Exod. 32.24 or by colouring them with faire pretenses and distinctions as the Jewes Jer. 22.14 or as Saul 1 Sam. 15.20 21. Or by translating them from our selves and laying the blame upon others as Adam Gen. the 3. Or by defending them or by extenuating them or lastly by denying them as the Harlot Prov. 20.30 Let us not say as those in Saint Bernard's dayes Non feci si feci non malè feci si malè feci non multum malè si multum malè non malâ intentione si malâ intentione tamen alienâ persuasione I did it not if I did it I did it not ill in doing it If I did ill in doing it not very ill If very ill not with an ill intent If with an ill intent it was by another's perswasion But let us with David ingenuously acknowledge our transgressions and let our sinns be ever before us For there is no remission without confession but upon our confession God will forgive Deus tegat vulnera noli tu saith Saint Austine in Psal 31. Si tu tegere volueris embescens medicus non curabit Let God hide thy wounds doe not thou if thou wilt needs hide them the Chirurgeon as one ashamed at thy folly will not cure thee God will not poure in the balme of his mercy till we let out our corruption by confession God with Elisha demands vessels empty with confession before he will come in If we set our sinnes in order before our faces God will cast them behind his back but if we cast them behind our backs God will set them before his face If we remember them God will forget them If we forget them God will remember them Solvit criminum nexus verecunda confessio peccatorum saith Saint Ambrose lib. 2. de penit the knot of our sinnes is loosed by an humble confession of them Ipsa agnitio culpae est impetratio veniae saith Saint Bern. cap. 11. Med. the acknowledgment of the fault doth impetrate pardon If we confesse our sinnes saith Saint John 1 Joh. 1.9 God is faithfull and just to forgive us our sinnes and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse It was a very easie physick which the Man of God prescribed unto Naaman 2 Kings 9.10 viz to go and wash seven times in the River Jordan and to be cleansed from his leprosie And surely my Beloved we may stand and wonder at this if our leprosie were not as ill nay worse by how much the soule is better than the body yet we have the same physick prescribed onely confesse and be cleane Yea saith David Psal 32.5 I said I will confesse my sinne and thou forgavest the punishment of my sinne Note that this speech of the Prophet implies two things First the difficulty of the act of confession it must not be done hand over head but upon due deliberation and serious consideration I said I will Secondly God's readinesse to forgive I did but say that I would confesse and thou forgavest Nondum pronunciat sed solùm promittit Deus dimittit c. saith Cassiodore upon the place As yet he utters not his confession but onely promiseth to doe it and God accepts As yet the word is not in his mouth that man may heare his confession but God heareth and receiveth him into favour Oh therefore deare Brethren let us ascend up into the Tribunall of our mind even against our selves and place our selves guilty before our selves that God may place us before him For In many things we offend all But is our condition thus transgressive and therefore deplorable Vbi tùm Patientia nostra Where is then our Patience When Samuel told Eli from the mouth of God that the wickednesse of his house should not be purged with sacrifice or burnt-offering for ever he answered both meekly and patiently It is the Lord let him doe what seemeth to him good 1 Sam. 3.18 When David's Sonne even rebellious Absalom conspired to take his Fathers Crowne from his head and his head from his shoulders David fled from Jerusalem with this patheticall and patient resolution 2 Sam. 15.25 26. If I shall finde favour in the eies of the Lord he will bring me againe and shew me both it and the Tabernacle thereof But if he say thus I have no delight in thee Behold here am I let him doe to me as seemeth good in his eies When Shimei the Sonne of Gera came out and cursed saying Come forth come forth thou man of blood and man of Belial The Lord hath brought upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul c. 2 Sam. 16.7 8. What said David to Abishai who would have cut off this Miscreants head ver 11. Behold my Sonne which came of mine owne bowels seeketh my life then how much more may this Sonne of Jemini Suffer him to curse for the Lord hath bidden him It may be the Lord will looke on my tears and doe me good for his cursing this day And marvell not to heare him thus speaking when you throughly weigh that ingenuous acknowledgement of his in Psalme the 119.75 saying I know thy judgements are right and thou hast afflicted me justly Job upon the consideration of this in the depth of his misery would not mount up so high as to plead with his Maker and contend with his punishments Inflictour but laid his hand upon his mouth and would not open it unlesse to say Though thou killest me yet will I trust in thee And I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes Our stripes are not according to our sins for if God should beat us with as many rods as we have grieved him with sinnes he should adde yet ten times more to our greatest afflictions We goe astray like sheep shall we