men but he raises and actuates their native powers removes impediments cures their sloth and in short concurring with them helps their infirmities with which agrees that forementioned observation of Cicero Nunquam vir magnus sine afflatu divino That there never was a brave Hero nor any admirable performance without divineinfluence 3. THE Holy Spirit residing in the Souls of good men is also a spirit of confirmation settling and establishing their Souls against revolt and apostasy and giving a kind of angelical stedfastness to them that ill examples shall not draw them aside nor temptation prevail upon them neither insinuations of false doctrine stagger them nor prosperity and the blandishments of the world debauch them nor afflictions and persecutions shake their constancy for they are now built upon a rock and though the rains descend and the waves rise and the winds blow they stand immovable or as St. John expresses it Rev. 3. 12. they having overcome and obtained the reward of being under the conduct of this Holy Spirit are now made pillars of the temple of God and shall goe no more out To which add that of St. Peter 1 Ep. 1. 5. They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 kept in Garison by the power of God through faith unto salvation 4. BESIDES all which in the last place it is usual with the Holy Spirit to fill the hearts of those holy men he inhabits with inexpressible joy giving them the foretasts of the blessedness which they expect to enjoy hereafter insomuch that they do not altogether live by faith which is their usual viaticum but in some measure by sense also having a present glimpse of their future happiness by means whereof they rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory they exult triumph and applaud themselves in their interest in God and their glorious portion with him THE Holy Spirit carries men as God did Moses up to Mount Pisgah to take a view of the good Land of promise and affords them the prelibations of Heaven the very relish of which blessedness upon their spirits puts them into a kind of ecstasy that they fell not the troubles and vexations which may assault them from below they triumph over mortality it self and wish and long to die when like St. Stephen they see Heaven opened and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God their face like his shines like that of Angels and a glory incircles them they seem to hear the blessed Quire of Angels and are ready to join in the Allelujah in short their Soul raises it self and would fain take wing and fly thither presently THIS I think is that which is figuratively but excellently set forth by our Saviour in his Epistle to the Church of Pergamos Rev. 2. 17. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna Manna was called Angels food and as the Jews observe it applied it self to every man's palate and had that relish which every man desired which admirably expresses the joys of Heaven which are for the present the entertainment of Angels and when men come to enjoy them shall fill all their powers and leave no desire unsatisfied And it is called hidden manna because as saith the Apostle it doth not yet appear what we shall be however it seems some taste and anticipations of this shall those have in the mean time who overcome But that which I principally intend is the next words And I will give him a white stone with a new name written upon it which no man knows but he that receiveth it This passage some take to be an allusion to the custom at Athens and some other Greek Common-wealths where in capitall causes especially the Citizens gave their Suffrages by White and Black Stones and when the number of White Stones was greatest the person at the Bar was absolved or acquitted And thus the white stone in the Text should in the mystical sense import justification and pardon of sin But this comes not up to the design of the place and there is another custome which fits it better and most probably was here alluded to by our Saviour viz. it was in use that those which conquered at the Olympick Games had a token or ticket given them expressing their names and specifying the reward they were to have for their atchievements In conformity to which our Saviour here seems to promise to those who acquit themselves manfully and bravely in the conflict or race of Christianity that they shall receive an inward and invisible pledge and assurance of the glorious rewards in the other world which can be nothing else but this which we are speaking of namely the comforts of the Holy Ghost THIS is now the second Boon which our Heavenly Father bestows upon the Son he receives and is a very great and glorious one This is the admirable effect of our Saviour's ascension into Heaven the accomplishment of his promise and the supply of his own presence to his servants till he take them up to himself This is the glory of Christian Religion that whensoever it is vigorously pursued it yields this present advantage besides whatever is in reversion And this is the mightiest incouragement to men to be generously good AND although things of this nature partly because they are meerly divine favours not naturally due to men and so cannot be proved by reason partly also being in their own nature invisible and transacted in secret cannot be understood by the generality of men who have no part nor lot in this matter but are apt to be looked upon as dreams and phansies if not vain-glorious pretences and forgeries yet that this we have been speaking of is a great reality there can be no doubt unless we will reject both the testimony of God and the experience of the best of men so that it may justly seem either unnecessary or fruitless to add any thing to what hath been already said on this point NOTWITHSTANDING because I observe that there are two things which prejudice the minds of a great many men in this business I will indeavour briefly to remove them and then pass on THE first is grounded upon an observation that several good men have experience of no such matter i. e. they are neither sensible of such a residence of the Holy Ghost in them nor of any such ravishing comforts as are pretended to accompany such a glorious Guest and therefore they are apt to suspect either all is phansy or at best that it is only some great rarity not the common portion of God's Children AGAIN they observe that not only many good men are without pretences to the Spirit but many evil men lay claim to it and therewith frequently cheat themselves and besides countenance their evil designs by it and under that pretence do a great deal the more mischief in the world Therefore though they do not doubt but that God might think fit at the first planting of the Gospel to give
his Holy Spirit as aforesaid because upon many accounts there was then extraordinary necessity for it and also the Spirit then given was so plainly miraculous and gave such proof of it self that there could be no suspicion of cheat in the case yet forasmuch as both these things fail now viz. both the occasion and the discrimination they think it safer to reject all such pretensions then admitting them to lay open a way for so much cheating and imposture as may be reasonably expected when there is no certain way of detecting it NOW therefore if in the first place I can give a plain account how it may come to pass that such men as are supposed in the first objection may be destitute of such advantages of the Holy Spirit as we have asserted to be the tokens of his residence and then secondly if I shew also how to prevent all imposture by distinguishing the operations of the Spirit from fancy and other allusions then both the objections will be answered and the Reader will not be offended with the digression § III. AND to dispatch all briefly I begin with the first to which I say That as it is not usual with God to precipitate or prevent the course of natural causes but to blesse and succeed them in their due and proper order so neither in his especial providence or in the acts of his grace doth he delight to work per saltum but gradually according to the condition of the subject and its fitness to receive his impressions accordingly though he be always ready to bestow his Spirit with all the comforts and advantages thereof yet he expects and requires all due qualifications and preparations before he confer it Now there are these three especial qualifications for the reception of the Holy Ghost in the sense we speak of 1. AS I have intimated already That a man be not only purged from grosser pollutions and begin to have a love of holiness but that he be singularly pure so as at least not to admit of any voluntary transgression and especially be above all sensuality of what kind soever It is observable in that sad miscarriage of David which we have often had occasion to refer to that it made him justly fear and therefore earnestly pray Psal 51. that God would not thereupon take his Holy Spirit from him and the Apostle when he is earnestly persuading the Ephesians Not to grieve the Holy Spirit whereby they were seald to the day of redemption solemnly warns them in the verse before That no corrupt or obscene and filthy communication proceed out of their mouths as that which would assuredly argue their hearts to be no temple for the Holy Ghost and again in the verse after the aforesaid exhortation he with the same earnestness gives them caution against all bitterness and wrath and clamour c. as intimating that those also defiled the Soul and made it incapable of receiving the blessed Spirit To which purpose the Jews have a common saying Super animum turbidum non requiescit Spiritus Sanctus That the Spirit of God requires a sedate even temper as his quiet habitation 2. THE Spirit of God requires a lovely sweet and benign frame of Spirit and abhors that Hypochondriack sourness and austerity which yet some place a great deal of Religion in when men will be always sighing and complaining and peevishly refuse consolation Jonah confidently told God he did well to be angry and so these men seem to think they please God by grieving his Spirit frowardly or at least phantastically resisting his consolations But it is a mighty mistake to think the Spirit of God will comfort men whether they will or no he requires a persuadeable counsellable temper and such a disposition as will work with him for to make a black melancholist comfortable immediately is not to be done but by a phrenzy or a miracle and for this last we are not to expect it now at God's hands nay even the Prophet Elisha when he desired to call up the Spirit of Prophecy called for an Harp that he might put his mind in tune and dispose himself to become the instrument of the Spirit of God and so it is here an harmonious Soul added to the former qualification invites down the Spirit of God Especially if 3. IN the third place there be servent prayer joined herewith for since God expects we should make our acknowledgments of him and demonstrate he value we have of the mercy we seek by the importunity of our addresses to him even then when we address our selves to him for common favours with much less reason can we expect that he should bestow this great boon upon us unless it be sought by ardent and instant prayer so our Saviour hath told us Luk. 11. 13. that though he have a fatherly affection to give all good things to us yet it is upon condition that we ask him And St. James hath further explained to us the manner of asking Chap. 1. 6 7. that it must be in faith without wavering i. e. neither as doubtfull of God's goodness nor as if we were indifferent whether he granted our request or not for saith he Let not such a man think that he shall receive any thing at the hand of the Lord. NOW forasmuch as the comfortable portion of the Holy Spirit is not intailed upon all the Children which God receives to grace and pardon but that all these qualifications are pre-required since it is also evident that some who perhaps may passionately desire it yet have an unhappy temper that unfits them for the entertainment of this heavenly Guest and many others that have some good measure of sincerity which God will mercifully accept in order to eternal life are not yet raised to such a measure of holiness as to be capable of this favour at the present It cannot seem strange that such should remain strangers to this most happy priviledge nor can it yet be reasonable that their want of experience of it should be any argument that there is no such thing to be expected § IV. BUT then for the other difficultie viz. how to distinguish the moti on of God's Spirit from either the impressions of Sathan or the results of a man 's own temper and constitution I answer there are these properties of the Holy Spirit which if they be attended to and laid together will infallibly distinguish it from any other motion and secure us from all illusion 1. THE Spirit of God never moves any man but in an action or course warrantable by the word of God for since the Holy Scripture is given for a rule of our actions and as such confirmed in the most ample manner by the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit should notoriously contradict it self if it should contradict that INDEED in former Ages whilst the mind of God was not intierly delivered and consigned in holy Writ there were frequent intimations of his pleasure by the
