and Jubilees within him In a word to love Mercy is to be in heaven Every man according as he purposeth in his heart let him give not grudgingly 2 Cor. 9.7 or of necessity for God loveth a chearful giver Such a Mercy is Gods Almoner here on earth and he loveth and blesseth it followeth it with his Providence and his infinite Mercy shall crown it That gift which the Love of Mercy offereth up is onely fit to be laid up in the Treasury of the Almighty And now I have set before you Mercy in her full beauty in all her glory You have seen her spreading her raies I might shew you her building of Hospitals visiting the sick giving eyes to the blind raising of Temples pitying the stones breathing forth oracles making the ignorant wise the sorrowful merry leading the wandring man into his way I might have shewed you her sealing of Pardons But we could not shew you all These are the miracles of Mercy and they are wrought by the power of Christ in us and by us but by his power The fairest spectacle in the world Let us then look upon it and love it What is Mercy when you need it Is it not as the opening of the heavens unto you And shall it then be a punishment and hell unto you when your afflicted brethren call for it Is it so glorious abroad and shall it be so foul an aspect as not to be thought worthy of enterteinment at home Shall it be a jewel in every cabinet but your own hearts Behold and lift up your eyes and you shall see objects enough for your Mercy to shine on Psal 42.7 If ever one depth called upon another Cant. 5.4 Isa 63.15 the depth of Calamity for the depth of our Compassion if ever our bowels should move and sound now now is the time I remember that Chrysologus observeth that God did on purpose lay Lazarus at the rich mans gate quasi pietatis conflatorium as a forge to melt his stony heart Lazarus had as many mouthes to speak and move him to compassion as he had ulcers and wounds And how many such forges hath God set before us how many mouthes to beseech us how many wounds wide open which speak loud for our pity how many fires to melt us Shall I shew you an ulcerous Lazar They are obvious to our eye Matth. 26.11 We shall have them alwaies with us saith our Saviour and we have them almost in every place Luke 10.30 Shall I shew you men stript and wounded and left half-dead That may be seen in our Cities as well as in the high waies between Jericho and Jerusalem Shall I shew you the tears drilling down the cheeks of the orphans and widows Shall I call you to hear the cry of the hire kept back by fraud or violence James 5.4 For that cryeth to you for compassion as Oppression doth to God for vengeance and it is a kind of oppression to deny it them Lam. 1.12 Have you not compassion all ye that pass by and every day behold such sad spectacles as these Shall I shew you Christ put again to open shame whipt and scorned and crucified and that which cannot be done to him in his person laid upon his Church Shall I shew you him now upon the cross and have you no regard all ye that pass by Shall I shew you the Church miserably torn in pieces Shall I shew you Religion I would I could shew you such a sight For scarce so much as her form is left What can I shew or what can move us when neither our own Misery nor the common Misery nor Sin nor Death nor Hell it self will move us If we were either good Men or good Citizens or good Christians our hearts would melt and gush forth at our eyes in rivers of water If we were truly affected with peace we should be troubled at war If we did love the City we should mourn over it If we did delight in the prosperity of Israel her affliction would wound us If Religion were our care her decay would be our sorrow For that which we love and delight in must needs leave a mournful heart behind it when it withdraweth it self But private interest maketh us regardless of the common and we do not pity Religion because we do not pity our own souls but drink deep of the pleasures of this world enlarge our territories fill our barns make hast to be rich when our soul is ready to be taken from us and nothing but a rotten mouldring wall a body of flesh which will soon fall to the ground between us and Hell I may well take off your eye from these sad and woful spectacles It had been enough but to have shewn you Mercy for she is a cloud of witnesses a cloud of arguments for her self and if we would but look upon her as we should there need no other oratour I beseech you look into your Lease look into your Covenant that Conveyance by which bliss and immortality are made over to you and you shall find that you hold all by this You hold it from the King of Kings and your quit-rent your acknowledgment for his great Mercy is your Mercy to others Pay it down or you have made a forfeiture of all If you be merciless all that labour as it is called of Charity is lost 1 Thes 1.3 Hebr. 6.10 1 Cor. 15.14 17. your loud Profession your forced Gravity your burning Zeal your Faith also is vain and you are yet in your sins For what are all these without Mercy but words and names And there is no name by which we can be saved but the name of Jesus Christ And all these Devotion Confession Abstinence Zeal Acts 4.12 Severity of life are as it were the letters of his Name and I am sure Mercy is one and of a fair character and if we expunge and blot it out it is not his Name Why boast we of our Zeal Without Mercy it is a consumeing fire It is true he that is not zealous doth not love but if my Love be counterfeit what a false fire is my Zeal And one mark of true Zeal is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if it be kept within its bounds Naz. or 14. and Mercy is the best watch we can set over it to confine and keep it in The Church of Christ is not placed under the Torrid Zone that these cooler and more temporate Virtues may not dwell there Ignis zeli ardere debet oleo misericordiae Aquin. de Eruditione princip l. 2. c. 15 16. If you will have your Zeal burn kindly it must not be set on fire by any earthly matter but from Heaven where is the Mercy-seat and which is the seat of Mercy If you will be burning lamps you must pour in oleum misericordiae the oyl of Mercy as Bernard speaketh If this oyl fail you will rather be Beacons then Lamps to put all
