better table and he that is to kill the criminall to morrow morning gives him a better supper over night By this he intended to represent his meal to be very short for as dying persons have but little stomach to feast high so they that mean to cut the throat will think it a vain expence to please it with delicacies which after the first alteration must be poured upon the ground and looked upon as the worst part of the accursed thing And there is also the same proportion of unreasonablenesse that because men shall die to morrow and by the sentence and unalterable decree of God they are now descending to their graves that therefore they should first destroy their reason and then force dull time to run faster that they may dye sottish as beasts and speedily as a slie But they thought there was no life after this or if there were it was without pleasure and every soul thrust into a hole and a dorter of a spans length allowed for his rest and for his walk and in the shades below no numbring of healths by the numerall letters of Philenium's name no fat Mullets no Oysters of Luerinus no Lesbian or Chian Wines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore now enjoy the delicacies of Nature and feel the descending wines distilled through the limbecks of thy tongue and larynx and suck the delicious juice of fishes the marrow of the laborious Oxe and the tender lard of Apulian Swine and the condited bellies of the scarus but lose no time for the Sun drives hard and the shadow is long and the dayes of mourning are at hand but the number of the dayes of darknesse and the grave cannot be told Thus they thought they discoursed wisely and their wisdome was turned into folly for all their arts of providence and witty securities of pleasure were nothing but unmanly prologues to death fear and folly sensuality and beastly pleasures But they are to be excused rather then we They placed themselves in the order of beasts and birds and esteemed their bodies nothing but receptacles of flesh and wine larders and pantries and their soul the fine instrument of pleasure and brisk perception of relishes and gusts reflexions and duplications of delight and therefore they trea ed themselves accordingly But then why we should do the same things who are led by other principles and a more severe institution and better notices of immortality who understand what shall happen to a soul hereafter and know that this time is but a passage to eternity this body but a servant to the soul this soul a minister to the Spirit and the whole man in order to God and to felicity this I say is more unreasonable then to eat aconite to preserve our health and to enter into the floud that we may die a dry death this is a perfect contradiction to the state of good things whither we are designed and to all the principles of a wise Philophy whereby we are instructed that we may become wise unto salvation That I may therefore do some assistances towards the curing the miseries of mankinde and reprove the follies and improper motions towards felicity I shall endevour to represent to you 1. That plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instruments of felicity 2. That intemperance is a certain enemy to it making life unpleasant and death troublesome and intolerable 3. I shall adde the rules and measures of temperance in eating and drinking that nature and grace may joyne to the constitution of mans felicity 1. Plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instrument of felicity It is necessary that a man have some violence done to himself before he can receive them for natures bounds are non esurire non sitire non algere to be quit from hunger and thirst and cold that is to have nothing upon us that puts us to pain against which she hath made provisions by the fleece of the sheep and the skins of beasts by the waters of the fountain and the hearbs of the field and of these no good man is destitute for that share that he can need to fill those appetites and necessities he cannot otherwise avoid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it is unimaginable that Nature should be a mother naturall and indulgent to the beasts of the forrest and the spawn of fishes to every plant and fungus to cats and owles to moles and bats making her store-houses alwaies to stand open to them and that for the Lord of all these even to the noblest of her productions she should have made no provisions and only produc'd in us appetites sharp as the stomach of Wolves troublesome as the Tigres hunger and then run away leaving art and chance violence and study to feed us and to cloath us This is so far from truth that we are certainly more provided for by nature then all the world besides for every thing can minister to us and we can passe into none of Natures cabinets but we can finde our table spread so that what David said to God Whither shall I go from thy presence If I go to heaven thou art there if I descend to the deep thou art there also if I take the wings of the morning and flie into the uttermost parts of the wildernesse even there thou wilt finde me out and thy right band shall uphold me we may say it concerning our table and our wardrobe If we go into the fields we finde them till'd by the mercies of heaven and water'd with showers from God to feed us and to cloath us if we go down into the deep there God hath multiplyed our stores and fill'd a magazine which no hunger can exhaust the aire drops down delicacies and the wildernesse can sustain us and all that is in nature that which feeds Lions and that which the Oxe eats that which the fishes live upon and that which is the provision for the birds all that can keep us alive and if we consider that of the beasts and birds for whom nature hath provided but one dish it may be flesh or fish or herbes or flies and these also we secure with guards from them and drive away birds and beasts from that provision which Nature made for them yet seldome can we finde that any of these perish with hunger much rather shall we finde that we are secured by the securities proper for the more noble creatures by that providence that disposes all things by that mercy that gives us all things which to other creatures are ministred singly by that labour that can procure what we need by that wisdome that can consider concerning future necessities by that power that can force it from inferiour creatures and by that temperance which can fit our meat to our necessities For if we go beyond what is needfull as we finde sometimes more then was promised and very often more then we need so we disorder the certainty of our
sua amare ubi turpia non solùm delectant sed etiam placent It is the worst of evils when men are so in love with sin that they are not only delighted with them but pleased also not only feel the relish with too quick a sense but also feel none of the objections nothing of the pungency the sting or the lessening circumstances However to these men I say this only that if by experience they feel sin pleasant it is as certain also by experience that most sins are in their own nature sharpnesses and diseases * and that very few do pretend to pleasure * That a man cannot feel any deliciousnesse in them but when he is helped by folly and inconsideration that is a wise man cannot though a boy or a fool can be pleased with them * That they are but reliques and images of pleasure left upon Natures stock and therefore much lesse then the pleasures of naturall vertues * That a man must run through much trouble before he brings them to act and enjoyment * That he must take them in despite of himself against reason and his conscience the tenderest parts of man and the most sensible of affliction * They are at the best so little that they are limited as one sense not spread upon all the faculties like the pleasures of vertue which make the bones fat by an intellectuall rectitude and the eyes spritely by a wise proposition and pain it self to become easie by hope and a present rest within * It is certain I say by a great experience that the pleasures of sin enter by cursings and a contradictory interest and become pleasant not by their own relish but by the viciousnesse of the palat by spite and peevishnesse by being forbidden and unlawfull * And that which is its sting is at some times the cause of all its sweetnesse it can have * They are gone sooner then a dream * They are crossed by one another and their Parent is their Tormentor * and when sinnes are tyed in a chain with that chain they dash one anothers brains out or make their lodging restlesse * It is never lik'd long * and promises much and performes little * it is great at distance and little at hand against the nature of all substantiall things * And after all this how little pleasure is left themselves have reason with scorn and indignation to resent So that if experience can be pretended against experience there is nothing to be said to it but the words which Phryne desired to be writ on the gates of Thebes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phryne the harlot built it up but Alexander digg'd it down the pleasure is supported by little things by the experience of fools and them that observed nothing and the relishes tasted by artificiall appetites by art and cost by violence and preternaturall desires by the advantage of deception and evill habits by expectation and delayes by dreams and inconsiderations these are the harlots hands that build the fairy eastle but the hands of reason and religion sober counsels and the voice of God experience of wise men and the sighings and intolerable accents of perishing or returning sinners dig it down and sow salt in the foundations that they may never spring up in the accounts of men that delight not in the portion of fools and forgetfulnesse Neque enim Deus ita viventibus quicquam promisit boni neque ipsa per se mens humana talium sibi conscia quicquam boni sperare audet To men that live in sinne God hath promised no good and the conscience it self dares not expect it SERMON XX. Part II. WE have already opened this dunghill cover'd with snow which was indeed on the outside white as the spots of leprosie but it was no better and if the very colours and instruments of deception if the fucus and ceruse be so spotted and sullyed what can we suppose to be under the wrinkled skin what in the corrupted liver and in the sinks of the body of sin That we are next to consider But if we open the body and see what a confusion of all its parts what a rebellion and tumult of the humors what a disorder of the members what a monstrosity or deformity is all over we shall be infinitely convinced that no man can choose a sin but upon the same ground on which he may choose a feaver or long for madnesse or the gout Sin in its naturall efficiency hath in it so many evils as must needs afright a man and scare the confidence of every one that can consider * When our blessed Saviour shall conduct his Church to the mountains of glory he shall present it to God without spot or wrinkle that is pure and vigorous intirely freed from the power and the infection of sin Upon occasion of which expression it hath been spoken that sin leaves in the soul a stain or spot permanent upon the spirit discomposing the order of its beauty and making it appear to God in sordibus in such filthinesse that he who is of pure eyes cannot behold But roncerning the nature or proper effects of this spot or stain they have not been agreed Some call it an obligation or a guilt of punishment so Scotus Some fancy it to be an elongation from God by a dissimilitude of conditions so Peter Lombard Alexander of Ales sayes it is a privation of the proper beauty and splendor of the soul with which God adorn'd it in the creation and superaddition of grace and upon this expression they most agree but seem not to understand what they mean by it and it signifies no more but as you describing sicknesse call it a want of health and folly a want of wisdome which is indeed to say what a thing is not but not to tell what it is But that I may not be hindred by this consideration we may observe that the spots and stains of sin are metaphoricall significations of the disorder and evill consequents of sin which it leaves partly upon the soul partly upon the state and condition of a man as meeknesse is called an ornament and faith a shield and salvation a helmet and sin it self a wrinkle corruption rottennesse a burden a wound death filthinesse so it is a◠defiling of a man that is as the body contracts nastinesse and dishonour by impure contacts and adherencies so does the soul receive such a change as must be taken away before it can enter in to the eternall regions and house of purity But it is not a distinct thing not an inherent quality which can be separated from other evill effects of sin which I shall now reckon by their more proper names and St. Paul comprises under the scornfull appellative of shame 1. The first naturall fruit of sin is ignorance Man was first tempted by the promise of knowledge he fell into darknesse by beleeving the Devill holding forth to him a new light It was
walked upon the pavements of heaven whose feet were clothed with stars whose eyes were brighter then the Sun whose voice is louder then thunder whose understanding is larger then that infinite space which we imagine in the uncircumscribed distance beyond the first orbe of heaven a person to whom felicity was as essential as life to God this was the onely person that was designed in the eternal decrees of the divine predestination to pay the price of a soul to ransom us from death lesse then this person could not do it for although a soul in its essence is finite yet there were many infinites which were incident and annexed to the condition of lost souls For all which because provision was to be made nothing lesse then an infinite excellence could satisfie for a soul who was lost to infinite and eternal ages who was to be afflicted with insupportable and indetermined that is next to infinite paines who was to bear the load of an infinite anger from the provocation of an eternal God and yet if it be possible that infinite can receive degrees this is but one half of the abysse and I think the lesser for that this person who was God eternal should be lessened in all his appearances to a span to the little dimensions of a man and that he should really become very contemptibly little although at the same time he was infinitely and unalterably great that is essential natural and necessary felicity should turn into an intolerable violent and immense calamity to his person that this great God should not be admitted to pay the price of our redemption unlesse he would suffer that horrid misery which that lost soul should suffer as it represents the glories of his goodnesse who used such rare and admirable instruments in actuating the designes of his mercy so it shewes our condition to have been very desperate and our losse invaluable A soul in Gods account is valued at the price of the blood and shame and tortures of the Son of God and yet we throw it a way for the exchange of sins that a man naturally is ashamed to own we lose it for the pleasure the sottish beastly pleasure of a night I need not say we lose our soul to save our lives for though that was our blessed Saviours instance of the great unreasonablenesse of men who by saving their lives lose them that is in the great account of Dooms-day though this I say be extreamly unreasonable yet there is something to be pretended in the bargain nothing to excuse him with God but something in the accounts of timerous men but to lose our souls with swearing that unprofitable dishonourable and unpleasant vice to lose our souls with disobedience or rebellion a vice that brings a curse and danger all the way in this life To lose our souls with drunkennesse a vice which is painfull and sickly in the very acting it which hastens our damnation by shortning our lives are instances fit to be put in the stories of fools and mad-men and all vice is a degree of the same unreasonablenesse the most splendid temptation being nothing but a prety well weaved fallacy a meer trick a sophisme and a cheating and abusing the understanding but that which I consider here is that it is an affront and contradiction to the wisdom of God that we should so slight and undervalue a soul in which our interest is so concerned a soul which he who made it and who delighted not to see it lost did account a fit purchase to be made by the exchange of his Son the eternal Son of God To which also I adde this additionall account that a soul is so greatly valued by God that we are not to venture the losse of it to save all the world For therefore whosoever should commit a sin to save kingdoms from perishing or if the case could be put that all the good men and good causes and good things in this world were to be destroyed by Tyranny and it were in our power by perjury to save all these that doing this sin would be so farre from hallowing the crime that it were to offer to God a sacrifice of what he most hates and to serve him with swines blood and the rescuing all these from a Tyrant or a hangman could not be pleasing to God upon those termes because a soul is lost by it which is in it self a greater losse and misery then all the evils in the world put together can out-ballance and a losse of that thing for which Christ gave his blood a price Persecutions and temporal death in holy men and in a just cause are but seeming evils and therefore not to be bought off with the losse of a soul which is a real but an intolerable calamity And if God for his own sake would not have all the world saved by sin that is by the hazarding of a soul we should do well for our own sakes not to lose a soul for trifles for things that make us here to be miserable and even here also to be ashamed 3. But it may be some natures or some understandings care not for all this therefore I proceed to the third and most material consideration as to us and I consider what it is to lose a soul which Hierocles thus explicates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An immortall substance can die not by ceasing to be but by losing all being well by becomming miserable And it is remarkable when our blessed Saviour gave us caution that we should not fear them that can kill the body onely but fear him he sayes not that can kill the soul But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him that is able to destroy the body and soul in hell which word signifieth not death but tortures For some have chosen death for sanctuary and fled to it to avoid intolerable shame to give a period to the sence of a sharp grief or to cure the earthquakes of fear and the damned perishing souls shall wish for death with a desire impatient as their calamity But this shall be denied them because death were a deliverance a mercy and a pleasure of which these miserable persons must despair of for ever I shall not need to represent to your considerations those expressions of Scripture which the Holy Ghost hath set down to represent to our capacities the greatnesse of this perishing choosing such circumstances of character as were then usuall in the world and which are dreadful to our understanding as any thing Hell fire is the common expression for the Eastern nations accounted burnings the greatest of their miserable punishments and burning malefactours was frequent brimstone and fire to Saint John Revel 14. 10. calls the state of punishment prepared for the Devil and all his servants he adding the circumstance of brimstone for by this time the Devil had taught the world more ingenious pains and himself was new escaped out of boiling oil and brimstone and such
bituminous matter and the Spirit of God knew right well the worst expression was not bad enough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so our blessed Saviour calls it the outer darknesse that is not onely an abjection from the beatifick regions where God and his Angels and his Saints dwell for ever but then there is a positive state of misery expressed by darknesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as two Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Jude call it The blacknesse of darknesse for ever In which although it is certain that God whose Justice there rules will inflict but just so much as our sins deserve and not superadde degrees of undeserved misery as he does to the Saints of glory for God gives to blessed souls in heaven more infinitely more then all their good works could possibly deserve and therefore their glory is infinitely bigger glory then the pains of hell are great pains yet because Gods Justice in hell rules alone without the allayes and sweeter abatements of mercy they shall have pure and unmingled misery no pleasant thought to refresh their wearinesse no comfort in an other accident to alleviate their pressures no waters to cool their flames but because when there is a great calamity upon a man every such man thinks himself the most miserable and though there are great degrees of pain in hell yet there are none perceived by him that thinks he suffers the greatest It follows that every man that loses his soul in this darknesse is miserable beyond all those expressions which the tortures of this world could furnish to the Writers of holy Scripture But I shall choose to represent this consideration in that expression of our blessed Saviour Mark the 9. the 44. verse which himself took out of the Prophet Esay the 66. verse the 24. Where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of by Daniel the Prophet for although this expression was a prediction of that horrid calamity and abscision of the Jewish Nation when God poured out a full vial of his wrath upon the crucifiers of his Son and that this which was the greatest calamity which ever did or ever shall happen to a Nation Christ with great reason took to describe the calamity of accursed souls as being the greatest instance to signifie the greatest torment yet we must observe that the difference of each state makes the same words in the several cases to be of infinite distinction The worm stuck close to the Jewish Nation and the fire of Gods wrath flamed out till they were consumed with a great and unheard of destruction till many millions did die accursedly and the small remnant became vagabonds and were reserved like broken pieces after a storm to shew the greatnesse of the storm and misery of the shipwrack but then this being translated to signifie the state of accursed souls whose dying is a continual perishing who cannot cease to be it must mean an eternity of duration in proper and naturall significations And that we may understand it fully observe the places In the 34. Esa. 8. The Prophet prophecies of the great destruction of Jerusalem for all her great iniquities It is the day of the Lords vengeance and the yeer of recompences for the controversie of Sion and the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch and the dust thereof into brimstone and the land thereof shall become burning pitch It shall not be quenched night nor day the smoak thereof shall go up for ever from generation to generation It shall lie wast none shall passe thorow it for ever and ever This is the final destruction of the Nation but this destruction shall have an end because the Nation shall end and the anger also shall end in its own period even then when God shall call the Jews into the common inheritance with the Gentiles and all the sons of God And this also was the period of their worme as it is of their fire The fire of the Divine vengeance upon the Nation which was not to be extinguished till they were destroyed as we see it come to passe And thus also in Saint Jude the Angels who kept not their first state are said to be reserved by God in everlasting chains under darknesse which word everlasting signifies not absolutely to eternity but to the utmost end of that period for so it follows unto the judgement of the great day that everlasting lasts no longer and in verse the seventh the word eternal is just so used The men of Sodom and Gomorrha are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire that is of a fire which burned till they were quite destroyed and the cities and the countrey with an irreparable ruine never to be rebuilt and reinhabited as long as this world continues The effect of which observations is this That these words for ever everlasting eternal the never-dying worme the fire unquenchable being words borrowed by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles from the stile of the old Testament must have a signification just proportionable to the state in which they signifie so that as this worme when it signifies a temporal infliction meanes a worme that never ceases giving torment till the body is consumed So when it is translated to an immortall state it must signifie as much in that proportion that eternal that everlasting hath no end at all because the soul cannot be killed in the natural sense but is made miserable and perishing for ever that is the worme shall not die so long as the soul shall be unconsumed the fire shall not be quenched till the period of an immortall nature comes and that this shall be absolutely for ever without any restriction appears unanswerably in this because the same for ever that is for the blessed souls the same for ever is for the accursed souls but the blessed souls that die in the Lord henceforth shall die no more death hath no power over them for death is destroyed it is swallowed up in victory saith Saint Paul and there shall be no more death saith Saint John Revel 21. 4. So that because for ever hath no end till the thing or the duration it self have end in the same sense in which the Saints and Angels give glory to God for ever in the same sense the lost souls shall suffer the evils of their sad inheritance and since after this death of nature which is a separation of soul and body there remains no more death but this second death this eternal perishing of miserable accursed souls whose duration must be eternall It follows that the worm of conscience and the unquenchable fire of hell have no period at all but shall last as long as God lasts or the measures of a proper eternity that they who provoke God to wrath by their base unreasonable and sottish practises may know what their portion shall be in the everlasting habitations and yet suppose that Origens
Spirits and then they reach the taper to another and as the hours of yesterday can never return again so neither can the man whose hours they were and who lived them over once he shall never come to live them again and live them better When Lazarus and the widows son of Naim and Tabitha and the Saints that appeared in Jerusalem at the resurrection of our blessed Lord arose they came into this world some as strangers onely to make a visit and all of them to manifest a glory but none came upon the stock of a new life or entred upon the stage as at first or to perform the course of a new nature and therefore it is observable that we never read of any wicked person that was raised from the dead Dives would fain have returned to his brothers house but neither he nor any from him could be sent but all the rest in the New Testament one onely excepted were expressed to have been holy persons or else by their age were declared innocent Lazarus was beloved of Christ those souls that appeared at the resurrection were the souls of Saints Tabitha raised by Saint Peter was a charitable and a holy Christian and the maiden of twelve years old raised by our blessed Saviour had not entred into the regions of choice and sinfulnesse and the onely exception of the widows son is indeed none at all for in it the Scripture is wholly silent and therefore it is very probable that the same processe was used God in all other instances having chosen to exemplifie his miracles of nature to purposes of the Spirit and in spirituall capacities So that although the Lord of nature did break the bands of nature in some instances to manifest his glory to succeeding great and never failing purposes yet besides that this shall be no more it was also instanced in such persons who were holy and innocent and within the verge and comprehensions of the eternall mercy We never read that a wicked person felt such a miracle or was raised from the grave to try the second time for a Crown but where he fell there he lay down dead and saw the light no more This consideration I intend to you as a severe Monitor and an advice of carefulnesse that you order your affairs so that you may be partakers of the first resurrection that is from sin to grace from the death of vitious habits to the vigour life and efficacy of an habituall righteousnesse For as it hapned to those persons in the New Testament now mentioned to them I say in the literall sense Blessed are they that have part in the first resurrection upon them the second death shall have no power meaning that they who by the power of Christ and his holy Spirit were raised to life again were holy and blessed souls and such who were written in the book of God and that this grace happened to no wicked and vitious person so it is most true in the spirituall and intended sense You onely that serve God in a holy life you who are not dead in trespasses and sins you who serve God with an early diligence and an unwearied industry and a holy religion you and you onely shall come to life eternall you onely shall be called from death to life the rest of mankind shall never live again but passe from death to death from one death to another to a worse from the death of the body to the eternall death of body and soul and therefore in the Apostles Creed there is no mention made of the resurrection of wicked persons but of the resurrection of the body to everlasting life The wicked indeed shall be haled forth from their graves from their everlasting prisons where in chains of darknesse they are kept unto the judgement of the great day But this therefore cannot be called in sensu favoris a resurrection but the solennities of the eternall death It is nothing but a new capacity of dying again such a dying as cannot signifie rest but where death means nothing but an intolerable and never ceasing calamity and therefore these words of my Text are otherwise to be understood of the wicked otherwise of the godly The wicked are spilt like water and shall never be gathered up again no not in the gatherings of eternity They shall be put into vessels of wrath and set upon the flames of hell but that is not a gathering but a scattering from the face and presence of God But the godly also come under the sense of these words They descend into their graves and shall no more be reckoned among the living they have no concernment in all that is done under the Sun Agamemnon hath no more to do with the Turks armies invading and possessing that part of Greece where he reigned then had the Hippocentaur who never had a beeing and Cicero hath no more interest in the present evils of Christendome then we have to do with his boasted discovery of Catilines conspiracie What is it to me that Rome was taken by the Gauls and what is it now to Camillus if different religions be tolerated amongst us These things that now happen concern the living and they are made the scenes of our duty or danger respectively and when our wives are dead and sleep in charnel houses they are not troubled when we laugh loudly at the songs sung at the next marriage feast nor do they envy when another snatches away the gleanings of their husbands passion It is true they envy not and they lie in a bosome where there can be no murmure and they that are consigned to Kingdoms and to the feast of the marriage-supper of the Lamb the glorious and eternall Bride-groom of holy souls they cannot think our marriages here our lighter laughings and vain rejoycings considerable as to them And yet there is a relation continued still Aristotle said that to affirm the dead take no thought for the good of the living is a disparagement to the laws of that friendship which in their state of separation they cannot be tempted to rescind And the Church hath taught in generall that they pray for us they recommend to God the state of all their Relatives in the union of the intercession that our blessed Lord makes for them and us and Saint Ambrose gave some things in charge to his dying brother Satyrus that he should do for him in the other world he gave it him I say when he was dying not when he was dead And certain it is that though our dead friends affection to us is not to be estimated according to our low conceptions yet it is not lesse but much more then ever it was it is greater in degree and of another kind But then we should do well also to remember that in this world we are something besides flesh and blood that we may not without violent necessities run into new relations but preserve the affections we bear to our dead when
making a noise upon its unequall and neighbour bottom and after all its talking and bragged motion it payed to its common Audit no more then the revenues of a little cloud or a contemptible vessel So have I sometimes compar'd the issues of her religion to the solemnities and fam'd outsides of anothers piety It dwelt upon her spirit and was incorporated with the periodicall work of every day she did not beleeve that religion was intended to minister to fame and reputation but to pardon of sins to the pleasure of God and the salvation of souls For religion is like the breath of Heaven if it goes abroad into the open air it scatters and dissolves like camphyre but if it enters into a secret hollownesse into a close conveyance it is strong and mighty and comes forth with vigour and great effect at the other end at the other side of this life in the dayes of death and judgement 2. The other appendage of her religion which also was a great ornament to all the parts of her life was a rare modesty and humility of spirit a confident despising and undervaluing of her self For though she had the greatest judgement and the greatest experience of things and persons that I ever yet knew in a person of her youth and sex and circumstances yet as if she knew nothing of it she had the meanest opinion of her self and like a fair taper when she shined to all the room yet round about her own station she had cast a shadow and a cloud and she shined to every body but her self But the perfectnesse of her prudence and excellent parts could not be hid and all her humility and arts of concealment made the vertues more amiable and illustrious For as pride sullies the beauty of the fairest vertues and makes our understanding but like the craft and learning of a Devil so humility is the greatest eminency and art of publication in the whole world and she in all her arts of secrecy and hiding her worthy things was but like one that hideth the winde and covers the oyntment of her right hand I know not by what instrument it hapned but when death drew neer befor it made any shew upon her body or revealed it self by a naturall signification it was conveyed to her spirit she had a strange secret perswasion that the bringing this Childe should be her last scene of life and we have known that the soul when she is about to disrobe her self of her upper garment sometimes speaks rarely Magnifica verba mors propè admota excutit sometimes it is prophetical sometimes God by a superinduced perswasion wrought by instruments or accidents of his own serves the ends of his own providence and the salvation of the soul But so it was that the thought of death dwelt long with her and grew from the first steps of faney and fear to a consent from thence to a strange credulity and expectation of it and without the violence of sicknesse she died as if she had done it voluntarily and by designe and for fear her expectation should have been deceived or that she should seem to have had an unreasonable fear or apprehension or rather as one said of Cato sic abiit è vitâ ut causam moriendi nactam se esse gauderet she died as if she had been glad of the opportunity And in this I cannot but adore the providence and admire the wisdom and infinite mercies of God For having a tender and soft a delicate and fine constitution and breeding she was tender to pain and apprehensive of it as a childs shoulder is of a load and burden Grave est tenerae cérvici jugum and in her often discourses of death which she would renew willingly and frequently she would tell that she feared not death but she feared the sharp pains of death Emori nolo me esse mortuam non curo The being dead and being freed from the troubles and dangers of this world she hoped would be for her advantage and therefore that was no part of her fear But she believing the pangs of death were great and the use and aids of reason little had reason to fear left they should do violence to her spirit and the decency of her resolution But God that knew her fears and her jealousie concerning her self fitted her with a death so easie so harmlesse so painlesse that it did not put her patience to a severe trial It was not in all appearance of so much trouble as two fits of a common ague so carefull was God to remonstrate to all that stood in that sad attendance that this soul was dear to him and that since she had done so much of her duty towards it he that began would also finish her redemption by an act of a rare providence and a singular mercy Blessed be that goodnesse of God who does so careful actions of mercy for the ease and security of his servants But this one instance was a great demonstration that the apprchension of death is worse then the pains of death and that God loves to reprove the unreasonablenesse of our fears by the mightiness and by the arts of his mercy She had in her sickness if I may so cal it or rather in the solemnities and graver preparations towards death some curious and well-becoming fears concerning the final state of her soul. But from thence she passed into a deliquium or a kinde of trance and as soon as she came forth of it as if it had been a vision or that she had conversed with an Angel and from his hand had received a label or scroll of the book of life and there seen her name enrolled she cried out aloud Glory be to God on high Now I am sure I shall be saved Concerning which manner of discoursing we are wholy ignorant what judgement can be made but certainly there are strange things in the other world and so there are in all the immediate preparation to it and a little glimps of heaven a minutes conversing with an Angel any ray of God any communication extraordinary from the spirit of comfort which God gives to his servants in strange and unknown manners are infinitely far from illusions and they shall then be understood by us when we feel them and when our new and strange needs shall be refreshed by such unusual visitations But I must be forced to use summaries and arts of abbreviature in the enumerating those things in which this rare Personage was dear to God and to all her Relatives If we consider her Person she was in the flower of her age Jucundum cum aetas florida ver ageret of a temperate plain and natural diet without curiosity or an intemperate palate she spent lesse time in dressing then many servants her recreations were little and seldom her prayers often her reading much she was of a most noble and charitable soul a great lover of honourable actions and as great a
