then called the spirit of prayer and supplication For ever since the affections of the outward man prevailâ—d upon the ruins of the soul all our desires were sensuall and therefore hurtfull for ever after our body grew to be our enemy In the loosnesses of nature and amongst the ignorance or imperfection of Gentile Philosophy men used to pray with their hands full of rapine and their mouths of blood and their hearts of malice and they prayed accordingly for an opportunity to steal for a fair body for a prosperous revenge for a prevailing malice for the satisfaction of whatsoever they could be tempted to by any object by any lust by any Devil whatsoever The Jews were better taught for God was their teacher and he gave the spirit to them in single rayes But as the spirit of obsignation was given to them under a seal and within a veile so the spirit of Manifestation or patefaction was like the gem of a vine or the bud of a rose plain indices and significations of life and principles of juice and sweetnesse but yet scarce out of the doors of their causes they had the infancy of knowledge and revelations to them were given as Catechisme is taught to our children which they read with the eye of a bird and speak with the tongue of a bee and understand with the heart of a childe that is weakly and imperfectly and they understood so little that 1. They thought God heard them not unlesse they spake their prayers at least efforming their words within their lips and 2. Their forms of prayer were so few and seldome that to teach a forme of prayer or to compose a collect was thought a worke fit for a Prophet or the founder of an institution 3. Adde to this that as their promises were temporal so were their hopes as were their hopes so were their desires and according to their desires so were their prayers And although the Psalms of David was their Great office and the treasury of devotion to their Nation and very worthily yet it was full of wishes for temporals invocations of GOD the Avenger on GOD the Lord of Hosts on God the Enemy of their Enemies and they desired their Nation to be prospered and themselves blessed and distinguished from all the world by the effects of such desires This was the state of prayer in their Synagogue save onely that it had also this allay 4. That their addresses to GOD were crasse material typical and full of shadows and imagery paterns of things to come and so in its very being and constitution was relative and imperfect But that we may see how great things the Lord hath done for us God hath powred his spirit into our hearts the spirit of prayer and supplication and now 1. Christians pray in their spirit with sighs and groans and know that GOD who dwells within them can as clearly distinguish those secret accents and read their meaning in the Spirit as plainly as he knows the voice of his own thunder or could discern the letter of the law written in the tables of stone by the finger of God 2. likewise the spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought That is when God sends an affliction or persecution upon us we are indeed extreme apt to lay our hand upon the wound and never take it off but when we lift it up in prayer to be delivered from that sadnesse and then we pray fervently to be cured of a sicknesse to be delivered from a Tyrant to be snatched from the grave not to perish in the danger But the spirit of God hath from all sad accidents drawn the veil of errour and the cloud of intolerablenesse and hath taught us that our happinesse cannot consist in freedom or deliverances from persecutions but in patience resignation and noble sufferance and that we are not then so blessed when God hath turn'd our scourges into ease and delicacy as when we convert our very scorpions into the exercise of vertues so that now the spirit having helped our infirmities that is comforted our weaknesses and afflictions our sorrows and impatience by this proposition that All things work together for the good of them that fear God he hath taught us to pray for grace for patience under the crosse for Charity to our persecutors for rejoycing in tribulations for perseverance and boldnesse in the faith and for whatsoever will bring us safely to Heaven 3. Whereas onely a Moses or a Samuel a David or a Daniel a John the Baptist or the Messias himself could describe and indite formes of prayer and thanksgiving to the time and accent of Heaven now every wise and good Man is instructed perfectly in the Scriptures which are the writings of the spirit what things he may and what things he must ask for 4. The Spirit of God hath made our services to be spiritual intellectual holy and effects of choice and religion the consequents of a spiritual sacrifice and of a holy union with God The prayer of a Christian is with the effects of the spirit of Sanctification and then we pray with the Spirit when we pray with Holinesse which is the great fruit the principal gift of the spirit And this is by Saint James called the prayer of faith and is said to be certain that it shall prevail Such a praying with the spirit when our prayers are the voices of our spirits and our spirits are first taught then sanctified by Gods spirit shall never fail of its effect because then it is that the spirit himself maketh intercession for us that is hath enabled us to do it upon his strengths we speak his sense we live his life we breath his accents we desire in order to his purposes and our persons are Gracious by his Holinesse and are accepted by his interpellation and intercession in the act and offices of Christ. This is praying with the spirit To which by way of explication I adde these two annexes of holy prayer in respect of which also every good man prayes with the spirit 5. The spirit gives us great relish and appetite to our prayers and this Saint Paul calls serving of God in his spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is with a willing minde not as Jonas did his errand but as Christ did die for us he was straitned till he had accomplished it And they that say their prayers out of custome onely or to comply with external circumstances or collateral advantages or pray with trouble and unwillingnesse give a very great testimony that they have not the spirit of Christ within them that spirit which maketh intercession for the Saints but he that delighteth in his prayers not by a sensible or phantastic pleasure but whose choice dwells in his prayers and whose conversation is with God in holy living and praying accordingly that man hath the spirit of Christ and therfore belongs to Christ for by this spirit it is
of a miraculous and prodigious greatnesse that they might report good things of Canaan and invite the whole nation to attempt its conquest so Gods grace represents to the new converts and the weak ones in faith the pleasures and first deliciousnesses of religion and when they come to spie the good things of that way that leads to heaven they presently perceive themselves eased of the load of an evil conscience of their fears of death of the confusion of their shame and Gods spirit gives them a cup of sensible comfort and makes them to rejoyce in their prayers and weep with pleasures mingled with innocent passions and religious changes and although God does not deal with all men in the same method or in manners that can regularly be described and all men do not feele or do not observe or cannot for want of skill discern such accidental sweetnesses and pleasant grapes at his first entrance into religion yet God to every man does minister excellent arguments of invitation and such that if a man will attend to them they will certainly move either his affections or his will his fancy or his reason and most commonly both But while the spirit of God is doing this work of man man must also be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fellow worker with God he must entertain the spirit attend his inspirations receive his whispers obey all his motions invite him further and utterly renounce all confederacy with his enemy sin at no hand suffering any root of bitternesse to spring up not allowing to himself any reserve of carnal pleasure no clancular lust no private oppressions no secret covetousnesse no love to this world that may discompose his duty for if a man prayes all day and at night is intemperate if he spends his time in reading and his recreation be sinful if he studies religion and practises self interest if he leaves his swearing and yet retaines his pride if he becomes chast and yet remains peevish and imperious this man is not changed from the state of sin into the first stage of the state of grace he does at no hand belong to God he hath suffered himself to be scared from one sin and tempted from another by interest and hath left a third by reason of his inclination and a fourth for shame or want of opportunity But the spirit of God hath not yet planted one perfect plant there God may make use of the accidentally prepared advantages But as yet the spirit of God hath not begun the proper and direct work of grace in his heart But when we leave every sin when we resolve never to return to the chaines when we have no love for the world but such as may be a servant of God then I account that we are entred into a state of grace from whence I am now to begin to reckon the commencement of this precept grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2. And now the first part of this duty is to make religion to be the businesse of our lives for this is the great instrument which will naturally produce our growth in grace and the perfection of a Christian. For a man cannot after a state of sin be instantly a Saint the work of heaven is not done by a flash of lightning or a dash of affectionate raine or a few tears of a relenting pity God and his Church have appointed holy intervals and have taken portions of our time for religion that we may be called off from the world and remember the end of our creation and do honour to God and think of heaven with hearty purposes and peremptory designes to get thither But as we must not neglect those times which God hath reserved for his service or the Church hath prudently decreed nor yet act religion upon such dayes with forms and outsides or to comply with customs or to seem religious so we must take care that all the other portions of our time be hallowed with little retirements of all thoughts and short conversations with God and all along be guided with a holy intention that even our works of nature may passe into the relations of grace and the actions of our calling may help towards the obtaining the price of our high calling while our eatings are actions of temperance our labours are profitable our humiliations are acts of obedience and our almes are charity our marriages are chaâ—â— and whether we eat or drink sleep or wake we may do all to the glory of God by a direct intuition or by a reflex act by designe or by supplment by fore sight or by an after election and to this purpose we must not look upon religion as our trouble and our hindâ—rance nor think almes chargeable or expensive nor our fastings vexatious and burdensom nor our prayers a wearinesse of spirit But we must make these and all other the dutis of religion our imployments our care the work and end for which we came into the world and remember that we never do the work of men nor serve the ends of God nor are in the proper imployment and businesse of our life but when we worship God or live like wise or sober persons or do benefit to our brother I will not turne this discourse into a reproofe but leave it represented as a duty Remember that God seâ—â— you into the world for religion we are but to passe through our pleasant fields or our hard labours but to lodge a little while in our faire palaces or our meaner cottages but to bait in the way at our full tables or with our spare diet but then onely man does his proper imployment when he prayes and does charity and mortifies his unruly appetites and restrains his violent passions and becomes like to God and imitates his holy Son and writes after the coppies of Apostles and Saints Then he is dressing himself for eternity where he must dwell or abide either in an excellent beatifical country or in a prison of amazment and eternal horrour And after all this you may if you please call to minde how much time you allovv to God and to your souls every day or every moneth or in a year if you please for I fear the account of the time is soon made but the account for the neglect vvill be harder And it vvill not easily be ansvvered that all our dayes and years are little enough to attend perishing things and to be svvallowed up in avaritious and vain attendances and we shall not attend to religion with a zeal so great as is our revenge or as is the hunger of one meale Without much time and a wary life and a diligent circumspection we cannot mortify our sins or do the first works of grace I pray God we be not found to have grown like the sinnews of old age from strength to remisnesse from thence to dissolution and infirmity and death Menedemus was wont to say that the young