its own nature may and will be changed nor is there any thing certain but Piety and Bliss the Way and the End And therefore those things which are not so essential to Religion as that she cannot stand without them and are essential only when they may be had being exemplified and conveyed to us by the best hands must not take up all that labour which we ow to the heat of the day and those duties of Christianity which are the summe of all and for which the others were ordained When they may be had we must bless God and use them to that end for which they were given and when a stronger then we cometh upon us and removeth them look after them with a longing eye and bleeding heart follow them with our sorrow and devotion use all lawful and peaceable means to bring them back bewail our own ingratitude which raised up that Power that took them from us and was the greatest strength they had and so press forward in that open and known way which no power can block up in that obedience to the Gospel which the Sword cannot reach which no Violence can hinder For this alone can restore us to the favour of God and restore to us those advantages which we first abused then lost and now seek carefully Heb. 12.17 as Esau did the blessing with tears In a word these helps which we would have and cannot alwayes have we may yet alwayes have in our remembrance and affection but we must not so seek after them as to drive down all before us and the Gospel it self in our motion and adventure towards them but fix our eye and desires upon that Heaven which is presented to us in the way and on those divine rules of life from which no power on earth can absolve and disengage us and for the neglect of which no necessity can be brought in as an apology and thus bless God in all things even in those which are gone from us and cleave fast to that which is most essential and necessary to the end vvhich is out of reach and danger and vvhich the power of darkness it self cannot take away Thirdly Now I am come to the foot of my account and to this all that I have to say is but vvhat I can but say for this Preface is swoln beyond that compass vvhich my first thoughts drew out and it is this that as I was careful to press those doctrines which I conceived to be most necessary so I did it without any affectation unless it vvere of plainness and perspicuity of vvhich indeed I was most ambitious as knowing that the Majesty of Divine Truths is best seen in the stole and gravity of a matrone and most times quite lost in the studied gayetry and light colours of a wanton I could have wished for the happiness of Isidore the Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Damasc in Excerptis Photii Cod CCXLII. of vvhom it vvas said that he spake not words but the very substance and essences of things that I might have displayed the Glory and Happiness vvhich is alwayes before true Piety and pointed out to Piety as with a finger shewing how it worketh towards it till they both meet and are made one in eternity And this I did endeavour though I come short of it to draw out in so plain and lively a character that he that runneth might read it that the sight of it might ravish the beholder and force him to a love of that which so visibly draweth towards that end which hath no end even the vision of that God which is blessed for evermore We speak saith S. Paul the wisedome of God in a Mystery 1 Cor. 2.7 Rom. 16.25 the hidden wisdome and the Gospel is the revelation of that Mystery And if it be revealed it is no longer hidden if it be known as far as it is known it is not a Mystery And if it were yet a hidden Mystery it could not concern us because that can have no influence upon our Will which yieldeth no light at all to our Understanding which is as a counsellour to the Will and should convey the light unto it The Light is no more light to me then Darkness it self when it is put under a bushel and Mysteries when they are hidden are to us as nothing I know now no Mysteries in Divinity for it is agreed on all hands that whatsoever is necessary to the end is perspicuous and naked to the understanding I may say Mystical Divinity is an art of teaching nothing of moving and standing still of striving forward and winning no ground an art of filling men with thin and empty speculations in which they are lifted up aloft to strange sights and apparitions as they say Witches are and as they themselves think when they do but dream Sometimes it is made a veil to cover something which we would not have seen and we call that the Mystical sense of Scripture which is none at all For men are too ready to draw a veil again over that which is now made manifest to obscure that which cannot be too plain nor made plainer then it is Quaerunt quod nusquam est inveniunt tamen They seek for that which is no where to be found and yet they find it out but as he found Juno who embraced a cloud Whatsoever they see is a mystery and yet they see it as Isidore found out a mysterie Pennae acumen dividitur in duo in toto corpore servata unitate credo propter mysterium Isid Orig. l. 6. c. 14. Quint. l. 8. Instit c. 6. the Old and New Testament in the nose and cleft of a penne I know there be in Scripture and frequently in the New Testament many metaphorical expressions from Bread from Fire and Water from Sowing and Planting from Generation Adoption and the like Which were used not to make mysteries but to open them signandis rebus sub oculos subjiciendis to set a mark upon things and to declare and unfold them to the very eye that so they might enter with more light and ease into the mind which as the Jewish Rabbies were wont to say was to find out the lost pearl with a candle of an half-peny and with these common and familiar resemblances to dive into the cistern of Truth and draw it out Christ who came down to teach us was the light of the World and what he taught was as open as the Day to all but to those who loved darkness more then light and it will shine in its full strength to all that will look up upon it to the end of the World Nor could it be his will who came to save us that his saving Truth should be shewn by half and dark lights or that Divines who call themselves his Ministers should be like those Philosophers who did Philosophiam ad syllabas vocare Epist. 72. as Seneca complaineth draw Philosophy down to
