and for the advantage of those things which are necessary that are already under a higher and more binding law than any Potentate or Monarch of the earth can make The acts I say of Charity are manifest But those of Christian Prudence are not particularly designed Prudentia respicit ad singularia because that eye is given us to view and consider particular occurrences and circumstances and it dependeth upon those things which are without us whereas Charity is an act of the will And here if we would be our selves or rather if we would not be our selves but be free from by-respects and unwarrantable ends if we would devest our selves of all hopes or fears of those things which may either shake or raise our estates we could not be to seek For how easy is it to a disingaged and willing mind to apply a general precept to particular actions especially if Charity fill our hearts which is the bond of perfection Col. 3.14 Rom. 13.10 and the end and complement of the Law and indeed our spiritual wisdome In a word in these cases when we go to consult with our Reason we cannot erre if we leave not Charity behind us Or if we should erre our Charity would have such an influence upon our errour that it should trouble none but our selves 1 Cor. 13.7 For Charity beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things This is the extent of the Spirit 's Lesson And if in other truths more subtil than necessary we are to seek it mattereth not for we need not seek them It is no sin not to know that which I cannot know to be no wiser than God hath made me And what need our curiosity rove abroad when that which is all and alone concerneth us lieth in so narrow a compass In absoluto facili aeternitas saith Hilary The way to heaven may seem rough and troublesome but it is an easy way easy to find out though not so easy at our first onset to walk in and yet to those that tread and trace it often as delightful as Paradise it self See God hath shut up Eternity within the compass of two words Believe and Repent which is a full and just commentary on the Spirit 's Lesson the sum of all that he taught Lay your foundation right and then build upon it Because God loved you in Christ do you love him in Christ Love him and keep his commandments than which no other way could have been found out to draw you neer unto God Believe and Repent this is all Oh wicked abomination whence art thou come to cover the earth with deceit What malice what defiance what contention what gall and bitterness amongst Christians yet this is all Believe and Repent the Pen the Tongue the Sword these are the weapons of our warfare What ink what blood hath been spilt in the cause of Religion How many innocents defamed how many Saints anathematized how many millions cut down with the sword yet this is all Believe and Repent We hear the noyse of the whip and the ratling of the wheels and the prancing of the horses The horseman lifteth up his bright sword and his glittering spear Nah. 3.2 3. Every part of Christendome almost is a stage of war and the pretense is written in their banners you may see it waving in the air FOR GOD AND RELIGION yet this is all Believe and Repent Who would once think the Pillars of the earth should be thus shaken that the world should be turned into a worse chaos than that out of which it was made that there should be such wars and fightings amongst Christians for that which is shut up and brought unto us in these two words Believe and Repent For all the truth which is necessary and will be sufficient to lift us to our end and raise us to happiness can make no larger a circumferance than this This is the Law and the Prophets or rather this is the Gospel of Christ this is the whole will of God In this is knowledge justification redemption and holiness This is the Spirit 's Lesson and all other lessons are no lessons not worth the learning further than they help and improve us in this In a word this is all in all and within this narrow compass we may walk out our span of time and by the conduct of the same Spirit in the end of it attain to that perfection and glory which shall never have an end And so from the Lesson and Extent of it we pass to the Manner and Method of the Spirit 's Teaching It is not Raptus a forcible and violent drawing but Ductus a gentle Leading and Guiding The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall lead Which implyeth a preparedness and willingness to be led And the Spirit that leadeth us teacheth us also to follow him not to resist him that he may lead us Acts 7.51 Eph. 4.30 1 Thes 5.19 2 Tim. 1.6 not to grieve him by our backwardness that he may fill us with joy not to quench him that he may enlighten us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stir up his gifts that they dye not in us Now this promise was directly and primarily made to the Apostles whose Commission being extraordinary and their Diocess as large as the whole world they needed the Spirits guidance in a more high and eminent manner gifts of Tongues and diversities of graces which might fit them for so great a work that as their care so their power might be as universal as the world And yet to them was the Spirit given in measure and where measure is there are degrees and they were led by degrees not straight to all truth but by steps and approaches S. Peter himself was not wrapt up as his pretended Successor into the chair of Truth to determine all at once For when Pentecost was now past he goeth to Caesarea Acts 10.11 34. and there learneth more then he had done at Jerusalem seeth that in the Sheet which was let down to the earth which he heard not from the Tongues and of a truth now perceived what he did not before that God was no accepter of persons that now the partition-wall was broken down that Jew and Gentile were both alike and the Church which was formerly shut up in Judea was now become Catholick a Body which every one that would might be a member of Besides though the Apostles were extraordinarily and miraculously inspired yet we cannot say that they used no means at all to bring down the blessed Spirit For it is plain they did wait for his coming they prayed for the truth and laboured for the truth they conferred one with another met together in counsel deliberated before they did determin Nor could they imagin they had the Spirit in a string and could command him as they please and make him follow them whithersoever they would And then between us and the Apostles there
Arts themselves are not liberal but when they make men so free and ingenuous Arithmetick and Geometry are but a kind of Legerdemain if they teach men onely metiri latifundia accommodare digitos avaritiae to measure Lordships and to tell money What need we instance in these The Word of God which bringeth salvation may bring death if it be not received with the meekness of a babe that we may grow thereby The Sacrament the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper which hath been magnified too much and yet cannot be magnified enough was ordained as Physick to renew and revive and quicken our souls but if it be not received to that end for which it was first instituted it is not Physick but damnation Non QUID sed QUEMADMODUM vers 29. It is not the bare Doing of a thing but the Manner of doing it the driving it on to its right end which giveth it its full beauty and perfection A sincere Heart and the Glory of God set the true image of Liberality on the gift of a mite Attention and Obedience make the Word the savour of life Humility and Repentance sanctifie a fast and Shewing of the death of the Lord maketh us truly partakers of his body and bloud Our Saviour Christ hath fully decided this controversie in a word and with one breath as it were hath said enough to still the tumults of the disputers which have been as the raging of the sea and to settle all the vain and needless controversies of this age John 6.63 even in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The flesh profiteth nothing it is the Spirit that quickeneth For to say his flesh profiteth nothing is a plain declaration that he meant not to give it us to eat That which is nourishment to the body is not proportioned to the soul nor will that which reneweth a soul restore the body to a healthful temper Who would go about to recover a sick man with an Oration of Tully's or set a joynt with an axiom of Philosophy Who can restore a sick soul with bread and wine with flesh or bloud Although these two parts the Soul and the Body are knit and united rogether and do sympathize so as that which refresheth the body doth affect and please the mind and that which cheareth the mind doth strengthen the body yet both the parts receive that which is proper to them the body that which is of a corporeal nature and the soul that which is spiritual and both mutually communicate to each other the fruit and benefit of both without the least confusion of their operations and proprieties Although we see the actions of the body as Hunger and Thirst many times attributed to the soul and the functions of the soul as to Will and the like to the body Therefore we must distinguish between the Meritorious cause and the Efficiency and Application of it which are both joyntly necessary but their manner of operation is diverse It was necessary that the flesh and bloud of Christ should be separated from each other in his violent death on the cross that his most precious bloud should be poured out for remission of sins but to make it a physical potion to make it nourishment to our souls it was not necessary that his bodily substance should be taken into ours For if it should our Saviout telleth us it would profit nothing And the reason is plain Because the merit and virtue of his death which is without us is made ours not by any fleshly conjunction or union with him who merited for us by offering himself but 1. by his Will by which he in a manner maketh it over unto us and 2. by our due receiving of it which is made complete by our Consent and Faith and Giving of thanks which is the work alone of that Spirit which quickeneth and giveth life The blessed Virgin did no doubt partake of the merit of Christ but not because she conceived and bore him nine moneths in her womb but in that she conceived him by faith in her heart Luke 11.27 28. The womb was blessed that bare him and the paps that gave him suck but they rather were blessed who heard his word and kept it The Flesh and Bloud of Christ doth truly quicken us as it was offered up for us a sacrifice on the cross as a meritorious cause and as he gave it for the salvation of the world But it doth not quicken by being received into our bodies but by being received into our souls His merit was enough to save the whole world and yet his merit were nothing if not applied and that application is not wrought without but within us not by the Spirit of life but by the force and power of his death and passion the meritorious cause Rom. 8.2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death What need we hear stir this Water of life and turn it into gall and bitterness Why should this Bread be gravel between our teeth Why should Christ's love be made the matter of war and contention It is called the Body and Bloud of Christ and it is called Bread and Cup in my Text And it is a miserable servitude saith Augustine signa pro rebus accipere to take the signs of things for the things themselves and not to be able to lift up the eye of our mind a-above the corporeal creature to take in eternal light That we may lift up ours let us fix it upon the end for which Christ offered his body and bloud and upon the end for which we are to receive the Sacrament and signs of it And let one end be the measure and rule of the other Let Christ lifted upon the cross draw us after him to follow as he leadeth His body was bruised and his bloud shed to purge us from all iniquity and to make us a peculiar people unto himself That was Christ's end And our end must be proportioned to it So to receive the Sacrament of his body and bloud that it may be instrumental to that end Which cannot be by eating his flesh and bloud that flesh which was crucified and that bloud which was shed One would think it impossible that any should think our Saviour should command us that which is impossible or shew us a way which cannot lead to the end Flesh and Bloud taken down into the stomach can no more feed and quicken a Soul then it can enter into the Kingdom of heaven But his Obedience his Humility his Cross and Passion his meritorious Suffering and Satisfaction these have power and influence on the Soul These are here presented to us as Manna and better then Manna and if we take them down and digest them they will turn into good bloud and feed us to eternal life His Body and Bloud were thus given and thus we must receive them Our Saviour calleth it his
wayes but delight themselves in their own and rest and please themselves in Errour as in Truth to awake them out of this pleasant dream we must trouble them we must thunder to them we must disquiet and displease them For who would give an opiate pill to these Lethargicks To please men then is to tell a sick man that he is well a weak man that he is strong an erring man that he is orthodox instead of purging out the noxious humour to nourish and increase it to smooth and strew the wayes of Errour with roses that men may walk with ease and delight and even dance to their destruction to find out their palate and to fit it to envenom that more which they affect as Agrippina gave Claudius the Emperour poyson in a Mushrome What a seditious flatterer is in a Common-wealth that a false-Apostle is in the Church For as the seditious flatterer observeth and learneth the temper and constitution of the place he liveth in and so frameth his speach and behaviour that he may seem to settle and establish that which he studieth to overthrow to be a Patriot for the publick good when he is but a promoter of his private ends to be a servant to the Common-wealth when he is a Traytor so do all seducers and false-teachers They are as loud for the Truth as the best champions she hath but either subtract from it or add to it or pervert and corrupt it that so the Truth it self may help to usher in a lye When the Truth it self doth not please us any lye will please us but then it must carry with it something of the Truth For instance To acknowledge Christ but with the Law is a dangerous mixture It was the errour of the Galatians here To magnifie Faith and shut out Good works is a dash That we can do nothing without Grace is a truth but when we will do nothing to impute it to the want of Grace is a bold and unjust addition To worship God in spirit and truth Joh. 4.23 our Saviour commandeth it but from hence to conclude against outward Worship is an injurious defalcation of a great part of our duty Gal. 5.1 To stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free the Apostle commandeth it but to stand so as to rise up in the face of the Magistrate is a Gloss of Flesh and Bloud and corrupteth the Text. Rom. 13.1 Let every soul be subject to the higher powers that is the Text but to be subject no longer then the Power is mannaged to our will is a chain to bind Kings with or a hammer to beat all Power down that we may tread it under our feet And when we cannot relish the Text these mixtures and additions and subtractions will please us These hang as Jewels in our ears these please and kill us beget nothing but a dead Faith and a graceless life not Liberty but Licentiousness not Devotion but Hypocrisie not Religion but Rebellion not Saints but Hypocrites Libertines and Traytors The Truth is corrupted saith Nyssene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 1. contra Eunom by subtraction by alteration by addition And these we must avoid the rather because they go hand in hand as it were with the Truth and carry it along with them in their company as lewd persons do sometimes a grave and sober man to countenance them in their sportiveness and debauchery De nostro sunt sed non nostrae saith Tertullian De Proscript They invade that inheritance which Christ hath left his Church Some furniture some colour something they borrow from the Truth something they have of ours but ours they are not And therefore as S. Ambrose adviseth Gratian the Emperour of all errours in doctrine we must beware of those which come nearest and border as it were upon the Truth and so draw it in to help to defeat it self because an open and manifest errour carrieth in its very forehead an argument against it self and cannot gain admittance but with a veil whereas these glorious but painted falsehoods find an easie entrance and beg entertainment in the Name of Truth it self This is the cryptick method and subtil artifice of Men-pleasers that is Men-deceivers to grant something that they may win the more and that too in the end which they grant not rudely at first to demolish the Truth but to let it stand a while that they may the more securely raise up and fix that Errour with which it cannot stand long S. Paul saw it well enough though the Galatians did not Gal. 5.2 If you be circumcised Christ profiteth you nothing that is is to you as if there were no Christ at all If the false Apostles had flatly denied Christ the Galatians would have been as ready as S. Paul to have cut them off because they had received the Gospel but joyning and presenting the Law with Christ they did deceive and please them well who began in the Spirit and did acknowledge Christ but would not renounce the Law propter metum Judaeorum for fear of their brethren the Jews Now these Men-pleasers these Crows Dictam Diogenis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athen. Deipnos l. 6. c. 17. which devour not dead but living men are from an evil eg and beginning are bred and hatcht in the dung in the love of this world and are so proud and fond of their original that it is their labour their religion the main design of their life to bring the Truth Religion and Christ himself in subjection under it And to this end they are very fruitful to bring forth those mishapen issues which savour of the earth and corruption and have onely the name of Christ fastned to them as a badge to commend them and bring them to that end for which they had a being which is to gain the world in the name but in despite of Christ And these are they who as S. Peter speaketh make merchandise of mens souls nummularii sacerdotes 2 Pet. 2.3 as Cyprian calleth them Doctours of the Mint who love the Image of Caesar more then the image of God and had rather see the one in a piece of gold then the other renewed and stampt in a mortal man And this image they carry along with them whithersoever they go and it is as their Holy Ghost to inspire them For most of the doctrines they teach savour of that mint and the same stamp is on them both The same face of Mammon which is in their heart is visible also in their doctrine Thus Hosea complained of the false Prophets in his time Hos 4.8 They eat up the sin of my people that is by pleasing them they have consented to their sin and from hence reaped gain for flattery is a livelyhood Or they did not seriously reprehend the sins of the people that they might receive more sacrifices on which they might feed Some render it Levabant animum
crop and harvest of our Devotion This is truly cum parvo peccato ad ecclesiam venire cum peccatis multis ab ecclesia recedere to bring some sins with us to Church but carry away more for fear of the smoke to leap into the fire for fear of coming too near to Superstition to shipwreck on Profaneness for fear of Will-worship not to worship at all like Haggards to check at every feather to be troubled at every shew and appearance to startle at every shadow and where GLORY TO THE LORD is engraven in capital letters to blot it out and write down SUPERSTITION I see I must conclude Beloved fly Idolatry fly Superstition you cannot fly far enough But withal fly Profaneness and Irreverence and run not so far from the one as to meet and embrace the other Be not Papists God forbid you should But be not Atheists that sure talk what we will of Popery is far the worse Do not give God more then he would have but be sure you do not give him less Why should you bate him any part who giveth you all Behold he breathed into you your Souls and stampt his Image upon them Give it him back again not clipt not defaced but representing his own graces unto him in all holiness and purity And his hands did form and fashion your Bodies and in his book are all your members written Let THE GLORY OF GOD be set forth and wtitten as it were upon every one of them and he shall exalt those members higher yet and make thy vile Body like to his most glorious body In a word Let us glorifie God here in soul and body and he shall glorifie both soul and body in the day of the Lord Jesus The Seventeenth SERMON PART I. 1 COR. XII 3. Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost THat Jesus is the Lord was seen in his triumph at Easter made manifest by the power of his Resurrection The earth trembled the foundations of the hills moved and shook the graves opened at the presence of this Lord. Not the Disciples onely had this fire kindled in their hearts that they could not but say The Lord is risen but the earth opened her mouth and the Grave hers And now it is become the language of the whole world Jesus is the Lord. All this is true But we ask with the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What profit is it What profit is it if the Earth speak and the Grave speak and the whole World speak if we be dumb Let Jesus be the Lord but if we cannot say so he may and will be our Lord indeed but not our Jesus we may fall under his power but not rise by his help If we cannot say so we shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fall cross with him nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speak the quite contrary If we cannot call him Lord then with the accursed Jew we do indeed call him Anathema we call the Saviour of the world an accursed thing Si confiteamur exsecramur If we confess him not we curse him And he that curseth Jesus needeth no greater curse We must then before we can be good Christians go to school and learn to speak not onely Abba Father but Jesus the Lord. And where now shall we learn it Shall we knock at our own breasts and awake our Reason to lead us to this saving truth Shall we be content with that light which the Laws and Customs of our Country have set up and so cry him up for Lord as the Ephesians did their Diana for company and sit down and rest our selves in this resolution because we see the Jew hated the Turk abhorred and Hereticks burned who deny it Shall we alienis oculis videre make use of other mens eyes and so take our Religion upon trust These are the common motives and inducements to believe it With this clay we open our eyes thus we drive out the dumb Spirit And when we hear this noise round about us that Jesus is the Lord our mouth openeth and we speak it with our tongue These are lights indeed and our lights but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deceitful My Reason is too dim a light and cannot shew me this great conjunction of Jesus and the Lord. Education is a false light and misleadeth the greatest part of Christians even when it leadeth them right For he that falleth upon the Truth by chance by this blind felicity erreth when he doth not erre having no better assurance of the Truth then the common vogue He walketh indeed in the right way but blindfold He embraceth the Truth but so as for ought he knoweth it may be a lye And last of all the greatest Authority on earth is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a faint uncertain and failing proof a windy testimony if it blow from no other treasury then this below No we must have a surer word then this or else we shall not be what we so easily persuade our selves we are We must look higher then these Cathedram habet in coelo Our Master is in heaven And JESUS IS THE LORD is a voice from heaven taught us saith the Apostle by the holy Ghost who is vicarius Christi as Tertullian calleth him Christ's Vicar here on earth and supplieth his place to help and elevate our Reason to assure and confirm our Education and to establish and ratifie Authority Would you have this dumb spirit dispossessed The Spirit who as on this day came down in a showre of tongues must do it Would you be able to fetch breath to speak The holy Ghost must spirare breathe into us the breath of spiritual life inable us by inspiration Would we say it we must teach it If we be ignorant of this the Apostle here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would have us to understand that No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost And now we have fitted our Text to the Time the Feast of Pentecost which was the Feast of the Law For then the old Law was given then written in tables of stone And whensoever the Spirit of the living God writeth this Law of Christ THAT HE IS THE LORD in the fleshly tables of our hearts then is our Pentecost the Feast of the holy Ghost then he descendeth in a sound to awake us in wind to move and shake us in fiery tongues to warm us and make us speak The difference is This ministration of the Spirit is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaketh far more glorious And as he came in solemn state upon the Disciples this day in a manner seen and heard so he cometh though not so visibly yet effectually to us upon whom the ends of the world are come Though not in a mighty wind yet he rattleth our hearts together Though no house totter
on heaven and having an eye fixed and buried in the earth And that he is a Spirit of truth And it is the property of Truth to be alwayes like unto it self to change neither shape nor voice but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak the same things He doth not set up one Text against another doth not disannul his Promises in his Threats nor recall his Threats in his Promises doth not forbid Fear in Hope nor shake our Hope when he biddeth us fear doth not command Meekness to abate my Zele nor kindle my Zele to consume my Meekness doth not preach Christian Liberty to take off Obedience to Government nor prescribe Obedience to infringe and weaken my Chiristian Liberty Spiritus nusquam est aliud The holy Spirit is never different from it self never contradicteth it self And the reason why men who talk so much of the Spirit do fall into so gross and pernicious errours is from hence that they will not be like the Spirit in this but upon the beck of some place of Scripture which at the first blush and appearance looketh favourably on their present inclinations run violently on this side animated and posted on by those shews appearances which were the creatures of their Lust Phansie never looking back to other testimonies of Divine authority that army of evidences as Tertull. speaketh which are openly prest out marshalled against them which might well put them to an halt deliberation which might stay and drive back their intention and settle them at last in the truth which consisteth in a moderation O that men were wise but so wise as to know the Spirit before they engage him to look severely impartially upon their own designs as seriously consider the nature of the blessed Spirit before they voice him out for their abettor or make use of his name to bring their ends about Not to do this I will not say is the sin though perhaps I might but sure I am it is a great sin even Blasphemy against the holy Ghost But I must conclude Let us then as the Apostle speaketh examine our selves and bring our selves and our actions to trial Prove your selves and prove the Spirit Are your steps right and your wayes straight Do your actions answer the rule and still bear the same image and superscription Are you obedient to the Church and do you not think your selves wiser then your Teachers Are you reverent to God's word and receive it with all meekness without respect or distinction of those persons that convey it To come close to the Text Do you not divorce Jesus from the Lord riot it upon his mercy and then bow to him in a qualm and pinch of conscience Do you not fear the Lord the less for Jesus nor love Jesus the less for the Lord Are you as willing to be commanded as to be saved and to be his subjects as his children Are you thus qualified And are you still the same not making in your profession those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 crooked and unsteddy bendings those staggerings of a drunken man now meek as Lambs and anon raging like Lions now hanging down the head and anon lifting up your horn on high at the altar forgiveness and in your closet revenge courting your brother to day and to morrow taking him by the throat Are you as ready to bow the knee in Devotion and stretch forth the hand in Charity as you are to incline your ear to a Sermon Are you in all things in subjection unto this Lord Is this proposition true and dare ye subscribe it with your bloud JESUS IS THE LORD Then have ye learnt this language well and are perfect Linguists in the Spirit 's dialect Then let the rainfall and the flouds come let the winds and waters of affliction beat thick upon us and the waves of persecution go over our soul let the windy sophisms of subtil disputants blow with violence to shake our resolution in the midst of all temptations assaults and encounters in the midst of all the busie noise the world can make we shall be at rest upon the rock even upon this fundamental truth That the Spirit is the best teacher and That Jesus is the Lord. In which truth the Spirit of truth confirm us all for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake The Nineteenth SERMON ISA. LV. 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call ye upon him while he is near THE withdrawing of every thing from its original from that which it was made to be is like the drawing of a straight line which the further you draw it the weaker it is nor can it be strengthned but by being redoubled and brought back again towards its first point Now the Wiseman will tell us Eccles 7.29 That God hath made man upright that is simple and single and sincere bound him as it were to one point but he hath sought out many inventions mingled himself and ingendered with divers extravagant conceits and so run out not in one but many lines now drawn out to that object now to another still running further and further from the right and from that which he should have staid in and been united to as it were in puncto in a point and so degenerated much from that natural simplicity in which he was first made This our Prophet observeth in the people of Israel that they did their own wayes Chap. 58.13 Chap. 63.17 and erred from God's wayes run out as so many ill-drawn lines one on the flesh another on the world one on idolatry another on oppression every man at a sad distance from him whom he shoud have dwelt and rested in as in his Centre Therefore in every breath almost and passage of this Prophesie he seemeth to bend and bow them as it were a line back again to draw them from those objects in which they were lost and to carry them forward to the rock out of which they were hewen to strengthen and settle and establish them in the Lord. All this you have here abridged and epitomized Seek ye the Lord while he may be found The words are plain and need not the gloss of any learned interpreter If we look stedfastly upon the opening of them we shall behold the heavens open and God himself displaying his rayes and manifesting his beauty to draw men near unto himself to allure and provoke them to seek him teaching dust and ashes how to raise it self to the region of happiness mortality to put on immortality and our sinful nature to make its approches to Purity it self that where he is we may be also The parts are two 1. A Duty enjoyned Seek ye the Lord. 2. The Time prescribed when we must seek him while he may be found But because the Object is in nature before the Act and so to be considered we must know what to seek before we can seek it and because we are ready to mistake and to think that we
Echo by which he heareth himself at the rebound and thinketh the Wiseman spoke unto him Flattery is the ape of Charity It rejoyceth with them that rejoyce and weepeth with them that weep it frowneth with them that frown and smileth with them that smile It proceedeth from the Father of lies not from the Spirit of truth Hebr. 13.8 who is the same yesterday and to day and for ever Who reproveth drunkenness though in a Noah adultery though in a David want of faith though in a Peter His precepts are plain his law is in thunder his threatnings earnest and vehement What he writeth is not in a dark character Thou mayest run and read it He presenteth Murder wallowing in the blood it spilt Blasphemie with its brains out Theft sub hasta under sale He calleth not great plagues Peace nor Oppression Law nor camels gnats nor great sins peccadillos but he setteth all our sins in order before us He calleth Adam from behind the bush striketh Ananias dead for his hypocrisie and for lying to the holy Spirit depriveth him of his own Thy excuse with him is a libel thy pretense fouler than thy sin Thy false worship of him is blasphemy and thy form of godliness open impiety And where he entereth the heart Sin which is the greatest errour the grossest lye removeth it self heaveth and panteth to go out knocketh at our breast runneth down at our eyes and we hear it speak in sighs and grones unspeakable and what was our delight becometh our torment In a word he is a Spirit of truth and neither dissembleth to deceive us nor flattereth that we may deceive our selves but verus vera dicit being Truth it self telleth us what we shall find to be most true to keep us from the dangerous by paths of Errour and Misprision in which we may lose our selves and be lost for ever And this appeareth and is visible in those lessons and precepts which he giveth so agreeable to that Image after which we were made to fit and beautifie it when it is defaced and repair it when it is decayed that so it may become in some proportion and measure like unto him that made it and then so harmonious and consonant and agreeing with themselves that The whole Scripture and all the precepts it containeth may in esteem as Gerson saith go for own copulative proposition This Spirit doth not set up one precept against another nor one Text against another doth not disanul his promises in his threats nor check his threats with his promises doth not forbid all Fear in Confidence nor shake our Confidence when he bids us fear doth not set up meekness to abate our Zeal nor kindleth Zeal to consume our Meekness doth not teach Christian Liberty to shake off Obedience to Government nor prescribeth Obedience to infringe and weaken our Christian Liberty This Spirit is a Spirit of truth and never different from himself He never contradicteth himself but is equal in all his wayes the same in that truth which pleaseth thee and in that which pincheth thee in that which thou consentest to and in that which thou runnest from in that which will raise thy spirit and in that which will wound thy spirit And the reason why men who talk so much of the Spirit do fall into gross and pernicious errours is from hence That they will not be like the Spirit in this equal and like unto themselves in all their wayes That they lay claim to him in that Text which seemeth to comply with their humour but discharge and leave him in that which should purge it That upon the beck as it were of some place of Scripture which upon the first face and appearance looketh favourably upon their present inclinations they run violently on this side animated and posted on by that which was not in the Text but in their lusts and phansie and never look back upon other testimonies of Divine Authority that army of evidences as Tertullian speaketh which are openly prest out and marshalled against them and might well put them to a halt and deliberation stay and drive back their intention and settle them at last in the truth which consisteth in a moderation betwixt two extremes For we may be zealous and not cruel devout and not superstitious we may hate Idolatry and not commit Sacrilege Gal. 5.1 1 Pet. 2.16 stand fast in our Christian liberty and not make it a cloak of maliciousness if we did follow the Spirit in all his wayes who in all his wayes is a Spirit of truth For he commandeth Zeal and forbiddeth Rage he commendeth Devotion and forbiddeth Superstition he condemneth Idolatry yea and condemneth Sacrilege he preacheth Liberty 1 Cor. 12.4.8 9 11. and preacheth Obedience to Superiours and in all is the same Spirit And this Spirit did come and Christ did send him And in the next place to this end he came to be our Leader to guide us in the wayes of truth to help our infirmities to be our conduct to carry us on to the end And this is his Office and Administration Which one would think were but a low office for the Spirit of God and yet these are magnalia spiritûs the wonderful things of the Spirit and do no less proclaim his Divinity then the Creation of the world We wonder the blind should see the lame go Matth. 11.5 the deaf hear the dead be raysed up but doth it now follow The poor receive the Gospel Weigh it well in the balance of the Sanctuary and this last will appear as a great miracle as the former And this Advent and Coming was free and voluntary For though the Spirit was sent from the Father and the Son yet sponte venit he came of his own accord And he not onely cometh but sendeth himself say the Schools as he daily worketh those changes and alterations in his creature These words Dicit Mittam ut propriam autoritatem ostendat Tum denique veniet quo verbo Spiritûs potestas indicatur Naz. Orat. 37. to be sent and to come and the like are not words of diminution or disparagement He came in no servile manner but as a Lord as a friend from a friend as in a letter the very mind of him that sent it Which sheweth an agreement and concord with him that sent him but implyeth no inferiority no degree of servility or subjection Yet some there have been who have stumbled at the shadow which this word hath cast or indeed at their own and for this made the holy Spirit no more then a Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a supernumerary God brought in to serve and minister and no distinct Person of the blessed Trinity But what a gross error what foul ingratitude is this to call his goodness servility his coming to us submission and obedience and count him not a God because by his gracious operation he is pleased to dwell in men and make them his tabernacle Why may we
according saith S. Paul to my Gospel This is the Lesson the Spirit teacheth Truth Let us now see the Extent of it It is large and universal The Spirit doth not teach us by halves teach some truths and conceal others but he teacheth all truth maketh his disciples and followers free from all errors that are dangerous and full of saving knowledge Saving knowledge is all indeed That truth which bringeth me to my end is all and there is nothing more to be known I determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 2.2 Here his desire hath a Non ultrá This truth is all this joyneth heaven and earth together God and Man mortality and immortality misery and happiness in one draweth us near unto God and maketh us one with him This is the Spirit 's Lesson Commentum Divinitatis the invention of the Divine Spirit Faith is called the gift of God Ephes 2.8 not onely because it is given to every believer and too many are too willing to stay till it be given but because this Spirit first found out the way to save us by so weak a means as Faith And as he first found it out so he teacheth it and leaveth out noâ—hing not a tittle not an Iota which may serve to compleat and perfect this divine Science Psal 139.16 In the book of God are all our members written All the members yea and all the faculties of our soul And in his Gospel his Spirit hath framed rules and precepts to order and regulate them all in every act in every motion and inclination which if the Eye offend pluck it out if the Hand cut it off Rules which limit the understanding to the knowledge of God bind the will to obedience moderate and confine our affections level our hope fix our joy stint our sorrow frame our speech compose our gesture fashion our apparel set and methodize our outward behaviour Instances in Scripture in every particular are many and obvious The time would fail me to mention them all In a word then this Truth which the Spirit teacheth is fitted to the whole man to every member of the body to every faculty of the soul fitted to us in every condition in every relation It will reign with thee it will serve with thee it will manage thy riches it will comfort thy poverty ascend the throne with thee and sit down with thee on the dunghill It will pray with thee it will fast with thee it will labour with thee it will rest and keep a Sabbath with thee it will govern a Church it will order thy Family it will raise a kingdome within thee it will be thy Angel to carry thee into Abraham's bosome and set a crown of glory upon thy head And is there yet any more Or what need more than that which is necessary There can be but one God one Heaven one Religion one way to blessedness and there is but one Truth and that is it which the Spirit teacheth And this runneth the whole compass of it directeth us not onely ad ultimum sed usque ad ultimum not onely to that which is the end but to the means to every step and passage and approach to every help and advantage towards it and so uniteth us to that one God giveth us right to that one Heaven and bringeth us home to that one end for which we were made And is there yet any more Yes particular cases may be so many and various that they cannot all come within the compass of this Truth which the Spirit hath plainly taught It is true but then for the most part they are cases of our own making cases which we need not make cases somtimes raised by weakness somtimes by wilfulness somtimes even by sin it self which reigneth in our mortal bodies and to such this Lesson of the Spirit is as an Ax to cut them off But be their original what it will if this Truth reach them not or if they bear no analogy or affinity with that which the Spirit hath taught nor depend upon it by any evident and necessary consequence they are not to be reckoned in the number of those which concern us because we are assured that he hath led us into all truth that is necessary Some things indeed there are which are indifferent in themselves quae lex nec vetat nec jubet which this Spirit neither commandeth nor forbiddeth but they are made necessary by reason of some circumstance of time or place or quality or persons for that which is necessary in it self is alwaies necessary and yet are in their own nature indifferent still Veritas ad omnia occurrit this Truth which is the Spirit 's Lesson reacheth even these and containeth a rule certain and infallible to guide us in them if we become not laws unto our selves and fling it by to wit the rules of Charity and Christian Prudence to which if we give heed it is impossible we should miscarry It is Love of our selves and Love of the world not Charity or spiritual Wisdome which make this noyse abroad rend the Church in pieces and work desolation on the earth It is want of conscience and neglect of conscience in the common and known wayes of our duty which have raised so many needless Cases of conscience which if men had not hearkened to their lusts had never shewn their head but had been what indeed they are nothing The acts of charity are manifest 1 Cor. 13. Charity suffereth long even injuries and errours but doth not rise up against that which was set up to enlarge and improve her Charity is not rash to beat down every thing that had its first rise and beginning from Charity Charity is not puffed up swelleth not against a harmless yea and an useful constitution though it be of man Charity doth not behave it self unseemly layeth not a necessity upon us of not doing that which lawful Authority even then styleth an indifferent thing when it commandeth it to be done Charity seeketh not her own treadeth not the publick peace under foot to procure her own Charity is not easily provoked checketh not at every feather nor startleth at that monster which is a creation of our own Charity thinketh no evil doth not see a serpent under every leaf nor Idolatry in every bow of Devotion If we were charitable we could not but be peaceable If that which is the main of the Spirit 's lesson did govern mens actions Psal 72.7 there would be abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth Multa facienda sunt non jubente lege sed liberâ charitate saith Augustine Charity is free to do and suffer many things which the Spirit doth not expresly command and yet it doth command them in general when it commandeth obedience to Authority Which hath no larger circuit to walk and shew it self in than in things in themselves indifferent which it may enjoyn for orders sake
