall reason of religion and the devotion of all the world the Christians because they had the greatest reason so to doe did honour their Clergy with the greatest veneration and esteem It is without a Metaphor regale sacerdotium a royall Priesthood so S. Peter which although it be spoken in generall of the Christian Church and in an improper large sense is verified of the people yet it is so to be expounded as that parallel place of the books of Moses from whence the expression is borrowed Yee shall be a kingdome of Priests and an Holy Nation which plainly by the sense and Analogy of the Mosaick law signifies a nation blessed by God with rites and ceremonies of a separate religion a kingdome in which Priests are appointed by God a kingdome in which nothing is more honourable then the Priesthood for it is certain the nation was famous in all the world for an honorable Priesthood and yet the people were not Priests in any sense but of a violent Metaphor And therefore the Christian ministery having greater privileges and being honoured with attrectation of the body and bloud of Christ and offices serving to a better Covenant may with greater argument be accounted excellent honorable and royall and all the Church be called a royall Priesthood the denomination being given to the whole from the most excellent part because they altogether make one body under Christ the head the medium of the union being the Priests the collectors of the Church and instrument of adunation and reddendo singula singulis dividing to each his portion of the expression the people is a peculiar people the Clergy a holy Priesthood and all in conjunction and for severall excellencies a chosen Nation so that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Priesthood of the kingdome that is the ministery of the Gospell for in the new Testament the kingdome signifies the Gospell and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kingly is of or belonging to the Gospell for therefore it is observable it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not well rendred by the vulgar Latine regale sacerdotium as if Kingly were the Appellative or Epithete of this Priesthood it
way of naturall or proper operation it is not vis but facultas not an inherent quality that issues out actions by way of direct emanation like naturall or acquired habits but it is a grace or favour done to the person and a qualification of him in genere politico he receives a politick publick and solemn capacity to intervene between God and the people and although it were granted that the people could do the externall work or the action of Church ministeries yet they are actions to no purpose they want the life and all the excellency unlesse they be done by such persons whom God hath called to it and by some means of his own hath expressed his purpose to accept them in such ministrations And this explication will easily be verified in all the particulars of the Priests power because all the ministeries of the Gospell are in genere orationis unlesse we except preaching in which God speaks by his servants to the people the minister by his office is an intercessor with God and the word used in Scripture for the Priests officiating signifies his praying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were ministring or doing their Liturgy the work of their supplications and intercession and therefore the Apostles positively included all their whole ministery in these two but we will give our selves to the word of God and to prayer the prayer of consecration the prayer of absolution the prayer of imposition of hands they had nothing else to doe but pray and preach And for this reason it was that the Apostles in a sense neerest to the letter did verifie the precept of our blessed Saviour Pray continually that is in all the offices acts parts and ministeries of a dayly Liturgy This is not to lessen the power but to understand it for the Priests ministery is certainly the instrument of conveying all the blessings of the people which are annexed to the ordinary administration of the Spirit But when all the office of Christs Priesthood in heaven is called intercession for us and himself makes the sacrifice of the Crosse effectuall to the salvation and graces of his Church by his prayer since we are ministers of the same Priesthood can there be a greater glory then to have our ministery like to that of Jesus not operating by virtue of a certain number of syllables but by a holy solemn determined and religious prayer in the severall manners and instances of intercession according to the analogy of all the religions in the world whose most solemn mystery was then most solemn prayer I mean it in the matter of sacrificing which also is true in the most mysterious solemnity of Christianity in the holy Sacrament of the Lords supper which is hallowed and lifted up from the common bread and wine by mysticall prayers and solemn invocations of God And therefore S. Dionysius calls the forms of consecration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prayers of consecration and S. Cyrill in his 3 mystagogique Catechism says the same The