extent as may reach to every man to every corner of the earth as may measure out the world and put into our hands any part of it that either our wit or our power can take in Christ never drew any such Conveyance the Gospel brought no such tidings But when honest labour and industry have brought riches in Christ setteth a seal imprinteth a blessing on them sanctifieth them unto us by the Word and Prayer and so maketh them ours our servants to minister unto us and our friends to promote us unto everlasting habitations Our Charter is large enough and we need not interline it with those Glosses which the Flesh and the Love of the World will soon suggest With Christ we have all things which work to that end for which he was delivered We have his Commands which are the pledges of his love for he gave us them that he might give us more that he might give us a Crown We have his Promises of immortality and eternal life Faciet hoc nam qui promisit est potens He shall do it for he is able to perform it With him every word shall stand He hath given us Faith that is the gift of God to apprehend and receive the promises and Hope Eph. 2.8 to lift us up unto them He hath given us his Pastors to teach us that is scarce looked upon as a gift but then he hath given us his Angels to minister unto us He hath given us his Spirit and filleth us with his Grace if we will receive it which will make his Commands which are now grievous easie his Promises which are rich profitable which may carry us on in a regular and peaceable course of piety and obedience which is our Angel which is our God and we call it Grace All these things vve have with Christ And the Apostle doth not only tell us that God doth give us them but to put it out of doubt putteth up a QVOMODO NON challengeth as it were the whole world to shew how it should be otherwise How will he not with him also freely give us all things This Question addeth energy and weight and emphasis and maketh the Position more positive the Affirmation more strong and the truth of it more perswasive and convincing Shall he not give us all things It is impossible but he should It is more possible for a city upon a hill to be hid than for him to hide his favour from us more possible for Heaven to sink into Hell or for Hell to raise it self up to God's Mercy-seat than for him to withhold any thing from them to whom he hath given his Son Impossible it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as most inconvenient as that which is against his Wisdome and his Justice and his Goodness Naz. Or. 36. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as abhorrent to his Will to deny us any thing In brief If the Earth be not as iron the Heavens cannot be as brass God cannot but give when we are fit to receive and in Christ we are made capable When he is given all things are given with him nay more than all things more than we can desire more than we can conceive When he descendeth Mercy descendeth with him in a full shower of blessings to make our souls as the paradise of God to quicken our Faith to rouse up our Hope And in this light in this assurance in this heaven we are bold with S. Paul to put up the Question against all doubts all fears all temptations that may assault us He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things And now we have passed up every step and degree of this scale and ladder of Love and seen Christ delivered and nailed to the cross And from thence he looketh down and speaketh to us to the end of the world Crux patientis fuit cathedra docentis The Cross on which he suffered was the Chair of his Profession And from this Chair we are taught Humility constant Patience perfect Obedience an exact Art and Method of living well drawn out in several lines What was ambitiously said of Homer That if all sciences were lost they might be found in him may most truly be said of Christ's Cross and Passion That if all the characters of Innocency Humility Obedience Love had been lost they might here be found in libro vitae Agni in the Book of the Life nay of the Death of the Lamb Rev. 13.8 slain from the foundation of the world yet now nailed to the Cross Let us then with love and reverence look upon him who thus looketh upon us Let us put on our crucified Jesus that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostome every virtue his Humility his Patience his Obedience and so bear about with us the dying of our Lord 2 Cor. 4.10 and draw the picture of a crucified Saviour in our selves To this end was he delivered up for us to this end we must receive him that we may glorifie God as he hath glorified him on earth For God's glory and our salvation are twisted together and wrought as it were in the same thread and linked together in the same bond of peace Psal 50.15 I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Thus it runneth and it runneth on evenly in a stream of Love Oh how must it needs delight him to see his Gift prosper in our hands to see us delivering up our selves to him who was thus delivered for us to see his purchase those who were bought with this price made his peculiar people Psal 24.7 9. Lift then up the gates of your souls that this King of glory may come in If you seek salvation you must seek the glory of God and if you seek the glory of God you shall find it in your salvation Thou mayest cry Lo here it is or Lo there it is but here it is found The Jew may seek salvation in the Law the Superstitious in Ceremony and bodily Exercise the Zelote in the Fire and the Whirlwind the phantastick lazy Christian in a Thought in a Dream and the prophane Libertine in Hell it self But then then alone we find it when we meet it in conjunction with the Glory of God which shineth most gloriously in a crucified Christ and in an obedient Christian made conformable to him and so bearing about in him the marks of the LORD JESVS Gal. 6.17 To conclude then Since God hath delivered up his own Son for us all and with him given us all things let us open our hearts and receive him John 1.12 that is believe in his name that is be faithful to him that is love him and keep his Commandments which is our conformity to his Death And then he will give us What will he give us He will heap gift upon gift give us power to become the Sons of God Let us receive
