Matth. 6.7 And happy we for whose sake God who hateth babling will yet multiply words nay reiterate the same but most unhappy we if we hearken not to his voice if our Turn and conversion be not as real as the ingemination is loud and vehement if there be not a religious Tautology a constant reinforced continued Turn in our Repentance To draw then the lines by which we are to pass We may observe There be two main lets and hinderances of our conversion I may call them retinacula poenitentiae that hang upon us and hold us back when we should turn Despair on the one side and Presumption on the other Despair maketh it too late to repent Presumption maketh it soon enough though it be never so late Presumption maketh and breaketh a resolution every day Despair will make no more Presumption maketh an evening a bed-time Repentances She will turn at last Despair no Repentance at all Never never Now this ingemination is as thunder to them both loud in the ears of those that despair Turn ye turn ye It is not too late and terrible in the ears of those that presume Turn ye turn ye It cannot be soon enough And as lightning it flasheth in the face of the presumptuous sinner shewing him the horrour of his waies and that Death is in the way and it discovereth to the drooping or rather dead soul the riches of God's mercy that though Death be in the way at the very door yet Death is not unavoidable From this Ingemination then we may gather First Gods love to Repentance to rowse us from Despair Secondly the necessary and essential Properties of Repentance It must be 1. matura conversio a speedy and sudden Turn Turn ye turn ye lest it be too late 2. Sincera conversio a real Turn a Turn in good earnest 3 Plena poenitentia as the Antients used to speak a full Repentance a total Repentance a Turn from all our evil wayes a Turn never to look back again And these will keep us from Presumption Of these in their Order Turn ye turn ye is a vehement ingemination to rowse us from Despair And indeed no greater argument can be brought against Despair then Gods Bowels and Compassion then his loud and open proffer of mercy For if it were too late to Turn he would not thus call after us If we could not turn at all one call were too many and then what need this noyse this ingemination Bring in the most despairing Christian living and if this voice from heaven awake him not I must pronounce him not onely dead in sin but in hell already For it is easie to observe that the ground of all despair is not from hence that we cannot but that we will not turn Which much resembleth that despair which chaineth the damned Spirits in the place of torment So far we are like to them that we despair for want of Charity which they can never have nor the despairing sinner as he thinketh and therefore will not have not for want of Faith which they have as well as he Jam. 2.19 and tremble We despair not I say for want of faith For it is plain if we did not believe we could not despair unless peradventure we do with some conceive of Faith as that instrument or habit by which we apply and appropriate Christs merits and promises to our souls which indeed is rather an act of our hope then of our Faith Despair being nothing else but the disability of applying Christs merits to our selves which is the effect not of Infidelity but ungodliness For we believe This is the way and we know we have not walked in it Isa 30.21 and so despair We are no where in Scripture commanded to be assured of our salvation 2 Pet. 1.10 but we are enjoyned in plain terms to make our election sure Nor are we any where in Scripture forbid to despair but if we make not good the condition we are forbid to hope and in that commanded to love Christ and keep his commandments Joh. 14.15 1 Joh. 5.2 that we may never despair Miserable Dilemma when I must neither despair nor hope for I cannot let in Despair till I have let in that monster sin which begat it and when that is let in and hath gained the dominion there is no room for Hope Ask Judas himself and he will tell you there is a God For if there were no God no Heaven no Hell there could be no such thing as Conscience Ask him again and he will tell you he is true or he denieth him to be God Coloss 1.27 He will tell you of the riches of the glorious mystery of our redemption and that in Christ remission of sins is promised Luk. 24.47 But his many sins and his late sin of betraying his Master cast so thick a cloud over his judgement that he cannot see any beam of mercy cast towards him and so he concludeth both against God and himself There is mercy for thousands but none for Judas Exod. 20.6 34 7. Matth 9.13 Matth. 27.5 God calleth sinners to repentance but not Judas and when all the world may turn he will go and hang himself Thus may our sins go over our heads and over those mercies too which might be over our sins and make us very witty to argue and dispute against our selves even to dispute our selves into hell A neglect of our duty begat Despair and Despair basely disproveth and augmenteth our neglect And if we judge rightly our non posse is a nolle we cannot turn because we will not turn For if we would but turn which we may if we will Despair would sink and vanish out of sight and Mercy would shine forth through the cloud and give light enough to fly far from that evil the fear of which had covered our faces and in a manner buried us alive for a despairing man is but a dead carcass actuated not by a Soul but by a Devil We need not seek far for arguments Despair is an argument against it self For if there could never be any The best that we have heard of is but the Logick of Fools which is Logick without reason I cannot hope because I cannot hope It is true a despairing person cannot hope in statu quo nunc as they speak in the state and condition he is now in And there is reason for that For why should an enemy to God hope for his favour Why should Dives hope for a place in Abraham's bosome And yet he may hope for Gods favour resolve to turn from his evil wayes and this will first build up him in righteousness and then build up a Hope upon the ruins of Despair Sin is the foundation of Despair and if we repent not will bear it up But upon our Turn Righteousness casteth down the foundation it self and with it Despair and in the fall grindeth it to pieces and in the place of it