barke or bleate when God sends forth his dogge affliction to bring us home againe Will the dutifull Child be outragious against his loving Father for a slight correction when as for his grosse offences he deserves an heavy punishment Will the skilfull Mariner be offended at a boysterous wind which notwithstanding to him is a favourable gale to bring him to his wished Port God yea our gracious God dealeth with his Children as Joseph with his Brother Benjamin Joseph put his Cup into Benjamin's sacke that he might returne againe to him so God causeth his Benjamins his Children to drinke of the cup of tribulation that when they have offended by riding full speed after their owne vaine imaginations they may make a gentle retreat through patience into the communicative lines of Gods free acceptance We are empty of goodnesse no marvell then if God dealeth with us as the Gardiner with the Buckets of his Well who brings them downe that he may fill them God casts us downe by affliction that he may raise us up full of the grace of patience In the time of prosperity the regenerate do hold forth the white Rose of innocency but in the time of adversity the red Rose of submissive
as a Garden full of sweet flowers intermixt with many and diverse stinking weeds It is as a flourishing Vine laden with sowre grapes which by God's assistance I shall presse that with the juyce of them your appetites may be more and more sharpened to eate and digest the true bread of life Begin we therefore with the first generall part of my Text which is the Delictum or Offence The vulgar Latine translates the originall word Offendimus we offend or stumble Sinne indeed is offendiculum a stumbling stone or block of offence and it lieth in our way which way soever we turne our selves so that if we stumble not upon it but misse it it was the grace of God that upheld us and gave us warning of it that we might have the more free progresse in our journey to the heavenly Canaan Sin offendeth God our selves and our Neighbours First it offendeth God who is Holinesse it selfe and therefore cannot but abominate it in his Creatures It caused him to repent that he had made Man and to be sory at his very heart Gen. 6.6 Yea sinne is so offensive to him that nothing but the merits and intercession of his beloved Sonne and our alone Saviour Jesus Christ can appease his wrath and turne away his displeasure towards us Secondly it offendeth our selves and that First in respect of the new man or regenerate part If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out Mat. 5.29 where by the eye hand and foot our Saviour meaneth the lusts of the flesh and the concupiscences of the old man which doe often molest and offend the new man in its running in the path of God's commandements Secondly in respect of the Conscience every sinne is a sicknesse and a soare It is flagellum animae yea mors animae as Saint Bernard calls it the scourge of the soule and death of the soule When the conscience is throughly awakened for sinne it casteth the soule into many pangs and throws and leaves it void of all comfort till Christ Jesus brings it into his wine-cellar of consolation and spreads over it the banner of his love If he doth not it proves not onely an Accuser and a Judge but an Executioner also Thirdly it offendeth our Neighbours it made the holy Prophet David complain bitterly in his abode with incorrigible implacable and prophane Persons Psal 120. Woe is me that I am constrained to dwell with Meseck and to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar My soule hath long dwelt with those that are Enemies unto peace The Sodomits unlawfull deeds vexed Lot's righteous soule from day to day 1 Pet. 2.7 8. And these five severall waies especially doe we offend our Neighbours 1. By evill example 2. By evill counsell 3. By base detraction 4. By false doctrine 5. By the abuse of Christian liberty Let therefore our light so shine before men that they seeing our good works may glorifie our Father which is in Heaven Mat. 5.16 Let us with Saint Paul therein exercise our selves to have alwaies a conscience void of offence toward God and toward Men Act. 24.16 Let us give no offence neither to the Jewes nor to the Grecians nor to the Church of God 1 Cor. 10.32 In a word Let us not doe any thimg without Faith and Charity Whosoever walketh according to this rule Peace shall be upon him and upon the Israel of God But we doe not onely give and take offence our selves stumble our selves and make others stumble but we also fall and so our best Translation renders it In multis labimur omnes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we fall many waies This Fall is not corporall but morall yet by a Corporall we may understand a Morall fall for as he that falleth in regard of the sight of his body commeth lower and withall ordinarily taketh a bruise even so is it in a morall fall Our nature by it becomes not onely more base and vile but more feeble also But this phrase importeth a difference of Sinners some draw iniquity with the cords of vanity others account it vanity and doe feele vexation of spirit to be drawne into iniquity with cords Some doe take pleasure in sinning others doe esteem it a sinne to take pleasure therein some doe sinne through malice some through frailty some comit sinne some