as it is void of reason of no use at all but to make us favour our selves and ingage and adventure further in those vvayes vvhich lead unto death I deny not but as there is great difference in sins so there may be a difference also in committing them that the righteous person doth not drink dovvn sin vvith that delight and greediness vvhich the vvicked do that they do not sport themselves in the vvayes of death nor fall into them vvith that easiness and precipitancy that they do not count it as a purchase to satisfie their lusts and that most times the event is different for the one falleth dovvn at the feet of God for mercy the other hardneth his heart and face and vvill not bovv But yet I cannot number it amongst the marks and characters of a righteous man or as some love to speak and may so speak if they well understood what they said of one of the elect when he falleth into any mortal grievous sin as Adultery Murder and the like that he doth not fall plenâ voluntate with full consent and will but more faintly and remissly as it were with more gravity then other men that he did actually fall but was not willing to fall that is that he did will indeed the sin which he did commit but yet did commit it against his will Nor can I think our consent is not full when we chide and rebuke the tentation and yet suffer it to win ground and gain more and more advantage against us when we have some grudgings some petty murmurs in our selves and in our hearts defame those sins which wâ— shew openly in our actions For when we have done that which is evil we cannot say we would not have done it when we have made room for Sin to enter we cannot say that we would have excluded it For first I cannot see how these two should meet so friendly a double Will nay a contrary Will in respect of one and the same act especially when Sin is not in fieri but in facto esse when the temptation hath prevailed and the Will determined its act Indeed whilst the act was suspended and our mind wavering and in doubt where to fasten which part to embrace whether to take the wedge of gold or to withdraw whether to smite my brother or to sheath up my Sword and Anger together whether to taste or not to taste the forbidden fruit when it was in labour as it were and did strive and struggle between these two the Delightfulness and Unlawfulness of the object between the Temptation and the Law Gal. 5.17 whilest the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh there may be such an indifferency a kind of willing and nilling a profer and distast an approch and a pawse an inclination to the object and a fear to come near But when the Sense hath prevailed with the Will to determin for it against the Reason James 1.15 when Lust hath conceived and brought forth then there is no room for this indifferency because the Will hath determined its act and concluded for the Sense against the Reason for the Flesh against the Spirit For we must not mistake the fluctuations and pawses and contentions of the mind and look upon them as the acts of the Will which hath but one simple and indivisible act which it cannot divide between two contraries so as to look stedfastly on the one and yet reflect also with a look of liking upon the other Matth. 6.24 Our Saviour hath fitted us with an instance Ye cannot serve God and Mammon If we know then what the Will is we shall know also that it is impossible to divide it and shall be ashamed of that apologie to say we sin semi-plenâ voluntate with an imperfect with an half Will we know not how There may be indeed a kind of velleity and inclination to that which is good when the Will hath embraced that which is evil there may be a probo meliora a liking of the better when I have chosen the worser part But this is not a willing but an approbation and an allowing of that which is just which ariseth from the light of our Mind and the law of our Understanding from that natural Judgment by which we discern that which is evil from that which is good and it is an act of our Reason not of our Will And thus I may will a thing and yet dislike it I may embrace and condemn it I may commend Chastity and be a Wanton Hospitality and be a Nabal Clemency and be a Nero Christianity and be worse then a Jew I may subscribe to the Law that it is just and break it I may take the cup of Fornication and drink deep of it for some pleasant taste it hath when I know it will be my poyson And therefore in the second place this renitency and resistency of Conscience is so far from apologizing for us as for such as sin not with a full consent that most times it doth add weight to our sin and much aggravate it and plainly demonstrate a most violent and eager consent of the will which would not be restrained but passed as it were the rampier and bulwark which was raised against it to the forbiddâ—n object Neither the Law nor the voice and check of Conscience which is to us in the place of God could stop or restrain us but we play the wantons and dally with Sin as the wanton doth with his strumpet we do opponere ostium non claudere put the door gently to Senec. N. Q. l. 4. 2. but not shut and lock it out but it is welcome to us when it knocketh but more welcome when it breaketh in upon us We frown and admit it chide and embrace it bid it farewell vvhen vve are ready and long to joyn vvith it make a shew of running from it when we open our selves to receive and lodge it in our heart Again if the pravity and obliquity of an act is to be measured and judged by the vehement and earnest consent of the will then the sin which is committed with so much reluctancy will prove yet more sinful and of a higher nature then those we fell into when we heard no voice behind us to call us back For here the will of the sinner is stubborn and perverse and maketh hast to the forbidden object against all opposition whatsoever against the voice of the Lâ—â— which is now loud against him against the motions of the Spirit which he striveth to repell against the clamours of Conscience which he heareth and will not hear even against all the artillery of Heaven It doth not yield to the tentation when no voice is heard but the Tempter's nothing discovered but the beauty and allurement of the object nor upon strategeme or surprisals but it yieldeth against the thunder of the Law and dictate of Conscience it admitteth Sin not in its