Allegorical way of the Old Testament p. 8 9. Of the Figures and Parables of our Saviour p. 10 11 12. Of the danger and mischief of Allegorical interpretations p. 13. And the caution of the Author in this particular p. 15. CHAP. II. The self-contradiction amongst the Adversaries of Christianity both Jews and Gentiles some accusing it as too difficult an institution others as a doctrine of looseness p. 17 18. A famous but feigned Story of Constantine M. to that purpose p. 19. The special occasion of the Jew's mistake of our Saviour's designs p. 20. Three ranks of the Jewish Religionists a mistake of theirs built upon that distinction p. 23. Their misunderstanding the design of God in the covenant made with them on Mount Sinai and consequently of the meaning of the Prophets p. 25. Vpon account of both which it is no wonder that they mistake our Saviour who therefore vindicates himself by this Parable p. 27. A literal Paraphrase of this Parable p. 28. Particularly who is meant by the Elder and who by the Younger Son p. 35. The division and parts of the Parable p. 43. CHAP. III. The three sorts of Laws mankind is under viz. Natural Divine and Humane and that all sin is a violation of some of these the mischief of mistake herein p. 45. Sin is a violation of a known Law and that God hath some way or other sufficiently promulged his Laws p. 51. The danger of mistake herein p. 54. All sin is voluntary Cautions in that point p. 56. A remarkable passage in S. James paraphrased p. 61. The difference between sins of infirmity and presumption p. 65. Instances of sins of infirmity p. 66. Instances of presumptuous sins p. 68. S. John 1 Ep. 3. Chap. 4. Vers opened p. 69. About reluctancy of Conscience and whether that abates of the guilt of sin p. 71. Of the several stations of Vertue and divers ranks of Sinners p. 74. CHAP. IV. The Sinner's Progress Pride is ordinarily the first beginning of a sinfull course As appears in the Apostasy of Angels the Fall of Man the Temptations of our Saviour and the Method of the Gospel p. 83. Neglect of God's Worship c. the second step towards a wicked life the dependence between Piety and Morality p. 92. Riot and Intemperance the third step towards Hell an account of the Talents God ordinarily vouchsafes men and how vice imbezils them p. 96. When men have abused their faculties and mis-spent their talents they become slaves to Sathan p. 106. The drudgery he puts them to p. 109. The desolate condition of an habitual sinner when the pleasures of sin fail him p. 116. CHAP. V. The import of the phrase when he came to himself That sin is a kind of madness p. 121. Proved by the description of madness and the usual symptoms of it p. 123. An objection against this assertion answered p. 129. The application and conclusion of the First Part. p. 130. PART II. Of Repentance CHAP. I. THE general importance of Repentance and why notwithstanding little notice is taken of it in the Law of Moses p. 135. Three parts of Repentance 1. Consideration What is meant thereby and the great necessity thereof p. 140. It is usually affliction which brings vicious men to consideration prosperity rendring them light and vain p. 149. The special considerations and thoughts of a Penitent p. 153. CHAP. II. Of Resolution the second step towards Repentance What is meant thereby and the force and efficacy thereof against the Devil Sense Custom Example and Reason it self p. 162. The properties of a penitent resolution p. 167. First It is serious and deliberate not rash and sudden Secondly It is peremptory p. 171. Thirdly It must be present not dilatory p. 173. Lastly It is uniform and universal p. 176. The principal motives that bring the Sinner when he considers to a resolution of Repentance 1. That it will be acceptable to God even yet p. 179. 2. Not impossible to reform p. 187. 3. That it is easy p. 191. 4. Absolutely necessary p. 194. CHAP. III. Of Confession and Contrition The nature and instances of hearty contrition p. 199. The efficacy and availableness thereof as doing right to the Divine Sovereignty to his Wisedom Justice and Goodness to his Omniscience to the holiness and pity of his Nature p. 205. It gives security against relapses into sin p. 208. CHAP. IV. Of Actual Reformation It consists in 1. A singular care of God's Worship in all the parts thereof p. 212. 2. Conscientious obedience to his commands p. 216. 3. Submission to his providence p. 221. CHAP. V. A recital of several opinions which debauch men's minds in this great affair of Repentance p. 226. Several arguments demonstrating the absurdity of all those opinions jointly and the necessity of such reformation as is before described p. 229. Exceptions removed p. 238. PART III. CHAP. I. Of Reconciliation THE passionate Story of Jacob and Joseph parallel to this of the Prodigal Son p. 242. The notice God takes of the beginnings of goodness and the use of that consideration p. 247. God's Spirit assists all beginnings of good p. 250. A memorable Story out of Eusebius and reflections thereupon p. 254. God fully and freely pardons all sin upon Repentance p. 257. 1. Great and many sins p. 259. 2. Relapsed sinners p. 261. The Novatian Doctrine 3. Without Reservation p. 263. Applications of the former Doctrine 1. The comfortableness of a state of pardon p. 265. 2. The great obligation to love God p. 267. 3. That we imitate the Divine Goodness in our dealing with our Brethren p. 268. 4. It should lead us to repentance p. 269. CHAP. II. Of Sanctification What is meant by the Best Robe p. 273. In what sense Sanctification goes before Justification and in what sense it follows after it p. 275. Three remarkable differences in the measures of Sanctification in a beginner and in a grown Christian p. 277. By what means those fuller measures of Sanctification are attained p. 284. CHAP. III. Of the gift of the Holy Ghost and that by the Ring this is intimated p. 290. The difference between the motions of God's Spirit and the gift or residence of it p. 291. The great advantages of the residence of the Holy Spirit in several respects p. 293. A passage of the Revel 2. 17. opened p. 297. Whence it comes to pass that some good men have no experience of the residence of the Holy Spirit p. 300. How to distinguish the motions of God's Spirit from our own fancies or the illusions of Sathan p. 303. CHAP. IV. The great trust God reposes in those he pardons and their obligations to faithfullness and activity in his service p. 306. Several ways wherein a pious man may be serviceable to the Souls of men without invading the Ministerial Office p. 312. The peculiar fitness of those that have been converted from an evil course for this purpose in many respects p. 314. A brief description of
of mind and mistrusts that he should one day fall by the hand of Saul his rage against Nabal c. But in regard these were but imperfectly voluntary therefore they make no blot in his Character But in the matter of Vriah the fact was horrible there was time for deliberation the use of cunning and contrivance and therefore full consent Wherefore this was quite of another consideration from all the rest and left such a stain upon him as required many tears and prayers and a very serious and signal repentance to cleanse him from § VI. THUS much I had thought sufficient for the clearing the distinction between sins of infirmity and presumption but I cannot but take notice of a mistake equally common and dangerous which where-ever it takes place doth not only render all we have hitherto said useless but is of fatal consequence to the souls of men It is to this effect When men are about the commission of some great and enormous sin it is not unusual for them to find some reluctancy and abhorrence within themselves Now for the sake of this they think that although they yield to the temptation and commit the sin yet it will not be esteemed altogether a voluntary transgression but will admit of great abatements by reason of such combate and conflict which they found in themselves And to this purpose they apply that passage of the Apostle Rom. 7. 15. That which I doe I allow not for what I would that doe I not but what I would not that I doe And that which follows also vers 17. So then it is no more I that doe it but sin that dwelleth in me But to remove so dangerous a mistake it would be well considered in the first place that however some have learned to call such a reluctancy as aforesaid by the specious name of the combat between the flesh and spirit or the regenerate and unregenerate part as the same men love to speak it is certainly nothing else but meerly some remains of natural Conscience in men and is to be found in some measure in the very worst of men that is in all but those whose Consciences are seared and utterly insensible It is the very nature of Conscience it self which is nothing else but a kind of internal sense of good and evil implanted by God in the nature of man and a man may more easily destroy any of his outward senses then quite extinguish this The Apostle takes notice of it in the Romans Chap. 2. vers 15. whose vices were yet so notorious as that they were utterly out of capacity of being accounted regenerate men Indeed if a man found in himself so quick a sense of his duty and were so tender of all degrees of evil that his Conscience not only checkt but called him off and restrained him upon the first appearance or approaches of sin this as I have intimated before would be a good sign of regeneration and such beginnings of evil so resisted will not be imputed as wilfull transgressions BUT when a man's Conscience only checks him but he goes on and commits the sin the best that can be made of it is only that it is not a seared Conscience and yet such a man is in a fair way to that also for as a part of the body by being often rubbed and hurt grows at last callous and insensible so the Conscience being often resisted in its intimations and stifled and over-born by the fury of lust and passion grows at last stupid and dead So the Apostle tells us Rom. 1. 28. because they liked not to retain God in their minds he gave them up to vain imaginations and because they gave themselves to sensuality he gave them up to unnatural lusts and so by degrees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a reprobate mind to a state of stupidity a spirit of injudiciousness to lose the feeling of good and evil And in the mean time it is so far from extenuating the guilt of a man's sin that his heart smote him for it that on the contrary it is a great aggravation of his presumption that he went on to the commission of it notwithstanding If a man could say he did not so well know his duty as he should and therefore his Conscience not being rightly informed did not give him warning of it or that he was in a hurry and could not consider or confesses his rashness and precipitancy these are some mitigations for as S. Clemens well pronounces That which is involuntary is sudden and where a man cannot deliberate he scarcely consents But when the case is such that a man must acknowledge he knew what he did he thought of it and condemned it and yet did it this surely is an aggravation if any thing in the world be so It is saith a generous Heathen Plutarch by name a most unmanly and brutish thing for a man that knows what he should doe softly and effeminately to give himself up to the swing of intemperate passions In short if when a man confessing the truth must say he had reason against what he did but confronted it his conscience shamed him but he resolved to be shameless he had weapons in his hand to resist temptation but he cast them down and yielded all which is implied when a man saith his Conscience smote him when he went about a sin but nevertheless he persisted and committed it I say if this be not a voluntary sin there is no such thing incident to mankind § VII THUS much concerning the guilt or malignity of sin in the general Now briefly for the various states and mansions of sinners Which we shall the more easily understand if we first consider the several degrees of vertue or so many higher and lower capacities as there are of being good and holy And I know not where to find these more exactly reckoned up and described then by S. Clement of Alexandria who makes four stations of perfection 1. Not to sin at all Which saith he is the felicity of the divine nature and to be sure not the condition of any meer man in this world 2. Not to commit any wilfull or voluntary sin which is the attainment of the perfect man or true Gnostick as he uses to speak 3. Rarely to be guilty of inadvertency or involuntary Lapses which is the condition of a good proficient in religion 4. and Lastly When a man hath sinned to recover himself early by repentance and not lie under the guilt nor much less grow into a habit of sin Which lowest degree though it be vastly different from every of the former yet it is tolerable and acceptable through the mercy of God as we shall see anon NOW in some proportion to this discourse we will suppose 4 stations or degrees of wickedness 1. Such as do nothing but sin which we only mention for method-sake for as we are certain non datur summum
