partakers of thy Purities give unto us tender bowels that we may suffer together with our calamitous and necessitous Brethren that we having a fellow-feeling of their miseries may use all our powers to help them and ease our selves of our common sufferings But do thou O Holy Jesu take from us also all our great calamities the Carnality of our affections our Sensualities and Impurities that we may first be pure then peaceable living in peace with all men and preserving the peace which thou hast made for us with our God that we may never commit a sin which may interrupt so blessed an atonement Let neither hope nor fear tribulation nor anguish pleasure nor pain make us to relinquish our interest in thee and our portion of the everlasting Covenant But give us hearts constant bold and valiant to confess thee before all the world in the midst of all disadvantages and contradictory circumstances chusing rather to beg or to be disgraced or 〈◊〉 or to die than quit a holy Conscience or renounce an Article of Christianity that we either in act when thou shalt call us or always in preparation of mind suffering with thee may also reign with thee in the Church Triumphant O Holy and most merciful Saviour Jesu Amen DISCOURSE X. A Discourse upon that part of the Decalogue which the Holy JESVS adopted into the Institution and obligation of Christianity 1. WHen the Holy Jesus had described the Characterisms of Christianity in these Eight Graces and Beatitudes he adds his Injunctions that in these Vertues they should be eminent and exemplar that they might adorn the Doctrine of God for he intended that the Gospel should be as Leven in a lump of dough to season the whole mass and that Christians should be the instruments of communicating the excellency and reputation of this holy Institution to all the world Therefore Christ calls them Salt and Light and the societies of Christians a City set upon a hill and a 〈◊〉 set in a candlestick whose office and energy is to illuminate all the vicinage which is also expressed in these preceptive words Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven which I consider not only as a Circumstance of other parts but as a precise Duty it self and one of the Sanctions of Christianity which hath so confederated the Souls of the Disciples of the Institution that it hath in some proportion obliged every man to take care of his Brother's Soul And since Reverence to God and Charity to our Brother are the two 〈◊〉 Ends which the best Laws can have this precept of exemplary living is enjoyned in order to them both We must shine as lights in the world that God may be glorified and our Brother edified that the excellency of the act may 〈◊〉 the reputation of the Religion and invite men to confess God according to the sanctions of so holy an Institution And if we be curious that vanity do not mingle in the intention and that the intention do not spoil the action and that we suffer not our lights to shine that men may magnifie us and not glorifie God this duty is soon performed by way of adherence to our other actions and hath no other difficulty in it but that it will require our prudence and care to preserve the simplicity of our purposes and humility of our spirit in the midst of that excellent reputation which will certainly be consequent to a holy and exemplary life 2. But since the Holy Jesus had set us up to be lights in the world he took care we should not be stars of the least magnitude but eminent and such as might by their great emissions of light give evidence of their being immediately derivative from the Sun of Righteousness He was now giving his Law and meant to retain so much of Moses as Moses had of natural and essential Justice and Charity and superadd many degrees of his own that as far as Moses was exceeded by Christ in the capacity of a Law-giver so far Christianity might be more excellent and holy than the Mosaical Sanctions And therefore as a Preface to the Christian Law the Holy Jesus declares that unless our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees that is of the stricter sects of the Mosaical Institution we shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven Which not only relates to the prevaricating Practices of the Pharisees but even to their Doctrines and Commentaries upon the Law of Moses as appears evidently in the following instances For if all the excellency of Christianity had consisted in the mere command of Sincerity and prohibition of Hypocrisie it had nothing in it proportionable to those excellent promises and clearest revelations of Eternity there expressed nor of a fit imployment for the designation of a special and a new Law-giver whose Laws were to last forever and were established upon foundations stronger than the pillars of Heaven and Earth 3. But S. Paul calling the Law of Moses a Law of Works did well insinuate what the Doctrine of the Jews was concerning the degrees and obligations of Justice for besides that it was a Law of Works in opposition to the Law of Faith and so the sence of it is formerly explicated it is also a Law of Works in opposition to the Law of the Spirit and it is understood to be such a Law which required the exteriour Obedience such a Law according to which S. Paul so lived that no man could reprove him that is the Judges could not tax him with prevarication such a Law which being in very many degrees carnal and material did not with much severity exact the intention and purposes spiritual But the Gospel is the Law of the spirit If they failed in the exteriour work it was accounted to them for sin but to Christians nothing becomes a sin but a failing and prevaricating spirit For the outward act is such an emanation of the interiour that it enters into the account for the relation sake and for its parent When God hath put a duty into our hands if our spirits be right the work will certainly follow but the following work receives its acceptation not from the value the Christian Law hath precisely put upon it but because the spirit from whence it came hath observed its rule the Law of Charity is acted and expressed in works but hath its estimate from the spirit Which discourse is to be understood in a limited and qualified signification For then also God required the Heart and interdicted the very concupiscences of our irregular passions at least in some instances but because much of their Law consisted in the exteriour and the Law appointed not nor yet intimated any penalty to evil thoughts and because the expiation of such interiour irregularities was easie implicite and involved in their daily Sacrifices without special trouble therefore the old Law
destroys not the love of God for although it may lessen the habit yet it takes not away its natural being nor interrupts its acceptation lest all the world should in all instants of time be in a damnable condition yet when these smaller obliquities are repeated and no repentance intervenes this repetition combines and unites the lesser till they be concentred and by their accumulation make a crime and therefore a careless reiterating and an incurious walking in mis-becoming actions is deadly and damnable in the return though it was not so much at the setting forth Every idle word is to be accounted for but we hope in much mercy and yet he that gives himself over to immoderate talking will swell his account to a vast and mountainous proportion and call all the lesser escapes into a stricter judgment He that extends his Recreation an hour beyond the limits of Christian prudence and the analogie of its severity and imployment is accountable to God for that improvidence and waste of Time but he that shall mis-spend a day and because that sin is not scandalous like Adultery or clamorous like Oppression or unusual like Bestiality or crying for revenge like detaining the portion of Orphans shall therefore mis-spend another day without revocation of the first by an act of repentance and redemption of it and then shall throw away a week still adding to the former account upon the first stock will at last be answerable for a habit of Idleness and will have contracted a vain and impertinent spirit For since things which in their own kind are lawful become sinful by the degree if the degree be heightned by intention or become great like a heap of sand by a coacervation of the innumerable atoms of dust the actions are as damnable as any of the natural daughters and productions of Hell when they are entertained without scruple and renewed without repentance and continued without dereliction 14. Thirdly Although some inadvertencies of our life and lesser disobediences accidentally become less hurtful and because they are entailed upon the infirmities of a good man and the less wary customes and circumstances of society are also consistent with the state of Grace yet all affection to the smallest sins becomes deadly and damnable He that loves his danger shall perish in it saith the Wise man and every friendly entertainment of an undecency invites in a greater Crime for no man can love a small sin but there are in the greater crimes of its kind more desirable flatteries and more satisfactions of sensuality than in those suckers and sprigs of sin At first a little Disobedience is proportionable to a man's temper and his Conscience is not fitted to the bulk of a rude Crime but when a man hath accepted the first insinuation of delight and swallowed it that little sin is past and needs no more to dispute for entrance then the next design puts in and stands in the same probability to succeed the first and greater than the first had to make the entry However to love any thing that God hates is direct enmity with him and whatsoever the Instance be it is absolutely inconsistent with Charity and therefore incompetent with the state of Grace So that if the sin be small it is not a small thing that thou hast given thy love to it every such person perishes like a Fool cheaply and ingloriously 15. Fourthly But it also concerns the niceness and prudence of Obedience to God to stand at farther distance from a Vice than we usually attend to For many times Vertue and Vice differ but one degree and the neighbourhood is so dangerous that he who desires to secure his Obedience and Duty to God will remove farther from the danger For there is a rule of Justice to which if one degree more of severity be added it degenerates into Cruelty and a little more Mercy is Remissness and want of discipline introduces licentiousness and becomes unmercifulness as to the publick and unjust as to the particular Now this Consideration is heightned if we observe that Vertue and Vice consist not in an indivisible point but there is a latitude for either which is not to be judged by any certain rules drawn from the nature of the thing but to be estimated in proportion to the persons and other accidental Circumstances He that is burthened with a great charge for whom he is bound under a Curse and the crime of Infidelity to provide may go farther in the acquisition and be more provident in the use of his mony than those persons for whom God hath made more ample provisions and hath charged them with fewer burthens and engagements oeconomical And yet no man can say that just beyond such a degree of Care stands Covetousness and thus far on this side is Carelesness and a man may be in the confines of death before he be aware Now the only way to secure our Obedience and duty in such cases is to remove farther off and not to dwell upon the confines of the enemies Countrey My meaning is that it is not prudent nor safe for a man to do whatsoever he lawfully may do 16. For besides that we are often mistaken in our judgments concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of actions he that will do all that he thinks he may lawfully do if ever he does change his station and increase in giving himself liberty will quickly arrive at doing things unlawful It is good to keep a reserve of our liberty and to restrain our selves within bounds narrower than the largest sense of the Commandment that when our affections wander and enlarge themselves as sometime or other they will do then they may enlarge beyond the ordinary and yet be within the bounds of lawfulness That of which men make a scruple and a question at first after an habitual resolution of it stirs no more but then their question is of something beyond it When a man hath accustomed himself to pray seven times a day it will a little trouble his peace if he omits one or two of those times but if it be resolved then that he may please God with praying devoutly though but thrice every day after he hath digested the scruples of this first question possibly some accidents may happen that will put his Conscience and Reason to dispute whether three times be indispensably necessary and still if he be far within the bounds of lawfulness 't is well but if he be at the margent of it his next remove may be into dissolution and unlawfulness He that resolves to gain all that he may lawfully this year it is odds but next year he will be tempted to gain something unlawfully He that because a man may be innocently angry will never restrain his passion in a little time will be intemperate in his anger and mistake both his object and the degree Thus facetiousness and urbanity entertained with an open hand will turn into jestings