God for vengeance scarce two are noted by the publick eye and chastis'd by the hand of Justice it must follow from hence that it is but reasonable for the interest of vertue and the necessities of the world that the private should be judg'd and vertue should be tyed upon the spirit and the poor should be relieved and the oppressed should appeal and the noise of Widows should be heard and the Saints should stand upright and the Cause that was ill judged should be judged over again and Tyrants should be call'd to account and our thoughts should be examined and our secret actions view'd on all sides and the infinite number of sins which escape here should not escape finally and therefore God hath so ordained it that there shall be a day of doom wherein all that are let alone by men shall be question'd by God and every word and every action shall receive its just recompence of reward For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in the best copies not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The things done in the body so we commonly read it the things proper or due to the body so the expression is more apt and proper for not only what is done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the body but even the acts of abstracted understanding and volition the acts of reflexion and choice acts of self-love and admiration and what ever else can be supposed the proper and peculiar act of the soul or of the spirit is to be accounted for at the day of Judgement and even these may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because these are the acts of the man in the state of conjunction with the body The words have in them no other difficulty or variety but contain a great truth of the biggest interest and one of the most materiall constitutive Articles of the whole Religion and the greatest endearment of our duty in the whole world Things are so ordered by the great Lord of all the creatures that whatsoever we do or suffer shall be call'd to account and this account shall be exact and the sentence shall be just and the reward shall be great all the evils of the world shall be amended and the injustices shall be repaid and the divine Providence shall be vindicated and Vertue and Vice shall for ever be remark'd by their separate dwellings and rewards This is that which the Apostle in the next verse cals the terror of the Lord it is his terror because himself shall appear in his dresse of Majesty and robes of Justice and it is his terror because it is of all the things in the World the most formidable in it self and it is most fearfull to us where shall be acted the interest and finall sentence of eternity and because it is so intended I shall all the way represent it as the Lords terror that we may be afraid of sin for the destruction of which this terror is intended 1. Therefore we will consider the persons that are to be judged with the circumstances of our advantages or our sorrowes We must all appear 2. The Judge and his Judgement seat before the Judgment seat of Christ. 3. The sentence that they are to receive the things due to the body good or bad according as we now please but then cannot alter Every one of these are dressed with circumstances of affliction and afrightment to those to whom such terrors shall appertain as a portion of their inheritance 1. The persons who are to be judged even you and I and all the world Kings and Priests Nobles and Learned the Crafty and the Easie the Wise and the Foolish the Rich and the Poor the prevailing Tyrant and the oppressed Party shall all appear to receive ther Symbol and this is so farre from abating any thing of its terror and our dear concernment that it much increases it for although concerning Precepts and Discourses we are apt to neglect in particular what is recommended in generall and in incidencies of Mortality and sad events the singularity of the chance heightens the apprehension of the evill yet it is so by accident and only in regard of our imperfection it being an effect of self-love or some little creeping envie which adheres too often to the infortunate and miserable or else because the sorrow is apt to increase by being apprehended to be a rare case and a singular unworthinesse in him who is afflicted otherwise then is common to the sons of men companions of his sin and brethren of his nature and partners of his usuall accidents yet in finall and extreme events the multitude of sufferers does not lessen but increase the sufferings and when the first day of Judgement happen'd that I mean of the universall deluge of waters upon the old World the calamity swell'd like the floud and every man saw his friend perish and the neighbours of his dwelling and the relatives of his house and the sharers of his joyes and yesterdaies bride and the new born heir the Priest of the Family and the honour of the Kindred all dying or dead drench'd in water and the divine vengeance and then they had no place to flee unto no man cared for their souls they had none to goe unto for counsell no sanctuary high enough to keep them from the vengeance that rain'd down from heaven and so it shall be at the day of Judgement when that world and this and all that shall be born hereafter shall passe through the same Red sea and be all baptized with the same fire and be involv'd in the same cloud in which shall be thundrings and terrors infinite every Mans fear shall be increased by his neighbours shriekes and the amazement that all the world shall be in shall unite as the sparks of a raging furnace into a globe of fire and roul upon its own principle and increase by direct appearances and intolerable reflexions He that stands in a Church-yard in the time of a great plague and hears the Passing-bell perpetually telling the sad stories of death and sees crowds of infected bodies pressing to their Graves and others sick and tremulous and Death dress'd up in all the images of sorrow round about him is not supported in his spirit by the variety of his sorrow and at Dooms-day when the terrors are universall besides that it is in it self so much greater because it can affright the whole world it is also made greater by communication and a sorrowfull influence Grief being then strongly infectious when there is no variety of state but an intire Kingdome of fear and amazement is the King of all our passions and all the world its subjects and that shricke must needs be terrible when millions of Men and Women at the same instant shall fearfully cry
scorn his miraculous mercies How shall we dare to behold that holy face that brought salvation to us and we turned away and fell in love with death and kissed deformity and sins and yet in the beholding that face consists much of the glories of eternity All the pains and passions the sorrowes and the groans the humility and poverty the labours and the watchings the Prayers and the Sermons the miracles and the prophecies the whip and the nails the death and the buriall the shame and the smart the Crosse and the grave of Jesus shall be laid upon thy score if thou hast refused the mercies and design of all their holy ends and purposes And if we remember what a calamity that was which broke the Jewish Nation in pieces when Christ came to judge them for their murdering him who was their King and the Prince of life and consider that this was but a dark image of the terrors of the day of Judgement we may then apprehend that there is some strange unspeakable evill that attends them that are guilty of this death and of so much evill to their Lord. Now it is certain if thou wilt not be saved by his death you are guilty of his death if thou wilt not suffer him to save thee thou art guilty of destroying him and then let it be considered what is to be expected from that Judge before whom you stand as his murtherer and betrayer * But this is but half of this consideration 2. Christ may be crucified again and upon a new account put to an open shame For after that Christ had done all this by the direct actions of his Priestly Office of sacrificing himself for us he hath also done very many things for us which are also the fruits of his first love and prosecutions of our redemption I will not instance in the strange arts of mercy that our Lord uses to bring us to live holy lives But I consider that things are so ordered and so great a value set upon our souls since they are the images of God and redeemed by the Bloud of the holy Lamb that the salvation of our souls is reckoned as a part of Christs reward a part of the glorification of his humanity Every sinner that repents causes joy to Christ and the joy is so great that it runs over and wets the fair brows and beauteous locks of Cherubims and Seraphims and all the Angels have a part of that banquet Then it is that our blessed Lord feels the fruits of his holy death the acceptation of his holy sacrifice the graciousnesse of his person the return of his prayers For all that Christ did or suffer'd and all that he now does as a Priest in heaven is to glorifie his Father by bringing souls to God For this it was that he was born and dyed that he descended from heaven to earth from life to death from the crosse to the grave this was the purpose of his resurrection and ascension of the end and design of all the miracles and graces of God manifested to all the world by him and now what man is so vile such a malicious fool that will refuse to bring joy to his Lord by doing himself the greatest good in the world They who refuse to do this are said to crucifie the Lord of life again and put him to an open shame that is they as much as in them lies bring Christ from his glorious joyes to the labours of his life and the shame of his death they advance his enemies and refuse to advance the Kingdome of their Lord they put themselves in that state in which they were when Christ came to dye for them and now that he is in a state that he may rejoyce over them for he hath done all his share towards it every wicked man takes his head from the blessing and rather chuses that the Devill should rejoyce in his destruction then that his Lord should triumph in his felicity And now upon the supposition of these premises we may imagine that it will be an infinite amazement to meet that Lord to be our Judge whose person we have murdered whose honour we have disparaged whose purposes we have destroyed whose joyes we have lessened whose passion we have made ineffectuall and whose love we have trampled under our profane and impious feet 3. But there is yet a third part of this consideration As it will be inquir'd at the day of Judgement concerning the dishonours to the person of Christ so also concerning the profession and institution of Christ and concerning his poor Members for by these also we make sad reflexions upon our Lord. Every man that lives wickedly disgraces the religion and institution of Jesus he discourages strangers from entring into it he weakens the hands of them that are in already and makes that the adversaries speak reproachfully of the Name of Christ but although it is certain our Lord and Judge will deeply resent all these things yet there is one thing which he takes more tenderly and that is the uncharitablenesse of men towards his poor It shall then be upbraided to them by the Judge that himself was hungry and they refused to give meat to him that gave them his body and heart-bloud to feed them and quench their thirst that they denyed a robe to cover his nakednesse and yet he would have cloathed their souls with the robe of his righteousnesse lest their souls should be found naked in the day of the Lords visitation and all this unkindnesse is nothing but that evill men were uncharitable to their Brethren they would not feed the hungry nor give drink to the thirsty nor cloath the naked nor relieve their Brothers needs nor forgive his follies nor cover their shame nor turn their eyes from delighting in their affronts and evill accidents this is it which our Lord will take so tenderly that his Brethren for whom he died who suck'd the paps of his Mother that fed on his Body and are nourished with his Bloud whom he hath lodg'd in his heart and entertains in his bosome the partners of his Spirit and co-heirs of his inheritance that these should be deny'd relief and suffered to go away ashamed and unpitied this our blessed Lord will take so ill that all those who are guilty of this unkindnesse have no reason to expect the favour of the Court. 4. To this if we adde the almightinesse of the Judge his infinite wisdome and knowledge of all causes and all persons and all circumstances that he is infinitely just inflexibly angry and impartiall in his sentence there can be nothing added either to the greatness or the requisites of a terrible and an Almighty Judge For who can resist him who is Almighty Who can evade his scrutiny that knows all things Who can hope for pity of him that is inflexible Who can think to be exempted when the Judge is righteous and impartial But in all these annexes of the great
and sorrow have an essence and proper being and are set there to be suffer'd intirely by every undone man that dies there for ever 2. The evils of this world are materiall and bodily the pressing of a shoulder or the straining of a joynt the dislocation of a bone or the extending of an artery a bruise in the flesh or the pinching of the skin a hot liver or a sickly stomach and then the minde is troubled because its instrument is ill at ease but all the proper troubles of this life are nothing but the effects of an uneasie body or an abused fancy and therefore can be no bigger then a blow or a cousenage then a wound or a dream only the trouble increases as the soul works it and if it makes reflex acts and begins the evill upon its own account then it multiplies and doubles because the proper scene of grief is open'd and sorrow peeps through the corners of the soul. But in those regions and daies of sorrow when the soul shall be no more depending upon the body but the perfect principle of all its actions the actions are quick and the perceptions brisk the passions are extreme and the motions are spirituall the pains are like the horrors of a Devill and the groans of an evill spirit not slow like the motions of a heavie foot or a loaden arme but quick as an Angels wing active as lightning and a grief then is nothing like a grief now and the words of mans tongue which are fitted to the uses of this world are as unfit to signifie the evils of the next as person and nature and hand and motion and passion are to represent the effects of the Divine attributes actions and subsistence 3. The evill portions of the next world is so great that God did not create or design it in the first intention of things and production of essences he made the Kingdome of Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the foundation of the world for so it is observable that Christ shall say to the Sheep at his right hand Receive the Kingdome prepared for you from the beginning of the world but to the Goats and accursed spirits he speaks of no such primitive and originall design it was accidentall and a consequent to horrid crimes that God was forced to invent and to after create that place of torments 4. And when God did create and prepare that place he did not at all intend it for man it was prepared for the Divill and his Angels so saith the Judge himself Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which my Father prepared for the Devill so some copies read it God intended it not for man but man would imitate the Devils pride and listen to the whispers of an evill spirit and follow his temptations and rebell against his Maker and then God also against his first design resolved to throw such persons into that place that was prepared for the Devill for so great was the love of God to mankind that he prepared joyes infinite and never ceasing for man before he had created him but he did not predetermine him to any evill but when he was forced to it by mans malice he doing what God forbad him God cast him thither where he never intended him but it was not mans portion he designed it not at first and at last also he invited him to repentance and when nothing could do it he threw man into anothers portion because he would not accept of what was designed to be his own 5. The evill portion shall be continuall without intermission of evill no dayes of rest no nights of sleep no ease from labour no periods of the stroke nor taking off the hand no intervals between blow and blow but a continued stroke which neither shortens the life nor introduces a brawny patience or the toleration of an oxe but it is the same in every instant and great as the first stroke of lightning the smart is great for ever as at the first change from the rest of the grave to the flames of that horrible burning The Church of Rome amongst some other strange opinions hath inserted this one into her publick Offices that the perishing souls in hell may have sometimes remission and refreshment like the fits of an intermitting feaver for so it is in the Roman Missal printed at Paris 1626. in the Masse for the dead Ut quia de ejus vitae qualitate diffidimus si plenam veniam anima ipsius obtinere non potest saltem vel inter ipsa tormenta quae forsan patitur refrigerium de abundantia miserationum tuarum sentiat and something like this is that of Prudentius Sunt spiritibus saepè nocentibus Poenarum celebres sub Styge feriae c. The evill spirits have ease of their pain and he names their holiday then when the Resurrection of our Lord from the grave is celebrated Marcent suppliciis Tartara mitibus Exultátque sui carceris otio Umbrarum populus liber ab ignibus Nec fervent solito flumina sulphure They then thought that when the Paschall taper burn'd the flames of hell could not burn till the holy wax was spent but because this is a fancy without ground or revelation and is against the Analogie of all those expressions of our Lord Where the worm dyeth not and the fire is never quenched and divers others it is sufficient to have noted it without further consideration the pains of hell have no rest no drop of water is allowed to cool the tongue there is no advocate to plead for them no mercy belongs to their portion but fearfull wrath and continuall burnings 6. And yet this is not the worst of it for as it is continuall during its abode so its abode is for ever it is continuall and eternall Tertullian speaks something otherwise Pro magnitudine cruciatus non diuturni verùm sempiterni not continuall or the pains of every day but such which shall last for ever But Lactantius is more plain in this affair The same divine fire by the same power and force shall burn the wicked and shall repair instantly whatsoever of the body it does consume Ac sibi ipsi aeternum â—pabulum subministrabit and shall make for it self an eternall fuell Vermibus flammis discruciatibus aevum Immortale dedit senio ne poena periret Non pereunte animâ So Prudentius eternall wormes and unextinguished flames and immortall punishment is prepared for the ever-never dying souls of wicked men Origen is charged by the ancient Churches for saying that after a long time the Devils and the accursed souls shall be restored to the Kingdome of God and that after a long time again they shall be restored to their state and so it was from their fall and shall be forever and it may be that might be the meaning of Tertullians expression of cruciatus non
will loves it and so long as it does God cannot love the Man for God is the Prince of purities and the Son of God is the King of Virgins and the holy Spirit is all love and that is all purity and all spirituality And therefore the prayer of an Adulterer or an uncleane person is like the sacrifices to Moloch or the rites of Flora ubi Cato spectator esse non potuit a good man will not endure them much lesse will God entertaine such reekings of the Dead sea and clouds of Sodome For so an impure vapor begotten of the slime of the earth by the feavers and adulterous heats of an intemperate Summer sun striving by the ladder of a mountaine to climbe up to heaven and rolling into various figures by an uneasy unfixed revolution and stop'd at the middle region of the aire being thrown from his pride and attempt of passing towards the seat of the stars turnes into an unwholsome flame and like the breath of hell is confin'd into a prison of darknesse and a cloud till it breaks into diseases plagues and mildews stink and blastings so is the prayer of an unchast person it strives to climbe the battlements of heaven but because it is a flame of sulphur salt and bitumen and was kindled in the dishonorable regions below deriv'd from hell and contrary to God it cannot passe forth to the element of love but ends in barrennesse and murmur fantastick expectations and trifling imaginative confidences and they at last end in sorrows and despaire * Every state of sin is against the possibility of a mans being accepted but these have a proper venome against the graciousnesse of the person and the power of the prayer God can never accept an unholy prayer and a wicked man can never send forth any other the waters passe thorough impure aquaeducts and channels of brimstone and therefore may end in brimstone and fire but never in forgivenesse and the blessings of an eternall charity Henceforth therefore never any more wonder that men pray so seldome there are few that feel the relish and are enticed with the deliciousnesse and refreshed with the comforts and instructed with the sanctity and acquainted with the secrets of a holy prayer But cease also to wonder that of those few that say many prayers so few find any return of any at all To make up a good and a lawfull prayer there must be charity with all its daughters almes forgivenesse not judging uncharitably there must be purity of spirit that is purity of intention and there must be purity of the body and soule that is the cleannesse of chastity and there must be no vice remaining no affection to sin for he that brings his body to God and hath left his will in the power of any sin offers to God the calves of his lips but not a whole burnt-offering a lame oblation but not a reasonable sacrifice and therefore their portion shall be amongst them whose prayers were never recorded in the book of life whose tears God never put into his bottle whose desires shall remaine ineffectuall to eternall ages Take heed you doe not lose your prayers for by them you hope to have eternall life and let any of you whose conscience is most religious and tender consider what condition that man is in that hath not said his prayers in thirty or forty years together and that is the true state of him who hath lived so long in the course of an unsanctified life in all that while he never said one prayer that did him any good but they ought to be reckoned to him upon the account of his sins Hee that is in the affection or in the habit or in the state of any one sin whatsoever is at such distance from and contrariety to God that he provokes God to anger in every prayer hee makes And then adde but this consideration that prayer is the great summe of our Religion it is the effect and the exercise and the beginning and the promoter of all graces and the consummation and perfection of many and all those persons who pretend towards heaven and yet are not experienced in the secrets of Religion they reckon their piety and account their hopes onely upon the stock of a few prayers it may be they pray twice every day it may be thrice and blessed be God for it so farre is very well but if it shall be remembred and considered that this course of piety is so farre from warranting any one course of sin that any one habituall and cherished sin destroyes the effect of all that piety wee shall see there is reason to account this to be one of those great arguments with which God hath so bound the duty of holy living upon us that without a holy life we cannot in any sense be happy or have the effect of one prayer But if we be returning and repenting sinners God delights to hear because he delights to save us Si precibus dixerunt numina justis Victa remollescunt When a man is holy then God is gracious and a holy life is the best and it is a continuall prayer and repentance is the best argument to move God to mercy because it is the instrument to unite our prayers to the intercession of the Holy Jesus SERMON V. Part II. AFter these evidences of Scripture and reason deriv'd from its analogy there will be lesse necessity to take any particular notices of those little objections which are usually made from the experience of the successe and prosperities of evill persons For true it is there is in the world a generation of men that pray long and loud and aske for vile things such which they ought to fear and pray against and yet they are heard The fat upon earth eat and worship But if these men aske things hurtfull and sinfull it is certain God hears them not in mercy They pray to God as despairing Saul did to his Armour-bearer Sta super me interfice me stand upon me and kill me and he that obey'd his voice did him dishonour and sinn'd against the head of his King and his own life And the vicious persons of old pray'd to Laverna Pulchra Laverna Da mihi fallere da justum sanctúmque videri Noctem peccatis fraudibus objice nubem Give me a prosperous robbery a rich prey and secret escape let me become rich with theeving and still be accounted holy For every sort of man hath some religion or other by the measures of which they proportion their lives and their prayers Now as the holy Spirit of God teaching us to pray makes us like himself in order to a holy and an effective prayer and no man prayes well but he that prays by the Spirit of God the Spirit of holinesse and he that prayes with the Spirit must be made like to the Spirit he is first sanctified and made holy and then made fervent and then his prayer ascends beyond the
of eternity it is a continuation to do that according to our measures which we shall be doing to eternall ages therefore think not that five or six hearty prayers can secure to thee a great blessing and a supply of a mighty necessity He that prays so and then leaves off hath said some prayers and done the ordinary offices of his Religion but hath not secured the blessing nor used means reasonably proportionable to a mighty interest 4. The prayers of a good man are oftentimes hindered and destitute of their effect for want of praying in good company for sometimes an evill or an obnoxious person hath so secured and ascertained a mischief to himself that he that stayes in his company or his traffick must also share in his punishment and the Tyrian sailers with all their vows and prayers could not obtain a prosperous voyage so long as Jonas was within the Bark for in this case the interest is divided and the publick sin prevails above the private piety When the Philosopher asked a penny of Antigonus he told him it was too little for a King to give when he asked a talent he told him it was too much for a Philosopher to receive for he did purpose to cousen his own charity and clude the others necessity upon pretence of a double inequality So it is in the case of a good man mingled in evill company if a curse be too severe for a good man a mercy is not to be expected by evill company and his prayer when it is made in common must partake of that event of things which is appropriate to that society The purpose of this caution is that every good man be carefull that he do not mingle his devotion in the communions of hereticall persons and in schismaticall conventicles for although he be like them that follow Absalom in the simplicity of their heart yet his intermediall fortune and the event of his present affairs may be the same with Absaloms and it is not a light thing that we curiously choose the parties of our Communion I do not say it is necessary to avoid all the society of evill persons for then we must go out of the world and when we have thrown out a drunkard possibly we have entertain'd an hypocrite or when a swearer is gone an oppressor may stay still or if that be remedied yet pride is soon discernible but not easily judicable but that which is of caution in this question is that we never mingle with those whose very combination is a sin such as were Corah and his company that rebelled against Moses their Prince and Dathan and Abiram that made a schisme in Religion against Aaron the Priest for so said the Spirit of the Lord Come out from the congregation of these men lest ye perish in their company and all those that were abused in their communion did perish in the gain-saying of Corah It is a sad thing to see a good man cousened by fair pretences and allured into an evill snare for besides that he dwels in danger and cohabits with a dragon and his vertue may change by evill perswasion into an evill disposition from sweetnesse to bitternesse from thence to evill speaking from thence to beleeve a lye and from beleeving to practise it besides this it is a very great sadnesse that such a man should lose all his prayers to very many purposes God will not respect the offering of those men who assemble by a peevish spirit and therefore although God in pity regards the desires of a good man if innocently abused yet as it unites in that assembly God will not hear it to any purposes of blessing and holinesse unlesse we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace we cannot have the blessing of the Spirit in the returns of a holy prayer and all those assemblies which meet together against God or Gods Ordinances may pray and call and cry loudly and frequently and still they provoke God to anger and many times he will not have so much mercy for them as to deny them but le ts them prosper in their sin till it swels to intolerable and impardonable * But when good men pray with one heart and in a holy assembly that is holy in their desires lawfull in their authority though the persons be of different complexion then the prayer flies up to God like the hymns of a Quire of Angels for God that made body and soul to be one man and God and man to be one Christ and three persons are one God and his praises are sung to him by Quires and the persons are joyned in orders and the orders into hierarchies and all that God may be served by unions and communities loves that his Church should imitate the Concords of heaven and the unions of God and that every good man should promote the interests of his prayers by joyning in the communion of Saints in the unions of obedience and charity with the powers that God and the Lawes have ordained The sum is this If the man that makes the prayer be an unholy person his prayer is not the instrument of a blessing but a curse but when the sinner begins to repent truly then his desires begin to be holy But if they be holy and just and good yet they are without profit and effect if the prayer be made in schisme or an evill communion or if it be made without attention or if the man soon gives over or if the prayer be not zealous or if the man be angry There are very many waies for a good man to become unblessed and unthriving in his prayers and he cannot be secure unlesse he be in the state of grace and his spirit be quiet and his minde be attentive and his society be lawfull and his desires earnest and passionate and his devotions persevering lasting till his needs be served or exchanged for another blessing so that what Laelius apud Cicer. de senectute said concerning old age neque in summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus potest ne sapienti quidem nec insipienti etiam in summâ copiâ non gravis that a wise man could not bear old age if it were extremely poor and yet if it were very rich it were intolerable to a fool we may say concerning our prayers they are sins and unholy if a wicked man makes them and yet if they be made by a good man they are ineffective unlesse they be improved by their proper dispositions A good man cannot prevail in his prayers if his desires be cold and his affections trifling and his industry soon weary and his society criminall and if all these appendages of prayer be observed yet they will do no good to an evill man for his prayer that begins in sin shall end in sorrow SERMON VI. Part III. 3. NExt I am to inquire and consider what degrees and circumstances of piety are requir'd to make us fit to be intercessors for
others and to pray for them with probable effect I say with probable effect for when the event principally depends upon that which is not within our own election such as are the lives and actions of others all that we can consider in this affair is whether wee be persons fit to pray in the behalf of others that hinder not but are persons within the limit and possibilities of the present mercy When the Emperour Maximinus was smitten with the wrath of God and a sore disease for his cruell persecuting the Christian cause and putting so many thousand innocent and holy persons to death and he understood the voice of God and the accents of thunder and discerned that cruelty was the cause he revoked their decrees made against the Christians recall'd them from their caves and deserts their sanctuaries and retirements and enjoyned them to pray for the life and health of their Prince They did so and they who could command mountaines to remove and were obeyed they who could doe miracles they who with the key of prayer could open Gods four closets of the wombe and the grave of providence and rain could not obtain for their bloudy Emperour one drop of mercy but he must die miserable for ever God would not be intreated for him and though he loved the prayer because he loved the Advocates yet Maximinus was not worthy to receive the blessing And it was threatned to the rebellious people of Israel and by them to all people that should sin grievously against the Lord God would break their staffe of bread and even the righteous should not be prevailing intercessors Though Noah Job or Daniel were there they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousnesse saith the Lord God and when Abraham prevailed very far with God in the behalf of Sodome and the five Cities of the Plain it had its period If there had been ten righteous in Sodom it should have been spared for their sakes but four onely were found and they onely delivered their own souls too but neither their righteousnesse nor Abrahams prayer prevailed any further and we have this case also mentioned in the New Testament If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death he shall aske and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death At his prayer the sinner shall receive pardon God shall give him life for them to him that prays in their behalf that sin provided it be not a sin unto death For there is a sin unto death but I doe not say that he shall pray for it There his Commission expires and his power is confin'd For there are some sins of that state and greatnesse that God will not pardon S. Austin in his books de sermone Domini in monte affirms it concerning some one single sin of a perfect malice It was also the opinion of Origen and Athanasius and is followed by venerable Bede and whether the Apostle means a peculiar state of sin or some one single great crime which also supposes a precedent and a present state of criminall condition it is such a thing as will hinder our prayers from prevailing in their behalf we are therefore not encouraged to pray because they cannot receive the benefit of Christs intercession and therefore much lesse of our Advocation which onely can prevail by vertue and participation of his mediation For whomsoever Christ prays for them wee pray that is for all them that are within the covenant of repentance for all whose actions have not destroyed the very being of Religion who have not renounc'd their faith nor voluntarily quit their hopes nor openly opposed the Spirit of grace nor grown by a long progresse to a resolute and finall impiety nor done injustices greater then sorrow or restitution or recompense or acknowledgment However though it may be uncertain and disputed concerning the number of sins unto death and therefore to pray or not to pray is not matter of duty yet it is all one as to the effect whether we know them or no for though we intend charity when we pray for the worst of men yet concerning the event God will take care and will certainly return thy prayer upon thy own head though thou didst desire it should water and refresh thy neighbors drynesse and St. John so expresses it as if he had left the matter of duty undetermin'd because the instances are uncertain yet the event is certainly none at all therefore because we are not encouraged to pray and because it is a sin unto death that is such a sin that hath no portion in the promises of life and the state of repentance But now suppose the man for whom wee pray to be capable of mercy within the covenant of repentance and not farre from the Kingdome of heaven yet 2ly No prayers of others can further prevail then to remove this person to the next stage in order to felicity When S. Monica prayed for her son she did not pray to God to save him but to cōvert him and when God intended to reward the prayers and almes of Cornelius he did not do it by giving him a Crown but by sending an Apostle to him to make him a Christian the meaning of which observation is that we may understand that as in the person prayed for there ought to be the great disposition of being in a saveable condition so there ought also to be all the intermediall aptnesses for just as he is disposed so can we prevail and the prayers of a good man first prevail in behalf of a sinner that he shall be invited that he shall be reproved and then that he shall attend to it then that he shall have his heart open'd and then that he shall repent And still a good mans prayers follow him thorough the severall stages of pardon of sanctification of restraining graces of a mighty providence of great assistance of perseverance and a holy death No prayers can prevaile upon an undisposed person For the Sun himself cannot enlighten a blind eye nor the soule move a body whose silver cord is loosed and whose joints are untyed by the rudenesse and dissolutions of a pertinacious sicknesse But then suppose an eye quick and healthfull or apt to be refreshed with light and a friendly prospect yet a glow-worm or a diamond the shels of pearl or a dead mans candle are not enough to make him discern the beauties of the world and to admire the glories of creation Therefore 2. As the persons must be capable for whom we pray so they that pray for others must be persons extraordinary in something 1. If persons be of an extraordinary piety they are apt to be intercessors for others This appeares in the case of Job When the wrath of God was kindled against Eliphaz and his two friends God commanded them to offer a sacrifice but my servant Job shall prey for you for him will I accept and it
