is that increase of the body unto the edifying of it self in love Oh what a shole of Christians did this Love send forth when the Heathen could make the observation and proclaim it See how these Christians love one another Then did they fill their villages their temples their armies And if we look upon their number they might as Tertullian observes have easily swallowed up their enemies in victory When St. Peter that Fisher of men caught so many together even three thousand souls it was Love that gathered them in and Acts 2. 41. it was Love that kept them in For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they continued daily with v. 46. one accord in the temple They were of one heart and of one soul And what Acts 4. 32. is it that hath made such a dearth and scarcity of sincere and truly pious Christians but our Debate and bitter Malice the greatest enemy Christianity hath For by biting and devouring one another we have well-near consumed one another nay well-near consumed Religion it self And if a Heathen should stand by he could not but wonder and make no other observation then this See how the Christians hale one another The Heathen of old could find out nothing in the Christians but their name to accuse them but we of this aged and corrupted world have scarce any thing but the name of Christians to commend us Hoc Ithacus velit This is that which our enemies have long expected and to effect which they have spent their nights their dayes have laid out their leasure their business their watchings their very sleep and now have seen that fire which they did help to kindle by the light of which they may stretch forth their curtains and enlarge their territories and dominions every day in Christendome For as the Devil is tormented as Optatus speaks with the peace of the Brethren when they are joyned together vinculo fidei glutine charitatis by the bond and cement of Faith and Love so is he enlivened and put into hopes of success in his attempts by the mutual ruptures and jealousies which the Brethren the members of the Church foment and cherish amongst themselves When by the defection of Jeroboam Judah and Israel were rent asunder then came Shishak and troubled Jerusalem And 2 Chron. 12. 2. therefore let us love the Brotherhood as the Apostle exhorts For an enemy is never more dangerous to an army then when it is disordered by mutiny and division If it be at peace with it self it hath half conquered the enemy When the Church begins to be torn by Schisms and Contentions then every blast is ready to shake and shatter it but when it is in unity within it self then it is built up strong and fair as the tower of David No Heresie no Enemy no Jesuite no Devil no not the Gates of Hell can prevail against us whilst we are fast joyned together rooted and built-up and establisht in love No principalities nor powers no height nor depth no creature can come near to touch us whilst we keep within the circle and compass which Love maketh whilst we continue Brethren Thus then we find both Pleasure and Profit in being Brethren But now in the third and last place there is a kind of Necessity to force us And the Love that keeps us so is necessary not only as a virtue or quality without which we ought not to be but as a virtue without which we cannot be what we profess For loose but this bond once unjoynt this goodly frame shake but the Brotherhood and we are fallen from heaven spoiled of all the riches of the Gospel deprived of all the priviledges and prerogatives of Christians defeated of all those glorious promises shook from the hope of immortality and eternal life without love and then without God in this world left naked and destitute stript of our inheritance having title to no place but that where the revolting Angels and malicious Spirits are shut up For as that is true which we find in the Gloss on the Canon Law Habe Charitatem fac quod vis Do it in love and do what thou wilt Thy Zeal shall be as the fire in the bush burning but not consuming thy Reproofs shall be balm thy Justice physick thy Wounds kisses thy Tears as the dew of heaven thy Joy the joy of Angels all thy Works fit to be put in the register of God But if once thou forsake the Brotherhood if once thou shake hands with Love then whatsoever thou doest must needs be ill done because thou doest it If thou speak with the tongue of Men and Angels it is but noise if thou give all thy goods to the poor it is but loss and that which with Love is martyrdom without it may be murder Thy Zeal will be rage thy Reproofs swords thy Justice gall and wormwood thy Wounds fatal thy Tears the dropping of a crocodile thy Joy madness and thy Works sit for nothing but the fire The Gospel to thee will be as killing as the Law and the Bloud of Christ cry as loud for vengeance as that of Abel or of any Brother whom thou hast persecuted and wounded with injuries and reproach Let us not deceive our selves with vain pretences and ridiculous excuses with empty and airy phansies which can conceive and shape out Love when it is dead in the heart which can revile and love strike and love kill and love For a truth it is and a sad truth a truth which may bore the ears of many of us Christians and strike us to the ground as Peters voice did Ananias And St. John hath set his seal to it He that loveth not his Brother and not to 1 John 3. 14. love him with St. John is to hate him abideth in death And again He He that hateth his brother is a murderer alluding to our Saviours reformation of the Law which even made Anger murder What degree of Murder soever he means such a Murderer he is that hath not eternal life abiding in him The want of this Love being a sure mark of a child of wrath and of one carrying his hell about with him whithersoever he goes being himself a Tophet burning with fire and brimstone with Hatred and Malice and Fury having nothing between him and that everlasting Hell but a ruinous wall his body of flesh which will moulder away and fall down within a span of time Oh how should this still sound in our ears as that Rise and come unto judgment did in St. Hieroms who could not sleep for it Oh that the sound of this would make us not to leave our sleep but to leave our gall our venome our Malice which may peradventure bite our Brothers heel wound him in his person in his estate or good name but will most certainly sting us unto death Let then this sad nay this behoofful this glorious this Necessity prevail with us and let us not so trifle with
him under his foot in his own house The Prison hath darkness but he is light the Prison hath chains but he is free in fetters Nihil interest ubi sit in soeculo qui extra soeculum est In this world it matters not where he is confined who is already out of the world We commonly distinguish the ages of the Church into times of Persecution and times of Peace and indeed in respect of the visible state of the Church such times there are But the Saints of God the Kingdom of Christ on earth never had peace nor possibly can have But by the wisdom of God it comes to pass that that which we call Persecution is indeed the peace of the Church Fire and Sword and Imprisonment these build up the Church of God Perversitas quam putas ratio est quod saevitiam existimas gratia est saith Tertullian That is good Order which we take to be Confusion and that which we call Persecution is Favour and Mercy Cum Ecclesia in attonito est Then the Church enjoys her peace when she is astonisht with terrors We cannot think that St. Peter lost his peace with his liberty or that he was a Saint less glorious because he was in prison The Church of Rome hath given us no less then fifteen Notes of the true Church and one we find to be temporal Felicity but most of them are but doctae ineptiae laborious vanities and learned impertinencies Had she soberly consulted with this book of Acts or but with this Text of mine she would not have found the least appearance of temporal happiness to make up a Note with unless we shall call it a temporal happiness to be beaten to be stoned to be imprisoned St. Peter here in prison would be a stronger argument to beat down her State then the Prayers of the Church to build up St. Peter a regal Throne Would ever any man once dream that my Text would yield any materials for a chair of Supremacy for St. Peter and his Successor but the Jesuit by his cunning hath framed one and St. Peter must needs be setled in it because the Church here prays for St. Peter and not for St. James O qualis artifex What a skilful artificer hath Ignatius Loyola begot that would perswade the world the Church prayed not for St. James or that her prayers to help St. Peter out of prison did lift him up into the Chair But what rubbage will not these men make use of who lay hold on a monosyllable on the little particle ET ET PETRUM he took Peter also That also hath an Emphasis and makes Peter higher then the rest of the Apostles by the head and shoulders Nay his very Shadow hath some substance in it and overshadows not only the sick but all the world Thus when TU ES PETRUS will not serve ET PETRUM is brought in to help a particle a shadow nothing And when they cannot hew him a Chair out of the rock they build one up of sand where they find no Cedar they are content with straws Indeed they are so busie in raising Peter to height of State that they quite forget that he was ever kept in prison and therefore they phansy to themselves such a flourishing state as may become a universal Monarch and receive him with both his Swords of temporal and spiritual jurisdiction And now we need not wonder that she brings forth the Church of Christ like Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with great pomp and train because we see she makes profession of Religion to gain the world Infelicity and Supremacy will not blend together and therefore to hold up her Supremacy she maintains State and wheresoever she finds the name of Peter she seeks a mystery and if she cannot find one she will make one Thus is Christianity constrained to lacquey it to the World and become the means of the greatest secular Pomp that the world hath seen St. Peter as Erasmus tells us was lodged in the house of one Simon a Tanner at nunc tria regum palatia non sufficiunt but now saith he three Kings palaces are not able to entertain the pomp and state of Peters Successor When the triple Crown is on his head what think you can he dream of else then outward pomp and temporal felicity Tully tells us of a Musician that being askt what the Soul was answered it was Harmony Et i◠saith he difficulter à principiis artis suae recessit he knew not how to leave the principles of his own art Plato's Scholars had been altogether bred up in Arithmetick and the knowledge of Numbers whence deverting their studies to Natural and Moral Philosophy wheresoever they walkt they still phansied to themselves something like unto Number Just so it fares with these men who fashioned out the Church by the World Difficulter à principiis artis suae recedunt They cannot leave their old principles In the World they are bred the World they study and this follows then in the pursuit of the knowledge of Christ and the Church They still phansie something like unto the World Riches and Honour and a universal Monarchy What shall we now think of the Church butchered in Abel floating in the Ark a pilgrim in the Patriarchs captive in Aegypt hiding her self in the time of idolatrous persecutors after of Christ vexed by the Jews persecuted by Heathen and no less by those who professed themselves Christians by Arian and haeretical Emperors What shall we think of St. Peter in prison here We shall not see this mark upon him no more then upon Abraham Moses David Hezekiah and Josiah whom notwithstanding the Cardinal brings in to make temporal happiness a token and note of true professors Abraham afflicted with famine in Aegypt forced to forego his wife and deny her Moses exposed by his parents put in an ark of bull-rushes into the river after many difficulties when he came to the very borders of Canaan forbid to enter in David begging his bread and persecuted by his own son Hezekiah mourning like a Dove and chattering like a Crane Josiah slain at Megiddo and St. Peter fast in chains This Note was not de fide then No it was de fide seriptum est it is written and we must make it an article of our belief Blessed are you when men persecute you and revile you Poverty and Affliction Matth. 5. 11. and Imprisonment and Persecution are not only bona but beatitudines not only good but Beatitudes and Blessings Rubus ardens est sigura ecclesiae saith St. Hierom The Church is like the bush which was all on fire but consumed not To conclude we may say of temporal Felicity in respect of the Church as Tertullian speaketh of the unveiling of Virgins in the Church Id negat quod ostendit It denyes the Church by shewing it And thus much may be spoken by occasion of Peters Imprisonment In the next place