in Scripture words of Command and Duty carry with them more then they shew and have wrapped up in them both the Act and the End and are of the largest signification in the Spirit 's Dictionary To HEAR is to Hear and to Doe To KNOW is to Know and to Practice To BELIEVE is to Believe and to Obey The Schools will tell us FIDES absque addito in Scriptura formata intelligitur Where Faith is named in Scripture without some addition as a dead Faith a temporary Faith an hypocritical Faith there evermore that Faith is commended which worketh by Charity And so to shew or to preach the death of the Lord is more then to Utter it with the tongue and Profess it For thus Judas might shew it as well as Peter thus the Jews might shew it that crucified him Thus the profane person that crucifieth him every day may shew it Yea Christ's death may be the common subject for discourse and the language of the whole world Therefore our shewing must look farther even to the end For what is Hearing without Doing What is Knowledge without Practice What is Faith without Chariâ—y What is shewing the death of the Lord if we do it not to that end for which he did die Our hearing is but the sensuality of the ear our Knowledge but an empty speculation our Faith but phansie and our shewing the death of the Lord a kind of nailing him again to the cross For to draw his picture in our ear or mind to character him out in our words and yet fight against him is to put him to shame We must then understand our selves when we speak to God as we understand God when he speaketh to us and in the same manner we must shew him to himself and the world as he is pleased to shew and manifest himself unto us Christ did not present us with a picture with a phantasm with a bare shew and appearance of suffering for us Nor must we present him with shadows and shews And what is God's shewing himself Psal 80. Thou that sittest between the Cherubims shew thy self saith the Psalmist shine thou clearly to our comfort and to the terrour of our enemies God manifesteth his Power and breaketh the Cedars of Libanus He maketh known his Wisdom and teacheth the children of men He publisheth his Love and filleth us with good things His Words are his blessings and his demonstrations in glory He speaketh to us by peace and shadoweth us by plenty and our garners are full And see how the creature echoeth back again to him The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy-work Day unto day uttereth welleth out speech and night unto night sheweth knowledge God's language is Power God's language is Love and God's language is Hope God planted a vineyard Isa 5. that expresseth his Power and built a tower in it and made a wine-press therein there is his Love and he lookâ—d for grapes there Hope speaketh for he that planteth planteth in hope He spake by his Prophets he spake by his judgments and he spake by his mercies but still he spake in hope for he doth neither shine nor thunder but in hope This is the heavenly dialect and we must take it out We must not speak as one that beggeth on a stage but as he that beggeth on the high way naked and cold and pinched with hunger Verba in opera vertenda By a religious Alchymie we must turn words into works and when God speaketh to us by his Prophets answer him by our obedience when he speaketh to us in Love give him our hearts and when he looketh for grapes be full of good works This is Christ's own dialect and he best understandeth it and his reply is a reward But from shews and words he turneth away his ears and will not hear that is for still in God's language more is understood then spoke he will bring us to judgment And now we see what it is to shew the death of the Lord not to draw it out in our imagination or to speak it with the tongue but to express the power and virtue of it in our selves to labour and travel in birth till Christ be fully formed in us till all Christian virtues which are as the spirits of his bloud be quick and operative in us till we be made perfect to every good work And thus we shew his death by our Faith For Faith if it be not dead will speak and make it self known to all the world speak to the naked and clothe him to the hungry and feed him to those who erre and are in darkness and shine upon them This is the dialect of Faith But if the cold frost of temptations as S. Gregorie speaketh hath so niped it that it is grown chil and cold and can speak but faintly if we have talked so long of Faith till we have left her speechless if she speak but imperfectly and in broken language now by a drop of water and now by a mite and then silent shew the death of Christ onely in some rare and slender performance behold this is your hour and the power of light this your time of receiving the Sacrament is the time to actuate and quicken your Faith to make it more apprehensive more operative more lively to give it a tongue that it may shew and preach the wonderful works of the Lord. And as we shew the Lord's death by our Faith so we shew it by our Hope which if it be that Hope which purifieth the heart will awake our glory the Tongue If it be well built and underpropped with Charity it will speak and cry and complain And the language is the same with that of the souls under the Altar How long Lord Rev. 6. How long shall the Flesh fight against the Spirit How long shall we struggle with temptations When wilt thou deliver us from this body of death When shall we appear in the presence of our God Though we fall we shall rise again Though we are shaken we shall not be overthrown Though thou killest us yet we will trust in thee This is the dialect of Hope And here at this Table we must learn to speak out to speak it more plainly to raise and exalt it to a Confidence which is the loudest report it can make Thirdly we shew and preach the Lord's death by our Love Which is but the echo of his Love And we speak it fully as he doth to us fill up the sentence and leave not out a word make it manifest in the equality and universality of our obedience as he offered up himself a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice for us Quicquid propter Deum fit aequaliter fit Our love to Christ must be equal and like himself not meet him at Church and run from him in the streets not embrace him in a Sermon and throw him from us in our conversation not flatter him with a peny