hath lived in sin will die in sorrow The Invalidity of a death-bed Repentance Part II. BUt I shall pursue this great and necessary truth first by shewing what parts and ingredients of repentance are assigned when it is described in holy Scripture Secondly by shewing the necessities the absolute necessities of a holy life and what it means in Scripture to live holily Thirdly by considering what directions or intimations we have concerning the last time of beginning to repent and what is the longest period that any man may venture with safety And in the prosecution of these particulars we shall remove the objections those aprons of fig-leaves which men use for their shelter to palliate their sin and to hide themselves from that from which no rocks or mountains shall protect them though they fall upon them that is the wrath of God First That repentance is not onely an abolition and extinction of the body of sin a bringing it to the altar and slaying it before God and all the people but that we must also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mingle gold and rich presents the oblation of good works and holy habits with the sacrifice I have already proved but now if we will see repentance in its stature and integrity of constitution described we shall finde it to be the one half of all that which God requires of Christians Faith and Repentance are the whole duty of a Christian. Faith is a sacrifice of the understanding to God Repentance sacrifices the whole will That gives the knowing this gives up all the desiring faculties That makes us Disciples this makes us servants of the Holy Jesus Nothing else was preached by the Apostles nothing was enjoyned as the duty of man nothing else did build up the body of Christian religion So that as faith contains all that knowledge which is necessary to salvation So repentance comprehends in it all the whole practise and working duty of a returning Christian And this was the sum totall of all that Saint Paul preached to the Gentiles when in his farewell Sermon to the Bishops and Priests of Ephesus he professed that he kept back nothing that was profitable to them and yet it was all nothing but this Repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ so that whosoever believes in Jesus Christ and repents towards God must make his accounts according to this standard that is to believe all that Christ taught him and to do all that Christ commanded and this is remarked in Saint Pauls Catechisme where he gives a more particular Catalogue of fundamentals he reckons nothing but Sacraments and faith of which he enumerates two principal articles resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement whatsoever is practical all the whole duty of man the practise of all obedience is called repentance from dead works which if we observe the singularity of the phrase does not mean sorrow For sorrow from dead works is not sense but it must mean mutationem status a conversion from dead works which as in all motions supposes two terms from dead works to living works from the death of sin to the life of righteousnesse I will adde but two places more out of each Testament one in which I suppose you may see every lineament of this great duty described that you may no longer mistake a grashopper for an Eagle Sorrow and holy purposes for the intire duty of repentance In the 18. of Ezek. 21. you shall finde it thus described But if the wicked will turne from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not die or as it is more fully described in Ezek. 33. 14 When I say unto the wicked Thou shalt surely die If he turn from his sin and do that which is lawful and right if the wicked restore the pledge give again that he had robbed walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity he shall surely live he shall not die Here onely is the condition of pardon to leave all your sins to keep all Gods statutes to walk in them to abide to proceed and make progresse in them and this without the interruption by a deadly sin without committing iniquity to make restitution of all the wrongs he hath done all the unjust money he hath taken all the oppressions he hath committed all that must be satisfied for and repayed according to our ability we must make satisfaction for all injury to our Neighbours fame all wrongs done to his soul he must be restored to that condition of good things thou didst in any sense remove him from when this is done according to thy utmost power then thou hast repented truely then thou hast a title to the promise thou shalt surely live thou shalt not die for thy old sins thou hast formerly committed * Onely be pleased to observe this one thing that this place of Ezekiel is it which is so often mistaken for that common saying At what time soever a sinner repents him of his sins from the bottom of his heart I will put all his wickednesse out of my remembrance saith the Lord For although at what time soever a sinner does repent as repentance is now explained God will forgive him and that repentance as it is now stated cannot be done At what time soever not upon a mans deathbed yet there are no such words in the whole Bible nor any neerer to the sense of them then the words I have now read to you out of the Prophet Ezekiel Let that therefore no more deceive you or be made a colour to countenance a persevering sinner or a deathbed penitent Neither is the duty of Repentance to be bought at an easier rate in the New Testament You may see it described in the 2 Cor. 7. 11. Godly sorrow worketh repentance Well but what is that repentance which is so wrought This it is Behold the self same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulnesse it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fear ye what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge These are the fruits of that sorrow that is effectual these are the parts of repentance clearing our selves of all that is past and great carefulnesse for the future anger at our selves for our old sins and fear lest we commit the like again vehement desires of pleasing God and zeal of holy actions and a revenge upon our selves for our sins called by Saint Paul in another place a judging our selves lest we be judged of the Lord. And in pursuance of this truth the primitive Church did not admit a sinning person to the publike communions with the faithfull till besides their sorrow they had spent some years in an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in doing good works and holy living and especially in such actions which did contradict that wicked inclination which led
irrigahit torrentem spinarum so it is in the vulgar latin and it shall water the torrent of thorns that is the state or time of the gospel which like a torrent shall cary all the world before it and like a torrent shall be fullest in ill weather and by its banks shall grow nothing but thorns and briers sharp afflictions temporal infelicities and persecution This sense of the words is more fully explained in the book of the prophet Isa. upon the ground of my people shall thorns and briers come up how much more in all the houses of the city of rejoycing which prophecy is the same in the stile of the prophets that my text is in the stile of the Apostles the house of God shall be watered with the dew of heaven and there shall spring up briers in it judgement must begin there but how much more in the houses of the city of rejoycing how much more amongst them that are at ease in Sion that serve their desires that satisfie their appetites that are given over to their own hearts lust that so serves themselves that they never serve God that dwell in the city of rejoycing they are like Dives whose portion was in this life who went in fine linnen and fared deliciously every day they indeed trample upon their briers and thorns and suffer them not to grow in their houses but the roots are in the ground and they are reserved for fuel of wrath in the day of everlasting burning Thus you see it was prophesied now see how it was performed Christ was the captain of our sufferings and he began He entred into the world with all the circumstances of poverty he had a star to illustrate his birth but a stable for his bed chamber and a manger for his cradle the angels sang hymnes when he was born but he was cold and cried uneasy and unprovided he lived long in the trade of a carpenter he by whom God made the world had in his first years the businesse of a mean and an ignoble trade he did good where ever he went and almost where ever he went was abused he deserved heaven for his obedience but found a crosse in his way thither and if ever any man had reason to expect fair usages from God and to be dandled in lap of ease softnes and a prosperous fortune he it was onely that could deserve that or any thing that can be good But after he had chosen to live a life of vertue of poverty and labour he entred into a state of death whose shame and trouble was great enough to pay for the sins of the whole world And I shall choose to expresse this mystery in the vvords of scripture he died not by a single or a sudden death but he was the Lambe slain from the beginning of the world For he was massacred in Abel saith Saint Paulinus he was tossed upon the waves of the Sea in the person of Noah It was he that went out of his Countrey when Abraham was called from Charran and wandred from his native soil He was offered up in Isaac persecuted in Jacob betrayed in Joseph blinded in Sampson affronted in Moses sawed in Esay cast into the dungeon with Jeremy For all these were types of Christ suffering and then his passion continued even after his resurrection for it is he that suffers in all his members it is he that endures the contradiction of all sinners it is he that is the Lord of life and is crucified again and put to open shame in all the sufferings of his servants and sins of rebels and defiances of Apostates and renegados and violence of Tyrants and injustice of usurpers and the persecutions of his Church It is he that is stoned in Saint Stephen flayed in the person of Saint Bartholomew he was rosted upon Saint Laurence his Cridiron exposed to lyons in Saint Ignatius burned in Saint Polycarpe frozen in the lake where stood fourty Martyrs of Cappadocia Vnigenitus enim Dei ad peragendum mortis suae sacramentum consummavit omne genus humanarum passionum said Saint Hilary The Sacrament of Christs death is not to be accomplished but by suffering all the sorrows of humanity All that Christ came for was or was mingled with sufferings For all those little joyes which God sent either to recreate his person or to illustrate his office were abated or attended with afflictions God being more carefull to establish in him the Covenant of sufferings then to refresh his sorrows Presently after the Angels had finished their Halleluiahs he was forced to fly to save his life and the air became full of shrikes of the desolate mothers of Bethlehem for their dying Babes God had no sooner made him illustrious with a voyce from heaven and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him in the waters of Baptisme But he was delivered over to be tempted and assaulted by the Devil in the wildernesse His transfiguration was a bright ray of glory but then also he entred into a cloud and was told a sad story what he was to suffer at Jerusalem And upon Palme Sunday when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem and was adorned with the acclamations of a King and a God he wet the Palmes with his tears sweeter then the drops of Mannah or the little pearls of heaven that descended upon mount Hermon weeping in the midst of this triumph over obstinate perishing and maliciour Jerusalem For this Jesus was like the rain-bowe which God set in the clouds as a sacrament to confirm a promise and establish a grace he was half made of the glories of the light and half of the moisture of a cloud in his best dayes he was but half triumph and half sorrow he was sent to tell of his Fathers mercies and that God intended to spare us but appeared not but in the company or in the retinue of a shower and of foul weather But I need not tell that Jesus beloved of God was a suffering person that which concerns this question most is that he made for us a covenant of sufferings His Doctrines were such as expressely and by consequent enjoyne and suppose sufferings and a state of affliction His very promises were sufferings his beatitudes were sufferings his rewards and his arguments to invite men to follow him were onely taken from sufferings in this life and the reward of sufferings hereafter For if we summon up the Commandements of Christ we shall finde humility mortification self-deniall repentance renouncing the world mourning taking up the crosse dying for him patience and poverty to stand in the chiefest rank of Christian precepts and in the direct order to heaven He that will be my Disciple must deny himself and take up his crosse and follow me We must follow him that was crowned with thorns and sorrows him that was drenchâ—d in Cedron nailed upon the Crosse that deserved all good and suffered all evil That is the summe of Christian Religion
