guards that are set about them to preserve them and break thro the strengths of grace and conquer all the strivings of Almighty God's compassion and goodness to them and beat off the very victory that Christ hath gain'd for them refuse all the kind offers of the Law of grace and chuse sin with damnation they are safe There is now as St Paul saith by the Law no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus to them who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. in which words we have both an assurance that the strengths of Sin are broken and the persons too are partakers of the Victory that are in Christ Jesus for as it is by him the Victory is gotten so it is in him that we must get an interest in it Now to be in Christ if as most certainly it doth it mean here as in other places where 't is said of Churches housholds and of single persons then it means the Christians so in Gal. 1. 22 the Churches of Judea that are in Christ i. e. that have received the Gospel and the Faith of Christ Rom. 16. 11. greet them that be of the houshold of Narcissus that are in the Lord i. e. that are Christians and the seventh verse who were in Christ before me i. e. were converted e're I was But it means Christians not in judgment and opinion onely but in life and practice such as are in Christ by St Pauls character and description of it in the 2 Cor. 5. 17. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature he lives the life of Christ as a member does the life of that of which it is a member and so he walks not after the Flesh but after the Spirit For as members live by the vertue of the influence of spirits from the head into them and walk after its directions so those that are in Christ his members they must walk live act and practise by the Spirit of Christ guided not by carnal appetite the lusts and the desires of the Flesh but by Christ's directions Such they are who have this Victory to whom there is no condemnation For as he adds Rom. 8. 2. The law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death and so there is thro him a Victory over the third last enimy Death in which freedom from Sin and Death two things are intimated 1. That Sin the sting of Death is taken away which being once removed Death is the softest thing that can be 't is but falling asleep so it is call'd v. 18. of this chapter faln asleep in Christ it is so far from being hurtful that it is the first great happiness that does befall us 2. That Death it self also shall be swallowed up in Victory that we shall be recovered from its powers and triumph over it in Immortality of blessed life For if we be in Christ his members and so live the life of Christ and consequently when we die die in the Lord then tho the body be dead and corruptible yet if the Spirit of life that is in Jesus be in us he that rais'd up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit Rom. 8. 11. It is this life in him that verifies the saying of St Paul Eph. 2. 6. He hath raised us up and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ as sure as if we were already there for there we are already as his members in our head And to the full and personal enjoyment of the blessings of those heavenly places it is death that lets us in that vale of Achor is the door of hope and Canaan the grave the avenue to God's right hand that death 't is but the Pascha in St Bernard 't is our Passover a repast of bitter herbs indeed but at the going out of Egypt from the house of bondage And tho the body seem in death a piteous despicable thing sown in corruption dishonor as St Paul expresses yet death gives that a relation too to Christ the Prophet Isaiah brings in the Lord calling His dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cadaver they my dead body shall aris◠saith he c. 26. 19. So that the corps of a good person is so far a member that 't is call'd the very body of his Savior into such a title Death translates it to such not to live onely but to die is Christ. And sure if they that die in him did live in him as none can die there where they did not live at all that is live as his members they that die in Christ must die his members But in the expression of the Prophet they do also die himself and are Christ's own dead body Death to such is as it were transfiguration and do's not so much strip and make them naked as cloath them and that with glory the shrowd may seem but their white wedding linnen and their dress for the marriage of the Lamb. Whoever is a faithfull sincere Christian if Death seem to make approaches to him arm'd with all his instruments of cruelty and terror charge him as assuredly as a Prophet could to set his house in order for he must die if he can say with Hezekiah in Isaiah 38. 3. Remember now O Lord how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have don that which is good in thy sight then if he have not fifty years yet he shall have a numberless Eternity added to his life and notwithstanding the dark solitude of the Grave to which he is retiring he shall have that which will accompany him to his infinite joy when he is torn from friends and all his dearest things do leave him yet he shall not be alone his faith and piety his vertues all go along with him and appear for him at that tribunal on the Judgment day All his relations even his bosom-guest the other half of his own soul forsake him bring him it may be to the grave and tho they carry blacks upon them to refresh and keep alive the memory of him yet in a while take comfort and forget yet the true conjugal affections of an untainted undefiled bed shall go along present the Soul white as a Virgin that 's unspotted And after this 't is in vain to say his riches will forsake him they go not so far as the grave afford nothing of themselves but the price of a sheet and coffin But then Charities will mount Alms will ascend as fast as the Spirit the wealth one piously bestow'd will meet him he shall eternally possess that which he gave away and tho his place know him no more they shall receive him into everlasting habitations Wherefore my beloved Brethren be ye stedfast unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord which is the real way of giving thanks to God who giveth us the Victory SERMON XI
Hope of a Christian is this Hope Fourthly how that Hope does set a man on purifying He that hath this Hope purifies himself For the first what it is to purify I shall onely name it is to cleanse from all mixture of pollution and how far it is to extend is set down by St Paul upon the very same grounds with those in the Text Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of the Flesh and Spirit and St James Cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded and they both mean thus much that for external actions Christian purity tho it will admit of slips and failings yet it is not consistent with continuance in any known sin And therefore David tho he were said to be a man after Gods own heart and that he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord the very description of pure yet it is added save in the matter of Vriah For first it never does admit any filthiness of Flesh but must be universal and it is in this true what St James saith c. 2. v. 10. Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all God had before affirm'd the same expresly Ezek. 18. 10 11 12 13. If he beget a son that is a robber and that doth the like to any one of these things and hath defil'd his neighbours wife hath oppressed the poor and needy c. shall he then live he shall not live he hath don all these abominations he shall surely die So that in Gods sight he that hath don any one of these things he hath don all these abominations for it is plain that those he had not don he abstain'd not from because God had forbidden them for then he had abstain'd from that which he had don God had forbidden that so that his abstinences are not innocence but squeamishness or fear Either he does not like them or he dares not do them for some worldly reason and he does not onely let God see he can abstain for such considerations as these but will not for his Promises or his autority He values these below the mode or fashion of the world or his respect to some other person or any little interest or humor 2. Neither does this purity admit any filthiness of the Spirit we must purify our hearts and for internal purity the rule is that to abstain from outward actions of sin is not enough but the heart must be cleansed also this is proved already And indeed to deny my flesh the pleasures of the flesh and yet to let my mind dwell upon them and enjoy them not to commit them and yet suffer my soul to do it is to transplant the sin to make my soul act the deeds of the flesh and my very spirit become carnal This is at the best to give God the worst part of my services and the Devil the best my heart and soul the Devil enjoies God hath nothing but a few outward abstinences What a mixture is here how far from purity God and the Devil join'd together and the Devil having the upper hand the better portion Thus in general but to tell you what kind of purity we are to strive after I shall touch at some few Scripture wordings of it 1. Holiness For pure and holy are often join'd 2 Cor. 7. 1. Having these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. Now the true notion of holiness consists in a setting apart or discrimination from other things or persons And therefore holiness of life is the observing that peculiar different form of life which God hath commanded those whom he hath call'd not being conform'd to the fashion of the world As St James saith pure Religion not to live after the common manner of men common and holy being every where oppos'd so that when God is said to call us to holiness he requires us to consecrate our lives to his service to look upon our selves as things sacred Hence Christians are call'd living Sacrifices holy to God Rom. 12. 1. Temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6. 19. and all names of Holiness are set upon them to shew how strict a necessity lies upon us to separate our selves from all carnal wordly uses and defilements 2. The Pure are exprest by Virgins 2 Cor. 11. 2. For I am jealous over you with a Godly jealousy that is as a strict careful Parent over his beloved maiden daughter so that I may present you as a chast Virgin to Christ. Every gross impurity deflowers the soul and when it sins it plays the strumpet And if a bride that on her wedding day should play the harlot and give away that Virginity which she had but then promised to her Husband would certainly not dare to stand the wrath of her furious Bridegroom that should catch her in her villany how wilt thou meet the jealousy of thy Spouse when as thou spread'st thy self to every temtation committest perpetual whoredoms with the World and flesh and doest continually act disloialty in the very eyes of his glory Certainly the same jealous care and earnest desires that are emploi'd in seeking a wife that is not vitiated this very expression of Virgin does direct us to make use of in watchfulness over our selves that sin do not devirginate us that we do not present a strumpet to Christ for his Spouse but that he may find us Virgins at the Marriage of the Lamb. Yea that we may see what kind of ones also St Paul expresseth their Purity Ephes. 5. 27. not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but holy and without blemish For as every gross Sin does deflowr the Soul and make it no Virgin so every lighter fault is a spot upon the cheek a wrinkle in the forehead in Christs eyes And if chastity shall be severely guarded out of a respect to future hopes of marriages which there is no hopes to be successful in if that be blasted if to please a Suiter the glass shall be consulted with every stain shall be adorn'd cover'd made a beauty-spot and all methods sometimes more then honest us'd to keep the forehead smooth the cheek full and plain not content with the Lords workmanship upon them they will outdo their Maker and create to themselves beauties that God and Nature never did intend them if men do avoid wrinkles in a Bride as they would do a Deaths-head or memento mori in their bridal bed can we then think our selves whom every day bespots and stains every hour adds such wrinkles to whose souls have more of those furrows than our lives have minutes who are indeed onely bundles of deformities besides our gross whoredoms can we I say think our selves a fit Spouse for Christ Is he the onely Bridegroom to be thus provided for Can we have
it would A setled tendency a resolv'd inclination to sin that presseth with its utmost agitation is that weight which though it may perchance be stop'd in its career yet it tends to the Abysse its center and will not rest but in that Pit that hath nor rest nor bottom the Heart in this case is as liable as it can be because here it hath done its worst and such a Will shall be imputed to its self And now I need not tell those who are still designing sin or mischief in the heart although it never dares come out of those recesses how far they are removed from the goodness of God to Israel A Father finds a way to prove such souls have larger doses of Gods Vengeance who when he had asserted that the soul does not die with the body and then was ask'd what it did in that long interval for sure it is not reasonable that it should be affected with any anticipations of the future Judgment because the business of the day of Judgment should be reserved to its own day without all prelibation of the sentence and the restitution of the Flesh is to be waited for that so both soul and body may go hand in hand in their Recompences as they did in their demerits joynt Partners in the Wages as they were in the Works To this he answers The Soul does not divide all its operations with the Body some things it acts alone and if there were no other cause it were most just the Soul should there receive without the Body the dues of that which here it did commit without the Body That 's for the former sort of sins those meerly of the Heart And for the latter sort the Soul is first engaged in the commission that does conceive the sin lays the design of compassing and does contrive and carry on the machination and then why should not that be first in Punishment which is the first in the Offence Go now and reckon that thy outward gross Transgressions are the only dangerous and guilty ones and slight thy sins of Heart but know that while thy flesh is sleeping in the quiet Grave at rest and ease thy Spirit then 's in Torments sor thy Fleshes sins and feels a far severer Worm than that which gnaws thy Body Poor Soul Eternity of Hell from Resurrection to For-ever is not enough to punish it all that while it must suffer with the Body but it must have an age of Vengeance besides particularly for it self to plague it for those things it could not execute and punish it for what it did not really enjoy only because it did allow it self to desire and contrive them and it must be tormented for those unsatisfied desires And though indeed desires where they are violent if they be not allayed by satisfaction are but so much agony yet do they merit and pull on them more these Torments shall be plagued and the soul suffer for its very passion even from Death to the last Judgment and 't is but just that being it usurp'd upon the pleasures and the sins of Flesh it should also seize on and take possession of the Vengeance appointed for those sins it should invade and should usurp their condemnation But why do I stand pressing aggravations against uncleanness of Heart in an Age when God knows Vice hath not so much modesty or fear to keep within those close and dark restraints Instead of that same Cleanness which the Text requires we may find Purity indeed of several sorts but 't is either pure Fraud or pure Impiety the one of these does make a strange expression very proper pure Corruption for so it is sincere and without mixture nothing but it self no spots of Clean to chequer it but all stain The other is pure white indeed but it is that of whited Sepulcres a Life as clean as Light a bright pure Conversation but it shines with that light onely which Satan does put on when he transforms himself into an Angel of Light and it is but a glory about a fiend But yet this shines however whereas others do stand Candidates of Vice and would be glorious in wickedness and that is such a splendor as if Satan should dress himself with the shine of his own flaming Brimstone and make himself a glory with the streamings of his Lake of Fire And yet thus is the World we do not onely see men serve some one peculiar vicious inclination and cherish their own wickedness but they make every Vice their own as if the Root of bitterness branch'd out in each sort of Impiety in them such fertile soyls of sin they are here insincerity were to be wish'd and where there is not cleanness that there were a Mask that there were the Religion of Hypocrisie We may remember God was good to Israel of old by Obligation and performance the one as great as he could enter the other great to Miracle and astonishment when after seventy years Captivity and Desolation he did rebuild a Temple where there was no Monument of its Ruines and raised a Nation and Government of which there was no Reliques And yet at last when the Religion of some turned into Faction of others into Prophaneness when the strictest Sect of them the Pharisees became most holy outwardly to have the better means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mischief those that were not of their Party and got a great opinion of Sanctity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as to be believed in whatsoever they did speak against the King or chief Priests and that so far as to be able openly to practise against both and raise Commotions They are Josephus's words of them and when another Sect the Zelots the most pernicious of all saith Bertram did commit Murders Sacriledg Prophanations and all kind of Villanies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with good Intentions saith the same Josephus and when those who did not separate into Sects but were the Church of Israel became lukewarm supine and negligent in their Profession yea and licentious and Prophane fit only to be joyned with Publicans in Christs expressions when sin grew generally Impudent when they did live as if they would be Scandalous as well as vicious as if they lov'd the guilt as much as the delights of sin and cared not to be wicked to themselves but must debauch as if they did enjoy the ruine of other persons sinning just as the Devil does who does not taste the sin but feasts upon the Sinners Condemnation Then did God execute a Vengeance whose prediction was fit to be mistaken for that of the Day of Judgment and whose event almost fulfill'd the terrors of that day I need not draw resemblances shew how Gods goodness to our Israel does equal that to them applying to our selves their Raptures how when the Lord turned the Captivity of our Sion we also were like them that dream surprized with Mercy Indeed as in a Dream Ideas
