by early engagements tyed themselves to the observation of its duties if principles of probity in Nature fomented by others instil'd with Education have made impressions of duty on the mind and wrought a reverence and awe of God and of Religion which is a fence about them and does keep off Vice by making it seem strange uncouth and difficult while these fears and aversations are rooted in them why then the first thing that they do as soon as Youth and the Temptations do stir within them is to poyson these their own Principles by evil Conversation and from that and Example take infusions which shall impregnate them with humours of being in the fashion of the World Thus they labour to strangle the then troublesome modesties of Nature and of Virtuous breeding thus they look out ill Company to infect themselves And surely they that seek the Plague and run into infection we have cause to fear they have a Resolution to dye But Secondly If notwithstanding this in the first practises of Vice their former Principles stir and ferment within and fret the Conscience set that on working why then if the sin sting gently do but prick the heart and make an out-let for a little gush of Sorrow then in spight of Scripture they do teach themselves to think that grief Repentance and by the help of that conceit this sorrow cools and doth allay the swelling of the mind washes away the guilt and thought of the commission they have been sad and they believe repented as if those stings opened the fountain for transgression and those little wounds did flow with Balsom for themselves And by this means that sting of the old Serpent fin while it pretends to cure by hurting thus proves indeed the Tempter to go on For if this be all why should a man renounce all the Contents and satisfactions of his Inclinations and mortifie and break his nature to avoid a thing which is so easily repented for No if it be no worse they can receive this Serpent in their bosome dare meet his sting and run upon these wounds and they do so till the frequent pungencies and cicatrices have made the Conscience callous and insensible the heart hardned But if their first essays of sin were made unfortunate by Notoreitie or some unhappy circumstance and so the wound were deep and the Conscience troublesome and restlesse because this is very uneasie these inward groans make discord in their cheerful aires make their life harsh they therefore find it necessary to confront the shame with Courage of iniquity go boldly on that so they may outlook it sear their own Conscience that its wounds may not bleed And as those Fiends of Men who Sacrific'd their Children in the fire to Moloch that they might not hear their Infants shreek nor their own Bowels croke had noyses made with Timbrels to out-voice them So these to drown the cryes and howlings of their wounded mind put themselves in perpetual hurry of divertisement and vice make Tophet about themselves and with the noyse of Ryots overcome all other because they will not hearken to those groans that call for the Physician of Souls and then sure these resolve to dye Nay if this will not keep them quiet you may see them sometimes ruffle with their own Consciences defie present Convictions in the very instant of Commission men so set on Death that they Condemn themselves in that which they allow And though a man would think there should be little satisfaction in those pleasures which Condemnation thrusts it self into and which have an alloy of so sad apprehensions yet such are it seems the satisfactions of sin For while it stabs and gashes He brave Hero of Iniquity can charge the wounds and take the Vice Yea Thirdly though the Lord himself appear and take part in the Quarrel joyn with our Principles and Conscience against the fin and with importunate calls alarm us give us no rest ordain a Function of men by whom he does beseech us dresses their Messages with Promises of that which God is blessed in and arms them too with Terrors such as Devils tremble at and joyns his Holy Spirit too that Power of the Highest sends him in Tongues of Fire that he also may Preach this to our very Hearts and fright us with more flame And yet the sinner breaks these strengths and vanquishes the Arts and strivings of Divine Compassion If these Embassadors speak Charms it is but what God tells our Prophet in this Chapter v. 32. And lo thou art unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant voyce and can play well on an Instrument And it does dye like that as it there follows They hear thy words but they do them not And if they flash in Hell against their vices in torrents of threatning Scripture they concern themselves no more than they would in the story of a new Eruption of Mount AEtna or Vesuvius Yea they do quench the Spirit and his fires do not like the deaf Adder stop their ears against his whisperings and the charms of Heaven that were a weaker and less valiant guilt but are Religious in hearing them curious that they may be spoke with all advantages to make it harder not to yield and live that so they may expresse more resolution to perish and with more courage and solemnity may sin and dye Nay more when God hath found an Art to draw themselves into a League and Combination against their vices bound them in Sacraments to Virtue made them enter a Covenant of Piety and seal it in the Blood of God and by that foederall Rite with hands lift up and seizing on Christ's Body and with holy Vows oblige themselves to the performances or to the Threats of Gospel which they see executed in that Sacrament before their eyes see there death is the wages of iniquity they shew themselves its damned consequences while they behold it tear Christ's Body spill his Blood and Crucifie the Son of God yet neither will this frightful spectacle nor their own ties hold them from sin and ruine they break these bonds asunder to get at them The Wiseman sayes that wicked men seek death and make a Covenant with it and so it seems But sure they are strange wilful men that seek it at Gods Table in the Bread of Life that will wade through an Ocean of mercy to get at Perdition and find it in the Blood of Christ will drink Damnation in the Cup of Blessing men that poyson Salvation to themselves They that contract thus for Destruction and tye it to them at the Altar with such sacred Rites and Articles are sure resolv'd and love to dye Fourthly God had provided other Guards to secure men from sin and Death the Censures of the Church of which this Time was the great Season and the discipline of abstinence we now use is a piteous relique all that the world will bear it seems But as the
raised to life again by it we shall rise to Immortality of Life and blessednesse receive all that we do believe more than we can comprehend receive the end of our Faith the salvation of our Souls Which God of his Mercy state us all in for the sake of Jesus Christ the Authour and the Finisher of our Faith and the Captain of our Salvation To whom with the Father c. SERMON IX VVHITE-HALL Sixth Wednesday in LENT 1664 5. GAL. 11. 20. I am Crucified with Christ. THE Ancient Observation of this Time would justifie my choyce make the Text Seasonable in the most severe sense it can put on when in their Exomologeses they ate onely the Bread of Sorrow and tears were their Drink day and night so as that in the Agonies of their Repentance they did Crucifie without a Metaphor and mâ—rtifie the Body of Flesh as well as Sin But it seems to have happened in our Sins as in our great Diseases men are grown more skilfull and have found out much more grateful wayes of Cure there is no need of going through a discipline of Torments a whole course of Medicinal Cruelty but they can heal at least palliate with more ease and speed Besides that Christianity is now of a more delicate and tender make and cannot bear austerities neither come I here to call for them or to provoke their Constitutions if they have found a softer and more pleasant way to Heaven on Gods Name let them walk in it onely in our walk we are now coming within ken of the Crosse of Christ and we can bear commemorations of his Passion they make the closing Ceremony of this Season which was set aside on purpose by the preparations of Humiliation to fit us for the performances and expiations of that Day by Repentance to to put off our Old Man the whole Bâ—dy of Sin that we may hang it on his Crosse as we go by That is the onely use of this time and the onely application of that Day Which I crave leave to shew you how to make at once And without this that Ceremony howsoever solemn will be meâ—rly pageantry not Worship the observation but dramatick and we shall have no part in the Atonement onely in the Scene of that dayes Tragedy rather than Sacrifice He onely Celebrates that Passion onely he partakes that Offering who can say with S. Paul I am Crucified with Christ. In which words we shall first endeavour to discover what this person is I. Secondly what the Nature is of that Condition and estate which S. Paul does affirm here of that person and that First in it self Crucified I am Crucified Secondly in its adjunct with Christ Which because it cannot signifie conjunction in time he is not now upon the Crosse that I might say now I am Crucified with him nor when He was was I that I might say then I am Crucifiâ—d with Christ but we shall find it hath other importances First it implies a likeness to Christ's Passion I am Crucified as he was so it means through the whole Rom. 6. and the being crucified with Christ is what S. Paul elsewhere expresses by the being made conformable to his death Secondly it imports more even Communication and partaking with him in his Passion being planted together in the likenesse of his death Rom. 6. 5. and I am Crucified with Christ does mean I have a fellowship of his Sufferings as he words it Phil. 3. 10. Thirdly it means also a conjunction of causal relation that there is a Vertue and Efficacy in the Crosse of Christ to work the Sinner into Crucifying of his sin so the particle must needs import Ephes. 2. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath set us together with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Where we are neither in conformity nor fellowship but onely in our head and in our cause so I am Crucified with Christ does mean his Passion hath an influence to Crucifie and cause in me the death of Sin Of these in order and First what this person is I say not who we know it was S. Paul but what And the reason of the Enquiry is because we find indeed elsewhere crucifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts required and we are also bid to mortifie our members that are on the Earth such as Fornication and Uncleannesse Covetousnesse and the like But these are not I how am I mortified in these Is it because it may be they are grown so dear to me that I am Crucified in their destruction and long practice and acquaintance hath riveted them into my very heart Now the Wen we know though an excrescent tumour but an accessory bag of noxious humours yet if it lay hold on any noble part take in some Nerve or Artery then he must cut the thread of Life that cuts it off So he must rent my heart indeed that tears my pleasures from me Life it self does seem to have so little satisfaction without them that it is a death to me to part with them Or else hath the Old Man no Soul is he all Flesh and hath Iniquity debas'd the whole of him so that his very Spirit is become Body of Sin so as that Wickednesse should be our very Being be all one with us and I and my corruptions prove denominations of one importance signifie the very same so it is indeed Besides the carnal part that is sold under sin and consequently does deserve the Cross that punishment of Slaves the part also that is in the quite opposite extream that lusts against the flesh that must be made away Be ye transform'd by the renewing of your mind Rom. 12. 2. And if there be any sublimer and more defaecated part in that it must submit to the same Fate Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind Ephes. 4. 23. Corruption hath invaded that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the diviner ruling part is grown a slave to the Beast part of him it hath debaucht its notions whereby it should discriminate good from evil so that now it can discern no natural difference between them but does measure both meerly by his present inclinations and concerns and the eternal Lawes of Honesty are blotted out and principles of interest and irreligion rais'd there in the place and buttress'd by false reasonings and discourses Now all these Fortresses of Vice that maintain and secure a man in sin must be demolisht all such imaginations cast down and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and every thought brought into Captivity to the obedience of Christ That Spirit of the mind must be destroyed and we transformed into persons of new notions and reasonings But above all the remaining part of man his own Will must be mortified which besides its natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by perverse inclinings to sollicitations of flesh is most corrupted and most dangerous in that which way soever it