fall They sinne through malice in whom the principles of conscience are corrupt who wittingly and willingly commit sinne with greedinesse neither before the fact feeling any reluctancy nor after the fact conceiving any sorrow These account darknesse light and light darknesse evill good and good evill as the Prophet speaketh Isai 5.20 It is improper to say that these doe fall into sinne for will any one of set purpose fall to hurt himselfe To be overtaken in a fault which phrase Saint Paul useth to the Galatians Gal. 6.1 is nothing else but this falling in my Text. The phrase reacheth onely those who sinne dum aut latet veritas aut compellit infirmitas as venerable Bede speaketh either when they are sophistically circumvented or unawares transported and so take a fall Let him therefore that thinks he stands to himselfe take heed lest he fall 1 Cor. 10.12 For it is not said we have fallen or shall fall though true enough but we doe noting unto us the assiduity or daily continuance of our falling which is the first Particular of the first Generall and comes now in order to be handled We doe continually sinne even from the morning of our youth to the evening of our old age yea from our very cradles even unto our graves Our life is a dying and our dying is our life Our breathing under Heaven is a breathing against Heaven and we live not a day without sinne A just man saith Salomon Prov. 26.16 falleth seven times yea in a day every day This is the common addition frequent in the antient Fathers though not found in the Originall But God himself saith that the imagination of mans heart is evill from his youth Gen. 8.21 And in Gen. 6.5 he saith The imaginations of the thoughts of his heart are onely evill continually The Hebrew renders it every day Should not this teach us all to be ready to forgive the frequent continuall and daily fallings and offences of our Brethren Peter said unto our Saviour How often shall my Brother sinne against me and I shall forgive him unto seven times Jesus said unto him I say not to thee Vnto seven times but unto seventy times seven times Saint Austine makes this question upon these words Why saith he doth our Saviour say Seventy times seven times and not an hundreth times eight times The answer saith he is ready From Adam to Christ were seventy Generations therefore as Christ forgave all the transgressions of whole mankind parted and diffused into so many Generations so also we should remit as many offences as in the terme and compasse of our life are committed against us Againe what doth this teach us
to act towards our selves Surely every day to examine our owne hearts in our chambers and to be still To keep by us an Ephemerides of our thoughts words and deeds To practice Pythagoras his golden verse and advise Before saith he thou sufferest sleep to possesse thy tender eyes aske thy soule thrice over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whither have I gone What have I done What opportunity have I lost Or to imitate Sentius who when the day was past and the night come wherein he should take his rest would aske his mind What evill hast thou healed this day What vice hast thou stood against In what part art thou bettered And then finding our fallings and offences let us be instant in Prayer and Repentance We doe continually offend our gracious God making his displeasure to arise let us therefore continually use the meanes which conduce to a Pacification and that is Prayer He that prayeth most frequently is the best Christian and hath the most interest in Heaven He lives most comfortably and dies most cheerfully And being our whole life is a time of sinning let us make our whole life a time of repenting Redeat homo c. 7. saith S. Austine Let a man returne by daily lamentations to that from whence he is fallen by vaine delectations Let not the Sunne set in Gods anger to night us Let us not live a day longer before we begin to live indeed Let us not climbe up into our beds before we have climbed up into God's favour Let not the eyes of our bodies be shut with sleep before the eyes of our soules be opened by repentance It would be doubtlesse a great deale of ease to our troubled spirits if this our continuall offending were confined to some one pettie sinne whereunto we are unwillingly carried by our owne naturall concupiscence provoking by the Devils subtilty perswading and by the world's vanity alluring But behold our wretched condition by reason of sinnes multiplicity which brings me to the second Particular of the first Generall viz We offend in multis in many things Mille modis offendimus we doe offend a thousand waies we run through more sinnes every day than there be signes in the Zodiacke Our graces are in a Shekel but our sins in an Ephah Our graces are diminutives but our sinnes are augmentatives Sinne like heresie is of an encroaching nature as one heresie proveth another so doth our sinne usher in another the lesser alwaies making roome for the greater Let us not therefore onely weigh our sinnes but also number them If they seem small we cannot count them for as the Prophet David speaketh Psal 19.12 Who can understand his Errors or Who can tell how often he offendeth A negative interrogation is as much as an affirmative proposition and an affirmative interrogation as much as a