is indeed presumed so but it was instituted to be a Seal of a Covenant between God and Abraham and Abraham's posterity a seal of the righteousness of Faith and therefore was not improper for him to suffer who was the child of Abraham and who was the Prince of the Covenant and the author and finisher of that Faith which was consigned to 〈◊〉 in Circumcision But so mysterious were all the actions of Jesus that this one served many ends For 1. It gave demonstration of the verity of Humane nature 2. So he began to fulfil the Law 3. And took from himself the scandal of Uncircumcision which would eternally have prejudiced the Jews against his entertainment and communion 4. And then he took upon him that Name which declared him to be the Saviour of the World which as it was consummate in the bloud of the Cross so was it inaugurated in the bloud of Circumcision For when the eight days were accomplished for circumcising of the Child his name was called JESUS 3. But this holy Family who had laid up their joys in the eyes and heart of God longed till they might be permitted an address to the Temple that there they might present the Holy Babe unto his Father and indeed that he who had no other might be brought to his own house For although while he was a child he did differ nothing from a servant yet he was the Lord of the place It was his Father's house and he was the Lord of all and therefore when the days of the Purification were accomplished they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord to whom he was holy as being the first-born the first-born of his Mother the only-begotten son of his Father and the first-born of every creature And they did with him according to the Law of Moses offering a pair of Turtle-doves for his redemption 4. But there was no publick act about this Holy Child but it was attended by something miraculous and extraordinary And at this instant the Spirit of God directed a holy person into the Temple that he might feel the fulfilling of a Prophecy made to himself that he might before his death behold the Lord 's CHRIST and imbrace the glory and consolation of Israel and the light of the Gentiles in his arms for old Simeon came by the Spirit into the Temple and when the Parents brought in the Child Jesus then took he him up in his arms and blessed God and prophesied and spake glorious things of that Child and things sad and glorious concerning his Mother that the Child was set for the rising and falling of many in Israel for a sign that should be spoken against and the bitterness of that contradiction should pierce the heart of the holy Virgin-Mother like a Sword that her joy at the present accidents might be attempered with present revelation of her future trouble and the excellent favour of being the Mother of God might be crowned with the reward of Martyrdom and a Mother's love be raised up to an excellency great enough to make her suffer the bitterness of being transfixed with his love and sorrow as with a Sword 5. But old Anna the Prophetess came also in full of years and joy and found the reward of her long prayers and fasting in the Temple the long-looked-for redemption of Israel was now in the Temple and she saw with her eyes the Light of the World the Heir of Heaven the long-looked-for Messias whom the Nations had desired and expected till their hearts were faint and their eyes dim with looking farther and apprehending greater distances She also prophesied and gave thanks unto the Lord. But Joseph and his Mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him Ad SECT V. Considerations upon the Circumcision of the Holy Child JESVS 1. WHen eight days were come the Holy Jesus was circumcised and shed the first-fruits of his Bloud offering them to God like the prelibation of a Sacrifice and earnest of the great seas of effusion designed for his Passion not for the expiation of any stain himself had contracted for he was spotless as the face of the Sun and had contracted no wrinkle from the aged and polluted brow of Adam but it was an act of Obedience and yet of Choice and voluntary susception to which no obligation had passed upon him in the condition of his own person For as he was included in the vierge of Abraham's posterity and had put on the common outside of his Nation his Parents had intimation enough to pass upon him the Sacrament of the National Covenant and it became an act of excellent Obedience but because he was a person extraordinary and exempt from the reasons of Circumcision and himself in person was to give period to the Rite therefore it was an act of Choice in him and in both the capacities becomes a precedent of Duty to us in the first of Obedience in the second of Humility 2. But it is considerable that the Holy Jesus who might have pleaded his exemption especially in a matter of pain and dishonour yet chose that way which was more severe and regular so teaching us to be strict in our duties and sparing in the rights of priviledge and dispensation We pretend every indisposition of body to excuse us from penal duties from Fasting From going to Church and instantly we satisfie our selves with saying God will have mercy and not sacrifice so making our selves Judges of our own privileges in which commonly we are parties against God and therefore likely to pass unequal sentence It is not an easie argument that will bring us to the severities and rigours of Duty but we snatch at occasions of dispensation and therefore possibly may mistake the justice of the opportunities by the importunities of our desires However if this too much easiness be in any case excusable from sin yet in all cases it is an argument of infirmity and the regular observation of the Commandment is the surer way to Perfection For not every inconvenience of body is fit to be pleaded against the inconvenience of losing spiritual advantages but only such which upon prudent account does intrench upon the Laws of Charity or such whose consequent is likely to be impediment of a duty in a greater degree of loss than the present omission For the Spirit being in many perfections more eminent than the Body all spiritual improvements have the same proportions so that if we were just estimators of things it ought not to be less than a great incommodity to the Body which we mean to prevent by the loss of a spiritual benefit or the omission of a Duty he were very improvident who would lose a Finger for the good husbandry of saving a Ducat and it would be an unhandsome excuse from the duties of Repentance to pretend care of the Body The proportions and degrees of this are so nice and of so difficult determination that men are more apt to
be like his your Duty in imitation of his Precept and Example and then sing praises as you list no heart is large enough no voice pleasant enough no life long enough nothing but an eternity of duration and a beatifical state can do it well and therefore holy David joyns them both Whoso offereth me thanks and praise he honoureth me and to him that ordereth his conversation aright I will shew the salvation of God All thanks and praise without a right-ordered conversation are but the Echo of Religion a voice and no substance but if those praises be sung by a heart righteous and obedient that is singing with the spirit and singing with understanding that is the Musick God delights in 18. Sixthly But let me observe and press this caution It is a mistake and not a little dangerous when people religious and forward shall too promptly frequently and nearly spend their thoughts in consideration of Divine Excellencies God hath shewn thee merit enough to spend all thy stock of love upon him in the characters of his Power the book of the Creature the great tables of his Mercy and the lines of his Justice we have cause enough to praise his Excellencies in what we feel of him and are refreshed with his influence and see his beauties in reflexion though we do not put our eyes out with staring upon his face To behold the Glories and Perfections of God with a more direct intuition is the priviledge of Angels who yet cover their faces in the brightness of his presence it is only permitted to us to consider the back parts of God And therefore those Speculations are too bold and imprudent addresses and minister to danger more than to Religion when we pass away from the direct studies of Vertue and those thoughts of God which are the freer and safer communications of the Deity which are the means of entercourse and relation between him and us to those considerations concerning God which are Metaphysical and remote the formal objects of adoration and wonder rather than of vertue and temperate discourses for God in Scripture never revealed any of his abstracted Perfections and remoter and mysterious distances but with a purpose to produce fear in us and therefore to chide the temerity and boldness of too familiar and nearer entercourse 19. True it is that every thing we see or can consider represents some perfections of God but this I mean that no man should consider too much and meditate too frequently upon the immediate Perfections of God as it were by way of intuition but as they are manifested in the Creatures and in the ministeries of Vertue and also when-ever God's Perfections be the matter of Meditation we should not ascend upwards into him but descend upon our selves like fruitful vapours drawn up into a cloud descending speedily into a shower that the effect of the consideration be a design of good life and that our loves to God be not spent in abstractions but in good works and humble Obedience The other kind of love may deceive us and therefore so may such kind of considerations which are its instrument But this I am now more particularly to consider 20. For beyond this I have described there is a degree of Meditation so exalted that it changes the very name and is called Contemplation and it is in the unitive way of Religion that is it consists in unions and adherences to God it is a prayer of quietness and silence and a meditation extraordinary a discourse without variety a vision and intuition of 〈◊〉 Excellencies an immediate entry into an orb of light and a resolution of all our faculties into sweetnesses affections and starings upon the Divine beauty and is carried on to ecstasies raptures suspensions elevations abstractions and apprehensions beatifical In all the course of vertuous meditation the Soul is like a Virgin invited to make a matrimonial contract it inquires the condition of the person his estate and disposition and other circumstances of amability and desire But when she is satissied with these enquiries and hath chosen her Husband she no more considers particulars but is moved by his voice and his gesture and runs to his entertainment and sruition and spends her self wholly in affections not to obtain but enjoy his love Thus it is said 21. But this is a thing not to be discoursed of but felt And although in other Sciences the terms must first be known and then the Rules and Conclusions scientifical here it is otherwise for first the whole experience of this must be obtained before we can so much as know what it is and the end must be acquired first the Conclusion before the Premises They that pretend to these Heights call them the Secrets of the Kingdom but they are such which no man can describe such which God hath not revealed in the publication of the Gospel such for the acquiring of which there are no means prescribed and to which no man is obliged and which are not in any man's power to obtain nor such which it is lawful to pray for or desire nor concerning which we shall ever be called to an account 22. Indeed when persons have been long sostned with the continual droppings of Religion and their spirits made timorous and apt for impression by the assiduity of Prayer and perpetual alarms of death and the continual dyings of Mortification the Fancy which is a very great instrument of Devotion is kept continually warm and in a disposition and aptitude to take fire and to flame out in great ascents and when they suffer transportations beyond the burthens and support of Reason they suffer 〈◊〉 know not what and call it what they please and other pious people that hear 〈◊〉 of it admire that Devotion which is so eminent and beatified for so they esteem 〈◊〉 and so they come to be called Raptures and Ecstasies which even amongst the A 〈◊〉 were so seldom that they were never spoke of for those Visions Raptures and Intuitions of S. Stephen S. Paul S. Peter and S. John were not pretended to be of this kind not excesses of Religion but prophetical and intuitive Revelations to great and significant purposes such as may be and are described in story but these other cannot for so Cassian reports and commends a saying of Antony the Eremite That is not a perfect Prayer in which the Votary does either understand himself or the Prayer meaning that persons eminently Religious were Divina patientes as Dionysius Areopagita said of his Master Hierotheus Paticks in Devotion suffering ravishments of senses transported beyond the uses of humanity into the suburbs of beatifical apprehensions but whether or no this be any thing besides a too intense and indiscreet pressure of the faculties of the Soul to inconveniences of understanding or else a credulous busie and untamed fancy they that think best of it cannot give a certainty There are and have been some Religious
contagious 9. Thirdly And yet there is a degree of Mortification of spirit beyond this for the condition of our security may require that we not only deny to act our temptations or to please our natural desires but also to seek opportunities of doing displeasure to our affections and violence to our inclinations and not only to be indifferent but to chuse a contradiction and a denial to our strongest appetites to rejoyce in a trouble and this was the spirit of S. Paul I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulations and We glory in it Which joy consists not in any sensitive pleasure any man can take in asflictions and adverse accidents but in a despising the present inconveniences and looking through the cloud unto those great felicities and graces and consignations to glory which are the effects of the Cross Knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed that was the incentive of S. Paul's joy And therefore as it may consist with any degree of Mortification to pray for the taking away of the Cross upon condition it may consist with God's glory and our ghostly profit so it is properly an act of this vertue to pray for the Cross or to meet it if we understand it may be for the interest of the spirit And thus S. Basil prayed to God to remove his violent pains of Head-ach but when God heard him and took away his pain and Lust came in the place of it he prayed to God to restore him his Head-ach again that cross was gain and joy when the removal of it was so full of danger and temptation And this the Masters of spiritual life call being crucified with Christ because as Christ chose the death and desired it by the appetites of the spirit though his flesh smarted under it and groaned and died with the burthen so do all that are thus mortified they place misfortunes and sadnesses amongst things eligible and set them before the eyes of their desire although the flesh and the desires of sense are factious and bold against such sufferings 10. Of these three degrees of interiour or spiritual Mortification the first is Duty the second is Counsel and the third is Perfection We sin if we have not the first we are in danger without the second but without the third we cannot be perfect as our heavenly Father is but shall have more of humane infirmities to be ashamed of than can be excused by the accrescencies and condition of our nature The first is only of absolute necessity the second is prudent and of greatest convenience but the third is excellent and perfect And it was the consideration of a wise man that the Saints in Heaven who understand the excellent glories and vast differences of state and capacities amongst beatified persons although they have no envy nor sorrows yet if they were upon earth with the same notion and apprehensions they have in Heaven would not for all the world lose any degree of Glory but mortifie to the greatest 〈◊〉 that their Glory may be a derivation of the greatest ray of light every