usuall entercourses of the world still their desire of single life increased because the old necessity lasted and a new one did supervene Afterwards the case was altered and then the single life was not to be chosen for it self nor yet in imitation of the first precedents for it could not be taken out from their circumstances and be used alone He therefore that thinks he is a more holy person for being a virgin or a widower or that he is bound to be so because they were so or that he cannot be a religious person because he is not so hath zeal indeed but not according to knowledge But now if the single state can be taken out and put to new appendages and fitted to the end of another grace or essentiall duty of Religion it will well become a Christian zeal to choose it so long as it can serve the end with advantage and security Thus also a zealous person is to chuse his fastings while they are necessary to him and are acts of proper mortification while he is tempted or while he is under discipline while he repents or while he obeys but some persons fast in zeal but for nothing else fast when they have no need when there is need they should not but call it religion to be miserable or sick here their zeal is folly for it is neither an act of Religion nor of prudence to fast when fasting probably serves no end of the spirit and therefore in the fasting dayes of the Church although it is warrant enough to us to fast if we had no end to serve in it but the meer obedience yet it is necessary that the superiors should not think the Law obeyed unlesse the end of the first institution be observed a fasting day is a day of humiliation and prayer and fasting being nothing it self but wholly the handmaid of a further grace ought not to be devested of its holinesse and sanctification and left like the wals of a ruinous Church where there is no duty performed to God but there remains something of that which us'd to minister to Religion The want of this consideration hath caus'd so much scandall and dispute so many snares and schismes concerning Ecclesiasticall fasts For when it was undressed and stripp'd of all the ornaments and usefull appendages when from a solemn day it grew to be common from thence to be lesse devout by being lesse seldome and lesse usefull and then it passed from a day of Religion to be a day of order and from fasting till night to fasting till evening-song and evening-song to be sung about twelve a clock and from fasting it was changed to a choice of food from eating nothing to eating fish and that the letter began to be stood upon and no usefulnesse remain'd but what every of his own piety should put into it but nothing was enjoyn'd by the Law nothing of that exacted by the superiours then the Law fell into disgrace and the design became suspected and men were first insnared and then scandalized and then began to complain without remedy and at last took remedy themselves without authority the whole affair fell into a disorder and a mischief and zeal was busie on both sides and on both sides was mistaken because they fell not upon the proper remedy which was to reduce the Law to the usefulnesse and advantages of its first intention But this I intended not to have spoken 2. Our zeal must never carry us beyond that which is safe Some there are who in their first attempts and entries upon Religion while the passion that brought them in remains undertake things as great as their highest thoughts no repentance is sharp enough no charities expensive enough no fastings afflictive enough then totis Quinquatribus orant and finding some deliciousnesse at the first contest and in that activity of their passion they make vowes to binde themselves for ever to this state of delicacies The onset is fair but the event is this The age of a passion is not long and the flatulent spirit being breathed out the man begins to abate of his first heats and is ashamed but then he considers that all that was not necessary and therefore he will abate something more and from something to something at last it will come to just nothing and the proper effect of this is indignation and hatred of holy things an impudent spirit carelessenesse or despair Zeal sometimes carries a man into temptation and he that never thinks he loves God dutifully or acceptably because he is not imprison'd for him or undone or design'd to Martyrdome may desire a triall that will undoe him It is like fighting of a Duell to shew our valour Stay till the King commands you to fight and die and then let zeal do its noblest offices This irregularity and mistake was too frequent in the primitive Church when men and women would strive for death and be ambitious to feel the hangmans sword some miscarryed in the attempt and became sad examples of the unequall yoking a frail spirit with a zealous driver 3. Let Zeal never transport us to attempt any thing but what is possible M. Teresa made a vow that she would do alwaies that which was absolutely the best But neither could her understanding alwaies tell her which was so nor her will alwayes have the same fervours and it must often breed scruples and sometimes tediousnesse and wishes that the vow were unmade He that vowes never to have an ill thought never to commit an error hath taken a course that his little infirmities shall become crimes and certainly be imputed by changing his unavoidable infirmity into vow-breach Zeal is a violence to a mans spirit and unlesse the spirit be secur'd by the proper nature of the duty and the circumstances of the action and the possibilities of the man it is like a great fortune in the meanest person it bears him beyond his limit and breaks him into dangers and passions transportations and all the furies of disorder that can happen to an abused person 4. Zeal is not safe unlesse it be in re probabili too it must be in a likely matter For we that finde so many excuses to untie all our just obligations and distinguish our duty into so much finenesse that it becomes like leaf-gold apt to be gone at every breath it can not be prudent that we zealously undertake what is not probable to be effected If we do the event can be nothing but portions of the former evill scruple and snares shamefull retreats and new fantastick principles In all our undertakings we must consider what is our state of life what our naturall inclinations what is our society and what are our dependencies by what necessities we are born down by what hopes we are biassed and by these let us measure our heats and their proper businesse A zealous man runs up a sandy hill the violence of motion is his greatest hinderance and a
discomposed his spirit when the two Kings came to inquire of the Lord that though he was a good man and a Prophet yet he could not pray he could not inquire of the Lord till by rest and musick he had gathered himself into the evennesse of a dispassionate and recollected minde therefore let your prayers be without wrath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for God by many significations hath taught us that when men go to the altars to pray or to give thanks they must bring no sin or violent passion along with them to the sacrifice said Philo. 2. Indifferency and easinesse of desire is a great enemy to the successe of a good mans prayer When Plato gave Diogenes a great vessell of Wine who ask'd but a little and a few Carrawaies the Cynic thank'd him with his rude expression Cum interrogaris quot sint duo duo respondes viginti ita non secundum ea quae rogaris das nec ad ea quae interrogaris respondes Thou neither answerest to the question thou art asked nor givest according as thou art desired but being inquired of how many are two and two thou answerest twenty So it is with God and us in the intercourse of our prayers we pray for health and he gives it us it may be a sicknesse that carries us to eternall life we pray for necessary support for our persons and families and he gives us more then we need we beg for a removall of a present sadnesse and he gives us that which makes us able to bear twenty sadnesses a cheerfull spirit a peacefull conscience and a joy in God as an antepast of eternall rejoycings in the Kingdome of God But then although God doth very frequently give us beyond the matter of our desires yet he does not so often give us great things beyond the spirit of our desires beyond the quicknesse vivacity and fervor of our minds for there is but one thing in the world that God hates besides sin that is indifferency and lukewarmnesse which although it hath not in it the direct nature of sin yet it hath this testimony from God that it is loathsome and abominable and excepting this thing alone God never said so of any thing in the New Testament but what was a direct breach of a commandement The reason of it is because lukewarmnesse or an indifferent spirit is an undervaluing of God and of Religion it is a separation of reason from affections and a perfect conviction of the understanding to the goodnesse of a duty but a refusing to follow what we understand For he that is lukewarm alwaies understands the better way and seldome pursues it he hath so much reason as is sufficient but he will not obey it his will does not follow the dictate of his understanding and therefore it is unnaturall It is like the phantastick fires of the night where there is light and no heat and therefore may passe on to the reall fires of hell where there is heat and no light and therefore although an act of lukewarmnesse is only an undecency and no sin yet a state of lukewarmnesse is criminall and sinfull state of imperfection and undecency an act of indifferency hinders a single prayer from being accepted but a state of it makes the person ungracious and despised in the Court of heaven and therefore S. Iames in his accounts concerning an effective prayer not only requires that he be a just man who prayes but his prayer must be fervent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an effectuall fervent prayer so our English reads it it must be an intent zealous busie operative prayer for consider what a huge undeceney it is that a man should speak to God for a thing that he values not or that he should not value a thing without which he cannot be happy or that he should spend his religion upon a trifle and if it be not a trifle that he should not spend his affections upon it If our prayers be for temporall things I shall not need to stirre up your affections to be passionate for their purchase we desire them greedily we run after them intemperately we are kept from them with huge impatience we are delayed with infinite regret we preferre them before our duty we aske them unseasonably we receive them with our own prejudice and we care not we choose them to our hurt and hinderance and yet delight in the purchase and when we do pray for them we can hardly bring our selves to it to submit to Gods will but will have them if we can whether he be pleased or no like the Parasite in the Comedy Qui comedit quod fuit quod non fuit he eat all and more then all what was set before him and what was kept from him But then for spirituall things for the interest of our souls and the affairs of the Kingdome we pray to God with just such a zeal as a man begs of the Chirurgeon to cut him of the stone or a condemned man desires his executioner quickly to put him out of his pain by taking away his life when things are come to that passe it must be done but God knows with what little complacency and desire the man makes his request And yet the things of religion and the spirit are the only things that ought to be desired vehemently and pursued passionately because God hath set such a value upon them that they are the effects of his greatest loving kindnesse they are the purchases of Christs bloud and the effect of his continuall intercession the fruits of his bloudy sacrifice and the gifts of his healing and saving mercy the graces of Gods Spirit and the only instruments of felicity and if we can have fondnesses for things indifferent or dangerous our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg coldly and tamely for those things for which we ought to dye which are more precious then the globes of Kings and weightier then Imperiall Scepters richer then the spoils of the Sea or the treasures of the Indian hils He that is cold and tame in his prayers hath not tasted of the deliciousnesse of Religion and the goodnesse of God he is a stranger to the secrets of the Kingdome and therefore he does not know what it is either to have hunger or satiety and therefore neither are they hungry for God nor satisfied with the world but remain stupid and inapprehensive without resolution and determination never choosing clearly nor pursuing earnestly and therefore never enter into possession but alwaies stand at the gate of wearinesse unnecessary caution and perpetuall irresolution But so it is too often in our prayers we come to God because it is civill so to do and a generall custome but neither drawn thither by love nor pinch'd by spirituall necessities and pungent apprehensions we say so many prayers because we are resolved so to do and we passe through them sometimes with a little attention sometimes with none at all and
that would confine them to reason and sober counsels that would make them labour that they may become pale and lean that they may become wise but because Riches is attended by pride and lust tyranny and oppression and hath in its hand all that it hath in its heart and Sin waits upon Wealth ready dress'd and fit for action therefore in some temptations they confesse how little their souls are they cannot stand that assault but because this passion is the daughter of Voluptuousnesse and very often is but a servant sin ministring to sensuall pleasures the great weaknesse of the flesh is more seen in the matter of carnall crimes Lust and Drunkennesse Nemo enim se adsuefacit ad vitandum ex animo evellendum ea quae molesta ei non sunt Men are so in love with pleasure that they cannot think of mortifying or crucifying their lust we doe violence to what we hate not to what we love But the weaknesse of the flesh and the empire of lust is visible in nothing so much as in the captivity and folly of wise men For you shall see some men fit to governe a Province sober in their counsells wise in the conduct of their affaires men of discourse and reason fit to sit with Princes or to treat concerning peace and warre the fate of Empires and the changes of the world yet these men shall fall at the beauty of a woman as a man dies at the blow of an Angell or gives up his breath at the sentence and decree of God Was not Solomon glorious in all things but when he bowed to Pharaoh's daughter and then to Devils and is it not published by the sentence and observation of all the world that the bravest men have been softned into effeminacy by the lisping charms and childish noyses of Women and imperfect persons A faire slave bowed the neck of stout Polydamas which was stiffe and inflexible to the contentions of an enemy and suppose a man set like the brave boy of the King of Nicomedia in the midst of temptation by a witty beauty tyed upon a bed with silk and pretty violences courted with musick and perfumes with promises and easie postures invited by opportunity and importunity by rewards and impunity by privacy and a guard what would his nature doe in this throng of evils and vile circumstances The grace of God secur'd the young Gentleman and the Spirit rode in triumph but what can flesh do in such a day of danger Is it not necessary that we take in auxiliaries from Reason and Religion from heaven and earth from observation and experience from hope and fear and cease to be what we are lest we become what we ought not It is certain that in the cases of temptations to voluptuousnesse a man is naturally as the Prophet said of Ephraim like a Pigeon that hath no heart no courage no conduct no resolution no discourse but falls as the water of Nilus when it comes to its cataracts it falls infinitely and without restraint And if we consider how many drunken meetings the Sunne sees every day how many Markets and Faires and Clubs that is so many solemnities of drunkennesse are at this instant under the eye of heaven that many Nations are marked for intemperance and that it is lesse noted because it is so popular and universall and that even in the midst of the glories of Christianity there are so many persons drunk or too full with meat or greedy of lust even now that the Spirit of God is given to us to make us sober and temperate and chaste we may well imagine since all men have flesh and all men have not the spirit the flesh is the parent of sin and death and it can be nothing else And it is no otherwise when we are tempted with pain We are so impatient of pain that nothing can reconcile us to it not the laws of God not the necessities of nature not the society of all our kindred and of all the world not the interest of vertue not the hopes of heaven we will submit to pain upon no terms but the basest and most dishonorable for if sin bring us to pain or affront or sicknesse we choose that so it be in the retinue of a lust and a base desire but we accuse Nature and blaspheme God we murmur and are impatient when pain is sent to us from him that ought to send it and intends it as a mercy when it comes But in the matter of afflictions and bodily sicknesse we are so weak and broken so uneasie and unapt to sufferance that this alone is beyond the cure of the old Philosophy Many can endure poverty and many can retire from shame and laugh at home and very many can endure to be slaves but when pain and sharpnesse are to be endured for the interests of vertue we finde but few Martyrs and they that are suffer more within themselves by their fears and their temptations by their uncertain purposes and violences to Nature then by the Hang-mans sword the Martyrdome is within and then he hath won his Crown not when he hath suffered the blow but when he hath overcome his fears and made his spirit conqueror It was a sad instance of our infirmity when of the 40 Martyrs of Cappadocia set in a freezing lake almost consummate and an Angell was reaching the Crowne and placing it upon their brows the flesh fail'd one of them and drew the spirit after it and the man was called off from his Scene of noble contention and dyed in warm water Odi artus fragilémque hunc corporis usum Desertorem animi We carry about us the body of death and we bring evils upon our selves by our follies and then know not how to bear them and the flesh forsakes the spirit And indeed in sicknesse the infirmity is so very great that God in a manner at that time hath reduced all Religion into one vertue Patience with its appendages is the summe totall of almost all our duty that is proper to the days of sorrow and we shall find it enough to entertain all our powers and to imploy all our aids the counsels of wise men and the comforts of our friends the advices of Scripture and the results of experience the graces of God and the strength of our own resolutions are all then full of imployments and find it work enough to secure that one grace For then it is that a cloud is wrapped about our heads and our reason stoops under sorrow the soul is sad and its instrument is out of tune the auxiliaries are disorder'd and every thought sits heavily then a comfort cannot make the body feel it and the soule is not so abstracted to rejoyce much without its partner so that the proper joyes of the soul such as are hope and wise discourses and satisfactions of reason and the offices of Religion are felt just as we now perceive the joyes of heaven
women and young persons by reputation in the more aged and by honour in the more noble and by conscience in all have fortified the spirit of Man that men dare not prevaricate their duty though they be tempted strongly and invited perpetually and this is a partition wall that separates the spirit from the flesh and keeps it in its proper strengths and retirements But here the spirit of man for all that it is assisted strongly breaks from the inclosure and runnes into societies of flesh and sometimes despises reputation and sometimes supplies it with little arts of flattery and self-love and is modest as long as it can be secret and when it is discovered it growes impudent and a man shelters himselfe in crouds and heaps of sinners and beleeves that it is no worse with him then with other mighty criminals and publick persons who bring sin into credit amongst fooles and vicious persons or else men take false measures of fame or publick honesty and the world being broken into so many parts of disunion and agreeing in nothing but in confederate vices and grown so remisse in governments and severe accounts every thing is left so loose that honour and publick fame modesty and shame are now so slender guards to the spirit that the flesh breaks in and makes most men more bold against God then against men and against the laws of Religion then of the Common-wealth 7. When the spirit is made willing by the grace of God the flesh interposes in deceptions and false principles If you tempt some man to a notorious sin as to rebellion to deceive his trust or to be drunk he will answer he had rather die then doe it But put the sin civilly to him and let it be disguised with little excuses such things which indeed are trifles but yet they are colours fair enough to make a weak pretence and the spirit yeelds instantly Most men choose the sin if it be once disputable whether it be a sin or no If they can but make an excuse or a colour so that it shall not rudely dash against the conscience with an open professed name of Sin they suffer the temptation to doe its worst If you tempt a man you must tell him 't is no sin or it is excusable this is not rebellion but necessity and selfe defence it is not against my allegiance but is a performing of my trust I doe it for my friend not against my Superiour I doe it for a good end and for his advantage this is not drunkennesse but free mirth and fair society it is refreshment and entertainment of some supernumerary hours but it is not a throwing away my time or neglecting a day of salvation and if there be any thing more to say for it though it be no more then Adams fig-leaves or the excuses of children and truants it shall be enough to make the flesh prevail and the spirit not to be troubled for so great is our folly that the flesh always carries the cause if the spirit can be cousen'd 8. The flesh is so mingled with the spirit that we are forced to make distinctions in our appetite to reconcile our affections to God and Religion lest it be impossible to doe our duty we weep for our sins but we weep more for the death of our dearest friends or other temporall sadnesses we say we had rather die then lose our faith and yet we doe not live according to it we lose our estates and are impatient we lose our vertue and bear it well enough and what vertue is so great as more to be troubled for having sin'd then for being asham'd and begger'd and condemn'd to die Here we are forced to a distinction there is a valuation of price and a valuation of sense or the spirit hath one rate of things and the flesh hath another and what we beleeve the greatest evill does not alwayes cause to us the greatest trouble which shews plainly that we are imperfect carnall persons and the flesh will in some measure prevaile over the spirit because we will suffer it in too many instances and cannot help it in all 9. The spirit is abated and interrupted by the flesh because the flesh pretends it is not able to doe those ministeries which are appointed in order to Religion we are not able to fast or if we watch it breeds gouts and catarrhes or charity is a grace too expensive our necessities are too big to do it or we cannot suffer pain and sorrow breeds death and therefore our repentances must be more gentle and we must support our selves in all our calamities for we cannot beare our crosses without a freer refreshment and this freedome passes on to licence and many melancholy persons drowne their sorrows in sin and forgetfulnesse as if sin were more tolerable then sorrow and the anger of God an easier load then a temporall care here the flesh betrayes its weaknesse and its follies For the flesh complains too soon and the spirit of some men like Adam being too fond of his Eve attends to all its murmurs and temptations and yet the flesh is able to bear farre more then is required of it in usuall duties Custome of suffering will make us endure much and feare will make us suffer more and necessity makes us suffer any thing and lust and desire makes us to endure more then God is willing we should and yet we are nice and tender and indulgent to our weaknesses till our weaknesses grow too strong for us And what shall we doe to secure our duty and to be delivered of our selves that the body of death which we bear about us may not destroy the life of the spirit I have all this while complain'd and you see not without cause I shall afterwards tell you the remedies for all this evill In the mean time let us have but mean opinions of our selves let us watch every thing of our selves as of suspected persons and magnifie the grace of God and be humbled for our stock and spring of follies and let us look up to him who is the fountaine of grace and spirituall strengths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And pray that God would give us what we ask and what we ask not for we want more helps then we understand and we are neerer to evill then we perceive and we bear sin and death about us and are in love with it and nothing comes from us but false principles and silly propositions and weak discourses and startings from our holy purposes and care of our bodies and of our palates and the lust of the lower belly these are the imployment of our lives but if wee design to live happily and in a better place it must be otherwise with us we must become new creatures and have another definition and have new strengths which we can onely derive from God whose grace is sufficient for us and strong enough to prevail over all our
