we may impute to original Sin But yet Divines generally consent that this original Sin is alike in all only it works more or less according to the diversity of mens tempers as water runs swifter down a Hill then in a Plain Again even in children we see many good and gracious qualities which by good education come to excellent effect In pueri elucet spes plurimorum saith Quintilian quae cùm emoritur aetate manifestum est non defecisse naturam sed curam In children many times there is a beam and hope of Goodness which if not cherisht by Discipline is dampt and darkned a sign that Nature was not wanting but our Care Now from whence this difference should come is not easie to discern but this we cannot but observe That be the strength of original Sin what it will yet there is no man but is more wicked then the strength of any natural Weakness or primitive Corruption can constrain For when evil Education bad Enamples long Custome and Continuance in sin have bred in us a habit of sinning cùm per secordiam vires tempus ingenium defluxere naturae infirmitas accusatur when through sloth and idleness through luxury and distemper our time is lost our bodies decayed our wits dulled we cast all the fault upon the Weakness of our Nature and our full growth in sin we attribute to that Seed of sin which we should have choaked Behold the Signs in the heaven the Sun darkned the Moon turned into bloud See Poverty coming towards you as an armed man Famine riding upon a pale horse killing with Hunger and with Death Behold the Plague destroying Persecution raging I say Behold these for to this thou wert made for this thou wert sent into the world to behold and look up upon these to look up and be undaunted nay to look up and leap and rejoyce For thy whole life is but a preparation and Eve to this great Holiday of sights If the eye of Nature be too weak thou hast an unction from the Holy one the unction of the blessed Spirit For this end ◠John 2. 20. Christ came into the world for this end did he pour forth his grace that he might refresh thy spirits and clear thy eye-sight that thou mayest look up and lift up thy head For tell me Why were we baptized why are we Christians Is it not to mortifie our earthly members and lusts to dead in our selves the bitter root of Sin Is it not to spiritualize to angelifie I had almost said to deifie our Nature For we are no further Christians nisi in quantum caeperimus esse angeli but so far forth as we are like unto the Angels I may add and St. Peter doth warrant me so far forth as we are made partakers of the Divine Nature Were we not baptized into this faith I speak to Christians whose life should be a continual warfare not against Beasts but our Passions which if they be not tyed up and held in with bitt and bridle are as fierce and violent as they And a strange kind of weakness it is to talk of Weakness when we are to fight for this is to yield before we strike a stroke not to be put to flight but to run away Nec mirum si vincantur qui jam victi sunt and it is no marvail if we fall by conquest who in our own opinion are already overcome Beloved are we weak in Adam Yet are we strong in Christ I can do all things saith Paul and suffer all things through Christ that strengthneth me Though many blemishes befall us by Adams sin in our understandings and in our wills yet what we lost in Adam that with infinite advantage is supplyed in Christ Are we truly Christians Then these things these fearful sights cannot hurt us If they hurt us it is because we are not Christians There is a fable that past amongst the Heathen that Vulcan offended with the men of Athens told them they should be all fools but Pallas who favoured them told them they should indeed be fools but withall that their folly should not hurt them Our case is not much unlike For though the Devil hath made us fools and weak yet Christ the Wisdome of the Father hath given us this gift that this Weakness shall never hurt us unless we will Fear not therefore why should we fear Christ hath subdued our enemies and taken from them every weapon that may hurt us He hath taken the sting not only from Sin but from those evils which are the natural issues and products of Sin He hath made Afflictions joyful Terrors lovely that thou mayest look up upon them and lift up thy head I have done with this pretense of natural Weakness and with my second part and I come now to the third and last the encouragement our Saviour giveth For your redemption draweth nigh And when these things come to pass when such terrible signs appear this news is very seasonable As cold waters to a thirsty soul so is the promise Prov. 25. 25. of liberty to those who have been in bondage all their life long under the fear Heb. 2. 15. of those evils which shew themselves unto us and lead us captive and keep us in prison so that we cannot look up When we are sold under Sin and by that sold under fears of Calamities of Death of Hell when the Heaven loures upon us and Hell opens its mouth then a message of Redemption is a word fitly spoken a word upon its wheels guided and directed by art and is as delightful as apples of Gold with pictures of silver It is that Peny in the evening which makes the Labourer bear the burden all the day How will that Souldier fight who heareth of a reserve and party at hand to aid him How will the Prisoner even sing in his chains when news is brought that his ransome is paid and his redemption near at hand It is a liberty to be told we shall be free And it is not easie to determine whither it more affect us when it is come or when it is but in the approach drawing nigh when we are free or when we are but told that shortly we shall be so And indeed our Redemption is actus individuus one entire act and we are redeemed at once from all though the full accomplishment of it be by degrees When we are redeemed from Sin we are redeemed from the Grave redeemed from the fear of Death redeemed from all fear of these fearful Signs and Apparitions redeemed by our Captain who besides the ransome he paid down hath taught us to handle the weapons of our warfare hath proposed a crown hath taught us to shake off our fetters and break our bonds asunder For to this end he paid down the ransome and if we do it not we are not redeemed no not when we are redeemed It is enough for him to open the prison-doors Certainly it is our
beat down our body and wage war with our appetite We may say of the Law of Moses as St. Paul speaks of the yearly sacrifices It did not make the commers thereunto Hebr. 10. 8. perfect but left behind it still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a conscience of sins not only ex parte reatûs a conscience which did testifie that they had sinned and affright them with the guilt but ex parte vindictae a conscience which not only questioned their sins but there attonement also Therefore Chrysostome on that place will tell us In that the Jews did offer sacrifice it seemeth they had a conscience that accused them of sin but that they did it continually argued they had a conscience which accused their sacrifice of Imperfection The Law of Faith which is the fundamental Law of the Gospel is expunctor legis totius retro vetustatis blots out these Laws and whatever Antiquity did write down as a Law in her tables Quicquid retrò fuit aut demutatum est ut circumcisio aut suppletum ut lex reliqua aut impletum ut prophetia aut perfectum ut fides ipsa Whatsoever was in times past was either changed as Circumcision or supplyed as the rest of the Law or fulfilled as Prophesies or made perfect as Faith it self I should detein you too long in this argument should I draw a comparison between each particular constitution By the very nature and quality of the Laws you may easily descry a main difference between these Kingdoms The Laws of Christ are unchangeable and eternal but all humane constitutions are temporary and mutable Those which are written in the Body of the Law by the Civilians are called LEGES PERPETUAE Laws unchangeable but after Ages have seen the countenance of some altered and others quite rased out Legum medelae pro temporum moribus pro rerumpubl generibus pro utilitatum presentium rationibus mutari solent flecti nec uno statu consistere sed ut coeli facies maris ita rerum fortunae tempestatibus variari But the Laws of the heavenly Kingdome are eternal written in our souls by the King of Souls from the beginning The second head wherein the difference of this Kingdome from others is seen is the Power of it which is extended not to the body alone but to the soul also Other Kings may lay the whip on the back but this rips-up the very bowels other Kings may kill the body but this can cast both body and soul into hell Many times it is wisdom in Kings not to punish because of the multitude or power of offenders Nescio saith an heathen man in the Historian an suasurus fuerim omittere potiùs praevalida adulta vitia quam hoc assequi ut palam fiat quibus vitiis impares simus Sins many times do reign amongst men and spread themselves so far and wide that no strength of the Magistrate is able to supress them and therefore many times it is our best wisdom to let such sins alone lest by going about to amend them we betray our weakness and shew that the Law it self may have a bridle put into her mouth that offenders may ride her as they please It is not so in this Kingdom God can never be out-braved by any sin be it never so universal Be the offenders never such Giants never so many he is able to chain and fetter them even with a word He that sits on the throne and he that grinds at the mill to him are all one And as a thousand years with him are but as one day so a thousand a million a whole world of men with him are but as one man And when he shall sit to do judgment upon sinners all the world shall have before him but one neck and he can strike it off at a blow When I mentioned the power and virtue of this Kingdome you might expect perhaps that I should have said something of the power and efficacy of Grace because this Kingdome is called the Kingdome of Grace And indeed herein is a difference between this Kingdome and others Magistrates promulge laws threaten bind the tongue and hand but have no influence nor operation on the hearts and wills of men But in this our spiritual Kingdome the King doth not only command but gives us his helping hand that we may perform his command Et quomodo fulgur nubes disrumpit as Cyprian speaketh as lightning suddenly breaketh through the cloud and at once enlightens and amazes the world so the coruscation and splendor of Gods Grace doth at once illuminate and dull the eye of our understanding Nescio quomodo tangimur tangi nos sentimus we are toucht with this sudden flash we know not how and we feel that we are toucht but it is not easie to discern how Non deprehendes quemadmodum aut quando tibi prosit profuisse deprehendes That the power of Gods Grace hath wrought you shall find but the secret and retired passages by which it wrought are impossible to be reduced to demonstration We must confess that by nature we are blind and Grace is the eye by which we see we are lame and Grace is the staff by which we walk we are dead and Grace is the breath by which we live As man upon earth is composed of Body and Soul so in respect of this Kingdome he admits of a new composition of Man and the Spirit of Grace But we must remember it is a Kingdome we speak of and Christ is a King not a Tyrant Now the Philosopher will tell us Rex imperat volentibus tyrannus nolentibus That in this a King and a Tyrant differ that the one ruleth his subjects with that wisdom and temper that they are willing to obey the other makes them obey whether they will or no. Beloved Christ is a King in this respect He will not rule us against our will Nemo se ab invito coli vult No man will take a gift from an unwilling hand And dost thou look that the King of heaven and earth should force thee to allegiance Some have made it an observation That before Christs resurrection he was obeyed by those that served him against their will and so was served but to halves but under the Gospel he gathers unto him populum spontaneum a willing people that still be ready to do his will All this is from Grace thou wilt say It is true But not of Grace so working as to force the Will For as God is powerful and can do all things so is he wise too and sweetly disposes all things accomplishing his will by those means he in his eternal wisdom knoweth to be best using his power as a King but not violence as a Tyrant Wilt thou then sit still and not set thy hand to work upon a phansie that God doth not send thee grace Wilt thou not hearken to the voice of thy King speaking within God unless he
quencheth the spirits cooleth the bloud closeth and contracteth the heart At one object it leapeth for joy at another is cold and dead Thus by these gates of Sin as Gregory calls them do those Tentations enter which will soon overthrow the state and peace of the mind Aâ—dâ—â—it auris intentionem inflexit c. saith St. Ambrose He did but hearken and lost a good intention he did but look and his mind was overthrown but smell and his thought perisht but taste the lip of the harlot and he devoured a sin but touch and he was all on fire Now as Tentations work by the Sensitive part upon the Rational so in the last place they have a diverse operation according to mens several Constitutions and Complexions In some they soon prevail in others by degrees and in some not at all For every man is not equally inclined to every sin This stayeth the eye of one which another will not look on And this our own uncharitable censures of each other may teach us For â—e see that this man blesseth himself and wonders how such a one could commit such a sin and the other wondreth no less that he or any one else should commit the contrary Therefore the Devil who knows how we 〈◊〉 elemented and composed hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Macarius di 〈…〉 s inventions divers back-doors by which he may slip and return at pleasure and if his first bait be distastful come again and present another which will fit our taste and palate He applyeth himself to every mans humor and complexion Omnium discutit consuetudinem ventilat curas scrutatur affectus saith Leo He examines every mans customary behaviour he marks where we place our care and solicitude he searcheth our affections and observeth our constitution and enters with such forces as we are not willing to withstand with a Sword which a Cholerick person will snatch at with Beauty which the Wanton at first sight will fall down and adore with Honour which the Ambitious will fly to with Riches which the Covetous will dig for He knows whom to inflame with lust whom to incite to luxury whom to pour the poyson of envy into whom to cast down with sorrow whom to deceive with joy whom to amaze with fear whom to seduce with admiration And he so fits his temptations that something about us something within us our very natural temper and constitution may quicken and promote the activity of those tentations which may destroy us Again that we may conclude as their operation is either farthered or slacked by the several tempers and complexions of men so is it by many outward circumstances of Time at one time a birth-right for a mess of pottage at another not receive a drove of cattle but say I have enough my Brother Of Place Not look upon that bait in publick which I will devour in my closet be very attentive at Church and as busie a knave in my shop And lastly of humane Laws which are many times more powerful against Sin then the Laws of the Eternal God whence it comes to pass that we resist temptations to the greatest sins as Murder Adultery and the rest of those which are the grosser and of the highest nature because they are hung round with curses and the Magistrate stands by and if we yield he lays the whip upon our backs or draws his sword and destroys us but those lesser sins secret and speculative sins Wanton thoughts Idle words and the like we scarce take