degree being of compensation glorious and disproportionably beyond the inconsiderable troubles of the greatest Self-denial God's purpose is that we abstain from sin there is no more in the Commandment and therefore we must deny our selves so as not to admit a sin under pain of a certain and eternal curse but the other degrees of Mortification are by accident so many degrees of Vertue not being enjoyned or counselled for themselves but for the preventing of crimes and for securities of good life and therefore are parts and offices of Christian prudence which whosoever shall positively reject is neither much in love with Vertue nor careful of his own safety 11. Secondly But Mortification hath also some designs upon the Body For the Body is the Shop and Forge of the Soul in which all her designs which are transient upon external objects are framed and it is a good servant as long as it is kept in obedience and under discipline but he that breeds his servant delicately will find him contumacious and troublesome bold and confident as his son and therefore S. Paul's practice as himself gives account of it was to keep his body under and bring it into subjection lest he should become a 〈◊〉 away for the desires of the Body are in the same things in which themselves are satisfied so many injuries to the Soul because upon every one of the appetites a restraint is made and a law placed sor Sentinel that if we transgress the bounds fixt by the divine 〈◊〉 it becomes a sin now it is hard for us to keep them within compass because they are little more than agents merely natural and therefore cannot interrupt their act but covet and desire as much as they can without suspension or coercion but what comes from without which is therefore the more troublesome because all such restraints are against nature and without sensual pleasure And therefore this is that that S. Paul said When we were in the flesh the 〈◊〉 of sin which were by the Law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto Death For these pleasures of the body draw us as loadstones draw iron not for love but for prey and nutriment it feeds upon the iron as the bodily pleasures upon the life of the spirit which is lessened and impaired according as the gusts of the flesh grow high and sapid 12. He that seeds a Lion must obey him unless he make his den to be his prison Our Lusts are as wild and as cruel Beasts and unless they feel the load of fetters and of Laws will grow unruly and troublesome and increase upon us as we give them food and satisfaction He that is used to drink high Wines is sick if he hath not his proportion to what degree soever his custom hath brought his appetite and to some men Temperance becomes certain death because the inordination of their desires hath introduced a custom and custom hath increased those appetites and made them almost natural in their degree but he that hath been used to hard diet and the pure stream his 〈◊〉 are much within the limits of Temperance and his desires as moderate as his diet S. Jerom affirms that to be continent in the state of Widowhood is barder than to keep our Firgin pure and there is reason that then the Appetite should be harder to be restrained when it hath not been accustomed to be denied but satisfied in its freer solicitations When a fontinel is once opened all the symbolical humours run thither and issue out and it is not to be stopped without danger unless the humour be purged or diverted So is the satisfaction of an impure desire it opens the issue and makes way for the emanation of all impurity and unless the desire be mortified
Man if they pass through an even and an indifferent life towards the issues of an ordinary and necessary course they are little and within command but if they pass upon an end or aim of difficulty or ambition they duplicate and grow to a 〈◊〉 and we have seen the even and temperate lives of indifferent persons continue in many degrees of Innocence but the Temptation of busie designs is too great even for the best of dispositions 7. But these Temptations are crasse and material and soon discernible it will require some greater observation to arm against such as are more spiritual and immaterial For he hath Apples to cousen Children and Gold for Men the Kingdoms of the World for the Ambition of Princes and the Vanities of the World for the Intemperate he hath Discourses and fair-spoken Principles to abuse the pretenders to Reason and he hath common Prejudices for the more vulgar understandings Amongst these I chuse to consider such as are by way of Principle or Proposition 8. The first great Principle of Temptation I shall note is a general mistake which excuses very many of our crimes upon pretence of Infirmity calling all those sins to which by natural disposition we are inclined though by carelesness and evil customs they are heightned to a habit by the name of Sins of infirmity to which men suppose they have reason and title to pretend If when they have committed a crime their Conscience checks them and they are troubled and during the interval and abatement of the heats of desire resolve against it and commit it readily at the next opportunity then they cry out against the weakness of their Nature and think as long as this body of death is about them it must be thus and that this condition may stand with the state of Grace And then the Sins shall return periodically like the revolutions of a Quartan Ague well and ill for ever till Death surprizes the mistaker This is a Patron of sins and makes the Temptation prevalent by an authentick instrument and they pretend the words of S. Paul For the good that I would that I do not but the evil that I would not that I do For there is a law in my members 〈◊〉 against the law of my mind bringing me into captivity to the law of Sin And thus the 〈◊〉 of Sin is mistaken for a state of Grace and the imperfections of the Law are miscalled the affections and necessities of Nature that they might seem to be incurable and the persons apt for an excuse therefore because for Nature there is no absolute cure But that these words of S. Paul may not become a 〈◊〉 of death and instruments of a temptation to us it is observable that the Apostle by a siction of person as is usual with him speaks of himself not as in the state of Regeneration under the Gospel but under the 〈◊〉 obscurities insufficiencies and imperfections of the Law which indeed he there contends to have been a Rule good and holy apt to remonstrate our misery because by its prohibitions and limits given to natural desires it made actions before indifferent now to be sins it added many curses to the breakers of it and by an 〈◊〉 of contrariety it made us more desirous of what was now unlawful but it was a Covenant in which our Nature was restrained but not helped it was provoked but not sweetly assisted our Understandings were instructed but our Wills not sanctified and there were no suppletories of Repentance every greater sin was like the fall of an Angel irreparable by any mystery or express recorded or enjoyned Now of a man under this Govenant he describes the condition to be such that he understands his Duty but by the infirmities of Nature he is certain to fall and by the helps of the Law not strengthened against it nor restored after it and therefore he calls himself under that notion a miserable man sold under sin not doing according to the rules of the Law or the dictates of his Reason but by the unaltered misery of his Nature certain to prevaricate But the person described here is not S. Paul is not any justified person not so much as a Christian but one who is under a state of direct opposition to the state of Grace as will manifestly appear if we observe the antithesis from S. Paul's own characters For the Man here named is such as in whom sin wrought all concupiscence in whom sin lived and slew him so that he was dead in trespasses and sins and although he did delight in the Law after his inwardman that is his understanding had intellectual complacencies and satisfactions which afterwards he calls serving the Law of God with his mind that is in the first dispositions and preparations of his spirit yet he could act nothing for the law in his members did inslave him and brought him into captivity to the law of sin so that this person was full of actual and effective lusts he was a slave to sin and dead in trespasses But the state of a regenerate person is such as to have 〈◊〉 the flesh with the affections and lusts in whom sin did not reign not only in the mind but even also not in the mortal body over whom sin had no dominion in whom the old man was crucified and the body of sin was destroyed and sin not at all served And to make the antithesis yet clearer in the very beginning of the next Chapter the Apostle saith that the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death under which law he complained immediately before he was sold and killed to shew the person was not the same in these so different and contradictory representments No man in the state of Grace can say The evil that I would not that I do if by evil he means any evil that is habitual or in its own nature deadly 9. So that now let no man pretend an inevitable necessity to sin for if ever it comes to a custom or to a great violation though but in a single act it is a condition of Carnality not of spiritual life and those are not the infirmities of Nature but the weaknesses of Grace that make us sin so frequently which the Apostle truly affirms to the same purpose The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot or that ye do not do the things that ye would This disability proceeds from the strength of the flesh and weakness of the spirit For he adds But if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law saying plainly that the state of such a combate and disability of doing good is a state of a man under the Law or in the flesh which he accounts all one but every man that is sanctified
confession and undertaking a holy life and therefore in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are conjoyned in the significations as they are in the mystery it is a giving up our names to Christ and it is part of the foundation or the first Principles of the Religion as appears in S. Paul's Catechism it is so the first thing that it is for babes and Neophytes in which they are matriculated and adopted into the house of their Father and taken into the hands of their Mother Upon this account Baptism is called in antiquity 〈◊〉 janua porta Gratiae primus introitus Sanctorum adaeternam Dei Ecclesiae consuetudinem The gate of the Church the door of Grace the first entrance of the Saints to an eternal conversation with God and the Church Sacramentum initiationis intrantium Christianismum investituram S. Bernard calls it The Sacrament of initiation and the investiture of them that enter into the Religion And the person so entring is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of the Religion or a Proselyte and Convert and one added to the number of the Church in imitation of that of S. Luke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God added to the Church those that should be saved just as the Church does to this day and for ever baptizing Infants and Catechuments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are added to the Church that they may be added to the Lord and the number of the Inhabitants of Heaven 15. Secondly The next step beyond this is Adoption into the Convenant which is an immediate consequent of the first Presentation this being the first act of man that the first act of God And this is called by S. Paul a being baptized in one spirit into one body that is we are made capable of the Communion of Saints the blessings of the faithful the priviledges of the Church by this we are as S. Luke calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordained or disposed put into the order of Eternal Life being made members of the mystical Body under Christ our Head 16. Thirdly And therefore Baptism is a new birth by which we enter into the new world the new Creation the blessings and spiritualities of the Kingdom and this is the expression which our Saviour himself used Nicodemus Unless a man be born of Water and the Spirit and it is by S. Paul called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the laver of Regeneration for now we begin to be reckoned in new Census or account God is become our Father Christ our elder Brother the Spirit the earnest of our Inheritance the Church our Mother our food is the body and bloud of our Lord Faith is our learning Religion our employment and our whole life is spiritual and Heaven the object of our Hopes and the mighty price of our high Calling And from this time forward we have a new principle put into us the Spirit of Grace which besides our Soul and body is a principle of action of one nature and shall with them enter into the portion of our Inheritance And therefore the Primitive Christians who consigned all their affairs and goods and writings with some marks of their Lord usually writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ the Son of God our Saviour made it an abbreviature by writing only the Capitals thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Heathens in mockery and derision made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Fish and they used it for Christ as a name of reproach but the Christians owned the name and turned it into a pious Metaphor and were content that they should enjoy their pleasure in the Acrostich but upon that occasion Tertullian speaks pertinently to this Article Nos pisciculi sccundùm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nostrum Jesum Christum in aqua nascimur Christ whom you call a Fish we knowledge to be our Lord and Saviour and we if you please are the little fishes for we are born in water thence we derive our spiritual life And because from henceforward we are a new Creation the Church uses to assign new relations to the Catechumens Spiritual Fathers and Susceptors and at their entrance into Baptism the Christians and Jewish Proselytes did use to cancel all secular affections to their temporal relatives Nec quicquam priùs 〈◊〉 quà m contemnere Deos exuere patriam parentes liberos fratres vilia habere said Tacitus of the Christians which was true in the sence only that Christ said He that doth not hate father or mother for my sake is not worthy of me that is he that doth not hate them praeme rather than forsake me forsake them is unworthy of me 17. Fourthly In Baptism all our sins are pardoned according to the words of a Prophet I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness The Catechumen descends into the Font a Sinner he arises purified he goes down the son of Death he comes up the son of the Resurrection he enters in the son of Folly and prevarication he returns the son of Reconciliation he stoops down the child of Wrath and ascends the heir of Mercy he was the child of the Devil and now he is the servant and the son of God They are the words of Venerable Bede concerning this Mystery And this was ingeniously signified by that Greek inscription upon a Font which is so prettily contriv'd that the words may be read after the Greek or after the Hebrew manner and be exactly the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord wash my sin and not my face only And so it is intended and promised Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins and call on the Name of the Lord said Ananias to Saul for Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the washing of water in the word that is Baptism in the Christian Religion and therefore Tertullian calls Baptism lavacrum compendiatum a compendious Laver that is an intire cleansing the Soul in that one action justly and rightly performed In the rehearsal of which Doctrine it was not an unpleasant Etymology that 〈◊〉 Sinaita gave of Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which our sins are thrown off and they fall like leeches when they are full of bloud and water or like the chains from S. Peter's hands at the presence of the Angel Baptism is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an intire full forgiveness of sins so that they shall never be called again to scrutiny Omnia Daemonis armae His merguntur aquis quibus ille renascitur Infans Qui captivus erat The captivity of the Soul is taken away by the bloud of Redemption and the fiery darts of the Devil are quenched by these salutary waters and what the flames of Hell are expiating or punishing to eternal