will therefore that prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men and this is a duty that is prescrib'd to all them that are concern'd in the duty and in the blessings of Prayer but this is it which I say if their piety be but ordinary their prayer can be effectuall but in easy purposes and to smaller degrees but he that would work effectively towards a great deliverance or in great degrees towards the benefit or eaâ—e of any of his relatives can be confident of his successe but in the same degree in which his person is gracious There are strange things in heaven judgments there are made of things and persons by the measures of Religion and a plain promise produces effects of wonder and miracle and the changes that are there made are not effected by passions and interests and corporall changes and the love that is there is not the same thing that it is here it is more beneficiall more reasonable more holy of other designes and strange productions and upon that stock it is that a holy poor man that possesses no more it may be then an Ewe-lambe that eats of his bread and drinks of his cup and is a daughter to him and is all his temporall portion this poor man is ministred to by Angels and attended to by God and the Holy Spirit makes intercession for him and Christ joyns the mans prayer to his own advocation and the man by prayer shall save the City and destroy the fortune of a Tyrant army even then when God sees it good it should be so for he will no longer deny him any thing but when it is no blessing and when it is otherwise his prayer is most heard when it is most denyed 2ly That we should prevaile in intercessions for others we are to regard and to take care that as our piety so also must our offices be extraordinary He that prays to recover a family from an hereditary curse or to reverse a Sentence of God to cancell a Decree of heaven gone out against his friend hee that would heale the sick with his prayer or with his devotion prevaile against an army must not expect such great effects upon a Morning or Evening Collect or an honest wish put into the recollections of a prayer or a period put in on purpose Mamercus Bishop of Vienna seeing his City and all the Diocese in great danger of perishing by an earthquake instituted great Letanies and solemn supplications besides the ordinary devotions of his usuall hours of prayer and the Church from his example took up the practise and translated it into an anniversary solemnity and upon St. Mark 's day did solemnly intercede with God to divert or prevent his judgments falling upon the people majoribus Litani is so they are called with the more solemn supplications they did pray unto God in behalf of their people And this hath in it the same consideration that is in every great necessity for it is a great thing for a man to be so gracious with God as to be able to prevaile for himself and his friend for himself and his relatives and therefore in these cases as in all great needs it is the way of prudence and security that we use all those greater offices which God hath appointed as instruments of importunity and arguments of hope and acts of prevailing and means of great effect and advocation such as are separating days for solemn prayer all the degrees of violence and earnest addresse fasting and prayer almes and prayer acts of repentance and prayer praying together in publick with united hearts and above all praying in the susception and communication of the holy Sacrament the effects and admirable issues of which we know not and perceive not we loâ—e because we desire not and choose to lose many great blessings rather then purchase them with the frequent commemoration of that sacrifice which was offered up for all the needs of Mankind and for obtaining all favours and graces to the Catholick Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God never refuses to hear a holy prayer and our prayers can never be so holy as when they are offered up in the union of Christs sacrifice For Christ by that sacrifice reconcil'd God and the world And because our needs continue therefore we are commanded to continue the memory and to represent to God that which was done to satisfie all our needs Then we receive Christ we are after a secret and mysterious but most reall and admirable manner made all one with Christ and if God giving us his Son could not but with him give us all things else how shall he refuse our persons when we are united to his person when our souls are joined to his soul our body nourished by his body and our souls sanctified by his bloud and cloth'd with his robes and marked with his character and sealed with his Spirit and renewed with holy vows and consign'd to all his glories and adopted to his inheritance when we represent his death and pray in vertue of his passion and imitate his intercession and doe that which God commands and offer him in our manner that which he essentially loves can it be that either any thing should be more prevalent or that God can possibly deny such addresses and such importunities Try it often and let all things else be answerable and you cannot have greater reason for your confidence Doe not all the Christians in the world that understand Religion desire to have the holy Sacrament when they die when they are to make their great appearance before God and to receive their great consignation to their eternall sentence good or bad And if then be their greatest needs that is their greatest advantage and instrument of acceptation Therefore if you have a great need to be serv'd or a great charity to serve and a great pity to minister and a dear friend in a sorrow take Christ along in thy prayers in all thy ways thou canst take him take him in affection and take him in a solemnity take him by obedience and receive him in the Sacrament and if thou then offerest up thy prayers and makest thy needs known if thou nor thy friend be not relieved if thy party be not prevalent and the war be not appeased or the plague be not cured or the enemy taken off there is something else in it but thy prayer is good and pleasing to God and dressed with circumstances of advantage and thy person is apt to be an intercessor and thou hast done all that thou canst the event must be left to God and the secret reasons of the deniall either thou shalt find in time or thou maist trust with God who certainly does it with the greatest wisdome and the greatest charity I have in this thing onely one caution to insert viz. That in our importunity and extraordinary offices for others we must not make our accounts by multitude
forbidden When God bade the Isaaelites rise and goe up against the Canaanites and possesse the Land they would not stirre the men were Anakims and the Cities were impregnable and there was a Lyon in the way but presently after when God forbad them to goe they would and did goe though they died for it I shall not need to instance in particulars when the whole life of man is a perpetuall contradiction and the state of Disobedience is called the contradiction of Sinners even the man in the Gospell that had two sons they both crossed him even he that obeyed him and he that obeyed him not for the one said he would and did not the other said he would not and did and so doe we we promise faire and doe nothing and they that doe best are such as come out of darknesse into light such as said they would not and at last have better bethought themselves And who can guesse at any other reason why men should refuse to be temperate for he that refuses the commandement first does violence to the commandement and puts on a praeternaturall appetite he spoils his health and he spoils his understanding he brings to himself a world of diseases and a healthlesse constitution smart and sickly nights a loathing stomach and a staring eye a giddy brain and a swell'd belly gouts and dropsies catarrhes and oppilations If God should enjoyne man to suffer all this heaven and earth should have heard our complaints against unjust laws and impossible commandements for we complain already even when God commands us to drink so long as it is good for us this is one of his impossible laws it is impossible for us to know when we are dry or when we need drink for if we doe know I am sure it is possible enough not to lift up the wine to our heads And when our blessed Saviour hath commanded us to love our enemies we think we have so much reason against it that God will easily excuse our disobedience in this case and yet there are some enemies whom God hath commanded us not to love and those we dote on we cherish and feast them and as S. Paul in another case upon our uncomely parts we bestow more abundant comelinesse For whereas our body it self is a servant to our soule we make it the heir of all things and treat it here already as if it were in Majority and make that which at the best was but a weak friend to become a strong enemy and hence proceed the vices of the worst and the follies and imperfections of the best the spirit is either in slavery or in weaknesse and when the flesh is not strong to mischief it is weak to goodnesse and even to the Apostles our blessed Lord said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak The spirit that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inward man or the reasonable part of man especially as helped by the Spirit of Grace that is willing for it is the principle of all good actions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of working is from the spirit but the flesh is but a dull instrument and a broken arme in which there is a principle of life but it moves uneasily and the flesh is so weak that in Scripture to be in the flesh signifies a state of weaknesse and infirmity so the humiliation of Christ is expressed by being in the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God manifested in the flesh and what S. Peter calls put to death in the flesh St. Paul calls crucified through weaknesse and yee know that through the infirmity of the flesh I preached unto you said S. Paul but here flesh is not opposed to the spirit as a direct enemy but as a weak servant for if the flesh be powerfull and opposite the spirit stays not there veniunt ad candida tecta columbae The old man and the new cannot dwell together and therefore here where the spirit inclining to good well disposed and apt to holy counsels does inhabit in society with the flesh it means onely a weak and unapt nature or a state of infant-grace for in both these and in these onely the text is verified 1. Therefore we are to consider the infirmities of the flesh naturally 2. It s weaknesse in the first beginnings of the state of grace its daily pretensions and temptations its excuses and lessenings of duty 3. What remedies there are in the spirit to cure the evils of nature 4. How far the weaknesses of the flesh can consist with the Spirit of grace in well grown Christians This is the summe of what I intend upon these words 1. Our nature is too weak in order to our duty and finall interest that at first it cannot move one step towards God unlesse God by his preventing grace puts into it a new possibility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is nothing that creeps upon the earth nothing that ever God made weaker then Man for God fitted Horses and Mules with strength Bees and Pismires with sagacity Harts and Hares with swiftnesse Birds with feathers and a light a\l = e \ry body and they all know their times and are fitted for their work and regularly acquire the proper end of their creation but man that was designed to an immortall duration and the fruition of God for ever knows not how to obtain it he is made upright to look up to heaven but he knows no more how to purchase it then to climbe it Once man went to make an ambitious tower to outreach the clouds or the praeternaturall risings of the water but could not do it he cannot promise himself the daily bread of his necessity upon the stock of his own wit or industry and for going to heaven he was so far from doing that naturally that as soon as ever he was made he became the son of death and he knew not how to get a pardon for eating of an apple against the Divine commandement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Apostle By nature we were the sons of wrath that is we were born heirs of death which death came upon us from Gods anger for the sin of our first Parents or by nature that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really not by the help of fancy and fiction of law for so Oecumenius and Theophylact expound it but because it does not relate to the sin of Adam in its first intention but to the evill state of sin in which the Ephesians walked before their conversion it signifies that our nature of it self is a state of opposition to the spirit of grace it is privatively opposed that is that there is nothing in it that can bring us to felicity nothing but an obedientiall capacity our flesh can become sanctified as the stones can become children unto Abraham or as dead seed can become living corn and so it is with us that it is necessary God should make us a new
under the eye of heaven that many Nations are marked for intemperance and that it is lesse noted because it is so popular and universall and that even in the midst of the glories of Christianity there are so many persons drunk or too full with meat or greedy of lust even now that the Spirit of God is given to us to make us sober and temperate and chaste we may well imagine since all men have flesh and all men have nor the spirit the flesh is the parent of sin and death and it can be nothing else And it is no otherwise when we are tempted with pain We are so impatient of pain that nothing can reconcile us to it not the laws of God not the necessities of nature not the society of all our kindred and of all the world not the interest of vertue not the hopes of heaven we will submit to pain upon no terms but the basest and most dishonorable for if sin bring us to pain or affront or sicknesse we choose that so it be in the retinue of a lust and a base desire but we accuse Nature and blaspheme God we murmur and are impatient when pain is sent to us from him that ought to send it and intends it as a mercy when it comes But in the matter of afflictions and bodily sicknesse we are so weak and broken so uneasie and unapt to sufferance that this alone is beyond the cure of the old Philosophy Many can endure poverty and many can retire from shame and laugh at home and very many can endure to be slaves but when pain and sharpnesse are to be endured for the interests of vertue we finde but few Martyrs and they that are suffer more within themselves by their fears and their temptations by their uncertain purposes and violences to Nature then by the Hang-mans sword the Martyrdome is within and then he hath won his Crown not when he hath suffered the blow but when he hath overcome his fears and made his spirit conqueror It was a sad instance of our infirmity when of the 40 Martyrs of Cappadocia set in a freezing lake almost consummate and an Angell was reaching the Crowne and placing it upon their brows the flesh fail'd one of them and drew the spirit after it and the man was called off from his Scene of noble contention and dyed in warm water Odi artus fragilémque hunc corporis usum Desertorem animi We carry about us the body of death and we bring evils upon our selves by our follies and then know not how to bear them and the flesh forsakes the spirit And indeed in sicknesse the infirmity is so very great that God in a manner at that time hath reduced all Religion into one vertue Patience with its appendages is the summe totall of almost all our duty that is proper to the days of sorrow and we shall find it enough to entertain all our powers and to imploy all our aids the counsels of wise men and the comforts of our friends the advices of Scripture and the results of experience the graces of God and the strength of our own resolutions are all then full of imployments and find it work enough to secure that one grace For then it is that a could is wrapped about our heads and our reason stoops under sorrow the soul is sad and its instrument is out of tune the auxiliaries are disorder'd and every thought sits heavily then a comfort cannot make the body feel it and the soule is not so abstracted to rejoyce much without its partner so that the proper joyes of the soul such as are hope and wise discourses and satisfactions of reason and the offices of Religion are felt just as we now perceive the joyes of heaven with so little relish that it comes as news of a victory to a man upon the Rack or the birth of an heir to one condemned to dye he hears a story which was made to delight him but it came when he was dead to joy and all its capacities and therefore sicknesse though it be a good Monitor yet it is an ill stage to act some vertues in and a good man cannot then doe much and therefore he that is in the state of flesh and blood can doe nothing at all 4. But in these considerations we find our nature in disadvantages and a strong man may be overcome when a stronger comes to disarme him and pleasure and pain are the violences of choice and chance but it is no better in any thing else for nature is weak in all its strengths and in its fights at home and abroad in its actions and passions we love some things violently and hate others unreasonably any thing can fright us when we should be confident and nothing can scare us when we ought to feare the breaking of a glasse puts us into a supreme anger and we are dull and indifferent as a Stoick when we see God dishonour'd we passionately desire our preservation and yet we violently destroy our selves and will not be hindred we cannot deny a friend when he tempts us to sin and death and yet we daily deny God when he passionately invites us to life and health we are greedy after money and yet spend it vainly upon our lusts we hate to see any man flatter'd but our selves and we can endure folly if it be on our side and a sin for our interest we desire health and yet we exchange it for wine and madnesse we sink when a persecution comes and yet cease not daily to persecute our selves doing mischiefs worse then the sword of Tyrants and great as the malice of a Devill 5. But to summe up all the evills that can be spoken of the infirmities of the flesh the proper nature and habitudes of men are so foolish and impotent so averse and peevish to all good that a mans will is of it self onely free to choose evils Neither is it a contradiction to say liberty and yet suppose it determin'd to one object onely because that one object is the thing we choose For although God hath set life and death before us fire and water good and evill and hath primarily put man into the hands of his owne counsell that he might have chosen good as well as evill yet because he did not but fell into an evill condition and corrupted manners and grew in love with it and infected all his children with vicious examples and all nations of the world have contracted some universall stains and the thoughts of mans hearts are onely evill and that continually and there is not one that doth good no not one that sinneth not since I say all the world have sinned we cannot suppose a liberty of indifferency to good and bad it is impossible in such a liberty that there should be no variety that all should choose the same thing but a liberty of complacency or delight we may suppose that is so that though naturally he might
beleeve in him and then obey him living such a life as Jesus taught and this is the summe totall of the whole design As we have liv'd to the flesh so we must hereafter live to the spirit as our nature hath been flesh not only in its originall but in habits and affection so our nature must be spirit in habit and choice in design and effectuall prosecutions for nothing can cure our old death but this new birth and this is the recovery of our nature and the restitution of our hopes and therefore the greatest joy of mankinde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a fine thing to see the light of this sun and it is pleasant to see the storm allayed and turned into a smooth sea and a fresh gale our eyes are pleased to see the earth begin to live and to produce her little issues with particolour'd coats 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing is so beauteous as to see a new birth in a childlesse family And it is excellent to hear a man discourse the hidden things of Nature and unriddle the perplexities of humane notices and mistakes it is comely to see a wise man sit in the gates of the City and give right judgement in difficult causes But all this is nothing to the excellencies of a new birth to see the old man carryed forth to funerall with the solemn tears of repentance and buryed in the grave of Jesus and in his place a new creation to arise a new heart and a new understanding and new affections and excellent appetites for nothing lesse then this can cure all the old distempers 2. Our life and all our discourses and every observation and a state of reason and a union of sober counsels are too little to cure a peevish spirit and a weak reasoning and silly principles and accursed habits and evill examples and perverse affections and a whole body of sin and death It was well said in the Comedy Nunquam it a quisquam bene subductâ ratione ad vitam fuit Quin aetas usus semper aliquid apportet novi Aliquid moneat ut illa quae scire credas nescias Et quae tibi putas prima in experiundo repudies Men at first think themselves wise and are alwaies most confident when they have the least reason and to morrow they begin to perceive yesterdayes folly and yet they are not wise But as the little Embryo in the naturall sheet and lap of its mother first distinguishes into a little knot and that in time will be the heart and then into a bigger bundle which after some dayes abode grows into two little spots and they if cherished by nature will become eyes and each part by order commences into weak principles and is preserved with natures greatest curiosity that it may assist first to distinction then to order next to usefulnesse and from thence to strength till it arrive at beauty and a perfect creature so are the necessities and so are the discourses of men we first learn the principles of reason which breaks obscurely through a clond and brings a little light and then we discern a folly and by little and little leave it till that enlightens the next corner of the soul and then there is a new discovery but the soul is still in infancy and childish follies and every day does but the work of one day but therefore art and use experience and reason although they do something yet they cannot do enough there must be something else But this is to be wrought by a new principle that is by the Spirit of grace Nature and reason alone cannot do it and therefore the proper cure is to be wrought by those generall means of inviting and cherishing of getting and entertaining Gods Spirit which when we have observed we may account our selves sufficiently instructed toward the repair of our breaches and the reformation of our evill nature 1. The first great instrument of changing our whole nature into the state of grace flesh into the spirit is a firm belief and a perfect assent to and hearty entertainment of the promises of the Gospell for holy Scripture speaks great words concerning faith It quenches the fiery darts of the Devill saith St. Paul it overcomes the world saith St. John it is the fruit of the Spirit and the parent of love it is obedience and it is humility and it is a shield and it is a brestplate and a work and a mysterie it is a fight and it is a victory it is a pleasing God and it is that whereby the just do live by faith we are purified and by faith we are sanctified and by faith we are justified and by faith we are saved by this we have accesse to the throne of grace and by it our prayers shall prevail for the sick by it we stand and by it we walk and by this Christ dwels in our hearts and by it all the miracles of the Church have been done it gives great patience to suffer and great confidence to hope and great strength to do and infallible certainty to enjoy the end of all our faith and satisfaction of all our hopes and the reward of all our labours even the most mighty price of our high calling and if faith be such a magazine of spirituall excellencies of such universall efficacy nothing can be a greater antidote against the venome of a corrupted nature But then this is not a grace seated finally in the understanding but the principle that is designed to and actually productive of a holy life It is not only a beleeving the propositions of Scripture as we beleeve a proposition in the Metaphysicks concerning which a man is never the honester whether it be true of false but it is a beleef of things that concern us infinitely things so great that if they be so true as great no man that hath his reason and can discourse that can think and choose that can desire and work towards an end can possibly neglect The great object of our faith to which all other articles do minister is resurrection of our bodies and souls to eternall life and glories infinite Now is it possible that a man that beleeves this and that he may obtain it for himself and that it was prepared for him and that God desires to give it him that he can neglect and despise it and not work for it and perform such easie conditions upon which it may be obtained Are not most men of the world made miserable at a lesse price then a thousand pound a year Do not all the usurers and merchants all tradesmen and labourers under the Sun toil and care labour and contrive venture and plot for a little money and no man gets and scarce any man desires so much of it as he can lay upon three acres of ground not so much of will
appetites of its own that must be served I pray to be forgiven as I forgive others but flesh and bloud cannot put up such an injury for know that no infirmity no unavoidable accident no necessity no poverty no businesse can hinder us from the love of God or forgiving injuries or being of a religious and a devout spirit Poverty and the intrigues of the world are things that can no more hinder the spirit in these duties then a strong enemy can hinder the sun to shine or the clouds to drop rain These things which God requires of us and exacts from us with mighty penalties these he hath made us able to perform for he knows that we have no strength but what he gives us and therefore as he binds burdens upon our shoulders so he gives us strength to bear them and therefore he that sayes he cannot forgive sayes only that his lust is stronger then his religion his flesh prevails upon his spirit For what necessity can a man have to curse him whom he cals enemy or to sue him or kill him or do him any spite A man may serve all his needs of nature though he does nothing of all this and if he be willing what hinders him to love to pardon to wish well to desire The willing is the doing in this case and he that sayes he is willing to do his duty but he cannot does not understand what he sayes For all the duty of the inner man consists in the actions of the will and there they are seated and to it all the inferiour faculties obey in those things which are direct emanations and effects of will He that desires to love God does love him indeed men are often cousened with pretences and in some good mood are warm'd with a holy passion but it signifies nothing because they will not quit the love of Gods enemies and therefore they do not desire what they say they doe but if the will and heart be right and not false and dissembling this duty is or will be done infallibly 2. If the spirit and the heart be willing it will passe on to outward actions in all things where it ought or can He that hath a charitable soul will have a charitable hand and will give his money to the poor as he hath given his heart to God For these things which are in our hand are under the power of our will and therefore are to be commanded by it He that sayes to the naked be warm and cloathed and gives him not the garment that lies by him or money to buy one mocks God and the poor and himself Nequam illud verbum est bene vult nisi qui bene facit said the Comedy It is an evill saying he wishes well unlesse he do well 3. Those things which are not in our power that is such things in which the flesh is inculpably weak or naturally or politically disabled the will does the work of the outward and of the inward man we cannot cloath Christs body he needs it not and we cannot approach so sacred and separate a presence but if we desire to do it it is accounted as if we had The ignorant man cannot discourse wisely and promote the interest of souls but he can love souls and desire their felicity though I cannot build Hospitals and Colledges or pour great summes of money into the lap of the poor yet if I incourage others and exhort them if I commend and promote the work I have done the work of a holy Religion For in these and the like cases the outward work is not alwaies set in our power and therefore without our fault is omitted and can be supplied by that which is in our power 4. For that is the last caution concerning this question No man is to be esteemed of a willing spirit but he that endevours to doe the outward work or to make all the supplies that he can not only by the forwardnesse of his spirit but by the compensation of some other charities or devotion or religion Silver and gold have I none and therefore I can give you none But I wish you well How will that appear why thus Such as I have I will give you Rise up and walk I cannot give you gold but I can give you counsell I cannot relieve your need but I can relieve your sadnesse I cannot cure you but I can comfort you I cannot take away your poverty but I can ease your spirit and God accepts us saith the Apostle according to what a man hath and not according to what he hath not Only as our desires are great and our spirits are willing so we shall finde wayes to make supply of our want of ability and expressed liberality Et labor ingenium misero dedit sua quemque Advigilare sibi jussit fortuna premendo What the poor mans need will make him do that also the good mans charity will it will finde out wayes and artifices of relief in kinde or in value in comfort or in prayers in doing it himself or procuring others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The necessity of our fortune and the willingnesse of our spirits will do all this all that it can and something that it cannot You have relieved the Saints saith St. Paul according to your power yea and beyond your power Only let us be carefull in all instances that we yeeld not to the weaknesse of the flesh nor listen to its fair pretences for the flesh can do more then it sayes we can do more then we think we can and if we doe some violence to the flesh to our affairs and to the circumstances of our fortune for the interest of our spirit we shall make our flesh usefull and the spirit strong the flesh and its weaknesse shall no more be an objection but shall comply and co-operate and serve all the necessities of the spirit Sermon XII Of Lukewarmnesse and Zeal OR SPIRITVALL TERROVR Part I. Jer. 48. 10. vers first part Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully CHrists Kingdome being in order to the Kingdome of his Father which shall be manifest at the day of Judgement must therefore be spirituall because then it is that all things must become spirituall not only by way of eminency but by intire constitution and perfect change of natures Men shall be like Angels and Angels shall be comprehended in the lap of spirituall and eternall felicities the soul shall not understand by materiall phantasmes neither be served by the provisions of the body but the body it self shall become spirituall and the eye shall see intellectuall objects and the mouth shall feed upon hymns and glorifications of God the belly shall be then satisfied by the fulnesse of righteousnesse and the tongue shall speak nothing but praises and the propositions of a celestiall wisdome the motion shall be the swiftnesse of an Angell and it shall be cloathed with white as with a garment
Holinesse is the Sun and righteousnesse is the Moon in that region our society shall be Quires of singers and our conversation wonder contemplation shall be our food and love shall be the wine of elect souls and as to every naturall appetite there is now proportion'd an object crasse materiall unsatisfying and allayed with sorrow and uneasinesse so there be new capacities and equall objects the desires shall be fruition and the appetite shall not suppose want but a faculty of delight and an unmeasureable complacency the will and the understanding love and wonder joyes every day and the same forever this shall be their state who shall be accounted worthy of the resurrection to this life where the body shall be a partner but no servant where it shall have no work of its own but it shall rejoyce with the soul where the soul shall rule without resistance or an enemy and we shall be fitted to enjoy God who is the Lord and Father of spirits In this world we see it is quite contrary we long for perishing meat and fill our stomachs with corruption we look after white and red and the weaker beauties of the night we are passionate after rings and seals and inraged at the breaking of a Crystall we delight in the society of fools and weak persons we laugh at sin and contrive mischiefs and the body rebels against the soul and carries the cause against all its just pretences and our soul it self is above half of it earth and stone in its affections and distempers our hearts are hard and inflexible to the softer whispers of mercy and compassion having no loves for any thing but strange flesh and heaps of money and popular noises for misery and folly and therefore we are a huge way off from the Kingdome of God whose excellencies whose designs whose ends whose constitution is spirituall and holy and separate and sublime and perfect Now between these two states of naturall flesh and heavenly spirit that is the powers of darknesse and the regions of light the miseries of man and the perfections of God the imperfection of nature where we stand by our creation and supervening follies and that state of felicities whither we are designed by the mercies of God there is a middle state the Kingdome of grace wrought for us by our Mediator the man Christ Jesus who came to perfect the vertue of Religion and the designs of God and to reforme our Nature and to make it possible for us to come to that spirituall state where all felicity does dwell The Religion that Christ taught is a spirituall Religion it designs so far as this state can permit to make us spirituall that is so as the spirit be the prevailing ingredient God must now be worshipped in spirit and not only so but with a fervent spirit and though God in all religions did seise upon the spirit and even under Moses Law did by the shadow of the ceremony require the substantiall worship by cutting off the flesh intended the circumcision of the heart yet because they were to minde the outward action it took off much from the intention and activity of the spirit Man could not doe both busily And then they fail'd also in the other part of a spirituall Religion for the nature of a spirituall Religion is that in it we serve God with our hearts and affections and because while the spirit prevails we do not to evill purposes of abatement converse with flesh and bloud this service is also fervent intense active wise and busie according to the nature of things spirituall Now because God alwayes perfectly intended it yet because he lesse perfectly required it in the Law of Moses I say they fell short in both For 1. They so rested in the outward action that they thought themselves chast if they were no adulterers though their eyes were wanton as Kids and their thoughts polluted as the springs of the wildernesse when a Panther and a Lionesse descend to drink and lust and if they did not rob the Temple they accounted it no sin if they murmur'd at the riches of Religion and Josephus reproves Polybius for saying that Antiochus was punished for having a design of sacriledge and therefore Tertullian sayes of them they were nec plenae nec adeò timendae disciplinae ad innocentiae veritatem this was their righteousnesse which Christ said unlesse we will exceed we shall not enter into the Kingdome of heaven where all spirituall perfections are in state and excellency 2. The other part of a spirituall worship is a fervour and a holy Zeal of Gods glory greatnesse of desire and quicknesse of action of all this the Jewes were not carefull at all excepting the zealots amongst them and they were not only fervent but inflamed and they had the earnestnesse of passion for the holy warmth of Religion and in stead of an earnest charity they had a cruell discipline and for fraternall correction they did destroy a sinning Israelite and by both these evill states of Religion they did the work of the Lord deceitfully they either gave him the action without the heart or zeal without charity or religion without zeal or ceremony without religion or indifferency without desires and then God is served by the outward man and not the inward or by part of the inward and not all by the understanding and not by the will or by the will when the affections are cold and the body unapt and the lower faculties in rebellion and the superior in disorder and the work of God is left imperfect and our persons ungracious and our ends unacquired and the state of a spirituall kingdome not at all set forward towards any hope or possibility of being obtained All this Christ came to mend and by his Lawes did make provision that God should be served intirely according as God alwaies designed and accordingly required by his Prophets and particularly in my Text that his work be done sincerely and our duty with great affection and by these two provisions both the intension and the extension are secured our duty shall be intire and it shall be perfect we shall be neither lame nor cold without a limb nor without naturall heat and then the work of the Lord will prosper in our hands but if we fail in either we do the Lords work deceitfully and then we are accursed For so saith the Spirit of God Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully 1. Here then is the duty of us all 1. God requires of us to serve him with an integrall intire or a whole worship and religion 2. God requires of us to serve him with earnest and intense affections The intire purpose of both which I shall represent in its severall parts by so many propositions 3. I shall consider concerning the measures of zeal and its inordinations 1. He that serves God with the body without the soul serves God deceitfully My son give me thy heart
and though I cannot think that Nature was so sacramentall as to point out the holy and mysterious Trinity by the triangle of the heart yet it is certain that the heart of man is Gods speciall portion and every angle ought to point out towards him directly that is the soul of man ought to be presented to God and given to him as an oblation to the interest of his service 1. For to worship God with our souls consesses one of his glorious ateributes it declares him to be the searcher of hearts and that he reads the secret purposes and beholds the smallest arrests of fancy and bends in all the flexures and intriques of crafty people and searches out every plot and trifling conspiracy against him and against our selves and against our brethren 2. It advances the powers and concernments of his providence and confesses all the affairs of men all their cabinets and their nightly counsels their snares and two-edged mischiefs to be over-rul'd by him for what he sees he judges and what he judges he rules and what he rules must turn to his glory and of this glory he reflects rayes and influences upon his servants and it shall also turn to their good 3. This service distinguishes our duty towards God from all our conversation with man and separates the divine commandements from the imperfect decrees of Princes and Republiques for these are satisfied by the outward work and cannot take any other cognisance of the heart and the will of man but as himself is pleased to signifie He that wishes the fiscus empty and that all the revenues of the Crown were in his counting-house cannot be punished by the Lawes unlesse himself become his own traytor and accuser and therefore what man cannot discern he must not judge and must not require but God sees it and judges it and requires it and therefore reserves this as his own portion and the chiefest feudall right of his Crown 4. He that secures the heart secures all the rest because this is the principle of all the moral actions of the whole man the hand obeys this and the feet walk by its prescriptions we eat and drink by measures which the soul desires and limits and though the naturall actions of man are not subject to choice rule yet the animal actions are under discipline and although it cannot be helped but we shall desire yet our desires can receive measures and the lawes of circumstances and be reduced to order and nature be changed into grace and the actions animall such as are eating drinking laughing weeping c. shall become actions of Religion and those that are simply naturall such as being hungry and thirsty shall be adopted into the retinue of religion and become religious by being order'd or chastis'd or suffered or directed and therefore God requires the heart because he requires all and all cannot be secured without the principle be inclosed But he that seals up a fountain may drink up all the waters alone and may best appoint the channels where it shall run and what grounds it shall refresh 5. That I may summe up many reasons in one God by requiring the heart secures the perpetuity and perseverance of our duty and its sincerity and its integrity and its perfection for so also God takes account of little things it being all one in the heart of man whether maliciously it omits a duty in a small instance or in a great for although the expression hath variety and degrees in it in relation to those purposes of usefulnesse and charity whither God designs it yet the obedience and disobedience is all one and shall be equally accounted for and therefore the Jew Tryphon disputed against Justin that the precepts of the Gospell were impossible to be kept because it also requiring the heart of man did stop every egression of disorders for making the root holy and healthfull as the Balsame of Judaea or the drops of Manna in the evening of the sabbath it also causes that nothing spring thence but gummes sit for incense and oblations for the Altar of proposition and a cloud of perfume fit to make atonement for our sins and being united to the great sacrifice of the world to reconcile God and man together Upon these reasons you see it is highly fit that God should require it and that we should pay the sacrifice of our hearts and not at all think that God is satisfied with the work of the hands when the affections of the heart are absent He that prayes because he would be quiet and would fain be quit of it and communicates for fear of the lawes and comes to Church to avoid shame and gives almes to be eased of an importunate begger or relieves his old parents because they will not dye in their time and provides for his children lest he be compeld by Lawes and shame but yet complains of the charge of Gods blessings this man is a servant of the eyes of men and offers parchment or a white skin in sacrifice but the flesh and the inwards he leaves to be consumed by a stranger fire And therefore this is a deceit that robs God of the best and leaves that for religion which men pare off It is sacriledge and brings a double curse 2. He that serves God with the soule without the body when both can be conjoyned doth the work of the Lord deceitfully Paphnutius whose knees were cut for the testimony of Jesus was not obliged to worship with the humble flexures of the bending penitents and blinde Bartimeus could not read the holy lines of the Law and therefore that part of the work was not his duty and God shall not call Lazarus to account for not giving almes nor St. Peter and St. John for not giving silver and gold to the lame man nor Epaphroditus for not keeping his fasting dayes when he had his sicknesse But when God hath made the body an apt minister to the soul and hath given money for almes and power to protect the oppressed and knees to serve in prayer and hands to serve our needs then the soul alone is not to work but as Rachel gave her maid to Jacob and she bore children to her Lord upon her Mistresse knees and the children were reckoned to them both because the one had fruitfull desires and the other a fruitfull wombe so must the body serve the needs of the spirit that what the one desires the other may effect and the conceptions of the soul may be the productions of the body and the body must bow when the soul worships and the hand must help when the soul pities and both together do the work of a holy Religion the body alone can never serve God without the conjunction and preceding act of the soul and sometimes the soul without the body is imperfect and vain for in some actions there is a body and a spirit a materiall and a spirituall part and when the action
