they do well to be angry even to death but not at their sin of themselves but their brethren For Meekness and cruelty cannot harbor in the same breast Nor will it come near the habitations of Covetousness Ambition and Hypocrisie for where these make their entrance Meekness takes the wing and flyes away Therefore to conclude let us mark these men and avoid them as the Apostle counsels And though they bring us into bondage though they smite us on the face though they take from us all that we have let us pity them and send after them more then they desire our prayers that God will open their eyes that they may see the snare of the Devil which holds them fast while they defie him and all his works and what a poor and narrow space there is betwixt them and Hell while they think they are in the presence and favour of God In a word though they curse let us bless though they rage let us pray and as the Apostle counsels Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away from us with all Eph. 4. 31 32. malice And let us be kind and meek one to another tender-hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven us The Third SERMON PART III. MATTH V. 5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth WE cannot insist too long upon this subject yet we must insist longer then at first we did intend For this holy oyl like that of the Widows increaseth under our hands and flows more plentifully by being powred out That which our last reached unto you was the Object of Meekness which we found to be as large as the whole world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Paul Let your moderation be known unto all men For Meekness is not cloyster'd up within the walls of one Society nor doth it hide it self behind the curtains of Solomon but looks further upon the tents of Kedar upon Bethel and Bethaven We could not nor was it necessary to gather and fetch in all particulars but we then confined our meditations to those which we thought most pertinent and within their compass took in the rest which were Error in opinion and which is the greater error nay the greater heresie saith Erasmus Error in life and conversation Where we took off those common pretenses and excuses which Christians usually bring in as Advocates to plead for them when they forget that Meekness without which they cannot be Christians For what is in Error or in Sin which may raise my anger against my brother Errantis poena est doceri saith Plato If he erre his punishment is to be taught and if he sin we must molest and pursue him and beat upon him with line upon line with reprehension upon reprehension till we convert him If he erre why should I be angry and if he sin why should I hate him The way to uphold a falling House is not to demolish it nor is it the way to remove Sacriledge to beat the Temple down When we fight against Sin and Error we must make Christ our patern qui vulnus non hominem secat qui secat ut sanet who levels his hand and knife against the disease not against the man and never strikes but where he means to heal And now to add something which the time would not before permit Let us but a while put upon our selves the person of our adversaries and ours upon them and conceive it as possible for our selves to erre as for them and if we do not thus think we fall upon an error which will soon multiply and draw with it many more For we cannot erre more dangerously then by thinking we cannot erre And then to this let us joyn a prudent consideration of those truths wherein we both agree which peradventure may be more and more weighty then those in which we differ that so by the lustre and brightness of these the offence taken by the other may vanish as the mist before the Sun For why should they who agree in those truths that may lift them both up together to Heaven fall asunder and stand at distance as enemies for those which have no such force and activity This is to hazard the benefit of the one for the defense of the other and for the love of a truth not necessary to abate our love of that which should save us to forfeit our Charity in a violent contention for Faith and so be shut out of Heaven for our wild and impertinent knocking at the gates Therefore in all our disputes and debates with those whom we are so ready to condemn of error let us walk by this rule which Reason and Revelation have drawn out to be our guide and direction That no Text in Scripture can retain the sense and meaning of the blessed Spirit which doth not edifie in Charity Knowledge puffeth up swelleth us beyond our sphere and compass but it is Charity alone that doth edifie which in all things dictates what is expedient for all and so builds us up together in a holy Faith We cannot think that Doctrine can be of any use in the Church which exasperates and envenoms one man against another It is St. Bernards observation And therefore Moderation and Meekness is that Salt which Christ requires to be in us that wise and prudent seasoning Mark 5. 