his life returning for to be miserable is death but nothing is life but to be comforted and God is pleased with no musick from below so much as in the thanksgiving songs of relieved Widows of supported Orphans of rejoycing and comforted and thankfull persons This part of communication does the work of God and of our Neighbors and bears us to heaven in streams of joy made by the overflowings of our brothers comfort It is a fearfull thing to see a man despairing None knows the sorrow and the intolerable anguish but themselves and they that are damned and so are all the loads of a wounded spirit when the staffe of a mans broken fortune bowes its head to the ground and sinks like an Osier under the violence of a mighty tempest But therefore in proportion to this I may tell the excellency of the imployment and the duty of that charity which bears the dying and languishing soul from the fringes of hell to the seat of the brightest stars where Gods face shines and reflects comforts for ever and ever And though God hath for this especially intrusted his Ministers and Servants of the Church and hath put into their hearts and notices great magazines of promises and arguments of hope and arts of the Spirit yet God does not alwayes send Angels on these embassies but sends a man ut sit homo homini Deus that every good man in his season may be to his brother in the place of God to comfort and restore him and that it may appear how much it is the duty of us all to minister comfort to our brother we may remember that the same words and the same arguments doe oftentimes more prevaile upon our spirits when they are applyed by the hand of another then when they dwell in us and come from our owne discoursings This is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the edification of our needs and the greatest and most holy charity 3. Our communication must in its just season be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must reprove our sinning brother for the wounds of a friend are better then the kisses of an enemy saith Solomon we imitate the office of the great Shepheard and Bishop of souls if we goe to seek and save that which was lost and it is a fearfull thing to see a friend goe to hell undisturbed when the arresting him in his horrid progresse may possibly make him to return this is a course that will change our vile itch of judging and censuring others into an act of charity it will alter slander into piety detraction into counsell revenge into friendly and most usefull offices that the Vipers flesh may become Mithridate and the Devill be defeated in his malicious imployment of our language He is a miserable man whom none dares tell of his faults so plainly that he may understand his danger and he that is uncapable and impatient of reproof can never become a good friend to any man For besides that himself would never admonish his friend when he sins and if he would why should not himself be glad of the same chairty he is also proud and Scorner is his name he thinks himself exempt from the condition and failings of men or if he does not he had rather goe to hell then be call'd to his way by an angry Sermon or driven back by the sword of an Angell or endure one blushing for all his hopes and interests of heaven It is no shame to be reproved but to deserve it but he that deserves it and will doe so still shall increase his shame into confusion and bring upon himselfe a sorrow bigger then the calamities of war and plagues and hospitals and poverty He onely is truely wise and will be certainly happy that so understands himself and hates his sin that he will not nurse it but get to himselfe a Reprover on purpose whose warrant shall be liberty whose thanks shall be amendment whose entertainment shall be obedience for a flattering word is like a bright sun-shine to a sore Eye it increases the trouble and lessens the sight Haec demum sapiet dictio quae feriet The severe word of the reproving man is wise and healthfull But because all times and all circumstances and all persons are not fit for this imployment et plurima sunt quae Non audent homines pertusâ dicere laenâ Some will not endure that a pore man or an obliged person should reprove them and themselves are often so unprofitable servants that they will rather venture their friends damnation then hazard their owne interest therefore in the performance of this duty of the usefull communication the following measures are fit to be observed 1. Let not your reproofe be publick and personall if it be publick it must be in generall if it be personall it must be in private and this is expressely commanded by our blessed Saviour If thy Brother offends tell it him between him and thee for when it comes afterwards in case of contumacy to be declared in publick it passes from fraternall correption to Ecclesiasticall discipline When Socrates reproved Plato at a feast Plato told him it had been better he had told him his fault in private for to speak it publickly is indecency Socrates replyed and so it is for you publickly to condemne that indecency For it is the nature of man to be spitefull when he is shamed and to esteem that the worst of evils and therefore to take impudence and perseverance for its cover when his shame is naked And for this indiscretion Aristomenes the Tutor of Ptolemy who before the Corinthian Embassadors reproved the King for sleeping at the solemne audience profited nothing but enraged the Prince and was himself forc'd to drink poyson But this warinesse is not alwayes necessary For 1. a publick and an authoriz'd person may doe it publickly and may name the person as himself shall judge expedient secuit Lucilius urbem Te Lupe te Muti genuinum fregit in illis Omne vafer vitium Lucilius was a censor of manners and by his office he had warrant and authority 2. There are also some cases in which a publick reproofe is prudent and that is when the crime is great but not understood to be any at all for then it is Instruction and Catechism and layes aside the affront and trouble of reproofe Thus Ignatius the Martyr did reprove Trajan sacrificing at the Altar in the sight of all the Officers of the Army and the Iews were commanded to reprove the Babylonians for Idolatry in the land of their Captivity and if we see a Prince in the confidence of his pride and carelesnesse of spirit and heat of war spoyle a Church or rob God it is then fit to tell him the danger of Sacriledge if otherwise he cannot well be taught his danger and his duty 3. There are some circumstances of person in
Ministerial Sermon I. ADVENT SUNDAY DOOMS-DAY BOOK OR CHRIST'S Advent to Judgement 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgment seat of CHRIST that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad VErtue and Vice are so essentially distinguished and the distinction is so necessary to be observed in order to the well being of men in private and in societies that to divide them in themselves and to separate them by sufficient notices and to distinguish them by rewards hath been designed by all Laws by the sayings of wise men by the order of things by their proportions to good or evill and the expectations of men have been fram'd accordingly that Vertue may have a proper seat in the will and in the affections and may become amiable by its own excellency and its appendant blessing and that Vice may be as naturall an enemy to a man as a Wolf to the Lamb and as darknesse to light destructive of its being and a contradiction of its nature But it is not enough that all the world hath armed it self against Vice and by all that is wise and sober amongst men hath taken the part of Vertue adorning it with glorious appellatives encouraging it by rewards entertaining it with sweetnesses and commanding it by edicts fortifying it with defensatives and twining with it in all artificiall compliances all this is short of mans necessity for this will in all modest men secure their actions in Theatres and High-wayes in Markets and Churches before the eye of Judges and in the society of Witnesses But the actions of closets and chambers the designs and thoughts of men their discourses in dark places and the actions of retirements and of the night are left indifferent to Vertue or to Vice and of these as man can take no cognisance so he can make no coercitive and therefore above one half of humane actions is by the Laws of man left unregarded and unprovided for and besides this there are some men who are bigger then Lawes and some are bigger then Judges and some Judges have lessened themselves by fear and cowardize by bridery and flattery by iniquity and complyance and where they have not yet they have notices but of few causes and there are some sins so popular and universall that to punish them is either impossible or intolerable and to question such would betray the weaknesse of the publick rods and axes and represent the sinner to be stronger then the power that is appointed to be his bridle and after all this we finde sinners so prosperous that they escape so potent that they fear not and sin is made safe when it growes great Facere omnia saevè Non impunè licet nisi dum facis and innocence is oppressed and the poor cry and he hath no helper and he is oppressed and he wants a Patron and for these and many other concurrent causes if you reckon all the causes that come before all the Judicatories of the world though the litigious are too many and the matters of instance are intricate and numerous yet the personall and criminall are so few that of 20000 sins that cry aloud to God for vengeance scarce two are noted by the publick eye and chastis'd by the hand of Justice it must follow from hence that it is but reasonable for the interest of vertue and the necessities of the world that the private should be judg'd and vertue should be tyed upon the spirit and the poor should be relieved and the oppressed should appeal and the noise of Widows should be heard and the Saints should stand upright and the Cause that was ill judged should be judged over again and Tyrants should be call'd to account and our thoughts should be examined and our secret actions view'd on all sides and the infinite number of sins which escape here should not escape finally and therefore God hath so ordained it that there shall be a day of doom wherein all that are let alone by men shall be question'd by God and every word and every action shall receive its just recompence of reward For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in the best copies not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The things done in the body so we commonly read it the things proper or due to the body so the expression is more apt and proper for not only what is done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the body but even the acts of abstracted understanding and volition the acts of reflexion and choice acts of self-love and admiration and what ever else can be supposed the proper and peculiar act of the soul or of the spirit is to be accounted for at the day of Judgement and even these may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because these are the acts of the man in the state of conjunction with the body The words have in them no other difficulty or variety but contain a great truth of the biggest interest and one of the most materiall constitutive Articles of the whole Religion and the greatest endearment of our duty in the whole world Things are so ordered by the great Lord of all the creatures that whatsoever we do or suffer shall be call'd to account and this account shall be exact and the sentence shall be just and the reward shall be great all the evils of the world shall be amended and the injustices shall be repaid and the divine Providence shall be vindicated and Vertue and Vice shall for ever be remark'd by their separate dwellings and rewards This is that which the Apostle in the next verse cals the terror of the Lord it is his terror because himself shall appear in his dresse of Majesty and robes of Justice and it is his terror because it is of all the things in the World the most formidable in it self and it is most fearfull to us where shall be acted the interest and finall sentence of eternity and because it is so intended I shall all the way represent it as the Lords terror that we may be afraid of sin for the destruction of which this terror is intended 1. Therefore we will consider the persons that are to be judged with the circumstances of our advantages or our sorrowes We must all appear 2. The Judge and his Judgement seat before the Judgment seat of Christ. 3. The sentence that they are to receive the things due to the body good or bad according as we now please but then cannot alter Every one of these are dressed with circumstances of affliction and afrightment to those to whom such terrors shall appertain as a portion of their inheritance 1. The persons who are to be judged even you and I and all the world Kings and
Priests Nobles and Learned the Crafty and the Easie the Wise and the Foolish the Rich and the Poor the prevailing Tyrant and the oppressed Party shall all appear to receive ther Symbol and this is so farre from abating any thing of its terror and our dear concernment that it much increases it for although concerning Precepts and Discourses we are apt to neglect in particular what is recommended in generall and in incidencies of Mortality and sad events the singularity of the chance heightens the apprehension of the evill yet it is so by accident and only in regard of our imperfection it being an effect of self-love or some little creeping envie which adheres too often to the infortunate and miserable or else because the sorrow is apt to increase by being apprehended to be a rare case and a singular unworthinesse in him who is afflicted otherwise then is common to the sons of men companions of his sin and brethren of his nature and partners of his usuall accidents yet in finall and extreme events the multitude of sufferers does not lessen but increase the sufferings and when the first day of Judgement happen'd that I mean of the universall deluge of waters upon the old World the calamity swell'd like the floud and every man saw his friend perish and the neighbours of his dwelling and the relatives of his house and the sharers of his joyes and yesterdaies bride and the new born heir the Priest of the Family and the honour of the Kindred all dying or dead drench'd in water and the divine vengeance and then they had no place to flee unto no man cared for their souls they had none to goe unto for counsell no sanctuary high enough to keep them from the vengeance that raip'd down from heaven and so it shall be at the day of Judgement when that world and this and all that shall be born hereafter shall passe through the same Red sea and be all baptized with the same fire and be involv'd in the same cloud in which shall be thundrings and terrors infinite every Mans fear shall be increased by his neighbours shriekes and the amazement that all the world shall be in shall unite as the sparks of a raging furnace into a globe of fire and roul upon its own principle and increase by direct appearances and intolerable reflexions He that stands in a Church-yard in the time of a great plague and hears the Passing-bell perpetually telling the sad stories of death and sees crowds of infected bodies pressing to their Graves and others sick and tremulous and Death dress'd up in all the images of sorrow round about him is not supported in his spirit by the variety of his sorrow and at Dooms-day when the terrors are universall besides that it is in it self so much greater because it can affright the whole world it is also made greater by communication and a sorrowfull influence Grief being then strongly infections when there is no variety of state but an intire Kingdome of fear and amazement is the King of all our passions and all the world its subjects and that shrieke must needs be terrible when millions of Men and Women at the same instant shall fearfully cry out and the noise shall mingle with the Trumpet of the Archangell with the thunders of the dying and groaning heavens and the crack of the dissolving world when the whole fabrick of nature shall shake into dissolution and eternall ashes But this generall consideration may be hightned with four or five circumstances 1. Consider what an infinite multitude of Angels and Men and Women shall then appear it is a huge assembly when the Men of one Kingdome the Men of one Age in a single Province are gathered togother into heaps and confusion of disorder But then all Kingdomes of all ages all the Armies that ever mustered all that World that Augustus Caesar taxed all those hundreds of Millions that were slain in all the Roman Wars from Numa's time till Italy was broken into Principalities and small Exarchats all these and all that can come into numbers and that did descend from the loins of Adam shall at once be represented to which account if we adde the Armies of Heaven the nine orders of blessed Spirits and the infinite numbers in every order we may suppose the numbers fit to expresse the Majesty of that God and the terror of that Judge who is the Lord and Father of all that unimaginable multitude Erit terror ingens tot simul tantorúmque populorum 2. In this great multitude we shall meet all those who by their example and their holy precepts have like tapers enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousnesse enlightned us and taught us to walk in the paths of justice There we shall see all those good men whom God sent to preach to us and recall us from humane follies and inhumane practises and when we espie the good man that chid us for our last drunkennesse or adulteries it shall then also be remembred how we mocked at counsell and were civilly modest at the reproof but laugh'd when the man was gone and accepted it for a religious complement and took our leaves and went and did the same again But then things shall put on another face and what we smil'd at here and slighted fondly shall then be the greatest terror in the world Men shall feel that they once laugh'd at their own destruction and rejected health when it was offered by a man of God upon no other condition but that they would be wise and not be in love with death Then they shall perceive that if they had obeyed an easie and a sober counsell they had been partners of the same felicity which they see so illustrious upon the heads of those Preachers whose work is with the Lord and who by their life and Doctrine endeavoured to snatch the Soul of their friend or relatives from an intolerable misery But he that sees a crown put upon their heads that give good counsell and preach holy and severe Sermons with designs of charity and piety will also then perceive that God did not send Preachers for nothing on trifling errands and without regard but that work which he crowns in them he purposed should be effective to us perswasive to the understanding and active upon our consciences Good Preachers by their Doctrine and all good men by their lives are the accusers of the disobedient and they shall rise up from their seats and judge and condemn the follies of those who thought their piety to be want of courage and their discourses pedanticall and their reproofs the Priests trade but of no signification because they prefer'd moments before eternity 3. There in that great assembly shall be seen all those Converts who upon easier terms and fewer miracles and a lesse experience and a younger grace and a seldomer Preaching and more unlikely circumstances have suffered the work of God to prosper upon their
praesens huic erant dieculae but this will be but an ill account when the rods shall for the delay be turned into Scorpions and from easie shall become intolerable Better it is to suffer here and to stay till the day of restitution for the good and the holy portion for it will recompense both for the suffering and the stay But how if the portion be bad It shall be bad to the greatest part of mankinde that 's a fearfull consideration the greatest part of men and women shall dwell in the portion of Devils to eternall ages So that these portions are like the Prophets figs in the vision the good are the best that ever were and the worst are so bad that worse cannot be imagined For though in hell the accursed souls shall have no worse then they have deserved and there are not there overrunning measures as there are in heaven and therefore that the joyes of heaven are infinitely greater joyes then the pains of hell are great pains yet even these are a full measure to a full iniquity pain above patience sorrowes without ease amazement without consideration despair without the intervals of a little hope indignation without the possession of any good there dwels envie and confusion disorder and sad remembrances perpetuall woes and continuall shriekings uneasinesse and all the evils of the soul. But if we will represent it in some orderly circumstances we may consider 1. That here all the troubles of our spirits are little participations of a disorderly passion A man desires earnestly but he hath not or he envies because another hath something besides him and he is troubled at the want of one when at the same time he hath a hundred good things and yet ambition and envie impatience and confusion covetousnesse and lust are all of them very great torments but there these shall be in essence and abstracted beings the spirit of envie and the spirit of sorrow Devils that shall inflict all the whole nature of the evill and pour it into the minds of accursed men where it shall sit without abatement for he that envies there envies not for the eminence of another that sits a little above him and excels him in some one good but he shall envie for all because the Saints have all and they have none therefore all their passions are integral abstracted perfect passions and all the sorrow in the world at this time is but a portion of sorrow every man hath his share and yet besides that which all sad men have there is a great deal of sorrow which they have not and all the Devils portion besides that but in hell they shall have the whole passion of sorrow in every one just as the whole body of the Sun is seen by every one in the same Horizon and he that is in darknesse enjoyes it not by parts but the whole darknesse is the portion of one as well as of another If this consideration be not too Metaphysicall I am sure it is very sad and it relies upon this that as in heaven there are some holy Spirits whose crown is all love and some in which the brightest jewell is understanding some are purity and some are holinesse to the Lord so in the regions of sorrow evill and sorrow have an essence and proper being and are set there to be suffer'd intirely by every undone man that dies there for ever 2. The evils of this world are materiall and bodily the pressing of a shoulder or the straining of a joynt the dislocation of a bone or the extending of an artery a bruise in the flesh or the pinching of the skin a hot liver or a sickly stomach and then the minde is troubled because its instrument is ill at ease but all the proper troubles of this life are nothing but the effects of an uneasie body or an abused fancy and therefore can be no bigger then a blow or a cousenage then a wound or a dream only the trouble increases as the soul works it and if it makes reflex acts and begins the evill upon its own account then it multiplies and doubles because the proper scene of grief is open'd and sorrow peeps through the corners of the soul. But in those regions and daies of sorrow when the soul shall be no more depending upon the body but the perfect principle of all its actions the actions are quick and the perceptions brisk the passions are extreme and the motions are spirituall the pains are like the horrors of a Devill and the groans of an evill spirit not slow like the motions of a heavie foot or a loaden arme but quick as an Angels wing active as lightning and a grief then is nothing like a grief now and the words of mans tongue which are fitted to the uses of this world are as unfit to signifie the evils of the next as person and nature and hand and motion and passion are to represent the effects of the Divine attributes actions and subsistence 3. The evill portions of the next world is so great that God did not create or design it in the first intention of things and production of essences he made the Kingdome of Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the foundation of the world for so it is observable that Christ shall say to the Sheep at his right hand Receive the Kingdome prepared for you from the beginning of the world but to the Goats and accursed spirits he speaks of no such primitive and originall design it was accidentall and a consequent to horrid crimes that God was forced to invent and to after create that place of torments 4. And when God did create and prepare that place he did not at all intend it for man it was prepared for the Divill and his Angels so saith the Judge himself Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which my Father prepared for the Devill so some copies read it God intended it not for man but man would imitate the Devils pride and listen to the whispers of an evill spirit and follow his temptations and rebell against his Maker and then God also against his first design resolved to throw such persons into that place that was prepared for the Devill for so great was the love of God to mankind that he prepared joyes infinite and never ceasing for man before he had created him but he did not predetermine him to any evill but when he was forced to it by mans malice he doing what God forbad him God cast him thither where he never intended him but it was not mans portion he designed it not at first and at last also he invited him to repentance and when nothing could do it he threw man into anothers portion because he would not accept of what was designed to be his own 5. The evill portion shall be continuall without intermission of evill no dayes of rest no nights of
can we think that the grace of Chastity can be obtain'd at such a purchase that grace that hath cost more labours then all the persecutions of faith and all the disputes of hope and all the expence of charity besides amounts to Can we expect that our sinnes should be washed by a lazie prayer Can an indifferent prayer quench the flames of hell or rescue us from an eternall sorrow Is lust so soon overcome that the very naming it can master it Is the Devill so slight and easie an enemy that he will fly away from us at the first word spoken without power and without vehemence Read and attend to the accents of the prayers of Saints I cryed day and night before thee O Lord my soul refused comfort my throat is dry with calling upon my God my knees are weak through fasting and Let me alone sayes God to Moses and I will not let thee go till thou hast blessed me said Jacob to the Angell And I shall tell you a short character of a fervent prayer out of the practise of S. Hierome in his Epistle to Eustochium de custodiâ virginitatis Being destitute of all help I threw my self down at the feet of Jesus I water'd his feet with tears and wiped them with my hair and mortified the lust of my flesh with the abstinence and hungry diet of many weeks I remember that in my crying to God I did frequently joyn the night and the day and never did intermit to call nor cease from beating my brest till the mercy of the Lord brought to me peace and freedome from temptation After many tears and my eyes fixed in heaven I thought my self sometimes encircled with troops of Angels and then at last I sang to God We will run after thee into the smell and deliciousnesse of thy precious ointments such a prayer as this will never return without its errand But though your person be as gracious as David or Job and your desire as holy as the love of Angels and your necessities great as a new penitent yet it pierces not the clouds unlesse it be also as loud as thunder passionate as the cries of women and clamorous as necessity And we may guesse at the degrees of importunity by the insinuation of the Apostle Let the marryed abstain for a time ut vacent orationi jejunio that they may attend to Prayer it is a great attendance and a long diligence that is promoted by such a separation and supposes a devotion that spends more then many hours for ordinary prayers and many hours of every day might well enough consist with an ordinary cohabitation but that which requires such a separation cals for a longer time and a greater attendance then we usually consider For every prayer we make is considered by God and recorded in heaven but cold prayers are not put into the account in order to effect and acceptation but are laid aside like the buds of roses which a cold wind hath nip'd into death and the discoloured tawny face of an Indian slave and when in order to your hopes of obtaining a great blessing you reckon up your prayers with which you have solicited your suit in the court of heaven you must reckon not by the number of the collects but by your sighs and passions by the vehemence of your desires and the fervour of your spirit the apprehension of your need and the consequent prosecution of your supply Christ pray'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with loud cryings and S. Paul made mention of his scholars in his prayers night and day Fall upon your knees and grow there and let not your desires cool nor your zeal remit but renew it again and again and let not your offices and the custome of praying put thee in mind of thy need but let thy need draw thee to thy holy offices and remember how great a God how glorious a Majesty you speak to therefore let not your devotions and addresses be little Remember how great a need thou hast let not your desires be lesse Remember how great the thing is you pray for do not undervalue it with thy indifferency Remember that prayer is an act of Religion let it therefore be made thy businesse and lastly Remember that God hates a cold prayer and therefore will never blesse it but it shall be alwaies ineffectuall 3. Under this title of lukewarmnesse and tepidity may be comprised also these Cautions that a good mans prayers are sometimes hindred by inadvertency sometimes by want of perseverance For inadvertency or want of attendance to the sense and intention of our prayers it is certainly an effect of lukewarmnesse and a certain companion and appendage to humane infirmity and is only so remedyed as our prayers are made zealous and our infirmities passe into the strengths of the Spirit But if we were quick in our perceptions either concerning our danger or our need or the excellency of the object or the glories of God or the niceties and perfections of Religion we should not dare to throw away our prayers so like fools or come to God and say a prayer with our minde standing at distance trissing like untaught boyes at their books with a truantly spirit I shall say no more to this but that in reason we can never hope that God in heaven will hear our prayers which we our selves speak and yet hear not at the same time when we our selves speak them with instruments joyned to our ears even with those organs which are parts of our hearing faculties If they be not worth our own attending to they are not worth Gods hearing If they are worth Gods attending to we must make them so by our own zeal and passion and industry and observation and a present and a holy spirit But concerning perseverance the consideration is something distinct For when our prayer is for a great matter and a great necessity strictly attended to yet we pursue it only by chance or humour by the strengths of fancy and naturall disposition or else our choice is cool as soon as hot like the emissions of lightning or like a sun-beam often interrupted with a cloud or cool'd with intervening showers and our prayer is without fruit because the desire lasts not and the prayer lives like the repentance of Simon Magus or the trembling of Felix or the Jewes devotion for seven dayes of unleavened bread during the Passeover or the feast of Tabernacles but if we would secure the blessing of our prayers and the effect of our prayers we must never leave till we have obtain'd what we need There are many that pray against a temptation for a moneth together and so long as the prayer is servent so long the man hath a nolition and a direct enmity against the lust he consents not all that while but when the moneth is gone and the prayer is removed or becomes lesse active then the temptation returnes and forrages and prevails and seises upon