inclines it draws the whole Man after it If any thing in us be crucified in a Conformity to Christ it must be this for in that death wherein Christ offered up himself upon the Crosse where although the Divine Nature gave the value 't was onely the Humane Nature made the Offering there it was the crucifying his own Will that above all other the ingredients made his Death a Sacrifice and the price of our Redemption God that had given him his Blood and Life might call for it again when and how he saw good and being due it was not properly a price that could be given him for sin but his free voluntary choice his being willing to endure the Agonies and Contempts of the Crosse his stabbing his own natural desires with a resolute determination Not my will but thine be done This his own Will was his own offering and such is ours if we be Crucified with Christ made conformable to his death if we present our selves a Sacrifice acceptable to the Lord for our will is not given up to him till it do perfectly comport with his but that it cannot do till we renounce our own desires till we have brought our selves to an indifference in outward things to such a resignation as she is storied to have had who being in her Sicknesse bid to choose whether she rather would have Health or Death made answer Vehementissimè desidero ut non facias voluntatem meam Domine this above all I desire that thou wilt not do my will I would have thee not do what I desire and would have So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole of us the Spirit Soul and Flesh go to make up this person and the body of Sin is the Old man entire I whole I am nothing but a mass of guilts my Senses are the bands of wickednesse that procure for my evil inclinations my members are the weapons of unrighteousness my Body is a body of Sin and Death and the affections of my Soul are Lusts its faculties are the powers of Sin yea and the Spirit of my mind that Breath of God is putrefied that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Angel-part of me is fall'n and turn'd Apostate and however I be partly Son of Man and partly Son of God yet I am wholly Child of Wrath and so fit to be Crucified Which calls me to the next Enquiry to the nature of the duty here intended I am Crucified What is design'd by it S. Paul does perfectly declare Rom. 6. 6. Our old man is crucified with Christ that the body of Sin might be destroyed that we should no longer serve sin So that it means a through Repentance and abandoning of former evil Courses A Duty which there are few men but in some instants of their life think absolutely necessary and perswade themselves they do perform it At some time or other they are forc't to recollect and grow displeas'd and angry at their sins and have some sad reflections on them beg for mercy and forgiveness and do think of leaving them and when they have return'd to them again they shake the head and chafe and curse at their own weaknesse and renew their purposes it may be and do this as oft as such a Season as this is or other like occasions suggest it to or move them And with this they satisfie themselves and hope if God do please to take them hence in some such muddy gloomy fit of their Repentance all 's well Now shall we call this being Crucified are there Racks and Tortures in this discipline hath a Spear prickt them to the heart and no blood nor no water no tears gush out thence hath it made no issue for some hearty Sorrow to purle out Indeed I must confesse the Scripture does sometimes word the performance of this duty in expressions that are not so sower but of an easier importance as first put off the Old Man as if all were but Garment put it off I say not as they stript our Saviour in order to his Scourgings and his Crosse but intimating to us what an easie thing it is to cast off Sin for them who do begin with it betimes before it get too close to the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. saith Theophyl even as easie as putting off thy Cloaths and thy Repentance is but as thy Shift thy change of life like changing thy Apparel But alas for all the easienesse which this expression hints where the sins also lye in the Attire as besides emulation pride vainglory great uncharitablenesse and inhumanity cruel injustice and oppression often do when many are undone through want of those dues which do furnish other men with the excesses of this kind when the sins therefore lye in the attire and they may put them off without a Metaphor yet it is so hard that it cannot be done sometimes the worth of a whole Province hangs upon a slender thread about a neck a Patrimony thrust upon one joynt of one least finger and these warts of a Rock or a Shell-fish with the appendages eat out Estates and starve poor Creditors for whom indeed they should command these stones to be made bread but that 's Miracle too stubborn for their Vertue And then how will they proceed to the next expression of this duty Circumcise your selves to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your hearts Jer. 4. 4. These are harder and more bloody words they differ in the pain and anguish that they put us to as much as to uncloath and flea would do It appears indeed this punishment of fleaing often went before the Crosse. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Ctesiâ—s of one having his Skin pull'd off he was Crucified And the scourges in some measure did inflict this on our Saviour when they put off his Cloaths they stript his Skin also left him no covering but some rags of that which whipping had torn from his flesh Yet this expression sounds harsher when it bids us circumcise the foreskin of our hearts and tear it from thence flea that When long conversation with the pleasures of a sin hath not onely given them Regallias but hath made them necessary to us so as that we cannot be without them when Custome craves with greater feaver than our thirst when if we want it we have qualms faintings of Soul as if the life were in that blood of the grape when men can part as easily with their own bowells as the Luxuries that feed them if you take away their dishes then you take their souls which dwell in them when the sins of the Bed are as needful and refreshing as the sleeps of it when to bid a man not look not satisfie his lustful eye is every jot as cruel as that other If thine eye offend thee pluck it out For if he must no more find pleasure in his sight he hath no use of it yea if this be indeed a kindnesse not to leave him Eyes
to be to him the same as Appetite to Tantalus that which he must not satsifie and is his hell 'T is easie if the lust be got no further than the Eye to pull them out together but if through that it shoot into the Blood and Spirits mix heats with those if it enwrap the heart twist with its strings and warm the Soul with its desires so that it Spirit all the motions all the thoughts and wishes of the heart when it is thus to make the heart to stifle its own motions stab its thoughts and strangle all its wishes to untwist and disentangle and to tear it thence if this be to be Circumcised with the Circumcision of Christ and he that hath not the sign of this the Seal of the New Covenant as he that in the Old had not the other was must be cut off our long habituated hardned Sinners must not think that there is any thing of true Repentance in their easie perfunctory sleight performances there is something like Death in the Duty which yet is required of us farther under variety of more severe expressions for we are bid thirdly to slay the Body of Sin Rom. 6. 6. to mortifie our members Col. 3. 5. and to crucyfie Gal. 6. 14. which how it may be done the next consideration of S. Pauls condition in the Text and my next part declare I am Crucified with Christ that is first as he was by being made conformable to his Death And truly should we trace him through all the stages of his Passion we should hardly find one passage but is made to be transcribed by us in dealing with our sins First he began it with Agony when his Soul was exceeding heavy for it labour'd with such weight of indignation as did make the Son of God to sink under the meer apprehension And he was sorrowful unto Death so as that his whole body did weep blood The Sinners passion his Repentance is exactly like it it begins alwayes with grief and sense of weight whoever is regenerate was conceiv'd in sorrow and brought forth with pangs and the Child of God too is born weeping And for loads the Church when she does call us to shew forth this Death of Christ as if she did prescribe that very Agony requires that we should find that Garden at the Altar makes us say we are heartily sorry for our misdoings the remembrance of them is grievous unto us the burden of them is intollerable So that the Sinner's Soul must be exceeding heavy too Secondly There he is betrayed by his own domestick sold for the poorest price imaginable as a Slave for thirty pieces of silver I shall not mind you what unworthy things the love of Money does engage men to to sell a Christ a Saviour and a God! and rather than stand out at such a base rate as we scorn to buy a sin at every single act 's engagement to Damnation costs more than the Ransom of the world is sold for and the Blood of God is purchas'd cheaper than any one opportunity of vice does stand us in But I onely mind you here that he shall have a better hire that will but be a Judas to his own iniquities do but betray thy Regent sins deliver them up and thou shalt have everlasting Heaven Thirdly we find him next carryed before the High Priest And the strictest times of Christianity would serve their sins so to receive his doom upon them to be excommunicated into reformation But I shall not urge how we can discover to a Physician our shames all our most putrid guilts as well as Ulcers and make him our Confessor in our most secret sins neither will I be inquisitive why the Physicians of our souls are balk'd but will passe this part of the Conformity and follow Christ to Pontins Pilate And for this part we our selves are Fitted the whole furniture of a Judicial Court all that makes up both Bench and Barr is born within us God hath given us a Conscience whereby we are a Law to our selves Rom. 2. We have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Jews did want such evidence as is sufficient to condemn us the same Conscience that is privy to our doings and stands by our thoughts and sees through our intentions is a thousand witnesses And that there may be a Prosecutor our own thoughts accuse us saith S. Paul and if we will give them way will aggravate each Circumstance of guilt and danger bark and howl and cry as loud against us as the Jews did against Christ for Sin is of so murthering a guilt it will be sure to slay it self and that he may not want his deserved Ruin the Sinner makes his own Indictement yea and his own Sentence too for our own heart condemns us saith S. John And when ever it does so Oh that we would follow it through all the gradations that brought Christ to Death and use our wickednesse as he was us'd strip it from its Cloaths bare it from its fair pretexts it useth to be drest in Lay our anger naked from all those excuses which our provocations that either wrath or humour will be sure to think intollerable do make for it strip our pride and vanity from those paints and dresses which the Custome of the Age that does require and warrant strange things dawbs the sin with use our Luxuries and Intemperances so and the other greater and more thirsty dropsie that of Wealth and of unjust unworthy gains which there are richer Luxuries in too And there are none of these but have their pleas their colours which they set themselves out in to please the Appetite and to deceive the Mind all which we must strip off and then when we have laid them naked spit upon them vomit all our spleen and contumelious despite at that which hath made us so ugly in Gods sight scourge it with Austerities and buffet it as they did Christ and S. Paul did himself 1 Cor. 19. 27. And when the Body of Sin is thus tamed and weakened it will be easie then to lead it out and crucifie it A Crucifiction this that does make our Good-Friday be a day of Expiation and Atonement to us A sight which next to that of his own Son upon the Crosse is the most acceptable to the Lord when he does see us execute his Enemies although they be our selves and Crucifie the dear Affections of our bosome as God did This is indeed to be conform'd unto the death of Christ. If I might have leave to go before you and to let you into the Example draw the Curtain from before the Passion I would call my Sins out drag them to behold that prospect hale them into the Garden shew them how he was us'd there You my Extravagancies of my youth my mad follies and wild jollities come see my Saviour yonder how he swoons when guilt began to make approaches towards him and can I make my self merry with nothing
