may not give it to him unlesse he knowes by other means to pay the debt but if he can do both he hath his liberty to lay out his money for a Crown But then in the case of provision for children our restraint is not so easie or discernible 1. Because we are not bound to provide for them in a certain portion but may do it by the analogies and measures of prudence in which there is a great latitude 2. Because our zeal of charity is a good portion for them and layes up a blessing for inheritance 3. Because the fairest portions of charity are usually short of such sums which can be considerable in the duty of provision for our children 4. If we for them could be content to take any measure lesse then all any thing under every thing that we can we should finde the portions of the poor made ready to our hands sufficiently to minister to zeal and yet not to intrench upon this case of conscience But the truth is we are so carelesse so unskil'd so unstudied in religion that we are only glad to make an an excuse and to defeat our souls of the reward of the noblest grace we are contented if we can but make a pretence for we are highly pleased if our conscience be quiet and care not so much that our duty be performed much lesse that our eternall interest be advanced in bigger portions We care not we strive not we think not of getting the greater rewards of Heaven and he whose desires are so indifferent for the greater will not take pains to secure the smallest portion and it is observable that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the least in the Kingdome of heaven is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as good as none if a man will be content with his hopes of the lowest place there and will not labour for something beyond it he does not value it at all and it is ten to one but will lose that for which he takes so little pains and is content with so easie a security He that does his almes and resolves that in no case he will suffer inconvenience for his brother whose case it may be is intolerable should do well to remember that God in some cases requires a greater charity and it may be we shall be called to dye for the good of our brother and that although it alwaies supposes a zeal and a holy fervour yet sometimes it is also a duty and we lose our lives if we go to save them and so we do with our estates when we are such good husbands in our Religion that we will serve all our own conveniences before the great needs of a hungry and afflicted brother God oftentimes takes from us that which with so much curiosity we would preserve and then we lose our money and our reward too 3. Hither is to be reduced * the accepting and choosing the counsels Evangelicall * the virgin or widow estate in order to Religion * selling all and giving it to the poor * making our selves Eunuchs for the Kingdome of Heaven * offering our selves to death voluntary in exchange or redemption of the life of a most usefull person as Aquila and Priscilla who ventur'd their lives for St. Paul * the zeal of souls * St. Paul's preaching to the Corinthian Church without wages remitting of rights and forgiving of debts when the obliged person could pay but not without much trouble * protection of calamitous persons with hazard of our own interest and a certain trouble concerning which and all other acts of zeal we are to observe the following measures by which our zeal will become safe and holy and by them also we shall perceive the excesses of Zeal and its inordinations which is the next thing I am to consider 1. The first measure by which our zeal may comply with our duty and its actions become laudable is charity to our neighbour For since God receives all that glorification of himself whereby we can serve and minister to his glory reflected upon the foundation of his own goodnesse and bounty and mercy and all the Allellujahs that are or ever shall be sung in heaven are praises and thank givings and that God himself does not receive glory from the acts of his Justice but then when his creatures will not rejoyce in his goodnesse and mercy it followes that we imitate this originall excellency and pursue Gods own method that is glorifie him in via misericordiae in the way of mercy and bounty charity and forgivenesse love and fair compliances There is no greater charity in the world then to save a soul nothing that pleases God better nothing that can be in our hands greater or more noble nothing that can be a more lasting and delightfull honour then that a perishing soul snatched from the flames of an intolerable Hell and born to Heaven upon the wings of piety and mercy by the Ministery of Angels and the graces of the holy Spirit shall to eternall ages blesse God and blesse thee Him for the Author and finisher of salvation and thee for the Minister and charitable instrument that bright starre must needs look pleasantly upon thy face for ever which was by thy hand plac'd there and had it not been by thy Ministery might have been a footy coal in the regions of sorrow Now in order to this God hath given us all some powers and ministeries by which we may by our charity promote this Religion and the great interest of souls Counsels and prayers preaching and writing passionate desires and fair examples going before others in the way of godlinesse and bearing the torch before them that they