grown by a long progresse to a resolute and finall impiety nor done injustices greater then sorrow or restitution or recompense or acknowledgment However though it may be uncertain and disputed concerning the number of sins unto death and therefore to pray or not to pray is not matter of duty yet it is all one as to the effect whether we know them or no for though we intend charity when we pray for the worst of men yet concerning the event God will take care and will certainly return thy prayer upon thy own head though thou didst desire it should water and refresh thy neighbors drynesse and St. John so expresses it as if he had left the matter of duty undetermin'd because the instances are uncertain yet the event is certainly none at all therefore because we are not encouraged to pray and because it is a sin unto death that is such a sin that hath no portion in the promises of life and the state of repentance But now suppose the man for whom wee pray to be capable of mercy within the covenant of repentance and not farre from the Kingdome of heaven yet 2ly No prayers of others can further prevail then to remove this person to the next stage in order to felicity When S. Monica prayed for her son she did not pray to God to save him but to cōvert him and when God intended to reward the prayers and almes of Cornelius he did not do it by giving him a Crown but by sending an Apostle to him to make him a Christian the meaning of which observation is that we may understand that as in the person prayed for there ought to be the great disposition of being in a saveable condition so there ought also to be all the intermediall aptnesses for just as he is disposed so can we prevail and the prayers of a good man first prevail in behalf of a sinner that he shall be invited that he shall be reproved and then that he shall attend to it then that he shall have his heart open'd and then that he shall repent And still a good mans prayers follow him thorough the severall stages of pardon of sanctification of restraining graces of a mighty providence of great assistance of perseverance and a holy death No prayers can prevaile upon an undisposed person For the Sun himself cannot enlighten a blind eye nor the soule move a body whose silver cord is loosed and whose joints are untyed by the rudenesse and dissolutions of a pertinacious sicknesse But then suppose an eye quick and healthfull or apt to be refreshed with light and a friendly prospect yet a glow-worm or a diamond the shels of pearl or a dead mans candle are not enough to make him discern the beauties of the world and to admire the glories of creation Therefore 2. As the persons must be capable for whom we pray so they that pray for others must be persons extraordinary in something 1. If persons be of an extraordinary piety they are apt to be intercessors for others This appeares in the case of Job When the wrath of God was kindled against Eliphaz and his two friends God commanded them to offer a sacrifice but my servant Job shall pray for you for him will I accept and it was so in the case of the prevaricating Israelites God was full of indignation against them and smote them Then stood up Phinehas and prayed and the plague ceased For this man was a good man and the spirit of an extraordinary zeal filled him and he did glory to God in the execution upon Zimri and his fair Madianite And it was a huge blessing that was intail'd upon the posterity of Abraham Isaac and Jacob because they had a great Religion a great power with God and their extraordinary did consist especially in the matter of prayers and devotion for that was eminent in them besides their obedience for so Maimonides tells concerning them that Abraham first instituted Morning prayer The affairs of Religion had not the same constitution then as now They worshipped God never but at their Memorials and in places and seldome times of separation The bowed their head when they came to a hallowed stone and upon the top of their staffe and worshipped when they came to a consecrated pillar but this was seldome and they knew not the secrets and the priviledges of a frequent prayer of intercourses with God by ejaculations and the advantages of importunity and the Doctors of the Jews that record the prayer of Noah who in all reason knew the secret best because he was to teach it to all the world yet have transmitted to us but a short prayer of some seaven lines long and this he onely said within the Ark in that great danger once on a day provoked by his fear and stirred up by a Religion then made actuall in those days of sorrow and penance But in the descending ages when God began to reckon a Church in Abraham's family there began to be a new institution of offices and Abraham appointed that God should be prayed to every morning Isaac being taught by Abraham made a law or at least commended the practise and adopted it into the Religion that God should be worshipped by decimation or tithing of our goods and he added an order of prayer to be said in the afternoon and Jacob to make up the office compleat added evening prayer and God was their God and they became fit persons to blesse that is of procuring blessings to their relatives as appears in the instances of their own families of the King of Egypt and the Cities of the Plain For a man of an ordinary piety is like Gideons fleece wet in its own locks but it could not water a poor mans Garden But so does a thirsty land drink all the dew of heaven that wets its face and a great shower makes no torrent nor digs so much as a little furrow that the drils of the water might passe into rivers or refresh their neighbours wearinesse but when the earth is full and hath no strange consumptive needs then at the next time when God blesses it with a gracious shower it divides into portions and sends it abroad in free and equall communications that all that stand round about may feel the shower So is a good mans prayer his own cup is full it is crowned with health and overflowes with blessings and all that drink of his cup and eat at his table are refreshed with his joys and divide with him in his holy portions And indeed he hath need of a great stock of piety who is first to provide for his own necessities and then to give portions to a numerous relation It is a great matter that every man needs for himself the daily expences of his own infirmities the unthriving state of his omission of duties and recessions from perfection and sometimes the great losses and shipwracks the plundrings and burning of his house by
farre greater and his terrors are infinitely more intolerable and therefore although he came not in the spirit of Elias but with meeknesse and gentle insinuations soft as the breath of heaven not willing to disturb the softest stalk of a violet yet his second coming shall be with terrors such as shall amaze all the world and dissolve it into ruine and a Chaos This truth is of so great efficacy to make us do our duty that now we are sufficiently enabled with this consideration This is the grace which we have to enable us this terror will produce fear and fear will produce obedience and we therefore have grace that is we have such a motive to make us reverence God and fear to offend him that he that dares continue in sin and refuses to hear him that speaks to us from heaven and from thence shall come with terrors this man despises the grace of God he is a gracelesse fearlesse impudent man and he shall finde that true in hypothesi and in his own ruine which the Apostle declares in thesi and by way of caution and provisionary terror Our God is a consuming fire this is the sense and design of the text Reverence and godly fear they are the effects of this consideration they are the duties of every Christian they are the grace of God I shall not presse them only to purposes of awfulnesse and modesty of opinion and prayers against those strange doctrines which some have introduc'd into Religion to the destruction of all manners and prudent apprehensions of the distances of God and man such as are the Doctrine of necessity of familiarity with God and a civill friendship and a parity of estate and an unevennesse of adoption from whence proceed rudenesse in prayers flat and undecent expressions affected rudenesse superstitious sitting at the holy Sacrament making it to be a part of Religion to be without fear and reverence the stating of the Question is a sufficient reproof of this folly whatsoever actions are brought into Religion without reverence and godly fear are therefore to be avoided because they are condemned in this advice of the Apostle and are destructive of those effects which are to be imprinted upon our spirits by the terrors of the day of Judgement But this fear and reverence the Apostle intends should be a deletery to all sin whatsoever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes the Etymologicum whatsoever is terrible is destructive of that thing for which it is so and if we fear the evill effects of sin let us flie from it we ought to fear its alluring face too let us be so afraid that we may not dare to refuse to hear him whose Throne is heaven whose Voice is thunder whose Tribunall is clouds whose Seat is the right hand of God whose Word is with power whose Law is given with mighty demonstration of the Spirit who shall reward with heaven and joyes eternall and who punishes his rebels that will not have him to reign over them with brimstone and fire with a worm that never dies and a fire that never is quenched let us fear him who is terrible in his Judgements just in his his dispensation secret in his providence severe in his demands gracious in his assistances bountifull in his gifts and is never wanting to us in what we need and if all this be not argument strong enough to produce fear and that fear great enough to secure obedience all arguments are uselesse all discourses are vain the grace of God is ineffective and we are dull as the Dead sea unactive as a rock and we shall never dwell with God in any sense but as he is a consuming fire that is dwell in the everlasting burnings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reverence and caution modesty and fear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in some copies with caution and fear or if we render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be fear of punishment as it is generally understood by interpreters of this place and is in Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then the expression is the same in both words and it is all one with the other places of Scripture Work out your salvation with fear and trembling degrees of the same duty and they signifie all those actions and graces which are the proper effluxes of fear such as are reverence prudence caution and diligence chastity and a sober spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so also say the Grammarians and it means plainly this since our God will appear so terrible at his second comming let us passe the time of our sojourning here in fear that is modestly without too great confidence of our selves soberly without bold crimes which when a man acts he must put on shamelesnesse reverently towards God as fearing to offend him diligently observing his commandements inquiring after his will trembling at his voice attending to his Word revering his judgements fearing to provoke him to anger for it is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Thus far it is a duty Concerning which that I may proceed orderly I shall first consider how far fear is a duty of Christian Religion 2. Who and what states of men ought to fear and upon what reasons 3. What is the excesse of fear or the obliquity and irregularity whereby it becomes dangerous penall and criminall a state of evill and not a state of duty 1. Fear is taken sometimes in holy Scripture for the whole duty of man for his whole Religion towards God And now Israel what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God c. fear is obedience and fear is love and fear is humility because it is the parent of all these and is taken for the whole duty to which it is an introduction The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdome a good understanding have all they that do thereafter the praise of it endureth for ever and Fear God and keep his Commandements for this is the whole duty of man and thus it is also used in the New Testament Let us cleanse our selves from all filthinesse of the flesh and spirit perfecting holinesse in the fear of God 2. Fear is sometimes taken for worship for so our blessed Saviour expounds the words of Moses in Mar. 4. 10. taken from Deut. 10. 20. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God so Moses Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve said our blessed Saviour and so it was used by the Prophet Jonah I am an Hebrew and I fear the Lord the God of Heaven that is I worship him he is the Deity that I adore that is my worship and my Religion and because the new Colony of Assyrians did not do so at the beginning of their dwelling there they feared not the Lord that is they worshipped other Gods and not the God of Israel therefore God sent Lions among them which slew
concerning the finall issue of their souls For return to folly hath in it many evils beyond the common state of sin and death and such evils which are most contrary to the hopes of pardon 1. He that falls back into those sins he hath repented of does grieve the holy Spirit of God by which he was sealed to the day of redemption For so the Antithesis is plain and obvious If at the conversion of a sinner there is joy before the beatified Spirits the Angels of God and that is the consummation of our pardon and our consignation to felicity then we may imagine how great an evill it is to grieve the Spirit of God who is greater then the Angels The Children of Israel were carefully warned that they should not offend the Angel Behold I send an Angel before thee beware of him and obey his voyce provoke him not for he will not pardon your transgressions that is he will not spare to punish you if you grieve him Much greater is the evill if we grieve him who sits upon the throne of God who is the Prince of all the Spirits and besides grieving the Spirit of God is an affection that is as contrary to his felicity as lust is to his holinesse both which are essentiall to him Tristitia enim omnium spirituum nequissima est pessima servis Dei omnium spiritus exterminat cruciat Spiritum sanctum said Hennas Sadnesse is the greatest enemy to Gods servants if you grieve Gods Spirit you cast him out for he cannot dwell with sorrow and grieving unlesse it be such a sorrow which by the way of vertue passes on to joy and never ceasing felicity Now by grieving the holy Spirit is meant those things which displease him doing unkindnesse to him and then the grief which cannot in proper sense seise upon him will in certain effects return upon us Ita enim dica said Seneca sacer intra nos Spiritus sedet bonorum malorúmque nostrorum observator custos hic prout à nobis tractatus est ita nos ipse tractat There is a holy spirit dwels in every good man who is the observer and guardian of all our actions and as we treat him so will he treat us Now we ought to treat him sweetly and tenderly thankfully and with observation Deus praecepit Spiritum sanctum utpote pro naturae suae bono tenerum delicatum tranquillitate lenitate quiete pace tractare said Tertullian de Spectaculis The Spirit of God is a loving and a kind Spirit gentle and easy chast and pure righteous and peaceable and when he hath done so much for us as to wash us from our impurities and to cleanse us from our stains and streighten our obliquities and to instruct our ignorances and to snatch us from an intolerable death and to consign us to the day of redemption that is to the resurrection of our bodies from death corruption and the dishonors of the grave and to appease all the storms and uneasynesse and to make us free as the Sons of God and furnished with the riches of the Kingdome and all this with innumerable arts with difficulty and in despite of our lusts and reluctancies with parts and interrupted steps with waitings and expectations with watchfulnesse and stratagems with inspirations and collaterall assistances after all this grace and bounty and diligence that we should despite this grace and trample upon the blessings and scorn to receive life at so great an expence and love of God this is so great a basenesse and unworthynesse that by troubling the tenderest passions it turns into the most bitter hostilities by abusing Gods love it turns into jealousie and rage and indignation Goe and sin no more lest a worse thing happen to thee 2. Falling away after we have begun to live well is a great cause of fear because there is added to it the circumstance of inexcuseablenesse The man hath been taught the secrets of the Kingdome and therefore his understanding hath been instructed he hath tasted the pleasures of the Kingdome and therefore his will hath been sufficiently entertain'd He was entred into the state of life and renounced the ways of death his sin began to be pardoned and his lusts to be crucified he felt the pleasures of victory and the blessings of peace and therefore fell away not onely against his reason but also against his interest and to such a person the Questions of his soul have been so perfectly stated and his prejudices and inevitable abuses so cleerly taken off and he was so made to view the paths of life and death that if he chooses the way of sin again it must be not by weaknesse or the infelicity of his breeding or the weaknesse of his understanding but a direct preference or prelation a preferring sin before grace the spirit of lust before the purities of the soul the madnesse of drunkennesse before the fulnesse of the Spirit money before our friend and above our Religion and Heaven and God himself This man is not to be pityed upon pretence that he is betrayed or to be relieved because he is oppressed with potent enemies or to be pardoned because he could not help it for he once did help it he did overcome his temptation and choose God and delight in vertue and was an heir of heaven and was a conqueror over sin and delivered from death and he may do so still and Gods grace is upon him more plentifully and the lust does not tempt so strongly and if it did he hath more power to resist it and therefore if this man fals it is because he wilfully chooses death it is the portion that he loves and descends into with willing and unpityed steps Quà m vilis facta es nimis iterans vias tuas said God to Judah 3. He that returns from vertue to his old vices is forced to doe violence to his own reason to make his conscience quiet he does it so unreasonably so against all his fair inducements so against his reputation and the principles of his society so against his honour and his promises and his former discourses and his doctrines his censuring of men for the same crimes and the bitter invectives and reproofs which in the dayes of his health and reason he used against his erring Brethren that he is now constrained to answer his own arguments he is intangled in his own discourses he is shamed with his former conversation and it will be remembred against him how severely he reproved and how reasonably he chastised the lust which now he runs to in despite of himself and all his friends And because this is his condition he hath no way left him but either to be impudent which is hard for him at first it being too big a naturall change to passe suddenly from grace to immodest circumstances and hardnesses of face and heart or else therefore he must entertain new
the folly and the punishment to the crime there is no man more miserable in the world then the man who fears God as his enemy and Religion as a snare and duty as intolerable and the Commandements as impossible and his Judge as implacable and his anger as certain unsufferable and unavoidable whither shall this man goe where shall he lay his burden where shall he take sanctuary for he fears the Altars as the places where his soul bleeds and dies and God who is his Saviour he looks upon as his enemy and because he is Lord of all the miserable man cannot change his service unlesse it be apparently for a worse And therefore of all the evils of the minde fear is certainly the worst and the most intolerable levity and rashnesse have in it some spritefulnesse and greatnesse of action anger is valiant desire is busie and apt to hope credulity is oftentimes entertain'd and pleased with images and appearances But fear is dull and sluggish and treacherous and flattering and dissembling and miserable and foolish Every false opinion concerning God is pernicious and dangerous but if it be joyned with trouble of spirit as fear scruple or superstition are it is like a wound with an inflamation or a strain of a sinew with a contusion or contrition of the part painfull and unsafe it puts on to actions when it self is driven it urges reason and circumscribes it and makes it pityable and ridiculous in its consequent follies which if we consider it will sufficiently reprove the folly and declare the danger Almost all ages of the world have observed many instances of fond perswasions and foolish practises proceeding from violent fears and scruples in matter of Religion Diomedon and many other Captains were condemned to dye because after a great Naval victory they pursued the flying enemies and did not first bury their dead But Chabrias in the same case first buryed the dead and by that time the enemy rallyed and returned and beat his Navy and made his masters pay the price of their importune superstition they fear'd where they should not and where they did not they should From hence proceeds observation of signs and unlucky dayes and the people did so when the Gregorian account began continuing to call those unlucky dayes which were so signed in their tradition or Erra pater although the day upon this account fell 10 dayes sooner and men were transported with many other trifling contingencies and little accidents which when they are one entertain'd by weaknesse prevail upon their own strength and in sad natures and weak spirits have produced effects of great danger and sorrow Aristodemas King of the Messenians in his warre against the Spartans prevented the sword of the enemies by a violence done upon himself only because his dogs howl'd like wolves and the Soothsayers were afraid because the Briony grew up by the wals of his Fathers house and Nicias Generall of the Athenian forces sate with his armes in his bosome and suffered himself and 40000 men tamely to fall by the insolent enemy only because he was afraid of the labouring and eclipsed Moon When the Marble statues in Rome did sweat as naturally they did against all rainy weather the Augures gave an alarum to the City but if lightning struck the spire of the Capitoll they thought the summe of affairs and the Commonwealth it self was indanger'd And this Heathen folly hath stuck so close to the Christian that all the Sermons of the Church for 1600 years have not cured them all But the practises of weaker people and the artifice of ruling Priests have superinduced many new ones When Pope Eugenius sang Masse at Rhemes and some few drops from the Chalice were spilt upon the pavement it was thought to foretell mischief warres and bloud to all Christendome though it was nothing but carelesnesse and mischance of the Priest and because Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury sang the Masse of Requiem upon the day he was reconcil'd to his Prince it was thought to foretell his own death by that religious office and if men can listen to such whispers and have not reason and observation enough to confute such trifles they shall still be afrighted with the noise of birds and every night-raven shall foretell evill as Micaiah to the King of Israel and every old woman shall be a Prophetesse and the events of humane affairs which should be managed by the conduct of counsell of reason and religion shall succeed by chance by the slight of birds and the meeting with an evill eye by the falling of the salt or the decay of reason of wisdome and the just religion of a man To this may be reduc'd the observation of dreams and fears commenced from the fancies of the night For the superstitious man does not rest even when he sleeps neither is he safe because dreams usually are false but he is afflicted for fear they should tell true Living and waking men have one world in common they use the same air and fire and discourse by the same principles of Logick and reason but men that are asleep have every one a world to himself and strange perceptions and the superstitious hath none at all his reason sleeps and his fears are waking and all his rest and his very securities to the fearfull man turn into afrights and insecure expectation of evils that never shall happen they make their rest uneasie and chargeable and they still vex their weary soul not considering there is no other sleep for sleep to rest in and therefore if the sleep be troublesome the mans cares be without remedy till they be quite destroyed Dreams follow the temper of the body and commonly proceed from trouble or disease businesse or care an active head and a restlesse minde from fear or hope from wine or passion from fulnesse or emptinesse from phantastick remembrances or from som Daemon good or bad they are without rule and without reason they are as contingent as if a man should study to make a Prophesie and by saying 10000 things may hit upon one true which was therefore not foreknown though it was forespoken and they have no certainty because they have no naturall causality nor proportion to those effects which many times they are said to foresignifie The dream of the yolk of an egge importeth gold saith Artemidorus and they that use to remember such phantastick idols are afraid to lose a friend when they dream their teeth shake when naturally it will rather signifie a scurvy for a naturall indisposition and an imperfect sense of the beginning of a disease may vex the fancy into a symbolicall representation for so the man that dreamt he swam against a stream of bloud had a Plurisie beginning in his side and he that dreamt he dipt his foot in water and that it was turn'd to a Marble was intic'd into the fancie by a beginning dropsie and if the events do answer in one instance we