notice of because there is no penal statute to repress them And we are ready to say of every such sin as Lot did of Zoar Is it not a little one and my soul shall live For as Tentations work by the Sense so are we led by it We fear that Power which is seen more than that Omnipotency which is invisible we fear Man more than God and the shaking of his whip more than the scorpions of a Deity and therefore we fly greater sins and run into less prevail against the Anakim and are beat with a grashopper For though Tentations make their entrance by pleasing and flattering the Sense and being admitted are polished and decked-up with glory and so presented to the nobler faculties though this be their natural operation and common way of working yet they work differently and unequally according to that variety which is observable in the tempers and constitutions of men and by outward circumstances of Time and Place or the like are either hindered or advanced in their operation And this may suffice to discover the Manner how Tentations work upon the Soul I should now proceed and enquire when Tentations prevail with us and overcome us But having upon another Text Matth. xxiv 42. handled this point at large and shewn that though the Sense and Phansie receive the object which is the tentation and that with some delight yet it may be without sin yea though our natural temper incline to it and raise in us some kind of desire yet if we stand upon our guard and watch and keep it within the limits that God hath set us we shall be so far from sinning that our obedience will be the greater these things having been there fully treated of I will now pass-over Only this I add That there may be yet more than an Inclination There may be a kind of Desire a sudden motion of the mind which may at unawares strike through the heart of man but yet not so entangle it as to procure the assent of the Will may but shew it self and vanish like lighning may be extinguisht in the very flash Now that this is not truly and properly a sin we may gather from the very nature of Sin to the committing of which these two things concur 1. an Assent of the Will 2. a Power in man to avoid it **** We think of it to hate it and by thinking love it We must therefore give them no line but curb and restrain them at the first not only shun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosopher speaks the causes and beginnings which may produce it chase away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justine Martyr speaks the first smoke the first inclination of our sensual appetite and when tentations offer and present themselves not revile and embrace them say we would and we would not but to give them a peremptory denyal by our serious distast of them and that detestation which may take these brats of Satan and dash them against the rock Nemo sic negantem iterum rogat When we have given them such a denyal a denyal with anger and indignation they will keep a distance and not suddenly come so near as to solicite us to sin But if we first give them admittance and then take pleasure in them it is a sign we will make them our friends and companions nay it is a sign that we have made them our
him This is to be like unto God and to be partaker of his spirit And to be Christs Disciple is to be one with him and to be ingrafted into him Here is the Christians highest pitch his Ascension his Zenith his Third heaven And therefore it is said to be a speech of Christ which the Nazarene Gospel hath recorded though our Bibles have not Nunquam loeti sitis nisi cum fratres in charitate videritis No spectacle of delight nothing that a Christian can take pleasure in nothing of virtue and power hath enough to raise a Disciples joy but to see his fellow-disciples his Brethren embracing one another in love For if the ground of all Pleasure be agreement and proportionableness to the temper and constitution of any thing then certainly nothing so agreeing so harmonical so consonant to our reasonable nature and to the ingenuity of our kind and consequently so universally delightful to all who have not put off the bowels and the nature of Man and are by the love of the world swayed and bended to a brutish condition as that which may as well go for a Reward as for a Duty the Loving of the Brethren that language of Love which we must practice here that we may chant it in heaven with the congregation of the first-born and the spirits of men made perfect by love eternally And indeed Charity is the prime ingredient of the glorified Saints Of whose state we understand no more but that they are in bliss and love one another and that they are for ever blessed because they for ever love one another Their Charity never faileth saith St. Paul and then their bliss is everlasting What is Paradise saith the Father but to love God and serve him And the best love we can shew him the best service we can do him is to love and serve the Brethren The end of the Gospel is love 1 Tim. 1. 5. that is other doctrine tendeth to strife and contention but the whole doctrine of the Gospel tendeth to love and unity So that no doctrine that naturally and of it self worketh wrath and uncharitableness can be Evangelical For the wisdome that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without judging James 3. 17. and without Hypocrisie Beloved Envy malice debate contention strife are the delight and joy of them who have tasted of the powers of no other world then of this which shall be consumed or rather they are the delight of the infernal spirits as it is a torment to them to be restrained from doing mischief Art thou come to destroy us to torment us before our time saith the unclean Spirit Art thou come to curb and hinder us from vexing and destroying those we hate for this is torturing this is sending them again into the deep confining them to their Luke 8. 31. Hell As the lower pit is said to be opened in the Revelation when they have liberty to vex and torment mankind so it is as much Hell to them not to punish others as it is to be punished And none but evil spirits and Men of their constitution and temper can make a Heaven in Hell it self by doing mischief And indeed Delight it is not properly but it is called so because it is proportionable and satisfactory to their malice and pernicious nature and disposition No if we hear LAETENTUR COELI Let the Heavens rejoyce it is because Peace is here on earth If we hear LAETENTUR ANGELI Let the Angels rejoyce it is for the tears and repentance of some sinner here below If we hear LAETENTUR SANCTI Let the Saints rejoyce it is in their union and communion in those mutual offices of bearing and supporting one another and as so many Angels by prayers and exhortations and by the reciprocal activity of their love lifting and conveighing one another into Abrahams bosome Thus we see that that love which makes and keeps us Brethren is the pleasantest thing in the world and that all other joy is no better joy then the Damned have in hell A Joy I must not call it A Complacency we may call it But that is too good a name It is the feeding the filling the satisfying the Malice of an ugly and malicious Fiend But in the next place we shall the sooner fall in love with this Love if Profit also be brought-in to commend and enhance the price and value of this Pleasure And here if we ask with the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What profit is there we may answer Much every manner of way For from this we have all those helps those huge advantages which are as so many heaves and promotions and thrustings forward into Happiness By my brother I may see that which before I could not discover He may clear up my Affections from storm and tempest and my Understanding from darkness and confusion of thoughts He may cast out infinitatem rei as the Civilians speak that variety that kind of infinity of appearances in which every thing useth to shew and present it self He may be as Moses said to Hobab to me instead of eyes to guide and direct Numb 10. 31. me by his counsel and providence By him I may hear as Samuel did for Ely what the Lord God will say By him I may feel and taste how gracious the Lord God is He may do those offices for me which the Angels of God those ministring Spirits cannot do because they have no body He may be my Servant and I may wait upon him He may be my Supporter and I may uphold him He may be my Priest and I may teach him He may be my Guard and I may protect him He may be my Angel and I may go with him and be his conduct He may be made all things to me and I may be made all things to him Thus we may grow up together in Grace for in this Nursery in this Eden in this Fraternity the nearer and closer we grow together the more we spread and flourish COMPLANTATI grafted together in the similitude of Christs Death and Rom. 6. 5. CONSEPULTI Buried together with him in Baptism and CONRESUSCITATI v. 4. risen together with Christ No Grafting no Burying Col. 3. 1. no Rising but together No profit no advantage no encrease but in love Speaking the truth in love we grow up into him in all things Eph. 4. 15 16. which is the Head even Christ By which the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted as a House by that which every joynt supplyes by that spirit and juyce which every part conveighs according to the effectual working in the measure of every part according as it wants sustentation and increase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the body which is the Brotherhood may be edified that is more and more instructed and improved by mutual love and the duty and offices of Charity which
the Wilderness or an Owl in the Desert like the Leper under the Law whom no man must come near Have no company with him that is by thy company and familiarity give him no encouragement in his sin For good words and courteous behaviour may be taken for applause a smile is a hug and too much friendship is a kind of absolution And yet for all this have company with him for it tells us Count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother Deal gently and meekly with him but this we cannot do if we wholly separate our selves from him and avoid his company The rule of Charity directs us to think every man an heir with Christ or if he be not at least that he may be so And this is a kind of priviledge that Charity hath in respect of Faith Faith sees but a little flock but few that shall be saved makes up a Church as Gedeon did his Army who took not all that were prest out for the war but out of many thousands selected a band of three hundred and no more but Charity taketh in all and sees not any of that company which she will dismiss but thinks all though now their hands be weak and their hearts faint in time may be sweetly encouraged to fight and conquer You will say this is an error of our Charity But it is a very necessary error for it is my charity thus to erre and it is not a lye but vertue in me in my weak brothers case to nourish a hope of that strength which peradventure he shall never recover The holy mistakes of Charity shall never be imputed as 〈…〉 s no nor be numbred amongst those of Ignorance For he that errs not thus he that hopes not the best of all he sees though weltring in their bloud wants something to compleat and perfect him and make him truly worthy of the name of a good Christian And this error in Charity is not without good reason For we see not how nor when the Grace of God may work how sinful soever a man be Peradventure saith St. Hierom God may call unto him lying and stinking in his sins as in a Grave Lazarus come forth Charity therefore because she may erre nay because she must erre looks upon every man with an eye of Meekness If he erre she is Light if he sin she is a Physician and is ready to restore him with the spirit of Meekness And thus much for the Object of Meekness We proceed now to that which was in order next and as we have drawn forth Meekness in a compleat piece in her full extent and latitude so will we now in the last place propose her to you as a Virtue 1. most proper 2. most necessary to a Christian By which degrees and approaches we shall press forward towards the mark even the reward of Meekness the inheritance of the earth Of these in their order Meekness we told you is that virtue by which we may better know a Christian than by his name And this the very enemies of Christianity have acknowledged Vide ut se invicem diligunt Christiani was a common speech among the Heathen See how the Christians love one another when they broke the laws of Meekness and did persecute them Male velle malè facere malè dicere malè cogitare de quoque ex aequo vetamur To wish evil to do evil to speak evil to think evil are alike forbidden to a Christian whose profession restraineth his will bindeth his hand tacketh up his tongue to the roof of his mouth and curbeth and fettereth his very thoughts For as we are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without a Head so if we will be members we must be suppled with that oyl of Meekness which distilleth down from our Head Christ Jesus He came not saith Tertullian into the world with Drum and Colours but with a Rattle rather not with a noise but like the rain into a fleece of wooll not destroying his enemies but making them his friends not as a Captain but as an Angel and Ambassador of peace not denouncing war but proclaiming a Jubilee and with no sword but that of the Spirit Look upon all the acts of our Saviour whilst he conversed on earth amongst men and we shall find they were purely the issues of Tenderness and Meekness He went about doing good As he cured mens bodies of diseases so he purg'd their souls of sin When he met with men possessed though with a Legion of Devils he did not revile but dispossess them he rebuked the Devil but not the man His mouth was so filled with the words of meekness Thy sins are forgiven thee that he seldom spake but the issue was comfort He pronounced indeed a woe to the Pharisees and so he doth to all sinners For Woe will follow the Hypocrite whethersoever he goeth though it be not denounced a Wce to drive them from sin to repentance not a curse but a precept to fright them from that woe which he denounced It is but pulling off the visour casting away their hypocrisie and the Woe will vanish and end in a blessing He called Herode a Fox for as God he knew what was in him and to him every wicked person is worse then a beast No Fox to Herode no Goat to the Wanton no Tiger to the Murderer no Wolf to the Oppressour Obstinate sinners carry their Woe and curse along with them nor can they fling it off but with their sin And Christ's profession was to call sinners to repentance When the Reed was bruised he broke it not and when the flax did smoke he quench'd it not As he hath a Rod for the impenitent and it is the last thing he useth so he cometh in the spirit of Meekness and openeth his arms to receive and imbrace them that will meekly yield and bow before him and repent and be meek a 〈…〉 is meek Now our Saviviour is disciplina morum the way and the truth And that gracious way which it hath pleased him to tread himself before us the very same he hath left behind to be gone by us and hath ordered a course of religious and Christian worship which consisteth in Meekness and sweetness of Disposition An incongruous thing therefore it is that he having presented to us the Meekness of a Lamb we should return the rage of a Lyon that he should speak in a still voice and we should thunder And this is most proper to Christianity and the Church For first what is the Church of Christ but a Congregation of meek ones We cannot bring Bears and Lyons and Tigers within that pale Quomodo colligemus as Tertullian speaketh How shall we gather them together jungantur tigribus ursi We cannot bring them together into one body and collection or if we do but as Sampson did his Foxes to look several waies We are told indeed that the Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard lie down with