commanders of this little while and so let it out to their own Lusts and ungrounded imaginations it is but a little while and soon ends in eternal destruction God hath them in a chain and when they have run out their length he gives them a check and pulls them on their back The long suffering of God is Salvation But when men value it not at its ◠Pet. 3. 15. true rate nor account it what it is but make that which is Salvation something else even turn it into an Apology for sin count it an applause from God himself and make it a confirmation of their designs how illegal and unwarrantable soever then it is justice with God to kill up in such men all seeds of Grace to strike them with the spirit of error and madness to withhold his Thunder and in a manner to dissemble with them and deceive them non dignari irasci not to favour them so much as to be angry with them to take off his jealousy from them as the Prophet saith that they shall have eyes and see not ears and hear not that they shall have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speak a reprobate mind and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theodoret renders it a reverberating mind a heart of marble to beat back all the words of the wise and the word of God it self to open their ears to one fool who shall perswade them to kick against the pricks and to stop their ears to seven wise men that can render a reason to rejoyce in the error of their wayes to think to build up Religion upon the ruines of Christianity and to purge the Church with bloud to count it a savory language and the holy tongue to revile their Prince to call Discharging of great Ordinance at him fighting for him and Murdering of Charles preserving of the King alive to call them the only Seers who are blind and those the truest Prophets who like Balaam will rise up early in the morning to curse Israel for reward or rather such who are more like the Ass than that Prophet who uttered words indeed but understood not what she sayd or rather indeed not so wise as that beast for what she spake was sense and full of reason a language which those of them which I have heard speak and those were not a few I am sure have little skill in to think this and speak this and do this and call it the Defense of the Protestant Religion as if the Papist were to be carried out upon the Atheists Shoulders to do this and more than I could believe from any witness but my Eye I say It is justice in God to suffer such Giantlike Sinners to do this and that for a little while and in this little while which was time enough for avoyding the blow to whet and furbish his sword and then to make it drunk in the bloud of these his enemies It is the Nature of Delay in other things to hold back and hinder our proceedings For not to do a thing betimes and in its proper season is to rob our selves of the faculty of doing it at all But it holds not true in Gods Punishing of the Wicked For gravitate supplicii moram pensat He supplies and makes up the delay in punishing with the smart of the blow when he lights His wrath like wind shut up long in the Caverns of the earth at last breaks forth in a Tempest For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be c. And so we pass from the Delay to the Certainty of Gods Justice on the Wicked and of his delivery of the Meek My second Observation Let all the earth rejoyce before the Lord for he cometh for he cometh to Psal 96. 13. judge the earth saith the Prophet David Flatter not thy self then that he defers his coming For he cometh he cometh He is set out already and well on in his journey When this little while is past at the appointed time you shall see him with his sword and his quiver Plures idcirco Domino non credunt quia seculo iratum tamdiu nesciunt Many men think that God is like unto themselves observing their actions no more then they do his commands because he thunders not from heaven nor sends into the world what that Tyrant wisht for in his dayes some strange unheard-of calamity Many run away with the burden of their sins and feel it not because God sends not a fire into their bones But the Father will tell us Malus interpres Divinae providentiae humana infirmitas The weak eye of man may read many lines through which the Providence of God doth run but we commonly do erre in our interpretations That gloss must needs be accursed which Flesh and Bloud which our sensual lusts and affections do bring Divine Providence is most methodical in those actions which perhaps to us appear under no other shape but of confusion and disorder It consists in the ordering and bringing things to the right end And be the way what it will God leads and drives every thing to that end which his Wisdome hath fitted to it The meek he leads to bliss but through many afflictions which may form a crooked and uneven but is the nearest way The Wicked tend to destruction as naturally as a Stone doth to the center Whether the sky be fair or cloudy be the passage what it will yet the Wicked in his highest pitch thither falls at last Sometimes Providence displayes it self openly before the Sun and the people in the destructions of the wicked sometimes it works more invisibly but whether secretly or openly day unto day teacheth knowledge and in the end of their dayes God will write this truth with their bloud Though they work never so privily as it were in a vault though they make Religion it self a vault to hide their designs in yet their damnation sleepeth not but God at last will find them out and strike them to the ground even in those Meanders and Labyrinths which they made to hide themselves in The Philosopher tells us the greatest tempests are not of long continuance No whirlwind lasteth a day no not an hour And as a whirlwind passeth so is the wicked no more Prov. 10. 25. Suppose he here rage and with his breath kindle those coals which consume a kingdome Suppose he dispose of mens goods and lives at pleasure yet he passeth away as a whirlwind he drives down all before him and maketh a huge noyse and presently is not Suppose he fill up a page in Chronicle yet what was before in action is but now in story All we can say is that he was At such a time there was a subtle Traytor a politick Devil And we may both write and say it At such a time there was a whirlwind What did Sennacherib get by advancing his banner against the
their Laws In the Common-wealth of Rome the Laws were the works of many hands Some of them were Plebiscita the acts of the people others Senatus Consulta the decrees of the Senate others edicta Praetorum the verdicts of their Judges others Responsa prudentum the opinions of Wise men in cases of doubt others rescripta Imperatorum the rescripts and answers of their Emperors when they were consulted with Christiani habent regulam saith Tertullian Christians have one certain immoveable rule the Word of God to guide and rule them in their life and actions Besides the Laws of the Kingdome of Christ are eternal substantial indispensable But the laws made by humane autority are many of them light and superficial all of them temporary and mutable For all the humane autority in the world can never enact one eternal or fundamental law Read the Laws that men have made and lay them together and we shall observe that they were made upon occasion and circumstance either of Time or Place or Persons and therefore either by discontinuance have fallen of themselves or by reason of some urgent occasion have been necessarily revoked But the Laws of our Great King are like himself everlasting never to be revoked or cancelled but every 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and tittle of them to stand fast though heaven and earth pass away Thus you see the Kingdome of Christ and the Kingdomes of this world have not the same face and countenance the Subjects of the one being discernable of the other unknown their seat and place and lawes are different So that our Saviour as he answered the sons of Zebedee Yee know not what yee ask so he might have replied to his Disciples here Yee know not what yee speak My kingdome is not of this world The kingdome of heaven is within you Why ask you then Who is the greatest in the kingdome of heaven That you commit no more such soloecisms behold here a little child let him teach you how to speak and become like him and you shall be great in the kingdome of heaven We see then that the Disciples of Christ were much mistaken in this question of greatness And a common error it is amongst men to judge of spiritual things by carnal of eternal by temporary When our Saviour preached to Nicodemus the Doctrine of Regeneration and New life what a gross conceit did he harp upon of a Re-entry to be made into his mothers womb When he told the Samaritane of the water of life her thoughts ran on her pitcher and on Jacob's well When Simon Magus saw that by laying on of hands the Apostles gave the holy Ghost he hopes by money to purchase the like power For seeing what a kingdome Money had amongst men he streight conceived Coelum venale Deumque that God and Heaven might be bought with a price Thus wheresoever we walk our own shadow goes before us and we use the language and dialect of the World in the School of Christ we talk of Superiority and Power and Dominion in that Kingdome wherein we must be Priests and Kings too but by being good not great The sense which the Disciples through error meant was this Who should be greatest Who should have most outward pomp and glory Who should have precedency above others But the sense which as appears by our Saviours answer they should have meant was Who is the greatest that is Who is of the truest and reallest worth in the kingdome of heaven This had shewed them Disciples indeed whose eyes should be the rather on the Duty then on the Reward and who can have no greater honor then this that they deserve it Though there be places of outward government of praeeminence and dignity in the Church yet it ill becomes the mouth of a Disciple to ask such a Question For though they all joyntly ask Who is the greatest yet it appears by the very question that every one of them did wish himself the man An evil of old very dangerous in the Church of Christ but not purged out in after ages Per quot pericula sath St. Augustine pervenitur ad grandius periculum Through how many dangers and difficulties do we strive forward to Honor which is the greatest danger of all Ut dominemur aliis priùs servimus saith St. Ambrose To gain Dominion over others we become the greatest slaves in the world What an inundation had this desire of Greatness made in the Church how was it ready to overwhelm all Religion and Piety had there not been banks set up against it to confute it and Decrees made to restrain it The Deacon would have the honor of the Priest the Priest the Consistory of the Bishop The Bishops seat was not high enough but he would be a Metropolitane and to that end procured Letters from the Emperors which the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which they obteined that where there was formerly but one there might now be two Metropolitanes And all these no doubt were Disciples of Christ if for no other reason yet for this QUIS EST MAXIMUS for their affectation of Greatness And now what followed As one well observes Ex religione ars facta Religion was made a trade and an art to live by Till at last it was cried down in divers Councels at Chalcedon at Trullum in Constantinople and others And in the Councel of Sandis a Bishop is forbidden to leave the government of a small City for a greater Of all men Ambition least becomes a Disciple of Christ And therefore Christian Emperors did after count him unworthy of any great place in the Church who did affect it Quaeratur cogendus rogatus recedat invitatus effugiat Being sought for let him be compelled being askt let him withdraw himself being invited let him refuse Sola illi suffragetur necessitas recusandi Let this be the only suffrage to enthrone him that he refus'd it Maximè ambiendus qui non est ambitiosus For it is fit that he that doth not seek for should be sought for by preferment And to this purpose it was that our Saviour answers the Disciples not to what they meant but to what they should have meant to divert them from all thought of dominion And withal he implyes that that is not Greatness which they imagined but that Humility and Integrity of life was the truest Greatness and greatest Honor in his Kingdome And to speak the truth this only deserves the name of Greatness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For Goodness is not placed in Greatness but Greatness in Goodness To go in costly apparel to fare deliciously to have a troup to follow us perhaps wiser then our selves this we may call what we please but Greatness it cannot be We read in Seneca the Orator of one Senecio an Orator who affected much grandia dicere to speak in a lofty stile and great words Which affectation in his art after turn'd to a disease so that he would have
