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 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
and an active living faith it is a grace that the most holy persons beg of God with mighty passion and labour for with a great diligence and expect with trembling fears and concerning it many times suffer sadnesses with uncertain soules and receive it by degrees and it enters upon them by little portions and it is broken as their sighs and sleeps But so have I seen the returning sea enter upon the strand and the waters rolling towards the shore throw up little portions of the tide and retire as if nature meant to play and not to change the abode of waters but still the floud crept by little steppings and invaded more by his progressions then he lost by his retreat and having told the number of its steps it possesses its new portion till the Angell calls it back that it may leave its unfaithfull dwelling of the sand so is the pardon of our sins it comes by slow motions and first quits a present death and turnes it may be into a sharp sicknesse and if that sicknesse prove not health to the soul it washes off and it may be will dash against the rock again and proceed to take off the severall instances of anger and the periods of wrath but all this while it is uncertain concerning our finall interest whether it be ebbe or floud and every hearty prayer and every bountifull almes still enlarges the pardon or addes a degree of probability and hope and then a drunken meeting or a covetous desire or an act of lust or looser swearing idle talk or neglect of Religion makes the pardon retire and while it is disputed between Christ and Christs enemy who shall be Lord the pardon fluctuates like the wave striving to climbe the rock and is wash'd off like its own retinue and it gets possession by time and uncertainty by difficulty and the degrees of a hard progression When David had sinned but in one instance interrupting the course of a holy life by one sad calamity it pleased God to pardon him but see upon what hard terms He prayed long and violently he wept sorely he was humbled in sackcloth and ashes he eat the bread of affliction and drank of his bottle of tears he lost his Princely spirit and had an amazing conscience he suffer'd the wrath of God and the sword never did depart from his house his Son rebell'd and his Kingdome revolted he fled on foot and maintained Spies against his childe hee was forc'd to send an army against him that was dearer then his owne eyes and to fight against him whom he would not hurt for all the riches of Syria and Egypt his concubines were desir'd by an incestuous mixture in the face of the sun before all Israel and his childe that was the fruit of his sin after a 7 days feaver dyed and left him nothing of his sin to show but sorrow and the scourges of the Divine vengeance and after all this God pardoned him finally because he was for ever sorrowfull and never did the sin againe He that hath sinned a thousand times for David's once is too confident if he thinks that all his shall be pardoned at a lesse rate then was used to expiate that one mischief of the religious King The son of David died for his father David as well as he did for us he was the Lambe slain from the beginning of the world and yet that death and that relation and all the heap of the Divine favours which crown'd David with a circle richer then the royall diadem could not exempt him from the portion of sinners when he descended into their pollutions I pray God we may find the sure mercies of David and may have our portion in the redemption wrought by the Son of David but we are to expect it upon such terms as are revealed such which include time and labour and uncertainty and watchfulnesse and fear and holy living But it is a sad observation that the case of pardon of sins is so administred that they that are most sure of it have the greatest fears concerning it and they to whom it doth not belong at all are as confident as children and fooles who believe every thing they have a mind to not because they have reason so to doe but because without it they are presently miserable The godly and holy persons of the Church work out their salvation with fear and trembling and the wicked goe to destruction with gayety and confidence these men think all is well while they are in the gall of bitternesse and good men are tossed in a tempest crying and praying for a safe conduct and the sighs of their feares and the wind of their prayers waft them safely to their port Pardon of sins is not easily obtain'd because they who onely certainly can receive it find difficulty and danger and fears in the obtaining it and therefore their case is pityable and deplorable who when they have least reason to expect pardon yet are most confident and carelesse But because there are sorrows on one side and dangers on the other and temptations on both sides it will concern all sorts of men to know when their sins are pardoned For then when they can perceive their signes certain and evident they may rest in their expectations of the Divine mercies when they cannot see the signes they may leave their confidence and change it into repentance and watchfulnesse and stricter observation and in order to this I shall tell you that which shall never faile you a certaine signe that you may know whether or no and when and in what degree your persons are pardoned 1. I shall not consider the evils of sin by any Metaphysicall and abstracted effects but by sensible reall and materiall Hee that revenges himself of another does something that will make his enemy grieve something that shall displease the offender as much as sin did the offended