discourse of a girle and the dreams of the night In every action of Religion God expects such a warmth and a holy fire to goe along that it may be able to enkindle the wood upon the altar and consume the sacrifice but God hates an indifferent spirit Earnestnesse and vivacity quicknesse and delight perfect choyce of the service and a delight in the prosecution is all that the spirit of a man can yeeld towards his Religion the outward work is the effect of the body but if a man does it heartily and with all his mind then religion hath wings and moves upon wheels of fire and therefore when our blessed Saviour made those capitulars and canons of Religion to love God and to love our neighbors besides that the materiall part of the duty love is founded in the spirit as its naturall seat he also gives three words to involve the spirit in the action and but one for the body Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soule and with all thy mind and lastly with all thy strength this brings in the body too because it hath some strengths and some significations of its own but heart and soule and mind mean all the same thing in a stronger and more earnest expression that is that we doe it hugely as much as we can with a cleer choice with a resolute understanding with strong affections with great diligence Enerves animos odisse virtus solet Vertue hates weak and ineffective minds and tame easie prosecutions Loripedes people whose arme is all flesh whose foot is all leather and an unsupporting skin they creep like snakes and pursue the noblest mysteries of Religion as Naaman did the mysteries of Rimmon onely in a complement or for secular regards but without the mind and therefore without Zeal I would thou wert either hot or cold said the Spirit of God to the Angell or Bishop of Laodicea In feasts or sacrifices the Ancients did use apponere frigidam or calidam sometimes they drank hot drink sometimes they poured cold upon their graves or in their wines but no services of Tables or Altars were ever with lukewarm God hates it worse then stark cold which expression is the more considerable because in naturall and superinduc'd progressions from extreme to extreme we must necessarily passe through the midst and therefore it is certain a lukewarm Religion is better then none at all as being the doing some parts of the work designed and neerer to perfection then the utmost distance could be and yet that God hates it more must mean that there is some appendant evill in this state which is not in the other and that accidentally it is much worse and so it is if we rightly understand it that is if we consider it not as a being in or passing through the middle way but as a state and a period of Religion If it be in motion a lukewarm Religion is pleasing to God for God hates it not for its imperfection and its naturall measures of proceeding but if it stands still and rests there it is a state against the designes and against the perfection of God and it hath in it these evills 1. It is a state of the greatest imprudence in the world for it makes a man to spend his labour for that which profits not and to deny his appetite for an unsatisfying interest he puts his moneys in a napkin and he that does so puts them into a broken bag he loses the principall for not encreasing the interest He that dwells in a state of life that is unacceptable loses the money of his almes and the rewards of his charity his hours of prayer and his parts of justice he confesses his sins and is not pardoned he is patient but hath no hope and he that is gone so far towards his countrey and stands in the middle way hath gone so far out of his way he had better have stay'd under a dry roof in the house of banishment then to have left his Gyarus the Island of his sorrow and to dwell upon the Adriatick So is he that begins a state of Religion and does not finish it he abides in the high-way and though he be neerer the place yet is as far from the rest of his countrey as ever and therefore all that beginning of labour was in the prejudice of his rest but nothing to the advantages of his hopes He that hath never begun hath lost no labour Jactura praeteritorum the losse of all that he hath done is the first evill of the negligent and luke-warm Christian according to the saying of Solomon He that is remisse or idle in his labour is the brother of him that scattereth his goods 2. The second appendant evill is that lukewarmnesse is the occasion of greater evill because the remisse easie Christian shuts the gate against the heavenly breathings of Gods holy Spirit he thinks every breath that is fan'd by the wings of the holy Dove is not intended to encourage his fires which burn and smoke and peep through the cloud already it tempts him to security and if an evill life be a certain inlet to a second death despaire on one side and security on the other are the bars and locks to that dore he can never passe forth again while that state remains who ever slips in his spirituall walking does not presently fall but if that slip does not awaken his diligence and his caution then his ruine begins vel pravae institutionis deceptus exordio aut per longam mentis incuriam virtute animi decidente as St. Austin observes either upon the pursuit of his first error or by a carelesse spirit or a decaying slackned resolution all which are the direct effects of lukewarmnesse But so have I seen a fair structure begun with art and care and raised to halfe its stature and then it stood still by the misfortune or negligence of the owner and the rain descended and dwelt in its joynts and supplanted the contexture of its pillars and having stood a while like the antiquated Temple of a deceased Oracle it fell into a hasty age and sunk upon its owne knees and so descended into ruine So is the imperfect unfinished spirit of a man it layes the foundation of a holy resolution and strengthens it with vows and arts of prosecution it raises up the Sacraments and Prayers Reading and holy Ordinances and holy actions begin with a slow motion and the building stays and the spirit is weary and the soul is naked and exposed to temptation and in the days of storm take in every thing that can doe it mischief and it is faint and sick listlesse and tired and it stands till its owne weight wearies the foundation and then declines to death and sad disorder being so much the worse because it hath not onely returned to its first follies but hath superadded unthankfulnesse and carelesnesse a positive neglect and
pleasure from emptynesse and variety from poverty or a humble Table Plerumque gratae principibus vices Mundaeque parvo sub lare pauperum Coenae sine aulaeis ostro Sollicitam explicuere frontem But however of all the things in the world a man may best and most easily want pleasure which if you have enjoyed it passes away at the present and leaves nothing at all behinde it but sorrow and sowre remembrances No man felt a greater pleasure in a goblet of wine then Lysimachus when he fought against the Getae and himselfe and his whole Army were compell'd by thirst to yeeld themselves to bondage but when the wine was sunk as farre as his navel the pleasure was gone and so was his Kingdome and his liberty for though the sorrow dwells with a man pertinaciously yet the pleasure is swift as lightning and more pernicious but the pleasures of a sober and a temperate Table are pleasures till the next day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Timotheus said of Plato's Scholars they converse sweetly and are of perfect temper and delicacy of spirit even the next morning whereas the intemperate man is forced to lye long in bed and forget that there is a Sun in the skie he must not be call'd till he hath concocted and slept his surfeit into a trace and a quiet respite but whatsoever this man hath suffer'd certain it is that the poore mans head did not ake neither did he need the juice of poppies or costly cordials Physitians or Nurses to bring him to his right shape again like Apuleius's Asse with eating roses and let him turne his hour-glasse he will finde his head akes longer then his throat was pleased and which is worst his glasse runs out with joggings and violence and every such concussion with a surfeit makes his life look neerer its end and ten to one but it will before its naturall period be broken in pieces If these be the pleasures of an Epicures Table I shall pray that my friends may never feele them but he that sinneth against his Maker shall fall into the calamities of intemperance 3. Intemperance is the Nurse of vice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Venus milk so Aristophanes calls wine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of all grievous things so Pontianus For by the experience of all the world it is the baud to lust and no man must ever dare to pray to God for a pure soul in a chaste body if himself does not live temperately if himselfe make provisions for the flesh to fulfill the lusts of it for in this case he shall find that which enters into him shall defile him more then he can be cleansed by those vain prayers that come from his tongue and not from his heart Intemperance makes rage and choler pride and fantastick principles it makes the body a sea of humours and those humours the seat of violence by faring deliciously every day men become senselesse of the evills of mankind inapprehensive of the troubles of their Brethren unconcerned in the changes of the world and the cryes of the poor the hunger of the fatherlesse and the thirst of widows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Diogenes Tyrants never come from the cottages of them that eat pulse and course fare but from the delicious beds and banquets of the effeminate and rich feeders For to maintain plenty and luxury sometimes wars are necessary and oppressions and violence but no Land-lord did ever grinde the face of his Tenants no Prince ever suck'd bloud from his subjects for the maintenance of a sober and a moderate proportion of good things And this was intimated by S. James Doe not rich men oppresse you and draw you before the Judgment seat For all men are passionate to live according to that state in which they were born or to which they are devolved or which they have framed to themselves Those therefore that love to live high and deliciously Et quibus in solo vivendi causa palato who live not to God but to their belly not to sober counsels but to an intemperate table have framed to themselves a manner of living which oftentimes cannot be maintain'd but by injustice and violence which coming from a man whose passions are made big with sensuality and an habituall folly by pride and forgetfulnesse of the condition and miseries of mankind are alwayes unreasonable and sometimes intolerable regustatum digito terebrare salinum Contentus perages si vivere cum Jove tendis Formidable is the state of an intemperate man whose sin begins with sensuality and grows up in folly and weak discourses and is fed by violence and applauded by fooles and parasites full bellies and empty heads servants and flatterers whose hands are full of flesh and blood and their hearts empty of pity and naturall compassion where religion cannot inhabit and the love of God must needs be a stranger whose talk is loud and trifling injurious and impertinent and whose imployment is the same with the work of the sheep or the calfe alwayes to eat their loves are the lusts of the lower belly and their portion is in the lower regions to eternall ages where their thirst and their hunger and their torment shall be infinite 4. Intemperance is a perfect destruction of Wisdome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a full gorg'd belly never produc'd a sprightly mind and therefore these kind of men are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 slow bellies so S. Paul concerning the intemperate Cretans out of their owne Poet they are like the Tigres of Brasil which when they are empty are bold and swift and full of sagacity but being full sneak away from the barking of a village dog So are these men wise in the morning quick and fit for businesse but when the sun gives the signe to spread the tables and intemperance brings in the messes and drunkennesse fills the bouls then the man fals away and leaves a beast in his room nay worse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are dead all but their throat and belly so Aristophanes hath fitted them with a character carkasses above halfe way Plotinus descends one step lower yet affirming such persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are made trees whose whole imployment and life is nothing but to feed and suck juices from the bowels of their Nurse and Mother and indeed commonly they talke as trees in a wind and tempest the noise is great and querulous but it signifies nothing but trouble and disturbance A full meal is like Sisera's banquet at the end of which there is a nail struck into a mans head 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Porphyrie it knocks a man down and nayls his soul to the sensuall mixtures of the body For what wisdome can be expected from them whose soul dwels in clouds of meat and floats up and down in wine like the spilled cups which fell from their hands when they could lift them to their heads no longer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
It is a perfect shipwrack of a Man the Pilot is drunk and the helm dash'd in pieces and the ship first reels and by swallowing too much is it self swallowed up at last And therefore the Navis Agrigentina the madnesse of the young fellows of Agrigentum who being drunk fancyed themselves in a storm and the house the ship was more then the wilde fancy of their cups it was really so they were all cast away they were broken in pieces by the foul disorder of the storm Hinc vini atque somni degener discordia Libido sordens inverecundus lepos Variaeque pestes languidorum sensuum Hinc frequenti marcida oblectamine Scintilla mentis intorpescit nobilis Animúsque pigris stertit in praecordiis The senses languish the spark of Divinity that dwels within is quenched and the mind snorts dead with sleep and fulnesse in the fouler regions of the belly So have I seen the eye of the world looking upon a fenny bottome and drinking up too free draughts of moysture gather'd them into a cloud and that cloud crept about his face and made him first look red and then cover'd him with darknesse and an artificiall night so is our reason at a feast Putrem resudans crapulam Obstrangulatae mentis ingenium premit The clouds gather about the head and according to the method and period of the children and productions of darkness it first grows red and that rednesse turns into an obscurity and a thick mist and reason is lost to all use and profitablenesse of wise and sober discourses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cloud of folly and distraction darkens the soul and makes it crasse and materiall polluted and heavy clogg'd and loaden like the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And there cannot be any thing said worse reason turnes into folly wine and flesh into a knot of clouds the soul it self into a body and the spirit into corrupted meat there is nothing left but the rewards and portions of a fool to be reaped and enjoyed there where flesh and corruption shall dwell to eternall ages and therefore in Scripture such men are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravant Their heads are grosse their soules are immerged in matter and drowned in the moystures of an unwholsome cloud they are dull of hearing slow in apprehension and to action they are as unable as the hands of a childe who too hastily hath broken the inclosures of his first dwelling But temperance is reasons girdle and passions bridle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Homer in Stobaeus that 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prudence is safe while the man is temperate and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is opposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a temperate man is no fool for temperance is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as Plato appointed to night-walkers a prison to restraine their inordinations it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Pythagoras calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Iämblicus It is the strength of the soule the foundation of vertue the ornament of all good things and the corroborative of all excellent habits 5. After all this I shall the lesse need to add that intemperance is a dishonor and disreputation to the nature and the person and the manners of a Man But naturally men are ashamed of it and the needs of nature shal be the vail for their gluttony and the night shall cover their drunkennesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Apostle rightly renders They that are drunk are drunk in the night but the Priests of Heliopolis never did sacrifice to the Sun with wine meaning that this is so great a dishonor that the Sun ought not to see it and they that think there is no other eye but the Sun that sees them may cover their shame by choosing their time just as children doe their danger by winking hard and not looking on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To drink sweet drinks and hot to quaffe great draughts and to eat greedily Theophrastus makes them characters of a Clown And now that I have told you the foulnesse of the Epicures feasts and principles it will be fit that I describe the measures of our eating and drinking that the needs of nature may neither become the cover to an intemperate dish nor the freer refreshment of our persons be changed into scruples that neither our vertue nor our conscience fall into an evill snare 1. The first measure of our eating and drinking is our natural needs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these are the measures of nature that the body be free from pain and the soul from violence Hunger and thirst and cold are the naturall diseases of the body and food and rayment are their remedies and therefore are the measures In quantum sitis atque fames frigora poscunt Quantum Epicure tibi parvis suffecit in hortis But in this there are two cautions 1. Hunger and thirst are onely to be extinguished while they are violent and troublesome and are not to be provided for to the utmost extent and possibilities of nature a man is not hungry so long till he can eat no more but till its sharpnesse and trouble is over and he that does not leave some reserves for temperance gives all that he can to nature and nothing at all to grace For God hath given a latitude in desires and degrees of appetite and when he hath done he laid restraint upon it in some whole instances and of some parts in every instance that man might have something to serve God of his own and something to distinguish him from a beast in the use of their common faculties Beasts cannot refrain but fill all the capacity when they can and if a man does so he does what becomes a beast and not a man And therefore there are some little symptomes of this inordination by which a man may perceive himself to have transgressed his measures Ructation uneasie loads singing looser pratings importune drowsinesse provocation of others to equall and full chalices and though in every accident of this signification it is hard for another to pronounce that the man hath sinned yet by these he may suspect himself and learn the next time to hold the bridle harder 2. This hunger must be naturall not artificiall and provoked For many men make necessities to themselves and then think they are bound to provide for them It is necessary to some men to have garments made of the Calabrian fleece stain'd with the blood of the murex and to get money to buy pearls round and orient scelerata hoc fecit pulpa but it is the mans luxury that made it so and by the same principle it is that in-meats what is abundant to nature is defective and beggerly to art and when nature willingly rises from Table when the first course of flesh plain and naturall
is done then art and sophistry and adulterate dishes invite him to taste and die 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 well may a sober man wonder that men should be so much in love with earth and corruption the parent of rottennesse and a disease that even then when by all laws witches and inchanters murderers and manstealers are chastised and restrain'd with the iron hands of death yet that men should at great charges give pensions to an order of men whose trade it is to rob them of their temperance and wittily to destroy their health 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greek Fathers call such persons curvae in terris animae coelestium inanes people bowed downe to the earth lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God Aretinas mentes so Antidamus calls them men framed in the furnaces of Etruria Aretine spirits beginning and ending in flesh and filthynesse dirt and clay all over But goe to the Crib thou glutton and there it will be found that when the charger is clean yet natures rules were not prevaricated the beast eats up all his provisions because they are naturall and simple or if he leaves any it is because he desires no more then till his needs be served and neither can a man unlesse he be diseased in body or in spirit in affection or in habit eat more of naturall and simple food then to the satisfactions of his naturall necessities He that drinks a draught or two of water and cooles his thirst drinks no more till his thirst returnes but he that drinks wine drinks it again longer then it is needfull even so long as it is pleasant Nature best provides for her self when she spreads her own Table but when men have gotten superinduced habits and new necessities art that brought them in must maintain them but wantonnesse and folly wait at the table and sickness and death take away 2. Reason is the second measure or rather the rule whereby we judge of intemperance For whatsoever loads of meat or drink make the reason uselesse or troubled are effects of this deformity not that reason is the adequate measure for a man may be intemperate upon other causes though he doe not force his understanding and trouble his head Some are strong to drink and can eat like a wolfe and love to doe so as fire to destroy the stubble such were those Harlots in the Comedy Quae cum amatore suo cum coenant liguriunt These persons are to take their accounts from the measures of Religion and the Spirit though they can talk still or transact the affaires of the world yet if they be not fitted for the things of the Spirit they are too full of flesh or wine and cannot or care not to attend to the things of God But reason is the limit beyond which temperance never wanders and in every degree in which our discourse is troubled and our soul is lifted from its wheels in the same degree the sin prevails Dum sumus in quâdam delinquendi libidine nebulis quibusdam insipientiae mens obducitur saith St. Ambrose when the flesh-pots reek and the uncovered dishes send forth a nidor and hungry smels that cloud hides the face and puts out the eye of reason and then tell them mors in ollâ that death is in the pot and folly in the chalice that those smels are fumes of brimstone and vapours of Egypt that they will make their heart easie and their head sottish and their colour pale and their hands trembling and their feet tormented Mullorum leporúmque suminis exitus hic est Sulphureúsque color carnificésque pedes For that is the end of delicacies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dio Chrysostom palenesse and effeminacy and lazinesse and folly yet under the dominion of the pleasures of sensuality men are so stript of the use of reason that they are not onely uselesse in wise counsels and assistances but they have not reason enough to avoid the evils of their own throat and belly when once their reason fails we must know that their temperance and their religion went before 3. Though reason be so strictly to be preserved at our tables as well as at our prayers and we can never have leave to doe any violence to it yet the measures of Nature may be enlarged beyond the bounds of prime and common necessity For besides hunger and thirst there are some labours of the body and others of the mind and there are sorrows and loads upon the spirit by its communications with the indispositions of the body and as the labouring man may be supplyed with bigger quantities so the student and contemplative man with more delicious and spritefull nutriment for as the tender and more delicate easily-digested meats will not help to carry burthers upon the neck and hold the plough in society and yokes of the laborious oxen so neither will the pulse and the leeks Lavinian sausages and the Cisalpine tucets or gobbets of condited buls â—esh minister such delicate spirits to the thinking man but his notion will be flat as the noyse of the Arcadian porter and thick as the first juice of his countrey lard unlesse he makes his body a fit servant to the soul and both fitted for the imployment But in these cases necessity and prndence and experience are to make the measures and the rule and so long as the just end is fairly designed and aptly ministred to there ought to be no scruple concerning the quantity or quality of the provision and he that would stint a Swain by the commons of a Student and give Philot as the Candian the leavings of Pluto does but ill serve the ends of temperance but worse of prudence and necessity 4. Sorrow and a wounded spirit may as well be provided for in the quantity and quality of meat and drink as any other disease and this disease by this remedy as well as by any other For great sorrow and importune melancholy may be as great a sin as a great anger and if it be a sin in its nature it is more malignant and dangerous in its quality as naturally tending to murmur and despair wear inesse of Religion and hatred of God timorousnesse and jealousies fantastick images of things and superstition and therefore as it is necessary to restrain the feavers of anger so also to warm the freezings and dulnesse of melancholy by prudent and temperate but proper and apportion'd diets and if some meats and drinks make men lustfull or sleepy or dull or lazy or spritely or merry so far as meats and drinks can minister to the passion and the passion minister to vertue so far by this means they may be provided for Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish and wine to those that be of heavy hearts let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more said King Lemuel's Mother But this is not intended to be an habituall cure but
single and occasionall for he that hath a pertinacious sorrow is beyond the cure of meat and drink and if this become every days physick it will quickly become every days sin 2. It must alwayes keep within the bounds of reason and never seise upon any portions of affection The Germans use to mingle musick with their bowls and drink by the measures of the six Notes of Musick Ut relevet miserum fatum solitósque labores but they sing so long that they forget not their sorrow onely but their vertue also and their Religion and there are some men that fall into drunkennesse because they would forget a lighter calamity running into the fire to cure a calenture and beating their brains out to be quit of the aking of their heads A mans heavynesse is refreshed long before he comes to drunkennesse for when he arrives thither he hath but chang'd his heavynesse and taken a crime to boot 5. Even when a man hath no necessity upon him no pungent sorrow or naturall or artificiall necessity it is lawfull in some cases of eating and drinking to receive pleasure and intend it For whatsoever is naturall and necessary is therefore not criminall because it is of Gods procuring and since we eate for need and the satisfaction of our need is a removing of a pain and that in nature is the greatest pleasure it is impossible that in its own nature it should be a sin But in this case of Conscience these cautions are to be observed 1. So long as nature ministers the pleasure and not art it is materially innocent Si tuo veniat jure luxuria est But it is safe while it enters upon natures stock for it is impossible that the proper effect of health and temperance and prudent abstinence should be vicious and yet these are the parents of the greatest pleasure in eating and drinking Malum panem expecta bonus siet etiam illum tenerum tibi siligineum fames reddet If you abstaine and be hungry you shall turne the meanest provision into delicate and desireable 2. Let all the pleasure of meat and drink be such as can minister to health and be within the former bounds For since pleasure in eating and drinking is its naturall appendage and like a shadow follows the substance as the meat is to be accounted so is the pleasure and if these be observed there is no difference whether nature or art be the Cook For some constitutions and some mens customes and some mens educations and necessities and weaknesses are such that their appetite is to be invited and their digestion helped but all this while we are within the bounds of nature and need 3. It is lawfull when a man needs meat to choose the pleasanter even meerly for their pleasures that is because they are pleasant besides that they are usefull this is as lawfull as to smell of a rose or to lye in feathers or change the posture of our body in bed for ease or to hear musick or to walk in gardens rather then the high-wayes and God hath given us leave to be delighted in those things which he made to that purpose that we may also be delighted in him that gives them For so as the more pleasant may better serve for health and directly to refreshment so collaterally to Religion Alwayes provided that it be in its degree moderate and we temperate in our desires without transportation and violence without unhandsome usages of our selves or taking from God and from Religion any minutes and portions of our affections When Eicadastes the Epicure saw a goodly dish of hot meat serv'd up he sung the verse of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and swallowed some of it greedily till by its hands of fire it curled his stomach like parchment in the flame and he was carryed from his banquet to his grave Non poterat letho nobiliore mori It was fit he should dye such a death but that death bids us beware of that folly 4. Let the pleasure as it came with the meat so also passe away with it Philoxenus was a beast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he wisht his throat as long as a Cranes that he might be long in swallowing his pleasant morsels Moeret quòd magna pars felicitat is exclusa esset corporis angustiis he mourned because the pleasure of eating was not spread over all his body that he might have been an Epicure in his hands and indeed if we consider it rightly great eating and drinking is not the greatest pleasure of the taste but of the touch and Philoxenus might feel the unctious juyce slide softly down his throat but he could not taste it in the middle of the long neck and we see that they who mean to feast exactly or delight the palate do libare or pitissare take up little proportions and spread them upon the tongue or palate but full morsells and great draughts are easie and soft to the touch but so is the feeling of silke or handling of a melon or a moles skin and as delicious too as eating when it goes beyond the appetites of nature and the proper pleasures of taste which cannot be perceived but by a temperate man And therefore let not the pleasure be intended beyond the taste that is beyond those little naturall measures in which God intended that pleasure should accompany your tables Doe not run to it beforehand nor chew the chud when the meal is done delight not in the fancies and expectations and remembrances of a pleasant meal but let it descend in latrinam together with the meals whose attendant pleasure is 5. Let pleasure be the lesse principall and used as a servant it may be modest and prudent to strew the dish with Sugar or to dip thy bread in vinegar but to make thy meal of sauces and to make the accessory become the principall and pleasure to rule the table and all the regions of thy soule is to make a man lesse and lower then an Oglio of a cheaper value then a Turbat a servant and a worshipper of sauces and cookes and pleasure and folly 6. Let pleasure as it is used in the regions and limits of nature and prudence so also be changed into religion and thankfulnesse Turtures cum bibunt non resupinant colla say Naturalists Turtles when they drink lift not up their bills and if we swallow our pleasures without returning the honour and the acknowledegment to God that gave them we may largè bibere jumentorum modo drink draughts as large as an Oxe but we shall die like an Oxe and change our meats and drinks into eternall rottennesse In all Religions it hath been permitted to enlarge our Tables in the days of sacrifices and religious festivity Qui Veientarum festis potare diebus Campanâ solitus trullâ vappámque profestis For then the body may rejoyce in fellowship with the soule and then a pleasant meal is religious if it be not inordinate But
and counsell for the power a man hath is founded in the understanding not in the will or force it is not a power of coercion but a power of advice and that government that wise men have over those who are fit to be conducted by them Et vos in manu in tutelâ non in servitio debetis habere eas malle patres vos viros quà m dominos dici said Valerius in Livie Husbands should rather be Fathers then Lords Homer addes more soft appellatives to the character of a husbands duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou art to be a father and a mother to her and a brother and great reason unlesse the state of marriage should be no better then the condition of an Orphan For she that is bound to leave father and mother and brother for thee either is miserable like a poor fatherlesse childe or else ought to finde all these and more in thee Medea in Euripides had cause to complain when she found it otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which St. Ambrose well translates It is sad when virgins are with their own money sold to slavery and that services are in better state then marriages for they receive wages but these buy their setters and pay dear for their losse of liberty and therefore the Romans expressed the mans power over his wife but by a gentle word Nec verò mulieribus praefectus reponatur qui apud Graecos creari solet sed sit censor qui viros doceat moderari uxoribus said Cicero let there be no governour of the women appointed but a censor of manners one to teach the men to moderate their wives that is fairly to induce them to the measures of their own proportions It was rarely observed of Philo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when Adam made that fond excuse for his folly in eating the forbidden fruit he said The woman thou gavest to be with me she gave me He saies not the woman which thou gavest to me no such thing she is none of his goods none of his possessions not to be reckoned among his servants God did not give her to him so but the woman thou gavest to be with me that is to be my partner the companion of my joyes and sorrowes thou gavest her for use not for dominion The dominion of a man over his wife is no other then as the soul rules the body for which it takes a mighty care and uses it with a delicate tendernesse and cares for it in all contingencies and watches to keep it from all evils and studies to make for it fair provisions and very often is led by its inclinations and desires and does never contradict its appetites but when they are evill and then also not without some trouble and sorrow and its government comes only to this it furnishes the body with light and understanding and the body furnishes the soul with hands and feet the soul governs because the body cannot else be happy but the government is no other then provision as a nurse governs a childe when she causes him to eat and to be warm and dry and quiet and yet even the very government it self is divided for man and wife in the family are as the Sun and Moon in the sirmament of heaven He rules by day and she by night that is in the lesser and more proper circles of her affairs in the conduct of domestick provisions and necessary offices and shines only by his light and rules by his authority and as the Moon in opposition to the Sun shines brightest that is then when she is in her own circles and separate regions so is the authority of the wife then most conspicuous when she is separate and in her proper sphere in Gynaeceo in the nursery and offices of domestick employment but when she is in conjunction with the Sun her Brother that is in that place and employment in which his care and proper offices are imployed her light is not seen her authority hath no proper businesse but else there is no difference for they were barbarous people among whom wives were in stead of servants said Spartianus in Caracalla and it is a sign of impotency and weaknesse to force the camels to kneel for their load beccuse thou hast not spirit and strength enough to climbe to make the affections and evennesse of a wife bend by the flexures of a servant is a sign the man is not wise enough to govern when another stands by So many differences as can be in the appellatives of Dominus and Domina Governour and Governesse Lord and Lady Master and Mistresse the same difference there is in the authority of man and woman and no more Si tu Caius ego Caia was publickly proclaimed upon the threshold of the young mans house when the bride enter'd into his hands and power and the title of Domina in the sense of the civill Law was among the Romans given to wives Hi Dominam Ditis thalamo diducere adorti said Virgil where though Servius saies it was spoken after the manner of the Greeks who call'd the wife 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lady or Mistresse yet it was so amongst both the Nations Ac domûs Dominam voca saies Catullus Haerebit Dominae vir comes ipse suae so Martial and therefore although there is a just measure of subjection and obedience due from the wise to the husband as I shall after explain yet nothing of this is expressed in the mans character or in his duty he is not commanded to rule nor instructed how nor bidden to exact obedience or to defend his priviledge all his duty is signified by love by nourishing and cherishing by being joyned to her in all the unions of charity by not being bitter to her by dwelling with her according to knowledge giving honour to her so that it seems to be with husbands as it is with Bishops and Priests to whom much honour is due but yet so that if they stand upon it and challenge it they become lesse honourable and as amongst men and women humility is the way to be prefer'd so it is in husbands they shall prevail by cession by sweetnesse and counsell and charity and compliance So that we cannot discourse of the mans right without describing the measures of his duty that therefore followes next Let him love his wife even as himself that 's his duty and the measure of it too which is so plain that if he understands how he treats himself there needs nothing be added concerning his demeanour towards her save only that we adde the particulars in which holy Scripture instances this generall commandement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That 's the first Be not bitter against her and this is the least Index and signification of love a civill man is never bitter against a friend or a stranger much lesse