a word where there is no true Charity there can be no true Church and where there is the least Charity there it is least Reformed Talk not of Reformation Purity and Discipline They may be but names and make up a proud malicious faction but it is Charity and Charity alone that can build up a Church into a body compact within it self Malice and Pride and Contention do build indeed but it is in gehennam downwards to hell and present men on earth as so many damned Spirits And there is no greater difference between them then this that the one may the other can never repent An imbittered faction is a type and representation of Hell it self Let then Faith and Charity meet in our Trial and Preparation Faith is a foundation but if we raise not Charity upon it to grow up and spread and dilate it self in all its acts and operations it is nothing it is in vain and we are yet in our sins Let not Anger or Rancour or Malice keep you from this Table and bring you within that sad Dilemma That you must and may not come That to come and not to come is damnation And do not forfeit so great mercy to satisfie so vile and brutish affections Lose not the hope of being Saints by pleasing your selves in being beasts Why should LOVE be wrote so thick on your walls and scarce any character any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any title of it in your hearts The Heart is the best table to receive it There engrave it with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond and then it will be legible also in your actions Remember it was Love that brought down Christ from heaven that nailed him to his cross that drew his heart-bloud from him and all to beget Love in us Love of God and Love of our Brethren And let this Love rule in our hearts and put down all our Malice Bitterness and Evil speaking all these our enemies under our feet Sacrifice and offer them up before we come to the Altar then shall we be fit to sit down at this Table Thus we must put our Charity to trial For this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a feast of Love Examine therefore whether thy Charity be firm and strong such a Charity as is stronger then Death a Charity that in Christ's cause will stand out against Poverty Imprisonment and Death it self a Charity which in respect of thy brethren will bear all things bear injuries kiss the hand that striketh thee bow to them that are in the dust condescend to the lowest a Charity which will die for the brethren For that Charity which speaketh big and doeth nothing scattereth words but casteth no bread on the waters defieth a tempest and runneth away at a blast can embrace a brother and yet persecute him forgive and yet wound him that is love and yet hate him will never fit and qualifie us for this feast of Love Let us then examine our selves And let us consider also him that inviteth us the Apostle and high Priest of our profession Christ Jesus Consider him as our high Priest and that we shall soon do For what captive would not be set at liberty Who that hath a debt to pay would not have a Surety that should pay it down for him Who that hath a request to put up would not have an Intercessour All this we may desire and yet not consider him as our high Priest And we must not think that he was such an high Priest for such as would not consider him and that he came to free those who did love their fetters to satisfie for wilful bankrupts to deliver them who all their life time delight in bondage to offer up those prayers which malice or oppression or deceit or hypocrisie have turned into sin Therefore let us also consider him as our Prophet putting into our hands those weapons of righteousness that spiritual armour those helps and advantages which are necessary and sufficient to work our liberty to strike off our fetters and demolish in us the Kingdom of Sin And here put it to the trial and ask thy self the question Art thou willing to hearken to this Prophet Art thou willing he should teach thee Wouldst thou not make the way to heaven wider and his yoke easier then he hath made it Hast thou not looked on these helps and advantages as superstitious and unnecessary As he is thy Prophet so art not thou his interpreter and hast taught him to speak friendly to thy lusts and sensual appetite Hast thou not given a large swinge to Revenge let out a longer line to Christian Liberty and given a broader space for the Love of the world to trade in then ever this Prophet did This is not to consider him but effoeminare disciplinam to corrupt his discipline and to make Christianity it self which is a severe Religion wanton and effeminate by the interpretations And therefore thou must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 examine thy self yet more and more Bring it to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a judgment till thou hast censured and condemned those thy glosses and presented in thy conversation an Expurgatory Index of them all till thou canst digest his precepts with all the aloes and gall with all the hardness and bitterness that is in them and then thy stomach also and thy heart will be prepared for this Bread of life for this celestial Manna Last of all canst thou consider him as thy King and Lord Is his fear to thee as the roaring of a Lion and his wrath as messengers of death And art thou willing to kiss to bow and worship him that he be not angry Canst thou discover Majesty in him now Majesty in his discipline wisdom in his Laws power in weakness now in this life when he is whipped and scourged and crucified again when his precepts are made subject to flesh and bloud and dragged in triumph after the wills of men when for one Hosanna he hath a thousand Crucifiges for one formal and hypocritical acknowledgment a thousand spears in his sides Who hath most command over thee the Prince of this world or this King Will not a smile from beauty move thee more then the glory of his promises Art thou not more afraid of the frown of a man of power then of his wrath Will not the love of the world drive thee against more pricks and difficulties then the love of a Saviour Will not that carry thee from east to west when the command of this King shall not draw thee a Sabbath dayes journey to visit the fatherless and widows Art thou of the same mind with him Are thy will and affections bound up in his will Is his will thy Law and his Law thy delight Then he is thy Priest and hath sacrificed himself to make thee a Feast He is thy Prophet to invite and fit thee and thy King to welcome thee and he shall gird himself and make thee sit
