reason and drawn you to excess in meats and drinks for matter or manner for quality or quantity or both Many a groan those sins have cost you and many a smarting day they have caused you and a sad uncomfortable life you have had by reason of them in comparison of what you might have had And this flesh hath been the Mother or the Nurse of all You were engaged by your Baptismal Covenant to fight against it when you entred into the Church and if you are Christians this combate hath been your daily work and much of the business of your lives And yet are you loth to have the victory see your enemy under feet Do you fight against it as for the life of your souls yet are you afraid lest death should hurt it or break it down Have you fought your selves friends with it that you are so tender of it when you are the greatest friends to it it will be the most dangerous enemy to you And do not think that it is only sin and not the body that is the flesh that is called your enemy in Scripture For though it be not the body as such or as obedient to the soul yet is it the Body as inclining to creatures from which the sinful soul cannot restrain it it is the body as having an inordinate sensitive appetite and imagination and so distempered as that it rebels against the Spirit and casteth off the rule of Reason and would not be curbed of its desires but have the rule of all it self Was it not the very flesh it self that Paul saith he fought against and kept under and brought into subjection lest he should be a cast a-way 1 Cor. 9. 26 27. Why should sin be called Flesh and Body but that it is the Body of Flesh that is the principal-seat of those sins that are so called If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live Rom. 8. 13. If ye sow to the flesh of the flesh ye shall reap corruption Gal. 6. 8. That which is first in Being is first in sin But it is the Flesh or Embryo endued with sense that is first in being Be not therefore too tender of that which corruption hath made your prison and your enemy Many a time you have been put to resist it and watch and strive against it and when you have been at the best it hath been hindring you to be better and when the spirit was willing the flesh was weak And quickly hath it caused your cooling declension Many a blessed hours communion between God your souls that flesh hath deprived you of And therfore though still you must love it yet you should the less grieve or be troubled at its sufferings seeing they are but the fruits of its sin and a holy contentedness shold possess your minds that God should thus castigatorily revenge his own quarrel yours upon it 10. But yet consider that were you never so tender of the body it self yet faith and reason should perswade you to be content For God is but preparing even for its felicity His undoing it but to make it up again As in the new birth he broke your hearts and false hopes that he might heal your hearts and give you sounder hopes instead of them so at death he breaketh your flesh and worldly hopes not to undo you and leave it in corruption but to raise it again another manner of body than now it is and give it a part in the blessedness which you hoped for If in good sadness you believe the Resurrection what cause is there for so much fear of death You can be content that your Roses die and your sweetest Flowers fall and perish and the green and beauteous complexion of the earth be turned into a bleak and withered hue because you expect a kind of Resurrection in the Spring You can boldly lie down at night to sleep though sleep be a kind of death to the body and more to the soul and all because you shall rise again in the morning And if every nights sleep or one at least were a gentle death if you were sure to rise again the next morning you would make no great matter of it Were it as common to men to die every night and rise again in the morning as it is to sleep every night and rise in the morning death would not seem such a dreadful thing Those poor men that have the falling-sickness do once in a day or in a few days lie as dead men and have as much pain as many that die And yet because they use to be up and well again in a little time they can go merrily about their business the rest of the day and little fear their approaching fall How much more should the belief of a Resurrection unto life confirm us against the fears of death And why should we not as quietly commit our bodies to the dust when we have the promise of the God of heaven that the Earth shall deliver up her dead and that this body that is sown in corruption shall be raisedin incorruption It is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body So great and wonderful the change will be as now is unconceivable we have now a drossie lâ—mp of flesh an aggravation of the Elements to a seed of life which out of them forms it self a body by the Divine influx Like the Silk-worm which in the Winter is but a seed which in the Summer doth move attract that matter from which it gets a larger body by a kind of Resurrection But it is another manner of body I will not say of flesh which at the Resurrection we shall have Not flesh and blood nor a natural body but of a nature so spiritual sublime and pure