and therefore all the evills of sin are such as relate to us and are to bee estimated by our apprehensions Sin makes God angry and Gods anger if it be turned aside will make us miscrable and accursed and therefore in proportion to this we are to reckon the proportions of Gods mercy in forgivenesse or his anger in retaining 2. Sin hath obliged us to suffer many evills even whatsoever the anger of God is pleased to inflict sicknesse and dishonour poverty and shame a caytive spirit and a guilty conscience famine and war plague and pestilence sudden death and a short life temporall death or death eternall according as God in the severall covenants of the Law and Gospel hath expressed 3. For in the law of Moses sin bound them to nothing but temporall evills but they were sore and heavy and many but these only there were threatned in the Gospel Christ added the menaces of evills spirituall and eternall 4. The great evill of the Jews was their abscission and cutting off from being Gods people to which eternall damnation answers
amongst us and as sicknesse and war and other intermediall evills were lesser strokes in order to the finall anger of God against their Nation so are these and spirituall evills intermediall in order to the Eternall destruction of sinning and unrepenting Christians 5. When God had visited any of the sinners of Israel with a grievous sicknesse then they lay under the evil of their sin and were not pardoned till God took away the sicknesse but the taking the evill away the evill of the punishment was the pardon of the sin to pardon the sin is to spare the sinner and this appears For when Christ had said to the man sick of the palsey Son thy sins are forgiven thee the Pharisees accused him of blasohemy because none had power to forgive sins but God onely Christ to vindicate himselfe gives them an ocular demonstration and proves his words that yee may know the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins he saith to the man sick of the palsey Arise and walk then he pardoned the sin when he took away the sicknesse and proved the power by reducing it to act for if pardon of sins be any thing else it must be easier or harder if it be easier then sin hath not so much evill in it as a sicknesse which no Religion as yet ever taught If it be harder then Christs power to doe that which was harder could not be proved by doing that which was easier It remaines therefore that it is the same thing to take the punishment away as to procure or give the pardon because as the retaining the sin was an obligation to the evill of punishment so the remitting the sin is the disobliging to its penalty So farre then the case is manifest 6. The next step is this that although in the Gospel God punishes sinners with temporall judgements and sicknesses and deaths with sad accidents and evill Angels and messengers of wrath yet besides these lesser strokes he hath scorpions to chastise and loads of worse evils to oppresse the disobedient he punishes one sin with another vile acts with evill habits these with a hard heart and this with obstinacy and obstinacy with impenitence and impenitence with damnation Now because the worst of evills which are threatned to us are such which consign to hell by persevering in sin as God takes off our love and our affections our relations and bondage under sin just in the same degree he pardons us because the punishment of sin being taken off and pardoned there can remaine no guilt Guiltinesse is an unsignificant word if there be no obligation to punishment Since therefore spirituall evils and progressions in sin and the spirit of reprobation and impenitence and accursed habits and perseverance in iniquity are the worst of evils when these are taken off the sin hath lost its venome and appendant curse for sin passes on to eternall death onely by the line of impenitence and it can never carry us to hell if we repent timely and effectually in the same degree therefore that any man leaves his sin just in the same degree he is pardoned and he is sure of it For although curing the temporall evill was the pardon of sins among the Jews yet wee must reckon our pardon by curing the spirituall If I have sinned against God in the shamefull crime of Lust then God hath pardoned my sins when upon my repentance and prayers he hath given me the grace of Chastity My Drunkennesse is forgiven when I have acquir'd the grace of Temperance and a sober spirit My Covetousnesse shall no more be a damning sin when I have a loving and charitable spirit loving to do good and despising the world for every further degree of sin being a neerer step to hell and by consequence the worst punishment of sin it follows inevitably that according as we are put into a contrary state so are our degrees of pardon and the worst punishment is already taken off And therefore we shall find that the great blessing and pardon and redemption which Christ wrought for us is called sanctification holinesse and turning us away from our sins So St. Peter Yee know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation that 's your redemption that 's your deliverance you were taken from your sinfull state that was the state of death this of life and pardon and therefore they are made Synonyma by the same Apostle According as his divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godlinesse to live and to be godly is all one to remain in sin and abide in death is all one to redeem us from sin is to snatch us from hell he that gives us godlinesse gives us life and that supposes pardon or the abolition of the rites of eternall death and this was the conclusion of St. Peter's Sermon and the summe totall of our