condition not to his mind and not being willing to bring his mind to that he is tempted to run upon adventures and to make experiments that he may give his mind full scope and contentment Hence it is as I observed before that the wicked in the Sacred Language are called Reshagnim unquiet seditious and turbulent pride and discontent prompting them to unruly attempts against God disputing his prerogative and breaking down the laws and boundaries he hath settled Either such men conceit God hath not been benign enough in the provisions of his care and providence or the instances of duty are too many and too hard and too great intrenchments made upon humane liberty thereby that God consulted his own prerogative in the constitution of his Laws rather then his wisedom and the reason of things and good of his Creatures that man might be more happy if he were left to his own counsels Would God permit them they think nothing so sweet as meram haurire libertatem pure and unconfined liberty that all restraint is intolerable slavery to a generous mind and imagining there must needs be some admirable delights in those things God forbids have thereupon a mighty mind and huge impetus upon them to try those things above all other whatever come of it Such kind of mutinous thoughts such jealousies and suspicions are the immediate issue of pride and the seminalities of all rebellion against God IT is the current opinion of Divines that it was only this height of pride which ruined the Apostate Angels for indeed it is not easily imaginable what else should doe it in regard they being before their Fall bright intellectual Beings no cloud of ignorance could probably so overwhelm them as to betray them to that fatal miscarriage And being also pure spiritual Substances they lay under no corporeal allurements It seems therefore necessary to conclude that an overweening reflexion upon their own height fooled them into that presumption to forget themselves and to vie with the Almighty And this seems to be plainly enough glanced at by the Prophet when he describes the fall of proud Sennacherib Isa 14. 12 13 14. How art thou faln from heaven O Lucifer son of the morning For thou hast said in thy heart I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the stars of God I will be like the most High c. AND undoubtedly this was the ruine of our first Parents when mankind first turned Prodigal God had dealt most liberally benignly with them as a gracious Father he brought not them into the world till he had furnished it like a large house with all things necessary for their accommodation and delight night and day were distinguished sea and land separated the earth blessed a paradise planted with all delicacies and then he brings this his younger Son Man as to a plentifull Table of most delightfull entertainments Besides this he put all inferiour Creatures in subjection to him as to their young Lord and Master nay makes that higher order of glorious Spirits the Angels to minister to him and keep watch about him and above all placed him in his own eye under the light of his countenance designed him for yet greater and unspeakable felicities as his favourite and darling NOW if after all this it had pleased God to have put somewhat a severe restraint upon him it ought justly to have seemed easie and reasonable being sweetened by so great obligations But the Divine Majesty to shew that in this also he remembred the kindness of a Father makes his Laws and Government as gentle as his favours were great for in the midst of an huge indulgence and that large scope of all the Trees in the Garden he laid an interdict but upon one saying Of all the Trees in the Garden you may freely eat save onely the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the Garden of that ye shall not eat lest ye die Who could now think any thing should become a temptation strong enough in this case to debauch mankind Notwithstanding here the Serpent finds occasion to set pride on work and to raise a discontent and first he begins thus Gen. 3. 1. Hath God said c. q. d. Is it not a mistake that you are forbidden that Fruit was that the meaning of the Almighty possibly your gracious Creatour had no such intention for why should you be restrained in this why not left perfectly to your own election have not you faculties to choose and desires to gratifie why should they be curbed or denied sure he never made a power which was not to come into act nor a capacity that was not to be satisfied nay this one abridgment despoils you perfectly of your liberty law and freedom are incompetible you are not used like Sons if you be thus chained up And what necessity is there to set such a fence about that one Tree above all the rest is it to exercise authority arbitrarily over you or to tempt your patience or rather is there not some great good which he knows in that Fruit and envies you the participation of why should not you that were made in his image be like Gods in this also knowing good and evil After this manner the old enemy of God and man tempers his poisons partly seeming to doubt of the meaning of the command partly insinuating suspicions of God's goodness but principally blowing them up with pride and self-conceit which whilest they swell withall they break to pieces and thus fell our first Parents And the same Tempter both knowing now the nature of man and encouraged also with this success attempts the Second Adam Christ Jesus after the same manner Matt. 4. for though it be true which is commonly observed that the Devil was put to it to try all his artifices upon our Saviour and to assail him both by the lusts of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life yet if we carefully consider we shall find that the effort of ruining him by pride and vain-glory was that which he principally trusted to and aimed at in all the temptations but more conspicuously in the two former of them for so vers 3. when finding him an hungred he begins thus If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread Our Saviour came not long since from his Baptism and then as we reade in the last verse of the foregoing Chapter a voice came to him from Heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Of which the Devil endeavouring to make his advantage addresses himself to him q. d. If God own thee as his Son as he pretends to doe let him do something prodigious and pompous that may give remarkable testimony to it use thy interest in him for some signal miracle especially to supply thy necessity now thou art hungry for certainly he will rather do that then suffer his beloved Son to
set his heart on those things that will be sure to desert him in his need and in fine which serve onely to make him do that unwillingly which must be done in spight of him that is instead of securing him from death or preparing him for it or fortifying him under it they do in every respect the quite contrary his riches perish and he perishes with them and it may be by them LASTLY for that gawd of fame and worldly glory it is of so thin a contexture that it is disputable whether it have any substance at all or no or any being otherwise then in phancy and conceit But to be sure it is far too slight to last long and too airy to give any satisfaction to a languishing Spirit or a dying man When a man's mind comes to be serious to retreat into it self to feel remorse for former follies what will it avail him that he hath a name amongst men that he hath carried it fairly and raised a reputation with those that see not into the inside of things that he hath appeared bravely upon the Stage but is stripped of all behind the Curtain is taunted and condemned by his own Conscience and by God who is greater then his Conscience and knows all things It is not all the plumes of Fame together with popular breath can lift a man up when his own weight sinks him and his guilt casts him down Especially when death approaches how ridiculous will it be to goe about to comfort a man's self with report when he is going into the land of forgetfullness A good name indeed for brave and vertuous actions embalms a man's memory to all ages but the name of the wicked shall rot in despight of all the spicery of flatterers and Parasites What is there in being talked of when I shall be no more seen what to be mentioned in History unless my name be written in the Book of Life Tully somewhere disputes with himself Longam an latam famam mallet Whether was most desirable a spreading or a lasting name whether to be talked of in many Countries or to be remembred to many Ages But the matter is not great which of the two nor will both of them joyned together be of any moment if a man either cease to be or be in such a condition that it had been good for him never to have been For Notus nimium omnibus qui ignotus moritur sibi He that hath not made it his care so to know himself as to secure himself of a blessed immortality it will be little comfort or antidote against death that he shall be talked of far and near when he is gone So that upon the whole matter in these things consisting all the maintenance and incouragement the Devil can give his Servants and these being so mean and slight in themselves and failing men too at last they have a most uncomfortable bondage that give up themselves to his service CHAP. V. The Habitual Sinner's case stated or a reflection upon what hath been said in the foregoing Chapter THE CONTENTS § I. The import of the phrase when he came to himself shews that the Prodigal was all this while hitherto not well in his wits and that the habitual sinner is in a like condition § II. The truth of which appears by considering either the most usual causes or effects of distraction § III. Objections against this inference answered § IV. The application and conclusion of this First Part of the Parable Vers 17. And when he came to himself he said c. WE have in the foregoing Chapter traced the Prodigal from the freedome and felicities of his Father's house to the extremity of misery and servitude which his extravagant humour cast him into and in him and the issues of his way we have seen the beginnings the progress and the result of a sinfull course lively represented Now summing up all together and reflecting upon what hath been said it is evident that the person here described especially if he resolve to continue in this condition cannot be in his right wits The truth of which all men that seriously consider the premises cannot but bear witness to And besides it is plainly suggested by our Saviour himself in these words vers 17. when he came to himself c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which phrase either signifies a man dead or in a swound at least and coming to life again or a man drunk dispelling at last the cloud of his fumes and recovering the use of his limbs and senses or a man distracted and returning to his wits and understanding again AND indeed all these are applicable enough to an habitual sinner he is morally or spiritually dead Eph. 2. 1. You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins The disease of willfull sin doth so deprave men's natures and disable their powers that there appears no hope of recovery to a sense of God and goodness no more then of a man naturally dead unless God be pleased to breathe into him the breath of life He is drunk the steams of lust have clouded and besotted his understanding and oppressed all his vital powers that for the present he is not able to guide nor fit to govern himself he hath rather the shape then the sense of a man no man takes his judgment nor regards what he saith or doth but every man looks upon him as a beast and were it not that there is hope of his recovery would think him fit with Nebuchadnezar to be turned out to grass But because this disturbance is usually short it doth not therefore come so home to the condition of the sinner for sin is a lasting phrenzy or distraction and agrees thereto both in the causes and in the symptomes THE true account of the cause of Distraction as I take it is this when the Animal Spirits by some accident or other are so over-heated that they become unserviceable to cool and sedate reasoning And then reason being thus laid aside phansy gets the ascendent and Phaeton like drives on furiously and inconsistently This combustion of the spirits happens sometimes by over great intention of the mind in long and constant study sometimes by a feaver which inflaming the bloud that communicates the incendium to the spirits which take their original from it But most usually by the rage and violence of some of the passions whether irascible or concupiscible as they are wont to be distinguished a man setting his heart vehemently upon some object or other the spirits are set on fire by the violence of their own motion and in that rage are not to be governed by reason This we have sad examples of in Love in Grief in Jealousie in Wrath and Vexation and indeed Bethlehem is filled with the instances And this account fits but too well the case we have in hand namely of the willfull and habitual sinner He having passionately addicted himself to some one or other of