follies and infirmities SERMON XI Part II. IF it be possible to cure an evill nature we must inquire after remedies for all this mischief In order to which I shall consider 1. That since it is our flesh and bloud that is the principle of mischief we must not think to have it cured by washings and light medicaments the Physitian that went to cure the Hectick with quick-silver and fasting spittle did his Patient no good but himself became a proverb and he that by easie prayers and a seldome fast by the scattering of a little almes and the issues of some more naturall vertue thinks to cure his evill nature does fortifie his indisposition as a stick is hardened by a little fire which by a great one is devoured Quanto satius est mentem potius eluere quae malis cupiditatibus sordidatur uno virtutis as sidei lavacro universa vitia depellere Better it is by an intire body of vertue by a living and active faith to cleanse the minde from every vice and to take off all superinduced habits of sin Quod qui fecerit quamlibet inquinatum ac sordidum corpus gerat satis purus est If we take this course although our body is foul and our affections unquiet and our rest discomposed yet we shall be masters of our resolution and clean from habituall sins and so cure our evill nature For our nature was not made evill but by our selves but yet we are naturally evill that is by a superinduced nature just as drunkards and intemperate persons have made it necessary to drink extremely and their nature requires it and it is health to them they dye without it because they have made to themselves a new constitution and another nature but much worse then that which God made their sin made this new nature and this new nature makes sin necessary and unavoidable so it is in all other instances Our nature is evill because we have spoil'd it and therefore the removing the sin which we have brought in is the way to cure our nature for this evill nature is not a thing which we cannot avoid we made it and therefore we must help it but as in the superinducing this evill nature we were thrust forward by the world and the Devill by all objects from without and weaknesse from within so in the curing it we are to be helped by God and his most holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We must have a new nature put into us which must be the principle of new counsels and better purposes of holy actions and great devotion and this nature is deriv'd from God and is a grace and a favour of heaven The same Spirit that caused the holy Jesus to be born after a new and strange manner must also descend upon us and cause us to be born again and to begin a new life upon the stock of a new nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Origen From him it first began that a divine and humane nature were weaved together that the humane nature by communication with the celestiall may also become divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not only in Jesus but in all that first beleeve in him and then obey him living such a life as Jesus taught and this is the summe totall of the whole design As we have liv'd to the flesh so we must hereafter live to the spirit as our nature hath been flesh not only in its originall but in habits and affection so our nature must be spirit in habit and choice in design and effectuall prosecutions for nothing can cure our old death but this new birth and this is the recovery of our nature and the restitution of our hopes and therefore the greatest joy of mankinde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a fine thing to see the light of this sun and it is pleasant to see the storm allayed and turned into a smooth sea and a fresh gale our eyes are pleased to see the earth begin to live and to produce her little issues with particolour'd coats 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing is so beauteous as to see a new birth in a childlesse family And it is excellent to hear a man discourse the hidden things of Nature and unriddle the perplexities of humane notices and mistakes it is comely to see a wise man sit in the gates of the City and give right judgement in difficult causes But all this is nothing to the excellencies of a new birth to see the old man carryed forth to funerall with the solemn tears of repentance and buryed in the grave of Jesus and in his place a new creation to arise a new heart and a new understanding and new affections and excellent appetites for nothing lesse then this can cure all the old distempers 2. Our life and all our discourses and every observation and a state of reason and a union of sober counsels are too little to cure a peevish spirit and a weak reasoning and silly principles and accursed habits and evill examples and perverse affections and a whole body of sin and death It was well said in the Comedy Nunquam ita quisquam bene subductâ ratione ad vitam fuit Quin aetas usus semper aliquid apportet novi Aliquid moneat ut illa quae scire credas nescias Et quae tibi put as prima in experiundo repudies Men at first think themselves wise and are alwaies most confident when they have the least reason and to morrow they begin to perceive yesterdayes folly and yet they are not wise But as the little Embryo in the naturall sheet and lap of its mother first distinguishes into a little knot and that in time will be the heart and then into a bigger bundle which after some dayes abode grows into two little spots and they if cherished by nature will become eyes and each part by order commences into weak principles and is preserved with natures greatest curiosity that it may assist first to distinction then to order next to usefulnesse and from thence to strength till it arrive at beauty and a perfect creature so are the necessities and so are the discourses of men we first learn the principles of reason which breaks obscurely through a cloud and brings a little light and then we discern a folly and by little and little leave it till that enlightens the next corner of the soul and then there is a new discovery but the soul is still in infancy and childish follies and every day does but the work of one day but therefore art and use experience and reason although they do something yet they cannot do enough there must be something else But this is to be wrought by a new principle that is by the Spirit of grace Nature and reason alone cannot do it and therefore the
proper cure is to be wrought by those generall means of inviting and cherishing of getting and entertaining Gods Spirit which when we have observed we may account our selves sufficiently instructed toward the repair of our breaches and the reformation of our evill nature 1. The first great instrument of changing our whole nature into the state of grace flesh into the spirit is a firm belief and a perfect assent to and hearty entertainment of the promises of the Gospell for holy Scripture speaks great words concerning faith It quenches the fiery darts of the Devill saith St. Paul it overcomes the world saith St. John it is the fruit of the Spirit and the parent of love it is obedience and it is humility and it is a shield and it is a brestplate and a work and a mysterie it is a fight and it is a victory it is a pleasing God and it is that whereby the just do live by faith we are purified and by faith we are sanctified and by faith we are justified and by faith we are saved by this we have accesse to the throne of grace and by it our prayers shall prevail for the sick by it we stand and by it we walk and by this Christ dwels in our hearts and by it all the miracles of the Church have been done it gives great patience to suffer and great confidence to hope and great strength to do and infallible certainty to enjoy the end of all our faith and satisfaction of all our hopes and the reward of all our labours even the most mighty price of our high calling and if faith be such a magazine of spirituall excellencies of such universall efficacy nothing can be a greater antidote against the venome of a corrupted nature But then this is not a grace seated finally in the understanding but the principle that is designed to and actually productive of a holy life It is not only a beleeving the propositions of Scripture as we beleeve a proposition in the Metaphysicks concerning which a man is never the honester whether it be true of false but it is a beleef of things that concern us infinitely things so great that if they be so true as great no man that hath his reason and can discourse that can think and choose that can desire and work towards an end can possibly neglect The great object of our faith to which all other articles do minister is resurrection of our bodies and souls to eternall life and glories infinite Now is it possible that a man that beleeves this and that he may obtain it for himself and that it was prepared for him and that God desires to give it him that he can neglect and despise it and not work for it and perform such easie conditions upon which it may be obtained Are not most men of the world made miserable at a lesse price then a thousand pound a year Do not all the usurers and merchants all tradesmen and labourers under the Sun toil and care labour and contrive venture and plot for a little money and no man gets and scarce any man desires so much of it as he can lay upon three acres of ground not so much as will fill a great house and is this sum that is such a trifle such a poor limited heap of dirt the reward of all the labour and the end of all the care and the design of all the malice and the recompence of all the wars of the world and can it be imaginable that life it self and a long life an eternall and a happy life a kingdome a perfect kingdome and glorious that shall never have ending nor ever shall be abated with rebellion or fears or sorrow or care that such a kingdome should not be worth the praying for and quitting of an idle company and a foolish humour or a little drink or a vicious silly woman for it surely men beleeve no such thing They do not relye upon those fine stories that are read in books and published by Preachers and allow'd by the lawes of all the world If they did why do they choose intemperance and a feaver lust and shame rebellion and danger pride and a fall sacriledge and a curse gain and passion before humility and safety religion and a constant joy devotion and peace of conscience justice and a quiet dwelling charity and a blessing and at the end of all this a Kingdome more glorious then all the beauties the Sun did ever see Fides est velut quoddam aeternitatis exemplar praeterita simul praesentia futura sinu quodam vastissimo comprehendit ut nihil ei praetereat nil pereat praeeat nihil Now Faith is a certain image of eternity all things are present to it things past and things to come are all so before the eyes of faith that he in whose eye that candle is enkindled beholds heaven as present and sees how blessed thing it is to dye in Gods favour and to be chim'd to our grave with the Musick of a good conscience Faith converses with the Angels and antedates the hymnes of glory every man that hath this grace is as certain that there are glories for him if he perseveres in duty as if he had heard and sung the thanksgiving Song for the blessed sentence of Dooms-day And therefore it is no matter if these things are separate and distant objects none but children and fools are taken with the present trifle and neglect a distant blessing of which they have credible and beleeved notices Did the merchant see the pearls and the wealth he designs to get in the trade of 20 years And is it possible that a childe should when he learns the first rudiments of Grammar know what excellent things there are in learning whither he designs his labour and his hopes We labour for that which is uncertain and distant and beleeved and hoped for with many allaies and seen with diminution and a troubled ray and what excuse can there be that we do not labour for that which is told us by God and preach'd by his holy Son and confirmed by miracles and which Christ himself dyed to purchase and millions of Martyrs dyed to witnesse and which we see good men and wise beleeve with an assent stronger then their evidence and which they do beleeve because they do love and love because they do beleeve There is nothing to be said but that faith which did enlighten the blind and cleanse the Lepers and wash'd the soul of the Aethiopian that faith that cures the sick and strengthens the Paralytick and baptizes the Catechumens and justifies the faithfull and repairs the penitent and confirms the just and crowns the Martyrs that faith if it be true and proper Christian and alive active and effective in us is sufficient to appease the storm of our passions and to instruct all our ignorances and to make us wise unto salvation it will if we let it do its first intention
chastise our errors and discover our follies it will make us ashamed of trifling interests and violent prosecutions of false principles and the evill disguises of the world and then our nature will return to the innocence and excellency in which God first estated it that is our flesh will be a servant of the soul and the soul a servant to the spirit and then because faith makes heaven to be the end of our desires and God the object of our love and worshippings and the Scripture the rule of our actions and Christ our Lord and Master and the holy Spirit our mighty assistance and our Counsellour all the little uglinesses of the world and the follies of the flesh will be uneasie and unsavory unreasonable and a load and then that grace the grace of faith that layes hold upon the holy Trinity although it cannot understand it and beholds heaven before it can possesse it shall also correct our weaknesses and master all our aversations and though we cannot in this world be perfect masters and triumphant persons yet we be conquerors and more that is conquerors of the direct hostility sure of a crown to be revealed in its due time 2. The second great remedy of our evill Nature and of the loads of the flesh is devotion or a state of prayer and entercourse with God For the gift of the Spirit of God which is the great antidote of our evill natures is properly and expresly promised to prayer If you who are evill give good things to your children that aske you how much more shall your Father from heaven give his holy Spirit to them that aske it That which in S. Luke is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the holy Spirit is called in St. Matthew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good things that is the holy Spirit is all that good that we shall need towards our pardon and our sanctification and our glory and this is promised to Prayer to this purpose Christ taught us the Lords Prayer by which we are sufficiently instructed in obtaining this Magazine of holy and usefull things But Prayer is but one part of devotion and though of admirable efficacy towards the obtaining this excellent promise yet it is to be assisted by the other parts of devotion to make it a perfect remedy to our great evill He that would secure his evill Nature must be a devout person and he that is devout besides that he prayes frequently he delights in it as it is a conversation with God he rejoyces in God and esteems him the light of his eyes and the support of his confidence the object of his love and the desires of his heart the man is uneasie but when he does God service and his soul is at peace and rest when he does what may be accepted and this is that which the Apostle counsels and gives in precept Rejoyce in the Lord alwaies and again I say rejoyce that is as the Levites were appointed to rejoyce because God was their portion in tithes and offerings so now that in the spirituall sense God is our portion we should rejoyce in him and make him our inheritance and his service our imployment and the peace of conscience to be our rest and then it is impossible we should be any longer slaves to sin and afflicted by the baser imployments of the flesh or carry burdens for the Devill and therefore the Scholiast upon Juvenal observed well Nullum malum gaudium est Notrue joy can be evill and therefore it was improperly said of Virgil Mala gaudia mentis calling lust and wilde desires the evill joyes of the minde Gaudium enim nisi sapienti non contingere said Seneca none but a wise and a good man can truly rejoyce The evill laugh loud and sigh deeply they drink drunk and forget their sorrowes and all the joyes of an evill man is only arts of forgetfulnesse devices to cover their sorrow and make them not see their death and its affrighting circumstances but the heart never can rejoyce and be secure be pleased and be at rest but when it dwels with holinesse the joyes that come from thence are safe and great unchangeable and unabated healthfull and holy and this is true joy and this is that which can cure all the little images of pleasure and temptation which debauch our nature and make it dwell with hospitals in the region of diseases and evill sorrowes St. Gregory well observed the difference saying that Corporall pleasures when we have them not inkindle a flame and a burning desire in the heart and make a man very miserable before he tasts them the appetite to them is like thirst and the desires of a feaver the pleasure of drinking will not pay for the pain of the desire and when they are enjoyed they instantly breed satiety and a loathing But spirituall rejoycings and delights are loathed by them that have them not and despised by them that never felt them but when they are once tasted they increase the appetite and swell it to bigger capacities and the more they are eaten the more they are desired and cannot become a wearinesse because they satisfie all the way and only increase the desire because themselves grow bigger and more amiable And therefore when this new and stranger appetite and consequent joy arises in the heart of man it so fils all the faculties that there is no gust no desire left for toads and vipers for hemlock and the deadly night-shade Sirenas hilarem navigantium poenam Blandásque mortes gandiúmque crudele Quas nemo quondam deserebat auditas Prudens Ulysses dicitur reliquisse Then a man can hear the musick of songs and dances and think them to be heathenish noises and if he be engaged in the society of a woman singer he can be as unconcerned as a marble statue he can be at a feast and not be defil'd he can passe through theatres as though a street then he can look on money as his servant nec distant aera lupinis he can use it as the Greeks did their sharp coins to cast accounts withall and not from thence take the accounts of his wealth or his felicity If you can once obtain but to delight in prayer and to long for the day of a Communion and to be pleased with holy meditation and to desire Gods grace with great passion and an appetite keen as a Wolf upon the cold plains of the North If you can delight in Gods love and consider concerning his providence and busie your selves in the pursuit of the affairs of his Kingdome then you have the grace of devotion and your evill nature shall be cured 3. Because this great cure is to be wrought by the Spirit of God which is a new nature in us we must endevour to abstain from those things which by a speciall malignity are directly opposite to the spirit of reason and the spirit of grace and those are drunkennesse and lust He that
they are in themselves as they have an irregularity and disorder an unreasonablenesse and a sting and be sure to relye upon nothing but the truth of lawes and promises and take severe accounts by those lines which God gave us on purpose to reprove our evill habits and filthy inclinations Men that are not willing to be cured are glad of any thing to cousen them but the body of death cannot be taken off from us unlesse we be honest in our purposes and severe in our counsels and take just measures and glorifie God and set our selves against our selves that we may be changed into the likenesse of the sons of God 9. Avoid all delay in the counsels of Religion Because the aversation and perversnesse of a childes nature may be corrected easily but every day of indulgence and excuse increases the evill and makes it still more naturall and still more necessary 10. Learn to despise the world or which is a better compendium in the duty learn but truly to understand it for it is a cousenage all the way the head of it is a rainbow and the face of it is flattery its words are charmes and all its stories are false its body is a shadow and its hands to knit spiders webs it is an image and a noise with a Hyaena's lip and a Serpents tail it was given to serve the needs of our nature and in stead of doing it it creates strange appetites and nourishes thirsts and feavers it brings care and debauches our nature and brings shame and death as the reward of all our cares Our nature is a disease and the world does nourish it but if you leave to feed upon such unwholesome diet your nature reverts to its first purities and to the entertainments of the grace of God 4. I am now to consider how farre the infirmities of the flesh can be innocent and consist with the spirit of grace For all these counsels are to be entertain'd into a willing spirit and not only so but into an active and so long as the spirit is only willing the weaknesse of the flesh will in many instances become stronger then the strengths of the spirit For he that hath a good will and does not do good actions which are required of him is hindred but not by God that requires them and therefore by himself or his worst enemy But the measures of this question are these 1. If the flesh hinders us of our duty it is our enemy and then our misery is not that the flesh is weak but that it is too strong But 2. when it abates the degrees of duty and stops its growth or its passing on to action and effect then it is weak but not directly nor alwaies criminall But to speak particularly If our flesh hinders us of any thing that is a direct duty and prevails upon the spirit to make it do an evill action or contract an evill habit the man is in a state of bondage and sin his flesh is the mother of corruption and an enemy to God It is not enough to say I desire to serve God and cannot as I would I would fain love God above all the things in the world but the flesh hath appetites of its own that must be served I pray to be forgiven as I forgive others but flesh and bloud cannot put up such an injury for know that no infirmity no unavoidable accident no necessity no poverty no businesse can hinder us from the love of God or forgiving injuries or being of a religious and a devout spirit Poverty and the intrigues of the world are things that can no more hinder the spirit in these duties then a strong enemy can hinder the sun to shine or the clouds to drop rain These things which God requires of us and exacts from us with mighty penalties these he hath made us able to perform for he knows that we have no strength but what he gives us and therefore as he binds burdens upon our shoulders so he gives us strength to bear them and therefore he that sayes he cannot forgive sayes only that his lust is stronger then his religion his flesh prevails upon his spirit For what necessity can a man have to curse him whom he cals enemy or to sue him or kill him or do him any spite A man may serve all his needs of nature though he does nothing of all this and if he be willing what hinders him to love to pardon to wish well to desire The willing is the doing in this case and he that sayes he is willing to do his duty but he cannot does not understand what he sayes For all the duty of the inner man consists in the actions of the will and there they are seated and to it all the inferiour faculties obey in those things which are direct emanations and effects of will He that desires to love God does love him indeed men are often cousened with pretences and in some good mood are warm'd with a holy passion but it signifies nothing because they will not quit the love of Gods enemies and therefore they do not desire what they say they doe but if the will and heart be right and not false and dissembling this duty is or will be done infallibly 2. If the spirit and the heart be willing it will passe on to outward actions in all things where it ought or can He that hath a charitable soul will have a charitable hand and will give his money to the poor as he hath given his heart to God For these things which are in our hand are under the power of our will and therefore are to be commanded by it He that sayes to the naked be warm and cloathed and gives him not the garment that lies by him or money to buy one mocks God and the poor and himself Nequam illud verbâ—m est bene vult nisi qui bene facit said the Comedy It is an evill saying he wishes well unlesse he do well 3. Those things which are not in our power that is such things in which the flesh is inculpably weak or naturally or politically disabled the will does the work of the outward and of the inward man we cannot cloath Christs body he needs it not and we cannot approach so sacred and separate a presence but if we desire to do it it is accounted as if we had The ignorant man cannot discourse wisely and promote the interest of souls but he can love souls and desire their felicity though I cannot build Hospitals and Colledges or pour great summes of money into the lap of the poor yet if I incourage others and exhort them if I commend and promote the work I have done the work of a holy Religion For in these and the like cases the outward work is not alwaies set in our power and therefore without our fault is omitted and can be supplyed by that which is in our power 4. For that is the