may see the way and walk in it This is a charity that is prepared more or lesse for every one and by the way we should do well to consider what we have done towards it For as it will be a strange arrest at the day of Judgement to Dives that he fed high and sufferred Lazarus to starve and every garment that lies by thee and perishes while thy naked brother does so too for want of it shall be a bill of Inditement against thy unmercifull soul so it will be in every instance in what thou couldst profit thy brother and didst not thou art accountable and then tell over the times in which thou hast prayed for the conversion of thy sinning brother and compare the times together and observe whether thou hast not tempted him or betrayed him to a sin or encourag'd him in it or didst not hinder him when thou mightest more frequently then thou hast humbly and passtonately and charitably and zealously bowed thy head and thy heart and knees to God to redeem that poor soul from hell whither thou seest him descending with as much indifferency as a stone into the bottome of a well In this thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a good thing to be zealous and put forth all your strength for you
fools but will order their actions according to these notices For if they doe not believe these things where is their Faith If they doe believe them and sin on and doe as if there were no such thing to come to passe where is their Prudence and what is their hopes and where their Charity how doe they differ from beasts save that they are more foolish for beasts goe on and consider not because they cannot but we can consider and will not we know that strange terrors shall affright us all and strange deaths and torments shall seise upon the wicked and that we cannot escape and the rocks themselves will not bee able to hide us from the fears of those prodigies which shall come before the day of Judgement and that the mountains though when they are broken in pieces we call upon them to fall upon us shall not be able to secure us one minute from the present vengeance and yet we proceed with confidence or carelesnesse and consider not that there is no greater folly in the world then for a man to neglect his greatest interest and to die for trifles and little regards and to become miserable for such interests which are not excusable in a Childe He that is youngest hath not long to live Hee that is thirty forty or fifty yeares old hath spent most of his life and his dream is almost done and in a very few moneths hee must be cast into his eternall portion that is hee must be in an unalterable condition his finall Sentence shall passe according as hee shall then bee found and that will be an intolerable condition when he shall have reason to cry out in the bitternesse of his soule Eternall woe is to mee who refus'd to consider when I might have been saved and secured from this intolerable calamity But I must descend to consider the particulars and circumstances of the great consideration Christ shall be our Judge at Doomes-day SERMON II. Part II. 1. IF we consider the person of the Judge we first perceive that he is interested in the injury of the crimes he is to sentence Videbunt quem crucifixerunt and they shal look on him whom they have pierced It was for thy sins that the Judge did suffer such unspeakable pains as were enough to reconcile all the world to God The summe and spirit of which pains could not be better understood then by the consequence of his own words My God my God why hast thou forsaken me meaning that he felt such horrible pure unmingled sorrowes that although his humane nature was personally united to the Godhead yet at that instant he felt no comfortable emanations by sensible perception from the Divinity but he was so drenched in sorrow that the Godhead seemed to have forsaken him Beyond this nothing can be added but then that thou hast for thy own particular made all this in vain and ineffective that Christ thy Lord and Judge should be tormented for nothing that thou wouldst not accept felicity and pardon when he purchased them at so dear a price must needs be an infinite condemnation to such persons How shalt thou look upon him that fainted and dyed for love of thee and thou didst 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 thoa 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
who dyed for them who pardons easily and pities readily and excuses much and delights in our being saved and would not have us dye and takes little things in exchange for great it is certain that Gods mercies are infinite and it is also certain that the matter of eternall torments cannot truly be understood and when the School-men go about to reconcile the Divine justice to that severity and consider why God punishes eternally a temporall sin or a state of evill they speak variously and uncertainly and unsatisfyingly But that in this question we may separate the certain from the uncertain 1. It is certain that the torments of hell shall certainly last as long as the soul lasts for eternall and everlasting can signifie no lesse but to the end of that duration to the perfect end of the period in which it signifies So Sodom and Gomorrah when God rained down hell from heaven upon the earth as Salvian's expression is they are said to suffer the vengeance of eternall fire that is of a fire