gratification the little time of pleasure and the long hours of shame and repentance the dull relish of the bodily Senses to the quick and pungent sense of the Mind and Conscience we shall be put out of doubt and assured of the unreasonableness of such a course But if we consider withall the severe denunciations of the Almighty the inconsistency of such a course with any interest in the joys of another life the no compare between a fools paradise of sesuality and the felicities of the Kingdom of Heaven we cannot pronounce of such a man as notwitstanding all these considerations shall give himself up to these bruitish passions otherwise then that he hath forfeited his reason forgoing his greatest interests for the veriest trifle and selling his birthright for a mess of pottage THE like may be said of Drunkenness To see a man tunn up himself like a barrel and fill his head with froth which his tongue discharges again to see a mans face deformed his eyes staring his feet faultering his motions antick his thoughts open and undecent his speech much and reason little And herewith to observe his estate poured down a common sewer and his credit and reputation utterly ruined but above all his Soul indangered to come into everlasting burnings and all this for the love of drink who can chuse but in his thoughts score up such a man as fit for Bethlehem LET us take only one instance more and that shall be in that passion which hath gotten the name from all the rest I mean Anger Every man knoweth that health is best preserved by calmness and evenness of mind that mens interest is best secured by gentleness and an obliging temper their safety by cession and placableness that reason is highest when rage is down that business is best carried on by the most sedate prosecution insomuch that no men count him wise whom they observe to be violent nor do they think those to be valiant that they see huff and swagger Besides passion disguises a man's very countenance dries up his body brings wrinkles upon his face gray hairs upon his head hollowness of eyes withers and destroys him It puts him upon the most foolish shamefull and dangerous adventures which at the same time it usually renders him impotent to effect or if he effect them he only makes matter for his own repentance as long as he lives or it may be work for the Executioner to shorten his unhappy days Above all it is contrary to the nature of God who is a God of peace to the temper of the blessed Jesus who was an example of meeknesse and patience it utterly unfits a man for the peacefull and amicable society of Saints and Angels in the Kingdom of Heaven and disposes him for the horrid fellowship of fell and desperate Fiends in the regions below All which things considered when we see a man boil with choler foam with rage pale with envy and indulging himself in this humour what can we say or think of this man but that he hath lost the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very principles of manhood BUT perhaps it may be said that all this while we have but maintained a Stoical Paradox and for all this that hath been said vicious men cannot be reputed mad because upon other occasions we see many of them give proof of wit and parts To which I answer that neither do I in all this intend to intimate that they are in all respects mad though it were well for many of them that it were strictly true But when men shall betray the most egregious folly and act the most extravagantly in the matters of greatest moment I may leave it to themselves in their sober moods to judge what name they ought to be called by whatever ingenie they may discover in lesser occasions Besides neither is it the condition of all those that are acknowledged mad to do nothing soberly or ingeniously all or most have their Lucid intervals and there are some in whom the humour betrays it self in some peculiar instances onely Melancholici quoad hoc as they say Talk with them in the general and they are like other men but touch upon some peculiar point and they rave presently So it is with these men we speak of As to common conversation and the affairs of the world they may be ingenious and perhaps in some repartee or other trifle by reason of the heat of their Spirits aforesaid beyond other men but as to the businesse of their Souls and Eternity they have no manly sense at all And indeed there is nothing can be more pat to verify what I have been saying then this very circumstances for when men that otherwise have sense and understanding in lesser matters shall be so extreamly absurd in that which especially requires the most manly proceedings it is the very Symptom that we have been all this while describing WHICH being so the consequence is that in the first place it is an absurdity next to theirs to follow the counsell or example of such men The Psalmist makes it the first step to felicity not to stand in the counsel of the ungodly Will any man think it reasonable to imitate the mad freaks of a Bedlam because he sees him jolly and brisk when he plays them no more let any man incourage himself in wickednesse because he sees the high rants of sinners rather let him say in the words of our Saviour Father forgive them they know not what they doe Fools they are with a witnesse that make a mock of sin little do they think how ill this jollity becomes them and lesse do they forethink what will be the end of such courses NOR let the authority of the number or quality of such persons bear us down for folly is folly let who will be the Patron of it Can precedent change the nature of things is there any prescription against reason will publick vogue justify Conscience or multitude of voices carry it against God Unlesse wicked men could not only efface the principles of their own minds and Consciences but also remove the Pillars of the world change the course of nature and by a Gigantick enterprize wage war against and conquer Heaven i. e. force the Almighty to alter his opinion repeal his laws and revoke his threatnings sin will everlastingly be folly and perseverance therein madnesse in spight of multitude fashion custome and example Shall I therefore follow their examples that thwart God that contradict their own Consciences whom all men at least tacitly condemn even those that bruitishly and sillily are lead by them Shall I make those my guide who have so little foresight as not to see beyond the short stage of life Shall I make them my Counsellors that make so foolish a bargain as to give eternal life in exchange for momentany pleasure that have so bad memories as to forget they have immortal Souls or so little reason as to think there is no
forty nights and Nineveh shall be destroyed Notwithstanding the absoluteness of the sentence and the nearness of the execution the Ninevites were not out of hope but that if repentance were interposed their ruine might yet be prevented and it succeeded accordingly with them for as they believing God's word by the Prophet expected nothing but sudden destruction if they had not repented so they trusting in the goodness and exorableness of the Divine Majesty upon repentance applied themselves seriously thereto and were preserved WHEREFORE saith the relenting sinner Forasmuch as although I know not the limits of the Divine Mercy yet this I know that nothing can set limits thereto but his own wisedom and he is never so straitned but that if the case be pitiable and he see reason of mercy he can shew it consistently with his Justice here I will cast anchor I will indeavour to render my self an object of mercy and trust upon his goodness I never yet heard that any man miscarried in this bottome or that a Penitent was cast away I have often heard that God would have saved men but they would not but I never heard of any that resorted penitently to his mercy and were rejected nor do I think that Hell it self can furnish one instance of the man that can upbraid God's goodness and say I would but God would not Thus the consideration of the Divine Nature is everlastingly pregnant of incouragements to repentance and is the spring of all motion to Godward were it not for which never any had been reclaimed from a course of sin or begun a reformation But so much of that 2. IN the Second place another incouragement to this penitent resolution we are speaking of is an apprehension that it is not impossible to become perfectly new men notwithstanding our pre-ingagements in the ways of sin Opinion of absolute impossibility as we have noted before is equal to real impotency checks all motion nips all indeavour in the very bud stifles and lays asleep all the powers of the mind But hope and apprehension of feasibleness spirits all industry actuates all faculties raises the spirits and is the spring of all the great actions in the world Some daring men have effected things beyond their own expectations but no brave exploit was ever performed by such as despaired of accomplishing it nor was ever any force defeated that did praelibare victoriam and resolve to conquer When once a conceit had possessed the Midianites that they should be conquered by Gideon's Army though grounded only upon an odde dream of a brown Loaf tumbling down upon their Tents their hearts presently melted in them their spirits were emasculated and a mighty Host became an easy prey to the inconsiderable numbers which Gideon led against them And the Lord of hosts would never suffer Israel to be led on to the conquest of the Land of Canaan so long as the rumor of Giants and Anakims and walled Cities ran in the minds of the people nor untill they were brought to a confidence that they were able to conquer that good Land In like manner if the sinner think either his sins too great to be forgiven or that it is too late to mend i. e. either despair of God's grace or of his mercy he is utterly lost indeed that therefore which puts him forward upon resolution is an apprehension that God's grace is sufficient for him THE returning Prodigal saith It is true I find I have gone a great way from my Father's house and wearied my self with my own wandrings yet sure it is not impossible but I may reach home again And I saith the sinner have gone a great way towards my own undoing having indulged my passions and dethroned my reason inslaved my will weakned all my powers and hardened my own Conscience by a long course and custome of sin yet in the words of Holy Job There is hope of a tree if it be cut down that it will sprout again and that the tender branch thereof will not cease though the root thereof wax old in the earth and the stock thereof die in the ground yet through the scent of water it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant Job 14. 7 8 9. Though I have weakened my powers yet I am a man still though I have destroyed my self yet there is hope in the God of Israel and his hand is not shortened that he cannot save TVLLY is reported to have affirmed repentance to be impossible namely for a man to retrieve himself and take up a new course contrary to that to which he hath been long habituated and no doubt it is very difficult so to do as may sufficiently appear both by what we have said already and also by that of the Prophet Jer. 13. 23. Can the Aethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots then may ye also do good that are accustomed to doe evil Where the Holy Ghost intimates inveterate custome to be equal to nature it self and accordingly we find by too sad experience that there are very few that doe exuere hominem shake off the yoke of custome Facilis descensus Averni Sed revocare gradus c. And upon this account it is that the conversion of old sinners is called a New Birth and a New Creation in the language of Holy Scripture Notwithstanding as our Saviour said of rich men That it was harder for a Camel to goe through the eye of a needle then for such a man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven yet to prevent mistakes adds With men it is impossible but with God all things are possible So it is in this case He can cause dry bones to live and of Stones raise up Children to Abraham The Holy Spirit can awaken those powers that were in a dead sleep Conscience is not so callous but it may be rendered soft and sensible again the will and other faculties of men though they are perverted yet are not extinct and being stirred up by the grace of God may exert themselves in a new strain oppose their old customs and introduce new habits AS custome bore down and overgrew Nature formerly so new customes may supplant the old ones and make a new Nature It is a well-known Story that when Zopyrus a great pretender to the skill of reading men's temper and inclination in their countenances had pronounced of Socrates that he was a lewd and intemperate man the Company who knew well the remarkable vertue of Socrates laughed the cunning man out of countenance till Socrates relieved him saying that indeed his inclination was naturally such as Zopyrus had pronounced but that Philosophy and the culture and care of himself had altered him to what he was BUT the Holy Scriptures as they contain both more excellent institutions of vertue and holiness then all Philosophy and more effectual methods of reclaiming and recovering men from vice and debauchery so in the History thereof they afford us the