Brutes when thou hast set us here to train and discipline our selves for a condition of such glorious Joys as are fit to entertain Souls of Reason with and to make them blessed which to enter upon our Bodies must drop from us our Souls must be clarified from Flesh and Flesh it self refined into Spirit that we should make our selves Antipodes to this walk contrary to all and so debase our spirits as that they are qualified for no other satisfaction but those of dull sense and carnality Adam fell his great Fall by Eating but ever since men fall further by riotous intemperate Eating He fell from Paradise and they from Reason the Man sinks into Beast and the Soul falls into very Flesh and hath no other faculties or appetites but fleshly ones Such people of all others are not to be raised up by Religion their fulness gives no place to that but does exclude it God did complain of this of old Deut. xxxii 15. Jesurun waxed fat and kicked that we may see they want to brutish quality who do allow themselves the appetite of Brutes they that pamper themselves like to fed Horses will also neigh like them and kick even him that fed them thou art waxen fat thou art covered with fatness then he forsook God that made him and lightly esteemed the Rock of his Salvation When they came once where they did suck honey cut of the Rock and Oyl out of the flinty Rock they could not mind the Rock of their Salvation Indeed this sensuality as it consumes Estates eats Time and all the faculties of the Mind so it devours all Religion too it hath not only a particular opposition to some one duty as the other Vices have but by a direct influence it destroys the whole foundation of Vertue and obedience to God I mean subordination of the lower appetite to Reason and Religion which it renverses quite and breeds an universal cachexy of the Soul as well as Body For ever since Adam did eat of the forbidden Fruit the carnal mind we know is neither subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be as S. Paul says Rom viii 7. because Gods Commands are restraints upon those things which Flesh desires eagerly Now therefore while that Mind is unsubdued it must needs lust against the Spirit for those things that are forbidden nor endure to be limited which he that feeds it is so far from working towards that he does give it still more provocation and more power and makes the Flesh more absolute for it is clear that Plenty does encrease all its desires and their unruliness it ministers both vigor to it by which it is enabled to fulfill its lusts and it ministers aptness and incitation also both by custom of satisfaction and by adding heat which makes it more prone to rebel and more impossible to be kept under The progress of this is apparent in the Scripture Exod. xxxii 6. The People sat down to Eat and Drink and rose up to Play Lusum non denotasset nisi impudicum he means to play the wantons But Jeremy is plainer Chap. v. 7 8. How shall I pardon thee for this thy Children have forsaken me when I had fed them to the full they then committed Adultery and assembled themselves by troops in Harlots houses Nor stays it there but does encrease as well as feed to an Excess we may discern that by the Wisemans Prayer xxiii Ecclesiast 6. O Lord Father and God of my Life Let not the greediness of the Belly not the lust of the Flesh take hold of me and give not over me thy Servant to an impudent mind Gyant-like he had called it in the Verse before and sure the Wiseman in the Proverbs apprehended it as such and dreaded it accordingly as if Bellies full gorg'd were those Mountainr which the Gyants cast up to storm Heaven on He look'd upon this Vice as that which would bid defiance to God and out him and therefore thinks it necessary to beseech the Lord not to afford him so much as would furnish Plenty Prov. xxx 8. Give me not Riches feed me with food convenient for me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an Allowance with no more than is sufficient for me lest I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord. It seems such persons know no other God besides their Belly nor is it any wonder if a Soul made Flesh cannot well apprehend a Deity that is a Spirit or believe it but thinks all Notions of such beings to be contradiction when once by the suffusions of Carnality all the impressions of a Spirit are wrought out of it self And truly this is the most natural and certain way to become Atheists Whether this time that hath been almost always set aside for strict Severities and to work out Repentance and if it be not so intended now I know not what pretence did call us hither for though there be some relaxation of the severer Dyet of this time sure there is no indulgence of that Penitence which the strictness of this time design'd and let some men talk what they please of the Intention of their Statutes yet these Assemblies certainly were not intended for th◠increase of Cattel and advance of Fishing these were for higher aims of Piety Now whether we employ if so much towards this as to afflict our Souls i. e. our appetites and to revenge our superfluities upon our selves and to teach our desires to be denied Or whether we do teach the Dyet of this season to be but a variety of Luxury and if the Law did not command it and so make it Pressure by giving it the inconvenience and the uneasiness of being duty and obedience our selves could make it be one of the changes of our Vice only another course a diverse service of the same Riot and so defeat the Law by our obedience to it Or whether we do break the Law outright and to our superfluities add disobedience to Authority whether we do the one or other is not for me to say But if the Nation and we our selves have any sins to be repented of and we design this season for that use as sure some season must be so employed and why not this as well rather indeed than any other if we be not of those that would be glad to see all thrown again into Confusion glad to see a return of the same Vengeance as indeed a return of the same sins and the abuse of Mercies seem to call for it while men do live as if they thought God had wrought all these Miracles meerly to give them opportunity to serve their Vices or their other ends to put them in a way to get Places Estates and Dignities and by uncharitable gains hard-hearted griping yea by false unworthy treacherous Arts to heap up Wealth to raise their Families or feed their Lusts These these cry out to God to renew his Commission to the Sword to pass through all
the Land again and embowel it self in Church and State these call for it as loud as the hatangueing Prayers of Seditious Men and the Lord knows there are too many hands that would unsheath it if God do not interpose to hinder and well we have deserv'd he should But if we would endeavour to engage him by Repentance that will require the Afflicting of the Soul by some severities Do not mistake your selves Repentance as it cannot be wrought out amidst our courses that were contradiction to return and yet go on so also it will not be wrought out amidst the Comforts as we call the jollities of life Tertullian is very pleasant with those who did dislike that in their Penitencies they were by the Church prescrib'd to put off Mirth and put on Sackcloth and take Ashes for Bread Come says he reach that Bodkin there to braid my Hair and help me now to practise all those Arts that are in Mode to attire it give me the washes of that Glass the blushes of that Paper the foyles which that Box hath to beautifie and dress my Cheeks come and set out and dress my Table too let me have Fowl with costly forc'd and not a natural Fat or let me have cramb'd Fish and cram my Dishes also get me chearful Wine too and if any one ask why I do thus indulge my self Why I will tell him I have sin'd against my God and am in danger of Perdition and therefore I am in great trouble I macerate do you not see the signs of it and excruciate my self I take these fearful careful ways that I may reconcile God to me whom I have offended Alas to humble ones self thus in fulness and to afflict the Soul in chearful plenties is such a thing as none but he that sinks under the surfeit of those Plenties understands I 'm sure the Lord when he required his People to repent required them then to discipline and use severities upon themselves they were to fast or dye God took the execution for whatsoever Soul it be that shall not be Afflicted that same day shall be cut off from among his People Levit. xxiii 29. Even cut off by God himself And I do verily persuade my self that one great cause why men that have sometimes thought to reform their lives and do resolve against their Courses yet repent of their Repentance their resolutions untwist and become frail as threds of Cobweb the first assault of a temptation does break through them is they do not use mortifications to work their aversations high and strong against their sins and fix their resolutions The universal sense of the whole Primitive Church gives me confidence in this persuasion who for that very reason in their penitential Excommunications did inflict such severities as 't is almost incredible that Christians would submit to yet they beg'd to be censur'd into and those had S. Paul for their precedent But now Repentance are but dislikes little short unkindnesses at our sins and wouldings to do better On some moving occasion if Gods Hand or his Spirit lash it may be Tears will gush out of the Wound and we in angry sadness do intent against our Vices but when that fit is over and the Flesh by indulgences prepared to make or answer a temptation we fall again and then it may be shake the head and curse the sin but yet again commit it if the invitation be fair And then are very sorry account our selves unhappy who lie under such a violent infirmity but act it still Now if we consider how it comes to pass that we go round like men inchanted in a Circle of Repenting and of Sinning we shall find it is for want of Discipline upon our selves for had we strove to make our humiliations more low and full of pungent sorrow the Soul would start and fly at the first glance of that which cost it so much anguish but who would fear to act that sin which puts him to so little trouble to repent of as a sad thought a sigh a wish and a loose purpose thin intentions and that 's all Do not complain of the Infirmity of the Flesh for this and say thou wouldst live Spiritually but the frailty of thy sensual part betrays thee its stings and incitations make thee start from duty and goad and force thee into actions which otherwise thou neither shouldst or wouldst commit 'T is thou thy self that arm'st thy Flesh with all its stings thou givest it strengths whereby it does subdue the Spirit thou waterest thy desires with Wines thou feedest them with strong meat and teachest them to crave thou cocker'st them with thy indulgence and thou dost treat Temptations to sin dost invite wickedness and nourish the occasions of Ruin and then it is no wonder if thy resolutions be not strong enough there is no way but by Austerities to mortifie all inclinations that stir against the Spirit and by denying satisfactions to thy Appetite to calm and moderate thy affections to every thing below and then Temptations will have neither Aid nor Avenue But Secondly You shall Afflict your Souls cannot be meant only that ye shall Afflict your Bodies the Spirit also must be troubled and we must rent the Heart as well as Garments that is indeed a Sacrifice fit for a Propitiation day for it is such a one as God will not despise Psal. li. 17. and without which all others are but vain Oblations God may call fasting the Afflicting of the Soul because it is the most appropriate and natural means to work it but when he calls it so he does intend it should produce it Austerities are humilificandi hominis disciplina as Tertul. says Humiliation Discipline but yet they have not always that effect The Pharisee that fasted twice a week did not mortifie at all but his Humiliation made him lofty his emptiness filled him with wind and puft him up and the Publican was more justified than he And late experiences have taught us that Fasting does not always humble when it did gape for Sovereignty and did afflict then into Power only when there attended it a sacra fames an hunger after Holy things and such as all the relicts of old Sacriledg could not allay but it devoured Church and State and yet crav'd still And the throat of these fasting men was an open Sepulchre indeed open to bury and that could no more be satisfied than the Grave But 't is not only these demure impieties and those that are devout in wickedness and act it in Religion and the Fear of God I have to speak against But in the general If Fasting do not humble and those severities that wear the Flesh break not the heart too and make it contrite then they are lost upon us and do not profit us All these strictnesses of bodily and outward exercise as S. Paul calls it are acts of discipline prescribed to make the Sorrows of Repentance more severe and operative and so to
hold on any noble part take in some Nerve or Artery then he must cut the thread of Life that cuts it off So he must rent my heart indeed that tears my pleasures from me Life it self does seem to have so little salisfaction without them that it is a death to me to part with them Or else hath the Old Man no Soul is he all Flesh and hath Iniquity debas'd the whole of him so that his very Spirit is become Body of Sin so as that Wickedness should be our very Being be all one with us and I and my corruptions prove denominations of one importance signifie the very same so it is indeed Besides the carnal part that is sold under sin and consequently does deserve the Cross that punishment of Slaves the part also that is in the quite opposite extream that lusts against the flesh that must be made away Be ye 〈◊〉 ansform'd by the renewing of your mind Rom. xii 2. And if there be any sublimer and more deâ—â—â—cated past in that it must submit to the same Fate 〈…〉 in the spirit of your mind Ephes. iv 23. Corruption hath invaded that To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the diviner ruling part is grown a slave to the Beast part of him it hath debauch'd its notions whereby it should discriminate good from evll so that now it can discern no natural difference between them but does measure both meerly by his present inclinations and concerns and the eternal Laws of Honesty are blotted our and principles of interest and irreligion rais'd there in the place and buttress'd by false reasonings and Discourses Now all these Fortresses of Vice that maintain and secure a man in sin must be demolish'd all such imaginations cast down and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and every thought brought into Captivity to the obedience of Christ That Spirit of the mind must be destroyed and we transformed into persons of new notions and reasonings But above all the remaining part of Man his own Will must be mortified which besides its natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by perverse inclinings to sollicitations of flesh is most corrupted and most dangerous in that which way soever it inclines it draws the whole Man after it If any thing in us be crucified in a Conformity to Christ it must be this for in that death wherein Christ offered up himself upon the Cross where although the Divine Nature gave the value 't was onely the Humane Nature made the Offering there it was the crucifying his own Will that above all other the ingredients made his Death a Sacrifice and the price of our Redemption God that had given him his Blood and Life might call for it again when and how he saw good and being due it was not properly a price that could be given him for sin but his free voluntary choice his being willing to endure the Agonies and Contempts of the Cross his stabbing his own natural desires with a resolute determination Not my will but thine be done This his own Will was his own Offering and such is ours if we be Crucified with Christ made conformable to his death if we present our selves a Sacrifice acceptable to the Lord for our will is not given up to him till it do perfectly comport with his but that it cannot do till we renounce our own desires till we have brought our selves to an indifference in outward things to such a resignation as she is storied to have had who being in her Sickness bid to choose whether she rather would have Health or Death made answer Vehementissimè desidero ut non facias voluntatem meam Domine this above all I desire that thou wilt not do my will I would have thee not do what I desire and would have So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole of us the Spirit Soul and Flesh go to make up this Person and the body of Sin is the Old man entire I whole I am nothing but a mass of guilts my Senses are the bands of wickedness that procure for my evil inclinations my members are the weapons of unrighteousness my Body is a Body of Sin and Death and the affections of my Soul are Lusts its faculties are the powers of Sin yea and the Spirit of my mind that Breath of God is putrefied that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Angel-part of me is fall'n and turn'd Apostate and however I be partly Son of Man and partly Son of God yet I am wholly Child of Wrath and so fit to be Crucified Which calls me to the next Enquiry to the nature of the duty here intended I am Crucified What is design'd by it S. Paul does perfectly declare Rom. vi 6. Our old man is crucified with Christ that the body of Sin might be destroyed that we should no longer serve sin So that it means a through Repentance and abandoning of former evil Courses A Duty which there are few men but in some instants of their life think absolutely necessary and persuade themselves they do perform it At some time or other they are forc'd to recollect and grow displeas'd and angry at their sins and have some sad reflections on them beg for mercy and forgiveness and do think of leaving them and when they have return'd to them again they shake the head and chafe and curse at their own weakness and renew their purposes it may be and do this as oft as such a Season as this is or other like occasions suggest it to or move them And with this they satisfie themselves and hope if God do please to take them hence in some such muddy gloomy fit of their Repentance all 's well Now shall we call this being Crucified are there Racks and Tortures in this discipline hath a Spear prick'd them to the heart and no blood nor no water no tears gush out thence hath it made no issue for some hearty Sorrow to purle out Indeed I must confess the Scripture does sometimes word the performance of this Duty in expressions that are not so sower but of an easier importance as first put off the Old Man as if all were but Garment put it off I say not as they strip'd our Saviour in order to his Scourgings and his Cross but intimating to us what an easie thing it is to cast off Sin for them who do begin with it betimes before it get too close to the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. saith Theophyl even as easie as putting off thy Cloaths and thy Repentance is but as thy Shift thy change of life like changing thy Apparel But alas for all the easiness which this expression hints where the sins also lie in the Attire as besides emulation pride vainglory great uncharitableness and inhumanity cruel injustice and oppression often do when many are undone through want of those dues which do furnish other men with the excesses of this
to him and his private devotions and when he saw his end approching in receiving the great Viaticum of the holy Sacrament in reference whereto having desir'd those friends of his who happen'd to be in Town to communicat with him the present Lord Archishop of York the Lord Bishop of London the Lord Bishop of Lincoln the Lord Bishop of Exeter the Lord Bishop of St. Asaph the Reverend Dr. Busby Mr. Fell one of the Fellows of Eton who continued with him the whole time of his sickness he afterwards took his last leave of them with great equanimity and constancy of mind and waited for the hour of his release Having hitherto drawn together the series of actions and emploiments which made up our Authors life it will not be amiss to set him in another light and take a prospect of his mind and personal qualifications As to his bodily appearance and outward features as they are of less importance so are they in recent memory and by sculpture and other delineations are so generally known that there will be no need they should be exprest by words His mind that nobler part of him was compos'd by an extraordinary indulgence of nature those faculties which in others use to be single and are thought necessarily to be so as excluding each the other were united in him Memory Phancy Judgement Elocution great Modesty and no less Assurance a comprehension of things and fluency of words an aptness for the pleasant and sufficiency for the rugged parts of knowledge a courage to encounter and an industry to master all things make up the Character of his happy genius Which felicity of temper was seconded by the circumstances of the times in which he liv'd which engag'd him severally to exert and cultivate his faculties Before the national calamity of the civil war he had secur'd the foundations of the whole circle of learning by his own indefatigable study as also the indulgent care of his Tutor Dr. Busby than whom no person is more happy in the Arts of transfusing his knowledge into others and the particular encouragement of Dr Fell the Dean who alwaies lookt upon him as a part of his family and treated him with the same concern as his own children When the war broke out he had the benefit of being instead of one in several Vniversities Oxford was then an Epitome of the whole Nation and all the business of it there was here the Court the Garrison the Flower of the Nobility and Gentry Lawyers and Divines of all England And times of action have somewhat peculiar in them to ferment and envigorat the mind which is enervated by the softness of peace The calamitous times which succeeded as they engag'd him to the exercise of popular preaching a talent which nothing besides necessity and practice can cultivate so they led him out into foreign parts enter'd him into the managery of business of greatest trust and hazard and made him as well read in Men as in Books After all this it was no small advantage to be return'd by the King 's happy restauration to the Vniversity and to the opportunities of reading and conversation with learned men and in that conspicuous Theater to have the obligation of a public emploiment to exert all his faculties and with utmost endeavor to emprove and communicate his knowledge And we may say it without envy that few of his time had either a greater compass or a deeper insight into all the parts of Learning the modern and learned Languages Rhetoric Philosophy Mathematics History Antiquity Moral and Polemical Divinity all which was not to be pumpt up or ransackt out of common place books but was ready at hand digested for his own use and communication in discourse to others From his first child-hood he had a strong impression of Piety and the Duties owed to God and Men which next to Divine Grace may be ascrib'd to the strict and severe education which he had from his Father a blessing that cannot be sufficiently valued and on which he often reflected with a great sense of gratitude Hereby notwithstanding the licence of war and incitations of youth he preserv'd his innocence and love of God and vertue till he made the more immediat service of them his profession In his constitution he had a great deal of warmth and vigor which made him apt to take fire upon provocation but he was well aware of it and kept a peculiar guard upon that weak part so that his heat was reserv'd for the great concerns of the honor of God and the service of his Prince and Country wherein he was altogether indefatigable and in the most dismal appearances of affairs would never desert them nor despair of their restauration There was not in the world a man of clearer Honesty and Courage no temtation could bribe him to do a base thing or terror affright him from the doing of a good one This made his friendships as lasting and inviolable as his life without the dirty considerations of profit or slie reserves of craft not the pageantry of ceremonious address or cold civility much less the servile falseness of obsequious flattery It was a solid and masculine kindness a perfect coalition of affections and minds so that there was nothing he possest but it was his friend 's as absolutely as it was his own and it became a general observation that he and they had all things in common This temper of his directed him to live with great kindness with his Neighbors and acquaintance so that Eton College while he liv'd there was but one family his lodging being every Fellow's chamber and they as much at home with him as in their own apartment And in the Vniversity tho his station and parts might object him to envy he had no competition or difference with any person so that no man ever liv'd with a more universal good will of all that knew him or died with a more general sorrow at his loss His conversation was alwaies cheerful and entertaining especially in the reception of his acquaintance at his table and friendly visits and in the evening after he had wearied himself with the studies of the day which he generally continued till eight of the clock at night during the many years he held the Chair soon after which he was to be call'd away to the night praiers of the College this short interval he made as easy as he could to himself and those that were with him and he had great reason to relax his mind at this time with a little cheerful discourse there being no person who more literally verified the saying of the wise Man that much study was a weariness to the flesh After his daies work he was us'd to be as faint and spent as if he had bin laboring all the time with the sithe or flaile and his intention of thought made such wast upon his spirits that he was frequently in hazard while at study to fall