redemption and of our pardon God having raised up his Son sent him to blesse us in turning away every one of you from your iniquity this is the end of Christs passion and bitter death the purpose of all his and all our preaching the effect of baptisme purging washing sanctifying the work of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the same body that was broken and the same blood that was shed for our redemption is to conform us into his image and likenesse of living and dying of doing and suffering The case is plain just as we leave our sins so Gods wrath shall be taken from us as we get the graces contrary to our former vices so infallibly we are consign'd to pardon If therefore you are in contestation against sin while you dwell in difficulty and sometimes yeeld to sin and sometimes overcome it your pardon is uncertain and is not discernible in its progresse but when sin is mortified and your lusts are dead and under the power of grace and you are led by the Spirit all your fears concerning your state of pardon are causelesse and afflictive without reason but so long as you live at the old rate of lust or intemperance of covetousnesse or vanity of tyranny or oppression of carelesnesse or irreligion flatter not your selves you have no more reason to hope for pardon then a begger for a Crown or a condemned criminall to be made Heir apparent to that Prince whom he would traiterously have slain 4. They have great reason to fear concerning their condition who having been in the state of grace who having begun to lead a good life and give their names to God by solemne deliberate acts of will and understanding and made some progresse in the way of Godlinesse if they shall retire to folly and unravell all their holy vows and commit those evils from which they formerly run as from a fire or inundation their case hath in it so many evills that they have great reason to fear the anger of God and
become credulous in twenty for want of reason we discourse our selves into folly and weak observation and give the Devill power over us in those circumstances in which we can least resist him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A theef is consident in the twilight if you suffer impressions to be made upon you by dreams the Devill hath the reins in his own hands and can tempt you by that which will abuse you when you can make no resistance Dominica the wife of Valens the Emperor dreamt that God threatned to take away her only son for her despitefull usage of St. Basil the fear proceeding from this instance was safe and fortunate but if she had dreamt in the behalf of a Heretick she might have been cousened into a false proposition upon a ground weaker then the discourse of a waking childe Let the grounds of our actions be noble beginning upon reason proceeding with prudence measured by the common lines of men and confident upon the expectation of an usuall providence Let us proceed from causes to effects from naturall means to ordinary events and believe felicity not to be a chance but a choice and evill to be the daughter of sin and the Divine anger not of fortune and fancy let us fear God when we have made him angry and not be afraid of him when we heartily and laboriously do our duty our fears are to be measured by open revelation and certain experience by the threatnings of God and the sayings of wise men and their limit is reverence and godlinesse is their end and then fear shall be a duty and a rare instrument of many in all other cases it is superstition or folly it is sin or punishment the Ivy of Religion and the misery of an honest and a weak heart and is to be cured only by reason and good company a wise guide and a plain rule a cheerfull spirit and a contented minde by joy in God according to the commandements that is a rejoycing evermore 2. But besides this superstitious fear there is another fear directly criminall and it is cald worldly fear of which the Spirit of God hath said But the fearfull and incredulous shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death that is such fears which make men to fall in the time of persecution those that dare not own their faith in the face of a Tyrant or in despite of an accursed Law For though it be lawfull to be afraid in a storm yet it is not lawfull to leap into the sea though we may be more carefull for our fears yet we must be faithfull too and we may flie from the persecution till it overtakes us but when it does we must not change our Religion for our safety or leave the robe of Baptisme in the hand of the tempter and run away by all means St. Athanasius for 46 years did run and fight he disputed with the Arrians and fled from their Officers and that flies may be a man worth preserving if he bears his faith along with him and leaves nothing of his duty behinde but when duty and life cannot stand together he that then flies a persecution by delivering up his soul is one that hath no charity no love to God no trust in promises no just estimation of the rewards of a noble contention Perfect love casts out fear saith the Apostle that is he that loves God will not fear to dye for him or for his sake to be poor In this sense no man can fear man and love God at the same time and when St. Laurence triumph'd over Valerianus St. Sebastian over Diocletian St. Vincentius over Dacianus and the armies of Martyrs over the Proconsuls accusers and executioners they shew'd their love to God by triumphing over fear and leading captivity captive by the strength of their Captain whose garments were red from Bozrah 3. But this fear is also tremulous and criminall if it be a trouble from the apprehension of the mountains and difficulties