that consumed them finally and they never were restored and so the accursed souls shall suffer torments till they be consumed who because they are immortall either naturally or by gift shall be tormented for ever or till God shall take from them the life that he restored to them on purpose to give them a capacity of being miserable and the best that they can expect is to despair of all good to suffer the wrath of God never to come to any minute of felicity or of a tolerable state and to be held in pain till God be weary of striking This is the gentlest sentence of some of the old Doctors But 2. the generality of Christians have been taught to beleeve worse things yet concerning them and the words of our blessed Lord are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eternall affliction or smiting Nec mortis poenas mors altora finiet hujus Horaque erit tantis ultima nulla malis And S. John who well knew the minde of his Lord saith The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever and they have no rest day nor night that is their torment is continuall and it is eternall Their second death shall be but a dying to all felicity for so death is taken in Scripture Adam dyed when he eat the forbidden fruit that is he was lyable to sicknesse and sorrowes and pain and dissolution of soul and body and to be miserable is the worse death of the two they shall see the eternall felicity of the Saints but they shall never taste of the holy Chalice Those joyes shall indeed be for ever and ever for immortality is part of their reward and on them the second death shall have no power but the wicked shall be tormented horridly and insufferably till death and hell be thrown into the lake of fire and shall be no more which is the second death But that they may not imagine that this second death shall be the end of their pains S. Iohn speaks expresly what that is Rev. 21. 8. The fearfull and unbeleeving the abominable and the murderers the whoremongers and sorcerers the idolaters and all lyars shall have their part in the lake wich burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death no dying there but a being tormented burning in a lake of fire that is the second death For if life be reckoned a blessing then to be destitute of all blessing is to have no life and therefore to be intolerably miserable is this second death that is death eternall 3. And yet if God should deal with man hereafter more mercifully and proportionably to his weak nature then he does to Angels and as he admits him to repentance here so in hell also to a period of his smart even when he keeps the Angels in pain for ever yet he will never admit him to favour he shall be tormented beyond all the measure of humane ages and be destroyed for ever and ever It concerns us all who hear and beleeve these things to do as our blessed Lord will do before the day of his coming he will call and convert the Jews and strangers Conversion to God is the best preparatory to Dooms-day and it concerns all them who are in the neighbourhood and fringes of the flames of hell that is in the state of sin quickly to arise from the danger and shake the burning coals off our flesh lest it consume the marrow and the bones Exuenda est velociter de incendio sarcina priusquam flammis supervenientibus concremetur Nemo diu tutus est periculo proximus saith S. Cyprian No man is safe long that is so neer to danger for suddenly the change will come in which the Judge shall be called to Judgement and no man to plead for him unlesse a good conscience be his Advocate and the rich shall be naked as a condemned criminall to execution and there shall be no regard of Princes or of Nobles and the differences of mens account shall be forgotten and no distinction remaining but of good or bad sheep and goats blessed and accursed souls Among the wonders of the day of Judgement our blessed Saviour reckons it that men shall be marrying and giving in marriage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 marrying and crosse marrying that is raising families and lasting greatnesse and huge estates when the world is to end so quickly and the gains of a rich purchase so very a trifle but no trifling danger a thing that can give no security to our souls but much hazards and a great charge More reasonable it is that we despise the world and lay up for heaven that we heap up treasures by giving almes and make friends of unrighteous Mammon but at no hand to enter into a state of life that is all the way a hazard to the main interest and at the best an increase of the particular charge Every degree of riches every degree of greatnesse every ambitious imployment every great fortune every eminency above our brother is a charge to the accounts of the last day He that lives temperately and charitably whose imployment is religion whose affections are fear and love whose desires are after heaven and do not dwell below that man can long and pray for the hastning of the coming of the day of the Lord. He that does not really desire and long for that day either is in a very ill condition or does not understand that he is in a good * I will not be so severe in this meditation as to forbid any man to laugh that beleeves himself shall be called to so severe a Judgement yet S. Hierom said it Coram coelo terrâ rationem reddemus totius nostrae vitae tu rides Heaven and earth shall see all the follies and basenesse of thy life and doest thou laugh That we may but we have not reason to laugh loudly and frequently if we consider things wisely and as