90. of our words that purging of our affections amongst which Ambitions and Envyings are the most violent Have this salt in your selves and then as it follows you shall have peace one with another And this Peace will beget in you a holy emulation to work out your eternal peace together with fear and trembling Secondly for Sin why judgest thou thy brother or so much forgettest that name as to be enraged against him The judgment is the Lord's who seeth things that are not as if they were What though he be fallen upon a stone and sore bruised he may be raised again and be built upon that foundation which is sure and hath this zeal The Lord knoweth who are his This open Profaner may become a zealous Professor this false witness may be a true Martyr this Persecutor of the Church may at last be a glorious member of it and a stout Champion for the Truth He that led the Saints bound to Jerusalem did himself afterwards rejoyce in his bonds and suffer and dye for that truth which he prosecuted The Apostle where he erects a kind of discipline amongst the Thessalonians thus 2 Thess 3. 14. draws it forth If any man obey not our word that is be refractory to the Gospel of Christ have no company with that man that he may be ashamed that seing others avoid him he may be forced to dwell at home to have recourse unto himself to hold colloquy with his own soul and to find out the plague in his heart which makes him thus like a Pelican in
but because God enjoyn'd them Look upon Abrahams offering of his Son Isaac simply by it self and that will seem a Sacrifice fitter for Moloch then a merciful God who requireth not so much as a Lamb from our fould but the Lord commanded it and then the Patriarchs obedience stil'd him for ever after Gods friend Consider the action alone without other Circumstances and what a barbarous thing it was for the Israelites to dispossess the Canaanites of their lives and fortunes who had done them no wrong when the very Heathen call'd Alexander but a more glorious Thief for doing less But God when their sins were full had devoted them to slaughter and then they were call'd the Lords battels Davids most bitter curses and execrations would damn a Christian if he should vomit them out of spleen but when the Holy Ghost did dictate them then they became the raptures of a zealous Prophet Think of Rahabs preserving the Spyes by a down-right lye Sampson's killing of himself with divers actions of this nature and then let me see him who can name any one thing which God cannot make lawful either by doing it himself or commanding it in others And yet it 's a common saying amongst the Civilians and Schoolmen That some things are in themselves immutable which God himself cannot alter plac'd as it were out of Gods reach as that some things are not evil because God hath forbidden them but are bad in their own nature before God hath laid any command concerning them at all robbing God as it were of part of his Legislative power which is to stamp every action good or bad as it seems best to his Divine will and pleasure Whereas if you examine it rightly what they say God by his Almighty power cannot make such and such actions lawful proceeds not from any Null-obliquity in the actions themselves but because we have wrapt them up in irreconcilable terms As for instance God cannot make it lawful for me to commit murder for it is a plain contradiction that ever it should be lawful to kill a man unlawfully but then God can make it lawful for me to kill any one living though I have never so neer a relation to him So again God cannot make it lawful for me to steal because to steal is to take away another mans right or property whilst it is his right but God can make it lawful for me to possess my self of any thing which another has by changing the property and by giving me a right unto it so that we may as infallibly conclude the action just whatsoever it be as we can assure our selves that God does it or authorizes it to be done though it seems to us never so irregular and even to contradict the Law of Nature Well then does the Prophet Jeremy here lay down this as a Maxim which he cannot deny that God is just though at first sight the prosperity of the wicked seems to overthrow it being if God does it it must needs be just because without any more ado God makes every action just by doing it though we at present cannot find the reason of it Why what would we have would we be Gods our selves and call the Lord to give us an accompt of all his Actions would we appoint him a day to bring in all his Reasons before us why he deals thus and thus with us Is this that we desire with the Prophet here to dispute the Question with the Almighty to circumscribe and bound him in within our limits to make a circle round about him which he should not pass but upon such causes as our wisdoms shall think fit But what a ridiculous thing is it in us to cry up Gods Councels as unsearchable and fling him off because we cannot comprehend him First to confess his paths past finding out and then renounce God because we cannot track him How childish does it shew in us to acknowledge a Lord God whose wayes are not our wayes nor his thoughts as our thoughts and yet bring him to our barr set him before our Courts of Justice and measure his actions by our line and plummet which are things of another