sine Deo as no man would bear evils without a cause so no man could bear so much without the supporting hand of God and we need not the Holy Ghost to so great purposes if our lot were not sorrow and persecution and therefore without this condition of suffering the Spirit of God should lose that glorious attribute of The Holy Ghost the Comforter 21. Is there any thing more yet Yes They that have suffered or forsaken any lands for Christ shall sit upon thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel so said Christ to his Disciples Nay the saints shall judge Angels saith saint Paul well therefore might Saint Paul say I rejoyce exceedingly in tribulation It must be some great thing that must make an afflicted man to rejoyce exceedingly and so it was For since patience is necessary that we receive the promise and tribulation does work this For a short time it worketh the consummation of our hope even an exceeding weight of glory We have no reason to think it strange concerning the fiery triall as if it were a strange thing It can be no hurt the Church is like Moses bush when it is all on sire it is not at all consumed but made full of miracle full of splendour full of God and unlesse we can finde something that God cannot turn into joy we have reason not onely to be patient but rejoyce when we are persecuted in a righteous cause For love is the soul of Christianity and suffering is the soul of love To be innocent and to be persecuted are the body and soul of Christianity I John your brother and partaker of tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus said Saint John those were the titles and ornaments of his profession that is I John your fellow Christian that 's the plain song of the former descant He therefore that is troubled when he is afflicted in his outward man that his inward man may grow strong like the birds upon the ruines of the shell and wonders that a good man should be a begger and a sinner be rich with oppression that Lazarus should die at the gate of Dives hungry and sick unpitied and unrelieved may as well wonder that carrion crowes should feed themselves fat upon a fair horse farre better then himself or that his own excellent body should be devoured by wormes and the most contemptible creatures though it lies there to be converted into glory That man knows nothing of nature or providence or Christianity or the rewards of vertue or the nature of its constitution or the infirmities of man or the mercies of God or the arts and prudence of his loving kindnesse or the rewards of heaven or the glorifications of Christs exalted humanity or the precepts of the Gospel who is offended at the sufferings of Gods deerest servants or declines the honour and the mercy of sufferings in the cause of righteousnesse For the securing of a vertue for the imitation of Christ and for the love of God or the glories of immortality It cannot it ought not it never will be otherwise the world may as well cease to be measured by time as good men to suffer affliction I end this point with the words of Saint Paul Let as many as are perfect be thus minded and if any man be otherwise minded God also will reveal this unto you this of the covenant of sufferings concerning which the old Prophets and holy men of the Temple had many thoughts of heart but in the full sufferings of the Gospel there hath been a full revelation of the excellency of the sufferings I have now given you an account of some of those reasons why God hath so disposed it that at this time that is under the period of the Gospel judgement must begin at the house of God and they are either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or imitation of Christs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chastisements or trials martyrdom or a conformity to the sufferings of the Holy Jesus But now besides all the premises we have another account to make concerning the prosperity of the wicked For if judgment first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God that is the question of the Apostle and is the great instrument of comfort to persons ill treated in the actions of the world The first ages of the Church lived upon promises and prophecies and because some of them are already fulfilled for ever and the others are of a continuall and a successive nature and are verified by the actions of every day Therefore we and all the following Ages live upon promises and experience and although the servants of God have suffered many calamities from the tyranny and prevalency of evil men their enemies yet still it is preserved as one of the fundamentall truths of Christianity That all the fair fortunes of the wicked are not enough to make them happy nor the persecutions of the godly able to make a good man miserable nor yet their sadnesses arguments of Gods displeasure against them For when a godly man is afflicted and dies it is his work and his businesse and if the wicked prevail that is if they persecute the godly it is but that which was to be expected from them For who are fit to be hangmen and executioners of publike wrath but evil and ungodly persons And can it be a wonder that they whose cause wants reason should betake themselves to the sword that what he cannot perswade he may wrest onely we must not judge of the things of God by the measures of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things of men have this world for their stage and their reward but the things of God relate to the world to come and for our own particulars we are to be guided by rule and by the end of all not by events intermedial which are varied by a thousand irregular causes For if all the evil men in the world were unprosperous as most certainly they are and if all good persons were temporally blessed as most certainly they are not yet this would not move us to become vertuous If an angel should come from heaven or one arise from the dead and preach repentance or justice and temperance all this would be ineffectuall to those to whom the plain doctrines of God delivered in the Law and the Prophets will not suffice For why should God work a signe to make us to beleeve that we ought to do justice if we already beleeve he hath commanded it no man can need a miracle for the confirmation of that which he already beleeves to be the command of God And when God hath expressely bidden us to obey every ordinance of man for the Lords sake the King as supreme and his deputies as sent by him It is a strange infidelity to think that a rebellion against the ordinance of God can be sanctified by successe and prevalency of them that destroy the
and to be prevented with the following cautions least a man suffers like a fool and a malefactour or inherits damnation for the reward of his imprudent suffering 1. They that suffer any thing for Christ and are ready to die for him let them do nothing against him For certainly they think too highly of martyrdom who beleeve it able to excuse all the evils of a wicked life A man may give his body to be burned and yet have no charity and he that dies without â—harity dies without God for God is love And when those who fought in the dayes of the Maccabees for the defence of true Religion and were killed in those holy warres yet being dead were found having about their necks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or pendants consecrated to idols of the Jamnenses it much allayed the hope which by their dying in so good a cause was entertained concerning their beatificall resurrection He that overcomes his fear of death does well but if he hath not also overcome his lust or his anger his baptisme of blood will not wash him clean Many things may make a man willing to die in a good cause Publike reputation hope of reward gallantry of spirit a confident resolution and a masculine courage or a man may be vexed into a stubborn and unrelenting suffering But nothing can make a man live well but the grace and the love of God But those persons are infinitely condemned by their last act who professe their religion to be worth dying for and yet are so unworthy as not to live according to its institution It were a rare felicity if every good cause could be mannaged by good men onely but we have found that evil men have spoiled a good cause but never that a good cause made those evil men good and holy If the Governour of Samaria had crucified Simon Magus for receiving Christian Baptisme he had no more died a martyr then he lived a saint For dying is not enough and dying in a good cause is not enough but then onely we receive the crown of martyrdom when our death is the seal of our life and our life is a continuall testimony of our duty and both give testimony to the excellencies of the religion and glorifie the grace of God If a man be gold the fire purges him but it burns him if he be like stubble cheap light and uselesse For martyrdom is the consummation of love But then it must be supposed that this grace must have had its beginning and its severall stages and periods and must have passed thorow labour to zeal thorow all the regions of duty to the perfections of sufferings and therefore it is a sad thing to observe how some empty souls will please themselves with being of such a religion or such a cause and though they dishonour their religion or weigh down the cause with the prejudice of sin beleeve all is swallowed up by one honourable name or the appellative of one vertue If God had forbid nothing but heresie and treason then to have been a loyall man or of a good beleef had been enogh but he that forbad rebellion forbids also swearing and covetousnesse rapine and oppression lying and cruelty And it is a sad thing to see a man not onely to spend his time and his wealth and his money and his friends upon his lust but to spend his sufferings too to let the canker-worm of a deadly sin devour his Martyrdom He therefore that suffers in a good cause let him be sure to walk worthy of that honour to which God hath called him Let him first deny his sins and then deny himself and then he may take up his crosse and follow Christ ever remembring that no man pleases God in his death who hath walked perversely in his life 2. He that suffers in a cause of God must be indifferent what the instance be so that he may serve God I say he must be indifferent in the cause so it be a cause of God and indifferent in the suffering so it be of Gods appointment For some men have a naturall aversation to some vices or vertues and a naturall affection to others One man will die for his friend and another will die for his money Some men hate to be a rebell and will die for their Prince but tempt them to suffer for the cause of the Church in which they were baptized and in whose communion they look for heaven and then they are tempted and fall away Or if God hath chosen the cause for them and they have accepted it yet themselves will choose the suffering Right or wrong some men will not endure a prison and some that can yet choose the heaviest part of the burden the pollution and stain of a sin rather then lose their money and some had rather die twice then lose their estates once In this our rule is easie Let us choose God and let God choose all the rest for us it being indifferent to us whether by poverty or shame by lingring or a sudden death by the hands of a Tyrant Prince or the despised hands of a base usurper or a rebell we receive the crown and do honour to God and to Religion 3. Whoever suffer in a cause of God from the hands of cruell and unreasonable men let them not be too forward to prognosticate evil and death to their enemies but let them solace themselves in the assurance of the divine justice by generall consideration and in particular pray for them that are our persecutours Nebuchadnezzar was the rod in the hand of God against the Tyrians and because he destroyed that city God rewarded him with the spoil of Egypt and it is not alwayes certain that God will be angry with every man by whose hand affliction comes upon us And sometimes two armies have met and fought and the wisest man amongst them could not say that either of the Princes had prevaricated either the lawes of God â—or of Nations and yet it may be some superstitious easie and half witted people of either side wonder that their enemies live so long And there are very many cases of warre concerning which God hath declared nothing and although in such cases he that yeelds and quits his title rather then his charity and the care of so many lives is the wisest and the best man yet if neither of them will do so let us not decree judgements from heaven in cases where we have no word from heaven and thunder from our Tribunals where no voice of God hath declared the sentence But in such cases where there is an evident tyranny or injustice let us do like the good Samaritan who dressed the wounded man but never pursued the thief let us do charity to the afflicted and bear the crosse with noblenesse and look up to Jesus who endured the crosse and despised the shame but let us not take upon us the office of God who will judge the Nations righteously