marryed to a widower for Joseph the supposed Father of our Lord had children by a former wife The first Miracle that ever Jesus did was to doe honour to a wedding marriage was in the world before sin and is in all ages of the world the greatest and most effective antidote against sin in which all the world had perished if God had not made a remedy and although sin hath sour'd marriage and stuck the mans head with cares and the womans bed with sorrowes in the production of children yet these are but throws of life and glory and she shall be saved in child-bearing if she be found in faith and righteousnesse Marriage is a Schoole and exercise of vertue and though Marriage hath cares yet the single life hath desires which are more troublesome and more dangerous and often end in sin while the cares are but instances of duty and exercises of piety and therefore if single life hath more privacy of devotion yet marriage hath more necessities and more variety of it and is an exercise of more graces In two vertues celibate or single life may have the advantage of degrees ordinarily and commonly that is in chastity and devotion but as in some persons this may fail and it does in very many and a marryed man may spend as much time in devotion as any virgins or widowes do yet as in marriage even those vertues of chastity and devotion are exercised so in other instances this state hath proper exercises and trials for those graces for which single life can never be crown'd Here is the proper seene of piety and patience of the duty of Parents and the charity of relatives here kindnesse is spread abroad and love is united and made firm as a centre Marriage is the nursery of heaven the virgin sends prayers to God but she carries but one soul to him but the state of marriage fils up the numbers of the elect and hath in it the labour of love and the delicacies of friendship the blessing of society and the union of hands and hearts it hath in it lesse of beauty but more of safety then the single life it hath more care but lesse danger it is more merry and more sad is fuller of sorrowes and fuller of joyes it lies under more burdens but it is supported by all the strengths of love and charity and those burdens are delightfull Marriage is the mother of the world and preserves Kingdomes and fils Cities and Churches and Heaven it self Celibate like the flie in the heart of an apple dwels in a perpetuall sweetnesse but sits alone and is confin'd and dies in singularity but marriage like the usefull Bee builds a house and gathers sweetnesse from every flower and labours and unites into societies and republicks and sends out colonies and feeds the world with delicacies and obeys their king and keeps order and exercises many vertues and promotes the interest of mankinde and is that state of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Single life makes men in one instance to be like Angels but marriage in very many things makes the chast pair to be like to Christ. This is a great mystery but it is the symbolicall and sacramentall representment of the greatest mysteries of our Religion Christ descended from his Fathers bosome and contracted his divinity with flesh and bloud and marryed our Nature and we became a Church the spouse of the bridegroom which he cleansed with his bloud and gave her his holy Spirit for a dowry and heaven for a joynture begetting children unto God by the Gospel this spouse he hath joyn'd to himself by an excellent charity he feeds her at his own table and lodges her nigh his own heart provides for all her necessities relieves her sorrowes determines her doubts guides her wandrings he is become her head and she as a signet upon his right hand he first indeed was betrothed to the Synagogue and had many children by her but she forsook his love and then he marryed the Church of the Gentiles and by her as by a second venter had a more numerous issue atque una domus est omnium filiorum ejus all the children dwell in the same house and are heirs of the same promises intituled to the same inheritance Here is the eternall conjunction the indissoluble knot the exceeding love of Christ the obedience of the Spouse the communicating of goods the uniting of interests the fruit of marriage a celestiall generation a new creature Sacramentum hoc magnum est this is the sacramentall mystery represented by the holy rite of marriage so that marriage is divine in its institution sacred in its union holy in the mystery sacramentall in its signification honourable in its appellative religious in its imployments It is advantage to the societies of men and it is holinesse to the Lord. Dico autem in Christo Ecclesiâ It must be in Christ and the Church If this be not observed marriage loses its mysteriousnesse but because it is to effect much of that which it signifies it concerns all that enter into those golden fetters to see that Christ and his Church be in at every of its periods and that it be intirely conducted and over-rul'd by Religion for so the Apostle passes from the sacramentall rite to the reall duty Neverthelesse that is although the former discourse were wholly to explicate the conjunction of