is a main difference nor can we expect an ocular and visible descent Therefore if we will be taught by the Spirit we must use the means which the same Spirit hath prescribed in those lessons which he first and extraordinarily taught the Apostles and not make use of his name to misinterpret those lessons or bring in new of our own and as new so contrary to them For what is new must needs be contrary because he then taught all truth and what is more then all is nothing what is more then all truth must needs by a lye Nor did he lead them into all truth for themselves alone but for those who should come after them for all generations to the end of the world He made them Apostles and sent them to make us Christians to make that which he taught them a rule of life and to fix it on the Church as on a pillar that all might read it that none should adde to it or take away from it Eph. 2.20 And for this they are called a Foundation and we are said to be built upon them Jesus Christ being the head corner-stone But this we could not be if their testimony were so scant and defective that there were left a kind of necessity upon us to hew and square out what stones we please and lay new ones of our own to cast down theirs withal and to bear up whatsoever our insolent and boundless lusts will lay upon them And now what is become of my Text For if this be admitted we cannot say the Spirit led them For what leading is that which leaveth us so far behind at such a distance from the end thâ—â— in every age the Spirit must come again and take us by the hand and draw us some other way even contrary to that which he first made known And what an all is that to which every man may adde what he please even to the end of the world For every mans claim and title to the Spirit is the same as just and warrantable in any as in one And when they speak contrary things the evidence is the same that is none at all unless this be a good Argument He hath the Spirit because he saith so which is as strong on his side that denyeth it upon the same pretense Amongst the sons of men there are not greater fools then they who have nothing to say for what they say but That they say it and yet think this Nothing enough and that all Israel are bound to hearken to them as if God himself did speak This is an evil a folly a madness which breatheth no where but in Christendome was never heard of in any other body or society but that of Christians Though many Governours of Common-wealths did pretend to a kind of commerce and familiarity with some God or Goddess when they were to make a law yet we do not read of any as far as I remember that did put up the same pretense that they might break a law but when the law was once promulged there was nothing thought of but either obedience or punishment But Christians who have the best Religion have most abused it have played the wantons in that light in which they should have walkt with fear and trembling finding themselves at a loss and meeting with no satisfaction to their pride and ambition to their malice to their lusts from any lesson the Spirit hath yet taught have learnt an art to suborn something of their own to supply that defect and call it a dictate of the Spirit Nor is this evil of yesterday nor doth it befall the weakest onely But the Devil hath made use of it in all ages as of the fittest engine to undermine that truth which the Spirit first taught Tertullian as wise a man as the Church then had being not able to prove the Corporeity of the Soul by Scripture Post Ioannem quoque prophetiam meruimus consequi c. Tertull. de Anim. montanizans flyeth to private Revelation in his Book De anima Non per aestimationem sed revelationem What he could not uphold by reason and judgment he striveth to make good by Revelation For we saith he have our Revelations as well as S. John Our sister Priscilla hath plenty of them and trances in the Church She converseth with Angels and with God himself and can discern the hearts and inward thoughts of men S. Hierome mentioneth others Contra Libertin and in the dayes of our forefathers Calvine many more who applyed the name of the Spirit to every thing that might facilitate and help on their design as Parish-priests it is his resemblance would give the name of six or seven several Saints to one image that their offerings might be the more I need not go so far back for instance Our present age hath shewn us many who though very ignorant yet are wiser then their teachers so spiritual that they despise the word of God which is the dictate of the Spirit This monster hath made a large stride from foreign parts and set his foot in our coasts If they murder the Spirit moved their hand and drew their sword If they throw down Churches it is with the breath of the Spirit If they would bring in Parity the pretence is The Spirit cannot endure that any should be supreme or Pope it but themselves Our Humour our Madness our Malice our Violence our implacable Bitterness our Railing and Reviling must all go for Inspirations of the Spirit Simeon and Levi Absalom and Ahithophel Theudas and Judas the Pharisees and Ananias they that despise the holy Spirit of God these Scarabees bred in the dung of sensuality these Impostors these men of Belial must be taken no longer for a generation of vipers but for the scholars and friends of the holy Ghost Whatsoever they do whithersoever they go he is their leader though it be to hell it self May we not make a stand now and put it to the question Whether there be any holy Ghost or no and if there be Whether his office be to lead us Indeed these appropriations these bold and violent ingrossings of the blessed Spirit have I fear given growth to conceits well near as dangerous That the Spirit doth not spirare breath grace into us That we need not call upon him That the Text which telleth us the holy Ghost leadeth is the holy Ghost that leadeth us That the Letter is the Spirit and the Spirit the Letter an adulterate piece new coyned an old heresie brought in a new dress and tire upon the stage again That he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a strange unheard of Deity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. Orat 37. Quis vetâ—rum vel recentium adoravit Spiritum quis or avit c. Sic Macedoniani Eunomiani Ibid. an ascriptitious and supernumerary God I might say more dangerous For to confess the Spirit and abuse him to draw him on as an accessory and