and intolerable and there is no soft counsels then to be entertained they are already in the fire but they may be saved for all that so great so infinite so miraculous is Gods mercy that he will not give a sinner over though the hairs of his head be singed with the flames of hell Gods desires of having us to be saved continue even when we begin to be damned even till we will not be saved and are gone beyond Gods method and all the revelations of his kindnesse And certainly that is a bold and a mighty sinner whose iniquity is sweld beyond all the bulk and heap of Gods revealed loving kindnesse If sin hath sweld beyond grace and superabounds over it that sin is gone beyond the measures of a man such a person is removed beyond all the malice of humane nature into the evil and spite of Devils and accursed spirits there is no greater sadnesse in the world then this God hath not appointed a remedy in the vast treasures of grace for some men and some sins they have sinned like the falling Angels and having over run the ordinary evil inclinations of their nature they are without the protection of the divine mercy and the conditions of that grace which was designed to save all the world was sufficient to have saved twenty This is a condition to be avoyded with the care of God and his Angels and all the whole industry of man In order to which end my purpose now is to remonstrate to you the several states of sin and death together with those remedies which God had proportioned out to them that we may observe the evils of the least and so avoid the intolerable mischiefs of the greater even of those sins which still are within the power and possibilities of recovery lest insensibly we fall into those sins and into those circumstances of person for which Christ never died which the Holy Ghost never means to cure and which the eternal God never will pardon for there are of this kinde more then commonly men imagine whilest they amuse their spirits with gaietyes and false principles till they have run into horrible impieties from whence they are not willing to withdraw their foot and God is resolved never to snatch and force them thence 1. Of some have compassion and these I shall reduce to four heads or orders of men and actions all which have their proper cure proportionable to their proper state gentle remedies to the lesser irregularities of the soul. The first are those that sin without observation of their particular state either because they are uninstructed in the special cases of conscience or because they do an evil against which there is no expresse commandment It is a sad calamity that there are so many milions of men and women that are entred into a state of sicknesse and danger and yet are made to believe they are in perfect health and they do actions concerning which they never made a question whether they were just or no nor were ever taught by what names to call them For while they observe that modesty is sometimes abused by a false name and called clownishnesse want of breeding and contentednesse and temperate living is suppressed to be want of courage and noble thoughts and severity of life is called imprudent and unsociable and simplicity and hearty honesty is counted foolish and unpolitick they are easily tempted to honour prodigality and foolish dissolution of their estates with the title of liberal and noble usages timorousnesse is called caution rashnesse is called quicknesse of spirit covetousnesse is fragality amorousnesse is society and gentile peevishnesse and anger is courage flattery is humane and courteous and under these false vails vertue slips away like truth from under the hand of theâ— that fight for her and leave vices dressed up withthe same imagâ—â—y and the fraud not discovered till the day of recompences when men are distinguished by their rewards But so men think they sleep freely when their spirits are loaden with a Lethargy and they call a hestick-feaver the vigour of a natural heat tell nature changes those lesse discerned states into the notorious images of death Very many men never consider whether they sin or no in 10000. of their actions every one of which is very disputable and do not think they are bound to consider these men are to be pitied and instructed they are to be called upon to use religion like a daily diet their consciences must be made tender and their Catechisme enlarged teach them and make them sensible and they are cured But the other in this place are more considerable Men sin without observation because their actions have no restraint of an expresse Commandment no letter of the law to condemn them by an expresse sentence And this happens when the crime is comprehended under a general notion without the instancing of particulars for if you search over all the Scripture you shall never finde incest named and marked with the black character of death and there are diveres sorts of uncleannesse to which Scripture therefore gives no name because she would have them have no being And it had been necessary that God should have described all particulars and all kindes if he had not given reason to man For so it is fit that a guide should point out every turning if he be to teach a childe or a fool to return under his fathers roof But he that bids us avoid intemperance for fear of a feaver supposes you to be sufficiently instructed that you may avoid the plague and when to look upon a woman with lust is condemned it will not be necessary to adde you must not do more when even the least is forbidden and when to uncover the nakednesse of Noah brought an universal plague upon the posterity of Cham it was not necessary that the law-giver should say you must not ascend to your fathers bed or draw the curtains from your sisters retirements When the Athenians forbad to transports figs from Athens there was no need to name the gardens of Alcibiades much lesse was it necessary to adde that Chabrias should send no plants to Sparta What so ever is comprised under the general notion and partakes of the common nature and the same iniquity needs no special prohibition unlesse we think we can mock God and elude his holy precepts with an absurd trick of mistaken Logick I am sure that will not save us harmlesse from a thunderbolt 2. Men sin without an expresse prohibition when they commit a thing that is like a forbidden evil And when Saint Paul had reckoned many works of the flesh he addes and such like all that have the same unreasonablenesse carnaâ—â—ty For thus poligamy is unlawful for if it be not lawful for a Christian to put away his wife and marry another unlesse for adultery much lesse may he keep a first and take a second when the first is not put away If a
but when his understanding is abused by an inevitable or an intolerable weaknesse our wills follow their blind guide and are not the perfect mistresses of their own actions and therefore leave a way and easinesse to repent and be ashamed of it and therefore a possibility and readinesse for pardon And these are the sins that we are taught to pray to God that he would pardon as he gives us our bread that is every day For in many things we offend all said Saint James that is in many smaller matters in matters of surprize or inevitable infirmity And therefore Posidices said that Saint Austin was used to say That he would not have even good and holy Priests go from this world without the susception of equall and worthy penances and the most innocent life in our account is not a competent instrument of a peremptory confidence and of justifying our selves I am guilty of nothing said Saint Paul that is of no ill intent or negligence in preaching the Gospel yet I am not hereby justified for God it may bee knows many little irregularities and insinuations of sin In this case we are to make a difference but humility and prayer and watchfulnesse are the direct instruments of the expiation of such sinnes But then secondly whosoever sins without these abating circumstances that is in great instances in which a mans understanding cannot be cozened as in drunkennesse murder adultery and in the frequent repetitions of any sort of sin whatsoever in which a mans choice cannot be surprized and in which it is certain there is a love of the sin and a delight in it and a power over a mans resolutions in these cases it is a miraculous grace and an extraordinary change that must turn the current and the stream of the iniquity and when it is begun the pardon is more uncertain and the repentance more difficult and the effect much abated and the man must be made miserable that he may be accursed for ever 1. I say his pardon is uncertain because there are some sins which are unpardonable as I shall shew and they are not all named in particular and the degrees of malice being uncertain the salvation of that man is to be wrought with infinite fear and trembling It was the case of Simon Magus Repent and ask pardon for thy sin if peradventure the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee If peradventure it was a new crime and concerning its possibility of pardon no revelation had been made and by analogy to other crimes it was very like an unpardonable sin for it was a thinking a thought against the Holy Ghost and that was next to speaking a word against him Cains sin was of the same nature It is greater then it can be forgiven his passion and his fear was too severe and decretory it was pardonable but truly we never finde that God did pardon it 2. But besides this it is uncertain in the pardon because it may be the time of pardon is passed and though God hath pardoned to other people the same sins and to thee too sometimes before yet it may be he will not now he hath not promised pardon so often as we sin and in all the returns of impudence apostacy and ingratitude and it may be thy day is past as was Jerusalems in the day that they crucified the Saviour of the world 3. Pardon of such habitual sins is uncertain because life is uncertain and such sins require much time for their abolition and expiation And therefore although these sins are not necessariò mortifera that is unpardonable yet by consequence they become deadly because our life may be cut off before we have finished or performed those necessary parts of repentance which are the severe and yet the onely condition of getting pardon So that you may perceive that not onely every great single crime but the habit of any sin is dangerous and therefore these persons are to be snatched from the fire if you mean to rescue them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if you stay a day it may be you stay too long 4. To which I adde this fourth consideration that every delay of return is in the case of habitual sins an approach to desperation because the nature of habits is like that of Crocodiles they grow as long as they live and if they come to obstinacy or confirmation they are in hell already and can never return back For so the Pannonian Bears when they have clasped a dart in the region of their Liver wheel themselves upon the wound and with anger and malicious revenge strike the deadly barbe deeper and cannot be quit from that fatal steel but in flying bear along that which themselves make the instrument of a more hasty death So is every vitious person struck with a deadly wound and his own hands forced it into the entertainments of his heart And because it is painfull to draw it forth by a sharp and salutary repentance he still rouls and turns upon his wound and carries his death in his bowels where it first entered by choice and then dwelt by love and at last shall finish the tragedy by divine judgements and an unalterable decree But as the pardon of these sins is uncertain so the conditions of restitution are hard even to them who shall be pardoned their pardon and themselves too must be fetched from the fire water will not do it tears and ineffective sorrow cannot take off a habit or a great crime O nimium faciles qui tristia crimina cadis Tolli flumineâ posse putatis aquâ Bion seeing a Prince weep and tearing his hair for sorrow asked if baldnesse would cure his grief such pompous sorrows may bee good indices but no perfect instruments of restitution Saint James plainly declares the possibilities of pardon to great sins in the cases of contention adultery lust and envy which are the four great indecencies that are most contrary to Christianity and in the 5. Chap. he implies also a possibility of pardon to an habitual sinner whom he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that erres from the truth that is from the life of a Christian the life of the Spirit of truth and he addes that such a person may be reduced and so be pardoned though he have sinned long he that converts such a one shall hide a multitude of sins But then the way that he appoints for the restitution of such persons is humilty and humiliation penances and sharp penitentiall sorrows and afflictions resisting the Devil returning to God weeping and mourning confessions and prayers as you may read at large in the 4. and 5. Chapters and there it is that you shall finde it a duty that such persons should be afflicted and should confesse to their brethren and these are harder conditions then God requires in the former cases these are a kinde of fiery tryall I have now done with my Text and should adde no more but