rubies adorn the necks and cheeks of women Pudicitia est pater eos magnificare qui nos socias sumpserunt sibi said the maiden in the comedy It is modesty to advance and highly to honour them who have honoured us by making us to be the companions of their dearest excellencies for the woman that went before the man in the way of death is commanded to follow him in the way of love and that makes the society to be perfect and the union profitable and the harmony compleat Inferior Matrona suo sit Sexte marito Non aliter fiunt foemina virque pares For then the soul and body make a perfect man when the soul commands wisely or rules lovingly and cares profitably and provides plentifully and conducts charitably that body which is its partner and yet the inferiour But if the body shall give lawes and by the violence of the appetite first abuse the understanding and then possesse the superior portion of the will and choice the body and the soul are not apt company and the man is a fool and miserable If the soul rules not it cannot be a companion either it must govern or be a slave Never was King deposed and suffered to live in the state of peerage and equall honour but made a prisoner or put to death and those women that had rather lead the blinde then follow prudent guides rule fools and easie men then obey the powerfull and the wise never made a good society in a house a wife never can become equall but by obeying but so her power while it is in minority makes up the authority of the man integrall and becomes one government as themselves are one man Male and Female created he them and called their name Adam saith the holy Scripture they are but one and therefore the severall parts of this one man must stand in the place where God appointed that the lower parts may do their offices in their own station and promote the common interest of the whole A ruling woman is intolerable Faciunt graviora coacta Imperio sexus But that 's not all for she is miserable too for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a sad calamity for a woman to be joyned to a fool or a weak person it is like a guard of geese to keep the Capitoll or as if a flock of sheep should read grave lectures to their shepherd and give him orders where he shall conduct them to pasture O verè Phyrgiae neque enim Phryges It is a curse that God threatned sinning persons Devoratum est robur eorum facti sunt quasi mulieres Effeminati dominabuntur eis To be ruled by weaker people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have a fool to ones master is the fate of miserable and unblessed people and the wife can be no waies happy unlesse she be governed by a prudent Lord whose commands are sober counsels whose authority is paternall whose orders are provisions and whose sentences are charity But now concerning the measures and limits of this obedience we can best take accounts from Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle in all things ut Domino as unto the Lord and that 's large enough as unto a Lord ut Ancilla Domino so St. Hierom understand it who neither was a friend to the sexe nor to marriage But his mistake is soon confuted by the text It is not ut Dominis be subject to your husbands as unto Lords but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in all religion in reverence and in love in duty and zeal in faith and knowledge or else 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie wives be so subject to your husbands but yet so that at the same time ye be subject to the Lord. For that 's the measure of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things and it is more plain in the parallell place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is fit in the Lord Religion must be the measure of your obedience and subjection intra limites disciplinae so Tertullian expresses it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Clemens Alex. In all things let the wise be subject to the husband so as to do nothing against his will those only things excepted in which he is impious or refractary in things pertaining to wisdome and piety But in this also there is some peculiar caution For although in those things which are of the necessary parts of faith and holy life the woman is only subject to Christ who only is and can be Lord of consciences and commands alone where the conscience is instructed and convinced yet as it is part of the mans office to be a teacher and a prophet and a guide and a Master so also it will relate very much to the demonstration of their affections to obey his counsels to imitate his vertues to be directed by his wisdome to have her perswasion measured by the lines of his excellent religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It were hugely decent saith Plutarch that the wife should acknowledge her husband for her teacher and her guide for then when she is what he please to efform her he hath no cause to complain if she be no better 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his precepts and wise counsels can draw her off from vanities and as he said of Geometry that if she be skill'd in that she will not easily be a gamester or a dancer may perfectly be said of Religion If she suffers her self to be guided by his counsell and efformed by his religion either he is an ill master in his religion or he may secure in her and for his advantage an excellent vertue And although in matters of religion the husband hath no empire and command yet if there be a place lest to perswade and intreat and induce by arguments there is not in a family a greater endearment of affections then the unity of religion and anciently it was not permitted to a woman to have a religion by her self Eosdem quos maritus nosse Deos colere solos uxor debet said Plutarch And the rites which a woman performes severally from her husband are not pleasing to God and therefore Pomponia Graecina because she entertain'd a stranger religion was permitted to the judgement of her husband Plantius And this whole affair is no stranger to Christianity For the Christian woman was not suffered to marry an unbelieving man and although this is not to be extended to different opinions within the limits of the common faith yet thus much advantage is won or lost by it that the complyance of the wife and submission of her understanding to the better rule of her husband in matters of Religion will help very much to warrant her though she should be misperswaded in a matter lesse necessary yet nothing can warrant her in her separate rites and manners of worshippings but an invincible necessity of conscience and a curious infallible
passes the time with incogitancy and hates the imployment and suffers the torments of prayers which he loves not and all this although for so doing it is certain he may perish what fruit what deliciousnesse can he fancy in being weary of his prayers There is no pretence or colour for these things Can any man imagine a greater evill to the body and soul of a man then madnesse and furious eyes and a distracted look palenesse with passion and trembling hands and knees and furiousnesse and folly in the heart and head and yet this is the pleasure of anger and for this pleasure men choose damnation But it is a great truth that there are but very few sins that pretend to pleasure although a man be weak and soon deceived and the Devill is crafty and sin is false and impudent and pretences are too many yet most kinds of sins are reall and prime troubles to the very body without all manner of deliciousnesse even to the sensuall naturall and carnall part and a man must put on something of a Devill before he can choose such sins and he must love mischief because it is a sin for in most instances there is no other reason in the world Nothing pretends to pleasure but the lusts of the lower belly ambition and revenge and although the catalogue of sins is numerous as the production of fishes yet these three only can be apt to cousen us with a fair outside and yet upon the survey of what fruits they bring and what taste they have in the manducation besides the filthy relish they leave behind we shall see how miserably they are abused and fool'd that expend any thing upon such purchases 2. For a man cannot take pleasure in lusts of the flesh in gluttony or drunkennesse unlesse he be helped forward with inconsideration and folly For we see it evidently that grave and wise persons men of experience and consideration are extremely lesse affected with lust and loves the hare-brain'd boy the young gentleman that thinks nothing in the world greater then to be free from a Tutor he indeed courts his folly and enters into the possession of lust without abatement consideration dwels not there but when a sober man meets with a temptation and is helped by his naturall temper or invited by his course of life if he can consider he hath so many objections and fears so many difficulties and impediments such sharp reasonings and sharper jealousies concerning its event that if he does at all enter into folly it pleases him so little that he is forced to do it in despite of himself and the pleasure is so allayed that he knowes not whether it be wine or vinegar his very apprehension and instruments of relish are fill'd with fear and contradicting principles and the deliciousnesse does but affricare cutem it went but to the skin but the allay went further it kept a guard within and suffered the pleasure to passe no further A man must resolve to be a fool a rash inconsiderate person or he will feel but little satisfaction in the enjoyment of his sin indeed he that stops his nose may drink down such corrupted waters and he understood it well who chose rather to be a fool Dum mala delectent mea me vel denique fallant Quà m sapere ringi so that his sins might delight him or deceive him then to be wise and without pleasure in the enjoyment So that in effect a man must lose his discerning faculties before he discerns the little phantastick joyes of his concupiscence which demonstrates how vain how empty of pleasure that is that is beholding to folly and illusion to a jugling and a plain cousenage before it can be fancyed to be pleasant For it is a strange beauty that he that hath the best eyes cannot perceive and none but the blinde or blear-ey'd people can see and such is the pleasure of lust which by every degree of wisdome that a man hath is lessened and undervalued 3. For the pleasures of intemperance they are nothing but the reliques and images of pleasure after that nature hath been feasted For so long as she needs that is so long as temperance waits so long pleasure also stands there But as temperance begins to go away having done the ministeries of Nature every morsell and every new goblet is still lesse delicious and cannot be endured but as men force nature by violence to stay longer then she would How have some men rejoyced when they have escaped a cup and when they cannot escape they pour it in and receive it with as much pleasure as the old women have in the Lapland dances they dance the round but there is a horror and a harshnesse in the Musick and they call it pleasure because men bid them do so but there is a Devill in the company and such as is his pleasure such is theirs he rejoyces in he thriving sin and the swelling fortune of his darling drunkennesse but his joyes are the joyes of him that knowes and alwayes remembers that he shall infallibly have the biggest damnation and then let it be considered how forc'd a joy that is that is at the end of an intemperate feast Non benè mendaci risus componitur ore Nec benè sollicitis ebria verba sonant Certain it is intemperance takes but natures leavings when the belly is full and nature cals to take away the pleasure that comes in afterwards is next to loathing it is like the relish and taste of meats at the end of the third course or the sweetnesse of honey to him that hath eaten til he can endure to take no more and in this there is no other difference of these men from them that die upon another cause then was observed among the Phalangia of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some of these serpents make men die laughing and some to die weeping so does the intemperate and so does his brother that languishes of a consumption this man dies weeping and the other dies laughing but they both die infallibly and all his pleasure is nothing but the sting of a serpent immixte liventia mella veneno it wounds the heart and he dies with a Tarantula dancing and singing till he bowes his neck and kisses his bosome with the fatall noddings and declensions of death 4. In these pretenders to pleasure which you see are but few and they not very prosperous in their pretences there is mingled so much trouble to bring them to act and injoyment that the appetite is above half tired before it comes It is necessary a man should be hugely patient that is ambitious Ambulare per Britannos Scythicas pati pruinas no man buy 's death and damnation at so dear a rate as he that fights for it and endures cold and hunger Patiens liminis atque solis The heat of the sun and the cold of the threshold the dangers of war and the snares of a crafty enemy he lies
of your mouth the first sort of this is that which the Apostle calls whispering which signifies to abuse our neighbor secretly by telling a private story of him linguáque refert audita susurro for here the man playes a sure game as he supposes a mischiefe without a witnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Anacreon calls them the light swift arrows of a calumniating tongue they pierce into the heart and bowels of the man speedily These are those which the holy Scripture notes by the disgracefull name of Talebearers Thou shalt not goe up and down as a Talebearer among the people for there are six things which God hates saith Solomon yea the seventh is an abomination unto him it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as bad and as much hated by God as an idol and that is a whisperer or tale-bearer that soweth contention amongst brethren This kinde of communication was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Greeks and was as much hated as the Publicans among the Jewes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a vile thing O ye Athenians it is a vile thing for a man to be a Sycophant or a Tale-bearer and the dearest friendships in the world cannot be secure where such whisperers are attended to Te fingente nefas Pyladen odisset Orestes Thesea Pirithoi destituisset amor Tu Siculos fratres majus nomen Atridas Et Ledae poteras dissociare genus But this crime is a conjugation of evils and is productive of infinite mischiefs it undermines peace and saps the foundation of friendship it destroyes families and rends in pieces the very heart and vitall parts of charity it makes an evill man party and witnesse and judge and executioner of the Innocent who is hurt though he deserv'd it not Et si non aliquà nocuisses mortuus esses and no mans interest nor reputation no mans peace or safety can abide where this nurse of jealousie and parent of contention like the earwig creeps in at the car and makes a diseased noyse and scandalous murmur 2. But such tongues as these where they dare and where they can safely love to speak louder and then it is detraction when men under the colour of friendship will certainly wound the reputation of a man while by speaking some things of him fairly he shall without suspicion be beleeved when he speaks evill of him such was he that Horace speaks of Me Capitolinus convictore usus amicóque c. Capitolinus is my friend and we have long liv'd together and obliged each other by mutuall endearments and I am glad he is acquitted by the criminall Judges Sed tamen admiror quo pacto judicium illud Fugerit yet I confesse I wonder how he should escape but I 'le say no more because he is my friend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes Polybius This is a new way of accusation to destroy a man by praises These men strike obliquely like a wilde swine or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or like buls in a yoke they have horns upon their necks and doe you a mischief when they plough your ground and as Joab slew Abner he took him by the beard and kissed him and smote him under the fift rib that he died so doth the detracting tongue like the smooth tongued lightning it will break your bones when it kisses the flesh so Syphax did secretly wound Massinissa and made Scipio watchfull and implacable against Sophonisba onely by commending her beauty and her wit her constancy and unalterable love to her country and by telling how much himselfe was forc'd to break his faith by the tyranny of her prevailing charmes This is that which the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a crafty and deceitfull way of hurting and renders a mans tongue venemous as the tongue of a serpent that bites even though he be charm'd 3. But the next is more violent and that is railing or reviling which Aristotle in his Rhetoricks says is very often the vice of boys and of rich men who out of folly or pride want of manners or want of the measures of a man wisdome and the just proportions of his brethren doe use those that erre before them most scornfully and unworthily and Tacitus noted it of the Claudian family in Rome an old and inbied pride and scornfulnesse made them apt to abuse all that fell under their power and displeasure quorum superbiam frustrà per obsequium modestiam effugeres No observance no prudence no modesty can escape the reproaches of such insolent and high talkers A. Gellius tels of a boy that would give every one that he met a box on the ear and some men will give foul words having a tongue rough as a Cat and biting like an Adder and all their reproofes are direct scoldings their common entercourse is open contumely There have been in these last ages examples of Judges who would reproach the condemned and miserable criminall deriding his calamity and reviling his person Nero did so to Thraseas and the old Heathens to the primitive Martyrs pereuntibus addita ludibria said Tacitus of them they crucified them again by putting them to suffer the shame of their fouler language they rail'd at them when they bowed their heads upon the crosse and groan'd forth the saddest accents of approaching death This is that evill that possessed those of whom the Psalmist speaks Our tongues are our owne we are they that ought to speak who is Lord over us that is our tongues cannot be restrained and St. James said something of this The tongue is an unruly member which no man can tame that is no private person but a publick may for he that can rule the tongue is fit also to govern the whole body that is the Church or Congregation Magistrates and the Governours of souls they are by severity to restraine this inordination which indeed is a foul one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no evill is worse or of more open violence to the rest and reputation of men then a reproachfull tongue And it were well if we considered this evill to avoyd it in those instances by which our conversation is daily stain'd Are we not often too imperious against our servants Do we not entertain and seed our own anger with vile and basest language Doe not we chastise a servants folly or mistake his error or his chance with language fit to be used by none but vile persons and towards none but dogs Our blessed Saviour restraining the hostility and murther of the tongue threatens hell fire to them that call their brother foole meaning that all language which does really and by intention disgrace him in the greater instances is as directly against the charity of the Gospel as killing a man was against the severity and justice of the law And although the word it self may be us'd to reprove the indiscretions and carelesse follies of an idle person yet it must be used onely
Give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darknesse and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light or lest while ye look for light he shall turn it into the shadow of death and make it grosse darknesse Sermon 7. 8. The deceitfulnesse of the heart fol. 80. 92. Jerem. 17. 9. The heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know it Sermon 9. 10. 11. The faith and patience of the Saints Or the righteous cause oppressed fol. 104. 119. 133. 1 Pet. 4. 17. For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God and if it first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God 18. And if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear Sermon 12. 13. The mercy of the Divine judgements or Gods method in curing sinners fol. 146. 159. Romans 2. 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance Sermon 14. 15. Of groweth in grace with its proper instruments and signes fol. 172. 183. 2 Pet. 3. 18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ to whom be glory both now and for ever Amen Sermon 16. 17. Of groweth in sin or the severall states and degrees of sinners with the manner how they are to be treated fol. 197. 210. Jude Epist ver 22 23. And of some have compassion making a difference * And others save with fear pulling them out of the fire Sermon 18. 19. The foolish exchange sol 224. 237. Matth. 16. ver 26. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul Sermon 20 21. 22. The Serpent and the Dove or a discourse of Christian Prudence fol. 251. 263. 274. Matth. 10. latter part of ver 16. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmlesse as doves Sermon 23. 24. Of Christian simplicity 289. 301. Matth. 10. latter part of ver 16. And harmlesse as doves Sermon 25. 26. 27. The miracles of the Divine Mercy fol. 313. 327. 340. Psal. 86. 5. For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee A Funerall Sermon preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honourable the Countesse of Carbery fol. 357. 2 Sam. 14. 14. For we must needs die and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again neither doth God respect any person yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him A Discourse of the Divine Institution necessity sacrednesse and separation of the Office Ministeriall Sermon I. VVHITSVNDAY OF THE SPIRIT OF GRACE 8. Romans v. 9. 10. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousnesse THe day in which the Church commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles was the first beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This was the first day that the Religion was professed now the Apostles first open'd their commission and read it to all the people The Lord gave his Spirit or the Lord gave his word and great was the company of the Preachers For so I make bold to render that prophesie of David Christ was the word of God verbum aeternum but the Spirit was the word of God verbum Patefactum Christ was the word manifested in the flesh the Spirit was the word manifested to flesh and set in dominion over and in hostility against the flesh The Gospel and the Spirit are the same thing not in substance but the manifestation of the Spirit is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and because he was this day manifested the Gospel was this day first preached and it became a law to us called the law of the Spirit of life that is a law taught us by the Spirit leading us to life eternal But the Gospel is called the Spirit 1. Because it contains in it such glorious mysteries which were revealed by the immediate inspirations of the Spirit not onely in the matter it self but also in the manner and powers to apprehend them For what power of humane understanding could have found out the incarnation of a God that two natures a finite and an infinite could have been concentred into one hypostasis or person that a virgin should be a Mother that dead men should live again that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ashes of dissolved bones should become bright as the Sun blessed as Angels swift in motion as thought clear as the purest Noone that God should so love us as to be willing to be reconcil'd to us and yet that himself must dye that he might pardon us that Gods most Holy Son should give us his body to eat and his bloud to crown our chalices and his Spirit to sanctifie our souls to turn our bodies into temperance our souls into mindes our mindes into Spirit our Spirit into glory that he who can give us all things who is Lord of Men and Angels and King of all the Creatures should pray to God for us without intermission that he who reigns over all the world should at the day of judgement give up the Kingdom to God the Father and yet after this resignation himself and we with him should for ever reign the more gloriously that we should be justified by Faith in Christ and that charity should be a part of faith and that both should work as acts of duty and as acts of relation that God should Crown the imperfect endeavours of his Saints with glory and that a humane act should be rewarded with an eternal inheritance that the wicked for the transient pleasure of a few minutes should be tormented with an absolute eternity of pains that the waters of baptisme when they are hallowed by the Spirit shall purge the soul from sin and that the Spirit of a man shall be nourished with the consecrated and mysterious elements and that any such nourishment should bring a man up to heaven and after all this that all Christian People all that will be saved must be partakers of the Divine nature of the Nature the infinite nature of God and must dwell in Christ and Christ must dwell in them and they must be in the Spirit and the Spirit must be for ever in them these are articles of so mysterious a Philosophy that we could have inferred them from no premises discours'd them upon the stock of no naturall or scientificall principles nothing but God and Gods spirit could have taught them to us and therefore the Gospel is Spiritus
in you you are in it if it hath given you hope it hath also inabled and ascertain'd your duty For the Spirit of manifestation will but upbraid you in the shame and horrours of a sad eternity if you have not the Spirit of obsignation if the Holy Ghost be not come upon you to great purposes of holinesse all other pretences are vain ye are still in the flesh which shall never inherit the kingdom of God In the Spirit that is in the power of the spirit so the Greeks call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is possessed by a spirit whom God hath filled with a coelestial immission he is said to be in God when God is in him and it is a similitude taken from persons encompassed with guards they are in custodiâ that is in their power under their command moved at their dispose they rest in their time and receive laws from their authority and admit visiters whom they appoint and mus◠be employed as they shall suffer so are men who are in the Spirit that is they beleeve as he teaches they work as he inables they choose what he calls good they are friends of his friends and they hate with his hatred with this onely difference that persons in custody are forced to do what their keepers please and nothing is free but their wils but they that are under the command of the Spirit do all things which the Spirit commands but they do them cheerfully and their will is now the prisoner but it is in liber â custodiâ the will is where it ought to be and where it desires to be and it cannot easily choose any thing else because it is extreamly in love with this as the Saints and Angels in their state of Beatific vision cannot choose but love God and yet the liberty of their choice is not lessen'd because the object fils all the capacities of the will and the understanding Indifferency to an object is the lowest degree of liberty and supposes unworthinesse or defect in the object or the apprehension but the will is then the freest and most perfect in its operation when it intirely pursues a good with so certain determination and clear election that the contrary evil cannot come into dispute or pretence Such in our proportions is the liberty of the sons of God it is an holy and amiable captivity to the Spirit the will of man is in love with those chains which draws to God and loves the fetters that confine us to the pleasures and religion of the kingdom And as no man will complain that his temples are restrain'd and his head is prisoner when it is encircled with a crown So when the Son of God had made us free and hath onely subjected us to the service and dominion of the Spirit we are free as Princes within the circles of their Diadem and our chains are bracelets and the law is a law of liberty and his service is perfect freedom and the more we are subjects the more we shall reign as Kings and the faster we run the easier is our burden and Christs yoke is like feathers to a bird not loads but helps to motion without them the body fals and we do not pity birds when in summer we wish them unfeathered and callow or bald as egges that they might be cooler and lighter such is the load and captivity of the soul when we do the work of God and are his servants and under the Government of the spirit They that strive to be quit of this subjection love the liberty of out-laws and the licentiousness of anarchy and the freedom of sad widows and distressed Orphans For so Rebels and fools and children long to be rid of their Princes and their Guardians and their Tutors that they may be accursed without law and be undone without control and be ignorant and miserable without a teacher and without discipline He that is in the Spirit is under Tutours and Governours untill the time appointed of the Father just as all great Heirs are onely the first seizure the Spirit makes is upon the will He that loves the yoke of Christ and the discipline of the Gospel he is in the Spirit that is in the spirits power Upon this foundation the Apostle hath built these two propositions 1. Whosoever hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his he does not belong to Christ at all he is not partaker of his Spirit and therefore shall never be partaker of his glory 2. Whosoever is in Christ is dead to sin and lives to the Spirit of Christ that is lives a Spirituall a holy and a sanctifyed life These are to be considered distinctly 1. All that belong to Christ have the Spirit of Christ. Immediately before the ascension our blessed Saviour bid his Disciples tarry in Jerusalem till they should receive the promise of the Father Whosoever stay at Jerusalem and are in the actuall Communion of the Church of God shall certainly receive this promise For it is made to you and to your children saith S. Peter and to as many as the Lord our God shall call All shall receive the Spirit of Christ the promise of the Father because this was the great instrument of distinction between the Law and the Gospel In the Law God gave his Spirit 1. to some to them 2. extraregularly 3. without solennity 4. in small proportions like the dew upon Gideons fleece a little portion was wet sometime with the dew of heaven when all the earth besides was dry And the Jewes calld it filiam vocis the daughter of a voice still and small and seldom and that by secret whispers and sometimes inarticulate by way of enthusiasme rather then of instruction and God spake by the Prophets transmitting the sound as thorough an Organ pipe things which themselves oftentimes understood not But in the Gospel the spirit is given without measure first powred forth upon our head Christ Jesus then descending upon the beard of Aaron the Fathers of the Church and thence falling like the tears of the balsam of Judea upon the foot of the plant upon the lowest of the people And this is given regularly to all that ask it to all that can receive it and by a solemn ceremony and conveyed by a Sacrament and is now not the Daughter of a voice but the Mother of many voices of divided tongues and united hearts of the tongues of Prophets and the duty of Saints of the Sermons of Apostles and the wisdom of Governours It is the Parent of boldness and fortitude to Martyrs the fountain of learning to Doctors an Ocean of all things excellent to all who are within the ship and bounds of the Catholike Church so that Old men and young men maidens and boyes the scribe and the unlearned the Judge and the Advocate the Priest and the people are full of the Spirit if they belong to God Moses's wish is fulfilled and all the Lords people are Prophets in
intercession and prayer must suppose all holinesse or else it is nothing and therefore all that in which men need Gods Spirit all that is in order to prayer Baptisme is but a prayer and the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supperl is but a prayer a prayer of sacrifice representative and a prayer of oblation and a prayer of intercession and a prayer of thanksgiving and obedience is a prayer and begs and procures blessings and if the Holy Ghost hath sanctified the whole man then he hath sanctified the prayer of the man and not till then and if ever there was or could be any other praying with the spirit it was such a one as a wicked man might have and therefore it cannot be a note of distinction between the good and bad between the saints and men of the world But this onely which I have described from the fountains of Scripture is that which a good man can have and therefore this is it in which we ought to rejoyce that he that glories may glory in the Lord. Thus I have as I could described the effluxes of the Holy Spirit upon us in his great chanels But the great effect of them is this That as by the arts of the spirits of darknesse and our own malice our souls are turned into flesh not in the naturall sense but in the morall and Theologicall and animalis homo is the same with carnalis that is his soul is a servant of the passions and desires of the flesh and is flesh in it s operations and ends in it s principles and actions So on the other side by the Grace of God and the promise of the Father and the influences of the Holy Ghost our souls are not onely recovered from the state of flesh and reduced back to the intirenesse of animall operations but they are heightned into spirit and transform d into a new nature And this is a new Article and now to be considered S. Hierom tels of the Custome of the Empire When a Tyrant was overcome they us d to break the head of his Statues and upon the same Trunk to set the head of the Conquerour and so it passed wholly for the new Prince So it is in the kingdom of Grace As soon as the Tyrant sin is overcome and a new heart is put into us or that we serve under a new head instantly we have a new Name given us and we are esteemed a new Creation and not onely changed in manners but we have a new nature within us even a third part of an essentiall constitution This may seem strange and indeed it is so and it is one of the great mysteriousnesses of the Gospel Every man naturally consists of soul and body but every Christian man that belongs to Christ hath more For he hath body and soul and spirit My Text is plain for it If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his and by Spirit is not meant onely the graces of God and his gifts enabling us to do holy things there is more belongs to a good man then so But as when God made man he made him after his own image and breath'd into him the spirit of life and he was made in animam viventem into a living soul then he was made a man So in the new creation Christ by whom God made both the worlds intends to conform us to his image and he hath given us the spirit of adoption by which we are made sons of God and by the spirit of a new life we are made new creatures capable of a new state intitled to another manner of duration enabled to do new and greater actions in order to higher ends we have new affections new understandings new wils Veter a transierunt ecce omnia nova facta sunt All things are become new And this is called the seed of God when it relates to the principle and cause of this production but the thing that is produced is a spirit and that is as much in nature beyond a soul as a soul is beyond a body This great Mystery I should not utter but upon the greatest authority in the world and from an infallible Doctor I mean S. Paul who from Christ taught the Church more secrets then all the whole Colledge besides And the very God of peace sanctifie you wholly and I pray God that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blamelesse unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are not sanctified wholly nor preserved in safety unlesse besides our souls and bodies our spirit also be kept blamelesse This distinction is nice and infinitely above humane reason but the word of God saith the same Apostle is sharper then a two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder the soul and the spirit and that hath taught us to distinguish the principle of a new life from the principle of the old the celestiall from the naturall and thus it is The spirit as I now discourse of it is a principle infused into us by God when we become his children whereby we live the life of Grace and understand the secrets of the Kingdom and have passions and desires of things beyond and contrary to our naturall appetites enabling us not onely to sobriety which is the duty of the body not onely to justice which is the rectitude of the soul but to such a sanctity as makes us like to God * For so saith the Spirit of God Be ye holy as I am be pure be perfect as your heavenly Father is pure as he is perfect which because it cannot be a perfection of degrees it must be in similitudine naturae in the likenesse of that nature which God hath given us in the new birth that by it we might resemble his excellency and holinesse And this I conceive to be the meaning of S. Peter According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godlinesse that is to this new life of godlinesse through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and vertue whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the Divine nature so we read it But it is something mistaken it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Divine nature for Gods nature is indivisible and incommunicable but it is spoken participative or per analogiam partakers of a Divine nature that is of this new and God-like nature given to every person that serves God whereby he is sanctified and made the childe of God and framed into the likenesse of Christ. The Greeks generally call this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a gracious gift an extraordinary super addition to nature not a single gift in order to single purposes but an universall principle and it remains upon all good men during their lives and after their death and is that white stone spoken of in the Revelation and in it