of this world I should scarce have vouchsafed to mention an errour so gross and which carrieth absurdity in the very face of it but that we have seen this monster drest up and brought abroad and magnified in this latter age and in our own times which as they abound with iniquity so they do with errours which to study to confute were to honour them too much who make their sensual appetite a key to open Revelations and to please and satisfie that are well content here to build their tabernacle and stay on earth a thousand years amongst those pleasing objects which our Religion biddeth us to contemn and to be so long absent from that joy and peace which is past understanding Their Heaven is as their virtues are full of dross and earth and but a poor and imperfect resemblance of that which is so indeed and their conceit as carnal as themselves which Christianity and even common Reason abhorreth For look upon them and you shall behold them full of debate envy malice covetousness ambition minding earthly things and so they phansie a reward like unto themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Like embraceth like as mire is more pleasing to swine then the waters of Jordan And it is no wonder to hear them so loud and earnest for riches and pleasure and a temporal Kingdome who have so weak a title to and so little hope of any other But God forbid that our Lord should come and Flesh and Blood prescribe the manner For then how many several shapes must he appear in He must come to the Covetous and fill his cofers to the Wanton and build him a Seraglio to the Ambitious and crown him No his advent shall be like himself He shall come in power and majesty in a form answerable to his Laws and government And as all things were gathered together in him Eph. 1.10 22. which are in heaven and which are in earth and God hath put all things under his feet so he shall come unto all to Angels to the Creature to Men. And first he may well be said to come unto the Angels For he is the Head of all Principality and Power Colos 2.10 And as at his first coming he confirmed them in their happy estate of obedience which we believe as probable though we have no plain evidence of Scripture for it so at his second he shall more fully shew to them that which they desired to look into as S. Peter speaketh 1 Pet. 1.12 give them a clearer vision of God and increase the joy of the good as he shall the torments of the evil Angels For if they sang for joy at his birth what Hosannahs and Hallelujahs will they sound forth when they attend him with a shout 1 Thess 4 16. If they were so taken with his humility how will they be ravisht with his glory And if there be joy in heaven for one sinner that repenteth Luke 15 7 10. how will that joy be exalted when those repentant sinners shall be made like unto the Angels when they shall be of the same Quire Luke 20.36 and sing the same song Glory and honour to him that sitteth upon the throne Rev. 5.13 and to this Lord for ever more Secondly he cometh unto the Creatures to redeem them from bondage Rom. 8 19-22 For the desire of the creature is for this day of his coming and even the whole creation groneth with us also But when he cometh they shall be reformed into a better estate There shall be new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness 2 Pet. 3 13. Now the Creature is subject to vanity not onely to change and mutability but also to be instrumental to evil purposes to rush into the battle with us to run upon the Angels sword to be our drudges and our parasites to be the hire of a whore and the price of blood They grone as it were and travail in pain under these abuses and therefore desire to be delivered not out of any rational desire but a natural inclination which is in every thing to preserve its self in its best condition To these the Lord will come Acts 3.21 and his coming is called the restitution of all things that which maketh all things perfect and restoreth every thing to its proper and natural condition The Creature shall have its rest the Earth shall be no more wounded with our plowshares nor the bowels of it digged up with the mattock there shall be no forbidden fruit to be tasted no pleasant waters to be stolen no Manna to surfet on no crowns to fight for no wedge of gold to be a prey no beauty to be a snare The Lord will come and deliver his Creature from this bondage perfect and consummate all and at once set an end both to the World and Vanity Lastly the Lord will come to men both good and evil He shall come in his glory Matth 25.31 32. and gather all nations and separate the one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats and by this make good his Justice and manifest his Providence in the end His Justice is that which when the world is out of order establisheth the pillars thereof Sin is an injury to the whole Creation and inverteth that order which the Wisdom of God had first set up in the World My Adultery defileth my body my Oppression grindeth the poor my Malice vexeth my brother my Craft removeth the land-mark my particular sins have their particular objects but they all strike at the Universe disturb and violate that order which Wisdom it self first established And therefore the Lord cometh to bring every thing back to its proper place to make all the wayes of his Providence consonant and agreeable to themselves to crown the repentant sinner that recovered his place and bind and fetter the stubborn and obstinate offender who could be wrought upon neither by promises nor by threats to move in his own sphere The Lord will come to shew what light he can strike out of darkness what harmony he can work out of the greatest disorder what beauty he can raise out of the deformed body of Sin Sin is a foul deformity in nature and therefore he cometh in judgment to order and place it there where it may be forced to serve for the grace and beauty of the whole where the punishment of sin may wipe out the disorder of sin Act 1 25. Gerson Then every thing shall be placed as it should be and every man sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his proper place Nec pulchrius in coeâ—o angelus quam in gehennâ diabolus Heaven is a fit and proper place for an Angel of light for the children of God and Hell is as fiâ— and proper for the Devil and his Angels Now the wayes of men are crooked and intricate and their actions carried on with that contrariety and contradiction that to quit