be compared to a wise soul and a prudent spirit and he that wants it hath a lesse vertue and a defenselesse minde and will suffer a mighty hazard in the interest of eternity Its parts and proper acts consist in the following particulars 1. It is the duty of Christian prudence to choose the end of a Christian that which is perfective of a man satisfactory to reason the rest of a Christian and the beatification of his spirit and that is to choose and desire and propound to himself heaven and the fruition of God as the end of all his acts and arts his designes and purposes For in the nature of things that is most eligible and most to be pursued which is most perfective of our nature and is the acquiescence the satisfaction and proper rest of our most reasonable appetites Now the things of this world are difficult and uneasie full of thornes and empty of pleasures they fill a diseased faculty or an abused sense but are an infinite dissatisfaction to reason and the appetites of the soul they are short and transient and they never abide unlesse sorrow like a chain be bound about their leg and then they never stir till the grace of God and religion breaks it or else that the rust of time eats the chain in pieces they are dangerous and doubtfull few and difficult fordid and particular not onely not communicable to a multitude but not diffusive upon the whole man there being no one pleasure or object in this world that delights all the parts of man and after all this they are originally from earth and from the creatures onely that they oftentimes contract alliances with hell and the grave with shame and sorrow and all these put together make no great amability or proportion to a wise mans choice But on the other side the things of God are the noblest satisfactions to those desires which ought to be cherished and swelled up to infinite their deliciousnesse is vast and full of relish and their very appendant thorns are to be chosen for they are gilded they are safe and medicinall they heal the wound they make and bring forth fruit of a blessed and a holy life The things of God and of religion are easie and sweet they bear entertainments in their hand and reward at their back their good is certain and perpetual and they make us cheerfull to day and pleasant to morrow and spiritual songs end not in a sigh and a groan neither like unwholesome physick do they let loose a present humour and introduce an habitual indisposition But they bring us to the felicity of God the same yesterday and to day and for ever they do not give a private and particular delight but their benefit is publike like the incense of the altar it sends up a sweet smell to heaven and makes atonement for the religious man that kindled it and delights all the standers by and makes the very air wholesome there is no blessed soul goes to heaven but he makes a generall joy in all the mansions where the Saints do dwell and in all the chappels where the Angels sing and the joyes of religion are not univocal but productive of rare and accidental and praeternatural pleasures for the musick of holy hymnes delights the ear and refreshes the spirit and makes the very bones of the Saint to rejoyce and charity or the giving alms to the poor does not onely ease the poverty of the receiver but makes the giver rich and heals his sicknesse and delivers from death and temperance though it be in the matter of meat and drink and pleasures yet hath an effect upon the understanding and makes the reason sober and his will orderly and his â—ffections regular and does things beside and beyond their natural and proper efficacy for all the parts of our duty are watered with the showers of blessing and bring forth fruit according to the influence of heaven and beyond the capacities of nature And now let the voluptuous person go and try whether putting his wanton hand to the bosome of his Misâ—â—s will get half such honour as Scaevola put upon his head when he put his hand into the fire Let him see whether a drunken meeting will cure a fever or make him wise A hearty and a persevering prayer will Let him tell me if spending great summes of money upon his lusts will make him sleep soundly or be rich Charity will Alms will increase his fortune and a good conscience shall charme all his cares and sorrows into a most delicious slumber well may a full goblet wet the drunkards tongue and then the heat rising from the stomack will dry the spunge and heat it into the scorchings and little images of hell and the follies of a wanton bed will turn the itch into a smart and empty the reins of all their lustfull powers but can they do honour or satisfaction in any thing that must last and that ought to be provided for No All the things of this world are little and trifling and limited and particular and sometimes necessary because we are miserable wanting and imperfect but they never do any thing toward perfection but their pleasure dies like the time in which it danced a while and when the minute is gone so is the pleasure too and leaves no footstep but the impression of a sigh and dwells no where but in the same house where you shall finde yesterday that is in forgetfulnesse and annihilation unlesse its onely childe sorrow shall marry and breed more of its kinde and so continue its memory and name to eternall ages It is therefore the most necessary part of prudence to choose well in the main stake and the dispute is not much for if eternall things be better then temporall the soul more noble then the body vertue more honourable then the basest vices a lasting joy to be chosen before an eternall sorrow much to be preferred before little certainty before danger publike good things before private evils eternity before moments then let us set down in religion and make heaven to be our end God to be our Father Christ our elder Brother the Holy Ghost the earnest of our inheritance vertue to be our imployment and then we shall never enter into the portion of fools and accursed ill-choosing spirits Nazianzen said well Malim prudentiae guttam quà m foecundioris fortunae pelagus One drop of prudence is more usefull then an ocean of a smooth fortune for prudence is a rare instrument towards heaven and a great fortune is made oftentimes the high-way to hell and destruction However thus farre prudence is our duty every man can be so wise and is bound to it to choose heaven and a cohabitation with God before the possessions and transient vanities of the world 2. It is a duty of Christian prudence to pursue this great end with apt means and instruments in proportion to that end No wise man will sail to Ormus
nothing is easier then to follow and to be obedient Sermon XXII Of Christian Prudence Part III. 7. AS it is a part of Christian prudence to take into the conduct of our soules a spiritual man for a guide so it is also of great concernment that we be prudent in the choice of him whom we are to trust in so great an interest Concerning which it will be impossible to give characters and significations particular enough to enable a choice without the interval assistances of prayer experience and the Grace of God He that describes a man can tell you the colour of his hair his stature and proportions and describe some general lines enough to distingush him from a Cyclops or a Saracen but when you chance to see the man you will discover figures or little features of which the description had produced in you no Phantasme or expectation And in the exteriour significations of a sect there are more semblances then in mens faces and greater uncertainty in the signes what is faulty strives so craftily to act the true and proper images of things and the more they are defective in circumstances the more curious they are in forms and they also use such arts of gaining Proselytes which are of most advantage towards an effect and therefore such which the true Christian ought to pursue and the Apostles actually did and they strive to follow their patterns in arts of perswasion not onely because they would seem like them but because they can have none so good so effective to their purposes that it follows that it is not more a duty to take care that we be not corrupted with false teachers then that we be not abused with false signes for we as well finde a good man teaching a false proposition as a good cause managed by ill men and a holy cause is not alwayes dressed with healthful symptomes nor is there a crosse alwayes set upon the doores of those congregations who are infected with the plague of heresy When Saint John was to separate false teachers from true he took no other course but to remark the doctrine which was of God and that should be the mark of cognisance to distinguish right shepheards from robbers and invaders every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God He that denieth it is not of God By this he bids his schollers to avoid the present sects of Ebion Cerinthus Simon Magus and such other persons that denied that Christ was at all before he came or that he came really in the flesh and a proper humanity This is a clear note and they that conversed with Saint John or believed his doctrine were sufficiently instructed in the present Questions But this note will signify nothing to us for all sects of Christians confesse Jesus Christ come in the flesh and the following sects did avoid that rock over which a great Apostle had hung out so plain a lantern In the following ages of the Church men have been so curious to signifie misbelievers that they have invented and observed some signes which indeed in some cases were true real appendages of false believers but yet such which were also or might be common to them with good men and members of the Catholick Church some few I shall remark and give a short account of them that by removing the uncertain we may fix our inquiries and direct them by certain significations lest this art of prudence turn into folly and faction errour and secular designe 1. Some men distinguish errour from truth by calling their adversaries doctrine new and of yesterday and certainly this is a good signe if it be rightly applyed for since all Christian doctrine is that which Christ taught his Church and the spirit enlarged or expounded and the Apostles delivered we are to begin the Christian aera for our faith and parts of religion by the period of their preaching our account begins then and whatsoever is contrary to what they taught is new and false and whatsoever is besides what they taught is no part of our religion and then no man can be prejudiced for believing it or not and if it be adopted into the confessions of the Church the proposition is alwayes so uncertain that it s not to be admitted into the faith and therefore if it be old in respect of our dayes it is not therefore necessary to be believed if it be new it may be received into opinion according to its probabilitie and no sects or interest are to be divided upon such accounts This onely I desire to be observed that when a truth returns from banishment by a postliminium if it was from the first though the Holy fire hath been buried or the river ran under ground yet that we do not call that new since newnesse is not to be accounted of by a proportion to our short lived memories or to the broken records and fragments of story left after the inundation of barbarisme and war and change of Kingdoms and corruption of Authors but by its relation to the fountain of our truths and the birth of our religion under our Fathers in Christ the holy Apostles and Disciples a Camel was a new thing to them that saw it in the fable But yet it was created as soon as a cow or the domestick creatures and some people are apt to call every thing new which they never heard of before as if all religion were to be measured by the standards of their observation or country customs Whatsoever was not taught by Christ or his Apostles though it came in by Papias or Dionysius by Arius or Liberius is certainly new as to our account and whatsoever is taught to us by the Doctors of the present age if it can shew its test from the beginning of our period for revelation is not to be called new though it be pressed with a new zeal and discoursed of by unheard of arguments that is though men be ignorant and need to learn it yet it is not therefore new or unnecessary 2. Some would have false teachers sufficiently signified by a name or the owning of a private Appellative as of Papist Lutheran Calvenists Zuinglian Socinian think it is enough to denominat them not of Christ if they are called by the name of a man And indeed the thing is in it self ill but then if by this mark we shall esteem false teachers sufficiently signified we must follow no man no Church nor no communion for all are by their adversaries marked with an appellative of separation and singularity and yet themselves are tenacious of a good name such as they choose or such as is permitted to them by fame and the people and a natural necessity of making a distinction Thus the Donatist called themselves the flock of God and the Novatians called the Catholicks traditors and the Eustathians called themselves Catholikes and the worshippers of images made Iconoclast to be a name