very almes betoken and discover the necessity he hath yet no malice to his Benefactor therefore but the perishing naked soul thinks he that labors to releive her wants upbraids her with them and the invitations therefore to the Supper of the Lamb the offers of the wedding garment of the robe of Immortality provoke her Men allow the Physitian yet to tell them of those maladies that have guilt in them and receive prescriptions from him of such methods of severity and discipline as few would go thro to Heaven and all this endears the man but he that shall attemt an application to the vice which is the cause of all this to remove which is the onely possible way to secure from relapses and the certain way to health and life eternal he is judg'd a mortal enemy as if there were nothing in the world so dear to men as their sins are no kindnesses but what are shew'd to those are grateful that were true love that would see them let them perish everlastingly and not speak to them to direct them as if all benefaction to the soul were injury and the mercies that have in them Heaven and Eternity were meer defiances But how irksom however such conversations are as by admonitions or whatever other methods aim at the recovery of Sinners they are the onely conversations with them that can be justified For which is the fourth and last thing that I am to speak to 'T is onely the opportunity and the design and hope of doing good to Sinners by reforming them that can make familiar converse with them excusable and lawful I mean where the duty of a Relation does not oblige to it And first I will not give my self the trouble to find out a law of God among the Jews forbidding to converse at all with Heathens and by consequence with open Sinners which might give occasion to this question of the Pharisees since St Peter tells Cornelius Acts 10. 28. Ye know that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of an other Nation and our Savior when he would prescribe the distance which his censures were to make men keep from any refractory Sinner words it let him be unto thee as an Heathen or a Publican as supposing they were not to company with those and in the Text he also reckons the observance of that distance from all Sinners as a duty calls it Sacrifice and justifies his doing otherwise by this plea onely that he came to them to call them to repentance But if a command be call'd for we have several 1 Cor. 5. 11. Now I have written to you not to company if any man that is call'd a brother i. e. professeth himself a Christian be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner with such a one no not to eat and the like 2 Thess. c. 3. v. 14. If any man obey not our word note that man and have no company with him adding v. 15. Yet count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother The Converse is therefore lawful onely as an opportunity of admonition For Secondly if it be lawful otherwise I might ask for whom not for the Clergy-man most certainly whose calling it is to admonish and he is false and trecherous to his office as well as his company if he do not who is set God's Watchman to give notice of approching dangers who is responsible for every soul that perisheth for want of warning nor the Magistrate who if he see vice by his office is as much oblig'd to punish it as the Clergy-man to preach against it He also is the Minister of God to execute wrath as the other is to denounce it whose easiness is much more baneful then the others silence and makes all those faults which by not punishing it does encourage and by that is more unmerciful to the community then arbitrary tyranny and is guilty of that blood it does forbear to shed and as not for these so not for any one since reproofs and admonitions have bin the duty of every person from the beginnings of Religion Lev. 19. 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him Silence then in Gods esteem is enmity not to reprove perfect hatred and indeed to labor to preserve a man from perishing eternally does look like kindness but if this kindness be too sower and sullen for this present age that will not bear correption and in opposition to Gods judgment calls that hatred looks upon it as a provocation and affront and answers it with a defy and with the retributions of a mortal injury yet there are commands Thirdly which God hath made as fences merely to secure our virtue charging both in general of Sinners My son walk not thou in the way with them refrain thy foot from their path Prov. 1. 15. and also in particular of almost every sin Make no friendship with an angry man and with a furious man thou shalt not go least thou learn his waies and get a snare to thy soul Prov. 22. 24 25. and look not upon the wine when it sparkles and sit not by a woman c. so that merely to converse with these sollicitations to sin is the breach of commands which commands if they should be onely methods of security not rules of express duty yet not to observe them is to slight the onely Antidote Gods wisdom could prescribe against contagion and that man that do's so do's assume to guard himself and so devests himself of the protection of Gods Grace and Holy Spirit and then if he fall he is not onely guilty of the fault that he commits but of wilful contemtuous refusal of the means of preservation from it of design indeed to make the sin unavoidably to himself for such familiarities express that he desires to be engag'd in the necessity of sinning For he that does invite the danger and converse and play with the temtation can have no other ends but to be ensnar'd and taken Now judg of your selves I pray you whether he that do's require to pluck out the right eye if it offend and cut off the right hand and foot that with such torment to our selves we should bereave our selves of those so useful organs whether for the ornament or the necessities of our being if we find that we shall be betrai'd by them and who requires it on this penalty that otherwise we shall be cast with both ours eies and hands and feet into Hell fire whether he be likely to excuse the conversation with those objects that engage our eies and poyson our souls thro them or else will allow me by thrusting my self thus into temtations to lay violent hands upon sin and destruction who commands me to cut off my hand rather then touch vice Or else will he
those that hold the truth in unrighteousness the one sort of these have some checks at sin they doubt and they demur the other sort sin merely because they would please God and offend out of zeal but the other sin because they will sin If actions lawful otherwise will make up an indictment to our condemnation don but with a doubting mind what guilt and what damnation is there in those that are undertaken against known command and present full conviction that muster up and recollect all the forementioned guilts which when they were divided did make actions so ruining at once they defy God and their own heart if he that doubts is damn'd if he eat tho what he eat were lawful to him what will become of him that eats to surfetting and knows that such things call for condemnation with what face can he blast a deceiv'd honest Heathen with his Gods who in the face of God and of all Laws in view of a believ'd hell and in despite of heaven and of his own conscience that suggests all these to him yet by frequent intemperances makes his belly his god and by uncleaness that new testament idolatry sets up as many idols as his foul heats find objects and by dishonesty and frauds serves covetousness which is idolatry They who defy their conscience thus are in the ready way to a reprobate sense the last offence that I will name When the heart gives a false judgment of things calls evil good and good evil in the Prophets words 't is not uneasy to deduce how arrive at this There is no pains bestow'd upon the education of their childhood they are made indeed to renounce the Devil the evil Spirit is exorcis'd out of that hold he had of them on the account of being born children of wrath but no provision for the Holy Spirit taken care of rather all that 's possible is don to grieve him thence and so the evil one returns finds the house emty and takes to him seven spirits worse than himself and they dwell there or to speak out of parable there are no principles of virtue planted in them no labor us'd to make impressions of Religion and the fear of God the sense of duty aversation to all vice but as far as conversation with example of all lewdness can have influence they are bred and fitted for the Temter and when they and temtations are grown up it is no wonder if they tast then swallow down the bait and so are taken then they get to themselves principles that may stop the mouth of natural conscience either Religion do's not mean so strictly or against the strictness they oppose the custome of the age or honor or the like and these together with the conversations of sin do clean take off the aversation and so by degrees the sense the mind first leaves to be afraid and startle at it and then leaves to check at it and having don this long the custome stupifies the conscience and makes the sins seem necessary to them and they cannot be without them and the absolute necessity makes them conceit them little sins and in a while no sins at all stick not to say those terrors Clergy-men do talk of are but Mormo's but religious spectres We have this daily experience that loosness in practice quickly grows into irreligion in heart that they who with all might and main do long resist the power of Godliness do at last proceed to cast off even the very form and they who would not receive the love of the truth but did prefer the satisfaction of their humors prejudices passions lusts before the doctrine of piety and virtue tho it came with the greatest evidence of reasonableness that such I say are given over to strong delusions to believe lies even lies of so eternal unhappy a consequence as this that virtue and religion are but emty names that conscience is but prejudice such are those St Paul describes 1 Tim. 4. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men of branded consciences Now we use to account that person infamous that 's branded onely in his hand or forehead but these are men of stigmatiz'd hearts there is a brand upon their soul and conscience and you will find some other characters upon them there they depart from the faith they give heed to seducing Spirits lay out for a Religion that will give them hopes of safety tho they sin on and to doctrines of Devils fit Scholars for such Tutors seeds of a blessed education they have that have such Instructors and such they have whose consciences are branded and the whole progress of their wickedness you will find Rom. 1. from v. 18. because they hold the truth in unrighteousness join'd impious lives with the profession of the true Religion were vicious in despite of their own understandings which told them they should not be so upon which great proficiency in guilt v. 24. God withdrew his grace left them to the pursuit of all their foul desires permetted them to break out into all reproachfull villanies sins that were violences contumelies to their nature yea v. 28. because they acted perfectly against all notions they had of God he gave them up to that abominable state of mind to have no sense of guilt to have a judgment so perverted as not to think things of the most forbidden and most detestable nature to be foul and then see what a shole of consequents break in from v. 29. feind vices things that do not onely merit hell but possess enjoy and make the place These are the entertainments of those Regions but none more essential than those v. 32. they not onely commit those things but have pleasure in those that do them do not onely favor themselves in the transgressions for to that men may have some temtation from the flesh but to evince their understandings are debauch'd their consciences corrupted and that they are of a reprobate mind they take pleasure in others committing them from which they have no pleasure can enjoy nothing but the villany of being glad that others are debauch'd and vitiated this recommends men to them And truly now I have no words for them they do outgo expression I may apply that which the Psalmist saith of the fool in his heart there is no God I am sure there is none in theirs that will not let his Deputy be there not suffer conscience his Vicegerent to be within them and it were well if they could exclude it for ever But alas when their sins and pleasures shall begin to die then conscience will revive and be their worm that never dies however they have stupifi'd it here then it will gnaw eternally then oh that they could have no conscience no sting no lash but it will be an immortal feind to them and that which they so much trample on now will then be their great hell And now I can prescribe no exercise will remove this offence when
curiosity or emulation or sin does long for they will prostitute before me But what are all those satisfactions in comparison with the joys of God Is there delight in the full affluence of those enjoyments Hath God indulg'd pleasure to those things which he hath allow'd to wicked Egypt and shall I think he hath not provided greater pleasures for his own self and for those he intends to make happy with him Now let me have Gods delights Heaven I do assure my self hath the more advantages and therefore there I chuse And so he chose rather the afflictions of this world for he had an eye to the recompence of the reward and by this we are sure if we had hopes we should make other choices than we do If a sin come to temt me drest with all its pleasures and cloath'd with all the bewitching arts it can put on or fancy paint it out with if at the same time I can but look up to my Hopes bethink my self of the rewards of Religion and recollect that there are no such pleasures in the sin as there are prepar'd for me if I abstain from it shall I not then reject and scorn the temtation think it impertinent and foolish and wonder it should be so unreasonable to desire or think me so vain as to grant upon score of pleasure in the commission when I am sure of greater if I do not commit it Shall I not have reason to believe the sin very unkind to me when it allures me with some little delight and I must part with all blessedness for it No surely nothing can withdraw him whom a Christians Hopes do entertain But because temtations are apt to prevail where there is no appearance of danger to come a little nearer to you that you may with terror see that none can have this Hope but they that purify which was the last thing I shall onely ask thee whosoever thou art that hopest to have thy sins forgiven thee and to have Eternal Life upon what grounds thou hopest it We have no reason to hope for any thing but what God hath promis'd Now hath God any where promis'd that thou particularly â—â—alt be sav'd Certainly no. What then why dost thou hope if thou canst answer me Because he hath promis'd to the Pure in heart that they shall see God he hath given assurance to them that repent that they shall be forgiven and I how sinful soever I have bin yet I am penitent I endeavor to purge out that old leaven to cleanse my self I am resolv'd not to allow my self any of my vicious inclinations or my customes I 'le strive against my petty sins and my soul is humbled in me and therefore have I Hope If thou canst answer thus thou hast indeed good grounds thou hast prov'd that thou maiest hope but withal thou hast prov'd also that thou dost purify and upon that score dost hope For if thou didst not repent and amend and purge thy self from thy filthy wickednesses thou must then know that the same God that seal'd all his promises with the bloud of his Son did also represent and seal these threatnings in his suffering Without holiness no man shall see God Except ye repent ye shall all perish The axe is laid to the root of the tree every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down and cast into the fire s And Be not deceiv'd neither fornicator nor adulterer nor covetous person nor rietous and the like hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ or God For without are dogs and whoremongers and murderers and idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie and They that live after the flesh shall die and Christ himself pronounc'd Go ye cursed into everlasting fire Now if thou goest on in a course of any of these sins dost any of these deeds of the Flesh I shall onely ask thee are not these threats as true and as much to be believ'd as his promises And if thou dost believe them how is it possible that thou that liv'st in any of those courses which these threats belong to canst have any hope When God hath so solemnly declar'd thou shalt have nothing but everlasting ruin how darest thou how canst thou hope for Heaven This is the same thing as to think to anchor on the billows or to lay foundations in a wave and on a storm to hope in threats at least in opposition to all Scripture and to all promise to wage war with the Gospel and resolve to have them both against and in despite of God and that certainly will very little avail thee No he that does not amend cannot hope for he that hopes must needs purify himself And now should we apply this to the careless Sinner if we consider first not onely what sad character St Paul does give of men in that condition how it is the description he gives of the Heathen and he joins it with other most comfortless expressions Eph. 2. 12. without Christ strangers from the Covenant of promise having no hope and without God in the world but also look upon the experience how to be in a lost desperate condition in relation to so eternal a consequence as the world to come imports is such a thing as none was ever able to stand under the consideration of it one hours despair sinks them for ever we could not bear the weight of it Judas did chuse all the sad issues of it hereafter rather than the passion here thought it easier to go meet Gods fury than despair of mercy and when he saw he had no hopes of pardon he ran to damnation No we are resolv'd we must hope to be sav'd 2. Consider that it is impossible for the wicked man while he continues such to hope he cannot chuse but know that the promises concern him not they are conditional they are made onely to them that repent and believe and God knows that he hath not don yet so that nothing but the threats belong to him And then how shall we reconcile these considerations if we put them both together in the Sinners mind How shall they be at peace and not tear one another and the soul It is impossible to endure not to hope and yet 't is impossible that man should hope and if this contest happen when he goes to die then his own thoughts will drag him down to the Abyss with more violence than the fiends Sure 't is a very sad consideration to think that men that know the wretchedness of being hopeless that dare not not hope will not yet industriously and piously set upon the performance of that condition on which they may hope will not purify that they may have reason to expect the promises And it is more sad to see that men who never purge themselves from filthiness of Flesh or Spirit but go on in their sinful courses and consequently know that while they are such they