sings of peace to the Common-wealth and the Common-wealth echoeth it back again to the Church This is Musick which both Men and Angels are delighted with Angels I say who being now made one with us make it part of their joy to see us at unity amongst our selves Happy thrice Happy times when the Poets could sing of the Spiders making their webs in the Souldiers Helmets and coats of armour These then are not excluded but wrapt up in this Salutation For all peace is carried along in this in the Peace of the Gospel When the world is out of frame this establisheth the pillars of it brings every part to its own place the Sensual parts under the Rational the Flesh under the Spirit the Will under the command of the Understanding which is the Peace of the Soul It brings the obedience of Faith under the eternal Law of Christ which is our Peace with God It draws with it the Servant under the Master the Child under the Parent the subject under the Magistrate which is the Peace of a House of a Common-wealth of the World It makes every part dwell together in unity it observes a parity in disparity an equality in an inequality it keeps every wheel in its own motion every man in his right place the Master on Horseback and the Servant on the ground and where Impudence incroacheth it checketh it with a Friend sit down lower It keepeth the hands of the ungodly from the gray hairs of the aged and the teeth of the oppressor from the face of the widow Like an Intelligence it moves the lesser Sphere of a Family and the greater Orbe of the Common-wealth composedly and orderly Peace is the right order and the harmony of things A Father calls it an Harp and it is never well set or tuned but by the hand of Charity For all the Peace that is in the world is derived from this Salutation from the Peace of the Gospel which slacketh and lets down the String of our Self-love even to a Hatred of our selves and windeth the string of our Love to our brother to an equal proportion with the Love of our selves We must hate our life in this world and we must John 12. 25. Math. 22. 39. love our brother as our selves Nay it lets it down lower yet to our very enemies the sound must reach even unto them Talk what we will of peace If it be not touched and tuned by Charity it will be but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal or rather if it take not its rise and spring from this Peace here from the Peace of the Gospel it will be but a dreadful sound as Job 15. 21. Eliphaz speaketh either in the Soul or in the Family or in the Church or in the Common-wealth I am the bolder thus to interpret the Disciples Salutation because I find it part of their Commission to say The Kingdome of God is at hand which was indeed to give notice of the Gospel of Peace This as it commends unto us all Peace but that which is in evil which indeed is not Peace but a conspiracy so especially it inculcates this by which Christ hath made both Eph. 2. 14. one and broken down the partition-wall which was between the Jew and the Gentile and that partition-wall also which Covetousness and Ambition Envy and Malice sets up between man and man that we may be one in him as He and the Father are one It was the prime care of the primitive Joh. 1◠Christians to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace And to this Eph 4. 3. end they bound themselves by oath sayth Pliny a heathen witer nè furta committerent nè fidem fallerent not to steal or lye or deceive or break their word This course had the world upheld to this day we should perhaps have no reason to complain that Peace hath left the earth or that the Prince of Peace hath not a hole to hide his head in If men were truly Christians and had not made a sad divorce between Honesty and Religion the Disciples Salutation would not turn to them again but rest on every House and on every Common-wealth For Christian Religion is the greatest preserver of Peace that ever was and hath layd a greater horror and a fowler blemish upon Discord and Dissention then Philosophy ever did when she was most rigid and severe She commands us to pray for peace She enjoyns us to study to be quiet and to follow Peace with all men She enjoyns us to loose 1 Tim. 2. 2. 1 Thes 4. 11. our right for Peace and to part with coat and cloak and all rather then with Peace quale regnum talis pax Look upon the Kingdom the Disciples Heb. 12. 14. M◠4729. speak of and you shall soon discern what Peace they wish Peace with God Peace of Conscience there is no doubt of that But Peace a so with men For this is truly Evangelical motus aliena naturae pace nostra cohibere as Hilary speaketh to place a peacable disposition as a bank or bulwark against the violence of anothers rage by doing nothing to conquer him who is up in arms and spends himself and laboureth in the mine to ruine me This is the work of the Gospel to beat down noyse with silence and injury with patience To overcome evil with good To keep peace between the rich and the poor by prescribing mercy to that one and meekness to the other between the high and the low by prescribing justice to the one and submission to the other between the evil and the good by threatning the one and upholding the other Thus it levelleth the hills and raiseth the valleys and casteth an aspect and influence upon all conditions all qualities all affections of men that as it was prophesyed of the Times of the Gospel The VVolf may dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard ly down with the Kid a little Child lead Isa 11. 6. the Lion that there may be abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth O beloved did this Salutation take place did the Peace of the Gospel rest upon us our conversation would be more smooth and even and Salutations not so rugged and churlish as they commonly are They would not be so supercilious the dictates of our Pride Stand thou there or sit thou Jam. 2. 3. here under my footstool They would not be so surly the expressions of our Scorn VVho made thee a Judg over us They would not be so treacherous This is he hold him fast They would not be so cruel the messengers of Death Smite him till he dyeth They would not be so querulous the breathings of our Envy VVhy is he made rich VVhy is he in honour VVhy hath he who came in but now as much as I that have born the heat and burden of the day But every Family and every Common-wealth would be fitly joyned and compacted
of peace who is docile and not averse from it who is willing to hear of it For as Pothinus the Bishop of Lions being ask'd by the President of the place Who was the God of the Christians made no other reply but this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You shall know if you be worthy so may we say of this Peace They who are worthy who are fitted and prepared shall receive it And if you ask on whom it will rest I answer It will rest on them that love it Where is the place of my rest saith God The Isa 66. 1. Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool All these things hath my hand made But to this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word He that created all things and made the Heaven and the earth will not chuse out of these his seat but leaves them all and will rest no where but in a contrite and broken heart which divides and opens it self and makes a way to receive him And certainly as we see in Nature we cannot put any thing into that which is full already no more will peace enter that heart which is filled with Satan with malice and with the very gall of bitterness The Gospel will find no place in that Soul which is already filled and praepossessed with prejudice against the Gospel Into a malicious Soul Wisdom shall not enter saith Wisd 1. 4. the Wiseman Or if it do enter it shall not dwell there not dwell there as a Lord to command the Will and Affections no not as a friend to find a welcome for a time but be thrust out as a stranger as an enemy What is the place for peace to rest in Not in a Nabals heart which is as stone Not in the Wantons heart which is as a troubled Sea not on the Fool who hath no heart whose conscience is defiled and judgment corrupted by many evil and vitious habits ubi turpia non solum delectant sed placent who doth not only delight in that which is opposite to this Peace but approves it as that without which he cannot be at Peace No the spirit of Peace and the unclean spirit may seem in this to agree They will not enter the House before it be swept and garnished Ill weeds must be rooted out before you can sow good corn Every valley must be filled and every mountain and hill must be brought low all that inequality and repugnancy of our life must be taken away and all made smooth and even For as the Prince of peace so Peace hath a way to be prepared before it will enter What is the reason that all the seed which the Sower sowed brought not forth fruit Because some fell in stony places where there was not much Mat. 13. earth where the Soul did not sympathize and bear a friendly correspondence with the Word as good ground doth with the seed and some fell by the way-side which was never plowed nor manured and the fouls of the air those sly imaginations which formerly prepossessed the Soul devoured it up Nothing can be well done when the mind is already taken up with something else What room for the Gospel in the Jew who maketh his boast of the Law What room for Religion where it is accounted the greatest piety to be prophane What room for Righteousness when we rejoyce in impiety When the Prince of this world hath blinded our eyes with covetousness ambition and lust what room is there for Peace Non magìs quà m frugibus terrâ sentibus rubis occupatâ as the Orator speaks and they are the very words of our Saviour No more than there is for good corn in the ground which is full of bryars and thornes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whither dost thou cast thy seed thy good precepts saith the Philosopher to one that read a lecture of Philosophy to a scornful person Thou flingest it into a foul and stinking vessel which corrupts every thing it receives and takes no savour from it but makes it relish of it self Lord what a rock is a prepossessed mind What an adamant is a Stubborn and perverse heart How harsh and unpleasant is this Salutation of Peace to those who are hardned against it How Stoical and rigid and peremptory are they against their own Salvation Obstrepunt intercedunt nè audiant They are so far from receiving the Salutation that they are troubled and unquiet at the very name of Peace and desire they may not hear that word any more The complaint in Scripture is They will not understand and The waies of Peace they will not know Experience will teach us that it is too common in the world to stand stiff upon opinion against all evidence whatsoever though it be as clear as the Day And it is the reason which Arnobius gives of the Heathens obstinacy to whom this Salutation of Peace was but as a fable Quid facere possumus considerare nolentibus secumque loqui What can we do or say or how can we convince them who will not be induced once to deliberate and consider nor can descend to speak and confer with themselves and their own reason A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump and so doth a prejudicate opinion the whole mind of man All our actions and resolutions have a kind of taste and relish of it Whatsoever comes in to strengthen an anticipated conceit whatsoever walks within the compass of our desires or lustful affections we readily embrace and believe it to be true because we wish it so But if it thwart our inclination if it run counter to our intendments though it be Reason though it be Peace though it be a manifest truth though it be written with the Sun-beams we will not once look upon it It is an easy matter saith Augustine to answer a fool but it is not so easy to satisfie him It is easy to confute but not to reform him For his Folly barreth him from seeking the meanes of understanding and when light is offered it shuts up his eyes that he cannot receive it We have many domestick examples of this obstinacy and I wish they were not so near us of men who may be overcome but cannot be perswaded who will not yield to any strength of reason nec cùm sciant id quod faciunt non licere no not though they cannot be ignorant that the course of their life runs with more violence and noyse than is answerable to the Peace of the Gospel who know what they are and yet will be what they are And these we meet with quocunque sub axe in every place in every corner of the earth These multiply and increase every day For it cannot be but the greatest part of men will be the weakest We have troops and armies of these and the regiment consists of boys and girls and women led away captive by their ignorance and
which are fullest laden Whilst we are no better then dung-boats and carry about with us nothing but the filth and corruption of the woâ—ld he never makes after us But when we are Merchants ships well fraughted with gold and precious jewels when we carry about with us the rich Pearl in the Gospel when he sees us full of Righteousness and Holiness well ballasted with cheerful Devotion with watchful Circumspection with regular Zeal with that inestimable wealth which makes us rich unto God then his envy is on the rack then his hell is increascd then he winds about and seeks opportunities to grapple with and boord this elected vessel this vessel of such a burden This indeed is a prize When the people of Israel were now gone out of Aegypt God gave them a Law and he gave unto Moses two tables of testimony tables of stone which he had Exod. 20. Exod. 31. 18. written with his own finger that so they might be taught to renounce the rites and ceremonies of the Aegyptians and be rightly instructed in the worship of the true God This was an object the Devil could not look on For it presented that Law to the eye of the people which led them to true religion to the detestation of the superstition of the Aegyptians to the abolishing of all evil customes to the exstirpation of Idolatry to the reformation of their manners to the worship of the true God And therefore he works upon the people to work upon Aaron to make them Gods as if he who had delivered them so often were none Up say they make us Gods which shall go before us At which sight Moses was angry and brake Exod. 32. the tables beneath the mount And so for a God they had a Calf and for a Divine Law they had their own Invention So busie is this enemy to digg at the very first foundations of Religion or upon them to raise his own work And wheresoever the finger of God is there doth he lay his claw If God make Tables of stone he will set up a Calf And this our great Captain hath taught us both by his example here and by his parable Matth. 13. 24. The sower sowed good seed in his ground but while men slept his enemy came and sowed tares amongst the wheat SUPERSEMINAVIT So the Vulgar renders it Super seminavit non seminavit saith Chrysostome He did not sow it as the Wheat but sowed it upon Praecedunt Creatoris bona mala Diaboli post sequuntur The good things of God are first the Devils work is after Malum non est natura sed accidens The growth of evil is not natural but accidental When the good seed is in the ground then comes the Devil with his supersemination and he flings his Tares not in the midst of the Thorns but in the midst of the Wheat He strives to choke the best fruit he strives to sow sin amongst the Saints contentions amongst the Peaceable craft amongst the Simple wickedness amongst Innocents His sowing is not amongst the Thorns but the Wheat not so much to have any fruitful increase of his Tares as to destroy the Wheat not to take the guilty but to slay the innocent Of this practice of his we have a fair resemblance Judg. 6. 