many particulars and yet if her children separate from her they may be unreasonable and impious 5. The wayes of direction which we have from holy Scripture to distinguish false Apostles from true are taken from their doctrine or their lives That of the doctrine is the most sure way if we can hit upon it but that also is the thing signified and needs to have other signes Saint John and Saint Paul took this way for they were able to do it infallibly All that confesse Jesus incarnate are of God said Saint John those men that deny it are hereticks avoid them and Saint Paul bids to observe them that cause divisions and offences against the doctrine delivered Them also avoid that do so And we might do so as easily as they if the world would onely take their depositum that doctrine which they delivered to all men that is the Creed and superinduce nothing else but suffer Christian faith to rest in its own perfect simplicity unmingled with arts and opinions and interests This course is plain and easie and I will not intricate it with more words but leave it directly in its own truth and certainty with this onely direction That when we are to choose our doctrine or our side we take that which is in the plain unexpounded words of Scripture for in that onely our religion can consist Secondly choose that which is most advantageous to a holy life to the proper graces of a Christian to humility to charity to forgivenesse and alms to obedience and complying with governments to the honour of God and the exaltation of his attributes and to the conservation and advantages of the publike societies of men and this last Saint Paul directs Let our be carefull to maintain good works for necessary uses for he that heartily pursues these proportions cannot be an ill man though he were accidentally and in the particular applications deceived 6. But because this is an act of wisdom rather then prudence and supposes science or knowledge rather then experience therefore it concerns the prudence of a Christian to observe the practise and the rules of practise their lives and pretences the designes and colours the arts of conduct and gaining proselytes which their Doctors and Catechists do use in order to their purposes and in their ministery about souls For although many signes are uncertain yet some are infallible and some are highly probable 7. Therefore those teachers that pretend to be guided by a private spirit are certainly false Doctors I remember what Simmias in Plutarch tels concerning Socrates that if he heard any man say he saw a divine vision he presently esteemed him vain and proud but if he pretended onely to have heard a voice or the word of God he listened to that religiously and would enquire of him with curiosity There was some reason in his fancy for God does not communicate himself by the eye to men but by the ear ye saw no figure but ye heard a voice said Moses to the people concerning God and therefore if any man pretends to speak the word of God we will enquire concerning it the man may the better be heard because he may be certainly reproved if he speaks amisse but if he pretends to visions and revelations to a private spirit and a mission extraordinary the man is proud and unlerned vicious and impudent No Scripture is of private interpretation saith S. Peter that is of private emission or declaration Gods words were delivered indeed by single men but such as were publikely designed Prophets remarked with a known character approved of by the high Priest and Sanhedrim indued with a publike spirit and his doctrines were alwayes agreeable to the other Scriptures But if any man pretends now to the spirit either it must be a private or publike if it be private it can but be usefull to himself alone and it may cozen him too if it be not assisted by the spirit of a publike man But if it be a publike spirit it must enter in at the publike door of ministeries and divine ordinances of Gods grace and mans endeavour it must be subject to the Prophets it is discernable and judicable by them and therefore may be rejected and then it must pretend no longer For he that will pretend to an extraordinary spirit and refuses to be tried by the ordinary wayes must either prophecy or work miracles or must have a voice from heaven to give him testimony The Prophets in the old Testament and the Apostles in the New and Christ between both had no other way of extraordinary probation and they that pretend to any thing extraordinary cannot ought not to be beleeved unlesse they have something more then their own word If I bear witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true said Truth it self our Blessed Lord. But secondly they that intend to teach by an extraordinary spirit if they pretend to teach according to Scripture must be examined by the measures of Scripture and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit and stands or falls by the rules of every good mans religion and publike government and then we are well enough But if they speak any thing against Scripture it is the spirit of Antichrist and the spirit of the Devil For if an Angel from heaven he certainly is a spirit preach any other doctrine let him be accursed But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride errour and delusion a snare to catch easie and credulous souls which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face it is the parent of folly and giddy doctrine impossible to be proved and therefore uselesse to all purposes of religion reason or sober counsels it is like an invisible colour or musick without a sound it is and indeed is so intended to be a direct overthrow of order and government and publike ministeries It is bold to say any thing and resolved to prove nothing it imposes upon willing people after the same manner that Oracles and the lying Daemons did of old time abusing men not by proper efficacy of its own but because the men love to be abused it is a great disparagement to the sufficiency of Scripture and asperses the Divine providence for giving to so many ages of the Church an imperfect religion expressely against the truth of their words who said they had declared the whole truth of God and told all the will of God and it is an affront to the Spirit of God the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge of order and publike ministeries But the will furnishes out malice and the understanding sends out levity and they marry and produce a phantastick dream and the daughter sucking winde instead of the milk of the word growes up to madnesse and the spirit of reprobation Besides all this an extraordinary spirit is extremely unnecessary and God does not give immissions and miracles from heaven to
gives demonstration of his huge easinesse to redeem us from that intolerable evil that is equally consequent to the indulging to one or to twenty sinful habits 2. Gods readinesse to pardon appears in this that he pardons before we ask for he that bids us alk for pardon hath in designe and purpose done the thing already for what is wanting on his part in whose onely power it is to give pardon and in whose desire it is that we should be pardoned and who commands us to lay hold upon the offer he hath done all that belongs to God that is all that concerns the pardon there it lies ready it is recorded in the book of life it wants nothing but being exemplified and taken forth and the Holy spirit stands ready to consigne and passe the privy signet that we may exhibit it to devils and evil men when they tempt us to despair or sin 3. Nay God is so ready in his mercy that he did pardon us even before he redeemed us for what is the secret of the mysterie that the eternal Son of God should take upon him our nature and die our death and suffer for our sins and do our work and enable us to do our own he that did this is God he who thought it no robbery to be equal with God he came to satisfie himself to pay to himself the price for his own creature and when he did this for us that he might pardon us was he at that instant angry with us was this an effect of his anger or of his love that God sent his Son to work our pardon and salvation Indeed we were angry with God at enmity with the the Prince of life but he was reconciled to us so far as that he then did the greatest thing in the world for us for nothing could be greater then that God the Son of God should die for us here was reconciliation before pardon and God that came to die for us did love us first before he came this was hasty love But it went further yet 4. God pardoned us before we sinned and when he foresaw our sin even mine and yours he sent his son to die for us ouâ— pardon was wrought and effected by Christs death above 1600 years ago and for the sins of to morrow and the infirmities of the next day Christ is already dead already risen from the dead and does now make intercession and atonement And this is not onely a favour to us who were born in the due time of the Gospel but to all mankinde since Adam For God who is infinitely patient in his justice was not at all patient in his mercy he forbears to strike and punish us but he would not forbear to provide cure for us and remedy for as if God could not stay from redeeming us he â—romised the Redeemer to Adam in the beginning of the worlds sin Christ was the lamb slain from the begining of the world and the covenant of the Gospel though it was not made with man yet it was from the beginning performed by God as to his part as to the ministration of pardon The seed of the woman was set up against the dragon as soon as ever the Tempter had won his first battle and though God laid his hand and drew a vail of types and secresy before the manifestation of his mercies yet he did the work of redemption and saved us by the covenant of faith and the righteousnesse of believing and the mercies of repentance the graces of pardon and the blood of the slain lamb even from the fall of Adam to this very day and will do till Christs second coming Adam fell by his folly and did not perform the covenant of one little work a work of a single abstinence but he was restored by faith in the seed of the woman and of this righteousnesse Noah was a preacher and by faith Enoch was traslated and by faith a remnant was saved at the flood and to Abraham this was imputed for righteousnesse and to all the Patriarks and to all the righteous judges and holy Prophets and Saints of the old Testament even while they were obliged so far as the words of their covenant were expressed to the law of works their pardon was sealed kept with in the vail within the curtains of the sanctuary and they saw it not then but they feel it ever since and this was a great excellency of the Divine mercy unto them God had mercy on all mankinde before Christs manifestation even beyond the mercies of their covenant they were saved as we are by the seed of the woman by God incarnate by the lamb slain from the beginning of the world not by works for we all failed of them that is not by an exact obedience but by faith working by love by sincere hearty endeavours believing God and relying upon his infinite mercy revealed in part and now fully manifest by the great instrument and means of that mercy Jesus Christ. So that here is pardon before we asked it pardon before Christs coming pardon before redemption and pardon before we sinned what greater readinesse to forgive us can be imagined yes there is one degree more yet and that will prevent a mistake in this 5. For God so pardoned us once that we should need no more pardon he pardons us by turning every one of us away from our iniquities that 's the purpose of Christ that he might safely pardon us before we sinned and we might not sin upon the confidence of pardon he pardoned us not onely upon condition we would sin no more but he took away our sin cured our cursed inclinations instructed our understanding rectified our will fortified us against temptations and now every man whom he pardons he also sanctifies and he is born of God and he must not will not cannot sin so long as the seed of God remains within him so long as his pardon continues This is the consummation of pardon For if God had so pardoned us as onely to take away our evils which are past we should have needed a second Saviour and a redeemer for every month and new pardons perpetually But our blessed Redeemer hath taken away our sin not onely the guilt of our old but our inclinations to new sins he makes us like himself and commands us to live so that we shall not need a second pardon that is a second state of pardon for we are but once baptized into Christs death and that death was one and our redemption but one and our covenant the same and as long as we continue within the covenant we are still within the power and comprehensions of the first pardon 6. And yet there is a necessity of having one degree of pardon more beyond all this For although we do not abjure our covenant and renounce Christ and extinguish the spirit yet we resist him and we grieve him and we go off from the holinesse of the