it makes men heavy sad and melancholly hangs plummets upon the soul plucks down the thoughts and countenance and does that which no burden can effect in them whom weights do but exalt elevate and in their own expression a load of sin and drink that sinks their bodies to the earth doth but heighten imagination and delight Alas these men do no more discern the true labor of their own sins than they do the ease and the refreshments of the pious souls They see his fasts and abstinences but they discern not how he feeds upon marrow and fatness as David saith and finds all the words of their luxury in his religious performances how he tasts of the heavenly gift and of the powers of the world to come Heb. 6. 4 5. how he hath the antepasts of blessedness These men do not consider that the pious mans weights are as the other bucket which the heavier it is the faster it lifts that up that is against it a burden theirs like that of wings that does but poise their flight and help them up to Heaven whereas their own lightness shall sink them into the deep of that pit that hath no bottom 'T is true indeed those very sins that make our Savior stile the man a laborer are in other places called sleep as if they had the ease of rest as if to him that were wearied with duties of calling or devotion to take vicissitudes of sinning would be a soft refreshment and a pleasant reward as if a little return of iniquity would restore him as sleep doth the weary laborer And how shall we reconcile these expressions Shall we attribute them to the unhappy contradictions of this thing sin which is at once ease and pressure sleep and yet heavy labour or rather shall we gather hence the extremely toilsom condition of the sinner whose very rest is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whose refreshments tire and are most wearisom where shall he look for ease whose ease is misery and anxiety Tho his life be all sleep yet he is all that while one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here in the Text. And so those very wickednesses which are here called heavy burden are in other places called our own body our selves And what shall lighten him whose very self is weight What shall disburden him who is his own immense pressure Wretched men that we are who shall deliver us from these burdens of our selves Burdens indeed with which the expressions seem to labor as well as the sinner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have not words for them the mineries the Gallies the Mill or dungeon are words of ease to the service of sin No such slavery in the world as his that is bound to serve his lusts and passions he must adventure thro all black designs and blacker hazards to attend ambition or to wreak ones malice or some hasty choler adventure upon rotteness embrace a Purgatory but to please an itch must be the Martyr of his lust run upon quarrels qualms head-ach hazard desperate misfortunes to quench not thirst but a little custom If you would see the labor that is in sin behold your Savior in the Garden it made the Son of God to sweat like clots of bloud it squeez'd that very person who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it made him faint not able to stand under that tree on which he was to bear the Iniquity At such hard rates man buyeth damnation as if he envied himself ease in Ruin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he doth extremely labor till he faint to get to Hell Have you read in Scripture the pains and anguishes of a man possest by a Devil how it speaks of such a one that was intolerably vext and tormented how the spirit rent and tore him often cast him into the agonies of death from it did revive him still onely to throw him back again into them It were no hard matter to shew that the Scripture does express every gross Sinner to be one of these Demoniacs to be possessed and inhabited by a Devil Matth. 12. 43 44. When the unclean spirit is gon out of a man he Walketh thro dry places then he saith I will return to my house from whence I came out and he enters in and dwells there And what doth all this mean but describe a person that after seeming amendment returns back again to his courses of sin Of such a one the Devil saith I will return A wicked person is the Devil's house Sathan dwells there and is not his house Hell And then are not all the miseries of Tophet the torments of the vale of Hinnom in a Sinner Yea experience is fair enough for this that the habitually wicked person is a Demoniac Look upon the wrathful angry furious man and you would think the man possest were but his picture his passion swels and tears him he stares and foams he cries out and is not so innocent as to say what have I to do with thee Jesus thou Son of God for he hath to do with him in blaspheming him with oaths and execrations and his spirit rends not himself onely but the wounds of that Holy one of God and if his passion could speak plain it would surely say his name also were Legion The debaucht Drunkards they have the Epilepsies the falling sicknesses the dead Apoplexies of men possest and there the Devil is again enter'd into swine The lustful person may find also a spirit of uncleaness and an unclean Devil in the Gospel And thus our sins do treat us And who then but wretched man would buy damnation at so hard rates who would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extremely labor tire himself till he faint to get to hell as if he envied himself ease because he is to go down the hill thither that he may think he has an easy descent facilis descensus he will therefore load himself with a most heavy burden to make his passage the more troublesom Of what a profligated choice are we that refuse Heaven with ease and chuse Hell tho we must labor hard to get it Or secondly letting the heavy laden stand as they do in the sense we have now given we cannot excuse the Sinner from that expression there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that labor may signify such as groan under the sense of that burden such as labor to rid themselves of that weight that pant and blow after a liberty and ease from that heavy pressure under which they find themselves sinking into the horror of that deep the very imaginations of which doth cause faintings of soul in them and Apoplexies of fear that tire themselves to find out any way to escape from that eternal weight of torments that is prepared for them below and the weight of indignation and vengeance that hangs over them above and from that heavy burden themselves that sinks faster than either of the other outvying God's threats with multiplied accumulated
at a price he became our Lord Ye are bought with a price 1 Cor. 7. 23. They that do not acknowledge this are in the number of those men of whom St Peter speaks Epist. 2. c. 2. v. 1. denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction and you may judge what kind of Lord he ought to be by the price he paid for the Title what service he expected by the rates at which he purchased them even at the bloud of God Acts 20. 28. He died I told you that he might be Lord. And now Lord what is thy servant that thou shouldst thus value him or what are his performances that thou shouldst buy them at these rates And shall I give to Sin or Sathan those services which he thus values and thus buys No if thou art content to purchase that so dear which was thy own just due before surely now by all rights thou art My Lord. But 3. He is so also by my own most solemn contract and engagement And to pass by all the rest and to stick to that of this day onely we did contract so in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and in receiving that we did most solemnly assume to do him faithful service and took him for our Lord. And this would easily appear from hence if Christ's bloud be the price with which he bought the right to be thy Lord and this day thou didst come and here didst take that bloud to all those ends and uses it was given for then in so doing thou didst ratify the contract and take possession of the relation but to do it more solemnly and here I will not stand upon that proof which I have formerly made to you from the account that Pliny gave to Trajan the persecuting Emperor tho truly it be strange that a Heathen should discern this was the meaning of their Sacrament and Christians will not believe it He when he was emploied to persecute the Christians tells him what he had found of them by racking some and by confessions of others at their death Soliti stato die convenire seque Sacramento obstringere ne furta ne latrocinia ne adulteria committerent c. to take an oath they knew no other sense of the word Sacrament to do what their Lord had commanded them What have you don this day Why Christ was sworn your Lord this day and you have taken an oath of service entred into a bond of duty and obedience and if you wilfully shall fail of doing this your Worships will be brought against you your Communions will come in as so many evidences that you have forfeited so many oaths that you have broken No sure I will henceforwards tie my self to better performance for I have hamper'd my self with obligations entangled my self with one other engagement I have again sworn at the Altar Thou art my Lord. But I have a more solemn proof of this that he who comes to the renewing of a Covenant with God now Christ we know saith that that cup is the new Covenant in his bloud he does enter into an oath of God Deut. 29. from verse 10. to 15. Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God your captains of your tribes your elders and your officers with all the men of Israel your little ones your wives and thy stranger that is in thy camp from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water that thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God and into his oath which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day that he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself and that he may be unto thee a God as he hath said unto thee and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob neither with you onely do I make this covenant and this oath but with him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God and also with him that is not here with us this day Now out of this they who are not convinc'd that our first entring Covenant with God by Baptism is a vow altho the Church require that we should look upon it under that Solemnity and tho St Peter call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a stipulation or if they think it something like it yet 't is a vow but in the childrens name and so it does not strike those apprehensions of so sacred an engagement into them themselves may see here at an entring Covenant little ones entring into an oath and this was not the first giving of the Covenant that so any thing might be thought peculiar to that but onely a repeting of the Covenant in their presence verse 1. and least that we should think their standing there in solemn manner might imply something more than ordinary verse 14. 15. take us that stand here this day before the Lord our God but also with him that shall be born hereafter Many expositors and the Jerusalem Exposition says with all the generations of you that are to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if they stood with us this day And the Targum of Jon. Vziel says they do stand that is as to this intent and purpose that as soon as they are admitted into Covenant by Circumcision they are within this oath Littles ones therefore that can be admitted into a Covenant by receiving of the sign of it they then enter an oath of keeping it And then my Brethren we have entred an oath to continue Christ's faithful Soldiers and Servants unto our lives end and that is thou and I and every one have sworn he is my Lord. O my Savior I was baptized and at that time did swear service and then if I should fail thee now I renounce my Allegiance I go from my fealty and I throw of my Covenant Every evil action I deliberately commit brands me with the dishonorable base stile of one that slights his oaths there is no hold of his vows not his most sacred ones those that he makes to God Every vain or passionate oath how true soever speaks me perjured the draughts of intemperance would wash off the water of my Christendom every unclean lust every impurity of Flesh or Spirit does as it were bemire and wipe out my contract with my Lord. For I covenanted to be pure and clean for I was wash'd into the very name of his retainer I could not have that title of that relation without being cleansed There I did swear defiance against all his Enimies the Devil World and Flesh and all worldly and carnal lusts that I would neither follow not be led by them and if I should serve them now I should be a Rebel and a Traitor to my Lord against my bond and covenant and oath No my Lord I will not serve these where death must be my wages the Fiends my Comrades and my Conquest Hell I 'le not do homage to destruction
tenth Commandment is the certain consequent of this disposition of mind or indeed rather it is but several instances of forbidding discontentedness with our own condition and in it Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife is not meant thou shalt not desire to commit adultery with her for that was forbidden in the seventh Commandment but as thou shalt not covet his house which do's not signify thou shalt not desire once to walk thro it or to sit and dine in it but thou shalt not desire the possession nor propriety of what is not thine own shalt not desire it should be thy house but be contented with thy lot so here thou shalt not be troubled that his wife or servant is not thy wife or servant and think it as fit thy Neighbor should enjoy the comforts of a happy wife if God have given him one or the pleasures and splendors of an estate or the advantages of a commodious servant as thou dost think it fit thou shouldest enjoy what is thine and not desire not only to be theif but not the owner of them be content with what is thine 4. All the Seditions and Rebellions in the world and those armies of Sins that attend them that wage their wars which are upheld by legions of villanies as numerous as those of men all the disturbances of States and Churches are but the effects of discontented spirits men that were unsatisfied with their condition desir'd a change and car'd not by what means they compast it They can charge thro seas of bloud and sin over the faces of men and conscience to get out of the condition which they are not well content with I could assign more sins that do attend a discontented heart when it hath opportunity to break into them all the effects of anger and of malice and of concupiscence and a whole shole of others are in its train but that I must reserve one word for Envy 2. Envy to say all in one word however slight a thing we may esteem it For to envy at another person 's having better qualities or greater dignities or richer furnitures or wider estates or handsomer provisions this we think do's no mischief to the persons and therefore is no crying crime Yet besides that it is more unjust than hatred or than malice for these have still pretences that do look like reason I cannot hate a man but because he do's me some wrong and that is some reason for I hate his injustice but envy hath not any least pretence Is it a wrong to me because that person is better qualified or better endowed Is he unjust because he is rich or learned or well provided and yet for this I envy him Besides this I say to stab it with one thrust Envy hath all the vices and all the ruins in the world for its issue all sin and all damnation is its brood The Devil envied man's felicity and therefore temted him and so man lost Original Righteousness and he lost Paradise and he envies his recovery by Christ and therefore temts him still until he ruin him eternally Whatever guilt and whatever misery is in the world hence it springs it is a feind-like devilish humor And now would you take the prospect of these two qualities discontent and envy Lucifer was not satisfied with his condition and he was therefore cast from Heaven and all his fellow Angels became Devils and then he envied man's condition and chang'd his Paradise into everlasting misery These two qualities rob'd Heaven it self of those inhabitants that should have fill'd it and the Son of God himself and peopled Hell it made Angels become Feinds it made God die and made men damn'd and there is enough for that 3. Covetousness I am sure I can say no more of that than what S. Paul hath said nor more to my purpose 1. Tim. 6. 6 7 8 9 10. Godliness with contentment is great gain for we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out and having food and raiment let us be therewith content But they that will be rich fall into a temtation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtfull lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition for the love of mony is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves thro with many sorrows And oh that three such dismal qualities with their accursed trains should breed in that same little part the eie An evil eie is the womb wherein they are conceiv'd and if that one small faculty be so fruitful in guilt and in destructions how shall we reckon the whole man Miserable men that we are who shall deliver us from a whole body of death and from the state of those deaths and from darkness in which this evil eie engages us A darkness which our Savior could not otherwise express but by astonishment How great is that darkness A darkness great indeed because 't is wilfully incurable no state do's so withstand the light as this The Sun of Righteousness the Day-spring from on high that came to visit us could strike the light thro darkness and make the shadow of death bright Luke 1. 79. that did shed light that was a glory Luke 2. 32. could not yet break in upon a Country clouded with this humor his Miracles and he were both desired to withdraw could have no least Reception when interest and profit came to be toucht and a Legion of Devils that did plot together could contrive no surer means to keep out Christ himself than by setting up an evil eie to look upon him and his Miracles than by engaging this greedy affection against him and that but in a small instance We read a strange story Matt. 8. 28. Marke the contrivance and the policy the Devils knowing that Christ would cast them out of the two possessed men and by that Miracle so far show forth his power that it would probably bring all the Country to believe on him they desir'd to prevent this and thereupon fall on this project which might incense the men of that Country against him and in order to it they besought Christ that if he did cast them out he would suffer them to go into the herd of Swine and tho he seldom wrought any destructive Miracles yet that the people might see the virulency of these Devils how destructive they were if not restrain'd by his omnipotent goodness and so they might understand the mercy don to those that were possessed and likewise see the mercy now approching to their Country by the coming of Christ if they will accept of it and withal to try whether their love to their Swine was greater than that to their own souls he permitted the Devils to go into the Swine he would not restrain them and they went into them They who fed the Swine gave to the owners notice of their loss and did let them know
uncouth till a man be experienced in them and also as it smooths the way for such beginnings do nurse up a Habit and prepare a Custom and make Vice very easie which at first it is not while the Appetite is modest and not able to digest full Doses till use enlarge and stretch it And now the Mind which by these means tasts diverse Pleasures and the Degrees of them and finds a gust in them yet not being satisfied in any one as 't is impossible it should be stirs up the Appetite to vary and proceed that that contentment which single pleasures could not afford diversified might make up Wretched Nature using that as an Attractive which should repell for who would hugg a Cloud embrace that which does not cannot satisfie but only Flesh which for that very reason hunts on and follows the scent And by doing so a while it brings upon it self Fourthly Something like a necessity of doing so Thus Continence would be some mens Disease and the Intemperate cannot live without his Vice but gapes as much as Thirst and Fever do and if he have not satisfaction suffers as many qualms and pangs as his Riot used to cause in the Apprentisage of his sin so that there is a kind of necessity of the practice and he wisely seeming to make a vertue of necessity begins to think them the only happiness at least of this life freely without reluctancy embracing them And now the Flesh is Callous and if you doubt how it could so harden it self as not to be pervious to any stings of Conscience but Proof against all Pricks though Experiment may persuade you yet I will shew you the Method As all Appetite you know is blind so the Guides also of Carnal appetite The senses are very short-sighted they cannot look forward to the next Life to the hopes of Heaven or the pains of Hell to bring them into the ballance with the present pleasure and see which does over-weigh The Flesh only lives extempore looks but upon that which is before it scarce on that We have sufficient experience of this for when one Vice will not look forwards a year or two to the penury and rottenness some courses do pull down And when another Vice as if it had learnt to fulfill our Saviours command and take no care for the morrow will not think of the next mornings pains and Headach Nay when the ambitious Usurper will not look just before him to see where he does place his steps on Precipices and Sword-points to note how the Pyramids he does climb are made slippery with blood Pyramids did I say pointed Reeds rather things that have not strength to bear but only sharpness to stab and where the man 's own weight makes his Upholders fail and wound him both together at once sink under him and pierce him thorough Nay we see many whose sins inflict themselves who may be truly said to bear their Iniquities yet chuse those sins that bring their Plauges along with them for we see men with most excessive difficulty practise a Vice only that they may have the Vice swallow sickness drink Convulsions and dead Paralyses foaming Epilepsies only that all this may be easie to them And this is but one instance of the many that might be made just as the King of Pontus that are Poison that so he might be used to it Strange that a man should torture himself with all those deadly symptoms that Poison racks the body with only that he might eat Poison yet just such is the Sinners Design and all the ease and pleasure he acquires at last in sinning is but familiarity of Poison custom of Danger and acquaintance of Ruine Good God! that men should train and exercise themselves so for perdition that they should go through a discipline of torments to get an Habit of destroying themselves that they should work out their own condemnation with hardships and agonies that as if 't were too easie to go down the hill to Hell the descent shall be made craggy and they force breaches into it and great headlong Precipices to make the way more painful and more dangerous to make the fall more wounding and more irrecoverable And what shall give a check where difficulty does provoke and torments do ingratiate Well But though Flesh be so short-sighted and inconsiderate the mind might trash it by suggesting other sorts of punishments that do await transgression Why truly if rude and unmannerly Conscience do sometimes thrust in the thoughts of Hell the Flesh which I told you is not terrified with any thing but what it feels now Conscience presents Hell as a thing of hereafter not till Death be past it satisfies Conscience with a Repentance of Hereafter before Death come I will be sorry for my sins and God is merciful Conscience being thus quieted and both Reins and Spur given to the Flesh it takes its full Carier and leaves behind all thoughts of Repentance and indeed of God or Heaven the hope and joys of which are the only possible method that is left to take off the Man from his eager pursuit or to divert him in his course But as to that also that I may shew you the next heat The Mind that is immerst in body and hath been long accustomed to tast no pleasure but the carnal ones its fancy fill'd with those Ideas it does imbibe such a tincture of sensuality receives such an infusion of Flesh and so impregnated with the fumes of Carnality which clog the Spirit that its complexion and temper is quite altered it is diluted and deprest and so grown stupid and unactive to all higher things Heaven and all after-things it may be are the prejudice of such persons not their persuasions some thin conceptions of such things have been thrown into them but never were improved for their Mind hath otherwise been employed and they can have no appetite to them because they have never had any tast or relish of any thing but sensual And indeed that both longings after and thoughts of a better Life should be altogether dead in the carnal man is but a natural and necessary effect of the verge of his Delights For what motive is there in Heaven to stir up his appetite to whom Heaven it self would not be a place of Joy For I am verily persuaded were the Carnal man in those Eternal Mansions compast with streams of Glory it were impossible for him to take delight in them and he would grope for Paradise in the midst of Heaven As much impossible as for the most unlearned Idiot to satisfie himself with the pleasures of a Mathematical demonstration Let him have the Hecatombe and let Pythâ—goras be an Epicure on the dimensions of a Triangle the other hath no palate for these pleasures and indeed how could the unclean lascivious please himself in the enjoyment of those Felicities that have no Sex Where they neither Marry nor are given in Marriage Or how the