bound to nourish a hope No man is so lost but he may be restored Whilest he is in this state of life he is in statu merendi or demerendi in the way to bliss or in the way to destruction And if he were at the very brink yet the hand of Mercy may pull him back No fatal decree no malignant aspect from heaven hath so blasted him as to make him uncapable of thy help If there be any such ostendat scriptum Hermogenis officina let the Predestinarian shew it As God once said by his Prophet Where is the bill of divorce so may we Where is the decree And if we cannot shew it it is to us as if there were none at all There is nothing can concern us but but what we may know and that is our duty writ in legible characters as with the sun-beams Thou shalt love thy brother as thy self It is a strange kind of Despair to despair of our brother when we should cure him a Despair flowing from the bitter fountain of Hypocrisie and Uncharitableness For Love looketh many times on unwelcome truths and is unwilling to read them as truths Are we told our friend is dead Amor noluit dictum Love would have it unsaid And can it then be musick in our ears to hear that some of our brethren are damned from all eternity that they were built up as men after the image of God on purpose to be made for hell Why should we love to hear this why should we delight to preach it It is almost a miracle that we can believe it We cannot think that all that Christ preached unto were saved yet he who knew what was in man preached unto them And therefore we must not look upon our brother in the volume of Eternity but in the leaves of Time and consider not what he was nor what he is but what he may be not what a crooked piece he is but what an image of Christ we may make him and by the example of our Saviour follow him with our care and find him out Despair will stay us Hope will send us after him Forsitan huic in sepulcro scelerum jacenti dicat Christus Lazare veni foràs How know we whether Christ may not call unto him lying and rotting in his sin as in a grave Come forth Or if he should yet after all this care perish yet thou shalt save thy self because thou wouldest have saved him Fac quod debes eveniat quod vult is an old plain Arabian proverb and will be good counsel to the world's end Do what thou shouldest and fall out what will Do thy duty and thou hast done all though nothing be done Coyn not suppositions pretend not difficulties or impossibilities presage not ill success How readest thou That is the rule and thou must walk by it Look not on Christ in the bosom of his Father but as he walked upon earth and follow him and by his example follow thy brother with thy counsel If he hearken to thee thou hast wone thy brother If not yet thou art doing Christs ' work which will sooner bring thee to him then thy gazing back and looking what God did from all eternity That may settle thee to dwell in him but this will strike thee with the spirit of giddiness S. Chrysostom bringeth in even Judas himself whom though he was called the child of perdition yet his Master ceased not by counsels and threatnings by admonitions and benefits to have either perswaded or deterred him by any means to have wone and kept him from betraying him And this saith he Christ did to teach us to perform our duty to our brother whether he will hear or whether he will forbear Whatsoever the success shall be blessed shall he be whom his Lord at his coming shall find so doing 2. It will concern us to do the same on our selves to find our selves and all our defects out Non emendabis te nisi te deprehenderis Till this we cannot mend and better our selves If we do not see how little ground we have gone over and how much still remaineth if we do not reach forth Phil. 3.13 as S. Paul speaketh to that which is before we shall make no progress Heb. 6.1 We are not to rest on the principles and beginnings of piety but to go on to perfection If we begin with a miracle with alacrity and cheerfulness in the profession of Christianity and then flag and fail and fall back if we rise up and walk and then be worse paralyticks then before the miracle is lost the first grace and favour will change countenance and stand up and accuse us and that which bespoke us to go and might have promoted us to happiness will appear to our condemnation It is a dangerous thing to be the worse for Christ's goodness more miserable by his favours more impotent when we are healed more bold and daring after a miracle to rest in beginnings as in the end to riot it on benefits and to be brought back on those wings which should carry us on to perfection Unto which we ought still to press forward as the Angels mounted to heaven on Jacob's ladder step by step rung by rung by degrees Luke 14.30 Commonly we are cured too soon We begin to build and are not able to finish We do not sit down and cast with our selves what will cost us We do not weigh the labour the dangers the inconveniencies which attend this Profession the loss of our goods the hazard of our lives the displeasure of friends the daily wrestlings and fightings not onely with principalities and the powers of darkness but with our selves These are not in our thoughts But to take the name of Christ to give up our names unto him to be called Christians that is our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Zenith our perfection When Christ hath bid us rise and walk when he hath called us by his Gospel out of the world when we can reckon our selves as members of his Church we say as Esau did to his brother Jacob Christ hath dealt graciously with us and we have enough we walk on in a vain shadow in an imagination in a dream comfort our selves we bless our selves we assure our selves as if we were pressing forward in the wayes to happiness And the truth is we begin too soon we are perfect too soon comforted too soon assured too soon And we may justly fear that the greatest part of Christians are so soon in heaven that they will never come there For how are we taken and delighted with the most slender performances How doth the heart leap at the gift of a penny What musick is there in a sigh though breathed from an hallow heart what refreshment in a fast though it be to bloud and oppression What a heaven do we feel when have we made a good profession What a Sabbath day's journey have we taken when we have heard a Sermon How