last caution concerning this question No man is to be esteemed of a willing spirit but he that endevours to doe the outward work or to make all the supplies that he can not only by the forwardnesse of his spirit but by the compensation of some other charities or devotion or religion Silver and gold have I none and therefore I can give you none But I wish you well How will that appear why thus Such as I have I will give you Rise up and walk I cannot give you gold but I can give you counsell I cannot relieve your need but I can relieve your sadnesse I cannot cure you but I can comfort you I cannot take away your poverty but I can ease your spirit and God accepts us saith the Apostle according to what a man hath and not according to what he hath not Only as our desires are great and our spirits are willing so we shall finde wayes to make supply of our want of ability and expressed liberality Et labor ingenium misero dedit sua quemque Advigilare sibi jussit fortuna premendo What the poor mans need will make him do that also the good mans charity will it will finde out wayes and artifices of relief in kinde or in value in comfort or in prayers in doing it himself or procuring others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The necessity of our fortune and the willingnesse of our spirits will do all this all that it can and something that it cannot You have relieved the Saints saith St. Paul according to your power yea and beyond your power Only let us be carefull in all instances that we yeeld not to the weaknesse of the flesh nor listen to its fair pretences for the flesh can do more then it sayes we can do more then we think we can and if we doe some violence to the flesh to our affairs and to the circumstances of our fortune for the interest of our spirit we shall make our flesh usefull and the spirit strong the flesh and its weaknesse shall no more be an objection but shall comply and co-operate and serve all the necessities of the spirit Sermon XII Of Lukewarmnesse and Zeal OR SPIRITVALL TERROVR Part I. Jer. 48. 10. vers first part part Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully CHrists Kingdome being in order to the Kingdome of his Father which shall be manifest at the day of Judgement must therefore be spirituall because then it is that all things must become spirituall not only by way of eminency but by intire constitution and perfect change of natures Men shall be like Angels and Angels shall be comprehended in the lap of spirituall and eternall felicities the soul shall not understand by materiall phantasmes neither be served by the provisions of the body but the body it self shall become spirituall and the eye shall see intellectuall objects and the mouth shall feed upon hymns and glorifications of God the belly shall be then satisfied by the fulnesse of righteousnesse and the tongue shall speak nothing but praises and the propositions of a celestiall wisdome the motion shall be the swiftnesse of an Angell and it shall be cloathed with white as with a garment Holinesse is the Sun and righteousnesse is the Moon in that region our society shall be Quires of singers and our conversation wonder contemplation shall be our food and love shall be the wine of elect souls and as to every naturall appetite there is now proportion'd an object crasse materiall unsatisfying and allayed with sorrow and uneasinesse so there be new capacities and equall objects the desires shall be fruition and the appetite shall not suppose want but a faculty of delight and an unmeasureable complacency the will and the understanding love and wonder joyes every day and the same forever this shall be their state who shall be accounted worthy of the resurrection to this life where the body shall be a partner but no servant where it shall have no work of its own but it shall rejoyce with the soul where the soul shall rule without resistance or an enemy and we shall be fitted to enjoy God who is the Lord and Father of spirits In this world we see it is quite contrary we long for perishing meat and fill our stomachs with corruption we look after white and red and the weaker beauties of the night we are passionate after rings and seals and inraged at the breaking of a Crystall we delight in the society of fools and weak persons we laugh at sin and contrive mischiefs and the body rebels against the soul and carries the cause against all its just pretences and our soul it self is above half of it earth and stone in its affections and distempers our hearts are hard and inflexible to the softer whispers of mercy and compassion having no loves for any thing but strange flesh and heaps of money and popular noises for misery and folly and therefore we are a huge way off from the Kingdome of God whose excellencies whose designs whose ends whose constitution is spirituall and holy and separate and sublime and perfect Now between these two states of naturall flesh and heavenly spirit that is the powers of darknesse and the regions of light the miseries of man and the perfections of God the imperfection of nature where we stand by our creation and supervening follies and that state of felicities whither we are designed by the mercies of God there is a middle state the Kingdome of grace wrought for us by our Mediator the man Christ Jesus who came to perfect the vertue of Religion and the designs of God and to reforme our Nature and to make it possible for us to come to that spirituall state where all felicity does dwell The Religion that Christ taught is a spirituall Religion it designs so far as this state can permit to make us spirituall that is so as the spirit be the prevailing ingredient God must now be worshipped in spirit and not only so but with a fervent spirit and though God in all religions did seise upon the spirit and even under Moses Law did by the shadow of the ceremony require the substantiall worship by cutting off the flesh intended the circumcision of the heart yet because they were to minde the outward action it took off much from the intention and activity of the spirit Man could not doe both busily And then they fail'd also in the other part of a spirituall Religion for the nature of a spirituall Religion is that in it we serve God with our hearts and affections and because while the spirit prevails we do not to evill purposes of abatement converse with flesh and bloud this service is also fervent intense active wise and busie according to the nature of things spirituall Now because God alwayes perfectly intended it yet because he lesse perfectly required it in the Law of Moses I say they fell short in both For 1. They so
the precepts of the Gospell were impossible to be kept because it also requiring the heart of man did stop every egression of disorders for making the root holy and healthfull as the Balsame of Judaea or the drops of Manna in the evening of the sabbath it also causes that nothing spring thence but gummes fit for incense and oblations for the Altar of proposition and a cloud of perfume fit to make atonement for our sins and being united to the great sacrifice of the world to reconcile God and man together Upon these reasons you see it is highly fit that God should require it and that we should pay the sacrifice of our hearts and not at all think that God is satisfied with the work of the hands when the affections of the heart are absent He that prayes because he would be quiet and would fain be quit of it and communicates for fear of the lawes and comes to Church to avoid shame and gives almes to be eased of an importunate begger or relieves his old parents because they will not dye in their time and provides for his children lest he be compled by Lawes and shame but yet complains of the charge of Gods blessings this man is a servant of the eyes of men and offers parchment or a white skin in sacrifice but the flesh and the inwards he leaves to be consumed by a stranger fire And therefore this is a deceit that robs God of the best and leaves that for religion which men pare off It is sacriledge and brings a double curse 2. He that serves God with the soule without the body when both can be conjoyned doth the work of the Lord deceitfully Paphnutius whose knees were cut for the testimony of Jesus was not obliged to worship with the humble flexures of the bending penitents and blinde Bartimeus could not read the holy lines of the Law and therefore that part of the work was not his duty and God shall not call Lazarus to account for not giving almes nor St. Peter and St. John for not giving silver and gold to the lame man nor Epaphroditus for not keeping his fasting dayes when he had his sicknesse But when God hath made the body an apt minister to the soul and hath given money for almes and power to protect the oppressed and knees to serve in prayer and hands to serve our needs then the soul alone is not to work but as Rachel gave her maid to Jacob and she bore children to her Lord upon her Ministresse knees and the children were reckoned to them both because the one had fruitfull desires and the other a fruitfull wombe so must the body serve the needs of the spirit that what the one desires the other may effect and the conceptions of the soul may be the productions of the body and the body must bow when the soul worships and the hand must help when the soul pities and both together do the work of a holy Religion the body alone can never serve God without the conjunction and preceding act of the soul and sometimes the soul without the body is imperfect and vain for in some actions there is a body and a spirit a materiall and a spirituall part and when the action hath the same constitution that a man hath without the act of both it is as imperfect as a dead man the soul cannot produce the body of some actions any more then the body can put life into it and therefore an ineffective pity and a lazie counsell an empty blessing and gay words are but deceitfull charity Quod peto da Caï non peto consilium He that gave his friend counsell to study the Law when he desired to borrow 20 l. was not so friendly in this counsell as he was uselesse in his charity spirituall acts can cure a spirituall malady but if my body needs relief because you cannot feed me with Diagrams or cloath me with Euclids elements you must minister a reall supply by a corporall charity to my corporall necessity This proposition is not only usefull in the doctrine of charity and the vertue of religion but in the professions of faith and requires that it be publick open and ingenuous In matters of necessary duty it is not sufficient to have it to our selves but we must also have it to God and all the world and as in the heart we beleeve so by the mouth we confesse unto salvation he is an ill man that is only a Christian in his heart and is not so in his professions and publications and as your heart must not be wanting in any good profession and pretences so neither must publick profession be wanting in every good and necessary perswasion The faith and the cause of God must be owned publiquely for if it be the cause of God it will never bring us to shame I do not say what ever we think we must tell it to all the world much lesse at all times and in all circumstances but we must never deny that which we beleeve to be the cause of God in such circumstances in which we can and ought to glorifie him But this extends also to other instances He that swears a false oath with his lips and unswears it with his heart hath deceived one more then he thinks for himself is the most abused person and when my action is contrary to men they will reprove me but when it is against my own perswasion I cannot but reprove my self and am witnesse and accuser and party and guilty and then God is the Judge and his anger will be a fierce executioner because we do the Lords work deceitfully 3. They are deceitfull in the Lords work that reserve one faculty for sin or one sin for themselves or one action to please their appetite and many for Religion Rabbi Kimchi taught his Scholars Cogitationem pravam Deus non habet vice facti nisi concepta fuerit in Dei fidem Religionem that God is never angry with an evill thought unlesse it be a thought of Apostasie from the Jewes religion and therefore provided that men be severe and close in their sect and party they might roll in lustfull thoughts and the torches they light up in the Temple might smoke with anger at one end and lust at the other so they did not flame out in egressions of violence and injustice in adulteries and fouler complications nay they would give leave to some degrees of evill actions for R. Moses and Selomoh taught that if the most part of a mans actions were holy and just though in one he sinned often yet the greater ingredient should prevail and the number of good works should outweigh the lesser account of evill things and this Pharisaicall righteousnesse is too frequent even amongst Christians For who almost is there that does not count fairly concerning himself if he reckons many vertues upon the stock of his Religion and but one vice upon the stock of his infirmity
may not give it to him unlesse he knowes by other means to pay the debt but if he can do both he hath his liberty to lay out his money for a Crown But then in the case of provision for children our restraint is not so easie or discernible 1. Because we are not bound to provide for them in a certain portion but may do it by the analogies and measures of prudence in which there is a great latitude 2. Because our zeal of charity is a good portion for them and layes up a blessing for inheritance 3. Because the fairest portions of charity are usually short of such sums which can be considerable in the duty of provision for our children 4. If we for them could be content to take any measure lesse then all any thing under every thing that we can we should finde the portions of the poor made ready to our hands sufficiently to minister to zeal and yet not to intrench upon this case of conscience But the truth is we are so carelesse so unskil'd so unstudied in religion that we are only glad to make an an excuse and to defeat our souls of the reward of the noblest grace we are contented if we can but make a pretence for we are highly pleased if our conscience be quiet and care not so much that our duty be performed much lesse that our eternall interest be advanced in bigger portions We care not we strive not we think not of getting the greater rewards of Heaven and he whose desires are so indifferent for the greater will not take pains to secure the smallest portion and it is observable that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the least in the Kingdome of heaven is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as good as none if a man will be content with his hopes of the lowest place there and will not labour for something beyond it he does not value it at all and it is ten to one but will lose that for which he takes so little pains and is content with so easie a security He that does his almes and resolves that in no case he will suffer inconvenience for his brother whose case it may be is intolerable should do well to remember that God in some cases requires a greater charity and it may be we shall be called to dye for the good of our brother and that although it alwaies supposes a zeal and a holy fervour yet sometimes it is also a duty and we lose our lives if we go to save them and so we do with our estates when we are such good husbands in our Religion that we will serve all our own conveniences before the great needs of a hungry and afflicted brother God oftentimes takes from us that which with so much curiosity we would preserve and then we lose our money and our reward too 3. Hither is to be reduced * the accepting and choosing the counsels Evangelicall * the virgin or widow estate in order to Religion * selling all and giving it to the poor * making our selves Eunuchs for the Kingdome of Heaven * offering our selves to death voluntary in exchange or redemption of the life of a most usefull person as Aquila and Priscilla who ventur'd their lives for St. Paul * the zeal of souls * St. Paul's preaching to the Corinthian Church without wages remitting of rights and forgiving of debts when the obliged person could pay but not without much trouble * protection of calamitous persons with hazard of our own interest and a certain trouble concerning which and all other acts of zeal we are to observe the following measures by which our zeal will become safe and holy and by them also we shall perceive the excesses of Zeal and its inordinations which is the next thing I am to consider 1. The first measure by which our zeal may comply with our duty and its actions become laudable is charity to our neighbour For since God receives all that glorification of himself whereby we can serve and minister to his glory reflected upon the foundation of his own goodnesse and bounty and mercy and all the Allellujahs that are or ever shall be sung in heaven are praises and thank givings and that God himself does not receive glory from the acts of his Justice but then when his creatures will not rejoyce in his goodnesse and mercy it followes that we imitate this originall excellency and pursue Gods own method that is glorifie him in via misericordiae in the way of mercy and bounty charity and forgivenesse love and fair compliances There is no greater charity in the world then to save a soul nothing that pleases God better nothing that can be in our hands greater or more noble nothing that can be a more lasting and delightfull honour then that a perishing soul snatched from the flames of an intolerable Hell and born to Heaven upon the wings of piety and mercy by the Ministery of Angels and the graces of the holy Spirit shall to eternall ages blesse God and blesse thee Him for the Author and finisher of salvation and thee for the Minister and charitable instrument that bright starre must needs look pleasantly upon thy face for ever which was by thy hand plac'd there and had it not been by thy Ministery might have been a footy coal in the regions of sorrow Now in order to this God hath given us all some powers and ministeries by which we may by our charity promote this Religion and the great interest of souls Counsels and prayers preaching and writing passionate desires and fair examples going before others in the way of godlinesse and bearing the torch before them that they may see the way and walk in it This is a charity that is prepared more or lesse for every one and by the way we should do well to consider what we have done towards it For as it will be a strange arrest at the day of Judgement to Dives that he fed high and sufferred Lazarus to starve and every garment that lies by thee and perishes while thy naked brother does so too for want of it shall be a bill of Inditement against thy unmercifull soul so it will be in every instance in what thou couldst profit thy brother and didst not thou art accountable and then tell over the times in which thou hast prayed for the conversion of thy sinning brother and compare the times together and observe whether thou hast not tempted him or betrayed him to a sin or encourag'd him in it or didst not hinder him when thou mightest more frequently then thou hast humbly and passtonately and charitably and zealously bowed thy head and thy heart and knees to God to redeem that poor soul from hell whither thou seest him descending with as much indifferency as a stone into the bottome of a well In this thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a good thing to be zealous and put forth all your strength for you
can never go too far But then be carefull that this zeal of thy neighbours amendment be only expressed in waies of charity not of cruelty or importune justice He that strikes the Prince for justice as Solomons expression is is a companion of murderers and he that out of zeal of Religion shall go to convert Nations to his opinion by destroying Christians whose faith is intire and summ'd up by the Apostles this man breaks the ground with a sword and sowes tares and waters the ground with bloud and ministers to envie and cruelty to errors and mistake and there comes up nothing but poppies to please the eye and fancy disputes and hypocrisie new summaries of Religion estimated by measures of anger and accursed principles and so much of the religion as is necessary to salvation is laid aside and that brought forth that serves an interest not holinesse that fils the Schooles of a proud man but not that which will fill Heaven Any zeal is proper for Religion but the zeal of the sword and the zeal of anger this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bitternesse of zeal and it is a certain temptation to every man against his duty for if the sword turns preacher and dictates propositions by empire in stead of arguments and ingraves them in mens hearts with a ponyard that it shall be death to beleeve what I innocently and ignorantly am perswaded of it must needs be unsafe to try the spirits to try all things to make inquiry and yet without this liberty no man can justifie himself before God or man nor confidently say that his Religion is best since he cannot without a finall danger make himself able to give a right sentence and to follow that which he findes to be the best this may ruine souls by making Hypocrites or carelesse and complyant against conscience or without it but it does not save souls though peradventure it should force them to a good opinion This is inordination of zeal for Christ by reproving St. Peter drawing his sword even in the cause of Christ for his sacred and yet injured person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Theophylact teaches us not to use the sword though in the cause of God or for God himself because he will secure his own interest only let him be served as himself is pleased to command and it is like Moses passion it throwes the tables of the Law out of our hands and breaks them in pieces out of indignation to see them broken This is the zeal that is now in fashion and hath almost spoyl'd Religion men like the Zelots of the Jewes cry up their Sect and in it their interest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they affect Disciples and fight against the opponents and we shall finde in Scripture that when the Apostles began to preach the meeknesse of the Christian institution salvations and promises charity and humility there was a zeal set up against them the Apostles were zealous for the Gospell the Jewes were zealous for the Law and see what different effects these two zeals did produce the zeal of the Law came to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they stirred up the City they made tumults they persecuted this way unto the death they got letters from the high Priest they kept Damascus with a Garrison they sent parties of souldiers to silence and to imprison the Preachers and thought they did God service when they put the Apostles to death and they swore neither to eat nor to drink till they had killed Paul It was an old trick of the Jewish zeal Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos They would not shew the way to a Samaritan nor give a cup of cold water but to a circumcised brother That was their zeal But the zeal of the Apostles was this they preached publickly and privately they prayed for all men they wept to God for the hardnesse of mens hearts they became all things to all men that they might gain some they travel'd through deeps and deserts they indured the heat of the Syrian Starre and the violence of Euroclydon winds and tempests seas and prisons mockings and scourgings fastings and poverty labour and watching they endured every man and wronged no man they would do any good thing and suffer any evill if they had but hopes to prevail upon a soul they perswaded men meekly they intreated them humbly they convinced them powerfully the watched for their good but medled not with their interest and this is the Christian zeal the zeal of mecknesse the zeal of charity the zeal of patience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in these it is good to be zealous for you can never goe farre enough 2. The next measure of zeal is prudence For as charity is the matter of zeal so is discretion the manner It must alwaies be for good to our neighbour and there needs no rules for the conducting of that provided the end be consonant to the design that is that charity be intended and charity done But there is a zeal also of Religion or worshipping and this hath more need of measures and proper cautions For Religion can turn into a snare it may be abused into superstition it may become wearinesse in the spirit and tempt to tediousnesse to hatred and despair and many persons through their indiscreet conduct and furious marches and great loads taken upon tender shoulders and unexperienced have come to be perfect haters of their joy and despisers of all their hopes being like dark Lanthorns in which a candle burnes bright but the body is incompassed with a crust and a dark cloud of iron and these men keep the fires and light of holy propositions within them but the darknesse of hell the hardnesse of a vexed heart hath shaded all the light and makes it neither apt to warm nor to enlighten others but it turnes to fire within a feaver and a distemper dwels there and Religion is become their torment 1. Therefore our zeal must never carry us beyond that which is profitable There are many institutions customes and usages introduced into Religion upon very fair motives and apted to great necessities but to imitate those things when they are disrobed of their proper ends is an importune zeal and signifies nothing but a forward minde and an easie heart and an imprudent head unlesse these actions can be invested with other ends and usefull purposes The primitive Church were strangely inspired with a zeal of virginity in order to the necessities of preaching and travelling and easing the troubles and temptations of persecution but when the necessity went on and drove the holy men into deserts that made Colleges of Religious and their manner of life was such so united so poor so dressed that they must live more non saeculari after the manner of men divore'd from the