and his angels It is harsh indeed but may be very profitable and advantageous for us to think that such a time may be which may be our last for Grace though not our last for life that we may live and yet be dead eternally a time when there will remain no more sacrifice for sin Heb. 10.26 I cannot say we should make it an article of our Creed and yet I know no danger in believing it It may prove fatal to us to disbelieve it or look upon it as an errour which deserveth to be placed in the catalogue of Heresies And therefore though you subscribe not yet there is no reason you should anathematize it because we find some parts of Scripture which look this way and so far seem to enforce it that we have rather reason to fear there may be some truth in it since our wilful delayes are but as the degrees to it as the ready way to that gulf out of which it will be impossible to lift up our selves at least impossible in the Lawyers sense impossible as those things which may be but seldome come to pass It is a part of wisdome to fear the worst nor can we bee too scrupulous in the business of our Salvation God telleth Abraham that he will judge the Amorites Gen. 15.14 16. but he will stay to the fourth generation till their iniquity be full and when it is full then he will strike Our Saviour thus bespeaketh the Pharisees Matth. 23.32 Fill you up the measure of your forefathers Which is not a command but a prediction that they should fill up the measure of their sin and then be ripe for punishment For when men have run out the ful length of their line then it is God's time to draw it in and give them a check to pull them on their back to be buried in ruine for ever Luk. 19.41 42.43 When our Saviour beheld Jerusalem the Text telleth us he wept over it wept over it as at its funeral as if he now saw the enemy cast a trench round about it as if he saw it lie level with the ground Will you hear his Epicedium or Funeral speech which he uttered with great passion the tears running down his cheeks Oh that thou hadst known the things that belong to thy peace IN HAC DIE TVA even in this thy day A day then they had But when this day was shut in then followeth NVNC AVTEM but now they are hid from thine eyes Which ushereth in that blackness of darkness for ever Oh that thou hadst Then was liberty of choice But now thou art bound and fettered under a sad impossibility for ever And that we may be thus bound hand and foot before we be cast into utter darkness S. Paul doth more then intimate when he telleth us of the Gentiles Rom. 1.28 that as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge to retain him as a merciful God retain his love and favour by the true worship of him he also gave them over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a reprobate minde he left them in that gall of bitterness in which they delighted Tradidit repletos non replendos Isid Pelus l. 4. ep 102. saith the Father He gave them over not to be filled but being filled already with all iniquity he delivered them over to a reprobate minde They retained not God in any part of their time and now time is run out is at an end and will be no more They would be evil and now they cannot be good The Jewish Doctours had a proverb that God in this his proceeding did but farinam jam molitam molere do that which was done already to his hands grind that corn that was ground already and leave them who would be left to themselves and their own hellish wickedness which was their ruine Hom. 22. c. 11. For that of Basil is most true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judgment followeth Mercy at the heels to take revenge upon those who wantonly abuse her striketh them dead who will not live and sealeth them up to damnation who are condemned already You may now turn and God will receive you This is the dialect of Mercy But you shall not if you thus put it off from time to time That is the voice of an angry and despised God Oh that thou hadst known in this thy day See Mercy gave Jerusalem a day and shined brightly in it and by that light she might have seen the things that concerned her peace But now they are hid from thine eyes are as the black lines of Reprobation drawn out by the hand of Justice It was thy day but now it is shut up and Nox est perpetuò una dormienda Thy Sun is set for ever all is night eternal night The light is hid from thine eyes and thou shalt never see it more You will say this was spoken to a People to a Nation It is true But may it not also be so with every particular person may it not be so with one Pharisee with one viper as well as with a generation Was it not so with Judas as well as with Jerusalem I have read that a Body a Society a Common-wealth may fall under a censure and be subject unto penalty yet Bodies do not offend but in their parts It is not Rome that committeth the fault but Sempronius or Titius who are parts of that Common-wealth Not the Amorites alone not the sect of the Pharisees not Jerusalem alone but every man may have diem suam his allotted time in which he may turn from his evil wayes And this day may be a Feast-day or a day of trouble it may beget an eternal day or it may end in the shadow of death and everlasting darkness Oh that Men were wise but so wise as the creatures which have no reason so wise as to know their seasons to discover this their day wherein they may yet turn Oh that we could but behold that decretory hour or but place it in our thoughts and make it our fear that such a one there may be in which Mercy shall forsake us and Justice cut off our hopes for ever Certainly we should not then make so many Dayes in our year we should not resolve to day for to morrow and to morrow for the next day and so drive it forward till the last sand till we can resolve no more He that thinketh so lightly of Eternity as to think it may be wrought out in a moment and yet will not allow it so much but when he please hath just cause to fear that his Day is past already Now though there may be such a day such a moment yet this day this moment like the day of judgement is not known to any And it may seem on purpose to be removed out of our sight that we may be jealous of every moment of our life and that when the Devil tempteth the World