most frequent and most remarkable instances of such conversions In the Old Testament we have Manasses who was an Idolater a Witch and did evil in the sight of the Lord above all the abominations of the Amorites who seem to have been the most profligate people in the world and yet became at last a true penitent a holy and a vertuous person In the New Testament to omit St. Paul who saith of himself that from a blasphemer a persecutour and the chief of sinners he became an exemplary Christian and a zealous Apostle and Preacher of the Doctrine which before he destroyed We have great numbers of the most obstinate and wicked Jews converted and no less of Romans Corinthians Ephesians and of all other Cities and Countries who had grown old and hardened in a course of sin but became new and holy men Particularly the Apostle assures us of the Corinthians That they had been Fornicators Idolaters Adulterers Effeminate Thieves Covetous Drunkards And yet were washed were sanctified were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6. 9 10 11. It is not therefore impossible saith the sinner but I may also recover my self out of the snares of the Devil I found it in my power to chuse evil why may I not hope to be able to chuse good nothing determined or necessitated me heretofore to sin why may I not then cast off the yoke of custome and by the grace of God apply my self to my duty This is a second consideration which inflames the Penitent to a resolution of amendment which when he hath in earnest entered upon he finds 3. AS his third inducement not onely to be possible but also easy at least far beyond what he heretofore imagined It was perhaps not an extenuating but a just reflection which the Historian makes upon all the famous exploits of Alexander the Great in Asia and in the Indies which had swelled his name to such a bulk Primus ausus est vana contemnere that it was not so much his more then humane courage or conduct which gave him those successes but that he had the luck or the sagacity to see through and despise the pageantry and empty shew of force and formidableness which those soft and luxurious Nations were only furnished with So it is in this case he that can but once despise those Ludibria oculorum those scare-crows and phantastical Ideas which men's own fear and cowardise represent to them he will presently find the business of Religion easy and expedite and that it is but resolving generously and the thing is done The way of vertue though through the folly of men it be an unfrequented path yet is it no sad and uncomfortable way no man abridges himself the delight of life by becoming vertuous no just contentment is denied him no power or so much as passion he hath that is altogether denied its proper satisfaction There is no inhumane austerity required of us no contradiction to our reason or violence to our nature imposed upon us God is no hard Pharaoh that seeks to break us with bitter bondage requiring the tale of bricks without straw He doth not bid us continue in the fire and not burn or require us to converse with the occasions of sin and escape the pollution but only to moderate our desires to mind our selves to set our intentions right and in a word to resolve to doe what we can both to avoid the occasion and to escape the infection AND as for that great bug-bear Custome why may we not break the fetters of our own making and dissolve an habit of our own beginning Sin it self was weak and timorous and bashfull at first but it got strength by time and by degrees and in the same manner it is to be supplanted oppose beginnings of good to beginnings of evil and an habit will be obtained and we shall confront one custome with another He that goeth forth weeping bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again rejoycing and bringing his sheaves with him THE way of vertue is therefore easy because it is recommended by our own reason though sense oppose it for the present let us be true to the former and the latter must and will give way A Law enacted by our own consent uses to find a ready and chearfull compliance that which is voted within us and carried by the free suffrage of our minds surely can never be accounted harsh and difficult and such are all the laws of vertue the rules thereof are convenient for the community suitable to our own natures and as fit for us to consent to as for God to enact ALL the opposition which the Devil or the flesh can make to the determination of our minds will quickly cease if we stand firm to our selves reason is as able to restrain sense as that is to bewitch and fascinate our minds or at least if we stop our ears we shall avoid all its charms charm it never so cunningly Besides all the importunities of the flesh will from such time as they begin to be denied grow sensibly weaker and weaker And for the Devil there is nothing so much incourages his attempts as our irresolution and feeble opposition he is both a more proud and a more cunning enemy then to endure too many repulses without hopes of success He knows well enough he cannot force us and if he cannot corrupt us will not long labour in vain This the Apostle St. James assures us of Resist the Devil and he will flee from you St. James 4. 7. ABOVE all the Holy Spirit of God will not fail to set in with us and make all easy to us if we cease to resist and quench his motions How that worketh in and upon us is not easy to discover for As the wind bloweth where it listeth and we hear the sound thereof but know not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit notwithstanding we are assured that God will give his Holy Spirit to them that ask it and that that Spirit hath a mighty influence upon us without doing any violence to us and that its aids are incomparably greater then the Devils opposition For greater is he that is in us then he that is in the world and this is our great incouragement to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling because God worketh in us to will and to doe of his good pleasure THE mischief of all is therefore our want of resolution that we do but dally and trifle in this great business and hence all the difficulty arises Quo minùs timoris eo minùs fermè periculi Cowards run the greatest dangers in war and irresolute men find the most opposition and the greatest difficulty in a course of vertue Did we but collect our selves we should quickly find the face of things altered and all discouragements vanish ALL
to receive him till he soon perceived who it was but then seized with shame he makes from him with all the speed he could The Apostle forgetting his age and gravity follows him with all his might crying out My Son my Son dost thou fly thy Father thy aged unarmed Father Fear me not I come not armed to destroy thee but desirous to save thee I 'll pray for thee I 'll intercede with Christ Jesus on thy behalf I am ready to lay down my life to save thy Soul The revolted youth hearing this makes a stand and then with eyes cast down and weapons laid aside begins to tremble and at last weeping bitterly is in the words of the Historian Re-baptized in his own tears Then S. John embracing him prays for him fasts with him instructs him and leaves him not till he had not only restored him to the society of the Church but settled him in the publick Ministry thereof THE story is very admirable in all the parts of it as wherein amongst other things we may observe in the first place how quickly bad company insinuates its contagion and corrupts youthfull minds and that neither fine parts nor the best education are sufficient security for a vertuous course unless Apollos water as well as Paul plant and God also give the increase AGAIN it is worth observing how easy and sudden the transition is from a luxurious to a lawless life This young man began his risk in riot and ends it in robbery Although this be no strange thing for besides that intemperance makes men bold and rash and fit for any desperate enterprize they that are come to that that they care not what they spend are usually forced not to regard how they get it We note also from this story that great Wits and curious tempers are like razor mettle quickly turned and if they miscarry they become the most notorious Debauchees but if they be well set and hold right become most eminently usefull Moreover we may here also take notice how a sense of guilt and dis-ingenuity baffles a man's spirit dejects his courage disarms and subdues him whereas on the other side conscience of sincerity and good designs spirits and actuates a man above his age temper and common capacity But that which I principally remark in the story is the paternal affection in the aged Apostle toward this dissolute and lost young man how fresh the concern for him was in his thoughts when he came into those parts again where he left him with what strictness he requires the depositum of the Bishop how he forgets himself to recover him what charms there were in the countenance voice motion of the aged Father how strange a thing it was to be young Hector running away from an old Apostle an armed Captain not daring to stand before unarmed and infirm old age to observe the spirit the passion the flaming love of a good man to the Soul of a desperate sinner and in all this to see a lively resemblance of God's goodness to men For God doth not only as I have said before receive men upon their return but moves towards them invites nay draws them to himself He is so far from positively hardening sinners that he takes off their hardness he allures them by his promises prevents them by his grace way-lays them by his providence calls upon them by his word melts them by his kindness works upon them by his Spirit and this Spirit takes all advantageous seasons watches the mollia tempora fandi suggests thoughts to their minds holds their minds close and intent gives them a prospect of the other world and by several other ways without violence to their faculties helps forward their return to God § V. 4. LASTLY As the Earthly Father for joy of his Sons return forgets all his anger and the causes of it passes by his ingratitude and dissolution of manners and treats him with infinite demonstrations of kindness falling on his neck and kissing him So doth our Heavenly Father cast all the iniquities of the penitent ' behind his back blots them out of his book makes no severe reflections no bitter expostulations no upbraidings but passes an act of perfect amnesty and oblivion Justin Martyr in his Work against Trypho brings in our Saviour saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The words are no where to be found in the Gospel but the sense is That God takes men as they are and considers not how evil they have been so that now they become sincerely good This the Prophet Ezekiel frequently proclaims on the behalf of God Chap. 18. especially vers 22. All his sin that he hath committed shall not be once mentioned against him but in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live For as if men apostatize from hopefull and vertuous beginnings it shall not at all avail them that they set out well and began in the Spirit whenas they end in the Flesh upon which account it is a very vain thing for them to goe about to comfort themselves against their present looseness by remembring the time of their conversion and the great passion they have sometime had for Religion but which now they have apostatized from having lost their first love so on the contrary he that was a sinner but now is not i. e. is now sincerely returned from his licentiousness to his duty shall never have his former disobedience imputed to him by God THIS truth Philo represents handsomly in his Allegorical way when glossing upon what the Scripture saith of Enoch After his translation he was not found because God had translated him he paraphrases on this manner God saith he having changed him from an evil to a vertuous man the traces of his former wickedness were no more to be found then if no such thing had ever been committed BUT this gracious procedure of God with penitent sinners deserves to be more fully and particularly unfolded and if we diligently consider what the Scripture assures us of the greatness of God's pardoning mercy we shall observe these three remarkable circumstances all pregnant of unspeakable consolation 1. He pardons great and many sins not onely lighter provocations 2. He forgives repeated follies and relapsed sinners 3. His pardon is full and absolute 1. FIRST amongst men there are some sins that are scarcely if at all thought to be pardonable as where there is malice and treachery involved in the fact or where there is contumely added to the injury And sometimes the greatness of the person injured so inhances the offence as that it is not thought fit to pardon as for instance in Treason against the Supream Power But most certainly there are all these and many more aggravations in most voluntary sins committed against God and yet he pardons Exod. 34. 7. He pardons iniquity transgression and sin i. e. sin of all kinds and degrees whatsoever excepting only the sin against the Holy Ghost which our Saviour hath