a new name written which no man knoweth but he that hath it And by this Godssheep at the day of judgement shall be discerned from goats If their spirits be presented to God pure and unblameable this great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this talent which God hath given to all Christians to improve in the banks of grace and of Religion if they bring this to God increased and grown up to the fulnesse of the measure of Christ for it is Christs Spirit and as it is in us it is called the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ then we shall be acknowledged for sons and our adoption shall passe into an eternall inheritance in the portion of our elder Brother I need not to apply this Discourse The very mystery it self is in the whole world the greatest engagement of our duty that is imaginable by the way of instrument and by the way of thankfulnesse Quisquis magna dedit voluit sibi magna rependi He that gives great things to us ought to have great acknowledgements and Seneca said concerning wise men That he that doth benefit to others hides those benefits as a man layes up great treasures in the earth which he must never see with his eyes unlesse a great occasion forces him to dig the graves and produce that which he buried but all the while the man was hugely rich and he had the wealth of a great relation so it is with God and us For this huge benefit of the Spirit which God gives us is for our good deposited in our souls not made for forms and ostentation not to be looked upon or serve little ends but growing in the secret of our souls and swelling up to a treasure making us in this world rich by title and relation but it shall be produced in the great necessities of doomesday In the mean time if the fire be quenched the fire of Gods Spirit God will kindle another in his anger that shall never be quenched but if we entertain Gods Spirit with our own purities and imploy it diligently and serve it willingly for Gods Spirit is a loving Spirit then we shall really be turned into spirits Irenaeus had a proverbiall saying Perfecti sunt qui tria sine querelâ Deo exhibent They that present three things right to God they are perfect that is a chast body a righteous soul and a holy spirit and the event shall be this which Maimonides expressed not amisse though he did not at all understand the secret of this mystery The soul of a man in this life is in potentiâ ad esse spiritum it is designed to be a spirit but in the world to come it shall be actually as very a spirit as an Angel is and this state is expressed by the Apostle calling it the earnest of the spirit that is here it is begun and given us as an antepast of glory and a principle of Grace but then we shall have it in plenitudine regit idem spiritus artus Orbe alio Here and there it is the same but here we have the earnest there the riches and the inheritance But then if this be a new principle and be given us in order to the actions of a holy life we must take care that we receive not the Spirit of God in vain but remember it is a new life and as no man can pretend that a person is alive that doth not alwayes do the works of life so it is certain no man hath the Spirit of God but he that lives the life of grace and doth the works of the Spirit that is in all holinesse and justice and sobriety Spiritus qui accedit animo vel Dei est vel Daemonis said Tertullian Every man hath within him the Spirit of God or the spirit of the devil The spirit of fornication is an unclean devil and extremely contrary to the Spirit of God and so is the spirit of malice or uncharitablenesse for the Spirit of God is the Spirit of love for as by purities Gods Spirit sanctifies the body so by love he purifies the soul and makes the soul grow into a spirit into a Divine nature But God knows that even in Christian societies we see the devils walk up and down every day and every hour the devil of uncleannesse and the devil of drunkennesse the devil of malice and the devil of rage the spirit of filthy speaking and the spirit of detraction a proud spirit and the spirit of rebellion and yet all call Christian. It is generally supposed that unclean spirits walk in the night and so it used to be for they that are drunk are drunk in the night said the Apostle but Suidas tels of certain Empusae that used to appear at Noon at such time as the Greeks did celebrate the Funerals of the Dead and at this day some of the Russians fear the Noon-day Devil which appeareth like a mourning widow to reapers of hay and corn and uses to break their arms and legs unlesse they worship her The Prophet David speaketh of both kindes Thou shalt not be afraid for the terrour by night and a ruinâ daemonio meridiano from the Devil at noon thou shalt be free It were happy if we were so but besides the solemn followers of the works of darknesse in the times and proper seasons of darknesse there are very many who act their Scenes of darknesse in the face of the Sun in open defiance of God and all lawes and all modesty There is in such men the spirit of impudence as well as of impiety And yet I might have expressed it higher for every habituall sin doth not onely put us into the power of the devil but turns us into his very nature just as the Holy Ghost transforms us into the image of God Here therefore I have a greater Argument to perswade you to holy living then Moses had to the sons of Israel Behold I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing so said Moses but I adde that I have upon the stock of this Scripture set before you the good Spirit and the bad God and the devil choose unto whose nature you will be likened and into whose inheritance you will be adopted and into whose possession you will enter If you commit sin ye are of your father the Devil ye are begot of his principles and follow his pattern and shall passe into his portion when ye are led captive by him at his will and remember what a sad thing it is to go into the portion of evil and accursed spirits the sad and eternall portion of Devils But he that hath the Spirit of God doth acknowledge God for his Father and his Lord he despises the world and hath no violent appetites for secular pleasures and is dead to the desires of this life and his hopes are spirituall and God is his joy and Christ is his pattern and his support and Religion is his imployment and godlinesse
eternally if he never does repent And if he does repent and yet untimely he is not the better and if he does not repent with an intire a perfect and complete repentance he is not the better But if he does yet repentance is a duty full of fears and sorrow and labour a vexation to the spirit an asslictive paenal or punitive duty a duty which suffers for sin and labours for grace which abides and suffers little images of hell in the way to heaven and though it be the onely way to felicity yet it is beset with thorns and daggers of sufferance and with rocks and mountains of duty Let no man therefore dare to sin upon hopes of repentance for he is a foole and a hypocrite that now chooses and approves what he knows hereafter he must condemn 2. The second generall consideration is The necessity the absolute necessity of holy living God hath made a Covenant with us that we must give up our selves bodies and souls not a dying but aliving and healthfull sacrifice He hath forgiven all our old sins and we have bargained to quit them from the time that we first come to Christ and give our names to him and to keep all his Cominandements We have taken the Sacramentall oath like that of the old Romane Militia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must beleeve and obey and do all that is commanded us and keep our station and fight against the flesh the world and the devil not to throw away our military girdle and we are to do what is bidden us or to die for it even all that is bidden us according to our power For pretend nor that Gods Commandements are impossible It is dishonourable to think God enjoyns us to do more then he enables us to do and it is a contradiction to say we cannot do all that we can and through Christ which strengthens me I can do all things saith S. Paul however we can do to the utmost of our strength and beyond that we cannot take thought impossibilities enter not into deliberation but according to our abilities and naturall powers assisted by Gods grace so God hath covenanted with us to live a holy life For in Christ Jesus nothing avayleth but a new creature nothing but faith working by charity nothing but keeping the Commandements of God They are all the words of S. Paul before quoted to which he addes and as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy This is the Covenant they are the Israel of God upon those peace and mercy shall abide if they become a new creature wholly transformed in the image of their minde if they have faith and this faith be an operative working faith a faith that produces a holy life a faith that works by charity if they keep the Commandements of God then they are within the Covenant of mercy but not else for in Christ Jesus nothing else avayleth * To the same purpose are those words Hebr. 12. 14. Follow peace with all men and holinesse without which no man shall see the Lord. Peace with all men implies both justice and charity without which it is impossible to preserve peace Holinesse implies all our duty towards God universall diligence and this must be followed that is pursued with diligence in a lasting course of life and exercise and without this we shall never see the face of God I need urge no more authorities to this purpose these two are as certain and convincing as two thousand and since thus much is actually required and is the condition of the Covenant it is certain that sorrow for not having done what is commanded to be done and a purpose to do what is necessary to be actually performed will not acquit us before the righteous judgement of God * For the grace of God hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodlinesse and worldly lusts we should live godly justly and soberly in this present world for upon these termes alone we must look for the blessed hope the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ * I shall no longer insist upon this particular but onely propound it to your consideration To what purpose are all those Commandements in Scripture of every page almost in it of living holily and according to the Commandements of God of adorning the Gospel of God of walking as in the day of walking in light of pure and undefiled religion of being holy as God is holy of being humble and meek as Christ is humble of putting on the Lord Jesus of living a spirituall life but that it is the purpose of God and the intention and designe of Christ dying for us and the Covenant made with man that we should expect heaven upon no other termes in the world but of a holy life in the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus Now if a vitious person when he comes to the latter end of his dayes one that hath lived a wicked ungodly life can for any thing he can do upon his death-bed be said to live a holy life then his hopes are not desperate but he that hopes upon this onely for which God hath made him no promise I must say of him as Galen said of consumptive persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the more they hope the worse they are and the relying upon such hopes is an approach to the grave and a sad eternity Peleos Priami transit vel Nestoris aetas fuerat serum jant tibi desinere Eja age rumpe moras quo te spectabimus usque Dum quid sis dubitas jam potes esse nihil Mart. l. 2. ep 64. And now it will be a vain question to ask whether or no God cannot save a dying man that repents after a vitious life For it is true God can do it if he please and he can raise children to Abraham out of the stones and he can make ten thousand worlds if he sees good and he can do what he list and he can save an ill living man though he never repent at all so much as upon his death-bed All this he can do but Gods power is no ingredient into this question we are never the better that God can do it unlesse he also will and whether he will or no we are to learn from himself and what he hath declared to be his will in holy Scripture Nay since God hath said that without actuall holinesse no man shall see God God by his own will hath restrained his power and though absolutely he can do all things yet he cannot do against his own word * And indeed the rewards of heaven are so great and glorious and Christs burden is so light his yoke is so easie that it is a shamelesse impudence to expect so great glories at a lesse rate then so little a service at a lower rate then a holy life It cost the Eternall Son of God his life blood to obtain heaven
deceive you The man deceives because he is false and the staffe because it is weak and the heart because it is both So that it is deceitful above all things that is failing and disabled to support us in many things but in other things where it can it is false and desperately wicked The first sort of deceitfulnesse is its calamitie and the second is its iniquity and that is the worst Calamitie of the two 1. The heart is deceitfull in its strength and when we have the groweth of a Man we have the weaknesses of a childe nay more yet and it is a sad consideration the more we are in age the weaker in our courage It appears in the heats and forwardnesses of new converts which are like to the great emissions of Lightning or like huge fires which flame and burn without measure even all that they can till from flames they descend to still fires from thence to smoak from smoak to embers from thence to ashes cold and pale like ghosts or the phantastick images of Death And the primitive Church were zealous in their Religion up to the degree of Cherubins and would run as greedily to the sword of the hangman to die for the cause of God as we do now to the greatest joy and entertainment of a Christian spirit even to the receiving of the holy Sacrament A man would think it reasonable that the first infancy of Christianity should according to the nature of first beginnings have been remisse gentle and unactive and that according us the object or evidence of faith grew which in every Age hath a great degree of Argument superadded to its confirmation so should the habit also and the grace the longer it lasts the more obiections it runs through it still should shew a brighter and more certain light to discover the divinity of its principle and that after the more examples and new accidents and strangenesses of providence and daily experience and the multitude of miracles still the Christian should grow more certain in his faith more refreshed in his hope and warm in his charity the very nature of these graces increasing and swelling upon the very nourishment of experience and the multiplication of their own acts And yet because the heart of man is false it suffers the fires of the Altar to go out and the flames lessen by the multitude of fuel But indeed it is because we put on strange fire put out the fire upon our hearths by letting in a glaring Sun beam the fire of lust or the heates of an angry spirit to quench the fires of God and suppresse the sweet cloud of incense The heart of man hath not strength enough to think one good thought of itself it cannot command its own attention to a prayer of ten lines long but before its end it shall wander after some thing that is to no purpose and no wonder then that it grows weary of a holy religion which consists of so many parts as make the businesse of a whole life And there is no greater argument in the world of our spiritual weaknesse and falsnesse of our hearts in the matters of religion then the backwardnesse which most men have alwayes and all men have somtimes to say their prayers so weary of their length so glad when they are done so wittie to excuse and frustrate an opportunity and yet there is no manner of trouble in the duty no wearinesse of bones no violent labours nothing but begging a blessing and receiving it nothing but doing our selves the greatest honour of speaking to the greatest person and greatest king of the world and that we should be unwilling to do this so unable to continue in it so backward to return to it so without gust and relish in the doing it can have no visible reason in the nature of the thing but something within us a strange sicknesse in the heart a spiritual nauseating or loathing of Manna something that hath no name but we are sure it comes from a weake a faint and false heart And yet this weak heart is strong in passions violent in desires unresistable in its appetites impatient in its lust furious in anger here are strengths enough one would think But so have I seen a man in a feaver sick and distempered unable to walk lesse able to speak sence or to do an act of counsel and yet when his feaver hath boild up to a delirium he was strong enough to beat his nurse keeper and his doctor too and to resist the loving violence of all his friends who would faine binde him down to reason and his bed And yet we still say he is weak and sick to death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for these strengths of madnesse are not health but furiousnesse and disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is weaknesse another way And so are the strengths of a mans heart they are fetters and manacles strong but they are the cordage of imprisonment so strong that the heart is not able to stir And yet it cannot but be a huge sadnesse that the heart shall pursue a temporal interest with wit and diligence and an unwearied industry and shall not have strength enough in a matter that concerns its Eternal interest to answer one obiection to resist one assault to defeate one art of the divel but shall certainly and infallibly fall when ever it is tempted to a pleasure This if it be examined will prove to be a deceit indeed a pretence rather then true upon a just cause that is it is not a natural but a moral a vicious weaknesse and we may try it in one or two familiar instances One of the great strengths shall I call it or weaknesses of the heart is that it is strong violent and passionate in its lusts and weak and deceitful to resist any Tell the tempted person that if he act his lust he dishonours his body makes himself a servant to follie and one flesh with a harlot he defiles the Temple of God and him that defiles a Temple will God destroy Tell him that the Angels who love to be present in the nastinesse and filth of prisons that they may comfort and assist chast souls and holy persons there abiding yet they are impatient to behold or come neer the filthynesse of a lustful person Tell him that this sin is so ugly that the divels who are spirits yet they delight to counterfeit the acting of this crime and descend unto the daughters or sons of men that they may rather lose their natures then not help to set a lust forward Tell them these and ten thousand things more you move them no more then if you should read one of Tullies orations to a mule for the truth is they have no power to resist it much lesse to master it their heart fails them when they meet their Mistresse and they are driven like a fool to the stocks or a Bull to the slaughter-house And
was brought in by sin must not go away till it hath returned us into the first condition of innocence the same instant that quits us from sin and the failings of mortality the same instant wipes all tears from our eyes but that is not in this world In the mean time God afflicts the godly that he might manifest many of his attributes and his servants exercise many of their vertues Nec fortuna probat causas sequiturque merentes sed vaga percunctos nullo discrimine fertur scilicet est aliud quod nos cogatque rogatque Majus in proprias ducat mortalia leges For without sufferings of Saints God should lose the glories of 1. Bringing good out of evil 2. Of being with us in tribulation 3. Of sustaining our infirmities 4. Of triumphing over the malice of his enemies 5. Without the suffering of Saints where were the exaltation of the crosse the conformity of the members to Christ their Head the coronets of Martyrs 6. Where were the trial of our faith 7. Or the exercise of long suffering 8. Where were the opportunities to give God the greatest love which cannot be but by dying and suffering for him 9. How should that which the world calls folly prove the greatest wisdom 10. and God be glorified by events contrary to the probability and expectation of their causes By the suffering of Saints Christian religion is proved to be most excellent whilst the iniquity and cruelty of the adversaries proves the illecebra sectae as Tertullians phrase is it invites men to consider the secret excellencies of that religion for which and in which men are so willing to die for that religion must needs be worth looking into which so many wise and excellent men do so much value above their lives and fortunes 12. That a mans nature is passible is its best advantage for by it we are all redeemed by the passivenesse and sufferings of our Lord and brother we were all rescued from the portion of Devils and by our suffering we have a capacity of serving God beyond that of Angels who indeed can sing Gods praise with a sweeter note and obey him with a more unabated will and execute his commands with a swifter wing and a greater power but they cannot die for God they can lose no lands for him and he that did so for all us and commanded us to do so for him is ascended farre above all Angels and is Heir of a greater glory 13. Do this and live was the covenant of the Law but in the Gospel it is suffer this and live He that forsaketh house and land friends and life for my sake is my disciple 14. By the sufferings of Saints God chastises their follies and levities and suffers not their errours to climbe up into heresies nor their infirmities into crimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alterat on makes a fool leave his folly If David numbers the people of Judea God punishes him sharply and loudly But if Augustus Caesar numbers all the world he is let alone and prospers Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit hic diadema And it giving physick we alwayes call that just and fitting that is usefull and profitable no man complains of his Physitians Iniquity if he burns one part to cure all the body if the belly be punished to chastise the floods of humour and the evils of a surfet Punishments can no other way turn into a mercy but when they are designed for medicine and God is then very carefull of thy soul when he will suppresse every of its evils when it first discomposes the order of things and spirits And what hurt is it to thee if a persecution draws thee from the vanities of a former prosperity and forces thee into the sobrieties of a holy life What losse is it what misery Is not the least sin a greater evil then the greatest of sufferings God smites some at the beginning of their sin Others not till a long while after it is done The first cannot say that God is slack in punishing and have no need to complain that the wicked are prosperous for they finde that God is apt enough to strike and therefore that he strikes them and strikes not the other is not defect of justice but because there is not mercy in store for them that sin and suffer not 15. For if God strikes the godly that they may repent it is no wonder that God is so good to his servants but then we must not call that a misery which God intends to make an instrument of saving them And if God forbears to strike the wicked out of anger and because he hath decreed death and hell against them we have no reason to envy that they ride in a gilded chariot to the gallows But if God forbears the wicked that by his long sufferance they may be invited to repentance then we may cease to wonder at the dispensation and argue comforts to the afflicted Saints thus 1. For if God be so gracious to the wicked how much more is he to the godly And if sparing the wicked be a mercy then smiting the godly being the expression of his greater kindnesse affliction is of it self the more eligible condition If God hath some degrees of kindnesse for the persecutor so much as to invite them by kindnesse how much greater is his love to them that are persecuted and therefore his entercourse with them is also a greater favour and indeed it is the surer way of securing the duty fair means may do it but severity will fix and secure it fair means are more apt to be abused then harsh physick that may be turned into wantonnesse but 〈◊〉 but the impudent and grown sinners despise all Gods judgements and therefore God chooses this way to deal with his erring servants that they may obtain an infallible and a great salvation and yet if God spares not his children how much lesse the reprobates and therefore as the sparing the latter commonly is a sad curse so the smiting the former is a very great mercy 16 For by this Oeconomy God gives us a great argument to prove the resurrection since to his saints and servants he assignes sorrow for their present portion Sorrow cannot be the reward of vertue it may be its instrument and hand-maid but not its reward and therefore it may be intermedial to some great purposes but they must look for their portion in the other life For if in this life onely we had hope then we were of all men the most miserable It is Sain Pauls argument to prove a beatificall resurrection And we therefore may learn to estimate the state of the afflicted godly to be a mercy great in proportion to the greatnesse of that reward which these afflictions come to secure and to prove Nunc damna juvant sunt ipsa pericula tanti Stantia non poterant tecta probare Deos. It is a great matter an infinite blessing to escape the pains
of hell and therefore that condition is also very blessed which God sends us to create and to confirm our hopes of that excellent mercy 17. The sufferings of the saints are the sum of Christian Philosophy they are sent to wean us from the vanities and affections of this world and to create in us strong desires of heaven whiles God causes us to be here treated rudely that we may long to be in our Countrey where God shall be our portion and Angels our companions and Christ our perpetuall feast and a never ceasing joy shall be our condition and entertainment O death how bitter art thou to a man that is at ease and rest in his possessions but he that is uneasie in his body and unquiet in his possessions vexed in his person discomposed in his designes who findes no pleasure no rest here will be glad to fix his heart where onely he shall have what he can desire and what can make him happy As long as the waters of persecutions are upon the earth so long we dwell in the Ark but where the land is dry the Dove it self will be tempted to a wandring course of life and never to return to the house of her safety What shall 1 say more 18 Christ nourisheth his Church by sufferings 19 He hath given a single blessing to all other graces but to them that are persecuted he hath promised a double one It being a double favour first to be innocent like Christ and then to be afflicted like him 20. Without this the miracles of patience which God hath given to fortifie the spirits of the saints would signifie nothing Nemo enim tolerare tanta velit sine causâ nec potuit sine Deo as no man would bear evils without a cause so no man could bear so much without the supporting hand of God and we need not the Holy Ghost to so great purposes if our lot were not sorrow and persecution and therefore without this condition of suffering the Spirit of God should lose that glorious attribute of The Holy Ghost the Comforter 21. Is there any thing more yet Yes They that have suffered or forsaken any lands for Christ shall sit upon thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel so said Christ to his Disciples Nay the saints shall judge Angels saith saint Paul well therefore might Saint Paul say I rejoyce exceedingly in tribulation It must be some great thing that must make an afflicted man to rejoyce exceedingly and so it was For since patience is necessary that we receive the promise and tribulation does work this For a short time it worketh the consummation of our hope even an exceeding weight of glory We have no reason to think it strange concerning the fiery triall as if it were a strange thing It can be no hurt the Church is like Moses bush when it is all on fire it is not at all consumed but made full of miracle full of splendour full of God and unlesse we can finde something that God cannot turn into joy we have reason not onely to be patient but rejoyce when we are persecuted in a righteous cause For love is the soul of Christianity and suffering is the soul of love To be innocent and to be persecuted are the body and soul of Christianity I John your brother and partaker of tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus said Saint John those were the titles and ornaments of his profession that is I John your fellow Christian that 's the plain song of the former descant He therefore that is troubled when he is afflicted in his outward man that his inward man may grow strong like the birds upon the ruines of the shell and wonders that a good man should be a begger and a sinner be rich with oppression that Lazarus should die at the gate of Dives hungry and sick unpitied and unrelieved may as well wonder that carrion crowes should feed themselves fat upon a fair horse farre better then himself or that his own excellent body should be devoured by wormes and the most contemptible creatures though it lies there to be converted into glory That man knows nothing of nature or providence or Christianity or the rewards of vertue or the nature of its constitution or the infirmities of man or the mercies of God or the arts and prudence of his loving kindnesse or the rewards of heaven or the glorifications of Christs exalted humanity or the precepts of the Gospel who is offended at the sufferings of Gods deerest servants or declines the honour and the mercy of sufferings in the cause of righteousnesse For the securing of a vertue for the imitation of Christ and for the love of God or the glories of immortality It cannot it ought not it never will be otherwise the world may as well cease to be measured by time as good men to suffer affliction I end this point with the words of Saint Paul Let as many as are perfect be thus minded and if any man be otherwise minded God also will reveal this unto you this of the covenant of sufferings concerning which the old Prophets and holy men of the Temple had many thoughts of heart but in the full sufferings of the Gospel there hath been a full revelation of the excellency of the sufferings I have now given you an account of some of those reasons why God hath so disposed it that at this time that is under the period of the Gospel judgement must begin at the house of God and they are either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or imitation of Christs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chastisements or trials martyrdom or a conformity to the sufferings of the Holy Jesus But now besides all the premises we have another account to make concerning the prosperity of the wicked For if judgment first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God that is the question of the Apostle and is the great instrument of comfort to persons ill treated in the actions of the world The first ages of the Church lived upon promises and prophecies and because some of them are already fulfilled for ever and the others are of a continuall and a successive nature and are verified by the actions of every day Therefore we and all the following Ages live upon promises and experience and although the servants of God have suffered many calamities from the tyranny and prevalency of evil men their enemies yet still it is preserved as one of the fundamentall truths of Christianity That all the fair fortunes of the wicked are not enough to make them happy nor the persecutions of the godly able to make a good man miserable nor yet their sadnesses arguments of Gods displeasure against them For when a godly man is afflicted and dies it is his work and his businesse and if the wicked prevail that is if they persecute the godly it is but that which was to
us choose God and let God choose all the rest for us it being indifferent to us whether by poverty or shame by lingring or a sudden death by the hands of a Tyrant Prince or the despised hands of a base usurper or a rebell we receive the crown and do honour to God and to Religion 3. Whoever suffer in a cause of God from the hands of cruell and unreasonable men let them not be too forward to prognosticate evil and death to their enemies but let them solace themselves in the assurance of the divine justice by generall consideration and in particular pray for them that are our persecutours Nebuchadnezzar was the rod in the hand of God against the Tyrians and because he destroyed that city God rewarded him with the spoil of Egypt and it is not alwayes certain that God will be angry with every man by whose hand affliction comes upon us And sometimes two armies have met and fought and the wisest man amongst them could not say that either of the Princes had prevaricated either the lawes of God or of Nations and yet it may be some superstitious easie and half witted people of either side wonder that their enemies live so long And there are very many cases of warre concerning which God hath declared nothing and although in such cases he that yeelds and quits his title rather then his charity and the care of so many lives is the wisest and the best man yet if neither of them will do so let us not decree judgements from heaven in cases where we have no word from heaven and thunder from our Tribunals where no voice of God hath declared the sentence But in such cases where there is an evident tyranny or injustice let us do like the good Samaritan who dressed the wounded man but never pursued the thief let us do charity to the afflicted and bear the crosse with noblenesse and look up to Jesus who endured the crosse and despised the shame but let us not take upon us the office of God who will judge the Nations righteously and when he hath delivered up our bodies will rescue our souls from the hands of unrighteous judges I remember in the story that Plutarch tels concerning the soul of Thespesius that it met with a Prophetick Genius who told him many things that should happen afterwards in the world and the strangest of all was this That there should be a King Qui bonus cum sit tyrannide vitam finiet An excellent Prince and a good man should be put to death by a rebell and usurping power and yet that Prophetick soul could not tell that those rebels should within three yeers die miserable and accursed deaths and in that great prophecy recorded by Saint Paul That in the last dayes perillous times should come and men should be traitours and selvish having forms of godlinesse and creeping into houses yet could not tell us when those men should come to finall shame and ruine onely by a generall signification he gave this signe of comfort to Gods persecuted servants But they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifest to all men that is at long running they shall shame themselves and for the elects sake those dayes of evil shall be shortned But you and I may be dead first And therefore onely remember that they that with a credulous heart and a loose tongue are too decretory and enunciative of speedy judgements to their enemies turn their religion into revenge and therefore do beleeve it will be so because they vehemently desire it should be so which all wise and good men ought to suspect as lesse agreeing with that charity which overcomes all the sins and all the evils of the world and sits down and rests in glory 4. Do not trouble your self by thinking how much you are afflicted but consider how much you make of it For reflex acts upon the suffering it self can lead to nothing but to pride or to impatience to temptation or a postacy He that measures the grains and scruples of his persecution will soon sit down and call for ease or for a reward will think the time long or his burden great will be apt to complain of his condition or set a greater value upon his person Look not back upon him that strikes thee but upward to God that supports thee and forward to the crown that is set before thee and then consider if the losse of thy estate hath taught thee to despise the world whether thy poor fortune hath made thee poor in spirit and if thy uneasie prison sets thy soul at liberty and knocks off the fetters of a worse captivity For then the rod of suffering turns into crowns and scepters when every suffering is a precept and every change of condition produces a holy resolution and the state of sorrows makes the resolution actuall and habituall permanent and persevering For as the silk-worm eateth it self out of a seed to become a little worm and there feeding on the leaves of mulberies it grows till its coat be off and then works it self into a house of silk then casting its pearly seeds for the young to breed it leaveth its silk for man and dieth all white and winged in the shape of a flying creature So it the progresse of souls when they are regenerate by Baptisme and have cast off their first stains and the skin of world 〈…〉 by feeding on the leaves of Scriptures and the fruits of 〈…〉 and the joyes of the Sacrament they incircle themselves in the rich garments of holy and vertuous habits then by leaving their blood which is the Churches seed to raise up a new generation to God they leave a blessed memory and fair example and are themselves turned into Angels whose felicity is to do the will of God as their imployments was in this world to suffer it fiat voluntas tua is our daily prayer and that is of a passive signification thy will be done upon us and if from thence also we translate it into an active sence and by suffering evils increase in our aptnesses to do well we have done the work of Christians and shall receive the reward of Martyrs 5. Let our suffering be entertained by a direct election not by collateral ayds and phantastick assistances It is a good refreshment to a weak spirit to suffer in good company and so Phocion encouraged a timerous Greek condemned to die and he bid him be confident because that he was to die with Phocion and when 40 Martyrs in Cappadocia suffered and that a souldier standing by came and supplyed the place of the one Apostate who fell from his crown being overcome with pain it added warmth to the frozen confessors and turnd them into consummate Martyrs But if martyrdom were but a phantastick thing or relyed upon vain accidents and irregular chances it were then very necessary to be assisted by images of things and any thing lesse then the
very purpose of his mercy is to the contrary and the very manner of his Oeconomy and dispensation is such that Gods mercy goes along in complection and conjunction with his judgements the riches of his forbearance is this that he forbears to throw us into hell and sends the mercies of his rod to chide us unto repentance and the mercies of his rod to punish us for having sinned and that when we have sinned we may never think our selves secured nor ever be reconciled to such dangers and deadly poisons This this is the manner of the divine mercy Go now fond man and because God is merciful presume to sin as heaving grounds to hope that thou mayest sin and be safe all the way If this hope shall I call it or sordid flattery could be reasonable then the mercies of God would not leade us to repentance so unworthy are we in the sense and largenesse of a wide fortune and pleasant accident For impunity was never a good argument to make men to obey laws quotusquisque reperitur qui impunitate proposita abstinere possit injurijs Impunitas est maxima peccandi illecebra said Cicero and therefore the wisdom of God hath so ordered the actions of the world that the most fruitful showres shall be wrapped up in a cover of black clouds that health shall be conveyed by bitter and ill tasted drugs that the temples of our bodies shall be purged by whips and that the cords of the whip shall be the cords of love to draw us from the intanglings of vanity and folly This is the long suffering of God the last remedy to our diseased souls and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Phalaris unlesse we be senselesse we shall be brought to sober courses by all those sad accidents and wholsome but ill tasting mercies which we feele in all the course and the succession of the divine long sufferance The use of all the premises is that which Saint Paul expresses in the text that we do not despise all this and he onely despises not who serves the ends of God in all these designes of mercy that is he that repents him of his sins But there are a great many despisers all they that live in their sins they that have more blessings then they can reckon houres in their lives that are courted by the divine favour and woed to salvation as if mankinde were to give not to receive so great a blessing all they that answer not to so friendly summons they are despisers of Gods mercies and although God overflows with mercies and does not often leave us to the onely hopes of being cured by unctions and gentle cataplasmes but proceeds further and gives us stibium or prepared steele sharp arrows of his anger and the sword and the hand of sicknesse yet we are not sure of so much favour as to be entertained longer in Gods hospital but may be thrust forth among the incurabili Plutarch reports concerning swine that then optick nervs are so disposed to turne their eyes downwards that they cannot look upwards nor behold the face of heaven unlesse they be thrown upon their backs such Swine are we we seldom can look up to heaven til God by his judgements throws us upon our backs till he humbles us softens us with showers of our own blood and tears of sorrow and yet God hath not promised that he will do so much for us but for ought we know as soon as ever the devil enters into our swinish and brutish hearts we shall run down the hill and perish in the floods and seas of intolerable miserie And therefore besides that it is a huge folly in us that we wil not be cured with pleasant medicines but must be longing for colliquintida and for vomits for knives and poniards instead of the gentle shoures of the divine refreshments besides that this is an imprudence and sottishnesse we do infinitely put it to the venture whether we shall be in a saveable condition or no after the rejection of the first state of mercies But however then begins the first step of the judgement and pungent misery we are perishing people or if not yet at the last not to be cured without the abscision of a member without the cutting of a hand or leg or the putting out of an eye we must be cut to take the stone out of our hearts and that is a state of a very great infelicity and if we scape the stone we cannot escape the surgeons knife if we scape death yet we have a sicknesse and though that be a great mercy in respect of death yet it is as great a misery in respect of health and that is the first punishment for the despite done to the first and most sensible mercies we are fallen into a sicknesse that cannot be cured but by disease and hardship But if this despite runs further and when the mercies look on us with an angry countenance and that God gives us onely the mercy of a punishment if we despise this too we increase but our misery as we increase our sin the summe of which is this that if Pharaoh will not be cured by one plague he shall have ten and if ten will not do it the great and tenth wave which is far bigger then all the rest the severest and the last arrow of the quiver then we shall perish in the red sea the sea of flames and blood in which the ungodly shall roule eternally But some of these despisers are such as are unmooved when God smites others like Gallio when the Jews took Softhenes and beat him in the pleading place he cared for none of these things he was not concerned in that interest and many Gallio's there are amongst us that understand it not to be a part of the divine method of Gods longsufferance to strike others to make us afraid But however we sleep in the midst of such alarums yet know that there is not one death in all the neighbour-hood but is intended to thee every crowing of the cock is to awake thee to repentance and if thou sleepest still the next turn may be thine God will send his Angel as he did to Peter and smite thee on thy side and wake thee from thy dead sleep of sin and sottishnesse But beyond this some are despisers still and hope to drown the noises of mount Sinai the sound of Canons of thunders and lightnings with a counternoise of revelling and clamorous roarings with merry meetings like the sacrifices to Moloch they sound drums and trumpets that they might not hear the sad shrikings of their children as they were dying in the cavety of the brazen idoll and when their conscience shrikes out or murmurs in a sad melancholy or something that is dear to them is smitten they attempt to drown it in a sea of drink in the heathenish noises of idle and drunken company and that which God sends to lead them to repentance leads them