earth And so we pass from the Person I King David and come to take a nearer view of his Condition and Quality I am a stranger in the earth We pass now from the King to the Stranger and Pilgrime And yet we cannot pass from the one to the other for they are ever together There is so near a conjunction between them that though the one appear in glory and the other in dishonour the one sit on a Throne and the other lye in the dust yet they can never be put asunder nor separated one from the other He that is a King is but a Pilgrime and he that is a Stranger was born and designed unto a Kingdome and a greater Kingdome then Davids was Thou hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall reign upon the earth Rev. 5.10 This is the song of Pilgrimes and they sing it to the Lamb. The Kingdome of heaven is taken by violence and the violent take it by force And these violent men are such as are pilgrimes and strangers Matth. 11.12 To that place they travel endure many a storm many a fall and bruise in their way So that the immediate way to be a King is first to be a stranger in the earth Now that Man is naturally a stranger on the earth we have the Word of God written and the Word of God within us both the holy Scripture and right Reason to instruct us Both these are as the voice of God and by these he speaketh unto us calleth us by our name when he calleth us Strangers And first in the Old Testament the life of Man is every where almost termed a pilgrimage So Jacob when Pharaoh asked him how long he had lived Gen. 47.8 9. in his answer doth as it were correct his language The dayes saith he not of my life but of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years So that in the language of Jacob Life and Pilgrimage are all one The same is the language of the New Testament Whilst we are in the flesh PEREGRINAMVR A DOMINO 2 Cor. 5.6 saith S. Paul we are absent we are travellers we are wanderers from God But we are returning to him on our way pressing forward to our home And though we make hast out of the world yet as S. Bernard observeth some savour some tast something that is from the earth earthly we shall carry about with us till we come to our journeyes end Not onely they are strangers who with the Prodigal take their journey into a far countrey and cleave to every vanity there but they who are shaking them off every day yet look more then they should and like more then they should and are not yet made perfect Not onely they are strangers from God who are aliens from the house of Israel Eph. 2.12 Hebr. 11.10 13. but they who with the Patriarchs confess themselves strangers in the land which is allotted them and look for a City whose foundation and builder is God It is the observation of S. Hierome in his Epistle to Dardanus That the Saints in Scripture are no where called inhabitatores terrae the inhabitants of the earth There is a Wo saith he denounced against sinners in the eighth of the Revelation and under that name VAE HABITATORIBVS TERRAE Wo to the inhabitants of the earth And S. Augustine almost speaketh the same where he putteth this difference and distinction between them That the righteous can onely be said esse in tabernaculo carnis to be in this tabernacle of flesh to be there as the Angels are said by the Schoolmen to be in uno loco quòd non sint in alio to be in one place because they are not in another but to be circumscribed no where And they are onely said to be on the earth because they are not yet in heaven but nevertheless have their conversation there But the wicked do habitare in tabernaculo carnis dwell on earth and have their residence in it and may pass into a worse but never into a better place And these though they will not be strangers to it yet are strangers on the earth and pass away from that to which their soul was knit on which they fixed their hope with which they glutted their desires raised their joy yea which was their heaven they pass away and fall from it and shall see it no more This then is the voice and language of Scripture In the second place this even common Reason may teach us which is the voice of God and is our God upon earth and should be in his stead and place to command and regulate us here And if we were not first lost in our selves if we were not strangers to our selves we should not seek for a place of rest in that world whose fashion every day changeth and which must at last with its work be burnt with fire For do we not see by this common light that the Mind of Man is a thing of infinite capacity and utterly insatiable and here on earth never receiveth full content Content is that which all men have desired but never yet any did attain but still as one desire is satisfied another riseth and when we have all that we desired we will have more Now we would have but this and when we have it it is nothing for our measures are enlarged by being filled Are you learned enough Nay but there be yet more conclusions to be tried Are you ever wise enough If but once you be deceived you will complain that a thousand things which might have been observed have past your sight But are you ever rich enough The Fool in the Gospel was not till his soul was fetched away nor Dives Luke 12.20 16.23 till he was in hell Nay are you not most miserably poor when you are most abundantly rich Do you not want most when you have most or was ever your heart so much set on riches as when they did increase Hath the Ambitious any highest place any vertical point One world was not enough for Alexander nay had there been as many as those Atomes of which Democritus made it up he would have wished after more Our appetite cometh by eating and our desires are made keen and earnest by enjoying Majora cupere ex his discimus The obtaining of something doth but prompt us to desire more And now to draw this to our present purpose If the things of this world be not able to satisfie us if never man yet found full content if nothing on earth can allay this infinite hunger of the soul which certainly was not imprinted in us in vain if we cannot find it here though we should double and treble Methusalehs age if we cannot find it in the world though we should live to the end of it we cannot think that the Earth should be our country but that the things which we so highly esteem more then our