3. When Israel had sown the Midianites came up and the Amalekites and the children of the east even they came up against them and encamped against them and destroyed the encrease of the earth so that they were greatly impoverished Even thus it comes to pass saith the Father that when by our spiritual industry and influence from above we have brought forth much fruit filled our garners with the fruits of holiness and laid up many rich ears in the closet of our conscience then by negligence and improvidence these seeds corrupt and our whole crop and harvest is lost But indeed the Midianites here and the Amalekites came upon the men of Israel when they had sowen made haste to their seed-time rather than their harvest And this more fully expresseth the malice of our Enemy whose craft and policy it is rather to stay our beginnings which are but weak then to slay till we are built up as a temple of the holy Ghost For then his work will be harder and he will have less hope to prevail Cùm Divina lux in mentes humanas spargitur saith Gregory mox ab occulto adversario contra fulgentem mentem tentamenta succrescunt When God spreads the beams of Divine illumination then the Devil comes with his mist When God renews us every day the Devil winnows us every day When God commands the Devil tempts As God hath his promises so hath the Devil his As God threatens so the Devil threatens As God inspires us so the Devil insinuates and is never more busie about us then when God dwelleth in us and we in him Then he raiseth up Midianites and Amalekites then he brings up his troops against us then he plyes our Sense and our Phansie puts sharpness upon that Goodness which we delight in and gives a pleasant relish to that Sin which we detest makes our friends our enemies to drive us from piety and our enemies our friends to allure us to sin When David desired to learn Gods statutes presently it follows The proud have Psal 119 68 v. 69. forged a lye against me Quantò magìs Deo servis tantò magìs in te excitas adversarios The more thou servest God the more rubs thou shalt meet with saith St. Ambrose The stronger thy resolution is to that which is good the more violent will be the temptation to that which is evil In a word Thou shalt never find more enemies then when God is thy friend We see our Saviour did no sooner prepare himself to his office but presently the Tempter comes to him even Lucifer himself saith St. Augustine that arch-devil saith Chrysostome who as he exeeeded other spirits in the excellency of his nature so he was more subtle and working in his tentations Nor doth he set upon Christ once but often Tentabatur à Satana saith St. Mark he was tempted Which doth not only signifie the act but import the frequencie of tentations And this he suffered not from one Devil alone but from many as Eusebius thinks Lib. 9. De Demonstr Evang even then when the holy Ghost had descended upon him that as God had approved him by his voice so the Devil might try him by his that as he had been baptized with water and the holy Ghost so he might baptize him with fire that as God did crown him with joy so he might crown him with thorns Agnosce in Christo haereditatem tuam We may see in part the lot of our inheritance Born we are to glory but born withall to temptations in greatest danger when we are walking out of it then most violently assaulted when we begin to overcome when we are fallen not able to rise and when
which is streight doth manifest not it self only but that also which is irregular After this manner pray ye denyes and forbids any other manner which is opposite to it Here by the way give me leave to tell you that Christ gives no direction for our Gesture He teacheth us not in what posture we should pray but what the subject of our prayer must be Religion and Reason both teach us that Prayer is an act of adoration and must be done with reverence Where these fail Profaneness and Self-will soon rise up against Religion and Reason quarrel with those things which no Wiseman would ever call into dispute The manner of gesture hath been various in all ages yet all ages have acknowledged Reverence an inseparable companion of Prayer When the Christians prayed toward the East the Heathens said that they worshipped the Sun But the Fathers reasons were these which are not indeed reasons of a necessitating force but only motives and inducements In honour to our Saviour they look that way because when He was on the Cross his face was turned toward the West saith Justin Martyr Divinis rebus operantes in eam coeli plagam convertimus à qua lucis exordium saith Ambrose In our Devotions we turn our eyes to that part of the heavens from whence we have the beginning of light Lastly they prayed that way not to adore the Eucharist but Christ himself These reasons although not convincing to demonstrate that it must be thus yet to quiet and devout minds are sufficient motives to perswade that God will rather approve than dislike it if it be thus We may use any lawful means to express our affection to God and to our blessed Saviour and these things can trouble none but those qui erubescunt Deum revereri who are ashamed and afraid to do too much reverence to God I need not mention the Elevation of their eyes to heaven which the Heathen derided also and said they did but number the clouds nor the Expansion and Spreading abroad of their hands for which they give no other reason but this They did it that by this gesture they might confess the passion of Christ who was stretched upon the Cross a reason of no more force than the former which yet prevailed with the blessed Saints and Martyrs and the wisest of the Church The Ethnicks prayed with their heads covered as Plutarch observes The Christians uncovered theirs because they were not ashamed to pray unto God The most common gesture amongst Christians was projici in genua to fall upon their knees And this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the very Apostles times saith Justine and memoris ecclesiastici saith Hierome the perpetual practice of the Church To this they added 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cast themselves upon their face and this was used in rebus attonitis saith Tertullian when the Church was astonisht with the rage of persecutions and to shew how unworthy they were to appear before the great Majesty of heaven and earth These and what other gestures soever which Reason or Reverence commend we may safely use and it will prove but a weak Apology for our neglect to say they are superstitious Suppose the very Pagans used the same yet this will be no good argument to make us abhor them For if they thought that by these they did best express their reverence why may not we civitate nay ecclesià donare admit them into the Church and exhibit as great reverence to the true God as they did to the false If our Saviour when he bids us not be like the Gentiles had meant Matth. 6. 8. we should not be like them in any thing he had also excluded Prayer it self I will insist no longer upon this but conclude with him in Plantus qui nihil facit nisi quod sibi placet nugas agit He is a very trifler which will do nothing but what pleaseth himself at the very first sight or rather with St. Paul If any man mind to be contentious we have no such custome neither 1 Cor. 11. 16. the Churches of God After this manner pray ye was not spoken to teach us what gesture we should use For he that knows what Prayer is unless he mind to be perverse and obstinate cannot be in this to seek But it is opposed to the vain babling and multiplicity of words which the Heathen used as if God could not hear them nisi centies idem sit dictum unless they spake the same thing an hundred times Which Cyprian most properly says is not to pray but ventilare preces tumultuosâ loquacitate jactare to toss up and down our prayers and cast them as those that winnow use to do from one hand into another and Cyril 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing but to make a noyse and babble The word in the Text is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken as it may seem from Battus the herdsman in the Poet who took delight in such vain repetitions Sub illis Montibus inquit erant erant sub montibus illis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as Prodicus in Aristotles Topicks divided Pleasure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which three signifie one and the same thing This the Greek hath a proper word for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from one Dates a Persian who being in Greece and affecting the Greek tongue was wont to heap up Synonymas as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which words are all one Two Interpretations we find of Christs words one That by this he forbids all vain repetition of the same words another That he cuts off all multiplying of words Which both may be well confest if we rightly consider our Saviours words where he gives the reason why we should not in this be like the Heathen For they think they shall be heard for v. 7. their much babling Now to have affected 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theophylact speaketh long and inconsiderate expressions of their mind or vain iterations of the same words as if God were taken with such babling had been to be like the Heathen indeed For this Elijah mocked Baals Priests Cry aloud for he is a God Either he is talking or he is pursuing 1 Kings 18. 27 or he is in his journey or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked To this doth our Saviour oppose the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and commands us not to pray so but after this manner And this exposition is grounded upon the cause which our Saviour gives why we should not use such repetitions For your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask And if our heavenly Father can prevent our desires what need we speak so often when he can hear us before we speak This precept then non consistit in puncto is not to be strictly urged as opposed to all repetitions of the same words but we must weigh and rightly ponder our Saviours intent For
of Glory In fine non est modus saith the Philosopher in his Politicks When we look on the end our desires are vehement our thoughts restless no ADVENIAT is loud enough till we have attained it And for this alone we are as eager for the means because they conduce and help forward to the end What wrong then is done to the Framer and Fashioner of the Heart when we make that which should be the palace of the great King a den of thieves and rebels and traytors How do we despite the spirit of grace and as much as in us lyes unking him and thrust him out of his Dominions When his word goeth out very swiftly and flyeth from one end of the world to the other when he sendeth Ambassadours of peace to all the world when he destroys his enemies and worketh wonders when he hath drawn out a form of government promulged his laws and backt them with promises and threatnings when he hath mightily shewed himself to be our King by great signs and miracles he doth not yet account himself to reign But when thou openest thy heart and givest him possession of every corner of thy soul then he sits as King in his holy place For as the Philosopher tells us that the confirmation of Laws consisteth not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the wise and discreet framing of them but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the right and due observance of them So though Christ be King from all eternity and cannot be devested of his Kingly office yet then only he calls his Kingdome compleat when we are subject and obedient to him when he hath gotten possession of the Heart where he may walk not as he did in Paradise terrible to Adam who had forfeited his allegiance but as in a garden of pleasures to delight himself with the sons of men For here in the Heart of man sitteth Reason as chief here is the counsel-table here is polity here are decrees here are good purposes and resolutions hither resort those nuntii those messengers which convey those auxiliary forces which either our Senses or the blessed Angels or the Spirit of God provide and send unto it So many Virtues and Vices as there are so many castles and towers are set up where so many battles are fought so many conquests made Here Holiness is besieged Religion shaken here it is either betrayed or defended Here if the Fear of this great King stand not as sentinel the strong tower of our constancies falls to the ground the Scepter and Crown is broken and Reason is thrust out of the throne whilst the enemy regeth Our Affections as in a popular sedition rush in with violence and Christ standeth as secluded and only as looker on Reign he may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Lord of all the world omnipotent as Nazianzene saith and will rule over all whether they will or no but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one who hath brought us under his command to obey his laws and ordinances Both Christs Kingdoms we pray for here for that of Grace for that of Glory the one being the end of our prayers and of our hopes the other a most necessary means to attain it No reigning as Kings in the one unless we serve as Subjects in the other