negative proposition Who can tell how oft he offendeth that is to say not any one can tell viz if we consider the acts of sinne but we may and must number the kinds of sinne and ferret them out as so many Achans by the poll Consider my Brethren that we are guilty of sinnes of Omission and Commission of Ignorance and Knowledge of Weaknesse and Wilfulnesse c. We sinne within us and without us Within us by the Faculties of our soules by the words of our mouth and by the works of our hands 1. We sinne in our Understanding Will Affections and Passions 2. In our Silence and in our Speeches whether Ordinary or Extraordinary whether Civill or Sacred 3. In our Actions whether Passive or Active and in Active whether Naturall or Morall and in Naturall whether they be such as tend to our Being or Wel-being and in Morall whether Politicall or Ecclesiasticall We sinne againe by the outward Members of our bodies as Feet Hands Eyes and Eares when we use them as members of unrighteousnesse What shall I say Doe we not in many things offend all Surely in our very best Actions we doe scatter many imperfections and we faile either in the end matter manner or measure of our obedience Should the Lord call us unto a strict triall how ignorant would our knowledge be found How fraile our faith How wavering our hope How proud our humility How froward our patience How cruell our mercies How lukewarme our prayers How superficiall our repentance Alas alas Many are the infirmities of our soules many the deformities of our lives they are more in number than the haires of our heads or the sands on the sea-shore so that we may well say with David Psal 130.3 If thou ô Lord be extreame to marke what is done amisse who can be able to stand Surely that who saith Saint Chrysostome is no body at all Let us therefore with Martha though in another case be much troubled for these many things wherein we offend all and with Mary chuse the better part that shall never be taken from us Luke 10.41 42. Yea let us who offend in many things beware that we give not our selves the reins to offend in every thing For the Saints of God though they doe offend in multis yet not in omnibus though in many things yet not in all things Wherefore all things worke together for the best to them but non ex ipsorum meritis sed ex merâ ipsius misericordiâ not as flowing from the stinking puddle of their owne base merit but as issuing out of the cleer fountaine of God's free and meer mercy For In many things we offend all Which brings me to the second Generall part wherein I observed the Delinquents or Offenders described two waies First by a plurall personallity and gracious affinity both in respect of God and Themselves Nos We. Secondly by their generallity not partially but universally expressed Omnes All. 1. Begin we with the first Nos offendimus we offend Are the KING-Deposing KING-Killing ambitious Jesuited Independents the rigid usurping Presbyterians the love-sick Familists the milk-white Brownists the lawlesse Antinomians the Saint-reigning Millenaries free-willed Arminians new-fangled and schismatically intangled Reformers I should have said Deformers meritorious and supererrogatory Romanists with many more the like Offenders comprehended Are they I say comprehended in this We in the Text Surely we find them not in the sacred Pages of holy Writ much lesse in this word We But find them we shall in their own fanatick Pamphlets blurd with self-justifying yet most damnable errours making the holy Scripture a Nose of Wax or a Ship-man's hose any thing or nothing to serve their owne turnes like Saint Austine's Heretiques of whom he thus speaketh Scripturas ad suum sensum non suum sensum ad Scripturas adducunt They do not reduce their senses unto the Scripture when they read but doe wickedly captivate the Scriptures unto their owne senses and meanings Let us therefore looke upon the plurall personallity it containing not a gracelesse but a gratious company such as are magnum genus as Chrysologus terms them of a right
noble stock Yea they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the blood-Royall in a spirituall sense For God is their Father Christ their elder Brother the Holy Ghost their Comforter the Church their Mother Heaven their inheritance and Regeneration their Evidence yet are they Offenders in many things and this they doe in humility and sincerity of heart acknowledge In many things saith Saint James We doe offend I an Apostle and you Professors even we who are called justified sanctified and redeemed by the pretious blood of Jesus Christ That the deare Children of God both Ministers and People have been are and shall be Offenders in many things even to the world's end not onely my Text but other places of holy Scripture doe sufficiently declare Was not Noah a man beloved of the Lord and a Preacher of righteousnesse yet was he not inebriated with his owne wine Vino captus qui diluvium fugerat saith Saint Ambrose He was freed from a deluge of water and drowned in a deluge of wine Gen. 9.21 Had not Lot his Epithete of Just Just Lot 1 Pet. 2.7 8. And was not he vexed at the uncleanly conversation of the wicked And did not he see the Sodomites burnt with fire for their lusts yet did not he doe wickedly and being delivered burne with incest Joseph sinned in swearing By the life of Phardoh Gen 42.15 Aaron sinned in making the golden Calfe for the Israelites to worship Exod. 32.21 And he and Miriam sinned in murmuring against Moses Numb 12.7 8. The Prophet Jonah transgressed in flying from Joppe to Tharsus and in justifying his unjust anger for the Gourd Moses though the Servant of the Lord and the meekest Man upon the earth offended in unbelief and anger Numb 20.12 16.15 The Prophet David was a man according to God's owne heart 1 Sam. 13.14 and in the state of regeneration yet his heart was uncleane Psal 51.10 and he fell into the sinne of adultery hypocrisie murther and ambition 2 Sam. 11. 