proof of their earnest and need an earnest of the earnest For all that have the Spirit of God cannot in all instants prove it or certainly know it neither is it defined by how many indices the Spirit 's presence can be proved or figâ—â—ed And they limit the Spirit too much and understand it too little who take acâ—â—unts of his secret workings and measure them by the material lines and methods of natural and animal effects And yet because whatsoever is holy is made so by the Holy Spirit we are certain that the Children of believing that is of Christian Parents are holy S. Paul affirmed it and by it hath distinguished ours from the Children of unbelievers and our Marriages from theirs And because the Children of the Heathen when they come to choice and Reason may enter into Baptism and the Covenant if they will our Children have no priviledge beyond the Children of Turks or Heathens unless it be in the present capacity that is either by receiving the Holy Ghost immediately and the Promises or at least having a title to the Sacrament and entring by that door If they have the Spirit nothing can hinder them from a title to the 〈◊〉 ater and if they have only a title to the water of the Sacrament then they shall receive the promise of the Holy Spirit the benefits of the Sacrament else their priviledge is none at all but a dish of cold water which every Village-Nurse can provide for her new-born babe 20. But it is in our case as it was with the Jews Children Our Children are a holy seed for if it were not so with Christianity how could S. Peter move the Jews to Christianity by telling them the Promise was to them and their Children For if our Children be not capable of the Spirit of Promise and Holiness and yet their Children were holy it had been a better Argument to have kept them in the Synagogue than to have called them to the Christian Church Either therefore 1. there is some Holiness in a reasonable nature which is not from the Spirit of Holiness or else 2. our Children do receive the Holy Spirit because they are holy or if they be not holy they are in worse condition under Christ than under Moses or if none of all this be true then our Children are holy by having received the holy Spirit of Promise and consequently nothing can hinder them from being baptized 21. And indeed if the Christian 〈◊〉 whose Children are circumcised and made partakers of the same Promises and Title and Inheritance and Sacraments which themselves had at their Conversion to the Faith of Christ had seen their Children now shut out from these new Sacraments it is not to be doubted but they would have raised a strom greater than could easily have been suppressed since about their Circumcisions they 〈◊〉 raised such Tragedies and implacable disputations And there had been great reason to look for a storm for their Children were circumcised and if not baptized then they were left under a burthen which their fathers were quit of for S. Paul said Whosoever is circumcised is a debtor to keep the whole Law These Children therefore that were circumcised stood obliged for want of Baptism to perform the Law of Ceremonies to be presented into the Temple to pay their price to be redeemed with silver and gold to be bound by the Law of pollutions and carnal Ordinances and therefore if they had been thus left it would be no wonder if the Jews had complained and made a tumult they used to do it for less matters 22. To which let this be added That the first book of the New Testament was not written till eight years after Christ's Ascension and S. Mark' s Gospel twelve years In the mean time to what Scriptures did they appeal By the Analogy or proportion of what writings did they end their Questions Whence did they prove their Articles They only appealed to the Old Testament and only added what their Lord superadded Now either it must be said that our Blessed Lord commanded that Infants should not be baptized which is no-where pretended and if it were cannot at all be proved or if by the proportion of Scriptures they did serve God and preach the Religion it is plain that by the Analogy of the Old Testament that is of those Scriptures by which they proved Christ to be come and to have suffered they also approved the Baptism of Infants or the admitting them to the society of the faithful Jews of which also the Church did then principally consist 23. Seventhly That Baptism which consigns men and women to a blessed Resurrection doth also equally consign Infants to it hath nothing that I know of pretended against it there being the same signature and the same grace and in this thing all being alike passive and we no way cooperating to the consignation and promise of Grace and Infants have an equal necessity as being liable to sickness and groaning with as sad accents and dying sooner than men and women and less able to complain and more apt to be pitied and broken with the unhappy consequents of a short life and a speedy death infelicitate priscorum hominum with the infelicity and folly of their first Parents and therefore have as great need as any and that is capacity enough to receive a remedy for the evil which was brought upon them by the fault of another 24. Eightly And after all this if Baptism be that means which God hath appointed to save us it were well if we would do our parts towards Infants final interest which whether it depends upon the Sacrament and its proper grace we have nothing to relie upon but those Texts of Scripture which make Baptism the ordinary way of entring into the state of Salvation save only we are to add this that because of this law since Infants are not personally capable but the Church for them as for all others indefinitely we have reason to believe that their friends neglect shall by some way be supplied but Hope hath in it nothing beyond a Probability This we may be certain of that naturally we cannot be heirs of Salvation for by nature we are children of wrath and therefore an eternal separation from God is an infallible consequent to our evil nature either therefore Children must be put into the state of Grace or they shall dwell for ever where God's face does never shine Now there are but two ways of being put into the state of Grace and Salvation the inward by the Spirit and the outward by Water which regularly are together If they be renewed by the Spirit what hinders them to be baptized who receive the Holy Ghost as well as we If they are not capable of the Spirit they are capable of Water and if of neither where is their title to Heaven which is neither internal nor external neither spiritual nor sacramental neither secret nor manifest neither
avail but a new Creature nothing but Faith working by Charity nothing but a keeping the Commandments of God And as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy they are the Israel of God 38. This consideration I intended to oppose against the carnal security of Death-bed penitents who have it is to be feared spent a vicious life who have therefore mocked themselves because they meant to mock God they would reap what they sowed not But be not deceived saith the Apostle he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he 〈◊〉 soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting Only this let us not be weary of well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not meaning that by a persevering industry and a long work and a succession of religious times we must sow to the Spirit a work of such length that the greatest danger is of fainting and intercision but he that sows to the Spirit not being weary of well-doing not fainting in the long process he and he only shall reap life everlasting But a purpose is none of all this If it comes to act and be productive of a holy life then it is useful and it was like the Eve of a Holiday festival in the midst of its abstinence and vigils it was the beginnings of a Repentance But if it never come to act it was to no purpose a mocking of God an act of direct hypocrisie a provocation of God and a deceiving our own selves you are unhappy you began not early or that your earlier days return not together with your good purposes 39. And neither can this have any other sentence though the purpose be made upon our death-bed For God hath made no Covenant with us on our death-bed distinct from that he made with us in our life and health And since in our life and present abilities good purposes and resolutions and vows for they are but the same thing in differing degrees did signifie nothing till they came to act and no man was reconciled to God by good intentions but by doing the will of God can we imagine that such purposes can more prevail at the end of a wicked life than at the beginning that less piety will serve our turns after 50 or 60 years impiety than after but 5 or 10 that a wicked and sinful life should by less pains be expiated than an unhappy year For it is not in the state of Grace as in other exteriour actions of Religion or Charity where God will accept the will for the deed when the external act is inculpably out of our powers and may also be supplied by the internal as bendings of the body by the prostration of the Soul Alms by Charity Preaching by praying for conversion These things are necessary because they are precepts and obligatory only in certain circumstances which may fail and we be innocent and disobliged But it is otherwise in the essential parts of our duty which God hath made the immediate and next condition of our Salvation such which are never out of our power but by our own fault Such are Charity Forgiveness Repentance and Faith such to which we are assisted by God such which are always put by God's grace into our power therefore because God indispensably demands them In these cases as there is no revelation God will accept the will for the deed the purpose for the act so it is unreasonable to expect it because God did once put it into our powers and if we put it out we must not complain of want of fire which our selves have quench'd nor complain we cannot see when we have put our own lights out and hope God will accept the will for the deed since we had no will to it when God put it into our powers These are but fig leaves to cover our nakedness which our sin hath introduced 40. For either the reducing such vows and purposes to act is the duty without which the purpose is ineffectual or else that practice is but the sign and testimony of a sincere intention and that very sincere intention was of it self accepted by God in the first spring If it was nothing but a sign then the Covenant which God made with Man in Jesus Christ was Faith and Good meaning not Faith and Repentance and a man is justified as soon as ever he purposes well before any endeavours are commenced or any act produced or habit ratified and the duties of a holy life are but shadows and significations of a Grace no part of the Covenant not so much as smoak is of fire but a mere sign of a person justified as soon as he made his vow but then also a man may be justified five hundred times in a year as often as he makes a new vow and confident resolution which is then done most heartily when the Lust is newly satisfied and the pleasure disappears for the instant though the purpose disbands upon the next temptation Yea but unless it be a sincere purpose it will do no good and although we cannot discern it nor the man himself yet God knows the heart and if he sees it would have been reduced to act then he accepts it and this is the hopes of a dying man But faint they are and dying as the man himself 41. For it is impossible for us to know but that what a man intends as himself thinks heartily is sincerely meant and if that may be insincere and is to be judged only by a never-following event in case the man dies it cannot become to any man the ground of hope nay even to those persons who do mean sincerely it is still an instrument of distrust and fears infinite since his own sincere meaning hath nothing in the nature of the thing no distinct formality no principle no sign to distinguish it from the unsincere vows of sorrowful but not truly penitent persons 2. A purpose acted and not acted differ not in the principle but in the effect which is extrinsecal and accidental to the purpose and each might be without the other a man might live holily though he had not made that vow and when he hath made the vow he may fail of living holily And as we should think it hard measure to have a damnation encreased upon us for those sins which we would have committed if we had lived so it cannot be reasonable to build our hopes of Heaven upon an imaginary Piety which we never did and if we had lived God knows whether we would or not 3. God takes away the godly lest malice should corrupt their Understandings and for the Elects sake those days are shortned which if they should continue no flesh should escape but now shall all that be laid upon their score which if God had not so prevented by their death God knows they would have done And God deals with