silence Though Corah and his complices perish in their gainsayings Jude 11. yet God forbid that all Israel should be swallowed up in the same gulf Samuel ran to Eli 1 Sam. 3 5-10 when the voice was God's but was taught at last to answer Speak Lord for thy servant heareth Though Ahab had many false Prophets 1 Kings 22. yet Micaiah was a true one And though there be many false Teachers come into the world 1 Joh. 4.1 yet the Spirit of God is a Spirit of truth and he shall lead us into all truth And that we may follow as he leadeth we must observe the wayes in which he moveth For as there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a way of peace Luk. 1.79 so there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wayes of truth and in those wayes the Spirit will lead us 2 Pet. 2.2 I may be in the wayes of the wicked in the wayes of the Gentiles and profane men in my own wayes in those wayes which my Phansie and Lust have chalked out on that pinnacle and height where my Ambition hath placed me in that mine and pit where my Covetousness hath buried me alive and in these I walk with my face from Jerusalem from the Truth and in these wayes the Spirit leadeth me not How can he learn Poverty of spirit who hath no God but Mammon and knoweth no sin but Poverty How can he be brought down to obedience and humility who with Diotrephes loveth to have the preeminence 3 Joh. 9. and thinketh himself nothing till he is taller than his fellowes by the head and shoulders How can he hearken to the Truth who studieth lies And do we now wonder why we are not taught the truth where the Spirit keepeth open School There is no wonder at all The reason why we are not taught is Because we will not learn Ambition soareth to the highest seat and the Spirit directeth us to the ground to the lowest place Love of the world filleth our barns and the Spirit pointeth to the bellies of the poor as the better and safer granaries My private factious Humour trampleth under foot Obedience to superiours because I my self would be the highest and challenge that as my peculiar which I deny to others but the Spirit prescribeth Order Doth Montanus lead about silly women and prophesie doth he call his dreams Revelations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb l. 1. c. 21. Contr. Valent. c. 4. Eusebius telleth us that the spirit which led him about was nothing else but an unmeasurable Desire of precedency Doth Valentinus number up his Aeones and as many Crimes as God's Tertullian informeth us that he hoped for a Bishoprick but being disappointed of his hopes by one who was raised to that dignity by the prerogative of Martyrdome and his many sufferings for the Truth he turned Heretick Doth Arius deny the Divinity of the Son Read Theodoret Lib. 1◠c. 2. and he will shew you Alexander in the chair before him Doth Aerius deny there is any difference between a Bishop and Presbyter The reason was he was denied himself and could not be a Bishop so that he fell from a Bishoprick as Lucifer did from Heaven whose first wish was to be God and whose next was That there were no God at all From hence those stirs and tumults in the Church of Christ those storms and tempests which blew and beat in her face from hence those distractions and uncertainties in Christian Religion that it was a matter of some danger but to mention it This made Nazianzene in some passion as it may seem cry out Orat. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I would there were no precedency no priority no dignities in the Church but that mens estimation did only rise from virtue but now the right hand and the left the higher and the lower place these terms of difference have led men not into the truth but into that ditch where Errour muddeth it self Caeca avaritia saith Maximus Covetousness and Ambition are blind and cannot look upon the Truth though she be as manifest as the Sun at noon It fareth with men in the lust of their eyes in the love of the world as it did with the man in Artemidorus who dreamt he had eyes of gold and the next day lost them had them both put out Now no smell is sweat but that of lucre no sight delightful but of the wedge of gold By a strange kind of Chymistry men turn Religion into Gold and even by Scripture it self heap up riches and so they lose their sight and judgement and savour not the things of God but are stark blind to that Truth which should save them But now grant that they were indeed perswaded of the truth of that which they defend with so much noyse and tumult yet this may be but opinion and phansie which the Love of the world will soon build up because it helpeth to nourish it And how can we think that the Spirit led them in those wayes in which Self-love and Desire of gain drive on so furiously Sure the Spirit of truth cannot work in that building where such Sanballats laugh him to scorn Now all these are the very cords of vanity by which we are drawn from the Truth and they must all be broken asunder before the Spirit will lead us to it For he he leadeth us not over the Mountains nor through the bowels of the earth nor through the numerous atoms of our vain and uncertain and perplext imaginations but as the wisdome which he teacheth Jam. 3.17 so the method of his discipline is pure peaceable gentle without partiality without hypocrisie and hath no savour or relish of the earth For he leadeth the pure he leadeth the peaceable he leadeth humble In a word he leadeth those who are lovers of peace and truth And now to draw towards a conclusion You know the wayes in which the Spirit walketh and by which he leadeth us Will you also know the rules we must observe if we will be the Spirit 's Scholars I will be bold to give them you from one who was a great lover of truth even Galene the Physician Who though an heathen man yet by the very light of Nature found out those means and helps in the pursuit of humane knowledge which the Spirit hath set down in Scripture to further us in the search of Divine Truth They are but four The first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Love of Truth the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Love of Industry a frequent meditation of the truth the third 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Orderly and methodical proceeding in the pursuit of Truth the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exercitation our conformity to the Truth in our conversation This gold though brought from Ophir yet may be useful to adorn and beautifie those who are the living Temples of the holy Ghost 1. First Love is a passion imprinted in us to
of the soul which are called by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 puffings up for riches or learning or beauty or strength or eloquence or virtue or any thing which we admire our selves for elations and liftings up of the Mind above it self stretching of it beyond its measure 2 Cor. 10.14 making us to complain of the Law as unjust to start at the shadow of an injury to do evil and not to see it to commit sin and excuse it making our tongues our own Psal 12.4 our hands our own our understandings our own our wills our own leaving us Independents under no law but our own The Prophet David calleth it highness or haughtiness of the heart Solomon Psal 131 1. Prov. 16.18 haughtiness of the spirit which is visible in our sin and visible in our apologies for sin lifting up the eyes Psal 10.4 and lifting up the nose for so the phrase signifieth and lifting up the head and making our necks brass as if we had devoured a spit as Epictetus expresseth it I am and I alone Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellant Arrian in Epict. is soon writ in any mans heart and it is the office and work of Humility to wipe it out to wipe out all imaginations which rise and swell against the Law our Neighbour and so against God himself For the mind of man is very subject to these fits of swelling Humility Our very nature riseth at the mention of it Habet mens nostra sublime quiddam impatiens superioris saith the Oratour Mens minds naturally are lifted up and cannot endure to be overlookt Humility It is well we can hear her named with patience It is something more that we can commend her But quale monstrum quale sacrilegium saith the Father O monstruous sacrilege we commend Humility and that we do so swelleth us We shut her out of doors when we entertein her When we deck her with praises we sacrilegiously spoil her and even lose her in our panegyricks and commendations We see for it is but too visible what light materials we are made of what tinder we are that the least spark will set us on fire to blaze and be offensive to every eye We censure Pride in others and are proud we do so we humble our brethren and exalt our selves It is the art and malice of the world when men excel either in virtue or learning to say they are proud and they think with that breath to level every hill that riseth so high and calleth so many eyes to look upon it But suppose they were alass a very fool will be so and he that hath not one good part to gain the opinion of men will do that office for himself and wonder the world should so mistake him Doth Learning or Virtue do our good parts puff us up and set us in our altitudes No great matter the wagging of a feather the gingling of a spur a little ceruss and paint any thing nothing will do it nay to descend yet lower that which is worse then nothing will do it Wickedness will do it 〈◊〉 10.3 He boasteth of his hearts desire saith David he blesseth himself in evil Prov. 2.14 He rejoyceth in evil saith Solomon he pleaseth and flattereth himself in mischief And what are these benedictions these boastings these triumphs in evil but as the breathings the sparkles the proclamations of Pride Psal 10.4 The wicked is so proud he careth not for God God is not in all his thoughts When Adam by pride was risen so high as to fall from his obedience God looketh upon him in this his exaltation or rather in this ruine and beholdeth him not as his creature but as a prodigie and seemeth to put on admiration 〈…〉 22. ECCE ADAM FACTVS TANQVAM VNVS E NOBIS See the man is become as one of us God speaketh it by an Irony A God he is but of his own making Whilest he was what I made him he was a Man but innocent just immortal of singular endowments and he was so truly and really but now having swelled and reached beyond his bounds a God he is but per mycterismum a God that may be pitied that may be derided a mortal dying God a God that will run into a thicket to hide himself His Greatness is but figurative but his misery is real Being turned out of paradise he hath nothing left but his phansie to deifie him This is our case our teeth are on edge with the same sowr grapes We are proud and sin and are proud in our sins We lift up our selves against the Law and when we have broke it we lift up our selves against Repentance When we are weak then we are strong when we are poor and miserable then we are rich when we are naked then we clothe our selves with pride as with a garment And as in Adam so in us our Greatness is but a tale and a pleasing lye our sins and imperfections true and real our heaven but a thought and our hell burning A strange soloecisme a look as high as heaven and the soul as low as the lowest pit It was an usual speach with Martine Luther that every man was born with a Pope in his belly And we know what the Pope hath long challenged and appropriated to himself Infallibility and Supremacy which like the two sides of an Arch mutually uphold each other For do we question his Immunity from errour It is a bold errour in us for he is supreme Judge of controversies and the conjecture is easie which way the question will be stated Can we not be perswaded and yield to his Supremacy Then his Parasites will tell you that he is Infallible By this we may well ghess what Luther meant For so it is in us Pride maketh us incorrigible and the thought that we are so increaseth our Pride We are too high to stand and too wise to be wary too learned to be taught and too good to be reproved We now stand upon our Supremacy See how the Worm swelleth into an Angel The Heart forgetteth it is flesh and becometh a stone and you cannot set Christs Impress HVMILITY upon a stone Learn of me for I am humble The Ear is deaf the Heart stubborn Matth. 11.29 the Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Theodoret a reprobate Rom. 1.28 reverberating mind a heart of marble which violently beateth back the blow that should soften it Now the office of Humility is to abate this swelling its proper work is to hammer this rock and break it to pieces Jer. 23.29 to drive it into it self to pull it down at the sight of this Lord to place it under it self under the Law under God to bind it as it were with cords to let out this corrupt blood and this noxious humour and so sacrifice it to that God that framed it to depress it in it self that
us in nor the things of this world fall into our bosome when we sit still and lay no more out for them then a wish Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it The opening of our mouth is our Prayer Psal 81.10 our Endeavour our Working with our hands and then Gods blessings fall down and fill it Labour and Industry is a thing so pleasing to God that he hath even bound a blessing to it which never leaveth it but is carried along with it wheresoever it is even in the mere natural and heathen man Be the man what he will it is almost impossible that Diligence should not thrive for a blessing goeth along with it as the light doth with the Sun which may be shadowed or eclipsed by the cloudiness of the times or by some cross accident but can never be quite put out In a word Labour is the price of God's gifts and when we pay it down by a kind of commutative justice he bringeth them in and putteth them into our hands VT OPEREMINI MANIBVS That ye labour with your hands These words take in all manual trades and handycrafts which are for use and necessity all lawful trades For even Thieves and Robbers and Jugglers and Cheaters and Forgers of writings do work not with their feet saith Tertullian but with their hands De Idelol c. 5. And he bringeth in his exception against Painters and Statuaries and Engravers but no further then he doth against Schoolmasters and Merchants who bring in frankincense in that respect onely as they sacrifice their sweat and their labour and are subservient and ministerial either to Lust or Idolatry For The diligence Diligentia tua numen il lorum est c. 6. saith he of the Statuary is the Divinity of the Idole And we may say Those many unnecessary Arts and Trades which are now held up with credit and repute in the world because it will still be world were at first the daughers and are now become the nurses of our Luxury and Lust Luxury begat them and they send our Luxury in triumph through the streets Were Tertullian whose zeal waxt so hot even against a Purpleseller to pass now through our great City with power and authority how many shops would be shut up Tot suntartium venae quot hominum concupiscentia Idem ib c. 8. 1 Tim. 6.8 or rather how many would there be left open For it is not easie to number those Arts and Crafts which had they never been professed we might have had food and raiment with which we Christians above all the generations of men should be content But it is not for me to determin which are necessary and which are not but to leave it to the Magistrate There be Arts and Trades enough besides these to exercise our wit our strength our hands and such as Lycurgus might have admitted into his Commonwealth Vide Plutarch vit Lycurgi whose prudence and care it was to shut out all that was unnecessary The first that required the labour of the hands was Tillage and Husbandry For antiquis temporibus nemo rusticari nescivit Lib. 11. c. 1. saith Ischomachus in Columella In the first age no man was ignorant of this art And the learned have observed that the original of humane Laws which were the preservers of peace the boundaries to keep every man in his own place was from Tillage and the first division of grounds Whence Ceres who is first said to have devised and taught the sowing of Corn as she is called frugifera the Goddess of Plenty so is termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the maker of Laws And in honour of her the Athenians celebrated those feasts which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mactant lectas de more bibentes Legiferae Cereri Virgil. Aen. 4. They did sacrifice to Ceres the Law-maker These men never heard of the curse in Paradise yet by the very light of Nature they saw the necessity of labour The necessity did I say nay the dignity and honour of it For Man was made and built up to this end saith Aristotle ad intelligendum agendum to understand and to work And what more unworthy a Man who is made an active creature then to bury himself alive in sloth and idleness to be like S. Paul's wanton widow dead whilest he liveth to be a more unprofitable lump then the Earth to live and shew so little sign of life whereas the ground receiveth rain and sendeth back its leaf and grass What can be more beseeming then to have feet and not to go to have hands and not to use them Therefore that of the Apostle 2 Thess 3.10 Let not him that laboureth not eat is not onely true because S. Paul spake it but S. Paul spake it because it is true a dictate not onely of the Spirit Job 5.7 but even of Nature it self Man is born unto labour saith Eliphaz it is natural to him as natural as for the sparks to fly upwards And if we rightly weigh it it is as great a prodigie as monstrous a sight to see an idle person that can do nothing but feed and clothe himself and breathe as to see Stone fly or Fire descend to the centre of the earth I may add as to see the Sun stand still Far as the Sun Psal 19.5 so Man naturally should rejoyce to run his course Shall I now awake the Sluggard if any thunder will awake him and tell him he is a thief that he drinketh not water out of his own cistern that he eateth stolne bread 2 Thess 3.11 12. If I should I have S. Paul and Reason to justifie me who telleth him plainly that he who worketh not at all walketh inordinately and eateth not his own bread as if it were not his own if his own hands brought it not in And Ephes 4.28 Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour and work with his hands If he will not steal let him labour if he do not labour he doth but steal even that which in common esteem is his own For we must not think that they onely are thieves who do vitam vivere vecticulariam Festus in Vecticularia vita dig down walls by night or who lye in wait upon the hills of the robbers Fur est qui rem contrectat alienam He is a Thief which maketh use of that which is not his And then we may arraign the Idle slothful person at this bar as guilty of this crime Prov. 12.27 For he rosteth that which he never took in hunting he useth the creature to which he hath no right He hath interdicted and shut himself out from the benefit of fire and water and all humane commerce He hath outlawed and banisht himself from the world He hath robbed himself For though he have plenty of all things yet Idleness will blow upon it and blast it He robbeth the Commonwealth For interest
come VENIET Come he will Et hoc satìs est aut nescio quid satìs sit as P. Varus spake upon another occasion This is enough or we cannot see what is enough But nothing is enough to those who have no mind nor heart to make use of that which is enough To them enough is too much for they look upon it as if it were nothing Therefore Christ doth not feed and nourish this thriftless and unprofitable humour but brideleth and checketh it putteth in his Prohibition not to search after more then is enough NON NOSTIS HORAM You know not the hour is all the answer which he who best knoweth what is fit for us to know will afford our Curiosity For what is it that we do not desire to know Sen. de vit Etat c. 32. Curiosum nobis Natura dedit ingenium saith the Philosopher Nature it self may seem to have imprinted this itch of Curiosity in our very minds and wits made them inquisitive given them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an eye which never sleepeth never resteth upon one object but passeth by that and gazeth after another That he will come is not enough for our busie but idle Curiosity to know we seek further yet to know that which cannot be known the Time and very Hour of his coming The mind of man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Enormi otiosae curiositati tantum decrit discere quantum libuerit inquirere Tert. de Anima c. ult restless in perpetual motion It walketh through the earth sometimes looketh upon that which delighteth it sometimes upon that which grieveth it stayeth and dwelleth too long upon both and misinterpreteth them to its own impoverishing and disadvantage Perrumpit coeli munimenta saith Seneca It breaketh through the very gates of heaven and there busily pryeth after the nature of Angels and of God himself but seeth it not entreth the Holy of holies and there is venturing into the closet of his secrets and there is lost lost in the search of those things of times and seasons which are past finding out and are therefore set at such a distance that we may not send so much as a thought after them which if they could be known yet could not advantage us It was a good commendation which Tacitus giveth of Agricola In vitae Agricola Retinuit quod est difficilimum in sapientia modum He did what is difficult for man to do bound and moderate himself in the pursuit of knowledge and desired to know no more then that which might be of use and profitable to him Which wisdome of his had it gained so much credit as to prevail with the sons of men which would be thought the Children of Wisdome they had then laid out the precious treasure of their time on that alone which did concern them and not prodigally mispent it on that which is impertinent in seeking that which did fly from them when they were most intentive and eager in their search If this moderation had been observed there be thousand questions which had never been raised thousand opinions which had never been broacht thousands of errours which had never shewn their heads to disturb the peace of the Church to obstruct and hinder us in those wayes of obedience which alone without this impertinent turning our eye and looking aside will carry us in a straight and even course unto our end Why should I pride my self in the finding out a new conclusion when it is my greatest and my onely glory to be a New creature Why should I take such pains to reconcile opinions which are contrary My business is to still the contradictions of my mind those counsels and desires which every day thwart and oppose one another What profit is it to refute other mens errours whilst I approve and love and hug my own What purchase were it to find out the very Antichrist and to be able to say This is the man All that is required of me is to be a Christian What if I were assured the Pope was the Beast I sought for He appeared in as foul a shape to me before that title was written in his forehead For I consider more what he is then what he is called And thousands are now with Christ in heaven who yet never knew this his great Adversary on earth And why should I desire to know the time when Christ will come when no other command lieth upon me but this to watch and prepare my self for his coming when all that I can know or concerneth me is drawn up within the compass of this one word Watch which should be as the centre and all other truths drawn from it as so many lines to bear up the circumference of a constant and a continued watch Christ telleth us he will come Hoc satìs est dixisse Deo and this is enough for him to tell us and for us to know he telleth us that we cannot know it that the Angels cannot know it that the Son of man himself knoweth it not that it cannot be known that it is not fit to be known and yet we would know it Some there have been who pretended they knew it by the secret revelation of the spirit though it were a lying a spirit or a wanton phansie that spake within them For men are never more quick of belief then when they tell themselves a lye and yet the Apostle exhorteth the Thessalonians that they be not shaken in mind 2 Thes 2.2 nor troubled neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from him as that the day of Christ is at hand Others call in tradition Others find out a mystery in the number of Seven and so have taken the full age of the world which is to end say they after six thousand years And this they find not onely in the six moneths the Ark floted on the waters Gen. 8.4 and its rest on the mountains of Ararat in the seventh in Moses going into the cloud and the walls of Jericho falling down the seventh day Exod. 24.16 18. but in the seven Vials and the seven Trumpets in the Revelation Josh 6. Such time and leasure have men found perscrutari interrogare latebras numerorum to divine by Numbers by their art and skill to dig the air and find pretious metal there where men of common apprehensions can find no such treasure inter irrita exercere ingenia to catch at atomes and shadows and spend their time to no purpose For Curiosity is a hard task master setteth us to make brick but alloweth us no straw setteth us to tread the water and to walk upon the wind putteth us to work but in the dark And we work as the Spirits are said to do in minerals They seem to dig and cleanse and sever metals but when men come they find nothing is done It is a good rule in Husbandry Columel and such rules old Cato called oracles Imbecillior
the professours of it Hebr. 11 â—7 but when they are slain with the sword and wander up and down destitute afflicted tormented is still the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil of the same hue and complexion and in true esteem more fair and radiant when her poor witnesses are under a cloud and in disgrace Nay I will be bold to say and whosoever rightly understandeth the nature of Religion will never gainsay it that if it had not one professour breathing on the earth not one that did dare to name and own it as Elijah once thought there was but one yet Religion were still the same 1 Kings 19.10 14. reserved in the surest archives we can imagin even in sinu Dei in the bosome of God the Law-giver Religion being nothing else but a defluxion and emanation from him a beam of his eternal Law So that that which maketh and constituteth a true Israelite which is one inwardly Rom. 2.29 as S. Paul speaketh and in the spirit hath too much of Immortality of God in it to fall to the ground or exspire and be lost with the Israelite Let not your hearts be troubled Religion can no more suffer then God himself For seconly If Religion could suffer it suffered more by the Priests and peoples sins then by the Philistines sword for by them the name of God and Religion was evil spoken of Isa 52.5 Rom 2.24 and that which cannot suffer was made the object of malice and scorn and as Nazianzene spake of Julian's persecution it was both a Comedy and a Tragedy Invect 2. a Comedy full of scoffs and obtrectations and a Tragedy full of horrour and yet the Comedy was the more Tragical and bloody of the two God jealous of his honour awaketh as one out of sleep Psal 78.65 returneth the scoff upon the Philistine and maketh up the last Act of the Tragedy in his blood First he punisheth the guilty Israelite and then the Executioner Psal 78.66 The Psalmist saith He smote them in the hinder parts and put them to perpetual shame forcing them to make the similitude of their Emerods in gold and to send them back with the Ark as an oblation for their sin So you see here Gods method by which he ordinarily proceedeth First he prepareth a sacrifice as we read Zeph. 1.7 that is appointeth his people to slaughter then bids his guests sanctificat vocatos suos as the Vulgar readeth it he sanctifieth that is setteth apart these Philistines that they may be as Priests to kill and offer them up And when this is done God falleth upon the Priests themselves and maketh them a sacrifice Gaza shall be forsaken and Ashkelon a desolation Zeph 2.4 they shall drive out Ashdod at noon day and Ekron shall be rooted out And now we may conclude that God is just in all his wayes Psal 145.17 and righteous in all his judgements and fix up our Inscription upon this particular also When Israel is delivered up into the hand of the Philistine DOMINVS EST It is the Lord. And now if we look well upon the Inscription we shall find it to be like the pillar of the cloud Exod. 14.20 a cloud of darkness to the Philistine but giving light to the Israelite First the Philistine hath no reason to boast of this as a preferment that he is made the instrument of God in the execution of his judgements upon his people We shall find that this hath been one of the most dangerous and fatal offices in the World Nebuchadnezzar was by God called into it Jer. 50.21 Go up against the land of Merothaim or of Rebells And he did lead Israel into captivity V. 23. But hear the word of the Lord Jer. 51.41 Jer. 25.18 How is the hammer of the Lord cut asunder and broken Jerusalem is taken but Sheshach also shall fall That cup which was sent to Jerusalem and the Cities of Judah and the Kings thereof V. 26 c. and put into their hands to drink is afterward put into the hand of the King of Sheshach to drink and to be drunken to spew and fall and rise no more Thus saith the Lord yee shall certainly drink it And he giveth the reason V. 29. For lo I begin to bring evil upon the City which is called by my Name or where my Name is called upon and shall ye go free shall ye go utterly unpunished If ye can raise such a hope then hear a voice from heaven which shall dash it to pieces I have said it and I will make it good Ye shall not go unpunished I have begun with my own house but I am coming towards you in a tempest of fire to devour yours I have shaken my own tabernacle and the house of Dagon shall not cannot stand They whom God appointeth executioners of justice upon his people are like the Image which the Tyrant saw in his dream partly iron Dan. 2.42 and partly clay partly strong and partly broken God findeth them apt and fit full of malice and gall Whose hands were fitter to fling stones at David then his whose mouth was full of curses Who fitter to keep Gods people in bondage then Pharaoh Who fitter to lead them into captivity then he whom God did afterwards drive into the fields amongst the beasts Who could have crucified the Lord of life but the Jews Then finding them apt and fit he permitteth these serpents to spit their poison giveth these hang-men leave to do their office This his not hindring them was all the warrant and commission they had Jer. 50.21 Go up against the land can be no more then this I know you are upon your march and I will not stand in your way to stay youâ— but you shall do me service against your wills with that malice which my Soul hateth For we cannot think that God inspired the Tyrant or sent a Prophet to him with the message to bid him do that which he threatneth to punish No he doth but permit them and give them leave to be his executioners And in this his permission is their strength They pursue the Israelite and lay on sure strokes Their Malice is carried on in a chariot of four wheels made up of Cruelty Impatience Ambition Impudence and drawn as Bernard expresseth it In Cant. Ser. 39 with two wild horses earthly Power and secular Pomp. And now they drive on furiously and God is as one asleep as one that marketh them not because he will not hinder them But within a while he will awake strike off their chariot-wheels and restrain them Job 38.11 say to them as he doth to the swelling Sea Hitherto you shall go and no farther And then they are but clay they crumble and fall to nothing Why should the Philistine boast himself in his mischief Psal 52.2 the goodness of God endureth yet dayly It is every day and in every age the same
didicit perfectè obedire l. 4. de instit Caeâ—ob he hath no judgement non habet suum velle he hath no will of his own when our understandings wills and affections are Christ's as if we were but one flesh and one bloud and one soul that we will neither know nor serve nor hearken to any but Christ that we will have no King no Priest no Prophet but him then we dwell in him More particularly thus If we dwell in Christ we shall 1. discover and admire his majesty 2. acknowledge his power and love his command 3. rely and depend upon him alone as our sure castle and protection We shall dwell as it were within the beauty of his rayes within his jurisdiction and under the shadow of his wing 1. If we dwell in Christ we shall discover and admire his Majesty We may observe that every thing that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any eminency sendeth a kind of majesty from it as the Sun doth its beams which maketh a welcome and pleasing glide into the minds of men and at once striketh them with admiration and with love Sometimes this appeareth in the persons sometimes in the manners and behaviour of men sometimes in the order and polity of a well-governed Common-wealth So we read the skin of Moses's face after he had talked with God Exod. 34.29 30. did shine so bright that Aaron and the people were afraid to come neer him So when holy Job went out to the gate the young men saw him and hid themselves Job 29.7 8. and the aged arose and stood up It sheweth it self also in a well-ordered Common-wealth It was called majestas pop Romani Majestas est in imperio atque in omni Pop. Rom. dignitate Quint. l. 7. Iustit c. 3. Matth. 17.2 6 the Majesty of the people of Rome Now if Christ be considered by thee as one in eminency and supreme thou wilt behold him not onely fair and lovely but clothed with Majesty I do not mean his Majesty in his transfiguration when his face did shine as the Sun and his Disciples fell on theirs nor his Majesty when he shall come to judge the quick and the dead and yet these are fit objects for the eye of Faith to look on but his Majesty in his cratch his Majesty in his humility his Majesty on the cross even here the thief discovered it and it was imputed to him for righteousness and made the Cross it self a gate and passage into Paradise But these are too remote and for the many we look upon them as at distance have so small regard of them as if they concerned us not We can see Majesty in a lump of flesh in those that cannot save themselves sooner then in him we call our Saviour But then canst thou discover Majesty in him now Majesty in his discipline Wisdome in the foolishness of Preaching Power in weakness now in this life when he is whipt and spit upon and crucified again when he liveth covered over with disgraces and contumelies when his Precepts are dragged in triumph after flesh and blood and whatsoever it dictateth when for one Hosanna he hath a thousand Crucifige's for one formal hypocritical acknowledgment a thousand spears in his sides when the Truth is what we will make it the Gospel esteemed no more then a fable and Christ himself if we look into mens lives the most disesteemed thing in the world When thou seest him in this cloud in this disfiguration in this Golgotha where is thy faith what eyes hast thou Doth he not still appear a worm Psal 22.6 and no man a man of sorrows When thou seest him thus Isa 53.2 3. is there any form that thou shouldest desire him Or dost thou even now see his glory as the glory of the onely-begotten Son of God 1 John 1.14 Doth he now appear to thee as the Head of all principality and power Col. 2.10 Canst thou see him in that naked Lazar that persecuted forlorn imprisoned Saint Doth his Majesty shine through the vanities of this World and make them loathsome through thy labour of charity and make it easie through persecution Hebr. 6.10 and make it joyful In the midst of rage and derision of fury and contumely is he still to thee the King of glory Psal 24.8 10. Then thou dwellest in him even in the beauty of holiness 2. If we dwell in Christ we shall be under his Command For they who command us do in a manner take us into themselves they possess and compass bound and keep us in on every side And if we dwell in Christ we shall be within his reach and power we shall not have our excursions and run from him into the streets and high wayes again into Bethâ—aven the house of vanity I say we shall be under Christs command we shall be his possession his propriety For Man is a little world I may say he is a little Common-wealth De Resurrect carn c. 40. Tertullian calleth him fibulam utriusque substantiae the clasp or button which tieth together divers substances and natures the Soul and the Body the Flesh and the Spirit And these two are contrary one to the other Gal. 5.17 saith S. Paul are carried divers wayes the Flesh to that which pleaseth it and the Spirit to that which is proportioned to it looking on things neither as delightful nor irksome but as they may be drawn in to contribute to the beauty and perfection of the soul These lust and struggle one against the other and Man is the field the theatre where this battle is fought and one part or other still prevaileth Many times nay most times God help us the Flesh with her sophistry prevaileth with the Will to joyn with her against the Spirit and then Sin taketh the chair the place of Christ himself and setteth us hard and heavy tasks setteth us to make brick but alloweth us no straw biddeth us please and content our selves but affordeth us no means to work it out See how Mammon condemneth one to the mines to dig for metalls and treasure for that money which will perish with him See how Lust fettereth another with a look with the glance of an eye bindeth him with a kiss a kiss that will at last bite like a Cockatrice See how Self-love driveth us on as Balaam did his beast on the point of the sword Thus Sin doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exercise its force and power Rom. 6.12 Lord it and King it reign in our mortal bodies Again sometimes and why but sometimes but sometimes the Will sanctified and upheld and encouraged by the Spirit of Christ taketh the Spirit 's part determineth for it against the Flesh chuseth any thing which the Spirit commendeth though it be compassed about with terrours and fearful apparitions though it be irksome and contrary to the Flesh And when we depose Mammon Matth. 16.24 crucifie the flesh deny our selves