men or rather as much as the advantages of Christianity out-went those of Philosophy For this man is not only improved by humane discourse but raised by divine revelation and governed by the wisedom of God is not under the faint and fluctuating hopes which reason can suggest but under the assurances of faith is not only eminent for some one or more vertues but being inflamed by the love of God and the prospect of Heaven he breaths nothing but greatness and glory wherever he goes God is in his heart Heaven is in his eye joy in his countenance and he spreads the sweet odours of piety and casts a lustre upon Religion FOR in the first place he is sanctified throughout the image of God is restored upon him and Christ Jesus formed in him All the maims of his fall are cured the confusion of his powers rectified the tyranny of custom vanquished his Conscience is inlightned his reason raised his passions subdued his will set right and all the inferiour powers obedient Vertue is made natural easy and delightfull to him and it is his meat and drink to doe the will of his Heavenly Father FURTHERMORE to assure his station he is confirmed by the grace of God and upheld by divine power he is the peculiar care of God's providence the special charge of the holy Angels and the Temple of the blessed Spirit all God's dispensations provide for his safety consider his strength and work for his good The Devil is so restrained that he shall not tempt him above what he shall be able to bear and hath not so little wit with his great malice to attempt where he is sure to be foiled Persecutions may assault him and flatteries may undermine him prosperity may indeavour to blow him up or adversity to crush him down raillery may goe about to shame him out of his course or buffonry to laugh him out of it but his race is as certain as that of the Sun or the Stars in the Firmament and his foundation sure as the Mountains for he knows whom he hath believed AGAIN he is adopted a Son of God and sealed by the Holy Ghost to the day of redemption he feels himself quickned by his vital presence warmed with his motions and assured by his testimony This erects the hands that would hang down and strengthens the feeble knees this lifts up his head with joy because he knows his redemption draweth nigh Every day he walks he finds himself a days journey nearer Heaven therefore he sets his face thitherwards he puts on the habit the mein the joy the very heart of Heaven he goes up by contemplation and views it he ravishes his heart with the sight of it he falls into a trance with admiration and when he comes to himself again cries out Come Lord Jesus come quickly He needs nothing he fears nothing he despises the world life is tedious death is welcome to be dissolved and to be with Christ is best of all WHAT can trouble him that hath peace in his Conscience what can disturb him that hath Heaven before him what can dismay him that is secure of immortality what can affright him whom death cannot hurt and what can deject him that is sure of a crown of glory AND lastly no wonder if after all this such a man be active and vigorous for God if he be used by God and become his Embassadour beseeching men in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God For all those comforts and incouragements afore mentioned inlarge his Soul like an Angel put wings upon him like a Cherub and set him on fire like one of the Seraphim with holy zeal of God's glory and the good of men Therefore with David he tells the unbelieving world what God hath done for his Soul and with his Lord and Master Christ Jesus he goes about doing good and in this flame of holy love is contented to offer up himself a sacrifice of a sweet smell to God HERE is adulta virtus Religion and Piety at their highest pitch and fullest maturity that is attainable in this world the next step is Heaven one degree more commences Glory Let the envious world now if they dare reproach Religion as hypocrisy or as meer pretences and great words when they observe that this glorious state is the design and the attainment of it whenever it is wisely and worthily prosecuted or let them say all this is impossible who as Tully well expresses it Ex sua ignavia inertia non ex ipsa virtute de virtutis robore existimant These things are no Romances nor have I dressed up any Legendary Hero the things are true and real Thus shall it be done to the man whom God delights to honour All this hath been attained and might be attained again would men but cease to take up an opinion of their own goodness from the extream badness of others and take their measures rather from the rules and motives and assistances of the Gospel then from the examples and customs of the world then without doubt others besides St. Paul might be able to say I have fought the good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith from henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to all them also that love his appearing 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. And that brings me to the last instance of the Father's kindness and the top of that glory which God bestows upon truely good men CHAP. V. The splendid Entertainment or the joys of Heaven St. Luk. Chap. 15. Vers 23. And bring hither the fatted Calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry THE CONTENTS § I. The peculiar intendment of this passage of the Parable That by the feast upon the fatted Calf are represented the joys of Heaven § II. The several figurative expressions which the joys of Heaven are set out by in holy Scripture viz. Paradise Rest a City a Kingdom a Feast § III. A more plain and literal account of the felicities of the other world especially in four particulars 1. The resurrection of the Body 2. Provision of objects fit to entertain and satisfy all the powers both of Soul and Body 3. The eternity of that state of life and happiness 4. The blessed presence of God and our Saviour and the happy society of Angels and Saints § I. IT was thought to be a just civility amongst the more soft and voluptuous Nations especially those of the East that those who were to be the Guests at a Feast should be as curious in the preparation of themselves for the solemnity as he that made the entertainment was for their accommodation and for that cause usually a considerable time of notice was given them before-hand that they might be in such circumstances as should both do honour to him that invited them and also render them
spoil and triumph of the Prince of darkness now by the wonderfull power of the Almighty this is raised up again out of its own ashes or out of whatever more desperate estate it might seem to be in and united to the Soul its old inmate again that so the whole man may be happy This is a point of felicity which as it is not naturally due to men but depends upon a voluntary act of the divine goodness so also it can no otherwise be proved but by divine revelation And those that were destitute of that light whatever raised apprehensions they might have of future rewards and the happiness of the other life could never with all their Philosophy make any discovery of this nay it was so far out of the rode of their thoughts that it is a well known story of Synesius who for his learning and piety was made of a Philosopher a Christian Bishop that he confessed his Philosophy represented this point as utterly incredible to him upon which account he desired to be excused that dignity in the Church and for the generality of the greatest Pagan wits they laughed at and derided this doctrine when it was preached by the Apostles And indeed the thing it self is so very wonderfull that had we not the plain and infallible promise of him to whom nothing is impossible and therewithall a satisfaction to our reason that he that could bring all things out of nothing at first may well be supposed able to effect other things also above our apprehension it would stagger Christian Faith it self to assent to it therefore for the manner of doing it we must leave that to him but for the matter it is as I said as certain as divine testimony can make it and being believed is of unspeakable consolation FOR what can be more comfortable then to be asserted from the power of the grave and rescued from death and mortality to have our Soul refitted with Organs and all the bodily powers awakened again so as to lose nothing by our fall when death shall like a faithfull depositary restore us our whole selves perfect and intire Is not the Spring very pleasant after a sharp and severe Winter wherein though the seeds of all things have been preserved yet they have been benummed and rendred inactive wherein the Heavens frowned the Sea wrinkled her face and the Earth grew effete and barren as if her youth was over to see now God renewing the face of all things rendring them their wonted vigour and cloathing them with their former verdure to observe the Sea smoothing her brow the Fields smile every thing gay and glorious and Heaven and Earth singing by way of Antiphone's to each other in praise of their great Creatour and in a word whole Nature triumphing as in a resurrection from the dead But now to see man after diseases had acted all their spite upon him and death had defloured his beauty and bound up all his powers and the grave had held him long in possession wherein his body had undergone a thousand changes from flesh to earth from earth to grass from grass to the substance of this or that beast c. and after all this to see him restored again fresh and glorious sprightly and vigorous like a Giant refreshed with wine and this same body to be united to its proper Spirit by more firm and indissoluble ligaments and be again usefull for all its offices and purposes how happy must this meeting how great must this joy be and not much unlike that we had lately before us in the Parable when the long sorrowfull and indulgent Father recovers his lost and deplored Son I do not doubt but that the Souls of men when they are separated from their Bodies are able to understand and perform some of their most proper and spiritual functions for I see no reason why the Soul should so much depend upon matter as to be utterly inactive without it especially when I consider that whilst we are in the Body we govern it prescribe to it deny it expose it to hardship and sometimes act directly cross to the interest of it and besides this we find that there are some things which our mind takes notice of which the Bodily faculties could give no intelligence of and other things which our mind apprehends at first before the exercise of any faculty at all as in first principles c. All which were it necessary to insist upon that point now would afford sufficient arguments to convince the mistake of those that assert the sleep of the Soul during its state of separation Nay I make no question but that the Souls of good men are in the actual perception and enjoyment of some measures of happiness before the resurrection for besides that if it were not so it would very much abate their joys here and so be apt to take off the edge of their endeavours but most certainly it would marvellously glue men to this life and make them extreamly unwilling to die besides this I say and all other arguments of that nature the holy Scripture is so clear and express in several places touching this point that a man may almost with as good confidence deny the world to come as disbelieve this AMONGST the rest I will only offer these two passages to the Reader 's consideration viz. Phil. 1. 21 22. 2. Cor. 5. 1 4. In the first the Apostle speaks on this wise I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needfull for you q. d. I cannot tell whether to desire to live longer or to die sooner being prest with arguments on both sides for if I consult my self and my own good it is doubtless better for me to die and to enter presently into happiness but then if I consult your convenience it were better I should live longer in the world to be serviceable to your edification Now I think it is evident that if the Apostle could have supposed that he should have entered into a state of silence after death and not presently been in the fruition of bliss there could have been no strait in the case nor any dispute but that it was better to live still in the world and continue in the comforts of a good Conscience and of doing good to others rather then to fall into a state of insensibility and inactivity IN the other place the same Apostle expresses himself thus For we know that if this earthly house of our tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands but eternall in the Heavens For we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened not that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that mortality may be swallowed up of life q. d. We are well assured that from such time as these Bodies of ours are dissolved by death which were