hic est Sulphureúsque color carnificésque pedes For that is the end of delicacies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dio Chrysostom palenesse and effeminacy and lazinesse and folly yet under the dominion of the pleasures of sensuality men are so stript of the use of reason that they are not onely uselesse in wise counsels and assistances but they have not reason enough to avoid the evils of their own throat and belly when once their reason fails we must know that their temperance and their religion went before 3. Though reason be so strictly to be preserved at our tables as well as at our prayers and we can never have leave to doe any violence to it yet the measures of Nature may be enlarged beyond the bounds of prime and common necessity For besides hunger and thirst there are some labours of the body and others of the mind and there are sorrows and loads upon the spirit by its communications with the indispositions of the body and as the labouring man may be supplyed with bigger quantities so the student and contemplative man with more delicious and spritefull nutriment for as the tender and more delicate easily-digested meats will not help to carry burthens upon the neck and hold the plough in society and yokes of the laborious oxen so neither will the pulse and the leeks Lavinian sausages and the Cisalpine tucets or gobbets of condited buls flesh minister such delicate spirits to the thinking man but his notion will be flat as the noyse of the Arcadian porter and thick as the first juice of his countrey lard unlesse he makes his body a fit servant to the soul and both fitted for the imployment But in these cases necessity and prudence and experience are to make the measures and the rule and so long as the just end is fairly designed and aptly ministred to there ought to be no scruple concerning the quantity or quality of the provision and he that would stint a Swain by the commons of a Student and give Philotas the Candian the leavings of Plato does but ill serve the ends of temperance but worse of prudence and necessity 4. Sorrow and a wounded spirit may as well be provided for in the quantity and quality of meat and drink as any other disease and this disease by this remedy as well as by any other For great sorrow and importune melancholy may be as great a sin as a great anger and if it be a sin in its nature it is more malignant and dangerous in its quality as naturally tending to murmur and despair wearinesse of Religion and hatred of God timorousnesse and jealousies fantastick images of things and superstition and therefore as it is necessary to restrain the feavers of anger so also to warm the freezings and dulnesse of melancholy by prudent and temperate but proper and apportion'd diets and if some meats and drinks make men lustfull or sleepy or dull or lazy or spritely or merry so far as meats and drinks can minister to the passion and the passion minister to vertue so far by this means they may be provided for Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish and wine to those that be of heavy hearts let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more said King Lemuel's Mother But this is not intended to be an habituall cure but single and occasionall for he that hath a pertinacious sorrow is beyond the cure of meat and drink and if this become every days physick it will quickly become every days sin 2. It must alwayes keep within the bounds of reason and never seise upon any portions of affection The Germans use to mingle musick with their bowls and drink by the measures of the six Notes of Musick Ut relevet miserum fatum solitósque labores but they sing so long that they forget not their sorrow onely but their vertue also and their Religion and there are some men that fall into drunkennesse because they would forget a lighter calamity running into the fire to cure a calenture and beating their brains out to be quit of the aking of their heads A mans heavynesse is refreshed long before he comes to drunkennesse for when he arrives thither he hath but chang'd his heavynesse and taken a crime to boot 5. Even when a man hath no necessity upon him no pungent sorrow or naturall or artificiall necessity it is lawfull in some cases of eating and drinking to receive pleasure and intend it For whatsoever is naturall and necessary is therefore not criminall because it is of Gods procuring and since we eate for need and the satisfaction of our need is a removing of a pain and that in nature is the greatest pleasure it is impossible that in its own nature it should be a sin But in this case of Conscience these cautions are to be observed 1. So long as nature ministers the pleasure and not art it is materially innocent Si tuo veniat jure luxuria est But it is safe while it enters upon natures stock for it is impossible that the proper effect of health and temperance and prudent abstinence should be vicious and yet these are the parents of the greatest pleasure in eating and drinking Malum panem expecta bonus fiet etiam illum tenerum tibi siligineum fames reddet If you abstaine and be hungry you shall turne the meanest provision into delicate and desireable 2. Let all the pleasure of meat and drink be such as can minister to health and be within the former bounds For since pleasure in eating and drinking is its naturall appendage and like a shadow follows the substance as the meat is to be accounted so is the pleasure and if these be observed there is no difference whether nature or art be the Cook For some constitutions and some mens customes and some mens educations and necessities and weaknesses are such that their appetite is to be invited and their digestion helped but all this while we are within the bounds of nature and need 3. It is lawfull when a man needs meat to choose the pleasanter even meerly for their pleasures that is because they are pleasant besides that they are usefull this is as lawfull as to smell of a rose or to lye in feathers or change the posture of our body in bed for ease or to hear musick or to walk in gardens rather then the high-wayes and God hath given us leave to be delighted in those things which he made to that purpose that we may also be delighted in him that gives them For so as the more pleasant may better serve for health and directly to refreshment so collaterally to Religion Alwayes provided that it be in its degree moderate and we temperate in our desires without transportation and violence without unhandsome usages of our selves or taking from God and from Religion any minutes and portions of our affections When Eicadastes the Epicure
pleasant because no sober person no man that can discourse does like it long Breve sit quod turpiter audes But he approves it in the height of passion and in the disguises of a temptation but at all other times he findes it ugly and unreasonable and the very remembrances must at all times abate its pleasures and sowre its delicacies In the most parts of a mans life he wonders at his own folly and prodigious madnesse that it should be ever possible for him to be deluded by such trifles and he sighes next morning and knowes it over night and is it not therefore certain that he leans upon a thorne which he knowes will smart and he dreads the event of to morrow But so have I known a bold trooper fight in the confusion of a battell and being warm with heat and rage received from the swords of his enemy wounds open like a grave but he felt them not and when by the streams of bloud he found himself mark'd for pain he refused to consider then what he was to feel to morrow but when his rage had cool'd into the temper of a man and a clammy moisture had checked the fiery emission of spirits he wonders at his own boldnesse and blames his fate and needs a mighty patience to bear his great calamity So is the bold and merry sinner when he is warm with wine and lust wounded and bleeding with the strokes of hell he twists with the fatall arm that strikes him and cares not but yet it must abate his gayety because he remembers that when his wounds are cold and considered he must roar or perish repent or do worse that is be miserable or undone The Greeks call this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the felicity of condemned slaves feasted high in sport Dion Prusaeus reports that when the Persians had got the victory they would pick out the noblest slave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They make him a King for three dayes and cloath him with royall robes and minister to him all the pleasures he can choose and all the while he knowes he is to dye a sacrifice to mirth and folly But then let it be remembred what checks and allayes of mirth the poor man starts at when he remembers the axe and the altar where he must shortly bleed and by this we may understand what that pleasure is in the midst of which the man sighs deeply when he considers what opinion he had of this sin in the dayes of counsell and sober thoughts and what reason against it he shall feel to morrow when he must weep or die Thus it happens to sinners according to the saying of the Prophet Qui sacrificant hominem osculabuntur Vitulum He that gives a man in sacrifice shall kisse the calf that is shall be admitted to the seventh chappell of Moloch to kisse the Idoll a goodly reward for so great a price for so great an iniquity After all this I doe not doubt but these considerations will meet with some persons that think them to be protestatio contra factum and fine pretences against all experience and that for all these severe sayings sin is still so pleasant as to tempt the wisest resolution Such men are in a very evill condition and in their case only I come to understand the meaning of those words of Seneca Malorum ultimum est mala sua amare ubi turpia non solùm delectant sed etiam placent It is the worst of evils when men are so in love with sin that they are not only delighted with them but pleased also not only feel the relish with too quick a sense but also feel none of the objections nothing of the pungency the sting or the lessening circumstances However to these men I say this only that if by experience they feel sin pleasant it is as certain also by experience that most sins are in their own nature sharpnesses and diseases * and that very few do pretend to pleasure * That a man cannot feel any deliciousnesse in them but when he is helped by folly and inconsideration that is a wise man cannot though a boy or a fool can be pleased with them * That they are but reliques and images of pleasure left upon Natures stock and therefore much lesse then the pleasures of naturall vertues * That a man must run through much trouble before he brings them to act and enjoyment * That he must take them in despite of himself against reason and his conscience the tenderest parts of man and the most sensible of affliction * They are at the best so little that they are limited as one sense not spread upon all the faculties like the pleasures of vertue which make the bones fat by an intellectuall rectitude and the eyes spritely by a wise proposition and pain it self to become easie by hope and a present rest within * It is certain I say by a great experience that the pleasures of sin enter by cursings and a contradictory interest and become pleasant not by their own relish but by the viciousnesse of the palat by spite and peevishnesse by being forbidden and unlawfull * And that which is its sting is at some times the cause of all its sweetnesse it can have * They are gone sooner then a dream * They are crossed by one another and their Parent is their Tormentor * and when sinnes are tyed in a chain with that chain they dash one anothers brains out or make their lodging restlesse * It is never lik'd long * and promises much and performes little * it is great at distance and little at hand against the nature of all substantiall things * And after all this how little pleasure is left themselves have reason with scorn and indignation to resent So that if experience can be pretended against experience there is nothing to be said to it but the words which Phryne desired to be writ on the gates of Thebes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phryne the harlot built it up but Alexander digg'd it down the pleasure is supported by little things by the experience of fools and them that observed nothing and the relishes tasted by artificiall appetites by art and cost by violence and preternaturall desires by the advantage of deception and evill habits by expectation and delayes by dreams and inconsiderations these are the harlots hands that build the fairy castle but the hands of reason and religion sober counsels and the voice of God experience of wise men and the sighings and intolerable accents of perishing or returning sinners dig it down and sow salt in the foundations that they may never spring up in the accounts of men that delight not in the portion of fools and forgetfulnesse Neque enim Deus ita viventibus quicquam promisit boni neque ipsa per se mens humana talium sibi conscia quicquam boni sperare audet To men that live in sinne God hath promised no good and the
they are so alwayes they are so when they affirm them in their youth and they are so when they deny them in their old age and they are confident in all their changes and their first error which they now see does not make them modest in the proposition which they now maintain for they do not understand that what was may be so again So foolish and ignorant was I said David and as it were a beast before thee Ambition is folly and temerity is ignorance and confidence never goes without it and impudence is worse and zeal or contention is madnesse and prating is want of wisdome and lust destroyes it and makes a man of a weak spirit and a cheap reasoning and there are in the Catalogue of of sins very many which are directly kinds and parts and appendages of ignorance such as are blindnesse of minde affected ignorance and wilfull neglect of hearing the word of God resolved incredulity forgetfulnesse of holy things lying and beleeving a lye this is the fruit of sin this is the knowledge that the Devill promised to our first parents as the rewards of disobedience and although they sinn'd as weakly and fondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon as slight grounds and trifling a temptation and as easie a deception as many of us since yet the causes of our ignorance are increased by the multiplication of our sins and if it was so bad in the green tree it is much worse in the dry and no man is so very a fool as the sinner and none are wise but the servants of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The wise Chaldees and the wiser Hebrewes which worship God chastly and purely they only have a right to be called wise all that do not so are fools and ignorants neither knowing what it is to be happy nor how to purchase it ignorant of the noblest end and of the competent means towards it they neither know God nor themselves and no ignorance is greater then this or more pernicious What man is there in the world that thinks himself covetous or proud and yet millions are who like Harpaste think that the house is dark but not themselves Vertue makes our desires temperate and regular it observes our actions condemns our faults mortifies our lusts watches all our dangers and temptations but sin makes our desires infinite and we would have we cannot tell what we strive that we may forget our faults we labour that we may neither remember nor consider we justifie our errors and call them innocent and that which is our shame we miscall honour and our whole life hath in it so many weak discourses and trifling propositions that the whole world of sinners is like the Hospitall of the insensati madnesse and folly possesses the greater part of mankinde What greater madnesse is there then to spend the price of a whole farm in contention for three sheaves of corn and yet tantum pectora caecae noctis habent this is the wisdome of such as are contentious and love their own will more then their happinesse their humour more then their peace Furor est post omnia perdere naulum Men lose their reason and their religion and themselves at last for want of understanding and all the wit and discourses by which sin creeps in are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 frauds of the tongue and consultations of care but in the whole circle of sins there is not one wise proposition by which a man may conduct his affairs or himself become instructed to felicity This is the first naturall fruit of sin It makes a man a fool and this hurt sin does to the understanding and this is shame enough to that in which men are most apt to glory Sin naturally makes a man weak that is unapt to do noble things by which I do not understand a naturall disability for it is equally ready for a man to will good as evill and as much in the power of his hands to be lifted up in prayer to God as against his Brother in a quarrell and between a vertuous object and his faculties there is a more apt proportion then between his spirit and a vice and every act of grace does more please the minde then an act of sin does delight the sense and every crime does greater violence to the better part of man then mortification does to the lower and often times a duty consists in a negative as not to be drunk not to swear and it is not to be understood that a man hath naturally no power not to do if there be a naturall disability it is to action not to rest or ceasing and therefore in this case we cannot reasonably nor justly accuse our Nature but we have reason to blame our manners which have introduced upon us a morall disability that is not that the faculty is impotent and disabled but that the whole man is for the will in many cases desires to do good and the understanding is convinced and consents and the hand can obey and the passions can be directed and be instrumentall to Gods service but because they are not used to it the will finds a difficulty to do them so much violence and the understanding consents to their lower reasonings and the desires of the lower man do will stronger and then the whole man cannot do the duty that is expected There is a law in the members and he that gave that law is a tyrant and the subjects of that law are slaves and oftentimes their ear is bored and they love their fetters and desire to continue that bondage for ever The law is the law of sin the Devill is the tyrant custome is the sanction or the sirmament of the law and every vicious man is a slave and chooses the vilest master and the basest of services and the most contemptible rewards Lex enim peccati est violentia consuetudinis quâ trahitur tenetur animus etiam invitus eo merito quo in eam volens illabitur said St. Austin The law of sin is the violence of custome which keep a mans minde against his minde because he entred willingly and gave up his own interest which he ought to have secur'd for his own felicity and for his service who gave for it an invaluable price And indeed in questions of vertue and vice there is no such thing as Nature or it is so inconsiderable that it hath in it nothing beyond an inclination which may be reverted and very often not so much nothing but a perfect indifferency we may if we will or we may choose but custome brings in a new nature and makes a Biass in every faculty To a vicious man some sins become necessary Temperance makes him sick severity is death to him it destroys his chearfulnesse and activity it is as his nature and the desire dwels for ever with him and his reasonings are framed for it and his fancy and in all he is helped by example by
habit by conversation and daily acquaintances by doing some things as Absalom did when he lay with his fathers concubines to make it impossible for him to repent or to be forgiven something to secure him in the possession of hell Tute hoc intristi quod tibi exedendum est the man must thorough it now and this is it that makes men fall into all basenesse of spirituall sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when a man is come to the bottome of his wickednsse he despises all such as malice and despite rancor and impudence malicious studied ignorance voluntary contempt of all Religion hating of good men and good counsels and taking every wise man and wise action to be his enemy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this is that basenesse of sin which Plato so much detested that he said he should blush to be guilty of though he knew God would pardon him and that men should never know it propter solam peccati turpitudinem for the very basenesse that is in it A man that is false to God will also if an evill temptation overtakes him betray his friend and it is notorious in the covetous and ambitious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are an unthankfull generation and to please the people or to serve their interest will hurt their friends That man hath so lost himself to all sweetnesse and excellency of spirit that is gone thus farre in sin that he looks like a condemned man or is like the accursed spirits preserved in chains of darknesse and impieties unto the Judgement of the great Day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this man can be nothing but evill for these inclinations and evill forwardnesses this dyscrasie and gangren'd disposition does alwaies suppose a long or a base sin for their parent and the product of these is a wretchlesse spirit that is an aptnesse to any unworthinesse and an unwillingnesse to resist any temptation a perseverance in basenesse and a consignation to all damnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If men do evill things evill things shall be their reward If they obey the evill spirit an evill spirit shall be their portion and the Devill shall enter into them as he entred into Judas and fill them full of iniquity SERMON XXI Part III. 4. ALthough these are shamefull effects of sin and a man need no greater dishonour then to be a fool and a slave and a base person all which sin infallibly makes him yet there are some sins which are directly shamefull in their nature and proper disreputation and a very great many sins are the worst and basest in severall respects that is every of them hath a venomous quality of its own whereby it is marked and appropriated to a peculiar evill spirit The Devils sin was the worst because it came from the greatest malice Adams was the worst because it was of most universall efficacy and dissemination Judas sin the worst of men because against the most excellent person and the relapses of the godly are the worst by reason they were the most obliged persons But the ignorance of the Law is the greatest of evils if we consider its danger but covetousnesse is worse then it if we regard its incurable and growing nature luxury is most alien from spirituall things and is the worst of all in its temptation and our pronenesse but pride growes most venomous by its unreasonablenesse and importunity arising even from the good things a man hath even from graces and endearments and from being more in debt to God Sins of malice and against the Holy Ghost oppugn the greatest grace with the greatest spite but Idolatry is perfectly hated by God by a direct enmity Some sins are therefore most hainous because to resist them is most easie and to act them there is the least temptation such as are severally lying and swearing There is a strange poison in the nature of sins that of so many sorts every one of them should be the worst Every sin hath an evill spirit a Devill of its own to manage to conduct and to imbitter it and although all these are Gods enemies and have an appendant shame in their retinue yet to some sins shame is more appropriate and a proper ingredient in their constitutions such as are lying and lust and vow-breach and inconstancy God sometimes cures the pride of a mans spirit by suffering his evill manners and filthy inclination to be determin'd upon lust lust makes a man afraid of publick eyes and common voices it is as all sins else are but this especially a work of darknesse it does debauch the spirit and make it to decay and fall off from courage and resolution constancy and severity the spirit of government and a noble freedome and those punishments which the nations of the world have inflicted upon it are not smart so much as shame Lustfull souls are cheap and easie trifling and despised in all wise accounts they are so farre from being fit to sit with Princes that they dare not chastise a sinning servant that is private to their secret follies It is strange to consider what laborious arts of concealment what excuses and lessenings what pretences and fig-leaves men will put before their nakednesse and crimes shame was the first thing that entred upon the sin of Adam and when the second world began there was a strange scene of shame acted by Noah and his sons and it ended in slavery and basenesse to all descending generations We see the event of this by too sad an experience What arguments what hardnesse what preaching what necessity can perswade men to confesse their sins they are so ashamed of them that to be conceal'd they preferre before their remedy and yet in penitentiall confession the shame is going off it is like Cato's coming out of the Theatre or the Philosopher from the Taverne it might have been shame to have entred but glory to have departed for ever and yet ever to have relation to sin is so shame-full a thing that a mans spirit is amazed and his face is confounded when he is dressed of so shamefull a disease And there are but few men that will endure it but rather choose to involve it in excuses and deniall in the clouds of lying and the white linnen of hypocrisie and yet when they make a vail for their shame such is the fate of sin the shame growes the bigger and the thicker we lye to men and we excuse it to God either some parts of lying or many parts of impudence darknesse or forgetfulnesse running away or running further in these are the covers of our shame like menstruous rags upon a skin of leprosie But so sometimes we see a decayed beauty besmear'd with a lying fucus and the chinks fill'd with ceruse besides that it makes no reall beauty it spoils the face and betrayes evill manners it does not hide old age or
the change of years but it discovers pride or lust it was not shame to be old or wearied and worn out with age but it is a shame to dissemble nature by a wanton vizor So sin retires from blushing into shame if it be discover'd it is not to be endured and if we go to hide it we make it worse But then if we remember how ambitious we are for fame and reputation for honour and a fair opinion for a good name all our dayes and when our dayes are done and that no ingenuous man can enjoy any thing he hath if he lives in disgrace and that nothing so breaks a mans spirit as dishonour and the meanest person alive does not think himself fit to be despised we are to consider into what an evill condition sin puts us for which we are not only disgraced and disparaged here marked with disgracefull punishments despised by good men our follies derided our company avoided and hooted at by boyes talk'd of in fairs and markets pointed at and described by appellatives of scorn and everybody can chide us and we dye unpitied and lye in our graves eaten up by wormes and a foul dishonour but after all this at the day of Judgement we shall be called from our charnell houses where our disgrace could not sleep and shall in the face of God in the presence of Angels and Devils before all good men and all the evill see and feel the shame of all our sins written upon our foreheads Here in this state of misery and folly we make nothing of it and though we dread to be discovered to men yet to God we confesse our sins without a trouble or a blush but tell an even story because we finde some formes of confession prescrib'd in our prayer books and that it may appear how indifferent and unconcerned we seem to be we read and say all and confesse the sins we never did with as much sorrow and regret as those that we have acted a thousand times But in that strange day of recompences we shall finde the Devill to upbraid the criminall Christ to disown them the Angels to drive them from the seat of mercy and shame to be their smart the consigning them to damnation they shall then finde that they cannot dwell where vertue is rewarded and where honour and glory hath a throne there is no vail but what is rent no excuse to any but to them that are declared as innocent no circumstances concerning the wicked to be considered but them that aggravate then the disgrace is not confin'd to the talk of a village or a province but is scattered to all the world not only in one age shall the shame abide but the men of all generations shall see and wonder at the vastnesse of that evill that is spread upon the souls of sinners for ever and ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No night shall then hide it for in those regions of darknesse where the dishonoured man shall dwell for ever there is nothing visible but the shame there is light enough for that but darknesse for all things else and then he shall reap the full harvest of his shame all that for which wise men scorned him and all that for which God hated him all that in which he was a fool and all that in which he was malicious that which was publick and that which was private that which fools applauded and that which himself durst not own the secrets of his lust and the criminall contrivances of his thoughts the base and odious circumstances and the frequency of the action and the partner of his sin all that which troubles his conscience and all that he willingly forgets shall be proclaim'd by the trumpet of God by the voice of an Archangell in the great congregation of spirits and just men There is one great circumstance more of the shame of sin which extremely enlarges the evill of a sinfull state but that is not consequent to sin by a naturall emanation but is superinduc'd by the just wrath of God and therefore is to be consider'd in the third part which is next to be handled 3. When the Boeotians asked the Oracle by what they should become happy the answer was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wicked and irreligious persons are prosperous and they taking the Devill at his word threw the inspired Pythian the ministring witeh into the sea hoping so to become mighty in peace and warre The effect of which was this The Devill was found a lyar and they fools at first and at last felt the reward of irreligion For there are to some crimes such events which are not to be expected from the connexion of naturall causes but from secret influences and undiscernible conveyances * that a man should be made sick for receiving the holy Sacrament unworthily and blinde for resisting the words of an Apostle a preacher of the Lawes of Jesus and dye suddenly for breaking of his vow and committing sacriledge and be under the power and scourge of an exterminating Angell for climbing his Fathers bed these are things beyond the worlds Philosophy But as in Nature so in Divinity too there are Sympathies and Antipathies effects which we feel by experience and are forewarned of by revelation which no naturall reason can judge nor any providence can prevent but by living innocently and complying with the Commandements of God The rod of God which cometh not into the lot of the righteous strikes the sinning man with sore strokes of veng eance 1. The first that I shall note is that which I called the aggravation of the shame of sin and that is an impossibility of being concealed in most cases of heinous crimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let no man suppose that he shall for ever hide his sin a single action may be conveyed away under the covert of an excuse or a privacy escaping as Ulysses did the search of Polyphemus and it shall in time be known that it did escape and shall be discover'd that it was private that is that it is so no longer But no wicked man that dwelt and delighted in sin did ever go off from his scene of unworthinesse without a filthy character The black veile is thrown over him before his death and by some contingency or other he enters into his cloud because few sins determine finally in the thoughts but if they dwell there they will also enter into action and then the thing discovers it self or else the injured person will proclaim it or the jealous man will talk of it before it 's done or curious people will inquire and discover or the spirit of detraction shall be let loose upon him and in spite shall declare more then he knowes not more then is true The Ancients especially the Scholars of Epicurus beleev'd that no man could be secured or quiet in his spirit from being discovered Scelus aliqua tutum nulla securum tulit They are not secure even when