Christ and his Church by this similitude yet it hath in it this reall duty that the man love his wife and the wife reverence her husband and this is the use we shall now make of it the particulars of which precept I shall thus dispose 1. I shall propound the duty as it generally relates to Man and Wife in conjunction 2. The duty and power of the Man 3. The rights and priviledges and the duty of the Wife 1. In Christo Ecclesia that begins all and there is great need it should be so for they that enter into the state of marriage cast a dye of the greatest contingency and yet of the greatest interest in the world next to the last throw for eternity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life or death felicity or a lasting sorrow are in the power of marriage A woman indeed ventures most for she hath no sanctuary to retire to from an evill husband she must dwell upon her sorrow and hatch the egges which her own folly or infelicity hath produced and she is more under it because her tormentor hath a warrant of prerogative and the woman may complain to God as subjects do of tyrant Princes but otherwise she hath no appeal in the causes of unkindenesse And though the man can run from many hours of his sadnesse yet he must return to it again and when he sits among his neighbours he remembers the objection that lies in his
bosome and he sighes deeply Ah tum te miserum malique fati Quem attractis pedibus patente portâ Percurrent mugiléque raphanique The boyes and the pedlers and the fruiterers shall tell of this man when he is carryed to his grave that he lived and dyed a poor wretched person The Stags in the Greek Epigram whose knees were clog'd with frozen snow upon the mountains came down to the brooks of the vallies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hoping to thaw their joynts with the waters of the stream but there the frost overtook them and bound them fast in ice till the young heardsmen took them in their stranger snare It is the unhappy chance of many men finding many inconveniences upon the mountains of single life they descend into the vallies of marriage to refresh their troubles and there they enter into fetters and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a mans or womans peevishnesse and the worst of the evill is they are to thank their own follies for they fell into the snare by entring an improper way Christ and the Church were no ingredients in their choice but as the Indian women enter into folly for the price of an Elephant and think their crime warrantable so do men and women change their liberty for a rich fortune like Eriphyle the Argive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she prefer'd gold before a good man and shew themselves to be lesse then money by overvaluing that to all the content and wise felicity of their lives and when they have counted the money and their sorrowes together how willingly would they buy with the losse of all that money modesty or sweet nature to their relative the odde thousand pound would gladly be allowed in good nature and fair manners As very a fool is he that chooses for beauty principally cui sunt eruditi oculi stulta mens as one said whose eyes are witty and their soul sensuall It is an ill band of affections to tye two hearts together by a little thread of red and white 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And they can love no longer but untill the next ague comes and they are fond of each other but at the chance of fancy or the small pox or childebearing or care or time or any thing that can destroy a pretty flower But it is the basest of all when lust is the Paranymph and solicits the suit and makes the contract and joyn'd the hands for this is commonly the effect of the former according to the Greek proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 At first for his fair cheeks and comely beard the beast is taken for a Lion but at last he is turn'd to a Dragon or a Leopard or a Swine That which is at first beauty on the face may prove lust in the manners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Eubulus wittily reprehended such impure contracts they offer in their maritall sacrifices nothing but the thigh and that which the Priests cut from the goats when they were laid to bleed upon the Altars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said St. Clement He or she that looks too curiously upon the beauty of the body looks too low and hath flesh and corruption in his heart and is judg'd sensuall and earthly in his affections and desires Begin therefore with God Christ is the president of marriage and the holy Ghost is the fountain of purities and chast loves and he joynes the hearts and therefore let our first suit be in the court of heaven and with designs of piety or safety or charity let no impure spirit defile the virgin purities and castifications of the soul as St. Peters phrase is let all such contracts begin with religious affections Conjugium petimus partúmque uxoris at illi Notum qui pueri qualisve futura sit uxor We sometimes beg of God for a wife or a childe and he alone knows what the wife shall prove and by what dispositions and manners and into what fortune that childe shall enter but we shall not need to fear concerning the event of it if religion and fair intentions and prudence manage and conduct it all the