severe a shape and gives the lineaments of so fierce displeasures against sin as do exceed all comprehension There was a passion in Christs Prayer to prevent his passion when he deprecated it with strong cryes and tears yea when his whole body wept tears as of blood to deprecate it and yet he cryed more dreadfully when he did suffer it The nayles that bor'd his hands the spear that pierc't his heart and made out-letts for his blood and Spirits did not wound him as that sting of death and torments sin did which made out-lets for God to forsake him and which drove away the Lord that was himself out of him Neither did his God forsake him onely but his most Almighty attributes were engag'd against him Gods Holinesse and Justice were resolv'd to make Christ an example of the sad demerit of Iniquity and his hatred of it Demerit so great as was valuable with the everlasting punishment of the World fal'n Angels and fal'n Men for to that did it make them lyable Now that God might appear to hate it at the rate of its deservings it was very necessary that it should be punisht if not by the execution of that sentence on Mankind as on the Devils yet by something that might be proportionable to it so to let us see the measures God abhors it by to what degrees the Lord is just and holy by those torments torments answerable to those attributes Now truly when we do reflect on this we cannot wonder if the Sinner be an enemy to the Crosse and hate the prospect of it which does give him such a perfect copy of his expectations when our Saviours draught which he so trembled at shall be the everlasting portion of his Cup For if God did so plague the imputation of Iniquity how will he torment the willful and impenitent commission of it But then when we consider those torments were the satisfaction for the sins of man methinks the sinner should be otherwise affected to them Christ by bearing the Cross gave God such satisfaction as did move him in consideration thereof to dispence with that strict Law which having broken we were forfeit to eternal death and to publish an act of grace whereby he does admit all to pardon of sins past and to a right to everlasting Life that will believe on him for sake their sins and live true Christians He there appears the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World for that he does as being a Lamb slain then he was our Sacrifice and that Crosse the Altar And the humbled sinner that repents for notwithstanding satisfaction God will not acept a Sinner that goes on by all those Agonies his holynesse would not be justifyed if when he had forsaken and tormented his own Son for taking sin upon him he should yet receive into his favour and his Heaven sinners that will not let go but will retain their sins but the penitent may plead this expiation Lo here I poor Soul prostrate at the footstool of the Crosse lay hold upon the Altar here 's my Sacrifice on which my sins are to be charg'd and not on me although so foul I am I cannot pour out tears sufficient to cleanse me yet behold Lord and see if there ever were any Sorrow like the sorrow of thy Son wherewith thou didst afflict him for these sins of mine And here is Blood also his Blood to wash me in and that Blood is within the Vaile too now and that my offering taken from the Crosse up to thy Throne thou hast accepted it and canst not refuse it now my Advocate does plead it and claims for me the advantage of the Crosse. Now that men should be Enemies to this and when they are forseit to eternal Ruine hate that which is to redeem the forfeiture that they should trample on the Crosse whereon their satisfactions were wrought tread down the Altar which they have but to lay hold on and be safe wage war with beat off and pursue a Lamb that Lamb of God that comes to take away their sins and make a spoyl and slaughter of their Sacrifice hostilely spill upon the ground that Blood that was appoynted for their Blood upon the Altar for their blood of sprinkling and was to appear in Heaven for them It men resolve to be on terms of Duell with their God and scorn that Satisfaction shall be made for them by any other way than by defiance and although their God do make the satisfactions for them to himself yet not endure it but choose quarrel rather this is so perverse and fatal an hostility as no tears are sufficient to bewail But possibly men sleight these satisfactions because some terms are put upon them which they know not how to comport with the merits of the Crosse must not be accounted to them but upon conditions which they are not able to perform they are required to master all their wicked Customes their untam'd appetites and settled habits to keep under their Concupiscence to calm their inclinations and their passions Now on such severe articles friendship with the Crosse they think is too hard bought But therefore Secondly that Crosse was the consideration upon which Grace is offer'd us whereby we are enabled to perform all this the power to will and strength to do all necessary aids from Heaven are granted to us as Christ merited them for us by his Sufferings and that Blood he shed upon the Crosse it is the Fountain 't is the Ocean of all grace And if temptations storm thee lay hold on that Crosse it is the Anchor of Salvation thou hast hold on tell thy God although thou art not able to resist and stand thou hast the price of strength that which did purchase it was paid down for thee on the Crosse and is at his right hand he hath it give me therefore grace for it let me have the value of that Blood the Blood of God in spiritual succours which may make me able to resist thy Enemies and do thy will Now God will never be unjust to deny any man those aids that were so dearly purchast for him and for which he hath receiv'd the price And then that men should be Enemies of the Crosse which is their Magazine of strength against their Enemies As men that do resist the having grace least it should change their inclinations as men that will not be impowered against Vice but will oppose the Aids of Heaven fight against the succours that are given them and destroy their own forces least with them they should be able to encounter sin and overcome it Thus wilfully to run against and charge their Anchor of Salvation to poyson to themselves the Fountain the whole Ocean of their graces is the state of them onely that do resolve and that had rather perish Once more on that Crosse was wrought a reconciliation betwixt God and Man and that upon such terms of honour to us Men
sins are so not that our Enemies are sunk but that our flesh is vanquisht that sub hoc signo ninces is thus also come to passe with the Standard of the Crosse that Cross on which our selves were Crucified we have overcome and with this Christian banner we have put to flight the Armies of our Heathen Vices For thus it must be if my Text be true and sure it is not possible it should be otherwise For look upon the Muster-roll of these our Foes which S. Paul does produce Gal. 5. 19. 20 21. and see which of them could escape it runs thus Adultery Fornication uncleanness lasciviousness Idolatry Witchcraft Hatred Variance Emulations Wrath Strife Seditions Heresies Envyings Murder Drunkenness Revellings To begin with the great Commanders those that lead the Van and bring up the Reare Uncleannesse and Revellings They that consider how they not onely suffered for but by these Vices which did misplace mens watches and attendances sins that were not onely like Achans in our Army and ruin'd it by bringing the accursed thing into it but were like Hannibal's Numidians in the Roman Army that did at once betray to and inflict Ruine sins that did merit and effect Destruction and made as well as provok'd overthrows and sins that by Gods goodnesse did cut off themselves whilethey did bring men into a condition that would not bear such Vices These are the guilts of Wealth and Splendor that do attend Felicity and Pomp it is not onely hopeful that men did resolve to be reveng'd on these great workers of their mischief and will no more resett such traitors in their bosoms but sure these sins are ceast that did put out themselves Then for Seditions They who consider when they broke the Scepter they left us nothing but the Rod of God instead of it a Rod that turned straight into a Serpent that changed our Seas into Blood or rather made new Seas of our own blood that brought Locusts over the Earth and Frogs into the Temple also to croak there that struck Lights here worse than Egyptian Darkness and destroyed all the first born of the Nation all the Nobles of the Land these will easily believe that we have felt this Rod too much to seize upon it hastily again the Scepter is restored and this Rod like to that in Israel laid up I hope within the Ark together with the Tables of the Law never to be disjoyn'd from Gods Commands nor taken thence against them Next for Heresies Truely we have left us none to revive or to make new the mischief both of them and their Cause the want of Government in the Church is now discerned and remedied And for Divisions and Schismes they who reflect on the sad issues of them how well meaning soever all their Causes were will certainly avoid them To see how while we quarelled for the Fringes of Religion we tore the seameless Coat of Christ to pieces yea and the body too How when we first dislikt a Liturgy the daily Sacrifice of Prayer was made to cease and then the House of Prayer was demolisht next Christs our Lords Prayer was rejected that Liturgy of his own framing thrown away in the Rubbish of his Temple and then it was a sin to pray at all His Table we must have remov'd and then his Supper was so too and that Great Mystery of our Religion the Sacrament of our Redemption was buryed in the Ruines of his Altar To see how thus out of heats of Religion we destroyed all Religion because that some adjacent Circumstances did not please us and fetcht a Coal from the Altar to set fire to and burn down the Temple because the building of some out-court was we thought irregular is Document enough not to attempt this any more for Religions sake For now it would be in despite of Christ who hath almost verified the Jewish accusation of him Destroy this Temple also and in three dayes he will build it up again and hath built it up we hope as he did that of his own Body never to fall again by us Surely we will not kill this Body of his out of Love to him and make his Temple his burnt Offering When God hath set our sins in order thus before our eyes shewed them us in their sad effects there is no fear that we should fall in love with them But where it is not thus where Gods last and most working Method hath been able to produce no good I must to keep my word Apply the Danger In that case what remains but the Curse of the ground Heb. 6. 8. which if after all the Husband-mans methods of Care and Art it bring forth only thorns and briars it is rejected by him he will bestow no more labour on it but can hardly forbear cursing such an ill piece of ground and its end is to be burnt So we after Gods Husbandry of Afflictions when the Plowers plowed upon our backs and made long furrows and the Iron teeth of Oppressors as it were harrowed us if we bring forth onely the fruits of the Flesh we are rejected reprobated God will bestow no more arts on us we are not far from his curse and there remains onely a fearfull looking for of Judgment and ficry Indignation If any did continue refractory to the Rod sinn'd under and against Judgment and did commit with an high hand even while the Lords hand was stretcht out against them what shall reform what can express their guilt To have beheld that tragical iniquity we read of Lyons where when the City was so visited with the Pestilence that scarce any were free that the Dead without a figure buried their dead falling down one upon another each being at once a Carcass and a grave the Souldiers of the Cittadel would daily issue forth and deflour Virgins now giving up the ghost defile Matrons even already dead committing with the dust warming the grave with sinful heats and coupling with the Plague and Death would not this have seemed the Landskip of Hell to us when they suffer and sin together yet when a Church and State were on their death-beds Gods tokens on them visited with the treasures of his Plagues and our selves sinking in that our Ruine if any went a whoreing after their own flesh still fulfilling the lusts thereof and in the midst of Deaths searching for sins what was this but to do the same things whose story does affright us while the actions please and in this case what method will be useful do we think our selves of that generous kind that will do nothing by compulsion but will for kindness and though we would not be chained yet we will be drawn to Vertue by the cords of Love and now God hath shewn mercy on us we will return him service out of gratitude Truely I make no question but most of us have promised some such things to God how if he would but save us from our Enemies that we might serve
fire kindles his sacrifice with the flames of Hell for so S. James does call those heats He that gives God any of his performances and hath a naughty Heart like Nadab and Abihu he presents his offering in an unhallowed Censer and all his holy worship will get nothing else from Heaven for him but a consuming fire as theirs did He that will offer any thing to God must take a care it be not tainted with such mixtures which spoil all the Religion making it not sincere and also spoil the Heart by making it not clean and undefiled The last remaining sense A Clean and undefiled Heart Of those things which our Saviour sayes defile the man some are meerly sins of the Heart such as may be consummated within the Soul and for the perpetration of which a spirit is sufficient to it self such are Pride especially spiritual pride the sin of those that think none holy as themselves and cast the black doom of Reprobation upon all that do not comply with their opinions and interests such also are uncontentednesse with our estates inward repinings at the dispositions of Providence concerning us black malice bitter envyings Now in these as the mind does need no outward members to consummate them requires no accessary organs to work them out so neither does it require any outward accessary guilt to make them liable to condemnation we know 't was one sin of the spirit onely that made Angels Devils If a foul body be abominable to the Lord shall a foul spirit be less odious he that defiles his Soul offends God in a much neerer concern of his because that speaks neerer relation to him then the body this was only his workmanship made out of Earth the Spirit was created out of himself a foul body is but filthy Clay but he that does pollute his Soul does putrefie the Breath of God and stains a beam of the Divinity The other sort of things that are said to come from the Heart and to Defile are those which S. Paul calls works of the Flesh such as if they be committed must be committed outwardly Murders Drunkennesse Revellings Revenge Wrath and Contentions Seditions Factions Schismes all Uncleannesses c. In these indeed the Heart can be but partiall Actor the utmost it can do is to desire and to intend them and to contrive and manage the designs of compassing them which yet Providence or the Innocence of others may put out of the reach of mans power or his own temporal fears may make him not dare to set upon them though he do cherish the desires Now if they beobstructed from committing most men use to conclude gently of their guilts while they do keep within the Heart the Execution of them is the onely thing that does look mortal and till the sin be perfected there is no death in it And truly I confesse that as it happens many times on a sudden surprize of soul when a bright gilded temptation strikes the heart and dazles the mind we see that the Will rushes on it instantly consents and wishes heartily yet within a while the Spirit does recover out of the surprize puts by the thrusts of fancy and the stabs of the temptation and that Will languishes and dies like a velleity as if it had been nothing but a woulding and now the man would not by any means consent to the commission In this case though there be a guilt to be repented of and cleansed with many tears yet this is Innocence in the comparison but if the Will purpose contrive and do its utmost it is the same to the man as if he had committed T were easie to demonstrate this that whatsoever evill thing a man intends and does fixedly resolve he is guilty of though he do nothing or though the thing he chance to do be never so much lawful Those sayings of S. Paul I know and am perswaded by the Lord Jesus that there is no meat unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing unclean to him it is unclean Rom. 14. 