Isa 11. 6. the Kid and the Calf with the young Lyon but it is when they are so cicurated and tame that a little Child shall lead them It is true the visible Church is made up of both For not only without as St. John speaketh but within are dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murtherers and idolaters Rev. 22. 15. as there were in the Ark of Noah both clean and unclean beasts In this Church is Cain as well as Abel Esau as well as Jacob Judas as well as Peter but they are no parts of that general Assembly no parts of the Church of the first-born which are written in heaven nor to be numbred amongst the spirits of just men made perfect That part of the Church which is thus militant in Earth shall never be triumphant in heaven Cruel Dives shall never be seen in Abraham's bosom nor the bloud-thirstie man in his armes who shed no bloud but his own and that for the sins of the world The Church which shall be saved was not planted in bloud or if it were it was in the bloud of a Lamb. It was built upon the Faith of Peter not upon his Sword When he used his sword he was commanded to put it up but his Faith was to be published to the whole World And if he had any grant or title to be the Head of the Church it was not for cutting off Malchas's ear but for laying down his own life for the Faith Many Notes have been given of the true Church by those who acknowledge none but their own notes which shew her not Multitude of true believers Why the number is but small Infallibility It is an error to think so Antiquity The Church that is now ancient was once new and by this note when it was so it was no Church Continuance to the end of the world We believe it but it is no note for we cannot see it Temporal felicity This is oftner seen in the Tents of Kedar than at Jerusalem in a band of Souldiers than in the Church which winneth more conquests in adversity than in prosperity and worketh out her way to glory in her own bloud These are Notes quae nihil indicant which shew nothing Trumpets that give an uncertain sound But if I should name Meekness as a note of the true Church I should have a fairer probability to speak for me than they For meek men if they be not of the Church yet are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven But a meek Christian is entitled not only to the earth but to heaven also The Church is a Church though her Professours be but of yesterday and though they fall into error And though it be in tribulation yet still it is a Church yea it is never more glorious then in persecution But without meekness it cannot be a Christian Church no more then a man can be a man without a soul For Meekness if it be not the essence of the Church yet is a property which floweth from its very essence For that Faith is vain which leaveth malice or rancour in the heart A Christian and a Revenger if they meet together in the same person the one is a Box of poyson the other but a title Again in the second place our Reason will tell us that Meekness is most proper to Christianity and the Church because humane Reason was too weak to discover the benefit the pleasure the glory of it Nor was it seen in its full beauty till that Light came into the world which did improve and sublime and perfect our Reason To humane Reason nothing can seem more unreasonable more unjust then To love an enemy To surrender our coat to him that hath stript us of our cloak To return a blessing for a reproach and anoint his head with oyl who hath stricken us to the ground This is a new Philosophy not heard of on earth till she was sent down from heaven On earth it was A blow for a blow and a curse for a curse Dixerit insanum qui me totidem audiet If injuries be meted out unto us we mete them back again in full measure pressed down and running over Revenge is counted an act of Justice the Pythagoreans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reciprocation of injuries And what need any other law then our Grief or our Anger or where should Justice dwell but on the point of our Sword 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was the law of Rhadamanthus It is equity that he that doth should suffer what he doth and he that suffereth should return it in the same kind When those brethren in evil having slain Hamor and Shechem and spoiled their City were rebuked by their Father Jacob they were ready with this plea Should he deal with our Sister as with a Harlot No sooner is the blow given Gen. 34. 31. but the first thought is to second and return it and Nature looks upon it as upon an act of Justice In the world it goeth thus All Power and Dominion and Justice is tyed to the hilts of our Sword which if we can wield and manage dextrously with skill and success that which otherwise had been an injury is made a law The Turk to settle and establish his Religion as he first built it in bloud so giveth way to every thing that best sorteth with humane corruption to make it easie that men may not start back for fear of difficulties and as he wrought it out with his Sword so his best argument for it as it is most times in a bad cause is his Sword The Philosophers cryed down Revenge yet gave way to it chid their Anger yet gave it line thus far And both Tully and Aristotle approve it But Munit nos Christus adversus Diaboli latitudines saith Tertullian Christian discipline is a fense to keep us from these latitudes and exspatiations and pointeth out to the danger of those sins which the Heathen commended for virtues Many indeed have dealt with these precepts of our Saviour as skilful cooks do by some kind of meats which of themselves are but harsh and unpleasant cooked and sawced them to make them savoury dishes For when we see our journey long and full of rubs and difficulties we phansie something that may both shorten and level it and make it more plain and easie then indeed it is Christ our Master is so great an enemy to Murder and would have us so far detest it that he hath not suffered us to be angry Now the interpretation is We must not be angry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without a cause And this emboldneth us to plead for our Wrath as Jacob's sons did when it is cruel and upon this very colour that there is good reason we should be angry For be the storm never so high be our anger never so raging yet we can pretend a cause and that cause we pretend as just otherwise we would not pretend it For who would pretend
is most deceitful This makes Gods and sets up Idols in it self and then worships them And this is the reason why Christ is so much mistaken why the Gospel of Christ receives such different entertainment Every man layes hold on it wrests it to his own purpose works it on his own anvil and shapes it to his own phansie and affections as out of the same mass Phidias made a Goddess and Hysippus a Satyr Oh beloved how many lye buried under Prejudice corrupt and putrefied and even stinking in the nostrils of God and man not to be awak'd till the last Trump All exhortations all reproofs all admonitions all reason all truth is to them but as a mess of pottage set upon a dead mans grave the tongue of Men and Angels but as sounding brass How do they rejoyce in iniquity triumph in evil confirm themselves in wicked practises What a paradise to they plant in Tophet what a Heaven do they make in Hell it self How busie are they to sanctifie and glorifie their error What shift do they make to make themselves the Devils Children seven times more then they are How do they argue and dispute themselves into hell That which is a reason against them is made a reason for them that which strikes at their error is made to uphold it that which checketh them spurs them that which binds them sets them loose that which bids them Touch not Taste not is to them as the voice to Peter Acts 10. Rise kill and eat Where Prejudice bears rule every thing must bow every sheaf every occasion every occurrence must fall down before it If it be adversity it is an argument if good success it is an argument What shall I say In the next world it is Holiness but in this it is Prejudice it is Covetousness it is Ambition that makes Saints So dangerous was Prejudice and Prae-conceit to the Disciples that no words no miracles of Christ could root it out but it grew up in them and spread it self into Thoughts and Questions which are as the boughs of it till a sound from heaven till a mighty rushing wind till fiery tongues beat it down and consum'd it So dangerous was it to the Jews that it had been better for them to have been utterly ignorant of their Messias For this gross Praeconceit of their Messias was yet the main reason that they entertained him not when he came because he came in a posture so contrary to their expectation so unlike that Christ which they had set up already in their minds So dangerous a thing is a Prepossessed mind to it self And therefore it well concerns us as Chrysostome speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to quiet and slumber these imaginations these absurd reasonings and dialogues which we make within our selves For why should such thoughts arise in our hearts such thoughts as will shut out better such thoughts of a temporal as will deprive us of an eternal Kingdom such thoughts of goodness as will make us worse then the beasts that perish And it well concerns us to be jealous and suspicious of our selves For Jealousie and Suspicion though in other matters it be a disease that no Physician can cure yet in respect of our Souls is a seasonable medicine full of efficacy and virtue We cannot be too jealous of our own salvation My jealousie of my Honor may draw on destruction my jealousie of my Money may invite a thief my jealousie of my wife may provoke her to folly but my jealousie of my Soul doth enoble and enrich it and present it a pure Virgin unto Christ Let us then be afraid of our own thoughts and take heed of all prejudicate conceits In the second place since the Divel made use of this error of the Disciples and attempted them there where they were most open to him let us as wise Captains use to do double our watch and be careful to strengthen that part which is weakest and most assaylable as Galen counsels where the Affections are contrary first wrestle with that which is most prevalent and overcome it that we may find our work the easier and less trouble to bring the rest in subjection For Beloved as tentations work by the Sensitive part upon the Rational so they have a diverse operation according to mens several constitutions and complexions Every man is not equally prone to every sin This ravisheth the eye of one which another will not look on This man liketh that which another abhorreth He that made the Devil fly at the first encounter may embrace him at the next He that stood out with him in Lust may yield to him in Anger He that defied his Mammon may stoop at his Kingdomes He that would none of his Bread may feed himself with his Ayre He that feard not the roaring of the Lion may be overcome with the subtilty of the Serpent A man of a heavy and sluggish disposition is seldome ambitious a man of lively and nimble spirits is seldome idle As hard a matter it is for some men to commit some sin as it is for others to avoid it as hard for the Fool in the Gospel to have spent his estate as for the Prodigal to have kept it We see this man wondring at his brother that he should fall into such or such a sin and the other wondring as much at him how he should fall into the contrary Therefore the Devil who observes how we are elemented and composed hath his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Macarius his divers back-doors out of which he may slip and return at pleasure and if his first bait be distastful come again and present another which will fit our taste and palate If the Disciples leave all and follow Christ he will try them with Honor and teach them to dream of a Kingdome even in the School of their Master It will concern us then to take pains and go down and meet him at this door at that door which he is most likely to enter If it be the Eye shut it up by covenant If it be the Ear stop it and be those Addars which will not hear his charmes If it be our Taste deny it If it be our Appetite be harsh to it If it be our Phansie watch it and bind it up For if this was done to the green tree the Disciples of Christ if they were endangered where they were weakest what may not be done to the dry which is ready to catch and take fire at every spark of a tentation Let us then be ready and prepared and stand in our complete armour at that door which the Enemy is most like to attempt Let us put on the whole armour of God that we may be able to stand against every wile of the Devil especially against that wile which may soonest Ephes 6. 11. ensnare us Let me give you one Use more and so conclude this point Let us not seek the World in the Church nor Honors
who hath made himself to every good work reprobate It is not a feeble thought it is an active Charity that is the foundation of Hope Run to and fro through Jerusalem go about the streets thereof muster up together all that name the Lord Jesus and you shall find every man is full of Hope and then you may conclude that every man is charitable Whatsoever the premisses be whatsoever the actions of our life be most men make this the conclusion and dye in hope assure themselves of happiness by no better experience then that which Flesh and Bloud and the Love of our selves are ready to bring in They fill themselves with Hope when they are full of nothing but Malice and Envy and Uncleanness of which we are told that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdome of heaven And what Hope what assurance is this An assurance without a warrant an Hope which only we our selves have subscribed to with hands full of bloud a Hope which is no hope but a cheat a delusion presenting us nothing but heaven when we are condemned already It is true that Hope is a fair tye and pledge of what we shall enjoy hereafter but it is not then the work of the Phansie but of the Heart to be wrought out with fear and trembling and not to be taken up as a thing granted as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we cannot set up a pillar of Hope where there is no basis no foundation for it but a weak and feeble thought I know it is put up by some as a question Whether we ought to be assured of our salvation but it is but an impertinent question and not well put up For will any man ask Whether we ought to be in health and not rather Whether we ought to feed on wholsome meats and keep a temperate diet Beloved let us have Charity and Hope will as certainly follow and as naturally as Growth and Health do a moderate diet Otherwise to hope is a sin it is not Hope but Presumption For what Hope is that which looks towards Liberty and leaves us in chains that which promiseth life when we are children appointed to dye Let us then possess our hearts with Charity and Hope will soon enter in for they love to dwell and breathe together But it will not enter a froward and perverse heart for that will not receive it nor the heart of a Nabal for that is stone and will beat it back nor a heart that is fat as grease for it slips through it nor a Pharisee's heart for that is hollow and doth nothing but sound every thought is a knell and proclaimeth the fall of some in Israel None have less hope of others then they who presume for themselves None condemn more to hell then they whose feet are swift to shed bloud and who delight in those wayes which lead unto death Their very mercies are cruelty To put on the New man with them is to put off all bowels Every word they speak is clothed with Death And if Malice and Deceit and Uncharitableness lead not thither I may be bold to say There is no Hell at all They who make God as cruel as themselves do destiny men to destruction only because he will and to build up men on purpose to ruin them for ever that make the Wickedness of men depend on the antecedent will of God absolutely and irresistibly efficacious They are their own words that say that God doth work all things in all men even in the reprobate that the Induration and Incredulity of men is from the Praedestination of God as the effect from the cause that God calls men to salvation who are condemn'd already that though the elect which are themselves fall into adultery murder treason and other crying sins yet they fall not from grace but still remain men after Gods own heart when they do the works of their father the Devil These are they whose words are as sharp swords to cut off their brethren from the land of the living These men breathe forth nothing but hailstones and coals of fire but death and destruction These make a bridge for themselves to Happiness but pluck it up to their brethren These are in heaven already and shut it up that none else may enter Certainly a new way to heaven never yet discovered by the King of Heaven who hath put the keys into the hand of Charity who may boldly enter her self and who also is very willing to let in others who brings forth a Hope a Hope for our selves and a Hope for others Whoso makes haste to perfection is very willing to forward others in the way he calls upon them he waits on them he expects when they will move forwards and though they move not yet he hopes still Charity which brought down Christ from heaven lifts us up unto that holy place and we are never carried with more delight then when we go with most company there to joyn with the quire of Angels and to sing praises to the God of Love for evermore We love God because he loved us first and for his loves sake we love every man And now what is our Hope but that together with others we may have our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul in his eternal and everlasting glory The Ninth SERMON PSALM LI. 