blessed Saviour out of the Gospel of the Nazarens Nunquam laeti sitis nisi cum fratrem vestrum in charitate videritis Never be merry but when you see your brother in charity and when you are merry St. James hath appointed a proper expression of it and a fair entertainment to the passion If any man be merry let him sing Psalmes But St. Bernard who is also strict in this particular yet he addes the temper Though jesting be not fit for a Christian interdum tamen si incidant ferendae fortassis referendae nunquam magis interveniendum cautè prudentèr nugacitati If they seldome happen they are to be borne but never to be returned and made a businesse of but we must rather interpose warily and prudently to hinder the growth and progresse of the trifle But concerning this case of conscience we are to remember these holy persons found jesting to be a trade such were the ridicularii among the Romanes and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Greeks and this trade besides its own unworthinesse was mingled with infinite impieties and in the institution and in all the circumstances of its practise was not onely against all prudent severity but against modesty and chastity and was a licence in disparagement of vertue and the most excellent things and persons were by it undervalued that in this throng of evill circumstances finding a humour placed which without infinite warinesse could never pretend to innocence it is no wonder they forbad all and so also did St. Paul upon the same account And in the same state of reproofe to this day are all that doe as they did such as are professed jesters people that play the foole for money whose employment and study is to unclothe themselves of the covers of reason or modesty that they may be laugh'd at And let it be considered how miserable every sinner is if he does not deeply and truely repent and when the man is wet with teares and covered with sorrow crying out mightily against his sins how ugly will it look when this is remembred the next day that he playes the foole and raises his laughter louder then his prayers and yesterdayes groans for no interest but that he may eat A Penitent and a Jester is like a Grecian piece of money on which were stamped a Helena on one side and a Hecuba on the other a Rose and a deadly Aconite a Paris and an Aesop nothing was more contrary and upon this account this folly was reproved by St. Hierom Verum haec à sanctis viris penitùs propellenda quibus magis convenit flere atque lugere Weeping and penitentiall sorrow and the sweet troubles of pity and compassion become a holy person much better then a scurrilous tongue But the whole state of this Question is briefly this 1. If jesting be unseasonable it is also intolerable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. If it be immoderate it is criminall and a little thing here makes the excesse it is so in the confines of folly that as soon as it is out of dores it is in the regions of sin 3. If it be in an ordinary person it is dangerous but if in an eminent a consecrated a wise and extraordinary person it is scandalous Inter saeculares nugae sunt in ore Sacerdotis blasphemiae so St. Bernard 4. If the matter be not of an indifferent nature it becomes sinfull by giving countenance to a vice or making vertue to become ridiculous 5. If it be not watcht that it complies with all that heare it becomes offensive and injurious 6. If it be not intended to fair and lawfull purposes it is sowre in the using 7. If it be frequent it combines and clusters into a formall sinne 8. If it mingles with any sin it puts on the nature of that new unworthinesse beside the proper uglynesse of the thing it selfe and after all these when can it be lawfull or apt for Christian entertainment The Ecclesiasticall History reports that many jests passed between St. Anthony the Father of the Hermits and his Scholar St. Paul and St. Hilarion is reported to have been very pleasant and of a facete sweet and more lively conversation and indeed plaisance and joy and a lively spirit and a pleasant conversation and the innocent caresses of a charitable humanity is not forbidden plenum tamen suavitatis gratiae sermonem non esse indecorum St. Ambrose affirmed and here in my text our conversation is commanded to be such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it may minister grace that is favour complacence cheerfulnesse and be acceptable and pleasant to the hearer and so must be our conversation it must be as far from sullennesse as it ought to be from lightnesse and a cheerfull spirit is the best convoy for Religion and though sadnesse does in some cases become a Christian as being an Index of a pious minde of compassion and a wise proper resentment of things yet it serves but one end being useful in the onely instance of repentance and hath done its greatest works not when it weeps and sighs but when it hates and grows carefull against sin But cheerfulnesse and a festivall spirit fills the soule full of harmony it composes musick for Churches and hearts it makes and publishes glorifications of God it produces thankfulnesse and serves the ends of charity and when the oyle of gladnesse runs over it makes bright and tall emissions of light and holy fires reaching up to a cloud and making joy round about And therefore since it is so innocent and may be so pious and full of holy advantage whatsoever can innocently minister to this holy joy does set forward the work of Religion and Charity And indeed charity it selfe which is the verticall top of all Religion is nothing else but an union of joyes concentred in the heart and reflected from all the angles of our life and entercourse It is a rejoycing in God a gladnesse in our neighbours good a pleasure in doing good a rejoycing with him and without love we cannot have any joy at all It is this that makes children to be a pleasure and friendship to be so noble and divine a thing and upon this account it is certaine that all that which can innocently make a man cheerfull does also make him charitable for grief and age and sicknesse and wearinesse these are peevish and troublesome but mirth and cheerfulnesse is content and civil and compliant and communicative and loves to doe good and swels up to felicity onely upon the wings of charity In this account here is pleasure enough for a Christian in present and if a facete discourse and an amicable friendly mirth can refresh the spirit and take it off from the vile temptations of peevish despairing uncomplying melancholy it must needs be innocent and commendable And we may as well be refreshed by a clean and a brisk discourse as by the aire of Campanian wines
himselfe was forc'd to break his faith by the tyranny of her prevailing charmes This is that which the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a crafty and deceitfull way of hurting and renders a mans tongue venemous as the tongue of a serpent that bites even though he be charm'd 3. But the next is more violent and that is railing or reviling which Aristotle in his Rhetoricks says is very often the vice of boys and of rich men who out of folly or pride want of manners or want of the measures of a man wisdome and the just proportions of his brethren doe use those that erre before them most scornfully and unworthily and Tacitus noted it of the Claudian family in Rome an old and inbred pride and scornfulnesse made them apt to abuse all that fell under their power and displeasure quorum superbiam frustrà per obsequium modestiam essugeres No observance no prudence no modesty can escape the reproaches of such insolent and high talkers A. Gellius tels of a boy that would give every one that he met a box on the ear and some men will give foul words having a tongue rough as a Cat and biting like an Adder and all their reproofes are direct scoldings their common entercourse is open contumely There have been in these last ages examples of Judges who would reproach the condemned and miserable criminall deriding his calamity and reviling his person Nero did so to Thraseas and the old Heathens to the primitive Martyrs pereuntibus addita Iudibria said Tacitus of them they crucified them again by putting them to suffer the shame of their fouler language they rail'd at them when they bowed their heads upon the crosse and groan'd forth the saddest accents of approaching death This is that evill that possessed those of whom the Psalmist speaks Our tongues are our owne we are they that ought to speak who is Lord over us that is our tongues cannot be restrained and St. James said something of this The tongue is an unruly member which no man can tame that is no private person but a publick may for he that can rule the tongue is fit also to govern the whole body that is the Church or Congregation Magistrates and the Governours of souls they are by severity to restraine this inordination which indeed is a foul one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no evill is worse or of more open violence to the rest and reputation of men then a reproachfull tongue And it were well if we considered this evill to avoyd it in those instances by which our conversation is daily stain'd Are we not often too imperious against our servants Do we not entertain and seed our own anger with vile and basest language Doe not we chastise a servants folly or mistake his error or his chance with language fit to be used by none but vile persons and towards none but dogs Our blessed Saviour restraining the hostility and murther of the tongue threatens hell fire to them that call their brother foole meaning that all language which does really and by intention disgrace him in the greater instances is as directly against the charity of the Gospel as killing a man was against the severity and justice of the law And although the word it self may be us'd to reprove the indiscretions and carelesse follies of an idle person yet it must be used onely in order to his amendment * by an authorized person * in the limits of a just reproofe * upon just occasion * and so as may not doe him mischief in the event of things For so we finde that our blessed Saviour cal'd his Disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 foolish and S. James used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain man signifying the same with the forbidden raca 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain uselesse or empty and St. Paul calls the Galatians mad and foolish and bewitched and Christ called Herod Fox and St. John called the Pharisees the generation of vipers and all this matter is wholly determined by the manner and with what minde it is done If it be for correction and reproofe towards persons that deserve it and by persons whose authority can warrant a just and severe reproofe and this also be done prudently safely and usefully it is not contumely But when men upon all occasions revile an offending person lessening his value sowring his spirit and his life despising his infirmities tragically expressing his lightest misdemeanour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being tyrannically declamatory and intolerably angry for a trifle these are such who as Apollonius the Philosopher said will not suffer the offending person to know when his fault is great and when 't is little For they who alwayes put on a supreme anger or expresse the lesse anger with the highest reproaches can doe no more to him that steals then to him that breaks a Crystall Non plus aequo non diutius aequo was a good rule for reprehension of offending servants But no more anger no more severe language then the thing deserves if you chide too long your reproofe is changed into reproach if too bitterly it becomes railing if too loud it is immodest if too publick it is like a dog 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the man told his wife in the Greek Comedy to follow me in the streets with thy clamorous tongue is to doe as dogs doe not as persons civill or religious 4. The fourth instance of the calumniating filthy communication is that which we properly call slander or the inventing evill things falsely imputing crimes to our neighbor Falsum crimen quasi venenatum telum said Cicero A false tongue or a foul lye against a mans reputation is like a poysoned arrow it makes the wound deadly and every scratch to be incurable Promptissima vindicta contumelia said one To reproach and rail is a revenge that every girl can take But falsely to accuse is spiteful as Hel and deadly as the blood of Dragons Stoicus occidit Baream delator amicum This is the direct murther of the Tongue for life and death are in the hand of the tongue said the Hebrew proverbe and it was esteemed so vile a thing that when Jesabel commanded the Elders of Israel to suborn false witnesses against Naboth she gave them instructions to take two men the sons of Belial none else were fit for the imployment Quid non audebis perfida lingua loqui This was it that broke Ephraim in judgement and executed the fierce anger of the Lord upon him God gave him over to be oppressed by a false witnesse quoniam coepit abire post sordes therefore he suffered calumny and was overthrown in judgement This was it that humbled Joseph in fetters and the iron entred into his soule but it crushed him not so much as the false tongue of his revengefull Mistresse untill his cause was known and the Word of the Lord tryed him This was
it that flew Abimelech and endanger'd David it was a sword in manu linguae Doeg in the hand of Doegs tongue By this Siba cut off the legs of Mephibosheth and made his reputation lame for ever it thrust Jeremy into the dungeon and carryed Susanna to her stake and our Lord to his Crosse and therefore against the dangers of a slandering tongue all laws have so cautelously arm'd themselves that besides the severest prohibitions of God often recorded in both Testaments God hath chosen it to be one of his appellatives to be the Defender of them a party for those whose innocency and defencelesse state makes them most apt to be undone by this evill spirit I mean pupils and widows the poore and the oppressed And in pursuance of this charity the Imperiall laws have invented a juramentum de calumniâ on oath to be exhibited to the Actor or Plaintiff that he beleevs himself to have a just cause and that he does not implead his adversary calumniandi animo with false instances and indefencible allegations and the Defendant is to swear that he thinks himselfe to use onely just defences and perfect instances of resisting and both of them obliged themselves that they would exact no proofe but what was necessary to the truth of the Cause And all this defence was nothing but necessary guards For a spear and a sword and an arrow is a man that speaketh false witnesse against his neighbour And therefore the laws of God added yet another bar against this evill and the false Accuser was to suffer the punishment of the objected crime and as if this were not sufficient God hath in severall ages wrought miracles and raised the dead to life that by such strange appearances they might relieve the oppressed Innocent and load the false accusing Tongue with shame and horrible confusion So it happen'd in the case of Susanna the spirit of a manwas put into the heart of a childe to acquit the vertuous woman and so it was in the case of Gregory Bishop of Agrigentum falsely accused by Sabinus and Crescentius Gods power cast the Devill out of Eudocia the Devill or spirit of Slander and compelled her to speak the truth St. Austin in his book De curâ pro mortuis tels of a dead Father that appeared to his oppressed Son and in a great matter of Law delivered him from the teeth of false accusation So was the Church of Monts rescued by the appearance of Aia the deceased wife of Hidulphus their Earle as appears in the Hanovian story and the Polonian Chronicles tell the like of Stanislaus Bishop of Cracovia almost oppressed by the anger and calumny of Boleslaus their King God relieved him by the testimony of St. Peter their Bishop or a Phantasme like him But whether these records may be credited or no I contend not yet it is very materiall which Eusebius relates of the three false witnesses accusing Narcissus Bishop of Jerusalem of an infamous crime which they did affirming it under severall curses the first wishing that if he said false God would destroy him with fire the second that he might die of the Kingsevil the third that he might be blind and so it came to passe the first being surprised with fire in his owne roofe amaz'd and intricated confounded and despairing paid the price of his slander with the pains of most fearfull flames and the second perished by pieces and Chirurgeons and torment which when the third saw he repented of his fault cryed mightily for pardon but wept so bitterly and found at the same time the reward of his calumny and the acceptation of his repentance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Cleanthes nothing is more operative of spitefull and malicious purposes then the calumniating Tongue In the Temple at Smyrna there were Looking-glasses which represented the best face as crooked ugly and deformed the Greeks call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so is every false tongue it lies in the face of heaven and abuses the ears of justice it oppresses the Innocent and is secretly revenged of vertue it defeats all the charity of laws and arms the supreme power and makes it strike the Innocent it makes frequent appeals to be made to heaven and causes an oath in stead of being the end of strife to be the beginning of mischief it calls the name and testimony of God to seale an injury it feeds and nourishes cruell anger but mocks justice and makes mercy weep her selfe into pity and mourne because she cannot help the Innocent 5. The last instance of this evill I shall now represent is Cursing concerning which I have this onely to say that although the causelesse curse shall return upon the tongue that spake it yet because very often there is a fault on both sides when there is reviling or cursing on either the danger of a cursing tongue is highly to be declined as the biting of a mad dog or the tongue of a smitten serpent For as envy is in the evill eye so is cursing in the reproachfull tongue it is a kinde of venome and witchcraft an instrument by which God oftentimes punishes anger and uncharitablenesse and by which the Devill gets power over the bodies and interests of men For he that works by Thessalic ceremonies by charmes and non-sense words by figures and insignificant characterismes by images and by rags by circles and imperfect noyses hath more advantage and reall title to the opportunities of mischief by the cursing tongue and though God is infinitely more ready to doe acts of kindnesse then of punishment yet God is not so carelesse a regarder of the violent and passionate wishes of men but he gives some over to punishment and chastises the follies of rage and the madnesse of the tongue by suffering it to passe into a further mischief then the harsh sound and horrible accents of the evill language By the tongue we blesse God and curse men saith St. James 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reproaching is cursing and both of them opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to blessing and there are many times and seasons in which both of them passe into reall effect These are the particulars of the second 3. I am now to instance in the third sort of filthy communication that in which the Devill does the most mischief by which he undoes souls by which he is worse then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Accuser For though he accuses maliciously and instances spitefully and heaps objections diligently and aggravates bitterly and with all his powers endeavors to represent the separate souls to God as polluted and unfit to come into his presence yet this malice is ineffective because the scenes are acted before the wise Judge of Men and Angels who cannot be abused before our Father and our Lord who knows whereof we be made and remembreth that we are but dust before our Saviour and our elder Brother who hath felt our infirmities and knows kow
to pity to excuse and to answer for us But though this accusation of us cannot hurt them who will not hurt themselves yet this malice is prevailing when the spirit of flattery is let forth upon us This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Destroyer and is the most contrary thing to charity in the whole world and St. Paul noted it in his character of Charity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Charity vaunteth not it selfe so we translate it but certainly not exactly for it signifieth easinesse complying foolishly and flattering Charity flattereth not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Suidas out of St. Basil it signifies any thing that serves rather for ornament then for use for pleasure then for profit Et eo plectuntur poetae quà m suo vitio saepiùs Ductabilitate nimiâ vestrâ aut perperitudine saith the Comedy the Poets suffer more by your easinesse and flattery then by their owne fault And this is it which St. Paul sayes is against charity For it to call a man foole and vitious be so high an injury we may thence esteem what a great calamity it is to be so and therefore he that makes him so or takes a course he shall not become other is the vilest enemy to his person and his felicity and this is the mischief that is done by flattery it is a designe against the wisdome against the repentance against the growth and promotion of a mans soul. He that persuades an ugly deformed man that he is handsome a short man that he is tall a bald man that he hath a good head of hair makes him to become ridiculous and a foole but does no other mischief But he that persuades his friend that is a goat in his manners that he is a holy and a chaste person or that his loosenesse is a signe of a quick spirit or that it is not dangerous but easily pardonable a trick of youth a habit that old age will lay aside as a man pares his nailes this man hath given great advantage to his friends mischief he hath made it grow in all the dimensions of the sin till it grows intolerable and perhaps unpardonable And let it be considered what a fearfull destruction and contradiction of friendship or service it is so to love my self and my little interest as to preferre it before the soul of him whom I ought to love By my flattery I lay a snare to get 20 l. and rather then lose this contemptible sum of money I will throw him that shall give it me as far as I can into hell there to roar beyond all the measures of time or patience Can any hatred be more or love be lesse can any expression of spite be greater then that it be said you will not part with 20 l. to save your Friends or your Patrons or your Brothers soul and so it is with him that invites him to or confirms him in his folly in hopes of getting something from him he will see him die and die eternally and help forward that damnation so he may get that little by it Every state is set in the midst of danger as all trees are set in the wind but the tallest endure the greatest violence of tempest No man flatters a begger if he does a slovenly and a rude crime it is entertained with ruder language and the mean man may possibly be affrighted from his fault while it is made so uneasie to him by the scorn and harsh reproaches of the mighty But Princes and Nobles often die with this disease And when the Courtiers of Alexander counterfeited his wry neck and the Servants of the Sicilian Tyrant pretended themselves dim sighted and on purpose rushed one against another and overthrew the meat as it was served to his table onely because the Prince was short-sighted they gave them sufficient instances in what state of affaires they stood with them that waited it was certain they would commend every foolish answer and pretend subtilty in every absurd question and make a petition that their base actions might passe into a law and be made to be the honor and sanctity of all the people and what proportions or wayes can such great personages have towards felicity when their vice shall be allowed and praised every action that is but tolerable shall be accounted heroicall and if it be intolerable among the wise it shall be called vertuous among the flatterers Carneades said bitterly but it had in it too many degrees of truth that Princes and great personages never learn to doe any thing perfectly well but to ride the great horse quia scil ferociens bestia adulari non didicit because the proud beast knows not how to flatter but will as soon throw him off from his back as he will shake off the son of a Potter But a Flatterer is like a neighing Horse that neigheth under every rider and is pleased with every thing and commends all that he sees and tempts to mischief and cares not so his friend may but perish pleasantly And indeed that is a calamity that undoes many a soul we so love our peace and sit so easily upon our own good opinions and are so apt to flatter our selves and leane upon our own false supports that we cannot endure to be disturb'd or awakened from our pleasing lethargy For we care not to be safe but to be secure not to escape hell but to live pleasantly we are not solicitous of the event but of the way thither and it is sufficient if we be perswaded all his well in the mean time we are carelesse whether indeed it be so or no and therefore we give pensions to fools and vile persons to abuse us and cousen us of felicity But this evill puts on severall shapes which we must discover that they may not cousen us without our observation For all men are not capable of an open flattery And therefore some will dresse their hypocrisie and illusion so that you may feel the pleasure and but secretly perceive the complyance and tendernesse to serve the ends of your folly perit procari si latet said Plancus If you be not perceived you lose your reward if you be too open you lose it worse 1. Some flatter by giving great names and propounding great examples and thus the Aegyptian villains hung a Tumblers rope upon their Prince and a Pipers whistle because they called their Ptolemy by the name of Apollo their God of Musick This put buskins upon Nero and made him fidle in all the great Towns of Greece When their Lords were Drunkards they called them Bacchus when they were Wrestlers they saluted them by the name of Hercules and some were so vain as to think themselves commended when their Flatterers told aloud that they had drunk more then Alexander the Conquerour And indeed nothing more abuses easie fooles that onely seek for an excuse for their wickednesse a Patron for their vice a warrant for their sleepy peace then