treadeth under foot from fear of the Law when we should have no other law but Piety That which is born of the flesh is flesh saith our Saviour John 3.6 Nor can the flesh work in us a love to and chearfulness in the things of the Spirit The flesh perfecteth nothing contributeth nothing to a good work Nor doth any thing work kindly till it come to perfection Perfection and Sincerity work our joy In Scripture we find even inanimate and senseless things said to be glad when they attain unto and abide in their natural perfection a Ps 19.5 The Sun is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoyceth as a strong man to run a race b Ps 65.12 â—3 The little hills rejoyce on every side The valleys are covered over with corn they shout for joy they also sing Prata rident So Solomon c Prov. 13.9 The light of the righteous rejoyceth because it shineth clear and continually The blessed Angels are in a state of perfection and their motion from place to place the Schools say is instantaneous and in a moment as sudden and quick as their will by which they move Therefore they are drawn out with wings Isa 6. and said to go forth like lightning Which signifieth unto us their alacrity speed in executing all God's commands Their constant office is to be ready at his beck and they ever have the heavenly characters of his will before their eyes as a Father speaketh And such also will our activity and chearfulness be in devotion and the service of God if we be thus animated and informed as it were with the love thereof if our minds be shaped and configured to it as S. Basil saith If either the Word or the Sword either the power of the truth or calamity and persecution hath made it sweet unto us and stirred up in us an earnest expectation and longing after it then IBIMUS We will go go with chearfulness to the house of mourning and sit with those who are in the dust go to that Lazar and relieve him to that prisoner and visit him to our friends and counsel them to our enemies and reconcile them with the Jews here go to the Temple to the Church and pray for the Nation Joel 2.17 and say Spare thy people O Lord and give not thine heritage to reproch go and fall down and worship him yea go to the stake and dy for him Psal 39.3 When this fire burneth within us we shall speak with the tongue and that with a chearful accent IBIMUS We will go into the house of the Lord. And so we are fallen upon our last circumstance 5. The place of their devotion the house of the Lord. When a company go to serve the Lord they must needs go to some place For how can they serve him together but in a place Adam and his sons had a place Gen. 4.3 4. The Patriarchs had a place altars and mountains and groves In the wilderness the people of God had a movable Tabernacle And though Solomon said that a Acts 7.48 1 Kings 8.27 God dwelleth not in temples made with hands yet b Acts 7.47 Solomon that said so built him an house And the work was commended by God himself not onely when it was finished and brought to perfection but even while it was yet but in design and was raised no further then in thought The Lord said unto David 2 Chron. 6.8 Forasmuch as it was in thine heart to build an house for my name thou didst well in that it was in thine heart And when Christ came he blessed in this house prayed in it taught in it disputed in it he drove the profaners out of it he spake by his presence by his tongue by his gesture he giveth it its name and in a manner Christneth it Matth. 21.13 by calling it his house and the house of prayer For though he came to strike down the Law yet he came not to beat down right Reason Though he did disanull what was fitted but for a time as Sacrifices and all that busy and troublesome that ceremonious and typical Worship yet he never abolished what common reason will teach us is necessary for all ages How could he require that men should meet together and worship him if there were to be no place at all to meet in Or what needed an express command for that which the very nature of the duty enjoyneth and necessity it self will bring in He that enjoyneth publick worship doth in that command imply that there must be a certain publick place to meet in We hear indeed Christ saying to the Jews John 2.19 Destroy this Temple but it was to make a window in their breasts that they might see he knew their very hearts 21. He bid them do what they meant to do He spake of the Temple of his body saith the Text and they did destroy both his body and their own Temple For they who had nothing more in their mouthes then The Temple of the Lord Jer. 7.4 set fire on the Temple of the Lord with their own hands as Josephus relateth And so their Ceremonies had an end so their Temple was destroyed but not to the end that all Churches and places of publick meeting should be for ever buried in its ruines before they were built That house of the Lord was dissolved indeed but at the dissolution thereof there was no voice heard that did tell us vve should build no more in any other place The first Christians we may be sure heard no such voice For assoon as persecution suffered them to move their arms they were busy in erecting of Oratories in a plain manner indeed answerable to their present estate But when the favour of Princes shined upon them and their substance encreased they poured it out plentifully this way and founded Churches in every place Nor did they think they could lay too much cost upon them none counted that wast which was expended about so good a work They built sumptuous houses for God's worship and rejoyced and after-ages applauded it both by their words and practice they magnified it and did the like Such cost hath ever gone under the name of Piety and Devotion till these later times when almost all are ready with Judas to condemn Mary Magdelene for pouring forth her ointment John 12 3-6 Churches were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Houses of the Lord and so were esteemed and not Idole Synagogues not Styes till Swine entred into them and defiled them and holp to pull them down We know God dwelleth not in Temples made with hands Acts 7.48 17.24 nor can his infinite Majesty be circumscribed we remember and therefore need not to be told that Christ said to the woman of Samaria that the hour was coming when men should neither in that mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father John 4.21 23. but should worship him