that it shall be indeed a spiritual body And think not that this is a contradiction and that spirituality and corporeity are inconsistent For There is a Natural Body and there is a Spiritual body The root of the fleshly Natural body was the first man Adam who was made a living soul to be the Root of living souls The root of the spiritual Body is Christ who being a quickning Spirit doth quicken all his members by his Spirit which Spirit of Grace is the seed of Glory as from an holy and gracious Saviour we receive an holy and gracious nature so from a Glorified Saviour we shall receive a glorious nature we are now changed from glory to Glory in the beginning as by the spirit of the Lord But it is another kind of Glory that this doth tend to Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual but the natural and afterwards the spiritual The first man was of the Earth Earthy The second man is the Lord from heaven
And from each of them we partake of an answerable Nature As is the Earthy such are they that are earthy even all of us in our fleshly state having earthy bodies from an earthy Adam and natural bodies from the natural Adam And as is the heavenly such are they that are heavenly for Christ makes men like himself even first gracious and then glorious as Adam begets us like himself that is natural and sinful And therefore all those that have followed Christ in the Regeneration shall follow him into Glory and having conquered by him shall reign by him and with him and having received the holy nature here which is the seed of glory they shall receive the glorious nature there which is the perfection of that Grace And so as Christ hath an heavenly spiritual body and â—â—â— an earthy natural body so shall his Members have that they may be like him And as we have here born the image of the earthy in having first a natural fleshly body we shall also bear the Image of the Heavenly Adam in having a spiritual body that is not fleâ—â— Now lest any doubt of it saith the Spirit of God this I say that Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God neither doth Corruption inherit incorruption 1 Cor. 15. 42. to 51. Object If there were but as much likelihood of a Resurrection as there is of the Reviving of the plants in the Spring I could believe it for there is a life remaining in the Root or Seed but the body of man hath neither Root nor seed of life and therefore it 's contrary to nature that it should revive Answ 1. If it be above nature that is all it is not contrary to it Or not so contrary as to be above the power of the Lord of nature Will you allow no greater works for God than such as you can see a reason of and can assign a natural cause of what did Nature in the creation of nature It was not certainly any cause of it self If Christ rose without a natural cause even so shall we 2. But why may I not say that the dead body of man hath a living Root as truly as the plants in winter The soul is the Root of the body and the soul is still alive And Christ is the Root of the soul and he is still alive For though we are dead yet our Life is hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our life shall appear at the Spring of Resurrection then we shall also appear with him in Glory Col. 3. 3 4. And though there be no Physical contact between this living soul and the body yet there is a Relative Union and a deep rooted Love of the soul to its body and inclination to it so that it is mindful of it and waiteth with longing for that hour when the command of God shall send it to revive that body It is not incredible that a silly snail should by its natural life and power make for it self a beautiful habitation Or that the life of a Rose-tree that was buried in the root should fabricate a sweet and beauteous Rose by which it may make an ostentation of its invisible self to the world In how small a room doth the life of a silk-worm lie of which I spoke before in the winter That little grain or seed is such as yields no sign of life to the beholder yet doth it form it self a larger body and that body spin its silken web out of its own substance and in that house it self in a husk and take to it self another shape and thence become a winged Fly and so generate more But nearer us in the generation of man the vital principle in the seed doth quickly with concurrent causes form it self a body The warmth of the body of the Hen or other Bird can turn the egge into a Chicken Why then may not the living sâ—ul that is the Root and life of the body in the dust be the instrument of God to reform its own body as certainly it will be the principle that shall reinform it But you say the body being dead hath no natural root nor way of recess to life again because the privation is total To which I answer First the Relative union between the soul and it and the souls disposition to the Return into its body is as potent a cause of its reviving as the natural union of the Root and branches if withal you consider that Christ is the Root of the soul Rational agents if perfect will work as certainly as Natural For natural causes do nothing but by a Power communicated to them from an Intellectual cause even God himself Why should Nature do any of these things but