our Schools the latter by the mysteries of the Temple But now in the new institution we have also a great Master of speaking and though silence is one of the great paths of Innocence yet Holy speaking is the instrument of Spirituall Charity and is a glorification of God and therefore this kinde of speaking is a degree of perfection beyond the wisdome and severity of silence For although garrulity and foolish inordinate talking is a conjunction of folly and sin and the prating man while he desires to get the love of them he converses with incurres their hatred while he would be admir'd is laughed at he spends much and gets nothing he wrongs his friends and makes sport to his enemies and injures himselfe he is derided when he tels what others know he is indanger'd if he tels a secret and what they know not he is not beleeved when he tels good news and when he tels ill news he is odious and therefore that silence which is a cure of all this evill is an excellent portion of safety and Religion yet it is with holy speaking and innocent silence as it is with a Hermit and a Bishop the first goes to a good school but the second is proceeded towards greater perfection and therefore the practicall life of Ecclesiasticall Governors being found in the way of holinesse and zeale is called status perfectionis a more excellent and perfect condition of life and farre beyond the retirements and inoffensive life of those innocent persons which doe so much lesse of profit by how much charity is better then meditation and going to heaven by religion and charity by serving God and converting soules is better then going to heaven by prayers and secret thoughts So it is with silence and religious communication That does not offend God this glorifies him That prevents Sin this sets forward the interests of Religion And therefore Plutarch said well Qui generosè regio more instituuntur primum tacere deinde loqui discunt To be taught first to be silent then to speak well and handsomely is education fit for a Prince and that is St. Paul's method here first we were taught how to restraine our tongues in the foregoing instances and now we are called to imploy them in Religion 1. We must speak that which is good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any thing that may serve the ends of our God and of our Neighbour in the measures of Religion and usefulnesse But it is here as in all other propositions of Religion God to us who are in the body and conducted by materiall phantasmes and understanding nothing but what we feel or is conveyed to us by the proportions of what we doe or have hath given us a Religion that is fitted to our condition and constitution And therefore when we are commanded to love God by this love Christ understands obedience when we are commanded to honour God it is by singing and reciting his praises and doing things which cause reputation and honour and even here when we are commanded to speak that which is good it is instanced in such good things which are really profitable practically usefull and here the measures of God are especially by the proportions of our neighbour And therefore though speaking honorable things of God be an imployment that does honour to our tongues and voices yet we must tune and compose even these notes so as may best profit our neighbour for so it must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good speech such as is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the edification of necessity the phrase is an Hebraisme where the genitive case of a substantive is put for the adjective and meanes that our speech be apted to necessary edification or such edification as is needfull to every mans particular case that is that we so order our communication that it be apt to instruct the ignorant to strengthen the weak to recall the wanderer to restraine the vicious to comfort the disconsolate to speak a word in season to every mans necessity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it may minister grace something that may please and profit them according as they shall need all which I shall reduce to these three heads 1. To Instruct. 2. To Comfort 3. To Reprove 1. Our conversation must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apt to teach For since all our hopes on our part depend upon our obedience to God and conformity to our Lord Jesus by whom our endevours are sanctified and accepted and our weaknesses are pardoned and all our obedience relies upon and is incouraged and grounded in faith and faith is founded naturally and primarily in the understanding we may observe that it is not onely reasonably to be expected but experimentally felt that in weak and and ignorant understandings there are no sufficient supports for the vigorousnesse of a holy life there being nothing or not enough to warrant and strengthen great resolutions to reconcile our affections to difficulties to make us patient of affronts to receive deeper mortifications and ruder usages unlesse where an extraordinary grace supplies the want of ordinary notices as the Apostles were enabled to their preachings But he therefore that carries and imports into the understanding of his Brother notices of faith and incomes of spirituall propositions and arguments of the Spirit enables his brother towards the work and practises of a holy life and though every argument which the Spirit of God hath made and recorded in holy Scripture is of it selfe inducement great enough to endear obedience yet it is not so in the event of things to every mans infirmity and need but in the treasures of the Spirit in the heaps and variety of institution and wise discourses there will not onely be enough to make a man without excuse but sufficient to doe his work and to cure his evill and to fortifie his weaker parts and to comply with his necessities for although Gods sufficient grace is present to all that can use it yet if there be no more then that it is a sad consideration to remember that there are but few that will be saved if they be helped but with just so much as can possibly doe the work and this we may well be assured of if we consider that God is never wanting to any man in what is simply necessary but then if we adde this also that of the vast numbers of men who might possibly be saved so few really are so we shall perceive that that grace which onely is sufficient is not sufficient sufficient to the thing is not sufficient for the person and therefore that God does usually give us more and we need more yet and unlesse God works in us to will and to doe we shall neither will nor doe though to will be in the power of our hand yet we will not will it follows from hence that all they who will comply with Gods method of graciousnesse and the necessities of their Brethren must
willing to make use so thankfull for their care so great valuers of their skill such lovers of their persons no man is put to it to persuade men to be Physitians because there is no need to persuade men to live or to be in health if therefore men would as willingly be vertuous as be healthfull as willingly doe no evill as suffer none be as desirous of heaven as of a long life on earth all the difficulties and temptations against this duty of reproving our sinning brother would soon be conceal'd but let it be as it will we must doe it in duty and piety to him that needs and if he be impatient of it he needs it more Et per hujusmodi offensas emetiendum est confragosum hoc iter it is a troublesome imployment but it is duty and charity and therefore when it can with hope of successe with prudence and piety be done no other consideration ought to interpose And for the other part those I mean who ought to be reproved they are to remember that themselves give pensions to Preacher on purpose to be reproved if they shall need it* that God hath instituted a holy Order of men to that very purpose* that they should be severally told of all that is amisse* that themselves chide their children and their servants for their good and that they may amend* and that they endure thirst to cure their dropsies* that they suffer burnings to prevent the gangrenes* and endure the cutting off a limbe to preserve their lives * and therefore that it is a strange witchcraft and a prodigious folly that at so easie a mortification as the suffering of a plain friendly reproofe they will not set forward their interest of heaven and suffer themselves to be set forward in their hopes of heaven dura fatemur Esse sed ut valeas multa dolenda feras And when all remember that flattery and importune silence suffer the mighty to perish like fooles and inconsiderate persons it ought to awake our spirits and make us to attend to the admonitions of a friend with a silence great as midnight and watchfull as a widows eyes It was a strange thing that Valentinian should in the midst of so many Christian Prelates make a law to establish Polygamy and that no Bishop should dare to reprehend him The effect of it was this that he had a son by a second wife the first being alive and not divorc'd and he left him heir of a great part of the Empire and what the effect of that was to this soul God who is his Judge best knows If now at last it be inquir'd whether every man is bound to reprove every man if he sins and if he converse with him I answer that if it should be so it were to no purpose and therefore for it there is no commandement every man that can may instruct him that wants it but every man may not reprove him that is already instructed that is an act of charity for which there are no measures but the others necessity and his own opportunity but this is also an act of discipline and must in many cases suppose an authority and in all cases such a liberty as is not fit to be permitted to mean and ignorant and inferiour persons I end this with the saying of a wise person advising to every one concerning the use of the tongue aut lucrentur vitam loquendo aut tacendo abscondant scientiam if they speak let them minister to the good of souls if they speak not let them minister to sobriety in the first they serve the end of charity in the other of humility THE END ERRATA PAg. 10. l. 35. r. entertained that at p. 6. l. 30. seen r. scene 29. 21. dear r. clear 152. 4. terrour r. fervour 71. 40. the bowed r. they bowed 87. 41. reverend r. reverenc'd 112. 27. r. illius pejora prioribus 100. 1. one r. once 102. 21. that flies r. he that flies 142. 16. r. true or false 98. 45. if it be turned r. if it be not turned 283. ult r. get a Genius 309. 40. still r. till 334. 5. r. his soul. 33. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lege forsan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 52. 29. lege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 140. 9. lege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 200. ult lege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In margin p. 225. 5. lege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Florus Rom. 4. 10. Lucan l. 1. Rom. 2. 5. In Psal. 103. * In Ierem. hom 13. in Luk. hom 14. Lactantius lib. 7. instit c. 21. Hilarius in Psal. 118. octer 3. in Mat. can 2. In Psal. 118. serm 3. Heb. 4. Psal. 74. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Revel 8. 3. Rom. 8. 26. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. Ioel 1. Mat. 12. 36. Iob 31. 14. Eph. 5. 6. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. Xenoph. 1. Mat. 25. 34. 41. Hymn 5. lib. Cathemer Lib. 2. cap. 65. 1. 2. Rev. 14. 11. Rev. 20. 14. Job 27. 9. Ps. 6. 6. 18. Prov. 1. 28. Isa. 1. 15. Ier. 14. 12. 10. Vide etiam Ps. 34. 6 Micah 3 4. 1 Pet. 3. 12. Iam. 2. 13. Psal 22. 29. See 2. Sermon of lukewarmnesse and zeal Ezek. 14. 14. 1 Ioh. 5. 16. Chap. 42. 7 8. Eccles. 5. 2. Gen. 20. 7. Iudg. 17. 13. Iames 5. 14. Heb. 7. 7. Act. 6. 4. Lib. 1. ep 4. Ad Demo. a 1. q. 1. c. sacrosancta a Homil. 53. b In scholiis ad hunc locum c Lib. 6 A. D. 108. Biblioth d Ep. 16. Biblioth pp. tom 3. n. 19. e Decret 1. q. 1. ad c. eos qui. f Lib. 6. regist 5. in decretis l. 7. c. 120. g De dignit sacerd c. 5. h Can. 9. orat 4. de sacerd i 1. in ep 20. hom 1. part 2. ep 27. k Ep. 9. tom 3 ad Michael imperater d. in 4 dist 13. Collat. 9. cap. 32. Ierem. 5. 1. Vers. 25. 2. 7. Deut. 4. 24. 1 Pet. 1. 17. Deut. 10. 12. Psal. 111. 10. Eccles. 12. 13. 2 Cor. 7. 1. Ionah 1. 9. King 17. 25. Mat. 5. ad v. 10. Ioh. 1. 17. Rom. 6. 14 15. Rom. 6. 15. 1 Cor. 10. 22. 1 Pet. 4. 19. Apud Eurip. in Phoenissis 1 Cor. 10. 12. * Heb 6. 6. Heb. 10 26. 2 Pet. 2. 22. Mat. 9. 2. 1 Pet. 1. 18. 2 Ep. 1. 3. Act. 3. 26. 1. Exod. 23. 20. 21. Ier. 2. 36. Ephes. 4. 17 18. Mat. 12. 45. vide 2 Pet. 2. 10. Lib. de nat Deorum Eccles. 12 5. * 1 Cor. 10. 20. * 4. 7. ◠Rom. 11. 25. Eurip. Revel 21. 8. Eph. 2. 3. Plutar. Lactantius Euripides Ephes. 4. 16. 1 Ioh. 5. 4. Luk. 11. 13. Mat. 7. 11. Phil. 4. 4. Ephes. 5. 18. Trinummus 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 3. Dan. 4. 27. Prov. 18. 9. His qui sacris visis abeunt ad inferos Homines beati sunt solis quia vivere Contingit illic istis turba caetera
keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace we cannot have the blessing of the Spirit in the returns of a holy prayer and all those assemblies which meet together against God or Gods Ordinances may pray and call and cry loudly and frequently and still they provoke God to anger and many times he will not have so much mercy for them as to deny them but le ts them prosper in their sin till it swels to intolerable and impardonable * But when good men pray with one heart and in a holy assembly that is holy in their desires lawfull in their authority though the persons be of different complexion then the prayer flies up to God like the hymns of a Quire of Angels for God that made body and soul to be one man and God and man to be one Christ and three persons are one God and his praises are sung to him by Quires and the persons are joyned in orders and the orders into hierarchies and all that God may be served by unions and communities loves that his Church should imitate the Concords of heaven and the unions of God and that every good man should promote the interests of his prayers by joyning in the communion of Saints in the unions of obedience and charity with the powers that God and the Lawes have ordained The sum is this If the man that makes the prayer be an unholy person his prayer is not the instrument of a blessing but a curse but when the sinner begins to repent truly then his desires begin to be holy But if they be holy and just and good yet they are without profit and effect if the prayer be made in schisme or an evill communion or if it be made without attention or if the man soon gives over or if the prayer be not zealous or if the man be angry There are very many waies for a good man to become unblessed and unthriving in his prayers and he cannot be secure unlesse he be in the state of grace and his spirit be quiet and his minde be attentive and his society be lawfull and his desires carnest and passionate and his devotions persevering lasting till his needs be served or exchanged for another blessing so that what Laelius apud Cicer. de senectute said concerning old age neque in summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus potest ne sapienti quidem nec insipienti etiam in summâ coptâ non gravis that a wise man could not bear old age if it were extremely poor and yet if it were very rich it were intolerable to a fool we may say concerning our prayers they are sins and unholy if a wicked man makes them and yet if they be made by a good man they are ineffective unlesse they be improved by their proper dispositions A good man cannot prevail in his prayers if his desires be cold and his affections trifling and his industry soon weary and his society criminall and if all these appendages of prayer be observed yet they will do no good to an evill man for his prayer that begins in sin shall end in sorrow SERMON VI. Part III. 3. NExt I am to inquire and consider what degrees and circumstances of piety are requir'd to make us fit to be intercessors for others and to pray for them with probable effect I say with probable effect for when the event principally depends upon that which is not within our own election such as are the lives and actions of others all that we can consider in this affair is whether wee be persons fit to pray in the behalf of others that hinder not but are persons within the limit and possibilities of the presentmercy When the Emperour Maximinus was smitten with the wrath of God and a sore disease for his cruell persecuting the Christian cause and putting so many thousand innocent and holy persons to death and he understood the voice of God and the accents of thunder and discerned that cruelty was the cause he revoked their decrees made against the Christians recall'd them from their caves and deserts their sanctuaries and retirements and enjoyned them to pray for the life and health of their Prince They did so and they who could command mountaines to remove and were obeyed they who could doe miracles they who with the key of prayer could open Gods four closets of the wombe and the grave of providence and rain could not obtain for their bloudy Emperour one drop of mercy but he must die miserable for over God would not be intreated for him and though he loved the prayer because he loved the Advocates yet Maximinus was not worthy to receive the blessing And it was threatned to the rebellious people of Israel and by them to all people that should sin grievously against the Lord God would break their staffe of bread and even the righteous should not be prevailing intercessors Though Noah Job or Daniel were there they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousnesse saith the Lord God and when Abraham prevailed very far with God in the behalf of Sodome and the five Cities of the Plain it had its period If there had been ten righteous in Sodom it should have been spared for their sakes but four onely were found and they onely delivered their own souls too but neither their righteousnesse nor Abrahams prayer prevailed any further and we have this case also mentioned in the New Testament If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death he shall aske and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death At his prayer the sinner shall receive pardon God shall give him life for them to him that prays in their behalf that sin provided it be not a sin unto death For there is a sin unto death but I doe not say that he shall pray for it There his Commission expires and his power is confin'd For there are some sins of that state and greatnesse that God will not pardon S. Austin in his books de sermone Domini in monte affirms it concerning some one single sin of a perfect malice It was also the opinion of Origen and Athanasius and is followed by venerable Bede and whether the Apostle means a peculiar state of sin or some one single great crime which also supposes a precedent and a present state of criminall condition it is such a thing as will hinder our prayers from prevailing in their behalf we are therefore not encouraged to pray because they cannot receive the benefit of Christs intercession and therefore much lesse of our Advocation which onely can prevail by vertue and participation of his mediation For whomsoever Christ prays for them wee pray that is for all them that are within the covenant of repentance for all whose actions have not destroyed the very being of Religion who have not renounc'd their faith nor voluntarily quit their hopes nor openly opposed the Spirit of grace nor
passion in Religion destroys as much of our evennesse of spirit as it sets forward any outward work and therefore although it be a good circumstance and degree of a spirituall duty so long as it is within and relative to God and our selves so long it is a holy flame but if it be in an outward duty or relative to our neighbours or in an instance not necessary it sometimes spoils the action and alwaies endangers it But I must remember we live in an age in which men have more need of new fires to be kindled within them and round about them then of any thing to allay their forwardnesse there is little or no zeal now but the zeal of envie and killing as many as they can and damning more then they can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smoke and lurking fires do corrode and secretly consume therefore this discourse is lesse necessary A Physitian would have but small imployment near the Riphaean Mountains if he could cure nothing but Calentures Catarrhes and dead palfies Colds and Consumptions are their evils and so is lukewarmnesse and deadnesse of spirit the proper maladies of our age for though some are hot when they are mistaken yet men are cold in a righteous cause and the nature of this evill is to be insensible and the men are farther from a cure because they neither feel their evill nor perceive their danger But of this I have already given account and to it I shall only adde what an old spirituall person told a novice in religion asking him the cause why he so frequently suffered tediousnesse in his religious offices Nondum vidisti requiem quam speramus nec tormenta quae timemus young man thou hast not seen the glories which are laid up for the zealous and devout nor yet beheld the flames which are prepared for the lukewarm and the haters of strict devotion But the Jewes tell that Adam having seen the beauties and tasted the delicacies of Paradise repented and mourned upon the Indian Mountains for three hundred years together and we who have a great share in the cause of his sorrowes can by nothing be invited to a persevering a great a passionate religion more then by remembring what he lost and what is laid up for them whose hearts are burning lamps and are all on fire with Divine love whose flames are fann'd with the wings of the holy Dove and whose spirits shine and burn with that fire which the holy Jesus came to enkindle upon the earth Sermon XV. The House of Feasting OR THE EPICVRES MEASVRES Part I. 1 Cor. 15. 32. last part Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye THis is the Epicures Proverb begun upon a weak mistake started by chance from the discourses of drink and thought witty by the undiscerning company and prevail'd infinitely because it struck their fancy luckily and maintained the merry meeting but as it happens commonly to such discourses so this also when it comes to be examined by the consultations of the morning and the sober hours of the day it seems the most witlesse and the most unreasonable in the world When Seneca describes the spare diet of Epicurus and Metrodorus he uses this expression Liberaliora sunt alimenta carceris sepositos ad capitale supplicium non tam angustè qui occisurus est pascit The prison keeps a better table and he that is to kill the criminall to morrow morning gives him a better supper over night By this he intended to represent his meal to be very short for as dying persons have but little stomach to feast high so they that mean to cut the throat will think it a vain expence to please it with delicacies which after the first alteration must be poured upon the ground and looked upon as the worst part of the accursed thing And there is also the same proportion of unreasonablenesse that because men shall die to morrow and by the sentence and unalterable decree of God they are now descending to their graves that therefore they should first destroy their reason and then force dull time to run faster that they may dye sottish as beasts and speedily as a flie But they thought there was no life after this or if there were it was without pleasure and every soul thrust into a hole and a dorter of a spans length allowed for his rest and for his walk and in the shades below no numbring of healths by the numerall letters of Philenium's name no fat Mullets no Oysters of Luerinus no Lesbian or Chian Wines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore now enjoy the delicacies of Nature and feel the descending wines distilled through the limbecks of thy tongue and larynx and suck the delicious juice of fishes the marrow of the laborious Oxe and the tender lard of Apultan Swine and the condited bellies of the scarus but lose no time for the Sun drives hard and the shadow is long and the dayes of mourning are at hand but the number of the dayes of darknesse and the grave cannot be told Thus they thought they discoursed wisely and their wisdome was turned into folly for all their arts of providence and witty securities of pleasure were nothing but unmanly prologues to death fear and folly sensuality and beastly pleasures But they are to be excused rather then we They placed themselves in the order of beasts and birds and esteemed their bodies nothing but receptacles of flesh and wine larders and pantries and their soul the fine instrument of pleasure and brisk perception of relishes and gusts reflexions and duplications of delight and therefore they treated themselves accordingly But then why we should do the same things who are led by other principles and a more severe institution and better notices of immortality who understand what shall happen to a soul hereafter and know that this time is but a passage to eternity this body but a servant to the soul this soul a minister to the Spirit and the whole man in order to God and to felicity this I say is more unreasonable then to eat aconite to preserve our health and to enter into the floud that we may die a dry death this is a perfect contradiction to the state of good things whither we are designed and to all the principles of a wise Philophy whereby we are instructed that we may become wise unto salvation That I may therefore do some assistances towards the curing the miseries of mankinde and reprove the follies and improper motions towards felicity I shall endevour to represent to you 1. That plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instruments of felicity 2. That intemperance is a certain enemy to it making life unpleasant and death troublesome and intolerable 3. I shall adde the rules and measures of temperance in eating and drinking that nature and grace may joyne to the constitution of mans felicity 1. Plenty and the pleasures of the world are