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation IN these words we have 1. an Act Restore 2. an Agent God Restore thou 3. the Person suing David unto me 4. the blessing sued for the joy of God's salvation Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation David as the Title sheweth us being awakened by Nathan out of the slumber wherein he had long layn after his foul fact with Bathsheba penned this Psalm and published it a truly Penitential Psalm full of humble and hearty acknowledgments of sin and of earnest petitions for mercy and for assurance of God's favour His great fall had so bruised him that he felt no ease or comfort all was discomposed and out of tune his soul cast down and disquieted within him his heart broken his spirit wounded And a wounded spirit who can bear Hence it is that he prayeth with such vehemence Prov. 18. 14. and fervencie that God would be pleased in great merey to blot out all his transgressions and to wash and cleanse him from his sins and iniquities that he would not cast him away from his presence nor take his holy spirit from him and here in my Text that he would restore unto him the joy of his salvation But however these last expressions may seem to be the breathings of a disconsolate spirit and of one even out of hope yet we must not think that this man after God's own heart this great Saint though grievously fallen was quite fallen from grace and that his faith had now utterly failed and was extinguished No Faith can never be lost Or rather if it
us in the ways of righteousness and in that course which leads to bliss much less to drive us out of the way What though there be signs in the Sun and Moon and Stars must my light therefore be turned into darkness must my Sun set at noon and my Stars those virtues which should shine in my soul fall out of their sphere and firmament What though the Seas roar and make a noise shall my impatience be as loud And if they break their bounds must I forget mine What though there be a Famine in the land must I make my Soul like unto the season lean and miserable What though there be wars and rumors of wars must I be at variance with my self and bid defiance to the Lord of hosts What though my friends betray me must I deceive my self And if the World be ready to sink must I fall into Hell Nay rather when we see these things come to pass when these signs come to pass let it be that we do as occasion serves us for God is with us in these signs Let 1 Sam. 10. 7. them be as Signs to us perswading signs Let them have the commanding eloquence of Signs Let them not be as Shadows which pass by us and we regard them not but let them be signa significantia signs that signifie something signs to represent something to our Understanding and so make an impression on our Wills Let them be as the Voice of God calling us out of Egypt into a land flowing with milk and honey Let them be as the Finger of God and let us follow in that way the line is drawn Let them be as a Hand of God and let us humble our selves under his mighty hand Let them be the great Power of God and let us fall down and worship that so we may in his signis signari with these signs be signed and sealed up to the day of our redemption When the Sun is darkned think it is to upbraid thy ignorance and learn to learn to abound more in knowledge and all Phil. 1. 9. judgment When the Moon shall be turned into bloud think it is to chide thy Cruelty and put on the bowels of mercy and loving kindness When the Col. 3. 12. Stars fall from heaven the professors of truth speak lyes do thou stand fast in the faith When the powers of heaven are shaken when there be many sects and divisions do thou keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace Ephes 4. 3. every mans brother if he will and if he will not every mans brother If the Plague break in do thou purge the plague of thine own heart and keep thy self unspotted of the world If there be a Famine in the land do thou fill thy self with the bread of life as with marrow and fatness If Banners be displaid as signs as the Psalmist speaks let them be as signs to thee to fight against thy lusts When Parents and Brethren and Kinsfolk are false do thou look up to thy Father in heaven who is truth it self When the World is ready to sink do thou raise thy self with expectation of eternal glory This constancy this resolution this behaviour Christ requires at our hands and it will be in vain to plead impossibilities For could these men under Nature go so far and cannot we who are under Grace do so much Could they think that nothing without them could hurt them and shall fear nothing more then that which is without Good God! how comes it to pass that Nature should bear more sway in a Pagan then the Grace of the Gospel in a Christian Or have we disputed and trifled Grace out of its power or hath our abuse of Grace swallowed even Nature and Reason it self up in victory Tanti vitrum quanti margaritum Were these men so rich that they could bestow so much upon a trifle upon a toy of glass and cannot we who are under Grace give the same price for a rich Jewel When Themistocles was leading forth his army by chance he past by where Cocks were fighting and shewing them to his Souldiers Lo saith he these have neither altars nor temples nor children to fight for and you see how stoutly they fight for no other end but who shall be the conqueror And to this end have I shewn unto you the examples of these Heathen men as Themistocles did the Cocks to his Army For these men nec aras habebant neque focos They were without Christ in the world received not the promises neither saw they them so much as afar off saw not so much as a glimering of that Light which lightneth every man that commeth into the world Of immortality and eternal life they knew little What was their hopes what was their end As for Heaven and Hell their knowledge of them was small Yet their stomach and courage was such that we who are Christians hear it only as a tale and can scarcely believe it Beloved I speak this to our shame For a great shame it is that Nature defamed Nature should more prevail with them then God and Grace with us that they by the power of their Reason should stand the strongest assault and shock of misery and we run away affrighted from the very phansie and shadow of it For to whom more is given of them more shall be required And if we Christians cannot look undauntedly when we see these things come to pass how shall we behold the Heavens gathered together as a Scrowl the Elements melted and the Earth burnt up how shall we be able to hear the trump and the voice of the Arch-angel If we cannot look up and lift up our heads when we see these things with what face shall we meet our Saviour in the clouds Therefore as our Saviour in this Chapter exhorts v. 19. let us possess our souls with patience Let us withdraw our souls from our bodies our minds from our sensual parts that what is terrible to the eye may have no such aspect on the mind and what is dreadful to the ear may be as musick to the spirit and what wounds and torments the body may not touch the soul that so we may be what we should be our selves our own Lords in our own possession that Christ at his coming may find us not let out to Pleasure not sold to this Vanity nor in fetters under that fear nor swallowed up in that Calamity nor buried in the apprehension of those evils which shall come upon this generation but free in Christ alive in Christ active making these our adversaries friends these terrors blessings these signs miracles by Christs power working light out of darkness plenty out of famine peace out of these wars that at his second coming he may find us looking up upon him and lifting up our heads waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body that so we may be caught up together in the clouds and be for
for a truth They are not of the world even as I am not of the world saith Christ John 17. 16. of his Disciples A Christian is no more of the world then Christ himself I have chosen you out of the world which is in a manner a drawing them John 15. 19. out into the Wilderness I have chosen you out of the world to hate and contemn it to renew and reform it to fight against the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all that is in the world 1 John 2. 16. St. John the beloved Disciple who leaned on Christs breast was nearest to him and learned this doctrine from him exhorts us not to love the 1 John 2. 15. world nor the things of this world And not to love it here is to hate it and Hatred is as a wing to carry us away in haste into some wilderness from that thing we hate If we hate the world we shall not endure to look upon it much less to stay and dwell in it or build a tabernacle here Love not the world Fly afar off and retire not only from those sins and vices which all men know and confess to be so which are branded with a mark and carry their shame in their forhead but even from those deviations and enormities which by the profit and advantage they bring have gained some credit and repute amongst men have not only scaped the stroke of reprehension but are crowned with praise and because they thwart not the statutes of Omri and may consist with the laws of men are new Christians as it were and have the names of those virtues given them which are perfect and consummate in that obedience alone which is due to the Gospel of Christ and to the Law of God Love not the world is a sequestring a kind of deportation a banishment of us not only out of the world but out of the confines and borders of it even from that which weak Christians and not yet perfect men in Christ judge to be no part of the World Love it not look down upon it crucifie it as St. Paul did By the virtue of Christs cross I am crucified to the world The World looks Gal. 6. 14. down upon me with scorn and contempt and indignation And the world is crucified unto me I look down upon it with the like scorn and contempt I pass by it and revile it and wag my head I look upon it as upon a dead corpse which I must not touch as upon a crucified thief who is expos'd to shame To conclude this As Christ withdrew himself from the City and multitude into the Wilderness so doth the Christian withdraw himself from the World He is not of the World he is chosen out of it he loves it not but looks upon it as upon a dead carrion and crucified carkase a loathed object an abomination which threatens not only the ruin of the Temple but even of Christianity it self And this will be more evident if we consider the nature either of Man that is led or of the Spirit that leadeth us Man being elemented and made up in this world to look towards another and the Spirit of God being a lover of Man a lover of the image of God and ready to lead him out For first as Man when he builds a house first sits down and consults what use he shall put it to so God the Creator of the world who made the world for mans sake made up Man also to be made an ensample of his Wisdome and Goodness made him to worship him chalked out his way beckon'd and called lowd after him to follow him in that way that so at last as it were by so many steps and degrees by the example of his Son and the conduct of his Spirit he might bring him out of the world unto himself I have made thee I have created thee I have formed thee for my Isa 43. 7. glory saith God by his Prophet to communicate my goodness and wisdome to make thee partaker of the Divine nature to make thee a kind of God upon earth by which according to thy measure and capacity thou mayest represent and express God In homine quicquid est sibi proficit There is nothing in Man which is not advantageous to him which may not help to carry him through this world to the region of Happiness We cannot doubt of his better part his Soul for that being heavenly and a spark as it were of the Divine nature cannot but look upward and look forward too upon its original must needs be ashamed and weary of its house of clay and be very jealous of the World which is but a prison and hath greater darkness and heavier chains to bind and fetter the Soul it self And therefore when it looks on the World and reflects and takes a full view of it self and considers that huge disproportion that is between the World and an immortal Soul you may find it panting to get out As the hart panteth after the rivers of water so panteth my soul after thee O God saith David and When shall I appear before the living Lord Now was David recollected and retired into himself now was he in his wilderness communing with his own heart We cannot doubt of the Soul whilst it is a soul and not made fleshy immersed and drowned in sensuality If it be not led by the Flesh but lead it self out of the world it will and return to its rest to its retirement But then even the body being thus animated with such a soul may help forward the work Glorifie God in your 1 Cor. 6. â—0 body saith St. Paul Not only withdraw your Souls but your Bodies also out of the world For as God breathed in the Soul so his hands have made and fashioned the Body and in his book are all our members written He made Psal 139. 16. the whole man both Soul and Body and built it up as a Temple of his blessed Spirit And if the Soul be the Sanctuary the Body is the Porch and his hand moves from the inward parts to the outward from the Sanctum sanctorum to the very door and entrance What is there almost in this our retirement from the World which is not done by the ministry of the body Our Fasting our Prayers our Alms haec de carnis substantia immolantur Deo these are all sacrificed to God of the substance of the flesh What is Martyrdome That certainly is a going out of the world And this advantage we have above the Angels themselves We can dye for Christ which the Angels cannot do because they have no bodies So that you see the end for which Man was made and sent into the world was to be ever going out of it His natural motion and that which becomes him as Man is to move forwards Which motion is