because God that makes and ruleth all will have it to be so Now Jesus Christ is the Political Head of the Church The body in the grave hath its own Relation to him Christ is still living and resolved and engaged by promise and enclined by Love to revive that body And as Christ is the life of the soul so the soul is the life of the body and this soul as I said is waiting to be sent again into it And when the hour comes what can hinder The Love of the soul to its body and its desire to be reunited is a kind of natural cause of the Resurrection A candle not lighted is as far from light and as much without it as a dead body is without life And yet one touch of a lighted candle will light that which never was lighted before And so may one touch of the living soul that 's now with Christ put life into the body that lieth in the dust And as the lighted candle makes the other like it and communicateth of its own nature to it so doth the glorified soul communicate a new kind of excellency to the body which it never had before even to be a spiritual glorious incorruptible and immortal body In the first creating of man the new formed body as to the matter of it was no better than the body of a Beast or any common piece of earth But the soul made the difference when a Rational Soul was breathed into that Body it advanced the very body to a dignity beyond the bodies of brutes even such as the natural body of man had before sin When Christ was about to repair faln man it was the spirit of Christ informing the soul that caused the renewed soul to communicate again a dignity to the bodies of sanctified men above other bodies And so when the body was dead because of sin having the root of sin and death within it and being mortal therefore yet the spirit was life because of Righteousness being the Root of holy and Righteous dispositions and the new life in man himself Rom. 8. 10. For Christ the principal root of life and the spirit and holiness are first in order of nature in the soul and but by
break out in the Town and infect but a quarter as many houses as here are infectious Alehouses that harbour tiplers and drunkards and see whether the Magistrates of this or any Town will not a little better bestir themselves and send to search after infected places and nail up their doors and write on them Lord have mercy on us that all may take warning and keep away They will not here be offended with Informers nor say Am I bound to look after them And why are they not as zealous against sin as against the plague Great reason Self is for sin and God only is against it but self is against the Plague because it is concerned in it sin doth but hurt the soul and bring men to Helfire but the plague destroys their body and this is the greater matter with them because they have flesh and sense to judge of it but they have not faith to believe the other Again let but one house in the Town be on fire and all are up to quench it and the Bell is rung and the Magistrate doth not think that he wants a Call himself to look after it And when the fire of Hell is kindling in an Ale-house that 's nothing but must be let alone there 's no such zeal nor no such haste And why so Why one they see in good sadness and perceive that it is fire indeed but the other they believe in jest as if it would prove but a painted fire Again let but an ungodly fellow slander the Magistrate or call him all to naught especially if he give him but two or three boxes on the ear and see whether he will let that man alone But let the same man abuse the name of God and break his Laws and with too many he may be let alone unless they be urged to do Justice And how comes this difference Why self is toucht in one and it is but God But God! O Atheists that 's touched in the other Self can do more with them than God can do Remember still when I say that self can do more with them than God that I speak not of what God could do by his Omnipotency if he would but of the final Causality or the small interest that God hath in their hearts by holy Faith and Love Again let but a servant rob the Magistrate and carry his money and goods to an Ale-seller to reset and try whether he will look after him and the Ale-seller And why not as soon and as zealously when Ale-sellers reset mens sons and servants and drown mens understandings and turn them into beasts Why because in one it is but God and mens souls that are concerned a matter of nothing but in the other it is self a greater matter with them Shall I give you but one instance more that the Ale-sellers themselves will take my part in so far as to bear me witness that its true Here are Farmers of the Excise that have power to know what Ale-houses are in the Town and their gain lyeth on it and there shall scarce a man in Town or Country sell Ale so secretly but they will know it nor sell a Barrel but what they are acquainted with They do not say I am not bound to go search after them nor that they be not able to discover them and to bring them to pay Excise But the Justices too commonly can overlook abundance that the Excise-men can find and they cannot make one of twenty pay when the other can And what 's the matter Why one works for self and money and the other works but for