kind quite of another nature from Gods which bear no proportion to them at all For he who pronounces of Gods actions according to those rules of Justice we have is guilty of the same vanity as if he should measure length by breadth and judge of colours by sound which are toto genere diversa and carry not the least Analogie to one another Seneca in one of his heats says He would rather believe Drunkenness a vertue then Cato vicious for being intemperate A speech vain enough in regard of him to whom he directed it but most excellently true if applyed unto God For we should rather believe Injustice to be Justice that to kill is to make alive to fail our hopes is to satisfie our longings as we think of Physicians Medicines that to poyson is to restore rather then by conceiving otherwise lay the least imputation upon Gods Truth because we cannot reconcile his proceedings with our Reason We do indeed heap up all the glorious titles upon God imaginable call him the Almighty wise God the Everlasting Councellor but in our dealings with him we do by retail take them all back again to our selves and when he comes to exact any duty or obedience from us which is troublesome then we cavil and murmur as if He had no power at all but were indeed a meer Idol How could it happen else that We who will trust a Lawyer with our whole Estate and without any scruple give him up all our Deeds and Writings to manage as he thinks fit yet will not trust our God one moment but as soon as ever we apprehend that things do cross our Interests presently we fall upon God accuse his Judgments for the miscarriage and as much as in us lies would take the business quite out of his Hand in seeking by unlawful means to preserve our selves How I say can it be else that we who dare commit our Lives into a Physitians hands and never question his Method though he put us to a new pain every hour as if he studied only how to torment us most will yet leave nothing to the Wisdom and disposing of God without Articles Conditions at every turn exacting an account of his Proceedings When the Jews admir'd how God could possibly lay aside his ancient people and turn to the Gentiles whom he never knew St. Paul Rom. 9. answers this Question with another saying Who art thou O man that replyest against God As if he had said suppose I could not assign any Reason for this Action of Gods would it therefore follow He were unjust 't is God whom thou replyest against and thou who do'st reply art but a man God whose way is in the Whirlwind and the Clouds are the dust of his feet Nahum 1. 3. God unsearchable in his Councils and Man so
mischief to the height till God cannot in Honour and Justice spare us nor Mercy it self save us How long O Lord O Lord holy and true dost thou not judge and revenge our bloud upon them that dwell on the earth 't is the loud cry of the martyred Saints Rev 6. 11. who receive this answer in the next verse That they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled as long as there remained one Saint to destroy they should live and govern That as our Saviour tells the Pharisees upon them might come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth even since the beginning of the world Did men consider this would they believe wicked men happy because they laugh and sing because they have as many Clyents pressing upon them here as they shall have worms crowding to them in the Graue Alas we should rather pity and pray for them as much as if we saw them like the Lunaticks in the Gospel cutting and tearing their own flesh For the Lord is not slack he is but fitting up and preparing all this while whetting his Sword bending his Bow making ready his Arrows putting on his Armour and then the Lord will go out with a shout as the Psalmist says and all the world shall say Verily there is a reward for the Righteous verily there is a God that judges the earth Why then art thou troubled O my soul or why art thou disquieted within me trust in the Lord who will yet deliver thee For the Devil himself cannot so much as stir without Gods leave as appears by many Examples in Job and the Gospel too and wicked men are but Gods Instruments his Hammer and his Hatchet as the Prophet Isaiah calls them with which he cuts carves polishes and works our hearts which otherwise would remain rude stone for ever Think of this and it will still the murmuring Spirit when it is within thee and when ever this Tempter doth assault thee to ask this Question Wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper do as the Prophet does in this Text Enquire of God talk and discourse with God for it is not the wit of Seneca the gravity of Plutarch nor the distinctions of Epictetus which can solve this Objection but the Gospel only which tells us of a Judgment to come and a Resurrection without which we of all men would be most miserable as the Apostle himself acknowledges to let others run away with the profit and pleasure of this world whilst we brutishly look on and pine for hunger Nor which is worse let us in our desperate humors go into the house of mirth to drown the cry of our wants with the noise of a riotous jollity What would you forget your miseries I thought you had with St. Paul gloried in your Tribulations if ye know ye are innocent then are you miserable indeed when by your murmuring and repining you go from one Hell to another from poverty here to eternal torments hereafter Oh rather let me entreat you all to wait wait I say upon God do not through your impatience loose your affliction and the benefit of that hour wherein every one of you shall say It is good for me that I was afflicted tarry the Lords leisure stand still and see the salvation of the Lord For all this will have a good issue at least in the other world if not in this Where God shall wipe every tear from our eyes turn our howling into singing Phil. 1. 