such persons were in and partly the honour and happiness of such an entertainment would compell them to come in Upon this account God propounds not only pardon of sin but all the forementioned inestimable benefits to repenting sinners as well as to those just men that need no repentance AND although it be certain that God hath neither such need of men's service as to oblige him to resort to these great inducements and it be also very true that there are but a small number of those that make up the Quire in glory who upon such motives were converted from extream debauchery yet such is the graciousness of the good Shepherd that he carries the lost Sheep home on his Shoulders rejoicing and such is the goodness of God that he sticks not at this price for the redemption of any one Soul Besides it is to be considered that as we noted from the Historian formerly Difficile est in tot humanis erroribus solâ innocentiâ vivere that though no good Subject will voluntarily transgress the laws of his Country and fall into the displeasure of the Prince yet the most wary and inoffensive person that is most secure of his own integrity would desire to live under such a government where there was room for mercy and pardon if he should offend and the best of men are so sensible of the power of temptation and the slipperiness of their station as well as conscious of their own sincerity that they are marvellously comforted and incouraged by this admirable grace and goodness of God to sinners AND whereas the fear of Hell may be thought sufficient both to reclaim sinners from their evil ways and to preserve good men from apostasy we shall find upon due consideration that fear let it be of what object it will is neither so lasting a principle nor so potent and effective a motive as hope for this last raises generosity inflames the mind spirits all the powers despises or glories in difficulty and therefore all wise men imploy this Engine especially in all great enterprizes and indeavour to make men's hopes greater then their fears and so order the matter that those they employ may have a prospect of so great a good by success in their attempts as shall outweigh all their apprehensions of difficulty or danger in the atchievement And this will be the more remarkable if we observe in that famous encounter of David with Goliah the Giant of Gath that although there was doubtless some extraordinary impulse upon David's heart to undertake that business yet the holy Text intimates that he listned to the discourses of the people and was inflamed by the general assurance was given him of a mighty and glorious reward to him that should effect it Since therefore the proposition of great and glorious hopes is so necessary not only to draw men off from the present allurements of sin and to dissolve the charms of sense which habituate sinners are bound in but also to comfort and incourage even good men themselves and to ingage both the one and the other in a generous course of vertue the Divine Majesty considering he hath to do with men and resolving to deal with them agreeably to their natures thinks it as well becoming his wisedom as his goodness not only to proclaim impunity to his rebels upon their submission but to assure them of the highest favours and preferments in the Court of Heaven 2. SECONDLY the extream difficulty and consequently the wonderfull rarity of examples of great sinners recovered to sincere piety makes such happy accidents deserve to be solemnized with the greater joy and triumph St. Gregory Nazianzen making an oration in commemoration of St. Cyprian as well reports his flagitious life before his conversion to Christianity as his admirable vertues and piety afterwards and makes the former a shadow to heighten and set off the latter For saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is nothing so great a matter to maintain the Character of a good man when a man hath once attained to it as to begin a whole new course of piety for now the one is but to be like a man's self and to pursue a custom or habit but the other requires a vertuous choice and a manly resolution able to bear down former habits and therefore there are but few examples of the one but many of the other INDEED it is an unspeakable advantage to be early ingaged in the ways of vertue for then by reason of the easiness of doing good which is consequent of custom a man seems to be under 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a divine fate a peculiar predestination to happiness and therefore if it be well considered there is nothing in all a man's whole life that he hath greater reason to thank God for then that good providence of his which takes hold of our tender years and forms them to a sense of Religion for hereby sin is made dreadfull to our Consciences and upon the matter vertue is as easy as vice and the narrow way to Heaven as ready to our feet as the broad way of destruction But on the other side Revocare gradus hic labor hoc opus to reduce an old dislocation is very painfull to put off the old man to change customs to cast out Satan out of his old possession must be very difficult and require a very brave and generous resolution AND although to omnipotent power all things are alike easy yet forasmuch as God not only speaks after the manner of men but also proceeds ordinarily by the course of natural causes and doth not supersede their activity but assist them proportionably to their natures it must needs notwithstanding the divine grace be a very difficult thing to recover an old and deplored sinner in whom all the powers of the mind are enfeebled the sense of Conscience stupified and the very Synteresis and natural notions of the Soul are corrupted and consequently a through reformation of such a person is like to life from the grave and must needs draw after it not only the eyes and admiration of men but also the vexation of Hell and make the Devil rage as disappointed of the prey he thought himself sure of but especially must produce joy in Heaven and amongst the holy Angels IT can indeed be no surprizal to Almighty God who foreknows all things from the beginning and is as far from admiration as from mutability of passions both which proceed from shortness of understanding nor to our Lord Jesus Christ now in glory for we see that whilst he was upon earth he knew when vertue-proceeded from him to cure the woman of her inveterate distemper But whereas men are wont to make some passionate expressions of their resentment of every new and admirable event God thinks fit also in such an extraordinary recovery as this we are speaking of to set up a monument crowning him that overcomes the aforesaid difficulties with immortal glory
inasmuch as such a vertue though it run a shorter race yet by reason of the aforesaid difficulties it encounters withall equalls if not exceeds that of the earliest setting out and the longest course 3. THIRDLY it pleaseth God so plentifully to reward those that come into his Vineyard at the last hour and to make the condition of sincere Converts equall to that of those who continued always in his service because the return of such demonstrates both the excellency of vertue the great comforts of religion and the mighty efficacy of the methods of the Gospel TO begin with that first which we named last what can be a more irrefragable proof of the power of the Gospel then to see men who were given up to all debauchery abandoned of all true reason drowned in sensuality careless of eternity in a word dead in trespasses and sins recover their right minds and come to life again Doth not this evince that which the foolish world called foolishness to be the power of God to salvation Doth it not bear an illustrious testimony to that divine institution in shewing such effects of it as all Philosophy and humane Rhetorick despaired of To preserve those that are in health is valuable but to recover the sick and especially to raise the dead is admirable To civilize some part of mankind is all that humane wisedom can pretend to but to make men substantially and compleatly vertuous to alter men's tempers to correct their course to reclaim the desperate to make lewd and profligate wretches become grave and sober and chaste and holy this is a noble atchievement and this is the pretence of the Gospel and such Converts as we speak of verify all its pretensions Is it not therefore agreeable to the divine wisedom to cast a glory upon that which glorifies the wisedom of his invention AND then for the other point that by such conversions as we speak of the native excellency of Religion and the solidity of the comforts of vertue are demonstrated to be above all the gaudy outside and empty pageantry of the world or all the temptations to sin whatsoever is clear as the light since these men who have made experiment of both forsake the one for the other and having found the reasonableness of its injunctions the plainness and evenness of its path and the certainty of its upshot the present comforts and the future rewards stick firmly and immovably to vertue THE Apostle St. Peter Ep. 2. Chap. 2. Vers 20. tells us that if after a man hath escaped the pollutions of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ he be again intangled therein and overcome the latter end of such a man is worse then the beginning and that it had been better for him not to have known the way of righteousness then after he hath known it to turn from the holy commandment c. And St. Paul complains of the Galatians as if they seemed to be bewitched that having begun in the Spirit they would goe about to end in the flesh Gal. 3. 1. 3. For besides that such apostasies render their second recovery most desperate having eluded all the divine methods they also sadly aggravate their own guilt Trampling under foot the bloud of the Covenant giving the lie to God and belying their own Consciences in going cross to the convictions of their reason and their experience of the comforts of Religion in which doing they cannot seem other then inchanted or infatuated On the other side those that having tried all the pleasures of sin and considered and cast up all the gains of the Devil's service forsake him and seriously devote themselves from thenceforth to God and his holy ways utterly disparage the Kingdom of Sathan and betray the secret weakness the falshood the beggery and tyranny thereof Namely they declare that the Devil performs not what he promises nor sin what it pretends to that all the allurements of ease mirth pleasure profit which men were drawn to sin by were nothing but vain boasts all cheat and imposture And they confute all the scandals cast upon Religion all the calumnies against God as if he were an hard Master and answer all the objections which men take up against his service as difficult or uncomfortable as proceeding from meer cowardise and effeminacy of spirit Wherefore since such men who heretofore like Sampson whilest their locks were shorn and their eyes put out made sport for those Philistins the infernal spirits now calling upon God and collecting themselves in one great effort subvert the very pillars of that Kingdom and by this last act giving a more fatal blow to it then otherwise they could have done in all their lives it seems good to God to crown them as if they had always fought under his banners as well as assisted his conquest at the last 4. LASTLY such men as have formerly lived flagitiously and wickedly and are at last brought over effectually to hearty piety and devotion prove commonly very eminent and remarkable for several vertues to such a degree as is scarcely attainable or imitable by any others And therefore though they come in late they are crowned with the first Namely such persons are generally extraordinary humble and modest in their sense of themselves they are very charitable and free from censoriousness and severe reflection upon others they are exceeding watchfull and cautious for the time to come they have both a great compassion to the Souls of men of whom there is any hope of recovery and they have a wonderfull zeal of God's glory which things together render them both very beautifull in the eyes of God and very usefull in the world They are very modest and humble as reflecting upon their former miscarriages and being ashamed of themselves their present attainments do not puff them up by reason they have a thorn in the flesh a fresh and quick sense of their former follies and disobedience they remember that when they were lately in their bloud God said to them Live And this makes them not only most highly to admire and adore the riches of God's grace to them that he snatcht them as a brand out of the fire but also exceedingly contented with any condition of life his providence thinks fit to put them in Let those saith the Convert who never defiled their garments stand upon their own justification and plead their own righteousness for my part mine is but filthy rags If I had not found a mercifull God and a gracious Saviour I had perished everlastingly And if there be any can think God a debtor to them they may expostulate with him about his providences but I of all men have least reason to do it who am less then the least of all his mercies Now these things containing a full compliance with all God's designs and being the most real advancement of his glory must needs be very acceptable to him AGAIN in consequence of this humble sense of himself the