Eucharisticall bread after the invocations of the holy Ghost is not any longer common bread but the body of Christ. For although it be necessary that the words which in the Latin Church have been for a long time called the words of consecration which indeed are more properly the words of institution should be repeated in every consecration because the whole action is not completed according to Christs pattern nor the death of Christ so solemnly enunciated without them yet even those words also are part of a mysticall prayer and therefore as they are not onely intended there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of history or narration as Cabasil mistakes so also in the most ancient Liturgies they were not onely read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as a meer narrative but also with the form of an addresse or invocation Fiat hic panis corpus Christi fiat hoc vinum sanguis Christi Let this bread be made the body of Christ c. So it is in S. James his Liturgy S. Clement S. Marks and the Greek Doctors And in the very recitation of the words of institution the people ever used to answer Amen which intimates it to have been a consecration in genere orationis called by S. Paul benediction or the bread of blessing and therefore S. Austin expounding those words of S. Paul Let prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks be made saith Eligo in his verbis hoc intelligere quod omnis vel pene omnis frequent at ecclesia ut precationes accipiamus dictas quas fecimus in celebratione sacramentorum antequam illud quod est in Domini mensâ accipiat benedici orationes cum benedicitur ad distribuendum comminuitur quam totam orationem pene omnis ecclesia Dominicâ oratione concludit The words and form of consecration he calls by the name of orationes supplications the prayers before the consecration preces and all the whole action oratio and this is according to the stile and practise and sense of the whole Church or very neer the whole And S. Basil saith that there is more necessary to consecration then the words recived by the Apostles and by the Evangelists * The words of invocation in the shewing the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing who of all the Saints have left to us For we are not content with those which the Apostle and the Evangelists mention but both before and after we say other words having great power towards the mystery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we have received by tradition These words set down in Scripture they retained as a part of the mystery cooperating to the solemnity manifesting the signification of the rite the glory of the change the operation of the Spirit the death of Christ and the memory of the sacrifice but this great work which all Christians knew to be done by the holy Ghost the Priest did obtain by prayer and solemn invocation according to the saying of Proclus of C. P. speaking of the tradition of certain prayers used in the mysteries and indited by the Apostles as it was said but especially in S. James his Liturgy By these prayers saith he they expected the coming of the holy Ghost that his divine presence might make the bread and the wine mixt with water to become the body and bloud of our blessed Saviour And S. Justin Martyr very often calls the Eucharist food made sacramentall and eucharisticall by prayer and Origen we eat the bread holy and made the body of Christ by prayer Verbo Dei per obsecrationem sanctificatus bread sanctified by the word of God and by prayer viz. the prayer of consecration prece mystica is S. Austins expression of it Corpus Christi sanguinem dicimus illud tantum quod ex fructibus terrae acceptum pree mystica consecratum ritè sumimus That onely we call the
body and bloud of Christ which we receive of the fruits of the earth and being consecrated by the mysticall prayer we take according to the rite And S. Hierom chides the insolency of some Deacons towards Priests upon this ground Who can suffer that the Ministers of widdows and tables should advance themselves above those at whose prayers the body and bloud of Christ are exhibited or made presentiall I adde onely the words of Damascen The bread and wine are changed into the body and bloud of Christ supernaturally by invocation and coming of the Holy Ghost Now whether this consecration by prayer did mean to reduce the words of institution to the sense and signification of a prayer or that they mean the consecration was made by the other prayers annexed to the narrative of the institution according to the severall senses of the Greek and Latin Church yet still the ministery of the Priest whether in the words of consecration or in the annexed prayers is still by way of prayer Nay further yet the whole mystery it self is operative in the way of prayer saith Cassander in behalf of the School and of all the Roman Church and indeed S. Ambrose and others of the Fathers in behalf of the Church Catholick Nunc Christus offertur sed offertur quasi homo quasi recipiens passionem offert seipsum quasi Sacerdos ut peccata nostra dimittat hic in imagine ibi in veritate ubi apudpatrem quasi advocatus intervenit So that