12. 13. when he shall bring forth the eternal weight of Glory which is laid up for all that shall endure unto the end and so Lord Jesus come quickly The Second SERMON PHIL. IV. 17. Not because I desire a Gift but I desire Fruit that may abound unto your account AS that great Philosopher wrote over his School-door That none should presume to enter there unless he had learn'd some Mathematicks So our Lord and Master Jesus Christ requires one Principle of his Disciples likewise as a necessary qualification before their admittance into his Church namely To resolve before hand thus much never to regard any thing hereafter besides him to strip our selves of all earthly considerations whatsoever to go continually with our lives and fortunes in our hands ready in an instant to lay them down as soon as ever the Lord hath need of them So as none must dare to follow Christ without his Cross Few amongst us but grant all this we are ready enough to acknowledge all this till God comes to prove us For how pleasant does it seem to discourse of a storm at Sea under a warmer roof of banishment at home in our own houses of imprisonment as we ride abroad to magnifie extoll and as it were paint the Cross of Christ with our fine speeches in our success but when tribulation begins to appear we withdraw our shoulders quite from under it then we stand upon our guard with our poor slender distinctions putting by danger and most dishonourably shift our selves out of the way till at last we grow to the height of impudence as to make it a Case of Conscience to renounce the command of God that we may preserve our selves though it be by forswearing Christ a piece of the same valour as if a man should describe a battel well with his finger in wine upon a Table or read some valiant Story with life and vigour but in the field start at the report of a Gun Wherefore St. Paul in this Epistle did very providentially being now a prisoner of Jesus Christ in Rome exposed to the fury of merciless Nero who did ryot it in nothing more then in the bloud and ruin of innocent people I say St. Paul did very wisely encourage the Philippians here to stand fast to fear no opposition but to go on boldly forwards in every work of a Christian notwithstanding the terrible persecution was now begun For do you not conceive this advice seasonable to his absent friends when all his present acquaintance had forsaken him as he complains to the Corinthians For affliction did make the Prophets themselves question Providence and almost turn'd them Atheists affliction hath had power enough to remove rocks as we find by St. Peter and to stir that very foundation upon which Christ built his Church it 's so great a temptation as Almighty God try'd Abraham with it ten times before he would say he was Faithful Now that his sufferings might not more prevail upon them then they did upon himself by putting them into a fright least they might suffer the like to fix their constancy he uses these Arguments First As for himself they should not bemoan him because though he was laid in Irons yet the Word of God was not bound the Gospel that had freer passage by this his confinement for though his person could never have been admitted into Nero's Palace yet his
from God and that evil affection he hath from himself between that which is from heaven heavenly and that which is from the earth nay from the lowest pit of hell If we would consider him in his rational nature the image of God and in that other capacity as he is one for whom Christ dyed and so capable of eternal life and that though he seem dead yet his life may nevertheless Col. 3. 3. be hidden with Christ in God For why judgest thou thy brother Judgment is the Lords who seeth things that are not as if they were What though he be fallen upon the stone and be bruised Yet he may be built upon that foundation which is sure and which hath this Seal THE LORD KNOWETH WHO ARE HIS This open profaner may become a true professor this false witness may be a true martyr this persecutor of the Church may at length prove the most glorious member and bold defender of it and he that led the Saints bound to Jerusalem may himself afterwards rejoyce in his bonds for the same cause Paul of the tribe of Benjamin may as it is said of Benjamin in the morning raven as a wolf and at night divide the spoil and after bow his head to such a Sheep as Ananias And therefore the Apostle where he erects a kind of discipline amongst the Thessalonians thus draws it forth If any man obey not our word that is be refractory to the Gospel 2 Thess 3. 