of duty and is called pusillanimity For some see themselves encompassed with temptations they observe their frequent fals their perpetuall returns from good purposes to weak performances the daily mortifications that are necessary the resisting naturall appetites and the laying violent hands upon the desires of flesh and bloud the uneasinesse of their spirits and their hard labours and therefore this makes them afraid and because they despair to run through the whole duty in all its parts and periods they think as good not begin at all as after labour and expence to lose the Jewell and the charges of their venture St. Austin compares such men to children and phantastick persons afrighted with phantasmes and specters Terribiles visu formae the sight seems full of horror but touch them and they are very nothing the meer daughters of a sick brain and a weak heart an infant experience and a trifling judgement so are the illusions of a weak piety or an unskilfull unconsident soul they fancy to see mountains of difficulty but touch them and they seem like clouds riding upon the wings of the winde and put on shapes as we please to dream He that denies to give almes for fear of being poor or to entertain a Disciple for fear of being suspected of the party or to own a duty for fear of being put to venture for a crown he that takes part of the intemperance because he dares not displease the company or in any sense fears the fears of the world and not the fear of God this man enters into his portion of fear betimes but it will not be finished to eternall ages To fear the censures of men when God is your Judge to fear their evill when God is your defence to fear death when he is the entrance to life and felicity is unreasonable and pernicious but if you will turn your passion into duty and joy and security fear to offend God to enter voluntarily into temptation fear the alluring face of lust and the smooth entertainments of intemperance fear the anger of God when you have deserved it and when you have recover'd from the share then infinitely fear to return into that condition in which whosoever dwels is the heir of fear and eternall sorrow Thus farre I have discoursed concerning good fear and bad that is filiall and servile they are both good if by servile we intend initiall or the new beginning fear of penitents a fear to offend God upon lesse perfect considerations But servile fear is vitious when it still retains the affection of slaves and when its effects are hatred wearinesse displeasure and want of charity and of the same cognations are those fears which are superstitious and worldly But to the former sort of vertuous fear some also adde another which they call Angelicall that is such a fear as the blessed Angels have who before God hide their faces and tremble at his presence and
this sense and for these reasons it is that although a lukewarm Christian hath gone forward some steps towards a state of holynesse and is advanced beyond him that is cold and dead and unconcerned and therefore speaking absolutely and naturally is neerer the Kingdome of God then he that is not yet set out yet accidentally and by reason of these ill appendages he is worse in greater danger in a state equally unacceptable and therefore must either goe forward and still doe the work of God carefully and diligently with a Fervent spirit and an Active hand with a willing heart and a chearefull eye or it had been better he had never begun 2. It concerns us next to enquire concerning the duty in its proper instances that we may perceive to what parts and degrees of duty it amounts we shall find it especially in the duties of faith of prayer and of charity 1. Our faith must be strong vigorous active confident and patient reasonable and unalterable without doubting and feare and partiality For the faith of very many men seems a duty so weak and indifferent is so often untwisted by violence or ravel'd and intangled in weak discourses or so false and fallacious by its mixture of interest that though men usually put most confidences in the pretences of faith yet no pretences are more unreasonable 1. Our faith and perswasions in Religion is most commonly imprinted in us by our country and we are Christians at the same rate as we are English or Spaniards or of such a family our reason is first stained and spotted with the dye of our kindred and country and our education puts it in grain and whatsoever is against this we are taught to call a temptaiton in the mean time we call these accidentall and artificiall perswasions by the name of faith which is onely the are of the countrey or an heireloome of the family or the daughter of a present interest Whatever it was that brought us in we are to take care that when we are in our faith be noble and stand upon its most proper and most reasonable foundation it concerns us better to understand that Religion which we call Faith and that faith whereby we hope to be saved 2. The faith and the whole Religion of many men is the production of fear Men are threatned into their perswasions and the iron rod of a Tyrant converts whole nations to his principles when the wise discourses of the Religion seems dull as sleep and unprevailing as the talk of childhood That 's but a deceitfull faith which our timorousnesse begot and our weaknesse nurses and brings up The Religion of a Christian is immortall and certaine and perswasive and infallible and unalterable and therefore needs not be received by humane and weake convoycs like worldly and mortall Religions that faith is lukewarm and easie and trifling which is onely a beleef of that which a man wants courage to disbeleeve 3. The faith of many men