we are but beginners But it is not likely that God will trie us concerning degrees hereafter in such things of which in this world he was sparing to give us opportunities 3. Be carefull to observe that these rules are not all to be understood negatively but positively and affirmatively that is that a man may conclude that he is grown in grace if he observes these characters in himself which I have here discoursed of but he must not conclude negatively that he is not grown in grace if he cannot observe such signall testimonies for sometimes God covers the graces of his servants and hides the beauty of his tabernacle with goats hair and the skins of beasts that he may rather suffer them to want present comfort then the grace of humility for it is not necessary to preserve the gayeties and their spirituall pleasures but if their humility fails which may easily do under the sunshine of conspicuous and illustrious graces their vertues and themselves perish in a sad declension But sometimes men have not skill to make a judgement and all this discourse seems too artificiall to be tried by in the hearty purposes of religion Sometimes they let passe much of their life even of their better dayes without observance of particulars sometimes their cases of conscience are intricate or allayed with unavoydable infirmities sometimes they are so uninstructed in the more secret parts of religion and there are so many illusions and accidentall miseariages that if we shall conclude negatively in the present Question we may produce scruples infinite but understand nothing more of our estate and do much lesse of our duty 4. In considering concerning our growth in grace let us take more care to consider matters that concern justice and charity then that concern the vertue of religion because in this there may be much in the other there cannot easily be any illusion and cosenage That is a good religion that beleeves and trusts and hopes in God through Jesus Christ and for his sake does all justice and all charity that he can and our Blessed Lord gives no other deseription of love to God but obedience and keeping his commandements Justice and charity are like the matter religion is the form of Christianity but although the form be more noble and the principle of life yet it is lesse discernable lesse materiall and lesse sensible and we judge concerning the form by the matter and by materiall accidents and by actions and so we must of our religion that is of our love to God and of the efficacy of our prayers and the usefulnesse of our fastings we must make our judgements by the more materiall parts of our duty that is by sobriety and by justice and by charity I am much prevented in my intention for the perfecting of this so very materiall consideration I shall therefore onely tell you that to these parts and actions of good life or of our growth in grace some have added some accidentall considerations which are rather signes then parts of it Such are 1. To praise all good things and to study to imitate what we praise 2. To be impatient that any man should excell us not out of envy to the person but of noble emulation to the excellency For so Themistocles could not sleep after the great victory at Marathon purchased by Miltiades till he had made himself illustrious by equall services to his countrey 3. The bearing of sicknesse patiently and ever with improvement and the addition of some excellent principle and the firm pursuing it 4. Great devotion and much delight in our prayers 5. Frequent inspirations and often whispers of the Spirit of God prompting us to devotion and obedience especially if we adde to this a constant and ready obedience to all those holy invitations 6. Offering peace to them that have injured me and the abating of the circumstances of honour or of right when either justice or charity is concerned in it 7. Love to the brethren 8. To behold our companions or our inferiours full of honour and fortune and if we sit still at home and murmur not or if we can rejoyce both in their honour and our own quiet that 's a fair work of a good man And now 9. After all this I will not trouble you with reckoning a freedom from being tempted not onely from being overcome but from being tried for though that be a rare felicity and hath in it much safety yet it hath lesse honour and fewer instances of vertue unlesse it proceed from a confirmed and heroicall grace which is indeed a little image of heaven and of a celestiall charity and never happens signally to any but to old and very eminent persons 10. But some also adde an excellent habit of body and materiall passions such as are chast and vertuous dreams and suppose that as a disease abuses the fancy and a vice does prejudice it so may an excellent vertue of the soul smooth and Calcine the body and make it serve perfectly and without rebellious indispositions 11. Others are in love with Mary Magdalens tears and fancy the hard knees of Saint James and the sore eyes of Saint Peter and the very recreations of Saint John Proh quam virtute praeditos omnia decent thinking all things becomes a good man even his gestures and little incuriosities And though this may proceed from a great love of vertue yet because some men do thus much and no more and this is to be attributed to the lustre of vertue which shines a little thorow a mans eye-lids though he perversely winks against the light yet as the former of these two is too Metaphysicall so as the later too Phantasticall he that by the fore-going materiall parts and proper significations of a growing grace does not understand his own condition must be content to work on still super totam materiam without considerations of Particulars he must pray earnestly and watch diligently and consult with prudent Guides and ask of God great measures of his Spirit and hunger and thirst after righteousnesse for he that does so shall certainly be satisfied and if he understands not his present good condition yet if he be not wanting in the down right endeavours of piety and in hearty purposes he shall then finde that he is grown in grace when he springs up in the resurrection of the just and shall be ingrafted upon a tree of Paradise which beareth fruit for ever Glory to God rejoycing to Saints and Angels and eternall felicity to his own pious though undiscerning soul. Prima sequentem honestum est in secundis aut tertijs consistere Cicero Sermon XVI Of Growth in Sinne OR The severall states and degrees of Sinners WITH The manner how they are to be treated Jude Epist. Ver. 22 23. And of some have compassion making a difference * And others save with fear pulling them out of the fire MAn hath but one entrance into the world but a thousand wayes
to passe from thence and as it is in the natural so it is in the spiritual nothing but the union of faith and obedience can secure our regeneration and our new birth and can bring us to see the light of heaven but there are a thousand passages of turning into darknesse and it is not enough that our bodies are exposed to so many sad infirmities and dishonourable imperfections unlesse our soul also be a subject capable of so many diseases follies irregular passions false principles accursed habits and degrees of perversnesse that the very kindes of them are reducible to a method and make up the part of a science There are variety of stages and descents to death as there are diversity of torments and of sad regions of misery in hell which is the centre and kingdom of sorrows But that we may a little refresh the sadnesses of this consideration for every one of these stages of sin God hath measured out a proportion of mercy for if sin abounds grace shall much more abound and God hath concluded all under sin not with purposes to destroy us but Ut omnium misereatur that he might have mercy upon all that light may break forth from the deepest inclosures of darknesse and mercy may rejoyce upon the recessions of justice and grace may triumph upon the ruins of sin and God may be glorified in the miracles of our conversion and the wonders of our preservation and glories of our being saved There is no state of sin but if we be persons capable according to Gods method of healing of receiving antidotes we shall finde a sheet of mercy spread over our wounds and nakednesse If our diseases be small almost necessary scarce avoidable then God does and so we are commanded to cure them and cover them with a vail of pity compassion and gentle remedies If our evils be violent inveterate gangrened and incorporated into our nature by evil customes they must be pulled from the flames of hell with censures and cauteries and punishments and sharp remedies quickly and rudely their danger is present and sudden its effect is quick and intolerable and there is no soft counsels then to be entertained they are already in the fire but they may be saved for all that so great so infinite so miraculous is Gods mercy that he will not give a sinner over though the hairs of his head be singed with the flames of hell Gods desires of having us to be saved continue even when we begin to be damned even till we will not be saved and are gone beyond Gods method and all the revelations of his kindnesse And certainly that is a bold and a mighty sinner whose iniquity is sweld beyond all the bulk and heap of Gods revealed loving kindnesse If sin hath sweld beyond grace and superabounds over it that sin is gone beyond the measures of a man such a person is removed beyond all the malice of humane nature into the evil and spite of Devils and accursed spirits there is no greater sadnesse in the world then this God hath not appointed a remedy in the vast treasures of grace for some men and some sins they have sinned like the falling Angels and having over run the ordinary evil inclinations of their nature they are without the protection of the divine mercy and the conditions of that grace which was designed to save all the world was sufficient to have saved twenty This is a condition to be avoyded with the care of God and his Angels and all the whole industry of man In order to which end my purpose now is to remonstrate to you the several states of sin and death together with those remedies which God had proportioned out to them that we may observe the evils of the least and so avoid the intolerable mischiefs of the greater even of those sins which still are within the power and possibilities of recovery lest insensibly we fall into those sins and into those circumstances of person for which Christ never died which the Holy Ghost never means to cure and which the eternal God never will pardon for there are of this kinde more then commonly men imagine whilest they amuse their spirits with gaietyes and false principles till they have run into horrible impieties from whence they are not willing to withdraw their foot and God is resolved never to snatch and force them thence I of some have compassion and these I shall reduce to four heads or orders of men and actions all which have their proper cure pro portionable to their proper state gentle remedies to the lesser irregularities of the soul. The first are those that sin without observation of their particular state either because they are uninstructed in the special cases of conscience or because they do an evil against which there is no expresse commandment It is a sad calamity that there are so many milions of men and women that are entred into a state of sicknesse and danger and yet are made to believe they are in perfect health and they do actions concerning which they never made a question whether they were just or no nor were ever taught by what names to call them For while they observe that modesty is sometimes abused by a false name and called clownishnesse want of breeding and contentednesse and temperate living is suppressed to be want of courage and noble thoughts and severity of life is called imprudent and unsociable and simplicity and hearty honesty is counted foolish and unpolitick they are easily tempted to honour prodigality and foolish dissolution of their estates with the title of liberal and noble usages timorousnesse is called caution rashnesse is called quicknesse of spirit covetousnesse is frugality amorousnesse is society and gentile peevishnesse and anger is courage flattery is humane and courteous and under these false vails vertue sliâ—s away like truth from under the hand of them that fight for her and leave vices dressed up with the same imagery and the fraud not discovered till the day of recompences when men are distingushed by their rewards But so men think they sleep freely when their spirits are loaden with a Lethargy and they call a hestick-feaver the vigour of a natural heat tell nature changes those lesse discerned states into the notorious images of death Very many men never consider whether they sin or no in 10000. of their actions every one of which is very disputable and do not think they are bound to consider these men are to be pitied and instructed they are to be called upon to use religion like a daily diet their consciences must be made tender and their Catechisme enlarged teach them and make them sensible and they are cured But the other in this place are more considerable Men sin without observation because their actions have no restraint of an expresse Commandment no letter of the law to condemn them by an expresse sentence And this happens when the crime is comprehended under
most mens interest to do it these men are in a pitiable condition and are to be helped by the following rules 1. Let every man consider that he hath two relations to serve and he stands between God and his Master or his neerest relative and in such cases it comes to be disputed whether interest be preferred which of the persons is to be displeased God or my Master God or my Prince God or my Friend If we be servants of the man remember also that I am a servant of God adde to this that if my present service to the man be a slavery in me and a tyranny in him yet Gods service is a noble freedom And Apollonius said well It was for slaves to lie and for free men to speak the truth If you be freed by the blood of the Son of God then you are free indeed and then consider how dishonourable it is to lie to the displeasure of God and onely to please your fellow-servant The difference here is so great that it might be sufficient onely to consider the antithesis Did the man make you what you are Did he pay his blood for you to save you from death Does he keep you from sicknesse True You eat at his table but they are of Gods provisions that he and you feed of Can your master free you from a fever when you have drunk your self into it and restore your innocence when you have forsworn your self for his interest Is the change reasonable He gives you meat and drink for which you do him service But is not he a Tyrant and an usurper an oppressor and an extortioner if he will force thee to give thy soul for him to sell thy soul for old-shoes and broken bread But when thou art to make thy accounts of eternity will it be taken for an answer My Patron or my Governour my Prince or my Master forced me to it or if it will not Will he undertake a portion of thy flames or if that may not be will it be in the midst of all thy torments any ease to thy sorrows to remember all the rewards and clothes all the money and civilities all the cheerfull looks and familiarity and fellowship of vices which in your life time made your spirit so gay and easie It will in the eternall loads of sorrow adde a duplicate of groans and indignation when it shall be remembred for how base and trifling interest and upon what weak principles we fell sick and died eternally 2. The next advise to persons thus tempted is that they would learn to separate duty from mistaken interest and let them be both served in their just proportions when we have learned to make a difference A wife is bound to her husband in all his just designes and in all noble usages and Christian comportments But a wife is no more bound to pursue her husbands vitious hatreds then to serve and promote his unlawfull and wandring loves It is not alwayes a part of duty to think the same propositions or to curse the same persons or to wish him successe in unjust designes And yet the sadnesse of it is that a good woman is easily tempted to beleeve the cause to be just and when her affection hath forced her judgement her judgement for ever after shall carry the affection to all its erring and abused determinations A friend is turned a flatterer if he does not know that the limits of friendship extend no further then the pale and inclosures of reason and religion No Master puts it into his covenant that his servant shall be drunk with him or give in evidence in his Masters cause according to his Masters scrolls and therefore it is besides and against the duty of a servant to sin by that authority it is as if he should set Mules to keep his sheep or make his Dogs to carry burdens it is besides their nature and designe and if any person falls under so tyrannicall relation let him consider how hard a Master he serves where the Devil gives the imployment and shame is his entertainment and sin is his work and hell is his wages Take therefore the counsel of the son of Syrac Accept no person against thy soul and let not the reverence of any man cause thee to fall 3. When passion mingles with duty and is a necessary instrument of serving God let not that passion run its own course and passe on to liberty and thence to licence and dissolution but let no more of it be entertained then will just do the work For no zeal of duty will warrant a violent passion to prevaricate a duty I have seen some officers of Warre in passion and zeal of their duty have made no scruple to command a souldier with the dialect of cursing and accents of swearing and pretended they could not else speak words effective enough and of sufficient authority and a man may easily be overtaken in the issues of his government while his authority serves it still with passion if he be not curious in his measures his passion will also serve it self upon the authority and over rule the Ruler 4. Let every such tempted person remember that all evil comes from our selves and not from others and therefore all pretences and prejudices all commands and temptations all opinions and necessities are but instances of our weaknesse and arguments of our folly For unlesse we listed no man can make us drink beyond our measures And if I tell a lie for my Masters or my friends advantage it is because I prefer a little end of money or flattery before my honour and my innocence They are huge follies which go up and down in the mouthes and heads of men He that knows not how to dissemble knows not how to reigne He that will not do as his company does must go out of the world and quit all society of men We create necessities of our own and then think we have reason to serve their importunity Non ego sum ambitiosus sed nemo aliter Romae potest vivere non ego sumptuosus sed urbs ipsa magnas impensas exigit Non est meum vitium quod iracundus sum quod nondum constitui certum vitae genus adolescentia haec facit The place we live in makes us expensive the state of life I have chosen renders me ambitious my age makes me angry or lustfull proud or peevish These are nothing else but resolutions never to mend as long as we can have excuse for our follies and untill we can cozen our selves no more There is no such thing as a necessity for a Prince to dissemble or for a servant to lie or for a friend to flatter for a civil person and a sociable to be drunk we cozen our selves with thinking the fault is so much derivative from others till the smart and the shame falls upon our selves and covers our heads with sorrow And unlesse this gap be stopped and that we
any known sin if I should descend to particulars I might lay a snare to scrupulous and nice consciences This onely every confirmed habitual sinner does manifest the divine justice in punishing the sins of a short life with a never dying worm and a never quenched flame because we have an affection to sin that no time will diminish but such as would increase to eternal ages and accordingly as any man hath a degree of love so he hath lodged in his soul a spark which unless it be speedily effectively quenched will break forth into unquenchable fire Sermon XVIII THE FOOLISH EXCHANGE Matthew 16. Ver. 26. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul WHen the eternal mercy of God had decreed to rescue mankinde from misery and infelicity and so triumphed over his own justice the excellent wisdom of God resolved to do it in wayes contradictory to the appetites and designes of man that it also might triumph over our weaknesses and imperfect conceptions So God decreeing to glorifie his mercy by curing our sins and to exalt his wisdome by the reproof of our ignorance and the representing upon what weak and false principals we had built our hopes and expectations of felicity Pleasure and profit victory over our enemies riches and pompous honours power and revenge desires according to sensual appetites and prosecutions violent and passionate of those appetites health and long life free from trouble without poverty or persecution Hac sunt jucundissime Martialis vitam quae faciunt beatiorem These are the measures of good and evil the object of our hopes and fears the securing our content and the portion of this world and for the other let it be as it may But the Blessed Jesus having made revelations of an immortal duration of another world and of a strange restitution to it even by the resurrection of the body and a new investiture of the soul with the same upper garment clarified and made pure so as no Fuller on earth can whiten it hath also preached a new Philosophy hath cancelled all the old principles reduced the appetites of sence to the discourses of reason and heightned reason to the sublimities of the spirit teaching us abstractions and immaterial conceptions giving us new eyes and new objects and new proportions For now sensual pleasures are not delightful riches are drosse honours are nothing but the appendages of vertue and in relation to it are to receive their account but now if you would enjoy life you must die if you would be at ease you must take up Christs crosse and conform to his sufferings if you would save your life you must lose it and if you would be rich you must abound in good works you must be poor in spirit and despise the world and be rich unto God for whatsoever is contrary to the purchases and affections of this world is an endearment of our hopes in the world to come and therefore he having stated the question so that either we must quit this world or the other our affections I mean and adherencies to this or our interest and hopes of the other the choice is rendered very easie by the words of my text because the distance is not lesse then infinite and the comparison hath terms of a vast difference heaven and hell eternity and a moment vanity and real felicity life and death eternal all that can be hoped for and all that can be feared these are the terms of our choice and if a man have his wits about him and be not drunk with sensuality and senslessenesse he need not much to dispute before he passe the sentence For nothing can be given to us to recompence the losse of heaven and if our souls be lost there is nothing remaining to us whereby we can be happy What shall it profit a man or what shall a man give is there any exchange for a mans soul the question is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the negative Nothing can be given for an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a price to satisfie for its losse The blood of the son of God was given to recover it or as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to God and when our souls were forfeit to him nothing lesse then the life and passion of God and man could pay the price Isay to God who yet was not concerned in the losse save onely that such was his goodnesse that it pitied him to see his creature lost But to us what shall be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what can make us recompence when we have lost our own souls and are lost in a miserable eternity what can then recompence us not all the world not ten thousand worlds and of this that miserable man whose soul is lost is the best judge For the qustion is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hath a potential signification and means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is suppose a man ready to die condemned to the sentence of a horrid death heightned with all the circumstances of trembling and amazement what would he give to save his life eye for eye tooth for tooth and all that a man hath will he give for his life and this turned to a proverb among the Jews for so the last words of the text are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which proverb being usually meant concerning a temporal death and was intended to represent the sadnesses of a condemned person our blessed Saviour fits to his own purpose and translates to the signification of death eternal which he first revealed clearly to the world and because no interest of the world can make a man recompence for his life because to lose that makes him incapable of enjoying the exchange and he were a strange fool who having no designe upon immortality or vertue should be willing to be hanged for a thousand pound per annum this argument increases infinitely in the purpose of our Blessed Saviour and to gain the world and to lose our souls in the Christian sence is infinitely more madnesse and a worse exchange then when our souls signifie nothing but a temporal life and because possibly the indefinite hopes of Elysium or an honorable name might tempt some hardy persons to leave this world hoping for a better condition even among the heathens yet no excuse will acquit a Christian from madnesse If for the purchase of this world he lose his eternitie Here then first we will consider the propositions of the exchange the world and a mans soul by way of supposition supposing all that is propounded were obtained the whole world Secondly we will consider what is likely to be obtained really and indeed of the world and what are really the miseries of a lost soul For it is propounded in the text by way of supposition If a man should gain the world which no man ever did nor ever can and he
the slender reward with which the Romans payed their souldiers for their extraordinary valour True it is that heaven is not in a just sense of a commutation a reward but a gift and an infinite favour but yet it is not reached forth but to persons disposed by the conditions of God which conditions when we pursue in kinde let us be very carefull we do not fail of the mighty price of our high calling for want of degrees and just measures the measures of zeal and a mighty love 3. It is an office of prudence so to serve God that we may at the same time preserve our lives and our estates our interest and reputation for our selves and our relatives so farre as they can consist together Saint Paul in the beginning of Christianity was careful to instruct the forwardnesse and zeal of the new Christians into good husbandry and to catechize the men into good trades and the women into useful imployments that they might not be unprofitable For Christian religion carrying us to heaven does it by the way of a man and by the body it serves the soul as by the soul it serves God and therefore it endeavours to secure the body and its interest that it may continue the opportunities of a crown and prolong the stage in which we are to run for the mighty price of our salvation and this is that part of prudence which is the defensative and guards of a Christian in the time of persecution and it hath in it much of duty He that through an indiscreet zeal casts himself into a needlesse danger hath betrayed his life to tyranny and tempts the sin of an enemy he loses to God the service of many yeers and cuts off himself from a fair opportunity of working his salvation in the main parts of which we shall finde a long life and very many yeers of reason to be little enough he betrayes the interest of his relatives which he is bound to preserve he disables himself of making provision for them of his own house and he that fails in this duty by his own fault is worse then an infidel and denies the faith by such unseasonably dying or being undone which by that testimony he did intend gloriously to confesse he serves the end of ambition and popular services but not the sober ends of religion he discourages the weak and weakens the hands of the strong and by upbraiding their warinesse tempts them to turn it into rashnesse or despair he affrights strangers from entring into religion while by such imprudence he shall represent it to be impossible at the same time to be wise and to be religious it turns all the whole religion into a forwardnesse of dying or beggery leaving no space for the parts and offices of a holy life which in times of persecution are infinitely necessary for the advantages of the institution But God hath provided better things for his servants Quem fata cogunt ille cum veniâ est miser He whom God by an inevitable necessity calls to sufferance he hath leave to be undone and that ruine of his estate or losse of his life shall secure first a providence then a crown At si quis ultro se malis offert volens seque ipse torquet perdere est dignus bona Queis nescit uti But he that invites the cruelty of a Tyrant by his own follyes or the indiscretions of an unsignificant and impertinent zeal suffers as a wilful person and enters into the portion and reward of fools And this is the precept of our Blessed Saviour next after my text Beware of men use your prudence to the purposes of avoiding their snare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man is the most harmful of all the wilde beasts ye are sent as sheep among wolves be therefore wise as serpents when you can avoid it suffer not men to ride over your heads or trample you under foot that 's the wisdom of Serpents and so must we that is by all just complyances and toleration of all indifferent changes in which a duty is not destroyed and in which we were not active so to preserve our selves that we might be permitted to live and serve God and to do advantages to religion so purchasing time to do good in by bending in all those flexures of fortune and condition which we cannot help and which we do not set forward and which we never did procure and this is the direct meaning of Saint Paul see then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise Redeeming the time because the dayes are evil that is we are fallen into times that are troublesome dangerous persecuting and afflictive purchase as much respite as you can Buy or redeem the time by all honest arts by humility by fair carriage and sweetnesses of society by civility and a peaceful conversation by good words and all honest offices by praying for your persecutors by patient sufferance of what is unavoidable And when the Tyrant draws you forth from all these guards and retirements and offers violence to your duty or tempts you to do a dishonest act or to omit an act of obligation then come forth into the Theater and lay your necks down to the hangmans axe and fear not to die the most shamful death of the crosse or the gallows for so have I known angels ascending and descending upon those ladders and the Lord of glory suffered shame and purchased honour upon the crosse Thus we are to walk in wisdom towards them that are without redeeming the time for so Saint Paul renewes that permission or commandment Give them no just cause of offence with all humility and as occasion is offered represent their duty and invite them sweetly to felicities and vertue but do not in ruder language upbraid and reproach their basenesse and when they are in corrigible let them alone lest like cats they run mad with the smell of delicious ointments And therefore Pothinus Bishop of Lyons being asked by the unbaptized President who was the God of the Christians answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If you be disposed with real and hearty desires of learning what you ask you shall quickly know But if your purposes be in direct I shall not preach to you to my hurt and your no advantage Thus the wisdom of the primitive Christians was careful not to prophane the temples of the heathen not to revile their false Gods and when they were in duty to represent the follies of their religion they chose to do it from their own writings and as relators of their own records they fled from the fury of a persecution they hid themselves in caves and wandred about in disguises and preached in private and celebrated their synaxes and communions in grots and retirements and made it appear to all the world they were peaceable and obedient charitable and patient and at this price bought their time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As
Ocean and to span the measures of eternity I must do it by the great lines of revelation and experience and tell concerning Gods mercy as we do concerning God himself that he is that great fountain of which we all drink and the great rock of which we all eat and on which we all dwell and under whose shadow we all are refreshed Gods mercy is all this and we can onely draw great lines of it and reckon the constellations of our hemisphere instead of telling the number of the stars we onely can reckon what we feel and what we live by And though there be in every one of these lines of life enough to ingage us for ever to do God service and to give him praises yet it is certain there are very many mercies of God upon us and toward us and concerning us which we neither feel nor see nor understand as yet but yet we are blessed by them and are preserved and secured and we shall then know them when we come to give God thanks in the festivities of an eternall sabbath But that I may confine my discourse into order since the subject of it cannot I consider 1. That mercy being an emanation of the Divine goodnesse upon us and supposes us and found us miserable In this account concerning the mercies of God I must not reckon the miracles and graces of the creation or any thing of the nature of man nor tell how great an endearment God passed upon us that he made us men capable of felicity apted with rare instruments of discourse and reason passions and desires notices of sense and reflections upon that sense that we have not the deformity of a Crocodile nor the motion of a Worm nor the hunger of a Wolf nor the wildenesse of a Tigre nor the birth of Vipers nor the life of flies nor the death of serpents Our excellent bodies and usefull faculties the upright motion and the tenacious hand the fair appetites and proportioned satisfactions our speech and our perceptions our acts of life the rare invention of letters and the use of writing and speaking at distance the intervals of rest and labour either of which if they were perpetual would be intolerable the needs of nature and the provisions of providence sleep and businesse refreshments of the body and entertainment of the soul these are to be reckoned as acts of bounty rather then mercy God gave us these when he made us and before we needed mercy these were portions of our nature or provided to supply our consequent necessities but when we forfeited all Gods favour by our sins then that they were continued or restored to us became a mercy and therefore ought to be reckoned upon this new account for it was a rare mercy that we were suffered to live at all or that the Anger of God did permit to us one blessing that he did punish us so gently But when the rack is changed into an ax and the ax into an imprisonment and the imprisonment changed into an enlargement and the enlargement into an entertainment in the family and this entertainment passes on to an adoption these are steps of a mighty favour and perfect redemption from our sin and the returning back our own goods is a gift and a perfect donative sweetned by the apprehensions of the calamity from whence every lesser punishment began to free us and thus it was that God punished us and visited the sin of Adam upon his posterity He threatned we should die and so we did but not so as we deserved we waited for death and stood sentenced and are daily summoned by sicknesses and uneasinesse and every day is a new reprieve and brings a new favour certain as the revolution of the Sun upon that day and at last when we must die by the irreversible decree that death is changed into a sleep and that sleep is in the bosom of Christ and there dwels all peace and security and it shall passe forth into glories and felicities We looked for a Judge and behold a Saviour we feared an accuser and behold an Advocate we sate down in sorrow and rise in joy we leaned upon Rhubarb and Aloes and our aprons were made of the sharp leaves of Indian fig-trees and so we fed and so were clothed But the Rhubarb proved medicinal and the rough leaf of the tree brought its fruit wrapped up in its foldings and round about our dwellings was planted a hedge of thornes and bundles of thistles the Aconite and the Briony the Night-shade and the Poppy and at the root of these grew the healing Plantain which rising up into a talnesse by the friendly invitation of a heavenly influence turn'd about the tree of the crosse and cured the wounds of the thorns and the curse of the thistles and the malediction of man and the wrath of God Si sic irascitur quomodo convivatur If God be thus kinde when he is Angry what is he when he feasts us with caresses of his more tender Kindnesse All that God restored to us after the foâ—feiture of Adam grew to be a double Kindnesse for it became the expression of a bounty which knew not how to repent a graciousnesse that was not to be altered though we were and that was it which we needed That 's the first generall all the bounties of the creation became mercies to us when God continued them to us and restored them after they were forfeit 2. But as a circle begins every where and ends no where so do the mercies of God after all this huge progresse now it began anew God is good and gracious and God is ready to forgive Now that he had once more made us capable of mercies God had what he desired and what he could rejoyce in something upon which he might pour forth his mercies and by the way this I shall observe for I cannot but speak without art when I speak of that which hath no measure God made us capable of one sort of his mercies and we made our selves capable of another God is good and gracious that is desirous to give great gifts and of this God made us receptive first by giving us naturall possibilities that is by giving those gifts he made us capable of more and next by restoring us to his favour that he might not by our provocations be hindered from raining down his mercies But God is also ready to forgive and of this kinde of mercy we made our selves capable even by not deserving it Our sin made way for his grace and our infirmities called upon his pity and because we sinned we became miserable and because we were miserable we became pitiable and this opened the other treasure of his mercy that because our sin abounds his grace may superabound In this method we must confine our thoughts 1. Giving Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee 2. Forgiving Thou Lord art good