the wicked in a proportionable manner to the contrary purpose he shortens their days and takes a way their possibilities and opportunities when the time of Repentance is past because he will not do violence to their Wills and this lest they should return and be converted and I should heal them so that it is evident some persons are by some acts of God after a vicious life and the frequent rejection of the Divine grace at last prevented from mercy who without such courses and in contrary circumstances might possibly do acts of Repentance and return and then God would healthem 4. Let their purposes and vows be never so sincere in the principle yet since a man who is in the state of Grace may again fail of it and forget he was purged from his old sins and every dying sinner did so if ever he was washed in the laver of Regeneration and sanctified in his spirit then much more may such a sincere purpose fail and then it would be known to what distance of time or state from his purpose will God give his final sentence Whether will he quit him because in the first stage he will correspond with his intention and act his purposes or condemn him because in his second stage he would prevaricate And when a man does fail it is not because his first principle was not good for the Holy Spirit which is certainly the best principle of spiritual actions may be extinguished in a man and a sincere or hearty purpose may be lost or it may again be recovered and be lost again so that it is as unreasonable as it is unrevealed that a sincere purpose on a death-bed shall obtain pardon or pass for a new state of life Few men are at those instants and in such pressures hypocritical and vain and yet to perform such purposes is a new work and a new labour it comes in upon a new stock differing from that principle and will meet with temptations difficulties and impediments and an honest heart is not sure to remain so but may split upon a rock of a violent invitation A promise is made to be faithful or unfaithful ex post 〈◊〉 by the event but it was sincere or insincere in the principle only if the person promising did or did not respectively at that time mean what he said A sincere promise many times is not truly performed 42. Concerning all the other acts which it is to be supposed a dying person can do I have only this consideration If they can make up a new Creature become a new state be in any sence a holy life a keeping the Commandments of God a following of peace and holiness a becoming holy in all conversation if they can arrive to the lowest sence of that excellent condition Christ intended to all his Disciples when he made keeping the Commandments to be the condition of entring into life and not crying Lord Lord but doing the will of God if he that hath served the Lusts of the flesh and taken pay under all God's enemies during a long and malicious life can for any thing a dying person can do be said in any sence to have lived holily then his hopes are fairly built if not they rely upon a sand and the 〈◊〉 of Death and the Divine displeasure will beat 〈◊〉 violently upon them There are no suppletories of the Evangelical Covenant If we walk according to the Rule then shall peace and righteousness kiss each other if we have sinned and prevaricated the Rule Repentance must bring us into the ways of Righteousness and then we must go on upon the old stock but the deeds of the 〈◊〉 must be mortified and Christ must dwell in us and the Spirit must reign in us and Vertue must be habitual and the habits must be confirmed and this as we do by the Spirit of Christ so it is hallowed and accepted by the grace of God and we put into a condition of favour and redeemed from sin and reconciled to God But this will not be put off with single acts nor divided parts nor newly-commenced purposes nor fruitless sorrow it is a great folly to venture Eternity upon dreams so that now let me represent the condition of a dying person after a vicious life 43. First He that considers the srailty of humane bodies their incidences and aptness to sickness casualties death sudden or expected the condition of several diseases that some are of too quick a sense and are intolerable some are dull stupid and Lethargical then adds the prodigious Judgments which fall upon many sinners in the act of sin and are marks of our dangers and God's essential justice and severity and that security which possesses such persons whose lives are vicious and that habitual carelesness and groundless confidence or an absolute inconsideration which is generally the condition and constitution of such minds every one whereof is likely enough to confound a persevering sinner in miseries eternal will soon apprehend the danger of a delayed Repentance to be infinite and unmeasurable 44. Secondly But suppose such a person having escaped the antecedent circumstances of the danger is set fairly upon his Death-bed with the just apprehension of his sins about him and his addresses to Repentance consider then the strength of his Lusts that the sins he is to mortifie are inveterate habitual and confirmed having had the growth and stability of a whole life that the liberty of his Will is impaired the Scripture saying of such persons whose eyes are full of lust and that cannot cease from sin and that his servants they are whom they obey that they are slaves to sin and so not sui juris not at their own dispose that his Understanding is blinded his Appetite is mutinous and of a long time used to rebell and prevail that all the inferiour Faculties are in disorder that he wants the helps of Grace proportionable to his necessities for the longer he hath continued in sin the weaker the Grace of God is in him so that in effect at that time the more need he hath the less he shall receive it being God's rule to give to him that hath and from him that hath not to take even what he hath then add the innumerable parts and great burthens of Repentance that it is not a Sorrow nor a Purpose because both these suppose that to be undone which is the only necessary support of all our hopes in Christ when it is done the innumerable difficult cases of Conscience that may then occur particularly in the point of Restitution which among many other necessary parts of Repentance is indispensably required of all persons that are able and in every degree in which they are able the many Temptations of the Devil the strength of Passions the impotency of the Flesh the illusions of the spirits of darkness the tremblings of the heart the incogitancy of the mind the implication and
make I know not but the bitterness of the spirit besides that it is pitiable as it is a passion yet it is violent and less Christian as it is active and sends forth prayers Woe is pronounced to them by whom the 〈◊〉 cometh yet we must beware of offences because by them we are engaged in a sin and he that prays for a Revenge hath a revengeful spirit however it be restrained by Laws and exteriour tendernesses from acting such dire purposes And he that prays for Revenge may indeed procure a Justice to be done upon the injurious person but oftentimes it happens then to fall on him when we least wish it when we also have a conjunct interest in the others preservation and escape God so punishing the first wrong that we also may smart for our uncharitable wishes For the ground of all this discourse is that it is part of Christian Charity to forgive injuries which forgiveness of the injury although it may reasonably enough stand with my fair and innocent requiring of my own which goes no farther than a fair repetition yet in no case can it stand with the acting and desiring Revenge which also in the formality of Revenge can have no pretence of Charity because it is ineffective to my restitution This Discourse concerns private persons whether it concern the Question of War and how far is not proper for this Consideration Of Alms. PART II. 1. BUT Christian Charity hath its effect also in Benefits as well as Gentleness and innocence Give to him that asketh and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away But when thou dost thine Alms 〈◊〉 not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth These are the Precepts of the Lord for the substance and the manner of Alms for the quantity and freeness of the donative and the simplicity of him that gives to which add those other words of his Sell your possessions and give Alms. This Precept with its circumstances was intended as a defensative against Covetousness and Prodigality and a suppletory to make up the wants and to make even the breaches of mankind In which we shall best understand our obligation if we consider in what proportion we must give Alms and to what persons and in what manner 2. First For the Quantity we shall best take an estimate of it if we remember the portion which God allows to Christians Having food and raiment let us be content with it and our Blessed Saviour at the latter end of this Sermon stirs us up to confidence in God and not to doubt our provisions by telling that God feeds the Ravens and clothes the Lilies and he will much rather do it to us he will clothe us and feed us no more is in the promise no more is in our need and therefore whatsoever is beside our needs natural and personal that is proportioning our needs to the condition of our life and exigence of our calling and quality of our person all that can be spared from what we modestly and temperately spend in our support and the supply of our families and other necessary incidents all that is to be spent in Charity or Religion He defrauds the poor of their right who detains from them beyond his own necessary prudent and convenient supplies saith S. Hierom and this is intended to be a retrenchment of all vain expences costly feasts rich cloaths pompous retinue and such 〈◊〉 of expence which of themselves serve no end of piety or just policy but by wife and temperate persons are esteemed unnecessary and without which the dignity and just value of the person may still be retained Whatsoever is vainly spent was the portion of the poor whatsoever we lose in idle gaming revelling and wantonness of prodigality was designed by Christ to refresh his own bowels to fill the bellies of the poor whatsoever lies in our repository useless and superfluous all that is the poor man's inheritance and certainly there is not any greater baseness than to suffer a man to perish or be in extreme want of that which God gave me for him and beyond my own needs It is unthankfulness to God it is unmercifulness to the poor it is improvidence to our selves it is unfaithfulness in the dispensation of the money of which God made him but the Steward and his chest the Bank for the exchange and issuing it to the indigent And he that is unmerciful and unjust is extremely unlike God But in taking this estimate concerning our 〈◊〉 we are to 〈◊〉 according to the rules of prudence not making determinations in grains and scruples but in the greater actions and accountable proportions of our estates And if any man seeing great necessities of indigent and calamitous persons shall give beyond his ability he had the Philippians for his precedent and he hath God ingaged for his payment and a greater 〈◊〉 in Heaven for his reward Only this as we are to provide for our selves so also for our Family and the relatives of our charge and nearer endearments not only with a provision of the present day's entertainment but also for all nearer probable foreseen and expected events such as are Portions for our Children Dowries for Daughters but this must not be extended to care and reservations for all possible and far-distant events but so much is to be permitted to the Divine Providence as our present duty gives leave In which although a prudent guide and a sober reason are to make application to practice yet the Rule in general is That by so much we are to relieve the poor as we can deduct from such a portion of good things as God permits us to use for our own support and reasonable and temporal conveniencies of our person and condition ever remembring that if we encrease in our Estate we also should encrease in Charity that in this also may be verified what is written He that had much had nothing over and he that had little had no lack There is in the quantity of these donatives some latitude but if we sow sparingly or if we scatter plentifully so we shall reap Only we must be careful that no extreme necessity or biting want lies upon any poor man whom we can relieve without bringing such a want upon our selves which is less than the permissions of fortune which the mercies of God have permitted to us that is food and raiment proper for us Under food and raiment all the necessaries of our life are to be understood Whatsoever is more than this is counsel and perfection for which a proportionable reward is deposited in the treasures of Eternity 3. Secondly If question be made concerning the Persons who are to be the object of our Alms our rule is plain and easie for nothing is required in the person suscipient and capable of Alms but that he be in misery and want and unable to relieve himself This last clause I