God and his own and other mens salvation a small matter See then beyond denyal what self and money can do with such men when God and mens salvation can do next to nothing But I must desire you not to mistake me and think I speak this of any honest godly Magistrate and abuse the good by joyning them with the bad No far be it from me to be so injurious For its evident that they can be no good men nor have any true Love of God in their souls that are such in a predominant sense as I have here described It is not in my thoughts to lay this blame on any honest Godly Magistrate for none but the ungodly would do as I have mentioned and prefer themselves before the Lord and the bodies of men before the souls And alas if the Soveraign Powers of the Nations of the world were not too sick of the same disease gain would not be accounted Godliness but Godliness the greatest gain and carnal Policie would not go for Piety but true Piety would go for the surest Policie It would not be so common in most Nations to have the Truth and Cause of Christ disowned and his servants persecuted and their lives and blood to be made a sacrifice to carnal Self and worldly Interests Nor would the breaches of the Churches be so long unhealed and grow wider and wider and few much regard them but all have their own work to do which must be looked after Yea and the Cause of Christ and the Gospel must be trod down if it stand in the way of their own And the Churches must be set on fire by their wars and contentions for their selfish Interests And if Self were not too strong among us we should not have had such connivence at doctrinal and practical abominations nor so much delay or neglect of healing the discomposed Churches and uniting the divided Christians or attempting it more effectually than we have done But because I desire to speak to none but those that are within my hearing I will return home to our selves The holy ordering and instructing of families and suppressing sin in Children and servants is one of the most effectual works for the building up of the Church and the glory and stability of the Common-wealth O if Parents and Masters would but sanctifie their houses to the Lord and teach their families the will and fear of God and do their best by punishment when instruction will not serve to hinder sin how fast would Reformation then go on And what hindreth why carnal Self If it were but for wordly commodities they would do more Would you have me prove it Let experience speak Let a servant or child go prayerless to their work and few regard it but they will not go without meat or drink or cloaths The Master will suffer them to neglect Gods service but if they neglect his own and should do him no more or better service than they do to God they should soon hear of it and be turned out of door and they were no servants for him They will teach their children to do their own work or set them Apprentices to learn it but the work of God and their salvation they shall for them have little teaching in how plainly soever God hath commanded it them Deut. 11. 18 19. 6. 6 7 8. Ephes 6. 4. Let
because they would get most themselves so Proud persons like not Pride in others because they would not have any to vie with them or overtop them and be look'd upon and preferr'd before them None look with such scorn and envy at your bravery as those that are as silly and sinful as your selves who cannot endure that you should excel them in vanity so that good and bad do ordinarily despise or pity you for that which you think should procure your esteem 5. Consider also that Apparel is the fruit or consequent of sin that laid man naked and open unto shame and is it fit you should be proud of that which is ordained to hide your â—â—ame and which should humble you by minding you of the sin that caused the necessity of it 6. And you should bethink you better than most Gallants do what account you mean to make to God for the money that you lay out in excess of bravery will it think you be a good and comfortable account to say Lord I laid out so much to feed and manifest my Pride and Lust when such abundance of pious and charitable uses did call for all that you could spare Many a Lord and Knight Gallant bestoweth more in one suit of cloaths or in one set of hangings or in the superfluous dress of a Daughter than would keep a family of poor people for a 12 moneth or than would maintain a poor Scholar for higher service than ever they themselves will do And many a poor boy or girl goeth without a Bible or any good books that they may lay out all they have on their backs 7. Lastly I beseech you do not forget what it is that you are so carefully a doing and what those bodies are that you so adorn and are so proud of and set out to the sight of the world in such bravery Do you not know your selves Is it not a lump of warm and thick clay that you would have men observe and honour When the soul that you neglect is once gone from them hey will be set out then in another garb That little space of earth that must receive them must be defiled with their filthiness and corruption and the dearest of your friends will have no more of your company nor one smell or sight of you more if they can choose There is not