what the Priest does here being an imitation of Christ does in heaven is by the sacrifice of a solemn prayer and by the representing the action and passion of Christ which is effectuall in the way of prayer and by the exhibiting it to God by a solemn prayer and advocation in imitation of and union with Christ. All the whole office is an office of intercession as it passes from the Priest to God and from the people to God And then for that great mysteriousnesse which is the sacramentall change which is that which passes from God unto the people by the Priest that also is obtained and effected by way of prayer For since the Holy Ghost is the consecrator either he is called down by the force of a certain number of syllables which that he will verifie himself hath no where described and that he means not to do it he hath fairly intimated in setting down the institution in words of great vicinity to expresse the sense of the mystery but yet of so much difference and variety as will shew this great change is not wrought by such certain and determined words The bloud of the New Testament so it is in S. Matthew and S. Mark The new Testament in my bloud so S. Paul and S. Luke My body which is broken My body which is given c. and to think otherwise is so neer the Gentile rites and the mysteries of Zoroastes and the secret operations of the Enthei and heathen Priests that unlesse God had declared expressely such a power to be affixed to the recitation of such certain words it is not with too much forwardnesse to be supposed true in the spirituality of the Gospel But if the Spirit descends not by the force of syllables it follows he is called down by the prayers of the Church presented by the Priests which indeed is much to the honour of God and of religion an endearment of our duty is according to the analogy of the Gospell and a proper action or part of spirituall sacrifice that great excellency of Evangelicall religion For what can be more aptand reasonable to bring any great blessing from God then prayer which acknowledges him the fountain of blessing and yet puts us into a capacity of receiving it by way of morall predisposition that holy graces may descend into holy vessels by holy ministeries and conveyances and none are more fit for the employment then prayers whereby we blesse God and blesse the symbols and aske that God may blesse us and by which every thing is sanctified viz. by the word of God and prayer that is by Gods benediction and our impetration according to the use of the word in the saying of our blessed Saviour Man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God that is by Gods blessing to which prayer is to be joyned that we may cooperate with God in a way most likely to prevail with him and they are excellent words which Cassander hath said to the purpose Some Apostolicall Churches from the beginning used such solemn prayers to the celebration of the mysteries and Christ himself beside that he recited the words of institution he blessed the Symbols before and after sung an Ecclesiasticall hymn And therefore the Greek Churches which have with more severity kept the first and most ancient forms of consecration then the Latin Church affirm that the consecration is made by solemn invocation alone and the very recitation of the words spoken in the body of a prayer are used for argument to move God to hallow the gifts and as an expression and determination of the desire And this Gabriel of Philadelphia observes out of an Apostolical Liturgy The words of our Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 antecedently and by way of institution and incentive are the form together with the words which the Priest afterwards recites according as it is set down in the divine Liturgy It is supposed he meanes the Liturgy reported to be made by S. James which is of the most ancient use in the Greek Church and all Liturgies in the world in their severall Canons of communion doe now and did for ever mingle solemn prayers together with recitation of Christs words The Church of England does most religiously observe it according to the custome and sense of the primitive Liturgies who always did beleeve the consecration not to be a naturall effect and change finished in any one instant but a divine alteration consequent to the whole ministery that is the solemn prayer and invocation Now if this great ministery be by way of solemn prayer it will easier be granted that so the other are For absolution and reconciliation of penitents I need say no more but the question of S. Austin Quid est aliud manus impositio quam or atio super hominem And the Priestly absolution is called by Saint Leo Sacerdotum supplicationes the prayers of Priests and in the old Ordo Romanus and in the Pontificall the forms of reconciliation were Deus te absolvat the Lord pardon thee c. But whatsoever the forms were for they may be optative or indicative or declarative the case is not altered as to this question for whatever the act of the Priest be whether it be the act of a Judge or of an Embassadour a Counsellor or a Physitian or all this the blessing which he ministers is by way of a solemn prayer