with immortality and eternal glory The Ninth SERMON COL III. 2. Set your affections on things above not on things on the earth THe whole scope and drift of this Epistle is That all the hope of man's happiness is placed in Christ alone and that therefore we must rest in the faith of Christ and live according to the prescript of the Gospel Now the voice of Christ and the Gospel is Seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof that is the things above and Love not the world nor the things of the world that is the things on the earth The words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes signifieth To Esteem or Judge rightly of So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 16.23 Thou savourest not the things of God Thou judgest not aright of them Sometimes To Care for or Desire So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 8.6 the desire of the flesh To savour Rightly to Judge of To affect and desire the things above that is it which Christian Religion enjoyneth And it implieth both an act of the Understanding Conceiving aright of these things and an act of the Will and Affections Approving and embracing them Fastened to the things above but averse and flying the things on the earth And then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things above are either the End or the Means either the Kingdom of heaven and the beatifical Vision of God or those things which lead unto it the graces of the Spirit Faith Charity Holiness Contempt of the world which are those seeds which grow up into a tree of life and the way by which we press unto the mark And our affections must be set on both For he that loveth not Obedience loveth not Pardon he that loveth not the Cross loveth not the Crown he cannot long for heaven whose conversation is not there already Now these are the things above For the things on the earth they are not worth a gloss or descant and we understand them but too well These are the words And they divide themselves as the Law is divided into Do and Do not an Affirmation and Negation calling and inviting our affections to the things above and taking them off from the things on the earth We will draw them both together in this general and useful Observation or Doctrine which naturally without tort or violence issueth from them both That the chief end and work of Christian Religion is To abstract and draw the soul of man from sensual objects and level and confine it to that object which is most fitted and proportioned to it even the things above A Doctrine which cannot be gainsayed but yet is not received of men with that firm and reverent persuasion of mind it should For who hath believed this report We must therefore make it good both by Scripture and Reason And first we hear David the father professing that God's word was a lamp unto his feet Psal 119.105 and a light unto his paths a light to burn by night 2 Pet. 1.19 a light that shineth in a dark place leading us from Egypt to the Promised land through the darkness of this world to that light which no eye of flesh can attain guiding us from that which is pleasant to that which is honest from that which is fair to that which is good from that which flattereth the sense to that which perfecteth the reason taking our thoughts from this world and fixing them on that new world wherein dwelleth righteousness And we may hear Solomon the son as it were paraphrasing it Prov. 15.24 and rendring it into other words The way of life is above to the wise that he may depart from hell beneath Above to him that is wise who looketh upon no light but that from heaven which discovereth the deceit and inconstancy and danger of those objects which may display to the sense a beauty like that of heaven but to us are made as hell beneath and tend thither For he that followeth his eye to the next vanity his ear to every pleasant sound his taste to every dainty his senses to every fair object that offereth it self is not wise And therefore we may hear the Son of David indeed but wiser then Solomon tell his Disciples John 15.19 John 17.6 Ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world And I have manifestd thy name to the men which thou gavest me out of the world And indeed what is the whole Gospel of Christ but Spoliarium sensuum a confinement a punishment a kind of execution of the sensitive part teaching us to beat down and tame to crucifie and mortifie the flesh to deny our selves and our sensual inclinations in which we are most our selves and least our selves most tractable and least what we should be Men where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beast the brutish part swalloweth up the Man the Reason in a word to be dead to the world This is the constant language of the Gospel of that wisdom which descended from above For the time past 1 Pet. 4.3 saith S. Peter may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles to have lived in the flesh in the lusts of men But now Christ hath suffered in the flesh we also must be of the same mind and cease from sin and not defeat him of his end which was to set an end to our lusts and destroy the works of the flesh The time past may suffice nay it is too much But now light is come into the world we must walk as children of the light and by that light discover horrour in Beauty poverty in Wealth dishonour in Glory a hell kindling in those delights which are our Heaven upon earth The ear that hearkened to every Siren's song must be stopped the eye that was open to vanity must be shut by covenant the phansie checked the appetite dulled the affections bridled and we must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritualized substances though immured in matter in the gross and carnal part in the flesh yet out of the flesh having eyes yet see not ears yet hear not hands but touch not in a word chosen culled abstracted from the world I will give you one reason from the Nature and excellency of the soul another from that huge Disproportion which sensual objects hold with that diviner part We may ask with the Psalmist Psal 89.47 Hast thou made all men in vain Or rather we cannot ask the question For without question God made not such an excellent creature but for an excellent end I created him for my glory I have formed him yea I have made him Isa 43.7 God made Man to communicate his goodness and wisdom to him to make him partaker of the Divine nature and a kind of God upon earth to imprint his image on him by which according to his measure and capacity he might represent