the flames of Hell that men may serve God without the incentives of hope and fear and purely for the love of God Whether the Woman were onely imaginative and sad or also zealous I know not But God knows he would have few Disciples if the arguments of invitation were not of greater promise than the labours of Vertue are of trouble And therefore the Spirit of God knowing to what we are inflexible and by what we are made most ductile and malleable hath propounded Vertue clothed and dressed with such advantages as may entertain even our Sensitive part and first desires that those also may be invited to Vertue who understand not what is just and reasonable but what is profitable who are more moved with advantage than justice And because emolument is more felt than innocence and a man may be poor for all his gift of 〈◊〉 the Holy Jesus to endear the practices of Religion hath represented Godliness unto us under the notion of gain and sin as unfruitful and yet besides all the natural and reasonable advantages every Vertue hath a supernatural reward a gracious promise attending and every Vice is not only naturally deformed but is made more ugly by a threatning and horrid by an appendent curse Henceforth therefore let no man complain that the Commandments of God are impossible for they are not onely possible but easie and they that say otherwise and do accordingly take more pains to carry the instruments of their own death than would serve to ascertain them of life And if we would do as much for Christ as we have done for Sin we should find the pains less and the pleasure more And therefore such complainers are without excuse for certain it is they that can go in foul ways must not say they cannot walk in fair they that march over rocks in despight of so many impediments can travel the even ways of Religion and Peace when the Holy Jesus is their Guide and the Spirit is their Guardian and infinite felicities are at their journey's end and all the reason of the world political oeconomical and personal do entertain and support them in the travel of the passage The PRAYER O Eternal Jesus who gavest Laws unto the world that man-kind being united to thee by the bands of Obedience might partake of all thy glories and felicities open our understanding give us the spirit of discerning and just apprehension of all the beauties with which thou hast enamelled Vertue to represent it beauteous and amiable in our eyes that by the allurements of exteriour decencies and appendent blessings our present desires may be entertained our hopes promoted our affections satisfied and Love entring in by these doors may dwell in the interiour regions of the Will O make us to love thee for thy self and Religion for thee and all the instruments of Religion in order to thy glory and our own felicities Pull off the visors of Sin and discover its deformities by the lantern of thy Word and the light of the Spirit that I may never be bewitched with sottish appetites Be pleased to build up all the contents I expect in this world upon the interests of a vertuous life and the support of Religion that I may be rich in Good works content in the issues of thy Providence my Health may be the result of Temperance and severity my Mirth in spiritual emanations my Rest in Hope my Peace in a good Conscience my Satisfaction and acquiescence in thee that from Content I may pass to an eternal Fulness from Health to Immortality from Grace to Glory walking in the paths of Righteousness by the waters of Comfort to the land of everlasting Rest to feast in the glorious communications of Eternity eternally adoring loving and enjoying the infinity of the ever-Blessed and mysterious Trinity to whom be glory and 〈◊〉 and dominion now and for ever Amen DISCOURSE XVI Of Certainty of Salvation 1. WHen the Holy Jesus took an account of the first Legation and voyage of his Apostles he found them rejoycing in priviledges and exteriour powers in their authority over unclean spirits but weighing it in his balance he found the cause too light and therefore diverted it upon the right object Rejoyce that your names are written in Heaven The revelation was confirmed and more personally applied in answer to S. Peter's Question We have for saken all and followed thee what shall we have therefore Their LORD answered Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel Amongst these persons to whom Christ spake Judas was he was one of the Twelve and he had a throne allotted for him his name was described in the book of life and a Scepter and a Crown was deposited for him too For we must not judge of Christ's meaning by the event since he spake these words to produce in them Faith comfort and joy in the best objects it was a Sermon of duty as well as a Homily of comfort and therefore was equally intended to all the Colledge and since the number of Thrones is proportioned to the number of men it is certain there was no exception of any man there included and yet it is as certain Judas never came to sit upon the throne and his name was blotted out of the book of life Now if we put these ends together that in Scripture it was not revealed to any man concerning his final condition but to the dying penitent Thief and to the twelve Apostles that twelve thrones were designed for them and a promise made of their inthronization and yet that no man's final estate is so clearly declared miserable and lost as that of Judas one of the Twelve to whom a throne was promised the result will be that the election of holy persons is a condition allied to duty absolute and infallible in the general and supposing all the dispositions and requisites concurring but fallible in the particular if we fall off from the mercies of the Covenant and prevaricate the conditions But the thing which is most observable is that if in persons so eminent and priviledged and to whom a revelation of their Election was made as a particular grace their condition had one weak leg upon which because it did rely for one half of the interest it could be no stronger than its supporters the condition of lower persons to whom no revelation is made no priviledges are indulged no greatness of spiritual eminency is appendent as they have no greater certainty in the thing so they have less in person and are therefore to work out their salvation with great fears and tremblings of spirit 2. The purpose of this consideration is that we do not judge of our final condition by any discourses of our own relying upon God's secret Counsels and Predestination of Eternity This is a mountain upon which whosoever climbs like Moses to behold the land of Canaan at great distances may please his eyes or
else Faith and Hope are not two distinct Graces God's 〈◊〉 and vocation are without repentance meaning on God's part but the very people concerning whom S. Paul used the expression were reprobate and cut off and in good time shall be called again in the mean time many single persons perish There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus God will look to that and it will never fail but then they must secure the following period and not walk after the Flesh but after the Spirit Behold the goodness of God towards thee saith S. Paul if thou continue in his goodness otherwise thou also shalt be cut off And if this be true concerning the whole Church of the Gentiles to whom the Apostle then made the address and concerning whose election the decree was publick and manifest that they might be cut off and their abode in God's favour was upon condition of their perseverance in the Faith much more is it true in single persons 〈◊〉 election in particular is shut up in the abyss and permitted to the condition of our Faith and Obedience and the revelations of Dooms-day 7. Certain it is that God hath given to holy persons the Spirit of adoption enabling them to cry Abba Father and to account themselves for sons and by this Spirit we know we dwell in him and therefore it is called in Scripture the earnest of the Spirit though at its first mission and when the Apostle wrote and used this appellative the Holy Ghost was of greater signification and a more visible earnest and endearment of their hopes than it is to most of us since For the visible sending of the Holy Ghost upon many Believers in gifts signs and prodigies was infinite argument to make them expect events as great beyond that as that was beyond the common gifts of men just as Miracles and Prophecy which are gifts of the Holy Ghost were arguments of probation for the whole Doctrine of Christianity And this being a mighty verification of the great Promise the promise of the Father was an apt instrument to raise their hopes and confidences concerning those other Promises which Jesus made the promises of Immortality and eternal life of which the present miraculous Graces of the Holy Spirit were an earnest and in the nature of a contracting peny and still also the Holy Ghost though in another manner is an earnest of the great price of the heavenly calling the rewards of Heaven though not so visible and apparent as at first yet as certain and demonstrative where it is discerned or where it is believed as it is and ought to be in every person who does any part of his duty because by the Spirit we do it and without him we cannot And since we either feel or believe the presence and gifts of the Holy Ghost to holy purposes for whom we receive voluntarily we cannot casily receive without a knowledge of his reception we cannot but entertain him as an argument of greater good hereafter and an earnest-peny of the perfection of the present Grace that is of the rewards of Glory Glory and Grace differing no otherwise than as an earnest in part of payment does from the whole price the price of our high calling So that the Spirit is an earnest not because he always signifies to us that we are actually in the state of Grace but by way of argument or reflexion we know we do belong to God when we receive his Spirit and all Christian people have received him if they were rightly baptized and confirmed I say we know by that testimony that we belong to God that is we are the people with whom God hath made a Covenant to whom he hath promised and intends greater blessings to which the present gifts of the Spirit are in order But all this is conditional and is not an immediate testimony of the certainty and future event but of the event as it is possibly future and may without our fault be reduced to act as certainly as it is promised or as the earnest is given in hand And this the Spirit of God oftentimes tells us in secret visitations and publick testimonies and this is that which S. Paul calls tasting of the heavenly gift and partaking of the Holy Ghost and tasting of the good word of God and the powers of the world to come But yet some that have done so have fallen away and have quenched the Spirit and have given back the earnest of the Spirit and contracted new relations and God hath been their Father no longer for they have done the works of the Devil So that if new Converts be uncertain of their present state old Christians are not absolutely certain they shall persevere They are as sure of it as they can be of future acts of theirs which God hath permitted to their own power But this certainty cannot exclude all fear till their Charity be perfect only according to the strength of their habits so is the confidence of their abodes in Grace 8. Beyond this some holy persons have degrees of perswasion superadded as Largesses and acts of grace God loving to bless one degree of Grace with another till it comes to a Confirmation in Grace which is a state of Salvation directly opposite to Obduration and as this is irremediable and irrecoverable so is the other inamissible as God never saves a person obdurate and obstinately impenitent so he never loses a man whom he hath confirmed in grace whom he so loves he loves unto the end and to others indeed he offers his persevering love but they will not entertain it with a persevering duty they will not be beloved unto the end But I insert this caution that every man that is in this condition of a confirmed Grace does not always know it but sometimes God draws aside the curtains of peace and shews him his throne and visits him with irradiations of glory and sends him a little star to stand over his dwelling and then again covers it with a cloud It is certain concerning some persons that they shall never fall and that God will not permit them to the danger or probability of it to such it is morally impossible but these are but few and themselves know it not as they know a demonstrative proposition but as they see the Sun sometimes breaking from a cloud very brightly but all day long giving necessary and sufficient light 9. Concerning the multitude of Believers this discourse is not pertinent for they only take their own accounts by the imperfections of their own duty blended with the mercies of God the cloud gives light on one side and is dark upon the other and sometimes a bright ray peeps through the fringes of a shower and immediately hides it self that we might be humble and diligent striving forwards and looking upwards endeavouring our duty and longing after Heaven working out our Salvation with fear and trembling and
him honours the Emperour Conrade the Second when he triumphed after the conquest of Italy had a joy bigger than their heart and their phancy swelled it till they burst and died Death can enter in at any door 〈◊〉 of Nice died with excessive laughter so did the Poet Philemon being provoked to it only by seeing an Asse eat sigs And the number of persons who have been found suddenly dead in their beds is so great that as it ingages many to a more certain and regular devotion for their Compline so it were well it were pursued to the utmost intention of God that is that all the parts of Religion should with zeal and assiduity be entertained and finished that as it becomes wise men we never be surprised with that we are sure will sometime or other happen A great General in Italy at the sudden death of Alsonsus of Ferrara and Lodovico 〈◊〉 at the sight of the sad accident upon Henry II. of France now mentioned turned religious and they did what God intended in those deaths It concerns us to be curious of single actions because even in those shorter periods we may expire and 〈◊〉 our Graves But if the state of life be contradictory to our hopes of Heaven it is like affronting of a Cannon 〈◊〉 a beleaguer'd Town a month together it is a contempt of safety and a rendring all Reason useless and unprofitable but he only is wise who having made Death familiar to him by expectation and daily apprehension does at all instants go forth to meet it The wise Virgins went forth to meet the Bridegroom for they were ready Excellent therefore is the counsel of the Son of Sirach Use Physick or ever thou be sick 〈◊〉 Judgment examine thy self and in the day of visitation thou shalt finde mercy Humble thy self before then be sick and in the time of sins shew Repentance Let nothing hinder thee to pay thy 〈◊〉 in due time and defer not until death to be justified 5. Secondly I consider that it osten happens that in those few days of our last visitation which many Men design for their Preparation and Repentance God hath expressed by an exteriour accident that those persons have deceived themselves and neglected their own Salvation S. Gregory reports of Chrysaurius a Gentleman in the Province of 〈◊〉 rich vicious and witty lascivious covetous and proud that being cast upon his Death-bed he phansied he saw evil spirits coming to arrest him and drag him to Hell He fell into great agony and trouble shrieked out called for his son who was a very religious person flattered him as willing to have been rescued by any thing but perceiving his danger increase and grown desperate he called loud with repeated clamours Give me respite but till the morrow and with those words he died there being no place left 〈◊〉 his Repentance though he sought it carefully with tears and groans The same was the case of a drunken Monk whom Venerable Bede mentions Upon his Death bed he seemed to see Hell opened and a place assigned him near to Caiaphas and those who crucified our dearest Lord. The religious persons that stood about his Bed called on him to repent of his sins to implore the mercies of God and to trust in Christ But he answered with reason enough This is no time to change my life the sentence is passed upon me and it is too late And it is very considerable and sad which Petrus Damianus tells of Gunizo a sactious and ambitious person to whom it is said the Tempter gave notice of his approaching death but when any Man preached Repentance to