14. and he that doubteth is damned if he eat v. 23. These could have no truth in them unlesse the heart by choosing and pursuing to the utmost any thing that it does judge unlawful incurr'd the guilt of that unlawfulness even to Damnation and all that meerly by it self without the Action which in that case had nothing sinful in it A weight that is upheld by a mans hand and otherwise would rush down to the earth does surely gravitate as much it is as heavy though it do not fall quite down as if it did and were it let alone it would A settled tendency a resolv'd inclination to sin that presseth with its utmost agitation is that weight which though it may perchance be stopt in its career yet it tends to the Abysse its center and will not rest but in that Pit that hath nor rest nor bottome the Heart in this case is as liable as it can be because here it hath done its worst and such a will shall be imputed to it self And now I need not tell those who are still designing sin or mischief in the heart although it never dares come out of those recesses how far they are removed from the goodnesse of God to Israel A Father finds a way to prove such souls have larger doses of Gods Vengeance who when he had asserted that the soul does not dye with the body and then was askt what it did in that long interval for sure it is not reasonable that it should be affected with any anticipations of the future Judgment because the business of the day of Judgment should be reserved to its own day without all prelibation of the sentence and the restitution of the Flesh is to be waited for that so both soul and body may go hand in hand in their Recompences as they did in their demerits joynt partners in the Wages as they were in the Works To this he answers The Soul does not divide all its operations with the Body some things it acts alone and if there were no other cause it were most just the Soul should there receive without the Body the dues of that which here it did commit without the Body That 's for the former sort of sins those meerly of the Heart And for the latter sort the Soul is first engaged in the commission that does conceive the sin layes the design of compassing and does contrive and carry on the machination and then why should not that be first in Punishment which is the first in the Offence Go now and reckon that thy outward grosse transgressions are the only dangerous and guilty ones and slight thy sins of Heart but know that while thy flesh is sleeping in the quiet Grave at rest and ease thy Spirit then 's in Torments for thy Fleshes sins and feels a far severer Worm than that which gnaws thy Body Poor Soul Eternity of Hell from Resurrection to For-ever
store of chapmen that Church I say may give encouragement to hope that God may be compounded with at easie rates that for a Surfet I may give a Meal and God will pardon it and let me have Wine too into the bargain for they allow afflicting of our Souls in Wine that some weeks change of Dyet may go for a change of Life for indeed these come up somewhat nearer the just value than some of their prices But though there be all the reason in the world they should let men out of Purgatory on what condition they please when themselves onely put them in and make the breath of a few Pater noster's quite blow out those flames which burn no where but in their Doctrines Yet when without any commission from Christ they make Attrition able to secure men from Hell and an Induâ—gence able to release them out of Purgatory when they make new conditions of Pardon that is new Gospel new wayes of application of Christs Merits and though our Saviour God when he found in his heart to dye for us yet in the Agonies of his Compassion could not find in his heart to give us easier terms of life than such as do require Contrition Humiliation and Amendment which they commute so cheaply with his Vicar We justly stand astonisht at such usurpation on Christ's Blood and Merits that does assign them at these rates I make no question but these easie expiations get them many Converts Rome from its first foundation grew from being an Asylum to the dissolute but they that go away upon such hopes 't is to be feared that easinesle betrayes them into sins from which those Expiations cannot rescue them and at once makes them Proselytes to Rome and Hell Nor are our trusts much more secure if we relye upon our opâ—s operatum too our little outward strictnesses unless the soul be engag'd except there be inward life of religion all those will not avail If I deny my self my meals give my self my sins that is so far from expiation that it aggravates I am an argument against my self that my crimes are incorrigible when I will have them though I cut off the instruments foments of them and though I meddle not with the temptations yet I seize the sins What S. Austin does say of Alms In meliùs vita mutanda per eleemosynas de peccatis praeteritis propitiandus est Deus non ad hoc emendus quodammodò ut semper liceat impune peccare This is applicable to these performances also our lives must be Reformed and so on that Repentance and these strictnesses God will be reconciled and our offences done away but he will not be brib'd by these to let us alone in them he is not gratified by such performances so as to wink at vices for their sakes and suffer us in our rebellions upon such compositions as these take a Reward to spare the Guilt Nor is he such a soft and easie God as to take them for payment of that infinite Debt we owe that which he bought off with the Blood of God shall not be ours at such unworthy prices The Prophet Micah seeking for a present to appease him with rejects all the Jewish rites though God prescrib'd them as insufficient in them all things of the like external kind Mic. 6. 6 7. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the most high God shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with Calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or with ten thousand Rivers of Oyle shall I give my first-born for my Transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul If I do offer up whole Hecatombs to God will that atone for having offered up too plentifully to my Genius Or if I do remove my Riots from my table to the Altar and change my few extravagant Dishes into whole Herds of thousand Sacrifices shall I by doing so remove the guilt too of my Luxuries If I give God ten thousand Rivers for my overflowing Cups will the Intemperance be washt away in those Or shall I think to expiate an adultery with a Child and for that momentary and unclean delight give up the lovely and first issue of my lawful Bed And who will be content to be his own Priest in such manner to pay such Sacrifices for his sins but yet that will not do as it cost more to Redeem Souls which not Rivers of Oyl can cleanse but streams must flow out of the Heart of Christ to do it nor the fruit of Mans body make a satisfaction for but the eternally begotten Son of the Divinity and none but the first born of God alone for thus expiation of sins was wrought Even so to make that expiation mine besides relyance on it I must transcribe the Copy of the Sufferings of that Son transplant the Garden of Gethsemane into my breast If his Soul be sorrowfull even unto Death my Soul must be Afflicted too Humiliations must prostrate me upon my face to deprecate that Fire and Brimstone burning Tempest that is the portion of the Sinners cup saith David O my Father let this Cup pass from me The lustful feavers of my blood must excern themselves in cold sweat of fear and grief in agonies of Penitence and my excessive draughts not onely make me to cry out I thirst but give me Vinegar and Gall to drink sorrow as bitter as my riotous egestions have been my Oaths that have struck through the Name of God must pierce my Soul with grief as pungent as his Thorns and Nayles In a word I must so Afflict my Soul as to crucifie the body of sin and nail it to his Crosse. And this is that which in its own proportion was required of the Jewes this Day here in the Text to the work of which Day how the Afflicting of the Soul in both the given senses does contribute was my Second and the next Enquiry Secondly What this Day was the Verse before the Text informs us it was their Day of Expiation or Atonement Now that the Jewes esteem Fasting and Humiliation expiatory Sacrifices appears from a Form of Prayer which even yet they use on such a day where he that fasted sayes O Lord the Governour of all the World I have now finished my Fast before thee thou knowest that when we had a Temple standing the man that sinned was bound to expiate it by a Sacrifice the Blood of which was poured out and the Altar consumed the Fat to make amends for his Offence but now by reason of our many wickednesses we have neither a Temple Altar or Priest to make Atonement for us I beseech thee therefore O Lord my God the God of my Fathers to accept of that little portion of my own Flesh and Blood which this dayes Fasting hath torn from me in lieu of a Sin-offering and be thou reconciled unto me for thy mercies sake Thus
those satisfactions would more afflict our Souls and more restrain our vices than that which was made for us by the Death of Christ and how can this be rectified unlesse by some severities upon our selves we give our selves a piercing sense of what our sin deserves and grateful apprehensions of what our Surety suffer'd for us When in sad private earnest I have thought fit to Afflict my Soul with some austere mortifications and when my fainting Spirits are scarce able to sustain my Body that sinks under the load of it self then I may have some tender apprehensions of that weight that sunk the Son of God and 't was my weight that he fell under But he that cannot think fit to revenge a year of follies and of vices with a few weeks severer life sure thinks his Saviour suffered much in vain quorsum perditio haec why must the Blood of God be paid for sin when I cannot afford a little self-denyal for it Why such great Agonies of the Holy Jesus when I cannot find in my heart to bear a little strictnesse for it But I could easily deduce were I not to suppose it done before that sure as if the Church had thought a Statute had annext these two for ever they have been joyn'd from the beginings of our Christianity it was the Fast that did attend our Saviours sufferings that in part caused the Contest about Easter which Polycarpe S. John's Disciple manag'd and then there was a Fast so soon and he that tells us this Irenaeus Schollar to that Polycarpe sayes some observ'd it many dayes some forty dayes also if we can take the Antient Ruffinus's authority but for a Comma And if the Antient Fathers do expound aright Christ himself thought that men were interested so much in his Death that they would Fast by reason of it When the Bridegroom is taken from them then shall they Fast in those dayes Upon which words they say the Season was determin'd to this Duty by the Gospel But they may say so who knew how to perswade men to take up restraints of strictest discipline and of severest Piety But we cannot engage them into order or from Scandal they made them fast we cannot make them temperate Blessed Saviour what kind of Christians didst thou hope for thy Disciples of whom thou wer't so confident they would so concern themselves in thy Passion as to Fast because of it when in our times Christians will not be kept from their Excesses by it not in those dayes of Fasting which thy Primitive followers did Celebrate with abstinences that did almost mortifie indeed and slay the Body of Flesh as well as Sin and we in imitation of them in answer of thy confidences will not abate a Meal nor an intemperance will eat and Riot too and make a Lent of Bacchanals Thus we prepare load for thy Day of Passion sin on to add weight to thy Crosse and yet we our selves will not be humbled under them It is in vain to tell men thou expectest they should mortifie that it will spirit their Repentance for they will have no kind of Penitence for sin but such as will let them return to sin again suffer no discipline with which their vices too cannot consist for they can scarce live if they make not themselves chearful with them even in this time of Sadnesse and in sight of the Memorial of thy sufferings for them Indeed when I consider how this Season is hedg'd in from Vice by all Gods Indignation threatned at first suffered at last pronounc't in Commination executed in Passion Ash-wednesday gave us all Gods Curses against Sinners all which Good Friday shews inflicted on our Saviour Thus we began Cursed are the Unmerciful the Fornicators and Adulterers the Covetous persons Worshippers of Images Slanderers Drunkards and Extortioners and we shall see the Son of God made this Curse for them yea we our selves said Amen to all as testifying that that Curse is due to all When I consider this I say I cannot choose but be astonish't to behold how men can break through all Gods Curses and their own to get at Vice first seale Gods Maledictions then provoke and incur them instantly as if they lov'd and would commit a Rape upon Perdition as if because men have so long in Oaths beg'd God to damn them and he hath not done it yet they would now do it in their Prayers too make their Devotions as well as Imprecations consign them to the wrath of God He that does love cursing thus in the Passive sense surely as David sayes it shall come unto him it shall be unto him as the Garment that covereth him it shall enter into his bowels like Water and like Oyl into his Bones Psal. 109. 