us to seek the Lord while he may be found giveth a fair intimation that a time there may be vvhen he vvill not be found unless vve be so vvise as by prayer and repentance to prevent it I shall therefore be bold to deliver a doctrine to you somewhat harsh I confess but very profitable for that that troubleth a sick man cureth him And therefore if ye will be unvvilling to believe it because you are vvilling to stay out a little longer and be absent from your God yet it is good to be jealous of it and think that there is great possibility it may be true lest he withdraw himself and depart for ever We have a saying in our civil businesses that it i◠good to forecast the worst for the best will mind it self Let us but apply this rule to our spiritual business and to the point in hand concerning our late seeking and God's forsaking us and the doctrine which I shall commend to your Christian consideration is this That though God do long expect and hold out his hand unto us as himself by his Prophet speaketh yet at length he pulleth it in again and his patience is at an end That there is a Donec a While a space and compass of time set to every one of us according to the wisdom of Almighty God to some more to some less to all sufficient in which if we return and seek him we are accepted but if we let it slip and pass by we have broken our day our bond is forfeited and God may take the forfeiture may from thenceforth withdraw his grace from us and give us over to a reprobate sense to a heart that cannot repent That then there will be no more room for repentance remain no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful expectation of vengeance to consume the adversary We see he did so with the old world before the Floud he prefixed a time set them an hundred and twenty years wherein he looked upon them Gen. 6. stayed for them and waited their amendment as if he should have said An hundred and twenty years I have left you to seek me in But when they ceased not in this time to trespass against his patience as soon as the time prefixed was expired he brought in the floud upon them and swept them away And as it was in the beginning so it may be with us now For God doth nothing at one time which he may not do at any time As it was with them so it is very probable it may be with every one of us Our time is set it may be so many years it may be so many moneths it may be so many dayes and if we return not before our glass be run there can remain nothing but an expectation of a floud and wrath to be poured down upon our heads Caesar knew that if he passed the river Rubicon with his army there was no remedy but he must be proclaimed a traitour to his country Solomon told Shimei that if he passed the river Kidron he should surely dye and so it was And so hath God confined us we have our Rubicon our Kidron our bounds our limits which if we pass we shall surely dye our bloud shall be upon our own heads Not but that God would even now be found if we did seek him for whensoever we seek him he will be found but that when God doth upon our long trifling with him withdraw his grace it will be impossible for us to seek him It is ill colluding ill trying conclusions with a Deity I do not deliver this unto you as an article of your Creed and yet I may and I know no danger in believing it but it may prove fatal to disbelieve it or to look upon it as an errour and place it in our catalogue of Heresies Which that we may not do I shall commend unto you some parts of Scripture which seem much to enforce it Gen. 15.16 God telleth Abraham that he will bring his posterity into the land of the Amorites but yet he will stay to the fourth generation till their iniquity be full and when it is full he will strike Matth. 23 32. Our Saviour thus bespeaketh the Pharisees Fill you up the measure of your fathers which is not a command but a prediction that they should fill up the measure of their sin and then be ripe for punishment For when wicked men have run out the full length of their line when their time is run out to the last sand then is Gods time to give the check and pull them on their backs Luke 19 4◠When our Saviour Christ drew nigh to Jerusalem and wept over it because of the exceeding hardness of their hearts he brake forth into a very passionate strain Oh that thou hadst known the things that belong unto thy peace VEL IN HAC DIE TUA even in this thy day A day they had but when their Sun was set then followeth NUNC AUTEM but now they are hid from thy eyes which is that night that ushereth in the blackness of darkness for ever Oh that thou hadst then was liberty of choice but now thou art bound and fettered under a sad impossibility for ever Which speech is a passion of Christ's Humanity his bowels of compassion yearned within him and at the very sight of Jerusalem he could not but pour it forth And he may seem to have spoken it in the very moment in which God's patience was tired out and his set determination of Judgment first began This he spake at the very time when the decree came forth For it is not hard to observe how Christ doth tye together the last instant of Jerusalem's possibility of returning and the first instant of the impossibility of her reclaim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judgment followeth Mercy at the heels to take revenge upon those who wantonly abuse her Psal 116.5 God is merciful and just These two are alwayes joyned together Mercy alone would beget in us a supine carelesness and the terrour of judgment without a fair hope of mercy would soon fright us into despair therefore Mercy to whom mercy belongeth and Justice to whom justice belongeth When the rayes of Mercy cannot melt us when Mercy cannot do its work make us capable of mercy she withdraweth and hideth her self and Judgment maketh its approch in a tempest cometh upon us as an armed man and cannot be resisted God will not be found and you may seek him that is the dialect of Mercy God may be found but you shall not be able to seek him that is the voice of a despised and angry God Oh that thou hadst known the things that belong unto thy peace VEL IN DIE HAC TUA even in this thy day See Mercy gave Jerusalem a day and shined in it by which light she might have seen the things that concerned her peace NUNC AUTEM But now now it is past are as the