that the saying of the Apostle is especially and most remarkably verified in the charity of Parents that it beareth all things hopeth all things believeth all things for they readily believe well of their Children because they so passionately desire it should be so notwithstanding the Son could not think his Father so soft and easy as to be imposed upon with words and ceremonies and himself was not now so ill natured as to go about to abuse so much goodness if it it had been in his power Wherefore the Text saith vers 20. So he arose and came to his Father i. e. he did not only change his note his address his countenance but he changed his course he returned to his Father and to the duty of a Son AND we have under this type in the former part of it seen described the preface and introduction to repentance towards God namely the sinner bewailing his sin taking shame to himself under agonies of mind pricked to the heart humbly imploring the divine favour and crying earnestly for mercy But this is not all that repentance means the principal part of it is yet behind viz. Actual Reformation This is that which every awakened Conscience in its agonies promises and resolves upon this God expects and every sincere Convert really performs For without this all the rest is but empty pomp and pageantry and meer hypocrisy as we shall shew anon But when this is added to the former such a person from thenceforth is a new man and in a new estate he hath compleatly made his return to God as the Son in the Text is said to have actually returned to his Father I have noted heretofore that all irreligion and profaneness is wont in the language of the Scripture to be expressed by the phrase of departing from God or going out from him or forsaking him and so the whole practice of Religion is contrariwise set forth by drawing nigh to or coming to God particularly Hebr. 11. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that cometh to God q. d. he that becomes a Proselyte to Religion for from thence doth that word Proselyte take its original Wherefore now we will first observe what is implyed by this phrase of the Son 's returning or coming to his Father and in proportion thereto describe this most important business of the Penitent's returning to God which is his Actual Conversion or Reformation and in the former these three things seem plainly to be comprehended 1. That the Son now returns home to his Father's family and presence 2. That he returns to the duty of a Son by obedience and compliance with his Father's commands 3. That he submits to his Father's government and provision Therefore in the latter namely conversion to God these three things must semblably be implied 1. That the Penitent puts himself under the eye of God and lives in a constant practice of piety and devotion 2. That he frames himself to universal obedience to all God's commands 3. That he gives himself up to the divine disposal and intirely submits to his providence and government 1. CONCERNING the first of these there is nothing more evident or remarkable to all experience and observation then the great fervor of devotion in all true Converts from an evil life insomuch that there is not that man to be found under such a character but presently with great solemnity and seriousness he sets up the worship of God to which purpose we find in the history of the Acts of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Worshippers or Devout persons to be the common name by which Converts to Religion are expressed and these Acts 13. 48. are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Candidates of eternal life or put into order and disposed for salvation Compare vers 43. with 48. More particularly it is observable of St. Paul that when from a superstitious Pharisee and bitter enemy of Christianity he was reclaimed and made a Christian the assurance that God gives to Ananias of the truth of his conversion is Acts 9. 11. Behold he prays And so of Manasses 2 Chron. 33. 18. amongst the instances of his real reformation the Scripture takes especial notice of the prayer that he prayed AND this is so universal a truth that I think from hence it cometh to pass that those who have a mind hypocritically to put on the guise and appearance of Religion are wont to be notably carefull in this point for so the Pharisees cloaked all their villanies with this garb of piety Now hypocrisy would miss altogether of its design if it did not resemble the truth of things and usually their over solicitude and overdoing herein betrays them to act a part only in Religion BUT it is not only the duty of prayer which the true Penitent expresses his conversion by though this be by some too phantastically called Duty as if all piety consisted in that only for as the literal Prodigal returns to his Father's house and family so the mystical returns to God's house which is his Church and associates himself with God's servants in all the offices of Religion viz. in hearing the word reading meditation Sacraments c. Now he thinks a day spent in God's Courts better then a thousand and had rather be a door-keeper in the house of the Lord then to dwell in the tents of the wicked This one thing he desires of the Lord and is most passionate in that he may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his Temple And he so highly values the priviledge of God's Church that no private opinion no trifling scrupulosity nor petty disgust shall ever alienate him from it Here he finds himself fortified and incouraged by the great examples of holy men his prayers strengthened by the concurrence of all good people here he is under the publick dispensations of the means of grace and knowledge the very plainness and simplicity of which he now with the great Convert St. Austin values and admires more then all the Greek or Roman eloquence of Speech or subtilty of Philosophy to which every thing else seemed flat and insipid before Above all the holy Sacrament puts him into an ecstasy in this he thinks himself in God's presence in an extraordinary manner and admitted a guest at his Table the Crums of which he thinks himself unworthy of here he refreshes his hungry Soul with the Bread of Life and his wounded Conscience by the Bloud of his crucified Saviour and in both he thinks he sees his provoked but compassionate Father stand with open arms to receive him This he approaches with great reverence with shame and sorrow for his sins past together with faith and hope in God's mercy and will therefore never be negligent of it IN these and all other duties of Religion both publick and private the Convert expresses such an excellent spirit and extraordinary
zeal as cannot but be very observable nay his fervor is so great in these things that the only danger is of running into some excess lest he outgo the health and strength of his Body and forget the necessity of the common affairs of life IT is true there is great diversity in these passionate expressions of devotion according to the difference of men's tempers and constitutions but yet in every true Convert it is at the lowest quite another thing from the common flatness and formality that is too easy to be seen in other men nay the transports of this kind in new Converts are usually so great that it often gives them occasion afterwards to question their station and to doubt whether they have not apostatized and faln from their first love when they find they cannot maintain those spring-tides constantly at the same height through the whole course of their lives For the sake of which this is to be added that it is no argument against a man's sincerity that he wants some of the passionate expressions of devotion which he had at first in regard then the fresh sense he had of his miscarriages of his horrible danger together with the ravishing joy at the first glimpse of God's mercy in Christ were able strangely to move all his powers and to draw even those bodily passions into compliance with the sense of the mind which must certainly flag afterwards And therefore though it be a sure sign he is no Convert I mean from a debauched and wicked life who had no experience of something extraordinary in this kind at first yet on the other side it is no sign of decaying in grace if he find not the like all along 2. BUT to proceed secondly when the Son arose and went to his Father it is implied that he became obedient to his commands as well as that he lived in his presence and family And accordingly the Penitent in the next place contents not himself with any or all of the forementioned acts of devotion as not intending to put off God with complementall addresses for all worship without obedience is no better but applies himself with all humility and seriousness to frame his life according to his commands Heretofore he was a Son of Belial lawless and disobedient but now he saith with St Paul upon his conversion Acts 9. 6. What wilt thou have me to doe Lord He hath now found what hard service the Devil puts his vassals to and having had so bad a Master of him he doth not discourage himself with suspicions but submits his neck to the yoke of Christ Jesus and doth not say it is grievous as being of opinion with the Falisci who told Fabricius Melius nos sub vestro imperio quà m sub nostris legibus victuri sumus God's service is perfect freedom and it is liberty enough to obey wisedom and goodness ACCORDINGLY he indeavours from henceforth to live in all the statutes and commandments of the Lord blameless and exercises himself to have a Conscience void of offence both towards God and man He confines not his care to some one branch or part of his duty which is the common guise of hypocrites but resolves to be universally good and holy For he not only considers that one sin is sufficient to ruine a man as well as many as one disease may destroy a man's life as well as a complication but also he observes that the main difficulty of vertue lies in that men do not uniformly carry on the whole business before them and so the Devil gets that ground in one place which he seems to lose in another Besides the very principle that acts and governs him is the hearty love of God and goodness which makes him have an equal hatred to all sin and a zeal of every duty HE forsakes all his debauches for the pleasure of a good Conscience and makes experiment whether victory over his passions be not as delightfull as the gratification of them and whether intellectual joys be not as ravishing as sensual enjoyments and a regular conversation as easy and agreeable as the lawless and licentious He brings his senses in subjection to his reason and makes all those powers and faculties tributary to Religion which before made war against it This head of mine saith he which was wont to be employed in contrivances for the world or in catering for my lusts shall now be exercised in studying how I may doe most honour to my Maker This wit which was wont to goe out in froth or in scoffing at all that was serious shall now make apologies for what before it blasphemed This tongue shall learn to bless that was used to cursing and swearing My hands shall now dispense as liberally to charitable purposes as they have sordidly raked together before I will be as exemplary for sobriety and chastity as ever I was notorious for excesses and wherever I have wronged any body in my dealings I will now spare from my self to make them a recompence In short by the grace of God from henceforward there is neither pleasure shall tempt me nor profit allure me nor ambition corrupt me nor example sway me to doe any thing which I know to be evil and on the other side there shall neither difficulty discourage me nor tediousness of the course weary me in the race of vertue and holiness And to the intent that he may always make good this ground and persevere in this course he calls in all the Auxiliaries of Divine Grace places himself under the most advantageous circumstances and retrenches himself against all assaults or surprisals Herewithal he hath a principal care to keep his thoughts pure and holy that there may be no combustible matter in him for the Devil 's fiery darts to take hold of nor any beginning of a mutiny within him of the flesh against the spirit by which means a passage may be opened to the enemy And yet when this is done he will be always upon his guard too not trusting wholly to the innocency of his intentions as knowing both the subtilty and enterprizing nature of the Devil And that this watch may be constantly kept up he is sure not to allow himself the least degree of intemperance which would at least weaken his reason and inflame his passion and farther he is very choice of his company and very desirous to fortify himself by good neighbourhood and acquaintance that he may be quickened by their examples and lastly he will be always doing some good thing or other that temptation may not find him at leisure to give it entertainment MOREOVER in consideration that he hath lived a great while unprofitably and done far less then his duty he will strive if it be possible to do more then is matter of express duty now to make amends for fomer failing and therefore is far from the cold and frugal piety of those men that make a great stirr in seeking the