17 18 19. And truly amongst those things which we did Curse there are that will fulfill all that most literally the Ryots of thy gaudy bravery that make thee gripe extort spend thy own wealth and other mens undo thy self and Creditors be sordid and in Debt meerly to furnish trappings to dresse thy self for others eyes and may be sins these bring a Curse to cover thee as does thy Garment yea and they gird it to thee The draughts of thy Intemperance carry the malediction down into the Bowells like Water yea like Wine into the very Spirits There is another of them too that will conveigh the Curse like Oyl into the Bones till it eat out the marrow and leave nothing but it self to dwell within them yea till it putrefie the bones till it prevent the Grave and Judgment too while the living sinner invades the rottennesse of the one and torments of the other and then the Lents and abstinencies that the sin prescribes shall be observed exactly onely to qualifie them for more sin and condemnation may be at the best but to recover them from what it hath inflicted when yet alas they are too soft and tender the Lord knows to endure any severities to work out their Repentance and Atonement And yet sure these the sinner does go through have nothing to commend them which these other do not much more abound with If those are not grievous to thee because they are so wholesome and though it be a miserable thing to go through all their painful squalid methods yet how disgustful so-ere by the benefit of their cure they excuse their offensivenesse and ingratiate the present injury they do the Flesh by the succeeding health they help thee to and by the Death they do secure thee from Why sure to omit that the other have all these advantages none have so calm and so establisht health as the abstemious and continent and their mind is still serene their temper never clouded but besides this the Christians bitter poâ—ions do purge away that sickness that would end in death eternal his fastings starve that worm that otherwise would gnaw the Soul immortally his weepings quench the everlasting burnings yea there is cheerful Pleasure in the
else but that which made him dye tickle cheer and heighten my self with Agonies You my intemperate Draughts my full bowles and the ryotous Evenings I have past look yonder what a sad night do these make Christ passe look what a Cup he holds which makes him fall lower to deprecate than ever my Excesses made me lye You my lazy Luxuries Fulnesse of Bread and Idlenesse whereby I have controul'd Gods Curse and onely in the Sweat of others Faces eat my Bread and in that dew drank up the Spirits of those multitudes that toyl to faintings to maintain my dissolute life see how he is forc't to bear the whole curse for me how the Thorns grow on his head and how he Sweats all over You my supine Devotions which do scarce afford my God a knee and lesse an heart not when I deprecating an eternity of all those Torments which kill'd Christ look yonder how he prayes behold him on his Face petitioning see there how he sweats and begs You my little Malices and my vexatious Anger 's that are hot and quick as Fire it self and that do fly as high too that are up at Heaven strait for the least wrong on Earth look how he bears his how his patience seems wounded onely in a wound that fell upon his persecutors and when one that came to apprehend him wrongfully was hurt as if the Sword of his defence had injur'd him he threatned and for ever curs'd the black deeds of that angry Weapon and made restitution of what he had not taken made his adversary whole whom he had not hurt See how with his cruel Judges he is as a Sheep that not before his shearers onely but before his Butcher too is dumb You my Scorns and my high Stomach that will take no satisfaction but Blood and Soul for the faults of inadvertency for such as not the wrong but humour makes offences look how they use him they buffet and revile and spit upon him Ye my dreadful Oaths and bitter imprecations which I use to lace my speeches with or belch out against any one that does offend me in the least making the Wounds and Blood of God and other such sad words either my foolish modes of speaking or the spittings of my peevishnesse There you may see what 't is I play with so you may behold the Life of Christ pouring out at those wounds which I speak so idly of and what I mingle with my sportive talk is Agony such as they that beheld afar off struck their breasts at and to see them only was a passion Ye my Atheismes and my Irreligion but alas you have no prospect yonder it s but faint before you who out-do the Example whatsoever Judas and the rest did to the Man Christ Jesus you attempt on God you invade Heaven Sentence Crucifie Divinity it self And now having shewed my Sins this Copy of themselves what they are in their own demerits when my bowels do begin to turn within me at that miserable usage which Christ underwent it will be a time to execute an act of Indignation at my self who have resetted in my bosom all these Traytors to my Saviour made those things the joy and entertainment of my life which had their hands in the Blood of my God and what a stupid senslesse Soul have I that was never troubled heartily at that which did make him almost out of hope and if this be the effect of sin then it is time for me to throw it off O my Jesu sure I am I am not able to support the weight of that thou didst sink under Thou didst come to bear our sins in thy own Body on the Tree therefore in thy Body they were nailed to the Crosse and then certainly I will not force and tear them thence No there I leave them and will never reassume them more which resolution is the effect of that vertue and efficacy which is in the Crosse of Christ to the crucifying of sin which is the second sense in which the Christian does professe with S. Paul I am Crucified with Christ. There are some Learned Men that when they would assign reasons sufficient to move Cod to lay the punishment of our iniquities upon his Son and execute that Indignation that was due to us on the most innocent most Holy Jesus give this onely that this was the highest and most signal way imaginable to discover Gods most infinite displeasure against Sin and by consequence to terrifie men from the practise of it For if any thing in Heaven or in Earth could make us fear and from henceforth commit no such evil it was surely this to see Sin sporting in the Agonies of Christ Iniquity triumphing in the Blood of God To see those dire instances of the deservings of a Sinner those amazing prelusions to his expectations and consider it was easier for God to execute all this upon his Son than suffer sin to go unpunisht Indeed they make all that is real in the whole account they give of satisfaction made to God for sin to consist in this that the temporal Death of Christ which God by vertue of his absolute Dominion may inflict on the most innocent taking away that which himself had given especially since Christ who had that right over his own life which none else had did of his own accord submit to it and he laid down his life who had a power to do so That Death I say might justly be ordain'd by God for an Example of his Wrath and Hatred against Sin and then might be accepted in the stead of their death who were warned by that example and affrighted from committing sin And truly there is colour for it for all satisfaction seems either of a losse sustain'd which is acquired by compensation or the satisfaction of our anger which is commonly appeased by the sufferings of the injurious party or else the satisfaction of our fears and doubts that we may be secure not to sustain the like again which is most likely to be best provided for by punishment For sure one will not venture upon that which he must suffer for the doing Now of all these the first the satisfaction of compensation as it cannot properly be made to God who could sustain no real diminution by Man's sin For though thy wickednesse saith Job may hurt a man as thou art yet if thou sinnest what doest thou against God or if thy transgressions be multiplyed what doest thou to him but onely as the breaking of his law does in S. Pauls expression dishonour him amongst men so also it were easie to demonstrate that this one example does exalt more of Gods attributes and to a greater height than either if his Law had been obey'd or executed if that either were our business or if this sort of satisfaction did not properly belong onely to the offended party not the supreme Judge or Governour as such under which notion God is here to
despair were the onely fit things to make men jolly And do thus as they did it in despite to this great method of Salvation as if they did enjoy the indignation and the wrath of God as if those Agonies like the other difficulties of their sins did more provoke to them or like the Paschal bitter herbs that typified them were as sawce to the Ryots of their vices These certainly are men of a most desperate appetite and courage But 't is much more to be lamented that the Law of God does not seem better guarded by this dire example than it was of old among the Jews when it shew'd the Sinner his deservings onely by the dying of his Beast and had no other fence nor satisfaction than the blood of Bulls and Goats It is not very visible that it hath wrought upon consideration so as to make us more fear and beware nay we may question whether the example of my Bullock dying for my sin would not restrain and terrifie me more than that of Jesus Crucified for it If I were to expiate the Blood with which I word my anger and my oaths with the blood of my own Flocks if that Luxury which plunders every Element and brings a little Universe at once upon my Table to treat it self withal were but to kill one Heifer for the Temple and I to expiate each surfeit by one such Religious Ryâ—t Were I to quench the feavers of an Intemperance with a drink-offering 't is possible I should not be so prone to sacrifice to my Genius if I must sacrifice to God for doing so and I should be more tender of my Beasts than I am of my Saviour Now how comes this to passe It is impossible that we should be so apprehensive of our own demerits should we see them represented in the sufferings of a Beast as when they are shewed to us in those of the Son of God What is it then should we account our selves to suffer in our Beast His Death were our own losse and punishment And had we no communion in this Death of Christ was not that our own or account we our concern and share in that lesse valuable than in that of our Beast Far be this from us we are no further Christians than we can affirm with S. Paul who challengeth a fellowship in all Christ's sufferings and boasts it saying I am Crucified with Christ. Which brings me to the last sense of the words I have a share and am a partner in that Cross and all the satisfactions that were wrought upon it This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3. 10. a partaking in Christs Passion having his Sufferings communicated to us made our own as if we had been crucified with him as much as he that offered a peace offering was said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 10. 18. to communicate with the Altar and partake the Sacrifice which he really did We read indeed there in the sixteenth veâ—se that in the Sacrament there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sheding of Christs Blood is there communicated reckoned to us but it is communicated in a Cup of Blessing And is this to be a partner in his Crucifixion to partake onely the Sacrament of Crucifixion not to receive the wounds and torments but the benefits the pledge of the satisfactions of the Crosse the seal of the Remissions that he purchas'd on it Blessed Jesu we should have born thy pangs and all the dire things thou didst suffer ought to have been ours eternally that Agony which an Angels comfort could not calm that dreadful Terrour which exprest it self in the cold Sweat of clotted Blood that greater Terrour which came so near Despair as to make thee cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me all should have been our portion to everlastingnesse and spent their fury on our Souls And wilt thou have us bear no more of this than the remembrance all our Mount Olivet and Golgotha be onely the Lords Table and his Entertainment dost thou communicate thy Agonies in Eucharistick wine and is this to be Crucified with Christ so he does account it seems He that by vertue of the Crosse of Christ hath crucified his body of Sin Christs satisfactions are accounted to him he is esteemed to have a fellowship in all the sufferings to have had an hand in all that was done for man on the Crosse they are all reckoned his And as Christ bore the guilt of all our doings on the Tree so he will have us bear the name and merit and reward of his for as S. Paul does expresse Rom. 6. 