by care and serious endeavours Man may bring himself nearer and nearer to Immutability and be so good that he can hardly be otherwise ther good This our Arch-enemy well knows and therefore doth ipsis repugnare seminibus fight against our beginnings He is that fowl of the ayr which picks up our seed He is that enemy which sets upon us in primis finibus when we first set footing in the holy land He will divert our look stop our profer nè sit inceptio vehemens that there may be no strength no activity in our first endeavors no heat no solidity but that they may melt before his tentations as Snow doth before the fire that we may think that Christianity is a beginning a profession and no more that if we name Christ it is enough though we do not love him if we call upon God it is sufficient though we do not worship him if a voice hath come down from heaven if God hath shewn us any grace and favor we shall do well enough though we blaspheme him every day To conclude therefore As our care must be obstare principiis to stay the Devils beginnings so it will concern us firmare principia to confirm our own Fides ut nativitas non accepta sed custodita vivificat Faith as our Nativity doth quicken and enliven us not by being received but by being kept We believe as we are born We grow up from age to age from virtue to virtue unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ Therefore as our profession must be sincere so it must be resolute against this Enemy to comfort and fence and strengthen our beginnings Vera virginitas nihil magìs timet quà m semeteipsam saith Tertullian Pure and undefiled Virginity is afraid of nothing more then of it self So say I of our Christian Profession If it be true and sincere it will fear nothing so much as it self and is therefore watchful to observe the wiles and enterprises of that cunning enemy whose pride it is to take us in our altitudes to meet us coming out of the Font to be near us when we publickly defie him to take of our chariot wheels to slug and weaken our resolutions that we who talk so big against him when the time of encounter comes may not be willing to strike a stroke For he never fears when our best weapons against him are words O what a sad and uncouth sight it is to see the name of Christian lead in the Front and a legion of sins follow after to see a Christian come out of the Font and then take the weapons of Righteousness and fill the world with violence and iniquity to see a man begin in the Spirit and end in the Flesh prest out to fight against the Devil and the World and yet a slave to the Devil and the World all his life to see Christianity made a pillow to sleep on in the midst of a tempest in the midst of those sins which crucifie Christ to see Christs name never made use of but against himself so many not casting out Devils in that name but in that name silling the world with subtilty and deceit A good profession and a profane Conversation is the greatest contradiction in the world Let us be sure then to strengthen our beginnings that they may beget a continued uninterrupted course of piety like unto themselves that all the parts of our life may resemble each other that beginning well nothing may hinder us but that we may continue so unto the end that a good beginning may not accuse our bad ending nor a bad end disgrace a good beginning that Christ may be Alpha and Omega the first and the last in all our actions that he may lead us forth and that in his name we may tread down all our Enemies under our feet that Christ may be both in the beginning and end of our life advantage that the Spirit which first taught us to cry Abba Father may seal us up to the day of our Redemption The Six and Twentieth SERMON PART IV. MATTH IV. 1. to be tempted of the Devil IN all combates the first thing we inquire after is Who are the Parties that fight One of the Combatants here we find to be JESUS a Saviour our Advocate our Captain cujus auspiciis bellum geretur by whose conduct and advise we must enter the lists The Person who assaulted him is in the Text termed the Devil An Accuser stands up against an Advocate a Destroyer against a Saviour and he that is called the God of this world because he corrupted it against him who is truly the God of this world because he made it Nor can we doubt whether there be such a person or no as the Devil unless we will also doubt whether there be such a person or no as Jesus and so derogate from the truth of the story and make it less then a phantasine less then it had been done it a vision Nobis curiositate non opus est post lesum Christum When the words of Scripture are plain and positive Curiosity and Infidelity though they differ in name yet are but one and the same thing And when Phansie drawes Doctrines out of Scripture instead of visions it presents us with dreams Nor hath the Devil a more poysonous tentation then that which pours into our hearts a perswasion that there is no Devil at all Yet there have been found and now are those who profess Christian religion and yet are of opinion that what is delivered of the Devil in Scripture and of his tentations is not to be understood as if there were any such spiritual substance to which we truly attribute these but that it is a figurative kind of speech fitted to that which the vulgar or common people believe that there is nothing which solicitates us to sin but our own Lusts and Concupiscence which by them by a wonderful kind of Prosopopoeia or feigning of the person is called the Devil as St. James teacheth us where laying down the manner how we are tempted he makes no mention of a person but attributes all to our Concupiscence which is called in other places the Devil the adversary which accuseth us before God that Sin alone is the Serpent which deceives us the Lyon that roars against us and the Dragon which devours us that only Sin is an Accuser And this St. Bernard seems to lay to the charge of Petrus Adailardus Epist 190. where he calls him Quintum Evangelistam the fifth Evangelist that saw more then any of the four But this is but commentum humani ingenii a fiction of fancyful men the work of the brain and may be well entitled to the Devil himself who is the Father of lyes By the same art and skill they may if they please make the whole Scripture an allegory since we find nothing more historically and plainly delivered then this That there is a
an angry Power and an offended Majesty Inviderat quia doluerat saith Tertullian He did envy us because he was grieved and his Pain increaseth with his Malice The first desire which threw him down was That he might be God and the next when he was fallen That there should be no God at all And being now in chains of everlasting darkness he hates that light which he cannot see And since God himself is at that infinite distance from him so full of power and majesty that his Malice cannot reach him he opposeth himself to the works of his hands and seeks to destroy him in his image as the poor man when he could not get his enemy into his hands whipt his statue Being much troubled saith Tertullian that God had given Man dominion over the works of his hands in Dei imagine quo sit in Deum odio ostendit he manifests his hatred to God in his image which he strives to deface Some think he envied the Hypostatical Union but this conjecture is not probable Most certain it is his extreme Misery enrageth his Malice and his Malice whets his Will and endeavors and maketh him very subtle to invent strange stratagems by which if we be not very wary he will steal our names from Christ to whom we have given them up and put them in his roll Nor is the working of his Malice hindred by the bad effect it produceth For the more he suffers the more malicious he is and the more malicious he is the more he suffers He grieves and is troubled that Men built up of flesh and bloud should keep the love of God on earth which he being a glorious Spirit lost in heaven that mortal Man should ascend to that pitch of happiness from whence he being an immortal Angel was flung down And though he know that his pains are increased by the condemnation of those whom he hath prevailed with to sin yet he strives to increase the number though with the increase of his pains and is content to suffer more so that more may suffer with him Nor need we wonder that the Devil who is so subtle a Serpent fails in such a point of wisdome For as his Subtlety and Wisdome is great so is his Malice which even in Man doth darken the eye of Reason and makes the Devil every day more a Devil to himself so that though he be very cunning to bring souls unto punishment yet he hath no wisdome to keep off the increase of it from himself Very busie he is to frame his accusations though when we come to the barr he must also be condemned as accessory Now as these two Malice and Envy which we have joyntly handled and together because they are so like are as inward incitements unto the Devil to accuse us so also is his Pride For he is king over all the children of pride as Job speaketh And this may be one cause though not the chief why he cannot repent Hoc vitio misericordiae medicina respuitur This is the sin which shuts down the portcullis to Mercy So that if God should have provided a plaster for his Malice his Pride would have refused it Infelix superbia dedignatur sub praeceptis coelestibus vivere Such is the infelicity of Pride that it can never be induced to be brought unto obedience of the heavenly commandments This was the sin which pluckt off his Angels wings and flung him down from heaven For not content to be no greater then he was he was made less then he was Ob hoc minus est quà m fuit quòd eo quod minus erat frui noluit saith Augustine Being not content to be an Angel of light he became a Devil and when heaven would not hold him unless he might be a God he was thrown into hell Nor is his Pride the less because his Malice is great For the Schools conclude that he preserved his naturals entire as his subtilty and agility He was a Spirit still and Pride as Malice proceeds from infirmity from decay And though we say that Pride as a moth will breed even in Humilities mantle yet it rather proceeds from our unnecessary gazing on it and misconstruing it then from the virtue it self The Devil is a spirit of an excellent essence and it cannot be said unto him saith the Father as it may be to Man Why art thou proud Dust and Ashes Again there be many sins which Men are subject to of which he cannot be actually guilty as Adultery Luxury Covetousness and the like therefore he is the bolder to accuse us And to this he incites us thinking his sin more hurtful to us then his punishment And this he is ready to lay to our charge that we as he have an ambition to be like unto the Highest and in every sin affect a kind of equality with God Still he would be as God our ruler and king the God of this world to lead or drive us at his pleasure And as God commands obedience that it may be well with us so doth he proclaim us rebels and since he cannot be our judge takes a pride in being our accuser Here his Art and Skill magnifieth it self that he can destroy what God was willing to save that he can make him hate what naturally he loved Here his Will and Eloquence is seen in drawing out arguments to which Man cannot answer in making our Sins our unrepented Sins cry louder then the Bloud of Christ in laying before Gods eyes those wounds which his mercy cannot heal Here he striveth to pluck God out of his throne by telling him he cannot be God and pardon such offenders Here he is wise and just still that Angel which would be equal with God Variis quisque causis ad accusandum compellitur There be divers causes saith Seneca which move men to accuse one another Some are spur'd on by Ambition others by Hatred some by Hope of reward But the Devils motives are his Malice and Envy to mankind and that which made him a Devil his Pride And now having shewed you the Devil as an Accuser we pass to the Application That we may learn to hate and detest that sin of Defamation lest if we leave our Brotherhood with our Advocate we get no better a Father then the Father of lies For we must not think the Devil is an Accuser only in defaming of us but also in teaching us to defame and accuse one another in speaking by us as he did by the Priests of his Temples and through our mouths breathing forth slanders as oracles He was an Accuser in the Jews and taught them to call Christ a wine-bibber a companion of publicanes and sinners to disgrace his Miracles and call them the works of Beelzebub He taught Elymas his own child as St. Paul calls him to pervert Acts 13. 10. the right wayes of the Lord. He taught the Heathen to call the first Christians Impostors and Traytors and Atheists to lay to
is light and to make that obscure which is plain and easie of it self That hath befallen Divinity which the Stoick complained of in Philosophy Fuit aliquando simplicior inter minora peccantes Divinity was not so perplext and sullen a thing till Ambition and Faction made her so The very Hereticks and Schismaticks saith St. Augustine Catholicam nihil aliud quà m Catholicam vocant When they speak with Pagans they call the Catholick Church that Society of men which are divided from all the world besides by the profession of Christ This very word Our Father is enough to express it But by contentious spirits it hath been made a matter of business and the business of the Will And in these times if we will follow private humors in those Meanders and Labyrinths which they make we may sooner go to heaven then find the Church Which like the Cameleon is drawn and shaped out by every phansie like unto it self Sometimes it is a Body but nec caput nec pedes it must have neither head nor feet Sometimes it is a Spirit rather than a Body so invisible we cannot see it Sometimes it is visible alone and sometimes invisible And so we may ecclesiam in ecclesia quaerere seek for the Church even in the Church it self Who knows not what the Church is The subject is plain and easie But where men walk several wayes the discourse must need be rugged and uneven They who would bring in an Anarchy and make all the members equal are droven to this shift also to keep the Church out of sight And they who would raise a Monarchy are forced to set it upon a hill So that in talking so much of that company of children which make the Church we have almost lost the Father nay the Pater Noster and can but hardly consent that God should be a Father to us both For to say so is an error and mistake of charity No how can God be our Father when the Church is not our Mother How can Schismaticks and Rebels against the Church have their fellowship and communion with the Saints How can he be a Christian who is not a Catholick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Poet Mothers were wont to call up Hobgoblings and Cyclops to still and silence their children And what is all this but powder without shot What are these terms of Church and Catholick and Communion as the Church of Rome urgeth them but words and noyse We can say Our Father for all this and joyn with them in prayer too if they will pray as Christ taught We communicate with them whether they will or no as far as they communicate in the truth But if the Church of Rome tender us errors for truth if she obtrude upon us a multitude of things for fundamentals which are only the inventions of men and no way concern our Faith here non fugamur sed fugimus we did not stay till she thrust us out but we were bound to separate our selves from partaking of those gross impieties which proceeded from the Father of lyes and not from our Father which is in heaven That she sent thunder after us and drove us out by excommunication when we were gone may argue want of charity in her but makes no impression of hurt upon us For what prejudice can come unto us by her excommunicating us whose duty it was to make haste and leave her unless you will say that that souldier did a doughty deed who cut off the legg of a man who was dead before I am sure we are the children of God by the surer side for we lay claim by the Father when they so much talk of their Mother the Church that they have forgotten their Father who alone begets us with the word of truth Quot palestrae opinionum quot propagines quaestionum Hence what a wrestling in opinions hath