way The preservation of a family the production of children the avoiding fornication the refreshment of our sorrowes by the comforts of society all these are fair ends of marriage and hallow the entrance but in these there is a speciall order society was the first designed It is not good for man to be alone Children was the next Increase and multiply but the avoiding fornication came in by the superfetation of the evill accidents of the world The first makes marriage delectable the second necessary to the publick the third necessary to the particular This is for safety for life and heaven it self Nam simulac venas inflavit dira cupido Huc juvenes aequum est descendere The other have in them joy and a portion of immortality the first makes the mans heart glad the second is the friend of Kingdomes and cities and families and the third is the enemy to hell and an antidote of the chiefest inlet to damnation but of all these the noblest end is the multiplying children Mundus cum patet Deorum tristium atque inferûm quasi patet janua propterea uxorem liberorum quaerendorum causâ ducere religiosum est said Varro It is religion to marry for children and Quintilian puts it into the definition of a wife est enim uxor quam jungit quam diducit utilitas cujus haec reverentia est quòd videtur inventa in causa liberorum and therefore St. Ignatius when he had spoken of Elias and Titus and Clement with an honourable mention of their virgin state lest he might seem to have lessened the marryed Apostles at whose feet in Christs Kingdome he thought himself unworthy to sit he gives this testimony they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they might not be disparaged in their great names of holinesse and severity they were secured by not marrying to satisfie their lower appetites but out of desire of children Other considerations if they be incident and by way of appendage are also considerable in the accounts of prudence but when they become principles they defile the mystery and make the blessing doubtfull Amabit sapiens cupient caeteri said Afranius love is a fair inducement but desire and appetite are rude and the characterismes of a sensuall person Amare justi boni est cupere impotentis to love belongs to a just and a good man but to lust or furiously and passionately to desire is the sign of impotency and an unruly minde 2. Man and wife are equally concerned to avoid all offences of each other in the beginning of their conversation every little thing can blast an infant blossome and the breath of the south can shake the little rings of the Vine when first they begin to curle like the
our Schools the latter by the mysteries of the Temple But now in the new institution we have also a great Master of speaking and though silence is one of the great paths of Innocence yet Holy speaking is the instrument of Spirituall Charity and is a glorification of God and therefore this kinde of speaking is a degree of perfection beyond the wisdome and severity of silence For although garrulity and foolish inordinate talking is a conjunction of folly and sin and the prating man while he desires to get the love of them he converses with incurres their hatred while he would be admir'd is laughed at he spends much and gets nothing he wrongs his friends and makes sport to his enemies and injures himselfe he is derided when he tels what others know he is indanger'd if he tels a secret and what they know not he is not beleeved when he tels good news and when he tels ill news he is odious and therefore that silence which is a cure of all this evill is an excellent portion of safety and Religion yet it is with holy speaking and innocent silence as it is with a Hermit and a Bishop the first goes to a good school but the second is proceeded towards greater perfection and therefore the practicall life of Ecclesiasticall Governors being found in the way of holinesse and zeale is called status perfectionis a more excellent and perfect condition of life and farre beyond the retirements and inoffensive life of those innocent persons which doe so much lesse of profit by how much charity is better then meditation and going to heaven by religion and charity by serving God and converting soules is better then going to heaven by prayers and secret thoughts So it is with silence and religious communication That does not offend God this glorifies him That prevents Sin this sets forward the interests of Religion And therefore Plutarch said well Qui generosè regio more instituuntur primum tacere deinde loqui discunt To be taught first to be silent then to speak well and handsomely is education fit for a Prince and that is St. Paul's method here first we were taught how to restraine our tongues in the foregoing instances and now we are called to imploy them in Religion 1. We must speak that which is good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any thing that may serve the ends of our God and of our Neighbour in the measures of Religion and usefulnesse But it is here as in all other propositions of Religion God to us who are in the body and conducted by materiall phantasmes and understanding nothing but what we feel or is conveyed to us by the proportions of what we doe or have hath given us a Religion that is fitted to our condition and constitution And therefore when we are commanded to love God by