5. We are planted together in the likeness of his death by being made conformable to that in crucifying of our sins we are inoculated as it were and both together ingraffed in into the Crosse and so there is deriv'd to us the vertue of that Stem that Root of Expiation and Atonement and by this insertion being as the same S. Paul sayes Phil. 3. 9. found in him we have his righteousness That poor Soul that does throw himself down in the strict humiliations of Repentance at the footstool of the Crosse and there beholds his Saviour dying for him and that is himself by Penitence incorporated into him graffed into his Death and planted in his very Passion as Origen and Thomas interpret He may take confidence to say Behold Lord if the satisfactions of thy eternal Justice be acceptable to thee if the blood of God that is offer'd up without spot be a well pleasing Sacrifice look down at once on thy Messiah and on my poor Soul turn not thy face from me for whatever my guilts are I have an equal Sacrifice those are my satisfactions and that blood my offering the Passion and propitiation of the Crosse are mine I am crucified with Christ. We have gone through all the Parts all the Considerations of this expression and have no more now to take notice of but this that all of them must go together that they never are fulfill'd asunder but he onely whom the efficacy of the Crosse of Christ hath wrought on to the Crucifying of sin he onely hath the satisfactions of the Crosse imputed to him he is planted with ingraffed into Christ For if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are done away 2 Cor. 5. 17. Whosoever is not such he hath no interest in the Jesus of that day He may perchance in some one of those easie Saviours which these times afford wherein Opinions call'd holy or a sanctifi'd Faction give such interests and to be in a party is to be in Christ or else he may depend upon that Christ that may be had with meer Dependance that is ours if we perswade our selves he is so Now sure he that is perswaded he is Christ's is either truly so perswaded or else falsly if but falsly that will not advantage him for God will never save a man for believing a lye
but that he should truly be perswaded so without this duty is impossible for he that is Christ's hath crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts therefore by good Logick he that hath not crucified them is not Christ's and evidently whosoever is not crucified at all he is not crucified with Christ. And sure I need not put you in remembrance that the man in whom sin reigns and whensoere his Lusts and Passions bid him go he goeth or come he cometh or do this he doeth it that the body of sin is not crucified in him that which were nayled and settel'd on the Crosse and slain there could not command and rule him so Or if sins dominion be not so absolute but God hath got some footing so as that his Law hath power in the man's mind so as to make him make resistances against his sin and he dislikes it but alas commits it still yet what he does allows not but returns to do it at the next temptation afterwârds would faâ—â— be good yet does not find how to perform something governs in his members leading that Law in his mind into captivity to the law of sin this man although he hath the body of death yet 't is not crucified and slain for it does live and exercise the greatest tyranny upon him forces him to serve and to obey against his mind it overcomes his own heart and all inclinations to good and conquers God within him Till men have left off the custome of the works of sin and all grosse deeds of the flesh it were as vain to prove they are not crucified as that he is alive that walks and eats Those works they are the fruits of the flesh the of-spring of its lusts and were that crucified and we by likenesse to Christ's death planted into the Crosse we could no more produce them than that dead Tree the Crosse could bear fruit or then a Carcasse could have heat to generate or the grave become a womb the dust bring forth Secondly Yea more they perform not the outward actions of life who have but the image of death on them and a man asleep works not yet is alive his fancy and his inwards work and if sin be onely kept from breaking out and men commit not grosse deeds of the flesh but yet indulge to these things in imagination and the heart cherish them in phansie and design and wish onely restrain the practice or indulge to spiritual wickednesses you may as well say that a man is dead because he does not walk abroad because he keeps within doors and lives onely in his Closet or his Bed-Chamber as say that sin is crucified which while it stirs but in the heart it is not dead Thirdly Once more we part from all acquaintance with the dead the Corps of one that had the same Soul with us howsoever we may have some throws of grief to leave it yet we put it from us we admit it to no more embraces but if 't were the loathsome Carcasse of a Villain Traytor that was Executed we turn from the sight as from a siend it is a detestable and accursed spectacle And so he that hath put his Body of sin to death would have great aversations to it yea how dear soever it had been he would no more endure the least acquaintance with it then he would go seek for his old conversations in the Chambers of Death he would shun the sight of any the most bosom custome as he would the Ghost of his dead Friend he would abandon it as a most ghastly dreadful spectacle he would also bury these his dead out of his sight Thus he must needs be dispos'd that hath crucified his Old man And they that are thus dead with Christ shall also live with him yea those that are thus crucified with him he hath already rais'd up together and hath made them sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus There already in their cause and in their right and pledge and there hereafter in effect and full enjoyment SERMON X. CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Novemb. 5. 1665. LUKE IX 55. Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of THE state of that great controversie which the words suppose between the Jews and the Samaritans as it then stood seems briefly thus Those that were planted in the Regions of Samaria by Salmaneser however great Idolaters at first having admitted in a while the God of Israel among their Gods and after having an High-Priest of Aaron's Line a Temple too built on that place where Abraham and the Fathers of the Hebrews friends of God did choose to offer Sacrifice and on that very place where God himself enjoyn'd the Law and all the Blessings of it to be publisht to the People on Mount Gerizim which therefore seems to have pretences to vye with Mount Zion for there also the Lord commanded the Blessing An Altar too saith Benjamin in his Itinerary made of the same stones that God commanded to be taken out of Jordan and set up for a memorial of his Peoples passage through it And besides all this having the Law of Moses too when they had all these pretensions to the God of Israel they clave to him alone and wholly threw off their Idolatry So Epiphanius does affirm expresly And their countrey being as Josephus sayes the receptacle of all discontented fugitive Jews a great part of it too planted with them by Alexander they espoused the Worship of the Jews and came to differ very little either in the Doctrine or the practise of Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having all things as it were the very same the only distance seems to be betwixt their Temples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just as the Woman states it to our Saviour 4. Joh. Our Fathers Worshipped in this Mountain but ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to Worship So that if we audit the account of the Samaritane guilt they separated from the place of Worship which God had appointed and set up another in a word they were Schismaticks Whether this be such a guilt as should make those terms equivalent He is a Samaritane and hath a Devil I shall not say but it is such as makes our Saviour say somewhat exclusively Salvation is of the Jews All the Blessings and Salvations of the Law did indeed hover on Mount Gerizim were given thence that was the place of them but they were cut away when Schisme came The Church is not a place of blessing when 't is built against the Church The Altar hath no Hornes to lay hold on for refuge but to push and gore onely when it is set up against the Altar and Gerizim is Ebal when it stands in competition with Mount Zion Well this onely thing does breed the greatest distances imaginable in the Nations nothing more divides than Separation and Schisme and then these Samaritanes as all Separatists do grew such
able to dead the force of the activity of all that Moses sayes although acknowledged with that veneration which the Jews receive Moses with whose credit they themselves do say no Miracle can be wrought so great as to be able to add to or diminish from why then that same improbity within a while will with more ease work off the force of this new confirmation so that it will be vain Indeed 't is possible that the surprize of such a Miracle just as any other suddain and amazing accident may make a man consider what though he did afore believe yet he did not mind nor lay to heart yet when the astonishment of that is over the motives then are left to their own strength and can work only by their own activity which we see hath been able to do nothing so that a miracle at most can be but a more aâ—ful remembrancer Now sure to bring this to our selves we want none such nor do they prove much useful Occasions of astonishment and such fatall remembrancers have come and taken up their habitation in our Land and make approaches towards hover over every place Long Bills of mortality and sad knells and dreadful passing-bells these are all messengers from the dead that come posting to us swift a Gods Arrows And one would think we should take notice of their message hear them when they passe so near us when they seem to call out to our selves when a thousand do fall besides us and ten thousand at our right hand wherefore should not an Army of such Carcasses become as moving as one Ghost should Lazarus come forth with all his sores they would not be so terrible as these carbuncles and ulcers of the Plague And the destroying Angel out of Heaven with his Sword drawn one would expect should be as efficacious as a Preacher out of Abrahams Bosom And yet men do not seem to hearken any more to these than they do to us when we either Preach or which they think much lesse when we read Scripture to them that is when they hear Moses and the Prophets Men have the same security as to their sins which they had in the freest times whatever fears possess them they are not the fears of God those that make men depart from evil none of those that fright into Repentance we have no Religious cares upon us now more than at other times but Vice as if that also had a Sanctuary under the Lords wings and might retire under his feathers to be safe dreads no Terrours of the Night nor Arrows of the Day but walks as open and as unconcern'd as ever And now should we behold a mad man on his death-bed spending his onely one remaining minute in execrations the paleness of a shrowd upon his face but Blood and crimson Sins upon his tongue the frost of the Grave over all his parts but a lascivious heat in his discourse in fine one that had nothing left alive of him but his Iniquity would not an horrour seize you at that sight and the same frost possesse you but to hear him and yet his madness is his excuse and his disease his Innocence Should we see one that had no other madness no other sickness but his sin do thus would it not be more horrid and is it not the same to see a Nation as it were upon its Death-bed visited with all the treasures of Gods Plagues his tokens on it and every place and man in fearful expectations and yet no allay of Vice Wickednesse as outragious as ever while it is thus with what face can we beg of God to keep from us this Plague and grievous sicknesse when we do onely mean to make this use of such indulgence to cherish another Plague in our own hearts What can we say to prove it would not be a mercy to us to be suddenly cut off even in the midst of our iniquity when by our going on in sin in the midst of Destruction we make appear if he should let us live yet we would onely live to finish our iniquities And longer time would have no other use but to fill up a greater measure of sin What answer do we make to all these Messengers of Death that come so thick about us what do we that may justifie Gods care in sending us so many warnings But 't is no Wonder if the onely neighbourhood of Death have not been able to prevail upon us have you not seen one whom his own iniquity or Gods immediate Hand hath by a Sicknesse or by some sad Accident cast to the very brink of Death so as the Grave seemed to begin to take possession of him and all his hopes sickned and dy'd so that recovery from that condition may be well as 't is in Scripture often called a Rising have you not seen him in that state when he supposed that sinning was now done with him and the next thing was Judgment when God's Tribunall seemed to be within his view and Hell to gape for him as wide as the Grave both opening to receive their parts of him at the same time and himself ready to divide himself into those two sad Habirations With what effectuall Sermon will he then Preach to himself against his sins and that you may be sure shall work upon him he instantly resolves against his Vices he will not carry them along with him out of this Life but cast them off as too sad dangerous Company nor yet if God shall lend him life will he retain them but it shall be a New Life which he will lead And yet when God hath rais'd him up after a while he returns to his vomit his Sins recover with his Body he owes his Innocence but to his Weaknesse nor is it more long liv'd his holy purposes decay as his strength grows and dye as soon as setled health does come And he who never would commit the Sin again when he was Dying mends into it again And then what hopes is there in this mistaken Method when we see men come themselves from the Dead unto themselves yet cannot make themselves Repent But if we are not all concerned in this take a more spreading and more visible experiment If ever one came from the Dead this Church and State came thence And by as great a Miracle of Resurrection But where is the Repentance such a Miracle may have flattered our Expectations with as I am confident the resolutions of it did in that sad dying state are not some men as violent in those wicked practises that merited our former Ruine and others in those cursed Principles that did inflict it as they ever were 't is said by many that have evil will at Sion and it is our concern to take a care they speak not truth that in the Church some that are risen up again have still the silence of the Grave upon them and are as dumb as if their mouth were yet full of their monument Earth And