The unbelieving man that dwelleth not in Christ hath either no place to fly to or else that he flyeth to is as full of molestation and torment as that he did fly from He flieth to himself from himself He flieth to his wit and that befooleth him he flieth to his strength and that overthroweth him he flieth to his friend and he faileth him He asketh himself counsel and mistrusteth it He asketh his friend counsel and is afraid of it He flieth to a Reed for a staff to Impotency and Folly and hath not what he looked for when he hath what he looked for He is ever seeking ease and never at rest And vvhen these evils vvithout him stir up a worse evil within him a conscience which calleth his sins to remembrance vvhat a perplexed and distracting thing is he what shifts and evasions doth he catch at He runneth from room to room from excuse to excuse from comfort to comfort He fluttreth and flieth to and fro as the Raven and would rest though it vvere on the outside of the Ark. This is the condition of those vvho are not in Christ But he that dwelleth in him that abideth in him knoweth not vvhat Fear is Col. 2.3 because he is in him in whom all the treasures of wisdome and power are hid and so hath ever his protection about him He knoweth not vvhat danger is for Wisdome it self conducteth him He knoweth not what an enemy is for power guardeth him He knoweth not vvhat misery is for he liveth in the region of happiness He that dwelleth in him cannot fear what Man vvhat Devil vvhat Sin can do unto him because he is in his armory abideth safely as in a Sanctuary 2 Tim. 1.12 under his wing I know whom I have trusted saith S. Paul not the World not my friends not my Riches not my Self Not onely the World and Riches and Friends are a thin shelter to keep off a storm but I know nothing in my self to uphold my self but I know whom I have trusted my Christ my King my Governour and Counsellor who hath taken me under his roof who cannot deny himself but in these evil dayes in that great day will be my patrone my defence my protection Thus doth the true Christian dwell abide in Christ 1. admiring his majesty 2. loving his command 3. depending vvholly upon his protection These three fill up our first part our first proposition That some act is required on our parts here expressed by dwelling in him We pass now to our second That something is also done by Christ in us some virtue proceedeth from him vvhich is here called dwelling in us There goeth forth virtue and power from him from his promises from his precepts from his life from his passion and death from vvhat he did from vvhat he suffered as there did to the vvoman who touching the hem of his garment was healed of her bloody issue Mark 5. Luke 8. a power by which he sweetly and secretly and powerfully characterizeth our hearts and writeth his mind in our minds and so taketh possession of them and draweth them into himself The Apostle telleth us he dwelleth in us by his spirit Rom. 8 11 14 and that we are led by the spirit in the whole course of our life Eph. 2.22 and that we are the habitation of God through the spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his tabernacle his temple which he consecrateth and setteth apart to his own use and service There is no doubt but a power cometh from him but I am almost afraid to say it there having been such ill use made of it For though it be come already Rom. 1.16 for the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation yet is it still expected expected indeed rather then hoped for For when it doth come we shut the door and set up our will against it and then look faintly after it and perswade our selves it will come at last once for all There is power in his Precepts for our Reason subscribeth and signeth them for true There is power in his Promises they shine in glory These are the power of Christ to every one that believeth And how can we be Christians if we believe not But this is his ordinary power which like the Sun in commune profertur is shewn on all at once There yet goeth a more immediate power and virtue from him we deny it not which like the wind worketh wonderful effects but we see not whence it cometh John 3.8 nor whither it goeth neither the beginning nor the end of it which is in another world The operations of the Spirit by reason they are of another condition then any other thought or working in us whatsoever are very difficult and obscure as Scotus observeth upon the Prologue to the Sentences for the manner not to be perceived no not by that soul wherein they are wrought Profuisse deprehendas quomodo profuerunt non deprehendes as Seneca in another case That they have wrought you shall find but the secret and retired passages by which they wrought are impossible to be brought to demonstration But though we cannot discern the manner of his working yet we may observe that in his actions and operations on the soul of man he holdeth the course even of natural agents in this respect that they strive to bring in their similitude and likeness into those things on which they work by a kind of force driving out one contrary with another to make way for their own form So Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac Jacob and every creature begetteth according to its own kind Plato said of Socrates's wise sayings that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the children of his mind so resembling him that you might see all Socrates in them So it is with Christ Where he dwelleth he worketh by his spirit something like unto himself He altereth the whole frame of the heart driveth out all that is contrary to him 2 Cor. 10.5 all imaginations which exalt themselves against him and never leaveth purging and fashioning us till a new creature like himself be wrought till Christ be fully formed in us Gal. 4.19 So it is with every one in vvhom Christ dwelleth And this he doth by the power of his Spirit 1. by quickning our Knowledge by shewing us the riches of his Gospel his beauty and majesty the glory and order of his house and that vvith that convincing evidence that vve are forced to fall dovvn and vvorship by filling our soul vvith the glory of it as God filled the tabernacle vvith his Exod. 40. that all the powers and faculties of the soul are ravisht vvith the sight and come vvillingly as the Psalmist speaketh fall down vvillingly before him by moving our soul as our Soul doth our Body that when he saith Go vve go and vvhen he saith Do this vve do it So it is in every one in vvhom Christ dwelleth 2. He dwelleth in us
in the face if it be flitting and unsetled this will vanish at the sight of the next object which presenteth it self with less distast vanish like the lightning which is seen and gone Sin is a heavy burden Psal 38.4 saith David It is so when it is felt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hard to be born Moles saith Augustine of a great bulk and weight And it is not a sigh or a grone a forced displacency it is not such weak and faint heaves of the soul that can remove such a mountain Isa 38.14 We see some who mourn like a dove and chatter like a crane when the hand of God toucheth them for their sin who speak mournfully look mournfully go mournfully all the day long who are cast down you would think indeed to the lowest pit and it is easy to mistake a Pharisee for a Penitentiary We read of some who did afflict and penance themselves with so much severity that they fell in morbum poenitentialem as Rhenanus observeth upon Tertullian into a strange distemper which they called the poenitentiary disease because it was contracted in the daies of Penance But all this doth not make up the full face of Repentance nor complete our Turn We may hang down our head like a bulrush Isa 58.5 we may fast till we have more need of a Physician then a Divine and yet too much need of both we may even seem to be afraid of our selves to be weary of our selves to run out of our selves and yet not Turn For these may be rather apparitions then motions Fasting Lamentation and that displacency which sin carrieth naturally along with it are glorious expressions and probable symptomes of a wounded spirit but yet many times they are nothing else but the types and shadows of Repantance signa non signantia signes indeed but such as signifie nothing Qui peccata deplorat ploranda minimè committat saith Gregory He truly bewaileth his sin who doth no longer practice what he will be forced to bewail He giveth a perfect account of his debts who is resolved never to add to the Bills He truly turneth who will never look back Haec poenitentiae vox est In Psal 118. lacrymis orare saith Hilary Tears and Complaints are the voice and language of Repentance If you see a Turn you see a Change also in the countenance But many times vox est praeterea nihil it is the voice of Repentance and nothing else For Sorrow and Dejection of mind have not alwayes the same beginnings nor do our Tears constantly flow from the same spring and fountain Omnis dolor fundatur in amore say the Schools All Grief is grounded on Love For as it is my Joy to have so is it my Grief to want what I love And our Grief may have no better principle then the Love of our selves and then it cometh à fumo peccati from the troublesome smoke which Sin maketh or rather from the very gall of bitterness a Grief begot betwixt Conscience and Lust betwixt the Deformity of Sin and the Pleasure thereof betwixt the Apprehension of a real evil and the Flattery of a seeming good When I am troubled not that I have sinned but that it is not lawful to sin much disquieted within me that that sin which I am unwilling to fly from is a serpent that will sting me to death Prov. 20.17 Prov. 23.32 that there is gravel in the bread of deceit that that unlawful pleasure which is at present as sweet as honey should at last bite like a cockatrice that the wayes in which I walk with delight should lead unto death that that Sin which I am unwilling to fling off hath such a troop of Sergeants and Executioners at her heels And so it cometh à fumo gehennae from the smoke of the bottomless pit from Fear of punishment which is far from a Turn but may prepare mature and ripen us for Repentance But then it may come from the Fear of God wrought in us by the apprehension of his Justice and Mercy and Dominion and Power to judge both the quick and the dead And this Grief is next to a Turn and the immediate cause of our Conversion when out of the admiration of Gods Justice Majesty and Goodness I am willing to offend my self for offending him and offer up to him some part of my substance the Anguish of my soul the Grones of contrition and my Tears Anastast Bibl Patrum which are ex ipsa nostra essentia sicut sanguis martyrum from our being and essence and are offered up as the bloud of Martyrs 3. And this Grief will in the third place open our mouthes and force us to a Confession and Acknowledgment of our sins I mean a sad and serious acknowledgment which will draw them out and not suffer them to be pressed down and settle like foul and putrified matter in the bottom of the soul as Basil expresseth it For the least grief is vocal In Psal 38. the least displacency will open our mouthes Yea where there is little sense or none we are ready to complain And because S. Pauls Humility brought him so low we look for an absolution if we can say what we may truely say 1 Tim. 1.15 but not with S. Pauls spirit that we are the chiefest of sinners Nothing more easy then to libel our selves where the Bill taketh in the whole world And the best of Saints as well as the worst of sinners Psal 51.5 how willing are they to confess with David that they are conceived in sin and born in iniquity How ready are we to call our selves children of wrath and workers of all unrighteousness What delight do we take to miscall our virtues to find infidelity in our Faith wavering in our Hope pride in our Humility ignorance in our Knowledge coldness in our Devotion and some degrees of Hostility in our very Love of God What can the Devil our great adversary and accuser say more of us then we are well pleased to say of our selves But this Acknowledgment is but the product of a lazy Knowledge and a faint and momentany disgust It cometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Stoick speaketh not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epict. Arr c 2. c. 15.1 It is but the calves of our lips not the sacrifice of our hearts We breathe it forth with noise and words enough We make our sins innumerable Psal 40.12 mo then the hairs of our head or the sands on the sea-shore but bring us to a particular account and we find nothing but ciphers some sins of daily incursion some of sudden subreption some minute and scarce visible sins but not the figure of any sin which we think will make up a number He that will confess himself the chief of sinners upon the must gentle remembrance and meekest reprehension will be ready to charge you as a greater or peradventure take you by the
remedio laboramus By our own folly and the Devils craft our disease doth not hurt us so much as our remedy Repentance which was ordained as the best Physick to purge the soul is turned into that poyson that corrupteth and killeth it What wandring thought what idle word what profane action is there which is not laid upon this fair foundation Hope of pardon which yet will not bear up such hay and stubble We call Sin a disease and so it is a mortal one But Presumption is the greatest the very corruption of the blood and spirits of the best parts of the soul We are sick of Sin it is true but that we feel not But we are sick very sick of Mercy sick of the Gospel sick of Repentance sick of Christ himself and of this we make our boast And our bold relyance on this doth so infatuate us that we take little care to purge out the plague of our heart which we nourish and look upon as upon Health it self We are sick of the Gospel for we receive it and take it down and it doth not purge out but enrage those evil humours which discompose the soul John 13.27 We receive it as Judas did the sop we receive it and with it a devil For this bold and groundless Presumption of pardon maketh us like unto him hardeneth our heart first and then our face and carrieth us with the swelling sails of impudence and remorselessness to an extremity of daring to that height of impiety from which we cannot so easily descend but must fall and break and bruise our selves to pieces Praesumptio invericundiae portio saith Tertullian Presumption is a part and portion and the upholder of Immodesty It falleth and careth not whither it ruineth us and we know not how it abuseth and dishonoureth that Mercy which it maketh a wing to shadow it It hath been the best purveiour for Sin and the kingdome of Darkness We read but of one in the Gospel that despaired Matth. 27.5 Acts 1.25 and hanged himself and so went to his place but how many thousands have gone a contrary way with less anguish and reluctancy with fair but false hopes with strong but feigned assurances and met him there Oh it is one of the Devils subtilest stratagemes to make Sin and Hope of heaven to dwell under the same roof to teach him who is his vassal to walk delicately in his evil wayes to rejoyce alwaies in the Lord even then when he fights against him to assure himself of life in the chambers of death And thus every man is sure The Schismatick is sure and the Libertine is sure the Adulterer is sure and the Murderer is sure the Traitour is sure they are sure who have no savour no relish of salvation The Schismatick hath made his peace though he have no charity The Libertine looketh for his reward though he do not onely deny good works but contemn them The Adulterer absolveth himself without Penance The Murderer knoweth David is entred heaven and hopeth to follow him The prosperous Traitour is in heaven already His present success is a fair earnest of another inheritance That God that favoureth him here will crown him hereafter Every man can do what he list and be what he list do what good men tremble to think of and yet fear not at all but expect the salvation of the Lord first damne and then canonize himself For the greatest part of the Saints of this world have been of their own Creation made up in the midst of the land of darkness with noise with thunder and earthquakes We may be bold to say If Despair hath killed her thousands Presumption hath slain her ten thousands Foolish men that we are who hath bewitched us that we lay hold on Christ when we thrust him from us make him our own and appropriate him when we crucifie and persecute him every day that we had rather phansie and imagine then make our election sure that we will have health and yet care not how we feed or what poison we let down that we make salvation an arbitrary thing to be met with when we please and can as easily be Saints as we can eat and drink as we can kill and slay Good God! what mist and darkness is this which maketh men possessed with Sin that is an enemy ready to devour them to be thus quiet and secure Could we or would we but a little awake and consult with the light of our Faith and Reason we should soon let go our confidence and plainly see the danger we are in whilst we are in our evil wayes and find Fear tied fast unto them So saith S. Paul But if you sin Rom. 13.4 fear Christian Security and Hope of life is the proper and alone issue of a good Conscience through faith in Christ purged from dead and evil works If we will leave our Fear Hebr. 9.14 we must leave our Evil works behind us Assurance is too choice a piece to be beat out by the phansie and to be made up when we please at a higher price then to be purchased with a thought It is a work that will take up an age to finish it the engagement of our whole life to be wrought out with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 not to be taken as a thing granted as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so set up as a pillar of hope when there is no better basis and foundation for it then a forced and fading thought which is next to air and will perish sooner The young man in the Gospel had yet no knowledge of any such Assurance-office and therefore he putteth up his question to our Saviour thus Good Master Matth. 19.16 Mark 10.17 what good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life He saw no hope of entring in at that narrow gate with such prodigious sins And our Saviour's answer is Keep the commandments that is Turn from thy evil wayes Be not Envious Malitious Covetous Cruel False Deceitful Despair is the daughter of Sin and Darkness but Confidence is the emanation of a good Conscience What Flesh and Blood maketh up is but a phantasme which appeareth and disappeareth is seen and vanisheth so soon gone that we scarce know whether we saw it or no. There can be no firm hope raised but upon that which is as mount Sion Psal 125.1 and standeth fast for ever which is our best guard in our way nay which is our way in this life and when we are dead will follow us Eras Adag Nothing can bear and afford it but this Vnum arbustum non alit duos erithacos Sin and Assurance are birds too quarrelsome to dwell in the same bush Therefore if you sin fear or rather turn from your evil wayes 1 John 3 21. and then you shall have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 boldness and confidence towards God We must therefore sink and fall low and mitigate our voice
most true it is that if we be induced and beautified with many virtues yet the habit of one sin is enough to deface them to draw that night and darkness about them that they shall not be seen to put them to silence that they shall have no power to speak or plead for us in the day of tryal Though they be not sins not bright and shining sins for I cannot see how Darkness it self should shine yet they shall become utterly unprofitable They may peradventure lessen the number of the stripes Luke 12.47 48. but yet the unrepentant sinner shall be beaten For what ease can a myriad of virtues do him who is under arrest Nay what performance can acquit him who is condemned already Reason it self standeth up against it and forbiddeth it For what obedience is that which answereth but in part which followeth one precept and runneth away from another And then what imperfect monsters should the kingdome of heaven receive a Liberal man but not chast a Temperate man but not honest a Zealous man but not charitable a great Faster and a great Impostour a Beads man and a Thief an Apostle and a great Preacher but a Traytour Monstrum horrendum informe Such a monstrous misshapen Christian cannot stand before him who is a pure and uncompounded Essence the Same in every thing and every where One and the same even Unity it self Again every man is not equally inclined to every sin This man loveth that which another loatheth and he who made the Devil fly at the first encounter may entertain him at the second he who resisted him in lust may yield to him in anger he who will none of his delicates may fail at his terrours and he who feared not the roaring of the Lion may be ensnared by the flattery of the Serpent For the force of temptations is many times quickned or dulled according to the natural constitutions and several complexions of men and other outward circumstances by which they work more coldly or more vehemently upon the will and affections A man of a dull and torpid disposition is seldom ambitious and one of a quick and active spirit is seldome idle The cholerick man is not obnoxious to those evils which melancholy doth hatch nor the melancholick to those which choler is apt to produce As hard a matter it may be for some men to commit some one sin as it is for others to avoid it Luk 12.19 20. as hard a matter for the one Fool in the Gospel to have scattered his goods Luke 15.13 as it was for the other Fool the Prodigal to have kept them as hard a matter for some to let loose their anger as it is for others to curb and bridle it Some by their very temper and constitution with ease withstand lust but must struggle and take pains to keep down anger Some can stand upright in poverty but are overthrown by wealth Some can resist this temptation by slighting it but must beat and macerate themselves and use a kind of violence before they can overcome another which is more sutable and flattereth their constitution And this we may find by those darts we cast at one another those uncharitable censures we pass For how doth the Covetous condemn and pity the Prodigal and how doth the Prodigal loath and scorn the Covetous How doth the Lukewarm Christian abominate the Schismatick and the Schismatick call every man Lukewarm if he be not as mad as himself How doth this man bless himself and wonder that any should fall into such or such a sin when he that committeth it wondreth as much that he should fall into the contrary The Enemy applieth himself to every humour and temper and having found where every man lieth open to invasion he striveth to make his battery where we are most assaultable and entreth with such forces as we are ready to obey with a Sword which the Revenger will snatch at with Riches which the Covetous will dig for with a dish of Dainties which the Glutton will greedily devour And what bait soever we tast of we are in his snare He hath his several darts and if any one pierce the heart he is a conquerour For he knoweth the wages of any one sin unrepented is death Rom. 6.23 We are indeed ready to flatter and comfort our selves in that sin which best complieth with our humour evermore to favour and pardon our selves in some sin or other and to make our obedience to one precept an advocate to plead for us and hold us up in the breach of another Luke 18.11 I am not as other men are there are more Pharisees then one that have spoken it Some sin or other there is either Profit or Pleasure or the like to which by complexion we are inclined which we oft dispense with as willing it should stay with us As Augustine confesseth of himself that when he prayed against Lust he was not very willing to be heard and afraid that God would too soon divorce him from his beloved sin At the same time we would be good and yet evil we would partake of life and yet joyn with that which tendeth unto death we would be converts and yet wantons we would turn from one sin and yet cleave fast to another Oh let me hug my Mammon saith the Miser and I will defy lust Let me take my fill of love saith the Wanton and I will spurn at wealth Let me wash my feet in the blood of mine enemies saith the Revenger and all other pleasure I shall look upon and loath I will fast and pray saith the Ambitious so they may be wings to carry me to the highest place where I had rather be then in heaven it self Every man may be induced to abstain from those sins which either hinder not or promote that to which he is carried by the swing of his natural temper and disposition Every nation in the times of darkness had its several God which they worshipped and neglected others So every man almost hath his beloved sin which he cleaveth to and rather then he will turn from it he will fling off all respect and familiarity to the rest he will abstain from evil in this kind so he make take in the other which is pleasant to him he will be for God so he may be for Baal too he will not Touch Col. 2.21 so he may Tast he will not look on this forbidden tree so he may pluck and tast of the other And this is to sport and please our selves in that evil way which leadeth to death For what though I scape the Lion Amos 5.19 if the Bear tear me in pieces What it is to lean our hand and rest upon the forbearance of some sins if a Serpent bite us What is to turn from many sins and yet be familiar with that which will destroy us Saul we know 1 Sam 15. spared many of the Amalekites when Gods command
apart for this holy use yet we must be careful that we attribute no more unto them than Christ the Authour doth We must not suffer our eyes to dazle at the outward Elements nor must we rest in the outward Action For this were in a manner to transsubstantiate the Elements and bring the Body and Bloud of Christ into them which nothing can do but Faith and Repentance This were to make the very action of Receiving opus privilegiatum as Gerson speaketh to give it a greater prerogative than was ever granted out of the court of Heaven This were to rest in the means as in the end and at once to magnifie and profane it This were to take it as our first parents did the Apple that our eyes may be opened and then to see nothing but our own shame This were to eat and to be damned But this we shall not need to insist upon For it is sufficient to point out to it as to a thing to be done And that we may do it besides the Authority and Command and Love of the Authour we have all those motives and inducements which use to stir up and incite us unto action even then when our hands are folded and we unwilling to move as 1. the Fitness and Applyableness of it to our present condition 2. the Profit and Advantage it may bring 3. the Pleasure and Delight it carrieth along with it 4. the Necessity of it which are as so many allurements and invitations as so many winds to drive us on and make us fly to it as the Doves to their windows Isa 60.8 And first it fitteth and complyeth as it were with our present condition blanditur nostrae infirmitati and even flattereth and comforteth and rowzeth up our weakness and infirmity As our Saviour speaketh upon another occaâ—â—on John 12.30 2 Cor. 5.7 This voyce this institution came for our sake We walk by faith saith the Apostle Et hoc est nostrae infirmitatis saith the Father and this is a sign and an argument of humane infirmity that we walk by faith that God can come no nearer to us nor we to him that we see him onely with that eye which 1 Cor. 13.12 Gen. 2.18 c. when it is clearest seeth him but as in a glass darkly And therefore as God sent Adam into the world and gave him adjutorium simile sibi a help convenient and meet for him so doth he place us in his Church and affordeth us many helps meet for us and attempered to our frailty and humane infirmity He speaketh to our Ear and he speaketh to our Eye he speaketh in thunder and he speaketh in a still voyce He passeth his promise and sealeth and confirmeth it He preacheth to us by his word and he preacheth to us by these ocular Sermons by visible Elements by Water to purge us and by Bread and Wine to strengthen us in his grace and omitteth nothing that is meet and convenient for us When God told the people of Israel that he would no longer go before them himself he withall telleth them he would send his Angel which should lead them and when we are not capable of a nearer approach he sendeth his Angels his Word his Apostles his Sacraments which like those ministring Spirits Hebr. 1.14 minister for them who are heirs of salvation And not content with the general declaration of his mind he addeth unto it certain seals and external signs that we may even see and handle and tast the word of life 1 Joh. 1.1 And as it was said by Laban and Jacob when they made a covenant Gen. 31.48 c. This stone shall be witness between us so God doth say to thy soul by these outward Elements This covenant have I made with thee and this that thou seest shall witness between thee and me Do thou look upon it and bring a bleeding renewed heart with thee and then do this and I will look upon it Gen. 9.16 as upon the Rain-bow and remember my covenant which was made in the blood of my Son I thus frame and apply my self to thee in things familiar to thy sight that thou mayest draw nearer and nearer to that light which now thy mortal eye thy frailty and infirmity cannot attain to And shall we not meet and embrace that help which is so fitted and proportioned to us Secondly Profit is a lure and calleth all men after it And if you ask with the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What profit is there Rom 3 1â—2 we may answer with him Much every manner of way For what is profit but the improvement of our estate the bettering of our condition As in the increase of Jacobs cattel the doubling of Jobs sheep as when Davids sheep-hook was changed into a scepter here was improvement and advantage And this we find in our spiritual addresses in our reverent access to this Table a great improvement in some thirty in some sixty in some an hundred fold Mark 4.20 a Will intended a Love exalted our Hope increased our Faith quickened more earnestly looking on God more compassionately on our Brethren more Light in our Understanding more Heat in our Affections more Constancy in our Patience every vitious Inclination weakned every Virtue rooted and established What is but brass it refineth into gold raiseth the man the earthy man to the participation of a Divine nature And shall we not be covetous of that which is so profitable and advantageous Thirdly Pleasure is attractive is eloquent and pleadeth for admittance Who will not do that which bringeth much delight and pleasure when it is done And here in this action of worthy Receiving is not that short transitory Meteor the flattery and titillation of the outward man but that new heaven which Reason and Religion create in the mind Isa 9.3 the joy of the harvest as the Prophet speaketh Psal 126.5 for here we reap in joy what we sowed in tears the joy and triumph of a Conquerour for here we tread down our enemy under our feet the joy of a prisoner set at liberty for this is our Jubilee And such a joy the blood of Christ if it be tasted and well digested must necessarily bring forth a pure refined spiritual heavenly joy Pretious blood saith S. Peter 1 Pet. 1.19 not to be shed for a trifle for that joy which is no better then madness and the blood of an immaculate Lamb not to be poured forth for a stained wavering fugitive joy for a joy as full of pollution as the World and the Flesh from whence it springeth Bring but a true tast with thee a soul purged from those vitious humours which vitiate and corrupt it and here is not onely Bread and Wine Psal 4.7 but living Bread Bread that putteth gladness into the heart more then Corn and Wine can Here is Christ here is Joy here is Heaven it self And shall we not do that which filleth
mingled his tears with his Saviours bloud is a welcome guest at this Table What then is to be done in this case when the conscience of some habit of sin keepeth us from coming Certainly a great sin it must needs be to make one sin an apology for another to excuse a sin of omission by a sin of commission and when I will not do that which I should to put in this plea That I have done what I should not This knot then like the Gordian knot must be cut asunder with the sword with the sword of the spirit That habit of sin must be shaken off and we must use a violence upon our selves strive and labour with earnestness and by practising that which is contrary to it to be less and less fettered and entangled every day For to remain in it cannot be Infirmity or Weakness for that name we give even to Malice it self but Obstinacy and a pleasing and wilfull Perseverance in sin Why wilt thou not come or rather why wilt thou still sin For what wert thou made a Christian For what did the grace of God appear For what did his most pretious bloud gush out of his sides but to purge and cleanse thee from thy sin Why dost thou love thy disease Why dost thou favour thy flesh and corruption Why dost thou envenom and fester thy sore Why art thou such a Judas as first to betray thy Saviour and then hang thy self Why dost thou still stand out and wilt not be cured Why dost thou prefer thy Sin before the Sacrament thy husks before the Bread of life Why art thou sick and wilt be sick dying and resolved to die Thou wilt not come because thou hast sinned Break off thy sin and come If thou condemnest thy self why dost thou not forsake thy self Dost thou acknowledge what thou art and yet continue what thou art Thou who wilt strike that man to the ground who standeth in the way to honour or wealth hast not heart enough to destroy that sin which thou sayst doth obstruct thy passage and keep thee from this Feast from the Table of the Lord which was spread on purpose that thou shouldst first demolish and remove thy sin and then come and eat This then is but an hindrance and a block of offense of our own hewing an evil spirit which we invited to us and we must cast it out Tell me canst thou believe Why then thou mayst come Is thy faith strong enough to cast down those imaginations which set themselves up against Christ 2 Cor. 10.5 to work in thee holy desires and resolutions And art thou now in an agony in a blessed contention with thy self Art thou serious in the resistance of thy enemy and dost thou gain some conquest over him every day Then thou maist come though thou art not yet made perfect For we must remember that the weaker Christian lye not down under his burden not able to move towards the cup of blessing when it is reacht forth unto him we must remember I say that Faith and true sanctifying Grace have a wide latitude that they are not so quick and active in one man as in another and yet may save both There be who by continual watching over themselves by continual strugling with themselves by a vehement and incessant pressing forward are welnear come unto the mark who have so confirmed themselves in the profession and exercise of Christian Religion that they run their race with joy and are scarce sensible of a tentation who have made Holiness so familiar to them that no wile or enterprise of Satan can divorce them In a word who by that seed which is in them keep themselves that the Wicked one toucheth them not 1 John 3.9 and 5.18 Luke 14.18 c. as S. John speaketh These have no Oxen nor Farms these are not married to the World and therefore they will come Again there be some who are but as it were Incipients in the School of Christ in their way labouring and panting forward as it were in fieri in the making framing and composing themselves by that royal Law which the Church of Christ holdeth forth unto them who though they have for some time suckt the breasts of the Church and received the sincere milk of the Word 1 Pet. 2.2 are not yet grown thereby into perfect men in Christ Jesus have not yet that strength to destroy the whole body of sin but fall sometimes into this sin sometimes into that but those they fall into are not so many nor so manifest not so offensive and hurtful to others not of that number or bulk as to shut them out of the Church or to exclude them from the Communion of Saints Phil. 3.12 These have not yet attained but they follow after Though they have an eye toward the world yet they come to Christs Table with a firm resolution to pluck it out Though their right hand offendeth them yet they will cut it off and with all their strength and with all their soul shake off the yoke of sin and take Christ's upon them and even now are they hot and intentive on that work These men I say may nay ought to come and here quicken their Faith improve their Charity strengthen and fix their Resolutions And they who are so severe and over-rigid as to drive them from it do shut themselves out though not from the Table yet from the Feast and are more unfit then they because they want that Charity which is required of a guest Matth. 12.20 even that Charity which will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax Numb 11.29 It was a pious wish of Moses Would God all the Lords people were Prophets And it were as much piety to wish and with his spirit Would all Christians were perfect that every one were as S. Paul 1 Cor. 4.4 and knew nothing by himself But we are in via And as travellers on the way one man maketh more hast then another walketh with more ease and delight slippeth not falleth not so often another walketh after though not with the same speed and chearfulness because he meeteth with rubs and difficulties which he every day contendeth with and both at last by the guidance of the same Spirit and by the power of a compassionate Saviour come to their journeys end and he that goeth before and he that cometh more faintly and slowly after meet at last and sit down together in the same heaven And now in such variety of tempers such diversity of tentations amongst so many errours which some men quit themselves of with less some with more trouble we may applaud those who are near the top of perfection but we must not despise those who are in their ascent and labouring and striving forward after them not quench the spirit in any man though it burn not so brightly in some as it doth in others who are more fully enlightned not shut them
and grind him with our oppression not build him a tabernacle in his glory and deny him at his cross No Love speaketh to Christ as the Israelites did to Joshua Josh 1. Whatsoever he commandeth it will do and whithersoever he leadeth it will go against powers and principalities against tribulation and persecution against the power of darkness and the Devil himself This is the dialect of Love And if Love wax cold that it doth not plainly speak this holy tongue here is the Altar and from it thou mayst take a live cole to touch it that it may revive and burn within thee And that heart is not cold but dead which the Love of Christ presented and tendered in the Sacrament cannot quicken and stir up into a flame If this work not a miracle in us and dispossess us of the dumb spirit it is because of our unbelief Again we shew the Lord's death by our Repentance which speaketh in grones and sighs unutterable When we dye to sin we then best shew the death of the Lord. Then his sorrow is seen in ours and his agony in our strugling and contention with our selves His complaints are heard in ours and are the very same My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We are lifted up as it were on a cross the powers of our soul are stretched and dilated our hearts are pierced our Flesh is crucified and Sin fainteth and when all is finished will give up the ghost And then when we rise to newness of life it will be manifest that Christ is in us of a truth A penitent sinner is the best shew of the best Sermon on a crucified Saviour And here in this so visible presentment of his Body and Bloud our wounds must needs bleed afresh our Anger be more hot our Indignation higher our Revenge more bitter and our Complaints louder Here we shall repent of our Repentance it self that it is not so serious so true so universal as it should be Here our wounds as David speaketh will corrupt and putrefie But the bloud of Christ is a precious balm to cure them Christ shall wash away our tears still our complaints take away our sorrow and by the power of his Spirit seal us to the day of Redemption Last of all we must shew the Lord's death with Reverence With Reverence why the Angels desire to look into it Thrones and Dominations bow and adore it and shall not Dust and ashes sinning dying men fall down and worship that Lord who hath taken away the sting of Death which is Sin and swallowed up Death it self in victory Let us then shew the Lord's death with fear and rejoyce with trembling By Reverence I do not mean that vain unnecessary apologizing Reverence which withdraweth us from this Table and detaineth us amongst the swine at the husks because we have made our selves unworthy to go to our Father's house a Reverence which is the daughter and nurse of Sin begot of Sin and multiplying Sin the Reverence of Adam behind the bush who was afraid and hid himself unwilling to come out of the thicket when God called him a Reverence struck out of these two Conscience of sin and Unwillingness to forsake it And what Reverence is that which keepeth the sick from the Physician maketh the wounded afraid of balm and a sinner run from his Saviour This Reverence we must tread under foot with the mother that bare it and dash it against the Rock the Rock Christ Jesus First be reverent and sin no more and then make our approches to Christ with reverence Shew our death to sin that we may shew the death of the Lord for it First leave our sin behind us and then draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith When as Job speaketh we are afraid of all our works of our Faith that it is but weak and call to him to strengthen it of our Love that it is not hot enough and then stir it up of our Hope that it is but feeble and then feed it with the bloud of Christ of our Sorrow that it is not great enough and then drop a tear of our Repentance that it is not sincere enough and then smite our hearts look upon the wounds of Christ and then rip up our own that they may open and take in his bloud when we are afraid of our Reverence that it is not low enough and then lay the cross of Christ upon it all the benefits of a Saviour and our own sins to press it down lower and make him more glorious and us more vile in our own eyes When we have thus washed our hands in innocencie and our souls in the bloud of the immaculate Lamb then Faith will quicken us and Hope embolden us and Love encourage us and Repentance lead us on with fear and reverence to compass his Altar For these are operative and will evaporate will break thy heart humble thy look cast down thy countenance bow thy knee and lay thee prostrate before the Mercy-seat the Table of the Lord. Thus if we shew his Death he will shew himself to us a Lord and a Saviour he will shew us his hands and his side he will shew his wounds and his bloud the virtue of his sufferings shall stream out upon our souls and water and refresh them and we shall return from his Table as the Disciples did from his sepulchre with great joy even with that joy which is a pledge and type of that eternal jubilating joy at his Table in the Kingdom of Heaven The Six and Twentieth SERMON 1 COR. XI 28. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. AMongst all the duties of a Christian whether Moral or Ceremonial there is not one but requireth something to be done before it be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Those velitations and trials which are before the sight are a part of that exercise and they are called Mysteries which do but make way and lead us to the mysteries themselves Preparation to the duties of Christianity we must count as a part of those duties or else we shall come short in the performance of them so do them as that it had been better we had left them undone Eccl. 5.1 It is good to go up to the house of the Lord but we must first keep our feet subdue our foul and irregular affections It is good to offer sacrifice but we must first clense our hands or else we shall but give the sacrifice of fools It is good to give alms with our right hand but so that our left hand know it not It is good to pray but not standing in the synagogues or the corners of the streets It is good to fast but vvithout a disfigured face In all our approches to God vve must keep our feet vvalk forvvard vvith reverence and preparation for the place is not onely holy but dangerous to stand in