this love Christ understands obedience when we are commanded to honour God it is by singing and reciting his praises and doing things which cause reputation and honour and even here when we are commanded to speak that which is good it is instanced in such good things which are really profitable practically usefull and here the measures of God are especially by the proportions of our neighbour And therefore though speaking honorable things of God be an imployment that does honour to our tongues and voices yet we must tune and compose even these notes so as may best profit our neighbour for so it must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good speech such as is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the edification of necessity the phrase is an Hebraisme where the genitive case of a substantive is put for the adjective and meanes that our speech be apted to necessary edification or such edification as is needfull to every mans particular case that is that we so order our communication that it be apt to instruct the ignorant to strengthen the weak to recall the wanderer to restraine the vicious to comfort the disconsolate to speak a word in season to every mans necessity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it may minister grace something that may please and profit them according as they shall need all which I shall reduce to these three heads 1. To Instruct. 2. To Comfort 3. To Reprove 1. Our conversation must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apt to teach For since all our hopes on our part depend upon our obedience to God and conformity to our Lord Jesus by whom our endevours are sanctified and accepted and our weaknesses are pardoned and all our obedience relies upon and is incouraged and grounded in faith and faith is founded naturally and primarily in the understanding we may observe that it is not onely reasonably to be expected but experimentally felt that in weak and and ignorant understandings there are no sufficient supports for the vigorousnesse of a holy life there being nothing or not enough to warrant and strengthen great resolutions to reconcile our affections to difficulties to make us patient of affronts to receive deeper mortifications and ruder usages unlesse where an extraordinary grace supplies the want of ordinary notices as the Apostles were enabled to their preachings But he therefore that carries and imports into the understanding of his Brother notices of faith and incomes of spirituall propositions and arguments of the Spirit enables his brother towards the work and practises of a holy life and though every argument which the Spirit of God hath made and recorded in holy Scripture is of it selfe inducement great enough to endear obedience yet it is not so in the event of things to every mans infirmity and need but in the treasures of the Spirit in the heaps and variety of institution and wise discourses there will not onely be enough to make a man without excuse but sufficient to doe his work and to cure his evill and to fortifie his weaker parts and to comply with his necessities for although Gods sufficient grace is present to all that can use it yet if there be no more then that it is a sad consideration to remember that there are but few that will be saved if they be helped but with just so much as can possibly doe the work and this we may well be assured of if we consider that God is never wanting to any man in what is simply necessary but then if we adde this also that of the vast numbers of men who might possibly be saved so few really are so we shall perceive that that grace which onely is sufficient is not sufficient sufficient to the thing is not sufficient for the person and therefore that God does usually give us more and we need more yet and unlesse God works in us to will and to doe we shall neither will nor doe though to will be in the power of our hand yet we will not will it follows from hence that all they who will comply with Gods method of graciousnesse and the necessities of their Brethren must
endevour by all meanes and in all their owne measures and capacities to lay up treasures of notices and instructions in their brothers soul that by some argument or other they may be met withall and taken in every corner of their conversation Adde to this that the duty of a man hath great variety and the souls of men are infinitely abused and the persuasions of men are strangely divided and the interests of men are a violent and preternaturall declination from the strictnesses of vertue and the resolutions of men are quickly altered and very hardly to be secured and the cases of conscience are numerous and intricate and every state of life that hath its proper prejudice and our notices are abused by our affections and we shall perceive that men generally need knowledge enough to over-power all their passions to root out their vitious inclinations to master their prejudice to answer objections to resist temptations to refresh their wearynesse to fixe their resolutions and to determine their doubts and therefore to see your brother in a state of ignorance is to see him unfurnished and unprepared to all good works a person safe no longer then till a temptation comes and one that cannot be saved but by an absolute unlimited predestination a favour of which he hath no promise no