no crown there without allegiance here no glory without grace But because it is impossible for the most piercing eye to discover the rules and laws and order of the Kingdome of Glory we will stay our meditations upon the way which leadeth to it and shew wherein the Kingdome of Grace consists We told you the seat and place of this Kingdome is the Heart of men For who can meddle with ordering mens hearts but Christ alone Princes Laws may sound in the Ears may bind the Tongues may manacle the Hands may command our Goods farther they cannot go Illâ se jactet in aulà Aeolus But to set up an imperial throne and reign in the Heart this none but Christ can do Now by the Heart we do not mean that fleshy part which as the Father speaks is as the center in the body which saith St. Basil was first created first received life and then conveys and derives it to every part Nor do we mean with some the Will nor with others the Affections But by the Heart we understand all the powers and faculties of the soul the Understanding Will and Affections which when they move in an obedient course by the rules and laws of any Kingdome yield us the surest sign and token 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a divine conversation conformable to Christ himself The Kingdome of Christ saith Nazianzene consists in the obteining of that which is most perfect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the most perfect thing in the world is the knowledge of God By which he doth not mean a bare knowledge of the King and of his Laws but a submission of our Will and a captivating of our Affections that we may walk in obedience and newness of life according to these laws Aristotle tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that will erect a Commonwealth must also frame laws and fit them to that form of commonwealth which he intends We cannot make the same laws sit a Popular estate and a Monarchy The different complexions of States and Republicks you may see in their Laws as the faces of Princes in their coyns Now as Christ is the wonderful Counsellor so He came out of the loins of Judah and is a Lawgiver too and hath drawn out Laws like unto his Kingdome As his Isa 9. 6. Gen. 49. 10. Psal 60. 7. 108. 8. Scepter is a Scepter of righteousness so are his Laws just No man no devil can question them Socrates and Plato and the wisest of the Philosophers though strangers to him and aliants from his Kingdome yet would no doubt have subscribed to his Laws As his Kingdome is heavenly so are his Laws from heaven heavenly written by the finger of Wisdome it self As he is an everlasting Prince so are his Laws eternal But I will not now stand to shew the difference between these Laws and the Laws by which the Kingdome of the world be governed For what will fall-in more fitly with the TUUM the Pronoun possessive which points out a Kingdom by it self and with which other Kingdoms cannot be compared The Kingdome of God Luke 17. 21. is then within us when the Understanding maketh haste to the object thereof the Truth of God to apprehend it and the Will is ready to meet the object thereof our soveraign Good to embrace it and the Affections wait and give attention upon the will to further our possession of it when we have such wisdom such holiness such courage and desires as are fit for a subject of Christ to bring him unto and keep him in true fidelity and obedience for ever For Christs Laws do not pass only to restrain the Will but to
Divinitatis as Tertullian calls it the very work and invention of the Deity though it breathe nothing but peace and joy though it have not only authority but reason to plead for it yet the sound of it was no sooner heard but the world was in a tumult The heathen did rage and the people imagine a vain thing The Kings of the earth did set themselves against the Lord and against his Anointed Do the Angels proclaim it Men oppose it Doth Psalm 2. Christ preach it and confirm it by wonders Let him be crucified say the Jews Ecquis Christus cum sua fabula say the Gentiles after Away with Christ and his Legend Whilst it was yet in its swathing-bands it was brought to the barr the professors of it are punished and tortured non ut dicant quae faciunt sed ut negent quod sunt not to reveal what they do but to deny what they are For this the most chast wife is devorced from her husband the most obedient son disinherited by his father the most trusty and faithful servant shut out of doors by his master even for the Religion of the Gospel which made the Wife chast the Son obedient and Servant faithful Ex aemulatione Judaei ex natura domestici nostri The Jew is spurred on by his envy nay she finds enemies in her own house the Church of God and even Christians oppose her because of the truth it self whose nature it is to offend It is a just complaint that our Saviour came into the world and the world received him not would not receive him as a King but groaned under him as a cruel Tyrant His edicts his commands his proclamations his precepts were hard and harsh sayings none could bear them So it stands with Christian Religion Cum odio sui caepit It was hated as soon as it was Nor indeed can it be otherwise For it offends the whole world It stands between the Wanton and his lust the Ambitious and his pomp the Covetous and his mammon Christ is truth and his Kingdome is a Kingdome of righteousness and truth noâ— is there any thing in the world more scandalous and offensive than the Truth Old Simeon tells Mary of Christ This child is set for the falling and rising again Luke 2. 34. of many in Israel Not that Christ saith St. 〈◊〉 is contrary â—â— himself a Saviour and a Destroyer a Friend and an Enemy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for the divers opinions and affections of men which abusing his love make him an enemy and the Saviour of the world a Destroyer I might name here many hinderances of the growth of â—he Gospel as Heresie which is a most poysonous viper biting not the heel but the very heart of it Infidelity which robs Christ of his subjects contracts his Kingdome into a narrow room and into a small number Disorder which rents it which works confusion there All these are impedimenta lets and hinderances to the propagation of the Gospel not like those impedimenta militiae the luggage and carriage of an army without which it cannot subsist but obicem ponentia fences and bulwarks and barricadoes against the King of Heaven if it were possible to stay him in his victorious march and to damm up that light which must shine from one end of the earth unto the other But this perhaps might fill up our discourse and make it swell beyond its bounds The greatest hinderance which we must pray against is an evil thought which flyes about the world That there is no Hinderance but these no opposition to the truth but Heresie no sin but Infidelity no breaking of order but in a Schism This it is to be feared not only hinders the propagation of the Gospel in credendis in respect of outward profession but blasts and shrinks it up in agendis in respect of outward practice and of that obedience without which we are meer aliens and strangers from this Kingdome This doth veritatem defendendo concutere this shakes that truth which should make us fruitful to every good work by being so loud in the defense of it It is a truth I think confest by all That the errors of our Understanding for the most part are not of so great alloy as those of the Will That it is not so dangerous to be ignorant of some truth as it is to be guilty of any evil yet all the heat of contention is spent here all our quarrels and digladiations are about these nay all our Religion is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earnestly to contend not who shall be the truest subjects in Christs Kingdome but who shall be most loud to cry down Heresie and Schism And this phansie I take to be as great a viper as Heresie as poysonous as Infidelity and the first ground and original of all Schisms in the world Whose zeal is so hot against an Oath as against an Error Who says Anathema to the Wanton What curse upon the Oppressor but of the Orphan and the Widow And from whence come wars from whence come fightings amongst us but from this corrupt imagination That we do better service in the Church of Christ which is the Kingdome of God by the loud defence than by the serious practice of the truth And all this while we mistake this Kingdome and the Religion which we profess which is absoluta simplex a Religion of great perfection and simplicity non quaerens strophas verborum and needs not the help of wit and sophistry God leads us not unto his Kingdome by knotty and intricate Disputes In absoluto nobis facili aeternitas saith Hilary Our journey to it is most easie It will come unto us sine pompa apparatu without pomp or observation It was Erasmus his complaint in the dayes of our Fore-fathers Ecclesiam sustineri syllogismis That this Kingdome was upheld not by piety and obedience but by syllogistical disputes as the surest props I could be infinite in this argument but I am unwilling to loose my way whilst I pursue a thief The sum of all is That this ADVENIAT is not only an invitation to draw this Kingdome nearer but an antidote against Heresie Infidelity and Schism and also against this corrupt conceit That Religion doth in labris natare is most powerful when it floats upon the tongue And we must raise it up as an engine to bruise the head of these vipers to cast down imaginations and every thing that exalteth it self against the Kingdome of Christ Again as this ADVENIAT fits all ages of the Church and was the language which Christ taught his Disciples when the Church was yet an Embrio in semine principiis not yet brought forth in perfect shape so is it a most proper and significant word verbum rei accommodatum a word fitted to the matter in hand the Kingdome here mentioned which must come to us before we can come to it Nothing more free and voluntary more
air neither sow nor reap and thence Mat. 6. 26. they defended not only their Sloth but also their Pride and Arrogance It is true saith the Father the fowls of the ayr neither sow nor reap but why do they not read forward nec congregant in apothecas nor carry into the barn Will they be like the fowls Why then do they fill their garners with other mens labors Hoc aves non faciunt The birds do not thus cur molunt coquunt Why do they grind and boyl their corn This the birds do not do Why do they lay up for the morrow why do they invent delicate dishes This the birds do not do In Idleness they will be Birds or Lilies or any thing but in luxury and gluttony 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beasts yea worse than any beast They pretend they imploy their time in reading of Scripture and do they not find in the Scripture that he that will not labor shall not eat What folly and perversity is this under pretense to have time to read to take no time to obey any truth that they do read But to let these pass as out of our Horizon another sort of Christians there are who though they labour for their Bread because they love it well though they rise up early and lye down late and eat the bread of sorrow to gain that bread which perisheth yet do not think that God is thereby served but conceive that he rewards our labour only with Bread They cannot thrive they think unless twice or thrice in the week they leave their Shop and go up to the Temple what with the Pharisee to pray No but with the Hypocrite to hear a Sermon Without this ear-devotion they cannot thrive And indeed many we see thrive not because of this and so starve the whole body to feed and delight the ear They call it Devotion but it is the wantonness and luxury of the Ear which wasts their Devotion and at last their Wealth and many times makes them sell their Bibles to buy their Bread So that Demosthenes counsel may seem here very seasonable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to do the first cure upon the ear where this disease may dwell which is so dangerous both to our present and future estate I speak not this to disharten or discountenance any who are frequent hearers of the Word who thirst and hunger after this spiritual food I know as the Wise-man speaks that God hath given us eyes and Eccl. 17. 