there been what propagations and succession of quaestions Where our Church was when we separated We need answer but this That it was there where it was For they who have God to their Father may be sure they have the Church to their Mother Nor can any who find the truth and embrace it miss of the Church This is one devise ready at hand to fright and amaze those who have not maturity of understanding to take heed of their deceit The other is like unto it and a most the same the Communion of Saints which is here implyed in these first words of our Pater Noster In both which vacua causarum implent ineptiis When their cause is so hollow and empty that it sounds and betrayes it self at the very first touch they fill it up with chaff They make it fuel for Purgatory They draw it to the Invocation of Saints They make it as a Patent for their sale of Pardons They give it strength to carry up our Prayers to the Saints and to conveigh their Merits to us on earth They temper it to that heat to draw up the bloud of Martyrs and the Works of Supererogating Christians into the treasury of the Church and then shower them down in Pardons and Indulgences So that he that reads them and weighs their proofs would wonder that men of great name for learning should publish such trash and make it saleable and more that any man should be so simple as to buy at their market It is say they the general property of the Church that one member must be helped by another Therefore one member may suffer punishment for another Again One man may bear anothers burden Therefore he may bear his brothers sin It were even as good an argument to say He is my Brother Therefore he is my Mediatour Nobis non licet esse tam disertis We Schismaticks dare not pretend to such subtilty and wit We are taught to distinguish between the duties of Charity and the office of Mediation The unction we have from the Head alone but the Members may anoint one another with that oyl of Charity Though I cannot suffer for my brother yet I may bear for him even bear his burden Though I cannot merit for him I may work for him Though I cannot satisfie for him I may pray for him Though there be no profit in my dust yet there may be in my memory in the memory of my conversation my counsel my example In this duty high and low rich and poor learned and ignorant all are equal All have one Father who hears the low as well as the high the poor as well as the rich and the ideot as well as the great clerk Nihil iniquius fide si tantùm in eruditos caderet Faith and Religion were the unjustest things in the world if no place were a fit habitation for them but the breast of a Rabbi or a Potentate No God is our Father and every man claims an equal title to him Licet parva rati portum subire In the smallest bark and weakest vessel we may sail
to the haven where we would be And we have winds from every point the prayers of the whole Church to drive us We have already shewed you what may raise our hope and confidence when we pray even the name of Father For what will not a father give to his children But we must now present God in his Majesty to strike us with fear that so our Fear may temper our Hope that it be not too saucy and familiar and our Hope may warm and comfort our Fear that it be not too chill and cold and end in Despair I dare speak to God because he is our Father but I speak in trembling because of his Majesty because he is in heaven And these two make a glorious mixture There be many things which in themselves may be hurtful yet being tempered and mixt together are very cordial and wholesome Fear and Hope which in their excess are as deleterial as poyson being compounded and mingled may be an antidote Fear bridles my Hope that I do not presume and Hope upholds my Fear that I do not despair Fear qualifies my Hope and Hope my Fear Hope encourageth us to speak Fear composeth our language Hope runs to God as a Father Fear moderateth her pace because he is in heaven We are too ready to call him Father to frame unto our selves a facile and easie God a God that will welcome us upon any terms but we must remember also that he is in heaven a God of state and magnificence qui solet difficilem habere januam whose gates open not streight at the sound of Pater noster Deum non esse perfunctoriè salutandum as Pythagoras speaks that God will not be spoken to in the by and passage but requires that our addresses unto him be accurate with fear and reverence Hope and Fear Love and Reverence Boldness and Amazement Confusion and Confidence these are the wings on which our Devotion is carried and towres up a loft till it rest in the bosome of our Father which is in heaven And now let us lift-up our eyes to the hills from whence cometh our salvation even to the throne of God and seat of his Majesty but not to make too curious a search how God is in heaven but with reverence rather to stand at distance and put-on humility equal to our administration not to come near and touch this mount for fear we be struck through with a dart Nunquam verecundiores esse debemus quam cùm de Diis agitur saith Aristotle in Seneca Modesty never better becomes us then when we speak of God We enter Temples with a composed countenance vultum submittimus togam adducimus we cast down our looks we gather our garments together and every gesture is an argument of our reverence Where the object is so glorious our eyes must needs dazle Gods Essence and Perfection is higher then heaven what canst thou do deeper than hell what canst thou know The measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the Sea Job 11. 8 9. What line wilt thou use De Deo vel verum dicere periculum We dangerously mistake our selves even when we speak the truth of God That God is that he is infinite and imcomprehensible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even our Fye will teach us and the very law of Nature manifest But how he is in heaven he is on the earth how every-where no mortal Eye can discern no Reason demonstrate If we could perchance utter it yet we could not understand it saith Nazianzene Crat. 34. if we had been ravisht with St. Paul into the Third heaven yet we could not utter it Indeed it is most true what Tertullian urgeth against Hermogenes Alium Deum facit quem aliter cognoscit He maketh another God who conceives of him otherwise then as he is But no river can rise higher than its spring and fountain nor can we raise our knowledge above that light which is afforded us God is infinite and the most certain kdowledge we have is that he iâ— infinite The light which we have is but lightning which is sudden and not permanent enough to draw us after him because we conceive something of him and enough to strike us with admiration because we conceive so little It fares with us in the pursuit of these profound mysteries as with those who labor in rich mines When we digg too deep we meet with poysonous damps and foggs instead of treasure when we labor above we find less metal but more safety Dangerous it is for a weak brain to wade too far into the doings of the Most high We are most safely eloquent concerning his secrets when we are silent How great God is What is his measure and essence and How it is in any place or every place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basile as it is not safe to ask so it is impossible to answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My sheep hear my voice saith Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THEY HEAR saith he not DISPUTE Yet how have men attempted to fly without wings and wade in those depths which are unfordable to dispute of Gods Essense his Immensity his Ubiquity of the Nature of Angels of their Motion of their Locality nay de loquutione Angelorum of their Language and how that they communicate their minds one to another When we ask them how the Body of Christ is seated in the Eucharist they will tell us that it â—s there as the Spirits and glorified Bodies are in the place which they possess Tertius è caelo cecidit Cato Have these men lately descended like a second Paul out of the third heaven and from thence made this discovery By what means could they attain to this knowledge What light have they in Scripture to direct them to the knowledge of the manner of location and site which Spirits and glorified Bodies have St Paul hath long since past his censure upon them They thrust themselves into things they have not seen and upon a false shew of knowledge abuse easie hearers and of things they know not adventure to speak they care not what The Philosopher will tell us that men who neglect their private affairs are commonly over-busie in the examining of publick proceedings They will teach Kings how to rule and Judges how to determine and are well skilled in every mans duty but their own The same befalls us in our pursuit of divine knowledge Did every man walk according to that measure of knowledge he hath we should not be so busily to find out more light to walk by Did we adde to our faith virtue and to our knowledge temperance we should not multiply questions so fast which vanish into nothing and when they make most noyse do nothing but sound quae animum non faciunt quià non habent which can give us no light and spirit because they have it not Did we enter that effectual door which lyeth open unto us our Curiosity would not
of our lives joyn these two Petitions together When our sins are forgiven Let us pray and labor too that we be not led into tentation And that for many reasons which we must duly weigh and consider as we tender the welfare and salvation of our souls First Remission and Forgiveness as it nullifies former sins so doth it multiply those that follow as it takes away the guilt from the one so it adds unto the guilt of the other and makes Sin over-sinful We are now Children and must not speak our former dialect words cloathed about with Death but our language and voice must be Abba Father and every action such a one as a Father may look upon and be well pleased And this first word of our Nativity as Cyprian speaks Our Father which art in heaven is as a remembrance to put us in mind that we have renounced all carnality and know only our Father which is in heaven Reatus impii pium nomen saith Salvian A good name is part of the guilt of a wicked man Our Religion which we profess will accuse us and that relation which we have to God will condemn us Plutarch said well I had rather a great deal men should say there were no such man as Plutarch than that they should say there was one Plutarch that would eat up his children as soon as they were born as the Poets speak of Saturn And better it were that it should be said we were no Christians than that we were Christians ready to devour one another Christians but adulterers Christians but malitious the children of God with the teeth of a Lion delighting in those sins which we abjure and every day committing that for which we beg pardon every day This consideration was it I suppose that caused divers Christians to do what some of the Fathers have condemned defer their Baptism And when they were baptized what a multitude of ceremonies did they use what prayers what geniculations what fastings what watchings First they breathed upon them thrice and thrice bad Satan avoid that Christ might enter Secondly they exorcised them that the evil Spirit might depart and give place Then they gave them salt that their putrid sins might be cleansed Then they touched their nostrils and their ears They anointed their breasts and their shoulders They anointed their head and covered it They put upon them white apparel They laid their hands upon them that they might receive the grace of the Spirit Of all which we may say as Hilary doth of Types Plus significant quà m agunt They had more signification than virtue or power and were intimations what piety is required of them who have given up their names unto Christ how foul Sin appears in him that is washed and how dangerous it is after reconcilement Now as in the conversation of men we cannot easily judge where Love is true and where it is feigned by a smile or by fair language or by the complement of the tongue or hand and therefore some opportunity some danger must offer it self by the undertaking of which our friendship is tryed as Gold is in the fire so we cannot judge of Repentance that it is true by an exterminated countenance by the beating of the breast by the hanging down of the head no not by our sighs and groans by our tears and prayers by our ingemination of DIMITTE NOBIS Lord Forgive us which many times are no better than so many complements with God than the flattery of our lips and hands But when temptations rush-in upon us when they threaten in afflictions when they smile upon us in the pleasures of the world then it will appear whether that which was in voto in our desires were also in affectu in our resolution And if we bear not this tryal we have no reason to be too confident of our Pardon Again if we sue for pardon of sin and then sin afresh we become more inclinable to sin then we were before It is more easie to abstein from the pleasures of Sin before we have tasted them then it will be afterwards as its harder to remain a widow then to continue a virgin harder not to look back toward Sodom after one hath left it then it would have been to have kept out of it at first That which is once done hath some affinity with that which is done often and that which is done often is near to that which is done alwayes God indeed in Scripture is said to harden mens hearts and some be very forward to urge those Texts yet Induration is the proper and natural effect of continuance in sin For every man saith Basil is shaped and formed and configured as it were to the common actions of his life whether they be good or evil Long continuance in sin causeth that which Theodoret calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reverberating heart an heart which is as marble to all the threatnings and promises of God it worketh in the sinner that difficulty and inability of resisting tentations that he becomes even a devil to himself and will fall without them And this may seem to fall as a just judgment of God on those who fix their eyes so steddily upon the Mercy-seat that they quite forget the two Tables who are all for the REMITTE but not at all for the NE INDUCAS very earnest for Remission of sins but faint and backward in resisting Tentations I will not deliver it as a positive truth but it is good for us to cast an eye of jealousie upon it as if it were so That there may be a measure of sins which being once full God will expect no longer a certain period of time when he will neither comfort us with his Mercy nor assist us with his Grace but deliver us up to Satan to his buffetings and siftings to his craft and malice deliver us up to Sin and to the Occasions of Sin that having held-out his hand all the day as the Prophet speaks he will now call them in again and as we mockt his patience laugh at our calamity Prov. 1. It is a sign of a pious mind to fear sometimes where no fear is and even in plano in the plainest way to suppose there may be a block to stumble at If it be not true it is a wholsome meditation to think the measure of our sin is so near full that the next sin we commit may fill it that there is a Rubicon set as to Caesar which if thou pass thou art proclaimed a Traitor a river Kidron as to Shimei which if thou go over thou shalt dye thy bloud shall 2 Kings 2. 37. be upon thine own head Now is the acceptable hour now is the day of salvation 2 Cor. 6. 2. and if thou art so dazled with the beauty of Mercy that thou canst not see death in a Tentation horror upon Sin to morrow will be too late And here in the last place as the case stands