There is danger in giving Alms danger in a Fast danger in Prayer And as there is danger in forbearing so there is danger also in coming to the Lord's Table And the reason why vve do not perfect every good vvork is because vve do not reverence it as vve should not gird up our loins and lift up our hearts vvith that devotion and preperation vvhich is due unto it We think to Give an alms is but to fling a mite into the treasury to Fast but to abstain for a day to Pray but to say Lord hear me and to shew Christ's death till he come but to sit down at his Table and eat of his bread and drink of his cup. But this is to dishonour and undervalue those duties which duly performed would honour and glorifie us This is to be officiperdae in this sense also to destroy our work before we begin it For what place can a strict obedience have amongst those thoughts which choke and stifle it Or what welcome is he like to find at such a Feast that cometh as the Corinthians did drunk to the Table Where the birth is so sudden so immature how can it chuse but prove abortive No He that will offer up his prayers must offer up more then the calves of his lips He that will have an open hand must first have a melting heart He that will fast must first feed on himself eat and work out all the corruption of his heart Behold here God hath spred his Table and invited you to a Feast to a feast of the Body and Bloud of his Son And the Spirit and the Bride say Come And let him that is athirst come and take of this Bread of life and Water of life freely But what Vers 18 19. shall we come as Schismaticks or Hereticks Shall we come with pride and malice with contempt of the Church and bringing shame to our brethren Shall we come drunken This is not to discern the Lord's body not to discern the Bread which in the Sacrament is to him the Lord's body from common bread He that thus cometh and eateth and drinketh is guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord as guilty as those Jews that crucified him For this is to put him to open shame Hebr. 6.6 to count of him no more then as if he had been an Impostor and so to tread him under foot Here certainly no caution can be enough though we look about us as he speaketh with a thousand eyes This consideration should work and imprint in us such a care and solicitude as should severely and impartially weigh what on either side either fear of danger or hope of advantage love of a Saviour or terrour of a Judge may suggest how better then Manna this spiritual refreshment may be and how it may be turned into poison This the Corinthians laid not to heart And on the same pillow of supine negligence and inconsideration do too many Christians at this day lie and sleep And as men in passion or some sudden amaze cannot have leisure to believe what they feel and suffer so do they not believe what they cannot but know or not consider what they believe which is far worse then to be ignorant They discern not the Lord's body mistake the shadow for the substance rest in the outward act of eating and drinking look upon nothing but that which is visible in the ceremony think not on the end to which it tendeth and so use it not with that spiritual sense and feeling which is answerable to the institution Therefore against this wilfull blindness and ignorance this supine and profane negligence doth our Apostle here draw up his whole force and strength to demolish it He blameth them and he directeth them he useth his rod and he bespeaketh them in the spirit of meekness and like a skilful artist he first openeth and searcheth the wound and then with a gentle hand a hand of love he applieth this soveraign plaister in my Text To avoid this evil Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup. The words are plain and we need not descant upon them nor labour in dividing of them Here are two things presented to us 1. Our Qualification for and 2. our Admission to the Feast 1. a Duty To examine our selves 2. a Grant or Privilege To eat of that bread and drink of that cup. Or 1. our Preparation and 2. our Welcome Or 1. our Initiation and 2. our Consignation First we must examine ourselves and then we are received and admitted in Sanctum Sanctorum into the Holy of Holies unto the participation of these Mysteries to eat of this Bread and to drink of this Cup. Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup. Examination is in order first and therefore first to be handled And this we shall find to be a duty of no quick dispatch but which requireth care and a curious and diligent observation whether we look upon it in the generality or in its particular application and reference to the blessed Sacrament Examine our selves Why that is assoon done almost as said We can do it in the twinkling of an eye some few dayes before the eve before the hour before the time We think we do it though we never do it But if we look nearer on it we shall find it business enough for our whole life For to examine our selves is to take a true and strict survey of all the passages of our life to follow our Thoughts which have wings and flie in and flie out bring in and drive out one another to call to remembrance our Words which have wings too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flie from us but leave an impression and guilt in the soul and to number our Actions and weigh them all in the balance of the Sanctuary to gain a distinct knowledge of our spiritual estate to read an Anatomy-lecture on our selves to anatomize and dissect our Hearts which are deceitful above all things to follow Sin in all the Meanders and Labyrinths it maketh to pluck off its dress to wash off its paint to drive it out of the thicket of excuses and by the light of Scripture to take a full view of our selves Psal 119.59 in a word to consider our wayes to consider not to glance upon them but to look upon them again and again to look through them to look stedfastly and with an impartial eye so to fix our thoughts on them that we may turn our feet unto God's testimonies And by this course we shall find in what Grace we are defective with what Sin we are most stained what is to be mortified and destroyed and what is to be exalted and improved in us And to the right performance of this duty there is I say great care and diligence required because we are to deal with our selves who are commonly the greatest
the times I should say these were they wherein men should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lovers of themselves that is blind to themselves ignorant of themselves And then what an Iliad what an army of evils follow whilst Self-love leadeth in the front First Lovers of their own selves and then Covetous Boasters Proud Blasphemers Disobedient to parents Vnthankful Vnholy Without natural affection Truce-breakers False-accusers Incontinent Fierce Despisers of those that are good Traitors Heady High-minded Lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God And take that which followeth Having a form of godliness but denying the power of it And indeed Self-love contenteth it self with a form but will never lead us on so far as to the expression of the power of Godliness Glorious shews fair pretences holy intentions probable excuses which all make up but the statue and image of Religion these Pygmalion-like she doteth upon and so runneth on in the course of sin as a blind horse doth with a mill from hypocrisie to deceit from deceit to oppression from worse to worse and at last soothly falleth in love with them as if they were vertues indeed which will crown us everlastingly hiding us from our own eyes and making that the best argument we have that God seeth us not For if the knowledge of God did enlighten us and were in us of a truth if we could beg but so much time from our Self-love as to look into our selves we should then quickly see the Devil in his own shape and likeness and every vice in its proper horrour and deformity And such an uncouth and ghastly sight would soon turn our melody into lamentations change our countenance loose our joynts and turn our love of our selves into hatred and detestation which is truly the Love of our selves or a fair step and rise unto it For Self-examination would drive out Self-love and by drawing us near unto our selves would draw us near unto God And were we once near unto God we who are those great ones in our own eyes would appear but as atomes as nothing In the night when the Stars are remote from the Sun we may then discern one star of this magnitude and another of that then as the Apostle speaketh one star differeth from another in glory but in the day when they are in the same hemisphere with the Sun then that which before was a bright and twinkling star is not seen and though one Star be greater then another yet we cannot by our eye discover whether there be any Star or no. So it falleth out in that dark night which Ignorance and Self-love make we shine as stars in the firmament and our very darkness is brighter to us then the light it self but when vve have chased away this mist and cast off this darkness by a sad and serious discussion of our selves when we draw near unto God and by reflexion of light from him see every nook and corner of our hearts when the Sun of righteousness thus appeareth in our hemisphere then that which was before a star is nothing that which was beauty in the dark in this day is rottenness and deformity these Stars are fallen from their firmament from their painted heaven made up of Pleasure and Profit and the Love of our selves De coelo descindit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This light discendeth from above from the Father of lights And till by this light we see our selves in our own shape and likeness and every sin in its proper magnitude and malignity we know neither God nor our selves but we love our selves and not God which is indeed if Wisdome may interpret it Prov. 8.36 to love Death it self Now in the third place as Ignorance begetteth Self-love so doth Self-love increase our Ignorance and both together ingender Pride 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil doth soon bring in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haughtiness of mind And haughtiness of mind setteth us in our altitudes at a strange 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above the Law above the Truth above wholsom Doctrine above those who are set over us in the Lord and above God himself A sin that threw down Lucifer from heaven and every day excommunicateth and divideth us from our selves that despiseth counsel hateth reproof is death to admonition maketh the Flesh tutor and counsellor to the Spirit and every man a parasite and a Devil to himself Therefore saith the same Father every sin is a kind of contumelious pride The injurious person lifteth up himself against Justice the incontinent man against Chastity and laugheth at that strictness which maketh a covenant with the eye the profane person smileth at reverence in a word the fool looketh big upon the wise For as the Physicians tell us of their succedanea and agnata certain distempers which commonly follow the disease and are the very dregs of it so where this pestilent contagion of Pride hath once infected the soul of man and the powers of it there must needs follow a strange kind of dyscrasie and distemper even all the sins we are obnoxious to which are nothing else but the consectaries as it were of this foul and venemous humour all of the same bloud and consanguineous with it All those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Paul calleth them those wandring notions and strong imaginations are the vapours of a heart corrupted with Pride So are those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disputes and subtle reasonings against God and our own souls Syllogismi verè destructivi destructive Syllogismes where Pride and Disobedience make up the Premisses and both naturally meet with Death and Hell in the Conclusion Now these three Self-love Ignorance of our selves and Pride take us from our selves bury us alive and make us but the walking sepulchres of our selves For he that thus loveth himself flattereth himself and with his flatteries covereth and raketh up himself as under earth And he that knoweth not himself is in the house of darkness and the land of oblivion And he that is proud when he is at the highest is falling into the lowest pit nay he is fallen already and his own eye shall never see him any more or if he be above ground he is but like those dead carcases which they say the Devil taketh and walketh up and down with Certainly he that is possessed with these three is lost is dead is buried to himself and nothing can dispossess him or raise him from the dead but an impartial Examination of himself which will shake the powers of this grave and raise him from this pit of darkness and desolation For the Philosopher Seneca could tell us Non emendabis te nisi deprehenderis Thou shalt never be able to amend thy self till thou find thy self out and thou shalt never find out thy self unless thou seek and search with diligence This is a grave of thine own digging and thou must go down thy self into it and discover thine own rottenness and corruption before thou canst be
delivered from this body of death Nor is it enough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stoop and look into it as Peter and John did into our Saviours For quod ferè fit non fit A perfunctory and flight examination is none at all and that which is but almost done is not done No. Scelera propiùs admovet Thou must draw thy sin nearer and nearer unto thee that it may appear in its full horrour without its dress and paint that monster which it is that thou mayest revile and destroy it When the Patriarchs had sold their brother Joseph into Egypt for ten years space and above they saw it not to be a sin or at such a distance that it never troubled them but when affliction drew it nearer to them they then cried Guilty We are verily guilty said they of our bother's bloud How still and quiet are the most crying sins because we will not hearken to them and what a Nothing is the greatest sin because we will not look stedfastly upon it Nor is it enough to look upon it thy self with distaste as upon a loathsom and stinking carcase for Sin cannot but work some distaste if it be looked upon But thou must try it by all the killing circumstances which made it a sin and made it more sinful that Contrariety it beareth to God and his purity that huge Incongruity it carrieth to that image after which thou wert created that Opposition it standeth into a most just Law so fitted and proportioned to thee and that sting it hath nay that Sting it is for it is the very sting of Death And then if thou grone in the spirit and trouble thy selfe as thy Saviour did at Lazarus's tomb if thou cry loud unto the Lord and send up strong grones and supplications this Lazarus this dead sinner will come forth And this thou must do in every sin Find it out and so find out and deprehend thy self Not onely those grosser sins which are open as the Apostle speaketh and manifest to all men and carry shame in their very foreheads as Adultery Drunkenness Murther quae suâ se corpulentiâ produnt which betray themselves by their bulk and corpulency which are like those rocks that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eminent in sight above the waters But those sins also which are as rocks covered with waves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 close and invisible as Malice Revenge Ambition Love of the world Evil thoughts Loose desires which are of a closer and more retired nature and so much the more dangerous by how much they are the less sensible even all those speculative sins which are acted within the compass of the heart and which no man can see and as they are espied by none so neither can they be restrained by any but our selves Those grosser sins which commonly disturb and break the peace of that Commonwealth whereof we are a part outward Laws and the authority of those who are set over us may cut down as the Angel did the branches and the body of the Tree Dan. 4. but we may bind the stump and preserve it in our hearts For to grub up the root to rectifie the heart to take away speculative and secret sins which no other eye can search and find out but our own this every man after due examination must do himself every man must be his own Angel For In the next place to draw out the full compass of this Duty and so give it you in its utmost extent and latitude this Examination reacheth further then the word in its native signification can import For To Examine is but To weigh and ponder To bring thy self and thy actions to a trial To behold thy own shape To see what thou art and in what state and condition and in what relation towards thy God To open and spread thy conscience which S. Augustine calleth stolam animae the garment of the soul and observe what is loose and ravelled by negligence what is stained and defaced by luxury what is sindged by anger what is cut and mangled by envy what is sullied by covetousness This is a good and advantageous work But then this work must not end in it self but we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 propose the true end and draw all up to it which is To purge the conscience To supply what is defective To repair what is defaced To beautifie what is slurred To complete what is imperfect which is to renew our selves in the inward man Finis specificat actionem It is the end that commendeth the action and giveth it its perfection Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to prove and examine here in the Text the Apostle ver 31. interpreteth by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is here to examine is there to judge our selves Which includeth Repentance Revenge on our selves Tears and Fasting and Contrition and Humiliation all that severe discipline of Striving and Fighting with our selves of Denying our selves of Demollishing imaginations and of Crucifying our flesh that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great Circumcision of the heart all this we must pass through before we have brought our Trial and Examination to an end before we can be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfect fit to be received into the presence of God and admitted to his Table For what a vain work were it to examine a thief if we do not judge him to implead him and bring witnesses if after the bill is found we proceed not to sentence and condemn him Or wouldest thou find a thief lurking in a corner of thy house and not drive him out Canst thou see a sin rising up in thy soul ready to devour thee and not drown it with thy tears behold Oppression and not strike out its teeth Adultery and not stone it Deceit and Fraud and not put it to shame Hast thou found out the Devil in a garment of light and wilt thou still be a Pharisee Or again after a survey hast thou found thy soul run to ruine and decay and wilt not thou take pains to repair it a feeble Faith and not strengthen it A wavering Hope and not uphold and support it Or canst thou see thy Charity waxing cold and not stir it up and enliven it Shall thy House the Temple of the holy Ghost fall upon thee whilest thou standest and lookest on and at last art sunk and lost in the ruines This were like that unwise builder to begin and not be able to make an end or as the custom at feasts was at the beginning to bring forth good wine and when we have well tasted of it then that which is worse Which is to make the beginning nothing nay worse then nothing For it is the greatest folly in the world to discover an ambush and yet fall into it to see an enemy and not avoid him The sin groweth greater if we look upon it and not run from it If we behold its ugly threatning countenance and not bid defiance to it
sojourners and strangers in the earth It is true strangers we are for all are so and passing forward apace to our journeys end but not to that end for which we were made Therefore that we may reach and attain to it we must make our selves so Eph. 4.22 put off the old man which loveth to dwell here take off our hopes and desires from the world look upon all its glories as dung look upon it as a strange place Phil. 3.8 upon our selves as strangers in it and look upon the place to which we are going fling off every weight shake off every vanity Hebr. 12.1 every thing that is of the earth earthy make haste delay not but leave it behind us even while we are in it for a Christian mans life is nothing else but a going out of it And to this end in the last place you must take along with you your viaticum your Provision the Commandments of Gods Hide not thy commandments from me saith David And he spake as a stranger and as in a strange place as in a place of danger as in a dark place where he could not walk with safety if this light did not shine upon him Here we meet with variety of objects Here are Serpents to flatter us and Serpents to bite us here are Pleasures and Terrours all to deceive and detein us Here we meet with that Archenemy to all strangers and pilgrimes in several shapes now as a roaring Lion 1 Pet. 5.8 and sometimes as an Angel of light 2 Cor. 11.14 And though we try it not out at fists with him as those foolish Monks boasted they had often tried this kind of hardiment though we meet him not as a Hippocentaur Hic on de vita Pauli Eremitae Malchi Hilarionis as the story telleth us Paul the Hermite did or as a Satyre or she-Wolf as Hilarion did to whom were presented many fearful things the roaring of Lions the noise of an Army Chariots of fire coming upon him Wolves Foxes Sword-plaiers and I cannot tell what though we do not feel him as a Satyre yet we feel him as voluptuous though we do not see him as a Wolf yet we apprehend him thirsting after bloud though we meet him not in the shape of a Fox yet non ignoramus versutias 2 Cor. 2.11 we are not ignorant of his wiles and enterprises though we do not see him in the Tempest we may in our fear and though his hand be invisible yet we may feel him in our impatience and falling from the truth We cannot say in our affliction This is his blow but we may hear him roar in our murmuring Or we may see him in that mongrel Christian made up of Ignorance and Fury of a Man and a Beast which is more monstrous then any Centaure We may see him in that Hypocrite that deceitful man who is a Fox and the worst of the cub We may meet him in that Oppressour who is a Wolf in that Tyrant and Persecutour who is a roaring Lion In some of these shapes we meet him every day in this our Pilgrimage And here in the world we can find nothing to secure us against the World Adversity may swallow up Pleasure in victory but not the Love of it Impotency and Inability may bridle and stay my Anger but not quench it Providence may defend me from evil but not from Fear of it Nor can the World yield us any weapon against it self Therefore God hath opened his Armoury of heaven and given us his Commandments to be our light our provision our defense in our way to be as our Pilgrimes staff our Scrip our Letters commendatory Ps 91.11 to be our Angels to keep us in all our waies And there is no safe walking for a stranger without them And as when the children of Israel were in the wilderness God rained down Manna upon them and led them as it were by the hand till he brought them to the land of promise so he dealeth still with all that call upon his name whilest they are in via in this their peregrination ever and anon beset with temptations which may detein and hinder them He raineth down abundance of his grace Wisd 16.20 which like that Manna will serve the appetite of him that taketh it is like to that which every man wanteth and applieth it self to every tast to all callings and conditions to all the necessities of a stranger Thus we walk by faith 2 Cor. 5.7 Festina fides Faith is on the wing and leaveth the world behind us Heb. 11.1 is the substance and evidence of things not seen It looketh not on those things which are seen 2 Cor. 4.18 and please a carnal eye or if it do it looketh upon them as Joshua did upon Ai Josh 8.5 c. first turneth the back and then all its strength against them maketh us fly from them that we may overcome them 1 Joh. 5.4 For this is the victory which overcometh the world even our faith Hebr. 6.19 20 And Festina spes Hope too is in her flight and followeth our Forerunner Jesus to enter with him that which is within the veil even the Holy of holies Heaven it self Spe jam sumus in coelo We are already there by hope And to him that hath seen the beauty of Holiness the World is but a loathsome spectacle to him that truly trusteth in God it is lighter then Vanity and he passeth from it And then our Love of God is our going forth our peregrination It is a perishing a death of the soul to the world If it be truly fixt no pleasure no terrour nothing in the world can concern us but they are to us as those things which the traveller in his way seeth and leaveth every day and we think no more of the glory of them then they who have been dead long ago Col. 3.3 For we are dead saith the Apostle and our life is hid hid from the world with Christ in God Our Temperance tasteth not our Chastity toucheth not our Poverty in spirit handleth not those things which lye in our way but we pass by them as impertinencies as dangers as things which may pollute a soul more then a dead body could under the Law The stranger the pilgrime passeth by all His Meekness maketh injuries and his Patience afflictions light and his Christian Fortitude casteth down every strong hold every imagination which may hinder him in his course Every act of Piety is a kind of sequestration and driveth us if not from the right yet from the use of the world Every Virtue is to us as the Angel was to Lot Gâ—n 19.14 17. and biddeth Arise and go out of it taketh us by the hands and biddeth us haste and escape for our life and not look behind us And with this Provision as it were with the two Tables in our hands we
the grim visage of Anger and the horrour of Cruelty Pleasure boweth the Covetous for he loveth to look upon his wealth It lifteth up the head of the Proud for he is his own paradise and walketh in the contemplation of himself as in the palace which he hath made It whetteth the sword of the Revenger for his delight is in bloud It grindeth the teeth of the Oppressour for the poor are his bread It is the first mover I may say the form of every sin From hence arise those motions contrary to Reason which dâ—stroy all sanctified thoughts which do as the Philosopher speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rob us of consultation oppress and put out the light of the soul and leave us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were fighting in the dark in the midst of Ignorance and Confusion Like those Egyptian thieves they first embrace and then strangle us The Sun now affordeth no light the heaven is not spangled with stars but filled and veiled with clouds And as Diomedes could not see the Goddess in the cloud no more can we see the face of Truth and beauty of Virtue in this darkness and confusion And can we now expect comfort from those whose very comforts are mortal which please with hurting and hurt with pleasing and their end is desolation and mourning Occidua res est omnis voluptas All sensual delight even when it riseth is in its setting and going down and then casteth a long shadow which is nothing but grief And as when the Sun setteth the shadows increase and the shadow of an infant presenteth a giant-like shape so the least pleasure when it declineth portendeth a sorrow far greater and larger then it self Besides this sorrow not onely followeth at the heels of pleasure but keepeth pace with her For every pleasure resisteth it self is impatient of it self and when it increaseth it self it destroyeth it self becometh offensive and maketh men weak and impotent in their embraces and so turneth enemy unto it self We read in Epiphanius that the Egyptians having put into one vessel many serpents together and shut them up close to try the event in time one stronger then his fellows having consumed all the rest when now no more remained began to eat up himself So Pleasure is a serpent to deceive us and a serpent to destroy it self For when we have spent our time and spirits in luxury and riot to please our sensual and brutish part at last Pleasure reflecteth upon it self and wasteth it self For it is not onely true that Tully saith Liberalitas liberalitatem exhaurit that Liberality indiscreetly used destroyeth and exhausteth it self but we find it as true Voluptas voluptatem exhaurit Pleasures immoderately taken consume themselves and return upon us nothing but pain and misery and voluptas voluptate perit by Pleasure Pleasure dieth We will now leave this theatre of Pleasure whereon whosoever acteth faileth and is thrown off and for a while walk amongst the tombs I called it Pleasure but it deserveth not that name which being lost leaveth an eternal loss behind it For who would so affect a feast as to forfeit his health and appetite but to tast it and for one dram for go all gust and delicacy Let us then enter the house of Mourning and see what glorious effects it doth produce And we shall find it a friend to virtue the guard of our life and a kind of Angel to guide us in all our wayes And in this respect God may seem to have preferred us before the Angels in that he hath built us up of flesh and bloud in that he hath given us so many senses and so many powers of our souls as so many crosses For an Angel cannot mourn cannot fast cannot suffer persecution but the soul of man being united to the body is carried up by those to an Angelical estate I know S. Paul brandeth worldly sorrow and maketh the effect of it no better then death 2 Cor. 7.10 And a better effect it cannot have whilst it is worldly and sensual Grief for a disgrace received may make me dishonour my self more to speak and do those things which are not seemly Sorrow for the loss of my goods may distract me leave me miserable but scarce a man The loss of a friend may draw on the loss of my life For when we find nothing but misery in misery we are willing to run from it though we run out of this life and this whilst our sorrow is fixed upon that evil that raised it But the devout School man will tell us Luctus sensualis trahit perâ—ccidens in luctum bonum that this grief may draw on also repentance unto salvation not to be repented of that is a repentance that will comfort us For comfort may be brought to us in a stream of bitterness The rod of God is a rod of iron to bruise us to pieces till we hearken to it and obey it But when I understand its language and discipline when I see the plague of my heart in the distemper of my body my lust in a fever and my intemperance in a dropsie when I discover greater evils then those I mourn for then I devert my grief upon these where it may be laid out with more advantage then this rod is no more a rod but a staff to comfort me Thus we may be drowned and we may be washed and refreshed in our tears and the house of Mourning may be our prison and it may be our school and by the help of that Spirit who is the Comforter we may work comfort out of that grief which was ready to swallow us up Our own experience will teach us that one of the greatest provocations to sin is not to feel the wrath of God in those outward calamities which produce this mourning The Pythagoreans where they speak of the Affections call them virtues and do thus distinguish them Some they say are virtutes animi purgati signs and indications of a mind clensed and renewed already Hope and Joy cannot be but in a virtuous soul For as where health is there is chearfulness where youth is there is comliness where Musick is there is an exsultancy so where goodness is there is joy Others are virtutes animi purgatrices virtues which purge and clense the soul as Fear and Grief For like Physick by degrees these purge out ill humours raise the soul to a kind of health and make it at length a mansion for Joy and Comfort As we see clothes deeply stained will not let go their spots without the loss of some part of their substance so when those maculae peccati as the Schools call them the spots and pollutions of sin have sunk down far and deeply stained and fullied us they will hardly be washed out without some loss and impairing of our selves without these purgatives of Grief and Mourning which bring leanness into our souls Haud levioribus remediis restinguendus est animus quà m
libidinibus exarsit The Physick must be proportioned to the disease if that be violent the Physick must needs be strong that purgeth it Dei sancti infirmiores sunt quia si fortes sint vix sancti esse possunt saith Salvian The Saints of God do many times lose their joy and strength because it is a very hard matter to be in prosperity and to be Saints It is observed that in Common-wealths dissensions seditions and luxury are longae pacis mala the issues of a long-continued peace And many times States are rent in pieces through civil dissentions if outward wars hinder not S. Augustine telleth us Plùs nocuit eversa Carthago Romanis quà m adversa that Carthage in her rubbish brought more disadvantage to Rome then when she stood out in defiance as an enemy And were it not for this outward jarre in our bodies by sickness and in our souls by disgrace and other calamities we should find no peace within for the soul hath no such practising enemy as the body wherein she liveth And as Cato thought it good husbandry to maintain some light quarrels and jarres amongst his houshold-servants lest their agreement amongst themselves might prejudice their master so it may seem spiritual wisdom for the Soul that the body and inferiour faculties be kept in perpetual jarre that there be a thorn in the flesh something set up in opposition against it lest it prove wanton and hold out too stubbornly against the Spirit Febris te vocare potest ad poenitentiam saith Ambrose It may so fall out that the sight of a Physician may more promote thy conversion then the voice of a Preacher a Fever then a Sermon The heathen Oratour could tell us Optimi sumus dum infirmi sumus that we are never well but when we are sick never better then when we are worst In this case saith he who sendeth his hopes afar off who waiteth upon his ambitious and covetous desires◠who thinketh of his pleasure and wantonness who shutteth not up his ears against detraction and malicious speech how do we betake our selves to our beads and prayers so that if you would look out the perfect pattern of a true Christian you shall find it no where so soon as on the ground and on the bed of sickness The heathen shutteth up all in this conclusion Look saith he what the Philosophers with many words and large volumes do endeavour to teach that can I most compendiously teach both my self and you Tales esse sani perseveremus quales nos futuros profitemur infirmi Let us be indeed such when we be well as we promise we will be when we are sick A lesson almost equivalent to that great commandment and contains in it all the Law and the Prophets We mourn I am sure in our sickness For what is sickness but the very drooping and languishing of our spirits And it may seem to be a part of that discipline by which the Apostles did govern the primitive Church For when S. Paul had delivered over the incestuous person to Satan for the mortifying of the flesh that the spirit might be saved S. Chrysostom and S. Ambrose do joyntly interpret it that S. Paul did with him as God did with Job deliver him to Satan to be afflicted with diseases and sickness under which he might mourn And this is the reason why our Saviour thus joyneth Blessedness and Mourning together because this is the end for which we are delivered up to sorrow and grief ad interitum carnis for the mortifying of the flesh and the refreshing of the spirit ut in ipsa sit censura supplicii in qua fuit causa peccati that that part may smart with sorrow which hath offended with pleasure and riot Look back upon the ancient Worthies of the Church and you would think they made Sorrow a science and studied the art of mourning For as if the Devil had not been the Devil still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Chrysostom calleth him a spiritual executioner to afflict them as if the World had left off to be the World an enemy and had not misery enough to fling on them as if there had not been an Ismael left to persecute Isaac nor a Dragon to pursue the Woman in the wilderness they did sit down and deliberate and condemn themselves to sorrow and mourning Ingrediatur utique putredo in ossibus meis saith Bernard Let infirmity seise upon my body let rottenness enter and fill up my bones let it abound in me onely let me find peace of conscience in the day of my tribulation The Heathen conceived they did it not for the exercise of virtue but as Philosophers did abstain from pleasures that death might be less dreadful nè desiderent vitam quam sibi jam supervacuam fecerant that they might not nourish too much hope of life which they had now made superfluous and unnecessary to them by a voluntary abdication of all delights Indeed this might be one reason And Tertullian replieth Si ita esset tam alto consilio tantae obstinatio disciplinae debebat obsequium If it were so yet this was the power of Christian discipline to learn to contemn death by the contempt of pleasure Jejuniis aridi in sacco cinere volutantes saith the same Father We are dried up with fasting and debarred of all the comforts of this life we roll in sackcloth and ashes What should I mention their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their minds dejected their bodies macerated their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sufferings in secret which was saith the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 full of pain and grief You might behold them kissing the chains of imprisoned Martyrs washing the feet of Lazars wallowing at the Temple-doors on their knees begging the prayers of the Saints You might see them stript and naked their heir neglected their bodies withered and their knees of horn as Nazianzene speaketh Orat. 12. But what do I mention these This would go for superstition in these dayes as every thing else doth that hath but any savour of dejectedness and humility Religion then hung down the head and went in blacks it is now grown lofty and bold walketh in purple and fareth deliciously every day The way to comfort was streit and narrow then it is made broader now even the same broad way which leadeth to destruction There were some of old who so far exceeded in fasting and austerity ut indigerent Hippocratis fomentis that they stood more in need of the counsel of a Physician then of a Divine but few now-a-dayes are like to offend this way we stand in need rather of the spur then of the bridle Their austerity may at least commend unto us Sadness and Mourning as a thing much be fitting a Christian and very conduceable to happiness The Philosopher will tell us Melancholici sunt ingeniosi that melancholick men are most commonly witty and ingenious because their thoughts are