him out of a strange incuriousness or the spirit of reprobation he seemed like a dead and unconcerned person in all other discourses he was awake and apt to answer For God had shut up the gates of Mercy that no streams should issue forth to quench the flames of Hell or else had shut up the gates of reception and entertainment that it should not enter either God denies to give them pardon when they call or denies to them a power to call they either cannot pray or God will not answer Now since these stories are related by Men learned pious and eminent in their generations and because they served no design but the ends of Piety and have in them nothing dissonant from revelation or the frequent events of Providence we may upon their stock consider that God's Judgements and visible marks being set upon a state of Life although they happen but seldom in the instances yet they are of universal purpose and signfication Upon all Murtherers God hath not thrown a thunder-bolt nor broke all sacrilegious persons upon the wheel of an inconstant and ebbing estate nor spoken to every Oppressor from Heaven in a voice of thunder nor cut off all Rebels in the first attempts of insurrection But because he hath done so to some we are to look upon those Judgments as Divine accents and voices of God threatning all the same crimes with the like events and with the ruines of eternity For though God does not always make the same prologues to death yet by these few accidents happening to single persons we are to understand his purposes concerning all in the same condition it was not the person so much as the estate which God then remarked with so visible characters of his displeasure 6. And it seems to me a wonder that since from all the records of Scripture urging the uncertainty of the day of death the horrour of the day of Judgment the severity of God the dissolution of the world the certainty of our account still from all these premisses the Spirit of God makes no other inference but that we watch and stand in a readiness that we live in all holy conversation and godliness and that there is no one word concerning any other manner of an essentially-necessary Preparation none but this yet that there are Doctrines commenced and Rules prescribed and Offices set down and Suppletories invented by Curates of Souls how to prepare a vicious person and upon his Death-bed to reconcile him to the hopes and promises of Heaven Concerning which I desire that every person would but enquire where any one promise is recorded in Scripture concerning such addresses and what Articles CHRIST hath drawn up between his Father and us concerning a Preparation begun upon our Death-bed and if he shall find none as most certainly from Genesis to the Revelation there is not a word concerning it but very much against it let him first build his hopes upon this proposition that A holy life is the onely Preparation to a happy death and then we can without danger proceed to some other Considerations 7. When a good man or a person concerning whom it is not certain he hath lived in habitual Vices comes to die there are but two general ways of entercourse with him the one to keep him from
passage let the first hold his peace for ye may all all that have this gift prophesie one by one that so thus orderly proceeding all may learn and all may be comforted Nor can the 〈◊〉 pretend that this interruption is an unseasonable check to his revelation seeing he may command himself for though among the Gentiles the prophetick and 〈◊〉 impulse did so violently press upon the inspired Person that he could not govern himself yet in the Church of God the spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets may be so ruled and restrained by them as to make way for others This order of Christian Prophets considered as a distinct Ministery by it self is constantly placed next to the Apostolical Office and is frequently by Saint Paul preferred before any other spiritual Gifts then bestowed upon the Church When this spirit of Prophecy ceased in the Christian Church we cannot certainly finde It continued some competent time beyond the Apostolick Age. Justin Martyr expresly tells Trypho the Jew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gifts of Prophecy are even yet extant among us an argument as he there tells him that those things which had of old been the great Priviledges of their Church were now translated into the Christian Church And 〈◊〉 speaking of a Revelation made to one Alcibiades who lived about the time of Irenaeus adds that the Divine Grace had not withdrawn its Presence from the Church but that they still had the Holy Ghost as their Councellor to direct them XI Secondly They had the gift of discerning spirits whereby they were enabled to discover the truth or falshood of mens pretences whether their gifts were real or counterfeit and their persons truly inspired or not For many men acted only by diabolical impulses might entitle themselves to Divine inspirations and others might be imposed upon by their delusions and mistake their dreams and fancies for the Spirits dictates and revelations or might so subtilly and artificially counterfeit revelations that they might with most pass for currant especially in those times when these supernatural gifts were so common and ordinary and our Lord himself had 〈◊〉 told them that false Prophets would arise and that many would confidently plead for themselves before him that they had prophesied in his name That therefore the Church might not be imposed upon God was pleased to endue the Apostles and it may be some others with an immediate faculty of discerning the Chaffe from the Wheat true from false Prophets nay to know when the true Prophets delivered the revelations of the Spirit and when they expressed only their own conceptions This was a mighty priviledge but yet seems to me to have extended farther to judge of the sincerity or hypocrisie of mens hearts in the profession of Religion that so bad men being discovered suitable censures and punishments might be passed upon them and others cautioned to avoid them Thus Peter at first sight discovered Ananias and Saphira and the rotten hypocrisie of their intentions before there was any external evidence in the case and told Simon Magus though baptized before upon his embracing Christianity that his heart was not right in the sight of God for I perceive says he that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity Thirdly the Apostles had the gift of Tongues furnished with variety of utterance able to speak on a sudden several languages which they had never learnt as occasion was administred and the exigences of persons and Nations with whom they conversed did require For the 〈◊〉 being principally designed to convert the world and to plant Christianity in all Countries and Nations it was absolutely necessary that they should be able readily to express their minds in the Languages of those Countries to which they addressed themselves seeing otherwise it would have been a work of time and difficulty and not consistent with the term of the Apostles lives had they been first to learn the different Languages of those Nations before they could have preached the Gospel to them Hence this gift was diffused upon the Apostles in larger measures and proportions than upon other men I speak with Tongues more than you all says S. Paul that is than all the gifted persons in the Church of Corinth Our Lord had told the Apostles before his departure from them that they should be endued with power from on high which upon the day of Pentecost was particularly made good in this instance when in a moment they were enabled to speak almost all the Languages of the then known World and this as a specimen and first-fruits of the rest of those miraculous powers that were conferr'd upon them XII A fourth gift was that of Interpretation or unfolding to others what had been delivered in an unknown tongue For the Christian Assemblies in those days were frequently made up of men of different Nations and who could not understand what the Apostles or others had spoken to the Congregation this God supplied by this gift of interpretation enabling some to interpret what others did not understand and to speak it to them in their own native language S. Paul largely discourses the necessity of this gift in order to the instructing and edifying of the Church seeing without it their meetings could be no better than the Assembly at Babel after the confusion of Languages where one man must needs be a Barbarian to another and all the praying and preaching of the Minister of the Assembly be to many altogether fruitless and unprofitable and no better than a speaking into the Air. What 's the speaking though with the tongue of Angels to them that do not understand it How can the Idiot and unlearned say Amen who understands not the language of him that giveth thanks The duty may be done with admirable quaintness and accuracy but what 's he the better from whom 't is lock'd up in an unknown tongue A consideration that made the Apostle solemnly profess that he had rather speak five words in the Church with his understanding that by his voice he may teach others also than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue Therefore if any man speak in an unknown tongue let it be but by two or at most by three and let one interpret what the rest have spoken but if there be no interpreter none present able to do this let him keep silence in the Church and speak to himself and to God A man that impartially reads this discourse of the Apostle may wonder how the Church of Rome in defiance of it can so openly practise so confidently defend their Bible and Divine Services in an unknown tongue so flatly repugnant to the dictates of common reason the usage of the first Christian Church and these plain Apostolical commands But this is not the only instance wherein that Church has departed both from Scripture Reason and the practice of the first and purest Ages of
Iron and that for three years and an half together as in the case of 〈◊〉 's prayer if he say to the Sea Divide 't will run upon heaps and become on both sides as firm as a wall of Marble Nothing can be more natural than for the fire to burn and yet at God's command it will forget its nature and become a screen and a fence to the three Children in the Babylonian Furnace What heavier than Iron or more natural than for gravity to tend downwards and yet when God will have it Iron shall float like Cork on the top of the water The proud and raging Sea that naturally refuses to bear the bodies of men while alive became here as firm as Brass when commanded to wait upon and do homage to the God of Nature Our Lord walking towards the Ship as if he had an intention to pass by it he was espied by them who presently thought it to be the Apparition of a Spirit Hereupon they were seiz'd with great terror and consternation and their fears in all likelihood heightned by the vulgar opinion that they are evil Spirits that chuse rather to appear in the night than by day While they were in this agony our Lord taking compassion on them calls to them and bids them not be afraid for that it was no other than he himself Peter the eagerness of whose temper carried him forward to all bold and resolute undertakings intreated our Lord that if it was he he might have leave to come upon the water to him Having received his orders he went out of the Ship and walked upon the Sea to meet his Master But when he found the wind to bear hard against him and the waves to rise round about him whereby probably the sight of Christ was intercepted he began to be afraid and the higher his fears arose the lower his Faith began to sink and together with that his body to sink under water whereupon in a passionate fright he cried out to our Lord to help him who reaching out his arm took him by the hand and set him again upon the top of the water with this gentle reproof O thou of little Faith wherefore didst thou doubt It being the weakness of our Faith that makes the influences of the Divine power and goodness to have no better effect upon us Being come to the Ship they took them in where our Lord no sooner arrived but the winds and waves observing their duty to their Sovereign Lord and having done the errand which they came upon mannerly departed and vanished away and the Ship in an instant was at the shore All that were in the Ship being strangely astonished at this Miracle and fully convinced of the Divinity of his person came and did homage to him with this confession Of a truth thou art the Son of God After which they went ashore and landed in the Country of Genezareth and there more fully acknowledged him before all the people 6. THE next day great multitudes flocking after him he entred into a Synagogue at Capernaum and taking occasion from the late Miracle of the loaves which he had wrought amongst them he began to discourse concerning himself as the true Manna and the Bread that came down from Heaven largely opening to them many of the more sublime and Spiritual mysteries and the necessary and important duties of the Gospel Hereupon a great part of his Auditory who had hitherto followed him finding their understandings gravelled with these difficult and uncommon Notions and that the duties he required were likely to grate hard upon them and perceiving now that he was not the Messiah they took him for whose Kingdom should consist in an external Grandeur and plenty but was to be managed and transacted in a more inward and Spiritual way hereupon fairly left him in open field and henceforth quite turned their backs upon him Whereupon our Lord turning about to his Apostles asked them whether they also would go away from him Peter spokes-man generally for all the rest answered whither should they go to mend and better their condition should they return back to Moses Alas he laid a yoke upon them which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear Should they go to the Scribes and Pharisees they would feed them with Stones instead of Bread obtrude humane Traditions upon them for Divine dictates and Commands Should they betake themselves to the Philosophers amongst the Gentiles they were miserably blind and short-sighted in their Notions of things and their sentiments and opinions not only different from but contrary to one another No 't was he only had the words of Eternal life whose doctrine could instruct them in the plain way to Heaven that they had fully assented to what both John and he had said concerning himself that they were fully perswaded both from the efficacy of his Sermons which they heard and the powerful conviction of his Miracles which they had seen that he was the Son of the living God the true Messiah and Saviour of the World But notwithstanding this fair and plausible testimony he tells them that they were not all of this mind that there was a Satan amongst them one that was moved by the spirit and impulse and that acted according to the rules and interest of the Devil intimating Judas who should betray him So hard is it to meet with a body of so just and pure a constitution wherein some rotten member or distempered part is not to be found SECT IV. Of S. Peter from the time of his Confession till our Lord's last Passover Our Saviour's Journy with his Apostles to Caesarea The Opinions of the People concerning Him Peter's eminent Confession of Christ and our Lord 's great commendation of it Thou art Peter and upon this Rock c. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven how given The advantage the Church of Rome makes of these passages This confession made by Peter in the name of the rest and by others before him No personal priviledge intended to S. Peter the same things elsewhere promised to the other Apostles Our 〈◊〉 discourse concerning his 〈◊〉 Peter's unseasonable zeal in disswading him from it and our Lord 's severe rebuking him Christ's Transfiguration and the glory of it Peter how affected with it Peter's paying Tribute for Christ and himself This Tribute what Our Saviour's discourse upon it Offending brethren how oft to be forgiven The young man commanded to sell all What compensation made to the followers of Christ. Our Lord 's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem Preparation made to keep the Passover 1. IT was some time since our Saviour had kept his third Passover at Jerusalem when he directed his Journy towards Caesarea Philippi where by the way having like a lawful Master of his Family first prayed with his Aposlles he began to ask them having been more than two Years publickly conversant amongst them what the world thought concerning him They answered that