must both smart together I went-out by thy Ears and Eyes and Hands and wandred abroad after forbidden objects and now being returned home I find my self naked It is evident then that the Senses of the Body are the Windows of the Soul and that through them Tentations make their entrance into the inward man Why do men disbelieve and impugn the word of God but because they measure Divine things by humane Sense and Experience Thus did Mahometism get a side presently and overflow the greater part of the world because it brought with it a carnal Paradise an eternity of Lusts and such promises as flattered the Sense to blindfold the Reason that it might not see its absurdities For the Turk destitute of truth and so not able to judge aright of Gods favours in this life casting an eye on the worldly miseries of Christians and puffed-up with his own victories condemneth the faith of Christ as displeasing to God because by reason of afflictions it is so unto the Flesh and preferreth and magnifieth his own for no other reason but that it is more attempered to the Sense and answerable to the desires of the Flesh The Atheist who hath no Religion at all no God but his own right hand and his arm no Deity but Policy is carried with the same respects to deny and despise the Providence of God For being earthly minded and even buried alive in the contemplation of the things of this world and seeing the wicked flourish as a green bay-tree and Innocence clothed with shame brought to the stake and the rack concludeth there is no God and derides his Patience and Justice because his Providence waiteth not upon his desires governs not the world as he would have it and is wanting sometime to his expectation Nay beloved how many are there of us who draw-out our Religion by this model and if Religion will not condescend and meet with our sensual Desires draw them up and mix and temper them with our Religion and if we do not find Religion fit to our humor we make one Christianity of it self is a severe and simple Religion and doth so little favour our fleshly part that it commands us to mortifie and kill it and yet how by degrees hath it been brought to joyn and conform it self to our Sense which lets-in those tentations which are the very seed out of which many monstrous errors are ingendred Of a severe Religion we have made it a sportful Religion an easie Religion a gaudy and pompous Religion of a doing active Religion a heavy Religion of a bountiful Religion we have made it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cheap and thriving Religion For from our Senses and fleshly desires have those corruptions and mixtures crept into Religion which carry with them a near likeness and resemblance to them Ambition hath brought-in her addition or defalcation and Covetousness hers and Wantonness hers and the Love of pleasures hath cast-in her poyson and all these have left their very mark and character in the doctrines of men Nor can I attribute it to any thing more than to this that we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 take our Senses from the world and sanctifie and consecrate them to God One would think indeed that Ambition and Covetousness and Sensuality were of a quite contrary strain and not competible with those more speculative errors For what can the Love of money or honor do to the stating of a question in Divinity But by the art and craft of the Devil these have been made tentations to error have been as the Popes claim runs infallible far more potent with us than an oecumenical Councel For these tentations of the World and the Flesh first strike the Sense with delight which by the help of the Phansie doth soon enflame the Affections and the Affections will soon build-up an opinion The Love of honor makes the Judgment follow it to that height and pitch which it hath markt-out My Love of money will gloss that Blessing which our Saviour hath annext to Poverty of spirit My Factions humor will strike at the very life and heart of Religion in the name of Religion and God himself and destroy Christianity for excessive love of Christ Every humor will venture upon any falshood which is like it There is nothing within the compass of our Sensual appetites which we are not ready to embrace and believe it to be true because we wish it so being advantageous and conducible to the end which we have proposed and set-up to our selves When Christians did revocare mentem à sensibus take and withdraw their Hand from those objects which were busie with the Sense when they were within themselves and framed their lives to the simplicity and plainness of the Gospel there was scarce the name of Heretick heard amongst them no contentions no exsecrations no thundring-out excommunications against one another But within a while this simplicity abated and the doctrine of Faith was made to give attendance on sensual humours that did pollute it Therefore the Heathen to make the Christians let go their hold and fall off from the acknowledgment of the truth did use the Devils method and laid before them temporal contentments and the sweetness of life Their common forms were CONSULE TIBI MISERERE TUI Have a care of your self Pity your self NOLI ANIMAM TUAM PERDERE Destroy not your own life They made large promises of honours riches and preferment And these Tertullian calls devillish suggestions But when they could not thus prevail when these shining and glorious tentations could not shake or move them then Tormenta carcer ungulae Stridénsque flammis larina Atque ipsa poenarum ultima Mors then torments were threatned the Hook and the Whip and the last of punishments Death it self And as Tentations inter ento the soul by the Senses so they look-out by the Eye Facies intentionum omnium speculum saith Tertullian The face is the glass wherein you may see the very intentions of the mind Anger Sorrow Joy Fear and Shame which are the affections of the heart appear in the countenance Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance Gen. 4. 6. fallen saith God to Cain When Esau was well pleased with Jacob Jacob tells him I have seen thy face as the face of God Habitus mentis in corporis Gen. 33. 10. statu cernitur saith St. Ambrose You may view the state of the soul in the outward man and see how she changes and alters by those outward motions and impressions which she makes in the body When the Soul of man liketh the object and apprehendeth it under the shew of good she kindleth and moveth her self to attain her desire and withal incenseth the spirits which warm the bloud enlarge the heart and diffuse themselves to embrace that good which is either in the approach or present And when she seeth evil which she cannot decline she staggereth and sinketh for fear which
may not only subdue and overcome it but turn it to our benefit and behoof that though with Samsons Lion it comes with open mouth to devour us yet we may kill it by degrees and find honey and sweetness in the belly of it This Flesh of ours is much blamed as being a prison of the Soul and a weight to press it down The Manichee observing that war which is betwixt it and the soul allowed it no better maker than the Devil but is solidly confuted by St. Augustine Gregory Nyssen calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fuliginous ill-savoured shop But all this will not make Tentations unavoidable or bring-in an Impossibility of prevailing against them Non enim caro suo nomine infamis saith Tertullian The Flesh is not ill-spoken of for it self Neque enim de proprio sapit aliquid aut sentit for it doth neither understand nor will but is of another substance another nature added and joyned to the Soul as an instrument in the shop of life Therefore the Flesh is blamed in Scripture because the Soul doth nothing without it Nor was it made to press us down to Hell but by the power of the soul to be lifted up into heaven Animus Imperator corporis The Mind hath supream power over the Body and is inthroned there the Body is made to be obedient and tractable to be reined and checked and guided by the Mind Whence Athanasius compares the Soul to a Musician and the Body to a Harp or Lute which she may tune and touch with that art and skill as that it may yield a pleasant and delightful harmony nunc pietatis carmen nunc temperantiae modulos as St. Ambrose speaks now a song of Sion a Psalm of Piety a coelestial Hymn and again the composed measures of temperance and chastity It was made for the Soul as Eve was for Adam in adjutorium not to tempt and seduce it but to be a helper What part almost is there of Christianity which is not performed by the ministry of the Body Hast thou a hand to take thy brother by the throat thou hast a Hand also to lift him out of the dust Hast thou an Eye to take in the adulteress thou hast an Eye also to pity the poor Hast thou a Tongue which is a sword to wound thy brothers reputation thou mayest if thou wilt make it thy glory and minister a word of comfort in due season Domus animae caro est inquilinus carnis anima The Body is the House of the Soul and the Soul the tenant and inmate of the Body Desiderabit ergò inquilinus ex causa hujus nominis profutura domui therefore the Soul is obliged by this very name as she is an inmate to watch over the Body and carefully to provide those things which may uphold and sustein it and not to put it to slavish and servile offices to let and hire it out to Sin and Uncleanness which will bring a fearful ruin both upon the house and the tenant cast both Body and Soul into hell Nè nobis ergò blandiamur quia Dominus consensit carnem esse infirmam nam praedixit spiritum esse promptum ut ostenderet quid cui esse debeat subjectum Let us not therefore saith Tertullian flatter our selves in sin because Christ hath told us that the Flesh is weak for he hath told us also that the Spirit is strong and thereby made it plain unto us which part should be subject to the other that we may not excuse our selves by the infirmity of our Flesh but uphold and establish our selves by the strength of the Spirit For tell me Why were we baptized why were we made Christians Was it not to mortifie our earthly members and lusts non exercere quod nati sumus to be in the body and out of the body to tame the wantonness of the flesh to make it our greatest care that the Flesh which is weak prevail not against the Spirit which is strong to fight against temptations and especially against the most dangerous tentation which perswade us that we are weaker than we are For I cannot see of what use this unseasonable consideration of our own weakness should be when the Lord of hosts is with us when he hath girded us with strength and power when he hath fitted us with all habiliments of war the Helmet of Salvation the Sword of the Spirit and the Shield of Faith when they that are with us are more and stronger than they which are against us You will say perhaps To humble us Indeed we cannot be too humble under the mighty hand of God but that is not Humility but baseness which humbles us under tentation This is the best use we commonly make of it We remember our weakness and that thought leads us captive makes us so humble as to crouch and fall at the foot of the enemy which will devour us This low conceit of our selves is the cause of all the errors of our life Desperatione debilitati experiri id nolunt quod assequi posse diffidunt saith Tullie As it is in Arts and Sciences so is it in our Christian warfare Nothing more weakens and disinables us than our Distrust and Diffidence in our selves and we never make a proffer or motion to do that which we presume we cannot do when as they who affect any great matter must try every way break through all opposition do what they can nay do more than they imagine they can do And as David went up against Goliath and ask'd Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defie the armies of the living God so should we buckle on our armor and draw near to the strongest tentation and defie it For what is this Tentation that it should stand up against the whole armour of God against those armies of the living God his many Precepts his many Promises the Examples of good men the Prayers of the Saints What are these Tentations that they should gain the victory over our Faith Are they principalities or powers or things present or things to come are they life or death they shall not be able to separate us from the love of God Thus may we overthrow them in the name of the Lord. We read in the Historian of Caligula the Emperour Nihil tam efficere concupiscebat quà m quod posse effici negaretur that he was most eager in attempting that which he knew before-hand could not be done And this no doubt was a great argument not only of pride but of folly in him But certainly it is a far more dangerous folly in a matter that so nearly concerns us as our everlasting welfare to frame to our selves an impossibility of doing that which we are bound to do which not to do is to undo and destroy our selves to think we are too weak to fight who have vowed to overcome To attempt that which I cannot do is but to lose my labor but not to do
it self or whatsoever may be disadvantageous unto us or that of St. Augustine who forgetting that he had made seven Petitions in his second Book upon the Sermon on the Mount makes this clause the same with the former bring nothing contrary to truth or indeed to this interpretation Having therefore shut-up and concluded all evil in him who is the Father of Evil we will 1. consider him first as an enemy to Mankind 2. lay-down reasons why he is so and why we should make preparation against him and 3. discover some Stratagems which he useth to bring his enterprises to pass And first that the Devil is our enemy we need not doubt For the Apostle hath openly proclaimed him so We wrestle not with flesh and Ephes 6. 12. bloud against Men as weak and mortal as our selves but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world that is against the Devil and his Angels against spiritual wickedness in high places that is as himself speaks in the second Chapter against those spirits which rule in the air And therefore St. Basil gives us 1. his Name which is SATANAS an adversary and DIABOLUS a Devil because he is both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fellow-worker with us in sin and when it is committed an accuser 2. his Nature He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 incorporeal 3. his Dignity It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a principality 4. the Place of his principality He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the air and is therefore called the Prince of this world His Anger is implacable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as immortal as himself not as Mans who is never angry but with particulars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as with Cleon and Socrates but not with man Satans Anger and Hatred is bent against the whole nature of Man Cùm sit ipse poenalis quaerit ad poenam comites Being even a punishment unto himself he would have all men with him come under the same lash And if he cannot win a Soul by invasion he attempts it by stratagem To this end as he makes use of Pleasure and Content so he doth of Affliction and Sorrow Operatio ejus est hominum eversio His very working and operation is nothing else but for the eversion and ruine of mankind Nec definit perditus perdere being fallen himself he would draw all men after him The bodies of men he plagueth with diseases and their souls with sudden and unusual distractions being able through the subtility and spirituality of his nature to work-upon both invisibilis in actu in effectu apparens invisible and insensible in the act but manifestly seen in the effect He cheated men with oracles struck them with diseases and pretended a cure desinens laedere curasse credebatur when he did not hurt them he was thought to have healed them By these arts he insinuated him self into the minds of ignorant men and at last was honoured with Temples and Altars and Sacrifices and gained a Principality and kind of Godhead in the world But now his Oracles are stilled his Altars beat down and he is driven out of his Temples But yet he is a Devil still and an Enemy and rules in the air and upon permission may make use of one creature to destroy another And his Power