into the Memory where it is as operative to destroy as it was in the Affection to increase it self For but to remember sin and to contemplate the horrour of it and the Hell it deserveth is enough to bow our wills and break our hearts and lay them open that they may be fit receptacles of comfort He were a bold sinner that durst look his sin full in the face Now affliction and mourning bring us to this sight wipe off the paint of Sin strip her of her scutcheons and pendants of her glory and beauty and shew her openly in all her deformity not with Pleasure and Honour and Riches but with the Wrath of God Death and Hell waiting upon her that we may defie and mortifie Sin and then triumph over it And then we are brought back from the valley of the shadow of death into green pastures and led beside the still waters the waters of rest and refreshing for God is with us and his rod and his staff with which he guideth us comfort us as it is Psal 23. And now in the last place you see the rock out of which you must hew your Comfort even out of Sorrow it self Or you may see Joy and Comfort shoot forth from Mourning as lightning from a thick and dark cloud Or rather this Consolation ariseth not so much from Affliction and Mourning it self as from the cause of it Sometimes we mourn in prison and in torments for righteousness sake And there cannot be a greater argument out of which we may conclude in comfort then this that at once we are made witnesses and examples of righteousness at once glorifie God and purchase a crown of Glory for our selves And thus comfort is conveyed to us through our own bloud Sometimes we suffer disgrace and loss of goods because we had rather be poor then be as rich and evil as they that make us poor and sit in the lowest form then be higher and worse This troubleth us and this comforteth us For thus to be poor is to be in the Rich mans bosome thus to be in the dust is to be in Heaven Sometimes we mourn as under the rod and are brought to Affliction as to a School of discipline And if we can read and understand the mystery of Affliction as Nazianzene calleth it if we can see mercy in anger a Father in a Lord if we can behold him with a rod in his hand and healing under his wings and so learn the lesson which he would teach us learn by poverty to enrich our selves with grace by disgrace to honour our selves by imprisonment to seek liberty in Christ if we can learn by those evils which can but touch us to chase away those which will destroy us if we can be such proficients in this School this also may trouble us and this will comfort us If we hearken not to the rod it may prove a Scorpion But if we thus bow and kiss it it will not onely bud and blossome as Aaron's did but bring forth the sweet fruit of Consolation And thus this miracle of Consolation is wrought in us first by the power of God's Grace which maketh his smitings healings and his wounds kisses and then by a strong actuating and upholding our Reason in the contemplation of God's most fatherly power and wisdome which will check and give lawes to the inferiour powers and faculties of the soul and draw them in obedience unto it self that all melancholick fancies may vanish all sensual grief may be swallowed up in victory in this in the content and rest we find in the end which we obtain or for which we suffer and mourn So the blessed Virgin had comfort even when she stood by the Cross vveeping and her soul was filled with it even then when it was pierced through as with a sword In a word mourning is a remedy and all remedies bring comfort And this is of the number of those remedies quae potentiae suae qualitate consumptâ desinunt cùm profuerint which having consumed and spent its virtue vanisheth away and leaveth to be when it hath wrought its just effect For he that is comforted feeleth not what he feeleth but his contemplation carrieth his mind to heaven when his senses peradventure labour under those displeasing objects which are contrary to them At the same time Moses may be in the Mount and the common people rebell and commit idolatry below At the same time the Martyr may roar on the rack and yet in his heart sing an hymn of praise to the King of Glory Reason may so far subdue the Flesh as to make it suffer but it cannot make it senseless for then it could not suffer then it were not flesh Affliction will be heard and felt and seen in its violent operation seen in its terrour heard in contumelies and reproaches and felt in its smart but in all these the Spirit is more then conquerour and delighteth it self with terrour feedeth and feasteth on reproaches and findeth a complacency in smart and pain it self And then when we are under the rod and suffer for sin and not for piety as sensual grief may occasion spiritual so spiritual sorrow and displacency hath alwaies comfort attending it For sorrow and comfort in course affect the soul and with such dispatch and celerity that we rather feel then discern it The devout School-man giveth the instance in the quavering and trembling motion of a Bell after the stroke or of a Lute string after the touch and observeth such an Harmony in the heart by the mutual touch of Sorrow and Comfort And David hath joyned them together in the second Psalm Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce with trembling When Affliction striketh the heart the sound will end in Joy and Comfort will be the resultance Mourning is a dark and melancholick thing and maketh a kind of night about us but when the Spirit saith Let there be light there will be light light in the Understanding rectitude in the Will order and peace in the Passions serenity in the Soul sin not in the Affection but in the Memory where it is kept to be whipt and crucified health in the Soul strength in our spiritual Pulse chearfulness to run the wayes of God's commandments the best and onely comforts in the world true symptomes of a spiritual health and fair pledges and types of that everlasting comfort which the God of all consolation will give to those who thus mourn in Sion For conclusion to apply all to our selves in a word I need not exhort you to hang down the head and mourn and walk humbly before your God Behold God himself hath spoken to us in the whirlwind He hath spoken in thunder and shaken our Joyes beat down all before our eyes in which our eyes took pleasure and of which we could say we had a delight therein He hath shaken the pillars of the earth He hath shaken the pillar of Truth the Church He hath shaken
a sigh or a feigned and formal confession so far we are content to humble our selves And this we may deplore with tears of bloud but cannot hope to remove though we should speak with the tongue of men and Angels since it hath taken such deep root in the hearts of men that they who cry down this Expecting of grace and Fighting against grace and who had rather see a fair shew of it in their lives then in their Panegyricks and would think it a more delightful sight to see them grow in grace then commend it and resist it are themselves cryed down and counted bringers in of new doctrine and enemies to the Grace of God because they would establish it And so the Drunkard may swill his bowls and chear up his heart in the dayes of his youth and expect that happy hour when Sobriety and Temperance shall possess him unawares The Oppressour may grind the face of the poor more and more since God's Grace is sufficient to melt his heart He may hope he may be honest one day who as yet resolveth to be a knave He that is turbulent in all his wayes who like a Haggard checketh at every feather and is troubled with every gust of wind nay with every breath may imagin that Grace will soon settle and compose his mind that Content and Peaceableness will one time or other suddenly fall upon him as a sweet and pleasant sleep He that hath a high look and a proud heart may be brought down and humbled in the twinckling of an eye And what is this but to cast away the Grace of God as S. Paul speaketh to turn it into wantonness as S. Jude to make it nothing else but a pretense and excuse to prolong our time in the tents of Kedar to encourage us to sport it on in our evil wayes like the wild asse or the wanton heifer Oh 't is a dangerous thing to attribute so much to Grace as to make it void and of no effect to cry up its power and be unwilling to feel it to say it can do that which we will not suffer it to do It is the constant voice of Scripture to commend God's Grace but withal to awake our industry to encourage us with the sight of so sure a guide and then bid us Vp and be doing God beseecheth us to be reconciled and commandeth us to reconcile our selves His will is that we should be saved and his will is that we should work out our salvation He persuadeth us to be patient and he persuadeth us to possess our souls with patience Where we are told that he worketh in us both to Will and to Do Phil. 2.13 it is given as a reason why we should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 MAGIS OPERARI work more strenuously and intentively AUGESCERE IN OPERE as some increase and abound in our work Grace is a good wind to drive us on but must not be made a pillow to sleep on Humbled God would see us and he enjoyneth us to humble our selves S. Ambrose speaketh it plainly Non vult invitos cogere he will not save us against our wills And if we stand out and will not he cannot save us Non vult importunus irruere he breaketh not in by violence but when he entereth he calleth thee to open And this maketh our Humility voluntary that thy Will may lead thee and not Necessity draw thee A forced Humility is but Pride in a chain and a stubborn heart with a weight of led upon it Pharaoh's Humility Zech. 5. driven on with an East-wind and compassed with Locusts Ahab's Humility at the sound of the Prophet's thunder For here is the difference The righteous fall to the ground the wicked are tumbled down Their Humiliation is like Haman's going before Mordecai not like David's dancing before the Ark like the submission of a condemned man to the block which upon refusal he had been dragged to There is saith the devout Schoolman Humilitas poenalis and Humilitas medicinalis Humility which is not a virtue but a punishment and Humility which is not a punishment but a medicine Humility which is gall and wormwood and Humility which is an antidote When the vial is broken upon my head it poisoneth me but when I temper it my self and take it down it is a cordial The Gospel our Saviour calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a yoke and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a burthen a yoke which if we yield not our necks will break them and a burthen which if we bow not under will sink us but when Humility beareth it it is easie and when it weareth it light To be humbled then is not enough we must humble our selves and take some pains to do it Not enough to be on the ground unless our hand hath thrown us down Not enough to be in sackcloth unless we have put it on Not enough to be crucified unless we crucifie our selves Take them both together Be humbled and Take pains to humble your selves and you have crowned S. Peter's Exhortation We come now to our second Consideration and must shew you Wherein this Humbling of our selves consisteth The Oratour will tell us Virtutis laus in actione consistit Every virtue is commended by its proper act and operation and is then actually when it worketh And thus S. Paul exhorteth Timothy 1 Tim. 4.7 to exercise himself unto godliness which is learned by doing it and Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to exercise the soul Every virtue is seen in its proper act Thus Temperance doth bind the appetite Liberality open the hand Modesty compose the countenance Valour guard the heart and Humility work its contrary out of the mind every thing that riseth up every swelling and tumour of the soul 2 Cor. 12.20 The Apostle calleth them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 puffings up for Riches or Learning or Eloquence or Virtue or something which we admire our selves for the elation and lifting up of our mind above it self 2 Cor. 10.14 the stretching of it beyond its measure setting it up against the Law against our brethren against God himself making us complain of the Law start at the shadow of an injury commit sin and excuse it making our tongues our own our hands our own our understandings our own our wills our own leaving us Independents under no Law but our own Psal 131.1 Prov. 16.18 The Prophet David calleth it the highness or haughtiness of the heart and Solomon the haughtiness of the spirit which is visible in our sin and visible in our apologies for sin lifting up the eyes Psal 10.4 and lifting up the nose as the phrase signifieth lifting up the head making our neck brass as if we had devoured a spit as Epictetus said I AM AND I ALONE is soon written in any man's heart and no hand but that of Humility can wipe it out For the mind of man is much subject to these fits of swelling Humility our
we know he was but a man and we know he erred or else our Church doth in many things It were easie to name them But suppose he had broached as many lies as the Father of them could suggest yet those who in their opinions had raised him to such an height would with an open breast have received them all as oracles and have licked up poison if it had fallen from him For they had the same inducement to believe him when he erred which they had to believe him when he spake the Truth We do not derogate from so great a person we are willing to believe that he was sent from God as an useful instrument to promote the Truth But we do not believe that he sent him as he sent his Son into the world that all his words should be spirit and life John 6.63 that in every word he spake whosoever heard him heard the Father also Thus ye see how Prejudice may arise how it may be built upon a Church and upon a person and may so captivate and depress the Reason that she shall not be able to look up and see and judge of that Truth which we should buy I might instance in others and those too who have reformed the Reformation it self who have placed the Founder of their Sect as a star in a firmament and walk by the light which he casteth and by none other though it come from the Sun it self Who fixing their eye upon him alone follow as he led and in their zele and forward obsequiousness to his dictates many times outgo him and in his name and spirit work such wonders as we have shrunk and trembled at But manum de tabula we forbear lest whilest we strive to charm one serpent we awake an hundred and those such as can bite their brethren as Prejudice doth them I shall but instance in two or three prejudicial opinions which have been as a portcullis shut down against the Truth The first is That the Truth is not to be bought nor obtained by any venture or endeavour of ours but worketh it self into us by an irresistible force so as that when we shall have once got possession of it no principalities or powers no temptation no sin can deprive us of it but it will abide against all storms and assaults all subtilty and violence nay it will not remove though we do what in us lieth to thrust it out so that we may be at once possessours of it and yet enemies to it Now when this opinion hath once gained a kingdome in our heads and we count it a kind of treason or sacrilege to depose it why should we be smitten Isa 1.5 why should we be instructed any more Argument and reason will prove but paper-shot make some noise perhaps but no impression at all What is the tongue of the learned to him who will hearken to none but himself We talk of a preventing Grace to keep us from evil but this is a preventing ungracious perversness to withhold us from the Truth For when that which first speaketh in us which we first speak to our selves or others to us who can comply with that which is much dearer to us then our selves our corrupt humour and carnality when that is sealed and ratified for ever advice and counsel come too late When Prejudice is the onely musick we delight to hear what is the tongue of Men and Angels what are the instructions of the wise but harsh and unpleasant notes abhorred almost as much as the howlings of a damned spirit When we are thus rooted and built up in errour what can shake us It is impossible for us to learn or unlearn any thing For there is no reason we should be untaught that which we rest upon as certain and which we received as an everlasting truth written in our hearts by the finger of God himself and that as we think with an indeleble character Or why should we studie the knowledge of that which will be poured by an omnipotent and irrefragable hand into our minds Who would buy that which shall be forced upon him When the Jew is thus prepossessed when he putteth the Word of God from him Acts 13.46 and judgeth himself unworthy of everlasting life then there is no more to be said then that of the Apostles Lo we turn to the Gentiles Another Prejudice there is powerful in the world somewhat like the former namely a presumption that the Spirit of God teacheth us immediately and that a new light shineth in our hearts never seen before that the Spirit teacheth us not onely by his Word but against it That there is a twofold Word of God 1 Verbum praeparatorium a Word read and expounded to us by the ministery of men 2. Verâ—um consummatorium a Word which consummateth all and this is from the Spirit The one is as John Baptist to prepare the way the other as Christ to finish and perfect the work It pleaseth the Spirit of God say they by his inward operation to illuminate the mind of man with such knowledge as is not at all proposed in the outward Word and to instill that sense which the words do not bear Thus they do not onely lie to the holy Ghost but teach him to dissemble to dictate one thing and to mean another to tell you in your ear you must not do this and to tell you in your heart you may to tell you in his proclamation Matth. 5.21 you may not be angry with your brother and to tell you in secret you may murder him to tell you in the Church Matth. 21.13 you must not make his house a den of thieves and to tell you in your closet you may down with it even to the ground Juven Sat. 8. Inde Dolabella est atque hinc Antonius inde Sacrilegus Verres From hence are wars contentions heresies schismes from hence that implacable hatred of one another which is not in a Turk or a Jew to a Christian For tell me What may not they say or do who dare publish this when their Phansie is wanton It is the Spirit when their Humour is predominant It is the Spirit when their Lust and Ambition carry them on with violence to the most horrid attempts It is the Spirit when they help the Father of lies to fling his darts abroad It is the Spirit It is indeed the Spirit a Spirit of illusion a bold and impudent Spirit that cannot blush For when it is agreed on all sides that all necessary truths are plainly revealed in Scripture what Spirit must that be which is sent into the world to teach us more then all In a word it is a Spirit that teacheth us not that which is but that which our Lusts have already set up for truth A new light which is but a meteor to lead us to those precipices those works of darkness which no night is dark enough to cover Such a Spirit as proceedeth
him in the Sacrament we many times leave our callings but to hear of him But yet all these may be rather profers then motions rather pleasing thoughts then painful strugglings with our selves rather a looking upwards then a rising cogitationes similes conatibus expergisci volentium as S. Augustine speaketh of himself in his Confessions thoughts like unto the endeavours of men half-asleep who would and would not be awaked who seem to move and stir and lightly lift up the head and then fall down fast asleep fall back again into their graves and into the place of silence Nay 3. This Speculation this naked approbation is but a dream Visus adesse mihi Christ may seem to rouze us when he moveth us not at all And as in dreams we seem to perform we do every thing and we do nothing Nunc fora nunc lites we plead we wrastle we fight we triumph we sail we flie and all is but a dream So when we have seen the Gospel as in a map when we have made a phansiful peregrination through all the riches and glories and delights it affordeth when we have seen our Saviour in the cratch led him into the High priest's hall followed him to mount Calvary seen him on his cross brought him back again with triumph from his grave we may think indeed we are risen with him But when Conscience shall begin to be enlightned and dart her piercing raies upon us and plainly tell us that we have not fasted with him that we have not watched with him that we have not gone about with him doing good that we have been so far from crucifying our flesh for his sake that we have crucified him again to fulfil the lusts thereof that the World and not Christ hath been the form that moved us in the whole course of our life that our rising hath been nothing else but deceptio visûs an apparition a phantasm a jugling and Pharasaical vaunting of our selves behold then it will appear that all was but a dream that we have seen Christ rising from the dead and acknowledged the power of his resurrection but are no more risen our selves then our pictures that we have but dreamed of life and are still under the power of Darkness and in the valley and shadow of Death For conclusion then What saith the Scripture Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead For this is to know and feel the power of Christ's resurrection Let us not please our selves with visions and dreams with the flattery of our own imaginations Let us not think that if we have magnified the power of the Resurrection we are therefore already risen For we can never demonstrate this power till we actually rise Let Knowledge beget Practice and Practice encrease our Knowledge Let us know Christ that is obey him Let us know the power of his resurrection that is rise from the death of Sin to walk in righteousness For this is with open face to behold the glory of Christ and his Resurrection This practick and affective Knowledge maketh us one with Christ Col 3.5 Rom 6.6 Col. 3 3. 2 Cor. 5.15 giveth us a fellowship of his sufferings conformeth and fashioneth us to his death mortifieth our earthly members destroyeth the whole body of sin maketh us die with Christ and live unto Christ unto him who died for us and is risen again By this we are made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 limmers nay the very pictures of the Passion and Resurrection that we may be dead to sin and alive to righteousness that we may deal with our Sin as â—â—e Jews did with Christ hate and persecute it lay wait for it send forth a band of souldiers all the strength we have to apprehend and take it drag it to the bar accuse and condemn it revile and spit in its face that there may be vinegar in our tears and gall in our Repentance that we may nail Sin to the cross and put it out of ease that it live but a dying life not able to move our members more then he can his who is nailed to a tree that it faint and languish by degrees and at last give up the ghost and then that we may rise again that the good Spirit may descend from heaven and remove the many stones the many vicious habits and customs that lie heavy upon us that we may leave our graves and our grave-cloths behind us all pretenses and palliations all ties and bonds of sin and whatsoever hath any sent or savour of corruption To conclude This is truly to know Christ and the power of his resurrection And this Knowledge will melt us this liquefaction will transform us and this transformation unite us to Christ and this union will be our exultation and this exultation an everlasting jubilee In a word This will quit us of all uncertainties lead us through all difficulties and by these means we shall attain to not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bare but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a full resurrection which no death no evil shall follow a Resurrection to eternity of life of bliss and glory The Fourteenth SERMON ACTS I. 10 11. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up behold two men stood by them in white apparel Which also said Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing into heaven This same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven HEaven is a fair sight and every eye beholdeth it but without Jesus we would not look upon Heaven it self Here we have them both presented to the eye This Jesus was taken up into heaven and that tâ—â— Disciples might see it he led them out as far as to Bethany Luke 24.50 he brought them to mount Olivet to an open and conspicuous place and made them spectators of his Triumph that they might preach it to the whole world Christ was willing to imploy their sight to confirm this main Article of the Ascension But yet as Christ liketh not every touch but there is a NOLI ME TANGERE Touch me not because I am not yet ascended so there is a QUID STATIS INTUENTES a check given to the eye because he is ascended already When the cloud hath taken him up no looking after him He loveth to be seen not to be gazed after Our love he approveth but not our curiosity Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were looking stedfastly toward heaven there stood by them saith the Text two men IN ALBIS in white apparel in the same colour they saw them in at his Tomb and as there so here they came not by chance but were dispatched as messengers from heaven at once to draw the Disciples eyes from needless gazing and to confirm them in the belief of their Master's Ascension The one they do by way of Question Why stand ye gazing into heaven the other by a plain and positive
the highest heavens for evermore The Sixteenth SERMON PART II. 1 COR. VI. 20. For ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are God's THese words are a Logical Enthymeme consisting of two parts an Antecedent Ye are bought with a price and a Consequent naturally following Therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are God's God's by Creation and God's by Redemption the Body bought and redeemed from the dust to which it must have fallen for ever and the Soul from a worse death the death of sin from those impurities which bound it over to an eternity of punishment and therefore both to be consecrated to him who bought them How God is to be glorified in our spirit we have already shewn to wit by a kind of assimilation by framing and fashioning our selves to the will and mind of God He that is of the same mind with God glorifieth him by bowing to him in his still voice and by bowing to him in his thunder by hearkening to him when he speaketh as a Father and by hearkening to him when he threatneth as a Lord by hearkening to his mercy and by hearkening to his rod. For the Glory of a King is most resplendent in the obedience of his subjects In a word we glorifie God by Justice and Mercy and those other vertues which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 defluxions and emanations from his infinite goodness and light In a just and perfect man God shineth in glory and all that behold him will say that God is in him of a truth The Glory of God is that immense ocean into which all streams must run Our Creation our Redemption are to his glory Nay the Damnation of the wicked at last emptieth it self and endeth here This his wisdom worketh out of his dishonour and forceth it out of blasphemy it self But God's chief glory and in which he most delighteth is from our submissive yielding to his natural and primitive intent which is that we should follow and be like him in all purity and holiness In this he is well pleased that we should do that which is pleasing in his sight Then he looketh with an eye of favour and complacency upon Man his creature when he appeareth in that shape and form which he prescribed when he seeth his own image in him when he is what he would have him be when he doth not change the glory of God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things when he doth not prostitute that Understanding to folly which should know him and that Will to vanity which should seek him nor fasten those Affections to the earth which should wait upon him alone when he falleth not from his state and condition but is holy as God is holy merciful as God is merciful perfect as God is perfect Then is he glorified then doth he glory in him Deut. 30.9 and rejoyce over him as Moses speaketh as over the work of his hands as over his image and likeness not corrupted not defaced Then is Man taught Canticum laudis nothing else but the Glory and Praise of his Maker Thus do we glorifie God in our spirit Now to pass to that which we formerly did but touch upon Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made up of both of Body and Spirit and therefore must glorifie God not onely in the spirit but in the body also For such a near conjunction there is between the Body and the Soul that nothing but Death can divorce them and that too but for a while a sleeping-time after which they shall be made up into one again either to howl out their blasphemie or to sing a song of praise to their Maker for evermore If we will not glorifie God in our body by chastity by abstinence by patience here we shall be forced to do it by weeping and gnashing of teeth hereafter It is true the body is but flesh 2 Cor. 4.11 yet the life of Jesus may be made manifest in this our flesh It is but dust and ashes but this dust and ashes may be raised up and made a Temple of the holy Ghost a Temple in which we offer up ch 6.19 not beasts our raging lusts and unruly affections nor the foul stench and exhalations of our corrupted hearts but the sweet incense of our devotion not whole drink offerings but our tears and strong supplications such a Temple which it self may be a sacrifice a holy and acceptable sacrifice Rom. 12.1 post Dei templum sepulcrum Christi saith Tertullian and being a Temple of God be made a sepulchre of Christ by bearing about in it the dying of our Lord Jesus For when we beat it down and bring it in subjection when we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep it chast and pure quench those unholy fires which are even ready to kindle and flame up in it bind and tye it up from joyning with that forbidden object to which its bent and natural inclination carrieth it when we have set a watch at every sense at every door which may be an in-let to the Enemy when we have learned so far to love it as to despise it to esteem of it as not ours but his that made it to be macerated and diminished to be spit upon and whipt to be stretched out on the rack to be ploughed up with the scourge to be consumed in the fire when his honour calleth for it when with S. Paul we are ready to offer it up then is the power of Christ's death visible in it and the beauty of that sight is the glory of God First we glorifie God in our bodies when we use them for that end to which he built them up when we make them not the weapons of sin but the weapons of righteousness when we do not suffer them to make our Spirit and Reason their servants to usher in those delights which may flatter and please them but bring them under the law and command of Reason Touch not Taste not Handle not which by its power may check the weakness of the Flesh and so uphold and defend it from those allurements and illusions from that deep ditch that hell into which it was ready to fall and willing to be swallowed up Now saith S. Paul vers 13◠the body is not for fornication It was not created for that end For how can God who is Purity it self create a body for uncleanness Not then for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body Who made it as an instrument which the mind might use to the improvement and beautifying of it self as a vessel to be possest by us in holiness and honour 1 Thes 4.4 his Temple and thy vessel his Temple that thou mayest not profane it and thy vessel that thou mayest not defile and pollute it nor defile thy soul in it For this kind of
furta fidei the thefts and pious depredations of Faith But that Faith should be idle or speechless or dead is contrary to its nature and proceedeth from our depraved dispositions from Love of the world and Love of our selves which can silence it or lull it asleep or bury it in oblivion Thus we may have Faith as if we had it not and use it as we should use the world as if we used it not or worse abuse it not believe and say it but believe and deny it not believe and be saved but believe and be damned For the Devil can haereticare propositiones make propositions which are absolutely true heretical Believe and be saved is as true as Gospel nay it is the Gospel it self but by his art and deceit many believe and are by so much the bolder in the wayes which lead unto Death believe Jesus to be the Lord and contemn him believe him to be a Saviour and upon presumption of mercy make themselves uncapable of mercy and because he saveth sinners will be such sinners as he cannot save because they believe he taketh away the sins of the world will harden themselves in those sins which he will not take away Many there be who do veritatem sed non per vera tenere maintain the Truth but by those wayes which are contrary to the Truth make that which should confirm Religion destroy Religion and their whole life a false gloss upon a good Text having a form of godliness but denying the power of it crying Jesus is the Lord but scourging him with their blasphemies as if he were a slave and fighting against him with their lusts and affections as if he were an enemy sealing him up in his grave as if he were not that Jesus that Saviour that Lord but in the Jews language that deceiver that blasphemer But this is a most broken and imperfect language And though we are said to believe it when we cannot believe it to have the habit of Faith when we have not the use of Reason and so cannot bring it forth into act as some Divines conceive though it be spoke for us at the Font when we cannot speak and though when we can speak it we speak it again and again as often almost at we speak Lord Lord though we gasp it forth with our last breath and make it the last word we speak yet all this will not make up the Dicere all this will not rise to thus much as to say JESUS IS THE LORD Therefore In the third place that we may truly say it we must speak it to God as God speaketh to us whose word is his deed who cannot lie who Numb 23.19 if he saith it will doe it if he speak it will make it good And as he speaketh to us by his Benefits which are not words but blessings the language of Heaven by his Rain to water the earth by his Wool to clothe us and by his Bread to feed us so must we speak to him by our Obedience by Hearts not hollow by Tongues not deceitful by Hands pure and innocent Our heart conceiveth and our obedience is the report made abroad And this is indeed LO QUI to speak out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make our works vocal and our words operative to have lightning in our words and thunder in our deeds as Nazianzene spake of Basil that not onely Men and Angels may hear and see and applaud us but this Lord himself may understand our dialect and by that know us to be his children and accept and reward us In our Lord and Saviour's Alphabet these are the Letters in his Grammar these are the Words Meekness and Patience Compassion and Readiness to forgive Self-denial and Taking up our cross This must be our Dialect We cannot better express our Jesus and our Lord then idiomate operum by the language of our works by the language of the Angels whose Elogium is They doe his will the Tongue of Angels is not so proper as their Ministery for indeed their Ministery is their Tongue by the language of the Innocents who confessed him to be the Lord not by speaking but by dying by the language of the blessed Martyrs who in their tumultuary executions when they could not be heard for noise were not suffered to confess him said no more but took their death on it And this is truly to say Jesus is the Lord. For if he be indeed our Lord then shall we be under his command and beck Not a thought must rise which he would controll not a word be uttered which he would silence not an action break forth which he forbideth not a motion be seen which he would stop The very name of Lord must awe us must possess and rule us must inclose and bound us and keep us in on every side Till this be done nothing is done nothing is said We are his purchase and must fall willingly under his Dominion For as God made Man a little World so hath he made him a little Commonwealth Tertullian calleth him Fibulam utriusque substantiae the Clasp or Button which tieth together two diverse substances the Soul and the Body the Flesh and the Spirit And these two are contrary one to the other saith S. Paul are carried diverse wayes the Flesh to that which is pleasing to it and the Spirit to that which is proportioned to it looking on things neither as pleasing nor irksom but as they may be drawn in to contribute to the perfection and beauty of the soul Gal. 5.17 They lust and struggle one against the other and Man is the field the theatre where this battel is fought and one part or other still prevaileth Many times nay most times the Flesh with her sophistry prevaileth with the Will to joyn with her against the Spirit against those inclinations and motions which the Word and the Spirit beget in us And then Sin taketh the chair the place and throne of Christ and is Lord over us reigneth as S. Paul speaketh in our mortal bodies If it say Go we go and if it say Come we come and if it say Doe this we doe it It maketh us lay down that price for dung with which we might purchase heaven See how Mammon condemneth one to the mines to dig for metalls and treasure for that money which will perish with him See how Lust fettereth another with a look and the glance of an eye and bindeth him with a kiss which will at last bite like a serpent See how Self-love driveth on thousands as Balaam did his beast on the point of the sword And thus doth Sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 6.12 Lord it and King it over us And in this bondage and slavery can we truly say Jesus is the Lord when he is disgraced deposed and even crucified again Beloved whilest this fighting and contention lasteth in us something or other will lay hold on us and draw us within its
celestial dialect and not as some of late have been ready to make it the language of the Whore of Babylon as if Faith onely did make a Protestant and Good works were the mark of a Papist What mention we Papist or Protestant The Christian is the member of this Body and Common-wealth this is his language Zeph. 3.9 the pure language When Hand and Tongue Faith and Good works a full Persuasion and a sincere Obedience are joyned together then we shall speak this language plainly and men will understand us and glorifie God the Angels will understand and applaud us and the Lord will understand and crown us We shall speak it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faintly and feignedly ready upon any allurement or terrour to eat our words but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we shall make it plain by an Ocular demonstration And this is truly to say JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. This is the Lesson our first Part. And thus far we are gone And we see it is no easie matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak but these three words JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. For we must comprehend Eph. 3.18 saith the Apostle the breadth and length and depth and height of this Divine mystery the breadth saith S. Augustine in the expansion and dilatation of my Charity the length by my continued perseverance unto the end the height in the exaltation of my hope to reach at things above and the depth in the contemplation of the bottomless sea of God's mercies These are the dimensions And if we will learn these Mathematicks because we see the Lesson is difficult we must have a skilful Master And behold my next Part bringeth him forth bringeth us news of one who is higher then heaven broader then the sea and longer then the earth as Job speaketh It is the holy Ghost For no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost And indeed good reason that he should be our Teacher For as the Lesson is such should the Master be The Lesson is spiritual the Teacher a Spirit The Lecture is a lecture of piety and the Spirit is an holy Spirit The Lesson proposeth a method to joyn Heaven and Earth God and Man Mortality and Immortality Misery and Happiness in one to draw us near unto God and make us one with him and the holy Ghost is that consubstantial and coeternal Friendship of the Father and the Son nexus amorosus as the Schools speak the essential Love and Love-knot of the undivided Trinity Flesh and blood cannot reveal this great mystery it must be a Spirit And the Spirit of this world bringeth no news from Heaven we may be sure It must be SPIRITUS SANCTUS the holy Ghost SPIRITUS SANCTUS for JESUS DOMINUS the holy Ghost for Jesus the Lord that by the grace of the holy Spirit we may learn the Power of the Son and by the inspiration of his Holiness learn the mystery of Holiness For it is not sharpness of wit or quickness of apprehension or force of eloquence that can raise us to this Truth but the Spirit of God must lead us to this tree of Knowledge Therefore Tertullian calleth Christian Religion commentum Divinitatis the invention of the Divine Spirit as Faith is called the gift of God not onely because it is given to every believer but because the Spirit first found out the way to save us by so weak a means as Faith O qualis artifex Spiritus sanctus What a skilful Artificer what an excellent Master is the blessed Spirit who found out a way to lift up Dust it self as high as Heaven and clothe it with eternity whose least beam is more glorious then the Sun and maketh it day unto us whose every whisper is as thunder to awake us cujus tetigisse docuisse est whose every touch and breathing is an instruction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene For this Spirit is wise and can he is loving and will teach us if we will learn He inspireth an Herdsman and he straight becometh a Prophet He calleth a Fisherman and maketh him an Apostle Et non opus est morâ Spiritui Sancto He standeth not in need of any help from delay Without him Miracles are sluggish and of no efficacy but upon his breathing our Saviour shall appear glorious in his ignominy and the Thief shall worship him on his cross as if he had been in his Kingdom in whom he wrought such an alteration that in S. Hierom's phrase mutavit homicidii poenam in martyrium he was so changed that he died not a thief or murtherer but a Martyr And such a powerful Teacher we stood in need of to raise our Nature and that corrupt unto so high a pitch as the participation of the Divine Nature For no act and so no act of holiness or spiritual knowledge can be produced by any power which is not connatural to it and as it were a principle of that act So that as there is a natural light by which we are brought to the apprehension of natural principles whether speculative or practick by which light many of the Heathen proceeded so far as to leave most of them behind them who have the Sun of righteousness ever shining upon them so there must be a supernatural light by which we may be guided to attain unto truths of a higher nature Which the Heathen wanting did run uncertainly as S. Paul speaketh and beat the air and all those glorious acts by which they did out shine many of us were but as the Rainbow before the Floud for shew but for no use at all The Power must ever be connatural to the Act. Nature may move in her own sphere and turn us about in that compass to do those things which Nature is capable of but Nature could not make a Saint or a member of Christ To spiritualize a man to make him Christi-formem to bring him to a conformity and uniformity with Christ is the work alone of the Spirit of Christ Which he doth sweetly and secretly powerfully characterizing our hearts and so taking possession of them The Apostle telleth us that Christ dwelleth in us by his Spirit by his power and efficacy Rom. 8.11 which worketh like fire enlightning warming and purging our hearts Matth. 3.11 which are the effects of Fire First by sanctifying our knowledge of him by shewing us the riches of his Gospel and the beauty and majesty of Christ's Dominion and Kingdom with that evidence that we are forced to fall down and worship by filling the soul with the glory of it as God filled the Tabernacle with his Exod. 30. that all the powers and faculties of our soul are ravished at the sight that we come willingly and fall down willingly before this Lord in a word by bringing on that Truth which our heart assenteth to with that clearness and fulness of demonstration that it passeth through all the