6. ears and a heart to understand And I approve that of Tertullian Vera ornamenta aurium voces Dei that the best Jewels we can hang in our ears are the words and oracles of God And we are so far from condemning of frequent hearing that when you fill the Church though we cannot see your hearts yet we make it a great part of our glory and joy But give me leave to tell you Religion is not confined to the Ear nor is it a prisoner to so narrow compass as to be shut up in the Temple If you will entertain her she will come and dwell with you in your private houses and shops She will walk with you in the streets and fields sit down with you at your meals lye down with you in your beds and rise up with you in the morning The Husband-man whilst he holds his plow may chant forth a Hallelujah They they work with their hands may sing the songs of Sion ipsum laborem tanquam divino celeusmate consolari and ease their labors and rowse up their spirits with this heavenly noyse as the mariners do when they draw up the anchor Religion will sit with the King in his throne and with the Judge on the bench It will accompany the Preacher as well in his Study as in the Pulpit and the Trades-man as well in his Shop as in the Church It is a dangerous error to think that when we sweat in our trade and calling we do not serve God and that we are not holy but in the Church Nothing can defile and pollute the inward man but an impure and impious life and conversation To take off this imputation As the Devil culls out his disciples when they are idle so our Saviour chose his when they were busie at their trade either casting or else mending their nets Nay he himself stooped to a trade and was a Carpenter or as Justin Martyr tells us a Plough wright He made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ploughs and yokes When the Heathen laid it as an imputation on Christianity that they were infructuosi in negotiis idle and unprofitable to the Common-wealth Tertullian replies that it was an injurious and forged accusation Look saith he into your prisons You see no Christian there And if you do find a Christian there the fact that laid him there could be none but this That he was a Christian NON SINE FORO NON SINE MAGELLO We have our Market-place we have our Shambles we have our Shops we have our Fairs NAVIGAMUS VOBISCUM ET MILITAMUS ET MERCAMUR We sail with you we traffick with you we go to war with you SI CEREMONIAS VESTRAS NON FREQUENTO ATTAMEN ET ILLA DIE HOMO SUM If we do not frequent your costly and superstitious ceremonies yet even then are we men Nor are we less Christians because we work for our bread and labor to supply our selves with food and raiment Christian Religion like Manna in Wisd 16 21. the desart complyeth with every taste with every trade and occupation Art thou called to be an Husbandman and to till the earth She will help thee to fill thy barn and granaries Dost thou follow Merchandize She will travel with thee and like the Merchants ships she will bring thee food from afar Art thou a Souldier She will fight with thee It is a part of our Religion to pray for our bread and it is a part of our Religion to make it ours by labor It is an old fallacie of that great Sophister the Devil Salvation is the gift of God which is most sure Therefore we need not work it out which is most false And God opens his hand and gives us bread This we may build upon But Therefore we need never sweat for it to make it our own This if we trust upon we may be starved to death It is high time to leave the devout Sluggard Give me leave now to salute the idle Gallant and the swaggering Ruffian men who are inter pectinem speculúmque occupati taken up between the comb and the gâ—ass qui malunt rempublicam turbari quà m comam who had rather the whole Common-wealth should be distracted than one hair of theirs stand out of its place who spend their whole time aut aliud aut nihil aut malè agendo men of no calling no profession at all They walk and talk away their time They plow not they spin not yet they fare deliciously and are
will not be so eager but a dish of herbs will be as a stalled Oxe and we shall be content with our daily Bread which the hand of Providence puts into our mouths Again in the second place as we are taught in this Petition to rely upon the Providence of God so are we also put in mind to take heed that whilst we make haste to be rich we slack not in our duty to God that that which is ordein'd but as a pillar to uphold our bodies be not made a stumbling-block and an occasion of that disaffection to piety and holiness which will destroy both body and soul Grave and wise Philosophers have very highly extolled Poverty which is so loathed of the world Enimvero paupertas philosophiae vernacula frugi sobriae parvo potens For Poverty was born and bred with Philosophy as it were in the same house frugal and sober powerful to do much with a little It was she that raised Common-wealths and built Cities and was the mother and nurse of all the Arts and Sciences we may add the mother of that Religion which will bring us into everlasting habitations That we may learn to bear Poverty with patience and escape that great snare of the Devil the love of riches our Saviour hath here appointed us our Dimensum commanded us to pray for our daily Bread and in taking away all care for the morrow hath taught us obstare principiis to be so far from caring for the riches of this world as not to think of them to beware of Covetousness and the very beginnings of it not to be familiar with them not to look upon them Nemo diu tutus periculo proximus That which was but a suggestion at first may become a fierce and violent desire That which was but a pleasing sight may be a raging thought The sight of the wedge of Gold may ingender that evil which will trouble all Israel and make us fly before our enemies At first we desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faith Aristotle but two half-pence and when we have handled them they multiply in our imagination and in our desire are as bigg as talents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our sinful desires if we cut them not off are infinite like Numbers nullum est post quod non sit aliud there is none which is last but still one follows another and when one is full another opens to be filled And are as the Oratour speaks pleni spei vacui commodorum when our garners are stored and our purse full yet are we empty still and possess nothing but new hopes Irritat se saevitia As Cruelty doth chafe and enrage it self and as Beasts grow more fierce after they have tasted bloud so Covetousness doth whet it self and grows more keen and eager at the sight of those heaps which she hath raised Where St. John tells us 1 Epist 2. 16. that all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life A judicious and learned Writer interprets the lust of the eyes to be Covetousness because covetous persons love to handle and see their wealth nummos contemplari to behold their money and feed their eye with that of which they will not take one part to feed or cloth the body And therefore when riches increase we must not joyn our selves to them as to friends but fear and suspect them as enemies in fidem cum armis venire trust our selves with them but with weapons in our hand When they glitter we must turn away our eye when they flatter not be attentive when they gain us the cringe and applause of the common rout not listen or hearken to it We must account them enemies and thus make them friends and as Nazianzene speaks of his brother Caesarius we must sub larva servire mundo act our part as upon a stage seem to be what we are not and as the Apostle speaks buy as if we possessed not and use the world as if we used it not we must run and press forward to the mark and as for the world we must in transitu nosse know it only as we pass and in the by For conclusion then It will be good for us timere actus nostros to be afraid of our own actions to be jealous of our wishes ever to suspect the worst not to make the fear of Poverty an excuse for Covetousness not to cry out We must live when we eat and build and purchase as if we were to live for ever Quid tibi cum Deo est si tuis legibus It is not for us who are to be ruled by the Law of God to determine what is our daily Bread and what not or to call those things necessaries which are superfluous but rather to fit our selves for those lessons which we tremble to hear of as Felâ—â— did at the mention of judgment to learn to gain riches without care and leave them without sorrow that they may not cost us our sweat when they come nor put us to the charge of a tear when they depart nay further to hate and contemn them to sell and give them to the poor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to bring our bodies in subjection to our souls and our temporalities to our spiritual estate sic uti mundo ut fruamur Deo so to use the world as that we may enjoy Christ And all these To hate and contemn riches To sell and fling them away To cast them on the waters are not paradoxes but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inventions of Faith the endeavours of true Zeal and Devotion nay they are the commands of Jesus Christ Who did willingly part with his life for us who count it death to part but with a mite for him We who are to present our selves as pure virgins unto Christ must keep 2 Cor. 11. 2. our selves undefiled and unspotted from the world we must not delight to look James 1. 27. upon the beauty nor tast the pleasures nor handle the riches of this world for fear we forsake our first love and make his jealousie burn like fire Omnia Psal 79. 5. virginis virgo Every part and faculty of a Virgin is so a virgin her Eye shut up by covenant her Ear deaf to profane babling her Hand not defiled with pitch and her Soul an elaboratory of pure and holy thoughts And so are a Christian mans affections pure and untouched He hopes not for wealth but for the reward of justice He fears not poverty but the flames of Hell He desires no honor but to be like unto the Angels When he dwells in the midst of Canaan in a land flowing with milk and honey his conversation is in heaven his Love his Hope his Joy his Delight his Contentation all are levelled on Eternity and concentred in Christ alone And being thus qualified not only Sufficiency but Abundance not onely that which is necessary but great riches
of our lives joyn these two Petitions together When our sins are forgiven Let us pray and labor too that we be not led into tentation And that for many reasons which we must duly weigh and consider as we tender the welfare and salvation of our souls First Remission and Forgiveness as it nullifies former sins so doth it multiply those that follow as it takes away the guilt from the one so it adds unto the guilt of the other and makes Sin over-sinful We are now Children and must not speak our former dialect words cloathed about with Death but our language and voice must be Abba Father and every action such a one as a Father may look upon and be well pleased And this first word of our Nativity as Cyprian speaks Our Father which art in heaven is as a remembrance to put us in mind that we have renounced all carnality and know only our Father which is in heaven Reatus impii pium nomen saith Salvian A good name is part of the guilt of a wicked man Our Religion which we profess will accuse us and that relation which we have to God will condemn us Plutarch said well I had rather a great deal men should say there were no such man as Plutarch than that they should say there was one Plutarch that would eat up his children as soon as they were born as the Poets speak of Saturn And better it were that it should be said we were no Christians than that we were Christians ready to devour one another Christians but adulterers Christians but malitious the children of God with the teeth of a Lion delighting in those sins which we abjure and every day committing that for which we beg pardon every day This consideration was it I suppose that caused divers Christians to do what some of the Fathers have condemned defer their Baptism And when they were baptized what a multitude of ceremonies did they use what prayers what geniculations what fastings what watchings First they breathed upon them thrice and thrice bad Satan avoid that Christ might enter Secondly they exorcised them that the evil Spirit might depart and give place Then they gave them salt that their putrid sins might be cleansed Then they touched their nostrils and their ears They anointed their breasts and their shoulders They anointed their head and covered it They put upon them white apparel They laid their hands upon them that they might receive the grace of the Spirit Of all which we may say as Hilary doth of Types Plus significant quà m agunt They had more signification than virtue or power and were intimations what piety is required of them who have given up their names unto Christ how foul Sin appears in him that is washed and how dangerous it is after reconcilement Now as in the conversation of men we cannot easily judge where Love is true and where it is feigned by a smile or by fair language or by the complement of the tongue or hand and therefore some opportunity some danger must offer it self by the undertaking of which our friendship is tryed as Gold is in the fire so we cannot judge of Repentance that it is true by an exterminated countenance by the beating of the breast by the hanging down of the head no not by our sighs and groans by our tears and prayers by our ingemination of DIMITTE NOBIS Lord Forgive us which many times are no better than so many complements with God than the flattery of our lips and hands But when temptations rush-in upon us when they threaten in afflictions when they smile upon us in the pleasures of the world then it will appear whether that which was in voto in our desires were also in affectu in our resolution And if we bear not this tryal we have no reason to be too confident of our Pardon Again if we sue for pardon of sin and then sin afresh we become more inclinable to sin then we were before It is more easie to abstein from the pleasures of Sin before we have tasted them then it will be afterwards as its harder to remain a widow then to continue a virgin harder not to look back toward Sodom after one hath left it then it would have been to have kept out of it at first That which is once done hath some affinity with that which is done often and that which is done often is near to that which is done alwayes God indeed in Scripture is said to harden mens hearts and some be very forward to urge those Texts yet Induration is the proper and natural effect of continuance in sin For every man saith Basil is shaped and formed and configured as it were to the common actions of his life whether they be good or evil Long continuance in sin causeth that which Theodoret calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reverberating heart an heart which is as marble to all the threatnings and promises of God it worketh in the sinner that difficulty and inability of resisting tentations that he becomes even a devil to himself and will fall without them And this may seem to fall as a just judgment of God on those who fix their eyes so steddily upon the Mercy-seat that they quite forget the two Tables who are all for the REMITTE but not at all for the NE INDUCAS very earnest for Remission of sins but faint and backward in resisting Tentations I will not deliver it as a positive truth but it is good for us to cast an eye of jealousie upon it as if it were so That there may be a measure of sins which being once full God will expect no longer a certain period of time when he will neither comfort us with his Mercy nor assist us with his Grace but deliver us up to Satan to his buffetings and siftings to his craft and malice deliver us up to Sin and to the Occasions of Sin that having held-out his hand all the day as the Prophet speaks he will now call them in again and as we mockt his patience laugh at our calamity Prov. 1. It is a sign of a pious mind to fear sometimes where no fear is and even in plano in the plainest way to suppose there may be a block to stumble at If it be not true it is a wholsome meditation to think the measure of our sin is so near full that the next sin we commit may fill it that there is a Rubicon set as to Caesar which if thou pass thou art proclaimed a Traitor a river Kidron as to Shimei which if thou go over thou shalt dye thy bloud shall 2 Kings 2. 37. be upon thine own head Now is the acceptable hour now is the day of salvation 2 Cor. 6. 2. and if thou art so dazled with the beauty of Mercy that thou canst not see death in a Tentation horror upon Sin to morrow will be too late And here in the last place as the case stands