24. Salomon the wisest Man upon the earth committed folly Job the patientest yet not altogether to be excused of impatience nor Elias of passion nor the Sonnes of Zebedee of ambition nor Peter and Barnabas of dissimulation Gal. 2. No nor the blessed Virgin her self of vain-glory Saint Peter was couragious yet pusilanimous Confident yet Diffident so faithfull that Christ built his Church upon his Faith yet denied and that with execration his Lord and gracious Redeemer nay all Christ's Disciples though at one time they forsook all to follow him yet at another time they all forsooke him and fled But why should I thus discover my Father's nakednesse rather indeed would I goe backward and cover the same with the mantle of my pity Yet let us not be too lavish in pitying them For God hath caused their infirmities to be recorded First to let us understand that both they and we have one and the same God who was alwaies offended with sinne were the Persons that wrought it never so great or glorious Secondly to let us know that both they and we have one and the same Physician to cure us of all our maladies viz the immaculate Lamb Christ Jesus who saveth his People from their sinnes Mat. 1.21 Thirdly and lastly to teach us circumspection and cautelousnesse to flie from sinne as from a Scrpent and to say to it as Pharach said to Moses See that thou see my face no more or as Abraham to Lot If thou go on the right hand I will goe on the left or if thou go on the left hand I will go on the right For if the deare Children of God who have gone before us both in time and in the graces of the Spirit beare such reproach by reason their corruptions are registred what shall we sustaine who live in a brighter Age and upon whom the ends of the world are come But alas so base is our nature that sinne will be a Jebusite it will be a constant guest to our house though it sitteth not in the chiefest room it is bred in the bone and it will not out of the flesh untill Joseph's bones be carried out of Aegypt i. e. untill we be out of this world As Israel could not passe to Canaan but through the Desart of Zin so we must not look to passe to our spirituall Canaan but through the wildernesse of sinne Sinnes are like Rebels that not onely revolt but also keep castle against their Soveraigne from whence they are not easily removed Aristotle tells us of three things that doe acquire wisdome viz Nature Learning and Exercise Sure I am not these but God's free grace can make us avoid sinne Philosophers are of opinion that if the inferiour spheres were not governed and stayed by the highest the swiftnesse of their motion would quickly fire the world So I may very well hold that if the affections of God's dearest Children were not moderated by the guidance of his holy Spirit they would run so farre into sinne as to precipitate their soules into the black gulfe of eternall destruction for our reason is no better than treason and our affections are no better than infections We cannot truely say of our selves as Isidore too boldly of himselfe For fourty yeares space saith he I found not in my selfe any sinne no not so much as in thought anger or any inordinate desire or as Alexander de Hales of Bonaventure His life was so upright saith he that Adam seemed not to have sinned in him No no my Brethren look upon a Christian at the best whilst he liveth in this world and you may well compare him unto the Arke of the Covanant which was but a cubit and half high an imperfect measure by this you may know his stature adde what you will it will be but a cubit and an half Perfectly imperfect was he when he began imperfectly perfect when he ends in all his actions Therefore as we doe offend in many things let us in humility and sincerity of heart acknowledge and confesse the same as Saint James in my Text In many things we doe offend This hath been the constant practise of God's beloved ones What is man saith Eliphaz that he should be cleane and he that is borne of woman that he should be just Behold God found no stedfastnesse in his Saints yea the heavens are not cleane in his sight Job 15.14 15. Therefore Job acknowledgeth his failings Job 7.20 and when he came to plead with God for his uprightnesse did abhorre himselfe and repented in dust and ashes Job 42.6 Nehemiah maketh a large confession of his own and the Peoples sinnes Nehem. 9.5 6 7. So Ezra and Daniel in the behalf of the People confesse that justice belongeth to God but shame and confusion to themselves Ezra 9.5 6 7. Dan. 9.6 7. Salomon hath his Booke of Acknowledgment viz Ecclesiastes David confesseth his folly in numbering the People saying I have sinned exceedingly in that I have done therefore now