world then a learned fool So the Church of Christ and Religion never suffered more then from carnal men who are thus Spirit-wise For by acknowledging the Spirit they gain a glorious pretence to work all wickedness and that with greediness which whilest others doubt of though their errour be dangerous and fatal yet parciùs insaniunt they cannot be so outragiously mad But yet it doth not follow because some men mistake the Spirit and abuse him that no man is taught by the holy Ghost The mad Athenian took every ship that came into the harbour to be his but it doth not follow hence that no wise and sober merchant knew his own To him that is drunk things appear in a double shape and proportion geminae Thebae gemini soles two cities for one and two Suns for one Can I hence conclude that all sober men are blind Because I will not learn doth not the Spirit therefore teach And if some men take Dreams for Revelations must the holy Ghost needs loose his office This were to run upon the fallacy non-causae pro causâ to deny an unquestionable and fundamental truth for an inconvenience to dig up the Foundation because men build hay and stubble upon it or because some men have sore eyes to pluck the Sun out of his sphere This were to dispossess us of one evil Spirit and leave us naked to be invaded by a Legion To make this yet a little plainer We confess the operations of the Spirit are in their own nature difficult and obscure and as Scotus observeth upon the Prologue to the Sentences because they are quite of another condition then any thought or working in us whatsoever imperceptibiles not to be suddenly perceived no not by that soul in which they are wrought In which speech of his doubtless if we weigh it with charity and moderation and not extremity of rigour there is much truth Seneca telleth us Quaedam animalia cùm mordent non sentiuntur adeò tenuis illis fallens in periculum vis est The deadly bitings of some creatures are not felt so secret and subtle a force they have to endanger a man So on the contrary the Spirit 's enlightning us and working life in our hearts can at first by no means be described so admirable and curious a force it hath in our illumination Non deprehendes quemadmodum aut quando tibi profuit profuisse deprehendes That it hath wrought you shall find but the secret and retired passages by which it wrought are impossible to be reduced to demonstration We read that Mark Antony when with his Oration he shewed unto the people the wounded coat wherein Caesar was slain populum Romanum egit in furorem he made the people almost mad So the power of the Spirit as it seemeth wrought the like affection in the people who when they had heard the Apostles set forth the passion of Christ Acts 2. and lay his wounds open before their eyes were wrapt as it were in a religious fury and in it suddenly cryed out Men and brethren what shall we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Text They were stung and as it were nettled in their hearts Now this could not be a thing done by chance or by any artificial energy and force in the Apostles speech this I say could not be For if we observe it Christ was slain amongst them and what was that to them or why should this hazard them more then the death of many other Prophets and holy men who through the violence of their Rulers had lost their lives And what necessity what coactive reason was there to make them believe that He was to save and redeem them who not long since had cruelly crucified him Dic Quintiliane colorem What art was there what strong bewitching power that should drive the people into such an ecstasie Or what could this be else but the effect of the operation of the holy Spirit which evermore leaveth the like impressions on those hearts on which he pleaseth to fasten the words of the wise Eccl. 12.11 which are like unto goads quae cum ictu quodam sentimus saith Seneca we hear them with a kind of smart as Pericles the Oratour is reproved to have spoken so that he left a sting behind in the minds of his Auditory And this putteth a difference betwixt natural and supernatural and spiritual Truths We see in natural Truths either the evidence and strength of Truth or the wit and subtilty of conceit or the quaintness of method and art may sometimes force our Understanding and lead captive our Affections but in sacred and Divine Truths such as is the knowledge of the Dominion and Kingdom of Christ the light of Reason is too dimme nor could it ever demonstrate this conclusion Jesus is the Lord which the brightest eye that ever the world had could of it self never see Besides the art by which it was delivered was nothing else but plainness and by S. Paul himself the worthiest Preacher it ever had except the Son of God himself it is called the foolishness of preaching But as it is observed that God in his works of wonder and his miracles brought his effects to purpose by means almost contrary to them so many times in his persuasions of men he draweth from them their assent against all rule and prescript of art and that where he pleaseth so powerfully that they who receive the impressions seem to think deliberation which in other cases is wisdom in this to be impiety But you will say perhaps that the holy Ghost was a Teacher in the Apostles times when S. Paul delivered this Christian axiom this principle this sum of Christianity when the Church was in sulco semine when the seeds of this Religion were first sown that then he did wonderfully water this plant that it might grow and increase But doth he still keep open School doth he still descend to teach and instruct us on whom the ends of the world are come Yes certainly he doth For if he did not teach us we could not vex him if he did not work in us we could not resist him if he did not speak unto us we could not lie unto him He is the God of all spirits to this day And uncti Christians we are And an anointment we have saith S. John and whilest this abideth in us we need not that any man teach us for this unction this discipline this Divine grace is sufficient And though this oyntment flow not so plenteously now as of old yet we have it and it distilleth from the Head to the skirts of the garment to the meanest member of the Church Though we be no Apostles yet we are Christians and the same Spirit teacheth both And by his light we avoid all by-paths of errour that are dangerous and discern though not all Truth yet all that is necessary They had an Ephah we an Hin yet our Hin is a measure
They had a full harvest we our sheaf yet our sheaf may make an offering Though our coyn be smaller yet the same image and stamp is on them both and the Spirit will own us though we weigh less All this is true But yet I must still remember you that whilest I build up the power of the Spirit I erect no asylum or sanctuary for illusions and wilful mistakes and when I have raised a fort and strong-hold for sober Christians I mean it not a shelter or refuge for mad-men and phantasticks God forbid that Truth should be banished out of the world because some men by false illations have made her factious or that Errour should straight be crowned with approbation because perhaps we read of some men who have been bettered with a lie The teaching of the Spirit it were dangerous to teach it were there not means to try and distinguish the Spirit 's instructions from the suggestions of Satan or the evaporations of a sick and loathsome brain or our own private Humour which is as great a Devil Beloved 1 John 4.1 saith the Apostle believe not every spirit that is every inspiration but try the spirits whether they be of God for many false prophets are gone out into the world that is have taken the chair and dictate magisterially what they please in the name of the Spirit when themselves are carnal And he giveth the rule by which we should try them Vers 2 Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God that is Whosoever striveth to advance the Kingdom of Christ and to set up the Spirit against the Flesh to magnifie the Gospel to promote and further men in the wayes of innocency and perfect obedience which infallibly lead to happiness is from God that is every such inspiration is from the Spirit of God For therefore doth the Spirit breathe upon us that he may make us like unto God and so draw us to him that where he is we may be also But those inspirations which bring in God to plead for Baal which cry up Religion to gain the world which call their own discipline Christ's Discipline which he never framed and spurn at his to maintain their own which tread down Peace and Charity and all that is indeed praise-worthy under their feet to make way for their unguided lust to pace it more delicately to its end which sigh out Faith and Grace and Christ like mourners about the streets which attend a funeral when the World and Satan hath filled their hearts and thus sow in tears that they may reap the profits and pleasures of this present world with joy which magnifie God's will that they may do their own these men these spirits cannot be from God By their fruits ye shall know them For their hypocrisie as well and cunningly wrought as it is is but a poor cobweb-lawn and we may easily see through it even see these spiritual men sweating and toiling for the Flesh these Saints digging in the minerals labouring for the bread that perisheth and making haste to be rich For though many times their wine be the poison of dragons and their milk not at all sincere yet they are not to be bought without money or money-worth Though GLORIA PATRI Glory to God on high be the Prologue to the Play for what doth a Hypocrite but play yet the whole drift and business of every Scene and Act is chearfully to draw altogether in this From hence we have our gain The Angel speaketh the Prologue and Mammon and the Flesh make the Epilogue Date manus Why should not every man give them his hands Surely such Roscii such cunning Actors deserve a Plaudite By their fruits ye shall know them For what though the voice be Jacobs Ye may know Esau by his hands What though the Devil turn Angel of light Ye may know him by his claws by his malice and rage For how can an Angel of light tear men in pieces By their fruits ye may know them So ye see this inconvenience and mischief which sometimes is occasioned by the Doctrine of the Spirit 's Teaching is not unavoidable It is not necessary though I mistake and take the Devil for an Angel that the holy Ghost should be put to silence Though Corah and his complices perish in their gainsayings yet God forbid that all Israel should be swallowed up in the same gulf Samuel runneth to Eli 1 Sam. 3. Vers 9. when the voice was God's but was taught at last to answer Speak Lord for thy servant heareth Though there were many false Prophets yet Micaiah was a true one Though there be many false Prophets come into the world yet the Spirit of God is a Spirit of truth and is not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our chief but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our sole Instructor Our last Part In which we shall be very brief We are told in the verse next after the Text There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit And we may say There are diversities of teachers but the same Spirit because be the conveyances and conduits never so many through which the knowledge of our Lord Jesus is brought unto us if the Sririt move not along with it it may be water indeed but not of life Because all means are but instrumental but He the prime Agent we may well call him not onely the chief but the sole Instructor The Church of Christ is DOMUS DOCTRINAE the House of learning as it is called in the Chaldee Paraphrase and COLUMNA VERITATIS 1 Tim. 3.15 the Pillar of the truth because it presenteth the knowledge of Christ as a Pillar doth an Inscription and even offereth and urgeth it to every eye that it may not slip out of our memories and SCHOLA CHRISTI the School of Christ in respect of his Precepts and Discipline Such glorious things have been spoken of the Church But now methinks this House is ruinous this Pillar shaken this School broken up and dissolved and the Church which bore so great a name standeth for nothing but the walls A Jesuite telleth us that at the very name of the CHURCH hostis expalluit the Enemy that is such as he called Hereticks did look pale and tremble But what is it now amongst us Nothing or but a Name and in truth a Name is nothing And that too is vanishing for it is changed into another And yet it is the same for they both signifie one and the same thing So prevalent amongst us is that Phansie and Folly which is taken for the Spirit A Church no doubt there is and will be but we onely see it as we do the Church Triumphant through a glass darkly Or she may be fair as the Moon clear as the Sun but sure she is not terrible as an army with banners Secondly the Word is a Teacher And Christ by open proclamation hath commanded us to have recourse unto it
The treasures thereof are infinite the minerals thereof are rich assiduè pleniùs responsura fodienti The more they are digged the more plentifully do they offer themselves that all the wit of men and Angels can never be able to draw them dry But even this Word many times is but a word and no more Sometimes it is a killing letter Such vain and unskilful pioneers we are that for the most part we meet with poisonous damps and vapours instead of treasure I might adde a third Teacher Christ's Discipline which when we think of nothing but of Jesus by his rod and afflictions putteth us in remembrance that he is the Lord. This Teacher hath a kind of Divine authority and by this the Spirit breatheth many times with more efficacy and power then by the Church or the Word then by the Prophets and Apostles and holy Scriptures For when we are disobedient to his Church deaf to his Word at the noise of these many waters we are afraid and yield our necks unto his yoke All these are Teachers But their authority and power and efficacy they have from the Spirit The Church if not directed by the Spirit were but a rout or Conventicle the Word if not quickned by the Spirit a dead letter and his Discipline a rod of iron first to harden us and then break us to pieces But AFFLAT SPIRITUS the Spirit bloweth upon his Garden the Church and the spices thereof flow And then to disobey the Church is to resist the Spirit INCUBAT SPIRITUS The holy Ghost sitteth upon the seed of the Word and hatcheth a new creature a subject to this Lord. MOVET SPIRITUS The Spirit moveth upon these waters of bitterness and then they make us fruitful to every good work In a word The Church is a Teacher and the Word is a Teacher and Afflictions are Teachers but the Spirit of God the holy Ghost is all in all I might here enter a large field full of delightful variety But I forbear and withdraw my self and will onely remember you that this Spirit is a spirit that teacheth Obedience and Meekness that if we will have him light upon us we must receive him as Christ did in the shape of a Dove in all innocency and simplicity He telleth us himself that with a froward heart he will not dwell and then sure he will not enlighten it For as Chrysostom well observeth that the Prophets of God and Satan did in this notoriously differ that they who gave Oracles from God gave them with all mildness and temper without any fanatick alteration but they who gave Oracles by motion from the Devil did it with much distraction and confusion with a kind of fury and madness so we shall easily find that those motions which descend not from above are earthly sensual and devilish that in them there is strife and envying and confusion and every evil work but the wisdom which is from above from the holy Ghost is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated James 3. full of mercy and good fruits Be not deceived When thy Anger rageth the Spirit is not in that storm When thy Disobedience to Government is loud he speaketh not in that thunder When thy Zele is mad and unruly he dwelleth not in that fiery hush When the faculties of thy soul are shaken and dislocated by thy stubborn and perverse passions that thou canst neither look nor speak nor move aright he will not be in that earthquake But in the still voice and the cool of the day in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the calm and tranquility and peace of thy soul he cometh when that storm is slumbred that earthquake setled that thunder stilled that fire quenched And he cometh as a light to shew thee the beauty and love of thy Saviour and the glory and power of thy Lord. And though he be sole Instructor yet he descendeth to make use of means and if thou wilfully withdraw thy self from these thou art none of his celestial Auditory To conclude Wilt thou know how to speak this language truly that Jesus is the Lord and assure thy self that the Spirit teacheth thee so to speak Mark well then those symptoms and indications of his presence those marks and signs which he hath left us in his word to know when the voice is his For though as the Kingdom of heaven so the Spirit of God cometh not with observation yet we may observe whether he be come or no. Remember then first that he is a Spirit and the Spirit of God and so is contrary to the Flesh and teacheth nothing that may flatter or countenance it or let it loose to insult over the Spirit For this is against the very nature of the Spirit as much as it is for light bodies to descend or heavy to move upwards Nay Fire may descend and the Earth may be moved out of its place the Sun may stand still or go back Nature may change its course at the word and beck of the God of Nature but this is one thing which God cannot do he cannot change himself nor can his Spirit breathe any doctrine forth that savoureth of the World or the Flesh or Corruption Therefore we may nay we must suspect all those doctrines and actions which are said to be effects and products of the blessed Spirit when we observe them drawn out and levelled to carnal ends and temporal respects For sure the Spirit can never beat a bargain for the world and the Truth of God is the most unproportioned price that can be laid out on such a purchace When I see a man move his eyes compose his countenance order and methodize his gesture and behaviour as if he were now on his death-bed to take his leave of the world and to seal that Renouncement which he made at the Font when I hear him loud in prayer and as loud in reviling the iniquities of the times wishing his eyes a fountain of tears to bewail them day and night when I see him startle at a mis-placed word as if it were a thunderbolt when I hear him cry as loud for a Reformation as the idolatrous Priests did upon their Baal I begin to think I see an Angel in his flight and mount going up into heaven But after all this devotion this zele this noise when I see him stoop like the Vultur and fly like lightning to the prey I cannot but say within my self O Lucifer son of the morning how art thou fallen from heaven how art thou brought down to the ground nay to hell it self Sure I am the holy Ghost looketh upward moveth upward directeth us upward and if we follow him neither our doctrine nor our actions will ever savour of this dung Remember again that he is SPIRITUS RECTUS a right Spirit as David calleth him Psal 51. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 winding and turning several wayes now to God and anon nay at once to Mammon now glancing
literas scribit saith the Father He that offendeth doth write as many letters in this book as he committeth sins And the guilt and obligation is as certain and the condemnation as just as if we had wrote and sealed it with our own hands and subscribed a Fiat Let it be so for my debts are many and my sins more then the hairs of my head Thus I have shewed you at last the analogy and likeness which is between our Sins and Debts We will now point out to some operations which they produce alike and which are common both to men engaged and oppressed with Debt and to men burthened with Sin First we know what a burthen Debt is what perplexities what fears what anguish it doth bring how it taketh all relish from our meat all sweetness from our sleep maketh pleasure tedious and musick it self as harsh and unwelcome as howling and tears how it doth out-law and excommunicate us drive us from place to place bring the curse of Cain upon us and make us fugitives upon the earth how it maketh us afraid of our selves afraid of others and to take every man we meet for a Serjeant to arrest us And such a burthen is Sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostom hard to be born a yoke to gall us a talent of lead to keep us down Zech. 5. It lay so heavy even upon David the servant of God that he had no rest in his bones because of his sins And quis non maluit centies mori quà m sub tali conscientia vivere who would not rather die a hundred times then live under such a conscience whose every check is an arrest whose every accusation is a summons to death Neque frustà sapientes affirmare soliti sunt si recludantur tyrannorum mentes posse aspici laniatus ictus saith the Historian Neither is it for nothing that the wisest have seriously told us that were the hearts of wicked men laid open we should see there swellings and ulcers torments and stripes here a bruise by Impatience here a swelling of Pride here a deep wound which Malice hath made there we should see Satyres dancing and Furies with their whips there we should see one dragged to the bar and quarterred for Rebellion another disciplined for Wantonness and Luxury there we should see the deep furrows which Sacriledge and Oppression have made a type of the day of Judgment and a representation of Hell it self Nemo non priùs in seipsum peccat Whosoever sinneth beginneth with himself Look not on the wounds thou hast given thy brother thou hast made as many and as deep in thy own heart Fot as a Debtor though he shift from place to place though he may peradventure evade and not come under arrest yet he can never cast off or shift himself of the obligation so it fareth with a Sinner the Obligation the Judge and his Sin follow him whithersoever he goeth sicut umbra corpus saith Basil as the shadow doth a body and he may as well run from his own shadow as from his sin Secondly Sin and Debt have this common effect that as they make us droop and hang down the head so they entangle us with trouble and business It is far easier to keep us out of bonds then to cancell them far easier not to be endebted then to procure our Apocha and acquittance and it is nothing so difficult to â—â—oid sin at the first when it flattereth as to purge it out when it hath stung us as a serpent God â—â—lleth Cain so If thou doest well and thou mayest yet do well shalt thou not be accepted Gen. 4.7 and if thou doest not well sin lyeth at the door ready to arrest thee And the reason is plain and given by Columella though to another end Operosior negligentia quà m diligentia Sloth and carelesness and neglect put us to more trouble and pain create us more business then diligence For what at first if we be provident may be done with a quick hand within a while being neglected cannot be brought to rights again but with double and treble diligence We leap into debt but we hardly creep out of it That enemy which the Centinel might have kept out having gained ground and opportunity may make it the business of a whole Army to drive back again That sin which at first we might have avoided by circumspection alone having made its entrance will not onely drive us to consultation how to expell it but perhaps let in troops at the same breach with all which we must encounter before we can be free If the evil spirit make a re-entry he bringeth with him seven worse then himself And thus both Sin and Debt bring on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unfoordable gulf of difficulties and business In the third place the Wise-man hath observed of some borrowers that for their neighbour's money they will return words of grief Eccl. 29.5 6. and complain of the time nay pay him with cursings and railings and disgrace And it is a common thing for men to hate those who have been beneficial to them si vicem reddere non possint imò quia nolint saith Seneca if they cannot requite him yea in very truth because they will not And in the like manner deal sinners with their God never think him a hard man an exactor till they are in his debt never murmure against him till they have given him just occasion to question them never fight against him till they have forced him to draw his sword to destroy them We see in the Parable Matth. 25.24 the servant that had buried his talent in the earth telleth his Lord that he did it because he knew him to be a hard man reaping where he had not sown and gathering where he had not strawed And as the Historian observeth of men hardly bestead and whose fortunes are low that they most complain of the State and Commonwealth wherein they live and think all not well in the publick because they have miscarried in the managing of their private estates So when sinners are in a great streight and dare not approch unto God and yet know not how to run from him when they have consumed the riches which he gave them de communi censu out of the common treasury out of that fountain of goodness which he is then they begin to neglect and contemn God and do despite to the holy Ghost then his precepts are hard sayings who can bear them then the flesh is weak and the condition is impossible then the very principles of goodness which they brought with them into the world begin to be worn and vanish away and they wish the Creed out of their memory would be content there were no God no obligation no penalty no such debt as Sin no such prison as Hell And these are the sad effects and operations both of Sin and Debt But one main difference we find between them
him we that are many are but one It is a good observation of S. Basil That the Love of God is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exclusive of our Love to others but calleth it in that it may not be I and Thou but WE and one I say it calleth it in to fill up the measure thereof but so that it hath dependencie thereon The Love of God knitteth all Loves to it self and it self to all We may call it with the Philosopher conglobatum amorem so many loves heaped together 1 Joh. 4 21. but beginning from one even the Love of God For this commandment we have from him that he who loveth God love his brother also Tota vita sanctorum negotiatio saith St. Augustine The whole life of the Saints is a kind of traffick and Merchandise We all venture together Every man ventureth for himself and for his brethren singuli pro omnibus omnes pro singulis every man for all and all for every man We all go together For Religion maketh all one and the most excellent parts of it are not mine nor thine but ours our common Faith our Self-denial our Fear our Joy our Riches our Peace Whatsoever conquereth winneth me the garland whosoever prayeth is my advocate He prayeth and I pray he against my ambition and I against his distrust he against my presumption and I against his diffidence We go up to the house of the Lord together and we hope to go to heaven together Such is the virtue of this Communion that though I live in a society where more scatter then gather more are bankrupt then thrive yet by my charity and compassion I may gain by their loss and have interest in the good of every man and by my prayers and ready assistance improve my spiritual estate by every mans loss They that are ignorant of this cannot pray nor go to Church together For he loveth not any no not himself who loveth not all We say Love beginneth at home but it spreadeth its garment over all otherwise it is not begun My heart must be hortus deliciarum a garden of delights a paradise wherein are set and deeply rooted these choice plants the Love of God the Love of my self and the Love of my brethren He that rooteth up one destroyeth all He that taketh my brother from me divideth me from my self And when I take my love but from one my heart is no longer a paradise but a wilderness Deo non singularitas accepta est sed unitas saith the Father God liketh not singularity where every one is for himself but unity where all are one We all go together Nor do I lose by keeping my self within this circle or compass For my scattering is my possession my losing is my gain my bounty is my thrift He that giveth not his love hath it not but when he giveth he hath in more abundance And is it not now pity that we should be more then one Is it not a shame that we should be divided and so go up together and not go up together be a press a throng a confused multitude and not a body or fly asunder and be many Wees We of Paul 1 Cor. 1.12 We of Apollos We of Cephas We of this congregation and We of that Ye will soon say so when ye see what it is that keepeth this WE this body compact within it self and what it is that divideth and scattereth it First God is a God of peace and hateth division For although Christ said he came to send a sword upon earth he declareth not his purpose Matth. 10.30 but prophesieth the event and sheweth not what he would bring but how men would abuse his doctrine as if indeed he had come on purpose to set the world on fire He could not come with a sword for he breathed nothing but peace All his precepts and counsels naturally tend to make all men of one mind and one heart Charity will bear any burden Liberality buyeth and purchaseth peace Temperance keepeth Reason in her chair undisturbed that she may command peace Patience is a reconciler melteth an enemy and transformeth him into a friend Humility stoopeth and falleth down at every foot-stool and boweth it self to woo and beg and beseech us to be at unity A Christian will be any thing that is not evil do any thing that is not sin suffer any thing to preserve unity Further those duties which we do as superiours and which are wont to give distast to others as Reprehension good Counsel Discipline even these have no other end but unity these are enjoyned us as preservatives that we may be one 1. Reprehension seemeth indeed to be a sword and to cut deep For we fly from the face of him that bringeth it Every word is a wound and the greatest Prophet our greatest enemy But if Reproof be a sword it is a Delphian sword or like his that did both wound and cure at once Its end is peace and unity It is like to the shepherds whistle calling us back when we are gone astray and near to danger John 10.16 and reducing us to that one fold and one shepherd 2. Counsel also bringeth an imputation along with it and a silent charge against him to whom it is given but it is the charge not of a severe judge but of a kind friend of a tender brother It is presented as physick not as poyson It is the diet of a sick mind saith Clemens and its end is to cure the diseased party that neither his leprosie break out nor himself be shut out of the congregation It is to him as Moses said to his father-in-law Numb 10.31 instead of eyes to discover to him his danger and to shew him the way he should go In a word it is like careful dressing of a part which is ready to fester that it may not be cut off but be healed 3. Discipline is indeed the Pastoral rod and machaera spiritualis a spiritual sword And this cutteth off a part from the whole and leaveth the body WE less in number then it was Yet he whom it cutteth off may say WE still For it doth not cut him off from the inward communion but from the outward onely and that to the end he may be brought in again Vulnus non hominem secat secat ut sanet The Apostle rendreth it ◠Cor. 5.5 The flesh is destroyed that the spirit may be saved This weapon non nocet nisi pertinacibus The blow hurteth not if it meet not with a stiff neck It severeth offenders that it may gather them it driveth them out that it may draw them in it anathematizeth them that it may canonize them it restraineth them that it may free them it putteth them to shame that they may be ashamed to stay out And the Church when they return unto her laeto sinu excipit with joy receiveth them into her bosome and then We are one again
and he reflecteth a blessing upon me Quod est omnium est singulorum That which is all mens is every mans and that which is every mans belongeth unto the whole Proprietas excommunicatio est saith Parisiensis Propriety is an excommunication When I appropriate my devotion to my self I do in a manner thrust my brother out of the Church nay I shut my self out of heaven I at once depose and exauctorate both my self and him Nay I cannot appropriate it for where it is it will spread It is my sorrow and thy sorrow my fear and thy fear my joy and thy joy Ye see here the Tribes go up to the house of the Lord with joy and this joy raiseth another or rather the same a joy of the same nature in David At the very apprehension of it he taketh down his harp from the wall and setteth his joy to a tune and committeth it to a song I was glad when they said c. And thus I am fallen upon 2. The second thing observable in the Psalmists joy the Publication thereof He setteth it to Musick he conveyeth it into a song and as the Chaldee Pharaphrast saith Adam did assoon as his sin was forgiven him he expresseth sabbatum suum his Sabbath his content and gladness in a Psalm that it might pass from generation to generation and never be forgotten but that this sacrifice of thanksgiving which himself here offereth might still upon the like occasion be offered by others unto the worlds end and that the people which should in after-ages be created might thus praise the Lord. Thus David hath passed over and entailed his joy to all posterity This is thanks and praise indeed when it floweth from an heart thus affected when it breaketh forth like light from the Sun and spreadeth it self like the heavens and declareth the glory of God Gratè ad nos beneficium pervenisse indicamus effusis affectibus saith Seneca Then a benefit meeteth with a greateful heart when it is ready to pour forth it self in joy and the affections not being able to contain themselves are seen and heard shine bright in the countenance and sound aloud in a song Certainly Gratitude is neither sullen nor silent Saul's evil melancholick Spirit cannot enter the heart of a David nor any heart in which the love of God's glory reigneth At the sight of any thing that may set it forth the pious soul is awaked and the melancholick and dumb spirit is cast out Psal 47.1 4. nor can it return whilest that love is in us When God hath chosen our inheritance for us then O clap your hands all ye people shout unto God with the voice of triumph To draw towards a conclusion By this rejoycing spirit of David's we may examine and judge of the temper of our own If we be of the same disposition with him no sight no object will delight us but that in which God is and in which his glory is seen We shall not make songs of other mens miseries nor keep holiday when they mourn We shall not like any thing either in our selves or others which dishonoureth God's name Prov. 2.14 In a word we shall not rejoyce to do evil nor take pleasure in the frowardness of the wicked But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our whole life will be one holiday one continued Sabbath and rest in good Of what spirit then are they who rejoyce not in their own miseries but in their sins who take great delight and complacency not onely in the calamities but also in the falls and miscarriages of others especially if they cast not in their lot and make one purse with them Prov. 1.14 who as Judas did carry their religion and their purse in the same hand whose religion is in their purse and openeth and shutteth with it who that they may triumph in the miseries rejoyce first in the defects whether seeming or real of their dissenting brethren Every man that looketh towards Jerusalem Luke 9.53 and will not stay with them at their Samaria must be cast out of doors Criminibus debent hortos praetoria campos They owe their wealth and possessions shall I say to other mens crimes no they owe them to their own For a great sin it is to delight in sin but to make that a crime which is not a sin is a greater What is it then to turn piety it self into sin To call an asseveration an oath is a fault at least And then what is it to call devotion superstition the house of God a sty and reverence idolatry Yet if these were sins why should my brothers ruine be my joy Why should I wish his fall delight in his fall follow him in his fall as the Romanes did their sword-players in the theatre with acclamation So so thus I would have it We cannot say this proceedeth from piety or is an effect of charity 1 Cor. 13.6 For Charity rejoyceth not in iniquity but rejoyceth in the truth Charity bindeth up wounds doth not make them wider And when people sin Charity maketh the head a fountain of tears but doth not fill the mouth with laughter Charity is no detractour no jester no Satyrist it thinketh no evil 1 Cor. 13.5 it is not suspicious It cannot behold a Synagogue of Satan in the Temple of the Lord nor Superstition in a wall nor Idolatry in reverence This evil humour indeed proceedeth from Love but it is the love of the world which defameth every thing for advantage laugheth at Churches that it may pull them down maketh men odious that it may make them poor and dealeth with them as the Heathen did with the first Christians putteth them into bears skins that it may bait them to death This certainly is not from David's but from an evil spirit Nor can it be truly termed Joy unless we should look for joy in hell and content in a place of torment Rejoycings and jubilees of this sort are like unto the howlings of devils In the Devil there cannot be joy My drunkenness cannot quench the flames he burneth in my evil conscience cannot kill that worm which gnaweth him my ignorance cannot lighten his darkness my loss of heaven cannot bring him back thither Should he conquer the whole world he would still be a slave But yet in the Devil though properly there be no joy there is quasi gaudium that which is like our joy in evil which we call Joy though it be not so And it is in him saith Aquinas not as a passion but as an act of his will When we do well that is done which he would not and that is his grief and when we sin we are led captive according to his will and that is his joy 2 Tim. 2.26 And such is the joy of malicious wicked men for whom it is not expedient nor profitable that those who are not of the same mind with them should be good and therefore against their will And to this
he hath put a pardon into our hands We must therefore seek out another Righteousness And we may well say we must seek it for it is well near lost in this Imputed Righteousness is that we hold by and Inherent righteousness is Popery or Pâ—lagianism We will not be what we ought because Christ will make us what we would be We will not be just that he may justifie us and we will rebell because he hath made our peace As men commonly never more forfeit their obedience then under a mild Prince But if the love of the world would suffer us to open our eyes we might then see a Law even in the Gospel and the Gospel more binding then ever the Law was Nor did Christ bring in that Righteousness by faith to thrust out this that we may do nothing that we may do any thing because Faith can work such a miracle No saith S. Paul he establisheth the Law He added to it he reformed it he enlarged it made it reach from the act to the look from the look to the thought Nor is it enough for the Christian to walk a turn with the Philosopher or to go a Sabbath-day's journey with the Jew or make such a progress in Righteousness as the Law of Moses measured out No Christ taught us a new kind of Righteousness and our burthen is not onely reserved but increased that this Righteousness may abound a Righteousness which striketh us dumb when the slanderer's mouth is open and loud against us which boundeth our desires when vanity wooeth us setteth a knife to our throat when the fruit is pleasant to the eye giveth laws to our understanding chaineth up our will when Kingdoms are laid at our feet shutteth up our eyes that we may not look upon a second woman which a Jew might have embraced calleth us out of the world whilest we are in the world and maketh us spiritual whilest we are in the flesh Justitia sincera a sincere Righteousness without mixture or sophistication and justitia integra an entire and perfect Righteousness Righteousness like to the love of our Saviour integros tradens integrum se danti a Righteousness delivering up the whole man both body and soul unto him who offered up himself a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world For conclusion of this point and to make some use of it Beloved this is the Object we must look on And we must use diligence and be very wary that we mistake it not that we take not that to be our Juno which is but a cloud that to be Righteousness which flesh and bloud our present occasions our present necessities our unruly lusts and desires may set up and call by that name This is the great and dangerous errour in which many Christians are swallowed up and perish not to take Righteousness in its full extent and compass in that form and shape in which it is tendered and so fulfil all righteousness but to contract and shrink it up to leave it in its fairest parts and offices and to vvork all unrighteousness and then make boast of its name And thus the number of the Righteous may be great the Goats more then the Sheep the gate vvide and open that leadeth unto the Kingdom of God Thus the Hypocrite vvho doth but act a part is righteous the Zelote vvho setteth all on fire is righteous the Schismatick vvho teareth the seamless coat of Christ is righteous he whose hands yet reek vvith the bloud of his brethren is righteous righteous Pharisees righteous Incendiaries righteous Schismaticks righteous Traitours and Murtherers not Abel but Cain the righteous All are righteous For this hath been the custom of vvicked men to bid defiance to Righteousness and then comfort themselves with her name We vvill not mention the Righteousness of the heathen For they being utterly devoid of the true knowledge of Christ it might perhaps diminish the number of their stripes but could not adde one hair to their stature or raise them nearer to the Kingdom of God Nor will we speak of the Righteousness of the Jew For they vvere in bondage under the Elements of the world nor could the Lavv make any of them perfect We Christians on vvhom the Sun of Righteousness hath clearly shined depend too much upon an Imputed Righteousness An imputed Righteousness why that is all It is so and will lift us up unto happiness if we adde our own not as a supplement but as a necessary requisite not to seal our pardon for that it cannot do but to further our admittance For we never read that the Spirit did seal an unrighteous person that continued in his sin to the day of his redemption No Imputed Righteousness must be the motive to work in us inherent Righteousness and God will pardon us in Christ is a strong argument to infer this conclusion Therefore we must do his will in Christ. For Pardon bringeth greater obligation then a law Christ dyed for us is enough to win Judas himself those that betray him and those that crucifie him to repentance The death of Christ is verbum visibile saith Clement a visible word For in the death of Christ are hid all the treasures of Wisdom and Righteousness If you look upon his Cross and see the inscription JESUS OF NAZERETH KING OF THE JEWS you cannot miss of another HOLINESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS TO THE LORD There hung his sacred body and there hung all those bracelets and ornaments as Solomon calleth them those glorious examples of all vertues There hung the most true and most exact pictures of Patience and Obedience and unparallel'd Love And if we take them not out and draw them in our selves imputed Righteousness will not help us or rather it will not be imputed What Righteousness imputed to a man of Belial Christ's Love imputed to him that hateth him his Patience to a revenger his Truth to the fraudulent his Obedience to the traitour his Mercy to the cruel his Innocency to the murtherer his Purity to the unclean his Doing all things well to those who do all things ill God forbid No let us not deceive our selves Let us not sleep in sin and then please our selves with a pleasant dream of Righteousness which is but a suggestion of the enemy whose art it is to settle that in the phansie which should be rooted in the heart and to lead us to the pit of destruction full of those thoughts which lift us up as high as heaven Assumed names false pretences forced thoughts these are the pillars which uphold his kingdom and subvert all Righteousness Vera justitia hoc habet omnia in se vertit True Righteousness complieth with nothing that is contrary or diverse from it It will not comply with the Pharisee and make his seeming a reality it will not comply with the Schismatick and make his pride humility it will not comply with the prosperous Traitour and make him a Father of his