her part on An easie thing it is to be meek where there is nothing to raise our Anger and Revenge hath no place where there is no provocation The Philosopher in his Rhetorics giving us the character of Meekness tells us that most men are gentle and meek to those who never wronged them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or who did it unwillingly to men who confess an injury and repent of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to those who humble themselves at their feet and beseech them and who do not contradict them to those whom they reverence and fear For Fear and Anger seldom lodge in the same breast But Christianity raiseth Meekness to a higher pitch where no injury can reach it A studied and plotted injury an injury made greater by defense an injury from the meanest from him that sits with the dogs of our flocks any injury at any time from any man maketh a fit object for Christian Meekness which in the midst of all contumelies and reproaches in the midst of all contradictions is still the same Should we insist upon every particular our Discourse would be too large We will therefore fasten our meditations upon those which may seem most pertinent and so take off all those pretenses which we Christians commonly bring in as Advocates to plead for us when we forget that we are Christians There be two errors in our life the one of Opinion the other in Manners and Behaviour which is far the worse and though these of themselves carry no fire with them yet by our weakness commonly it comes to pass that they are made the only incendiaries of the world and set both Church and Commonwealth in combustion If our brothers opinion stand in opposition to ours if his life and conversation be not drawn out by the same rule we presently are on fire and we number it amongst our virtues to be angry with those who in their Doctrine are erroneous or in their lives irregular Now in this I know not how blessed we think our selves but I am sure we are not meek For if we were truly possessed of that Meekness which Christ commends as we should receive the weak in Faith with all tenderness so should we be compassionate to the wicked also and learn that Christian art which would enable us to make good use both of Sin and Error And first for Error though many times it be of a monstrous aspect yet I see nothing in it which of it self hath force to fright a Christian from that temper which should so compose him that he may rather lend an hand to direct him that errs then cry him down with noise and violence seeing it is a thing so general to be deceived so easie to erre and so hard to be reduced from our error seeing with more facility many times we change an evil custom then a false opinion For Sin carries with it an argument against it self Hoc habet quod sibi displicet saith Seneca As it fills the heart with delight so it doth with terror Like the Viper mater est funeris sui it works its own destruction and helps to dispossess it self But Errour pleaseth us with the shape of Truth nor can any man be deceived in opinion but as Ixion was by embracing a cloud for Juno and Falshood for the Truth He that errs if he were perswaded he did so could err no longer And what guilt he incurs by his error the most exact and severe inquisition cannot find out because this depends on that measure of light which is afforded and the inward disposition and temper of his soul which are as hard for a stander-by to dive into as to be the searcher of his heart The Heresie of the Arians was as dangerous as any that ever did molest the peace of the Church as being that which strook at the very foundation and denyed the Divinity of the Son yet Salvian passeth this gentle censure on them Errant sed bono animo errant non odio sed affectu Dei They erred but out of a good mind not out of hatred but affection to God And though they were injurious to Christs Divine generation yet they loved him as a Saviour and honoured him as a Lord. The Manichees fell upon those gross absurdities that Reason when her eye is weakest may easily see through yet St. Augustine who had been one himself bespeaks them in this courteous language Illi saeviant in vos qui nesciunt quocum labore verum inveniatur Let them be angry with you who know not with what difficulty the truth is found and how hard a matter it is to gain that serenity of mind which may dispel the mists of carnal phantasmes Let them be angry with you who were never deceived and who do not know with what sighs and groans we purchase the smallest measure of knowledge in Divine mysteries I cannot be angry but will so bear with your error now as I did with my own when I was a Manichee A good pattern to take out and learn how to demean our selves towards the mistakes of our brethren and to bear with the infirmities of the weak and not to please our selves with the pretense of Zeal and Religion which loose their name and nature and bring in a world of iniquity when we use them to fan the fire of contention I do not see that relation or likeness between Difference of Opinion and contrariety in affections that one would beget the other or that it should be impossible or unlawful to be united unto him in love who is divided from me in opinion No Charity is from heaven heavenly and may have its influence on minds of divers dispositions as the Sun hath on bodies of a different temper and it may knit the hearts of those together in the bond of love whose opinions may be as various as their complexions But Faction and Schism and Dissention are from the earth earthly and have their beginnings and continuance not ab extra from the things themselves which are in controversie but from within us from our Self-love and Pride of mind which condemn the errors of our brethren as heresies and obtrude our own errors for Oracles I confess to contend for the Truth is a most Christian resolution and in Tertullians esteem a kind of Martyrdom It is the duty of the meekest man to take courage against Error and as Nazianzene speaketh in a cause that so nearly concerns us as the truth of Christ a Lamb should become a Lion I cannot but commend that of Calvine Maledicta pax cujus pignus desertio Dei That peace deserves a curse which lay's down the Truth and God himself for a gage and pawn and benedicta praelia quibus regnum Christi necessitate defenditur those battels are blessed which we are forced to wage in the name of the Lord of Hosts And thrice happy he who lays down his life a sacrifice for the Truth But Religion and Reason will
teach us that all this may be done without malice or rancor to their persons whose error we strive against and that the Lords battles may be fought without shedding of bloud Surely Meekness is the best Director in these wars where he gains the greatest conquest who is overcome The Physician is not angry with him whom he intends to cure but he searcheth his books and useth his art and all diligence morbum tollere non hominem to remove the disease and not to kill the man How much more should we be careful how we handle our weak and erring brother lest we make him weaker by our rough and unskilful usage and cure him indeed but in the Tyrant's sense in Suetonius who boasted he had done a cure when he cut off a mans head or otherwise put him to death who had offended him We read that Paul and Barnabas were at some difference about the choice of their Acts 15. companion the one determined to take Mark with them the other thought it not good From whence sprung that paroxysme as the Evangelist terms it which divided them the one from the other Yet St. Hierom will tell us Quos navigatio separavit hoc Christi Evangelium copulavit Though they sailed to several Coasts yet they were both bound for the same negotiation even the preaching of the Gospel Paul withstood Peter to his face yet in Gal. 2. 11. the same Chapter he calls him a Pillar of the Truth A Father may differ from his Son and the Wife from the Husband in opinion yet this difference breaks not the bond of that relation which is betwixt them but the Father may nay must perform the office of love and the Son of duty And why may not Christians be diversly perswaded in some points of Religion in earth and yet the same Heaven hold them both That which deceives us are those glorious things which are spoken of Zeal We read of Phinehas who was blest for thrusting his Javelin through the adulterous couple of the austerity of Elijah the zeal of Simon the Canaanite the severity of Peter which struck Ananias and Sapphira dead the constancy of Paul who struck Elymas the Sorcerer blind And we are told Non est crudelitas pro Deo pietas That in God's cause the greatest piety is to be cruel But we willingly mistake our selves for neither here is the cause alike nor the person the same We know not of what Spirit we are Every man is not a Phinehas an Elijah a Paul a Peter Nor did Elymas loose his sight and Ananias his life for their errors but for their witchcraft and grand hypocrisie Nor are times the same We cannot but commend Zeal as an excellent quality in man but as Agarick or Stibium being prepared and castigated are soveraign Physick but crude and unprepared are dangerous so Zeal which so many boast of seasoned with discretion is of singular use and profit but taken crude and in the Mineral it oft-times proves deleterial and unfortunate Zeal is a light but by occasion it troubles the eye of the understanding and being by degrees enraged by our private ends and phansies at last it puts it quite out and leaves us fighting in the dark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unlearned Zeal and supine Negligence are both so bad that it is not easie to determine which is worst only Negligence lets inconveniencies slily steal into the Church but unguided Zeal much plies those errours which Negligence letteth in and as if error were indeed a Hydra it never strikes off the head of one error but two arise in the place And therefore St. Bernard in his forty ninth Sermon on the Canticles will tell us Semper zelus absque scientia minùs utilis invenitur plerumque etiam perniciosus sentitur Zeal without knowledge is alwaies unprofitable many times most dangerous And therefore the more hot and fervent it is and the more profuse our Charity with the more care and diligence should we set our Knowledge and Reason as a Sentinel quae Zelum supprimat spiritum temperet ordinet charitatem which may abate and cool our Zeal temper our spirit and compose and order our Charity For if we do not keep our souls with diligence and carry a strict and observant eye upon our Zeal our Meekness will be consumed in this fire and with it the whole crop and harvest of spiritual Wisdom lost We shall be heady and high-minded lovers of our selves unwilling to pardon one error to our brethren and to acknowledge any of our own This is it which hath been the mother and nurse too of all those outrages in the Church of Christ that Story hath transmitted to Posterity and those too which later and our present times have been too guilty of that men will neither subscribe to the opinion of others lest they may be thought not to have found the Truth but have borrowed it nor will yet retain so much meekness as to give their brother leave to erre but when they cannot convince him by Argument fall heavy upon him with Reproach A fault sometimes in him that errs and sometimes in him who holds the truth the one obstinate the other indiscreet both ready to maintain with violence what they cannot perswade by reason The Arians betook themselves to this guard and called in the temporal Sword to defend their Cause against the Orthodox and when they could not prevail by Argument they made use of outward force And so this faction saith the Father plainly shewed quà m non sit pia nec Dei cultrix how destitute it was of piety and the fear of God The Donatists stiled themselves filios Martyrum the off-spring of Martyrs and all other Christians progeniem traditorum the progeny of those who basely delivered up the sacred things They broke the Chalices demolisht the Altars ravisht Virgins and Matrons flung the holy Eucharist to the Dogs slew those who were not of their faction beat down the Bishop Maximinian with batts and clubs even as he stood at the Altar and did those outrages on Christians which Christian Meekness would have forbidden them to commit on a Jew or Infidel the Monks of Aegypt were indeed devout and religious men but for the most part Anthropomerphites holding that God had hands and feet and all the parts that a Man hath and was in outward shape and proportion like unto one of us That having got Theophilus a learned Bishop of Alexandria into their hands so roughly used him that he could not get out of their fingers till he made use of his wits and sophistry and told them in a kind of complement that he had seen their face as the face of God Nor did this evil rest here amongst the vulgar and discontented persons quibus opus erat bello civili as Caesar spake who could not subsist but in times of noise and hurry but it blasted the fairest plants in all the Church