let their strictnesses take in some temporal aim besides as Reputation with their Party or getting Praise or Wealth they serve Mammon or Fame with Gods Religion and make the very Worship of the Lord be the Idolatry of Covetousness or of Honour If Jehu in his Executions on Ahab and his Family intend the cutting off the Regal Line as well as Baals worship and with their Blood to purple his own Royalty though God did bid him shed that blood yet does it stain his Soul with crimson guilt and God will punish him for his Obedience I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the House of Jehu Hos. i. 4. But he that lets a vicious aim mix with his Vertue and does good to an ill end addresses Gods Religion to the Devil and makes Christ minister to Belial he does sin multipliedly both in his vicious intention and in debauching Vertue to serve Vice and he might much more innocently not have been Pious Neither is that Vertue or Heart sincere whose intentions are not purely and meerly vertuous but intend to compass some Religious end by means that are not lawful For such intentions are not clean but mixt with Vice and 't is sure I cannot please God with such kind of holy meanings If Saul will sacrifice with the Sheep and Oxen he was bid to destroy his very worship loseth him the Throne of Israel Nor an I serve God with such Pieties God never does require an action which he sees I cannot compass without sin for he requires no man to sin for that were to command me to break his Commands and I were bound to disobey him in obedience to him Shall I speak wickedly for God saith Job and then shall I do so Such Religious intentions the justice of those ends will never qualifie me for Gods goodness when it but makes Damnation just to me for so S. Paul affirms Rom. iii. 5 6 7 8. In fine if there be any wickedness in the heart it gives so foul a tincture to whatever pious actions we perform that they become sin to us 'T is true Prayer is as the Incense David says and the lifting up of our hands is like the Evening Sacrifice but if the heart of him that Prays have any heats of Malice in it truly that man does light his Incense with strange fire kindles his sacrifice with the flames of Hell for so S. James does call those heats He that gives God any of his performances and hath a naughty Heart like Nadab and Abihu he presents his Offering in an unhallowed Censer and all his holy worship will get nothing else from Heaven for him but a consuming fire as theirs did He that will offer any thing to God must take a care it be not tainted with such mixtures which spoil all the Religion making it not sincere and also spoil the Heart by making it not clean and undefiled The last remaining sense A Clean and undefiled Heart Of those things which our Saviour says defile the man some are meerly sins of the Heart such as may be consummated within the Soul and for the perpetration of which a spirit is sufficient to it self such are Pride especially spiritual pride the sin of those that think none holy as themselves and cast the black doom of Reprobation upon all that do not comply with their Opinions and interests such also are uncontentedness with our estates inward repinings at the dispositions of Providence concerning us black malice bitter envyings Now in these as the mind does need no outward members to consummate them requires no accessary Organs to work them out so neither does it require any outward accessary guilt to make them liable to condemnation we know 't was one sin of the spirit onely that made Angels Devils If a foul body be abominable to the Lord shall a foul spirit be less odious he that defiles his Soul offends God in a much nearer concern of his because that speaks nearer relation to him than the Body this was only his workmanship made out of Earth the Spirit was created out of himself a foul body is but filthy Clay but he that does pollute his Soul does putresie the Breath of God and stains a beam of the Divinity The other sort of things that are said to come from the Heart and to Defile are those which S. Paul calls works of the Flesh such as if they be committed must be committed outwardly Murders Drunkenness Revellings Revenge Wrath and Contentions Seditions Factions Schisms all Vncleannesses c. In these indeed the Heart can be but partial Actor the utmost it can do is to desire and to intend them and to contrive and manage the designs of compassing them which yet Providence or the Innocence of others may put out of the reach of mans power or his own temporal fears may make him not dare to set upon them though he do cherish the desires Now if they be obstructed from committing most men use to conclude gently of their guilts while they do keep within the Heart the Execution of them is the onely thing that does look mortal and till the sin be perfected there is no death in it And truly I confess that as it happens many times on a sudden surprize of soul when a bright gilded temptation strikes the heart and dazles the mind we see that the Will rushes on it instantly consents and wishes heartily yet within a while the Spirit does recover out of the surprize puts by the thrusts of fancy and the stabs of the temptation and that Will languishes and dies like a velleity as if it had been nothing but a woulding and now the man would not by any means consent to the commission In this case though there be a guilt to be repented of and cleansed with many tears yet this is Innocence in the comparison but if the Will purpose contrive and do its utmost it is the same to the man as if he had committed 'T were easie to demonstrate this that whatsoever evil thing a man intends and does fixedly resolve he is guilty of though he do nothing or though the thing he chance to do be never so much lawful Those sayings of St. Paul I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is no meat unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing unclean to him it is unclean Rom. xiv 14. and he that doubteth is damned if he eat ver 23. These could have no truth in them unless the heart by choosing and pursuing to the utmost any thing that it does judg unlawful incurr'd the guilt of that unlawfulness even to Damnation and all that meerly by it self without the Action which in that case had nothing sinful in it A weight that is upheld by a mans hand and otherwise would rush down to the earth does surely gravitate as much it is as heavy though it do not fall quite down as if it did and were it let alone
the rest delivered up to Satan alas what part would Christ have left of his own Body Sed illos defendit numerus junctaeque umbone phalanges and that I fear too in more senses than the Poet means Therefore I shall not urge the Churches Wish but onely see whether the Statute in the Text says any thing to this and whether the for ever do reach us Which is my Third and last Enquiry Thirdly Divers of the Jews Rites are said to be and be prescribed for ever although those very Rites and the whole oeconomy of their Covenant were to be chang'd and cease among other Reasons as the Fathers say because they foresignifie and point at things in the new Covenant which were to last till Covenants and Rites shall be no more and so their meaning and signification was to be for ever Now truly that their Expiation Performances those which I am upon did so the whole Epistle to the Hebrews is employ'd to prove the Margin of your Bibles in this Chapter so refer you to the places that I shall not need to make it out Christ did fulfill the Temple and the Altar part yea and the refuse outcast part of the Atonement satisfied the Religion and the contempt of that days Offices He was the whole true Expiation Now does this Expiation as theirs did require afflicting of the Soul in its attendance or was that but a Ceremony of their Rite and though a Jew must mourn and Fast to see his sin killing a Beast and when he does behold his wickedness eating up a Goat for a Sin-offering he must deny himself his daily bread and suffer thirst if his Iniquities drink but the blood of Bullocks yet when we behold ours embrew themselves in the Blood of the Son of God not onely lay hands and Confessions on his Head but drive Thorns into it make him cry out almost despair and Die we need not be concern'd so much as to do ought of that either in order to the better Celebration of that Expiation or on the very day of it Indeed if we consider most mens practices it would appear most probable that if we were to expiate our sins as the Jews did by sacrificing of our Flocks not of our Jesus those satisfactions would more afflict our Souls and more restrain our Vices than that which was made for us by the Death of Christ and how can this be rectified unless by some severities upon our selves we give our selves a piercing sense of what our sin deserves and grateful apprehensions of what our Surety suffer'd for us When in sad private earnest I have thought fit to Afflict my Soul with some austere mortifications and when my fainting Spirits are scarce able to sustain my Body that sinks under the load of it self then I may have some tender apprehensions of that weight that sunk the Son of God and 't was my weight that he fell under But he that cannot think fit to revenge a year of follies and of Vices with a few weeks severer life sure thinks his Saviour suffered much in vain quorsum perditio haec why must the Blood of God be paid for sin when I cannot afford a little self-denial for it Why such great Agonies of the Holy Jesus when I cannot find in my heart to bear a little strictness for it But I could easily deduce were I not to suppose it done before that sure as if the Church had thought a Statute had annext these two for ever they have been joyn'd from the beginnings of our Christianity it was the Fast that did attend our Saviours sufferings that in part caused the Contest about Easter which Polycarpe S. John's Disciple manag'd and then there was a Fast so soon and he that tells us this Irenaeus Scholar to that Polycarpe says some observ'd it many days some forty days also if we can take the Antient Ruffinus's authority but for a Comma And if the Antient Fathers do expound aright Christ himself thought that men were interested so much in his Death that they would Fast by reason of it When the Bridegroom is taken from them then shall they Fast in those days Upon which words they say the Season was determin'd to this Duty by the Gospel But they may say so who knew how to persuade men to take up restraints of strictest discipline and of severest Piety But we cannot engage them into Order or from Scandal they made them fast we cannot make them temperate Blessed Saviour what kind of Christians didst thou hope for thy Disciples of whom thou wer't so confident they would so concern themselves in thy Passion as to Fast because of it when in our times Christians will not be kept from their Excesses by it not in those days of Fasting which thy Primitive followers did Celebrate with abstinencies that did almost mortifie indeed and slay the Body of Flesh as well as Sin and we in imitation of them in answer of thy confidences will not abate a Meal nor an intemperance will eat and Riot too and make a Lent of Bacchanals Thus we prepare load for thy Day of Passion sin on to add weight to thy Cross and yet we our selves will not be humbled under them It is in vain to tell men thou expectest they should mortifie that it will spirit their Repentance for they will have no kind of Penitence for sin but such as will let them return to sin again suffer no discipline with which their Vices too cannot consist for they can scarce live if they make not themselves chearful with them even in this time of Sadness and in sight of the Memorial of thy sufferings for them Indeed when I consider how this Season is hodg'd in from Vice by all Gods Indignation threatned at first suffered at last pronounc'd in Commination executed in Passion Ashwednesday gave us all Gods Curses against Sinners all which Good Friday shews inflicted on our Saviour Thus we began Cursed are the Vnmerciful the Fornicators and Adulterers the Covetous persons Worshippers of Images Slanderers Drunkards and Extortioners and we shall see the Son of God made this Curse for them yea we our selves said Amen to all as testifying that that Curse is due to all When I consider this I say I cannot choose but be astonish'd to behold how men can break through all Gods Curses and their own to get at Vice first seal Gods Maledictions then provoke and incur them instantly as if they lov'd and would commit a Rape upon Perdition as if because men have so long in Oaths beg'd God to damn them and he hath not done it yet they would now do it in their Prayers too make their Devotions as well as Imprecations consign them to the wrath of God He that does love cursing thus in the Passive sense surely as David says it shall come unto him it shall be unto him as the Garment that covereth him it shall enter into his bowels like Water and like Oyl into his
determination just and necessary But sure when God hath put other needs in my making and hath provided supplies for them those also are as just and necessary objects of desire while they are with and under him But yet he that had brought all his affections into Davids frame might well say he desired nothing upon Earth besides nothing with God for he had weaned his very Flesh and all the craving appetites of Sense from their own objects and had fix'd them upon God in all their strength and vigour My Soul saith he thirsteth for thee elsewhere my Soul gaspeth unto thee even as a thirsty Land and my flesh also longeth after thee Psalm lxiii 1. How My Soul thirsteth for thee with thee indeed is the Well of Life But Thirst is an Appetite gasping a consequent defailance and impatience of the Body to both which the Soul is a meer stranger as it is also to the ways by which the Body does desire â—or the Soul is drawn by moral engagements by persuasions and motives there is place for deliberation and Choice in her Desires she can demur in her pursuits divert her Inclinations and quench a Desire with a Consideration but the Flesh pursues in a more impulsive manner is drawn and spurr'd on by such impetuous propensions as are founded in matter You can no more persuade a thirsty Palate not to thirst than you can woo a falling Stone to stay its hast or invite it to turn aside from its direction to the Center Yea but the Soul also exerts it self in all these appetites of flesh and matter and with all their violence when it looks on God when we have once had a taste or when indeed we but discern our needs of him whether our Temporal or Spiritual those of the Soul or Flesh all the desires of both then fly at him and with a tendency most close and uncontrollable then nothing besides him For all the appetites of Body croud into the Soul that they may catch at God that Thirsts and Gaspes And the Soul does put on the violent impetuous agitations of the Bodies Appetites My Soul thirsteth for thee and my Flesh also longeth after thee What Longing is whether an Appetite or Passion of the Flesh or Mind whose signatures are more express indeed upon the Flesh than those of any other yet whose impulses are so quick and so surprizing as they were Spirit I shall not now enquire but sure if the Flesh long it should be for some carnal Object for that is proportion'd to it Flesh and the Creature use to close indeed and they imbibe each other as if they knew to fill and satisfie each other yea some there are that have brought down their Souls to the propensions of Flesh have given to their very Spirits an infusion of carnality for they mind onely fleshly things But by the rates of David's practice it should seem the pious man does the just contrary sublimes his Flesh into a Soul drains all the carnal Appetites out of it weans it from all its own desires and teacheth it those of the Spirit onely makes it long for God Now he whose flesh is defaecated thus and as it were inur'd to the condition which it shall put on when it awakes from its corruption as if it were already in that place whose happiness and desires have no use of Body and were in that state where their Bodies neither hunger or thirst for these he hath translated from his flesh 't is his Soul onely thirsts and that for God As if he were indeed like Angels now how can this man desire any thing on Earth besides the Lord who is and does already what they are and do in Heaven where we have nothing but thee But notwithstanding this exalted temper though we should arrive at this Seraphick constitution of desires and though God hath now made himself to us the proper object of these appetites for since God struck the Rock for us which Rock was Christ since the true Bread came down from Heaven if our Flesh long for God there is a satisfaction ready he hath made his Flesh be meat indeed if our Souls thirst for God he can furnish drink for a Soul the Blood of God But yet while this Soul sojourns in this earthly Tabernacle the man will still want other supplies and may be not desire them or can he choose indeed For they that tell us stories of some men whose hungers and thirsts after God as they devour'd all other desires in them so also gave themselves no other satisfaction but panem Dominum that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Supersubstantial daily Bread the Lord these men I say would find it hard to make out how bare Species could nourish and sustain a bodily life Yea Christ himself when he was upon the Earth did hunger and although it was his meat to do his Father's Will yet when he was an hungered Angels came and ministred unto him and then may not our earthly needs desire something besides him That while we are upon the Earth all those necessities are in our constitution is certain but that we need not desire for them or any thing besides Him is as certain Because to them that desire him all these things shall be added they are annex'd by Promise Matth vi 33. it is for such to be sollicitous who would have something they must have alone something that cannot come along with God But if I be assur'd that all my needs shall be supply'd in him I need desire nothing besides him now this Promise he must perform for he that when he put Man in a state of Immortality in Paradise provided him a Tree of Life that might for ever furnish and sustain him For that Age also that he does design a man a being for his Service here upon the Earth he must allow him necessaries for his being and his Service otherwise he can nor serve nor be And then if they be certain what need he desire them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Chrysostome These are not objects for our careful wishes but our trusts and confidences we may assure our selves of these if we have him these are his Appendages and then why should I put them with him into my Devotions when my Soul lies gasping towards God in Prayer my desires seizing on his Blessednesses to take them off from him and to make my desires turn aside to little earthly things and fix them there is to affront not my God onely but my Prayer too and when these things are sure seems to betray a mind too Earthly and too apprehensive of these needs Surely I were most strangely necessitous or strangely greedy if both God and that which shall be added to him were not enough for me More wretched or else more unsatisfied than Hell if the Almighty were not sufficient for me if he be my provision then I need desire nothing besides him But yet Necessities will crave Hunger