hath written a book De arte nihil credendi of the Art of believing nothing and he lays it down as a tryed conclusion Oportet priùs Calvinistam fieri qui Atheus esse vult He that would be an Atheist must first turn Calvinist Which Maldonate the Jesuite receives as he would an Oracle But know from what coasts it breaths and may name it a prophane scoff and a most malitious speech merum pus venenum Yet this use we may make of it That we watch the Serpents head and beware the beginnings of evil For if we once serve in the Devils tents we may be engaged further then we ever thought we should and by going from our God we may learn to slight and mock him For there be steps and degrees and approches to Atheism nor is any man made an Atheist in the twinkling of an eye and this wilfull deceiving of our selves leads apace that way even to a distast of God We first mock our selves and then are willing to mock him For we never hate God till we have given him just reason to hate us Odium timor spirat saith Tertullian Hatred is an exhalation from Fear and we then begin to wish he had no Eye when we have cause to fear the weight of his Hands This is a sad declination even to the condition of the damned spirits nay of the Devil himself whose first wish was To be as God the next That there should be no God at all And thus much of the second point That we may have it in voto in our wish and desire to delude and mock God But now in the third and last place we may yet descend a step lower even to the gates of Hell it self I may say lower yet for as we may have it in voto so we may have it in studio As we may wish it were so so may we strive and study to believe it and use all means to make it present it self unto us as an article of our Creed which the damned cannot do We may strive to blot out those characters which are indeleble to rase out those afflicting thoughts of God out of our memory to drown the cry of one sin with the noise of more to feed our Love of the world with more wealth our Lust with more uncleanness and our Revenge with more bloud make a sin a vertue a crying sin an advocate by committing it often and answer our chiding Conscience with a song There be Amos 6. saith the Prophet that put far from them that evil day and to this end they chant to the sound of the viol and invent instruments of musick like David They bespeak the Vanities of the world to come in and make their peace call in the pleasure of the Flesh to abate the anguish of the Spirit work out the very thought of evil by the content and profit they reap in doing it laughing and jesting sin out of their memory adding sin unto sin till their conscience be seared as with a hot iron as the Apostle speaks Magnis sceleribus etiam jura naturae intereunt saith the Orator Whilest we are thus familiar with the works of darkness the light of Nature begins to wax dim and by degrees to vanish out of fight First as Bernard speaketh a spiritual chilness possesses the soul and finding no resistance seizeth on the inward man infects the very bowels of the heart chokes up the very wayes of counsel And then these domestick and inward remembrances the voice of Nature and the principles of Reason fail and speak in a broken and imperfect language In a word they are to us as we would have our God be not at hand as the Prophet speaketh but afar off The Historian will tell us that Theivery and Piracy were so frequently practised in some part of Greece that they were accounted no crimes at all And we read of those African parents that they made it a sport nay a religion to sacrifice their children and could not be disswaded from that inhumane custome and long it was before being conquered they were forced to lay it down And if we look abroad into the world we shall find some few indeed of those tender consciences who frame a law to condemn themselves by and so make more sins then there are But quocunque in populo quocunque sub axe in every nation in every corner of the earth we meet vvith those who frame mischief by a law take a pride to quarrel at Articles of their faith and are as active to nullifie the law of works Is Blasphemy a sin they speak it as their language Is Sacrilege a sin All things are alike to them as unholy as themselves Is Revenge a sin It an Heroick vertue Is adultery a sin It was a sin a mortal sin but in these latter and perillous times it hath spoke better things to them who are bold to present it as pleasing to their Understanding as to their Sense Is Rebellion a sin There be that call it by another name If the Son of man come shall he find sin upon the earth Certainly admit our glosses apologies distinctions evasions take us in our big triumphant thoughts there will be none that do evil no not one For what we read of the men of the first age that they know not what it was to dye but fell to their graves as men use to fall upon their beds is true of many now in respect of their spiritual estate they fall into sin as if it were nothing but to ly down and rest to satisfie the sense and please the appetite as if to sin were as natural as to eat And now all is night about us But even in this darkness there is sometimes a scintillation a beam of light darted in upon us which waxeth and waineth as the hand of God is upon us or removed In our ruff and jollity it seems well-near exstinct but in our misery and afflictions it revives many times and begins to move and at last when God strikes us to the ground when our feather is turned into a night cap when Death comes towards us on his pale horse it kindles and blazes as a Comet that foretells our everlasting destruction Now this our way uttereth our foolishness For what a folly is it to follow a Meteor exhal'd from the earth and not that light which is from heaven heavenly to be drove about with a ly and unmoveable as a rock when the Truth speaketh to preserve a wandring thought before an everlasting principle to embrace a suborn'd deceitful solicitation and turn our selves from those native and importunate suggestions from the dictates and counsel of the Spirit of God and though they haunt and pursue us run from them as from our enemies as if we were like to that fabulous rock in Pliny which you could not stir with all your strength but yet might shake with the touch of your finger We may say of this as the