is such that they dare not trust it they will talk of it and serve vanity or their lust or their company or their interest by it but when the matter comes to a pinch they dare not trust it When Antisthenes was initiated into the mysteries of Orphâ—us the Priest told him that all that were of that Religion immediately after death should be perfectly happy the Philosopher asked him why he did not dye if he beleeved what he said such a faith as that was fine to talk of at table or eating the sacrifices of the Religion when the mystick man was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 full of wine and flesh of confidence and religion but to dye is a more material consideration and to be chosen upon no grounds but such a faith which really comes from God and can secure our reason and our choyce and perfect our interest and designes And it hath been long observed concerning those bold people that use their reason against God that gave it they have one perswasion in their health and another in their sicknesse and fears when they are well they blaspheme when they die they are superstitious It was Bias his case when he was poyson'd by the Atheismes of Theodorus no man died more like a coward and a fool as if the gods were to come and goe as Bias pleased to think and talk so one said of his folly If God be to be feared when we die he is also to be feared in all our life for he can for ever make us die he that will doe it once and that when he please can alwayes And therefore all those perswasions against God and against Religion are onely the production of vicious passions of drink or fancy of confidence and ignorance of boldnesse or vile appetites of vanity or fiercenesse of pride or flatteries and Atheisme is a proportion so unnaturall and monstrous that it can never dwell in a mans heart as faith does in health and sicknesse in peace and warre in company and alone at the beginning and at the end of a designe but comes from weake principles and leaves shallow and superficiall impressions but when men endevour to strengthen and confirme it they onely strive to make themselves worse then they can Naturally a man cannot be an Atheist for he that is so must have something within him that is worse either then man or devill 4. Some measure their faith by shews and apparencies by ceremonies and names by professions and little institutions Diogenes was angry at the silly Priest that thought he should be immortall because he was a Priest and would not promise so concerning Agesilaus and Epaminondas two noble Greeks that had preserved their country and lived vertuously The faith of a Christian hath no signification at all but obedience and charity if men be just and charitable and good and live according to their faith then onely they are Christians whatsoever else is pretended is but a shadow and the image of a grace for since in all the sects and institutions of the world the professors did in some reasonable sort conform to the rules of the profession as appears in all the Schooles of Philosophers and Religions of the world and the practises of the Jews and the usages and the countrey customes of the Turks it is a strange dishonour to Christianity that in it alone men should pretend to the faith of it and doe nothing of what it perswades and commands upon the account of those promises which it makes us to beleeve * He that means to please God by his faith must have his faith begotten in him by the Spirit of God and proper arguments of Religion he must professe it without feare he must dare to die for it and resolve to live according to its institution he must grow more confident and more holy have fewer doubtings and more vertues he must be resolute and constant far from indifferency and above secular regards he must by it regulate his life
make the head ache and therefore wise persons reject them and the eye refuses to stare upon the beauties of the Sun because it makes it weep it self blinde and if a luscious dish please my palat and turns to loathing in the stomach I will lay aside that evill and consider the danger and the bigger pain not that little pleasure So it is in sin it pleases the senses but diseases the spirit and wounds that and that it is as apt to smart as the skin and is as considerable in the provisions of pleasure and pain respectively and the pleasures of sin to a contradicting reason are like the joyes of wine to a condemned man Difficile est imitari gaudia falsa Difficile est tristi fingere mente jocum It will be veryhard to delight freely in that which so vexes the more tender and most sensible part so that what Pliny said of the Poppies growing in the river Caïcus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it brings a stone in stead of a flower or fruit so are the pleasures of these pretending sins the flower at the best is stinking but there is a stone in the bottome it is gravell in the teeth and a man must drink the bloud of his own gums when he manducates such unwholesome such unpleasant fruit Vitiorum gaudia vulnus habent They make a wound and therefore are not very pleasant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a great labour and travail to live a vicious life 6. The pleasure in the acts of these few sins that do pretend to it is a little limited nothing confin'd to a single faculty to one sense having nothing but the skin for its organ or instrument an artery or something not more considerable then a Lute-string and at the best it is but the satisfaction of an appetite which reason can cure which time can appease which every diversion can take off such as is not perfective of his nature nor of advantage to his person it is a desire to no