and ready to forgive plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee 3. Gods mercies or the mercies of his giving came first upon us by mending of our nature For the ignorance we fell into is instructed and better learned in spirituall notices then Adams morning knowledge in Paradise our appetites are made subordinate to the spirit and the liberty of our wills is improved having the liberty of the sons of God and Christ hath done us more grace and advantage then we lost in Adam and as man lost Paradise and got Heaven so he lost the integrity of the first and got the perfection of the second Adam his living soul is changed into a quickning spirit our discerning faculties are filled with the spirit of faith and our passions and desires are entertained with hope and our election is sanctified with charity and his first life of a temporall possession is passed into a better a life of spirituall expectations and though our first parent was forbidden it yet we live of the fruits of the tree of life But I instance in two great things in which humane nature is greatly advanced and passed on to greater perfections The first is that besides body and soul which was the summe totall of Adams constitution God hath superadded to us a third principle the beginner of a better life I mean the Spirit so that now man hath a spiritual and celestial nature breathed into him and the old man that is the old constitution is the least part and in its proper operations is dead or dying but the new man is that which gives denomination life motion and proper actions to a Christian and that is renewed in us day by day But secondly Humane nature is so highly exalted and mended by that mercy which God sent immediately upon the fall of Adam the promise of Christ that when he did come and actuate the purposes of this mission and ascended up into heaven he carried humane nature above the seats of Angels to the place whither Lucifer the son of the morning aspird to ascend but in his attempt fell into hell For so said the Prophet the son of the morning said I will ascend into heaven and sit in the sodes of the North that is the throne of Jesus seated in the East called the sides or obliquity of the North and as the seating of his humane nature in that glorious seat brought to him all adoration and the Majesty of God and the greatest of his exaltation So it was so great an advancement to us that all the Angels of heaven take notice of it and feel a change in the appendage of their condition not that they are lessened but that we who in nature are lesse then Angels have a relative dignity greater and an equall honour of being fellow-servants This mystery is plain in Scripture and the reall effect of it we read in both the Testaments When Manoah the father of Sampson saw an Angel he worshipped him and in the old Testament it was esteemed lawfull for they were the lieutenants of God sent with the impresses of his Majesty and took in his Name the homage from us who then were so much their inferiours But when the man Christ Jesus was exalted and made the Lord of all the Angels then they became our fellow servants and might not receive worship from any of the servants of Jesus especially from Prophets and Martyrs and those that are ministers of the testimony of Jesus And therefore when an Angel appeared to Saint John and he according to the Custom of the Jews fell down and worshipped him as not yet knowing or not considering any thing to the contrary the Angell reproved him saying see thou do it not I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren the prophets and of them which keep the sayings of this book worship God or as Saint Cyprian reads it worship Jesus God and man are now onely capable of worship but no Angel God essentially Man in the person of Christ and in the exaltation of our great Redeemer but Angels not so high and therefore not capable of any religious worship and this dignity of man Saint Gregory explicates fully Quid est quod ante Redemptoris adventum adorantur ab hominibus Angeli tacent postmodum vero adorarirefugiunt why did the Angels of old receive worshippings and were silent but in the new testament decline it and fear to accept it Nisi quod naturam nostram quam prius despexerant postquam hanc super se assumptam aspiciunt prostratam sibi videre pertimescunt nec jam sub se velut insirmam contemnere ausi sunt quam super se viz. in caeli Rege venerantur the reason is because they seeing our nature which they did so lightly value raised up above them they fear to see humbled under them neither do they any more despise the weaknesse which themselves worship in the King of heaven The same also is the sense of the Glosse of Saint Ambrose Ansbertus Haymo Rupertus and others of old and Ribera Salmeron and Lewis of Granada of late which being so plainly consonant to the words of the Angel and consigned by the testimony of such men I the rather note that those who worship Angels and make religious addresses to them may see what priviledge themselves lose and how they part with the honour of Christ who in his nature relative to us is exalted far above all thrones and principalities and dominions I need not adde lustre to this It is like the Sun the biggest body of light and nothing can describe it so well as its own beams and there is not in nature or the advantages of honour any thing greater then that we have the issues of that mercy which makes us fellow servants with Angels too much honoured to pay them a religious worship whose Lord is a man and he that is their King is our Brother 4. To this for the likenesse of the matter I adde that the divine mercy hath so prosecuted us with the enlargement of his favours that we are not onely fellow ministers and servants with the Angels and in our nature in the person of Christ exalted above them but we also shall be their Judges and if this be not an honour above that of Joseph or Mordecai an honour beyond all the measures of a man then there is in honour no degrees no priority or distances or characters of fame and noblenesse Christ is the great Judge of all the world his humane nature shall then triumph over evil men and evil spirits then shall the Devils those Angels that fel from their first originals be brought in their chains from their dark prisons and once be allowed to see the light that light that shall confound them while all that follow the lamb and that are accounted worthy of that resurrection shall be assessors in the judgment Know ye not saith S. Paul that ye shall
they were alive We must not so live as if they were perished but so as pressing forward to the most intimate participation of the communion of Saints And we also have some wayes to expresse this relation and to bear a part in this communion by actions of intercourse with them and yet proper to our state such as are strictly performing the will of the dead providing for and tenderly and wisely educating their children paying their debts imitating their good example preserving their memories privately and publikely keeping their memorials and desiring of God with hearty and constant prayer that God would give them a joyfull resurrection and a mercifull judgement for so S. Paul prayed in behalf of Onesiphorus that God would shew them mercy in that day that fearfull and yet much to be desired day in which the most righteous person hath need of much mercy and pity and shall find it Now these instances of duty shew that the relation remains still and though the Relict of a man or woman hath liberty to contract new relations yet I do not finde they have liberty to cast off the old as if there were no such thing as immortality of souls Remember that we shall converse together again let us therefore never do any thing of reference to them which we shall be ashamed of in the day when all secrets shall be discovered and that we shall meet again in the presence of God In the mean time God watcheth concerning all their interest and he will in his time both discover and recompense For though as to us they are like water spilt yet to God they are as water fallen into the sea safe and united in his comprehension and inclosures But we are not yet passed the consideration of the sentence This descending to the grave is the lot of all men neither doth God respect the person of any man The rich is not protected for favour nor the poor for pity the old man is not reverenced for his age nor the infant regarded for his tendernesse youth and beauty learning and prudence wit and strength lie down equally in the dishonours of the grave All men and all natures and all persons resist the addresses and solennities of death and strive to preserve a miserable and an unpleasant life and yet they all sink down and die For so have I seen the pillars of a building assisted with artificiall props bending under the pressure of a roof and pertinaciously resisting the infallible and prepared ruine Donec certa dies omni compage solutâ Ipsum cum rebus subruat auxilium till the determined day comes and then the burden sunk upon the pillars and disordered the aids and auxiliary rafters into a common ruine and a ruder grave so are the desires and weak arts of man with little aids and assistances of care and physick we strive to support our decaying bodies and to put off the evil day but quickly that day will come and then neither Angels nor men can rescue us from our grave but the roof sinks down upon the walls and the walls descend to the foundation and the beauty of the face and the dishonours of the belly the discerning head and the servile feet the thinking heart and the working hand the eyes and the guts together shall be crush'd into the confusion of a heap and dwell with creatures of an equivocall production with worms and serpents the sons and daughters of our own bones in a house of durt and darknesse Let not us think to be excepted or deferred If beauty or wit or youth or Noblenesse or wealth or vertue could have been a defence and an excuse from the grave we had not met here to day to mourn upon the hearse of an excellent Lady and God onely knows for which of us next the mourners shall go about the streets or weep in houses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have lived so many years and every day and every minute we make an escape from those thousands of dangers and deaths that encompasse us round about and such escapings we must reckon to be an extraordinary fortune and therefore that it cannot last long Vain are the thoughts of Man who when he is young or healthfull thinks he hath a long threed of life to run over and that it is violent and strange for young persons to die and naturall and proper onely for the aged It is as naturall for a man to die by drowning as by a fever And what greater violence or more unnaturall thing is it that the horse threw his Rider into the river then that a drunken meeting cast him into a fever and the strengths of youth are as soon broken by the strong sicknesses of youth and the stronger intemperance as the weaknesse of old age by a cough or an asthma or a continuall rheume Nay it is more naturall for young Men and Women to die then for old because that is more naturall which hath more naturall causes and that is more naturall which is most common but to die with age is an extreme rare thing and there are more persons carried forth to buriall before the five and thirtieth year of their age then after it And therefore let no vain considence make you hope for long life If you have lived but little and are still in youth remember that now you are in your biggest throng of dangers both of body and soul and the proper sins of youth to which they rush infinitely and without consideration are also the proper and immediate instruments of death But if you be old you have escaped long and wonderfully and the time of your escaping is out you must not for everthink to live upon wonders or that God will work miracles to satisfie your longing follies and unreasonable desires of living longer to sin and to the world Go home and think to die and what you would choose to be doing when you die that do daily for you will all come to that passe to rejoyce that you did so or wish that you had that will be the condition of every one of us for God regardeth no mans person Well! but all this you will think is but a sad story What we must die and go to darknesse and dishonour and we must die quickly and we must quit all our delights and all our sins or do worse infinitely worse and this is the condition of us all from which none can be excepted every man shall be spilt and fall into the ground and be gathered up no more Is there no comfort after all this shall we go from hence and be no more seen and have no recompense Miser ô miser aiunt omnia ademit Una die infausta mihi tot praemia vitae Shall we exchange our fair dwellings for a coffine our softer beds for the moistned and weeping turf and our pretty children for worms and is there no allay to this huge calamity Yes there
is There is a yet in the Text For all this yet doth God devise means that his banished be not expelled from him All this sorrow and trouble is but a phantasme and receives its account and degrees from our present conceptions and the proportion to our relishes and gust When Pompey saw the Ghost of his first Lady Julia who vexed his rest and his conscience for superinducing Cornelia upon her bed within the ten moneths of mourning he presently fancied it either to be an illusion or else that death could be no very great evil Aut nihil est sensus animis in morte relictum Aut morsipsa nihil Either my dead wife knows not of my unhandsome marriage and forgetfulnesse of her or if she does then the dead live longae canitis si cognita vitae Mors media est Death is nothing but the middle point between two lives between this and another concerning which comfortable mystery the holy Scripture instructs our faith and entertains our hope in these words God is still the God of Abraham Isaak and Jacob for all do live to him and the souls of Saints are with Christ I desire to be dissolved saith S. Paul and to be with Christ for that is much better and Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord they rest from their labours and their works follow them For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternall in the heavens and this state of separation S. Paul calls a being absent from the body and being present with the Lord This is one of Gods means which he hath devised that although our Dead are like persons banished from this world yet they are not expelled from God They are in the hands of Christ they are in his presence they are or shall be clothed with a house of Gods making they rest from all their labours all tears are wiped from their eyes and all discontents from their spirits and in the state of separation before the soul be reinvested with her new house the spirits of al persons are with God so secured and so blessed and so sealed up for glory that this state of interval and imperfection is in respect of its certain event and end infinitely more desirable then all the riches and all the pleasures and all the vanities and all the Kingdoms of this world I will not venture to determine what are the circumstances of the aboad of Holy Souls in their separate dwellings and yet possibly that might be easier then to tell what or how the soul is and works in this world where it is in the body tanquam in alienâ domo as in a prison in fetters and restraints for here the soal is discomposed and hindered it is not as it shall be as it ought to be as it was intended to be it is not permitted to its own freedom and proper operation so that all that we can understand of it here is that it is so incommodated with a troubled and abated instrument that the object we are to consider cannot be offered to us in a right line in just and equal propositions or if it could yet because we are to understand the soul by the soul it becomes not onely a troubled and abused object but a crooked instrument and we here can consider it just as a weak eye can behold a staffe thrust into the waters of a troubled river the very water makes a refraction and the storm doubles the refraction and the water of the eye doubles the species and there is nothing right in the thing the object is out of its just place and the medium is troubled and the organ is impotent At cum exierit in liberum coelum quasi in domum suam venerit when the soul is entred into her own house into the free regions of the rest and the neighbourhood of heavenly joyes then its operations are more spiritual proper and proportioned to its being and though we cannot see at such a distance yet the object is more fitted if we had a capable understanding it is in it self in a more excellent and free condition Certain it is that the body does hinder many actions of the soul it is an imperfect body and a diseased brain or a violent passion that makes fools no man hath a foolish soul and the reasonings of men have infinite difference and degrees by reason of the bodies constitution Among beasts which have no reason there is a greater likenesse then between men who have as by faces it is easier to know a man from a man then a sparrow from a sparrow or a squirrel from a squirrel so the difference is very great in our souls which difference because it is not originally in the soul and indeed cannot be in simple and spiritual substances of the same species or kind it must needs drive wholly from the body from its accidents and circumstances from whence it follows that because the body casts fetters and restraints hindrances and impediments upon the soul that the soul is much freer in the state of separation and if it hath any any act of life it is much more noble and expedite That the soul is alive after our death S. Paul affirms Christ died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him Now it were strange that we should be alive and live with Christ and yet do no act of life the body when it is asleep does many and if the soul does none the principle is lesse active then the instrument but if it does any act at all in separation it must necessarily be an act or effect of understanding there is nothing else it can do But this it can For it is but a weak and an unlearned proposition to say That the Soul can do nothing of it self nothing without the phantasmes and provisions of the body For 1. In this life the soul hath one principle clearly separate abstracted immaterial I mean the Spirit of grace which is a principle of life and action and in many instances does not all at communicate with matter as in the infusion superinduction and the creation of spiritual graces 2. As nutrition generation eating and drinking are actions proper to the body and its state so extasies visions raptures intuitive knowledge and consideration of its self acts of volition and reflex acts of understanding are proper to the soul. 3. And therefore it is observable that S. Paul said that he knew not whether his visions and raptures were in or out of the body for by that we see his judgement of the thing that one was as likely as the other neither of them impossible or unreasonable and therefore that the soul is as capable of action alone as in conjunction 4. If in the state of blessednesse there are some actions of the soul which doe not passe through
the body such as contemplation of God and conversing with spirits and receiving those influences and rare immissions which coming from the Holy and mysterious Trinity make up the crown of glory it follows that the necessity of the bodies ministery is but during the state of this life and as long as it converses with fire and water and lives with corn and flesh and is fed by the satisfaction of material appetits which necessity and manner of conversation when it ceases it can be no longer necessary for the soul to be served by phantasmes and material representations 5. And therefore when the body shall be re-united it shall be so ordered that then the body shall confesse it gives not any thing but receives all its being and operation its manner and abode from the soul and that then it comes not to serve a necessity but to partake a glory For as the operations of the soul in this life begin in the body and by it the object is transmitted to the soul so then they shall begin in the soul and pass to the body and as the operations of the soul by reason of its dependence on the body are animal natural and material so in the resurrection the body shall be spiritual by reason of the preeminence influence and prime operation of the soul. Now between these two states stands the state of separation in which the operations of the soul are of a middle nature that is not so spirituall as in the resurrection and not so animal and natural as in the state of conjunction To all which I adde this consideration That our souls have the same condition that Christs soul had in the state of separation because he took on him all our nature and all our condition and it is certain Christs soul in the three dayes of his separation did exercise acts of life of joy and triumph and did not sleep but visited the souls of the Fathers trampled upon the pride of Devils and satisfied those longing souls which were Prisoners of hope and from all this we may conclude that the souls of all the servants of Christ are alive and therfore do the actions of life and proper to their state and therefore it is highly probable that the soul works clearer and understands brighter and discourses wiser and rejoyces louder and loves noblier and desires purer and hopes stronger then it can do here But if these arguments should fail yet the felicity of Gods Saints cannot fail For suppose the body to be a necessary instrument but out of tune and discomposed by sin and anger by accident and chance by defect and imperfections yet that it is better then none at all and that if the soul works imperfectly with an imperfect body that then she works not at all when she hath none and suppose also that the soul should be as much without sense or perception in death as it is in a deep sleep which is the image and shadow of death yet then God devises other means that his banished be not expelled from him For 2. God will restore the soul to the body and raise the body to such a perfection that it shall be an Organ fitt to praise him upon it shall be made spiritual to minister to the soul when the soul is turned into a Spirit then the soul shall be brought forth by Angels from her incomparable and easie bed from her rest in Christs Holy Bosome and be made perfect in her being and in all her operations And this shall first appear by that perfection which the soul shall receive as instrumental to the last judgement for then she shall see clearly all the Records of this world all the Register of her own memory For all that we did in this life is laid up in our memories and though dust and forgetfulnesse be drawn upon them yet when God shall lift us from our dust then shall appear clearly all that we have done written in the Tables of our conscience which is the souls memory We see many times and in many instances that a great memory is hindered and put out and we thirty years after come to think of something that lay so long under a curtain we think of it suddenly and without a line of deduction or proper consequence And all those famous memories of Simonides and Theodectes of Hortensius and Seneca of Sceptius Metrodorus and Carneades of Cyneas the Embassadour of Pyrrhus are onely the Records better kept and lesse disturbed by accident and desease For even the memory of Herods son of Athens of Bathyllus and the dullest person now alive is so great and by God made so sure a record of all that ever he did that assoon as ever God shall but tune our instrument and draw the curtains and but light up the candle of immortality there we shal finde it all there we shall see all and all the world shall see all then we shall be made fit to converse with God after the manner of Spirits we shall be like to Angels In the mean time although upon the perswasion of the former discourse it be highly probable that the souls of Gods servants do live in a state of present blessednesse and in the exceeding joyes of a certain expectation of the revelation of the day of the Lord and the coming of Jesus yet it will concern us onely to secure our state by holy living and leave the event to God that as S. Paul said whether present or absent whether sleeping or waking whether perceiving or perceiving not we may be accepted of him that when we are banished this world and from the light of the sun we may not be expelled from God and from the light of his countenance but that from our beds of sorrows our souls may passe into the bosome of Christ and from thence to his right hand in the day of sentence For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ then if we have done wel in the body we shal never be expelled from the beatifical presence of God but be domesticks of his family and heires of his Kingdom and partakers of his glory Amen I Have now done with my Text but yet am to make you another Sermon I have told you the necessity and the state of death it may be too largely for such a sad story I shal therefore now with a better compendium teach you how to live by telling you a plain narrative of a life which if you imitate and write after the copy it will make that death shall not be an evil but a thing to be desired and to be reckoned amongst the purchases and advantages of your fortune When Martha and Mary went to weep over the grave of their brother Christ met them there and preached a Funeral Sermon discoursing of the resurrection and applying to the purposes of faith and confession of Christ and glorification of God We have no other we can have no better precedent
is regium a Priesthood appertaining to the kingdome of the Gospel and the Priest being enumerated distinctly from the people the Priests of the kingdome and the people of the kingdome are all holy and chosen but in their severall manner the Priests of the kingdome those the people of the kingdome these these to bring or designe a spirituall sacrifice the Priest to offer it or altogether to sacrifice the Priest by his proper ministery the people by their assent conjunction and assistance chosen to serve God not onely in their own formes but under the ministrations of an honourable Priesthood And in al the descent of Christian religion it was indeed honorable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Chrysostome the Christian Priesthood does its ministery and is perfected on earth but hath the beauty order and excellency of the heavenly hosts so that I shall not need to take notice of the Lamina aurea which Polycrates reports S. John to have worne in token of his royall Priesthood a wreath of Gold so also did S. James Bishop of Jerusalem as S. Hierome and Epiphanius report nor the exemption of the Clergy from tribute their authority with the people their great donatives and titles of secular advantage these were accidentall to the Ministery and relyed upon the favour of Princes and devotion of the people and if they had been more yet are lesse then the honours God had bestowed upon it for certainly there is not a greater degree of power in the world then to remit and retain sinnes and to consecrate the sacramentall symbols into the mysteriousnesse of Christs body and bloud nor a greater honour then that God in heaven should ratifie what the Priest does on earth should admit him to handle the sacrifice of the world and to present the same which in heaven is presented by the eternall Jesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Gregory Nazienzen describes the honour and mysteriousnesse of the Priests power They minister the spirituall and unbloudy sacrifice they are honourable Guardians of soules they bear the work of God in their hands And S. Hierom speaking of these words of S. Paul I am ordained a preacher and an Apostle Quod Paulus ait Apostolus Jesu Christi tale mihi videtur quasi dixisset praefectus praetorio Augusti Caesaris magister exercitus Tiberii imperatoris And a little after grandem inter Christianos sibi vindicans dignitatē Apostolorum se Christi titulo praenotavit ut ex ipsa lecturos nominis autoritate deterreret indicans omnes qui Christo crederent debere esse sibi subjectos And therefore S. Chrysostome says it is the trick of hereticks not to give to Bishops titles of their eminency and honour which God hath vouchsafed them Ut Diabolus it a etiam quilibet facit haereticus vehementissimus in tempore persecutionis loquens cum Pontisice nec eum vocat Pontisicem nec Archiepiscopum nec religiosissimum nec sanctum sed quid Reverentia tua c. nomina illi adducit communia ejus negans autoritatem Diabolus hoc tunc fecit in Deo It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A separating and purifying order of men so Dionysius calls it but Nazianzen speaks greater and more glorious words yet and yet what is no more then a sober truth for he calls the Priest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He stands with Angels and is magnified with Archangels he sends sacrifices to celestiall altar and is consecrated in the Priesthood of Christ a divine person and an instrument of making others so too I shall adde no more as to this particular The expresse precepts of God in Scripture are written in great characters there is a double honour to be given to the Ecclesiasticall Rulers Rulers that also labour in the word and doctrine There is obedience due to them obedience in all things and estimation and love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very abundantly esteem such very highly for their worke sake a communicating to them in all good things and their offices are described to be great separate busie eminent and profitable they are Rulers Presidents set over us in the Lord taking care for us labouring in doctrine spirituall persons restorers of them that were overtaken in a fault curates of souls such as must give an account for them the salt the light of the world shepheards and much more signifying work and rule and care and honour But next to the words of Scripture there can no more be said concerning the honour of the sacred order of the Clergy then is said by S. Chrysostome in his books Desacerdotio and S. Ambrose De dignitate sacerdotali and no greater thing can be supposed communicated to men then to be the Ministers of God in the great conveyances of grace and instruments of God in the pardon of sins in the consecration of Christs body and bloud in the guidance and conduct of souls And this was the stile of the Church calling Bishops and Priests according to their respective capacity Stewards of the grace of God leaders of the blind a light of them that sit in darknesse instructors of the ignorant teachers of babes stars in the world amongst whom ye shine as lights in the world and that is Scripture too starres in Christs right hand lights set upon the candlesticks And now supposing these premises if Christendome had not paid proportionable esteem to them they had neither known how to value religion or the mysteries of Christianity But that all Christendome ever did pay the greatest reverence to the Clergy and religious veneration is a certain argument that in Christian Religion the distinction of the Clergy from the Laity is supposed as a praecognitum a principle of the institution I end this with the words of the 7th generall Councell It is manifest to all the world that in the Priesthood there is order and distinction and to observe the ordinations and elections of the Priesthood with strictnesse and severity is well pleasing to God SECT VI. ASsoon as God began to constitute a Church and fix the Priesthood which before was very ambulatory and dispensed into all families but ever officiated by the Major domo God gives the power and designs the person And therefore Moses consecrated Aaron agitatus à Deo consecrationis Principe saith Dionysius Moses performed the externall rites of designation but God was the consecrator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moses appointed Aaron to the Priesthood and gave him the order but it was onely as the Minister and Deputy of God under God the chief consecrator And no man taketh upon him this honour but he that was called of God as was Aaron saith S. Paul For in every Priesthood God designed and appointed the ministery and collates a power or makes the person gratious either gives him a spirituall ability of doing
hath the same constitution that a man hath without the act of both it is as imperfect as a dead man the soul cannot produce the body of some actions any more then the body can put life into it and therefore an ineffective pity and a lazie counsell an empty blessing and gay words are but deceitfull charity Quod peto da Caï non peto consiliam He that gave his friend counsell to study the Law when he desired to borrow 20 l. was not so friendly in his counsell as he was uselesse in his charity spirituall acts can cure a spirituall malady but if my body needs relief because you cannot feed me with Diagrams or cloath me with Euclids elements you must minister a reall supply by a corporall charity to my corporall necessity This proposition is not only usefull in the doctrine of charity and the vertue of religion but in the professions of faith and requires that it be publick open and ingenuous In matters of necessary duty it is not sufficient to have it to our selves but we must also have it to God and all the world and as in the heart we beleeve so by the mouth we confesse unto salvation he is an ill man that is only a Christian in his heart and is not so in his professions and publications and as your heart must not be wanting in any good profession and pretences so neither must publick profession be wanting in every good and necessary perswasion The faith and the cause of God must be owned publiquely for if it be the cause of God it will never bring us to shame I do not say what ever we think we must tell it to all the world much lesse at all times and in all circumstances but we must never deny that which we beleeve to be the cause of God in such circumstances in which we can and ought to glorifie him But this extends also to other instances He that swears a false oath with his lips and unswears it with his heart hath deceived one more then he thinks for himself is the most abused person and when my action is contrary to men they will reprove me but when it is against my own perswasion I cannot but reprove my self and am witnesse and accuser and party and guilty and then God is the Judge and his anger will be a fierce executioner because we do the Lords work deceitfully 3. They are deceitfull in the Lords work that reserve one faculty for sin or one sin for themselves or one action to please their appetite and many for Religion Rabbt Kimchi taught his Scholars Cogitationem pravam Deus non habet vice facti nisi concepta fuerit in Dei sidem Religionem that God is never angry with an evill thought unlesse it be a thought of Apostasie from the Jewes religion and therefore provided that men be severe and close in their sect and party they might roll in lustfull thoughts and the torches they light up in the Temple might smoke with anger at one end and lust at the other so they did not flame out in egressions of violence and injustice in adulteries and fouler complications nay they would give leave to some degrees of evill actions for R. Moses and Selomoh taught that if the most part of a mans actions were holy and just though in one he sinned often yet the greater ingredient should prevail and the number of good works should outweigh the lesser account of evill things and this Pharisaicall righteousnesse is too frequent even amongst Christians For who almost is there that does not count fairly concerning himself if he reckons many vertues upon the stock of his Religion and but one vice upon the stock of his infirmity half a dozen to God and one for his company or his friend his education or his appetite and if he hath parted from his folly yet he will remember the fleshpots and please himself with a phantastick sin and call it home through the gates of his memory and place it at the door of fancy that there he may behold it and consider concerning what he hath parted withall out of the fears and terrors of religion and a necessary unavoidable conscience Do not many men go from sin to sin even in their repentance they go backward from sin to sin and change their crime as a man changes his uneasie load and shakes it off from one shoulder to support it with the other How many severe persons virgins and widows are so pleased with their chastity and their abstinence even from lawfull mixtures that by this means they fall into a worse pride insomuch that I remember St. Austin said Audco dicere superbis continentibus expedit cadere they that are chaste and proud it is sometimes a remedy for them to fall into sin and by the shame of lust to cure the devill of pride and by the sin of the body to cure the worser evils of the spirit and therefore he addes that he did beleeve God in a severe mercy did permit the barbarous nations breaking in upon the Roman Empire to violate many virgins professed in Cloisters and religious Families to be as a mortification of their pride lest the accidentall advantages of a continent life should bring them into the certain miseries of a spirituall death by taking away their humility which was more necessary then their virgin state It is not a cure that men may use but God permits it sometimes with greater safety through his wise conduct and over-ruling providence St. Peter was safer by his fall as it fell out in the event of things then by his former confidence Man must never cure a sin by a sin but he that brings good out of our evill he can when he please But I speak it to represent how deceitfully many times we do the work of the Lord. We reprove a sinning Brother but do it with a pompous spirit we separate from scandall and do it with glory and a gaudy heart we are charitable to the poor but will not forgive our unkinde enemies or we powre relief into their bags but we please our selves and drink drunk and hope to commute with God giving the fruit of our labours or effluxes of money for the sin of our souls And upon this account it is that two of the noblest graces of a Christian are to very many persons made a savour of death though they were intended for the beginning and the promotion of an eternal life and those are faith and charity some men think if they have faith it is enough to answer all the accusations of sin which our consciences or the Devils make against us If I be a wanton person yet my faith shall hide it and faith shall cover the follies of drunkennesse and I may all my life relye upon faith at last to quit my scores For he that is most carefull is not innocent but must be saved by faith and he that is least carefull may