will be as ready to blaspheme God nay in slandring his brother he doth blaspheme his Father which is in Heaven He that taketh his brother by the throat rather then his humour should be crossed if God were within reach would pluck him out of heaven And thus we grind him in our Oppression we rob him by our Sacriledge we wound him by our Cruelty we pollute him with our Lust If he make Laws we make it our strength to break them If he raise one to the pinnacle of state and leave us in the dust we quarrel at his Justice If he establish Government we desire change And though he build his Church and found it upon himself yet we are ready with axes and hammers and all the power we have to demolish it When he hath a controversy with us we hold a controversy with him and nothing pleaseth us but the work of our own hands Men never fight against God till the thunderbolt is in his hand ready to fall on them And now we may descry those peculiar Enemies and Haters of God whom the Prophet here prays against even those who are enemies to the Truth and the peace of the Church I told you that this prayer was uttered by Moses at the removing of the Ark. When the Ark was lifted up on the Levites shoulders the voice and acclamamation was EXSURGAT DOMINUS Let the Lord arise And therefore we may observe that Moses Num. 10. and David did call the very Ark it self God not that they were so idolatrous as to make a wooden God but that they knew the Ark to be the surest testimony of Gods presence here on earth So that God's enemies are those who are enemies to the Ark to the Church of God and to the peace of the Church And let men flatter themselves as they please with this or that fair pretence they shall certainly learn this lesson in the end That they may as well fight against God himself as against the Church That neither they nor the gates of Hell can prevail against it To draw this yet closer to our purpose the Ark was a type of the Church nay by the Apostles quotation of this Psalm the words though they are verified in both yet are more applyable to the Church then the Ark. And though we do not call the Church God yet we shall find that God is married unto her that he is ready to hide her under his wing that he is jealous of the least touch the least breath that comes toward her to hurt her that he that toucheth her toucheth the apple of his eye When the Church complains to God of her enemies God also complains as if he himself suffered persecution When Saul breathed forth threatnings and slaughters against the Disciples of the Lord he presently hears a voice Saul Saul why persecutest thou me And that voice was the voice of God which struck him to the ground When Acts 9. and Acts 7. 51. St. Stephen tells the stiff-necked Jews that they alwayes resisted the Holy Ghost he presently in the next verse gives the reason Which of the Prophets have not your fathers persecuted So that to persecute the Prophets that blessed Protomartyr may make the Commentary is to resist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fall cross with the Holy Ghost with God himself Touch not mine anointed Psal 105. 19. saith God and do my Prophets no harm Touch them not for they are mine And whatsoever you do unto one of them is done unto me is true in the bad sense as well as in the good For certainly God cannot be toucht any other way Our Blasphemys our Uncleanness or Rebellions though they fight against him yet touch him not but when wicked men conspire against the Truth and the professors of it when their Swords are drawn not onely to touch but to strike them through then up God riseth and bestirs himself as if he were in danger to be toucht and hurt We know all that the Devil worketh against mankind is done out of malice to God himself Prius votum Daemonis fuit Deum esse alterum nè Deus esset His first attempt was to be God his second that there should be no God at all to destroy that Majesty which he could not atchieve Which since it is impossible for him to compass all his devises and machinations are nullum sinere ex portione Dei esse as the Father speaks to rob God of his inheritance to strike at his heart whose knee bows unto him to persecute them that sincerely worship him and to make all men like unto himself enemies to God To this end he sets upon the Ark he levels his forces against the Church of Christ he sends forth his emissaries his instruments his Apostles as Synesius calls them to undermine it without and raises mutinies within Not a heresie but he hammers it not a schisme but he raiseth it not a sword but he draws it not a rebellion but he beats up the drum INIMICI EJUS Gods enemies are the Devil and his complices who say of Jerusalem the place of his rest and delight down with it down with it even to the very Psal 137 7. ground We know now where to rank his disciples our enemies this day who have already shaken the pillars of one Kingdom and if God rise not up will ruine all Whose religion is rebellion and whose faith is faction whom nothing can quiet but a Desunt vires a want of strength Poor souls they are willing to suffer for the holy cause they are obedient to Government loyal to their Prince true to their Country that is They are very willing to suffer any thing when they can do nothing They will not strike a stroke not they not indeed when Authority is too strong for them and hath bound them hand and foot But if some wished opportunity unshackle them if these cords fall from them and they are once loose then these dead men arise and stand up upon their feet and make up an exceeding great army They were before as Ezekiels dry Bones very dry but when some Ezek. 37. 2. fair opportunity as a gale of wind hath breathed upon them behold they live Live I and come to the field and fight against that Authority under which they lay before as quietly as if they had been dead And where can we rank these but amongst the enemies of God They saw the Ark in its resting place the Church reformed and flourishing setled and establisht by the religious care of three glorious Princes They beheld their holy Father the Pope every day more and more in disgrace amongst us and I am half perswaded had it not been for the turbulent and irregular zeal of some few amongst us who think they never love Religion till they toy and play the wantons with it his Honour had ere this lain in the dust For when were the skirts of that Church more discover'd when
was her shame more laid open to the world by many amongst us who for their great pains have no better reward then to be called his Shavelings This they saw and their heart waxt hot within them and at last this fire kindled which is now ready to consume us Before they whisper'd in secret now they speak it on the house-top before they husht up their malice in silence now they noise it out by the drum Enemies to the Ark enemies to the Church enemies to Government and Order enemies to Peace which particulars make up this entire sum INIMICI DEI enemies to God But now what if we see RELIGIONIS ERGO written upon their designs and that this Rebellion was raised and is upheld for the cause of God and Religion shall we then call them Gods enemies who fight his battels who venture their lives for the common cause for Christs Vicar for Religion for the Church for God himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All they intend is good Nihil malè sed rem sacram facio So said Cillicon I do no evil I do but sacrifice when he betrayed a City Let us rise up in arms let us cut the heretiques throats let us destroy them that they be no more a Nation It is no harm at all but an acceptable sacrifice to God Sed quid verba audio cùm facta videam what are words when we feel the smart of their blows All this will not change their title nor blot their names out of the Devils Kalender out of the number of those that hate God For a man may be an enemy to God and yet do some things for Gods sake And it is too common a thing in the world sub religionis titulo evertere religionem to cry up Religion when we beat it down The Father well said Many good intentions are burning in Hell Multa non illicita vitiat animus It is true indeed The mind and intention may make a lawfull action evil but it cannot make an evil action good Propose what end you please set up Religion the Church and God himself yet Treason and Rebellion are sins which strike at his Majesty No enemies to those who stroke us with one hand and strike us with the other who dig down the foundation and then paint the walls We may observe when Reason and Scripture fail them they bring in the Church at a dead lift and when they are put to silence by the evidence of the Truth then they urge the Authority of the Church and make this word to be like Anaxagoras his Mâ—ne in Aristotle to answer all Arguments The Church is their scarre-sun by which they fright poor silly souls from their faith The Church must make good Purgatory Transubstantiation Invocation of Saints c. And indeed this is the best and worst Argument they have And as they make it an Argument for their grossest errors so they have learnt to make it an excuse for Treason for Rebellion for Murder And to the Church they are enemies because they love the Church Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Such heart and life and bloud doth the fair pretence of the Church and Religion put into wicked men so desperately do they fight against God under his own colours No sin I will not say venial but meritorious drawn on for the advantage of the Catholick cause But for all these glorious pretences enemies they are and Haters of God and to bring in the third appellation wicked persons not sinners of an ordinary rank but gyant-like sinners who fight against God with a high hand Now there is a great difference saith Hilary inter impium peccatorem betwen a Sinner and a Wicked man For every wicked man is a sinner but every sinner is not a wicked man Et carent impietate qui non carent crimine and they may be guilty of sin who are not guilty of Impiety The justest man alive falls seven times a day but this fall is not a rising against God not contumelious to his Majesty But the wicked make sin their trade nay their Religion Deum non ex Dei ipsius professione sed ex arbitrij sui voluntate metiuntur saith the same Father They measure God not by those lines by which he is pleased to manifest himself but by their own perverse will They entitle his Wisdom to their fraud his Justice to their rebellion his Truth to their treason He could not have given us a better mark and character of these men What pretend they the Holy cause the Honour of God the Liberty of Conscience the promoting of Religion and these pretences make the fact fouler and their rebellion more abominable because they thwart the plain definitions and the evident commands of God and break his Law under colour of doing his will Nec minoris est impietatis Deum fingere quam negare It is as great impiety and wickedness to frame a God unto our selves as to deny him to feign a God who will applaud sin countenance murder reward rebellion and crown treason So that to conclude this these men may well bear all these titles of Enemies of Haters of God of wicked persons If there were ever any such in the world these are they But to drive it yet a little more home There is not the like danger of enemies when they are sever'd and asunder as when they are collected as it were into one mass and body not so much danger in a rout as in a well-drawn army Vis unita fortior Let them keep at distance one from another and their malice will not reach to the hurt of any but themselves but being gathered and knit together in one band their malice is strong to do mischief to others The rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against Psal â— his anointed Paquine renders it fundati sunt were founded Before they were but as pieces scatter'd here and there but being gather'd gather'd together they have a foundation to build on While the vapours are here and there dispersed upon the earth they present no appearance of evil but when they are drawn up into the ayr and are compact they become a Comet and are ominous and portend shipwracks and seditions and the ruine of Kings and Common-wealths And such a Comet hangs over us at this day in which we see many thousands are drawn together not by virtue of the stars or any kindly heat from heaven but by an irregular zeal and a false perswasion that they can do God no better service than to destroy us Before they were gathered together in mind and resolution but that was but as the gathering together of a heap of stones in a field now they are knit together as in a building And now we may cry out with the Prophet Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion for the time to have Psal 102. 13. mercy upon her yea the appointed time is come When God's enemies when they