purpose and as it comes with no just cause so can be satisfied with no just measures it is satisfied before it comes to a vice and when it is come thither all the world cannot satisfie it a little thing will weary it but nothing can content it For all these sensuall desires are nothing but an impatience of being well and wise of being in health and being in our wits which two things if a man could endure and it is but reasonable a man would think that we should he would never lust to drown his heart in seas of wine or oppresse his belly with loads of undigested meat or make himself base as the mixtures of a harlot by breaking the sweetest limits and holy festivities of marriage Malum impatientia est boni said Tertullian it is nothing else to please the sense is but to do a mans self mischief and all those lusts tend to some direct dissolution of a mans health or his felicity his reason or his religion it is an enemy that a man carries about him and as the spirit of God said concerning Babylon Quantum in deliciis fuit tantum dat illi tormentum luctum Let her have torment and sorrow according to the measure of her delights is most eminently true in the pleasing of our senses the lust and desire is a torment the remembrance and the absence is a torment and the enjoyment does not satisfie but disables the instrument and tires the faculty and when a man hath but a little of what his sense covets he is not contented but impatient for more and when he hath loads of it he does not feel it for he that swallowes a full goblet does not taste his wine and this is the pleasure of the sense nothing contents it but that which he cannot perceive and it is alwaies restlesse till he be weary and all the way unpleased till it can feel no pleasure and that which is the instrument of sense is the means of its torment by the faculty by which it tasts by the same it is afflicted for so long as it can taste it is tormented with desire and when it can desire no longer it cannot feel pleasure 7. Sin hath little or no pleasure lin its very injoyment because its very manner of entry and production is by a curse and a contradiction it comes into the world like a viper through the sides of its mother by means unnaturall violent and monstrous Men love sin only because it is forbidden Sin took occasion by the Law saith St. Paul it could not come in upon its own pretences but men rather suspect a secret pleasure in it because there are guards kept upon it Sed quia caecus inest vitiis amor omne futurum Despicitur suadéntque brevem praesentia fructum Et ruit in vetitum damni secura libido Men run into sin with blinde affections and against all reason despise the future hoping for some little pleasure for the present and all this is only because they are forbidden Do not many men sin out of spight some out of the spirit of disobedience some by wildenesse and indetermination some by impudence and because they are taken in a fault Frontémque à crimine sumunt Some because they are reproved many by custome others by importunity Ordo fuit crevisse malis It grows upon crab-stocks and the lust it self is sowre and unwholesome and since it is evident that very many sins come in wholly upon these accounts such persons and such sins cannot pretend pleasure but as Naturalists say of pulse cum maledictis probris serendum praecipiunt ut laetiùs porventat the countrey people were used to curse it and rail upon it all the while that it was sowing that it might thrive the better t is true with sins they grow up with curses with spite and contradiction peevishnesse and indignation pride and cursed principles and therefore pleasure ought not to be the inscription of the box for that 's the least part of its ingredient and constitution 8. The pleasures in the very enjoying of sin are infinitely trifling and inconsiderable because they passe away so quickly if they be in themselves little they are made lesse by their volatile and fugitive nature But if they were great then their being so transient does not only lossen the delight but changes it into a torment and loads the spirit of the sinner with impatience and indignation Is it not a high upbraiding to the watchfull adulterer that after he hath contriv'd the stages of his sin and tyed many circumstances together with arts and labour and these joyn and stand knit and solid only by contingency and are very often born away with the impetuous torrent of an inevitable accident like Xerxes bridge over the Hellespont and then he is to begin again and sets new wheels a going and by the arts and the labour and the watchings and the importunity and the violence and the unwearied
of man who is in the heavens not that the signe shall bee imprinted on a cloud or in any part of the heavens but that hee who is now in the heavens shall when he comes down have a signe and signification of his own that is proper to him who is there glorified and shall return in glory and he disparages the beauty of the Sun who inquires for a Rule to know when the Sun shines or the light breaks forth from its chambers of the East and the Son of man shall need no other signification but his infinite retinue and all the Angels of God worshipping him and sitting upon a cloud and leading the heavenly Host and bringing his Elect with him and being clothed with the robes of Majesty and trampling upon Devils and confounding the wicked and destroying Death but all these great things shall be invested with such strange circumstances and annexes of Mightynesse and Divinity that all the world shall confesse the glories of the Lord and this is sufficiently signified by St. Paul We shall all be set before the throne or place of Christ's