not absolutely priviledg'd from failures and miscarriages in their lives these being of more personal and private consideration yet were they infallible in their Doctrine this being a matter whereupon the salvation and eternal interests of men did depend And for this end they had the spirit of truth promised to them who should guide them into all truth Under the conduct of this unerring Guide they all steer'd the same course taught and spake the same things though at different times and in distant places and for what was consign'd to writing all Scripture was given by inspiration of God and the holy men spake not but as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Hence that exact and admirable harmony that is in all their writings and relations as being all equally dictated by the same spirit of truth Thirdly They had been eye-witnesses of all the material passages of our Saviour's life continually conversant with him from the commencing of his publick ministery till his ascension into heaven they had survey'd all his actions seen all his miracles observ'd the whole method of his conversation and some of them attended him in his most private solitudes and retirements And this could not but be a very rational satisfaction to the minds of men when the publishers of the Gospel solemnly declared to the world that they reported nothing concerning our Saviour but what they had seen with their own eyes and of the truth whereof they were as competent Judges as the acutest Philosopher in the world Nor could there be any just 〈◊〉 to suspect that they impos'd upon men in what they delivered for besides their naked plainness and simplicity in all other passages of their lives they chearfully submitted to the most exquisire hardships tortures and sufferings meerly to attest the truth of what they published to the World Next to the evidence of our own senses no testimony is more valid and forcible than his who relates what himself has seen Upon this account our Lord told his Apostles that they should be witnesses to him both in Judaea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth And so necessary a qualification of an Apostle was this thought to be that it was almost the only condition propounded in the choice of a new Apostle after the fall of Judas Wherefore says Peter of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went 〈◊〉 and out among us beginning from the Baptism of John unto the same day that he was taken up from us must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his 〈◊〉 Accordingly we find the Apostles constantly making use of this argument as the most rational evidence to convince those whom they had to deal with We are witnesses of all things which Jesus did both in the Land of the Jews and in Jerusalem whom they slew and hanged on a tree Him God raised up the third day and shewed him openly not to all the people but unto witnesses chosen 〈◊〉 of God even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testifie that it is he that is ordained of God to be Judge of the quick and dead Thus S. John after the same way of arguing appeals to sensible demonstration That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have look'd upon and our hands have handled of the word of life For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and shew unto you that cternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us This to name no more S. Peter thought a sufficient vindication of the Apostolical doctrine from the suspicion of forgery and imposture We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eye-witnesses of his majesty God had frequently given testimony to the divinity of our blessed Saviour by visible manifestations and appearances from Heaven and particularly by an audible voice This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Now this Voice which came from Heaven says he we heard when we were with him in the holy Mount IX Fourthly The Apostles were invested with a power of working Miracles as the readiest means to procure their Religion a firm belief and entertainment in the minds of men For Miracles are the great confirmation of the truth of any doctrine and the most rational evidence of a divine commission For seeing God only can create and controll the Laws of nature produce something out of nothing and call things that are not as if they were give eyes to them that were born blind raise the dead c. things plainly beyond all possible powers of nature no man that believes the wisdom and goodness of an infinite being can suppose that this God of truth should affix his seal to a lye or communicate this power to any that would abuse it to confirm and countenance delusions and impostures Nicodemus his reasoning was very plain and convictive when he concludes that Christ must needs be a teacher come from God for that no man could do those Miracles that he did except God were with him The force of which argument lies here that nothing but a Divine power can work Miracles and that Almighty God cannot be supposed miraculously to assist any but those whom he himself sends upon his own errand The stupid and barbarous Lycaonians when they beheld the Man who had been a Cripple from his Mothers womb cured by S. Paul in an instant only with the speaking of a word saw that there was something in it more than humane and therefore concluded that the Gods were come down to them in the likeness of men Upon this account S. Paul reckons Miracles among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the signs and evidences of an Apostle whom therefore Chrysostom brings in elegantly pleading for himself that though he could not shew as the signs of his Priesthood and Ministry long Robes and gaudy Vestments with Bells sounding at their borders as the Aaronical Priests did of old though he had no golden Crowns or holy Mitres yet could he produce what was infinitely more venerable and regardable than all these unquestionable Signs and Miracles he came not with Altars and Oblations with a number of strange and symbolick Rites but what was greater raised the dead cast out Devils cured the blind healed the lame making the Gentiles obedient by word and deed thorough many signs and wonders wrought by the power of the spirit of God These were the things that clearly shewed that their mission and ministry was not from men nor taken up of their own heads but that they
acted herein by a Divine warrant and authority That therefore it might plainly appear to the World that they did not falsify in what they said or deliver any more than God had given them in commission he enabled them to do strange and miraculous operations bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost This was a power put into the first draught of their commission when confined only to the Cities of Israel As ye go preach saying The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Heal the sick cleanse the lepers raise the dead cast out Devils freely you have received freely give but more fully confirmed upon them when our Lord went to Heaven then he told them that these signs should follow them that believe that in his Name they should cast out Devils and speak with new tongues that they should take up serpents and if they drank any deadly thing it should not hurt them that they should lay hands on the sick and they should recover And the event was accordingly for they went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following When Paul and Barnabas came up to the Council at Jerusalem this was one of the first things they gave an account of all the multitude keeping silence while they declared what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them Thus the very shadow of Peter as he passed by cured the sick thus God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them So that besides the innate characters of Divinity which the Christian religion brought along with it containing nothing but what was highly reasonable and very becoming God to reveal it had the highest external evidence that any Religion was capable of the attestation of great and unquestionable Miracles done not once or twice not privately and in corners not before a few simple and credulous persons but frequently and at every turn publickly and in places of the most solemn concourse before the wisest and most judicious enquirers and this power of miracles continued not only during the Apostles time but for some Ages after X. But because besides Miracles in general the Scripture takes particular notice of many gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost conferred upon the Apostles and first Preachers of the Gospel it may not be amiss to consider some of the chiefest and most material of them as we find them enumerated by the Apostle only premising this observation that though these gifts were distinctly distributed to persons of an inferiour order so that one had this and another that yet were they all conferr'd upon the Apostles and doubtless in larger proportions than upon the rest First we take notice of the gift of Prophecy a clear evidence of divine inspiration and an extraordinary mission the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy It had been for many Ages the signal and honourable priviledge of the Jewish Church and that the Christian Oeconomy might challenge as sacred regards from men and that it might appear that God had not withdrawn his Spirit from his Church in this new state of things it was revived under the dispensation of the Gospel according to that famous prophecy of Joel exactly accomplished as Peter told the Jews upon the day of 〈◊〉 when the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were so plentifully shed upon the Apostles and Primitive Christians This is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel It shall come to pass in the last days saith God I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall 〈◊〉 and your young Men shall see 〈◊〉 and your old Men shall dream Dreams and on my servants and on my Hand-maidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesie It lay in general in revealing and making known to others the mind of God but discovered it self in particular instances partly in forctelling things to come and what should certainly happen in after-times a thing set beyond the reach of any finite understanding for though such effects as depend upon natural agents or moral and political causes may be foreseen by studious and considering persons yet the knowledge of futurities things purely contingent that meerly depend upon mens choice and their mutable and uncertain wills can only fall under his view who at once beholds things past present and to come Now this was conferred upon the Apostles and some of the first Christians as appears from many instances in the History of the Apostolick Acts and we find the Apostles writings frequently interspersed with prophetical predictions concerning the great apostasie from the 〈◊〉 the universal corruption and degeneracy of manners the rise of particular heresies the coming of Antichrist and several other things which the spirit said 〈◊〉 should come to pass in the latter times besides that S. John's whole Book of Revelation is almost intirely made up of prophecies concerning the future state and condition of the Church Sometimes by this spirit of prophecy God declared things that were of present concernment to the exigences of the Church as when he signified to them that they should set apart Paul and Barnabas for the conversion of the Gentiles and many times immediately designed particular persons to be Pastors and Governours of the Church Thus we read of the gift that was given to Timothy by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery that is his Ordination to which he was particularly pointed out by some prophetick designation But the main use of this prophetick gift in those times was to explain some of the more difficult and particular parts of the Christian doctrine especially to expound and apply the ancient prophecies concerning the 〈◊〉 and his Kingdom in their publick Assemblies whence the gift of prophecy is explained by understanding all mysteries and all knowledge that is the most dark and difficult places of Scripture the types and figures the ceremonies and prophecies of the Old Testament And thus we are commonly to understand those words Prophets and prophecying that so familiarly occur in the New Testament Having 〈◊〉 differing according to the grace that is given to us whether prophesie let us prophecy according to the proportion of faith that is expound Scripture according to the generally-received principles of Faith and Life So the Apostle elsewhere prescribing Rules for the decent and orderly managing of Divine worship in their publick Assemblies let the Prophets says he speak two or three that is at the same Assembly and let the other judge and if while any is thus expounding another has a Divine 〈◊〉 whereby he is more particularly enabled to explain some difficult and emergent