account of Christ or of Religion is most inconsistent with the Spirit of the Gospel For it was the Spirit of Elias who destroyed those whom the Magistrate did send that Christ opposes here the Spirit of the Gospel to in this severe rebuke ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of The other warm Apostle meets a greater check in the like case S. Peter's zeal that they say made him chief of the Apostles as it made him promptest to confess the Lord so it did heat him to be readiest to defend him as fiery to use his Sword as his Tongue for his Master But his Master will not let a Sword be drawn in his own cause put up again thy Sword into his place The God of our Religion will not be defended by Treason and from Murder by the wounding of another nor will his Religion suffer a Sword out of the sheath against the Power of the Magistrate no not in behalf of Christ himself but goes beyond its proper bounds to threaten things that are not Gospel punishments even excision in this life to them that do attempt it They that take the Sword shall perish with the Sword Here the Gospel becomes Law and turns zealot for the Magistrate though persecuting Christ himself Our Saviour does not think it sharp enough to tell S. Peter that he did not know what Spirit he was of for when this Disciple would have kept these sufferings from his Master onely by his counsel he replies to him get thee behind me Satan He was then of that manner of Spirit therefore now that he does so much worse when he attempts to keep them from him with a Sword and drawn against the Power as if Christ did not know how to word what Spirit such attempts did savour of he does not check and rebuke now but threaten and denounce And 't is obvious to observe that this same Peter who would needs be fighting for his Master in few hours with most cursed imprecations forswears him And so irregular illegal violences for Religion usually flame out into direct opposition to that they are so zealous for fly in the face of that Religion they pretend to strive for to let us see they do not rise from Divine Zeal and from true Piety but from Hypocrisie Ambition Revenge or Interest and that warm shine that kindles there pretended Angels of Light is but a flash of Hell a glory about a fiend Therefore afterwards none was more forward than S. Peter was to press submission to the Magistrate though most unjustly persecuting for Religion talks of no Fire but the fiery trial then in Epist. 1. Cap. iv and If ye suffer for the Name of Christ the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you he knows what manner of Spirit such are of When they are in the place of Dragons then the Holy Ghost and God is with them when the darkness of the shadow of death is on their Souls even then the Spirit of glory resteth on them Accordingly the after-Fathers urge the same not onely towards Heathen Emperours but relaps'd Hereticks and Apostates As Julian and Constantius Valens Valentinian and upon the same account S. Ambrose says Spiritus Sanctus id locutus est in vobis Rogamus Auguste non Pugnamus The Holy Spirit spake these words in you we beg O Valentinian we oppose not And S. Greg. Nazianzen says to do so was the Christian Law most excellently ordained by the Spirit of God who knew best to temper his Law with the mixture of what is profitable to us and honest in it self They knew what manner of Spirit that of Christianity was It does assume no power to inflict it self 'T is not commission'd to plant it self with violence or destroy those that refuse or oppose it It wages War indeed with Vices not with men And in the Camp of our Religion as once in Israel there is no Sword found but with Saul and Jonathan his Son onely the Princes Sword Our Spirit is the Dove no Bird of prey that nor indeed of gall or passion If Christian Religion be to be writ in Blood 't is in that of its own confessors onely if mens false Opinions make no parties nor mischiefs in the State we are not to make them Martyrs to their false Opinions and if they be not so happy as to be Orthodox send them down to Hell directly tear out one anothers Souls to tear out that which we think an Errour Sure they must not root out smutted Corn that must not root out Poppy we may let that which is a little blasted grow if we must let the Tares and Darnel grow The Soldiers would not crucifie Christ's Coat nor make a rent there where they could find no seam But now men strive so for the Coat that they do rent his Flesh to catch it and to gain an inclosure of the name of Christians tear all other members from the Body of Christ care not to sacrifice a Nation to a supposed Errour will attempt to purge away what they call dross in a Furnace of consuming flame The Christian Spirit 's fiery Tongues must kindle no such heats but his effusions call'd Rivers came to quench such fires Effusions that were mistaken sor new wine indeed but never look'd like Blood Nor are they that retain to this Spirit those that have him call'd down on them in their Consecration impowered for such uses When Christ sent his Disciples to convert the World Behold saith he I send you forth as Lambs among Wolves And sure that does not sound like giving a Commission to tear and worry those that would not come into the Flock The Sheep were not by that impowered to devour the Wolves Our Lords directions to his Apostles when a City would not receive their Doctrine was shake off the dust of your feet let nothing of theirs cleave to you have no more to do with them cast off the very dust that setled on your Sandals as you pass'd their Streets And surely then we must be far from animating to give ruin to and seize the Sword the Scepter and the Thrones of Kings if they refuse to receive Christ or his Kingdom or his Reformation or his Vicar If I must not have the dust of any such upon my feet I must not have their Land in my possession their Crowns on my head their Wealth in my Coffers their Blood upon my hands nor their Souls upon my Sword It will be ill appearing so when we come to give an account how we have executed our Commission and shall be ask'd did I send you to inflict the Cross or preach it to save mens Souls or to destroy their lives yea and Souls too And when in those Myriads of Souls that have perish'd in the desolations which such occasions have wrought their Blood shall cry from under the Altar as being sacrific'd to that Duty and Religion which was the
Church First If the Church of Rome have reason to expect infallible assistance of the Spirit in any case it is as much in Canonizing of a Saint as in any other it being as unhappy to determine a false Object for Religious Worship to their Church as a false Article of Faith there is as much need that there should be an infallible proposal of the one as other for when she does Decree by the Authority of the Omnipotent God such a one is a Saint receiv'd in Glory and so renders him the Object of their Worship if he should chance to be a Reprobate to cause the People to fall prostrate to the Shrine of one that 's damn'd and call his flames to warm Gods Altar and the Votaries breast to make the whole Church worship one that is in Hell is liable to greater aggravations of impiety than an erroneous Opinion in very many of their points of Faith can be But it is known their Church hath Canoniz'd one of this Nation Becket who though he was indeed illegally and barbarously Murthered yet 't is not the Suffering but the Cause that makes the Martyr now he did not fall a Sacrifice for his Religion but was slain because he did disturb the State by suspending all the Bishops that upheld the Kings just cause against him so that neither King nor State could live in peace for him for opposing also those Laws which himself had sworn to Laws that were not onely truly Sovereign Rights but are maintain'd even unto this day as Priviledges by the Gallican Church and they not branded for so doing In a word he was slain for those actions which his own Bishops condemned him for as a perjur'd man and a Traytor And for persisting in them to the death he was Sainted Now whatever the estate of this man be in the next World I meddle not with that Yet for Disobedience and Rebellion to place one in Heaven whence for those things Lucifer did fall does seem to shew what Spirit they are of that Canonize such Saints For the Church to pray to Christ that by the wounds of this Saint he would remit their sins does express what rate their Church does set upon the merits of resisting Princes and disturbing States in the behalf of Holy Church When such actions make men fit to be joynt purchasers with Christ in the Redemption of the World But when the French Histories say 't was disputed long after in Paris whether he were Damn'd or Sav'd that the Church in her publique Offices should pray to go thither where he is gone to have his Society though it express their most infallible assurance of the condition of those men who for their sakes resist the Secular Powers yet O my Soul enter not thou into their counsels in this world neither say a Confederacy to whom they say a Confederacy much less pray to be in their Society who by resisting S. Paul says do receive unto themselves Damnation Secondly It is notorious that in their first General Council at Lyons Anno 1245. the Emperour Frederick the second by the Sentence of the Pope and the whole Council after long deliberation and producing several Arguments which they say are not sleight but effectual to prove the suspicion of Heresie is depriv'd of his Empire all his Subjects are absolv'd from their Oath of Allegiance and by Apostolical Authority forbidden to obey him Therefore that such things may be done in the cases of Religion hath the Authority of a General Council 't was that Council that Decreed Red Hats to Cardinals Hats red it seems not onely with the Royal Purple but with the Blood of Kings and of Royalty it self Thirdly I should have urged the well known Canon of the General Council of Lateran the greatest their Church ever boasted of which says That if the temporal Lord shall neglect to purge his Territories from such as the Church there declares Hereticks he shall be Excommunicated by the Metropolitan and if he do not mend within a year complained of to the Pope that so he may declare his Subjects absolv'd from their Allegiance and expose his Lands to be seiz'd by Catholicks who shall exterminate the Hereticks saving the right of the chief Lord Provided he give no impediment to this But the same law shall be observed to those that have no chief Lords that is who are themselves Supream This I should urge but that some say that penal Statutes which are leges odiosae tantum disponunt quantum loquuntur Therefore this Canon since it does not name Kings it does not they say concern them although 't is plain it do sufficiently enough But that there may be therefore no evasion Fourthly In the General Council of Constance that part of it I mean that is approv'd by their whole Church The Pope and Council joyn together in commanding all Arch-Bishops Bishops and Inquisitors to pronounce all such Excommunicate as are declared Hereticks in such and such Articles and that of Transubstantiation half-Communion and the Pope's Supremacy are among them or that favour ot defend them or that Communicate with them in publique or in private whether in sacred Offices or otherwise etiamsi Patriarchali Archiepiscopali Episcopali Regali Reginali Ducali aut aliâ quâvis Ecclesiasticâ aut mundanâ proefulgeant dignitate And Commands them also to proceed to Interdicts and deprivation of Dignities and Goods and whatsoever other Penalties vias modos Thus that Council though it took away the Peoples right to the Blood of Christ denying them the Cup in the Sacrament gave them in exchange the Blood of their own Kings making them a right to that And that they extend the force of these Canons to the most absolute Princes even to him that pleads exemption most to the King of France is plain because when Sixtus the fifth thundred out his Bulls against the then King of Navarre afterwards King Henry the fourth of France and the Prince of Conde depriving them not onely of their Lands and Dignities but their Succession also to the Crown of France absolving their Subjects from their Oaths forbidding them to obey them he declared he did it to them as to relapsed Hereticks favourers and defenders of them and as such fal'n under the Censures of the Canons of the Church Now there are no other Canons that do take in Kings but these which can touch him for that of Boniface the eighth which says the Pope hath power to judg all temporal Powers is declared not to extend to France Cap. meruit de priviledg in extravag communibus Thus by the publique Acts of their Church and by the Canons of their General Councils we have found in causes of Religion Deprivation of Princes Wars and Bloodshed and the other consequent Miseries are establish'd Rebellion encouraged by a Law And if Rebellion be as the sin of Witchcraft then we know what manner of Spirit they are of that do
encourage it sure Witches have no spirit but the Devil for familiar But the Church of England on the other side in her publique Doctrine set down in the Book of Homilies establish'd in the 39. Articles of her Religion says in express words that it is not lawful for Inferiours and Subjects in any case to resist and stand against the Superiour Powers that we must indeed believe undoubtedly that we may not obey Kings Magistrates or any other if they would command us to do any thing contrary to Gods Commands In such a case we ought to say with the Apostle we must rather obey God than Man But nevertheless in that case we may not in any wise withstand violently or Rebel against Rulers or make any Insurrection Sedition or Tumults either by force of Arms or otherwise against the Anointed of the Lord or any of his Officers 1 Book of Hom. 2 part of the Serm. of Obed. Not for Reformation of Religion for what a Religion 't is that such men by such means would restore may easily be judged even as good a Religion surely as Rebels be good men and obedient Subjects 2 Book of Hom. 4 part of the Serm. against wilful Rebellion The very same thing is defined in the first of the Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical of the year 1640. for Subjects to bear Arms against their King offensive or defensive upon any pretence whatever is at least to resist the Powers which are ordain'd of God and though they do not invade but onely resist S. Paul tells them plainly he that resists receives unto himself damnation This was the Doctrine of the Church in those her Constitutions and although there was no Parliament then sitting to enact these Canons into Laws yet since that time the Law of England is declar'd to say the same and we obliged by it to acknowledg that it is not Lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King by this Parliament whose memory shall be for ever blessed And now it is not hard to know what manner of Spirit our Church is of even that Spirit that anoints the Lords Anointed that is which Commissions them Gods Spirit as we find it phras'd in Scripture And 't is obvious to each eye that there is much more resemblance betwixt present Rome and the Image of Babylon as S. John hath drawn it in the Revelations than there is of Babel and the Church of England as to those Confusions which seditious Doctrines make as the Romanists pourtrai'd her But far be it from me to conclude hence that all of their Communion do allow their Doctrines Though they stand on the same bottom that their Faith of half-Communion and Transubstantiation do even Acts of the same Councils yet I doubt not multitudes of loyal Souls of this our Nation do abhor the Tenents by what Rule of theirs I know not I confess Nor shall I enquire what Security a Prince can have of the Allegiance of those who by the most infallible Rules of their Religion can be loyal onely on Condition by the leave of those who are his Enemies on whose will and power all their Oaths and duty are depending If the most essential interest of Princes will not move them to consider this sure I am I shall not undertake it But I shall take the confidence out of the premises to infer that no Religion in the World does more provide for the security of Kings than the Christian as it is profess'd in our Church does And when we see the Interest of the Crown and Church were twisted by God in the preservations of this day nor could be separated in the late dismal Confusions but died and reviv'd together in the Resurrection they that hate the execrable mischiefs of those times or love the Crown or do not come to mock God when they come to give him thanks for his great glories of this day cannot choose but have good will for our Sion cannot have an unconcernedness for this Religion a cold indifference to it or any other which where-ere it is alas I fear betrays too openly indifference and unconcernedness for Religion it self For if I should appeal to our most Sceptick Statists and not beg one Principle of a Religion but take their own Religion was contriv'd they say by pretending to engage a God to uphold his Vicegerent and by putting after everlasting punishments before mens fears for they saw present ones restrained not Treason was contriv'd I say to uphold States Then that must be the best with them that best upholds and then I have evinc'd the Christian is secure as 't is prosess'd by our Church But then shame to those who to gratifie their lusts meerly labour to perswade themselves and others there is no such thing in earnest as a Resurrection to punishments who by publique raillery in sacred things and turning all to merriment endeavour to take off the sense of all Religion and have done it in great measure and so thrown down the best-Basis on which Government subsists which they themselves confess was necessary to be fram'd on purpose for it For if there be no after fears he that is stronger than to need to fear the present may rebel kill Kings These Atheists are Fanaticks I am sure in Politicks more traiterous than our mad Enthusiasts or than the Canons of the Popish Councils To these Sadduces in Christianity we may say ye know not what spirit ye are of who know not whether there be any Spirit But it is indeed because they are all flesh themselves But then if the works of the flesh be manifest Adultery Fornication Seditions Heresies Murders Drunkenness c. we know what manner of Spirit they are of even the spirit that did enter into the Swine the Legion indeed of Spirits one Spirit is not Devil enough to animate the flesh into so many of those works But the fruits of the Spirit that Gospel Spirit which we Christians are of are love peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance joy in the Holy Ghost and they that do bring forth such fruits are baptised indeed with the Holy Ghost and if with fire fire that came down from Heaven too 't was onely to consume their dross that they may be pure mettal fit as for the King's Inscription meek Christians good Subjects so for Gods Image to be stamp'd upon that is renewed in Righteousness and true Holiness Fire this that will sublime our very flesh into spiritual body that we may begin here that incorruptible which our corruptible must put on when our vile Bodies shall be made like to the glorious Body of our Saviour To which state that Spirit which rais'd up Jesus from the dead bring us by quickning our mortal Bodies To whom c. The Eleventh SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Novemb. 8. 1665. Being the Monthly Fast-day for the Plague LUKE XVI 30 31. Nay Father Abraham but if one went unto