security no revelation and although to doe this God hath appointed a speciall Order of men the whole Ecclesiasticall Order whom he feeds at his owne charges and whom men rob at their owne perill yet this doth not disoblige others for every Master of a family is to instruct or cause his family to be instructed and catechised every Governour is to instruct his charge every Man his Brother not alwayes in person but ever by all possible and just provisions For if the people dye for want of knowledge they who are set over them shall also die for want of charity Here therefore we must remember that it is the duty of us all in our severall measures and proportions to instruct those that need it and whose necessity is made ready for our ministration and let us tremble to think what will be the sad account which we shall make when even our families are not taught in the fundamentals of Religion for how can it be possible for those who could not account concerning the stories of Christs life and death the ministeries of their redemption the foundation of all their hopes the great argument of all their obediences how can it be expected that they should ride in triumph over all the evills which the Devill and the World and their owne follies daily present to them in the course of every dayes conversation And it will be an ill return to say that God will require no more of them then he hath given them for suppose that be true in your own sense yet he will require it of thee because thou gavest them no more and however it is a formidable danger and a trifling hope for any man to put all the hopes of his being saved upon the onely stock of ignorance for if his ignorance should never be accounted for yet it may leave him in that state in which his evills shall grow great and his sins may be irremediable 2. Our Conversation must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apt to comfort the disconsolate and then this men in present can feel no greater charity For since halfe the duty of a Christian in this life consists in the exercise of passive graces and the infinite variety of providence and the perpetuall adversity of chances and the dissatisfaction and emptynesse that is in things themselves and the wearynesse and anguish of our spirit does call us to the trial and exercise of patience even in the dayes of sunshine and much more in the violent storms that shake our dwellings and make our hearts tremble God hath sent some Angels into the world whose office it is to refresh the sorrowes of the poore and to lighten the eyes of the disconsolate he hath made some creatures whose powers are chiefly ordain'd to comfort wine and oyle and society cordials and variety and time it selfe is checker'd with black and white stay but till to morrow and your present sorrow will be weary and will lie downe to rest But this is not all The third person of the holy Trinity is known to us by the name and dignity of the Holy Ghost the Comforter and God glories in the appellative that he is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort and therefore to minister in the office is to become like God and to imitate the charities of heaven and God hath fitted mankinde for it he most needs it and he feels his brothers wants by his owne experience and God hath given us speech and the endearments of society and pleasantness of conversation and powers of seasonable discourse arguments to allay the sorrow by abating our apprehensions and taking out the sting or telling the periods of comfort or exciting hope or urging a precept and reconciling our affections and reciting promises or telling stories of the Divine mercy or changing it into duty or making the burden lesse by comparing it with greater or by proving it to be lesse then we deserve and that it is so intended and may become the instrument of vertue And certain it is that as nothing can better doe it so there is nothing greater for which God made our tongues next to reciting his prayses then to minister comfort to a weary soul. And what greater measure can we have then that we should bring joy to our brother who with his dreary eyes looks to heaven and round about and cannot finde so much rest as to lay his eye-lids close together then that thy tongue should be tun'd with heavenly accents and make the weary soul to listen for light and ease and when he perceives that there is such a thing in the world and in the order of things as comfort and joy to begin to break out from the prison of his sorrows at the dore of sighs and tears and by little and little melt into showres and refreshment This is glory to thy voyce and imployment fit for the brightest Angel But so have I seen the sun kisse the frozen earth which was bound up with the images of death and the colder breath of the North and then the waters break from their inclosures and melt with joy and run in usefull channels and the flies doe rise againe from their little graves in walls and dance a while in the aire to tell that there is joy within and that the great mother of creatures will open the stock of her new refreshment become usefull to mankinde and sing prayses to her Redeemer So is the heart of a sorrowfull man under the discourses of a wise Comforter he breaks from the despairs of the grave and the fetters and chains of sorrow he blesses God and he blesses thee and he feels