judicature For it is written As I live saith the Lord every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall cenfesse to God that is at the day of Judgment when wee are placed ready to receive our Sentence all knees shall bow to the holy Jesus and confesse him to be God the Lord meaning that our Lords presence shall be such as to force obeysance from Angels and Men and Devils and his addresse to Judgement shall sufficiently declare his Person and his Office and his proper glories This is the greatest Scene of Majesty that shall be in that day till the Sentence bee pronounced But there goes much before this which prepares all the world to the expectation and consequent reception of this mighty Judge of Men and Angels The Majesty of the Judge and the terrors of the Judgement shall bee spoken aloud by the immediate forerunning accidents which shall bee so great violences to the old constitutions of Nature that it shall break her very bones and disorder her till shee be destroyed St. Hierom relates out of the Jews books that their Doctors use to account 15 days of prodigie immediately before Christ's coming and to every day assigne a wonder any one of which if wee should chance to see in the days of our flesh it would affright us into the like thoughts which the old world had when they saw the countreys round about them cover'd with water and the Divine vengeance or as those poor people neer Adria and the Mediterranean sea when their houses and Cities are entring into graves and the bowells of the earth rent with convulsions and horrid tremblings The sea say they shall rise 15 cubits above the highest Mountaines and thence descend into hollownesse and a prodigious drought and when they are reduc'd again to their usuall proportions then all the beasts and creeping things the monsters and the usuall inhabitants of the sea shall be gathered together and make fearfull noyses to distract Mankind The birds shall mourne and change their song into threnes and sad accents rivers of fire shall rise from East to West and the stars shall be rent into threds of light and scatter like the beards of comets Then shall bee fearfull earthquakes and the rocks shall rend in pieces the trees shall distill bloud and the mountains and fairest structures shall returne unto their primitive dust the wild beasts shall leave their dens and come into the companies of men so that you shall hardly tell how to call them herds of Men or congregations of Beasts Then shall the Graves open and give up their dead and those which are alive in nature and dead in fear shall be forc'd from the rocks whither they went to hide them and from caverns of the earth where they would fain have been concealed because their retirements are dismantled and their rocks are broken into wider ruptures and admit a strange light into their secret bowels and the men being forc'd abroad into the theatre of mighty horrors shall run up and downe distracted and at their wits end and then some shall die and some shall bee changed and by this time the Elect shall bee gathered together from the foure quarters of the world and Christ shall come along with them to judgment These signes although the Jewish Doctors reckon them by order and a method concerning which they had no revelation that appeares nor sufficiently credible tradition yet for the main parts of the things themselves the holy Scripture records Christs own words and concerning the most terrible of them the summe of which as Christ related them and his Apostles recorded and explicated is this The earth shall tremble and the powers of the heavens shall bee shaken the sun shall bee turned into darknesse and the moon into bloud that is there shall bee strange eclipses of the Sun and fearfull aspects in the Moon who when she is troubled looks red like bloud The rocks shall rend and the elements shall melt with fervent heat The heavens shall bee rolled up like a parchment the earth shall bee burned with fire the hils shall be like wax for there shall goe a fire before him and a mighty tempest shall be stirred round about him Dies irae Dies illa Solvet sêclum in faviliâ Teste David cum Sibyllâ The Trumpet of God shall sound and the voice of the Archangell that is of him who is the Prince of all that great army of Spirits which shall then attend their Lord and wait upon and illustrate his glory and this also is part of that which is called the signe of the Son of Man for the fulfilling off all these praedictions and the preaching the Gospel to all Nations and the Conversion of the Jews and these prodigies and the Addresse of Majesty make up that signe The notice of which things some way or other came to the very Heathen themselves who were alarum'd into caution and sobriety by these dreadfull remembrances Sic cum compage solutâ Saecula tot mundt suprema coëgerit hora Antiquum repetens iterum chaos omnia mistis Sidera sideribus concurrent ignea pontum Astra petent tellus extendere littora nolet Excutietque fretum fratri contraria Phoebe Ibit Totaque discors Machina divulsi turbabit foedera Mundi Which things when they are come to passe it will be no wonder if mens hearts shall faile them for feare and their wits bee lost with guilt and their fond hopes destroyed by prodigie and amazement but it will bee an extreme wonder if the consideration and certain expectation of these things shall not awake our sleeping spirits and raise us from the death of Sin and the basenesse of vice and dishonorable actions to live soberly and temperately chastly and justly humbly and obediently that is like persons that believe all this and such who are not mad men or
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