are his incitations and motions In sum as to wickedness they are meer Demoniacks This therefore is his chief and the first Engine The second Instrument by which he does demolish whatsoever hopes of Vertue we are built up to is Want of Imployment And in order to this he hath so far prevail'd on the Opinions of the World that they believe some states of men not onely have no Obligation to be busied but to have no Calling is essential to their condition which is made more eminent upon this account that they have no business Wealth how great soever if with an imployment or Profession makes a man onely a more gentile Mechanick But Riches and nothing to do make a Person of quality As if God had made that state of men far the most generous part of the whole kind and best appointed for the noblest uses of the World to serve no other ends but what the Grashoppers and Locusts do to sing and dance among the Plants and Branches and devour the Fruits and Providence had furnished them with all advantages of Plenty for no better purposes Such persons think not onely to reverse Gods Curse and In the sweat of others faces eat their bread but reverse Nature too for Job saith Man is born to labour as the sparks fly upwards in his making hath a Principle to which Activity is as essential as it is to fire to mount from which nothing else but force can hinder it As if man did do violence to his making when he did do nothing and it were his hardest work and pressure not to be imployed it were like making flame go downwards I am sure it is one of the busiest ways of doing Satan's work Our Saviour in a Parable in the 12. Chap. of S. Matth. from the 43. ver saith When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man he goeth through dry places seeking rest and findeth none Then he saith I will return into my house from whence I came out and when he is come he findeth it empty swept and garnished Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there Where under the similitude of a man cast out of his habitation who while he wanders through none but desert places seeking for a dwelling he is sure to meet with none but if he find an House that 's empty swept and garnished he hath found out not a receptacle onely but an invitation an house dress'd on purpose to call in and to detain Inhabitants He signifies that when a Temptation of the Devil is repell'd and himself upon some working occasion by a resolute act of holy courage thrown out of the heart as he finds no rest in this condition every place is desert to him but the heart of man is indeed Hell to him for he calls it Torment to be cast out thence yea he accounts himself bound up in his eternal Chains of darkness when he is restrained from working and engaging man to sin so while he goeth to and fro seeking an opportunity to put in somewhere if he find that heart from which he was cast out or any other heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the word is idling not imploy'd or busied so it signifies such an heart is empty swept and garnished for him 't is a dwelling that 's dress'd properly to tempt the Devil fitted to receive him and his forces too prepared for him to Garrison and make a strong hold of whence he cannot be removed for he takes unto him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there No doubt they are the Patron-Guardian spirits of the seven deadly Sins their Tuâ—elary Devils Some of those good qualities that are the attendants of Idleness you may find decypher'd in the Scripture S. Paul says when people learn to be idle they grow tatlers busie bodies speaking things which they ought not 'T is strange that Idleness should make men and women busie bodies yet it does most certainly in other folks affairs Faction than which nothing in the world can be more restless is nurs'd by it Where are States so censured so new modell'd as at certain of our Refectories places that are made meerly for men to spend their time in which they know not what to do with At those Tables our Superiours are dissected Calumny and Treason are the common are indeed the more peculiar entertainments of the places In fine where persons have no other employment for their time but talking and either have not so much Vertue as to find delight in talking good things or not so much skill as to speak innocent recreation there they talk of others censure and backbite and scoff This is indeed the onely picquant conversation Gall is sawce to all their Entertainments And that you may know these things proceed from that old Serpent they do nothing else but hiss and bite 'T is the poyson of Asps that is under their lips which gives rellish to their Discourses 't is the sting that makes them grateful venom that they are condited with More of the brood of this want of Imployment you may find at Sodom namely Pride and Luxury For saith Ezekiel This was the Iniquity of Sodom Pride fulness of bread and abundance of Idleness was in her and in her daughters And indeed the Idle person could not possibly know how to pass his hours if he had not Delicacies to sweeten some Wine to lay some asleep and the solicitous deckings of Pride to take up others But the studious gorgings of the inside and the elaborate trimmings of the outside help him well away with them Good God! that for so many hours my morning eyes should be lift up to nothing but a Looking-glass that that thin shadow of my self should be my Idol be my God indeed to which I pay all the devotions I perform And when with so much care and time I have arrayed and marshall'd my self that I should spend as much more too in the complacencies of viewing this with eager eyes and appetite surveying every part as if I had set out expos'd them to my self alone and only dress'd a prospect for my own sight and since Nature to my grief hath given me no eyes behind that I should fetch reliefs from Art and get vicarious sight and set my back parts too before my face that so I may enjoy the whole Scene of my self And why all this for nothing but to serve vain Ostentation or negotiate for Lust to dress a Temptation and start Concupiscence And that the half of each Day should be spent thus the best part of a reasonable Creatures and a Christians life be laid out upon purposes so far from Christian or reasonable And truly Luxury will easily eat the remainder up that sure Companion of Idleness For when the Israelites were in the Wilderness where they could not eat but by
and by that Miracle so far shew forth his Power that in probability the whole Countrey would believe on him they fall upon this project to prevent it they besought him if he would cast them out to suffer them to go into an herd of Swine there feeding hoping by destroying them to incense the Owners against Christ And to try them he permitted this The possessed Swine ran violently down into the Lake and perished Now a man would think the virulency of these Devils which were so destructive when they were at liberty and not restrained would have endeared the mercy that had cast them out of the poor men and came to dispossess the Countrey of them and that their astonishment at so great a Miracle would possess them all with Reverence and belief of him and that they would therefore seise and possess him also and not let the mercy go But on the contrary the whole City and Countrey came out to meet Jesus and in consideration of the loss of their Swine desire him to depart out of their Coast. Lo here an equal Enemy to Christ and all his Miracles that was indeed too hard for them The Senate of Hell had no project to keep out Religion like to this to make Religion thwart an Interest Rather no Christianity than lose an Earthly satisfaction by it Rather have the Swine than Christ himself 4. But if he chance to fail in this Assault as by our Saviour he was beaten off he hath yet a reserve in which he places his last strongest confidence with which he ventured to charge Christ when it is probable he knew he was the Son of God He takes him up into an high Mountain and shews him all the Kingdoms of the Earth in the twinkling of an eye and the glory of them and says All these things will I give thee He thought it was impossible for such a Prospect not to make impression on the Appetite raise some desire or stir one Covetous or Ambitious thought which if it could but do he made no scruple then to clog the Gift with such conditions as that there All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me 'T is said indeed the Covetous man is an Idolater And here we see the God he does do homage to and worship The Devil does require that those whom he gives Wealth to now 't is he that gives it to the Covetous to all indeed that get it with injustice or with greediness he requires I say that these should pay all their Religion to Himself And the Ambitious in however high a place he sets them must fall down to him And truly these two dispositions can give worship to no other God but such an one as is Abaddon the Destroyer of Mankind For all the great Commotions of the World all those Convulsions that tear Provinces and Empires all Seditions and Rebellions with those Armies of Iniquities that attend them and that wage their Designs which are upheld by legions of Villanies as well as men all the Disturbances of States and Church are but attempts of Covetous and Ambitious spirits men that are unsatisfied with their condition and desire a change and care not how they compass it They can charge through Seas of Bloud and Sin over the face of Men and Conscience to get out of that condition which they therefore are not well content with because something they like better beckens their ambitious and their covetous Desires Would you see what one of these will venture at When Christ our Saviour was to be betrayed when a Person of the Godhead was to be delivered up and Crucified the Devil had no passion to imploy on that Design so fit as the desire of getting money and when that desire was once entertain'd we see he enters really in person and possesses such a Soul and when he is there he designs no farther but to warm and stir that passion 'T is sufficient fruit of his possession he hath done enough in such an heart wherein he dwells if he but keep alive that desire of Money For he knows that will make the man adventure upon any guilt for it made Judas undertake to betray Christ. And as for the other passion which the Devil did design the glories of his prospect to give fire to though he could not stir it in our Saviour yet he knew it vanquish'd him himself when he was Angel What height is there which Ambition will not fly at since it made this spirit aim at an equality with the Most High Heaven it self was not sufficient to content him while there was a God above him in it And since this affection peopled Hell with Devils 't is no wonder if it people Earth with Miseries and Vices 5. The remaining Trial with which Satan did assault our Saviour when he tempted him with Scripture and God's Promises and sought to ruine him with his own priviledges with that also 6. His being a lying spirit in the mouth of all the Prophets by which long ago he did destroy an Ahab in the 1 Kings xxii 22. But since by sad experience we know he ruined the best King purest Church and most flourishing State by the same Stratagem But these with those other which S. Paul does call his wiles I must omit sufficient hath been said already to inforce the necessity of resisting which is the Duty and the next considerable Resist the Devil That is do not you consent to his Temptations for there is no more required of us but this onely not to be willing to be taken and led captive by him For let him suggest incite assault and storm us no impression can be made upon us till we yield and till we give consent no hurt is done It is not here as in our other Wars In those no resolution can secure the Victory but notwithstanding all resistance possible we may be vanquish'd yea sometime men are overpress'd and die with Conquering and the Victor onely gains a Monument is but buried in the heaps of his slain Trophies But in these Wars with the Devil whosoever is unwilling to be vanquish'd never can be For he must first give consent to it and will the ruine for men do not sin against their wills Onely here we must distinguish betwixt Will and thin Velleity and Woulding For let no man think when he commits deliberate iniquity with aversness and reluctancy of mind allows not what he does but does the evil that he would not what he hates that he does that this is not to be imputed to the Will that in this case he is not willing but here the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and yields through meer infirmity For on the contrary the Devil finds the Flesh so strong in this case that with it alone he does assault the mind and breaks through its reluctancies and aversations bears down all its resolutions triumphs over
the practice of those men who minding Earthly things and all their wisdom lying as to them they therefore think themselves concern'd to represent the Doctrines of the Cross which does so contradict their wisdom as meer madness and the Cross it self as the Ensign of folly And accordingly they do treat it en ridicul and make the proper Doctrines of it the strict duties of Religion matter for their jests and bitter scoffs They character Religion as a worship that befits a God whose shape the Primitive persecutors painted Christ in Deus Onochaetes as if Christianity were proper Homage onely to an Asses person as Tertullian words it And the Votaries transform'd by this their service and made like the God they worship were what they were call'd then Asinarii creatures onely fit for burthen to bear what they magnifie a Cross and scorns No persecutions are so mortal as those that Murther the reputation of a thing or person not so much because when that is fallen once then they cannot hope to stand as because those murder after death and poison memory killing to immortality They were much more kind to Religion and more innocent that cloath'd the Christians in the skins of Bears and Tygers that so they might be worried into Martyrdom Than they that cloath their Christianity in fools Coat that so it may be laugh'd to death go out in ignominy and into contempt If to sport with things of sacred and Eternal consequence were to be forgiven yet to do it with the Cross of Christ Thus to set that out as foolishness which is the greatest mystery the Divine wisdom hath contriv'd to make mercy and truth meet together righteousness and peace kiss each other to make sin be punish'd yet the Sinner pardoned Thus to play and sin upon those dire expresses of Gods indignation against sin are things of such a sad and dangerous concern that S. Paul could not give a caution against them but with tears For many walk saith he of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping c. Which calls me to my last Consideration Indeed the Cross of Christ does represent Almighty God in so severe a shape and gives the lineaments of so fierce displeasures against sin as do exceed all comprehension There was a passion in Christs Prayer to prevent his Passion when he deprecated it with strong cries and tears yea when his whole body wept tears as of bloud to deprecate it and yet he cryed more dreadfully when he did suffer it The Nails that bor'd his Hands the Spear that pierc'd his Heart and made out-lets for his Bloud and Spirits did not wound him as that sting of death and torments sin did which made out-lets for God to forsake him and which drove away the Lord that was himself out of him Neither did his God forsake him only but his most Almighty attributes were engag'd against him Gods Holiness and Justice were resolv'd to make Christ an example of the sad demerit of Iniquity and his hatred of it Demerit so great as was valuable with the everlasting punishment of the World fal'n Angels and fal'n Men for to that did it make them liable Now that God might appear to hate it at the rate of its deservings it was very necessary that it should be punish'd if not by the execution of that sentence on Mankind as on the Devils yet by something that might be proportionable to it so to let us see the measures God abhors it by to what degrees the Lord is just and holy by those torments torments answerable to those attributes Now truly when we do reflect on this we cannot wonder if the Sinner be an enemy to the Cross and hate the prospect of it which does give him such a perfect copy of his expectations when our Saviours draught which he so trembled at shall be the everlasting portion of his Cup For if God did so plague the imputation of Iniquity how will he torment the wilful and impenitent commission of it But then when we consider those torments were the satisfaction for the sins of man methinks the Sinner should be otherwise affected to them Christ by bearing the Cross gave God such satisfaction as did move him in consideration thereof to dispence with that strict Law which having broken we were forfeit to eternal Death and to publish an act of Grace whereby he does admit all to pardon of sins past and to a right to everlasting Life that will believe on him forsake their sins and live true Christians He there appears the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World for that he does as being a Lamb slain then he was our Sacrifice and that Cross the Altar And the humbled Sinner that repents for notwithstanding satisfaction God will not accept a Sinner that goes on by all those Agonies his holiness would not be justified if when he had forsaken and tormented his own Son for taking sin upon him he should yet receive into his favour and his Heaven Sinners that will not let go but will retain their sins but the penitent may plead this expiation Lo here I poor Soul prostrate at the footstool of the Cross lay hold upon the Altar here 's my Sacrifice on which my fins are to be charg'd and not on me although so foul I am I cannot pour out tears sufficient to cleanse me yet behold Lord and see if there ever were any Sorrow like the sorrow of thy Son wherewith thou didst afflict him for these sins of mine And here is Bloud also his Bloud to wash me in and that Bloud is within the Vail too now and that my Offering taken from the Cross up to thy Throne thou hast accepted it and canst not refuse it now my Advocate does plead it and claims for me the advantage of the Cross. Now that men should be Enemies to this and when they are forfeit to eternal Ruine hate that which is to redeem the forfeiture that they should trample on the Cross whereon their satisfactions were wrought tread down the Altar which they have but to lay hold on and be safe wage war with beat off and pursue a Lamb that Lamb of God that comes to take away their sins and make a spoil and slaughter of their Sacrifice hostilely spill upon the ground that Bloud that was appointed for their Bloud upon the Altar for their blood of sprinkling and was to appear in Heaven for them If men resolve to be on terms of Duel with their God and scorn that Satisfaction shall be made for them by any other way than by defiance and although their God do make the satisfactions for them to himself yet not endure it but chuse quarrel rather this is so perverse and fatal an hostility as no tears are sufficient to bewail But possibly men sleight these satisfactions because some terms are put upon them which they know not how to comport with the merits of the
Royal. My LORD WHEN I consider with what reluctancies I appear thus in publick I have all reason to suspect and fear lest this offering which like an unwilling Sacrifice was dragg'd to the Altar and which hath great defects too will be far from propitiating either for its self or for the votary But I must crave leave to add that how averse soever I was to the publishing this rude Discourse I make the Dedication with all possible zeal and ready cheerfulness For I expect your Lordship to be a Patron not only to my Sermon but to my Subject Such a separate eminence of virtue and of sweetness mixt together may hope to ingratiate Your Function to a Generation of men that will not yet know their own good but resist mercy and are not content to be happy And for my self Your Lordships great goodness and obligingness hath encourag'd me not 〈◊〉 to hope that you will pardon all the miscarriages of what I now present but also to presume to shelter it and my self under your Lordships Name and Command and to honour my self before the World by this address and by assuming the relation of My Lord Your Lordships most humbly devoted and most faithful Servant RICH. ALâ—â—STRY SERMON XVI IN St PETERS WESTMINSTER January 6. 1660. ACTS XIII 2. The Holy Ghost said Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them AND as they ministred to the Lord and fasted the holy Ghost said Although that ministring to God by prayer and fasting be the indicted and appropriate acts to preface such Solemnities as this and that not Sermons but Litanies and intercessions are the peculiar adherents of Embers and of Consecrations and those vigorous strivings with Almighty God by Prayer are the birth-pangs in which Fathers are born unto the Church Yet since that now this Sacred Office is it self oppos'd and even the Mission of Preachers preach'd against and the Authority that sends despis'd as Antichristian whilst separation and pretence unto the Holy Ghost set up themselves against the strict injunction of the Holy Ghost to separate the Pulpit that otherwhiles hath fought against it must now attone its errours by attending on the Altar and the bold ungrounded claims of Inspiration that false Teachers have usurp'd be superseded by the voice of the Holy Ghost himself who in this case becomes the Preacher and says Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have call'd them My Text is a Commission parole from Heaven in it you have First the Person that sends it out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Holy Ghost said Secondly the Persons to whom it is directed imply'd in the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate more particularly exprest in the foregoing words Thirdly the thing to which they were impowr'd by the Commission or which was requir'd of them set down in the remaining words of the Text wherein you have 1. The Act injoyn'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate 2. The Object 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate me Barnabas and Saul 3. The end for what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a work 4. The determination of that work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the work whereunto I have called them Of these in their Order and first I The Holy Ghost said Of those five things for want of which the second Jewish Temple sunk below the first and its Glory seem'd faint in the comparison the Chiefest was the Holy Ghost who became silent his Oracles ceast then and he spake no more by the Prophets A thing not only confest by the Thalmudists who say our Rabbins have deliver'd to us that from the time of Haggai Zechary and Malachy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Holy Ghost was taken away from Israel but so notorious in experience that when St. Paul meets Disciples at Ephesus Acts 19. 1. and asks them if they have received the Holy Ghost whether at their Baptism the Spirit came down upon them as he did then on others they answer ver 2. We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost any extraordinary effusions of the Spirit whether he do come down in Gifts and Afflations such as we know were usual in the first Jewish Temple but have not been for a long time and we have not yet heard they are restored for of this pouring out of the Holy Ghost they must needs mean it not of himself of whom they could not doubt nothing was more known in the Jewish Church But as our Saviour did supply the other four with all advantage and so fulfilled the Prophecy and made the glory of that Temple greater so for the fifth the spirit he was restored in kind with infinate improvement that of Joel fulfill'd I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh for they were all baptized with the Holy Ghost baptized in rivers of living waters which did flow out of the belly of themselves for this he spake of the Spirit which all that believed on him should receiue Joh. 7. 39. so that Joel did scarce feel or fore see enough to prophesie of this abundance but the inundations were almost like Christ's receivings without measure Nor were his Inspirations as of old dark and mysterious Oracles direction in rapture where the Message it self was to have another revelation and it must be prophecy to understand as well as utter But in the Gospel his effusions run clear and transparent as the Water that expresseth them revealing even all the unknown languages that were the conduits and conveighances all plain express direction such as that of the Text. Now amongst all the several uses of the Holy Ghost for which he was pour'd out in this abundance amongst all the designs he did engage himself in and advance he does not seem to have a greater agency nor to interess himself more in any than in qualifying for and separating to Church-Offices This seems to be his great work And indeed how can he choose but be particularly concern'd in those Officer which are his own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his gifts Timothy's is expresly call'd so in each of his Epistles 1 Tim. 4. 14. 2 Tim. 1. 6. And when our Saviour Ephes. 4 8. is said to give the gifts of the Holy Ghost to men it is added how ver 11. He gave some Apostles some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry namely because those gifts enabled for those Offices and all the reason in the World that he should have a special hand in giving where himself is to be receiv'd Receive the Holy Ghost that was from the beginning and is yet the installation to them And if we take them from their divine original from that great Pastor and Bishop of our souls who was the maker of them too Thus he was consecrated the spirit of the Lord is upon me therefore he hath anointed me to preach