a carrion in the ditch that is loathsomer than that gallant painted corpse will be a little after death And what are you in the mean time Even bags of filth and living graves in which the carkasses of your fellow-creatures are daily buried and corrupt There is scarce a day with most of you but some part of a dead carkass is buried in your bodies in which as in a filthy grave they lie and corrupt and part of them turneth into your substance and the rest is cast out into filthy excrements And thus you walk like painted sepulchres Your fine clothes are the adorned covers of filth and flegm and dung If you did but see what is within the proudest Gallant you would say the inside did much differ from the outside It may be an hundred worms are crawling in the bowels of that beautiful damsel or adorned fool that set out themselves to be admired for their bravery If a little of the filth within do but turn to the scab or the small pox you shall see what a piece it was that was wont to have all that curious trimming Away then with these vanities and be not children all your days nay be not proud of that which your children themselves can spare Be ashamed that ever you have been guilty of so much dotage as to think that people should honour you for a borrowed bravery which you put off at night and on in the morning O poor deluded dust and worms-meat lay by your dotage and know your selves Look after that which may procure you deserved and perpetual esteem and see that you make sure of the honour that is of God Away with deceitful ornamens and gawds look after the inward real worth Grace is not set out and honoured by fine clothes but clouded wronged and dishonoured by excess It is the inward glory that is the real glory The Image of God must needs be the chiefest beauty of man Let that shine forth in the holiness of your lives you will be honourable indeed Peter telleth you of such a conversation of women as may win their unbelieving husbands without the word And what is it while they behold your chast conversation coupled with fear whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold or of putting on of apparel but the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price For after this manner in old time the holy women that trusted in God adorned themselves being in subjection to their husbands 1 Per. 3. 1 2 3 4 5. CHAP. XXVII Ease Quietness and worldly Peace to be denied 10. ANother part of Carnal self-interest to be denied is Ease and Quietness and worldly Peace which the slothful and self-seekers prefer before the pleasing of God Both the ease of the mind and of the body are â—here comprehended and slothfulness in Gods nearest service and also in the works of our callings to be reprehended The same fleshly Power that draweth one man to whoredom and drunkenness and covetousness doth draw another to sloth and idleness It is but several ways of Pleasing the same flesh and obeying the same sensuality And because that Idleness and Sloth is so great and common a sin yet made so light of by the most I shall briefly tell you the mischiefs of it and the Reasons that should make you hate it 1. Slothfulness doth contradict the very end of our creation and preservation and the frame of our nature and so provoketh God to cut us off and cast us as useless into the fire Who dare so wrong the wisdom of God as to say or think that he made us to do nothing If a man make an house it is to dwell in if he make a watch it is to tell him the hour of the day and every thing is for its proper use And is man made to be idle what man that is the noblest inferior creature and an active creature fitted for work and the highest work shall he be idle Justly may God then hew him down as a dead and withered tree and suffer him no more to cumber his ground 2. Slothfulness is a sin that loseth the precious gifts of God Our faculties and our members are his gifts and talents which he hath committed to us to use for his service so are our goods and all that we have and shall we hide them in a napkin or idly neglect to use them O what abundance of excellent mercies lie useless and idle
communication and secondarily in the Body But contrarily sin made its entrance first by the Body and hath its Root and Seat first in order of nature in the body it is so communicated to the soul Thus sin comes in at the back-door even at the wrong end and by the baser part But Grace comes in the right way by the Nobler part sin hath its Root in the viler part but Christ hath his seat first in the better part And yet I must add 1. That sin is not ripe till it reach the will though it enter by the flesh and senses it is not formed nor to be called sin till it reach the will and as there it is scituated but yet the thing it self is first in and by the flesh 2. And the will is truly the seat of Original sin it self as well as the sensitive part but not the first Root of the corruption Though sin be Worst in the Rational part because the corruption of the best is the worst yet it is not first there But Holiness is first also in the soul and so communicated to the body And so also Glory it self will be And therefore take notice of the wise and gracious providence of God that taketh the soul to heaven