hath written a book De arte nihil credendi of the Art of believing nothing and he lays it down as a tryed conclusion Oportet priùs Calvinistam fieri qui Atheus esse vult He that would be an Atheist must first turn Calvinist Which Maldonate the Jesuite receives as he would an Oracle But know from what coasts it breaths and may name it a prophane scoff and a most malitious speech merum pus venenum Yet this use we may make of it That we watch the Serpents head and beware the beginnings of evil For if we once serve in the Devils tents we may be engaged further then we ever thought we should and by going from our God we may learn to slight and mock him For there be steps and degrees and approches to Atheism nor is any man made an Atheist in the twinkling of an eye and this wilfull deceiving of our selves leads apace that way even to a distast of God We first mock our selves and then are willing to mock him For we never hate God till we have given him just reason to hate us Odium timor spirat saith Tertullian Hatred is an exhalation from Fear and we then begin to wish he had no Eye when we have cause to fear the weight of his Hands This is a sad declination even to the condition of the damned spirits nay of the Devil himself whose first wish was To be as God the next That there should be no God at all And thus much of the second point That we may have it in voto in our wish and desire to delude and mock God But now in the third and last place we may yet descend a step lower even to the gates of Hell it self I may say lower yet for as we may have it in voto so we may have it in studio As we may wish it were so so may we strive and study to believe it and use all means to make it present it self unto us as an article of our Creed which the damned cannot do We may strive to blot out those characters which are indeleble to rase out those afflicting thoughts of God out of our memory to drown the cry of one sin with the noise of more to feed our Love of the world with more wealth our Lust with more uncleanness and our Revenge with more bloud make a sin a vertue a crying sin an advocate by committing it often and answer our chiding Conscience with a song There be Amos 6. saith the Prophet that put far from them that evil day and to this end they chant to the sound of the viol and invent instruments of musick like David They bespeak the Vanities of the world to come in and make their peace call in the pleasure of the Flesh to abate the anguish of the Spirit work out the very thought of evil by the content and profit they reap in doing it laughing and jesting sin out of their memory adding sin unto sin till their conscience be seared as with a hot iron as the Apostle speaks Magnis sceleribus etiam jura naturae intereunt saith the Orator Whilest we are thus familiar with the works of darkness the light of Nature begins to wax dim and by degrees to vanish out of fight First as Bernard speaketh a spiritual chilness possesses the soul and finding no resistance seizeth on the inward man infects the very bowels of the heart chokes up the very wayes of counsel And then these domestick and inward remembrances the voice of Nature and the principles of Reason fail and speak in a broken and imperfect language In a word they are to us as we would have our God be not at hand as the Prophet speaketh but afar off The Historian will tell us that Theivery and Piracy were so frequently practised in some part of Greece that they were accounted no crimes at all And we read of those African parents that they made it a sport nay a religion to sacrifice their children and could not be disswaded from that inhumane custome and long it was before being conquered they were forced to lay it down And if we look abroad into the world we shall find some few indeed of those tender consciences who frame a law to condemn themselves by and so make more sins then there are But quocunque in populo quocunque sub axe in every nation in every corner of the earth we meet vvith those who frame mischief by a law take a pride to quarrel at Articles of their faith and are as active to nullifie the law of works Is Blasphemy a sin they speak it as their language Is Sacrilege a sin All things are alike to them as unholy as themselves Is Revenge a sin It an Heroick vertue Is adultery a sin It was a sin a mortal sin but in these latter and perillous times it hath spoke better things to them who are bold to present it as pleasing to their Understanding as to their Sense Is Rebellion a sin There be that call it by another name If the Son of man come shall he find sin upon the earth Certainly admit our glosses apologies distinctions evasions take us in our big triumphant thoughts there will be none that do evil no not one For what we read of the men of the first age that they know not what it was to dye but fell to their graves as men use to fall upon their beds is true of many now in respect of their spiritual estate they fall into sin as if it were nothing but to ly down and rest to satisfie the sense and please the appetite as if to sin were as natural as to eat And now all is night about us But even in this darkness there is sometimes a scintillation a beam of light darted in upon us which waxeth and waineth as the hand of God is upon us or removed In our ruff and jollity it seems well-near exstinct but in our misery and afflictions it revives many times and begins to move and at last when God strikes us to the ground when our feather is turned into a night cap when Death comes towards us on his pale horse it kindles and blazes as a Comet that foretells our everlasting destruction Now this our way uttereth our foolishness For what a folly is it to follow a Meteor exhal'd from the earth and not that light which is from heaven heavenly to be drove about with a ly and unmoveable as a rock when the Truth speaketh to preserve a wandring thought before an everlasting principle to embrace a suborn'd deceitful solicitation and turn our selves from those native and importunate suggestions from the dictates and counsel of the Spirit of God and though they haunt and pursue us run from them as from our enemies as if we were like to that fabulous rock in Pliny which you could not stir with all your strength but yet might shake with the touch of your finger We may say of this as the
have more then he can desire the blind may comfort the deaf that he shall hear the trump and the deaf the blind that he shall see his Saviour come again in glory The Church that is now militant may comfort her self that she shall be triumphant Here we converse with dust and ashes with the shapes of Men and malice of Devils or if with saints with saints full of imperfection Here are Nimrods and Nero's and worse then Nero's men who do but what mischief they can and the Devil himself can do no more Illic Apostolorum chorus martyrum populus there are the Apostles and martyrs This is but the valley of tears there all tears shall be wiped from our eyes and we shall need no comfort because we shall feel no sorrow but serve God day and night and with the glorious company of the Apostles and the noble army of Martyrs with the whole Church sing praises to the God of consolation for evermore To which place of everlasting consolation he bring us who purchased our peace with his bloud Jesus Christ the righteous The Two and Thirtieth SERMON ACTS II. 13 14. And they were all amazed and were in doubt saying one to another What meaneth this Others mocking said These men are full of new wine OF all the expressions of our distast a Scoff is the worst Admonition may be physick a Reproof may be balm a Blow may be ointment but Derision is as poyson as a sword as a sharp arrow It was the height of Jobs complaint that contemptible persons made jests on him And it was the depth of Samsons calamity that when the Philistins hearts were merry they called for Samson to make them sport That which raises our anger presents some magnitude to our eyes but that which we entertein with scorn is of no appearance not worth our thought less then nothing But now every thing is not alwayes as it appears especially to the eye of the scoffer For we see things of excellency and such as are carried about in a higher sphere may be depressed and submitted to jests We cannot cull out a better instance then that which we have here the miracle of this feast of Pentecost not done in a corner but in a full assembly and the face of the world In a general congregation of men out of every nation under heaven a Wind rusheth in Flatus qui non inflavit sed vegetavit saith S. Augustine a blast which did not blow them up but quicken and make them lusty and strong Tongues as of fire which sate upon them Ignis qui non cremavit sed suscitavit a fire which did not burn and consume but enliven and refresh them The Wind was violent and the Spirit was in the wind The Tongues were as of fire and the Spirit was in that fire they were cloven and the Spirit was in the cleft Christ was as good as his word This sound was the echo of his promise this REPLETI SVNT they were filled with the holy Ghost a commentary on EGO MITTAM and the filling of their Hope Christ's ASCENDIT endeth in DONA DEDIT and his promise in a miracle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How high a mystery is this saith Nazianzene how venerable Christ had finished his work his Birth his Circumcision his Tentation his Passion his Resurrection his Ascension which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the corporeal things of Christ These being all past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now the Spirit begins to move but not as it did on the face of the waters and as the nature of a Spirit is invisible but in state in things sensible in a rushing wind to the Ear in tongues of fire to the Eye both heard and seen Certainly a great mystery a great miracle it was And Miracles should not be the subject of scorn but admiration they should check and suppress our mirth in silence and astonishment But to press this further yet This miracle is most seen in the gift of Tongues For whether they spoke but one language and God worded it in the ear so that it was heard of every man as his own proper dialect or whether they spake in the several language of every nation to the Persians in theirs to the Medes in theirs and to the Elamites in theirs as is very probably gathered out of the text by Nazianzene and others a miracle it was and could not be wrought by any other hand then that of Omnipotency Commonly Knowledge whether of things or languages is the daughter of Time and Industry Quis unquam de noviter plantatis arbusculis matura poma quaesivit Who ever lookt for fruit from a branch scarcely yet ingrafted in the stock Est etiam studiis sua infantia saith the Oratour As the bodies of the strongest men so even studies have their infancy and their growth and slowly after long time and much care and attendance they ripen and improve by degrees to perfection But here the course and natural order of things was strangely altered For men not learned Galilaeans not of the best capacity began to speak with other tongues on a sudden Greek Persian Arabick Parthian and not common and vulgar things but MAGNALIA DEI the wonderful works of God Their skill and knowledge was as sudden as the wind or fire Put now these together and you will wonder as much to see any countenance framed to laughter as to see the tongues and the fire and be amazed at the scoff and mock as much as at the miracle But the observation is old and common That where the finger of God is most visible there the Devil will put in his claw to deface the beauty of Gods work to alter the face and complexion of the greatest miracles that they may appear as trifles and meriments If God send his fiery Tongues upon his Apostles the Devil will also set the tongues of men on fire If God send a mighty wind there shall another blow out of the Devils treasury to blast and scatter all the marks and characters of Gods power If the Apostles speak with tongues there shall be tongues as active as the pen of a ready writer to scoff and disgrace them and to pour contempt on that which God hath made wonderful in our eyes tongues that shall call the breathing of the Spirit a frensie and the speaking of languages the evaporation and prating of drunkards and that shall make the greatest miracle mere mockery You may hear them speak in my Text Others mocking said These men are full of new wine In which words briefly we observe these particulars 1. the Object of their derision and what it was they mocked at 2. the Persons not all but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 others some of them 3. the Scoff it self These men are full of new wine Out of the first we may learn thus much That even Miracles may be scoffed at Next we may observe what manner of persons Scoffers are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
disconsonant to the wayes of those who are deeply immerst and drencht in the world and which by them is in esteem as Madness or Drunkenness shall receive the reward of Soberness and Truth O how happy were it for these mockers if they were thus distempered thus superstitious if they took this cup of the Lord and did adde drunkenness to thirst and even fill and glut themselves with it They cannot be too reverent too spiritual too absurd and ridiculous to the world and worldly men He that seems wise to these must needs be neer of kin to a fool and he whom they admire must be ridiculous Aliud est judicium Christi aliud anguli susurronum Whom the world laughs at Christ will honour whom they make their slaves with Christ are Kings and whom they scorn he will crown And then these scoffers shall be had in derision and they who are filled with the Spirit shall for ever drink of the river of his pleasures and shall sit down with him at his table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and these Apostles here and drink that new wine with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that spiritual immortal joy in the kingdom of his Father in the presence of God where there are pleasures for evermore To which He bring us who sent his Spirit down upon us Jesus Christ the righteous The Three and Thirtieth SERMON PART I. LUKE XI 27 28. And it came to pass as he spake these things a certain woman of the company lift up her voice and said unto him Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast sucked But he said Yea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it WE cannot say more of our Saviour in the dayes of his flesh then this He went about doing good Acts 10.38 Job 29.15 He was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame and health to the sick And as he cured mens bodies of diseases so he purged their souls from sin As he went his steps dropped fatness Scarce proceeded there a word from his blessed lips that breathed not forth comfort In this chapter he cast out a devil which was dumb and the people wondred v. 14. But such is the rancour and venome of Envy and Malice that no vertue no miracle no demonstration of power can castigate or abate it What is Vertue to a Jew or what is a Miracle to a Pharisee When the devil was gone out saith the Text the dumb spake a work not to be wrought but by the finger of God But if a Pharisee look upon it it must change its name and be said to be done by the claw of the Devil For some of them said He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the prince of the devils Others tempting him sought from him a sign from heaven as if this were not such a one but rather proceeded from the pit of hell and from the power of darkness It is the character of an evil and envious eye to look outward extrà mittendo not to receive the true species and forms of things but to send out some noxious spirits from it self which discolour and deface the object Hence Envious men are thought as S. Basil saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to infect every thing they look upon and like the Basilisk to kill with a very look What do they cast their eye upon that they do not poison and corrupt Is it Temperance they call it Stupidity Is it Justice they call it Cruelty Is it Wisdome they call it Craft Is it Honesty they call it Folly and Want of foresight Is it a Miracle they call it Magick and Sorcery and a work of Beelzebub Wherefore saith the Father was our Saviour made a mark for every venemous dart wherefore was he so sorely laid at by the Jews by the Scribes and Pharisees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For nothing else but his wondrous works And what were they His curing of the sick feeding of the hungry restoring of the dead to life casting out of devils And therefore as he confirmed his doctrine by miracles so Malice putteth him to another task to make good his miracles by reason and argument And this he doth 1. argumento ducente ad absurdum by an argument which will either bind them to silence or drive them upon the face of an open absurdity For what an absurd thing were it for Satan to drive out himself and 2. argumento ducente ad impossibile For if Satan be divided against himself it is impossible his kingdome should stand Proficit semper contradictio stultorum ad stultitiae demonstrationem saith Hilary The contradiction of sinners and fools striveth and struggleth to gain ground and to over-run the Truth but the greatest proficiencie Folly maketh is but to make her self more open and manifest like Candaules's wife who was seen naked of all but her self But Truth is as unmovable as a rock which as the Father speaketh of the Church tunc vincit cùm laeditur tunc intelligitur cùm arguitur tunc obtinet cùm deseritur then conquereth when it receiveth a foil is then understood when it is opposed and is then safe when it is forsaken Let the Jews rage and the Pharisees imagin a vain thing let Envy cast a mist and let Malice smoke like a fornace yet Christ's miracles shall be as clear as the day wherein they were wrought and the mouth of Iniquity shall be stopped Out of his own mouth shall the Pharisee be convinced and Christ shall be as powerful in his words as in his works so powerfull in both that even è â—urba out of that multitude which did oppose him one witness or oâ—her shall rise to bear testimony to the truth to point out to the finger of God by which this miracle was wrought to magnifie and bless not onely our Saviour but even the very womb that bare him and the paps that he had sucked For it came to pass as he spake these things a certain woman of the company lift up her voice and said unto him Blessed c. My Text divideth it self between the Woman and Christ First the Woman taketh occasion from what she had heard and seen to magnifie Christ Then Christ taketh occasion from her speach to instruct her and let her at rights She calleth Christ's mother blessed He sheweth her a more excellent way by which she may come to be as blessed as his mother She talketh of Blessedness He telleth her what it is He condemneth not her affection but directeth and levelleth it to the right object and as the Pythagoreans method of teaching was he indulgeth something that he may gain the more Be it so Blessed is the womb that bare me and the paps that gave me suck QUINIMO But much rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it To be my Mother is but a temporal privilege but to hear and keep my word is eternal
welcome Come ye Blessed children of my Father receive the kingdome and Blessedness which was prepared for you from the beginning of the world The Five and Thirtieth SERMON COLOS. III. 1. If then you be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God THe Resurrection of the dead is the prop and stay the very life and soul of a Christian Illam credentes sumus saith Tertullian By believing this we have our being and are that which we are and without this it were better for us not to be If there be no resurrection of the dead saith the Apostle then are we of all men most miserable Now much better were it for us not to be at all then to be miserable For let us take a general survay not as Solomon doth in the book of the Preacher of all the pleasures in the world but of all the virtues of a Christian onely deny the Resurrection of the dead and what are they else but extreme vanity and vexation of the spirit To cleanse our hearts and wash our hands in innocency to hold a strict watch over all our ways to deny unto our selves the joyes and pleasures of the world to pine our bodies with fasting to bestow our hours on devotion our goods on the poor and our bodies on the fire this and whatsoever else is so full of terrour to the outward man and so full of irksomness to the flesh what may it seem to be but a kind of madness if when this little span of our life be measured out there remain no crown no reward of it if after so many strivings with our selves so many agonies so many crucifyings of our selves so many pantings for life we must in the end breath out our last But beloved Christ is risen and our faith in his Resurrection is an infallible demonstration and a most certain pledge to us that we shall rise as he hath done Of which that we may the better assure our selves we must observe that as S. Paul tells us As we have born the image of the earthy so must we bear the image of the heavenly so on the contrary we must make an account that as we hope to bear the image of the heavenly so must we first bear the image of the earthy and if we will bear a part in the resurrection to glory which is a heavenly resurrection we must have our part in a resurrection to grace which is a resurrection here on earth S. John distinguishes for me in his Revelation Ch. 20.5.6 Blessed is he that hath his part in the first resurrection And he that hath none there shall bear at all no part in the second resurrection As it is with us in nature at the end of our dayes there is a death and after that a resurrection so is it with us in grace yet the days of sin can have an end in us there is a death For the Apostle tells us we are dead to sin and we are buried with him in Baptisme Then after this death to sin cometh the resurrection to newness of life Mors perire est resurgere restingui nisi mors mortem resurrectio resurrectionem antecedat To die is quite to perish to rise again worse then to have lien for ever rotting in the grave if this first death go not before a second death and this first resurrection before the second Secondly as in our life time we die and rise again with Christ so do we likewise in a manner ascend with him into heaven For to seek those things which are above is a kind of flight and ascension of the Soul into heavenly places And as God commanded Moses before he died to ascend up into the mountain Deut. 32.49 to see a far off and discover that good land which he had promised to the Jews So it it his pleasure that through holy conversation and newness of life we should raise our selves far above the rest of the world and in this life time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene speaks as it were from an exceeding high mountain discover and have some sight of that good land and of those good things which God hath laid up for those which are his Hebr. 6. So by the Apostle our regeneration and amendment of life that is our first resurrection is called a taste of the good spirit and word of God a relish and taste of the powers of the world to come Now of this first Resurrection doth our blessed Apostle speak in these words which I have read unto you If you be risen with Christ seek those things which are above Which speech though it go with an If and therefore seems to be conditional yet if we look neerer into it we shall find that indeed it is a peremptory and absolute command in effect as if he had said Rise with Christ and seek the things which are above Acts 12. And as the Angel said to Peter being in prison Arise up quickly at which words the chains fell off from Peters hands so God by his blessed Apostle comes to us who are in a stricter prison and commands us in the first words Arise quickly and in the next seek the things which are above and so makes as it were the chains fall off our hands and delivers us out of prison into the glorious liberty of the Saints of God For the things of this world and our love unto them are fetters to our feet and manacles to our hands holding us down groveling on the earth And except these chains fall off we can never Arise and follow the Angel as Peter did When Elias in a whirlwind went up to heaven the text tells us that his mantle fell from him And he that will go up into heaven with Elias 2 Kings 2. and seek the things that are above cannot go with his cloke thither he must be content to leave his mantle below forgo all things that are beneath and as S. Hierome speaks nudam crucem nudus sequi follow the naked cross naked and stript from all the glory and pomp of the world Now this part of Scripture which I have read is a part of the practice of our spiritual Logick for it teacheth us to frame an argument or reason by which we may conclude unto our selves that our first resurrection is past For if we seek the things which are above then are we risen with Christ if not we are in our graves still our souls are putrified and corrupt And again If we be risen with Christ then as Christ at his resurrection left in his grave the cloths wherein he was buried so these things of the world in which we lye as it were dead and buried at our resurrection to newness of life we must leave unto the world which was the grave in which we lay As it is in arched buildings all the stones do enterchangeably and mutually rest upon and hold
Christ strive to make every man he sees a disciple Abraham as he was called faithful Abraham so made himself the father of the faithful and did command his children and his houshold after him to keep the way of the Lord which was to beget them in the Lord. Joshua and his houshold will serve the Lord. David having tasted how gracious the Lord was calls others to make trial and drink of the same cup. This is the good mans nay the Angels Jubilee to see others turn unto the Lord. The weeping Prophet wished his head a fountain of tears when men dishonoured God by their rebellion Moses wish was that all the people could prophesie One Prephet draws on a goodly fellowship of Prophets one Apostle a glorious company one Saint a noble army For when the spirit of Holiness whose operation is like that of Fire is hot within men it spreads it self violently like that element which hath voracitatem toto mundo avidissimam as Pliny speaks is a restless element and either spreads or dyes Grace being kindled from the Father of Lights from him who is Light it self takes in others and licks up every thing about it as the fire did which Elias called down from heaven S. Paul being inflamed with this heat what would not he do what would not he suffer He would spend and he spent he would offer up himself a sacrifice for the Philippians he would stay on earth when he desired to depart he would abide in the flesh an irksome thing to one so spiritualized and now ready to put on the crown which was laid up for him he would retire for a while even from Joy it self that the Philippians might become what he was truly stiled the Servants of Jesus Christ We may think it perhaps a strange sight to see so great an Apostle so filled with revelations one that had been in the third Heaven to be now in such a strait one that had received the Truth neither by men nor of men but by the revelation of Jesus Christ to doubt and to be ignorant what to do But thus to be at a stand and in doubt thus to consider both conditions of this and the next life and then to conclude against himself for the Glory of God and the Salvation of his brethren could not but proceed from a most heroick and divine Spirit a Spirit that had subdued the Flesh nay conquered it self and preferred the Glory of God before his own Will though regular and warrantable the same Spirit which was in Christ qui quod voluit effici id ipsum concedi sibi non voluit as Hilary speaketh who would not have that granted which he would have done I say none but those who have such a spirit are subject to such a doubt none but those who are thus free are brought to such a strait They who are fleshly and wordly-minded the children of this world are so wise indeed in their genaration that they are never thus perplext they never demur or doubt with S. Paul they are never shut up in his strait No as they have not tasted of the powers of the world to come so it is not in all their thoughts Nusquam aqua haeret they never stick or are in perplexity but are sudden and positive and soon conclude for themselves Here here let us build us a tabernacle Here amidst the fading pleasures and flying vanities of this world here amongst shadows and apparitions amongst those killing tentations which we love amongst those occasions of evil which we will run and meet and embrace in the midst of all the snares the Enemy can lay which we delight to be caught in and look upon our fetters as ornaments Here let us dwell for ever for we have a delight therein What is the Glory of God unto us who thus glory in our own shame What will we do to save our brothers Soul who so prodigally prostitute our own Not a spark of the fire in us which was in S. Paul no trouble no doubt in us not the least consideration of God our selves and our brethren And thus we pass on securely wantonly delicately not fearing the bitterness of death never in any strait till we are shut up in that prison out of which we shall never come out And this is the most pleasing and the most sad condition we can fall into This security is our danger This lifting our selves up is our ruine A diligent troubled perplexed Christian shall find light in darkness resolution in doubting and a way to escape in the greatest streit To conclude this If the same mind were in us which was in S. Paul if the same mind were in us which was in Christ Jesus we should then look upon our calling to be Christians as the most delightful and the most troublesome calling We should not hope to pass through it without rubs and difficulties without doubts and disputings in our selves We should compare one thing with another often put up questions and have fightings and struglings in our selves We should desire that which is best for our selves and conclude for that which is best in the sight of God For this we must do even sometimes curb and restrain our selves in our lawful desires and when we set forth forth for the Glory of God leave them behind us stay his leisure to do him service deny our selves in our own desires desire to put off the flesh and yet resolve to abide in the flesh lay down all our wills and desires and bow to the will and Glory of God With S. Paul here we may retein both a resolution to glorifie God in our mortal bodies and a desire to be loosed and to be with Christ cheerfully entertein the one and yet earnestly desire the other They were both here in the Apostle and the same Love was mother and nurse to them both I am in a great strait It was Love perplext him and the Love of Christ raised up this desire to be with him For I am in a great strait desiring to be loosed and to be with Christ. And so we pass from S. Pauls Doubt to his Desire And indeed had be not been in this strait he had not had this desire which nothing can raise up but the Love of God and his glory This Desire carries nothing in it that hath any opposition to the will of God It is not wrought in us by Impatience or Sense of injuries for the Christian hath learnt to forgive them Not by Contumelie and Disgrace for the Christian can bear contumeliam contumeliae facere and so fling disgrace upon Contumelie it self It is not the effect of any evil for the Christian can overcome evill with good The Stoicks indeed thought quaerendam potiùs mortem quà m servitutem ferendam That the best remedy for Slavery Contumely or a tedious Sickness was to force the Soul from the body which was now become a prison and place of torment to it And in
was the mishapen and deformed issue of my lust Again this sin of covering sin is more natural then any sin beside We cannot name any that agreeth with all natures complexions as this doth All are not apt to commit the same sin Anger draweth this mans sword Lust fasteneth a second to the harlots lips Fear betrayeth a third to idleness and a spiritual lethargy Ambition and Pride lift up another above himself and Covetousness burieth many in the earth He that is wax to one sin is marble to another Envy slayeth one Lust is a deep ditch to another Wrath consumeth a third But Excuse is a cover that will fit all sins which though they have divers complexions yet will all admit and receive this paint Excuse as a servant waiteth upon all and is officious to offer attendance on the foulest It is a servant and slave to the murderer to the wanton to the oppressour to the covetous What is unwilling to stand to a tryal will run to Excuse as to a counsellour for advice Quae tum maximè gratiosa est cum caedit We embrace it when it strangleth us kiss and biddeth it most welcome when it woundeth us to death To make it yet plainer how incident it is to our nature to be covering that which hath an ill appearance to be framing apologies We may observe that there is something in Man naturally which casteth him upon this vice which is not in the Devil himself Depuduit The Devil hath hardned his forehead and cast off all shame of sin It is his trade and profession to sin himself and draw others to the like perdition And they are his children who have cast off all shame Jer. 6.15 Were they ashamed no they were not at all ashamed saith the Prophet not ashamed of that which was most ridiculous most abominable To sin and not to blush to discover our nakedness and not be ashamed is a sad declination to the condition of the damned spirits the next step to hell For God hath imprinted in Man a natural shame of sin which maketh him to fly from the eyes and ears of men to make darkness his pavilion to retire into grots and caves to betake himself to corners and privacy which are nothing else but the badges of sin Sin hath a foul face and her best friends are ashamed of her company Sin is a favourite which we embrace and Sin is a monster we fly from Sin is the greatest evil it hath that name and therefore when we commit it it is not sin They that make her familiar with them in the closet will not go about with her in the streets as ready to disgrace sin as to commit it Nor could she ever prevail with those who were most enamoured with her to acknowledge her without a blush Nolim latere siquid egero benè Nec opto testes siquid egero malè saith Phaedra in the Poet. Our good deeds we bring forth at noon-day before the Sun and the people but no night is dark enough to cover our sin Now God left this impression of shame upon us to keep us within compass that vve should not commit sin to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Father calleth it to be a great help and furtherance to us in the wayes of vertue For vvhy should vve bring forth such fruits vvhich vvhen vve look upon them will change our countenance and dye it with a blush And this effect Shame should have But by the policy and envy of Satan that vvhich should naturally keep us from committing sin doth as naturally draw us to conceal it and vvhat vvas made as a means to prevent it is made a cloke to cover it That we may therefore confess and forsake our sins and so find mercy vve must strive to take this inconvenience away and be careful how we use it For it is of an ambiguous quality it is what vve vvill make it Sometimes it is poison and sometimes an antidote sometimes it is the savour of life unto life and it may prove the savour of death unto death It is a bridle to our Nature to keep us in a regular and even motion sometimes we must put it on and sometimes we must take it off again When vve are solicited to sin let us add it to our Nature The Poet will tell us Pudere quà m pigere praestat totidem literis We cannot render the conceit but the sense is good in all languages Shame is far better then Repentance And thus we see that good men are chary of their modesty but the wicked harden their faces as steel They use their shame as they do their Garment quae quantò obsoletior est tantò incuriosiùs habetur which the more it is worn is the more slightly and carelesly laid up Let us not sin for shame for nothing can shame or disgrace us but sin But when lust hath conceived and brought forth sin when it is committed let us take off shame again and be as bold to confess as we were to offend Ego rubori locum non facio cùm plus de detrimento ejus acquiro I give no room to shame when I am to repent for I gain by her loss and am most humble when I fling her away Et ipse hominem quodammodo exhortatur Nè me respicias pro te mihi melius est perire when unseasonable modesty and shame it self seemeth to bespeak and exhort us not to regard her becometh an oratour against herself and telleth us that unless we perish we cannot be safe nor build up our repentance but upon her ruines Shame is a good buckler to oppose against sin but if sin hath once got the better of us if we slye the sight of sin and are ashamed to confess we flye as Horace telleth us he once did relictâ non bene parmulâ and leave our buckler behind us Nay Shame saith Parisiensis is as a Prelate or Bishop before sin and doth those several offices set down by St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it instructeth 2 Tim. 4.2 correcteth and rebuketh us But after sin we must proceed to degradation and put it from its chair For if we suffer it to usurp and exercise jurisdiction over us it will suspend and silence us and make us an Anathema Away then with that shame which will increase our shame Away with that shame which is not yet and yet sealeth up our mouth that it may be Is it a shame to confess Confess though it be a shame For though there be shame it shall be debilis inermis weak and feeble and disarmed not able to speak a word to accuse thee Praestat palam absolvi quà m damnatum latere Open absolution is better then private and secret damnation Better to be saved in thunder then lost in silence Better to be covered with shame and live then to cover our sins for shame and perish Better to be a proverb of reproch on earth then a