contrive its pleasures and with industry have learnt and practise arts of Luxury and in those have set up their delights that these should be accounted Enemies of the Crosse of Christ there is but too much reason For their course of life is perfect opposition to that Crosse and to the whole design of Christianity and to the very being of all vertue For since Vertue is but moderation and restraint of Appetites and Passions and since sensuality indulges and does raise and heat them since the whole design of Christianity is to mortifie the deeds of the Body those our members upon earth that Body of Sin and Death and since Voluptuousnesse quickens pampers and does make them vigorous lastly since the Doctrines and the Influences of the Crosse of Christ do aim at Crucifying the flesh with its Affections and Lusts and Luxuries do gorge and make them ramping sure the enmity is too apparent to be prov'd It is the businesse of Religion to instruct and frame men into reasonable Creatures God himself chose to dye upon the Crosse that we might live like Men here and then afterwards dye into Sons of God and become equal to the Angels He suffered on the Tree that we might be renewed into that constitution which the Tree of Knowledge did disorder and debauch Before Man ate of that his lower Soul was in perfect subordination to his mind and every motion of his appetite did attend the dictates of his reason and obey them with that resignation and ready willingness which our outward faculties do execute the Wills commands with then any thing however grateful to the senses was no otherwise desired than as it serv'd the regular and proper ends and uses of his making there was a rational harmony in all the tendencies of all his parts and that directed modulated by the rules and hand of God that made them In fine then Grace was Nature Vertue Constitution Now to reduce us to this state as near as possible is the businesse of Religion as it had been in some kind the attempt also of Philosophy But this it can in no degree effect but as it does again establish the subordination of the sensual to the reasonable part within us That is till by denying satisfactions to the Appetite which is now irregular and disorderly in its desires we have taught it how to want them and to be content without them and by that means have subdu'd its inclinations or by taking down the Body have abated of its powers and its provocations and where it is stubborn heady and rebellious there by cutting off provisions from the flesh and by sharp methods vanquisht and reduc't it into a condition of obedience and whenever that is also necessary weakens so that insolent untam'd part of our selves that we make it lye fainting groveling at our feet these are the Doctrines of the Cross and this the method of its Discipline And withal by those rational and divine heavenly encouragements which above all Doctrines in the world our Christianity suggests and furnisheth with infinite advantage have so fortified the mind that it resumes its principality governs and carries on the lower Soul in its obedience to Duty easily without resistance as they say the higher Heaven moves the inferiour Orbs along with it although their proper tendencies are contrary At leastwise if impressions from without or inbred inclinations stir raise passions and mutinies yet the mind keeps so much power that they shall not beat it off and force it from its prosecutions of good nor shall unlesse by a surprize engage its consent in the pursuit of evil This is that which Religion aims at thus to make us men teach us to live according to our nature to put Reason in the Throne and vindicate the spirit from the tyranny of its own vassal flesh But sensuality is most perfect opposition to this whole design for it renverses that subordination without which there is no possibility of vertue as I shew'd you and it puts that whether Lust or Passion in the Throne which either constitution conversation or whatever accident did give possession of our inclinations to And makes the strangest prodigy of Centaure where the Beast is uppermost and rides the man where the beast is God indeed for the sensual man acknowledges no other God but his own belly so S. Paul does character him here And truly if we look on the attendances and careful services he gives it and how studiously and wholly he does consecrate himself to please it one would think it most impossible he should have any other God but if we number the drink offerings and meat-offerings the whole Hecatombs he gives it and whereas other Deities had onely some peculiar appropriate Creatures for their Sacrifices how this votary rifles the Universe goes through the whole latitude of beings for oblations one would think he did out-number all the Heathen Legions in his Gods and yet all this is onely for his Belly Now he that deifies his Appetite and that is so attent and so sollicitous in its service he that sets up such an Antigod as this to Christ appears a scornful insolent Enemy to Him his Crosse and his Religion neer the state of those men whom the Wise-man couples with the sensual persons of an impudent mind the very disposition of those Enemies of the Crosse of Christ whom S. Paul brings up in the second place Those that glory in their shame Amongst the uses of the Crosse of Christ one chiefly meant was by the ignominy of that most accursed infamous punishment to represent the vilenesse of Iniquity to which shame and confusion were so due that there were to be Contumelies as well as Agonies in the Death that was to expiate it And it seems not sufficient that the Blood of God be shed for it but that Blood must be stain'd too with the imputation of a Malefactor Christ was to suffer the insulting scorns and vilifyings of his Crucifiers his Honour must be sacrific'd as well as his Life Barabbas must be preferr'd even before that Person of the Trinity to whom sin was to be imputed and who was to bear the just shame of it such infinite debasement and contempt being a most essential ingredient in the wages of Iniquity of which this Crosse of Christ was the expresse And then how is it possible for men to wage a more profest hostility against the Crosse of Christ than by endeavouring to put Reputation on the thing on which that Cross was set to throw Disgrace by raising Trophies to themselves for that which raised a Gibbet to their Saviour giving themselves a value for the thing which hath such infinite diminution in it that it made the Son of God esteemed worse than Barabbas These men are two successful Enemies of the Crosse that thus triumph over it and when it was erected as an Ensigne to display the vilenesse of iniquity and to shame sin out of the lives of mankind vindicate and
separation to these Offices and Orders in and for vvhich the Holy Ghost hath so appear'd what they be I dispute not now they fight against the Holy Ghost and thrust him out of that in vvhich he hath almost signally interessed himself And they that do intitle the Spirit to this opposition do not onely make Gods Kingdome divided against it self or raise a faction in the Trinity and stir up division betwixt those Three One Persons but they set the same Person against himself and make the Holy Spirit resist the Holy Ghost You know the inference prest upon them that did this but interpretatively in the Devils Kingdome and did make Satan cast out Satan and is 't not here of force And they who make the Spirit cast out the Holy Ghost contrive as much as in them lyes Gods Kingdome shall not stand I will not parallel the guilts Those Pharisees bâ—asphemed the Holy Spirit in his Miracles ascribing that to Beelzebub vvhich vvas the immediate vvork of the Holy Ghost and such indeed do sin unpardonably because they sin irrecoverably for Miracles being the utmost and most manifest express wherein the Holy Ghost exerts himself they who can harden their understandings against them have left themselves no means of conviction and cannot be forgiven because they cannot be rectified or reclaimed These others do blaspheme the Spirit in his immediate inspirations and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascribing to the spirit of Antichrist all those Offices and Orders which these gifts of the Holy Ghost were powr'd from Heaven immediately to qualifie for and seperate to things in which he hath as signally appeared as in his Miracles and as he made these meanes to convince the world so he made those the Officers of doing it and set them to out-last the other Now in the same nearness that these two guilts come up one towards the other just to the same degree these sin the sin against the Holy Ghost For the Holy Ghost said Separate So I pass to the second to those whom this injunction is directed to And thence I do observe in general that Notwithstanding all the interest and office that the Holy Ghost assumes in these same separations yet there is something left besides for Man to do Although he superintend they have a vvork in it He is the Vnction but it must be apply'd by laying on of hands I have call'd them saith he in the Text and yet to them that ministred the Holy Ghost said Do ye separate I do not now examine vvhat degree and order of men they vvere vvhom the Holy Ghost here commissions for this Office The Judgement of the Antient Church in this affair is enough known by the condemnation of Aerius and by the Fate of Ischyras and Colluthus and for the present instance in vvhich they are call'd Doctors that are bid to do it there hath enough been said to prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Title of a Bishop to vvhich I shall only adde that it was a variation of Name that stuck by them untill Bede's age in vvhich vvhat Bishop signified does come under no question for he does say that Austin call'd together to the Conference Episcopas sive Doctores the Bishops or the Doctors of the Province Besides that there vvas then in Antioch a Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the time of Claudius Emperour of Rome and of Euodius whom the Apostle Peter had ordained at Antioch those that before were call'd Nazarenes and Galileans were call'd Christians a thing vvhich happen'd a little before this separation in the Text as you finde Chap. 11. 26. But vvho they vvere that us'd to separate for every Execution of these holy Offices vvill appear from the Instances that I shall make to prove the present Observation that besides that of the Holy Ghost there vvas an outward call And whomsoever the Spirit sent he commanded that they should have Commission from Men. And all my former Testimonies for the Holy Ghost bear vvitness for this too The Text is positive here vvas a Congè d'eslire for Barnabas and Saul Timothy had his office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by designation of the Spirit 1 Tim. 4. 14. yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with laying on of hands ibid. yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the laying on of my hands 2 â—im 1. 6. And Timothy vvas plac'd at Ephesus as Titus also left at Creet to ordain others in the same manner St. Paul providing for the succession of the Rite and Ceremony as vvell as of the Office And in St. Clement's Testimony 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit try'd but the Apostles constituted And down as low as Trajan's time when St. Iohn's date was almost out his life and his Commission expiring and the Churches of Asia to be provided with succession the Men were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signified by the Holy Ghost But the Chron. Alex. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he went clean throughout Asia and the adjacent Regions constituting not only Bishops but others of inferiour Clergic and even in the lowest thus it was when the first Deacons were to be made Men full of the Holy Ghost and VVisdome vvere to be look'd out Act. 6. 3. But yet that did not autorize them the Holy Ghost and wisdome did not make a Deacon for besides that the Apostles will appoint them over their business ibid. and they are brought to them and they do lay their hands upon them verse 6. Thus it vvas in those times of full effusion of the Holy Ghost Men alwaies had to do in giving that Commission so that vvhoever pleads an Order of the Spirit for his Office although such a Commission of the Spirit if he had it vvould evidence it self and if it vvere it vvould appear for 't was the manifestation of the Spirit that was given to every man to profit withall yet if vve yield him his pretensions and let his own incitations pass for inspirements and his strong fancie for the Holy Ghost if the Holy Ghost did call him vvho did separate him vvhom the Holy Ghost calls he sends to his officers to empower they both vvork He says do ye separate And here a Consideration offers it self unto those holy Fathers vvhom the Spirit makes his Associates in separating men to sacred offices that vvhen they set apart even to the lowest stalls of the Church they labour to perform it so that the Holy Ghost may be engag'd and act along vvith them in the performance Separate such as they may presume the Spirit hath call'd and vvill own He does not call the ignorant or appoint blind eyes for the Body of Christ or make men Seers to lead into the pit The Holy Spirit calls not the unclean or the intemperate vve knovv it vvas another sort of spirit that vvent into the sâ—ine nor does he ever say Separate me those who separate themselves the Schismaticks the Spirit cals not such as break