the obstinacy of the Jews and the folly of the Heathens and the rudenesse and infidelity of the Mahumetans and the negligence and vices of Christians and he that can behold no impurity is received in all places with perfumes of mushromes and garments spotted with the flesh and stained souls and the actions and issues of misbelief and an evil conscience and with accursed sins that he hates upon pretence of religion which he loves and he is made a party against himself by our voluntary mistakes and men continue ten yeers and 20. and 30. and 50. in a course of sinning and they grow old with the vices of their youth and yet God forbears to kill them and to consigne them over to an eternity of horrid pains still expecting that they should repent and be saved 2. Besides this long-sufferance and for-bearing with an unwearied patience God also excuses a sinner oftentimes and takes a little thing for an excuse so far as to move him to intermediall favours first and from thence to a finall pardon He passes by the sins of our youth with a huge easinesse to pardon if he be intreated and reconciled by the effective repentance of a vigorous manhood he takes ignorance for an excuse and in every degree of its being inevitable or innocent in its proper cause it is also inculpable and innocent in its proper effects though in their own natures criminal But I found mercy of the Lord because I did it in ignorance saith S. Paul he pities our infirmities and strikes off much of the account upon that stock the violence of a temptation and restlesnesse of its motion the perpetuity of its sollicitation the wearinesse of a mans spirit the state of sicknesse the necessity of secular affairs the publike customs of a people have all of them a power of pleading and prevailing towards some degrees of pardon and diminution before the throne of God 3. When God perceives himself forced to strike yet then he takes off his hand and repents him of the evil It is as if it were against him that any of his creatures should fall under the strokes of an exterminating fury 4. When he is forced to proceed he yet makes an end before he hath half done and is as glad of a pretence to pardon us or to strike lesse as if he himself had the deliverance and not we When Ahab had but humbled himself at the word of the Lord God was glad of it and went with the message to the Prophet himself saying Seest thou not how Ahab humbles himself What was the event of it I will not bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes the evil shall come upon his house 5 God forgets our sin and puts it out of his remembrance that is he makes it as though it had never been he makes penitence to be as pure as innocence to all the effects of pardon and glory the memory of the sins shall not be upon record to be used to any after act of disadvantage and never shall return unlesse we force them out of their secret places by ingratitude and a new state of sinning 6. God sometimes gives pardon beyond all his revelations and declared will and provides suppletories of repentance even then when he cuts a man off from the time of repentance accepting a temporal death instead of an eternal that although the Divine anger might interrupt the growing of the fruits yet in some cases and to some persons the death and the very cutting off shall go no further but be instead of explicite and long repentances Thus it happened to Uzzah who was smitten for his zeal and died in severity for prevaricating the letter by earnestnesse of spirit to serve the whole religion Thus it was also in the case of the Corinthians that died a temporal death for their undecent circumstances in receiving the holy Sacrament Saint Paul who used it for an argument to threaten them into reverence went no further nor pressed the argument to a sadder issue then to die temporally But these suppletories are but seldom and they are also great troubles and ever without comfort and dispensed irregularly and that not in the case of habituall sins that we know of or very great sins but in single actions or instances of a lesse malignity and they are not to be relied upon because there is no rule concerning them but when they do happen they magnifie the infinitenesse of Gods mercy which is commensurate to all our needs and is not to be circumscribed by the limits of his own revelations 7. God pardons the greatest sinners and hath left them upon record and there is no instance in Scripture of the Divine forgivenesse but in such instances the misery of which was a fit instrument to speak aloud the glories of Gods mercies and gentlenesse and readinesse to forgive Such were S. Paul a persecutor and S. Peter that forswore his Master Mary Magdalene with seven Devils the thief upon the crosse Manasses an Idolater David a murderer and adulterer the Corinthian for incest the children of Israel for ten times rebelling against the Lord in the wildernesse with murmuring and infidelity and rebellion and schisme and a golden calf and open disobedience and above all I shall instance in the Pharisees among the Jews who had sinned against the Holy Ghost as our Blessed Saviour intimates and tels the particular viz in saying that the Spirit of God by which Christ did work was an evil spirit and afterward they crucified Christ so that two of the Persons of the most Holy Trinity were openly and solemnly defied and God had sent out a decree that they should be cut off yet 40. yeers time after all this was left for their repentance and they were called upon by arguments more perswasive and more excel lent in that 40. yeers then all the Nation had heard from their Prophets even from Samuel to Zecharias And Jonas thought he had reason on his side to refuse to go to threaten Nineveh he knew Gods tendernesse in destroying his creatures and he should be thought to be but a false Prophet and so it came to passe according to his belief Jonah prayed unto the Lord and said I praâ— thee Lord was not this my saying when I was yet in my countrey therefore I fled for I knew thou wert a gracious God and mercifull sâ—ew to anger and of great kindnesse and repentest thee of the evil He told before hand what the event would be and he had reason to know it God proclaimed it in a cloud before the face of all Israel and made it to be his Name Miscrator misericors Deus The Lord the Lord God mercifull and gracious c. You see the largenesse of this treasure but we can see no end for we have not yet looked upon the rare arts of conversionâ— nor that God leaves the naturall habit of vertues even after the acceptation is interrupted nor his working
the drinkings of the children and it is a long time before nature makes them capable of help for there are many deaths and very many diseases to which poor babes are exposed but they have but very few capacities of physick to shew that infancy is as liable to death as old age and equally exposed to danger and equally uncapable of a remedy with this onely difference that old age hath diseases incurable by nature and the diseases of child-hood are incurable by art and both the states are the next heirs of death 3. But all the middle way the case is altered Nature is strong and art is apt to give ease and remedy but still there is no security and there the case is not altered 1 For there are so many diseases in men that are not understood 2 So many new ones every year 3 The old ones are so changed in circumstance and intermingled with so many collateral complications 4 The Symptoms are oftentimes so alike 5 Sometimes so hidden and fallacious 6 Somtimes none at all as in the most sudden and the most dangerous imposthumations 7 And then the diseases in the inward parts of the body are oftentimes such to which no application can be made 8 They are so far off that the effects of all medicines can no otherwise come to them then the effect and juices of all meats that is not till after two or three alterations and decoctions which change the very species of the medicament 9 And after all this very many principles in the art of Physick are so uncertain that after they have been believed seven or eight ages and that upon them much of the practise hath been established they come to be considered by a witty man and others established in their stead by which men must practise and by which three or four generations of men more as happens must live or die 10. And all this while the men are sick and they take things that certainly make them sicker for the present and very uncertainly restore health for the future that it may appear of what a large extent is humane calamity when Gods providence hath not onely made it weak and miserable upon the certain stock of a various nature and upon the accidents of an infinite contingency but even from the remedies which are appointed our dangers and our troubles are certainly increased so that we may well be likened to water our nature is no stronger our aboad no more certain If the sluces be opened it falls away and runneth apace if its current be stopped it swells and grows troublesome and spils over with a greater diffusion If it be made to stand still it putrefies and all this we do For 4. In all the processe of our health we are running to our grave we open our own sluces by vitiousnesse and unworthy actions we pour in drink and let out life we increase diseases and know not how to bear them we strangle our selves with our own intemperance we suffer the feavers and the inflammations of lust and we quench our souls with drunkennesse we bury our understandings in loads of meat and surfets and then we lie down upon our beds and roar with pain and disquietnesse of our souls Nay we kill one anothers souls and bodies with violence and folly with the effects of pride and uncharitablenesse we live and die like fools and bring a new mortality upon our selves wars and vexatious cares and private duels and publike disorders and every thing that is unreasonable and every thing that is violent so that now we may adde this fourth gate to the grave Besides Nature and Chance and the mistakes of art men die with their own sins and then enter into the grave in haste and passion and pull the heavy stone of the monument upon their own heads And thus we make our selves like water spilt on the ground we throw away our lives as if they were unprofitable and indeed most men make them so we let our years slip through our fingers like water and nothing is to be seen but like a showr of tears upon a spot of ground there is a grave digged and a solemn mourning and a great talk in the neighbourhood and when the dayes are finished they shall be and they shall be remembred no more And that 's like water too when it is spilt it cannot be gathered up again There is no redemption from the grave inter se mortales mutua vivunt Et quasi cursores vitäi lampada tradunt Men live in their course and by turns their light burns a while and then it burns blew and faint and men go to converse with Spirits and then they reach the taper to another and as the hours of yesterday can never return again so neither can the man whose hours they were and who lived them over once he shall never come to live them again and live them better When Lazarus and the widows son of Naim and Tabitha and the Saints that appeared in Jerusalem at the resurrection of our blessed Lord arose they came into this world some as strangers onely to make a visit and all of them to manifest a glory but none came upon the stock of a new life or entred upon the stage as at first or to perform the course of a new nature and therefore it is observable that we never read of any wicked person that was raised from the dead Dives would fain have returned to his brothers house but neither he nor any from him could be sent but all the rest in the New Testament one onely excepted were expressed to have been holy persons or else by their age were declared innocent Lazarus was beloved of Christ those souls that appeared at the resurrection were the souls of Saints Tabitha raised by Saint Peter was a charitable and a holy Christian and the maiden of twelve years old raised by our blessed Saviour had not entred into the regions of choice and sinfulnesse and the onely exception of the widows son is indeed none at all for in it the Scripture is wholly silent and therefore it is very probable that the same processe was used God in all other instances having chosen to exemplifie his miracles of nature to purposes of the Spirit and in spirituall capacities So that although the Lord of nature did break the bands of nature in some instances to manifest his glory to succeeding great and never failing purposes yet besides that this shall be no more it was also instanced in such persons who were holy and innocent and within the verge and comprehensions of the eternall mercy We never read that a wicked person felt such a miracle or was raised from the grave to try the second time for a Crown but where he fell there he lay down dead and saw the light no more This consideration I intend to you as a severe Monitor and an advice of carefulnesse that you order your affairs so that you may