conditions of life to all sexes to all actions whatsoever It may be fitted to Riches as well as to Poverty it will live with Married men as well as with Votaries it will abide in Cities as well as in a Cell or Monastery Why should I prescribe Poverty I may make Riches my way Why do I enjoyn Single life I may make Marriage my way Why should I not think my self safe but when I am alone I may be perfect amidst a multitude Whether in riches or poverty in marriage or single life in retiredness or in the city Religion is still one and the same And in what estate soever I am I must be perfect as perfect as the Evangelical Law requireth In every estate I must deny my self and take up the cross and follow Christ I fear this tying Perfection to particular states and conditions of men hath made men less careful to press toward it as a thing which concerneth them not For why should a Lay-man be so severe to himself as he that weareth a gown Why should a Knight be so reserved as a Bishop It is a language which we have heard But I conclude this with that which the Wise-man spake on another occasion Say not thou Why is this thing better then that For every thing in its time is seasonable Poverty or Riches Marriage or Single life Solitude or Business And in any of these we may be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect For conclusion then Let this perfect Law of Christ be alwayes before our eyes till Christ be fully formed in us till we be the new creature which is made up in holiness and righteousness Let us press forward in whatsoever state we are placed with all our strength to perfection from degree to degree from holiness to holiness till we come ad culmen Sionis to the top of all Art thou called a Servant Be obedient to thy Master with fear and with singleness of heart as unto Christ Art thou called a Master Know that thy Master also is in heaven Let every man abide in that calling wherein he was called to be a Christian and in that calling work out Perfection Place it not on the Tongue in an outward profession For the Perfect man is not made up of words and air and sounds If he be raised up out of the dust out of filth and corruption it must be in the name that is in the power of Christ. There be many good intentions saith Bernard and it is as true There be many good professions in hell Place it not in the Ear. For we may read of a perfect Heart but we have not heard of a perfect Ear. If there be such an attribute given to it it is when it is in conjunction with the Heart Faith cometh by hearing It is true it cometh The perfect man may pass by through this gate but he doth not dwell there Neither place it in thy Phansie The Perfection which is wrought there is but a thought but the image of Perfection the picture of a Saint And such Images too oft are made and set up there and they that made them fall down and worship them Neither let us place it in a faint and feeble Wish For if it were serious it were a Will but being supine and negligent it is but a Declaration of our mind a Sentence against our selves that we approve that which is best and chuse the contrary turn the back to heaven and wish we were there It was Balaam's wish but it was not his alone Oh let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his And let us not interpret Scripture for and against our selves and when we read BE YE PERFECT make it our marginal note Be ye perfect as far as you are able as far as your lusts and desires and the business of this world will permit That is Be ye imperfect I will not say If one of our Angels and such Angels there be amongst us but If an Angel from heaven bring such a Gloss let him be Anathema Neither let us because we are taught to say when we have done all that is commanded us that we are unprofitable servants resolve to be so unprofitable For we are taught to say so that we may be more and more profitable For it is not the scope of that place to shew us the unprofitableness of our Obedience but rather the contrary Beacuse when we have made ready and girded our selves and served it shall be said to us also Luk 17.8 that we shall afterward eat and drink Much less doth it discover our weakness and impotency to that which is good and our propensity to evil For the Text is plain We must say this when we have done all that is commanded us And if we have done it we can doe more Nor is it set up against Vain-glory and Boasting but against Idleness and careless neglect in preforming that which remaineth of our duty Because that which remaineth is of the same nature with that which is done already as due to the Lord that commandeth it as our first obedience when you have gone thus far you have done nothing unless you go further When you have laboured in the heat of the day it is nothing unless you continue till the evening Something you have done which is commanded behold God commandeth more and you must do it Continue to the end and then he will bid you sit down and eat He that beginneth and leaveth off and bringeth not his work to an end he that doeth not all hath done nothing Thus let us make forward to Perfection and not faint in the way Let us not be weary of well-doing as if we were lame and imperfect but let us press forward to the end stand it out against tentations fight against the principalities and powers of this world and resist unto bloud Let us make up our breaches and strengthen our selves every day take in some strong hold from the adversary beat down the flesh and keep it in subjection that it may be a ready servant to the Spirit weaken the lust of the eyes humble our pride of life and abate the lust of the flesh be more severe and rigid to our fleshly appetite and never leave off whilest we carry this body of sin about us And then as S. Peter exhorteth let us give diligence to adde to our faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and let these abound in us more and more that we be not barren and unfruitful And when we have thus begun and prest forward though with many slips and failings which yet do not cut us from the covenant of grace nor interrupt our perseverance and at last finished our course we shall come unto mount Sion and to the City of the living God and to an innumerable company of Angels and to the spirits of just men
and malice vve make our selves the children of death to lie down and dream that our names are written in the book of life And vvhat folly is it to fall and fall again and think we cannot fall eternally to be ashamed of the Gospel to do those things upon which the Gospel it self hath fixed many Woes and yet to say we remain in it Why should we ask Whether David fell away totally when he fell so dangerously that had he not repented he had fallen into hell But I had rather commend Perseverance unto you as a condition annexed to every vertue so Bernard as that which compasseth every good grace of God about as with a shield so Parisiensis as that gift of God which preserveth and safe-guardeth all other vertues so Augustine For though every good gift and every perfect gift be from above Jam. 1. â—7 though those vertues which beautifie a Christian soul descend from heaven and are the proper issues and emanations as it were from God himself yet Perseverance is unica filia saith Bernard his onely daughter and heir and carrieth away the crown She alone bringeth the disciple of Christ into the King's bed-chamber For he that endureth to the end shall be saved He runneth in vain who runneth not to the mark He runneth in vain that fainteth in the way and obtaineth not Whatsoever is before the end is not the end but a degree unto it What is a Seed if it shoot forth and flourish and then wither What is a gourd which groweth up in a night and shadoweth us and then is smitten the next morning with a worm and perisheth What is a fair morning to a tempestuous day What is a Sabbath-dayes journey to him who must walk to the end of his hopes What is an hour in Paradise What is a look an approch towards heaven and then to fall back and be lost for ever Beloved to begin well and not to persevere to give up our names to Christ and not to dwell in him to be partakers of the holy Ghost and then to chase him away to be in the faith and not stablished to be in love and not abide in it to have hope and cast it away to have tasted of the powers of heaven and be shut out to look into the Gospel and not remain in it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostom the most miserable spectacle in the world more miserable then the murthering of a child in the womb and depriving him of life before he see the Sun And the reason is plain For it doth not onely make our beginnings nothing and to be in vain that is not the worst and yet the beginnings of life are so precious as who would lose them who would lose his title to a fair Lordship but then who would lose his title to Eternity but now which is a sad speculation our beginnings are not onely lost but cast an ill and malevolent look and aspect upon our progress and proceedings which are so unlike them and we are the worse because we were once good If Lucifer fall from heaven he is a Devil and he that remaineth not in the Gospel a revolted Christian is the worst of men You did run well who did hinder you And are you so foolish that Gal. 5.7 having begun in the Spirit you will end in the flesh To run well and then to faint to embrace the Truth and then to deny it to be dispossessed of an evil spirit and then to sweep and garnish the house for him is to receive him and with him seven other spirits more wicked then himself to become more foul because once clensed more entangled because once free more blind for the first light more dangerously sick because of a relapse and the last state is worse then the first nay is worse for the first and had not been so fatal if the first had not brought the beginnings of life And therefore look into the Gospel by all means but then be sure to remain in it A good beginning must be had but let the end be like unto the beginning Let not Jupiter's head be set upon the body of a Tyrant as the proverb is A young Saint and an old Devil but let Holiness like Joseph's coat of many colours be made up of many vertues but reaching down to the very feet to our last dayes our last hour our last breath For this is our eternity here on earth propter hoc aeternum consequimur aeternum Our remaining in the Gospel our constant and never-ceasing obedience to it is a Christian's Eternity below And for this span of obedience which is the mortal's Eternity we gain right and title to that real Eternity of happiness in the highest heavens To remain in the Gospel and to be blessed for ever are the two stages of a Christian the one here on earth the other in the kingdom of heaven To look into the Gospel that is the first And the second is like unto it to remain in it to set a court of guard about us that no deceitful temptation remove us out of our place Vera tota pura Virginitas nihil magis timet quà m semetipsam saith Tertullian Virginity if it be true and entire and pure is afraid of nothing more then it self it being then most in danger most attemptable as that which may soon be defiled by a touch or look And when we have embraced the Gospel we are indeed out of all other danger but onely the danger of losing our station or place For our Perseverance is a vertue which is never in actu completo never hath its complete act in this life Whilest we live we are men and whilest we are men we are mutable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Paul Not as though I had already attained Phil. 3.12 or were already perfect but I follow after certain of the reward of perseverance but not certain of perseverance For there is no certain victory saith S. Hierom till the earthly house of this frail tabernacle be dissolved Whilest we breathe we are in danger and therefore whilest we breathe we must watch And this was the doctrine of the ancient Fathers yea of Augustine himself and Prosper that followed him Nor doth this Doctrine draw dry the wells of Salvation nor stop the current of those comforts which flow from the inexhaust fountain of the Goodness of God No They ever flow fresh and the same but they do not water a dead but a bleeding heart The Grace and favour of God is then medicinable and doth rowse and revive our drooping spirits when we receive iâ— not in vain And we are certain of it when we stand fast and hold the profession of our faith without wavering not when we fall into those sins which are enmity to God and shut him out with all his comforts We may be certainly persuaded that his Grace is sufficient for us and will never forsake us whilest
Apolinarius 12. Apostles The Spirit was given them but in measure and by degrees and not without using of means 61. Apparel vain and superfluous an argument of a ragged and ill-shapen soul better sold given to the poor 897. Modestie must be our tire-woman not Pride 1101 1102. Appearances deceive and draw us into sin 261 c. 268. The way not to be deceived by them is to compare them with things that are real 269. Appetite v. Inclination Aquinas's answer to his sister 89. Archimedes how honoured for his great skill 292. Arians their opinion of Christ 5. 8. Their errour occasioned by their love 762. Aristippus 508. Aristotle 496. What Alexander would have him teach him 497. Arius 12. 65. Ark. The Ark in a manner idolized by the Israelites taken by the Philistines 300 c. Arts and trades whence 889. Ascension v. Christ. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the antient Fathers what and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who 68. Assurance of some ill-grounded 578 579 608. 691. 742. 975. 993. A child of God may want Assurance and a wicked man may have it 344 c. 396. 400. Sin and Assurance will not dwell together 351 352. 494. How Assurance is to be gotten 351. 608. v. Despair Athanasius 12. He is commended for his diligent imitation of worthy men 1021. Atheists 41 42. 46. None becometh an Atheist on a sudden 922. Augustine 526. How far he granted Possibility of perfection 110. His errour about Baptism 81. Authority of Superiours to be obeyed 639 c. The AUTHOUR forbidden to exercise his function 1127. His Benediction and Farewel to his Auditours 1128 1129. B BAlaam 253. 549. Baptism not absolutely necessary 81. Barrenness why accounted a curse in Israel 987. Basil 1025. His counsel about Alms 145. and to duty 743. Beasts far better then sinful Man 378. Beauty Honour Riches mean objects for the Soul of man 648. Beauty of Man wherein 107. Begardi 392. Beginnings of grace and goodness should be carried on to the end 555. 578. Believe and Repent the summe of the Gospel and of our duty 60. 61. Benefits bind us to our benefactours 105. 578 579. 590. Birds in India of a strange nature 91. Bishop An Universal B. not expedient 233. Blessedness what and whence to be had 985. 990. 1127 1128. Where B. will not be found 1127 1128. B. is promised to several Virtues but not to be obteined but by all 831 832. Blessedness it is that exciteth us to obedience 1123. B. is entailed on the godly not ex rigore justitiae but ex debito promissi 993. 1126. Our B. beginneth here and is compleated in heaven 1123 1124. Blessings What use we ought to make of God's B 590 591. 598. v. Benefits A good child is a blessing 987. Boasting is not the language of true Saints 882. Body God made our Bodies food and rayment for them which his will is that we make use of 896. A tricked-up B. is a probable argument of a naked soul 897. A speech of an Abbot upon the sight of a woman who had curiously attired her B. 928. He that pampereth his B. destroyeth his soul 562. To beat down the B. is indeed to honour it 886 887. It is not for fornication 750. v. Fornication The B. is the worst master the best servant 753. It is to be kept under by fasting 752 c. We must serve God with our B. as well as with the soul 634 635. 745 c. 749. 980 981. v. Reverence Worsh Our service is not complete if it be not of the whole man 746. 981. What it is to glorifie God in our B. 749 c. We glorifie God in our B. by Voice Gesture reverent Deportment 755. c. Christian duties are performed by the ministery of the B. 746. 756. In which respects Angels themselves may seem to come short of us 746. We glorifie God in our B. when we suffer for his sake 553 554. Brother Every man ought to do his endeavour to save his brother's soul 576 c. Busie-bodies how dangerous in Church and State 212-215 v. Meddling Though they hap to do what is good yet it is not good from them 215. They who are most busie in other mens matters are most negligent at home 216. Fortunate Busie-bodies v. Prosperous Villains C CAin 175 176. the first founder of Cities and the first finder-out of Weights and Measures 889. Callings Diversity of gifts infer a difference of C. 214. 657. God hath assigned every man his Calling 213. Christianity imposeth no particular C. on any but directeth and sanctifieth all 521. No man how great soever ought to live without a C. 223. The meanest C. is honourable 213. 216. Every one ought to keep within the bounds of his own C. 211. 216. 640. This is a lesson of Christianity 213. 224. 521. and also a dictate of Nature 214. This is comely 216. advantageous 216. necessary 217. Devotion may mingle it self with the actions of our Callings 221. Industry in our C. is a special fense against the Devil 223. When we walk honestly in our Callings Christ walketh with us and we walk in him 522. 528. v. Trades Calvine taxed 25. v. Maldonate He and Luther too much admired by their followers 526. 682. v. Kneeling Camp v View Care for children some alledge to excuse their Covetousness and Fraud 127. Cases of conscience how to be decided 1077. Catholick v. Church Cato 868. His politie in his family 564. Tullie's censure of him 295. He is blamed for killing himself 705. Ceremonies Religion brought forth Ceremonies but the Daughter oft devoureth the Mother 1057. Ceremonies are arbitrary and may be dispensed with Moral laws not so 1024. Ceremonial religion is not the true service of God 70 c. The most Ceremonious persons commonly the greatest sinners and why 74 c. v. Formality Many are afraid of a Ceremony and rejoyce in a sin 883. Ceres both frugifera and legifera 219. Cerinthus 11. Chance and Fortune unfit words for a Christian's mouth 573. Changes especially of Religion are still with difficulty 968. Charity hard to be found either in Commonwealth or Church 491. How little Charity some content themselves withal 822 823. 862 863. Charity is a coupling virtue 242. Faith and Hope if without Charity are false 242. 275 276. It is a necessary qualification of a Communicant 490 c. It maketh a man avoid giving offense to others 639. 1102. and to be peaceable and obedient in the Church 59 60. 1077. Charity and Prudence are to be our guides in things indifferent 639. 1077. 1102. Works of Charity fill the heart with great joy 1125. 1126. Charity maketh a man resemble God 279. Deeds of Ch. 278. Our Charity to others must be joyned with Purity in our selves 281. Acts of Ch. how to be performed 942 943. Occasions and objects of Ch. ever frequent 943. Arguments to move us to be charitable one to another 938 c. St. John in a whole Sermon
Pulpit-flatterers 506. Flattering Preachers are vvorse then Judas 510 511. The root of Flattery is Covetousness 507 c. How apt vve are to flatter our selves 442. 480. 742. 875. v. Assurance Presumtion Security Flesh v. Body Flesh and Spirit contrary 175. 562. 767. ever contending one vvith another 312. Florimundus Raimundus 556. Folly Whence all the Folly that so aboundeth in the vvorld 689 690. Fools and Mad-men vvhat to be thought of 96. None such Fools as they vvho think themselves vvise 500 501. Forgetfulness of the World reproved 1116. Forgiveness How short our Forgiveness cometh of God's 817. God's F. is free and voluntary and so must ours be 818. Whether we are bound to forgive an injury before acknowledgment made 818. God forgiveth fully and so must vve not onely forgive but forget 819. By this vve become like unto God 820. Though vve must forgive yet is not the office of the Judge or going to Law unlawful 821. God's F. is not the less free because it engageth us to forgive 824. What force our F. hath to obtain F. of God 824 825 830 c. What influence God's F. should have on us 826 c. How it cometh to pass that it doth not alwayes vvork in us the likeness of it self 827 828. That we may forgive our Brother vve must oft call to mind and meditate upon the Mercy of God 828 829. and apply it aright 829. What vve must do to get our sins forgiven 833. Grace to forgive one another is never single but accompanied vvith other graces 833. Form A Form of godliness nothing worth vvithout the power thereof 663. yet it deceiveth many 77. 79. and contenteth them 74 c. 303 304. 487. and vvorketh confidence and security in their hearts 74. 76. 1127 1128. and they conceit that God himself also is much taken vvith such pageantry 82. 108 109. Indeed the Form is accepted vvhen the power is not wanting 79 80. otherwise not 487 488. Why a bare Form vvithout substance is so hateful to God 75-79 It hath the same motive with our greatest sins 76. It is mere mockery 80. 877. It is as pleasing to the Devil as it is odious to God 77. v. Hearing Piety Worship Formality v. Outward Duties It is compared to motions by vvater-works 845. Formalities are easy essential duties difficult 1057. Formal repentance is the grossest hypocrisie 372. Fornication eloquently and excellently declaimed against 750 752. Excuses for it answered 750. It dishonoureth the body and defileth the soul 750. It maketh the members of Christ the members of an harlot 750. It is of all sins the most carnal 750. It effeminateth both mind and body 751. It is the Devil's net to catch two at once 751. How strictly Christ forbiddeth it 751. What presumtions there are of its abounding in this Age 751 752. That the very Heathen thought it foul appeareth from their custome of bathing after it 751. Frailty Of humane Frailty 535 c. Friendship obligeth to duty 105. No Friendship is lasting that is not built upon Virtue 371. A wise Friend will shun the least suspicion of offense 380. 612. Fundamentals of Protestants Religion 285 Fundamental and necessary points are plain and evident in Script 1084 1085. Funeral rites at the death of a Romane Emperour 423. Future events unknown to us 250. 1043. v. Time G. GAin v. Profit How greedily and basely pursued not onely by Heathens but by many Christians also 131 132. The gainfullest use of riches 143. Gal. ii 20. 521. ¶ v. 21. 375. ¶ vi 12. 501. Galene's helps in the pursuit of knowledge 66. Gallant The profane Gallant a despicable wretch 528. Gen. iii. 19. In the sweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread a command as well as a curse 218. ¶ 22. 158. 630 631. ¶ vi 3. 795. ¶ xlii 21 22. 387. ¶ Gen. xlvi 27 28. handsomely applied 321. Gentleman No Gentleman hath a licence to be idle 222. GHOST The HOLY GHOST a distinct Person 53. Several titles of his and operations 54. Why called the Spirit of truth 54. 57. Though sent by the Father and the Son yet is his coming voluntary 56. The end of Christ's coming and of the H. Ghost's 52. 760. The H. Ghost though not so solemnly as of old yet still cometh effectually upon the faithful 52. 760. He is ever consonant to himself 55. He is our chief our sole Instructour 760. 772. Though the Church and the Word and Discipline be our Teachers yet the H. Ghost may be truly called our sole Teacher 778. How he is said to teach us all truth 58. How he teacheth us 773. Means must be used for the obteining the gifts of the H. Ghost 61. 67 68. Into what posture we must put our selves if we will receive him 779. We must be careful not to disquiet and grieve him 773 774. Many pretend to be led by the H. Ghost when their design is to oppose him 62. 64. Which is a sin perhaps more dangerous then flatly to deny him 63. 774. Whence it is that so few follow his guidance 65. He hath worse enemies nowadayes then the Eunomians and Sabellians 774. What horrible wickedness some in this Age entitle him to 774. But because some mistake and abuse the Spirit we must not thence conclude that none are taught by him 775. He not onely taught the Church in the Apostles times but teacheth it still in all ages 776. His operations indeed are not easily perceived 775. but that he hath wrought we may find 776. How we may prove the Spirit 780 781. and discern his instructions from the suggestions of Satan and the dreams of fanaticks 64. 66. 777. 780. Glorifying of God what 744 c. 748. 754. 1009. We must glorifie God in soul and in body 744 c. Whether an actual intention of God's glory perpetually in our mind be necessary 745. More is required of us then to glorifie God verbally 754. God's Glory must be the first mover of our obedience 1008. It is not so resplendent in a Starre nor in the Sun as in the New creature 1009. If we glorifie God here we shall glorifie him to eternity 747. Gnosticks 167. GOD cannot be spoken of with too much reverence 7. 409. He is a most simple Essence 78. incomprehensible 165. Bold and curious searching of him unlawful 164 165. He is to be seen by faith not curiously gazed upon 729. Though he be invisible yet we may see Him by the light that shineth in his Works in our Conscience and in his Word 784 c. ¶ God delighteth in his Wisdome more then in any other of his Attributes 326. 1029. Of his Omnipresence and Omniscience 164. Errours concerning God's Presence 165. Belief of God's Presence the greatest curb of sin 164. 167 c 258. God's Wisdome drew his Justice and Mercy together and reconciled them in Christ's Satisfaction and ours 327. Counsels which some men fasten upon God contrary to his Wisdome and Goodness 326. 407
is a main difference nor can we expect an ocular and visible descent Therefore if we will be taught by the Spirit we must use the means which the same Spirit hath prescribed in those lessons which he first and extraordinarily taught the Apostles and not make use of his name to misinterpret those lessons or bring in new of our own and as new so contrary to them For what is new must needs be contrary because he then taught all truth and what is more then all is nothing what is more then all truth must needs by a lye Nor did he lead them into all truth for themselves alone but for those who should come after them for all generations to the end of the world He made them Apostles and sent them to make us Christians to make that which he taught them a rule of life and to fix it on the Church as on a pillar that all might read it that none should adde to it or take away from it Eph. 2.20 And for this they are called a Foundation and we are said to be built upon them Jesus Christ being the head corner-stone But this we could not be if their testimony were so scant and defective that there were left a kind of necessity upon us to hew and square out what stones we please and lay new ones of our own to cast down theirs withal and to bear up whatsoever our insolent and boundless lusts will lay upon them And now what is become of my Text For if this be admitted we cannot say the Spirit led them For what leading is that which leaveth us so far behind at such a distance from the end thâ—â— in every age the Spirit must come again and take us by the hand and draw us some other way even contrary to that which he first made known And what an all is that to which every man may adde what he please even to the end of the world For every mans claim and title to the Spirit is the same as just and warrantable in any as in one And when they speak contrary things the evidence is the same that is none at all unless this be a good Argument He hath the Spirit because he saith so which is as strong on his side that denyeth it upon the same pretense Amongst the sons of men there are not greater fools then they who have nothing to say for what they say but That they say it and yet think this Nothing enough and that all Israel are bound to hearken to them as if God himself did speak This is an evil a folly a madness which breatheth no where but in Christendome was never heard of in any other body or society but that of Christians Though many Governours of Common-wealths did pretend to a kind of commerce and familiarity with some God or Goddess when they were to make a law yet we do not read of any as far as I remember that did put up the same pretense that they might break a law but when the law was once promulged there was nothing thought of but either obedience or punishment But Christians who have the best Religion have most abused it have played the wantons in that light in which they should have walkt with fear and trembling finding themselves at a loss and meeting with no satisfaction to their pride and ambition to their malice to their lusts from any lesson the Spirit hath yet taught have learnt an art to suborn something of their own to supply that defect and call it a dictate of the Spirit Nor is this evil of yesterday nor doth it befall the weakest onely But the Devil hath made use of it in all ages as of the fittest engine to undermine that truth which the Spirit first taught Tertullian as wise a man as the Church then had being not able to prove the Corporeity of the Soul by Scripture Post Ioannem quoque prophetiam meruimus consequi c. Tertull. de Anim. montanizans flyeth to private Revelation in his Book De anima Non per aestimationem sed revelationem What he could not uphold by reason and judgment he striveth to make good by Revelation For we saith he have our Revelations as well as S. John Our sister Priscilla hath plenty of them and trances in the Church She converseth with Angels and with God himself and can discern the hearts and inward thoughts of men S. Hierome mentioneth others Contra Libertin and in the dayes of our forefathers Calvine many more who applyed the name of the Spirit to every thing that might facilitate and help on their design as Parish-priests it is his resemblance would give the name of six or seven several Saints to one image that their offerings might be the more I need not go so far back for instance Our present age hath shewn us many who though very ignorant yet are wiser then their teachers so spiritual that they despise the word of God which is the dictate of the Spirit This monster hath made a large stride from foreign parts and set his foot in our coasts If they murder the Spirit moved their hand and drew their sword If they throw down Churches it is with the breath of the Spirit If they would bring in Parity the pretence is The Spirit cannot endure that any should be supreme or Pope it but themselves Our Humour our Madness our Malice our Violence our implacable Bitterness our Railing and Reviling must all go for Inspirations of the Spirit Simeon and Levi Absalom and Ahithophel Theudas and Judas the Pharisees and Ananias they that despise the holy Spirit of God these Scarabees bred in the dung of sensuality these Impostors these men of Belial must be taken no longer for a generation of vipers but for the scholars and friends of the holy Ghost Whatsoever they do whithersoever they go he is their leader though it be to hell it self May we not make a stand now and put it to the question Whether there be any holy Ghost or no and if there be Whether his office be to lead us Indeed these appropriations these bold and violent ingrossings of the blessed Spirit have I fear given growth to conceits well near as dangerous That the Spirit doth not spirare breath grace into us That we need not call upon him That the Text which telleth us the holy Ghost leadeth is the holy Ghost that leadeth us That the Letter is the Spirit and the Spirit the Letter an adulterate piece new coyned an old heresie brought in a new dress and tire upon the stage again That he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a strange unheard of Deity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. Orat 37. Quis vetâ—rum vel recentium adoravit Spiritum quis or avit c. Sic Macedoniani Eunomiani Ibid. an ascriptitious and supernumerary God I might say more dangerous For to confess the Spirit and abuse him to draw him on as an accessory and
I were a Paul and did love Christ as Cato did virtue because I could do no otherwise suppose I did fear sin more then hell and had rather be damned then commit it suppose that every thought word and work were amoris foetus the issues of my Love yet I must not upon a special favour build a general doctrine and because Love is best make Fear unlawful make it sin to fear that punishment the Fear of which might keep me from sin For these were in S. Paul's phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 14.13 to put a stumbling block in our brothers way with my Love to overthrow his Fear that so at last both Fear and Love may fall to the ground For is there any that will fear sin for punishment if it be a sin to fear What is the language of the world now We hear of nothing but filial Fear And it were a good hearing if they would understand themselves for this doth not exclude the other but is upheld by it We are as sure of happiness as we are of death but are more perswaded of the truth of the one then of the other more sure to go to heaven then to die and yet Death is the gate which must let us in We are already partakers of an angelical estate we prolong our life in our own thoughts to a kind of eternity and yet can fear nothing We challenge a kind of familiarity with God and yet are willing to stay yet a while longer from him We sport with his thunder and play with his hayl-stones and coals of fire We entertein him as the Romane Gentleman did the Emperour Augustus Macrobius in Saturnal coena parcâ quasi quotidianâ with course and ordinary fare as Saul 1 Sam. 15. with the vile and refuse not with the fatlings and best of the sheep and oxen Did we dread his Majesty or think he were Jupiter vindex a God of Revenge with a thunder bolt in his hand we should not be thus bold with him but fear that in wrath and indignation he should reply as Augustus did Non putarum me tibi fuisse tam familiarem I did not think I had made my self so familiar with my Creature I know the Schools distinguish between a Servile and Initial and a Filial Fear There is a Fear by which we fear not the fault but the punishment and a Fear which feareth the punishment and fault withall and a Fear which feareth no punishment at all I know Aquinas putteth a difference between Servile Fear and the Servility of Fear as if he would take the Soul from Socrates and yet leave him a Man These are niceties more subtile then solid Senec. epist. in quibus ludit animus magìs quà m proficit which may occasion discourse but not instruct our understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As near as we can let us take things as they are in themselves and not as they are beat out and fashioned by the work and business of our wits and then it will be plain that though we be Sons yet we may fear fear that evil which the Father presenteth before us to fright us from it that we may make the Fear of death an argument to turn us and a strong motive to confirm us in the course of our obedience that it is no servility to perform some part of Christs service upon those terms which he himself alloweth and hath prescribed to us Let us call it by what name we please for indeed we have miscalled it and brought it in as slavish and servile and so branded the command of Christ himself yet we shall find it a blessed instrument to safeguard and improve our Piety we shall find that the best way to escape the judgments of God is to draw them near even to our eyes For Hell is a part of our Creed as well as Heaven God's threatnings are as loud as his promises and could we once fear Hell as we should we should not fear it For I ask May we serve God sub intuitu mercidis with respect unto the reward It is agreed upon on all sides that we may for Moses had respect unto the recompense of the reward Hebr. 11.26 Hebr. 2.12 and Christ himself did look upon the joy that was set before him Why then may we not serve God sub intuitu vindictae upon the fear of punishment Will God accept that service which is begun and wrought out by virtue and influence of the reward and will he cast off that servant which had an eye upon his hand and observed him as a Lord Why then hath God propounded both these both Reward and Punishment and bid us work in his Vineyard with an eye on them both if we may not as well fear him when he threatneth as run to meet him when he cometh towards us and his reward with him Let us then have recourse to his Mercy-seat but let us tremble also and fall down before his Tribunal and behold his Glory and Majesty in both But it may be said and some have thought it their duty to say it that this belongeth to the wicked to the Goats to fear but when Christ speaketh to his Disciples to his Flock the language is NOLITE TEMERE Fear not little flock for it is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdome Luke 12.32 It is true it is your Fathers will to give it you and you have no reason to fear or mistrust him But this doth not exclude the Fear of the wrath of God nor the use of those means which the Father himself hath put into our hands not that Fear which may be one help and advance towards that Violence which must take it For our Saviour doth not argue thus Matth. 11.12 It is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdome Therefore persevere not for any fear of punishment But the Fear which Christ forbiddeth is the Fear of distrustfulness when we fear as Peter did upon the waters when he was ready to sink and had therefore a check and rebuke from our Saviour Why fearest thou oh thou of little faith So that Fear not Matth. 14.31 little flock is nothing else but a disswasion from infidelity A Souldier that putteth no confidence in himself yet may in his Captain if he be a Hannibal or a Caesar for an army of Harts may conquer said Iphicrates if a Lion be the leader So though we may something doubt and mistrust because we may see much wanting to the perfection of our actions yet we must raise our diffidence with this perswasion that the promise is most certain and that the power of Heaven and Hell cannot infringe or null it We may mistrust our selves for of our selves we are Nothing 2 Cor. 12.11 Gal. 6.3 2 Cor. 1.20 but not the Promises of CHRIST for they are Yea and Amen But they are ready to reply that the Apostle S. Paul is yet more plain Rom. 8.15 where he
telleth us that we have not received the spirit of bondage to fear again but the spirit of adoption by which we cry Abba Father And it is most true that we have not received that Spirit for we are not under the Law but under Grace we are not Jews Rom. 6.14 but Christians Nor do we fear again as the Jews feared whose eye was upon the Basket and the Sword who were curbed and restrained by the fear of present punishment and whose greatest motives to obedience were drawn from temporal respects and interests who did fear the Plague Captivity the Philistin the Caterpiller and Palmerworm and so did many times forbear that which their lusts and irregular appetites were ready to joyn with We have not received such a spirit For the Gospel directeth our look not to those things which are seen 2 Cor. 4.18 1 Cor. 12.31 but to those things which are not seen and sheweth us yet a more excellent way But we have received the Spirit of adoption we are received into that Family where little care is taken for the meat that perisheth where the World is made an enemy John 6.27 Matth. 6.34 Phil. 2.12 where we must leave the morrow to care for it self and work out oâ—â— salvation with fear and trembling Psal 56.11 where we must not fear what man but what God can do unto us observe his hand as that hand which can raise us up as high as heaven and throw us down to the lowest pit love him as a Father and fear to offend him Psal 2.12 Luke 1.74 love and kiss the Son lest he be angry serve him without fear of any evil that can befall us here in our way of any enemy that can hurt us and yet fear him as our Lord and King For in this his grant of liberty he did not let us loose against himself nor put off his Majesty that we should be so bold with him as not to serve but to disobey him without fear Nor doth this cut off our Filiation our relation to him for a good son may fear the wrath of God and yet cry Abba Father 1 John 4.18 But then again we are told by S. John that there is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear All fear he excepteth none no not the fear of punishment L. de fugâ in persecutione I know Tertullian interpreting this Text maketh this fear to be nothing else but that lazy Fear which is begot by a vain and unnecessary contemplation of difficulties the fear of a man that will not set forward in his journey for fear of some Lion some perillous beast some horrible hardship in the way And this is true but not ad textum nor doth it reach S. John's meaning which may be gathered out of Chapt. 3. v. 16. where he maketh it the duty of Christians to lay down their lives for the brethren as Christ laid down his life for them And this we shall be ready to do if our Love be perfect cast off all fear and lay down our lives for them For true Love will suffer all things and is stronger then Death Cant. 8.6 But Love doth not cast out the Fear of Gods wrath for this doth no whit impair our love to him but is rather the means to improve it When we do our duty we have no reason to fear his anger but yet we must alwayes fear him that we may go on and persevere unto the end He will not punish us for our obedience and so we need not fear him but if we break it off he will punish us and this thought may strengthen and establish us in it Hebr. 4.1 Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entring into his rest any of us should come short of it But we may draw an answer out of the words themselves as they lie in the Text. For it is true indeed Charity casteth out all fear but not simul semel not at once but by degrees As that waxeth our Fear waineth as that gathereth strength our Fear is in feebled Et perfecta forà s mittit When our Love is perfect it casteth Fear out quite If our Sanctification were as total as it is universal were our Obedience like that of Angels and could never fail we should not then need the sight of heaven to allure us or Gods thunder to affright us But Sanctification being onely in part though in every part the best of Christians in this state of imperfection may look up upon the Moriemini make use of a Deaths-head and use Gods Promises and Threatnings as subordinate means to concurre with the principal as buttresses to support the building that it do not swerve whilst the foundation of Love and Faith keep it that it do not sink A strange thing it may seem that when with great zeal we cry down that Perfection of Degrees and admit of none but that of Parts we should be so refined sublimate as not to admit of the least tincture admission of Fear Now in the next place as Fear may consist with Love so it may with Faith and with Hope it self which seemeth to stand in opposition with it First Faith apprehendeth all the attributes of God and eyeth his threatnings as well as his Promises God hath establisht and fenced in his Precepts with them both If he had not proposed them both as objects for our Faith why doth he yet complain why doth he yet threaten And if we will observe it we shall find some impressions of Fear not onely in the Decalogue but in our Creed To judge both the quick and the dead are words which sound with terrour and yet an article of our belief And we must not think it concerneth us to believe it and no more Agenda and credenda are not at such a distance but that we may learn our Practicks in our Creed God's Omnipotence both comforteth and affrighteth me His Mercy keepeth me from despair and his Justice from presumption But Christs coming to judge both the quick and the dead is my solicitude my anxiety my fear Nor must we imagine that because the Faith which giveth assent to these truths may be meerly historical this Article concerneth the justified person no more then a bare relation or history For the Fear of Judgment is so far from destroying Faith in the justified person that it may prove a soveraign means to preserve it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil speaketh to order and compose our Faith In Psal 32. which is ready enough to take an unkind heat if Fear did not cool and temper it In Prosperity David is at his NON MOVEBOR I shall never be moved Psal 30.6 Before the storm came Peter was so bold as to dare and challenge all the temptations that could assault him ETSI OMNES NON EGO Matth. 26. Although all men deny thee yet not I yet was he puzled and