14. of Christ have no company with that man that he may be ashamed that seeing others avoid him he may be forced to have recourse unto himself to hold colloquy with his own soul to find out that plague of his heart which makes him thus like a Pelican in the wilderness or an Owl in the desert like the leper under the Law which no man must come near Have no company with him that is By thy company give him no encouragement in his sin And yet for all this have company with him for count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother which we cannot do if we avoid his company And in this sense also we must take that of the Apostle where he forbids us to eat with publick and 1 Cor. 5. 10. notorious offenders For the Apostles mind was not that such men were to be given over for gone or that we should acquaint our selves only with the good and not with the bad as Physicians do in time of Pestilence look only to the found and shun the diseased For our Saviour Christ familiarly conversed ate and drank with publicans and sinners and gives the reason of it Because he came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance And we cannot think that St. Paul is contrary to Christ Beloved the rule of Charity commands us to think every man an heir with Christ or at least if he be not that he may be so What though believers be very few and there be many so like them that we cannot distinguish them This is I confess an errour of our Charity but it is a very necessary error And he that errs not thus he that thinks not and hopes not the best he can of all he sees wants something of being a good Christian And this error of our Charity is not without reason For we see not where nor how the Grace of God may work How sinful soever a man be yet if he be baptized if he make profession of the name of Christ if he do but come behind and touch the hemm of Christs Garment the Grace of God may cure him Nay were he dead in sin who knows what the Grace of God may do Peradventure God may call unto him lying and stinking in his sins as in a Grave Lazarus come forth Charity therefore because she may erre nay because she must erre looks upon every Christian as a Brother If he erre she is a guide to him if he sin she is Physician if he wander she recalls him if he fall she strives to lift him up being a light to the blind and a staff to the weak if he fall into sin she is ready to restore him in the spirit of meekness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the phrase to be Gal. 6. 1. his Chirurgeon to handle him with a gentle or as we use to say with a Ladies hand not roughly but with all tenderness and compassion to set every broken joynt but so as if she toucht it not to settle all that is dislocated that all his parts and joynts may be entire and aptly knit together that nothing may be wanting to him of those things which are required to the compleating and constituting of a brother and a Christian Look upon these Galatians unto whom Paul writes and then cast your eye upon chap. 5. 19 20 21. where he draweth out that black catalogue of the works of the flesh Adultery Fornication Uncleanness and the like and you will think it more then probable that these sins even reigned amongst them that they had abused their Christian liberty as an occasion to the flesh v. 13. that besides the contagion of a foul Error they were also polluted with Sins yet St. Paul doth rather intimate then impute them He shews them in their full horror and deformity that the Galatians may run from them and leaves them to accuse and condemn themselves and though he strike at their Error and Sin both yet he makes a fair close with themselves and calls them Brethren And now briefly to make some use of this it may seem to correct an angry and malignant humor which lurks in the hearts of many men undiscerned undiscovered and often breatheth and exhaleth it self forth not to the saving of the souls but to the blasting of the good name of their brethren not as physick but as poyson fatal and deleterial It is one mark of Antichrist That he sits as God in the temple of God 2 Thess 2. 4. shewing himself that he is God thundring out his excommunications canonizing damning absolving condemning whom he pleaseth Beloved thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to over-look our brother thus to look down upon our Brethren and dart a heavy censure on them for that for which we should shed a tear is so far to follow Antichrist as to take the seat and place of God nay to put him out of his seat and do his office nay to do that which he will not do to sentence him to death when he for ought we know hath chosen unto life Nay though it doth not make any man Antichrist yet it makes him so much Antichrist as to place him in a flat opposition to Christ himself For we have not such a high Priest as cannot be touched with the feeling of our sins but being tempted himself is able and willing to compassionate those who are tempted Did we feel the burden of our Brothers sins as he did did we apprehend the wrath of