before-hand that it may be first Glorified and so may be fit to communicate glory to the body And so as the Natural Soul dignified the Natural Body and the Sanctified Soul did Sanctifie the body so the Glorified Soul by reunion with the body shall communicate its Nature to the body at the Resurrection and so it will be made spiritual immortal and incorruptible by the soul and soul and body are made such by Christ So that by this time you may see that there is more Reason for the Resurrection for all the body is turned to earth than there is Reason that a Candle that 's gone out should be lighted again by another or than there is Reason that I should put on my cloaths in the morning which I put off at night It 's true those cloaths have no power to put on themselves nor is there any natural necessitating cause of it but yet there is a Free cause in me that will infallibly if I live and be able produce it For nature disposeth me to abhor nakedness and desire my cloaths and therefore in the morning I will put them on And so nature teacheth the separated soul to desire a reunion with its body and therefore when the Resurrection morning comes it will gladly take the word from Christ and give that vital touch to the body that shall revive it and so put on its ancient garment but wonderfully changed from fleshly to spiritual from dishonourable into glorious And now I hope you see that you may put off these cloths with patience and submission and that it is no wrong to the flesh it self to be put off but tendeth to its highest advancement at the last Though the first cause of sin and the nest of sin shall be so broken first that it shall first be seen what sin hath done before it be seen what Grace will do and the fruit of our own wayes must first be tasted before we shall fully feed and live upon the blessed fruit of the grace of Christ 11. Moreover as there is a Resurrection for the body it self and that to a more perfect estate than it can here attain so the whole nature shall be perfected beyond our present comprehension This life was not intended to be the place of our perfection but the preparation for it As the fruit is far from ripeness in the first appearance or the flower while it is but in the husk or bud or the Oak when it is but an acorn or any plant when it is but in the seed no more is the very nature of man on earth As the Infant is not perfect in the Womb nor the Chicken in the shell no more are our natures perfect in this world Methinks for the sake of the body it self much more of the soul if we are believers we should submit contentedly to death While you are here you know that creatures will fail you enemies will hate you friends will grieve you neighbours will wrong you Satan will tempt you and molest you the world is changeable and will deceive you all your comforts are mixed with discomforts the body carrieth about with it calamities enough of its own to weary it What daily pains must it be at for the sustentation of its self in its present state and yet what grief and sorrow must it undergo Every member hath either its disease or a disposition thereto What abundance of passages can pain and sickness find to enter at and how many rooms that are ready to receive them As every member hath its use so every one is capable of sorrow and the sorrow of one is at least as much communicated to the whole as the usefulness is The pain of the simplest member even of a tooth can make the whole body a weary of it self What is the daily condition of our flesh but weakness and suffering with care and labour to prevent much worse which yet we know cannot long be avoided The sorrow of many a mans life hath made him wish he had never been born and why then should he not wish as much to die which doth ten thousand fold more for him if he be a Christian than to be unborn would have done Not a Relation so comfortable but hath its discomforts Not a friend so suitable but hath some discordancy nor any so amiable and sweet but hath somewhat loathsome troublesome and bitter Not a place so pleasant and commodious but hath its unfitness discommodities Not a Society so good and regular but hath its corruptions and irregularities And should we be so loth to leave whether naturally or violently such a life as this When the fruit is ripe should it not be gathered When the corn is ripe would you have it grow there and not be cut When the spirit hath hatched us for heaven should we be so loth to leave the shell or nest When we are begotten again to the hopes of immortality should we be so desirous to stay in the womb O Sirs it is another kind of life that we shall have with God They are purer comforts that stay for us above But if you will not have the Grapes to be gathered and prest how can you expect to have the Wine Me thinks our fleâ—h should have enough e're this time of sickness and pain and want and crosses and should be content to lie down in hope of the day when these shall be no more Little would an unbeliever think what a Body God will make of this that now is corruptible flesh and blood It shall then be loathsome and troublesome no more It shall be hungry or thirsty or weary or cold or pained no more As the stars of heaven do differ from a clod of