sink down and die For so have I seen the pillars of a building assisted with artificiall props bending under the pressure of a roof and pertinaciously resisting the infallible and prepared ruine Donec certa dies omni compage solutâ Ipsum cum rebus subruat auxilium till the determined day comes and then the burden sunk upon the pillars and disordered the aids and auxiliary rafters into a common ruine and a ruder grave so are the desires and weak arts of man with little aids and assistances of care and physick we strive to support our decaying bodies and to put off the evil day but quickly that day will come and then neither Angels nor men can rescue us from our grave but the roof sinks down upon the walls and the walls descend to the foundation and the beauty of the face and the dishonours of the belly the discerning head and the servile feet the thinking heart and the working hand the eyes and the guts together shall be crush'd into the confusion of a heap and dwell with creatures of an equivocall production with worms and serpents the sons and daughters of our own bones in a house of durt and darknesse Let not us think to be excepted or deferred If beauty or wit or youth or Noblenesse or wealth or vertue could have been a defence and an excuse from the grave we had not met here to day to mourn upon the hearse of an excellent Lady and God onely knows for which of us next the mourners shall go about the streets or weep in houses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have lived so many years and every day and every minute we make an escape from those thousands of dangers and deaths that encompasse us round about and such escapings we must reckon to be an extraordinary fortune and therefore that it cannot last long Vain are the thoughts of Man who when he is young or healthfull thinks he hath a long threed of life to run over and that it is violent and strange for young persons to die and naturall and proper onely for the aged It is as naturall for a man to die by drowning as by a fever And what greater violence or more unnaturall thing is it that the horse threw his Rider into the river then that a drunken meeting cast him into a fever and the strengths of youth are as soon broken by the strong sicknesses of youth and the stronger intemperance as the weaknesse of old age by a cough or an asthma or a continuall rheume Nay it is more naturall for young Men and Women to die then for old because that is more naturall which hath more naturall causes and that is more naturall which is most common but to die with age is an extreme rare thing and there are more persons carried forth to buriall before the five and thirtieth year of their age then after it And therefore let no vain confidence make you hope for long life If you have lived but little and are still in youth remember that now you are in your biggest throng of dangers both of body and soul and the proper sins of youth to which they rush infinitely and without consideration are also the proper and immediate instruments of death But if you be old you have escaped long and wonderfully and the time of your escaping is out you must not for ever think to live upon wonders or that God will work miracles to satisfie your longing follies and unreasonable desires of living longer to sin and to the world Go home and think to die and what you would choose to be doing when you die that do daily for you will all come to that passe to rejoyce that you did so or wish that you had that will be the condition of every one of us for God regardeth no mans person Well! but all this you will think is but a sad story What we must die and go to darknesse and dishonour and we must die quickly and we must quit all our delights and all our sins or do worse infinitely worse and this is the condition of us all from which none can be excepted every man shall be spilt and fall into the ground and be gathered no more Is there no comfort after all this shall we go from hence and be no more seen and have no recompense Miser ô miser aiunt omnia ademit Vna die infausta mihi tot praemia vitae Shall we exchange our fair dwellings for a coffine our softer beds for the moistned and weeping turf and our pretty children for worms and is there no allay to this huge calamity Yes there is There is a yet in the Text For all this yet doth God devise means that his banished be not expelled from him All this sorrow and trouble is but a phantasme and receives its account and degrees from our present conceptions and the proportion to our relishes and gust When Pompey saw the Ghost of his first Lady Julia who vexed his rest and his conscience for superinducing Cornelia upon her bed within the ten moneths of mourning he presently fancied it either to be an illusion or else that death could be no very great evil Aut nihil est sensus animis in morte relictum Aut mors ipsa nihil Either my dead wife knows not of my unhandsome marriage and forgetfulnesse of her or if she does then the dead live longae canitis si cognita vitae Mors media est Death is nothing but the middle point between two lives between this and another concerning which comfortable mystery the holy Scripture instructs our faith and entertains our hope in these words God is still the God of Abraham Isaak and Jacob for all do live to him and the souls of Saints are with Christ I desire to be dissolved saith S. Paul and to be with Christ for that is much better and Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord they rest from their labours and their works follow them For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternall in the heavens and this state of separation S. Paul calls a being absent from the body and being present with the Lord This is one of Gods means which he hath devised that although our Dead are like persons banished from this world yet they are not expelled from God They are in the hands of Christ they are in his presence they are or shall be clothed with a house of Gods making they rest from all their labours all tears are wiped from their eyes and all discontents from their spirits and in the state of separation before the soul be reinvested with her new house the spirits of al persons are with God so secured and so blessed and so sealed up for glory that this state of interval and imperfection is in respect of its certain
God I may feel those mercies on my death-bed that she felt and that I may feel the same effect of my repentance which she feels of the many degrees of her innocence Such was her death that she did not die too soon and her life was so useful and so excellent that she could not have lived too long Nemo parum diu vixit qui virtutis perfectae perfecto functus est munere and as now in the grave it shall not be enquired concerning her how long she lived but how well so to us who live after her to suffer a longer calamity it may be some ease to our sorrows and some guide to our lives and some securitie to our conditions to consider that God hath brought the piety of a yong Lady to the early rewards of a never ceasing and never dying eternity of glory And we also if we live as she did shall partake of the same glories not onely having the honour of a good name and a dear and honoured memory but the glories of these glories the end of all excellent labours and all prudent counsels and all holy religion even the salvation of our souls in that day when all the Saints and amongst them this excellent Woman shall be shown to all the world to have done more and more excellent things then we know of or can describe Mors illos consecrat quorum exitum qui timent laudant Death consecrates and makes sacred that person whose excellency was such that they that are not displeased at the death cannot dispraise the life but they that mourn sadly think they can never commend sufficiently The end SERM. I. * Rom. 8. 2. 1 Cor. 12. 7. 1 Cor. 2. 14. Prudent 2 Cor. 3. 6. 1 Ep. 2. chap. ver 5. 1 Ep. 3. 9. Hebr. 6. 4. Rom. 15. 13. 1 Thess. 1. 6. 1 Thess. 5. 16. SERM. II. Rom. 12. 12. Rom. 1. 9. Levit. 26. 1. 1 Thess. 5. 23. Hebr. â— 12. 2 Epist. 1. 4. Apoc. 2. 17. Philip. 1. 19. Psal. 91. * Tot rebus iniquis Parüimus victi veniaest haec sola pudoris Degenerisque metus nil jam potuisse negari Lucan SERM. III. 2 Sam. 21. 14. 1 King 21. 29. Hor. l. 3. od 2. SERM. IV. 2 King 32. 13. Luke 11. 47. Mat. 23. 31. Rom. 11. 28. Numb 25. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arisâ—ot SERM. V. Joshuah 7. 19. Psal. 51. 4. Rom. 3. 4. Revel 16. 9. Ezek. 27. 31. Joel 2. 13. see Rule of II. living D. of repentance p. 335. 2 Cor 7. Gal. 5. 24. Gal. 6. 15. Gal. 5. c. 1 Cor. 7. 9. Heb. 12. 1. Revel 2. SERM. VI. Acts. 20. 21. * Hebr. 6. 1. 1 Cor. 11. 31. Hierocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 See life of H. Jesus part 2. disc of Repentance * Cogimur à suetis animum suspendere Atque Atque ut vivamus vivere desinimus Coâ—â—â—l Gal. * Nec ad rem â—â—â—tinet ubi in â—â—â—pevet quod 〈…〉 ut sâ—cret Hor. l. 4. od 10. Rom. 12. 1. Tit. 2. 12. Mart. l. 2. ep 64. Luke 1. 74. Hebr. 12. 1. Ver. 3. Heb. 12. 16. Epist. 30. Titus 2. 14. 1 Pet. 2 24. See life of Jesus Disc. of Repentance part 2. Arrian Epictet l. 1. c. 15. SERM. VII Arrian * Virtutem unam si amiseris etsiâ—anâ—ui non potest virtus sed si unam consessus fueris te non habere nullam te esse haâ—iâ—urum â—an nesâ—is Cicer. SER. VIII Epict. Arrian De Divinat l. 2 Aristoph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 5. Scen. 4. SERM. IX Joel 3. Isaiah 23. 3. James 4. 10. Matth. 5. Phil. 1. 28. James 5. 10. 1 Pet. 4. 13. 2 Thess. 1. Heb. 2. 10. 1 Pet. 4. 12. Tertul. S. Hieron Acts 9. 15. SER. X. Jerem. 12. 1 2. Mala. 3. 14. Ecclus. 40. 1. Matth. 5. 1â— c. Phil. 3. 15. Job 21. Phil. 〈…〉 SER. XI 2 Tim. 3. 1. 2 Tim. 3. 9. 11. chaâ—â— 31. Hesiod Hesiod Esay 54. 8. SER. XII SER. XIII Wisd. 11. 24. Psal. 74. 9. Psal. 98. 8. Ossic. 3. Isai. 1. 4 5. Isai. 5. 5. Acts 13. 14. SER. XIV Juven Sat. 13. SER. XV. SER. XVI Seneca Ecclus. 4. 22. SER. XVII 2 Chap. 11. Ezek. 18. 24. Hom. Ili â— Hic ubi dissuetae sylvis in carcere clausae Mansue vere serae vultus posuêre minaces Atque hominem didicere pati si torrida parvus Venit in ora cruor redeunt rabiesque furorque Acts 7. 22. Chap. 4. 1 3. Cha. 4. ver ult SER. XVIII Her l 1. sat 3. Rare volte hâ— fame chista sempre à tavola SER. XIX Matth. 10. 27. SER. XX. Eph. 5. 16. Col. 4. 5. SER. XXI Sophocl SER. XXII 2 Tim. 3. 4. 5. 2 Pet. 2. 10. vers 8. ep Jude Eloquia Domini casta eloquia Colos. 2 Plat. Phaedon SERMON XXIII Orat. 21. Dissett â— de regno Can. Eth. So Cicero lib. 3. offic SERMON XXIV Lib. 8. instit Cicero Quae. 10. super Joshuam lib. 1. de sacerdotio Hist l. 16. cap. 6 Ephes. 4. 25. SERMON XXV Vide Serm. II. Judges 13. John Revel 22. 9. de bono patientiae Homil. 8. in Evange 1 Cor. 6. 3. SERMON XXVI Eccles. 12. Life of H. Jesus part 3 Disc. 14. SERMON XXVII Jonah 4. 2. Exod. 34. 6. SERMON XXVIII a 2 Tim. 1. 18. Il. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide 1 Cor. 15. 18. 1 Thess. 4. 16. Revel 14. 13. John 5. 24. 2 Cor. 5. 8. 6. 1 Thes. 5. 10. Prov. 2. â—7