the Gospel Luke 4. 18. And when he comes to ordain succession he says as my Father sent me so send I you And he breathed upon them and said Receive the Holy Ghost Joh. 20. 21. And after bids them tarry at Jerusalem 'till they should be endued with power from above Luk. 24. 47. That is endued with the Holy Spirit Act. 1. The present Barnabas and Saul were sent by his Commission in the Text and v. 4. And Saint Paul tells the Elders of the Churches of Asia the Holy Ghost made them overseers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 20. 28. Timothy had his Office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by immediate designation of the Holy Ghost 1 Tim. 4. 14. Clemens Rhomanus saith the Apostles out of those they had converted did ordain Bishops and Deacons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having first try'd them by the Holy Ghost and so taught by his revelation who should be the men And Clemens Alexandrinus says John after his return to Asia ordain'd throughout all the regions about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as were signified and design'd by the Holy Ghost So that Oeâ—â—menius pronounces in the general 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishops that were made they made not inconsiderately on their own heads but such whom the Spirit did command Chrysostom said as much before and Theoplylact Nor can we doubt that he maintains his interest in this affair even at this day But that our Veni Creator Spiritus come Holy Ghost eternal God does call him to preside in these so concerning Solemnities For Christ when he commission'd his Apostles assuring them behold I am with you even to the end of the World which promise he performs only vicriâ Spiritûs prasentiâ by the presence of the Holy Ghost who is his Vicar as Tertullian expresses nor can the Spirit be with them till then but by making them be till then which being done by Ordination that Ecclesiastical procreation for so they derive themselves to the Worlds end upon the strength of that promise we may assure our selves he does assist as truly though not so visibly as when he said here separate The Ghost's concernment being thus secured I have this one thing only to suggest that they who set themselves against all separation to these Offices and Orders in and for which the Holy Ghost hath so appear'd what they be I dispute not now they â—ight against the Holy Ghost and thrust him out of that in which he hath almost signally interessed himself And they that do intitle the Spirit to this opposition do not onely make Gods Kingdom divided against it self or raise a faction in the Trinity and stir up division betwixt those Three One Persons but they set the same Person against himself and make the Holy Spirit resist the Holy Ghost You know the inference prest upon them that did this but interpretatively in the Devils Kingdom and did make Satan cast out Satan And is 't not here of force And they who make the Spirit cast out the Holy Ghost contrive as much as in them lies Gods Kingdom shall not stand I will not parallel the guilts Those Pharisees blasphemed the Holy Spirit in his Miracles ascribing that to Beelzebub which was the immediate work of the Holy Ghost and such indeed do sin unpardonably because they sin irrecoverably for Miracles being the utmost and most manifest express wherein the Holy Ghost exerts himself they who can harden their understandings against them have left themselves no means of conviction and cannot be forgiven because they cannot be rectified or reclaimed These others do blaspheme the Spirit in his immediate inspirations and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascribing to the spirit of Antichrist all those Offices and Orders which these gifts of the Holy Ghost were power'd from Heaven immediately to qualifie for and separate to things in which he hath as signally appeared as in his Miracles and as he made these means to convince the World so he made those the Officers of doing it and set them to out last the other Now in the same nearness that these two guilts come up one towards the other just to the same degree these sin the sin against the Holy Ghost For the Holy Ghost said separate So I pass to the second to those whom this Injunction is directed to And thence I do observe in general that Notwithstanding all the interest and office that the Holy Ghost assumes in these same separations yet there is something left besides for Man to do Although he superintend they have a work in it He is the Vnction but it must be apply'd by laying on of hands I have call'd them saith he in the Text and yet to them that ministred the Holy Ghost said do ye separate I do not now examin what degree and order of men they were whom the Holy Ghost here commissions for this Office The Judgement of the Antient Church in this affair is enough known by the condemnation of Aerius and by the Fate of Ischyras and Colluthus and for the present instance in which they are call'd Doctors that are bid to do it there hath enough been said to prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Title of a Bishop to which I shall only add that it was a variation of Name that stuck by them untill Bede's age in which what Bishops signified does come under no question for he does say that Austin call'd together to the Conference Episcopos sive Doctores the Bishops or the Doctors of the Province Besides that there was then in Antioch a Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the time of Claudius Emperour of Rome and of Euodius whom the Apostle Peter had ordain'd at Antioch those that before were call'd Nazarenes and Galileans were call'd Christians A thing which happen'd a little before this separation in the Text as you find Chap. 11. 26. But who they were that us'd to separate for every Execution of these holy Offices will appear from the Instances that I shall make to prove the present Observation that besides that of the Holy Ghost there was an outward call And whom soever the Spirit sent he commanded that they should have Commission from Men. And all my former Testimonies for the Holy Ghost bear witness for this too The Text is positive here was a Congè d'estire for Barnabas and Saul Timothy had his Office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be designation of the Spirit 1 Tim. 4. 14. yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with laying on of hands ibid. yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the laying on of my hands 2 Tim. 1. 6. And Timothy was plac'd at Ephesus as Titus also left at Creet to ordain others in the same manner St. Paul providing for the succession of the Rite and Ceremony as well as of the Office And in St. Clement's Testimony 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit try'd but the Apostles constituted And down as low as
For them it is very necessary for persecution or despightful usage offending God as by a disobedience to his precept so also by the sufferings it does inflict on man to forgive or require which that man hath right God does not use to put the injur'd person by this right or by its paramont Authority assume to pardon the mans part of the wrong but does retain the sin till that either in deed or desire do satisfied for or remitted there being 'till then an obstruction to Gods forgiveness for 'till then the man hath not repented but when the fufferer does pray for him in doing so he pleads that that obstruction is remov'd that his part is remitted and so leaves no bar in the way to that pardon which he begs for him of God and which that bar being gone the Lord is us'd to grant with all advantage the prayers of our Martyr in the seventh of the Acts are a demonstration to which the Fathers say the Church did owe not only her deliverance from all the violent intentions of Saul but all that Christianity which St. Paul planted the dying voice of that petition Lord lay not this sin to their charge was answered by that voyce from Heaven which converted Saul in his career of fury One prayer for a persecutor puts an end to persecution si Stephanus non or asset Ecclesia non habuiesset Paulum Jobs miserable comforters whose visits prov'd afflictions to him could not a tone themselves to God by their burnt offerings but Job must pray for them 42. Chr. 8. seven Bullocks and seven Rams cannot expiate but one petition from the sufferer will do it for him I will accept saith God and he accepted him not for them only but for himself for the Lord turned the Captivity of Job when he prayed for them vers 10. These intercessions speed sooner then direct supplications and such a petition is heard to our selves when 't is made for others And reason good for such requests lay the condition of our pardon before God making evidence of our performance and they cry for we forgive and so call for pardon And to encourage this procedure our Saviour before he did commend his own spirit into the hand of his Father he commended his Executioners to the mercies of his Father Our Martyr did not so indeed but first pray'd for himself Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Acts. 7. 59. But though Heaven opening he saw that Jesus standing at the right hand of God as ready to receive it yet his spirit would not leave his body so yet made him live yet to endure more stoning from his persecutors for whom he had not pray'd yet but when he once fell on his knees not beaten down by their storm but his Charity and pray'd Lord lay not this sin to their charge when he had said so he fell asleep v. 60. his Spirit taken hence as it were osculo pacis though by the most violent death and he lies down in a perpetual rest and peace that thus lies down in Love These are requests to breath out a soul into heaven in and heaven it self did open to receive that soul that came so wafred And now we are at the top of Christ's Mount the highest and the steepest point of christianity which view with that â—o which our Martyrs Spirit did ascend For it makes perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect it sets our heads within those higher and untroubled Regions wherein there are no Meteor-fires the flame of Passion cannot wing it thither for he that is above the power of injury discontent cannot look up to him it is with him as in the upper Orbs where there is only harmony and shine all is peace and love the state of heaven it self Now as it does happen to them that look down from great heights every Object below is dwarf'd And if the distance of the prospect be as great as that from Heaven to Earth they tell us this whole Globe would be but like a spot all being swallowed in it self so if from this great height of duty we should look down upon the World of Christianity would it not almost wholly disappear and vanish Something like a dark spot of it you may perchance behold stain'd and discolour'd with the Blood of Christians which their constant quarrels shed Some it may be dye that Blood in colours of Religion their Animosity is christened Zeal they kill only for Sacrifice thus they interpret and fulfill Christs precepts this they call holy love as if Christ when he bid his Disciples take no Staves with them meant they should carry Swords as if the love he had commanded we should have for them that are in errour if our enemies be so indeed were but to murder them forsooth out of their errours Next for the kindnesses that Christians do to those that hate them or have disoblig'd them they are God knows so little that no perspective can shew them from this height we are upon And yet 't is not for want of light we cannot see them 't is very rare men do those things in the dark for if they do not blazon them themselves the enemy whom they oblige must do it The distance also is too great to hear the prayers that are made for those that treat men with despiteful usage perhaps it is because they are put up in secret bur then what means the yelling of those curses That ill Language that is banded to and fro While none will be behind in the returns of these how far soever we are off like Thunder these are heard And thence you may behold them also tearing Christs wounds wider to mouth their swelling passion We may see their anger redden with his Blood and themselves spitting out that Blood by imprecations at the face of him that did provoke them we may see them raking Hell to word these prayers sending themselves thither in wishes that they may express them with more horrour The Hatreds and Revenges which men act on them that have offended them hates that seldom ever dye 'till themselves do which the Frost of the Grave onely cools yea many times they are rak'd up and keep their heat in the ashes live in the grave and are as long liv'd as the families which for the most part is more careful and tenacious of them than of their Inheritance The executions of these are often writ in Characters legible at utmost distance in this Mount of the Lord they may be seen but where now are the Christians of my Text and of this day There 's no appearance of them in the face of the whole Globe of our Profession nay worse it is scarce possible they should appear the Duties of loving enemies of returning affronts with kindnesses these are banisht thence other virtues are practic'd down but these are scorn'd and quarrel'd down 'T is become a base thing and not to be endur'd to be a Christian
cannot hope yet will in despite of that knowledge hope and do notwithstanding all think to come to Heaven Certainly while a man goes on to sin to hope for mercy is presumtion in him and so another sin added to the rest yea 't is a disbelieving of Gods threatning an affronting him in his veracity an imputing falsehood to his menaces and a putting himself almost out of the possibility of repenting For he that do's hope for Salvation in the condition he is in hath no temtation at all to change his condition but is likely to go on confidently and hopingly to eternal perdition it were a mercy to such a person to be struck into despair that he may be taught the wretchedness of his condition and hurried out it in which as long as he does hope there 's no reason to expect that he should leave it but by becoming hopeless in it may be frighted from it and the gates of hell is the onely probable means to let that man into the way of heaven O the Christians Hope it is the hope of righteousness Gal. 5. 5. Nothing else but holiness and righteousness can give a man ground for it And certainly my Brethren it is such a Hope as would countervail the trouble and the pains of reforming our selves What will not a man undertake which he can but hope to go thro and is assur'd of a large recompence for doing and surely Heaven is worth the endeavouring after and that blessed Hope worth purifying our selves for For it was worth the death of the Son of God Christ was content to be crucified to compass it and cannot we be content to purify our selves for it Will you see what hope can perswade a man to do See Abraham to whom God promis'd onely the Land of Canaan and that not to be enjoied by himself nor by his Son but onely by the Posterity of Isaac his Son and his Promises were further off than Heaven yet after that before Isaac had any Posterity when he was but a child God commands him to go and sacrifice his Isaac and go to cut off all hopes of ever enjoying it yet against hope he believed in hope saith St Paul and he that had receiv'd the promises of God offer'd up his onely begotten Son Heb. 11. 17. i. e. having entertain'd and embrac'd the promise of a numerous seed and people that should spring from him and having no other Son but this from whom they should spring nor possibility in nature nor promise above nature that he should have any more children but a plain affirmation that this People to whom the Promises belong'd should come from Isaac yet having once truly hop'd that God would perform his promise he absolutely obei'd that command of Gods resolving to kill the Son on whom all those Promises depended And now my Brethren there is no such puzles in our Hope nor no such hard thing requir'd of us no Sons to be sacrific'd but onely a few vices no doubtful perplext promise of a Canaan onely but plain assured Heaven and then had we but the least degree of his hope as we have infinitely greater reason how would we sacrifice any thing to Christs command how would we offer up a lust and think a sin a good exchange for the hopes of Heaven and he that had this hope would certainly purify himself as he is pure It is but now the Church hath celebrated the Ascension of our Lord Christ and the great Proposal of the Angels Acts 1. 11. to all those Disciples that beheld him going up to Heaven and gaz'd after him so wishly was that they should see him come again Now the particular comfort of that coming so again is when he shall appear we shall be like him 1 John 3. 2. and the hopes of being so St John thought a sufficient motive to set every man on purifying and that himself for this lustration cannot be perform'd by Proxy and be remitted to another for even our Saviors Righteousness will not be imputed unto those who will have none besides he redeems and saves none but them whom he has sav'd from their sins Reveal O Blessed God some of thy Glory which thou hast prepar'd for them that love thee some of that blessed Hope of a Christian calling to our hearts that it may stir our desires and longings and heat them into hopes and that we having the hopes of seeing thee may purify and may escape that day of fire which shall melt the Heavens and purge those glorious bodies which are not pure in thy sight Behold O God we tremble with horror of thy dreadful Judgment The Angels are not clean in thy sight and the Seraphims cover their faces what then shall become of us vile filthy Sinners whose daily impurities have so defil'd both our souls and bodies that we are but one mass and heap of uncleaness Blessed God we know that as long as we continue such we cannot hope to see thee in mercy we know that if we repent not we shall all perish we know that if we live after the Flesh we shall die eternally we know that neither fornicators c. shall have any inheritance O let this knowledg apply it self to our hearts and consciences that the terrors of it may fright us from the vain hopes that we do cherish of being happy notwithstanding we go on in our sinful courses for alas those hopes will perish with us and that those terrors may so work on us to set upon amendment Cleanse and wash we pray thee all our impurities in the bloud of thy Son bury them in his grave never to rise hereafter and melt our hearts into repentant tears that so our hearts may become purer O thou that didst cleanse us with thy bloud baptize us with thy Holy Spirit and with fire that it may purge out our dross and filthiness and be an earnest to us of that glorious Purity which we shall have in Heaven seeing thee as thou art and becoming like thee where we shall sin no more but for ever serve and praise thee SERMON VIII OF THE HIDING PLACE From Indignation Isaiah 26. 20. Come my people enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment until the Indignation be overpast UPON the Eve as it were and the Vigils to the day of Indignation when we cannot but look upon it as ready to be pour'd out on us in a full stream when we see destruction make close approches to us work round about us and punishment like our sin lies at the very door ready either to enter in upon us or seize us if we offer to come out to offer at a way to prevent all this that should discover to you a safe retreat from those threats that pursue this Nation in general open a shelter from the present storm cannot chuse but be seasonable yet such a thing the Text do's venture at