contain a Duty prescrib'd and the Authority prescribing it the Prescription and the Authority in these words I say unto you the Duty in the rest where it is set down 1. in general Love your enemies and that to be consider'd under a double prospect 1. As it is plao't in opposition to something that was before indulg'd the Jews or presum'd so to be by them signified here by the particle But and then as it stands by itself in its own positive importance love your enemies And secondly this Duty is particulariz'd in several exercises of the Act commanded love in relation to several sorts of the Objects of that Act enemies as 1. Those that curse you you must bless 2. Those that hate you you must doe good to 3. Those that use you despitefully and persecute you you must pray for These I shall treat of in their given order beginning with the general Duty and viewing that at once in both the lights that it doth stand in that one may clear and fortifie the other But I say unto you Love your enemies Of all the Points of Christian Religion those which did most stagger the faith of some and check their acceptation of it or adherence to it saith Marcellinus writing to St. Austin were these 3 The incarnation of our Lord The meanness of his Miracles which they thought the works of Apolloniâ—s equall'd and thirdly the prescriptions in the Text It seems they lookt upon these Duties as the mysteries of Practice that spoke as loud a contradiction to their active principles and inclinations as the other appear'd to doe so those of Speculation and Discourse a God made flesh and flesh and bloud made so lame and passive sweetned so being alike impossible to their belief as if no flesh could certainly be so except that of which God was made and the Word incarnate onely could fulfill these words here in my Text they lookt upon this as a much-more mighty work than any of his Miracles as if 't were easier to snatch one out of the arms of Fate from the embraces of the Grave than to receive an enemy into ones own As if Christ had done more when he pray'd for his Crucifiers then when he prayed Lazarus out of his grave for their Magicians they say vied Miracles with him but none of their Religions or Gods did ever aim at this Prescription ut quae sit propria bonitâ—s nostra saith Tertullian this being a sort of Piety peculiar to the Christians Nor did they onely think it unpracticable but unreasonable as carrying opposition to all Government to the prosperity and peace of every Polity for he that does require that I shall have no return of injuries but for a wrong makes me in debt a kindnesse not onely supersedes judiciary proceedings but does secure Rapine by Law and encourage it by Reward and truly if it were impossible for him that does affect a person to dislike his evil actions and to desire he may have condigne punishment such as by Gospel-measures may be satisfaction equal to his fault and warning to himself and others these men had reason but if a Father can at once love and correct his Child if when I am with indignation displeas'd at my offences against God and by severities revenge them on my self I do then love my self most passionately and if I can pray with all the vigour of my soul for that false Traytor-bosom-enemy my flesh while it lies goading me to sin with temptation perfecuting me to everlasting death then no reason of State or of my own Requires I should not doe all these acts of kindness to my Adversary In that thou hast an exact pattern for thy enmity to them that wrong thee and thou shalt hate thine enemy as thy self is a most perfect Gospel-Rule that being most consistent with and directive of this Duty love your enemies But yet there is so great a difference indeed betwixt this Act here and its object Enemy being constituted such by enmity that is aversion and hate that love and that seem strangely coupled things that can be put together onely for a contest just as heat and cold to weaken one another that both the love and enmity may be refracted into a lukewarmnesse Therefore I shall divide them handling Love first by its self viewing the import of that as it is sincere lest the enemy appearing with it make it shrink into a very slender Duty and having done that secondly see whether an others enmity and thirdly whether enmity with that appropriation here your enemies can take off from the Obligation of that Duty Love Now Love shews fairest to our purposes in those dresses which S. Paul present her in 1 Cor. 1. 13. and 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 4. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 5. it suffers long if not the dammage yet the malice of repeated injuries as knowing it is bound to forgive till 70 times 7 times and 't is not easily provok't not apt for sudden violent heats instantly all on fire quick as lightning Such heats are from another passion which though sometimes they do but flash and die yet oft they have their Thunder-bolt and most-what do forerun a storm whereas the heats of Charity are calm as sun-shine such as do not consume but cherish for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same verse Love is kind and gracious full of humanity This Vertue is a kind of universal friendship hath nothing of reserv'd morose or sour an humour that makes solitude in the midst of Society and makes men onely their own company their Rule and soope and such a person Aristotle sayes must be either a God who can enjoy nothing beside himself is his own blessed and immortal entertainment or a wild beast whose nature is unsociable because 't is savage whereas Love is a pious complaisance to all 't is condescention too for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 5. v. does not think any thing unseemly how contemptible soever nor unworthy of him so he may do his Neighbour good he will debase himself to meanest Offices to work a real kindnesse Thus Christ because he lov'd his own knowing the Father had given all things into his hand he took a Towel and girâ—ed himself and put water in a Baâ—â—n and washt his Disciples feet making the lowest act of servitude be his Expression and our Example that is but slender Charity that will keep State Heaven could not unite Majesty and Love but to exercise this God did descend from Glory into the extremity of Meannesse 'T is Bowels that expresse compassion and tender kindnesse Now those we know of all parts of the Body are employed in the most low ignoble Offices and to such Love condescends where 't is true Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it covers all the naked with a garment and the deformed the leproâ—s Sinner with a covering too for Charity covers a multitude of sins hides his own
pardon before God making evidence of our performance and they cry for we forgive and so call for pardon And to encourage this procedure our Saviour before he did commend his own spirit into the hand of his Father he commended his Executioners to the mercies of his Father Our Martyr did not so indeed but first pray'd for himself Lord Jesus receive my spirit Acts 7. 59. but though Heaven opening he saw that Jesus standing at the right hand of God as ready to receive it yet his spirit would not leave his body so it made him live yet to endure more stoneing from his persecutors for whom he had not pray'd yet but when he once fell on his knees not beaten down by their storm but his Charity and pray'd Lord lay not this sin to their charge when he had said so he fell asleep v. 60. his spirit taken hence as it were â—sculo pacis though by the most violent death and he lyes down in a perpetual rest and peace that thus lyes down in love These are requests to breath out a soul into Heaven in and Heaven it self did open to receive that soul that came so wafted And now we are at the top of Christ's Mount the highest and the steepest point of Christianity which vies with that to which our Martyrs Spirit did ascend for it makes perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect it sets our heads within in those higher and untroubled Regions wherein there are no Meteor-fires the flame of Passion cannot wing it thither for he that is above the power of injury discontent cannot look up to him it is with him as in the upper Orbs where there is only harmony and shine all is Peace and Love the state of Heaven it self Now as it does happen to them that look down from great heights every Object below is dwarf'd and if the distance of the Prospect be as great as that from Heaven to Earth they tell us this whole Globe would be but like a spot all being swallowed in it self so if from this great height of duty we should look down upon the world of Christianity would it noâ— almost wholly disappear and vanish some thing like a dark spot of it you may perchance behold stain'd and discolour'd with the Blood of Christians which their constant quarrels shed some it may be dye that Blood in colours of Religion their animosity is Christned zeal they kill only for Sacrifice thus they interpret and fulfill Christs precepts this they call holy love as if Christ when he bid his Disciples take no Slaves with them meant they should carry Swords as if the love he had commanded we should have for them that are in errour if our enemies be so indeed were but to murder them forsooth out of their errours Next for the kindnesses that Christians do to those that hate them or have disoblig'd them they are God knowes so little that no perspective can shew them from this height we are upon and yet 't is not for want of light we cannot see them 't is very rate men do those things in the dark for if they do not blazon them themselves the enemy whom they oblige must do it The distance also is too great to hear the prayers that are made for those that treat men with despiteful usage perhaps it is because they are put up in secret but then what means the yelling of those curses That ill language that is banded to and fro While none will be behind in the returns of these how far soever we are off like Thunder these are heard and thence you may behold them also tearing Christs wounds wider to mouth their swelling passion we may see their anger redden with his Blood and themselves spitting out that Blood by imprecations at the face of him that did provoke them we may see them raking Hell to word these prayers sending themselves thither in wishes that they may express them with more horrour The Hatreds and Revenges which men act on them that have offended them hates that seldom ever dye till themselves do which the Frost of the Grave onely cools yea many times they are rak'd up and keep their heat in the ashes live in the grave and are as long liv'd as the families which for the most part is more careful and renacious of them then of their Inheritance The executions of these are often writ in characters legible at utmost distance in this Mount of the Lord they may be seen but where now are the Christians of my Text and of this day There 's no appearance of them in the face of the whole Globe of our Profession nay worse it is scarce possible they should appear the duties of loving enemies of returning affroâ—ts with kindnesses these are banisht thence other virtues are practic'd down but these are scorn'd and quarrel'd down 'T is become a base thing and not to be endur'd to be a Christian in these instances See pride and passions swoln up to an height which Christ's Mount cannot reach and which he must not level by his precepts for since he was not pleas'd to consider how inconsistent in this last age of the World his rules would be with those of honour and in making his Laws â—ook no care of the reputation of a Gentleman 't is fit his Laws should give way to the constitutions of some Hectors and he must â—ear the violation of them and all this must be reasonable too Good God! what prodigy of age is this when Christ the Loâ—d cannot be competent to judge either of right of honour â— of reason When to be like God and to be perfect as our Father â— Heaven is perfect is to be most sordid and unworthy of a Gentlâ—â—an and in the name of God these men that are too great for vâ—â—ue that brave out Religion and will needs give rules to God â—hat rank do they intend to stand in at Gods Judgment seat on â—e last day Lord God! grant us to stand among the meek on that â—â—nd with the Sheep and those that are too poor in spirit to defy their â—nemies and thy commands for however the meek maketh himseâ—â— a prey and is so far from enjoying the promise of inheriting the â—â—th that the virtue is scarce allow'd to sojourn in the earth as â—it had breath'd it's last in this our Martyrs prayer took it's flight with his spirit and those stones that slew him were the Monâ—â—ent of loving enemies of praying for those that persecure an murder and such Charity were not to be found among us any more yet sure I am these charitable persons shall enjoy the friendship and the glories of That Lover that did Bless Do goodâ—â— Pray and Dye for Enemies and these meek men shall reign with the Laâ—b who was slain and is worthy to receive power and riches and wiâ—dom and strength and honour and glory and blessing all which be ascribed to him and to the Father