is just though his Will be malicious Quod ipse facere iniquè appetit hoc Deus fieri non nisi justè permittit What he wickedly desires to do that God may suffer justly to be done We will not not say that the evil Spirits visibly fight against us and try it out with fists as those foolish Monks in St. Hierom boasted of themselves that they had often tried this kind of hardiment with them to make themselves a miracle to the ignorant rout who are more taken with lies than with truth We are not apt to believe that story or rather fable in St. Hierome of Paul the Hermite who met the Devil first as a Hippocentaur next as a Satyr and last of all as a Shee-wolf or that of Hilarion to whom were presented many fearful things the roaring of Lions the noise of an Army and a chariot of fire coming upon him and Wolves and Foxes and Sword-players and wicked Women and I cannot tell what For it is scarce expressable what a creating faculty Melancholy and Solitariness and Phansie have ut non videant quae sunt videre se putent quae non sunt that when we do not see those things which are yet they make us believe we see those things which are not We will not speak of Spirits possessing the bodies of men Which power we cannot deny but they have Yet I am perswaded these after-ages have not frequently seen any such dismal effects The world hath been too much troubled with lies and many counterfeits have been discovered even in our times And for us Protestants we see no such signs no such wonders But these Devils are as common as Flies in Summer amongst them who boast of an art and skill they have in casting them out You would think they enterd men on purpose that these men might shew their activity in driving them away and so confirm and make good their Religion make themselves equal to those primitive Christians quorum verbis tanquam flagris verberati nomina aedebant who with their very words would make them roar as if they had been beaten with whips till they confest they were devils and did tell their names We may say of these in our daies as he doth of superstitious Dreams Ipsâ jam facilitate auctoritatem perdiderunt They are too common to be true And because so many of these strange relations have been manifestly false we may be pardoned if we detrect a little and believe not those few which are true For the mixture of fictions in many a good history hath many times made even Truth it self seem fabulous But yet though we suspend our belief and do not suddenly and hand over head subscribe unto these we are not like those Philosophers in Tully qui omnia ad sensus referebant who referred all to their senses and would believe no more than what they did see For these evil Spirits may be near us and we see them not they may be about our paths and we discern them not Many effects of theirs no doubt we may see and yet can have no assurance that they were theirs For that light of their intellectual nature is not put-out but they know how to apply active qualities to passive and diversly upon occasion to temper natural causes being well seen and versed in the book of Nature And this knowledge of theirs is enlarged and advanced by the experience of so many thousand years and their experience promoted and confirmed by an indefatigable and uncessant survey of the things of this world which is not stayed and held back by any pause or interval nor needs any repair or help by
and a Conquest to be gotten troubled at the one and yet upon the sight of the other concluding Not my will but thine be done And though the powers of our soul be shaken at the sight of these dreadful objects yet submit we our Desires and Fears to Gods most holy Will that as Christ so we may have some Angel some message of joy to comfort us in this our Agony But to descend to particulars First when we pray to be delivered from evil we acknowledge that God hath jus pleni dominii such a full power over us that he may if he please without any injustice deliver us up unto Satan as he did Job to be smitten from the sole of the foot unto the crown that he may withdraw his blessings and make us smart under the cross Peradventure we cannot see any thing in our selves to raise this storm For Affliction is not alwayes poena criminis a punishment for sin but sometimes examen virtutis a tryal of our virtue and patience I must not take every Calamity that comes towards me as a Sergeant to arrest me or as an Executioner to torment me but sometimes as a Schoolmaster to teach me as a Friend to admonish me as an Adversary indeed but sent only to me to try my skill Therefore as St. Augustine tells us that we do not pray NE TENTEMUR That we may not be tempted but NE INDUCAMUR that we be not led into tentation so led that we be shut up in it and swallowed up in victory so neither do we pray that no evil may befall us but that nothing may befall us which may make us evil which being evil to our Sense may be evil to our Souls that God would deliver us from them that they prove not unto us occasions of our destruction We are all to pray to God that he would take from us the occasion of Sin whether it be convenient or repugnant to our nature and constitution whether it be that which our Sense esteemeth good or evil For the Devil lurketh in both and he works upon us according to our tempers and complexions Some he overthrows with Sickness others with Health some with Liberty others with Imprisonment some with Honour others with Disgrace some with Pleasure others with Grief And that may be poyson to one which is physick to another That may distract the Melancholick man which may instruct the Wanton that Musick may bring an evil spirit on the one which may make it depart from the other He that is the worse for Health may be the better for Sickness For the Devil makes all of these occasions of sin and sends them forth as the Historian sayes your Mariners do their Scaphae or ship-boats to view the strength of the enemy or as Moses did the Spies into the land of Canaan and where he finds us weakest there he goes-up at once to possess and overcome it In us are the seeds of Good and Evil and he strives to choke-up the one that they shoot not up into the blade and ear and he waters the other with these occasions that they may grow-up and multiply He presents sad and lothsome objects to the Melancholick to make him mad and every day he renews his pleasures to the Wanton to make him licentious Miserable men that we are who shall deliver us from this body of death Certainly the best means of deliverance is to be restrained from that which will hurt us to be placed in such a station and state of life as is best for us to have those objects presented oftnest unto our eyes which are contrary not so much to our disease as to the cause of it That the Wanton may be delivered he must have his Eye put-out And to scatter that darkness which hath clouded the Melancholick person there must be light The Licentious person must be put in chains and the Covetous person must be robbed of his wealth Turn away my eyes saith the Prophet Psal 119. 37. David that they behold not vanity And why from beholding it Doth the very sight of Vanity make us guilty of it Or am I strait an adulterer but for a sight of a strumpet or an Achan if I but see a wedge of Gold Not so but yet turn away mine eyes for Vanity may pass from the Eye into the Heart I may look and like and at last be in love with Vanity For the Eye is as a burning-glass and if you hold it stedy betwixt the splendor of Beauty or any other shining temptation and the combustible matter of your Heart the rayes will unite and grow strong and a fire will be struck into your soul which will not so easily be quencht as it might have been avoided The same operation hath every occasion to that Sense it works upon An evil Word is first heard and then clothed and warmed in our thoughts and then it spreads its poyson and corrupts our manners The lip of the Harlot pleases at first but being tasted bites like a cockatrice Nay further yet the frequent presentment of objects may work upon those natures which are not as yet inclinable to them Tully tells us that the many spectacles of cruelty which every day shewed themselves did work upon the dispositions of the meekest men and made them cruel So increase of Riches may make a prodigal man covetous Too much Sorrow may distract a Philosopher The sight of Pleasure may corrupt a Saint Liberty may undo us and a power to do what we list may make us do what otherwise we had never thought on When Locusta at the command of Nero had tempered poyson and it had not wrought so suddenly as he expected upon Britannicus the Emperour beat her with his own hand And when she told him it was her art to conceal it and take off the envy from the fact he scornfully replyes SANE LEGEM JULIAM TIMEO What do you think I am afraid of the Julian Law against murderers Certainly Nero had not been such a miscreant had he feared that Law and would have been a better Subject than he was a King How happy had it been for the rich man in the Gospel had he been a begger How many might have been beholding to a Fever to Poverty to Disgrace who lost themselves in their health in plenty in honor Therefore St. Augustine commends that saying of Tully concerning Cinna O miserum cui peccare licebat Unhappy man who had a protection from punishment and a licence to do what he list Here then there is need of Gods Restraining Grace and we have reason to pray that God would remove from us whatsoever may prove an occasion of evil whether it flatter in a pleasant or threaten in a dreadful object But in the next place because we are Men not Angels and converse on earth where is officina tentationum a shop where the Devil forgeth his terrors and his allurements his fearful and his pleasing tentations we send
made easier every day by the word of the Spirit by the Gospel of Christ by the power of which the Eye that was open to vanity is pluckt out the Hand that was reaching at forbidden things is cut off the Ear which was open to Every Sirens song is stopped the Phansie checked the Appetite dulled the Affections bridled and the whole man sequestred and abstracted out of the world And now in the second place if we consider the nature of the Spirit what should he inspire Man with but with that which fits him and his condition Whither can he who made him lead him but to himself to his original To all that are in the world the voice of the Spirit is Come out of it escape for your lives Look not behind you neither stay in it Fly into the wilderness Rest your selves in the contemplation of the Goodness and Mercy of God This is the dialect of the Spirit nor can he speak otherwise For Heaven and Earth are not so opposite as the Prince of this world and the Spirit of God Who hates Mammon till we make it our friend reviles the things of this world till they help to promote us to things above forbids those things which are without till we make them useful to those things which are within Who convinceth reproveth condemneth and will judge the world If you are so greedy of the things of this world that you would have stones made bread if you go into the City and climb the pinacle of the Temple if from the mountain you take a survey of the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them you may know who hath you by the hand The Text doth intimate that the Devil doth then take us up The Spirit of God leads us in the wayes of Gods Providence unknown to the world he takes us into the wilderness far from the noyse and business of this world he leads us not to the mountain to view kingdoms but draws us down into the valley there by an humble dependance on God to learn to contemn the world The Flesh fighteth against the Spirit and so doth the world and these are contrary And as many as are led by the Spirit are the sons of God saith St. Paul Which they cannot be till they renounce the World For what is our Filiation our Adoption but a receiving us out of the world into his family We must leave the world behind us before we can say Abba Father In a word the Spirit of God doth in a manner destroy the World before its dissolution makes that which men so run after so wooe so fight for as dung or at best it makes the world but a Prison which we must struggle to get out of but a Sodom out of the which we must haste to escape to the holy Hill to the mountain lest we be consumed or but a Stage to act our parts on where when we have reviled disgraced and trod it under foot we must take our Exit and go out Let us now draw down all this to our selves by use and application Here we may easily see what it is to which the Spirit leads us It leads us out of the world into the wilderness from the busie noyse and tumults there to the quiet and sweet repose we may find in the contemplation and working of a future estate He leads the carnal man to make him spiritual For what Ezek. 2. 6. is a Christian mans life but a going out of a world full of Scorpions a leaving it behind him by the Conduct of the Spirit The Spirit leads us not cannot lead us to the Flesh nor to the World which spreads a bed of roses for the Flesh to lye down and sport in For this is against the very nature of the Spirit as much as it is for light bodies to descend or heavy ones to move upwards Fire may descend the Earth may be removed out of its place the Sun may stand still or go back the sweet influences of the Pleiades may be bound and the bonds of Orion may be loosed Nature may change its course at the word and beck of the God of Nature But this is one thing which God cannot do He cannot change himself The Spirit of God is a lover of Man a hater of the World and from the World he leads Man to himself He led not Cain into the field it was a field of bloud He led not Dinah to see the daughters of the land she went out and was defiled He led not David to the roof of his house it was a fatal prospect it was but a look and it let in the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life even all that is in the world at once into his heart But he leads thee to thy chamber there to commune with thy own heart He leads thee to the house of mourning to learn the end of all men He leads thee to the Temple to behold the beauty of the Lord. He leads thee from Bethaven to Bethel from the world to the place where his honor dwelleth These are the Spirits leadings His Dictons are Blessed are the poor Blessed are the meek Blessed are they that mourn This is no part of the musick of this World We find in our books of that Semiramis that famous Queen of Babylon caused this inscription to be written on her Tomb THAT HE THAT OPENED IT SHOULD FIND IN IT GREAT TREASURE which when Darius had read allured by this fair and promising inscription he brake it up but within found no treasure but a writing that told him that if he had not been a notorius wicked person he would not have broken-up the sepulchres of the dead to look for treasure We may indeed when we read of Riches and Pleasure and Glory in the Word of great Riches lasting Pleasures infinite Joy feed our selves with false hopes here but these are but as a fair inscription upon a Tomb when we have broken them up read them uncovered in their proper sense we shall find nothing but Poverty and Sorrow and Dishonor within and withal a sharp reproof for those who search the Gospel to find the World there or walk to Ophir to the hills of the robbers to a Mahumetical Paradise a Kingdome of Saints upon earth a Thousand years pleasure and perswade themselves the Spirit hath them by the hand and leads them to it Beloved Sensuality and Ambition are two the greatest enemies the Spirit hath and the Spirit fights against them If Diotrephes will have the highest seat the Spirit leads him not If the ground of our Religion be From hence have we our gain it is the Prince of this world and not the Spirit who leads us If we make Religion to Lackey it after us and accomplish our lusts we have left the Spirit behind us Mammon is our guide If the Bishop of Rome dream of Kingdoms of Universal power and Infallibile judgment